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Monday, July 7, 2003

Laptops accounted for 54.2 percent of the $500 million in revenue generated by U.S. retail computer sales in May, the first time portables have surpassed their desktop counterparts in that category, according to research by the NPD Group Inc. of Port Washington, N.Y.

The average price in May 2003 was $1,300 for a laptop compared with $757 for a desktop.

And 60 percent of all computers sold in May were desktops. However, the percentage of laptop units sold has risen from 30.5 percent in May 2002 to 40 percent in May 2003.

That wsa a terrible book actually. Supposedly it was plagiarized.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2 005/05/22/RVGQOCO8LP1.DTL&type=books

I've never seen anything about recycling a computer where I've ever lived.. We just throw them in the trash cans or set them beside them...

Many places don't have anything setup to recycle electronic/electrical equipment but it's something that should be done. Some of these have toxic substances such as PCBs used in the manufacture. CRTs for instance contain lead which if it ends up in a landfill can contaminate ground water while PCBs contaminate the atmosphere and bioaccumulates. Here's a couple of articles on PCBs. EPA, GE negotiations may delay dredging is about the cleanup of the Hudson River because of the PCBs GE released into it while this one, Contaminated Arctic only looks pristine From kelp to Inuit mothers' milk, all suffer from migration of industrial toxins , describes some effects PCBs have on Inuit women of the Artic who use no PCB. PCBs have also shown up in orcas especially the J, K, and L pods of Puget Sound. The demand for Coltan, columbite-tantalite, used in cellphones is responsible for the fighting and deaths in the Congo, Congo's Conflict: Heart of Darkness
With 30,000 deaths a month from violence and disease, Congo is the world's deadliest place.
Does anyone care?

Video game music: not just kid stuff
They got game

Those are two I know of, for the rest, use google...

The CEO of Verizon said this very thing earlier this spring. T-Mobile has been saying this all along and recognizes the practicality of mobile phones in dwellings (it does not work) and is rumored to offer a real solution that will really work.

I don't know about where you live and work but when I walk outside my mobile phone gets nearly 100% signal compared to 10-50% signal inside. This is the same with my T-Mobile, Verizon, Cingular handsets, and two out of three use different towers in the areas I live and work.

Leaving the left I can no longer abide the simpering voices of self-styled progressives -- people who once championed solidarity

Should the Bush administration implement his idea of "Star Wars" (not the movie) whatever you're using to take advantage of that fact might just forcibly set, if you're deemed to be a threat.

It worries me that no one here has given a thought to who may be behind these scams. Organized crime may be behind phishing "Fools rush in" and all that.

The big do-it-all box doesn't seem to have hurt Dell's sales.

The integrated stereo -- now home theater -- system was displacing component audio forty-five years ago. Fisher Model 800-B Receiver (1962)

Camera phone sales are skyrocketing. 36 percent of shipments in 2004, an estimated 55 percent this year, 87 percent in 2009 Restrictions placed on camera phones

Microsoft, which ranks No. 4 in market value, did not pay any federal taxes either, it seems.

One of the more intelligent reviews I've seen so far was by Mick LaSalle of the SF Chronicle:

Key quotes:
[Lucas] had a great idea about how Darth Vader became Darth Vader. It was a sophisticated idea, because it didn't involve one reason for the character's descent into evil, but a combination of factors...This is without doubt the best installment of the second trilogy, ... [but] contains most of the faults of the second trilogy as well...The thing is, Lucas has a real story here, the progress of a young man who turns away from his own noble impulses to become the most evil man in the universe...but the movie omits the one scene it most needs to show -- the one in which Anakin commits an act of such evil that there's no turning back. It's the "Macbeth" moment, the scene this trilogy has been leading up to, the dive off the moral high board - - and Lucas just skips it.

You want to work there .. it's not impossible! I saw an image in a prior article a few weeks back which detailed the uses for each building in the project. About one and a half of them - a whole heck of a lot of space - were reserved for leasing to third parties, somewhat like other office co-ops in SF.

In this SFGate image, it's the rightmost building and half of the one next to it that were slated for subleasing. So, get yourself into a little company and move the offices there!

Ah, here we go. Various articles about the subleasing.

Turn it into a vineyard/winery.

That might be an awful idea. I'll mod myself down.

You are so wrong.

Terrorism happened mere months after Clinton was elected. In the same place!

And we ignored it and went on with our happy little lives.

It has been shown that the Patriot Act was a wish list from Ashcrofts Justice Department, that was pushed shortly after 9/11 when the nation was still fearfull.

Yes, the nation was fearful. You're beginning to catch on. We're not fearful now, and we can scale the Patriot Hacked back a bit.

Some Congressmen logged complaints about having to vote on a bill that was printed the same morning as the vote. http://groups-beta.google.com/group/gov.us.fed.con gress.record.extensions/browse_thread/thread/b3f12 7369d4139e7/45b17e93fcb2648b? As a point of fact the bill presented to the House that morning was not even the same bill that was discussed and passed earlier by the Judicary committee. Instead of mounting criticism on the House leadership, Republicans spun rhetoric and fear.http://www.wired.com/news/conflict/0,2100,475 49,00.html

Whoop-tee-do. The Patriot Hacked was rushed through, so what? We know that.

There will always be partisan nay-sayers, people who will argue that black is white and apples are really seven. There was a minority view at the time that said we deserved the 9/11 attacks, because America is just bad.

In 2004 when other parts of the bill were set to expire, the Republicans saw that they may not get the votes that they wanted in time. What did our leaders do? They extended the vote by 23 minutes to give the Republican leadership enough time to strongarm other Republicans who had all ready voted against the renewal to change the vote that was all ready cast. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/ a/2004/07/09/MNGQC7IV231.DTL

Now you're telling me that the mechanism of Congress is messy? Heavens to Betsy! That's not a convincing argument of anything in particular.

Republicans openly manipulate the system, bending and breaking the rules as they see fit. You may call it politics, I call it criminal.

"Criminal"? How naive can you be? It's the way things happen in Washington, or in business, or in baseball, or in soup kitchens. The rules are bent everywhere, because the rules can't possibly fit every situation.

Besides that, you're making a mountain out of a molehill. You've decided you don't like the Republicans, or at least the current crop, and so you find the slightest irregularity and call it "criminal". That's the kind of thing that makes the Democrats sound like a bunch of Chicken Littles, crying about the sky falling.

Stop giving them the benefit of the doubt. There are no excuses for their actions. All of them were placed into office with the expectation that they would not put their heads up their collective butts in case of a national emergency.

I don't know of a single case of craniorectal inversion (CRI, TM) in governement after 9/11.

I could compare it to the rise of the Nazi party in the 30's by playing on the fear of the citizens, instead I will leave that exercise up to you.

Oh, now you've played the Nazi card. Get real.

"Agency warnings have no more effect than a wink and a nod, a deadline is just an arbitrary date on the calendar, and once passed, not to be mentioned again."
"Financial benefits accrue to the owners and operators who were not required to incur the statutory burden and costs attendant to surface mining: political benefits accrue to the state executive and legislators who escape accountability while the mining industry gets a free pass."

Now who's unaware of the other side of the argument, again?

the same as with someone that wanted to eliminate technology...
As if those people even existed. They're just straw men, invented by corporate PR firms so they'll have a bogey man to scare people like you with.

You are so wrong.
Terrorism happened mere months after Clinton was elected. In the same place!

It has been shown that the Patriot Act was a wish list from Ashcrofts Justice Department, that was pushed shortly after 9/11 when the nation was still fearfull.

Some Congressmen logged complaints about having to vote on a bill that was printed the same morning as the vote. http://groups-beta.google.com/group/gov.us.fed.con gress.record.extensions/browse_thread/thread/b3f12 7369d4139e7/45b17e93fcb2648b?
As a point of fact the bill presented to the House that morning was not even the same bill that was discussed and passed earlier by the Judicary committee. Instead of mounting criticism on the House leadership, Republicans spun rhetoric and fear.http://www.wired.com/news/conflict/0,2100,475 49,00.html

In 2004 when other parts of the bill were set to expire, the Republicans saw that they may not get the votes that they wanted in time. What did our leaders do? They extended the vote by 23 minutes to give the Republican leadership enough time to strongarm other Republicans who had all ready voted against the renewal to change the vote that was all ready cast. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/ a/2004/07/09/MNGQC7IV231.DTL

Republicans openly manipulate the system, bending and breaking the rules as they see fit. You may call it politics, I call it criminal.

Stop giving them the benefit of the doubt. There are no excuses for their actions. All of them were placed into office with the expectation that they would not put their heads up their collective butts in case of a national emergency.

I could compare it to the rise of the Nazi party in the 30's by playing on the fear of the citizens, instead I will leave that exercise up to you.

"I agree, but will there be enough of such people to sustain a business model?"

Remember when the RIAA said cassettes were going to kill vinyl, and no recording artist would ever make a penny again, and won't somebody please think of the set designers, and the sky is falling?

I do. I remember when consumer grade tape recorders of any kind were illegal in the US, thanks to the RIAA's lobbying clout. Ever see an 8-track cartridge recorder? Ever wonder why not? And gee, in some blinding coincidence, 8-track somehow was the biggest bomb of a format the RIAA ever forced down the public's throat. Gee, I wonder why?

Funny thing is, they wound up making a ton of money on cassettes in the 80's and 90's, just like they're going to make a ton of money off mp3's once they quit bitching about it and get with the reality of the marketplace already.

And most of you here are too young to remember it, but in the 80's there were these things called cassette clubs. And it would consist of people signing up on a mailing list, and whenever somebody in the club bought an album, they'd dupe it for everybody else on the list, most of whom were complete strangers. So "file sharing" has been going on for about 30 years now in the music scene. Somehow music has survived. In fact, somehow music has thrived.

So no, I'm not worried about the business model at all. I'm a musician myself, I've been chief engineer at a recording studio, I've seen all aspects of the business. And it's more than robust enough to survive a little file-sharing.

"If so, is that enough money to encourage creativity?"

Real creativity has nothing to do with how much money you make off it. The artists who are the most creative are usually the ones without the record deals. I think South Park summed it up perfectly - the only artists who are making such a huge deal about file sharing are the ones who suck, and need the muscle of the RIAA cartel and their price-fixing schemes in order to have even the appearance of success (which somehow never lasts more than one album).

Creativity preceeds profit, and doesn't expect it. Creativity is it's own reward. Profit is nice, and most artists won't turn down money for their work (though some will), but no serious artist wakes up in the morning and says "today I'm gonna make a million dollars". They wake up and say "today I'm gonna make the best piece of art ever."

"First of all, please don't drive down the street with your stereo turned up. It annoys people like me."

I don't even have a car right now, so I think you're safe for a while...

"Secondly, that's not the only alternative at all."

Why not? I'm publicly broadcasting a copyrighted work whose publishing is controlled by ASCAP, SECAM, or BMI. I've seen car stereos that have larger effective broadcast ranges than some low power FM stations. Why should all those people get to hear all that music for *nothing*? Won't somebody please think of the set designers...

"Surely we can find a compromise point between giving a copy to two friends and putting it up on a website for two million?"

Nobody's putting them up on websites, and nobody's distributing them to two million people. You appear to have a vastly inflated sense of the P2P scene.

The situation will be remedied, and the forces involved will come to a better balance than exists today. But the means to that end is for the RIAA to wake up one morning with the taste of its own balls in the back of it's throat, because that's where we'll have put them.

Artists should have rights. Consumers should have rights. The single biggest impact on those rights is the RIAA. Copyright law, and frequent and outrageous changes to it, are one of their primary tools for doing so. As it stands today, the RIAA is taking money from the mouths of the artists it claims to represent, not giving them any of the money it's making from the file-sharing suits, and claiming they're the good guys. They must be, and will be, stopped, if not by the gutless Republican Congress than by the sheer force of the market.

5th Street And Market is the southeast corner of it.

http://www.sfgate.com/traveler/guide/sf/neighborho ods/tenderloin.shtml

In the first two years of higher limits, the number of fatal accidents increased 8.7 percent over the previous two years on the 2,317 miles of highway where limits were raised from 55 mph to 65 mph. Fatal accidents increased 9.7 percent on the 1,297 miles of highway where limits went from 65 mph to 70 mph.

``Increased speed leads to increased fatalities. It's the law of physics,'' said Julie Rochman, spokeswoman for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. ``People who were cheating a little at 55 will cheat a little at 65.''

Rochman said drivers are kidding themselves if they think higher limits are just as safe. As good as the death rate is, hundreds of lives could be saved each year with lower speeds, she said.

A study by the institute reported that in the 12 states that raised limits to 70 mph, including California, there were 500 more deaths in the last nine months of 1996 than would have been expected with lower limits.

While it is true that there were fewer deaths due to car accidents in California after the speed limit was increased, it wasn't because the speed limit was increased on highways. The two have nothing to do with each other. Most traffic fatalities are on lower speed roads.

What you're saying about it being "prestige" is right on target. Even our (I live in the SF Bay Area) local paper isn't too enthusiastic.

Sounds like you might be talking about Community Memory. Now, for some shameless whoring:

• Remembering Community Memory The Berkeley beginnings of online community
• Community Memory

Steven Levy's Hackers has a chapter about the Community Memory project.

America doesn't care about the effect it has on other economies. It just wants its way. And because Canada needs the US more than the US needs Canada, they can use that leverage to force us to change our policies to benefit their industries.

You forgot to mention that Canada doesn't care about the effect it has on other economies, and they seem to have plenty of leverage to force changes in American policy, thanks to NAFTA!

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/ch ronicle/archive/1999/06/18/MN12059.DTL

MTBE is nasty stuff, and Canadians are ready to sue the US to make sure it continues to make its way into our ground water. There's plenty more where that came from, too.

http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=canadian+nafta+su e

Check out Concord, CA. Hispanic population has skyrocketed. White population has declined drastically. As a result? The city budget is out of whack, crime has gone up, social services are being taxed. Drive down Monument Blvd, what was once a nice area, and you'll find no less than 50-100 Mexicans standing around waiting for someone to pick them up, despite the "Do not pick up day laborers" signs all up & down the streets. At night, it's no longer safe to walk down the same street. This is a street where I'd run over to Jack In The Box with friends when I was a kid. Thanks to the Mexican gangs that have come into the area along with the growing Mexican population, it's dangerous to be out.

The schools have also suffered, thanks to the influx of non-English speaking families, and the Bush Administrations "No Child Left Behind" act.

Article here

I no longer buy the 'they come here for a better life" crap. They flood here because the United States is a huge cash cow for them. Plain and simple.

While this technology has a negative ERoEI, there are others that don't and look very promising. Unfortunately we don't appear to have the wisdom to invest significantly in their development.

A swan song by one of the designers of the original macintosh, sadly deceased.

RIP

or, more correctly,

Bill Frist's fatwa on Justice Sunday: Protest The Filibuster Against Those of Faith for his sugar daddy.

Patriotically as always,
Kilgore Trout, CEO

Who supported Justice Sunday: Protest Against The Filibuster Against Those Faith.

If the IRS is doing its job, it would remove the tax exempt status of any "church" (any affiliates in in the U.S.) participating in Justice Sunday.

Of course, Bill Frist is the faithful drone for the
world's most dangerous and inarticulate "leader"

Regards,
Kilgore Trout

Don't be planning too far ahead.

http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/
http://www.peakoil.net/
http://www.peakoil.org/
http://www.peakoil.com/
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/20 05/04/08/BUGA4C50P61.DTL/

Do a lot of reading, make up your own mind.

So I've been creating a list of all the major cases I've heard about in 2005. Nearly 1.3 million people have been affected so far this year. Of course now Slashdot won't let me post the information because I have "too few characters per line."

I originally posted an expanded version of this list on my blog to start keeping track of everything.

Here is basically what it looks like:
Date: 04-18-2005
Name of Organization: Ameritrade
How: Lost backup tape with shipping agency
People Affected: 200,000
Link: http://money.cnn.com/2005/04/19/technology/ameritr ade/

Date: 04-14-2005
Name of Organization: Polo Raplh Lauren - Mastercards
How: "Security Breach" - Hackers
People Affected: 180,000
Link: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/n/ a/2005/04/14/financial/f064639D31.DTL

Date: 04-08-2005
Name of Organization: San Jose Medical Group
How: Stolen Laptop
People Affected: 185,000
Link: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/ archive/2005/04/08/financial/f115753D39.DTL

Date: 03-29-2005
Name of Organization: UC Berkeley
How: Stolen Laptop
People Affected: 98,000
Link: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/20 05/03/29/BAG3MBVSFH1.DTL

Date: 03-26-2005
Name of Organization: Northwestern University
How: "Security Breach" - Hackers
People Affected: 21,000
Link: http://www.chicagotribune.com/technology/
chi-050 3260274mar26,1,5138021.story?coll=chi-technology-h ed&ctrack=1&cset=true

Anyway, this is definitely getting ridiculous and out of hand. And it seems we're pretty much helpless to control it as well. When are a lot of these companies going to stop requiring valuable information like social security numbers and such?

So I've been creating a list of all the major cases I've heard about in 2005. Nearly 1.3 million people have been affected so far this year. Of course now Slashdot won't let me post the information because I have "too few characters per line."

I originally posted an expanded version of this list on my blog to start keeping track of everything.

Here is basically what it looks like:
Date: 04-18-2005
Name of Organization: Ameritrade
How: Lost backup tape with shipping agency
People Affected: 200,000
Link: http://money.cnn.com/2005/04/19/technology/ameritr ade/

Date: 04-14-2005
Name of Organization: Polo Raplh Lauren - Mastercards
How: "Security Breach" - Hackers
People Affected: 180,000
Link: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/n/ a/2005/04/14/financial/f064639D31.DTL

Date: 04-08-2005
Name of Organization: San Jose Medical Group
How: Stolen Laptop
People Affected: 185,000
Link: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/ archive/2005/04/08/financial/f115753D39.DTL

Date: 03-29-2005
Name of Organization: UC Berkeley
How: Stolen Laptop
People Affected: 98,000
Link: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/20 05/03/29/BAG3MBVSFH1.DTL

Date: 03-26-2005
Name of Organization: Northwestern University
How: "Security Breach" - Hackers
People Affected: 21,000
Link: http://www.chicagotribune.com/technology/
chi-050 3260274mar26,1,5138021.story?coll=chi-technology-h ed&ctrack=1&cset=true

Anyway, this is definitely getting ridiculous and out of hand. And it seems we're pretty much helpless to control it as well. When are a lot of these companies going to stop requiring valuable information like social security numbers and such?

So I've been creating a list of all the major cases I've heard about in 2005. Nearly 1.3 million people have been affected so far this year. Of course now Slashdot won't let me post the information because I have "too few characters per line."

I originally posted an expanded version of this list on my blog to start keeping track of everything.

Here is basically what it looks like:
Date: 04-18-2005
Name of Organization: Ameritrade
How: Lost backup tape with shipping agency
People Affected: 200,000
Link: http://money.cnn.com/2005/04/19/technology/ameritr ade/

Date: 04-14-2005
Name of Organization: Polo Raplh Lauren - Mastercards
How: "Security Breach" - Hackers
People Affected: 180,000
Link: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/n/ a/2005/04/14/financial/f064639D31.DTL

Date: 04-08-2005
Name of Organization: San Jose Medical Group
How: Stolen Laptop
People Affected: 185,000
Link: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/ archive/2005/04/08/financial/f115753D39.DTL

Date: 03-29-2005
Name of Organization: UC Berkeley
How: Stolen Laptop
People Affected: 98,000
Link: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/20 05/03/29/BAG3MBVSFH1.DTL

Date: 03-26-2005
Name of Organization: Northwestern University
How: "Security Breach" - Hackers
People Affected: 21,000
Link: http://www.chicagotribune.com/technology/
chi-050 3260274mar26,1,5138021.story?coll=chi-technology-h ed&ctrack=1&cset=true

Anyway, this is definitely getting ridiculous and out of hand. And it seems we're pretty much helpless to control it as well. When are a lot of these companies going to stop requiring valuable information like social security numbers and such?

Even in Canada, which you named, there is a province with laws to censor your private speech if it is in the wrong language

The cited indymedia page has how many suggestions of an actual attempt to shut down the convention?

0

That's right folks, the expression was in jest.

What's not a joke are Free Speech Zones everywhere our fearless leader goes.

Thanks for playing our game!

American universities fall way behind in programming Weakest result for U.S. in 29-year history of international technology competition ...

Peering up at the southern sky, he caught what appears to be some sort of explosion as Columbia re-entered the Earth's atmosphere. He did not realize that he might have caught the first visual evidence of trouble aboard the space shuttle until he went back inside and watched the tape on his big-screen television. Moments later, he watched the National Aeronautics and Space Administration television channel and realized the shuttle was gone.

There is no mention of the energy strike in this article; the reason I included it here was in part to show the value of his film. If you read the article, you can see that NASA sent a letter thanking him for what were considered to be valuable images which indeed showed the earliest stages of the break-up. --This article also seems important to me because these were apparently the images which came directly after the first frame which showed an energy bolt striking the shuttle. Why the energy bolt was not mentioned at all in the article seems very curious to me.

Here is the first photo showing the energy bolt.

So anyway. . . What we have right now are two stories. The first is the big media story which broadcast the NASA claims regarding the incident; a piece of foam caused damage to heat tiles, which in turn resulted in a critical failure.

The second story is one which comes from two sources; a channeled source claiming an energy weapon was used to shoot down the Columbia, and a photograph of an energy bolt actually striking the shuttle just before it broke up.

So which is more likely. . ?

One:The U.S. Government can be counted on to not fabricate stories, and that NASA's own engineers who originally said the foam strike did

Peering up at the southern sky, he caught what appears to be some sort of explosion as Columbia re-entered the Earth's atmosphere. He did not realize that he might have caught the first visual evidence of trouble aboard the space shuttle until he went back inside and watched the tape on his big-screen television. Moments later, he watched the National Aeronautics and Space Administration television channel and realized the shuttle was gone.

There is no mention of the energy strike in this article; the reason I included it here was in part to show the value of his film. If you read the article, you can see that NASA sent a letter thanking him for what were considered to be valuable images which indeed showed the earliest stages of the break-up. --This article also seems important to me because these were apparently the images which came directly after the first frame which showed an energy bolt striking the shuttle. Why the energy bolt was not mentioned at all in the article seems very curious to me.

Here is the first photo showing the energy bolt.

So anyway. . . What we have right now are two stories. The first is the big media story which broadcast the NASA claims regarding the incident; a piece of foam caused damage to heat tiles, which in turn resulted in a critical failure.

The second story is one which comes from two sources; a channeled source claiming an energy weapon was used to shoot down the Columbia, and a photograph of an energy bolt actually striking the shuttle just before it broke up.

So which is more likely. . ?

One:The U.S. Government can be counted on to not fabricate stories, and that NASA's own engineers who originally said the foam strike did

I haven't fully comprehend the proposed ordinance. But I think you guy pull the trigger too quick. I think what proposed amendment is target for elected officials, not your average citizens. The whole thing is probably spawn the supervisor Chris Daly's blog and they feel there is need to clarify the the guideline for themselves.

Daly starts blog on city Web site District 6 supervisor first official to keep diary on city's site

Sad news, chicken czar Frank Perdue died today at his home in Maryland, from a long illness. He as 84. Even if you didn't eat his famously tender meat, there's no denying his contributions to poultry culture. Truly an American icon.

Jerry Brown (as mayor of Oakland)

I disagree with him pretty strongly about some things, but he really does seem to say what he thinks.

Headlining an appearance with other Democratic women senators on behalf of Sen. Barbara Boxer, who is up for re-election this year, Hillary Clinton told several hundred supporters -- some of whom had ponied up as much as $10,000 to attend -- to expect to lose some of the tax cuts passed by President Bush if Democrats win the White House and control of Congress.

In other words, she was speaking to a room full of really wealthy people when she said this. I'm not saying that I agree or disagree with her statement in general.

I just wanted it to be clear that she wasn't saying this to a mixed group of people. She was saying this to a room full of really wealthy people.

I used to work for a company that did some engine controls for the military, navy ships mostly. Their specs and test procedures were incredible. The equipment wasn't the most current technology, but they wanted to make SURE the control we built for their ships worked, no matter the cost.

Of course. You don't want your latest & greatest warship steaming out of port on its maiden voyage going *putt* *putt* *putt* [or even worse, not steaming out of port on its maiden voyage at all.]

Actually, it seems like more often than not governments are willing to spend lots of money, especially on things like technology. Now, if it's a new road or school building they are going to be as cheap as possible.

You've got that right.

"Personally, I don't have a problem with the security thing. It's just for the police, and I personally don't have anything to hide from them."

Presumably you're not a pretty girl, then. Thanks to Safety Cap (253500) for this story of a on-duty cop copying nudie pics for his off-duty enjoyment.

But that's only one cop. Click for the Top 10 List of Police Database Abuses.

It includes such charming cop activities as "Prosecutor's Office Uses Database to Smear Prosecutor's Political Opponent", "Police Lieutenant Charged With Abusing Database to Influence Elections", and "Cop Uses Database to Find Woman's Unlisted Phone Number -- Gives It to Woman's Ex"

But that's just local cops you say? We can trust the FBI, you say? Well, Martin Luther King couldn't.

And the FBI even tried to get the Mafia to silence Dick Gregory when he spoke against narcotic trafficking. And framed environmental activists. Not to mention COINTELPRPO, or the FBI helping Chicago police murder Fred Hampton in cold blood.

But that's all in the past you say? Well, if two years ago is "the past".

But you have nothing to hide, so I guess you're safe.

Tell that to "[m]ost of the 110,000 persons removed for reasons of 'national security' [who] were school-age children, infants and young adults not yet of voting age" forced by the U.S government to move to:
* Manzanar War Relocation Center
* Tule Lake War Relocation Center
* Heart Mountain War Relocation Center
* Minidoka War Relocation Center
* Topaz War Relocation Center
* Poston War Relocation Center
* Gila River War Relocation Center
* Granada War Relocation Center
* Rohwer War Relocation Center
* and Jerome War Relocation Center

You, know, mostly I let the links speak for themselves. I'm going to deviate from that this time, and I'll get modded down for it, but sometimes you just have to say it.

You don't deserve to vote. You don't deserve the nation created by Jefferson and Madison and Washington. You don't deserve to inherit the legacy of the brave men and women who sacrificed their lives to make America (more or less) free.

YOU DON'T DESERVE TO BE AN AMERICAN.

It's one thing if you realize that government is always a threat to liberty, and weighing the alternatives, reluctantly decide to cede more power to the government.

But you aren't doing that. With the whole frigging internet at your finger-tips -- much more than Thomas Jefferson ever had -- you can't even be bothered to type into Google "police surveillance abuse" and read the fucking history of your own fucking country.

Instead, you just blithely assume that since what you're doing isn't illegal yet that since you're not on a watch-list yet that the color your skin or your accent or your politics aren't "suspicious" yet, you can sit back fat and happy without giving thought to how this might affect others or even -- governments and laws do change -- yourself in the future.

And yet you get to go into a voting booth and pull the lever because of people who did know better and who made the hard choices and who often die

Big corporations will use their lawyers, their lobbyists, and their fortunes to destroy those who innovate, those who want change, those who are competition.

Yea. Keep spouting the party line while the courts finish the touches on their dictatorship. In case you didn't notice, both state and Federal courts successfully gave both Congress and the President the middle finger this week. Regardless of how you feel about the issue at hand, are you happy that you no longer live in a representative government? Oh, you didn't pick up on the issue by how much the party that owns the courts were opposing the congressional majority and the President's efforts to appoint a few opposing justices? Welcome to Amerika's New Order.

Thankfully, plenty of you useful fools exist for the New Order's marketing campaign. Quotes like this are priceless:
Campaign finance reform. Throw out the lobbyists from the legislative process.

Haha! You got your campaign finance reform, didn't you. Oh, I'm so sorry. It actually was pushed by MoveOn's funder George Soros and a bunch of leftist groups to keep YOU out of the political process. It actually lets all the big Democratic-friendly corporations continue to lobby, while little people like you are removed from the process. Some assbandit mouthed off while bragging about how they pulled the wool over Congress's eyes and blew their cover, but he did point out it's too damn late for you fools to do anything about it. It's law now.

Oh, and for all of you useful MoveOn fools, did you know your diety Mr. Soros is one of those Worldcom / Enron thiefs? Apparently even France couldn't be bought off by him this time and upheld his conviction for doing more than Bernie Ebbers, Martha Stewart, etc. did. Still think you're fighting the good cause?

Must suck to be so easy to fool...

and by the way, here's a chronicle article that says most of those freebies are bullshit or not worth it to the average person. chronicle

Already been done, man.

Now if the NBA could just get the players to sign a deal we'd be on easy street.

Shouldn't you say, "IF a laptop is stolen..."? What business are you in that laptops go missing willy-nilly! I should think that before one installs scripts to say where the laptop went I might invest in some padlocks on the office building ;)

He probably works at Los Alamos National Laboratories. Or the Navy. ;)

Yeah, nothing like that could ever happen here!

I have been watching the news lately and is what they have been telling me to believe is wrong with America.

If you watched the news lately you would know that your lack of a right of a feeding tube is the most dangerous thing in America. The President even flew back a week early to sign the bill into law to secure you right, Not to mention Congress having a late session. You need to get your head screwed on straight, and look at the important things in life and stop listening to Science. Science is too busy messing with something called FACTS.

How's it feel to be a tool for 'the man'?

How's it feel to work for a conglomerate that sues dead people and old ladies that don't own computers?

How's it feel to work for a conglomerate that ignores fans of its artists when they beg a record company to release a shelved album so they can buy it instead of having to steal it via P2P?

I could go on and on.