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Both the laptop and hard drive ended up for sale at a black market just north of Washington D.C., near a subway station outside the Beltway near Wheaton. We're talking about the kind of market that is literally run out of the back of a truck, one official said. Fortunately, a buyer purchased both components at this black market, keeping the missing hardware together.

You mean one that you hypothesized, and is not supported by any scientists that I'm aware of. This isn't the best answer to global warming deniers, but it does capture the flavor of their debating style.

2) Definitions in Addiction Medicine,

3) Computer and Cyberspace Addiction,

4) When games stop being fun,

5) Video games: Cause for concern?,

6) Video games: Research, ratings, and recommendations, Contains many references for empirical studies

7) Video games addiction,

8) Are video games really so bad?,

9) Questions Answered,

10) Positron Emission Tomography ,

11) The Biochemistry of Human Addiction, Discusses the role of dopamine in addiction

"At the CIA, it happens often enough to have a code name: Blowback. Simply defined, this is the term that describes an agent, an operative or an operation that has turned on its creators. Osama bin Laden, our new public enemy Number 1, is the personification of blowback. And the fact that he is viewed as a hero by millions in the Islamic world proves again the old adage: Reap what you sow.

As anyone who has bothered to read this far certainly knows by now, bin Laden is the heir to Saudi construction fortune who, at least since the early 1990s, has used that money to finance countless attacks on U.S. interests and those of its Arab allies around the world.

As his unclassified CIA biography states, bin Laden left Saudi Arabia to fight the Soviet army in Afghanistan after Moscow's invasion in 1979. By 1984, he was running a front organization known as Maktab al-Khidamar - the MAK - which funneled money, arms and fighters from the outside world into the Afghan war.

What the CIA bio conveniently fails to specify (in its unclassified form, at least) is that the MAK was nurtured by Pakistan's state security services, the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI, the CIA's primary conduit for conducting the covert war against Moscow's occupation.

By no means was Osama bin Laden the leader of Afghanistan's mujahedeen. His money gave him undue prominence in the Afghan struggle, but the vast majority of those who fought and died for Afghanistan's freedom - like the Taliban regime that now holds sway over most of that tortured nation - were Afghan nationals.

Yet the CIA, concerned about the factionalism of Afghanistan made famous by Rudyard Kipling, found that Arab zealots who flocked to aid the Afghans were easier to 'read" than the rivalry-ridden natives. While the Arab volunteers might well prove troublesome later, the agency reasoned, they at least were one-dimensionally anti-Soviet for now. So bin Laden, along with a small group of Islamic militants from Egypt, Pakistan, Lebanon, Syria and Palestinian refugee camps all over the Middle East, became the 'reliable" partners of the CIA in its war against Moscow."

Michael Moran, "Bin Laden comes home to roost", MSNBC News, August 24, 1998

You do realize that western style schools and a western style legal system was _exactly_ what Saddam did implement during the 70's-80's?

And right now she's on a high: an Iraqi woman, able to study in America, ironically because she'd learned English in Iraq. And her education at Baghdad University? It was funded by Saddam Hussein.

The long anwswer is, yes we did.

Bin Laden wasn't funded by the CIA. He wouldn't have taken American money anyway, and didn't need it besides. We did fund some groups that were associated with his Arab mujihadeen, but not his group directly.

Source, please? You're incorrect; Bin Laden was funded by the CIA. Even the Identifying Misinformation page, so helpfully and ironically supplied by the government, admits that:

"While the charges that the CIA was responsible for the rise of the Afghan Arabs might make good copy, they don't make good history. The truth is more complicated, tinged with varying shades of gray. The United States wanted to be able to deny that the CIA was funding the Afghan war, so its support was funneled through Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence agency (ISI). ISI in turn made the decisions about which Afghan factions to arm and train, tending to favor the most Islamist and pro-Pakistan. The Afghan Arabs generally fought alongside those factions, which is how the charge arose that they were creatures of the CIA.

I love how he tells us that the CIA was engaged in a coverup and then expects us to believe everything that comes after that. The CIA was aiming for that deniability for a reason. There wouldn't've been anything to deny unless they were also directly funding the Afghan Arabs, along with funneling funds through ISI. The CIA is the one with the cash after all. You think just because Bin Laden's daddy was rich that he didn't need money? War is expensive, and rich people need money more than the rest of us because they're used to buying their way through life.

Even the Wikipedia article on OBL mentions the CIA connection. It's a widely known fact, but not one that you're supposed to bring up in public because, just like NSA spying, we don't officially acknowledge that it happened, even though everyone knows it has. That's government for you.

6. Why didn't the hijackers names appear on the released passenger manifests (example)? Furthermore, why did a number of the purported hijackers did turn up alive sometime after the attacks?

7. We know that Mohammed Atta flew one of the airplanes into the WTC because we found his lightly-scorched passport lying on the streets of lower Manhattan shortly afterward. WTF?

8. Osama Bin Laden allegedly orchestrated the greatest single criminal act of terror in history against the USA, a nation that does not have a history of taking such things lightly, so why, six months later, was no-one interested in catching the guy? As early as March 2002, Bush said "I truly am not concerned about him". Is he the bogeyman or just another operator who takes orders from his handlers?

Just asking.

Where have your guns been for the past 5 years he's been destroying our country?

Are you suggesting that the people the left-wingers have been slandering and trying to disarm should now use their guns against the government because you hate George Bush and Republicans?

"But I also know there have been lawbreakers among those who espouse your philosophy....How dare you suggest that we in the freest nation on Earth live in tyranny. How dare you call yourselves patriots and heroes."

That you take exception to references to Clinton and the Clipper Chip (countering the partisan comment in the original story) is an unexpected, though telling, byproduct.

Does this mean we will be seeing Rush Limbaugh and Faux News compatible websites? http://foxnews.com/ vs. http://msnbc.com/ who provides more informaton folks? Ignorance is Strength, for the jackass in control.

On a related note: I plan on leaving the country. Permanently.

I remember a certain pseudo-ISP (sent out 30 million disks per year) also doing it.
Hint: It was far enough back that software distribution was half-floppy, half-CD.

With more breakthrough ideas, this Yahoo company might become the next AOL.

Several other sites like http://msnbc.com/ has been doing this for years.

Because there isn't really any argument about what constitutes peanuts. One man's porn is another man's art.

The article title says "Novell Suggests Linux Program Replacements"

Unless Novell has been taking a page from Micro$oft, and has aquired Ziff Davis, this is entirely incorrect. If they have taken a page from M$, they really should give it back. That article sucked wind on so many levels it was of low standard even for Ziff Davis.

If I were a Novell executive, I would seriously be looking at firing off a gently worded cease and desist order to Slashdot for associating my company's name with that garbage.

I remember reading a few years ago in Discover... this ... (this was just the first link google turned up, but it looks like a similar story...) matter attaches, yada yada yada, photons slow, yada yada, still about 186,282 mps through a vacuum, yada yada...
also interesting, if not related, try googling "loop quantum gravity"... neat little idea there...

*Note the use of elipses; I don't care much to finish a thought when I'm already workin' on a new one...

We tried that. 1939. Didn't turn out so well.

And this is coming from me as a libertarian who agrees we should not be so entrenched overseas... but there are places where our nose does belong. Iran is probably trying to create nuclear weapons. Their public policy is that Israel should be blown off the face of the Earth. Is it OK for us to intervene now?

first, we helped create the situation in 39 with the punative versailles treaty. If the west had not destroyed
gernmany's economy hitler probably would not have come to power.

Second regarding Iran. The first big case of blowback. The CIA supported a coup against
the first democratically elected government in iran in 1953.

I think their public policy stems from that, our support of the shah, and our unquestioning support of israel.
isn't it interesting that israel has nuclear weapons, but isn't brought up to the security council for it?

But I think you're implying that it's OK for Osama bin Laden to kill 3000 innocent Americans because the US had bases in Saudi Arabia. Is that what you're saying? Because that was the main reason Osama was supposedly pissed at us. Then Saddam Hussein attacked Kuwait and we went to war to push him back, and then Osama said he was mad because Iraqi children died then and in the aftermath. Did he blame Saddam? A little, but mostly us.

Nope I'm saying nothing of the sort. I am saying you reap what you sow.
The freaking CIA helped create Osama.

Then Saddam Hussein attacked Kuwait and we went to war to push him back

Yeah, after this guy went to see him while he was gassing people with our knowledge, and after the reagan administration gave iraq the bio weapon starter kits and after our ambassador told saddam we had no interest defending kuwait

So yeah, there is no rhyme or reason to terrorism. There is no cause and effect relationship between our foreign policy and terrorism. Our government is lilly white, and bears no blame for its actions. Am I excusing the terrorists? No. I am saying there is only ONE way to win, leave them alone to govern their own affairs. We taught the british that in 1776, the french learned it in algeria and indochina, (we got the same lesson in indochina but it didn't stick)

Newsweek has a test that you can take to see if you have autistic traits. My take on it is that autism runs along a continuum with everyone having a degree of it as part of the human condition. It doesn't sound like it's really a problem if you have autistic traits unless it affects your ability to function in society. I guess if you are autistic-leaning and are planning on having children, you may want to carefully screen your partner to make sure s/he isn't similarly affected so you don't pass on a double dose of it.

Light moves, generally, at c.

The problem is though, that light can be slowed down. According to several sources, light can be slowed down, although they all seem to agree that a photon travels at the speed of light no matter what, just the absorption/release/re-absorption process can slow down how quickly it crosses a given distance.

The following books show some of the history of the U.S. government's secret agencies, and help explain much of the underlying reasons for U.S. government violence in the Middle East. Often the secret agencies have acted for special interests and against the good of the people. For example, the CIA overthrew the democratically elected president, President Mossadegh, because he wanted his country to receive more of the profit from oil pumped from his country. The U.S. government's political interference eventually resulted in a violent revolution in Iran, and a determination by Iran to strike back.

1. Unholy Wars: Afghanistan, America, and international terrorism by John K. Cooley, 2000, Third edition, Pluto Press, London, England and Sterling, Virginia, USA. Reviews: Powell's Barnes & Noble Amazon

   Osama bin Laden is "the personification of blowback". You can read more about how the CIA created a political climate very supportive of Osama and his ideas in an article by Jane's, a very well-respected publication devoted to military issues. The article was published 3 days after the second World Trade Center bombings, on September 14, 2004: Why? An attempt to explain the unexplainable.

   The CIA brought Arabs to the U.S. and trained them in terrorism. The rules by which al Qaeda operate seem to come from the CIA training.

2. Blowback: The costs and consequences of American empire by Chalmers Johnson, 2000, Metropolitan Books, New York, New York, USA. Also, there was a new edition in 2003 with a new introduction. Reviews: Powell's

Your reply was filled with so many misunderstandings of what I typed that I don't know where to begin. Let's just stick to your talking points.

a) Porn is addictive. Show me a valid study to that effect. I have seen anecdotal evidence trotted out time and time again but that no more proves the addictiveness of porn than does the anecdotes about exploding toilets prove the life-threatening nature of chili.

That is just silly. People reporting of porn addiction shouldn't be dismissed the same as Bigfoot sighters or alien abductees. Here are a few links for you:

http://www.msnbc.com/news/443437.asp?cp1=1 2000
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pornography_addiction Wiki controversy, but with links
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,65772, 00.html (With dissenting opinions) 2004
http://cbs4boston.com/seenon/local_story_322191259 .html (From "liberal" Boston) Nov. 2005
http://www.michnews.com/artman/publish/article_103 07.shtml Nov. 2005
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1568380550/104-28 35526-9122335?v=glance&n=283155&v=glance
http://www.sarr.org/
http://www.sexaa.org/

I would also point out that your assertion about educational phamplets: "Educational pamphlets don't help heroin addicts and they won't help porn addicts either." is way off. Yes some hardcore addicts ignore all else but that doesn't mean that all do. The ex heroin addicts that I have known are, in large part, walking educational phamplets themselves, and ten minutes discussion with one of them did more to illuminate the problems with heroin than any drug-free education I got as a child.

None of the drug addicts I have known have been reached by pamphlets. You only make my point by showing how much more effective talking to actual addicts is as opposed to drug-free pamphlets and D.A.R.E. t-shirts. Extend the same respect to "anecdotal" victims of porn addiction.

b) Kids today are experimenting with kinkier stuff Again, show me proof not anecdotes. While I will grant you that people seem more comfortable talking about kinkier stuff on TV than they were 50 years ago that proves nothing about what is actually happening.

More people are comfortable talking about kinkier stuff but not because they are doing it? The papers are filled with high schoolers having oral sex on school grounds all across the country. That didn't happen so often ten years ago. I certainly never read about it. http://news.google.com/news?client=safari&rls=en&i e=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&tab=wn&q=bus+oral+sex&sa=N&start= 10 We're also having a rash of female teachers across the country having sex with young boys, also something that didn't happen often 10 years ago. A study on teenagers and sex was just released this Fall: http://thesplinteredmind.blogspot.com/2005/10/teen -depression-sex-drugs-and-shockin.html

c) The industry is getting more hardcore Again give me some average data. The last time I glanced at a Playboy (for the articles) was last week and the model in there was...Marylin Monroe. Playboy was celebrating the oldies not the awful hardcore days of

Given that and your experience, would you say that kicking out 37+ students because they're gay is a great strategic move?

If by "lie detector" you mean polygraph tests, then you're right -- they are bunk. A machine that detects lies by some other means is not impossible though -- you can detect lies with an MRI machine, for example. How you would integrate that into an airport, I don't know.

It's all the same shit!
You're missing the point of the post you're repling too.

All these machines can test is for signs of nervousness, even an MRI machine. It's not some sort of magical probe where you can read what a person is thinking.

They're basically worthless, which is why all of that nonsense is inadmissable in court. Things just don't work like they do on TV.

A machine that actually detected lies would basically be a machine that could read human thoughts. I don't think we're going to see that any time soon... perhaps ever. Even if you somehow were to accomplish it, you would only be able to tell if the subject believed he was lying, not that actual truth or non-truth of his statements.

Say you think I'm a terrorist, but I think I'm a freedom fighter. You ask me if I'm a terrorist. I say no. The machine doesn't flag it because I don't believe I was lying.

The whole idea is freakin retarded. What we need to do is stop supporting people like Osama and stop giving people like Saddam the keys to major american cities.

Of course that would place the blame where it should be, at the top, and we can't have that now can we?

Adults that proxy-boycott childhood treats kind of amuse me. The intentions are good, but having had childhood friends that'd smuggle non-vegan snacks into their bedrooms, raid our fridge, and that grew up resentful because their parents denied them pop culture feeding via cable TV... nothin' says lovin' like subsuming your family into your belief structure.

That said, I'm as guilty as the next guy: we tried boycotting Barney the annoying, plagarizing purple monster. Realized the futility when our kids ran up to a TV at Sears shouting excitedly "look, it's YuckyBarney!"

Disney's a mixed bag.... While mostly negative, they're more gay-friendly than many employers, some things they've been slurred over (rereleasing Song of the South, particularly) are no-win situations they just wisely refuse to engage themselves in, etc. I *agree* they've got a stance on IP that is gravely harming society, they are hypocrites (always lobbying to extend copyright just enough to never quite reinstate copyright royalties to 19th century works like Rudyard Kipling's, for example), they're managed by a corporation that seems utterly soulless at times, and I've never gotten over the chutzpah they exhibited by announcing plans to turn a civil war battlefield (and not some meaningless field anywhere else in America) into 'Disney's America'... but I also love great animation too much to not impart that love (and the eventual lecture on my bittersweet 'love/hate' opinion about Disney) to my kids.

Put another way, are you willing to boycott all good early pixar stuff if (when!) Pixar goes evil?! I'm in the throes of a similar internal debate *today* thanks to George Lucas and yesterday's Ep III release.

GP was talking about ditching a fiancee because art-appreciation (lets temporarily stretch this concept to include pop music) didn't jibe well with RIAA hating. In the REAL world, love really has very little to do with consumer spending habits. If your wife had looked at you with puppy-dog eyes and said "But honey, I grew up wanting to be Ariel", would you really tell her she couldn't buy the new extended-edition DVD to share with your daughter?! It isn't just intelligence at stake; emotion and intelligence aren't so tightly coupled that a 'right' answer necessarily exists. Heck, nothing's that cut and dried...

BTW, the Prince of Darkness is no longer CEO at Disney...

Disclaimer: MSNBC is a joint project with Microsoft or some such nonsense.

Wasn't it Gonzalez who attempted to justify the use of torture while he was a Bush advisor?

Yes. Here's the memo (warning: PDF)

You see, the war on terror is a "new paradigm" (donchya love that phrase?) that "renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions." But not stopping porn! Take FBI agents off terrorism duty and into porn duty. Fighting the war on terrorism is so important that it trumps the Geneva conventions, but stopping porn is so damned important it trumps even fighting the war on terror.

Don't worry, I'm sure Gonzalez will be able to do a lot less harm as an associate Supreme Court justice.

It wouldn't happen through Microsoft controlling the media; it would happen through Microsoft and the media working together voluntarily. They're one and the same, after all!

Moreover, even the government is helping them with stuff like the DMCA. Once the DRM systems are in place (did I mention that Vista will require HDCP, which is nothing more than DVI+DRM?), Microsoft will be in complete control, and will be capable of disallowing any content that Big Media doesn't want you to see.

Then, when you break the DRM in order to get it anyway, they sic the Government on you because of the DMCA (either that, or declare you a "ter'rist" and use the PATRIOT act instead).

By the way, read this. It's the example I always give to people who have a hard time visualizing what it'll be like once all this happens. Pay special attention to the "Author's note" at the end.

That may not be quite right. According to this this the call to the FEMA number does not open a claim; it results in a package containing the claim form being mailed to the address of the evacuee. However, being in a shelter, the evacuees are unable to receive mail.

and why don't you respond to my post instead of attacking me personally?

ever heard of magic lantern?

that was the FBI's trojan to get on all computers and somehow symantec disabled detection of it on their anti-virus software.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/660096.asp?0na=x21017M32 &cp1=1

http://www.google.com/search?q=magic+lantern+fbi

even a mainstream media site like MSNBC mentions the CARNIVORE project.

no, steam will not by itself do all those things, yet it is another injection point. soon EA will have it's own online "game delivery" mechanism, then UBISOFT, then microsoft, then blizzard and so on.

seems like a perfect oppertunity. hell, even supermarkets around the world track everything you buy and links it to you personally. every store and company and agency does the same thing.

you're living in denial if you cannot see these patterns. they keep accumulating yet you choose not to see. that's fine, that's your right.

All flaws in the system - chronic overproduction, recessions, chronic unemployment (to where in the US, the economic term "full employment" actually means 5% or so are unemployed who want jobs and can't find them). Companies can't "break even" - they must profit, meaning if some of the wealth created by people working isn't going to say some heir who inherited a company, the job will cease to exist. Not to mention that the average inflation-adjusted hourly wage in the US is below what it was 30 years ago. But that too is just another side effect.

http://msnbc.com/modules/spaceshuttle/discoverylau nch/

http://msnbc.com/modules/spaceshuttle/discoverylau nch/

We put together a pretty slick interface for all the different cameras at MSNBC.com

http://msnbc.com/modules/spaceshuttle/discoverylau nch/

It's Flash, so half of you will automatically hate it, just warning you now. I guess because it's MSnbc, everyone else will hate it, but I think it's kinda nifty.

She is currently in the process of being deported.

Then there are things that are less known...the NSA used to "grep" for certain 800 numbers from machines it had "sniffing" the Internet, that were in very good locations to do such a thing. Once I myself was reading a web site in Australia about CIA involvement in a sort-of coup d'etat they had there (the prime minister, who wanted to get Australia out of the Vietnam war, and who was beginning to establish relations with "Red" China was thrown out by an antiquated dominion law by a man who had CIA conenctions). Shortly after doing so I received an odd SNMP query to my IP address requesting information about my machine. If I didn't have my machine especially set up to log everything coming in, I never would have seen it (my machine did not respond witht he asked for information). The requesting machine was some US army information intelligence outfit in Quantico, Virginia, I suppose it was the Army equivalent of the Air Force OSI or something. One odd aspect was I was doing this from the US, so the Army would have been spying on me, as a US citizen, which it shouldn't be doing, although there are loopholes out of this I guess. It's unfortunate I have to go to other countries web sites to read about stuff like this, but that's how it is, the USSR had it's samizdat as well, and its KGB trying to track down who was distributing and reading it.

This administration really specializes in finding extreme-right appointees that are members of minority groups.

Look, this memo was written by hispanic Albert Gonzales! The choice bits: "the war against terrorism is a new kind of war" and "this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions."

That certainly would look good under Supreme Court letterhead, wouldn't it!

Space Shuttle Discovery has become too much like the Discovery Channel- too much Monster Garage and not enough Physics. Look at picture number 4. http://www.msnbc.com/modules/interactive.aspx?type =ss&launch=7587438,6955261

that's MSN not MSNBC.

There is also the growing instances of state-sponsored computer cracking whereby poorer nations (particularly the axis-of-evil states) seek to leverage the power of attacking information infrastructures instead of the physical infrastructure.

Certainly it is a concern that 'axis of evil' countries may attempt to attack computer systems, however isn't it a little premature to say "growing instances"? Do you have any citations of -one- attack sponsored by a foriegn government?

Given our current administrations interest in increasing law enforcement powers, and their apparent
willingness to give out intelligence information for political reasons, I think there is a good chance we would have heard about any verified attacks by 'rogue states'

It may be useful to look closer to home for computer security threats. The FBI has be known to use keylogging software. I wouldn't be suprised if more clandestine arms of 'legitimate' governments were using the same technology in a more broad way.

Apparently, MSNBC has a similar story. Mail your letters here.

How does it count people using a browser that reports it is a different browser to not be blocked from content?

*Cough*

I don't have anywhere to host pictures, but using Safari just changing the User Agent gets you different style sheets. Net effect is some stories render horribly when it serves a Safari page, but fine when it serves an I.E., both in Safari. I'm not going to accuse them that that is their goal, but it has definitely happened and changing the User Agent reveals no problems that required a separate style sheet.

bin Laden, along with a small group of Islamic militants from Egypt, Pakistan, Lebanon, Syria and Palestinian refugee camps all over the Middle East, became the "reliable" partners of the CIA in its war against Moscow.

Others point out that the military contribution of the 'Arabs', as the overseas volunteers were known, was relatively small. 'The fighting was done by the Afghans and most of them went back to their fields when Kabul fell to the mujahideen,' said Kamaal Khan, a Pakistani defence analyst. 'Ironically, the bulk of American aid went to the least effective fighters, who turned most strongly to bite the hand that fed them.'

GWB hasn't abolished the Republic, committed genocide, or taken control of the media.

You mean this isn't an attempt to control the media?

I know, not quite the same thing, but still kinda scary to me...

The features that are available here include tabs that allow consumers to target searches to the Web, news, images, music, desktop or Microsoft Encarta.

The fact of the matter is that Google already offers these web-based tools, and without much of the marketing and graphical detritus that is pushed by the MSN website.

1) The Web: http://www.google.com. If you don't know about it, you probably should. It's easy as pie to use, accurate as hell in most cases. And if it doesn't show you what you want right away, chances are a bit of grunt work will turn up something useful in short order. Ads are shifted to the right-side of the screen, so as not to impede your ability to pore through the search results. And you can customize the number of results per page, which means less clicking. Meanwhile, MSN spams me with ads at the top and bottom of each search page, in addition to the right side of the page. There are 8 results per page, which means more effort in trying to find information in all the spam.

2) News: http://news.google.com has been my homepage for quite sometime now. It's about a billion times better, easier to use and more current than my previous news home page, http://www.msnbc.com.

3) Images: http://images.google.com wins, hands-down. MSN's Images search looks cleaner, and allows you to filter by color or B/W right from the main search page, but that's about the only advantages it can claim. MSN required 5 clicks before I could get to the 20th page of results; Google gets me there in 2. MSN yields ~81k results; Google yields ~550k.

4) Music: MSN beats Google here, simply because Google doesn't offer any kind of music-searching utility. However, MSN's site isn't much more than an iTunes wannabe. There's no easy way to do a quick search by artist or album from the front page, and most of the links that pop up offer the ability to purchase downloadable songs, not information on the album or artist. Meanwhile, a quick Google for "Son Kite" turns up the home page of the psytrance artist I'm looking for, at the very top of the page. The 2nd link is to a store that sells Son Kite albums. MSN = pwn3d, again.

5) Desktop: You've got to wonder why Microsoft would deign to develop a web-based ActiveX search tool, when the vast majority of PC users out there are running Windows and have this functionality built into the OS. Never mind that I've disabled ActiveX in Internet Explorer 6, and have begun shunning it for the same reasons I'm training myself to use Firefox 1.0 for standard browsing.

6) Encarta: Another tool that Google doesn't offer (yet). I'm gonna remain neutral on this one, since I don't know much about it.

Some links about the site...

• Topographic Mapping at the SETI Radio Telescope Observatory (UC Berkeley)
• Topographic map of site (Topozone.com)
• "The big idea in SETI: Think small" (MSNBC, Feb 8, 2004)

...battery life and practical viewable area on a phone.

Well, the obvious question to me is what is new about this?

Is it just because we're talking United States here? If you read through this thread, people are acting as if watching TV on a phone is some kind of new idea. (Your post being one example.) I mean the size of the screen and the battery life are not open questions, because TV-enabled phones have been on the market for over a year (if not more) around the world.

Am I missing something?

Wait 40 more years and see where our country is. If we continue to not teach our children and continue to shove jobs onto counties that do ....
We be dumb

The United States did not learn anything from the Sputnik lesson, more than 40 years ago...

Isn't this old news anyway? The Rumsfeld Doctrine has always included superiority in space. For example, reference from April 2001, http://www.msnbc.com/news/546843.asp?0sp=n5b6&cp1= 1:

"To reduce the nation's vulnerability, the Rumsfeld commission urges leaders to develop 'superior space capabilities,' including the ability to 'negate the hostile use of space against U.S. interests' by using 'power projection in, from and through space.' Translated into lay terms, that means the development and deployment of anti-satellite weapons."

A quick Google search shows numerous "space superiority" references dating back to the start of the Bush administration.

But don't forget one thing: the exit polls exactly and perfectly describe the 2% Bush margin.

Actually, this is not true according to raw data I've found in sites like Zogby and MSNBC. The exit polls in Ohio showed a small margin for Kerry. However, the margin of error for exit polls (again, according to Zogby) has historically been between 3% and 5%; this election was no exception. This means that exit polls are great in landslides, but utterly meaningless in a state like Ohio. Conspiracy theorists with even a slight tolerance for mathematics will have to let this one rest.

It would behoove by far-left-leaning friends to move on from conspiracy theories and start thinking about why America soundly rejected the Democratic Party in '04. I'm personally distressed by the outcome of the election, but I accept it as the legitimate result of the process set forth by our founders.

Who said Afghanistan and Iraq were messes?

Afghanistan

That's actually an AP wire article, BTW, in case you are questioning the source.

Afghanistan is so peaceful we lost 4 soldiers there in October, and the total is up to 142 so far.

And everything is just peachy in Iraq too?

You also repeat the myth that the CIA provided aid and training to Osama bin Laden and his cohorts. But this is not true, both the CIA and Osama himself agree.

I guess MSNBC and The BBC are just lying then.

US emissions standards? You're kidding, right?

Ok..I see a troll moderation in my future but please read this all the way before hitting apply. If you actually read the article you would indeed see that one of the hurdles is getting the car approved to US standards including emission standards. Perhaps the leftist media in Europe spews gargbage that says that we are all cowboys driving drag racers over here but that is not (entirely) true. The US has emissions and safty standards. In some cases stricter, in other cases more relaxed. From the article itself: Two years later, he's learned that it's not easy getting a foreign car modified for approval by U.S. agencies. But with the help of a G&K Automotive Conversion, a California company, he's finally gotten approval from the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration and is awaiting emission results from the Environmental Protection Agency.

And a little further down

Some 200 are in a California warehouse, he adds, ready to ship once the federal green light is given. Ironically, California won't be one of the first states to see the cars, since its car certification process is even more stringent than U.S. standards.

Furthermore, in a different http://www.newsletters.newsweek.msnbc.com/id/60919 13/ article (Yipes, now I know I am asking for too much, we can't even get people to read the original story) you can read how California has the "the world's most stringent rules to reduce auto emissions that contribute to global warming". So what is wrong with the rest of the world..Come on. Catch up....frown..grimice..concern..