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No. It is not.

So where do I find plain-text archive of all past and currently pending bills in congress? Gee, I don't know... have you tried reading the Congressional Record? Of course, if you do, you better be a fast reader... I hear it increases by about 4000 pages each day!

You can read all of Title 14 of the Code of Federal Regulations here, that contains all of the FARs.
http://ecfr.gpoaccess.gov/cgi/t/text/text-idx?&c=e cfr&tpl=/ecfrbrowse/Title14/14tab_02.tpl

Class B airspace is a type of airspace, it requires a transponder squawking (transmitting) a unique code, and constant contact with ATC, PITA to fly in, because of it's actual requirement of clearance to enter, which can be hard to get on busy days. Personally I avoid flight in Class B and busy class C airspace when I am flying VFR.

$3TRILLION a year Federal budget. $45TRILLION of committed US debt

Specifically, the Office of Management and Budget gives the outlay estimate at $2,472,205,000,000. The Debt Clock reads $8,351,239,051,664 as of this posting.

Remember that spending bills originate in the house, which has been under republican control for the past 11 years, so they're going to get credit/blame for the vast majority of spending related events.

Um, yeah, except for the bit that the bills also have to pass muster in the Senate and survive veto threats. The House isn't single-handedly responsible for the nation's fiscal situation -- in fact, it's not even primarily responsible.

ahh. well the last 15 years include 8 years of clinton in the exectuive office. Since your question refers to executive action, the answer is that both parties are roughly equal in that regard, but under clinton, the agencies were not allowed to share information with each other.

Please be specific about the laws Clinton broke to conduct warrantless survelliance.

Also, it is imporant to remember, that at no time during the past 15 years was there ever an actual surplus. The surplus you refer to was a projected surplus slated to occur a few years into the bush presidency IF the economy continued grow at 1999 levels

Unfortunately for you, the actual data is easily available on the Internet:

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy07/hist.html

Please see Table 1.1--SUMMARY OF RECEIPTS, OUTLAYS, AND SURPLUSES OR DEFICITS (): 1789-2011

You'll find that in the overall budget, the U.S. ran surpluses in 1998-2001, and in the on-budget totals (not counting Social Security), the U.S. ran surpluses in 1999 and 2000.

Where is the line to start the fight?

Fax or Call your Congressional Representatives.

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/cdirectory/index.html

Drop these guys a line.

http://ftc.gov/

If you are intelligent and well spoken... call your local news and make a case for this being a bad idea.

Or, if you want to be an ineffective lump, go ahead and sit back and shut up... If you're going to complain, for god's sake aim your mouth in the right direction.

I challenge every voting Slashdot reader to actually do something about this one and send a fax in tomorrow. E-mail can be filtered and ignored, but choking the phone lines that serve them will serve as an ironic way of showing how unhappy we are with the prospect of this merger.

I am a customer of these organizations and I want this stopped in it's tracks.

First, here's the actual regulation.

Second, aircraft use many pieces of equipment on many different bands from Longwave through microwave. FM radios, for example, have local oscillators which can interfere with VOR reception.

Third, keep in mind that most phones have GPS receivers built in to them nowadays. These phones could radiate enough of their LO to interfere with aircraft GPS gear.

Fourth, yes, it's true, pilots like me are supposed to be able to detect navigational problems and deal with them. And, in normal cruising airspaces, that's not much of an issue. However, it becomes a very big deal if you're following an instrument approach and suddenly a piece of equipment fails. The workload and procedural difficulties in that situation are not small while the risk for a major accident goes up very substantially.

Speaking as an instrument rated pilot and as an electrical engineer and a ham radio enthusiast of more than 30 years, yes, I'd like to think that what you posted is realistic most of the time. The problem is that it's not like that ALL of the time.

There are some ways to work around this mess. It wouldn't be that hard to set up a micro cell for the phones in the aircraft which would present a reasonable signal to all the phones and take over all of the traffic. This would accomplish several goals: (1) it would cause all the phones to reduce power because the cell is right there. (2) It would manage all the phone traffic so that special airline rates could apply (and thus fund the investment in equipment). (3) It would also shut the phones down to some minimal level during instrument approaches so that it would not have the chance to screw around with the aircraft navigation instruments.

Yes, I've used my phone while flying in my airplane (at low altitude). No, I don't see any problems using some electronic gear that I know about while cruising, even while flying on instruments. What I object to are the idiots who insist on using their favorite electronic gadget of the week while I'm trying to make the approach to an airport in Instrument Meteorlogical Conditions (IMC).

Arrogance and ignorance of that kind will probably not cause problems 99.99% of the time. But every now and then, it does. Would you like to take a 1 in 1000 chance of dying so that some nitwit can play with his (second) favorite toy?

I wouldn't.

"First, there is no "U.S. Code" (I assume you mean federal law)"

"Federal law" is officially referred to as "The United States Code." This is why federal laws are always referred to in the form $TitleUSC$Section e.g. 15USC144.

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/uscode/

I'd think that would come up somewhere in your "quite a bit of research." Puzzling why anyone with a clue would balk at the use of that term.

Hmmm, do you have any data to support your assertion that President Bush is indeed cutting school funding?

According to the Budget of the United States Government: Historical Tables Fiscal Year 2007 -- Section 4 -- Federal Government Outlays by Agency that is simply not the case. Spending for the Department of Education is much higher and increased much more sharply under Bush than his predecessor (2006 EST $83 Billion versus 2000 $33 Billion). There is a sharp dropoff at 2007 to EST $64 Billion but this is still above 2004 levels -- perhaps this is the cut that you are talking about?

These sorts of accusations are of course nothing new. I would like to make a bold proposal that Slashdot posters actually take the time to read the articles, fact-check, and follow up with relevant posts.

Like most federal regulations - a department proposes them, publishes it in the Federal Register, might have a hearing or two, and eventually it gets published in the Federal Register as a regulation.

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/fr/index.html

For someone who throws around a lot of pointed rhetoric, you might consider learning a bit about how the government works.

They have no legitimate wishes.

The exclusive right which
Congress is authorized to secure to authors and inventors owes its
existence solely to the acts of Congress securing it, from which
it follows that the rights granted by a patent or copyright are subject
to such qualifications and limitations as Congress, in its unhampered
consultation of the public interest, sees fit to impose.

Uhm...

I just looked at the Budget for 1999 and 2005. 1998's actual spending on everything education-like was ~ 46,700,000,000. 2004's actual spending on everything education-like was ~ 52,542,000,000. That's not an increase of 86%. 46.7b is around 86% of 52.5b, true. But that isn't an 86% increase. Sorry.

Source: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy06/browse.html

Clinton, while less than perfect, at least had some economic sense. Republicans now attribute his success to luck.

Clinton had no economic sense, and Republicans have always attributed the successful economy falling under his watch to luck. Clinton's budgets, before the dot-com boom fell into his lap, proposed to add around $200 billion to our national debt each year for the next five years (http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy96/browse.htm l, take the first link in the table, and see the bottom of page 2 of that PDF), adding another trillion to our already 5 trillion national debt.

2 - The UK didn't have something similar to Reg E in the United States regulating "electronic" banking (in the US, that would include ACH items, wire transfers, and ATM/debit card transactions). And apparently, the UK doesn't have the banking regulatory structure to add such regulations as necessary without passing new laws.

If anyone is interested, here is Reg E in all of its glory.

Bush doesn't initiate tax changes. They come from Congress and have to start in the House of Reps as set forth in Article I, section 7 of the US Constitution. You might wanna read Article II aswell, the limited powers of the presidency, U.S. Constitution.

The way these values are determined is by equating a function like f(taxation) to total GNP or GDP and graphing the results then finding the highest point on a curve where GNP+f(taxation) is a max. Historically large taxes tend to reduce the GDP and small taxes are insuffient for the government to perform its duties as required by the constitution.

The US currently collects about 3 trillion dollars in taxes every year.

How they do it and what their reasoning is is all freely available online

Maybe you can figure out where they're going wrong and run for office.

The FAA restricts the noise not the speed of aircraft going over the US, so keep it quiet and you can go as fast as you want.

Wrong. Take a look at Federal Aviation Regulation 91.817

91.817 Civil aircraft sonic boom.
(a) No person may operate a civil aircraft in the United States at a true flight Mach number greater than 1 except in compliance with conditions and limitations in an authorization to exceed Mach 1 issued to the operator under appendix B of this part.

So, even if you manage to solve the sonic boom issue, you still need to obtain an authorization from the FAA to operate at supersonic speeds over the US.

Now try acessing
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/coredocs.html/ from China

I just accessed that page fine from Hong Kong, China.

Can you reach any of those pages?

http://english.aljazeera.net/HomePage/
http://www.korea-dpr.com/
http://www.iran-daily.com/1384/2389/html/
http://www.cubaweb.cu/

If so, you're making use of a system maintained by the US Government.

Now try acessing
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/coredocs.html/ from China or

http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?sofocus=b s&sbrftog=1&catref=C6&fstype=1&from=R10&satitle=na zi+hitler&sacat=-1%26catref%3DC6&bs=Search&sargn=- 1%26saslc%3D2&sadis=200&fpos=ZIP%2FPostal&ftrt=1&f trv=1&saprclo=&saprchi=&fsop=1%26fsoo%3D1&coaction =compare&copagenum=1&coentrypage=search&fgtp= from Germany or France.

Seriously, who would you rather have in charge of the internet?

That would have been when it was established by the Communications Act of 1934.

Here's a some reading material for you over the weekend: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/cfr/. I hear the section on Homeland Security is especially exciting.

The funding for the Army Corps of Engineers has increased every year since at least 2002.

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy04/pdf/budget/ corps.pdf

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy05/pdf/budget/ corps.pdf

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy06/pdf/budget/ corps.pdf

2002: 4.6 Billion 2003: 4.7 Billion 2004: 4.8 Billion 2005: 4.9 Billion (estimate)

Are you really asking congress to investigate how the lower budget in 2006 was responsible for the hurricane damage in 2005?

The funding for the Army Corps of Engineers has increased every year since at least 2002.

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy04/pdf/budget/ corps.pdf

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy05/pdf/budget/ corps.pdf

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy06/pdf/budget/ corps.pdf

2002: 4.6 Billion 2003: 4.7 Billion 2004: 4.8 Billion 2005: 4.9 Billion (estimate)

Are you really asking congress to investigate how the lower budget in 2006 was responsible for the hurricane damage in 2005?

The funding for the Army Corps of Engineers has increased every year since at least 2002.

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy04/pdf/budget/ corps.pdf

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy05/pdf/budget/ corps.pdf

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy06/pdf/budget/ corps.pdf

2002: 4.6 Billion 2003: 4.7 Billion 2004: 4.8 Billion 2005: 4.9 Billion (estimate)

Are you really asking congress to investigate how the lower budget in 2006 was responsible for the hurricane damage in 2005?

We(society) accept traffic cops and their patrolling of the streets to keep us safe. (This is not the same as "law enforcement though.)

I do believe you are wrong on this count. I do contract work for a person who works for my state - giving "Traffic Law Enforcement" presentations to judges and cops.

There are traffic laws, and cops enforce them. That's law enforcement.

What do you think a "code" is? Go check out http://www.gpoaccess.gov/uscode/

The first sentence is: "The United States Code is the codification by subject matter of the general and permanent laws of the United States."

"Imagine what MIT, Berkley, Cambridge, Moscow, Paris and a bunch of other top Universities could do in terms of pushing human achievement forwards if they had the budget that NASA gets."
NASA has an annual budget of about $16 billion. http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy06/browse.html
The university of Minnesota alone gets $1.2 Billion a year from the state of MN, so I REALLY doubt that taking NASAs $16B and spreading it sround a pile of universities would result in anything but a bunch of conference abstracts.

So, all those Kurds who died were what, victims of mass hysteria? The scuds he lobbed at Israel were filled with what, popcorn? Those incidents occurred prior to or during the 1991 action. There was no proof that he tried to reconstitute the development programs after that. Here's the report. There were a lot of trucks leaving town before we got there; it's not too far a leap to speculate what they contained. Speculation is not proof, and certainly not a justification for war. As I said, he's a horrible man, and certainly deserves to be put on trial for his crimes against his own people. But, there are better ways of handling that process than the one we undertook, which decimated an entire country and left us with a bill in lives and money that we can ill afford. Ultimately, my belief is that the ends do not justify the means.

I find these summary tables are the best place to start. For further breakdowns, you can hit up the detailed budget info here.

Unless I am misunderstanding you it is not too difficult to dig up that data you just have to know what you are searching for.

Here's the spreadsheet I always use when citing government budget figures.

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy06/sheets/25_1 2.xls

And here's a bunch of other stuff...

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/

Unless I am misunderstanding you it is not too difficult to dig up that data you just have to know what you are searching for.

Here's the spreadsheet I always use when citing government budget figures.

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy06/sheets/25_1 2.xls

And here's a bunch of other stuff...

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/

Maybe get your facts first dude.

Total Defense spending is at about $400 Billion a 7% increase over last year. A far cry from $500 billion increase. The full budget is $2.3 Tril. We spend alsost $9000 per student is Federal funds redirected to the State and Local Govt. this does not include State and Local taxes. One would expect that educating costs less than running a military. Books, teachers and computers cost less than bombers. Education spending has increased at a higher percentage than military spending on avg. the last five years. Blame your state and local govts. in my state the School must spend in fat years or lose the money. So the constant need for money exists rather than saving to deal with revenue cycles.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/budget/

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy05/browse.html
http://www.ed.gov/about/overview/fed/10facts/edlit e-chart.html#4

Not having RTF'nA, I'm relying on the comments offered here to get the gist of the story. While it appears that the specific airport black-letter requirement for ID, being part of an Airport Security Program as specified by 49 CFR 1542.101 et seq., is indeed protected (that is, kept secret) as SSI, per 49 CFR 1520.5(b)(1) (as amended May 18, 2004), it's really the security program that remains secret, and perhaps understandably so. I'm neither advocating nor criticizing this circumstance, but the discussion here based on the article seems generally to misrepresent the situation. There's plenty of publicly available law in, e.g., CFR, informing the insomniacs who choose to read it about the existence of airport security programs and their SSI status.

Not having RTF'nA, I'm relying on the comments offered here to get the gist of the story. While it appears that the specific airport black-letter requirement for ID, being part of an Airport Security Program as specified by 49 CFR 1542.101 et seq., is indeed protected (that is, kept secret) as SSI, per 49 CFR 1520.5(b)(1) (as amended May 18, 2004), it's really the security program that remains secret, and perhaps understandably so. I'm neither advocating nor criticizing this circumstance, but the discussion here based on the article seems generally to misrepresent the situation. There's plenty of publicly available law in, e.g., CFR, informing the insomniacs who choose to read it about the existence of airport security programs and their SSI status.

Actually sir, you are incorrect, the airlines are completely private companies since the Airline Deregulation Act went into effect in 1978. However, the airlines are still bound by federal laws found in Article 14: Part 121, but more in the sense that transport companies using semis are bound to what they can carry, how many hours the drivers must sleep, etc.

Basically, after the bill is signed into law, it becomes a public law and is printed as a "slip law" which can be cited in court. After every 2-year session of Congress, the slip laws are compiled in chronological order in the Statutes at Large. Every three sessions (six years), the at-large statutes are organized topically in the United States Code. The last US Code came out in 2000, so the next one is scheduled for 2006.

We just started the 109th session in January (2005 - 1789 = 216 years = 108 sessions prior to this one). That means that if you want to get print copies of laws passed in the 107th and 108th sessions (since 2000), you have to go to the Statutes at Large in your local law library. If you want laws passed by this Congress, you have to go to the slip laws. So far this session, there's only been one: Pub. L. 109-1, "To accelerate the income tax benefits for charitable cash contributions for the relief of victims of the Indian Ocean tsunami."

CFI-G here. In the United States, parachutes are required when doing aerobatics (if anyone other than "required flight crew members" (i.e. the pilot) is on board). In addition, in most glider contests, pilots are required to use parachutes (by contest rules, not Federal Regulations).

The PW-5, a Polish glider, has a requirement in the operating manual that a parachute be worn. The Experimental Type Certificate that it was on in the United States required adherence to the operating manual, thus wearing a parachute is required while flying a PW-5. As far as we can tell, getting it re-certified with a Standard Airworthiness Certificate doesn't change the situation.

Other than that, we never use parachutes (I'm not sure most people would fit in a 2-33 wearing even a chair-style parachute), and of the few other glider operations I've visited, they didn't use parachutes either. It is likely that if you're asked to put on a parachute for a glider ride, they're going to be doing aerobatics.

Also not joking (federal government)

Yet the numbers tell a different story. You are being swindled, pal.

And your numbers are?

I'm quite well aware of people writing up reports saying that there is nothing to worry about. Some say, for example that the assumptions of the models that predict bankruptcy are excessively pessimistic. But unless you point us to what you are using as the basis for your statement that we're being swindled, we can simply assume you are just blowing rhetoric.

On the other hand, I'm looking at a $20B hedge that one of financial history's most consistent performers has placed against the dollar. That is 15% of market cap on Berkshire Hathaway. Even more interesting, that is over 50% of the company's cash position, what it really took to position that hedge (he still has the cash, but it is a real pain in the ass to manage multiple currency positions like that). He is not the only one taking short positions against the dollar, just a trader who is well known to the mainstream. In his entire career, he has only ever made one other investment of comparable magnitude, and that is when he bought GEICO, which rocketed BRK.A to the top by essentially giving him a private venture fund to capitalize purchases of other income-producing assets. There is a first time for everything, and Buffett might be wrong, but odds are he knows something you don't.

Talk is cheap, but 50% of cash in the billions backs up a metric assload of talk. And Buffett is saying we're borrowing too much. He doesn't give specific prescriptive advice, but when you look at what we are spending on well, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that even if we dropped defense to zero, we still won't dig out of our hole fast enough; and that's just the public debt. You want to talk about Social Security? Sure, let's talk unfunded liabilities. You think our current public debt hole is manageable? Okay, I'll give you a hole so deep, it exceeds the total net worth of the nation. In equities terms, the "book value" of the nation cannot cover the unfunded liabilities. The Social Security and Medicare Trustees' annual reports have to be off by almost 100% to make the unfunded liabilities even match the net worth of the nation.

Naturally, when you are talking about what you owe versus what you have, prudence dictates that you don't risk more than 10% of capital on any one class of expenditures. So you probably want the Trustees to be off by a factor of 10 to be relatively prudent. The only reason our creditors are not running screaming in the other direction is because we don't have to pay these unfunded liabilities right away, so it is not yet impacting our ability to pay them back. It's someone else's problem at this time, in other words.

I don't know what reports you're reading, but I'm looking through the Trustees' own words. If you can point to analyses that can demonstrate how the Trustees' numbers are off by an order of magnitude, hey, I might think history is being made and Buffett will make the biggest mistake of his trading career. The swindle I believe history will write, is upon the enstupidated and innumerate American voting citizenry, for believing they can get something for nothing. Thank God that we have intrinsic strengths that have not been totally destroyed yet, so we are unlikely to see Chinese Cultural Revolution scale deprivation and slaughter when the bill comes due. But make no mistake about it. If Buffett and a hell of a lot of other traders are right, we are in for an incredibly tough, whipsaw ride starting around 2010 or so. And going on for anywhere from 5 years to possibly decades, depending upon

The first studio news broadcasts in color began in the U.S. in the mid-1960s. The Soviet Union didn't have a color service until the mid-1960s, neither did the U.K., Canada, or anyone else, for that matter.

If you think that color was being stripped from video, it is probably because you have forgotten that almost no one at the height of the cold war owned a color tv set and the logistics of color production made it very expensive.

Ampex introduced the first studio color video tape recorder, vacuum tube technology, in 1965. Betacam camcorders do not arrive on the scene until 1982.

The country that loudly objected to the development of biological weapons anywhere, by anyone, until some of our congress critters got mailed samples of weaponized anthrax we had made in our biological weapons labs. Oops.

The ultimate source of the anthrax used in the attacks was traced to the The U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRID) at Ft. Detrick, Maryland. But the Ames stain appears in both relatively benign and weaponized states in the attacks and is known to have been held by over a dozen labs here and abroad. 2001 anthrax attacks

It is at least plausible that the anthrax was weaponized outside of any legitimate lab, as the attacker gained confidence in his handling of the material.

Our legislators pass laws without reading them, in some cases without being allowed to read them and/or discuss them, and we pass laws which average citizens are not allowed to own a copy of.

It is common in the American system for legislation to reach the floor late in the session and be adopted under what passes for party discipline in the U.S. A great deal of "pork" may be tacked on at the last minute. But anything significant or controversial has usually survived a through working-over in committe.

Copies of the U.S. Code can be purchased from the Government Printing Office at about $80 a volume.

$135 for the full set and supplement on CD-ROM. You can search or browse the code (as ASCII text) for free. United States Code: Main Page

does not change 14 CFR 91.21 Portable electronic devices (see link below);

http://ecfr.gpoaccess.gov/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=ec fr&sid=1d07491ba74d51f531dcb9a0d4dc8f1e&rgn=div5&v iew=text&node=14:2.0.1.3.10&idno=14#14:2.0.1.3.10. 1.4.11

the FCC may say it is ok, but it is still up to the operator of the aircraft (and ultimately the pilot in command) to say whether or not you'll be allowed to use your cell phones on board...

I am an instrument rated private pilot, an electrical engineer, and a ham radio enthusiast with nearly 30 years experience.

If most electronic gagetry is working properly, there is usually no hazard or concern for anyone. However, we have no guarantee that everyone's PDA/Cell Phone/Laptop/GameBoy/MP3 Player or whatever hasn't been stressed in some funky way which still leaves it operational.

Phones get dropped, dunked in water, cracked, and so forth. They may still "work" though. It's things like that which can accidentally radiate all sorts of unintentional things. Is it frequent? Thank goodness, no. But it can happen and it does happen.

That's why you're likely to see the FAA continue to keep 14CFR91.21 on the books for a long time to come.

In the real world, the Pilot In Command is responsible for taking whatever measures are needed to maintain the safety of flight. That means that while in the air, they have much the same authority as a captain of a ship at sea. Thus, a Pilot In Command who doesn't feel comfortable because the navigation gear seems to be acting up is allowed to use whatever means necessary to stop all gadget use.

I know most of you think "what could go wrong?" and feel you know more than the Pilot flying your airplane. But having occupied all the various seats myself, I can honestly say that while I'm cruising down an ILS in low visibility, I'll tell you to shut off the damned phone.

If you don't like it, go get a pilot's license and risk your own life. But I'll be damned if I'll risk mine just so that my passengers can yak about meaningless drivel on their phones for just a few more minutes.

First they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out -
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the communists
And I did not speak out -
Because I was not a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out -
Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me -
And there was no-one left
To speak out for me.
Pastor Niemöller, 1938

It was not lack of intelligence that led to the success of the 9-11 attacks, but lack of action. Prior knowledge of eminent attack was available and passed through the necessary hands, but ignored. It was also determined that an inadequate amount of time was spent by the administrations security department on issues of terrorism. (no I'm not screaming conspiracy, but incomptence). Don't believe me? Have fun: 9-11 Commission

Of course, I understand it's much easier to swallow party line sound bites whole than actually educate yourself about the state of our nation.

A news organization has the luxory to announce maybes and possiblys about serious security issues, the government does not.

Of course they don't. That would make them look foolish, and give people a reason to vote them out of office.

One slight problem with that theory- we don't make anything in the United States anymore, we're a POST-industrialized nation.

Of course this is totally false. You made the assumption that since we have fewer jobs as a percentage of the workface in manufacturing that we don't produce as much as we used to. This also is making the assumption that American workers are not more effecient than they used to be. Try reading about it here, or Here. Both show that our manufacturing ability has pretty constantly increased. Even if we employ fewer people to make the products. I like it when fewer people can produce more good. That is what grows the economy. That is why my house is over twice the size of the one my Grand Parents had. That is why I have this nice cheap computer. That is what drives moore's law.

It is amazing how many people here on ./ either have never had an economics class, or their class was tought by a communist.

The constitution was meant to give specific limited rights to the government. Everything not listed was intended to be a right of the citizens. There was actually an argument agaist doing the bill of rights because it was feared that people would eventually believe that if it were not listed then it was not a right.

This is not the intent of the constitution!

This is an interesting read about this argument.

One can make reasoned arguments about the restrictions associated with airtravel and many other elements of our lives in the public but please don't spread the "FUD" that if it is not listed in the constitution than we do not have a right to it!

LOCKSS-DOCS and even the US GPO Access have already been doing this. But I suppose that given how online government information can go poof or be altered, this project sounds like a good idea, albeit a partisan one.

GWB hasn't vetoed ONE BILL despite threatening to do so several times. He's not about to start now. Plus, as I saw it on CSPAN (tuned in a bit late), this amendment was attached to a spending bill. If Bush vetoed a big spending bill, there would be some larger problems than the PATRIOT ACT being just a hair weaker. Also, amendments cannot be attached to spending bills in the Senate, as they can be in the House. The Democrats would have to come up with another way to get the issue on the table, perhaps as an amendment to a non-spending bill. However, the purpose of putting amendments onto spending bills is generally to force a vote on them. If spending bills don't pass, the government must eventually shutdown as occurred during the Clinton-Gingrich era. See here for more info on the 'Germaneness Rule': GPOAccess.gov

It clearly states under the aerial photos on Terraserver website "Image courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey." As the previous poster said, this is reiterated in the FAQ. Anyone can reuse, repackage, redistribute, even sell information/maps/photos, etc produced and published by the federal government. They can even copyright the delivery method/software, etc but the original data cannot be copyrighted (the idea being that it was created with taxpayer money.) So any of the images on Terraserver can be used and manipulated in any way. For future reference, while you've gotten great information from everyone on this site, this is something you can actually ask about at the library (gasp!) believe it or not, there are Federal Depository Libraries all around the United States where librarians specialize in Government Information, and can actually answer questions like this. (Both where to find the maps and the copyright question.) Often these departments have Map libraries associated with them because of the large amount of geographic and geologic information produced by the federal government.

In fact, it does NOT say "the exclusive right to profit from" and you're more than welcome to look the damn thing up. There's a copy here if you like.

You can have them print & bind pretty much any CIA/FBI/Special Forces/Army/etc manual that's been declassified or released under the FOIA (Freedom of Information Act). I took a philisophy class @ Georgetown Univeristy one summer, and the prof was a very young man with a goatee etc. The last part of the course was about Anarchy, and he told us: "go to the GPO building on pennsylvania avenue and if you ask for the US Army Manual on Improvised Munitions it'll cost you $10(?) and they'll bind it for you right there."

There's also Unconventional Warfare Devices & Techniques, Incendiary Devices & Techniques, Boobytraps, Grenades & Pyrotechnics, Explosive Preparations & Formulas... You get the picture? These are the manuals that Spec Ops use when they go to countries and train up insurgents, armies, other special forces, etc.
Anti-Polygraph stuff
Teh CIA Facts
More bout Mind Control Etc

here's and idea, go to amazon.com and search for works by the "U.S. Army". You'll get all kinds of garbage with some fun stuff thrown into the mix. Most of the manuals are boring as shit to read, but they have some very interesting stuff about psyops (psychological operations, you want really scary, go read some Rand Corporation publications) making your own guns/bombs/grenades/anything you need to kill, harass, demoralize, terrorize... Special Forces soldiers (and them sumbitches in the CIA) are some of the most dangerous people around. One man armies, men capable of raising armies, destabilizing gov'ts, and raping your mind, all in one!

You can help save intelligent life here on Earth by donating to the World Food Programme. The World Food Programme's donation page is here.

Incidentally, the U.S. Government is the largest donor:

In 2000, the USA was the most substantial donor, with more than US$796 million given to WFP activities. Japan was the second largest contributor, with almost US$260 million donated over the same period, followed by the European Commission with US$118 million.

Oh well, I'm sure we can get the money from the defence piggy-bank... right, guys?

The Department of Health and Human Services received about 501 billion dollars in 2003 compared with the 388 billion that the Department of Defense received. Look here.

If you're in the U.S. and want to do more to help locally right now, try here. Remember, there are people in your local community that are suffering just as much as other people around the world. If we all help locally, we all help globally.

Selective Draft Law Cases, 245 U.S. 366 (1918). The Court's analysis, in full, of the Thirteenth Amendment issue raised by a compulsory military draft was the following: ``As we are unable to conceive upon what theory the exaction by government from the citizen of the performance of his supreme and noble duty of contributing to the defense of the rights and honor of the nation, as the result of a war declared by the great representative body of the people, can be said to be the imposition of involuntary servitude in violation of the prohibitions of the Thirteenth Amendment, we are constrained to the conclusion that the contention to that effect is refuted by its mere statement.''

Think as you like; the Supreme Court explicitly disagrees with you.