Slashdot Mirror

Article: "As long as new game titles are top quality - offering exciting game play and high production value - we believe that interactive Christian games will skyrocket in popularity much like Christian music did 15 years ago."

Well, if that is their baseline for success -- we can only hope.

You may not be familiar with it, but the amount of Christian music being sold isn't small -- 47 million albums/year according to one source.

Or how about "$800 million in [Christian music] sales [that] topped sales of classical music and jazz combined..." (from a story talking about, oddly enough, the piracy of Xian music).

Christian music is big business, with its own famous bands, concerts, and record lables. And don't think that its all old time gospel music either -- it runs the gauntlet from folk music to pop to Christian metal.

A double - talk : Microsoft Corp. says it is looking to turn over more of its programs to open-source software developers, playing a greater role (then why open source bashing?)in a process that the Redmond company has criticized strongly at times in the past.

Earlier Microsoft had a policy : If you cannot convince, confuse. Now they are following : if you cannot beat them, join them.

You mean this picture #9?

The one with the caption that reads "The Spinner flying car from the movie "Blade Runner" (1982) hangs in the third-floor special events area."?

They took the action figures out of their original packaging!?!?!?!

Took me a while to find them...

Here (without the annoying popup)

After seeing those... I'm disappointed to say the least.

As long as the ads are clearly labeled, they should be accepted. Rather then calling for a boycott, write articles explaining why the ads are misleading.

M$ will probably pull them themselves if you do.

Oh well, whatever. I have a suspicion that this boycott will fail miserably.

Anthony Zinni is not stranger to the Middle East and Israel. He was the US mediator trying to end the current uprising there. He knows the players and the facts on the ground.

MORE MUSLIMS NOW SEE U.S., ISRAEL THE SAME WAY

Wayne Parry, Associated Press, 5/28/04

PATERSON, N.J. -- Israel's dealings with the Palestinians have long been the top grievance of many Muslims and Arab-Americans when they think about the Middle East.

But the prisoner abuse case and America's other setbacks in Iraq are increasingly linking the United States with Israel in the minds of many Muslims, who now equate American treatment of Iraqis with Israel treatment of Palestinians _ surely one of the last things President Bush hoped for when he authorized the war in Iraq.

"The more you look at Iraq, the more you see a replica of what is happening in the West Bank," said Hani Awadallah, president of the Arab-American Civic Organization in Paterson. "The story is no longer that we are there for liberation. It is clear to everybody that we are there as conquerors..."

Televised images of American troops battling insurgents in Iraq _ and graphic footage of wounded and dead civilians _ resonate among a Muslim community long used to seeing similar pictures beamed from Palestinian refugee camps.

At the Islamic Center of Passaic County, one of New Jersey's most influential mosques, many worshippers express concern.

"The same thing is happening in Iraq and in Palestine: One force has all the power and the other side is trying to defend itself and find its liberty," said Nabil Abbassi, the center's president.

"The whole reason we went to Iraq was to liberate it," he said. "What is going on is not liberation. All the problems of the people in the jail and the animosity toward the U.S. doesn't help us. It's definitely heading in the wrong direction. We're getting ourselves deeper and deeper into a quicksand situation."

Ahmed Shedeed, director of the Islamic Center of Jersey City, put it more succinctly: "An occupation is an occupation."

ISRAEL: NOW YOU SEE IT, NOW YOU DON'T

Robert L. Jamieson, Jr., Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 5/29/04

King County Democrats just pulled off a nifty magic trick.

They made Israel disappear.

Not the country, mind you, but the word -- as it had appeared in proposed language for the party's 2004 county platform.

The plank called for the United States to stop sending aid to Israel unless it treats the Palestinian people with dignity and respect. But when county Democrats, preparing for the big state convention, ironed out the final wrinkles of the platform Tuesday, "Israel" vanished.

Poof.

The whole thing makes me wonder if the "party of the people" is open to all so long as influential toes are not stepped on. Do that, and the Democrats suddenly become "the party of select folks who must be tip-toed around."

I'm talking, of course, about supporters of Israel.

This tale of abracadabra began May 8, when the King County Democratic Party gathered for a convention in Seattle. It was a time when thinking people could put forth thoughtful planks for the platform.

Naseem Tuffaha, a Seattle businessman and a voice of consciousness in the Arab American community, offered this: "We believe our tax dollars should not be sent to Israel while it is in violation of international law..."

ZINNI CHARGES NEOCONS PUSHED IRAQ WAR TO BENEFIT ISRAEL

Ori Nir And Ami Eden, Forward, 5/28/04

The simmering debate over the role of Jewish neoconservatives in drawing America into war in Iraq erupted with new fury this week. One of America's most respected ex-generals took to the airwaves to c

Probably the same reason he needed "donations" from taxpayers to build a new football stadium. He's also trying to get the city of Seattle to build him a new streetcar to the neighborhood he owns.

PlayStation 2 outsold by Xbox for first time

Microsoft Corp. said its Xbox, benefiting from a price cut at the end of March, captured 51 percent of the U.S. video-game console market for the month of April, besting Sony's PlayStation 2 in monthly sales for the first time.

The Redmond company, citing statistics from research firm NPD Funworld, said the PlayStation 2's U.S. market share was 32 percent. Redmond-based Nintendo of America had a market share of 17 percent for its GameCube. Microsoft cut the price of the Xbox from $179 to $149 at the end of March, and Sony followed suit earlier this month. The GameCube sells for $99.

Let's face it, the PS2 is starting to look pretty dated. The Gamecube, sadly, never quite got the props it deserves. Hence the XBox, with it's relatively well-thought out online play and excellent horsepower-to-cost ratio, along with finally scoring several solid licenses is starting to pick up.

Now, if this is a sustainable - or even repeatable - business for Microsoft or not is a separate question.

I don't think it will have a similar capacity. I wouldn't even bet on it being a microsoft product, as that last bastion of journalistic integrity, as the apple turns has a linked story that has a bit more to chew on (but not much more) than the denver post article.

The quote about the $50 players was left out, but it does still contain the 'look and feel' quote, and he is obviously referring to third-party players that will be launched alongside a new microsoft music download service.

What kind of hard drive could a manufacturer possibly put in a player for less than $50 - none, maybe flash 128/256 - but that's already on the market, and has been for some time. Anyway, I choose to believe this to be just more Microsoft FUD until I see such a $50 iPod killer.

No, the U.S. observes the Geneva Convention to the best of its ability.

...which appears to be quite limited.

The U.S. officially calls these guys a few things (such as "detainees") rather than "prisoners of war"

Which proves how limited their ability to follow the Geneva convention is. Wars with "regular armed forces", with "identifiable uniforms or markings", are more an exception than a rule today.

For the information of your only Proud American neuron in that empty thing you insist calling head, the American war of indipendence was also fought by people you stigmatise as "thugs, murderers and criminals" (at least the Red Coats called them so, and they were indeed a proper regular army).

It's very convenient for the US military to call these POWs with euphemisms such as detainees to deny them any basic right. If they are, as you say, a

little more than a step up from street gangs

I've seen this worrying development in the US mentality, everybody seems to justify anything the military does. General Kimmit had yesterday the guts to say that bad people have parties too, after a movie showing the bombing of a wedding in Iraq was found. That guy would really deserve being tried for war crimes.

Mod me down as you wish, I could not care less. But remember that a country heading this way is heading to no good.

From a recent Seattle Times article:
"The IRS has said time exchanges can be tax-exempt for several reasons: they're informal and noncommercial in nature; they aren't legally enforceable but backed only by a moral obligation; their purpose is charitable."
(The quote is from about two-thirds the way down the page. Search for IRS to find it quickly.)

I don't know if I'd call it charitable in many cases. I think the article may have mangled the IRS's reasoning, but I am pretty confident that non-legally binding service exchange is not taxable. Imagine the accounting headaches if it were, and the trouble enforcing it.

"So tired of re-reading this wholey incorrect statement by so many people. From day one, humanitarian reasons have been stated."

No they were not. Simply saying so does not make it the truth. The run up to the war was all about 9/11 and the threat of mushroom clouds.

"He's now getting bitch-slapped for making that mistake."

He is a dunce. He got pwoned by the fucking iranians. He got duped about the WMDs. He is an idiot who believes things people tell him as long as what they tell him agrees with what god tells him.

Or maybe the whole thing was an Iranian plot:

Iran used Chalabi to dupe U.S., report says

when i have to choose between the big three (Tully's, Seattle's Best, and Starbucks)

If I'm not mistaken, Starbucks now owns Seattle's Best. So it's really more like "big two," or perhaps "enormous one" and "nice try."

NY Times
The Age
Seattle Post

McBride is at a Loss for Words

Maybe he shouldn't have used them all up before.

This is probably a good thing. In fact, as it presently stands Darl could teach a thing or two about not running your mouth off unnecessarily to a certain other proprietary Unix company.

No, Bush isn't doing anything about AIDS.

Last year, he tripled the budget for foriegn aid earmarked to fighting AIDS in Africa and the Caribbean to $15 Billion over 3 years. There are lots of things to criticize Bush about, but this may be the one thing he's done right.

Yeah, that's the amazing part. The Subaru WRX (which I own) gets 30 mpg if I'm easy on puching the pedal.

It's rated at almost 230 HP and is all wheel drive and can be purchased for less than a hyrbid.

Of course, the ultimate in fuel effiency and speed is here.

This is not legal advice. You are not a client. I'm not even an attorney. If you want legal advice, contact an attorney admitted to your jurisdiction's bar. What I am saying here is probably 100% wrong and if you do anything in reliance upon it, you are a blithering idiot who deserves whatever bad shit is very likely to befall you.

Okay, now that the requisite idiot-proofing is out of the way . . .

The US Supreme Court passed on this issue a long time ago. The case was Brady v. Maryland 373 US 83 (1963). Quoth the headnote from the opinion:

Suppression by the prosecution of evidence favorable to an accused who has requested it violates due process where the evidence is material either to guilt or to punishment, irrespective of the good faith or bad faith of the prosecution. Pp. 86-88.

Here's an article to accompany this story. Plus no need to register with NYT. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/ 2001923719_japannet09.html

An alleged report has been leaked; the consensus of opinion among those who I work for is that this report has been severely doctored by whomever released it to the Arab press.

• NASA's 2004 budget: $15.4 billion
• A fleet of 100 Boeing 747-400s (at $215 million each at 2002 prices): $21.5 billion
• A Subaru Outback (at $23,470 MSRP) for every person in Seattle (pop. 563,374 in 2000 census): $13.2 billion.
• Total: $50.1 billion

I would like things to change in November, but I have two shitty choices for Senator. The House of Representatives don't look like they plan to change anything either.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. But the corollary of that is obvious. Some things are not working so well these days.

Congress better think for itself and make decisions that are good for the people, and how to spend our tax money.

And states might want to start exercising their rights, especially if the federal government keeps things on this track for too much longer.

Unfortunately, the federal government can still control immigration, national funding of education and research, taxation, etc.

What are some solutions?

Who cares? Compared to the fact that the draft board is making plans to draft geeks the blacklisting of certain keywords in govt. computer systems seems a rather trivial issue.

"In line with today's needs, the Selective Service System's structure, programs and activities should be re-engineered toward maintaining a national inventory of American men and, for the first time, women, ages 18 through 34, with an added focus on identifying individuals with critical skills,"

How much more relevant the Slashdot editors choices of blacklisted keywords and the SEC fine of Gates are to the average geek reading slashdot! It will be so good to know when you get sent out to Baghdad to fight for Halliburton, that there are people back in the US fighting for the right of middle ranking civil servants to visit gay web sites during working hours.

If news of the plannning were not enough Rumsfeld has denied that the administration thinks that extending the draft is desirable or necessary. If you have been following the real news sites with stuff that matters you will know that Rumsfeld also said that there was no need for more troops in Iraq only a week before they were sent.

It used to be that American companies were focused on producing more and better products. Now, the focus is exclusively on how to crank out more expensive versions of the same crap. Also, the notorious shortsightedness of American companies has only gotten worse since the stock market has been inflated to a ridiculous, unsustainable level.

Case in point: Boeing. The Sonic Cruiser was something new and innovative - and was killed. The 7E7 is a more efficient, more polished version of the same thing they've been building for 20 or so years. After all, R&D costs money and you don't recoup those costs this quarter.

Shrek 2 - not sure if it's a direct sequel, but there are about a dozen games based on the first film, including Shrek: Super party and Shrek Extra Large.

Syphon Filter: The Omega Strain - sequel to Syphon Filter 1, 2 and 3 for the Playstation 1.

The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventure - semisequel/spinoff to a Gameboy advance game, which in turn was a remake of the Super Nintendo game The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past.

DRIV3R - sequel to Driver 2 and Driver for the Playstation 1.

Spider-man 2" - sequel to Spider-man 1.

Karaoke revolution 2 - sequel to Karaoke Revolution.

Pikmin 2 - sequel to Pikmin.

Headhunter: Redemption - sequel to Headhunter.

Madden NFL 2005 - the next sequel in the longest running sports series in all of videogames.

Half-Life 2 - sequel to Half-Life on the PC.

Ratchet and Clank: Up your Arsenal - the 3rd game in the R&C series.

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas - the 3rd game in the Grand Theft Auto III series (there were earlier games, GTA and GTA2, but they are very primitive the newer games are not really direct successors to the older games).

Metal gear Solid 3: Snake Eater - 3rd in the Metal Gear Solid series.

Bloodrayne 2 - sequel to Bloodrayne.

Silent Hill 4: The Room - fourth in the Silent Hill series.

Kingdom Hearts 2 - sequel to Kingdom Hearts.

Jak III - 3rd in the series.

Need for Speed Underground 2 - 2nd in the NFS Underground series.

Dungeon Siege 2 - sequel to Dungeon Siege.

Dynasty Warriors 4: Empires - 4rth in the Dynasty Wariors series.

State of Emergency 2 - sequel to State of Emergency.

In the preceding list all but two are direct sequels, the exceptions being Shrek 2, which is a game based on a licensed property (the original Shrek movie also having many games based upon it), and The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventure, which is a spinoff/semisequel to the Gameboy Advance version of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, which itself is a remake of the Super Nintendo game of the same name.

Not an orginal idea as far as the eye can see. The big publishers can't afford to have a high-profile game flop due to multi-million dollar budgets and 3-5year development cycles. The videogame industry has become a mirror image of the movie and music industry, as they ignore creativity in favor of dependability. And that, my friend, is the state of the industry today.

This suit has to my knowledge already been settled.

Looks like VoteHere doesn't want more bad PR.
A quote from an article at the seatle times:

"We have resolved the matter to our mutual satisfaction and have agreed that we are in pursuit of many of the same goals for election reform," Spillane's attorney, Stan Lippmann, said.

Fired engineer reaches deal with election-software company:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/20 01795328_voting19m.html

30 seconds on Google and Voila... ;)

Actually Microsoft made money on most of its divisions except for the option charges it took when it converted options to shares.

Here is a Seattle PI story on it 2 Microsoft units post losses"

They're profitable over most of their divisions, some more than others and there are thoses that are losing money.

oh no?

• IPO = Initial Public Offerin
• SEC = Securities and Exchange Commission (currently DDoSed)

"In the filing, Google said that it generated revenues of $961.9 million in 2003 and reported a net profit of $106.5 million. Sales rose 177 percent from a year ago although earnings increased by just 6 percent." - LISnews.com.

More stories are available from CNN and The Associated Press.

Satellite-Imagery

More...

Here's some historical background on the Ark and how it relates to Iraq which should concern us today... Iraq and Noah's Ark

Get into God's Word people, you won't regret it.

The Internet functions like a jungle full of ninjas. If an unsuspecting user walks through there and gets assaulted by a ninja, her complaint might be "But that's illegal!" right before her head is separated from her body. In order to catch a ninja, you have to be a ninja -- you have to swing through the trees with the greatest of ease and slice his head off. To survive without being a ninja, you put on a massive suit of armor so that it's harder to slice your head off. It can still happen, though, so you need to know how to use your armor.

I'm being overly dramatic and overly metaphorical, so I'll make it simple:

You CANNOT stop spam, viruses, worms, phreaks, spyware, hacks, cracks, modchips, reverse engineering, social engineering, or DOS attacks by making them illegal. I'm not saying that all of them should be legal, just that our tax dollars should not go to writing laws about them.

You can ONLY stop these things by educating people on how to not get hurt by them. Because they are all a confidence game on the user's computer, and on the user themself, they can all be prevented, but only by intelligent users.

Our tax dollars should go to educating people about how to not get hit by these things. Every school should be given funds to educate children in such things as programming/scripting (the basics of which go hand-in-hand with what they're learning in math), security, the basics of how to generally use software (like how to use any email client, not just Outlook Express or Hotmail) as well as things like open source/Linux (teaches them something they can take home without begging mommy and daddy to spend $20-$200 on a new piece of software)...

Even outside of schools, people should know that you don't just go download some new piece of software just because it looks cool and some friend told you about it. You go online and look it up, find out how many people are using it and what they think of it, whether the company that made it is trustworthy, whether there's an open source alternative, and so on. If you still want to try it and it doesn't look trustworthy, you run it in an untrusted user account, throwaway wine setup, chrooted environment, usermode linux, or throwaway computer.

People should know what a web browser / email client is and why you need to use one that is standards-compliant and secure. They should know how to set up sandboxes to play with potentially unsafe stuff. They should know how to use PGP, or at least why they care. They should know that it doesn't matter who they are or how unimportant their stuff is, someone wants to break into their computer, especially if it's easy.

What's more, We have the money. We just have to spend it on the right things.

you will be fired for taking photographs of U.S coffins

Guess we shouldn't know about our troops getting flown back home - in coffins.

Personally, I'll keep my 65k/year job and not have to worry about having my body dragged around the streets.

No, really, at least as soon as the election is out of the way.

Only one problem with Lindows. They are $11.9 million in the hole! Their IPO is designed to do one thing - make Robertson $10.4 million. Their filing indicates that they will spend the $57.5 million they are going to raise with their IPO and be out of money in 24 months. Not only that, they "may never make a profit." What a bunch of losers. Read the news story.

How is this any different from the overtime laws that Bush managed to push through? Or is this the same law set just reworded? The actual new laws do a lot more than just hurt IT workers. Although some of this has apparently been ammended, the original proposal exempted anyone with a college degree, nurses, police, etc. This is a bad law.

Ah, here it is:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/ 2001830565_overtime06.html

That's an article about it, I used to have a copy of the actual document they're referring to.

There was an article in the Seattle PI today about Seattle's plans to do this exact same change:

Up to 80 parking meters are out of service on any given day, Krawczyk said. The pay stations are much more reliable.

The article also talks about how Portland made the same switchover, and the successes they had:

"They've worked wonderfully for us," McCoy said, adding that "Seattle people have been down here on a number of occasions" to study the Portland pay stations. Portland's pay stations have been less expensive to maintain than the oft-malfunctioning meters. And the credit cards have reduced the costs of handling coins, he said. "From a customer perspective, having the ability to make card transactions has been the big benefit down here," he said. About 50 percent of Portland's parking revenue now comes via credit cards.

Neil

Let's face it, the linux center of mass in the Pacific Northwest is decidedly south of BC. Where is OSDL? Where are the West Coast linux strategists for IBM and Intel? Where is the 2nd fastest linux cluster and 5th fastest supercomputer in the world? Where is there a large Debian based distro aimed at homes and offices? Which Pacific Northwest city has new lugs sprouting up? Which prominent lug in the north did not participate at all in LFNW 2003, the largest LFNW to that date?

The triangle of Seattle, Portland, Richland (PNL puts it on the map) is the center of mass of Linux in the Northwest. Hopefully LFNW will take this into account in the future.

I suspect this is futile, you're too busy campaigning to be bothered with facts, but....

Somehow I feel like this has become a process of doing your research for you.

Iraq Timeline


The British managed to keep that region in check for quite a long time. They handed back soveriegnty as a reward for helping out in WW1/WW2.

The British gained control over Iraq during WWI and gave them their independence in 1932 although it has been argued that they maintained control through a puppet dictator until WWII when they became no longer financially capable. At that point the US stepped in to try our hand at empire building. Prior to WWI they were ruled by the Ottoman Empire.

And you are saying we should follow the British example for ruling?

An example of British rule

"In 1921, Britain imposed a new monarch on Iraq - Faisal, "a king who will be content to reign, but not to govern," in the words of a British Foreign Office bureaucrat. The subsequent mass uproar was suppressed in brutal massacres in 1920-4. The brutality of British rule was captured in an infamous quote from Winston Churchill, who said "I do not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas. I am strongly in favor of using poisoned gas against uncivilized tribes."

I don't know anything about that group, so I searched a little further and found this on GreenPeace.org

Greenpeace

"The first use of weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East was by British forces in 1917, at a time when Britain occupied territory that was later to become Iraq. Chemical weapons were used in the process of welding the Kurdish north, the Shia south and the Sunni tribes around Baghdad, into an invented Iraqi 'kingdom' to control the region's oil. Winston Churchill, then Colonial Secretary, found "turbulent tribes" of Arabs were fighting this imperialism with some success and encouraged the use of chemical weapons. There was some opposition to this in Whitehall but Churchill wrote: "I do not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas. I am strongly in favour of using poison gas against uncivilised tribes.""

What city would you like to gas first?

In the end you have the British 'ruling' Iraq for a period of roughly 15 years. And during that period they used poisoned gas to suppress revolts whose purpose was self rule. I guess the dead were peaceful and the rest were too afraid to complain.

Of course osama was revoked his Saudi citizenship because they weren't happy with them. Iraq is an important step in the war on terror. Success in Iraq will be a major blow for the terrorists.

Here is a quote from a 'Special Press Summary' from the Virtual Information Center. I found it by searching FirstGov for information on 9-11

911 Highjackers"

From their web site:

"The Virtual Information Center (VIC) is a six-person cell that conducts research among public domain materials for the CDR U.S. Pacific Command (USPACOM) and his staff. The assessments generated by the VIC's researchers are disseminated to the headquarters staff and many other recipients as part of the VIC's situational-awareness mission."

In the section titled:

Saudi Crown Prince To Visit Moscow

"Fifteen of 19 hijackers in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks were Saudis."

Add Osama to that and you have 16 out of 20 were Saudi citizens. Yet we chose to attack Iraq, their neighbor.

I'm too lazy to look it up, it should be easy to find, but recently several experts on terrorism, and Al Qaeda in particular, have stated that all we have done with our unfocused 'war' is decentr

Can't believe I forgot to link the manufacturer's web site in my post! Here it is again:

The NYT article (available here reg-free (thanks, guys!)) is short on details, but the manufacturer's web site has much more detail.

Some interesting notes:

* Their technology currently only works on GSM phones, so here in the US, it'll only block T-Mobile customers. No more Catherine Zeta-Jones hollering "Stop!" in the middle of your bowling tournament. I hate it when that happens.

* The company is Canada-based, so they're outside the reach of Ashcroft & co. The NYT article quotes the company's founder as saying that the technology is useful in mosques... if the founder is indeed Muslim, he's probably wary of landing on Ashcroft's little Enemies List. Heck, I'm worried myself, 'cause I'm not sure what he thinks of Methodists these days!

The NYT article (available here reg-free (thanks, guys!)) is short on details, but the manufacturer's web site has much more detail.

Some interesting notes:

* Their technology currently only works on GSM phones, so here in the US, it'll only block T-Mobile customers. No more Catherine Zeta-Jones hollering "Stop!" in the middle of your bowling tournament. I hate it when that happens.

* The company is Canada-based, so they're outside the reach of Ashcroft & co. The NYT article quotes the company's founder as saying that the technology is useful in mosques... if the founder is indeed Muslim, he's probably wary of landing on Ashcroft's little Enemies List. Heck, I'm worried myself, 'cause I'm not sure what he thinks of Methodists these days!

The only people he is bad for is Enron...

HA HA HA HA HA HA HAA!!! That's funny!
Next thing, you'll be telling us he's been bad for defense contractors and pharmaceutical companies. What a comedian!

Very cute (the marketing and the tone of the site, not the girl). Google seems to have pioneered the image of the humble personally-maintained website.

It looks like the typical homepage of any CompSci geek student, but it's backed by computing power of Skynet proportions and the company is valued at over $15 billion.

Don't let the way it looks fool you - it's all deliberate and contibutes to it's popularity.

(IANAL but...) I'm not sure where this comes from. It's quite easy to sue various forms of government and government agents, such as the police (false arrest, rights violations), prosecutors (prosecutorial misconduct), Congress , and various federal agencies.

Here's some links from an almost-submitted post.

Microsoft Cuts Xbox Price to $150

Microsoft has cut the price of its Xbox game console to about $150 ($149.99), a $30 drop. The price cut was widely expected by analysts in a move to spur slowing console sales for the Xbox as the current generation approaches the end of its cycle, and gamers anticipate the next-generation of consoles in 2005. Microsoft also announced several price cuts on Xbox games and titles including 'Xbox Music Mixer, Project Gotham Racing 2 and Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge.' More coverage at CNet, CNN Money, ZDNet UK, AP via Seattle PI and Bloomberg via Seattle Times. (Microsoft press release)

Here's some links from an almost-submitted post.

Microsoft Cuts Xbox Price to $150

Microsoft has cut the price of its Xbox game console to about $150 ($149.99), a $30 drop. The price cut was widely expected by analysts in a move to spur slowing console sales for the Xbox as the current generation approaches the end of its cycle, and gamers anticipate the next-generation of consoles in 2005. Microsoft also announced several price cuts on Xbox games and titles including 'Xbox Music Mixer, Project Gotham Racing 2 and Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge.' More coverage at CNet, CNN Money, ZDNet UK, AP via Seattle PI and Bloomberg via Seattle Times. (Microsoft press release)

That's simply incorrect. Here's a list of casino's in the US. I count 18 states with casino's of some type, and I know the list is either outdated or incomplete as there are casino's in Illinois in the Quad Cities, East Peoria, Joliet and just across the river in Clinton, IA.