Slashdot Mirror

Which is not to say that civilians getting caught in the middle between two warring sides is anything new or novel, but the least we could do is not try to dismiss it by implying they deserve to get killed.

Someone is implying that Iraqis deserve to get killed? I doubt it is the US military. They seem to be working pretty hard to help Iraq rebuild and protect Iraqis from terrorism.

Focus On Projects That Put Iraqis Back to Work
Market Fair Helps Baghdad Residents Plan for Economic Future
Soldiers Provide Aid to Orphanage
Coalition, Iraqi Army Bring the Heat, Fuel Iraqi Fires
Work Resumes at Water Treatment Plant for Al-Zeirji Town
Police transition teams help Iraqi police take back streets
506th RCT Soldiers Distribute School Supplies to Iraqi Children
Streams of water bring progress, hope to village
More Electricity Projects Improving Lives in Dhi Qar Province
Marines Launch Rescue Effort to Save 3-year-old Hadithah Girl
Soldiers Work With Poultry Growers to Revitalize Chicken Industry

Maybe it is the extremists and insurgents that you are thinking of. After all, Al Qaeda considers the Shia heretics, and most of the Sunnis in Iraq as traitors, and wants to kill them both.

Tribal force in Iraq target of attacks
Bus bomb kills five in bustling market
Teenage Bomber Strikes In Anbar - Suicide Attack Targets Meeting Of Tribal Leaders
Female suicide bombers shatter Baghdad calm
Bin Laden's trained children of death
US Says Iraq Car Bomb Kills 23 Civilians

An associate of Osama bin Laden crawls into a container -- along with some new luxury cars -- in a shipyard in Hamburg, Germany. The goal -- shipping himself to the United States and evading the Department of Homeland Security,

The link references the opening statements of a trial in which three people are accused of violating election laws (the story is dated 6 days earlier than your post).

That's a year and six days.

They were in fact convicted, and that's the link I should have given.

However, I see on further review that they made a plea deal and got probation. Which shows how important protecting election integrity is - mandatory minimums for possession of illegal medicines, a slap on the wrist for subverting democracy. Res ipsa loquitur, as HST used to say.

After the interview, he talked to the reporter about some of the astronomy he does, including looking at what are called radio transients: bursts of radio waves that are seen once and never repeat. These may come from one-off events like colliding neutron stars, exploding stars, and so on.

Dearest Slashdot analogy trolls:
Please tear his analogy apart: "Society may see the action I took as unacceptable in the eyes of 'normal' people," Oliver said. "I felt that by not taking evasive action as a father in the right direction, I might as well have taken my child to some swamp filled with alligators and had them tear him to pieces. It's no different" (Source).

Bonus points will be awarded if you cite Wikipedia entries on logical fallacies.

Google is your friend.

-mcgrew

One example: The recent Duke University situation: http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/2007/12/05/hacker_may_have_stolen_duke_students_data/2789/

Another Example: I keenly remember learning from a high-level old-guard "Network Administrator" (over a few pitchers of free beer) about how a DB containing 30 year's worth of a 'Student Information' was dumped onto a HDD (and 'given' to a third party) after being "merged" into the "_______ Alumni Association" database. This admin, whom I trust, was a 20-year veteran at the school and he was present when the 'orders' were given to merge the data into the Alumni Association's DB. Apparently, the Alumni Association previously had access to the student DB, but privacy rules were put in place (or suddenly enforced) to cease this access and they were forced to develop their own separate DB. Ironically, they pilled strings to "seed" their own DB with a merge of the old one before an access restrictions were put in place. (In actuality, the full DB was actually copied to HDD and renamed for the "merge" on the new server.) This 'Student Information' database contained: enrollment data, full legal names, DOB, Addresses (past, present, and current), declared majors, graduation dates, high school GPA and locations, and their student loan status (weather Grants, Loans, GI Bill, Trust Funds, or cash from parents, etc.. paid for their schooling).
The scary part was that the 'new' Alumni Association DB was now outside control (and liability) of the School's Board of Reagents (who had tacitly granted (ordered) the student data to be merged into the Alumni Association's DB (WITHOUT needed legal confidentiality caveats). The Alumni Association's data was subsequently "sold" to the "First USA Bank" for around 10 million dollars in "donations" (and I am sure pay-offs, kickbacks, whatever etc..). The "_______ Alumni Association" (in the following year) purchased (from the state) A BLOCK'S worth of very close off-campus (privately-owned, mainly older, but still in good shape) rental housing (through state eminent domain condemnations) and they leveled it, moving or destroying the houses. A big shiny-new Alumni Association building went up there along with a couple smaller Official Campus buildings. (Obviously I am leaving off the name of the State-Funded University here.)
Within about a year following this database 'merge' (and sale), my parents, the tenants at my former addresses (as I discovered through forwarding my US Mail), and my unlisted phone numbers (this was pre do-not-call) began to get solicitations for "donations" and other "Alumni Association" beg-for-money-through-student-pride-style correspondence...
Interestingly, I ONLY gave these addresses to the School's Bursar's Office and the School's Enrollment Office. I also had new pre-approved offers for "First USA Bank" Credit Cards (and untold other unsolicited financial junk mail) and so did many of my peers... Coincidence?

I bet this happens all too often... there's just too much money involved for the unethical greedy side (of some people's) human nature to not profit by it. -Z

The ledger of atrocities is about 10 (if not 100) to 1 in favor of Israel.

It's this type of thinking that truly galls me (as well as helps what's going on in the Middle East to continue). There's no "scorecard" to look at, and there's no such thing as, well, these atrocities are not as bad as those ones, therefore we should side with these guys. In case you haven't noticed, both sides are equally guilty of atrocities; both are just as bad as the other based on the measurement that they are atrocities. For every atrocity someone picks out about one side, there's certainly something equal to find from the other.

So, let's look at your claim: "10 (if not 100) to 1 in favor of Israel". Let's assume, like you do, that there is some sort of scorecard you can use to support this. How do you measure this?

Number of civilians killed? Israel has certainly killed more.

Number of times innocent civilians are targeted intentionally? Israeli Chief of Staff Mordechai Gur admitted in 1978 that Israel intentionally targeted civilian populations. Israeli military analyst Deev Schiff remarked on the comments at the time saying: "In South Lebanon we struck the civilian population consciously, because they deserved it ... [T]he importance of Gur's remarks is the admission that the Israeli army has always struck civilian populations, purposely and consciously ... the army, he said, has never distinguished civilian [from military] targets...[but] purposely attacked civilian targets even when Israeli settlements had not been struck." The same pattern was again repeated in the most recent Lebanon invasion, echoing the comments of Abba Eban's "rational prospect ... that afflicted populations would exert pressure for the cessation of hostilities", terrorism in ever sense of the word.

Number of civilian targets and infrastructure destroyed? Just counting the recent war with Lebanon would put Israel in a clear lead.

What about terrorism, or genocide, or ethnic cleansing, or other human rights measurements such as torture etc.? Is that a measure of how bad an atrocity is? Do some reading about what Israel actually did to the civilian population during the first Lebanon war. For example, most men between 16 and 60 in Southern Lebanon were rounded up and imprisoned without any reason. Countless numbers were tortured, beaten, starved, and killed, quite intentionally, with the laughter and racist insults of their captors ringing in their ears. Or perhaps go further back and look at what Ilan Pappe (Israeli historian) calls "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine", detailing quite accurately how the plan to forcibly transfer the Arab population from their land "was a clear-cut case of an ethnic cleansing operation, regarded under international law today as a crime against humanity."

And what about being an aggressor? You imply they've always been on the defence, which is untrue. The 1956 Israeli-French-British attack on Egypt was not defensive. The 1978 invasion of Lebanon was not defensive. The 1973 Arab attack was an Israeli defensive war in that they were defending territory that they occupied. Even the 1967 war is not conclusively one of Israeli defence: Menachem Begin remarked that "In June 1967, we again had a choice. The Egyptian Army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him."

The point I'm trying to make here is that blame is not a zero sum game. Until there is some sort of even handedness against both parties - in other words, until there is an embargo against Israel on a par with what has been put in place against the Palestinians - there is simply not going to be peace in that region until one side is exterminated, and at the moment that is likely to be the Palestinians.

http://www.upi.com/Zogby/UPI_Polls/2007/04/22/anal ysis_us_public_supports_real_id_law/ A new poll shows that 70 percent of Americans support the introduction of national security standards for driver's licenses under the Real ID Act.

WASHINGTON, June 8 (UPI) -- Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., Friday announced a date has been set for a no-confidence vote in the Senate on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Schumer said the vote would be held Monday, The Hill reported Friday.

"If all senators who have actually lost confidence in Attorney General Gonzales voted their conscience, this vote would be unanimous," said Schumer.

However, The Hill reported, Schumer said he expects President George W. Bush to pressure Republican senators to vote against the measure.

Sorry, my mistake, it was only 30-40%. It was a survey by the Pentagon. Now I feel better.

Everybody can have their own opinions but you seem to want your own facts. The Iraqis have not, in fact voted to have us leave. If they did, we'd be gone and relatively quickly.

Do you want other people to read your tax returns?
Are you Ok with losing important e-mails?
Do you want other people to decide which files are "inappropriate", how much space you are allowed to use, which fonts can appear in your document?
Do you want your dual core machine with SLI video card to be only as fast as your grandma's Wallmart PC?

Lack of control over your own stuff has consequences far worse than targeted advertisement. Most people dislike living in communes, having only public transportation or not being able to access their data on their own terms. Then again, it's perfect for some people, or for specific circumstances.

As far as food is concerned, that is a kicker. We all want food when we want, and none of us want to be hungry. Therefore it is to our benefit for large amounts of food to be grown, as we would rather have extra to mulch rather than not enough. Furthermore, subsidies for farmers make some sense as we need food cheap enough so that everyone can afford it, and we do not have riots.

Ultimately here is the thing with ethanol. If we learn a lesson, and not let profit be the overriding concern, we would make ethanol out of a wide variety of products. If there is extra corn, as there usually is, we would make it out of corn. We would go back to fallow fields, and use whatever is on that field to make ethanol. Furthermore, we would have flexible fuel cars, electric based, with a generator that ran on ethanol or fuel cells.

Algae could be more efficient than sugarcane, and certainly more efficient than corn. All of these option has the benefit of costing much less than $96 billion. It is hard to kick the dominant player out of the market, but sometimes said player just needs to go.

link to UPI and msnbc It looks like their moving their CEO and their headquarters overseas.

Iran has apparently developed the cure for AIDS - http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/20060906-065147-6616r / - and is set to release it to the world soon. This is, obviously, not patented and because it is herbal would certainly be low in cost.

So, how come we're not hearing about this? http://www.mehrnews.ir/en/NewsDetail.aspx?NewsID=4 43087 has the story, as does the UPI and some other places. Why not CNN? Is someone paying to keep people sick?

http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article155 9489.ece
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=2006 1206-073127-3179r

Sugar=>fat americans=>diesel

Israel to produce synthetic oil from low quality shale at $17 a barrel: http://www.upi.com/Energy/view.php?StoryID=2006110 7-070924-5161r

Personally I never watch South Park OR Al Gore. or other politicans... all are equally relavant and entertaining; not one whit
As to global warming I am sure it is warming Al's pocketbook but I foind hun causes to be somewhat...doubtful as do many who really view this with an open mind. To quote another on this; It seejms mankind's intervention must be causing warming even beyond this globe:

On Pluto: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/pluto_warmin g_021009.html

On Triton: http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/19980526052143dat a_trunc_sys.shtml

On Saturn: http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=2006 1109-022035-4126r

On Jupiter: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/060504_red_j r.html

On Mars: http://www.mos.org/cst-archive/article/80/9.html

Remember; Piltdown Man was accepted as totally valid by the scientists of that day...
Any time lends itself to "present knowledge chauvanism"

"The Hom Tov process is more environmentally friendly than other methods of converting oil shale into energy. It also allows for more flexibility in the kind of fuel produced, produces less waste and operates at lower temperatures than other methods.

"Because fewer refining processes are necessary with oil shale than with crude oil, the final product is a higher quality fuel at a lower price, Aizenshtat said.

"The company estimates it will consume 6 million tons of oil shale and 2 million tons of refinery waste each year, for an annual production of 3 million tons of product.

"It would cost about $17 to produce a barrel of synthetic oil at the Hom Tov facility, meaning giant profit margins in a world of $45 to $60 per barrel crude. Yearly earnings are forecasted to be between $159 million and $350 million, Shahal said. "

Iran had submitted a draft resolution asking the U.N. to condemn Iraq's chemical weapons use. The U.S. delegate to the U.N. was instructed to lobby friendly delegations in order to obtain a general motion of "no decision" on the resolution. If this was not achievable, the U.S. delegate was to abstain on the issue. Iraq's ambassador met with the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Jeane Kirkpatrick, and asked for "restraint" in responding to the issue - as did the representatives of both France and Britain.

But the agency quickly moved into action. Noting that the Baath Party was hunting down Iraq's communist, the CIA provided the submachine gun-toting Iraqi National Guardsmen with lists of suspected communists who were then jailed, interrogated, and summarily gunned down, according to former U.S. intelligence officials with intimate knowledge of the executions.

Many suspected communists were killed outright, these sources said. Darwish told UPI that the mass killings, presided over by Saddam, took place at Qasr al-Nehayat, literally, the Palace of the End.

You do realize this is an arguement based on the First Amendment primary, brought by news reporters:

The ACLU had brought the case on behalf of a group of reporters, academics, lawyers and activists who believed that their communications with clients, sources or others might have been monitored by the National Security Agency as part of the program, thereby violating their Fourth Amendment guarantees against unreasonable searches, and chilling their First Amendment rights to freedom of expression and association.

http://www.upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?Stor yID=20060817-060255-3001r

They haven't proved they were prosecuted by facts found by being tapped, they are saying they might have been tapped and that it is keeping their sources from being frank with them.

It is a pretty weak standing, and likely the first thing that will go on appeal, did they have standing to bring a suit?
Lower court, probably. Higher court? Unlikely.

I think few Americans right now realize that congress is working, yesterday and today, on passing (not just writing or introducing, but passing, it's already through the house and now up for vote in the senate) a bill that will end habeas corupus and legalize torture:

http://news.google.com/news?q=torture+bill+senate+ habeas&hl=en&hs=GCv&lr=&safe=off&client=firefox&rl s=Swiftfox:en-US:unofficial&sa=X&oi=news&ct=title
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?Sectio nID=40&ItemID=11071
http://www.upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?Stor yID=20060924-060744-4556r
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2006/09/26/AR2006092601475.html

Habeas corpus is one of the oldest tenets of western civilization, predating the U.S. Constitution and even the Magna Carta, and it says, simply, that if someone is to be held in custody by the state, there must be a demonstrable reason for their imprisonment. It is the basis of "probable cause," "warrants" of arrest, and your right to a trail to establish your guilt or innocence.

This bill not only legalizes torture acts against enemy combatants by the U.S. government, it also gives the president and the secretary of defense the authority to unilaterally decide who is an enemy combatant, without review, oversight, process, or documentation of any kind, and to act on that decision, without trial, documentation, or any means of appeal. The standard for being an enemy combatant is essentially that you don't "support" America in some way or another, not according to some objective standard of evidence, but again according to the personal impression of either the president or the secretary of defense. This includes American citizens.

Once they decide you are an enemy combatant, you can be picked up, with no warrant or probable cause, no evidence, and no process other than "the feds said you don't support America." They no longer need evidence. Under this statute no right to trail or judicial review will exist (because you are now like those at Gitmo, rather than a citizen), and you can be tortured at will.

This is what the senate is working on YESTERDAY AND TODAY. It's likely already too late to affect the outcome, but if you haven't yet it might be a good day to call your senator and say that you OPPOSE the bill that legalizes arbitrary indefinite detention at the whim of the president and the legalization of torture.

I know you're being funny though, but I don't really care about about some guy being a virgin who masturbates frustrated (heck, that's 99% of slashdot. I'm in the 1% percentile fyi). But I do care about a child who got abused and has a warped image of the world and is traumatized to a point where life is unpleasant to unbearable. (Mostly social related, as unability to trust, acquire intimacy or maintain a healthy relationship and that kindof thing)

In the mean time the pentagon announced promising results from the one Guided Bomb Unit per child program ... http://www.upi.com/InternationalIntelligence/view. php?StoryID=20060731-043823-6313r

ending in loss of limbs, eyesight and so much more.

Not forgetting the most recent articles posted about the links to Alzheimers

:-(

The trouble with using soda to do what the Bellagio fountains do is all that soda and mentos would be too expensive to use on a daily basis.

This experiment is edifying from a proof-of-concept viewpoint, but has little practical use at present.

In actually interesting news, here's a tidbit about the asteroid that that Japanese space probe landed on.

http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=2006 0531-014157-3548r

The fact that Mohammed married a 9-year-old girl (or rather, married a 6-year-old girl and consummated the marriage when she was 9) comes from hadith sahih bukhari 7.62.64. The hadith sahih bukhari are a primary muslim religious text, secondary only to the Qu'ran to most Sunnis, though apparently Shi'a have a more nuanced view of the factuality of the hadith.

In any case, I agree this is a silly reason to attack a religion, since the Hebrew Old Testament has many protagonists and prophets who did things that would be considered immoral or illegal by modern standards. But that doesn't make the underlying comment untrue.

As for the Iran-badges-for-non-Muslims story, I read it originally on Canada.com, where it was posted on the National Post site. They have since removed the story. However, the UPI news wire story on the subject is still up. This story was published in several mainstream outlets. It seems the story was basically untrue at least based on corrections like these, but it wasn't just printed in some fringe outlet by any means.

However, I will grant you that a real news outlet should fact check and withdraw stories that turn out to be false. Many "blogs" and online rant sites don't qualify as news since they don't follow basic rules of journalistic conduct.

The description of this thing as a "forcefield" seems to come from this Fox News clip (big SWF file.)". It's not. It's an active defense system that shoots small rockets back at incoming weapons. Exactly what it shoots back is not being revealed. UPI has a better article.

Here's one source

There is huge demand for skilled technical people in India. As a result, wages are going up and turnover is a huge problem. Headhunters literally roam the streets outside of the major tech employers looking to entice workers to different jobs.

it is? it seems like mostly what the 'intelligence' community does in the united states these days is spy on unarmed, constitutionally-protected demonstrators. like these cases, for instance:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11751418/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2006/03/14/AR2006031401520_pf.html
http://www.dailytexanonline.com/media/paper410/new s/2006/03/24/TopStories/Students.Fbi.Lecture.Displ ays.Watch.List-1716066.shtml?norewrite200603281210 &sourcedomain=www.dailytexanonline.com
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/artic le_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001995631
http://www.upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?Stor yID=20060214-053955-9494r
http://www.tbo.com/news/metro/MGBTP976FJE.html

I am with you w.r.t. to "60% figure," but here's some food for thought:

Microsoft is reorganizing its Windows unit by replacing the top manager of its flagship software operation.

Steven Sinofsky will be replacing Jim Allchin effective immediately, even though Allchin will continue to oversee the development of Windows Vista.

Why didn't we have global warming in 1885?
My grandmother was born in 1885, in South Dakota.
She told me her family had to pack up and go back east, it was just too cold there. I think they had a really cold winter that killed most of the herds of cattle in the central USA around that time.
That's not the reason, of course, for the cows/methane connection then, but simply put, it was one of those times when cold outbreaks were common, and big ones at that, apparently.
Our love of the automobile is just part of the problem with a possible global warming trend, the rest of it could be linked to other industrial development, such as the production of electricity. China, India, Europe, all contributing to global warming, or so goes the theory.
Here is a link to a story saying we are going to have another mini ice age soon. An interesting story, if it is true.

Oh, wait, the same country is now trying to build a nuclear reactor.
...they are trying to build TWENTY reactors.

We need to warm up before the mid-21st century ice age... http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=2006 0207-041447-2345r

I'm not going to say it was a good idea to appoint a hot headed 24 year old into a NASA press job and let him censor scientists, but I do think NASA scientists should only release findings and articles in a scientifically worded articles. This James Hansen does seem to be one of the sorts of scientists that aren't good for NASA or science in general himself. There are credible scientists who do not believe the "Greenhouse Effect" is the only contributor to our current warming trend or some who are skeptical is even the primary contributor. The greenhouse effect only explains a warming trends that happens when our planet has a relatively constant amount of energy to absorb from the sun and other cosmic energy sources. Many scientists believe the energy getting shot at our planet varies considerably with increases and decreases in solar activity. This article ( http://upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20060207 -041447-2345r ) discusses the predictions of one russian scientist that believes a mini ice age may start in the next few decades. As far as I am concerned any global temperture trend theories are at best weak theories. There are far to many factors influencing global temperatures to predict what direction they will go in anything other than the very near future. If you talk to someone who studies dinasours he will be quite confident the earth was much warmer in their time than ours, yet we were not there to produce any greenhouse gasses to make that happen?? Were he dinasours farting to much?? Anyhow my primary point is that I think even the most brilliant scientists with the most sophistocated computer models sometimes get tunnel vision and can lead us off path. Always be skeptical.

And what do you know of the subject?
A quick look at the Annual Report of GlaxoSmithKline (Cenerex is a division of) shows a total R&D budget for the entire organization of 2.8 billion. Current estimates are $1 billion per week in Iraq. So yeah I think my original estimation seems close (perhaps even an underestimate given that most of the research was done at BYU, not in the Cenerex labs)

The missile defense system, which has not staged any intercept tests for almost a year following two failures, has faced criticism from some lawmakers and government watchdogs, who worry the system has not been adequately tested.

  Lehner said the agency planned four tests of the system this year, including two intercept tests in the second half of 2006, fulfilling another recommendation in the new Pentagon report.

The report said the battle management system was "making progress, but has not yet demonstrated engagement control."

The missile defense system, which has not staged any intercept tests for almost a year following two failures, has faced criticism from some lawmakers and government watchdogs, who worry the system has not been adequately tested.

  Lehner said the agency planned four tests of the system this year, including two intercept tests in the second half of 2006, fulfilling another recommendation in the new Pentagon report.

The report said the battle management system was "making progress, but has not yet demonstrated engagement control."

You may want to check your own current events. The article you link is from December 2004. There have been succesful tests since then.
http://www.upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?Stor yID=20051230-105253-7742r

...if it weren't for stuff like this:

http://upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20060125 -125458-3247r ...and this:

http://www.cleveland.com/ohio/plaindealer/index.ss f?/base/news/113774992055330.xml&coll=2 ...and this:

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/w/whoops.asp

Come on folks, look at the people in the offices you work in. Do you really think that workers and executives at nuclear power companies are any different? No, they aren't. Do you want a responsibility like that in the hands of a PHB?

Wind is closing in on nuclear -- it costs just about the same to install. Use that for peak load, adding solar as it becomes more economical. Develop tidal/wave and geothermal for baseload. At least that way the worst thing that's going to happen when a doofus takes hold of the wheel is a few chemical explosions and maybe some high-velocity icicles.

He's probably too busy killing kittens to care

"Einstein, who had a wardrobe full of identical clothing and saw nothing wrong with smoking cigarette butts collected off the street.

Is that true? Somehow i cant see Einstein doing that. I guess if he was REALLY cheap, but most people that i know who smoke would never pick butts off the ground, even if they were broke. (they'd just bum one but thats not really the point)

Anyways thats the first i ever heard of this. Anyone can confirm this very interesing anecdote?

Well i just decided to google for it and it aparently is true.
"Bernhard Caesar Einstein said in the letter written in 1998 that his grandfather collected the cigarette butts to circumvent his doctor's orders to stop smoking, reported the Sunday Telegraph."

and thats the end of that mystery.*dusts hands*

Take the research that's been done to create a virus that causes sterility. Make it airborne or easily transmissible. The vast majority of the world's population would likely be rendered sterile.

Since the virus stimulates the woman's immune system to attack their own eggs, most in vivo fertilization techniques would fail. All faithful Catholics would be unable to reproduce. All countries without access to expensive technology would be unable to reproduce. The world's population would dramatically age and then plummet.

Freaks me out just posting it here.

Has the Bush administration actually invoked FISA as their legal basis? If so, I missed it. And, from what I've heard, it wouldn't fit. AFAIK, FISA requires either a warrant or only monitoring where no US person is likely to be involved (see Q18 in the EFF writeup).

Carter and Clinton both issued executive orders authorizing FISA monitoring, but specifically quoted FISA regulations to be followed. I haven't seen a similar order from Bush, and even according to legendary conservative Rush Limbaugh, the FISA courts were bypassed. Limbaugh's take on it was that the unprecedented denials and modifications of Bush's FISA requests forced him to go around the process.

In short, the President is not asserting legal authority under FISA. According to the Attorney General, his authority hinges (PDF) on his "inherent authority" as Commander-In-Chief, and Congress's Use of Force Resolution.

Of course, in my strict interpretation, I missed the part of the Presidential Oath, Constitution or the above resolution that grants him any power over surveillance. And, according to Daschle (partisan to be sure, but you'd think records of this kind of stuff would be easily checked), Congress specifically rejected the administration's request for having the resolution cover actions in the US.

Our basic rights that used to be protected by the Bill of Rights lost that protection decades ago. What's new? We still have those basic rights, government just ignored their restrictions on trampling those rights. It doesn't stop me from expressing them, I just have to be a little more careful.

I'm against government is every form, but I say to hell with it. Let them spy. The bigger and more intrusive government gets, the more people will flock to the underground economy and the more bloat and red tape will be created that will make the new intrusions pretty useless. Because the CIA and the FBI and the NSA are already off limits, they might be spying already and we have no idea. They just want to make it legit, in a country with the largest percentage of citizens in prison.

With another Congressman getting caught (taking bribes this time), the problem with our government isn't the CIA or the FBI or the War on Iraq or any of the usual suspects. The real problem we face today is the abuse of power that ALL government officers perform at every level of government. Do you really think the morons at the DMV don't abuse their power? Do you think the local cop doesn't? Do you think your zoning board doesn't abuse their power? Why would you think otherwise?

Government is one thing: a cabal with the unique monopoly on using force against anyone they please. Why keep voting for more thieves and murderers when you can do the right thing: stop voting, start finding alternate sources of income.

For those fearing chaotic nihilism from a complete lack of government: most minarchists, libertarians and even some anarchocapitalists such as myself are not adverse to very small governments at the city level. Want to live as a socialist? Find 30,000 other socialists and form a local government completely seperate from those outside of your town.

I do have a great solution to the abuse of power: unanimous majority voting. Don't pass any law without a completely unanimous voting group. If you can't get EVERY U.S. voter to vote YES for a law, try to get every Illinoisan to vote. If you can't get EVERY Illinois voter to vote YES for that law, try to get every Chicagoan. If that doesn't work, drop down to the district/precinct level. If that doesn't work, try to get everyone on your city block to vote YES. If you can't get a unanimous voting bloc there, guess what? You're witnessing the fraud of democracy. Anyone who votes in the next national election basically accepts all the atrocities the previous politicians enacted.

One large, overlooked factor in global warming: tropical forest fires

carbon dioxide (CO2) released was "equivalent to 13 to 40 percent of the mean annual global carbon emissions from fossil fuels, and contributed greatly to the largest annual increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration detected since records began in 1957."

Tropical forest fires worrisome

"The one thing we've learned is that fires are more important ... than we thought to the amount of greenhouse gases," staff scientist G. James Collatz of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., told United Press International. If so, this factor raises important questions about future trends in climate change and in the role of the tropics, either as a sink or a source of atmospheric carbon dioxide, he said.

Are Wildland Fires Fueling the Greenhouse?

Wildland fires are taking tons of carbon out of storage and feeding it into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide, a primary greenhouse gas.

The single-warhead RS-12M Topol has a range of 6,900 miles. The Topol carries on-board steering rockets that allow it to make evasive maneuvers in flight on the way to its target, meaning it can evade any terminal phase interceptors.

The warhead is shielded against radiation, electromagnetic interference and physical disturbance, and designed to be able to withstand nuclear blasts as close as a third of a mile away.