Slashdot Mirror

Those are meant to accommodate younger couples that are typically well within 10 years of age difference.

Get your head out of your ass and educate yourself. Underage marriage is a serious problem in the US.

A Tampa woman shared her story of how she was raped as a child, got pregnant at 10 years old, and then legally married her rapist at age 11. Sherry Johnson, now 57, told WTSP that she “was raped repeatedly” while living in an apartment attached to her church in Tampa. The deacon had keys, and so he would come in when he got ready, and guess where he would come? My room," she said to WTSP. When Johnson got pregnant, she told WTSP she didn’t even know what it meant. She was sent by her mother to Miami in 1970 to have the baby and then got legally married to her rapist, who was 20, in Pinellas County in 1971, WTSP reports.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/new-florida-woman-forced-marry-rapist-years-old/xHeF9PdrhsoURVH6f2FDXK/

NOTE: The special exception for Florida is still unchanged after 50 years: "No minimum age in case of pregnancy".

Creimer is not legally having sex with anyone under the age of 18 in the USA and he's getting charged with child sex tourism if there is any evidence that he's leaving the country with the intent to do the same. Any hope of ever having a Mexican child bride was dashed the second he gleefully posted on the subject with his well established pen name :( Boo hoo hoo!

Grow up, asshole.

Must be a slow news day. I should probably submit this story I read about: A guy with an HDTV on a cart tries to make a run for the doors without paying when security forced him back into the store, where he was promptly arrested because of a "Shop With A Cop" promotion going on inside the store.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/crime--law/police-florida-man-tries-steal-from-store-shop-with-cop-day/wy2LvzXDoMg8a5cyFPGq6I/

Because a HDTV was involved and it happened in Florida, it's tech news.

A gay Muslim Democrat shoots up a Gun Free Zone.

It was obviously the fault of the straight kafirs who are pro-second amendment!

FBI spews USUAL fabricated BULLSHIT as "highly confident" "intelligence".

Deeply conflicted individual, drank alcohol. Couldn't recite prayers. Not Muslim to speak of.

The fact is, there is more documentary evidence of his connection with the NYPD than there is for ISIS! LOL.
https://t.co/5OcOKyBMe4

Guess what? NYPD thought he was... GAY!

The Pulse is a place this sad young man was found to visit FOR THREE years! The staff knew him as a semi-regular.
http://m.palmbeachpost.com/new...

He had a Grindr account. He was closeted and took it out on his wife. He hated other gay people that were happy. That's why he killed them. He was miserable on the inside

Yeah, but "ISIS!"

But you'll fall for anything, won't you? So you get this bullshit: "Clinton calls for escalated violence in Iraq and Syria in wake of Orlando attack"
https://t.co/pKBUY6BGv4

That's why it's called brainwashing. You can't even evaluate this contrary evidence. On one hand all defamatory about "big government", until that government is the FBI, telling you your ugly hatred and provincial phobias are valid. Then it's "high confidence".

The only hope for this world is the rapid disintegration and collapse of the United States into a hopeless and internally preoccupied failed state. You can't save a bag of tools this stupid.

Do you really not understand the difference between "all those other things" and voting?

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/n...

I was going to post the same comment when I saw this before it was posted when I was at lunch (can't log in here). What struck me was TFS's "is this Tesla's Toyota moment?" More like a Ford moment, or another Ford moment..

Unlike the Pintos and Crown Vics, where many cars burned and killed people, this was ONE incident and no one was injured.

Hell, my old Chevy caught fire ten years ago.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/news/crime-law/delray-beach-developer-anthony-pugliese-charged-wi/nSpp7/

Ensuring the legality of votes is the soundbite-friendly pretext; I do support what is said to be the goal but I question some of the actions taken as well as the timing.

Why have so many states, mostly Republican controlled, decided in 2011 that this was suddenly a lethal disease infecting the electoral process?
What was behind the cut in early voting days in Florida and the cancellation of the Sunday-before-election days voting in a state that has often seen 5 hour lineups to cast a ballot?
Here's one man's informed opinion - http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/news/state-regional-govt-politics/early-voting-curbs-called-power-play/nTFDy/

Plus One.

The GP sounds like a classical example of Poisonous People.

It's all a stupid side show that distracts attention away from the looming financial catastrophe.

We'll see what all those soccer mom and middle class tax payers think when they are stuck for about $2k more in taxes. And that's just the start as they will also start having to pay higher health insurance premiums (yes, Obama care raises costs, not reduces them)

And I have to say, in your case I'd be tempted to make an exception.

Why? Because you disagree with him? The original story BTW was a slam. I don't agree on motives, but it's pretty clear that the author of the piece was using it both as a hit piece on the Republican party while simultaneously putting a word in for a little socialized medicine, the state-funded hospital which specialized in treating TB cases. In other words, a caricature of human thought.

Digging around in the original story, I came across this interesting tidbit:

It was early February when Duval County Health Department officials felt so overwhelmed by the sudden spike in tuberculosis that they asked the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to become involved. Believing the outbreak affected only their underclass, the health officials made a conscious decision not to not tell the public, repeating a decision they had made in 2008, when the same strain had appeared in an assisted living home for people with schizophrenia.

âoeWhat you donâ(TM)t want is for anyone to have another reason why people should turn their backs on the homeless,â said Charles Griggs, the public information officer for the Duval County Health Department.

In other words, the outbreak allegedly was kept secret to protect the homeless from being ostracized. But the Slashdot-linked story only mentions the first paragraph, implying that Republicans had suppressed the information about these cases because it only affected an underclass. That may end up being true, but it's not a given from the original story.

And I have to say, in your case I'd be tempted to make an exception. Oh, I probably wouldn't, you understand, because just like most of my patients, I'm a decent human being. But I'd seriously consider it.

You could have just added, there's over a hundred cases in a difficult to treat population and it really is serious. But no you had to take the moral high road and tell him how tempted you were to off him without providing any reason whatsoever.

My view is that two stories have been linked which aren't necessarily connected. The TB story seems to me a typical case of someone burying an urgent problem for rather unseemly motives. It may be as claimed that they were attempting to protect an "underclass" (killing it in the process) or it may be that they were hiding an inconvenient problem for the political sausage making that was restructuring Florida's state-run health care at the time.

They have a large bunch of possible TB cases that need to be found and treated. We'll see if they do that.

The seemingly connected problem is that of the restructuring of state hospitals. It's worth noting here that the restructuring may be sound over the long term, but implemented in a way that hampers short term responses to emergencies. If nobody knows at the time who is supposed to do what (especially difficult given that a legislature decides a lot of those issues on the fly), then that can cause more problems during the period of uncertainty than the old system would have caused.

A similar situation happened just prior to the infamous flooding of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina (FEMA wasn't supposed to coordinate disaster response any more) and that weakened efforts to respond to the disaster.

But is the situation worsened because there's no longer a TB-specialized hospital out there? The primary complaint seems to be that the health departments no longer have a place where they can force homeless people to take TB medication. That doesn't sound like much of a complaint to me. You could always set up temporary wards at regular hospitals until the outbreak has been wiped out. It still remains that the usual background rate for TB is probably too low to justify a specialized hospital for it.

Uh, this article indicates 11 people were quarantined in Florida under court order last year to treat TB. If the people involved are willing to self quarantine at home and take the meds its preferred to not quarantine because its very expensive and punishing to people who are victims, not perpetrators of anything. In this case the outbreak was a worst case scenario because it was among homeless people, the first case being a schizophrenic, who can't self quarantine, can't get good health care, and about whom most people could care less.

A problem seems to be the Republicans who control Florida closed the hospital where TB cases were quarantined. They've apparently been putting the infected homeless in motels as an alternative which isn't the greatest idea since they will come in contact with a lot of people, but it is less bad than homeless shelters and wandering the streets. They are trying to send nurses around to make them take the antibiotics, so it helps they are in a fixed location, but still.

Duval County is historically Republican, though its pretty evenly divided now. Florida has been under Republican governors since 1999, The legislature has been Republican dominated since the mid 90's.

Its incredibly pointless sit here and play our stupid partisan game on this issue, but if any party is to blame it would probably be the Republicans.

To be honest /. discourse in particular, and in America in general, is getting so sickening its getting hard to read, and the posts tonight just reaffirms. A very sad and disturbing crisis turns in to another round of shrill partisan trolling and you, jmorris, always seem to be the right wing ring leader kicking it off. There are some left wing ring leader that don't particularly help but they pale in comparison to you.

It would probably be better if we all stopped being Democrats and Republicans, and started being Americans, and start working on ways to fix our inceasingly screwed up country. In particular our government is going broke at all levels, large numbers of our fellow citizens are going broke, we can't seem to provide even basic services that most would take for granted in the world's supposedly richest and most powerful country, a very small number people are getting fabulously wealthy and most of them apparently could care less if their country is unraveling around them as long as life in the gated communities is still good.

As interim Palm Beach County State Attorney Peter Antonacci told The Palm Beach Post Editorial Board on Tuesday, the law has taken an "executive function" - the decision to bring charges - from prosecutors and given it to judges. "That should be revisited," said Mr. Antonacci, a former deputy state attorney general and statewide prosecutor. He does not advocate repeal, but says the law cannot turn public space "into a free-fire zone." He also believes that the law has "inhibited murder prosecutions" in Palm Beach County. In one, a judge dismissed charges against a man who shot and killed two men during a dispute over tickets for boating violations. In another, a jury acquitted a man who shot another man prosecutors said was swimming away after a fistfight between the two.

...

Rep. Baxley and former Sen. Durell Peadon, R-Crestview, the other sponsor of "stand your ground," insist that the Trayvon Martin case has no bearing on their legislation because George Zimmerman armed himself unnecessarily for someone in such a role and pursued the teenager even after a police dispatcher told him not to do so. In fact, sheriffs, police chiefs and prosecutors opposed this law out of fears that it could cause crimes, not prevent them. Whatever happens in Sanford, Gov. Scott's review should lead at least to changes in the law and, with luck, repeal.

The basic problem seems to be that the law, as it stands, allows for both parties in a dispute to completely legally escalate the level of violence. Both parties in a dispute have the right to "stand their ground" and use lethal force to protect themselves from each other; either could kill the other and then claim a legitimate legal defense under the law if they felt that the other person was a threat to their safety. In this particular case, Treyvon could have claimed a right to stand his ground (as he may have felt he was being stalked by an armed mentally unstable man and his life was at risk) and Zimmerman also could claim the same right (as he may have felt his life was at risk from a tough young criminal in his neighbourhood). Either one could kill the other and then argue that they had the legal right to do so, and the only other witness is dead.

It is easy to imagine some contrived situations where this law would enable more targeted killing. Consider a situation where you have armed neo-Nazis in a black city block, acting in a legal way, but being extremely provocative, say handing out racist literature, or perhaps handing out anti-Semitic Holocaust literature in a Jewish neighborhood. This would be completely legal activity covered by the First Amendment. But it would also be extremely provocative. The moment that this activity turns in to a fight, the armed neo-Nazis can now legally kill the unarmed men and claim they "stood their ground". Or consider the situation if someone decides to "stand their ground" against Zimmerman...

Since its passage in 2005, the "stand your ground'' law has protected people who have pursued another, initiated a confrontation and then used deadly force to defend themselves. Citing the law, judges have granted immunity to killers who put themselves in danger, so long as their pursuit was not criminal, so long as the person using force had a right to be there, and so long as he could convince the judge he was in fear of great danger or death.

..."If you're doing something legal, no matter what the act is, and you're attacked, it's in that moment that you have a right to stand your ground." - 'Stand your ground' law protects those who go far beyond that point

They are just 'assisting' us in 'registering' our DVDs.

Surely before too many years Our Federal Family: ( http://www.palmbeachpost.com/storm/femas-use-of-term-federal-family-for-government-1808751.html ) will help us 'register' our SUVs, our guns, religious beliefs, etc.

factors:

The largest percentage of illegal immigrants (most of whom don't pay taxes) of any state in the U.S.

Immigrants do pay taxes. They shop and pay sales tax. And they either own or rent property so they pay property tax. Illegal immigrants even pay income tax. Overall illegal immigrants pay more taxes than the cost of the benefits they get. And if all immigrants were to pay into Social Security without being able to collect it then Social Security would be solvent, have plenty of money for retiring Baby Boomers.

Falcon

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/state/meals-on-wheels-vultures-in-everglades-feast-on-529072.html

You are mistaken, though. Most American Madoff victims will never get their full investment back.

link: http://www.theconglomerate.org/2010/02/securities-investor-protection-corporation-battleground-for-reform-part-ii-net-winner-and-direct-cus.html

link: http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/judge-sticks-with-cash-in-cash-out-reimbursement-306980.html

And I would also counter that that "short" emotional trauma may very well be quite severe! I think the government has capped claims at $500,000 for now, as there simply isn't enough money to go around. Supposing you had your entire $5 million dollar retirement account with him, you are still screwed! Also as far as I understand it, they are only returning whatever money you originally invested. So if you invested 1 million dollars with him over 20 years, you may have well thought you had 20 million, as reported on your monthly statement. Now suppose you are already retired, and had even been taking dispersements for the last 5 years totaling $1 million. This means, in the government's eyes, you have already been reimbursed, and you are entitled to nothing more. This Madoff case is truly epic in scale, and problems are more complex than just giving everyone their money back ad then some for the trouble. The money that people lost never existed in the first place!

Searching someone before letting them board an airplane may be reasonable, but what degree of a search is reasonable? Is strip-searching them reasonable? That’s basically what this amounts to. But don’t worry... they’re very professional about it.

It's an interesting story -- the guy who shot the detainee in the head actually was a South Vietnamese police captain acting on his own initiative. It was of course one of the most controversial images of the war, so it's hard to say that there was any consensus here that it was appropriate.

One account:

SAIGON, South Vietnam -- South Vietnamese National Police Chief Brig. Gen. Nguyen Ngoc Loan executes a Viet Cong officer with a shot to the head, one of the most chilling images of the Vietnam War. Photographer Eddie Adams, who won a Pulitzer Prize for this photograph, said the execution was justified, because the Viet Cong officer had killed eight South Vietnamese. The furor created by this 1968 image destroyed Loan's life. He fled South Vietnam in 1975, the year the communists overran the country, and moved to Virginia, where he opened a restaurant. He died in 1998 at age 67. Loan 'was a hero,' Adams said when he died. 'America should be crying. I just hate to see him go this way, without people knowing anything about him.'

I'd really love it if the mediocre talent...would have chosen something else.

really :

http://democraciausa.org/en/headlines/120706en3/
http://www.coxwashington.com/news/content/reporter s/stories/2006/08/17/BC_IMMIG_CHILDREN_COX17.html
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorid a/sfl-cdetained25feb25,0,5180003.story
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/content/local_ne ws/epaper/2006/10/14/m1a_lizdeport14.html

This is just a handful of the results a google search turned up.

I just found the aforementioned commentary material. Listen to Sgt. Aiken's commentary for further evidence of why this was the right thing for Officer McNevin to do:

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/content/news/vid eo/taser_video3a.html

Washington is routinely criticized for not contributing enough to support the United Nations (UN) Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). However, if private donations are included in this analysis, the United States is among the most generous donor countries in the world.

The traditional basis for measuring aid transfers may understate U.S. contributions, because it omits donations that come from individuals, foundations, religious organizations and other private sources...

-- The U.S. government is frequently maligned for contributing only about 0.16% of its gross national income to development assistance--usually the most parsimonious figure among DAC members. However, U.S. private agency grants tallied by the DAC represent 2.1 cents per capita, ranking the generosity of U.S. citizens below only the people of Norway, Ireland and Switzerland....

U.S. private donations abroad are strikingly high relative to other wealthy nations. Several cultural factors may account for this discrepancy:

-- The Japan Foundation for Global Partnership concluded that Americans provide about eight times as much per capita in charitable donations, noting that Japanese avoid seeking personal credit for charitable giving.

-- Europeans largely view social problems as the responsibility of government, a factor that may limit direct private contributions but also explains the greater degree of support for official assistance. Many U.S. citizens view "big government" sceptically and prefer to provide aid with their own funds.

Shiner wrote in 1999, "Americans look even better compared to other leading nations. According to recent surveys, 73 percent of Americans made a charitable contribution in the previous 12 months, as compared to 44 percent of Germans, and 43 percent of French citizens. The average sum of donations over 12 months was $851 for Americans, $120 for Germans, and $96 for the French. In addition, 49 percent of Americans volunteered over the previous 12 months, as compared to 13 percent of Germans and 19 percent of the French." America the stingy

Just a week ago, a stunned world watched televised footage of U.S. helicopter pilots plucking grateful survivors from the devastated Indonesian island of Sumatra and dropping off food and medicine to desperate victims unreachable by road.

In recent days, however, a political blow-back has ensued, with the government of Indonesia - the world's most populous Muslim country - getting antsy about perceptions of a mounting U.S. military presence.

And I love it when the Democrats get caught with the hands in the same cookie jar...

I give you, Senator Byrd, King of Pork, another Senator that put a hold on the bill to "read it over" (same as Steven's):

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/blogs/content/shared- blogs/washington/washington/entries/2006/08/31/byr d_admits_he.html

As for deranged... Pelosi and McKinney are doing a pretty good job.

"Even the Dem's King of Pork, Senator Byrd of VA, stands up for individual constitutional rights all the time"

Not this time...

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/blogs/content/shared- blogs/washington/washington/entries/2006/08/31/byr d_admits_he.html

He was another senator that put the bill on hold. He lifted it today, after all the web uproar.

He gave the same basic reason Steven's did.

Ha! I was right. Byrd did put a hold on the bill:

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/blogs/content/shared- blogs/washington/washington/entries/2006/08/31/byr d_admits_he.html

He admitted it today, and took it off after admitting it.

Thanks for the link. I was aware of Halliburton working in Iran despite the embargo but never knew how they did it.

On a somewhat related topic I saw recently that Cheney is now dumping all his money in areas which will protect his earnings from any potencial economy crash in the US?

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/opinion/content/opini on/epaper/2006/06/18/m10a_blackburncol_0619.html

I haven't seen the magazine in question but the information (that I Could find) seemed to tie up.

The advantage of this, especially in the U.S., is that it is so much easier to manipulate local news.

I can tell from your insightful comment that it's clear you actually RTFA, entitled Music downloads hit sour note for sued ordinary folks.

Good work replying to the summary though. A+ for effort.

I think I know a Florida cop who would buy it for that reason alone.

she stopped moving because she'd broken her leg her leg twice: http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/mar tin_stlucie/epaper/2004/08/18/s1a_mcbody_0818.html

"I guess this means we've won the war on terror," said one FBI agent, speaking on condition of anonymity because poking fun at headquarters is not regarded as career-enhancing. "We must not need any more resources for espionage."

Among friends and trusted colleagues, an experienced national security analyst said, "it's a running joke for us."

A few of the printable samples:

"Things I Don't Want On My Resume, Volume Four."

"I already gave at home."

"Honestly, most of the guys would have to recuse themselves."

Have you tried CNN.COM or The Palm Beach Post or Newsmax or The Washington Post or how about USA Today.

In case you think any of those are too Bush friendly try out the New York Times.

Outside of media sources there is also the Wiki entry.

As for the panhandle disenfranchisement try:

Newsmax again.

Or the US Senate investigation.

As for the disenfranchisement of voters through poorly created criminal lists try:

Common Dreams (reprinting a Palm Beach Post article)

John Lott (you can read the whole thing but his conclusion sections should do)

Essentially the criminal lists did little to affect the vote, and most calls of African American disenfranchisement (the Democrats backbone support) were actually due to a disproportionally high vote rejection rate in 'Black districts', not the lists. But as several reviews have shown, these were do to voter error in marking their ballots, not any particular attempt to actively disenfranchise them. And before you try to make a case that they used different style ballots in 'Black Districts' (which was the case in some areas) remember, those districts, being predominately Democrat, were run by Democratic election boards who designed those ballots.

There was a good site that summarizes all the various debates, but I can't seem to find it right now. If I do I'll reply with a link. As for the Supremes roll in all this, it's pretty much a a moot point but if you want to dig further at least 7 justices saw some problem with the way the Florida Supreme Court had ordered the count to go forward, and at least 3 saw the December 12th deadline as an important part of their decision. They vast majority had issues with the lower courts rulings but each of the SCJs had a different idea as to what the solution should be.

Rick "Man on Dog" Santorum (R-PA) has introduced a bill in Congress to prohibit the National Weather Service from offering any free data. The NWS already subsidizes the commercial weather services by publishing weather data below cost - the corporations just repackage and sell it, with pretty visualizations. Now Santorum wants to take all the public data that US citizens own, and privatize it so only big corporations will be able to be in the weather game. Which means not only individual forecasts will be prohibitive, but teams of distributed processing won't be able to model climate change with real data.

Let's not forget about Santorum's bill that would basically force the NWS to remove all of these advancements so that the paid weather services can make a profit. The taxpayers have already paid for the collection and processing of weather information and his bill would make the availability of the paid-for information in question. Don't just take my word for it, read this. Or, just google on "santorum weather bill".

Recently a Senator (Rick Santorum, R-PA )introduced a bill prohibiting federal meteorologists from competing with companies such as AccuWeather and The Weather Channel. Now we can get this information for free. When this kind of bill gets passed we need to pay to get weather information.

Who needs a murder-simulator when you can join the police force and experience the real thing?

+ Shoot a young unarmed black man to death with 41 shots!

+ Kill a young woman by shooting a "non-lethal" pepper-spray projectile into her eyeball!

+ Needlessly taser young children, women and elderly people with 50,000 volts as you see fit!

+ Beat up, shove to the ground, handcuff and arrest blind elderly women in their own home!

Yes, order POLICE-FORCE today from your local videogame retailer and you too can be a civic-minded hero!

And by the way:

"This is what your kids will be digesting if you buy this," Grace said as game footage was shown. "One law officer after the next gunned down in the line of duty."

Kids will only be digesting it if adults buy it for them. Presumably most kids too young to be (theoretically) impressionable enough to go out and kill cops becuase they played a videogame about it don't have the $70 for an Xbox game.

"Here's a philanthropist and a powerful man, the richest man in the world, and yet he's making available to children around the world on Xbox a cop-killing game."

How much of the game centers around killing cops? For all we know, killing cops is just a small incidental portion of the game that they're focusing on because they're sick fucking perverts trying to exploit the public by making it an issue. And how is it a cop-killing game? I assure you, the cops in the game are not real. They are rendered animations displayed on the television. Kind of like a cartoon. No real cops are harmed.



Well, if you want those kids to be susceptible to your recruiters in a couple of years, you better start breaking down their inhibitions now so they'll be blood thirsty killing machines when you want them to be.

"By off shoring of jobs in the medical, insurance and banking fields, industries that will not expand based into the developing companies, except on a macro- or highest (read stockholder) level, we're effectively gutting the middle class's support of these industries."

I wasn't aware that the medical industry was off shoring. I just read Scripps is opening a new facility in Palm Beach. Biotech is a huge industry in the United States. Also Bank of America just got into the Chinese banking business.

"If free trade is the argument, why do US (any parent country) companies routinely offer goods in these developing companies at a fraction of the cost to their US consumer counterparts in order to gain market share? How are these "loss leaders" paid for? By the US (any parent country) consumers."

Cost of labour for one. Overvalued currencies another. American consumers, by the way, are very well treated. Take a look.

"By looking at the situation with rose-colored glasses and calling it free trade, you miss the underlying effects."

I prefer Oakley, actually. But seriously, I don't call what is happening today 'free' trade. It is freer in some geographical areas, but for the most part it is one large protectionist mess. Leaders are trying to give their countries advantages that aid the incumbent megalith far more than the consumer or worker.

"The countries that are benefiting from the off-shoring don't reciprocate by exporting jobs, and overall don't usually utilize US (parent country) goods or services, instead the US (parent country) goods and services usually end up competing with government sponsored goods and services, which, by definition, must be below a competitive price point in order to be effectively subsidized."

Off-shoring, when done correctly, is more of a win-win situation. The West benefits in the long-term from the ability to create a highly specialized, educated workforce, and receive cheap consumer goods now. Emerging economies benefit from the foreign direct investment. The downside is, unfortunately, that low-paying jobs are being moved. (Aside: Government sponsored goods? In the United States? Where?)

"I agree that it is quite easy to move a "corporation" off-shore. But if a company has 15 executives and salesmen in the US and 1300 workers in another country, are they still a "US" company or should they be considered as such?

You're talking about holding corporations. Most countries with emerging economies limit the stake a foreigner can hold. In China for example, the general number is 50%. In a case as you describe, the holding company will be American while the subsidiary will be Chinese. For tax purposes, corporations general use the indecipherable mess that is US tax/support system pay as little as possible. A flat tax reform would greatly alleviate these examples of creative accounting.

"Microsoft considers itself a US company, specifically a Washington state based company, but many of it's letters of incorporation are filed in Nevada, whereby they avoid over a $140 million in local Washington state taxes a year. They are "Redmond, Washington" in name only, and the land tax breaks that Washington gave them years ago in order to bring jobs to the area are being mitigated by Microsoft's increasing off-shoring of their code work and slick legal wrangling.

I wasn't aware that Microsoft was off-shoring. Point me a link? I migh

That goes directly to the video; you will want to prepare to adjust speaker volume and your blood pressure as you watch.

Linked from Hullabaloo.

We don't like disrespecting authority in this country. Nor do we like open documentation of how police methods work:

For years, Taser maintained that its stun guns never caused a death or serious injury. As proof, Taser officials said no medical examiner had ever cited the weapon in an autopsy report.

But Taser did not have those autopsy reports and didn't start collecting them until April [2004]. Using computer searches, autopsy reports, police reports, media reports and Taser's own records, The Republic has identified 88 deaths after police Taser strikes in the United States and Canada since 1999.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/content/news/vid eo/taser_video3a.html

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/content/news/epa per/2005/04/21/m1a_wx_0421.html

No More Free Weather Reports if Rick Santorum
has his way.

Just waiting for the tragedies to occur when Jeb signs this one off.

If you didn't have to show an ID or a passport to your employer, I'm suprised.

Thinking about it I was kind of surprised myself, but I wasn't.

Every time I've started a new job I needed to show one of those pieces of identification for the I-9 form.

I've never seen an I-9 form. Does it only apply to people who don't claim that they're US citizens, because that would explain why I've never seen one (I always claim to be a US citizen, since I am one).

It takes real effort to live without an ID and generaly requires you to break the law (illegal labor).

Well, in order to work for a legit company you've gotta get a social security number and matching name/address, and that requires breaking the law I'd assume. But it's not very hard, there are firms which will provide you with such information, and some of them even provide you with a social security card. This information might be fake (a household of 4 having 10 fake people in it) or real (a citizen could sell the SSN/information to the company, one citizen could easily have 3 or 4 low paying jobs before triggering any suspicion), I don't know exactly how that part works. And as I said, none of the employers I worked for in Florida ever checked my social security card.

The only people I can think of who live completely wihtout one are either under 18 or illegals.

I've heard stories of people from Mexico who took the long walk to the US and were living here without a problem. They just get a social security number from one of those places and try not to get pulled over. If they get caught, and get deported, they just have to walk over again. The government doesn't even really care as long as the people aren't claiming any benefits. They still get their taxes through withholding, and as of 2003 there is over $375 billion in social security taxes collected by these workers. These people are contributing taxes to the social security system but aren't claiming the benefits. And yet you get certain politicians who make it out like it's costing the American taxpayer. It's apparently extremely common in the agriculture industry.

Qyntel Woods was suspended from the Portland Trail Blazers (a losing team) because of legal and behavioral troubles. Including animal abuse...

The Blazers suspended him for the WHOLE rest of the season, and then fired him.

But he gets picked up by the Heat, who are a championship bound team, and given only a 5 game suspension.

So not only is his sentence lighter - but he gets "promoted" to a better team.

All while making obscene amounts of money for doing something most of us would consider "recreation" and some even pay for the rights to play (via gym memberships and whatnot).

Slashdot has nothing to worry about...

1. Common Dreams report: Nice. Common Dreams. An extremely "progressive" (in their own words) news source with rave reviews from Bill Moyers and (go figure) Ralph Nader, which Don Imus (of MSNBC) calls "a must read from the left". Hmmm....
2. optically scanned votes have a strange anomoly: From UsTogether.org, a web site dedicated to "peace, democracy, and well-being". The list of local resources display a myriad of internet sites dedicated to the Democratic and Green parties, and ONLY to those parties. Hardly an unbiased news source.
3. 88,000 more votes than there were voters: While I couldn't find a clear agenda on their site, the article referenced in the posting has already been updated with the fact that Palm Beach County had no such discrepancy. If you look at the page that the Washington Dispatch quotes, the actual numbers from Palm Beach County are quite different. In fact, there were 544,378 votes cast for President from 547,340 voters that turned out, showing 2,962 voters that never cast a vote for President, as opposed to the 88,000 votes over voter turnout that the article claims. Interesting...
4. discounted 50,000 voters: CmdrTaco claims this took place in LaPorte, Michigan ... when it actually took place in LaPorte, Indiana. This shows a complete lack of effort to verify this data. LaPorte was, in fact, a problem. They believe it was due to a power surge of some sort. They are still working on sorting through the mess there and are still counting ballots and working to certify the election there. At any rate, to state they "discounted 50,000 voters" is not only misleading, it's flat out wrong. In fact, the current data from LaPorte, INDIANA states that they had 43,278 voters voting (with 42,582 votes being cast for President) with just over 79,309 voters registered. That's a 55% turnout for that county, which is just about on par with the rest of the state. Whie I have yet to see viable precinct-by-precinct data for that county, it's clear that "discounting 50,000 voters" is not what happened at all. Incidentally, for all you Kerry fans out there, Kerry actually had more votes in this county.
5. gave Bush an extra 4,000 votes: Oh. My. $DIETY. The county in which this took place, still shows more votes for KERRY than for Bush. However, this is actually a problem if you look at the (still unofficial) data from Franklin County. The key here is that the document here referenced is UNOFFICIAL, and even CNN (left as they are) admits to that. The offical tally for Bush in that precinct is 365 votes. Perhaps the headline should read "Glitch gave Bush extra votes in Ohio According to an Unofficial Document That is Only Used by the Media".
6. counting backwards: Again, a valid probl

Is it just me, or does it look like they used integer math for their counter in the machines mentioned in:
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/politics/content/news /epaper/2004/11/05/a29a_BROWVOTE_1105.html

I'm willing to bet 32,000 isnt quite right, try 32,767... the max number for a 16 bit signed integer...

Add one and suddenly you roll over to -32766...

Supposedly it was fixed... fixed by what? using an ABS function to strip the sign from the number??

Electronic voting, while a neat idea to speed up the vote counting process, seems to have run into a number of glitches (over 1100 nationwide) this November 2nd. In addition to seemingly random problems in Florida [1, 2], Ohio [1], and North Carolina [1], there are allegations of systematic fraud based on statistical comparison of exit polls to final results in precincts with audit trails and those without. It is also interesting that in Florida, the voting patterns do not match the voter registration patterns as they do nationwide. This has attracted the attention of numerous civil rights groups including the Electronic Frontier Foundation that has filed at least two lawsuits since election day, and BlackboxVoting.org that has filed a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain computer logs and documents from 3000 counties and districts across the US. Equally disturbing is the fact that CNN has (since Nov 2) changed its exit polling results to reflect the actual results. This has attracted the attention of Congressmen John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, Jerrold Nadler of New York and Robert Wexler of Florida who have jointly requested that the GAO immediately investigate the efficacy of e-voting machines.

In case you are thinking that this is just sour grapes from Democrats who lost the election, think again. BlackboxVoting.org has been investigating e-voting fraud for years. Likewise, the CEO of Diebold, one of the e-voting machine manufacturers has been quoted as saying "I am committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president." And if that's not conflict of interest enough for you, Republican Senator Chuck Hagel (now resigned) is an owner of the largest e-voting machine company ES&S.

Other numerous problems have been found with the machines from nearly every company in the past [1, 2, 3]. Avi Rubin, a computer science professor at Johns Hopkins University, has been investigating such machines on his own and has found a number of security issues. Swarthmore students stood up to Diebold in November of 2003 after discovering

The e-touch optical scan comparison referenced as 'strange anomaly' may be explained if one considers that counties with small populations used optical machines and those with large populations used the e-touch machines. Bush's campaigners focused on the demographic more likely to be found in rural areas. The red vs blue by county results and the swing from expected to actual vote in rural Florida suggest it was a pretty successful campaign. I know some of the progressive democrats are painting this as an ignorant, rural, right-wing christian uprising. The variation in swing vote as a function of population size, supports at least the 'rural' aspect of their claimed uprising.

The remainder has been pretty well covered by other /. posters

In the very article referenced by commandantTaco one reads (if on is able) "...Palm Beach County appears to have accounted for the discrepancy..."

I guess the article from Aa href="http://www.michigancityin.com/articles/2004/ 11/04/news/news02.txt">Laporte Michigan might lead one to believe: poll workers experienced a huge operator error; election systems and software only sold ONE system and it's fscked; one, the other, or both of the aforementioned parties conspired to screw up the count. The traditional trick is extra vote, not tossing a huge number in the $hitcan. My bet is operatorerror. I mean no one ever screws up when using a computer!

Reading the Broward County article we learn, "Bad numbers showed up only in running tallies through the day, not the final one."

The bit from NM doesn't reflect much weirdness. Obviously all those folks that were too ignorant to check their paper MUST have been Bush supporters.

The machines where the software stored votes per precinct in an integer, causing the votes (having hit 32,767) to overflow.

I haven't written much code in a while, but I can figure out 'square peg, round hole'.

Probably old news by now, but what the hell, editors can dupe stuff, why shouldn't i?!
(found on dailyrotten.com)

http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/news/local/ 10083861.htm
http://www.wnct.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=WNC T/MGArticle/NCT_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=10317 78939157&path=
http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/11/02/HNevoteg litch_1.html
http://www.nbc4i.com/politics/3894867/detail.html
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/content/news/epa per/2004/11/05/a29a_BROWVOTE_1105.html

Yes I do.

1998 Florida Mayoral race overturned because of massive voter fraud. This is only the most recent of a half dozen cases in Florida some of which resulted in convictions and/or invalidated elections. Lots of funs stuff... Deceased voters, vote buying, non-resident voters, ballot switching - the whole nine yards. (Gee I wonder if THAT could possibly explain the "intimidating" presence of Republican poll watchers and an attempt to purge the rolls of deceased, illegal and non-resident voters? NO it MUST be "suppression"). As it turns our there WERE still dead people that voted in 2000. The Miami Herald found André Alismé who died in 1997 among 144 other illegal voters after investigating only about a sixth of the precincts in Miami.

Forged absentee ballots in S. Dakota in 2002

Apparently some of the Democratic voting dead vote in primaries too.

Deceased voters still making it to the polls

Of course the 1960 Presidential election... Long past history but memories are long and political

And there is plenty of proof that this year may be a high-water mark for fraud... Fictional people registered to vote
Tons of registrations accumulated over months including many fraudulent ones with fictional names, dozens of the same name, forged signatures, dead people etc. all dumped on the county offices at the last minute to overload the checks to prevent fraud in Pennsylvania, Florida (and here), Colorado, Texas.