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Even if you suspect that no one values the lives of the pilots just for the humanity of it there are practical reasons to be worried about killing astronauts:

1. It would create significant negative press for NASA which could jeopardize future funding.
2. It is more expensive than you might expect to train astronauts. I don't know actual figures but this article suggests millions of dollars of training each which is what I would expect considering similarly high costs of training fighter pilots.

The article is silly with its anti-Microsoft, anti-DRM rhetoric without even considering that there wouldn't even be online music sales without some kind of promise of secure DRM.

Keeping out of the politics of DRM and MS-- (IMHO) the only reason why there are 'online music sales' is because the RIAA is/was threatened by 'illegal' file trading. Illegal music trading (ala Napster, gnutella, etc.) is what I see as this shift to people accepting digitally delivered music in place of a physical cd-- a choice that is now SAVING the record labels millions. Reading their press releases, http://www.riaa.com/news/guestcolumns/milescopelan d.asp, they say CD's are not overpriced because it costs 'so much to make'. How much does it cost them when all THEY need to do is release it into public via Apple's Musicstore, (The New) Napster, Musicmatch, etc.

On a side-point, whats the difference if DRM works or doesn't when everyone is using Apple's iPod http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/gear/2006-09 -06-ipod-rivals_x.htm, which uses AAC.

As far as AAC vs OGG vs. MP3, See http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/04/29/115420 4&mode=thread.

The zinc mine claim is bogus. Quoting from a correction published in USA Today:

In a column that appeared Aug. 10 on the Forum Page, writer Peter Schweizer inaccurately stated that former vice president Al Gore receives royalties from a zinc mine on his property in Tennessee despite his environmental advocacy. He no longer does, as the mine was closed in 2003.

(I doubt that WingNutDaily published a similar correction). Regarding your other claims, can I recommend you read this page on DailyKos? Certainly, this is not an impartial article, but it does provide citations to back up its claims.

I look forward to hearing your response. I close with a further quote, from the DailyKos page:

Gore does in fact take advantage of the green power options his utility offers, and was in the process of adding photovoltaic solar cells to his house when the article came out.

Sure thing. the zinc mine is well known and very verifiable--google "al gore zinc mine"

for the others, let's google "al gore green energy" ... we get a couple nice links:

USA Today (same article was rn elsewhere as well)
Worldned daily

and many others.

I tried to find you an online source but failed.

This story, and other stories mentioning recyled waste being shipped abroad, has been in all the major UK newspapers this week. The parent poster is telling no lies.
 

These links talk about that. They mostly talk about waste coming from the US, but I imagine what's piling up in the 3rd world is coming from everywhere.

http://multinationalmonitor.org/hyper/issues/1992/ 06/mm0692_10.html Plastics: Trashing the Third World
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2002/02/25/compu ter-waste.htm Much toxic computer waste lands in Third World

There is a whole genre of people that marketers call "gold-collar." They have jobs that are neither blue nor white collar, generally fast food or mall type jobs. These people spend Hundreds on a purse. They are more or less people who make very little money but buy expensive luxury goods. It seems odd, but they are very real...
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/arizonali ving/articles/0727goldcollar.html
http://www.usatoday.com/life/lifestyle/2005-06-08- gold-collar_x.htm?csp=N009
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold-collar_worker
Um and one other thing- say it with me- CREDIT CARDS
Intelligent people think something that costs $600 costs, well, $600. A ton of people think $600 costs an extra $2 on their minimum monthly payment on their Capital One card... Money is not an issue to a lot of people, as long as they can charge it...

. So why, then, didn't Gore dump his family's large stock holdings in Occidental (Oxy) Petroleum? As executor of his family's trust, over the years Gore has controlled hundreds of thousands of dollars in Oxy stock. Oxy has been mired in controversy over oil drilling in ecologically sensitive areas.

Living carbon-neutral apparently doesn't mean living oil-stock free. Nor does it necessarily mean giving up a mining royalty either.

Humanity might be "sitting on a ticking time bomb," but Gore's home in Carthage is sitting on a zinc mine. Gore receives $20,000 a year in royalties from Pasminco Zinc, which operates a zinc concession on his property. Tennessee has cited the company for adding large quantities of barium, iron and zinc to the nearby Caney Fork River.

The issue here is not simply Gore's hypocrisy; it's a question of credibility. If he genuinely believes the apocalyptic vision he has put forth and calls for radical changes in the way other people live, why hasn't he made any radical change in his life?

On the other hand, Bush has destroyed a huge budget surplus and left trillions in debt to my kids.

Actually, that's false. USA Today revealed that Clinton's 'surplus' was really a $484 billion deficit. The print version included a chart (which I cannot find) showing that Bush's deficits are actually better than Clinton's.

while health spending accounts and direct negotiating drive prices downward

Again, another misunderstanding you have - The national debt is a credit line extended to US corporations backed by the rest of the world.

Here is a recent USA Today article that talks about something similar to what you're referring to. Free textbooks aren't hypothetical, they already exist. A sugar-daddy philanthropist isn't required; professors are already doing it for the same reason they've always written textbooks. (Hint: they've never expected to make any significant amount of money on the typical textbook.) Some good starting points:

• theassayer.org
• textbookrevolution.org

The real problem is that Iran is not letting international inspectors see their installations. Remember what happened to Iraq in a similar case?

Actually no, I don't remember any similar case in Iraq.

In January and February 2003, Iraq was cooperating with UN inspectors. UN inspections were not stopped by Iraq, they were stopped because the Bush Administration wanted to go to war, which they did in March 2003.

Then again, somebody's gotta clean the CEO's toilets. There aren't enough Liberal Arts majors in one country alone to do that.

'Course, there's a decent chance that the CEO whose toilet needs sanitizing was a liberal arts major him or herself. A couple of examples from the article: Michael Eisner of Disney (English and theater), Carly Fiorina of HP (medieval history and philosophy).

That's a good question. A company that produces faulty machines with all sorts of blunders and glitches in the past and present - since this is a free market surely market pressure should eradicate this company. Yet it seems the government that should look into such irregularities (especially since free market is (supposed to be) one of the pillars of the GOP) apparently has no interest in doing so.. Could it be because Diebold not only supported the Bush campaign financially, but not only had the ability, but also the intention to to deliver the victory to their crony buddies? - Noo, that would be too outlandish and could never happen; the vigilant public would easily find out about it.

The Romans had a saying: Bis peccare in bello non licet. To blunder twice is not allowed in war. Thank god big business isn't warfare or after all these blunders heads would be a'rollin (and piling up).

As we all now that car rental companies have used GPS to fine renters of speeding.

This happened in Hawaii as well as I was down there in 2001 and had to acknowledge that I would get fined if I sped.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2001-07-03-car-t racking.htm

http://www.newmassmedia.com/nac.phtml?code=new&db= nac_fea&ref=16435

Are we so Backwards in Europe? Now there's a thought

Hey, your post sounds very knowledgable and whatnot... as if you're involved in the process, and have an inside info about how the NSA operates... but you missed something.

Qwest DID refuse to cooperate, because they thought it was illegal. Nobody was arrested. The NSA never got data on Qwest's customers.

Empirical evidence is a bitch when you're trying to win mod points with a fancy speech, now isn't it?

Why again is it illegal to shoot lawyers on sight?

Is it illegal? Dick Cheney did it when his popularity was down, and got away with it.

Bruce Schneier, the dean of crypto and security processes generally, yesterday debunked this plot as "implausible".

A British diplomat (to Uzbekistan, an actual center of the Qaeda War) warns us to be skeptical of the plot. Especially its timing, which was premature for destroying a possible network, but right on time to steal headlines from a primary defeat from a leading neocon that drew defensive scare propaganda from Bush and Cheney even though it's a Democratic primary.

As we see more and more of our Republican government terrorizing us on their campaign schedule, we have more chances to turn against them, and fight our own war against terror ourselves, in our own minds and at the polls. We can replace anyone in the House of Representatives and 1/3 of the Senate.

One of the largest drains on IT school budgets is the cost of licenses. From the article it appears they are focused not on "wow we use Linux" but we can put laptops in the hand of the students for substantially reduced cost.

A much less predictable cost is license management. Back in 2002 Microsoft came up with a new lisensing scheme that would have billed each school on a per machine basis whether it ran Microsoft software or not. Carrot: lower cost. Stick: a threat to demand an audit right around final exam time wich would have forced the schools to put everything else on the back burner and dedicate resources toward counting licenses and determining what machines ran what software. Anyone suppose those TCO studdies include the cost of an audit?

I'm getting sick of the "We went to war because of WMD // George Bush lied" rational for the war. WMDs were, granted, a small part of our involvment, but the causes of the war were MUCH more complex than the threat of the presence of WMD.

No one is going argue that WMD were the only reason that Bush wanted to invade - but it is indisputable that the threat of WMD was the way they chose to sell the war to the American public. So, really, I don't care if you're sick of it or not, there needs to be accountability for starting a war on false pretenses.

That said, the whole thing is still a bungled mess thanks to the lack of strategy on behalf of the DoD.

Where does that buck stop again?

PS - If you honestly believe that humanitarian concern for Iraqis was a high priority in Bush's mind... wow. I have no words.

I guess the big bad mans are just "misunderstood".

This makes no sense. Forged documents wouldn't help them at all, and could (as it turns out, did) hurt them a lot.

Nothing in the memos was new, it had (as you point out) all been in the news for years.

Now I'd be the first to admit that there are some dim bulbs in the Democratic leadership, but your theory requires them to be clever and stupid at the same time. The Rove theory only require that the perpetrators be clever.

Please produce a citation to support this. Find me one example where Bush denied the actual claims (and not some plausible sounding non-denial). For that matter, if he was so trying so hard to prove that he had fulfilled his obligation, why couldn't he scrape up anybody that remembered seeing him on base?

Presumably, "fascism" could describe one sort of (hypothetical?) Islamic state, perhaps theoretically the one envisioned by these terrorists.

"Data" is not the plural of "anecdote". Some of the things the submitter was talking about are obviously personal observations, but he was probably referring to stuff like decreasing legroom.

Apparently, the statistics for lost/stolen luggage is about 2%. Doesn't sound like much, but consider that this means that on a flight of a hundred people, two will probably have their luggage lost. Also, this means that you will likely have your luggage lost or stolen once every fifty times you fly... not an issue for me, but my dad travels frequently on business.

Looks like you're right about the prices being lower than in a while, though, according to this. I wouldn't know; I haven't flown in a while.

It's the security thing that's most worrisome to me, though. From what I heard in the other thread, people weren't allowed carry-ons, laptops or other electronics, even books. Considering other changes in aviation security in the past (metal detectors, shoes, explosive sniffers) this may become the norm rather than a temporary measure. I don't know about everyone else here, but to me a six-hour flight (hell, even a two-hour flight) would be intolerable without some of those distractions. I'd rather take the train, but this obviously isn't an option for going to Europe.

Head over to JFK Int'l Airport

1. stack-based computers -> register-based computers -> stack-based computers

2. virtual machine monitor -> operating system (e.g., MS-DOS, Unix, and Windows) directly on top of the hardware -> virtual machine monitor

3. dumb terminal -> personal computer -> thin client

4. Al Capone's favorite car -> Chrysler LeBaron -> PT Cruiser

5. 1967 Camaro with aggressive, muscular form -> 1982 Camaro with slick, crack-cocaine form -> 2009 Camaro with aggressive, muscular form

6. 1960's "Mission Impossible" -> lots of boring TV-series/theater-movies -> 1990's "Mission Impossible"

7. 1960's "Bewitched" -> lots of boring TV-series/theater-movies -> 2000's "Bewitched"

8. 1970's "Brady Bunch" -> lots of boring TV-series/theater-movies -> 1990's "Brady Bunch"

In art, what goes around comes around. Note that I said, "computer architecture", not "computer science". Computer science is real science. Computer architecture is not. It is art. Just see the 8 items in the above list.

Don't be so sure. The current administration seems very intent on regulating the sex lives of Americans. From Ashcroft's covering up the bare-breasted statue of Justice in the Justice Dept.'s lobby, to Republican senators that openly endorse the enforcement of sodomy laws, saying "if the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything."

That quote is NOT out of context.

On a side note - thank christ for the reduced on board luggage rules. Why the hell does anyone need more than their book & a passport anyway?

Because there is an increasingly good chance than the airlines will lose your luggage, sometimes never finding it.

Finkployd

The government of the USA has already shown a proclivity towards watching its citizens. To be fair, this phenomenon isn't limited to the USA, but Bush has taken it to new levels.

We now know that the government secretly had printer manufacturers embed hidden ID codes on printer's output, thereby removing any possibility of anonymous document creation.

I wouldn't be surprised if some enterprising Bush-ite didn't see the possibility here of having *every* keyboard manufactured with some form of this technology embedded. Imagine if the government could tell what you were typing just by listening to your traffic.

Think of the terrorists we could stop! Think of the children!

Why in the world would the "oil companies" give a rat's ass about "man made" global warming in the first place? Demand is not going to go down, supply is limited cuz the tree huggers won't let them drill in new areas, so they are going to make the huge profit regardless on what "scam of the year" folks are believing in.

The worry the oil companies have about global warming is that people will wake up and try to do something about it, which will decrease demand as the best way to put a stop to global warming is to stop burning fossil fuels and replace them with renewable carbon fuels like biofuels or non-carbon fuels like hydrogen from non-fossil power plants. That would reduce the world oil demand to nothing but fertilizers, plastics, pharmaceuticals, and other petro-chemicals.

You'd have to completely be out of touch with everything that climate scientists have been saying to miss something like that. Oh, wait...

The only people scared they are going to LOSE money is those bellying up to the government teet for research on global warming. If the public finds out it's junk science made up to scare them into pushing for even more bigger government that will taxe them more, it's adios to that grant money.

Yeah, cause the great Big Global Warming Scare companies made $10 billion dollar profits in 3Q 2005. Yeah, THAT'S where all the money conspiracies are -- with the Big GW, the Jews, and the Gay Martian Illluminated Masters. I know my climate research friends are rolling in their Bentleys just lighting up the money-wrapped cigars and laughing and laughing at all the panicked people trying to destroy our way of life.

I don't know how prevalent this is overall, but it apparently does actually happen.

Samoan tribal healers getting paid for their help finding an AIDS drug

Wacky. AIDS isn't a disease you'd think to look for in traditional tribal knowledge, but truth is sometimes stranger than fiction.

"To bring a pharmacutical to market costs millions if not BILLIONS in research, experimentation, lobbying, and even FDA fees."

I'm sure they spend a lot of money on research, but I think you do too. As in your tax dollars that go to fund research at universities and government labs. Look at the NIH. That's $28 billion in pure research right there.

But, when I hear comments like the one I quoted above, it sounds to me like you are complaining about the fact that they spent billions in research. I simply cannot stand shit like that. It's like "Oh, the poor, poor pharmaceutical companies. They have it sooo hard. Science won't cut them a break like the government will." Hey, they chose that business, they even make the rules by buying up the congressmen.

I'm not attacking your friend or her work. It's not her fault things like this and this happen.

These pharmaceutical companies are businesses, pure and simple, and they will do whatever they can to whomever they can. If someone, with little money for lawyer fees, makes a new drug that will help tons of people, and goes and gets a patent, do you think the drug companies will allow that patent to stand in the way of their using that drug so they can increase their profits? Or, do you think that they'll send their "legal team" to ensure that they have access to that drug.

"A Inventor comes up with a great idea, spends 10 years perfecting it, and now .. with no patent system .. big corporation with limitless pockets starts producing his idea and making even more to line the limitless pockets. Explain to me how even the current patent system hurts the inventor."

Well, in the current patent system, that "big corporation with limitless pockets" would start producing his idea anyway. This is because they have lawyers that would eat that inventor alive when he tried to sue. The patent system only works if you have the lawyers to defend your patent.

"To advocate 'anarchy' is a fools dream. People need laws and rules to form a society, and society is what stops most folks from knifing their neighbor, or .. selling him into slavery to the first spanish boat that came along because you wanted his cattle."

Anarchy doesn't work, but neither does having all of the laws made by people with enough money to buy congressmen. They both end up at the same place: all of the power in the hands of relatively few people.

Nasa is such a lost cause right now. Anytime they say anything, it is "we dont have enough money".

And a huge chunk of NASA's budget is spent on pork bullshit. They don't have the fucking money, period. And if you believe the "moon then mars" crap our president spewed recently then you are a complete fucktard. Wait for your hydrogen powered flying car and we'll talk...

My guess is that for 99% of the children in these countries, the laptops will be totally useless, because what those kids really need is food, a clean source of water, and (especially for the girls) a chance to go to school and become literate.

My guess is that for 99% of the children in these countries, the laptops will be totally useless, because what those kids really need is food, a clean source of water, and (especially for the girls) a chance to go to school and become literate.

The topic author points out $3 billion in "pet projects" -- many of which are a waste, but also many of which are valuable. Not that the budget should have itemized spending like this -- it is just absurd to say that pork of $3 billion in a year is the problem.

The problem is the nearly $5 billion per month (USA Today article with the numbers here) being spent in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Even if you think the wars are legitimate, logic dictates that this huge cost is the reason why our deficit is going up, and why programs are being shortchanged.

Apparently you forgot there was no armed insurgency in post-war Japan during American occupation

If you meant to link to the Wikipedia article, you missed the mark pretty badly by linking back to TFA.

Actually, the picture provided in the article is a bit out of focus and lacks some details:
http://images.usatoday.com/tech/_photos/2006/07/27 /subaru-large.jpg

Here's a higher resolution picture that includes the missing pieces:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Flying_Spaghett i_Monster.jpg

In fact, they should have called up a volunteer from the audience... preferably a member of the press so you'd know it wasn't a confederate

40 years ago, Gene Roddenberry, the creator of "Star Trek", already predicted the eventual discovery of space amoeba. Check out the episode (from "Star Trek: The Original Series") titled "The Immunity Syndrome." According to the synopsis by Wikipedia, "The huge expenditure of ship's energy attracts what appears to be an 11,000-mile (~17 700 km) wide amoeba, which appears on the main screen. Kirk launches another sensor probe which reveals the creature is protoplasmic in nature. McCoy believes it is a massive single-celled entity that feeds off raw energy but he needs more data to confirm this."

40 years ago, Gene Roddenberry, the creator of "Star Trek", already predicted the eventual discovery of space amoeba. Check out the episode (from "Star Trek: The Original Series") titled "The Immunity Syndrome." According to the synopsis by Wikipedia, "The huge expenditure of ship's energy attracts what appears to be an 11,000-mile (~17 700 km) wide amoeba, which appears on the main screen. Kirk launches another sensor probe which reveals the creature is protoplasmic in nature. McCoy believes it is a massive single-celled entity that feeds off raw energy but he needs more data to confirm this."

Thank you for defending what I believe to be a horribly distorted view of this country. A lot of people come from areas that aren't well off and assume the whole country is that way. Quite obviously the situation is not near as bleak as a lot of people say. The only part I disagree with is the average American is making less money now. The American economy even while depressed still outperforms every other economy on earth. That's not to say that it couldn't change of course.

I'll leave you with the following link to illustrate what I am saying in regard to average income. Link here:

The decline in salary is also coupled with higher gas and electric prices as well as increased prices on the cost of food. There is a serious problem here but nothing we can't solve with the natural selection process which has successfully guided this country for more than 200 years now.

I'd like to add that I too am starting up a business of my own as my current work environment leaves a lot to be desired.

I was reading Gameinformer magazine and they talked about how video games introduced into prisons has actually helped decrease "unruly incidents" in Oregon's penal system.

It was Sen. Orrin Hatch (R) Utah. Here's a sample article

I probably shouldn't be so hard on Orrin. Technically, he is a musician.

Yes, because Real Estate Will Go Up Forever.

Sure, over time, things will tend to go up. That being said, in many areas, gains of 30% or more happened over the past year - that's simply not sustainable. In many of those places, builders have built huge amounts of homes - far more than the market can support.

In Phoenix, for example, sales are at record lows for this time of year (sales to inventory ratios - even without seasonal adjustments), and inventories are at the highest levels ever. Builders are literally walking away from developments, and large numbers of apartments that were converted to condos last year are being converted back to apartment. Selling prices (not asking prices) are way down from last year, and even Realtor.com is admitting that to sell your home, you have to be willing to cut a deal.

It's going to be a great time to _buy_ soon, but don't plan on flipping the house for a quick buck any time soon. If you wait long enough, you will make a profit (or die, in which chase it doesn't really matter).

This is a massive collection of data being analyzed from many different perspectives looking for social networks. These social networks can be scored to identify the likelihood of someone having a connection to a terrorist.

The technology is fascinating and can be used to save lives. This may be one of the greatest law enforcement innovations of the decade. It is too bad the media is spinning this as an invasion of our privacy.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10 -nsa_x.htm

"It's the largest database ever assembled in the world," said one person, who, like the others who agreed to talk about the NSA's activities, declined to be identified by name or affiliation. The agency's goal is "to create a database of every call ever made" within the nation's borders, this person added.

The data are used for "social network analysis," the official said, meaning to study how terrorist networks contact each other and how they are tied together.

As the previous posting mentioned, this is not a wire tap, in the sense of someone listening in on your conversation. It is simply a tool used to help identify potential threats and to zero in on a target.

Is this the only tool used? No.

Quite frankly, if this system saved only one innocent life from being bombed or gassed, then it was well worth the price of admission.

I am more concerned about the gossiping wife of the local democratic precinct committeemen at the DMV who has unrestricted access to motor vehicle records (and who knows what else).

Or maybe the police dispatcher who runs background checks on eligible men for her Thursday night bowling league team mates.

remember you do live in a country where 97% of the population associates with one of the major religions

No, we can just keep dumping them in the third world.

Why not? Bush attends church, though not very regularly. He holds many of the same hypocrises that Christians do (e.g. "believe in freedom of and freedom from religion, while imposing the code of our religion domestically through the law"). He holds the same illogical belief in an unproveable, invisible friend that Christians do (and as do practitioners of any religion (Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, athieism, etc.). I don't discriminate; I hate all religions, though with varying levels of disgust, depending on which one is responsible for the brainwashing and/or murder of more people in a given week).

Moreover, Christians generally love Bush because he does things that align well with their moral code: attempts to ban homosexual marriage, stem-cell research, and taxpayer-funded faith-based initiatives being the main examples.

Moreover, look at the voting patterns of church-goers vs. non-church-goers. People who go to church prefer conservative Republicans at the ballot box - like Bush.

IMO, Christians must be demonized almost as much as President Bush, because they have been his greatest supporters in elections. More than anybody else, they are responsible for putting this ignoramus in office. "So as ye sow, so shall ye reap."

Bush is a Christian, albeit a weak one; Christians elected Bush, and now Bush represents the Christians, working as a torch-bearer for their causes, having elected him into office.

Unfortunately, Christians, like all religious people, are goddamn dolts, and when they elect people to represent them, we get similarly-doltish people like President Bush.