Slashdot Mirror

From TFA: Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian Hoffstadt confirmed the arrest was the first criminal case brought against an individual sending spam over IM.

That doesn't mention extortion. Also, according to the LA Times: Greco agreed to fly to Los Angeles to sign a contract and was arrested when he arrived Wednesday. He was charged with violating a federal anti-spam law, harming MySpace computers and attempting extortion.

It's interesting that the main AP story (picked up by the Washington Post, LA Times, and others) label the perpetrators as "hackers" who "penetrated the company's computer network." Nowhere in the original MSNBC article is there mention of the criminals hacking into a system. Rather, that reports indicates that "suspects had posed as a ChoicePoint client to gain access to the firm's rich consumer databases." Changing the story into some malicious hacker who infiltrated their computer seems to take ChoicePoint off the hook (except for thin database security), when they need to be held to task for not properly vetting the companies they contract with and allow access to their data.

Vague and unsubstantiated like your post?
http://www.chartattack.com/damn/2005/02/1603.cfm

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-jobs16feb16, 1,4754180.story?coll=la-headlines-business

LA Times + more - do a google news search
http://www.chartattack.com/damn/2005/02/1603.cfm

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-jobs16feb16, 1,4754180.story?coll=la-headlines-business

Well your friend is wrong - it's now been confirmed by the LA Times.

What is this, some Apple cabal tha I've awakened?
http://www.chartattack.com/damn/2005/02/1603.cfm

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-jobs16feb16, 1,4754180.story?coll=la-headlines-business

That he dropped the RIAA an email.

At least with iTunes once you've bought a track, you've paid for it. Who really cares what you do with it after. Everyone is getting their slice of the action.

The subscription model, once "cracked" means you can download as much as you want, remove the DRM and then download some more. All for $15/month (or whatever they're charging). The RIAA misses out on their cut... no doubt making their blood boil

Neo-Nazis Aim to Upgrade PR, The National Alliance seeks a higher profile and more members with multimedia campaign. LATimes.com article.

Clicky link for story

Pakistan Ended Aid to Taliban Only Hesitantly December 8, 2001
Pakistan spy service 'aiding Bin Laden' 30 December, 2001
Musharraf: Bin Laden may be dead 23 December, 2001
Pakistan's leader thinks bin Laden dead January 18, 2002
Bin Laden trail is cold, Musharraf admits December 6, 2004
A Hostile Land Foils the Quest for bin Laden December 13, 2004
Protest at Musharraf's army role 19 December, 2004 So much for us supporting democracy and "freedom"
Musharraf Scorns Nuclear Probe

Attorney General John Ashcroft, whose department crafted the deal, hailed the decision as "a major victory for consumers and businesses" and said his department was "strongly committed" to ensuring Microsoft abide by it.

From here

Or this:

Opponents of the settlement are likely to question the extent to which politics played a role in the agreement. The Justice Department has gone from advocating a breakup of Microsoft under the Clinton administration to accepting a much milder settlement at the behest of Assistant Attorney General Charles James.

From here

Ashcroft and James didn't have their positions in Clinton's administration.

Bad Moderators, go sit in the corner and think about what you've done.

old news; the stockpile already polluted with animal proteins has been found to be useless for humans. Pussies! make some goddamn decent HUMAN DNA strains and quit beating around the "Bush." This research is a cover-up. Tinfoil hat firmly between head, buttocks, and nuts on this one.

Iranian Blogger Arrested

20 Iranian Bloggers and Journalists Arrested

Iranian President calls for Investigation of Blogger Torture

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran's president called Sunday for an investigation into journalists' allegations they were tortured into confessing to charges such as insulting sacred beliefs and endangering national security after publishing articles critical of conservatives in the government.

See today's LA times for a look into Google's "make/buy cool stuff and give it away" methodology:

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-google18jan1 8,0,2075292.story

Maybe it does apply...

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-fedup14jan14 ,1,795541.story?coll=la-headlines-business&ctrack= 1&cset=true

Some twit in New Jersey plays his harmless laser on a lowflying plane, and we get a complete "laser warning system" within a couple weeks. Three years into the Terror War, and they still can't put enough metal detectors at the airport gates to avoid doubling the wait time. This whole Terror War is a farce. Eeek, WHERE'S OSAMA? He might have a LASER!

Then you get what you deserve, I'd say. Somehow I greatly doubt that Tillamock Cheese and North Plains Lettuce purchased in Beaverton at the farmer's market are contaminated.

That's a pretty insensitive and ignorant comment. You might be surprised to learn how prevalent perchlorate contamination is in the United States. Drinking and irrigation water for up to 20 million Americans in 14 different states are contaminated with it. But then again, I guess those 20 million people get what they deserve? And yes, even our lettuce is affected.

Anyway, regardless of whether you were trolling or not, some information for other people who might be interested. Southern California has a rather large problem with perchlorate contamination in our water supplies. This wasn't discovered until around 1997 when the EPA and local water municipalities decided to start testing for it. They were quite surprised as to the extent of this "plume".

Evidentially, contractors and other workers were dumping all their rocket fuel right into the ground. Granted, they were probably unaware of the possible consequences at the time. Anyway, a number of these plumes have been found around former military bases in Southern California (Norton, March, George). In particular, the plume located around Norton/San Bernardino is a huge problem and cleaning it up is astronomically expensive

Other links:
A Perchlorate Primer
Map of contaminated sites in the United States
Study says low amounts of Perchlorate pose NO risk (LA Times - Registration Required. This article was written yesterday. Interesting contrast to this Slashdot article)
Lockheed Martin commissions study. Volunteers take perchlorate pills

It's called corn syrup.

That's Northern California.

"The Chronicle had become the biggest daily paper in Northern California; in the West, it was second in size to the Los Angeles Times after 1968."

April 1990 LA Times Times circulation reaches an all-time high of 1,225,189 daily and 1,514,096 Sunday, making it the largest daily metropolitan newspaper in the country.

the search giant is courting broadcasters and cable networks with a new technology that would do for television what it has already done for the Internet

Like you can count on networks to embrace new useful technology...

acording to thisThe locals have started throwing the foreigners out sometime around october. I cannot find my 15-25% reference but it was before the article here The iraqi government and "other officials" claim there are more foreigners but it is hard to tell because they clensed themselves of identityIt also apears that the foreigners are the ones mostly commiting the terrorist activities like attacking civilians and such.

It also appears that they have set up shop in thier nobel fashion in other areas too.

It's a joke, even though it's not funny. Americans are masters of torture innovation, but we "render" our prisoners to other countries to be tortured, to avoid that "quaint" old Geneva Convention. Of course Turkey does too, as it's now officially "civilized", part of the EU. Political torture is a global outsourcing bonanza. And even the Turks are accusing us of genocide in Iraq. Who's lauging?

What would feed the most people soonest would be to topple a bunch of idiot dicators and stablize some chaotic countries...

Child Malnutrition Doubles in Iraq

STOCKHOLM -- Malnutrition among Iraq's youngest children has nearly doubled since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, despite U.N. efforts to deliver food to the war-ravaged country, a Norwegian research group said Monday.

Since the March 2003 invasion, malnutrition among children between the ages of 6 months and 5 years has grown from 4% to 7.7%...

Citing national security concerns, some Republican members of Congress are trying to limit the personal financial information that top federal officials must disclose.

Tucked within the House's 497-page version of the "9/11 Recommendations Implementation Act" is a provision to repeal the requirement that senior-level officials report their personal financial assets valued at more than $2.5 million. It also would end the practice of disclosing the dates of stock transactions.

The proposal to limit financial disclosures initially covered only top-level intelligence officials. It was recently expanded to include all executive branch officials, according to a draft version of the bill.

Perhaps your definition of popular is different than mine. The La Times article says

Between 5% and 20% of TiVo viewers given the opportunity to "participate" in an ad -- either by clicking on a tag or by selecting a long-form commercial from a main menu -- take it.

In your dictionary, are "SPAM" and "popular" synonymous?

LA Times has an article on a California bill that would require all cars to have a GPS and wireless connection for downloading the miles driven.Newsmax has some interesting observations on the motivations for the idea.

Tucked within the House's 497-page version of the "9/11 Recommendations Implementation Act" is a provision to repeal the requirement that senior-level officials report their personal financial assets valued at more than $2.5 million. It also would end the practice of disclosing the dates of stock transactions.
The proposal to limit financial disclosures initially covered only top-level intelligence officials. It was recently expanded to include all executive branch officials, according to a draft version of the bill.

Now on to some of your specific points.

1) Kerry lost because he ran a negative campaign
This is simply not true according to Newsweek magazine which just ran a huge issue almost entirely devoted to a post-mortem of the compaigns. They say the opposite: the main reason Kerry lost the election is because his campaign manager refused to run a negative campaign.

2) The media playing us for fools over the 'missing weapons' that were gone before we even got there.
Again, what you say is simply not true. The The LA Times reported

In the weeks after the fall of Baghdad, Iraqi looters loaded powerful explosives into pickup trucks and drove the material away from the Al Qaqaa ammunition site, according to a group of U.S. Army reservists and National Guardsmen who said they witnessed the looting.

3) Someone else has already pointed out that you took Tereza Hienz Kerry's statement totally out of context and thus completely distorted her meaning.

I could go on, but I will leave it for someone else. You did nothing to explain the anomalous results I cited then you proceeded to make a series of points bashing Kerry that are simply not true. It makes me wonder if you believe, along with a majority of Bush supporters, the following lies:
1) Bush found WMD's in Iraq after his war;
2) Iraq had an operational relationship with Al Qaeda; and
3) Saddam Hussein was responsible for the attacks on 9/11.

In summary: your dislike of one of the candidates and your lies about him are not a pursuasive argument for me to stop trying to ensure that the election was fair.

The PBS electoral vote map which lets you play with the numbers and provides previous presidential election maps and

The LA Times Electoral Vote Trackerwhich also lets you switch each state's results as well as providing more info on polls plus how each state went in past elections by the state rather than by the year (like the PBS one)

See all you flash bashers, there are some good uses for flash.

(and remember, after the zillions of post facto recounts, Bush always won under any interpretation that would have passed the equal-protection test.)

A lot of legitimate recounts , except the one Gore wanted favored Gore.

The problem was, as you said, Gore tried to steal the election, and his self centeredness cost him. Had he done the right thing (as in integrity and honesty, not Rush and friends) and asked for a recount for the whole state, things would have been different.

The 2000 election set a precedence, and every election after will be a mess. Both sides have plenty of blame - the president for allowing his state election leader to be the secretary of state, Gore for trying to steal the election by only recounting Democratic counties, so on and so on.

So having machines that incorrectly work is just asking for trouble. Having the maker's of these machines strongly support a single party - of course there is suspicion (not founded, but warranted).

The real question is, "How do we, as a nation, get out of this mess?"

1) A strong, overwhelming victory by the president would have been nice. But he is so incompetent, all he has done is divide the nation more.

1) A strong, overwhelming victory by Kerry would have been nice. But he is a weak candidate and is having trouble gaining much ground vs this nations worst president (ever).

3) A strong third party to "balance" the system. Things got to be really screwed up before this will happen. Maybe there is hope for Nov. 3.

"Those who can make you believe absurdities
can make you commit atrocities."
--Voltaire

That's a great quote that is highly relevant here. I think the folks that are outraged by the media's reports on this issue need to step back and consider the evidence that supported the allegations, because it was very weak.

Sinclair never publicly announced that it was airing "Stolen Honor" in its entirety, but the media has claimed that it did. Even now, after the airing of the unbiased special, the LA times falsely claims that "Sinclair announced plans to air "Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal," an anti-Kerry documentary". The Washington Post claims that Mark Hyman told them that the entire documentary would be shown unless Kerry agreed to an interview, but a quick review of their articles reveals no quote of Mark Hyman that says that. Ever since this controversy started, Sinclair execs have been claiming that they were not intending to show "Stolen Honor" in its entirety. On October 12, Mark Hyman said that "nothing has been shot" but the media still insisted that they were going to show the whole documentary.

The best evidence of their alleged nefarious intentions were some TV listings (possibly accidental mistakes), a fired employee that said they were discussing airing the documentary (but weren't sure what they were going to air), and the fact that they were considered conservative. For that, their advertisers were harrassed, their investors were contacted with requests to sell their stock, and the execs "endured personal attacks of the vilest nature". It was obvious to me that the media's reports caused things to get out of hand, and the assault upon the demonized Sinclair was incredibly premature.

That's not enough actually. You can't just picture yourself in another country's shoes, as this is the same as doing something without asking, and may actually be considered more insulting. You can't as an American president, presume to know how a certain country would feel about U.S. military action anywhere. You have to go before the rest of the world, put forth a resolution, and tell them that this is what you want to do. At least that's the procedure that is currently in place.

And that's just the problem. I don't think Bush & co. have been taking seriously any of the input from the rest of the world.

The current administration tried to take the rest of the world seriously. They tried to play by the rules and Colin Powell went before the U.N. to try to convince them to support our resolution for action in Iraq. Multiple times, we tried to get the U.N. security council to back us unconditionally. Furthermore, many U.S. citizens desired U.N. support before taking military action in Iraq, so it was important for the administration to try to achieve this. They did not take the rest of the world lightly in this case.

However, as we all know, these attempts to gain support failed, and at this point maybe that's when the "global test" should have failed. This is when Colin Powell started his tour to find supportive nations, and when he had 49, the "global test" passed for the administration. That is where the controversy lies. There were supportive nations, but the fact that none of them were France, Germany, and Russia was a major issue. Probably the largest sticking point, was the fact that the U.N. Security Council did not back our actions, and we did not have support of all the permanent members.

That being said, the administration felt that it had enough global support to pass its definition of "global test", and made its decision to attack.

The Global Test is more of an abstract concept than a strictly defined set of rules.

And therein lies the problem, and why Bush appeared upset. Bush and Kerry have very different interpretations of what constitutes a "global test". The administration feels that they had enough support globally, but Kerry feels that this was not enough.

So what constitutes a global test? Is it enought to have N number of nations supporting your actions? Is it enought to have only the U.N. Security Council supporting your actions? Do you need more than this? It's a very slippery slope.

It appears, though, that no matter what we do, at least some of the rest of the world will not support us. If, for instance, Canada suddenly just bombed Detroit, I would find it had to believe, even in this case, that we would get overwhemling support in the U.N. to retaliate. Canada would most certainly be condemned by the U.N. for attacking the U.S., but it is doubtful whether the U.N. would support a U.S. attack on Canada. Furthermore, we wouldn't have the support of all the U.N. Security Council in this case. Most of Europe would probably not support action. So now what do we do? Retaliate, or just ignore the attacks?

You cannot take the opinion of the world upon any of your actions lightly, and this is why we went before the U.N., and why it was necessary to consult congress first before any action was taken.

Indeed the 9/11 report makes good reading. It clearly states that there have been no operational ties between Al Qaida and Iraq.

Now the president of Iraq (put there by the US) even complains about the blood shed that the American military inflicts on Iraq.

It is foolish to believe that the additional hate that this war is generating towards the US is making America any safer.

Now flash forward a few months.. you are the leader of Iraq and are about to make an important address in the United States. Who do you get to help you write you speach? You want someone who has seen the situation in Iraq first hand, but more importantly knows the US governments policies and attitudes for a future free Iraq. Oh, and you probably already have a working relationship with the man established over the months leading up to the hand-over of power...

Moving on, ... what is the basis for the claims that Senor is a Bush campaign operative? The Bush campaign has publicly stated that Senor "did not work for the campaign." Considering the number of posts swallowing the Senators suggestion as fact and deriding the link between the "campaign" and Allawi's speech, I would think that this would be an easy fact to check and catch the GOP in a flat-out lie...

I don't doubt that he is partisan... this story points out that he was seen jogging wearing a Bush-Cheney 2004 t-shirt. But the senator's allegation is that he is part of the Bush campaign though... can anyone prove this?

National sovereignty is a concept of international law. I know that you think it's a leftist, commie conspiracy, but it's actually a mainstream convention which is designed to try to prevent nations from invading other nations and looting them and burning them to the ground, as we are in the process of doing in Iraq. That article I recommended talks about how the recent handover of sovereignty was really a scam to evade international law with regard to privatizing state-run industries. It turns out that the occupying power is not allowed to make wholesale changes in state assets, but a puppet government is, and privatization was one of the great schemes which the neocons were so eager to try out in Iraq.

Unfortunately, their grand experiment has failed pretty spectacularly.

"ANSWER was a prime organizing force, but most of the marchers were not directly affiliated with them.

On what do you base that statement?"

If you went to the websites at the time, you would see the long list of participating organizations, all with disparate agendas. They came together solely to protest the Iraq war, much as you would like to believe that they were protesting to install Fidel Castro in the White House. Also I would have participated if it had been more convenient for me to do so, and I by no means agreed with all of ANSWER's politics. It's reasonable to assume that there were many more people like myself.

"I appreciate that you're scrambling to change the subject"

Sorry, just trying to help. Feel free to continue on in your ignorance. It's not like the Iraq disaster will ever affect you personally. It's only other people who have to die for the dumb ideas you support.

"This may or may not be true, but their failure to be equally critical of Move On and ACT is a disservice to the public."

Your equating the Swift Boat Liars with Move On shows how screwed up your thinking is. You seem to think that anyone who makes negative attacks is equally culpable, rather than my thinking which is that the liars are the ones who should be called out. There's nothing really wrong with negative attacks, if they are true. To my knowledge, nobody has caught Move On making false statements, wherease the Swift Boat Liars have been caught in a number of lies.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200408050001
http://mediamatters.org/items/200408250002
http://mediamatters.org/items/200408250004
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la- ed-swiftpress24aug24,1,2693113.story?coll=la-news- comment-editorials

Don't worry, the American people are only as out of touch with reality as the leaders!

Donald Rumsfeld said these things in a speech a week ago:

"the leader of the opposition Northern Alliance, Masoud, lay dead, his murder ordered by Saddam Hussein, by Osama bin Laden, Taliban's co-conspirator."

"Saddam Hussein, if he's alive, is spending a whale of a lot of time trying to not get caught. And we've not seen him on a video since 2001."

Let me say that again -- he said this *last week* -- 9/10/2004.

Here's the original CSPAN realvideo clip. The whole thing is a prime example of 9/11-Iraq-9/11-Iraq conflation by repetition and insinuation. Iraq was celebrating shooting an unmanned American drone, and at the same time, Hanni Hanjour was checking into a Marriott in New Jersey...

This stuff goes on all the time, and no one seems to notice. Instead all they do is chant shit like "Al Gore said he invented the internet!" but I can't even imagine what kinds of spasms they'd go into if he was in charge and said shit like this on a daily basis. Paul Wolfowitz said a couple of months ago that there were 350 combat deaths in Iraq, at a time when there were more than 700. '"He misspoke," spokesman Charley Cooper said later. "That's all."'

And Orwell wrote this in 1949:

O'Brien silenced him by a movement of his hand. "We control matter because we control the mind. Reality is inside the skull. You will learn by degrees, Winston. There is nothing that we could not do. Invisibility, levitation -- anything. I could float off this floor like a soap bubble if I wish to. I do not wish to, because the Party does not wish it. You must get rid of those nineteenth-century ideas about the laws of Nature. We make the laws of Nature."

When the system was upgraded about a year ago, the original computers were replaced by Dell computers using Microsoft software. Baggett said the Microsoft software contained an internal clock designed to shut the system down after 49.7 days to prevent it from becoming overloaded with data. -- Human Errors Silenced Airports

That sounds like the Win32 uptime counter striking again... and not a human error at all.

[someone just commented to me: "Maybe the Human error was deploying something that needed to be
manually reset every month and a half."]

Actually it was 5

Intellectual dishonesty at play here, folks.

Thankfully, we have a pretty good idea of the counterfactual -- i.e., what would have happened if Gore had prevailed before the Supreme Court:

If the U.S. Supreme Court had allowed Florida's courts to finish their abortive recount of last year's deadlocked presidential election, President Bush probably still would have won by several hundred votes, a comprehensive study of the uncounted ballots has found. ...

The study provides evidence that more Florida voters attempted to vote for Gore than for Bush--but so many Gore voters marked their ballots improperly that Bush received more valid votes. As a result, under rules devised by the Florida Supreme Court and accepted by the Gore campaign at the time, Bush probably would have won a recount, the study found.

So, yes, the Supreme Court did decide the election in the hyper-technical sense. But because Bush still would have won the election even if the Supreme Court decided in Gore's favor really dispells the notion that Bush is in power only because the Supreme Court said so.

Interactive map here. Flash based, it lets you change between different scenerios and see how the outcome would differ if certain states go one way or the other.

and you know this (they make a profit) how?

Because they're still in business. Even if they make exactly zero profit, it still proves the "no profit on iTMS" idea to be a crock. Occam's razor, my friend.

...and most illegal activity sells "goods" below market. Why? Because it didn't cost them anything (or little) to get it ... which is what makes Apple's claim of "no profit" so pathetic. Let me restate it, since you seem to be having trouble understanding.

1. Apple charges 99c per song, 35c of which goes straight to Apple.

2. AllofMP3.com charges ~four cents per song. Even if 100% of that goes to them, without paying any royalties, they're still able to stay in business.

3. Therefore, if allofmp3.com is able to cover their expenses (cc processing, bandwidth, hosting, electricity, staff, etc) on FOUR CENTS PER SONG (which is the high estimate, assuming no royalties being paid out), then Apple's claim of making no profit taking in 35c per song is complete bullshit.

And look, Steve Jobs proves me right, in a private conference call.

If apple sold 200 million songs, that fits right in with the $70 million profit figure that Jobs himself mentions.

Of course, publicly, he has a completely different story. Publicly, he pretends that they make no profit on iTMS. It's great PR, it fits in great with Jobs' bullshit faux-hippie image, and it works--

*Because he knows Apple zealots are too sheepish to do their own research.

*Because anyone who contradicts the word of Jobs is shouted down, even if Jobs' statements are completely illogical

This whole "no profit on iTMS" line is just like his famous "$1 salary". That's a load of horseshit too. Because along with that $1 salary, he also receives $74.7 million in restricted stock; Apple also provides him a private jet, which he leases back to Apple for $1.2 million in two years

Hate Microsoft and Real all you want. Their products certainly aren't the best. But Bill Gates actually does good things with his ill-gotten gains. Jobs pathologically lies about what he takes in, then keeps it for himself.

The LA Times carried a story with more emphasis on the ethnic/cultural angle, saying AOL is specifically targetting Latino users/families who do not already have a computer in the home in order to build their subscriber base.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-aol12aug12,1 ,3576783.story?coll=la-home-business

The presidential candidate also sought Wednesday to answer critics of his military record, releasing 145 pages of official military documents that describe his trajectory from a privileged Ivy League student to a young Navy man who volunteered to go to Vietnam.

Kerry posted the documents on his website after several days of controversy in an effort, aides said, to quell criticism about his military service. Some conservatives had questioned whether the Massachusetts senator had earned all of his medals. Bush officials also questioned why he did not immediately release the records after promising to do so during an interview Sunday on "Meet the Press."

Senior Kerry advisor Michael Meehan said that campaign had requested the candidate's full naval record about a month ago. The 120 separate documents posted on http://www.johnkerry.com include all of the records released to Kerry by the Navy.

Most Americans before the war thought that the majority of the 9/11 highjackers were from Iraq.

That's partly true. Many Americans immediately after 9/11 wondered if Iraq was involved. It was a massive loss of innocent life and the vast majority of people were dumbfounded. It was natural to assume that such a profound strike would require state sponsorship, and Iraq--the last country we had gone to war with, and one that had been shooting at us in the no-fly zones since--made sense. As the details were fleshed out, those numbers dropped. Unscientifically, everybody I spoke to about the case for going to war, regardless of whether they ultimately supported it or not, said that the link between Iraq and terrorists was the weakest case they made.

More to the point, the numbers right before the Iraq war began were a few points above 50% in support. Actually, just found an article: 58% -- http://www.latimes.com/la-na-iraqpoll17dec17,0,761 3324.story)

Yes, it's a slight majority, but to make a statement like "the reason the majority of Americans are not in support...has to do with the fact they didn't expect as many American soldiers to die" is unfair. I think these numbers clearly show that nearly half of Americans did not support the war before it started and only roughly 10% (or less, with margins of error) have since changed their minds and withdrawn their support.

Of course we're tired of Americans dying. That is as we should be, but I think those who supported the war believe it's a cause worth fighting and dying for. Yes, there are casualty levels where one needs to pause and wonder if the benefits outweigh the costs, but I think it's much more likely that the inability to locate the WMDs was the greater cause of the 10% shift than the mounting casualties.

Most right now probably don't know the difference between Casey Kasem and Osama bin Laden.

That is by far the most stupid, ridiculous thing you have said. Just because our president is off playing war with Iraq does NOT mean Americans have forgotten bin Laden. In fact one of the major criticisms about going to war with Iraq by those who didn't support it is that it would distract us from hunting bin Laden. He will get his, and it will be most unpleasant for him.

there is enough internal willingness in the U.S. to use a military superiority to bully other nations, even friendly ones.

What friendly nations have we bullied militarily? I can't think of any case where we've turned to an ally and threatened to hit them if they didn't support us in something.

Seriously. Los Alamos has had TONS of problems. Remember the Chinese spying scandal under Clinton ? Los Alamos. Intrusion tests have resulted in attackers breaching the facility and leaving with a wheelbarrow filled with nuclear material. More recently, the Los Alamos lab has been losing Classified Removable Electronic Media left and right. Employees have had security badges stolen. Hell, CREM's have been found for sale with obvious confidential labels in nearby stores.

I'm far too lazy to get appropriate links for all of their issues. I've got some examples in a post I made yesterday, but those aren't Los Alamos specific. Why not peruse the summaries and madcap linkage from someplace like DefenseTech ? The vast majority of those articles detail the University of California's complete mismanagement of the Los Alamos facilities.

And 'Liberal Whacko' is a strange term to hurl at them. "Completely oblivious to security concerns".


--LordPixie

Did anyone else catch the cover photo to the Business Section of this July 12 article [no photo on website] in the Los Angeles Times? It looks as though part of Keira Knightly's breast nipple is showing through her rediculous costume.

Did anyone else catch the cover photo to the Business Section of this July 12 article [no photo on website] in the Los Angeles Times? It looks as though part of Keira Knightly's breast nipple is showing through her rediculous costume.

The LA Times has an interesting story today (registration required, sorry) about the Mexican music industry. It is in the process of being destroyed by piracy. I think that the movie industry is about five years behind the music industry in terms of the impact of downloading, mostly because the file size is so much higher. It will happen, though. Note well that that Harry Potter film that they are talking about cost about $120 million to make, as opposed to a record which might cost about $1 million. That money has to be recovered or the movie will not be made. Movies will, of course, continue to be made when piracy becomes rampant, but they will be dramatically different. They will be far cheaper, and will be filled with product placement. Hopefully, I'll be retired by that point. thad

The old guard seems to fear the cultural changes taking place in their country as their youth are becoming more independant.

But amid growing concern that it is losing touch with an increasingly rebellious youth, the government recently announced a series of steps to bolster social, ethical and moral standards among underage Chinese...

Premier Wen Jiabao set the tone in late February with State Council Document No. 8 -- cited as the most important statement on youth since the Communists swept to power in 1949 -- calling on parents, teachers and the government to help strengthen and reform the virtue of Chinese minors.

The government has also banned the release of new foreign films during the school break this summer and tightened restrictions on foreign textbooks, cellphone text messaging, the Internet and racy magazines aimed at teens. It is recruiting new "upstanding youth" to serve as role models. And it is pouring money into "Youth Palaces," the national network of after-school community centers started in the 1950s to promote extracurricular activities.

He didn't steal it. Even if the Supreme Court had let a state-wide recount go ahead, he would have won. So says a lengthy study by the University of Chicago National Opinion Research Center. Sponsors of the study, lest you think it was the Republican Party, is stated on the website:

The consortium of news organizations sponsoring the NORC Florida ballot project is made up of The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post Co., Tribune Publishing, CNN, Associated Press, St. Petersburg Times and The Palm Beach Post. The New York Times owns The Boston Globe, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, and the Lakeland Ledger among others. Washington Post Co. owns The Washington Post and Newsweek. Tribune, based in Chicago, owns the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Orlando Sentinel, and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, among others.

Lots of left-leaning media groups in there. Some links for the story covered by CNN, the Los Angeles Times, and the Chicago Tribune (registration required). Maybe if voters hadn't been confused by the ballot design (the NORC site has pictures of numerous types, some of them of seemingly bizarre design), then Gore might have won, but the rules say that if there's no clear choice, or if there are multiple punches, then the vote can't be counted.

The polar bears' primary source of food are ringed seals that live and breed on the ice pack. If the ice pack disappears, so does their source of food. Polar bears barely eat during the summer months since there's so little to eat in the arctic region. Many are going hungry now and are having fewer cubs due to the shrinking pack ice.

LATimes Story

What makes it worse is that (I'm guessing here) these genes were probably discovered with public funding of some sort. A similar thing happened a few years ago when the Staph aureus genome was decoded using a lot of NIH (i.e. taxpayer) money to pay for the research. The company then went out and patented it, to a great deal of uproar in the community. If you were paying attention, it also happened during the SARS scare, and I remember two companies were trying to figure out who was really the first to get to it, cuz the one in Toronto was going to essentially release it free to the world, and the other was a company that was going to patent it and make the world wait for their marketability research to figure out what name they should choose for the vaccine. Hopefully this stuff will be headed off soon, but the gov't is so hopelessly in the pharmaceutical companies pockets on this and everything else, I have little hope.