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This is most likely the study the GP was referring to. Here is a similar study focusing just on sex offenders.

Marijuana is not a schedule 1 drug, and it's not a felony to smoke it.

Sorry, but you're wrong. Marijuana is a schedule 1 drug according to the DEA: http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/pubs/scheduling.html . Perhaps you meant to say that it's utterly absurd that a drug like marijuana is in the worst schedule of drugs, despite the fact that marijuana is less addictive than alcohol, and has caused zero confirmed deaths since the dawn of history, compared to thousands of fatalities per year for aspirin overdoses. http://www.drugwarfacts.org/causes.htm

But you're right, smoking isn't a felony. Smoking usually requires possession, though, which is a misdemeanor or felony depending both on the amount and on the presence or absence of an elusive quality called "intent to distribute". Sadly, police officers have been caught planting this evidence on innocent people:

http://wcbstv.com/local/Undercover.NYPD.Officers.2.759420.html

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4176/is_20070427/ai_n19063646

Sure, there's some correlation in that one instance. But when you put it under additional scrutiny, it falls apart.

Take a look at homicide rates. Spain makes a great example: they have an incredibly low gun death rate, but they still manage to kill themselves almost as much as Americans (last reported rate 3.35). The Swiss have been catching-up as well, with their homicide rate TRIPLING in the last five years, even though gun ownership rates have not grown significantly.

What does this teach us? First, it shows that countries with low gun ownership and low gun fatalities can still have relatively high murder rates (Spain). For the record, Spain had VERY low murder rates throughout the 80s and 90s, and only peaked in the last five years; this is not due to gun ownership, as your graph makes plain.

Second, it shows that high gun ownwership does not automatically translate into higher murder rates (Switzerland): the Swiss had extremely low murder rates for the entirety of the 1990s, only peaking in the last 5 years. Their gun ownership numbers have hardly changed in that time. By comparison, in this same period of time, the USA murder rate has dropped by half AND has remained flat throughout the 2000s, despite growing gun ownership. Even violent crimes that didn't result in homicide are down for the same period.

In 2006, about 68% of all murders, 42% of all robberies, and 22% of all aggravated assaults that were reported to the police were committed with a firearm.

Roughly 400,000 crimes total

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance/guncrime.htm

How Are Victims Killed?

Homicide: 11,624 / 39% of All Fatalities

Suicide: 16,750 / 57% of All Fatalities

Unintentional Death (Accidental): 649 / 2% of All Fatalities

How Are Victims Injured?

Assault Injury: 43,592 / 68% of All Injuries

Unsuccessful Suicide Attempt: 3,352 (may be incorrect -- actual number may be larger, see CDC website) / 5% of All Injuries

Accidental Injury: 16,555 / 26% of All Injuries

http://washingtonceasefire.org/resource-center/national-firearm-injury-and-death-statistics

This site has a good number of statisics on it, broken up by age/race and so on...

I'm not really taking either side with this post, I'm just sick of unsupported facts being thrown around. From this data, my own opinion is "Wow, more people kill themselves with guns then other people."

I could care less if you have a gun, though I don't agree you should have enough to equip an army. More then anything, I personally just hate the fact that most people who are really all about having a gun are assholes. Gun owners (actuall good people) should focus their attention on shutting up gun assholes, then both Gun Owners and Non-Gun Owners would stfu about it all.

You see, the thing about your last paragraph...if everybody had a shotgun in their truck, you included, then those assholes you're sick of would be thinking about what they say and the way they act a lot more than they are now.

I call bullshit.

Handgun crime may have dropped by 50% since 1993, but only as a part of a larger trend.

From 1993 to 2005, the violent crime
rate was down 58%, from 50 to 21
victimizations per 1,000 persons age
12 or older.

In fact I think you'll find that in cities like DC, Chicago, LA and especially NY which had stricter gun control laws violent crime and handgun crime decreased even more. There has been a recent up-tick in some cities since 2005, that also has nothing to do with handguns or their availability.

To you and the people answered you :
12000 at the peak in UK Same statistic for the US : 500000 victims

UK population : 60 million. So to get a similar figure to the US we need to multiply by 6. 60K handgun crime in the UK , compared to 500K. Unless I missing something, handgun crime in the US is still 8 time higher than in the UK. So even if there was a rise from 6K to 12K at peak (it went down to 9K recently for 2007), the rate of handgun crime is still way higher in the US, so it ain't really utterly convincing that handgun really help fighting crime, or a ban thereof is REALLY the reason the number of crime related to handgun, or even homeowner invasion rose. PS: to the guy citing a 2001 statistic , nice try. How about citing a recent statistic ? It took me 10 seconds to enter handgun crime statistic UK and clicking the first links.

One interessant fact is that in the US, handgun crime dropped by 50% since 1993. Now I would like to know if really during that time MORE city imposed handgun restriction or LESS (yes I know correlation would not imply causation, but that would certainly be a good angle to research , no matter on which side of the issue you feel yourself).

just because a robbery doesn't end up in a gunfight doesn't make it profitable.

Many/most people engaging in robbery today have a messed up risk/reward evaluation ability. There's far too many people who've been convicted of multiple robberies, arrested for robbery hours/days after getting out of jail. As for 'works quite well', well, I don't think it works when there's huge numbers of individuals with dozens of robbery convictions, and as many jail or prison visits.

How's the self defense tool ban helping England?
How about Australia?

England, Canada, and Australia often have higher violent crime rates, except in murder, than the USA.

We got quite competent police and quite a lot if not most robberies gets solved

I think that the robbery clear rate is well under 50%. Can't find a source at the moment, lost a link to a great statistics site.

As I said to the sibling, if you are truly so narrow minded and vengeful I feel sorry for you and hope you seek help, you are definitely not helping your society by spreading false fear.

Just to be clear, as I'm not the poster of the parent, I don't advocate vigilantism. I don't advocate seeking vengence. I advocate stopping the crime on the spot. Of defending yourself, and others.

In 2006, about 68% of all murders, 42% of all robberies, and 22% of all aggravated assaults that were reported to the police were committed with a firearm.
Roughly 400,000 crimes total

How Are Victims Killed?

Homicide: 11,624 / 39% of All Fatalities
Suicide: 16,750 / 57% of All Fatalities
Unintentional Death (Accidental): 649 / 2% of All Fatalities

How Are Victims Injured?

Assault Injury: 43,592 / 68% of All Injuries
Unsuccessful Suicide Attempt: 3,352 (may be incorrect -- actual number may be larger, see CDC website) / 5% of All Injuries
Accidental Injury: 16,555 / 26% of All Injuries

...
Do people get robbed? Yes of course they do, but strangely seldom with a gun - usually its a knife being wielded.

Furthermore, gun ownership prevents crime. Take, for example, Kennesaw county in metro-Atlanta, Georgia. In 1982 they passed a law requiring gun ownership by each head of household. Crime dropped almost 89% in the first couple of years and has stayed roughly constant ever since with no murders for the last 25 years. Contrast that with Morton Grove, Illinois which banned guns for everyone but cops, their crime rate increased by almost 16% immediately after the ban was put into effect. ( http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=55288 )

have the DOJ gone after IBM (the IT powerhouse of the 80s)? Because last time i checked you had to do something illegal before they could sue your ass.

Not true at all

Anyone, or any legal entity such as a corporation can be sued at any time for any reason. I am not accusing Google of doing anything more than gaining predominant market share, like Intel, for example, and getting sued for it.

As for the utility of antitrust suits, here's an interesting view.

After I saw an NT beta at COMDEX in the 90s, I speculated that Microsoft would be sued for antitrust by the end of the decade. I thought NT would be successful enough to get the competitors bent out of shape, and sure enough, that is what happened. Don't forget how much Unix cost back then. A low cost 32 bit OS was a disaster for Unix vendors. The huge mistake Microsoft made was to not settle with the DoJ.

Google is not likely to make the same mistake, but ultimately it will come down to which competitors or other interests have better lobbyists than Google, and how politically popular it will be to sue them. On that score, Google is more vulnerable, since they are doing so much tracking of what might be considered personal information. <tinfoilhat>Now imagine there is a future Nixonian US president, one who decides that forcing Google to give up some personal information might be very useful. That would be a good to time for that president to tell his or her AG to threaten Google. The "plumbers" will think: "it got us inside Microsoft, right?</tinfoilhat>

I don't have time to respond fully. I do take issue with your immediate claim that my post represented an "emotional argument" as if by it being "emotional" it is less of an argument that your rebuttal. I call bullshit.

I'll get to some of your individual points:

Issue: #1 Why the ISP in question chose to shut down access to alt.* (is it by reason of child pornography? If so - that is an invalid reason for it shuts down far more than the small list of newsgroups that engaged in this behavior)

Response: Verizon can shut down the service for any reason they choose. They can cut access to a few alt.* groups, or they can cut the entire alt.* hierarchy. They can even cut out all of the big seven and shut off their nntpd. And it won't matter one whit what rationale they choose to do this, for nowhere are they required to provide USENET news access as part of their offering.

Verizon could choose to shut off USENET for the stated reason that too many chucacabra sightings are reported there if they so wish. Or because chickens like to cluck. Perhaps they might choose to shut off USENET for the reason that it's not carbon-neutral. Whatever - it's their hardware and their service they sell. You don't like it? Cancel and find another ISP. Or buy the service from another USENET news provider.

So - whatever reason Verizon chose - you don't have standing to claim that these actions amount to any wrongdoing whatsoever.

Issue #2, censorship "Technically, Verizon is not censoring any speech, as it is only cutting a service. If they were engaging in censorship, not only would I question the propriety of a corporation doing the work of a government,[...]"

The district attorney's office in the State of New York has asked that Verizon and other ISPs cut access to a small number of USENET newsgroups where users are currently trading in child-pornography. The ISPs have agreed. Thus it is not the ISPs who are engaged in censorship, it is the State of New York which has requested that this material be censored. As is the right and responsibility of that district attorney.

Your argument that these actions amount to "save the children" fear mongering, I argue, is the real emotional argument that ought to be challenged. Those children being sexually abused for profit deserve someone in law enforcement to take on their cause.

So, let's recap some facts:

- For an ISP to shut off a server is not censorship, particularly when that venue is available from many alternate providers. Free speech does not imply a free venue to speak.

- To create, distribute or own child-pornography is a class B felony.

- In the process of creating that material, a child is irreparably harmed both by the original act itself, as well as the distribution of the outcome.

- Censorship of child pornography is intended to protect the child from the stigma of such abuse being public. Thus, it is implemented as a privacy right for the abused child in question. Adults are offered no such "privacy right" because it is assumed they acted with consent, which a child cannot give.

These are facts as defined in current US law. Verizon's choice to shut their equipment off is completely irrelevant to the closing of those twenty-two or so USENET forums where this activity is taking place. Both are neither mutually inclusive nor are they mutually exclusive.

Actually, you're wrong. According to the Center for Health Statistics, there were 52,000 nonfatal violence-related injuries and 23,000 nonfatal accidental discharges, give or take. In addition, they report that most firearm deaths are suicides, rather than homocides.

The level of crime that is prevented by the use of a handgun is harder to track, but the U.S. Department of Justice estimates that there are in the range of 1.5 to 2 million defensive gun uses in the U.S. each year, based on studies conducted in 1994 and 2004. In a separate study available here they conclude that while self-defense without a handgun resulted in a wound or death for the victim nearly half the time, the use of a handgun dropped that to nearly one-fifth of the time. Furthermore, only 38% of defensive uses of firearms involved shots fired.

However, in addition to being factually incorrect, you make the logical error of presuming that aggregate statistics accurately reflect the circumstances of an individual gun owner. The department of justice issued an advisory last year supporting the idea that gun crime statistics were "more of a map than a compass", meaning that rather than indicating future trends of gun violence, they should be used by LEOs and concerned civilians to train for the most likely defensive scenarios.

Because different substantive and procedural rules apply to civil and criminal contempts, distinctions between the two forms of contempt are important. "Criminal contempt is a crime in the ordinary sense," Bloom v. Illinois, 391 U.S. 194, 201 (1968), and "criminal penalties may not be imposed on someone who has not been afforded the protections that the Constitution requires of such criminal proceedings." Hicks v. Feiock, 485 U.S. 624, 632 (1988). These constitutional protections include the right (1) not to be subject to double jeopardy, see United States v. Dixon, 509 U.S. 688, 695 (1993); In re Bradley, 318 U.S. 50 (1943); (2) to receive notice of the charges, (3) to receive assistance of counsel; (4) to receive summary process; (5) to present a defense, Cooke v. United States, 267 U.S. 515, 537 (1925); (6) not to self-incriminate oneself, and (7) to proof beyond a reasonable doubt, Gompers v. Bucks Stove & Range Co., 221 U.S. 418, 444 (1911). For serious criminal contempts involving imprisonment of more than six months, these protections include the right to a jury trial. Bloom, 391 U.S. at 199.

        By contrast, civil contempt sanctions--which are designed to compel future compliance with a court order--are coercive and avoidable through obedience, and "thus may be imposed in an ordinary civil proceeding upon notice and an opportunity to be heard. Neither a jury trial nor proof beyond a reasonable doubt is required." International Union, UMWA v. Bagwell, 512 U.S. 821, 114 S.Ct. 2552, 2557 (1994).

The rise of exceptionally violent and explicit media, starting in the early to mid 90's, is actually inversely related to the violent crime rates. That's right - as media has gotten more violent, actual violent crime has provably gone down.

Anybody trying to claim that violent media is responsible for any objective worsening of American society doesn't have a single iota of evidence in their favor.

http://www.usdoj.gov/ag/trainingmanual.htm

Um, I think you're making my point for me.

If porn caused sexual activity, we should see a lot of data to that effect. If anything, we see the opposite. Barriers to access to porn have efectively vanished (see this. (NSFW) It's free, it's -widely- available to anyone with access to a computer, and the quality is quite good. If porn cases sexual violence, we should be seeing an epidemic of sexual violence, as more and more people have satisfied their urges. Instead, sexual violence rates have declined in recent years in the US, along with all violent crime. For data, see this.

I recall reading some study a while back that in the case of sexual offenders in particular, they found that access to porn reduced likelihood of reoffense. Not to put too fine a point on it, this is as surprising as finding that masturbation satisfies sexual urges.

As to pot leading to hard drugs, if you believe that old canard, then you're a hopeless case. I won't waste bandwidth refuting this.

I'm not a lawyer, so, of course, I hadn't heard of "enhanced disbarment" either. But if you google for it, and go down past the pages with Jack's recent example, you'll find another example, one Anthony E. Ramos in a decision handed out by the Florida bar in 2005 (both those documents are PDFs, and there are more on the google search page).

Ramos got 20 years of "enhanced disbarment" from the Florida bar. As you suggested, it bars him from re-applying to the Florida board for that long a period of time. Apparently if the bar boots you, you can normally re-apply within a year. Not so for "enhanced disbarment". So Jack will have to wait 10 years before he can apply to the bar again. I could be wrong, but I think he'll also need a lawyer to represent him.

What does it take to get "enhanced disbarment"? In Ramos' case, he apparently "appropriated" up to $396,765.02 of client funds, "forged signatures, charged excessive fees, and lied to a tribunal". Yowch.

Jack only got 10 years, so presumably he's only half that bad.

I'm not a lawyer, so, of course, I hadn't heard of "enhanced disbarment" either. But if you google for it, and go down past the pages with Jack's recent example, you'll find another example, one Anthony E. Ramos in a decision handed out by the Florida bar in 2005 (both those documents are PDFs, and there are more on the google search page).

Ramos got 20 years of "enhanced disbarment" from the Florida bar. As you suggested, it bars him from re-applying to the Florida board for that long a period of time. Apparently if the bar boots you, you can normally re-apply within a year. Not so for "enhanced disbarment". So Jack will have to wait 10 years before he can apply to the bar again. I could be wrong, but I think he'll also need a lawyer to represent him.

What does it take to get "enhanced disbarment"? In Ramos' case, he apparently "appropriated" up to $396,765.02 of client funds, "forged signatures, charged excessive fees, and lied to a tribunal". Yowch.

Jack only got 10 years, so presumably he's only half that bad.

Not according to the DOJ:
http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/public/real_estate/rebates.htm

And they apparently have at least one court siding with them.

"Denial of service attacks are illegal in the US under 12 different statutes, including the Economic Espionage Act and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. So is MD above the law?"

Nope.

And anyone who wants to look at the "howto" for this stuff, go HERE:

http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/ccmanual/01ccma.html#F.

That's the applicable one.

Since Revision 3 is also in California, they have an open-and-shut case against Media Defender for civil damages.

Please note that vigilantism is _not_ something that justifies breaking US federal or state law. From the POV of Media Defender, the best they can get away with is pleading guilty to conspiracy, especially since they admitted in public that they're engaged in vigilante "net justice"

--
BMO - For Great Justice

Let me acquaint you with the well known term - cellophane fallacy.

It is commonly agreed that this case was decided incorrectly.

first off, here's the actual proposed final judgement that actually came out today, the actual news part of this, as the links above seem a few months old.

secondly, both the submitter and the linked article seem to have absolutely no clue as to what this settlement means. it is in no way about 'enchancing competition' or 'opening up the industry'. it merely clarifies rules that allow brokerages to limit this data.

specifically, this has to do with VOW (Virtual Office Website) data. if you don't know anything about MLSs (Multiple Listing Services) here's a quick rundown: most regions of the US are served by one or more MLS. real estate brokerages pay to be a part of the MLS, and in return they are granted access to the full database of current property listings.

(now, before some of you go screaming that this database should be simply open to the public, like i initially did when i first learned about the MLS system, please realize that there is information contained in it that people may not exactly what to be in public hands. part of the job of the MLS and the traditional brokerage system is verifying the character of the agents)

for many years, the NAR had a policy allowing brokerages to restrict VOW data. through this, a real estate office could block their listings from appearing on a competitor's web page. the obvious point of this is that the listing brokerage would also like to be the selling brokerage (capturing both ends of the commission.) the not so obvious point is that the MLS prefers to have brokerages in it that contribute listings, not just 'leech' off of it in order to captured leads, and make money off of referrals.

a few years ago, the DOJ ended this practice, calling it anti-competitive. NAR came up with other policies, and contested the original DOJ order. this settlement allows NAR to reinstate VOW practices.

The top of the site linked to says "... downloaded from http://www.usdoj.gov/ag/trainingmanual.htm", which is US Department of Justice, and which results in 404.

I thought you couldn't discuss a NSL, so how would we know that hundreds of thousands of them have been issued?

According to Wikipedia, semi-annual reports need to be made to congress, including a non-classified count of National Security Letters issued.

The US Department of Justice also performed an audit in 2007 that contains some more statistics.

Keep in mind that it has been decided by the Supreme Court that you're only entitled to a jury trial if you're charged with something that carries at least a six-month prison term. Oh, and that has to be within a single charge - they've already ruled that if you face 100 counts of a 1-month sentence that you don't get a jury trial.

Oh, and if the evidence is flimsy they might not charge "you" at all - they'll just charge your stuff. The constitution provides no protections for your stuff - so in a hearing that is basically just a formality it gets confiscated. You don't have any standing to be involved in the trial.

I'm not quite sure where you find any of that in the constitution, but it happens...

WRONG WRONG WRONG. Apple is not considered a monopoly

That's not the standard. Whether "the seller has market power in the tying product" is the issue. The "tying product" is the MacOS; the "tied product" is Apple hardware.

Note that Apple has to win in court before they can stop Psystar. That could take years, and the odds are against Apple. Historically, manufacturers trying to enforce tying agreements have lost in court. IBM lost on mainframes. Ink-jet printer manufacturers lost on ink-jet cartridges. It's all uphill to get a court to enforce a tying arrangement.

On the other hand, combining this and this suggests that, if you took US crime statistics and imported it directly into Germany's population numbers, you would have approximately 380,000 violent crimes, of which slightly under 110,000 are committed with assistance of a firearm. Leaving 270,000 violent crimes if firearms vanished and so did every crime ever committed with use of a gun, while Germany actually, apparently, had around 211,000, as you said. Almost a 30% difference.

Perhaps the two countries are different in more than just population? Nah. Couldn't be.

Also, I'm not arguing that easy accessibility to guns doesn't also make some crimes more likely. (You'll notice that this debate started with someone making a claim that accidental gun-related deaths vastly outstripped any useful use of guns. This new point, whether guns are actually an improvement or not, is a point I haven't touched on before.) I do think that it's a net profit, but it's extremely hard to come up with meaningful arguments on either side due simply to the impossibility of a good test.

"If such questions are unlawful when posed face-to-face or by telephone, they don't magically become lawful when asked electronically online," Kozinski wrote. "The Communications Decency Act was not meant to create a lawless no man's land on the Internet."

Seems fair enough when put in that light. Unless you're looking for a hot black chick as a roommate, for example, and are prevented from finding one using the services of a website which is subject to a set or rules similar to what a landlord has to abide by.

If you persistently tell people they should be afraid -- they WILL be. It matters not at all whether they SHOULD be.

Witness that, lacking both better things to do and the ethics to do better things, our American news media plays up every negative incident as OMG the sky is falling, run for your lives!! Consequently, ask the average American (or any of our detractors) whether they think violent crime is out of control in the U.S., and they will uniformly declare that it is -- despite that the *actual* incidence of violent crime has been dropping steadily for almost two decades.

See stats at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/gvc.htm

The statistics in the US back up my point exactly:
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance/vsx2.htm

Yes, women are more likely to be victims of _sexual_ assault. Men are more likely to be victims of _assault_.

My point is that by focussing specifically on reducing sexual assaults on women you are increasing the chances of assaults on men - even though the statistics demonstrate that men are more vulnerable.

I wasn't disagreeing with the gp, I was highlighting an additional complexity around trying to tackle such perceptions.

Yeah, that's a good idea. What's worse than the typical dumbass redneck American? That same typical dumbass redneck American with a gun.

The times, places and manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by law make or alter such regulations, except as to the places of choosing Senators.

Someone in your family is more likely to be shot than anyone else when you own a gun.

Actually, according to the DOJ, "Homicides committed by friends/acquaintances and strangers are more likely to involve guns than those committed by initmates or family members." So if you get shot to death, it's less likely to be by a family member than by some other sort of acquaintance.

And you're much more likely to use a firearm defensively (which will probably not mean killing someone, just making the threat to do so tends to make people leave you alone) than to shoot a family member. There are roughly 2,000 homicides by family members per year; estimates of defensive firearms use range from around one hundred thousand into the millions, depending on who does the surveys.

Thank you for replying.

The problem is, what I said is true, is far from all of it and arguably not the worst.

To save you some time, my descriptions of Microsoft's intent and effect on the market is a straight paraphrase from the closing paragraph, my use of "multi-million" is from paragraph 317, and just some of the facts supporting the points in bold are found in the paragraphs immediately following 317.

The court of law found that Microsoft violated anti-trust laws not because they yoked IE to Windows, but because they threatened to withhold Windows licenses (abusing their monopoly since Compaq could not get it from anywhere else) for bundling Netscape with their PCs.

You keep messing this basic fact up. Microsoft was found guilty because they used their Windows monopoly to prevent vendors from bundling Netscape; not guilty because they bundled IE. It's detailed QUITE promonently here and here. Read your own sig. You sound like a fool.

Microsoft audited IBM with a very real consequence of not licensing Windows in time for the back to school season, because they were developing a competing product called OS/2.
Microsoft threatened to withhold Windows licenses from Compaq for placing Netscape icons instead of IE icons on the desktop.

Both would have seriously hurt Compaq and IBM if they could not sell Windows PCs, at the time.

This would be akin to Apple withholding iPod shipments from Amazon while they did a patent audit of the Amazon store to ensure none of iTunes patents were being violated. This has not happened. Nothing even similar has happened.

The best argument you can bring is that this is like Microsoft bundling IE, yet that was not wrong. It was the manipulation of their WIndows licenses (and by analogy in this case, iPods) that was the violation.

I've been doing some Googling, and it seems that there is evidence that supports the claim that exposure to fictional violence can have adverse consequences

My 2-year old daughter was sufficiently traumatized from watching Disney's "Beauty and the Beast" that it gave her nightmares, and the toy monster we got at McDonald's yesterday looks enough like "The Beast" that it upset her. Now bad dreams are a long way from acting out violent behavior, but the point here is that audio/visual stimuli /can/ have deep, lasting mental impacts.

I found a link of a soldier who had a PTSD episode possibly triggered by CoD

Now it could be that these people were unstable /before/ training, and the training simply made their condition worse. But then this is exactly what I expect to find with violent simulations - people closest to the edge will be the first to be pushed over it.

I've been doing some Googling, and it seems that there is evidence that supports the claim that exposure to fictional violence can have adverse consequences

My 2-year old daughter was sufficiently traumatized from watching Disney's "Beauty and the Beast" that it gave her nightmares, and the toy monster we got at McDonald's yesterday looks enough like "The Beast" that it upset her. Now bad dreams are a long way from acting out violent behavior, but the point here is that audio/visual stimuli /can/ have deep, lasting mental impacts.

I found a link of a soldier who had a PTSD episode possibly triggered by CoD

Now it could be that these people were unstable /before/ training, and the training simply made their condition worse. But then this is exactly what I expect to find with violent simulations - people closest to the edge will be the first to be pushed over it.

It's fairly trivial to setup an asterisk box with a SIP client and make up any outbound caller-ID you want... It's a stretch to say that someone who does this is a "hacker" comparable to what someone could do with switch access... Being able to forward/unforward a phone arbitrarily from within a switch -- this is power. Does anyone remember the "Phone Masters" guys Zibby, Gatsby, etc? -- That's the most recent example of hacking/phreaking that I can think. This is some kid playing around with asterisk and making prank phone calls.

I struggle with the same question myself. Probably the most cogent arguments I've read against Microsoft are within The Court's Findings of Facts in cases 98-1232 and 98-1233, the U.S. D.C. for the D.C. :) In summary:

Most harmful of all is the message that Microsoft's actions have conveyed to every enterprise with the potential to innovate in the computer industry. Through its conduct toward Netscape, IBM, Compaq, Intel, and others, Microsoft has demonstrated that it will use its prodigious market power and immense profits to harm any firm that insists on pursuing initiatives that could intensify competition against one of Microsoft's core products. Microsoft's past success in hurting such companies and stifling innovation deters investment in technologies and businesses that exhibit the potential to threaten Microsoft. The ultimate result is that some innovations that would truly benefit consumers never occur for the sole reason that they do not coincide with Microsoft's self-interest.

On this particular occasion all I can say is that it remains to be seen if Apple will act honorably. I regurgitated my Apple Kool-Aid and now I just think they're "pretty neat" and "great as long as Linux works nicely on them". I hope my next laptop will be a quad-core MacBook Pro, but I plan to mostly run Linux (Apple does have some neat apps.) Right now I have a Compaq nw9440 EZ901#ABA which is kind of like an ugly MacBook Pro with superior graphics.

I just looked up the 2008 median income tables published by the government:

http://www.usdoj.gov/ust/eo/bapcpa/20080201/bci_data/median_income_table.htm [usdoj.gov]

Oregon beats both Ohio and Florida in median income for every category except Ohio barely eeks out a win in the family of four median income. (The new growth in Oregon is in single and couples without children or with one child and in Hispanics with two or more kids -- you can see that would drag down the family of four count.)

Unfortunately, those aren't real statistics. The are CPI adjusted numbers based off the 2006 numbers we were comparing earlier. They actually paint a worse picture for oregon then the other number we were talking about. You see, the take the latest numbers (2006 is the last consumer survey compiled I believe), adjust it for the inflation in the area and then it is used as a base income for a means test to decide if you make too much too much money or have too much asset value in order to file bankruptcy or certain types of bankruptcy. What it is showing is that Oregon had had an large amount of inflation (consumer price index increase which really isn't an inflation value but is treated as one).

The CPI is good for determining factors about the economy but currently they only survey about 7 major geographical areas with a few specific samples averaged in somehow. It is basically lumping Oregon in with california, Washington, Idaho and a few other states. It isn't a real reflection of median income but a projection of how much it would have to of increased to keep the same standards of living since the last survey was compiled.

Air quality indexes show Oregon beating the shit out of Ohio and beating Florida in ozone and a wash in particulates.

I'm not sure where you got your numbers ridiculing Oregon.

lol.. There we go with that context thing again. I never said anything about ohio'd particulate matter for one. For two, I specifically stated when comparing Oregon's non hydroelectric plants, Florida does a better job. Read that exactly as it says, when comparing kilowatt to kilowatt produced by the non hydro plants (that Florida simply can't use because it lacks the necessary rivers), Florida is better on emissions. This means that for the pollution Oregon does do, it does it better then Florida. Keep reading those pages and do the math. you will get to the same numbers and come to realize that when they put their mind to it, Oregon can pollute the best.

From looking at the electricity profiles, Oregon creams Florida and Ohio in every measure across the board.

Only if you count the hydro, which seeing how Florida has spent so much effort on their conventional plants, if they had the same hydro resources available, you wouldn't be able to casually say that.

So, in all those things you've criticized Oregon for, it turns out it's all a pack of delusions.

I don't know why I am still amazed at how ignorant you are. What it turns out to be is that you simply don't understand context and you simple don't understand the processes you are blindly championing. You seem to be willing to ignore anything that stand in the way or your Ideals. That what it turns out to be.

Lets look at some numbers. Oregon produces, by your own links, 53,340,695 megawatthours of electricity using primarily hydroelectric generation. For the non hydro plants, they produce about .5 thousand metric tons of sulfur dioxide and Nitrogen Oxide per megawatthour with about 293 thousand metric tons of Co2 for the same. In contrast, florida produces about 4.2 time the amount of electricity (223,751,621 megawatthours) with fossil fuels as their primary source and is the second largest electr

I just looked up the 2008 median income tables published by the government:

http://www.usdoj.gov/ust/eo/bapcpa/20080201/bci_data/median_income_table.htm

Oregon beats both Ohio and Florida in median income for every category except Ohio barely eeks out a win in the family of four median income. (The new growth in Oregon is in single and couples without children or with one child and in Hispanics with two or more kids -- you can see that would drag down the family of four count.)

http://lungaction.org/reports/stateoftheair2007.html

Air quality indexes show Oregon beating the shit out of Ohio and beating Florida in ozone and a wash in particulates.

I'm not sure where you got your numbers ridiculing Oregon.

Plus, what's this about alternative fuels? Alternative generation mechanisms is important. Hydro is an alternative generation mechanism that requires no fuel.

Wind energy requires no fuel either. Ohio has 7 megawatts and Florida doesn't even make the list. Oregon has 885 megawatts of wind generation and it's not a very big wind state.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/st_profiles/oregon.html
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/st_profiles/florida.html
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/st_profiles/ohio.html

From looking at the electricity profiles, Oregon creams Florida and Ohio in every measure across the board.

So, in all those things you've criticized Oregon for, it turns out it's all a pack of delusions.

In 2002, Oregon, under Republican control of its legislature, was dead last in children going hungry. Since then, under Democratic leadership, it's now up to 30th instead of 50th due to a concerted effort to open up accessibility to food stamps. Corporations could have stepped in at any point and helped out, but it took the government to do that.

How are you going to respond to that?

This would be legal in the US too. There is nothing in the Privacy Act of 1974 that forbids it.

http://www.usdoj.gov/oip/privstat.htm

I read _somewhere_ that Congress does have some sort of enforcement capabilities for cases like this when Justice won't do their job

OK, found relavent material...

"By contrast, 18 U.S.C. 231(a)(1) -- like the proposed Feinstein Amendment -- arguably could be characterized as a prohibition on certain forms of speech. Section 231(a)(1) provides that: Whoever teaches or demonstrates to any other person the use, application, or making of any firearm or explosive or incendiary device, or technique capable of causing injury or death to persons, knowing or having reason to know or intending that the same will be unlawfully employed for use in, or in furtherance of, a civil disorder which may in any way or degree obstruct, delay, or adversely affect commerce or the movement of any article or commodity in commerce or the conduct or performance of any federally protected function . . . [s]hall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both. http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/bombmakinginfo.html#IVA "

link here May just be violation of 1st...

OK, found relavent material...

"By contrast, 18 U.S.C. 231(a)(1) -- like the proposed Feinstein Amendment -- arguably could be characterized as a prohibition on certain forms of speech. Section 231(a)(1) provides that: Whoever teaches or demonstrates to any other person the use, application, or making of any firearm or explosive or incendiary device, or technique capable of causing injury or death to persons, knowing or having reason to know or intending that the same will be unlawfully employed for use in, or in furtherance of, a civil disorder which may in any way or degree obstruct, delay, or adversely affect commerce or the movement of any article or commodity in commerce or the conduct or performance of any federally protected function . . . [s]hall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both. http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/bombmakinginfo.html#IVA "

link here May just be violation of 1st...

Well, regulators let Google and Doubleclick through. The increase in the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index due to that was huge. Regulators don't seem to be doing much regulation these days.

More details can be found here from the previous round of talks: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070308-us-doj-microsoft-dragging-feet-on-documentation.html Or the official DOJ page http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/f221700/221759.htm

When I went to Iraq I was given a very clear explanation for why more Islamic terrorists are college-educated than not:

Arabs as a culture do not teach their children about the relationship between cause and effect, so the typical Arab is not suitable as a terrorist operative.

For example, the typical Arab could not draw you a map of how he gets to work if you held a gun to his head. The same is true for reconstructing timelines - for some reason Arabs just don't think in those terms. Anyone who can't understand that event B must come before event C and both must occur after event A just can't pull off effective covert operations.

This is why Al Qaeda wrote in their manual (see the Manchester document (pdf warning)) that "The confrontation that we are calling for with the apostate regimes does not know Socratic debates..., Platonic ideals..., nor Aristotelian diplomacy." The Arab culture simply is not equipped to discuss their goals with us in terms of the Logic we embrace because they don't teach it or learn it among themselves.

Classical (ie. "western") university educations teach things like cause-and-effect, ordered sequencing of events, and Logic in the Greek traditions. To succeed in college you need to learn to think that way, so as a terrorist you would have a strong incentive to recruit people who have succeeded in the college environment.

In summary, there are more engineers and scientists among terrorist operatives because they are better prepared intellectually than the uneducated Arabs, and therefore they get preferentially recruited over uneducated Arabs. It has nothing to do with engineers being predisposed towards extremism, and everything to do with them already having the mental skills necessary.