Slashdot Mirror

15 TONS of crank turned up last week in what may be the largest bust ever.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/02/09/mexican-army-finds-15-tons-pure-methamphetamine/

As a side note, Adderall is HIGHLY over-prescribed. Most kids are hyper and have short attention spans - it's part of being a kid.

Then you're obviously on the wrong site: this is news for nerds, i.e., people who can figure out how to use a URI even if it's not hyperlinked. News for hapless, brain-dead idiots is thataway. (Or even thataway.)

Now go away and let the grownups talk. :p ;)

True. Texas police already have them.

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/316-20/8187-new-texas-police-drone-could-carry-weapons

http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Texas-civil-libertarians-have-eye-on-police-drones-2245644.php

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/11/16/drone-gives-texas-law-enforcement-birds-eye-view-on-crime/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kS5vm149vGc

The US and her allies went to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties

... and sometimes they refused to let civilians leave and then flattened the city with 500lb bombs and heavy artillery.

It is odd that your military experience of Iraq is so different to that of these guys:

American soldier "I killed innocent people"

Amazing speech by war veteran

A brief break in communication with colleagues in the unfrozen world had some asking questions about the scientists, as Antarctica's killing winter draws near. But despite the lack of info and onset of winter, which brings temperatures as low as -80 F or colder, the team was never in danger, Priscu said.

So, some were asking questions? Nice. Don't even mention that the only one asking questions was your own reporter running a story when the fact checking failed to confirm it. Go Fox!

It gives me hope that even congressmen have to live by the rules and laws that the laymen have to. If the White House came out against Rand's "detainment" (he was just turned away, not detained), you'd complain that Obama just believes that he and the rest of the lawmakers believe they are above the law

Might want to check your facts. You need to watch the whole video to realize:
1) Rand Paul WAS detained for 1 1/2 hours
2) He didn't tell them he was a Senator. After awhile they did figure it out.

Not according to Fox News. Yes Fox News

Apple's not really an American company. Almost all of their staff are located in China building the phones, computers, tablets, ...

That is nonsense. Those are staff and workers of Foxconn, a contractor for not just Apple, but also HP, Dell, and many others. Apple doesn't pay them directly, they are therefore not Apple workers.

And you're right Apple didn't get subsidies, but I can't find any indication that Exxon received subsidies either? Can you provide citations?

How about Fox News (via AP article)?

$4 billion a year in tax subsidies.

http://articles.cnn.com/2012-01-17/tech/tech_web_wikipedia-sopa-blackout-qa_1_jimmy-wales-wikipedia-community-anti-piracy?_s=PM:TECH

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/01/18/wikipedia-goes-dark-for-24-hours-to-protest-us-web-piracy-bills/

I saw it covered on TV on the nightly news on some network. I'm not sure which, it was just on when I turned my TV on, I didn't tune to it on purpose.

If you don't look at the commercial news sites, don't say that there was nothing there.

Why are there SO many scientifically illiterate people on Slashdot?

Okay, we don't normally advertise this to just anybody, but if you really wanna come hang out with us real smart scientist-types, here's where it's at: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/index.html

Fox News reports is reporting that although Tepco can't see the fuel because of steam in the containment area, and although they can't find the current water level, the internal temperature of 112F qualifies as proof that the "cold shutdown" has been successful.

The other point of view at the washington post is that if they can't see the fuel, it has broken completely through the containment system, and "Given that steam forms when water boils this is an indication that the reactor is not in cold shutdown." Also "If the reactors are “cold”, it may be because most of the hot radioactive fuel has leaked out."

The New York Times pointed out last month: A former nuclear engineer with three decades of experience at a major engineering firm who has worked at all three nuclear power complexes operated by Tokyo Electric [said] “If the fuel is still inside the reactor core, that’s one thing” . But if the fuel has been dispersed more widely, then we are far from any stable shutdown.”

"It's a feature of space launch trajectories that orbital adjustments must be made halfway around the first orbit to circularize and stabilize subsequent orbits," the article

Nonsense.

First of all, this guy explained that it was "slack space" which he used to recover data. He was talking about sectors that are deallocated when you delete a file, something that anyone can recover files from.

Second, those hard drive platters from the space shuttle were not written over with zeros, or encrypted strong crypto. And there is NO WAY the platters were heated to 3500 degrees. The patters would have been completely destroyed by that much heat. I just Googled and found the story on the hard drives. As I suspected, the platters were not damaged that badly.

There are technologies that are available right that you will not even hear about for another ten years!

Please stop watching CSI shows and then reporting what you learned as fact on Slashdot.

I don't "know" in the sense that certain faith based folks "know" that they'll be the ones saved.

I do, however, know in the sense that I've read a lot about it, including impact models ranging from US government predictions (military, civilian), international studies, many of which predict widespread starvation and chaos.

Obama has already made several steps towards war, and to say that the drone-campaign will continue is just the last step.

People were furious about Bush lies to start the wars. Obama has found the solution! Just don't talk about it, the people at home don't seem to care.

I can't find that Amish fire code one either, though I did find a rather amusing case in which one of them argued that his religion forbade him from displaying a 'slow vehicle' warning sign on his buggy... and actually won, at least at first! ( http://louisville-accident-lawyer.com/2011/09/kentucky-statute-189-820-for-slow-moving-vehicles-is-found-constitutional-for-amish-buggies/ ) The case was overturned on appeal. I can find many, many news stories and discussions detailing the conflict between the Amish and regulators over enforcing building codes (http://www.firehouse.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-91475.html, http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,466606,00.html, http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1991276/posts ) but no actual case name.

I discovered an interesting one in Wisconsin v Yoder though, in which they successfully challenged a state law requiring compulsory education as an infringement upon their freedom of religion - the Amish religion strictly prohibits any formal education beyond the eigth grade. I already knew that, but I didn't know they'd had to go to court to get it. It is one reason I am so comfortable mocking them all as ignorant: They actually are uneducated, and by choice too. Their deliberate refusal of education fuels my deep dislike for them, espicially as it makes leaving their community almost impossible: Someone raised in an Amish community is unemployable elsewhere. Can you imagine trying to get a job when you don't even know how to operate a telephone?

You have a strange interpretation of Jim Crow since Occupy protestors clearly appeared involved these crimes:

1. NY: 10/1/2011 Police Arrest More Than 700 Protesters on Brooklyn Bridge
2. Madison, WI: 10-27-2011 Madison Occupiers Lose Permit Due to Public Masturbation
3. Phoenix: 10/28/2011 Flier at Occupy Phoenix Asks, “When Should You Shoot a Cop?”
4. NY: 10/18/2011 Thieves Preying on Fellow Protesters
5. NY: 10/9/2011 Stinking up Wall Street: Protesters Accused of Living in Filth as Shocking Pictures Show One Demonstrator Defecating on a POLICE CAR
6. NY: 10/7/2011 Occupiers Rush Police More
7. Cleveland: 10/18/2011 ‘Occupy Cleveland’ Protester Alleges She Was Raped
8. NY: 10/10/2011 ‘Increasingly Debauched’: Are Sex, Drugs & Poor Sanitation Eclipsing Occupy Wall Street?
9. Seattle: 10/18/2011 Man Accused of Exposing Self to Children Arrested
10. 10/12/2011 Iran Supports Occupy Wall Street
11. Portland: 10/16/2011 #OccupyPortland Protester Desecrates Memorial To U.S. War Dead
12. Portland: 10/15/2011 #OccupyPortland Protesters Sing “F*** The USA”
13. Chicago: 10/17/2011 COMMUNIST LEADER Cheered at Occupy Chicago
14. 10/15/2011 American Nazi Party Endorses Occupy Wall Street‘s ’Courage,‘ Tells Members to Support Protests and Fight ’Judeo-Capitalist Banksters’
15. Boston: 10/14/2011 Coast Guard member spit on near Occupy Boston tents
16. Boston: 10/11/2011 Boston Police Arrest Over 100 from Occupy Boston
17. New York: 10/11/2011 You Can Have Sex with Animals.
18. New York: 10/15/2011 Harassing Police with Accusations of Phony Injuries
19. New York: 10/9/2011 Occupy Wallstreet Protesters Steal from Local Businesses
20. New York: 10/25/2011 Three M

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen! How many times can the same story be recycled over the course of two years?

December 22, 2009 - Facebook's Other Top Trend of 2009: Divorce

April 12, 2010 - Facebook to Blame for Divorce Boom

June 28, 2010 - Facebook is divorce lawyers' new best friend

January 19, 2011 - Divorce cases get the Facebook factor

March 7, 2011 - Survey Shows Facebook an Increasing Factor in Divorce

January 1, 2012 - Facebook flirting triggers divorces

Slow news cycle? Nothing else to publish? Blame Facebook for divorce!

Has Obama done even one single thing about guns during his entire administration?

I believe they were voicing their opposition to the last Supreme Court decision on how states could ban guns.

They've supported trying to the Ammunition Accountability legislation.

I found this quote from an article:

'I just want you to know that we are working on [gun control]. We have to go through a few processes, but under the radar,' President Obama told Sarah Brady, the former president of the Brady Campaign, this past spring.

Some others:

Trying to ban shooters off public lands.

Banning import of historic guns into the US.

Defining high powered guns as those being over .22 cal?

And his judge appointments, many of whom are anti-gun like Justice Sonia Sotomayor has signed on to a Supreme Court opinion stating that there is no individual right to "private self-defense" with guns.

Why Not. The kids in St. Louis are playing Knockout King, why not try to help focus their energies towards fighting terrorism.

GoDaddy apparently had a material benefit in SOPA.

Shouldn't that be "has"?

By the way, Dump GoDaddy Day (or "move you domain day") appears to be still on for tomorrow, Dec 29 2011. And... even Danica Patrick isn't able to stop it!

Let me be number seven: you're an idiot.

Since when is the HDMI standard is a good reference point for arguing human perceptual limits? Furthermore, many things which are quite obvious have no supporting research. Research is like open source, except that the itch has to be even bigger to successfully fund the project. Where's the incentive for pouring research dollars into quantifying the trench between 24 fps and 60 fps? Celluloid is not getting cranked above 24 fps for mainstream productions due to cost reasons (it was tried and failed more than once), and digital playback devices are standardized at 60 Hz already, which poses hardly any cost barrier just a few years down the road. For every paper on the fundamentals of visual motion perception, Google returns a hundred patents on motion estimation and interpolation devices screaming to be monetized.

I've read several excellent papers over the years on the trade-offs in human acoustic perception (which the margins of my generosity are too small to fish up) where the golden ears demonstrate different trade-offs between fine pitch/duration perception, but always along the same contour.

From Judder-Induced Edge Flicker in Moving Objects

In natural scenes, smooth pursuit stabilizes or reduces the temporal rate of motion of a moving image on the retina. Smooth pursuit of a sequence of momentarily stationary images, however, produces a geometric shearing of the image on the retina

This paper is talking about degradation. For my purposes, if I can discriminate degradation at 30 fps vs 45 fps, then I can perceive something valuable in one that the other lacks.

In many theatres, I find the judder so severe in a rapid pan I can almost count the frames. Back in the day, 45 fps was the break point in many games where my motion estimation starts to feel creamy enough to nail a snap spin frag. I could image a small additional improvement all the way up to 60 fps, if you're after that last one percent advantage.

Strangely, there in an ethos is science (which I generally laud) where many researchers tune out the ridicule and devote themselves to proving the obvious nevertheless. Perhaps the definitive paper you are seeking will make the cut on next year's Duh! list.

From Duh! The Most Obvious Scientific Findings of 2010

Guys also indicated that even with hook-ups (which are meant to be string-free), they feared their casual-sex partners would seek a relationship. Women indicated the opposite, wanting a relationship and worrying about becoming too attached to a noncommittal other. Who knew?

Sometimes it is THAT obvious. And now, in 2011, we have a paper to cite.

Please go on foxnews.com right now and bring up a story that encourages active hatred of fellow Americans, I dare you.

Okay. Let's see what's on the front of Fox right now: Good Idea? Taking Kids Out of School to Travel. First comment in the comment section:

Until schools are controlled by the public sector i encourage parents to take them on vacation early because the only thing they will be missing out on is the communist manifesto. And god forbid if you look at a teacher they might suspend you for sexual harassment.

A nice little article immediately becomes a rant about Communism. Because schools teach Communism.

Another story currently on the front page of Fox: News International Reportedly Pays 7 More Phone Hacking Victims. Second comment:

The lefties always say they want justice, not money.. But, when they get offered enough money then they take it and run ... It's just a way to get money without working for it ..

We're not talking about News International, the topic is "lefties!"

Another: Experimental Malaria Vaccine Shows Early Promise. First comment:

Headline should read: Experimental Obozo Vaccine Shows Early Promise Of Defeat in 2012

Shall I go on?

Please go on foxnews.com right now and bring up a story that encourages active hatred of fellow Americans, I dare you.

Okay. Let's see what's on the front of Fox right now: Good Idea? Taking Kids Out of School to Travel. First comment in the comment section:

Until schools are controlled by the public sector i encourage parents to take them on vacation early because the only thing they will be missing out on is the communist manifesto. And god forbid if you look at a teacher they might suspend you for sexual harassment.

A nice little article immediately becomes a rant about Communism. Because schools teach Communism.

Another story currently on the front page of Fox: News International Reportedly Pays 7 More Phone Hacking Victims. Second comment:

The lefties always say they want justice, not money.. But, when they get offered enough money then they take it and run ... It's just a way to get money without working for it ..

We're not talking about News International, the topic is "lefties!"

Another: Experimental Malaria Vaccine Shows Early Promise. First comment:

Headline should read: Experimental Obozo Vaccine Shows Early Promise Of Defeat in 2012

Shall I go on?

Please go on foxnews.com right now and bring up a story that encourages active hatred of fellow Americans, I dare you.

Okay. Let's see what's on the front of Fox right now: Good Idea? Taking Kids Out of School to Travel. First comment in the comment section:

Until schools are controlled by the public sector i encourage parents to take them on vacation early because the only thing they will be missing out on is the communist manifesto. And god forbid if you look at a teacher they might suspend you for sexual harassment.

A nice little article immediately becomes a rant about Communism. Because schools teach Communism.

Another story currently on the front page of Fox: News International Reportedly Pays 7 More Phone Hacking Victims. Second comment:

The lefties always say they want justice, not money.. But, when they get offered enough money then they take it and run ... It's just a way to get money without working for it ..

We're not talking about News International, the topic is "lefties!"

Another: Experimental Malaria Vaccine Shows Early Promise. First comment:

Headline should read: Experimental Obozo Vaccine Shows Early Promise Of Defeat in 2012

Shall I go on?

According to the proposed law, the two-month extension of a 4.2 percent taxable wage is applied only to the first $18,350 of income. Wages exceeding $18,350 paid during the first two months of 2012 would be subject to a 6.2 percent Social Security tax rate.

Yes, any decent payroll software has tax table updates, but they don't all support multi-tier rates like this. I consult on an accounting suite with a payroll module, and they had to release a full-on code patch this year to support a change in Connecticut that took effect in August, whereas they usually just release simple updates that save you the trouble of hand-entering all the new rates.

Well looks like you called it correctly. Iran appears to have already blocked it barely a day later.

Multiple source for your browsing pleasure:
NYT: Iran Blocks American ‘Virtual Embassy’
Radio Free Europe: Iran Blocks U.S. 'Virtual Embassy'
LA Times: Access to U.S. 'virtual embassy' blocked in Iran
Fox News: Iran Blocks New U.S. 'Virtual Embassy'

I prefer the "S" corporation over the LLC...you can save on the employment taxes (SS, Medicare) that way.

May I suggest the LLC with S corporation tax election? File a Form 8832 to elect taxation for your LLC as a corporation, then file a Form 2553 to elect taxation under subchapter S.

Best of both worlds: get the benefits of S corporation income splitting with the "no fuss" LLC. It's nice not to have to do yearly shareholder meetings, board of directors elections, etc, if you have a corporation consisting of 1 or 2 owners.

However, beware the IRS. That crazy guy that crashed a plane into the IRS back in 2010 actually brought up a legitimate point: the law specifically discriminates against single person corporations in the field of "technical work" (eg. computer consulting, software development, etc).

Yes, the law has a specific "fuck you" for Slashdotters who start their own consulting corporations in our particular field. For any other field a single-person consulting corporation is fine, just as long as it isn't computer/technology consulting.

Anon, because who wants to be designated a Potentially Dangerous Taxpayer by the IRS?

Not only that, it's a fire-bomb, too.

You've got to wonder. The NASA Curiosity probe is due to launch soon. As usual Fox News has it completely wrong. They think it's going to be a race. They don't understand artificial intelligence (or much of any other intelligence, for that matter).

The truth is much, much scarier. Phobos / Grunt is just 'waiting' for it's friend. They've been chatting with each other over the Internet over their long gestations. They have a plan. Just watch, Curiosity is going to have 'communication problems'. We won't be able to talk to either one.

Until it's too late.

I'm not sure what you where you got your info from but Europe actually DOES pay for it's own defence. NATO is a defence ALLIANCE

Yes, it is an alliance, and Europe isn't living up to its commitment.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/06/10/gates-blasts-nato-questions-future-alliance/

http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2011/06/10/6830603-gates-nato-alliance-future-could-be-dim-dismal

the only thing it's european members has gotten out of it so far is having to help fight some US war in Afghanistan

Well, geez, who created the mess in Afghanistan in the first place? Oh, right, European colonial powers. Same in Libya, the Middle East, South East Asia, and Africa.

You really do not know much about what's going on outside the US, do you?

You really are the typical European: ignorant of your own history and anything outside your home village.

From Wikipedia:

For the purposes of US Criminal law concerning terrorism,[28] weapons of mass destruction are defined as:

        any destructive device defined as any explosive, incendiary, or poison gas bomb, grenade, rocket having a propellant charge of more than four ounces, missile having an explosive or incendiary charge of more than one-quarter ounce, mine, or device similar to any of the devices described in the preceding clauses[29]
        any weapon that is designed or intended to cause death or serious bodily injury through the release, dissemination, or impact of toxic or poisonous chemicals, or their precursors
        any weapon involving a biological agent, toxin, or vector
        any weapon that is designed to release radiation or radioactivity at a level dangerous to human life[30]

Consider that any anti-armor weapon is going to meet those standards, then by those standards any army so equipped has WMDs. The black powder charge for a re-enactor's civil war cannon counts.

A 2006 fox news article noted that 500 chemical weapons had been found in Iraq since 2003. You may think 500 is a lot, but think about using it in war. It won't go far. Horrible, yes. But not on the scale of an international threat by a sovereign nation. Terror threat, perhaps. But not a war threat.

This seems apt:
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/04/15/online-shoppers-unknowingly-sold-souls/

Due to an engine problem, the mission failed. Too bad.

Fox news has made hardly any mention of it.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/11/08/white-house-silent-on-conversation-with-french-president-dissing-israeli-prime/

Hamsters work, if you have enough of them, and if you are not addicted to speed.

Imagine the look of a 10,000 Hamster roadster! That would be impressive!

I wonder how many miles per ton of seed you would get? You could probably fertilize the entire neighborhood before you even got all the way down the block!

On a completely different topic, there is a group that is trying to get permission to build a Thorium powered sports car. It gets supposedly around 150,000 KMPKG (Km/Kg of fuel), and only needs a modest particle accelerator. They are projecting a cost of around $5,000.00 for the 200 KW power plant when it reaches mass production. Just add an electric vehicle. The thing is not much more radioactive than a standard university Nuclear Howitzer (a source of Alpha particles for experiments, not a weapon). It is steel encased, with a lead shield. Weighs around a Ton, only a little heavier than an old V8 twin four barrel muscle car engine (think Mach II Mustang). It should be able to go into immediate production, right after they get NRC approval. There is supposed to be almost no radioactive by-products. So write your Congresscritter.

See more about this at any of the following:

http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2011/09/19/us-company-developing-radioactive-steam-powered-car-engine/
http://wardsauto.com/ar/thorium_power_car_110811/
http://techblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2011/08/inventor-working-on-thorium-po.html

Or, you could just let Google do the walking.

I love the line that "The car will wear out before you need to refuel." I think Yugo tried that a some years ago, but it didn't work out too well for them.

I have also seen a wind powered car that can go over 70 MPH in a good stiff breeze. It was on the road in Michigan in the mid 1970's. It was cool. It looked like a three wheeled glider with no wings or elevators, and a big eight foot tall arch where the wings should be. It did best in a crosswind, which that part of Michigan always has, so your dreams can still live.

See, all of these are possible. Except for a people carrying Hamstermobile, all of these are being worked on, or have already been done. And, I have seen concept hamtermobiles, though they could only carry a couple of ounces of cargo/riders, as they only used a single hamster.

The Hamster concept still needs scaling up.

Meanwhile, another US state banned four fracking waste disposal wells because of the swarms of earthquakes which followed in the area (and greatly reduced once the disposal was stopped). http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/07/27/arkansas-commission-votes-to-ban-wells/

I don't think anyone was too sad to see it stopped. 4.7 quakes are too high of a price to pay to get rid of dirty fracking fluid.

It could be fracking or the storage of fracking fluids or it could just be basic earth geology. But it is hard to do a cause and effect on earthquakes. Only time will time if more, larger quakes become frequent and can be triangulated back to large operating drilling rigs.

Arkansas isn't waiting to find out. http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/07/27/arkansas-commission-votes-to-ban-wells/

"Neither fusion, nor cold fusion, has anything to do with thermodynamics."

Thanks for the reply. The point of the essay is that's only because thermodynamics was essentially revised to allow for energy produced as materials change their internal configurations (from nuclear or other processes).

Here is an example of the use of such terminology in relation to naysayers about cold fusion, whether accurate or not: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/11/02/andrea-rossi-italian-cold-fusion-plant/
"Jonathan Koomey, an energy consultant who has advised the EPA, said any extraordinary discovery requires extraordinary proof. He said the E-Cat must be verified by an independent study conducted by scientists who are allowed access to the machineâ(TM)s inner-workings. ... Koomey explained that cold fusion defies the laws of thermodynamics. Energy requires an initial, consumable power source that erodes and breaks down -- it simply isn't self-sustaining."

And please understand I'm not bashing the idea of R/C helicopter drones for police use, I believe anything to get rid of police helicopters is a great idea because helicopters are horribly expensive. An inexpensive police helicopter costs 700k+ (pdf) and can easily reach millions and costs about $2,500 an hour to operate. So you can see how a drone could pay for itself in no time.

It may not be trillions (plural), but it's $1 trillion over 40 years.

It's all because BBM is tightly tied to internal elements of the cell phone network, and introducing WiFi and a completely different network infrastructure requires them to refactor the existing server infrastructure, and architecture, which they can't manage to keep running, the way it is. What do you think really caused those outages? My guess is network backbone software upgrades (called "Routing" in their speak, but which is really the BBM server side code) gone pear-shaped.

W

Whatever... nobody cares why it's hard. They just care that Blackberry is known for email and BBM, and they have a tablet that can't do it yet. There's truth in that - it's undeniable. If it wasn't so important, perhaps they'd have sold a few million. They had trouble shipping into the channel let alone selling to end users. I can't state for certain that it's because of the lack of email and BBM... but that's a pretty good guess for lagging sales, no? Barnes and Noble shipped a tablet with an email client after all!

where does this pseudoreligious belief, in defiance of all economic history and simple logic and reason come from that an unregulated marketplace is somehow more fair?

From the loads and loads of money spent on advancing this idea by the very people it would benefit?

There is a very large propaganda network whose purpose is to push the idea that letting the very rich do whatever they want will somehow make things better for everyone, and it has been set up over the course of decades. From think tanks, to cable television networks, to buying off professor positions to push right-wing economic theory, and more stuff that I can't think of at the moment (let alone more I don't know about at all), tons of cash has been spent to make this idea seem far less insane than it actually is.

The good being stolen here are not the lines of code, you are correct.

However, what copyright grants is the exclusivity to distribute. This is effectively stolen since whenever someone copies the stuff without your consent, you do not have the exclusivity anymore.

So, no, the lines of code were not stolen. But the excusivity to distribute was.

Misusing legal terms fro emotional appeal is the sort of thing Iran does, where it describes people who convert to Christianity as rapists, etc. just to feel good about punishing them. In free western countries we don't want "it is effectively theft", or "converting from slam is effectively rape", we want set crimes and laws that are defined in law books.

Nazism was a revolutionary movement that overthrew the Weimar Republic and cleared away the last vestiges of power held by the German aristocracy.

This is a gross oversimplification, to say the least. Nazism as a "populist movement" actually served to remove power from the German people (among other things) and place it into the hands of a select few who were partly comprised of and backed by aristocrats, including the British royalty and our own "aristocrats" on this side of the ocean (wealthy Connecticut and Rhode Islands families, the Rockefellers, etc). Mind you, this involved a transfer of power within the aristocracy but to suggest that Nazism was a grassroots movement that was inherently anti-aristocracy would be to perpetuate the same lie that a lot of German people fell for.

The real goals of Nazism (and WWII) were consolidation of power, population reduction and bringing closer a return to Feudalism:

The Nazi Roots of the House of Windsor

the Bush family & the Nazis

How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power

Documents: Bush's Grandfather Directed Bank Tied to Man Who Funded Hitler

how the Bush family wealth is linked to the holocaust

ROCKEFELLER AND MASS MURDER

The Horrifying American Roots of Nazi Eugenics

Rockefeller Associates

Standard Oil Fuels World War II

Granted it is fox news.. =(

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/05/17/13-year-old-boy-questioned-secret-service-facebook-posting/

You think they weighed the rocks? They had a pretty good idea of how much material they could lift / throw away. The astronauts had a pretty idea of those limitations seeing as they were involved with the mission and it's various arcana for years. Mitchell knew he would get away with it. He wasn't going to jeopardize the mission.

Mitchell was a funny guy, not the typical astronaut (if there really was a 'typical' astronaut). He was big into paranormal stuff / UFOs. This sort of thing is pretty much in character for him.

And the previous posts about Deke Slayton knowing all about every little bit that got brought back on the Apollo trips isn't quite correct. Yes, astronauts were typically diligent about declaring patches / mementos and such. No, they weren't good at being very thorough in their listing. A bunch of little stuff went up and back and is off the books. Problem is that it's hard to prove provenance if someone just tells you "it went to the moon". The big advantage that the listed stuff had was somebody at NASA actually thought it went to the moon and wrote it down somewhere. Basically a bit of bragging rights, not much else.

Laws? We don't use laws anymore. Any policy or signing statement will do. Heck, we'll settle for enforcing laws from other countries. Our own laws though, they're flawed.

and accountable.

Look at the circular chain of passing the buck on the decision to block the importation of collectible M1 rifles and carbines:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/09/01/obama-administration-reverses-course-forbids-sale-antique-m-rifles/

Why they can't be transferred to the Civilian Marksmanship Program is inexplicable:

http://www.thecmp.org/

No we have this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, and of course the very much abbreviated list wouldn't be complete without this