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> > God Bless America, with the worst crime levels in the first world
> Where even criminals have civil rights.

Unless they're "Illegal Combantants". Then we send them off without trial,
access to legal council, or without the ability to consult their embassies.

> > God Bless America, so happy to violate international law".
> When those laws are put together by the dictator's club called the UN, you
> bet. You know, the place that puts Syria and Libya on the "human rights
> committee"?

The Geneva Convention has nothing to do with Syria and Libya. However, I
agree, Syria should not advise anyone on human rights.

> > God Bless America, where "freedom of speech" means race-hate groups like KKK
> Where freedom of speech applies to EVERYBODY, even the ones with unpopular
> causes. Hint: popular causes don't NEED freedom of speech.

I agree here.

> > God Bless America, with barely 300 years of dire history and culture
> Hint: we're still on our first Republic. France is on their fifth, with
> intervening Reigns of Terror, anarchy, kings, emperors, and Nazi
> collaborationist regimes.

Actually, this is our second. Remember the Articles of
Confederation?

> > God Bless America, with the highest obesity levels in the developed world
> Where food is so cheap that even the poorest can (over)eat.

I wish that were true.

http://www.dispatch.com/news/newsfea00/apr00/249 67 4.html

> > God Bless America, wasting billions to attack foreign countries
> They're ours to "waste", Saddam-lover.

Well, actually, no. We're doing defecit spending to finance all of this. How
can you have a war and lower taxes at the same time? Prentend you don't have
to pay for it.

-molo

The mainstream tech media has a way of phrasing technology in the most colorful ways. I read it enough in the local newspaper, which is the worst all-around newspaper I have ever read in my life. But on slashdot? Give me a break.

The RIAA might just let the cops do it for them.

Be afraid, be very afraid.

Indeed, Microsoft single-handedly revolutionized the world economy by making powerful and inexpensive computing technology available to all.

To find the real 'gems' in housing you really need to drive around the neighborhoods and scope them out for yourself, or go through a realtor to scope them for you if you're short on time. The real benefits to real estate that can be found online are the demographics and county listings on government websites. Where I live, our Franklin County Auditor has a website that you can use to look up the last selling price of a house, year sold, etc. that you would normally have to go to a county courthouse to find out. That has been pretty useful to me, but the actual locating, buying, and selling needs to be either done by yourself, or thru a realtor still.

What a great idea! .. but uhm, on my ballot here in Texas, we only had 4 presidential candidates listed. Not all the candidates make it onto all of the ballots in every district. This is a fairly common struggle for third/fourth/etc parties. Getting on a ballot is a different process in several states, and many don't even qualify for the write-in status. Personally, I think it'd be great to have all the national candidates listed, and to have some similarity (or possibly something more high tech than punch cards -{mine was so small that I had doubts i did the right one, and i have better than 20/20 and it was just one column!}) across the nation.

I've currently spent almost $10,000 negotiating with Ohio State University over my SlashSite, http://www.ReadingRecovery.com. I can attest that, no matter how silly all of this is, it can be extremely costly. Although all lawyers are jackasses, not all of them give you the courtesy of a cease and desist notice-- sometimes they file suit right away. You can read the details of my little drama on my site and in the Ohio Dispatch. It hasn't been fun and could still bankrupt me. :-( eMails of support are welcome!

This whole "Look! Women can do it, too, and we are!" bit is so tiring. Women have been given enough of a start to reach "equality". Enough with the comparisons -- men and women are different, period. That's why we act different, on the internet or otherwise. Use the opportunities you've been given and quit making a big deal of it when you do.

Letter to the editor: Opening windows could let bad guys do a lot of damage Saturday, December 25, 1999

I was amazed to see that the Clinton administration, in its initial victory over Microsoft, wants the source code to Windows to be made public. I'm sure it will follow up with a demand that all banks publish the combinations to their safes and freely distribute keys to both their front and back doors. Perhaps they will make banks install a large button so visitors can disable all alarms.

Making the world safe for bank robbers would be a lot better than making Windows' source code public. The year 2000 problem is nothing compared to what a hacker could do with the code to Windows.

The anti-virus software today depends on two primary tests to find a virus: the Cyclic Redundancy Checksum and file size. A virus attaches itself to a program and runs when the program runs.

Rather than get into a complex technical discussion, let us just say every computer file has a fingerprint. If a virus is attached, the file's fingerprint changes. An anti-virus program just looks for the fingerprints left by the virus. However, if one has the source code to Windows, a file with a virus can be made with the same fingerprint as a file without the virus.

Even worse, the operating system, instead of being the virus cop, becomes the virus enabler. Imagine a world where half the people in uniform are trying to rob you and where dialing 911 brings a band of serial killers to your door.

Such a virus would be very, very difficult to fight. Police try to catch such people by tracing who benefits. But when the goal is revenge and not profit, it gets tough to catch the bad guys. If you think catching the Unabomber was time consuming, this would make the search for the Unabomber look very fast, indeed.

So with the Windows source code, the hacker could write a program that on June 1, 2001, swaps all bank balances. Someone whose name starts with an A gets Z's balances. Throw credit cards into that mix, and there could be real fun. Maybe some hacker would find it fun to pay off everyone's property taxes. I'll bet everyone who had not paid his tax would tell the truth and pay up voluntarily, wouldn't they?

Every programmer I have ever met has always left himself a back door into every system he writes. Does anyone want to bet Microsoft does not have a back door to its software? Does anyone believe that if the judge makes Microsoft publish the source code, Bill Gates would remove the back door before publishing it? He would not dare. The judge might put him in jail for modifying the code. Couldn't have that now, could we?

If he would leave it in, every highly skilled programmer would have a key to everything running on Microsoft software. We can rest assured that every hacker is totally honest, can't we? And with the Internet, those hackers would all be in places where Americans are loved, such as Belgrade, Yugoslavia, and Baghdad, Iraq, for example.

Some hacker might even have fun with a newspaper, such as removing the names of everyone who is a subscriber and replacing them with the names of people who are not. Did I mention court records, employment records, child support records?

All Microsoft bashers in and out of government should beware. It looks like they are going to get what they wished for.

Ray Malone

MBS Software

Chillicothe, Ohio

I doubted it too (when I got home my stepson swore it was a UFO, heh), but this morning on the way in all the radio stations were talking about it, mentioning it was verified from Wright Patterson Airforce base in Dayton, OH. which is just west of Columbus.
Just now I checked the website for the local newspaper and found an article here (note the logic of columbus residents calling the police) that has quotes from some OSU Astronomers verifying what you said - that it was junk and not part of the Leonids.
Damn! It certainly was brilliant looking. I've got my hopes up for tonite now!!