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According to this article in my local paper, Verizon is planning on spending nearly $23b on FiOS and that's for about 1/2 their network. The $18b figure mentioned in the summary comes from discounting the $5b in projected savings from not having to maintain the aging copper physical plant. The linked to article sort of mentions this, but it's not real clear.

The wikipedia article that a sibling poster attempted to link to has the full controversy.

If you assume an incredibly strict interpretation of the Constitution and all relevant statutes, the GP has a point. I don't know the exact statutes regarding how states are admitted into the union, so I can't lend creedence to any beliefs that my home state wasn't such until 1953.

A similar incident happened recently in congress when a bill was passed and signed into law even though both the House and Senate did not pass identical versions of the bill. The courts say so long as the Speaker and Senate leader (not sure if this means pro-tempore, majority, or VP) sign off on the bill, it can be cleared for the president.

Also, ABC doesn't get a dime from your cable bill.

I hate to nitpick, but that's (probably) inaccurate. Almost all channels carried by cable get a chunk of the bill. It's true that premium channels like HBO, Cinemax, and so forth get a lot more, but even basic cable channels usually take between 10 cents and $2 per subscriber. For example, BusinessWeek reported in 2003 that ESPN charges an average of $1.93 per subscriber per month.

Now, ABC itself usually doesn't get paid by your cable company, but the local broadcast affiliate that carries ABC probably does. Federal law provides both "must carry" and "retransmission consent" provisions that cable companies have to abide by. In essence, a local broadcaster can try to negotiate with the cable company to permit transmission in exchange for a fee. If the cable company refuses to pay, the broadcaster has the choice to block the cable company from transmitting its signal, or to demand that it do so for free. Early this year, a dispute with an ABC affiliate caused the cable company to pull the station off the cable system at the station's request.

With these provisions, the amount of money a broadcaster can get from the cable company depends on how popular the station is. Local affiliates of the "big 5" networks usually have bargaining power to compel the cable companies to pay. Independent broadcasters and religious stations, on the other hand, usually opt for more viewers through asserting the "must carry" rule.

I agree with the rest of your post; I just wanted to point out these facts, which most people don't seem to know about.

Show me. Post some instructions or a URL. I'd like you to demo *FOR ME* your insanely-easy way for us to shared-edit an excel workbook. For simplicity's sake, your example must do only ONE thing to convince me:

I change a field and hit excel's save icon, you hit refresh and we're both on the same page again.

I won't hold my breath. And THAT is the generic case, not some in-LAN trusted share. A wiki does it. Web apps, as I mentioned and you ignored, have the advantage of platform/client being free and anywhere. Second time you've dissed Bricklin without hearing the underlying message. You may not personally in your narrow use-case see this as a need. Also my second and last attempt to explain that you've got tunnel vision. Nobody cares if YOU have a niche use for Excel's sharing that works for you. We're all looking at the same outside world you just mocked Bricklin for ignoring. Then again, you also took a potshot at me for using the word Not. It's a pity your grey matter is limited enough that you have storage quotas-- I heartily recommend you upgrade. Life and language are a lot more colorful if you keep all that slang around. Dip, dope, rube, moron, dolt, dullard, bozo, idiot, plank, toss-pot, wanker, plonker, dipstick, ding-dong, dickhead, dill, fathead, fsckwit, PHB, 1D10T, newbie, clueless... life's grey enough without datestamping cool slang.

http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/fortwayne/news/local/ 13716471.htm

Very true. For a current example, look at the significant pressure (withdrawing advert) GM has exerted on the LA Times, for what seems to me stating the obvious: GM is in trouble. (Where else but LA would you get pulitzer prize winning articles on the auto industry?)

So rather than take the advice, make corrective action, they , having seem to failed in their efforts to muzzle the reporter, apply pressure by withdrawing their advert. Yes, I agree it's a fine line - why advertise in a paper that writes bad reviews - however the possible impact on the Time's objectivity, or any other newspaper, is important. GM to stop LA Times advertising

On Wednesday, the paper published a column by auto critic Dan Neil that called GM, which has struggled recently with sluggish sales, "a morass of a business case" and called for the "impeachment" of two executives. Among other criticisms, Neil said GM "utterly missed the boat on hybrid gas-electric technology" while speeding up production of SUVs.

Neil won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for criticism, cited by the judges for "one-of-a-kind" reviews of automobiles blending technical expertise with "offbeat humor and astute cultural observations."

Bill Moyers, before retiring from NOW, said one of the most critical issues facing democracy was that increasing control of the media by just a few companies (Think Murdoch and the Fox Empire).

FW News
Reuters
NYTimes
Daily Herald
Google News

Last year, the Honolulu Diocese assembled a tribunal to examine an O'ahu woman's story that her cancer was cured after she traveled to Moloka'i to pray at Damien's grave.

The patient and her family members were among those who testified before the tribunal. Also testifying was Dr. Walter Y.M. Chang, a Honolulu physician - and non-Catholic - who wrote about the spontaneous regression of the woman's cancer in the October 2000 issue of Hawai'i Medical Journal.

Chang wrote that a malignant tumor had developed in the patient's lung in September 1998 and then disappeared without the aid of therapy. The spontaneous regression of this type of cancer may be the first case report of its kind, the scientific paper said. Other doctors who treated the woman also testified.

Jimmy Swaggart may not be someone you personally follow, but he is certainly someone who has many followers.

"I've never seen a man in my life I wanted to marry," Swaggart said in the message. "And I'm gonna be blunt and plain; if one ever looks at me like that, I'm gonna kill him and tell God he died."

And before we get off on how it's a "figurative expression" or a joke, this is a man whose job is to speak to inspire people. He doesn't build anything, he doesn't produce any goods, he makes his living by speaking and through his words inspire listeners to action. He is good at what he does. For him to say, "it's a humorous statement that doesn't mean anything," is sort of like a professional race car driver getting pulled over for running a stop sign saying, "I'm not a good driver."

I'm not sure what your point is, if you have one. I wouldn't walk into a church or a mosque and say, "I spit upon your god," because that would be rude, and that's not how I feel. But if I did, why would the reaction in one house of worship be different than in another?

Maybe you've never met a Muslim or been to a Mosque, but they're not they're not crazied men riding through city streets on camels striking down women for showing some ankle. Yes, there is the fringe minority who think they are doing 'Allah's work.' But do not deny there is the same fringe in Christianity thinking murder is somehow 'God's work.'

I'm curious what Kerry lied about...

he doesn't support scientific research on most stemcells

/me applauds intelligent member of the other side of the political spectrum.

Thank you for recognizing that Bush did not ban all stem cell research. Very few opponents of Bush recognize this.

In fact, all Bush did was prohibit federal funding. And only on new lines ... to date, George W. Bush is the only President of the United States who has ever provided federal funding for stem cell research of any kind, though in this case only for those lines existing before the policy announcement. (I'm quoting his wife, here; I heard this on the radio last week. I encourage you to go check up on this to confirm, because I suppose it could just be political spin.) Meanwhile, private research has, AFAICT, no restrictions. And, in fact, according to this article, 17 new embryonic stem cell lines have been harvested and investigated with private funds.

Anyway, thank you for having the courage to listen to the other side. May there be many more Americans like you!

Ironically a report out earlier this week shows that the US imprisons more people than any other developed country. To give you a few figures from the article on
prisons not the answer for social problems, "There were 715 inmates for every 100,000 U.S. residents last June. Mexico's incarceration rate is 169 per 100,000, and Canada's rate is 116."

There are currently more than 2 million people in US jails. NPR is running a series this week on the ineffectiveness of the prison system.

Now I don't think for a minute that this sentence will ever be carried out. For one, didn't we already determine that most pirated movies come from people who get advanced copies on DVD? Can't find articles on that right now.

But if you want to change this ridiculous system of punishment please support initiatives like Downsize DC.

For the record, the FCC's FAQ on the issue states very clearly that the USF is an obligation of the telecom carrier that they're allowed to shift onto their consumers, but they clearly don't have to.

So, basically, this is just a way for them to itemize it like it's a tax, when really its a tax on the telecom company rather than one on the consumer at the point of sale.

Just like the IDT ads claim, the big guys even try to pass their own property taxes off to the consumers by a fee.

Just read this.

The cowards of the Old Europe are secretly supporting Kerry.

A vote for Kerry is a vote against an independent, free America.

It probably just depends on which style guide your editor uses. For example, both newspapers in my town ( The News-Sentinel and The Journal Gazette ) capitalize only the first word and the proper nouns in headlines, and they capitalize book titles the way their publishers said to in press releases.

It probably just depends on which style guide your editor uses. For example, both newspapers in my town ( The News-Sentinel and The Journal Gazette ) capitalize only the first word and the proper nouns in headlines, and they capitalize book titles the way their publishers said to in press releases.

Another link, although they don't mention sobig.f by name.

http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentinel/6568352. htm

This could be consider just another drug war. Uday Hussein is involved with US tobacco smuggling It turns that Uday has figured out he can grow his own and doesn't need to pay US compaines for the stuff and he started draining swams to grow it. Tobacco is how the US keeps the tradbalacnes from getting too bad with oil compaines and now Uday seems to be getting serious. Ever since Gulf War I, the Arabs have been more concerned about how they buy their tobbaco from and prefer to buy Uday's imported and reboxed brands. Some figures connect him to nearly 25% of US tobacco sales. The real story isn't showing up but it appears that some of Bush's best supporters are deeply tied up with the thugs of Iraq. Throw in considerations of Bush's CIA connections (via daddy) combined with the CIA's love of illegal trade makes and you've got one heck of a conspiracy.

Because even if the club didn't exist, the fixed costs of operating the school would be the same. The room still needs heated/cooled. The janitors still need to clean. Someone from administration still needs to be in the building for other non-secular activities. Clubs like this are not usually paid positions for faculty to sponsor them.

The university I attend recently had a large fiasco about staging a play called Corpus Christi. The just of the arguing was that it was state sponsorship of an attact on Christianity since the main character was a gay male who drank and swore. (Read more about it here). It eventually went to court since the university was paying a trivial amount for the utilities. It was something like 25 dollars per show. Although it is still in appeal, the initial judge and 3-member appeals court ruled in favor of the school. One of the reasons being the costs were fixed no matter what type of production was being produced.

Besides, you have no direct evidence that the club would cost the school anything. The supreme court has ruled that a school CAN be a site for worship or activities, it just can not descriminate against any group that also wishes to use the facility. Gideons often are on campus handing out little copies of the New Testiment. They are using campus parking spaces, campus roads, campus sidewalks, maybe even campus restrooms, water, and electricity. The school has no problems with them.

I know around my neck of the wookds, some school cafeterias are used on Sunday mornings as a makeshift sanctuary. As long as the church pays the fees, it can use the church.

Because even if the club didn't exist, the fixed costs of operating the school would be the same. The room still needs heated/cooled. The janitors still need to clean. Someone from administration still needs to be in the building for other non-secular activities. Clubs like this are not usually paid positions for faculty to sponsor them.

The university I attend recently had a large fiasco about staging a play called Corpus Christi. The just of the arguing was that it was state sponsorship of an attact on Christianity since the main character was a gay male who drank and swore. (Read more about it here). It eventually went to court since the university was paying a trivial amount for the utilities. It was something like 25 dollars per show. Although it is still in appeal, the initial judge and 3-member appeals court ruled in favor of the school. One of the reasons being the costs were fixed no matter what type of production was being produced.

Besides, you have no direct evidence that the club would cost the school anything. The supreme court has ruled that a school CAN be a site for worship or activities, it just can not descriminate against any group that also wishes to use the facility. Gideons often are on campus handing out little copies of the New Testiment. They are using campus parking spaces, campus roads, campus sidewalks, maybe even campus restrooms, water, and electricity. The school has no problems with them.

I know around my neck of the wookds, some school cafeterias are used on Sunday mornings as a makeshift sanctuary. As long as the church pays the fees, it can use the church.

Server doesn't allow remote image loading. The comment should have linked to the page the image was on.

However, if you go to Fort Wayne Newspapers, an AP affiliate, and then paste in the image's URL, the image shows up fine and dandy.