Oh PayPal...

The PayPal blog has posted a message stating that:

PayPal has permanently restricted the account used by WikiLeaks due to a violation of the PayPal Acceptable Use Policy, which states that our payment service cannot be used for any activities that encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct others to engage in illegal activity. We’ve notified the account holder of this action.

No court of law anywhere has ruled that WikiLeaks has been engaging in or encouraging illegal activities, and so the only reason why PayPal would close their account must be politically motivated – to cut part of the WikiLeaks funding. For doing that, they are scum.

thepaypalblog

Video game violence, sweet violence.

The Australian government has published a literature review containing an up to date summary of research into the impact of playing violent video games, and has concluded that the link between video games and violence is “contested and inconclusive.” Below are some other points that they have raised.

• There is stronger evidence of short-term VVG effects than of long-term effects.
• The possibility that third variables (like aggressive personality, family and peer influence, socio-economic status) are behind the effect has not been well explored.
• Researchers who argue that violent video games cause aggression have not engaged with or disproved alternative theories propagated by their critics.
• There is little evidence that violent video games have a greater impact than other violent media.

Now I finally have something to use against people who believe games are “evil” and make everyone violent.

ag.gov.au | literature review (PDF)

This cat approves of Sweden.

On November 23, 1910, Johan Alfred Andersson Ander, sentenced to death for a murder he committed during the course of a robbery, was executed at the Långholmen prison in Stockholm. No other executions have taken place in Sweden since then.

More than two-thirds of the countries of the world have abolished the death penalty in law or in practice. While 58 countries retained the death penalty in 2009, most did not use it. The only European country that still has the capital punishment is Belarus. The USA is the only country in the Americas to carry out executions (with 54 of them in 2009).

Hear that, America? Sweden had 100 years without executions. You can’t even make it one year (probably not even a month).

swedishwire

WikiLeaks makes Putin sad.

Another day, another round of WikiLeaks news. Pretty much everything else in the news today is nonsensical fluff.

"If you don't take back your leaks."

All the news that mattered to me today is related to WikiLeaks and Julian Assange (the WikiLeaks director).

• “Sarah Palin is demanding the world hunt down the director of Wikileaks ‘with the same urgency we pursue al Qaeda and Taliban leaders.’” Because anyone who makes the U.S. look bad is a terrorist, right? Someone should escort that bimbo back to Alaska and tie her to a tree.
• NATO considers the latest WikiLeaks leak to be “illegal, irresponsible and dangerous, regardless of whether the leaked material is diplomatic or military.” Anyone surprised to hear that from NATO? Nobody? No?… OK.
• But not everyone wants Julian Assange dead. Ecuador offered him “residency in Ecuador, without any problem and without any conditions.” Bravo, South America!
• WikiLeaks.org plans to make the web a leaky place by creating an embeddable website form that will allow users to “upload a disclosure to me via Wikileaks. The upload system will give potential whistleblowers around the world the ability to leak sensitive documents to an organization or journalist they trust over a secure connection, while giving the receiver legal protection they might not otherwise enjoy.” Brilliant! Can’t wait for that.
• China is frustrated with North Korea and “would be open to the idea of a unified Korea run by the south, according to leaked U.S. diplomatic cables.” Problem, Kim Jongs?
• And in more WikiLeaks related news, their next leak will contain information from the hard drives of a Bank of America executive. “We are sitting on 5GB from Bank of America, one of the executive’s hard drives.” Could mean a lot of trouble for the people who torpedoed the world economy. Possibly the pitchfork and torch kind of trouble.

Unrelated.

I thought the world would be happy excited to find out some of the secret diplomatic misbehaving the U.S. government has been involved in, but it seems like I was wrong. Most reactions to yesterday’s diplomatic leak are condemning WikiLeaks for breaking government secrecy, saying it is undermining global faith in the U.S. government and that the only ones benefiting from it are its “enemies.” It’s understandable to defend a government’s right to secrecy, but when it’s made obvious that they’re using the secrecy for dirty work on their friends and allies… things aren’t that black and white anymore and they should be held accountable.

The saddest part though is that “traditional media has become so toothless it is reduced to attacking Wikileaks for doing its job properly.”

World, I am disappointed in you today.

PS: WikiLeaks tried to ask the U.S. govt for help redacting potentially injurious information, but the U.S. govt refused.
PPS: Some sense: the job of the media is not to protect the powerful from embarrassment.