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Also, I remember reading a while ago that the earth's helium resources are pretty limited. Any helium that escapes into the atmosphere isn't coming back. Ever.

So, once we use the helium we have, we aren't getting any more. One source says this may happen by 2030.

Found some googled info here and here and here.

Check this out:

Story (palmbeachpost.com)

An 11 year old snuck into his classroom during lunch and changed some of his grades on his teacher's computer. He was caught and is now facing FELONY computer fraud charges. Tell me that's not a bit ridiculous.

-Dan.

Um. The camp x-ray folks aren't the biggest concern. This is an issue of our constitutional rights: Maybe Zacarias Moussaoui belongs in a military prison. Jose Padilla however, as far as facts in evidence show, no different from you or I. Of course, I believe wholeheartedly that he is different from you or I, it just hasn't been proven to a judge. And if we're in "wartime" right now, please, tell me when in history we should have been at peace.

No, she wasn't just snorting coke. In fact, she was caught hiding a rock of crack cocaine, by staff at a drug treatment center, at which she was a patient. For this she received a ten day jail sentence. It should be noted that the evidence of her possessing crack was thrown out of court on a technicality, on the presumption that staff members of a medical treatment center should not be compelled to testify given confidentiality rules. However, some staff members had already publicly admitted finding the crack to journalists, so the facts had already become public knowledge.

Given that Ms. Bush has a long history of drug abuse, it's astonishing that the matter wasn't pursued further. Except for her family connections. Further proof that if you're rich or powerful criminal law simply doesn't apply.
--M

The decision by PBIA to not use the equipment had nothing to do with the accuracy of the equipment. Here is a less sensationalized story from the local newspaper which states "PBIA's decision to remove the equipment and not buy it reflects the federal government's takeover of airport security". The article mentions that the tests of the equipment were solicited right after the 9/11 incident, prior to the federal government announcing it would be addressing airport security. So the inaccuracy is not the reason this technology didn't end up in the airport.

maru

Uh huh. That's a deft little attempt on your part to ignore the massive election fraud that happened in Florida, without which Bush wouldn't be calling himself President. Further, Florida was the focal point of legal actions by both sides concerning the election, so in the most real sense the election was decided there. You did hear of a little case called Bush vs. Gore, didn't you?

As for "learning something", here's some starters for you.

1.58 million votes were never recounted even once.

There were also a lot of people who lost their right to vote because they were wrongly labelled as felons by a private company Kathryn Harris hired to scrub the voters lists.

And then there were all the illegal absentee ballots, some postdated as much as a week after the election, that did get counted.

According to the NORC recount, Gore won under all six possible scenarios for a state wide recount. If you count all the votes, Gore wins. If you don't count all the votes, Bush wins. It's as simple as that.

As they have been put in by your new Pres' they will probably ban VPorn as it is sinful.

Actually, the pro-censorship crowd would have done better with Gore/Lieberman - Anybody remember PMRC? And JL is an unabashedly pro-censorship kind of guy. They want(ed) to censor rock music and Hollywood, let alone the rougher stuff like (v)porn.

It must sadden Al's heart to see one of his many inventions put to such poor use.

OT: Nobody seems to be reporting this, but they finished the Miami-Dade recount. Surprise surprise, Al Gore LOST YET AGAIN.

The ballot's pretty fucking obvious. The number "3" beside Gore's name makes it pretty fucking clear that you punch the third hole for Gore

That's simply not true. Look here:

Palm Beach Ballot

Also, there were many claims as early as Tuesday night from hundreds Democrats loudly complaining that they tried to vote for Gore but then thought they accidently voted for Buchanan. I heard no such claims from Republicans that night, nor have I since.

For a picture of the ballot see this this site. The statue clearly states (emphasis added)

... then the elector shall, without leaving the polling place, retire alone to a booth or compartment provided, and place an "X" mark after the name of the candidate of his or her choice for each office to be filled, and likewise mark an "X" after the answer he or she desires in case of a constitutional amendment or other question submitted to a vote.

If this isn't enough to call to question the vote I don't know what would be.

--Karl

For a picture of the ballot see this this site. The statue clearly states (emphasis added)

... then the elector shall, without leaving the polling place, retire alone to a booth or compartment provided, and place an "X" mark after the name of the candidate of his or her choice for each office to be filled, and likewise mark an "X" after the answer he or she desires in case of a constitutional amendment or other question submitted to a vote.

If this isn't enough to call to question the vote I don't know what would be.

--Karl

Here are the facts:

Buchanan received 16,962 votes statewide in Tuesday's election, but 3,407 of that -- about one-fifth -- came from Palm Beach County alone. By comparison, Buchanan received 561 votes in Miami-Dade and 789 in Broward County.
from the Miami Herald

A good picture (not just a diagram) can be found here.

The ballot isn't the best UI I've seen, but the picture shows that it's unambiguous. The only way to mismark it is if you're legally blind (in which case you should have an election official assist you) or aren't paying attention (in which case you quite frankly have no business at the polls).
/.

In high school, I learned how to program on the school district's RCA Spectra 70 mainframe that was connected to a 110 bps KSR-35 teletype in each high school via modem. The RCA Spectra 70 was a clone of the IBM 360, except for the reliability bits. It crashed all the time. It offered Dartmouth BASIC, COBOL, WATFOR FORTRAN and RPG.

My first electronic computer was a Radio Shack TRS-80 Model 1 (AKA Trash-80) with 4K of DRAM. I really wanted an Apple II but I couldn't afford one.