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Do you want to see the list of people killed in arsons?

Do you want to see the list of police officers involved in liability suits?

leaving operations to Al-Qaeda Number 2

This should be entertaining.

Patriotically as always,
K. Trout, M.D.

P.S. Weird: please type the word in this image for this post was "resigns"

Unfortunatly the reality is 'hates crimes' laws are a product of the modern 'civil rights' movement and just as much of a sham of doublespeak and deceit hatched by Democrats.

Secondly, Democrats in the late 50's and early 60's were extremely divided over civil rights legislation. Many Democratic senators from southern states were strongly opposed to it, and even Eisenhower and LBJ weakened the first attempt (the Civil Rights act of 1957) to the point that it was practically useless.

First off I don't think I'm saying anything controversial when I say that those on the books already are applied in a totally bigoted fashion and will only get worse as more are passed

Anyone who has watched the antics of the left over the last fifty years knows it is only an intermediate step along the way to their goal of crimethink laws, i.e. making it against the law to disagree with Democrats. It is an old joke that a 'bigot' is someone winning an argument with a liberal. They have realized that just hurling 'bigot' at an opponent isn't enough to win an argument anymore so now they would rather simply jail the opposition like all their heros did. (Stalin, Castro, Mao, etc.)

Try to tell Mr. Bush that you are neither with him nor with the terrorists and see what he says.

Also, do you think Saddam had a thing for nuclear and biological scientists? Recruited them just for fun? The real reason is Bush cut off the oil for food embezzlement that France, Germany and Russia was enjoying. That is what all the anti-war stuff is about. Supporting terrorism. Terrorism that is biting France right now, in flames. Some think that France will fall soon. We'll see. Maybe they will ask Germany or Britain to help them.

By the way, it isn't funny the military gets more money than science. Being a scientist I know all about that. If we just had some nice young skirts to send down to Congress to woo them, we could get a lot more money. Geeks don't get funded as well as the macho soldier boys. The unfortunate part is even if we make new advances, the military often takes those advances and uses them to kill people. They even use non-lethal weapons to drive people out to where they can shoot them.

I do know there are those that say the WMDs were not moved to Syria. Those same people are at a loss to explain why there is truck tracks from those suspected sites to Syria. No tracks show up for years before that, then all of a sudden? Seems like only a fool would believe they weren't moved, unless they can show they moved something else. How about it, do any slashdotters know of why those truck tracks from obviously heavy trucks showed up from December to just before the invasion? Truck track fairy maybe? There are pictures of places that show up at the same time in Syria where it is obvious something was burried.

Not trying to be flame bait here. So don't flame. If you know of something that definitively shows they were moved, respond. Same thing if you have something that shows definitively they were not moved respond as well. Note - Newspaper articles don't count as definitive proof. I don't want propaganda either way. Just the facts (play Dragnet tune).

why hasnt he attacked Saudi Arabia even once? why isnt he going after the royal family since they are clearly the ones he should have the biggest beef with.
There were attacks against Saudi Arabia. (sorry, login required) There has been an extensive 2 year long battle against bin laden inspired terrorists within the Kingdom - this article gives some good background.

Second, about the whole "black sheep" thing. He was expelled from the Kingdom in the 1990's and hasn't been back since. He would have been executed for except that his family is very powerful (he has 50 some odd brothers and sisters, all in good standing). His father was a famed construction magnate who rebuilt and refurbished much of Mecca's holy buildings and a friend of the King.

So here is the thing about your comment.

You have no grasp of Middle-Eastern politics. Even dedicatd amatuers have a hard time keeping up with it, and it's why we have a State Department with analysts who watch this all the time. This is meant as no insult.

Basically, what you have to understand is this: the Saudi royal family is pro-Western. However, they are not in complete dictorial control of the country as you may imagine. They rule only at the grace of clerics who are dedicated Wahabists and are decidely anti-Western. If the royal family fell from power the Kingdom would quickly fall into the hands of Taliban-esque clerics with *piles* and *piles* and *piles* of money at their command. Wealth that is, frankly, astounding. Plus more to be mined every day. Imagine the Taliban complete with half a trillion dollars in cash.

Clearly, the royals are not our best "allys". They do not have a free hand to rule as they would wish. And even if they did, they'd probably be bastards. They should have no problem providing jobs, yet 25% of the workforce is unemployed. Yet if the balance of power tilts to far to the clerics, they will be deposed and the new regime will not just be a little bit worse, but rather, violently anti-American.

The Saudi royal family are the ones you see on TV, smeared and linked to the 9/11 bombers by special interest groups. Bush took heat for being easy on them. What none of these groups understand is how precarious their position is. If the Saud family loses control of the Kingdom the US's security interests would be massively hurt, for one, in terms of oil, but two, in terms of an Afganistan like safe-haven but with massive income and revenue. Just because we would stop buying oil from them doesn't mean Europe or China would. After the US was let into the Kingdom during Gulf War I they nearly lost control to the clerics. Bitter repression was required to control them and maintain power.
This whole power struggle is why you see Bush walking and talking with the royals and holding hands and all that and at the same time read about madrasa's that won't let girls leave a burning building because they weren't covered properly. They are secular leaders running a nation cowed into blind subserviance by iron fisted religious leaders.

Anyways, I hope this helps you to understand just a little what the situation in Saudia Arabia consists of.

Most federal judges are republican appointees; if you're upset at the federal judiciary, you're upset at republicans.

"Judicial activism" is code for "decisions we don't like". Bush v. Gore was judicial activism. Unplugging Terry Schiavo's feeding tube wasn't.

I didn't say Kelo was Bush's fault (unlike you, who tried to blame things on Clinton). I merely pointed out that Bush has been a major benefactor of eminent domain abuse. If you are upset at Kelo, you should be upset at that, too. If you aren't you're a hypocrite.

BTW, turn off Fox News once in a while. Although Clinton was blamed for technology transfers, China already had that tech - thanks to GHWB. Also, do you remember a little spy plane incident involving China and US technology being stolen?

Heck, even those lefties at Judicial Watch are unhappy at Bush's behavior with China.

There'll always be a few sluts who'll just get around a lot.

Or scratch that. They're in international waters, what's stopping the company from buying sex slaves. They can buy them from that other transnational US outsourcing company, DynCorp.

Loading salad at a restaurant before paying is a crime.
But Selling children for sex isn't.

I feel so glad that Bush is the President of US in this Post 9/11 world.

Loading salad at a restaurant before paying is a crime.
But Selling children for sex isn't.

I feel so glad that Bush is the President of US in this Post 9/11 world.

The PATRIOT act passed because a majority in the House and Senate thought it was a good idea

"It's my understanding the bill wasn't printed before the vote -- at least I couldn't get it. They played all kinds of games, kept the House in session all night, and it was a very complicated bill. Maybe a handful of staffers actually read it, but the bill definitely was not available to members before the vote." -- Ron Paul R(TX)

Wait a minute. Where are all the libertairian kooks declaring the the free market is the perfect solution to every problem??

I know. They are in a silenced awe at the stem cell kooks who have convinced everyone that stem cells are the solution to every problem.

To date, stem cells seem to be cold fusion with better marketing.

Everyone should be asked to read the whole act at least once in their lives. Most people would be surprised how much stuff the government *couldn't* do that just made sense before hand.

Well, according to Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, the members of congress weren't even allowed to read the PATRIOT act before voting on it.

From the article:

Paul confirms rumors circulating in Washington that this sweeping new law, with serious implications for each and every American, was not made available to members of Congress for review before the vote. "It's my understanding the bill wasn't printed before the vote -- at least I couldn't get it. They played all kinds of games, kept the House in session all night, and it was a very complicated bill. Maybe a handful of staffers actually read it, but the bill definitely was not available to members before the vote."

"It is, however, an estimate that is based on very different methodology from standard methodology for assessing causalities, namely on the number of people reported to have been killed at the time,"

Please read here. (Simply first one to come up on Google.)

I quote from the article "The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) reports that since Saddam was ousted 270 sites of mass graves have been reported. These contain an unknown number of Iraqis, Iranian prisoners of war, Iraqi Kurds and Kuwaiti prisoners among the long list of those Saddam tortured and killed. British Prime Minister Tony Blair puts the remains in mass graves at 400,000 so far."

Questioning whether the Iraqi War was right, legal and whatnot is valid (and a good thing to do). Saying that Saddam did not kill thousands of people is like saying the Holocaust never happened...

Maybe this would help: http://www.insightmag.com/news/2004/09/27/Maxim/An other.Black.Eye.For.Cbs-736141.shtml

Bad news for you, Joseph Wilson, Kerry-Edwards, foriegn-policy advisor (well, he was as of the end of July, not sure as of today), was completely discredited by the bi-partisan Senate Itelligence Commitee's report. It's pretty bad when his wife won't even back up his testimony.

Do you have any more shrilled loony left propaganda to spread on /.? Times like these with so many geeks falling for conspiracies and out right lies, makes it so hard to be identified as a geek in public.

I was investigated along with many other pro-life groups. It had little to do with the fact that I was and still am an anarchist. They do not investigate anarchist groups like the IWW. The operation is called VAAPCON and I am one of many people that have been investigated by it. Even PLAGAL (pro-life alliance of gays and lesbians) was investigated.

It's not like this is the first time this has happened... http://www.insightmag.com/news/2001/05/21/Nation/R ussian.Laser.Attack.CoverUp.Deepens-210967.shtml/ But I guess as long as it'a another government that's screwing with you it's ok. Last I heard both the US Navy Intel guy and the Canadian Pilot both still had vision problems.

Don't make me take out the poking stick!

Blackboxvoting.org is the best source for any election-machine info (such as which party's contributors run Diebold).
Greg Palast is an American living in England who writes news for the London Sunday Observer.

I also check out, Indymedia, CNN, The BBC, and Google News.

The fact is that Every source you turn to is biased. I'm of the opinion that there is no such thing as unbiased journalism becuase journalists are people with finite amounts of time on their hands and finite column-inches to fill. They have to decide who they interview and how much of that material to use. I doubt that most of them (save those at Fox News) go into it with a definite story in mind and ignore all evidence to the contrary. Nevertheless, biases appear in reporting. Couple this with the fact that all news outlets have a distinct audience and that their preceptions of that audience shapes their reporting to the extent that they wish to attract new audience members and avoid losing old ones. This qorks out differently for Indymedia than it does for CNN but the pressure is still there.

The bottom line is that all you can do (as others have pointed out) is to cast as diverse a net as possible and then to look, as much as is possible, for the nuggets of truth in each one. Just be wary for many people the line between reality and fiction is no longer a barrier.

As to government documents, I wouldn't diss them. They are the one true source of info that we have about the workings of our government. And, so long as Some People can be held in check

Nixon vs. Kennedy

Getting Illegal Immigrants to vote

more

Double-voting Snowbirds

more of same from 2000

I believe he is talking about the early days of xrays as we are just now in the early days of lasik and pervasive wireless radio devices in everything that surrounds us.

I know people who were treated for relatively minor facial acne with xrays (by a licensed doctor in the US) in the early days of radiation and have skin cancer now. Medicine/government doesn't like to talk about these types of massive failures because it is same learned and parental organizations who tell people that SRRIs are safe now were telling people that xrays were safe for treating all kinds of crap 50 years ago.

Come on, these SSRIs are probably responsible for the most spectacular killings of the last 10+ years (outside 911) and they are still selling them like nothing is wrong with a cartoon egg who lives in a cave and ladybug on TV. And school districts are forcing parents to put kids on the drugs or threatening to sic the child protective service departemnt on them - all the while the FDA is saying exxxcellent.

What about the recent (last month?) results that show AM radio waves appear to cause cancer, etc?

Re Lasik: Although Cofer's case is extreme, new research suggests that a large percentage of people who have LASIK procedures develop vision problems related to the surgery.
Come on down to Original Joe's Lasik and get better than 20/20 vision, yeah! Oh, please sign here and, uh, here...

Very much agreed. Good riddance, Slate. 8 years now and you haven't come close to proving yourself to be an objective, trustworthy and unbiased source anyway. My expert recommendation to Microsoft: fire everybody at Slate and hawk the leftover equipment on eBay.

Too bad there was nothing to disarm, and still isn't anything to disarm.

There is no way to sugar-coat this. You are 100% wrong. There is nothing factual about your claim. Perhaps you came to this conclusion based on inaccurate information, but you can no longer claim ignorance for your inaptness of the subject. Please read the facts regarding WMD if you have any questions. Your welcome.

Um...yeah you did. You went to war with Iraq. In fact, you invaded them. Remember? Killed a few innocent people, a whackload of bad guys and pretty soon a cool grand in US soldiers(900 and counting! Go us!)?

Guess what? We never stopped our war with Iraq. According to the Safwan Accord signed by Iraq in 1991 to end the first Gulf War, Saddam was required to disclose his WMD programs and allow the UN to either destory the programs or view evidence that they were destroyed. This was a condition of the ceasefire to the first Gulf War. Well, Saddam never complied, so that means a ceasefire never took place. The conflict that started last year was a continuation of the war that started over a decade ago, and was only brought to pass because 9/11 shocked us into realizing that we couldn't leave serious business like that unfinished.

The only difference is this time we actually did finish the job, and we are safer because of it.

This shouldn't be a surprise. Look at the headlines they give in 50 point type, and then when it turns out to be wrong it doesn't even make front page news.

Yellow cake in Niger, for example, they hail him as nearly a god when he says there was no such thing, and that turns out to be wrong...see here here here here
here and here.

They've finally run a story about it, but wouldn't it have been a lot better for them to have investigated those Wilson allegations themselves, when they first happened?

That's only one of the latest...

Everything you post screams out for a rebuttal but you aren't worth the effort.

OK. Whatever you say.

As I said before, though: I'm glad you finally moved off of the "NO WMD!!!" thing. Baby steps. Going from "NO WMD!!!" to "OKAY, YES, WMD, BUT I DON'T REALLY CARE THAT MUCH!!!" is progress.

Whether Google has a link to your "reports" isn't subjective.

Nope. Sure isn't. Googling for "ISG interim report"... well, let's just say it produces marvelous things. Old things, things eight months out of date, but that's the wonderful thing about doing research on the Internet: a couple click on from there, and woosh! A whole world of primary source material opens itself up to you. Incredible, huh? Amazing.

Of course, I must have imagined it all. Because Google, "in all its omnipotence," can't help you. I must have just made the whole thing up. Right.

You seem to be the only one thats seen the reports on these huge stockpiles of VX precursors the ISG has found.

Uh-oh. You're slipping back into old habits again. You said "you seem to be the only one" when what you really meant was "you're the first person I've encountered." Remember our little lesson from earlier in the week? Just because you haven't heard about it doesn't mean it isn't true.

Google in all its omnipotence hasn't seen these reports unless I'm searching in the wrong place.

By Jove, I think he's got it. Say it with me now: "Just because I haven't heard about it doesn't mean it isn't true."

If you could corroborate even a little of the BS you are shoveling maybe I'd hang in.

Look, man. I'm an easy-going fellow. If you're happier believing that Saddam was a kindly old grandpa who would never have thought of hurting a fly, go right ahead. Just don't say nobody ever told you any different.

Instead you tell me to "read the reports" though you are apparently completely incapable of producing any URL's for any of these mysterious reports, only you seem to know about.

We've covered this before: I ain't your momma. You're a big boy. Go read for yourself. I'm not going to do your research for you. Why not? Let's assume I spend five minutes finding just the right piece of information for you. Not private information, not confidential information, information that's right out there in the public record that anybody can find in the same five minutes it took me. But let's say I'm a sap and I spend the five minutes and I give you a link.

What happens then? One of several things. You (1) ignore it, (2) try to discredit it, (3) try to misinterpret it, (4) try to spin it, or (5) say something blindingly stupid like "the shells weren't loaded so nobody cares anyway." Net result? A waste of my time that leaves you with a false sense of smug satisfaction.

So why should I bother? If you're interested in new information, you'll seek it out. If you aren't, you won't, and it's no skin off my nose.

Besides, this way you get your false sense of smug satisfaction for free. At least as long as you keep rejecting the key premise here: Just because you haven't heard about it doesn't mean it isn't true.

But look, because you've taken that first step I talked about before--climbing down off of your "NO WMD!!!" soapbox at last--I'll throw you a bone. Here's a roundup, a sort of executive summary, a state-of-the-WMDs-for-dummies. It was written a couple of months ago by a really bright guy and an excellent journalist, Ken Timmerman. You're almost certainly going to disregard it or try to discredit it or ignore it or whatever it is that you do to feel better about your preconceived notions, but what the hey. Maybe there's an off chance that something in there--one of the pictures or something--will stick in your brain and inspire you to start thinking.

Then again... no. Probably not. You'll probably just sit there fat and happy on

'Support our troops' is a non sequitir in a debate about whether we should be at war at all.

There is no such debate. Seriously: there is no such debate.

If you're willing to overlook some blinding facts, you might be able to argue that we shouldn't have been at war... but that whole question kind of melts away when viewed in the light of the fact that war was declared against us by our enemies eight years ago, in light of the fact that one of our enemies repeatedly violated an unconditional surrender, in the light of the fact that that same enemy personally financed acts of terrorism against the United States and our closest allies, in the light of the fact that we were brutally and shamefully attacked on our own soil.

We're at war. We're at war with Islamism now as surely as we were at war with fascism in 1943, as surely as we were at war with communism in 1986. We're at war.

If you try to argue that we shouldn't be at war, what you're really doing is arguing that we should surrender. What you're really doing is arguing that we should unilaterally withdraw our forces and our diplomatic and economic pressures and allow the forces of barbarism and tyranny to sweep across the globe. What you're really doing is arguing that we have no business bringing all the weapons in our arsenal to bear against those who provide aid, backing, and safe harbor to terrorists.

If you want to make that argument, at least have the basic human courtesy of making it out in the open. Don't hide it behind disgusting, disingenuous lies about supporting the troops by bringing them home.

You jest, I know, but just in case anyone thinks this is a serious point I should point out that the people who prepare your returns at the IRS don't care one whit how much you owe.

That's a half-truth.

Would you be saying the same if a privately-owned tax firm were doing the tax prep? I doubt it. Private firms have an interest in doing 2 things:

1) finding as many loopholes as are available to you
2) charging you for the time it takes to find those loopholes, to the extent that it doesn't cost you so much that you go to a competitor offering faster/better service

But the IRS agents don't make any explicit profit off of doing your taxes. So there are 2 possible arguments, hence the "half-truth" nature of your claim:

1) if they *don't* care what you owe, then they're not going to care much whether you get the loopholes available to you
2) if they *do* care what you owe, then the question is "why? Aren't they working for free?" The answer to that question is "no, they don't work for free - our taxes pay for their service."

The problem then is that if we pay IRS agents based on performance, then they wind up demanding more money as their performance increases, which winds up costing more to the taxpaying public.

The preparing folks want to do a good job and prepare a good return for you. Their performance is graded not only on accuracy but on the customers perception of the service provided,

I suppose these 500,000 people who went to the free IRS help got quality service? Or maybe the 19 out of 23 IRS preparers (also mentioned at that URL) were wrongfully-accused of making mistakes? :-)

If they're graded on performance, then I suspect they're not getting A's (maybe with grade-inflation though). I mean, I know people who have had IRS agents call up and say they made a mistake on their return, only to eventually discover that the IRS agent made mistakes in analyzing the return - and in some cases, find that the person was owed a bigger refund than was originally thought!

You get what you pay for, and that goes for tax help as well... (I do my own taxes. Basic arithmetic doesn't exactly scare me...)

so IRS return preparers have no motivation whatsoever to prepare a return any way except accurately and with the best interest of the taxpayer in mind.

...except to take in more revenue for the government, thereby being able to help ensure the govn't gets more money, and then later have their agency leader press Congress for increased salaries for the "poor, overworked and underpaid" IRS employees.

Don't laugh, public school teachers do it (I know, because I know a family of public school teachers).

And no, the IRS is not immune to corruption and political manipulation...

Ultimately, the problem with your argument comes back to the classic problem of "following the money." No matter how you slice it, either the IRS agents have no incentive to care about the work they're doing for "free" (and remember, "there ain't no such thing as a free lunch"), or else their pay increases based on performance (at dealing with an insanely-complex tax code) will start to cost the taxpayers more. Sadly, it's a lose-lose situation.

"Arabs are respected here? I've heard a bunch of radio show hosts calling to deport or monitor them and one guy even said "let's kill them" (he was talking about Muslims in general that time, but he saw them as the same I think)"

People will say things like that because they like to hear themselves talk. However, I doubt any of them would say something like that face-to-face with an Arab. I have heard talkshow hosts shout "nuke-em!", and I have heard the same hosts take calls from people from Middle Eastern countries, and give them a warm welcome. I think most Middle Easterners understand this sentiment, given that alot of people have, or know someone that has, lost someone in the fall of the twin towers, and what is said of this nature is harmless claptrap.

"They're not respected that well, they're still profiled in some ways by the government, and thousands got deported, the deportation rate for Arabs is up 75% since 2001, while overall deportations are down 25%. Doesn't that smack of discrimination?"

Everyone here is profiled. Doesn't matter if you fall into a "good" or "bad" category, thats the way law enforcement works. Those Arabians who are deported have expired visas. If you let that happen, you are SOL. Simple as that. It really doesn't matter who they decide go after, if a person can't support their status as a resident of the US with proper documentation, they can cry discrimination all they want, but they didn't play by the rules, and the rules are pretty clear cut.

BTW, for those who modded me Troll in my previous post, you might want to check out this article.

Idiot!!!!!

• 1976 movie In Search of Noah's Ark
• Discovery Channel with satellite photo
• WorldNetDaily with better satellite photo
• insightmag.com cover story -- CIA coverup, etc.
• Lots more from insightmag.com

Ah, but these quotes do not contradict the parent, since they do not outright say that the Federal Reserve is in any way owned by the US Government... which indeed it isn't!

However words "within the government" quoted from the Fed's site are very misleading, since few people suspect that this alludes to the Fed's status as a privately held corporation which is able to wield governmental authority.

Yes the Federal Reserve corporation does derive its authority from the US Congress, which is precisely the illegal part. Congress is not constitutionally permitted to delegate this function.

Why do you think states like Nevada are rebelling against the Federal Reserve, introducing bills to legalize their own state currency?

Check here for a list of serious grievances knowledgeable folks have with the Federal Reserve system.

Actually the "Fed" is indeed a private corporation. Its shareholders are known to be major banks, such as Chase Manhattan, Citicorp, etc.

(And the "federalreserve.gov" should not enjoy a ".gov" top level domain either!)

For more information, see Test Your FED I.Q.

The parent post stating the Fed is a private corporation is 100% factual, and its former +5 mod was indeed appropriate, so mods... please restore the post to visibility.

Lastly, I've taken enough Economics to know that the politically incorrect facts tend not to get any coverage in such classes.

He's gonna have to go a bit farther than that. Like some country that doesn't have an extradition treaty with the US.

Relevant portion of article:

Meanwhile, however, Attorney General John Ashcroft recently signed two low-publicity multilateral agreements with the European Union (EU) on June 25. Known as the Extradition and Mutual Legal Assistance agreements, they purport to provide a coherent, unified framework for extradition between the United States and every state in the European Union, primarily for the purposes of facilitating "counterterrorism cooperation." These treaties received very little attention in the U.S. media, but they are by far the most extensive and far-reaching agreements of their kind to which the United States ever has bound itself.

Oh my GOD! I can't believe this was modded to a 5?!?!!? Are you joking me? All someone needs are a couple of numbers here and there and everyone thinks it's gospel. "According to dozens of legal scholars and former judicial clerks, the 9th Circuit has more than earned its reputation as a "runaway court." It has by far the highest overrule record since the federal judiciary was expanded in 1978. In one year, the 1996-1997 session, the Supreme Court reversed 27 of the 28 cases it considered from the 9th Circuit." Quoted from here Maybe I had it right and should be modded back up.

No, but there are already people on both sides of the political landscape using this tragedy to attack the other's values

Insight on the News seems to think environmentalists share blame:

Because of demands that the agency help to front for environmentalism, and under pressure from the Clinton-Gore administration's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) led by Carol Browner, NASA had stopped using Freon, a fluorocarbon that greens claim damages the ozone layer, in its thermal-insulating foam. NASA found in 1997 after the first launch with the politically correct substitute that the Freon-free foam had destroyed nearly 11 times as many of the shuttle's ceramic tiles as had the foam containing Freon. The politicized foam was less sticky and more brittle under extreme temperatures. But apparently little or nothing was done to resist the environmentalist politicians.

Of course, you don't need Photoshop to fabricate evidence. It's just another tool that can be used.

A lot of people have complained that who knows what the authorities might do with Photoshop -- enhancing evidence and such. That's a valid point but you should take a step back and realize how scientifically flawed fingerprinting is in the first place. (In my opinion, of course.)

Fingerprinting came about around the turn of the twentieth century as a replacement for a failed biometrics system, in which certain mesaurements of a person (size of head, length of arm, stuff like that) were being tabulated, and recorded to make a database of known criminals. Problem is, two people could have the same measurements.

Likewise, there is no "guarantee" that two individuals have the same fingerprints. Observation has shown that two people probably don't have the same prints, but that's no guarantee. I don't believe the medical community even really understands what makes fingerprints "grow" in the first place.

Fingerprinting is not a "science" in the way physics, chemistry, etc. are. (Legally, this is called the Daubert Test.) Where is the peer review? If fingerprinting were truly a science, as American courts have determined science to be, the national fingerprint database should be publicly accessible. It is not. The formula/algorithm by which fingerprint examinters determine a "match" would be public. The method that the computer uses to match fingerprints would be public knowledge, but it is not.

I'm not trying to say that fingerprinting doesn't provide valuable evidence, and I certainly do believe that fingerprint evidence is a good indicator that somebody touched something. But is it iron-clad proof? No. And worse than that, is is a closed-source, proprietary system.

Were fingerprinting evidence to be invented today, the courts would probably not allow it. It has not withstood (likely it cannot withstand) the same sort of scientific scrutiny that DNA identification has. However, they have significant enough momentum behind them that even though they may not be an "exact science" they are good enough for the purposes of the criminal justice system.

Here are some good links:
Federal Judge Slams Fingerprint "Science"
Cornell News: Fingerprint Study
Latent Print Examination disagrees with most of what I say...Click the Ressam link...if you don't support fingerprint evidence, then you support terrorism!

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*FINDS ANY STORY LINKED ON DRUDGE WEATHER ACTION
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07/31/02

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One of the most important space assets is a global positioning system. So far, the US has allowed free use of our DoD-sponsored GPS, but everybody knows that policy could change at some time in the future. The Europeans felt that without their own system, their soverignty was threatened, so they proposed their own system, called Galileo [must have been some Europoean guy.]

Anyway, the US is all in a sweat about this, and has put quite a bit if pressure on the Europeans to get them to forego this system. The US says that it's not needed, that it would interfere with our system, that it would destabilize the planet -- basically the entire bag of boogeymen. To it's credit, Europe has recently reversed course and decided that they would create this system on their own. Germany had been leaning toward the US position, but just changed their mind.

Galileo is not very well defined yet (even basic things like how many satellites, and which orbit configuration), but most people expect that it will be somewhat better than the current GPS system -- although the US insists that it's super-duper GPSII system will be better than Galileo, whatever Galileo ends up being.

thad

Amen - also, why should we read the text of bills before making decisions about their quality when they won't do us the same courtesy?

Speaking of the USA PATRIOT Act, here's a quote from Rep. Ron Paul (R) on the act:

"It's my understanding the bill wasn't printed before the vote -- at least I couldn't get it. They played all kinds of games, kept the House in session all night, and it was a very complicated bill. Maybe a handful of staffers actually read it, but the bill definitely was not available to members before the vote."

Read this and you should be outraged enough to donate to the organizations that are fighting for your civil liberties and start corresponding with your elected offials.

The more recent Anti Terrorist bill is more of a hassle, especially since members of congree didn't even get a chance to read it before passing it Many of the problems in the European measure are is a secondary or side agreement which is not binding on everyone - Citing from the article:

The United States, which is a signatory to the convention, resisted European moves to include the issue of racist Web sites in the main agreement, because doing so would conflict with the free-speech protections in the First Amendment.

To keep the disagreement from holding up ratification of the cybercrime convention, the council decided to cover the issue in a side agreement, which the United States and others could choose not to sign [...]

While the side agreement obliges only the nations that sign it to ban racist Web content and online hate speech, [...] the council hopes that all signatories of the main convention, including the United States, will respect the protocol, and will agree to remove such material if it originates within their borders and is aimed at an audience in another country.

[...]

France is thought to be one of the countries that pressed hardest for action by the council on racist content and hate speech. But one executive of an Internet company said the protocol would have little effect.

"It is very unlikely the United States would cooperate in the way the Council of Europe would want it to by removing Web content classified as racist by another country's courts," the executive said. "The Justice Department fought hard to have the racist bits pulled from the cybercrime convention itself. I can't imagine they will let freedom of speech be curtailed via the backdoor in this way."

Another interesting take, more specifically on Pearl Harbor, is this article with a lot of evidence that the Soviet Union manipluated the USA into drawing a Japanese attack, so that the Japanese would leave the Russians alone instead of whipping their butts as in 1905.

Now that's a technical innovation. And one techie without much influence in a political situation. Various news sources have been noticing the story at various levels this week.

Now that's a technical innovation. And one techie without much influence in a political situation. Various news sources have been noticing the story at various levels this week.

Now that's a technical innovation. And one techie without much influence in a political situation. Various news sources have been noticing the story at various levels this week.