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Are you trolling ? The drones the CIA is using currently are as illegal as any terrorist, not to mention the torture, extraordinary renditions and the like. The US is using terror to fight terror, except the difference is when they ignore the law the international community looks the other way because they want to be able to do their own black ops.

Please do provide us with examples of democracy at work within the church.

The Lutheran church recently had a public vote to allow openly gay pastors. They VOTED democratically to change the requirements of being a pastor. Well technically it is a republic style vote system like the United States of America but it is a good example. Here is your source:

Before the vote:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/17/AR2009081703016.html

After the vote:
http://blog.pflag.org/2009/08/lutheran-church-votes-to-allow-gay.html

The Mirror Test seems to back this up.

WASHINGTON -- If you're Happy and you know it, pat your head. That, in a peanut shell, is how a 34-year-old female Asian elephant in the Bronx Zoo showed researchers that pachyderms can recognize themselves in a mirror _ complex behavior observed in only a few other species.

The test results suggest elephants _ or at least Happy _ are self-aware. The ability to distinguish oneself from others had been shown only in humans, chimpanzees and, to a limited extent, dolphins

That self-recognition may underlie the social complexity seen in elephants, and could be linked to the empathy and altruism that the big-brained animals have been known to display, said researcher Diana Reiss, of the Wildlife Conservation Society, which manages the Bronx Zoo.

Those irrational, anti-Chavez militants make it a point to accuse him of being a dictator although he is holding a democratically appointed position to which he was elected time and again and although he has been the target of multiple coup attempts, all of which were reverted by none other than Venezuela's people. Is that what being a dictator is about?

In short: Yes, if you include repeatedly changing the constitution to extend or eliminate the legal restrictions on presidential terms, dissolving checks and balances on presidential power... then that is exactly what being a dictator is about.

That is to be expected among the great unwashed masses but hell, this is supposed to be slashdot, a place where informed, educated people tend to read and post news. This sort of nonsense shouldn't take place here.

You must be new here :-)

While I agree with you that most comments here show knee-jerk reactions, I find them more balanced - both sides are well represented by lots of people who don't know what they're talking about, and don't realize the implications such ignorance on the constituency could have on foreign policy (or lack thereof). But that's not a new or unexpected state of affairs.

If anything, I find the other side of ignorance more irritating in its hypocrisy: when people love Chavez just because he insulted Bush in public, and pretend to be more liberal and better informed because of that - as if the purpose of other governments, their policies and their consequences is to provide commentary for dinner party debates about tax-cuts in the US; and an habit of denouncing trade partners on TV and rejecting any help as 'imperialist interventions' out of personal pride and political posturing was worth a few thousand lives.

At least the reactionary knee-jerks are more likely to acknowledge their reaction is more based on emotional and political bias ('he dresses in red! he goes to Cuba!') than to lecture others on how informed they are because they read some wikipedia articles, or even saw a documentary! (as long as it matched their bias).

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/11/sean-penn-hugo-chavez-venezuela

Wonder who is classified a dictator in his mind...

Since I don't think Chavez is a dictator, and I can't speak for Penn, let me show you an example of someone I think of as a dictator.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pervez_Musharraf#Emergency_declared_in_Pakistan
Emergency declared in Pakistan
On 3 November 2007 Musharraf declared emergency rule across Pakistan. He suspended the Constitution, imposed State of Emergency, and fired the chief justice of the Supreme Court.[87] While addressing the nation on State Television, Musharraf declared that the state of emergency was imposed in the country. In Islamabad, troops entered the Supreme Court building, arrested the judges and kept them under detention in their homes. Troops were deployed inside state-run TV and radio stations, while independent channels went off air.

Bush More Emphatic In Backing Musharraf
President Bush yesterday offered his strongest support of embattled Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, saying the general "hasn't crossed the line" and "truly is somebody who believes in democracy."
Bush spoke nearly three weeks after Musharraf declared emergency rule, sacked members of the Supreme Court and began a roundup of journalists, lawyers and human rights activists.

Every production car on the road has sufficient braking power to stall the engine in any gear at any throttle setting. Put your foot on the brake, and the car will stop. You may need new discs and pads after that.

Are you sure about that?

Afterward, investigators said that it appeared the brakes had been applied for so long that the brake pads melted, according to a report by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Yes, used to, you google illiterate fuck: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/17/AR2007011702003.html

i cant believe you dont know about this.

http://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/04/27/cia.nazi.02/

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/908022.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/06/AR2006060601555.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1301306.stm

at the end of the war your country hauled in gestapo agents as well as ex nazi rocket scientists. gestapo was very successful in espionage tactics, and this was known by allies. employment of wernher in rocket research drew a lot of criticism and reaction, and your government spent a lot of effort in covering his ass up. in parallel, right after the end of the war, even before any wind of cold war in the air, the methods and practices of your newly founded intelligence agencies changed a lot. more secrecy, increased efficiency, less mercy, even less respect for civil institutions and principles. all this change doesnt happen by in 1-2 years' span by itself or only with taking an agency out of army's structure and making it independent. rest is history.

let me put it this way ; wernher von braun's employment in rocket research had drawn a lot of reaction. cia didnt have that reaction problem.

this guy should never be allowed to touch a firearm again, much less own one.

Someone posted this link. In this case, the guy forgot his kid was in the car's back seat. Should he be forbidden to ever drive again?

Link to an appropriate story: the "crime" is somewhat different (I consider it a more excusable crime than leaving a loaded gun lying around), but it's still a case of memory failure, and the fact remains that any accidental death tends to punish the parents incredibly severely; they aren't about to do this again just because they weren't punished the first time.

So my answer would be the same as if the death were with a gun. Their judgment is fundamentally flawed, they killed their kids and why should they be permitted to co-exist in society with the rest of us? Off to the human landfill (prison) with them. Period. If you're too effing stupid to remember you left your kid in the car, then I don't want you in my society.

Link to an appropriate story: the "crime" is somewhat different (I consider it a more excusable crime than leaving a loaded gun lying around), but it's still a case of memory failure, and the fact remains that any accidental death tends to punish the parents incredibly severely; they aren't about to do this again just because they weren't punished the first time.

Shouldn't it be their choice?

It's difficult for them to make an objective choice, if for no other reason than the drug company is the only source of information about a drug early in a drug's life cycle. For obvious reasons drug companies are notorious for overselling their products and that "choice" you talk about is pointless if objective information to base it on is not available. In addition one of the biggest problems with the current system is that the drugs are tested by the drug companies themselves, not an objective third party. With the best will in the world they're still biased. No easy solution.

It's not either-or of course. It should be possible to create an intermediate level of auditing that gets experimental drugs out reasonably quickly giving new patients some level of objective safety and assurance of efficacy.

---

Windows and closed source software. The US intelligence agencies back door to every network connected country and business on earth.

Here's one, I recall the coverage being better, perhaps you can find a better article once you have some of the details from this one though. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/05/AR2007050501009_pf.html

FBI director warns of 'rapidly expanding' cyberterrorism threat

This "there is no cyberwar" business plays right into Singel's agenda that anything related to cyber war is really a conspiracy to kill the open internet.

All the "cyberwar" stuff may be overplayed, and no, we're not in a "war", per se, at the moment, but we are most certainly unprepared, as are many open, information-dependent societies...

After the March 2008 Tibetan uprising across the three provinces of Chinese-occupied Tibet during which a few Chinese (both uniformed and settlers) were killed and a dozen more died while hiding when Chinese-owned shops were set alight and over two hundred Tibetans were killed by the Chinese army and paramilitary and over two thousand Tibetans simply went missing (dead or kept in horrendous secret prison camps) there were demonstrations across the world featuring mostly freedom-supporting foreign nationals and occasionally angry Chinese Communist Party-organized "fen qing" defending Chinese imperialism and colonialism in Tibet.

During one rare demonstration at the Duke University featuring both sets of campaigners, a young Chinese student Grace Wang, who also had Tibetan and Western friends and who had mastered the art of respectful debate, tried in vain to mediate between the two groups of protesters. Here is a quote from the Washington Post article ("Caught in the Middle, Called a Traitor") on what happened next:

At the height of the protest, a group of Chinese men surrounded me, pointed at me and, referring to the young woman who led the 1989 student democracy protests in Tiananmen Square, said, "Remember Chai Ling? All Chinese want to burn her in oil, and you look like her." They said that I had mental problems and that I would go to hell. They asked me where I was from and what school I had attended. I told them. I had nothing to hide. But then it started to feel as though an angry mob was about to attack me. Finally, I left the protest with a police escort.

Back in my dorm room, I logged onto the Duke Chinese Students and Scholars Association (DCSSA) Web site and listserv to see what people were saying. Qian Fangzhou, an officer of DCSSA, was gloating, "We really showed them our colors!"

I posted a letter in response, explaining that I don't support Tibetan independence, as some accused me of, but that I do support Tibetan freedom, as well as Chinese freedom. All people should be free and have their basic rights protected, just as the Chinese constitution says. I hoped that the letter would spark some substantive discussion. But people just criticized and ridiculed me more.

The next morning, a storm was raging online. Photographs of me had been posted on the Internet with the words "Traitor to her country!" printed across my forehead. Then I saw something really alarming: Both my parents' citizen ID numbers had been posted. I was shocked, because this information could only have come from the Chinese police.

I saw detailed directions to my parents' home in China, accompanied by calls for people to go there and teach "this shameless dog" a lesson. It was then that I realized how serious this had become. My phone rang with callers making threats against my life. It was ironic: What I had tried so hard to prevent was precisely what had come to pass. And I was the target.

I talked to my mom the next morning, and she said that she and my dad were going into hiding because they were getting death threats, too. She told me that I shouldn't call them. Since then, short e-mail messages have been our only communication. The other day, I saw photos of our apartment online; a bucket of feces had been emptied on the doorstep. More recently I've heard that the windows have been smashed and obscene posters have been hung on the door. Also, I've been told that after convening an assembly to condemn me, my high school revoked my diploma and has reinforced patriotic education.

On the face of it proposal #3 seems perfectly fine.

The desire for government agencies to have "situational awareness" in the form of deep-packet inspection of every transaction coming in or out of their network is nothing more then a proactive capability that any responsible Admin might want for their network. (assuming they disclose this capability and have policy dictating its use)

What does worry me are the washington posts comments about Telcom involvement.
This other article make it very clear EINSTEIN 3 is truly NSA equipment installed on the commercial telcom network where the potential exists for it to easily be repurposed to monitor _OTHER_ traffic streams.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/02/AR2009070202771.html?nav=emailpage

this is a whole different animal from whitehouse.gov's portrayal of responsible network admin.

Why, yes, there have been studies on chips and cancers. You can read about it in mainstream media like, oh, the Washington Post -- "There's no way in the world, having read this information, that I would have one of those chips implanted in my skin, or in one of my family members," said Dr. Robert Benezra, head of the Cancer Biology Genetics Program at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York." But hey, that's just some wacky oncologist talk.

You make a good theoretical point about thermodynamics, and it is insightful to link it to guarding. Thanks for that. I'll think on aspects of that more. And, I'll agree that there will be always aspects of our society devoted to guarding (and security) for that reason and others.

With that said, one can ask what percentage of our society should go to guarding and defense, under what rationale that has been made up by thinking and feeling human beings, and what part should go into either growth or current enjoyment? Part of that is a fundamental question of what sort of society we choose to build based on the values we choose to celebrate for whatever reasons; from Albert Einstein:
http://www.sacred-texts.com/aor/einstein/einsci.htm
"The knowledge of truth as such is wonderful, but it is so little capable of acting as a guide that it cannot prove even the justification and the value of the aspiration toward that very knowledge of truth. Here we face, therefore, the limits of the purely rational conception of our existence. But it must not be assumed that intelligent thinking can play no part in the formation of the goal and of ethical judgments."

As humans, we make moral choices based on our feelings about a bigger picture. So, you have a scientific truth with entropy (which I will state, in an observer based way as much physics has moved, as entropy is the notion that structures tend to decay relative to our preferences unless we put energy into maintaining them as we would like). But what *should* be, given that truth, is another level of thought connected with emotion and, essentially, religion, about what patterns we want to preserve, destroy, or create.

Let's consider three obvious cases of guarding -- prisons, war, and schooling.

The US currently has about five to ten times more people in prison per capita than most other industrialized countries (part of that is that sentences are way longer in the USA, part of that is that prison is a big part of the "social safety" net in the USA). So, by comparing the US to similar countries, we can see that it does not have to be that way, with so much guarding. We have that much guarding because of ideology. But the profit-motive out of control and legalized corruption via political donations helps explain some of why this is the case:
"Pennsylvania rocked by 'jailing kids for cash' scandal"
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/02/23/pennsylvania.corrupt.judges/index.html
And also, less dramatically but more at the core of the problem:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/27/AR2009032702834.html
"The State Assembly in the past had proposed repealing the drug laws, but the effort was always blocked by Senate Republicans, many of whom represent largely rural, Upstate districts where most of the state's prisons are located."
So, we see a profit motive, based on a certain vision of society, as at the hearth of why so many resource in the USA go into the prison system instead of, say, bridge repair.

The USA spends about as much money on "defense" as all other countries combined, where "defense" unfortunately means the extrinsic (soldier-based) unilaterally-dominant military planning intended to defend overly centralized systems against aggression (generally by those unhappy at exploitive US foreign policy or who otherwise feel threatened by the USA). An alternative perception of security would be mutual defensive planning with other nation related to civil defense using intrinsically secure decentralized infrastructures that are sustainable and resilient. Most of that US defense money has been not only wasted, but actually made us worse off though. A policy of mutual security is more stable and effec

If Virginia's IT overhaul is any indication, this is going to be a slow-motion cluster of a mess for the next 10-20 years

Let's not forget that Vivek Kundra was Virginia's CIO when that fiasco took place. I predict that this will be at least as bad as the Virginia situation.

If Virginia's IT overhaul is any indication, this is going to be a slow-motion cluster of a mess for the next 10-20 years

Along with a renewed Patriot Act!

Funny, I seem to have missed the Slashdot story of the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives passing that bill, or the Democrat-controlled Senate passing that bill. Nevermind the Slasdot story about the Democrat President actually signing that Patriot Act extension....

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss!

Actually, that's not true. The old bosses at least said they were going to keep Gitmo open, extend that Patriot Act, and leave troops in Iraq. So at least they did what they said. These new bosses are MUCH worse - they LIE and do and say anything to get elected, then keep on with the policies of the past that they LIED about changing.

And now, these LYING new bosses want us to turn the largest sector of the US economy - health care - over to THEIR control. Because that'll be better for all of us.

What kind of person could possibly believe that THIS group of egomaniacs getting control of another couple of trillion dollars a year would help anyone?

Welcome to the new hopeandchange. You can practically smell the "yeah, what the fuck are you gonna do about it?!" air of ignorance wafting over the entire lot of them, as they pretty much do whatever they want. It smells far worse than ANY other group before them.

And "what kind of person" you ask? Dunno, there's got to be at least a few million out there that voted FOR this, although you might be hard-pressed these days to find any of them who would admit that NOW.

Along with a renewed Patriot Act!

Funny, I seem to have missed the Slashdot story of the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives passing that bill, or the Democrat-controlled Senate passing that bill. Nevermind the Slasdot story about the Democrat President actually signing that Patriot Act extension....

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss!

Actually, that's not true. The old bosses at least said they were going to keep Gitmo open, extend that Patriot Act, and leave troops in Iraq. So at least they did what they said. These new bosses are MUCH worse - they LIE and do and say anything to get elected, then keep on with the policies of the past that they LIED about changing.

And now, these LYING new bosses want us to turn the largest sector of the US economy - health care - over to THEIR control. Because that'll be better for all of us.

What kind of person could possibly believe that THIS group of egomaniacs getting control of another couple of trillion dollars a year would help anyone?

So? Nobody's denying you the privilege but you have to drive a car you can afford, pay the insurance and park it properly when you arrive.

From what I've seen though, "living within your means" isn't what Americans are best at.

Actually, with the election of Obama and the unleasing of the Pelosi-created ginormous deficits, we're trying to emulate the Greeks and Venezuelans and go completely broke.

Read the US Constitution and learn where all spending bills must originate, and see how US deficits, which had been shrinking, began to grow again under Pelosi's "leadership", when Democrats took control of the one body of the US Government that creates those spending bills.

Nevermind what they're projected to do under the Great God of Hopenchange.

Remember all the screaming when Booosh!!! and the EEEVIL Rethuglicans kept passing extensions to the Patriot Act?

Guess what?

IT'S STILL HAPPENING!

Yeah, putting something like this new industry under the control of THAT goverment is going the HELP our privacy. Crap, that government would just figure out a new way to shake down the companies for free trips to warm places.

He's already proved he can create government jobs. The federal government is now larger than it ever has in history.

[citation needed]

Are you aware that there were more federal government employees in the 1980s under Reagan than there are today?

Are you aware that there were more government employees in the 70s under Nixon, Ford, and Carter than there are today?

Go take your horseshit somewhere else.

Sources: Article on Bush increasing the federal employment rolls, just to point out your misplaced ire.
  All fed employees, 1962 to 2008 Here you go. What's that? Federal employment peaked at the end of Reagan's term and decreased under Clinton, only to increase again slighlty under Bush? How can that be, in your misinformed little world?

  An article pointing out the increase in federal employees due to Obama's stimulus packages as of last September. It was newsworthy that 25k federal employees were added from Dec 08 to Aug 09. FYI, more have been added since, with 33k added in Jan 2010 as an example. Still far under what we had in the 80s under Reagan.

Get a clue. Dig into the numbers before you make erroneous claims parroting your stupid right-wing ideological leaders.

Does your 'genius' level research include contractors to the US government? I'm not seeing Blackwater, Raytheon, and the likes showing up in your calculations....

Isn't that exactly what (properly qualified) consultants are for?

Government worker unions despise contractors. Better the NHTSA be incapable of actual engineering than that they misdirect money into non-union contract engineers.

Worse than that, this is really a problem of bureaucracy. The SEC missed Madoff [*] completely because it is populated by lawyers that really have no interest in rocking the boats of the wealthy and powerful. Lawyers have a great deal at stake whenever they interact with powerful people; their careers depend on their reputation among the connected. Bernie didn't work any miracles; his fraud was at least suspected if not obvious to hedge fund managers, quants, clients and media people. The lawyers at the SEC just didn't WANT to find anything dramatic because they're lawyers; they put on their blinders, do the audit and clock out happy they aren't on the front page of the NYT throwing a grenade into some rich guys setup.

What do you suppose the predominant form of life is at NHTSA? Well, right now they are looking for a Trial Attorney and a "Supervisory Equal Employment Opportunity Specialist" which is, according to the job description, a law clerk to handle civil rights complaints.

Bunch of lawyers hiring more lawyers. No surprise they can't analyze code. What happens to these lawyers after they've made their regulatory bones at the NHTSA? Same thing that happens to the SEC lawyers; they get hired by the wealthy and powerful to handle the government.

The previous NHTSA administrator was Nicole Nason, a Case Western lawyer. The new guy is David L. Strickland, a lawyer from Harvard. These people wouldn't tolerate sharing the same building with an actual engineer.


* I've read through about half of the 500+ SEC Madoff investigation transcripts; so far the only non-attorney I have encountered is a guest finance professor on loan from some Washington area university.

He's already proved he can create government jobs. The federal government is now larger than it ever has in history.

[citation needed]

Are you aware that there were more federal government employees in the 1980s under Reagan than there are today?

Are you aware that there were more government employees in the 70s under Nixon, Ford, and Carter than there are today?

Go take your horseshit somewhere else.

Sources: Article on Bush increasing the federal employment rolls, just to point out your misplaced ire.
All fed employees, 1962 to 2008 Here you go. What's that? Federal employment peaked at the end of Reagan's term and decreased under Clinton, only to increase again slighlty under Bush? How can that be, in your misinformed little world?
An article pointing out the increase in federal employees due to Obama's stimulus packages as of last September. It was newsworthy that 25k federal employees were added from Dec 08 to Aug 09. FYI, more have been added since, with 33k added in Jan 2010 as an example. Still far under what we had in the 80s under Reagan.

Get a clue. Dig into the numbers before you make erroneous claims parroting your stupid right-wing ideological leaders.

Yes, they are self-sufficient if you consider a 6 billion dollar loss "sufficient"...

Where do you think those losses come from?
http://www.nhregister.com/articles/2009/06/20/news/a3-postalwoes.txt
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/federal-eye/2009/08/the_president_and_the_postal_s.html

I thought I had read that they stated the laptop had been reported stolen, but looking back on the articles it looks like they only implied it. Specifically, the AP reports:

The suit does not say if his laptop had been reported stolen, and Young said the litigation prevents him from disclosing that fact. He said the district never violated its policy of only using the remote-activation software to find missing laptops. "Infer what you want," Young said.

It seems like he meant to imply that the laptop had been reported stolen. Of course, an alternate explanation is that the image that was being used to target the student was not obtained via the webcam spying feature at all:

According to the suit, Harriton vice principal Lindy Matsko told Blake on Nov. 11 that the school thought he was "engaged in improper behavior in his home." She allegedly cited as evidence a photograph "embedded" in his school-issued laptop.

This almost sounds like they simply found an image on his hard-drive, and the webcam issue is unrelated. Of course, it's difficult to really know what a non-technical person is really saying when they talk about a "photograph" that's "embedded" in a laptop.

(The above quotes are from this article.)

According to these articles and others I've read, she did claim executive privilege. You're assuming a lot here. You assume that the "disgruntled" former aide is lying, although there's no evidence of that. You're assuming that the suit is just for purposes of harassment, again with no evidence of that. You're assuming that these emails are all personal (which just from the subject lines that were leaked (see the msnbc link for those too), it's quite obvious that they were about state business.

I made a lot of assumptions about the facts of these e-mails because I only had the first set of articles you posted, plus what I posted later. The second set is a lot more helpful.
I made other assumptions about the complaint based on a pattern. Like I said, there were 13 ethics complaints against Palin resolved (and two outstanding) when she resigned. Of those 13, Palin was found to not have committed any wrongdoing. She was governor for two and a half years. Having 15 complaints about her filed in that time and being found to not have committed wrongdoing in the 13 settled ones seems like her enemies are throwing everything they have at the wall and seeing what sticks. In my book, that counts as evidence in Palin's favor. Once again, you're making the assumption that she's guilty because you disagree with her politics. (By the way, the MSNBC* article says that even if Palin was using the e-mails like the disgruntled former employee says, that's not illegal.)

Whether they should be protected rather than released because they are part of the "deliberative process" is for a court to decide, not Palin. It may very well be that they should remain private for now, but that still doesn't mean it was appropriate or legal for those communications to go through a non-governmental email service.

I originally said that the e-mails being part of the deliberative process and therefore not subject to disclosure was a reasonable thing for Palin to say to the judge. Clearly, the judge would then rule on it. And he did; the MSNBC* article said the judge ruled it not illegal.

*By the way, MSNBC absolutely HATES Palin. If they're saying it "wasn't necessarily illegal" you can probably take their word for it.

According to these articles and others I've read, she did claim executive privilege. You're assuming a lot here. You assume that the "disgruntled" former aide is lying, although there's no evidence of that. You're assuming that the suit is just for purposes of harassment, again with no evidence of that. You're assuming that these emails are all personal (which just from the subject lines that were leaked (see the msnbc link for those too), it's quite obvious that they were about state business.

Whether they should be protected rather than released because they are part of the "deliberative process" is for a court to decide, not Palin. It may very well be that they should remain private for now, but that still doesn't mean it was appropriate or legal for those communications to go through a non-governmental email service.

Link should read - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/20/AR2010022000679.html

That link hauls in junk and tracking from a huge number of sites, including

• doubleclick.com
• vizu.com
• outbrain.com (which is stalling page load)
• tweetmeme.com
• apture.com
• sphere.com
• adsonar.com
• digg.com
• facebook.com
• tt.com

That's embarrassing.

The Washington Post has changed the linked article in the last 30 minutes to something about administrators denying everything. Talk about big brother and controlling the masses.

Orwell Method:

Link reads -
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/02/19/us/AP-US-Laptops-Spying-on-Students.html

Link should read -
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/20/AR2010022000679.html

According to the Washington Post, Palin was the subject of 15 ethics probes (of which this was one), 13 of which were resolved with no finding of wrongdoing and the other two were pending as of when this article was written. (That's an almost direct quote from page 2 of the article; my link goes to page 1.) This article was written in July, when she resigned.

Do you have some other, better researched link to there being "boxes and boxes" of state buisness in her personal e-mail account, or is accusation supposed to replace the fact that Palin usually gets found not guilty when her political enemies frivolously accuse her of ethics violations?

I agree with you as of the incident handling procedure. Now everyone just go out blaming people probably without knowing the real deal. I am sure nobody will know any information as to where that came from or how it got in, but apparently they were not the only ones hacked. Here is Maryland we also had a couple of companies that did not know if that was related to Windows updates or what, ut were also part of this attack. Obviously this city was not the only organization hacked. Checked this article here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/17//AR2010021705816.html If you really are as smart as you sound why dont you offer them your consulting expertise. I am sure they are looking to either beef up their security personnel, get rid of them, or establish better/stronger security best pratices. I can see how blown out of proportion the news down there where -as with everyting the media does to get ratings- they probably opened up their mouth to the media too quick. We will never contact the media until a full assessment of damages is done, a penetration test is completed, and the communications department gives the proper authorization to communicate with the media. As far as the sophisticatino of these new blended threats, even large corporation with LOT$$ of Bandwidth ($$) can't even compete with these hackers. I have been in their position before and all I can say is kudos to them for even catching the source with enough time to stop the spread. It could have been worse.

1. If you read the presentation, he's actually setting the 100 Mbps as a goal, and sets out some "recommendations" for ways to achieve it. No mandates yet.

2. 100Mbps in 10 years from now ought to be a dawdle. Hell, 100Mbps next week would be possible here if the Fios people would install to my building. Japan's average network speed right now is 50 Mbps. US companies know that it would cost them money to upgrade their infrastructure, and with most markets being historically-defined monopolies or oligopoloys, they have no incentive to compete.

3. Of course it's the government's place to mandate minimum speeds and other standards. What do you think the FCC does? "These frequencies use that standard with that much energy. This telephone exchange uses that protocol with these power standards at that transmission rate." They define "broadband" as minimum 750kbps (ha!). If they want to define the "High-Speed Broadband" label as minimum 100Mbps for clarity's sake, and encourage its adoption, that's exactly what they're there for.

The amount of algae growth required for powering America's fleet of vehicles would cover every ocean and kill every single fish on the planet.

You sure about that? The US Dept. of Energy says:

...the Energy Department estimates that if algae fuel replaced all the petroleum fuel in the United States, it would require 15,000 square miles, which is a few thousand miles larger than Maryland.

And then there is The US National Renewable Energy Laboratory:

The fundamental problem, explains Al Darzins, who coordinates alga research at the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado, is that although algae grow very quickly, most of their biomass is usually carbohydrate. To trigger a higher proportion of oil, you have to stress the algae in some way - starve them of nutrients such as nitrogen, say - which in turn limits their growth rate. As a result, Darzins thinks 42 tonnes per hectare is a more realistic target.

Unless my math is wrong, that is about 3600 gal/acre. The US uses almost 400 million gallons per day, so that's about 41 million acres to make a year's worth of gasoline... 64,000 square miles. For scale, the Gulf of Mexico is about 600,000 square miles.

So while you'd be talking about a lot of ocean, you certainly aren't using all of it.

Google has never purchased a jumbo jet, and neither have it's founders.

That's beside the point, however - Google.cn is a valuable insight into the goings-on inside China. Recently, Google started working with the NSA on matters of this hack and cybersecurity in general. I wouldn't be surprised if they were asked to stay in China simply to "help monitor oppressive movements and government action", or something along those lines.

Go for the gusto. Play Obama's latest SOTU speech. It's nasty, offensive, AND completely untruthful for a 3-in-1.

Congratulations -- you're officially part of the far right. Under 17% of speech watchers disapproved of the speech in general, let alone found it "nasty, offensive, AND completely untruthful". Even though democratic viewers outnumbered Republican viewers 2:1, independents were well represented, and combined with the fact that you expressed much more than simple disapproval, this places you solidly in the right-wing column.

It may be a surprise for you to learn that most of America doesn't think the way you do. They don't view Republicans as an oppressed minority suffering from an evil socialist conspiracy. 58% actually view them as obstructionists. Heck, over 10% of Scott Brown's vote came from Obama voters, who were overwhelmingly trying to punish the democrats for not getting enough done (82% of Obama voters who voted brown support the public option; 86% of Obama voters who stayed home do).

Radiation can fuel life also. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/19/AR2006101901671.html

Google is EVIL. Period.

Google is no cooperating with the NSA. They are a fully-funded CIA company operation, with stock-price manipulation managed in a hideous outgrowth of the "plunge protection" team.

Look. George Herbert Walker Bush and his invisible masters are teh real, secret government in the USA. The former head of the secret police has been the Defense Secretary for the past 2 administrations.

The company captured the US. This became apparent as they engineered the killings of JFK, RFK and MLK - then ensured the downfall of Nixon - to be replaced by Ford, one of the lead stooges on the Warren Commission.

Google is the new name for Big Brother. This is the principal tool for social control and monitoring of the shadow-corporatist government, enforced through the "TLA's"

Use this shit, and it's like kissing your own prison floor.

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/technologylive/post/2010/02/googles-reported-tie-up-with-nsa-raises-concern-/1

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/03/AR2010020304057.html?wpisrc=nl_tech

http://www.threadwatch.org/node/9612

http://groups.google.com/group/global-text-project-general-group/browse_thread/thread/d7256b9b18f0b0a7

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6130M120100204

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/CIA_creates_miniGoogle_0331.html

http://www.google-watch.org/jobad.html

http://911review.org/Alex/reference/google_and_CIA.html

Last I saw, the FBI was abusing their power, and breaking the law, in retrieving phone records without a warrant. This according to their own internal investigation http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/18/AR2010011803982_pf.html. Do we really believe they will show respect for privacy and the law in this case?

with out authorization it is credit card fraud among other things that a DA will throw at me. If a business gives my information to a third party and the third party charges my credit card then that's just sharing? I need to start up a couple of businesses.

Apparently social gaming is a great business model for this kind of crap. The mentioned retailers get you after you make your purchase but when you need more resources in Farmville or Mafia Wars on Facebook:

In games like Mafia Wars, Farmville, YoVille and Vampires Live, you know, some of the major sources of all those garbage announcements cluttering up your Facebook, players compete to complete missions and level up. By leveling up, you can complete more difficult missions and fight off weaker opponents. You can wait for your various energies to regenerate naturally over time, or you can purchase with real money in-game boosts. Or, you can complete various lead generation offers, many of which are of the "answer page after page of questions and opt in and out of receiving various kinds of spam" variety. Some of them install malware and adware that is impossible to remove. And some of them secretly subscribe you to monthly recurring $9.99 credit card charges.

Don't ever put your credit card information into Facebook or a Facebook app. Social Media is rife with crap like this. Right about now we should be asking when we'll get to see the findings in the the federal probe that set out to address shoddy "business practices" like this and what is being done about it now that we know about it?!

"as they get closer to completion NASA will pick the best one to fully fund for actual production"

Maybe... that's definitely how NASA previously ran these things, when there were design competitions, and when NASA funded the vehicle development (and influenced the final designs), and then cancelled the program before it could be completed (which they did several times). However, it's not totally clear that this is what NASA has in mind, for CCDev. There are indications that NASA wants a private market, with more than one vendor, and plans to buy flights on systems from at least two vendors. However, there are other indications that NASA is just doing the same old thing with new program names, and a similarly anemic budget which will, ultimately, lead to project failure.

The Washington Post reporting on this seems to agree with you.
Obama budget proposal scraps NASA's back-to-the-moon program

"Instead of continuing to develop the Ares 1 and Orion, the administration wants to invest $6 billion over five years in a commercial space taxi to carry astronauts into low Earth orbit."

Meanwhile, in the USA, they bailed out the oligarchy that runs the banking system, and then gave money to a bunch of aimless projects that just put band-aids on current infrastructure. There was no national call to action (for example..."we're going to put unemployed auto workers to work building an all-new high-speed rail system to link our urban areas" or "we're going to use this opportunity to completely replace our power grid, because we lose such a high percentage of power to inefficiency of the lines") that would have solidly improved the country for the long-term, improve its ability to transact business.

High Speed Rail? Check
Smart grid? Check

This is exacly what the stimulus is going for. The stimulus is working. If anything, the stimulus isn't big enough, given the problems this country has.

Since The Ares line isn't a DIRECT design, i hardly believe it could be the cheaper alternative. The superior performance of the Ares V could well have been the main selling-point. For me, it makes sense to scrap and re-investigate your options when the budget skyrockets while still at the drawing board and you have alternatives lying around that are mostly based on already available hardware and technology. That said, i'd would have loved to have seen the Ares V ship settlements to the shackleton crater. A shame that so much money gets spent on for example fruitless 40bn dollar military projects

From the article: "Obama's 2011 budget request calls for $19 billion for NASA, a $276 million hike from the previous budget."
What's being cut is Constellation. NASA's budget is being increased and refocused, to as "former astronaut Sally Ride, an Augustine panel member, described the strategic shift as a "significant vote of confidence in NASA" that brings it "back to its roots as an engine of innovation.""

Where do you get that idea from? On these cars, the CPU does what the mechanical linkage does: you step on both, both get engaged

From the Washington Post: Toyota did not install brake override systems despite complaints

Where are you getting this stuff from?

From the news sources... Also one of the very first comments on this topic: Also, they couldn't put it into neutral because it had a push-button shifter as well

--jeffk++

Well I am sure that with millions spent on "debunking" this fiasco Ford would have come up with something. Many somethings actually. But one can also remember that Pinto was recalled and the tanks re-engineered. Lawsuits were also settled. But then you are entitled to believe the "debunkers" and The Unsassailable Virtue of Capitalism that prevents Illustrious and Pure CEOs from Straying Afar. I on the other hand chose not to be so gullible. Pinto of course being one of many, many examples of similar corporate behaviour (and speaking of Japanese cars ...). And we only know of the ones who got caught with their paws in the cookie-jar, many others having gotten away with it.

Right you are...guess I missed the Tweet that announced the move. Was a replacement named?