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The problem with newspapers is that the content sucks.

I don't think you and I are reading the same newspapers. My local paper, The Raleigh (NC) News & Observer (http://www.newsobserver.com/), has in the just past few years, put 5 elected state officials (including the Speaker of the House) in prison for corruption, uncovered systemic failures in our state mental health system and probation system, and put pressure on our state's judges to stop freeing speeding motorists with a slap on the wrist. Just this past week they told the story of a local company that sold filthy medical supplies and investigated where the FDA was when hundreds of people were getting sick and 5 people were dying from those supplies. They also find the time and money to sue the government for access to information that the government would rather we - that is, the citizens - not have access to.

That kind of journalism can't be done by any number of bloggers. It takes large staffs of trained and experienced journalists backed by an organization willing to fund multi-month investigations. It takes principled and idealistic owners to be able to stand up to the established interests when the truth comes out.

Nevertheless, with their advertising revenue gone to Craigslist the N&O has had round after round of staffing cuts. To save printing costs they've cut the paper to half its old size, and just today reduced the Sunday color comics section to 4 pages. (Bill Watterson would be ashamed.) I doubt the N&O will survive as a printed newspaper. As much as I love reading my news off of newsprint over breakfast, I'd take it in e-newspaper format in a heartbeat, if that's what it takes for them to stay in business.

f you're concerned about wear and tear, until a significant percentage of vehicles are alternative fuel in a way that doesn't have the vast majority of people filling up in gas stations

You, er other states, could do what South Carolina does, tax biofuels.

Falcon

I prefer the sales tax factor - makes it difficult for a compnay to hide income/claim extra deductions to decrease tax costs. It's simpler, basically.

Buyer pay the sames tax though, an income tax the corporation will pay. Actually either way buyers pay.

As for the roads - add in 'or built into the real estate taxes

I didn't say in the post you replied to but I did in others that property taxes are also used for roads.

Though if we ever get electric cars up to a significant percentage, it's going to become more complicated.

It will at that. You could tax electricity and or tires but I don't know how that would work out. However it's done I see a problem, it more than likely will require a bureaucracy and bureaucracies tend to grow.

Right now we can just write that off as 'encouraging usage of alternate fuel vehicles'.

Some days ago someone posted a link to a news article about how this person was pulled over who had a biodiesel sticker on the car and ended up was required to pay a tax to the state. Ah good, it's still in my history: "Driver ticketed for using biofuel".

Falcon

If you grew it yourself and never sold any, there would be no reason to tax it.

Tell that to the guy in NC fined for violating the state fuel tax laws for running his vehicles on fuel he produced for himself. http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/599471.html

Madoff didn't play in a regulatory vacuum. He played in a highly regulated world where the regulators failed to do their duty. Madoff's firm was reported to the SEC back as early as 1999 but the regulators did nothing. Yeah, let's give them MORE control. The government NEVER let's us down.

Well, some of the items that were described are light and could have been carried by wind, animals, etc. Second, since we don't know what happened to Fossett we cannot assume that the plane crashed intact; the plane may have broken up before it hit the ground scattering the wreckage over a large area. Also not every plane crash happens in an open field. If the area where the plane crashed was heavily wooded, it would be difficult to spot especially if it broke up before hitting the ground. For those that are skeptical that finding a plane is hard, there was a story earlier this year of a North Carolina woman who went missing after leaving work one night. She lost control of her car and crashed her truck in a ravine 100ft off a heavily-traveled US highway. Because of the heavy vegetation, she wasn't found for 5 days.

Remember tho in the US, power companies aren't allowed to be profitable.

really? I had no idea.

Eventually all biofuels (including old frying oil) will be subject to fuel taxes and they want to be sure that it all flows through "legitimate businesses" that they can compell to collect the taxes for them.

What do you mean "eventually?"

Here are a couple links: http://www.newsobserver.com/114/story/438542.html http://www.americablog.com/2006/05/t-mobile-says-they-did-not-participate.html

somewhat timely that it is now revealed that the reason the Titanic went down so fast was due to substandard fasteners (ie. too much filler not enough iron)
http://www.newsobserver.com/front/story/1037540.html

just like the heparin that was 'stretched' with something that would pass the chemical QA tests
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/22/healthscience/22fda.php

or electronic components that will fry in a matter of weeks or months instead of years......
http://www.purchasing.com/article/CA6450781.html

...where the lawyers can nap?

Paragraph 5

Here's some:

http://impact.arc.nasa.gov/news_detail.cfm?ID=44
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/03/07 0308-asteroids_2.html
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg13117854.700 -will-we-catch-a-falling-star-there-are-many-aster oids-outthere-in-space-and-the-chances-are-that-so oner-or-later-one-will-head-forearth-but-no-one-kn ows-what-to-do-if-we-find-ourselves-on-collision-c ourse.html
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/fl_side2_020 901.html
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/s2.cfm?id=79899200 2
http://www.newsobserver.com/105/story/415367.html
http://www.sciencebits.com/PlanesAndMeteorites

Not sure how your lottery analogy applies. The nasa article sums up your logical fallacy: "The perception of risk from impacts is smaller than for being killed in a plane crash because planes crash at a steady rate with (relatively) few deaths per event, whereas lethal impacts are rare but kill a lot of people. At the very least, the potential consequences of impact are large enough to cause concern."

I guess he might not have been drunk:

http://www.newsobserver.com/102/story/523482.html
via: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/12/more _airplane_s.html

Also:

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/04/anot her_tsa_fai.html
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/03/airp ort_securit_2.html

What the hell:

http://www.schneier.com/cgi-bin/search/search.pl?M atch=1&Realm=blog&Terms=airport+security

• An Iron Curtain is Descending on US
  
  
• Cheney: Water torture is OK
  
  
• Bush administration says detainee shouldn't be able to tell attorney how he was tortured in secret CIA prison
  
  
• The United States is now prosecuting suspected terrorists on the basis of their intentions, not just their actions
  
  
• Man arrested for saying "I think your policies in Iraq are reprehensible"
  
  
• Civil Liberties Advocates' Worst Fears Realized with Patriot Act Scandal
  
  
• Activist, anti-Bush lawyer "falls to death at hotel
  
  
• Abuse and Torture by U.S. troops
  
  
• plenty more, regretfully...
  
  

• An Iron Curtain is Descending on US
  
  
• Cheney: Water torture is OK
  
  
• Bush administration says detainee shouldn't be able to tell attorney how he was tortured in secret CIA prison
  
  
• The United States is now prosecuting suspected terrorists on the basis of their intentions, not just their actions
  
  
• Man arrested for saying "I think your policies in Iraq are reprehensible"
  
  
• Letter to the editor prompts visit from Secret Service
  
  
• Activist, anti-Bush lawyer "falls to death at hotel
  
  
• Abuse and Torture by U.S. troops
  
  
• plenty more, regretfully...
  
  

It's the same story in Raleigh, NC. 11,000 orders for HD service since December 1st. In a market of 500,000.Time Warner rushes HD boxes

The geek who thinks that HD is going nowhere had better look again. The train has left the station.

The geek's perception of the home market is dim:

The Retail Advertising and Marketing Association estimates 2.5 million people will buy new televisions before Super Sunday, an increase of 47 percent from last year... The survey did not break down what percent of new televisions purchased are expected to be HDTVs, but retailers reported double-digit increases in sales of the high-end sets in recent months. Super Snap: HDTV Sales Seen Rising

Once they've seen a football game or blockbuster movie in high def, it's tough for many to go back to their analog or digital broadcasts.
Vance Pflanz, owner of Pflanz Electronics, recalls the amazement of one customer who bought a high-def set last fall. He returned to the store a couple of days later to report that he saw a gum wrapper underneath a bench in a World Series dugout on his screen and he could actually read W-R-I-G-L-E-Y-S on the wrapper.
"I think sports probably does more for high-definition programming than any other programming source because when you're watching a football game, you can see the individual blades of grass." HDTV sales fuel demand for high-def programming

Time Warner Cable is hurrying to make sure about 1,000 Triangle customers can bask in the glow of high-definition television during this year's Super Bowl.
Unprecedented demand for high-definition service led to a shortage of set-top boxes and a waiting list of about 1,000 customers.
Since Dec. 1, Time Warner's Raleigh division fielded 11,000 orders for high-definition service, nearly three times the number received in December and January a year ago. Time Warner rushes HD boxes

All it takes is someone to offer $100 million in tax breaks over 30 years http://www.newsobserver.com/104/story/534056.html

--AZ-Sen: Jon Kyl --AZ-01: Rick Renzi --AZ-05: J.D. Hayworth --CA-04: John Doolittle --CA-11: Richard Pombo --CA-50: Brian Bilbray --CO-04: Marilyn Musgrave --CO-05: Doug Lamborn --CO-07: Rick O'Donnell --CT-04: Christopher Shays --FL-13: Vernon Buchanan --FL-16: Joe Negron --FL-22: Clay Shaw --ID-01: Bill Sali --IL-06: Peter Roskam --IL-10: Mark Kirk --IL-14: Dennis Hastert --IN-02: Chris Chocola --IN-08: John Hostettler --IA-01: Mike Whalen --KS-02: Jim Ryun --KY-03: Anne Northup --KY-04: Geoff Davis --MD-Sen: Michael Steele --MN-01: Gil Gutknecht --MN-06: Michele Bachmann --MO-Sen: Jim Talent --MT-Sen: Conrad Burns --NV-03: Jon Porter --NH-02: Charlie Bass --NJ-07: Mike Ferguson --NM-01: Heather Wilson --NY-03: Peter King --NY-20: John Sweeney --NY-26: Tom Reynolds --NY-29: Randy Kuhl --NC-08: Robin Hayes --NC-11: Charles Taylor --OH-01:

Some articles to think about in the upcoming election:

Jon Kyl Rick Renzi J.D. Hayworth John Doolittle Richard Pombo Brian Bilbray Marilyn Musgrave Doug Lamborn Rick O'Donnell Christopher Shays Vernon Buchanan Joe Negron Clay Shaw Bill Sali Peter Roskam Mark Kirk Dennis Hastert Chris Chocola John Hostettler Mike Whalen Jim Ryun Anne Northup Geoff Davis Michael Steele Gil Gutknecht Michele Bachmann Jim Talent Conrad Burns Jon Porter Charlie Bass Mike Ferguson Heather Wilson Peter King John Sweeney Tom Reynolds Randy Kuhl Robin Hayes Charles Taylor Steve Chabot Jean Schmidt Deborah Pryce

You've never had a medical problem beyond the flu have you?

Little suzy gets bitten by a mosquito. She suddenly can't go pee after a few days. You go to the doctor and discover she has encephallitis and will die. They go nuts trying to save her, in the process they discover she now has hemophellia. They start popping in drugs that cost $21,000 per dose into her to try and stop the bleeding. Next thing you know you owe them $2.0M dollars.

They put a lein on your home because you're not paying fast enough.

Some of the doctor offices, but not all of them forgive the debt. Apparently the state run one feels you should pay back more than your home is worth.

Don't think that happens? Think Again

• Broward Co., FL - ES&S software on their machines only reads 32,000 votes at a precinct then it starts counting backwards (see this update): http://www.news4jax.com/politics/3890292/detail.ht ml
• # Guilford Co., NC - ES&S equipment "could report only about 32,600 early and absentee results". This seems very similar to the case above, (see this update) save that Guilford Co. uses optical scan for it absentee voting and may use the older Votronic system for early voting (although it would make a more consistent story if they used optical scan for all absentee and early voting).: http://newsobserver.com/news/story/1852104p-817980 2c.html
  

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A company called ScentAir sells contraptions to try to make food smell better: http://www.newsobserver.com/104/story/413546.html "Bakeries have a similar issue. They typically bake breads and pastries in the morning. By late in the day, that warm, fresh-baked smell has faded. Some bakeries blow an oven-baked-bread scent all day."

They sell smells including "French Bread", "Fresh Brewed Coffee", and "Dinosaur Dung": http://www.scentair.com/products/index.cfm?subSect ionID=1 (warning: Flash site that is a serious pain to navigate)

They link to articles like "It's Beginning to Smell (and Sound) a Lot Like Christmas: The Interactive Effects of Ambient Scent and Music in a Retail Setting" and their clients include Au Bon Pain, Food Lion, and Kroger. The marketers have found another venue--is that *really* fresh bread you're smelling?

But the thing is, like you say, US citizens are free to protest Gitmo. They're even free to toss out those politicians responsible for trampling americas reputation in the mud. Yet they do not. To me that's a mystery.

As for throwing out the politicians responsible, that's not something so easily done. The President, and by extension, everyone in his administration, has a four-year term. Senators have six year terms. Representatives have two year terms. Incumbents are generally very well protected, via gerrymandering and other means. The only way to remove the President during his term is impeachment, and for that you need a Congress that doesn't suck up to him.

I think it's definitely worth mentioning that in both the 2000 and 2004 elections, the President won only by extremely narrow margins. In 2000, the President lost the popular vote (i.e., more people voted for his opponent) and in 2004, he won the popular vote by one of the smallest margins of an incumbent President in history. It's not like the administration has some awesome mandate from the American people, or anything.

I'd wait until 2006 to say that Americans refuse to toss out who they can.

Hmmm. Let's compare:

Theory: "Easy - because there's no money in the cure. They want your repeat business to feed their cash cow. How are they going to do that with a one-time cure?"

Experiment: "Fourth-quarter earnings released Wednesday [8 Feb 2006] show that [British drug-maker GlaxoSmithKline]'s revenue continues to surge, mainly on strong sales of its vaccines and treatments for asthma and diabetes..."

Now try and apply that to the reality of the changes in the student loan program and you'll see that your example has absolutely no relation to reality.

The per student amount of loans available was raised considerably. The artifically low interest rates subsidized by the government were allowed to rise a couple percent, but with the benefit of becoming fixed instead of variable. Interest rates in the US have been rising recently, you might also note.

Any student who is currently eligible for a student loan would still be eligible after the changes and could actually get a bigger loan to deal with inflation. What's going on is that down the road when they go to pay it off, they'll have to pay more for the loans they took out, thus saving the taxpayers some money over the next 5 years.

So how does that scenario reduce the availability of student loans for students again? Answer, it doesn't, it just affects the eventual payback by the now working professional.

Hezbollah has always been, and is limited to the Lebanese territory

Hezbollah is known to be active in North Carolina (since when was the United States mainland considered part of Lebanese territory?):

In 2001, the FBI's Charlotte office arrested leaders of what they identified as a Hezbollah cell that smuggled cigarettes and used the profits to provide cash and military supplies to Lebanon. The men were later convicted.

As the article states, this is in response to the rising civil liberties violations thanks to the U SAP AT RIOT Act.

Ultimately, as long as you are on US soil, you have the right to due process no matter who you blew up. Of course, get caught by us anywhere else and you could find yourself in Guantanamo. I believe that is what you are talking about, concerning "terrorists."

http://www.newsobserver.com/lifestyles/story/20690 54p-8453459c.html

Industry analysts say that only about 1.5 percent of the people who download shareware ever pay for it. Snood is said to do better than the industry average, though Dobson won't say how much. His business partner says more than 30 million copies have been installed since it was introduced, or about 10,000 per day.

At $10 a pop, he's doing pretty well if 1.5% are paying.

1) Are you saying that punch-style ballots and machinery is superior to electronic equipment?

I would agree with this, with one caveat- by "electronic equipment" you mean Diebold's insecure crap.

But why is electronic equipment automatically considered by everyone to be superior to punch cards? Punch cards have one disadvantage- they're slow to count- which makes for bad TV on election night. Other than that, what's the real problem with them? Hanging chads? At least they hang both ways. They degrade precision, not accuracy, by introducing small, random, nonpartisan error. Everyone notices that sort of error in a tie, but ties are rare.
Snafus with electronic voting machines degrade accuracy instead of precision, by introducing a systematic error that favors one candidate over another. A machine in a partisan neighborhood can do this just by crashing or otherwise losing the votes tallied that day. The election doesn't even have to be a near-tie to get screwed up by a loss of accuracy.
The precision on electronic machines is obviously perfect. They give you an answer right down to a single vote. But precision is not accuracy.

2) Are you suggesting that since the machines haven't failed or malfunctioned to date, that this is no safeguard that they won't?

That would be an absolutely reasonable statement. It's one of the most reasonable things you've said today. You don't agree with it? It applies to anything before it fails the first time.

Except for one thing- the machines have already failed and malfunctioned.

(I found this after a little digging; my primary source was an article I read in the Raleigh News & Observer some time ago, but their archive is non-free.

Part of the current act is that public schools are mandated to turn over personal information about students to armed forces recruiting so that no child will miss out on the oportunity to die in bushes fucked up war for oil. Parents who dont want their childern contacted must opt-out in order to keep their childerns from being inundated with calls and glossy pamflets.

The effort to create this database may be in response to the recent judgement that universities can deny access to military recruiters because of discriminatory practices against gays. This overturned a 1994 a defense authorization bill that allowed the goverment to withhold funding from public institutions that denied access to recruiters.

The hopeless war in iraq is making it more difficult to recruit a new generation of jarheads. Retention is down so they were forced to make do with a back door draft in order to retain enough personel to maintain our insufficient forces in iraq & afganastan. If bush starts a third war against Iran(with large oil and natural gas reserves), launched from our spiffy new bases in Iraq, we will need to dramatically increase the number of military personel beyond what can be build using volenteers. This new database will come in handy when the National Freedom Expanders Act is passed to compel military service unless you happen to be in a rich an powerful family in which case reporting for Patriot Duty is optional.

Some additional details, including a charming picture, are available in his hometown paper:

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/1828341p-81 41513c.html

Yes - they were T1 lines.

Ok, here from TIMETime magazine

blackwater

look into what blackwater inc really does, and what they offer.

To prove it, here's the houses that Jeremy Jaynes owns.. bling bling..

As a fellow NC resident of Cary and a worker in Raleigh, I'm happy to see Virginia root out the Raleigh Spamming Gang out of my community and workplace.

Here's an article from my local paper.

Oh yes, buy a bike and become a target for the road raged idiots driving cars that think 'how dare you drive on my road!'

here in raleigh we've recently had a genius radio station solicit caller on how to mow down 'them damn bicyclers' and then when brought to task for doing so made a 'public service announcement' on how to do it.

Yeah, but when given the choice, what are many of the troops in Iraq using, M4 or AK-47? Why? Ammunition is plentiful, it's more reliable in rugged conditions, better knockdown power, etc. Sure, it's not as accurate, but this isn't long distance fighting. Plus, they don't have to clean it religiously to make sure it works. Which is always the followup whenever anyone is discussing M16 reliability: you won't have any problems if you clean it every day. It is a light, accurate, versatile weapon that you can attatch lots of different stuff to it. You won't find many people who will dispute that. It's too bad you have to clean it every day to make sure it won't cost you your life.

From what I've read in other articles about this suit, they were sued because they refused to pay the commission for all those pop-under ads. Imagine if you started a company and designed a banner ad for a company. Your contract said you get a certain amount for each time it is used. Then after the company owes you half a million dollars, they decide not to pay. That is what this is about, not patents. Read here for more information

*sigh* ... Typical...

an encredible but true Story out of NC in September about a man who passed a phoney "$200 bill" with G.W. on it at a grocery. He got $150 worth of goceries and a (real) fifty dollar bill in change.

Kind of nutty if you ask me:
Marshall Brain Editorial in Raleigh News and Observer

AT&T filed suit against Berkeley Software, claiming that proprietary code agreements had been haphazardly violated. In the same year, BSD filed countersuit, reciprocating bad intentions and fueling internal rivalry

Theo de Raadt

BSD's filesystem implementation to be "very poorly performing."

rapid, decentralized development models are inherently superior to slow, centralized ones in software development.

corporations and coders alike to reap profits without reciprocating the goodwill of open-source

The failure of BSD culminated in the resignation of Jordan Hubbard and Michael Smith from the FreeBSD core team.

The future is XWEBS.

Holy shit US $5 billion, thats a lot of bread. Well I am sure the government bean counters know what they're doing. At least this likely created a lot of jobs for american companies struggling in todays economy. I for one feel better knowing that we are following through in our plans to adjust the size of our carrier fleet, as it should help us with future nescessary military plans.

Holy shit US $5 billion, thats a lot of bread. Well I am sure the government bean counters know what they're doing. At least this likely created a lot of jobs for american companies struggling in todays economy. I for one feel better knowing that we are following through in our plans to adjust the size of our carrier fleet, as it should help us with future nescessary military plans.

This guy likes porn
Do you?

The American Academy of Pediatrics is recommending that parents and schools keep potassium iodine on hand, just in case.

Yes some of the oil will end up in the us. but that is besides the point. We are not in it for the oil. We are in it because Hussain is an evil person. Or have you not heard of his human shredder
How about the chemical weapons he "did not have" that they are order to use.

How about the missels he "did not have" that were used the first day of the war?

so back to the point is this a justifyable? yes!!

But I agree, it doesn't take $25M to innovate. There's middleware engines that can be had for a few bucks (or more) which can be adapted for whatever concept you can dream up.