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However it must be noted that these monopolies are, in no small part, a product of regulation by the FCC and far less a product of the free market.

To which regulation do you refer? Back when they regulated the telcos for dialup and DSL, we had a lot of competition. When it was deregulated, my set of choices went down to two. Wireless service may be acceptable for small communities, or when latency is not an issue -- but anyone living in a city will experience horrible connectivity with it. Last-mile solutions outside of DSL are almost exclusively limited to two companies. It's an infrastructure problem, much like highways, sewer and water.

The fact that the Candadi e n border is not the Mexican border has absolutely nothing to do with the perception of a threat.

You're right. In the absence of real danger, they will perceive a threat anyway, to justify their gross demonstration of their authority.

Also, this, which all started with a couple neighborhood watch vigilantes(er, "neighborhood protectors", that's rich) with itchy trigger fingers.

...is like declaring victory because you're the last person to hit the ground in the plane crash. How much has this cost Novell and IBM in real $$'s? With SCO bankrupt how can either expect to recoup any of the 7 years of court costs?

Novell's win against SCO ends that lawsuit but it doesn't end the SCO v IBM suit. The "Salt Lake Tribune" article has this little tidbit:

"Former U.S. District Judge Edward Cahn, the trustee for SCO's bankruptcy filed in Delaware, said the company is "deeply disappointed" in the jury's verdict in the dispute over which company owned the copyrights to Unix, which is widely used in business computing.

"But Cahn said SCO intends to continue its lawsuit against IBM, in which the computer giant is accused of using Unix code to make the Linux operating system a viable competitor, causing a decline in SCO's revenues."

Exactly what claim SCO can make I have no idea, but it took Novell more than 6 years to prevail over SCO and I have no illusion SCO will die a quick death.

Falcon

"Cahn said SCO intends to continue its lawsuit against IBM"

have an easy job! This stuff writes itself.
Pat Bagley's Take

It's not just the mining though, it's the Power usage too. From this site (which seems to be a pro-coal lobbyists group website, but the numbers are similar to other sites) says that 90% of Utah's power comes from coal.

Utah's Lawmakers are cheap, corrupt beings. Here is a story about a legislator pusing for a nuclear power plant that he has a direct stake in. Hell, they even built an Office in the Capitol building for Lobbyists.

It's bidness. You don't wanna interfere in bidness do ya? You some kinda socialist or somethin'?

Then that's exactly how you defeat the system. If everyone suggested someone for the list, then in no time the list would include everyone, thereby making it useless.

With as many people are on the list now, its already useless.
Unless the real intention is something else, like kingdom building.

See what the NSA is doing to handle this list and others like it:

http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_12744661

Actually, for the last 3-5 or so years, the seas have been cooling and capturing carbon. In 2005-6 there was a study by someone at the university of Colorado (who monitors a network of Ocean bathythermographs deployed by the Argo program and jason-1 satellite which monitor sea surface temps and ocean level rises). I can't find the study in a non-pay site and I'm not going to link to but anyways, the study showed that all of the claimed warming to date thought to of been caused by the Anthropogenic global warming can be explained by differences in ocean surface temperatures. It said that it didn't rule out Anthropogenic causes but questions the statement of importance.

Your getting the cart before the horse with your assumption that the ocean is warmed by the air. In fact, the ocean has more of an impact on the temps of the air then the air does on the ocean. Just ask the coastal dwellers who get cool breezes coming off the ocean that keep the temps a comfortable level in an otherwise hostile environment. California comes to mind where LA can be 90 degree F and just a few miles away (less then 100) it can be a cool and mild 75 degrees F because of the winds coming off the ocean. Another source for this is the El Nino and la nina effect in the southern pacific oscillations. Of course there are decadal oscillation anomalies in every large body of water. And these vary to such a degree that the IPCC has admitted that their models have problems processing them.

Furthermore, Christopher Monckton has released a study surrounding issues with the IPCC claims which you should read. Some of the key points as outlined elsewhere,

• The IPCC's 2007 climate summary overstated CO2's impact on temperature by 500-2000%;
• CO2 enrichment will add little more than 1 F (0.6 C) to global mean surface temperature by 2100;
• Not one of the three key variables whose product is climate sensitivity can be measured directly;
• The IPCC's values for these key variables are taken from only four published papers, not 2,500;
• The IPCC's values for each of the three variables, and hence for climate sensitivity, are overstated;
• "Global warming" halted ten years ago, and surface temperature has been falling for seven years;
• Not one of the computer models relied upon by the IPCC predicted so long and rapid a cooling;
• The IPCC inserted a table into the scientists' draft, overstating the effect of ice-melt by 1000%;
• It was proved 50 years ago that predicting climate more than two weeks ahead is impossible;
• Mars, Jupiter, Neptune's largest moon, and Pluto warmed at the same time as Earth warmed;
• In the past 70 years the Sun was more active than at almost any other time in the past 11,400 years.

Now keep in mind, this report does not dispute Anthropogenic climate change, it's pointing to verifiable mathematical flaws causing it's over statement by the IPCC. This is also something of a concern when one of the IPCC lead author has recently went on record claiming the science of global warming is too uncertain at this point in time. There is also a Dr. Essenhigh that claims the IPCC models are incorrect too. His Paper is unavailable for non-paying people (or I couldn't find it) but here is an abstract of it and some comment from a notorious denier.

In short, the issue is a lot more complex then you were led to believe and your comment reflects that profusely.

This is no victory. Yes, we like the outcome, but that will only be temporary until Nutsy finds the time to reword it. And that he has far too much spare time should be known by now.

With respect, I disagree.

(Full disclosure--Utah resident here.)

I think this is a victory, in that it shows consciousness of what game ratings are designed to do. They are supposed to give sane parents an indication of game content before making a purchase. So far so good--the gaming industry has subjected itself to an independent ratings board. No, a studio can't label anything "M" or any other rating. They can decide not to go through the ESRB, which is retail suicide. That seems to be what everyone was threatening to do: if we're going to get slapped for the ratings, we won't rate. The governor seems to see that voluntary content ratings are a good thing for conscientious parents, and I think he's right.

Moreover, the governor also seems to have noted (and this is a huge victory) that every other such piece of legislation has been struck down on constitutional grounds. More details here. Pertinent remark from Huntsman:

"While protecting children from inappropriate materials is a laudable goal, the language of this bill is so broad that it likely will be struck down by the courts as unconstitutional," Huntsman wrote to legislative leaders notifying them of his decision.

Possibly the bill could be reworded for resubmission (and it remains to be seen if the wacky Utah legislature will challenge the veto), but I think this suggests that this governor at least understands that there are constitutional concerns that trump think-of-the-children hysteria. I applaud the governor's action here, and his reasoning.

Well, there is this. It is getting a bit of coverage. And notice that he's not doing it because of the children, just that he doesn't want to get the state sued. We're already due for a couple law suits over abortion and gay rights, why tack on a third?

Okay replying to myself here. Here is something for starters from a person that I very rarely agree with, Rebecca Walsh.

Here's an example from today's Salt Lake Tribune: http://www.sltrib.com/ci_11522479

Issues of accessibility aside, there is a clear technical reason for this choice: the video quality is astounding for a streaming medium.

The DNC website streamed the 2008 convention with Sliverlight technology from Move Networks in high definition, and, from what I can tell, that's the same technology they will be using for the Inauguration.

This is near-HD quality streaming, with adaptive correction (i.e. no pauses to "buffer"). Startup is nearly instantaneous.

Given that 99% of users are using Windows or Intel Macs, and that they need to stream *live*, I'm not sure what open technology you would have them use that has been proven in practice and has comparable quality. You would be basically insisting that the government fall back to the technological equivalent of AM Radio because they haven't published the specifications of how to build your own FM Radio, even though they're giving out new radios at no charge....

So, I don't view this as a mistake, or a screw-up. I view it as a challenge to FLOSS supporters to build a better (or at least, *competitive*) video streaming solution. The freedom to use crap is not freedom.

Novell pulling out of an expensive conference? Only one explanation - Ron Hovsepian must be about to perish!

http://www.sltrib.com/News/ci_10592897

http://www.4shared.com/dir/9534755/19d8052b/sharing.html

Read this case Decided weeks prior to the KIDS Act being signed into law, addressing the State of Utah's version of the law. It is UNCONSTITUTIONAL!!!! It will be fought, just the same as it was in the State of Utah...

You cannot search through someone's personal papers or communications without a warrant, issued by a judge, or "unmask" their identity in anonymous internet speech with proof that a crime has been committed or is being commited by a certain INDIVIDUAL.

Additionally, according to the decision of the Federal Judge in Utah sex offenders do not forfiet thier rights to protected anonymous online speech as a result of thier convictions, PERIOD!!!

Some folks are still willing to see SCO as the 'comeback kids' (Found from a Groklaw link from today

And, of course, McBride is still harping about how misguided all the 'naysayers' are. Ah, corporate message control - so consistent, no matter the insanity of what is said.

I guess that's the point of freedom - for every choice that can be used to help build something greater, there is also choice to harm others. It's too bad that so much freedom ends up being used to crush the freedom of others for minimal short-term benefit, like those of SCO (which in turn was at least partly on behalf of Microsoft's FUD campaign).

Ryan Fenton
Ryan Fenton

Food is non scarce today. Plenty of food is grown so nobody has to starve.

It's all about money and power over others when it comes down to it.

This is why so many people die from lack of food daily. There are 3 things working against the hungry, all rooted in money, politics, and or power. First there's conflict, such as in the Congo. Farmers take risks farming in conflict zones, if they themselves aren't killed they may find it hard to grow food. Then if they do they may find it stolen from them. Politics has damaged a lot of farming areas as well. Zimbabwe used to be the breadbasket of southern Africa, now it's a basket case. When President Robert Mugabe came to power he kicked a lot of farmers, many Whites, off their farms. He then gave those farms to his cronies, and those cronies didn't know how to farm. So the farms sat fallow, little if anything was grown on them. Next is money. Europe, Japan, and the US have subsidized their farmers to the tune of billions of dollars. In the US alone, congress approved a farm bill that would give US agricultural businesses almost 300 Billion US taxpayer dollars. With the large subsidies they will get, companies like Archer Daniels Midland, ADM, and Cargill can ship corn to Mexico and Central America and sell it cheaper than it costs farmers there to grow corn. And the US isn't the worst offender, the EU gives it's farmers a lot more whereas Japan gives them a little more.

From today's Salt Lake Tribune

I can't wrap my mind around it, but it seems that there is some relationship to this phenomenon and that of $7.8 Billion in unused gift cards (just this year!!)

The end result is the same, some group (in this case retail store executives) is getting billions of dollars in exchange for exactly nothing.

Dubbed Gryposaurus Monumentensis (derived from a combination of "hook-beaked lizard" and a tip of the hat to the discovery location) scientists estimate this duck-billed dino could have had as many as 800 teeth in his massive mouth.

More extensive coverage about this story was broken by the Salt Lake City Tribune a week ago.

I sent them link to the story
http://www.sltrib.com/business/ci_6598018
and mentioned they may want to add it to the News section of the website.

In August, the Attorney General's Office quietly hired private attorney Brent Hatch, who had been defending Unspam Technologies and its money-making interests in Utah's Child Protection Registry. So far, Hatch has been paid $100,000 - half of what his contract allows, Attorney General Mark Shurtleff said.

That was a classic article. You're right. Malda, Bates, Miller, et.al did it right that time. Instead of supressing the article, which lets face it, was pretty much as blatent copyright infringement as you can get, the damage was compounded.

And what's up with modern religions trying to copyright they're symbols? The VA can put it on a headstone but you can't see it in the list? You can't put it on a t-shirt? What the hell man? Sounds like someone is more concerned about getting their cut than salvation.

P.s. The article linked to here is the first I found and seems pretty biased, please find a better source for yourself.

If you didn't notice this article is a summary from a slightly more detailed article at:

http://www.sltrib.com/search/ci_4602892/

The Salt Lake Tribune http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_4567868/ has endorsed Orrin Hatch. The really sad part about their endorsement of Hatch is that even in the way they phrase the endorsement, they are encouraging their readers to vote for him only because of a power play. They basically even say that Hatch is not one of the "good guys".

Suffice to say that a complete list of Hatch's negatives might exceed this space, especially if it included some of Hatch's more outrageous statements on public policy issues such as citing author Michael Crichton as an authority on the science of global warming, or suggesting that House Republicans' failure to act on former Rep. Mark Foley's sexually explicit e-mails to congressional pages may be attributable to their desire not to appear homophobic.

Hatch is all about big business and helping the multi-level marketing interests in Utah, and his record has done basically NOTHING for the individual. Besides which, Hatch isn't intelligent enough to be making decisions for our nation in this day and age. Even if I didn't strongly support Pete Ashdown because he is technologically savvy, anyone but Hatch would make a better Senator. Anyone. I'm just glad it's Pete running against him!

Here is the story.

1. Lowes is right across the street. They don't run out of generators after a 2 or 3 hour outage. Days, maybe; hours, no.

2. The equipment was successfully running off of power from the UPS's. Each UPS is rackmount and powers 2 to 4 servers. Unplug the UPS from the wall, and plug it into a running generator.

I've been in the Skywest server room. It's not much bigger than my home office, and no bigger than my master bedroom. We're not talking about a 2,000kw generator. We're talking about a maximum of 10 HPUX servers running off of rackmount UPS's, which will run off of 220v, which generators at Lowe's will supply.

I appreciate the reference to Mario's frogger.

I'm just saying, a little thinking outside the box and quick action may have had them down as little at 0 - 10 minutes instead of 3 hours, and could have saved most of their flights, a lot of lost profits, and a lot of inconvenience.

All this article is lacking from their standard fare is quotes from veteran trolls the Didiot and Rob Enderle.

Why anyone would believe the analysis of any company that markets its ability to "opinion make" is beyond me.

Shame on you Zonk for not linking to the original article: http://www.sltrib.com/business/ci_4123794/

The ruling does not affect another Utah company, ClearPlay, which has developed technology in DVD players that edits movies on the fly as they play.

While the case lumbered through the courts, President Bush signed the Family Movie Act in 2005, which legalized technologies used by companies like ClearPlay.

I know some of Pete Ashdown's campaign staff, and they tell me a lot of people are enthusiastic about unseating Utah's premiere nutcake. But They face an uphill battle in a heavily republican state, as well as competeing with Hatch's mountain of cash. Personnally, I'd like to see a monetary slashdotting of contributions to Ashdown's campaign. Just like the sudden onslaught of individual clicks can bring a web server to its knees, if /.ers contributed $20 (or more, if you can) en masse to Ashdown's campaign, he'd have a much better chance to bring Hatch's reelection bid to its knees.

There is an update to the story as well:

http://www.sltrib.com/utahpolitics/ci_3649394

In 1999, the NSA began monitoring a cell phone number in Yemen that served as a switchboard for al-Qaida. Among the callers who connected to this switchboard was a 'Khalid" in the United States. The NSA dropped surveillance of the caller for fear of violating FISA provisions on domestic spying. Khalid turned out to be Khalid al-Mihdhar, one of the 9-11 hijackers who took over American Airlines Flight 77 and flew it into the Pentagon. -- Salt Lake tribune

"Some say that Mormonism, with its emphasis that all beings can progress toward higher planes of existence, before and after death, has a receptivity toward evolutionary thought that other religions might lack."

I'd guess that religions related to Hinduism would also have some evolutionary leanings, then.

...religion infused the debate on SB96 from the beginning. [Senator Chris] Buttars forwarded the proposal because he insisted many evolution lessons contradict religious instruction. He is disgusted by the idea that humans evolved from what he calls a "lower species."

"There are a number of influential legislators who believe you evolved from an ape," Buttars said following the vote. "I didn't."

Apparently the United States has a hell of a fringe

There is a difference between "being less popular than you were", and being "a clear enemy to the people of the United States," who should be imprisoned or killed ... or is that too fine of a distinction? I rather doubt the "clear enemy" camp is even as high as 6%, although the "unpopular or bad President" group could reach up to 65%, depending on the date & poll. President Bush's popularity will no doubt continue to rise and fall for the next several years, but the percentage of people in the US who seriously consider him an enemy who should be imprisoned for life or killed will likely remain small, at the fringes of American society, and deserving scrutiny as to their sanity. History may ultimately jundge him to be a terrible President, or possibly a great one, but almost certainly not an "enemy of the people."

Well, Jimmy, I also live on the Wasatch Front, and by the way, you may want to come out of your FPS, Cheetos and Mountain Dew-induced haze once in a while an read the newspaper. Either one will do, the Trib or the DN. Heck, you could even get adventurous and read the SL Weekly. You see Jimmy, not only does Orrin Hatch (a rabid environmentalist by anyones reckoning) oppose the PFS site at Skull Valley (boy, there is some irony for ya) and most of the rest of Utah's hardcore Republican "environmentalists", but also the uber-activist "Earth First" enviro himself, the ultra liberal John Huntsman. You know him, right, the governor of Utah? You live in Utah, right?

Here is a quote from that most activist, liberal, anti-business Governor of ours, who, by the way is a Republican. Who would have known?

that is cold comfort to the hundreds of thousands of Utahns who live immediately downwind from this site.

With current technology, it requires quite a lot of electricity to create the Hydrogen based economy, as opposed to a 'flirtation' with it. If the US wanted to move its transportation sector to Hydrogen, it would require massive power plant building.

Are they going to build coal burning power plants? Not in California, and recently California told it's out-of-state electrical suppliers to clean up their act.

Will they build Natural Gas burning power plants? With the expected rise in prices and shortening of supply due to distribution problems and higher demand, I don't think so.

Will Wind and Solar, etc;, create enough power to create the Hydrogen necessary? Not on your life.

What we have left is Nuclear.

To quote a now not so famous industrial band: "Connect the God Damned dots!"

I think you're forgetting the most outrageous error of FEMA. What happened is, thousands of firefighters and other emergency responders arrived, ready and able to do important stuff, like, you know, save lives, that kind of thing. So what did they do? Did they put em to work? No, they first made them endure days of sensitivity training. SENSITIVITY TRAINING!!!!!! People are dying, and they're worried about the prospect that a rescue worker who came on his own dime to serve his fellow man might think negative thoughts about members of other races?

Want proof? We got proof.

Search for the word "harassment" in these articles:

http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_3004197
http://www.gazetteextra.com/katrina_rundle092905.a sp
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ ID=46179

Just google Katrina "sexual harassment" in their news section.

And note: this wasn't some errant agency violating its mandate. This is the liberal, socialist mindset at work, which values "diversity" over, you know, what real people actually want. Want a good doctor? Fuck that. You get a diverse doctor. Want good teachers, police, firefighters, lifeguards, etc.? Fuck no. You get the shitty ones, 'cause we got quotas to meet.

Anyone who has ever asked for sensitivity training can easily find the person responsible for this murderous loss of common sense. It's called a mirror.

Wow, Bush chastised when he doesn't visit, and chastised when he does.

First, from the very article you're quoting, the firefighters responding to the consolidated request for aid were very clearly told FEMA was looking for two-person community relations teams. Community relations, public relations, security, field medical assistance if necessary.

And on this coming Monday, "thousands of people" aren't going to be "drowning in their homes". The ones who have already drowned had, and thousands of police, active duty and reserve military, state guardsmen from Louisiana and other states, and rescue workers from all over the country and indeed other countries, are already in Louisiana, combing New Orleans and other flooded areas. Further, the tour is to last for a relatively short period of time.

So, would you rather Bush not visit, when he got assraped for not visiting quickly enough the first time, and is still being chastised for being "out of touch" with the situation?

Given This Story, I do agree with you.

Like this?

Salt Lake Tribune printer version of article working link.

-

Forget the cache - it's still up at the source.

http://www.sltrib.com/portlet/article/html/fragmen ts/print_article.jsp?article=2841984/

I'm a "gentile" who moved here to Salt Lake City at the beginning of the year to go back to grad school and this is pretty much how it's looked to me so far. About the only thing I have to add is that I've been told that many people aren't quite as wealthy as they seem at first glance here. The LDS tendency to mary young often leads to people overextending their credit trying to purchase a house too early.

And yeah, I have yet to really meet annoying pushy LDS folks like I have evangelicals. Polite protest of disinterest have worked just fine.

There also turn out to be some surprising advantages to the oddities in legislation here. For example, the recent SCOTUS Eminent Domain ruling has no effect here as the state government recently passed legislation banning eminent domain for redevelopment purposes (except, in a twisted joke, for the redevelopers own property.)

I should mention, however, that my views are somewhat coloured by a fairly centrists view of American politics and religion, so the politics and religion here don't really bother me as much as they might some. (Honestly, for the moment I find them a somewhat refreshing change from my old heavily blue state.)

Being a native of Utah *shh, I know, I know* we seemed to have gotten it somehwat right with a papertrail. Diebold actually made a machine specifically for Utah because we demanded it, which goes to show if you get a concerned and well informed public involved, good things can happen.

Thousands of phone lines cut

http://www.sltrib.com/search/ci_2756279

A construction crew digging beneath State Street near 5600 South on Tuesday afternoon inadvertently cut a bundle of Qwest cables, disconnecting phone service to thousands of customers. The construction crew was working for the Utah Telecommunications Open Infrastructure Agency, also known as UTOPIA

Remember, this is a case involving a self described gun nut who travels under assumed names

Bloomberg News
Darl McBride, chief executive of SCO Group Inc., says he sometimes carries a gun because his enemies are out to kill him. He checks into hotels under assumed names.

This is a case involving "suicides" of people who have disagreements with the SCO management team that even SCO supporters can't explain (DiDio calling it "shocking and mystifying" and even Enderle saying "Why commit suicide right after the settlement when the people you wanted gone are gone? The timing doesn't seem right, given that things were presumably going her way as far as the lawsuit was concerned".

Given the context, death isn't funny, even when talking about wicked witches like OGara.

Your quote is misleading. The difference here is that Democrats are using the fillibuster to block Judicial nominations, something that has never been done before.

http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_2721531

The suicides referred to are those of Val Noorda Kreidel (daughter of technology entrepreneur and Canopy founder Ray Noorda) and Robert Penrose (Canopy Employee). See this blog entry for details and links.

Also:
http://sltrib.com/business/ci_2617160
http://management.itmanagersjournal.com/print.pl?s id=05/03/28/071212
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=143850&cid =12055828