Slashdot Mirror

I would consider it mandatory for anybody who wants to vote. Since he didn't get to be president without being voted for. He was elected twice. It's a really sad state of affairs when the country that touts the strengths of democracy, has a leader with such a low approval rating.

Not really opposing it? He supports it according to every report that I have seen. This is after saying he'd never support the bill if it had immunity for the telcos in it.

I assume that the point you're trying to make with your sarcasm is, "The second amendment is out of date because our founders could not conceive of the guns today." Let's assume for a moment that you're right, that the founders did not conceive of the kinds of personal arms we have today. By the way, you're not right about that, but for the duration of this paragraph, let's assume you are. Now, let's apply that logic to the First Amendment: "The first amendment is outdated because there was no internet, TV, or radio then. These new communications tools make the individual much more dangerous today than our founders every imagined." How do you feel about that?

Now, about your spurious point that the founders did not envision powerful weapons in the hands of individual. Perhaps you know the line from our national anthem, "And the rockets' red glare?" At the time the Second Amendment was written, there were rockets, mortars, and bombs. And none of them were excluded from the Second Amendment.

Consider the fact that the Colonists possessed rifles that were more accurate at greater range than the English government troops. The modern parallel would be if we as individuals possessed Heckler and Koch XM8 assault rifles while the government possessed only M-16s.

Ask yourself this question: Would you prefer to live in a society where every citizen is unarmed, so that the physically stronger are always able to prey upon the physically weaker? Or would you prefer to live in a society where every adult has the ability to take responsibility for his/her personal safety, and can be trusted with the power of life and death? And do you think that we'll get to that point by continuing to infantalize our population with laws that limit our rights?

How about a link to a real newspaper?

here
here
here
here (oops, my bad ;)
here
here
here
or how about one from a city that is directly impacted by the decision, like here?

Mayor Daley calls Supreme Court's gun-ban reversal 'a very frightening decision'
High court strikes down Washington D.C. law in ruling that could have Chicago implications
An angry Mayor Richard Daley on Thursday called the Supreme Court's overturning of the Washington D.C. gun ban "a very frightening decision" and vowed to fight vigorously any challenges to Chicago's ban.

The mayor, speaking at a Navy Pier event, said he was sure mayors nationwide, who carry the burden of keeping cities safe, will be outraged by the decision.

Chicago's handgun ban, which has lasted for more than a quarter-century, came under threat earlier in the day when the Supreme Court decided that Washington D.C.'s law against handgun ownership is unconstitutional.

In a 5-4 decision, the high court determined that Americans have the right to own guns for self-defense as well as hunting. The decision, which had been expected, is a win for gun-rights advocates and provides a better definition of the rights of Americans to own firearms.

Illinois gun-rights activists have said they expect to mount a quick legal challenge to the Chicago Weapons Ordinance.

Other city officials said they felt confidant that challenge would fail.

I'm disappointed in you, timothy. I'm sure there were a lot more submissions than this one. Since this is Thursday, I hereby nominate you as "Aurthur Dent" (Monday is my Dent Day).

Why do I have to <p> on my paragraphs when I've selected "plain old text"??

No. The sworn affidavit that Clinton lied on was for Jones vs. Clinton. If he'd admitted it, it would have helped establish a pattern of behavior that would have allowed the case to go forward.

It wasn't that Clinton went up to the podium and said he didn't do it with Lewinsky. It was that he filed a statement under oath to a court of law claiming he did not. The direct result was the dismissal of Jones' case against Clinton.

First, nothing from the Huffington Post can be used as a source... EVER. It is opinions posted by the most ignorant of Americans, celebrities. If anything, having something said in the Huffington post should be used as COUTNER-evidence to whatever was said. However, I did notice that there was no mention of Sandy Berger, the Clinton security advisor stealing top secret documents and cutting them up with scissors during the 9-11 investigation. I guess that was no big deal, what with Bush lying and all.

But, speaking of willful ignorance of obvious facts, if you go back to my first post, you will read this:

Let's look at another paragraph from Rockefeller's report:

Well, with just a bit of searching I can find information that stands in stark contrast to the information contained in the article you quoted. It even comes from the same publication: Ex-CIA Official Faults Use of Data on Iraq.

So, who are we to trust?

Locking dozens of people into a small metal tube for hours on end without food, water, or facilities is criminal.

OK ... to further that then.

Where is the impeachment for LYING ABOUT WHY THE COUNTRY WAS DRAGGED INTO A PROTRACTED WAR! ... not for the war itself.

On Iraq's nuclear weapons program? The president's statements "were generally substantiated by intelligence community estimates."

On biological weapons, production capability and those infamous mobile laboratories? The president's statements "were substantiated by intelligence information."

On chemical weapons, then? "Substantiated by intelligence information."

On weapons of mass destruction overall (a separate section of the intelligence committee report)? "Generally substantiated by intelligence information." Delivery vehicles such as ballistic missiles? "Generally substantiated by available intelligence." Unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to deliver WMDs? "Generally substantiated by intelligence information."

As you read through the report, you begin to think maybe you've mistakenly picked up the minority dissent. But, no, this is the Rockefeller indictment. So, you think, the smoking gun must appear in the section on Bush's claims about Saddam Hussein's alleged ties to terrorism.

But statements regarding Iraq's support for terrorist groups other than al-Qaeda "were substantiated by intelligence information." Statements that Iraq provided safe haven for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and other terrorists with ties to al-Qaeda "were substantiated by the intelligence assessments," and statements regarding Iraq's contacts with al-Qaeda "were substantiated by intelligence information." The report is left to complain about "implications" and statements that "left the impression" that those contacts led to substantive Iraqi cooperation.

Please move on to something else now. May I recommend something a little more On Topic. Thank you.

Think again.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/25/AR2007102501463.html

Stole a diesel tanker at gunpoint; the truck was found later, abandoned and empty. He sold the fuel to *someone*.

Obama has missed 42.7% of votes, McCain has missed 61%.

Source

I don't know of any instances of SSL certificates being subverted in the way described by the GP, but there are instances of phishing sites using correct-looking certificates, such as http://blog.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2006/02/the_new_face_of_phishing_1.html

"By what other method do you suggest that I prove to my satisfaction that when I go to www.mybank.com.au that I am actually at mybank's website"

Not very easily, but you can use two factor authentication to make sure that even if scammers find out the static username, password, and whatever, it's useless without a second bit of information generated by an electronic device. So the device generates a pin number which is based on time, or generated in a sequence. I have used Cryptocards in the past - they can generate a 7 digit pin number which is valid for one time only - the server knows the order that the card should generate the pin and it can be easily tied into existing infrastructure using by authing using RADIUS. Some UK banks have sent out devices which you need to insert the debit card into in order to generate the code. It's far less likely that the scammer is going to have the debit card, *and* the electronic device, *and* the static username/password.

how loudly and how often they scream about censorship, the very act of which disproves their claims.

That would only hold true if they where screaming about complete censorship. For example, we know that at least 30,000 National Security Letters are issued every year since 2003, but we have no real idea what they are about because they all come attached to gag orders. So we know that the NSLs exist, but the content is censored, so oversight and accountability is impossible. In the case of the spy satellite photos, we know that they cost millions, if not billions of dollars, and that they exist, but that's it. Again no oversight, and no accountability.

It seems to me that there is was a great deal of oversight, balance, and accountability built into the early constitution because those things are one of the things that enables a truly democratic/representative government, as opposed to a democratic shell over a oligarchic government that holds the true power. That accountability has steadily eroded since the dawn of the Cold War and thus so has belief in our government. I'm not saying that voting does nothing, but I am saying that there a lot of very powerful, very well funded segments of our government that are untouchable (even indirectly) by the voting public. That is not government for the people, by the people; that is government in spite of the people. That is what the Left and the true Conservatives are complaining about when they bitch about government secrets.

That would be this: http://blog.washingtonpost.com/offbeat/2006/10/euro_disney_orgy_caught_on_tap.html

according to WaPo Apple has known about this for quite a while

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>

There are many political issues and any one candidate may fall at many different places on those issues.

Yes, but left/right refers to one specific axis: the axis of the aristocrats versus the commoners, or in modern terms, capital versus labor. Properly, one is not "left" or "right" on social issues, or foreign policy, or even on the amount of regulation and intervention the government should perform in the marketplace; one is leftist if one wants an economic system favorable to workers, and rightist if one wants one favorable to the owning class.

Both the Republicans and the Democrats favor policies that continue the accumulation of wealth into the hands of a small minority, the Democrats just favor a few small governors on that engine.

If you think the Democrat's are moving right, then look for either the Republican's or a third party to move into the political niche that is being vacated.

Which is why I usually vote Green, and probably will again this year. (Even if it's a write-in, and even if I might send money to or do some work for the Obama campaign. I live in a securely blue state with terrible ballot access laws, YMMV.)

Third, using game theory if we assume:...all the issues collapse down to a one dimensional continuum...

Which they don't. You need at least four dimensions to make sense of of politics: personal liberty on social issues, labor versus capital, planned economy versus free market, and aggressive versus diplomatic foreign policy.

Believing in a one-dimensional continuum is how we've come to the mess we're in, where people vote to make sure that the wrong lizard doesn't get in.

the voters vote for the person who is closest to their position

Interestingly, they often don't - when you ask people their positions on issues, they're often at odds with which party or candidate they vote for.

It's just another way in which people are a problem: given a population of politicians skilled in manipulating people, and a population of powerful people with a great deal of influence with said politicians, notions of "democracy" and "limited government" are a very brittle things.

Richard Armitage admitted to being the source of the leak. At the time of the leak he was the Deputy Secretary of State. Now, while I'm not a U.S. citizen, nor an expert on U.S policy, I'm pretty sure that a Deputy Secretary of State is a member of the government.

So, a member of the U.S. government deliberately told a reporter (according to wikipedia he told Bob Woodward) that Valerie Plame's employment.

But I haven't addressed the scathing critisism of your comment. Is the above ONLY a problem if I DON'T have anything against George W. Bush? In what world is something as serious as a government official leaking the name of their own active agents only problematic, if the person bringing it up is a fan of that government?

I didn't bring it up to throw crap at the Bush administration. I brought it up because it is something pretty much noone would expect from their government - no matter where in the world they live. I brought it up because all that did was ruin someone's active career (not like she could continue working as a covert agent, when the whole world knows she's a covert agent). That it put every contact she's had in foreign countries at risk isn't important, seeing as they're not U.S. citizens.

Whew! Good thing too. There's no way I could support a candidate who would vote in favor of this vile, traitorous bill!

Oh wait, Obama announced that he will vote for it.

Never mind, I just realized that the bill is not actually so vile and traitorous... it's more cute and fluffy, really.

with Windows 95. Then they started acting like a monopoly.

Exhibit 1: "Government interest in Microsoft's affairs had begun in 1991 with an inquiry by the Federal Trade Commission over whether Microsoft was abusing its monopoly on the PC operating system market. ... the Department of Justice opened its own investigation on August 21 of [1993], resulting in a settlement on July 15, 1994 in which Microsoft consented not to tie other Microsoft products to the sale of Windows ..." (timeline)

See MS Litigation page and Court TV Library for more details.

Another former competitor, approximately coëval with Windows 95, was BeOS. Microsoft settled an anti-competitive complaint brought by Be Inc. in 2002.

Windows 95 had barely been released when Sun launched complained of breach of contract followed by serious anti-competitive claims in 2002 regarding Microsoft's Java tactics.

This is not the legal record of an honest company. The leopard never changes its spots. Gates was a "sharp" businessman from the day he opened office. (Which is a polite way of saying, white collar criminal.)

It was my hope that the article would be posted in time for people to contact their representatives, but also, the scumbags passed the bill at just about the same time that this article made the front page of /.. The roll call is not available on Thomas yet though.

It was my hope that the article would be posted in time for people to contact their representatives, but also, the scumbags passed the bill at just about the same time that this article made the front page of /.. The roll call is not available on Thomas yet though.

"The federal government must not prolong necessary corrections in the housing market, bail out lenders, or subsidize irresponsible borrowing and lending," the White House said in a statement.

The White House is planning on vetoing it.

Blaming people doesn't get anything done, that's correct...but what happens when a "movement" spends decades raising fear about something that would never happen and then rescinds on their proverbial deathbed?

Or, another way, the founder of Greenpeace is now a strong proponent of nuclear energy because it's safer, cleaner, more plentiful, and cheaper (in that order) than any other energy source we have available for the next few decades. Even he has rescinded his view. He has also made the comment that Greenpeace has largely been taken away from true environmentalist and taken over by anti-capitalists that use the environment as a weapon.

So in this case, we can very clearly "blame" environmentalists for shouting loudly and obnoxiously for decades...and being flat-out WRONG. They are -responsible-, directly, for the predicament we're in now. Any moron with a cause can get TV airtime, but everybody has to deal with the fallout.

It's important to place blame, in this case, widely, loudly, and prominently so that, hopefully, future generations won't be suckered in by charlatans with a "cause." If we give previous generations of "environmentalists" a pass on this one, and on "climate change", and on DDT, and on... you start to see the pattern developing here.

The problem is that Europe is dominated by liberal politics. To quote from a column by George Will:

Today conservatives tend to favor freedom, and consequently are inclined to be somewhat sanguine about inequalities of outcomes. Liberals are more concerned with equality, understood, they insist, primarily as equality of opportunity, not of outcome.

Liberals tend, however, to infer unequal opportunities from the fact of unequal outcomes. Hence liberalism's goal of achieving greater equality of condition leads to a larger scope for interventionist government to circumscribe the market's role in allocating wealth and opportunity. end quote

It even prompted a debate in Sweden under the title lagom samhaelet (the mediocrity society). Critics of this policy complained, "Where will our future leaders come from?" Sweden sent a team to climb Mount Everest. On the final day, instead of being told to give it their all, they were told orka lagom killar (make a decent try guys). They gave up just a few meters from the summit.

Paradoxically, after decades of this wrong-headed policy, Sweden seems very enterprising, very prosperous and well supplied by good leaders. I can't explain it.

The problem is that Europe is dominated by liberal politics. To quote from a column by George Will:

Today conservatives tend to favor freedom, and consequently are inclined to be somewhat sanguine about inequalities of outcomes. Liberals are more concerned with equality, understood, they insist, primarily as equality of opportunity, not of outcome.

Liberals tend, however, to infer unequal opportunities from the fact of unequal outcomes. Hence liberalism's goal of achieving greater equality of condition leads to a larger scope for interventionist government to circumscribe the market's role in allocating wealth and opportunity. end quote

It even prompted a debate in Sweden under the title lagom samhaelet (the mediocrity society). Critics of this policy complained, "Where will our future leaders come from?" Sweden sent a team to climb Mount Everest. On the final day, instead of being told to give it their all, they were told orka lagom killar (make a decent try guys). They gave up just a few meters from the summit.

Paradoxically, after decades of this wrong-headed policy, Sweden seems very enterprising, very prosperous and well supplied by good leaders. I can't explain it.

Why? Your gas is nearly same price as ours. I'm so sick to death of brits bitching about gas prices when they're just paying taxes.

"The British government, for example, charges a $3.77-a-gallon fuel duty and a 17.5 percent consumption tax on top of that. " [source]. Average gas prices at that time were $8.61 USD per gallon.

Let's do the math. $8.61 - 3.77 - 17% = $4.14/gal for fuel

I'm paying about $4.10 for 87 now. $4.10 - 0.42 (MD+fed tax) = $3.68 for fuel

You're only paying $0.46 more per gallon than I am, and my state is fairly cheap. The spread is much less when compared to other states like California (which is actually only $0.10 more than here, once you take out CA taxes).

why i can't vote 4 mccain: mccain-feingold:-P

and yet another reason:

McCain, co-author of the McCain-Feingold law that abridges the right of free political speech, has referred disparagingly to, as he puts it, "quote 'First Amendment rights.' " Now he dismissively speaks of "so-called, quote 'habeas corpus suits.' " He who wants to reassure constitutionalist conservatives that he understands the importance of limited government should be reminded why the habeas right has long been known as "the great writ of liberty."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/16/AR2008061602041_pf.html

More likely he will say that, "Nuclear is an important part of our national ongoing energy strategy, along with clean, renewable energy in the form of wind and solar and whatever."

Means the same thing really; McCain pushed so-called "clean coal" at the same time as he pushed Nuclear, which is a bit more Republican of him, since coal states are red states, and big electric has no desire to stop building coal plants.

Nuclear is the best of a lot of bad options, and regardless of presidents, the return to nuclear power has already begun, as witnessed by the resurge in permit applications since last year.

NCLB was around LONG before BUSH...

" it's just another incarnation of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, one of President Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society monuments. That law's centerpiece program, known as Title I, has pumped billions of federal dollars into education for poor children over the past 43 years. And the Improving America's Schools Act, signed by President Bill Clinton in 1994, was No Child Left Behind-lite, with similar expectations for states and districts but fewer rules and timelines. "

Here's some more fun info on NCLB... If folks are gonna point fingers, at least read up on it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/28/AR2008032802976.html

And Wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Child_Left_Behind_Act

"Hey, it was only 18 and a half minutes of tape, Judge Sirica"

To me, he seems like a genuinely populist candidate, and an idealist to boot

My emphasis. There's an old joke that wouldn't be so funny if it weren't true.
Q- how do you tell when a politician is lying?
A- his lips move.

The fact that he's from my state, with perhaps the most corrupt politics in the nation (the last Democrat Governor to lose an election to a Republican went to prison, and the last Republican Governor is still IN prison. Another newer joke - in Illinois we're so patriotic even being dead doesn't keep us from voting) tells me that he's a crook. The fact that he's in one of the two major parties tells me he's going to bow to the corporates.

If he were in a "third party" AND from another state I'd probably support him. But age and disillusionment has made me a cynic. Every law that goes against citizens' rights, citizens' welfare, or common sense that neverless does good to a corporation gets passed by a 100% margin in both houses or nearly so (Bono act, DMCA, Iraq war, PATRIOT Act, etc).

I've only voted FOR one President - that was Clinton, when he ran for reelection. He'd surprised me and actually done a good job. Every other election since Nixon I voted for the "lesser of two evils".

If Obama wins and does a good job, actually NOT cowtowing to the corporations, then he will be the second President I vote for. But the only way he's going to be able to do that is win this time and do a good job of being President.

But you got me looking shit up.

Barack Obama has missed 252 votes (42.6%) during the current Congress. Not good. If I missed work 42% of the time they'd fire me. From the same link, "Barack Obama has voted with a majority of his Democratic colleagues 96.5% of the time during the current Congress". Also not good. That alone should tell you that he's voting for the corporations or he'd be more independant. According to the page (I simply googled), most of the votes he actually cast were "cloture motions". The only actual bill I see that looks like something that would matter to Americans is the Food and Energy Security Act, which was passed on a partisan vote (R against, D for) and vetoed by Bush.

Sorry, but this tiny bit of research has made me less likely to vote Obama.

The Washington Post is boycotting the AP over this. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/16/AR2008061600340.html

The task of this piece on the front page of today's Washington Post is to establish the believe that Iran has a nuclear weapon design.

An international smuggling ring that sold bomb-related parts to Libya, Iran and North Korea also managed to acquire blueprints for an advanced nuclear weapon, according to a draft report by a former top U.N. arms inspector that suggests the plans could have been shared secretly with any number of countries or rogue groups.

The drawings, discovered in 2006 on computers owned by Swiss businessmen, included essential details for building a compact nuclear device that could be fitted on a type of ballistic missile used by Iran and more than a dozen developing countries, the report states.

The Swiss 'businessmen', Friedrich Tinner and his two sons, are alleged to have sold several nuke related stuff to Lybia and other countries.

There is more to the Tinner story, but for now let me concentrate on the date. The WaPo says the laptop has been discovered in 2006. But Tinner was under CIA control at least since the 2003 bust of nuclear related stuff on board of the 'BBC China'.

The German magazine Der Spiegel had a big story about this in March 2006:

Two circumstances could prove to be Lerch's undoing: first, the fact that the German ship "BBC China" was intercepted in October 2003 carrying a cargo of containers filled with nuclear technology headed for Libya and, second, that the incident prompted a panicked Gadhafi to disclose the names of all those who had supplied the Libyans with material and expertise for their nuclear program.
...
The authorities caught up with Gotthard Lerch, who Tahir calls his "main contractor," in Switzerland. They also arrested members of the Tinner family -- Friedrich Tinner and his two sons, Urs and Marco -- all on the suspicion of having built parts for Gadhafi's nuclear weapons program in return for 15 to 20 million Swiss francs.

Tinner was flipped by the CIA at least since the 'BBC China' event but likely even earlier. Another man taking part in the alleged smuggling was also turned by the CIA or has worked for the CIA all along.

Indeed it somehow seems like everybody involved in the issue was somehow related to the CIA.

The usual story is that the Pakistani scientist A.Q. Kahn was the one who ran a smuggling network. That may not be true at all. Khan denies having been involved in such. A new book asserts that it was then Prime Minister of Pakistan Bhutto who personally gave Pakistani nuclear secrets to North Korea in exchange for North Korean No Dong missiles for the Pakistani army.

A Dutch court somehow 'lost' legal files about the Khan case and the CIA likely had a hand in this too. The CIA also successfully pressed (link in German) the Swiss government to destroy information it had about the Tinner case. Tinner will thereby never be convicted.

Now please explain to me how people arrested in 2003 and flipped by the CIA at least since then managed to keep nuclear plans on a laptop that were somehow found only in 2006?

This whole story stinks from A to Z

The task of this piece on the front page of today's Washington Post is to establish the believe that Iran has a nuclear weapon design.

An international smuggling ring that sold bomb-related parts to Libya, Iran and North Korea also managed to acquire blueprints for an advanced nuclear weapon, according to a draft report by a former top U.N. arms inspector that suggests the plans could have been shared secretly with any number of countries or rogue groups.

The drawings, discovered in 2006 on computers owned by Swiss businessmen, included essential details for building a compact nuclear device that could be fitted on a type of ballistic missile used by Iran and more than a dozen developing countries, the report states.

The Swiss 'businessmen', Friedrich Tinner and his two sons, are alleged to have sold several nuke related stuff to Lybia and other countries.

There is more to the Tinner story, but for now let me concentrate on the date. The WaPo says the laptop has been discovered in 2006. But Tinner was under CIA control at least since the 2003 bust of nuclear related stuff on board of the 'BBC China'.

The German magazine Der Spiegel had a big story about this in March 2006:

Two circumstances could prove to be Lerch's undoing: first, the fact that the German ship "BBC China" was intercepted in October 2003 carrying a cargo of containers filled with nuclear technology headed for Libya and, second, that the incident prompted a panicked Gadhafi to disclose the names of all those who had supplied the Libyans with material and expertise for their nuclear program.
...
The authorities caught up with Gotthard Lerch, who Tahir calls his "main contractor," in Switzerland. They also arrested members of the Tinner family -- Friedrich Tinner and his two sons, Urs and Marco -- all on the suspicion of having built parts for Gadhafi's nuclear weapons program in return for 15 to 20 million Swiss francs.

Tinner was flipped by the CIA at least since the 'BBC China' event but likely even earlier. Another man taking part in the alleged smuggling was also turned by the CIA or has worked for the CIA all along.

Indeed it somehow seems like everybody involved in the issue was somehow related to the CIA.

The usual story is that the Pakistani scientist A.Q. Kahn was the one who ran a smuggling network. That may not be true at all. Khan denies having been involved in such. A new book asserts that it was then Prime Minister of Pakistan Bhutto who personally gave Pakistani nuclear secrets to North Korea in exchange for North Korean No Dong missiles for the Pakistani army.

A Dutch court somehow 'lost' legal files about the Khan case and the CIA likely had a hand in this too. The CIA also successfully pressed (link in German) the Swiss government to destroy information it had about the Tinner case. Tinner will thereby never be convicted.

Now please explain to me how people arrested in 2003 and flipped by the CIA at least since then managed to keep nuclear plans on a laptop that were somehow found only in 2006?

This whole story stinks from A to Z

Buy this? The oil companies are too busy buying back their own stocks (preparing for solvency?). Wonder if their overstating of their supply has something to do with it...just one example: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A25717-2004Jul29.html

in the USA we may have fairly strict laws against going on private property but we also have something like 600 million acres (aprox 2million square km) of public land of one sort or another so it isn't as if there aren't lots of other places for people to go without being on private property.

As opposed to anyone else who is not??

There's healthy skepticism, and then there's just being thick. Of course we should expect journalists to have personal biases, but we should also expect them not to be hacks.

I think that you consider him a biased hack because you disagreed with him.

I think you need to read up more on Tim Russert. If an incompetent fascist repeatedly goes on your show because he knows he can "control message", that's a giant clue that you aren't remotely near the tough, even handed interviewer you set yourself out to be.

If that was true you would not have known his name or been able to cite your misrepresented examples. If that was true you would not have been "paying attention to his show," you would have written it off as all the other kook fringers have. If you cared about the Fifth Estate you would have realized that having standards is what got him to where he was, that protecting sources is one of the most important things a reporter can do, and his show would not have been on the network air with all the supposed anti-Bush fervor that you guys claim is out there (and it really is).

You've done nothing but to prove yourself wrong with your own examples. Shame on you for not having a better point when choosing to post your tripe.

Bush's Pet Lawman: Nice ruling, too bad it doesn't matter.

"I'm disappointed with the decision, in so far as I understand that it will result in hundreds of actions challenging the detention of enemy combatants to be moved to federal district court. I think it bears emphasis that the court's decision does not concern military commission trials, which will continue to proceed. Instead it addresses the procedures that the Congress and the president put in place to permit enemy combatants to challenge their detention."

        He said the Justice Department would comply with the ruling while studying the decision and "whether any legislation or any other action may be appropriate."

In other words: "Sure, yeah, great ruling, but we're still putting them in our Kangaroo Courts. Oh, and you Dems? Get ready to be forced to "compromise" and make this all legal in retrospect, just like how we're trying to force you to let us get away with warrantless wiretapping."

Also, as an aside: Anyone else find they had to disable the dynamic discussion stuff to be able to read this page or post on it? It was locking Firefox up here.

I was unaware of that specific case and I agree that it is crossing a line.

The specific case of Douglas Kmiec goes against that theory. He publicly supported Obama and was denied communion. He personally is against abortion but supported a candidate who is in favor of abortion rights.

That *does* seem like meddling -- can a Catholic not lend their support to someone who disagrees with some particular corner of the Catholic faith?

Heres my sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_rendition_by_the_United_States#Examples_and_specific_cases
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/03/AR2005120301476.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6316369.stm

Wheres yours?

Nice claim, seems like I read that before. I will draw on sources that I can find on the internet, rather than what's in my library because my library is harder to share with you, of course you'll just refute these anyway, but it's a good exercise for me:

Here is one that gives the tax rate for the oil industry as of 1998.
Here is one that demonstrates the House wanting to end the tax breaks that you claim don't exist. Of course with the political state of affairs here I wouldn't put it past congress to waste time with useless regulation, but that is another discussion.
Here is one analyzing the oil industries tax breaks as compared to ethanol. Note that I am not a proponent of ethanol and that this information is solely to demonstrate the tax breaks given to oil companies.
Here is a bill from 2005 doing more of the same.
Enjoy.