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I truthfully don't know the whole story either

I think you need to look "misunderestimate" up in the dictionary.

Some of them are wellfare queens

You're right. 1984 has nothing to do with increased government surveillance. Nor does it have anything to do with keeping the people in a state of terror allows the government to steal our liberties. Nor does 1984 have anything to do with the government rewriting history. Finally, 1984 has nothing to do with the world being in a constant state of war to assist in keeping the population in fear.

Annalee had a nice writeup at AlterNet about how this would affect mp3 players, CD burners, video players, and a host of consumer devices. Coming hot on the heels of the Gartner report recommending the banning of iPods at work one has to wonder why in a free society we feel so much needs to be banned and prohibited.

I believe this is yet more misguided legislation to protect the profit streams of corporations while ignoring changing realities and efficiencies. But if we stubbornly insist on staying in the past, I doubt Asia and others will join us.

Annalee had a nice writeup at AlterNet about how this would affect mp3 players, CD burners, video players, and a host of consumer devices. Coming hot on the heels of the Gartner report recommending the banning of iPods at work one has to wonder why in a free society we feel so much needs to be banned and prohibited.

I believe this is yet more misguided legislation to protect the profit streams of corporations while ignoring changing realities and efficiencies. But if we stubbornly insist on staying in the past, I doubt Asia and others will join us.

All of this, of course, ignores the fact that when the President of the United States decides to embrace the doctrine of preemptive war, claiming that there is an imminent threat to his own nation, the burdern of proof is on him to support those claims. Let's see the evidence of WMDs in Iraq. How about those aerial drones that could be used against the US? An Iraq-Al Qaeda link? Some uranium from Africa? Anything?

You're the ignorant one.

I've been following detailed accounts of the situation in Iraq since the war started.

You've been listening to Fox News, that's obvious.

Here's a quote from an article last fall:

Now, in an effort to bolster the 37,000 member Iraqi police force, Bernard Kerik has arranged to utilize an abandoned Soviet military base in Hungary as a training center. He plans to train an additional 28,000 policemen over the next 18 months, bringing the number of Iraqi police to 65,000, which he judges should be enough to police the entire country.

Here's another quote from an article here:

All those months Rumsfeld was cooking the books. In late March the Pentagon released a chart summarizing the numbers of Iraqi security force troops. It tells a different story from the one peddled by Rumsfeld. The summary notes that 75,844 Iraqis were on the payroll as police officers, but only 2,865 were fully qualified and on duty. Another 13,286 were deemed "partially qualified" and supposedly on duty, while 3,245 were in training. Three-fourths of those on the police payroll had received no training. Six months earlier Rumsfeld had declared that 55,000 police had been trained. Not even close. (Despite the small size of the new Iraqi police force, it has been a primary target of the insurgents, who recently mounted attacks on police stations in Basra that claimed the lives of dozens of civilians. And Iraqi police elsewhere have been killed in assaults.)

The Pentagon summary also shows that Rumsfeld had been stretching the truth about other security forces. It notes that the new Iraqi Border Police needed 8,835 officers, but this force had not one fully trained officer on duty. It did have 8,601 partially qualified police and 179 in training. The Department of Border Enforcement required 16,892 troops; it had 9,873 partially qualified troops, no fully qualified people and none in training. Of the 40,000 troops needed for the Iraqi Armed Forces, only 3,249 had been fully trained and deployed. A mere 2,400 were in training. The Pentagon summary does note that the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps had 34,683 members who were receiving on-the-job training. (A Civil Defense Corps group in Falluja vanished during recent fighting there.) And it reports that the security service designed to protect government facilities and Iraqi infrastructure had a force of 73,992.

All told, the Pentagon summary maintains, there were 208,821 Iraqis in the various security services. But counting only those fully trained and on duty, the total was 114,789. And 95 percent of that force comprised security guards and civil defense members -- not the front-line forces. Add up the active and fully trained Iraqi police, border personnel and military forces, and the number of Iraq security troops is 6,114. Throw in those partially trained, and the total goes up to 37,874. The Iraqi security forces hardly could boast over 200,000 troops "providing security," as Rumsfeld claimed in March.

In other words, you're an idiot.

Try listening to somebody other than Rush for a change.

Found it. Replying to my own post.

Seems that a non U.S. person is worth $1000 by the Pentagon's accountants.

In one instance, the CIA did pay $1000 to each family of 12 to 20 Afghan soldiers who were killed when U.S. Special Forces, believing they were striking a Taliban and al Qaeda stronghold, assaulted two compounds containing Afghan troops loyal to Karzai's government. But even in this case, Rumsfeld stubbornly maintained that the U.S. military had committed no error

I don't think this will look fair to the outside world.

"First of all, war on Iraq != war on terror." Wait, did your cable go out, haven't you been receiving your daily brain washing at fox news?

Actually, it's a liberal/progressive news site.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=10225

Additionally, Israel is as much to blame as anybody else for the situation there. For example, I don't see the PLO bulldozing American civilians.

First, you have to survive the guard bears.

Second, you have to find us.

You think we're spread out for no reason? HELL NO, the mad cow makes us loco. We'll mess you up, burn down the White House, crazy shit like that.

That's right guys, we are now going to be condemned that our TV viewing habits have gone to downloading that "evil" pornography!!

I just saw a couple days ago some female televangelist condemning the internet and all the porn. Of course, I came across this while eating breakfast and looking for the news before i left for class. I laughed for a good ten minutes and watched her make statements about even some audience members viewing EVIL pornography.

The traditional media realizes they have a strangle hold on the over 34 market, and will attempt to use this angle of attack on us.

They've started with the 'studies' and try to find any example they can think of so that videogames are responsible for violence. This is the same old bullshit when rock music gained popularity. All this crap reminds me of an old friend's mom who told us playing Dungeons & Dragons will cause us to commit suicide and hand our souls over to the devil.

But we know this isn't the truth.
I'm beginning to think that even Howard Stern is beginning to pick up on this shit for once.

Now quit surfing that TRASH and go watch some wholesome programming.

No, it [nuclear power] is not safe

Nothing is completely safe. Thing is, the alternatives - the real, viable alternatives -- to nuclear power are even less safe.

You may recall the recent FDA advisory warning pregnant women and children to limit their intake of several types of fish because of mercury contamination in those fish.

The FDA guidelines call for children and pregnant women -- and women who "may become pregnant" to abstain completely from shark, swordfish, king mackerel, or tilefish, and to limit intake to six onces of albacore tuna a week.

What you might not have heard is that the panel that made the recommendation contained two members who were former lobbyists for the fishing industry -- or that another member, a scientist, not a lobbyist, resigned in protest because he believes that even six onces a week of albacore tuna is dangerous, and that that recommendation was only made because of industry lobbying.

What you also might not have heard is that the primary source of mercury in fish is from "mercury rain" -- and the primary source of mercury rain is from coal fired power plants .

As it happens, the EPA is retreating from plans to more closely regulate mercury pollution from power plants, and "just coincidently" some of the language justifying that retreat is word-for-word the same as language in utility company memos.

So on the one hand, the fishing industry influences the FDA to soft-pedal its warnings to children and pregnant women, and on the other hand the power industry gets the EPA to continue to allow pollution.

And this is not to mention the other dangers of coal: despoiling the environment by digging it up, despoiling the air with smog when it's burnt, giving miners black-lung, etc.

I grew up a few miles from Three Mile Island, and I was still there when the accident happened, and I'll take clean nuclear power any day. Even in the worst case, we can contain a nuclear plant accident -- but we can't contain an ocean of mercury contaminated fish.

"I'm still not convinced on global warming so how can I condemn another man who also isn't convinced."

Ok. That shows you're as ignorant as Bush. The difference is that you don't have to make decisions that can change the world, so you're excused to be ignorant. Even though Bush is dumb, he has specialists to help. And all these specialists, including those from Pentagon, are warning him about this. And he doesn't care. I strongly suggest you read this this

I love how you just say he lied to a whole nation in order to get support for the war. What did he say or even insinuate that was a lie?

You must been brain-washed if you din't notice the lies. He tried to picture Saddam as a threat to the US. But Saddam, althought being a son-of-a-bitch crazy loon, was harmless to the world at that point. His army was almost dismanteled, specially if compared to what it was some years ago. He didn't have any missile able to reach the continental US. He didn't have any WMD (in fact I am surprised the US didn't plant any WMD in Iraq, to be found). He was not affiliated with Al-Qaeda. And all reports Bush received indicated all this. But he tried to supress and change these reports and fabricate others, that would incriminate Saddam.

I suggest you read this excelent explanation, this and this. Please tell me what you think after reading these links.

Heh... note the email address Annalee Newitz is using here... she evidentally creates a new mail alias for every column: sugarpill@techsploitation.com

Ah, slash ids pushing a billion and whining about what a sewer it's become...

I remember cringing after reading her article on Theo de Raadt.

Ok. Convenient that in the synopsis, K5 and /. left out the "we heard you guys were fighting". If a law enforcement officer suspects criminal activity, you should shift into "yes sir, no sir" mode, if you turn into Mr. Asshole, then they will put you on the ground and hogtie you. Would you people have us live in Anarchy? If this were a simple case of "let me see your papers" it would be different. RTFA, make your own conclusions, don't get fed this tripe. IIRC, when you are detained by a peace officer, you are under "custodial arrest", meaning you can't leave, but you are not under arrest either. Bottom line, cop thinks these two were beating each other up, told them so, then asked for ID, cowboy turns into cowboy from hell , cop puts him on ground and hogties him. Why the legal system would put up with this garbage is beyond my comprehension, when there is real corruption, like the Texas officers who made up evidence to put poor Black and Latino innocents in jail, then collected a percentage of the money based on the street value of the "drugs". That completely floored me when that came out. Read Here

As a gimic a software company did this with soda. They 'open sourced' the instructions to make the stuff. I think the company blew up in the dot com bust, but it was a cute idea.

Ahhh, they're illegal in the US. Just ask Tommy Chong about the perils of selling tobacco accessories. Welcome to Amerika. Please leave your rights and opinions at the border. Thank you and enjoy your stay.

wow, that took all of .45 seconds to google:

longest presidential vacation in 32 years

let's see what another .19 seconds gets us:

Bush has taken 250 days off as of August 2003. That's 27% of his presidency spent on vacation. ...and, as others have pointed out, FDR was physically sick.

....Not to mention forcing their customers to listen to Fox News Lies in their stores and censoring music (but not movies or violent video games.

I have no doubt that Bush has done a few things to help our country. Unfortunately, his motivations are entirely transparent, and have little to do with public interest. The documentation fills books ( see here and here and here ) and the facts are so heinous that they sound impossible when you try to summarize them in a space like this.

Nobody is all bad, but no amount of good could make up for things like this. The direction that our country is currently heading is more than enough to frighten the well informed.

Er, how is Chuck, et al protecting my freedom in Iraq.

Dictators R Us

"Is it just me or does it seem that these guys are trying to prey on immigrant (illegal or otherwise) fears of police authority?"

This is against the background of illegal raids being practised by the real police, so it seems likely the answer is yes.

Actually it is you who doesn't know what a neoconservative is (why do I get the feeling you are one?). It is not just the left that uses that. The right uses it too. Consider the example of and Pat Buchanan (paleoconservative). Also, left-wing anti-war activists are REACTIONARY? lol Whatever! The bogus invasion of Iraq is more reactionary than any anti-war position.

Bush, Cheney, Powell, Wolfowitz, Rice, Rumsfeld... all life-long conservative Republicans.

Bush, Powell, and Rice are not neoconservatives. Bush is pretty much belongs to the Christian Right. However, Wolfowitz, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Douglas Feith, et al are neoconservatives (along with a whole hoard of people at National Review and The Weekly Standard).

Oh, one more thing... Neoconservatives are a branch of the Republicans. So it doesn't matter what they were doing before. Most of them are ex-Trotskyites. If anything, most of the neoconservatives in power now are recycled Reganites.

Read this article for some information about the neoconservative family. Sivaram Velauthapillai

For the last two years, all kinds of "liberal" media have been warning you about the attack against our rights and the constitution by Bush, Ashcroft, and the rest the crew. You ignored it. You watched Fox News, and CNN, and The Bachelor, and listened to Bill Reilly and Rush.

Try reading some back issues of The Nation or Mother Jones. Or browse Alter Net. Or even the New York Times, for gosh sakes.

Not that any of the above should be read alone, either. Read the Wall Street Journal, and/or The Economist, or whatever other "conservative" paper/magazine you prefer.

But you can't blame it on any of them. The story is out there. You just didn't bother to pay attention.

Oh is that so ?

Yes, it is.

How would you take motiviation from someone like Saddam, Osama or even Hitler ?

Saddam Hussein- By not leading him to believe that we don't care if he invades Kuwait and then killing his army when he does.

Osama Bin Laden - By not unilaterally supporting Israel in every middle eastern conflict.

Hitler - He was not a terrorist. He was a madman. Terrorists have political motivations. Hitler's only motivation was power. War was the only way to stop him.

I don't know why I took the time to respond to an anonymous troll like yourself, well maybe someone who is capable of thinking about this issue will read my response.

LK

It should be noted that Lomborg is a statistician, and he is looking at statistics gathered by other companies, studies, and researchers...then making his own conclusion. This is hardly discrediting environmentalists. Lomborg's opinion based on numbers he has collected from others (which may or may not be all the numbers or even any correct numbers), which is not 'proof' as you claim.

He can also hardly conclude the the world is 'healthier' now than it has ever been in the past.

Bjorn Lomborg is neither sceptical nor an environmentalist.

Bjorn Lomborg's wonderful world

I think that it is good that others have brought up more birds being killed by buildings, cats, and acid rain on a massive scale compared to wind turbines. Here are a couple articles to read concerning that:

Are Wind Turbines Actually Bird Blenders?

Wind Turbine Myth #1 - Danger to Birds

Hey, dumbass, get a clue and actually research what this guy's telling you. Is it so hard to listen to someone and check Google to see if they're full of it or not, instead of assuming they are?

Oh, but wait, you know everything and liberals are stupid. As if privacy knows party lines and liberal/conservative is relevant in this discussion.

It's the Congressional Members duty to keep their constituents informed. In a representative government, our elected officials must promote two way communication.

We are supposed to be having a representational government? Virtually every Congressional action taken in the past three years has been counter-publius.

In this day, the public library system would -never- have been created. (Socialistic, not-for-profit, communist idea of) sharing information with the undeserving unwashed. Hey, who's supposed to -pay- for a library system?!

And look how costs escalate over five years, with "absolutely nothing" to show for it! If someone thinks they deserve to have certain information, they'll hunt it down and buy it --or steal it-- like normal people do in Thunderdome.

It makes the point you are making and points to how Democrats and notably Dean could seize this winnable Issue

See this article for why wal-mart is more evil than the RIAA, Microsoft, Saddam and Bush combined. They're about destroying everything that makes america great, all for the personal gain of the waltons.

Fox News Alert.
Perterson Case
Fox News Alert
Jackson Case
Fox News Alert
Toby Case
Fox News Alert
More Mindless crap.

Before 9/11, Faux News and others were spinning stories practically continuously, despite dire predictions by the Hart Rudman Commission and the Gore Report.

And this is coming from someone who in the past bought dish network so I could watch fox news. But that is before it turned into all trash, all the time.

I agree, in the sense that information overload is a bigger problem than "bad" or meaningless information on the Net.

However, the bigger problem is a lack of information litarcy. It never ceases to amaze me how many people do not know how to evaluate information sources. It is fine to use biased information, if one is aware that it is biased, and in what manner. I have come to the conclusion that there is very little information out there that is not biased in some way or another. Humans are fallible and spin is everywhere. A fairly good look at how both sides of US politics use spin, check out Spin Sanity. Ben Fritz, Bryan Keefer and Brendan Nyhan have impressed me with their willingness to expose many figures, despite party affiliation.

Personally, I try to balance the situation by seeking information from both sides of the issue. For example, both Free Republic (a conservative US site) and Alternet (a progressive site) are politicaly biased. Neither one should be used without verifying facts and occurances from other sources.

More notable is the failure of the US media to cover international stories that are vital to our understanding of world events. Personally, whenever we are treated to a deluge of one story on every channel, station and newpaper, I think.."what aren't you telling me." That is why I go to the net and read news sources from international sources.

A worse situation is evidenced by the number of people, of all ages, who are unable to discern when someone is trying to sell them something, or persuade them of some idea; rather than truly inform them. A prime example is how many people will locate sites that claim to be offering great hhealth information, but are also trying to sell eeither pharmacauticals or herbal remedies. While the information may be "correct" they are far more likely to only present information supporting the use of their products. Commercially supported sites can be great for gaining ideas and facts that one can then follow up by perusing other sites.

Colleges and Universities libraries in many US states are now offering information literacy classes. I know of several that have added this to required courses. However, this doesn't touch the large groups of credulous people who graduated years ago, who are not attending college and whose secondary schools do not include this skill in their curriculum.

Many people fall for scams, precisely because they do not realize that they ought to research this information-- much less do they know how to do such a thing! I think I reccomend Snopes at laest once a month in response to an email sent to me by friends and family!

Do not rely upon just one web search. No engine is able to scour the entire net, for a variety of reasons. There are information sources with primary sources of data on the Net. However, many of them are prohibitively expensive for an individual. This is where a local public and/or academic library can assist users.

Don't get me wrong, I've often gained additioanl ideas and insight from small weblogs and personal sites. These are especially good for comparing notes with others in similar situations. Sometimes I do not need authoritative data. For example if I want tips on refurbishing furniture Do it Yourself is a great source. On the other hand, if I was a carpentry apprentice, there are probably other sources better suited for a professional. Similarly, if I want to connect with others who are dealing with specific health problems, or simply want basic introductory information Web MD is good enough. However, if I'm making treatment decisions, I'd do better to go to a National or Internations association of folks dealing with the syndrome, as well as sites of doctors and researchers in

Just give it a few weeks for someone to come out with a GPLed cola drink.

There's already OpenCola, whose main website appears down, but description here

America didn't give up on trains -- large auto manufactures diverted funds into building roads, dismantled our railroads, and used propaganda to get the public looking the other way.

You mean when the police dress up as anarchists and cause trouble so as to give protestors a bad name, and then use the trouble to justify cracking down?

While waiting for the United States to awaken, I took my BBC film crew to Florida, having unearthed a smoking-gun document: I had a page marked "confidential" from the contract between the State of Florida and the private company that had purged the voter lists. The document contained cold evidence that Florida knew they were taking the vote away from thousands of innocent voters, most of them Black.

It was February. I took my camera crew into an agreed interview with Jeb Bush's director of the Florida Department of Elections. When I pulled out the confidential sheet, Bush's man ripped off the microphone and did a fifty-yard dash, locking himself in his office, all in front of our cameras. It was killer television and wowed the British viewers. We even ran a confession from the company that was hired to carry out the purge operation. Newsworthy? Apparently not for the United States.

Just go here:

CommonDreams
CounterPunch
Bad News: Noam Chomksy Archive
AlterNet

Or read a book.

Any good and honest right-wing folk (if you want to set up such a arbitrary left/right binary) should reply with their favorite truth-speaking resources.

Finally, stop picking on "neo-Cons"

I have no problem with the neo-Cons. What I do have a real big problem with is the aggressive way they to try to completely distort, dismiss or destroy any person/organisation that doesn't agree with them. That is extremely unhealthy from my point of view.

Do you know, for instance, that Ashcroft is currently trying to use ancient and irrelevant laws to destroy Greenpeace in the USA? Now, that kind of thing I really object to, and I will continue to "pick on" the neo-Cons whilst the continue to behave in such a manner.

Maybe we can get Ashcroft to investigate himself.

Good luck: in this report you can see how John Ashcroft has been trying to undermine the FOIA. Choice quotes, one from the reporter:

" In a memo that slipped beneath the political radar, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft vigorously urged federal agencies to resist most Freedom of Information Act requests made by American citizens."

and a quote from Ashcroft's memo, which memo is the subject of the article:

"When you carefully consider FOIA requests and decide to withhold records, in whole or in part, you can be assured that the Department of Justice will defend your decisions unless they lack a sound legal basis or present an unwarranted risk of adverse impact on the ability of other agencies to protect other important records."

The hacker symbol will be this

Last year, the Federal Communications Commission ordered cellular companies to equip all new cell phones with Global Positioning Satellite tracking devices that can pinpoint a user's location to within 300 feet, anywhere on the planet.

Alternet had a story about independent media centers just a few weeks ago. As the autor puts it, Indymedia journalists generally believe everyone is biased, hiding it, and that we might as well just be as opinionated in written form as we would be among friends. It goes into the history of the "democratic" (I think "open" is a much better word) system, their decentralized nature, and the tough decisions they've had to make.

Indymedia: Between Passion and Pragmatism by Gal Beckerman, Columbia Journalism Review, September 17, 2003.

I don't think it was in this article, but the comment is easily made that two biased viewpoints next to each other don't make up a fair, objective statement. If you assume, however, that everyone is out to convince you of something at least partially untrue, then this is as good as it gets (sadly.)

I fail to understand, however, why sites like this are mostly liberal-oriented. Is it a culture thing, or a reputation thing? Would unlike-minded individuals just never be caught posting here? Is it a bit like pro-microsoft articles and slashdot?

Independent media is a tool, not a solution. If everyone were to use the tool, it might actually be more useful. It would also have so much "information" flowing through it that we would be unlikely to pick out the good parts. Any selection or editorial process is likely to be biased ... it all comes down to the readers checking their facts, with any source.

Your mileage will most likely vary quite thoroughly.

Futher, the idea that corporations are evil is more BS.

If it was true monopoly laws would be thrown out, corporate taxes would be nullified, companies would have the right to vote, environmental protections would go away and corporations would be protected from lawsuits by the public.

Futher, the idea that corporations are evil is more BS.

The naked riot of 1997 in Ultima Online:

From AlterNet:
History has shown gamers that online protest can result in positive change, as exemplified in Ultima Online's 1997 naked riot demanding bug fixes and server upgrades. Not only were some of the rioters' issues addressed by the game publisher following the incident, but the event was widely reported, and gamers worldwide have been inspired to acts of virtual civil disobedience ever since. Remember that your worst enemy, aside from integrated branding, is inaction. Electronic Arts clearly wants players of The Sims Online to be wildly imaginative, and has already recognized that the online world is unpredictable.

Actuall, it's not dead,
it's just owned