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can anyone tell me how is this all different from the AI in 1970s and 80s (SHAKEY etc)

• Learning
• Planning
• KnowledgeBase/Knowledge Representation

Grow up ppl...a simple electro-mechincal piece of hardware layered with cute-teddy-bear-look and all above critical components hard-coded is not anything new..

Neither this article or nor the recent documentary on Nova says anything about any new technical development.

Give the man a cookie. Finally, someone who actually understands the purpose of patents. The whole deal, here, is that, in the past, people just kept their inventions secret if they could. The end result? Techniques could die with their inventor (read about Damascus steel for a great example of this). And, as you say, meanwhile people have to duplicate the effort.

I don't know about that. Most of the most famous inventions were generally unprotected by patents or heavily overpatented. Printing presses, screw propellers (reference), internal combustion engines, transistors (existing patents from 1930 were very similar to the ones made at Bell), and plenty of others. That's not to say that a lot of people didn't obtain or try to obtain patents, just that the general industry was able to work around the patents. Additionally, very few inventors have actually made much money for their patents. Most often, individual inventors have been crushed by rich corporations who stole their ideas, filed their own patents, and tied the inventors up in court for years. In general, big discoveries are created by the big thinkers who simply publish their ideas, and it's left up to industry to create practical implementations of these ideas. Patents can push industry to develop working implementations, but only if they are overbroad. The physical world allows a near infinite number of solutions to most classes of problems, so once a working device is patented it usually gives competitors enough information to build a similar device anyway. In reality, all that patents can do is prevent exact copying of a design. In that sense, it's very similar to copyright.

As for software patents, I have no problem with them on the surface (well, except for those that are obvious, but that's a problem with the patent office, not patents in general). However, I think software patents should have a more limited lifespan. After all, 20 years is a *very* long time in the world of computing (just think how different things were in 1986). Something like 4 or 5 years makes far more sense.

The reason software patents are bad is that copyright already covers the same concepts for software that patents do for hardware and machines, namely preventing the exact duplication of an invention. There is no need for softare patents because copyright law prevents competitors from exactly copying an existing solution and selling it themselves. However, there should be nothing wrong with understanding the underlying problem that needs to be solved, examining all the existing approaches, selecting the best approach, and reimplementing a working solution. In some cases, there are what can be called optimal solutions to problems in computer science, and in this case the copyright office recognizes that re-implementations of an optimal algorithm to solve the same problem may in fact be very similar, if not exactly so. The key is that they were produced from first principles and existing research and not directly copied from an existing copyrighted work. Patents work the same way (but in practice patent owners pretend they don't and file lawsuits contrary to this fact), and for instance patents on creating chemicals or medicines are merely a patent on a specific process of creating the end product, or in essence a patent on a machine (considering the entire process as a whole) that produces the end product. Someone who can build a machine to do the same thing in a slightly different way won't infringe the patent.

Any other concept of patents (or copyrights) requires that some entity can own an idea or class of ideas, and not merely a physical representation of a particular idea. I agree with you that patent terms should be shortened (along with copyright terms) to 5 to 10 years. The rate of progress is increasing, and there's no reason to pretend otherwise by having even longer terms th

2,500/day = 912,500/year dropping-out. This rate about 0.3% of the U.S. population dropping-out every year (at current population estimates).

But what number of students enter high school each year? PBS says 3 million students graduate this year. These are the students who make it; those who drop-out are the ones who don't make it. So, adding the 912,500/year that drop out, we're looking at an initial high school input of almost 4m students.

This back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that roughly 3/4 of students are still graduating high school.

Not that this is a high bar of achievement by any means... No way.

But at least we who weren't slacker idiots will have plenty of people serving us burgers and fries, schlepping boxes in warehouses, driving taxis, digging swimming pools, mopping floors, etc.. (assuming these jobs aren't all taken over by robots, but given the slow progress of our robotic overlords in spite of various technologists' and futurists' predictions, I would bet current crap-job laborers will have secure employment (secure from automation, at least, though immigration is quite a different story) for at least another 25 years. Needless to say, I don't share Ray Kurzweil's optimism for "20,000 years of progress in the next 100 years"...)

1 - http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/education/jan-june0 6/dropout_06-27.html
2 - If there are 300,000,000 Americans evenly distributed between ages 1 and 100, this number is realistic.
3 - http://www.ed.gov/pubs/OR/ConsumerGuides/dropout.h tml
4 - http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/ewp_08.htm

Egypt is one of those countries which has a horrible human rights records that you rarely hear about in the United States because they have been allies with our government. In other words, our media and government normally look the other way at the human rights abuses in Egypt. You can listen to a very informative interview here about an attorney in the United States who has been imprisoned for helping a prisoner to communicate with political allies in Egypt.

Why is this controversial?

NOVA did an excellent episode about this.

NOVA did an excellent episode about this. The theory is that pollution is greatly masking the effects of global warming.

The dot com bubble was fulled by an influx of investment money that was generated by the Trillion dollar bet first half payoff.
see http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/2704stock market.html

It was a case of easy and fact come, easy and fast go.

Losers of that gamble also made the news. Worldcom, Enron and the likes.

Such an influx of finances into empty product/service ideas will NOT happen again.

Artificial Intelligence at best is what each word is defined in the dictionary, then put together. Simply put, NOT REAL, an imitation!

And that is exactly what artificial Intelligence is, an imitation we create, a part here, a part there. And of course it can be said that its an image of ourselves as we are the programmers, and the machine is in essence made out of what is in essence stone material of various types (not biological material.)

The deception is in the hiding of the fact that its such an imitation of ourselves, artificial. The deception that its something more then we are. And it is this where the danger comes in. But it is like the building of the tower of babel, it won't work, it will fall.
The reason is simple, we have yet to recognize correctly and apply such recognition on a wide scale what this tool we call a computer really is.

It is an abstraction machine upon which we apply abstraction physics.

With the correct understanding we don't face such danger of misunderstanding or deceptions that the machine is more then we are. As such there won't be any hype or unjustified claims.

http://threeseas.net/abstraction_physics.html

Artificial intelligence is the by product of automating enought that the sum generated the appearance of human character in the reflection of its program processing.

We are really much simpler than what most people want to believe. Kinda like the Human genome being found to not be any where near what level of complexity we thought or wanted to think we were.

Taking chances with complex financial choices only makes sense if you are in the business. Student loans, car loans, mortgage, private schools for your kids, these add up to complex payment plans. Over 80% of Americans aren't saving enough for retirement according to Frontline/PBS http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/retirement / . They are making payments for cars instead.

Stop looking for ways to not pay now. If you can't pay for it now, you shouldn't get it now. Simple?

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2006/pulpit_200 61110_001188.html

Relevant quote from Cringely article:

We saw this happen before when 3Com tied its fortunes to Microsoft in the late 1980s with the lamented 3Com-Microsoft LAN Manager network operating system, which was ironically Microsoft's answer to Novell at that time. Then 3Com CEO Bill Krause felt the only way to compete with Novell was through an alliance with Microsoft. So 3Com bought its way into the relationship, ended up doing all the work (MORE THAN all the work if you count recoding Microsoft blunders), then had to BUY ITS WAY BACK OUT when the product failed.

After that deal was over and the blood had dried, 3Com founder Bob Metcalfe claims that a Microsoft exec told him, "You made a fatal error, you trusted us."

Microsoft is embracing open-source

Who would have guessed how right they would prove to be?

Robert Noyce (http://www.pbs.org/transistor/album1/addlbios/noy ce.html)

If you're interested, Dan Bricklin was interviewed on NerdTV back in November of 2005. See episode #10.

Something cool is found by the edge-of-hip peoples.
Company monitors edge-of-hip peoples to find out what is cool.
Company markets the new cool.
Edge-of-hip peoples move elsewhere.
Company killed cool.

The documentary Merchants of Cool outlines this quiet well (viewable online).

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(5 min video) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3F8WmrLHK0
(1hr Video) http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/242/video.html

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(5 min video) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3F8WmrLHK0
(1hr Video) http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/242/video.html

Cringely's latest column (http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2006/pulpit_20 061110_001188.html) is all about the Microsoft/Novell deal and Balmer's statement re other deals. He thinks Balmer's statement is deliberate deception to sow discord in the Linux space

"this [Pääbo] means Neanderthals and modern humans didn't interbreed."

bzzzzzt! wrong.

"From our data there's no positive evidence of interbreeding. But that does not mean that we can exclude interbreeding. We will never know something about sexual practices in the Pleistocene. We only know that they did not contribute this part of our genome to us." -- Svante Pääbo on NOVA

"this part of our genome" was mitochondria

"I'm aware there's some very strong evidence AGAINST interbreeding between Neanderthals and Humans (e.g. Svante Paabo's work etc)"
No you're not. "From our data there's no positive evidence of interbreeding. But that does not mean that we can exclude interbreeding." -- SVANTE PÄÄBO on NOVA

Does anyone think that had someone else been in charge they would have brought western style democracy to Iraq?

No, but there's a good chance that Iraq would at least be secure. You can't really have democracy in the middle of a damn war where civilians are being killed every day (somewhere around 50,000 total so far). The Bush administration REALLY screwed up the war in the first year, and hasn't done much to of anything to fix things since. There was an excellent Frontline documentary called "The Lost Year in Iraq" that aired not long ago. It's currently available for online viewing.

Militaries aren't designed for nation building. they are designed to kill thus the crux of the entire problem.

Man, if only it were that easy. Killing people is really really easy. If all you had to do to win in Iraq was kill some people, we'd have won long ago. The job of the military is to retain, or take control of an area, not kill people. Obviously that's partially achieved through killing people, but that's not the goal at all. So far the military hasn't been able to achieve the goal of controlling the region. There's still roadside bombs going off, if not a civil war going on on a daily basis. Shit, it'd be wonderfull if we actually GOT to the "nation building" stage and the military could withdraw, but we're nowhere near that stage now.

Robert Gates quote from a PBS interview, speaking about the first Iraq war ( http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/gulf/oral/ gates/2.html ):

Q: If you gave yourself a luxury of hindsight is there anything you would do that you didn't do to try and alter that ending of the war?

Gates: I do not believe I would have made decisions or recommendations differently in terms of how we dealt with the end of the war. All of the alternatives to the way things turned out in my judgement would have resulted in the American troops still being in Iraq today. And I believe that the American people would not tolerate that. We accomplished the objectives we set for ourselves. Our objectives do not include the total destruction of Iraq it did not include the total destruction of the Iraqi Army. We wanted to maintain the territorial integrity of Iraq, we didn't want Syria taking a piece here and the Iranians taking a piece here and somebody else taking a piece there. We wanted the territorial integrity of Iraq. We believe that enough army divisions were left for the regular army to be able to protect Iraq from intrusions into its territory. But its ability to invade its neighbours have been destroyed--the Republican Guards. So I think you have to keep coming back to what the objectives were in this war. Why we were there in the first place and not over time began to expand those objectives in retrospect, and those of expansion would have resulted in, in what I believe would have been a quagmire.

Ohhh really? :]

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2006/pulpit_200 60420_000893.html

-- Firmly entrenched at the bottom of 'Terrible Karma'.. now I can FINALLY speak my mind..

No way. Apple's in the business of selling hardare, not software. The hardware is where they make their money, so they'd be more likely to open up the iPod to other music stores than to license other placers to work with iTunes.

In the end, though, they won't do either - Apple's raking in cash hand over fist, has a virtual monopoly on digital music and digital music players and has no reason to change anything. Messing with their business model is only likely to make them trip themselves up, not make things better for them.

"... rabid bush haters ..."

Bush has given the world plenty of reason to dislike him: George W. Bush comedy and tragedy.

"... but you act like bush has minions at every voting station actively working against those who would vote against him."

You completely missed the point. You apparently didn't watch the HBO movie, and haven't been reading about Diebold events. The voting machines are computers, and it is easy to program them to give results. In 2003, the Diebold CEO said he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to (President Bush) next year.". 'The Cleveland Plain Dealer also reported that O'Dell was one of President Bush's top fund-raisers, ranked in the elite "Pioneer" echelons for collecting a minimum of $200,000.'

George W. Bush is the most disrespected U.S. president, by far: George W. Bush comedy videos.

Global temperature varied before man showed up. Global temperature is changing again now. Therefore, it cannot be a result of man's actions.

Let me just say that this is not stellar logic, and no one should be swayed by it.

Simple fact: CO2 concentrations have increased dramatically and at an accelerating rate.

Simple fact: Global temperature is rising.

Simple fact: The link between greenhouse gases and atmospheric temperatures has been known since the mid-1800's, and has never been credibly disputed. The mechanism showing how CO2 increases temperature has not been in dispute for a long time, so the whole "correlation != causation" argument is wearing pretty thin.

Simple fact: Humans pump about twenty billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere every year. Rush Limbaugh's denials to the contrary, this is vastly more than is produced by volcanos.

More worrying graphs. That sudden spike in graph 2, right when the automotive revolution took off? Very unlikely to be a coincidence.

If you truly believe that man is not changing the climate, and is incapable of doing so, then you are foolish. Oh, and weather isn't climate.

Global temperature varied before man showed up. Global temperature is changing again now. Therefore, it cannot be a result of man's actions.

Let me just say that this is not stellar logic, and no one should be swayed by it.

Simple fact: CO2 concentrations have increased dramatically and at an accelerating rate.

Simple fact: Global temperature is rising.

Simple fact: The link between greenhouse gases and atmospheric temperatures has been known since the mid-1800's, and has never been credibly disputed. The mechanism showing how CO2 increases temperature has not been in dispute for a long time, so the whole "correlation != causation" argument is wearing pretty thin.

Simple fact: Humans pump about twenty billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere every year. Rush Limbaugh's denials to the contrary, this is vastly more than is produced by volcanos.

More worrying graphs. That sudden spike in graph 2, right when the automotive revolution took off? Very unlikely to be a coincidence.

If you truly believe that man is not changing the climate, and is incapable of doing so, then you are foolish. Oh, and weather isn't climate.

Accountability???

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/2704stock market.html

People don't do things for no reason at all. They have a reason, even if its made up or wrongly borrowed.
But there is no organization of terrorist or any other type that can build such a suicidal distructive following
without some real base line to use as a enlistment and motivational sales tool.

9/11 happened for real reasons, even if borrowed by lunitic extreamist.
Winners of the Trillion dollar bet shared with the dot com and cause a boom.
Losers of the bet have been named in teh media such as Worldcom, enron, etc..

You don't fight terrorism to defeat it by giving it more excuses. You defeat it by removing its excuses so to let it expose itself to any potential enlistments so to NOT be able to sale. To give terrorism more excuses is to support it, perhaps creating an excuse for yourself to commit wrong.

Thou shall not kill.....is supposed to be a christian belief, and Bush is suppose to be a Christian.... yeh right....

Does he have his passport to heaven paper work to prove it?

Where is the court room to put on trial those who injured the economy of south east asia and the reset of the world stockmarket playing world?

Osama is on trial under the name of Sadam......or is that another borrowed excuse?

Besides, I never said the cost was zero; just that you should have to pay for the cost of getting the upgrade and not for the license, which is much, much greater than the infrastructure and bandwidth cost.

Far too much attention has been paid to whether or not the prices on Antique Roadshow are accurate enough. The greater significance of the Antique Roadshow today, and even more for those in the future, is its reality as the most detailed, comprehensive, concise, culturally-sensitive record of old human junk.... Today, archaeologists are doing digs to understand how people lived only 150 years ago, making guesses based on the random bits and pieces of peoples' lives that they find. In the future, that won't be necessary, as archaeologists are replaced by antiquers and people who rummage through your attic.

Far too much attention has been paid to whether or not the prices on Antique Roadshow are accurate enough. The greater significance of the Antique Roadshow today, and even more for those in the future, is its reality as the most detailed, comprehensive, concise, culturally-sensitive record of old human junk.... Today, archaeologists are doing digs to understand how people lived only 150 years ago, making guesses based on the random bits and pieces of peoples' lives that they find. In the future, that won't be necessary, as archaeologists are replaced by antiquers and people who rummage through your attic.

"Bill Moyers on America" recently aired a great documentary (watch the show online) in which the salient points made were that telecoms were given tax breaks to the tune of $2000 per household to wire them with fiber optics (back in the 90's) and that they are now trying to charge us again for that promised infrastructure while not allowing consumers the full benefit of the new higher speeds.

Also, it seems that the telecom's foot dragging may well have cost our country $500B to $1 Trillion dollars in lost economic opportunity!!! P.S. I tried to submit this as a story before but the dimwits in charge denied it twice.

Yeah, I was watching this hour long thing on the Tank Man online at PBS. I was appalled to see the last section, the section that focuses on censorship, censored by American copyright law.

Hello Pot! My name is Kettle...

Watch this Frontline episode. It also showed the differences as well. I wonder if people can access google.com (non-China) from China without proxy usages?

Frontline had an episode about this and the censorship in China. It looks the past 17 years on the events, censorship on the media like the Internet and education, analysis of what happened to the guy who withstood the tanks (is he still alive?), etc... There is also a free 90 streaming video about it. It even showed search engine like Google's results in China and outside of China. Big differences with censorships.

From AQFL.

Frontline had an episode about this and the censorship in China. It looks the past 17 years on the events, censorship on the media like the Internet and education, analysis of what happened to the guy who withstood the tanks (is he still alive?), etc... There is also a free 90 streaming video about it. It even showed search engine like Google's results in China and outside of China. Big differences with censorships.

From AQFL.

The post isn't particularly funny. It perpetuates the whole "America is ruining the English language!" myth. The reality is that both American and British English have been evolving since they diverged. One is not "ruining" the other unless you believe in some sort of innate superiority in whatever the British do. Do you Brits speak like Shakespeare? What? You don't? Imagine that, languages changing over time! Dear me!

Here is a history on the subject. American English used to be seen as a more "pure" form of English. In many ways, American English is closer to the 16th century English that both languages diverged from than British English is.

PBS but as it's government it's controlled by government wich is currently run by Bush. There are others but these are the major media organizations that broadcast over the airwaves.

PBS is pretty famous for taking "underwriting" money from oil companies and so on, which is one of the reasons it's programming is so tremendously bland. (The smoking gun on this, for me, is the excellent 80s show "The Sandbaggers" -- you could find it on obscure little UHF stations, but PBS wouldn't touch it.)

But then, I guess that Bill Moyers is back on PBS now, and I gather he's gunning for Elephant...

"They were discussed"
You discussed nothing, you simply dismissed all the links I posted including the Columbia Journalism Review link. What about the interview with Ted Turner. I guess the opinion of a media entrepreneur of his caliber doesn't merit any respect from you, eh? I'm glad you know more about the "myth" of media consolidation than someone like him, or say Bill Moyers. But there it is again, those darned links. You have brought nothing to the table except your "world is flat" dismissals.

"Looking at the definition of "consolidation", this would appear to fall short. As does the ludicrous idea of Clear Channel "consolidating" control by only having 8% of stations."
When you consider that Clear Channel used to own a paltry 41 before the Telecommuncations Act of 1996, and has now ballooned to over 1200 stations. That is media consolidation whether you want to admit it or not. The only thing ludicrous is your pseudo-libertarian ideology that all regulation must disappear. Like communism, libertarianism is a fantasy in the real world.

"Clear Channel owns a majority of the stations in the US". Sure, its easy to point to Clear Channel, as they are the biggest, but there are several others who have gobbled up television and radio stations and newspapers in markets all across the U.S. By focusing on one company you miss the point of the general trend. The trend since 1996 has been cosolidation because the FCC relaxed the rules on how many media outlets a particular company could own. This is fact.

"Ted Turner's CNN is one of the examples that proves the myth of media consolidation wrong. 30 years ago, it did not exist. It was a new voice that sprang up from nowhere. In Turner's realm, a small sort of media proliferation has occured instead of a consolidation."
Apparently you didn't RTFA. Turners position is that with the consolidation he has seen since his early days at WTCG, there is very little possibility of someone like him now doing what he did then. This is because it is too easy for large corporations to leverage their buying power now and purchase more and more. From TFA:
When I was getting into the television business, lawmakers and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) took seriously the commission's mandate to promote diversity, localism, and competition in the media marketplace. They wanted to make sure that the big, established networks--CBS, ABC, NBC--wouldn't forever dominate what the American public could watch on TV. They wanted independent producers to thrive. They wanted more people to be able to own TV stations. They believed in the value of competition.

"However, unlike you I recognize the fact that this is a subjective matter, not for the government to decide. Thankfully, the First Amendment does not distinguish between someone's idea of "good" journalism and "bad" journalism."
Actually, unlike me you can't stay on topic. The debate here is whether or not media consolidation is happening or not. More vacuous rhetoric about the First Amendment will get you nowhere. This is all about whether the FCC will allow competition to be stifled due to more and more media outlets (television stations, radio stations, newspapers) to be owned and controlled by a smaller and smaller group of corporations.

As I'm sure you're aware, the Dixie Chicks(sp?) made a comment about the president back in 2003 while on tour in London. Even though they are still around and touring, this comment cost them dearly, and they later found out that radio DJ's were fired because they played their music. They were blacklisted by corporate media. Get it? There was a corporate mandate "from on high" that dictated that none of the stations would play thier music after their comment. They also found out that corporate execs (Cox?) admitted this, and that all the other country stations would "fall in line". That is the kin

• Wikipedia
• Online NewsHour

In that case, I default to the first amendment of the United States consitution-the supreme law of the land. Politicians who are looking for scapegoats along with "parental watchdog groups" seem to think that they can censor video game content. Actually, if you think about it, all of this started with the ongoing Puritannical fear of dealing with the topic of sex-or simulated sex, since politicians didn't get in an uproar until the "hot coffee" mod was made known to them, even though the game had been on the market for a while before that happened (I do not sympathize with the way Rockstar games handled the situation, just to be clear). Leland Yee (who launched an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to regulate purchasing habits by trying to legally discriminate that minors do not have the same speech rights as adults), didn't gain ANY significant traction in his anti-video game crusade until after the "hot coffee" incident happened. In each time where the pro-censorship folks have convinced one or more politicians that they are correct, the industry fights it in the form of a lawsuit, and then multiple federal judges from multiple circuit courts have sided with the industry, and leave a very detailed explanation as to why the politician-and ultimately the person(s) possibly behind the politicians are wrong. You will note that when the industry wins, and the politician loses, they "dig in" by talking shit, and NOT citing the fact that they lost based on constitutional first amendment grounds. One might think that these pro-censorship types would learn a few things by now, but apparently not

The latest politician who is an example of this is Fred Morgan, from Oklahoma. Quote: "I am very disappointed in the industry that continues to challenge any type of restrictions on their games without being responsible enough to work with legislators to try to solve the problem."

The pro-censorship (and people who feel that government's role is to raise your child) types often cite that there is a real problem going on with video games directly causing violence, but the evidence is non-existent, save hyperbole and political posturing. Like Nomad says from Star Trek:TOS, "Non-sequitur. Your facts are uncoordinated." What is more likely is that we have a disconnect with politicans (with an average age of 55) and some realities of this situation. All of this does not give legitimacy to this NIMF-sponsored "what can we do next to censor video games" summit.

I do not work for the industry, and I like XMAME, but as a military employee and a part time public school teacher, I find this witch hunt to try to censor the first amendment disturbing to say the least. Since when did the first amendment of the U.S. Constutition become unimportant? It never did. It has been whittled down a little bit since it was created, but for the most part, the majority of what it stands for and does is fully intact. The 14th amendment protects the 1st amendment from being heavily modified, so that failsafe mechanism has yet to be truly tested.

Finally, where is the evidence that an ESRB "M" rated game will cause panic in the streets? To me, the ESRB is the first form of censorship...

This is exactly the sort of thing that will lead to more corporate consolidation of the news which is a nightmare. The one working example we have of automated news broadcasting on a wide scale is clear channels automatic radio stations. Guess what happened during hurricane Katrina that's right there were very few small towns with local news coverage. Far from more automatic news we need more local news which requires more feet on the ground not less. Note this is not a jerimad against technology, technology can make local news coverage easier through things like indymedia.org

See Moyer's PBS special on the dangers of media consolidation.

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/moyersonamerica/net/neut rality.html

But "free healthcare" advocates tend to forget that Americans with real jobs already get "free healthcare"

Uh, no. In point of fact, many get no healthcare at all - 27 million Americans with jobs don't have health insurance. Only about 59 percent of businesses provide health insurance to employees.

Many small businesses can no longer afford to provide coverage, and many employees can't afford their portion of premiums. There's a loss of coverage even amoung households making $50k+/year.

Critics have alleged that the questioners asked the children leading questions, repetitively, which, it is said, always yields positive responses from young children, making it impossible to know what the child actually experienced. Some claim the questioning alone may have led to false-memory syndrome among the children who were questioned.

Non-elected position having no checks and balances? Gee, where have we heard this before?

Hmmm. In my state, the state judges are elected. (Here is some explanation of how that came about.)

If I were disturbed by check & balance issue, though, it's not clear to me how a lack of check and balances for a judicial power should make me feel better than those who live in states where the judges are appointed, though.

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Californians to Stop 89
This group is against the clean elections movement and believe that the initiative "works to shut certain groups like small businesses, non-profits and some unions, out of the political process" therby creating an "unlevel playing field."

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Related Links:

Americans for Campaign Reform
A group in support of public-funding for all federal elections

Public Campaign: A group supporting 'clean elections'
Clean Elections in your State

Arizona-Specific

Arizona - Citizens Clean Elections Commission
List of 2006 Candidates

Clean Elections Institute

Goldwater Institute
"Campaign Promises: A six-year review of Arizona's experiment with taxpayer-financed campaigns"

California-Specific

Californians for Clean Elections - Yes on 89
This group supports so-called clean elections. They believe "prop 89 is the antidote to negative ads paid for by rich special interests." It limits the amount corporations can spend on initiatives. It limits the amount everybody can give to candidates.

Californians to Stop 89
This group is against the clean elections movement and believe that the initiative "works to shut certain groups like small businesses, non-profits and some unions, out of the political process" therby creating an "unlevel playing field."

Maine-Specific

Maine Citizens for Clean Elections

Maine Commission of Government Actions and Election Practices
List of 2006 Candidates

I understand why you might think that. It is clearly due to a failure of the media and Congress to hold our adminsitration accountable that you still believe that the intelligence at the time supported their case for going to war.

"Saying that he "lied about WMD's" for instance is nonsense, since all intel at the time indicated that they did indeed exist."

Therre was plenty of credible intelligence at the time that said that he didn't, too. This is called "cherrypicking" intelligence. The justification that Congress voted for the war based on the same intelligence is true only because Congress was only able to look at the same intelligence that Bush himself was "looking at" - i.e. the intelligence that the administration selected because it supported the hypothesis that there were WMDs in Iraq. People within the intelligence community who disagreed with this statement were actively smeared - read: Joseph Wilson, who investigated connections between Saddam Hussein . Meanwhile there werep lenty of other assertions that the administration made or insinuated at the time to justify an invasion that didn't even have evidence, namely that Saddam was connected to Al Qaeda and was in some way direclty responsible for 9/11. See also: the Downing Street Memo, which proves that Bush was fixing intelligence around a decision that was made by neoconservatives as early as 1997 to remove Saddam Hussein from power once they had the chance. So I would call that deliberate lying. Just because it was done (at the time) with great dexterity and without leaving tracks doesn't mean it is less delibreate. Why don't you read this interview by PBS of Colonel Laurence Wilkerson. This man actually played in an integral part in *planning the war* and claims: "I participated in a hoax on the American people, the international community and the United Nations Security Council. How do you think that makes me feel? Thirty-one years in the United States Army and I more or less end my career with that kind of a blot on my record? That's not a very comforting thing."

"Some say that these lies have directly resulted in as many as half a million deaths." Talk about "misleading public statements". Some people say the moon landing was faked. Doesn't mean it's true.

A very reputable pollster recently showed with (according to him) 95% certainty that up to 650,000 Iraqi civilians have died since the war began, far exceeding the "official" body count.
So I include myself among those people who believe that the real body count far exceeds the official one, which stands right now at 48,000 - a lower number indeed, but one that should still offend you.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/darpa/program.html

Well, if only things were so simple. Modern research is showing that the population of the Americas is more complicated than originally thought, with people migrating from both Europe and Asia. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/first/claimbonn.html

So which argument should we follow, "We were here first" or "We were here last"? Because you may not have been as first as you think you are, and hell, we're probably related anyway.