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What are those senators smoking?

Amusingly enough, something that will get them a mandatory minimum 5 year sentence.

While I won't usually cite USA Today as a source, the myth of the "Club Fed" prisons is just that: a myth.

They're certainly not as dank or dangerous as a maximum security state prison, but they're not country clubs, either.

USA Today article, RE: Martha Stewart and what she faces in prison

Similar article from Globe and Mail

Article from Australia's The Age regarding white collar criminals in the US

-l

Sorry, I must have an out-of-date copy of the United States Code here. Because mine doesn't say anything about the doctrine of fair use guaranteeing anybody the right to make perfect digital copies of copyrighted works.

US law 101: That which isn't explicitely forbidden, is allowed. But US (and European) copyright law even explicitely allows making full copies of music recordings for private use, including giving them to friends and family. There's no exemption for digital copies. The DMCA changed that by disallowing circumvention of copy-protection mechanisms, allowing rights holders to make perfectly ok fair use illegal simply by adding even the most ridiculous technical protection.

Nope. By definition, if it's illegal, then it's not legitimate.

I challenge you to quote one relevant philosopher who can back this funny statement up. Btw this defense didn't work too well at the Nuremberg trials.

Rationalize all you want. The point is that the poster was talking about piracy. You might try to throw up a "but what about this? or this? or this?" smokescreen but that isn't going to fool anybody.

For one, you're probably right. Duplicating play-, err, copy-protected DVDs (may I remind the f*@!#/ing MPAA that thanks to the new laws they bought, it is now a crime to watch DVDs under Linux?) using a grid is unlikely to be done for personal use (e.g. geting a backup copy, or a copy without the CSS, Macrovision and region code bullshit). But then, why should I care after all the crap that RIAA and MPAA spew out? What about the corruption, the oligopolist practices and the lies? Why am I to believe them anything any more? Sorry, dude, no pity from me, they can fsck themselves and go to hell.

Actually, I stopped using P2P altogether and don't copy music/films otherwise, and I also quit buying/renting/viewing(in the cinema) anything remotely associated with the Music And Film Industry Association (MAFIA). They are - legally - not going to see a single cent of mine in the next few years, and I wish them a quick and painful death. (ok, that may be an oxymoron)

June 19, 2004 -- Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday buttressed President Bush's claim that Iraq posed a direct threat to America by saying Russian intelligence was tipped off that Saddam Hussein was preparing anti-American attacks after 9/11.

Putin said the warning was relayed to Bush, who personally thanked one of Russia's spy chiefs for it.

And then there are Zarqawi and Abu Nidal , two of the most blood-thirsty savages engaging in terrorism, both of whom found a home in Iraq.

No, I'm afraid you have it backwards, Saddam was both a participant and an enabler of terrorism. We did the right thing just based on terrorism.

That is not even considering the many banned activities going on in Iraq in defiance of the UN. Read David Kay's report sometime, or some of the other UN material. For your convenience, here is an excert from his statement:

We have discovered dozens of WMD-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations during the inspections that began in late 2002. The discovery of these deliberate concealment efforts have come about both through the admissions of Iraqi scientists and officials concerning information they deliberately withheld and through physical evidence of equipment and activities that ISG has discovered that should have been declared to the UN. Let me just give you a few examples of these concealment efforts, some of which I will elaborate on later:

- A clandestine network of laboratories and safehouses within the Iraqi Intelligence Service that contained equipment subject to UN monitoring and suitable for continuing CBW research.

- A prison laboratory complex, possibly used in human testing of BW agents, that Iraqi officials working to prepare for UN inspections were explicitly ordered not to declare to the UN.

- Reference strains of biological organisms concealed in a scientist's home, one of which can be used to produce biological weapons.

- New research on BW-applicable agents, Brucella and Congo Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF), and continuing work on ricin and aflatoxin were not declared to the UN.

- Documents and equipment, hidden in scientists' homes, that would have been useful in resuming uranium enrichment by centrifuge and electromagnetic isotope separation (EMIS).

- A line of UAVs not fully declared at an undeclared production facility and an admission that they had tested one of their declared UAVs out to a range of 500 km, 350 km beyond the permissible limit.

- Continuing covert capability to manufacture fuel propellant useful only for prohibited SCUD variant missiles, a capability that was maintained at least until the end of 2001 and that cooperating Iraqi scientists have said they were told to conceal from the UN.

- Plans a

In fact, why doesn't Bush and his friends just outlaw Michael Moore's movies if the Bill of Rights only applies to "corporate conglomorates and their friends"?

Because they can do it much more sneakily by having their coroporate conglomerate buddies buy the theater chains. Whether Loews will show the movie remains to be seen.

Avenge the threats against his father ... disregard due to no links to supporting data and it contradicts the available evidence Joint Authorization and US Public Law 105-338 and UN Report on Subject (read all 17-pages :-) and UN Resolutions violated by Iraq (btw, each resolution had 'diplo-speak' as in "serious consequences" authorizing war - don't say the US did it without the UN ;-)

Look good to the world for booting Hussein. Opps, that didn't work out to[o] well. ... disregard due to no link(s) to supporting data ... BTW, it didn't work out too well in post-Nazi Europe/Japan either

Get a [childish expletive deleted]load of money to Halliburton and make him and Cheney some big ass bucks. Didn't you know that Bush also owns a large amount of Halliburton stock? ... disregard due to there being no evidence that Bush Jr. ownes any Halliburton stock Bush 2003 Tax Return ... perform further research with respect to Cheney due to an "it's a stretch" connection Cheney 2003 Tax Return ... and also here leading to:

The forms Thursday showed he collected $162,392 in deferred compensation [think 401k - therefore this is not the big bad Halliburton connection you claim] from Halliburton Co., the Dallas-based energy services company he headed until Aug. 16, 2000. Cheney elected in 1998 to recoup over five years a portion of the money he made in 1999 as chief executive officer of Halliburton ... SUGGESTION: you should chat with some HR compensation folk who can explain this other "deferred compensation" plan (its the 'other' 401k the HR types don't talk about to individual contributors). Most companies have this 'other' 401k plan - lucrative but very restrictive tax-wise - perhaps almost like a blind-trust. However, IANAL also IANACPA

From Christopher Hitchens' review of "Unfairenheit 9/11":

The majority of pacifists either belong to obscure religious sects or are simply humanitarians who object to taking life and prefer not to follow their thoughts beyond that point. But there is a minority of intellectual pacifists, whose real though unacknowledged motive appears to be hatred of western democracy and admiration for totalitarianism . Pacifist propaganda usually boils down to saying that one side is as bad as the other, but if one looks closely at the writing of the younger intellectual pacifists , one finds that they do not by any means express impartial disapproval but are directed almost entirely against Britain and the United States ... (Orwell's Notes on Nationalism in May 1945)

... and still more from "Orwell's Notes on Nationalism" ... thank you Chris Hitchens from tickling my intellect such that I dug for more info ... love the internet

I've don't know if you know anyone over there, but tours of duty in Iraq for almost all troops have been extended, for some multiple times. Clearly they're running kinda thin on troops, if we need a major deployment elsewhere....

From USA today
The 1st Armored Division, which arrived in Baghdad in the first week of May 2003, spent most of the past year in and around the Iraqi capital. Then, just as the division's 20,000 troops were about to head home, they were ordered to race south to counter the bloody insurgency of renegade cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his militia. The Pentagon extended the division's tour by 90 days, until mid-July.

They'd find out you lied, and then they'd find a way to stick it to you for lying. And with this precedent, how long before ID is going to be required anytime a cop asks? The Bush Reich has wanted to impose a national ID card for a while now. This SCOTUS decision today just opens the door wider for our own Big Brother to get his privacy-invading, lying, billionare-elitist foot wedged in.

From the article: 'Most websites have no idea how many people view their content. This inherent fuzziness is causing problems for commercial websites, especially online publications desperate to make money from Internet advertising... How can you charge for ads when it's nearly impossible to tell advertisers how many people will see them?'

Well, websites can just do things to make up numbers. Dead tree publications do it all the time. Ever notice how the the nation's most popular newspaper is probably so popular because almost every hotel room in the US has one at the hotel door in the morning (where it is most likely then placed in the trash). I would bet that its much easier to figure out how many people are actually reading what on a website vs any other medium.

See this USA Today story for more details.

France (and Germany) have been exceeding the EU's limit of deficit spending which is 3% of GDP.

In addition, it doesn't look like Europe's education system is fairing too well either, and it's generally agreed that education is required for a healthy economy.

It is hard to compare directly education between different countries, but it seems like Europe and the rest of the world has catched up a lot when it comes to science after US has dominated in science since WW II (for understandable reasones). And you do realise that even for top universities in Europe the students don't have to pay much or anything in tuition fees, so that even middle class families can send a bright kid to a top university (something like Bush being sent to Yale because he was so bright).

The problem is that there is no way to make sure that companies that oursource actually pass those savings on to customers in the form of cheaper goods, or instead just give their ceos larger bonuses.

There must be something done to level the playing field, otherwise American labor will never be able to compete with countries that have much lower standards of living and little or no workers rights.

The FCC does more than just assign spectrum. It also runs enforcement and regulation for our radio frequencies and guards against things such as harmful interference, stepping in with action when needed. Which other governmental organization would keep the technical know-how in house that allows them to track down harmful interference based on field reports?

Furthermore, the FCC guards our markets and prevents monopolies from snatching up too much of a particular spectrum, service, or market. The author seems to think that market dynamics would themselves guard against monopolies with high pricing of spectrum and our current monopoly-prevention laws, but I disagree with this. I don't think the spectrum will be priced out of reach of many corporations. There was recently a desire on the part of various corporations to consolidate the FM broadcast spectrum, and I remember this being heavily debated in various publications. Also, the FCC does already regulates our spectrum based upon our monopoly laws. Which other government agency would handle this for us?

We use it all the time to do jobs, er, get jobs for people

I agree completely.

And I think the arguments you cited are the reason why we won't see Free Wifi at most airports.

I think many secondary and minor airports will do it, though. (i.e. Long Beach, which is a minor airport near LAX)

What I am looking forward to is Free Wifi on the airplane. the technology is there.

I agree with the points you are making, but I don't think it is proper to use the term "3rd world countries".

Third world countries? Are those countries with corrupt elections, corrupt judges, and corrupt government leadership?

Is a third world country one of those that is always making war on its neighbors? (The U.S. government has bombed 24 countries since the Second World War. The last Brazilian aggression outside the country was in 1822, I'm told.)

When you say "third world country" you give an impression that the U.S. is superior in every way. That impression is false. In general, Brazilians are much happier than Americans. People in the U.S. use more legal drugs than those of any nation that has ever existed. The U.S. is the most obese country in the history of the world; eating when not hungry is an index of unhappiness.

A higher percentage of U.S. citizens go to prison or jail than any country in the entire history of the world. For example,

President George W. Bush DUI, 1st record of arrest
President George W. Bush DUI, 2nd record of arrest

Vice-President Dick Cheney DUI, record of 1st arrest
Vice-President Dick Cheney DUI, record of 2nd arrest

Just think of all the children that could have been fed with this $400 million. :( Or all the landmines that could be removed. Instead, we get playtoys for stupid white men. Micheal Moore needs to do his next expose on "science".

Why do these comments always come up when NASA's budget is neglible compared to others? In the big picture, NASA's funding has given them a hard time to find things already, since the government need the money for military funding. Oops, weren't you just argumenting against these things?

The Federal Pie Chart

NASA gets in total $15.5 billion for fiscal year 2004. Compare that to the billions in the pie chart above.

Oh, how could this be a viable open source project without your support, Overly Critical Guy? People might as well write Shareaza off completely since you're not going to bother.

Your words set me straight. I am on my way to the police right now and will turn myself in for all those nefarious mp3s. Ensuring fair play for copyright owners (and massive corporate profits gained through questionable means) is what being a good corporate consumer is all about.

M

RIAA forgets to pay royalties

RIAA sues consumers but forgets to pay artists

RIAA members forget to pay pension for artists

RIAA redefines online sales to lower royalties to artists

There is a dispute brewing because the RIAA has arbitrarily defined online music sales as an extension of CD/Album sales, which cuts the royalty rates to the artist significantly.

I find the RIAA's crocodile tears about protecting the artists, er, Amusing.

One should be able to do this kiosk-like, in a store. Or at a drive-through, or at a Starbux, a Border's, or while waiting in line at the bank.

Lucky you ...

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2004-03-15-starb ucks_x.htm

I'm of the opinion that people like Microsoft, the RIAA, and the MPAA are shooting themselves in the foot by trying to "secure" their IP rights by attempting to rewrite laws about fair use. Of course, there are people that will circumvent copy-protection efforts for theft; but aren't there enough honest people out there that could actually benefit from this technology? I've been wondering lately, how many honest people out there are making negative decisions about purchasing these types of things because of the very "anti-consumer" attitude that these companies are taking? For example:

- By attempting to make the modding of XBoxes illegal (I'm not even sure if modding them is illegal, but the DMCA says that reverse-engineering the copy protection is), Microsoft is locking their machine into a single-purpose device, when it is capable of SO much more. Aren't there enough people that aren't interested in games at all, that that would purchase an XBox over a PS2 because it was moddable and came with a hard drive? That way they could use it as a PC that they can connect to their TV without adding any hardware (except the mod chip of course)? Heck, if there weren't any issues regarding modding them at all, I'd be recommending that my company purchase them for desktop PCs! If Microsoft was to sell add-on hardware for them, couldn't they re-coup the loss that they take on the hardware cost and expect to make up with game sales and licenses?

- By making the copying (backup) of DVDs illegal (321 studios isn't allowed to sell the "full version of "DVDXCopy" anymore), isn't the MPAA saying that they are aware that the lifetime of a DVD isn't infinite, and that as a consumer, I'm being forced to buy the same DVD again sometime in the future when my original fails? Aren't there enough people out there that would be MORE willing to purchase DVDs if they could be assured that it was okay to back them up? I wouldn't buy a hard drive and put important data on it unless I had some way of backing it up...

- Same goes for the RIAA and the "backing up" of CDs. I'm more willing to purchase music if I know that I'm purchasing it and the ability to play it ANYWHERE, ANYTIME. If that means being able to copy it 4 zillion times then so be it. I'm also one of those people who doesn't like to purchase whole albums since most of them are fluff, so the iTunes concept is the perfect solution for people like me. My message to the RIAA: "Don't try and squash it, badmouth it, or otherwise derail it - PROMOTE IT! It will have the positive effect of forcing artists to spend more time MAKING QUALITY songs to fill their albums with."

What do you all think?

Um, I suggest you check out

An Article
Another Article
Bureau of Justice Statistics

Especially the Crime rates from victim surveys.

"Public Payphone"

Except that the number of payphones has been declining for the past several years and nothing's going to stop that anytime soon.

Not to mention in rural and suburban areas, where the nearest payphone can be a good walk or even further away...

Besides, wasn't there a movie recently about the last payphone in Manhattan? :)

to not be so quick to bust up the partnership between them and Pixar.

Just one of a long string of poor moves by Eisner. No wonder the shareholders are so pissed at him.

.. then duly ignore the stupid American who is trying to tell them how to run their country and go off and do precisely whatever it was that they intended to do before the stupid American started mouthing off.

Unless the stupid American happens to be Microsoft, who is quite fluent in the international language that everyone know$. And I'm not talking about love, smarta$$. Frankly, I wonder if MS will be reduced to bribes/unrefuseable deals of the sort they used to lure Gross and Hejlsberg in order to prevent foreign governments from defecting to Linux. They already offer major sweetheart pricing/licensing terms to such governments; how long will it be before various governments (and corporations) refuse even that, forcing MS to take whatever next step they deem appropriate?

The url was mangled. Here is the correct url that the AC was trying to post.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2001-08-07-ear ly-puberty.htm

"liar" - Fragments of musical instruments, tufts of women's hair, and a large blood stain are among the scenes in Associated Press Television News film of a destroyed house that survivors say U.S. planes bombed during a wedding party. [...] Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt told reporters in Baghdad that U.S. troops who reported back from the operation "told us they did not shoot women and children."

The brilliant mathematician stopped taking anti-psychotic drugs in 1970, and then slowly recovered over two decades. This is much more the rule rather than the exception. In ''undeveloped'' countries, nearly two-thirds of schizophrenia patients are doing fairly well five years after initial diagnosis; about 40% have basically recovered. But in the USA and other developed countries, most patients become chronically ill.

The outcome differences are so marked that WHO concluded that living in a developed country is a ''strong predictor'' that a patient never will fully recover."

Hollywood is known to never let facts get in the road of a good story. Or would the lack of drugs be a better story? It is also worth while to check out Psych Watch for various items about psychiatry going down the tubes, etc.

If you don't want to buy a book, Doug Pappas' weblog is a good place to start. He posts a lot of interesting (to some people) articles about the money side of baseball. And if you really want the player salaries look here.

I'd like to point out to whoever modded parent "insightful," that he's actually a troll.

Well, first of all, no, that hasn't been shown, by anybody. And secondly, the leftover stockpiles from Iran-Iraq are precisely what Saddam was accused of hiding.

Which, with Iraq's shelf-life problem of the time would have been mostly harmless goo by the end of the 80's, let alone by 2003.

The truth is Pres. Bush said Saddam had tried to buy uraniam from Niger.. AFTER being told it was NOT true

Except it was true. Again with the googling.

Again, you're a troll.

Your so-called Czech connection consists of one of the hijackers maybe metting ONCE with an Iraqi Miliary Intelligence officer in April 2001 according to an unverified Czech report by a resturant entrepreneur.

The Ansar al-Islam - Al Qaida connection may or may not be real, but it doesn't matter as links between the ultra religious sect and the militantly athiest Saddam Hussein remain circumstancial and second hand.

As for the documentary evidence... What documentary evidence? Do you mean this?

Google it. We ain't your momma.

You know, I've got a ton of information which is all true and totally proves my point. Saddam was actually working with Bush to cement Bush's presidency and get Saddam out of the country before the rebellion. The fact that you can't find any of my sources just proves that you're ugly.

Orbiscom are an Irish company that have pioneered single use credit card numbers, and provide the technology to MBNA and Citi among others. As another poster mentioned, AIB has been providing this service for a number of years now and it's invaluable (although I don't see them promoting it much any more). It works through an application that sits in your tray; you just call it up when you want to pay, enter your username/password, set a limit, and it gives you your single use number. I think they were one of the first banks to provide it; the application is called an 'O-Card' and is as much Orbiscom branded as AIB.

Apparently AMex has stopped offering the service; this article also points out the problem of using such a number to purchase travel if the original credit card is needed to pick up the tickets.

Google Image Search works wonders. Here's Eisner. Here's Farquaad.
I seem to recall more of a similarity between the two. Now when I see both side by side, not so much.

gyrocopters may or may not be dangerous but they certainly do fly - unlike the "Skycar".

Okey, you implies Mollers Skycar is a fad and does not fly at all, can you please tell me what you see on this picture then.

Moller's been been taking investors' money for decades, and has exactly squat to show for it.

It's true that he has been taking money from investors for decades, but he's been pouring his own money into it as well. He made about $20 million from real estate investment and millions more from his invention of the SuperTrapp muffler. He invested that in his company. So while it's true that he has been taking money from others, he hasn't been getting rich from it, as the word "scam" implies.

Credible aerospace engineers say that, unless Moller's invented a radically new, ultra-compact engine, there's no way you can move enough air mass to actually lift the thing.

Dr. Moller is a credible aerospace engineer. He is the started the Department of Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering at UC Davis. And he has invented a new type of engine for the SkyCar.

The spiffy model on the showroom floor is nothing more than a stage prop. It doesn't fly, it never did, and it probably never will.

As someone else pointed out, there have been tethered tests that have shown that the thing can at least hover.

Don't get me wrong. I think that Moller's claims are continually over-optimistic, even to the point that he got in trouble with the SEC for misleading investors. He's been over-promising and under-delivering for decades. But he has made slow, painful progress, and I've seen every indication that he really does believe in what he's doing.

To call it a scam is completely unfair.

We are simply not using them, PARTICULARLY in urban areas

Er, no.
You *are*

Maybe you're not aware of how major label contracts work, but the artist has to pay the costs of recording, marketing, etc., out of their royalties. The only thing the label gives them is essentially a loan, with an extremely high cost (loss of ownership of their creation, and serious doubt as to whether they'll ever get paid what they're owed). Some relevant links: Steve Albini's rant on how contracts work: http://www.negativland.com/albini.html A recent decision showing the RIAA owed $50 million in unpaid royalties to artists "they couldn't track down", like Dolly Parton: http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2004-05-04 -music-royalties_x.htm And most importantly, the recent story of Marillion, who proved that you absolutely do not need a record company in this day and age: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/04/28/marillion_ comeback/

Actually, STFU.

USA Today has a picture.

• Illegal price fixing (RIAA)?

• They were found guilty and supposedly paid the price they deserved. The open debate about the severity of the fine is irrelevant.

And shortly thereafter, they had the law changed to legalize price fixing for online music distribution.

• The record industry already has an antitrust exemption that allows record companies to jointly negotiate royalty rates for digital distribution. Late last year, the music industry convinced Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) to insert language into the EnFORCE Act (Enhancing Federal Obscenity Reporting and Copyright Enforcement Act of 2003) that would extend that exemption to "physical product configurations" such as CDs. That bill is still in committee.

Surprise! There's a name I'm always hearing good news about: Orrin Hatch. You know, the DMCA's author. The 'nuke your hardware with a file sharing virus' guy. The infamous software pirate himself?

After finding HatchMusic, I think I understand him now. It's not just the lobbyist bribes that motivate him. He must actually think that if he spreads enough KY Jelly on the American public's rectum for the RIAA, they'll give him "money for nothin' and chicks for free".

As a final note, if you find the KY Jelly comment a bit graphic, you'll be glad to know Orrin Hatch handed the pornography industry a blank check recently. What's not to like about the man?

What report? According to the Red Cross, any communication on the treatment of prisoners is considered sensitive material, and is not made available to the public.

According to the USA Today, the Red Cross "repeatedly demanded that U.S. officials correct problems in Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison before recent revelations about the abuse of Iraqi inmates by American soldiers." (See article here)

What complaints?

I'm sure at least some of the prisoners complained.

What eye-witness accounts?

Oh, gee, I don't know, all the other prison guards that were standing by, knowing damn well this was going on, without doing a thing to stop it? And how far up the chain of command did this go, with no one doing anything to stop it?

What change? Remember, the soldiers pictured had already been held over for an Article 32 hearing (an official investigation, kinda-sorta similar to a grand jury in civilian criminal law, only not really) before 60 Minutes made with the shock and awe.

The public now knows about it, which will certainly encourage the military to clean up its act. That's what changed. Further, just because the military started acting on some of the violators does not mean that there weren't more violators out there. Now, with the public knowing and demanding that it stop, more strides will probably be taken to make sure that it does stop (a complete investigation, etc etc).

The pictures changed nothing but public opinion.

You make it sound as if public opinion is irrelevant. Remember, the United States has civilian control over the military. And guess who elects the civilians that have that control? Oh yeah, the public. And guess what 2004 is? An election year. So don't tell me that it was "just" public opinion that changed.

The public opinion shifted from the false position that every Iraqi prisoner was being treated equally and well to the equally false position that every Iraqi prisoner is being hideously tortured.

Bullshit. I don't think anybody thinks that. But do you disagree that even a single prisoner being mistreated is too many?

You've got front-page news of what is, in perspective, a very small event.

Do you understand what's at stake here? We invaded Iraq under the pretense of removing WMD. That has yet to pan out (maybe it will, maybe it won't), and after a while, the justification for the war switched to "at least Saddam is gone, at least the torture chambers have closed, and at least Iraqis will never have to live in fear anymore." Well guess what, the torture chambers are back open again. Do I think what the US has done is as bad as what Saddam did? Probably not, but I'm waiting to find out what these other images are that Rumsfeld talked about yesterday before I make my final decision.

The United States is supposed to be the leader of the free world, the country the rest of the world looks to for morality. And right now we're not being a very good role model. There is already plenty of anti-American sentiment around the world, and we certainly don't need any more fuel on the fire. I, for one, am currently ashamed to be an American, which is something I have NEVER felt before. So don't tell me this is not front page news.

IMHO the total insanity in Brussels started, when it was reported that U.S. Secret Intelligence have been routinely tapping phone lines on the complete telecommunication network which is part of the EU building infrastructure in Brussels.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2003-03-19-eu-p hone-taps_x.htm

Robert

Please state your sources every time you claim a fact!!!!

According to the RBoC stock coversion, SCO has a business presence in 82 countries with a network of 11,000 resellers and 4,000 developers. While the 11,000 resellers are solution providers, and their developers when dubbed developer network is listed as 8,000 in number, I haven't seen any actual "employees" numbers anywhere.

You use nothing more but a vague "good" to describe a well-performing economy. That's just pathetic.

Consumer debt load is at record high, including mortgage debt. According to the same source (USATODAY), "household debt levels rose nearly 11% in 2003" alone!!! This does not tell good things about household balance sheets. In fact, consumer debt levels reveal what the balance sheets wouldn't. In this case, they tell you how sh*t-fscked the Americans got, living today on money they will earn tomorrow for years now and it can't get better.

And when was the last time you checked the 2003 record-high $380 billion dollar deficit.

I am not opposing the fact that the economy doesn't suck. But you have not shown it and made close to zero effot (only concrete unemployment numbers)!! You have to know your facts and know what makes a good economy first.

I will conclude my point by reiterating the fundamentals. I said it once, I'll say it fscking again: State your sources!!!

Please state your sources every time you claim a fact!!!!

According to the RBoC stock coversion, SCO has a business presence in 82 countries with a network of 11,000 resellers and 4,000 developers. While the 11,000 resellers are solution providers, and their developers when dubbed developer network is listed as 8,000 in number, I haven't seen any actual "employees" numbers anywhere.

You use nothing more but a vague "good" to describe a well-performing economy. That's just pathetic.

Consumer debt load is at record high, including mortgage debt. According to the same source (USATODAY), "household debt levels rose nearly 11% in 2003" alone!!! This does not tell good things about household balance sheets. In fact, consumer debt levels reveal what the balance sheets wouldn't. In this case, they tell you how sh*t-fscked the Americans got, living today on money they will earn tomorrow for years now and it can't get better.

And when was the last time you checked the 2003 record-high $380 billion dollar deficit.

I am not opposing the fact that the economy doesn't suck. But you have not shown it and made close to zero effot (only concrete unemployment numbers)!! You have to know your facts and know what makes a good economy first.

I will conclude my point by reiterating the fundamentals. I said it once, I'll say it fscking again: State your sources!!!

Who the hell are these guys?

Their other products in the emerging technologies section include Acoustic Core - detecting illicit materials using their acoustic signatures, Vapour Trace - a way to search cargo for contraband materials and Crypto.Com - a double cipher keyless transmission system.

Thats a lot of cool science and technology for a relatively unheard of company, not to mention their technologies in the Border Security and Chemical Detection systems.

I had read a while back about the CIA and US Govt investing in startups - I think its quite possible that these guys are probably funded thus :)

Kinda cool yet spooky.

• Absence of deep or analytical thinking (If anyone has any information about George W. Bush showing evidence of analytical or sophisticated thinking, please write to me.)
• Polarized thinking. Mr. Bush's statement, "you are either with us or against us" is an example. Another example is his statement, "Look my job isn't to try to nuance. I think moral clarity is important... this is evil versus good."
• Rigid thinking. A praising April 2, 2003 article about Bush in USA Today newspaper says, "He has a special epithet fo

The problems with family in the U.S. are much, much worse than you are saying. Even when there is no divorce, a high percentage of families are disfunctional. For example, both U.S. President George W. Bush and U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney are alcoholics. Dick Cheney has two DUIs and George W. Bush one:

Bush DUI, 1st record of arrest
Bush DUI, 2nd record of arrest
Cheney DUI, 1st DUI arrest record
Cheney DUI, 2nd DUI arrest record

Most people have little experience with alcoholics. If you know one, ask him or her about this. Alcoholics say that it requires "4 to 6 years" of driving drunk before they get a DUI. (DUI means "Driving Under the Influence of an intoxicating drug.) They will tell you that "once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic".

While you are talking to a (recovered) alcoholic, ask them about the other characteristics of alcoholics, such as the black-and-white thinking ("You are either with us or against us") of George W. Bush. Alcoholics are often very socially engaging and likable. At other times, alcoholics are often very angry and violent, for example, consider the war in Iraq that even hawks agree serves no purpose. It's easy to find alcoholics and recovered alcoholics in the United States. Anyone can go to meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. In the small city of Portland, Oregon, USA, there are 27 AA meetings each week, three each day.

Former U.S. president Bill Clinton's parents were violent alcoholics. You can read the book. Bill Clinton's misuse of sexuality is typical of alcoholism-influenced families.

Family life is so stressful in the U.S. that children turn to drugs to try to cope:

"The daughter of Florida Gov. Jeb Bush was arrested... ... while allegedly trying to buy the anti-anxiety drug Xanax." (Jeb Bush is George W. Bush's brother.) Why was she willing to break the law to buy a drug to become less anxious? Because living in her family is very anxiety-producing?

George W. Bush's daughters seem to be imitating their alcoholic father: "Barbara and Jenna Bush were both charged ". Ask yourself, why do these teenage women feel they need a drug like alcohol so badly that they are willing to break the law?

Don't try to talk about this with most Americans, however. They have been told many times that the U.S. is a "Superpower" and that "The U.S. is the best country in the world". (My father says that, for example.) Most of them are unwilling to look at the problems and therefore don't truly love the United States. There is so much pain in the life of many Americans that looking at one more problem would be an overload beyond their ability.

The disfunctionality of families in the U.S. has created a social breakdown that affects everything in U.S. life. For example, consider breakdowns of large companies such as the Enron fraud and the WorldCom fraud and the Tyco fraud.

The disfunctionality of families in the U.S. has created corruption in the U.S. federal, state, and local governments:

Those who want corruption in the U.S. federal and state governments arrange that there is not enough money to do the work. This is happening throughout the United States. Here is a quote from an article written by the president of the Oregon State Bar Association:

"The c

I just built a system using some of the high end hardware on their System Configuration Page. The cost? Over $8700 using a 19" CRT instead of their ~$1500 21" LCD.

Of course, if I wanted to park something that costs as much as a compact car on my desk I'd let Billy Joel do it.

After all, God put them in place to do it all.

This insider look includes the gem

Bush believes he was called by God to lead the nation at this time, says Commerce Secretary Don Evans, a close friend who talks with Bush every day.

The issue of this patent may be finished, but the larger issue of why the patent office is not receiving enough funding is extremely important.

Those who want corruption in the U.S. federal and state governments have found a new way of accomplishing it. They arrange that there is not enough money to do the work. This is happening throughout the United States. Here is a quote from an article written by the president of the Oregon State Bar Association:

"The crippling loss of nearly one-third of their staff have left our [Oregon State] courts unable to hear criminal cases such as car theft, shoplifting, prostitution, fraud and identity theft. Criminals, meanwhile, have figured this out and in some cases are operating virtually unchecked by a broken public safety system." [From "In Our Opinion", by Charles Williamson. Published in the Oregonian newspaper on 2003-06-24. Available from OregonLive.com for a charge for archive access.]

The U.S. is a rich country. It is not that there is not enough money. This is widespread corruption. This is deliberate degradation of government by those who want to use governmental power to make money.

The corruption in the U.S. government is becoming severe. For example, read the book, House of Bush, House of Saud: The Secret Relationship Between the World's Two Most Powerful Dynasties. (I make no money from book purchases.) If you haven't been reading books and magazine articles about this is the last 20 years, you will learn that a close Bush family friend knows Osama bin Laden, and that George W. Bush served in the national guard with someone who has done a large amount of business with one of Osama bin Laden's brothers, and with the Bush family.

This week the U.S. Supreme Court is hearing a case about U.S. vice-president Dick Cheney's secret activities involving large oil businesses. One of the Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, Antonin Scalia, is a long-time friend of Cheney and is judging this case, even though there are strong rules against conflict of interest.

Remember that it was Republicans on the U.S. Supreme Court that decided that George W. Bush would be president of the U.S., not the voters. For more about that, see the book Supreme Injustice: How the High Court Hijacked Election 2000 by Alan M. Dershowitz

Here are some tips for those who plan to take an interest in U.S. government corruption:

1) Most people don't read books. Only 2% read non-fiction about subjects other than their work. So, although there is plenty of information available about U.S. government corruption, most people don't know that.

Television, magazine, and newspaper news reporters rely on being granted access to politicians, and therefore cannot say anything very negative without risking losing their jobs.

Only books have comprehensive information. A book author has the luxury of spending two years gathering facts.

Of course, not all books are written by authors who care primarily about the facts. Bob Woodward, for example, is known for being especially positive toward those who grant him access. That creates a kind of blackmail in which people grant him access to avoid having negative things written about them.

Those who corrupt government for money don't care about what book authors say because only 2% of the population reads books.

2) When someone is reputed to be an "oilman", that does not mean he has an interest in geology. That means that he is interested in profit.

It's wrong to say that the U.S. government goes to war over oil. The amount of oil is the same. It is who gets the oil profit that motivates U.S. government violence.

OK, good to know you can get one refill. However, that's not what people going to Canada for prescriptions do - they get many refills (it would not be cost effective otherwise). But like I said, according to a recent program I saw on the subject (I think it was 60 minutes) the US government is not actively enforcing this restriction since doing so would have terrible backlash.

This article on USA Today both confirms my point, while conceding yours. Here is the relevant quote: The FDA contends it is illegal for U.S. citizens to purchase drugs from foreign sources. But they have told Customs officials to permit individuals to re-enter the country with up to 90-day supplies of drugs for personal use.

This from the label execs, among others. The same labels that never engage in any sort of price fixing. And then I read something like this article, and I, of course, see that the labels are doing the right thing.

No, I don't trust the labels on pricing any more.