The Null Device

The Libyan government's domain registry has seized a .ly domain, vb.ly, on the grounds of the content of the site, an adult-oriented link-shortener, not being compliant with Libyan Islamic/Sharia law. The moral of this story: don't go for the domains in countries with sketchy records of freedom of speech and/or rule of law, no matter how cool their suffix looks.

At time of writing, popular link shortener bit.ly has not posted Sharia-compliance policies. Given that Libya's pulling of vb.ly is virtually guaranteed to trigger a flood of provocative bit.ly links, from high-interest-rate bank accounts to whisky distilleries, pages on the awesomeness of bacon, pictures of women with uncovered faces and drawings of random entities said to be named Muhammad, things are going to get interesting.

Meanwhile, the world's porn enthusiasts are waiting in the hope that North Korea's next God-Emperor will see fit to start selling .nk domains, thus allowing http://wa.nk/, http://spa.nk/ and/or http://bo.nk/ to fill the gap left by vb.ly.

¶ censorship internet islam libya 0

Libyan president-for-life Muamar Gadaffi seems to have taken a leaf out of Fidel Castro's public-relations book; Libya is now hosting tours by indie rock bands; Gadaffi's answer to the Manic Street Preachers is Californian four-piece Heavenly States (who are known for "Bush-baiting" pop-punk with distorted violins, but also for sharing a split single with Coldplay (a band sometimes touted as "like Radiohead before they went weird" but best known for making bland music for thirtysomething ex-indie types to play in their Land Rovers whilst taking the kids to school)).

¶ libya 4

Nuclear weapon designs handed over by Libya to US authorities have been found to have originated in China. Could this mean that the proliferation of nuclear weapons to rogue states/terrorist groups is part of a US/Chinese proxy war? If so, that suggests a few other possibilities: what if, for example, the movement known as al-Qaeda is funded behind the scenes by China; what if, say, 9/11 was intended as a stern warning from China in some acrimonious underground negotiation (would the gerontocrats who ordered the Tienanmen massacre have any qualms about killing thousands of innocent foreigners to make a point?), and the invasion of Iraq (whose WMDs and terrorist links remain elusive) was intended as the reply? Or is that too far-fetched? (Paging Mitch...)

¶ china geopolitics libya nuclear weapons 9

Libya renounces WMD programmes, after 9 months of clandestine negotiation with US and British diplomats. The deal will open the way for Libya to resume normal relations with the west. I wonder what they'll end up doing with those nuke-proof underground bunkers now; they'd make an excellent internet-host colocation facility for the ultra-paranoid.

¶ libya 2

The Axis of Evil grows: Cuba, Libya and Syria are now officially Evil, according to our leaders.

¶ axis of evil cuba libya syria the long siege 2