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I thought about that, but I mentioned it as a hint to the tainted image of the USA that bigots and zealots are making so prevalent abroad. Their voices are louder this side of the Atlantic.

A few days ago, an article on the NY Times cited Italy as an example of (relatively) peaceful coexistence of strong Catholicism and contrasting modern living issues (divorce, abortion, contraception).

I actually thought the author's conclusions were a little superficial with regards to the Italian reality: religious zealotry here is pervasive, creeping beneath a veneer of apparently laical political debate -- much more than the author expressed in the text.

However, a page-one article on an American newspaper about the harshness of moral/religious debates in the States... That made me think.

Not sure if anyone saw this or not on Friday. Powell wrote an interesting Op-Ed (yada yada -- free reg required --yada yada) piece for the NYT on Friday the 3rd.

The quote I found interesting was, "Even so, there are important limits placed on the F.C.C. Our rules do not ban indecent content entirely; they merely restrict its broadcast during times in which children are likely to be in the audience, namely from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. Courts have consistently held these rules constitutional, accepting that the government has a compelling interest in protecting children from inappropriate material."

If you think about it, all these fines and issues have basically been for "daytime" and "primetime" programming and not for "late night" shows.

Don't get me wrong -- this PTC group is ruining my bad television! Parents need to control what happens to their kids. JUST TURN OFF THE DAMN TV.

There was a nice article by Frank Rich in the NYTimes on this, but unfortunately, you would have to pay to read it now.

Just in case you have a subscription or don't mind the price: The Great Indecency Hoax

Oh, wait! There's a free copy here.

FYI most NYT content can be accessed using a free permalink like this one. For more details see New York Times Link Generator.

Linkified!

For the lazy

Noone was there to take a picture

Hmm, I am a friend of theories like this but in this case ?? The NYT still sells it and I recall that I then have seen it in "then to be trusted" magazines (note that I was (already :) able to read back then).

CC.

There's a NYT article about it this morning - he jokes about that:

"I do my own taxes," he said, grinning. "I would have never thought of taxes."

He also had this to say:

"H & R Block got hold of me and they've offered me free financial services for life," he said, grinning as if he had just nailed a question on medieval horticulture. "So that I never forget their name again."

NYT

Cut the budget for the National Science Foundation while spending money on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and other inane ideas. This will eventually kill basic research and hence the flow of new jobs to replace the 400,000 IT jobs lost in the past three years.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/29/technology/29int el.html?ex=1259384400&en=88622b1f02d16578&ei=5090& partner=rssuserland

The Disco Ball of Failed Hopes and Other Tales From Inside Intel

Clicky without logging in! Use NYT Generator for these NYT stories.

Use this link instead... The Disco Ball of Failed Hopes and Other Tales From Inside Intel

Thanks to the New York Times Link Generator

Meanwhile, stem cells that are not derived from fetal tissues are being worked with every day to develop new therapies. For example, they were used to help a paralyzed woman walk in South Korea - which you would know if you had read the article.

As for all the promises from all those researchers - sorry, but researchers promise lots of things that never come true. Even the New York Times is reporting that California's $3 billion is looking more like a science slush fund than real science.

Article Link, Sans first born

No registration required link

I read this review a few days ago and was impressed by David Pogue's video review http://www.nytimes.com/videopages/2004/11/25/techn ology/20041125_STAT_VIDEO.htmlof the camcorder, shot and edited on his way to Ohio to visit his parents. The lines between old line print media and electronic journalism continue to blur - though in a good way here.

Your comments might have some merit if movies and video games were in competition with each other. They're not. Sure, there's a peripheral competition in that they're both competing for a limited pool of "entertainment dollars." But for the most part, they're two different things.

So "Alexander" got panned by the critics? Exactly what does that have to do with anything? Do you think the investors who paid for the movie invested their dollars so that they could hear Ebert say how good the movie is? Movie making is a business. All that matters is whether or not "Alexander" makes money. Chances are, by the time it plays world wide and then gets released to DVD, it'll make a ton of money. And the investors won't even be thinking about Ebert when they deposit their profits at the bank.

Video games are growing, but their future growth is limited. Video games compete with each other much more than movies do. As has already been pointed out, a video game cost $50 -$60 bucks, and the cost will certainly rise in the future. I guarantee you there were people who were agonizong over spending their money on Halo 2 or waiting so they could get Half Life 2. How many people do you think would like to go see "Alexander" but are saving their money to go see "Blade: Trinity" when it comes out? And yes, I realize Halo's an Xbox title and HL2 is a PC title. That's part of the point. Not only do games have to compete with each other, they have to compete with different platforms.

Movies aren't going anywhere in the forseeable future. Certainly, movies have changed and will continue to change. For one thing, most movies make more money in the rest of the world than they do in the US. Foreign (that is, non-US) films get lots of critical praise and recognition. But when it comes to making money, films are one area where the US is still firmly in control. US movies dominate the popularity charts and make the money. However, because so much of a film's profits is made overseas, the overseas audiance is becoming more and more important to film makers. Films are made to appeal to world wide audiences rather than purely US audiences. That actually works to make them less palatable with US audiences and US critics. In another area, computers are becoming increasingly ubiquitous in film making. I don't know how long it will be before a complete CGI film is indistuinguishable from life action video. But eventually, it will happen. In other words, the art and science of film making is definitely evolving. But, while films themselves may change, they aren't going away. Not in my lifetime and not in yours. (Unless, of course, they come up with anti-aging serums in our lifetime.)

Their Product

Prior art?

How does that help? When I print out my morning newspaper, it will have the little yellow dots just like everything else.

In light of recent accusations made towards EA Games. I think that people should seriously consider boycotting games produced by EA.

This is what I never understand about American way of legislating laws or approving budgets. All things that are not necessarily compatible are put in a blender and mixed together. What does a farm subsidy have to do with the national defense? Everybody loves to insert a favorite project, controversial or not, into something else that are important. There ought to be rules against such things.

The recent one, just in today's news, is inserting far-reaching anti-abortion laws into a must-pass spending bill.

This coming on the same day they banned a tax on internet service and shopping
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/20/politics/20inter net.html
Great news for the web

So, if we're going to ban porn because of its addictiveness are we going to ban news, too?

I'm an information addict. I spend half my day browsing various news sites (no, not pornographic) and forums to read new information. I rarely remember what I read, I just read for reading's sake. I barely get to do anything else and when I do I often want to stop pretty soon and get back to the information. If you spend your leisure time reading Slashdot (or other news sources) instead of doing other things you usually love to do (e.g. play games if you're a gamer) you are another victim.

Sources: 1, 2 (NYTimes, reg or circumvention required), 3

There might be a connection between these two forms of addiction, after all porn is a form of information, too, right?

Here's an article fron the NYT on how heroin production has shot up since we overthrew the Taliban.

Afghan Poppy Growing Reaches Record Level

Why isn't this bigger news than porn addiction is beyond me.

Yeah, they're only being questioned in Republican states alright.

Hey, not only are Russians nice enough to ratify the Kyoto treaty, they're also nice enough to develop a nuclear weapon program that could avoid any possible defense (in the rare event that missile defense could actually work).

Not only are they friends of the environment, but they could also destroy it better than anyone else!

Speaking of Google commercializing, looks like they've still got a bit of it to do:
Google Shares Fall on Fourth Quarter Revenue Warning

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www.email-cop.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/17/technology/17tag .html?ei=5006&en=edeb6cd5169d554b&ex=1101272400&pa rtner=ALTAVISTA1&pagewanted=

By its own count, Wal-Mart has 460 terabytes of data stored on Teradata mainframes, made by NCR, at its Bentonville headquarters. To put that in perspective, the Internet has less than half as much data, according to experts.

What experts?

The NYT doesn't say.

Want more information? You can buy some more from the New York Times.

Can someone test

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/14/business/yourmon ey/14music.html?ex=1258088400&en=58bfb83d641f5c8f& ei=5090&partner=rssuserland

Mike

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/14/business/yourmon ey/14music.html?ex=1258088400&en=58bfb83d641f5c8f& ei=5090&partner=google

(Headline: "Warplane Strafes a School in New Jersey")

I'm glad to see we're finally getting tough with those failing schools.

"As a result of this continued hostility, researchers say they still know precious little about fundamental questions, including how sexual desire affects judgment, how young people develop a sexual identity, why so many people take sexual risks, how personality and mood affect sexual health and how the explosion of sexual material on the Internet and trysts arranged online affect behavior.

Perhaps the strongest protests have arisen in response to efforts to treat - or even to study - deviant sexual behavior like pedophilia, opposition that has grown only fiercer in the wake of the scandals in the Roman Catholic Church.

"I have been in this field for 30 years, and the level of fear and intimidation is higher now than I can ever remember," said Dr. Gilbert Herdt, a researcher at San Francisco State University who runs the National Sexuality Resource Center, a clearinghouse for sexual information. "With the recent election, there's concern that there will be even more intrusion of ideology into science."

He added, "But then, this country has always had a troubled relationship with sex research."

Much of the suspicion is rooted in religious belief. Many devout believers see any effort to catalog sexual behavior as akin to publishing a field guide to carnal sin, an invitation to deviancy. "

And you can blame Slashdot for being as bad as other journalists mentioned in this story for troll comments in the blurb like "Oh come on, what is there to worry about? " I'm sure other, respectable media outlets will jump on the chicken little bandwagon and maintain the status quo.

Also covered by the NY Times here.

Like the study covered in the Globe and Mail, this is a simulated study of a specific type of turbine in a specific wind farm. Unlike the G&M study, this researcher was interested in microclimatological effects of windfarms.

Personally, I take these sorts of results with a whole shaker full of salt as the researchers need to make a whole raft of assumptions in order to get any result at all. (For instance,who says someone won't build a better windfarm?)

(actually, I make a point of keeping multiple copies of my entire digital photo collection)

Reg Free

AC to avoid Karma Whoreage

-OverlordQ

in this series of articles (free-reg-req). Summary via comp.risks:

1. Election day should be a holiday (rather than penalizing employees for having to take time off to vote).

2. Early voting can allow people to vote when it is convenient for them.

3. Voter-verified audit trails, source code accessibility to election officials, spot checks of code on Election Day (as is done in Nevada's slot machines!)

4. Shorter lines at the polls, standards for numbers of voting machines and poll workers.

5. Impartial election administrators, and restrictions on insiders endorsing candidates.

6. Uniform and inclusive voter registration standards.

7. Accurate and transparent voting roll purges.

8. Uniform and voter-friendly standards for counting provisional ballots.

9. Upgraded voting machines and improved ballot design.

10. Fair and uniform voter ID rules.

11. An end to minority vote suppression, disenfranchisement, harassment, dirty tricks.

12. Improved absentee ballot procedures, e.g., downloading absentee ballots from the Internet, but avoiding the ballot-by-scan/fax/e-mail with explicit loss of privacy.

For one thing, I resent you belittling the tragedy of the 3,000 innocent people murdered on 9/11

People like John Ashcroft are working to make sure we don't lose 30,000 in wave after wave of attacks.

Normal Americans disagree and that's why people like you who don't think we are in danger from terrorists lost the last election.

"one reason for regulation and taxation of common carriers is to assure quality of service and prevent harm to consumers through government action. in the "old days", i was ambivalent about protecting internet information providers from state taxation and regulation because i thought doing so would allow them to be less responsible. i have the same slightly queasy feeling about v.o.i.p. one big reason: v.o.i.p. raises serious security issues not present in p.o.t.s. networks."

Interesting stuff to say the least.

Aside from the two people who admitted to me that they cast multiple votes in the election, I don't know what more proof you want. Voting cheaters are like cockroaches, if you see one, there are a thousand more.

The news media ran multiple stories on Ed Rendell's scheme to disenfranchise overseas (and mostly republican) PA voters. In addition to two overseas voters filing suit, The Republicans filed suit immediately and a federal judge ultimately ruled that the deadline to receive overseas absentee ballots must be extended by two weeks.

The only outcome of this that I don't like is that Ed Rendell is still a free man when he should be in a federal prison.

And who said it did?

Throwing in random non sequiturs doesn't make your argument any more correct.

> at least a terrible dictator that has killed millions of innocent people is now
> behind bars. I think it's worth it, and I bet most of the troops over there
> think it's worth it.

And what do the Iraqis think?

What do the families of the 100,000 Iraqis killed so far think? (link)

Why is our opinion on someone else's leader the most important factor?

Speaking of Honeybees... Check out Honeybee Robotics.

What makes a better story? The NASA Mars Rovers being controlled from downtown New York, or that the company controlling them built them with debris from the World Trade Center without telling NASA?

So then why did the New York Times publish the first story on the front page, weekend edition, and bury the 2nd story on a seperate page?

If you're referring to 2000 Fox wasn't the first to call it. THat's another F911 fabrication.

Here's an idea, next time you're going to call someone a liar, why don't you link to some evidence so as to not look like a total wingnut?

Here I provide a link where the New York Times states that Fox was the first to call it in 2000.
It was very easy to find.
Now why do you go try to find some ACTUAL EVIDENCE to back up your claim. Not a bunch of strawman, don't-address-the point-at-hard arguments from some nutcase like Ann Coulter, but a simple bit of evidence proving that Fox was not the first to call it.

If what you claim is true, you should have no trouble backing it up.

The New York Times is authoritative? Are you shitting me? Those SoBs will print anything.

Does anybody else remember the toppling of democracy in Venezuela where the World's fourth largest oil producing country was run by an unelected puppet? The NYTimes reported it thus:

"Venezuelan democracy is no longer threatened by a would-be dictator ... the military intervened and handed power to a respected business leader." (April 13 2002).

Now, I'm no politics grad, but duh?!? A man who won by a landslide is "a would-be dictator"? Democracy is saved by an unelected businessman? Come on!

Myself, the only news I trust is the BBC - even if the website is a bit populist :-( My reasons why are:

• They don't take advertising so they cannot be cajoled by their sponsors.
• Their reputation is impeccable.
• I worked for them (albeit as a science journalist) and I can honestly say their standards are top-notch. Once, I did a radio report about Internet cafes in China and called the regime there "repressive". My editor quickly stopped me from broadcasting that.

  "Why?" I asked. "We all know it is!"

  "It's not your job to pass judgements. Stick to the facts," he told me.

  The older I become, the more impressed I am by the wisdom and impartiality of his comment.

"But I worked on a school paper when I was a kid and I owned a CB radio when I lived in Texas. And what I saw in the blogosphere on Nov. 2 was more reminiscent of that school paper or a "Breaker, breaker 19" gabfest on CB than anything approaching journalism. "

That, I believe is as good a description of blog culture as we're likely to find.

The reason why publications like the New York Times or National Public Radio are considered authoritative is because they have a long established track record and are trusted to provide a factual and balanced report.*

Bloggers simply do not have that level of trust, They still represent one guy with a website, and are only as reliable as the person typing the blog entry. That does not mean that bloggers do not sometimes add to the coverage of stories, just that they tend to be reactive, and sometimes prone to gossip and rumour more than journalism.

* Except of course by the right wing twits who go on and on about liberal media bias.

The New York Times is reporting that Honeybee Robotics, manufacturer of the drill on the NASA Mars Rovers, built parts of the drill out of World Trade Center debris. The article claims NASA was not told about this design decision, but there are rumors that NASA found out and explicitely forbid it and Honeybee used the material anyway.

The New York Times is reporting that the Mars Rovers, being controlled from downtown Manhattan, are partially built with debris from the World Trade Center.