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The government has abruptly ended an inquiry into the warrantless eavesdropping program because the National Security Agency refused to grant Justice Department lawyers the necessary security clearance to probe the matter.

The Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility, or OPR, sent a fax to Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., on Wednesday saying they were closing their inquiry because without clearance their lawyers cannot examine Justice lawyers' role in the program.

"We have been unable to make any meaningful progress in our investigation because OPR has been denied security clearances for access to information about the NSA program," OPR counsel H. Marshall Jarrett wrote to Hinchey.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Seigenthaler_Sr. _Wikipedia_biography_controversy#Anonymous_editor_ identified

Much as I loathe admitting this, 'twas Daniel Brandt, not Seigenthaler who tracked Brian Chase down.

And incidentally, Chase resigned before Seigenthaler called his boss. http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2005-12-11-wikip edia-apology_x.htm

(If only /. posts were editable!)

In many localities, you do NOT pay fair market value for those services, you pay what the local government's pricing cap says you pay. This is because most governments DO consider electricity, water, telephone, etc. a 'right', or at least, a necessity of living that should not be subject to the whims of corporate income statements.

The internet has ALREADY been subsidized and is currently being sold to you at a massive profit. There is no need to play corporate whipping boy for companies that give their CEO's $1-$2 million in salary and $2 million+ in bonuses.

In the case of the internet, in alot of ways it IS becoming a necessity, and should be regarded with the same protective gaze that electricity, water, and gas are. But the case for its protection is stronger than that: it is the greatest medium in history for the dissemination of information and the way to give voice to millions who were once forced to go unheard.

I do not think such an important responsibility should be left in the hands of those who have the power to silence the world if they feel their profits are not where they should be.

I doubt you would hear a bullet hit the plane while inside. The engines are extremely noisy and the whole plane is shaking. The first sign would probably be either the pilots noticing a loss of fuel, or an engine going out (not terribly uncommon even without terrorists - birds are far more dangerous to engines). The passengers would never know, and the pilots are trained to deal with both fuel leaks and loss of engines. Fuel leaks and engines failures already happen - terrorists adding a few more won't make a difference.

Besides, even when planes do lose and engine, they continue to fly 11 hours anyways.

If a bullet hit the wing, nobody would know or care until the next ground inspection.

What about the cabin? There was even a show on Mythbusters where they showed that a bullet hole through the cabin wall would do just about nothing. No explosive decompression, no people being sucked out through a tiny hole - just a whistling sound where the hole is. They actually pressurized a plane and then shot it with a bullet, pretty neat.

Or do they plan to get the numbers directly from the cell providers?

Well, towns will give you land just for living there so I don't see what your issue is... just that he's publicizing it? That he thought of it before you did? What exactly IS your issue with this guy?

I'm sorry you misunderstood me.

Please do not preach in this forum.

I have expressed no feelings about God, only about fellow humans who use religion as a means to control; this happens mostly through words intended to cause guilty feelings in the recipient, like "righteous judge". I never said I felt guilty, only that "guilt works, when used properly." I remained ambiguous as to whether you were using it properly.

Please do not preach in this forum.

You're adding no value to the discussion of the question "How can the human race survive the next hundred years?" Religion is not the answer, and in fact is likely to get us all killed as the US is becoming a theocracy (and has nukes, lots of 'em, and is building more).

Please do not preach in this forum.

(flamebait)
. . . . that rising ocean levels will wipe out the majority of Louisiana. Hopefully, the majority of these politicos & bible bangers will remain on the coast to pray against the next category 5 hurricane. To bad we have to lose Nawlins (great town), but after all, gotta break a few eggs (free speech? free market? freedom of expression? sane lawmaking?) to make an omlet (bans on harsh video games, ridiculous abortion laws that are unconstitutional before they are signed into law, an apalling tax structure, and the most evil police force in the 50 states.)

Good fucking riddance. You're not welcome any where else, either, because on the whole (and I'm guessing the people responsible for the idiotic law making are the following demographic) you are lazy, stupid, and abuse your children, financially and developmentally.
(/flamebait)
I understand I'm generalizing, but, statistically, I've found that good old Louisiana's "stupid motherfucker quotient" is higher than just about anywhere else in the world.

So you still don't accept the facts that Ken Lay did not "build Enron from nothing"? Well I guess your ignorance wins. We should inform everyone else how wrong they are.

Oh look, reference.com thinks Northern Natural Gas, one of the two companies that merged to form Enron, was formed in the 1930's... well, maybe Ken Lay had that "time travel" thing down http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Enron_Corpora tion

They think he became CEO the year after Enron was formed http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/infrastructure/powe r/enron_time.html

Man, maybe I would expect it from some "reference.com" place and from the hippie PBS, but not from you USA Today... you've changed http://www.usatoday.com/money/energy/2001-11-28-en ron-chronology.htm

Answers.com has always been b.s. so it's no wonder they're in on the lies too http://www.answers.com/topic/kenneth-lay

The U.S., although not a signatory to the formal ban, doesn't use AP mines in combat (with the exception of on the Korean peninsula).

Another exception is Iraq: "anti-personnel land mines in a war with Iraq". Iran may become another exception. And Syria. And...

It's also nice to know that the US didn't sign it because most of those mines are made (and invented/improved) in the USA. According to Human Rights Watch, between 1969 and 1992, the country was responsible for exporting at least 4.4 million landmines to 32 or more countries. US landmines have reportedly been used in Angola, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Somalia and Zambia.

The USA is also among the greatest stockpilers (4th in row) of landmines.

For those who say/think that the US doesn't use landmines: http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2002-12-10-land mines-usat_x.htm => quote: The Pentagon is preparing to use anti-personnel land mines in a war with Iraq

For the USA it would be too much of an economic problem (for some people related to both Clinton and Bush) to ban landmines. Landmines are good for nothing. They are easy to deploy and cheap but hard and expensive to clean up and it is often not done properly or at all leaving a lot of innocent casualities long after. They are mainly used in the psychology of battle. A mine is not made to kill someone, it is made to disable soldiers and dishearten the rest of them that see it happening.

off article, but on topic...

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-06-30 -nsa_x.htm

just look at some of the gems in there:

"It's difficult to say you're covering all terrorist activity in the United States if you don't have all the (phone) numbers," Chambliss said. "It probably would be better to have records of every telephone company."

That's Saxby Chambliss.

Or how about the one, the only Ted Stevens:

"It was not cross-city calls. It was not mom-and-pop calls," said Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, who receives briefings as chairman of the Senate Appropriations Defense subcommittee. "It was long-distance. It was targeted on (geographic) areas of interest, places to which calls were believed to have come from al-Qaeda affiliates and from which calls were made to al-Qaeda affiliates."

This man is three heart beats away from being president

Thanks, Ted. You've just revealed "national security" secrets.


i think this article shows who the real terrorists are...not bush (although he is incompetent)...

it's congress. they're the reason why those people hate us. they're the people who are selling out our rights to bush's agenda. they're the people who voted us into war with iraq. they're the people giving themselves a pay raise while not increasing the minimum wage. they're the people selling out to the corporations. they're the people debating a "flag burning amendment", gay marriage, terry schiavo, steroids. it's not bush's fault congress has no morals and does whatever he says.

China? A country with mobile death vans? I think the ability to write OSS would be the least of my concerns. So no; it's not worth it to move to China for me.

In Africa, they're using cellphones for personal banking, which is a pretty good way to move money without the hassle of checks an credit cards. I'm not sure I like this 30 cent fee, given that most parking isn't all that expensive.

Wouldn't it make more sense to arrest people if and when they actually harm a child?

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/2004-08-31-top-ten- number-7_x.htm
College athletics generates a lot more money than what the scholarships cost.
Just think about that when talking about the 'free money' athletes are getting.
Not only do these athletes get to provide millions in revenue to everybody but
themselves, but they get this kind of condescension from the beneficiaries of
this largess. I agree that college sports is a waste of scholarship money, but
schools just don't get million dollar contracts to put the chess team on ESPN.

Yeah, this article is pretty misleading, containing a handful of anecdotes while there are millions of homeless people worldwide, and hundreds of thousands in the US (one count is at over 700,000. I find it hard to believe that the majority of those people have email addresses that they use on a regular basis to improve their lives to any significant degree. I find it hard to believe that the majority of them have laptops or use their cell phones to browse the web. The article repeatedly uses the word "many", but doesn't tell us what numbers they mean by "many".

US tops world in school spending.

What the parent was trying to say, and what was disregarded so lightly by yourself, is that attitudes like selfishness are possibly, indeed even likely, culturally relative. I would argue even that they are not just culturally but individually relative. Though I do not disagree that there may be an urge to satisfy ones own needs (a toddler will wine when it is hungry etc.), there is also an urge for altruism. Psychologists have found that toddlers will try to help others if they know that the person is having trouble. http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/discoveries/2 006-03-02-toddler-altruism_x.htm This would indicate competing values, and it is up to the experience of the individual, (largely determined by the culture they grow up in,) and perhaps their genetic makeup to determine which of these values is nurtured to become dominant.

Coral reefs have been around for 225 million years. Now most of them are dead because they can't stand the heat and pollution. How much more proof do you need?" show me proof that "most" of them are dead. Don't get me wrong, I'm concerned about it- I've participated in environmentalist events, I parked my car for good a while back and now just use public transportation, etc.... but I was a marine biology major in college, and coral bleaching is not as big an issue as greenpeace makes it sound. How much more proof do I need? how about some proof to start with.

1. Develop a reliable model of Earth's climate (completely untestable on a small scale, BTW, due to all the variables involved, and the emergent properties of atmosphere on a global scale that are not fully understood), change everything about the way every major industry (and many individuals) use energy and deal with the waste, or
2. Use our precise knowledge of newtonian physics and relativity, and existing space technologies, to make some minor adjustments to the orbits of 3-4 objects.

I think option #2 has a greater likelyhood of success.

We still need to get some fairly accurate model for Earth climate, but even if it is not entirely accurate, the fix is just to monitor the process, and tweak our orbit-tugging comet(s) if things turn out to be a little "off". This feedback goes back into the model, too.

But it is a pretty radical idea. It's not an original idea, though.

I think we have different points. My main point is I want verifiable facts. Scientists who do not stand up and voice their disagreements are useless, and history has suggested they are also in error (where's my cold fusion and don't even get me started on that Fermat joker). The vast majority of people voicing doubts about global warming are uninformed people who are not aware of all the currently known facts tossing out FUD. The people I have found who offer scientific opposition with a factual basis they are willing to share and defend are listed in that wikipedia article. He's not the only one. In fact, back in 2001, some 18,000 scientists signed a petition against global warming, including some 2,000+ climate scientists. On the other side, less than 50 climate scientists sided with the IPCC 2000 report. This is interesting - could you cite it? Although I can't help but notice that this petition is prior to the last half-decade of intensive study that has only supported global warming and found that opposing theories to not match the observed facts, for example the discovery of the incorrectly tabulated satellite data (lousy source but I don't have time to find the tech journals online - feel free to do so yourself if you're interested in more than a really simple summary of the facts) suddenly made climatic models look significantly better (they were closer to correct than the 'observed' data was). Without the citation, I have no choice but to dismiss the petition you mentioned as at best a false recollection and at worst a lie at some level (which would include if the petition asked scientists something like, "It is a 100% certain fact that man is causing massive global warming, yes or no?"). As an example of what I am looking for, saying that the National Academies of Scientists for the G8 nations plus Brazil, China and India, who comprise far more than 50 climate scientists, support global warming is a fact with citation. I would further say that these Academies contain reputable professionals. I do not have the time to cite the 1,000s of papers detailing facts that support this position, but I trust the thousands of scientists who have. When I heard a climate scientist at a seminar back in college around 2000, he stated that they did not really know what was going on with global warming - could be man caused, could be a natural variation, could be some sort of pervasive observational error (heat islands, atmospheric effects, misinterpretation of secondary data sources like ice cores and geographical sources, etc.). Now, after years of research and collecting facts, he supports the current theory of global warming. Arguing that consensus doesn't mean anything is cute, but I am talking about facts. Gravity, evolution, relativity theory and global warming have quite a consensus because one scientist has not come forward with facts that defeat them. OK, maybe gravity but take pity on my non-physicist education - its part of the reason I tend to believe the massive consensus of reputable professionals in their fields. Particularly when massive dollars from industry and the potential of a Nobel prize tempts the first person to defeat global warming theory with facts rather than spin. And opposing global warming because the climate modeling tools being developed to better understand it are not perfect - I honestly don't know where to begin on that one. The facts, thousands of them, point to global warming. Are you honestly saying we should toss all those facts and the theory developed to explain them based on the un-reviewed, un-researched, and untested opinion of a single person? What is your competing theory that better explains all the research discovered information? If you do not have a theory that is equally well shown to explain all the facts d

will spammers get the death penalty? Think I just found the ultimate ethical delimma for the average slashdotter. Is it good if China executes a spammer, but does so in it's new fleet of mobile lethal injection vans and harvests the organs for sale? When cheering the execution of spammers, which at least half the readership here has been waiting for, can you be sure your celebration is for a real spammer or a political dissident?

Apparently you haven't been on Slashdot too long. There's not much fact here; just entertainment for fanboys of LUNIX...err, Linux and The Simpsons.

If you're looking for facts, turn to USA Today. If you're looking at venting some immature prepubescent frustration, come to Slashdot. You'll be welcomed with open arms.

Having some asshat steal a computer full of data doesn't really happen that often to people who keep their computers locked in an office at their employer's campus.

At the age of 14 it is really hard for most kids to really understand the consequences of a sexual relationship.

According to this article by the age of 15 about 25% of people will have had sex. (It's the nifty table down the page a bit.)

Whether they're ready for it or not doesn't seem to matter if 1 out of 4 of em are doing it.

In my mind it becomes difficult to say why a 14 year old should only be making bad choices with other 14 year olds, or would they be better of with people of other age ranges.

Boarding passes seem easy enough to forge, at least if your goal is just to get past security. If you've flown somewhere, sometime in the past, save an image of the boarding pass. You can change the information on it to suit current conditions (e.g. the correct date, or a flight that's actually flying), and not worry about the machine readable stuff because TSA can't check that anyway.

El-Al security is the only way to be secure.

The letter from Rockefeller to Cheney was news to me on the spy case, so I dug around trying to find a reference.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/20 06-05-17-our-view_x.htm

" Democrats played helpless victims. Once The New York Times revealed the wiretapping program, for instance, Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, said he'd had "concerns" as early as July 2003. His response? He wrote a letter to Vice President Cheney and put a copy in his safe.

Clearly, Rockefeller couldn't shout his objections from the Senate floor, but senators do have leverage to lobby colleagues and push for meetings with the president."

Not much of a vigorous concern raised by Rockefeller. He could not muster up anyone else on the committee to raise concerns? Go to the president? Actually voice his concerns withing the confines of a secure environment? Instead he writes a letter in his journal and locks it in a safe, something that could never be faked after the fact? Crazy. If he had genuine concern at the time he could have actively done something to correct the situation without pushing the bounds of national security.

I don't know if you intentionally left out the part about Rockefeller not actually raising concerns about spying, or maybe you get your news from dailykos (not that USA today is much better).

Ah, you mean the way Maine(since 1972) and Nebraska(1996) do it.

Of course, given the small number of districts, and Nebraska's tendency to vote close to 80% Republican, neither have ever split.

This would likely make a bigger difference in states that have large urban populations as well as rural areas (think Pensylvania, where Pittsburgh and Philly were "blue" and most of the rest of the state was "red" - check out this map.

For all this discussion has focused on the "debate" about global warming, if you think that political interference is limited to environmental science, you're missing a very, very big picture.

Let me start off by saying that scientific advancement is not a left-right issue, and should never be viewed through the narrow prism of party politics. However, the United States has fallen into a (man-made) rut of EVERYTHING being split down partisan lines (even national security, even voting integrity, even scientific research) so that is the playing field we are on, whether we like it or not. Wedge politics infect every issue now.

Under this administration, the religious right has exerted undue influence over decisions ranging from:

• blocking OTC access to emergency contraceptives
• stalling approval of a vaccine for HPV which would prevent cervical cancer
• censoring vital information about sex by imposing abstinence-only education on teens
• forcing doctors by law to peddle phony information about a phony link between abortion and breast cancer

(source article for that list, a must-read)

And without going on a daylong linkhunt, they are passing bad information about condom effectiveness, intimidating non-profit organizations which do not toe the party line on reproductive issues, and denying USAID funds to overseas orgs which even mention abortion, or distribute condoms as part of family planning efforts. (Imagine sending $15B to Africa to fight AIDS without distributing or even even mentioning condoms! Talk about throwing good money away...It's like fighting fires without water, it's that foolish.)

And don't even let's discuss the bi-partisan support for embryonic stem cell research which has been effectively neutered under this administration. Or the medical expertise of Dr. Bill Frist in the case of a braindead woman he never examined, or his patently absurd claim that AIDS may be transmitted via tears and sweat.

Sadly, I could document this sort of war on objective science all day, but I think I've made my point. It infests the policy debate over far more than global warming, and if you think there's no difference between the parties on this, you're sadly, tragically mistaken.

Good news! There is already a place that has been done. Saudi Arabia. So it should be "hate free", right?

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2000/110/24.0. html

Now look at the results of the test:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2002/02/06/saud i.htm

Oops. Nevermind.

In 1924, a teenager in Charlottesville, Virginia, Carrie Buck, was chosen as the first person to be sterilized under the state's newly adopted eugenics law. Ms. Buck, whose mother resided in an asylum for the epileptic and feebleminded, was accused of having a child out of wedlock. She was diagnosed as promiscuous and the probable parent of "socially inadequate offspring."

A lawsuit challenging the sterilisation was filed on Ms. Buck's behalf. Harry Laughlin, having never met Ms. Buck, wrote a deposition condemning her and her 7-month old child, Vivian. Scientists from the ERO attended the trial to testify to Vivian's "backwardness." In the end, the judge ruled in the state's favor.

On appeal, the U.S. Supreme Court in the landmark case Buck v. Bell (1927), ruled 8-1 to uphold the sterilisation of Ms. Buck on the grounds she was a "deficient" mother. Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., an adherent of eugenics, declared "Three generations of imbeciles are enough."

According to University of Virginia historian Paul Lombardo, evidence was later revealed that supports the claim that Carrie Buck's child was not the result of promiscuity; Ms. Buck had been raped by the nephew of her foster parents. School records also indicate her daughter Vivian was a solid student and had made the honor roll at age 7. A year later, Vivian died of an intestinal illness.

Then, the zealots' hobbyhorse was eugenics. Today the politicians keep the people worked up by riding the hobbyhorses of "the war against terrorists" and "homosexual marriage". But Big Government has demonstrated time and time again that there are things with which it cannot be trusted. Our genetic codes are clearly one of those things that Government will eventually misuse. Our only defense is to prevent Government from getting it

What relaxed requirements are you talking about as far as what you listed?

To be certified as organic by the California Certified Organic Farmers, organic animals must eat 100% organic feed, whereas as far as the USDA is concerned, a dairy herd being converted over to organic milk producers may be fed a minimum of 80% organic feed for a portion of the conversion period (which is 1 year). And in general the USDA allows for several classes of labeling scheme that include the word organic. For example, "made with organic ingredients" means that the product is made with >= 70% organic ingredients. (Refs. http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9355830/ http://www.ams.usda.gov/nop/Q&A.html http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2005-06-26-org anic-food-rules_x.htm )

Usually, something has to actually has to be linked to killing a bunch of people for it to be totally banned, not the other way around. Foods like corn syrup has been regarded to be generally safe by the FDA. That does not mean it is the best stuff for everyone to eat, however.

Off-topic. I never mentioned health aspects.

That does not mean it is the best stuff for everyone to eat, however. Why can't the consumer decide what is good or bad for themselves?

While I agree with you, the government hasn't been laissez-faire with this. Under the Foods Uniformity Act(s), the States cannot issue stricter standards regarding warnings on labels than provided for by the federal government. Thus a company need not have to design a new label for every state with the latter's own nuanced laws. While that is arguably easier on the companies, there is less choice for consumers.

Your reasoning starts a slippery slope in terms of rights and is weak arguement at best. People who go to smokey bars know the negative effects of cigarette smoke. I've never been to a town which has no options for non-smokers, for both consumers and employees. Should we ban driving as well? The rate of pedestrian deaths has been decried in the news[1], and its effects are much more immediate.

Your second comment is odd and the start of another slippery slope. You mention the reason it's done is because of higher healthcare costs, yet you mention a special tax that supposedly recovers these costs. This also doesn't take into account the fact that many people pay higher premiums for health insurance as smokers anyhow. This one points directly to a fast food tax because obesity is quickly becoming a leading cause of death[2].

Once again Franklin rings true here:

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

Also note, I'm not a smoker, but I do believe that our freedoms here are being chipped away. Also apologies to the mods if this all is offtopic but (to tie it all together) the removal of online gambling is just another example of freedoms being eroded for the sake of "morality", greed, or what the state thinks is "good for you".

[1] http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/64767_traffic0 1.shtml
[1] http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2004-03-09-obe sity_x.htm

Considering that they're generally not the ones slashing get-out-the-vote van tires, shooting out the windows of rival campaign offices (also happened in Huntinton, WV, BTW), I'd guess that, yes, the GOP would likely be more civil. Crap, even Nixon declined to challenge the 1960 election even though his case would have been far more believeable than Gore's.

Take a stroll through DU to see just how crazed and freakish your side is. All that seething has to be tiring.

Widespread spying, by the military, on the civillian population, without *any* oversight... Oh... wait...

Try reading your daily newspaper.

Perhaps you should take your own advice: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2002-09-09-cri me_x.htm

Ah. The old head-in-the-sand approach - we can't possibly be getting more violent.

Indeed. We coudln't possibly be getting LESS violent. After all, look at my evidence (anecdotal in nature, based on the number of stories).

Here's a start... http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-22 -nsa-template_x.htm

Obviously, everyone wants the government to stay out of the public's provate life, but there is a big difference between listening to peoples phone calls and looking for calling patterns. I find the latter to be somewhat acceptable, but it is subject to abuse like everything else. The government is in a tough situation where people demand protection, but want to maintain their civil rights rightfully so. It's a tough task in which there is no easy solution.

My reasoning is ... Given that ALL small businesses starting out are cash-strapped

Yeah, um. Most aren't, actually. See, Slashdot has a very strange perspective on business, because a tremendous (by comparison to the typical world) percentage of developers, especially web developers. Back in the real world, you can't start a business on two guys, a good idea and two months of secret hard work. Sure, it works on the web. It doesn't work for any business with a brick and mortar presence. It doesn't work for any business which needs significant equipment. It doesn't work for any business which needs staff to develop its first product. Etc.

Back in the real world, a business operating on a startup budget of less than three million dollars is considered efficient. It's easier to get a million in venture capital than $200k, because venture capitalists look at margins and multipliers, and the volume on <1M just isn't interesting to them. When you're a startup with three million, and you want to choose between $1500 for a domain people can remember and $10 for one they can't, you'd be a fool not to buy the $1500 domain. No matter how simple its interface, Google would not have succeeded if it was on www.zarqu7ar.com .

Say what you will about squatters - immoral because they speculated on a resource you now want, disgusting because they want to make a profit in a capitalist society. One thing they are not, however, is stupid. Those prices are that high because that's what the market will bear, and that's what the market will bear because sometimes you need to shell out a little cash to be memorable.

perhaps you can locate a local college where you might get a dispassionate third party to help fix you a nice big bowl of Reality Checks.

Yes. Spend $20k on tuition because $1500 on a domain is going to put you out of business. You, by the way, should spend $1.50 on a calculator.

But if you keep doing things like seriously considering spending $1500

Yeah, a business with startup costs, that's absurd. Why, nevermind that professionals are saying that startup costs on a software firm may be as low as half a million dollars now. Nevermind that the typical marketing expenditure for a startup is 7-12%, suggesting a marketing budget on the value software industry of $40-60k. Nevermind that short, germane domains have been shown to have as much as a two-order-of-magnitude impact on name retention, suggesting a marketing value of $4m-$6m.

No, $1500 is totally out of the question. (cough)

I don't want to sound harsh, but I do think you really need to step back and reconsider your plans - perhaps you can locate a local college

Tu quoque. As the founder of several successful businesses, I openly question whether you've ever started or managed a business, and whether you're qualified to determine what caused the failure of other businesses you've worked for. Don't get rankled - I used to work for a software place in Pittsburgh which seemed like it was on the perpetual edge of failure, a VC money sink run by incompetants who spent more time instant messaging than doing actual work.

And you know what? They're still around, and profitable, while all these "well-run" businesses from software engineers who'd "seen the mistakes" their old bosses had made and "knew better."

The fact of the matter is simple. If someone who wasn't an engineer came up to us and told us not to use some software design technique because they'd seen a lot of other businesses use that technique and fail, we would laugh in their faces. The software design technique is far less important than using said technique correctly, and neither can fix a fundamentally flawed premise, even if it's something that from the outside sounds perfectly grea

Is this what it looks like when geeks fight?

Face Masks! Pool Cues! Knee Sniffing!

ugh.

In the large major southern U.S. city I live in, I have dropped or broken-up calls when I call my parents, brother and sister who each live only about 20-30 miles away.

It happens so often that you're pretty much guaranteed a laugh if you ask "Can you hear me now?" when you get the connection back.

Considering that the cell phone companies (three different ones in the case of my family) can't seem to even get good coverage over that small and flat of an area in a large city, I seriously doubt that the size of the U.S. has anything to do with it.

I also did not say that we must choose: I suggest that the certain policy makers may see this as a dichotomy. As you suggest, it is a false dichotomy, but it does not mean that it is not at the basis of some policy. History has proven that ignorance is a good policy tool.

I also could not agree more that science and freedom are not related. The opposite might in fact be the case. But some also see a general decline in education (literacy, history, geography, etc.), and this is probably connected with the decline in science. I know that some of my generation were not taught spelling and grammar in primary school (I was not - and I grew up in affluent southern ontario).

You can point to some successes, but the need to do so points out that the system itself may be failing.

As for unquestioning - well, that's a matter of opinion.

Oh it's comming don't you worry, they are just waiting for the right moment, when everyone is too scared to say anything against such ideas, after all "if you are not doing anything wrong, why should you worry about it?"

The whole global warming was supposedly from the Ozone hole being as large as it was at the current point in time.

No, you are confused.

However what you've said is fascinating. You heard about the ozone hole and global warming at the same time so you've incorrectly held this belief that they are strongly related. The Bush government used a similar trick to sway the public into thinking 9/11 justified a war in Iraq; a poll found approximately 70% of US citizens believe that Saddam was involved in the 9/11 attack. I wonder how many other misconceptions come into being because people heard two unrelated things at roughly the same time.

What's next? How about a third reich like system where they allocate an entire demographic region, send all the arabs there and figure out who is who. Would that allay fears? This country is turning into the third reich slowly with their psychological crapaganda getting intermixed with politricks.

[sil@memnon /usr/home/sil]$ which terrorist
[sil@memnon /usr/home/sil]$ finger terrorist
finger: terrorist: no such user
[sil@memnon /usr/home/sil]$ whereis terrorist
terrorist:
[sil@memnon /usr/home/sil]$ find $STATE terrorist | xargs grep -i terror

Besides, who cares which inconsequential individuals want the president impeached? Lets reverse this and search for those dissidents who are leaking information to the public shall we? How about the person who reported the Plame leak? How about the person who reported the CIA torture in Abu Ghraib? It seems this system would favor the current administration in weeding out dissidents and disaffected government employees more than it would help them find terrorists. Outside of this argument lets look at what the government said before shall we? " Once the exclusive domain of the National Security Agency, the super-secret U.S. agency responsible for developing and cracking electronic codes, encryption has become the everyday tool of Muslim extremists in Afghanistan, Albania, Britain, Kashmir, Kosovo, the Philippines, Syria, the USA, the West Bank and Gaza and Yemen, U.S. officials say. It's become so fundamental to the operations of these groups that bin Laden and other Muslim extremists are teaching it at their camps in Afghanistan and Sudan, they add." source .. So what you have is FUD being pushed at this point. First they're stating the terrorists are using and I quote "UNBREAKABLE CRYPTO". Well golly gee Wilbur, if they're using unbreakable crypto then why bother tapping them. Give me a break. This administration is doing everything it can to erode basic rights such as privacy under the crapaganda term of "Homeland Security". How about securing my communications from eavesdropping, wouldn't that TRULY be homeland security.

as the bill per household is already at $510,678

Taxpayers owe more than a half-million dollars per household for financial promises made by government, mostly to cover the cost of retirement benefits for baby boomers

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-24 -retiree-taxpayers_x.htm

enjoy the war

1) We are talking about Google NEWS, not the regular google index. Here is a link to Google's #1 search result for 'mein kampf text' to allay your unfounded fear that Google is somehow censoring information. Now you can stop conflating the two.

2) How about families with children born inside the United States who may be forced to leave their child behind? They seem to have a stake in the debate that would greatly affect the life of an American citizen/child. How about legal immigrant families that own/operate small businesses with friends and/or relatives that may soon be losing a business relationship? How about every legal immigrant that has to cope with the fear-mongering hate-groups and the wrath that they have and could potentially bring upon them? Such as this story, Center ties hate crimes to border debate?

There are more examples than I can list here... But here's an interesting note, the #1 search result for term immigrant, hate, group on Google News is... Slashdot - "Google News, Censorship or Responsible Journalism" - how's that for censorship.

Before I close - let me restate - we are talking about Google News here, not Google Search. They have not precluded any of the sites mentioned from being indexed by their search engine. Just their news aggregator. All political viewpoints do not necessarily constitute news, nor is Google News a 'news' source... they are a news aggregator.

What is amazing is that even as modern man harvests his latest wonder drugs from the environment, he simultaneously wrecks it by (1) dumping chemicals into the seas, (2) burning the rain forests, etc.

One of the key forces spurring the destruction of the environment is population growth. Expanding populations need living space: in a battle between human population and mother nature, the human population always wins. Indeed, Consider the recent attempt to add immigration-control to the platform of the Sierra Club: immigration-control would curb the population growth of the United States. The attempt completely failed because no one cares about the environmental destruction that population growth facilitates.

To quote a cliched phrase, "the earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the earth." Wrecking the earth is equivalent to long-term suicide.

What fucking planet are you living on? Fox News?

Why did this poll show almost 3/4's of Iraqi's view us as occupiers. And almost half advocate killing US troops.

And you think they want us there?