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The software maker will compete 'the good old-fashioned way, with innovation,' he said.

Innovation?!

That's not the 'good old-fashioned way' of Microsoft that we all know and love!

This type of thing (which occurred just the other day) is the 'old-fashioned' way:

"Microsoft Corp., already under government scrutiny over its behavior toward competitors, told manufacturers of iPod-like portable audio devices that under a new marketing program they would not be allowed to distribute rivals' music player software but pulled back after one company protested." - [more]

They dont care about what YOU pay for gas. They do care how much money these guys make.

No matter how much money you have, you still get just one vote.

Please. Cheney. Bush. Halliburton. Brown. Money has everything to do with it.

Incompetence.

This is part of a string of bad moves from FEMA. Brown is a serial Incompetant. This is a man kicked out of the International Arabian Horse Association for gross stupidity.

FYI:

Why is Michael Brown the head of FEMA?

The answer is simple enough: because he was the previous director's college roommate.

The federal official in charge of the bungled New Orleans rescue was fired from his last private-sector job overseeing horse shows. - BoingBoing

Link

This isn't exactly what you are talking about, but it surprised and interesed me all the same: China need for trash insatiable.

Next, taking advantage of FREE rainwater or drilling a well will be seen as a "Leftist" (read; untaxed) action.

Open Source software just raises the bar. Nobody charges for a simple notepad like application--that becomes the standard or "base". The value you get by just having a computer. Open Office, raises that bar, so that a presentation and a document are the basics of what you get when you buy a computer.

This only forces "Solution Providers" and software companies to raise the bar to try and persuade customers that they provide enough value that it is worth paying for. That sounds like market forces to me.

It is interesting that, with the almost Zero cost of producing copies of software, that most "decent" applications, cost about $500 (the ones you might base a business on). And that this now exceeds the average cost of the computer. You are still going to need about 3 or 4 applications (like content manager or PIM, database, document and presentation, and a decent email/calendaring application for a Salesperson, for instance) to actually be productive.

The hardware is a smaller portion of that cost. No complaints. But is cheaper computers a sign of "Socialism"? No, that is real competition and improvement that we like in Capitalism. Software being, in general, impervious to deflationary costs savings, points to the Network Effects of Monopoly, and is the sort of capitalism that government needs to regulate so that Capitalism remains beneficial to the populace.

So, I see OSS as a consumer response to balance Oligarchy forces in many First World nations like the United States. OSS might have just remained the province of geeks and hobbyists if the government were doing its job.

I can see a parallel with this and the move by the Minutemen trying to guard the boarder with Mexico. This is like Open Source Security, due to the fact that the government is more persuaded by business interests than consumers and so therefore only makes a pretense of securing our quality of life and rights. I don't know if the Minutemen are vigilantes or the absolute right sort of patriot who says; "enough, I'm taking government into my own hands." But I know that almost every report is calling them "Yahoos" and "Vigilantes" --so it is likely they are responsible and doing the right thing. Now, pretending that they are securing the border and not preventing the citizens from ACTUALLY securing the border; here is the NeoGovernment response

But I do firmly have the opinion that those who create Open Source Software, are the sort of citizens that we need. Those that seek to give more than they take. Who want to make things better more than see what they can get. More my sort of Patriot and hero than those normally paraded about. Is sacrifice and civic responsibility "socialist" unless it is part of a Church function? I think that is the real talking point.

which, in a decision like this, is probably all that GM did look at, and they were going to pencil out at a loss of say $1000 per vehicle, nobody would blame GM for killing the project.
if all you look at is the money that failed to get even a safe transit solution for a project that wasted public money on this scale: The Big Dig project began in 1991 with an initial cost estimate of $2.6 billion, a figure that has since ballooned to $14.6 billion., you have to ask, whether you hate govt subsidies or not, why we wouldnt bail out electric car manufacturing instead of incompetant civil engineering firms. A generous allowance for unexpected costs would still have capped the big dig at 10 billion, the remaining 5 billion would have got 5 million electic cars on the road at a subsidy of $1000 each.

That's odd; the New York Times just bought half of the Boston Metro, a freely distributed paper.

Well, how about a new Teddy-bashing quip then? I have to admit that whistling up a taxpayer-funded helicopter ride home to the tune of $2490.00 on the taxpayer's dime is better from a public safety standpoint than letting that fat old drunk sit behind the wheel of a car.

Coating a room with petroleum jelly has already been done.http://news.bostonherald.com/national/view.bg ?articleid=28242

--
Free iPod Photo. Not a scam. [freephotoipods.com]

The Pop Music Industry. Not a scam.

Well, that makes a little more sense, anyway. I could see the controversy from using GPS phones as a work monitoring device. From the blurb for the pay story, it seems like the drivers agreed to carry the phones, and that they are private contractors (rather than direct public employees).

The somewhat more abbreviated Boston Herald story says that the employee was "middle-aged". An AP story (by way of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer) examines the controversial aspects of work monitoring via GPS in somewhat more detail.

But what exactly did you mean by "twisted shit"? If I was making light of anything, it was of the Slashdot propensity for misapplying technologically-derived maxims. You will notice that I characterized the truck driver's conduct as a crime.

"While Abu Ghraib is definitely an abuse situation, there were no cases of rape involved,"

You never read the reports. Senator Linsey Graham fo South Carolina _is_ on one of the committies who did have access to the reports, and his report contradicts yours:

.
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said the scandal is ``going to get worse'' and warned that the most ``disturbing'' revelations haven't yet been made public.
``The American public needs to understand, we're talking about rape and murder here,'' he said. ``We're not just talking about giving people a humiliating experience; we're talking about rape and murder and some very serious charges.''

Reprinted here this morning.

You're more right than you know....

http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg ?articleid=54629&format=

But then, why do you need to go outside at all?

http://www.nbc4.tv/news/3938951/detail.html

Every time somebody says we should have a licence for people to be able to use computers, I get to thinking: Yeah? What good have licences for cars done us for keeping the incompetents off the roads?

There are signs that 'staying home' may not be the economically 'safe' thing to do anymore. This has nothing to do with outsourcing or offshoring, and everything to do with the imminent collapse of the debt-bubble in the US.

The DOW, as of yesterday, is up one-half of one-percent from the beginning of the year. Investors are starting to look elsewhere. Meanwhile, some fairly respectable economists are starting to see only a 10% chance of avoiding a coming economic meltdown - I don't just mean the little recession we just had, I mean a serious change in the standard of living.

Kerry's home toilet paper, the tabloid Boston Herald, hasn't endorsed anyone yet either.

C'mon -- you don't think that Ig Nobel prize was just a coincidence, do you?

Pres Bush says no to a draft.
Kerry has proposed increasing the size of the military by 40,000.

Let's see THAT in China!

Some current and former members of the Massachusetts congressional delegation, privately, have viewed Kerry as a ruthlessly ambitious pol light on personal conviction ? a bit of a phony, in other words.
Kerry has always been an elusive figure, a complex man who rarely opens up to anyone outside a small circle of close advisers, family and friends.
One senior adviser once told me he loved working for Kerry because he would do anything ? whatever it took ? to win.

Too much is at stake to play by Dukakis' rules and lose again. That is the conclusion Democrats have reached. So watch out. Millions of dollars will be on the table. And there are plenty of choices for what to spend it on.

Will it be the three, or is it four or five, drunken driving arrests that Bush and Cheney, the two most powerful men in the world, managed to rack up?

After Vietnam, nothing is ancient history, and Cheney is still drinking. What their records suggest is not only a serious problem with alcoholism, which Bush but not Cheney has acknowledged, but also an even more serious problem of judgment.

What if Bush were to fall off the wagon? Then what? Has America really faced the fact that we have an alcoholic as our president?

Or how about Dead Texans for Truth, highlighting those who served in Vietnam instead of the privileged draft-dodging president, and ended up as names on the wall instead of members of the Air National Guard.

Or maybe it will be Texas National Guardsmen for Truth, who can explain exactly what George W. Bush was doing while John Kerry was putting his life on the line. Perhaps with money on the table, or investigators on their trail, we will learn just what kind of wild and crazy things the president was doing while Kerry was saving a man's life, facing enemy fire and serving his country.

But the vitriol also reflects the fact that many of the people at that convention, for all their flag-waving, hate America. They want a controlled, monolithic society; they fear and loathe our nation's freedom, diversity and complexity.

Over the years, Kerry endured jokes that his initials stood for "Just For Kerry."

Some current and former members of the Massachusetts congressional delegation, privately, have viewed Kerry as a ruthlessly ambitious pol light on personal conviction - a bit of a phony, in other words.

Kerry has always been an elusive figure, a complex man who rarely opens up to anyone outside a small circle of close advisers, family and friends.

One senior adviser once told me he loved working for Kerry because he would do anything - whatever it took - to win.

This just happened a couple of months ago.

Steve Gardner didn't like Kerry because Kerry didn't like him, allegedly cussing him out when he mowed down a little twelve year old boy who he said had a gun, upon which Kerry rushed out, looked up at Gardner in the boat tub operating the 50 caliber machine guns, called him a son of a bitch, and said, "I ought to court martial you." No, that didn't make for a fast friendship.

But every one of his crewmates but this one man...every one, had glowing words of praise for John Kerry, saying things like: I knew back then in Vietnam that the skipper, John Kerry, was bound for high places. Stand up for John Kerry the same way he stands up for veterans. He took care of all of us...he really did. He made good decisions, I believe proper decisions, and the fact that we all returned alive is a good indication that they were the right decisions. Always, when there's a new guy on the boat, you check him out...It only took me a few days...we knew we had somebody special that cared for us...we bonded! What I saw back then was a guy with genuine caring and leadership ability who was aggressive when he had to be. What I see now is a guy who's not afraid to tackle tough issues...and he knows what the consequences are of putting people's kids in harm's way. I figured with the abilities he had, he was going to go high, but I didn't have any idea about him running for president. Humble seaman. The decisions that he made saved our lives. He never shot from the hip when it came to decisions...he'd always confront problems head on. I never saw John back down from anything. He wouldn't let you go randomly down the river shooting up everything in sight.

The One And Only

When Swift Boat Veterans For The Truth leapt out to savage Kerry's military record, I thought they'd have more people who actually served with or on Kerry's boat. Here was O'Neill on Monday:

"We have 19 of 23 officers who served with [Kerry]. We have every commanding officer he ever had in Vietnam. They all signed a letter that says he is unfit to be commander-in-chief," O'Neill said.

Somewhere in there, I thought they'd have actual people who served with Kerry. You know, to add some shred of credibility to the obscenely partisan attack on his record. Via the Boston Herald:

The only of Kerry's crewmates to criticize him, Steve Gardner, yesterday said Kerry "made indecisive moves'' that put their boat in jeopardy.

But Kerry crewmate Drew Whitlow called that charge "totally false.'' "They're entitled to their opinions, (but) I served alongside him,'' Whitlow said.

Yes, of the people to actually serve with Kerry, a single one is now criticizing him. Of the people who had direct knowledge of his actions and activities, only one is speaking out against him. Out of two hundred people plus in this group, only one actually served with Kerry. That, to me, says more about this entire enterprise than anything else.

I just don't understand. Its one of the the most public,

Sure.

most newsworthy

Not really. John Kerry mathematically wrapped up the Democratic nomination by winning enough delegates over 4 months ago. He's been campaigning as the nominee since then. Voting to officially nominate him at the convention is just a formality (and an excuse to party.) They'll also be approving the official Democratic party platform, which should be a matter of "All in favor? Good. Any opposed? Done and done." It's already been written, so I would imagine any lengthy discussion about it has already happened.

and best covered events happening, and everyone's in a twist about the governement having a few cameras there as well?

Actually, there's also been a lot of discussion about trash cans, mailboxes, random bag searches, and a fairly major road closure for people north of Boston during the DNC.

BTW, I should mention I live in Massachusetts, although luckily I won't have to go anywhere near Boston during the convention. I still may be affected by the bag searches, at least, since I take the Commuter Rail to work.

I just don't understand. Its one of the the most public,

Sure.

most newsworthy

Not really. John Kerry mathematically wrapped up the Democratic nomination by winning enough delegates over 4 months ago. He's been campaigning as the nominee since then. Voting to officially nominate him at the convention is just a formality (and an excuse to party.) They'll also be approving the official Democratic party platform, which should be a matter of "All in favor? Good. Any opposed? Done and done." It's already been written, so I would imagine any lengthy discussion about it has already happened.

and best covered events happening, and everyone's in a twist about the governement having a few cameras there as well?

Actually, there's also been a lot of discussion about trash cans, mailboxes, random bag searches, and a fairly major road closure for people north of Boston during the DNC.

BTW, I should mention I live in Massachusetts, although luckily I won't have to go anywhere near Boston during the convention. I still may be affected by the bag searches, at least, since I take the Commuter Rail to work.

Don't forget folks, it's not only the Republicans who are itching to strip your rights away. Massachusetts is about as Democratic as you can get and they're in on it too.

-S

The U.S.'s own weapons inspectors don't agree with you and insisted that not only could no WMD be found, but that all evidence indicated that no WMD had existed in the first place. Our weapons inspectors are highly trained professionals, quite capable of detecting the traces of WMD storage, their means of production, and evidence of the presence of materials required to support weapons programs in general. The inspectors also enjoyed the benefits of an impending threat of U.S. military action should any doors be closed to them. If you are also a trained weapons inspector with similar resources and access to Iraq, or if you have an informed analysis to offer on the weapons inspectors' findings, I would be interested to hear what you have to say on the matter. However, I suspect you are not an expert on the logistical intricacies of producing and transporting WMD while "hiding" their chemical, biological or radioactive indicators "somewhere in the desert", so I'll stick with the official conclusions if you don't mind.

You refer to the actions of a "Head of State", meaning Saddam Hussein, as justification for the war on Iraq. Specifically, which actions are you talking about? Any and all claims made by the Bush administration that Iraq posed a threat (immediate or otherwise) to the United States have been thoroughly debunked by subsequent uncovering and investigation of the facts. There were no WMD. There were no significant Iraqi ties to Al-Queda (Our "friend" Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, not only tolerates their presence but promotes their extreme religious views in the national education system and refuses to disrupt their funding). If there remains any justifaction for spending further U.S. blood and treasure on this tragic misadventure, please let me in on the secret. I would like to believe that our boys (one of whom is my recently enlisted nephew) are not dying in vain.

Regarding the nature of documentaries: Moore's films are unusual in the sense that, unlike many documentaries, they are mostly outright position pieces. However, that fact does not weaken nor even speak to the content of the film. The term "documentary", as a film genre, means nothing more than "non-fiction", as opposed to fiction or drama. After all, people refer to Errol Morris' films as documentaries without being challenged on that choice of label. Yet Morris' films are hardly of the classic, journalistic, "objective" style. In fact, he employs many of the same cinematic techniques used in main-stream Hollywood pictures but, because his subjects are real people and events rather than actors and fictional screenplays, the result is easily accepted as "documentary", just as Moore's films are. To call something "propoganda" (not that you used the term, this is merely a "preemptive strike", you understand), you have to address its content and show it be in large part untrue. If you can provide some kind of precedent or professional opinion which supports your narrow definition of "documentary" as a work that must provide a counterpoint in addition to a point, I invite you to do so.

You link to an article on typepad.com which claims that John Kerry lied to get one of his three Purple Hearts and that some of his old "buddies" from Vietnam, the Swift Boat Vets for Truth think he's unfit to be President. The SBVFT was formed in May, 2004 and "leadership and guidance were provided by Republican activists and presidential friends from Texas -- notably Houston attorney John E. O'Neill and corporate media consultant Merrie Spaeth", according to Joe Conason of Salon.com. Dr. Louis Letson is the sole source for the Purple Heart story, but he was not the attending physician for the wound in question, according to the Navy's medical records. These are the only sources mentioned in the typepad.com article and both have been thoroughly discredited.

Reasonable Suspicion can also come up in a political sense. Say I'm at a protest, standing around peacably but I or someone around me is wearing black, or lookingat the cops, or looking at the sky, etc. That would probably be enough to provoke "reasaonable supicion" that I am committing a crime, have just committed a crime or am about to commit a crime since I am, after all engaged in a protest.

At this point the cops would be free to demand my name and thus compile a list of "troublemakers" or arrest me for refusing to identify myself when I have done nothing wrong. This sounds like a handy tool for the suppression of dissent and the shutting down of peaceful protests.

Before anyone argues that this wouldn't happen I would point out that a) in the 1960's the FBI ran a program called COINTELPRO In which they devoted a great deal of time to spying on peaceful civil rights protestors especially Martin Luther King who they sought to "neutralize" as a civil rights leader.

More recently New York City began denying permits to protestors during the period of the Republican National Convention (aa here, Boston Announced plans to shut down roughly 40 miles of roads in and around the city for "security reasons" See also here here also for the choice quote "What is about to happen in Boston is the continuation of the democratic process and the American way, at a time when the country is at war,"

Lastly, during the G8 summit in Georgia, the governor declared a State of Emergency before the summit even began. This executive order made it possible for U.S. Military units to operate in the city and to photograph and harass all residents. See here, here, and here to see how peaceful protestors are treated in San Francisco.

This post isn't directed at the parent but rather most of the tin foils that fly off without RTFA.

From papersplease.org:
Dudley was standing around minding his own business...

No, actually, he wasn't. According to this AP article, he was having an argument with his daughter. The cop didn't randomly approch him demanding ID, he was investigating a disturbance.

Did anyone even read the first line of the case:

Petitioner Hiibel was arrested and convicted in a Nevada court for refusing to identify himself to a police officer during an investigative stop involving a reported assault.

Further in the report:

The sheriff's department in Humboldt County, Nevada, received an afternoon telephone call reporting an assault. The caller reported seeing a man assault a woman in a red and silver GMC truck on Grass Valley Road. Deputy Sheriff Lee Dove was dispatched to investigate. When the officer arrived at the scene, he found the truck parked on the side of the road. A man was standing by the truck, and a young woman was sitting inside it. The officer observed skid marks in the gravel behind the vehicle, leading him to believe it had come to a sudden stop. The officer approached the man and explained that he was investigating a report of a fight. The man appeared to be intoxicated. The officer asked him if he had "any identification on [him]," which we understand as a request to produce a driver's license or some other form of written identification. The man refused and asked why the officer wanted to see identification. The officer responded that he was conducting an investigation and needed to see some identification.

The officer was investigating a reported disturbance, not approaching random people demanding "papers". Actually, I'm surprised this even made it to supreme court. You are obligated to identify yourself when you are under suspicion of commiting a crime. Ever been pulled over for speeding? Hell, in this case the officer even stated the fact that he was conducting an investigation. The only weak point I see here is that it (the case document) doesn't quote the officer stating the exact nature of the investigation or informing Hiibel that he was under suspicion. All it says is that he "was conducting an investigation".

I agree the outcome of this case is a blow to civil rights, however, I think the events that lead up to this case have been blown way out of proportion. In the 33 years I've been around, I have yet to see police officers approaching random people demanding "papers".

Yeah, I'm posting this a day late so no one will probably see this post anyway...

Uh, no. "Four lanes will be open today, but eventually there will be five." Boston Herald

-FL

The ratio will vary from paper to paper, but I think that consistently you can assume that advertisements are paying for the bulk of the cost for any media.

In some arrangements, advertisement is high enough that the cost for the product is actually free -- radio is free, broadcast television is free, basic cable channels are "free", etc. In other cases, the audience pays for some or all of the cost that goes into production -- subscription fees for newspapers & magazines, the additional cost of premium cable channels, etc. In still others, the publication takes little or not commercial sponsorship, and the audience has to bear the cost explicitly -- think "Consumer Reports", public broadcasting, and technical publications like scientific journals (aren't "Science" & "Nature" each in the ballpark of $1000/year?).

If you look at things in terms of "following the money", then most media are not there to deliver a product (information, entertainment) to the audience, but to sell that audience to their sponsored advertisers. The only [partial] exception I can think of is public broadcasting, where the audience is the sponsor, and is begged for money several times a year. But really, that's not an exception -- that's just making the dynamic that's always there more visible to the general public.

This dynamic sheds a lot of light on the advertiser/subscriber ratio that goes into the costs of any media, including newspapers. The idea is that a non-paying audience is worth some value N, but a paying audience must be more valuable, because the act of paying a subscription fee demonstrates that they actively want this product. That's why, of the three biggest newspapers here in Boston, the Globe & Herald are both fifty cents per day, but the Phoenix has experimented for the past few years with not charging anything for a copy. This has probably increased their readership while impacting their income; if they can sell that larger audience to their advertisers, then maybe they come out ahead anyway -- I don't know. But for the other two papers, I'm sure that both (and every other fee-charging paper in the country/world) are using their paid subscription population as a bargaining chip with advertisers.

So putting all this together, web publications are just another point on the spectrum. Since very few sites have managed to do well with a subscription model (WSJ.com and Salon being maybe the most prominent attempts), most are leaning towards the advertising end of the spectrum -- just like radio, TV, and the "Boston Phoenix". This is a model that has been used for many decades now, so it's not like the web is just starting to "catch up" with traditional newspapers. Indeed, since most newspapers have seen steadily declining readership for the past 15 years or so, its not necessarily that the web is learning the newspaper world's tricks, but that one is coming up while the other is coming down. Maybe.

More optimistically, I prefer to think that the web is starting to mature & hit its stride, and certain areas are beginning to become self-sufficient & even profitable. Not all, obviously, but we're moving beyond nonsense like Pets.com :-)

(Note that, even though I happen to work for a newspaper's site, I don't speak for my employer. Moreover, I'm not giving away anything that I didn't learn in media studies 101 in college -- the economics of mass media is a well studied & analyzed subject. Just to be clear about that

is not spotted by not eating pork, but by drinking and whoring

NOW we're talking needle in hay-stack...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A213 40-2003Feb3.html
http://slate.msn.com/id/2078104/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A167 19-2003Feb2.html
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/035/oped/Rebuild ing_the_dream_of_space_exploration+.shtml
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/editorial/17 63385
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/editorial/68231. htm
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,482-564534 ,00.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/03/opinion/03ALDR.h tml
http://www.msnbc.com/news/867640.asp?0cv=KB10
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Artic les/000/000/002/204pkfxj.asp
http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101030210/sctone. html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A134 74-2003Feb2.html
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/editorial/ 5086944.htm
http://www2.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/bev02 022003.htm

Because a little piece of paper called the US constitution defines freedom of speech as something the "government" may NOT take away NO MATTER HOW IMPORTANT a situation is.

Well, unless you shout fire in a crowded theater.

Or, they classify what you say (or write) as obscenity, which is illegal.

Or, maybe they'll just convict you of conspiracy, though you've committed no actual crime.

Or, they'll hold you and your friends for 12 hours and search your car, because of what someone thought they heard you say.

Yeah, God bless America. Land of the free^H^H^H^H.

"Giving up some freedom can in fact give you some security, and we all do it all the time. I am not allowed to go around shooting people - if I do the cops come and arrest me. This is a compromise of my absolute freedom, but one that I (and the vast majority of other people) are very happy to make."

That's not giving up freedom so much as it is respecting the freedom of others - in this case the freedom to live. If you want a case study in why giving up freedom for security does not work, take a look at Israel. Their entire population is forced into military service, soldiers patrol the streets at all times with orders to hold anyone who appears suspicious, and now they're building a giant wall around themselves.

Looking at all that, the "let's trade some freedom for security" people need to understand something about the Israeli government's tactics. They are not preventing the terrorist attacks.

Our best defence against terrorism is, and has always been, our freedom. That's why Al Qaeda hit us instead of Israel. That's why we continue to be a target - our freedom scares the hell out of them.

I think Billy just checked himself into rehab. Not that it has much to do with the point that you're making.

pbs:frontline

boston herald

That said, he's all for seeing it again as a bunch of us do a men's night this week ... provided we can get tickets!

BTW, here's a review I read on Epinions that includes some quotes and some of the order of battle from the book, Black Hawk Down ... that make for some informative reading for potential movie-goers.

epinions:black hawk down

According to this Boston Herald article, a likely reason for this particular date is that today was the sentencing date set for one of Bin Laden's cronies, which was to be held in the federal court building not too far from the WTC buildings.

(The link is fairly slow but the entire article is worth reading.)

I doubt econoboxes are driving insurance rates up. The insurance industry has gone back and forth over this (for higher rates: safety, theft, higher liability, cause more deaths, etc.; against: safety for occupants). Allstate and Progressive charge more for SUVs while State Farm gives them a discount. Given that they waste about $250 a month on ego. For people to claim that SUVs are safer, they are only looking at from the aspect of being an SUV occupant in a crash. They are actually dangerous if you are in a car and are hit by one. Given that SUVs are less maneuverable and take longer to stop due to their mass, you probably have a better chance of avoiding an accident in a car. Since 85% of them aren't being used for what they are designed for, it is a waste. For most people, having a SUV in a metro area is just plain DUMB (let's have one person commute ina 10-15mpg vehicle, take up two parking spaces, or can't fit in some parking garages [a guy at work can't park his Excursion in the garage because it's too tall]). I can think of better things to spend my money on.

Could you please post some links to information about these two cases? Thanks!

Here, or here, or just search on google.

This kind of crap is nothing new. The only thing new about it is how egregious governments are becoming about it. Now, they no longer need to lie and say it's to build a road, or expand a school. Now, they'll just come out and say it's so we can hand it over to a developer to build a shopping center.

At first I thought this guy was trolling, 90% for IE? *shudder* Then I found this.
Switch to Windows and IE? You'll have to pry Linux and Netscape from my cold dead hands.
On another note, it scares me to my core that 90% of the web may be surfing with VBS enabled.

In this Boston Herald article there is a definite assertion that the War on Drugs isn't quite working the way the tax-spenders wished it would. I particularly like the line: "Beer is certainly the drug of choice," it's amazing to see how many people still think alcohol isn't a drug just because it's socially accepted.

This quote about the D.A.R.E. program was definitely true for me: "As a sixth-grade child, you think you're not going to use drugs. But when you get older and are put in a different situation, things change." Anyone else??

teeheehee == substance.use(pot, beer);

--
Everything you've just read was poetry and art - no infringement!
(Discordia) :: Hail Eris!

This Boston Herald story speaks of the judge's decision. I can't help but think in all of this, knowing that Boston Herald is more regarded as a right-winged newspaper, where's the other side of journalism when it comes to newspapers like the Herald? It barely even mentions in it that the hackers had a purpose other than allowing all the "smut" to get to the "children's fertile and formative minds"...

How can we increase the awareness of the journalists on issues pressing our rights to learn more about insiduous programs like CP? The people who are in authority over deciding the fate of things like this (like judges and senators) need to be briefed on our issues, and they won't go out to wired.com or slashdot.org to appease a non-existant craving for knowledge on why what they're doing may have a larger ramification than they realize. They'll just stick to the newspapers and columns they read anyways...

My point is, though both sides of the story exist, and we all have our personal beliefs laid out, it doesn't do any justice until our representatives and people of power make decisions for our rights...

Just my 2 centz.

--
BlackHat Linux 6.66 (Discordia) :: Hail Eris!
Dan Kissam e-mail: teeheehee@yahoo.com

I'm with you. I haven't read a decent slashdot comment in a looong time.

...of course, the other alternative is to cremate her, smoke her ashes, and get stoned, incidentally jamming radio frequencies.

...but, that sounds more likely than waiting for some good slashdot moderation.

Please, moderate this *story* down, so we can get some News already.

Actually, here, I'll help. It's POSSIBLE SLASHDOT STORYTIME, boys and girls!

Let me just search through the OBITUARIES real quick.

OH MY GOD! Did you know that at least FOUR important people DIE in every MAJOR CITY in every AMERICAN NEWSPAPER, every DAY?!?!?!

I'll list a few here so you'll all be posted for tomorrow.

Seattle

Boston

Grosse Pointe

This just in: Only famous people in America in big cities *actually* die!

And you can read all about it in Slashdot! "News for Nerds; Dead people that Mattered".
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Posting Anonymously Out Of Slashdot Community Mistrust.