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But you don't see US forces celebrating the death of civilians.

Just because they're prisoners, doesn't mean they aren't civilians.

By the Grace of God, Praise and Glory be to him, Muslims were able to defeat and force them out of Somalia, as they expelled them before, from Aden. This blockade and this tightening doesn't hurt us much. We expect to be rewarded by God, Praise and Glory to him.

Linda Ham dismissed the issue, saying, "Really, I don't think there is much we can do, so you know it's not really a factor during flight [be]cause there isn't much we can do about it."

A far cry from the early NASA attitude of "Failure is not an option." I think Ms. Ham should be charged with negligent homicide for that decision. She was wrong on the foam and she was wrong that NASA couldn't have done anything about the problem had the spy cameras provided clear evidence of the damage.

Only Slashdot's gayest readers (and Jim McGreevey) saw that. No wonder you chose to remain anonymous. I wonder why I did...?

This is bad because the copyright weasel will undoubtably be teaching our children that eternal copyrights held by corporate "individuals" and heirs of dead creative geniuses are a good thing. When, in fact, I would rather my children learn that a much more intelligent and socially responsible copyright term was originally put into law, before media conglomerates started buying corrupt politicians.

I would also rather have my children learn that it is much better to make sure that the artists are directly compensated, by supporting local and independant musicians, rather than lining the pockects of corrupt business monopolies.

"Thurlow was struggling to get PCF-3's wounded gunner out of his hole and onto the deck when the damaged Swift ran aground hard on a shoal on the right side of the river, sending Thurlow somersaulting into the water. At the same moment, the five Swifts came under fire from the right side again, and Kerry remembered thinking that was it -- they were going to get completely cut off and annihilated in a crossfire."

Kerry and the other wounded men received medical attention aboard a Coast Guard cutter, which was the closest ship capable of treating them. Along with a third Purple Heart for the injury to his right arm, Kerry was also awarded a Bronze Star for his bravery, as was Larry Thurlow.

Disney has already ventured into projecting videos on uncommon surfaces, such as the water spray screen in Fantasmic and the Grim Grinning Ghosts effect in the Haunted Mansion attraction.

Oops, I meant Thurlow, the guy who was accusing Kerry of being dishonest. Thurlow , busted.

Also, more interesting information about the swiftboat veterans.

Avis doesn't, but a no-name company in Connecticut got sued for doing it

Of course! Think of the children! I expect politicians to trot this out every time they're eroding our rights. I fear for the Republic when ordinary citizens start doing so.

The masses are sheep. I expect them to jump at shadows.

Of course 'terrorists' are the latest fade fear. My sister in law calls my wife every time something 'terrorist' related happens. She called when a 21 yr old took a plane joy riding into powerlines. She called when a Military Hummer was stolen. She calls all the time with these silly news items and lives in fear. What a waste...

She fears all these possible threats, but ignores all the rights she is losing to protect her from those threats.

It couldn't possibley fall on top of itself if it was from the bottom up. Those very words imply that it is hit from the top.

Are you ESL? Those sentences aren't comprehensible at all. I suggest you learn about "pronouns", and try again. Or if you can't handle pronouns, then just repeat the statement with each word "it" replaced with the actual noun you meant.

Prove it.

Prove that the terrorists didn't know the buildings would collapse? Sure, read their own words. They were pleasntly suprised at the total destruction.

It really isn't that difficult to determine Disney's businesses. A quick look at their annual report under Key Businesses will given you a workable list if you are interesting in boycotting.

For movies, you have: Walt Disney Studios, Walt Disney Pictures, Touchstone, Walt Disney Feature Animation, DisneyToon Studios, Miramax and the various Buena Vista studios. You can then check in Rotten Tomatoes when you are looking up the critic reviews you can also take a look at the Release Company to see if it is one of the names above. Example: The Village

As you get into other businesses, it gets more difficult. They include: ABC, Lifetime, A&E, ESPN, and local TV stations in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia and San Francisco - among others. However, Disney is just one of the big five - so that gives you four other media companies to choose from - specifically, Time Warner, Viacom, News Corporation and Bertelsmann.

Frankly, I don't think the other four would disagree with Disney on this point.

I hate to be a cynic, but I think the whole point of news reporting is to attract your attention to those crucial 8 minutes every half hour... the commerical sponsors.

What happens inbetween commercials only exists to get you to turn to their channel... after all thats why (1) products like TIVO scare the crap out of them for its ability to hide commercials, and (2) product placement in the shows themselves allows commercial time to blend with content time. Hell, CBS was running programs about books that the parent company published, and calling it news... And after all, why are the news readers so pretty... so you'll tune in.

This is also why I believe news reporters tend to become politically biased over time towards their local markets... it is their job to retain viewers/customers, and so you preach to your local markets. The political landscape is strongly correllated with urban concentrations, as are the "big" markets. The "old" big 3 broadcast media meets the needs of the cities, with its liberal leanings. Those living away from urban areas have to rely on cable and satelite, which "new" big media promptly cornered the market, and tilted their content towards their libertarian/conservative consumers. The people like like Jennings's leanings will tend to flip on ABC, and ABC gets viewers to watch its commercials, and those of the other leanings will flip on Fox, and Fox gets viewers for its commercials. Companies win, educating citizens loses.

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/Entertainment/ap2004080 6_1457.html

I wonder if that will kill the Stephen King troll once and for all. . .

. . . of COURSE NOT.

I'm more interested in the X-Games. I have been watching their video coverage on the net.

"This sort of thing is of little use to anyone but criminals."

I agree, only for criminals and America doesn't need it since it's free enough as it is. It's not like lawyers are suing people left and right for calling them shyster! It's not like the government employees were silenced and faced retaliation for trying to warn of 9/11! Who would use such a system except for these, and these, and these people who needed to publish incriminating memos that went against the public good.

P.S. if there isn't a +1 sarcastic option for me, you can give parent a -1 for being an idiot.

And it continued running and still runs fine to this day!

http://abclocal.go.com/images/wpvi04132004laptopun der.jpg
http://abclocal.go.com/images/wpvi04132004laptoppu ll.jpg
http://abclocal.go.com/images/wpvi04132004tvpushpr e.jpg
http://abclocal.go.com/images/wpvi04132004tvpush.j pg

And it continued running and still runs fine to this day!

http://abclocal.go.com/images/wpvi04132004laptopun der.jpg
http://abclocal.go.com/images/wpvi04132004laptoppu ll.jpg
http://abclocal.go.com/images/wpvi04132004tvpushpr e.jpg
http://abclocal.go.com/images/wpvi04132004tvpush.j pg

And it continued running and still runs fine to this day!

http://abclocal.go.com/images/wpvi04132004laptopun der.jpg
http://abclocal.go.com/images/wpvi04132004laptoppu ll.jpg
http://abclocal.go.com/images/wpvi04132004tvpushpr e.jpg
http://abclocal.go.com/images/wpvi04132004tvpush.j pg

And it continued running and still runs fine to this day!

http://abclocal.go.com/images/wpvi04132004laptopun der.jpg
http://abclocal.go.com/images/wpvi04132004laptoppu ll.jpg
http://abclocal.go.com/images/wpvi04132004tvpushpr e.jpg
http://abclocal.go.com/images/wpvi04132004tvpush.j pg

All sound in principle, but then they go and fuck it up by keeping their pilots in the air for very long periods wired on speed

a threat
to
National
Security?

I don't trust my government to protect me from terrorism if that terrorism could be used to their advantage, like increasing public popularity for war with a country like Iraq to bring them our version of freedom and democracy.

Looking back its obvious to understand why these wars aren't popular, but today it seems like its very difficult to convince our leaders that diplomacy is the prefered method, or in the case of terrorism to strike directly at those groups responsible for the terror.

I suspect the reason the servers are dying is that they aren't "officially hosted." According to the movie blog, the trailer was released only on DVD to attendees of Comic-Con in San Diego.

Many of the networks have since apologized for it, as there were many other films and audio feeds from that night which showed the real story. Had anybody bothered to look for it the truth was right there, but they were all having too much fun playing the "I have a scream" speach to death.

EA's Steve Schnur "says that he and his team of two listen to 4,000-plus songs before deciding, for example, the 21 that will be included in "Madden NFL 2005," which. features such artists as Hoobastank, Green Day, Alter Bridge, the Hives, and New Found Glory."

Mm-hmm. Sure.

One thing the video game publishers are not benefiting from is an additional revenue stream; they are not being paid for the exposure they give the artists. Said an EA spokesperson, "We want to compensate the artists for their intellectual property. We also want to retain the integrity of the creative content of the game. We don't want the game to be just an advertising vehicle. If it evolves to that, then the spirit of the music within the game may change. Our goal is to create the most entertaining experience for the gamer."

Right. Totally.

The songs chosen and put into EA's games are picked based on the preferences of the designers. Definitely. Totally. Just like the songs chosen and put into radio playlists are picked based on the preferences of DJs.

BULLSHIT.

If you didn't RTFL, payola schemes have been ruining radio airplay for decades. Since direct payola is illegal, record companies hire "indies" (the nice term for music middlemen) to take the $ from the label to the radio station in order to "persuade" said station to play certain songs at certain times.

Oh, but EA said they don't take money? That's cute. Complete bullshit, but cute. I have a lot of buddies who only buy EA Sports video games (and the occasional GTA and such), and every single time they load up an EA Sports game around me, they almost always mention a "favorite song" on EA Trax. The shit works because it targets the perfect mainstream audience: sports-watching males, ages 15-35. Record labels would be crazy to ignore that kind of advertising.

I do wonder whether or not ESPN/Sega Sports is accepting $ for song contributions, though, since they appear to be dipping in the non-major-label pool. I've seen the figures on labels like Definitive Jux, and they can't afford much in marketing, so I'll play the semi-optimist and pretend that Take Two's financial clout has helped Sega make a move like that without asking for "indie" fees.

Not like EA needs the money, though, thanks to their superhuge bankroll these days.

...on musical plants...

Tasty bull fries .

Macs went with BSD, now Windows is converging with Eunuchs.

/Duke basketball sucks! P.S. go cats. :)

Do you really think the Boston police are going to abuse this technology to try to 'root out' political opponents? Is the English language going to slowly shrink into a Newspeak-like oppressive-thought system?
No. Its not.


Yes. It is and will.

Charges dropped against two Bush protestors who were arrested for wearing anti-bush T-shirts

and lets not forget about the special "protesting zones" set up for anti-Bush protestors, far far away from Bush, but pro-Bush supporters are allowed to come in and make it look as if everyone is in support of Bush to the media.

Orwell's work is timeless and applies to any concept of government. If you actually read and understood it, you would see that. (Orwell never mentions the British government in his book - the story is fictional based on his observarions of people and governments everywhere).

Are we in 1984 yet? No. We are a long way off. However, I do believe we are slowly getting there and I welcome anyone who wants to makes comparisons.

I'm not at all comfortable with the idea of gov't peering into my home (the infrared peekaboo case comes to mind), but you are a public person in the public space, and CCTV is actually a very small price to pay for the benefit of many fewer "broken windows".

Not true. Several researches found that outspoken, better dressed and looking people, have better chances to make more money than an intelligent person. Most people (dumb ones) perceive these people as more efficient than they really are. So do not flatter yourself.

BTW I also have a BMW and I am a technical person...
The difference is that you probably got yours from your daddy while I paid for it with my salary.

This is a very good point, and what with all the Fox news bollocks and such, many, many young people (and many my age too) really get into doubt if it did happen at all - which makes me mad and want to slap them like Buzz Aldrin did.

Bad Astronomy

Nick

That's because the moon landing hoax theory has about as much support as the flat earth theory nowadays. Telescopes can see the landing site, for example. See Unca Cecil's column and this site for more. And of course Buzz has the best nutcase response.

I beg to differ.

Auto racing is most definitely a sport. It requires lightning-quick reflexes, endurance, and smarts.

It also requires the most cojones.

ESPN.com did a nice article that reflects this.

I keep hearing this inane banter from the right day after day. Put up or shut up.

My my. Hostile, aren't we?

What evidence or analysis do you have that backs up your statement?

What statement in particular are you talking about? If you're referring to my statement about the corrupt French, Russians, or Chinese, please do us all a favor and read up on the fabled U.N. Oil For Food program. This is what we can look forward to if we abdicate our national responsibility to the U.N. as Kerry would have us do.

Senator Kerry has 3 purple hearts, a silver star and a bronze star.

Please remind me, is this war hero of yours, John Kerry, the same guy who can't decide if he's for the war on Iraq or against it? I quote: "I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it."

Bush can't even account for his days at the Texas Air National Refuge for Rich Boys.

This is a non-issue, pathetic really. How about important issues?

Bush has since reversed himself and is in a much weaker negotiating position than Clinton left him with.

On Korea, I can't believe you would try to claim that Clinton's Korea policies were working. The minute after Clinton's administration made the agreement with the North Koreans, they started cheating on the agreement. We lost all credibility and face by this misguided attempt to appease the Kim regime.

I didn't actually hear what you think we should do about N. Korea...do you have a plan? I haven't heard one from Kerry either. Funny how that works.

Your inability to refute facts and analysis with any of your own just proves that you are as foolish as he is.

Again, why so hostile? And what's with the personal attacks? You don't even know me. Do you make it a habit to personally attack anyone who doesn't agree with your point of view?

Parroting the Faux News party line doesn't prove anything!

I don't watch Fox News. But as for you, parroting the NPR/NY Times party line doesn't prove anything to me, either!

Another BMX Sissy

I think Slashdot is improved by articles like this one: a man dressed as the U.S. fast food chain's mascot Ronald McDonald launched into a diatribe criticizing its policies and food. It's much funnier than the cancer rates of 1950's veterans.

You can't get around them without chopping off someone's hand and plucking out their eyes

You've been watching too much Sci-Fi.. The Sci-reality of the situation that they can currently be fooled by fake fingers made from gelatin, or a photo of an eye.

Just like the pious liberal hypocrites of Nantucket Sound, where wind energy could supply immense amounts of clean energy-- but ohhh, NOoo, the windmills get in the way of the view from the deck of my yacht, put them where some poor white trash live, thank you; serves them right for voting for Bush.

Fucking hypocritical limousine-liberal scum like Teddy Kennedy make me sick. I hope the bloated swine croaks soon.

-ccm

Untrue.

Seriously, how will this stop terrorists? You can go to walmart.com and get a computer that is quite capable of decent encryption for $200, and maybe an extra $150 or so tops for a monitor. Internet access $20 a month.

Here in the U.S., the spy Brian Regan used library computers to shop around secrets to Libya and Iraq. Evidently he didn't agree with you, either.

I would find it objectionable if the PATRIOT act created a "Library Awareness Program" that monitored the reading habits of all patrons, but it doesn't do that. Agents still have to get a warrant for specific records. Are libraries really such sacred places that they shouldn't answer to warrants?

Would it be better if librarians said "Sorry, Brian Regan was communicating with Libya in our library and it's a holy place. Get thee hence, sinner!"

Linkage:

Le Tour

BBC's Le Tour page

The Guardian's page has excellant recaps

Sports Illustrated's page

ESPN

OLN has the DAILY TV SCHEDULE

8:30-9am ET LIVE Pre-Race Show
9-11am ET LIVE Coverage
12pm-2pm ET Re-Air of Live Coverage
2:30-4:30pm ET Re-Air of Live Coverage
5-7pm ET The Roadside Tour
7:30-8pm ET Eastern Prime Time Pre-Race Show
8-8:30pm PT Pacific Prime Time Pre-race Show
8-10:30pm ET Eastern Prime Time Expanded Coverage
8:30-11pm PT Pacific Prime Time Expanded Coverage

Any other link recommendations?

Billy

Look, there is no way that the right to vote should be given to anyone who's still dependent on his/her parents. There is too much room for abuse.

Folk who cross voting age don't magically become financially independent. Adults are often dependent on their spouses for money. The point is, secret ballot gives everyone a fair chance to vote in secrecy.

The original point I was trying to make is, there is no magic definition of adulthood. Once upon a time, you could be 25 and be thought of as "too young". It gradually went down to 21 and today we have 18 as the "magic age" -- an age that's actually low by historical standards.

There are hundreds of 14-17 year-olds, they are recognized as some of the biggest spenders around. At the same time, they've got no rights and no one to speak up for what *they* want (as against childrens-rights groups who think they know what people of that age want). Sounds unfair to me. If you read Glenn Reynold's article I linked to above, you'll note he talks about the enormous waste of talent we incur as we imprison kids in high school.

Here's an interesting related article you may like to read. I disagree about giving babies the ballot, and 14-year olds may not yet be ready to vote, but giving 16-year olds the right to vote is IMO a no-brainer.

You should see your doctor about early onset alzheimer's. Its flutter and "wah". :)

THE OFFICIAL TACO-SNOTTING FAQ

By J. Wipo Troll, Esq., $Revision: 1.16 $

[This article attempts to document a vile, ungodly practice that runs rampant through the homosexual geek and hacker community, a practice known as Taco-snotting, or simply snotting. Taco-snotting is something that few geeks dare talk about in free or open conversation, but it is nonetheless a widely-practiced and dangerous form of homosexuality. If you or anyone you know has ever engaged in Taco-snotting, please get professional help before it is too late. ed.]

Why do I keep receiving emails from an individual calling himself CmdrTaco?

You have been receiving unsolicited mailings from a certain

Robert CmdrTaco Malda, owner of the popular technology website slashdot.org. Actually, its not a very popular site in the common sense of the word; the site is rife with pimply, antisocial geeks and hackers, zit-faced nerds, communists, dirty GNU hippies, and other societal rejects and outcasts. Its also home to one of the worlds largest suspected pædophile rings, the infamous Slashdot crew.

Whenever Mr. Malda gets bored (and who wouldnt, running a site like

Slashdot all day), he roams through the user database, penis in hand, looking for people who might enjoy engaging in homosexual activities with him. How he determines this is anyones guess; but if you have a homosexual-sounding nickname, or a nick with a letter of the English alphabet in it, youre a potential candidate.

This time, he found

you. Lucky you.

Mr. Malda seems to be speaking in some sort of code. Do you know what it means?

CmdrTacos code language is relatively easy to decipher. This pervert prefers to speak in thinly-veiled sexual innuendo (yes, thats right: he wants you) to evade the watchful eye of Slashdots parent corporation,

VA Software. Mr. Maldas Commander is, of course, his penis: a small, withered little thing that lives in his pants and only comes out in the presence of other male geeks or at the beck and call of Maldas own lubed-up right hand. His Taco bells are the shriveled testicles that droop beneath his Commander, and his Taco sauce is his thin, runny semen. It should be more than obvious to you now what he means if he asked you to ring his Taco bells or taste his gourmet Taco sauce.

I would also guess CmdrTaco asked you to engage in a practice known as Taco-snotting and, if he was in a particularly depraved mood at the time, a circle-snot.

Good Lord. And, yes, he did. What is Taco-snotting?

Taco-snotting is the term used by Robert Malda to refer to the depraved act of fellating another man (homo- or heterosexual; CmdrTaco is rumoured to prefer raping unwilling victims), then blowing the semen out his nose and back onto the face and body of his victim. Naturally, a long, bubbly stream of milky-white semen is

left on CmdrTacos face, dribbling out of his nose and down his cheek: hence the term, Taco-snotting.

And if thats not bad enough

A circle-snot is a Taco-snotting

circle-jerk, anothe

The hacking is fun, a combo of real time control and game programming, and it's gratifying to be involved in software work that is more beneficial to humanity than the usual "moving bits from here to there."

the critically acclaimed "Gigli"

I call bullshit.

What critics "acclaimed" Gigli? Ebert and Roeper gave it two thumbs down.

Even Ben Affleck himself poked some self-deprecating fun at that stinker when he hosted SNL.

I understand the point you were trying to make, but you've completely failed at demonstrating that Hollywood portrays bad movies as gems. Hollywood produces hundreds of mainstream, big-budget movies each year. They can't all be "Saving Private Ryan" (which was, incidentally, critically acclaimed - two thumbs up from Ebert and Roeper).

Incidentally, "Dodgeball" wasn't all that good. It wasn't nearly as good as either "Old School" or "Zoolander", both of which were also merely mediocre.

If you're trying to justify your illegal actions (that of downloading movies, which you already admitted to), well, I guess you'll have to do better than "Hollywood made a terrible movie (true) and said it was fantastic (a lie - no respected critics made such a review)"

Where are your references?

I'm using two pieces of information and putting them together. The first is Moore's claim that F911 is an "op-ed" piece.

Moore is quoted in this article as saying, "I would like to see Mr. Bush removed from the White House...It [the movie] is an op-ed piece. It's my opinion about the last four years of the Bush administration. I'm not trying to pretend that this is some sort of, you know, fair and balanced work of journalism."

The second, of course, is the definition of propaganda: "The spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person."

As you can see from the definition, even if the film contains nothing but fact, which is still being debated, it can, and is, be done in a way so as to be considered propaganda.

So, as you can see, I'm not spreading lies, I'm spreading Moore's own words and using common meanings of words to understand what he says.

The fact that you bring up a source where he claims that the film is not propaganda reveals either that he doesn't know what the word means (which makes him uneducated at best, stupid at worst), or that he is contradicting himself (which makes him inconsistent at best, or a liar at worst, or perhaps it means that he has changed his mind about his own work between the two interviews).

Belloc

According to Macedonia resident Sam Vaknin, economist, author and internet expert, "...commercially compiled lists of 'dangerous countries' for internet scams, viruses, lotteries, etc. are being sold to ISPs and hosting companies... every day, I find another website has disappeared... last week it was an investment company related to Fidelity, yesterday a mental health website, today a radio program from the US."

While this appears to have been an entirely corporate initiative, political lobbying behind the scenes may also play a role.

"The fact that Russia and Israel- 2 epicenters of internet fraud and hacking on a global scale- 500 zillion trillion times bigger offenders than little Macedonia- are off the list is incredible," charges Vaknin. Yet these countries also have a much stronger political lobby within the United States than does the beleaguered Balkan state.

American ignorance of Macedonia (and the outside world in general) is revealed by this idiotic warning from the so-called "Bureau of Export Administration":

"...pay close attention to shipping or contact addresses located in countries with a high reported incidence of online fraud and many e-commerce web sites have found a high incidents of on-line fraud as well, such as Africa, Nigeria, Macedonia, Colombia, etc.."

Not only does this sentence violate grammar, it also transgresses geographical good sense (since when was 'Africa' a country?) and unfairly lumps Macedonia in with other, utterly different nations, quoting no specific sources to justify its inclusion in the list. And, despite its deceptive title and American-eagle background logo, the website (named "Exportbureau.com") is not governmental. Rather, this self-proclaimed "manufacturing and export information association" claims to be

"...a non profit organization [that] has been providing a completely free unbiased worldwide export manufacturing company directory to the worldwide public for the past 5 years since late 1998."

Or not...

On 19 March 2004, computer fraud was added to the Macedonian criminal code for the first time, in reaction to an initial (and relatively minor) upsurge of email lottery fraud and (non-internet) identity theft.

The first known case of identity theft in Macedonia occurred last year when a couple of young men, in affiliation with a foreign partner supplying plastic cards with magnetic strips, were able to knock off a few ATMs. However, the police soon put an end to this amateurish scheme, which succeeded in taking only 12,000 euros-peanuts in comparison to the $1.5 million snatched from New York ATMs by the Russian mafia in one case last year, or the Israeli mafia's multi-national ATM-milking efforts in 2002.

Moreover, Macedonia has a very low rate of general internet use. Leading Macedonian information technology site Metamorphosis rec

Well, yes and no. This may be a harsh assessment, but it is only natural for Copyright Holders to want their heirs to not work so hard.
Doesn't build character, however. If this is too "Brave New Worldy", though, yet, early U.S. lawmakers were truly worried about the 'fiction' of coporations having rights.
It's an unnatural, possibly immortal entity. And it can own stuff! Disney owns Pooh!! But Disney's really dead too! Bring back Alexandar Hamiltonianism! Cheers! Bah, preview URLS?!