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While technically accurate the period in question involved a brief shutdown of napster due to court injunction and subsequent reinstatement.

More to the point, I was counterclaiming the parents assumptions and was not attempting to prove my example. The reference I made was to a slashdot posting a few years ago on the topic of Napster. You are right in that the decline of Napster and the decline of CD sales are not necessarily directly linked although I do think that they are. It's just hard to prove on any scale so I won't fault anyone for thinking otherwise.

Here's some evidence to back up what I've stated.

Kazaa cropped up shortly after all this happened so it's not linked to the issue at hand but there could indeed be one or many other external factors not being considered such as the quality and quantity of albums released during those times.

There is a lot of false information floating out there. Take this SFGate article for example:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/14/BAOS11P1M5.DTL

"A disgruntled city computer engineer has virtually commandeered San Francisco's new multi million-dollar computer network, altering it to deny access to top administrators even as he sits in jail on $5 million bail, authorities said Monday."

How, exactly, did he alter the network from jail?

"Childs created a password that granted him exclusive access to the system, authorities said. He initially gave pass codes to police, but they didn't work. When pressed, Childs refused to divulge the real code even when threatened with arrest, they said."

He was the network administrator, so he was entitled to access to the system. If the city's IT policy did not require him to document important passwords, then he has done nothing wrong. They threatened to arrest him, for what could only ever be a CIVIL infraction.

As others have discussed, the demand for the passwords came during an impromptu meeting where the people present had no business hearing the passwords. He has no responsibility to give out passwords to random people. After this ambush, he felt he could not trust the people around him and stated he would give the passwords only to the Mayor--basically the equivalent of the CEO. Again, he has done nothing wrong.

"One official with knowledge of the case said he had been disciplined on the job in recent months for poor performance and that his supervisors had tried to fire him. "They weren't able to do it - this was kind of his insurance policy," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the attempted firing was a personnel matter."

A city official revealed confidential information to the press, knowing that it was illegal to do so (hence the anonymity) and insinuating that Mr. Childs had an ulterior motive. Smells fishy.

They knew that he had done nothing wrong, and that at best they had a CIVIL complaint. They went hunting and found three modems in his office. They used that to arrest him on CRIMINAL CHARGES. After that:

"Officials also said they feared that although Childs is in jail, he may have enabled a third party to access the system by telephone or other electronic device and order the destruction of hundreds of thousands of sensitive documents. Authorities have searched Childs' home and car for a device that could be used in such an attack, but so far no such evidence has been found."

WTF? They claimed he had setup three modems and used that to Justify searching his house. On this alone they are permitted to search his home and car? What we find out 7 months later:

"One was set up to dial out to Childs' pager any time a problem popped up on the city's network. The second was a DSL modem that had been set up even before Childs was hired at DTIS, used to connect to the Internet and test access to the city's network. The third was for emergency use only, designed to connect city computers to a disaster recovery site so that the city's network could be up and running in the event of an emergency."

This is a personal vendetta by Management at the City.

If this had happened at a large corporation, do you think the Police would have agreed and searched his house? Do you think the DA would have even charged him with anything? Would the judge have set a $5 million dollar bail??

I hope Mr. Childs wins and counter sues the city.

The banks, for exampl,e have stolen billions of dollars from all of us. Where's the protest, people? Where's the effort to find out what happened? Where's the organization to make radical change there?

Take a look at the WTO protests to see how well that works. Consider that Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now! and a well-known reporter was actually incarcerated for attempting to report on the Republican National Convention. The simple truth is that a protest in the streets will not work until the system has crashed because when you start getting masses of asses in the street, the government just brings out the national guard (a state-based military system which I believe is maintained specifically to get around the issue of not being "allowed" to use federal troops against citizens - otherwise it's more efficient to simply operate Nat'l Guard bases as any other Army base) and the fire hoses and the tear gas and the bean bag guns.

If we want to change things, we are going to have to protest through civil disobedience. Marching in the streets requires that a certain percentage of the population gets involved. Until the average citizen starts having to use ration cards for twinkies and doritos and loses their cable television signal, they're going to stay glued to the La-Z-Boy.

Wikipedia does pretty well by tapping into wisdom of crowds. But what it really needs is a good karma system to get more quality out of it.

You may complain about the quality of the comments on slashdot, but compare it to somewhere without any karma system. (this article sums up the problem with pure anonymity, and quite humorously so) Slashdot's system is not perfect, but it is a start in the right direction. I wonder how much wikipedia could be improved with a really good system. For instance, people with low karma would have their changes not show up immediately by default, or would be flagged as questionable, or what have you. People who didn't have a history of posting "good" stuff would tend to have few eyeballs ever see their stuff. There is a ton that could be done. It's tough to make it ungameable, but not impossible.

It was the old wind turbines that had smaller blades that killed birds. Today's turbines have bigger blades and spin slower.

The birds are an integral part of the ecosystem.

Cats are also part of the ecosystem yet they kill more birds than wind turbines do. According to this building are a big killer of birds.

Falcon

But then the Torture Industry would need a bailout.

Bail out the torture industry!

It's VERY important. In fact, one of the best things we might do to protect against abuse of power is to explicitly PROTECT the use of photographic/video/audio recording devices, because it's obvious that there isn't enough protection right now.

Take the recent case of Oscar Grant. He was fatally shot by a BART officer on New Year's. Witnesses said the man was restrained and essentially helpless when the officer shot him, but of course, the BART spokesman Jim Allison said the victim was not restrained when the gun discharged.

Funny, Mr. Allison, because independent footage taken by a witness with a cellphone showed a different story. And guess what? That footage almost wasn't available because an officer attempted to confiscate the camera (see the cbs5.com article: "[Vargas] also said she resisted an officer's attempt to confiscate her camera") -- she's probably lucky she wasn't shot as well.

And take the recent case of Marilyn Parver who was bullied by Jet Blue staff and threatened with actions from being banned from flying to "$10,000 in fines and 25 years in jail" -- because she videotaped an incident on a Jet Blue plane from her seat and refused to delete the footage. I don't know about you, but my reaction to this is to want to contact Jet Blue and ASKING them to put me on their no-fly list until they apologize to this woman and change their policy.

Overall, I think there needs to be law explicitly stating that in any space (public or private) in which there's no reasonable expectation of privacy, recording devices are not only allowed, the right to use them can't be infringed, and that no private entity or public agency can demand either surrender or destruction of the device or recordings (although it does seem reasonable to let the law compel delivery of unaltered copies).

It's VERY important. In fact, one of the best things we might do to protect against abuse of power is to explicitly PROTECT the use of photographic/video/audio recording devices, because it's obvious that there isn't enough protection right now.

Take the recent case of Oscar Grant. He was fatally shot by a BART officer on New Year's. Witnesses said the man was restrained and essentially helpless when the officer shot him, but of course, the BART spokesman Jim Allison said the victim was not restrained when the gun discharged.

Funny, Mr. Allison, because independent footage taken by a witness with a cellphone showed a different story. And guess what? That footage almost wasn't available because an officer attempted to confiscate the camera (see the cbs5.com article: "[Vargas] also said she resisted an officer's attempt to confiscate her camera") -- she's probably lucky she wasn't shot as well.

And take the recent case of Marilyn Parver who was bullied by Jet Blue staff and threatened with actions from being banned from flying to "$10,000 in fines and 25 years in jail" -- because she videotaped an incident on a Jet Blue plane from her seat and refused to delete the footage. I don't know about you, but my reaction to this is to want to contact Jet Blue and ASKING them to put me on their no-fly list until they apologize to this woman and change their policy.

Overall, I think there needs to be law explicitly stating that in any space (public or private) in which there's no reasonable expectation of privacy, recording devices are not only allowed, the right to use them can't be infringed, and that no private entity or public agency can demand either surrender or destruction of the device or recordings (although it does seem reasonable to let the law compel delivery of unaltered copies).

Why does anyone still believe Cringely and quote him? This is the guy that makes things up as he goes along. I mean he went around lying about the fact that he was a Stanford PhD and Professor http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/1998/11/11/DD94762.DTL.

Take this claim from Cringely that this post links to. "And the upshot is that I could move to Japan and pay $14 per month for 100-megabit-per-second Internet service but I can't do that here and will probably never be able to"

That's nonsense when you look up the actual prices in Japan. http://flets.com/english/opt/index.html. If you're looking for regular 100 Mbps service in a single family home, they charge 5460 Yen which is $61.47 and that does NOT include the separate ISP charge. Cringely's quoted $14 is probably just the ISP charge and not the connect charge.

Crimes like peaceful protesting, you mean?

First of all, one's "peaceful" (such as rock-throwing so common among Arab youth) is another's "violent" (each rock is, actually, a deadly weapon — especially, when thrown with a sling). Or potentially violent. But violence during a protest is a simple matter for the local police.

Where FBI can be more justifiably involved, are cases of serious (even if non-violent) disruptions, such as when protesters chain themselves to the rail-tracks to stall transportation of nuclear waste. Or damaging military equipment? Preventing such sabotage before it happens and punishing the conspirators (and would-be saboteurs) is a perfectly legitimate job. Another is protecting the military bases — both from mere disruptions and from actual threats.

Who can be sure, whether the mouth-foaming youth is "peaceful" or preparing to bomb the recreation hall? If there are credible suspicions towards the latter (and public expressions of sympathy with an enemy: "Al Qaeda has won! Kill the pigs!" — though not illegal, are one of the tell-tale signs), then an investigation is warranted, however peaceful the suspects have been so far.

Microsoft will NEVER offer only time-limited (right-to-use) licenses for their Operating System and Office applications. I'm not arguing that they won't start offering it as an option, but they will always continue to offer permanent right-to-use licenses for those products.

Here's why...
Example 1: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/08/19/MNBH12DCV7.DTL from just one of the (many) times that California state legislature impasses over new budgets have frozen CA state government spending. (if they couldn't spend money on freakin nursing homes there's no way they'd be able to send the rent payment to MS)
Example 2: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/06/nyregion/06budget.html?pagewanted=1 from when the New Jersey state legislature impasse over new budgets froze NJ state government spending. (shutdown the casinos to cost $16 million a day and put nearly 100K people out of work ... ain't gonna send the rent payment to MS)
Example 3: (thank goodness this hasn't happened in a while) http://www.cnn.com/US/9512/budget/12-16/index.html from when the U.S. federal government impasse over new budgets shutdown federal government spending. (shutdown the national monuments and put more than a quarter million people out of work ... no way they could send the Word rent payment to MS!)

Neither the U.S. federal government nor any of the state governments are going to accept the risk of their PCs shutting down the next time budget arguments cause a spending freeze, so Microsoft will always have to offer a non-subscription version of their Operating System and Office.

This was a decision passed down on the CPPA. The government shortly after passed the PROTECT Act which once again outlaws cartoon and simulated child porn. SCOTUS has yet to rule on this law and people are being convicted of posession of drawn child porn.

You should read the article Did Hans Reiser's lawyer know he was guilty? and all of the comments, to get a more realistic perspective.

It is interesting to think what would have happened if the black turnout hadn't been so extraordinary thanks to Obama, I seem to remember exit polls saying that most african american voters voted against gay marriage.

Those exit polls were exaggerated.

Does he have any corresponding research regarding Live search or the environmental impact of making all those porn DVDs

Many transit agencies have their own POLICE force, Check out what a BART police officer did this week. Amtrak maintains an official police force

Don't worry, I'm sure Congress will audit the Federal Reserve and we'll get to the bottom of this mess!

The Federal Reserve recently refused to disclose $2 trillion in loans requested by a FOIA request citing "trade secret" clauses.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aGvwttDayiiM

In response to Bloomberg's request, the Fed said the U.S. is facing "an unprecedented crisis" in which "loss in confidence in and between financial institutions can occur with lightning speed and devastating effects."

In other words, we'll tell you when we're ready to finally destroy the economy!

No wonder Congressman David Scott said we've "been bamboozled!"

The real number of the bailout is actually $8.5 trillion (as of two weeks ago and is probably closer to $10 trillion now.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2008/11/26/MNVN14C8QR.DTL

The Tangible User Interfaces class (which I was in) at the School of Information at UC Berkeley just had its final presentations. You can see press coverage (including video and pictures) here:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/12/10/BAF214L2I2.DTL
http://www.ktvu.com/video/18261853/index.html

Includes a projected digital shadow around your body, an elevator where you can play with a butterfly, blowing virtual bubbles and a coffee table that tracks the cups on its surface.

"The idea is based on two very dubious propositions: (a) That uranium (or any heavy element) would naturally go to the center of the Earth. This is almost certainly untrue. It is a misunderstanding of chemistry and statistical physics at a very fundamental level. (b) That there is something about Earth's heat flow or helium that is so wildly discordant with our usual ideas that it requires an outrageous hypothesis to explain it. This is incorrect."

(source)

"The idea is based on two very dubious propositions: (a) That uranium (or any heavy element) would naturally go to the center of the Earth. This is almost certainly untrue. It is a misunderstanding of chemistry and statistical physics at a very fundamental level. (b) That there is something about Earth's heat flow or helium that is so wildly discordant with our usual ideas that it requires an outrageous hypothesis to explain it. This is incorrect."

(source)
The lack of evidence for fissle material at the core should keep this from being taken too seriously

There are some artists that have left the major lables for this reason or other stupid things. I remember a few that left major lables last year, is the one I remember off of the top of my head. this is probably one reason.

another example but the artists might be upset with the RIAA but few are doing anything to stop it. If the fans were to appeal to the major artists of these lables and have them do what reznor did they I think they might get the message or acually slump in sales(because their major money makers are making their own money independantly).

I second this. As someone that had trouble getting paid when I started out, I have to acknowledge it was my own fault for doing work for either friends, or friends of friends that were just starting out.

My best friend Ryan had this problem when he started his own Web design business. He would give good rates to friends, but the problem was that his rates were so low (and he didn't charge a penalty for change orders) that they didn't mind throwing endless changes at him -- without adjusting the deadline, mind you. He ended up working round the clock for these so-called friends, literally giving up sleep so he could deliver what he promised. The shame was that most of the work was crap -- your basic logos and Web pages, nothing he'd really want to add to his portfolio.

But the real downside is that he ended up with severe, crippling Repeat Stress Injury in both arms. That's right -- he worked so long and so hard on the computer that he literally crippled himself. For a year or more he was in so much pain that he'd have to spend entire days bedridden, popping horse tranquilizers. He tried every treatment possible -- every kind of pill, massage, acupuncture, etc. -- everything short of surgery. Just to give you an idea, if he took a girl out on a date he wouldn't be able to open the car door for her because it would mean he'd lose another day due to pain. He'd have to ask her to open his door. The bottom line is that the only way he could wean himself back to health was to walk away from the computer -- probably forever. He still does some design work now but he relies heavily on assistants and he knows better than to push it.

I used to joke that he got himself into this position because he didn't charge enough. But I was only half kidding. And think about this, too -- because Ryan was self-employed at the time, he wasn't eligible for workman's compensation or state disability. You bet he moved back in with his mom. Not everybody will be so lucky.

You know, helping out someone less fortunate is a good thing to do (charity). Being robbed to pay for them to improve their lot is not (taxation/welfare). If I wasn't well aware of the multitude of services available to these people that many of them don't take, I'd be a lot more likely to give cash to people begging on street corners. As it is, we are treated to supposedly sympathetic cases where the individuals clearly didn't have a clue and just want to go have a drink of Hennesy. It's not that these people are doing poorly and we're doing ok that we go on about. It's the fact that you feel justified in punishing our success and rewarding their failure. It's not them, it's you.

The total bailout is well over 7.5 trillion, so far. And counting.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/11/26/MNVN14C8QR.DTL

I agree with your math, but it is the $700 billion figure is not accurate. Try $8.3 trillion thus far. That would move your figure to around $30,000 a head.

700 billion is a bit off on the low side :).

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aatlky_cH.tY&refer=worldwide

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/11/26/MNVN14C8QR.DTL

The ultimate free market would be where the authorities can be bought ;).

Regulation is often necessary. The problem is when the ones to be regulated convince the regulators write the rules to benefit them instead of the public.

Yeah, but Greenpeace doesn't do anything bad itself other than news stunts. They just fund others to do it.

The courts generally rule against non-competes unless you are an executive with a company or you sold a business to a company and got a large financial gain from it. For the average joe, non-compete clauses are seen as inference with commerce by the courts and can be rejected based on any flaw. For example, if the judge thinks the geographic region is too large then he/she can chunk the whole non-compete. The same goes if the judge finds that the field definition of work is too broad. So, non-compete is really the least of your concerns. Here is an example of a court ruling in Calif. Most states allow it - very few every enforce it. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/08/07/BAUH12716R.DTL&tsp=1

The low tech masks the team was wearing was for the
output of the numerous coal plants in China.

The particulate matter in the air is very high.

So high in fact that they had a massive algae bloom
mess they had to clean up in the waters right before
the olympics that was quite embarrassing to them.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jun/30/pollution.olympicgames2008?gusrc=rss&feed=networkfront

This has been linked to the coal:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/green/detail?blogid=49&entry_id=27705

The air quality in China at times has been hideous.

Our weapons are already far, far larger than we could ever deploy here on Earth. Making them that much bigger only makes them that much more useless.

One could argue that all wars are worse than useless. Doesn't stop them happening. In fact, the US Air Force has already shown interest in anti-matter weapons:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/10/04/MNGM393GPK1.DTL

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antimatter_weapon

"In a phone interview, Christy said that while he supports the AGU declaration, and is convinced that human activities are the major cause of the global warming that has been measured" - Earth warming at faster pace, say top science group's leaders "It is scientifically inconceivable that after changing forests into cities, turning millions of acres into farmland, putting massive quantities of soot and dust into the atmosphere and sending quantities of greenhouse gases into the air, that the natural course of climate change hasn't been increased in the past century.''

The SF Chronicle has a good story on this.

They cited Maxine Doogan, of the Erotic Services Providers Union, as opposing this change. "They always end up further pushing into poverty the class of workers who don't have access to those tools of capitalism. Back to the streets - that's what's going to happen."

She has a point. Being a street hooker is a lousy job, but many call girls do OK. With online booking, hookers don't need a pimp. This matters. San Francisco also has the problem that the chain that owns most of the strip clubs pushes their dancers into prostitution, and on miserable financial terms. An online alternative is a win for the working girl.

Maxine herself (whom I've met) is a successful call girl and a competent political organizer. She is the brains behind Proposition K, to decriminalize prostitution in San Francisco. It lost on Tuesday, but it got 43% of the vote, and I think she'll get it passed next time. She's not looking for legalization. She doesn't want to be forced to work for a licensed brothel, as in Germany or Nevada. She wants independence for sex workers, as in New Zealand. Legalization along Nevada lines would legitimize the systematic exploitation of sex workers by clubs, particularly that strip club chain which dominates SF clubs.

Anyway, that's some of the political background.

...that just spent US$73 million dollars arguing over Proposition 8 - should there be same sex marriage in the state of California.

I'm not American, or gay, but it fucking shits me when I see this sort of money being thrown around - in the middle of this epic credit crisis, no less - over something as utterly trivial as whether or not gay people can get married, when there's actual, serious, important things all over the world that get practically no funding.

I don't know how much money came from where but the AP article I read indicates that (unsurprisingly) lots of it comes from various religious organisations, including the Mormon Church which various sources say have raised between US$8 million and US$17 million alone.

Pretty sad state of affairs, really.

I'm sure this one feels legitimized. Finally.

I'll respectfully disagree. And this search brings up references to stores like this that suggest otherwise.

In the interest of fairness, this search doesn't really bring up anything to suggest otherwise, except lists of excuses and speculation, with no actual numbers to back them up. (e.g. "The democrats just inherit the years of prosperity and growth from the republican president that they replaced")

In recent history (last 50-100 years), the economy has fared far better under deomcratic presidents. The whole "republicans are good for the economy!" BS just doesn't hold true.

--Jeremy

EXTINCTION CRISIS FOR AMPHIBIANS

this time its not our fault... but maybe we can help them (or... is it not nice to fool with Mother Nature?)

Let me tell you how the campaigns do it.

They watch TV.

That's it. You pick a channel (or two) and you go with it. If you care about state and local elections, then pick a broadcast network, since CNN isn't going to cover San Francisco's Proposition R. You want some fine grain coverage, or fine grain coverage outside of your media market? Secretary of State websites.

Youre done.

Twitter? HA! And double HA! Those losers watch TV. Twitter doesn't break a damn thing.

It's some shit I made up - kind of. We do know that at least 24% of female inductees to one academy were raped, we also know that only a tiny percentage of rape allegations are false and that rape is underreported. Meanwhile, there have been many charges of rape and murder against US soldiers, and many US servicewomen in the mideast have been going mysteriously missing with no explanations offered as to the reasons for their disappearance.

In addition, the military is getting desperate. Drug crime conviction rates have been going steadily up since the Clinton days - specifically among the 18-35 set. These "criminals" are increasingly offered suspended or even revoked sentences for entering the military. Pretty typical. More worrying however is that induction standards have generally fallen off across the board; the military has increasingly been willing to knowingly recruit white supremacists, and white supremacists are actually recruiting current and ex-military as well! When you train people to violence, they become more violent. Does this sound like a good idea to you?

They should protect the international reputation of their country before the local reputation of their king.

A vote for Obama is a vote for FAR more a vote for than him as a candidate.

It is a vote to give a group of politicians (in this case Democrats) TOTAL POWER.

We are staring down the barrel of a unchecked-and-unbalanced, filibuster-proof majority for one party.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/10/27/MNMC13LJ78.DTL

Last time this happened, was the Carter administration.

Do you really want to give THAT kind of power to a few hundred people?

Ethanol is a stealth farm subsidy, so I agree. But that was a Republican agenda.

As for blaming the dem congress for the flop in the markets, it just doesn't work that way. This particular market crap has been brewing for 8-10 years, and the blame falls squarely on the people who were in the best position to see it and stop it, which is Bush and his republican congress. I'm far from happy with the dem congress and their lack of leadership, but they can't be held accountable for inheriting someone else's mess.

They may want to avoid this thing that will soon operate from the same Moffet Field:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/10/19/BUVD13JIMG.DTL&hw=airship+ventures&sn=001&sc=1000

Airship Ventures is flying a Zeppelin NT airship (no Windows jokes here! ;) ), which is larger than the small blimps we often see over major public events like college and NFL football games.

>Fire wasn't regulated either, at it could burn down whole forests!

Fires don't burn down forests.

Squirrels on fire burn down forests. :)

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/10/14/state/n100513D39.DTL

The problem with China though is the rampant piracy.
They were selling Vista disk for a few dollars before it was even released.

So they were selling it for what it is worth. Sounds fair to me.

The problem with China though is the rampant piracy. They were selling Vista disk for a few dollars before it was even released.
Then, MS had to cut prices to $66 just to sell any copies.

Here in the west at least most of the customers actually pay.

maybe if the environment around us was quieter, we wouldn't need to turn our {ipod,discman,walkman} up so loud to block it out!

I couldn't agree more. I look forward to the day when people start taking noise pollution as seriously as they do other types of pollution. At least some people are starting to notice the problems with excessive environmental noise.

Your comments implying the driving slower may be more dangerous is laughable - like the tales told of people who got into accidents while trying to buckle their seatbelt.

As the average speed of the US driver has climbed, the death toll has risen as well - both in absolute numbers and in average deaths per mile travelled. There is no evidence that driving slower is more dangerous, notwithstanding your own personal feelings in the matter. And if somebody driving slow in front of you is enough to make you drive in a risky manner, you really shouldn't be driving, should you?

This is a commonly quoted myth. Please provide a single, CREDIBLE link to any study that indicates this. You won't find it... because every credible study that set out to prove this myth has returned the exact opposite results.

Here are the real facts, and just so you don't think I'm pulling this out of my ass, here are the links.

Fact: Slower drivers are involved in accidents more often than speeders.
Fact: Speed differences are a more common cause of accidents vs high speeds.
Fact: Speeders are generally more alert and cognisant of their surroundings than slower drivers.
Fact: Raising speed limits shows a DECREASED injury and fatality rate.

There is plenty of evidence that slower drivers are FAR, FAR more dangerous than faster drivers. There are a number of reasons for this, but one of the biggest one is the fact that slower drivers are a minority on the road, and thus they constitute a MAJOR road hazard. As such, they are responsible for far more carnage than the fast drivers, since they are a majority. If you aren't driving with the majority of traffic, you are wrong. This isn't an opinion, it's simply a fact. If you are a slower driver and you're impeding traffic, even if the traffic is speeding, you are wrong. More and more state laws agree with this, as they ticket slower drivers, even if they are doing the speed limit (Hi Seattle and Colorado, and some others!).

And before you say saftey features in cars have improved (airbags, anti lock brakes, etc...), I've included injuries that would result from a crash. If car safety goes up, fatalities should drop but at the same time, injuries should go up... but the stats say otherwise.

Fatality rate for 100 million miles traveled:
1995 - 1.73
2006 - 1.41

Injury rate for 100 million miles traveled:
1995 - 143
2006 - 85

This is DESPITE 37 MILLION more drivers and 26 MILLION more cars.

Hi PCM2,

I hope you don't live in the SF Bay Area. $75k/yr is great cash if you live in the Philippines and very good money in many parts of the U.S. But in the Bay Area? Or even California for that matter. Have a look at the numbers and then add $1000 to the housing if living in a house instead of an apartment.

A single guy - yeah, no problem - or a couple with no children.. but anything beyond that and you're already spending more than you're bringing in or are on the edge and these are 2007 numbers and don't include the 50% increase in gas or the 10-20% increase in food over the last year.

Check out the approval rating for the CA legislature. Bush style numbers. Can't be bothered to get the budget done on time. Complete failure. It's absolutely time to flush the entire legislature and start over.

However with Trademarks and Copyrights if you don't defend yourself against ALL the violations (even if you 'like' them), don't you forfeit the right to do so?

Well, if you go after obvious non-infringement, or otherwise go over-aggressive about it, you can be found to be abusive and lose the right to the trademark. Im surprised Monster (the overpriced audio wire company) still has their trademark after some of the tish they have pulled.... wtf does a boutique vintage clothing store have to do with audio cabling?