About five or six years ago, I read a book by Ted Chiang. An anthology of his collected works (eight shortstories, all of them brilliant). This particular blogpost is a reference to the short story Understand, which everyone should read because it is truly a masterpiece and deserves every bit of attention it can get.
Kassettersättningen är, av någon anledning, en av medlemsländernas populäraste lösningar på vad som upplevs som annars illegitim privatkopiering. När vi hävdar att privatkopieringen ska accepteras på internet, likt med kassetter, är vi alltså egentligen ute och suddar eftersom privatkopieringen aldrig accepterats som fritt fenomen (till skillnad från vad mitt politiska parti under flera år gärna påpekat).
Sitter här och läser igenom Carl Bildts rapportering om Tunisien som består av... Kritik mot Ryssland!!. Carl Bildt lyckas på ett utmärkt sätt koppla ihop Tunisiens uppror med antalet barn födda i Ryssland de senaste åren.
It's not easy to know what the truth is sometimes. Or how it's communicated. In Tunisia the military is switching sides and winning the confidence of the people. The military switching sides is a sign of great distrust in the current regime and could very well make it fall. A problem with a military take-over is of course that a new military regime will take Ben Ali's place (see for instance Madagascar, Chile, Argentina, Mauretania).
I realise that I may sound slightly sarcastic about the parliament's efforts to be diplomatic when I'm picking out only the parts of Tunisian praise.
Actually the parliament has, at times, been very critical of the development of human rights in Tunisia. See for example the parliamentary debate from February 2010 where all political groups praise the Tunisian developments except Greens/EFA and GUE/NGL who say:
At my boyfriend's house we're both involved in pirate politics and have been following the Tunisian situation very closely. This means the information flow is high from every possible angle and when he's been following and updating me on the groundwork, I've been tracking the EU-Tunisia relations from 1995 forward.
Hemma hos pojkvännen har vi diskuterat Tunisien en del över de senaste dagarna. Eftersom vi båda engagerat oss i piratpolitik och speciellt situationen i Tunisien flödar informationen från alla möjliga vinklar. Jag har, i en kraftsträngning, följt Tunisiens relation till EU sedan 1995.