Slashdot Mirror

"We recognized, once again, that we can't love our country and hate
our government."
-The President of the United States
  Weekly Radio Address
  http://tinyurl.com/a2nwa

...I would like to say something to [those of you] who believe the
greatest threat to America comes not from terrorists from ... beyond
our borders, but from our own government.

I believe you have every right, indeed you have the responsibility, to
question our government when you disagree with its policies. And I
will do everything in my power to protect your right to do so.

But I also know there have been lawbreakers among those who espouse
your philosophy.... ...How dare you suggest that we in the freest nation on Earth live in
tyranny.... ...[T]here is nothing patriotic about hating your country, or
pretending that you can love your country but despise your
government.....

-The President of the United States
  Michigan State University (Spartan Stadium)
  http://tinyurl.com/bln3j

...So if somebody believes someone who is working for the government
has mistreated them, take it to the appropriate authority, make it
public if you want to, but be specific. But do not condemn people who
work for the government. That's the kind of mentality that produced
Oklahoma City....

-The President of the United States
  Billings, Montana
  http://tinyurl.com/a6bnr

Apparently Diana DeGette received 86 - 100% approval ratings [vote-smart.org] from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) [aclu.org] in the past 6 years, according to Vote-Smart.org [vote-smart.org]

How can this apparently high approval rating from a purported supporter of civil liberties be reconciled with Rep. Degette's recent anti-privacy action? Was the ACLU on crack when they scored her?

According to the president of the ACLU:

I don't want to dwell on constitutional analysis, because our view has never been that civil liberties are necessarily coextensive with constitutional rights. Conversely, I guess the fact that something is mentioned in the Constitution doesn't necessarily mean that it is a fundamental civil liberty.

The "1 in 5 children solicited online" statistic comes from a study done in Feb 2001. And actually if you read the study (which the government is probably hoping we won't), it turns out HALF the solicitations were from other children, NOT adults. Kinda changes the whole context, doesn't it?

The report found that almost half of the solicitations reported did not come from an adult, but from other children: 'juveniles made 48 percent of the overall and 48 percent of the aggressive solicitations.' (9) The report also points out that only 'one quarter of young people who reported these incidents were distressed by them' (8). 'Sexual solicitations' between children in an internet chat room are the online equivalent of adolescent fumbling, a world away from the threat of paedophilia.

Article here, and more commentary here.

http://www.reason.com/hitandrun/2006/04/the_stone_ phill.shtml#013567This blog post explains where & how this stat probably came from:

Yesterday, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales issued a kiddie porn "wake-up call":

"It is not an exaggeration to say that we are in the midst of an epidemic in the production and trafficking of movies and images depicting the sexual abuse of children," Gonzales said.

"The threat is frighteningly real, it is growing rapidly, and it must be stopped."

The attorney general said one of every five children online is now solicited. He cited a recent estimate that 50,000 predators are online at any given time prowling for children.

Gonzales attributed the one-in-five stat to "one study," which is most likely a 2000 report conducted by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. But way back in 2001, Spiked Online's Sandy Starr actually read that report:
The NCMEC's national survey of 1501 American 10- to 17-year-olds found that 'approximately one in five received a sexual solicitation or approach over the internet in the last year'. There is a huge leap from 'sexual solicitation or approach'...to 'approached by a paedophile'.

The report found that almost half of the solicitations reported did not come from an adult, but from other children: 'juveniles made 48 percent of the overall and 48 percent of the aggressive solicitations.' The report also points out that only 'one quarter of young people who reported these incidents were distressed by them'. 'Sexual solicitations' between children in an internet chat room are the online equivalent of adolescent fumbling, a world away from the threat of paedophilia.

Gonzales himself gave the source for the 50,000 prowling predators, citing "the television program Dateline."

Interesting article: http://www.reason.com/links/links041006.shtml

Arguing that some providers doing crap like this will actually spur competition, in the end making the net better off for the end users. Not sure if I agree, though hearing about the amount of bittorrent traffic there is gives hope to idea that those using it will switch to more open providers, thus giving those providers a market edge.

related article

Former NSA employee Russell Tice intimated that they were sifting
through a huge amount of information for these taps. (Echelon)
Reason has a good interview:
http://www.reason.com/hod/js011306b.shtml

In an effort to eliminate fraud, waste and abuse, the government has suffered from a wasteful lack of process that has abused the taxpayers. These dangers with malware exist precisely because most of the time the people making the decisions are not those at a low enough level to actually see and understand it. This is a very good example of how management assumed so much power over the practical implementation of policy that those who were trying to actually do the grunt work couldn't do anything, and were totally hamstrung by incompetent, lazy and (IMO) treasonous management. The spyware problem here exists precisely because not enough money is spent the first time to get a good setup in place, and then management compounds the problem by not trusting those who actually do the day-to-day field work to do their jobs competently. Ironically, as the FBI shows, the field agents are significantly more qualified for being trusted to do their jobs than the bureaucrats that manage them. This applies to pretty much all other areas as well.

Woman's 'crime' was never illegal
By Ellen Miller, Special to the News
November 16, 2005

GRAND JUNCTION - Allysan Isaac, 24, was held nearly a year in work release for something that a judge said Tuesday was not even illegal.

"You were incarcerated for a case that was not a crime," said Mesa County District Judge Brian Flynn, who presided over the case.

Flynn, the prosecutor and Isaac's defense attorney were unaware last year that the offense she was charged with was not a violation of the law.

No one had noticed that a prescription drug found in Isaac's possession, an anti-anxiety medication called Buspirone, is not a controlled substance.

A new defense attorney did.

Isaac, 24, "is clearly a troubled young woman with mental and emotional problems requiring pharmaceutical intervention," said her second lawyer, Wiley Christopher, who checked on Buspirone and found it was not a controlled substance.

But that was not the end of her legal troubles.

Isaac pleaded guilty last year to possession of Buspirone, which she had obtained through a prescription. She was sentenced to 90 days in jail and one year in work release.

In work release, she was receiving another prescription drug, Clonazepam, which is a controlled substance. Another inmate talked her into sharing a tablet.

So Isaac pleaded guilty to distributing Clonazepam and appeared before Flynn Tuesday for sentencing.
Christopher pleaded for probation and mental health treatment since her underlying offense, for which she was in work release, was not a crime.

Flynn agreed, as did the probation officer and the current prosecutor.

She was ordered to serve probation and receive intensive mental health treatment for passing her medication on to the fellow inmate.

District Attorney Pete Hautzinger said he had "no idea" why Isaac had been charged with and convicted of something that wasn't a crime.

The defense attorney who represented Isaac in the first case was also baffled. "I don't have an answer," assistant public defender John Burkey said. "Nobody caught it. The police were saying it was a controlled substance."
Copyright 2005, Rocky Mountain News. All Rights Reserved.

http://www.5280.com/blog/?p=1377
http://www.reason.com/hitandrun/2005/11/check_the_ sched.shtml#comments

Well I do believe the US has the highest incarceration rate on the planet.

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=us+incarcerati on+rate&btnG=Search&meta=

How about a 17 year old getting 10 years (and put on the sex offender list for the rest of his life) for having oral sex (intercourse would have been okay) with a consenting 15 year old at a crazy party. There was a video, and apparently the jury felt it was a no brainer, but the judge was very definite about the "find guilt or innocence according to the letter of the law" line (to bad they didn't know that that is not actually a requirement if the jury finds the law to be seriously unjust -- see jury nullification).

http://www.wilsonappeal.com/
http://www.blackamericaweb.com/site.aspx/bawnews/w ilson0111
http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/LegalCenter/story? id=1693362&page=1

Or how about the California man who was growing medical marijuana for critically ill patients under a California law and the DEA busting him (claiming federal jurisdiction) and rigged the jury (very selective picking of members and forbidding mention of the fact that what he was doing was legal in California).

http://www.green-aid.com/
http://www.alternet.org/story/14973/
http://www.reason.com/sullum/020703.shtml

Or how about screwing around in pretty much every country under the sun. I have to say, having been through it, that the history learned in schools is quite selective (almost false by selective omission -- no wonder it keeps getting repeated). Checkout out (for instance) how Hawaii was illegally annexed at the request of the sugar barrens.

http://www.globalpolicy.org/empire/history/history index.htm
http://www.unpo.org/news_detail.php?arg=28&par=51
http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=hawaii+annexed &btnG=Google+Search&meta=

So, yeah, I'd have to say there is a long history of some pretty screw culture in the US. Maybe the whole thing will tip over someday due to the growing accumulation of fat cats and lawyers at the top.

But by 2004, I was volunterring for Kerry.

Because of John Kerry's Dark Record on Civil Liberties? Ralph Nader would have been preferable to either.

But your Dubya's a total and unmitigated disaster on all fronts.

Who's defending Dubya?

In any event, as for the problem at hand: I don't trust the government to run my Internet connection either. Just look at how well they run the Department of Motor Vehicles, or the Post Office, or Amtrak. (Beware the Libertarian political cartoons! :)

One link.

That is why I have insisted that Congress pass strong anti-terrorism legislation immediately.....

It is with this in mind that I would like to say something to the ... groups and to others who believe the greatest threat to America comes not from terrorists from within our country or beyond our borders, but from our own government...

I believe you have every right, indeed you have the responsibility, to question our government when you disagree with its policies. And I will do everything in my power to protect your right to do so.

But I also know there have been lawbreakers among those who espouse your philosophy....

In the 1960s, as your distinguished alumni said, many good things happened and there was much turmoil. But the Weathermen of the radical left who resorted to violence in the 1960s were wrong. Today, the gang members who use life on the mean streets of America, as terrible as it is, to justify taking the law into their own hands and taking innocent life are wrong. The people who came to the United States to bomb the World Trade Center were wrong....

How dare you suggest that we in the freest nation on Earth live in tyranny. How dare you call yourselves patriots and heroes....

[T]here is nothing patriotic about hating your country, or pretending that you can love your country but despise your government...

But do not condemn people who work for the government. That's the kind of mentality that produced Oklahoma City.

We recognized, once again, that we can't love our country and hate our government.

Andy Teas with the Houston Apartment Association said that although some would consider cameras an invasion of privacy, "I think a lot of people would appreciate the thought of extra eyes looking out for them."

Experience teaches us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent.
-- Justice Louis D. Brandeis, Opinion in Olmstead vs. U.S., 1928

My greatest fear is that too many members of the public will embrace the government's call to give up some freedom in return for greater safety, only to find that they have lost freedom without gaining safety.
-- ACLU President Nadine Strossen, Reason, December, 2001

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
-- Amendment IV, United States Bill of Rights

That's what Americans do now. They're always willing to trade away a little of their freedom in exchange for the feeling, the illusion of security.
-- George Carlin, You Are All Diseased

This word has been thrown around by drug warriors for so long it has lost any meaning which we can agree on. One man's addiction is another man's "problem" is another man's recreational activity. This is addressed in depth in Sullum's Saying Yes: In Defense of Drug Use.

Right now thousands upon thousands of people are compulsively attached to SOMETHING. They are not healthy. This does not mean that the THING is what caused the problem, it lies in the person. They lack willpower. In fact we all do a bit. It's just how we manage it--some people have simply given up. As Erich Fromm wrote, "All of us are more or less insane, or more or less asleep." You can choose not to get out of bed, but of course that wouldn't work out in the long run.

Thomas Szasz has argued much of the same. Addiction lies in the individual, who chooses to start and stop all behaviors. Reject "voodoo pharmacology"!

As for specific advice: If you are worried about your internet usage, unplug it. Live without it for a while. Meditate. Step back. Let go. You can do it.

Netflix typically sends about 13 movies per month to Villanueva's home in Warren, Mich. -- down from the 18 to 22 DVDs he once received before the company's automated system identified him as a heavy renter and began delaying his shipments to protect its profits.

Actually, the article I've been linking to left and right across this discussion is also by Gregory Benford.

A mere 0.5 percent change in Earth's net reflectivity, or albedo, would solve the greenhouse problem completely. The big problem is the oceans, which comprise about 70 percent of our surface area and absorb more light because they are darker than land.

When it comes to increasing albedo, it would be wise to begin the discussion by introducing positive measures that can be easily understood and are close at hand. Reflecting sunlight is not a deep technical idea, after all. Simply adding sand or glass to ordinary asphalt ("glassphalt") doubles its albedo. This is one mitigation measure everyone could see--a clean, passive way to Do Something.

A 1997 UCLA study showed that Los Angeles is 5 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the surrounding areas, mostly due to dark roofs and asphalt. Cars and power plants contribute, but only a bit; at high noon, the sun delivers to each square mile the power equivalent of a billion-watt electrical plant.

This urban "heat island" effect is common. But white roofs, concrete-colored pavements, and about $10 billion in new shade trees could cool the city below the countryside, cutting air conditioning costs by 18 percent. Cooler roads lessen tire erosion, too. About 1 percent of the United States is covered by human constructions, mostly paving, suggesting that we may already control enough of the land to get at the job.

The article also suggests burning lots of sulfur-rich coal in western Pacific island nations, resulting in more clouds over the ocean and a higher albedo.

This article (admittedly a little dated, 1997) claims that "for about $10 million, this method would offset the 1990 U.S. greenhouse emissions". (It also explores some potential side effects, and similar measures.)

Perhaps some other hacks would be better. I recall this article on climate controls which covers a wide variety of ideas, dismissing some as obviously impractical (orbiting mylar screen? Haha!) but ultimately concluding there are plenty of things we can do on a variety of levels to begin to help counter warming.

This problem is not particular to Republican administrations--the very linkage of government and science almost guarantees some chicanery. Let's recall the halcyon days of the Clinton administration. In 1993, Princeton University physicist William Happer was fired from the Department of Energy because he disagreed with Vice President Al Gore's views on stratospheric ozone depletion. In 1994, President Bill Clinton rejected the finding from the Embryo Research Panel of the National Institutes of Health which declared that the intentional creation of human embryos for genetic research was ethical. Clinton simply banned any federal funding for such research.

  [Ted Koppel] closed the show by chastising Gore for trying to use the media to discredit skeptical scientists:

There is some irony in the fact that Vice President Gore----
one of the most scientifically literate men to sit in the White
House in this century----[is] resorting to political means to
achieve what should ultimately be resolved on a purely sci-
entific basis. The measure of good science is neither the pol-
itics of the scientist nor the people with whom the scientist
associates. It is the immersion of hypotheses into the acid of
truth. That's the hard way to do it, but it's the only way that
works.

The attempt to use Mr. Koppel to tar the reputations of his opponents brought criticism down on the vice president, and I learned of rumors that the Clinton White House had become nervous about the issue, and perhaps Vice President Gore himself was becoming nervous. In any case, on April 29, 1994, Dr. Lancaster's attorneys indicated they were ready to have him sign a retraction and apology.

In its press release celebrating the victory, the Center for Individual Rights stated:

Any attempt to alter or suppress a scientist's published views
after his death cannot be tolerated. This retraction is an im-
portant victory for science. Politics too often takes precedence
over scientific evidence. Had Dr. Singer not taken action
against Lancaster's false and defamatory claims, it would
have had a chilling effect on all scientists now confronting
political correctness on environmental issues.

http://americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id =5150
 
...Even as the Times defended Echelon as "a necessity" in 1999, evidence already existed that electronic surveillance had previously been misused by the Clinton Administration for political purposes. Intelligence officials told Insight Magazine in 1997 that a 1993 conference of Asian and Pacific world leaders hosted by Clinton in Seattle had been spied on by U.S. intelligence agencies. Further, the magazine reported that information obtained by the spying had been passed on to big Democrat corporate donors to use against their competitors. The Insight story added that the mis-use of the surveillance for political reasons caused the intelligence sources to reveal the operation.

"The only reason it has come to light is because of concerns raised by high-level sources within federal law-enforcement and intelligence circles that the operation was compromised by politicians--includingmid- and senior-level White House aides--either on behalf of or in support of President Clinton and major donor-friends who helped him and the Democratic National Committee, or DNC, raise money."

So, during the Clinton Administration, evidence existed (all of the information used in this article was available at the time) that:

-an invasive, extensive domestic eavesdropping program was aimed at every U.S. citizen;

-intelligence agencies were using allies to circumvent constitutional restrictions;

-and the administration was selling at least some secret intelligence for political donations.

These revelations were met by the New York Times and others in the mainstream media by the sound of one hand clapping....

...

Nonetheless, Clinton does not deserve his current round of legal troubles. To be publicly humiliated as a moral weakling, lacking both judgment and self-control--that he deserves. To be distrusted by both intimates and the general public--he deserves that too. But for sexual pecadillos and routine lies to lead to possible high crimes and misdemeanors takes more than just Clinton's personal flaws. It takes very bad policy.

There is one sense in which the president deserves what has happened to him: He and his political allies are the people who made it possible, who created the legal mechanisms by which his private life became a matter of public, legal record. In that bitter irony lies the one hopeful aspect of L'Affaire Monica. It may, finally, create a consensus to rein in legal excesses that threaten not just Bill Clinton but the liberties of all Americans. But if Republicans are seduced by scandal and Democrats by dreams of vengeance, it may make matters worse. ...

Why should the president be put in a position of having to lie about something that's none of our business in the first place?"

Why indeed? The tempting answer is, Because you asked for it. Demanded it. Screamed and yelled and waxed indignant. ...

Writing cheap symbolism into real law is a dangerous thing to do. But Congress did it in 1994. Ratifying the view that sexual harassment is too serious a matter to be governed by normal legal constraints, the very same Democratic Congress that reauthorized the Independent Counsel statute rewrote the rules of evidence. The new rules allow a defendant's sexual history--not just previous allegations of harassment--to be dragged into sexual harassment suits. (The plaintiff's history, however, was made inadmissable.)

So the president of the United States can be asked, under oath, about his sex life. It doesn't matter if the sex was consensual or even if the woman made the first move. It doesn't have to be harassment; indeed, no one claims anything of the kind in the Lewinsky case. But Congress chose to make every intimate detail fair game. And if, like many a cheating spouse, the president lies to cover up adultery, he is guilty of a serious crime--perjury, a potentially impeachable offense. ...

Totalitarian governments like the Chinese government are evil. A government is considered evil when it completely strips away your freedoms. How dare a country restrict its citizens from reading certain books or websites just because it might get a few too many people angry about the current conditions that they live in? In China, much of what I read is (or is probably) banned in China, as well as books of any political philosophy that is considered one step more free than communism (even socialist literature is banned, because of the ideas of democratic socialism and social democracy). Why? These books don't preach of that communism stuff that China claims that they follow (but doesn't practice; they have actually read the last book and adopted free market policies, the only good thing that they done over the past few years), and it promotes freedom of not only the market, but also freedom of speech, freedom of press, freedom of association, and other individual freedoms. It is in the best interest of the Chinese government to keep its citizens oppressed and suppressed. That is pure evil.

Now, I'm not saying that our (American) way is the right way, just because we are Americans. Our country isn't a bastion of freedom, either. However, I still feel that I am much more free in this country than any other country in the world, both politically and economically. Freedom is very important for a society to survive. Take away all levels of freedom, and you end up with a society of slaves. China has created a society of slaves who have been indoctrinated into their totalitarian philosophy, and has sealed off any access to literature and people who have any ideas of freedom. China knows that once people see the light, then there will be a huge revolution, just like the incident in 1989.

Yes, there are other countries with completely different values than ours. Many EU nations are big on social democracy, for instance, which is very different than our emphasis on free markets and individualism. However, even though they have different values, they have just as much respect for human rights as we do. However, when those values start restricting the rights of humans to the point that they must answer to the State for everything, then those values are evil. Totalitarianism is evil, simply put.

Your take on "not allowing reuse actually fosters creativity" is somewhat simplistic, no offence meant.

We observe that the golden years at Disney, when they did their stunning best work, was when they reused old, public domain plots to make new stuff. Cinderella, Pinocchio, Snow white, all were books and stories in the public domain. Disney was able to reuse & extend them to fit with their idea of what works with animation, with great result.

It worked because Disney was able to start from great plot ideas, with no one telling them what they were allowed to do and not to do with those plots.

Another example is what is happening to Bloomsday, an international celebration of James Joyce masterpiece "Ulysses", more or less the de-facto anglo-saxon litterary day of fun. Here is a great quote from this site.

At the moment, the role of lead Ulysses killjoy is being played by Joyce's last living heir, the issueless, irritable grandson Stephen James Joyce. Thanks to European Union copyright extensions, Stephen Joyce regained control of the author's published works in the mid-1990s. Since then, he has alienated most of his grandfather's fans by charging exorbitant rates to anthologists and artists, putting the kibosh on a host of adaptations he considered inappropriate (including Groden's "Digital Ulysses" annotation project), and reportedly stating that Ulysses is meant to be read, not performed or adapted to other media.

It is a textbook example of not releasing copyright to the public domain is measurably and undeniably stifling creativity and even causing damage to the original work. I encourage you to read the whole article.

Best.

http://reason.com/9505/SASHA.may.html

(there was an extra slash)

http://reason.com/9505/SASHA.may.html/

For some strange reason I am reminded of Jimmy Carter's report Global 2000.

http://www.reason.com/rb/rb020404.shtml

I think Theo Van Gogh may disagree with that. And a few minutes on Google reveals Chris Crain may have offended a few guys. Same with these guys.

Yeah, everyone over there in the Netherlands are very tolerant and no one is ever offended by anything.

"I don't know of any country in the EU where it's illegal to discuss something from the WWII era, only Germany where denying the holocaust is illegal."

Well obviously that was hyperbole referring to stuff like this.

Mental illnesses are real illnesses and have hard, acute neurological expression in the brain.

Certainly some people have strong difficulties in their lives. And certainly some people have deformities or injuries to their nervous system. But the idea that "mental illnesses" such as depression have direct neurological expression is not as supported as SSRI makers would like you to believe. (Another link: here.)

Labeling psychological difficulties (other than neulogical illness or injury) is questionable. It has strong legal and social consequences that we ought to consider.

The DSM, the official defintion of mental health and illness, has its roots in a military effort to decide who was too crazy (or not crazy enough?) to be a soldier. It's critera for listed condtions are famously vauge. And who decides which condtions are "illnesses"? Just a few decades ago, homosexuality was a "mental illness" according to the DSM.

These illnesses are not merely coming from a person who is playing a casual game of make-believe who needs to get a grip.

I agree, but that doesn't necessarily mean that we should use the word "illness" to describe these states.

Candid Cop Camera (6/28)
  John Bell took a photograph of a Hudson, Ohio, police cruiser being towed out of mud. David Devore, the police officer whose u-turn put the car into the mud, apparently didn't appreciate the move. And Devore's cruiser camera captured the exchange. "Camera and film now. I'm not going to ask you again. I'll give you the count of three or I can make your life a living hell. You made the decision, I'll give you that choice," he told Bell. Then he took the memory card from Bell's digital camera and erased the image. Devore was suspended for one day for his action. But Bell says that isn't enough. He has sued Devore and the city claiming he was stopped without probable cause, wrongfully detained, verbally abused and deprived of his property.

if the government's going to stick cameras all over the public sphere, then if there's a civilian-cop altercation of any kind, if the film is not available for whatever reason then the civilian will be automatically presumed innocent and blameless. Otherwise, it's FAR too easy for the government to conveniently "lose" any film that makes it out to be the guilty party.
Comment by: Jennifer at July 29, 2005 11:53 AM

The Aurora police department, which shot seven people last year and killed five, is taking steps to examine the use of deadly force....On Dec. 3, 2003, Jammal Bonner, 20, found himself outside the Top Star motel selling crack cocaine to an undercover police officer posing as a hooker. Police were trying to arrest prostitution patrons. A police surveillance camera was rolling and a "street arrest team" was in place, ready to take down suspects. Bonner wasn't interested in sex, though, and the undercover police officer said she lured him up to a motel room. But what exactly happened in that room at the Top Star motel? As four SWAT officers pour into the room, the surveillance tape was turned off....
Comment by: Nobody Important at July 29, 2005 01:56 PM

Candid Cop Camera (6/28)
  John Bell took a photograph of a Hudson, Ohio, police cruiser being towed out of mud. David Devore, the police officer whose u-turn put the car into the mud, apparently didn't appreciate the move. And Devore's cruiser camera captured the exchange. "Camera and film now. I'm not going to ask you again. I'll give you the count of three or I can make your life a living hell. You made the decision, I'll give you that choice," he told Bell. Then he took the memory card from Bell's digital camera and erased the image. Devore was suspended for one day for his action. But Bell says that isn't enough. He has sued Devore and the city claiming he was stopped without probable cause, wrongfully detained, verbally abused and deprived of his property.

if the government's going to stick cameras all over the public sphere, then if there's a civilian-cop altercation of any kind, if the film is not available for whatever reason then the civilian will be automatically presumed innocent and blameless. Otherwise, it's FAR too easy for the government to conveniently "lose" any film that makes it out to be the guilty party.
Comment by: Jennifer at July 29, 2005 11:53 AM

The Aurora police department, which shot seven people last year and killed five, is taking steps to examine the use of deadly force....On Dec. 3, 2003, Jammal Bonner, 20, found himself outside the Top Star motel selling crack cocaine to an undercover police officer posing as a hooker. Police were trying to arrest prostitution patrons. A police surveillance camera was rolling and a "street arrest team" was in place, ready to take down suspects. Bonner wasn't interested in sex, though, and the undercover police officer said she lured him up to a motel room. But what exactly happened in that room at the Top Star motel? As four SWAT officers pour into the room, the surveillance tape was turned off....
Comment by: Nobody Important at July 29, 2005 01:56 PM

1: Seasonal affective disorder .this is caused by a chemical imbalance due to the lack of daylight . A high powered solar lamp can help you here will alleviate many many symptoms . Again see a doctor

The "depression is a chemical imbalance" theory is not as rooted in research as the drug peddlers would like you to beleive.

My own experience: years ago I asked my doctor about SAD. I wasn't even asking her about treatment, just "do you think this is real, or just another trendy diagnosis-of-the-moment?" The first sentance out her mouth was something about Prozac. Thanks, no. (YYMV; I'm not criticizing anyone else's choice here. My own winter blahs weren't that severe that I felt the side-effects worth it.)

A year or so so later, I decided to give St. Johns Wort a try. Took it over the winter, did seem to feel better - even avoided putting on the extra few pounds of weight I usually added over the winter. Weaning off it in the spring was a little trickier than I anticipated, but I'd still rate it a positive. Did it again the next winter. Obviously my own experience is not a controlled study, though there is clinical evidence for its effectiveness in mild cases of depression.

About three years ago this summer, I started receiving acupuncture. When winter rolled around, I asked my acupuncturist about seasonal depression. She gave me a "duh!" look and pointed out that animals are supposed to be less active in the winter. It is not a disease to feel less energetic this time of year! Of course there's "feeling less energetic", and there's "debilitating, crushing, want-to-slit-my-wrists depression". The later is certainly a serious problem requring less subtle intervention, though I'm skeptical of applying the term "disease".

Slowing down and feeling different in the winter means that you haven't become disconnected from the natural world. Chinese medicine teaches that we should live more in harmony with these natural rhythms; indeed, it's much more about these lifestyle elements than about acupuncture, herbs, or bodywork. I've been trying to do that the past few years, and it's working for me.

Again, YMMV; I'm not advising anyone to stop taking their meds or anything like that.

...Nonetheless, Clinton does not deserve his current round of legal troubles. To be publicly humiliated as a moral weakling, lacking both judgment and self-control--that he deserves. To be distrusted by both intimates and the general public--he deserves that too. But for sexual pecadillos and routine lies to lead to possible high crimes and misdemeanors takes more than just Clinton's personal flaws. It takes very bad policy....

...The vast expansion of criminal law--something the president failed to bring up in his State of the Union address, lest it undercut his shrinking-government lie--is among the most important, and most threatening, trends of recent years. But Monicagate is not built on criminal law. It arises from the expansion of a civil offense: sexual harassment.

Media-savvy but legally unsophisticated liberal commentators, such as radio talk show host Tom Leykis, make a passionate, and fairly persuasive, argument about Clinton's presumed affair: It may be bad, but it's a private matter. It's between Bill, Hillary, and Monica. It's none of our business. It certainly doesn't belong in court. "Why are we asking questions about the president's sex life?" asks Leykis. "Why is that relevant to anything? Why should the president be put in a position of having to lie about something that's none of our business in the first place?"

Why indeed? The tempting answer is, Because you asked for it. Demanded it. Screamed and yelled and waxed indignant. You dedicated the 1992 Democratic National Convention to the cause. Remember "The Year of the Woman"? It was a media frenzy. And the number one agenda item was a ban on any hint of sexuality in the workplace.

Writing cheap symbolism into real law is a dangerous thing to do. But Congress did it in 1994. Ratifying the view that sexual harassment is too serious a matter to be governed by normal legal constraints, the very same Democratic Congress that reauthorized the Independent Counsel statute rewrote the rules of evidence. The new rules allow a defendant's sexual history--not just previous allegations of harassment--to be dragged into sexual harassment suits. (The plaintiff's history, however, was made inadmissable.)

So the president of the United States can be asked, under oath, about his sex life. It doesn't matter if the sex was consensual or even if the woman made the first move. It doesn't have to be harassment; indeed, no one claims anything of the kind in the Lewinsky case. But Congress chose to make every intimate detail fair game. And if, like many a cheating spouse, the president lies to cover up adultery, he is guilty of a serious crime--perjury, a potentially impeachable offense...

Re:Well, that's a big shocker. (Score:5, Interesting)
by ortcutt (711694) on Friday December 16, @04:11PM (#14274663)

I'm calling bullshit. It's easy to respond to these outrages by saying that Republicans and Democrats are all the same. But you didn't see any violations of privacy under Clinton. And today, you've got Democrats standing up to oppose the renewal of the USA PATRIOT Act. Republicans and Democrats aren't the same, and we don't need a third party. We just need a government that gives a shit about civil rights.

Re:Well, that's a big shocker. (Score:5, Interesting)
by ortcutt (711694) on Friday December 16, @04:11PM (#14274663)

I'm calling bullshit. It's easy to respond to these outrages by saying that Republicans and Democrats are all the same. But you didn't see any violations of privacy under Clinton. And today, you've got Democrats standing up to oppose the renewal of the USA PATRIOT Act. Republicans and Democrats aren't the same, and we don't need a third party. We just need a government that gives a shit about civil rights.

Actually, there's evidence that suggests that capitalism--that is, free and open market economies--do produce free, peaceful societies. Check out "A Capitalist Peace" over at Reason ; it's pretty interesting.

"I don't want to dwell on constitutional analysis, because our view has never been that civil liberties are necessarily coextensive with constitutional rights. Conversely, I guess the fact that something is mentioned in the Constitution doesn't necessarily mean that it is a fundamental civil liberty."

Nadine Strossen
President of the American Civil Liberties Union
"Life, Liberty, and the ACLU"
Reason, October 1994

The letters in the January 1995 issue are worth reading.

"I don't want to dwell on constitutional analysis, because our view has never been that civil liberties are necessarily coextensive with constitutional rights. Conversely, I guess the fact that something is mentioned in the Constitution doesn't necessarily mean that it is a fundamental civil liberty."

Nadine Strossen
President of the American Civil Liberties Union
"Life, Liberty, and the ACLU"
Reason, October 1994

The letters in the January 1995 issue are worth reading.

"I don't want to dwell on constitutional analysis, because our view has never been that civil liberties are necessarily coextensive with constitutional rights. Conversely, I guess the fact that something is mentioned in the Constitution doesn't necessarily mean that it is a fundamental civil liberty."

Nadine Strossen
President of the American Civil Liberties Union
"Life, Liberty, and the ACLU"
Reason, October 1994

The letters in the January 1995 issue are worth reading.

aylorism -- the management philosophy, named for efficiency expert Frederick Winslow Taylor, that there was One Best Way of doing things that could and should be applied in all circumstances -- didn't spend all its time on the job. It also went to class. In the school, as in the workplace, the reigning theory was One Best Way. Kids learned the same things at the same time in the same manner in the same place.

Here is an interesting article about a site called whototake.com, which was started by James, a student I know at Fullerton College, where I teach. It was a place for students to post online reviews of their professors. Of course, when students rated me highly, I considered it fair, and when they gave me bad ratings, I considered them extremely misguided :-) The sad thing is that James was forced to take down the site due to the threat of a lawsuit. I may have been unhappy with some of the things said about me, but I would never sink so low as to use the threat of a lawsuit against a young college student as a way of suppressing his right to free speech.

In the days before cold storage for sperm was available, it was quite often the closest intern to hand, as well.

There's a great article on the guy who made sperm banks what they are today - it's rather interesting, in fact. For one, they guy was a eugenicist! http://www.reason.com/0510/cr.kh.the.shtml

If you get rid of the FCC there will be no wireless that is even remotely useable. There would be mass chaos,

There might be chaos for a short period but not for long. Chaos will rob businesses of profits and they will be forced to self regulate. Simply mass media won't be able to deal with interference from competitors. If company A were to say increase their broadcasting power this would interfer with company B's broadcasting so B would increase their transmission's power which would interfer with A and with Company C. So either they would get together to eliminate interference each causes the other or they will end up in an arms race. Aa an arms race would increase their costs while reducing income it's more likely they would cooperate to find an answer acceptable to all parties. Quite simply the FCC was started in an era where the airwaves amd communications were limited. The broadcasting technology of that tyme needed a relatively large spectrum of airwaves to broadcast without interference, however using today's tech the bandwidth needed is much more narrow. Fact is today it's the FCC and regulations that prevents or hinders broad availability of wireless broadband and other technologies. "Reason" magazine earlier this year or late last year had an article on this. And the CATO Institute had some studies on it also. You may mention these are slanted to the freemarket but the FCC is biased as well. On the technical front the "IEEE Spectrum had an article on this in the print issue earlier as well saying somwhat the same, that FCC regulations were appropriate at first but that as tech has advanced these old regulations are now hindering advancements, availability of technology.

Thats absolutely right. Since the dawn of time humans have been trading in a free competitive market economy, sharing ideas, changing (modding) their tools to better suit themselves and their needs, and overall pushing forward technology and innovation.

The US of A, became powerful, just like Britain before it, by having a competitive free market economy where ideas are shared and move everyone forward. But now the US is leading the world in restrictive laws and monopolies on ideas - i.e. restricting others from using ideas.

This trend is indeed bad for all of society. For society to improve, it must be able to freely share ideas and to change (mod) and their tools in the way the people see fit.

These restrictive practices will become evident within a generation how negative an effect it can have on society and the USs technological lead.

And some links:

1.1 Free Matter Economy, Part 1:
http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/free_issues/is sue_07/free_matter_economy/
1.2 Free Matter Economy, Part 2:
http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/free_issues/is sue_08/free_matter_economy_2/

2.
A Groklaw article complete with discussion:
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200510251 65105685

3.
An Economist article:
http://www.economist.com/printedition/displaystory .cfm?story_id=5014990

4.
Slashdot discussion on Economist article:
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/10/23/17 37218&tid=187&tid=155

5.
The GNU Organisation for the development of software, its official stance on the negative effect of IP on software development:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.xhtml

6.
A longish non-academic article, but starts getting to the point eventualy:
http://www.reason.com/0303/fe.dc.creation.shtml

7.
A pdf:
http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/papers/pci23.pdf
( http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/papers/pci23.htm )

8.
Discussion on the above pdf:
http://activeclub.homeip.net/forums/view.php?bn=ac discussions_activeclubreflections&key=1046014645

He sounds genuine but he doesn't say very much of substance

Well, he's not exactly known for being the sharpest tool in the shed.

I'm not from the US, so I may be ill-informed. It does seem that there are issues with travelling in the US, Even if you're american. Additionally, there are some (admittedly crack-pot looking) sites keeping a a list of government endorsed breaches of the first amendment.

Then of course, there's what appears to be the FBI acting as thought police.

It's essentially the Catholic Justice System.

I think the Baptists would take exception at your excluding them from this party. They like controlling people too.

(Below is a copy of a comment I made the last time this story was posted. If slashdot editors can dupe, I should be able to as well :)

Last year Reason had an interview with Neal Stephenson (author of Snow Crash, Cryptonomicon, Quicksilver, and other fine novels), where he was asked about the state of science in America. What he said resonated with me quite a bit:

The success of the U.S. has not come from one consistent cause, as far as I can make out. Instead the U.S. will find a way to succeed for a few decades based on one thing, then, when that peters out, move on to another. Sometimes there is trouble during the transitions. So, in the early-to-mid-19th century, it was all about expansion westward and a colossal growth in population. After the Civil War, it was about exploitation of the world's richest resource base: iron, steel, coal, the railways, and later oil.

For much of the 20th century it was about science and technology. The heyday was the Second World War, when we had not just the Manhattan Project but also the Radiation Lab at MIT and a large cryptology industry all cooking along at the same time. The war led into the nuclear arms race and the space race, which led in turn to the revolution in electronics, computers, the Internet, etc. If the emblematic figures of earlier eras were the pioneer with his Kentucky rifle, or the Gilded Age plutocrat, then for the era from, say, 1940 to 2000 it was the engineer, the geek, the scientist. It's no coincidence that this era is also when science fiction has flourished, and in which the whole idea of the Future became current. After all, if you're living in a technocratic society, it seems perfectly reasonable to try to predict the future by extrapolating trends in science and engineering.

It is quite obvious to me that the U.S. is turning away from all of this. It has been the case for quite a while that the cultural left distrusted geeks and their works; the depiction of technical sorts in popular culture has been overwhelmingly negative for at least a generation now. More recently, the cultural right has apparently decided that it doesn't care for some of what scientists have to say. So the technical class is caught in a pincer between these two wings of the so-called culture war. Of course the broad mass of people don't belong to one wing or the other. But science is all about diligence, hard sustained work over long stretches of time, sweating the details, and abstract thinking, none of which is really being fostered by mainstream culture.