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After all, a source no less authoritative than mr. Robinson (see e.g. http://www.nowpublic.com/world/pat-robertson-haiti-earthquake-punishment-pact-devil-2556010.html ) traces the occurrence of the earthquake in Haiti back to people having irritated the Man Upstairs.

In this light I'm wondering if this Texan church might not have ticked off the Creator somehow.

I can only speculate. Off-key chanting in the gospel songs perhaps? Quality of the sound system inadequate? Sermons below-par? Voluntary church contributions a bit tardy? Ministers getting a little loose-fingered with youthful congregationists? Prayers a bit slack lately?

I'm interested to see how they will rise to the challenge. Keep us posted, will you?

I would imagine music by Elvis Presley sold in the USA would still be getting royalties paid on it.
You know, since he is 2nd on the Dead Celebrity rich list http://www.nowpublic.com/culture/forbes-15-richest-dead-celebrities-list-2011-top-earning-celebs-2852059.html

That said, the example you are probably looking for is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_American_Regiment

U.S. Congress 1784: "standing armies in time of peace are inconsistent with the principles of republican government, dangerous to the liberties of a free people, and generally converted into destructive engines for establishing despotism."

U.S. Congress 2012: authorizes indefinite military detention, authorizes war with Iran (a nation that poses no threat to the U.S. and hasn't attacked another in over 200 years), and legalizes domestic use of military propaganda.

How times change.

Timeline.
1. 18 Nov. Swedish prosecutors request issue of arrest warrant.
2. 28 Nov 2010. Wikileaks reaches agreements to publish 220 State Department secrets. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_diplomatic_cables_leak
3. 29 Nov 2010. Hillary says "we are taking aggressive steps to hold those responsible." http://www.nowpublic.com/world/hillary-clinton-wikileaks-statement-and-remarks-november-29-2010-2732928.html
4. 6 Dec 2010. Police advise Assange that arrest warrant issued. (Wikipedia)
5. 7 Dec 2010. Assange hands himself in. (Wikipedia)

I suspect that the US will not try to extradite Assange from Sweden because the negative repercussions (on UK, Sweden, and even US public opinion) will be too serious at this point of the election cycle, besides highlighting a major failure of the US state department.

AC is wrong. Cancer caused her death, the shot just happened to occur shortly before the tumor killed her. 3s on google would have stopped you from posting such easily disproven tripe.

That might be so, but it doesn't change the fact that it's only Android devices where it's enabled by default.

That's probably because the carriers are not able to enable it in iOS. So Apple - the only manufacturer of iOS devices - doesn't want it enabled in their phone, and the carriers are not able to do this. Android is more open, so either the phone manufacturers like Samsung and HTC can install it, or the carriers. So it's true, but it's only true because of the open nature of Android.

Hate to break it to you, but Apple has their own stuff built into the systems.
But because its closed source its harder to detect, and because it all goes back directly to Apple, embedded in all the other apple traffic, its much harder to spot.

http://theweek.com/article/index/214437/is-your-iphone-spying-on-you
http://appadvice.com/appnn/2011/04/iphones-camera-spying
http://www.nowpublic.com/tech-biz/your-iphone-spying-you-al-franken-questions-steve-jobs-2779484.html

Given that Mexico has acquired a narco culture that tries to give drugs a positive image, the US still has one more step to go it seems.
Also notice that this isn't a new thing in Mexico.

http://www.nowpublic.com/world/sinaloa-cradle-mexicos-narcotrafficking-industry-jesus-malverde-sinaloan-bandit-their-patron-saint

with Michael Chertoff scanners.

4th item:

A few days later the Washington Post revealed that Chertoff represents Rapiscan - a maker of full body scanners drawing criticism of groups who oppose full body scanners "Mr. Chertoff should not be allowed to abuse the trust the public has placed in him as a former public servant to privately gain from the sale of full-body scanners under the pretense that the scanners would have detected this particular type of explosive," said Kate Hanni, founder of FlyersRights.org, which opposes the use of the scanners.

Continue reading at NowPublic.com: Full Body Scanner Lobby: Michael Chertoff & Rapiscan | NowPublic News Coverage http://www.nowpublic.com/world/full-body-scanner-lobby-michael-chertoff-rapiscan-2552674.html#ixzz1SkZjxX2P

http://www.nowpublic.com/world/full-body-scanner-lobby-michael-chertoff-rapiscan-2552674.html

Frankly, it's common knowledge.

with Michael Chertoff scanners.

4th item:

A few days later the Washington Post revealed that Chertoff represents Rapiscan - a maker of full body scanners drawing criticism of groups who oppose full body scanners "Mr. Chertoff should not be allowed to abuse the trust the public has placed in him as a former public servant to privately gain from the sale of full-body scanners under the pretense that the scanners would have detected this particular type of explosive," said Kate Hanni, founder of FlyersRights.org, which opposes the use of the scanners.

Continue reading at NowPublic.com: Full Body Scanner Lobby: Michael Chertoff & Rapiscan | NowPublic News Coverage http://www.nowpublic.com/world/full-body-scanner-lobby-michael-chertoff-rapiscan-2552674.html#ixzz1SkZjxX2P

http://www.nowpublic.com/world/full-body-scanner-lobby-michael-chertoff-rapiscan-2552674.html

Frankly, it's common knowledge.

try not to fall for old, ugly, divorced chicks.

Or not to show too much enthusiasm for the Nazis

Speaking at the official launch, Kristian Jensen, the Library’s head of Arts and Humanities, said: “This process allows books to fulfill their original aim of being useful to as many people as possible.”

I thought that is already understood: the copyright should be extended forever, for the profit of the grand-grand-...-grand children of the author (too bad if the author sold the rights to the publisher... but it's irrelevant for the usefulness of books, isn't it?).

Besides, digitization comes with the risk of exposing these "as many" to words, facts and attitudes that are quite sensitive today. I hope that Google will take note: even more recent pieces needed a "translation" to make them politically correct.

Again: can we let the Tea Party and Michele Bachmann be hurt if indiscriminate digitized papers of the time showed that the founding fathers did own slaves (and, possibly, more than own)?

</sarcasm>

I wonder: if this had been a GIRL shopping such a list about boys, would we have even had a Slashdot article to read about it?

It's already happened, only the circumstances were far worse (revealing intimate details, including photographs, going viral). Quote from the article I've linked to:

The comment thread on Jezebel focuses on whether or not Karen Owen is being unfairly castigated because she is a woman, presuming that, had a man posted such a list, the fallout would not be as great.

It was all over the news and is a known controversy with the show about the continual racist comments.

Here is a news article about the show slamming Mexicans: http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/mexico/110201/BBC-racist-mexican-stereotypes-top-gear and http://www.nowpublic.com/world/bbc-apologies-top-gear-racist-comments-about-mexico

Germans: http://news.scotsman.com/latestnews/Germans-up-in-arms-over.2686710.jp and http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/text/apps_aprjun2006_text.html

Gays: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6189163.stm

If you watch it all the time you must have known about the ongoing racist issues with that show. I'm guessing you don't actually watch the show at all.

I've backed up my statements and stand by every one of them as the truth.

I repost my answer to that:
http://www.nowpublic.com/environment/decertification-part-ii-history-sahara-desert-attempt-stop-decertification-6 [nowpublic.com]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbre_du_T%C3%A9n%C3%A9r%C3%A9
Sahara was quite green just a few thousand years ago.

warning more serious link, maybe too much for average slashdoter to handle.
http://www.nowpublic.com/environment/decertification-part-ii-history-sahara-desert-attempt-stop-decertification-6

http://www.nowpublic.com/world/egypt-protests-residents-open-wifi-networks-protestors-2751360.html

I submitted a seperate story on this - before seeing this story.
Any ways - I think this gives greater significance to the WiFi p2p protocols - couple of links I can find in a rush:

http://netsukuku.freaknet.org/
http://sourceforge.net/p/widi/home/

... On the other hand, there's every chance Scott Shoemaker's kid was chewing on shitty chinese-made Cadmium-laced or lead-laced toys. Or chewing lead paint from the house's walls.

Blaming the vaccines is stupid.

Yes, but they got the Low Price Always[TM]! And isn't that the only thing that really matters?

Did he have heavy metal poisoning? If you look up the symptoms you'll see they are quite similar.

In order to get heavy metal poisoning from vaccines, you'd have to get vaccinated on the order of multiple times daily. There are much easier ways to get yourself an accumulation of toxic metals.

On the other hand, there's every chance Scott Shoemaker's kid was chewing on shitty chinese-made Cadmium-laced or lead-laced toys. Or chewing lead paint from the house's walls.

Blaming the vaccines is stupid.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_parachute

http://www.irstaxattorney.com/bankruptcy/Golden_Parachute.html

http://www.nowpublic.com/tech-biz/times-mirror-exec-payoffs-revealed-tribune-bankruptcy-filing

http://chicagobreakingbusiness.com/2010/07/tribune-co-proposes-severance-packages-for-top-execs-if-they-are-dismissed.html

http://www.politicalwrinkles.com/economics/8338-former-wamu-execs-sue-golden-parachutes.html

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1458937/how_to_cure_the_golden_parachutes.html

But perhaps the best explanation, and the most damning to your case, can be found here:

http://definitions.uslegal.com/g/golden-parachute-payment/

I'll reprint the relevant bit here, because it is such an absolute and direct refutation of your silly, uninformed opinions.

According to 12 CFR 359.1 [Title 12 -- Banks and Banking; Chapter III -- Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation; Subchapter B -- Regulations and Statements of General Policy; Part 359 -- Golden Parachute and Indemnification Payments], golden parachute payment means “any payment (or any agreement to make any payment) in the nature of compensation by any insured depository institution or an affiliated depository institution holding company for the benefit of any current or former IAP pursuant to an obligation of such institution or holding company that:

(i) Is contingent on, or by its terms is payable on or after, the termination of such party's primary employment or affiliation with the institution or holding company; and

(ii) Is received on or after, or is made in contemplation of, any of the following events:

(A) The insolvency (or similar event) of the insured depository institution which is making the payment or bankruptcy or insolvency (or similar event) of the depository institution holding company which is making the payment; or

WOW! So, "Golden Parachutes" are actually (among other things) meant to protect executives in the case of bankruptcy.

I just have to ask, why do you bother? I mean, every. single. time. you try to argue with me, you lose. Doesn't it get tiring?

Victims of this extrajudicial punishment network -- what some have termed "the torture matrix" -- maintain that its operatives are acting as judge, jury and executioner for what amounts to an evil shadow government. So-called "targeted individuals" -- and by extension, entire families -- are subject to physical assault and psychological and physical harassment that victims say amounts to officially-sanctioned domestic torture. Some victims have moved to other cities and towns seeking a safe harbor -- but they say the persecution recurs in their new locale.

"It appears to be a nationwide network that attracts extremists as well as law-and-order types and people connected to public safety such as firefighters, utility workers, police auxiliaries, retired police and military officers, and even their family members, including children and teenagers," says one victim, who says he has been "gang stalked" for several years. "I doubt it could exist without some people in positions of power looking the other way."

Even some regular, uniformed police are reported to have been intimidated by this network of extrajudicial punishment -- described benignly by its defenders as a social "control" mechanism.

Victims say that they are physically harassed and relentlessly stalked, whether they travel on foot or in vehicles. GPS devices are secreted in their cars or cell phones. When a "target" enters a designated "node" area -- whether near or far -- the local vigilantes in that area receive a signal on their GPS or cellphone devices, often accompanied by a read-out of commands from the "team leader," specifying what kind of sadistic psychological terror and harassment to dish out.
http://www.nowpublic.com/world/gestapo-usa-govt-funded-vigilante-network-terrorizes-america

This is what anonymous members are going to be experiencing. Scientology might be behind some of it, the governments pissed off at wikileaks supporters might be behind some of it, hacker vigilantes and US military cyber warriors might be behind some of it, and Scotland Yard, the FBI, and global counter intelligence agencies will be behind most of it.

Know the risks before you enter the stage.

I said in over a dozen comments that this is exactly what would happen. I mentioned vigilante gang stalking, I listed websites, got told that it was just a conspiracy. I told people anonymous will be tracked down, got told I was a coward. I told people that these people would be gangstalked, have their lives destroyed permanently, you see?

So now it's happening. Scotland Yard admits it. Anyone who wants to know what gangstalking is and what to expect if you have associated with anonymous:

http://www.nowpublic.com/world/gestapo-usa-govt-funded-vigilante-network-terrorizes-america

The government vigilantes mean business and are completely ruthless. He just got outed as being a member of anonymous, this is like being outed as a communist back during the anti-communist era.

At this point counter intelligence agencies are going to run his name through their national security databases. Then they'll find out what they can use against him, or what they can use to entrap and or destroy him. Then they'll give that information to the anti-wikileaks vigilantes

You can bet on that.

Why will they go after him? To get the names and identities of the others.

What can we do about the Gestapo America? BTW this article should be titled "Corporations hire professional stalkers to track employees outside of the workplace."

Shouldn't the OP be modded funny? - didn't anyone look at the link?

These corporate sociopath CEO's have enough money to hire private investigators to stalk us. They can come up with whatever excuse or have no reason at all. These investigators have the power to ruin marriages, friendships, careers.

What can we do about the Gestapo America? BTW this article should be titled "Corporations hire professional stalkers to track employees outside of the workplace."

If there is this kind of heavy handed crap going on at companies we are supposed to trust, we all know where to send the evidence. I know that not everyone agrees, but somehow I feel better in the world knowing that Wikileaks is on call, doing its thing.

You are going to have them thinking you are a Wikileaks supporter. Then their heavy handed tactics will be directed at you.

No I don't think anyone wants to mess with the government. If you had any idea of just how heavy the tactics are...

Read the article

...fear itself.

If there is this kind of heavy handed crap going on at companies we are supposed to trust, we all know where to send the evidence. I know that not everyone agrees, but somehow I feel better in the world knowing that Wikileaks is on call, doing its thing.

You are going to have them thinking you are a Wikileaks supporter. Then their heavy handed tactics will be directed at you.

No I don't think anyone wants to mess with the government. If you had any idea of just how heavy the tactics are...

Read the article

What is a target of opportunity?

The website describes it:

"This website is devoted to fighting Terrorism and forced integration of Marxist oriented ideals and values into the American mainstream.

http://www.targetofopportunity.com/

It's about to get really dirty.
http://www.nowpublic.com/world/gestapo-usa-govt-funded-vigilante-network-terrorizes-america

+1

It's the dirty little secret that the TSA doesn't want you to know: Bombs carried into the passenger cabin would likely be ineffective in bringing down a modern airliner.

The "underwear bomber" wouldn't have succeeded (source: http://www.nowpublic.com/world/boeing-747-exlposion-test-video-shows-underwear-bomber-failure-2589249.html ).

In 1994, Ramzi Yousef set off a bomb on Philippine Airlines Flight 434 it failed to bring down the aircraft (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine_Airlines_Flight_434 ).

Is it a good idea to keep bombs off planes? Absolutely - But planes are remarkably resilient. There's a reason a 737 costs $75M. They're incredibly well engineered.

Bush's Fatherland Security czar, Michael Chertoff, profits from the sale of the nudie-scanners.

http://gawker.com/5437499/why-is-michael-chertoff-so-excited-about-full+body-scanners

http://www.nowpublic.com/world/full-body-scanner-lobby-michael-chertoff-rapiscan-2552674.html

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2627190/posts

http://motherjones.com/mojo/2010/01/airport-scanner-scam

Or instead of Doritos you're drinking a beer and then you get fired.

That looks like a cut and dried case of unfair dismissal.

Either that or there's more to the story than the article gives us. (e.g. it's some wacky religious school where the contract stipulates no drinking even outside work)

Or instead of Doritos you're drinking a beer and then you get fired.

Have you actually seen the 10:10 mini movie? It's typical UK style black humour, written by the same guy who wrote Blackadder, it's style is reminicent of Monty Python's "Holy Grail". It was withdrawn due to complaints about violence from people like you who didn't get the joke.

There is more to this story.

http://www.nowpublic.com/tech-biz/tara-fitzgerald-says-dell-technician-downloaded-her-nude-photos-2645780.html

This is not the first disaster for BP that ended in the loss of life.

What's it got to do with BP? The rig was owned and operated by a company called Transocean. BP (and others) just leased it off them to do the drilling (and no BP employee was involved in the actual work).

Incidentally, the company working on the well head was a company called Halliburton. They were pumping cement into the well to prepare it when things went bad.

and at the end, its a group of companies, all blaming each other and each one trying desperately to avoid paying out. BP, to its credit, has accepted responsibility even though its almost certainly not to blame. Perhaps the US government won't be able to blame the Swiss-located Transocean (for tax reasons, 50 Transocean people work in the Swiss HQ, whereas the rest work in the USA - all 26,000 of them).

http://www.nowpublic.com/world/sri-lanka-buddhist-mobs-attack-churches

I'm guessing that anything including a photo is right out then?

http://cricbio.blogspot.com/2009/09/hanif-mohammad.html

http://www.nowpublic.com/life/teddy-mohammed-bear-instant-web-star

Just "concede" defeat (and Chinese ass-hattery) and call it a day.

What, why? If you give in to evil at the first sign of opposition, then evil will always win. It is true there is no way Google is going to single-handedly cause China to stop censoring, but imagine if you lived in China, and suddenly some multi-national corporation shows they care enough to make a small stand in favor of the people, in favor of freedom?

It is without a doubt having an effect on some people, look at these flowers that were laid at google's Chinese headquarters. I think it must be impossible to gauge how the Chinese people feel about this, and most of them probably are more worried about dust-storms than about Google, but some people do care and appreciate it.

Your money (or a percentage of it) being held for 3-6 months for refunds is pretty much how all credit card processors work. Look it up.

Interest? Well this depends on the your credit card processor doesn't it? These are questions to ask before you start using them. (Interest rates are so low right now whats the point anyway)

Even when taking donations your still going to get refund requests, for whatever reason. A popular one I've encountered personally is "My kid used my credit card/Paypal account without my permission, I want my money back!"

Also, I've read that people will use online donations to check if a stolen credit card is active.

With Visa requiring that merchants keep their complaint rate under 1% it's not hard to see how easy it is to get your account frozen.

Most of the Australians I meet have moved here (London), so they're probably not representative of Australians as a whole.

I've just looked up what the Queen said (here). You might be surprised to see that she spoke only of the Commonwealth.

In the last year I've shared a flat with two Australians, and I've sometimes been surprised how conservative they are, but I'm still deciding whether that's because they're Australian or because of their rich parents etc.

Exactly. Iran is a country that

Doesn't have any gays. How exactly these executions of non-existing homosexuals work is a mystery to all ...

Doesn't have any protests against islam* (just look through the link, you'll find no mention of protests, and certainly none of what exactly was protested against). However despite there not being any protests, they must stop, or the Iranian state will start killing people

* strictly speaking it's protests against "islamic government". However, if you take the laws out of islam there's nothing left, like with judaism. All parts of the islamic "religion" and practice are centered around the islamic state (there's no real equivalent in Judaism anymore), the "caliphate". Due to the last caliph ditching the muslims after (well, actually shortly before) being ousted by a gay Ottoman colonel, however, generally one refers to the "ummah" instead of the long dead headless carcass that is the islamic state. In theory muslim laws state that any muslim who does not live in the (now non-existent) muslim state should either emigrate (but one can't emigrate to a non-existent country of course) or kill themselves, to avoid helping infidels. Not many followers of that specific law, though. Ayatollah khomeini (a child-rapist, like the muslim prophet), found of the islamic republic, famously said that there is no spirituality of note in islam, there are only laws. Factions attempting to introduce various forms of spirituality, foremost the Sufi muslims, are persecuted and even massacred for it.

How any muslim can (legally) be a muslim, given that the state islam doesn't actually exist, is not very clear, a fact that is frequently explosively illustrated by the more nutty terrorists among them. This may seem like an idiotically absurd issue, not legally (according to sharia obviously) being a muslim, but for a hell of a lot of people in the middle east this is a huge issue. Jews have a similar issue, due to Israel, while claiming to be a Jewish state, actually follows western law with a few tiny exceptions (ie. marriage). It does not, for example, follow the "a tooth for a tooth" principle of Jewish law. If you injure a Jew in a car accident in Israel, the police will not chop of your leg (muslims have inherited this law from judaism, but even in the worst muslim states, the practice is dying). Nor will you lose limbs for stealing. For many Jews, Israel is a state where Jews are safe, not so much a Jewish state. And for people who live by the most idiotic of laws, which may (or may not) have been reasonable at one time, but have long since lost all meaning, this is a huge problem.

One thing people don't understand is the fundamental differences between ideologies. Jesus Christ (the figure, real or not, described in the new testament) abolished this practice of blindly following laws. Faith in Jesus Christ, according to the gospel, is supposed to follow not from rigid adherence to rules, but from love and trust in the Lord, Jesus Christ. The standard of behavior for Christians is not a rigid set of laws, but a following of a good example. A Christian in trouble would sit down and pray, and honestly believe, that God will rescue him/her, a strange, but very Christian, behavior you will not find amongst muslims. Even in medieval books describing good behavior you will find this reflected : Christian books lead by example, while Jewish and islamic behavioral laws are strict laws.example 1 example 2 The tinyest of behaviors is exactly regulated, and a muslim is supposed to follow these rules,

It isn't as though the Feds will do anything with whatever they find.

Can you imagine what would happen if other markets went the way of OSS and FSF ideals? You'd get a few finished products and a lot of half-baked, half-finished products. You'll have to supply your own containers when shopping for soup at the market, and provide your botulism test because the kitchen hadn't gotten around to it yet. You go to buy a car, but someone decided to break with convention and try a new brake design. He's delivered the car in a .5 Alpha and makes a small note that the brake fluid/master cylinder/wheel interface isn't ready yet.

Yeah... I'm so glad everything in today's world is all finished products. The version of Windows is final, never needs patches or fixes. Since everything is so nicely tested cars never have recalls for things like spontaneous fires or fuel leaking. I am so glad when you go shopping you can be 100% confident that the meat you just bought has no harmful gut bacteria since the slaughterhouse would surely not chop open the intestines of the animal while butchering it. The industry does such a good of regulating itself behind closed doors that if we saw how well they operate internally we couldn't possibly find a single way of improving it, because the system that a dozen infallible geniuses think up is a billion times better than what you and I and a billion other people could ever devise.

</sarcasm>

Wake up! THE MAN is as fallible as anybody else. Just because it's open doesn't mean it's unfinished or half-baked.

It's not WiFi they are protecting against - its "see through walls" mm waves that this will be especially effective against.

From the article :

"I'm working on a material that can absorb a larger range of frequencies. We are capable of making a paint that can absorb over 200 gigahertz."

This will stop Through-the-Wall Surveillance Technology cold.

Since 100 GHz is a 3 mm wave, and 200 GHz a 1.5 mm wave, they much have fairly small (100 micron) aluminum oxide particles in the paint.

Now, the paint will also stop any lower frequencies (longer wavelengths). However, these waves will go through any open holes in the paint that are much larger than a quarter of a wavelength or so - such as doors and windows. (Cell phones typically have wavelengths of about a meter to 10 cm - these low frequencies will also refract around household objects, while mm waves are much more line of sight.) So, I predict that in many cases the cell phone will work, while the "see through wall" technology will not. Of course, you'll have to make sure not to put what you are trying to hide in front of a window - or to get a very fine-meshed window screen.

It won't fit, but this is getting close:
http://www.nowpublic.com/culture/worlds-largest-ice-cream-sundae

Actually, most courts would probably consider what you described as involuntary manslaughter (specifically, criminally negligent manslaughter).

Heck, these guys deliberately pulled the trigger and were still only charged with manslaughter.

Yes. Flash memory cell is basically a capacitor, and it slowly leaks (because dielectrics are not perfect), no guesses here. Lifetime of data varies between 5 and 10 years.

I'm too lazy to google for papers, so here is the top search result:
http://www.nowpublic.com/tech-biz/gonna-live-forever-flash-memory-slower-decay

I've been researching this, and it's certainly interesting that the FAA is looking into this, but I'm really inclined to say NO.

A Predator B drone crashed in the southwest in 2006. They blamed pilot error. The North Little Rock Police Department has been testing an unmanned helicopter over rural airspace, and the helicopter crashed during a test flight in June. They blamed software error. Technology has outpaced law, they say. We have to change the law to keep up with technology, they say. Uh, why don't we wait to say that until the technology is stable enough that it doesn't put innocent lives at risk to let these things dart around in commercial airspace?

Dear Houston and Miami,
Look up and wave. The FAA already approved for police departments in these areas to use unmanned aerial vehicles over populated areas.

Interesting side note: I don't know how many people it takes to operate a normal drone, but the helicopter drone that the NLRPD was operating took 4 people to run it.

I love when life gives you these things that you just can't make up.

A lot of police departments want these new toys, and there are a lot of companies making these things. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are already used for border patrol. One of these border patrol UAVs (a Predator B) crashed in 2006. Safety concerns + excessive surveillance concerns = fun for the whole family.

I've been looking into this stuff because my hometown is trying to get permission for this too. The one my hometown is testing out is a helicopter equipped with a regular camera and an infrared camera. They can't fly it over populated areas yet.

Regulatory thing: The FAA's current view of UAVs is that they can't be used over populated areas. Period. BUT, you guys in Houston and Miami should probably look up and wave every now and then, because the Houston and Miami area police departments got clearance from the FAA to fly their UAVs over these urban areas. The FAA isn't planning on revising their policy on UAV use in civilian airspace until at least 2010, but Houston and Miami are basically test areas to help them figure out what sort of regulations would be needed. You guys feel safer yet?

Be aware that Canada has some interesting challenges to freedom of speech with regards to the political process, including campaign finance limits (note the US has some too) and something about a media blackout of election coverage. There also exist certain "hate speech" provisions (for some criticism, do a quick Google search and/or see here here and here, warning, these sites may contain bias independent of their stance on freedom of speech... that's kind of the idea behind freedom of speech, though, so I hope you can cope).

Constellation != all "high-IQ" pursuits. Obama is funding tons of R&D, so unless you consider cancer research to be a "low-IQ" pursuit, you're just plain wrong. Knocking $800 million off NASA's budget, while not something I approve of, hardly defines a trend away from research, when there's $16 billion going the other way.

This is why nobody listened to your warnings. Because your warnings were wrong and stupid, and mouthed by an idiot.

Calling Obama a bolshevik just seals the deal. There's no way you can know what the word means and apply it to him in a meaningful way. You're probably using Bolshevik as a stand-in for Marxist or Communist, which is equally retarded, and is just another stand-in for Socialist, another scare-word people use but don't understand. When you can't tell the difference between the systems of England and post-revolution Russia, randomly spewing words associated with them does not convince anyone of anything but that you are a loon.