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Even if they release source code, it is possible that the code they actually use in their voting machines is different than the code they release. It's entirely their choice which software is run on any given day, is that correct? They can do updates whenever they want. Their are apparently no dependable guarantees.

In the past, Sequoia Voting has not seemed especially knowledgeable: Sequoia e-voting machines disturbingly easy to hack. Quote: "Researchers from the Princeton University Center for Information Technology Policy ... were able to trivially circumvent the machine's physical security mechanisms and plant a hacked ROM that undetectably doctored the voting results."

See this article, also, about a Sequoia AVC Advantage voting machine: Evidence of New Jersey Election Discrepancies.

Off topic: Be skeptical about flu reports. The reports about flu were so flawed I took the time to write my own, using information from The Atlantic magazine and CBS News, among other sources.

If you go from IT to nursing, you may be going from bad to worse. The medical profession is EXTREMELY corrupt. Here are just two of the many examples:

Rooney On Health Care. His doctor billed $250 just for saying hello, literally for only saying hello. (Short video)

Be skeptical about flu reports. The reports about flu were so flawed I took the time to write my own, using information from The Atlantic magazine and CBS News, among other sources.

If there is extreme corruption, there may be a collapse of some kind, and you could become involved in a way you didn't foresee and don't like. As in the financial industry, the top executives will profit enormously, but the average person may lose his job.

You said, "Why would you think that what the president is trying to accomplish is socially impossible? He's trying to bring health care up to the standards enjoyed by the majority of the developed world."

I very much agree with the President's goal. I share that goal. But he is trying to do too much at one time, and he and his advisers have little understanding of the problems, in my opinion.

We do consulting that combines our knowledge of technology with an understanding of the underlying sociology, so we are particularly aware of the problems.

I spoke with a doctor who makes $4,000,000 each year doing specialized operations. He found a way to avoid the intended effect of laws designed to protect sick people with no insurance from overcharges. He told someone on whom he operated that he would charge one amount, but actually charged almost double.

A doctor like that, and there are many like him, will not cooperate with any change in the system. And he has the money to fund crazy attacks.

I wonder how people at Symantec feel about "David Hall, a Product Manager for Symantec" getting himself on Slashdot, where everyone can discuss how unpleasant their involvement with Symantec has been?

I suppose he was not smart enough to see that coming.

If Symantec wants management consulting, I volunteer: Futurepower Technological Due Diligence. But that's just volunteering some time. I wouldn't work for them unless they wanted a full re-organization of management.

What's uncertain is how well an experienced pilot with very little technical knowledge can run a huge agency that has extremely complicated technical problems.

Why do people think that managers with little technical knowledge can run technological organizations?

I've written some articles about that issue.

The problem is fundamentally social. Companies, and social groups in general, are always both growing socially and dying socially. In a company as well-established as Google, the challenge is to keep the processes of growth stronger than the processes of death.

More and more, Google seems to be out of control. There seems to be insufficient friendly oversight of the many initiatives inside the company. That typically occurs because everyone is busy, and because there is no one inside the company who both understands particular social processes and has the power and insight to influence them. Friendly, creative management is a lot more difficult than the average person realizes.

Of course, Google started from a very high level of excellent management. Google's management ability was initially not only in providing an excellent search engine, but also in being able to build the infrastructure necessary to serving billions of queries of a database, each in less than a second.

I'm very interested in such issues: Futurepower®.

Acting out your anger is optional. Next time, try dealing with your anger yourself, rather than making it a problem for others.

You said, "The number of temp files or folders is nothing to do with security."

You didn't read what I said carefully. I said that, if temp files fill the hard drive, the file system becomes slower. And also, even worse, the defrag program refuses to operate. When computers become slow, many users buy a new computer.

A few temporary file locations in the Windows XP operating system:

C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Temp\
C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\

C:\Documents and Settings\ user \Local Settings\Temp\ and
C:\Documents and Settings\ user \Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\
for each value of user . On the computer that had the trouble, there are several users.

C:\Documents and Settings\NetworkService\Local Settings\Temp\
C:\Documents and Settings\NetworkService\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\

C:\Documents and Settings\LocalService\Local Settings\Temp\
C:\Documents and Settings\LocalService\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\

C:\Documents and Settings\Default User\Local Settings\Temp\
C:\Documents and Settings\Default User\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\

According to Microsoft, these may all be different:
%SystemRoot%\Temp\
%SystemDrive%\Temp\
%SystemRoot%\Tmp\
%SystemDrive%\Tmp\

In my opinion, it doesn't matter how many temp file locations defined by the operating system there are, if the number is more than, let's say, 2. I've seen computers infected with malware that uses temp file locations of other users to store files, marked read only. There is no method provided by Microsoft, that runs automatically, that deletes read only temp files in all the locations, and does that securely under OS control, so that malware cannot use those locations between computer re-starts. That's my understanding, and you haven't said differently.

Also, most users don't know to run Disk Cleanup. The point is, most users are not technically knowledgeable, and are not able to maintain Windows, and, as the New York Times article to which I linked says, they buy new computers, because that is cheaper than trying to maintain the OS.

The fundamental point: Given what I have just mentioned, I don't see that Microsoft is caring towards its customers. The company could do far, far better. Microsoft apparently doesn't do better because Microsoft managers believe it is morally acceptable to use adversarial methods to make a profit.

I didn't know I had a website. I just looked, and I can see I do. I don't have much time to make a web site, and I had forgotten that I had an index.html. Normally, I just provide links to particular articles.

Anyhow, look at this article on my "web site": Windows XP Shows the Direction Microsoft is Going. Quote:

Bruce Schneier, well-known computer security analyst, said in his November 15 newsletter that this article is "A well-written analysis of the major security/ privacy/ stability concerns of Windows XP." Mr. Schneier wrote the books Applied Cryptography and Secrets and Lies: Digital Security in a Networked World, and other books.

Back then, several years ago, I thought Bruce was being overly generous. However, soon after I published my article, which was translated into French and Spanish by readers, and other languages for which I could not find an editor to verify the translation, security vulnerabilities were found that I predicted in the article.

You said, "There is no evidence of an evolutionary tie to the Caucasus region."

Apparently you didn't read the scientific evidence I posted that indicates that my ancestors, and probably yours, too, migrated through the Caucasus region: My ancestral path of migration (and yours, maybe).

Quote from the link I provided: "Your next ancestor, a man born around 40,000 years ago in Iran or southern Central Asia, gave rise to a genetic marker known as M9, which marked a new lineage diverging from the M89 Middle Eastern Clan. His descendants, of which you are one, spent the next 30,000 years populating much of the planet."

It's a fact that Europeans and their descendants are no longer black. Apparently it is a fact that the ancestors of most of those who live in the U.S. and Europe once lived in northern Iran. I suppose the mutation to white occurred then, because it is a fact that the people who still live there are very white, and there are no people so purely white anywhere else on earth. It is a fact that many or most of us later mixed with other people, such as the Arabs who invaded Europe.

Migration route of my ancestors: You may be interested to see the migration route of my ancestors: My Male Genetic Contribution.

That adds to the discussion of why there is a need for Vitamin D supplements, and my parent comment, by showing that much more can be determined about our general ancestry than most people know. The results shown came from The Genographic Project, an organization related to the National Geographic Society.

My guess is that, long before the 1600s, some of my Caucasian ancestors intermarried with Slavs, and before that, Arabs. That would account for my Slavic look and the Mediterranean shade of my skin.

When I ran Rootkit Unhooker, downloaded 01/17/2007, 11:46 PM, it said it is itself infected: Rootkit Unhooker has detected parasite inside itself. "It is recommended to remove parasite, okay?"

fYou said, "All hotfix installers released since XP-SP2 have had an /integrate switch to do just that."

I tried that with two installers I just downloaded, and both had the /integrate switch.

A previous comment said to download the critical updates from here: Microsoft Updates Catalog, using Internet Explorer. Be sure to hunt for "Windows XP SP2". If you choose the logical "Windows XP Professional SP2", you will be offered only a ton of junk.

The system puts the files deep in separate folders. It is necessary to use an application like XXCopy or the File Finder in PowerDesk 4 from Ontrack to move the .EXE files to one folder. XXCopy and the File Finder in PowerDesk 4 are programs you need anyway. I've had problems with later free versions of PowerDesk, so I stay with the free PowerDesk 4.

There was no way to put the command line switches into a Slashdot comment, so I made a web page: Windows Update Installation Command Line Switches.

I haven't done the integration yet, but it looks promising.

Problem with the article: Other nations are not so obese. People in the U.S. are much more obese than the citizens of any other nation, with the exception of a few islands where people eat a lot of coconut.

In Brazil, a large percentage of the population has the same genetic background as people in the U.S., because they are immigrants from the same countries. But people in Brazil are not nearly as grotesquely obese.

I'd say the obesity is caused by depression, and the depression is caused by the strong support for violence in the U.S. culture. The U.S. government has killed perhaps 4 million people since the end of the 2nd world war. In the U.S., killing other people is increasingly seen as a way to solve social problems or problems with political disagreement. Killing other people also makes money for families and friends with investments in the weapons and oil business, such as president George W. Bush and vice-president Cheney.

If you read about it, the U.S. government is far, far more corrupt than the average person thinks. Huge amounts of money are borrowed and embezzled. Some people say the money is not stolen, but it somehow makes it to the pockets of the rich, making the rich richer.

The U.S. government is very violent: History surrounding the U.S. war with Iraq: Four short stories. The violent way is preferred because it is more profitable: Ike Was Right About War Machine. ("Ike" is former President of the U.S. and former Supreme Commander of Allied Forces General Dwight D. Eisenhower.)

Here is the same video, but with no transcript, and it requires watching a commercial: Andy Rooney on the Iraq War. Here is an MP3 file of the same broadcast: Andy Rooney on the Iraq War. Here is a transcript from the publisher: Ike Was Right About War Machine.

The U.S. government is for sale to whomever has money: Unprecedented Corruption: A guide to conflict of interest in the U.S. government.

From reading about the U.S. government, I've found that many agencies operate efficiently and sensibly, but that the corruption caused by the military-industrial connection is more than one person can completely understand, there is so much material.

Well...eye candy, and a bunch of phone-home-to-Microsoft shit.

Product Lifecycle Dates says, "Windows XP Professional Mainstream Support Retired: 31-Dec-2006". [2 years and 2 months from today]

What does that mean, "Mainstream Support Retired"? Here's what it means for Windows XP Professional:

Microsoft's Support Lifecycle Support Policy FAQ: Non-security hotfix support -- Requires extended hotfix agreement, purchased within 90 days of mainstream support ending.

This means that you must pay more money, and if for some reason you don't jump through the right hoop at exactly the right time, you cannot have the support at any price.

What does declared product death mean for Windows XP Home? No support of any kind. Microsoft has declared the death of a product most home users will not want to "upgrade" in only two years two months. That's why I say Mr. Bill Gates is the world's most well-known mortician.

XP Pro has been VERY buggy for us. It has not been as bad as Windows ME, but it has been very expensive because it needs updating every month, usually, and because Microsoft has not been willing to fix bugs, even though they have been reported to Microsoft Technical Support CPR (Critical Path Response). For example, Windows XP problems: Port Re-direction.

So, even if you accept the idea that the hundreds of fixes in Service Pack 2, some of them not documented, bring Windows XP to an acceptably buggy state, then we will get only 2 years and 2 months of full support, after being dragged over the coals because of Microsoft's incredible lack of caring and incredible sloppiness in programming.

I find this disgusting, and we are already planning to move our products to Linux.

People in the U.S. seem to fall into two broad groups: Those who know when they are being abused, and those who give excuses for abuse no matter how extreme it is. This has consequences far more extreme than allowing Microsoft's abusive behavior. For example, for half of U.S. citizens see nothing wrong with these examples of U.S. government corruption:

24 wars since WW2: Creating fear so rich people can profit.

Bush's education improvements were partly fraud

Bush: Spending money the U.S. doesn't have to try to make his administration look good.

Two drive RAID 1 mirroring is good. We've had a lot of trouble recently getting tech support from Promise Technology, so we have switched to HighPoint RocketRAID 133 adapter cards.

These RAID cards use the main CPU, they don't have on-board microprocessors. This causes some problems in Windows XP when you have a script that runs at startup. Some commands in the script will sometimes cause the mirror to break, apparently. Apparently Microsoft has not integrated some of the CLI commands into Windows XP yet. This was such a big problem that I wrote a paper on it for Microsoft technical support: Windows XP problems: Port Re-direction.

If you are willing to spend a little more, a lot of people suggest 3Ware products: 7006-2 adapter cards, for example. We have no experience with them. They have a drawback, compared to HighPoint cards: They won't boot with just one drive, according to 3Ware technical support. After the drives are used in a mirror, they will not boot from the IDE adapter on the motherboard. This could be a big drawback if your 3Ware card is not working for some reason. Possibly 3Ware cards available in the future will not be incompatible, leaving you no way to get your data from the drives. If the card fails, you will at least have to buy another one to be able to see your data.

The advantage with 3Ware cards is that there is a CPU on the adapter, leaving no way for MS bugs to cause the mirror to break. That system is also faster, of course.

I wrote a Slashdot article about RAID 1: Mirroring Controllers - What have been Your Experiences?. Note that the Slashdot software has a bug that will not let you see all the comments in nested mode. That bug is years old.

Slashdot has run a number of articles from people who wrestle with the data reliability problem.

Acronis makes backup software that has been generally good for us. It is possible to do a full hard disk backup of a Windows XP hard drive while Windows XP is running. (This uses XP's Shadow Copy mode.

Slashdot also published a story I wrote about drive imaging software: Experiences w/ Drive Imaging Software?. Best sentence: "Microsoft Windows 2000 and Windows XP have crippled file systems. The file system cannot copy some of the files that are necessary to the operating system. If you don't have experience with Microsoft operating systems, you may find this amazing..."

Windows XP keeps most of its settings in files collectively called the registry. So, no backup is complete unless you back up everything on the boot drive. MS tech support has told me many times that there is no way to do this with Microsoft tools. The recommend a "third party" method. We've tried the third party methods, and had a lot of grief with everthing except Acronis. Symantec has given us poor and unfriendly technical support, in my opinion. Symantec bought its competitor PowerQuest; I view that as a bad sign.

It is really, really miserable for me that Microsoft treats me, and every customer, as a criminal by building in copy protection that mixes all the programs and settings together; the copy protection causes me a lot of grief, and significantly damages the entire design of the OS. Linux is a very strong competitor in that area. Everyone is a friend of Linux, users are not criminals, and the OS design is not degra

"The guy was complicit in the most heinous ongoing crime since the 1940s..."

What about the U.S. government killing 2,000,000 Vietnamese? Where does that fit in?

What about the fact that the U.S. government has bombed 24 countries since the Second World War: History surrounding the U.S. war with Iraq: Four short stories. Where does that fit in?

I agree with the points you are making, but I don't think it is proper to use the term "3rd world countries".

Third world countries? Are those countries with corrupt elections, corrupt judges, and corrupt government leadership?

Is a third world country one of those that is always making war on its neighbors? (The U.S. government has bombed 24 countries since the Second World War. The last Brazilian aggression outside the country was in 1822, I'm told.)

When you say "third world country" you give an impression that the U.S. is superior in every way. That impression is false. In general, Brazilians are much happier than Americans. People in the U.S. use more legal drugs than those of any nation that has ever existed. The U.S. is the most obese country in the history of the world; eating when not hungry is an index of unhappiness.

A higher percentage of U.S. citizens go to prison or jail than any country in the entire history of the world. For example,

President George W. Bush DUI, 1st record of arrest
President George W. Bush DUI, 2nd record of arrest

Vice-President Dick Cheney DUI, record of 1st arrest
Vice-President Dick Cheney DUI, record of 2nd arrest

If you want some insight into mental breakdowns, read the books listed in the section "Understanding Your Inner Self" at the bottom of the article Read the Recent Great Books.

The book, The Primal Scream: Primal Therapy: The Cure for Neurosis
by Arthur Janov is especially helpful.

Agreed: "The Bush administration and the Republican majority in Congress have used the tragedy of 9/11 to spread fear among Americans, and are using that fear to gain control of all three branches of government - legislative, executive and judicial. If we don't stop allowing the right-wing factions in this country to consolidate their power by taking away our freedoms one by one we won't have a country worth saving."

The U.S. government is rapidly becoming more corrupt. Here are just a few examples, which were posted before to another story:

Killing people and destroying their property:
N.Y. Times editorial
"... Americans paid Ahmad Chalabi to gull them into a war that is costing them a billion a week and a precious human cost."

Lying about scientific facts:
"The Bush administration has deliberately and systematically distorted scientific fact in the service of policy goals..."
N.Y. Times
The Guardian
Wired News
Union of Concerned Scientists

The present terrorism against the U.S. people is partly the result of the U.S. government's secret violence:
About a year ago, I hastily put together a short, incomplete history that shows what has happened: History surrounding the U.S. war with Iraq: Four short stories.

If you don't like it, vote accordingly.

Governments need to decide whether they want to be trusted. If they want trust, then they should avoid any hint of sneakiness.

The U.S. government secretly overthrew a democratically elected president of Iran, President Mossadegh. That started a chain of events that eventually continued with retaliation: The destruction of the World Trade Center.

Osama bin Laden cannot be effective in being violent if he does not have support. He is far less likely to have support for his violent schemes if people generally trust the U.S. government.

The U.S. government has bombed 24 countries since the Second World War. That has lowered the level of trust. Those who live in countries that have been bombed do not always think that the violence was "justified".

Old idea: "You shall not kill." New clauses: a) Unless you need to create a distraction to further your political purposes, b) Unless you think it would help you be reelected. c) Except if you fear something that someone might do in the future. d) Except if you want the oil profits. e) Except if some of the people in the other country think that killing some of them and destroying some of their property is an excellent goal.

The "Patriot" Act was passed without some Congressmen and women even reading it. It was named that to intimidate members of Congress. Vote against this bill and you will be against patriotism!

The "Patriot" Act was supposed to protect us against people who want to destroy our entire society. Now its being used to harass citizens who do something stupid, and have no political motive. If they get away with this, you will see more and more extensions of government police power. History has shown that, even if they don't get away with it, they will try again.

More and more we are seeing examples of prosecutors who don't want sensible justice, but who just want other people to hurt, because of their own personal mental issues. Last week the Oprah Winfrey show provided another example: An 18-year-old man had sex with a 16-year-old woman at his school. (Big surprise, there.) Later she accused him of rape, and he was found NOT guilty. But he was put into prison for 10 years anyway. The prosecutor said that was entirely justified, and that he had no problems with the punishment.

The U.S. government is rapidly becoming more corrupt. Here are just a few examples:

Killing people and destroying their property:
N.Y. Times editorial
"... Americans paid Ahmad Chalabi to gull them into a war that is costing them a billion a week and a precious human cost."

Lying about scientific facts:
"The Bush administration has deliberately and systematically distorted scientific fact in the service of policy goals..."
N.Y. Times
The Guardian
Wired News
Union of Concerned Scientists

The present terrorism against the U.S. people is partly the result of the U.S. government's secret violence:
About a year ago, I hastily put together a short, incomplete history that shows what has happened: History surrounding the U.S. war with Iraq: Four short stories.

The U.S. government has secret agencies. Their funding is secret, their objectives are secret, and their methods are secret. The CIA, the NSA, the FBI, and other agencies whose names are secret operate everywhere in the world. They interfere with the politics of other countries. They sometimes arrange to kill leaders or destroy property.

The secrecy began in the 1940s when oil companies asked the British and U.S. governments to protect their interests. The countries in which they operated began claiming the oil and oil facilities for themselves. On the one hand, it is easy to see that the oil companies did not like their property taken from them without sufficient payment. On the other hand, the oil companies were paying very little for the oil, so the countries felt robbed.

The U.S. and British governments began trying to help the U.S. and British oil companies by operating in secret. For example, the U.S. government's CIA agency overthrew a democratically elected president in Iran. The U.S. government supported a violent government instead, that of the Shah of Iran. Years later, Iranians objected, and the Iranian government began terrorist activities as a way of retaliating against continued secret U.S. government operations in Iran.

The present terrorism against the U.S. people is the result of the U.S. government's secret violence. About a year ago, I hastily put together a short, incomplete history that shows what happened: History surrounding the U.S. war with Iraq: Four short stories.

Those who work for the U.S. government's secret agencies have a huge conflict of interest. If they cause trouble, or if they find some trouble and help make it bigger, they are promoted. If they help assure that everyone lives together in peace, they become less important, and some lose their jobs. So there is a terrific pressure for them to cause trouble.

Democracy is founded on openness. If a government can do things without the approval or even the knowledge of its people, it is not a democracy. Therefore the secret side of the U.S. government has, in part, overthrown the real U.S. government.

How corrupt is the U.S. government? Here's just one example: Mr. Dick Cheney, who is now vice-president of the U.S., was once head of an oil company called Halliburton. Mr. Cheney went into the U.S. defense department, and while there, arranged that secretly awarding contracts would no longer be illegal. Later it was arranged that Halliburton would secretly get a contract for work in Iraq. Then the U.S. government invaded Iraq, with no reason, as we are now seeing.

It's important to understand that oil companies do not want the oil. They want the oil profits. The U.S. government's war in Iraq has allowed U.S. companies to get Iraq oil profits. Before, the oil profits went to Iraqis. The amount of oil coming from Iraq to the world has remained somewhat the same.

Anyone who reads this should understand that there may be inaccuracies due to the fact that secret government agencies are sometimes able to keep their operations secret, or are able to mislead the public about what they have done. The information here has been reported many times by many well-respected news agencies, and is believed completely accurate.

Eventually, this law will be used for political benefit. That's what caused the problem in the beginning. In the 1940's, the U.S. Congress passed a law forming a secret police agency, that has now become the CIA, NSA, and others. Basically, the original law was passed to protect the overseas financial interests of U.S. and British companies by allowing dirty tricks and secret violence and other secret efforts. Since then, the U.S. government has had the enormous corrupting influence of money and power combined with secret purposes.

History surrounding the U.S. war with Iraq: Four short stories, an article I wrote, shows a little about how that original law has been used to cause violence throughout the world. Remember, if you work for the CIA, violence gets you pay raises and job security; there is conflict of interest in any secret organization.

As you could have seen on the Charlie Rose show last night, and on other nights, the biggest complaint of the Arabs and Arab terrorists has been the U.S. government's support for Jewish violence against Arabs. This support is not known to most Americans, but it has adversely affected their quality of life. When you see on TV Israeli helicopters shooting at Arab Palestinians, remember that U.S. taxpayers paid for the helicopters so that U.S. weapons manufacturers could make more profit.

From the parent post: "The US is a seriously backward and disfunctional society, ..."

This fits with my experience in other areas: History surrounding the U.S. war with Iraq: Four short stories.

Exactly right. See this: History surrounding the U.S. war with Iraq: Four short stories

As Dave Letterman said on his national TV talk show, when you make out the check to help pay for the $87,000,000,000, there are two "L"s in Halliburton, Vice President Dick Cheney's company. (It's called "using the power of government to help your friends get rich"; it's 100% government corruption.)

However, it is not that there was a threat, only that there was a perceived threat. Quite possibly the threat to go to OS X was not real, and also only a perceived threat.

The main point is that the U.S. government is the biggest researcher, developer, manufacturer, and user of weapons of mass destruction.

Regarding Kuwait, the issue is that some people find it possible to live in the world without fighting. Others believe that they are constantly finding important reasons for violence. You said, "... wasn't the US "liberating" Kuwait at this time"? Yes, but U.S. government representative April Glaspie led Saddam Hussein to believe that the U.S. would not oppose an invasion of Iraq. This followed many years of encouraging Saddam Hussein's violence against Iran, and selling Saddam weapons. You can read about this if you like: History surrounding the U.S. war with Iraq: Four short stories.

For 58 years, the U.S. government has spent thousands of billions of dollars intensively planning and executing modern war. If there were as much intense planning for peace, a lot of "reasons" for violence would not exist. It has a lot to do with how a country chooses to live in the world.

We can study the U.S. society for clues to why societies become self-destructive:

History surrounding the U.S. war with Iraq: Four short stories

In the case of the U.S. government, the self-destruction seems to be due to government secrecy and to the availability of easy money by fostering corruption.

Question: Shouldn't U.S. vice president Dick Cheney be investigated for using his government influence to make money? Pre-arranged no-bid contracts were given to his former company, Halliburton. In the past such conflict of interest would have resulted in a prison term.

I just opened this web page: Complicated methods corrupt Oregon government and immediately saved it. The page has nested tables. I use them because they work with more browsers than CSS.

Any thoughts you might have about using Amaya would be appreciated. My experience is that HTML-Kit and Mozilla Composer are better free tools. Mozilla is WYSIWYG, but it outputs HTML that is not easy to edit.

Even Dreamweaver MX puts junk in HTML pages, and outputs pages in a poor-quality format for hand editing. Apparently the people who program these tools don't actually use them.

What do you think? Do you think that, if someone is violent, it is justified and sensible and okay to be violent in return? The U.S. has a Christian-influenced culture, and Jesus Christ recommended against being violent in return, but what do you think?

If you think that violence justifies violence, then here is a result that may amaze you: Most people in the U.S. don't know this, but the U.S. government has secretly sponsored violence against Muslims and Arabs for many, many years. So, if you think that violence justifies violence, the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York was justified.

What is the cause of terrorism? The cause of the present terrorism against the U.S. is the constant violent interference by the U.S. government with the governments of other countries. I did some research about this and found a collection of links: History surrounding the U.S. war with Iraq: Four short stories. If I know more about U.S. government violence than you, it is only because I began being interested in reading about it about 30 years ago, and when I see a relevant article, I read it. There is a huge amount of material available to read.

My own personal view is that I'm against fighting violence with violence. I think that the least sophisticated way of relating to other people is killing them.

Should the U.S. government get into gun battles with Muslims? There are 5 times as many of them as there are U.S. citizens, and they have less to lose.

I have never heard of anyone in the U.S. government who is against Arabs or Muslims specifically. The people who create the violence are only looking for someone to kill. They are equal opportunity killers. They killed more than 2,000,000 Vietnamese, for example. (Vietnamese still die whenever an old land mine explodes.) They killed 6,000 in Panama. The U.S. government has bombed 24 countries in 58 years. By that measure, the U.S. government is the most violent government that has ever existed.

It's time to consider these issues carefully. The world could become a lot more violent. It has been more violent in the past, and it could become more violent again.

You don't really love your country if you only give attention to the beautiful things.

In my opinion, the forces of government corruption are strong in Oregon: Complicated methods corrupt Oregon government.

Lists of Microsoft Abuses:

Overall abuses: Reasons to Avoid Microsoft. (More than 200 in one year!)

Abuses in one product: Windows XP Shows the Direction Microsoft is Going.

Sometimes people confuse themselves by thinking of Microsoft as a software company that is abusive. It can be more clear to think of Microsoft as an abuse company that sells software.

Judging from some of the things I've seen, there must be executives at Microsoft who every day energetically think of more ways to put the customer's back against the wall.

I've spent more than 20 years studying things of this nature, and I think what's happening at Microsoft is a general social breakdown. Usually in situations of this sort, things get worse and worse until something breaks.

Other social breakdowns:

The U.S. government: History surrounding the U.S. war with Iraq: Four short stories

and What should be the Response to Violence?.

Law in the U.S. state of Oregon:

Complicated methods corrupt Oregon government.

and Airplanes are safe, but laws often crash.

Lists of Microsoft Abuses:

Overall abuses: Reasons to Avoid Microsoft. (More than 200 in one year!)

Abuses in one product: Windows XP Shows the Direction Microsoft is Going.

Sometimes people confuse themselves by thinking of Microsoft as a software company that is abusive. It can be more clear to think of Microsoft as an abuse company that sells software.

Judging from some of the things I've seen, there must be executives at Microsoft who every day energetically think of more ways to put the customer's back against the wall.

I've spent more than 20 years studying things of this nature, and I think what's happening at Microsoft is a general social breakdown. Usually in situations of this sort, things get worse and worse until something breaks.

Other social breakdowns:

The U.S. government: History surrounding the U.S. war with Iraq: Four short stories

and What should be the Response to Violence?.

Law in the U.S. state of Oregon:

Complicated methods corrupt Oregon government.

and Airplanes are safe, but laws often crash.

Lists of Microsoft Abuses:

Overall abuses: Reasons to Avoid Microsoft. (More than 200 in one year!)

Abuses in one product: Windows XP Shows the Direction Microsoft is Going.

Sometimes people confuse themselves by thinking of Microsoft as a software company that is abusive. It can be more clear to think of Microsoft as an abuse company that sells software.

Judging from some of the things I've seen, there must be executives at Microsoft who every day energetically think of more ways to put the customer's back against the wall.

I've spent more than 20 years studying things of this nature, and I think what's happening at Microsoft is a general social breakdown. Usually in situations of this sort, things get worse and worse until something breaks.

Other social breakdowns:

The U.S. government: History surrounding the U.S. war with Iraq: Four short stories

and What should be the Response to Violence?.

Law in the U.S. state of Oregon:

Complicated methods corrupt Oregon government.

and Airplanes are safe, but laws often crash.

Lists of Microsoft Abuses:

Overall abuses: Reasons to Avoid Microsoft. (More than 200 in one year!)

Abuses in one product: Windows XP Shows the Direction Microsoft is Going.

Sometimes people confuse themselves by thinking of Microsoft as a software company that is abusive. It can be more clear to think of Microsoft as an abuse company that sells software.

Judging from some of the things I've seen, there must be executives at Microsoft who every day energetically think of more ways to put the customer's back against the wall.

I've spent more than 20 years studying things of this nature, and I think what's happening at Microsoft is a general social breakdown. Usually in situations of this sort, things get worse and worse until something breaks.

Other social breakdowns:

The U.S. government: History surrounding the U.S. war with Iraq: Four short stories

and What should be the Response to Violence?.

Law in the U.S. state of Oregon:

Complicated methods corrupt Oregon government.

and Airplanes are safe, but laws often crash.

and someone e-mail someone in austraila some child pron..

New Zealand, not Australia.

Fucking ignorant yanks.. you get attacked by terrorists who came from Saudi Arabia(15) and Egypt(4) using "Weapons" designed and built in the USA(4) so you bomb Afghanistan and Iraq?!!

Ahh, but Afghanistan was where Bin Laden (Also from Saudi Arabia) was hiding.. this is the guy who was trained and given weapons by the CIA. The guy who's family has close ties with the Bush family. Being protected by the Taliban, who were approximately a year earlier being given millions by the USA government as a reward for doing something about the drug problem.

I'm really confused here. Someone please explain all this because http://www.skirsch.com/politics/iraq/Lessons911.ht m
and http://www.futurepower.net/us_government_violence. html leads me to believe that most americans have no idea what their government is doing, or why they're doing it, or who they're doing it to.

"5. I am not aware of a United States chemical or biological weapons program. Perhaps you could post more information."

I've been reading books about U.S. government activities since I was serving in the U.S. Air Force during the Vietnam war. At that time, the government was lying to U.S. citizens about what we were doing at the base at which I was stationed in Thailand. I was shocked that the U.S. government would so easily lie, and I began to be interested in knowing more.

I've put together two articles that collect links about mostly hidden violent U.S. government activities. I've been amazed at one of the responses I've gotten: Most people have very little knowledge of U.S. government violence, even though the U.S. government has killed more than 3,000,000 since the Second World War.

The U.S. government is a world leader in biological weapons, although you don't hear about that much any more. Try visiting the U.S. Army Soldier and Biological Chemical Command. The site says, "The operational capabilities of the command include the safe, secure, storage of chemical weapons at the eight United States stockpile sites at Anniston Ala., Blue Grass, Ky., Edgewood, Md., Newport, Ind., Pine Bluff, Ark., Pueblo, Colo., Tooele, Utah and Umatillla, Ore." Most of the site is not accessible to people like you and me who pay taxes to support this. The site is written to show only the mostly defensive activities.

However, the U.S. government is heavily involved in EVERY kind of weapons manufacture. For example, see the October 29, 2002 article in The Guardian US weapons secrets exposed.

The U.S. government has a long history of encouraging and perpetrating violence. For example, see US sent biological weapons to Iraq in 1980s.

I've pulled together some links in two articles: History surrounding the U.S. war with Iraq: Four short stories and What should be the Response to Violence?

The response to violence should be to study why it occurs to make sure that you are not contributing it, and to fix the underlying problems, rather than engage in more violence. Peace cannot happen overnight. If there have been years of trouble-making, it will take years to correct. Since the present violence in Iraq began more than 50 years ago, it may be necessary to have 50 years of attempts at peace to correct it.

After reading Antiwar.com, here are a few other links I've pulled together: History surrounding the U.S. war with Iraq: Four short stories

The U.S. government is becoming increasingly corrupt.

More about U.S. government corruption: History surrounding the U.S. war with Iraq: Four short stories

The principles for which the U.S. was known are being increasingly abandoned.

"Nothing is stopping the next Sun or Microsoft or Oracle or Intel from sprouting up as a home-grown venture in India, or wherever, given the supposed incredible talent and work ethics. Why haven't they?"

They haven't because the Indian Hindu culture is, in some ways, one of the most disfunctional in the world. When a U.S. company hires a Hindu worker, it usually gets someone who accepts the caste system, for example. The worker generally has a long history of accepting things the way they are and overlooking even major defects. (I spelled the word "disfunctional" because I don't like the original spelling.)

Remember that most heads of technically oriented companies are not technically knowledgeable enough to know whether a programmer is doing a good job. They hire on the basis of price and a little understanding.

What hasn't become apparent to the companies that hire Indian programmers is that they aren't getting the same quality of work as they would from U.S. citizens. Good programming requires someone who constantly asks whether what he or she is doing makes sense. Good programming requires constant creativity.

There are, of course, many Indian programmers who are excellent in every way. But most are the followers that their culture requires them to be.

The result is that programs are being written that will have to be re-written, and much sooner than they would if they were done by programmers from a culture that prizes independent thinking. The real cost of Indian programmers is higher than U.S. programmers, not lower.

The U.S. has been through something like this before. In the early 70's it became fashionable in the U.S. to hire PhDs. The reasoning was that better educated people would be better employees. But, after about 12 or 15 years, companies realized that people who had PhDs were often robotic crank-turners. Sure, some PhDs were interested in education, but most had just put in their time getting an advanced degree. The policy of hiring PhDs brought about some spectacular failures; they often did not have sufficient knowledge outside a narrow field.

We are seeing a wave of self-destruction in the United States. The U.S. government has killed perhaps 3,000,000 people and bombed 14 countries in the last 35 years. (See What should be the Response to Violence?.) United States companies are destroying themselves. (Microsoft is, for example, driving people to Linux by annoying its customers: Windows XP Shows the Direction Microsoft is Going.) The U.S. is becoming a country in which law is disregarded and disrepected. (See Airplanes are safe, but laws often crash.)

We are not only moving toward Open Source, we are moving away from closed source software. That's because closed source software companies have become extraordinarily abusive. Anyone who wants to avoid their abuse must stay away from their products.

See the article, Windows XP Shows the Direction Microsoft is Going, for documentation of Microsoft's abusive practices.

I think the NZOSS book should include chapters about what is driving people away from closed source software, as well as the chapters about what is moving them toward Open Source software.