Slashdot Mirror

OK here are some examples

Shoplifters may receive sentences up to life in prison under "three strikes and you are out" laws without violating constitutional safeguards against cruel and unusual punishment.

Some cases got appealed
Mr. Andrade stole videos worth $153.54 from two K-marts and wound up with a sentence of 50 years in prison with no possibility of parole.
The ruling may also unleash a wave of appeals from the estimated 350 to 3,500 other California prisoners who received comparable sentences in similar circumstances.
Mr. Chemerinsky says about 350 people whose third strike was a similar petty theft, are serving sentences in California of at least 25 years to life.

But the supreme court didn't think it was cruel or unusual ( I guess cause there are 3500 people in prison it can't be so unusual ? )

Gary Ewing is serving 25 years to life for stealing golf clubs from a Los Angeles country club. In his case, the prosecutor had the option of charging Ewing with a misdemeanor but chose to try the case as a felony. The state supreme court had rejected Ewing's appeal of his sentence. His lawyer said Ewing has AIDS and expects to die soon.

OK here are some examples

Shoplifters may receive sentences up to life in prison under "three strikes and you are out" laws without violating constitutional safeguards against cruel and unusual punishment.

Some cases got appealed
Mr. Andrade stole videos worth $153.54 from two K-marts and wound up with a sentence of 50 years in prison with no possibility of parole.
The ruling may also unleash a wave of appeals from the estimated 350 to 3,500 other California prisoners who received comparable sentences in similar circumstances.
Mr. Chemerinsky says about 350 people whose third strike was a similar petty theft, are serving sentences in California of at least 25 years to life.

But the supreme court didn't think it was cruel or unusual ( I guess cause there are 3500 people in prison it can't be so unusual ? )

Gary Ewing is serving 25 years to life for stealing golf clubs from a Los Angeles country club. In his case, the prosecutor had the option of charging Ewing with a misdemeanor but chose to try the case as a felony. The state supreme court had rejected Ewing's appeal of his sentence. His lawyer said Ewing has AIDS and expects to die soon.

Well it was just the first link that popped up and it had a snappy title. A little more searching turns up many other links on the subject. Plenty of American ones... although I wish it was on the order of thousands and the that they were purely historical instances.

This is a good one from the Christian Science Monitor that includes a nice history on the subject, as well as an examination of the current situation.

Google! Has quite a few.

Of course I do agree with you assessment of the current state of affairs. I just wanted to point out that we're not entirely screwed in this country yet.

The point being, if you boycott with integrity, you'd probably have to include all the major players in any given market for one reason or another. But most people just "boycott" what's convenient and feels good. And it's hard to blame them - Amazon does have lower shipping charges.

I'm surprised that the candidates aren't all Republican.

As in, "We've been spending our money elsewhere lately"...

NO THEY ARE NOT.

Please, let me tell you this again.

MALLS ARE NOT PUBLIC PROPERTY.

Try having a protest at a mall. See how long that lasts! Call up your municipal government, and ask them for a permit to demonstrate outside Old Navy in the mall.

What if the mall was publicly owned, like Fremont stret in vegas?

"Just because some property is publicly owned doesn't make it a public forum," says Todd Bice, the LLC's attorney. source

Indeed, the LLC is a private managment company managing Fremont Street in Vegas. It is a public street, yet, when control of the street is handed to a private organization, all of a sudden, one can't protest, post flyers, or pass out handbills. Eventually someone complained, and Nevada ruled that free speech activities must be allowed in the street, but it is impossible to get a permit for certain types of organizations. (NORML, ACLU, etc) If these are the rights you have on a public street, imagine what rights you have in a stinking mall.

The U.S. troops were in Saudia Arabia at the request of the government to protect the kindgom from invasion by Iraq.

Almost right, so...WRONG!

The threat was a lie. USA stated: "Iraq amassing troops along Saudi border." It wasn't true, as satellite images revealed.

I think what's wrong is not so much the copyright system as the exploitative relationship between publishers and artists. Any system can be abused. Under the same laws, in the same economy and the same "piracy-crazy" environment that is supposedly responsible for the music industry slump, independent labels and artists are doing better than ever [Christian Science Monitor article from April 2003, in case you missed it]. Rounder Records' income was up 50% in 2002 compared to 2001.

This despite the fact that their artists retain copyright, share the profit from each and every CD, and can't get exposure on corporate FM radio and music TV.

The problem really is one of money. Why would anyone want to work in India for fraction of the money you can get anywhere else ?

Considering how easy movement of professions helps Indian S/W industries, I'm sure the govt. will be willing to introduce temporary work permits too if need be. Infact, they had mooted GATS guidelines on visas, work permits. I don't know the status now.

For those who don't know, India has a huge illigal immigrants problem. The immigrants are mostly from Bangladesh. In the 80's and 90's there was a very militant movement against illegal immigrants in the state of Assam. See this article.

Opposition to H1B in the US now is understandable. Infact, if INS is even now giving out H1B visas in this economy, it is absurd.
.

For those wondering what a neoconservative is click here for a nice summary.

Personal opinion on it is this may be the worst school of thought to come along since fascism.

I can't figure this out. I'm an apathetic agnostic (by which I mean that I care so little about religion and the question of the existence of deities that I can't even bother to call myself an atheist) and I generally find the Christian Science Monitor to be one of the more reputable publications here in the US of A. Maybe people see the word "Christian" in the title and fly off the handle?

Take a look at it, for crying out loud. The CSM is not some kind of slobbering fundamentalist rag. It's a mainstream news and information source. On the front page, I can't see a single article that could be even remotely construed as fundy jibber-jabber (Pete Sampras is retiring?) The way a lot of Slashbots react to it, you would think they were referring to something like WorldNetDaily, a site which drips with xenophobic, anti-minority, anti-gay, anti-non-Christian, borderline-fascist rhetoric.

People who are inclined to bash the Christian Science Monitor should at least take a look at it before they flame away. They might be surprised.

They did; this is the rerun.

Posted by michael on Friday August 08, @08:55PM
from the good-junkyard-wars-challenge dept.
capt.Hij writes "There is an interesting article at the Christian Science Monitor about how water skimmers are able to move the way they do. This new theory debunks the previously accepted theory and answers why smaller, younger water skimmers are also able to move the same way as their elders: 'As he looked into the question, he adds, he learned that the reigning explanation leaves an unsolved puzzle: If these tiny insects propel themselves in the way many researchers think they do, then baby water striders should go nowhere fast.'" There's also a BBC story with pictures.

They did; this is the rerun.

Posted by michael on Friday August 08, @08:55PM
from the good-junkyard-wars-challenge dept.
capt.Hij writes "There is an interesting article at the Christian Science Monitor about how water skimmers are able to move the way they do. This new theory debunks the previously accepted theory and answers why smaller, younger water skimmers are also able to move the same way as their elders: 'As he looked into the question, he adds, he learned that the reigning explanation leaves an unsolved puzzle: If these tiny insects propel themselves in the way many researchers think they do, then baby water striders should go nowhere fast.'" There's also a BBC story with pictures.

"If current trends continue, it means that a black male in the United States would have about a 1 in 3 chance of going to prison during his lifetime. For a Hispanic male, it's 1 in 6; for a white male, 1 in 17."

Here are a few links.

You remember.. the people who don't believe in evolution? Or stem cell research? Or cloning?

Good joke, but the Christian Science Monitor does an okay job of reporting science topics. It's sure above the level of typical popular media, leaving alone Fox News's special "They didn't land on the moon because NASA is the government" division. Glance at CSM's coverage of this fossil find. Hardly the whacko creationist extreme.

Sure. If that money went to the teachers.... But this actually does bring up an interresting question.

How hard *would* it be to start a "school" with that kind of money? I know IT guys who run projects, paying for all their own equioment and such for less than $60 an hour. At $2 per hour, school for 1 kid (Assuming 8 hours a day, 180 days a year) would cost $2880 a year. The Beaverton,OR school district has 35,000 students and costs $750,000 to open for one day. That's $21.42 per kid per day, or $2.67 per hour, or $3844.80 a year.

So would a teacher be able to provide a classroom and materials to teach 30 kids, and have enough left over for a comfortable living - at $60 an hour (or $120k a year not accounting for hollidays and such...)?

Just an interesting idea... Kind of a good balance between home-schooling and public schools?

Why is it always inner city schools that are under-funded and big, while suburban schools are always good? Is no one in the suburban school districts overworked? Are there no overcrowding problems in small towns schools - they can afford all the classrooms and teachers they need? Are there not *any* desirable inner city schools?

Suburban schools can have money problems too. Even a rich suburb like Lake Oswego, OR can have serious budget problems.

And in Portland the "inner city" is expensive. The "poor" areas are mostly outside of the "inner city" area.

My small town highschool had no money and more than 30 kids per classroom. We had really old books, crappy computers shared amongst too many kids.
Yeah, us "white suburban" kids had it made. all gravy... (not)

Since the handgun ban, crime has steadily gotten
much much much much worse. :) So much for the myth of the safer britain.

This guy is building weapons that rival Iraq's! Invade!

...and while there's that certain [stupid] ego-stroking factor of having a kid...

I think it's great that some people are willing to take on the difficult task of raising other people's children, but I also think it is sad when the natural desire to raise one's own children is denigrated as stupid, selfish, or perverse.

-FL

The Religous Zealots who run India are dangerous thugs. They stand for nothing good and are, in fact, building ICBMs to threaten the United States . The sooner we re-impose sanctions on the, the better. Think this is a troll? Read
this story from the Christian Science Monitor. No, America was better off with a poorer India. Your comparison with Japan is off base, Japan is not arming to threaten us.

That's one one thing dead people are useful for.

That, and for fixing elections in Florida :o)

there was a growing need for a daily newspaper that "will place principle before dividends, and that will be fair, frank and honest with the people on all subjects and under whatever pressure" -- a truly independent voice not controlled by "commercial and political monopolists."

The Christian Science church doesn't publish news to propagate denominational doctrine; it provides news purely as a public service. Here's why: If the basic theology of that church says that what reaches and affects thought shapes experience, it follows that a newspaper would have significant impact on the lives of those who read it.

there was a growing need for a daily newspaper that "will place principle before dividends, and that will be fair, frank and honest with the people on all subjects and under whatever pressure" -- a truly independent voice not controlled by "commercial and political monopolists."

The Christian Science church doesn't publish news to propagate denominational doctrine; it provides news purely as a public service. Here's why: If the basic theology of that church says that what reaches and affects thought shapes experience, it follows that a newspaper would have significant impact on the lives of those who read it.

Doesn't matter. Friedman is a working journalist employed by a prominent, mainstream news organization. Bias matters, whether it's in his books, columns, speaking engagements or anywhere else in the public sphere. You can't cherry-pick, then turn around and honestly claim he isn't biased.

You seem to misunderstand the definition of the word "reporting" as it's used by journalists. As they use it, reporting is a process. Whether it's for a news article, a column, an editorial, or even a book, reporting is the process they go through to collect and balance information so they can present it to an audience.

RobertFisher: A good op-ed column should generate thought-provoking discussion and debate, which (as evident from the discussion in this thread and by your own account) is precisely what Friedman's column is doing.

I guess you missed the major points of my post, which I prominently summarized so there would be no confusion. Here they are again:

A good journalist:

1. Gets his facts right.
2. Gets her facts right.
3. Gets facts right.
4. Gets good, knowledgeable sources.
5. Writes well.

To be unambiguously clear, my previous post is concerned with facts and their accuracy. That is the most fundamental aspect of good journalism, again, whether it's for a news article, a column, an editorial, or even a book. Anyone who doesn't meet this basic standard is, by definition, a hack.

Any hack who makes facile arguments based on gross oversimplifications, errors, inaccuracies or misrepresentations is, by definition, a simplistic hack.

It's a given that a good column should generate discussion and debate. But the assumption is that the debate is about the substantive elements of the column -- arguments based on accurate facts.

The Friedman column in question is riddled with inaccuracies and obtuse claims. The discussion and debate surrounding it is not about the ideas expressed, it's about the lack of factual accuracy and the claims he then makes.

By any measure, it's not a good column.

I also did not say that a news article "should not generate controversy," as you wrote. I completely disagree with you. Some of the best news stories generate controversy. The Watergate scandal is one example. The Kuwait baby incubator story from Gulf War I is another. A lot of award-winning stories are ones that generate controversy.

RobertFisher: "Apparently the people who hand out Pulitzers (who should know a thing or two more about journalism than you) seemed to agree that Friedman's news reporting set the standards for oustanding journalism on two separate occassions."

I think the Pulitzer committee should know more about journalism than any single individual, too. But they've been known to give Pulitzers to people who didn't deserve them. One prominent example was Washington Post reporter Janet Cooke's 1981 Pulitzer for a fabricated story. She returned the prize.

Another example is the 1932 Pulitzer awarded to the New York Times' Walter Duranty for his reports from the Soviet Union. It's now known that he deliberately ignored the Ukrainian famine of the 1930s, and that his reports were outright propaganda for the Communists. Even the New York Times has distanced itself from Duranty's Pulitzer, yet the award remains unrevoked.

There's more on Cooke and Duranty in the Columbia Journalism Review.

Finally, why do you feel the need to resort to ad hominem attacks to build your case? I didn't attack you personally, so why do you impugn m

Interestingly enough, "In spring 2000, Korea was elevated to the Special 301 "priority watch list" as a result of continuing concerns regarding inadequate IPR enforcement, lack of protection for clinical drug test data, lack of full retroactive protection for pre-existing copyrighted works and pharmaceutical patents, problematic amendments to Koreaâ(TM)s Copyright Act and Computer Program Protection Act, lack of coordination between Korean health and IPR authorities on drug product approvals for marketing, and continued counterfeiting of consumer products."

This article tells the story of a defector who had served in the North Korean army. Their barracks didn't have electricity, so they tapped into a nearby electrified railway. They got eggs on only holidays and meat only on Kim's birthday.

All that, of course, is a huge step above what the rest of the people have to endure. In this article a prison camp survivor talks about picking the corn out of cow dung.

The Academy announced that Serkis was eligible to be nominated for an Oscar (scroll down in link, third paragraph from the bottom). He just did not receive enough votes from Academy members to receive a nomination.

Expose on Indian fascism. They may not be Muslim fanatics, but they are religious fanatics.

India should abandon nuclear weapons and ICBMs.
India should stop tolerating pograms against minorities.
India should address their grievous repression
of "lower castes".
India should allow a referendum in Kashmir,
as specified by the UN.

Maybe if they addressed these, we could take
Indian policy seriously.

Actually, for a long time I assumed that the CSM was some sort of propaganda like a newspaper version of the 700 Club. I don't remember what changed my mind. I think it was someone responding to me the same way I did to you. They have an interesting history. They do have a regular column promoting Christian Science, but I haven't detected

The only thing I don't like about them is that their stylesheet mixes pixel-height fonts and point-height line-heights, which makes all the lines run together on Mozilla/Linux. :-)

There are two different methods of storing H2. One method is to store it as a highly pressurized gas, which doesn't need to kept at cold temperatures but does need a strong container. The other method involves cooling it until it condenses... at -460 deg. F. As a liquid it doesn't need to be stored at pressure but needs extremely good insulation. The drawback of the first method is that the hydrogen gas takes up an enormous volume, and combined with the weight of the container becomes impractical for use in anything but large buses. Diamond steel would not help much. The mechanical strength and insulating properties of the tank wouldn't increase by much, but it would be scratch resistant! Designers of fuel cells have opted to dispense with H2, instead storing the hydrogen in chemical form such as sodium borohydride. This is a good article on the subject.

"a public-service mission" so they make no money?

See if you can find out whether the Christian Science Monitor makes money, loses money, or breaks even, and, if it loses money, where its funding comes from.

You might try starting at their web site, csmonitor.com , looking for information on their financials.

And good luck. I haven't tried hard, but couldn't find any information on the Monitor's source of funding -- but and and I'm under the impression that it's long been in the red, and that the Christian Science Board of Directors essentially keeps it afloat via contributions from members and supporters of the church. (I believe there is a fund specifically for the Monitor as well, but I don't know whether all support the Board provides to the Monitor come from that fund.)

Note that support of the Monitor would include not only the cash to run the operation, but the value of space leased by the Monitor, including some fairly prime space in the Christian Science Publishing House in Boston, as well as market values of relevant trademarks (such as the name of the paper).

As someone who was raised in Christian Science and has many friends in the church, I've tended to find this situation generally acceptable.

However, given the Monitor Editors' strong stance in favor of Campaign Finance Reform (CFR), including the provisions recently found to be unconstitutional, which they base on the premise that if party A funds party B, party B is inevitably compromised...

...I find it difficult to understand how the Monitor can claim it is editorially independent from the Board of Directors of the church if it is, indeed, largely funded by it. (Perhaps they claim exemption from the general rule that funding implies influence. If they make such a claim, I'm unaware of it, or on what basis they claim such exemption.)

For example, the Monitor Editors once essentially claimed that since George W. Bush's 2000 campaign was partly financed by automakers, he had no independent, valid reason (such as his favoring free-market solutions) to resist raising the (CAFE?) standards for fuel efficiency in cars.

To me, how Mr. Bush would feel his hands were tied by an earlier, non-recurring contribution was not made immediately clear by the Monitor, nor have I seen any explanation how their apparent dependence (for their salaries, among other things) on recurring funding by a church does not render them susceptible to influence by that church.

One could, of course, compare the stance of Monitor editorials over, say, the last ten years to that of church publications (the CS Journal and Sentinel) to gauge the extent of agreement on various political issues (abortion rights, gun control, global warming, income redistribution, smaller vs. larger government, and so on).

Having kept some track of this over the past few years, I've come to my own tentative conclusions, but won't shoot from the hip just to score points, which is what the Monitor seems to have done a few times with regard to issues such as CFR.

In any case, I'd love to see issues like this addressed on the Monitor's web site.

Regardless of the appearance of hypocrisy here, there is no question the Monitor is widely respected as an important, fairly unbiased source of information, especially on international issues, and is generally independent of the agenda of the church that supports it.

Personally, no matter how much funding the Board directs to the Monitor, given what I do know about the individuals involved, I highly doubt there's any overt, or even covert, attempt at influencing the Monitor's editorial stance, nor its coverage of the news, to favor either Christian Science generally nor the Board's political views.

That does not rule out the possibility of influence via a collection of "like-minded people" finding themselves working together, as editors and

Actually, the CS Monitor is pretty much a secular magazine. They only publish one religion-related story a day, the rest is US/Internation news. Most Christians don't even take the "Christian Science" denomination seriously. And, despite your paranoia, there are several Buddhist publications out there.

Is the paper a religious periodical?

No, it's a real newspaper published by a church -- The First Church of Christ, Scientist in Boston, Mass., USA. Everything in the Monitor is international and US news and features, except for one religious article that has appeared each day in The Home Forum section since 1908, at the request of the paper's founder, Mary Baker Eddy.

In an age of corporate conglomerates dominating news media, the Monitor combination of church ownership, a public-service mission, and commitment to covering the world (not to mention the fact that it was founded by a woman shortly after the turn of the century, when US women didn't yet have the vote!) gives the paper a uniquely independent voice in journalism.

Then if the paper's basically secular and for everybody, why is "Christian Science" in its name?

Eddy insisted, against strong opposition from some of her advisers and church officers, that the words "Christian Science" should be in the paper's name. According to one of her biographers, Robert Peel, to Eddy, "the designated title was an identification of the paper with the promise that no human situation was beyond healing or rectification if approached with sufficient understanding of man's God-given potentialities. Nor did the 'good news' of Christianity involve the prettification of bad news, but rather, its confident confrontation" (witness Monitor correspondent David Rohde's widely followed reporting in late '95 on alleged massacres by Bosnian Serb forces).

Eventually, a record company will realize that it would be better off releasing a higher quality product at a lower price, its sales will go through the roof, and everyone else will follow.

Actually, that's already happening, and you can read all about it here. It's just the Big Five that haven't figured it out yet.

-David, who hasn't bought a Big Five CD in a long time.

This is not news or even decent editorializing...so what are you going to do about it...Tell them what you think about this piece.

Radio is boring and homogenized, and it is hurting CD sales.

Labels should be more artist friendly

Michael Green's 2002 Grammy speech was annoying and pointless. (Even Janis Ian ripped on it.)

Decent recording can be done with reasonable studio costs (He even mentioned the new White Stripes album only costing $10,000 :-) )

Indie labels treat artists better than majors

Labels are a) greedy and b) want control of listeners

This guy is already halfway in our camp. Don't flame him, just educate him a little. In response to his claim that "sales of CDs are in a freefall", point to the recent Christian Science Monitor article we all read that said many indie labels have profits increasing 50-100% a year. Show him that the CDBaby sales figures keep getting better while the RIAA whiles that sales are disappearing.

He talked about musicians

"Of that lot, however, the musicians are frequently the worst off. They're the ones working two crap jobs, skipping meals to pay for studio time, braving treacherous Canadian highways during the dead of winter, sleeping in vans and in strange cities and generally living at the mercy of the capricious industry constructed around their music. Some of them are lucky enough to make a living at their art."

You forgot that Bush respectfully exempted himself from the Geneva Convention. He wages wars without an UN mandate. And he forbids the International War Crimes Court to try American Citizens.

If you're the strongest military power on the face of the earth, you get to rewrite International Law.

You can't vote while serving time for a felony conviction. You can vote after that

Wrong

Actually, after a quick search to verify facts, it's quite clear that Sony Pictures would have made a sizable profit even without Spiderman last year. This article shows Sony with two other movies in the top ten from last year. So, I don't think there's any doubt the story is a bunch of bull.

Here's a slightly old article on a Supreme Court case related to this issue.

See here for a little pre-conflict analysis, here (I love Asahi Shimbun) for a look at what's happening in the Diet, here and here for a look at the political fallout of Koizumi's position.

But here's an excellent map of Iraq.

I understand the Monitor at www.csmonitor.com offers some of the most unbiased international news, particularly as it pertains to the Middle East.

The Christian Science Monitor is an excellent new source.

They have won many awards, respected by the industry, and are very neutral. They do have points of view, but are expressed in op/ed type sections, not news stories.

The CIA already tried to assassinate him in 1996. Didn't work. See this timeline for more info.

More Lies you may hear soon.

But doesn't it [Ceres] have a satellite? -- and -- What would we qualifty that as, because a satellite must orbit a planet.

It doesn't appear that Ceres has any satellites. But, there are 31 asteroids that do! That doesn't make them planets though...they're just small asteroids with really small moons.

Can anyone remind me what that sequence of numbers is called that vaguely predicts the distances of planets from the Sun?

Yep, its the Titius-Bode Law. Ceres does fit into this. But the reason we don't have a planet in between Mars and Jupiter is because "many astronomers think the asteroid belt is where a planet tried to form, but was pulled apart before it could solidify, caught between the strong opposing tugs of Jupiter and the sun's gravity." Quote taken from here.

Why does a planet _have_ to be a shpere...How perfect a sphere?

Well.... Ceres's shape is too distorted. Its shape is not spherical enough to be like regular planets. And, to get really technical, no planet is really a sphere. Due to rotation, all planets have a slightly distorted shape.