Slashdot Mirror

Write your representative

Let them know you're not happy about this mess.

BTW, if you want to view the subcommittee hearing, here's a link to it.

Also, don't /. it, I want to be able to watch it later tonight!

Why Afghanistan? Got some proof that they're behind it that we haven't seen? Or are we to believe the government's conspiracy theory? How do you know it wasn't domestic? Could've been some wacko Tim McVeigh groupies or Branch Davidians. You know that some people were still trying to pin OKC on a foreign threat?

http://www.house.gov/pelosi/

And guess who supported Saddam and the Ba'athists in Iraq in the 1980s?

I think governments retain the right to change their political relationships with countries.

With better information I'd hope a government would changes it's mind if that's what the data suggests. However in the case of Reagan and Bush Sr supporting Saddam, they both kept supporting him even after it came out he was using chemical weapons. Inside Iraq itself. Chemical weapons were used against the Kurds in 1988. At that tyme congress tried to pass a bill that would impose economic sanctions against Iraq for using chemical weapons against the Kurds. Reagan's admin tried to stop those sanctions. Read TFA I linked to above, it might open your eyes.

Falcon

Oh, I don't know, he could be talking about the fact that White House staffers used RNC emails instead of their official accounts and, among other causes for investigation, probably destroyed thousands of emails that should be publicly available.

The fact that this hasn't caused more of an uproar is a sad statement about what we're willing to accept from our government and, in particular, this Administration.

I'm sure somebody at the Justice Department decided that this database should be easy to build ("It's just a list!"), and rather than bring in some professionals to design it, they slapped it together on their own.

If you'd bother reading the report, available at http://democrats.science.house.gov/Media/File/Commdocs/Staff_Memo_toBM_terror_watch_8.21.08.pdf, you'd see that Boeing is responsible for the current system. So, yes, a private professional company, employing experienced DBAs is responsible for the current system. If you'd spent much time consulting for private industry you'd know that this sort of thing isn't unique to the government. It's just that it's much more likely to come to light if it's a government project. I've seen many examples in private industry where companies, large and small, end up in the same same bind. This is what happens when rapidly evolving requirements are shoehorned into databases whose original designs could never have anticipated those requirements. Projects like this don't have scope creep so much as scope leap. Software messes that are difficult to migrate almost invariably occur.

I don't know what the deal is with this company, but they are literally crooks. I don't know how they are staying out of jail and in business. I won't waste the space or time into getting into the particulars, but they have been investigated by the FTC a number of times and even been called to testify before congressional panels for their assholishness.

They first got their hooks in my girlfriend after asking for money for firefighters days after 9/11. Ever since, I cannot get them to stop calling. Of the money they collect for "charity" they take 80+% for fund raising fees. And many times the charities themselves are not distributing money efficiently. It literally astonishes me that this is actually something people do.

http://civicdevelopment.net/cdg_vs_me (this is not me, just an interesting story about CDG)

http://oversight.house.gov/story.asp?ID=1666http://oversight.house.gov/story.asp?ID=1666

Blows my f%^&** mind

In the senate, it passed 91 to 8. Of the 8 No votes, 6 were Republicans, 2 were Democrats.

I know there are some difficulties with blanket classifying all R's as conservative and D's as liberal but the voting records only list party, not ideology. That said, I would call 197 to 10 House Democrats and all but 2 Senate Democrats as quite solid evidence of across the board support.

On the final version of the bill that came out of conference committee and went to the White House

House: 380-49
Senate: 83-8

Why do we need to link to the "open source!" info when the original source is also open to the public (and, in my opinion, more useful)?

First, your link is wrong. You are linking to the vote on when to come back from adjournment which occurred on the 31st. Adjourning passed 213 - 197 today, the first.

Second, you have anything to back up your claims on oil prices dropping? The Bush Administration's own Department of Energy says that "access to the Pacific, Atlantic, and eastern Gulf regions would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030."

Little bit of egg on my face as I mistakenly looked at the Senate and not the House. However it turns out that the House was due for a break on August 11th and instead took its break 10 days early.

Also, Harry Reid is the Senate Majority leader. not the House Majority Leader which is the subject of this article. Steny Hoyer is the House Majority leader.

Yes, they voted themselves a paid one-month vacation, by a margin of one vote. Almost directly down party lines. All republicans save four voted nay, to stay in session and hammer out issues except for four who abstained. 17 democrats joined said republicans, 6 abstained. The rest of the democrats voted themselves a vacation.

link

And yes drilling will help. The very news of drilling will bring oil prices down. Speculation of approval of drilling has already brought prices down already, over $20 under the high of $147. Gas prices at least where I live are down $0.15 - $0.20 since six weeks ago. Tell people you are drilling and yeah, the oil won't enter the stream for 10, 15 years but the speculative properties alone will drop crude by another $20 or $40, easy.

Stinerman mentions one point and I'd like to make another. You're ignoring the value of the dollar, it's increased in the past few weeks.

Yes, they voted themselves a paid one-month vacation, by a margin of one vote. Almost directly down party lines. All republicans save four voted nay, to stay in session and hammer out issues except for four who abstained. 17 democrats joined said republicans, 6 abstained. The rest of the democrats voted themselves a vacation.

link

And yes drilling will help. The very news of drilling will bring oil prices down. Speculation of approval of drilling has already brought prices down already, over $20 under the high of $147. Gas prices at least where I live are down $0.15 - $0.20 since six weeks ago. Tell people you are drilling and yeah, the oil won't enter the stream for 10, 15 years but the speculative properties alone will drop crude by another $20 or $40, easy.

• House of Representatives
• Senate
• President

There, fixed that for you.

Okay, to all the people who are arguing with you, I respectfully implore: Please read the "fine" decision. The courts have said that border searches don't require reasonable grounds for suspicion because they are "different" than searches within the U.S.

Now, if this upsets you and you live in the U.S., complain to Congress. It'll take you maybe fifteen minutes to bang out a letter to your congressman/woman and your two senators explaining that you think DHS is going too far. I have already done so, and I got back nice, polite letters explaining that there's a war on terror going on, etc., etc. They're not going to listen to me and the handful of people from EFF and the ACLU. But if their email boxes are swamped with complaints from Slashdotters (and their friends and families), maybe Congress will do something. Otherwise, resign yourself to the possibility that your electronic toys may be impounded and scrutinized at the border.

Let's see the data. The fact that revenues come in more or less than estimated is more of a reflection on the CBO's ability to estimate GDP growth accurately.

Just look at the Kennedy tax cuts, the 1920s tax cuts, and the changes in US capital gains tax structure in 1997 and the Reagan cuts in 1981. Here is a break down on the Bush tax cuts from a biased site.

Again, let's see the data. Specifically, what are the time horizons, and how are you separating out potentially confounding variables?

I'm not going to compile a bunch of information that you can gain for yourself by simple watching history unfold. Here is a summery from congressional observations.

The Reagan tax cuts, like similar measures enacted in the 1920s and 1960s, showed that reducing excessive tax rates stimulates growth, reduces tax avoidance, and can increase the amount and share of tax payments generated by the rich. High top tax rates can induce counterproductive behavior and suppress revenues, factors that are usually missed or understated in government static revenue analysis. Furthermore, the key assumption of static revenue analysis that economic growth is not affected by tax changes is di sproved by the experience of previous tax reduction programs. There is little reason to expect static revenue analysis to evaluate the economic or distributional effects of current tax reform proposals much better than it evaluated the Reagan tax program 15 years ago.

The theory behind the "lower taxes increases growth" idea is quite sound. The question of by how much, and whether that amount offsets the lower tax rate is a different one. I'm simply saying that there's absolutely no reason to believe that the Laffer curve isn't riddled with local maxima and minima or that it's even a smooth and continuous function. The idea that we should use an idealized parabolic function to approximate a function whose nature we don't (and likely can't) know is crazy, and making policy based on it is even crazier.

This I can agree with. I don't see it as an absolute truth because it fails to adjust one the fly. However, the principles are sound- when people have more of their own money, they spend more of it which causes activity that increases growth. Try paying people half as much and see how much less they spend. It is sound in principle.

I've never seen a serious economist suggesting something like that.

You haven't seen economist claiming there is a shortage in IT and programing qualified students when arguing for "more programs to fix that from the government and Visas for foreigners" while at the same time, experienced people are losing their jobs left anfd right?

Perhaps my point wasn't clear. I see an almost universal disdain for economics as a "soft" discipline with no real truths in these sorts of armchair policy debates, usually from the same people who suddenly think that it's a 100% certainty that our economy is described perfectly by a neat, parabolic Laffer curve and that we're on the downward sloping side of it. The reality is that there's no justification for that claim to be found in the data. It's that sort of reasoning that leads to abominations like this one [typepad.com].

The laffer curve is more of a moving target then a precise measurement system. You have to "reload" the values for every movement being made which makes using a curve from 1960 impossible in 1981 or even the present. There is a point where you maximize growth and revenue at the same time but it changes with other conditions. That makes it both hard an soft.

To put it a little more fluently, it is like your monthly

The government orders them to hand over records.

Except that's not what happened. The government said, "Pretty please, would you wiretap these people for us? Don't worry about FISA, we'll take care of it later."

The correct answer for large corporations with brilliant, well paid legal teams should have been, "This doesn't seem like an emergency situation where retroactive warrants are allowed. We're going to need to see a FISA order to wire tap these people who are talking to American Citizens."

If all the companies did that and not just Qwest, we wouldn't have this problem. The government won't get very far punishing an entire industry.

http://uscode.house.gov/download/pls/50C36.txt

Sections 1805(a), 1805(f), and 1809(a) seem pretty clear to me, and I'm not even a brilliant, well paid legal team.

It's not a no vote. But isn't it almost as good as one, if passing a bill requires a vote of 50%+1 or more "yes" votes, not 50%-1 or fewer "no" votes?

In any case, you can read his statement about the missed vote here:

http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2008/cr062008h.htm

Plan to ban handguns

In the aftermath of the Virginia Tech massacre in Blacksburg, Virginia, Kucinich proposed a plan that he says will address violence in America. Kucinich is currently drafting legislation that includes a ban on the purchase, sale, transfer, or possession of handguns by civilians.

http://kucinich.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=62819

This is your example???

It's slightly more complicated than that. There's a group of Democrats called the Blue Dog Coalition who keep selling out the rest of the Democratic party on security issues. There's 47 of them currently in office.

Presumably they represent the will of the people who elected them, which on this issue is fear of the terrorists.

But otherwise, yes this congress is crippled by a slim majority, an adversarial president and a faction in the party that consistently sides with the administration on security issues.

or in Ron Paul's case just not vote on this Bill:

http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll437.xml

I would not consider that a no vote.

Ron Paul did not vote "Yea" or "Nay," he just didn't vote:

http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll437.xml

But what's really ironic is how you will blow off my other statements and say how I haven't supported them (which I believe I have, at length)

No, all you have done is make unsubstantiated claims. Anybody can put text on the page. Its funny that you would complain about my 'beliefs supported by facts' when you have not provided a single citation.

I've given you citations, look at the list of joke terrorists. And your strange inability to do either basic math or simple grammar.

I've even went so far as to try divine your citations and found your buddy "Laurie" by researching your claims. Her books have been widely criticized for making unsubstantiated leaps of logic. But then you say her books aren't your sources, but you don't give your sources.

In absence of facts, all that's left is critical thinking. Your claims don't pass the muster of critical analysis and when faced with that critical analysis you shy away and bring up other topics.

But since you brought it up as another diversion, here is how it is done:

YOU> And after the invasion, we found documents showing he was on the Iraqi payroll from 1993 to 2003.
YOU> Dick Cheney revealed those papers on NPR and it quickly died after that, because as everyone "knows",
YOU> Iraq has no ties to terrorism.

NPR TRANSCRIPT> I think there's overwhelming evidence that there was a connection between al-Qaeda and
NPR TRANSCRIPT> the Iraqi government. We've discovered since documents indicating that a guy named
NPR TRANSCRIPT> Abdul Rahman Yasin, who was a part of the team that attacked the World Trade Center
NPR TRANSCRIPT> in '93, when he arrived back in Iraq was put on the payroll and provided a house,
NPR TRANSCRIPT> safe harbor and sanctuary. That's public information now.
Iraq On the Record

60 Minutes TRANSCRIPT> Abdul Rahman Yasin fled to Iraq after the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993.
60 Minutes TRANSCRIPT> He lived as a free man for a year, but the authorities in Iraq tell CBS News
60 Minutes TRANSCRIPT> they put him in prison in 1994.
60 Minutes: The Man Who Got Away

So your claim about what Cheney said is false. He NEVER gave a date range. What he said is technically true, but exceptionally misleading. As the 60 minutes interview shows, Yasin was only a free man for a year following the WTC attack.

The fact that you bought the spin in Cheney's claims and expanded them to fill your predetermined beliefs shows me how much you are dedicated to having beliefs supported by facts: not at all.

Rather, the war was about having an excuse to drive up the price of oil, which benefits... all of the oil companies. Who runs the oil companies? Mostly friends of Bush and his cronies.

Who makes the most profits on Big Oil? Take ExxonMobil for example. Of the $142 billion in pre-tax profit they made, $101 billion went to the Government.

Put another way, for every $1.00 that ExxonMobil made in profit, the Government made $2.50.

And who owns ExxonMobil? Less than 1% of ExxonMobil is owned by insiders (managment). Over 99% of ExxonMobil is owned by individual investors, mutual funds, and retirement funds. That $40 billion in profit they made last year? $39.6+ billion belongs to the stockholders. And ExxonMobil pays you a dividend, and you can sell their stock to get your cash back. You probably own ExxonMobil if you're invested in a mutual fund.

I know its oh-so-progressive to attack Big Oil because of their record profits (which come from their record sales volumes); even Congress likes to do it. But the real beneficiary - at least financially - is the Government.

Just remember next time you're filling up, probably $1.00 to $1.25 of each gallon you buy is going to the Government. The oil company selling you the gas is making around 10% - Government is making 25%.

Oh, and instability in the Middle East? We invaded in 2003. By 2006 Iraq had really settled down. But the price of oil has tripled since then, and gas has doubled. As Iraq and instability is decreasing, costs are increasing. I thought the new Democrat Congress was going to lower our gas prices - that's what Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D - CA) promised, and that's what Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D - NV) promised.

It's not tension over the Middle East that's causing the increase in oil - it's that worldwide production has not kept up with demand. And fundamentally it is because of our reduced production, here in the US. We now pump only 40% of our own oil.

You do know that we have approximately two TRILLION barrels of oil in the US that is currently locked up by that same Congress. That same Congress, who's leaders promised to lower the price of gas back in 2006, who have presided on a doubling of oil and gas prices, won't let us access the world's largest oil reserves.

Put those reserves in perspective. At a daily consumption rate of 20 million barrels of oil, that is (2 trillion / 20 million) 100,000 days of consumption available. That is 273 YEARS of consumption. The US would have enough oil for nearly the next three centuries - longer than the US has existed as a nation - if Congress would let us access it.

We have literally more oil in the US - available to produce for under $50 per barrel, than the entire Middle East's proven reserves. Oil costs in the US could be cut by 65% - gas would be down under $1.40 per gallon if Congress was serious about fuel and energy costs.

Who's manipulating the market to keep their profits high? Well, the Government seems to get most of the profit, and they're responsible for locking up the biggest deposits in the world. I think the real racketeers and obscene profit takers are plainly obvious. It's the ones asking the questions at those mock trials of the oil execs, not those answering.

> in that most of the Oil-for-Food funds were being siphoned off for Saddam's personal use while his people starved.

did you think that iraqi people is going better now ? (maybe yes if your source is foxnews )

>we saw how much corruption there actually was in the Oil-for-Food program. Thanks France.

uhm USA got more oil from this program than france in fact usa got 52% of it

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/may/17/otherparties.iraq

and about corruption you should backcheck halliburton http://www.halliburtonwatch.org/ or blackwater http://oversight.house.gov/story.asp?ID=1163 too

Sadly, it appears a lot of other people do too, including many in government itself. Even if they don't question it, per se, they seem to ignore it.

Something like the shadegg bill seems like a good place to start.

It would be great if someone with money could fund something akin to the ACLU - but with a focus on defending the constitution by suing the government when it oversteps its bounds.

People like the Libertarians talk a good talk, but don't do much, and nobody listens.

Most Democrats did vote against the bill, 128-105, with only one Republican voting against and ten not voting. It's fair to point out that nearly half the Democrats in Congress, including many of their leaders, are also involved in this attempt to subvert the rule of law and the Bill of Rights, but to try and pretend that the Republicans aren't the greater offenders here is just wrong.

Attention moderators: if reading facts that contradict your opinion makes you want to flame someone, that doesn't mean he's writing flamebait, it just means you should be less flammable.

The border patrol has been known to force-feed powerful laxatives to pregnant women and shackle them to a hospital bed for two days while they watch them shit into a bucket. And that just for the War on Drugs. Now that there's a War on Terror run by a government that's willing to torture, do you really think hiding something up your ass will do a bit of good?

If this guy would run I'd be out on the streets supporting him.

I am directing my money toward those candidates who genuinely fight this absurd bill. I'm still hoping Obama will rejoin those ranks, but until then there is no shortage of campaigns I can contribute to. The 128 House Democrats who voted against it, for example.

(Oh, and I am noting who voted which way on this one. In two years I will be picking amongst about 105 primary challengers. Pelosi, Hoyer, I'm looking at you.)

All that said, voting third party is more effective than not voting at all, and whoever modded you flamebait is an idiot for doing so.

Here's a list of how each representative voted: http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll437.xml

Official House Roll Call for H R 6304
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll437.xml

Breakdown of votes by state, representative, etc.
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/vote.xpd?vote=h2008-437

Jesse Benton Says:

June 20th, 2008 at 4:17 pm

Danielek, Dr. Paul missed the vote today because he had a longstanding commitment to speak at the Montana GOP Convention today.

Speaking of Paul, is it safe to assume that he was the one Republican that voted against the bill?

Of course it's not. As with all politicians, their number 1 priority is watching out for themselves.

The sole Republican (aka the only one with balls) was Timothy Johnson (IL). Ron Paul (and our local hero, moron Chris Cannon from UT) abstained from voting at all. Considering that it's their job to read up on and vote on laws, and that's what we pay them for it would be nice if they actually did it.

That said, considering that Congress isn't even required to read a law before voting, what the hell's the point? We'd probably be better off right now if the treasonous bunch just voted randomly on every bill that comes through.

He didn't show up: http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll437.xml

http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll437.xml

you'll hop over to the vote tally page and
see which list your representative is on. If you
disagree with their vote, contact them and let them know they fucked up.

Interestingly enough, neither Obama nor Hillary bothered to vote on this back in February.

The best we can hope for now is that maybe the Supreme Court will overturn it as unconstitutional.

You can find your representative here, and your congressman here.

Let's flood every link in this post with /. traffic. Then, let's write our Congressmen, and maybe some Supreme Court Justices.

Maybe, just maybe, that might get somebody's attention. If not, at least then they will know we are watching.

And you can know that you did something, even if it is a bit late

you'll hop over to the vote tally page and
see which list your representative is on. If you
disagree with their vote, contact them and let them know they fucked up.

Interestingly enough, neither Obama nor Hillary bothered to vote on this back in February.

The best we can hope for now is that maybe the Supreme Court will overturn it as unconstitutional.

You can find your representative here, and your congressman here.

Let's flood every link in this post with /. traffic. Then, let's write our Congressmen, and maybe some Supreme Court Justices.

Maybe, just maybe, that might get somebody's attention. If not, at least then they will know we are watching.

And you can know that you did something, even if it is a bit late

According to the summary, Steny Hoyer is just some random Congressman. No party affiliation, not even a state.

According to the man's website, he's a Democrat.

Now, I wonder why a story posted by kdawson would neglect to mention a Democrat's party affiliation?

http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll437.xml

All the dems on in normal (non-italic) font.

Pelosi once again! Really with all her compromises on the Iraq war and this.

Youve done a great job Nancy stopping the republicans!
I mean really, she votes republican and helps pass rebulican bills.
There is something seriously wrong with the politicians of this country.

When do we as "The People" finally stand up and say enough is enough.
I guess we thought we tried when we voted more Dems into office, but that failed.

Its time we hold politicians accountable for their votes and their promises that brought them into office.

If you're so inclined to go http://www.house.gov/ and use the applet in the upper left hand corner to find your representative. Let them know how you feel about their vote. I told guy who picked up the phone at the office of the bastard who represents the 46th Congressional district that I'm exceptionally disappointed in his support of a blatant violation of my 4th amendment rights. I told him that everyone in that office should be ashamed for supporting such an unconstitutional piece of legislation.

To all those who bashed the 'evil' republicans the past 10 years... will you now bash the 'evil' democrats with equal fervor?

Well, I'm looking at the roll call here, and I'm seeing 105 Yea to 128 Nay for the Dems and 188 Yea to 1 (one) Nay for the Repubs.

So, um. No, I don't think "equal fervor" is called for here. For one party, less than half of them supported this bullshit, and for another party, 99.5% of them did.

(no, the one Nay vote is not Ron Paul.)

Anyway, here's the list so you know who to vote against.
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll437.xml#NV

Don't forget Paul (R-TX), who abstained so he wouldn't stick out from his party line.

http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll437.xml#NV

One Republican voted against. ONE. What the hell?

Comfortably provided. It's at http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll437.xml

Check the names under "Yeahs" and you know who is the worst enemy of democracy and freedom in the United States of America.

Look at his page on the house website. What would you expect from an old white republican who routinely visit UGA, is avidly pro-life, speaks out against same sex marriages in CA, and a gun toter? If your brain doesn't SCREAM good 'ole boy after looking at that site for about 5 seconds, then I don't know what else to say.

Here's the vote.

My rep voted against it. Does this mean I now have to be proud of Patrick Kennedy? The other rep in RI (Jim Langevin) voted yes, though. I guess it's time for me to call Sheldon Whitehouse and Jack Reed!

http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll437.xml

Yes, I'm kharma whoring.