Slashdot Mirror

Jonathan Jay Pollard
Ben-Ami Kadish
Long list of incidents here.

No, but in Los Angeles, the Trojans exploit YOU!

I want to know "on behalf of what parent with a kid in that school[sic] are the[sic] suing?" Nobody has a right to sue unless they are directly effected [sic] by this. The ACLU is on very questionable ground [sic] here. This is typical for these nut jobs.

Andrew Emitt

By they way, it looks as if you could do with a bit of schooling yourself.

I expected the obligatory Chernobyl mention, but TMI and Chernobyl were night and day.

Yea, Chernobyl showed how nuclear power can fail but TMI showed how it can work. The control and safety systems prevented a worse incident.

I'm inclined to view TMI's accident as an example of how far we've come and how much we learned from Chernobyl, and I'm far from unique in that assessment.

Except TMI happened before Chernobyl, lessons from Chernobyl didn't help TMI.

even if I was as strongly against nuclear power as they were, I'd still hope to be intellectually honest enough to call that article out for being the complete mess that it is.

Perhaps another one could have been better to use, such as this one: "Nuclear Materials 'Poison' Navajo Land", but that one was one of the first results when I googled. Or this one, " FACT SHEET on Uranium Mining and Nuclear Pollution in the Upper Midwest". Indian tribes and reservations have had to deal with uranium mining, and storage, including having their treaty rights violated. The proposed permanent storage site, Yucca Mountain, is by the Treaty of Ruby Valley part of Western Shoshone land, and they oppose the use of it for nuclear waste.

Of course if it goes through and waste is stored there it'll just be another broken treaty in a line of treaties the US has broken with Indian tribes. That I know of no nation has broken as many treaties as the US has.

Falcon

Nintendo want a family-friendly toy. Hell, they won't even allow beer pong on their sissy system without substantial changes.

Wiis are all fine and dandy for infantiles and 3 year old kids, but men with hair on their nuts deserve better. More realism. Like curse words and heads asploding.

Bonus: if you can name the console and game the above linked pictures were taken from, then you win smug self-satisfaction.

If GM declares bankruptcy, ALL contracts are null and void.
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Economy/wireStory?id=7225109
GM could close every plant, fire every worker and put a help wanted sign in the window saying "Help Wanted, Inquire Within" and "If you want a job, you are no longer a union employee".
Not saying they will, but they could. This is true for every GM contract (or the contract for any other company). It is immediately open for renegotiation, especially if they form a new company and transfer all the assets they want to keep to that new company. The contracts were all with the old company.

If you see GM declare bankruptcy, expect AT LEAST Chrysler and possibly Ford to follow (since they will not be able to compete with a GM that no longer has the burden of UAW contracts). This will ripple across the automotive industry and will have an impact across the globe. Hopefully, it will kill half the remaining auto companies outside the US. When the big three again become price competitive and they begin to truly lobby for trade balance (meaning when we import their cars they have to pay the same amount of taxes/fees that we have to pay to import US vehicles into their countries) they will no longer be price competitive.

I also hope that we require foreign cars sold in the US to be produced in the US just like every other country does to us. I also hope they stop import of all vehicles from Canada and Mexico without making sure that those vehicles were built paying labor at least US Minimum wage and being subject to full import taxes and fees.

If GM declares bankruptcy, the playing field should rapidly level. At the expense of just about every major global industry (steel, aluminum, plastics, leather, petroleum, paper, rubber). Of which the US Automotives are the largest consumer. If the US Automotives does, so will their suppliers and all of the industries which the consume.

My .02.

Data is more unlimited than water because we completely control its distribution. Water is plentiful in Chicago, for example, because it's directly next to a huge freshwater lake. In Los Angeles or Phoenix it's a much more complicated story. The middle of the US relies almost entirely on the Ogallala Aquifer, with attendant problems. Even the U.S. Southeast, which is a traditionally wet "humid subtropical" climate zone, has had a decade or so of rather severe drought-related problems. Water requires treatment; it requires physical plant; it requires nontrivial connections to every single portion of a city; it's a necessity; and a single point of failure can cause pressure loss over a wide area resulting in a very expensive repair. Bandwidth has none of these issues. It's limited only by the amount of cable the ISP is willing to run, and their hardware. Nothing as complex as aquifer physics is involved.

I suspect that many Slashdotters are unaware of the numerous deep ties between Goldman Sachs and the Obama Administration. A few for instances:

• Obama has put his trust in the advice of menâ"Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, Chief Economic Advisor Larry Summers, and, informally, former Clinton Treasurer Robert Rubin, all linked to the investment bank Goldman Sachs."
• "Despite President Barack Obama's pledge to limit the influence of lobbyists in his administration, a recent lobbyist for investment banking giant Goldman Sachs is in line to serve as chief of staff to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. Mark Patterson was a registered lobbyist for Goldman until April 11, 2008, according to public filings."
• "If AIG had managed to not collapse and not require $180 billion in taxpayer money, Goldman Sachs would be sitting today with some very very shaky investments. But since AIG collapsed, the folks at Goldman cleaned up. Goldman Sachs employees gave just shy of a million dollars to the Obama campaign, ranking second in contributions. Citigroup and JPMorgan ranked sixth and seventh. Goldman Sachs gave Obama four times more than they gave McCain."
• Obama nominated "Gary Gensler to head the Commodity Futures Trading Commission...Gensler is a reassuring figure to the moguls of finance; he was a partner at Goldman Sachs before being brought by Goldman honcho Robert Rubin to the Clinton Treasury Department."
• "When it came time to name a vice presidential running mate, Mr. Obama turned to Goldman Sachs Board Member James Johnson. Mr. Johnson was forced to vacate the post under controversy."

This above list is by no means exhaustive. Nor are the sources cited above (The Huffington Post, The Nation, etc.) exactly known for their fierce and unstinting criticism of Obama.

"Hey, check this out," Faulk says he would be told, "there's good phone sex or there's some pillow talk, pull up this call, it's really funny, go check it out. It would be some colonel making pillow talk and we would say, 'Wow, this was crazy'"

"But if you have nothing to hide", the security officials say, "then you'll let us listen in to your phone calls!"

It makes me sick that Obama changed his policy on warrantless wiretapping.

I don't know of any moves afoot to restrict gun rights.

I guess you haven't looked at Obama's urban agenda or paid attention to what Hillary Clinton and Eric Holder have been saying?

given that any meaningful gun ban would be unlikely to be upheld.

Just because it eventually gets struck down doesn't mean it won't make life miserable for every law-abiding gun owner in the country until that happens.

Finally something that can put me to sleep at night.

Here, try watching this Bassmasters. The current schedule at http://sports.espn.go.com/outdoors/tv/news/story?page=g_tv_desc_bass_reairs.

Reminds me of the comedian who wondered what it was like to be the show producer / editor for Bassmasters and having to watch 10 hours of tape for every 1-hour episode.... "No... no... no... wait, yes, bait the hook, no... no...

But it is not only Slashdot. Lance Armstrong is doing it, I heard about it the other day on television, something in the lines of "Lance Armstrong informed the public that it may miss the Giro using this novely service, Twitter".

What that article linked doesn't tell you is that Lance was in fact sending a tweet during the race. How do you think he came to fall and break his clavicle?

One thing that intrigues me a lot is the number of mentions that service in getting in the media (even mainstream media) in the past weeks. Slashdot, for instance, along with this article has other two in the frontpage (Researchers Can ID Anonymous Twitterers and Build Your Own Open Source Twittering Power Meter.

But it is not only Slashdot. Lance Armstrong is doing it, I heard about it the other day on television, something in the lines of "Lance Armstrong informed the public that it may miss the Giro using this novely service, Twitter". Actually, even Associated press "noticed the trend" (or is propagating a well thought press release, depending on what really happened) and released a list with the nicknames of some of the celebrities that uses the service.

That reminds me of what happened last year, lots and lots of stories (even on Slashdot) about Second Life, how people were making money on Second life, virtual property on Second Life, virtual child abuse on Second Life, and so on and so forth, lots of stories with several things in common: lots of mentions of the service name, stock footage of people using it, a long description of the service in question, fake and minor controversies.

Sometimes I wonder if it is only a fad, a hype that is propagated naturally by the collective hysteria or if there are really people in the Marketing business powerful and competent enough to orchestrate a press campaign so pervasive and organic that looks like genuine public interest.

Why did they do it? Obama received a lot of campaign contributions from AIG for his presidential campaign.

ABC news

This trial has been going on for a while in PA. The Twitter/Facebook story hit on Sunday, but today (Monday) he was found guilty on 137 counts and they did not replace that juror. I am guessing that will be among the things his lawyers put in his appeal? Something about it being unfair. 137 counts of corruption and i bet they cray about something posted on facebook. http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/local&id=6711443

How sad is it when the Army is contracting out one of its most essential functions?

Sad? It's great! It means the Army is doing a fine job of fulfilling its most essential function -- enriching the stockholder class.

Oh, come on, surely you don't believe that old-fashioned sentimental nonsense about the armed forces existing to protect the nation and its people? The U.S. military has been protecting commercial interests since the late 1800s. The military-industrial complex that grew up in the early 20th century just made war more of a racket. Turning military functions directly over to the industrial side of the complex merely improves the process of removing money from working citizens and putting it in the pockets of the owning classes. It's a great business model!

(Sure, soldiers get electrocuted by shoddy KBR workmanship, but c'mon, we can't be worried about the lives of grunts like that any more than we worry about Iraqis or Afghanis who get blown up. Profits before people, after all, so long as they're not our people.)

http://www.malepregnancy.com/

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4234033n

Barbara Walters Exclusive: Pregnant Man Expecting Second Child
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Story?id=6244878&page=1

Was yours a pregnant assumption? (Disclaimer: i am willing to be open that the above links may be hoaxes...)

For a flat $6 a month I can add 10 unedited and commercial-free movie channels to my digital cable service.

If I want to introduce my kids to the online RPG, Disney and Cartoon Network both have solid entries that are free of charge.

The Sims is a consumerist fantasy.

It's all about spending frivolously and living large - and can be enjoyed on that level.

But the world of Visa and MasterCard is something I want to put behind me as much as possible when I come out to play. I particularly don't want my status in the game world to be dependent on my credit line.

I may not be counting every penny these day. But I do shop for value and I am not interested in open-ended commitments, "hidden" charges or fees.

Off topic, but I boycotted West after a bakery denied service to a Muslim woman.

Just a small mention of this and they use "west" like the area, but it was West.

[citation needed]

You seem to be asserting things that are both misleading and factually incorrect.

First, just one year of Bush's wars required a 70 billion dollar act of congress in 20091. 2008 alone required 140 billion dollars in funding2, so your claim that the two wars only cost 100 billion is blatantly wrong.

My research3 shows that Bush increased the federal budget by 777 billion dollars, adjusted for inflation, and the federal debt by 2.7 trillion, adjusted for inflation. Bush's budgetted dollars account for annual spending on par with Obama's 2-year bailout plan, and the wars in Iraq and Afganistan weren't budgetted, until now, since Obama has them listed in HIS budget.

The challenge isn't this bailout, which wouldn't be a huge expense averaged out over 4 years, but the days after. If Obama is telling the truth and there are significant cuts to be made in 2011, then he could actually do what most of his democratic contemporaries have done, and outcut the Republicans.

One thing really bothers me. Look at my research. The Republicans have increased the federal budget at TWICE the inflation adjusted rate of the Democrats. They've increased the federal debt at TEN TIMES the inflation adjusted rate. Why is it that they're suddenly fiscal conservatives when they're not in power, but when they ARE in power, they spend and run up debt like a college kid with is parents visa? Why is it that they get away with acting like Democrats spend and debt more?

I know it must be hard for you to bear, having a responsible centrist president. But fortunately THESE election results were valid, unlike your Mr. Chimp's first election by judge. It shows your real character, that winning is more important to you than democracy. So I don't feel too sorry for you. In fact, I'm glad the Republicans have become the marginalized party of the deep south, religious fanatics, and wingnuts everywhere. Please, please run Palin for president! That would guarantee another four years of Obama. Seriously, you guys just need to form a new conservative party. Your current one is deceased.

Centrist!=responsible any more than left/right-wing==irresponsible.

You want responsible? Don't look at BHO. He just ballooned your personal debt to $42521.12 (individual share = total debt/population). That's debt you can't escape by filing bankruptcy. And if you don't pay it, <hyperbole>Dog the bounty hunter will come to your door with a Swat team of</hyperbole> IRS agents and take your freedom.

Bush wasn't particularly responsible in a lot of ways. I most certainly didn't agree with his actions regarding my freedoms enumerated in the constitution. I didn't agree with a lot of his fiscal policy, either. Especially towards the end. He wasn't the worst president, but he aslo wasn't the best. However, this isn't about him. He can never be president again. I wash my hands of him as much as I can.

Now, let's address your messiah, Obama. Noted in various sources to have been one of the most liberal senators in office (when he showed up for a vote), he arose out of nowhere in the political landscape and won his elections by invalidating his opponents' candidacies (not challenging the election counts, or mudslinging, he literally made himself the only choice).

He promised Hope(tm) and Change(tm) and to Clean Up Washington(tm). And how does he Change(tm) things? Hmmm, let's see. Looks like a more liberal version of the Clinton administration (complete with insiders from the original Clinton administration!). Obama also seems to have a distinct preference for nominating people for his cabinet who have tax issues. Definitely a Change(tm) we can all Believe(tm) in.

He promised responsibility, but we got a pork-laden "stimulus" package with such gems as more funding for ACORN and MoveOn.org. Certainly these wonderful organizations simply want to empower you! What's that? You went to ACORN and asked them to help you get out the vote for Ron Paul? Oh, right. They want to empower you only so long as you vote for their approved candidate. I knew there was a catch in there.

"But...", I hear you say, "he's upstanding and honest, a real bang up guy who wants to stand up for me!" O`Rly? That's why his VP is one Joeseph Biden, a known copyright hound. That's why three of his top appointments to the justice dept were lawyers for the RIAA. You know, the RIAA that seems to think suing children, grandmothers, disabled people, state universities, and laser printers is a good business model. That's why he stands up for more regulation and law like Roe v Wade which purports a right to privacy, but in reality just usurps state control for the federal government. That must be why he wants to send your money to other countries to support abortion. Surely that's out of the goodness of his heart.

I could go o

More Americans go to college than in any other country

No. They don't. The US is #5, behind Greece, Belgium, France and Spain.

the number of years of schooling is highest here

No. It's not. That honor goes to Germany.

"School is not cool" is a silly notion a small number of people believe in

And yet high school drop out rates are at their highest ever, approaching 50% in some major cities.

In most countries they seem to think that medical care should "just be free"

Please point to a single country that thinks that medical care should be free. Most countries think that it is better for the good of their society, and more cheap/efficient to aggregate medical services, and pay for it as a function of their taxes rather than anything else.

Americans take fewer vacations and holiday time than any other country in the world (even Japan).

No. they don't. They actually rank #4 in the world for days taken off work. Both Australians and Japanese work longer hours than Americans. On the other hand, the US is notable amongst developed nations for not mandating that employers allow employees a single day of vacation.

You were, however, correct about this:

Of course people are going to make inane, factually inaccurate hot air comments on the net all the time.

that Democrats were pooh-pooing the US missile defense program, saying it was so complex of a problem that is was totally infeasible? Now what do you have to say for yourselves? Man, if the world stood by and waited for Democrats to actually create solutions, we'd be in some kind of masssive global financial meltdown or something...

http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=6965611&page=1

Is getting your children taken away by the state part of this plan? Seems risky to me... you don't know who will end up with them. Although, it is a cheap way to have kids...

http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=6648877&page=1

I suspect attaching a paraglider to a car-driven fan and attaching a blimp to a camper are both patentable inventions. I suggest you rush to your nearest patent office and apply for a patent on your "flying home" idea before somebody else does. Be sure to cite "The Wizard of Oz" and Up as prior art!

I would much rather they got their kicks jerking off to CP, than taking it out on a child...

This just delegates your child abuse to the person producing the videos. You'd have to be pretty utilitarian to suggest that forcing a small number of children to be abused on camera is better than a larger number being abused in private.

Looks like one Federal judge seems to think those collecting child porn have some liability to the victims even if they didn't produce the images themselves.

Judge: Child-porn convict must pay $200K to victim in photos he distributed but didn't take

And the evidence that voting in favour of this bill will prevent Great Depression 2.0? For that matter, where's the evidence that voting against it will allow/cause Great Depression 2.0?

Because with a severe recession, you risk a deflationary spiral and an eventual depression. Demand is down, so companies lay off workers and cut production. If those workers can't find equivalent jobs soon, demand goes down, so companies lay off more workers...

Then you add in a credit crunch, so even businesses with good credit ratings have problems getting loans for basic operating expenses. The government (and the Fed directly) can loan more money so capital can start flowing again, but we're rapidly approaching (if not passed) the practical lending limit because we already have $10 trillion in debt.

So at this point the only entity that can jump-start demand is the federal government. But we should do it now, before our currency crashes.

HINT: while it might make some people feel warm and fuzzy, there's not that much reason to hurry this legislation.

Uh, no. European banks alone might need a 16 trillion bailout. And that's in Euros, which is worth quite a bit more than the dollar at this point. The magnitude of our risk cannot be overstated; we need to take action now to prevent economic collapse.

And we already have a successful model to work on: the New Deal. Spend $2 trillion on infrastructure as it will make hundreds of thousands of jobs, and we badly need the work to be done in the first place - there are dozens of bridges around the country that have the same rating as the I35 bridge that collapsed a year and a half ago in Minneapolis.

And paying for all this is equally simple: bring back the 91% marginal tax rate and apply it to capital gains as well, and leave it until the national debt is paid off.

Ok, so impose as much taxes as you want, and depend on the generosity of the services and the customers to keep your governments running. I'm sure that will work out well.

Moving makes sense when it makes sense. There are a lot of factors in making a decision to close a store or not, especially when you are a large corporation looking to trim the fat. Why hire a whole new division to deal with collecting and distributing funds from this new tax (which costs $X) when your presence in that state only nets $Y (when Y
Also, there is no need for personal insults. We have a philosophical difference. There is no need to call me stupid of crazy.

There is a definite equivalence if you knew how to use Google.

It is hyperbole, and it's completely unnecessary given that there are in fact plenty of people who claim that global warming will cause a massive amount of disaster in the future. (B) is thus not by necessity hyperbole, nor is (A).

You should stick to hammering away on the Al Gore thing, because the sibling and I don't agree on that. When you try to take the argument as a whole it only takes two Google searches to show that there is an equivalence between elements of the climate change movement and the radically religious.

Economics - a far softer science with a (so far) vastly greater impact on human society - gets a staggering amount of leeway by comparison.

That's because most economic theories exist solely to rationalize government intervention in the economy and/or to obscure its real costs.

Now, speaking of which...

The reactions of laymen and the ignorant masses who follow Limbaugh et al can only be explained as propaganda-induced hysteria, to which only the profoundly ignorant and/or fearful are vulnerable.

O RLY? WHO is inducing hysteria here?

And did you really mean to ascribe such hysteria to those who don't buy into this particular bit of propaganda?

And only the profoundly ignorant and/or fearful are vulnerable?

That's got to be the purest example of projection I've ever seen anywhere.

Well, at least she's not race baiting like Eric Holder, you remember, the guy that was also for limiting free speech on the internet?

Of course, counting cards in your head is legal. For this reason, casinos will always have to do their own work to detect card-counters and enforce their own rules against them (by throwing them out and banning them from returning).

I find it incredibly interesting that casinos are allowed to kick you out and ban you from the business merely because you actually won money.

They have a perfectly good way to detect card counters -- they have their own people counting the cards and watching betting patterns. So in my view the law against card-counting devices is not strictly necessary, though perhaps it encourages more people to play nice (as it puts actual legal consequences on those who can't keep track in their heads).

"Playing nice" means playing to lose? I'm sorry, when I play a game, I play to win. The casinos already cheat by using 8-9 decks in the "shoe", trying to destroy the count of single-deck play (plus, they change out the "shoe" halfway down the stack). They run stacked, electronic slot machines that are designed to only pay out once in a blue moon, and have been known to welsh on it, lying and claiming "well the machine malfunctioned so we don't have to pay."

Casinos are the real fraudsters here. The fact that they get to "manage the odds" and kick out people who are winning is ridiculous.

Wonder why those agencies are using such an "unsecure" platform...?

Me too.

DHS has been hacked
FBI has been hacked
Navy has been hacked
Air Force has been hacked.

How irksome that judges, juries and lawyers should have to learn how technology works in order to do their jobs properly.

Yes, people do have to use an ounce of cation online. Installing virus-checkers and securing your Wi-Fi are very important security measures.

However, if we are entering an era where the justice system simply can't be bothered learning anything about the most basic computer technology, we're entering an era of wrongful convictions.

I remind everyone of the schoolteacher who was fired over spyware popups. It's time for the justice system to educate itself, not bury its head in ancient jurisprudence.

More than 1,000,000 people have been killed in Iraq at a final cost of at least $3,000,000,000,000.

Really? Cause last I heard, they pretty much just made that shit up.

Many do not realize that ESPN is already the single most expensive channel on their cable or satellite line-up.

You pay a flat fee for expanded cable but your cable company buys the rights to these channels in bundles from the international megacorps that own whole groups of channels. For instance Viacom owns Nickelodeon, MTV, VH1, Spike, etc. Disney owns Disney, ABC (broadcast), ABC family, SOAPnet, etc. In most cases the cable company is given an all or nothing offer from the parent corp.

ESPN is already the most expensive channel to buy the rights to it and failure to carry ESPN would mean death to any cable or satellite system. Can you imagine a cable company that did not carry Nick or MTV? Can you imagine a cable company that did not carry ESPN? No one can.

You know how your cable bill increases each year? Most of that increase is due to the rates being raised by the networks to the cable company. If the gloves were to come off in these negotiations, who is the 800 lb gorilla, Charter or Disney? (Hint: Disney).

This is just one more example of large media companies putting the thumbs screws to smaller communication companies. Personally, I NEVER watch ESPN or visit their website but I pay them anyway. I pray for a legally enforced a la cart model for both cable/sat companies AND their subscribers. Most consumers are unaware of this therefore it is unlikely to change.

Data sources:


http://www.viacom.com/ourbrands/medianetworks/Pages/default.aspx

http://corporate.disney.go.com/corporate/overview.html

I get the same message. Here's the URL for their feedback form: http://espn.go.com/broadband/espn360/feedback.

Here's the feedback I submitted: I am glad my ISP doesn't pay to access espn360.com. If they did, they would be passing the charge through to all their customers, and I would be subsidizing their customers who want to watch espn360.com. You should follow an individual subscriber model instead of trying to make money off me when I don't want your service. I will encourage my ISP to *not* pay for espn360.com. Regards, Vic.

I encourage folks to flood the feedback form. Not that they'll read or respond, but to let them know that some people are keeping an eye on them and think that they're pricks.

from the ESPN site:

"feel free to provide feedback, by clicking here. Please note that this feedback section should only be used to let us know what you think about the new ESPN360.com."

The link is here: http://sports.espn.go.com/broadband/espn360/faq#21

I'm sending them a strong message showing my disapproval at having hidden charges added to my account for features I have no desire nor can even access (as a linux user). Verizon appears to be coughing up payola and I will switch ISPs (if my only other choice happens to NOT support this shit, which I doubt - I may anyway, just to make sure my complaint gets heard in someone's pocketbook). I urge everyone else who cares about maintaining a sane internet to do likewise.

(maybe if I word it strongly enough I can get a gig with the UN?)

Big deal. This isn't for video clips available from ESPN.com, it is for their former premium product ESPN 360, which doesn't even show ESPN TV (due, I'm sure, to cable contracts), but various minor live sporting events (minor college football and basketball, MLS, NASCAR Nationwide series). The only difference between this and other products that have been selling versions to ISPs for years is that there is no pay version, you must get this through your ISP.

Disney already has a record company called Walt Disney Records. Their lineup appears to target preteenage and young teenage girls.

What are you smoking? The US hasn't even threatened to "wipe Iran off the map".

Clinton on an Iran Attack: 'Obliterate Them'

"I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president, we will attack Iran," Clinton said. "In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them."

Yes, this may have been lip service to Israel as Hillary Clinton was running for President at the time, but she is now Secretary of State, and those are dangerous words that she never backed off of.

Nor has Israel actually.

Using Bombs to Stave Off War

"Such a situation would confront Israeli leaders with two agonizing, dismal choices. One is to allow the Iranians to acquire the bomb and hope for the best - meaning a nuclear standoff, with the prospect of mutual assured destruction preventing the Iranians from actually using the weapon. The other would be to use the Iranian counterstrikes as an excuse to escalate and use the only means available that will actually destroy the Iranian nuclear project: Israel's own nuclear arsenal."

This was an op-ed by Benny Morris, a professor of Middle Eastern history at Ben-Gurion University, to the N.Y. Times about doing a preemptive nuclear strike on Iran. His op-ed was met with tepid reaction by the media and no real denials from the Israeli side. One op-ed by an Israeli historian doesn't reflect what the Israeli government thinks, but their total silence on the matter is somewhat disturbing.

Keep in mind, U.S. aggression against Iran started in the 1950's with Operation Ajax, when a CIA backed mission overthrew the democratically elected Prime Minister and installed a dictator. With that history in mind and the recent U.S. war against Iraq, I don't blame Iran for wanting its own space program.

Blame your government. What kind of idiot gives money away without oversight into how it is spent?

The last one was a guy named George Walker Bush, it looks like the next one might be a dude named Barack Hussein Obama. I'm hoping Mr Obama will be a pleasant disappointment on this score and actually spend the money sensibly and kick people in the nuts for misusing bailout money but given past experience I'm not holding my breath. I did get a kick out it when Mr Obama called up those Citigroup executives personally and chewed them out for buying a new $50 million corporate jet some 24 hours after receiving $45 billion in taxpayer bailout money but I'll wait and see if that was a publicity stunt or if it is actually a sign of things to come.

Well, there's only so many football linemen in a given school.

While it's not exactly a great reference, this story reports the average Wonderlic scores by position. Surprisingly, linemen fair pretty well, with all being in the upper half of the listed scores.

______ - insert whichever politician you dislike, McCain, Palin, or Obama

"It's not a great idea to run a government using web e-mail accounts. That's the word from experts, anyway, reacting to news that ______________ used web e-mail. The practice is dangerous, said experts, and can run counter to laws ensuring government is open and accountable -- By using non-governmental email systems, "Your information is out there available, beyond the official mechanisms there to protect it," said Amit Yoran, the nation's first cybersecurity chief. Yoran is now CEO of Netwitness Corp., a computer security firm for government and private entities.

"_______'s use of the private account to discuss public business - a practice reportedly shared by top aides - also raised concerns from open-government advocates, who fear the practice could impede the spirit of laws designed to preserve government communications and documents. Recently, the office has fought to withhold some emails from public release, saying they were exempt from disclosure because state law protected certain categories of communication, such as those related to the "deliberative process."

"Lawyer Meredith Fuchs of the Washington, D.C.-based National Security Archive has experience on this issue, having fought with the Bush White House over how it preserved emails, and why it allowed key personnel to use private email accounts controlled by the Republican National Committee. She believes ______'s email habits echo the worst practices of the Bush administration. "Maybe they did it because they thought the records wouldn't be disclosed," said Fuchs. "That raises issues possible destruction of evidence issues - if they expected litigation."

- http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/Story?id=5830813&page=1

Plus, I think your google-fu might be broken:

http://disneyshopping.go.com/disney/store/Product_10002_10051_1224770_-1_13694

Yes, I was pleased to hear him say:
We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus - and non-believers.

But then he said:
This is the source of our confidence - the knowledge that God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny.

And, in the final sentence:
Let it be said by our children's children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God's grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.

I'll take my hope without a side of religion, please.

Source for above quotes

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates who helped create Al-Qaeda while under Zbigniew Brzezinski in Carter's Administration. He was very much involved in the Iran-Contra affair. This was enough to stop him from being DCI in 1991, but now it's perfectly fine.

Attorney General Eric holder wrote a brief to the SCOTUS on the DC gun ban and said that there is no individual right to own gun. He was apart of the Clinton Administrations Justice Department when Clinton pardoned all of his cocaine trafficking buddies.

Rahm Emanuel is crazy, a duel citizen of Israel and the U.S. and while in charge of who to give money to in the 2006 election cycle decided to acitvely shun anti-war candidates.

That's just a start.

I don't know what the parent is asserting, but I know that the IRS says there are quite a lot of businesses that simply don't pay taxes.

Here's one example.

Although one thing I will mention is that various government contractors like to hire Americans as foreign workers in places like Iraq and assert they don't owe payroll taxes on them.

No, Obama has said that one of his first acts would be to order the closure of the detention camps. That is not the same as freeing the prisoners there. More likely the current prisoners or detainees whatever you want to call them will be relocated to other facilities. Also, the order will not likely to be enforced immediately as the relocation would take some time. A side consequence may be that some of the detainees may finally get their trials or tribunals. This may free those who have played no part in acts of terrorism.

That's one, very optimistic, view of what will happen to the detained. A more realistic view is that they will be tried and returned to the country of origin, where they will be imprisoned for long term or executed.

You don't have to successfuly commit an act of terrorism to be a terrorist, and these peoples countries of origin do not have the same legal process we do. Many of them were better of detained.

No, Obama has said that one of his first acts would be to order the closure of the detention camps. That is not the same as freeing the prisoners there. More likely the current prisoners or detainees whatever you want to call them will be relocated to other facilities. Also, the order will not likely to be enforced immediately as the relocation would take some time. A side consequence may be that some of the detainees may finally get their trials or tribunals. This may free those who have played no part in acts of terrorism.