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Citing a groundbreaking deal with ABC, owned by The Walt Disney Co., a longtime partner of chief executive Steve Jobs' Pixar Animation Studios Inc., Apple's online iTunes store will sell episodes of hit shows "Desperate Housewives" and "Lost" for $1.99 apiece, making them available the day after they air on television.

Another possibility raised by the skeptics is that, particularly in the case of the specimen with a small braincase, the discoverers happened to come on a people suffering from a condition known as microencephaly. The disease causes abnormal brain growth and other deformities.

But a vigorous minority of skeptical scientists are unmoved by the new findings. They contend that the skeletal remains are more likely to be deformed modern humans, not a distinct species.

The people who would take a flight like this, at least initially, would be the kinds of people who could be given a special pass to speed through security and baggage check: business executives, financiers, wealthy celebs, politicians (excepting senior senators from Massachusetts), and the like. In a world population of six and a half billion, there's only a few thousand of these people, maybe a couple tens of thousands at most, who would be using this flight as a speedier replacement for private or company jets. With this relatively miniscule customer base, it wouldn't be hard to prescreen them all.

Hell, airlines already have the apparatus in place with existing programs: "When they make the cut, Global Services members are issued a black Global Services card, a leather-bound welcome kit and phone numbers of agents trained to see after their needs. Then the fun begins. The chosen ones are escorted through the security line and ushered into secret waiting lounges..."

And besides, for some of these people, time is the most valuable asset they have. Shaving a few hours off a flight, even supposing they still have to endure the rubber gloved finger in the ass, is a priceless extra few hours they can spend with their families, their consorts, or whatever.

...but 'made in China' and 'quality product' rarely appear in the same paragraph...

Any other questions?

Unless you can prove that all the people who downloaded the work would never have paid for it, arguing that downloaders would not have bought the music does not stand.

In addition, I've read a number of articles that suggest that a non-negligible percentage of the stuff that people download would not have resulted in a lost sale. Furthermore, many people who commit copyright infringement via illegal downloads in fact *do* spend a lot of money -- according to this, 350% above average -- on legitimate purchases. So it is exceedingly unlikely that many of those downloads were lost sales.

Burden of proof's on you, pal.

-HJ

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Gator- Python.html

The New York Times has had its problems, but their reporters are some of the best in the business, and while there is an editorial slant, it isn't extreme. The Atlantic provides good monthly material, and The Economist does so on a weekly basis. Those are my picks for daily, weekly, and monthly news, but there are other sources. The Christian Science Monitor is a great daily paper, for example. You may agree or disagree with my picks, but the profession of journalism isn't dead, and good sources of news are available.

I would also advance the notion that just because the editorial bias of a newspaper is disagreeable to you doesn't mean that the organization is corrupt. Newspapers are run by people, and people sometimes make mistakes. Note that during the runup to the Iraq invasion, The Atlantic provided excellent coverage and made many warnings that the Administration's plans were misguided. To me that is proof that following only one news source is a bad idea. You have to read from more than one source, whose biases you know, and make your own assessments from there.

I realize that it's de rigeur to bash on the news media, whether you're attacking from the Right or the Left, but the media is a business, and it gives people what they want. Americans need to take responsibility for at least some of the sorry state of our media. We have consistently voted in politicians who allowed the media conglomerates more and more power. We watch trash like Fox News. We read USA Today. That's not proof of a lack of credible journalism. It's proof that we're lazy.

The news is full of stuff about how deadly the bird flu will be when it strikes. Now, the news says that the 1918 flu was linked to bird flu. But those of us who are over 40 remember the same sort of talk back in 1976...about 'swine flu.' Swine flu killed healthy soldiers at Fort Dix, NJ in 1976 and was alleged to be the same as the 1918 flu that killed millions. As a result, the president at the time (Ford) ordered a program of national vaccination for every man, woman and child in the United States. Most people received the 'swine flu' shot which made most who received it a little sick for 1 or 2 days. Then the swine flu didn't appear and everyone forgot about it. Now, supposedly the '1918 flu' is coming back again in the form of 'bird flu' so I have some questions:

1) Why isn't the current president ordering vaccinations for everyone? The technology of making flu vaccines is pretty routine, even if the flue is alleged to be unusually lethal. Instead, President Bush is talking about imposing martial law and using the military to quarantine those portions of the country where the bird flu strikes.

2) Why is the 1976 vaccine that was allegedly protective against the '1918 flu' not being resuscitated and updated to be used in 2005?

Magic Link, hopefully without a session id.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/05/technology/05pho ne.html?ex=1286164800&en=d917b9cd43dfaa31&ei=5090& partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

I'll have to offer an a retraction of my earlier comment. Coincidentally, the New York Times has an article on finding good native British food in London's restaurant scene.

By DAMON DARLIN

What is the first thing you will grab from your home if your house floods, catches on fire or comes tumbling down in an earthquake? Family photos? The pets? The Hummel figurines?

It probably will not be your financial and medical records, the very things you will need to rebuild your life after a disaster. If you are like most people, you have documents stashed in various places throughout your home, perhaps some under lock and key. And with your mind racing as danger hits, you are not going to have the time or wherewithal to figure out which ones you need.

In any case, your financial and medical records would be such a large and unwieldy pile that you would just say forget about it, grab Fluffy and scramble out of there. Indeed, that is probably your reaction any time someone suggests you get your records organized.

But wait. Do not run away yet. New technology is making this tedious task less odious, and surprisingly, it is not that expensive.

All told, you can secure your records in a weekend afternoon. Even better, doing all this has a wonderful side effect: it can put you in better financial shape to survive a disaster because you will end up a lot smarter about how you spend and save money. For instance, one of the first things to do is compile a list of where everything is - account numbers and the locations of important documents. The list will help you or anyone in your family locate things you need for the insurance adjuster or relief worker. (Download a template for this information that you can place right on your computer.)

This is really the "if hit by a bus" list that financial planners have been recommending you compile for your heirs. If you think of the list that way, you will be reminded of your mortality and you will not want to write it. But think of the families displaced by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita or by California wildfires, and the psychological barrier collapses. The list becomes a much easier sell now, said Brent Neiser, a director for the National Endowment for Financial Education. "It forces you to think," he said.

Here is what else you have to do to protect your records and yourself:

RECORD: Once you have made your basic list, save it on a U.S.B. flash drive. A 256-megabyte drive, which you can buy for $20 or even less if you catch a store promotion, gives you enough space for that file and all the other suggestions mentioned below.

Several of the big flash drive makers, like SanDisk and Lexar Media, are now selling more advanced drives that allow you to encrypt the data so others cannot read it without knowing the alphanumeric key that unlocks the code. Some are even shock proofed with heavier rubber and plastic coatings. Those will cost about $10 to $20 more, but are certainly worth it when you consider the sensitivity of the data on them.

It is also a good idea to copy the contents onto additional drives for backup and for other members of the family.

BONUS: When you are listing the credit cards, also note the credit limits so you will know how much you could spend in an emergency. If your credit cards are at their limits now, you are not going to have any cushion to fall back on. So start paying off balances, beginning with the card carrying the highest interest rate.

SCAN: Some important documents are on paper and you will want copies of them with you: tax returns for the last three years (Form 1040 is all you will need in an emergency), a recent pay stub, birth certificates, marriage license, the deed to your home and insurance policy pages that list your coverage. If you do not hav

Ooops, 43 mpg city. But hey, $5000.
http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F1 0F16F93C5A0C7A8CDDA10894DD404482
This article was free when I read it, but since has gone up in price. You already have the salient details. I remember them saying they lacked creature comforts of american cars, namely cooshie seats.

Go here to see babble... go here to hear babble.

This is the paper cited, it's about used books but I wonder if the same arguments could be applied to used video games.

Ah, someone who can't see the hook for the worm... I thought someone would take a nibble, rather than consider that closely.

Yes, "more responsible like the NY Times". On the one hand, when they finally caught on to Blair's antics, they publicly apologized, decided to fire his ass (although he pulled a Nixon first), and still have a web page listing what he wrote and asking "Readers with information about these or other articles by Mr. Blair that may be false wholly or in part" to email the Times. They fucked up; they responded to their own fuckup after acquiring a clue.

And on the other hand, I didn't say they were really responsible. I just said they were more responsible. This may be like comparing a teenaged slacker to an ADHD five year old on pink pixie stix, but damning with such faint praise is the best the Old Gray Lady deserves after that incident.

While I despise Fox News for any number of reasons, this is a misportrayal. The piece is posted in their editorial department at http://www.foxnews.com/views — as of 10:45 EST it's the lead over there. While I would certainly agree that a more responsible news organization would label such pieces more clearly and prominently on the actual article page, rather than letting the attentive figure out that the "MORE VIEWS HEADLINES" implies that this piece is yet another "Views" piece, it's not a particular breach of journalistic propriety. That is to say, it's as well (or poorly) labeled as any of the other pieces of crud from their editorial department. Fox's editors should be flogged, but not for this any more than the rest of their execrable web site.

"Fox News... we report, you decide" (that Fox is full of... something, anyway).

While I despise Fox News for any number of reasons, this is a misportrayal. The piece is posted in their editorial department at http://www.foxnews.com/views — as of 10:45 EST it's the lead over there. While I would certainly agree that a more responsible news organization would label such pieces more clearly and prominently on the actual article page, rather than letting the attentive figure out that the "MORE VIEWS HEADLINES" implies that this piece is yet another "Views" piece, it's not a particular breach of journalistic propriety. That is to say, it's as well (or poorly) labeled as any of the other pieces of crud from their editorial department. Fox's editors should be flogged, but not for this any more than the rest of their execrable web site.

"Fox News... we report, you decide" (that Fox is full of... something, anyway).

With reports like this, this and this (Polar ice caps melting), not to mention the fact that events like Katrina are expected to increase in number, you'd think well informed nerds could get over the light headed feeling they get when someone presents the next upgrade to their computer system and consider the impact that their coal-powered l33t-box is having.

This just in...Tom Delay indicted.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/28/science/28squid. html?8hpib

The excess the Republicans' proposed cuts is almost unbelievable. You can read the full proposal here. Here are just some of the most egregious cuts:
$225 billion cut from Medicaid, the last-resort health insurance program for the very poor.
$200 billion cut from Medicare, the health care safety net for the elderly and the disabled.
$25 billion cut from the Centers for Disease Control
$6.7 billion cut from school lunches for poor children
$7.5 cut from programs to fight global AIDS
$5.5 billion to eliminate all funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
$3.6 billion cut to eliminate the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities
$8.5 billion cut to eliminate all subsidized loans to graduate students.
$2.5 bullion cut from Amtrak
$2.5 billion to eliminate the Hydrogen Fuel Initiative
$417 million cut to eliminate the Minority Business Development Agency
$4.8 billion cut to eliminate all funding for the Safe and Drug-Free schools program And the list goes on and on.

The article says release date is mid October. However reading my NYTimes today page B7, it says that StarOffice 8 will be released 09/27/05 or Tuesday. Below is (reg required) url, then the article. So, time will tell. Lets watch Sun's site Tuesday.

Thanks,
Jim Burke

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/26/business/26sun.h tml?oref=login&pagewanted=print

New Sun Software to Work With Microsoft
By LAURIE J. FLYNN
Published: September 26, 2005
SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 25 - Sun Microsystems is hoping to steal market share from the Microsoft Corporation with the release on Tuesday of a new version of its business software collection, StarOffice, with improved compatibility with Microsoft Office.

StarOffice 8, which includes a spreadsheet, word processor, database and presentation software, allows users to import and export Microsoft Office files and to use Office macros, the tiny chunks of code that automate specific tasks.

Improving StarOffice's ability to work with Microsoft software is considered critical to expanding Sun's reach within companies that already use Microsoft products.

The release, which is the first upgrade to StarOffice in about two years, comes 18 months after the two companies announced a development partnership as well as an agreement not to sue each other over patent disputes. But Sun executives said most of the new compatibility features were in development at the request of some of Sun's largest customers even before Sun reached an accord with Microsoft.

The retail price of StarOffice 8 is $99.95, though the program can be downloaded for $69.95. For corporate customers, Sun offers a per-user price of $35. The company, based in Santa Clara, Calif., is also expanding StarOffice's sales through retailers.

StarOffice is the first commercial suite to support the OpenDocument format, an increasingly popular open-source approach to sharing files among computers, which is not supported by Microsoft. The format is being adopted by governments and other agencies attracted to the lower costs and independence of open-source programs.

Massachusetts, for example, announced last week that its state offices would use only those software programs that conform to OpenDocument, which was developed by the open-source standards body known as Oasis. That decision essentially locks out Microsoft, whose Office program stores files in so-called XML and other formats.

Massachusetts officials said the state government there would save millions of dollars by using only OpenDocument programs, in large part because those programs tend to cost less and are compatible with a range of inexpensive open-source programs. Officials there also said they felt it was critical they remain "sovereign" rather than be locked into a specific company. Several European governments are also considering mandating the use of programs based on OpenDocument.

Under the new regulations, Internet news sites are encouraged to report news that is "healthy" and promotes economic and social progress, Xinhua said. In addition, the Shanghai Daily newspaper reported that any news Web site that reports "false or distorted information" will be fined up to 30,000 renminbi (US$3,701) under the new guidelines.

Under the new regulations, Internet news sites are encouraged to report news that is "healthy" and promotes economic and social progress, Xinhua said. In addition, the Shanghai Daily newspaper reported that any news Web site that reports "false or distorted information" will be fined up to 30,000 renminbi (US$3,701) under the new guidelines.

Optimally, we would remove the reader temporarily from his reality and time. We would collect the flow of images, sounds, feelings, and events that passed into Saddam's mind and project them as with a Zeiss Planetarium projection instrument. The reader would see the Universe from Saddam's point in space. Events would flow by the reader as they flowed by Saddam.

You're spouting misinformation. Rush Limbaugh is not a news source. They WERE NOT trying to build nukes. That is absolutely, unequivocally, a LIE. They had been trying in the 1980s... you're citing evidence from back then as evidence of them being a current threat. The yellowcake thing, by the way, was shown to be a forgery.. completely untrue.

Read this article for a very long and detailed analysis of some of the lies told to the American public. They were deliberate and knowing in doing so. This article mostly deals with the claims of nuclear weapons, but where there's smoke, there's fire. If they were willing to just blatantly make shit up (which is EXACTLY what they did about the nukes), then why should their claims of chem/bioweapons be trusted?

Read that article. Read every word. And then think about it. Maybe, just maybe, the fact that you're being fed a line of shit by Hannity, Limbaugh, and the administration might penetrate.

BTW, most chemical weapons only last a few years, particularly in the desert, so large stockpiles of them would indeed disappear. Even if Saddam HAD hidden them, they'd be entirely useless after twenty years. Chemical weapons require constant remanufacturing... a whole chemical industry behind them. They're not something you just make and have forever.

Mustard gas can last quite some time, but it's not suited for use as a terrorist weapon. It requires really large amounts of the stuff to do much. It's more of an area interdiction thing, and a method to wound enemy soldiers and slow down enemy armies. Terrorists want stuff like sarin or VX. Even if Saddam had had a million tons of mustard gas, it would have been no significant threat to the US.

As far your question about proof... you do realize how ridiculous it is, right? I hereby demand that you prove that there are no little green men on the Moon. If you can't disprove it, then they must exist.

WMDs in Iraq were pretty much exactly that: little green men.

I guess the largest US tech company agrees .

Indoctrination at the private level and above preaches against the use of biological agents over and over.

Aren't you also taught to treat your prisoners appropriately? Dehumanising the enemy is the one constant in human warfare, and so far no army has shown themselves to be immune from carrying out actions they would see as horrific if carried out against themselves.

Configuration aside, how does MythTV's interface compare to TiVo's? I mean, what approach to aesthetics and usability does MythTV take? Cluttery? Simple? Configurable? Do the available remote controls compare favorably to TiVo's?

This is the stuff Google doesn't help with, and I don't know where to try out a MythTV box without going through the hassle of setting it up myself. Basically I'm asking this. Does TiVo : MythTV :: Mac OS X : Linux+Gnome/KDE, or is the situation somewhat better?

That has more to do with /. than either of those two papers. They have reported on it, those articles just were just not linked to. Unless you are writing from China where these results may have been censored, a quick Google search reveals:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2005/09/10/AR2005091001222.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/18/opinion/18sun3.h tml

Steven Soderbergh's "3-pronged attack" is being watched closely by Hollywood. This Theater-Cable-DVD simultaneous release of a new movie to the public is actually one of the counter measures against privacy movie people have thought about but never really dared to try. So, give Mr. Soderbergh a chance, and maybe years down the line they might even use words like "pioneer" to describe him.

"Bubble", shot for $1.6 million, may be a cheapo in Hollywood standard, but Soderbergh was serious enough to use the same high-definition camera George Lucas used for two "Star Wars" movies, as described in a New York Times article (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/22/movies/22bubb.h tml).

"I don't see how 'terrorists' fit in the category 'Jews', 'communists'"

I am sure you have not heard of the more than 700 pakistani's held in US prisons for upto 2 years before being sent back home, without being charged.
I am sure you have not heard of Mr. Maher Arar, arrested in US and shipped to Egypt and Syria for torture and then released without being charged.here
I could go on and on here, but i will get to the point.

My comment was regarding this new era, where Americans are arresting and doing extremely questionable deeds to other Americans, who happen to have an Arab or South East Asian origin.

So yes, the jews of yesterday are the Muslims and Arabs of today. and YES, they WILL come for YOU. No doubt about that...

Speak of the devil

According to today's NYT, Time Warner says that AOL is their future. So the MS buying AOL scenario seems less likely. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/22/business/media/2 2warner.html

• Do you consider the New York Times credible?
• Newsmax discusses the New York Times article
• Another article
• An announcement on the NRA's website
• There's even a video with neo-con Bill O'Reilly praising cops that steal weapons from some elderly people.
• This one discusses the fact that the cops are busting into private residences in LA without warrants

There is more available, but the mainstream media has been giving little coverage to this important part of the story.

However, throwing $30M at an anti-piracy effort lets them point fingers as do all the RIAA lawsuits against 14-year-olds, vs. actually admitting their business model is desperately fscked.

About ten days ago, I mentioned a New York Times story on my Web site about hurricane names:

The New York Times report that each Katrina is handling the problem in her own way. Others with last year's 281st most popular baby name for a girl are coping with their fateful association with the devastating storm by trying everything from defending their name against those who might make fun of it to questioning the hurricane naming system... ... Katrina, which means pure, reached its pinnacle of popularity as a name in 1980, when it was the 90th most common female baby name. Following only the whims of the fashion climate, 50 years ago the name was 489th in popularity, according to the Social Security Administration. It climbed to its peak 25 years later. But it slipped to No. 127 in 1990 and continued to fall... ... "How about doing away with names?" asked Katrina Heron, author of "Safe: The Race to Protect Ourselves in a Newly Dangerous World" (HarperCollins 2005), and a former editor at The New York Times Magazine. "Every time this horrible natural disaster strikes some group of people gets sideswiped." Ms. Heron has an alternative idea. "I think we should name hurricanes after vegetables we hate."

A spokesman from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in Geneva, which issues names of hurricanes based on an alphabetical list that rotates annually and repeats every six years, did not respond to messages, but Stu Ostro, a senior meteorologist at the Weather Channel, said the world body was unlikely to change the system, which started in 1953. Experts had found that just giving storms numbers or locations was confusing. "The goal is to give valuable information clearly that can help save lives," Mr. Ostro said. "Maybe that's some solace the people named Camille or Katrina or Charley or Ivan can take."

The World Meteorological Organization does have a policy of retiring the names of particularly vicious storms, like Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne, which pounded Florida last year, so this is likely to be the last Hurricane Katrina...

About ten days ago, I mentioned a New York Times story on my Web site about hurricane names:

The New York Times report that each Katrina is handling the problem in her own way. Others with last year's 281st most popular baby name for a girl are coping with their fateful association with the devastating storm by trying everything from defending their name against those who might make fun of it to questioning the hurricane naming system... ... Katrina, which means pure, reached its pinnacle of popularity as a name in 1980, when it was the 90th most common female baby name. Following only the whims of the fashion climate, 50 years ago the name was 489th in popularity, according to the Social Security Administration. It climbed to its peak 25 years later. But it slipped to No. 127 in 1990 and continued to fall... ... "How about doing away with names?" asked Katrina Heron, author of "Safe: The Race to Protect Ourselves in a Newly Dangerous World" (HarperCollins 2005), and a former editor at The New York Times Magazine. "Every time this horrible natural disaster strikes some group of people gets sideswiped." Ms. Heron has an alternative idea. "I think we should name hurricanes after vegetables we hate."

A spokesman from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in Geneva, which issues names of hurricanes based on an alphabetical list that rotates annually and repeats every six years, did not respond to messages, but Stu Ostro, a senior meteorologist at the Weather Channel, said the world body was unlikely to change the system, which started in 1953. Experts had found that just giving storms numbers or locations was confusing. "The goal is to give valuable information clearly that can help save lives," Mr. Ostro said. "Maybe that's some solace the people named Camille or Katrina or Charley or Ivan can take."

The World Meteorological Organization does have a policy of retiring the names of particularly vicious storms, like Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne, which pounded Florida last year, so this is likely to be the last Hurricane Katrina...

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/20/science/space/20 nasa.html
(registration required)

the striking difference between this mission plan and apollo is the earth orbit rendezvous of the excursion module and the exploration module. i guess this is because the heavy-lift vehicle is not man-rated. doesn't matter--separate crew/cargo launches just mean more payload to orbit, and like someone else said, the extra bonus cargo capacity means nasa has greater in-orbit construction capacity.

............. kris

I predict that 15 years from now on, Microsoft will either be sweeping their own ashes

I predict that in 15 years, microsoft will finally have gotten the patent on breathing air sucessfully badgered through and we'll all be paying $5000 a second to breathe. can't pay? then grow a set of gills.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/31/business/yourmon ey/31digi.html?ei=5090&en=b674d209b5106a1b&ex=1280 462400&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=prin t

Frankly right now most linux software is violating as least ONE microsoft patent. even microsoft probably doesn't know which patents are being violated, seeing as how they have over 50,000 patents already. including a patent on double clicking. so don't get your hopes up. linux is dead the day microsoft can't make money through simple threats and extortion. fortunately that day will never come, because windows is number one, everyone has to support windows, of they can't make money. linux has to skirt around patents and try to hope they don't get sued into oblivion from the patents they don't know how to get around... and if linux ever gets too big for it's britches microsoft has 50,000 photon torpedoes(aka patents) ready to fire into any linux company that dares tread into the microsoft bottom line.

Microsoft has spent 20 billion dollars finacing drives to make software patents unilatirally accepted by the entire civilized world, so unless you want to go move to somalia to try and hack your linux kernel, with a gun to blow away any microsoft lakeys who try and tell you you're violating there patent law.. well you're fucked. microsoft owns the right to code an operating system, every key aspect that makes a modern operating system usable is patented either by them, or a competitor. who's signed agreements that prevent them from just 'giving' away the rights to there patents. so i predict in 15 years, we're all using microsoft products because everyone else is in prison, pennyless, or dead.

That Hexus site is one of the most anoying I've ever seen. Every other word is highlighted with a sponsored link that's often not related at all to the subject at hand. It seems to me that the whole point of that site is to have mildly-useful content simply as click fodder.

Whenever Microsoft has a major new thing, they tout their $100 million marketing budget. Whether it's the new MSN Search, Media Center PCs, a campaign to maintain interest in Win XP as OS X Tiger was released or Windows Longhorn Vista, Microsoft marketing is at the ready with the $100 million check to buy mindshare (except for MSN 8, back in 2002. They got a $300 million budget. Remember that campaign? Me either). The best part is that, as this Slashdot article can attest, just saying you're going to spend $100M is enough to start getting some free press, though maybe not as much press as the $1 billion Windows 95 campaign.

Oh, to be fair, Apple isn't much better.

Actually, you're kids probably need more discipline. With globalization of the world's economy, education is more important than ever. It's astounding how much more focus nations like China, Japan, and India place on educating youth. If we don't keep up, we're bound to fall behind. You'll probably find this interesting:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/03/magazine/03DOMIN ANCE.html?ex=1126929600&en=b0ebb9d149965ce2&ei=507 0
I also think you're being a bit silly - this has nothing to do with seperation of church and state. This isn't a religion thing (I'm atheist), though I suppose it does concern morality, which is always open to interpretation. I'm just saying this new law isn't overstepping bounds in any new ways that existing laws haven't already done. If you want to fight the system, go after earlier precidents dating back to the 60s and 70s, and try to get the government to undo restrictions at the FCC, rather than attempting to sue the governor for signing a bill.

Thank you for that fascinating string of ad hominems, misinterpretations of both my statements and motives, and uncited factually incorrect assertions. That is certainly a wonderful way to bring up the level of discourse and help others whom you believe misunderstand the situation to come to a better understanding.

As I am in a generous mood, I will go ahead and let you know the thing you desperately need to know:

No matter how earnest or angry you are, citing links to specific non-partisan sources to back up your assertions is much more persuasive than writing things you wished were true punctuated with bits of all caps ranting and using lots of exclamation points.

Here is an example. I have a position. FEMA and the White House screwed up royally in this crisis. Besides the obvious top level things like Bush staying on vacation through the disaster and for days afterwards, besides Condi Rice going on vacation after the crisis started, besides Dick Cheney staying on vacation for a week after the hurricane hit, Mike Brown screwing up so badly he was fired, etc., how else have they screwed up since the disaster started? Take a look at the evidence:

Some have denied that FEMA was responsible, or wasn't called in until after the disaster hit. This is false:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/08/20 050827-1.html

The White House held up deployment of other state's Nat'l Guard in LA:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050903/ap_on_re_us/ka trina_national_guard

Bush dragged his feet on rubber stamping deploying the navy - it was his job to authorize their use and he sat on his hands. The USS Bataan, a naval vessel with helicopters, doctors, hospital beds, food, and water had been cruising off the Gulf since the Friday before the hurricane unable to act for more than a week:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi -0509040369sep04,1,4144825.story?page=1&coll=chi-n ewsnationworld-hed

FEMA sent back volunteers with flotilla of 500 boats:
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0509/01/acd .01.html

FEMA prevented a convoy of Wal-Mart trucks from delivering food and water:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9179790/

FEMA won't accept Amtrak's help in evacuations:
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/84aa35cc-1da8-11da-b40b-0 0000e2511c8.html

FEMA turned away power generators:
http://www.wwltv.com/local/stories/WWLBLOG.ac3fcea .html

FEMA prevented the Coast Guard from delivering diesel fuel:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/05/national/nationa lspecial/05blame.html?ex=1283572800&en=1d14ebfbd94 2a7d0&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

FEMA won't allow Red Cross deliver food:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05246/565143.stm

FEMA blocks morticians from entering New Orleans:
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=15147862 &BRD=1817&PAG=461&dept_id=68561&rfi=6

FEMA snubbed Chicago's offer o

Speaking of googling for it...

http://www.nytimes.com/cfr/international/slot1_072 005.html

Hmm. How about that? July 18th, giving India nuclear expertise--civilian expertise, but as we all are told by the rhetoric surrounding Iran, civilian and military nuclear technology has such a broad overlap... Mixed messages there.

Barbara Bush, is that you?

(see http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/07/national/nationa lspecial/07barbara.html for something appalling Barbara Bush said about the Katrina victims in New Orleans - she said they were better off)

Because hurricanes form over warm ocean water, it is easy to assume that the recent rise in their number and ferocity is because of global warming.

        But that is not the case, scientists say. Instead, the severity of hurricane seasons changes with cycles of temperatures of several decades in the Atlantic Ocean. The recent onslaught "is very much natural," said William M. Gray, a professor of atmospheric science at Colorado State University who issues forecasts for the hurricane season.

        From 1970 to 1994, the Atlantic was relatively quiet, with no more than three major hurricanes in any year and none at all in three of those years. Cooler water in the North Atlantic strengthened wind shear, which tends to tear storms apart before they turn into hurricanes.

        In 1995, hurricane patterns reverted to the active mode of the 1950's and 60's.

Microsoft software is insecure because that is a way of "maximizing shareholder value", in my opinion.

When people have problems with their computer, they often buy a new computer. Then Microsoft sells another copy of Windows, which, of course, still has huge security risks.

That also seems to be why Microsoft software is so... unfinished. If they ever finished the job, no one would need to buy another copy. So maximizing shareholder value means minimizing quality as much as possible, considering what customers will accept, and trying to introduce new hassles that can be fixed by even later versions.