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This does have a damn thing to do with Osama.

Bush started this illegal spying 6 months before he ignored the August 6th, 2001 memo titled Bin Laden determined to Strike in US.

That could be. But ask yourself this: if their goal was far more sinister than that, wouldn't being a search company be a great cover?

Well yes, they must obviously be a branch of the CIA/Haliburton! If not them, then the Illuminati/Freemason coalition must be responsible for Google's large market cap. Brilliant.

An ad hominem attack does not an argument make. It's not a "conspiracy theory" to question Google's links to the CIA, it's a fact.

• Two SWAT officers headed toward the car, one to arrest Culosi and one to protect the officer, Horan said.
  The officer involved, a 17-year veteran with long tactical experience, pulled up in a car behind the undercover officer's. "As the officer came out," Horan said, "he was bringing his weapon up. In the course of bringing his weapon up, it discharged. He has no real explanation how."
  The officer's name was not released.
  Horan said the officer shouted "Police!" at Culosi. "Right after 'Police!'" Horan said, "it went pow."
  Culosi was killed almost instantly.
  Horan said the bullet entered Culosi's left side, traveled through his body and was recovered on his right side. Horan said the officer was aware that he should not have had a finger on the trigger and that he should not have had his .45-caliber H&K handgun pointed at anyone.
• At 4:30 a.m. on Jan. 21, 2005, Noel and her husband, Charles, were asleep in the master bedroom of their row house when the heavily-armed Baltimore County SWAT team stormed through her home. According to the suit, officers had found "trace amounts of drugs" in trash cans outside of the home.
  Cheryl Noel feared criminal intruders had broken into her home and grabbed a lawfully registered gun and held it pointed at the floor, the suit states.
  Artson kicked in her bedroom door with his boot and, without identifying himself or telling Noel to drop her weapon, shot her three times, including once after she already had slumped to the floor

"Sure, SWAT is trained not to shoot first and ask questions later, "

I'm afraid that I'd have to disagree with this. At least compared with normal officers, SWAT is indeed trained to shoot first.

This can be considered acceptable if SWAT usage is restricted to high risk situations, where not using these tactics is likely to result in more deaths, but some areas have them serving most of the warrents - even on unarmed, non-violent dentists moonlighting as bookies.

Police in most states are required to knock on the door, and usually state that they have a warrant before entering

Where have you been these last couple of years? 'States' don't require the police to knock on the door, the US Constitution requires it. Additionally, this provision has been weakened greatly in the last few years:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/15/AR2006061500730.html

Police *may* shout out 'Police' before barging in, but they won't necessarily announce their position it as they sneak up to your house.

This man heard a noise outside *before* the police knocked on the door, and went outside to confront the 'intruder'. He probably caught them by surprise, and I'm sure the officers are glad they had time to react.

It's a potentially lethal prank.

SWAT are paramilitary - just like soldiers in Iraq, they're generally much more primed to 'shoot first and ask questions later'. This, while acceptable in high risk situations like clearing buildings with terrorists in them, hostage situations, and active shooter cases, you don't want them running around in active mode in normal areas/situations.

SWAT has been known to kill people when stuff like this happens.

Verizon has indeed released information and it is as we thought. Giving away customer information like they are crazy eddie.

Haven't you heard? The Russians are the bad guys again.

Even our "top diplomats" have no clue when it comes to tact. You get the feeling that none of them have been to a school for international relations. Or even charm school for that matter.

I'm nice. I don't know about the changing accusations but this story looks like more evidence of high crimes to me. Are we following a felony here? This story really blew open in the media over the weekend. (Google news:Nacchio)

"What occurred before 9/11." You ask.

Well, as court documents (heavily redacted but showing enough to prove the time line) in the Nacchio trial state the whitehouse demanded wiretap information without court orders in violation of the FISA act. Nacchio refused and Qwest was passed over for big dollar contracts issued by the Feds. The rub is all this happened six months before 9/11. Why is that a story? Read on.

Perhaps this is a better article then the one linked in this story. From the Washington Post.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/12/AR2007101202485.html?hpid=topnews
or this one. http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/10/nsa-asked-for-p.html

It says the NSA was demanding wiretaps without court oversight six months before 911.

But on this whitehouse.gov page. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/05/20060511-1.html it says
"President Bush: After September the 11th, I vowed to the American people that our government would do everything within the law to protect them against another terrorist attack. As part of this effort, I authorized the National Security Agency to intercept the international communications of people with known links to al Qaeda and related terrorist organizations. In other words, if al Qaeda or their associates are making calls into the United States or out of the United States, we want to know what they're saying." [White House, 5/11/06]

Not convinced? Watch this video
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/10/10/bush-pushes-for-telco-immunity/
"must grant liability protection to companies who are facing multi-billion-dollar lawsuits only because they are believed to have assisted in the efforts to defend our nation following the 9/11 attacks."

FOLLOWING? How about six months before!

Oh yea, Impeachment. "Bush administration was either incompetent or is guilty of malfeasance" http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_frank_j__071015_bush_administration_.htm OK he's a known Bush basher.

"On December 17th, 2005, President Bush confirmed the existence of a National Security Agency eavesdropping program. That confirmation came one day after a report in the New York Times. The President said at the news conference, "in the weeks following the terrorist attacks on our nation, I authorized the National Security Agency, consistent with U.S. law and the constitution, to intercept the international communications of people with known links to Al Qaeda and related terrorist organizations." Critics argued that Bush became the first sitting president to admit committing a felony, when he circumvented the courts by not getting a subpoena from the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) Court, as required by law." http://www.ksla.com/Global/story.asp?S=7112345&nav=0RY5

This would be Bush bashing; "Bush is a fake cowboy" http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2007/09/vicente_fox_cowboy_bush_is_scared_of_horses.php or "Bush is lazy" http://ask.yahoo.com/20031001.html but I won't resort to that kind of low stuff.

Disclaimer: I work for one of the companies that won two awards listed on the website.

If you like the idea of your tax dollars going to smaller companies, then please let your congressional representative know! The SBIR program has been targeted in recent years by lawmakers who feel that it's a waste of money. Just as worrisome, in the last month they managed to fast-track the passing of a bill letting a "small" company owned by a venture capital firm compete for SBIR dollars. The whole point of the SBIR program was to provide funding for small, innovative firms that didn't have deep pockets.

The SBIR program has become very competitive in the last few years and it's not surprising that big-money is looking for ways to grab that away from smaller, independent companies. If you like the idea of your tax dollars supporting lean, innovative companies, please let your rep know. The SBIR program is a valuable source of funding to allow small companies to develop technology that will let them one day compete with the sluggish, established behemoths (e.g., Microsoft).

GMD

Obviously we should only be worrying about misguided individuals with few resources and not nations like China

If the Democrats who voted to condemn Moveon had two brains between them, they would have added language to the bill that condemned the attacks on Max Cleland, John Kerry, John Murtha, the generals who have questioned the war, and Rush Limbaugh's "phony soldiers". Then the Republicans in the Senate would have been forced to condemn the right wing's attacks on those who have served or are serving in the military, or be shown to be political hacks.

So, you hang out with rich people, and this apparently gives you great insights into the plight of the poor?

Deamonte Diver died for lack of a $80 tooth extraction. See, there are anecdotes the other way, too.

Unfortunately, the Russian reporters being killed isn't a hoax...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/10/AR2006101000859.html

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/03/05/world/main2537352.shtml

Remember they already curtail and track the buying a large amounts of high grade ammonium nitrates and and large volume purchases of diesel fuel after Oklahoma City Bombing. However, this doesn't stop the idiots and other terrorist getting other supplies to do evil deeds. Again we are in a mentality of blocking, curtailing or tracking the sale certain objects will stop these people. The objects by themselves don't do anything and used properly can benefits us. Back to the subject of allowing you to get on a airplane. This list method doesn't work well since a determined terrorist will use a stolen identity to get on the airplane. Also the list of names will be redundant since there could be more than one John Smith and you can be that John Smith that is not the terrorist they don't want on the plane and now you are banned because your name is on the list for some reason. I remember that Edward Kennedy was on the "no-fly" list and here the one of the Washington Post URL about this: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17073-2004Aug19.html

Most rich people only pay 15% on their income (capital gains). Warren Buffett only paid 17.7% income tax on $46 million in income. His receptionist paid about 30%. Why do you think Steve Job's "salary" is only a dollar?

The biggest problem we face today is *not* the encryption. We have bags of good encryption technologies out there, from AES (symmetric) to a variety of Public Key techniques. The problem actually comes from the people and processes at either end of the encryption pipe.

Guess what - no-ones SSID has (probably) ever been stolen while in transit via SSL over the internet. The millions of SSIDs stolen to date have been theft of laptops or admins not securing their websites properly. Hopefully they will understand this, and spend an equal portion of their time/energy securing their endpoints.

This shouldn't be a surprise. Bush has insisted on amnesty for illegal acts AT&T (and others) *may* have done, but won't admit what they have done. Steny Hoyer is leading the charge against this amnesty on the basis that congress has no idea what the administration strong-armed these guys these guys to do.

But Bush won't say what they did. Which means it's bad.

I'm not making this up. Please go to http://washingtonpost.com/ and do a few queries. Or Google.

FTA - Bacteria could be created, he speculates, that could help mop up excessive carbon dioxide

More on Gorman's dissertation here for those interested in the story.

They even had a non-partisan group do a recount after the fact, and the paper trail showed that Bush in fact did win Florida.

No.

Data from the NORC recount shows that under the legal standard in force at the time, the "intent of the voter", more ballots were cast for Gore than for Bush.

As the Washington Post admitted (though only deep into an article whose headline and lead tells how recounts would have favored Bush):

Under several scenarios examined by the consortium, and using a standard in which two of the three reviewers agreed on the markings on each ballot, Gore emerged with more votes than Bush.

The overvotes that could have provided the margin for Gore were on ballots where voters tried to be extra-clear in their choice and ended up nullifying the vote. They filled in the oval next to a candidate and then filled in the oval for "write-in" and wrote the same candidate's name again.

...

The narrowest margin, according to the study, came under a scenario in which at least one corner of a chad was detached from punch-card ballots -- the prevailing standard across the state of Florida at the time -- or any mark on the optical scan ballots showing clear voter intent. In that case, the study showed Gore with 60 votes more than Bush.

Gore's margin grows under three other scenarios. Under the least-restrictive standard for interpreting voter intent, which counted all dimpled chads and any discernible optical mark (which in the case of optical ballots Florida's new election law now requires to be counted as votes), Gore had 107 more votes.

Gore's margin rose to 115 votes in the study under a tighter standard, calling for chads to be fully punched and a more restrictive interpretation of what constitutes a valid mark on optical scan ballots.

But this is one case where disagreements among the reviewers affected the outcome. Gore won under this scenario when two of the reviewers agree on the markings. Under a standard in which all three were required to agree, Bush won by 219 votes.

Gore's largest margin in a statewide recount involving all ballots comes under a scenario that sought to recreate the standards established by each of the counties in their recounts. In that case, Gore emerged with 171 more votes than Bush.

That's not even taking into account the inclusion of illegitimate absentee ballots that favored Bush, or the illegal disenfranchisement of likely Gore voters, or the poorly-designed and illegal "butterfly ballots" in Palm Beach.

It also appears that, emboldened by their success in Florida in 2000, the Bush camp went on to conduct massive vote fraud in Ohio in 2004, quite possibly enough to steal the election there.

uh oh, forgot to put on the flame retardant overcoat before I said that

Not meant as a flame. The corporate mainstream media did in fact report as if the recount favored Bush, by focusing on what recounts were demanded under Gore's strategy rather than the question of what ballots were actually cast.

But it is clear that in Florida in 2000, more voters went to the polls intending to vote for Gore; despite intimidation and illegal purges of the voter rolls, more voters got to the voting booth intending to vote for Gore; and despite bad balloting technology and practices (which disproportionately affected poor neighborhoods, making a mockery of "equal protection"), more voters voted for Gore than voted for Bush.

But the GOP played better politics than the spineless, gonad-less, soulless thing that is all that remains of the Democratic Party. And so came the point the historians will mark as the end of the

How about double blind tests of in-person musical performance? Oh wait, did that.

How about double blind tests of literature? Oh wait, did that too.

How about double blind tests of painting and sculpture?

You're right. Our police would never resort to violence during a protest.

Nor would the government would never abuse the court system.

Quote from the linked article: "This is a very high price for an 11 inch TV, but it is the first OLED TV to buy. Early adoption always had its price."

I guess that sentence is trying to sell people on the idea that early adoption is acceptable, even if the price is 20 times higher than earlier equipment with the same functionality.

I will wait to buy it until it has DTT. (Digital Turnip Twaddling)

I've read several comments in this thread lamenting the extinction of cultures as a result of the loss of their language, as if the two are inextricably linked. I'd argue that traditions and customs will continue to exist if they're still relevant independently of the language. Granted, old documents (if they exist) will eventually become inaccessible, but those are only part of a group's culture. This depends on the speed of extinction, though. If a language is lost gradually because its speakers become bilingual and then switch to their second language, their culture should remain intact.

As for old documents becoming unreadable:
this article puts the number of dying languages at 3500, with half of those having no written form. Those 3500 languages are spoken by 0.2 % of the world's population.

According to this story, 21st C fighting is less than any time in the last 55 years.

Report Finds Combat Deaths, Armed Conflicts on the Decline
By Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 18, 2005; Page A21

UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 17 -- Armed conflicts in the 21st century are less deadly than they have been at any time in the past 55 years, according to a three-year survey on warfare and violence.

The Human Security Report, written by a professor at the University of British Columbia, concludes that the number of genocides or mass murders has declined dramatically since the late 1980s, despite the large-scale killing of civilians during the past 11 years in Rwanda, Bosnia and Sudan. And it asserts that the number of coups or attempted coups has fallen by 60 percent since 1963. The report's research was funded by Britain, Canada, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland.

The report challenges the assumption that the world has become more violent with the proliferation of bloody conflicts in Africa and the Middle East. It also shows how the experience of the United States, which has lost more soldiers in Iraq than in any military operation since the Vietnam War, contrasts starkly with much of the rest of the world.

"Warfare in the 21st century is far less deadly than it was half a century ago," wrote the report's author, Andrew Mack. "The wars that dominated the headlines of the 1990s were real -- and brutal -- enough. But the global media have largely ignored the 100-odd conflicts that have quietly ended since 1988. During this period, more wars stopped than started." (cont.)

According to this story, 21st C fighting is less than any time in the last 55 years.

Report Finds Combat Deaths, Armed Conflicts on the Decline
By Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 18, 2005; Page A21

UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 17 -- Armed conflicts in the 21st century are less deadly than they have been at any time in the past 55 years, according to a three-year survey on warfare and violence.

The Human Security Report, written by a professor at the University of British Columbia, concludes that the number of genocides or mass murders has declined dramatically since the late 1980s, despite the large-scale killing of civilians during the past 11 years in Rwanda, Bosnia and Sudan. And it asserts that the number of coups or attempted coups has fallen by 60 percent since 1963. The report's research was funded by Britain, Canada, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland.

The report challenges the assumption that the world has become more violent with the proliferation of bloody conflicts in Africa and the Middle East. It also shows how the experience of the United States, which has lost more soldiers in Iraq than in any military operation since the Vietnam War, contrasts starkly with much of the rest of the world.

"Warfare in the 21st century is far less deadly than it was half a century ago," wrote the report's author, Andrew Mack. "The wars that dominated the headlines of the 1990s were real -- and brutal -- enough. But the global media have largely ignored the 100-odd conflicts that have quietly ended since 1988. During this period, more wars stopped than started." (cont.)

This is something I've found extremely ironic. It's old news, but relevant to the article. After years of doing damage to the nation by opposing nuclear power, Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore has officially renounced his anti-nuclear groups, and called on other environmentalists to do the same.http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/14/AR2006041401209.html

What the real pity is, is that these people were the ones who made it so incredibly difficult (litigation and monetarily) to build a new power plant. Back when opposing nuclear power was the cool thing to do, they lobbied and pushed for increasingly ludicrous laws and fees to try to stymy the growth of nuclear power. I'm sure they had good intentions, but this is just a classic example of a bunch of people latching on to a flawed idea, and then doing a ton of harm with it. As a result of it, now that they realize how dumb they were, or maybe just ruled by emotion, and call on people to start building power plants again, it's almost impossible to do it based on the litigation they themselves fought for.

In some way (of course they aren't the sole reason), they helped contribute to our complete dependence on Middle Eastern oil, and if you buy into what they say the war is about, they started it themselves.

To be honest, I really do hope that environmentalists start jumping on board here to try to make up for the damage they did. Make no mistake, I'm totally for not littering, and maybe even not building on the land of endangered species, but man, Greeenpeace has done some dumbass shit. By all means, nuclear power should be regulated, and standards enforced, but it really isn't the anti-christ. Seriously!

If you look at his voting record, you'll see that his record on supporting the war is mixed at best, and that he has supported the Patriot Act's reauthorization.

Like three years old.

I found this to be a little beter read
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/24/AR2007092401470.html

I guess if nobody reads the article, they figure it's not that important where they (don't) start reading from? Or else Stony Stevenson likes to read articles from back to front? I wonder how many /. readers will even notice.

Here is page 1 anyway: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/23/AR2007092301471.html?nav=rss_business

And, to the Bush Administration, the Constitution of the United States is little more than toilet paper stained from all the shit that this group of power-mad despots have dumped on the freedoms that "goddamned piece of paper" used to guarantee.

On Friday, President Bush signed legislation that will name a new $110 million, nine-courtroom addition to the federal courthouse in Bryant's honor.

Bryant was known for his dedication to Constitutional law and believed that lawyers could stop injustice.

"Without lawyers, this is just a piece of paper," Bryant said of the Constitution in an interview with The Washington Post last year. "If it weren't for lawyers, I'd still be three-fifths of a man. If it weren't for lawyers, we'd still have signs directing people this way and that, based on the color of their skin."

>> Since when does C02 drive weather anyway? they ignore basic high school science. I found it amusing to watch a show the other night harping on about increased C02 raising sea water acidity, when in fact a warming ocean results in c02 ESCAPING the water.

You've clearly forgotten high school chemistry. Yet you're arrogant enough to believe that climate scientists are the ones who have forgotten.

If you have a system with water and a CO2 atmosphere in equilibrium, some concentration of CO2 will be dissolved in the water. Now, what happens if you double the CO2 in the atmosphere? More of it gets dissolved in the water. That's where the increased acidity comes from.

And yes, it's coming. pH is .1 lower than it was at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, even as the oceans have been warming. According to your vast geochemical knowledge, shouldn't the opposite be happening?

The recent report says the system has produced just six "hits" -- instances where crime-scene evidence matched ballistics data in the system. None of those has been used in a criminal trial, the report says.

Snowe had initially backed Republican leaders by voting "nay" on the procedural motion to force a final vote. But once it became clear that the GOP had more than enough votes to win, Snowe switched her vote to "yea."

The student was allowed to say what he wanted to say, he was not blocked from speaking up at all. In fact he was allowed to keep saying what he wanted to say long after he had broken the rules of the debate (and a Florida law, but that's less important).

In a true police state he would never have been allowed to speak at all. America is not a police state.

In a true police state, he would have been turned away before he had entered if his true intentions were known, or carried away at the doors if he didn't comply with the "go away" request. Oh, wait - this has already been going on around here. Isolated examples - the President has already declared that he doesn't want to see or hear dissent.

The difference between "free country" and "police state" is a continuum, not a line, and such a state can be enforced by simple threat, if not overt action.

Well, I see that you're familiar with Republican talking points. But did you know that:

• The Taliban is resurgent in Afghanistan and is in fact regaining control?
• That Al Qaeda is still a global organization?
• That Afghanistan is still largely controlled by warlords? Karzai; the President's nickname is the "Mayor of Kabul" because is sphere of control is so limited
• Your hero Bush found out that Al Qaeda was responsible for the Cole bombing in March of 2001, but did nothing about it until AFTER 9/11. The CIA refused to certify the cause during Clinton's presidency.
• That burqas are back in fashion (and not by choice) in Afghanistan?
• 7 of 9 Supreme Court Justices were appointed by Republican Presidents, so I have no clue where your manufactured 5-4 usurpers figure came from. I'm sure the same right-wing sources that have so ill-informed you on these other bullets.
• There is no oil sharing agreement in Iraq. Not sure where you pulled that from either. That's why we're still there. And the Kurds just signed an independent oil agreement.
• I have no clue how you figure we've had 6 years of unprecedented economic growth. And, I have no clue how you seem to think the last time the economy was good was under Reagan (it was under Clinton).
• I'm glad that your family is doing well (as most upper class families are), but the buying power of Americans is going DOWN. And, . And, in the next year or so the bankruptcy crisis is going to explode as all those exotic loans are about to flip to higher interest rates.

Hopefully, you'll go out and try to understand why you're so uninformed, but I think you're going to continue rationalizing away reality.

Based on America's adult obesity rate, Sex gave up on these folks long before they gravitated to the Internet. It's all they've got left! http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/27/AR2007082700884.html

Swat doesn't get called unless there is a barricade, ongoing threat of life or hostage situation

Or they want to exercise a plain old search warrant.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/26/AR2006012602136.html

"""
But police officials acknowledged that the tactical team, using bulletproof vests, high-powered weapons and other police tools, serves nearly all of the warrants after an investigation has found probable cause to seize evidence
"""

Now we can torture people without the inconvenience of a trial and they won't be able to prove a thing.

I suppose waterboarding, while generally safe, is too much a risk in this era of bleeding heart snoops. You know, the ones that would claim we can't do whatever we want to whomever we want whenever we want.

Oh the pride of being an American under the Bush administration.

Cheers.

"I'm sure most nations would prefer if the US just went back to their pre WWII isolationism"

OH RLY?

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/01/06/world/main665329.shtml
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB117/index.htm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/28/AR2006112801640.html
http://www.globalissues.org/TradeRelated/Debt/USAid.asp
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/55a/008.html

Actually, there's a better answer still.

And an even better one than that: vote by mail. Anonymous and verifiable. It also has the benefits of allowing you to vote at your leisure in the comfort of your own home, rather than having to travel and wait in line. You can even take you ballot and do some Googling on the races rather than have to look up the candidates and do your research ahead of time.