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I don't see the new provision about cold medicines. By the way, you can read the bill here--check version 5, as it is what the senate passed March 2.

In fact it's right here: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?c109:405:./t emp/~c109u8qmKx:e429803:
But just think how long it would take to read and understand 300+ pages of this.

I believe all bills are already posted to the internet at http://thomas.loc.gov/

Did you really believe that they would ever voluntarily slow the march toward a complete surveillance society where everything that you buy, everywhere you go and even every conversation that you have is ruthlessly cataloged by the state. This is why they are pushing the RFID chips in products, the RFID chips in people, the cashless society, the national ID card (see HR418, the "Real ID" act http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:H.R.418 : ), the NSA domestic spying, and the patriot act. Did you know that under the PATRIOT act (HR3162 http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d107:h.r.0 3162: ) all of your property can be seized and the burden will be on you to prove that you are not a terrorist so that you can get your property back. What is the definition of a terrorist? Under section 802 of the PATRIOT act, a terrorist is anyone who is involved in "dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State" is a terrorist. So literally if you jay-walk you are a terrorist. Any one of us is in danger of being declared a terrorist at any time. When the government considers its entire population to be the enemy there is a term for that -- a police state. None of this stuff is a coincidence. Start getting informed about this stuff so that you know how to protect yourself.

Did you really believe that they would ever voluntarily slow the march toward a complete surveillance society where everything that you buy, everywhere you go and even every conversation that you have is ruthlessly cataloged by the state. This is why they are pushing the RFID chips in products, the RFID chips in people, the cashless society, the national ID card (see HR418, the "Real ID" act http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:H.R.418 : ), the NSA domestic spying, and the patriot act. Did you know that under the PATRIOT act (HR3162 http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d107:h.r.0 3162: ) all of your property can be seized and the burden will be on you to prove that you are not a terrorist so that you can get your property back. What is the definition of a terrorist? Under section 802 of the PATRIOT act, a terrorist is anyone who is involved in "dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State" is a terrorist. So literally if you jay-walk you are a terrorist. Any one of us is in danger of being declared a terrorist at any time. When the government considers its entire population to be the enemy there is a term for that -- a police state. None of this stuff is a coincidence. Start getting informed about this stuff so that you know how to protect yourself.

I say that financial information should be protected from negligent disclosures as well. Any business, financial or otherwise, should be required to protect financial information (properly defined, but including credit card numbers and bank account numbers), subject to strict liability. There should be a private right of action, with a presumption of causation if you suffer false credit card charges within, say, 30 days of the breach. To balance what I foresee as tremendous opposition from the business sector, the law should lessen the length of time businesses have to keep private data on file. Heck, most businesses should probably delete credit card numbers from their files immediately after the transaction clears. The only businesses that can't, use rolling payments or frequent transactions (pay-per-use services). There might be an exception for them. The big hurdle there would be rewriting the tax laws, but Bush said he was going to do that to make life easier for businesses, didn't he?

Write your Senators and Reps. Especially if you live in a Red state. The GOP is in power now, it's time we used them properly.

Lets not forget that copying a DVD is a little less clear cut in the US because of the DMCA which makes bypassing a copy control mechanism illegal...

Read the law. You can find it here. There is no blanket prohibition on bypassing copy control mechanisms - this is a big, big misconception about the DMCA. In fact, there are both specific and non-specific instances (i.e. basically the same provisions as in earlier fair use definitions) in which bypassing technological copy control mechanisms is explicitly allowed.

Whether or not format-shifting would count is not clearly laid out in the law, anymore than it is in earlier copyright laws. According to the DMCA, the Librarian of Congress is supposed to review cases like this every 3 years to determine whether they would be legal under the DMCA's provisions or not.

The entire purpose of this part of the DMCA was not to stamp out fair use, it was to specifically prohibit circumventing technological measures that were implemented in order to prevent copyright violations. But the bottom line is (or is supposed to be) that if you're not violating copyright law, you are allowed to circumvent these technological measures. The DMCA was not supposed to take away your fair use rights.

How the law has been used and referenced since it was enacted may be another story. But that is the way the law was written, and I'm confident that if it was actually tested in court (and format-shifting has not been, to my knowledge), that both the letter and intent of the law would be followed by the court.

It is very clear that you do not agree with me on the base facts that the War on Terror was not declared. It was. I sent you the link to the entire text of that Declaration.

Congress *also* voted HERE: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c107:5:./tem p/~c1073yq4VW::
to enforce the resolutions and engage the use of force. If that's not a War Declaration, I don't know what else you want. Apparently, you, like most other liberatarians (that's what you come across like) don't seem to accept that. I don't know why. And I don't know why you think there is an issue with it violating the Constitution. Apparently, we're on separate sides of the fence... and that's fine. I'm not going to beat my head on a brick wall to try to convince you otherwise, cuz I know that doesn't work! :)

200TB of Xserve RAID storage (link includes pictures)

Text of the article:

The University of Wisconsin - Madison has deployed 35 5.6TB Xserve RAID storage arrays in a single research installation as part of an ongoing scientific computing initiative.

The Grid Laboratory of Wisconsin (GLOW), a partnership between several research departments at the University of Wisconsin, have installed almost 200TB, or 200,000GB, of Xserve RAID arrays.

As a comparison, 200TB of storage is enough to hold 2.75 years of high definition video, 25,000 full length DVD movies, 323,000 CDs, 20 printed collections of the Library of Congress, or over 1000 Wikipedias.

The GLOW storage installation is physically split between the departments of Computer Sciences and High Energy Physics. Each Xserve RAID is attached to a dedicated Linux node running Fedora Core via an Apple Fibre Channel PCI-X Card and is either directly accessed via various mechanisms, such as over the network via gigabit ethernet, or aggregated using tools such as dCache.

The storage is primarily used to act as a holding area for large amounts of data from experiments such as the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) and ATLAS experiments at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.

Dude, Shut Up, please

The term is a relatively recent and less ambiguous alternative to the term America, which may refer to either the entire landmass or the United States of America. The former, and original, usage is now often considered archaic in English-speaking nations but still in use in other areas, in which the Americas is often described as a single continent or supercontinent, and therefore called America (singular).

Then on the left we have people like Murtha and Kennedy screaming that we should leave, RIGHT NOW GODDAMNIT!!! That's just insane, we can't leave the Iraqis in a worse position than we found them. That would be like walking away from a car stuck underwater with a woman trapped inside. I mean, what kind of man does that?

I'm sure these guys will be squarely on the opposite side of that table with plenty of cashola in hand to boot.

http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/2005/05-250.html

Did you know there is a 3% fee for Americans' phones? Read below:

NewsNet5.com reports that there is a call to repeal a telephone/phone (including cellular/cell phones) tax most Americans probably don't even know they are paying. Anybody who has ever tried to decipher a phone bill knows how tough it can be. One of the charges is a 3 percent fee on every phone bill in America. The origin of the tax predates the invention of the phone by nearly a century.

Every time a person use their his/her phone, he/she supports the war effort -- the Spanish-American War. The 1898 war involved Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders. The fee began as a luxury tax on phones at the turn of the 19th Century. And we're all still paying for it today. Phone bills don't specify that the tax originates from the Spanish-American War. It is labeled as the federal excise tax, which amounts to 3 percent of every monthly bill...

Seen on Shacknews. Posted on my site recently.

What I'd like to know, for the record, is the text of the very last telegram.

The first was sent on May 24th, 1844 from Washington DC to Baltimore, and read:

"What hath God wrought?".

"It is his job to protect and serve the people."

What?! Huh?! Wait, I missed this one.

The President takes an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the constitution of the United States. No mention of the people.

Show me where it is the President's job to protect the people...

text of the bill.

It has over 40 co-sponsors (From Allen to Obama) and doesn't look like it's going to become a partisan battle, so maybe it'll actually pass.

Seriously, if you don't know that our military (and to varying extents, other branches of government) interface through the public through very ruthless PR machines (both with external PR firms and internal work) that are willing to do almost anything if they think that it will help them with their current policy objectives, you've not been paying attention.

I haven't seen these recently...

Quickly now: name one "lost" Disney film, from the silent era to the present.

The plain truth is that the studio's archives are essentially complete and self-financing. Simple preservation costs money. Restoration costs more.

Public domain status guarantees the survival of nothing: "In spite of the heroic efforts of archives, the motion picture industry and others, America's film heritage, by any measure, is an endangered species. Fifty percent of the films produced before 1950 and 80 to 90 percent made before 1920 have disappeared forever. Sadly, our enthusiasm for watching films has proved far greater than our commitment to preserving them. And, ominously, more films are lost each year"

• Here
• Here
• Here
• And Here

Yes, but he also proposed a Seal for the United States that contained overt Biblical imagery, and requested that the Constitutional Convention open each day with prayers.

Yes, but he also proposed a Seal for the United States that contained overt Biblical imagery, and requested that the Constitutional Convention open each day with prayers.

What. You mean sonething like this?

I always find it ironic that Americans ridule the military prowess of the country that basically served up us Brits on a plate to you. Battle of Yorktown anyone?

Wow, being so proud as you are I bet you refuse to drive by a car (or train). With your mentality, how it is possible that US is still making cars? Be terrile and write your congresman how US needs to invent their own way of transportation, this one was invented by dirty Europeans. Oh, yes. Be proud and use your OWN national language (without imitating English, Spanish, French, Chinese, Italian) when you're writing that letter.

http://www.loc.gov/rr/scitech/mysteries/auto.html

Read what US inventor did. Patented and never implemented, basicaly he just took two ideas (steam car and gasoline engine), put them together and result is NOTHING.

On the other hand, this wiretap issue is one of those which even many conservatives who are also moderate civil libertarians (like myself) would be against. For example, the votes on passage of the patriot act reauthorization were highly polarized along party lines. However, largely unnoticed by the media, votes on amendments to increase civil liberty protections in the bill received widespread bipartisan support for the most part. Check out the amendments link (direct link changes) from the THOMAS page for the bill. I personally feel that the amendments sponsored by Mr. Flake, the republican representative from my district, are some of his best work all session.

With enough public opinion support, some progress on the wiretap issue may be able to be made in the executive and legislative branches, while groups like the ACLU take on what is sure to be a long battle in the judicial. I think at the very least, letting your representatives know how you feel will cause more attention to be placed on explicitly protecting civil liberties the next time Congress votes to authorize use of force.

Lets remember our government class, and recall that it needs to pass in congress first. Here is how it did that:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:HR034 02:@@@R
yes, 415-4 in the house, unanimous in the senate judiciary, and then unanimous in the senate. Jeez, Maxine Waters cosponsored the bill.

Lets remember our government class, and recall that it needs to pass in congress first. Here is how it did that:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:HR034 02:@@@R
yes, 415-4 in the house, unanimous in the senate judiciary, and then unanimous in the senate. Jeez, Maxine Waters cosponsored the bill.

Has the Bush administration actually invoked FISA as their legal basis? If so, I missed it. And, from what I've heard, it wouldn't fit. AFAIK, FISA requires either a warrant or only monitoring where no US person is likely to be involved (see Q18 in the EFF writeup).

Carter and Clinton both issued executive orders authorizing FISA monitoring, but specifically quoted FISA regulations to be followed. I haven't seen a similar order from Bush, and even according to legendary conservative Rush Limbaugh, the FISA courts were bypassed. Limbaugh's take on it was that the unprecedented denials and modifications of Bush's FISA requests forced him to go around the process.

In short, the President is not asserting legal authority under FISA. According to the Attorney General, his authority hinges (PDF) on his "inherent authority" as Commander-In-Chief, and Congress's Use of Force Resolution.

Of course, in my strict interpretation, I missed the part of the Presidential Oath, Constitution or the above resolution that grants him any power over surveillance. And, according to Daschle (partisan to be sure, but you'd think records of this kind of stuff would be easily checked), Congress specifically rejected the administration's request for having the resolution cover actions in the US.

The first ten amendments to the constitution are considered the Bill or Rights. Amendments added to the constitution are added to the bill or rights. They are listed seperatly from the constitution and not reworked into them. This is why it is just as corect to say amendments to the constitution or call the entire colection of 27 amendments the bill of rights. Even though your spliting somethign here, It doesn't change the meaning of what was writen.

For jesus to have existed, This is something I am not going to set out and prove. This wasn't my intention at all. We do know jesus existed by the same ways we know george washington actualy existed. His importance in history has preserved this for us. For instance, we have government records showing he was actualy placed on a cross and punished.

I'm from the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation, and it's pretty clear from a historical point of view that the Sioux came from Wisconson and Minnesota around 1700 and likely didn't see the "sacred" Black Hills until 1770 or so, however that doesn't stop the folks from claiming they were formed in the Black Hills and that anything else is a lie.

Likewise, the mess with Kennewick Man stems from this defense of religion over science by the Federal Government.

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:S.536.R S:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennewick_man
http://www.washington.edu/burkemuseum/kman/default .htm

Also of note: (1) The official library of congress catalog information lists the author as T. F. Peterson, which is in itself a hack, T.F. Peterson is part of the hacking tradition, the full fictional name is: Institute Historian T. F. Peterson (IHTFP). (2) MIT's home page on 12/25 featured this spotlight: Hacky Holidays.

The DMCA passed with bi-partisan support. Congress was one thing, the Senate was another, as far as control by each party went at the time. The President was a Democrat, but was wasting an enormous amount of time fighting utterly ridiculous claims of "sexual harassment", "Whitewater fraud", and finally "Lying about something that was irrelevent to the first case but was brought up in that court anyway in order to create embarassment." I think it's sad he didn't stand up on the job, but I wouldn't draw any conclusions about it having anything to do with cozying up to Hollywood.

It is false to use a lack of Democratic opposition to the DMCA to pretend that a claim Republicans support this shit is false. It is 100% true that Republicans support extreme copyright laws. Both the DMCA and the Sonny Bono (R) Copyright Act were Republican proposals, with bi-partisan support.

Once again, I'm not a christian, can we get over this now?

Yeah, sure. Your sig screams teenage male Protestant. Claim whatever you want to. If you weren't Christian, you'd have a better understanding of religious bias because you'd have seen it every day of your life.

Yet you insist upon using a religiously biased site for your "source".

No, it's about secceding from a government.

Whatever you want to call it. It's about splitting from one government to form your own. Just as we did in The Revolutionary War. That's when we split from England. Got it?

They had no intention on fighting the war altho most certainly thought that this was going to happen from the northern federal government. Understand this history. it's very simple and it does not qualify as taking arms against your own nation.

Maybe you might want to look into history a bit there.
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/cwphtml/tl1861.html
It seems that they initiated the hostilities.

it's very simple and it does not qualify as taking arms against your own nation.

To you it does not. Actually, I think you're lying on that and just trying to cover up your ignorance.

There isn't much difference between the Civil War and the Revolutionary War.

I'm neither worries about christians nor just happenings inside the united state. Stick to the subject and if you can't it proves how wrong you are.

The "subject" was your claim that the religion of Islam supports violence.

I've shown you evidence that is statistical (fewer attacks by Muslims in the US than by Christians) and contextual (Islam forbids harming women and children).

Because you refuse to accept it does not mean that I haven't presented it.

Nothing has been taken out of context. get off your high horse.

Like I said, this concept of "context" kicks your ass every time.

The quotes you cited WERE taken out of context because he didn't include the quotes about not harming women and children.

I simply pointed out a page with some quotes from muslim writings. The single word I said IIRC is "perhaps". How is that taking anything out of context?

Don't even try that bullshit.

Here is how the thread went:

So instead of screwing our civil liberties, and those of our law-abiding immigrants from the rest of the world besides the heavily Muslim areas, why not simply deport all of the Middle Eastern and Pakistan Muslims from our country? Only a pathologically dishonest person can look at the history of Islam and call it a religion of peace.

..then...

You're judging based on history rather than on the actual precepts of the religion. Just because someone claims to be an adherent of a religion or does something in the name of a religion doesn't mean that everything they do adheres to the religion.

..to which you replied with your "perhaps" link...

So, no, you DID post a link with quotes taken out of context.

Again, his religious idealogy does not change the quotes.

Again, the quotes are not the question.

The question is whether he took them out of context. Which he did. Which I've demonstrated. Which I've also shown, statistically, is how 99.99% of Muslims practice their religion.

Because you and he have a bias does not make them wrong and you two right.

Now, if he misquoted the texts you'd have a point, but he didn't and you don't have a point.

And, for the last time, this concept of "context" KEEPS KICKING YOUR ASS. I've explained that already and you are u

The US doesn't spend any money on making us dislike France.

Hahahahah, ohh, ah thanks man, that made my day...

France has got making us dislike them pretty much covered.

And how did they do that, denouncing the illegal invasion of Iraq, which lead to the current ongoing train wreck in said country? How dare they, the gall, the nerve, the brass of the beggars! Don't they know they owe their very existence to the Yooo Esss? Why its not like they ever helped the US in any way... Heheh...

The point here is that there's a whole host of laws that W and Cheney have violated. Some of them are felonies, others misdemeanors, but I think they meet the impeachment standard. Unfortunately, no impeachment would get past this Senate or this Congress, so the Democrats have to win the '06 elections (and to take the Senate, they may have to convince moderates like Snow and Chaffee and Collins, or true conservatives like McCain, to break with the Bushites formally and refuse to vote for Republican leadership - follow the Jeffords path, basically), then file impeachment articles against Cheney, then W. The problem is that this would be assumed to be a coup, rather than what it would be in truth: the valid and legal expulsion of two men who have violated their oaths to protect and defend the Constitution.

But the Democrats don't have the balls, so I don't know what the hell is going to happen.

Ken Mehlman and JoAnn Davidson are part of the problem; there's no reason they'd be ashamed. This is where the Republican Party has been headed since 1980: divine right of kings.

There are a lot of things in PL 102-88. Which part of it are you saying that Bush & Clinton ignored?

Now that I have a little more time, let me expand on my other comment.

Recall yourself back to the fall of 2001. We had the terrible shock of 9/11 of that year. By October 26th, the USA Patriot Act (hereafter referred to as the UPA) was signed by the President. Forty-five days may sound like it was plenty of time for Congress to properly consider a bill of such potential sensitivity. Indeed, it might have been.

But Congress did not have 45 days.

This bill was introduced in the House on October 23, a fact which you may verify here. The bill itself is three hundred and forty-two pages, when presented in PDF format. (You can read it here.) Now, we may have varying opinions on the intelligence of various members of Congress, but it seems like a safe bet that any particular member would have had a difficult time reading a 342 page bill in three days, let alone understanding the full implications of such a broad bill on such a sensitive subject.

Yet it was even worse than it appears. If you'll be so kind as to look here, you'll see that it was introduced in the House on the 23rd, and passed without amendment on the 24th at 11:03 AM after approximately 100 minutes of debate. It was received in the Senate the same day, passed that chamber without amendment on the 25th and was given to the President. He signed it the next day.

As if the time to consider the matter wasn't compressed enough already, also recall that the Senate was rather distracted at that moment by the anthrax attacks.

I ask you, do you think Congress fulfilled its responsibilities in this matter? Did Congress give this matter the serious consideration which the defense of our Liberty demands?

If your answer is no, then I fail to see how you can object to the proposal to extend the sunsetted provisions by a few months while the matter is considered further. Yet the administration and Congressional leadership are demanding that it be permanently extended as-is, with no more discussion. Does that not seem a bit... odd? What harm can come from further discussions while the law remains wholly in force?

Dismiss the opposition to the UPA as ACLU propaganda if you like. But there's a much broader opposition to the UPA than you might think. Read what William Safire has to say on the subject, or visit the website of the grassroots Bill of Rights Defense Committee. Heck, read the bill.

Then tell me it's all ACLU propaganda.

Now that I have a little more time, let me expand on my other comment.

Recall yourself back to the fall of 2001. We had the terrible shock of 9/11 of that year. By October 26th, the USA Patriot Act (hereafter referred to as the UPA) was signed by the President. Forty-five days may sound like it was plenty of time for Congress to properly consider a bill of such potential sensitivity. Indeed, it might have been.

But Congress did not have 45 days.

This bill was introduced in the House on October 23, a fact which you may verify here. The bill itself is three hundred and forty-two pages, when presented in PDF format. (You can read it here.) Now, we may have varying opinions on the intelligence of various members of Congress, but it seems like a safe bet that any particular member would have had a difficult time reading a 342 page bill in three days, let alone understanding the full implications of such a broad bill on such a sensitive subject.

Yet it was even worse than it appears. If you'll be so kind as to look here, you'll see that it was introduced in the House on the 23rd, and passed without amendment on the 24th at 11:03 AM after approximately 100 minutes of debate. It was received in the Senate the same day, passed that chamber without amendment on the 25th and was given to the President. He signed it the next day.

As if the time to consider the matter wasn't compressed enough already, also recall that the Senate was rather distracted at that moment by the anthrax attacks.

I ask you, do you think Congress fulfilled its responsibilities in this matter? Did Congress give this matter the serious consideration which the defense of our Liberty demands?

If your answer is no, then I fail to see how you can object to the proposal to extend the sunsetted provisions by a few months while the matter is considered further. Yet the administration and Congressional leadership are demanding that it be permanently extended as-is, with no more discussion. Does that not seem a bit... odd? What harm can come from further discussions while the law remains wholly in force?

Dismiss the opposition to the UPA as ACLU propaganda if you like. But there's a much broader opposition to the UPA than you might think. Read what William Safire has to say on the subject, or visit the website of the grassroots Bill of Rights Defense Committee. Heck, read the bill.

Then tell me it's all ACLU propaganda.

And let's not forget, long before the Patriot Act, there was the Omnibus Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, which sailed through Congress in the wake of Oklahoma City, and contained many restrictions on privacy and civil liberties in the name of fighting terrorism. I like the Clintonistas better than the current crop of imbeciles too, but let's not paint his administration as some kind of bastion of civil liberties.

What a despicable thing to say. It's almost like he didn't even read the Oath of Office before he started his campaign.

I knew that he thought some people had too much freedom, but...damn.

Check out the Threatened and Endangered Species Recovery Act of 2005. Its goal appears to be to threaten and endanger species. It was initiated by Richard Pombo (R-Cal), who is well known for his support of miners and loggers as well as his fight against the spotted owl.

• Sierra Club
• Biological Diversity
• Plant Societies

Or, if you don't like the House version, how about Collaboration and Recovery of Endangered Species Act (S. 2110) in the Senate, initiated by Mike Crapo (R-ID). The Republicans definitely seem to be consistent.

• Biological Diversity

A new development on the state of the NTP v. RIM case is mentioned in this article. Another of NTP's patents has headed south, thanks to the Patent Office, so they may have started looking for some new artillery. The patent law, which many have declaimed against on /., or spoken with great certainty on, is actually in great flux right now. There is a case pending in the U.S. Supreme Court, EBay v. MercExchange, having to do with small companies who don't currently manufacture anything shutting down big companies by using court injunctions. It hasn't been decided yet. Congress was considering the issue, passed the ball to the Supreme Court, but is still contemplating other important changes to the patent system. There was some discussion about submarine patents. Symbol Tech v. Lemelson Foundation was the case that laid those to rest, though as one /.er pointed out, a change in the rules about patent terms has just about eliminated the possibility that new ones will arise in the future In the meantime, Microsoft has given and gotten some in the patent litigation wars. The Supreme Court refused to take up their loss against Eolas Technologies for basic browser patents. Eolas was a small firm holding patents developed by the University of California. The case has gone back to district court for further proceedings. This kind of case, like the Visto case, hinges on whether the courts and/or the Patent Office will uphold or invalidate the patents at issue. This co$t$ $ome time and effort to re$olve, a$ everyone know$.

During the revolutionary times, many of the countries leader were not Christians, but Theists, who were profoundly affected by thinking such as that expressed by Thomas Paine in his book, "The Age of Reason" http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/thomas_ paine/age_of_reason/index.html

Theists believe in God, but do not accept they bible due to the many logical contradictions it contains. The Theist movement was at it's height in the late 1700's and early 1800's. Today they are known as Unitarians.

The Puritans of Massachusetts banned any observance of Christmas, and anyone caught observing the holiday had to pay a fine. Before the Civil War, the North and South were divided on the issue of Christmas, as well as on the question of slavery. Many Northerners saw sin in the celebration of Christmas; to these people the celebration of Thanksgiving was more appropriate. But in the South, Christmas was an important part of the social season. Not surprisingly, the first three states to make Christmas a legal holiday were in the South: Alabama in 1836, Louisiana and Arkansas in 1838.http://hoover.archives.gov/exhibits/AmChristm as/

In 1870, Congress finally passed a bill legalizing four national holidays. The wording carefully omits any mention of religion, but specifies the dates and uses the "common name" of the holiday: the 1st day of January "commonly known as New Years Day", the 25th day of December "commonly known as Christmas", the 4th day of July and any day appointed or recommended by the President as a day of public fast or thanksgiving Day holidays (Now Thanksgiving Day). View the actial bill here: H.R.2224, 41st Congress:http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?coll Id=llhb&fileName=041/llhb041.db&recNum=7905

As with the Puritans, not all Christian sects believe Christ was born on December 25th. For example, the "Church of God" states: "Any encyclopedia, or any other authority, will tell you that Christ was not born on December 25. The Catholic Encyclopedia frankly states this fact. The exact date of Jesus' birth is entirely unknown, as all authorities acknowledge -- though if I had space in this booklet I could show you scriptures which at least strongly indicate it was in the early fall -- probably September approximately six months after Passover." Their page debunking the many myths of Christmas is very interesting: http://www.cog-ff.com/html/special_topics_-_christ mas.html

My point is, the country was not founded by "Christians" as we think of them today, but by a mixture of different (sometimes shunned) Protestant sects (such as Puritans, who did not celebrate Christmas) and theists. As a non-christian, I am not offended when someone wishes me "Merry Christmas", because I celebrate the secular holiday, Why should you be offended if I wish you "Happy Holidays"?

"If Fascism ever comes to America, it will come wrapped in an American flag"

- Huey Long, assassinated in 1935.

They probably will save quite a lot already just by building it outside of the USA. Gotta wonder what kind of Visa-implications this will have for Americans who want to travel through there.

Also...

Airline Deregulation Act of 1978

But sorry, here's the wording from from the DMCA that qualifies a circumvention device.

(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title;

(B) has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title; or

(C) is marketed by that person or another acting in concert with that person with that person's knowledge for use in circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.

So while it may be funny to think of scotch tape being outlawed, it just ain't gonna happen. Scotch tape is primarily designed and produced for another purpose, and a rather commercially significant one at that, so even if 3M becomes aware that it can be used this way, it still fails (A) and (B). To be a circumvention device, it has to be designed for that purpose, and (B) serves to exclude ordinary products like scotch tape, while also closing flimsey excuses (eg, this tv descrambler is any an attractive paperweight, so it has a legal use).

I'm not saying the DMCA doesn't suck. There's plenty wrong with it. But any notion it's not going to make common and useful products illegal is just humor. Or a myth. Or if taken seriously, maybe even FUD.

Please use this link instead, to avoid thrashing the search engine. My bad.

Yes. We need a Computer Owners' Right to Repair Act, modeled after this one, for car owners.

For images that are essentially monochromatic, this is fine. Actually, a Russian photographer did some ingenious colour photography using monochrome film, but that was sensitive to all frequencies not just one.

Although true, there were plenty of discrimination against the Irish and Catholics in this country, like this and a strong bit of animousity between Irish immigrants and blacks because they were competing for the same bottom of the barrel jobs, and both were considered unhirable for better jobs.

There is a bill in Congress that would require a voter verified paper ballot for all voting machines. It also mandates a manual recount of the paper ballots in 2% of the precicnts choosen at random. That's to ensure the paper records and machine totals are counting the votes the same. The bill is HR 550. It currently has 156 cosponsors, but is stuck in committee. It needs your help to come up for a vote. Here's a link to make it easy for you to send an email to urge your Representative in Congress to pass this bill.

For those of you in Pennsylvania there is a similar bill stuck in committee in PA. To send an email to your legislators in PA. There is an action alert at votepa.us.

And no law is retroactive (or rather: no law should be retroactive)

Tax laws are frequently retroactive. And so far, the supreme court has upheld such ex post facto tax laws.

For example, tax rates being made retoractive in 2003:
http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=109817,0 0.html

Here's a juicy one from 1993, retroactively applying a law back TWENTY YEARS into the past:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?r103:E06MY3- 263:

Plenty of other abuses are out there if you do some research.

If you can see no other reason to support the Fair Tax, abolition of the IRS should be plenty of reason enough.