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Well, 'Anonymous Coward', I didn't say it was Enron. I only said that it was a "certain energy company".

On the question of whether or not Enron is a piece of the puzzle concerning the false energy crisis of California, there are a number of articles tracing influences in that market, of which this article, What Cheney's Hiding, is only one.

Here are a couple others:

• Power Price Gouging Secrets
• CA State Senate document (PDF) finding Enron in contemp

"This government learned nothing from the USA's abuse of the Social Security number, this is much worse."

Generating a HKID card number with correct check digit is too easy. There were news about people using photocopies of ID card and successfully applied credit cards. I think we do learned something about number abusal. That's why they hope a smart chip ID card can help. Or maybe implant ID is the way to go?

...watch for the available content to become more and more dictated by the broadband providers. They had to sink a lot of money into building the networks (billions upon billions of dollar), and expect to recoup the cost somehow. One thing they can do is push their content (and thus the advertising space they sell) on you by limiting access to other sites via slowdowns or other disincentives. Imagine not being to access CBSNews.com or drudgereport.com, but having to get all online news from CNN.com if you're an AOL/Time-Warner company, of which CNN is a part.

This is essentially the argument that Lawrence Lessig makes in his latest book, but I suspect that if you see broadband growth progress slowing with falling profit margins and bigger expenditures to (slowly) expand the network, you'll begin to see this technique used a lot in the future.

Hm. Yes.

To be very precise: After looking at the available information, much of which conflicts or is filled with peculiar elements which do not mesh with the official story, it seems evident that numerous parties other than the terrorist body may have been aware before hand what was going to happen, did nothing to prevent it, and may in fact have been assisting in its development.

By whom was 9/11 manufactured?

Not easy to answer in a word, however.

The party/ies, assuming they exist, were either able to:

*Quash FBI investigative efforts which would have prevented the disaster.
see interview with David Shippers, the attorney who headed the Clinton impeachment trials, now representing FBI officers who charge that they were regularly prohibited or coerced into withholding their discoveries of the terrorist activities long before, not just the 9/11 attack, but Oklahoma and others.

*Affect the airline check-in systems so that none of the alleged hijackers names appeared on the passenger lists.
See Perplexing puzzle (I linked to this one already in the post above. I assume you have read through it?)

*Affect the major news outlets by removing seasoned staffers to replace them with young and untested journalists all throughout 2001, with many cuts right around 9/11. CNN launched it's new 'look' and staff structure only days prior to the 9/11.
Link 1, Link 2, Link 3

(This is just a brief sampling of pages I looked for just now. I seem to have lost my links which contained a list of CNN staffers fired just prior to 9/11. Can't find it on-line anymore. Annoying. In any case, this last might have been coincidence, but it was very convenient that the American news structure was reduced in brain-size right when it was most critical that good journalists be around to question the weak points of this story. The powers involved, if they were opperating from such high levels, would certainly have been both able to affect such changes and would have been foolish not to. But, of course, that's just speculation.)

There are numerous other aspects of this which are not quickly summed up and require more detailed searching, and indeed, the above links were only selected for their simplicity in demonstrating what I'm talking about; there is much more information for those willing to look. Other aspects include:

*The possibility of remote piloting. (Although, while there are three specific points which indicate a strong possibility of this, including private documents recovered from the terrorists written the day prior to the event wherein they described their willingness to serve jail sentences for the crimes they intended to commit the next day, (ie, they didn't realize they were on a suicide mission), and other crash investigations (AirIndia) the black box voice recordings from which indicated a strong possibility that control of the plane was removed from the pilots and directed into the ocean against their will, (ie, demonstrating that such a thing may be possible), and the 100% perfect paths of descent and vectoring, with zero corrections made, that the planes used to make their impacts into the towers; calculated only once from the first moment the planes changed course, (i.e. suggesting that the human pilots were not involved. In any case, I think these particular arguments, while in themselves are interesting, do not necessarily indicate remote piloting.)
*The numerous links between Bin Laden, Bush and the CIA.
*The various reports of warnings hours before and 'lucky' absentees
*The numerous strange questions surrounding the rented car and Arabic flight manuals.

The list goes on.

Anyway, that should clarify what I meant by, "Manufactured."

Hope this helps.

-Fantastic Lad

I spent a lot of time last year looking for open source accounting software. I'm not happy about it, but I would not recommend open source enterprise accounting to anyone who wants to keep their job/business.

Cost: Yes, commercial accounting systems are incredibly expensive. Unfortunately, fucking up your financials is far, far more expensive than investing money in good, supported software. Call a few lawyers and accountings who do auditing and ask for quotes on hourly rates if you're not sure. Bad accounting will ruin a business very, very quickly.

Reliability: I believe in the basic cathedral/bazaar theory, but there just aren't enough people writing and using open source enterprise accounting packages for the theory to apply. Unless there are tens of thousands of users, I have to assume that there are bugs in the system and I don't know where they are. See costs, above.

Personnel: if I need to hire someone from a temp agency to sit at a workstation and do AR for a few days, I don't want to spend half the time I'm paying an outrageous fee training them on an obscure system or how to use their damn operating system. If I need to have someone set up the system (as I am not an accountant), and pay truly outrageous amounts for their time, I sure don't want to spend thousands of dollars getting them familiarized with the system. Especially when they will still be punting on decisions that can affect the system years later.

Everything that I've said isn't true if there's an open source solution that becomes widely used...but accounting is really the last area of your business where you want to be on the bleeding edge of software development. In other areas, the bleeding edge might give you a competitive advantage, but in accounting, you will just plain bleed.

You're forgetting something happened in between. The DOJ was doing fine until Microsoft's check to Bush and the other Republicans cleared. Then the following conversation happened:

GWB: Now Ashy, don'cha think you're bein a little hard on Microsoft. Maybe you're misunderstating their position.

JA: But they broke the law! And since we're Republicans, we can't be seen as soft on crime!

GWB: Tell you what, John, if you go easy on the B. Gates and Co, I'll let you tromp on some civil rights. Will that make it better?

JA: Well...

GWB: I'll even give you some new police powers ...

JA: You got a deal! That'll show all those people in Missoura who would rather vote for a dead guy than me!

Firestone announces it will be donating surplus "Wilderness XT" tires to Afghanistan's Northern Alliance, as well as any Goodyear employee involved in R&D or Marketing.

According to CBS News, the "Big Three" are CA, MA, and MN.

You can also try the following stories.
www.msnbc.com/news/652977.asp

money.cnn.com/2001/11/06/technology/microsoft/

www.cbsnews.com/now/story/0,1597,316946-412,00.sht ml

www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,38145,00.html

www.nytimes.com/2001/11/06/business/06CND-SOFT.htm l (Reg Required)

canoe.ca/MoneyMicrosoft/nov6_msfttwothirds-ap.html

That's certainly the conventional (Slashdot) belief, but it's frankly not true. Patent attorneys will often work on a contingency basis if you have a real case. Prove it to me: Show me a patent that was filed by a little guy that was "smashed" by a big guy.


I was not implying that "little guys" who can actually afford the patent process are smashed by big companies. I'm talking about huge companies who can afford to build up patent war chests in order to intimidate competition from entering the market.

Not to mention the various groups of patents that have the capacity to hurt real people.

Sure, bad patents can be overturned one at a time, but this often requires lots of money and lawyers too.

(And here is my opportunity to be controversial): The only reason many Slashdotters are against patents is because they want to steal other people's ideas, not because they are worried about corporations stealing the little guy's ideas.

Not really controversial--this is the standard corporate party line. Actually, many of us belive that ideas cannot be owned, and thus cannot be stolen. It's no surprise our corporate government doesn't share this viewpoint.

(...) Please don't make this sound like we're all under martial law or
are on the brink of it. That's over-reacting.

We've strayed quite a bit off-topic here, but I sincerely and deeply hope
that you are right, that I am over-reacting. A few news items have
placed doubts in my mind, however. George W. Bush has
declared a National Emergency, which I believe opens the door for suspension of our civil rights. Now
I realize that national emergencies have been declared by just about every
president in the last forty years, for various purposes, but usually the
purpose and objective is very clearly stated, while this declaration is very
vague and open-ended. Are we under martial law? Could somebody
please explain the precise implications of this national emergency?
And then there was
this article by CBS News Legal Consultant Andrew Cohen, where he tells us that he expects
that the 1878 Posse Comitatus will soon be repealed or substantially altered.
This is the law that prevents the military from serving as a police
force in this country. Even during WWII it was not found to be necessary
to rescind this law, and for good reason.

I really do fear we may be on the brink of martial law in this country,
or something very close to it, and I think we need to let our politicans
know that this is unacceptable.

The full text of the President's speech is here.

Sure: http://www.cbsnews.com/now/story/0,1597,311268-412 ,00.shtml

On the radio here in Detroit, AM 950, today. One of the newscasters reported on the FBI going into AOL and other major ISP's and forcing them to install special software, code named "Carnivore". Sound familiar? I have not been able to find where the reporter got his "additional" information, but he referenced the following article here,

"Ashcroft: Toughen Anti-Terror Laws"

His comments continued, stating that congress is considering legislation to change our digital privacy rights. The newscaster's closing comment was that, although this will raise concerns by privacy groups, this is a necessary step in order to combat terrorism.

(Sorry, I still haven't caught the reporter's name, but will post it as soon as I hear his commentary again. It replays approx. every 30 minutes or so.)

has some cool stuff about crypto invloving the NSA.

He brings up some very good points -- and the sort of backhand at Slashdot isn't anything that hasn't been said and nodded at by everyone here, and yeah, I'm sure we'll all get over it. Where he runs into a problem, though, is in his amusing assertion that the "legitimate" media [characterization is mine, not a quote] have and adhere to these standards of ethics. That's laughable. I wish I could find the references now, but I don't remember whether it was in the San Francisco Chronicle or the San Francisco Bay Guardian that I read about the publishing policy at the Los Angeles Times a few years ago -- where the publisher overruled the editorial staff and declared that no articles that were antagonistic to the advertisers would be run.

It's true of every news organ that the subscription fees (if any) do not even come close to financing the business. News outlets, whether they're radio, television, print, or online, are not actually in business for the reader. It's the same old story, guys: Follow the Money. The people who are actually making these "news" organs into profitable businesses are the advertisers, and don't think that the editorial and publishing staffs don't know this. They know exactly who their customers are. The customers are the advertisers. And their product is their subscriber base. The way they manufacture their product is to spew forth infotainment designed to keep their product's infamously short attention span focused on the medium long enough to score an ad impression.

The only part of this article that I really disagree with is his holier-than-thou attitude. Yeah right, offline media have ethics. Go watch The Insider and look at how 60 Minutes -- big guns in traditional media, I'd say -- sucked up to tobacco.

If you're in journalism, you're a whore. So what? We're mostly not down on prostitution around here, so long as we get our share. Here's fifty bucks; suck on this.

Though I found the article interesting, the fact that it's all about protecting intellectual property in a manner that allows the creator more control to determine their income, I do wonder how much financial pressure is being caused by world economy decline.

Or is this DMCA and such contributing to the decline in consumer interest in this technology (I know it's rather distasteful to me)?

World Economy - "China is a lone global bright spot,..."
Hmmmm, and what is China's reason for this? China wasn't a part of the trillion dollar bet.
But where does China stand on DMCA and such like matters? And is China a hint as to what to expect?

In other words: Will China being a bright spot in the world economy (due to not playing the trillion bollar gamble) lead the experts (with blinders on of course) to promote whatever China does, regarding DMCA like issues?

Study: US Science booksrife with errors!
Popular textbooks used by 85% of US Middle-School kids, contain gross mistakes
Could be reason US students so dumb in science!

Officials Ban 8-Year-Old's Science Fair ExperimentProject
Suggested That Kids Prefer White Barbie Doll To Black Barbie Doll
Father Claims Her Freedom Of Expression Was Violated

BRITISH TO TEACH 4 YEAR OLDS HOMOSEXUALITY / ANAL SEX
teachers "not to try to promote any type of family or home life as the norm"

University of Florida: BLACK ENROLLMENT DROPS 50% WITHOUT RACE-PREFERENCES
They just can't cut-it without special treatment!

TEACHER ARRESTED FORASSAULTING and ENDANGERING STUDENTS
Tied children up; tied shoes around necks!

HARVARD UNIVERSITY EXPOSED IN GRADES FRAUD
Professor exposes intentional "Grade Inflation"
Harvard Grads not nearly as smart as once thought?

Cuba offers free Medical School toUS Students
. . . as long as they pledge allegiance to Communism

Vanguard News Network

Are you the same AC who reported this a few days ago in another topic (where it was also off topic, even if true). Since neither CBS nor CNN seems to have any information on it, I have my doubts about its accuracy.

• Official site for the match
• Brain Games network
• CNN report
• CBS News report
• BBC News report
• The Times
• Financial Times
• Daily Telegraph
• Associated Press
• Reuters
• Britannica India
• International Herald Tribune

• Netzeitung report (German)
• Yahoo.de (German)
• ORF Futurezone (German)
• Financial Times (German)
• Chesslines survey (French)
• CNN en Español (Spanish)
• CNN Italia (Italian)
• BBC Brasil (Portugese)
• Express (Swedish)
• El Comercio Peru (Spanish

MSNBC has a longer story.

Fox News has a few words to say.

ABC copied the AP story.

CBS still seems to think the red tide is receeding.

Meanwhile the worm has knocked on my computer's door six times since I started this post. Uh, make that seven.

MSNBC has a longer story.

Fox News has a few words to say.

ABC copied the AP story.

CBS still seems to think the red tide is receeding.

Meanwhile the worm has knocked on my computer's door six times since I started this post. Uh, make that seven.

And if you're a regular slashdot reader then you're well aware of the shortage of electricity in the US, that's probably their main reason for objecting to the Kyoto protocol.

(I submitted it but it was rejected)

Boston Globe:
Adobe shifts, urges hacker's release

CBS News:
Hacker Held Under New Law

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

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

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

Those all seem pretty mainstream to me.
--

Last week, Ed Bradley did an hour-long piece on Columbine. In fact, I would say it was the most even-handed, well-researched piece on Columbine I had ever seen. They talked about the times beforehand that the two had gotten in trouble and threatened others. They spoke about what was happening at the school and its failure to address things going on. They talked about the parents themselves and never going into their rooms. Catch the link out to the 60 Minutes II site here . This is a link to the first part of the story, but the second part on warning signs is at the bottom of the page but the link is here .

Last week, Ed Bradley did an hour-long piece on Columbine. In fact, I would say it was the most even-handed, well-researched piece on Columbine I had ever seen. They talked about the times beforehand that the two had gotten in trouble and threatened others. They spoke about what was happening at the school and its failure to address things going on. They talked about the parents themselves and never going into their rooms. Catch the link out to the 60 Minutes II site here . This is a link to the first part of the story, but the second part on warning signs is at the bottom of the page but the link is here .

Apparently the 'subtle signs' that Columbine teachers, administrators and police missed in Eric Harris' case were:

• Making pipe bombs (known to police and school officials)
• Repeated threats of murder (known to police, school officials, and students)
• Possesion of guns (known to other students, and possibly teachers - videos shown at school)

Maybe instead of targeting kids who wear black, play Doom, or shoot imaginary guns, it would be enough just to pay attention to kids who are obsessing about mass murder and collecting enough weapons to make it a reality

From the article:
"People are covering up everything that went wrong and I want those lessons out there," says Judy Brown. "They're doing studies, they're getting profiles. Everybody's trying to get programs going and what we can do. Well guess what? All the signs were there. You know what the lessons are? Do your job."

• "AppearingonCBStelevision's"Facethe Nation"programSunday, Powellsaid:"Wedoacknowledgethatwe violatedtheir(China's) airspace,...Andweregretthat.Wehave expressedsorrowforit. Andwe'resorrythatthathappened."

• What we have done and what President Bush has done and what I have done and what Ambassador Prueher is talking to them about is to make sure that they understand we do regret the loss of their pilot and plane. We do acknowledge that we violated their air space, but look at the emergency circumstances that the pilot was facing. And we regret that, and we've expressed sorrow for it, and we're sorry that that happened. But that can't be seen as an apology accepting responsibility.

Examples are rampant:

environmental issues ( Earth Liberation Front , recently profiled on 60 Minutes),

Vietnam protests (Weathermen, SDS),

Civil rights movement (Malcolm X),

and the Boston Tea Party.

I don't mean to promote violence, but I think it's clear that when a group of people are disenfranchised, they find a way to get their voices heard above the din. If hacktivism is that tool for this era -- get ready for a whole lot more.

You can mod me down, but then I'll just get bitter and find a way to have my voice heard. Muwahahahahaha...

Link it, man, link it:

The story questioning the ontological status of Pluto

And we haven't yet visited 2000 EB173, isn't 2000 EB173 good enough for you?

Slashdot: News for common criminals, stuff for petty thiefs.
No wonder this place gets no respect in the real media.

The quote is from Steve Nesbitt, a NASA spokesman responsible for updates to the television link. Nesbitt was neither a Flight Controller, nor a CapCom -- almost always another astronaut. Call him the NASA TV anchor.

Nesbitt was based in Houston and did not have a monitor in front of him showing the plumes, just data monitors showing telemetry.

At that point they only knew something was awry with the launch and vehicle communications. There are limited abort capabilities at 73 seconds -- realistically, probably none. But until the Range Safety Officer reported they had destroyed the SRBs ahead of schedule, even after that, it was still possible that the orbiter vehicle was in some kind of abort mode.

Nesbitt's words were for the public, interpreting things that are said and seen, and as far as I know were not heard by the people at Mission Control.

I agree, it was a tremendously professional moment among many others that day. Hundreds of people, all of them unable to sit and stare, all of them required to be working their post and determining what happened and what options may be left, if any.

transcript/timeline

Unfortunately the same cannot be said of the Morton Thiokol manager who overruled his own engineers earlier that morning.
----

I don't think you are aware of the FBI's history with repect to monitoring its citizens. An example of recent events was shown on Monday night's 60 Minutes. Two citizen's are in jail right now because of 24 hour FBI monitoring allowed by the law (when the law is misapplied). The FBI went to great lengths to misapply the law.

"notable for its lack of evidence"

"a secret court made up of anonymous judges"

"secret permission can be obtained to break in and tape conversations without Fourth Amendment guarantees"

In this example, the FBI had a court order -- a secret court order -- giving them every right to tap these guys' lives.

Your slippery slope argument of total anarchy resulting from the FBI not being allowed to invade the privacy of U.S. citiznes is ridiculous.

I am a lot more concerned about the FBI reading my personal files and deciding I'm a criminal and the consequences of that than any "mafioso", child pornographer, or terrorist. Unlike the latter group of "criminal" elements, the FBI is actually in a position of power such that it can destroy my life if the FBI so chooses.

If you've been following the opinion polls on all this, everything is sharply divided

That's not quite accurate:
ABC news poll.
CBS news poll.

The fact that the polls indicate a shift in opinion since the election is a good indicator that Gore is doing things that even his own supporters are having trouble stomaching.

The truth is, both candidates are going to come out of this looking bad, and low on support. They're both going to have trouble with re-election.

Not really. Unfortunately, the American public doesn't have an attention span or memory that lasts long enough so that the first election contest affects the outcome of the second one.

Other factors - like whether or not this (and the world) economy goes into recession and can come out again by electin time - will be far more important.

But that wasn't my point. My point is that in any situation where it comes down to a civilian's word against a cop in a court of law, the cop will come out the winner, every time, no questions asked.

The conviction of three Los Angeles police officers on corruption charges represents a watershed for the city, legal observers said Wednesday, because it signals that jurors here no longer automatically give credence to the men and women who are sworn to serve and protect.

"In Los Angeles, a badge is no longer a shield," said Santa Monica defense lawyer Gigi Gordon, who has followed the Rampart case closely.

The Electoral College is there for a reason: To keep a few states with large populations from running roughshod over the bulk of the states.

Go to any news site and look at the election map. (Here for instance.) This election is EXACTLY what the electoral college is INTENDED to address.

Further: The partitioning of the vote into states limits the ability of a corrupt political machine in one big state to swing the election. With it a cheater can only capture the electors of his state - which MIGHT swing the election, but only if the other states split just right. Without it his fake votes could swamp the genuine voters any time the election is at all close. And we'd be recounting the WHOLE COUNTRY, not just a few counties or a couple states.

There is a report out there that Palm Beach County may have made a mistake and had people vote for Buchanan instead of Gore. I think there was about 3000 votes for Buchanan which would put gore over the top in Florida. This is so fun

If you look monroe county in florida They still have not reported You never know. He is only 11,000 down.

No but check out here it is a little closer than you lasted check

Dade County is hold everything up check it out here most counties already reported expect Dade county.

It looks like
California Bush is leading so far but they are still hold on to the fact that Gore will win it. Well will see.

1. BUSH LIED ON "MEET THE PRESS," 11/21/99

TIM RUSSERT: If someone came to you and said, "Governor, I'm sorry, I'm going to go public with some information." What do you do?

GOV. BUSH: If someone was willing to go public with information that was damaging, you'd have heard about it by now. You've had heard about it now. My background has been scrutinized by all kinds of reporters. Tim, we can talk about this all morning.

2. BUSH LIED TO "DALLAS MORNING NEWS," 1998

"Just after the governor's reelection in 1998, [Dallas Morning
News reporter Wayne] Slater pressed Bush about whether he had ever been
arrested. 'He said, "After 1968? No."'" New Republic

3. BUSH LIED TO CBS, 1999.

"Bush has often acknowledged past mistakes, but CBS News Correspondent Lee Cowan reports that in a 1999 interview with CBS station WBZ in Boston, he denied there was any so-called smoking gun." CBS

The statement to the Dallas Morning News report in the National Review is the most damning. Remember, it wasn't the sex that Clinton was impeached for, it was the lying. This is just too close to the election for the first shoe the drop, you don't want the second shoe to drop AFTER he's the ruler of the free world do you?

Actually, those were facts. I don't see how your posting is even relevant to the original article which started this thread. The article was referring to banner adds and the use of cookies to collect statistics, not sites like the New York Times where you are required to divulge personal information in order to read their stories.

As an aside the New York Times has every right to ask this information, you have every right to refuse or falsify it. You've got every right to go elsewhere for news as well. I'd much prefer being educated on the impacts of the internet on personal privacy than having a privacy gestapo like you seem to prefer regulating what can and can not be done.

As for the New York Times being the only news site which collects information on its users you are pretty close to 100% inaccurate. ABC News, CNN, CBS news and NBC News all make use of banner adds. The issue the article was dealing with. I can't connect to the BBC News and it looks like it may be the one news site that doesn't use banner adds.

Whether or not the Dreamcast was actually connected to the internet or not was not the issue. It turns out that it isn't. The issue was that the owner of an allegedly popular Dreamcast news site felt it was his perogative to run nmap against his users which indicated just how much privacy you really have.