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Sorry, missed the specific exlusion of water in the last quote - still, sounds fishy to me. Is it proven that if I drink a diet coke, substantial gastric acid is released?

Well, there was statistically significant evidence within the study to show that diet soda had an effect on weight gain. Take that as you will. Here's another on the same subject: http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/OnCall/Story?id=4271246&page=1

Since most of the important modifications for Air Force One have to do with armor, EMP shielding, extra fuel storage, etc., why not start with a military plane that's already got some of these features by design, and just retrofit it with couches and stuff?

One added benefit would be that it could transport the presidential limo/tank in case there is fear of sniper fire at the airport. The president could just be driven from the cargo bay of the plane.

You'd be surprised.

For example, look at this site a co-worker pointed out to me: http://soapnet.go.com/soapnet/index

It's a ABC Network-owned site about their soap operas, and it lets you log in using Passport. It doesn't advertise, or even say, that it does, but if you try it it works. (My friend was doing some consulting work for them, and noticed when he hit "Logout" from XBox.com, Passport told him it was logging him out of Soap.net as well.)

Just one example..

T

Privacy issues aside, I've never had any trouble with Flash.

I like your logic: Aside from a single tile, Columbia's last mission went flawlessly.

Seriously, though: you've underlined the single greatest problem in computer security today - what we don't see can hurt us. I've written about this at greater length elsewhere, but to put it simply, privacy is the battleground of our decade.

The struggle to come to terms with privacy will manifest itself in the legal, moral and ethical arenas, but it arises now because of technology and the cavalier approach that the vast majority of people take to it.

The ramifications of our ability to transmit, access and synthesise vast amounts of data using technology are consistently underestimated by people because of the simple fact that, as far as they're concerned, they are sitting in the relative privacy of their own room with nothing but the computer screen as an intermediary.

On the consumer side of things, this creates what Schneier calls a Market for Lemons in which the substance of the product becomes less valuable than its appearance. As long as we have the illusion of security, we don't worry about the lack of real protection.

On the institutional side, we see countless petty abuses of people's privacy. There is nothing stopping a low-level employee from watching this data simply out of prurient interest. In fact, this kind of abuse happens almost every time comprehensive surveillance is conducted. In a famous example, low-level staffers in the US National Security Agency would regularly listen in on romantic conversations between soldiers serving in Iraq and their wives at home. The practice became so common that some even created 'Greatest Hits' compilations of their favourites and shared them with other staffers.

They would never have done so had the people in question been in the room, but because the experience is intermediated by an impersonal computer screen, which can inflict no retribution on them, their worst instincts get the better of them.

When discussing software in the 21st Century, we cannot ever treat privacy as just one incidental aspect of a greater system. Privacy defines the system. Starting an argument by throwing it aside in the first subordinate clause gives little weight to any argument that follows.

Every study of red light cameras has shown that increasing the length of yellow lights to a minimum of seven seconds has the same benefits in terms of sideswipe accident reduction without the increased rate of rear end collisions, without wasting tons of fuel, without causing road rage, etc. Unfortunately, the people in power are not about to admit that they were wrong, so the only way to fix the problem is to wrest control away form them through a referendum.

Got any links to these studies? I googled "red light camera study" and found a recent news article which makes some interesting claims:

The study was conducted by the state, and surveyed red light cameras specifically for intersections in communities throughout Texas. A lot of those are right here in Houston. The results, according to this study, show that red light cameras appear to work.

..and the latest research from the Texas Transportation Institute supports that. In the state wide study, right angle crashes declined by 43% after installation of red light cameras. Although rear end crashes increased slightly by 5%, the overall decrease was 30%.

Ah, well here we go. Here is a page that has a collection of 10 or so studies which seem to suppport your claim.

Hopefully this information will be of use to the typically [in my experience] ungrateful /. crowd.

ADL, YouTube launch partnership to fight video abuse

Lieberman: YouTube Not Doing Enough to Remove Terrorist Content

People see this as censorship or the beginning of censorship by google, which happens to be connected to a Jewish organization and Senator.

Fricking seedy. If I'm buying the media, I should be able to do whatever the hell I want with it. If I'm buying the data, they should replace the media for free. They can't have it both ways.

Most software companies get this, and will provide you with a replacement disc if you can prove you own the original.

Most entertainment media companies do not get this, and have successfully convinced millions of customers that their only recourse is to buy a new copy/license. Disney is one of the few who will replace media for a $6.95 fee - probably because of all the kids destroying videotapes and DVDs. If the others do, I haven't been able to find any reference to it on their websites. I gave up trying to replace some audio CDs whose reflective layer started flaking off, and just downloaded flac copies off of bittorrent.

I know someone who was in a car accident at age ten. He damaged one of the growth plates in his left leg, as a result he now has one leg a couple of inches shorter than the other.

We should be seeing him on the next season of Dancing with the Stars

Which is great for those of us with adequately working prosocial wiring in our heads, which most of us have. I think it's a great way to help make the horrible actuality a little more real than the glossed-over, glamorous version we get programmed into us from Hollywood.

But there are those of us who have our wiring messed up. I don't know what the frequency is, and in net forums the tendency to mouth off creates a disproportionate appearance, but I imagine there are enough out there that it deserves societal effort to rectify. If you've ever been bullied by a real (chronic) bully, you know that that kind of behavior needs fixing for the whole of society to be healthier. This kind of wiring responds positively to the suffering of others, so the stark horror of torture wouldn't necessarily be the ethically edifying experience one would hope for.

But I'm not contradicting myself — I say put torture in video games, have the majority of us get a better grip on the awfulness. Giving bullies virtual persons to antagonize might settle them a little further into their ruts, but they should be addressed more from a causal perspective — how'd they get that way in the first place? The benefit of enlightening the greater majority I think outweighs the harm in further solidifying already durable bullying tendencies.

sort of like having a short domain name prefix

Most are parked with typo magnet type pages:
yes.com
no.com

a few are borderline, actually having something of a topic:

go.com

And only a very few actually have a purpose:

me.com (how did they get that?)

Because everyone thinks of "nisson" when they see "Z" (Z)

Hey this is kinda fun.

Paypal of course reminds everyone of "X" (X) Makes you seriously wonder if it's legit doesn't it?

OK found one that makes sense. Say Q for Qwest! (Q)

And for reasons I cannot begin to fathom, NO other domains (A-Z).com are in use. Just Q, X, and Z.

You are wrong. First, because yes, people will risk their careers to snoop on the privacy of total strangers, just because they can. Since they work in secrecy, it's even debatable if they feel their careers at at risk for doing so: http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=5987804

Second, because as alarming as the linked story is, privacy is ultimately not about the police reading your shopping list. It's always about money - the money someone is willing to pay to access personal data on a political opponent (to discredit her or him), a dissident group (to penetrate and spy on them), or a competing business (obvious).

Therefore, it's also about human rights.

Once the technology is available, it *will* be abused, and we know this, because such abuses have always happened. I don't know of a government (or a business) that had a technology available and decided not to use it because doing so would be unethical or even illegal. How many times must the same stories repeat before we learn?

this is about not having the supplies that directly contribute to your child's education

We have one of the highest per-student education spending rates in the world, and yet so little of that money ends up going where it's actually needed -- to competent teachers and classroom supplies.

D.C., specifically, is an amazing example of waste:

D.C. spent about $13,400 per student in 2006, which was only exceeded by New York and New Jersey.

Despite the city's high per-student spending, scores on math and reading were the lowest in the country last year, according to results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress tests.

To make matters worse, less than half of that money is actually going to instruction; most of it goes to administration, with 14 administrators raking in at least $150,000 per year.

We've doubled education spending but test scores haven't improved at all:

And while many people say, "We need to spend more money on our schools," there actually isn't a link between spending and student achievement.

Jay Greene, author of "Education Myths," points out that "If money were the solution, the problem would already be solved ... We've doubled per pupil spending, adjusting for inflation, over the last 30 years, and yet schools aren't better."

He's absolutely right. National graduation rates and achievement scores are flat, while spending on education has increased more than 100 percent since 1971. More money hasn't helped American kids.

Much of the money never makes it to our children; instead it goes to tenured incompetents who only bother to show up to work for the paycheck, useless bureaucrats, and other waste.

World's highest per-student spending rates, and yet our teachers can't afford to make photocopies. How the hell did we get here?

Exactly. This is simple harassment. This in no way assists in the act of suicide. I don't know of anyone being prosecuted for talking nasty to other mentally ill kids online who ended up committing suicide.

Any inmate caught with one gets n weeks/months added to their sentence... problem solved.

I don't think that would deter the ones who have one on death row

Essentially what a company does depends on the philosophy of its leaders, but if the philosophy is wrong then their actions will come to bite them in the end.

Amen brother and/or sister. Now if y'all will excuse me, I have a private jet waiting to take me to another corporate retreat. Do you have any idea how exhausting it is trying to look like you're begging for a government bailout? Hello, I'm in a leadership position of any successful company!

Their actions come to bite everybody except them in the end. You delude only yourself if you believe otherwise.

Essentially what a company does depends on the philosophy of its leaders, but if the philosophy is wrong then their actions will come to bite them in the end.

Amen brother and/or sister. Now if y'all will excuse me, I have a private jet waiting to take me to another corporate retreat. Do you have any idea how exhausting it is trying to look like you're begging for a government bailout? Hello, I'm in a leadership position of any successful company!

Their actions come to bite everybody except them in the end. You delude only yourself if you believe otherwise.

on nov 19, a 19 yo guy committed suicide live on webcam

1,500 people watched, with LOLs and hahaha and "go ahead and do it, faggot"

sometimes, humanity is a pretty heady combination of disgusting and low iq

my disgust is such that i fantasize right now of faking a videofeed of a suicide, tracking the ip of anyone who LOLs at it, finding them, and peeling their skin off with a razor blade. such is my disgust at such utterly fucktarded trolls. finding and doing greivous bodily harm to these assholes is the only wat i feel i can be assuaged

if you give up your humanity for your fellow human beings, aren't you pretty much nullifying our responsibility to respect you, in any way?

"I have let everyone down and I feel as though I will never change or never improve," Biggs apparently wrote in the posting. "I am in love with a girl and I know that I am not good enough for her. I have come to believe that my life has all been meaningless. I keep trying and I keep failing. I have thought about and attempted suicide many times in the past." ...

On a blog where Biggs wrote about his suicidal thoughts, which has also since been removed, commenters wrote, "hahaha hahahahha hahahahahah ahhaha." Wired reports that someone else wrote: "Instant Darwinism..." to which a fellow commenter wrote: "f**king a nicely put." Others called the teen a "coward," "faggot" and a "dick."

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article5203176.ece

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/MindMoodNews/story?id=6306126&page=1

From the more detailed article: " Kirk Shireman, deputy shuttle program manager, says that while only one spider is visible, that doesn't mean the other is missing. 'We don't believe he has escaped the payload. I am sure we will find him spinning a web somewhere in the next few days.'" This is why I don't trust any form of "Action" news.

Clearly, Eyewitness news is the only true reliable format.

From the more detailed article: "

Kirk Shireman, deputy shuttle program manager, says that while only one spider is visible, that doesn't mean the other is missing. 'We don't believe he has escaped the payload. I am sure we will find him spinning a web somewhere in the next few days.'"

This is why I don't trust any form of "Action" news.

My god people, is slashdot actually linking to ABC action news? I mean come on, firstly the summary (of the summary) is woefully incomplete.. Even though the original link also belongs to ABC at least it doesnt have the word "action" attached to "news". I'm just waiting for ABC's next upgrade to SEXY, ACTION NEWS... a bit elitist? Maybe.. but at least the original link clarifies the story rather than leaving out information in order to make the story more "exciting".. From TFA: "NASA isn't sure where the spider could have gone." Doesn't mean they don't have an idea..

From the original article: "Kirk Shireman, deputy shuttle program manager, says that while only one spider is visible, that doesn't mean the other is missing. 'We don't believe he has escaped the payload. I am sure we will find him spinning a web somewhere in the next few days."

However, given the spending spree the government is on, I find NASA far less objectionable than writing checks to citizens, bailouts, or WPAish "dig a ditch. now fill it in." economic "stimulus" plans.

Well instead of giving 700 BILLION (now likely more) to Wall Street so they can have more parties, bonuses and pay the people who got us into this mess obscene salaries, why don't they just give every US citizen (man, woman, child) $1 million apiece? It would be a fraction of the cost and would start people spending again. (And they's STILL have money for NASA.)

Of course the hitch would be getting people to come back to work...(but still!)

You keep throwing out the bull but fail to back it up. Show me any solid evidence that the McCain/Palin camp was pandering to racists or get a fucking life. The hate on both sides has created a very serious divide in this country, and the propaganda about Obama somehow being Arab or the next Antichrist from the Far Right is just as bad as the Far Left throwing around propaganda that the GOP is the party of racists and that they will do anything to make sure a Black man does not get into office.

But I guess attacks on Obama because of his relationship with his former Pastor were all about race, right? They couldn't have had to do with a man (his Reverend) who obviously hated his own country and the fact that despite the constant barrage of hate this man spewed in his church, that Obama attended the church for longer than a decade. Also, the only campaign that brought up race as an issue was actually Obama's. He made the comments about the dollar bill, and although later people claimed he wasn't talking about race, his own staff admits that the comment was about his race.

As far as my comments about accidentally appealing to racists, what I meant (and what you tried so hard to distort) is that you can appeal to people who are racist without trying to do so. In other words, many southern white racists happen to be pro-gun rights. So, if you as a candidate are pro-gun rights, is it fair to then call you a racist? If so, you'd have to call Obama a racist too, as he has said throughout his campaign that he's pro-gun rights. Or maybe if you are anti-gay marriage, you are a racist. Obama is anit-gay marriage as well, and only believes in civil unions for gay couples.

You simply think blindly that the GOP is the party of white biggots and will spin the debate as you see fit to try and fit that argument, all while bringing zero facts and plenty of FUD to the debate. Oh, and by the way, people who illegally enter this country are referred to as illegal aliens because they, you know, illegally circumvented the immigration process to enter this country and remain here indefinitely. It's not demonization, it's fact. Boo hoo, your PC mind can't handle that, like I give a fuck. If you circumvented the process, you bypassed plenty of people trying to do it the right way. I disagree with the process and think it needs to be streamlined and revamped, as it is way too difficult at the moment to legally become a citizen, but that doesn't make it right to break the rules and hop the fence, so to speak. I guess because of the high number of people who are having trouble finding jobs, it'd be ok for them to go steal a loaf of bread, rather than go to a soup kitchen too, right?

I don't expect you to realize this, because you don't strike me as the type who thinks too much on his own, but you do know that the entire meaning of "Southern Strategy" as used today is far different from the strategy used by Nixon, right? Even Hillary Clinton employed what is today considered the Southern Strategy, which is basically to focus on issues that target the majority of people in the south (this includes many people of all races in the south, where most people tend to have strong religious backgrounds). It focuses on pro-life, pro-guns, pro-family values, not "Hate on the black man." IIRC, the then Chairman of the GOP, Ken Mehlman, even formally apologized to various African American organizations back in 2004 for the GOP's use of the old Southern Strategy back in the Nixon era.

And seriously, if you want to continue this debate without seeming like a complete idiot, try using sources a notch up from blogs. It just makes you look like you are stretching for material.

Everything I said was supported by just about every channel last night.

I have data; you and the networks you were watching (probably Fox) have only racist opinions.

Since you assert falsely that Obama's blackness was the primary reason for his election, that is the question I will tackle directly here, now that real data is available.

In 2004, blacks made up 11% of those who voted, and their choices were split as follows: Kerry 88%, Bush 11%.

This year, blacks were 13% of those who voted, and they were split thusly: Obama 95%, McCain 4%.

There is no way you can claim that blacks were voting by race in 2004, because Kerry wasn't black. The 11% who voted in 2004 went for Obama at a greater rate yesterday, but only slightly, accounting for 11 * (0.95-0.88) or 0.77 percent. More blacks turned out this year, but again only slightly, amounting to (13 - 11)*0.95 or an extra 1.9 percent for Obama. Therefore, at the very most, the Obama effect on blacks was 2.67 percent. Since his victory margin was 6%, it is very clear that the black vote was not anywhere close to being decisive this year.

So you, the KKK clown, are full of it.

Here's an example from Fox, here's one from ABC. Far more people think McCain is running a negative campain than actually give a damn about the Ayers connection. The number of people who care about Ayers are far less than the number of people who say they will vote for McCain; it's reasonable to assume that the one is a subset of the other. More people think McCain has gone too far with the attacks than care about Ayers. The poll tightening is not due to McCain showing people "who Obama really is". People care about issues, it's the economy stupid, not these tenuous connections to slander-by-association.

Pelosi was making an appearance and speaking at Google .

The main quote, regarding a larger, dem super-majority:

"Elect us, hold us accountable, and make a judgment and then go from there. But I do tell you that if the Democrats win, and have substantial majorities, Congress of the United States will be more bipartisan."

I was also highly amused by this:

"It's interesting to hear Senator McCain talking about the dangerous Obama, Reid, Pelosi. Dangerous is not really a word that should be a part of a national debate as we go into a presidential race."

This from the woman who talks about Bush as a dangerous murderer and criminal, and then goes to great lengths to say how McCain is in no way different. Her entire M.O. has been built around talking about how dangerous her political opponents are. But then, she's a staggering hypocrit about all sorts of things, so it's not like it's a surprise or anything.

Well I'm assuming you are not a journalist and you learned these things through the media which disproves your argument.

Uh, no, I am referring to mainstream media bias , like ABC CBS NBC/MSNBC Newsweek Time AP Reuters Wash Post LA Times NY Times USA Today NPR, get it? None of them are reporting this stuff, and unfortunately, most people still get their news from these sources.. I get it from alternative sources like blogs, and yes, the dreaded Fox News (can we get away from this nonsenseical idea that anything Fox says is somehow illegitimate? The question should be why other "journalists" are not asking these things). But on its best night, FNC gets 4M viewers in a country of roughly 100M voters. You do the math as to why this is a problem.

9 points worth of insinuations and no substance. Try again.

I'm sorry, I thought it was the media's jobs to dig. Frankly, I don't have the resources to investigate Barack Obama. The point is, this shit hasn't even been looked at. It's gotten so bad, some journalists are too embarrassed to even tell people they work in the press. As James Taranto has pointed out, even the liberal SNL is asking tougher questions than the media.

why haven't they smeared McCain's character as being a spoiled brat who had to pull strings to get into the naval academy, an then barely managed to pass (5th from the bottom of his class of 900 students)? Why haven't we heard about how he crashed several of our planes? Why haven't we heard all about his confessions?

Actually, McCain wrote about his being a bad student in his biography. But he finished and served his country with distinction. Apparently serving your country as a cadet while not graduating at the top of your class as a young person 40+ years ago is newsworthy, but doing cocaine as a young person is not newsworthy. Right, McCain is the one with the misspent youth. Obama partying with coke, that's the real good character guy. Unbelievable.

But I think even the MSM liberal reporters know you can't attack McCain's character. Nobody has ever alleged he has been a dirty politician (except by the guilty-by-association attacks that you say are unfair to do to Obama). Yet the LA Times just did a cheap hit piece on McCain's plane accidents (again, a soldier serving his country in wartime gets in an accident, he's bad, but some guy not serving his country does coke on purpose, he's the good guy). Talk about a cheap shot. How can you be such a heartless SOB to a serviceman who, in one of those "crashes" caused by a SAM, ended up in Haiphong Harbor with broken arms and a leg and spend 4+ years in a prison camp being beaten? And he spent an extra two years as a POW because the "spoiled" McCain turned down early release that was offered precisely because he was the son of the CINC. This is the vaunted liberal compassion? You sound like a vicious, heartless person to talk like this.

If only Obama and other liberals were as honest about their contempt for military service as you are.

That said, he's still a privileged piece of shit.

McCain spoiled? The guy lived on military bases and communities in modest homes. He did not come from money. His family lived on a paltry naval salary. He saw his father very rarely, since his dad was in the Navy. Everyone has to pull strings to get into the US Naval Academy. You need to be recommended by a senator to get in. So McCain married a hot rich chick when he was middle-aged. Don't be a hater. Kerry (you know, the guy who had three draft deferments before he went to Vietnam, and split after four months by getting some chickenshit purple heart because some rice exploded on him) married an ugly rich chick, and it worked for him.

How is being a Navy brat who served his country in wartime as a soldier and POW a "spoiled" upbringing, as opposed to Obama partying and not serving his country? If McCain was so "spoiled," why didn't he avoid the rigors of Annapolis and Vietnam and go to Harvard, like his party-like-a-rockstar opponent did? How does a brain think like this?

As far as criticizing someone who breaks under years of torture, that is so beyond the pale I am not even going to address it, especially to the type of liberal who likely criticizes the Bush administration for doing brief waterboarding as cruel and unreliable. Not to mention, liberals like yourself were so brave they ran to Canada when they faced being drafted. Yes, you, anyone who would say anything like that is an absolute coward, and a disgrace for someone of a the political persuasion that claims to have a monopoly on compassion.

You really don't even know what the words "fair" or "objective" mean do you?

On the other hand, you have the Republicans creating challenge lists and preventing people from voting. They're all dirty.

Sorry, the two activities do not equate. At all. "Challenge lists" don't necessarily prevent people, who are eligible to vote, from voting. Challenging Mickey Mice is not dirty at all.

Comparing that with the flat-out replacing legitimate votes with your own is silly — that practice is far dirtier even if some legitimate voter does get challenged by the other side to prove eligibility. The challenge is no less legitimate, than the requirement to show an ID when buying alcohol or tobacco.

But that's all new topic — the original one was that neither machines nor humans can be automatically trusted to count the votes.

No, it did not. The "intelligence" people didn't believe it. The politicians cherry picked the reports that allowed them to justify doing what they wanted to do for entirely other reasons.

Example: http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=129012
A senior military official, who asked not to be identified, told Nightline that Cheney, a former defense secretary, was extremely selective in picking out intelligence on Iraq that supported his views, and that his staff's reports were distorted and ideological. .... "The whole emphasis," Cannistraro said, "was, 'We are sure that there are weapons of mass destruction. We are sure that Saddam is acquiring a nuclear capability. Why isn't your reporting showing this? We're getting reporting independently from the intelligence community that convinces us that that's the case. You're not providing any corroboration for that.' The weapons of mass destruction analysts at CIA took these visits as intimidation, as pressure."

That's a bunch of crap, and here's why: If you have the money, you can still pay for care in cash if you want to. No one will stop you.

There is no reason why we should pay orders of magnitude more (even with "health insurance") for health care than people in other countries with the same life expectancy... for example, Cuba.

Well I guess the problem is that many people don't have the money if they have to pony up an extra 5-10% in taxes for universal health care.

And with regards to Cuba. Are you willing to forcibly reduce the doctors wages to $20 per month and physically prevent them from seeking abroad to earn more? Or in other words: Are you willing to turn USA into a giant prison camp to get cheap health care?

Are you also willing to implement a system of forced abortions to prevent the weak and sick from entering the world (make the countrys life expectancy drop medical expenses rise)?

http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Story?id=3568278&page=2

http://www.despair.com/achievement.html

There would be reason to believe terrorists where getting on the planes IF PLANES WHERE BEING TERRORIZED. The simple fact that plane hijacking has dropped to almost nothing means it's working. I've been alive long enough to remember hijackings being pretty much commonplace.

I've been alive that long too. Funny, though - in the last month, there were three hijacking attempts that I could find just now, world-wide. In what world do you live in now that these are not occurring on a regular basis?

Perhaps if I saw fewer articles like this one (which strongly underline how ineffectual TSA is) I'd be a little less cynical. But can you honestly tell me that the people who think they have to confiscate toothpaste, shampoo, lighters, and nail clippers and yet missed the author flying with a loaded 'beer belly' are capable of stopping someone who boards a plane with dark intent?

I realize I"m treading deep into people's comfort zones here; but the fact is simple. Unless TSA starts performing a full strip and cavity search of every single passenger, they cannot stop any but the most dim-witted of would-be terrorists - and pre-TSA measures were sufficient to catch those who are /that/ stupid.

There's another more obvious answer to your question: does it occur to you that maybe, they've already accomplished what they set out to? We're so scared, we're willing to /allow/ the TSA to exist. Our economy is in shambles. Our president has been waging an eight year war on our Constitutional rights. I don't know that in their shoes, I'd see a need to do any more than they've already done.

Well, there's also the problem that stupid little things (like pissing against a building, or taking naked photos of [i]yourself[/i] under 18) can earn you the "sex offender" label for life.

It's more likely than you think. A 15 year old girl charged with "juvenile child pornography" for...... taking nude pictures of herself with her cell phone, and sending them to her classmates! Furthermore, those classmates may be charged with possession of child pornography, it probably won't matter if they solicited it or not.

A very salient point: If they're still a danger to society at large, why the hell are they not behind bars?

Er... because they have rights?

I mean, yes, perhaps we could re-evaluate particular statutes, but criminals can't be held in jail for longer than their prison sentence. Often, it's hard to just lock someone up and throw away the key because of protections against "cruel and unusual punishment".

Of course, it depends (at least somewhat) on what you consider to be a "sex offender". I was reading a story earlier today about a teenage girl who might be forced to register as a sex offender for distributing nude pictures of herself.

Perhaps though that's why i like Palin's bio as a cleaner of Alaska's Republican Augean stables and am frustrated by the one-sided coverage of her.

That's your problem. You have this image of her as a corruption fighter, which couldn't be farther from the truth. Like I said, she's just like Gingrich - she didn't take on corrupt figures because she wanted to clean out the system, but because she's a ladder climber who was looking to make a name for herself:

• She takes Bush's peonage appointments and turns it up to 11.
• She tried to ban books and tried to fire the Wasilla librarian when she rebuffed Palin's request for the third time.
• She fires officials that don't support her during elections.
• She requested earmarks that McCain specifically complained about as being wasteful spending.
• She fully supported the bridge to nowhere until Congress said it would have to be paid for with state money, yet took the federal funds anyway. Now she's lying by saying "I told Congress, 'Thanks, but no thanks,' on that bridge to nowhere."
• She illegally uses personal email accounts for state business.
• Abused her position by trying to have her ex-brother in law fired, and when the state commissioner refused, she fired him instead.
• And most dispicably, signed off on charging rape victims for examination kits.

I am SAYING that these are facts, and that reporting them is (of course) fair. My complaint is the failure to report other pertinent facts.

Like those Fox News talking heads that wished that the rest of the media would stop talking about all the bad things happening in Iraq - like bombings that would kill a hundred people at a time, roadside bombs killing our troops, and ethnic cleansing between Shiites and Sunnis - and focus on the positive things like construction of a new clinic inside the Green Zone. I'm sure the women of Iraq who would wear mourning robes for years at a time - another family member would be killed before it was time to take them off - would concur.

With all due respect there's a pretty big difference between being endorsed by a pastor and having someone BE your pastor for over 20 years.

With all due respect you're rationalizing a racist smear. If you watch more than "Goddamn America" soundbyte played on the media, he's speaking about how the United States kept slaves "in perpetuity", the "separate but equal" Dred Scott decision, Jim Crow, forced American Indians onto reservations, interned Japanese Americans during WWII, and the Tuskegee experiments on black men with syphilis. Funny how the media never mentioned that this Angry Black Man hated the United States sooo much he voluntarily gave up his student deferment and served two terms of duty as a Marine in Vietnam, and then re-enlisted as a medical corpsman and was so good he was the valedictorian of his class and was on LBJ's surgical team in 1966.

It is at least conceivable that McCain wasn't fully aware of

McCain is a "class-warfare liberal"?

Nobody ever even heard of people buying licenses for their books or music or movies

You're really, really wrong about that. For example, when you buy a DVD you do not have the right to play it, for example, to a large auditorium of paying customers. Radio stations and places open to the public (business like bars) have to acquire specific licenses that allow them to play music to their patrons. Hell, it's illegal to show an NFL football game from freely acquired television signals to a paying audience.

All you can really say is that there's a lot of ignorance going around about how intellectual property has worked in the US for a very long time.

Take, for example, the Fannie/Freddie debacle. Consider that Obama had 2 corrupt former CEOs of Fannie as economic advisors, one of which was the head of his VP search committee.

The truth is that although Jim Johnson was a CEO at Fannie Mae before becoming a leader of Barack Obama's VP search committee, he has not been convicted of any crime, but Obama accepted Johnson's resignation from the Presidential campaign anyway. In June, you hypocrite. Jim Johnson has also not been even accused of any crimes, just smeared for being associated with a corporation which operated in the lawless environment introduced by Gramm-Leach-Biley. Compare to Carly Fiorina, who was personally responsible for making a mess out of Hewlett-Packard. Johnson didn't sign Gramm-Leach-Biley into law. Measured by stock price, Fiorina was, in the eyes of the investors with enough previous financial success to determine stock prices, personally responsible for Hewlett-Packard's problems. If we're going to spend $700 Billion bailing out the country's wealthiest investors, we had better trust their judgment enough to uphold their verdict on Carleton S. Fiorina: as toxic as a portfolio full of foreclosed mortgages.

Former Fannie Mae executive Jim Johnson, who was a leader of the vice presidential search committee for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama, resigned from that unpaid position today amid criticisms that Johnson represented a world of influence and special interests that stood in stark contrast with what Obama's campaign purports to stand for.
...
"We don't need any lectures from a campaign that waited fifteen months to purge the lobbyists from their staff, and only did so because they said it was a 'perception problem,'" said Obama campaign spokesperson Bill Burton.

And Franklin Raines was never any kind of adviser to Obama at all.

The Obama campaign issued a statement by Raines on Thursday night insisting, "I am not an advisor to Barack Obama, nor have I provided his campaign with advice on housing or economic matters." Obama spokesman Bill Burton went a little further, saying in an e-mail that the campaign had "neither sought nor received" advice from Raines "on any matter."

[If Raines offered Obama advice that was not sought, a lying sack of excrement might argue that Obama nevertheless "received" that advice, but unless that advice was the basis of subsequent action, we use the colloquialism that the advice was not "taken," thus anybody describing Raines as an advisor to Obama is a lying sack of excrement.]

Unless you have proof that Raines' statement above is a lie, you committed libel by asserting that he had ever been one of Barack Obama's "economic advisors."

So what evidence does the McCain campaign have for the supposed Obama-Raines connection? It is pretty flimsy, but it is not made up completely out of whole cloth.

99% cloth, but not completely whole cloth. The "supposed Obama-Raines connection" is not quite pure fabrication by the same standard that the statement "you are a violin" has a basis in fact, when addressed to a person calling itself "Stradivarius." The only connection to fact is extremely tenuous, and we all know that the statement "you are a violin" is a falsehood. Your accusation is no more honest, just less humorous.

McCain spokesman Brian Rogers points to three items in the Washington Post in July and August. It turns out that

Barack Obama, for four years in the 1990s, you were on the executive board of an education foundation named the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, founded by ex-Weather Underground Organization leader William Ayers. In a spring debate, you claimed he was "not somebody who I exchange ideas with on a regular basis", and just "a guy who lives in my neighborhood". Given that you launched your presidential campaign from Mr. Ayers home, how do you explain this discrepancy?

Barack Obama, records show that you have received the second largest amount of monetary donations from the now bankrup Fannie Mae mortgage lender. In 2005, you were praised by Fannie Mae CEO Daniel Mudd because of your work in congress on Fannie's behalf. Was the praise because of your vote against the Housing Reform Act of 2005 that would have prevented the 2008 collapse of the lending institutions?

Barack Obama, you have often touted your experience as a community organizer in the streets of Chicago as evidence of your qualifications to lead. You have worked extensively with one such group, ACORN, which recently endorsed you for president, where you acknowledged your work with ACORN in Project Vote in 2004. Given that ACORN members are frequently convicted of committing voter fraud, can you please explain your relation to this organization?

still a junkie.

Is Obama still a junkie?

You're letting your prejudices and biases cloud your judgment.

Of course, Palin didn't literally ban books from library shelves: she simply doesn't have the power to do so. But it appears that she opposed the presence of particular books in the library and exerted pressure.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=5766173&page=1

The story is credible also because Palin is in trouble for several other abuses of power.

I believe some journalists have already experienced exactly this type of pre-emptive arrest at the RNC convention, I don't believe they were particularly impressed with the concept.

Wasn't that the DNC?

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/Conventions/story?id=5668622

Neither party is blameless and I fear that whoever the next President is, we'll keep sliding.

Joe Lieberman and his staff have been actively censoring youtube under the guise of Senate Bill 1959: Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 since May. The bill hasn't passed the Senate yet, but it hasn't stopped Lieberman from pressuring google to delete any video and accounts he wants.

This video describes what is going on pretty well.

This veteran gives Lieberman a piece of his mind on the issue.

MIT has been trying to track down what videos are being taken down and why.
http://youtomb.mit.edu/

Say you want to carry them because you want to be able to kill people who annoy or frighten you. .... You are mistaken about who they are meant to kill, or at least you have generalized to the point of absurdity.

I wasn't talking about who they are MEANT to kill, but who they actually kill.

Fair enough. When we look at who guns (in America) actually kill, we find that just above half the time, they kill their owners. I believe suicide, or the choice to cease living, is a natural human right, and guns are a quick and painless (if messy) way to go, so no problems there. Do you believe in the right to die? I would argue that the other half of gun deaths fall into four categories as follows: premeditated, passion, accidental, self-defense.

Premeditated: If you are going to take the time to plan it out, are you going to buy a gun from, a licensed dealer who will take your name, and keep records with serial numbers, ballistics info, and other data (only a fool thinks guns should be sold like other products), or will you seek someone out on the street? If a gun wasn't available (is it impossible or just difficult to get a gun in Britain?) could you come up with another way?

Passion: If you are so enraged that you would kill another person, momentarily psychotic with anger, would the lack of a gun stop you, or just make it harder?

Accidental: Shit happens. Incidentally, it happens with more frequency in cars.

Self-defense: Is it acceptable to use lethal force in self-defense?

It is the wet dream of every tyrant, strong man, and one party state to take from the people the power of armed resistance.

This is a peculiar American fantasy. Lots of countries have instituted "strong man, one-party government", in countries awash with guns (often in post-war regimes with an AK-47 under every ex-soldier's bed). It makes it easier for the "strong man" to increase police powers, reduce civil rights, with the aim of protecting people from armed gangsters or insurgents.

An informed and educated populous, with access to the free exchange of ideas, is of far greater importance for democracy than an AK-47. That being said, look at your own argument; First a would-be dictator comes to power, then he expands his powers using as evidence the large number of armed citizens that "the common man" needs protection from, and then he takes away their guns. Finally, he is able to oppress as he sees fit, having established a monopoly on armed force.

Look how far your own government has come in that regard recently. You're not Zimbabwe yet, but you've certainly been going in that direction.

My own government has used nationalism, terrorism, and a complacent and profit driven corporate media to seize expanded powers, not fear of a gun toting mob, so I am not sure how your comparison to Zimbabwe is relevant.

As a brief aside, I hope you are enjoying this debate as much as I am. I would hope it goes without saying, but it doesn't always so: I respect and appreciate your opinion.

No. Guns are designed to stop people. That makes them excellent tools for self-defense, as the object of self-defense is to stop someone who is attacking you...

Knives are designed for cutting things. Those things may be human flesh, or may be carrots or cardboard. A knife can be a decent tool for self-defense, but requires you to let the attacker get close - a definite disadvantage as compared to a gun.

To add... the advantage of the gun for lawful self-defense is that it is usable by everyone. A knife requires its user to have at least some physical strength and speed, since you're fighting in close to someone and the weapon requires direct manual input of force. Clubs, sticks, bats, etc. are similar. The gun only requires that you be strong enough to point it and shoot. It lets the elderly man defend himself against a group of young thugs; it lets the old grandmother defend her house against the teenager that broke in (funny story: one old lady held the guy at gunpoint and made him call the cops on himself ), it lets the petite 95-pound woman defend herself against a 250lb would-be rapist.

If you're really concerned about gun violence, lets figure out why people do that to begin with, and attack the root cause. Better education and a justice system that intervenes with delinquents early on (instead of just giving slaps on the wrists until a serious crime is committed) would go a long way towards this.

The McCain campaign has come under fire for an Internet ad that accuses Obama of calling Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin "a pig."

In fact, Obama last week likened the Republican ticket plans for government reform to putting "lipstick on a pig."

Even the Arizona senator admitted today that Obama didn't call Palin a pig, but defended the ad anyway.

From here.

The last thing this world needs is more fundamentalist nutjobs with their perverted sense of "righteousness" combating or encouraging governments in their pursuit of eternal reward.

Righteousness doesn't belong to anyone promoting any kind of violence. Only peace.

Oh, and care to quantify and cite sources for your absurdist claims against the US government's campaign against innocents?

You are actually going to deny that the U.S. government killed innocent civilians in the past and present?

But an initial U.S. investigation released Tuesday said only up to seven civilians and 35 militants were killed in the operation in the western province of Herat. A U.N. official who has seen one video of Azizabad told The Associated Press it shows maimed children. The official became highly emotional describing rows of bodies.

Go ahead and stick your head in the sand, but don't call others clueless or ignorant while you do it.

Being racially biased simply means you choose one over the other. It has been proved, and is logically obvious based upon the facts of evolutionary biology, that everyone prefers others of their same race.

Not necessarily.

Dear Slashdot,
It's nice to know there is someone who jacks off more than me.

Sincerely,
David Duchovny

Our society seems to act like parents own their children. They put parents' rights over childrens' rights. Kids are at a critical stage in which beliefs are formed that they will (in most cases) retain for the rest of their lives. Don't children have a right to not be brainwashed? Consider that it can have a lifetime impact on them (or worse).

If you don't know what I'm talking about, consider this news story (ABC News) about a Christian Science teen who died from a simple medical problem. I was disgusted by how people thought they actually had a right to indoctrinate their son with such insane and (as it proved) fatal beliefs. "Police Do Not Expect Criminal Charges to Be Filed in the Death". This is outrageous!

IMO, given that children are in a critical stage when it comes to forming beliefs, and given the impact that those beliefs can have on their entire life, it should be required by law that children be exposed to science, be taught critical thinking, and be taught about other belief systems besides their own. This should be considered a basic human right.

When you further consider the impact that religious extremism is having on the world (particularly with both Christian and Muslim extremism), this becomes an even greater imperative.