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http://www.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=Want+to+know+how+to+really+astroturf+a+movement%3F+Just+ask+Democrat+money+men+Craig+Varoga+and+George+Rakis++|+Washington+Examiner+&expire=&urlID=421168677&fb=Y&url=http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Want-to-know-how-to-really-astroturf-a-movement-Just-ask-Democrat-money-man-84860827.html&partnerID=422054&cid=84860827

Such a convenient excuse (if true)... but still doesn't explain all of the fake jobs 'created or saved' in New Hampshire, Florida and Georgia, Ohio, Wisconsin, New Jersey, Virginia, Texas, Illinois, Colorado, Washington, Massachusetts, Arkansas, Connecticut, or Michigan.

Given the scope of the fakery going on... there are two options... even more errors, or a deliberate attempt to cook the books.

Giving the amazing failure of the stimulus... the latter is far more likely given the continued delusional claims that it saved us from the brink... instead it is setting us up for a double dip and massive inflation.

Already done, kind of http://cnn.technology.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=CNN.com+-+'Brain'+in+a+dish+flies+flight%A0simulator+-+Nov+4%2C+2004&expire=-1&urlID=12174447&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnn.com%2F2004%2FTECH%2F11%2F02%2Fbrain.dish%2Findex.html&partnerID=2016

In 1982, the average CEO salary was 47 times higher than that of the average production worker.

In 1990, it was 107 times higher.

In 2001, it was 525 times higher.

In 2004, it was 431 times higher (that's the dot.com crash for you)

Now, you're going to tell me with a straight face that the average CEO's job has got 10 times harder in the last 30 years? That they *really* work *430 times* harder or longer than your average non-management worker? Of course the CEO is free to look elsewhere for work; he's getting paid several million a year and no doubt has a large bank balance to go with it. If he screws up, he doesn't get fired, he just spends a couple of months playing golf, then gets snapped up again by another board because he has 'experience'.

Ordinary workers have to take what they can get, especially in times like this. Those with the money make the rules, and the people without money can literally go hungry. And since I can almost hear the words 'well, why don't you start your own business then' forming, I'll point out that they're calling it a credit crunch for a reason - even current functional small businesses can't get sufficient credit, new startups are really struggling to get the funding needed to get started.

So how do CEOs of large companies get away with these large salary increases? Well, they're voted on by the board of directors - who are all largely non-executive, and CEOs of other companies. What goes around, comes around etc. So why do the shareholders approve it? Because they're told by the board 'this is the current market rate, and if you want the talent, you have to pay for it'. And given most of the stockholders are pension firms etc rather than individuals, they don't like rocking the boat. I've seen this at a couple of AGM's recently - small shareholders revolting over CEO compensation, but the majority large stockholders keep quiet, and nothing changes.

Small business owners who actually work in the company as CEO in the first place have a direct incentive to grow the business by reinvesting profits. CEOs of large companies have an incentive to extract as much money personally as the board will let them get away with.

Here's the raw truth:

All the computer models are wrong. They have not only failed to predict the future, they can't even predict that past.

That is, when you run their software with the data from, say, the 1970s or 1980s, and project what should happen in the 1990s or 2000s, they project results that have absolutely nothing to do with the known climate data for those decades.

Now I know what you're going to say you're going to contest that my sources aren't scientific enough, or they are unfounded. That's the coward's way out; especially when your source was Wikipedia. Try refuting evidence with evidence.

You'll also be apt to say that this is only a handful of evidence against the towering "evidence" of your "scientists." Ok. Prove it.

As for your "supernatural" comment, faith and science are not all that different. You have faith that the sun will rise, because it has before. You have faith in these scientists because of their titles, given to them by humans just as fallible and weak as you and I.

I, on the other hand, have faith that God exists and that prayers are answered because they are and have been before. You can chalk all you want up to coincidence or superstition, but I'd rather stick to that which I know for myself to be true. Personal experience has taught me that science can't explain everything.

Just a few minutes on Google. I look forward to you explaining why they are actually innocent or don't apply to this discussion:

Convicted Imam, convicted sailor, convicted conspirator, 9/11 planner pleads guilty.

It's an easy game to play. If someone commits an act of terrorism, the stupid government has failed us. If someone is caught before they (or the people they support) commit an act of terrorism, then they are innocents caught up in the overzealous surveillance campaign of the stupid government.

don't want to scroll through 7 pages?

WTF is this doing as the main article link?

http://www.emailthis.clickability.com/et/emailThis ?clickMap=viewThis&etMailToID=1094610967

lame...

Next: Why do kids in class have access to the Internet? I can see that it might be appropriate in a library, under supervision - but in class? Of course it would cause interruptions! What: are these kids expecting free wireless at school?

But this ignores the underlying question: is there reason for portable computing devices within the classroom? I think yes. The problem is not the computer, it is how teachers design curriculums with computing in mind. That is, they don't. Further, there's little software designed to help teach to a curriculum. Most teachers aren't programmers and wouldn't have time to develop good software even if they had programming skills. So, there's a large gap between what a computer could do to help teach students and how they are currently being used.

I would suggest that a laptop (or handheld) is best used for note taking. But with specialized software it could also help teach math, geography, foreign languages, etc. Providing etexts for coursework could be useful as well. But giving kids laptops with wireless internet? Whoa... bad idea.

Giancarlo from Cisco has a letter in the WSJ where he says it is basically way to early to regulate a problem that we might not even have ...

ClearChannel is entitled to a return on its investment, is it not? </sarcasm>

Justin Raimondo

The publication of the 12 cartoons, and the reaction on both sides, is a classic case of how propaganda of the crudest sort is utilized to mold mass attitudes and whip up entire populations into a state of hysteria. Hate and fear are created out of thin air by the most skillful means, and stereotypes take the place of reality as the world prepares for war. That's what this is all about: the hate propaganda emanating from certain quarters in Europe and the U.S. amounts to preparations for war just as much as the manufacture of arms and the mobilization of armies at the border. We are being psychologically prepared for another world war, and the first shots are being fired from the pages of Jyllands-Posten. I have the sinking feeling that they won't be the last...

Here's another couple:

http://www.2600.com/news/view/article/1441 [Photographing the VPs entourage at a public hotel]
http://reviewjournal.printthis.clickability.com/pt /cpt?action=cpt&expire=&urlID=8164533&fb=Y&partner ID=565 [Strip club owner]

  -Charles

I'm just going to focus on the last chunk here "or a hurricane in the South that the Bush administration completely fails to deal with and which results in mass casualties due purely to slow response. You have to wonder if the Bush administration would have acted more swiftly if the people suffering in the South were affluent, white Republicans instead of poor, black Democrats."

How can you say they completely failed to deal with the situation when first of all they didn't even know where the hurricane was going to hit until a day prior. New Orleans has a 72hour evacuation plan. Oops. Secondly Bush declared the storm a castastrophy BEFORE the storm hit in order to be able to start aid preparations beforehand. Next you have to ignore headlines such as...

CONGRESS TO RECONVENE;
BUSH ADMIN TO SEEK $10 BILLION AID INSTALLMENT...
'HEALTH EMERGENCY' DECLARED...
LEVEE REPAIRS UNDERWAY...
BUSH: DON'T BUY GAS IF YOU DON'T NEED IT
More Navy Ships Headed to the Gulf Coast...
Spy satellites aid Hurricane Katrina recovery...

to be able to say they aren't making any effort. They are also trying to get Carnival cruise lines to use their ships to take on people. The National Guard is also on the way to help restore order. Don't go making everything a race issue when it clearly is not. Half of the delays in getting people to safer land from the shelters is because they have to fish morons off of rooftops or stay out of the air because people on the ground are firing at the helicopters or firing on medical convoys http://cnn.worldnews.printthis.clickability.com/pt /cpt?action=cpt&title=CNN.com+-+Gunmen+target+medi cal+convoy+-+Sep+1%2C+2005&expire=-1&urlID=1538313 3&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnn.com%2F2005%2FWEATH ER%2F09%2F01%2Fkatrina.impact%2Findex.html&partner ID=2006/

I kinda doubt that Hulk's Blog is going to go Corporate ... ;-)

May I direct your attention to http://cnnmoney.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt? action=cpt&urlID=14256847&partnerID=2200 and http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/05/16/ 2117243.

... where have they gone?

404 File Not Found
The requested URL (apple/05/02/28/%3CA%20HREF=) was not found.

If you feel like it, mail the url, and where ya came from to pater@slashdot.org.


Here's a link to at least a similar story. Got the link from DrudgeReport.com

working link[clickability.com]

... and allowing them to be used as investigative tools (again with court orders) against terrorists

Substantial parts of the PATRIOT act can be used without any kind of court order. The 'sneak-and-peek' provisions can be carried out without the government ever telling you that you were searched or investigated.

The ACLU and EFF have pages up about the PATRIOT Act, and clearly show how the effects are not limited to "terrorists". (Unless, like Ashcroft, you feel that breasts and calico cats are weapons of mass destruction.)

More importantly, can you give me the number of people whose civil liberties have *actually* been violated (N.B. not those who "felt" they were violated) under specific provisions of the PATRIOT Act?

Not easily, because it's secret. I can certainly say that Maher Arar had his civil liberties violated, but since the US government won't talk about it, it's hard to say whether it was PATRIOT-related or just plain extra-legal.

Of course, you may feel that using the PATRIOT act against pot-smugglers is excessive.

From tsunami to Kyoto not impacting the environment at all to dropping emissions, to overblown disaster movies, scientists resigning various environmental organizations, and other speeches. People are even connecting the environment to the tsunamis, which have nothing to do with the environment, and everything to do with Earthquakes that are going to happen anyway. Lets get some perspective here.

why Toyota is building robots in Japan and plans to replicate it elsewhere.

Its a link for non-subscribers(took some digging to find this article but thanks to copernic.)

WSJ.com - As Toyota Closes In on GM, Quality Concerns Also Grow

You left the part out about where they can come into your home, search your belongings, and remove belongings without telling you.

Thank goodness the laws had an expiration date on them. We have to remember, the number of terrorists convicted as a direct result of these infractions on our Bill of Rights remains a big 0.

To quote a small section I think is wrong:

"reasonably suspected based on credible evidence of engaging in terrorist acts or money laundering activities."

The "or money laundering activities" leaves an open invitation to abuse. This opens the uses of this law up to be used against just about anyone, not just terrorists. Take the abuses in vegas and dope busts. None of this activity will save anyone from any terrorist.

While I feel it is important for the US to maintain a sense of law and order, I do not condone such an extreme set of laws to bust pot smokers and adult entertainers for their doings.

--The Angry Liberal

Orion Sees Gold in Moribund Workstations.

------------------
OT
If you have a gmail account, you might want to read this.

Nobody's rights have been violated by the Patriot Act. Name one or shut up.

The deficit as a percent of GDP is LOWER now than it was under Clinton.

It was the low bidder; what do you want - WalMart supplying our troops?

Exactly

In fact most, if not all, the terrorists that attacked the US on 9/11 could have been caught using traditional law enforcement means if they didn't all have their heads up their asses. Some of them used their real names! That's enough to make me cringe. We're just giving more power to incompetent government agencies.

Which ones? These?

It's funny how everyone focused on the butterfly ballot, the overseas military votes, hanging chads, etc. These dealt with hundreds to low thousands of votes. The real scandal was the voter purge list. A "felon list", all but a tiny portion of the people on the list were not felons - and it was *heavily* skewed towards democratic voting groups. For example, the list banned 22,000 blacks, but only 61 hispanics.

This story just seems to be posted to drive traffic to a blog. Why do the Slashdot editors allow this?

The proper stories are posted at sportsillustrated.cnn.com (printer friendly) and computerworld.com (printer friendly) respectively. Click those links instead.

There was a great and depressing story in the Atlanta Journal about the Atlanta Public Schools mismanagement of $73 million in E-Rate funds a few weeks ago. Good read, if you have the time.

Here's a snippet:

The newspaper found several million dollars' worth locked up in two storage facilities. At one location, mothballed Cisco electronics worth about $2 million were resting haphazardly on the bare cement floor. At another site, electronics worth $1.4 million or more sat unopened in large stockpiles around the room. Some equipment was 3 years old, despite federal rules that equipment must be installed the year purchased. Boxes of Cisco equipment worth more than $400,000 were designated for a school that already had the gear. Expensive switching components were stacked like phone books against one wall. Other equipment lay strewn around the floor or piled in heaps.

Here's the link, minus soul-sucking registration:

A $73 million spending spree

Truly disgusting. Maybe they'll have an auction. I'd like to have a $100k Cisco router as a doorstop.

original url (with photo and links)
http://edition.cnn.com/2003/HEALTH/12/25/internal. toxins.ap

easy to read/print version:
http://printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cp t&urlID=8625157&partnerID=2012

Fox News crew was Krusty For Congress, which mocked the perceived rightward-leanings of the channel with pseudo-news items such as "Do Democrats cause cancer?" and "Oil slicks found to keep seals young, supple" scrolling across the bottom of the screen.

It's not percieved, the proof is here. This is a former producer for Fox's News Watch media show giving the dirt on how the bias comes down from Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes everyday in an email nicknamed "The Memo".

Expect to see more info as "The Memo" starts getting leaked. Fox is truly biased, the proof is in information like this. For more analysis, including a rebuttal from Fox, check this out. You might also want to read this commentary over at Editor & Publisher deconstructing Fox's spin on the latest "liberal media" salvo they fired.

Here is the original FT story.

No need to worry about out of Gamut warnings when working on RGB...

Hmm... the core technology behind this is something called 'electrowetting'... isn't that what the barnyard masturbators from the worst jobs in science article from PopSci used to extract sperm from pigs?

I for one welcome our new electrowetting masters!

Here's the printable page.

Hee hee, barnyard masturbator...

Now we are told once more that the best cure against spam should be to reinvent something to replace the tried-and-true eMail system of decade-old reliability, just because some sociopaths apparently cannot learn to behave without getting a spanking (or jail time) and U.S. privacy laws are still too weak to stop the spam.

And after all the years that spam has plagued the networks, that's quite a poor achievement for a nation that managed to outlaw junk faxes, and had confirmation from the courts that regulating advertising does pass constitutional muster perfectly well:

"Nothing in the Constitution compels us to listen to or to view any unwanted communication, whatever its merit... We therefore categorically reject the argument that a vendor has the right under the Constitution or otherwise to send unwanted material into the home of another... We repeat, the right of a mailer stops at the outer boundary of every person's domain."
Supreme Court
Rowan v. U.S. Post Office
397 U.S. 728

This is not about "lawmakers never knowing enough about the Internet to regulate any aspect of it in a meaningful way", it's about doing something to prevent imposing compulsory changes to technology that keep fighting the symptoms rather than the cause.
Congress should get over such shameful cowardice and make the simple law that's needed and proven to work.

There is no need to re-engineer the Internet.
There is no justification for widespread surveillance and data retention under the poor excuse of trying to track down spammers.
There is no risk of banning mailing lists or commercial eMail.
There is no doubt what the sociopathic behavior is.

All that is needed is mandatory opt-in for unsolicited bulk eMail (encompassing all kinds of electronic messaging).

And yet some self-proclaimed "experts on electronic advertising" (whose only merit probably is that they know how to spam because they've done it a trillion times at everyone else's expense) keep pretending that opt-in wasn't legal, or feasible, or desirable.

Opt-in works, and it does not hurt anyone but the spammers.

Europe has adopted it, Australia is adopting it (how far behind do you want the U.S. to be, are we to wait for China to outlaw spam before the U.S. will?!), but most importantly the USA have successfully adopted it themselves against junk faxes.

There's probably something wrong in Washington D.C., and the news media in general, when the most insightful newspaper article on the issue comes from USA Today.
Be sure to fax or eMail it to your congress(wo)man though.
Don't spam them, but do attach some selected masterpieces of spam if you think they need an idea of what ends up in the inbox of their constituents, and of their children, 9 billion times, every single day.

> Give me a break!

OK.

> They operate with complete dissregard for human life and they need to be stopped.

Like this?

Or, since American citizens are closer to your heart, maybe this will interest you more.

Reality has shown that OSS/FS programs get bug-fixes and other such patches quicker than do proprietary programs. Check out the times between bug-notifications and fixes for MS Windows v. Linux and *BSD. Proprietary venders are under no obligation to fix bugs: they simply do whatever will maximize profits. They will, in fact, hide bugs when it serves their purposes, so as not to lose possible income sources. With OSS/FS software, you get full and complete disclosure, and history has shown that problems are fixed quickly. If they aren't, and something is important to you, organize a consortium to pay for fixing the problem. This will ultimately be cheaper overall thna paying a company, because the consortium doesn't want to make a profit, but just get the problem fixed.

You can talk about licenses in terms of varying degrees of freedom, of course; one license might be "more free" than another depending on how many or few restrictions it places on its users. But it is not correct to simply, and without qualification, call the GPL "free."

Firstly, few people do that. In fact, the FSF doesn't want people to call the GPL "free" because of the vagueness of the word (i.e., free could mena zero cost or free as in freedom). I and others call the GPL Free Software...it can also be called Open Source Software, as it is OSI-certified. Secondly, we simplify things significantly in many occasions; we, for example, say we live in a "free country" which is mostly true, but not completely true. I've already demonstrated, the GPL will result in situations where there is more Free Software and less restrictions, thus more freedom.

People accept all kinds of assertions with no proof at all.

Yes, people accept all kinds of assertions without proof or evidence at all. In those cases, they are idiots. Want examples? Well, I'll put religion at the top of that list. Next to that, comes the belief in sorcery and witch-craft. Then there's the fact that some people accept that aliens from Mars come to Earth and abduct the humanoids to perform rectal exams. Many people accept all these absurd assertions without any proof at all. In those cases, they are idiots.

Can you prove that the sky is blue?

Proof or evidence. I can provide evidence that the sky is blue to a person who can see. I can point to the ocean and say "that's blue" and then point to the sky and say "that's blue too". Any person who can see will be able to tell that they are different shades of the same color.

Can you prove that a baby is beautiful? No.

Wow, you get more and more looney as you go along. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Saying something is beautiful is about as meaningless as saying something tastes good. No, nothing is absolutely beautiful, nor does anything absolutely smell good or taste good, etc. It's a matter of personal preference. I can tell you that asparagus, for example, tastes good to me. I can't tell you "it tastes good"; well, I can, and people do this all the time, but what they mean is "it tastes good to me". Just as I like asparagus, other people -- most people, unfortunately -- think it is disgusting.

Can you prove that you are a sentient, self-aware individual? No.

By the definitions of the words "sentient", "self-aware", and "individual" I can prove that.

Proof is not required for truth.

I did not say it was. I said that proof is required to convince rationally acting people that an assertion is true: we should all require proof, or evidence, before taking something for the truth.

Of course, the truth is the truth whether we can prove it or not. Atoms were always the fundamental building blocks of life, even back 2000 years ago, when no technology could prove the existence of atoms.

I knew that you would eventually bring up this point regarding "eyes". Anyone who can see will tell you that the sky is (normally) blue. The evidence is what we see, and that we all agree. Furthermore, since there is universal agreement, there's no need to debate the matter. Controversial moral issues are another thing, however. You seem to argue as if "conscience" is a sixth sense. If it is, it is a rather poorly conserved one. My sixth sense tells me that its wrong to force a woman to give birth and that its wrong to force a man in extreme terminal pain to live his life like that; that of the Christian Right tells them the opposite. In other words, because there are major differences in what my conscience, your conscience, and everyone elses conscience "perceives" to be right/wrong, you cannot rely on it as a determining factor.

Ultimately, you are asking me and anyone else who disagrees with you to (for example) just "accept that prostitution is wrong". Then, by some miraculous leap, you ask us to just accept that it should be criminalized, despite evidence which shows that its criminalization harms the prostitutes (by making them more susceptible to rape) and society at large (by opening up a black market).

When asked why we should accept this "moral truth" you say something like "look to your conscience". Unfortunatley, the conscience of many people disagrees with you. In response to that, you say one of two things: (1) You have no conscience; (2) Your conscience is corrupted. This amounts saying that anyone who disagrees with you either has no conscience or that their conscience is corrupted. You then say "some things don't require proof to be accepted" implying that we should simply listen to what we feel, and again run into the same problem that not everyone feels the same way as you do. It ultimately boils down to you wanting me to accept what you say is the truth on faith.

I do, however, think that people who rationalize away truth in the name of logic

Again, you're assuming that you know what the moral truth is, and that those who disagree with you are trying to "rationalize away the truth". The reality is, that there is no absolute moral truth, but that morality varies from nation to nation and individiaul to individual. Even if there was an absolute moral truth, we'd have no way of knowing whether we knew it or not. Opinions on the morality of controversial issues are about as subjective as "chocolate or vanilla ice cream": it boils down to personal preference, not some universal truth.

For example, you say prostitution is -- in an absolute sense -- morally bad. That's as absurd as saying that vanilla ice cream is -- in an absolute sense -- really bad tasting (and those who think it tastes good must have some kind of mutation).

I believe I have the same right to force my opinions on you that everybody else has.

As much as I wish the legislative branch of our government was a direct-democracy, it isn't. We don't get to impose our will on anyone. We get to elect a representative -- a Senator and/or Congressman. They then subsequently break almost every promise they made while running for office and accept numerous bribes, thus completely negating any targetted influence we may have.

You keep on speaking as if we have a Democracy -- we don't. We have a Republic, where the elected officials are supposed to represent the constituents. However, that's not the way it works: the way it works is that they accept bribes from various corporations and organizations, and then represent those interests, so as to get more bribes which will help with elections.

But keeping the Sci Fi faithful happy is no easy task. Some of the channel's audience has taken to the Internet to blast the canceling of "Farscape," a series about an astronaut stuck on the far side of the universe with a bunch of renegades. There have also been complaints about Sci Fi Channel running movies such as "Field of Dreams" and "Cape Fear" that seem to have little in common with science fiction fare.

"Field of Dreams" is at least outside the realm of the normal. But Braveheart?

"Taken" sounds interesting, though...

printable version o' the article on one page.

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Took me a while, eventually, I did the print this and "view page info" on the little pop-up window. Here it is

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