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nothing to see here?
Its rare to see the NSA in court. It was historically very rare to see the NSA in the press or books.
Recall "Computer ills hinder NSA 2 technology programs, weapons for the war on terrorism, have proved duds"
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2006-02-26/news/0602260086_1_cryptologic-agency-technology-programs
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/04/nsa-executive-charged/

"Those of us who are public officials and are entrusted with the power of the state are ultimately accountable to the public, when we exercise that power in public fora, we should not expect our actions to be shielded from public observation." Judge Emory A Plitt Jr.

Maryland is a two-party state too, at least one Judge gets it.

I just watched a video where a man cuts off a motorcycle with car, jumps out with a handgun drawn and orders the motorcyclist off his motorcycle. The motorcyclist who recorded the encounter with what appeared to be a camera in his helmet was arrested under Maryland's wiretapping law, Judge Emory A Plitt Jr. said "Those of us who are public officials and are entrusted with the power of the state are ultimately accountable to the public, When we exercise that power in public fora, we should not expect our actions to be shielded from public observation." as he threw out all of the charges related to the recording, leaving only the traffic violations.

But by all means, your right to free speech does not carry a right to be heard or a right to a place to be heard at. Except at public (read civil, not I can see you) event and places.

They were on a public street. They didn't disrupt the funeral, in fact the funeral goes couldn't see them at all. They just saw recordings of the picketing afterwards on television and then filed their lawsuits.

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2010-10-06/news/bs-md-snyder-arguments-20101006_1_sean-e-summers-westboro-baptist-church-protests/4

And even if they had been visible from the funeral, as long as they stayed on a public street and kept a reasonable distance, it should have been OK. You do not have a right to be protected from speech that offends you, funeral or not.

In Maryland, the police recently got their asses handed to them.

http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/crime/blog/2010/09/motorcyclist_wins_taping_case.html

While there is truth to the assertion that some private schools are much better than others, this doesn't take into account how bad many government schools are.

Nor does it take into account how good many government schools are; nor does it take into account that private schools get to select their students, while public schools systems don't.

We do not have a public school system in the U.S. -- we have thousands. Each county generally runs its own system, with a bit of oversight and funding at the state level. I live in a narrow strip of Baltimore County between Baltimore City (an independent city, Baltimore is essentially a county unto itself) and Howard County.

Where I live, the schools are decent-to-good; half of Baltimore County public high schools were ranked in the top six percent of high schools by Newsweek, and 85% of graduates go on immediately to higher education. But in a few minutes I can be in Baltimore City -- as seen on The Wire -- which a few years ago had one of the lowest on-time graduation rates in the country, less that 40%, and 11 schools were failing so badly that the State of Maryland tried to take them over directly; there has been marked improvement the past few years, but it's still an underperforming system. Or in a few minutes I can be in Howard County, one of the richest counties in the U.S., where the graduation rate is over 93%, and average SAT scores are over 1100 on the old 1600 point scale.

As one last aside, note that since 1970 real spending per pupil at government schools in the U.S. has more than doubled, with - so far - nothing to show for it.

Nonsense. Since 1970, public schools have had to provide increasing special education, more ESOL education, more free and reduced price meals. They've also introduced more gifted education and AP classes, which didn't exist (or at least, weren't widespread) in 1970. Schools have also become a delivery point for a wide array of social services, which accounts for a very large chunk of spending. Finally, public schools also provide transportation for students -- you may have noticed some increase in gasoline prices since 1970.

In spite of these extra costs, public school expenditures are lower than secular private schools; they spend a bit more than Catholic schools, but get slightly better outcomes. (Note that "expenditure" and "tuition" are very different things, thanks to grants; for example, one school in McLean, Virginia, had a tuition of $25,890 and spending of $35,665.) There are cheaper private schools, but they're usually poor performers. You get what you pay for, and overall, public school price/performance is in line with private schools. The problem is systems like Baltimore; and it's not just the schools that are the problem there, there are enormous issues of economic and social justice at work.

Direct link to the original article (instead of the yahoo rebroadcast): http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/world/wire/sns-ap-us-odd-zombie-class,0,2027516.story

That would be interesting - a database of constantly uploaded images with long/lat coordinates, so you could see what is going on anywhere... As long as someone there is running the app. Think of it as a crowd-sourced, constantly refreshed street-view... Of course, you'd have to turn it off when the police are nearby.

I'm not sure which Sun you're reading. The Sun is definitely _not_ Liberal.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/

No, for the most part, it can't.
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1991-06-21/news/1991172083_1_antonin-scalia-constitutional-protection-quotations

You have to mangle the actual words used, which goes beyond 'out of context'.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/sns-ap-us-inmate-name-copyright,0,6423024.story

BTW - The Catholic church has already paid out more than a Billion dollars in settlements for priests who are child molesters.

"Former SD lawmaker convicted of raping foster daughters claims copyright of name.

PIERRE, S.D. (AP) -- A former South Dakota lawmaker convicted of raping his two foster daughters has sent news organizations what he claims is a copyright notice that seeks to prevent the use of his name without his consent.

A letter and an accompanying document labeled "Common Law Copyright Notice" said former state Rep. Ted Alvin Klaudt is reserving a common-law copyright of a trade name or trademark for his name. It said no one can use his name without his consent, and anyone who does would owe him $500,000.

Klaudt was convicted in 2007 on four counts of second-degree rape for touching his teenage foster daughters' breasts and genitals in phony examinations he said could help them sell their eggs to infertile couples. He was sentenced to 44 years in prison for rape and 10 more years after pleading guilty to two counts of witness tampering.

The notice, received by The Associated Press and several other news organizations Monday, carried a return address that matched that of the state prison in Springfield, where Klaudt is being held :

An illustration.

Everything has its limits
The reason microsoft and windows have been so successful has been because their software has been so friendly to use.
Its so easy it attracts developers, that make applications for the platform, which attracts end-users, some of which go on to become developers.

Its a self-feeding cycle, which is why microsoft has been so successful, and its also where linux is starting to show real growths.

Now your saying MS can give its customers anything it wants and they'll eat it. You might be right, but only in the short term. Longer term, a small amount, lets say that in frustration/annoyance 5% less developers drop windows vista, and start using using linux instead.
They go on to develop apps that DON"T work on windows but instead on linux, these apps appeal to other users who go on to get linux instead, and the linux cycle grows.

Those few developers, taht tiny market share, is all it can take to crush the windows monopoly. And without the monopoly, or ease of use, why would you pay money over a linux distribution which is free.

No microsoft can't afford to stuff up windows, its the cornerstone of all their software, everything is dependant on it, it just takes time (read: years) before screwups play out fully.

Heres a small post showing that MS's vista screwup has cost them dearly, the Mac's web presence nearly doubling from 4 to 8%.
http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/business/appleaday/blog/2008/06/macs_web_footprint_growing_at.html

It'd be simlar with linux.
Just wait a few years, and the results will play themselves out.
Don't even get me started on the fact that the netbook market is cut-throat pricing wise, MS are already having a hard time jusifying the cost of windows (to the point where they cut prices on windows oem to stop being excluded from that market)

Beats me how it's an "example" but if you think I'm going to let some guy drive-off with a year's worth of my earnings, forget it. Besides it's a matter of self-defense: If I didn't act he'd have killed me (although I suppose I could have run away). You can read more about this story here - http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bal-md.samurai16sep16,0,114199.story

There's often a significant difference between the force neccessary to prevent someone from stealing from you and killing them. Presonally, I believe that a person is justified to use as much force as the situation demands to protect themselves, others, and major property; but only what force is sufficient. In the linked article it is suggested the victim had good reason to fear for his life, but if the situation was different (e.g. the burglar was trying to flee rather than attack) he, IMHO, would not be justified in killing him. Many theives and burglars would rather just get away than risk significant injury to kill people, so just demonstrating you can and will defend yourself and your property is sufficient to twart the crime. In summary, leathal force should only be used when actually necessary.

In case you missed it: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bal-md.samurai16sep16,0,114199.story

This person was not charged with a crime - http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bal-md.samurai16sep16,0,114199.story

Neither was this guy - http://www.bnd.com/breaking_news/story/899072.html

Or these - http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=d7x&q=home+owner+shoots+intruder&aq=f&oq=&aqi=

Beats me how it's an "example" but if you think I'm going to let some guy drive-off with a year's worth of my earnings, forget it. Besides it's a matter of self-defense: If I didn't act he'd have killed me (although I suppose I could have run away). You can read more about this story here - http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bal-md.samurai16sep16,0,114199.story

"Child A is taught to be inquisitive about everything around him. As he encounters things in his daily life he figures out how they work, rather than accepting them as magical black boxes. Child B sits in a classroom with 40 other students doing multiplication tables until he has them all memorized. Who do you think is going to be a better engineer someday?"

Welcome to society, where you don't get to run around and be inquisitive about everything. Can you imagine Child A as an employee?
Boss: Alright everyone, today we're going to do this thing here *points at chart*
Child A grown-up: Hmm... but boss couldn't we do it this way instead? *marks up chart*
Boss: NO, that's not how we do things, we do it this way *points to chart*
Child A grown-up: Yeah but my way would be better
Boss: I DON'T CARE IF YOU THINK YOUR WAY IS BETTER, WE DO IT MY WAY
Child A grown-up: Why? My way is better
Boss: Meeting over. Child A grown-up, can you see me in my office?

Unless these kids all grow up to take over daddy's CEO position they will never be able to function in the real world.

Not only that, but did you see what a typical "unschooling" day is like?
---"Kids up around 8:30 or so, played Lego til breakfast was ready, dropped off lunch to my mom."
---"Visited Patapsco State Park: Searched for crayfish, tossed different size rocks in water to make big splashes ⦠caught [an amphibian] and skate bug and observed before setting free ⦠found a clam shell in the stream and talked about how it might have ended up there ⦠headed home, had lunch."
---"Made ice cream (we started it the day before) with mint from our garden. When we went out to pick the mint, we found that our parsley plant was being devoured by three giant green and black striped caterpillars, which we caught and observed for a few hours."
---"Picked some squash from the garden and checked on the status of all of our plants ⦠while the ice cream was freezing we watched and noticed that as it froze, it expanded and filled up the freezing bowl more."
---"After dinner we read a few books before bedtime ⦠Marcus played a few computer games after the little boys were in bed (map and strategy games online)."

I don't know about you, but I read their 8 yr old played legos, played at park, picked vegetables, made ice cream and played Starcraft. If he spends every day like this until he's 18 how is he going to keep up with his peers that learned english, biology, chemistry and calculus in high school?

Well, I guess someone has to work fast food, I just can't believe some parents would willing set their children up for disaster.

Oh and I love the double-talk:
"Not only are they getting into college but they are doing well once they get there. Make no mistake, unschooling works well for college bound teens."
"Because they often lack a diploma from an accredited school, it may be more difficult for unschooled students to get into college or get a job."

nonsense that college sophomores

It takes some dedicated anti-intellectualism to call Thoreau's Civil Disobedience, the document that inspired King and Gandhi, sophomoric nonsense.

you need police in order for civilization to function. this is a nonnegotiable fact of the reality you live in.

Presuming that by "police" you mean "full time professional government agents", it's an arguable presumption.

Sure, some people have to take action against people who threaten the safety and rights of others. But the idea that there must be be a large force of people with special authority, as opposed to a truly democratic "militia-like" approach in which we are all prepared to do a little bit (perhaps supplemented with specialist officers), or to a free-market system of private security forces as some radical "libertarian capitalists" would have, is debatable.

I again point out to you that police, as we know them, are a recent innovation. If they were necessary for civilization, civilization would not have existed for the several thousand years that it did before modern police forces.

how do you fight police abuse? answer: with more police. internal affairs

No. With fewer police with fewer laws to enforce; and with those police given high levels of education and training, high pay - and held to high standards of behavior.

Stop having cops chase hookers and junkies, and stop creating the violent black market that drives so much of our criminal activity. Bring drugs and prostitution and other "consensual crimes" within the system, and leave police to go after people who are a threat to other's safety or rights.

Set high educational standards. The President's Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice recommended by in 1967 that "all police personnel with general enforcement powers have baccalaureate degrees," but forty years later it's a rare jurisdiction that's implemented that. I know that neither the Baltimore County nor Baltimore City forces, nor the Maryland State Police, requires this. (Heck, you need at least 30 college credits to be a Licensed Massage Therapist, but zero to be a cop.)

And set high standards of review - not by "internal affairs" but by citizens and civilian government. In Baltimore a few weeks ago, the city council's public safety committee chairman was denied entry to a meeting of police commanders - if he can't "watch the watchmen", who can?

And no one ever was wrong about the next product that would knock Apple out of the lead in a niche:

http://gizmodo.com/384440/rim-engineers-call-touchscreen-blackberry-apple-killer
http://www.boingboing.net/2006/02/08/songbird-the-open-so.html
http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20081215/amazons-mp3-store-one-year-in-no-itunes-killer-probably-wont-be/
http://www.allfacebook.com/2007/10/facebook-to-launch-itunes-competitor/
http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/business/appleaday/blog/2008/07/dells_ipod_killer_revealed_pro.html
http://news.cnet.com/2100-1027_3-5183692.html

white applicants with similar financial characteristics and credit histories

So they said, "If you're going to make shitty loans to white people, you have to make shitty loans to black people, too." It sounds like they were making shitty loans already.

I know a lot of the more conservative folks around here don't believe racism is real, but here's my opinion: Making bad loans to poor people is stupid, but making bad loans to poor white people and not to poor black people is stupid and racist.

In any case, you're just proving my point even more. Do you really think that ACORN suing banks to force them to be equal-opportunity idiots is the sole cause of the crisis? According to this, this, and this, less than a quarter of the subprime loans were made by institutions that were covered by the CRA. Also, there's no data to suggest that CRA subprime loans have a higher default rate than the other 80% of subprime loans. And if ACORN sued Wells Fargo and CitiBank, how come Wells Fargo didn't go under because of all the bad loans it was forced to make in the last few years?

There's two sides to every story, and usually both sides are wrong. Certainly the government was stupid to encourage banks to make bad loans and are not without culpability here, but the banks were doing it anyway.

2000 - The Mac is superior, it uses the PowerPC family of chips and custom hardware. Reality: it's slower and Apple acquiesces to this fact a few years later, making Intel machines

FYI, they WERE faster, they just didn't scale as well, and were too hot to put in a mobile platform. So although they were slower at the end of the lifecycle, at the beginning they were better chips. In-fact the G5 architecture, with hypertransport connecting everything, is "better" than the one used in current intel machines (at least until nehalem).

2008 - The Mac is superior, it's "green." Reality: it's still a hunk of plastic you chuck in the landfill, and being made by the world's most neurotic computer company, it's more likely to break.

I suggest you look at consumer reports, and realize you're talking out of your ass. And they manage this reliability while being greener (which is hard, as the non-green technologies just work better: eg. led solder).

I don't understand why you have to justify your choice of using windows by ranting that "apple sux". They make great hardware and operating systems. That it's not your cup of tea because they sell very few models at set price points, that you don't agree with their corporate policy, etc. is perfectly fine.

Computers are just tools, use the one that makes you happy/productive/feel good inside. Don't justify your opinions by making up random derisive "facts". Aka, don't be a politician: instead of saying why you're better, you're just going to trash the competition to make yourself look (or feel) better.

I sure hope you're being ironic.

The Baltimore homicide map: http://essentials.baltimoresun.com/micro_sun/homicides/

Ahhh, but the government *mandated* that the banks had to make mortgages available to low-income people after the Jesse Jacksons and Al Sharptons of the country screamed racism years ago, and forced the financial institutions to change the rules to make credit available for these folks. Now, they're screaming racism again when the "homeowners" (they're not really homeowners as they never had any equity in the real estate in the first place) inevitably defaulted. Here in Baltimore, the city is suing Wells Fargo for $5 million for "unfairly" targeting blacks to take these loans. No one wants to talk about why these people were even eligible in the first place, but a lot of the original blame rests on "advocates" like Jackson lobbying for credit for people would couldn't pay. And of course, fucking greedy Wall Street and the stupid and / or greedy borrowers (yes -- the borrowers, like the single mom with four kids running her home daycare center out of "her" $545k house on the front page of the Baltimore Sun -- fuck her and take her house). What should really happen is that the banks be allowed to fail and the execs be thrown in jail, and people learn some responsibility by going back to living in an apartment for awhile. The reason this shit keeps happening is because the government keeps stepping in and removing the consequences of peoples' decisions, and then sticks us responsible folks with the bill. FUCK THAT. No more.

Seriously, if you sign a mortgage and don't understand what you're signing, you're a fucking idiot, and I have absolutely no sympathy for you. We have a 30 year fixed mortgage and still hired a lawyer to look everything over before doing the deal.

When did you ever hear in the news "Ex-boy scout John Smith has been found guilty of homicide"?

Well, he hasn't been found guilty yet, but a couple of months ago it appears that this Boy Scout killed his parents and two brothers.

In Britain they can take and keep your DNA if you're suspected of a crime, even if you've been acquitted.

They can now do this in the People's Republic of Maryland as well. DNA samples are collected at time of arrest, with out charges actually being filed.

Press release from MD State Police

Story of protest from the Baltimore

I mean, they raise taxes on cigarettes, and are suddenly horrified to find that people do not buy cigarettes in New York. Now, what do you think the enlightened liberals do up there? Do you think they set the tax at a more reasonable level? No... they call out the cops and pass even -more- laws designed to try and ban people from cigarettes from out of state.

Oh, don't worry, you have company -- our elected retards in Annapolis are hard at work in going after "smugglers" after they recently doubled the MD cigarette tax to $2 / pack. Pack sales have dropped from 23 - 35% each *month* since they enacted the tax (double their projections), seizure of "contraband" smokes has quadrupled, and somehow everyone is shocked.

It's a shame that those of us Marylanders who live outside of Baltimore City and Prince Georges County (DC suburb) are subjected to the one-party idiots perpetually elected by the city-dwelling liberals, who never miss a chance to seize and spend more of *our* money.

Just wanted to comment on that with this link: Maryland is again the richest state in the nation

I'm on the do-not-call list and I still get prerecorded calls from jerks trying to sell me extended warranties or running debt collection scams, looking for people that I've never heard of. The one that called today was using a local international VOIP/PSTN gateway to cover their tracks. They are already violating multiple laws, what's one more? The federal government needs to track down the owners of these companies, take their loot and put them on a chain gang.

Here is a recent example:

Pa.sues son of House member

According to this article, it was a violation of California's unfair business practices act:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/bal-bz.sprint30jul30,0,2416808.story

"Wireless carriers say early termination fees are necessary so the companies can recover the cost of mobile phones, which they subsidize when customers sign long-term service contracts.

But the judge in her ruling said the contracts were "implemented primarily as a means to discourage customers from leaving" and that the company gave little regard to the cost of broken contracts."

And remember, in the United States, just because something is clearly stated in a contract doesn't mean the contract is enforceable. For instance, a contract to make yourself a slave will not be enforced by a court.

Yes, Lopez was one of the front men. But read this: Was the CIA involved? Did Washington know? Was the public deceived? Now we know: Yes, Yes and yes..

Too bad I don't have points to mod you up. Instead, I offer this recent story from the Baltimore Sun about a trial that's going on right now. These folks started out with a legitimate professional pharmacy delivering prescriptions to local nursing homes and assisted-living facilities. The online drugs marked proved to be too lucrative, the drug of choice was hydrocodone. They're also in trouble over a lot of subsidiary issues like tax evasion. The genuine irony of this piece is behind the scenes. I recalled reading the article but not the exact date, so I used the Sun's search box with "internet drugs trial." The results came back just fine--along with a paid advert for "Canadian Online Pharmacy."

The people to be pitied in all this aren't the ones abusing pain meds. It's the middle-aged suddenly unemployed guy who takes meds for hypertension or the elderly person who's in the notorious "hole" in the middle of the Medicare drug benefit or the financially struggling young couple with a child who needs some lifesaving drug or other. Or, perhaps, the employed person whose health care benefit has shriveled to nothing.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/02/28/ST2008022803016.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/30/AR2006113000912.html

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines/042000-01.htm

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/29/america/29prison.php

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/04/22/us/20080423_PRISON_GRAPHIC.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/us/28cnd-prison.html?_r=2

http://www.jbs.org/node/7846

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nation/bal-te.prisons29feb29,0,2057053.story

LOOK HOW SHORT IT TOOK! SIX YEARS!

http://usgovinfo.about.com/cs/censusstatistic/a/aaprisonpop.htm

NO! ONE!

http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=3321586

If we've gotten to that point, the constitution is already dead, and the second amendment does not apply.

Well then, Constitution is already dead. "No-knock" warrants, where jackbooted thugs kick down your door, have been SOP for a long while while now.

Under the current system, if the jackbooted thugs kick in your door, you have recourse through the courts

Well, your survivors may have recourse through the courts.

Violence should be your *last* resort, not your first.

Of course. Tell it to the jackbooted thugs.

When armed people of unknown intent come crashing into your house, you're at the time of last resort.

If the local constabulary has a legitimate warrant and wishes to search my home, they need only knock politely, show me the paperwork, and I will allow them entry. If anyone comes crashing into my house with a weapon, I must assume that they mean me harm, and will exercise my right of self-defense, by any means available and necessary. I don't really have time to check for police IDs in such a situation. I'm not running a bombing ring or a bunch of rape rooms or anything that would justify a violent attack by the cops, so I have to assume that the attackers are home invaders (like the ones who recently hit a house just a few miles from here), not legitimate law enforcement.

Even if they're yelling "Police!" as they bust in, it's not like crooks haven't impersonated cops before. And of course, a cop who takes part in such a raid is a crook, violating the law of the land, the protections of the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment.

I don't relish the idea of hurting anyone. I've put my own safety in peril a few times to protect other people, and so far have always been able to defuse the situation without damaging anyone, even if I've taken a few lumps in the process. But I made up my mind over twenty years ago, when I began studying martial arts, that if it was a case of "me or him", I would do whatever was necessary to stop a violent aggressor. The fact that such an aggressor may be wearing a badge makes no difference.

Your points are valid, but to put your rant in perspective, the iPhone is leading competitors in customer satisfaction by a large margin. Complain all you want, but the iPhone is a groundbreaking device and the best game in town for most people.

Anybody that shoots up a school is a person who has severe mental issues.

Unless they are a member of the Religion Of Peace (tm), in which case they are a hero.

Say what you will, his record suggests that he simply has no love for cable companies:

+ Does Kevin Martin hate cable?
+ Martin: A Record of 'Picking on' Cable
+ Kevin Martin Doesn't Hate Cable, He Just Loves Ma Bell

Of course, the BushCo connection seems to be more important than the facts here.

Here is another view of the House bill.

Not since the "Patriot Act" of 2001 has any bill so threatened our constitutionally guaranteed rights.

The historian Henry Steele Commager, denouncing President John Adams' suppression of free speech in the 1790s, argued that the Bill of Rights was not written to protect government from dissenters but to provide a legal means for citizens to oppose a government they didn't trust. Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence not only proclaimed the right to dissent but declared it a people's duty, under certain conditions, to alter or abolish their government....

But her plan is a greater danger to us than the threats she fears. Her bill tramples constitutional rights by creating a commission with sweeping investigative power and a mandate to propose laws prohibiting whatever the commission labels "homegrown terrorism."

The proposed commission is a menace through its power to hold hearings, take testimony and administer oaths, an authority granted to even individual members of the commission - little Joe McCarthys - who will tour the country to hold their own private hearings. An aura of authority will automatically accompany this congressionally authorized mandate to expose native terrorism....

While the editors at /. may have chosen an inflamatory title for this, who believes that this won't be used by government for all the wrong reasons ? At least the Patriot Act still had ties to international activities. This legislation stands only to quell revolution. I believe an argument can be made that we aren't really threatened by takeover by radical Islamist factions, which leaves only the rest of us citizens. While no one has been really paying attention, the groundwork for martial law has been laid. I know, I'm out of my mind, but I do not believe for a second that this bunch won't pull that trigger.

Let's just take the point of view that we should just ignore what the government is doing. Good plan. The only way that we can band together as a nation is the internet. If the government can't control this medium, they can't ontrol us. The only specific item in this bill refers to the internet. The rest is so vague that it could find application in just about any situation that threatens the government. Remember, this doesn't say that it looks to stop violent groups, just ideas that may, at some point, incite violence. The clauses are so vague that they almost require interpretation by the courts.

Why are we arguing about /. title for this article, and not what's happenned to our country ?

Whoops, here's the correct link.

No Ron Paul doesn't want Roe V Wade overturned to make it law a woman has to carry a fetus 'til birth, the USA Constitution says nothing about it and since it doesn't the 10th amendment leaves it to the states or the people.

If you will recall the issue ended up in the SC because the states already decided to ban it. In 70s. In NY (the liberal state mentioned above).

If I recall right the SC overturned state laws outlawing abortion on a privacy basis. The First Amendment says people have the right to remain anonymous, though not directly. Instead it's based on the right to free speech, if a person can't reasonably expect to remain anonymous then (s)he can't exercise free speech for fear of repercussions. Though I don't recall the year or case in the 1810s a SC made a ruling using this reasoning in the decision. I think John Marshall was the Chief Justice. Since then there have been other SC rulings along the same vein, the last one before Roe V Wade in 1969.

Looking for the case John Marshall heard, I stumbled across this article: "Ron Paul: Take abortion out of federal courts". Here's another about the SC taking up a case on anonymity, in 2001: Supreme Court Roundup; Justices Revisit Anonymity In Door-to-Door Canvassing. Unfortunately after spending more than an hour I haven't refound any of the cases as related to anonymity and abortion yet. I guess I should buy some external hdds to use as backups.

As for me, I believe abortion should be legal. I don't believe government should have in the books or pass any law restricting what people do with their own bodies, whether that's having an abortion, taking drugs, or ending their life, ie committing suicide.

MOD PARENT UP. Quote: "Any substantial commercial XP application that has been around for any significant amount of time will almost certainly run into problems under Vista."

Follow the money. Microsoft apparently wants you to pay, and pay, and pay again. Big commercial software companies will advertise Vista if it is necessary to buy a new version of their software to use with Vista.

Apparently to Microsoft the user is not the customer. Microsoft apparently considers the user just a dog on a leash.

I suppose the constant negative stories about Microsoft make it difficult for Microsoft to hire the really good programmers. If that is true, expect more unfinished products with poor characteristics in the future.

People think that Microsoft is a software company that is routinely abusive. But maybe it isn't. Maybe Microsoft is an abuse company that uses software as a means of delivering abuse. If you look at it that way, Microsoft is excellent at what it does.

We seem to live in a society dominated by abusers. For another example, Cheney and Bush, who with their friends and family have a long history of oil and weapons investing, are allowed the conflict of interest of deciding to have wars to get control of oil supply. The result is that the value of your money is falling. Rich people who are heavily invested in companies that can raise prices want inflation partly because inflation causes the value of the money they pay employees to drop.

For a different take on (what I assume is) the same program, read this article. I think the writer of TFA may be overreacting - in this article, an officer simply noticed someone acting suspiciously, and it turned out that he was carrying a 9 mm handgun and thirty rounds without a permit. No trick, no "micro-expressions", just good old-fashioned alertness.

I don't expect to see these stories on /.

http://xml.baltimoresun.com/news/local/politics/ba l-bromwell,0,350973.storygallery?coll=bal-local-ut ility
http://www.wjla.com/news/stories/0707/440424.html

Yep, Republicans have a monopoly on corruption. Get a clue. Politician = scum

"who has an HDTV set at home, anyway?"

http://www.baltimoresun.com/technology/bal-hdtv121 8,0,7857245.story?coll=bal-business-headlines

"Nearly 33 million U.S households, or about 30 percent of the market" apparently fall into that category.

"They were all acting together for their own amusement," said Capt. Chris Graveline. "There was no justification for what they did that night."

Graveline said the group took pictures of what they were doing "so they could remember that night, so they could laugh again at these men. ... There's nothing funny about what happened at Abu Ghraib."

Harman, 27, of Lorton, Va., was the second U.S. soldier tried and convicted in the scandal.

During Tuesday's sentencing hearing, she tearfully apologized for mistreating Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

"As a soldier and military police officer, I failed my duties and failed my mission to protect and defend," Harman said, her voice cracking. "I not only let down the people in Iraq, but I let down every single soldier that serves today.

"My actions potentially caused an increased hatred and insurgency towards the United States, putting soldiers and civilians at greater risk," she continued. "I take full responsibility for my actions ... The decisions I made were mine and mine alone."

Several of the worst abuses photographed took place on a single day, Nov. 8.

In one of the most striking images to surface, a detainee jokingly referred to as "Gilligan" by the MPs was forced to stand on a box of food, with wires connected to his fingers, toes and penis.

Harman said she attached the wires to "Gilligan" and told him he would be electrocuted if he fell off the box.

"Why did you do this to the detainee 'Gilligan'?" a military investigator asked.

"Just playing with him," Harman said.

Also that day, MPs punished seven detainees they said were instigating a riot in a part of the prison outside Tier 1A.

The detainees were stripped and forced to the floor of the cellblock.

"Graner was placing them into position," Harman told investigators.

"How long did the human pyramid last?" an investigator asked her.

"The pyramid lasted about 15 to 20 minutes," she said.

No case better demonstrates the dangers posed by electronic voting machines than the experience of Maryland. As in Georgia, officials there granted Diebold control over much of the state's election systems during the 2002 midterm elections. (In the interests of disclosure, my sister was a candidate for governor that year and lost by a margin consistent with pre-election polls.) On Election Night, when Chris Hood accompanied Diebold president Bob Urosevich and marketing director Mark Radke to the tabulation center in Montgomery County where the votes would be added up, he was stunned to find the room empty. "Not a single Maryland election official was there to retrieve the memory cards," he recalls. As cards containing every vote in the county began arriving in canvas bags, the Diebold executives plugged them into a group of touch-screen tabulators linked into a central server, which was also controlled by a Diebold employee.

"It would have been very easy for any one of us to take a contaminated card out of our pocket, put it into the system, and download some malicious code that would then end up in the server, impacting every other vote that went in, before and after," says Hood. "We had absolute control of the tabulations.

RFK Jr.

Now I am getting extremely curious about the code(s) that could be in a server used to tabulate the results. Also, what about the security of the servers and the software that is used. Off the top of my head, I can think of at least 2 people locally who could interpret a source code. (I'm not a programmer.)

And, the motherboards were changed in Maryland.

Diebold Election Systems shipped Maryland flawed electronic voting machines that were used in the 2004 election, then quietly replaced the malfunctioning components last year, documents and interviews show.

Gilles W. Burger, chairman of the State Board of Elections, said this week that he and fellow members were initially told that Diebold was performing a "technical refresher" of the voting machines during July and August last year. He later learned that the refresher was really the repair of a flaw discovered by Diebold about three years earlier but not disclosed to him and other board members.

Yeah, right, EVERY motherboard goes/is defective and needs to be replaced!

And, Diebold sent a reply to Rolling Stone re: the article, and not once was Maryland mentioned.

Solution: Release ALL souce codes. Diebold, Sequoia, et al, have to prove that ALL of their software is properly written, instead of whining "trade secrets" and answer ANY and ALL questions.

I've worked for an agency that receives government money and here is the amount of paperwork necessary to get payment: one copy for the file (which goes to adminsitration), one for billing, one for the state, one for the feds, one for an additional funder (if applicable), one for the vendor. And no one knows about the replacement of motherboards?

The first defense against electoral corruption is a strong turn-out, so get out there and vote.

If I vote, I would vote third party or write-in a candidate who has no chance in hell of winning. Democrats want my vote, they have to prove they deserve it. (And, there are a hell of a lot of people--not just in my district--who aren't voting due to the lousy candidates running.)

Final thought: think its possible third party votes and write-ins are "flipped/tabulated incorrectly"? I sure do.

Take the NAB claim, supported by XM and Sirius' own filings, that some of the satellite companies' terrestrial repeaters (devices that receive signals and retransmit them), installed on buildings and towers to ensure seamless satellite radio coverage, don't comply with FCC rules.

In a filing this summer with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. acknowledged FCC findings that some of its modulators were too powerful. It also admitted that some of its employees had asked suppliers to ignore FCC rules in building the devices.

He urged the FCC to look beyond satellite radio sets and conduct a "thorough technical review" of the most popular FM modulators on the market, and to pursue a recall of all those found in violation of FCC rules.

SEC filings by XM Radio - Sirius' chief competitor - also admit some of its modulators are out of compliance. Both companies said they have ordered suppliers to suspend production and shipment until their products comply with FCC rules. Both said they were working with the FCC and hoped to avoid supply interruptions to retailers.

Meghan R. Henning, a spokeswoman for the Consumer Electronics Association, which represents 2,100 electronics manufacturers, said, "This is a serious issue and we're acknowledging it. ... It's well within the FCC's rights to speak to the wrong-doers."

If the FCC ordered a recall of devices found by commission technical reviewers to be overpowered, Henning said, "the CEA would be fine with that."