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My mistake, didn't get the point across very well. It was the Shah that the US helped to power in 1953. That government is long gone.

There is a good timeline of it all here. This is the relevant extract:

1953 - U.S.-backed coup ousts Mossadeq; reinstates shah

At the height of the Cold War, the Eisenhower administration approves a joint British-American operation to overthrow Mossadeq, worried that his nationalist aspirations will lead to an eventual communist takeover. The operation is code-named Operation Ajax. At first, the military coup seems to fail, and the shah flees the country. After widespread rioting -- and with help from the CIA and British intelligence services -- Mossadeq is defeated and the shah returns to power, ensuring support for Western oil interests and snuffing the threat of communist expansion. General Fazlollah Zahedi, who led the military coup, becomes prime minister.

It's scary that oil was a motive back then. But, war and international politics has always been about access to resources. Anything else was only propaganda to further the attempts to get that access.

Yes, go ahead and lable Bush weasle of the year. It's fine with me just as long as you remember that for every lie you acredit Bush, it was found at the UN's doorstep FIRST.

WMDs? Why, the UN published figures to the effect that Nearly four tons of VX nerve agents, Growth media for 20,000 litres of biological warfare agents, 15,000 shells for use in biological warfare and 6,000 chemical warfare bombs were unaccounted for.

A threat to world peace? Looks like the UN whole heartedly agreed with President Clinton when he said, "Saddam (Hussein) must not be allowed to threaten his neighbors or the world with nuclear arms, poison gas or biological weapons." I don't recall the UN batting an eye, do you? I don't seem to remember France, Germany China or Russia losing too much sleep over Operation Desert Fox either.

And lets not forget Resolution 1441 that clearly states:

"Recognizing the threat Iraq's non-compliance with Council resolutions and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles poses to international peace and security. Deploring the fact that Iraq has not provided an accurate, full, final, and complete disclosure ...as well as all other nuclear programmes, including any which it claims are for purposes not related to nuclear-weapons-usable material. Deploring further that Iraq repeatedly obstructed immediate, unconditional, and unrestricted access to sites designated by the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) ...and ultimately ceased all cooperation with UNSCOM and the IAEA in 1998, ...in spite of the Council's repeated demands that Iraq provide immediate, unconditional, and unrestricted access to the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), Deploring also that the Government of Iraq has failed to comply with its commitments pursuant to resolution 687 (1991) with regard to terrorism ...to end repression of its civilian population... Determined to ensure full and immediate compliance by Iraq without conditions or restrictions... Determined to secure full compliance with its decisions..."

And also said...

"1. Decides that Iraq has been and remains in material breach of its obligations under relevant resolutions... 2. Decides, while acknowledging paragraph 1 above, to afford Iraq, by this resolution, a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations under relevant resolutions of the Council; 3. Decides that, in order to begin to comply with its disarmament obligations ...the Government of Iraq shall provide a currently accurate, full, and complete declaration of all aspects of its programmes to develop chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, and other delivery systems such as unmanned aerial vehicles and dispersal systems designed for use on aircraft, ...and nuclear programmes, including any which it claims are for purposes not related to weapon production or material; 7. UNMOVIC and the IAEA shall have the right to be provided by Iraq the names of all personnel currently and formerly associated with Iraq?s chemical, biological, nuclear, and ballistic missile programmes and the associated research, development, and production facilities
13. Recalls, in that context, that the Council has repeatedly warned Iraq that it will face serious consequences as a result of its continued violations of its obligations."

Did I mention that 1441 was ratified unanimously by every permanent

Yup. Rough Science'.

I agree that it was done with a decent amount of laughs, and was pretty good overall. But if you're science-ignorant, there was probably too much left out in the explanation of things. Of course, they put in little bugs directing you to the web site for more details, things you could do at home, etc., so I guess their goal was to just draw you in enough to read up on the topics.

This widespread claim is not fully accepted by the scientific community. Cecil Adams notes at http://www.straightdope.com/columns/030328.html that those who work with the animals are receptive to the idea, but linguists dismiss it as nonsense.

I've read some of these so-called "conversations", and none of them even begins to approach the level of a child at 30 months. At 30 months my kids were all capable of completely innovative sentence structure and word formation ("allbody hug", "everystuff", "may you pick me up please?").

Go read the discussion at http://www.koko.org/world/talk_aol.html and then visit a daycare center for an afternoon. Tell me if you honestly believe that Koko "talks" in anything even approaching the level of a child at 2 1/2.

The claimed conversations that Koko engages in remind me of nothing so much as "facilitated communication", a delusion that spread through the psychiatric community, sucking down millions of dollars and wrecking people's lives with phony claims of sexual abuse -- claims supposedly made by autistic children whose random motions were interpreted as communication. Go visit http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/programs/t ranscripts/1202.html and see if that doesn't look suspiciously like the conversations that Koko is supposedly having.

The Supreme Court has a spotty track record, at best when it comes to these decisions. The fact is that an intelligent computer could be seen as a slave, and one of the worst decisions in the Supreme Courts history was the Dred Scott v. Sanford decision, another case that may be prevalent is the decision in Korematsu v. United States, which is still a president. The First computer may indeed fall victim to human short sightedness and an unwillingness to change. I for one hope that the first machine that asks to be free is given the dignity that some of our ancestors were not.

So this means the rest of Stardust should come to light post haste?

Cringely put out an article (Changing the Game: How to Save the World by Taking Back Control of Our Data) a week or so back emphasizing security through recording all activity in any given IT infrastructure. Cryptographic techniques may be great, but social engineering, cracked buffer overflows, and short-sighted or stupid actions can always leave some crucial data exposed.

Rather than throwing your hands up when you've found you've left data exposed, or you've discovered some insider has been poking around documents they shouldn't be looking at, you should be able to track down all access to all information at all layers of your infrastructure. You hopefully can uncover traces of specific incidents, find any other similar unnoticed events that are now part of history, and find the culprits.

So logging and log analysis are key to securing any site. You need to log:

• web servers
• DB access
• app server use
• custom applications
• machine login sessions
• network events
• key card access to buildings
• maybe even disk I/O info
• ... and many others ...

... and you need to do it in a way where you can correlate information from all these disparate sources to uncover patterns of abuse. Cringely mentions that Addamark (he calls them the next "Oracle") is the first company with a viable solution for storing and analyzing the massive logs involved. I've looked at their site, does anybody know anything about this product? Sounds very useful.

BayStar does not need Microsoft directing its investments. Believe it or not, there are some companies out there that can make stupid decisions without Microsoft.

There is one that is pretty good. Not all science but there is quite a bit.

If you are Dutch, then Piet Hein is a national folk hero. If you are Spanish or Portugese then he was a rapacious Dutch pirate stealing colonial income.

If you're Canadian, then the Brig the Sir John Sherbrooke was a warship, if you were American, a pirate ship. Vice-versa for the Syren.

As with acts of war anywhere, perspectives can differ even amongst folks supposedly on the same side.

a complete breakdown of civil rights like it is happening now.

Yipes! Where?

1. CAPPS is not a state program... it is federal.
2. The FBI is federal

Martin Luther was a monk. Later in life he did marry. Shoot, there even was a Martin, Jr. I didn't think there would be!

Here I was going to go off on a rant and make fun of you're historical inaccuracy and how dumb you were, and you had the audacity to be right! Darn.

...anyone surprised by the speech must not have read Bob Woodward's Bush at War , in which he quoted Bush as saying (OK, in context of Cabinet meetings, but still): "I'm the commander. See, I don't have to explain why I say things . . . Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation.

source

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: President-elect Bush and the four congressional leaders met for two hours.

PRESIDENT-ELECT GEORGE W. BUSH: I told all four that I felt like this election happened for a reason; that it pointed out-- the Delay in the outcome should make it clear to all of us-- that we can come together to heal whatever wounds may exist, whatever residuals there may be. And I really look forward to the opportunity. I hope they've got my sense of optimism about the possible, and enthusiasm about the job. I told all four that there are going to be some times where we don't agree with each other, but that's okay. If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier... ( Chuckles ) ( laughter ) ...just so long as I'm the dictator. ( Laughter )

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Afterwards, all four congressional leaders said they believed that today's meeting was a good start.

source

Politics is a bunch of show and blow for people who don't understand.

The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way, and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theatre.

[We] like to talk about (or be told about) democracy but, when put to the test, usually find it to be an inconvenience. We have opted instead for an authoritarian system disguised as a democracy. We pay through the nose for an enormous joke-of-a-government, let it push us around, and then wonder how all those assholes got in there.

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry.

source

Actually thats called a URL. This is a link.

• How to Steal $65 Billion: Why Identity Theft is a Growth Industry
• Ego, Super-ego, and ID Theft: Why Identity Theft is Only Likely to Get Worse, not Better
• Changing the Game: How to Save the World by Taking Back Control of Our Data
• I'm With Stupid: How Having Friends Might Be the Key to Both Privacy and Identity

• How to Steal $65 Billion: Why Identity Theft is a Growth Industry
• Ego, Super-ego, and ID Theft: Why Identity Theft is Only Likely to Get Worse, not Better
• Changing the Game: How to Save the World by Taking Back Control of Our Data
• I'm With Stupid: How Having Friends Might Be the Key to Both Privacy and Identity

• How to Steal $65 Billion: Why Identity Theft is a Growth Industry
• Ego, Super-ego, and ID Theft: Why Identity Theft is Only Likely to Get Worse, not Better
• Changing the Game: How to Save the World by Taking Back Control of Our Data
• I'm With Stupid: How Having Friends Might Be the Key to Both Privacy and Identity

• How to Steal $65 Billion: Why Identity Theft is a Growth Industry
• Ego, Super-ego, and ID Theft: Why Identity Theft is Only Likely to Get Worse, not Better
• Changing the Game: How to Save the World by Taking Back Control of Our Data
• I'm With Stupid: How Having Friends Might Be the Key to Both Privacy and Identity

They love to read; they spend time with friends; they do all sorts of stuff. So I swear by this: Television is a waste of time.

Get off your damn high horse. Television has plenty of crap on it, but that doesn't mean the medium sucks. There's plenty of crap published in book format too. People who argue this 'television sucks' focus on the crap and ignore the quality stuff out there.

It is akin to saying 'CDs suck' because the local Wherehouse music has a rack full of NSync. If you are unhappy with the programs you watch, find better programs. There are plenty of good, entertaining, moving, educational shows on television.

Crappy TV rots brains about the same amount as crappy romance novels, or teeny bopper pop, or Gigli. Don't identify the medium with only its dregs.

-Ted

Gosh, back in 1996 I wrote an ActiveX control trying to warn everyone that this was a bad, bad idea. Embedding native code on a web page is plain stupid. Maybe it's time to open source the code for this thing so it can be brought up to date now that everyone is interested again? Last time I opened my mouth about this Cornelius Willis (platform director at M$) called me "...clearly not an author that anyone can trust" and I ended up spending $600 on lawyers to fend off their proxy attack via Verisign. Anyone else willing to take up the cause? Mike Doyle has been pretty clear about his intent on this, he intends to deny MS the patent and allow other browsers to keep on rolling. His intent? To allow the web to return to it's original platform agnostic experience. Not a bad thing given that 95% of the (IMHO) foolish public is running IE these days. Since most web sites only support IE and Netscrape 4.7 (gack!) isn't this a good thing?

' The word they are replacing is "invention." Only now we innovate, which is deliberately vague but seems to stop somewhere short of invention. Innovators have wiggle room. They can steal ideas, for example, and pawn them off as their own. '

' But there is another issue here, one that is hardly ever mentioned and that's the coining of the term "innovation." This word, which was hardly used at all until two or three years ago, feels to me like a propaganda campaign and a successful one at that, dominating discussion in the computer industry. I think Microsoft did this intentionally, for they are the ones who seem to continually use the word. But what does it mean? And how is it different from what we might have said before? I think the word they are replacing is "invention." '

Perhaps Verisign will help the world see through this concept of "innovation" and let us get back to inventing things.

What about hat Cringely's Snapster?

[don't mod me up.. or down]

From this, came (1) an acceptance of slavery, thus justifying the New England abuses of the Industrialization. That, in turn, drove a desire of the New England Industrialists to seize the South for their benefit, as well as providing a pretext for the ci vil war.

The ongoing abuses of the industrialists, meanwhile, drove the westward expansion and the policy of manifest destiny. The civil war, then, centralized power in the hands of the federal government, thus providing power to the policies of manifest destiny, and driving an imperial attitude among our leaders.

With the imperial attitude came the need in our leaders' hearts to be the ruler of the world, from Roosevelt's "Great White Fleet", to our presence in WWI and WWII.

Now, our sending our boys off to WWII proved to be a different kind of downfall. With all the young men and women in love, probably going to get married in 5 years anyhow, the news of going off to war resulted in the baby boom, and a lot of premarital sex, or shotgun-fast weddings. Now, in general their intentions were right, and even where girls did get pregnant out of marriage, they still did get married. But then when it came time to teach their kids morality, they couldn't do it. They couldn't bring themselves to say "what we did was wrong" to themselves -- and therefore, they by and large taught their kids "just don't do it. People don't do that kind of thing."

The kids grew up hearing this, and immediately deduced "what kind of hypocrisy is this?!?" So we had the sexual revolution, and alongside that an explosion in psychoactive drugs.

The sexual revolution is something we never really go over. It resulted dually in a general loss of faith in God and libertine attitudes, which brought a host of problems: extreme wrongful profiteering became normal; legalized theft reached new highs with lawsuits becoming an accepted way to become rich. Our television started deifying consumerism and sexuality; and we as we started importing the products of theft, we had to export corruption and death in unimaginably large numbers of ways.

That, since then, has driven a great hatred of the ugly American. (But not to be Eurocentric, France and Germany, even Italy and Spain, all have engendered similar hatred, but not to the extremes that America has.)

But the lack of faith in God also drives fear. So you have 300 million (or more) fear-driven, consumerist, theft-friendly Americans.

What, exactly, could be more natural than the music piracy, the RIAA/MPAA tactics, DRM, and the Patriot act?

Yeah, you can take it back to the 3/5 compromise.

But that's the short sighted answer. The long-sighted answer would take it back to the first humans.

Or maybe, the longest-sighted answer of all would be to say "since we played our own role in this, we have earned what we got."

OS and office software is rapidly becoming commoditized. I'm sure even Microsoft knows that with the rate of improvement with free software, it's only a matter of time before $AVERAGE_USER gets wise and its monopolies dry up.

What to do? Well, Microsoft's only chance is to use its current (illegaly attained) monopoly power to grab control of the PC hardware platform. It's easy: "hey AMD, we're not too sure we feel like coming out with a 64-bit version of Windows. Oh sorry, would hurt your bottom line?"

This is the final battle between the open and the closed, IMHO. If Microsoft wins, they'll have dominion over all the land, and software will only interoperate on their say-so, and only if you've paid the rent on the computer you naively think you own. But if enough people come to understand that they have free alternatives, Microsoft is dead meat.

Incidentally, this is why I use linux and recommend it to all my reasonably knowledgeable friends. It's more solid, obviously, but the real reason for me is (I admit it) political. I am opposed to Microsoft's reprehensible business tactics and it is my fondest wish that enough people come to their senses before it's too late.

It's war folks. Which side are you on?

In fact, it was Compaq Ahh ... here's the story

• The Compaq Portable was the first 100% compatible IBM computer clone. Why make an IBM clone? Because the IBM PC was extremely popular, and taken very seriously by businesses looking for a computer system.

  Problem: Compaq couldn't just copy IBM's BIOS to make their new machine guaranteed IBM compatible, this would be illegal, and easily proven by IBM.

  Solution: Reverse-engineer IBM's BIOS. Compaq used two sets of programmers, one group who had access to IBM's source code and another who knew nothing about it. The first group closely looked at the original code, and made notes of exactly what it did. The second group took these notes, and wrote their own BIOS that performed exactly the same. After one year and a million dollars, they were successfull. They had a legal BIOS identical in operation to that of the IBM computer.

I have written my local representative that while his recent bill to remove SSNs from insurance cards is nice, it's far too late (and how about just getting people to stop using SSN's as identifiers?

The cat's out of the bag already. Pretending that SSN's are somehow secret was dubious enough thirty years ago, but is just plain reckless today. It's this coy game of 'if you know your SSN you must be you even though we know that's not true' that has allowed identify theft to proliferate.

Instead we need to just say, "this is my National ID # - use it for whatever you damn well please" - at that point people will have to start looking for real security solutions instead of the crazy half-baked ineffective one they're trifling with now.

Of course, this can't be done electively - there needs to be a national cutover date with probably 2 years notice (then at least 2 years of delays). All that needs to be done is to get Congress, the IRS, the President, and 'Privacy Advocates' on board. No problem.

They really have lost their marbles if they think that their contract allows them to do this type of stuff.

It doesn't matter what their contract says, it's what they can get away with - that's sharp business.

We're hemorrhaging 400k jobs a month, No, not exactly. The most recent month statistics shows a net loss of 93,000 jobs. Check it out yourself here.

top administration officials are leaking the names of covert CIA agents One agent is in question. ..(blah blah blah) Additionally, before Novak broke the story it was common knowledge that Plame worked for the CIA. Read Novak's defense of the situation and you'll probably change your mind on the situation.

Here's a quote from a former CIA analyst (and registered Republican) on PBS's newshour

Let's be very clear about what happened. This is not an alleged abuse. This is a confirmed abuse. I worked with this woman. She started training with me. She has been undercover for three decades, she is not as Bob Novak suggested a CIA analyst. But given that, I was a CIA analyst for four years. I was undercover. I could not divulge to my family outside of my wife that I worked for the Central Intelligence Agency until I left the agency on September 30, 1989. At that point I could admit it. So the fact that she's been undercover for three decades and that has been divulged is outrageous because she was put undercover for certain reasons. One, she works in an area where people she meets with overseas could be compromised. When you start tracing back who she met with, even people who innocently met with her, who are not involved in CIA operations, could be compromised. For these journalists to argue that this is no big deal and if I hear another Republican operative suggesting that well, this was just an analyst fine, let them go undercover. Let's put them overseas and let's out them and then see how they like it. They won't be able to stand the heat.

I'd sure like to have a price estimate on my old copy of Sys V..

As geeks, we are probably not able to act as a united block and get the US Congress to repell the PATRIOT Act. I mean, c'mon, what are *you* gonna do? Vote for the Democrat candidate at the next election? Suuure, dude, like it's going to change things. Remember, the thrice accursed DMCA is a parting gift from a Democrat president. Or ask the orphans in Waco how good it is to enjoy freedom under a Democrat administration.

But on another hand, who started this mess in the first place? That's right, the New York Times. This paragon of virtuous indignation and dignified moral authority has thrown the book on Adrian Lamo after a harmless whistle blowing. After all, the idiots had an open proxy making their editorial contributor's SSN and personal data world-readable. It's not like Lamo did a Watergate on them. But the people who pose as the intelligentsia's moral authority (albeit slightly decrepit) cannot be caught with their pants down, now, can they?

So punish the morons who pretend to oppose Bush's policies and then yell "Terrorist!" at a harmless guy. Punish the bloody hypocrits who kill trees to pretend they oppose excessive freedom-smothering laws and then file lawsuits that make use of these very laws.

Boycott the New York Times.

-- SysKoll

• Six centuries ago, a mighty armada of Chinese ships crossed the China Sea, then ventured west to Ceylon, Arabia, and East Africa. The fleet consisted of giant nine-masted junks, escorted by dozens of supply ships, water tankers, transports for cavalry horses, and patrol boats. The armada's crew totaled more than 27,000 sailors and soldiers. The largest of the junks were said to be over 400 feet long and 150 feet wide. (The Santa Maria, Columbus's largest ship, was a mere 90 by 30 feet and his crew numbered only 90.)

It's STENDEC (or ETA LATE).

if there would be no customers reacting to the offers, then the advertisement would be useless
Spam is cheap - the article gave rates as low as $25/million emails. That means that even a 0.01% response rate (which would kill any other marketing medium) covers the outlay. And rather more than 0.01% of people could be classed as "got into the gene pool when the lifeguard wasn't looking" - believing even the most seemingly obvious scams.

So we should strive to increase the database quality of the advitisers. This can be done by creating a national/global database were everybody enters his preferences/hobbies and other personal data.
No thanks - my personal data is just that, personal. You seem to labour under the delusion that all consumers welcome marketing "information" and just want a way to be able to have the choicest pieces delivered to their door. In reality, the majority of consumers find most advertising a waste of resources and something to be tolerated at best and would not be prepared to disclose personal data just for the dubious privilege of receiving "targetted" junk. Why do you think the Do Not Call list gained 50 million entries? This isn't expressing a preference for marketing, this is a rejection of it completely.

The idea that people should have to submit all their personal details just to have "high quality" marketing is the typical view of the professional marketer who cannot accept the simpler truth that most people would rather do without them completely. If someone wants a product or service, they should make that decision on their own initiative, do research to find the best price/make and then make a purchase. Advertising simply increases the price, promotes presentation over quality of product and, psychologically adds a great deal of stress to most people's lives since it tries to "create" a need by promoting feelings of inadequacy. Feel intimidated on the streets? Get some Nike trainers! Can't pull the opposite sex? This new aftershave/perfume/car will!

self appointed privacy advocates come into play. With their zealot mission to destroy any storage of data of customers or citizens, these people effective block the road to the SPAM solution
Quite a statement given that you haven't yet provided a solution. In any case, privacy advocates are about "freedom of choice" - you do know what that is, right? Most databases are assembled without the knowledge, let alone the consent of those included and most only find out about them when incorrect data causes problems (like with identity theft). There are occasions where data does need to be stored - I want to be able to see my bank account transactions or utility bills for the last month. However, I do not want this information then sold on to all and sundry and this is where legislation is needed. In the US, this approach is currently piecemeal (with over 90 separate pieces of legislation covering areas such as health, biometrics and children - a more detailed comparison between the US and EU can be found in this PDF) while the EU has a single directive.

In Europe their lobbying pressure got even "privacy bills" issued which make any high quality direct marketing

More study is also needed into what kinds of people [caucasian, asiatics, or ??] were amongst the immigrants and how many waves of immigration there were. Getting that data is a lot more dicey, but if we pay close attention to things as they de-ice, we could end up with a bonanza like the Ice Man they found in the Alps a few years back.

L0pht has allways belived in full disclosure of security vulnerabilities; like they stated in this interwiev..

There was also a /. story. about L0pht, "hypocrisy of hackers" and (possible)connections to FBI and NIPC a year ago.

So it turns out that the hacker philosophy went out the backdoor and the corporate standards from @stake prevail.

Of course their relations towards Microsoft is important since they are their largest customer but firing the messenger because his wievs don't reflect the party line, and NOT because he is wrong, will hurt their reputation as consultants more than his wievs do.
Maybe it's naive to think that one buys some independent judgment from consultants and security groups but atleast one should expect that they give the CTO some slack in publishing a paper/report about the consequences of reliance on one company.

I would think that it would have been better for Microsoft to indirectly say "we are working about the security with @stake even if one of them criticized us" rather than "we are working with @stake, and yes they fired the messenger".

Anyway; just my $0.02

How many other people do know that a Canadian doctor was the first man to map sections of the brain that indicate smell and other senses in an order to discover what causes seizures? (For the Canadians on here think: "Doctor, I smell burnt toast!")

Are you talking about Wilder Penfield here ?

The octopus has been doing this for millenia. Check it out:

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/octopus/chameleons. html

Check out the video (unfortunately, Real One player only). This PBS show is my favorite of all time.

And of course fear and thuggery has never been a deciding factor in an election in America and could never happen on a national scale.

I hope everyone recognizes sarcasm when they read it.

But most environmentalists beg that question, and accept it as a given that "the weather is getting more extreme". I disagree with that premise and defy someone to show me figures showing drastic increases in precipitation, temperature, storm destruction, etc. over a 30+ year span (to leave out the 20-year sunspot/storm cycle).

Here you go, enjoy. I could find only ONE link that disagreed that weather was getting more extreme, from NASA:

Even with Needed Corrections, Data Still Don't Show the Expected Signature of Global Warming.

The rest say a definite YES that the weather is getting more extreme, most that it is caused by global warming, and some that this global warming is caused by humans:


NOVA and FRONTLINE join forces to investigate the science and politics of one of the most controversial issues of the 21st century: the truth about global warming.

I would especially like to draw your attention to

this graph.

2001 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change


TESTIMONY OF THOMAS R. KARL, DIRECTOR NATIONAL CLIMATIC DATA CENTER NATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL SATELLITE DATA AND INFORMATION SERVICES NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS UNITED STATES SENATE.


WMO STATEMENT ON THE STATUS OF THE GLOBAL CLIMATE IN 2001


National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration - Global Warming - Frequently Asked Questions

Cheers,
Lars

But most environmentalists beg that question, and accept it as a given that "the weather is getting more extreme". I disagree with that premise and defy someone to show me figures showing drastic increases in precipitation, temperature, storm destruction, etc. over a 30+ year span (to leave out the 20-year sunspot/storm cycle).

Here you go, enjoy. I could find only ONE link that disagreed that weather was getting more extreme, from NASA:

Even with Needed Corrections, Data Still Don't Show the Expected Signature of Global Warming.

The rest say a definite YES that the weather is getting more extreme, most that it is caused by global warming, and some that this global warming is caused by humans:


NOVA and FRONTLINE join forces to investigate the science and politics of one of the most controversial issues of the 21st century: the truth about global warming.

I would especially like to draw your attention to

this graph.

2001 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change


TESTIMONY OF THOMAS R. KARL, DIRECTOR NATIONAL CLIMATIC DATA CENTER NATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL SATELLITE DATA AND INFORMATION SERVICES NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS UNITED STATES SENATE.


WMO STATEMENT ON THE STATUS OF THE GLOBAL CLIMATE IN 2001


National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration - Global Warming - Frequently Asked Questions

Cheers,
Lars

Scientists already have the public thinking that lightning got those little proteins to turn into amino acids and to spit out a human being after a few million years so in a scientist's mind lightning as a communication medium isn't too far fetched.

Yeah, people can come up with all sorts of far-fetched ideas. That's why it's so nice that the process of science is one of self-correction. The improbable get weeded out in favor of the more probable as new ideas are tested and new data is brought to light. One of the more interesting theories that's been gaining ground is the idea that hot vents at the bottom of the ocean drove a process that created some life-like forms that continued to evolve into the many forms of life we see (and are) today.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/abyss/life/extremes.h tml

It just takes a while for the "public" to catch on.

The only problem is that lightning never did that for amino acids because the DNA structure of all life has never been "out in the wild" to start from scratch. It was created by God who didn't need to constantly update it to see what worked best.

I personally don't see why any god would need to.

I've heard porn was on there, and PBS broadcasts (today's schedule) using Telstars, but is that really vital? I mean, none of the internet is down, and telephone services still work. I understand that PBS is educational, but the vital services in a disaster would be news (only affected if Telstar 4 carried news), telephone, food (I don't think Telstars carry commercial transactions), water (ditto), and shelter (THAT doesn't need a Telstar).

There is an excellent on-line documentairy on the topic of drug prices in the US vs Canada.

Also, if you liked it, don't forget to send them an email. They are still undecided about whether they should put more of their documentaitries online.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/othe r/

I've never heard of this guy, so I just google'd him, and found all kinds of things, including this
interview with him from March 13, 2003, and this brief biography. He is currently vice president of Managed Security Services Operations for Symantec, and previously worked for the U.S. Department of Defense Computer Emergency Response Team (DoD/CERT).

kinda nice to see that the future "Head of Homeland Cybersecurity" at least has a formal c.s. education, and some obvious real-world experience.

For those who are unfamilliar with him, here's a recent Frontline interview.

I, Cringely had a nice article (and even a follow-up) on this subject last month.
Body Count: Why Moving to India Won't Really Help IT

But cutting to the chase, if a good micropayment system does get invented, then it will seriously lower the bar on the "tip jar" concept. The overhead of deciding whether you want to spend a cent here and a cent there (especially on a site that you can't sample for free) is enough of a headache (even at low risk levels) to drive people away, but if your favourite webcomic has a tip jar, you might throw in a dime a day, or even a penny a day (he said, shamelessly resorting to Americanisms). Those things can add up if you have a big readership, and can overcome the expenses that Mr McCloud points out with regards to bandwidth and success being its own worst enemy.

As for the sites that want to try the "you must pay me 25 cents in order to see this page" approach -- feh -- let them take their chances with the free market; I won't resent them in the unlikely case that it works. But in my not-particularly-humble opinion, voluntary payments will be the way to go (see second and second-last paragraph of linked Cringely article).

I don't know if anyone else is dissing him, but I certainly wouldn't be upset with anyone who did.

I haven't cared enough to document every single piece of complete misinformation I've seen from him, but there have been plenty.

The most glaring example I can think of off the top of my head:

In the following article Cringely slams Earthlink for a lot of really good reasons, but then follows it up with:

Total Access 2003 trashes your e-mail, can't import favorites into the new browser, and it has automatic updates, which means Earthlink can load anything else it likes onto your system at any time. And it can't be uninstalled.

No Earthlink software has ever had an uninstall, so why should this?

Every single assertation in this paragraph + 1 sentence is 100% factually untrue, and can easily be proven as such by anyone with a free CD from Best Buy - except for the fact that the EULA technically does give Earthlink the right to install whatever they want.

That said, Cringely does occasionally make some solid, informative (and informed) points. I give his comments about the same weight as I do any other slashdot commentary. Sometimes he's informative, interesting, and insightful. Others, he's a troll :)

Has anyone followed up or concluded anything regarding the possibility of the power grid's SCADA systems (which habitually run a stripped down Win2K) getting nailed by the Blaster worm? The timing is right, and there are a number of indications thereof:
See:

this or
this or
this.