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Try this.

http://health.msn.com/health-topics/allergies/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100154510

http://health.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=2506

opps, guess you can be allergic to water.

No, it means you're finally in a class that the government is going to pile regulations, restrictions, and blame upon. Like smokers, you were already "raising our healthcare costs," and now you're supposedly being a public nuisance by using up all of our fuel too. Expect a big Surgeon General's Warning on the top of your Monster Thickburger, a $9 per package tax on your Twinkies (or you can risk arrest for buying black-market Twinkies smuggled in from West Virginia), a ban on fat people eating unhealthy foods in public places because it may encourage other people to do the same, and a ban on advertising unhealthy foods. Expect the government's definition of "unhealthy" to have an amazing correlation with how much the industry giant that manufacturers a food donates to politicians, and little correlation with any controlled scientific studies of the effects of eating it.

You may get some subsidies, though. Medicare will probably pay for a dietician to tell you what some corporation paid them to tell you to eat. If you're really lucky, the government will take your tax money and buy that food for you with your own money.

There's no problem or "epidemic" that's so bad that it can't be made worse by having the government try to fix it.

Fourth paragraph from the bottom, $18 billion annually (for everyone on the planet) on cosmetics:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/01/0111_040112_consumerism_2.html

Iraq, $12 billion a month:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23551693/

Hopefully you are just misinformed.

From Encarta: Furthermore, the physical size of a nuclear bomb was drastically reduced, permitting the development of nuclear artillery shells and small missiles that can be fired from portable launchers in the field.

You draw your own conclusions....

Actually, people have certainly been jailed in the US for daring to appear at a Bush speech without having first drunk the kool-aid. For example, Nicole and Jeffrey Rank were arrested just for wearing anti-Bush t-shirts (without even creating a disturbance). But unlike in China, people in the US are generally released pretty quickly afterwards (and in this case, actually won a legal settlement against the federal government).

pollution of various kinds, and too much noise meaning that they can't communicate.

It's not just that it's noisy so they can't communicate. The Navy is maiming whales with it deep sea sonar. Kinda like how a gunshot blast beside your head damages your hearing. They are perfectly aware of this and they don't really care other than the PR problems, but that is being addressed. First they just tried to use bad science to make it OK. And then the blinded whales started beaching themselves. But at least one court isn't fooled by the carte blanc of "national security".

Disclaimer: I grew up in Virgina Beach, VA most of my friends and their families from back home are in the Navy. I want our Navy to be strong and safe, but I don't want to mutilate whales to do it. Good sonar didn't do jack shit for the USS Cole, and I don't think Iraq or Afghanistan has much of a Navy to worry about. How about a new better technology instead of just turning the volume up on the sonar.

For God's sake! This trite is *not* insightful. To make such patently absurd arguments about the problems of the 2 party American political system and then compare them to a system like the Chinese is irresponsible and without merit. No one doubts that there are issues in American politics, but it's a hell of a lot better than any communist system.

It is ridiculous to claim that China is Communist; today's China is Communist only in the name of its ruling party. China is a capitalist country; you mustn't confuse Communist with Authoritarian, which China indeed is. And I did not say that the Chinese political system is better or as good at working for the public good as the American system, I said that there are different levels of democracy, with the Swiss style of direct democracy at one end, and absolute dictatorships at the other end. China is closer to the latter end than America is, but it is far better than old European monarchies.

Your arguments about emissions or environmental pollution are drivel too. The Chinese don't give a lick about people or the environment, they care about propaganda and misleading sorry saps like you into believing that their elitist leaders give a shit.

What do you have to back this up with? Nothing. You are pulling arguments out of thin air. It is true that it's fairly recent that it's become a big issue in China, and results are still a ways away, but what has the Bush administration done for the government? Article in Chinese

I'll throw out a couple of examples besides the Chinese government's assault on freedom of thought and academic discourse. How about the numerous kids' toys that were sold here in the US, made in China, that have had various toxins and drugs in them? How about the Pet food tainted with rat poison because of their protein doping process? My cat nearly died as a result of that.

When 80% of your country's toys are made in China, and there turns out to be something wrong with a toy, chances are it's made in China. In fact, only 72% of toy recalls seem to be of products from China, so Chinese-produced toys must be safer than those from other countries! The same thing goes for pet food and everything else; pretty much everything you own is made there, so when there's a problem with something you own it's going to be something made in China.

That government didn't give a rat's ass about hurting anyone because it might cut into their profits!

Like Bush refusing to sign the Kyoto protocol because it would hurt profits?

How about the fact that Chinese don't own cars as much because they can't afford them?

Where does this come from? This is a ridiculous statement. More and more Chinese are buying cars, and it's a big problem. 1000 to 1200 cars are added to the streets in Beijing every day, but at least each car pollutes less than an American car does.

I haven't talked to one Chinese immigrant that ever wants to go back there. I don't care if you're out there or not, you didn't grow up there, obviously. Do you honestly believe their technology is so superior to the US that the US can't hope to meet their emissions standards? Or the US is so evil and greedy that they just don't want to? I've got news for you. Any democracy is going to do a hell of a lot more for the environment then your communist friends because they are richer and have more resources to do so. Democracies, or Representative Republics like the US, while not perfect, are always going to be more collectively in line with the greater good. If you don't believe that, then I suggest you stay

Whatever one thinks of the war in Iraq, it has forced us to prioritize scientific and engineering issues we previously had not emphasized. As they say, necessity is the mother of invention. For example:

Techniques to defeat highly asymmetric warfare tactics such as the use of IEDs. There's been a lot of money pouring into trying to solve that problem, because solutions will save lives. Google "counter IED" and you get an idea of the communications and jamming technologies involved.

Trauma medicine has been getting a lot of innovation. For example, the Pentagon has a 250 million dollar effort to create the ability to regrow limbs, noses, etc of wounded soldiers. The HemCon bandage, a portable heart-lung machine, and improvements in treatment methodologies are discussed here.

Materials science has been getting the kind of attention it hasn't seen in a long time. One example with obvious civilian application is the push for novel flame-retardant woven and knitted fabrics.

Looking more to the future, the war's need for intelligence from foreign-language sources has driven DARPA to fund automatic translation research. That's a real tough problem, but if they can solve it has enormous civilian applications.

The list goes on an on. I'm not saying it justifies a war, but war certainly does drive scientific and engineering research to solve thorny real-world problems.

Show me the reports. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7634313/ -- CIA stating there is no WMD's I'm pretty sure the only WMD's found out there was Depleted Uranium, from our Armor Piercing shells, left by us from the first gulf war. Oh and there is one stipulation. Chemical weapons don't count. We knew those were there for years and never did jack shit about it. You should think about pulling your head out sometime, it's nice out here in the real world.

Thank you for a well-reasoned post. It's much better than "OMG! Patents are teh suxors!"

I ultimately disagree -- I doubt that we'd get as much successful research under your model -- but it's at least a solution that has some potential. I just fail to see universities conducting massive clinical trials, especially in light of the high risk of tort lawsuits for failed trials (see the gene therapy death). It's true that right now universities conduct a lot of the work of physical trials, but they are backed by pharamacos that will pay their legal bills if they get sued. I don't see a university risking its billion-dollar endowment over high-risk drug testing. And, unfortunately, all Phase I and II drug testing is high-risk.

Even automatic checking and testing can be subverted by a determined adversary. For example consider the program, approved by President Reagan and beginning in 1982, whereby the CIA arranged for the Soviets, who were actively attempting to acquire western technology and hardware, to receive natural gas pipeline software and equipment that was designed to "go haywire" after a set amount of time in normal operation. When the pipeline software and hardware, which would have appeared totally normal at first even if the Soviets had bothered to test it, eventually went haywire (i.e. it ran the ultra high pressure scenario) the resulting explosion was so large that it was detected by satellites designed to monitor nuclear explosions from space. The following article from the Washington Post describes this and other programs and operations that took place during the Cold War as part of a coordinated CIA effort to slip bad technology to our enemies.

CIA slipped bugs to Soviets

From my point of view as a Brit, CCTV isn't invasive at all. I just ignore it, just like the criminals do.

There are so many cameras that only a tiny, tiny few could possibly ever be watched by anyone.

The only cameras that matter are the motoring cameras. I doubt speed cameras prevent accidents, but they certainly make me check my speed when driving through those particular areas. Were I to live in London, I'd probably care about the Congestion Zone cameras too, which enforce payment of the toll to drive into the city centre. Other than that... who cares?

I'm unlikely to ever want to do something illegal in view of a camera, but if I did, I could just wear a cheap disposable hooded sweatshirt, just like most teenagers do. CCTV must go down in history as the first security measure to prompt a fashion craze - the hoodie.

The point of CCTV is that it absorbs the excess money politicians and "concerned citizens" want to throw away trying to make themselves feel safe in areas that are already safe. If they didn't spend it on CCTV they'd spend it on something far more invasive, like vigilante-esque security guards. Personally I find CCTV to be far less invasive than a hobby-bobby on every street corner poking his nose into my business. If we actually paid for real people to prevent crime, imagine how inconvenient that would be for us law-abiding folk, constantly being stopped and asked where we were going or whatnot! Far better to spend it on technology that can be safely ignored by the sensible majority who are not fooled by the culture of fear and security theatre, whilst providing a living wage for the families of legions of factory workers, installation engineers and callcentre staff to manufacture, maintain and support them.

CCTV is wonderful. The bigots get something concrete they can point at to stop their misguided fearful moaning, and the rest of us can safely ignore it. Everybody wins!

bound to the concept of a totalitarian central government ruling society

Planting trees in cold climates would increase warming not decrease or slow it.

Hmmm... hadn't thought of that. Are tundra areas typically covered with snow most of the time?

It depends on where the tundra is I guess. Arizona has tundra, approximately five square kilometers of alpine tundra exist above 3,500 meters on Mt. Humphreys in the San Francisco Peaks, yet I somehow don't think it's covered with snow most of the tyme.

I just had a look in wikipedia and a lot of the examples were more rocky than snowy, and also with grasses and small plants.

Also check the Google image search results for tundra biome. I may be wrong but I wouldn't think the rocks would adsorb as much heat as trees and the grass and small plants don't have the mass a tree does.

It also depends on how much difference a few trees would make to the albedo of the earth at that latitube vs the lower carbon footprint of the data center (due to less cooling requirements)

Actually the heat generated in the server rooms could be used to heat the rest of the buildings.

and the carbon that the trees themselves are sucking out of the air.

The effects o CO2 levels on tree growth appears to be varied, some research is showing some trees grow slower in CO2 rich environs while others show some plants grow faster. Poison Ivy is one of the plants that grows faster, ready to be itchier and have more rashes?

Global warming is a myth, well, due to CO2 emissions anyway.

Ah, another anthropogenic climate change denier. Well, this article and the US Supreme Court disagree with you.

Ah, another anthropogenic climate change denier. Well, this article and the US Supreme Court disagree with you.

Starbucks should also start charging 1/3 of what they do for their coffee. I don't think either is hurting them much, though.

I live in nevada, and he has been the shittest governer we've had in a very long time.

If you don't remember in the national news recently there was a Huge hepatitis C Scare here. Basically the governers position was that the doctors should not be at fault for this (one of his close friends resides on the medical board here) because it was their surrogates doing the testing. Now his close medical buddy on that board wants to reopen the same clinics with the same doctors and staff working there. He is a complete fucktard douche and should be shot for gross negligence of the people of Neavada.

Don't EVER suspect this man will help you in any situation, he has many scandels to credit under his belt

Fuck Jim Gibbons and those who voted for him.

I'm one of the people who was interviewed for this article. Several people in my department spent an afternoon talking to the IEEE Spectrum technical writer. Although it didn't really come out in the article, our take on the kill-switch concept was that it was possible but very unlikely.

BUT, the payoff could be tremendous. I'm thinking Cylons here. Mod me funny if you dare, but think of simply the idea that US chips are compromised. The US did it to the USSR, the example that comes to mind is this: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4394002

And now everybody is doubting the integrity of their chips. COmbine this with the Cisco hardware scandal previously covered by slashdot, and...

To the Chinese, I tip my hat. A brilliant move, even if only psychological.

Although I'm sure some people (Internet addicts as an example) lose productivity because they are glued to their computers all day, there are some people who it seems have been able to use the Internet as a better tool than TV. It may not be productive per se but the effects discussed here seem to show it does have some advantages for some people.

Do I really think that lawmakers will say, "We should get rid of traffic light cameras, because people are obeying the law and reducing our income from fines."?
Yes.

Looks like you can still activate a watch if you have one. http://direct.msn.com/

News media are very careful to keep onside with the Whitehouse, Pentagon etc.

I used to think that was the case. But watching over the last twenty years or so I've come to realize that it isn't quite that simple.

For example, during the Monica Lewinsky hoopla, it seemed you couldn't look at a newspaper or turn on a TV without hearing more than you wanted to know about the story. They certainly weren't trying to stay on Clinton's good side, even though he was very popular at the time.

Fast forward a decade, and if you keep your eyes peeled you can catch stories like this:

• The United States has suspended Habis Corpus for "enemy combatants"..
• The Bush administration claims the authority to brand anyone (even US citizens) an "enemy combatant" based only on their say-so, with no recourse and no appeal.
• The Bush administration claims the ability to "render" these "enemy combatants", taking them to undisclosed secret prisons without trial or any public record of what happened to them.
• John Yoo thinks it would be legal to crush an enemy combatant's child's testicles in front of them to get them to talk, the the President were to authorize it.
• Vice president Dick Cheney, Attorney General John Ashcroft, Secretary of State Colin Powell, CIA Director George Tenet and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice were briefed on Yoo's opinions and used them to craft "enhanced interrogations."
• President Bush was aware of these meeting and approved of them.

So it's not quite as simple as you make it sound.

If a popular president has an extramarital affair, the press shows no fear and shouts it from the rooftops night and day.

But if the least popular president on record (backed by his administration) maintains that he has the inherent authority to kidnap US citizens at will and make them watch while his goons crush their children's testicles, the "free press" covers his butt so well that if you blink you'll miss the story.

--MarkusQ

I wish I had mod points to offer -

There are no scary monsters to slay, no enemies to shoot and no cars to hijack. But with more than 100 million units sold since its launch in 2000, "The Sims" is the world's best-selling computer game. 'The Sims' sells 100 million copies worldwide

We've been trained by 27 years of "Conservative" control of government and media to see "government" as some alien entity over which we have no control and which only acts to make our lives unpleasant. St. Ronald was the first to really market this erroneous notion, and it really disrespects the clever and elegant plan our founding fathers laid out for us.

This meme of "drowning government in a bathtub" is so ubiquitous that even some smart people are lazily spreading it, as you have done.

If you've recently driven on a US highway, or if you're one of the unlucky ones under whom a bridge recently collapsed in Minnesota, you know first-hand what happens when "the commons" are neglected.

The strangest thing about this whole story is that we are constantly told that the US is a "Christian Nation" yet the idea of "care in common" which is anathema to Republicans is a most Christian notion. But I guess it's to be expected when hypocrisy is the new black.

However, in the tropics, you only get about 12 hours of daylight throughout the year. In the arctic, however, you get 24 hours of sunlight in the summer. So, if you are getting ~71% of the same energy on a patch of land in a 1 hour period in the arctic as you would get on the same sized patch of land in one hour in the tropics, but you are getting that energy for twice as long, then that patch of land in the arctic is getting 142% of the solar radiation as the tropics get, no?

You are mixing facts. ~71% is at 45 degrees latitude, about the middle of the united states. I would say 24 hours of sunlight in northern Iowa would be a bit hotter than the tropics. I found a table of hours of sunlight. You have to be above 70 degrees latitude to get any days where the sun is out for 24 hours, and the value is only 34% at that high a latitude. So over a 24 hour day that would still only be 68%. I don't have the skill to integrate over time for the rising and setting sun, but again, it's just common sense. It doesn't get as warm in the arctic because less solar energy reaches the ground.

Think of it this way: suppose you win the lottery. Do you get more dollars in your pocket if you take an immediate lump sum payment of one million dollars, or if you take one payment of one hundred thousand dollars every year for ten years (assuming that you ignore economic factors such as inflation, present value of money and taxes)? 1,000,000 = (10 x 100,000), so it's the same regardless, right?

Now it seems like you are only talking about the light for one day also. If you look at average throughout the year, you have the same 12 hours of sunlight every day on the equator and 6 months of zero sunlight near the north pole. That's like saying you make the same amount of money getting $60,000 for working a year and getting $30,000 for working six months and taking a six month vacation.

Whether you're in the tropics or the arctic, you get the same hours of daylight each year. The Earth's tilt means that the hours are spread out differently, the tropics get an even 12 hours each day every month and the poles get 24 hours of light for 6 months and 24 hours of darkness for 6 months. When the light is shining tough, it is stronger in the tropics. More solar energy reaches the ground there over the length of a year, there is no question. , but the light that does shine down is stronger in the tropics and weaker in the arctic.

Well "Microsoft", "Encarta", and "MSN" are all examples of registered trademarks of "Microsoft Corporation", so a trademarked domain would be msn.com, for example. The domain "foo.msn.com" doesn't exist but it sounds like it will resolve if you're on one of these ISP's. If you try to go to http://foo.msn.com/ on one of them then you'll end up with an advertising page of their own making rather than a simple "Firefox can't find the server at foo.msn.com" style of error from your web browser.

You seem to have missed that in the last few years, there's damn few PC games being made. There's still a few big selling standout titles--"World of Warcraft" and "The Sims" come to mind--but the game industry is getting to the point where they don't care about PC gaming. Don't have to care about piracy on a typical console. According to Is PC gaming dying? Or thriving?, there won't even be a PC release of the next Civilization title. That's how much even die-hard PC gaming companies have given up on the PC as a platform.

So this is just the coffee version of newer Krispy Kreme stores? I'm excited. I'd love to go visit.

Here's where the Mozart madness began. In 1993, the journal Nature published an article by scientists at the University of California-Irvine. In their experiment, students listened to a Mozart sonata, a relaxation tape, or nothing at all for ten minutes, and then took a spatial reasoning test. ...

And even after a 1999 review showed that 12 subsequent studies had failed to verify the famous 1993 one, people still believed in the magic of Mozart.
...

That's right. There's a catch. In a University of Toronto at Mississauga study, music has been shown to increase IQ points in six-year-olds who took weekly singing or piano lessons. If your kids learn to sing or play an instrument, they just might become smarter.

Not always: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23710970/

"""
But they do it by reducing red light violations, by as much as 29 percent from month to month at particularly busy Dallas intersections.

[snip]

So last week, the city turned off about a quarter of the least profitable cameras
"""

Of course, on /. there's the normal "I have the physical copy, I can do whatever I want with it" mentality.

But what if Universal had signed a contract with each and every DJ and reviewer that got a promo copy that said "in exchange for getting this CD a week early, you have to keep it secret." Would people still be in favor of the rule that the person with their hands on the physical copy gets to do whatever they want with it?

It seems like if this were a once-off transaction there'd be no doubt that the world would be better off if the person with the physical object gets to resell it, no matter what the contract says. But is the world better off if Universal sees what happens and stops giving out review and promo copies? People complained when Maxim reviewed a CD without listening to it but there's no way for print publications to review albums without advance/promo copies. The print publication cycle is so slow that if a magazine had to wait to buy its copy at Amazon or the iTunes store then the review would be three months stale. And Universal is going to quite logically not send out promo copies if they find their way out before the release date; they don't want an unfinished product on the shelf any more than you want your neighbors looking at you before you finish dressing.

There's more than just this case. Maybe the tradeoff is that we're willing to give up promo copies in exchange to keep the doctrine of first sale pure. But maybe we're not. It's not an easy issue and there are arguments on both sides.

Back in Reagan's day, our intel folks managed to slip the Soviets a surprise that would have made Jokey Smurf proud with their bundle of purloined technology.

Exactly. If I had mod points I would mod you up.

20 years ago a 16 Mhz machine with 1MB of RAM was top of the line and the PC as we know it was just starting to become widespread. Most people were still using specialized hardware (Amiga, Atari, etc.).

Shit, 20 years ago an affordable hard-drive was 20 MB. Nowadays we're looking at 1 TB drives. That's fifty-thousand times more storage space in 20 years.

MSN did a thing on this: 1988 cs. 2008

"Big deal, we've got a huge, untapped reserve under the northern Midwest. Too bad we haven't built any new refineries in the past 30 years. "

Memos Show Oil Companies Closed Refineries To Hike Profits - Politics on The Huffington Post:

from an old deja link.. (referencing DOE website... link since removed.. I wonder why??? )

"The United States experienced a steep decline in refining capacity between 1981 and the mid-1990s. Between 1981 and 1989, the number of U.S. refineries fell from 324 to 204, representing a loss of 3 million bbl/d in operable capacity (from 18.6 million bbl/d to 15.7 million bbl/d), while refining capacity utilization increased from 69% to 87%. "

Current DOE refiinery stats. Indicates the number of large US refineries has droped to less than 135..

The wool has been pulled over your eyes.. 324 down to 140 .. at least 184 refineries closed in the last thirty years.. P.S. One does NOT BUILD NEW refineries if one is STILL CLOSING surplus facilities..

Big deal, we've got a huge, untapped reserve under the northern Midwest. Too bad we haven't built any new refineries in the past 30 years.

I gather that his implication is that Microsoft might be willing to pay more than their current offer, but I'm pretty sure they're not willing to budge as they've previously stated they will not increase the already extremely high offer.

This is one reason MS needs to raise it's offer, it needs Yahoo! MS is trying to get into net advertising whereas Yahoo! is already established and has a healthy though small chunk of the market. MS already acquired online advertiser aQuantive, for $6 billion and handles ads on Facebook but it wants a bigger piece of the pie to take on Google.

I've used GANDI for many years and they're great. The difference between the two is that GoDaddy practices "Gotcha Capitalism" very hard while GANDI is satisfied with you paying for the year (and that's it). Credit to them for not trying to screw the world and also not pulling domains off-line at any idiot's request.

Personally I'd avoid GoDaddy like a cheap hooker in NYC during "Fleet Week". =)

EU protects its own businesses. Period.

One of the latest EU brouhaha's: EU companies are protesting USA steps against online gambling.

"The investigation could lead the 27-nation EU to file a complaint at the World Trade Organization in the latest international tussle over a growing business worth more than $15.5 billion a year.

"The U.S. has the right to address legitimate public policy concerns relating to Internet gambling, but discrimination against EU companies cannot be part of the policy mix," said EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23560417/

I like http://search.msn.com/ better.

Microsoft's Live technology far exceeds Google's offerings. I'm selling my GOOG for MSFT stock and BRK.A.

Sincerely,
Warren Buffet
God is Back

It's possible you don't understand IQ scores. It is a weighted adjusted score which is designed to have a normal distribution with a median of 100. That means that 80-100 will have roughly the same as 100-120. Here is a graph showing the distribution.

You think someone with an IQ of 100 is scary? Half of the people are even dumber than that.

Running red lights is the No. 1 cause of urban crashes, costs $14 billion annually and was responsible for 165,000 injuries, 800 fatalities and 1.8 million crashes in 2005, according to Baton Rouge's Red Light Safety Program. The program claims most automobile crashes involve drivers who run red lights, and 56 percent of drivers admit to running red lights.

But a March 21, 2008, MSNBC article explains that red light cameras in Dallas are so effective that they no longer generate much revenue.
Because drivers began to pay more attention at intersections with traffic lights, the cameras lost their purpose - producing more government revenue. The cameras were then removed.

Definitely true. A number of cities installed red light cameras, and although they did reduce accidents, a good portion of the cameras were removed because they also reduced ticket revenues too much.

"by Nerdposeur
I'm one of those religious, conservative nutjobs that gets mocked on this site, and I find this outrageous. Here is the Fourth Amendment:

Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
That's been suspended?? Doesn't apply to military operations?? If the citizens have no rights over against the military, why do we have the Third Amendment?

Amendment III
No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.
Now I see that there is a difference in the Third Amendment between "in time of peace" and "in time of war," but realistically, this "time of war" against terrorists can NEVER be officially and completely over. There are no official enemies, so there can be no official truce.
The government is overstepping its Constitutional bounds, and it needs to stop. We have to be careful that we do not lose our identity as a country of freedom via our efforts to protect that freedom.

----

Hey, this is Slashdot - we don't mind, just as long as you hate MS and don't post Goatse, everything's cool Bro.

Short answer? NO SLEEPOVERS.

Your question is best answered by a professional:
Keith shall set you free:

Special Comment
The Death Of Habeas Corpus:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15220450/

Also, when you protest - PLEASE stay inside the "Freedom Zone", you'll just piss off the Storm Troopers, it IS for your protection.

Compare that to kids in the average US city, where 50% do not graduate high school.

The Army is certainly a lot smarter than the general population.

The builders of the world's biggest particle collider are being sued in federal court over fears that the experiment might create globe-gobbling black holes or never-before-seen strains of matter that would destroy the planet.

http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/03/27/823924.aspx