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You sound like a "Palestinian"!!!

Not unless you do what liberals do and stretch the definition of "terrorism" so much that painting the United States as being as bad as Al Quaeda is a matter of fancy footwork.

It doesn't take a liberal to redefine "terrorism" in their own interests. From an article at ABC News:

"Within six months of passing the Patriot Act, the Justice Department was conducting seminars on how to stretch the new wiretapping provisions to extend them beyond terror cases," said Dan Dodson, a spokesman for the National Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys. "They say they want the Patriot Act to fight terrorism, then, within six months, they are teaching their people how to use it on ordinary citizens."

And

A North Carolina county prosecutor charged a man accused of running a methamphetamine lab with breaking a new state law barring the manufacture of chemical weapons. If convicted, Martin Dwayne Miller could get 12 years to life in prison for a crime that usually brings about six months.

As you can see from these tidbits and the overall article, any crime which can find the slightest foothold for prosecution within the new anti-terrorism laws is being treated as a terrorism case.

I see your points about Rush Limbaugh being an ignorant fool. I've listened to Rush's show and I see what you're talking about, but I've also heard many other broadcasters do the same, so I've grown somewhat accustomed to it. Limbaugh does have some points, and for all the negative about him, he does present a side of the story that you might not otherwise get from the generally liberal media.

Donovan McNabb is, indeed, overrated by the media. But it's not at all because of racial reasons at all. Let's face it, fans and sportscasters alike enjoy watching a quarterback who can scramble and can turn a play that looks like a sack into a big play to get positive yardage. It's not necessarily the greatest style of play, either, and is one that can lead to injury problems. Also, Philadelphia's defense really is underrated and doesn't get enough credit.

Now, what bothers me more is there's people who have said equally bad or worse things and there's been little to no fuss about it. Take Red Sox pitcher Pedro Martinez. He lashed out against ESPN in an expletive-filled tirade and yet nobody made a fuss about it. He accused ESPN, and specifically Peter Gammons, of being racist. Pedro claimed that Sammy Sosa was treated unfairly due to race. Martinez pretty much said that Barry Zito was overrated by the media because he's white. Nobody made a fuss about these comments. Absolutely nothing happened. And yet what he said was worse than what Rush said.

Cubs manager Dusty Baker also made some questionable comments about black players withstanding heat better than white players. There was some complaints about Baker, but not the outcry there was about Rush. He wasn't forced to resign. There was no suspension leveled against him by the Cubs or Major League Baseball.

Why is it we pick and choose who we're going to go after when they make possibly racist comments? All of these examples - Rush, Pedro, and Baker - made stupid comments, and all of them had the potential to be inflammatory. If we want to stop comments that may provoke racial tensions, we can't pick and choose who we stop and who we let go. If a fuss is going to be made about Rush's comments, we can't let Pedro or Baker off the hook, either.

Stupid comments like the ones mentioned above have no place in sports. Sports are constantly becoming more and more ethnically diverse, and as such, these comments have the potential to alienate more and more players.

It's perfectly okay for anyone to have those views. It's also okay for them to say what they thing. That's what the first amendment is all about. On the other hand, it's the right and responsibility of teams, leagues, and networks to encourage an attitude of ethnic tolerance in sports and to remove those who choose to say things that are racially inflammatory.

If Rush can't say it, why can Pedro or Dusty?

• Apple's hardware is some of the most proprietary locked down machinery in existance.
• Microsoft develops software that people are actually willing to put down hard-earned cash to buy. Now, compare that to the Linux people.
• The average Linux enthusiast's main concern is that the software they use is free of cost. When's the last time any of you Linux people actually bought a distribution and not copied it from someone else?
• The RIAA produces music that people love enough to *cough* steal. Yes I know it's not really stealing because the RIAA still has a copy of the music and nothing was taken away from them and you wouldn't have paid for the music anyways. Yeah, whatever cheapskate! Americans have so much disposable income I find it hard to believe that you couldn't spare a Benjamin for the hours you will spend listening to music. Now, we may not all like Britney Spears but there are hundreds of other artists to choose from. Somebody must like to listen to at least some of it, otherwise Kazaa would be dead. The RIAA is right in sending lawsuits out to people who are caught distributing their music. And no, you aren't fighting for the little guy when you steal RIAA's stuff, you are expanding the profitability of the broadband industry and reducing the profitability of selling music. Because the broadband industry's growth thrives on filesharing, the industry must ensure that there are more files to share to keep growing. Thus, megacorporations develop such that the broadband industry subsidizes music production in order to continue the profitabil

Totally offtopic, but still...

You tell me who won the fucking war.

Your crazy attempt to rewrite history in one Slashdot comment failed.
Last time I checked, Vietnam won the war. Quite shamefully for the US, don't you think? Apparently their state-of-the-art military technology wasn't enough to beat a bunch of people who have nothing better to do then to
Quote: spend all day in the rice fields or staring at a donkey's asshole thinking up new ways to cook rat.

And apparently they're not learning from their mistakes and still unrequestedly mingle in the affairs of other countries.
It's the US soldiers who are the real victims in this case of course. Bush couldn't care less about their fate, it seems.

Jobs in many industries will go unmanned.

Personally I think it would be nice if when our experienced Air Force pilots get displaced by unmanned craft, that these guys can find jobs in the space program.

I don't believe anyone has ever been stupid enough to say Saddam was behind September 11, but there has been quite a bit of tiptoeing around the idea among the administration.

Instead we have statements that heavily suggest this was the case, while leaving enough room to squirm away later:

Bush: "The regime has long-standing and continuing ties to terrorist organizations. And there are al Qaeda terrorists inside Iraq," he said.

This comes from the following, by ABC News:
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/Iraqpo litics020926.html

These days everyone has a satellite; Even Nigeria, the second most corrupt country in the world has one.

Here are some relevant stories on ESPN.com's ESPNGamer site:

http://sports.espn.go.com/espngamer/story?id=16372 28

http://sports.espn.go.com/espngamer/story?id=16429 83

Here are some relevant stories on ESPN.com's ESPNGamer site:

http://sports.espn.go.com/espngamer/story?id=16372 28

http://sports.espn.go.com/espngamer/story?id=16429 83

ABC News has been covering the entire healthcare issue this week. Tonight or tomorrow, the question of "is the healthcare we get, really the best?" And the previous one was about how the size of the staff needed just to administrate the whole system is greater than the number of doctors, and nurses.

Are you certain of that?? payola still happens

Sometimes things aren't as bad as the media portrays them.

You are correct with the debit card that they will not fund a debit card transaction with anything but your existing PayPal balance, meaning you'd have to transfer money in, wait for three business days 'til it shows up, and then use the debit card.

Instead of getting the debit card (which I have and do find useful), for this purpose I would recommend using the PayPal debit bar, which just gives you a virtual MasterCard number you can use online. The requirements to get it are:
- Have a Domestic PayPal account
- Be Verified (have added and confirmed a bank account)
- Have added a credit card where the monthly statement is sent to a physical street address (not a P.O. Box)
- Have a positive balance in their PayPal account
- Have a PayPal account in good standing (as determined by the Account Review Department)

In other words, (a) you don't have to wait for the card to be delivered, (b) you don't have to have a Premier or Business account, and (c) you don't have to have had the account for 60 days.

In answer to whomever said the card was issued by Bank One, you might be thinking of the PayPal credit card, which is actually issued by Providian. It's just your average sponsored credit card, like the Disney Visa or the Amazon.com Visa. Just a standard Bank One credit card with a PayPal logo that PayPal markets for them and PayPal gets a cut of the commission. You don't even need to be a PayPal user to get it. The debit card, by contrast, is actually issued by PayPal themselves.

Mysterious Kokomo Hum

I grew up near Kokomo and still have relatives that live there. However none of them have ever complained of the hum.

If you combine this new reactor and get yourself a few hundred million of these little nuclear waste eating bacteria Bugs Save the Day {Hmm, posted the same day} you could have a very safe, retively cheap, virtually endless supply of power. Whats not to like.

See This ABC News story as an example of the many stories written on this topic.

With all the money labels are paying to get songs on the radio, why would they be complaining about internet radio stations doing it for free?

You can add to Bush's list of accomplishments the fake California energy 'shortage' engineered by Enron and Cheney which sent 17 billion dollars from California to Texas. Or how the investigation of the energy policy manipulation which permitted it, is currently being stonewalled by the White House.

1. The Department of Commerce; VeriSign's contract to operate .com and .org was originally with them.
2. The Federal Communications Commission, which oversees telecommunications.
3. The Senate Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Communications; contact the committee itself, the chairman, the ranking member, and any of the other members you'd like.
4. The House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, including the committee itself, the chairman, the vice-chairman, and the ranking member. Plus any of the other members you feel like contacting.
5. The Federal Trade Commission, which hears consumer complaints.
6. Your U.S. Representative
7. Your Senators
8. Your Governor
9. Your State Legislators
10. ICANN's wildcard comment address
11. Finally, complain to the media. If they get enough letters on a topic, they'll run stories. Try the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Washington Times, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, Fox News, CBS News, ABC News, NBC News and MSNBC.

Remember, VeriSign is busy telling them its side of the story. We need to tell them ours!

If you are Dutch, then Piet Hein is a national folk hero. If you are Spanish or Portugese then he was a rapacious Dutch pirate stealing colonial income.

If you're Canadian, then the Brig the Sir John Sherbrooke was a warship, if you were American, a pirate ship. Vice-versa for the Syren.

As with acts of war anywhere, perspectives can differ even amongst folks supposedly on the same side.

Of course, we all know how good Wal-Mart is about actually doing these things
Wal-Mart stops selling guns in California after nearly 500 violations of CA firearms laws

I actually like Wal-Mart's system with games and movies even if it's only because they actually carry the stuff. I'm always a little leary about buying movies, music, and games at Wal-Mart after the early-to-mid-90s, when half of what you'd buy there would be censored and wouldn't have much of a label to let you know it. At least if they're checking IDs they're less likely to censor the content.

The public and the government will actually tolerate a benevolent monopoly for quite some time if no one complains about it. Major league baseball is a perfect example

Not. Major league baseball is an example of an entity that is exempt from the antitrust laws because it has an exemption. A trilogy of Supreme Court cases, beginning with Oliver Wendell Holmes in the twenties have sealed the deal.

If the announcement has been made, it has been successful. Time to pop the champaign and give a solid salute on a major accomplishment.

For those in the United States, ABC News television program NightLine is doing a special 1 hour program on the subject. There are web links to the story on that page as well. This should be an interesting program to watch, and seeing it on television does bring some reality to the whole thing rather than reading about it on Slashdot. It is also nice to see the mainstream press talk about this stuff as well.

If the announcement has been made, it has been successful. Time to pop the champaign and give a solid salute on a major accomplishment.

For those in the United States, ABC News television program NightLine is doing a special 1 hour program on the subject. There are web links to the story on that page as well. This should be an interesting program to watch, and seeing it on television does bring some reality to the whole thing rather than reading about it on Slashdot. It is also nice to see the mainstream press talk about this stuff as well.

65-13 How embarrassing!

Article Here

I personally use the reviews section of movies.com to get a pretty good idea of what's worth seeing and what's not. Because they grab the reviews of most of the reputable sources, it's a pretty good measure of whether I'm going to bother going to the theater. I find that the real thing that pisses most viewers off is not so much how good/bad the movie is (that's in there somewhere), but how well it meets their expectations. If you go into a movie like American Pie expecting sophisticated humor, you're going to be disappointed no matter how funny the rude humor happens to be. When someone asks me whether a movie is "good" or not, the answer I give is almost always more related to whether it's good for "what it is". Is a movie like Bulletproof Monk a great cinematic work that's going to make you rethink your life? No. But it's an entertaining buddy/kung fu movie.

Incidentally, I see about 25-30 movies per month between the theater and DVD and find I am rarely actually disappointed. Rather, I frequently find myself saying, "Well, they *said* that movie sucked. Why did I think they were wrong?"

What Happens When a Linux Geek Takes Over a Canadian Football Team ?

* Bob Young, founder of Red Hat and Lulu.com buys Canadian football team the Hamilton Ticats.
* Ticats playbook submitted to SourceForge for development. Fans of the Canadian Football League are invited to submit revisions.
* Initially puzzled by open source strategy, other CFL teams begin using the plays.
* Ticats adopt open-channel Wi-Fi for communications between coaches and quarterbacks using new helmet developed under the GPL, known as the GNU-Helmet. Xs and Os on playbook diagrams are replaced with 1s and 0s. Fans begin to show up at games with laptops to IM the assistant coaches.
* Ticats playbook becomes bestseller .
* First season is devoted to eliminating bugs. Bob Young called an eccentric, fringe player. Headline screams "Playbook Bazaar -- Bizarre!"
* Innovation in CFL play explodes. Stadiums host record crowds. US newspapers run stories, but most assume that the sport in question is actually soccer.
* Bill Gates surprises press by purchasing Seattle Seahawks.
* In the third season, CFL continues to gain momentum. Young brokers a revolutionary agreement with the Australian Football League incorporating new rules and tactics. Games become more interesting. Cable channel TechTV signs contract to air every CFL game. US viewers begin to abandon NFL games in droves.
* NFL sues, claiming a process patent on option plays
* Clear-Channel takes over 90% of US stadiums and inks 10-year contract with NFL. Fans are routinely strip-searched for illicit food and drink items as they enter stadiums.
* Gates responds to decrease in attendance at games by inking broadcast deal with all four networks to air games simultaneously.
* Canada announces increase in immigration. MIT Beavers win Division Championship.
* Electronic Arts announces that "Madden NFL 2007" will be open source. Furor erupts. New version quickly surfaces in which characters can be forced to play soccer.
* NYT article notes that enrollment in youth football programs across North America are up, as are demands for reinforced padding and elastic straps for eyeglasses. 'Football is all about brains!" bellow coaches.
* 2010 - Ticats win Grey Cup for the first time in decades. Average size of defensive lineman is 5'7", 155 lbs.

Of course, the situation can change over time. Take the situation San Francisco for example, where real estate got so expensive that teachers could no longer afford to live in their school districts, and the city looked into providing public housing for them. I love this quote from the linked article:

(HUD Spokesman Larry) Bush said his agency believes the program will also help attract new teachers.

Yay, become a teacher and go live in the projects! Where do I sign up???

FWIW, Ashcroft is Morman.

Nope.

Ashcroft is a Pentecostal (Asssemblies of God), and is the son of a Pentecostal minister.

Okay, I finally found something (for some reason getting the right Google keywords was unusually difficult). Here's exit poll data from the 2000 and 1996 presidential elections. Both show the highest Republican support coming from voters with some college or a college degree. Those without any college or with postgraduate study are more likely to vote Democratic.

...ever. You'll have to endure some flash, but it's well worth it. The Phillips iPronto is more than just a remote control, it's a giant penis extension too. Think tablet PC dedicated to controlling everything and anything that is half willing. I have one of the original Pronto's and it reduced fifteen remote controls to one; easily one of the best purchases I've ever made. Here's a techtv review. And if you lick it, you can taste your own laziness reflected back at you.

1. The Department of Commerce; VeriSign's contract to operate .com and .org was originally with them.
2. The Federal Communications Commission, which oversees telecommunications.
3. The Senate Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Communications; contact the committee itself, the chairman, the ranking member, and any of the other members you'd like.
4. The House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, including the committee itself, the chairman, the vice-chairman, and the ranking member. Plus any of the other members you feel like contacting.
5. The Federal Trade Commission, which hears consumer complaints.
6. Your U.S. Representative
7. Your Senators
8. Your Governor
9. Your State Legislators
10. ICANN's wildcard comment address
11. VeriSign itself
12. Finally, complain to the media. If they get lots of letters on a topic, they'll run stories. Try the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Washington Times, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, Fox News, CBS News, ABC News, NBC News and MSNBC.

You obviously never saw the movie The Corsican Brothers.

But it can happen in Canada too.

"Doom 3 will be out sometime next year." - 2002

Since one of the entrants for the X-prize is John Carmack, if things go wrong, then Doom 3 may never be finished.

HH
---

1. The Department of Commerce; VeriSign's contract to operate .com and .org was originally with them.
2. The Federal Communications Commission, which oversees telecommunications.
3. The Senate Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Communications; contact the committee itself, the chairman, the ranking member, and any of the other members you'd like.
4. The House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, including the committee itself, the chairman, the vice-chairman, and the ranking member. Plus any of the other members you feel like contacting.
5. The Federal Trade Commission, which hears consumer complaints.
6. Your U.S. Representative
7. Your Senators
8. Your Governor
9. Your State Legislators
10. ICANN's wildcard comment address
11. VeriSign itself
12. Finally, complain to the media. If they get lots of letters on a topic, they'll run stories. Try the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Washington Times, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, Fox News, CBS News, ABC News, NBC News and MSNBC.

Easy. Morality and ethics are societal standards. They're almost always tied to laws. You can certainly believe that an action is moral and/or ethical, but you can only perform that action if society doesn't disagree with you.

To think that law and morality are one in the same is the worst thing you can possibly do. If you lived in nazi Germany, the law said that you should round up all the jews, disabled people, and every other targetted group and kill them. If you think that makes doing so right, there is something VERY wrong with you.

Right now, the laws say that downloading MP3s of songs that you never bought is illegal. It doesn't matter if hundreds of thousands of people are doing it, large-scale civil disobedience doesn't change the law any more than it has forced pot to be legalized.

Large-scale disobedience was one of the main tools of the civil rights movement of the 60s... and since blacks aren't treated like shit anymore, guess what? It works.

Plus, your arguments are specious, narrowly tailored to suit your MP3 habits. You don't make any sense -- you're arguing that if an artist's catalog is made available to anyone for free, that the artist can make that up in volume? Sure, someone may get turned on to an artist by downloading a song for free, but how is that going to translate to sales if the product is available FOR FREE?

You are correct in saying that most artists will lose album sales to MP3 downloading. However, this will NOT lower the artist's profit - here's why: When you buy a CD, the artist makes a VERY small amount of money, 25 cents if he's lucky. The same artist, even if not extremely popular, can rake in 100K PER CONCERT. So what happens when more people are getting their music for free (at a loss of 25 cents each)? More people go to concerts. With those numbers, even a 5% increase in concert sales would make up for losing every last CD sale - and if you don't want to take my word for it - read THIS.

As for your identity thing, your argument is 100% USDA-approved Grade A flawed logic. Your whole argument centers around losing nothing physical, and therefore suffering no DIRECT income loss, only indirect. The thing is, since the artist MAKES more indirect income than he loses, the entire argument is negated.

Uh-oh.

I wonder why the FCC didn't do it?

Where are all the Texas trolls? I haven't heard anything since September 13th or so. Saved me loads on my OU Texas tickets.

hauling a 66 year old in front of a judge claiming she's a Little League player

That's not as far-fetched as it sounds. Theoretically you can't play Little League after 12, but some people "give 110%"...

It appears to my layman's observations that the primary cause of global warning is that the sun is getting hotter, and we'd have global warming no matter what people did, short of blotting out the sun.

A hotter sun or other non-Earthling-controlled phenomenon seems to be the primary cause.

IANAScientist,

- Brian

Maybe the sun's about to go nova. We don't know everything about stellar physics after all...

Global Warming On Mars - I suppose that's due to all the industry and automobiles (esp. those damned SUVs) up there.

Microsoft has adopted an extremely powerful public relations method, but it is a self-destructive one: Microsoft has declared that its software dies, regardless of how many users it has.

Linux, in contrast, offers software that lives forever, if an organization wants to support it. This makes a big difference to large organizations. There are many, many situations where a 350 MHz Pentium I computer running some data entry system is just fine, especially when it has been completely debugged and is giving no trouble.

When Microsoft enforces software death, those organizations must disturb something that is working well. As you can imagine, they are extremely reluctant to do so. The issue is often not money. The issue is often management capability. There is plenty of work to do without disturbing something that is working well.

From the IT World article:

"The cost of licensing Microsoft products and the lack of support for some of them, such as the NT operating system, which is still used widely in many city administrations, are among the chief reasons for the nine German cities to mull a switch from the U.S. software giant to providers of open-source products, he said." [My emphasis, of course.]

Not only do Microsoft's products regularly die, but Microsoft has a schedule of assisted suicide: Windows Desktop Product Life Cycle Support and Availability Policies for Businesses. Bill Gates has become the Dr. Jack Kevorkian of software. Mr. Gates has, for example, decreed the death of Windows 98, which is used by at least 50,000,000 people throughout the world.

Then Google for info. "The family of a slain motorist has filed suit against the maker of a video game that two teens claim inspired them to shoot at passing cars on a Tennessee highway."
That's one of many links. Point is, there is no reference to the parents of the shooters suing anyone, or parents absolving themselves of responsibility by casting blame elsewhere, which seems to be what most of the discussion here is accusing them of.

Do I think that the game makers should be sued? Nope, if anything the family of the deceased should be suing the parents of the brainless kids for what is an obvious case of lack of parenting.

The Hamel family lawyer put it this way:

" The industry needs to cough up money so victims and their families can be compensated for their pain."

It only ran for a limited time and as far as I know they've never repeated it.