DISQUS

Thanks Kevin for live-blogging! BTW my slides are here: http://www.slideshare.net/rmackinnon
Best,
Rebecca

I hope you discuss the Global Network Initiative on free expression and privacy. http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/
I assume the companies who signed on to it, Google, Yahoo, and MIcrosoft, all have people at Davos?

I am so tired of hearing Westerners of both sexes wingeing about each other. Each side expects the other to meet their ideals, projections, fantasies and stereotypes, and if you don't you're an object of contempt by highly opinionated representatives of the opposite sex. It is such a waste of time and energy. Just ignore people whose personality and behavior you find unattractive and move on. Nobody is going to change because the opposite sex tells them they suck. Obviously, anybody who doesn't value you for the unique individual you are isn't worth dating let alone marrying anyway. Why waste an extra minute complaining about them?

I was interviewed by the Toronto Star on this story:
http://www.thestar.com/World/Columnist/article/...

Thanks John! :) Was great running into you in China last year. Look forward to connecting again at some conference somewhere.

Hi there Mark. Was on the road last week. To address your comments point by point:

1. Um, I don't think I ever claimed to be impartial. Ever since I started blogging (years before I started teaching), my position has been that for an individual blogger, it's best to be upfront about where you stand, rather than try to hide behind impossible-to-achieve objectivity. Anyway, if I tried to be "impartial" guys like you would be outing me for "hidden agendas" behind a pretense of objectivity.. just like the NYT and other "liberal media"..

Also I don't think I ever made any claims to my students that I was trying to be objective on my blog. There is a time and a place to conduct "impartial" reporting and there is a time and a place to be honest about your biases. In my opinion, an independent blog requires the latter in order for the author to be credible in the long run. I happen to think that journalists who work for news organizations go too far in hiding their personal affiliations, to the detriment of public trust in the media.

I know that Thomas takes a different approach, which is certainly his right, as it's his blog. But just because he doesn't express his political views here doesn't mean I should hide mine over at my blog.

2. I'm all for honest blogger reporting about everything related to Obama. I've been linking to a lot of critical blog posts about his FISA vote. I will likely start writing about some of these issues in the coming months.

Why don't you start a blog - or encourage your friends to start a blog - focused on exposing the political interests of Obama's advisers? That would be great. It will help keep everybody honest and strengthen the quality of his team. Despite the fact that some of them are my friends, I also believe that anybody who gets involved in advising a presidential campaign deserves to be scrutinized.

3. Yes some but not all of those people work for Stonebridge. As for the relationship between the U.S. embassy, run by a Bush appointee and close friend, and people who worked for Clinton, I have no inside information but I can guess one obvious reason why they're not very close.

Sure I'd love to know more about where Bader and Lieberthal get their money. They should be held to scrutiny just as Bush's advisers have been held to scrutiny... and who have not come up terribly snow-white themselves.

You can call me anything you want. If you think I'm irrational that's your right. Do I dislike W quite strongly? Sure. I think historians 100 years from now will place large amounts of blame on him for America's decline. But I think Obama is a politician not some deity (as some of his followers seem to think), and deserves critical scrutiny, for sure. Everybody who works for a politician who has been in and out of government, academia, and private sector tends to have some questionable things in their history that deserve scrutiny. I'm puzzled why you seem to assume that I think that the people I support politically are perfect and immaculately conceived before they entered this campaign. Or is that what you think about your folks?

4. Well, I'm sure we could have an interesting argument about the usefulness of the Bush administration's China advisers... given the back-burner status that human rights in China has taken in the Bush admin as well. I have not exactly seen great strides forward in Chinese human rights these past 8 years and it doesn't seem to have been a great priority for Ambassador Randt.

Whether I am serious enough about human rights in China to fit your standards of serious, I have no idea. With all due respect, I don't really care. I fit my own standards and I do what I think makes most sense to me and my own conscience. Most people on both the far left and the far right don't like my views or my approach. You don't have to like them either.

Hi there Mark. Was on the road last week. To address your comments point by point:

1. Um, I don't think I ever claimed to be impartial. Ever since I started blogging (years before I started teaching), my position has been that for an individual blogger, it's best to be upfront about where you stand, rather than try to hide behind impossible-to-achieve objectivity. Anyway, if I tried to be "impartial" guys like you would be outing me for "hidden agendas" behind a pretense of objectivity.. just like the NYT and other "liberal media"..

Also I don't think I ever made any claims to my students that I was trying to be objective on my blog. There is a time and a place to conduct "impartial" reporting and there is a time and a place to be honest about your biases. In my opinion, an independent blog requires the latter in order for the author to be credible in the long run. I happen to think that journalists who work for news organizations go too far in hiding their personal affiliations, to the detriment of public trust in the media.

I know that Thomas takes a different approach, which is certainly his right, as it's his blog. But just because he doesn't express his political views here doesn't mean I should hide mine over at my blog.

2. I'm all for honest blogger reporting about everything related to Obama. I've been linking to a lot of critical blog posts about his FISA vote. I will likely start writing about some of these issues in the coming months.

Why don't you start a blog - or encourage your friends to start a blog - focused on exposing the political interests of Obama's advisers? That would be great. It will help keep everybody honest and strengthen the quality of his team. Despite the fact that some of them are my friends, I also believe that anybody who gets involved in advising a presidential campaign deserves to be scrutinized.

3. Yes some but not all of those people work for Stonebridge. As for the relationship between the U.S. embassy, run by a Bush appointee and close friend, and people who worked for Clinton, I have no inside information but I can guess one obvious reason why they're not very close.

Sure I'd love to know more about where Bader and Lieberthal get their money. They should be held to scrutiny just as Bush's advisers have been held to scrutiny... and who have not come up terribly snow-white themselves.

You can call me anything you want. If you think I'm irrational that's your right. Do I dislike W quite strongly? Sure. I think historians 100 years from now will place large amounts of blame on him for America's decline. But I think Obama is a politician not some deity (as some of his followers seem to think), and deserves critical scrutiny, for sure. Everybody who works for a politician who has been in and out of government, academia, and private sector tends to have some questionable things in their history that deserve scrutiny. I'm puzzled why you seem to assume that I think that the people I support politically are perfect and immaculately conceived before they entered this campaign. Or is that what you think about your folks?

4. Well, I'm sure we could have an interesting argument about the usefulness of the Bush administration's China advisers... given the back-burner status that human rights in China has taken in the Bush admin as well. I have not exactly seen great strides forward in Chinese human rights these past 8 years and it doesn't seem to have been a great priority for Ambassador Randt.

Whether I am serious enough about human rights in China to fit your standards of serious, I have no idea. With all due respect, I don't really care. I fit my own standards and I do what I think makes most sense to me and my own conscience. Most people on both the far left and the far right don't like my views or my approach. You don't have to like them either.

On the China team, I know Ken, Mike, Evan, and Bob quite well.

Hope Obama wins.

On the China team, I know Ken, Mike, Evan, and Bob quite well.

Hope Obama wins.

Looks interesting Tom. I'm curious though why you chose only people from MSM and Corporate Land to lead this conversation about the future. Is it because you see the future of media in Asia to be largely in the hands of existing media brands and corporate entities rather than by grassroots bloggers or startups?
:P

Looks interesting Tom. I'm curious though why you chose only people from MSM and Corporate Land to lead this conversation about the future. Is it because you see the future of media in Asia to be largely in the hands of existing media brands and corporate entities rather than by grassroots bloggers or startups?
:P

Great post Robert. Really spot on. I myself have been letting all kinds of crap divert my attention from the stuff that really matters in the long run. It's so easy to get pulled off track. Thanks for the reminder.

Dude. You're on a roll. :)

Hi Angus, my source was a friend at a tech company who emailed me to ask what I know about it, because his colleague received an e-mail invitation from Zenith. So please don't put too much stock in my e-mail! I was just surprised that there is a Web2.0 conference happening soon and nobody has been blogging about it! Makes me wonder how hooked in they are to the Web2.0 community or whether the people running the conference actually have any direct experience with Web2.0, other than maybe investing in it.

Their website, incidentally, is about as non-Web2.0 as a website can get. Hmm..
:)