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How about these then?

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=vie wArticle&code=20041227&articleId=284
http://www.house.gov/judiciary_democrats/ohiostatu srept1505.pdf
http://web.northnet.org/minstrel/certifiable.htm

I suppose that asking an american to do his own research is like asking a baboon to do calculus.

My response to reading the article: duh!

Here are some recent articles on the developments in China. The US is not starting this race, but it'd be nice to keep up regardless.

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/space/2005-07 -27-china-satellites_x.htm
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/HD20Ad03.html
http://www.house.gov/coxreport/chapfs/ch4.html
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/china-01c.html
http://www.taiwandc.org/twcom/84-no3.htm
http://www.afio.com/sections/wins/1998/notes48.htm l

The world is, a dangerous place. As with Sudan and Iran, the UN is no deterrent to aggression. Enlightened self-interest directs us to investigate these types of systems for the same reasons we investigate lethal pathogens. Surviving them requires understanding them even if we never intend to use them.

Please! Write/email your congressperson and senator and tell them to support this legislation!

You can easily submit an email or find their mailing addresses here:

http://www.house.gov/writerep/

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/ senators_cfm.cfm

They pay more attention to written and mailed letters than email, but, there is no reason that everybody can't take a few minutes of their time to fill out a webform/email telling their reps to support this effort.

But as time has gone on, while we've become more reliant, dependent, and expectant, of technology, the technology itself has become no more practical. The integrated device is far away. While systems like the Nokia 9500 have gone so far, the fact is we can't rely upon such technologies for everything. Just entering text into any mobile device, for instance, remains a pain, a crucial barrier to the integrated digital world.

In some ways, the question may be raised: is this the direction we want to go in? The truth is, yes it is. We're expected to have this degree of communication because the world is becoming more complex, because as we gain efficiencies through our increased knowledge, we find ourselves having to manage the data flow.

And so, right now, we have to lug laptops around, with wifi and bluetooth connections, and cellphones, and iPods. Will this end? It has to. Because unless it does, we'll never be able to realise the next step of total information connectivity. Our ability to learn, and to take advantage of the information available will be decreased.

This quagmire of people being unable to take advantage of information while the technology itself remains a hinderance will not disappear by itself. Resources need to be devoted, and unless people are prepared to actually act, not just talk about it on Slashdot, nothing will ever get done. Apathy is not an option.

You can help by getting off your rear and writing to your congressman or senator. Tell them that there has to be a nationwide program that provides technology at the point of need, ensuring total connectivity. Tell them this is important to you. Tell them that you appreciate the work being done by good, American, companies from Cingular to Motorola, from IBM to Dell, from Apple to Microsoft to support you with the technology you need in your life but that without a government mandated technology supply, ensuring those who need information can get it without the need to lug around laptops, you will be forced to use less and less secure and intelligently designed alternatives. Explain the concerns you have about freedom, openness, and choice, and how a government program of technological availability will help all three. Let them know that this is an issue that effects YOU directly, that YOU vote, and that your vote will be influenced, indeed dependent, on their policies on funding such a network.

You CAN make a difference. Don't treat voting as a right, treat it as a duty. Remember, it was thanks to ordinary people like YOU that we are now seeing such innovations as SMP in OpenBSD. Keep informed, keep your political representatives informed on how you feel. And, most importantly of all, vote.

a Texan, with a marvelous record of supporting what's right for the people, Rep. Joe Barton?

In which case, why do I feel worried?

Thank you. Article I, Section 8. "The Congress shall have power...to declare war." There's an interesting article called "Violating the Constitution With an Illegal War", by Rep. Ron Paul (republican).

An employee suggested to me that we use secret subpoenas on a few people here as an evaluation of the current Department of Justice bureaucracy. I was skeptical at first but he explained the benefits of using it for our employee's day-to-day operations. So I decided to let him file secret subpoenas on 5 of our fellow employees to see how much information. Besides, our Human Resources manager had been doing it for some time and it seemed to work fine, why not try it ourselves?

Once he'd got the employees' information we let other employees file secret subpoenas on random people. It all seemed fine to start with: secret subpoenas were a pretty good replacement for slow police investigations and the users could still do their work as normal.

Alas it did not stay that way. After a few days, I had lost count of the number of complaints received from users who couldn't find information they were used to or tasks they could not perform that they previously could with ordinary police investigations. The final straw came when one employee lost several hours work when a secret subpoena suddenly came under question by some liberal lawyer.

Needless to say, the United States Department of Justice offered no support whatsoever. I made the employees destroy all subpoenas and lets just say we're not doing that anymore.

As another poster suggested :
Just forward your logs to DeGette.

How can this apparently high approval rating from a purported supporter of civil liberties be reconciled with Rep. Degette's recent anti-privacy action? Was the ACLU on crack when they scored her?

It appears from her own words that a representative from the DOJ told her a carefully constructed sob story about child pornography, complete with anecdote about how this precise law would have saved a child, and including the availability fallacy. She says she considered this "eye-opening", and so apparently she believes she drafted this law "for the children".

In other words, this bill was lobbied for by the DOJ by means of emotional appeal. It probably hasn't occured to Diana DeGette yet to consider how internet anonymity can be a potent tool for the longterm preservation of freedom in a democracy. Perhaps a few sob stories about China would be "eye-opening" to her. *nudges people from Colorado to action*

Republican?

Then seriously, contact her here:

http://www.house.gov/degette/contact.shtml

and let her know that she's an idiot and that you won't be voting for her in the next election.

I intend to send her office a letter (not an email, a letter) - but I am not in her district so in the end, she doesn't have to listen to me. Mine will be a philosophical plea; yours needs to be an outright threat to not vote for her.

Her website has a press release about this:

http://www.house.gov/degette/contact.shtmlhttp://w ww.house.gov/degette/contact.shtml

I truly don't think that she has considered the chilling effect to privacy that this would have or the economic consqeuences to ISPs or the burden it would place on them.

An anonymous reader writes to mention a News.com story covering a most disquieting trend in the House of Representatives. From the article: "Colorado Rep. Diana DeGette's proposal...

F***ing Republicans.

What? DeGette's a Democrat?

Well, it just goes to prove that both parties are as stupid, greedy, and evil as the Republicans.

It's claimed that tracking content isn't the intention. "The idea is not to preserve content, just identifying information in order to track down people who are implicated in the online sexual abuse of children." (From the press release.) http://www.house.gov/apps/list/press/co01_degette/ statementinternetexploit.html

Rep. Waxman issued a Flash Report examining data released by the State Department and National Counterterrorism Center that shows that the number of reported global terrorism incidents has increased exponentially in the three years since the United States invaded Iraq--an increase of over 5,000% in the number of terrorist attacks and over 2,000% in the number of deaths in three years.
report[pdf]

Raw Story is in danger. Your right to read news stories and writing that disrupt the government/Big Media symbiosis is under attack. And you probably don't even know it.

There has been so much going on lately, what with plans to nuke Iran and the rolling mutiny among the top brass that you may well have missed another growing menace to all that we have built here.

The Internet phenomenon - the dizzying evolution from Netscape to Yahoo to Google to the new world of blogs and wikis - is the result of an essential structural attribute of the medium: the content-neutrality of the pipes we use to connect to it. It is the natural tendency of the powerful to silence and hinder anything that threatens their dominance, but the phone companies could not stop AOL, AOL could not stop Yahoo, and Yahoo could not stop Google, because the folks who owned the pipes used to carry all those ones and zeroes to and from your computer were not permitted to discriminate against bits they didn't like. (The concept of the "common carrier" dates back at least to the earliest regulation of railroads more than a hundred years ago.) That level field has also resulted in the current flowering of our participatory democracy. But that flower is about to pruned or even torn out by the roots.

The Orwellian "Communications Opportunity, Promotion, and Enhancement Act of 2006," sponsored by Congressman Joe Barton (R, Texas), will, if it becomes law, allow your Internet provider to charge you extra to read this column. It will allow your provider to block this column entirely. Congressman Ed Markey (D, Mass), who sponsored a defeated amendment that would have explicitly preserved neutrality, explains:

The Joe Barton (R-TX) sponsored telecommunications bill that is moving through the Energy & Commerce Committee in the House would fundamentally change the way the Internet works. ... In short, the Barton bill opens the door for the Bells and other ISPs to throw out a key principle of net neutrality and enact a new era of telecom taxes and tolls, roadblocks that would shut down the avenues of innovation that have allowed the Internet to become what it is today.

That bill took a big step toward being enacted into law last week.

A House subcommittee handed phone companies a victory Wednesday by voting 27-4 to advance a bill that would make it easier for them to deliver television service over the Internet and clearing the way for all Internet carriers to charge more for speedier delivery. ...

Earlier in the day, the subcommittee voted 23-8 to reject an amendment by Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., that would have inserted specific language designed to enforce network neutrality and prevent the feared creation of fast and slow lanes on the Internet.

"Members from both sides of the aisle endorsed a plan which will permit cable and phone companies to construct 'pay as you surf, pay as you post' toll booths for the Internet" said Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy in Washington.

But Sonia Arrison, director of technology studies for the Pacific Research Institute in San Francisco, dismissed concerns that the proposed bill would lead to a two-tiered Internet.

"There's plenty of competition," Arrison said. "The market will

For those wondering who Ed Markey is- he is a Representative (D- 7th district,MASS) who was going to run for Kerry's seat in the Senate until Kerry lost. He is the ranking Democrat on the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_J._Markey
http://markey.house.gov/
http://www.issues2000.org/MA/Ed_Markey.htm

Exactly! Here is the contact info for those that don't have it: http://energycommerce.house.gov/108/subcommittees/ Telecommunications_and_the_Internet_Members.htm

With members

Fred Upton, Michigan Chairman

Michael Bilirakis, Florida

Cliff Stearns, Florida

Paul E. Gillmor, Ohio

Ed Whitfield, Kentucky

Barbara Cubin, Wyoming

John Shimkus, Illinois

Heather Wilson, New Mexico

Charles "Chip" Pickering, Mississippi

Vito Fossella, New York

George Radanovich, California

Charles F. Bass, New Hampshire

Greg Walden, Oregon

Lee Terry, Nebraska

Mike Ferguson, New Jersey

John Sullivan, Oklahoma

Marsha Blackburn, Tennessee

Joe Barton, Texas(Ex Officio)

Edward J. Markey, Massachusetts Ranking Member

Eliot L. Engel, New York

Albert R. Wynn, Maryland

Mike Doyle, Pennsylvania

Charles A. Gonzalez, Texas

Jay Inslee, Washington

Rick Boucher, Virginia

Edolphus Towns, New York

Frank Pallone Jr., New Jersey

Sherrod Brown, Ohio

Bart Gordon, Tennessee

Bobby L. Rush, Illinois

Anna G. Eshoo, California

Bart Stupak, Michigan

John D. Dingell, Michigan(Ex Officio)

I wonder how the committee voted on this.

Would it be so hard for the reporter to include that in the story?

The official site of the committee hides their voting record on matters like this very well.

I couldn't find it... Would it be that hard to have a quick link on the main page?

http://energycommerce.house.gov/

Business as usual within the beltway.

I think we need some sort of blacklist where we keep track of these politicians, and come election time, vote these n00bs out of office.

This is just the government protecting the top 2% of the richest people in america again, folks. It's what they do best!

When you don't see congress taking a piss on the little guy, they're in recess.

Does anyone believe for a second that most of the political constituency wants tighter control of their music? No. This isn't about what the people want. If it were, there wouldn't BE DRM or copyright extensions. I doubt ANYONE wants to see the windows media popup saying that their content license has to be checked once you move it to a new machine or to have all of their videos removed from their ipod when you move your purchased downloads to a new hard drive because you haven't authorized your computer (no kidding, this happened to me and it took 45 minutes to reload all the video I HAD on my ipod back on).

All these laws are being put into place to "protect" only people who's most reliably common trait is the word ", millionaire" attached to their name. I just wish the people would step up and SAY SOMETHING before our rights erode to only being able to listen to cd's without fear of imprisonment.

"here in Canada we were really, really surprised to see you guys re-elect dubya."
Yeah, we were too, both times we elected him. Enough so that we requested UN oversight of the 2004 elections.
http://www.house.gov/corrinebrown/press108/pr04070 2.htm
But that somehow never happened... stupid terrorists.

The House Subcommittee on Web Standards should be immediately be contacted to ensure all Slashdot-related Web site redesigns are compatible with ADA-certified web browsers. You really should make sure you don't just abandon your reader base solely on a software incompatibility!

There's no need for a lame Netcraft joke, because it's official. Everyone confirms: Slashdot is at great risk of losing face on the Internet, especially with the huge "Web 2.0" changes going on.

Another more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered Slashdot community when CmdrTaco confirmed that the number of Slashdot readers has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all the internet-using population. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that Slashdot has lost more and more readers, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. Slashdot is collapsing in complete disarray.

You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict Slashdot's future. The hand writing is on the wall: Slashdot faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for Slashdot because Slashdot is dying. Things are looking very bad for Slashdot. As many of us are already aware, Slashdot continues to lose readers. Red ink flows like a river of blood, spewing forth from between the legs of CowboyNeal and his big, hairy mangina.

Slashdot is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If Slashdot is to survive at all it will be among lowly AC goatse-trolls. Slashdot continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, Slashdot is dead.

Fact: Slashdot is dead.

Perhaps the crime most feared and most under reported is that of male on male rape, says Rob Malda in his new book Male on Male Rape: The CmdrTaco syndrome.

Like most efforts in the incipient victim's rights movement, the book and CmdrTaco's own career as coordinator of Slashdot's Rape Education and Prevention Program got their genesis in someone's own victimization and transformation as a male rape survivor. For CmdrTaco, the events leading up to and surrounding his and many other male rapes are rooted in homosexuality — the sexuality of choice for Slashdot authors.

It started for CmdrTaco in the fall of 1989 when he and his friend Hemos began their sophomore year at the Slashdot school for the sexually impaired, sharing a dormitory room at Bradly Hall and serving as President and Vice President of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance.

As campus gay leaders they raised questions and initiated dialogue on issues about which many men on the campus felt uncomfortable, including all the men on the third floor of Bradly Hall. As a result, they received anal penetrations, reach arounds, offers to write for Slashdot, and a daily dirty sanchez from the other men on their floor. To escape the hostility, Hemos headed home for the weekend and CmdrTaco visited a gay bar. CmdrTaco meets a man there who hours later would in CmdrTaco's dormitory room would rape him. He describes dramatically how he could not call for help because he loved it too much.

"A culture that encourages and condones sexual violence wielded as a tool for the control and subordination of those with less power in our society." Basically, CmdrTaco states that he, and other flaming homosexuals use male rape as the leverage to gain control of Slashdot's readers. Slashdot has always been pro-gay, but CmdrTaco has turned the once "queers are people to" website into a man-sauce guzzling festival of uninvited anal penetration and reach arounds.

What we actually know about male rape is very little. It is, as JonKatz describes it, "something like a stack of delicious, shit crusted pancakes that I can't wait to stick my tongue into!"

His is not the first book on the subject however. Cowboy Neal, al

I have found nothing on Lamar Smith's webpage.

It is too new to show up on the THOMAS (Library of Congress) website. Oh, wait. It hasn't been introduced yet.

H.R. 2391 only comes up as the Safe Communities and Safe Schools Mercury Reduction Act of 2005.

That said if TFA is accurate then it will be something I oppose and will write to my state Rep about.

Another way to get your voice heard--send an email to the committee that is going to take up the bill:

http://judiciary.house.gov/committeestructure.aspx ?committee=3

Have it folks, let your voice be heard instead of just ranting and bitching!

Well they could start by going here:

http://lamarsmith.house.gov/FormCheck.asp

and by making articulate and reasonable arguments against this legislation. Make it clear where your votes will and won't go and why.

They could also try crying. That helps a lot.

This guy needs to go away now. How about setting up a de-elect Lamar Smith fund to buy campaign ads in his home district to clearly point out just how much of a slug this guy is? If he is dead-set on affecting people around the country then he deserves to play with a national election. TV ads with photos of Cape Cod (where he really lives)and of the Hollywood sign with a voiceover along the lines of "he lives in Cape Cod and represents Hollywood. What has Rep Lamar Smith done for you lately?" He's kind of in the sticks so local newspaper and radio ads should be fairly cheap. Anybody in?

It seems to me that the actions of the RIAA against suspected file sharers are an act of terrorism. Demanding payment under the threat of a lawsuit, just because your underage child downloaded music is simply a shakedown. This law will make it much easier and less costly for the RIAA to extort the single mothers, because they don't have to sue any longer - they just threaten to call the cops. That's a pretty efficient process, and greatly increases the cost-to-income ratio. Enough to afford to buy.... Say.... A congressman.

So how do you stop this? Perhaps all the Slashdot readers in Texas could:

1. Call and ask his staff why he wants to send single moms to jail?

2. Then call your local news station and ask why he wants to send single moms to jail?

3. Then call your local newspaper and ask why he wants to send single moms to jail?

Let's see if there's a Slashdot effect on the local media. Three phone calls is all it takes.

http://lamarsmith.house.gov/

Call Rep. Smith at (202) 225-4236

If you're willing to bitch about it, how about makeing one or more phone calls?

THIS IS NOT WITHIN A LOCAL GOVERNMENT'S JURISDICTION!!

The FCC regulates radio spectrum and the Internet, because both are Interstate services.

Westchester Country has the authority to regulate the aspect of the businesses in its jurisdiction that are not regulated by the state or federal government. Westchester County couldn't decide that businesses didn't have to collect state sales tax, since that's regulated at a state level. It couldn't decide that businesses didn't have to obey federal labor laws, since that's regulated at a state level. It could _tighten_ the restrictions, if it wanted to, but it could't relax those restrictions.

The FCC has certain laws in place regulating wireless networks. Nothing in this law violates those laws. It simply adds more restrictions on top of the existing laws.

There's something in this country called the SEPARATION OF POWERS. It gives the federal government the right to regulate: "Interstate Commerce". Since radio waves don't respect state boundaries, courts have determined they are INTERSTATE in nature!!

Sorry, that's not what separation of powers means. You should read about it here. You may be confusing that with section 8, clause 3 of the Constitution, or perhaps some section of the Interstate Commerce Act.

Frankly, what I would have loved to have seen in this law would be a reporting clause; one week after informing a business of such a violation, the county government would put a notice in the local newspaper indicating that such and such business had been fined for a violation of this law. The delay is to give the business time to add security; the notification would inform customers that the business could have put their financial information at risk.

Reading the patents (6,044,471 and 6,785,825) one is struck by a few things:

1. The patents (especially the second one) show a clever idea: force the user to register the software in order for it to operate. I don't know if this was an original idea in 2004, but it is clever. Of course, just because it's clever doesn't mean it's patentable.
2. This idea doesn't seem to be clever enough to be non-obvious as required by section 103 of US Code Title 35.
3. More seriuosly, the patents claim to provide an "apparatus and method", but fail to describe any actual appartus beyond the computer running the software under question. This is really a patent on an idea which contravenes section 102 of Title 35.

Beyond all this, the real question is of economics: did it cost Mr. Colvin $118M to develop this "invention"? Society has no incentive to allow people to monopolize ideas which have a zero development cost: people would invent them anyway since there's a profit motive even if other people can employ the invention. It should therefore be clear that the Patent Clause and US Code Title 35 were not intended to cover this invention. The fact that it was accepted anyway tell us a lot (that we already knew) about the US patent system. For example "non-obvious" has devloved to mean "not already known", a situation which is beyond words.

Here is a list of the Representatives that voted for Real IDs. It passed unanimously in the Senate.

Congressman Ron Paul: America Without An Income Tax?

As April 15 approaches, ponder these words from Congressman Ron Paul (R-Texas), who has introduced legislation to abolish the income tax:

"[C]ould America exist without an income tax? The idea seems radical, yet in truth America did just fine without a federal income tax for the first 126 years of her history.

"Prior to 1913, the government operated with revenues raised through tariffs, excise taxes, and property taxes, without ever touching a worker's paycheck.

"Even today, individual income taxes account for only approximately one-third of federal revenue. Eliminating one-third of the proposed 2007 budget would still leave federal spending at roughly $1.8 trillion - a sum greater than the budget just 6 years ago in 2000!

"Does anyone seriously believe we could not find ways to cut spending back to 2000 levels? Perhaps the idea of an America without an income tax is not so radical after all.

"It's something to think about this week as we approach April 15th."

Indeed!

Source: "Cough Up" by libertarian Congressman Paul:
http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2006/tst041006.ht m

As April 15 approaches, ponder these words from Congressman Ron Paul (R-Texas), who has introduced legislation to abolish the income tax:

"[C]ould America exist without an income tax? The idea seems radical, yet in truth America did just fine without a federal income tax for the first 126 years of her history.

"Prior to 1913, the government operated with revenues raised through tariffs, excise taxes, and property taxes, without ever touching a worker's paycheck.

"Even today, individual income taxes account for only approximately one-third of federal revenue. Eliminating one-third of the proposed 2007 budget would still leave federal spending at roughly $1.8 trillion - a sum greater than the budget just 6 years ago in 2000!

"Does anyone seriously believe we could not find ways to cut spending back to 2000 levels? Perhaps the idea of an America without an income tax is not so radical after all.

"It's something to think about this week as we approach April 15th."

Indeed!

Source: "Cough Up" by libertarian Congressman Paul:
http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2006/tst041006.ht m

Today they have the highest market capitalization of any airline in the world and one of the highest profit margins as well.

Clause 1: The Congress shall have Power...
Clause 8: To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

The Social Security Administration scored an "A". As I recall they were also one of the first federal agencies to complete their work on the Y2K project. Score another one for monolithic bureacracies over fragmented bureaucracies :)

For those interested, the entire report card is available here.

So the IRS's budget would get reduced, leaving them fewer resources to do their job (of which the scope won't change), so the situation gets worse... I don't see that fining the IRS would do any good.

Instead, I'd put the heat on your local Congressman, as well as write to this gang, who provides Congressional oversight to the IRS.

Dig up egregious examples of conduct (in the article, it mentions an IRS contractor digging up political info on taxpayers), and write to your local newspaper.

It's not like many agencies have gone up:

http://reform.house.gov/UploadedFiles/Federal%20Co mputer%20Security%20Report%20Card%20-%202005.pdf

If you're not seeing your favorite bureau its either too small (FTC) or, like the IRS, under a larger department (Census, ITA, NIST, etc.).

Call AND fax your congressman and senators. Ask to speak to the staffer who deals with either telecommunications or consumer affairs issues. Tell them, nicely, that you have a problem with these regs, and they need to step up. Hard as it is to believe, for the most part, these people really try to listen to their constituents.

House web site: http://www.house.gov/

Senate web site: http://www.senate.gov/

Don't bother mailing, because letters sit in a warehouse for months waiting to get checked for anthrax.

The actual statement (in pdf form)

"By appearing before you today, it is my sincere hope that we are helping to advance meaningful patent law reform, thus helping to assure that no other company experiences what RIM endured over the past five years."

Why is it that every time Bush does something stupid and wrong the chant of 'Clinton Clinton!' starts?

Do republicans really believe that it is a defense of dishonesty to point out dishonesty in others? Or a defense of bad policy to say 'they did it first!'?

I would point out that 2 wrongs don't make a right, but 300 republicans would reply to my post saying 'Clinton did 2 wrongs and they weren't right!!!!!!!!1'.

This is how low the republicans have sunk. They are a national laughingstock and disgrace, and the only thing they are willing to do to repair their image is to talk about crap that happened between 6 and 14 years ago.

However, I can also remember things which happened years ago.

For example, lets look at the Republicans 'Contract with America' and see if they have kept any of the promises which helped catapult them into control in the first place.

http://www.house.gov/house/Contract/CONTRACT.html

Nope, they didn't keep a single promise, and in fact have done much the opposite of what they said.

Meanwhile the republican congress passes more spending, and more pork spending, than ever before in our history, and the republican president has not yet vetoed a single bill, and even invents huge new government programs, larger than any we've started since Johnson's 'great society' debacle. And then they make sure that most of the money in the expensive new program goes to large corporations, who coincidently are the same corporations which donate heavily to republican re-elections, and who employ a disturbing percentage of republican ex-congressman and officials (can someone say quid --several year delay-- pro quo?). Is it a coincidence that during the Clinton years Cheney was CEO Haliburton (who has recieved billions of dollars in no bid contracts, and who still owns about 400,000 options) and Rumsfeld was chairman of Gilead Sciences (makers of tamiflu, the drug known not to be effective against bird flu, which the government just bought 1 billion dollars worth, and who made 1 million dollars due to the increase in stock value due to the governments purchase.)

They have lied to the point where anyone who believes a word they say is an imbecile. There is a hotshot republican being arrested every week, and one pleading out in court every other week. They started a war we are now stuck with, knowing all along their rationale was not sound, and then botched the execution and let the country be taken over by thugs. They steered big contracts to 3rd rate companies (MZM) for cash. Has anyone even counted the number of soldiers who have been wounded, killed or scarred because of the low quality of contracting done by the crony friends of those who are now in power (MZM, Haliburton)?

There is nothing good you can say about republicans. That is why you always want to change the subject to democrats.

No, it didn't. The subcommitte in question has 18 republicans and 15 democrats accroding to the committe information page. The vote failed, 23-8, so at the very most a little over half of the democrats present voted for it. It's more likely split, but the article doesn't give any information about how the vote was actually distributed. It implies that there was a party line split, but there is no evidence that I can find. The house site doesn't seem to have yesterday's committee actions available yet.

On the plus side, I agree with shooting it down. I'd rather the government not regulate the internet in any way. Much as I dislike carriers blocking some sites, unless they have a contract somewhere stating otherwise, they can do whatever they want with their equipment. I'm not sure if it would alter their common carrier status, but IANAL.

Rep. Ed Markey (author of the amendment) sits on this subcommittee, and has been one of the guys in Congress who has pretty consistently sided with the /. crowd on telco issues, privacy issues, etc.

On the whole, it's not too surprising that you'd get Dems crossing the lines to support this one. Telecom is an industry where EVERYbody gets paid, regardless of political affiliation.

Rep. Ed Markey (author of the amendment) sits on this subcommittee, and has been one of the guys in Congress who has pretty consistently sided with the /. crowd on telco issues, privacy issues, etc.

On the whole, it's not too surprising that you'd get Dems crossing the lines to support this one. Telecom is an industry where EVERYbody gets paid, regardless of political affiliation.

Rep. Ed Markey (author of the amendment) sits on this subcommittee, and has been one of the guys in Congress who has pretty consistently sided with the /. crowd on telco issues, privacy issues, etc.

On the whole, it's not too surprising that you'd get Dems crossing the lines to support this one. Telecom is an industry where EVERYbody gets paid, regardless of political affiliation.

But what does the The House Subcommittee on Former Monopolies Splitting And Rejoining have to say about this?

Additional keywords: Alcatel, Evil Empire, Lucent, Ma Bell, Winmodems.

But what would the House Subcommittee on Proprietary Office Suites and Antitrust Accusations say about this?

Keywords: Antitrust, broadband, client, distributed, GTK, Java, OGG Vorbis, onion routing, open source, PowerPC.

But what would The House Subcommittee on Modern Intergalactic Weapons Development and Regulation say about this?

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1. supported this administration for other reasons.
2. Have faith in the "Power of the market" to do what is
           desired
3. THink that Politics is someone else's problem.