Slashdot Mirror

1) http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.uscongress/legislation.107hr1

2) http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll681.xml (warning, might not be a permalink; as a bonus, the bill text proper)

3) http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.uscongress/legislation.103hr700

All three in less than ten minutes. Though #3 was a gimme, and it was easier to find the bill than the roll call for #2.

That website is one of the hardest to use. One of the biggest faults is that there is no differentiation in the search results between major and minor efforts. Try these three searches and you'll see how difficult it is to use:

http://thomas.loc.gov/

1. Find the No Child Left Behind Act

2. Find the roll call of the recent Wall Street bail-out

3. Find HR 700 from the 103rd Congress (this should presumably be the easiest since you have the "key")

It's almost as if they do not want you to read it.

So you are describing the rescinding of a "weapon" tax of $0.39 placed upon wooden arrows manufactured for use in children's archery, which cost $0.30 to produce, pork?

Do you support a weapon tax on child arrows? If so, why, and if not, why do you call this pork?

The bail-out bill sucks, and granted, this tax should be rescinded in a different bill, but the bail-out itself should have been in a different bill. It was an amendment to:

H.R.1424: Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000

Into the valley of absurdity I rode; ditto heads to the left of me, ditto-heads to my right.

Even if Australians used American-made toilets (with swirling motion), they still wouldn't spin backwards. How water spins down a drain is related to the design of the unit, not the earth's rotation. (urban legend).

Hey buddy! Learn your science! The location of the "American Made" toilet with the swirly water thing would spin in reverse in the southern hemisphere. It's called the Coriolis Force and you can read about it right here.

True. But I see lots of folks at my university who are addicted to EndNote's buggy "Cite While You Write" functions that provide MS-Word integration. RefWorks has an analogous "Write while you cite" function, but still lots of people have accumulated libraries in EndNote and still have a love/hate addiction to CWYW.A lot of products provide "cite while you write"-like functionality. Zotero has CWYW-like functionality that can round-trip between MS Word and OO.o Writer. Bibus, another free/open source reference manager, also supports both word processors. Word processor support in other reference managers is detailed on Wikipedia.

Our library provides ISI Web of Science on-line....more open alternative will require freeing up all elements of the stack to include citation repositories.

Zotero plans to have a citation database that runs on a web server & plans to collaborate with the internet archive to provide storage of "open" publications (unfortunately, this excludes quite a bit of traditional content). Preprint/reprint servers, such as arXiv are a step in the right direction. Google scholar, PubMed Central, and other large repositories may help break the monopoly. If you'd like to help make your papers and citation information available to others, I encourage you to try out refbase or some other institutional repository software.

There are a wealth of APIs and standards to support this. I'm happy to say that refbase+zotero have adopted many of them. In addition to the citation style language, linked to above & which can create formatted citations form rich metadata, there is MODS XML, developed by the LoC, is a rich bibliographic format for exchange, unAPI makes it easy for websites to point to machine-readable metadata. SRW, also by the LoC, provides a uniform query language.

There are many places to follow this development, including OSS4lib, One Big Library, GCS-PCS, and many others.

I'm not an expert on the subject, but it looks like the summary doesn't match the article.

The summary says the new bill leaves out a section that might have brought a presidental veto, but the article says that the part that the president might take issue with, the creation of a "Copyright Czar" within the White House, was left IN the bill but that a veto is unlikely.

The summary also says that the bill has passed the senate, but I can't find a record of that in THOMAS anywhere, just that the AMENDMENTS to the bill were unanimously approved and that the bill itself is scheduled to be voted on soon. Nothing has passed anything yet; there's no congressional voting record available.

This is an important piece of legislation, I know it is, but the summary makes it sound like this is a done deal when it's absolutely not. Some rudimentary fact-checking would've killed ya?

(and no, I'm not new here.)

You can thank Leahy for that one. I am ashamed that my senators are co-sponsors...

As a side note, COPS would certainly become more interesting if the FBI showed up for every domestic violence case...

The fact that you keep posting this comment seems to imply that you think that non-interactive streams will be free.

You're correct that there's no reproduction licenses or distribution licenses for non-interactive streaming.

But that leaves the $0.0019 per user/per song royalty (with a $500 minimum per year per station)

Specifically, here's the rates broken down by year:
a per play rate of $.0008 for 2006, a per play rate of $.0011 for 2007, a per play rate of $.0014 for 2008, a per play rate of $.0018 for 2009, and a per play rate of $.0019 for 2010
From: http://www.loc.gov/crb/proceedings/2005-1/final-rates-terms2005-1.pdf

That's a little misleading. Most of the so called bills weren't even laws, they were senate resolutions. A lot of them were the same bills altered and resubmitted too. Take the first one considering the Juneteenth Independence Day, this is the supposed day that federal troops reached the last state saying the south lost the civil war and all slaves where free therefor it's claimed to be the day slavery ended in 1865. Anyways, it was introduced by Obama something like 2 or 3 times before passing and it wasn't a law, just a resolution.

You can just do a search and find his name come up 152 times. They aren't all on bills, you have to count resolutions to get that number but that doesn't tell the whole story either. Of those bills, all but 5 died before becoming law or accepted as a resolution.

Three of those five were simple resolutions, one was "to congratulate the Chicago White Sox on winning the 2005 World Series Championship", another for "recognizing the historical significance of Juneteenth Independence Day" and finally "A resolution designating July 13, 2006, as "National Summer Learning Day"". The bills that became law were about "A bill to promote relief, security, and democracy in the Democratic Republic of the Congo" and a bill to rename a post office building in Illinois after Katherine Dunham.

Those sure are some remarkable points of legislation that he has accomplished. You too could have see the perspective if you just read the results of the search for his name instead of just jotting down the number and running with it. But hey, you support Obama so I guess I shouldn't expect anything thorough.

As for the 427 number, yea, I'm not going to do your homework so you can look for yourself. Keep in mind that people co sponsor bills and resolutions simply to get co-sponsors for their own stuff. I wouldn't take anything with a co sponsor too seriously because often the people sponsoring it don't even vote for it. It is a political ploy like what happened with senate bill S.2154 which had 38 sponsors and got referred to and died in comity. BTW, senate bill S.2154 was nothing more then a bill to get the post office to issue a commemorative stamp for Rosa Parks.

Lets take a look at these other inflated EGO stats you pointed out.

has met with and impressed the heads of state of Germany, France, the UK, and Iraq

Yes, he has met with them but he has not discussed policy. It is actually against the law for him to do so without the express approval of congress if the policy effects anything the US government has a direct interest in. You can find more by looking up the Logan Act.

has been on Senate Foreign Relations committee

Yes, and has an abysmal attendence record and has actually not voted more then he has voted. His Foreign aid and policy voting record speaks for itself. Out of 28 bills directly related to it, he failed to vote at least 16 times. In the 109th congress, he attended only 18 of the 37 meetings that the Senate Foreign Relations committee held. Yes, he was on the commitee, but does that really count?

has some idea of what the Bush Doctrine is

I'm not so sure of that. Recently, he started campaigning with a comment McCain made about the fundamentals of the economy. The comment was actually, "I believe the fundamentals of the economy are still strong but these are very very difficult time". This comment was made while discussing the Financial turmoil of the markets, the housing problems, and all. But Obama seems to not be able to grasp the context of the statement or the entire statement and he as well as Biden proceeded in going around and misrepresenting it. Now, this was either a malicious act purposely mi

.
Oh, you mean Senate Bill 2590, the Coburn-Carper-McCain-Obama bill that had one primary sponsor (Coburn) and 47 cosponsors?

You do know that traditionally the first Senator or Senators (if multiple within the first day any additional Senator joins) becomes the co-sponsor and they are listed alphabetically...

And for the record, it's not the "Coburn-Obama Transparency Act" (for the name, if you want to use that type of convention would be the aforementioned Coburn-Carper-McCain-Obama Transparency Act) but the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006.

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Oh, you mean Senate Bill 2590, the Coburn-Carper-McCain-Obama bill that had one primary sponsor (Coburn) and 47 cosponsors?

You do know that traditionally the first Senator or Senators (if multiple within the first day any additional Senator joins) becomes the co-sponsor and they are listed alphabetically...

And for the record, it's not the "Coburn-Obama Transparency Act" (for the name, if you want to use that type of convention would be the aforementioned Coburn-Carper-McCain-Obama Transparency Act) but the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006.

I found a link on Thomas for the actual bill: Border Security Search Accountability Act of 2008 (Introduced in House). Haven't had a chance to read it yet, but hopefully it can clear up questions as to whether it applies only to U.S. Citizens, or to *anyone* who is crossing the border.

BTW: This is the PROPOSED text of the bill. It's by no means a law, yet, and is certainly subject to amendment before/if it ever it gets voted on.

I found a link on Thomas for the actual bill: Border Security Search Accountability Act of 2008 (Introduced in House). Haven't had a chance to read it yet, but hopefully it can clear up questions as to whether it applies only to U.S. Citizens, or to *anyone* who is crossing the border.

BTW: This is the PROPOSED text of the bill. It's by no means a law, yet, and is certainly subject to amendment before/if it ever it gets voted on.

Yep, it doesn't even mention the word "citizens". The bill itself is quite short and makes a lot of sense.

Take a look: HR 6869: Border Search Accountability Act of 2008

I suggest not flaming citations when you use "Media Matters" for yours. If I would counter-cite from Rush Limbaugh (*blech*) I would hope my credibility would go down too. Your point about making a case by inference is a good one. I suggest you take a dose of your own. To infer that McCain is against veteran medical service because he voted against H.R.1591 is well dumb. Although some of the verbage of the bill addresses providing funding for veteran hospital, you can tell by the title that it is, in actuality, a pork filled appropriations bill: U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans' Care, Katrina Recovery, and Iraq Accountability Appropriations Act Just take a look at the bill. It cover's everything from DHS and local police funding, to Immigration, to economic sanctions on Lebanon, to loan appropriation for Liberia.... oh yah, some stuff about veterans. If we were congressman and I put forth a bill that appropriated money for the building of a death ray but that we shouldn't kill babies, could I accuse you of wanting to kill babies because you voted against it?

did you miss the legislation that almost passed between '92 and '94?

There was one piece of legislation you should be referring to theOmnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993. Which was fiscal responsibility at it's core, as it included both tax increases and spending decreases. It can be directly traced to the balanced budget as you can see in this 1998 CBO report 'WHAT CAUSED THE 1998 SURPLUS?--CBO'S EXPLANATION'. You might find that the effect of the Republican congresses was a gain of 11 billion in spending. Many such as yourself actually credit legislative gridlock with the budget surplus, when in reality it was this really tough bill which produced the surplus. I'll agree that the top end was a little high, but it did the trick, until Bush got in office and decided to finish his Dad's war, while putting money in his supporter's pockets.

I blame the Republicans for not scaling back wasteful government programs when they had the chance...Now if you're willing to take your blinders off and have an informed conversation, we can do that.

I submit to you, that you, sir, are the one with blinders. They never take the chances they have to reduce spending, or balance the budget, or build nuclear power plants, or reduce foreign oil. For all their talk about government being the problem rather than the solution Republican's sure do love to add federal jobs and contracts (especially contracts). Even Roe v. Wade is still law even though there should be a supreme court which would overturn it in a second. The fact that every couple of years, they keep fooling people into believing the same platform they couldn't (or maybe wouldn't) deliver on, is amazing. The fact that people such as yourself continue to spout out Republican Lore as if it's the truth would be funny, if it weren't for the seriousness of the problems we face.

Obama has accomplished quite a lot constructively as senator, whether with Democrats, or despite Republican opposition, or even with Republican partnership. His campaign has featured many events in which he has explained lots of details of his presidential policies. He has a solid legislative history in the Senate and in the Illinois statehouse, even despite his fairly brief tenures there.

McCain also has a lot of Senate record. He has made pretty clear that he will continue Bush's policies, even though he will varnish that by saying he's "different" - McCain voted with Bush 95% of the time even in 2007, after Bush wasn't even popular anymore. Because McCain is just as much a spokesmodel as Bush for the same Republican lobbyists who fed Bush most of his policies.

The problem with your description is that it describes media coverage, like CNN's windbag Bill Schneider. You somehow believe that the media is "mostly liberal", which means that you're "independent" only because Republicans aren't authoritarian enough for you, and because the corporate mass media has cultivated the "liberal media myth" to pretend their news cartel is some kind of competition.

There's no need to look at corporate mass media whitewashes of these politicians anymore. Look directly at their records, look at their specific plans. And don't quote a media whore like Bill Schneider, who just reads a script approved by his own corporate sponsor, as if he's got any insight. Especially when he says that blaming the other side in public for their failures is somehow more important to politicians than actually getting what they want. Which is mostly what they get.

OK, I poked around a little -- I'm no copyright expert by any means and the 30 minutes I spent is not a real analysis. That said:

If you make a recording, the statute says (statutes trump regs) you have exclusive right to do a number of things with it, for example "(3) to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending;" http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#106

Then in the Copyright Board Regs, there is this: " (c) Copyright Owner is a sound recording copyright owner who is entitled to receive royalty payments under 17 U.S.C. 112(e) or 114(g). ... (e) Licensee is a person that has obtained statutory licenses under 17 U.S.C. 112 and 114, and the implementing regulations, to make digital audio transmissions as part of a Service (as defined in paragraph (h) of this section), and ephemeral recordings for use in facilitating such transmissions." S 383.2 And if the copyright owner happens to want royalties, here's the payload.

Essentially, if you make something and want it to be covered by the Copyright Board regs -- that's your right. If you want to give it away, that's your right. This idea that the law somehow forces people to take payment for their copyrighted work is silly.

You can read about the 112(e) and 114(g) requirements here: http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#114

OK, I poked around a little -- I'm no copyright expert by any means and the 30 minutes I spent is not a real analysis. That said:

If you make a recording, the statute says (statutes trump regs) you have exclusive right to do a number of things with it, for example "(3) to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending;" http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#106

Then in the Copyright Board Regs, there is this: " (c) Copyright Owner is a sound recording copyright owner who is entitled to receive royalty payments under 17 U.S.C. 112(e) or 114(g). ... (e) Licensee is a person that has obtained statutory licenses under 17 U.S.C. 112 and 114, and the implementing regulations, to make digital audio transmissions as part of a Service (as defined in paragraph (h) of this section), and ephemeral recordings for use in facilitating such transmissions." S 383.2 And if the copyright owner happens to want royalties, here's the payload.

Essentially, if you make something and want it to be covered by the Copyright Board regs -- that's your right. If you want to give it away, that's your right. This idea that the law somehow forces people to take payment for their copyrighted work is silly.

You can read about the 112(e) and 114(g) requirements here: http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#114

But, it's probably not even necessary, as blueprints and photos exist on the internet for any target one might find interesting.

You are absolutely correct.

Our project manager was doing a site visit to the George Washington Bridge in New York City. The Port Authority people told him he couldn't take any pictures of the bridge, for security reasons. Never mind that dozens of highway contractors, painting contractors, steel contractors, scaffold contractors and scads of engineering firms, architectural firms, government agencies of all forms and engineering schools have structural drawings in whole or part. Never mind one MILLION hits on Google images. Never mind the Historic American Buildings Survey in the Library of Congress http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/habs_haer/index.html has wonderful high-definition scans of large and medium format film photos. This one is my favorite. You can check the rivet patterns: http://memory.loc.gov/pnp/habshaer/ny/ny1200/ny1264/photos/119063pv.jpg

It has nothing to do with security. It has everything to do with control. Problem is, when I point out the idiocy of the situation, the contradictory rules and the artificial restrictions this security places on good practice, they tell my boss I'm harassing the (Port Authority|ConEd|MTA) employees. I feel it is my duty as a professional engineer to point out the incredibly poor results (both in construction and in intention) of these rules that a layman may not be able or interested to do. It doesn't help that the (PA|CE|MTA) usually guys start with a nasty attytood, no construction background and no project preparation.

But, it's probably not even necessary, as blueprints and photos exist on the internet for any target one might find interesting.

You are absolutely correct.

Our project manager was doing a site visit to the George Washington Bridge in New York City. The Port Authority people told him he couldn't take any pictures of the bridge, for security reasons. Never mind that dozens of highway contractors, painting contractors, steel contractors, scaffold contractors and scads of engineering firms, architectural firms, government agencies of all forms and engineering schools have structural drawings in whole or part. Never mind one MILLION hits on Google images. Never mind the Historic American Buildings Survey in the Library of Congress http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/habs_haer/index.html has wonderful high-definition scans of large and medium format film photos. This one is my favorite. You can check the rivet patterns: http://memory.loc.gov/pnp/habshaer/ny/ny1200/ny1264/photos/119063pv.jpg

It has nothing to do with security. It has everything to do with control. Problem is, when I point out the idiocy of the situation, the contradictory rules and the artificial restrictions this security places on good practice, they tell my boss I'm harassing the (Port Authority|ConEd|MTA) employees. I feel it is my duty as a professional engineer to point out the incredibly poor results (both in construction and in intention) of these rules that a layman may not be able or interested to do. It doesn't help that the (PA|CE|MTA) usually guys start with a nasty attytood, no construction background and no project preparation.

I was expecting someone putting a record into a flatbed scanner

That's been tried, and it sort of works. But ordinary scanners don't have enough resolution. The Library of Congress has a scanner that does. They image the disc at a resolution of 1 micro per pixel, which yields 8 GB or so of imagery. Then they have software which can reconstruct the audio from the image.

Not only is this useful for fragile, unique records, but it will work on cracked or scratched ones. It's even possible to reconstruct a broken record if you have all the pieces.

The current scanner only works for horizontal recording; it can't read depth. So it won't work on vertically recorded records (Edison) or stereo (45/45 Westrex has two components 90 degrees apart.) They're working on that.

You want an indication of problems witch those in power continually extending it? Point me to a single proposed reduction bill. It's all about extension, reinforcement and expansion to other works like vessel hull design.

H.R. 1201, the Freedom and Innovation Revitalizing U.S. Entrepreneurship Act of 2007. Introduced in February by sponsor Rick Boucher of Virginia and currently in committee.

Granted, this is not likely to pass--it's more likely the exception that proves your rule--and in case might do more harm than good by not going far enough. But you asked.

Yes. That's what we call an "unauthorized power grab."

Is it technically a "power grab" authorized or not if this has been the situation for almost the entire existence of the country? And if it is, it certainly happened well before anyone we know was born.

Um, yeah... I recall when Thomas Jefferson called Ben Franklin on his phone and said...

Oh, wait. Phone taps have only been possible since there were... PHONES! And what do we have with regard to phones? TELECOMM law, which is based on what??? Right! On THE FOURTH AMENDMENT! And what does telecomm law say??? Why, it says you need a WARRANT! And the danger of "losing the country" didn't exist in the person of an individual crossing a border until (at the very earliest) 1945. Only not really then, because although they could make A-Bombs, no one was going to be smuggling a multi-ton object in their valise. There are practical issues. And organized germ warfare came considerably later as well; about ten years later.

So, as it turns out, you're wrong on every single fact. Way to go, dude, that's epic. Why don't you check some facts out. Facts like telecom law and the fourth amendment has never been around until 1968 when the courts reversed a long standing decision over whether or not there was an expectation of privacy on the telephone. And yes, there are plenty of supreme court cases covering the matter. Now, the expectation of privacy has been since "Thomas Jefferson" days the test to whether a search was covered or protected by the fourth amendment or not. And yes, congress did authorize border searched without warrants back then!

I also like the way you arbitrarily picked 1945 as a date that you can imagine a ruling over border searched but if you would have looked just a little, you will find that the First congress of the United States wrote and passed a law giving the government the ability to do border searches. The text says something like

"That searches made at the border, pursuant to the longstanding right of the sovereign to protect itself by stopping and examining persons and property crossing into this country, are reasonable simply by virtue of the fact that they occur at the border, should, by now, require no extended demonstration."276 Authorized by the First Congress,277

And if you want to read the entire law, it can be found here Back to the telephone tap laws, the courts have ruled them not protected by the 4th amendment since their use and we found out how to tap them all throughout history (earliest case I know of was 1928) until 1967 when the courts reversed their position in The Berger and Katz Cases. .... and for foreign intelligence Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 (1967).

BTW, have you bothers to look any of this shit up on your own? or are you just repeating what someone else told you because it made them look good?

That's what they tell us, all right. Do you really think some person's laptop qualifies as a threat to the constitution? To national security? Even to uncle Ralph down the street? Don't you think that if Achmed The Awful has some data he wants to get into the country that is of a critical nature to his nefarious plans to elect another idiot like Bush in order to continue the destruction of our constitution, that even dumbassed, camel-fucking Achmed would have the sense to buy a virgin laptop here, and then SSL the data from places sandier than the good old U S of A? Or are you really so gullible to think that a laptop, of all things in this universe, is so threatening that the constitution should be suspended

Except as otherwise provided in this subsection, no search of the digital contents of the device or media may be based on the power of the United States to search a person and that person's possessions upon entry into the United States, unless that search is based on a reasonable suspicion regarding that person.

The day he took the job he did.

That's a funny glitch.

Here's the link to Dianne Feinstein's Senate legislative record.

Sponsor: Rep Reyes, Silvestre [TX-16] Democrat Cosponsors Rep Hoekstra, Peter [MI-2] Republican Rep Smith, Lamar Republican

The sponsor is a Democrat, the cosponsors are Republicans. Both wings of the Corporate Party are behind this dastardly abomination.

This Presidential election, vote Barr, McKinney, or Baldwin. Unless, of course, you want your corporate overlords to keep taking your rights and ecology away.

Nope, if you read the house bill, link
And the licensing section specificially says that it requires all to get a license to 1) Protect National Security 2)Require sharing of whatever data collected with the government 3-6) Keep track of your orbit/space junk/international laws.

But this 'law' applies only to US citizens. Does it not? I understand that from the article.

I don't think the NOAA sent release forms to be signed by Soviet cosmonauts.

I took a little bit time to read the regulation (http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c102:H.R.6133.ENR:).

It seems this is really not that bad in the sense that it controls access to space-generated data (from weather satellites fr example).

But it also seesm that it's a regulation that is being taken to the nth degree simply because it's there and it never predicted civialan space exploration.

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?c102:1:./temp/~c1029W3AOE:e25773:

SEC. 202. CONDITIONS FOR OPERATION.

(a) LICENSE REQUIRED FOR OPERATION- No person who is subject to the jurisdiction or control of the United States may, directly or through any subsidiary or affiliate, operate any private remote sensing space system without a license pursuant to section 201.

(b) LICENSING REQUIREMENTS- Any license issued pursuant to this title shall specify that the licensee shall comply with all of the requirements of this Act and shall--

(1) operate the system in such manner as to preserve the national security of the United States and to observe the international obligations of the United States in accordance with section 506;

(2) make available to the government of any country (including the United States) unenhanced data collected by the system concerning the territory under the jurisdiction of such government as soon as such data are available and on reasonable terms and conditions;

(3) make unenhanced data designated by the Secretary in the license pursuant to section 201(e) available in accordance with section 501;

(4) upon termination of operations under the license, make disposition of any satellites in space in a manner satisfactory to the President;

(5) furnish the Secretary with complete orbit and data collection characteristics of the system, and inform the Secretary immediately of any deviation; and

(6) notify the Secretary of any agreement the licensee intends to enter with a foreign nation, entity, or consortium involving foreign nations or entities.

Here's the direct language of the bill

Last year Ron Paul introduced the Free Competition in Currency Act of 2007 which would make alternate currencies legal, though not change other aspects of what you can do with currencies (e.g. money laundering would still be illegal).

Few young people realize that until the 1964-1968 time period it was possible to bring your dollars to the government and get precious metal on demand. This gave the dollar real worth. Since that time, the government has found that it can simply make more money out of thin air and spend it on government programs to generate votes. As with any supply and demand equation, when they start running the printing presses to make more dollars, the dollars you have in you bank account become worth less. You're losing money value and the government is gaining money value, but your 'taxes' are low. One can see this in inflation charts which start to skyrocket in the 1970's, relative to decades previous. Interesting note: if we measured inflation today the way we used to back then, our inflation rate would be 11%.

The Wall Street Journal recently ran a graph showing the value of the dollar vs. gold vs. oil. If we look at the start of the decade until now, if we were holding euros instead of dollars, gas would only be about $2.70 at the pump - that extra $1.30 can be viewed as lost power of the dollar. But, the euro is no panacea either - if you compare the price of gas to the price of gold, it's nearly flat. How about $1.20 gas? I actually saw $5 diesel in CT last weekend.

Not surprisingly, the government decided to stop keeping track of 'M3', or the money supply of the dollar recently. Private economists have continued the calculations and it's easy to see why the government doesn't want to talk about it.

So, back to the beginning, the government has taken irresponsible action with the way it manages the value of its currency, and they have laws preventing people from opting out of their mismanagement. Afraid of a little competition, are they? Experience shows that the most likely effect of competing currencies, even ones that mimic the way the government operated in your parents' generation, would be to pressure the government to exercise some restraint. Of course, if this competition is illegal, they'll continue with their outrageous devaluation.

Folks who think a little competition helps to keep markets fair, and monopolies hurt them, would do well to contact their representatives in government about the aforementioned bill.

Right, FISA as a whole...he considered it absolutely vital to grant Bush...expanded wiretapping powers...at the cost of a chance to discover the extent of his lawbreaking through civil discovery. Claiming that the FISA amendments are necessary to clarify the scope of the law is bullshit. Check out Al-Haramain v. Bush: the lawsuit with clear standing. If they manage to get around the stifling state secrets privilege, it seems likely that they will have Bush's actions declared illegal under pre-amended FISA. So basically, you're left with Obama buying Bush's argument that 72 hours is just way too burdensome a time limit to apply for a warrant in the FISA court, which does nothing but grant these warrants; he needs an easier process drawn out over weeks including appeals, with looser burdens for application. Obama thinks that giving Bush more of what he wants is so absolutely vital that we might as well de-facto pardon him while they're at it, for what should have been the biggest scandal since COINTELPRO.

Even without the immunity, I would have been troubled (read: appalled and outraged) by his vote. What kind of message does it send to make FISA even easier to comply with after Bush blatantly ignores it? You do know this this bill...actually legalizes warrantless wiretapping, I'm sure. As long as "the target" is an overseas foreigner (excuse me, as long as they reasonably believe this to be the case), they can listen to the overseas calls of American citizens without a warrant...using a broad and automated system. Take a gander at the pertinent section of the bill. You still need a FISA warrant to wiretap a U.S. citizen as the target for evidentiary purposes...well, you need one in a week anyway.

So, can you still sit there are justify this vote? Exactly what part of this bill is strengthening the rule of law and executive accountability? You know the lawsuit I linked earlier in the post...the plaintiff can still be wiretapped warrantlessly, only with the full protection of law this time! Not for evidentiary purposes, but if I recall a certain executive order correctly, all it takes to freeze someone's assets for supporting terrorism is for the AG to say "he's a bad bad man." A great day for Obama and America, to be sure.

Here are just a few highlights from Barack Obama's career as a US Senator: specific pieces of legislation, what they meant and how they were passed.

The Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act

Introduced by Sen. John McCain in May 2005, and cosponsored by Sen. Edward Kennedy. Barack Obama added three amendments to this bill.

While the bill was never voted on in the Senate, the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Acts of 2006 and 2007, respectively, drew heavily upon the wording of this bill.

The Lugar-Obama Cooperative Threat Reduction.

Introduced by Sen. Barack Obama, Sen. Dick Lugar and Sen. Tom Coburn.

First introduced in November 2005 and enacted in 2007, this bill expanded upon the successful Nunn-Lugar threat reduction, which helped secure weapons of mass destruction and related infrastructure in former Soviet Union states.

Lugar-Obama expanded this nonproliferation program to conventional weapons -- including shoulder-fired rockets and land mines. When the bill received $48 million in funding, Obama said, "This funding will further strengthen our ability to detect and intercept illegal shipments of weapons and materials of mass destruction, enhancing efforts to prevent nuclear terrorism."

Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006

This act of Congress, introduced by Senators Obama and Coburn, required the full disclosure of all entities or organizations receiving federal funds in FY2007.

Despite a "secret hold" on this bill by Senators Ted Stevens and Robert Byrd, the act passed into law and was signed by President Bush. The act had 43 cosponsors, including John McCain.

The act created this Web site, which provides citizens with valuable information about government-funded programs.

Democratic Republic of the Congo Relief, Security, and Democracy Promotion Act

This law helped specify US policy toward the Congo, and states that the US should work with other donor nations to increase international contributions to the African nation.

The bill marked the first federal legislation to be enacted with Obama as its primary sponsor. Following this legislation's passage, Obama toured Africa, traveling to South Africa, Kenya, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Chad. He spoke forcefully against ethnic rivalries and political corruption in Kenya.

Honest Leadership and Open Government Act

In the first month of the 110th Congress, Obama worked with Sen. Russ Feingold to pass this law, which amends and strengthens the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995.

Specificially, the changes made by Obama and Feingold requires public disclosure of lobbying activity and funding, places more restrictions on gifts for members of Congress and their staff, and provides for mandatory disclosure of earmarks in expenditure bills.

The House passed the bill, 411-8, on July 31. The Senate approved it, 83-14, on Aug. 2. At the time, Obama called it "the most sweeping ethics reform since Watergate."

Deceptive Practices and Voter Intimidation Prevention Act

Following the Republican-sponsored voter intimidation tactics seen in mostly black counties in Maryland during the 2006 midterm elections, Obama worked with Sen. Chuck Schumer to introduce this bill.

The bill has been referred to the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary. Obama said of the bill, "This legislation would ensure that for the first time, these incidents are fully investigated and that those found guilty are punished."

Further notes:

• McCain didn't vote because he wasn't there. He has publicly supported telecom immunity is recent days, however, so it's safe to say he would have voted for it.
• While Clinton voted against it this time, she didn't bother to show up to vote when this came up earlier this year (to vote on the bill or to help with the filibuster). It still potentially speaks well of her that she was against this, but apparently she wouldn't stand up for it when it was really politically dangerous.
• As for Obama, last time around he spoke out against it and voted to against cloture (i.e., to filibuster). He didn't show up to vote on the bill itself, but it's fair to say that that vote was probably seen to be a foregone conclusion (I'd still have rather he did vote, but it was a primary election day). This time he voted for cloture (i.e., against a filibuster). He did vote for various amendments to limit or strip the immunity provisions, but they all failed, and he voted for the final bill with immunity. It was well known he was going to do this but I, for one, am still quite disappointed.

If you have been paying attention you would know that the documents the telecoms need to show their actions were legal have been classified by the Bush administration as national security secretes.

That places the Telecoms in a position that they can't defend without breaking an entirely different law and the courts seeing the suits don't have the authority to grant immunity from prosecution which carries prison time. The administration went to court and explained this claiming that the documents were national security secrets which historically have caused the cases to be dismissed. A judge in CA said it wasn't good enough and the public had a right to see the contents of the orders. The administration has refused to declassify the documents because it would place national security at risk. It might be prudent to suggest that he is more likely protecting activities that might have been illegal and it has been claimed that the telecom suits were only an attempt at learning about those activities but all we have is face value in the reasoning stated at the moment.

In the end, we have an organization that isn't a government entity but works closely with the government in many aspects who isn't allowed a fair trial by default. It violates on the basic tenent of our legal system and people seem to be able to over look that if it allows them to get what they see as the bad guy. In this case, the bad guy is Bush and anyone he may have used in his actions.

If you look at the so called immunity bill, it doesn't actually provide immunity. It provides a means for the administration to certify if it presented orders or not and if they were legal or not. If they were legal and there was a court order, the case automatically gets dismissed. If they weren't followed through on or if they relied on the AG's authorizations, then it goes to a special court of abuse to determine if the government actually presented a legal looking document. If that is true, then the case get's dismissed. Under FISA, provisions allowed the AG to present authorizations without a court order given that one would be sought. It really isn't the Telecoms' fault if that follow through was never implemented because the follow through is after the fact.

Anyways, don't take this as some form of rebuttal. It isn't. It is a description of the events leading to the current situation which on itself leads to a little different light. The laws in place at the time provided a complete defense for the telecoms if they were presented with authentic authorization even if they weren't legal. This is mostely why a lot of the democrats are breaking ranks and voting for the immunity. Look at the bill itself. I have to link that way because the links won't stay valid for long. Select the 1st entry then scroll down to the title II protections. Notice how it provides for the AG to certify it's actions without divulging information the would be considered top secrete or a national security "state secrete".

I think there was a Constitutional amendment a few years back that gave all corporations the right to fuck consumers

Actually, it was in the Constitution. Article I, Section 10. "No state shall ... pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts".

They can fuck you any way they want, so long as it's in the contract. You have the responsibility to read, understand, and use the courts to enforce any contract you enter.

I mean, now Congress is trying to pass a law that gives our phone company immunity for breaking the law designed to protect us.

Congress wants to pass a law that extends the FISA court, and grants civil (not criminal!) immunity to any telecommunications company that did what the government told them to do. In fact, there's even an express time limit on this provision of the bill -- "authorized by the President during the period beginning on September 11, 2001, and ending on January 17, 2007;" (link)

If the President breaks the law, we vote him out of office or impeach him. If the President's men break the law because he told them to, and we don't impeach the president, then he can just pardon them. And you can't sue either one in the courts. That's what the AG's are for.

Why the hell should a private company be the only one holding the bag for a wrong done to someone, at the behest of the President of the United States?

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:h.r.06304:

The simplest and best change all media can make is to include the bill number of the bills they are talking about. Then people can easily go to THOMAS and see and interpret the bill for themselves.

How about it Slashdot? Will you start including the bill number in any discussion about legislation?

Oh, and I've got a link to the text of the We the People Act, too.

by late 2007/early 2008, McCain voted against the same thing he had previously championed.

True, but keep in mind the work's original medium isn't a normal DVD. It's a DVD that is meant to self destruct after 48 hours.

The adhesive is still an effective technological protection measure to protect the copyrighted material.

• Effective—I'll assume the stuff works, otherwise they wouldn't have gotten this far.
• Technlogical measure—it'll be hard to argue that a special adhesive isn't a technological measure. It's not like the digital encryption systems we're used to, but if a special adhesive isn't techology, what is it?
• Protecting copyright material—duh.

I'm not a lawyer, but considering the above I'd find it hard argue it doesn't fit the description of "a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work".[1] Of course, if you were ever hauled in front of a court, your lawyer would probably have a field day arguing over whether it fits the definition. But it seems to here, so circumventing it still puts you afoul of the DMCA.

By preventing the decay, you're circumventing an technological protection measure. If it seems ridiculous that stopping your discs from decaying might be illegal, it's because of the ridiculousness of making circumvention illegal on its own.

Even if you weren't breaking the DMCA, plain old contract law might screw you over. They tell you the discs only last 48 hours. You buy knowing they're only supposed to last 48 hours. They sell the discs at a discount on the understanding that you will only be able to use them for 48 hours. It seems pretty clear that it's a term of the contract of sale that you're only allowed to use the stuff for 48 hours.

From there, it's not much of a step to argue that the disc only comes with a 48-hour licence to the copyrighted materials on it. Or that by buying the disc, you're accepting a licence to access the stuff on the disc for 48 hours only. After all, if you wanted a longer licence, you would have bought a longer-lasting disc. Either way, hang on to the copyrighted material beyond that 48 hour period and you're in breach of your licence. Which means you're in breach of copyright.

Of course, this probably won't stop you from making backup copies of these discs—assuming fair use rights still mean anything. It's just that you'd have to destroy these backups after your licence expires. Which means you still end up with no movie at the end of the 48 hours.

It doesn't look like the law will let you use these DVDs to burn a movie collection on the cheap, even if you could stop the adhesive from messing up the disc.

References

• [1] Pulled from the the bottom of p 5 of the Public Law PDF linked to from Wikipedia's page.

Yes, but the "Electronic Signatures in Global National Commerce Act" was not intended to refer to scanned images of a physical signature, but rather more like a personal key that the owner controls by password, physical token, or some such McGuffin. You could, I suppose, write out your e-signature with a pen and fax it, or scan it and mail it; or you could generate an e-signature from your scanned physical signature (hey why not?) but it wouldn't be what was intended. See: "Electronic Signatures in Global National Commerce Act"

Little bit offtopic from my parent, but I figure the mods will forgive me for providing the Text of the GINA.

By the way, a similar technique was used by Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii to produce wonderful, early color photographs of the Russian Empire during World War I.