Slashdot Mirror

As Bruce Fein (Associate deputy attorney general 1981-83) said, "the ultimate result of a signing statement is that the president exercises what's known as an absolute line-item veto. That's something the Supreme Court held was unconstitutional in the case called Clinton v. New York in 1998".

This company is typical for Myhrvold. Read about Myhrvold's "cool idea for image compression" here. Trouble is: he hadn't done his homework, and this stuff had been invented several times before. But, hey, he is a physics Ph.D. who studied with Hawking, he must be so much smarter than everybody else that it isn't necessary to do his homework, right?

His patent troll company is likely to do the same thing: reinvent a lot of stuff that people already know, and get a bunch of patents that nobody who actually knows the field would have even considered patenting.

If someone in power can easily identify you at will then it is quite simply impossible for you to post anonymously

When https came into use, it didn't suddenly become impossible to run a server without a certificate.

Similarly, if the Washington Post starts requiring you to prove your identity, that doesn't require Slashdot to suddenly start doing the same. You can even post to both if you want, using your real identity for the Post and a pseudonym for Slashdot.

That's no different from how things already work. Different sites require different procedures to get an account. If the Washington Post wants to require that you use your real name, and provide phone number/address to help them verify that if necessary--fine, it'll be interesting to say how that works. Like I say, that'd be no different from their letters to the editor policy.

I think that forums that allow anonymous speech have a place--I just don't think that *all* forums should have to do that. Forum operators should have some freedom to set policies as they see fit, and we all benefit from experimenting with a variety of models.

Sure there is, one is called Global Warming. And the Inuit in the Arctic Circle are paying for it, with their lives. Southeast Asia will pay for it when ocean level rise. People in Appalachia are paying for it. Try again.

You can almost forgive them for that. Most of them voted to authorize the Commander in Chief to do whatever is necessary to keep the US safe when they voted to support the troop build up and that permission to use them if needed. Very few assumed the Office of the President would use it's power in a knowingly needless way, which it appears is exactly what the President did.

The entire pretense for the invasion was a lie, we know it was a lie because up until Sept 11, 2001 when reporters asked anyone in the current administration about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the universal answer was "they aren't a risk and they don't have them". We can now summize that 9/11 was used as a politically expediant way to enact the vision of the New American Century, whose members rose to being in the Presidents office.

Those who voted to authorize the President to do what was needed and later recanted once they realized what happened were honestly trying to do what's right. No one seriously considered that the President would be so reckless that he would actually make the country more unsafe to live in and more vulnerable to terrorists. Seriously, why would any President do that, even ones you didn't like at the time? They made the same mistake the rest of America did, trust a bunch of self confessed Neo Conservatives to not invade random countries as a demonstration of power and instead focus on actually stopping more attacks on US and Allied soil from killing more people. Just ask Spain and Great Britian how much of an impact invading Iraq had on stopping terrorism and if that money would have been better spent.

I like how 'environmental groups' is a link to a single source: Greenpeace.

As we all know, they're the kind of people that we can have a good intelligent discussion with, right? Of course, anyone that doesn't fall in line with their philosophy is some sort of heretic, even if they happen to be one of their own founders that disagrees with a long-standing platform of the organization.

I'd have a lot more respect for them if they also condemned Al Gore and his pimping of useless carbon credits that happen to fatten his own pockets...

Ever read washingtonpost.com's comments?

Guess what they're anonymous and they're basically worthless, consider the lack of any meaningful moderation system ala Slashdot. Comments in articles quickly become long, barely threaded and filled with idotic or worse comments.

It's the rule of internet forums, without some party moderating the debate, the troll wins and the comments suck.

Slashdot's answer is to allow the mob (users) to moderate, but Brady, since he's from the more traditional media, is wary of the mob. The mob has all sorts of biases and tends to reinforce its beliefs. It may be interesting discourse, but it can be difficult to get a balanced discourse -- and this is something the Post is committed to, for better or/and worse.

End result: The Post has moved slowly on user moderation and tried to keep moderation in the hands of a limited number of editors, which becomes overwhelming with so many posts and so many trolls.

His answer, is to require require people's ID to post on his company's web site. Throw in a little potential shame of trolling and see worthless comments decrease -- certainly people will think about them more.

Honestly, I think Brady's wrong on this point, I think the right answer is closer to Slashdot than what he envisions, but it's silly to try to slur the man as an enemy of free speech. Remember he's talking about the policies of the Washington Post on the Washington Post web site, not for the internet as a whole.

The biggest enemy to free speech can sometimes simply be too much noise.

Oh, and on a related note, you may be interested in reading an article Brady wrote on the event that CNET describes as a "notable history." It's available here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/11/AR2006021100840.html

Just because Brownback is ultra conservative does not mean he's fine with willy nilly eletronic monitoring to "protect our freedoms" Why don't you read what Brownback has said about Bush's wiretapping? Maybe it'll cheer up that depression of yours just a bit.

The short answer is Prius Politics. From the wiki article on Toyota Prius:

In July 2007 the The New York Times published an article using data from CNW Marketing Research finding that 57% of Prius buyers said their main reason for buying was that "it makes a statement about me.", while just 36% cited fuel economy as a prime motivator,. Shortly afterwards Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson coined the term "Prius politics" to describe a situation where the driver's desire to "show off" is a stronger motivator than the desire to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

We do. And unlike you, we understand the language it's written in, which is why we understand the difference between "modernizing" and "increasing".

"Yahoo because they effectively loaded themselves with a poison pill to keep Microsoft from taking them over"

What poison pill, Yahoo asked for more money, like good executive officers should do. Yahoo wanted $37 and Ballmer wanted $33 a share ...

"It is bad news for Yahoo employees and shareholders though."

"Shares of Yahoo closed Friday at $28.67, almost 50 percent higher than their pre-bid price"

I'm pretty sure the laws of physics require that nuclear waste be less energetic than nuclear fuel. If we can get nuclear fuel from the ground, what's wrong with replacing it with less energetic nuclear waste? The disposition of nuclear waste is a political problem, not a technical one.

Nobody's suggesting that we don't use the available wind, geothermal, or tidal power. If that's not sufficient, nuclear power is a great option. Hell, even one of the founders of Greenpeace thinks it's our best option to replace coal.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/02/28/ST2008022803016.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/30/AR2006113000912.html

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines/042000-01.htm

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/29/america/29prison.php

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/04/22/us/20080423_PRISON_GRAPHIC.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/us/28cnd-prison.html?_r=2

http://www.jbs.org/node/7846

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nation/bal-te.prisons29feb29,0,2057053.story

LOOK HOW SHORT IT TOOK! SIX YEARS!

http://usgovinfo.about.com/cs/censusstatistic/a/aaprisonpop.htm

NO! ONE!

http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=3321586

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/02/28/ST2008022803016.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/30/AR2006113000912.html

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines/042000-01.htm

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/29/america/29prison.php

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/04/22/us/20080423_PRISON_GRAPHIC.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/us/28cnd-prison.html?_r=2

http://www.jbs.org/node/7846

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nation/bal-te.prisons29feb29,0,2057053.story

LOOK HOW SHORT IT TOOK! SIX YEARS!

http://usgovinfo.about.com/cs/censusstatistic/a/aaprisonpop.htm

NO! ONE!

http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=3321586

The first amendment doesn't cover theft of resources, scamming, lies, shouting "fire" in a crowded theatre, etc.

Heck, thanks to a certain odd couple McCain-Feingold, it does not even cover Free Speech and Freedom of Association any more...

But I digress... What we need is an acceptable definition of spamming, that's better than "I know it, when I see it", which is the current standard. Maybe, a cool and well publicized X-prize would result in somebody coming up with one?..

On that note, I might add a Washington Post story on Adam Chodikoff, the guy behind the Daily Show who apparently manages to track down all those clips of politicians saying contradictory things. IMHO, the Daily Show would be scathing but ultimately harmless satire (like the Onion) without this factor. With it, it becomes something politicians actually have to be afraid of.

Or perhaps an example of really good planning. If I was planning to make sure a few million potentially incriminating emails never found their way into the public eye, that is how I might do it. Certainly if I had spent a number of meetings discussing how and when Americans should torture people I would be motivated to do so.

Thirty years in the IT industry, and my fallback career is cattle rancher. My in-laws own a small ranch where I work from time to time. If peak oil predictions prove to be optimistic, I'll still be able to put food on the table.

People will always need to eat, so in that sense you're right. However, while cows are ruminants and are natural grass eaters, today cattle eat mostly corn and it takes a lot of petrochemicals to grow the corn. Even more important is the water the cattle need, and they need a lot of water. Forget about peak oil, we're heading into peak water. "Aquifers and Rivers Are Running Dry."

Look who is talking....

The war on "terror" is estimated to cost:
$341.4 million per day http://www.nationalpriorities.org/costofwar_home

$720 Million Each Day http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/21/AR2007092102074.html

$100,000 per minute http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2002780385_spending03.html

Cost of Terror War Hits 430 Billion http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=34040

From the fine Washington Post article you referenced:

Microsoft said this is not the first time it has sought help from the NSA. For about four years, Microsoft has tapped the spy agency for security expertise in reviewing its operating systems, including the Windows XP consumer version and the Windows Server 2003 for corporate customers.

We all know how well that turned out for XP and 2003 and how "security as job 1" cleaned up the botnets and eliminated spam. No? Well, at least they got input to their random number generator and everyone knows that a backdoored system is the one to use for great security. Go Team America!

Not entirely BS, read. You can search and find much more info on government input into Vista. Real question would be what, if anything, is stamped SECRET?

I have the facts to back it up.

1) The Duelfer Report, clearly stating that there was no connection between the Baathist movement and al Qaeda, and just the dysfunctional remainings of a weapons program.
2) An interview with the Number Two of al Qaeda, al Zawahiri.
3) The history of the Baath Party as a secular, socialist and nationalist Arab movement.
4) The biography of the Number Two of Iraq, Tariq Aziz, who is no muslim at all, but a Chaldean Catholic. So whatever Iraq was, it was surely not ruled by islamistic jihadists.
5) All the alleged evidence brought before the war being debunked, from the Yellow Cake Story to the British dossier on Iraq's WMD program being just a rip of of Ibrahim al-Marashi's doctoral thesis.
6) The fact that Donald Rumsfeld even created his own intelligence unit because the CIA was still unable to uncover anything supporting, what the administration was believing to be true.
7) The fact that Colin Powell's address at the U.N. didn't convince neither Hans Blix, head of the U.N.'s inspectors of Iraq's WMD program nor the "old Europeans", with Germany's Minister for Foreign Affairs, J.Fischer, publicly stating his doubts.

Although U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland yesterday withdrew his earlier comment, domestic criticism of Bush continued to rise. Skeptics said the initial aid sums -- as well as Bush's decision at first to remain cloistered on his Texas ranch for the Christmas holiday rather than speak in person about the tragedy -- showed scant appreciation for the magnitude of suffering and for the rescue and rebuilding work facing such nations as Sri Lanka, India, Thailand and Indonesia. Many Bush aides believe [Bill] Clinton was too quick to head for the cameras to hold forth on tragedies with his trademark empathy. "Actions speak louder than words," a top Bush aide said, describing the president's view of his appropriate role.

Among the world's two dozen wealthiest countries, the United States often is among the lowest in donors per capita for official development assistance worldwide, even though the totals are larger. According to the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development of 30 wealthy nations, the United States gives the least -- at 0.14 percent of its gross national product, compared with Norway, which gives the most at 0.92 percent.

Reuters has a nice infographic comparing the total amounts donated by 20 countries for the tsunami relief effort. http://www.alertnet.org/thefacts/aidtracker/index.htm The United States was at the top in absolute amounts, but lowest in the ratio government aid to private aid (its citizens are more generous the the government) and about 16th in aid per capita.

If one assumes a perfectly accurate justice system, 1% of the population is criminal.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/02/28/ST2008022803016.html

Having said that, it wouldn't even bother me that much if there was real oversight on it, but that seems to be a vestigial notion in the US.

Good idea! It's already well documented that slot machines are more secure and transparent than voting machines.

"Google released a statement yesterday saying it was complying with the Brazilian court orders following a ruling Thursday by a Brazilian judge that threatened Google with a fine of $23,000 a day for noncompliance." from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/01/AR2006090100608.html They had a court order, it was fine. No need to get all pissy about it.

It's a small irony that only John McCain has actually said that he would not issue "signing statements" and that he would not allow for torture to take place in his administration.

That's the big advantage of knowingly lying; you can say anything you feel like.

To put these claims in context:

1. McCain has already voted against preventing the CIA from using torture
2. Tried to (illegally) ignore the spening limits of the public financing system after using it to secure a loan
3. Campaigned against lobbyists while taking there money and advocating their causes (same link, and many others).
4. ...and so on.

In short, his promises are worth nothing. He will break them without blinking an eye when he decides it's in his best interests to do so. If you can find anyone that seriously believes John McCain would honor a campaign promise no matter what happens tell them their shoe's untied and grab their wallet.

--MarkusQ

If a popular president has an extramarital affair, the press shows no fear and shouts it from the rooftops night and day.

But if the least popular president on record (backed by his administration) maintains that he has the inherent authority to kidnap US citizens at will and make them watch while his goons crush their children's testicles, the "free press" covers his butt so well that if you blink you'll miss the story.

I think you're trying to attribute to politics something that has a rather simple alternative explanation. In the eyes of the public (and therefore the press):

Salacious scandal >>> any other type of scandal

Ok, let's pick a salacious scandal then. Surely you remember these stories:

1. The White House was caught sneaking a fake reporter in to ask softball questions at White House press breifings
2. Although he was a fake journalist it turned out he was a real bona fide male prostitute
3. It then came to light that, according to White House visitor logs, he had visited the White House on dozens of days when there were no press functions, and sometimes did not check out till the next day
4. After a protracted period of wrangling during which the administration claimed White House visitor logs were protected by executive privilege a court finally ordered the White House to turn over its visitor logs almost a year ago
5. The White House is still refusing to let anyone see their visitor logs, even though previous presidents considered them open public records.

So where's the media circus? Why haven't we heard about this to the blue dress and blood on the glove level that other similar stories get? Why do they just report it tiny bits and pieces and then let each one fade quietly into the night?

--MarkusQ

Naturally, you shouldn't just be concerned about U.S. customs agents when crossing borders: other nations' agents may do the same, and unless you have dual citizenship, you don't even have the claim of a citizen when entering a foreign country.

Forgot the link: http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/postglobal/pomfretschina/2008/04/is_china_working.html

I'm not too worried about Comcast. The things they do (especially this and the whole guy-sleeping-on-the-job thing) would only serve to either get people moving to other (non-cable?) ISPs (if any) or revolting for fair cable-company laws; it's all shooting themselves in the foot to me.

I am far, far more sickened by my favorite evil Northeast US company, Cablevision; they do seem to provide good service (my parents get cable and my siblings get their Triple Play; I've seen no problems with service, but the "Caller ID on iO TV" spooks me a bit), at the expense of basketball teams worth rooting for (FYI, Garden owners: free food does not make up for team negligence...not that you'd care with the money you make with that Triple Play and its associated annoying ads), competing stadiums (granted, Verizon is no innocent company by any means), competing ISPs, new subway/train stations, and maybe even commuter security (Cablevision suggests otherwise, but their words are hard for me to take as told).

To answer parent comment's question, I suppose people subscribe because...well, when you get email, Colbert, VoIP and such powerful, important abilities like the ability to RickRoll others and Digg the result (ugh *vomits*), who cares about silly things like fair and lawful treatment of consumers, sports fans, and competing ISPs?

Me, I'll use DSL (Verizon, which hasn't given me much, if any, throttling problems) until there's a good free wireless network or whatever, and I've already subscribed to a different TV provider that offers HD free (I don't care that much for Olbermann). To those far from good antenna coverage: good luck, and ditch cable anyway.

For each example you have given on how the US government has not provided adaquit service (schools, roads and the like), please provide an alternative private sector alternative

Some of those things, like roads are not widely available as a private sector business. So let's look at retirement, Social Security costs 15.3% of every paycheck. From everything I've seen, it won't actually be there for me to live off of when I reach retirement age. However, if I save only $500 a month at 4% interest for my 40 year career life span, at 65 I will have $590,980.66. Granted that's not huge, but it's a nice bit better than the nothing I will be getting from Social Security. And that's only if I save $500 a month, if I could save $1250 a month (15% of a $100,000 a year job) then my retirement fund would be $1,477,451.67. Which in a 4% yield savings account would give me $59,098.04 a year to live on in my retirement. So retirement, as managed my the US government sucks worse than a lemonparty link.
Now let's look at schools, I think the Washington Post has already explained this one nicely. There is a Snopes discussion of this very topic, but the main point made there is that private schools are selective, they send back the troublemakers and under performers, but that is not true of all private schools. I would like to point out that the second boarding school I linked to costs less for one year room, board, and education than what DC spends per student on education only.

50+ million people to vote for American Idol and probably less than half of those will vote in the presidential elections

Sure, hammers are cheap - and so are washers, but how does a half-million dollars for shipping sound?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/16/AR2007081602230.html

You're absolutely right, consistency is marvelous!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/02/AR2005080200404.html

So all American Oil companies should move North!
Great! There's lots of Free office space in
Montreal freed by lumber companies that have
trouble selling into the US market... something
about 50% tarriffs... Free market RULES!

The analysis shows that the number of crashes at locations with cameras more than doubled, from 365 collisions in 1998 to 755 last year. Injury and fatal crashes climbed 81 percent, from 144 such wrecks to 262. Broadside crashes, also known as right-angle or T-bone collisions, rose 30 percent, from 81 to 106 during that time frame. Traffic specialists say broadside collisions are especially dangerous because the sides are the most vulnerable areas of cars.

Red light cameras can work to protect the public. Unfortunately, the Baltimore City Red Light Camera Enforcement System (RLCES), as it is presently operated, can be seen as a revenue-producing measure instead of safety-oriented when examined against the following:

1. Contract between Baltimore City and Affiliated Computer Services, Inc. (ACS)
2. Contingency vs. Flat-fee Arrangement
3. Unclear Standards for Yellow Light Settings
4. Inconsistent and Short Yellow Light Times
5. Lack of Delay Times/Grace Period
6. Decreased Minimum Threshold Speed Limits
7. Lack of Clear Objectives and Measurement Data (especially accident data)

                      These concerns greatly reduce the credibility of the RLCES and the City governing its operability. Therefore, each of these concerns should be addressed in a timely manner to ensure citizen confidence in the use of the RLCES, the City, the police department, and the judicial body that enforces the citations.[2]

Makes me glad the author of the book (above), Rob Beckstrom, was appointed to the newly created department of Cyber Security. He'll probably be able to help the President sync his iPod as well.

Here I go again. Every time I point out real shortcomings of an Apple product, I get modded to oblivion - "There are none so blind as those who will not see." Posted from my MacBook, BTW.

'Tis no mere canard or straw man. Simple economies of scale keep the Macs out of the botnets - not Cupertino prowess.

Microsoft is Swiss Cheese, that's wrapped in foil.

Apple is Swiss Cheese labeled as "Ementhaler" - believing that the luxury branding will ward off serious scrutiny, but leaving those holes exposed.

Lo! http://www.news.com/8301-13579_3-9905095-37.html

It's like this every year. Apple leaves vulnerabilities wide enough to drive a truck through, and I've lost count of the number of these things given away as prizes to the cracking teams.

Apple patch the OS like Microsoft used to, before Slammer. The ususal culprits? QuickTime and Safari.

The guys who cracked the MacBook Air need only have coupled this with the DNS flaw in AT&T customer TwoWire routers, and a very bad situation would exist in the wild. Not trivial - but not too difficult. The hard part was finding the flaw - now it's an exercise for the Kid33z. If there were an economically feasible number of Macs to do this, you can bet it would be crime syndicates and not kids - and you'd have a happy, Apple botnet.

Are you kidding? It's not 1/10th of a percent. Try an order of magnitude bigger. More like 1% of the entire population.

The US has THE largest prison population in the world. Bigger than China. Bigger than N Korea. Bigger than Russia. Bigger than any foe you can come up with.

Pffft. I wish it was 1/10th of a percent. Maybe then I wouldn't have to entertain these police state conspiracy theories I keep coming up with. One percent of the total population is a huge number and you can't help but wonder how it got that way.

This isn't about spam and Google groups. It's about preventing a malicious cracker from accessing the vast quantities of data that Google has about every single Google user. These days, a full identity (SSN + bank account) sells on the black market for $14-$18, depending. Google has tens of millions of users. Not all of them have their SSNs in their Gmail, but I'll bet that a fair bit have at least one credit card number or bank password in their email archives, their search history, or elsewhere within Google's control. Plus, think of the blackmail possibilities if there were a full-scale data breach? Remember the AOL search history breach? A full-scale crack of Google's security would be several times worse.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/01/AR2006100101090.html

Well... subway cars are heavier than tires, so we won't have anything else to worry about. Really, this time its ok.

There is not a large black market for these items.

Are you sure about that?

That apparently depends on where you live. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/07/AR2006060700983_pf.html http://www1.wsvn.com/news/articles/local/MI64137/

Hardly a fair comparison. Japan vs. the US is a much better comparison. In some parts, they are offering 1Gbps. In most places, the average is 60 Mbs for about $35/mo.

Republicans have never been big on competition. Just ask their friends who helped to write the 1996 Telecommunications Act. That whole "Republican Revolution" was really a revolution for their *Republican* investor friends.

Bear Stearns will quietly tell you that Bush just wanted to bail his friends out. That's the free market for ya.

Until the market gets *really* free from the incumbents, we aren't going to see very high speeds on our internet connections. Here's a great link on the subject of how Bush and his friends let it happen:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/28/AR2007082801990_pf.html

Yes, Republicans like free markets, as long as its free for *Republican* investors to pillage, rape and burn.

So the next time you wonder why you're still using DSL at 1.5 Mbs, just ask Bush. At least he knows what a checkout scanner in s supermarket looks like. (Or does he?) Or you can go here: www.speedmatters.org

Enjoy.

Jobs are disappearing due to automation, not outsourcing:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/02/AR2007090201189.html?hpid=topnews