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Maybe it won't be quite as bad as you think. The families I've seen rasing Downs Syndrome kids seemed to be doing ok. The goals and milestones are very different, but they still grow and progress, however slowly, and they have their triumphs. Some friends of ours had a baby with DS. About six months later, they adopted a second DS child. They said that those were the most pleasant, loving babies they'd ever had (and they'd had a passel of 'em). The DS adults I've known were a pretty good bunch, too. They didn't have a mean bone in them, and they seemed to be pretty happy most of the time.

You will have some worries that most parents don't have. Better start thinking sooner rather than later about how the kid is going to get by after you're gone. Time enough for that when she's 10 or so.

I'll be praying that she's born normal, just as you are, but don't panic if not: it's not the end of the world for you.

Our doctors wanted to advise us about our "options". ... I just can't imagine anyone wanting to do such a thing - especially since we've seen her in full motion 3D video on two seperate occasions ...

I think that high resolution ultrasound has to be the abortion industry's greatest nightmare. After you see that baby in there, it's not a choice you're killing, or a foetus, but your baby. And that's different.

And for the worst shame of all, doctors who repeatedly promote termination of even marginally defective babies and are constantly harping about options -alternatives! - to life.

Anyone who is in favor of killing innocent people isn't fit to practice medicine. ``Euthanasia'' is how the Germans got started on their ``final solution''. The German medical establishment began killing defective people, like the old and the retarded and the terminally ill. Then they moved on to the crippled (Germany had lots of those, after WWI). This was promoted by the country's leading doctors. By the time the Nazis were ready to do something final about the Jews, the medical establishment was ready to accept large scale slaughter of innocents, and doctors like Mengele were accepted in the German medical profession.

Any doctor who will do an elective abortion is unfit to practice medicine, just surely as Dr. Mengele and Charles Manson are.

refer to the FBI as the Gestapo

Ever heard of Ruby Ridge?

I'd say comparing certain certain arms of the government to the Gestapo is legit.

Robert Durst was acquitted of murder charges by paying 1.8 million in legal fees. The RIAA exploits a 1976 copyright law to claim each song shared is valued at up to $150,000. It costs the same amount of money to commit murder and hire expensive attornies as it does to get caught pirating an album and be sued by the RIAA.

Movie? Wasn't ir a real case where a woman claimed that a dingo had eaten her baby? Later on she was accused and jailed for murder of said baby.

More info here and here.

http://www.crimelibrary.com/gangsters_outlaws/cops _others/biggs/index.html?sect=18/

However, the supposed Train Robbery in Crichton's book happened much earlier. Everything I've seen so far seem to indicate that it never actually took place.

-- Marcio

Elmyr de Hory was one of the greatest forgers of all time, and a really interesting guy.

Clifford Irving, who was also a forger in his own field, wrote a really good book on de Hory, titled Fake! (with the exclamation).

And then of course Orson Welles made a film exploring these issues.

All highly recommended. The art forgery world is at least as interesting as the "legitimate" art world.

If you want to get into it, there's a primer available.

And I guess a William Kennedy-Smith simulation dating game?

If you want a black market handgun in Australia, you are looking at a price tag of several thousands of dollars. The same gun in the US would be, $50 perhaps. That price tag is the key - what down and out crim can afford that? ... Don't wait for a massacre like out Port Arthur tragedy.

$50 my ass. If you ever buy a gun for $50, you'd better have a good emergency room nearby, because that gun is going to explode in your hand.

Incidentally, in the aforementioned Port Arthur tragedy, the individual possessed an AR-15, and an FN FAL, guns that easily command a price tag over $1000 dollars each (even in the post-ban United States). So much for a thousands-of-dollars price tag deterring crime.

• Don't bash windows because it has a large market share.
• Don't bash microsoft for trying to make an OS everyone can use.. By everyone I mean 99.9% of the world that are not sycotic security admins
• This is as common as organized crime in the 20's and 30's. Take the money and look the other way.
• Finally there will always be an Eliot Ness

This really isn't the same as what Dr. Josef Mengele did: he waited until after the children were born before he tortured them.

Bravo! Finally somebody who separates the causes of addictive and compulsive behavior from the behavior itself.

A compulsive personality can settle on almost anything as a target. I went through a period of about 10 years where I had to load a washing machine in a certain fashion, or I would get the jitters and have to pull the clothes back out. Weird and funny (even to me at the time), and completely unpredictable. A harmless enough compulsion, so I didn't try to fight it.

On the other hand, some of my compulsive eating habits are far from harmless. Too often my stress reaction has been to make a pan of mac-&-cheese then eat the whole thing. Now I only keep 2-3 boxes of mac-&-cheese in the pantry, because at that inventory level the fear of running completely out tends to balance the craving to eat it.

An RPG is a large easy target for compulsion radar-lock. A world with clear, well-defined (if sometimes hidden) rules, where your boss can't follow you, the IRS can't audit you, and your cat's litter-box doesn't smell. In itself the game is harmless (if not particularly beneficial to health or finances), but an inability to stop playing is a sign of a larger problem, just like binge eating (or self-starvation).

Silicon.com asks its CIO Jury: Would you hire a hacker? and finds the jury split down the middle, with one IT Director saying doing so would be like hiring serial-killing doctor Harold Shipman to treat your ailing and aged mother."

Flawed analogy. It takes a thief to catch a thief - ex-cons often serve as security advisers. The most famous case is obviously that of Frank Abagnale, master of bank fraud, whose autobiography was recently filmed, but he was not the only one. There's actually nothing new in the idea of hiring hacker/cracker to improve your security - it's like hiring an experience burglar to help you design better locks.

Just like France refuses to extradite the Unicorn Killer

Newsflash: He's already in Philadelphia awaiting trial

What? No link? How about GTA 3? 2? 1? No? hmmm... So what you're saying is that you're a COMPLETE FUCKING HYPOCRITE. Right?

You have no problem when a video game shows a white man shooting people (so long as he's not shooting at black people right?) or even a fucking squirrel killing people, and you're cool with showing Some black sterotypes may be true, but as soon as there's a game that actually comes pretty damn close to the truth people start bitching... "Oh, it's racist..." "You're showing a black man killing - that's a stereotype.." No, it's the truth. Black people can kill. So can whites, and asians and puerto ricans and russians and anyone else. Please, just STFU!!!

While Bobby Fischer might have technically violated some U.S. laws, (and this one technicality is just the first that he has dealt with) he really should simply be left alone.

I've been following Bobby Fischer since he started publishing Chess columns in Boys' Life. While not necessarily a hacker, certainly a classic geek.

He all but dropped out of society in almost a Ted Kaczynski fashion, and can IMHO be classified as the most persecuted American by the U.S. Government. He was also wanted a few years ago on tax evasion charges, but I thought that got cleared up. He really has been hounded by the U.S. government for many things, and gone through ups and downs in his life that I would not wish on anybody.

A really good writeup about Bobby Fischer's trip to Yugoslavia is on bobbyfischer.net

I had to use the internet wayback machine because for some reason the regular website is down. Probably due to some slashdotting, although in this case probably not directly due to slashdot it self (surprisingly). Some absolutely incredible articles. I've also seen segments on television news programs that have also discussed his life, and it seems rather pathetic. How much of this is brought onto himself, and how much is out right presecution remains to be debated, but he should really be given a nice quite spot in Montana and be left alone.

Maybe the U.S. government is afraid of letting intelligent people who think the U.S. government is screwed up be left alone.

This is also a problem we're facing in the "War on Terror". Those who subscribe to the terrorist-corrupted version of Islam believe that if they die while attacking non-believers they'll be taken to the happiest possible afterlife. Therefore, they design attacks in which they are sure to die, and we have nobody left to prosecute.

The 19 worst offenders in the Sept. 11 attacks died, therefore our criminal justice system is totally ineffective against them.

Timothy McVeigh wasn't affraid of the death penalty either. What version of Islam did he believe in?

Deterants do not work on fanatics, Islamists or otherwise.

It wouldn't surprise me if some Closed-Source companies have foreign nationals working on their software as well.

In either case, whoever's using software for National Security better audit the source code themselves. I wouldn't want missle systems to use Linux or Windows or some other RTOS without a careful audit.

Wow. I didn't know you could get internet access in a isolated cell?

Somehow you hoped that people in such a fucked up society that leaves little girls in a burning school as they were not dressed correctly, were different.

Yes, because surely something so heinously stupid would never happen in the United States of America.

It's not a gene, it's little green men on pieces of little green paper... and some guys in funny hats and robes all vying for your 'faith', which equates to THEIR power. The Saudi's are certainly not the first to do something dumb in the name of 'religious beliefs', though.

Using drain cleaner to dispose of potentially hazardous meat and bone is a method apparently pioneered by a Belgian dude named Andras Pandy, who used it to dispose of several hundred pounds' worth of potentially hazardous proteins.

Unfortunately, the proteins he needed to get rid of were formerly in the form of people. The hazard was getting caught, not getting sick, so YMMV.

(I know the radical peta'ns might equate cow slaughter with serial murder, but as a serial hamburger killer myself, I can't make that connection.)

Timothy McVeigh

Ted Kaczynski

Eric Harris

Dylan Klebold

George Metesky

David Berkowitz

Jeffrey Dahmer

Perhaps a planeload of these fine, upstanding citizens is your cup of tea. Personally, I'd rather have better detection systems and better trained airport security personnel.

Timothy McVeigh

Ted Kaczynski

Eric Harris

Dylan Klebold

George Metesky

David Berkowitz

Jeffrey Dahmer

Perhaps a planeload of these fine, upstanding citizens is your cup of tea. Personally, I'd rather have better detection systems and better trained airport security personnel.

"As for not putting serial killers in jail because some redneck jury decided that it's a good thing he rid the world of some damn niggers, I guess you're lucky that you don't have many serial...no wait."

"I'd prefer the European system any day; we're not executing minors and mentally ill and if some big-ass corp sues you you're not going bankrupt to pay a decent lawyer because the looser pays. The next time before you're posting your oh so patriotic bs try to actually understand that there are different ways to do something and one's not necessarily worse than the ther."

Firstly, please provide links w.r.t Gen. Clark's involvement at Waco. I have an open mind and comprehend facts fairly well. Thus far he's the candidate I would choose, but all facts are good to know.

Secondly...

Vernon Howell (he later changed his name to David Koresh because he believed he was the second Messiah) was a lunatic who believed that the world was coming to and end and that the scene set forth in "Revelations" had already begun. (Now several years later, 2/3 of the world has not been consumed by fire and/or earthquake, and so we must assume that he was wrong about this).

For people familiar with what happened at the Jonestown massacre, it appeared that for all intents and purposes, Howell (Koresh) was about to order the execution of all the women, children, and men in the compound, much as was orchestrated by the "Reverend" Jim Jones (born . The fact that the attempted break into the compound was a complete disaster and ended with the deaths of nearly everyone inside the compound does not change the fact that Howell was a fugitive who had just been involved in a firefight with government officials.

If alternative #1 is allowing Howell (Koresh) to murder everyone inside the compound in a repeat of the Jonestown massacre, and alternative #2 is a risky assault on the compound in an attempt to save the people inside, and someone I cared about was inside the building, I would choose alternative #2.

Is he somehow related to Klaus Fuchs ? I mean, Klaus was a traitor to the country while Pontus seems to be a traitor to the Linux community (yes, allowing network card manufacturers to not have to consider writing Linux drivers is not helping the Linux community).

"Red Storm". "Black Widow". All so masculine and male-centric. Couldn't you have "Project Doily" or "Operation Gingham Curtain"?

Doesn't the term "Black Widow" refer to either the poisonous female spider and/or a woman who marries and then kills men for financial gain?

I suppose in Australia they haven't heard of him, but in the U.S. it's a little like walking around named Hermann Goering. Not everybody knows Goering's name, but you'll run into heavy shit often enough to want a change.

~ the small percentage of felons/turban-wearing men who are actually terrorists?

I bet that Paul Bernardo drank milk at one point in his life, time to sue the milk producers, the milk companies, cow food producers, farm equipment makers, steel producers, miners, etc. More foolish bullsh!t in america. Don't be surprised.

Yes, because we all know criminals ONLY break in to steal. There has never been a case when criminals broke in and raped or killed someone.

No, criminals would never do that.

I thought they locked thier Unicorn up?

Their behaviorial profiles may have been slightly off target, but the sketch was pretty good.

1. It's a First Person Shooter.

2. It has great demonic imagery to show on talk shows and sensationalist news reports.

3. It is very well known.

Doom is the game that gets the bad press. (Note: Both games are cool, I would've thought so even back when I was a practicing Catholic.) Really, if Jack Chick made a game, would it be that different than Doom. (Haw, haw!)

On the other hand, all Color Dreams has to do is find Jesus, slightly retool Menace Beach and they have a game they can sell in Christian bookstores Sunday Funday

"I never thought there are real "mad scientist" types out there"

Never heard of Mengele?

Actually, the original thread was entitled "Women Programmers." But I never said s/he was underestimating them. Is that off-topic? Gee, I think if we were not given the liberty to digress slightly from the context of the original thread as long as we keep somewhat near the thread that posts would not be worth reading after the first 2 or 3 becuase they'd be the same thing just different wordings.

he was saying that women tend not to be the socially-maladjusted, emotionally-repressed sort

Anyone who believes that crap should try to think more objectivly.

Genetic engineering != eugenics. They're two completely different ideas.

Thirty years ago. You mean around the time that
this
and this happened?

Things like this may be happening a bit more today because of the availability of high-powered weapons and yes, a lack of hands-on parenting. But, school shootings (and lousy parenting) didn't just start in the 1990s. What DID start in the 1990s (or thereabouts) was 24 hour/7 days a week, instantaneous-as-it-happens round the word news coverage a la CNN/Fox News/MSNBC and of course, the Web.

It isn't true that horrifying things didn't happen 30 years ago. They clearly did. It's is true that today you are hammered with news in ways that we didn't even dream of back then.

JoAnn

"What sucks about giving freedom and liberty to people (or even college students!) - is not knowing ahead of time what they might actually do with it.

You know - like invent a decentralized p2p network and trade music files with it ..."

You know what also sucks about freedom? It comes with consequences.

Terrorists are Arab these days. Thats a fact.
Sure they are.

This guy reminds of Ira Einhorn , the hippie guru who BS'd his way into lots of "adjunct appointments" like Mr. Lanier's page says he has. Lots of companies thought he was some eccentric genius because he said freaky things and dressed weird.

Well, considering Hoffa was last seen just outside of Detroit, I think it's unlikely that the mobsters killed him, drove him to New York, and tossed him in the Hudson.

It would seem to be an unnecessary risk to dispose of the body that far away.

--T

The biggest problem with libraries paying any sort of use fee is that you aren't certain you'll be able to afford it (or even allowed to do so) next week, next year, or next generation. Once a library invests in a physical book, the library has a pretty solid investment. Assuming readers are careful, it will be around in twenty years. (And if readers aren't careful, said readers will get to purchase the replacement.)

An electronic copy with any sort of Digital Restrictions Management is much less certain. Problem one: This year it's ten cents for a library to loan out a book and libraries all jump on. Five years from now, the company in question is having financial problems and jumps the price up to five dollars per loan and suddenly a library can't afford it. This can theoretically be solved by legislating required rates. Of course, publishers won't be happy about such laws and will fight tooth and nail against them. Assuming we get them passed, we run into our next problem, what happens when the publisher goes out of business? As we've seen with technologies like DIVX (the DVD competitor, not the video codec. I curse the stupid video codec people for knowingly conflicting with an existing name, making it extremely difficult to research the DVD competitor...), that this can happen, and your investment in something you don't control can be destroyed. Perhaps it's possible to technically work around the issue, but it would remain illegal (after all, you agreed to always pay for every loan when you purchased the book originally). Can this be solved? Sure, you simply have to require that it's possible to use the files if the company is unable or unwilling to unlock them. This means that the files either need to be DRM-free, or that libraries need to have a backdoor to open them. Again, the content industry will fight tooth and nail. And rightly so, any such backdoor will be eventually leveraged open to widespread illegal copies. Libraries can't afford to pay to have background checks done on librarians to see if they can be trusted with any backdoor? Even if you do the background checks, people slip through the cracks. Just ask the the government about Robert Hanssen. Eventually the secret will leak.

Any effective DRM based system is too problematic to be useful for libraries. That leaves ineffective systems, and most publishers will fight to their dying breath before trying it.

I run SETI@home because I really want to meet Jodi Foster!

"1) How do you figure that the government has done nothing illegal? It's surely unconstitutional. "...nor shall any person...be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." Jose Padilla didn't get his due process. If you answer this post, answer this: How and from where does the Executive branch of the government get the power to imprison and American citizen without even a grand jury, much less a jury trial?"

It not unconstitutional. See here.

The sites are /.ed, but after reading the intro, it all sounds like those Heaven's Gate people... they didn't need a real spaceship in 1996 when they all took off on the Hale-Bopp comet.

Yeah, your right.

The FBI obviously has no reason whatsoever to spy on American citizens.

Didn't quite get the joke did we?

Just the other day I saw a news story on an entire state that was being terrorized by a maniac with a kitchen knife!

In the 1888s, London was terrorized by a man with a knife. Perhaps you've heard of him?

In the 1960s, Boston was terrorized by a man weilding articles of clothing as murder weapons.

Sure there are lots of things freely available that are capable of killing people, but how many of those are designed to kill?

Firearms are designed to throw pellets very fast. That's all. The purpose of pellet-throwing - recreation, aggression, self-defense - is up to the person behind the pellet-thrower.

Why is it that to sell my car or house I have to transfer ownership and make sure EVERYBODY knows about it

but I can freely sell/trade/give away a gun without a single soul ('cept us, of course) knowing about it?

Registering firearms won't make you any safer. Gun control laws keep guns away from violent criminals about as well as drug laws keep heroin away from junkies. And just like drug laws, they do more to harrass and endanger good citizens than to actually control dangerous people.

The only thing registering firearms makes easier is confiscating firearms, which defintely makes you less safe.

Because a little piece of paper called the US constitution defines freedom of speech as something the "government" may NOT take away NO MATTER HOW IMPORTANT a situation is.

Well, unless you shout fire in a crowded theater.

Or, they classify what you say (or write) as obscenity, which is illegal.

Or, maybe they'll just convict you of conspiracy, though you've committed no actual crime.

Or, they'll hold you and your friends for 12 hours and search your car, because of what someone thought they heard you say.

Yeah, God bless America. Land of the free^H^H^H^H.

I'm really surprised that Wired chose to use the term "Billionare Boy's Cup", since it sounds like a reference to the notorious "Billionaires Boy Club." For those who don't recall the name, I point you here for details about mind control, investment strategies, and the grusome murders and kidnappings perpetuated by Mr. Joe Hunt and his followers.