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States with sales tax lines on their tax forms include Alabama, California, Connecticut, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Utah, Vermont, Virginia and Wisconsin, according to the Federation of Tax Administrators.

Read more about it here.

Not all that up on this however after reading this. Government Licenses First Private Rocket. I believe that the Xprize rules require the permit as one of the qualifers.

any foreign countries that they find Oil in

Yeah, we Americans are really taking advantage of our access to the vast Iraqui oil supplies -- not to mention the close proximity of our huge military force to the OPEC nations. Why, OPEC is trembling in their boots while we drain Iraq dry! Read all about it here, here, and here.

Myway is also great as a portal or homepage, it's much more customizeable than any other site I've seen, and again, no banners or popups.

You can also read all AP and Reuters stories with no registration, and there's partner links to NY Times and other reg-req'd sites (great for submitting articles to Slashdot).

Myway is also great as a portal or homepage, it's much more customizeable than any other site I've seen, and again, no banners or popups.

You can also read all AP and Reuters stories with no registration, and there's partner links to NY Times and other reg-req'd sites (great for submitting articles to Slashdot).

Always use myway.com for AP and Reuters articles, they don't have any banners, popups, or registration.

btw, here's the link to this story's article.

btw, here's the link to this story's article.

MyWay.com carries all AP and Reuters articles with no banners, popups, or any kind of registration. Just a couple inobtrusive Google-provided text ads at the bottom. They also have reg-free referal links to NY Times, USA Today, CBS, FOX, and MSNBC stories.

MyWay.com carries all AP and Reuters articles with no banners, popups, or any kind of registration. Just a couple inobtrusive Google-provided text ads at the bottom. They also have reg-free referal links to NY Times, USA Today, CBS, FOX, and MSNBC stories.

According to this AP article personal content is very low. It talks mostly about blogs, but I think there is some correlation between that and this story.

Nobody's going to feel really bad about seeing those, as George Lucas has turned Star Wars into a franchise to hock his wares.

He's also prepared to fight for the freedom in America - unless, of course, you are not a white, protestant-christian, heterosexual familyman/woman.

Oh really? They're VERY careful, I see. They don't make mistakes.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040218/D80PREA80 .html

includes "illustration"

after all, it is open source now

According to Ted Bridis of the Associate Press, Kerberos belongs to Microsoft in his recent article, Microsoft Warns on Windows Security Flaws.

I wrote a letter to Mr. Bridis to offer a correction.

Dear Mr. Bridis;

You wrote:

"Some of Microsoft's built-in security features - such as its Kerberos cryptography system - rely on the flawed software."

This statement is factually incorrect. You're sentence should have read "... such as its implementation of the Kerberos cryptography system..."

Kerberos is, in fact, a creation of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology:

http://web.mit.edu/kerberos/www/#what_is

Please respect the intellectual property rights of MIT in your future writings.

Thanks.

What kind of sense does this make?

MINA, Saudi Arabia (AP) - At least 244 people were trampled to death and hundreds more hurt Sunday under the crush of worshippers in one of the deadliest disasters during the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia.

The stampede occurred during the stoning of the devil, an emotional and notoriously perilous hajj ritual. Pilgrims frantically throw rocks, shout insults or hurl their shoes at three stone pillars - acts that are supposed to demonstrate their deep disdain for Satan.

Safety measures were in place at the site - one where fatal stampedes have been frequent - but "caution isn't stronger than fate," said Saudi Hajj Minister Iyad Madani. "All precautions were taken to prevent such an incident, but this is God's will."

The stampede broke out on one of two ramps leading to the 50-foot stone pillars. Tens of thousands of people were on the uppermost ramp, which is about the width of a five-lane highway.

Authorities said a few pilgrims fell, causing panic as pressure built up in the crowd behind.

Brig. Mansour al-Turki of the Saudi General Security Forces said about 10,000 general security officers were on duty in the area at the time.

Their intervention "resulted in containing the pushing toward the pillar to prevent more pilgrims from falling," an unidentified Saudi Interior Ministry official said, the state-run Saudi Press Agency reported.

The same area was the scene of similar deadly incidents in 1998, 2001 and last year.

Sunday's tragedy marked the worst disaster at the annual hajj since 1997, when 340 pilgrims died in a fire at their tent city in Mina, near the holy city of Mecca.

Most of the dead Sunday were pilgrims from inside the Saudi kingdom who may not have been authorized to participate, Madani said. It was unclear how many foreign pilgrims died, but Egypt's Middle East News Agency reported that 13 Egyptians were among the dead.

Madani also said 272 pilgrims had died of natural causes during the hajj. Many participants are elderly, and Muslims believe that if a person dies while performing the pilgrimage they will go directly to heaven.

About 2 million Muslims are participating in this year's pilgrimage. To control the crowd, Saudi authorities set quotas for pilgrims from each country, and also require its citizens and residents to register upon arrival.

Many resident foreigners, especially those from the Indian subcontinent, cannot afford to pay the cost of an authorized pilgrimage, around $530, and perform the pilgrimage independently, despite recent laws requiring citizens and residents to join registered pilgrimage campaigns.

The chaos came after a sleepless night of prayer at the climax of the hajj, when pilgrims from around the world listened to Saudi Arabia's top cleric at the Namira Mosque.

On Sunday morning, they prayed at dawn then gathered pebbles to throw at the pillars. Each participant throws seven times, chanting "bismillah" ("in the name of God") and "Allahu Akbar" ("God is Great").

Calling America "the greatest Satan," Egyptian pilgrim Youssef Omar threw pebbles at one pillar on which someone had scrawled "USA."

After the 1998 hajj, when about 180 pilgrims were trampled to death, religious authorities issued an edict extending the amount of time in which pilgrims could complete the ritual, hoping to spread out the crowd.

A giant ramp leading to the pillars fills with pilgrims waiting to throw their pebbles, and Saudi authorities instruct pilgrims in several languages when and where to pass.

Still, 14 pilgrims were trampled to death during the same ritual last year and 35 died in a 2001 stampede.

The stoning ritual also marked the first day of Eid al-Adha, or the Feast of the Sacrifice, celebrated at the hajj and around the Muslim world with the slaughtering of a camel, cow or sheep. Meat is eaten and distributed to the poor.

Part of Patriot Act Ruled Unconstitutional

Jan 26, 2:52 PM (ET)

By LINDA DEUTSCH

LOS ANGELES (AP) - A federal judge has declared unconstitutional a portion of the USA Patriot Act that bars giving expert advice or assistance to groups designated foreign terrorist organizations.

The ruling marks the first court decision to declare a part of the post-Sept. 11 anti-terrorism statute unconstitutional, said David Cole, a Georgetown University law professor who argued the case on behalf of the Humanitarian Law Project.

In a ruling handed down late Friday and made available Monday, U.S. District Judge Audrey Collins said the ban on providing "expert advice or assistance" is impermissibly vague, in violation of the First and Fifth Amendments.

John Tyler, the Justice Department attorney who argued the case, had no comment and referred calls to the department press office in Washington. A message left there was not immediately returned.

The case before the court involved five groups and two U.S. citizens seeking to provide support for lawful, nonviolent activities on behalf of Kurdish refugees in Turkey.

The Humanitarian Law Project, which brought the lawsuit, said the plaintiffs were threatened with 15 years in prison if they advised groups on seeking a peaceful resolution of the Kurds' campaign for self-determination in Turkey.

The judge's ruling said the law, as written, does not differentiate between impermissible advice on violence and encouraging the use of peaceful, nonviolent means to achieve goals.

"The USA Patriot Act places no limitation on the type of expert advice and assistance which is prohibited and instead bans the provision of all expert advice and assistance regardless of its nature," the judge said.

Cole declared the ruling "a victory for everyone who believes the war on terrorism ought to be fought consistent with constitutional principles."

RIAA Files 532 Music-Sharing Lawsuits

Jan 21, 12:47 PM (ET)

By TED BRIDIS

WASHINGTON (AP) - The recording industry on Wednesday sued 532 computer users it said were illegally distributing songs over the Internet, the first lawsuits since a federal appeals court blocked the use of special copyright subpoenas to identify those being targeted.

The action represents the largest number of lawsuits filed at one time since the trade group for the largest music labels, the Recording Industry Association of America, launched its controversial legal campaign last summer to cripple Internet music piracy.

Music lawyers filed the newest cases against "John Doe" defendants - identified only by their numeric Internet protocol addresses - and expected to work through the courts to learn their names and where they live.

The recording association said each person was illegally distributing an average of more than 800 songs online. Each defendant faces potential civil penalties or settlements that could cost them thousands of dollars.

The resumed legal campaign was intended to discourage music fans emboldened by last month's federal appeals court decision, which dramatically increased the cost and effort to track computer users swapping songs online and sue them.

"Our campaign against illegal file sharers is not missing a beat," said Cary Sherman, president of the recording association. "The message to illegal file sharers should be as clear as ever."

All 532 lawsuits were filed in Washington and New York - home to Verizon Internet Services Inc. and Time Warner Inc. and a few other prominent Internet providers - although the recording association said it expects to discover through traditional subpoenas that these defendants live across the United States.

The RIAA said that after its lawyers discover the identity of each defendant, they will contact each person to negotiate a financial settlement before amending the lawsuit to formally name the defendant and, if necessary, transfer the case to the proper courthouse.

Verizon had successfully challenged the industry's use of copyright subpoenas, one of its most effective tools to track illegal downloaders. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled last month that the recording industry can't use the subpoenas to force Internet providers to identify music downloaders without filing a lawsuit.

The court said that copyright subpoenas available under the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act "betrays no awareness whatsoever that Internet users might be able directly to exchange files containing copyrighted works."

Some people are convinced Yahoo is ahead of the game in terms of its portal technology. Yahoo's portal has stagnated for quite some time. My Way came out with a customizable portal that beat the hell out of Yahoo a year or so ago... it was a remake of the old Excite portal. Although they too have slowed down on new feature development, they're still way ahead of any other portal I've seen.

I'd love to see Yahoo Labs try to compete... then My Way might start releasing new features again. :-)

Here's what the ChinaDaily story said:

Given that the 1,300-kilometre Beijing-Shanghai line links up more than 20 other railway lines, it has to be compatible with other trains, Wang said. And the maglev cost is as high as 300 to 400 million (US$36 to 48 million) per kilometre, twice that of wheel-track lines, he said.

And here's what the AP story said the ChinaDaily said:

The maglev cost can be as high as $36 million to $48 million per half mile, twice that of wheel-track lines, the China Daily said.

(Kilometre -> half mile. And no mention of the 20 other rail lines' tying in being a factor.)

(AP's Score: -1, Erroneous)

they are great but are they correct? i know it sounds like a crackpot conspiracy type observation but i think this question is sound. I mean, everyone knows it's a dead red dust laden planet. so why do we keep seeing blue skies in various ap photos of nasa press conferences?

press conference

here is the link to the same photo from the press conference. it's a little bit more red, don't ya think?

official for public consumption

here is a page of comparisons of various jpl/nasa official public photos with links to originals off of nasa.gov...

comparisons all around

and as far as canadian press is concerned, it seems they are gonna go with the blue "arizona-like" version...

canada knows

i don't believe in little green men but i know when my images are too red and have the need for the curves tool in photoshop.

The truth is brutally silenced in modern-day USA.

It's time for a revolution!

Yeah, the Taliban is still in power, right? Wrong. Osama may not be captured, but for all we know he could already be dead. Either way, we took away from al Qaida a large source of security and funding - the Afghan government.

we went to war for the oil

Really? My gas prices haven't improved. Iraqi oil being sold on the open market isn't going into a US account - it's being used to improve the Iraqi infrastructure. And US taxpayer money is being used to get refineries updated and back online.

we went to war because the current administration has been unable to resolve domestic issues such as increasing poverty, decreasing employment, and corporations that have destroyed the economy to enrich a few people.

Have you even seen the news lately?

Stocks End First Positive Year Since 1999

New Jobless Claims Lowest of Bush Tenure

You might want to find a new source for the conspiracy theories.

Nothing is ever wrong with George W Bush's America. It's always them foreigners. Blame Canada!

Twisting Skyscraper to Replace NY's WTC

"The entire project, with a memorial to the 2,752 victims at its center, was estimated to cost up to $12 billion over the next decade, officials said. It also includes six other office buildings and a transportation hub to be designed by renowned Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava."

I bet this will wind up costing $50-100 billion, if not more, before it is over, and all sorts of false "patriotism" and "sending a message" and "empathy" will be used to hide blatant corruption and favoritism. I find this whole sham "memorial" project to be thoroughly disgusting.

Here is the start of the corruption and favoritism - The Port Authority will occupy 1/3 of the building!

WTC Tower Design Unveiled

WTF! why does some government bureacracy rate the most expensive and fancy location in NYC?

NEW YORK (AP) - President Bush does not have power to detain American citizen Jose Padilla seized on U.S. soil as an enemy combatant, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.

The decision could force Padilla, held in a so-called "dirty bomb" plot, to be tried in civilian courts.

In a 2-to-1 ruling, a three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Padilla's detention was not authorized by Congress and that Bush could not designate him as an enemy combatant without the authorization.

I tried the transition, but I found that I had grown too accustomed to Yahoo. So I guess I"m stuck.

Ah, that explains their pro-Saddam rally during Bush's visit.

Leave it to the state that excreted Toad Kennedy:
This is a sad statement about the corruption of yet another positive symbol by the clueless.
If people want to waste their essence in useless ways, society would be improved if they would pursue their fruitlessness privately.
God still loves these misguided ones as much as anyone.
May truth one day find them.

Increasingly, companies are making bigger products for America's bigger people, customizing everything from caskets to seat belts. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 20 percent of Americans are considered obese.

"The reason BSD can produce a secure OS for free and MS can't is because MS focuses on usability. There is a reason most people haven't heard of BSD much less use it, and that is because it is extremely hard for the average person to use. Hell, it's hard for somewhat knowledgable people to use."

Well...that was the theory anyway.

Isn't there an old saying that goes: "Those who would trade freedom for security deserve neither."?

I guess the geek version of that would be: "Those who would trade security for ease of use deserver neither."

And we got what we deserved too.

Step 1: Get rid of those hard to understand INI files and replace them with dialog boxes with dropdown options and help menus...

So, THEME = "neon" became a series of nicely drawn dialogs with cute graphics and dropdowns. Ooooh, cool beans, I R a systems programmer now.

Only it turned out that there were thousands of such dialogs needed to cover the more esoteric settings, and with the product running behind schedule... oh what the heck lets just do a general purpose editor for such things. Put all the values in a database sort of thing... call it "The Registry" and train people to find:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
-->SYSTEM
---->ControlSet00 1
------>Enum
-------->DISPLAY

and so on.

Well, this will only be temporary... Next release we will finish off all those dialog boxes... it will be REALLY easy to use, honest.

Three releases later we are still waiting.

My favorite things are the context based help features. You know the ones that have something like:

"Deframulater Aperture Limits" followed by a dropdown box with 40 different values. And in tiny print below: "Failure to set this value properly may destroy your Deframulator". No problemo! I click on the handy question mark in the upper right hand corner, point to the box full of settings and Viola: "Select Deframulator value here".

Oh yeah, now we are cooking with gas! This is EASY!

And when we need to set the companies 500 desktops Deframulators we just hire some temps to go around and do that right? "Now you temps... PLEASE be careful with these settings...and DON'T .... no matter how hard that end user begs you... DON'T do any other settings... just that one....got it?"

Oh, but no need to do that!... There is a scripting language to do that sort of repetitive task. *Slaps forehead* Of COURSE! Why didn't *I* think of that! No problems setting those 500 machines. *Goes to two weeks of MCSE classes* Now there are some 'issues' with the scripting language which has all the power of a batch file and all the elegance of Quick-basic. "Are you telling me I can't test return codes or that they are not set?.... oh, a little of both huh? So the best thing is to just plow thorough all the setting and see if the network stays up?, OK, Got it."

Man, I'm not so sure about all this "ease of use" stuff. Well at least now we have Policy Editors. Which can be used to put these setting on floppy disks and carry them around to each machine. "Oh be careful not to try and BOOT off of some of those floppys, we heard a few of them have Monkeypod viruses on them".

And finally, the really great news is that in the FINAL, ULTIMATE, Part 3 Matrix Trilogy version of Windows NT known as Longshot...err... Longhorn, all of this information will be safely on the network in a database, which, as we know are impervious to outside attacks from worms and things, as long as you use the appropriate dropdown on your routers to close off certain ports etc. We can control all of this centrally... Yahoo! And we can still use scripts if we want to, YAY!. And there will be this neat new thing called "The Shell" and it will look a lot like some ancient forgoten language called "Bash" or something like that... must have been a punk-rock group.

And

For the common person, these are dark times ahead.

Economy Grows at Fastest Pace Since 1984

Peace be with you,
-jimbo

The main problem with your conclusions is that there are only 2 major parties in the country, yet 3 economic ideals.

It appears the Democrats are for raising spending and raising taxes, but decreasing the debt (as long as a Democratic president is in office).

The Republicans are for lowering taxes, while lowering spending and decreasing the debt... theoretically. In practice, for the last few years, they've lowered taxes while raising spending, and also increasing the debt.

However, even given all these variables, the facts speak for themselves. "credited stronger-than-expected tax collections in recent months in combination with less government spending for the improvement over the summer forecast." It would seem, that the expected deficit of $455 billion has been lowered to $374.2 billion, AFTER the tax cuts. So, apparently, lowering taxes isn't contradictory to raising spending, or lowering the deficit. (By the way, the total deficit is ONLY 3.5% of the GNP, which is much lower than the 5-6% of the 1980's.)

So if lowering taxes isn't contradictory to raising spending or lowering the deficit/debt, and if the economists are correct in saying that lowering taxes will result in an economic boom (and it certainly seems to have, if you watch the Stock Market), then lowering taxes DOES equal lowering the deficit. However, the current administration also apparently wants to raise spending. That's where the current problem lies.

The answer seems to be to cut programs that are too wasteful, or promote laziness in the populace (like welfare, social security, etc.), and reduce taxes... at the same time, start programs to educate people on how to start a retirement fund, and how to save money.

Being in Salt Lake City myself during the olympics, I noticed the increased security. This resulted in people like me being pulled over by police 17 times during the month of February (with at least one ticket each time). I was pulled off the TRAX light rail system at least a dozen times, and threatened with a search of my backpack and my person on numerous occasions. I had to put up with highway checkpoints and shakedowns, giving the police a blank check to search everyone and haul people in for petty warrants, drunkeness, etc.

Amidst all of this hightened security, I had no problem at all bringing my gun not only into various events around downtown, but also to the closing cerimonies.

In light of the recent testings of the system concerning Southwest airlines; I for one, feel very secure with all of these new surveilance measures.

Why bother with Yahoo when you can have the content that yahoo has with google searching and NO ADS. That's right... none of that crappy flash blinky popunder garbage... myway.com

But the regional telephone giants also have warned that as long as they are required to lease those fiber networks to competitors, they will be unwilling to spend significant sums to build them.