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The right managers who do this well are in high demand.
How do you tell which are these right managers? At one time, executives at Enron appeared to be doing very well. (Now try to live on an "Enron retirement.") The (former) CEO and CFO from at least one utility company are on trial for securities violations. I suspect that no one can distinguish the good managers from the bad managers. However, they all get very high salaries.

Here.
In a draft of the House GOP legislation obtained by The Associated Press, many of the provisions were similar to the draft copy of the "Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003" that a nonprofit group said had leaked out of the Justice Department in January 2003.

The Justice Department said then that they had made no final decision on the legislation, and never submitted it to Congress.

But many of the anti-terrorism provisions of that draft show up in the the House discussion draft section on terrorism prevention and prosecution that part of the proposed House legislation.

Among the provisions are measures on the deportation of aliens who become members of or help terrorist groups, required pretrial detention for terrorism suspects, warrants against non-citizens even when a target can't be tied directly to a foreign power, and enhanced penalties for threats or attempts to use chemical or nuclear weapons against the United States, including attacks through the mail system.

and

HereThe draft obtained by the AP shows House Republicans want increased border security and customs agents and crackdowns on illegal immigration, including fines of up to $10,000 and possible prison time for illegal immigrants, and penalties for states who don't allow their local law enforcement agents to help with immigration enforcement.

You said:

Now, the Republican party is getting ready with "Patriot Act II" in response to the findings of the Sept 11 commission, but in stark contrast to what's required, has granted far greater power and reach to the security agencies while dramatically eroding constitutional protections and providing a fraction of added security.

Explain to me how, Increasing border security to crackdowns on illegal immigration, imposing fines of up to $10,000 and possible prison time for illegal immigrants, required pretrial detention for terrorism suspects (no bail for individuals charged with terrorism), warrants against non-citizens even when a target can't be tied directly to a foreign power, and enhanced penalties for threats or attempts to use chemical or nuclear weapons against the United States, including attacks through the mail system erodes our constitutional protections. I see the Mexico-US border as one of the, if not the, biggest threats to our security.

"And as far as radical islamic terrorists, this play has just begun, its Act 1. Also they dont want you to bow to Islam, most of them just want the US to leave them the fuck alone."

They just want us to leave them alone? You are kidding right? Listen, what drove the terrorists to blow up the WTC is the realization that their warped fundamentalist religious culture is being replaced in the name of progress. For instance, the fundamental Saudi religious leader who sees his grandson watching Baywatch, and his granddaughter starting to get thoughts in her head that she should be treated like a human being, given freedom and an education. They oppose the concepts of freedom of religion, equality of men and women, freedom of speech, etc. They see these ideas which oppose their radical religious views starting to influence their culture and declare a "holy war" against western culture "the great satan". Now who is the leader of the poster child of this 'western evil'? The USA.

"To

Google is a billion dollar company now -- they could at least poke at the issue. It's easy to see there are certain keywords and semantics that together are generally unique the editorial style. Surely there is a way for a bot to tell the difference. Afterall, you and I can tell the difference -- aren't we just big squishy bots ourselves? For god sakes ten female howler monkeys could devise a bot that could distinguish this this editorial from this news story.

1.2 billion dollars to fund hydrogen fuel research and implementation.

Here's Kerry's response: http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/9341338.h tm?1c

Kerry proposed greater use of ethanol, soy-based diesel fuel and incentives to build and buy more fuel-efficient vehicles. His 10-year, $20 billion plan envisions 20 percent of vehicle fuel coming from renewable resources.

See what 2 minutes of googling can do?

Top 10 Reasons to Vote for John Kerry:

10. John Kerry would handle the war in Iraq differently. I think.
9. He's got better hair.
8. John Kerry will personally create thousands of jobs in America.
7. He has a plan for America's future. I think.
6. George Bush stole the last election.
5. I think John Kerry may have served in Vietnam.
4. George Bush didn't go to Vietnam, AND he skipped a physical!
3. The french people and the rest of the world all like him best.
2. Didn't he get some medals in Vietnam?
1. He's Not George Bush! (TM)


Top 10 Reasons to Vote for George Bush:

10. George Bush is Tough on Terrorism.(TM)
9. He supports educating children.
8. George Bush freed all those Afgan and Iraqi people. Personally.
7. He will lower your taxes.
6. George Bush was President on September 11th, 2001.
5. John Kerry's medals are fakes.
4. Those CBS memos were forged, duh.
3. The french people and the rest of the world all hate him most.
2. He's not as rich as John Kerry.
1. George Bush will keep America safe.

Read the grandparent again. He was not denying that the Chechnyan separatists were Islamic radicals. He was denying that the Chechnyan separatists are the same Islamic radicals that are fighting in Iraq.

There is nothing wrong with referring to the perpetrators of the Russian school attacks as "Chechnyan separatists," because that's what they are. They're also militant, because they use military-style tactics and training to prepare for and execute their attacks. So I don't see that the "liberal media" is doing us a disservice by using those terms.

Where in the "liberal media" have the attackers in Russia been referred to as "activists" or "freedom fighters?" Doing a quick survey of Google News, I find one story from today referring to them as "captors," one that makes no mention of the attackers (it focuses on the US plans for dealing with similar attacks), one that refers to them as raiders, and a Guardian article laced with words like "extremist", "terrorists", and "child-killers" (quoting Vladmir Putin). The last article also mentions that Chechnya has a Muslim majority, and mentions the possibility that some of the attackers were Arabs with links to al-Qaeda.

Yes, Islamic militants are a major source of terrorism, and to ignore this in dealing with Islamic terrorists is a bad idea. But many of the people and organizations who use violence to achieve political ends have nothing to do with Islam, and it would be a mistake to conflate terrorism with Islamic militants, or Islamic militants with Islam.

I for one am looking forward to November, when Kerry will be elected. I personally think that the hyperconfrontational posture Dubya is taking can only energize terror networks around the globe.

they would allow people to get cheap access to drugs such as Norvir whose research was funded with public money. Now the manufacturer(who owns a patent paid for by the US government) just raised the cost from about $1.71 a day to over $8. There are countless other examples of this to.
I wish I had lobbyists to get the government to pay for my education and then allow me to reap the benefits without giving anything back. But alas, I am not a pharmacuitcal.
Maybe the difference between the journals and the pharmacuticals is that the journalists don't have good lobbyists.

Democrat Al Gore likely would have narrowly lost last year's presidential election even if he had gained the partial recounts of Florida's uncounted ballots that he sought, a national news media consortium's review of the ballots has found.

But Gore might have eked out a win if a complete state recount of both undervotes and overvotes had been carried out, the review concluded.

It's not just the fact that Michael Eisner of Disney did not want Disney to distribute the film. Fahrenheit 9/11 won the highest prize, the Palm D'Or, at the recent Cannes competition! It is only the second documentary in history to do so. The film received the longest standing ovation in the history of the Cannes festival!

This story in Fahrenheit 9/11 is relevant to Slashdot because the situation is far worse than Michael Moore says. I put together links to 2 other movies and 35 books that say there is an extremely serious problem: Unprecedented Corruption: A guide to conflict of interest in the U.S. government. Slashdotted? Try:
http://www.hevanet.com/peace/usgovcorruption.htm. Michael Moore is reporting things EVERY Slashdot reader and every person in the world needs to know. It they get their way, you WILL become poorer.

People like the movie because they like the movie! Fahrenheit 9/11 is selling out everywhere. Today in the Sports [!] section of the Kansas City Star is an example. The writer, Jason Whitlock, says:

"Fahrenheit is the most powerful movie I've ever seen. Not even Moore's heavy-handed, pro-Democrat slant could undermine his indictment of Bush's reaction to 9/11. The movie appears to have struck a chord with American moviegoers. I spent all Friday afternoon and evening driving from North Carolina theater to North Carolina theater trying to see the movie. The showings were all sold out. I snagged one of the last tickets to a mid-day Saturday showing."

Judging from the stories, other reactions in the U.S. are even more enthusiastic than this. A theater with 10 screens in Portland, Oregon scheduled 18 showings for today, Sunday, June 27, 2004, in reaction to the movie's popularity on Friday and Saturday.

(Reading the Kansas City Star commentary, 'Fahrenheit' powerful, persuasive, requires free registration. Be wary, the company says it will send you email, so you might give a trash email address, or use a free trash email address at Mailinator.com or DodgeIt.com. Judging from the registration information, if you give a real postal mail address, they may send you unwanted mail, also.)

The movie is breaking all-time theater records all over the United States.

Even worse, this seems like a paraphrase of the story I submitted two days ago (rejected, of course).

Regardless, Mr. Bemer was a true pioneer and champion of the early computer age. He may not have been as famous as some of the bigger guys, but his contributions were significant and still relevant even today.

In other news, another great computer pioneer, Herman Heine Goldstine, also died. Goldstine helped influence the goverment to fund development of ENIAC.

I'm thinking the decision to move to OSS by France could be a geopolitical strategic move as well. A trade war between the US and the EU is almost certain to come, and it'd be in Europe's best interest to NOT be locked into software vendors from America. We are already seeing signs of the trade war, be it farm subsidies, technology standards (CDMA VS G3) (Galileo VS GPS), and genetically modified foods. In addition, we all know that the American-French relationship has seen better days.

Just because Chirac complimented Bush about American hamburgers (3rd paragraph) at the G8 summit doesn't mean all is well between the two.

In what way is this "News for Nerds"?

KC Article on Doerr

From the article: His investment into Google might qualify as the best venture investment ever made -- a huge return of roughly $3 billion, or 240 times the initial $12.5 million he invested.

I think it is Doerr, pronounce ka-ching.

Other articles on this can be found here, here, here, here, and here.

It's mere hours after the DEADLIEST GORILLA ESCAPE IN RECORDED HISTORY and you people are talking about Janet Jacksons TIT???? MY GOD, people, GET SOME PRIORITIES!!!!!!

Here's what I found with a quick google news search.

Changes to memory usage

The latest theory on Spirit's difficulties involves an overloading of engineering and science data files in the flash memory. The memory had not been purged of files accumulated during Spirit's near seven-month journey from Earth.

The recovery plan includes a culling of the files and a change in the operating strategy for Spirit as well as Opportunity that will more closely monitor the file content.

Bold is mine

The US Olympic commitee has ordered Nebraska Wesleyan University to stop using the name Rat Olympics in their annual behavioral learning rat competition because it infringes on their name. Seems to me that name olympics far preceeds even this countries founding. The USOC has gone too far yet again.

I grew up watching 60 minutes. Even when I was a young teen and didn't care about politics it was fun to watch the people squirm. Now we're as likely to get a twenty minute fluff piece on Tricia Yearwood, or Chicks with Dixie, or Nicole Kidman, or Sheryl fucking Crow.

Even they despise themselves.

Morely summed it up himself: "Thank God for the ratings," Safer added. "If it wasn't for the ratings, we wouldn't all be millionaires."

There is no respectable television news anymore.

None.

The disturbance, during which the site was bombarded with more requests for information than it could handle, lasted for nearly six hours and affected more than 30 Knight Ridder Digital sites.

Looks like racists have attacked Howard Dean's campaign because of the skin color of some of his supporters.

See this article for more.

I am in no way a fan of Dean, but when he is attacked by "content of the skin, nor their character" bigots, it sure makes him look like a sympathetic figure.

Race matters....only to racists.

Hon. Senators & Representatives,

I thought it wasn't frowned upon for corporations to sue every company in a business market (that being P2P). In a sole bid to dominate said market by introducing their own product (Code-named B5).

The RIAA has initiated litigation against Napster, Morpheus, Grokster, Audiogalaxy, KaZaA users, college students, ISPs, and many more individuals. Settling most of these lawsuits for substantial sums of money, far exceeding the damages any reasonable person could associate with the 'illegal' activities. Even more remarkable was the defaming of this whole market of P2P ("Peer-to-Peer") by calling it "Peer-2-Porn" and suggesting child pornography is the primary use of these networks.

After all these efforts to end ALL successful P2P software programs, the RIAA then proceeds to introduce their own product after having done significant harm to the market.

Certainly this behavior should be looked into and your constiuents recommend a Congressional Investigation.

The detective studies a photo of the long manifesto the tile maker imbedded in a Philadelphia intersection. (See sidebar.)

It's in the original article too, same serial number but with a different section portion of the URL, for some reason.

It has a picture of a much larger tile with some sort of manifesto written in it, next to the standard Toynbee tile. (This picture is also visible from the picture gallery for the original article.)

I read today that Senator Norm Coleman has launched an inquiry into the use of legal action by the Recording Industry of America Association (RIAA).
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/brea king_news/6428142.htm

As you are my Senator and also on the Inquiry subcommitte that Sen. Coleman chairs, I would urge you to support his efforts.

There is plenty of room for abuse when a corporation uses legal bullying to act as law enforcement. The rights of the accused can be circumvented and innocent people can be dragged into a situation where it is very costly to defend themselves.

With the RIAA purportedly filing 75 subpoenas each day against users of online filetrading software and their Internet Service Providers for copyright infringement, there should be some level of accountability.

Check it out. Sen. Coleman has asked the RIAA to give a description of its safeguards against targeting innocent people among other things.

The problem with US Cellular is that you've always gotta be worried about drunken baseball fans attacking you.

Overture used to be paid search portal GoTo.com which recently bought AltaVista for $140 million and then bought Fast Search / Alltheweb.com for $100 million. It was one of the IdeaLab properties. Interesting AP article about Overture's history and challenges over the last six years mirrored here.

Perhaps the best example of this is the phenomenal success of Golden Tee.

The machines are networked, allowing players to track scores, win prizes and partcipate in tournaments.

Well, to some essence. While doing research into reduced emission vehicles (Honda Insight, Honda Civic Hybrid, Prius, Toyota Prius, etc...), many areas allow hybrid/electric/alternate fuel vehicles to use carpool/HOV lanes without having a second passenger.

A simple google search shows that California, Georgia, Hawaii, Colorado, Arizona, Maryland, and Virginia allow them to, some do not allow hybrid vehichles to use their HOV lanes (only the SULEV and Zero Emission Vehicles).

A good article from the Associated Press shows that people are more than willing to consider paying a little extra for a vehicle that is allowed to use the HOV lanes. The fact that there's an added fuel efficiency is just a side note to people.

Give people a big enough carrot, and they'll bite. Sure, the cars are more expensive, but when you start combining federal clean air tax credit along with state tax credits and incentives, people will buy the cars.

rename the game

C'mon, people, you can find a lawyer very easily. Most offer a low price for the initial consultation. It is in your best interest to talk to one before you take any action, so that you understand the consequence and any repercussions that will arise from your decision. Even capitulation may have dire consequences.

I talked to laywer regarding an IP issue a while back and it only cost me $20 for a 1/2 hour (it would've cost $200 for the next hour---it would have been worth it---but I didn't need that long).

• He's got a website up promoting and selling his songs, along with Real Audio samples (why am I not surprised he's not using mp3s)
  
  
• Acording to a AP news wire from last week
  

  In 2002, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee took in $18,009 from moonlighting as a songwriter, according to his latest Senate financial disclosure.
  
  It is Hatch's most successful single year as a songwriter; he has earned $65,986 in songwriting royalties since 1997. It comes on top of his $150,000 Senate salary and investment income between $56,000 and $122,000.

  So, despite file trading and p2p networks, Sen. Hatch is earning more money than before. And they say file sharing is taking money away from artists, eh? Must be all those sales of the soundtrack from Rat Race.
  
  
• There is a picture of Sen. Hatch with Barry Mannilow ... scary!
  
  
• He was also paid $2,123 last year for a voiceover he did for a character in an animated religious film. IMDB doesn't say which film, but did anyone else know he was in "Traffic"?
  

MS SPOT watches with GRPS internet connectivity? I may have missed something, but the articles I've seen about the new MS SPOT watches have nothign to do with GRPS. They get their data via the FM band, and it is one way. That is, the SPOT watch can recieve information about weather, stocks, etc, but it's not two way and it ain't GRPS. Story here.

Do you have any photos of these? None of the stories I read had any photos, just words.

I don't know any actual Republicans, or at least I don't know any who actually think about political issues. (Not saying that Republicans don't think, just that I'm living in an oasis where I don't meet any who do.)

I've heard that the NRA was in opposition to the FCC loosening regulation.

A quoted excerpt from the Kansas City Star says: National Rifle Association members have flooded the FCC with thousands of postcards opposing changes in the ownership rules. An NRA letter to members said, "a small group of top media executives could literally silence your NRA."

1. Is this a fact???

3. Do this guy cares if that's truth????

Congratulations. You read a sentence out of the article. However, you neglected to read any of the sources pointed to in the article, or the examples of exactly what kind of services were being provided in what towns for what price (and I almost wanted to pack up my bags and head for Glasgow, KY. I mean check out the prices!

Anyway, the whole thing is clearly a no-brainer. This is how we should have handled broadband in the first place.

1. You need to survey it, build towers etc. - its a BIG country !
2. The insfrastructure is buggered even before the war - power, landline system etc.
3. Who the hells going to be able to buy them ? A lot of the people are dirt poor. Sort out the sanitation, fresh water, power etc. first, which is in disarray (see 2)

> Give me a break!

OK.

> They operate with complete dissregard for human life and they need to be stopped.

Like this?

Or, since American citizens are closer to your heart, maybe this will interest you more.

Nice round numbers, all multiples of $5 billion, and all numbers that are well short of anything resembling a reasonable amount to start making a dent in the current system.

I googled up this recent article that says OPEC is producing 24.5 million barrels of oil a day. At $40 a barrel, that's $980 million a day spent on oil around the world. Let's say we take a quarter of that into the US (it's more, iirc). That's a quarter billion a day in oil alone, without touching infrastructure, etc.

$100 billion is going to "... shift the balance of power from foreign oil producers to US energy consumers within a decade"?? Forget it. "The White House should ask for $5 billion - roughly $30,000 for each of the nation's 176,000 filling stations - to get the ball rolling"?? Get the ball rolling? The authors of this article want station owners to install something for which there's zero consumer demand -- and then only have the government subsidize enough to get the ball rolling?

How much is the government going to pay to give everyone a car that uses this new fuel? And once everyone's driving, what is the government going to do about all the other products that use petroleum? Cars in driveways are just the beginning, and filling stations aren't even that.

These numbers might sound big to us individually, but taken in context they are a drop in the bucket. If switching from oil to hydrogen was that easy, we'd've done it long ago.

It's just hard to grow food when your fields have been napalmed.

A far bigger problem in the poor parts of the world is when the rulers treat the country and aid as if they own it.

Arafat,Hussein,Castro wealth

North Korea is starving due to the insane policies of its government, but Kim Jong Il seems to enjoy life. Kim Jong Il

It doesn't matter how much money you throw at a problem if the money doesn't get to where it does any good. Same for food.

The only way many of the poor and starving of the world will benefit will be if their government's behavior changes. Regretably that seldom happens peacefully.

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascitystar/48752 79.htm

Review: Where we've gone before: 10th "Star Trek" film looks a lot like the second one
What makes a 'Trek' fly? Just beam up a good bad guy
On Screen: Trekkies know how to hit the escape button
Time to retire the Enterprise?

Trevor

Review: Where we've gone before: 10th "Star Trek" film looks a lot like the second one
What makes a 'Trek' fly? Just beam up a good bad guy
On Screen: Trekkies know how to hit the escape button
Time to retire the Enterprise?

Trevor

Review: Where we've gone before: 10th "Star Trek" film looks a lot like the second one
What makes a 'Trek' fly? Just beam up a good bad guy
On Screen: Trekkies know how to hit the escape button
Time to retire the Enterprise?

Trevor

Review: Where we've gone before: 10th "Star Trek" film looks a lot like the second one
What makes a 'Trek' fly? Just beam up a good bad guy
On Screen: Trekkies know how to hit the escape button
Time to retire the Enterprise?

Trevor

At last my time is come!

I, the great Frank White, shall soon be manager of the Kansas City Royals!

Soon victory will flow through the veins of Kansas City baseball fans like blood from the anuses of Robert Malda and Jeffrey Bates!

Also this morning's Morning Edition

Essentially, a biology teacher in Kansas used the free trial of this site to check the final projects of her 110 HS sophmore students. She found 28 had cheated on the project, and thus gave them zero's, which meant they all failed her class. One of the parents of the cheaters raised cain with the school board, which instructed the teacher to reverse her grading decision. The teacher resigned rather than make the change.

What does this all mean? Fear not. Stupid school boards will alway defend the rights of cheaters!