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I plan to become a consultant to help organizations make this transition. Hugo Chavez just mandated free software for their whole government. BTW, anyone seen this yet?


Dick and Harry's Awful Adventure
Featuring:
Aerosmith
Led Zeppelin
Pat Benatar
Bon Jovi
Johnny Cash
Frank Sinatra
The Fugees & DJ Hype

It is ridiculous that 47% of Americans are not completely up-in-arms about this. We can't have our president breaking any law that he wants to.

Mr. Bush actually has a good argument for legality here... provided that this really is limited to international calls with suspected terrorists on one end (as the New York Times said in its initial report).

I don't agree with all of his argument, but here's my understanding of it:

The US said that it is at war with al Qaeda. This authorizes Bush to kill suspected terrorists in other countries. But.. although blasting them into smithereens or turning them into jelly is A-OK, he's not allowed to tap their phones without getting a court order? Since when does the judicial branch get involved in foreign war operations?

Furthermore, Congress is limited to those powers specifically granted to it by the Constitution. Thus, Congress has the power to raise an army, fund it, and declare war. It doesn't have the authority to limit the President's ability to direct military operations as Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. Congress can increase or decrease funding (the ultimate check on executive power), but it can't pass a law saying "The President is not allowed to launch cruise missiles at Switzerland." Spying on foreign terrorists during a war on international terror is essentially a military operation.

[IMHO, that last bit is the weakest point of the argument.]

---

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-gutfeld/finally -the-roe-v-wade-_b_14437.html

You aren't paying attention. Everything that you've listed is a success for the administration. If we run out of money, that just means we have to cut services that they never wanted anyway. Spreading the army too thin means that they can use contractors & mercenaries instead.

And Brownie was an idiot patsy. He never had control over FEMA when it counted. Whenever we heard about FEMA doing something wrong, I guarantee the decision was pushed down from DHS. He was sending around idiotic emails because he didn't have anything to do. He did do a heck of a job: taking a well-cushioned fall.

It's all according to plan.

Wait ... don't you know that leap second lovers are traitors?

"This year's leap second is an assault on the American public," says commentator Bill O'Reilly. "The reason the leap second is even being proposed is because of America Haters, because of Iraqi hate mongers, and let's be honest, Shiites. Why would you add a second to the year unless you're an anti-American hate monger?

I remember liberals at a party saying, 'let's add a second to the year' and I was the only one who spoke up against it. Why would they want to add a second to the year? Because it gives them a second longer to hate Bush.

I think he's on (to) something.

According to Bill O'Reilly

...that Bill O'Reilly says that Leap Second Lovers are Traitors!

I remember liberals at a party saying, 'let's add a second to the year' and I was the only one who spoke up against it. Why would they want to add a second to the year? Because it gives them a second longer to hate Bush.

"This year's leap second is an assault on the American public," says commentator Bill O'Reilly. "The reason the leap second is even being proposed is because of America Haters, because of Iraqi hate mongers, and let's be honest, Shiites. Why would you add a second to the year unless you're an anti-American hate monger?
I remember liberals at a party saying, 'let's add a second to the year' and I was the only one who spoke up against it. Why would they want to add a second to the year? Because it gives them a second longer to hate Bush.

"Look, look, look, look. A leap second is a denial of everything American, of everything good, of everything moral. They're saying we need this second because the earth rotates on its axis and revolves around the earth, well this is the no spin zone. So we don't need a leap second. Though I would rather have a leap second than some of these hate-mongers who go around hating even their own ideas! They need to hate their own ideas so much that you have many liberals proposing the leap second, which is an idea that they hate, yet, they propose.

"I am so so so so upset with these people, who actually believe their ideas, yet, I have no hate in my heart. I am a simple guy, who only has my own true beliefs and a few products that are my cornerstone to fight against the leap second poobah. Let me say it aloud: Leap Second, leap second, leap second. Doesn't it sound ugly?

"Please, don't let these Darwinian leap-seconders, who believe that the planets revolve around the sun, who believe that rocks are sedimentary, igneous and stalactites, who are innocent dim-wit believers in a faith bordering on hating everything religious like trees and fruitcake, yet, who don't believe in John 7:12:45:67:89, have their say.

"But you know what I love? Dialogue. Rational dialogue which allows me to say that aliens from a Iraqi loving planet want to abolish Christmas by adding a leap second to the Darwinian anti-God year. Dialogue is what keeps the American system God-loving and anti non-God. It also keeps the anti-God loving non-Iraqi loving insurgent deniers able to voice their hideous so-called opinions over the American loving tolerant airways. And now let's take some calls."

Steve Martin

One article claimed the 38 year old male in question had existed on a 20 day diet of instant noodles. Eheh and before? Because I know from personal experience that the body can live a lot longer then that on instant noodles.

Absolutely true. In 1982, ten political prisoners held by the UK went on hunger strike, and each lasted an average of 70 days on water and salt before dying of starvation. I don't recommend it, but you can live without food for a lot longer than most people would guess. (Some people seem to confuse water with food, and imagine that a person can starve to death in just a few days.)

The other has someone having a 9 hour gaming session? Well I doubt anyone would be able to do that without having to pee and even then so what? I done far longer sessions.

I'm not sure what you're saying, but I wouldn't hold it for several hours after drinking a 20 oz Mountain Dew... Of course, it can be done, but there's a nontrivial risk of bladder infection and other problems.

OTOH, if you know ahead of time you'll have to go 12 - 24 hours without peeing, you can do it pretty safely and easily if you take the proper precautions.

Nah I am afraid that as I read these stories it is just, not very healthy person dies doing something to extreme. I had an elderly neighbour who died going to the toilet (yeah how do you like to discover that eh?) Apperently the "pressure" caused a bloodvessel (internally) to burst and she bled to death. Going to the toilet is bad for you? No she just was old and that was her time. If it hadn't been then it would have been if she had bend down to lift something heavy. Sad but that is live. No need to make a headline off it.

If I haven't been having enough fiber, then the consequent straining does give me quite the head rush. It's probably the most strenuous thing I do all day. Now, I'm no athlete, but I do run and bike most days. That kind of exercise seems a lot safer (if you don't get hit by a car), since it is more measured and gradual. I think straining on the pot is one of those high-risk activities, like shoveling snow. By the time you're 60 or 70, it's a risky thing to do.

I am glad you appreciated my previous post, LegendLength, but I do not agree with your comment below:

Note that if you argue it is because it is wrong on occasion, then surely that is enough to stop it being used in any serious argument.

As you may well know, the error function is Gaussian, the PDF extends out to infinity both positive and negative. I reject the argument that we need to "mathematically" prove that fraud has occurred, we only need to prove it to satisfy legal standards; "beyond a reasonable doubt". For example, the differences between exit polls and "recorded votes" in 2004 were extraordinary, and in all of the key "battleground" states the swings were towards George W. Bush. Dr Stephen F. Freeman from the University of Pennsylvania calculated that the odds of just three of the major swing states, Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania all swinging as far as they did against their respective exit polls were 250 million to 1. (See, for example, http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/2004votefraud.ht ml

The swings in the 2005 Ohio referendum are even more extraordinary (http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2 005/1559, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brad-friedman/the-st aggeringly-impossib_b_10589.html) Again, these swings were in the "preferred" Republican direction

Awareness of these atrocities is growing around the fringes of "permissible political discourse" in this country. My fervent hope is that it will not be long until the issue explodes into the public consciousness and the criminals are exposed. In a court of law, where we will see which standard of proof satisfies justice

(from weakest to strongest) It provides a last (theoretical!) check on "the will of the people." Even though being a faithless elector is against state law in many states, an elector can still choose to cast his vote for whomever and his vote will be federally binding.
- Not sure how I feel about that, I think in practice the "faithless elector" scenario is impossible on a meaningful scale. It brings up all sorts of things - for example, in 2000, the FL legislature was debating a bill that in essence said "the hell with all this, our electoral votes go to Bush". What does something like this do to a democracy?

The electoral college makes it highly improbable that a third-party candidate will win. Compare to Germany's recent mess, where it took a month just to figure out which party would actually be able to form a coalition.
-You're right, except that I think a viable 3d party would be a usefull antidote to many of our political ailments. At the very least it'd be possible to have a wider range of opinions in politics. Currently getting too far left makes you a pariah (it's been argued, and I agree, that the 2 party system leads to a situation where the range of acceptable opinion is quite narrow compared to other democracies- the rightward shift that we've seen in that last 25 years can then be understood as a shifting of the entire range somewhat to the right, while the width of the range has stayed relatively constant).

It balances population and geography. In the Legislative Branch, the House is stacked in favor of populous states; the Senate, in favor of less populous states. That was agreed upon for a reason: the smaller states wanted to balance the power of bigger states like ... erm, New York. Similarly, the Electoral College allows a balance between population and geography in the presidential selection process.
-You're incorrect here, the house is only stacked in favor of populous states in the sense that NY has more overall votes than montana. However, my individual vote is less powerfull in the house compared to an individual vote of a montana voter.Here's a good reference page I found. I noticed that
a) A person in Wyoming's vote for president counts for about 3.8 times what mine does.
b) according to the wikipedia article you cited, if the electoral college would be made slightly more proportional (by removing the 2 votes per senator) so that it more accurately reflected population, Gore would've won in 2000.

The Electoral College isolates the consequences of voter fraud. Let's say someone commits fraud in New York City on election night. It would have to be massive (Republican!) fraud to actually make a difference in the outcome. By contrast, under a straight popular vote, just a small amount of fraud in every state could swing a tight race. Obviously, counterarguments could be made for fraud in tight states like FL in 2000 -- but the point is that regulators know where to look for the fraud, as opposed to having it distributed across the country.
-True in the sense that god knows what we'd do about a national recount. False in that in 2000 (and in 2004 (link to GAO report included) a single state fraud magnified the results of fraud.

The electoral college provides that the candidates will have to make a genuine effort in many different states. If popular votes were the only consideration, candidates would promise and then enact policies favorable to high-population-density areas, and let the rest of the country go to hell. So to speak.
-Disagree here, think you've got it exactly backwards. What's happened in the past is hot contention over battleground states - you get millions of candidate visits to Ohio, none to Alaska or Hawaii, and more noticeably a more partisan split- There's never any reason under the cur

Now all the residents of San Francisco can call their friends and family when Al Qaeda attacks!

Since you're interested in ongoing vote fraud, here's the latest evidence of scams in Ohio, from last month's election.

thing is a red herring.

it has nothing to do with software.

she's the person who helped wipe bush's national guard records.

it's called cronyism. just about everyone in the current administration is there because of donating to the GOP or is a close friend of the bushs.

http://www.counterpunch.org/frank10042005.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sirota/miers-l ed-law-firm-repeat_b_8277.html

http://www.globalnewsmatrix.com/modules.php?name=N ews&file=article&sid=2835

http://www.pnionline.com/dnblog/attytood/archives/ 002383.html

just some interesting links.

seems to me to be more about respect for the dead, and not wanting US soldiers bodies to be used to politicize any one group's agenda. Anti-war activists finally got around this when they found Cindy Sheenan, who was more than willing to use her son's body to promote her views, such as "...pull our troops out of occupied New Orleans and Iraq"

Really, why do people need a coffin to make a point? It seems to me to be nothing but an emotional pull. A good argument requires logic and facts, not emotion, be it patriotism to support whoever is in charge, or this.

Yes, quality postings from the huffington post. Only insane leftists take anything posted there seriously.

Cannibalism in New Orleans!

Um, come on, guys.

You want a radio station catering to the evacuees run by people who literally believe things like the Bush administration is not only responsible for the poor response[1], but is actually responsible for the hurricane itself? Or who would invite those who believe the levees were blown up by the government as a plot to remove all of the black people from New Orleans so the rich whites could take it over? (After all, they needed more room!)

Yeah, that'll really help the situation!

Bullshit. In an emergency housing situation, the infrastructure at the facility, the facility-wide loudspeaker system, and newsletters/handouts/flyers are *more* than enough to disseminate information. We don't need a bunch of self-righteous radicals inciting people who already believe the government wanted to kill them.

In an alternate reality where this station was allowed, run with the agenda that Houston IndyMedia and Village Voice certainly has, many evacuees would no doubt be incited, and the authorities would *still* be blamed for "not getting them out of temporary housing fast enough" or "not responding to their needs fast enough", even though Texas and Houston have gone completely out of their way to assist in any way possible.

I guess a lot of people can and do look a gift horse in the mouth.

[1] As an aside, someone said in other post "look at the difference between 9/11 and NOLA...rich white financial district, and help was there within 5 minutes", etc. Um, hello? Who responded to 9/11 in NYC itself? Local authorities. Who *didn't* respond in a satisfactory fashion in NOLA? The same. Oh, wait, let me guess: it's not a state and local municipal responsibility, it was somehow magically a federal one? Just sent thousands of people to a fucking convention center and football stadium with NO PLAN whatever, save "waiting for the feds"? Yeah, real smart, folks.

The Huffington Post - a collection of opinionated high-profile bloggers who are already making waves by making the notion of blogs accessible to people outside the "blogosphere"

Bayosphere - citizen journalism in the San Francisco bay area, and noted tech journalist Dan Gillmor's new hangout

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theblog/archive/hila ry-rosen/the-supreme-wisdom-of-not_3221.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theblog/featuredpost s.html#a003259

The argument doesn't hold up.

These pay-per-month services are rentals: you stop paying and you no longer have access to the music (though I suppose its only a matter of time, if it hasn't happened already, before someone cracks the DRM in these rental services). With iTMS you own the track you've paid US$0.99 for. It's yours.

People forget this, or don't think about it. Hilary Rosen's recent drivel makes the same mistake when she complains about iTMS lockin while saying how great Rhapsody or Napster or Yahoo! or whatever is. Of course, you're locked into those too. Anyway.

Hey,

Now that the Huffington Post is online, perhaps Hilary Rosen should be joined by over there with Maureen O'Gara, Mary Mapes and Michelle Delio. Or would that lead to the birth of a black hole on the internet?

Perhaps they could branch off to create their own blog "Fem-Hacks", the gender-correct alternative to "Stud-Hacks" of Jeff Gannon/Guckert, Jyason Blair and Dan Rather fame? I think the market potential would be huge!

Well, after taking a look at her bio, I found that Hillary works for CNBC and MSNBC(make your own opinions on that). What trips me out the most is the fact that her 'blog' doesn't have comments. So she is essentially trying to get her readers 'locked in' to her own point of view. Maybe since her blog is only one day old she hasn't figured out how to add a comment feature (just like she can't figure out how to load regular non-iTunes AAC, AIFF or MP3 onto her iPod).

Well, we can all express our opinions on the main Huffington Post page and let Arianna know that Hillary is mis-infomed. Or that she should do some more research before she expresses her oppinions.

At least they posted a this reply by Howie Klein who seems to know what he's talking about. Not only that, but his reply allows comments.

Well, after taking a look at her bio, I found that Hillary works for CNBC and MSNBC(make your own opinions on that). What trips me out the most is the fact that her 'blog' doesn't have comments. So she is essentially trying to get her readers 'locked in' to her own point of view. Maybe since her blog is only one day old she hasn't figured out how to add a comment feature (just like she can't figure out how to load regular non-iTunes AAC, AIFF or MP3 onto her iPod).

Well, we can all express our opinions on the main Huffington Post page and let Arianna know that Hillary is mis-infomed. Or that she should do some more research before she expresses her oppinions.

At least they posted a this reply by Howie Klein who seems to know what he's talking about. Not only that, but his reply allows comments.

Well, after taking a look at her bio, I found that Hillary works for CNBC and MSNBC(make your own opinions on that). What trips me out the most is the fact that her 'blog' doesn't have comments. So she is essentially trying to get her readers 'locked in' to her own point of view. Maybe since her blog is only one day old she hasn't figured out how to add a comment feature (just like she can't figure out how to load regular non-iTunes AAC, AIFF or MP3 onto her iPod).

Well, we can all express our opinions on the main Huffington Post page and let Arianna know that Hillary is mis-infomed. Or that she should do some more research before she expresses her oppinions.

At least they posted a this reply by Howie Klein who seems to know what he's talking about. Not only that, but his reply allows comments.

shot down on the same site. uh.. yay.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/thenewswire/archive/ 2005/05/former-record-exec-howie-_1.html

Interesting that one former exec says the other former exec is wrong

The article is from the Huffington Post the "blog of various mainstream media celibrities" which launched today. Impressive that they make Slashdot outa the gate - sounds like the lines are blurring even more between the traditional MSM media and the new online media. It will be interesting to see if they are able to maintain the daily grind of interesting articles ... or if they eventually becomes as exciting as watching grass grow ;-)