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Has it changed so much since the Gulf War, as recounted in Jarhead? And though I realise it's fiction, the makers of Buffalo Soldiers did clainm that it was all based on true events.

Or they could use Debian. It's really not that hard to get rid of things owned by greed heads and get your work done, once you step out of the owned world. When you do, you realize just how ripped off you have been. Until you escape, there's no way you can know just how "guilty" you are.

The kind of "piracy" which is encouraged by greed heads is part of the way they maintain a perception of value. They want you to think of yourself as dirty and stealing, stealing something of ... value. They want you to be greatfull they don't sick the BSA on you for all your stealing, so greatfull that you obediently send in your money and show loyalty. They sue public schools for copying a text editor, why not you for all those pretty fonts?

Non free things are viral and should be avoided. There's no mechanism to tell in the non free world. When you get a font from a friend, can you tell if it is free from Font Fairy or ripped off? What mechanisms are there to keep your employee from not removing that "free trail" paint program? Did they leave their music collection in a shared directory? Only the BSA knows for sure and no one really wants a visit from them to find out. The only way to keep your hands clean is to not use stuff that's owned by people who don't like sharing.

Man I really would not want to be in even the same suburb as the bad crack you're smoking.

There is not too much subjective about the statement "some US troops sexually abused prisoners in Iraq". Thats a fact.

Try to define "sexually".

"Relating to intimate physical contact between individuals".

This is completely inappropriate at ANY level, in the context of abuse.

Then try to define "abused".

"Use for bad effect or for a bad purpose".

And this is certainly inappropriate in the various ways that were used against SUSPECTS.

Those aren't hard code facts. Because sexually could mean anything from showing them pictures of nakked women to gang rape.

Interesting, you're looking into a window which spans shades of wrong and somehow think this is what? A justification that the perpetrators of sexual abuse are not bad?

Abuse is also subjective... Does abuse mean calling them bad names or did they hold them down and shove electric cattle prods in their orifices.

Does murder rate in your "everything is subjective" World? He has a blackened, bloodied, swollen eye, busted lip and teeth, an apparent broken nose and the whole "dead thing". And yet this individual was not even important enough to be "processed in the system" and thus known?

It seems like you are hearing only what you want to hear. Have a good read of this.

By that statemnt we don't know what really happened... Just that some type of sexual abuse went on. Some people might read it and thing it was nothing other than college prank sexual harrasment event while other readers might envision a 3rd world torture chamber were people are starved, burned, electrocuted and beaten to an inch of their life.

Hmm, more shades of wrong, your World must be pretty fucked.

The truth is most likely inbetween, but that simple statement does not give the real facts of the matter. Just assumptions depending on your bias.

You don't have a clue, but feel you can give "most likely" statements.

The US claims to be fighting terrorism, yet they have been conducting it for decades and continue to breed it with such activities. Creating power vacumes and demoralizing nations can only be bad for everyone. Including the mighty USA.

Man I really would not want to be in even the same suburb as the bad crack you're smoking.

There is not too much subjective about the statement "some US troops sexually abused prisoners in Iraq". Thats a fact.

Try to define "sexually".

"Relating to intimate physical contact between individuals".

This is completely inappropriate at ANY level, in the context of abuse.

Then try to define "abused".

"Use for bad effect or for a bad purpose".

And this is certainly inappropriate in the various ways that were used against SUSPECTS.

Those aren't hard code facts. Because sexually could mean anything from showing them pictures of nakked women to gang rape.

Interesting, you're looking into a window which spans shades of wrong and somehow think this is what? A justification that the perpetrators of sexual abuse are not bad?

Abuse is also subjective... Does abuse mean calling them bad names or did they hold them down and shove electric cattle prods in their orifices.

Does murder rate in your "everything is subjective" World? He has a blackened, bloodied, swollen eye, busted lip and teeth, an apparent broken nose and the whole "dead thing". And yet this individual was not even important enough to be "processed in the system" and thus known?

It seems like you are hearing only what you want to hear. Have a good read of this.

By that statemnt we don't know what really happened... Just that some type of sexual abuse went on. Some people might read it and thing it was nothing other than college prank sexual harrasment event while other readers might envision a 3rd world torture chamber were people are starved, burned, electrocuted and beaten to an inch of their life.

Hmm, more shades of wrong, your World must be pretty fucked.

The truth is most likely inbetween, but that simple statement does not give the real facts of the matter. Just assumptions depending on your bias.

You don't have a clue, but feel you can give "most likely" statements.

The US claims to be fighting terrorism, yet they have been conducting it for decades and continue to breed it with such activities. Creating power vacumes and demoralizing nations can only be bad for everyone. Including the mighty USA.

Man I really would not want to be in even the same suburb as the bad crack you're smoking.

There is not too much subjective about the statement "some US troops sexually abused prisoners in Iraq". Thats a fact.

Try to define "sexually".

"Relating to intimate physical contact between individuals".

This is completely inappropriate at ANY level, in the context of abuse.

Then try to define "abused".

"Use for bad effect or for a bad purpose".

And this is certainly inappropriate in the various ways that were used against SUSPECTS.

Those aren't hard code facts. Because sexually could mean anything from showing them pictures of nakked women to gang rape.

Interesting, you're looking into a window which spans shades of wrong and somehow think this is what? A justification that the perpetrators of sexual abuse are not bad?

Abuse is also subjective... Does abuse mean calling them bad names or did they hold them down and shove electric cattle prods in their orifices.

Does murder rate in your "everything is subjective" World? He has a blackened, bloodied, swollen eye, busted lip and teeth, an apparent broken nose and the whole "dead thing". And yet this individual was not even important enough to be "processed in the system" and thus known?

It seems like you are hearing only what you want to hear. Have a good read of this.

By that statemnt we don't know what really happened... Just that some type of sexual abuse went on. Some people might read it and thing it was nothing other than college prank sexual harrasment event while other readers might envision a 3rd world torture chamber were people are starved, burned, electrocuted and beaten to an inch of their life.

Hmm, more shades of wrong, your World must be pretty fucked.

The truth is most likely inbetween, but that simple statement does not give the real facts of the matter. Just assumptions depending on your bias.

You don't have a clue, but feel you can give "most likely" statements.

The US claims to be fighting terrorism, yet they have been conducting it for decades and continue to breed it with such activities. Creating power vacumes and demoralizing nations can only be bad for everyone. Including the mighty USA.

Internet != ARPAnet

And did you read the GP? Al Gore never claimed to have invented the internet. That's just a strawman attack that Gore critics like to bring up continuously. Al Gore stated that he took the initiative in creating the internet, as he was the first politician to recognize the importance of the internet and did in fact promote and support its development from his seat in Congress in the early days of the net. Even Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn have recognized his initiative as having been vital to the success of the internet as it exists today.

From Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn's joint statement:

No one person or even small group of persons exclusively "invented" the Internet. It is the result of many years of ongoing collaboration among people in government and the university community. But as the two people who designed the basic architecture and the core protocols that make the Internet work, we would like to acknowledge VP Gore's contributions as a Congressman, Senator and as Vice President. No other elected official, to our knowledge, has made a greater contribution over a longer period of time.

Last year the Vice President made a straightforward statement on his role. He said: "During my service in the United States Congress I took the initiative in creating the Internet." We don't think, as some people have argued, that Gore intended to claim he "invented" the Internet. Moreover, there is no question in our minds that while serving as Senator, Gore's initiatives had a significant and beneficial effect on the still-evolving Internet. The fact of the matter is that Gore was talking about and promoting the Internet long before most people were listening. We feel it is timely to offer our perspective.

As far back as the 1970s Congressman Gore promoted the idea of high speed telecommunications as an engine for both economic growth and the improvement of our educational system. He was the first elected official to grasp the potential of computer communications to have a broader impact than just improving the conduct of science and scholarship. Though easily forgotten, now, at the time this was an unproven and controversial concept. Our work on the Internet started in 1973 and was based on even earlier work that took place in the mid-late 1960s. But the Internet, as we know it today, was not deployed until 1983. When the Internet was still in the early stages of its deployment, Congressman Gore provided intellectual leadership by helping create the vision of the potential benefits of high speed computing and communication. As an example, he sponsored hearings on how advanced technologies might be put to use in areas like coordinating the response of government agencies to natural disasters and other crises.

As a Senator in the 1980s Gore urged government agencies to consolidate what at the time were several dozen different and unconnected networks into an "Interagency Network." Working in a bi-partisan manner with officials in Ronald Reagan and George Bush's administrations, Gore secured the passage of the High Performance Computing and Communications Act in 1991. This "Gore Act" supported the National Research and Education Network (NREN) initiative that became one of the major vehicles for the spread of the Internet beyond the field of computer science.

...

So get a clue before you start discrediting other people and perpetuating gross exagerations of their statements.

Read carefully my friend, I mentioned Portalplayer, not the iPod itself. The Portalplayer chip was largely created in Hyderabad.

The BSA is an organization that sued public schools systems for copying a text editor. People who do things like that should be shunned.

Articles like that are probably why MS has been trying to knock off Salon for a while by pouring money into Slate. Now that Bill's wife is on the board for the Washington Post, Slate is now financed by the Washington Post though the staff, editors and policy remain unchanged. The Post is footing the bill for MS' mouthpiece, which by the way is now pretty much the sole source of technology news for NPR. You can figure the odds of NPR now covering any topic which MS would find annoying or sensitive.

Ernie Ball has something to tell you. Not sure that's the best account of that story. Then there are the school districts that have been attacked. They tend to pick targets and make examples of them. Sure, lots of places have "casual" violations, but the BSA comes in and asks you for affirmative proof of license for every piece of software on every computer you have - or else.

Apparently (IANAL) most people screw up by letting these folks in the door - they aren't the law after all. Some say the only thing you should show them is your middle finger.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology, the National Technical Information Service and the Office of Technology Policy all fall under the oversight of the Technology Administration

So there's one big no vote on making any free file formats or programs standard issue for government offices. That's a big deal.

People from the BSA have no place in government service in any case. The BSA is an organization that sued public schools systems for copying a text editor. People who do things like that should be shunned.

Ugh, he even looks like a bit character from the Sopranos.

I can't believe Bill Gates' comments regarding the sub $100 laptop. It just proves that all his donations to charity from his huge coffers don't really come from his geniune desire to help people in need, but rather to glorify himself.

Or, just maybe, he thinks fightng AIDS among Africa's orphaned kids fills a tad more urgent need than MITS phantom $100 laptop.

The reality is more likely that he's not about charity at all and just using it for political leverage and public relations image.

It probably burns him up to have spent hundreds of millions on PR and have Negroponte steal his limelight with virtually no budget (relatively speaking). Furthermore, it's not just that the open source and open standards on $100 laptop helps break people out of Microsoft's grip, it's also that the publicity breaks the general public out of the mindset of "One Microsoft Way" Simply put, he's probably quite afraid that the public will remember or learn that there are other software and data formats than those provided exclusively by Redmond.

Yes they do. They were only too happy to do that.

kill 10's of thousands of people and wash thier hands of it

You don't think software they provide to help China find dissidents won't lead to thousands of political murders? We're talking about a country that harvests organs from political prisoners, on demand and brag about it. (short version).

You might be able to rationalize that by all the cool things you can buy for cheap down at the Walmart, but that's what working with a Communist country supports.

If that's not special enough or bad enough for you, why not look at the very negative influence his greed worldview supports. Massive propaganda in support of the DMCA and other abominations of law. The BSA and lawsuits against US public school systems for copying a text editor. How about their current stupid fight against the best the internet has to offer, Google and Wikipedia, because free information does not fit into their greedy world view? How about fighting the internet itself and pressuring ISPs to reduce their services based on their own crappy software? Microsoft has retarded US computer technology by a decade and ultimately are enemies of knowledge. That's evil.

The Dreamcast computer game Shenmue cost $20 million to develop

"Enter the Matrix": estimated $30 million
http://www.armchairempire.com/Reviews/PC%20Games/e nter-matrix.htm

"Daikatana": estimated $25 million (from an article on my former employer, LGS)
http://dir.salon.com/story/tech/feature/2000/06/20 /dark_glass/index.xml

I'm sure she is lurking here and taking it all in stride. An accomplished journalist, she writes about techno-sexuality herself all the time--just take a look at some of her published pieces:

• Why We All Need Pornography
• On the Go Porn: What the Cellphone Porn Industry Didn't Learn from ASCII Pr0n
• If Code is Free, Then Why Not Me? Some open-source geeks are as open-minded about sex as they are about hacking.
• More Bang for Your Buck: The Ins and Outs of Great Group Sex Web Sites

I'm sure she is lurking here and taking it all in stride. An accomplished journalist, she writes about techno-sexuality herself all the time--just take a look at some of her published pieces:

• Why We All Need Pornography
• On the Go Porn: What the Cellphone Porn Industry Didn't Learn from ASCII Pr0n
• If Code is Free, Then Why Not Me? Some open-source geeks are as open-minded about sex as they are about hacking.
• More Bang for Your Buck: The Ins and Outs of Great Group Sex Web Sites

I won't let you flush things down the memory hole like that. It had nothing to do with Whitewater except coming under the purview of the same independent prosecutor.

Lewinsky's relationship with Clinton came under investigation because one of his former underlings (Paula Jones) accused him of violently raping her. It was only after Ms. Jones was denied her day in court, based on perjured affadavits from the Clinton camp, that the Linda Tripp tapes were turned over to Ken Starr.

Let me quote Camille Paglia:
"All feminists who sincerely support sexual harassment guidelines should indeed defend Paula Jones, since Bill Clinton's alleged behavior broke every rule. She was on the job at the time, and he was her ultimate boss; he illegally used state troopers for a private escapade; and he began his approach by coercively mentioning a friendship with her immediate boss. Feminist leaders would have tarred and feathered any Republican who carried on like this. As a Clinton Democrat, I think that feminism has injured itself by its shameless partisanship -- its incestuous overinvolvement with corrupt Democratic party politics."

-ccm

Bad Modding

How odd that a man who fights for democracy, would say such a thing.

While the war in Iraq has not been perfect, I take all body counts with a grain of salt. If a man in civilian clothes, who works as a baker by day, is making an IED at night that blows up and kills him, is he considered a civilian casualty?

When a country is invaded, the line between military personel and civilians taking up arms to fight, is blurred. However genuine non-combatants have been killed and injured. I've seen plenty of photos and of those you cannot deny the dead children as being killed innocents. How interesting that when I speak of civilian casualties, you speak of those which make and use IED's, but LOOK like civilians. Where I come from, that is called pushing an agenda. You believe in the US and you don't want to believe that you and the US are doing so wrong. So you continue to bend reality to suit what you want to believe.

WMD's were not the only reason to go to Iraq. Saddam Hussein had invaded every single bordering country to his own with the exception of Syria. He was cutting hands off and tongues out of those who he thougth opposed him. One of his sons who was in charge of the Olympic atheletes tortured those that did not come home with the gold. Fathers were killed, mothers killed and a video of the whole thing was sent to the kids. Trust me, this was not a nice guy. While I understand that there are tyrants all over the world, this one was sitting on 15% of the world's oil reserves and would have no problem using revenue from that to fund his horrific ambitions.

The US did not act until their interests were at stake or they stood to gain. The worst of those invasions and inhumane acts, perpetrated by the Iraqi dictator and followers, happened a long time ago. Suddenly a Saudi uses his social and monetary power to attack the US in a really big way and who does the US attack? Half heartedly, as a token to appease the US public, Afganistan, where the Taliban are STILL active and killing people and somewhere in the World Osama is presumed to still be alive. Then somehow Iraq was a valid target. And eventually people like you believe the bullshit. Iraq used nerve gas on the Kurds in 1988 and more than 17 YEARS later I am expected, along with lots of other attrocities, to believe that the US has the interests of the Kurdish in mind? Lots of this shit happened long ago, the US gets attacked by some Saudi's, Pakistani's, a Morrocan, etc, SO LETS ATTACK IRAQ! They're weak after all those sanctions and they have lots of oil! We can't really attack Saudi Arabia, because we are their bitches, what with all the money they have invested in us.

Still, that doesn't matter to people like you. I guess it's OK for brown people to torture more brown people as long as an American Conservative president doesn't get his way. (By the way, there were 90-something other countries helping out, many giving more per capita that the US is.)

No, it is not all right for torture anywhere, by anyone, to anyone. I never said otherwise. You sound like a US warlord spin doctor, trying to make everyone else other than YOU the aggressor, out to be bad. How interesting that you claim that part of the reason the US made a new move into Iraq, was because of these attrocities, when the fact is that once the US got there, men were rounded up if they were suspected of being a terrorist (got more than one AK? You're a suspect) and then held without charges, deprived of human rights and some were even tortured and killed while in that illegal custody. More than 1 gun and you're a suspected terrorist? Half of the US would be a suspected terrorist under such ridiculous logic. I saw footage of the US carrying out those orders, rounding those "suspects" up. I've also seen an image of an Iraqi girl of perhaps

I'm not worried about us wiping most of ourselves out. It's the future we have if we survive that scares me more. I'm not sure we can ever do anything but spiral towards a fixed point of synthetic hell -- Mailer's plastic (d)evil. Industrial capitalism simply accelerates us to it. The problem with every moment of the past is that it brought us closer to this: At some point we began with Nature. One can disagree about the early history of the divergence.

The most bleak thought I have is that our externalities -- our systems -- are organic reflections of our psyche. But perhaps it is bleaker yet to realise that survival requires acceptance of it. Dave Pollard sometimes puts me instantly in this frame of mind, like a hypnotist. I still think he's much smarter than me put together.

http://archive.salon.com/comics/tomo/2002/04/01/to mo/index.html

"... you KNOW that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people that you do." -- Annie Lamott

"You can tell you have created God in your own image when it turns out that he or she hates all the same people you do." -- Anne Lamott

"You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do." -- Anne Lamott

Have a close read of these documents : http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/general/intellectual /against.htm

What we all fail to consider is that copyright allows intellectual monopolies. Are any monopolies anomolous in a free market world?

The reality is that people talk about theft .......but copying a song IS NOT theft. If I truly steal a thing from you, you no longer have that thing. When I copy a song I am breaking your monopoly.

We all seem to just reflexively accept that copying is theft without really considering it very carefully.

We seem to ignore that most of the excellent manifestations of art existing today were done without copyright.

This is slashdot......where monopolies are bad?

The other reality is that copyright in effect does nothing to enrich an artist. See: http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/06/14/love/

With the cost of disseminating music and books moving to zero, careful thought needs to be given by artists. Sadly they buy into the system because they hope they will be the next U2 and they see copyright as an essential tool to ensure that they become wealthy if they are popular. However the number of U2s is defined and limited by the record companies, not by the public or the talent of the band. The public has been trained to be told what they like.

As we have been trained to believe that some monopolies are good. Classic bait and switch - see the starving artist - send your cash to help him - zing cash goes to record company - artist is still starving. Public feels better cause they paid for music. Music business has you where it wants you.

I'll just let Old Man Murray do my talking.

Or just read this - I challenge you to make it past the first page.

doesn't magically mean they have the right to pirate it like some freeloading hippie without a job.

Anda's Game (have to either subscribe or go through an ad to see it) is a cute story about gaming from a girl's perspective. Fiction, but maybe not so much as it seems. It seems like the sort of thing that might help some guys relate a little bit better.

Then IBM would resurrect its line of x86 CPUs and sell them for $3-400. The trick with price fixing is to make sure that your price is something the market will bear (if only just), and sufficiently low that you keep the barrier to entry in your market sufficiently high.

Courtney Love said:

record companies figured out that it's a lot more profitable to control the distribution system than it is to nurture artists. And since the companies didn't have any real competition, artists had no other place to go. Record companies controlled the promotion and marketing; only they had the ability to get lots of radio play, and get records into all the big chain store. That power put them above both the artists and the audience. They own the plantation.

For the Intel/AMD collusion, and the entrance of IBM with a cheaper chip, we would need to arrive at a 5th major label who was not only willing to undercut the existing majors, but could attract sufficient talent to become a major label. Others have tried - I'm not holding out hope.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/10/29/bulge /index_np.html

But only if I can create a character in the mold of Judge Scalia!

Obtain a groundswell of support in EUROPE for a jumbo-sized AMERICAN company?

If the case were wrapped up right away, MS would really be in difficulty. However, MS has been able to drag it out several years already and even affect the selection of judges and the decision process. It took ten years for MS' investment in Craig Smith to pay off. Neli Kroes has yet to payoffm, but there's no hurry since MS benefits from each day of delay. There's no reason yet to believe that MS can't keep the EC hopping on the end of it's leash until either the clock runs out and there are no audio or video options except WMA and WMV, or the campaign kicks in. Before MS was a political movement and ideology, it was first a lobbying firm grown from a marketing firm, so there is probably time to run what is effectively a psyops campaign using the mainstream media.

You're also already seeing the shills piping up all over the place attacking MS' competitors, trying to start a myth by implication that MS has been competing on merit rather than mostly by illegal and anti-competitive means.

If only Al Gore had applied for a patent after inventing the Internet.

Oh wait, he didn't. It's just that when I see news articles like this, I wish he had!

> While I'd consider a subscription for something like the Daily Show

Agreed. I'd be willing to pay a reasonable subscription for the Daily Show and the Colbert Réport. Unlike regular TV shows, they don't have as much replay value (A year from now, how many people will say, "Ooh! Let me re-watch that send up he did of Cheney shooting a 78 year old man in the face!"), but it would be nice to be able to catch episodes instead of staying up late. I can see paying $7/mo for a monthly subscription (20 episodes) for that.

Or they can do on-demand episodes, but I think it may be harder to get enough purchasers of each show to make it worth doing more than a "greatest hits" thing (like what SNL does). But the market is there. Consider how many Daily Show sequences end up on Crooks and Liars or Video Dog each week.

Sorry kids, I linked to the paid subscription content and not the ad-supported content. My mistake. Should be, as noted by polite poster above: http://www.salon.com/tech/col/smith/2006/02/10/ask thepilot173/index_np.html

Yes, it's hard to believe that *that* company was once the unquestioned leader of innovative gaming.

Consider the company's first five titles:

* Hard Hat Mack for the Atari 800 and Apple II
* Archon for the Atari 800
* Pinball Construction Set for the Atari 800 and Apple II
* Worms? for the Atari 800
* M.U.L.E. for the Atari 800

One is absolutely, bar none, one of the greatest games of all time. Two more are notable milestones in gaming history. Four, perhaps all five, are considered classics.

I like EA and its games. It's a tremendously-successful company, is (I think) the *only* videogame maker other than Nintendo and Sega to survive intact over the past two decades, and over the past 23 years has put out many other fine titles. But let's not forget that there was a time when it didn't depend quite so heavily on annual releases of Madden and NBA Live.

http://www.salon.com/tech/col/smith/2006/02/10/ask thepilot173/index_np.html

I guess I just don't see how the RIAA isn't a wholy owned subsidiary of the Mafia.

Read some Courtney Love and you might begin to understand.

Organized Crime, Cartels, Industry Associations, the line is not allways clear.

Yeah, I think his scientific knowledge speaks for itself.

Placing limits on science by appointing sycophantic toadies who are carrying out a politically and/or religiously motivated agenda is becoming a recurring theme in this administration which leads one to suspect potentially other agendas.

I think that has become all-too-clear lately. And, more than that, it's not only science that's under assault. This administration has moved with disturbing efficiency in removing ANY dissent of ANY kind from its "message."

Intelligence doesn't support the goal, you say? No problem, just strong-arm 'em and appoint some toadies to cook the numbers to say what we want them too! Then later, when someone complains that we were full of shit, we just say "Hey, we were working with the best information we had at the time." Brilliant!

-Eric

"The Big Bang is "not proven fact; it is opinion," Mr. Deutsch wrote, adding, "It is not NASA's place, nor should it be to make a declaration such as this about the existence of the universe that discounts intelligent design by a creator." "This is more than a science issue, it is a religious issue. And I would hate to think that young people would only be getting one-half of this debate from NASA. That would mean we had failed to properly educate the very people who rely on us for factual information the most."

So... maybe we can finally put this debate to rest.

DC has sensors that sound similar. They've also proven to be almost useless: http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/10/18/tular emia/

.. And the Zulus held Xhosa as slaves for over 7000 years.
Actually, there were substantial numbers of white slaves taken by Arab traders around Europe aswell (maybe I should sue for compensation?).

Or howabout some white slaves in the US?
http://www.salon.com/books/it/2000/06/15/white_sla ves/
http://multiracial.com/content/view/460/27/

a "Slave" is just a very recent label for an ancient behaviour. Trying to project our modern day values onto older civilisations is rather ridiculous.

You can't buy the cover of Time as an ad placement ...

1. Two years ago [1995], the company hired an outside consultant, Craig Smith, to devise a strategic plan to direct Microsoft's corporate giving in ways that guarantee the greatest return to the company. ... "Bill Gates is not so much a philanthropist as he is a Virtual Philanthropist. Of the $73.2 million that Microsoft donated to charity in 1995, $62.1 million, or about 85 percent, was in the form of free software."

2. "Billg's personal $100 million goes to health initiatives over ten years, while $421 million of Microsoft's money goes, over a mere three years, to support MS-friendly development and 'educational' initiatives." ... "let's not forget the five, count 'em, five, vanity puff-pieces appearing in the New York Times this week glorifying Billg's generosity, one of which he wrote himself."

3. the software tycoon's global philanthropy exercises carry a hidden agenda to persuade beneficiary governments to reverse policies promoting the use of open source software.

Or is it just because conservatives are so fucking dumb that they actually believe that by addressing a particular audience a speaker endorses everything every individual member of that audience says.

If you actually think this is limited to conservatives, try reading this rather critical Salon story from 2000 by Jake Tapper (now an ABC news correspondent). A selection:

Jonesing for votes
George W. Bush's speech at a college that bans interracial dating raises questions about his compassion.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Jake Tapper

Feb. 3, 2000 | Self-proclaimed "compassionate conservative" George W. Bush spoke Wednesday morning at Bob Jones University, a Greenville, S.C., school that bans interracial dating on campus.

"The governor doesn't agree with that policy," noted Bush campaign spokeswoman Mindy Tucker. "But this is a school that has a lot of conservative voters, and it's a common stop on the campaign trail."

(etc., etc.)

Taxes on dividends are "double taxation", as profits have been taxed at the corporate level once, and then they get taxed again when they're dispersed to the shareholders.

So what? Do you call it double taxation when the profits are taxed at the corporate level, then taxed when payroll is dispersed to employees?

When someone receives income, they pay taxes. Double taxation isn't some strange exception, it's a natural result of incorporating to form a new legal entity. The corporation adds an extra someone to the chain of payment, and that someone pays taxes. Calling for an end to the dividend tax is essentially asking to have one link in the circular chain of income to not have to pay taxes while the rest of the links still do. It's a shameful handout to a subset of the population. Taxes on dividends no more encourages companies to see other ways to pay shareholders than taxes on salaries encourages companies to find other ways to pay employees. Maybe it will change some details (indeed, benefits like health insurance are a common non-taxed form of compensation), but people still want the cash.

Ruben Bolling summarized the situation effectively in his Tom the Dancing Bug comic "Can you spot the double taxation?"

I'm no expert, but afaik hemp refers to using the plant for everything but smoking. You don't smoke hemp. Though, I guess, technically, they are the same thing, I don't think the plant was known as "marijuana" back in the day.

Washington made specific written references to Indian hemp, or cannabis indica, and hoped to "have disseminated the seed to others. " His August 7, 1765 diary entry, "began to separate the male from the female (hemp) plants," describes a harvesting technique favored to enhance the potency of smoking cannabis, among other reasons.

Bear in mind, there is no other reason to separate the male and female plants.

I've never read any actual historical document which indicated a frequency of use

probably because its not historically relevant, but also because if this was common knowledge, then the specious campeign against marijuana (in the 50's?) could not have occurred, and stigma would not have been attached. I'll bet there is historical references to this... however, it is likely kept secret by the Smithsonian or other government institutions. I can't site references, but I'm reasonably sure its well documented that Jefferson spent 4-6 hours a day in his study, alone, where he was not to be disturbed. What do you think he was doing? here's an interesting resource : notable... Hemp was the primary crop grown by George Washington at Mount Vernon, and a secondary crop grown by Thomas Jefferson at Monticello. Also... for a very very long time in American history (and pre-American history, from 1619), it was illegal for farmers not to grow hemp (I think until the first anti-hemp laws appeared in 1916!! That's nearly 300 years!).

For me, this historical information is a curiousity. However, the more I learn, the more it is clear that if a Supreme Court Justice could really honestly put himself in the mind-set of the framers of the US Constitution (drafted on hemp paper, btw), then all the new federal and existing state pot laws would be declared unconstitutional. I personally don' t think it should be sold like tobacco... but at the least it should be entirely decriminalized... and the government should stop wasting our tax money (millions upon millions of dollars, no doubt) on putting pot users in jail (some states require manditory minimum sentences for transporting as little as 5 lbs. into the state, with a max sentences of 40 years. Unfuckingbelievable.). The hypocracy here is sickening.

I also think that Miss Loves musings on the subject are worth reading.

Salon, the only place for news:

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/01/21/ombud sman/

Whipping the Post
The Washington Post put a lid on angry readers by removing a letters blog from its Web site. Now the paper's ombudsman defends her assertion that crooked lobbyist Jack Abramoff "directed" money to Democrats.

By Farhad Manjoo

Jan. 22, 2006 | "I was imprecise," Deborah Howell, the Washington Post's ombudsman, says in an interview Friday afternoon. "It was a mistake. I don't consider it a huge mistake, but it was a mistake, and I'll correct it."

Howell is referring to a comment she made in her column on Jan. 15 that the lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who has pleaded guilty to corruption charges, gave money to Democrats as well as Republicans. The column spawned a storm of hate mail to Howell. Readers insisted her assertion supports the Republican spin of the scandal -- that Democrats were as deeply in bed with the disgraced lobbyist as Republicans.

On Thursday morning, under an avalance of angry letters, Howell responded on the paper's Web site that what she should have said was Abramoff "directed" money to both parties. Which only incited a new wave of anger. One reader fired back: "As others have stated, there is NO EVIDENCE that Abramoff 'directed' tribes to donate to Democrats. None." Another one said: "Please stop with these weak justifications of your reprinting of GOP spin points."

By Thursday afternoon, the tide of reader hate had grown so strong -- and, according to the Post, so vile -- that Jim Brady, who edits the paper's Web site, decided to shut down the commenting feature on post.blog, a Web page that the Post created as an open forum for readers to express their opinions about the newspaper.

Speaking to Salon from her office at the Post late on Friday, Howell says she intends to set the record straight in a column appearing in Sunday's paper. Her story is that while the Abramoff scandal isn't totally bipartisan, the paper has uncovered documents that show that Abramoff told his Indian tribe clients to donate to Republican as well as Democratic lawmakers.

Howell says she stands by the Washington Post's reporting, which shows that Abramoff sent his clients lists of lawmakers whom they ought to give money to; these lists included the names of Democrats. As she noted on post.blog on Thursday, one such list can be seen on the Post Web site here. It shows a document that Abramoff sent to the Louisiana Coushatta tribe, telling them to write checks to organizations and lawmakers on both sides of the political spectrum.

What Howell doesn't address, though, and what many readers have pointed out, is that while it may be true that Abramoff told his clients to give money to some Democrats, and it may be true that some of these clients did in fact donate to Democrats, this chain of events doesn't show that Abramoff exerted any influence over these Democrats. In fact, other news outlets have reported that after Abramoff signed on to lobby for specific tribes, their contributions to Democrats fell. At the very least, this indicates that while Abramoff's tribes may have given money to Democrats, it was Republican lawmakers he was pressing them to cultivate.

To begin with, it's not clear the Indian tribes donated to Democrats just because Abramoff told them to -- the tribes may have been meaning to donate to key Democrats anyway. For instance, Rep. Patrick Kennedy, a Democrat from Rhode Island, who collected $128,000 from Abramoff's tribal clients, maintains that the tribes gave him their money because he's been good to tribes. In 1997, Kennedy co-founded the Congressional Native American Caucus, and he has a personal friendship with Phillip Martin, chief of the Mississippi Choctaw tribe, as his spokesman told the Post in June. In addition, even if Abramoff did "direct" this money to Democrats, as Howell wrote, nobody can say that the Democrats who got money from

It's not just an ancient mindset, it's an ancient industry. It's foundation is limitation of publication of physical media. From the broken presses of Gilbert and Sullivan sheet music presses to CD burnings, the industry has existed only through the intervention and support of government. In the US, the establishment clause of the constitution somehow has given us eternal copyright, three broadcasters and three big music publishers with much overlap. It has enriched a few at the expense of all those excluded from their free market share of popular culture. Just ask Courtney Love. The internet has pulled the rug out from the pigopolists and they are going the same place your record player has gone. You, me and the artists are going to win this one.

And WHY does S Korea need police robots? For the massive annual student riots! I thought this was because the US was hypocritically propping up an evil dictatorship there, but as it turns out that apparently sort of faded after the 1980s, S Korea really is a multiparty democracy now, and the riots are just a tradition. An interesting intersection of culture and technological research, though. Links: Swans explains the shift, and an amused 1998 article from Salon about how oddly unpolitical they've gotten.

Agreed. Even more, in New York, marchers need permits from the city. How's that for non-violent protest.

That's so they can set up a fenced-in area and call it a "First Amendment Zone". All protest is required to take place inside this fenced-in area. You still have your First Amendment rights, but only inside the fence. They are usually set up a considerable distance away from whatever event is being protested, and reporters are forbidden to speak to or take pictures of anyone inside.

It's what the Framers intended.

1. The virtual philantropist:
   • "{In 1995} the company hired an outside consultant, Craig Smith, to devise a strategic plan to direct Microsoft's corporate giving in ways that guarantee the greatest return to the company.
   • Bill Gates is not so much a philanthropist as he is a Virtual Philanthropist. Of the $73.2 million that Microsoft donated to charity in 1995, $62.1 million, or about 85 percent, was in the form of software licenses.
2. "the software tycoon's global philanthropy exercises carry a hidden agenda to persuade beneficiary governments to reverse policies promoting the use of open source software."
3. "100 m over 10 years vs 421 m over 3 years, is Linux four times worse than AIDS?"

Furthermore, the focus on AIDS/HIV is purely for the benefit of US audiences where it is a high profile issue. Heart disease, car accidents, violent crime, even smoke from cooking fires all individually cause more deaths than AIDS/HIV. Plus most of Gates' "donations" don't deal with preventative measures, but instead rely on corrective measures and squeeze matching funds from local governments and charities to buy expensive pharmaceuticals produced by the large pharmas that Gates is heavily invested in.

I don't call any of that charity. I call it conflict of interest. Besides, what about his heavy investments six and seven years ago in the "Military-Industrial Complex". Investments like that, especially some of the larger ones, don't give a good return unless protracted and/or large scale war can be instigated. Even if Gates' "donations" were real and true charity, bad karma like that doesn't just go away over night.

Time apparently is for sale in more ways than one. And the New York Magazine is playing the fool for going along with it.