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Another widely-reported concern.

Hardly. You, and apparently Clinton, Kerry, and Boxer, would like people to THINK it's widespread. Sorry, but it's not.

instead of introducing another bill

And voting fruad is already illegal, so this is just partisan pandering.

Thanks for taking that brave stand against partisan pandering. Now I trust you'll support this otherwise excellent law when it comes up for a vote in Congress.

can you offer any actual proof that this occured in the last election?

1. "actual proof"? But your honor, the squad of police investigators I run couldn't possibly have a case on your desk before Monday.
2. I notice you feel a need to confine it to the last election. What are you hiding? Huh?
3. Here're some links:
   • http://www.sundayherald.com/45159
   • http://www.sptimes.com/2004/10/29/news_pf/Decision 2004/Dirty_tricks_litter_p.shtml

Here is a reference to an article on CNN about this. Also, check out the article in the St. Petersburg Times. Last, but not least, check out this article in The Guardian. My favorite quote from the last article: "The controversy [regarding the Bush DoJ paying ChoicePoint $11 million for names, addresses, occupations, DoB, passport numbers, "physical descriptions," tax records, and blood groups of Latin Americans] is not the first to engulf ChoicePoint." Nor, apparently, the last. This was written on May 5, 2003, over a year before this fiasco. How many chances should one company get before they're shut down?

So yeah, this company scares the shit out of me, as does its parent, Equifax. Personal opinion o' me is that they all need to be immediately shut down. If you don't like YOUR personal information being given to anyone with a few bucks, PLEASE write to your government representatives and demand that something real be done NOW to protect our privacy!

P. S. I live about 10 minutes away from Alpharetta, GA, where this company is located. I'm thinking of posting a link to where you can donate pitchforks and torches...

As has been pointed out by several others, students do have rights within a public school, but they also have some responsibility. We as a society have failed the education system. Not just the primary and secondary schools, but all public schools (including universities). Funding is an issue in almost every school. Left without funds, teachers fight an uphill battle to present information in a manner that students who have been educated by the "soundbite" nature of the television will pay attention to.

I deal with the "professor is out to get me" attitude constantly. It appears to be a product of the no-blame society we live in.

"My computer got a virus, it's Microsoft and Symantec's fault for not protecting me."

"My child failed because they didn't show up for class, it's the fault of the professor for not taking role properly."

I'm not saying that RFID is necessarly a good thing, but I can see where it might fit in the overall scheme of things. Everyone has to accept some of the blame for this.

*Taxpayers need to fork over enough money to improve schools and help high school graduates pay for college.

*Parents need to be active in the education of their children.

*Students need to be shown the benefits of education and take it seriously.

*Educators need to teach without dumbing it down. How many of us were taught something in middle school only to be told that was only half true when we were in high school?

I don't support your decision and I think the world would be a better place if abortions were forced upon you.

Nice. Might I point out that this sounds a lot like the Eugenics laws passed by Nazi Germany. If you don't do it for the good of the Volk you need not do it. It's not just 19-year-olds that might neglect children. http://www.sptimes.com/2005/02/09/Citrus/Accused_c ouple_stayed.shtml A 50-year-old couple tortured thier children. Further your stereotyping of children of single parents (don't just assume there are only single mothers) sounds to me like a nice availability heuristic. It might help to educate yourself some more.

Narrator: A new car built by my company leaves somewhere traveling at 60 mph. The rear differential locks up. The car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside. Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.
Business woman on plane: Are there a lot of these kinds of accidents?
Narrator: You wouldn't believe.
Business woman on plane: Which car company do you work for?
Narrator: A major one.

...Ban the display of the Confederate flag.

...ban pictures of guns.

... dissent on widely held scientific theories.

...write speech codes that severely penalize students for voicing their opinions.

...and a legion of similar examples.

If the American judiciary can't understand the First Amendment, how the hell are America's students supposed to?

The Internet loves you, too.

what about all those Girls Gone Wild videos? The videos are obviously making money off of other people's images.

Hmm... two seconds on google and i found out that the guy who made those videos is in trouble too.
http://www.sptimes.com/2003/04/26/State/Underage__ Girls_Gone_.shtml

The state had tried to keep the list a secret. It fought a lawsuit aimed at opening the records to the public. A series of errors emerged once a Tallahassee judge rejected the state's arguments and released the records on July 1. The error that proved final -- and garnered national attention -- was that Hispanics were largely overlooked because of glitches in how the state records information about race and ethnicity. The list was created by cross-checking voter registration and criminal records. Of the more than 47,000 voters on the potential felon list, Hispanics made up one tenth of 1 percent -- this in a state where nearly 1 in 5 residents is Hispanic. Florida Secretary of State Glenda Hood issued a written statement Saturday saying the exclusion of Hispanics was "unintentional and unforeseen." "We are deeply concerned and disappointed that this has occurred," Hood said. . . . Many Hispanic voters vote Republican.

Say "2000, never again!" Come up with a new felon list

Refuse to show the list to anyone

Refuse to show the list to anyone under public pressure

When forced to by a court order.... admit that horrible, horrible "mistakes" were made, and by some incredible coincidence, the list was again totally slanted against the democratic party...

Election's only a couple days away now...

Next thing we know, IRS burst into a kindergarten arresting several 5-year-old's for not calculating and paying proper tax while playing Monopoly, just to protect the integrity of the economy and nation's financial systems. "If they can't do tax at age of 5, will you trust them to pay tax 20 years later?!"

Businesses can be required to have permits, and there was a case where this was applied to a kid with a lemonade stand. It is likely that the rules were not meant to cover such a situation, and most kids probably do not know or care about such issues. As it was, a neighbor reported the stand because she was having problems with the kid's parent. See also these comments.

The infamous "butterfly ballot" was designed by a Democrat.

You mean Theresa LaPore, the former Republican who was a Democrat for all of six years (1996 - 2002), before she switched back to an "Independent", and is now working with the Republicans again? That Democrat?

All the counties that Gore requested recounts in were run by Democrats.

And thanks to the tireless efforts of those crooked Democrats, President Gore has done a fine job.

It is estimated that there were still many thousands of illegal votes placed by felons in the 2000 election in Florida.

Ah, yes, those spooooky felons trying to cast votes. The reason for the big crackdown? It turns out that felons cast about 100 votes in the 1997 Miami Mayoral election, out of a few hundred thousand cast.

The "felon roll" was a list created by the state but it was up to the individual counties to decide what to do with the list.

Ah, the "pass the buck" game. "We're going to make this list of tens of thousands of felons, and you have to guess which ones are actually felons!" Bullshit. If the state is going to spend 2.3 million dollars for a list that's 95% wrong, it is squarely the fault of the people who paid for that list. And if she tries to make a list for 2002, even when the FL legislature passed a law saying she couldn't, I imagine that's the fault of the Democrats, too?

The facts are far too challenging.

The facts are far too challenging for you? I've noticed. That's probably why you didn't have any references, just assertions.

-jdm

Democrats were only accused of doing this by the Republicans and only laptops (the easiest and most valuable hardware to steal) were taken, quickly from an office where they were plainly visible from the street.

Engaging in vandalism against Bush offices by teenagers is not quite as bad as tearing up valid registrations.

Criminally negligent op-ed pieces do not facts make.

Accusing a group of committing illegal activities with no evidence is a typical Republican tactic.

Press releases aimed at creating a non-existant scandal and failing are pretty weak as a source.

Finally, defrauding a company by making up fake voter registrations to earn more money in a $9 per hour job is not making people think they are registered when they are not.

Take off your DNC-issue blinders, and maybe you'll see that both sides engage in all sorts of nefarious activities to make sure their side wins. Nothing to see here, move along.

Which democratic candidate is talking to their protestors? The ones who put them in a cage in Boston during the DNC?

Democratic slant that is. Take this latest one as an example:

"Could it be that in this way Nader is beholden to corporate interests? For shame, Ralph"

What proof o they have for this?! It's just a smear campaign by the Democrats. Just look at what Dems have been doing to Nader... all those frivolous lawsuits, constant misinformation's... Dems should be ashamed.

Two lawsuits try to keep Nader off ballot And this is just in one state, Florida! They've been using the same dirty tactics in other states as well.

Don't vote for the "better" of two evils, vote Nader in 2004! Evil is still evil and there's very little difference between the two major parties.

http://www.votenader.org/

If you want a more exhaustive and less-spittle-flecked catalog of offenses than what Kos offers, check out the site of (admittedly, a conservative) Bill Hobbs.

I agree that the deligitimization of the electoral process is the biggest threat confronting the republic. But from my perspective, most of the attacks on the process are coming from the left. Witness:

- the last-minute, illegal substitution of Frank Lautenberg in New Jersey when the existing candidate was going to lose;

- the Gore team's Florida ballot attack (I know it's conventional wisdom that Bush did this, but it was the Donks that spread rumors of ballot problems, then conveniently had lawyers on hand to save the day. Oh, and Bush just plain won Florida, and therefore the election, according to a coalition of journalistic organs including the NYT, Washington Post, and CNN);

- the effort to import election observers from abroad. I'm not keen on being lectured about the democratic process by the corrupt Kofi Annan or anyone of his choosing.

I hope Bush wins. But if he loses, I hope he gets his ass handed to him. I don't know how well the republic will endure another fiasco like the litigation following the 2000 election, and if it's a close election this time, all bets are off.

If you want to know what a true fiasco is like, just Google "CoreFLS" and read the results.

At the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, some of the payroll systems date back to 1964 (that's right - no joke, they were bought when Lyndon Johnson was President), so they decided to replace them with a new system based on Oracle Financials. The new system is called CoreFLS. It has been a fiasco. So far VA has already spent over $270 Million out of an expected $472 Million total budget for the project. The project has been a failure laregly because of mis-management and plain-old stupidity.

First, they decided to do test trials at one of the busiest hospitals (that's right, they first went live at one of the *BUSIEST* hospitals) instead of a smaller test location. The user training for a critical system consisted of a self-paced web-based distance training as detailed here. No hands-on training was provided until a month after deployment and only after problems were apparent because the whole operation ground to a halt. So finally the senior managment decide to commission a $500,000 study from Carnegie Mellon to find out why it failed. The study concluded that CoreFLS was "an exemplary case study in how not to do technology transition." Yeah, they needed to spend a half-million to find the obvious.

Finally Congress got involved and all the senior managers including the Secretary himself were put on the "hot-seat" to testify. Lots of heads rolled (even senior managers like Assistant Secretaries) and lots of people were forced to resign or were fired. Now the place is crawling with federal investigators looking to put people in jail

So now the project gets cancelled. The sad thing is that VA really needed this program to succeed. I suspect that the technology has been made a scapegoat for mismanagement (not that the technology was perfect). Well.. back to 1964.

Personally I think charities should be open for inspection to all

Sure.

and that a list of banned people from working for charities is a good thing.

No, it's as stupid as the "no-fly" list.

"Lessee, John Fluxx? There's a John Flucks on the list. Sorry, we can't hire you."

"But that's not me!"

"Sorry, too close. As far as we're concerned your name's on list. Take it up with Homeland Security. Good luck, heh heh."

Meanwhile, you're banned from transacting any business in the U.S..

http://www.sptimes.com/2004/08/22/Columns/New_blac klist__same_o.shtml

Nader often says, half-seriously, that the Republicans and the Democrats are the same, corporate party. Before you dismiss him as glib, or an idiot, think about it. The two parties have what seems to be a gentleman's agreement to watch each other's back. Together, they run the debate commission and keep third parties out. They both oppose instant run-off voting, or fusion.
And how about this? Bush might have missed the deadline to get on the Florida ballot! Read it yourself: http://sptimes.com/2004/09/11/Decision2004/Did_Bus h_camp_err_on_.shtml Here they're trying to keep Nader off the Florida ballot because they fear he'll swing the state to Bush, but the Democrats here have a chance to try to get Bush himself off the ballot, and they won't take it...

I agree this is all quite snafu.

But just like the obvious motives of the democrats, I also point out the motives of Jeb Bush and his appointed staff who are all suddenly eagar advocates for getting the Reform Party on the ballot in Florida.

http://www.sptimes.com/2004/09/14/Decision2004/Ple a_puts_Nader_back_.shtml

Basically the rule is all politicians suck. Don't try to single out one side or the other.

Just because an article picks on both candidates doesn't make it balanced. Money caters to those with... err... money. Much more-so the top 2% recieving the largest tax breaks than those of us working for every dollar.

On a side note, ever take a look at the candidates tax returns? In 2003, amazingly Bush made most of his money on *gasp* oil and Treasury Notes. A large bulk of Cheney's income came from *shocker* Haliburton payouts. Kerry, on the other hand, made a large sum of money by selling art however he hid his wife's earnings by filing seperately. Regardless, I don't think it would be far fetched to assume she didn't make her money off of war.

Is this picture slightly askew or just plain crooked?

Bush missed the Florida deadline:
" State law sets a Sept. 1 deadline for the governor to certify a list of presidential electors for each party's candidates.

But Sept. 1 was also the day President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were being nominated at their party' convention in New York. Consequently, some of their paperwork did not arrive at state elections headquarters until Sept. 2, a day after Gov. Jeb Bush certified the candidates for president."

You might also have missed some other system gaming in bro' Jeb's Florida elections system: "The Return of Katherine Harris". These rules are cooked up to insert Bush in the White House. Then they can't even follow the rules. Bush depends on Democratic adherence to the spirit of democracy, while ignoring it, and the letter of the law, at their convenience.

Bush didn't file in Florida as the Republican candidate in time to meet the state's September 1 cutoff. That goofy state prohibits alluding to "September 11" in convention scheduling via a prescient old law. If the Democrats worked from the Karl Rove playbook, without worrying how to manage the country they steal, the whole game would now be over.

The 'felon list' is handled by the state. Since both Google and personal memory appear to not work on your end (or just in case you don't get it):

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/07/01/florida. elections/

http://www.sptimes.com/2004/07/11/State/Florida_sc raps_felon_.shtml

http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,64182,00.ht ml

Thanks for your comment.

The Slashdot rule : if you post an unsupported opinion (the Republicans sux0r!!! Democrats are ph@gs!!), you're modded insightful. If you post actual news reportage that shows that in fact the evidence so far suggests that the liberal Democrats (Dean, etc.) have been pretty aware of this issue, but the Republicans haven't been, you're modded Flamebait.

For Republicans who can't bear to read anything critical about their party, here's something about some Republicans who have their heads on straight, from the St. Pete Times:

While Gov. Jeb Bush reassures Floridians that touch screen voting machines are reliable, the Republican Party is sending the opposite message to some voters.

The GOP urged some Miami voters to use absentee ballots because touch screens lack a paper trail and cannot "verify your vote."

That's the same argument Democrats have made but which Bush, his elections director and Republican legislators have repeatedly rejected.

"The liberal Democrats have already begun their attacks [sic] and the new electronic voting machines do not have a paper ballot to verify your vote in case of a recount," says a glossy mailer, paid for by the Republican Party of Florida and prominently featuring two pictures of President Bush. "Make sure your vote counts. Order your absentee ballot today."

The GOP tactic is the reverse of what Bush and state elections experts have said as they have repeatedly opposed Democratic moves, in the Legislature and courts, to require a paper trail on the machines.

GOP flier questions new voting equipment

Of particular interest in the article is this quote, though, on the official Florida GOP position with regard to e-voting:

"The governor certainly does not support that message," said [Jeb] Bush spokeswoman Jill Bratina. "People need to have confidence in these machines."

Here is a pretty good explanation.

Check out this article. Granted, it's an editorial piece, but it is pretty accurate.

Something the article doesn't say...for the couple of years after the lotto was instated, education was highly funded. Only afterwards were the original funds slowly siphoned away, so now instead of the lotto being used as an enhancement, it's pretty much replaced the original funding.

The children of Florida thank Governor Jeb Bush for his wisdom.

mmm, no. sorry about that buddy.

Skyway Bridge over the mouth of Tampa Bay here in south Florida is about 20 thousand feet long. AFAIK that's the longest suspension bridge in the world, according to wikipedia. The last one over that area was struck by a ship named Summit Venture and it created quite a spectacular and nasty accident. I remember seeing this eery reminder any time we took a trip north.

A lot of people go there to commit suicide.

I do think Jacksonville owns the record for most rednecks within an incorporated city. Not making fun of you all, it's just the landmass is so ridiculously massive.. heh

There was a case in Florida where some teenagers (maybe in their early 20s) had removed a stop sign as a prank. When there was later a fatal accident there, they were charged and convicted of manslaughter.

I know this isn't exactly the same thing because it is a little more direct than the case you outlined above, but I think that it is indirect enough to set a precedent.

Here is the case from Florida. The charges were later dropped after prosecuters decided not to challenge the appeal. However, the appeal was on technical grounds. The precedent set here is that if you were the who pulled the sign out you were guilty of manslaughter.

As someone that actually worked on an investigation of an extremely wealthy person(Bill Griffin, CEO of Riscorp)IMHO virtually _any_ wealthy person can be convicted of _something_ if there is sufficient motivation to open an investigation. I personally support the conviction of Ms. Stewart--but I think the reason why that investigatino proceeded was the motivation and political ineptness of Ms. Stewart rather than the degree of the actual wrongdoing. Likewise, Mr. Gates' anti-trust problems went away when he and lots of his employees made the "right" donations. In the present climate, I don't think there is motivation to mount an appropriate investigation.

Found the story on why they were shut down. Basically the insurance company wanted them to have a driver with two years experience and a class c commercial drivers license. The Coast Guard was requiring that they had a certified sea captain and deck hand on board. So every tour would require 3 extra people, and their salary would probably exceed the profit of the tour.

The fatalities were with another DUKW tour, in Arkansas.

When all the smoke has cleared, I'd rather be in my position than theirs

Well, I applaud your stance. I'll quote Archibald "Harry" Tuttle (from Brazil), "We're all in this together." (Although most of the responses here on Slashdot remind me of Jack Lint, unfortunately.)

A similar thing is happening with the CoreFLS system for ordering supplies and paying vendors at the VA Hospital system. A large software project was set up with one contractor in mind. Training wasn't put in place to let the end-users become familiarized with the actual software, instead they were "web-trained" over the internet on a dummy system that does not correspond to the actual software delivered. Early problems with starting up the new system were ignored, and the whole project was started up despite these problems, leading to a massive melt-down:

surgical cases were delayed and stopped because supplies couldn't be ordered and located in a timely fashion,

floor supplies were not available or ordered because people couldn't be sure of what was where and what needed to be reordered.

a congressional inquiry was started [ibid]

the Bay Pines V.A. Hospital manager stepped down...[ibid]

they can't find any paperwork to show the process by which the contractor was selected for the job...

And they still haven't got the system up and running...

Oh for the days when MUMPS was the dominant in-house software approach, eh?
Currently, they have until May of this year to fix it or come up with an exit strategy.
So maybe sometimes, even if it is very difficult, when lives are at stake software projects can be scrapped and restarted from scratch.

A similar thing is happening with the CoreFLS system for ordering supplies and paying vendors at the VA Hospital system. A large software project was set up with one contractor in mind. Training wasn't put in place to let the end-users become familiarized with the actual software, instead they were "web-trained" over the internet on a dummy system that does not correspond to the actual software delivered. Early problems with starting up the new system were ignored, and the whole project was started up despite these problems, leading to a massive melt-down:

surgical cases were delayed and stopped because supplies couldn't be ordered and located in a timely fashion,

floor supplies were not available or ordered because people couldn't be sure of what was where and what needed to be reordered.

a congressional inquiry was started [ibid]

the Bay Pines V.A. Hospital manager stepped down...[ibid]

they can't find any paperwork to show the process by which the contractor was selected for the job...

And they still haven't got the system up and running...

Oh for the days when MUMPS was the dominant in-house software approach, eh?
Currently, they have until May of this year to fix it or come up with an exit strategy.
So maybe sometimes, even if it is very difficult, when lives are at stake software projects can be scrapped and restarted from scratch.

A similar thing is happening with the CoreFLS system for ordering supplies and paying vendors at the VA Hospital system. A large software project was set up with one contractor in mind. Training wasn't put in place to let the end-users become familiarized with the actual software, instead they were "web-trained" over the internet on a dummy system that does not correspond to the actual software delivered. Early problems with starting up the new system were ignored, and the whole project was started up despite these problems, leading to a massive melt-down:

surgical cases were delayed and stopped because supplies couldn't be ordered and located in a timely fashion,

floor supplies were not available or ordered because people couldn't be sure of what was where and what needed to be reordered.

a congressional inquiry was started [ibid]

the Bay Pines V.A. Hospital manager stepped down...[ibid]

they can't find any paperwork to show the process by which the contractor was selected for the job...

And they still haven't got the system up and running...

Oh for the days when MUMPS was the dominant in-house software approach, eh?
Currently, they have until May of this year to fix it or come up with an exit strategy.
So maybe sometimes, even if it is very difficult, when lives are at stake software projects can be scrapped and restarted from scratch.

A similar thing is happening with the CoreFLS system for ordering supplies and paying vendors at the VA Hospital system. A large software project was set up with one contractor in mind. Training wasn't put in place to let the end-users become familiarized with the actual software, instead they were "web-trained" over the internet on a dummy system that does not correspond to the actual software delivered. Early problems with starting up the new system were ignored, and the whole project was started up despite these problems, leading to a massive melt-down:

surgical cases were delayed and stopped because supplies couldn't be ordered and located in a timely fashion,

floor supplies were not available or ordered because people couldn't be sure of what was where and what needed to be reordered.

a congressional inquiry was started [ibid]

the Bay Pines V.A. Hospital manager stepped down...[ibid]

they can't find any paperwork to show the process by which the contractor was selected for the job...

And they still haven't got the system up and running...

Oh for the days when MUMPS was the dominant in-house software approach, eh?
Currently, they have until May of this year to fix it or come up with an exit strategy.
So maybe sometimes, even if it is very difficult, when lives are at stake software projects can be scrapped and restarted from scratch.

Hm. Well, if just UN violations is the way you're counting, Bush definetly ranks up there pretty high as well, not to mention all the non-UN-related stuff that he's done like saying the First Amendment only applies in certain areas, TWICE (you'll have to scroll that page, sorry, no anchors). But anyway, the rest of the world agreed that a war was NOT necessary or at all the best way to go about things (and they've been proven correct) so yes, the US did have "an itchy trigger finger".

Robotic Parking in Clearwater tried to make a go of it, but results seem less than promised (Jetsons again) Of course, since it's a Scientologist-run company, they'll make it go right just like Elron said it should...

It's one thing to have a book of records that's based on bar bets, and things that just involve getting a bunch of semi-skilled people together to do.

Does anyone care about corporate achievements in the Guiness record books? (other than the corporations, that is).

If they want in to the book, get 1139 people with golf carts, and break the record for longest golf cart parade.

I just think about the Guiness book being about things that are done almost solely for getting into the book, with no significant redeeming qualities other than getting someone's name in print. You know -- longest toenails. Worst smelling shoes -- the types of things that the average person could pull off with a bit of dedication, and not needing a multi-million dollar research facility, and not being directly linked to a company's product development.

How about 'shortest MTBF' for the next hard drive record?

1) How you describe video games as beeing the same can also be applied to movies. The same "stories" are done over and over. The characters, places,... are all that changes. Will the movie industry ever be complete wiped out?

If you take this analogy, the gaming industry can come out with a new iteration of the same game every five years. So while the gaming industry would probably never be wiped out, it would have to cool down a bit: there are not so many different game types, and the current upgrade frequency might not be sustainable once the novelty wears off.

If you think about it there is a huge variety of different movie types, video-game diversity is not that big. I don't think that video-gaming will go the way of the dodo, but there will be some adaptation from the current model. I hope this will bring out new interesting games.

Ah yes, the I've heard this one before. The Russians have superior technology, US killed MIR, yada yada yada. Bullshit.

I'm talking economics, bub. When you have people to feed and a country to rebuild, spaceflight is not necessarily the first thing on your mind.

Ok. So first of all, Soyuz is definitely more reliable. That I'll agree with. But it is in no way shape or form more capable. It's a three-person capsule (or, robotically, a limited cargo delivery vehicle). I'm hopeful that the six person soyuz will actually be seen through, but it will likely only be through external funding. For instance, last year, Russia had to petition other countries for money to continue funding Soyuz. And another. And more.

Russia's space program is less stable than the Soyuz launch record would indicate. How long they can keep it up, well, that's anybody's guess.

As far as MIR: granted, it was -- bar none -- the most successful space station ever. But these things have a half-life. The longest running Salut -- the previous generation Russian station -- was only in orbit for nine years. Mir, on the other hand, was up for fifteen years, and near the end there were some major problems. Fifteen years is a damn good run, but it was time for it to be retired. Law of diminishing returns and such. Especially considering there was a better option. And yes, I'm referring to the ISS.

There's definitely manpower in Russia. What I'm not so sure about is the money. And furthermore, why should we just give up on our own manned programs and rely on another nation for access to space? It is politically a very real possibility that the friends of today will be the enemies of tomorrow, whether through changes to the political structure in another country or the arrogant stance the US has been taking lately.

I don't recall big production of Civics with faulty tires in the past five years.

Ford has a long way to go in terms of reputation. Ford withheld information about safety problems they KNEW ABOUT. People died because Ford was more concerned about profit margins than safety. When was the last time Honda released a rolling death trap?

Don't forget Enron's memos.

Yeh Mr Moose. Here's a better picture. Mr Rabbit conned him out of carrots. Boy that has been a long time. It's funny I can remember Mr Rogers almost as well and I never watched his show. I guess SNL should have made fun of Capt. Kangaroo then maybe we would all remember him better.

...be sure to wake up prior to initial approach:

http://www.sptimes.com/2004/01/17/Tampabay/Snippy_ flight_attenda.shtml

Microsoft gives more "soft money" to politicians (both dems and gops) than the next five largest contributers combined. In addition to that, Microsoft spends more money than Enron ever did lobbying Washington. It is no co-incidence that this all started at exactly the same time that the Clinton administration initiated the antitrust lawsuit against them. It is also no co-incidence that the lawsuit was killed shortly after the Bush administration took office.

Money talks.

Those "indipendint" investigations were all haphazard, and in my mind didn't prove or disprove anything. The bottom line is that the margin of victory was significantly less than the margin of error; we will never know who actually won. Bush just happened to have several things go his way -- it's up to the reader to decide the legality or fairness of such events -- and found himself in the White House.

But Bush sure is lucky that tens of thousands of blacks -- an ethnic group in which 91% voted for Gore -- were "mistakenly" labeled as felons and removed from the rolls. A lawyer for the company that put the list together explains

"Obviously, we want to capture more names that possibly aren't matches and let (local election) supervisors make a final determination rather than exclude certain matches altogether," attorney Emmett "Bucky" Mitchell, the state's point man on the felon purge effort, said in a March 1999 e-mail to the company.

Remember kiddies: better to disenfranchise voters than to actually do our jobs!

-jdm

because there's all kinds of earth life that can survive the vacuum of space...

apparently.

Secretariat's heart weighed 22 pounds, while a typical thoroughbred's ticker weighs about eight and a half.

That's a lot of chow.

OK, for the google impaired: one of hundreds of links.

google

Remember: you're not an authority just because you feel you know something. Please go back to posting in the action figure collectors' forum.