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No, I don't question Moore's sources, I question the fact that he fails to list sources and quite often takes his source material out of context to spin it to an entirely different meaning. I tend to prefer the actual source instead of the lame edited and watered down "this is what I want you to think as I shove my opinion or lie down your throat version."

CBS news department itself (hard to take that for granted) was the source of the example here (the link to the PDF document from the site I sourced is a cbsnews.com address - it is coming direct from the horse's mouth) their own timeline of the election shows they made the statement at 10:00PM, where Fox new's own video shows the 2:16AM reversal from them. But, Moore chooses to ignore these readily available facts and make up his own version of history based on his agenda. This is called historical fiction, not documentary.

To prove the point that Moore twists the clips in the edit room to lie, let's look at the following clip from the movie:

Condoleezza Rice in Fahrenheit 9-11 (speaking to Charles Gibson on CBS's The Early Show following President Bush's trip to Baghdad):

Rice: "Oh, indeed there is a tie between Iraq and what happened on 9/11." CUT FILM ON TO THE NEXT CLIP NO FUTHER COMMENTARY OR QUOTE FOR THE AUDIENCE TO SEE.

Now, in acuality, the entire statement Condi Rice made completely agrees with Moore's argument, so it does him no service to show the entire quote, instead he cuts one sentance out of context (there is a whopping 8 or so seconds more, so don't tell me he had to cut for time) and says "SEE - SEE LOOK AT THE LIAR, THOSE EVIL LIARS ARE LYING TO YOU AND I AM EXPOSING THE TRUTH, LOOK AT THE LIES!" while turning a simple snip of the film into a huge out and out lie -

Actual unedited quote which is 180 from the statement that Moore makes the audience believe (Emp. added):

Rice: "Oh, indeed there is a tie between Iraq and what happened on 9/11. It's not that Saddam Hussein was somehow himself and his regime involved in 9/11, but, if you think about what caused 9/11, it is the rise of ideologies of hatred that lead people to drive airplanes into buildings in New York."

I quess it would be easy for me to point out that when Moore was on Fox News earlier this week, he was asked if he felt that American's should pay 75% of their income in taxes, and responded with "Yes, definately" - that should win him some real brownie points with the workaday Joes in the US. All I had to drop out was the word Multi-Millionaires from the question (Should American Multi-Millionaires pay...) and it looks like he is saying all American's should pay 75% of their income as taxes - but hey, I'm no propogandist, I leave the Bullshit artisty to the fat multi-millionaire who is one of the working people just out to expose the truth with no agenda at all in mind.

Why go to such lengths; didn't they catch someone last year using only simple watermarking? Is there any conclusive evidence that the academy members are responsible for enough piracy to make this worthwhile?

Carmine Caridi, an Academy member and acting veteran, was caught sending tapes to a man he said he thought was a film buff, who had been redistributing them on the internet.

Theres an AP story that's a little shy on technical details, but the watermarks were how this was uncovered.

Seriously, this sort of thing might be great for our soldiers in the field, and in my little optimistic heart I'd really like to think that something like this could exist in our country without being abused by the "Total Law Enforcement" crowd. I mean, the US *should* be able to operate that way, what with having Constitutional protections and all that.

Given what's been going on recently, however, it seems like only a matter of time before somebody justifies using it on Americans on the grounds of terrorism prevention (after which, of course, everything will become terrorism of one kind or another). I mean, the USA is suddenly in the business of above-the-law prison camps, war without end and other awful little things like abusing the prisoner (in a non-masterbatory context), and all it took to get us to this point was the deaths of 3000 Americans.

Does anyone really doubt that looking through the walls of people's homes will be next?

If you RTFA, and then read this, you will see that what the two cars do is quite different. The Prius requires quite a bit of user interaction, whereas the system engineered with Volvo appears to require very little driver interaction, as well as the flexibility to be applied in vehicles with different steering systems.

Interesting that you should mention Bill Gates. We hope to have the chance someday to make him eat his words...

How about this amatuerish effort.

Perhaps the winning bidder?

What amuses me is people who think that voting for Party B will make any difference in how the candidate acts after the election. You don't pick your candidates, people. The parties do. And the parties are a bunch of political inbreds who have their own agendas and don't really care what you think. They know each other, they live with each other, and you're some faraway 1/5,000,000 vote share.

Once you get an electorate past a certain size, there's no way a large group of people can have any real control over the elected, or for that matter understanding of. The highly motivated insider has the information, the spare time, and the resources to manipulate events, and frankly, you don't.

And neither does Mickey Moore. Or Alex Jones. Or anybody else who stands outside and says "Oooooh! Oooooh! Look at the corruption!" Just about everyone has more important fish to fry in their own lives, which means they can't spend all their waking hours on politics, which means the politicians (and the movers and shakers behind them) can do pretty much whatever they want.

As to voting for Party B, meet the new boss, same as the old boss. The only difference is Party B seems to pass more domestic legislation than Party A, so while the world stage may improve slightly (or not) the local stage will stink.

Ultimately, the only answer is political decentralization, but even if you did achieve that, the first master manipulator to come along could wreck it in a month. Other than that, don't know what to do.

But hey, don't listen to me, I'm neither an establishment player or a media darling. By a long shot.

"They're fucking taking all the money back from you guys?" complains an Enron employee on the tapes. "All the money you guys stole from those poor grandmothers in California?"

"Yeah, grandma Millie, man"

"Yeah, now she wants her fucking money back for all the power you've charged right up, jammed right up her asshole for fucking $250 a megawatt hour."

And the tapes appear to link top Enron officials Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling to schemes that fueled the crisis.

"Government Affairs has to prove how valuable it is to Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling," says one trader.

I, too, was wondering why you left the 2nd Amendment off the list, as allowing citizens to own firearms seems to be a prerequisite to guaranteeing them their other rights.

At any rate, Bush's is the first administration in many years to adopt, as official policy, that the right to keep and bear arms is an individual right - not a collective one. See CBS news.

If anyone want to engage in a serious study of gun rights as protected by the 2nd Amendment, I suggest reading this site in its entirety as a starting point. Then do your own research.

You're talking about quality of education issues. The grandparent, and I, were talking about social skills.

There are some parents that simply shouldn't homeschool. They use homeschooling as an excuse to just keep the kids home, or otherwise don't do a very good job of it. These kids can end up not having the skills they need to function in the real world.

A bad thing? Sure. Isolated to homeschoolers? Far from it. Huge numbers of children graduate from the public school system lacking the same skills. Why? They had bad parents! If you look at successful adults vs unsuccessful adults, homeschooled or not, you'll usually find that parenting, or a lack thereof, contributed to that child's development more than anything else.

Now I will link you to the results of a study that show 74 percent of homeschooled adults aged 18 to 24 have taken college-level courses, compraed to 46 percent of the general U.S. population. Link. In other words, a large majority of homeschoolers are going on to college, compared to less than half of everyone else. This tells me these parents are doing a better job than the teachers you place your trust in.

To further solidify my "value of education" argument, I'll link you to this CBS News article that says, and I quote:

"Homeschoolers have been in the news in recent years, taking top honors at events such as the National Spelling Bee and National Geographic Bee."

Doesn't look like their education is lacking at all.

Guess what, Sparky?

Sorry, that didn't mean anything to me. Was it supposed to?

Yes, you're a fool. You're a fool because you don't understand the very sentiment you're decrying.

I don't know I was decrying anything. But please enlighten me. What is the sentiment? (I wasn't aware of the Carl Schurz quote, and don't know the context. My remark was one of using the phrase as a form of jingoism.)

I've done that already. Why don't you read what I've already written?

I just skimmed it (what was left of it as some had falled off the end) and only found two sentences about that, which in fairness did offer some sort of explanation.

I did however find lots and lots of arguments in favour of the war in Iraq. (And the invectives 'fool' and 'traitor' used a lot). It would be interesting to hear your comments to Maj. Gen. Zinni's views as they differ from your own and I wouldn't think you to consider him neither a fool nor a traitor, given his background and close ties with the Bush administration.

"Support the troops" is vitally important because not everybody does, and we need to be mindful of that fact.

Being a foreigner I don't know exactly what that statement is supposed to mean, but if it means that once was/conflict starts then all internal critisism must cease then I know I don't agree, and neither does Gen Zinni (ret):

Zinni, who now teaches international relations at the College of William and Mary, says he feels a responsibility to speak out, just as former Marine Corps Commandant David Shoup voiced early concerns about the Vietnam war nearly 40 years ago.

"It is part of your duty. Look, there is one statement that bothers me more than anything else. And that's the idea that when the troops are in combat, everybody has to shut up. Imagine if we put troops in combat with a faulty rifle, and that rifle was malfunctioning, and troops were dying as a result," says Zinni.

"I can't think anyone would allow that to happen, that would not speak up. Well, what's the difference between a faulty plan and strategy that's getting just as many troops killed? It's leading down a path where we're not succeeding and accomplishing the missions we've set out to do."

Now, Zinni is a retired Marine Corps General (and the former envoy to the middle east). So I'd think that his oppinion on this matter carries some weight even among those that don't subscribe to the same 'pinko-communist-left-liberal-what-have-you' world view as the rest of us.

It seems that with average driving they aren't quite what you'd expect. The published mileage figures aren't for real world conditions. My properly maintained and driven 2000 Chevy Lumina company car with 92,000 miles gets 26 MPG with a combination of highway and city driving.

Read this Wired's story

"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain

So... how much will a Jabber-based or Gnome Meeting-based conference call or any of the other open-source IMing/conferencing systems cost?

Looks like AOL is giving us one of many reasons to quit AIM. Cleartext messaging is another big reason. Not that the NSA isn't recording everywhere, including our cell calls and can't break sophisticated communication codes anyway, but some modicum of an excuse for privacy might be nice.

One recurring theme I've noticed in recent years is that the idea of a "conflict of interest" seems to be only a quaint saying that is rarely if ever applied to real world situations.

Examples include Katherine Harris, Florida's Secretary of State also serving as George W. Bush's Florida Campaign Co-Chair, a bunch of oil industry executives deciding to annex on of the largest oil producing nations in the world, Cheney and Scalia going on hunting trips while the Supreme Court decides cases involving Cheney, U.S. Senators owning voting machine manufacturers and countless other incestuous links that even first year law students in the former Soviet Union would clearly recognize as causing the appearance of impropriety.

I mean c'mon, if you're gonna fuck us, at least *try* to be subtle about it! Is that too much to ask?

I agree with the points you are making, but I don't think it is proper to use the term "3rd world countries".

Third world countries? Are those countries with corrupt elections, corrupt judges, and corrupt government leadership?

Is a third world country one of those that is always making war on its neighbors? (The U.S. government has bombed 24 countries since the Second World War. The last Brazilian aggression outside the country was in 1822, I'm told.)

When you say "third world country" you give an impression that the U.S. is superior in every way. That impression is false. In general, Brazilians are much happier than Americans. People in the U.S. use more legal drugs than those of any nation that has ever existed. The U.S. is the most obese country in the history of the world; eating when not hungry is an index of unhappiness.

A higher percentage of U.S. citizens go to prison or jail than any country in the entire history of the world. For example,

President George W. Bush DUI, 1st record of arrest
President George W. Bush DUI, 2nd record of arrest

Vice-President Dick Cheney DUI, record of 1st arrest
Vice-President Dick Cheney DUI, record of 2nd arrest

SMTP has a security hole: any connecting client can assert any sender address. This flaw has been exploited by spammers to forge mail. The result: your mailbox fills up with bounces to messages that you didn't send. Close the hole, and we can easily block spammers by sender domain.

SPF closes the hole by using a DNS record that says which hosts can send email with a from address in the domain. The record is a simple TXT record that looks something like this:

<domain> IN TXT "v=spf1 ptr ip4:<address block> ~all"

What most of you don't know is that this is a Microsoft technology. Remember when Bill Gates said that he'd solve the spam problem in two years and you all laughed? Read this for the all the technical details. As it is an internet draft, this is completely patent free and anybody can use it.

SMTP has a security hole: any connecting client can assert any sender address. This flaw has been exploited by spammers to forge mail. The result: your mailbox fills up with bounces to messages that you didn't send. Close the hole, and we can easily block spammers by sender domain.

SPF closes the hole by using a DNS record that says which hosts can send email with a from address in the domain. The record is a simple TXT record that looks something like this:

<domain> IN TXT "v=spf1 ptr ip4:<address block> ~all"

What most of you don't know is that this is a Microsoft technology. Remember when Bill Gates said that he'd solve the spam problem in two years and you all laughed? Read this for the all the technical details. As it is an internet draft, this is completely patent free and anybody can use it.

The waste problem is not completely political. Check out this story about how there are thousands of tons of nuclear waste sludge in South Carolina that simply can't be dredged out and taken to some storage site in Nevada or Washington state.

What I think this is emblematic of: the people who run our nuclear plants are near-morons who don't think about the fact that eventually the plant will shut down and there'll be a lot of deadly stuff left over that there's no good way to dispose of. (And that's ignoring potential leaks or bigger problems when the plant is operating).

While we're on the subject, check out this article about fuel rods which some geniuses lost some time between 1978 and now (yes, it's pretty bad not to even know when you lost that sort of thing).

A few of my favorite highlights:
"would be fatal to anyone who came into contact with it"
"In 2002 a Connecticut nuclear plant was fined $288,000 after a similar loss. That fuel was never accounted for."

Advocates of nuclear power always say, "Well it'd be perfect if it was done right." Really though, we're pretty lucky the shortsighted and careless way in which the nuclear industry in this country operates hasn't resulted in more Three Mile Islands.

Terrorists blow things up and kill about 1/10th the number of Americans who die in highway deaths each year, but in doing do they stiffen our resolve and so never get anywhere near to changing our fundamental America values.

But dissidents and domestic trouble-makers can cause real problems for a regime that calls questioning its mistakes tantamount to aiding America's enemies.

Today is Memorial Day. I hope that all Americans will take time today to reflect on the costs of freedom and the American men and women in our armed forces who have paid for our freedoms with their service, their wounds, and their lives.

On this Memorial Day, let's really support our troops by following the advice of so many retired officers and men by insisting that "Robert S." Rumsfeld and his band of incompetent chicken-hawks resign -- or be fired.

Some of them thought this war was a bad idea from the get go. Indeed, it seems many of those who wanted this war the most never served at all. I'd trust a general who's been blooded - had his boys (and girls) die in droves - to think a little harder about sending more to die.

As of this week, Kerry is beating Bush by at least 53% to 39%. Unless the Traitor in Chief stages his October Surprise, it's a cinch that Americans will be cancelling this nightmarish Bush war in Iraq in November. As an American, I tell America what to do, along with my compatriots.

Here, read and learn.

Here is an article from the christian science monitor you should read before going on about the sarin. here
here is another one.

In a nutshell. Nobody knows if it's really sarin yet. There is considerable disagreement about how old the shell is. The weapons experts are saying that the sarin produced in the 80s (the supposed age of the shell) would have degraded by now.

Neither Kay, blix, bush, cheney, or rumsfeld claim that it's part of any arsenal.

So don't pin your hopes on this shell.

yes, this is a recent marketing phenom/fad:

bzzagent

cbsnews

"Popular but controversial 'open source' computer software, generally contributed on a volunteer basis, is often taken or adapted from material owned by other companies and individuals, a study by the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution finds."

I think the whole point of this was to get out the adjective "but controversial". The adjective was repeated verbatim in the Yahoo article without a quote attribution. That means that everyone who read it on Yahoo thinks that the reporter is making that characterization.

I think MS has a new strategy, one borrowed from the Bush administration: In the run-up to the Iraq war Bush and his cronies would answer every question about Iraq using the words 'war on terrorism' and 'september 11th'. Even though they never once claimed that Iraq was involved in 9-11, just from word association 53% of Americans believe Hussein was personally involved in it and 44% believe that most or some of the hijackers were Iraqis.

I think MS wants to put this word-association strategy to work for itself. By getting attack dog think-tanks to put out press releases connecting Linux with words like 'controversial' or 'unscrupulous' in the first paragraph, MS would be able to damage Linux's credibility without having to put forth an actual argument. If they can get their blurbs read often enough, it might even stick.

Ta-da!

I can't see the D in the picture.

I'm sure /. can solve this!

Yup, Apparently so. Luckily, the two recent ones are only temps. He still needs those meddlesome people in Congress for lifetime appointments.

Avoid The Faux News Channel, and you may learn that "The battle is over a relatively small number of judges. Since President Bush took office in January 2001, the Senate has confirmed 173 of his judicial nominees. But Democrats have used filibusters to block six nominees, including Judge Pickering and Mr. Pryor, to the appeals court, the level just below the Supreme Court."

Seems to me that the Democrats have handed the Republicans nearly every judge they've asked for. Talk about a rubber stamp.

= 9J =

He slashed defense and ran away from every armed conflict around the world. He gave no response to bombings of the USS Cole, the World Trade Center (yes it was previously bombed in an attempt to take it down), Somalia, the US Barracks in Kenya etc, which taught the terrorists they could kill us without response, which of course landed us with September 11.

• USS Cole - The attack was Oct. 12, 2000. This bombing was staged by suicide bombers, so it is a tad bit difficult to find them after they blow themselves into fish bait. There has been an investigation and arrest of someone who may have been involved in planning of the attack. Also, George W. could have done something about this in Jan 2001 when he took over.
• World Trade Center Bombing - there was something called a TRIAL and conviction that took place. They are meant to determine innocence or guilt. It is part of what makes America a great place to live. Ask Bush about Guantanamo. BTW, the trial was only on the news about every day for a year, so I don't blame you for not knowing this.
• Somalia - Dude, didn't you watch Blackhawk Down?
• US Barracks in Kenya (I'm assuming you meant US embassies) - Again, there was a trial and conviction.
• which taught the terrorists they could kill us without response, which of course landed us with September 11 - Since there WAS a response to every single action you listed, I'll simply address your "of course landed us with Sep 11" as more stupidity. How can you singly blame a single individual who wasn't even in office for 9 months when the act occurred? The acts of Sep 11 were committed by TERRORISTS and we (America) didn't stop it.

He took a great economy handed to him and tanked it in his final 2 years. Pahleease. Don't you remember the recession were we in when George Bush Sr. was in office? Presidents don't affect the economy as much as people give them credit for.

Now let me address the last point, about the prisoner abuse and beheading of Nick Berg. I watched the video of Nick Berg being beheaded. It was slow and brutal. It was an innocent man being beheaded by other selfish men who used him as a pawn in their game. The beheading was meant to be horrible and cause terror. It was much worse than the prisoner abuse we have seen. HOWEVER, the people who beheaded Nick Berg were terrorists and we are a country that advocates life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We have a constitution that forbids cruel and unusual punishment. We cannot use the actions of terrorists as justification for our mistakes. The terrorists do not set our moral standards. We do not live by their moral standards. The Iraqi prisoners were not even convicted yet. And, if they had been, they should still have not been treated like they were. Even if you don't agree the treatment was cruel it was certainly unusual. US Soldiers vow to uphold the constitution. The soldiers, commanders, and govt. officials who let this happen on their watch are just as bad as the terrorists who beheaded Nick Berg, because their job is to protect others. Terrorists kill others, so for them to behead someone is in their character.

Again, the beheading of Nick Berg was much more horrible than any prisoner abuse we have seen, but it is no excuse for our treatment of Iraqi prisoners.

In addition, Canada derives many economic benefits from being in a free-trade alliance with the biggest economy in the world. You may look at oil/gas exports to the US as a favor to us. Canada isn't _giving_ fuel to the US -- it's _selling_ it. That probably accounts for a good portion of the trade deficit that we currently experience with Canada.

Despite this, the sentiment that I see (and feel free to disagree with me here) is that many Canadians look at the US as some sort of necessary evil, or maybe even an enemy. It's hard to back this sort of thing up, but Googling "canada anti-american" will bring up enough links to at least prompt a debate. Here is a good starting point. My point here isn't to demand gratitude from Canadians. But given the benefits that Canada has derived from its proximity to the US, I'd at least expect warmer feelings from up north. You're right -- in the US, Canada is on the fringe of peoples' consciousness. People close to the border make benign jokes about Canada, and those farther away don't really think about it much. But maybe that's for the best. If we paid closer attention, we might lump them in with a chorus of nations (*cough* France *cough*) that seem to reflexively and hypocritically dislike us, and the benign neglect would become animosity.

"Assistant Secretary of Defense Charles Abell has a master's from Columbus University, a diploma mill Louisiana shut down. Deputy Assistant Secretary Patricia Walker lists among her degrees, a bachelor's from Pacific Western, a diploma mill banned in Oregon and under investigation in Hawaii"

These two, at least, are indeed just below cabinet level

Does this mean I should get an SUV

If you feel you need a penis extension, by all means do. Of course the risk of rollover and death is much higher in an SUV. The "feel" of being safer had repeatedly been shown to be just that: a feeling. Read more here

Pffl. Do you honestly think the percentage of GDP that is government spending has changed significantly in three years?

Yes. Do they not have newspapers where you live or something? One would hope you at least heard about Sept. 11th?

link
link
link
link
link
link

Yeah we all know that nuclear power plant security is infallible. But wait maybe its not. But I'm sure they will find this stuff or maybe not.
And then there is always this to worry about.

From

CNN:
"A draft of the new domestic security bill Ashcroft is seeking, published by a nonprofit government watchdog group in February, indicates that among other things, it would prohibit disclosure of information regarding people detained as terrorist suspects and prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from distributing "worst-case scenario" information to the public about a nearby private company's use of chemicals.
In addition, the measure would create a DNA database of "suspected terrorists;" force suspects to prove why they should be released on bail, rather than have the prosecution prove why they should be held; and allow the deportation of U.S. citizens who become members of or help terrorist groups."

The Patriot act, linked with the Homeland Security Act, has gutted the Freedom of Information Act.

From

Wired News Dec. 02, 2002
"One of the most egregious and potentially dangerous of these travesties is the Homeland Security Act's creation of new and very broad exemptions from the Freedom of Information Act. Businesses now have a new way to evade liability for safety violations, hazards to consumers and other abuses. They need merely report the information about their behavior -- even totally unclassified activities -- to the federal government, and claim it's related to homeland security. In the parlance of the Homeland Security Act, they declare the data to be "CII," or Critical Infrastructure Information."

In other News from the press: everything is classified now, and won't be released anytime soon. (See "Amendment To Executive Order No. 12958")
How much is this being used now?

Local News
"Federal agents sought 1,727 warrants from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for electronic eavesdropping and physical searches last year, according to a Justice Department filing with Congress. Just four applications were rejected, and two of those were later revised and approved. The number of so-called FISA warrants jumped by 500 from 2002 and has almost doubled since 2001, when 934 applications were approved."
"By comparison, there were 1,442 wiretap petitions in federal and state courts for crimes like drugs and racketeering, according to a separate report from the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts."

How much abuse has been identified?

Inspector general's report on Patriot act abuses:
( They *only* found 34 *credible* cases in the 272 complaints. But please remember, it's all secret and there is no public oversight.)
The ACLU issued a report on how the Patriot Act is actually being used. Link Here.
The Migration Policy Institute says:
'Moreover, among those detained (and of the 1,200, the MPI could only identify a third) were "persistent violations of due p

What's even worse is the fact that most internet users are still stuck on dialup! According to this recent article at CBS, 3 out of 5 internet users don't have broadband.

The very issue of security patches, their sizes, and the problems for dialup users trying to download them was covered here as well.

This is not the great wonder that it appears to be on it's surface. This product, ethanol, has proven to be a very hazardous when combusted. The byproduct of burning or combusting ethanol dissolves very easily in water, but leaves the carcinogens intact. Read the official report on what is is doing and has already done to our environment here at ChemCases,. The following is a link to an article on CBS News last month the makes that connection between Ethanol and MTBE and pollution; This is serious stuff and making this very harmful fuel even cheaper ought to have us very worried. Where are the articles on how to solve this problem, there aren't any because a solution doesn't exist yet.

That act was about campaign finance reform, and is aimed at leveling the playing field, not prohibiting speech. In that case, the goverment does not stop/ban certain ads or messages, it just provides structure so that all candidates have an equal shot at being elected, regardless of financial background. Read this article

We should be putting our brains in jars, not celebrating our limitations in some meatspace "sport".

I believe Ted Williams beat you to the punch when he had his head cryogenically frozen so he could later be cloned. And you say you can't apply science to baseball. ;)

Question 1: Retrain in what? Will the new jobs created by trading our jobs with India be created here?

During the 1980s, blue-collar manufacturing workers whose jobs were offshored were told to retrain in some other area, particularly knowledge jobs. Some did, most others moved into other blue-collar jobs such as construction, automobile repair, and other such jobs which aren't so easily offshorable.

Today, the message from economists and CEOs is the same: retrain in some other field. We know that jobs in programming, software-engineering, and most other fields of engineering (electrical, mechanical, chemical, etc.) are being offshored.

So what exactly does one retrain in? Let's look at the options:

* Biotech -- is there any reason that new biotech jobs can't be created overseas instead?
* Nanotech -- is there any reason that new nanotech jobs can't be created overseas instead?
* Medicine -- oooh, wait, radiology is already being offshored, and so are surgical jobs

Note that those are all technology-oriented jobs which do not require one's presence. What technology-oriented jobs require one's presence then?

* Auto mechanic -- for the few geeks who can tolerate working outdoors, with their hands, getting dirty, etc.
* IT technician -- the basically blue-collar guys who schlep computers around, run cables, and replace bad hardware
* Nuclear engineer -- because It Is Stupid to not have people on-site to prevent a nuclear plant from going boom in the event of an emergency

So, can the hundreds of thousands of software geeks who have had their jobs offshored retrain to be auto mechanics? Even if they wanted to, I doubt they could, and as cars become increasingly-reliable, demand for those jobs will decrease. IT technicians? We have a glut of them as it is. Nuclear engineers? This nation is too scared of nuclear power (thanks to Chernobyl and Three-Mile Island) for there to be much of a market for nuclear power.

So, what do we do? Just what jobs are there beyond "knowledge" jobs? If you assume that international trade (and preferably free trade) is a good thing -- as I do, due to comparative advantage -- then you must admit that many of these jobs can go overseas now thanks to the Internet's ability to send data worldwide at dirt-cheap prices.

Now, the standard economist's response to that is that "new jobs will be created as a result of trade." On the face of things, this is true.

But return to the fact that the Internet makes all jobs which deal primarily with information (instead of people) offshorable. Given that fact, what reason is there that the new jobs -- which WILL be created, just as economists tell you -- won't be created overseas, but will be created here in America? Again, is there any reason the new jobs -- which we can reasonably expect to see in biotech and nanotech -- won't simply skip the step of being created in America and instead get created in India first?

I wrote an email to one of my economics professors asking that question (and many others) recently. His response? "Gee, you know that's what interests me about economics so much - why do these things happen?" But he never really answered the question.

If a college professor in Econ. doesn't know the answer, who does?

Question 2: Education.

Often the advice to unemployed IT geeks is to retrain. Retraining requires education. Education requires years of time and money.

Simple question: Where does an unemployed IT geek *get* that money to retrain with, given the rapidly-rising costs of a college education?

Moreover, how can America -- which largely does not subsidize post-secondary education -- compete with foreign nations which do subsidize post-secondary education?

So long as this educational barrier-

Are you sure that we are talking about the same innocent iraqi civilians?

It's difficult to keep a cease-fire with these "innocent" people. Regardless of the basis for the war, there is no reason that it should involve any stories such as that. None of those civilians are innocent.

A little sauce for the goose, my friend.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/05/05/national /main552270.shtml

This is such a fantastically good idea. Imagine watching our congressppl(on both sides of the isle) try to explain why they can't quite support it.
Hours of entertainment ensue.

At your expense.

Richard Clarke is telling the truth.

Which truth?

[August 2002]
"So, point five, that process which was initiated in the first week in February, uh, decided in principle, uh in the spring to add to the existing Clinton strategy and to increase CIA resources, for example, for covert action, five-fold, to go after Al Qaeda."

or

[60 Minutes, March 2004] "Clarke was the president's chief adviser on terrorism, yet it wasn't until Sept. 11 that he ever got to brief Mr. Bush on the subject. Clarke says that prior to Sept. 11, the administration didn't take the threat seriously."

> Bush says he wants broadband for everybody by 2007, Kerry
> says he wants to spur technologies that will bring broadband
> to everybody. Same thing. However, on slashdot, we're only
> allowed to point out when Republicans say stupid things, not
> when Democrats do. Didn't you read the F.A.Q.?

Simple. Challengers run on change. Incumbents run on their record.

The point is, Bush has been president for four years. He determines the budgets, the direction of Federal departments, and in general tax policy (with the help of the other Republican who have been in power for the past four years). And Bush has done absolutely nothing to make universal broadband a reality in America since he's been president. His FCC has worked to allow more media consolidation, he's cut taxes for the rich (thus reducing the amount of revenue available to fund a public works project), and he was so focused on going to war in Iraq, that his priorities haven't accommodated universal broadband, among other even more serious issues.

Kerry is a senator, but he's not president. So he's saying that if he were president, this is a possible works project that would stimulate the economy, create jobs, and help broadband become universal like phone service. Kerry is the presidential challenger, so it's up to him to present his vision for America and explain why he's the right man for the job.

Bush is the presidential incumbent. It's up to him to explain his record for the past four years and explain why that record is good enough that he deserves another four years. If Bush really thought this was a good idea, well, he's been able to do it for four years. It makes no sense for the presidential incumbent to make vague promises about things he has not done anything about for the past four years. But when your record isn't good enough to run on, you avoid talking about it. You change the subject to talk about going to Mars, you make vague subjects about universal broadband, you resort to hateful language about constitutional amendments, etc.

• proposing laws to strip American suspects of their citizenship,
• imprisoning American citizens arrested on American soil as "enemy combatants" without recourse to civilian courts or legal counsel despite the contrary dictates of the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution, and
• sending non-citizens arrested in the U.S. to be tortured in third countries at the whim of U.S. authorities.

• hasn't bothered to reform an FBI that in the days before September 11th intentionally destroyed translated intercepted terrorist conversations, in order to get the FBI budget increased,
• apparently preferred to invade Iraq rather than deal with the more immediate threat of Osama bin Laden after September 11th,
• and now in the ultimate on ironies, while ignoring the Sixth amendment (and the Fourth) is telling us that a top priority should be, not Iraq, not Osama, but passing a Constitutional Amendment to marginalize gays!

I'm an American and speak from that perspective...

Okay, I'm a Canadian, and I'll speak from that perspective ...

would say that if VoIP were to ever be adopted as a full replacement for POTS then yes wire-tap laws should be updated to encompass that to maintain law enforcement's ability to conduct investigation. I would not extend such a update to include internal or privately held VoIP systems, but if it used like any other public utility it should be regulated in some manner

I personally think the internet has brought about signficant enhancements to free speech in the last decade, and I would respectfully submit that to the extent possible the internet should not be regulated. What do you think couldn't be accomplished with keyloggers and search warrants issued by judges? The only issue, is an issue of convenience for law enforcement, and the only convenience I believe in, is a judge issued search warrant. Frankly, I've had enough stupid US imposed law. We've had many such laws over the years.

I don't launder money or smoke up, but these are prime issues of stupidity, right up there with the war on drugs.

More to the point I'm all for , where justified.

Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it.

A large part of the world is anti-U.S. government, not anti-American. Most Americans don't know this, but the U.S. government supports the killing of Arabs by supporting a scheme of embezzlement: U.S. weapons makers and other largely secret influences have arranged that Israel be given about $5 billion each year as "foreign aid". (The figure varies somewhat each year, and may not be accurate for this year.) But the money can be used only to buy U.S.-made weapons, like the "AH-64 Apache helicopters" mentioned in today's story: Hamas Leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin Killed in Gaza.

This arrangement allows U.S. weapons makers to "sell" more weapons than they would otherwise, and at pre-arranged prices. The Israelis are not careful about the price they pay, because the money is free, and because not discussing the price is part of the arrangement. Of course, everyone tries to keep all of this secret, and there is considerable pretense.

In recent interviews on U.S. TV, the King of Jordan and the foreign minister of Iran both say that the biggest factor encouraging al-Qaeda attacks on the U.S. is the U.S. government's long-standing support for killing Arabs in Palestine. A Jewish leader said that U.S. government money for weapons was like gasoline on the fire of Israeli-Arab conflicts.

There are only 14 million Jews in the entire world, and less than 5 million Jews in Israel. The $5 billion donation from the U.S. government is about $1,000 for every Jewish Israeli man, woman, and child.

I believe that no violence is justified. So, I am not justifying violence when I mention this: It is interesting to note that, throughout recorded history, beginning 3,200 years ago with an Egyptian pharoah, the decendants of Abraham (who became those we call the Jews) have had periodic conflicts with the people around them. The Jews move into an area and, within perhaps 200 years everyone else wants them killed. No other culture that I've been able to find provokes such hostile reactions. Mostly Jews blame everyone else. The only time I have ever known a Jewish person to take responsibility is a quote from former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger: "Any group that has been persecuted for 2,000 years must be doing something wrong." (But it is 3,200 years.)

If you would like more facts about the purposes of al-Qaeda, you can download and read the al-Qaeda Training Manual from the U.S. government's Department of Justice web site: al-Qaeda Training Manual. Note that some of it is missing, presumably because the U.S. government does not want us to read it. Note that the conflict with Israel is mentioned. It has been plausibly suggested that much of the inspiration for the manual came from training given by the U.S. CIA to Arabs fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan in the early 1980s.

Osama bin Laden predicted that the U.S. would invade and occupy an oil-rich Arab state. The U.S. government under the present president Bush planned an attack on Iraq well before 9/11/2001. (If you watched yesterday's 60 Minutes TV news show on CBS, you saw this discussed intensely.) Those plans apparently encouraged al-Quaeda volunteers. The actual occupation of Iraq by the U.S. military encourages more to volunteer.

So, Americans live in fear and have their treasury drained by war so that weapons makers can make a higher profit.

There are other factors, of course, in this story of stupidity and illegality and ignorance. There is craziness. This is difficult to believe, but true, and has been widely reported: Christian fundamentalists in the U.S., who almost all support George Bush, have a plan to arrange the conversion or death of all the Jews, which they believe is predicted in their bible. There are numerous rationalizations and quotes from the Bible, but act