Slashdot Mirror

McLuhan was a visionary, yes; even he didn't predict the extent to which media would be controlled. See Transnationale for information about who owns which media company.

There are several more or less independent Media firms and portals - this is a snapshot taken from several, last Summer.

I once went to a Linux Users' group meeting in Toronto, held in the building where Marshall McLuhan taught, which was an interesting experience.

It is clear that we have to act to keep any independent news at all. Compare the BBC with CNN, and then realise that, in effect, these are both government organizations. Luckily, in the US, the New York Times and its subsidiary, the Boston Globe have more balanced reporting than CNN; perhaps they have to, to stay alive.

When your news is controlled by the government, so are your opinions. Example: are the computers being resisted in Cuba because the country is trying to keep its culture and way of life in the face of increasing globalisation, or is it because computers are a luxury they can't afford (don't pretend they increase farmers' productivity when the farm workers have them) or is it to control the spread of ideas? To look at that in detail you'd have to ask whether photocopiers and printing presses are controlled.

The article is openly anti-communist: it wants everywhere to be like America, and measures Freedom in terms of American-ness, it seems. I want to measure Freedom differently.

Freedom is the ability to form your own opinions and to act on them. Freedom must be tempered with Responsibility towards other people: you are not free to limit other people's Freedom. Opinions must be based on Information and Understanding, and Society must work hard to make that possible. In a truly Free society everyone can go to college or university to study to the limit of their abilities. In a truly Free society, Rights are replaced by real choices.

How do we get there in the West, when we have been so tied to the idea that Freedom means Power over Other People?

Perhaps hactivism is part of it. But it has to be aimed at education, at flow of information, not simply at sharing bigoted ideals and corruption.

What Freedom we have, will only stay, will only grow, if we share it.

And all along I thought the sky was salmon.

It's worthy to note that while there are many cases like this, there are none that involve someone from Palestine siding with the Israeli government.
Ok, I agreed with you on most things until I got to this line here. First, around 20% of the population of Israel is Arab. The vast majority of these Arabs live in peace within its borders. (I'll admit that they are not treated completed as equals, but close enough). And there are many Arabs who *gasp* serve in the IDF (Israeli Defense Force). Isreal is where their home, family, and jobs are.

As for Arabs living in West Bank and "Palestine" territories, the reason for them not speaking out against actions of Hamas and siding with the Israeli government is due to supression. Maybe you missed this little article from yesterday about Palestinian gunmen killing 11 other Palestinians for supposedly giving information to Israel. And these people are only suspected too, they were never given any trial even if speaking was a crime. The "Palestinian" territories do not exactly foster free speech, free press, and freedom of ideas. Maybe this explains why you've never heard of any.

Sure, I agree that Isreal has done many things wrong in the past, but the Middle-East conflict, along with many of the cases you mentioned before, are WAY more complicated then something that can be summed up in one sentence and are entirely one side's fault.

Compare the church in His Dark Materials (HDM) trilogy to the pedophile priests in Boston.

I had just finished reading The Golden Compass and started the Subtle Knife when the first pedophile priests were dragged out on the Boston Globe. The juxtaposition of the events of The Golden Compass with the behavior of these priests was Spooky. Example: Boys trapped by priests on camping trips vs church agents kidnapping boys and girls, taking them to Bolvangar...

The scandal expanded as I progressed through the Subtle Knife and Pullman fleshed out his anti-religion theme. Somewhere in the second half of the book the reader learns that the subtle knife must be delivered to Asriel so he can defeat The Authority. Consider the Subtle Knife as the Sword of Justice striking at the church...

Now I am near the end of the Amber spyglass-- The Authority has died-- and bishops are facing criminal charges.

Prophecy!? No, but Quite the coincidence. If you are not reading HDM trilogy now, I recommend you wait a few months before doing so. At this particular time, it is rather disturbing.

See the end of this article for an overview of the scandal.

I wrote about this
last September, and again a couple of weeks ago.

"Finally," indeed!

I wrote about this
last September, and again a couple of weeks ago.

"Finally," indeed!

More evil MSFT news: MSFT has agreed to pay $100,000 (chump change, right?) to MSN subscribers unable to cancel their accounts because of billing snafus, according to this article.

In case you're a multiple-source freak, here's the AP story...

*sigh*
http://digitalmass.boston.com/news/2002/02/13/comc ast.html

Some people chop off their ear for a girl, others make a 30,000 tile ASCII-art mosaic :).

This would definately qualify as Boston.com's most unusual Valentine's Day gift.

. . .Mosaics of all the most important things in life. . .

"I have constructed plenty of LEGO mosaic in the past (qq.v. New York City, Mona Lisa, San Francisco)"

. . .and Christa Flockheart :).

Sorry for the jibe. . .it was just too tempting. . .

Back in pioneer days, the father of the family kept a loaded musket by the doors, and somehow none of the kids picked it up and shot their siblings/friends. Even when the parents were away.


Well, I don't know much about guns, but I imagine that a musket is much harder for a three year old to operate than a modern gun.

In your car, in case of an accident or traffic stop.

You should make sure there are no laws against this before attempting it.

Oh man, that would rock. Do you know how much damage a 7.5 ton BLU-82 can do? Kick ass! Makes Internet Exploder look like a paint ball in comparison.

Or a cargo plane. The U.S. drops its biggest non-nuclear bombs from C-130 cargo planes. They're shoved out the back off the loading ramp.

I just want to point out that the guy who got caught at MIT was a sysadmin, not a student..

I went to the site mentioned in the article and tried out the various ad links. They all worked as advertised for me, running Mozilla 0.9.6 on Mandrake 8.2. So I don't think this technology is really restricted to IE/Windows.

• Creative #1
• Creative #2
• Creative #3
• Creative #4
• Creative #5

Actually all you have to do is set the "run activex controls" setting to prompt or disable. It is interesting to note that if you try this with the demos from United Virtualities then the ad will not appear, but then neither does the original page you wanted to view. If you try this with the live boston.com site then you get the content and no annoying ads.

I wonder if the marketing and sales of United Virtualities intentionaly did this with the demos to "prove" that their technique is "flawless".

The flash ads are just the demos. If you go to the main page, it's supposed to do the real ad. Of course, since I don't let Javascript run from unknown sites, I don't see any of it (so it may or may not be there). In fact, not running Javascript is the single easiest way I've found to avoid 99% of all the annoying ads (including, it seems, this potentially annoying one).

Oops...maybe I spoke to soon. I went to the United Virtualities website and looked at their showcase with Konqueror. When I did that, unfortunately the ads worked all too well.

All I can think of is perhaps http://www.boston.com doesn't have ALL their ads converted to the shoshkele format.

*SIGH*

There was an article about this topic in the Boston Sunday Globe this week. But the author of the article doesn't necessarily cry over the recently announced demise of cars like the Camaro and the Firebird. In order to get another 50 horsepower out of one of those beasts meant "boring out the cylinders, tinkering with valves, changing pistons ... a greasy, lengthy job." With the new "tuner cars" all you've got to do is drop in a $500 tuner chip.

Well a hyperlink such as:

TEA.COM

(<a href="http://www.boston.com/harbour/" >TEA.COM</a>)

should do the trick.

Political News from Wired News - Cybercrime Treaty Finally Ready. After four years of haggling over the language, several countries including the United States will sign a cybercrime treaty.

WildernessCoast.org - Cybercrime Treaty Bibliography -- By Date. A wide collection of links that talk about the Cybercrime Treaty Same info sorted by title.

Council of Europe - Convention on Cybercrime.

The Convention on Cybercrime has been adopted by the Committee of Ministers during its 109th Session, on 8 November 2001 and will be opened for signature, in Budapest, on 23 November 2001.

The Convention will be the first international treaty on crimes committed via the Internet and other computer networks, dealing particularly with infringements of copyright, computer-related fraud, child pornography and violations of network security. It also contains a series of powers and procedures such as the search of computer networks and interception.

Its main objective, set out in the preamble, is to pursue a common criminal policy aimed at the protection of society against cybercrime, especially by adopting appropriate legislation and fostering international co-operation.

The Convention is the product of four years of work by Council of Europe experts, but also by the United States, Canada, Japan and other countries which are not members of the organisation.

It will be supplemented by an additional protocol making any publication of racist and xenophobic propaganda via computer networks a criminal offence.

[ ... ]

But Fred Eisner, a consultant for the Dutch government and private companies, said the draft made unfair demands on Internet service providers by asking them to track Web users' online movements.

"This draft convention lacks balance," Eisner told the assembly. "The convention explicitly gives much more power to law enforcement agencies and it has no system of checks and balances."

Bruce McConnell, president of McConnell International, a Washington-based consulting firm, said the treaty should be more forceful in protecting the privacy of Web users who are already worried about being spied on.

"There is concern that the powers of surveillance ... are not balanced by comparable protections for individuals' privacy," he said.

Maybe you trust the law-enforcement chiefs in D.C. to do the right thing. But here's the catch. The same new powers given to the United States will also handed over to Bulgaria, Romania, Azerbaijan, and other Council of Europe nations that-although officially democratic now-don't have a strong traditions of checks and balances on police power.

Do you want investigators rummaging around your clients' computer systems on warrants issued by former Soviet bloc nations?

That's the prospect that has pushed AT&T Corporation and other high-technology companies into feverishly trying to stop or at least soften the treaty. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Information Technology Association of America also oppose it.

Stewart Baker is one of the chief lobbyists for the treaty opponents. As a former general counsel of the National Security Agency and recipient of the Department of Defense Medal for Meritorious Civilian Service, he's got street cred on these issues in corporate America.

What worries Baker and his colleagues? Consider the following hypothetical: A Los Angeles screenwriter corresponds by e-mail with a neo-Nazi in Germany while researching a script. Shortly after, he finds federal agents examining the files on his home computer. The agents also visit America Online Inc. to retrieve records of the screenwriter's AOL usage.

The agents are fulfilling a warrant issued by German authorities allowing them to search for Nazi propaganda. Such material is unlawful in Germany but not in the U.S. They framed their warrant in terms of "suspected terrorist activity."

LAW.com (requires cookies) - International Treaty on Cybercrime Poses Burden on High-Tech Companies.

Maybe you're a civil libertarian, and maybe you're not. Maybe you worry about how the United States exercises its vast investigative and prosecutorial powers, and maybe you don't.

But if you counsel U.S. corporations on computer-related issues, you should be concerned about a new proposed treaty known as the "Convention on Cybercrime." The Council of Europe, a 43-nation public body created to promote democracy and the rule of law, is nominally drafting the treaty. Curiously, however, the primary architect is the U.S. Department of Justice.

The Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation are using a foreign forum to create an international law-enforcement regime that favors the interests of the feds over those of ordinary citizens and businesses. Their goal is to make it easier to get evidence from abroad and to extradite and prosecute foreign nationals for certain kinds of crimes.

Maybe you trust the law-enforcement chiefs in D.C. to do the right thing. But here's the catch. The same new powers given to the United States will also be handed over to Bulgaria, Romania, Azerbaijan, and other Council of Europe nations that -- although officially democratic now -- don't have a strong tradition of checks and balances on police power.

[ ... ]

Stewart Baker, a partner at Washington, D.C.'s Steptoe & Johnson, is one of the chief lobbyists for the treaty's opponents. As a former general counsel of the National Security Agency and recipient of the U.S. Department of Defense Medal for Meritorious Civilian Service, he's got street credentials on these issues in corporate America.

Slashdot | Implications Of The International Cybercrime Treaty.

SiliconValley.com part of San Jose Mercury News - Pioneer cybercrime pact tightens privacy rules.

MS-NBC - Pioneer cybercrime pact tightens privacy rules. PARIS, May 25 -- Stiff criticism from the EU and pressure groups has prompted drafters of the world's first treaty against cybercrime to tighten provisions protecting privacy online, the final text showed Friday.

[ ... ]

Against EU objections, it also limits the right of a country to reject a request from abroad to store and hand over data in potential crime cases if the requesting country thinks it could be misused.

The text says states should make sure that systems operators or other people who know how to use a certain system can be ordered to cooperate in any such a cyberprobe.

PARIS (Reuters) - Stiff criticism from the EU and pressure groups has prompted drafters of the world's first treaty against cybercrime to tighten provisions protecting privacy online, the final text showed on Friday.

The Council of Europe, a 43-state human rights watchdog, has amended the text to ensure police respect privacy rights when they follow digital trails to fight online crimes such as hacking, spreading viruses, using stolen credit card numbers or defrauding banks.

''The guarantees in the treaty have been reinforced,'' Peter Csonka, deputy head of the economic crime division at the Council's headquarters in Strasbourg, told Reuters after the Council posted the final text -- version 27 -- on its Web site.

But the treaty, which has aroused heated debate in cyberspace since its draft text became public last year, ignored calls by Internet service providers (ISPs) for fewer costly requirements on preserving data that could be linked to a crime.

It still accorded police wide powers to chase suspected cybercriminals -- powers some critics say go beyond what is legal in some Council member states or in observer countries like the United States, Canada and Japan due to sign the treaty.

ZDNet - Internet founder worried over EU cybercrime plans.

BRUSSELS --Vint Cerf, a founding father of today's Internet, said on Thursday that European Union plans for new rules to fight crime on the Web risked clashing with existing EU privacy regulations.

Cerf, who helped develop the Internet in the early 70s shortly after graduating from Stanford University and now works for WorldCom, said more secure network systems were an immediate priority for the successful development of the ubiquitous Web.

He told Reuters in an interview that Internet traffic should be retained only for billing purposes and was too cumbersome to be stored for police investigations.

Changes to a controversial treaty on cybercrime have done nothing to improve it, say civil liberty campaigners.

Next week, the Council of Europe will vote on the treaty, which has been redrafted 26 times before reaching its final version late in May.

The most recent changes were made to take into account the fears of civil liberty and privacy campaigners. But cyber-rights groups say the latest changes are purely cosmetic and have not diluted what they describe as its most pernicious sections.

The groups say that, if adopted in its current form, the treaty could lead to changes in legislation that would stifle rights to privacy and do little to curb the activities of law enforcement agencies.

[ ... ]

In December 2000, 23 organisations, banding together under the banner of the Global Internet Liberty Campaign (GILC), signed a letter condemning the 25th draft of the treaty as "appalling", and warned that it handed law enforcement agencies sweeping powers to snoop and could seriously erode online privacy.

Now, three civil liberty groups, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Privacy Information Center and Privacy International, have sent another letter to the Council of Europe outlining their "continuing concerns" over the wording of the treaty and saying that their fears have not been laid to rest.

The letter chastises the Council of Europe for refusing to open up the redrafting debates to non-governmental organisations and for, it says, ignoring the human rights and privacy concerns of organisations such as the GILC.

It goes on to say that the original criticisms still stand, and that the treaty does not pay enough attention to existing laws which safeguard human rights. It says the treaty's recommendations on protecting privacy are vague and do not go far enough.

IT industry gurus have branded the Council of Europe's Convention on Cybercrime 'foolish, unworkable and a legal con trick'.

The controversial treaty provides a blanket legislation to deal with all forms of internet crime from hacking to online pornography.

Caspar Bowden, director of internet think-tank FIPR, said: "The Convention is essentially a legal con trick, drafted in secret by a handful of nameless bureaucrats. It equates the internet - a network of private networks - with 'cyberspace', a metaphor from science fiction.

"By this sleight of hand, the internet is defined as a public space over which law enforcement should be granted unfettered powers of surveillance and extradition," he added.

International policy-makers this week ended a round of talks aimed at setting common rules affecting online trade and commerce, but they made little progress in bridging divisions that threaten to delay the pact.

In the works for nearly a decade, the Hague Convention on Jurisdiction and Foreign Judgments is still almost unknown outside international policy circles. Nevertheless, it could have broad implications for consumers and businesses by setting new rules for online copyrights, free speech and e-commerce--if it is approved.

Opposition to the treaty heated up Wednesday, when a two-week drafting session wrapped up with few concessions to critics, primarily from the United States, who say the pact threatens free speech and could force Internet service providers to become global content police.

"In a nutshell, it will strangle the Internet with a suffocating blanket of overlapping jurisdictional claims, expose every Web page publisher to liabilities for libel, defamation and other speech offenses from virtually any country, (and) effectively strip Internet service providers of protections from litigation over the content they carry," Jamie Love, director of Ralph Nader's Consumer Project on Technology (CPT), wrote in a report after the meeting.

The treaty is one of several efforts by the global community to grapple with a complicated legal issues on a borderless Web.

Four years ago, nations including the United States signed onto a World Intellectual Property Organization pact to protect copyright in the digital age. And several countries, including the United States, are hammering out the world's first cybercrime treaty, which would provide a standard for fighting online crime.

The Hague treaty differs from those efforts because it would not outline specific laws participants must follow. It's much broader, requiring participants to agree to enforce each others' laws on a variety of topics. As it stands, the treaty would require courts to enforce the commercial laws of the convention's 52 member nations, even if they prohibit actions that are legal under local laws.

BRUSSELS - The blueprint for a global code on Cyber-crime was agreed on in Strasbourg, France, Friday, paving the way for international rules governing online copyright infringement, online fraud, child pornography and hacking.

The 41 members of the Council of Europe (CoE), plus the U.S., Canada and Japan, signed on to a draft convention on cybercrime that is set to be rubber-stamped at ministerial level in September.

"Once adopted, the Convention will be the first international treaty on criminal offenses committed through the use of Internet and other computer networks," the Council of Europe said in a statement.

In September, the Council of Europe approved the Convention on cybercrime, a historic treatise that lays the foundation for legislation allowing for a greater sharing of information between countries to combat the rise of cybercrime.

The treatise isn't binding, but instead would have to be adopted into law by its 43 European member states and five outside countries including the United States, Canada and Japan.

The treaty is broad, covering crimes committed on the Internet such as fraud, child pornography and violations of computer network security. It also sets up global policing procedures for conducting computer searches, interception of e-mails, and extradition of criminal suspects.

More details on the CyberCrime Treaty can be found in the Privacy Digest archives dated September 26,2000, September 27,2000, October 09,2000, October 16,2000, October 18,2000, October 19,2000, October 25,2000, November 14,2000, November 20,2000, November 22,2000 and March 24,2001. This is not all the information at Privacy Digest and other sites so if you want to know more try a search

A sudden complication between us.

There ahead lies nothing of it, yet.

Ah yes, "Arming America : The Origins of a National Gun Culture" by Michael A. Bellesiles. Well, perhaps you should check out:
Gun Control Book Based on Faulty Data
University asks historian to defend his research on gun ownership book
A gun-hating historian comes under heavy fire.
One of the worst cases of academic irresponsibility in memory.

Boston.com is reporting that the House passed the Senate Legislation with a 5 year sunset clause on some controversial topics. It passed 337-79, sounds like it's headed back to the Senate now...

Okay, if we can't believe everything seen on CNN, what about

• The BBC .
• The Boston Globe
• The Chigago Tribune
• The Guardian (UK)

Also, don't forget the fact that some Palestinians kidnapped one of the cameramen that recorded the cheering, and the Palestinian Authority couldn't guarantee his safety if the footage was broadcast. Heard this on both The Jerusalem Post and also corroborated on NPR. Can't find a link to the stories, though.

The Boston Globe (the high-falutin' lap dog newspaper of the NYT) has a site boston.com that will not work if you use The Proxomitron, and maybe even web-washer, I believe. I like to check the local stuff there, but their ridiculous use of Flash and other similar toys to push ads is downright annoying. Scumbags.

Hey, hey. The Boston Globe reports Pentagon planning to aid Afghans! So they liked my idea, not that they got it from me. This gives me confidence that they really are trying to do the right thing, if they could just figure out what it is.

You don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy, any more than you do about where you go when you leave your house or who you send letters to. That's just the nature of public actions... they're not private.

I do agree with that to a certain degree, but ...
What frightens me is that the *police* expects/demands that their actions are private.

Have a look at This story
"The preamble to the law said electronic devices are a danger to the privacy of all citizens. This case turns that notion on its head because here we had an individual trying to protect himself from a misdeed on the part of public officials and he's the one who ends up being arrested for it and prosecuted,"

This is the link:

http://boston.com/news/daily/12/boston_links.htm

Meanwhile, other officers converged on the Park Inn at Chestnut Hill in Newton, a Boston suburb. Newton police officer Russ Adam said the FBI was conducting an investigation at the hotel.

News reports said searchers found Islamic papers and a manual on how to fly a 767 airplane in a room at the Park Inn.

Here's the proof: From Boston.com

Troops deployed in response to Pentagon attack -- (Canada's) National Post. Please ignore the very, very tacky graphics and tabloid-like banner.

Canadian border open, airline travellers stranded -- ditto. Note that many aircraft were diverted to Canadian airports. If you know someone who was on a flight, they may be in Canada right now.

The National newscast says that the US military just brought in an aircraft to Vancouver (BC) airport; no news on why.

Canada dot com -- looks like WIC (a media conglomerate) has created a site that encompasses news from BCTV, Vancouver Sun, etc. I can't get the links to work, but some look interesting.

Christian Science Monitor -- don't be put off by the title: it's a *very* high-quality paper.

The Village Voice -- not sure how high-quality this will be, but it has an amazing photo, plus information on the DFLP.

Boston Globe -- again, good quality reporting. There's a Breaking News page as well. Indeed, their breaking news is great.

PLEASE POST LINKS TO FOREIGN MEDIA. I've been searching, but I simply don't know the names for any English foreign media, save the BBC.

Troops deployed in response to Pentagon attack -- (Canada's) National Post. Please ignore the very, very tacky graphics and tabloid-like banner.

Canadian border open, airline travellers stranded -- ditto. Note that many aircraft were diverted to Canadian airports. If you know someone who was on a flight, they may be in Canada right now.

The National newscast says that the US military just brought in an aircraft to Vancouver (BC) airport; no news on why.

Canada dot com -- looks like WIC (a media conglomerate) has created a site that encompasses news from BCTV, Vancouver Sun, etc. I can't get the links to work, but some look interesting.

Christian Science Monitor -- don't be put off by the title: it's a *very* high-quality paper.

The Village Voice -- not sure how high-quality this will be, but it has an amazing photo, plus information on the DFLP.

Boston Globe -- again, good quality reporting. There's a Breaking News page as well. Indeed, their breaking news is great.

PLEASE POST LINKS TO FOREIGN MEDIA. I've been searching, but I simply don't know the names for any English foreign media, save the BBC.

Boston.com is listing that Daniel Lewin, co-founder of Akamai, did in fact die in the WTC plane crash

Boston.com is listing that Daniel Lewin, co-founder of Akamai, did in fact die in the WTC plane crash

I hope that in the future people will read about morons like you in the history books and shake their heads at your willful stupidity in the face of overwhelming evidence.

I am a great believer in perpetual reform and just as annoyed by bureaucratic paperwork as anyone else, but willful stupidity in the face of evidence is also annoying. Capitalism works well only in a carefully constructed cradle of law and regulation (Russia being one case in point). Greed is not good. Where there is greed there is no vision and, not to coin a phrase, those who forget history are condemned to repeat it.

While working for Elcomsoft Co. Ltd. of Moscow, Sklyarov
came up with ways around those restrictions so electronic
books could be transferred from one computer to another or used in
text-to-speech programs, for example.

Such programs are legal in Russia but banned under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Wow, talk about irony... This is the top story on CNN, the same day that they launch their new format that tries to show you *six* different stories at the same time. It's funny watching this story being reported by the anchorperson, while the other five sections of the screen flash and scroll around.

GWB is killing the Earth!

Oh, you didn't know the test missile had a GPS transmitter on board? Well, you do now.

Oh, you didn't know that MOST THIRD WORLD NATIONS WOULD USE THE GPS SYSTEM TO GUIDE THEIR MISSLES?
Well, you do now.

Remember folks, it's ILLEGAL TO RECORD COPS WHEN THEY PULL YOU OVER... at least in Massachusetts. See this story for more details. Only YOU have no privacy when you're on the job.

Boston Globe:
Adobe shifts, urges hacker's release

CBS News:
Hacker Held Under New Law

ABC News:
Russian programmer arrested at hacker convention for alleged violation of copyright law

MSNBC:
Adobe seeks release of Russian programmer arrested at Def Con

New York Times:
U.S. Arrests Russian Cryptographer as Copyright Violator
Arrest Raises Stakes in Battle Over Copyright
Protesters Target FBI Nominee Over Russian Arrest
Adobe Opposes Prosecution in Hacking Case

Those all seem pretty mainstream to me.
--

There's also a story over at The Boston Globe but it doesn't add much if you've been following along.

There's another piece in today's Boston Globe business section

...can be found in this morning's Boston Globe (story link here)

I seem to remember them increasing their delivery charges a while ago, and they're still struggling, but they're not out of business yet.

Any techies in Washington State or Oregon should see if their company has an agreement with First Tech Credit Union. Very nice credit union; I've never had any problems with them.

"What are we going to do tonight, Bill?"