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If you want to learn more about this issue, Glen Greenwald has been covering it well for a long time.

Today he posted an item called FISA 101 which is a good place to start.

I have found that, in general, the brown and red M&Ms are tougher, and the newer blue ones are genetically inferior.

I think you are just perpetuating the myth that Darwin was racist. I'm pretty sure that the Discovery Institute will be quoting your post in the following way:

I have found that, in general, the brown and red... are tougher, and... are genetically inferior.

Well, first of all, a headline like "Christian groups oppose stem cell research" will be read and interpreted differently. Since Westerners are very familiar with the diversity of Christian groups, we automatically discount that such a headline is representative of all Christians. The same can't be said for Islam; as many of the comments here show, people are interpreting the headline as if it were representative of Muslims in general. 80,000 on an internet petition IS an insignificant number, especially given (a) that many if not most of the signatories are anonymous and (b) as someone pointed out, many of those who signed the petition left comments stating that they are AGAINST it. Theo van Gogh's murder was committed by a crazy man who happened to be of Muslim heritage. Many have noted that the murderer didn't fit into Dutch society OR his ancestral Moroccan society-- he was a misfit. So you cannot generalize from his case. No one generalized anything about Christianity when Tim McVeigh killed innocent people in the name of his ideals, nor did anyone criticize the animal rights movement when one of its activists killed Pym Fortuyn. (The Animal rights movement, incidentally, has a record of murderous vandalism.) As for the Danish cartoon protests -- as Juan Cole (Salon) has pointed out, the protests were not all that large in size -- perhaps on the scale of football hooliganism in terms of numbers and casualties -- and they weren't primarily motivated by religion, but by various political grievances. Even the Salman Rushdie case was an exception to the rule. As this Cambridge professor points out, the Sunni world's authorities rejected Khomeini's fatwas. And most Muslims saw it as a political, not a religious, move on Khomeini's part, to boost his flagging popularity. Bottom line: Yes, there are some Muslim kooks out there, just as there are kooks in the Western world. And these kooks receive a highly disproportionate share of the media coverage, because (a) Westerners don't know the Muslim world very well, and people fear the unknown, (b) there is a real witch hunt going on in the name of greedy political interests which have a desire to make the Muslim world look bad for their own exploitative purposes. And because of this, we tend to play up the weirdness in the Muslim world, while playing down the awesome amount of violence in our own societies, and the much greater violence we inflict on other societies and have been doing so for the last few hundred years.

This is an enlightening article about his donations to the Discovery Institute:

http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2005/08/26/gatesfoundation/

And then there were IBM's OS/2-toting nuns ("my mobile") & gears supplier (to Japanese clients)... Sightings, anyone?

More and more it becomes evident that religious teachings are being used to push racism, censorship, other forms of hatred and oppressing those who have beliefs against societal norms.

This has always been evident. What's new is this (probably short-lived) idea that these are bad things to want. People think anything is OK if it's part of God's plan.

Except that this Microsoft bid, made at the late date of February 2008, even if it can't be considered a move made out of desperation, is at the very least a move generated by massive frustration. Try as it might, Microsoft cannot gain ground on Google -- the company that currently claims ownership of the soul of Silicon Valley (as in -- we can have fun and make a bazillion dollars). So where once a Microsoft bid for Yahoo would have been seen as presaging the long-awaited total triumph of Gates and Co. over the freewheeling Valley, now all it does is prove that winning every battle it fights is no longer a Microsoft birthright. Microsoft is playing catch-up from further behind than ever. The future requires a major beachhead on the Web. Microsoft, after at least a decade of Herculean effort, still doesn't have one. So it wants to buy the biggest one it can find.

Except that this Microsoft bid, made at the late date of February 2008, even if it can't be considered a move made out of desperation, is at the very least a move generated by massive frustration. Try as it might, Microsoft cannot gain ground on Google -- the company that currently claims ownership of the soul of Silicon Valley (as in -- we can have fun and make a bazillion dollars). So where once a Microsoft bid for Yahoo would have been seen as presaging the long-awaited total triumph of Gates and Co. over the freewheeling Valley, now all it does is prove that winning every battle it fights is no longer a Microsoft birthright. Microsoft is playing catch-up from further behind than ever. The future requires a major beachhead on the Web. Microsoft, after at least a decade of Herculean effort, still doesn't have one. So it wants to buy the biggest one it can find.

Unfortunately, in many situations, this is not the case. For example, see:
Courtney Love's 2000 speech

The Republicans want spying. It's popular with their constituents, who have been led to believe that the President^H^H^H^HCommander in Chief^H^H^H^HGod's Anointed One can direct "patriotic corporate citizens" to do anything he wants (and declare them immune from prosecution later).

Democrats, with the exception of a few yahoos, pretty much want the rule of law to be upheld. As do many of their civil libertarian supporters. They don't want widespread domestic surveillance, and they don't want legislative immunity for the telco wrongdoers.

If you want a moral compass, go read Senator Chris Dodd's website (Democrat - Connecticut). Or if you want to be cynical in an informed way, go read Glenn Greenwald.

That's not QUITE true. The small number of artists who have been popular for a long time, with consistent sales, actually do make quite a bit of money from album sales. This is because they were in a position to renegotiate favorably with recording studios after the lengthy initial contract.

Which is why long established bands like Metallica and U2 are the only musicians who care enough about piracy to speak out on it- they are the rare exceptions of musicians who actually are getting paid for album sales.

See this Courney Love essay. (Yes, Courtney Love wrote an informative essay on the topic. Who knew?)

Republican Senators are right now stonewalling and trying to prevent a one-month extension of the same legislation they insisted last year was vital, urgent, and necessary to prevent terrorist attacks in "days, not weeks." The President has said he would veto a one-month extension of this legislation that, last year, we supposedly needed to stop the terrorists from attacking America.

They are protesting a one-month extension so that people who aren't paying attention will pressure Democrats to cave in and give Republicans what they want. The Republicans are literally -- if you believe their own words -- exposing America to danger of terrorist attack as a political tactic to pass the legislation they want.

And what they want is retroactive immunity for corporations so that we, the people, have no legal recourse to discover whether those corporations cooperated with the Bush administration in breaking the law.

The tools are already available. They allow the NSA to spy, and they allow American corporations to assist that spying. It's just that the laws must be followed. They are not difficult to follow. And corporations already are immune from both civil and criminal consequences if they can just demonstrate that, even though they broke the law, they acted on a good-faith belief at the time that what they did was legal.

If you think this about whether we can monitor what the terrorists are talking about, you're wrong.

• Someone actually managed to open that pdf and quotes from it here.
• An official blog on the Wall Street Journal website talks about the forthcoming article.
• And the New Yorker has an abstract up for the article which is apparently set to publish on the 21st.

Re: your sig. Ron Paul on Martin Luther King: "a world-class adulterer" who "seduced underage girls and boys" and "replaced the evil of forced segregation with the evil of forced integration"
Ron Paul on the closet: "I miss the closet. Homosexuals, not to speak of the rest of society, were far better off when social pressure forced them to hide their activities."
Ron Paul on San Francisco gays: "[T]hese men don't really see a reason to live past their fifties. They are not married, they have no children, and their lives are centered on new sexual partners." Also, "they enjoy the attention and pity that comes with being sick."
Ron Paul on protecting oneself against 'urban youth' "If you have to use a gun on a youth, you should leave the scene immediately, disposing of the wiped off gun as soon as possible. Such a gun cannot, of course, be registered to you, but one bought privately (through the classifieds, for example)."

Also:
Ron Paul wants to define life as starting at conception, build a fence along the US-Mexico border, prevent the Supreme Court from hearing Establishment Clause cases or the right to privacy, pull out of the UN, end birthright citizenship, and abolish the Federal Reserve in order to put America back on the gold standard. He was also the sole vote against divesting US federal government investments in corporations doing business with the genocidal government of the Sudan.

Oh, and he believes that the Left is waging a war on religion and Christmas, he's against gay marriage, is against the popular vote, wants the estate tax repealed, is STILL making racist remarks, and believes in New World Order conspiracy theories.

Patrick Smith, a writer and airplane pilot, has a recent column that explains how absurd the thought of a plane landing on its own, with or without "help" from an uninformed passenger, really is. It seems that airplane technology is still a long ways off from having planes that can safely fly a jet from point A to point B without human intervention.

Sadly, others have noted similar concerns in the way we teach programmers.

One classic piece is this series of articles on Salon about "The dumbing-down of programming".

"We quadrupled the TSA, you know, and hired more people who look more suspicious to me than most Americans who are getting checked," he says. "Most of them are, well, you know, they just don't look very American to me. If I'd have been looking, they look suspicious ... I mean, a lot of them can't even speak English, hardly. Not that I'm accusing them of anything, but it's sort of ironic."

I was curious about the "STILL making racist remarks" link so I followed it and on the second page of the Salon article you'll find this gem:

With credit to Pope Guilty of the SA forums: Ron Paul wants to define life as starting at conception, build a fence along the US-Mexico border, prevent the Supreme Court from hearing Establishment Clause cases or the right to privacy (which would bar atheists from holding office in Texas, prevent the striking down of antisodomy laws, prevent the government from spending any money to enforce its decisions, among many other things), pull out of the UN, end birthright citizenship, and abolish the Federal Reserve in order to put America back on the gold standard. He was also the sole vote against divesting US federal government investments in corporations doing business with the genocidal government of the Sudan. Oh, and he believes that the Left is waging a war on religion and Christmas, he's against gay marriage, is against the popular vote, wants the estate tax repealed, is STILL making racist remarks, and believes in New World Order conspiracy theories. He also said: "If you have ever been robbed by a black teen-aged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be" and "Opinion polls consistently show that only about 5 percent of blacks have sensible political opinions, i.e. support the free market, individual liberty and the end of welfare and affirmative action."

If I'm employing a salaried worker, then they're never "off the clock." When they're thinking about work, that's work I'm employing them to do. I own their ideas because they are my employee, and that's how work-for-hire works.

People know who works for who, and so my employees' actions reflect on the company. I have to protect the image of my company. Firing someone for having a drunken binge and then gloating about it online reflects poorly on the professionalism of my company, and therefore could result in a loss of revenue, and that could result in a stock holder lawsuit. So you see, even if I didn't want to, I have no choice other than to constantly monitor the actions of my employees and reprimand them when they're actions run counter to the company's interest.

If potential employees didn't like this behavior, then they wouldn't interview or accept offers from my company. That's just how the free market works, and since people do work for me, that shows they don't have any problems with this arrangement. The free market works again! And anyway, they posted the things online, so they gave up any privacy, so they should just accept the consequences.

And finally, this is all private surveillance instead of government so there's nothing wrong with it.

* * *
Of course, I was being sarcastic, but I fully expect there to be multiple posts that reiterate these ideas, only for real. There are plenty of people in today's America that want to essentially repeal the 20th century. I strongly suspect because there are people that for whatever reason, never saw power they didn't like, because they have the delusional belief that someday they will have that power.

Employers can read your email because they own the network. However they can't listen into your phone calls, even though they own the phones. The difference? One law was passed in the 30s or 40s. The other in the 90s.

The lassie faire free market capitalism is model. Nothing more. It's an ideal model, not unlike ideal wires in electrical engineering. They don't exist. The perfect market doesn't exist, because it hinges on perfect information, which doesn't exist. The market doesn't capture lots of things, namely pretty much everything that doesn't have a directly quantifiable cost. Even if you could assign a cost to these things, which you can't, the market doesn't necessarily work fast enough.

Not compensating artists/creators for their works = immorality.

Complain to the movie and television studios and record labels then. They are by far the biggest pirates of all. Hell, their entire industries were founded on piracy to begin with!

http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/1999/06/07/censorship/ Wonder how long Krudd will keep this up before he realizes how huge a task censoring the internet would be. Also, could they block proxies without raising questions on how that affects the publics right to animosity

>>> That's a nice story, but experience disagrees with you.

Uh, dude? The story you link doesn't say what you suggested it did. At no point does it come to the conclusion that people can't run down antelopes. Indeed, the narrator seems to think it's likely, and that it's almost certain people did so historically.

Moreover, you put far too much stock in the ability of an aging ex-smoker, his nerdy brother with a heart problem, and a few of their friends to represent the utmost of human capabilities. The fact that none of them managed to run down an antelope doesn't really tell us a whole lot about whether a trained and fit group of hunters could do it.

For example, one of the problems the guys in this story talked about was identifying which antelope they'd started chasing; I would imagine that someone who hunted down antelope for a living would be rather better at antelope identification. As the narrator himself says, "The main problem is not the running; the main problem is knowledge of the terrain and the animal itself." He's certainly not going to have that, doing this a couple days at a time.

Indeed, the narrator describes the technique (as described by the natives he talked to) as a difficult technique that requires substantial knowledge and training, so his own failure tells us very little. Basically, it tells us that running down an antelope is at least very hard; not exactly a surprise.

Finally, it's worth noting that antelope are rather exceptional in their running capabilities, so if man cannot run down the world's best non-human distance runner, that doesn't tell us so much about whether man can run down typical quadrupeds.

For what it's worth, though, the narrator's own conclusion is that it's quite possible for someone fit enough and who knows what he's doing to run down an antelope. Listening to story and reading interviews by its narrator basically gives exactly the opposite impression you tried to give.

While getting every oath breaking (protect the Constitution) coward out of office would be nice, it's not very practical. But that's okay - a few primaries can have great effect. After Lieberman was successfully primaried, the Dems finally pulled their outs out of their ass when it came to criticizing the occupation of Iraq. A few more and the Dems might finally pull their heads out of their asses on ending the war in Iraq and block any legislation that does not have a hard withdrawal date. Jane Harman for example has improved considerably just at the threat of being primaried.

Republicans fear their base. Too many Democrats deliberately vote against theirs, and with the most unpopular president in history. This is because they think they have nothing to fear from the left or the center, only the right - so they move to the right. Oh, and they crave approval from the Joke Line beltway pundits. They need to learn that is not the case.

The telecoms and their advocates in Congress like Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and apparently Harry Reid (D-NV) argue that they're not changing anything from illegal to legal, rather they're filling a legal vacuum and the telecoms benefit as a result. How convenient and timely. Also as I understand the term, ex post facto usually refers to laws that make something newly illegal, subjecting people who had committed no crime to criminal penalties.

The most egregious senatorial hijinks of this affair has been Reid's ignoring Dodd's "hold" on the bill. He doesn't ignore holds on bills requested by republicans, but someone from his own party can't expect to have his honored. Glenn Greenwald at Salon has been documenting this case for a while. That link goes to today's installment, but when the hold was first requested weeks (months?) ago, Greenwald had that story too.

Glenn Greenwald had a good report on this today; incredibly, only 10 senators voted against this bill. Reid allowed the bill to proceed despite Dodd's hold (the only one Reid has disallowed). You'd think Reid was bought and paid for by AT&T or something.

So we're going from wanting to see girl on girl to robot on robot action?

I don't think I can make this any simpler: Stop Buying Music from RIAA Members. Its easy, they don't seem to want you to buy their product anyway.

It still doesn't matter, because those blank CDs you buy, that DVD player you buy, that DVR recorder under your television set... all carries a tariff levied by the RIAA/MPAA, to go to those "starving artists" (they're starving because the RIAA made them that way, more on that in a moment).

Even when you don't buy music from RIAA bands or movies from the MPAA, you're still paying them money they used to sue you and fight their own artists.

You want to burn some Linux ISO images onto recordable DVD or CD media? You just paid the RIAA a tariff because you're a pirate (in their eyes).

You want to burn your favorite indy band's music onto CD? You just paid Usher and Britney and other artists for that "right".

If you haven't read it yet, PLEASE read Courtney Does the Math; a real eye-opener.

Hard to believe he would self-publish that story. Did that really happen, or is it the self-promotional fantasy of a man who knows he'll never get laid?

http://drrobertepstein.com/downloads/FROM_RUSSIA_WITH_LOVE-Epstein-Sci_Am_Mind-Oct-Nov2007.pdf

I'll believe in the chatbot when it dives under my desk for existential reasons.

http://dir.salon.com/story/books/review/2004/05/21/slater/

But Steve Swasey, a Netflix spokesman, points out that the report does not mention a key fact about Netflix's deal with the Post Office: Rather than waiting for a postal carrier to drop off and pick up mailers at Netflix's distribution centers, the company itself transports the mailers to regional postal centers.

Because Netflix pays for full First Class mail service, which includes picking up and dropping off, Netflix is paying for a service that it is not using -- which Swasey claims amounts to an extra $100 million per year for the Post Office.

Moreover, the report suggests that the Post Office itself bears some of the responsibility for Netflix's mailers.

In 2002, the Postal Service's engineering department determined that the mailers weren't compatible with automated systems. But the Post office's marketing department gave Netflix the go-ahead to use its mailers, and assured the company that it would "not be subject to the nonmachanible surcharge" for "mailpieces that must be handled manually."

Great comments! I completely agree that, no matter what lame story or acting or stupid accents that GL might have foisted on us in the episodes I - III, the worst was the midichlorians. Take a mythology and turn it in to some accident of nature, something that you can measure under a microscope.

However, to say that they "didn't make sense" isn't completely true. There are several people who have compared GL's work with that of Campbell. It was the creation of a "campbellian" super race that necessitated the little things growing in our cells. That's the whole point -- you CAN'T become a hero, or even a great leader by dedication and hard work. You have to be BORN a super-hero, or be "destined" to save the world. The rest of us are just the drones that follow those born to lead.

Oh and the whole "virgin birth" thing really sucked too. That one about made me puke.

I think my favorite article is an old one by David Brin at: "Star Wars" despots vs."Star Trek" populists and his follow up article

If only Lucas had stopped trying to write SF at the end of THX-1138.

I'm with David Brin here, Star Wars was screwed up with Lucas' elitism right from the start.

I used to buy music online...DRM Free and legally. But the RIAA lobbyed the US President to make him ask the Russian President to close allofmp3 or else... I suppose Putin was kinda of relief. Can you imagine? He's planning to rebuild and strengthen all the nuclear arsenal and Bush instead of questioning on that matter goes on and ask to close a small internet store! FUNNY to the brim of ridicolous!

Since then I stopped buying Mp3s legally online, note that they were on piracy before and after the above mentioned events. And of course later on the charges against allofmp3 were dropped because they were inconsistent http://www.allofmp3.ru/press.shtml

The RIAA has closed a market opportunity with lobbying (at least one lost a consumer) Those in charge there are really IDIOTS. They just are donkey heads that can't do the math.

Here is the math:
I spend 15$ online get 8 albums = 50% profits estimated (And I suppose they go to Russia, anyway RIAA is known not to be fairer to the artists, see the article below)
I spend 0$ anywhere because of high prices = profits?

Here is the math of Courtney Love online since 2000: http://archive.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/06/14/love/index.html

Have a good read

Way to try to justify your illegal activity, slashfags.

Not that you care about either, AC, but laws should follow morals, not the other way around. Copyright laws are the result of corruption and following them is often immoral. They prevent the free flow of information more important than pop songs anyone can hear on the radio anyway. If the US is still a functional democracy, these initiatives will be defeated and bad laws like the DMCA will be rolled back. As is usually the case, private privilege has led to vast public harm.

Copyright laws have gotten so bad that scientific and medical journals are restricted and hard to find. This is both against the author's intentions and a sever blow to the whole purpose of copyright law. Authors who publish seek the widest possible audience. They want anyone who's interested to have ready access to their findings and that's what publishing is supposed to be about. The purpose of US copyright and patent law expressed in the US Constitution is to "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." Any law that goes against that purpose requires a constitutional amendment. Again and again, prominent scientists and artist have stepped forward to complain.

When someone posts your address online over an alleged crime or slight, and you're the one whose tires are slashed or who has to confront a crazed gunman breaking down your door, you'll understand.

Has this happened to you or anyone you know? If not, stop the fearmongering.

There were several cases in Britain where The Sun or other quality magazines started to publish pictures of pedophiles. Too bad if you happened to look like the guy. Chances were you were soon hurting.

But of course, the lynch mob can also be just a tad stupid - but what can you do if you're the one running from it: British vigilantes mistake a pediatrician for a pedophile.

There are various examples known world wide such as in Argentina (1980's) when all of the communications were monitored by the government to "capture the terrorists."

Who needs Argentina as an example? AT&T (for sure) and others (probably) are doing this for the US government right now. That's the purpose behind the FISA update that they keep trying to pass -- lift the existing requirement that the telcos reject government requests that are illegal under existing law.

Pretty sure Slashdot covered it at some point (probably more than once, knowing the propensity toward dupes).

Some links:

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2006/04/70619

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2006/05/70908

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060412-6585.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hepting_vs._AT&T

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/11/15/amnesty_fisa/index.html

Why don't you fools ever check the facts? I bet you think that the Al Gore inventing the internet thing is a real knee-slapper, too. Spreading political rumor and innuendo as if it is fact hurts this democracy because it keeps false memes in circulation and a factually informed electorate is the only defense against tyrrany. Of course, if you only care about your side winning, I guess that doesn't matter.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/kamiya/2007/11/13/manners/

If you think THAT's scandalous, check out this old Salon article about Wizards of the Coast. I'll give away part of the surprise: company camping trip turns orgy.

Well in reality Bush is more Democrat then Republican...

Bullfuckingshit.

The reasons Democrats hate him is the majority of Democrats are Liberal Bias too.

Bullshit. The Democrats are an extremely conservative party. That they look liberal next to the GOP tells you how far to the right they have gone.

It is not an unusual accusation. But seeing as I am in the documents-are-authentic camp, having not seen any claim against them (the laughable font stuff, kerning, language, etc. criticisms) withstand scrutiny, I won't defend it.

And in the end, it will not matter. So long as this runs to completion, the speculation of a thousand slashdotters won't matter any more than George Bush's present status as an ex-con.

• It said: Sexual relations occur "when the person [Clinton] knowingly engages in or causes contact with the genitalia, anus, groin, breast, inner thigh, or buttocks of any person [Lewinsky] with an intent to arouse or gratify the sexual desire of any person [Lewinsky]."

One of the few propositions on which Bush supporters and critics agree is that George Bush does not change and has not changed at all over the last six years. He is exactly the same.

And none of the supposed grounds for conservative discontent -- especially Bush's immigration position -- is even remotely new.

There is really only one thing that has changed about George W. Bush from the 2002-2004 era when conservatives hailed him as the Great Conservative Leader, and now. Whereas Bush was a wildly popular leader then, which made conservatives eager to claim him as their Standard-Bearer, he is now one of the most despised presidents in U.S. history, and conservatives are thus desperate to disassociate themselves from the President for whom they are solely responsible. It is painfully obvious there is nothing noble, substantive or principled driving this right-wing outburst; it is a pure act of self-preservation.

The conservative movement tied itself to Bush as tightly and loyally as possible for years when they perceived that Bush was a wildly popular president who would bring glory to "conservatives," and that their movement would receive credit for the heroic and powerful Bush. When he was popular, they depicted him as the Embodiment of Pure Conservatism. That's just undeniable, historical fact.

The newfound storyline that Bush's failure is attributed to the fact that he was never really a conservative (and, all along, was really liberal) -- and that movement conservatives are thus his disappointed and betrayed victims -- is pure fiction, the most transparent form of revisionism.

"Conservative" is a magic word that applies to those who are in other conservatives' good graces. Until they aren't. At which point they are liberals.

George W. Bush will not achieve a place in the Republican pantheon. Conservatism cannot fail, it can only be failed. (And a conservative can only fail because he is too liberal.)

I wouldn't be too sad about this--I don't think it indicates a blasé attitude. People have long made jokes like that at dark times, as part of coping, or just from a sense that life goes on. Salon has a great article on the venal, silly, and generally unworthy things that many thought on 9/11: Forbidden Thoughts on 9/11.

Congress wouldn't have been upset if China would have outsourced torture like the US does by sending the 'dissident' to an Egyptian torture facility. Perhaps the CIA could knock down the trade deficit by managing the outsourcing of torture for China...

Seth

The ever classic article from Courtney Love goes over the whole scheme:

http://archive.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/06/14/love/

Not far off:
http://archive.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/06/14/love/
http://www.negativland.com/albini.html

You have no clue about the music business. Try again

So the over-50's were never drink-addled undergrads? Does this mean I'm not going to make it to 50?

No, you'll just have a missing year. It will never have happened.