Slashdot Mirror

Hello, Ann Coulter. Welcome to Slashdot and have a nice day. I believe you meant to type in this or this.

even "news" photographs from are photoshopped by news outlets to present a one sided story. A good example is the Reuters photoshopped photos from the israel-lebanon war.

Once they got caught the photos were killed, but hundreds of doctored photos made it on the front pages of news papers around the word anyway.

Cured in mice.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1754006/p osts

And this from someone who feels it necessary to call me a "Knucklehead"? He didn't HAVE a counter-argument, unless you consider "You're wrong because I say so!" a counter argument.

Very well. Since neither you nor Waffle Iron can even be bothered to come up with a cogent counter-argument other than a "Neener neener, you're a big meanie" and "Watch me alter your argument in a nonsensical way to mock you with." I'll just pound you both into the ground with evidence. Apparently all you understand is Appeals to Authority, so here they are:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1496781/p osts
The source page for that post - http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/?page=article&Article_ ID=2319http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/?page=article&A rticle_ID=2319

http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/What_Watt.ht m

http://www.cei.org/gencon/019,05568.cfm

http://acuf.org/issues/issue71/061104cul.asp

http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/ar ticles/V10/N3/C1.jsp

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/56456.st m

I can pull these links ALL DAY, but I've got work to do and a life to live.

The point is, the more evidence we gather, the more we realize that IF the world is warming (and it's a BIG if) then it's part of a natural cycle that has been taking place on our planet for Millenia, and there isn't a damn thing we can do to cause or stop it. All we would be doing by adopting the inane Kyoto accord agreements (or anything like it) would be to weaken our economy and society in such a way that should natural global warming actually happen, we wouldn't have the economic or social strength left to survive it! All it takes is an open mind and a little critical thinking and the "Global Warming" hysteria becomes just that. Hysteria not worth wasting our energy on.

If you can't see the evidence right in front of you, then you're a damn fool and I've got no more time to deal with you.

Good day sir.

oh noes!!! not global warming!!!
well, at least global cooling [ http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/661876/post s ] will counteract the effects.

i wonder if we're dumber than we were in 75, or about the same.

id say dumber, since more people are falling for it this time.

Unfortunately, readers and acolytes of these fine echo chambers seem to get it wrong(and not mind it)- just see how fast a legitimate and correct idea gets the user banned. If you object, they hide behind the vanguard of untouchable private entity. Thus, you have the makings of one unified entity that prefers to silence the crowd instead of listening to it. See the cancellation of the Fairness Doctrine as an example of an echo chamber rejecting the crowd.

The fallacy of your argument is the assumption that anyone can possibly remove guns from the hands of criminals. Sure, if you're willing to impose the mandatory and summary death sentence for possession of any firearm, you might be able to remove 70 to 80% of firearms in this country, but it would be at the cost of one of the greatest genocides in the last century. Guns aren't going to go away. The only choice society and government has is whether or not law-abiding citizens will be allowed weapons. Gun control groups may try to couch it in different terms, but that's ultimately what it comes down to: whether both you and the criminal are armed, or only the criminal?

Read through http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/584202/po sts

Actually, a bit north of the border, in Ontario, Canada you can be charged with (and even on appeal will still be convicted) of speeding 100 km/h in a 100 km/h zone when the average speed of traffic in that area is higher than 100 km/h.

35 mph in a 45 mph zone, if it is anything like that highway in Ontario, is so dangerous a police escort would be required if you want to avoid prosecution.

Seriously? How many soldiers do you have to lose before you declare a defeat?

Let's start out simply and semi-realistically. What If Today's Media Had Covered WWII and What If Today's MSM Had Covered WWII say it rather well, I think. Given, these are not nationally syndicated nor official news reports, but it's an interesting opinion spin.

On to the meat of things. The Battle of Guadalcanal lasted approximately six months and had 6,509 Alllied deaths and probably an order of magnitude over that for wounded in action (WIA). The Battle of Tarawa lasted a mere four days and had 1,001 killed and 2,296 WIA for the U.S. alone. Finally, The Battle of Iwo Jima , which lasted from 19 February until 26 March (about 5 weeks) saw 7,000 dead and 26,000 WIA for the Americans. These three battles lasting a total of about seven months brought the Allied toll up to about 14,000 KIA and well over 29,000 WIA. SEVEN MONTHS!

Overall World War II saw 17 million military and 33 million civilian dead for the Allied powers. On the other side (the Axis) there were a mere 12 million dead.

I do agree with your heartfelt question of how many must die, though I do not agree with your end-state. Firstly, the human race can not look evil in the face and run. We must, as a race, face down those that would harm others needlessly, take away freedoms from entire populations, and subject others to wanton cruelty. We must be willing to pay whatever price is asked to ensure that all people are treated equally.

Secondly, to reach this end of equality, we must ensure that those who are not willing to pay the price are kept from positions of mamagement. If one is not willing to sacrifice themselves for the betterment of society as a whole, then they should be relegated to the lower spectrum of society (similar to Starship Troopers). We do not need a populace that does nothing but hold their hand out and ask for more. We need a populace that is willing to work for and defend their freedoms.

Some other interesting factoids for the masses: Bosnia and Herzegovina had between 100,000 and 110,000 military and civilians killed in ethnic cleansing and war, The Iran-Iraq War had over 875,000 military and civilians killed in their "war", and we're not even going to start discussing the deaths in various South American and African conflicts.

Seriously? How many soldiers do you have to lose before you declare a defeat?

Back to your original question: personally, I will never declare defeat. As long as someone is being oppressed, as long as there is evil in this world, I will not give up. I pray that our leaders feel the same way. As a United States Marine, I am willing and able to go forth into battle to defend those who can not or will not defend themselves. Hopefully more people feel the same way.

Questions Arise on Accounting at United Way
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/791618/post s

How much of your donation actually goes to cover salaries and expenses and how much actually goes to help individuals? Nobody actually knows. The fact that they are covering up the numbers with "clever" accounting techniques seems to me to indicate a massive amount of fraud going on.

Please, just donate directly to local charities, the best bet is to actually contact local community support and directly donate to the ones that can best help the most people.

Don't worry, he's not in charge of running America. He's just another paid, idiotic talking-head shill who appears regularly in the mainstream media who doesn't really know what he's talking about. The nice thing about the Internet is, the proles like you and me can debate ideas like his head-to-head here, in discussion forums, blogs, etc. He's preaching to the choir; his audience is a couple of hundred thousand Fox News fanatics who are becoming increasingly irrelevant. Their influence and numbers are declining daily, these days, and many of the ones who do have Internet access are borderline illiterate. There's a far higher proportion of intelligent people hanging out at places like Slashdot and DailyKos.

I seem to recall that a Russian researcher, Yury Israel, has done research to indicate that the addition of sulpher compounds to the jet fuel used by international airline flights, which fly at 60,000+ feet to take advantage of the jet streams, would result in particulate dispertion into the stratosphere and global temperature reduction due to reflection of sunlight. Perhaps not the best solution to the problem, but an intriguing proposal none the less...

The Clinton administration thought there were WMDs too. But this is Slashdot were history revisionism is at it's finest.

Please read this link http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/949198/po sts

Actually, dang ferners did come here and observe our elections in 2004:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1187060/p osts

A little variety reading for you...

One, Two, Three, Four

Cheers

plastics?

Try all the birth control getting put into the waste water supply, cleaned, and then consumed by guys.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1529765/p osts

"Although wastewater treatment plants remove contaminants, they aren't equipped to remove estrogen, so the hormone is released into waters and attaches to sedimentary particles" Kelley said

It's getting so I don't want to travel to Europe anymore. They're getting waay too uptight.

In October 2003, Indian Air Chief S. Krishnaswamy stated that India had started development of an operations command station for an eventual space platform for nuclear weapons.[10] However, he retracted the statement within days, under pressure from India's civilian leaders.[11] India: Military Programs

According to a senior U.S. Air Force official, Brazil is one of a group of countries "seriously involved in using space assets for military purposes."[1] Indeed, when Brazil became a member of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) in 1995, it was allowed to keep its space launch program, despite the potential for military applications.[2] Brazil: Military Programs

Japan's Liberal Democratic Party has drafted a bill to allow Japan's into space. The calls for the military to venture into space within the parameters of self-defense rights. That would be a drastic change from the current civilian-based limitations that Japan has placed on space ventures. Japanese Military Going Into Space

Let's not forget that Humans may have come close to extinction about 70,000 years ago perhaps reaching a low point of 2,000 people. So we should be happy we have all these people now!

• Large Amount of Memory Issues Fixed.

It's theory B in a landslide. Check out Free Republic for an example. It's as big as Slashdot, if not bigger, and is 100% conservative.

I'm amazed at the ignorance of conservatism expressed in this forum. Conservatives welcome change just as liberals do; it's just the type of change that's at issue. The conservative critique of the status quo, with its political correctness, defense of poorly run government programs, awful public schools and largely socialized medicine is every bit as strong as the left's obsession with President Bush.

What is this with President Bush, anyway? You do this to every even modestly right-wing President. I've gotten in the middle of an International ANSWER protest where you show Bush with the swastika placed on his head. I'm sorry, I have to laugh. Bush has no resemblance whatsoever to Adolf Hitler. Bush has not tried to curtail your right to say whatever you want. If Bush really was Hitler, the members of Internaional ANSWER would be in concentration camps right now. I am sorry, but they are not, despite their transparent attempts to get arrested for publicity.

It would be a lot more effective if I didn't remember the same sort of demonization when George H W Bush, as mild-mannered a leader as the world has ever seen. And since Clinton "ended welfare as we know it" shouldn't you have protested him? You don't even stand up to your own ideals. You've just decided you hate us, personally, without even asking who we are or what we stand for.

Conservative views recognize government as a base on which the people rest. The people are in charge of their own lives, and government should really do little but mediate disputes and make sure the country is defended against intruders such as Al Queda. But the people stand on this foundation, and there should be as little intervention in their lives as possible. This means we're against the maze of rules that traps businesses, and that includes small business owners who make less money than the average Slashdotter.

Conservative views face reality about the situation in the Middle East. Negotiating with the Palastinians has been tried for decades, and those nice folks keep on blowing up pizza parlors in return. Is it not reasonable to say, then, that the "peace process" has failed, because the other side wants to continue fighting so badly?

The war in Iraq has drawn our enemies into a quagmire. We're in the same quagmire, true, but there have been no large-scale attacks on American soil since we started our counterattacks in Afghanistan and Iraq. Most of the people involved in Al Queda are now in Iraq killing Iraqis instead of killing Americans here. At the same time, we have rid Iraq of Saddam, and even Al Queda's butchers are pikers compared to what Saddam did.

We have established a democracy on Iraqi soil. Not a perfect one, but then again, ours isn't either. And although Iraqis may not be enthusiastic about us, they are enthusiastic about their democracy and remaking their own country their own way. Isn't that exactly what Noam Chomsky claims we never allow to happen? We've done it in Iraq. He should be proud.

Okay, someone's going to talk about the drug war and the right's embrace of religion. I agree with the left wing on both of those issues, but consider the other issues of greater importance.

So now you've looked a bit into the mind of a conservative. I don't expect to change anyone's minds overnight, but I hope I've at least shown that we have a viable view of the world. I think neither side is evil; they just see life in their own way. I hope you can now consider giving "the other side" similar respect.

D

Wasn't there something about the PS/2 CPU being powerful enough to fall under weapon export restrictions?

Ahhh, here we are.

http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3a3f27852c0f.ht m

In essence, the Emdrive is a resonating bottle full of microwaves. Because microwaves are a low frequency form of light, their behaviour is governed by Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity. And while microwaves and other forms of electromagnetic radiation may be thought of as very fast moving particles, they also have to be thought of as waves. At the same time that the constituent particles are moving at light speed, or their phase velocity, energy is transferred by the wave aspect travelling at group velocity. Group velocity is the result of waves of different wavelengths interacting with each other. While, according to Einstein, the phase velocity of electromagnetic waves is the speed of light in the appropriate medium whatever happens, and in whatever moving frame of reference the observer happens to be, group velocity varies. Group velocity can be any speed from stationary to light speed (a few physicists suggest the additional possibility of faster than light), and this varies the amount of momentum striking an impenetrable barrier, and thus the force exerted on it. Hence, it is possible to have a bottle full of electromagnetic waves exerting more force on one end than the other, whereas this is not possible for anything else that an engineer would normally be expected to encounter.

1. "Forever-Fearsome F-14 Tomcat Fighter Jet's Last Official Launch, Flyby, Landing": http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1679090/p osts

2. Nice F-14 and F-18 photos: http://chamorrobible.org/gpw/gpw-20040817.htm
and http://chamorrobible.org/gpw/gpw-20040818.htm

3. Yet another fine gallery with F-14 photos: http://www.galleryoffluidmechanics.com/conden/pg_s ing.htm

4. Video of a transonic F-14 Tomcat, complete with the Prandtl-Glauert vapor cloud, with an unexpected ending: http://www.angelfire.com/hi/luckypuppy2840/MADDOGJ ET/videos/F14flyby.mpg

5. Nice page with links to photo galleries of transonic aircraft --including the F-14 and F-18 fighter jets -- bombers, and space vehicles: http://chamorrobible.org/gpw/gpw-The-Spectacular-C louds-of-the-Transonic-Flight-Regime.htm

Prandtl-Glauert condensation cloud tutorial: http://fluidmech.net/tutorials/sonic/prandtl-glaue rt-clouds.htm

I have been doing this for almost 10 years in a rural area in Maine and at this point have about 800 customers (about 200 regular). I have about 2 appts. every day and up to 4 when it is busy.
Here's my advice:
1. Always charge what you are worth. $25.00/hr sounds fair until you realize you have to get there and the fact that 10 hours labor a week is only $250.00 and you have to make a living. I charge $60.00/hr with an hour minumum and 1/2 hour increments after that. If I lived in a city in Maine I would charge $75 to $90 because that is the going rate.
2. After you are sure things are going to work, incorporate. You need the protection from liability, and the break on taxes. Get a good accountant that's not afraid of the home office deduction (many are).
3. Yellow Pages are a waste of time, take a small ad out in a local weekly the same as you see plumbers, painters, and oil burner techs do. Commit to it, because people don't even "see" your ad until the 3rd time they read it.
4. Read this article, and the 2nd one: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/958885/po sts. I work exaclty the same as he does, and I have the most loyal customers of any business owner I know.
5. The parts that the above posters hate, the people that don't pay attention, cluttered homes, etc...those are all the parts I like. I am out of the house meeting people and am the hired expert in the room. That's an ego boost for me! It's not THEIR job to know computers, it's yours, so do your best to make their computer as safe as it can be without making it hard to use. Explain things to them in plain english (or whatever ;). Recommend Firefox, AVG Antivirus, etc which are all free and will save them money. That makes you a hero to someone paying $49.95 to Norton every year.
6. If you see that you can't fix it there (or you can't figure it out) stop, and take it back to your place. Tell them it will be a 2 hour flat rate no matter how long it takes. At home you don't have them looking over your shoulder, you have Google to look stuff up, and another workstation to clean the drive. I have yet to have a computer I couldn't fix, or at least know what was up with it (if it was too expensive to fix). Sometimes it might take you 2 hours, but mostly it won't and after awhile you will be able to fix anything given time as you gain experience. Last week I had 5 computers here, was fixing 2 at once (on 2 KVM switches) and while they sit there and scan for hours I surf Slashdot.
Well, that's all for now! Gotta go, I have 3 appts. today!

And the one super-power on this planet, which the UN relies heavily upon, is definitely not setting the example these days, as far as human rights are concerned... This certainly does not help.

LoL.

As if stopping "meddling" in the middle east would even begin to solve the problem. Not all islamics are middle eastern. Just wearing bikini's in the states are enough to piss them off. Just not believing "Allhu Akbar" is justification enough to do these things.

The occasional wackjob is not the problem. There are christian crazies, atheist crazies, and probably bhuddist and hindu crazies. The problem with islamics is that the *sane* ones by their own belief systems head large organizations with the resources to perform these acts and they really really do want to kill us.

As Khomeni said, "Those who advocate peace with Islam are fools of this century."

Small isolated wackos who would be turned in by members of their own religion just can't do much effectively. Sane people taught from birth that we are evil don't need poverty or "meddling" in their countries as a reason to kill us. They didn't have a chance- they were corrupted towards murder and death before their brains were finished developing.*

And anyway- the powers that be (corporations and near nobility multi-national rich) don't care that we get attacked anyway so meddling in your countries (and our countries) are not going to stop. Blowing us up kills a few of us but the corporations are immortal and soulless. The multi-national rich have allegience to no country or creed. In fact, it's probably in their interest to KEEP you stirred up since then we'll all buy weapons (from the military-industrial complex as foreseen by Dwight Eisenhower). Ask yourself- if most democrats, republicans and libertarians in america favor closing our southern border and the republicans *know* it will probably cost them many elections this fall- why are both parties ignoring this issue? Could it be because the wealthy and the corporations want cheap labor and they control both parties in power in the US?

*
http://www.textbookleague.org/121musm.htm
Sowing Seeds of Hatred
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1307263/p osts
The Palestinian schoolbooks: Planting seeds of the next war
http://www.teachkidspeace.org/doc3516.php
Teach Kids Peace - Saudi Education: Hatred of Christians & Jews
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/ne ws/2006/06/25/wsaudi25.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/06/25 /ixnews.html
Christians still 'swine' and Jews 'apes' in Saudi schools

I remember flying standby a few years back, and everytime I left the SLC airport for a cig, I got the royal "special treatment". It was a real bummer when I found the smoking area inside the terminal several hours later...

I love California to death, really. I wish to live their someday. But I think it's illegal to be Conservative(R) in public there...

Shhh. Don't tell their governor.

I do find it interesting that Mac fans always point to Dell as their preferred price comparision. I mean....Dell? Is that really the space Apple is competing? ...

Dell is the #1 PC manufacturer, and they advertise pretty heavily. HP is #2, but fewer people think of HP when they think of buying a PC.

And Gateway is #3 and Apple is #4. Dell and Apple are competitors and Dell is top dog, so it makes sense to compare.

I remember that thread, and posted on it.

Please don't think that because we are knuckle-dragging mouth-breathing hard right wingers that there are no tech-savvy people among us. We are chockablock with engineers and other left-brain types.

-ccm

But the chips in those Playstations could be used for Saddam's weapon systems!

Re: your sig: You took her quote out of context - she was clearly talking about bush's tax rebate. If it's a choice between that and privacy, I'll go with the money. I'd prefer a balanced budget -- Bush was just spending my kid's money, and giving the interest payments to foreign investors.
-=-=-=-
AP NEWS - SAN FRANCISCO -- The heavily Democratic San Francisco Bay area welcomed two of its political darlings Monday, with former President Clinton continuing his blockbuster book tour and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton headlining a campaign fund-raiser.

Joining other Democratic women senators at an event for Sen. Barbara Boxer, who's seeking re-election, Hillary Clinton told hundreds of party faithful to expect to lose some of the tax cuts passed under President Bush if Democrats take control in Washington next year.

"Many of you are well enough off that ... the tax cuts may have helped you," Sen. Clinton said. "We're saying that for America to get back on track, we're probably going to cut that short and not give it to you. We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good."

Focus is not necessarily indicative of money spent, but I do remember that when Ashcroft first became attorney general, one of his major goals was to address "improper use of medicinal marijuana." In a lot of people's eyes, marijuana may not be as bad as heroin and crack, but it is playing in the same league. For example see: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1656481/p osts . So I'm not sure that the DEA does spend a lot more on cocaine than on weed.

There's more and more research emerging to support the hypothesis that any addiction to a substance without physically addictive qualities (i.e. crack and its ilk) are all rooted in the same dopamine reactions. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1669601/p osts is a short synopsis of a story I read in long form in Chicago magazine about a woman who took a drug that affected how her brain handled dopamine and ended up with a massive gambling addiction. Stopping the meds brought back her original problem but allowed her to almost effortlessly quit gambling.

All of these non-chemical addictions seem to have the same core symptoms. People do something that makes them feel good. They do it often and begin to notice other things don't feel good anymore, then they notice they need to do this new thing more and more to keep the good feeling coming. Just because our brain makes a chemical doesn't mean it won't acquire a tolerance to it.

In America it is becoming Rumsfeld Youth, complete with the natural lead-in to the military.

As far as I know, the poster is correct, because I'm not aware of Zarqawi hurting or killing any Americans

Nice troll.

You must be one of the few people who didn't watch Zarqawi personally behead US citizen Nick Berg? Or the US reporter Daniel Pearl?

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi didn't join Al Qaeda until after the Iraq War began

Zarqawi was in the town Kirma, a town in northern Iraq, long before the US invasion. The Al-Qaida funded lab that he was involved in there was working on uses of weaponized ricin and cyanide. A January, 2003 arrest of six terror suspects in London included the discovery of ricin tied to that same lab. Again, prior to the start of the war. Feel free to Google the issue, and you'll find pages like this that provide links to the growing collection of raw documents found in Iraq that further demonstrate this.

As far as I know

Which isn't very far.

Why not try doing your own thinking and research, rather than buying the lies of Republican, conservative traitors?

Um... before you make absurd statements like that, try getting some basic, well-established facts straight. We can even debate how to interpret the intel showing his activities in Iraq before the war, and in Afghanistan before that - but, if you can stomach it, watch the footage of Zarqawi sawing off the head of a live aid volunteer (Berg) before calling someone a non-thinking "traitor" for pointing out the facts.

I wonder if proper body and vehicle armor is cheaper than prosthetics, multiple surgeries, psychological counseling, and a lifetime of subsequent health problems.

Besides, with the quality of explosives the other side is using, they can kill an M1! Charges that cut through a main battle tank are not going to be slowed down by any amount of Humvee up-armoring.

Speaking of which, I've wondered why we still call them IED's, or "immprovised" explosive devices? They've grown all too sophisticated to be called "improvised."

As for not starting the war in the first place, good idea. But now it's too late, what should we do? (Besides not repeating the same mistake in the future.)

But you see, we have this little thing to the south of us, here in California, called "Mexico". Where, well frankly, no one there gives a damn about doing illegal acts.

I live in San Diego, which is right across the boarder from Mexico, and let me tell you that gun control is freaking crazy in mexico. In mexico, only the police and the criminals have guns, and the criminals get their guns from the US!!! Guns get smuggled into california from arizona and nevada.

That being said, I think that if Mexico had a 2nd amendment and the belief that it is right to rise up against a tyranical govt/oligopoly then the wealth disparity in mexico wouldn't be so vast.

IDCers see evolution's willingness to learn and constant progress as a sign of weakness, flipfloppery and intellectual bankruptcy.

I have, quite recently, observed a creationist state that humans should not attempt to learn how the universe works, and that God did not give humans brains for that purpose.

In fact, the creationist's exact quote is "God didn't give us brains to bother about how the world works; he told us all we need to know about how the world works and we venture into that area on our own, and often to our great detriment."

I believe that this statement reveals a great deal regarding the educational values and motives of creationists.

Be aware that the website hosting the article is a far-right broadsheet, the Canadian equivalent of Free Republic. Their agenda is strongly anti-global-warming, which doesn't necessarily discredit the article, but does suggest that one should view it with the same scepticism as one views the recent 'ads' by the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

yeah, i was fearing picking up some malware off that site mearly by visiting it. intersting article though. i recently read in the denver post how over the last 100 years or so there have been fears of warming followed most recently in the 70s by cooling followed by warming...

This will work nicely for the very few tetrachromats among us, (http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3a24199b1ef8.h tm). These are women who through genetic accident have an extra gene for color in the eye: "that woman's retinas would have four different types of photopigments: blue, red, green, and the slightly shifted green." They apparently have a much more finely tuned sense of color. Of course, there's probably only a few of them around, but hey, we're all about accessibility here!

For the record, all day today KIRO was running a piece about how reprobates have been running an open air crack cocaine market across the street from the King County courthouse in Seattle (this state's largest city) for years, and even they (one of the largest radio stations in the state) couldn't get police to respond. Note to furriners: the sale and use of crack cocaine is prohibited in the US.

I am curious about what offended our state representatives more... that their sponsors the tribal casinos weren't getting a cut or that the state wasn't getting a share. They're certainly pleased to pander to habitual gamblers with scratch tickets and lotto in every convenience store, gas station and grocery in the state. They get a cut of every bottle (or glass!) of alcohol. Certainly they make more bucks off of a pack of cigarettes than the farmer who grew the tobacco, or anybody else who touched it before it arrived at the consumer -- tax is > 50Pct.

Certainly it wasn't the cops, who must use care now only to pull over offenders driving later model cars so as to not overburden the Justice Profit Center with an excess of violators who can't pay their fines.

Yes, that's Washington - the state where you're safe from online gaming and you can't buy Sudafed because you might make meth with it, but you can sell meth, crack, heroin and Ecstasy with impunity in the Junior High School because there's no profit in arresting you. Click it or ticket. Fines are double in work zones. Thanx.

It offends me that I live in the state that reelected Baghdad Jim http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/903913/po sts after this piece ran.

It would be more honest to put a menu on the state house: Calendar days: $50K, Minor issues: $500k. Major Issues: $4M. Public/Private partnerships like ballparks or public transit: Profit sharing whatever we can fleece the taxpayer for. No law too unenforceable, no cause to liberal. It's for our children, dammit! Won't anyone think of the children?

Do I sound bitter? Yes. My son really deserves an "Alex recognition day" on the state calendar, but where am I gonna get $50K?

Copyright originated as a form of censorship. In 1557, Queen Mary Tudor granted the Stationers' Company the exclusive right to print books. They got all of their books approved by the government before printing them. It wasn't until the Statute of Anne in 1710 that copyright took on its modern form where the rights were granted to the author rather than the publisher.

This article isn't on MSNBC any more, but it is all over the internet:

Copyrights and copywrongs: Why Thomas Jefferson would love Napster

>Are they? For what crime? For just existing? That is an outright lie.


Yes, and no. I have provided proof in previous posts of human rights abuses of which Hindus are victims in Pakistan. Sorry, your propaganda only works on liberal westerners, not on me.

Hindus are regarded as "Kaffirs" and "Dhimmis" in Pakistan. Pakistani muslims regard all non-muslims as animals and deserving only death. Pakistanis love death. I wonder why they wail so much when our armed forces give it to them.


>Having molten metal poured into ears is a Hindu punishment for a religious crime, not a Muslim one

No, my friend. It was invented by Tamurlang, a muslim. Hindus retaliate, never instigate. We are people, not beasts.

Again, Islamofascist propaganda doesn't work on me. You're wasting your time, my terrorist sympathizing friend.

>but hey, as long as you get people riled up against Muslims, it's all
>good, right?


It's about time people learnt the truth about you terrorist sympathizers and mass murderers.

Support for bin-Laden and al-Qaeda is rampant in Pakistan. Pakistani schools teach how to hate ("Yahood aur Hanood ek sikke ke do hisse hain") before they teach how to read, and Hindus don't harbor suicide bombers.Muslims have murdered over 80 million hindus over the course of their hegemony in South Asia. From Aibak, to Iltutmish, to Babar, mir-Baqr, Aurangzeb and the Bahmanis they have made mountains of Hindu skulls all across the north. During partition the majority of the victims of the riots were Hindus, not muslims:
http://koenraadelst.bharatvani.org/articles/irin/g enocide.html
South Asian muslims spread usury, bribery, Jihad, and how to reproduce by rape. Now they can't stand the fact that we are free, and they are not.
India is us, you are them.

Some interesting historical insights are provided in Mark Gottlieb's essay The Arrogance Of Ignorance, in the 2006-02-18 issue of Industry Week. A quote: A new generation of the serenely clueless is ready, willing and able to destroy your company.

Here's a good example

Full disclosure here: I work for a press outfit and America sees my work on television daily.

The issue with NSA spying is all about how the Constitution guarantees us rights to not be searched against our will and without reasonable cause or a judge's order. The administration says that, when Congress passed the so-called "patriot" act, it gave the President (the Executive Branch of our government) the go-ahead to take this extraordinary measure of searches and siezures (wiretapping falls under that) without a warrant.

Here is what a warrant does:
It involves another official of government, one who is supposed to be impartial and not on either the side of the individual or on the side of the Executive Branch.
It involves someone from another branch of government that holds itself (somewhat) aloof from the politics of the day.
It involves a branch of government dedicated to the examination, on a case-by-case basis of the actions of both the Executive and Legislative branches of government.
It involves a branch of government that may be overruled by appeals that end at the US Supreme Court (or for state laws at their State Supreme Courts).

The Executive (in this case) says it has a two-to-three majority against the Judiciary and believes it is unassilable because "Congress told me I could." Presently, a lot of people in Congress are having a serious problem admitting that they did decide to allow searches without warrants.

Now that's the general environment into which this release of all telephone records plays. According to the US Supreme Court, a "warrantless installation of (a) pen register (does) not violate the Fourth Amendment." Follow the link to read the case law. Qwest decided that the government was not installing a pen register (a device to record the numbers called from one telephone to all others) and stated that, in their opinion, the release of all records does not constitute that permitted warantless intrusion into their records on their clients. The other telcos blinked.

But the issue that has dogged this very secretive administration the most is not their casual violation of the Constitution that they swore to uphold and protect, it's those pesky leaks from people who work for them who, presumably, wish that they weren't so darned casual about First and Fourth Amendment protections and wish they hadn't lied about their reasons for declaring war that will never end in order to get re-elected.

Those leaks could be real problematic, because they cause reporters (even ours, who seem more like lapdogs to this administration than anything else) to ask questions that make them feel uncomfortable and make it hard for them to justify their positions on other matters, like Immigration "reform" and Social Security "reform." The administration would like to think its "bank of political capital" is not overdrawn.

They don't want oversight by any branch of the government, which includes both the Legislative and the Judiciary. They also don't want oversight by the press (yes, dear reader, guilty as charged) or by the public as a whole, especially as it reacts to revelations of their secretive doings published by the press.

Now, they're warning the press that they have all of the records of all of the calls the members of the press have made to the leakers in this administration and they're going to go after them one by one.

I would ask, if they're so worried about oversight, why do anything that the majority might consider wrong? Americans are currently split (51%-49% but within the margin for error) on whether or not the administration's demand for these telco records without a warrant is justifyable, but one might consider the fact that the press (and that would blame me, too) has not sufficiently educated the public as to the narrowness of the Supreme Court decision, nor has it taken a position that the protection of all rig