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You should know that you need to check you brain at the door here on /. anything that makes one rethink their leftist leanings will NOT be tolerated here.

Search this for 'Brooklyn Bridge' - http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/12/16/politics /main1132556.shtml

I know many here would be screaming bloody murder if this attack had happened and they would all be pointing their fingers at W. But when a plan is foiled like this it still not good enough.

I'd LOVE for some blowback on the misuse of the Patriot Act and things like this, and that should be a condition of the Patriot Act's renual. Accountability is key, and right now I don't see any.

I don't think u have any clue what u r talking about, here is a link from CBS news that might help u to even begin understanding the IITs.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/06/19/60minute s/main559476.shtml

From the article:
It isn't just high tech. The head of the giant consulting firm McKinsey & Company is an IIT grad. So is the vice chairman of Citigroup and the former CEO of US Airways. Fortune 500 headhunters are always on the lookout for that IIT degree.

Oh man, fuck Christmas.

Seriously - are you kidding me with this "There's a war on Christmas" bullshit? FOX News wasn't raking in enough cash already from all the Christmas commercials for Kill 'em All Barbie and Girls Gone Wild Brand Toddler Gear ? They had to start publishing books about some bogus attack on Christianity? And who did they pick to lead this particular charge?

John fucking Gibson. This guy has wiener written all over him.

Bill O'Reilly gets all the credit as the biggest nutcase in FOXville, but Gibson really deserves his own special wing in the happy house. This motherfucker's embedded assignment reads "Up Karl Rove's ass."

What makes him such a dick? I mean, besides making a fortune by screaming hysterically about how oppressed Christians are by the other twenty percent? How about advocating bombing countries that don't vote the way we want in their own elections? Way to encourage democracy, fuckhead. And maybe he was kidding when he wished, on air, that the French had gotten the 2012 Olympics instead of the Brits so the terrorists would "blow up Paris," but it might have been just a touch over the top to call for it again on the day of the London train bombings. Classy move, asshole.

And really? That's just scratching the fucking surface. Anyone remember who was responsible for the bombing of the Federal building in Oklahoma City? John does: Iraq. And speaking of Iraq, Gibson thinks Rove deserves a fucking medal for outing that CIA agent. And, like any good reporter, he wanted to burn the Florida ballots after his buddy Bush got "elected" rather than, I don't know, count them? "Is this a case where knowing the facts actually would be worse than not knowing?" That right there is why sometimes it's useful for journalists to go to, what do you call that fucking place? Oh yeah, journalism school.

And now he's all worked up about Christmas being stolen. What is this, the fucking Fairytale Network? It's a national fucking holiday and we're spending gobs of our hard-earned tax dollars on wreaths and lights for your special Santa day. But these bastards are all "But they call them Holiday trees!" Here's a clue: no, they fucking don't. Ok, maybe in a couple places, like on FOXNews.com and at the White House, but if Christmas is under attack, I'm Kris fucking Kringle.

And guess who's stealing Christmas, according to Gibson. Go on -- guess. "A cabal of secularists, so-called humanists, trial lawyers, cultural relativists, and liberal, guilt-wra

Here in Washington state, it's still perfectly legal to have sex with horses, but draw Bush's head on a pike, and the secret service will show up.

Did you know....

1. 80% of all votes in America are counted by only two companies: Diebold and ES&S.

http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/ 042804landes.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diebold

2. There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or oversight of the U.S. voting machine industry.

http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0916-04.htm
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/ 042804landes.html

3. The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are brothers.

http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/private_comp any.html
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/ 042804landes.html

4. The chairman and CEO of Diebold is a major Bush campaign organizer and donor who wrote in 2003 that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/28/sunday/m ain632436.shtml
http://www.wishtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=1647886

5. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel used to be chairman of ES&S. He became Senator based on votes counted by ES&S machines.

http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2004 /03/03_200.html
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/031004Fitraki s/031004fitrakis.html

6. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, long-connected with the Bush family, was recently caught lying about his ownership of ES&S by the Senate Ethics Committee.

http://www.blackboxvoting.com/modules.php?name=New s&file=article&sid=26
http://www.hillnews.com/news/012903/hagel.aspx
http://www.onlisareinsradar.com/archives/000896.ph p

7. Senator Chuck Hagel was on a short list of George W. Bush's vice-presidential candidates.

http://www.businessweek.com/2000/00_28/b3689130.ht m
http://theindependent.com/stories/052700/new_hagel 27.html

8. ES&S is the largest voting machine manufacturer in the U.S. and counts almost 60% of all U.S. votes.

http://www.essvote.com/HTML/about/about.html
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/ 042804landes.html

9. Diebold's new touch screen voting machines have no paper trail of any votes. In other words, there is no way to verify that the data coming out of the machine is the same as what was legitimately put in by voters.

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0225-05.htm
http://www.itworld.com/Tech/2987/041020evotestates /pfindex.html

Here's another one, but this time, the fine proposed was the $11,000 per violation maximum.

Makes you wonder why DirecTV is getting off so easy...

In Europe we have our own way of doing things, just for shits and gigles

Why bother actually going to space when you can just do this, it's the answer, nobody has ever thought of faking it before! Genius!

Fair enough.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/01/17/60minute s/main536999.shtml
http://archives.cnn.com/2001/HEALTH/05/07/nursing. shortage/

I guess this means nurses own the media, universities and every other organization that has measured nurse to patient ratios in hospitals, too. Either that or the people who work there have been in the hospital at some time and have been blackmailed with the option of printing the nurses' side of the story or dying from poor care (how wude!).

In either case you'd be better off shaking your appendix with joy and welcoming your registered nurse mistresses, than claiming there isn't a shortage...

Lots of kids and grandmas are getting their hands on multi-core consoles within the next year (XBox 360 = 3 processors, PS3 = 8 processors, Nintendo Revolution = 2 processors maybe). So game authors are going to be figuring the 3+ core game out soon, and Microsoft and Sony are betting money on that fact.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/o ctober/16/newsid_2535000/2535301.stm
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/11/23/politics /main1070503.shtml
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/2000/vi etnam092799.htm

Need more? Use google you ignoramus fucktard.

There's a lady whose car was towed by the government because she owed $37 in back taxes. There's tax collectors going around running plates and if you owe taxes, they take your car.

"but I think its safe to say that assuming everything will magically right itself is betting on the long shot - there's really no evidence for such a thing"

oh noooooooooooo! Bush lied to me... AGAIN!!!! http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/06/03/tech/mai n510920.shtml

My dad works on this stuff.

Just like patriot, they shoot stuff out of the sky.

Pretty freaking amazing.

Well, hopefully not just like Patriot

I'm glad you brought this up. Johnny Carson was such a person. If you ever heard Ed McMahon or any of the handful of people who knew Johnny well, they would all say that Johnny was a very private, introverted person. He had a very small (5 or so?) group of very close friends.

However, if one only knew of The Tonight Show one would think that Johnny was an extrovert. He wasn't.

For a bit of insight where he talks about his shyness, you can read this interview he gave to Mike Wallace of Sixty Minutes back in 1979.

You are correct, the original post does not imply all Christians are fascists. However, the statement is still clearly implying a correlation between Christianity and Fascism. It is similar to asking the question "If you found out George Bush cheated in college, how would that affect your opinion of him?", the question doesn't say he DID, but it certainly means to leave the reader with that thought.

As for Canada's health care, here are a few links you might be interested in reading:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/03/20/health/m ain681801.shtml?cmp=EM8705
http://www.nationalcenter.org/TPHealth18.html
http://www.heritage.org/Research/HealthCare/hl856. cfm

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/11/08/politics /main1027281.shtml

Nobody bothers to ask how many other votes there were already in the system or what happened to them? Who was in charge of putting in
the votes? How many people's votes did he input? Who did he have them vote for? Why didn't he purge them after the test? How many other people did the same, and how many votes were left in the systems? Why isn't the media asking these questions? This would be a scandal in any other country in the world. USA election systems are PWNED by the Bush crime cartel.

http://nightweed.com/usavotefacts.html

The US elections are clearly fraudulent and thus should be considered invalid. Even by the lowest of banana-state standards. Why is no accountability taking place? Why don't Americans care if a criminal cartel is running their country? They're paying the bill sooner or later for the shit they are letting these people do to them.

here is one example i can remeber specifically: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/06/19/60minute s/main559476.shtml

csi claims they use real techniques and real forensic science in their program.

csi's official homepage has "online reference" they use to bolster this claim.

and csi's claims to be using real techniques and real science are impeding real cases.

true -- people are stupid, but CSI has an ethnical responsibility to make it clear their program is entirely fiction. the producers deliberately chose to mislead their audience into believing their program is scientifically and technically accurate in the name of profit. do you want a jury loaded with CSI propaganda judging your case?

Over here in England, there's relatively little gun crime. Due to the 1997 ban on handguns, guns any more lethal than hunting rifles or shotguns (which need licenses to possess) are very expensive (if you can find someone to vend one to you) and will get you detained at her Majesty's pleasure for a good long time if they catch you with one. Ball Bearing guns are treated in a manner similar to switchblades - they aren't allowed out in public, and threatening somebody with them is likely to get you in serious trouble.

Less than 10% of the police force is armed, and these particular officers are only deployed in emergencies like bank heists, terrorist alerts and the like. As a result, firearms aren't leaked into society through the police force (check the firearm saturation here. Homicide levels in the USA were 5 times what they were in the UK (admittedly, the survey was carried out about a decade ago and the number has been falling, and both countries use slightly different methods for deciding what's a homicide and what isn't, but 5 times?).

In my opinion, all this stuff about video games causing murderous feelings to arise is down to a few isolated incidents, where it's the gun that causes the deaths, but games are cited as the reason. It's not as if this type of media hasn't been blasted in our faces since the first action movie. The argument that 'games make you the killer' is nonsense - they're people on the screen, and all the gamer is doing is moving control sticks.

• When you're searching for fingerprints (a computationally-intensive task) you don't put every image up on the screen - you don't even store imagery, you store an encoding of the fingerprint and compare encodings (numbers). In reality it's done by humans, not computers.
  
• You can't zoom-in infinitely, or even much. Why people think crappy security cameras are "better" than their personal digital zooming cameras is beyond me. You can't "clear up" an image when it's zoomed-in, you already have all the data. The best you can do is some thresholding/sharpening/convolution operations...
  
• Results take days or weeks but definitely not minutes.
  
• There are not unlimited manpower resources to throw at every problem.
  
• Cameras cannot see around corners without the aid of a mirror.
  
• The reflection off someone's eyeball is not sufficient information to read a car numberplate.
  
• There is usually more than one place in a city where a given tree type grows.
  
• The city databases are not (a) completely correct, and (b) anywhere near as pervasive as portrayed.
  
• ... ad nauseum.
  

Since Wal*Mart is the largest company ever, in the history of the world...I thought that maybe you knew a little bit about it.

In fact, Wal*Mart's revenue last year was $288 billion (dollars, U.S.).

As a comparison, take a look at this chart.

If Walmart were a country, it would rank 14th in terms of size of economy. In fact, financially it is over 5 times larger than the economy of the entire country of New Zealand (which judging from your link, is where you live.)

So I just assume that someone who reads up on current issues, and is even just slightly aware of world politics and/or economy would know something about Wal*Mart.

If you don't know anything about Wal*Mart, you might want to look into it. It *will* be affecting your life soon, because the world is getting smaller, and they are the biggest global powerhouse company.

Whether it be a store opening near you- or the price of wool dropping because of the price pressures Wal*Mart puts on manufacturers, very few people are NOT affected.

Or, you can just stick your head in the sand.

Could not find list prices for Vietnam. I should say, I found http://www.microsoft.com/vietnam/licensing/pricing / but it's in Vietnamese and I did not quite study that language / alphabet.
I have worked for a Microsoft distributor in an Eastern European country in the early 1990's and the list prices for localized software were around 10-20% from the US prices if my memory serves me right. The US version was still at the US price.
For Southeast Asia, I found this article
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/06/08/tech/mai n621724.shtml
showing how Microsoft dropped prices for an XP Home + Office XP bundle from 19500 baht to 1500 baht (USD 38). Yes, it's a special offer for the Thailand's Information and Communications Technology Ministry, but you can see the discount range they will go to in a poor market.
If Microsoft sells in Vietnam at US prices, they are lunatics - but they have been working in the international market for too long of a time to be that stupid.
The article (and the summary) seem to me to be faulty research accepted without any attempt to check its validity. Just because someone properly cites its sources does not mean that their data is the right data or their conclusions are correct.
Anyway, without a english version of the Vietnam price list we cannot analyze this further, and I do not have one.
Happy Posting.

Google is your friend:

• Is this ossuary proof of Jesus, or is it spurious?
• Was James' Ossuary Found In Israel? The Story Of A Really Neat Hoax
• The Stone Box
• Burial Box of St. James Found?
• Experts Say Burial Box for 'Brother of Jesus' is a Forgery

I'm getting a bit tired of MIT getting press for research that has already been done years ago. In this case in particular, see the Dobelle Institute: here , here , and here , for instance.

Seriously. Don't exacerbate the inflated delusions of these guys by pretending that their research is unique or "cutting-edge". Expect more of them.

Let me know how testing your theories work out.

According to this poll 55% of Americans believe that God created humans in present form. 47% of those had voted for Kerry, so it's basically a non-partisan belief. I'll bet that in Kansas, at least, these people get voted right back into office.

Ok. As I said earlier, it seems to me that this is not a statistically useful subset of the classification of "smart people." Most smart people aren't scientists let alone "eminent scientists." I almost wonder if the results are absolutely extreme because some extremely smart people literally get what is known as a "God complex" which could effect the way they answer that question.

Another study mentioned in Scientific American, September 1999, did a study that gave different numbers for people with B.S. degrees and those considered to be "eminent" scientists. It gave 40% of people with B.S. in sciences are religious and 10% of eminent scientists are religious.

Again, that just seems extreme. This article mention that 83% of Americans believe in the virgin birth of Jesus which (apparently) is three times more than the number that believe in evolution, 28% (I'm suspicious of that 28% number, but whatever). It even says that 47% of non-Christians in the U.S. believe in the virgin birth of Jesus. Then there's this article from just last month that says 51% of Americans believe in creationism, 30% seem to believe in what could be considered ID, and only 15% believe that Godless evolution is correct. Interestingly, someone here suggested that it's not surprising that "most people" disagree with me--it turns out, that same article suggests that most Americans do agree with me: 67% believe it is possible to believe in God and evolution at the same time. It seems the person that took issue with me and tried to depict as being in the minority is, in fact, in the minority himself.

Anyway, with such overwhelming numbers I have a hard time believing surveys that suggest that only 40% of B.S.'s are religious (although if they define "religious" as "going to church at least 3 times a month" then, sure, that's a different story). Although I guess a popular elitist position that some people at Slashdot would probably take is that "Well, 90% of Americans are as dumb as a rock" so it's entirely possible that 83% of Americans believe in the virgin birth of Jesus but only 40% with degrees believe the same thing. I think a lot of Americans are apathetic in general but I don't think that they're necessarily as stupid as would be required for the 83% figure and 40% figure to both be right.

As for 93% being too high of a number, I agree that even I am a little skeptical of that number. But while I too know quite a few people from college that I consider scientists, none are on the caliber of even being nominated for the National Academy of Sciences. So any anecdotal evidence that I have would have no bearing on the caliber of people that this study used.

Like I said, it would be inaccurate to draw conclusions about the beliefs of "smart people" based on such a select group as the NAS which is not at all representative of "smart people" in general. The B.S. survey you mention is closer to what we need, but I'd still need to see the methodology to accept the 40% figure.

A few other studies include one done George Gallup in 1995. In this gallup poll it shows that 53% of people who have attended college believe that religion is important in their life while 63% of people with no college feel the same way.

Going to college doesn't make you smarter, it makes you more knowledgeable. It also tends to make you more liberal and more atheist, at least temporarily. That's why I would want to see the same results broken down by age to see how much of that 10% difference "bounces back" after a few years out of college.

Also 48% of people who make $50

What?! You don't follow the Gospel of Andy?

Sad that piddling language parsing, legalese, even copyright are what the American Thinkers have to trot out to "win" the debate with the American Believers. How did the intellectuals lose this one --> we had the religious sitting in public classrooms for decades, being taught science and certainly being taught evolution, with blind religious belief kept strictly separate from the curriculum.

Now, less than half of the U.S. "believes in evolution?"

Even I grew up in conservative Catholic schools, but I was taught evolution. It's not as if the majority of Americans were taught creationism in school. We've lost this battle on two fronts: in the classroom, obviously, where we're in complete control and we've no excuses, and then in the churches and temples across this country.

This is a massive, historic failure by American intellectuals and American education. Scientific methodology, philosophy, nay critical thinking have not been adequately communicated to the tens of millions of people who now also believe they, their country and their president "lead the world," "police the world," and are the world's "only Super Power." We have a Believer for what they call "the leader of the free world."

Here's a thought: 99% of us reading and writing here loved science and math class, we couldn't get enough of it. I still see some sigs here and there with "Jesus saved me and he can save you, too" appending an otherwise critically considered opinion. Generally speaking though, we're not blind Believers.

So I'm preaching to the choir, in some respects, except that rather than preaching I'm really saying: we've failed, failed the American people and in some regard the world, for at least one entire generation. What are we going to do about it?

It could be as simple as communication. Maybe the thinkers should learn to play organs and guitars, write some melodramatic music and stories about the origins of the universe, life and humankind. While marching around with candles and holding up portraits of Great Scientists, we can explain the afterlife (worm pudding), but in a comforting way ( maybe some of Thanatopsis?). We can discuss modding, karmatic /., and maybe Newton's third law of motion (action, reaction) so the congregation understands justice in a critically considered and organized nature.

If we dress science up a bit, teach it as Truth (not as right or wrong, but as critically considered and open minded). We could strongly recommend that all people, for all their life, attend a science class every Sunday morning.

I'm willing to propose that if families regularly attended science class together, we would all enjoy a more reasonable, and more peaceful world.

As much as we intellectuals have failed to "save" the believers, we can take a hard look at where this country has been since 2000 and say undoubtedly, that even moreso the believers have failed us all. Are not the biggest sinners walking this earth today also those most loudly denouncing sin?

BG

In fact in the last few years with commander kuku bananas in charge theyve made it even more prevailent.

According to a CBS News public survey, 51 percent of Americans don't accept evolution. Note that the nationwide sample size was just 808 adults and that the error rate could be plus or minus four percentage points.

Fifty-one percent of Americans say God created humans in their present form, and another three in 10 say that while humans evolved, God guided the process. Just 15 percent say humans evolved, and that God was not involved.

These views are similar to what they were in November 2004 shortly after the presidential election...

Americans most likely to believe in only evolution are liberals (36 percent), those who rarely or never attend religious services (25 percent), and those with a college degree or higher (24 percent).

White evangelicals (77 percent), weekly churchgoers (74 percent) and conservatives (64 percent), are mostly likely to say God created humans in their present form.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/10/22/opinion/ polls/printable965223.shtml

Someone already did: Wal-Mart Loses Unpaid Overtime Case

No, and that is kind of the point. No, the US does not want two nations famous for their censorship of the Internet to have any more control then they already do.

The problem is that whole attitude you've just displayed of "we are righteous, fair and unblemished, and everybody should just do as we say, because we're so right", when in fact, it's all just alienation, lack of self-critique, and cultural isolation. Because, looking at the US from the outside, and looking at things like the Patriot Act, and Guantanamo, I'm not so sure China is so terrible by comparison. Sure, you don't have a single party regime. You have a two party regime! :-) Wow :-) Oh, and you're brain washed by a bad educational system and by violent video-games and movies that have portrayed large groups of brown-skinned individuals as hate-mongers and evil-doers, to be terminated by Soldier Hero. That, my friend, is called Indoctrination. And you had it in China. And you have it in the US. Face it. Look at it. Admit it.

The argument that the US invented the internet is riculous, and therefore, it has "more rights over it" is ridiculous. It is like saying all doctors can't use the scalpel because some guy, from some country, invented it.

Consider that neither do the peoples of the world want a crucial technology like the internet to be in the hands of a nation that arrests journalists that don't kneel to the government, that schemes against and slanders the UN on a periodic basis, and does that as a policy, that promotes pre-emptive wars based on lies, disrespects basic human rights (including kidnapping people abroad, turning them to torture, and abusing prsioners), and that creates some ill-begotten evil thing like the Patriot Act, etc. The fact the Bush administration is worried about this issue already shows which side to choose.

The US is widely mistrusted, for all the right reasons. For instance, if you read the 2002 World Bank World Survey on Trust, conducted with 36,000 people around the world, you'll find that people trust leaders of the U.N. much more than they trust the leaders of the U.S.
Also, in 2003, Time Magazine conducted a poll with more than 700,000 responses with the question: "who poses the greatest threat to world peace?" Options were: 1) North Korea; 2) Iraq; 3) The United States. The US was the answer chosen by 86%. (See here).
In another international poll, in 2003, the BBC found that 60% of the people "had a very unfavourable, or fairly unfavourable attitude towards the American President."
And more up to date, two new world polls from 2005 show the same phenomenom: A poll from here and here show thats the U.S. is "broadly disliked." The last poll, (see here and here), with 23 countries and 23,000 interviewed during 2004, shows that the U.S. comes out last in "positive contribution". And we're not even talking about countries that nest the majority of terrorists. Can you imagine what those feelings are in, say, the Middle East?

The US has a bad reputation, image, and track record. And North-Americans wonder "why"? How about playing along with others, respecting global decisions, promoting health and education (instead of war) and promoting democracy through peace and social change, the only everlasting change. The internet is a crucial asset to the 21st century, and like the printing machines, it's a technology that belongs to mankind. Sorry. Live with it.

"In the aftermath of Sept. 11, President Bush ordered his then top anti-terrorism adviser to look for a link between Iraq and the attacks, despite being told there didn't seem to be one.

"The charge comes from the adviser, Richard Clarke, in an exclusive interview on 60 Minutes." -- CBS News

If he wasn't lying, that's because he was already convinced that Iraq was responsible. The facts be damned.

Read about the firestorm that the politically-correct liberals like Walter Cronkite caused when someone wanted to put power-generating windmills in Nantucket Sound near Martha's Vineyard:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/06/26/sunday/m ain560595.shtml

http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/clevey/?i d=110002097

Note how a Kennedy opposes it here:

http://www.grist.org/news/powers/2002/12/19/grisco m-windmill/

Fricken' hypocrits. Nothing like a leftist environmentalist to tell everyone what's good for them, until it interferes with the view from their $10 million estate on the Vineyard.

And speaking of Kennedys, Martha's Vineyard, and submarines:

Q: Who do you get if you cross Mario Andretti and Jacques Cousteau?
A: Teddy Kennedy

Has Tom DeLay or Bill Frist or Karl Rove actually killed anyone?

This article cites China, South Africa, India and Brazil.

If you read about it, the U.S. government is far, far more corrupt than the average person thinks. Huge amounts of money are borrowed and embezzled. Some people say the money is not stolen, but it somehow makes it to the pockets of the rich, making the rich richer.

The U.S. government is very violent: History surrounding the U.S. war with Iraq: Four short stories. The violent way is preferred because it is more profitable: Ike Was Right About War Machine. ("Ike" is former President of the U.S. and former Supreme Commander of Allied Forces General Dwight D. Eisenhower.)

Here is the same video, but with no transcript, and it requires watching a commercial: Andy Rooney on the Iraq War. Here is an MP3 file of the same broadcast: Andy Rooney on the Iraq War. Here is a transcript from the publisher: Ike Was Right About War Machine.

The U.S. government is for sale to whomever has money: Unprecedented Corruption: A guide to conflict of interest in the U.S. government.

From reading about the U.S. government, I've found that many agencies operate efficiently and sensibly, but that the corruption caused by the military-industrial connection is more than one person can completely understand, there is so much material.

When an editor decides to rewrite the copy, it helps to make sure the meat is still there -- in this case, the actual link to the article.

So that other people don't have to waste time like I did, here are a few assorted articles on the topic (some are marked as specifically from the AP):

• http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/10/08/tech/mai n927858.shtml
• http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=1214 73
• http://www.suntimes.com/output/tech/cst-nws-traffi c16.html
• http://www.heraldnewsdaily.com/stories/news-008609 0.html

Just because there is vocal minority of complete dumbasses who claim to be of my religion doesn't mean I am one of them. It also means that you cannot lump me in with them.

Wrong. These polls clearly show that the "complete dumbasses" you speak of actually comprise between 40 and 50% of the population. Since the population is not at all 100% Christian (lots of atheists, agnostics, Jews, Pagans, and even Hindus here), it looks like a minimum of half of American Christians are Creationists, probably more. So cut the "vocal minority" crap. You're the minority, buddy. Generalizing Christians to be Creationists is perfectly valid as far as I can see.

Your non-6000YOE Christians are in the minority, according to these polls.

Non-Creationist Christians have been trying to defend themselves a lot lately, saying that they're in the "silent majority", that the Creationists are a fringe minority, etc., but it's all a lie. Polls clearly show that the majority of Christians believe in Creationism, and don't believe in Evolution.

So please cut it out with the "silent majority" crap. The Creationists are a vocal majority.

According to these polls, the religious right (at least the ones who believe in Creationism) are almost in the majority, and are about half of the country's population.

This guy's personal experience with Christians is very much indicative of the general opinions of most Americans now. The Christians who aren't Creationists are in the minority.

The report you sited only carries weight if the supposed misconceptions presented are really misconceptions. Many would say that these are not misconceptions, misinformation, or misunderstandings, but instead fact. Unfortunately, as with many liberal polls, the content of the poll is biased and based on false pretenses and is worded in a way that is only meant to deceive.

Also, let's keep in mind that this poll is based on three supposed misconceptions. I'm sure all would agree that all political sides have true misconceptions, but the poll does nothing to address which political party has the most. Instead, they have done their best to craft a poll that would smear those that watch Fox or that might be politically right-leaning. That's why Alternet and Inter Press Service aren't known for being "Fair and Balanced" like the Fox News Channel is.

True or False?

-US troops found evidence of close pre-war links between Iraq and the al-Qaeda terrorist group

True. The poll's circumstantial assertion that it wasn't US troops that found the Iraq-Al Qaeda link goes to show how insidiously deceptive this poll really is. Regardless if US troops found evidence of this (and I'm pretty sure they did), the link between Iraq and Al Qaeda has been proven in a court of law.

Saddam Hussein's Philanthropy of Terror
http://www.husseinandterror.com/

Court Rules: Al Qaida, Iraq Linked
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/05/08/uttm/mai n552868.shtml

-Troops found weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq

True. A small amount of illegal chemical WMD weapons was found in post-war Iraq. It is believed that any other WMD that Iraq may have had were either destroyed or moved out of the country once war was obviously imminent.

Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the DCI on Iraq's WMD
http://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/iraq_wmd_2004/Comp_ Report_Key_Findings.pdf

-World public opinion favored Washington's going to war with Iraq

Likely false.

While world public opinion may have been against the US's pre-war position on the Iraq invasion, the US public opinion was in favor. Again, the poll attempts to deceive by slightly changing true facts to fool those taking the poll into believing another question was asked.

THE SECOND UN RESOLUTION: A BATTLE FOR PUBLIC OPINION
https://www.brookings.edu/comm/events/20030226.pdf

Conclusion:

You liberals are truly pathetic low life scumbag losers of the world that can't be satisfied with the facts as they are, but instead have to try to shape the facts to fit your perverted and deeply flawed mentality.

You sure paint a rosy picture of American Christianity. While I wish things were more like the way you have portrayed them here, the numbers just don't support this.

America is a big place, with a lot of people (nearly 300 million now). It's one of the most heavily populated countries on Earth, only behind China and India to my knowledge. While you may not know or have run into a lot of fundamentalists and Creationists, this is simply because you don't run in those circles, or maybe you live in an area where they aren't quite as prevalent. Believe me, they're here, and they're numerous. Don't believe me? Poll results support me:

Last year a CNN Poll found that more Americans supported Creationism than Evolutionary theory. According to this poll, a full 55% of the population believes this way. That's a majority.

Here's another link I found on a religious website: link. The numbers are a little lower (45-50%), but the results seem to be more accurately categorized according to specific beliefs (fundamentalist/Creationist, theistic, naturalistic), and exactly what those categories are are better described. According to this poll, your theistic (but not Creationist) compatriots are outnumbered by the Creastionists. We naturalists are in the tiny minority with only about 10%.

While it would be nice if the extremists were just a tiny minority, and the majority were moderates like you, this simply doesn't appear to be the case in America today.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/10/12/tech/mai n937689.shtml

China does not send direct Foreign Aid to the United States. China does buy US Government Bonds, to finance the US Government Debt. That is not the same as sending direct economic aid. Is financing the US Debt a bad thing for the US? That depends upon your point of view. If the US President was interested in the future of my country, he would simply raise taxes to pay for all of the expenses he is incurring. That would reduce the size of the Deficit and have the resulting impact of reducing the dependency upon Japan and China for financiing the deficit.

My original post was written to remind everyone that China is spending about $1 billion to launch this spaceship (see the end of this article), while it receives significant economic development aid from the World Bank. Where are China's priorities?

It's not that people are stupid. Everyone around here likes to use this excuse to seperate themselves from the masses. Americans are not stupid.

If navies start using these toys, then it wrecks the sea creatures' hearing, making survival (hunting, avoiding predators) impossible. In the worst case, the damage done can kill them outright. And not just in the immediate area, but for hundreds of miles around. Never mind Japanese whalers, the US navy could wipe out whole speices of whales overnight with this stuff if they decided to us it on a big scale.

This problem has been around for some time now: 1 2 3 4 5.

My question, though, is - WHY does the US need this shit ? I mean, how much does the US really rely on its navy these days for national security. Its not like Al Quaeda or even the Iranians/Syrians/North Koreans/[insert-this-weeks-axis-of-evil-member-her e] could do any conceivable damage to a US warship (unless maybe a suicide bomber managed to sneak onboard). Maybe the Chinese or Russians, but really, does the US really NEED this new level of naval capability with the technological lead it already has ?

The people who would take a flight like this, at least initially, would be the kinds of people who could be given a special pass to speed through security and baggage check: business executives, financiers, wealthy celebs, politicians (excepting senior senators from Massachusetts), and the like. In a world population of six and a half billion, there's only a few thousand of these people, maybe a couple tens of thousands at most, who would be using this flight as a speedier replacement for private or company jets. With this relatively miniscule customer base, it wouldn't be hard to prescreen them all.

Hell, airlines already have the apparatus in place with existing programs: "When they make the cut, Global Services members are issued a black Global Services card, a leather-bound welcome kit and phone numbers of agents trained to see after their needs. Then the fun begins. The chosen ones are escorted through the security line and ushered into secret waiting lounges..."

And besides, for some of these people, time is the most valuable asset they have. Shaving a few hours off a flight, even supposing they still have to endure the rubber gloved finger in the ass, is a priceless extra few hours they can spend with their families, their consorts, or whatever.

When video games were invented, the rate of violent crime started to down.

Which violent crimes went down? Drive-by shootings increased. School shootings have increased. Incidents of kids shooting at cars on the highway have increased. Incidents of kids who kill three cops in the police station then state "Life is like a video game." have increased.

The problem I have with those who argue against bills such as these is they have pretty much one argument: "nuh uh".

I am Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, U.S. Army, (Retired). My expertise in the area of human aggression and violence includes service as a West Point psychology professor, a professor of military science, the author of a Pulitzer nominated book and numerous peer reviewed encyclopedia entries on this topic.

It is my professional opinion, and it is the opinion of major experts in this area (such as the American Medical Association (AMA), the American Psychiatric Association (APA), the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), the American Academy of Mental Health, and the Surgeon General), based on extensive research, that violent video games are harmful to children. Legislation to rate these games, and enforcement of the ratings in order to keep the violent games out of the hands of children, is essential to the safety and security of the population of New York. The games that permit a child to hold and aim a gun, and fire it at humans, are particularly harmful, since these devices teach shooting skills. They are firearms training devices at best, and murder simulators at worst.

The counter? You're flamebait, d00d!

The falling rate of violent crime to which you refer includes random street muggings, assault and battery, whuppin' drunks in a bar... actions which are violent but not intended to or likely to belethal. There may be fewer people getting beaten in a dark alley, but I'll take 5,000 of those to a single Columbine. And the violent crime index is suspect anyway: Atlanta demonstrated that cities aren't above falsifying reports in order to look better.

Hey you!! Don't copy that floppy!! -- The Software Publishers Association

You wouldn't steal a purse would you? Downloading pirated films is stealing!! - anti-piracy advert

"Ahh, your a land developer? Please.. Have a seat.." -- Your elected officials

"We have documented more than 10,000 instances of government taking property from one person to give it to another in just the last five years."

the plaintiffs argued that it was not constitutional for the government to take private property from one individual or corporation and give it to another, simply because the other might put the property to a use that would generate higher tax revenue.(They Lost)

eminent domain today has degenerated into a means for politically connected developers to steal peoples' homes

Remember kids, it's not called stealing unless you are poor..