That quaint old Texas expression "pissin' in the wind" comes to mind. Some days, I really do think that Duncan Frissell was right. Markets and geodesic networks *are* the blob that ate the state. Cheers, RAH Other days, of course, I don't even wanna get out of bed, it's so depressin'... ------- <http://online.wsj.com/article_print/SB117985706995511069.html> The Wall Street Journal China Eases Real-Name Blog Effort By JASON LEOW May 23, 2007 BEIJING -- China has confirmed it will back down from a campaign to require citizens to register their real names before they can start blogging, after sharp protests from industry players caused the government to rethink the policy. The government tried to require bloggers to register their true identities in order to curb, or at least reduce, the amount of pornography, antigovernment views and other posts that officials deemed threatening to social order. Monday's announcement by the Internet Society of China, a government-affiliated think tank, that it will advocate voluntary -- rather than mandatory -- real-name registration was the first official confirmation of the policy change, reported in The Wall Street Journal last week. The Internet Society released a draft of a pact that blogging companies can choose to sign and said it will collect public reaction until May 28. The pact encourages Internet companies to set up real-name blogging spaces, but it won't force an end to current blog sites that don't require identification. China has some 20 million bloggers, of whom seven million to eight million are active users who update their sites at least once a week. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'