OwlManAtt’s Blog

I just stumbled upon the constitution of the People’s Republic of China (it was linked from a comment in a slashdot article about UN DNS control). I find a few clauses of their constitution to be absolutely hilarious.

Article 35. Citizens of the People’s Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration.

Uh. Yea. So that’s why I’m hosting Chinese blogs that have been blacklisted on a national firewall due to their use of the word ‘freedom’? Uh huh, Chinese constitution. You just keep telling yourself that.

Article 37. The freedom of person of citizens of the People’s Republic of China is inviolable. No citizen may be arrested except with the approval or by decision of a people’s procuratorate or by decision of a people’s court, and arrests must be made by a public security organ. Unlawful deprivation or restriction of citizens’ freedom of person by detention or other means is prohibited; and unlawful search of the person of citizens is prohibited. Article 38. The personal dignity of citizens of the People’s Republic of China is inviolable. Insult, libel, false charge or frame-up directed against citizens by any means is prohibited.

An ‘organ’ is a government organization, by the way. And by its very own policies, these organs are operating illegally. That’s pretty freakin’ hot, I tell ya…

Article 40. The freedom and privacy of correspondence of citizens of the People’s Republic of China are protected by law. No organization or individual may, on any ground, infringe upon the freedom and privacy of citizens’ correspondence except in cases where, to meet the needs of state security or of investigation into criminal offences, public security or procuratorial organs are permitted to censor correspondence in accordance with procedures prescribed by law.

Which is why China has a massive firewall that inspects every single packet moving through China. That’s why the demand that news websites register themselves, and that’s why they black list the very same news sites for even mentioning democracy in an article. Uh huh.

This next clause really gets me.

Article 41. Citizens of the People’s Republic of China have the right to criticize and make suggestions to any state organ or functionary. Citizens have the right to make to relevant state organs complaints and charges against, or exposures of, violation of the law or dereliction of duty by any state organ or functionary; but fabrication or distortion of facts with the intention of libel or frame-up is prohibited. In case of complaints, charges or exposures made by citizens, the state organ concerned must deal with them in a responsible manner after ascertaining the facts. No one may suppress such complaints, charges and exposures, or retaliate against the citizens making them. Citizens who have suffered losses through infringement of their civil rights by any state organ or functionary have the right to compensation in accordance with the law.

The emphasis half-way through the article is mine. That sentence is probably the funniest thing in the entire Chinese constitution. Why is this funny?

The average uptime of a call for free elections by a Chinese blogger is thirty minutes. The government actually pays people to sit around and read blog posts, news articles, and web sites to determine what needs to be added to the blacklist of the Great Firewall of China.

I love you, The People’s Republic of China. You’re funnier than Bob Hope could ever dream of being.

This is a remember to myself and an announcement to the rest of you. I’m going to try and either release another SQL tutorial in the coming month, or overhaul my old one with a few new tricks and another section. I need to include some stuff about MySQL’s temporal functionality, and I really should throw in some stuff on good relational database design.

So yea. Wooptie freakin’ do.

I suppose you all remember the original contacting me HOWTO, written last year. Well, I feel that it is time to refresh people’s memories on it, add a bit to it, and beat it in to the minds of my newer readers.

So, here we go again.

CONTACTING OWLMANATT HOWTO - REVISION ONE
First, ask yourself if you fit in to this criteria:

• Are you an idiot?
• Do you use chatspeak?
• Are you some jackass who has memorized my screenname so that you may jump on me and ask me stupid questions as soon as I sign up for your shitty website?
• Are you asking me to code something for you?
• Are you an idiot?
• Are you going to use my contact list as a billboard?
• Are you an idiot?
• Are you going to be cryptic when I ask who in the fuck you are?

If you said yes to any of the above questions, DO NOT UNDER ANY FUCKING CIRCUMSTANCES EVEN THINK ABOUT CONTACTING ME. You’re too stupid to deal with. It’ll just end with me telling you to shut the fuck up and blocking your sorry ass. Save yourself the trouble.

Next, be sure to follow these guidelines when initiating a conversation with me:

1. Identify yourself in your initial message. Say something more like ‘Hello, I am xxx from xxx. You don’t know me.’
2. Give me a reason why I should waste time talking to you. Not just ‘because’. You need a reason. And damnit, you wanting to know what I think of your website THIRTY FUCKING SECONDS after I log in to it IS NOT A VALID REASON FOR WASTING MY TIME.
3. Don’t just add me to something that will request my authorization and not talk. That’s just annoying.
4. DO NOT USE YOUR DISPLAY NAME AS A BILLBOARD. Plugging your shitty website in your display name pisses me off. My contact list is not a fucking billboard, asshole. Also, don’t expect me to ever even see your lame display name - I tend to just slap aliases on people so I know who the fuck they are.
5. If you’re going to act offended because I said ‘hell’, go choke and die. I have no desire to put up with people who are going to complain about my language. I’m a very angry, bitter man. If you don’t want to deal with that, then don’t fucking contact me.

Following these guidelines should make any communication between yourself and myself much less painful.

Finally, when in doubt, DO NOT CONTACT ME.

Cheers!