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I guess you tune out anything you don't want to hear, but in the Iran/Iraq war the US sold weapons to both sides. The newspaper says a review of a large tranche of government documents reveals that the administrations of President Reagan and the first President Bush both authorized providing Iraq with intelligence and logistical support, and okayed the sale of dual use items â" those with military and civilian applications â" that included chemicals and germs, even anthrax and bubonic plague.

- CBS News Build up to war? Well inspections where going, there was some bombing in '98, but other than that the relations were no different than those with North Korea or Iran. Recently Bush made the link between international terrorism and Iraq, soon after the US and England (and lets not forget the important help of nations like Poland, Litvia, and Iceland... well the US did give some countries money for their support) went to war.

Questions Swirl Around WMD Charges

US said to twist its data on Iraq

Some analysts doubt US theory of Iraqi germ trailers: NYT

Intelligence Historian Says CIA 'Buckled' on Iraq

Ex-official: Bush administration distorted intel on Iraq arms

Not according to this article from the Associated Press on research conducted at the University of Rochester:

(AP) All those hours spent playing video games may not be wasted time after all: A new study suggests action-packed video games like "Grand Theft Auto III" and "Counter-Strike" may sharpen your mind.

Researchers at the University of Rochester found that young adults who regularly played video games full of high-speed car chases and blazing gun battles showed better visual skills than those who did not. For example, they kept better track of objects appearing simultaneously and processed fast-changing visual information more efficiently.

Whatcha gonna say when several million Americans who have worked hard their entire lives suddenly can't collect the Social Security benefits they've been paying for their entire working lives? "Fuck you, leave my taxes alone, you freeloading jerks!"?

There's a big, angry, flashing red warning light going off right now. We're cutting taxes like they were cancers, out administration has unequivocally stated that they plan to keep cutting taxes, regardless of the fact that both the federal budget and federal deficit are the largest they've ever been. Our forecast for the next few years is to spend money we don't have, and amazingly enough, nobody seems to care that we don't have enough money to pay Social Security. Nobody seems to care that we're running a 6.5 trillion dollar national debt. No, everything and anything can be fixed by cutting taxes. Economy doing well? Well then, cut taxes. Economy doing poorly? Well then, cut taxes. Sky still blue? Well then, cut taxes.

We're spending our nation into oblivion, the largest generation in American history is about to start demanding retirement benefits, and our fiscal policy is being dictated by a president who has a long and proud history of total incompetence at running a business.

And you want lower taxes.

Do you understand how insanely irresponsible that is?

I agree, let's lockup the government welfare bums! The people who steal tax money and divert it to who knows where. How about start with over TWO TRILLION DOLLARS in stolen tax money. I say, lock all those bums up! Kick them out of their lazy ass chairs! Take their benefits away from them, give them all some hard time working in a labor camp someplace!

Here's an even better idea, let's TRASH the entire keynesian economic style of government and busy-ness, money creating, and debt based boom and bust cycles, and allowing personhood to artifical constructs called corporations. And reintroduce liability and being productive and creating HONEST wealth in the first place, and knocking down most government back to the states and local levels mostly, and put a smackdown on creeping and ineffectual and top heavy overly managed centrism and theft, ya know, something radical, like the ORIGINAL DESIGN of our government.

Welfare doesn't start at the bottom economic levels of our society, it started at the top, then got worse and worse, until that top heavy welfare created huge numbers of poorer people. Right now we have a huge assault on the US middle class, which will continue until there isn't much of a middle class left except for government bureaucrats and their mercenaries. We HAD millions of decent middle class jobs, but losing over one million a year for the past many years is NOT a smooth move, EXCEPT for the very highest levels of personal profit "welfare" law creating and tax dodging conmen who masquerade as USians but are in fact, raging international globalist pirates and thieves, and now, murderers.

Dr. O spends more time developing new technology than practicing medicine (time well spent if you ask me), so he tends to know quite a bit about the innards of things. To put it succinctly...he's _well_ connected. In his defense: we had amiodarone for recurrent VF in 1997; we were the first agency in the country to have it. It's just now becoming a standard (that fact that the patent expired and the price dropped from $70 to $17 in November helped - again, I know because of O).

Field thrombolytics? Nah. I've talked to O about that. Only 1 out of 200 calls we run is an actual MI; to get the meds in every truck out here, we'd have to spend well over half a million dollars, just so that we could get orders to give TNK to one out of 200 people. Our Patient-contact to ED Door time here can be minimized to a max of 10 minutes (we're urban), and with Dr. O's typical 11-minute door-to-needle thrombo time, it's would be a monumental waste. The potential for rural thrombo is even more dismal, if you consider the volume of calls they run.

I'd like to thank you for taking the time to direct an EMS agency...it is quite noble of you.

Here's a few links you might find interesting:

Dr. O's latest project

Screw ST elevation - here's color doppler radar for MI's (another Ornato project).

If your medics aren't using capnography, they should be. (This server is flogged at the moment).

--V--

PS - We're lucky here. Not only do we have Ornato, we've got Ellenbogen

PPS: It's bad enough that my truck buddies call me a geek...how'd you know???

okay... first the japanese develop the invisible coat, and now this see-through screens, is that a pattern or what?

Right....
I don't suppose anyone's heard of the events this week surrounding Texas Democrats and the Department of Homeland Security, eh?

Long story short: all 51 Democrats from the Texas State Legislature ran to Oklahoma for 4 days to prevent the State from addressing some redistricting issue (there wouldn't be a quorum of legislators, and thus nothing could be voted on). Anyway, pretty much all the Republican legislators shit a brick, and somehow it seems the Department of Homeland Security got dragged into the search for the missing Democrats (yes, the same federal agency supposed purpose is to protect the entire U.S.A. from terrorists). Oh, and if that isn't enough, it seems that all Texas Department of Public Safety documents regarding the Department of Homeland Security's involvement in this fiasco were ordered destroyed.

So, forgive me if I take a wee bit of convincing on this whole "TIA will only be used on foreigners" thing...


P.S.: Seriously, folks, it scares the shit out of me that the big news organizations aren't picking this story up and running with it.

Actually, John Ashcroft flew commercial airlines until July, 2001. cbs news

In the Michigan case, Oppenheim said, the student ran a network offering more than 650,000 music files for downloading, in addition to 1,866 songs from his own personal collection.

he himself [the defendant] is copying and distributing hundreds of sound recordings over his system

This analysis does not cover the possible direct infringement --

Direct infringement carries a presumption of harm, but we have to wait for the findings of fact to be issued to make a determination of the extent of that harm (and this paper does not consider those direct infringement issues.)

DEA? Hell, I'm sure Rumsfeld would like to know about it. They made a pretty big fuss about a comparable find in Iraq.

Remember the Scarfo case where they tapped the keyboard:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/07/28/tech/pri ntable303859.shtml

If you're using a crt monitor, they can also reproduce the image in a van outside your place.

You have some real warped sense of 'self defense.' Or maybe you can provide some evidence of when and where the US was attacked.

The UN has authority in this situation, not the bush administration.

The bush administration has lied about aluminum tubes supposedly acquired for enriching uranium, "the war will take weeks, not months", Iraq was actively trying to acquire uranium, the "coallition of convenience" is made up of nations who support the bush administration's invasion, 35 countries are providing "critical support" in the coallition of convenience, the "coallition of convenience" is larger than the 1991 gulf war, 8000 soldiers of the 51st division surrendered, Umm Qasr was taken on Sunday, er... no, Monday... no, make that Tuesday.9 times Umm Qasr was "taken."
I could go on and on and on, but I know I'm probably just wasting my time.

Since this thread started, you've consistently said, "show me proof" while making outlandish claims about bombs strapped to buildings and misfiring SAM launcers. Since this thread began, you haven't provided a whit of evidence to support your position. Since this thread began, I've consistently provided links. So unless you want to start posting evidence to support your claims, don't bother asking for it anymore.

Nobody has done it except for the first crew.

STS-112
"Making his first hands-on landing, first-time shuttle commander Jeffrey Ashby took over manual control of the shuttle five minutes before touchdown as the spaceplane passed through 50,000 feet above the Florida spaceport. "

STS-93
"Update for 11:17 p.m. EDT
Commander Eileen Collins is taking manual control of Columbia. Three minutes to touchdown. The shuttle has gone sub-sonic. Twin sonic booms now being heard in the local area around Kennedy Space Center."

STS-113
"Following a computer-controlled plunge to a point about 50,000 feet above the Kennedy Space Center, commander James Wetherbee, making a record fifth descent as a shuttle skipper, took over manual control and guided the spaceplane to a breezy landing, reports CBS News Space Consultant William Harwood."

If I remember correctly, the first Shuttle pilot (dunno his name, some ex-Navy pilot)

Pilot, Robert Crippen, USN
Mission commander, John Young, USN

I get most of my understanding of the Shuttle landing procedure from the X-Plane sim, which makes it very clear that it's extremely difficult for a human being to land the Shuttle...

I would suspect that they have a leetle bit more training than you do.

Like most commentators you portray the 9/11 tragedy solely in American terms. Somehow we in the U.S. have sadly forgotten that many foreigners also died that day.

"All told, nearly 500 foreigners from 91 countries lost their lives in the Sept. 11 attack."

This was an attack on the World Trade Center, not just against the U.S.

Rather than recognize the significance of this crucial fact, we treat the matter as if it had been a strike against 3000 Americans in Omaha.

Wait. You are talking about history here. Two things:
1) To know about this would require education. This is not something that Americans hold as a high priority. They would rather spend money on more important things like tanks, bombs and planes.
2) It's history. No one ever learns from history. No one.

What, you mean like this?

Sometimes you've just gotta smack some people.

Maybe, but you don't have to smack his mother, his cousin's whole family, his entire neighborood, a significant fraction of the architecture in his city, their power and water, and dump hundreds worth of tons of radioactive armaments into his environment. That's what the fuss is about.

Well, lets start with the dossier that Powell submitted to the U.N., it's a fake.

Remember that bit of evidence linking Iraq to nuclear weapons, oh yeah, it's a fake as well.

Those "great" tips our folks have been giving the inspection team? All that cool intel we have about trucks with mobile labs and sneaky shit going down, ummmm, it's garbage.

Shit, I could spend all day doing this. Our government has been busted time after time. They are liars. Period. However, now that we're at war, I support our folks over there fighting. Our president is a complete bullshit artist and his team of jackasses will, hopefully, go far far away after the next election. But I hope the people on the ground and in the air do what they have to do and get home safely.

They tried diplomatic pressure and other means with America alongside. It didn't work.

But it did work, in the end there were results and that's why a lot of countries wanted the weapons inspectors to go on with their work. If there is proof, that the Iraq has a significant number of B- or C-weapons the USA never presented it. In the end the Iraq was complying (though grudgingly) with the demands layed down by the UN. In the meantime north Korea more or less publicly announced their intention to produce nuclear bombs, so shouldn't Bush et al. strike at north Korea before going for the Iraq?

So when Bush couldn't convince the world that Iraq was threatening the world with weapons of mass destruction he switched rhetorics and talked about having to free the Iraq of that evil dictator Saddam. Now Saddam Hussein is an evil dictator, but that's none of the USAs business, as it hasn't been for the past 20 years (like when the USA even supported the current Iraqi regime). The last demand that Saddam now leave the country within 48 hours is not an ultimatum, it's a joke. Everyone can imagine that that'd be suicide for Saddam.

This war isn't about terrorism either, it's easier to construct a link from Osama bin Laden to Bush than to Saddam Hussein, and war isn't a means to get at terrorists who're probably not even in the attacked country. As a result of the war even more terrorist attacks are expected in the US and the threat level is raised.

So the war isn't about chemical weapons or terrorists, neither is it an idealistic mission to free the Iraq people from their evil dictator (or do the USA now intend to attack any country where the government isn't to their liking?). Many people (even inside the US) see it that way and that's how they arrive at the conclusion that the war isn't justified but is just about oil and distracting the american people from their problems at home.

This war is also a very bad precedent, as it shows that the USAs government doesn't care what the UN have to say on the issue, they do what they damn well please anyway. So now whenever any country wants to start a war all they need are some unsupportable and made up reasons and then they can go ahead? Or is that only right for the USA but noone else?

Also the arrogant way the USA dealt with the UN and other nations (and also opposition at home) has weakened the UN and hurt diplomatic relationships worldwide. More and more the USA is percieved

Without all the commercials, etc..

NPR. Click up top, Real, Windows Media, or Quicktime. Gotta love NPR.

More stuff on NPR about Iraq over here.

CSPAN is slashdotted, er, wardotted? err.. nevermind, CSPAN is dead.

And chances are, live protests in your local metro.

CBSNews has a big "WAR" picture that looks like an ad for a RTS. Thanks to the media for desensitizing us to war(or making it into a fun, enjoyable experience kind of like a game or a "faces of death" tv channel(gotta love duckman!) without the seriousness).

I hope this ends quick. The last thing Slashdot needs is a war vs. anti-war flamewar. We've already got BSD vs. Linux, Perl vs. Python vs. Ruby vs. Java vs. Everything Else, KDE vs. Gnome, etc... So I think we're good.

As an interesting note, CBSNews calls George Bush "Mr. Bush" in this article.

Without all the commercials, etc..

NPR. Click up top, Real, Windows Media, or Quicktime. Gotta love NPR.

More stuff on NPR about Iraq over here.

CSPAN is slashdotted, er, wardotted? err.. nevermind, CSPAN is dead.

And chances are, live protests in your local metro.

CBSNews has a big "WAR" picture that looks like an ad for a RTS. Thanks to the media for desensitizing us to war(or making it into a fun, enjoyable experience kind of like a game or a "faces of death" tv channel(gotta love duckman!) without the seriousness).

I hope this ends quick. The last thing Slashdot needs is a war vs. anti-war flamewar. We've already got BSD vs. Linux, Perl vs. Python vs. Ruby vs. Java vs. Everything Else, KDE vs. Gnome, etc... So I think we're good.

As an interesting note, CBSNews calls George Bush "Mr. Bush" in this article.

Without all the commercials, etc..

NPR. Click up top, Real, Windows Media, or Quicktime. Gotta love NPR.

More stuff on NPR about Iraq over here.

CSPAN is slashdotted, er, wardotted? err.. nevermind, CSPAN is dead.

And chances are, live protests in your local metro.

CBSNews has a big "WAR" picture that looks like an ad for a RTS. Thanks to the media for desensitizing us to war(or making it into a fun, enjoyable experience kind of like a game or a "faces of death" tv channel(gotta love duckman!) without the seriousness).

I hope this ends quick. The last thing Slashdot needs is a war vs. anti-war flamewar. We've already got BSD vs. Linux, Perl vs. Python vs. Ruby vs. Java vs. Everything Else, KDE vs. Gnome, etc... So I think we're good.

As an interesting note, CBSNews calls George Bush "Mr. Bush" in this article.

No! Now I'm continue to drool over these OLED displays and you sir can have your 120lb CRT displays. I'm sure a lot more of those will start appearing in dumpsters once OLED gets underway.

CBS has a nice story about OLEDs with a shocking video (Realvideo format) of their flexible potential (see sidebar).

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/11/12/evenin gn ews/main529111.shtml

This is the clickable link
Shocking OLED Flexing

The trick to posting links that work is to remember that all links begin with a
"Left pointing LESS THAN arrow" then the letter "A" followed on the next line by a "href=" with a quote mark, then the actual http:// link, an end quote following that link, and a "Right pointing GREATER THAN arrow" with any text (ergo the "Shocking OLED Flexing" text, which is then followed by a "Left pointing LESS THAN arrow", a "/A", and a "Right pointing GREATER THAN arrow".

Or like this example
<A
href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/ 2002/11/1 2/eveningnews/main529111.shtml">Shocking OLED FLEXING - write your text description here</A>

(Notice the SLASHDOT space break in the HTML link above? If you write up your own text in the space following the link then the link will be clickable and unbroken.)

(And it was interesting to note that to get past the SLASHDOT plaintext but still reading HTML codes filter I have to use the "&lt;" for the "<" and "&gt;" for the ">" symbols PLUS the "&amp;" for the "&" symbols. HTML reading of plaintext is bothersome when you have to escape out "&", "<", & ">" in text otherwise they get swallowed as garbage characters in the HTML junk character filter).

For those new to "Plain Old Text" being read as HTML, I suggest you COPY & PASTE this text so you can refer to it later. Otherwise a search for GOOGLE on [ HTML codes ] should fill in the rest of the blanks in your knowledge (I know I picked up some things I missed the first time).

With this knowledge you should be able to post HTTP links correctly now. I personally take my links, copy them to the clipboard, use IE to make a NEW MESSAGE, paste into the blank message (in RICH TEXT - HTML FORMAT), select the SOURCE tab at the bottom, and then copy & paste the link after editing the following text so it doesn't violate SLASHDOT's "No words longer than 40 characters or we stick a space in it" rule which screws HTTP links up to defeat PAGE WIDENING TROLL POSTS.

Actually, the administration has publicly stated that it does not have secret information that would bolster its case. If the information made public doesn't make the case, then the case can't be made.

IBM helped slaughter Jews

IBM has been contributing to the state of the art in computing since before Microsoft even existed (mebbe even Bill too).

Definitely before Bill. Unless Bill was up and programming when IBM helped slaughter Jews.

"Men's sexuality, I think, is...a much more fluid thing than our society really permits it to be," says the author.

And when he has written about men's relationships, there have been questions about his own sexuality.

"The things you write about people," he responds, "people automatically assume you must have done."

I don't think that anyone is reading this except for us, and this is starting to reach the point of rehash. I know where you're coming from, you know where I'm coming from. I'm ready to wrap it up.

Yep, but it sure is interesting to try your arguments against someone, that's why I was continuing... :-)

But OK, I'll just point out a couple of things where you are plain wrong:

Bush has not threatened and will not threaten any country with invasion that is not harboring or supporting terrorists.

Accused of supporting terrorists. That means anybody. He can accuse anybody, and nuke anybody. Unless there is an external body that exists to evaluate the evidence, nobody is safe.

Physics labs use tiny amounts of extremely radioactive sources to deliberately cause small nuclear reactions for study. This produces small amounts of intensely radioactive fission products that escape into the lab environment and wind up in the corners. Industrial uranium enrichment uses large amounts of barely radioactive natural uranium, and produces no highly radioactive fission products. They are not comparable.

Nope, you get radioactive dust from weak sources too. Besides, if there really was industrial facilities on the scale you're talking about, they wouldn't be that hard to discover.

1) Kicked the weapons inspectors out of the country

He didn't. That's plain revisionism. That's one of the worst lies that has been told by the Bush administrations. Just look in your sources from 1998, and you'll see it. They were withdrawn. You'll see that all formal sources today also use the word withdrawn. There's a pretty good PBS interview with Scott Ritter that highlights this. Another lie is that there has been no inspections in Iraq since 1998. IAEA has had annual inspections in Iraq, in january every year. Iraq would have to build entirely new facilities. It is possible that they could do that, though, and that's why IAEA called for a new, intrusive inspections regime.

Millions of Europeans have taken to the streets to protect Hussein and Iraq I can't find a single protest sign calling for Iraq to disarm, or stop using chemical weapons on the Kurds, or stop murdering dissidents. You think we don't see those signs at your protests? Do you think we don't know how little Europeans care about the Iraqi people?

Oh, come on, that just silly. Look, I've come to appreciate you're insights, but this is just below what I've come to expect from you.

If you had looked, you would have seen me with a sign saying that in 1984, when you gave Hussein all the support he needed. US hasn't got any deeper moral authority at all, it is not about the Iraqi people, it is about your own sense of security.

Besides, if you had really looked, you would have found exciled Kurd dissident leaders in the crowd. You would also find many exciled Iraqis in the crowd. I don't think you looked very well... (But I agree that the "peace in our time"-sign was rather stupid...)

Actually, he has stated that he will not hesitate to use them against any country that uses them against us first.

No, there is specifically a first strike policy.

You mean since he was elected,

Even before that. You know, Rumsfeldt and his companions have been out to get Saddam for a very long time. But obviously, the message has been more pronounced since his election.

He said that either your are with us, or you are with the terrorists. This isn't a threat, it's an observation.

I'm not with Bush, but I'm not with the terrorists. This are the words of a religious fanatic. These are the words of someone who is incapable of seeing other solutions than his own. The post-911 actions, I would claim, has had no effect on terrorism whatsoever.

Unfortunately for you, most Americans support Bush, and I think that he is going to be reelected in the next election cycle.

See, told you so, you're unable to get rid of him! ;-)

"two sticks, a dash and a cake with a stick down"

-- 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta notifying Ramzi Bin-al-shibh by telephone of the date of the attacks. If I wanted to get a message to someone, using a riddle over the phone is a simple, low-tech solution which worked for them.

You can Google just like anyone else...

I don't keep links to random articles I read on the Net...

Here's the CBS News "intelligence garbage" link I found with a two-minute Google search.

It took a little longer to find this Japanese newspaper article on Scott Ritter's comments on the mobile weapons labs. BTW, since Ritter is supposedly compromised for having accepted $400K from an Iraqi to produce a documentatry, it should be pointed out that the current chief inspector, Blix, has also said they've never found any evidence of such vehicles.

You blame California for the energy crisis when companies like Enron and William's Energy were deliberately taking energy off the market so that California would have to pay higher prices? Check out the report on CBS.com.

One: European governments are subsidizing Airbus development costs, which according to the U.S. violates WTO rules on subsidies.

I see your $11B European subsidy, and I raise you one $15B US bailout. What was your point again?

A lot of people had large sums of life insurance, but the insurance companies went to the Washington and said that if they had to pay out all the policies they would go bankrupt.

That's not the way I remember it.

More details: Something might have struck the shuttle about a day after launch.
Sources say data from Air Force tracking radar indicates the possibility that a piece of the shuttle may have come off. They see something that appears to be separating from the orbiter about five meters per second. That's about 11 miles per hour.
It could be a "water dump" but the profile doesn't seem right.

The damage on the leading edge seems to be along the elbow of the wing where it transitions from one angle to another. The sensors are dropping off around the wing over time, and what comes to mind is various aerodynamic forms of burning aluminum flame. As the leading edge is destroyed, the wave forms change, focusing the heat on different areas. As the launch video shows, the airlow moves from the fuselage side of the wing towards the tip. If/when an aluminum flame started, I can imagine it burning outwards along the leading edge, peeling off more of the leading edge, exposing and igniting more aluminumenum.

The carbon-carbon leading edge is bolted on and I have an idea of how it came off, indirectly from the foam damage NASA said would not harm it directly.

The damage on the leading edge seems to be along the elbow of the wing where it transitions from one angle to another. The sensors are dropping off around the wing over time, and what comes to mind is various aerodynamic forms of burning aluminum flame. As the leading edge is destroyed, the wave forms change, focusing the heat on different areas. As The launch video shows, the airflow moves from the fuselage side of the wing towards the tip. If/when an aluminum flame started, I can imagine it burning outwards along the leading edge, peeling off more of the leading edge, exposing and igniting more aluminumenum.

The carbon-carbon leading edge is bolted on, and I have an explanation for how it came off indirectly from the foam impact which as NASA said wouldn't damage it.

I haven't seen anyone try and connect the "purple streak" picture and the break-up, so i'll post my theory references again and hope it gets considered.

The tiles were damaged heavily at launch, scratched deeply as in previous incidents.
The roughtiles heated and shed, leaving a trail of debris plasma.
The plasma trailacted as a conduit for an electrical arc from charged particles in the high upper atmosphere,similar to the Ben Franklin kite legend.
A huge bolt travelled along the plasma trail to the left wing where it caused severe damage, enough to cause a cascading failure over subsequent minutes. Blue jets, elves and sprites are large atmospheric electrical phenomena which occur at the altitude the space shuttle was passing thru and were being studied by Ramon in the MEIDEX dust experiment.
My,My, Hey, Hey

I haven't seen anyone try and connect the "purple streak" picture and the break-up, so i'll post my theory references again and hope it gets considered.

The tiles were damaged heavily at launch, scratched deeply as in previous incidents.
The roughtiles heated and shed, leaving a trail of debris plasma.
The plasma trailacted as a conduit for an electrical arc from charged particles in the high upper atmosphere,similar to the Ben Franklin kite legend.
A huge bolt travelled along the plasma trail to the left wing where it caused severe damage, enough to cause a cascading failure over subsequent minutes. Blue jets, elves and sprites are large atmospheric electrical phenomena which occur at the altitude the space shuttle was passing thru and were being studied by Ramon in the MEIDEX dust experiment.

New image evidence shows damage to the composite section of the wing. An increasing reliance on composite materials in aircraft construction creates the potential for additional problems because the composites can allow a connection between lightning and airplane electrical circuits

Here is how an electric bolt may have occurred:

The tiles were damaged heavily at launch, scratched deeply as in previous incidents.
The rough tiles heated and shed, leaving a trail of debris plasma.
The plasma trail acted as a conduit for an electrical arc from charged particles in the high upper atmosphere,similar to the Ben Franklin kite legend.
A huge bolt travelled along the plasma trail to the left wing where it caused enough damage to induce a cascading failure over subsequent minutes. Blue jets, elves and sprites are large atmospheric electrical phenomena which occur at the altitude the space shuttle was passing thru and were being studied by Ramon in the MEIDEX dust experiment.

The solution is (d) all of the above.

But isn't that exactly the point? By declaring him an "enemy combatant," he loses, among other things, the right to see the evidence used to make this declaration.

Even after the government backs away from Ashcroft's statements about Padilla, and Rumsfeld admits that there are no plans to try him, a citizen sits in a military prison without a trial, without charges, and without a lawyer. Big Brother says he's a bad man, and the sheep are expected to thank them.

The U.S. Space Shuttle Columbia, flying STS 107 apparently dissentegrated over north Texas during re-entry according to CNN, CBS, and NBC TV reports. Columbia launched on January 16 for that orbiter's 28th journey. Communication was lost at 8:00 Central Time (14:00 GMT), 16 minutes prior to the scheduled landing, at an altitude of 200,000 feet (61km) and velocity of 12,000 miles per hour (19,000 km/h). NASA advises people to report and avoid debris in the area because it may inlude toxic propellants.

In its 1976 ruling in Buckley v. Valeo and in recent cases, the Supreme Court has ruled that the First Amendment protects the right of citizen groups (like NRLC) to comment freely on the positions of politicians on issues (called issue advocacy), reguardless of proximity to elections, without rationing or restrictions, and without disclosing the names of citizens who donate to support such commentary. The Supreme Court has held that this immunity from regulation extends to "voter guides," TV and radio ads, "scorecards" of votes in Congress, and any other commentary on specific politicians, except communications containing "express advocacy" (e. g, explicit urgings to "vote for" or "oppose" a candidate.) NRLC is strongly opposed to any legislation that would infringe on our right to disseminate printed or broadcast issue advocacy communications that comment on candidates' positions and voting records, including restrictions on the timeing, amount, or funding sources for such speech, or any requirement that the names of donors be reported to the government.

Will you oppose any legislation (such as the McCain-Feingold bill or Shays-Meehan bill) that would restrict, regulate, or ration the right of nonprofit corporations (which are not PACs) such as NRLC to engage in unrestricted commentary (issue advocacy) on the positions and voting records of specific officeholders and officeseekers, or require that names of citizens who fund such communications be reported to the government?

The First Amendment guarantees the right of PACs and other speakers to engage in express advocacy without a dollar limit if this activity is not coordinated with a candidate (called independent expenditures). NRLC opposes any bill that would redefine "coordination" in a manner that would require groups who conduct independent expenditures to forfeit their rights to communicate with lawmakers or other candidates on public policy matters, or to forfeit other constitutional rights of assocation (e.g, with pollsters or venders).

Would you oppose legislation that would redefine "coordination" to mean anything other than an actual prior communication about a specific expenditure for a specific project which places the expenditure at the direction of or under the control of a candidate, or which causes the expenditure to be made based upon information about the candidate's plans or needs provided by the candidate?

The term "soft money " is used to refer to political party funds that are not rationed or controlled by the Federal Election Commission Act (FECA). Such money can be raised and expended by political parties to lobby on issues, to build their grassroots network, or to report on congressional action or politicians' positions on issues. Under rulings of the U. S. Supreme Court, the First Amendment protects the right of groups and parties to sponsor such communications, which discuss issues or the positions of officeholders or officeseekers on those issues, without being subjected to the rationing laws that teh FECA applies to communications that contain explicit endorsement of candidates (i.e, "express advocacy"). NRLC opposes encroacthment upon this constitutional right of free speecx and believes that freedom of speech and participation in government and issues by a broad range of groups, including political parties--not just the news media--is essential to democracy.

Would you vote to uphold the rights of political parties to raise and expend funds to discuss issues or the positions of officeholders or officeseekers on those issues, or to build grassroots networks?

forgot to log in first try.

Smack? jeez. I was rounding on the 100 mph. Ok, so its somewhere between 50 and 150 mph forward speed. and yes, if its a Cub or a STOL lightplane you are in pretty good shape. I was trying to keep a balanced discussion.

I don't think I said anything about logbooks. In the military you can see the logbooks anytime. But since the discussion was about unexpected failures of the Moller aircar, I was just balancing the discussion. Sometimes things happen that don't have anything to do with maintenance or logbooks. Things break,things get broken by pilot error, and things fall out of the sky.

As for wings coming off airplanes, it usually happens as the result of a pullout from speed, maybe with a lot of load. Like the forest service C-130 that crashed. (watch the video). But typically it occurs in an IFR loss of control where you get into a dive or spiral and pull out too hard. Like the bonanza you mentioned. They have a failure mode called divergent spiral that can rip the wings off on a nice clear day.

Smack? jeez. I was rounding on the 100 mph. Ok, so its somewhere between 50 and 150 mph forward speed. and yes, if its a Cub or a STOL lightplane you are in pretty good shape. I was trying to keep a balanced discussion.

I don't think I said anything about logbooks. In the military you can see the logbooks anytime. But since the discussion was about unexpected failures of the Moller aircar, I was just balancing the discussion. Sometimes things happen that don't have anything to do with maintenance or logbooks. Things break and things fall out of the sky.

As for wings coming off airplanes, it usually happens as the result of a pullout from speed, maybe with a lot of load. Like the forest service C-130 that crashed. (watch the video). But typically it occurs in an IFR loss of control where you get into a dive or spiral and pull out too hard. Like the bonanza you mentioned. They have a failure mode called divergent spiral that can rip the wings off on a nice clear day.

This is unfair - An average American IT worker competiting against some of the smartest guys

CBS News 60 Minutes - Imported from India (January 12, 2003)
Copyright CBS Worldwide Inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
(Excerpts from program transcript - Complete transcript available from CBS News)

... the smartest, most successful, most influential Indians who've migrated to the US seem to share a common credential: They're graduates of the Indian Institute of Technology , better known as IIT. Made up of seven campuses throughout India, IIT may be the most important university you've never heard of ... This is IIT Bombay. Put Harvard, MIT and Princeton together, and you begin to get an idea of the status of this school in India ...

With a population of over a billion people in India, competition to get into the IIT is ferocious. Last year, 178,000 high school seniors took the entrance exam called the JEE. Just over 3,500 were accepted or less than 2 percent. Compare that with Harvard, say, which accepts about 10 percent of its applicants ... impact of IIT graduates has been on the American technology revolution ... "I can't imagine a major area where Indian IIT engineers haven't played a leading role "...

It isn't just high tech ... Fortune 500 headhunters are always on the lookout for that IIT degree ... And the American companies love the kids from IIT ... Nehru, India's first prime minister, created IIT 50 years ago just after independence to train the scientists and engineers he knew the nation would need to move from medieval to modern. He never imagined India would be supplying brainpower to the whole world ...

Infosys Technologies Ltd.(NASDAQ: INFY) CHAIRMAN MURTHY: ... my son ... wanted to do computer science at IIT. To do computer science at IIT, you have to be in the top 200 and he couldn't do that, so he went to Cornell instead.
STAHL: Think about that for a minute. A kid from India using an Ivy League university as a safety school. That's how smart these guys are ...
MURTHY: ... Nehru wanted all these young men and women to contribute to the success of India, and they are contributing to the success of India ... Some of these people who have reached the higher echelons in the corporate world in the US, you know, they have persuaded their corporations to start operations in India, whether it's Texas Instruments, whether it's General Electric, whether it's Citibank.
KHOSLA: I have no question that India now is benefiting significantly from the cycling of knowledge, the back and forth, no question about it ... How many jobs have entrepreneurs -- Indian entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley created over the last 15, 20 years? Hundreds of thousands, I would guess ... For this society, here in America.

Says Lesley Stahl (CBS News) - "... I remember telling you in November that I had just returned from Bombay, India. So this story has taken two months. It's about a university that may be the hardest school in the world to get into . It's called IIT- Indian Institute of Technology. A stunning percentage of CEOs and innovators in the American high tech industry were graduated from IIT. The government of India highly subsidizes the school and the students who go there - it costs a kid just $700 a year. But - and here's the rub - a full two-thirds of the students leave India for jobs (many of the best come here) and never return. I think you'll find the story fascinating..."

Good news - IITs only churn out about 3000-4000 grads a year so only a few of H1-B are those BUT many other universities are good too... I saw these on ./ -
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=50907&cid=5100 004 and
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=50907&cid=5100 088

This is unfair - An average American IT worker competiting against some of the smartest guys

CBS News 60 Minutes - Imported from India (January 12, 2003)
Copyright CBS Worldwide Inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
(Excerpts from program transcript - Complete transcript available from CBS News)

... the smartest, most successful, most influential Indians who've migrated to the US seem to share a common credential: They're graduates of the Indian Institute of Technology , better known as IIT. Made up of seven campuses throughout India, IIT may be the most important university you've never heard of ... This is IIT Bombay. Put Harvard, MIT and Princeton together, and you begin to get an idea of the status of this school in India ...

With a population of over a billion people in India, competition to get into the IIT is ferocious. Last year, 178,000 high school seniors took the entrance exam called the JEE. Just over 3,500 were accepted or less than 2 percent. Compare that with Harvard, say, which accepts about 10 percent of its applicants ... impact of IIT graduates has been on the American technology revolution ... "I can't imagine a major area where Indian IIT engineers haven't played a leading role "...

It isn't just high tech ... Fortune 500 headhunters are always on the lookout for that IIT degree ... And the American companies love the kids from IIT ... Nehru, India's first prime minister, created IIT 50 years ago just after independence to train the scientists and engineers he knew the nation would need to move from medieval to modern. He never imagined India would be supplying brainpower to the whole world ...

Infosys Technologies Ltd.(NASDAQ: INFY) CHAIRMAN MURTHY: ... my son ... wanted to do computer science at IIT. To do computer science at IIT, you have to be in the top 200 and he couldn't do that, so he went to Cornell instead.
STAHL: Think about that for a minute. A kid from India using an Ivy League university as a safety school. That's how smart these guys are ...
MURTHY: ... Nehru wanted all these young men and women to contribute to the success of India, and they are contributing to the success of India ... Some of these people who have reached the higher echelons in the corporate world in the US, you know, they have persuaded their corporations to start operations in India, whether it's Texas Instruments, whether it's General Electric, whether it's Citibank.
KHOSLA: I have no question that India now is benefiting significantly from the cycling of knowledge, the back and forth, no question about it ... How many jobs have entrepreneurs -- Indian entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley created over the last 15, 20 years? Hundreds of thousands, I would guess ... For this society, here in America.

Says Lesley Stahl (CBS News) - "... I remember telling you in November that I had just returned from Bombay, India. So this story has taken two months. It's about a university that may be the hardest school in the world to get into . It's called IIT- Indian Institute of Technology. A stunning percentage of CEOs and innovators in the American high tech industry were graduated from IIT. The government of India highly subsidizes the school and the students who go there - it costs a kid just $700 a year. But - and here's the rub - a full two-thirds of the students leave India for jobs (many of the best come here) and never return. I think you'll find the story fascinating..."

Good news - IITs only churn out about 3000-4000 grads a year so only a few of H1-B are those BUT many other universities are good too... I saw these on ./ -
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=50907&cid=5100 004 and
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=50907&cid=5100 088

This is unfair - An average American IT worker competiting against some of the smartest guys

(Excerpts from program transcript - Complete transcript available from CBS News)

CBS News 60 Minutes - Imported from India (January 12, 2003)
Copyright CBS Worldwide Inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

... the smartest, most successful, most influential Indians who've migrated to the US seem to share a common credential: They're graduates of the Indian Institute of Technology , better known as IIT. Made up of seven campuses throughout India, IIT may be the most important university you've never heard of ... This is IIT Bombay. Put Harvard, MIT and Princeton together, and you begin to get an idea of the status of this school in India ... With a population of over a billion people in India, competition to get into the IIT is ferocious. Last year, 178,000 high school seniors took the entrance exam called the JEE. Just over 3,500 were accepted or less than 2 percent. Compare that with Harvard, say, which accepts about 10 percent of its applicants ... impact of IIT graduates has been on the American technology revolution ... "I can't imagine a major area where Indian IIT engineers haven't played a leading role "... It isn't just high tech ... Fortune 500 headhunters are always on the lookout for that IIT degree ... And the American companies love the kids from IIT ... Nehru, India's first prime minister, created IIT 50 years ago just after independence to train the scientists and engineers he knew the nation would need to move from medieval to modern. He never imagined India would be supplying brainpower to the whole world ...
Infosys Technologies Ltd.(NASDAQ: INFY) CHAIRMAN MURTHY: ... my son ... wanted to do computer science at IIT. To do computer science at IIT, you have to be in the top 200 and he couldn't do that, so he went to Cornell instead.
STAHL: Think about that for a minute. A kid from India using an Ivy League university as a safety school. That's how smart these guys are ...
MURTHY: ... Nehru wanted all these young men and women to contribute to the success of India, and they are contributing to the success of India ... Some of these people who have reached the higher echelons in the corporate world in the US, you know, they have persuaded their corporations to start operations in India, whether it's Texas Instruments, whether it's General Electric, whether it's Citibank.
KHOSLA: I have no question that India now is benefiting significantly from the cycling of knowledge, the back and forth, no question about it ... How many jobs have entrepreneurs -- Indian entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley created over the last 15, 20 years? Hundreds of thousands, I would guess ... For this society, here in America.

Says Lesley Stahl (CBS News) - "... I remember telling you in November that I had just returned from Bombay, India. So this story has taken two months. It's about a university that may be the hardest school in the world to get into . It's called IIT- Indian Institute of Technology. A stunning percentage of CEOs and innovators in the American high tech industry were graduated from IIT. The government of India highly subsidizes the school and the students who go there - it costs a kid just $700 a year. But - and here's the rub - a full two-thirds of the students leave India for jobs (many of the best come here) and never return. I think you'll find the story fascinating..."

Good news - IITs only churn out about 3000-4000 grads a year so only a few of H1-B are those BUT many other universities are good too... I saw these on ./ -
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=50907&cid=5100 004 and
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=50907&cid=5100 088

In a recent news report covering an anti-US rally in Iraq, one man was shown holding a banner reading "A nation of sheep, owned by pigs, and led by wolves." (or something to that effect). Most Americans would probably find this very offensive unless they consider the facts of the matter, and the truth is that we have let Donald "Let's Rumble" Rumsfeld and the rest of the Bush-lynching mob get completely out of control.

Yes, because all Americans happily serve our corporate employers in our wonderfully spacious cubicles without a hint of grumbling or complaining, and cheer on a daily basis as yet another politician gives Big Business a nice, hard bitch slap for the little guy because he's an upstanding, principled American citizen.

This message brought to you by 1940s American sitcoms, whose sponsors remind you to, "Grow up, you ignorant, self-important fuckwit that assumes that everyone else is stupid."

While you're assuming what "most Americans" would do, you may want to look at one of the latest polls, the second most popular source of generalizations about American beliefs (with first place going to the speaker's ass, of course). It paints a pretty unsurprising picture for anyone that doesn't blindly assume that those around them are inferior to themselves. It states that the American people disagree with the Bush Administration in its priorities, believe that its policies favor the rich, believe both that Bush is handling Iraq the wrong way and that that sentiment will be ignored, that the US is not winning the "War On Terror", and that Bush is too quick to involve the military. As always, though, the President's approval rating remains unchanged even as American attitudes slowly change, because the approval rating for an American president usually only changes when they either do something or are close to an election, and Bush has been dragging his feet for months on the Iraq issue.