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No, but I can believe they help you get home runs when you shouldn't, like when you break your bat.

Kevin Martin, former FCC member, is the new man in charge.

The Brazilian Government is doing this to do the Digital Inclusion that the citizens need, only fews people here in Brazil has access to a computer and Internet connection.
Bill Gates tryed to do a meeting with our president Lula but by the way it don't happened.

1 in 5 Americans have binged in alcohol recently

1 in 5 Americans have some form of disability

1 in 5 Canadians fell asleepat the wheel

1 in 5 computers is infected with some kind of virus or trojan"

Dating violence affects 1 in 5 teenage girls

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This message has been recommended by 4 out of 5 dentists

Some of these gases, unfortunately, are pretty toxic to us.

This has happened before, without our intervention. We're just conducting an experiment on a much larger scale than is "natural".

We just to look at the death tolls from the heat wave of 2003 http://www.usatoday.com/weather/news/2003-09-25-fr ance-heat_x.htm, almost 15,000 in France alone, to see what being unprepared for more violent temperature swings can do.

Well, at least Canada will probably have more land that will be useable, so we will be able to take SOME of the burden off other countries. Unfortunately, large parts of the frozen tundra will just be bogs if they thaw out, not really suitable for farming.

It's going to be u.g.l.y.

What are the odds that the boat will end up being called the goldenpalacecasino.
1,
2,
3

If it does really allow for Civil Rights violations than the Supreme Court will deal with it. Until the Supreme Court or Federal Courts say it's violating Civil Rights, its not.

That, of course, requires that the violation come first. People who tout the Supreme Court as the "check and balance" its been claimed to be always manage to forget this. It costs money to appeal your way up the ladder. This isn't the stomping grounds of your $20 traffic ticket lawyer, no, you'll be paying a pretty penny for your representation if you can't catch the attention of the EFF, ACLU, NRA, or any other organization that exists to defend those the government picks on.

Not to mention that once the courts rule on something, it has no explicit power to enforce its ruling. What punishment does the DoJ face for ignoring the federal court ruling a few days ago that Jose Padilla, as a Citizen of this country, must be given a speedy trial, and most importantly, be charged with a crime?

The Supreme Court is NOT the solution to Congress's and the executive branch's stupidity and/or malice. The Supreme Court already ruled on Padilla's case. Their majority statement? "You can't sue the government for imprisoning you for years without a trial, you have to sue the Commander." What a copout!

My experience with their customer service has been positive, not negative. I've sent questions to them and I always get a reply back in short order. They've come to me politely with problems they wanted fixed on my sites and they've always given me reasonable time to fix things.

So you're complaining because they are offering you a way to minimize getting screwed by your insurance company? If it's the junk mail that bothers you, trash it along with those pesky credit card "preapproval" offers. Seriously, when it comes to bad business practices, what you've described is saint-like compared to what I've seen and experienced.

Actually, it's the drug companies doing the screwing here. The makers of prescription allergy medicines have fought against the government making their drugs available without a prescription. They do this because once it's available without a prescription, the consumer will have to foot the entire bill. Since it's only available by prescription and the companies advertise directly to the consumer so the consumer demands it regardless of what their doctor might recommend, and the price they charge for it is a rediculous sum of money (I just called. It's $92 for a 30 day supply of Allegra at my local pharmacy.), the insurance company is paying huge amounts for it. To make up for this, they end up raising their co-pay for these medicines. The drug company starts offering rebates directly to the consumer who doesn't care how much the insurance company has to pay, not noticing the rise in premiums and increasing co-pays. I'm not looking at how much is coming out of my pocket this one time I get a prescription. I'm looking at how much is coming out of mine and everyone else's pocket and going into the drug company's pocket. We are paying the price to the drug companies because we are paying the insurance premiums to the insurance companies that end up paying the drug companies.

As for the credit card "preapproval" offers, I don't get them because I've asked the credit reporting agencies to not give out my information without my express written approval. No company has the right to dig into my credit history or bother me in my home to try to get my business. I'm not saying this is the worst business practice out there. I'm just saying I don't like their business practices and I won't deal with a company that does business like this.

What planet do you guys live on? Just this week the US and France jointly demanded that Syria pull troops out of Lebanon. Bush himself said, "when the United States and France say withdraw, we mean complete withdrawal."

Doesn't sound to me like they're working at odds.

There are some stories about opium in Macs so people like me will feel really good, but if the engineers at Apple could hide some opium in the computer and keeping dissipating out for 4 years continously, history channel should make this into Modern Marvels.

To be seriously, the reason some people claim the plastic Mac smells different from plastic Dell or whatever may be the Material Selection. Apple doesn't use Polybrominated biphenyls (PBBs) or Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) in its product, because of potential harm to people.

Add to it that the White House is now recognizing bloggers by granting press passes and you have to wonder who carries more weight. The courts, or the white house http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2005-03-08-white house-blogger_x.htm

I live in Utah, on occasion. I'm accustomed to noble, selfless efforts to save my immortal soul: http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/2001/10/15 /porn-czar.htm and http://archives.cnn.com/2002/US/West/12/10/baptizi ng.the.dead.ap/. But it's all business; we have to expect the ultimate dominance of the dollar over moral fiber: http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/West/01/15/porn.czar.ap /. I think the proxy baptisms have relatively negligible costs, and can be performed en masse, so they aren't so unpalatable, really.

I'm not sure if I'd go as far as saying it's censoring free speech, granted I don't think it's right (and maybe I'd consider it anti competitive) but I wouldn't call it supressing free speech. Vonage is strange, they're not a telephone company (despite what ever they say) they are an unregulated information service. They fought with the FCC over that, now they want to go cry wolf and say that their calls can't be completed and are being blocked. Hmm interesting, perhaps the FCC should look over their 911 service again.

The product that they provide is an addition, not a substitiution to a landline (right now at least), there's 911 service, but its not the best (and in some places it routes to call centers not designed for emergency calls, not to mention that it has to be setup see this.) If the broadband connection goes down so does your phone line, not to mention the sporadic outages that occur (like the one that I had with it two days ago, could make calls, would ring, once RTP opened up ATA would go busy... interesting.) Regardless, it's a cool service, not meant for prime time, but great for offloading calls that otherwise you'd have to pay for, or using with cell phones (call follow me/auto call forwarding), etc. Not something that I'd give to a 90 year old grandmother and say "good luck."

Is it right, no, does it impeade on free speech, no. As an ISP they can do whatever they want, ISP's can filter whatever they want maybe not ethically but they can still do it. My advice for those with the offending ISP, hit them where it hurts, and switch (if possible.)

I don't know why Slashdot rejected my story but the creator of the DOS operating system is suing a book author, because he wrote DOS was simply a rip-off of CP/M. Paterson, 48 and now retired, alleges that Evans' facts misrepresent history. He told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer his goal with the lawsuit is to get the truth out. The lawsuit filed in U.S. District court in Seattle seeks unspecified monetary damages. This could be big and might involve even Microsoft. http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2005-03-02-ms-co ding-dis_x.htm

If people can't record their shows and do what they want with their recording, less people will watch TV. Due to the internet, video games and arguably terrible shows, many of the younger generation, specifically young men, are watching significantly less TV.

USA Today has a fairly old article here.

Excerpt from the article: "They're watching television when they want to watch television," says ABC Entertainment president Susan Lyne.

Or kids that smoke underage, or drink, or get porn. Would you seek penalties against the movie production/tobacco/alcohol/porn company that made the material in those cases?

Am I the only one who doesn't think this will help True.com in any way or cause any real harm to any other websites?

If I saw that warning above a classified ad, yahoo personal, slashdot member page, or blogger.com listing I would simply say "No sh1t! Why would [my local newspaper/yahoo/slashdot/blogger] waste money performing a criminal background check?"

I'm also kind of surprised this hasn't passed in my state. We seem to have a propensity for passing stupid legislation recently...

Lies, lies, lies. In the fourth season, ENT averages around 2.9m viewers... (source: USA Today (ooh, pie charts..)) BSG has been consistently matching or beating ENT, particularly in desirable demographics. ENT should be crushing BSG, considering SciFi is a cable network with less market penetration than a broadcast network like You Pee Enn.

"Bush Could Usher in Hydrogen Age as Kennedy Did Space Age
By Glenn Sacks

George W. Bush today has the opportunity to usher in the Hydrogen Age--the coming era of non-polluting, limitless hydrogen fuel cell power--as John F. Kennedy did the Space Age. In so doing, he would be remembered as one of our nation's greatest leaders.

The National Organization for Women supports Equal Pay Day...What NOW doesn't recognize...NOW gets 75% by comparing apples and oranges...If NOW were correct that women earn 75% of what men earn...NOW does have some good ideas for families...

on gonzales, see here and elsewhere. on rice, see here and elsewhere. rtfn. stfu.

Deaths prompt concerns, reviews on use of stun guns

WASHINGTON -- The largest association of police chiefs will issue a national bulletin within 10 days [sometime this week] urging police departments to review the use of stun guns because of reports that the weapons may be related to numerous deaths.

The International Association of Chiefs of Police and the Justice Department will also study more than 80 deaths to assess the risks in using the weapons, the group said Tuesday.

Oh, you mean that device that kills people?

Of course, one official claims the 50,000-volt administering device doesn't even injure...

Fortunately, The Arizona Republic did its own investigation:

The Republic, using computer searches, autopsy reports, police reports, media reports and Taser's own records, has identified 90 cases in the United States and Canada of death following a police Taser strike since September 1999. In 12 cases, medical examiners said Tasers were a cause, a contributing factor or could not be ruled out as a cause of death. In 19 cases, coroners and other officials reported the stun gun was not a factor.

Not to mention the whole royal family...

Well, I don't remember people complaining too much about Princess Diana, and I know that we ladies aren't exactly bemoaning Prince William or even Prince Harry's looks. Granted, there are some pretty ugly royals, but there are rotten apples on every family tree.

So what was going on with mars 195,000 Years Ago?

The Iraq war is about 177 M USD per day. That makes about 17 days of Iraq war.

Or 1.4 B2 stealth bombers.

So it's not really that lot.

One article I read in response to Kantor was from Answers in Genesis (an overtly Christian group of scientists) who basically argued against Kantor's claims. And quite successfully, in my opinion.

If you are interested or have time, I recommend reading both. Admittedly I don't know much on the subject myself, that's why I'm referring to other people's arguments. Anyone else have any other comments?

MS does not buckle under this threat, they never do.

Even with cost as a factor...the transition to OpenOffice, the support of OpenOffice and the maintenance of OpenOffice all cost money.

Does anyone have a link to a reliable study that compares the maintenance cost of OpenOffice with MS Office?

That explains why UC said this about the investigation:

"Unfortunately, we deserve this," UC spokesman Chris Harrington said. "But what we have done is correct the problems and put the right system in place so that we don't have to take this type of hit again."

I doubt UC would be admitting guilt if the evidence wasn't pretty damning.

Their marketing strategy is not working. They've been voted as having the worst ad during the Superbowl and more imporantly I think their argument just isn't reaching anyone.

"$10,000 to fill your iPod vs. $14.95 per month with Napster"

Napster Commercial.

The price is assuming that you buy an iPod and then fill it up completely with music from iTMS (~4MB per song means 10000 songs would fit on a 40GB iPod, and at ~$1/song that's $10,000.

Here's a link to an article about it on USAToday

Yes, yes, America, Police State, fine. However, don't think for one second you are free to speak your mind in Holland or anywhere else. Maybe you forgot about Van Gogh or a hundred other examples I could site.

It doesn't matter where you live, the United States will drag the whole world down with it. People wonder why other nations are weary of lending a helping hand... Well it is like lending a helping hand to someone trying to commit suicide on a railroad track, if you help them are you going to save their life, or are they going to pull you down to your death?

But U.N. reports submitted to the Security Council before the war by Hans Blix, former chief U.N. arms inspector, and Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog agency, have been largely validated by U.S. weapons teams. The common findings:

Iraq's nuclear weapons program was dormant.

No evidence was found to suggest Iraq possessed chemical or biological weapons. U.N. officials believe the weapons were destroyed by U.N. inspectors or Iraqi officials in the years after the 1991 Gulf War.

From USA Today. These reports superceeded the beliefs on Blix's part that there was hidden material (which was more of a paraphrase than an actual quote). The report in which Blix is supposed to have made the quote you refer to was given on February 14, 2003. The report in which I quote from was given one month later. Things change given time.

Ah, and here's a link with a mockup of the actual HDL (AFAICT):

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/technolog y/maney/2005-02-08-maney_x.htm

I found more info on this, including more numbers, from this Reuters article. And by the way, it's moving at about 0.002c, which is pretty fast for something so huge. However, if you really want to be impressed, the gas in blazar jets moves at about 0.999c.

Here

but yeah, surely none buys those damn dvds now that you can download and burn a copy, right?

Oops, people buy and rent those things like never before as well.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3640184.s tm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/film/3676 218.stm

I think comparisons with Nazi Germany are fatuous. GWB is not Hitler, on dozens of levels. He's not even that important - the political movement of which he is a part is not his vision, is not really dependent on him in anyway, and would survive his disappearance without batting an eye.

Also, GWB has not engaged in the activities you've described.

However, I do think that the rise of the Japanese militarist regime is a far more productive metaphor. Replace state Shinto with Christianity, and the parallels really start to fit. The slow erosion of civil liberties, the pressure to put media in the service of state goals, the increasing authority given to law enforcement, the hostility to dissent, the use of rhetorics of victimization to justify intervention (Japan used the fact of European colonialism to legitimize its own empire).

The "slow boil" effect is the key parallel, I think. In 1933, the Nazis took over a fairly democratic society, and the flags went up. Nazi ideology was explicitly racist, with an agenda for racial domination. There was no such moment in Japan. Yamato suprematism was never part of official doctrine, and was often repudiated by members of the military who wanted to encourage the cooperation of the co-prosperity sphere members (while the same sort of "boys will be boys" apologetics you would hear for Abu Ghraib and other abuses would be used to minimize or deny responsibility for events like the Rape of Nanking.)

As in Fascist Italy, there was room for some (limited, monitored) dissent - Communists were able to operate throughout conflict, though many leaders were imprisoned.

The parallels aren't perfect, but I don't think the last chapter in the US' rightward drift has been written yet, either. The attitudes that are looming are worrisome.

A review of the new MSN Search by a USA Today columnist, points out some flaws. Notable among them being inability to give correct answer to one of their own sample questions. It also talks about disappointing performance of the "near me" feature in MSN Search vis-a-vis Google Local which is still in Beta stage

A review of the new MSN Search by a USA Today columnist, points out some flaws. Notable among them being inability to give correct answer to one of their own sample questions. It also talks about disappointing performance of the "near me" feature in MSN Search vis-a-vis Google Local which is still in Beta stage

... and allowing them to be used as investigative tools (again with court orders) against terrorists

Substantial parts of the PATRIOT act can be used without any kind of court order. The 'sneak-and-peek' provisions can be carried out without the government ever telling you that you were searched or investigated.

The ACLU and EFF have pages up about the PATRIOT Act, and clearly show how the effects are not limited to "terrorists". (Unless, like Ashcroft, you feel that breasts and calico cats are weapons of mass destruction.)

More importantly, can you give me the number of people whose civil liberties have *actually* been violated (N.B. not those who "felt" they were violated) under specific provisions of the PATRIOT Act?

Not easily, because it's secret. I can certainly say that Maher Arar had his civil liberties violated, but since the US government won't talk about it, it's hard to say whether it was PATRIOT-related or just plain extra-legal.

Of course, you may feel that using the PATRIOT act against pot-smugglers is excessive.

The Lancet article was a peer-reviewed estimate of Iraqi civilian casualties since the invasion as around 100,000 as of the fall of last year. Based on the statistics, the true number could be between 5,000 and 200,000, but the highest probability was around 100,000.

The methodology was to compare the rate of deaths before the war and the deaths after the war. If someone dies because Bechtel can't manage to get sewage treatment back on line, that counts as a death related to the US invasion just as surely as a cluster bomb dropped on a house full of civilians.

Note that the WaPo article gets the other casualty count sources wrong - Iraq Body Count is tracking confirmed casualties in the Western media. They acknowledge that they are definitely undercounting, simply because the Western media is not present at all locations where bodies are found.

A sizeable chunk of Iraqis would actually prefer life under Saddam to the current lawless situation. Not all, not even most, but more than you'd like.

The choice between what Bush is doing and Saddam is a false dichotomy. Last year, a majority of Iraqis wanted the Americans to leave immediately - even those who felt that it would increase violence. Apparently, the Bush administration knew better.

Whether or not the initial invasion's benefits outweighed its costs (for the US or the Iraqis), the question about the current occupation is entirely separate.

Given the extremely high turnout for last weekend's elections, I'd say that the question has been rather eloquently answered, don't you?

Not really; the turnout was less than in South Vietnam in 1967. Anyway, how many of those Iraqis went to the polls to vote the Americans out?

Pity about those Iraqi Christians who couldn't vote.

You get what you vote for.

Stop blaming voters for their government's actions. The last two elections proved that you do not get what you vote for.

a) Public schools are generally run by local governments, which are under state control. The First Amendment to the federal constitution does not apply to state governments.

Wrong. Federal laws supercede state laws, and state laws in turn supercede local/municipal laws.

Constitutional laws -- such as the 1st Amendment -- supercede Federal law. We are, after all, a "Constitutional Republic."

Hence, the 1st Amendment applies to all levels of government, from the Federal level on down.

This is basic Civics/Government stuff...

b) Even if it did, the guarentee of freedom of speech does not mean that the government has to sponsor that speech.

Correct.

Indeed, any sponsorship of the government necessarily means that taxpayer money is used to promote the speech, and although such sponsorship happens regularly enough (such as in California, where a the state pension plan agency was working to oppose President Bush's attempts to partially privatize Social Security, or the recent scandal surrounding the promoter of the "No Child Left Behind Act", or various works put out by the ONDCP), it's almost invariably condemned as a waste of taxpayer money and a sign of overbearing government abuse of power (as if governments abusing their power were uncommon).

c) Even if it did, minors do not have the full range of legal rights, just as they don't have the full range of legal responsibility.

Incorrect. 2 years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the First Amendment rights of minors, saying in the majority opinion "minors enjoy the protection of the First Amendment"

(probably at lower cost, and certainly with zero risk to human life)

...just so long as we don't tip off the martians to our presence, or have something crash land in somebody's home.

the british museum's dating was patheticly incompetent

failing to account for the role of accumulating bioplastic coating on the fibers

the preservation of the shroud in oil during the late renaissance

and now, as has been demonstrated by use of other dating methods, the selection of repair materials for the dating.

• The very people who maintain the Shroud as a holy artifact
• Who by definition believe in its authenticity
• Who have every reason to want it to be proven authentic
• Who control access to it, and
• Who only permitted research on it after a long and difficult negotiation with the scientists involved,

Isn't it easier just to believe that the claims of authenticity are false, and that people are clinging to it because of what they want to be true?

Rogers looks like someone who will believe regardless of the evidence, and is thus someone whose "scientific" results are not trustworthy. The McPaper article quotes Rogers saying " the blood spots on it are real blood", when the actual material of the "blood stains" has been proven to be red ochre. Am I also being asked to believe that Jesus bled red ochre?

given that it is the only proposed physical artifact of a pivotal event in human history, with profound import, compentent pursuit of an accurate and factual account of its characteristics is a very worthwhile endeavour, and entirely undeserving of the deceitful mockery of the poster.

The only reason Linux doesn't have thousands of viruses written for it is because nobody runs it. Same with macs.

This meme refuses to die. It sounds credible that more usage would lead to a more attractive target for malware but ignores other factors like:

• monoculture
• ActiveX
• Microsoft's decision to "integrate" their web browser into Windows

An excellent article refuting this meme, which doesn't even mention ActiveX, can be found here:

Windows XP has a better security infrastructure than any UNIX knock off.

Here's my opinion, with references to support it.

Only a criminal monopoly(1), with no consideration of their customer's interests, could embed into their web browser "application" (2) the security sink-hole of ActiveX vulnerabilities(3) to achieve vendor lock-in(4). This has resulted in the mess that is "security" in Microsoft(R) Windows(R) today.

References:

1. Criminal is strong language but Microsoft has a judgement against them regarding unlawful monopoly conduct: http://www.microsoft-antitrust.gov/
2. To everyone but Microsoft, Internet Explorer is an application called a "web browser". MicroSoft testified in their anti-trust trial that IE is not an application but an integrated part of their Microsoft(R) Windows(R) operating system and there is no way to allow users to not have it installed. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/special_report/1998/04/ 98/microsoft/275248.stm
3. Concern over ActiveX vulnerabilities have been in the media for over 6 years. The issue has gotten more attention migrating from IT trade press to mainstream media and in that time we've gone from viruses (which have not gone away) to Phishing and Spyware infestations:
   • Feb 19, 1998 IT trade press article: http://digitalcity.com.com/A+question+of+safety/20 09-1001_3-208208.html
   • Nov 9 2004 Mainstream Media article: http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/technolog y/2004-11-09-firefox-sidebar_x.htm
4. 36 page academic paper in PDF format. Network Effects and Microsoft: http://www.stanford.edu/~tbres/Microsoft/Network_T heory_and_Microsoft.pdf

I vote based on the issues of Second Amendment rights and abortion.

Gotcha. Bush said back in the 2000 campaign that he would sign an extension of the assault weapons ban, and his nominee for Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, supports it today. So are you ignorant of Bush's support of gun control or just a hypocrite?

If it were not for the Bush Tax cut I would have owed money.

Wrong, the Democrats were going to cut taxes as well - but mainly for the middle/lower class. Know why you didn't get a cut on your payroll taxes? Because Republicans refused to do so, despite claiming that "if you pay taxes, you get a tax cut".

Actually, it's 9.6 million. With something like 1.3 million Live.

http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/life/20041123 /d_vidgames23.art.htm

Just something I saw a couple days ago.