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According to the pollsters themselves it appears methodology and political ideology seem to be the main culprits. In the last election there was admitted problems with the methodology used, sometimes due to lack of training and some times due to the law (minimum distances from polling stations). As distance between the pollster and the actual polling station increases the reliability of the results decreases as it becomes more of a matter of the voter seeking out a pollster which greatly skews the results. For whatever reason, according to the polling companies themselves, Republicans are less likely to volunteer to take part in an exit poll so would logically therefore be even less likely to make an actually effort to seek out an pollster.

Timing also plays a major factor. For example women, who vote predominantly Democrat, tend to vote earlier and therefore make up a larger percentage of exit poll results than their actual numbers would dictate.

All GOP myths, I'm afraid.

here you go.

Visit http://www.salon.com/news/cookie756.html to get the cookie first.

Or, can dead people not be considered to be "influential"?

http://dir.salon.com/story/tech/feature/2003/03/18 /bunten/index.html

Legalizing drugs hurts the people that use them and everyone around them. That's why they were made illegal in the first place.

Now, I'm not sure I feel like getting in a long debate on the legalization of drugs and such, but this is just not true. Drug legislation genuinely did stem more from racism and paranoia than any actual social problems related to addiction or crime. There was a great fear that the coked up, weeded out negro would rape all them purty white womens.

Now, since we're certainly a little past assuming our brown tinged neighbor will go berzerk and wave his giant, uncircumcized member over the fence and onto our lawn, why are drugs still illegal?

Profit! Political and economic. I'm afraid I lack the passion at the moment to aggregate tons of readings and statistics on the subject, but I'm quite certain that a quick googling will expose you to a wealth of information on the subject, such as this rant, for one.

There is an approximately equal chance that Pat Buchanan will be nominated as the Democrat candidate for president in 2008.

I guess that makes this experiment the physics equivalent of the Florida elections? (I'd rather take my chances with the black hole, thanks.)

A lot of the source material is gone, gone, gone.

We've already started to deny the accused due process, via rape shield laws.

Please, show me a liberal or a feminist (or both! or a conservative, for fairness) that feels that accused sex offenders don't deserve due process.

Three words: rape shield laws. Any more questions?

Fnar, again: good one.

I'm as hot as you on the media sensationalising trivial occurrances, and the damage the inevitable knee-jerk reactions by short-sighted citizens and bandwagon-jumping representatives. I think this is one of the major problems with modern society in the West - we're hearing news from all four corners of the earth, but we've got brains evolved for living in small groups of 100-150 people, so at a subsconscious level we assume anything we hear happening to anyone must be happening to people in a group that size.

We hear about a child getting abducted and murdered, and instead of going "well, that's a 1 in 10,000,000 chance, nothing to worry about" we go "Shit! My kids are playing inside now for the rest of their lives!!!111!!11eleventy!!!1".

Nevertheless, when you have clear and incontrovertible proof that your own government is eavesdropping on the population (and, like it or not, Echelon is listening to your calls and eavesdropping on your e-mail, and traffic analysis is being done on your phone), in defiance of the laws of the land, that's neither "media manipulation" nor "isolated".

When you look at the statistics and see the economy tanking, you see Creationism/ID being given the status of a "science", you see the "before" and "after" versions of a scientific report that's been vetted by the Whitehouse, it's hard to write those off as media manipulation.

When you read amateur blog postings of people who have been arrested and detained for days for taking part in a peaceful (pre-arranged!) protest, or when you read self-published accounts of people being denied visas or flights because their name sounds a bit like a suspected terrorist, that's not media manipulation.

When you see time and again the law enforcement admitting the use of PATRIOT Act powers in situations completely unrelated to terrorism, that's neither media manipulation, nor something that's "always happened".

"There are almost no stories of abuses by normal citizens in the news media. It just doesn't happen."

Maybe not in Fox news, mate, but try raising your head occasionally (fuck it: just do a Google search) and you'd be amazed what you see.

And that only took a couple of minutes and a quick search.

In 2003, Ellsberg was quoted in an interview as saying, "The system really failed on Irangate, Contragate. I didn't believe Reagan and Bush could get away without being impeached, and they did."

And, if anyone would know, it would be a former Washington insider.

The purchase of Elk Hills tripled Occidental Petroleum's domestic oil reserves overnight. It also enriched Occidental's stockholders, including Gore's father, Al Gore Sr. The elder Gore owned more than $500,000 worth of Occidental stock at the time of the Elk Hills purchase in 1997. When he died the following year, his son became the executor of his estate and, according to the vice president's federal income disclosure forms, the estate continued, as of May 1999, to hold the Occidental stock.

. ... "The Buying of the President 2000" reports that Occidental gave $50,000 after one of Gore's fund-raising calls from his White House office. "Indeed," according to the book, "since Gore became part of the Democratic ticket in the summer of 1992, Occidental has given more than $470,000 in soft money to various Democratic committees and causes." And Gore himself has received $35,550 in Occidental campaign contributions during that same period, the center estimates.

. ... And there's much, much more: Lewis' fascinating dissection of the more than 50-year relationship between Gore's family and Occidental Petroleum begins when the elder Gore was serving in the House of Representatives. Occidental was then run by Armand Hammer, once described as "the godfather of American corporate corruption" and a master of double-dealing who laundered funds and placed spies in the United States for Moscow to protect his vast oil and gas holdings in the Soviet Union. Hammer buddied up to Gore Sr. by putting him on the payroll of his New Jersey cattle ranch in the 1940s.

. ... When Gore Sr. left the Senate in 1970, "Hammer gave him a $500,000-a-year job as the chairman of Island Coal Creek Company, an Occidental subsidiary, and a seat on Occidental's board of directors," according to the book. Meanwhile, Al Jr. and his wife, Tipper, hosted Hammer at Ronald Reagan's 1984 inauguration and again at President Bush's in 1988. "In return," according to the book, "Hammer and members of his family bent over backwards to get money into Gore's campaigns," and the largesse continued after Hammer died, in 1990, and Gore became Clinton's vice president.

The elder Gore owned more than $500,000 worth of Occidental stock at the time of the Elk Hills purchase in 1997. When he died the following year, his son became the executor of his estate and, according to the vice president's federal income disclosure forms, the estate continued, as of May 1999, to hold the Occidental stock.

The close relationship Gore and his father have enjoyed with Occidental Petroleum is detailed in "The Buying of the President 2000," a new book by Charles Lewis and the Center for Public Integrity. Lewis is the founder and executive director of the center, a nonpartisan watchdog group of journalists in Washington whose scoops include the Lincoln Bedroom fund-raising scandal. A former investigative reporter with "60 Minutes" and ABC News, Lewis founded the Center for Public Integrity in 1990.

"The Buying of the President 2000" reports that Occidental gave $50,000 after one of Gore's fund-raising calls from his White House office. "Indeed," according to the book, "since Gore became part of the Democratic ticket in the summer of 1992, Occidental has given more than $470,000 in soft money to various Democratic committees and causes." And Gore himself has received $35,550 in Occidental campaign contributions during that same period, the center estimates.

CARTHAGE, Tenn. -- On his most recent tax return, as he has the past 25 years, Vice President Al Gore lists a $20,000 mining royalty for the extraction of zinc from beneath his farm here in the bucolic hills of the Cumberland River Valley. In total, Mr. Gore has earned $500,000 from zinc royalties. His late father, the senator, introduced him not only to the double-bladed ax but also to Armand Hammer, chairman of Occidental Petroleum Corp., which sold the zinc-rich land to the Gore family in 1973.

The elder Gore owned more than $500,000 worth of Occidental stock at the time of the Elk Hills purchase in 1997. When he died the following year, his son became the executor of his estate and, according to the vice president's federal income disclosure forms, the estate continued, as of May 1999, to hold the Occidental stock.

The close relationship Gore and his father have enjoyed with Occidental Petroleum is detailed in "The Buying of the President 2000," a new book by Charles Lewis and the Center for Public Integrity. Lewis is the founder and executive director of the center, a nonpartisan watchdog group of journalists in Washington whose scoops include the Lincoln Bedroom fund-raising scandal. A former investigative reporter with "60 Minutes" and ABC News, Lewis founded the Center for Public Integrity in 1990.

"The Buying of the President 2000" reports that Occidental gave $50,000 after one of Gore's fund-raising calls from his White House office. "Indeed," according to the book, "since Gore became part of the Democratic ticket in the summer of 1992, Occidental has given more than $470,000 in soft money to various Democratic committees and causes." And Gore himself has received $35,550 in Occidental campaign contributions during that same period, the center estimates.

. ... And there's much, much more: Lewis' fascinating dissection of the more than 50-year relationship between Gore's family and Occidental Petroleum begins when the elder Gore was serving in the House of Representatives. Occidental was then run by Armand Hammer, once described as "the godfather of American corporate corruption" and a master of double-dealing who laundered funds and placed spies in the United States for Moscow to protect his vast oil and gas holdings in the Soviet Union. Hammer buddied up to Gore Sr. by putting him on the payroll of his New Jersey cattle ranch in the 1940s. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover wanted to prosecute Hammer, but backed off for fear of Hammer's friends in Congress, including Gore, who ascended to the Senate in 1952. Before long, charges "The Buying of the President 2000," the advantages of being friends with Hammer were inevitably passed on to Gore Jr.

. .... Meanwhile, Al Jr. and his wife, Tipper, hosted Hammer at Ronald Reagan's 1984 inauguration and again at President Bush's in 1988. "In return," according to the book, "Hammer and members of his family bent over backwards to get money into Gore's campaigns," and the largesse continued after Hammer died, in 1990, and Gore became Clinton's vice president.

Huh? What's the difference between this playstation and the last one? This scenario is exactly like when the PS2 was introduced: nothing really ground-breaking, better graphics, new media options, better controllers... and people still bought the PS2. I see no reason the PS3 won't do just as well.

Yes, in fact, check this funny article in Salon that outlines why you shouldn't buy Sony's next console:

• It's the most powerful video game platform, but that's not enough
• There is likely to be a shortage of units
• Don't expect a lot of quality games soon
• Big-name PC developers say it's hard to code for
• Playing next-gen media isn't a selling factor
• The competitor is half the price
• It's got to compete against high-profile consoles from Microsoft and Nintendo

Except the article isn't talking about the PS3... it's talking about the PS2. But the arguments are all the same all over again.

Interesting link, but it's missing MS' use of "charitable contributions", epsecially in the developing world.

• Democrats attack Gates' "charity"
• Gates gives $100m to fight HIV, $421m to fight Linux
• Virtual Philanthropy
• E-México favors windows over linux

There's more published, especially in local papers, but as you see in the Salon article, it's part of an combination investment/PR campaign and both MS reps and shills come down on any thing other than "Yay Bill!" So questions and/or critique stay low profile and is hard to find.

Also, the mention of tax breaks is a bit of an under statement. MS pays almost nothing: IT giants who don't pay tax part 2: how Microsoft does it. There's a bit of a stink about MS in Europe using foreign tax havens. And, by the way, MS seems to make more money buying and selling its own stock that in does even from sales of MS Windows. Bill hopped off as CEO the same year MS ran an $18,000,000,000 USD loss. Now he's stepped down completely. That could be interpreted to suggest that this summer's massive stock buyback could be an indication of real bad situation in Redmond.

c) Even if artists got a pisspoor share of royalties, I'm sure they would much rather prefer it to the fuck all they would get if stuff was P2Ped.

No they wouldn't. Not if they were smart.

Important quote for the lazy:

This story is about a bidding-war band that gets a huge deal with a 20 percent royalty rate and a million-dollar advance. (No bidding-war band ever got a 20 percent royalty, but whatever.) This is my "funny" math based on some reality and I just want to qualify it by saying I'm positive it's better math than what Edgar Bronfman Jr. [the president and CEO of Seagram, which owns Polygram] would provide.

(some number crunching)

Since the original million-dollar advance is also recoupable, the band owes $2 million to the record company.

If all of the million records are sold at full price with no discounts or record clubs, the band earns $2 million in royalties, since their 20 percent royalty works out to $2 a record.

Two million dollars in royalties minus $2 million in recoupable expenses equals ... zero!

How much does the record company make?

(more number crunching)

So their profit is $6.6 million; the band may as well be working at a 7-Eleven.

When you look at the legal line on a CD, it says copyright 1976 Atlantic Records or copyright 1996 RCA Records. When you look at a book, though, it'll say something like copyright 1999 Susan Faludi, or David Foster Wallace. Authors own their books and license them to publishers. When the contract runs out, writers gets their books back. But record companies own our copyrights forever.

To sum it up, I can't find the exact quote for this bit, but most artists -- even top artists -- would be better off financially if they didn't try to distribute at all, if they played in bars and such, or if they self-publish, via the Internet (magnatune, mindawn) or burn their own CDs. They'd be less popular, but they'd actually make money.

So yes, I think the smart artists, the small-time, bar/nightclub players who distribute their albums on their own CD-Rs, would really, truly, honestly not care whether they get P2P'd. They (like everyone else) make the real money from live concerts, which they get more and better of if they are more popular, which is much more likely if their stuff is getting P2P'd.

Imagine if this had happened yesterday: http://dir.salon.com/story/tech/col/smith/2002/10/ 03/askthepilot13/index.html

I am so tired of hearing about stolen elections. The media have been all over this and any reporter would win a Pulitzer if any evidence could be found.

Here is the best research to date on the Ohio "theft".

http://www.cleveland.com/readers/index.ssf?/base/o pinion/1150619659219900.xml&coll=2&thispage=3/

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/06/03/kenne dy/index_np.html/

I have a theory that says that the function of modern art is for the viewer to live vicariously through the artist's insanity. Van Gogh was famous for this. So was Leonard Cohen, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain, Alan Ginsberg, Salvador Dali, and Jackson Pollock, to name a few.

This is a fairly common myth. Here's a good antidote: Miller, Laura, "Van Gogh on Prozac"

Btw, dealing with my depression has enabled me to be an artist.

I wonder if it's ok to go to concerts or maybe that all goes to the labels as well?

Props for linking to Steve Albini. Courtney Does the Math is not bad either

At a typical cruising altitude, as many as 8 pounds of pressure are pushing against every square inch of interior fuselage. That's 1,152 pounds of weight against each square foot of door. Flying at low altitudes, where cabin-pressure levels are lower, even a differential of 2 pounds per square inch is still more than anyone can displace -- even after six cups of coffee and the frustration that comes with sitting behind a shrieking infant for five hours.

It's Nazi Gold.

The sweetest loot of all.

His type of zealotry may endear supporters, but it is offensive to people of faith, and is unlikely to convince anyone on
the fence.

In fact, many evolutionists believe Dawkins is hurting the cause. Scientist Michael Ruse recently was quoted as
saying: I think that you and Richard [Dawkins] are absolute disasters in the fight against intelligent design -
we are losing this battle, not the least of which is the two new supreme court justices who are certainly going to
vote to let it into classrooms - what we need is not knee-jerk atheism but serious grappling with the issues - neither
of you are willing to study Christianity seriously and to engage with the ideas - it is just plain silly and grotesquely
immoral to claim that Christianity is simply a force for evil, as Richard claims - more than this, we are in a fight,
and we need to make allies in the fight, not simply alienate everyone of good will.

The "overwhelming majority of terrorists" aren't Muslim. South America and Europe had more terrorism than the Middle East, which took 3rd place in the US State department reports. What, you want to let Colombian drug dealers off the hook, while going through a Malaysian Muslim's bags?

Profiling doesn't work. When police use race or ethnic appearance as a factor in law enforcement, their accuracy in catching criminals decreases. Even worse, it can lead to accidental deaths, such as the fatal shooting by London police of an innocent Brazilian man after the bombings there.

New York had a "stop and frisk" campaign in the late 1990s, when police were stopping people in the streets on a regular basis in an effort to confiscate illegal weapons and reduce crime. The campaign created tension between the police and minority communities, who thought they were being unfairly targeted for frisks. It turned out they were right.

After Amadou Diallo, an unarmed West African immigrant, was killed during a stop, New York attorney general Eliot Spitzer ordered a study of 175,000 "stop and frisk" records and found that although African-Americans composed only 25 percent of New York City's population at the time, they made up 50 percent of the people who were stopped. Latinos were roughly 23 percent of the population and 33 percent of those stopped, while whites were 43 percent of the population and 13 percent of those stopped.

The results: Police were going to a lot of trouble for little reward, especially when the people they stopped were African-Americans.

Look at the statistics for "hit rates" -- the percentage of stops in which the police found drugs, a gun or something else that led to an arrest. The number of hits in general was very low for the number of stops that police made. But more interesting was that the rate for African-Americans was much lower than the rate for Caucasians. Police had a hit rate of 12.6 percent when they stopped Caucasians and only 10.5 percent when they stopped African-Americans. The hit rate for Latinos was 11.5 percent. You might say that we have a difference of 2.1 percent between blacks and whites. But it's actually a difference of 20 percent when you do the math right. The difference between whites and Latinos is about 10 percent.

Essentially, police were stopping more African-Americans than Caucasians but finding fewer criminals among the former. Why? Not because blacks commit proportionately fewer crimes than whites do (the data vary according to the type of crime and other factors) but because police were looking at the wrong factors when they stopped people

They're focusing on appearance when they should be focusing on behavior. When they're not distracted by race, they're actually doing a more accurate job of picking out the right people.

Focusing on appearance produces a lot of false positives. And every time you introduce a false positive, you take resources away from your ability to focus on people who are really of interest -- those who are behaving suspiciously. If it's a question of finding a needle in a haystack ... don't put more hay on the top.

What DOES work in preventing terrorism is behavior profiling. Look at how Israel does security, they ask everyone a serious of questions before boarding and watch their reactions. It's how they caught Anne Murphy trying to smuggle a bomb on board. Face it, you don't actually care if they're young Muslim men ... You care about keeping anyone from boarding the airplane who is going to behave like a terrorist.

Paraphrased from Salon.com: Why profiling doesn't work

The US War on Drugs is a sham and the politicians know it. But the constant barrage of absolutist demonization has left no feasible opening to seriously suggest the alternative: legalization.

The UK isn't so bad. Atleast they have had the courage to allow medical marijuana research, which has resulted in the legal Sativex. Cannabis is classified as Class C, resulting in warnings & fine for possession. And very recently, A parliamentary committee has lambasted the whole classification system. Even many senior politicians (like David Cameron) and police chiefs have called for considering legalization. The US does have an equivalent movement in LEAP (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition) with about 5,000 officers, but getting the word out relies on media accomodation, and unlike the UK, the US is not a very tolerant venue.

I don't know the quality of this website ;-) , but the story as to why marijuana was banned is one I have seen in other places (this was just the first place that google turned up for me)

Why Is Marijuana Illegal

It appears that it was a combination of "think of the children", outright capitalistic greed, and politicians promoting themselves.

Just when I was convinced those dispensational premillennialism (Ad View maybe Required) were nuts.

I have mod points, but I'd rather reply to this...

The people in this country have something to say about the current state of things but have yet to act upon what the morals that govern them. They talk about how wrong the President is but yet they vote him into office again. They shout " I don't want my phone tapped," but they do it in the comfort of their home where they can't be arrested. They say "let us be moral and leaders of the free world," yet they think "a little bit of torture never hurt anyone as long as its in Cuba." And here we are - you and I paying our taxes and showing our teeth like its all okay.

Just what am I supposed to do? Go and protest at one of GWB's speeches and get arrested? How will that change anything? How will that help? Will my being in prison make other people more free?

I could perhaps donate a little money to the ACLU or EFF - I think they're great causes - but their court actions are subject to a judiciary which is increasingly neo-conservative (aka fascist).

AFAIK, the most effective thing I can do is vote for democrats in the 2006 and 2008 elections. But everyone here at /. knows that recent elections were corrupt. I never voted for Bush in the first place, and that's true of approximately (or perhaps at least?) 50% of American voters. But the opinions of those voters are ignored by the present administration, and I suspect that some of their votes are ignored as well.

Personally, I believe that the current administration is led by criminals who should be impeached, tried, convicted, and imprisoned for a very long time. Their crimes are many and egregious. But what can I do about it? I'm not wealthy enough to buy a congresscritter.

So go ahead and mod me down or call me a troll because I don't care. Someone needs to tell America the truth and stand up for whats right. I'm moving to Maine...

Yeah, I'll bet you're going to move to another state just because of a slashdot story. Riiiiight...

To those interested in this debate, Salon has a very interesting interview that goes contrary to many of the posts in this thread that I have posted. Certainly worth a read...

You act like Circuit City is just stupid to get sued. But if they see it as a business opportunity and think they have a case, the cost of settling the issue in court could be well justified. If Diamond Multimedia hadn't successfully defended a similar lawsuit from the musuic industry, we wouldn't have anything like the iPod today.

This article left out the best parts of WotC history: the corporate retreats full of bongs and banging.

See this article for more details:
http://archive.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/03/23/w izards/index.html

I would agree with the poster above that we are clearly not in the state of the novel/film "1984". Although to suggest that there is no connection between the federal level of government and the local police I point you to a few articles. After looking at the JTTF, the recent news of Oakland police infiltrating non violent protest groups, and punishing independent journalists I think there is plenty of evidence that we have a police state and not just a few arrant officers. Read at your leisure. http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2004/02/11 /cointelpro/index.html http://www.joshwolf.net/grandjury/ http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2 006/07/28/SURVEILLANCE.TMP Oh yes and I think I'll post this anonymously. I've got place I would like to fly to.

In fact, they should have called up a volunteer from the audience... preferably a member of the press so you'd know it wasn't a confederate

Every time I read a story like this I think of Cory Doctorow's Anda's Game. It's an interesting thought-experiment for both sides of the issue. While I certainly don't condone game currency sales, it's not a terrible way to get another perspective on who is really affected by it all.

• Both removing and restoring IE is risky and difficult. IE is complex with extensive hooks built into Windows, for efficiency and functionality. Thus unplugging it from your system may impact Internet connectivity, Windows functionality, and break functionality in Microsoft Office and non-MS products.
  
• IE is more than a browser, it is the foundation for Internet functionality in Windows.
  

All I have to say is this:
http://archive.salon.com/comics/boll/2000/08/24/bo ll/index.html

According to this article, he has been involved in a lawsuit against a spam blocker (his company was mistakenly placed on a spam blocklist), he has tracked Nazi war criminals, and he discovered that Elvis has Jewish ancestors.

Steve Rambam lost his law suit against the anti-spam DNSBL run by Joe Jarad. In the process Steve lost any respect I might have had for him for other things.

According to this article, he has been involved in a lawsuit against a spam blocker (his company was mistakenly placed on a spam blocklist), he has tracked Nazi war criminals, and he discovered that
Elvis has Jewish ancestors.

He's had a mention in a previous slashdot comment in this article Comment title: "Outsourcing is a way around civil liberties". Article summary:

I saw a talk by Steve Rambam at Hope 05. Besides a live demo of a database that freakin blew my mind (in a live demo in than 30 seconds, steve pulled up everything about a guy in the audience, including past roommates, active phone lines, and his mom's credit report using *ONLY HIS SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER*).

his assertion is that privacy is dead, not because Big Brother in D.C. is watching, but because Big Defense Contrator is watching. The government, sick of trying to ram through legislation on what it can and can't do with data it collects on its citizens, is now sub-contracting all kinds of tasks. For example, perhaps the Feds can't do a nation-wide driver's license photo scan without inciting privacy concerns; however, if most of the states sub-contract out their photo processing to a contractor on advice from big brother, then that contractor hires itself to the big brother and sells *RESULTS* from some data mining query (but never the data itself), then big brother hasn't violated any privacy rights. Similarly for phone logs, criminal databases, airline data, medicare, drivers license, health databases, traffic tickets etc.

he told me the name of the database we should all really be afraid of, bigger than Echelon, but i forgot its name.

Sorry we can't be so complimentary about your own dynasty!

http://dir.salon.com/story/books/feature/2004/01/2 7/phillips_excerpt/index.html refers.

If this is a troll, masterfully executed and I salute you.

If not, then you have some fairly bizarre notions. I think it is not, so allow me to make some comments.

You knock “religious fundamentalists.”

Certainly the desired intent.

What happens if 80% of the world is right, and that God does exist? Are you prepared to roast in hell?

Alright, 80% of the world population is theistic. Seems right. But in addition to many divisions of belief, what has been believed has changed for all recorded human history. Religion that has fallen out of fashion is regarded today as silly nonsense. We do not revile people because they reject Zeus or do not call pharaoh a god. We have evolved improved sensibilities about the natural world and society. It may take a thousand years, but we will one day laugh at all the religions of today the same way we now laugh at river gods and fire spirits.

If you believe in God, and God doesn't exist, then you've lost what?

Perhaps a lifetime. Instead of engaging myself with the task of improving the human race, I have wasted it chasing after an invisible man in the sky. One might as well spend a life believing in Santa Clause or the Tooth Fairy.

A little time hanging out with nice people who have high morals?

I am an atheist and I too have morals. I know I should not commit violence against people because I would not want others to commit violence against me. I know I should not steal or cheat for the same reason. It is purely logical for me to follow certain principles and adhere to morals, without some supernatural entity threatening me with punishment. It is logical because I have a survival instinct which makes me avoid injury. Also, human beings are social creatures since society increases our chances of survival. Harming others harms the group, thus diminishing our prosperity. In my opinion, these are much better reasons to live morally than threats of eternal fire and brimstone. Morals do not come from religion and they never have. Furthermore, not all religious people have “high morals,” such as those whom use their religion to write moral blank checks which they cash to commit acts of rape and cold-blooded murder.

Or you could go back to whining and complaining about the world

But do you not see that critism is the only way to progress! I “complain” because I care. I see faults and I want to understand those faults such that they can be corrected. That is akin to the scientific method which seeks to disprove claims so that only those which are true become establish facts. And then they are questioned again and again. Critism is the crucible of knowledge and it is an ever-tempering force. If we resort to patting each other on the back, proclaiming to one another of how righteous and great we are, we will go nowhere.

[L]aying on the couch living off government welfare, eating cheesy poofs bought with government food stamps, drinking malt liquor and fortified wine, having abortions, and beating your 4th wife's stepchildren until they can't function in society, and then whine about the poor state of our education system, and then whine about the lack of taxes paid by the rich people.

Whew. Where to begin. Thank you for your concern, but I am well-employed. I prefer natural food to cheesy poofs, but I must admit I enjoy a fine glass of wine and even, dare I mention, a nice dry, gin martini from time to time. Such are lifes little pleasures. I personally have had no abortions given that I am a male, ho

Moral issues aside, willfully engaging in behavior contrary to basic biological drives (reproduction) indicates something seriously wrong with an individual. It's a trait which, if present in all members of a species, would result in the death of said species very quickly. There are obviously benefits to marriage - if there weren't, homosexuals (presumably) wouldn't seek it. Given that marriage is an artificial construct created by society, why should society provide such advantages to behavior which it finds to be detrimental to it?

Wow. This is so ridiculous that I suspect you're trolling, but just in case somebody believes this stuff, let's try a few facts.

One, that something is natural does not make it right. Violence (in particular, male violence) is clearly natural; see Wrangham's Demonic Males for a good summary and pointers to the research. The next time I hear somebody spout the naturallistic fallacy at me, I'm going to give 'em one in the snoot. Pow! My anger will be entirely natural, so I'm sure they'll be fine with it.

Two, there appears to be no risk that everybody will suddenly turn gay and stop having kids if we allow civil unions, so the end-of-the-species argument makes no sense. Is the ability to get married all that keeps you chasing pussy? I hope not, but if so, find a therapist and ask about projection.

Third, if behavior contrary to basic biological drives indicates pathology, then you have much bigger problems than homosexuals. 98 percent of US women who have had sex have used contreception. And god knows how many people have had oral sex, gone on a diet, or worked third shift.

Fourth, if marriage without children is a problem, why not start with the straight childless couples? There are a lot more of them. And shouldn't you be a lot more worried about organizations that promote a child-free lifestyle for straights?

Fifth, homosexuals have kids. I know that fundies are often a little confused by this, but think of it this way: if artificial insemination was good enough for Baby Jesus, it can work for others. And gosh golly, some families with kids would like to get married. Why stop them?

What's really in question is whether a work of art is mutable.

In my opinion, no work should be considered final. One should be free to create and distribute mashups of audio/video works, books, and even (*gasp*) software. Let people decide what they want. Let there be freedom of renovation!

Population growth is not necessarily a good thing, especially when the demands of population exceed sustainable resources. That currently includes most of our food which needs fossil fuels to achieve the high levels of production which keep us from starving and the long supply chains which literally span the globe to keep us from starving. In many regions, staple food items are no longer produced.

Also in many areas, the carrying capacity is already exceeded, breeding or importing more people will only make that problem worse. Some credible (at least to me) biologists and ecologists posit that we've already exceeded the carrying capacity of the planet. Most can see that in regards to renewable resources and sustainable development, we're probably pretty far over the red line. The question is, have we crossed the point of no return yet?

Sure a redistribution of wealth might ease the pain for a few years or months, but it doesn't address the issue of diminishing resources needed for our civilization and increased population pressure on these remaining resources. Jared Diamond's book, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed gives an interesting analysis of the current situation. As an amateur anthropoligist and dyed-in-the-wool misanthrope, after extensive travel, dialogues and reading, I myself arrived at a more pessimistic prognosis than he did, based mostly on different case studies and a few years before even hearing of him. Agree or disagree with his conclusion, it's still a very interesting read. Alternatively, a softer, lighter read might be his earlier book Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies

Unlike some other technologies, societies do not generally degrade gracefully. In the case of most readers here, neither arable land nor the appropriate skills remain to "wind back" to an agrarian society. The land most easily farmed with muscle power has long since been paved.

> Why should a musician .... be compelled to give away [their stuff]

Because they already do. You may not be aware of this, but very, very few musicians make a cent on their recordings because their contracts are so lousy (try this: http://archive.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/06/14/l ove for an intro into the gangster tactics of the recording companies)

Musicians generally regard recording as advertising for the live shows (and merchandising in some cases) which is where they really make their money.

When you pay a fee to iTMS or Napster or whoever, how much money do you think the artist gets?

That's right. Zero.

The pay services are only feeding the recording industry not the artists. And now the recording industry has lost its distribution function to the download services, I for one don't feel like paying them a cent. We don't need em anymore.

We are talking about ALL terrorist attacks against the United States and if you consider that then you will see the majority (and quite large majority) were carried out by militant Islamists. Take a look here: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0001454.html [infoplease.com]

Your list is woefully incomplete. What about Eric Robert Rudolph, who bombed abortion clinics in Birmingham and Atlanta, a gay nightclub in Atlanta, and a concert given during the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta? What about the vast number of attacks on Americans -- kidnappings, hijackings, bombings -- in and around Columbia over the past several decades? I'm rather certain those attacks far outnumber attacks against Americans by "militant Islamists" prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq (assuming you classify all the suicide bombings in Iraq as terrorist acts, as opposed to acts of war). What else can I come up with off the top of my head? The Hutu rebels who attacked tourist camps in Uganda in 1999. The disgruntled FedEx employee who, sometime in the '90s, attempted to hijack a FedEx 747 on takeoff and crash it into the company's headquarters in Memphis (he was stopped by the pilot and copilot, but not before he cracked their skulls with an axe). The rocket-propelled grenade fired through the window of the U.S. embassy in Moscow in 1995. The Catalan rebels who bombed a bar full of U.S. servicemen in Barcelona in the late '80s. For that matter, it's missing the world's first bombing of an airliner, which was committed in the '60s by a man from Missouri in an insurance scam.

Heck, with a little research I might really be able to make a list. If you think Muslims are the only significant perpetrators of terrorism in the world, you aren't paying attention. Your point of view is precisely why the idea of racial profiling is so popular these days. The more fact-based approach is the reason security experts say racial profiling not only doesn't work, but makes us less secure by focusing our attention in the wrong places.

"The reason why these people ignored this bedrock of finance is because Enron's stock once did quite well."

If I remember correctly, employees were "encouraged" to show their loyalty by investing a lot of their 401k's in Enron.
Also:
"Enron limited employees' investment freedom from the start by matching their contributions only with company stock and by preventing employees from selling that stock until age 50."

http://dir.salon.com/story/tech/feature/2002/01/17 /401k/index.html?pn=2/

By-the-by - this isn't anything surprising....congressman vote on topics they have no clue about each and every day. From Computers, to medicine, to infrastructure. Some of these guys might have specific knowledge on a few of these issues, but for the most part they don't....they rely on their staff to do the research. This guy should have been reading a speech written by his staff memebers.

He did, and the staff member probably quit his job shortly after the speech, just like the piece of shit known as Mitch Glazier
If you're wondering, btw, Mitch is doing quite well for himself.

The NSA initiative, code-named ``Pioneer Groundbreaker,'' asked AT&T unit AT&T Solutions to build exclusively for NSA use a network operations center which duplicated AT&T's Bedminster, New Jersey facility, the court papers claimed.

That plan was abandoned in favor of the NSA acquiring the monitoring technology itself, plaintiffs' lawyers Bruce Afran said.
The NSA says on its Web site that in June 2000, the agency was seeking bids for a project to ``modernize and improve its information technology infrastructure.'' The plan, which included the privatization of its ``non-mission related'' systems support, was said to be part of Project Groundbreaker.
Mayer said the Pioneer project is ``a different component'' of that initiative.

The groundbreaker program is well known, in fact its infamous... in being a really really expensive network upgrade. The kind of thing with rewiring offices and buying lots of bandwidth from the likes of AT&T.

And I mean a lot of bandwidth. A lot of the DoD bandwidth contracts currently up for grabs are of course available online for anyone to see. (But shame on the nytimes, shame shame shame!) How did you think intercepted traffic came from all over the world back (But especially big telco sites) to Maryland? Still wonder why companies like AT&T want to do everything to help the NSA?

And of course groundbreaker is over budget and insecure.

So what is this secret new thing that is being claimed? The hints are:

• Its mentioned on the NSA website
• Its "non mission related"
• Its a component of a network upgrade
• And its called a "network operation center"

It makes sense that the NSA would want a new but ordinairy "network operation center" with its new network. You really really need one of those to show politicians around (scroll to "nsa loads nmap" for a good laugh). Especially the ones who know nothing about intelligence except what they have seen on 24. (I would be funny if there werent so many schools planes trains and subways blown up around the world after 9/11)

Guiding them past the movie theater and showing the huge list of languages in which movies are shown isn't glamorous, though it should get the point across of sigint being of no use without humans to read and hear it... It might also show why having computers that can display bidirectional text isn't some fancy feature nobody uses. (Its usefull for such obscure languages as say Arabic, just to name something random of the top of my head.) I guess the lack of lighting the 24 set designers came up with for dramatic effect makes these NOC places a little cheaper to run than hiring qualified analyst though.

Sure it could also be a top secret surveillance program advanced beyond anything ever seen before, possible including extra terrestrial technology and tinfoil hat countermeasures... I mean in theory you could call that a NOC I guess.

This possible hype reminds me of the echelon story. After unspecific press accounts surrounding a big and sloppy EU investigation about "echelon" people assumed the worse and the hype started to build and build.

Now some time has passed historians have been able to figure out exactly what component is codenamed echelon, and it looks a little like this. (Thats an 70`s VAX 11/780, for those who couldn't tell, shame on you)