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Copy all the CDs you want, legally!

17 USC, Chapter 10, Subchapter A, Section 1008 specifically states:
No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings.

Section 1001 defines a "digital audio recording medium" to be:
any material object in a form commonly distributed for use by individuals, that is primarily marketed or most commonly used by consumers for the purpose of making digital audio copied recordings by use of a digital audio recording device.

In more common language, this refers to audio/music CD-R discs, which are made to work in digital audio recorders. These discs are different from the more common data CD-Rs, in that they contain special digital markings (standard data CD-Rs won't work in digital audio recorders). In addition, by law a royalty has been paid on this blank media. These royalty payments are in turn distributed to copyright holders (see Section 1006 of the law cited above). They usually cost slightly more than data CD-R discs, but they can be found for less than $0.50 each.

So go ahead, make copies onto music/audio CD-R discs, even give copies to your friends. You can do so legally and ethically - you've paid for the right to do so. (And the RIAA fought for this law. Thanks, MAFIAA!)

Give them a break, they already pay for plenty of Americans.

Honestly -- lay off the Kool Aid. Take a look at the amount spent on the Iraq war sometime. It's a vast sum; easily enough to have just bought Saddam's cooperation (and let's face it, he was desperate for friends anyway) and all the oil under Iraq.

You forgot, Bush's administration initially stated that Iraqi Oil would pay for reconstruction, of course, he also initially believed that we were going to be greeted as liberators and that this would be a walk in the park.

Naturally, now we've poured far more money into the enterprise than Iraqi oil could ever pay back, especially with us dumping billions into KBR's failed pipelines to nowhere making it even harder to get that oil out.

It's not a conspiracy "theory" when the President himself was running around with the "mission accomplished" banners and making promises he couldn't keep.

Heck, if you think that's bad, wait for this one - they were actually arguing about just switching to DST permanently, but the cows were against it. (Search for "cow") Heck, there's a lot of "cow" arguments against DST.

Every time I hear an argument like this I get frustrated. People always say things based on dubious math calculated by fear-mongering conservatives like "immigrants cost $10k/per year". However, they never stop to consider that migrant workers might actually ADD VALUE to the economic system. How much money to Americans save every year on food because of low-cost migrant labor? How about other services? I imagine that it more than offsets the dubious number of $10k/year in government services (if that's even correct).

There are few *tiny* flaws in your thinking.

One, "fear-mongering conservatives [sic]" rarely talk about the cost of "immigrants". The talk about the cost of illegal aliens. There is the economic cost, which can be quantified, and the social cost and is hard to define, but like porn, a lot of people know it when they see it.

So where does the economic cost of illegal aliens come from? Well, the obvious costs are incarceration costs. The US has approximately 2,000,000 people behind bars, and 1/3rd of them are illegal aliens. The average annual cost is $22650 per prisoner, which means we are spending over $1.5 billion per year on simply locking up illegal aliens for committing a pretty diverse set of crimes. Approximately 30-40% of illegal aliens are on some form of public assistance. Tack in the anchor babies that are considered citizens, but are otherwise economic drains (medical, social, and education expense), and it's clear our little experimentation with an illegal alien invasion (an estimated 4 to 10 million cross the border every year according to the Border Patrol, as referenced in House.gov document) is a net economic drain under the most optimistic models.

So how about the social cost? How many people are murdered by illegal aliens every year? DOJ doesn't really track it, but estimates are around 4,000 people. That's 4,000 people that, almost certainly, would be alive if not for those "undocumented immigrants" that you "liberals" love so much. And those murders are in addition to the rapes, assaults, DWIs (with injuries and fatalities), and property crime that, as a population group, illegal aliens are much more likely to commit than native Americans or legal immigrants. Oh, another social cost never remarked is the wage depression effect of illegal immigration, especially for blue collar jobs, and PARTICULARLY, this impact on other minority communities like African-Americans. But it's not limited to just them, either. Blue collar Americans of every stripe have seen their wages decline across the board, pretty much in-line with the massive increase in illegal immigration. Fast food used to the an entry level job for high school kids. It's now a bastion for illegal aliens. Same thing with lawn care, construction, handy-man work, road-work, meat-packing, brick-laying, etc. Guess what, not everyone gets to be a software engineer or doctor, and a just society would make pains to give it's citizens and legal immigrants the first shot at the jobs that are left, rather than locking them out and giving them instead to illegal aliens. Then there is the whole undermining the country thing. Think those illegal immigrants really care about ideas like constitutional government and the rule of law? Think they have the background and the education? No way Jose, we're busy importing a new, permanent underclass while simultaneously pulling the support out from under our own poor working class.

So who benefits from illegal immigration? Corporations like Walmart, Tyson, Pilgrim's Pride and their stockholders., general contractors who slake off $100,000 profit on a $200,000 home because they hired sub-standard illegal labor. It isn't the average consumer. It isn't the average American. The argument that we get lower priced oranges or chicken is a dubious one at best, and I've never seen anyone crunc

Sadly, this is a bit alarmist.

Bills are already drafted using XML assigned numbers. Any amenment to a bill has its own number, bills which are "engrossed" or passed have a different number. They know exactly what they are voting for.

http://xml.house.gov/

I'm emailing her about it as I type this. I suggest other Californians do the same. She has betrayed an unheard of level of ignorance on the subject of "intellectual property" and should seriously reconsider her position. People in the 45th Congressional district should email her as well.

http://www.house.gov/formbono/issue.htm

Dr. Paul is against the Hypocrisy in the Middle East as can be seen in his Weekly Column here: http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2007/tst022607.ht m Basically he wants to quit funding the military build up in the region and "We should stop propping up dictators and putting band-aids on festering problems." as he says.

Another site that is keeping track of him is: http://dailypaul.com/ You guys should pop in there for a quick read and then determine if he is really the same old tired Republicans that we have had recently or if he truly has some "Direction of the Country" altering ideas as I know that he does.

http://www.house.gov/paul/legis_tst.htm His weekly Column
http://www.house.gov/paul/legis_congrec.htm His Speeches and Statements on the Record and on The House floor.
http://www.house.gov/paul/legis_press.htm His Press Releases.

I truly do encourage you guys to read and not let the main stream media tell you what to think. That is the root of most of the country's problems right there. People need to start getting informed on their own and making decisions for themselves. If Dr. Paul doesn't get the nomination (which unfortunately he probably won't) then I will be voting for a third party. Neither the Democrans nor the Republicrats are doing what they promised to do when elected and the only thing one party has to do to get elected is screw you less than the other party. Let's face it, the Democrats didn't win in November as much as the Bush led Republicans lost. The only thing that will change this is if a third party actually starts to gain some ground and threaten the two existing parties. Let's face it, the problem with only having only two parties is being forced to choose the lesser of two evils.

Dr. Paul is against the Hypocrisy in the Middle East as can be seen in his Weekly Column here: http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2007/tst022607.ht m Basically he wants to quit funding the military build up in the region and "We should stop propping up dictators and putting band-aids on festering problems." as he says.

Another site that is keeping track of him is: http://dailypaul.com/ You guys should pop in there for a quick read and then determine if he is really the same old tired Republicans that we have had recently or if he truly has some "Direction of the Country" altering ideas as I know that he does.

http://www.house.gov/paul/legis_tst.htm His weekly Column
http://www.house.gov/paul/legis_congrec.htm His Speeches and Statements on the Record and on The House floor.
http://www.house.gov/paul/legis_press.htm His Press Releases.

I truly do encourage you guys to read and not let the main stream media tell you what to think. That is the root of most of the country's problems right there. People need to start getting informed on their own and making decisions for themselves. If Dr. Paul doesn't get the nomination (which unfortunately he probably won't) then I will be voting for a third party. Neither the Democrans nor the Republicrats are doing what they promised to do when elected and the only thing one party has to do to get elected is screw you less than the other party. Let's face it, the Democrats didn't win in November as much as the Bush led Republicans lost. The only thing that will change this is if a third party actually starts to gain some ground and threaten the two existing parties. Let's face it, the problem with only having only two parties is being forced to choose the lesser of two evils.

Dr. Paul is against the Hypocrisy in the Middle East as can be seen in his Weekly Column here: http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2007/tst022607.ht m Basically he wants to quit funding the military build up in the region and "We should stop propping up dictators and putting band-aids on festering problems." as he says.

Another site that is keeping track of him is: http://dailypaul.com/ You guys should pop in there for a quick read and then determine if he is really the same old tired Republicans that we have had recently or if he truly has some "Direction of the Country" altering ideas as I know that he does.

http://www.house.gov/paul/legis_tst.htm His weekly Column
http://www.house.gov/paul/legis_congrec.htm His Speeches and Statements on the Record and on The House floor.
http://www.house.gov/paul/legis_press.htm His Press Releases.

I truly do encourage you guys to read and not let the main stream media tell you what to think. That is the root of most of the country's problems right there. People need to start getting informed on their own and making decisions for themselves. If Dr. Paul doesn't get the nomination (which unfortunately he probably won't) then I will be voting for a third party. Neither the Democrans nor the Republicrats are doing what they promised to do when elected and the only thing one party has to do to get elected is screw you less than the other party. Let's face it, the Democrats didn't win in November as much as the Bush led Republicans lost. The only thing that will change this is if a third party actually starts to gain some ground and threaten the two existing parties. Let's face it, the problem with only having only two parties is being forced to choose the lesser of two evils.

Dr. Paul is against the Hypocrisy in the Middle East as can be seen in his Weekly Column here: http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2007/tst022607.ht m Basically he wants to quit funding the military build up in the region and "We should stop propping up dictators and putting band-aids on festering problems." as he says.

Another site that is keeping track of him is: http://dailypaul.com/ You guys should pop in there for a quick read and then determine if he is really the same old tired Republicans that we have had recently or if he truly has some "Direction of the Country" altering ideas as I know that he does.

http://www.house.gov/paul/legis_tst.htm His weekly Column
http://www.house.gov/paul/legis_congrec.htm His Speeches and Statements on the Record and on The House floor.
http://www.house.gov/paul/legis_press.htm His Press Releases.

I truly do encourage you guys to read and not let the main stream media tell you what to think. That is the root of most of the country's problems right there. People need to start getting informed on their own and making decisions for themselves. If Dr. Paul doesn't get the nomination (which unfortunately he probably won't) then I will be voting for a third party. Neither the Democrans nor the Republicrats are doing what they promised to do when elected and the only thing one party has to do to get elected is screw you less than the other party. Let's face it, the Democrats didn't win in November as much as the Bush led Republicans lost. The only thing that will change this is if a third party actually starts to gain some ground and threaten the two existing parties. Let's face it, the problem with only having only two parties is being forced to choose the lesser of two evils.

Instead of getting behind Libertarians who have no chance of winning in 2008, why not support Ron Paul who is a libertarian republican and is running for the nomination?

You do realize that the President's and the Vice-President's assets are required by law to be transfered into a blind trust before assuming office, right?* We already have a requirement for your third point; it's just not being enforced properly. I doubt anything we come up with ever will though.

See http://www.house.gov/ethics/ETHICS_IN_GOVERNMENT_A CT_LINK_PAGE.htm or the Ethics in Government Act of 1978.

Read 'em and weep.

Illegal immigration also produces high levels of crime nationwide. Small towns and large cities alike find themselves plagued by illegal drugs, violence and gang-related activity. Local law enforcement is simply overwhelmed. The percentage of noncitizens in Federal prisons has increased to more than a quarter of the Federal prison population. Most are illegal aliens, half of them convicted of drug dealing and drug trafficking. Either because of mismanagement or a lack of desire, our immigration laws are not being enforced as they should be.

Mexshitco can go to fucking hell.

>when the storm shifted course, the call to evacuate was cancelled.

>the state government didn't folow protocal and request the help that the law says she needed to do untill after being reminded by an aid when a reporter asked why the national guard wasn't there yet.

Mayor Nagin issued a voluntary evacuation call August 27 at 5 PM and made it mandatory the next day. Also on the 28th, Governor Blanco asked the President for a major disaster declaration and invoked the Stafford Act. Counterflow traffic went into effect that day. That afternoon, Gov. Blanco accepted an offer of National Guard troops from the governor of New Mexico. Federal approval for the transfer didn't come until the following Thursday.

On August 28th the President got a briefing that used the word "catastrophe" and didn't ask a single question or give a single order. If he had, perhaps Chertoff would have activated the Critical Incident Annex to the National Response Plan.

Landfall was morning of Monday, the 29th.

On the 29th, Gov. Blanco said "Mr. President, we need your help. We need everything you've got". The President went to senior centers to promote the Medicare prescription drug plan and went to a photo-op for McCain's birthday. He talked to Chertoff about -- immigration. He played guitar with Mark Willis, and said that when he returned to DC on Thursday he would "begin work". Thursday was when the DoD finally started giving logistics help to FEMA.

More at the bipartisan Congressional report.

Local government down there has never worked right -- pointing to that is a lame excuse for the multiple failures at the federal level.

It's nice to see that people care about this issue as it is fairly significant. Now let's make sure that our voice is heard by pestering those who represent us in Congress. The bill the article talks about is H.R. 977. It is currently in the hands of the Committee on the Judiciary. Finally, go to Congress.org, find out who your representatives are, and let them know your concerns with regards to this bill.

That's one reason I have to laugh everytime a dittohead pops a vein about how illegal aliens are criminals just as bad as murders and rapists.

The illegal status is one issue, but the bigger problem is the crime represented by the illegal population.

On average, illegal immigrants kill 25 American citizens every day. That's more than soldiers dying in Iraq - that's 12-14 times the number of people dead since 9/11 than died on 9/11.

So, what's really a bigger problem, terrorism or illegal immigration?

Or are 9,000 deaths a year not really a problem worth 'popping a vein' over? Maybe when it happens to your family the focus will change.

Ah, Norway, that progressive place of freedom. Nope. Don't buy it. Who's in charge there? Liberals? Let's not say anything that would offend anyone.

My first reaction was "Good because wading through terrabytes of useless data will really help win the war on terrer!" However on sober reflection I realize that the very technical infeasability of this is part and parcel of the problem.

For those of you that haven't seen Terry Gilliam's Brazil you must it is an essential requirement for anyone who would just react with the snarkiness I mentioned above.

They can't parse all of that data. A single major ISP on a single day would generate terrabytes of data if everything was logged. In that event any actual law enforcement methods would be swamped by the sheer beureucratic waste of it all. Massive computer systems performing continuous number crunching would still come up with garbage.

But that doesn't matter!

It isn't necessary for this to work. What is necessary is for them to make people perceive that it works at least enough to get it put in place. At that point the system becomes self feeding. Don't like it, well that can get you put on the short list for a check of your habits. Because they can look at a single person's habits, they may be wrong but they can and will do it. But in general the system will be a large self-feeding monstrosoty and any "errors", because there are always errors will be dealt with in the same way that the no-fly-list errors are handled: "not my department, next please!"

Eventually success of this process ceases to be the object only its continuation. Once a large enough beureucracy is established staffed with enough place-men and place-seekers to protect themselves then this will take over. Consider the Drug war as an example. Yes it hasn't hit full steam but think of ho many things today are justified by means of the "Drug War". And take a look at the way justifications for the war are handled. Money for the Partnership for a Drug-Free America (led by America's Drug Czar) is spent convincing us to back the drug war or not to vote for legalization. In turn the DEA's budget (paying America's Drug Czar) goes up and who the hell cares if the drugs are stopped. And they aren't even fighting "Terrorists".

In many respects it reminds me of East Germany. At the height of their power the East German Stasi employed one in fifty members of the population as full or part-time spies. This doesn't count the large beureucratic staff that they had or the massive infrastructure that was built and run just to sort through it all. The social costs were enormous as any infraction was targeted for no good reason. The economic costs in turn were insane and deprived the state budget of much of the money that might have been spent say building an infrastructure or feeding the population. No nation on earth had more complete information on its citizens and no nation on earth spent more obtaining it.

Ultimately crime was still committed and even the dissident groups grew because they a) hated the government that much, b) were often flooded with spies sent in by the Stasi, and c) could get away with it. None of the objectives of the Stasi were acheived and East Germany fell, it fell and noone misses it.

This "Law and Order" bull must be stopped, and it must be stopped now! We cannot sit back and think that this is okay or that it will "work its way out. Those of us with a technical mindset are in the best position to explain why this will not work and what a costly destructive system this will be, and we cannot put it off.

For those in the U.S. go Here to find your house rep and place a phone call or send a letter. Then for good measure go Here and tell the Senate not to go there either. Following that try sending a letter to you local paper's letters to the editor. While many of us no longer read the dead-tree press it can and will make a big impact for those that do (read: most people over 35).

Don't just sit there whining, do something! Send her a quick email with this contact form

The official count shows that 66 representatives voted 'nay', Representative Paul is among them. Perhaps you were only counting republicans though, in which case Mr Paul was the only one to vote 'nay'

"Would you ever vote for a republican?"

Depends on the republican. A neocon like Bush, McCain, etc? Hell no.

However, there are still some republicans that actually respect the constitution, liberty, and dedicate themselves to fighting government expansion such as Ron Paul that voted against the patriot act, spoke out and voted against authorizing the president to preemptively invade other countries, and much more. He'd get my vote in a heartbeat.

Hey Dipshit,

http://www.house.gov/israel/issues/shoulderfiredmi ssles.htm

"Neocons" is a derogatory phrase ...

Sure it is, and it's used to denigrate people who hold that philosophy for very good reason: Neo-Conned!

Here's one guy who is probably running that I think most freedom loving folks might endorse. Longshot, the media will go out of their way to ignore him, his own party sort of ignores him but he gets relected by his locals because he's an honest dude, a true rarity in the district of criminals. Pretty smart guy, strict Constitutionalist, and etc. There needs to be a ton of pressure applied (and support for and $upport for) from the grass roots level.

http://www.ronpaulexplore.com/

his regular website

http://www.house.gov/paul/

Wow! Thanks for the stat, it clearly illustrates the problem. Do you have a cite handy that I could show others?

Biting the hand that feeds you a speech from the floor of the House of Representatives by Steve King, R Iowa.

Hmm? Sorry, I don't follow.

The only think I know close to that 2900+ number would be the number of troops lost in Iraq- arguably that isn't due to an invasion of us, but rather due to our invasion of somebody else. I have a big tendency to disagree with the use of US troops to attack people outside of our border; the real problem is invasion and the best thing we could do to stop it would be to control borders to the point that we have a *complete* background of anybody we allow into the country and tracking devices attached to visitors. Such a system would make international terrorism impossible very quickly, and we wouldn't have to mess around protecting Iraq.

And you would take a massive tax hit because of it. Bill gives money because he gets to claim the deductions. If he was -really- concerned about making the world a better place he would stop trying to import human sewage, radioactive medical waste untreated blood into American landfills (the company involved, Republic Services Inc NYSE:RSG has received non-trivial investments from Bill).

You can find some more fascinating videos on the Net about this and of course other topics to read. YouTube/Google has videos of Michael Badnarik discussing the subject, and www.cato.org probably has some basic primers on classical liberalism, libertarianism, and self-determination.

Yea, Michael Badnarik got my vote in 2004. If I lived in the district he's running to represent in Texas he'd get my vote again. Ron Paul would also get my vote. Actually if you go through his, Badnarik's website, he has some good stuff on the subject as well. One I like is about a speech Davy Crocket gave in the House of Representatives when they were debating a bill, "Not Yours to Give". Other good sources on classical liberalism are Thomas Paine, his Common Sense being pretty intro. Alexis de Tocqueville is another pretty good source on classical liberalism as is Adam Smith.

You can find some more fascinating videos on the Net about this and of course other topics to read. YouTube/Google has videos of Michael Badnarik discussing the subject, and www.cato.org probably has some basic primers on classical liberalism, libertarianism, and self-determination.

Yea, Michael Badnarik got my vote in 2004. If I lived in the district he's running to represent in Texas he'd get my vote again. Ron Paul would also get my vote. Actually if you go through his, Badnarik's website, he has some good stuff on the subject as well. One I like is about a speech Davy Crocket gave in the House of Representatives when they were debating a bill, "Not Yours to Give". Other good sources on classical liberalism are Thomas Paine, his Common Sense being pretty intro. Alexis de Tocqueville is another pretty good source on classical liberalism as is Adam Smith.

Check out the Committee on Government Reform, United States House of Representatives, Minority Office. This is the official view of congressional Democrats of what the administration has been doing wrong. They're the minority office, so they can't do much except update their web site.

On Tuesday, they become the Majority Office. Congressman Waxman becomes committee chair. Investigations will start shortly thereafter. We're going to see plenty of Administration officials being asked hard questions. Under oath. On TV. That's how Waxman works.

"As set forth in House Rule X, clause 4, the Committee on Government Reform may, at any time, conduct investigations of any matter regardless of whether another standing committee has jurisdiction over the matter."

The fact of the matter is that the GAO report did NOT draw the claimed conclusions at all. What the GAO report says is:

Through both their reports and our interviews with them, consumer advocates and some pharmaceutical industry analysts expressed concerns that certain intellectual property protections do not encourage innovations.

They then, however, go on to note that others disagree with this viewpoint. At least to me, it appears very much as if the "American Constitutional Society" (i.e. the blog referred to in the /. summary) is mostly reading its own viewpoint into the GAO report. If you read the report itself you'll find that it expresses no such position at all, and in its actual "concluding remarks", its only mention of patents is: "The extent to which scientific, business, regulatory and intellectual property issues related to drug development can be addressed will largely determine if and how quickly these trends can be reversed."

The fact is that the report itself takes basically no stance on patents in either direction, basically stating the near tautology that if issues with patents affect innovation, then addressing those issues will affect innovation as well.

To give my summary: don't trust the summaries. Read the paper itself, and draw your own conclusions -- at least IMO, the ACS blog entry simply isn't very accurate.

From TFA: "the ability of drug manufacturers to easily obtain patents for minor changes to products, or to receive patent exclusivity for new uses of existing products, have reduced incentives to develop new drugs."

TFA mischaracterized the actual report. The only place where the report uses the word "reduces" is on page 33 where it simply points out that "[s]ome experts and analysts who are critical of the pharmaceutical industry often state that the emphasis on 'me too' drugs reduces innovation" (emphasis added). Reporting on a position is not the same as endorsing it. Critics of the pharmaceutical industry can't use a report on their own criticism as evidence that their criticism is sound.

The big question is who cares whether a minor variant on a drug that produces minimal gains is patentable? When the patent on the original version expires, doctors can still prescribe the medicine and consumers can still get the original benefits. And if there is some substantial gain due to the supposedly minor change, then why shouldn't the inventor get a patent? Also, if someone finds a new way of using an existing drug, something that was non-obvious, why shouldn't patent protection exist for that new use? If it is truly new and non-obvious, no one was using it for the alternative purpose nor would others have thought to use it for the alternative purpose.

Going through the actual report would show that the GAO report goes in a different direction from saying "patents are worthless." On page 36 the report suggests linking the length of patent protection to the therapeutic value (it suggest maybe 10 years protection for drugs offering less innovative benefits and up to 30 years for drugs considered innovative).

If we really want to measure the effect of IP on drug innovation, it might be better to compare the U.S. drug companies to those in other countries where the laws are different. Even then, it would be very difficult to draw conclusions because there are so many factors. And is it bad if more research is being done on non-NME's? Presumably that's because there is a greater expected ROI, which may mean there is a greater need for those drugs.

The Bush administration's secrecy mania is about to run into Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA). He's the ranking minority member of the House Government Reform Committee. On January 20th, he will become chairman. And he will then have subpoena power over the Executive Branch.

This is the congressman who published "Bush Administration's 237 Misleading Statements on Iraq". He is totally fed up with the lying and secrecy. Expect to see many officials of the Bush administration being questioned by Waxman's commiteee on TV. Under penalty of perjury.

Remember when all the cigarette company CEOs had to testify under oath about what they knew and when they knew it about addiction and hazards? That was Waxman.

And climate is on his agenda. He's very interested in things like the Clean Air Act; he represents Los Angeles.

I think he means Representative Nancy Pelosi (D - CA).

That's what I get for doing a Google search on my best guess, I ended up getting someone else's mispelling. However, I'm sure that Nancy Pelosi has seen many misspellings of her name.

I post a rather diplomatic response and you come back all snotty and condescending.

When writing my MS thesis, I was precise and correct and detailed. When posting on ./, and having a proposal and some other work due the same day, sometimes I devote less time and energy.

Besides, in my post I was precise and correct; I stand by my characterization of the exec. branch having "some control" over funding, for reasons already mentioned. But I concede I didn't even need to single out the exec. branch; you win the ./ debate club prize on that point.

I mentioned distortion and suppression by "the government."
Distortion: Whoo boy. I'll start with this masterpiece about mercury (pdf) by Pombo et al. Then you have Mr. Deutsch- there's distortion and suppression all wrapped up in one nice package. And incompetence. I'll leave you with this resignation letter.

I like how you narrowly interpreted my comments to refer to strictly to publishing. Narrow interpretation is your favorite tool, isn't it. But I am more broadly concerned with the suppression/distortion of science in the government's decision making process. Refer to the situation regarding the U.S. National Assessment of the Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change described in the last link. See also this book.

I concur that we have it better than in China. There should be a corollary to Godwin's law- if you have to compare your country to China to argue that your government isn't so bad, you lose.

Clicking on the Hydrogen entry of the periodic table linked in the original post and reading the fine print at the bottom led me to two websites.

52. A. Clymer, "U.S. Revises Sex Information, and a Fight Goes On," New York Times, December 27, 2002. A comparison of the two versions of the CDC website about condoms can be seen online. The original website, CDC, Condoms and Their Use in Preventing HIV Infection and Other STDS (September 1999) is available at http://www.democrats.reform.house.gov/Documents/20 040817143928-82727.pdf/ . the current CDC fact sheet, CDC; Male Latex Condoms and Sexually Transmitted Diseases (October 2003) is available at http://www.cdc.gov/nchstp/od/latex.htm/.

Those two sites now house the same information. Either someone updated it in response to this report or the UCS was misled. I find the former more likely than the latter.

The Chairman of the Joint Economic Committee agrees with you.

The Chairman of the Joint Economic Committee has in fact said that only when real money is made from playing a game or from selling virtual assets is there a taxable event in the real world.

See his press release, which predates this /. story

The Chairman of the JEC said exactly that, actually. On the 17th of October.

Maybe the NIST folks figured they'd finally have a little protection from getting censored or worse for giving their honest analysis.

With any consensus, the question is, who participates? The following link references an article which shows how a revised graph has been created and accepted by those who want to see a recent, drastic change:
http://energycommerce.house.gov/108/News/07142006_ 1990.htm

But they have to minimize the Medieval Warm Period http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period and Little Ice Age http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age which lasted into the middle of the 19th century.

The consensus itself is called into question by statistically analyzing the participants [analysis done by statisticians]. Quote below from the first reference:

Mr. Wegman brings to bear a technique called social-network analysis to examine the community of climate researchers. His conclusion is that the coterie of most frequently published climatologists is so insular and close-knit that no effective independent review of the work of Mr. Mann is likely. "As analyzed in our social network," Mr. Wegman writes, "there is a tightly knit group of individuals who passionately believe in their thesis." He continues: "However, our perception is that this group has a self-reinforcing feedback mechanism and, moreover, the work has been sufficiently politicized that they can hardly reassess their public positions without losing credibility."

I take it you haven't heard Nancy Pelosi talk about the Patriot act, or any of the other things you don't think will change? http://www.house.gov/pelosi/press/releases/Dec05/p atriot.html Go ahead and tell everyone that still nothing is going to change, we all know you're just dying to say that some more.

Maybe you should, you know, take a break from spouting off random anarchist rabble. Wipe the spittle from your chin, maybe take a shower, and get back to us when you've grown up a bit.

Look at Rick Boucher's track record on internet legislation and tell me he's a knob again. If all of congress were lined up to be shot by a firing squad, and I were given the opportunity to save just one of them... it'd be Rick Boucher. Patrick Leahy could go to the front of the line though. He is definitely in Hollywood's pocket.

Oh right, wise friend of the internet Ed "On Friday I urged the Bush Administration to 'apprehend' and shut down whoever had created a new website that enabled persons without a plane ticket to easily fake a boarding pass" Markey...

A large majority of democrat house members you just re-elected voted for the patriot act, and all but one democrat voted for it in the senate.

So much for my one consolation about this election: the hope that democrats would finally stop whining.

One of my favorite Congressman is Rep. Ron Paul. We need ore poeple like him.

Yeah, and maybe we could if we would have people stop thinking "We have both kinds of politics; Republican AND Democrat"

If people can see the virtues in Ron Paul and still can not understand why we need a solid third party voice than I fear there is no hope. Ron Paul is not as original or unique as people think, he just got in on a major party ticket. This kind of thing is a fluke and will not happen often enough as long as people keep pulling the single party voting lever.

If there becomes a more involved third party the other parties may pay attention to the types of ideals that get them elected.

So, why is it that most libertarians spend so much time talking about private ownership of property, and business? Why is it they spend so much time railing against the existence of government, but hardly any time talking about the Constitution or human rights?

Libertarians talk about private property because they strongly believe in private property and property rights. When government owns all the property you have communism which means big government. Business is an extention of property and Libertarians believe businesses can do better and more to improve the economy and people's lives. There may be other things they consider but I can't enumerate them now. As for human rights, government is the biddest violator of them. A small and limited government wouldn't have the power to violate those rights. The National Platform of the Libertarian Party explains what the LP states for better than I can.

I'm serious about these questions, because most of the Libertarians I encounter seem to care mostly about profits and wealth, and don't pay much lip service to human freedoms and rights. Basically a socially Darwinian approach, it seems. I find it frustrating, because of the way "liberty" is at the root of the name, but it only seems to apply to the "liberty" to make a profit at all costs, and hardly ever to human liberty.

Some libertarians, notice here I used a small "l" whereas above I used it capitalized, do believe corporations should do whatever they want. I and others call them something like corporate libertarians but to us they aren't real libertarians. This division isn't much different than divisions in the Democrat or Republican parties. Take the "conservative" Republican who claim to believe in small government, I say claim because many are going along with Bush's expansion of government, and the neocons. I can only name two that do stand up against the expansion of government, rep Ron Paul of Texas and former congressman Bob Barr.

Well Ron Paul ran as the Libertarian candidate for president and while he ran as a republican in Texas he's never renounced the LP. Actually the LP was started as an offsghoot of the Republican Party. During Nixon's admin some Republicans disagreed with Nixon's and other Republican's stances so they started the LP. Bob Barr though a conservative has worked with the ACLU against elements of the Patriot Act.

The PATRIOT Act is probably the worst example of the list, but it's one that most slashdotters love to hate. I regret including it. However, let's consider the "Threatened and Endangered Species Recovery Act". In case you're not aware of what the act proposes, it proposes "recovering" threatened and endangered species by removing them from the endangered species list - therefore allowing destruction of their habitat and/or hunting of the critters. So I ask, is that a "flattering" name or is it doublespeak?

If it helps, consider who Dick Pobmo is, and why he sponsored this bill.