I’ve been busy recently and haven’t had the time to blog much.

So, I thought I’d just enter a quick post with my thoughts on some recent events. These probably won’t be very surprising.

Google and China: I don’t see that Google deserves most of the criticism it has received for its google.cn site. Yes, it’s somewhat restricted, but it isn’t a tool of repression and people in China are better off with it than without it. Google seems to have carefully considered the ethics of the project and made a defensible decision that they should go ahead and pursue it.

Cartoons of Mohammad: Absolutely ridiculous reaction by rioting Muslims. They shouldn’t expect others to conform to their rules, and they can’t prevent others thinking badly about Islam by reacting like a bunch of idiots. I’m sure that many have been manipulated by those seeking to exploit this incident, but they shouldn’t be so easy to manipulate.

Cheney Hunting Accident: I’m baffled why this was such a hot story. It’s obviously unfortunate for those involved, but I don’t think it tells us anything interesting about Cheney. Certainly nothing bad.

David Irving Conviction: Idiotic. Yes, he’s a jerk and he made horribly wrong historical claims. But, open societies must tolerate the peaceful expression of unpopular opinions. His conviction belies the claims that the muslims who urged censorship of the Danish cartoons didn’t understand the nature of european freedom of expression. They did understand it: Some “offensive” opinions are punished, and some aren’t.