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We knew Saddam was years away from getting nukes. We knew that most of the evidence that he was actively pursuing nukes was crap (yellowcake from Niger) or wishful thinking (aluminum tubes can only be used for uranium purification! No, really!)

I agree that Iran shouldn't be allowed to have nuclear weapons, but Bush's misadventures in Iraq has actually made it more difficult to stop that from happening. Our military is too busy with Iraq, our populace will have zero enthusiasm for military action against Iran, and according to the new study group report, we need to be making diplomatic gestures towards Iran and Syria to get things under control. I wonder what Iran will ask for in those negotiations...

Iran did not cause September 11th. Iraq did not cause September 11th. Most of the hijackers (and most of the money for the operation) came from Saudi Arabia. If there was one thing that could have prevented September 11th, it wasn't "more military spending" but "a president who actually took briefings seriously". "You've covered your ass," my ass.

Also, the Iraq war seriously degraded our ability to respond to Hurricane Katrina. All the troops and helicopters that could have been keeping the peace and rescuing people stranded on rooftops and providing shelter? Busy with the Iraq thing. I don't know why you even brought up the Wikipedia death toll article. You're probably one of those people who suggests that it dishonors the sacrifices of the American soldiers killed in Iraq if we pull out before "the mission is complete." Yet you're more than happy to dishonor those very sacrifices by claiming that until we get a Vietnam-esque body count, it's really no big deal.

You are still relying on a seemingly purely rhetorical argument that putting money into the society which produces wealth is somehow negative for that society

that was the case this country would have been decimated in the 50s and 60s when in fact it was at its strongest.

You can say that correlation does not prove causation all you want, but neither does it disprove it, and sometimes in a court its enough to go beyond a reasonable doubt.

Still to this day about half of the rich got that way because of pure genetic chance and its really hard to argue that they in some way deserve that status or have any functional purpose in keeping that wealth.

If we take some of that wealth and invest it in our society, cure the health crises, build some infrastructure, cure poverty, we will truly raise all ships.

The case did only involve a civil complaint, so it probably would have ultimately ended up with a financial settlement and some sort of compromised "corrective" measures like we see here, but I really think this is an injustice for the people who had their identities and privacy compromised, and for HP shareholders in the long run. The evidence that senior executives at HP, potentially including Mark Hurd, either ignored or were ignorant of the ongoing, "probably illegal" actions is pretty well documented, and pretty overwhelming.

Patricia Dunn took pretty much all the heat for this, and that's unfortunate for her and HP. It seems to me like she should have had a better grip on what was happening at HP, but it doesn't seem to me like she should have been the only one with that responsibility. A full, objective, and independent investigation should have been the first think on everybody's list. Instead, this case is now settled, Congress has moved on, and Dunn will be focussed on proving her innocence.

The unfortunate thing for Mark Hurd is that his level of responsibility and accountability wasn't determined in this process. The second HP hits a performance blip, this scandal will be the first thing on every shareholder's mind when they're thinking of who to blame. When that day comes, I wouldn't want to be in Mark Hurd's shoes.

--
justen
justen.blogspot.com

"Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded -- here and there, now and then -- are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty."

...every time we try to introduce a paper trail into voting the Democrats and various groups scream "racism!" and "disenfranchisement!". Heck, a court or two has even overturned such measure as "anti-constitutional".

Really, before we worry about whether we've recorded the vote correctly, shouldn't we be worrying about if we recorded the voter correctly?

details

Hmm... what's the relationship of that article to the original article and this one from a few days ago? What exactly are they recommending/rejecting?

Lots of people consider all the busy work in school a negative thing.

So only fundamentalist Christians are made a bit uncomfortable with some of these new concepts of cloning, use of aborted embryos for research. I would find that a bit surprising. Perhaps this just looks like a good opportunity to insult some group of people that you disagree with, while adding nothing to the debate. Big surprise there.

Actually, as far as I can tell, Fundamentalist Christians have objections to the concept of Women's Lib.

Observe.

Originally, the argument was that Women should be subservient to men. This was added when King James re-wrote the bible as an "interpretation."

Next, the argument was that women should be at home, married, with children. They could run the household, sure, as long as the man didn't care.

Then, it was "Birth Control is for Harlots", and they ran around either harassing, firebombing, or in general making it very, very difficult to find for a rather long time. (The current "I'm sorry, I may be paid to fill your prescriptions, but I refuse because you're a whore." theme with some southern pharmacists is a throwback to this.)

After that sunk, the next argument was that Abortion is murder. The Embryo is sacred life, and aborting it before it becomes able to live on it's own is evil and wrong. (Important note: Fundamentalists, as a whole, don't care what happens after the kid is born, just beforehand.)

The current argument is that the mere PREVENTION of pregnancy is murder -- at least when the prevention comes from a purely chemical means. (Unless you're daring to try and make condoms available to poor people, that's apparently bad too.) This is the official reasoning for the objections to the Morning After pill. Of course, this intentionally (at least, I hope it's intentional misdirection and not unintentional ignorance) ignores the fact that the Morning After pill is not a "take a pill, your baby is dead" situation, but rather, "You take a pill, your womb prevents the egg from being fertilized".

There's only a few common themes here. If you take the most recent arguments, you get a trend that the real argument is "Women -- or people in general -- shouldn't be allowed to enjoy sex". If you take the arguments a bit further, you get a trend that says "Women do not have the right to make their own decisions" -- be it reproductive decisions, legal decisions, what have you.

But, anyway.

The Stem Cell research bit is wrapped up in this. You see, you can't really avoid being against Stem Cell research when you are still trying to put on a public face about being against abortion due to "honestly" believing that life begins at orgasm. (Not conception, since with the Morning After pill, there is no conception that takes place. Again, that's the entire point of the morning after pill.) (Nevermind that every time someone goes to a fertility clinic, the same stem cells get created at Fertility Clinics -- indeed, most stem cells for research COME from Fertility Clinics.

Of course, calling Fertility doctors "mass murders" and putting pictures of their faces, homes, and children up on websites (in a King Henry the 2nd, "Who will rid me of this troublesome Heretic" type situation) would probably get a bit of a backlash, considering that, well, who's going to complain about doctors being able to help infertile couples have children?

But hey, "genocidal, devil worshiping Nazi-doctor-like abortionists" like those evil stem cell researchers? Sure thing!

Pathetic that an open-source wiki *needs* to be established, but it's accomplished more than, say, SAIC's failed $200M boondoggle that was supposed to modernize the FBI's computer systems. See http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2006/08/17/AR2006081701485_pf.html for an enlightening read.

He "concedes that he hasn't published [his theory of how thermohaline circulation has caused recent warming of the planet] in any peer-reviewed journal. He's working on it, he says."

The impression I get from RealClimate and the Washington Post is that Gray is not capable of doing numerical modeling, or even, necessarily, understanding the models which dominate the field.

About the only scientifically respectable semi-skeptic, Richard Lindzen, says of Gray: "His knowledge of theory is frustratingly poor, but he knows more about hurricanes than anyone in the world. I regard him in his own peculiar way as a national resource."

That's a very complimentary way of saying he should be put out to pasture.

See the following articles:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2006/05/23/AR2006052301305_pf.html

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006 /04/gray-on-agw/

"the worst spacecraft failure in the history of the Chinese space program"

In my humble opinion, this description is a load of garbage. The loss of control of a satellite in orbit is minor compared to the of a Long March launch vehicle to the point that it exploded moments after launch and flaming debris crashed into the ground killing (officially) 6 people in 1998. The real number of deaths was probably much higher (some estimates place it at about 200). Given the cover-up of that event, I suppose the present example might still be the most serious recent failure the Chinese government has allowed their news media to talk about in any detail. Given the actual record to date, this event seems more like business as usual, but this time effecting a Chinese satellite, rather than a customer from somewhere else that the Chinese space agency could try to blame as the source of the problem (see the linked article for previous examples).

I wish I could say that I've seen it in person, although from the pictures it doesn't look like anything I would go out of my way to see. It does look rather ugly. :)

I also won't argue that the situation isn't a pain. I hope that improvements in design, materials, engineering, and the security situation will eliminate the need for those measures. I will say that the US has, regrettably, accrued a certain amount of experience with what happens to poorly protected buildings when targeted by truck bombs. I will also say that if the US embassy is an unappealing target due to the protective measures, the people in all of the buildings around it will probably benefit in the long run. (Al Qaeda has called off attacks before when they had doubts about killing enough people for it to be worthwhile to them. They prefer for both the attacks and body count to be rather spectacular. The simultaneous bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania killed 258 and wounded more than 5,000. I would hate for a similar attack to occur in Canada.) I hope Canada will not find it necessary to take such measures, but it may be coming.

Cheers

It sounds very much like just taking a connecting flight through the US could allow you to end up in custody, declared as an illegal combatant, and locked away.

Are you engaged in a plot to kill large numbers of Americans? Are you giving money to Islamist extremist terrorist organizations that are plotting to kill large numbers of Americans? Are you supplying terrorists with: weapons? documents? intelligence? Have you been hanging out on any battlefields and shooting or lobbing grenades at Americans? Have you been spending long periods of time in various countries known for training terrorists after proclaiming your allegiance to Bin Laden and your steadfastness in pursuing Jihad? Are you a Muslim extremist who demands that Spain be returned to Muslim rule, Israel be destroyed, and hang around with extremists Imams while having the occasional problem with weapons that you shouldn't have?

No?

So, why do you think they will be interested in you? They have real threats to be concerned about.

I realize it's unlikely, it's just eerie to know they believe that they can do anything they want.

Unlikely is an understatement. No, they don't believe that they can do anything that they want. That impression might be caused by not knowing American law, history, and the extensive but still limited powers of the US President, especially in time of war. I doubt that President Bush has done much of anything that President Roosevelt didn't do in the 1940s, and in many respects, far less.

. ... and short of torture (which they defined in terms or organ failure and death)

I very much doubt that.

Anyone take a close look at the image with the article, in particular the letters? What is that lady getting for her kids?!?!

Can you site some sort of reference for this?

Um... ok, here is a Washington Post piece from yesterday titled "Democrats Reject Key 9/11 Panel Suggestion."

There's plenty more coverage of the same, but that one can hardly be accused of coming from a right-wing source, so I thought it would be a valid one.

As for Pelosi's much-trumpeted "new direction" missive... have you actually read that thing? No less a liberal than Michael Kinsley wrote an op-ed piece begging his fellow partisans to, essentially, be sure NOT to read it before they went to the polls. It's the most empty bucket of platitudes you can imagine - except for the part where they want to cure all ills via tax credits... even as they say that lowering taxes is their opposition's greatest sin. Anyway, actually read it, if you haven't eaten yet.

Check out: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2006/04/04/AR2006040401937_pf.html

It's hard not to agree wholeheartedly, as I've disliked America's most popular variety, the Red Delicious, for about a decade. Apparently I'm not the only one.

However, I think it is a mistake to dismiss all commercially grown apples due to a problem with a particular variety. A few years ago I had the pleasure of trying the Fireside and Connell Red (the latter apparently a mutation of the former), which I picked from a local commercial orchard. I always knew there were many varieties of apples in the world, but tasting these two opened my eyes to the rich variety to be experienced.

Yes, I have, 4 times. So has Jim Harper from the CATO Institute.

It's easy, and the US appeals court has recognized this right.

See: this story

And the waffling on the recommendations of the ISG is just getting underway:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2006/11/29/AR2006112901317_pf.html

No, I've never read the Washington Times much.
I did cancel my WaPo subscription around Memorial Day, 2006: I find myself so thoroughly at odds with their Foreign Desk that I don't care to have that maca^Wnonsense arrive in my driveway any longer.
I will agree that their editorial page is well-balanced, and has a lot of valuable criticism from the left, as well. Richard Cohen, in particular, is a beacon of civilization.

"If Iraq has taught anything, the lesson is to keep a weather eye on the sources."

Aye cap'n, keep a weather-eye out. "The source", the Washington Post, is not near as bad as some claim. Their bullpen of commentators includes strong conservatives as Krauthammer and ol' George Will, and even examples of the rare species known as the moderate (David Broder). The Post also produced a landmark excellent article on the details of Chavez' fascist dictatorship in Venezuela (something a hard-left paper would not do, since the hard-left loves this dictator).

Hopefully, you aren't one of those who holds up the Washington Times as an example of a better paper.

Not that it really matters since Bush is already planning to ignore what the study group says. He'll just continue to "Stay the course".

Frankly the west cutting emissions will do nothing except ruin the economies.
If the west cuts it's use of fossil fuels it will simply lower the cost of the fuel and increase the carbon output of China other developing nations.
Unless EVERYONE agrees to cut emissions then it really is bad idea to impose a carbon tax.

I do think that no new fossil fuel burning plants should be built. They should all be nuclear, solar, hydroelectric, or wind where each of them is logical.
The problem even with that is while it will help the first world countries by cutting their dependence on oil it will probably not decrease the emissions of carbon at all.

Modern light water reactors are safe. At least according to one of the founding members of Geenpeace. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2006/04/14/AR2006041401209.html
Australia has very little in the way of hydro electric power. They have vast distances and a dispersed population. The nature of their land and population will tend to make them use more energy than the average person in the EU or the US.
What they have is a lot of coal, land, and uranium.

A mix of solar, wind and nuclear makes sense for Australia. Reformulating coal in to synthetic liquid fuel and gas could also be of use to decrease their imports of oil. If that is a goal for them.
Electric cars will never work in Australia and hybrids will be of limited use since they get their best economy in city traffic. Very efficient diesels are the logical choice for them. A combination of bio-fuel and reformulated coal for power would be my choice for energy independence.
Just some suggestions and logic.
I am sure that the anti-nuclear at all cost crowd will claim am a nothing but a tool of the energy companies and the extreme right will say that I am a fool to think that synthetic fuel, bio-fuel, solar, and wind have any future. Since I am making both sides made I am probably right.

So, if you can spare a moment between breathless rants about how sacrosanct our rights are, please, let us all in on YOUR secret plan to neutralize a fundamentalist religious creed

Ah, the typical Republican cry for help: "We're running out of buildings to blow up, our soldiers spend their days driving around in circles waiting for someone to jump out and try to kill them, we're trying to fight a war of attrition but the enemy just keeps on recruiting faster than they die, won't anyone PLEASE tell us what to do?!"

Repeatedly, suicide bombers have killed dozens of Iraqi children just to get at one or two soldiers handing out candy. Total outrage: not a whole lot. For some reason, our government is all too happy to play the "won't you PLEASE think of the children" card against fellow Americans, but when it comes to Iraq, going around and convincing the mothers that if they don't turn in the terrorist building a bomb next door, that their children is going to be so much potted meat apparently stinks too much of "huggy feely hearts and minds liberal hippie shit" to actually even try. Think about it: right now we can't even discredit a group that intentionally goes around slaughtering children and blowing up weddings.

We show up and launch missiles to level entire apartment buildings then do a great big victory dance to let everyone know beyond any doubt that WE came and wiped out 50 entire families just to kill the one terrorist who wasn't even in the building that day. If you're going to kill them all anyway, smuggle a fucking bomb into the building and set it off at 3AM. Send in the Iraqi Puppet Police to discover the remains of a "terrorist ammunition dump", and jam al jazeera's (or whatever their name is) signal to broadcast a "special bulletin": are YOUR neighbors incompetent fuckwits playing with explosive shit? Call 555-terrorist and report them today before YOUR apartment building is the next one to explode at 3AM! Oh, and by the way, if you're killed by an idiot who blows himself up doing something stupid, you don't get any virgins.

Every time a new bin Laden tape shows up, the CIA has to spend weeks trying to figure out if its authentic. If it's THAT easy to fake, they should have faked a few (too late now). Clear out some podunk town, then throw a tape on the air: "Our glorious troops must gloriously regroup at glorious podunkville for our glorious revolution against the American forces. Meet up at podunkville and get your rocket launchers and bombs, 2 for one special this Friday!" Proceed to blow up everything that moves. Add chaos to confusion: tapes proclaiming that other tapes are fake. Tapes proclaiming that bin Laden is agreeing to a cease fire in exchange for medical care. Tapes telling terrorists that there are soft American targets in the middle of nowhere, where there (is nothing but empty desert|the entire army waiting and ready for them). I guess this idea just didn't have enough guns to dick around with for anyone on Bush's crew to have thought of.

Those are just things I've thought of, and I'm not even a military strategist, I'm just a lowly computer programmer. Maybe Bush should recruit some people who actually know war instead of appointing campaign donors and friends to important posts. It'd also help if Bush hadn't repeatedly attempted to purge everyone from the CIA who didn't agree to back him on his WMD delusion. Surrounding yourself with nothing but incompetents and Yes Men is a beautiful way to fail spectacularly but a horrible way to run a war.

"They were all acting together for their own amusement," said Capt. Chris Graveline. "There was no justification for what they did that night."

Graveline said the group took pictures of what they were doing "so they could remember that night, so they could laugh again at these men. ... There's nothing funny about what happened at Abu Ghraib."

Harman, 27, of Lorton, Va., was the second U.S. soldier tried and convicted in the scandal.

During Tuesday's sentencing hearing, she tearfully apologized for mistreating Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

"As a soldier and military police officer, I failed my duties and failed my mission to protect and defend," Harman said, her voice cracking. "I not only let down the people in Iraq, but I let down every single soldier that serves today.

"My actions potentially caused an increased hatred and insurgency towards the United States, putting soldiers and civilians at greater risk," she continued. "I take full responsibility for my actions ... The decisions I made were mine and mine alone."

Several of the worst abuses photographed took place on a single day, Nov. 8.

In one of the most striking images to surface, a detainee jokingly referred to as "Gilligan" by the MPs was forced to stand on a box of food, with wires connected to his fingers, toes and penis.

Harman said she attached the wires to "Gilligan" and told him he would be electrocuted if he fell off the box.

"Why did you do this to the detainee 'Gilligan'?" a military investigator asked.

"Just playing with him," Harman said.

Also that day, MPs punished seven detainees they said were instigating a riot in a part of the prison outside Tier 1A.

The detainees were stripped and forced to the floor of the cellblock.

"Graner was placing them into position," Harman told investigators.

"How long did the human pyramid last?" an investigator asked her.

"The pyramid lasted about 15 to 20 minutes," she said.

That's an allegation, but the facts of the article don't strongly support it.

Democracy off. Chaos On.

to pacify a communist nation, is to export capitalism to it. It worked with Russia.

Errr, excuse me?

Inside Russia:
A KGB leader rules he country, were mafias run rampant, foreigners get killed in the streets, petty wars are fought abroad, and regime-critics get killed.

Outside Rusia:
Blocking resolutions against Iran developing the bomb, providing funds to terrorist group (seems like a good way to keep the West troubled and give free ride to Russia as "it does not matter anymore"), the tactics of cutting gas supplies to neighbours and trying to own strategic European infrastructure and industries. And, of course, killing of disidents abroad with radioactive material.

I say Russia is back as the enemy of the West. And this includes the USofA

Peace!

Did Microsoft hold secret talks with Novell prior to any public announcement to any agreement?

If so, I would hope openSUSE developers would be more concerned about this, rather than a clearly *open* offer from Shuttleworth. I used SUSE for several years prior to Novell coming into the SUSE picture, before I switched to Ubuntu Linux.

I said it before and I'll say it again, I think Mr. Shuttleworth is brilliant.

Look, if Microsoft wanted to bring Windows and Linux together, why didn't they do it when they partnered with Corel around six years ago? (if, indeed, it was a partnership, correct me if I'm wrong please) Does anyone remember Corel Linux? It, like Ubuntu, was a Debian based Linux distribution, with an easy to use graphical installer! And this was around six years ago! (There was even a Corel Linux for Dummies book, check Amazon dot com and see for yourself) Anyone who wants to gain an enlightened perspective can google about Corel Linux and Microsoft and inform themselves. Here are a few important articles:

"Corel Sells Out To Microsoft"

"Interview: Corel's Linux VP on the Microsoft deal" @ CNN 10/16/2000

"Microsoft Faces New Antitrust Probe Over Corel Deal"

"Government lawyers want to know more about a deal in which Microsoft gave Corel, perhaps best known for its WordPerfect program, $135 million in exchange for 24 million shares of Corel stock last October." "After the investment, Corel announced it would retreat from developing software designed to run on the Linux operating system, which competes with Microsoft's Windows operating system." - quotes source

"Microsoft Litigation" List - Educate yourself

I ask you: Who do YOU trust?

Do you want open meetings and discussions? Isn't that what an open source community thrives on? Or do you want secret meetings?

For those of you who would rather crack chair throwing or developer jokes and ignore the issue, read for yourself in an interview with Bill Gates dated 11/17/2006 where he mentions Novell, indemnification, and the word pioneering all in the same reponse to a question:

"Gates on Vista, Linux and more"

History repeats itself, and I believe, in my opinion, we're seeing it happen right now. IMO the Corel/Microsoft events in history should not be ignored. In fact, I suggest they be looked at again closely and compared to the present Novell/Microsoft events for educational purposes. :) Google for yourself and see, there are a lot of juicy articles out there on this. And yes, I know about Xandros, my point is about where Corel Linux was headed.

Did Microsoft hold secret talks with Novell prior to any public announcement to any agreement?

If so, I would hope openSUSE developers would be more concerned about this, rather than a clearly *open* offer from Shuttleworth. I used SUSE for several years prior to Novell coming into the SUSE picture, before I switched to Ubuntu Linux.

I said it before and I'll say it again, I think Mr. Shuttleworth is brilliant.

Look, if Microsoft wanted to bring Windows and Linux together, why didn't they do it when they partnered with Corel around six years ago? (if, indeed, it was a partnership, correct me if I'm wrong please) Does anyone remember Corel Linux? It, like Ubuntu, was a Debian based Linux distribution, with an easy to use graphical installer! And this was around six years ago! (There was even a Corel Linux for Dummies book, check Amazon dot com and see for yourself) Anyone who wants to gain an enlightened perspective can google about Corel Linux and Microsoft and inform themselves. Here are a few important articles:

"Corel Sells Out To Microsoft"

"Interview: Corel's Linux VP on the Microsoft deal" @ CNN 10/16/2000

"Microsoft Faces New Antitrust Probe Over Corel Deal"

"Government lawyers want to know more about a deal in which Microsoft gave Corel, perhaps best known for its WordPerfect program, $135 million in exchange for 24 million shares of Corel stock last October." "After the investment, Corel announced it would retreat from developing software designed to run on the Linux operating system, which competes with Microsoft's Windows operating system." - quotes source

"Microsoft Litigation" List - Educate yourself

I ask you: Who do YOU trust?

Do you want open meetings and discussions? Isn't that what an open source community thrives on? Or do you want secret meetings?

For those of you who would rather crack chair throwing or developer jokes and ignore the issue, read for yourself in an interview with Bill Gates dated 11/17/2006 where he mentions Novell, indemnification, and the word pioneering all in the same reponse to a question:

"Gates on Vista, Linux and more"

History repeats itself, and I believe, in my opinion, we're seeing it happen right now. IMO the Corel/Microsoft events in history should not be ignored. In fact, I suggest they be looked at again closely and compared to the present Novell/Microsoft events for educational purposes. :) Google for yourself and see, there are a lot of juicy articles out there on this. And yes, I know about Xandros, my point is about where Corel Linux was headed.

Monkeys Control Robotic Arm With Brain Implants

Study Finds No Cancer-Marijuana Connection
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2006/05/25/AR2006052501729_pf.html

Marijuana Unlikely to Cause Head, Neck, or Lung Cancer
http://www.webmd.com/content/article/23/1728_57309

FWIW, now that the game has been in the house for a few days, I kick their butts at bowling.

Can't wait for the second generation of motion sensor games, the golf game only has 3 clubs.

IF there is something worse than a monopoly then it's a vigilante corporation.
So if you think it's bad Microsoft is now policing the net, well did you know that
the _SCUM_ behind your friendly TARGET store may well someday hold a cold barrel
to the back of your neck?

>>> Retailer Target branches out into police work

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2006/01/28/AR2006012801268_pf.html

"Target is pushing forward a different model of corporate giving," ... Exxon Mobil, for example, is building hospitals in the developing world. Cargill Corp. is building schools in areas where potential employees lacked basic skills...

In the past few years, the retailer has taken a lead role in teaching government agencies how to fight crime by applying state-of-the-art technology used in its 1,400 stores. Target's effort has touched local, state, federal and international agencies.
Besides running its forensics lab in Minneapolis, Target has helped coordinate national undercover investigations and worked with customs agencies on ways to make sure imported cargo is coming from reputable sources or hasn't been tampered with. It has contributed money for prosecutor positions to combat repeat criminals, provided local police with remote-controlled video surveillance systems, and linked police and business radio systems to beef up neighborhood foot patrols in parts of several major cities. It has given management training to FBI and police leaders, and linked city, county and state databases to keep track of repeat offenders.

For those of you asking how to get the documents: they're not available free of charge. Microsoft has handed over documents for checking, and has explained how it wants to license them.

The EU is going to decide three things: whether the documents satisfy their requirements, whether the price is reasonable (based on Microsoft's original contribution instead of their monopoly position), and whether the proposed license is reasonable.

If they decide this will do, then Microsoft has to make the documentation available for people wanting to buy it under those license terms for that price; if they decide against, then Microsoft still hasn't complied and will get more fines.

It never was about documentation available without strings attached, that would be too unreasonable.

See the Washington Post: The Commission's decision, it recalled, required Microsoft to "disclose and license complete and accurate interface documentation [...] and Microsoft could face further fines if the Commission finds that the price was based on Microsoft's exercise of monopoly power, rather than on the originality of its product.

Given that the U.S. government and military has made it obvious that it plans to dominate space I would guess this project has far more ambitious intents than simple orbital research. A small unmanned shuttle would provide the perfect capabilities for detection, destruction, and possibly even retrieval of "enemy" satellites. Add some radar absorbing materials/techniques to the X-37B mini shuttle and you have the perfect space based weapon.

A few of these shuttles in orbit at any one time could provide the ability to quickly take out other countries space capabilities without being as obvious as using a ground based laser or missile. Plus it would be far more accurate.

because we didn't like the economic downsides

Like in: "Last year, Congress approved two bills totaling $13.6 billion to cover the cost of four hurricanes, according to a White House fact sheet."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2005/08/31/AR2005083102395.html

CC.

I hope, you don't mind my ascribing the earlier Anonymous Cowards' quotes to you — you seem to agree with their authors' sentiment.

So, launching thousands of explosive devices into residential areas in Southern Lebanon in the hope of frightening Lebanese civilians to give up purported Hezbollah fighters was not terrorism on the part of the Israeli state?

No, it is not. Unless you can prove, that Israel deliberately targeted civilians. Can you? I don't think so. In fact some evidence points to just the opposite — the number of Lebanese killed is minuscule compared to Israel's capabilities for death and destruction. Israel's army performed much better, than even NATO did, when they were bombing Serbia to stop Milosevic's thugs.

Generally, when intent is involved in a definition of an act, making an impassionate judgment is very difficult without the perpetrators' taking responsibility and/or stating their goals. Hezbollah, for example, makes it easy to judge its "purported" (LOL!) fighters as terrorists, because it is unabashed about its deliberate targeting of Israeli civilians:

We are going to make Israel not safe for Israelis. There will be no place they are safe," Safiadeen told a conference that included the Tehran-based representative of the Palestinian group Hamas and the ambassadors from Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinian Authority. We will expand attacks," he said. "The people who came to Israel, (they) moved there to live, not to die. If we continue to attack, they will leave.

Whether or not you agree with their goal, their method is terrorism — by definition.

So "disappearing" hundreds of foreign civilians at home and abroad, keeping them incommunicado from family and friends, and resorting to abuse and torture to "make them talk", in violation of international law, is not terrorism on the part of the American state?

Of course not. Not everything you disapprove of is automatically "terrorism". However reprehensible it may be, these disappearings were not terrorism simply because the victims were not targeted as civilians. Even you state, that they were picked (legally or not) to extract information ("make them talk") — which means, their kidnappers believed (mistakingly or not) them to be connected to our enemies and thus automatically non-civilians...

It seems you have a warped definition of "terrorism such that it includes others but excludes, by definition, you and your allies.

My definition is self-consistent and taken directly from a dictionary. Yours (whatever it is — you never stated it) seems simply a bubble of passionate appeal — you are revolted by the gruesome effects of Acts of War and "terrorism" is just the worst label you can slap on it...

Now Patrick Moore (one of the founders of Greenpeace) has admitted the anti-nuke effort was a mistake - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2006/04/14/AR2006041401209.html . A lot of myths about nukes still abound from Greenpeace propaganda from the 1970s. Unfortunately Greenpeace still beats this drum even though they clearly should know better now.

Until this situation changes I think we are still limited to WWII type chemical propulsion systems. The space elevator offers hope, maybe. We'll see.

"Now, Chavez has about an 80% approval rating (unlike Bush who is in the 30's). "

Of course Chavez is Loved by Millions. It is the law there. Also, the Dictator of the Month site is not "right wing". It is merely anti-dictator, and shows a marked lack of "wing" bias. Roughly half (or at least half?) of the dictators named are "right wing". If they had any sort of right-wing bias, they would have quietly left OFF the list Pinochet and Marcos and many others.

As for Israel, I know that hatred of Israel is typically rooted in hatred of Jews. I'm honest enough to admit that. Honesty is not shilling. "Disapproval of the policies of the Israeli government" is a straw-man, typically a cover for rabid hatred of Israelis. A typical ludicrous belief that someone hides under mere "disapproval" is the idea that Israel has no right to fight back when attacked or invaded. It ranges from there on down to the belief that Israelis don't have a right to exist: a wish for genocide shared by countries ranging from Iran all the way to "moderate" Dubai.

Personally I am very concerned about electronic voting, especially in cases where there is no verifiable paper trail produced by the machines. The obvious benefits of having a machine tally the votes has to be weighted against the importance of having fair and open elections where the outcome can be verified.

That said, I very much hope that the sudden appearance of this proprietary code this doesn't have anything to do with a recent theft of Diebold software.

Here's a starting point

"Windows is a business OS"

So what is XP Home ?

Oh, btw in case you weren't paying attention these last two months :

Hackers Use Wikipedia As Virus Vector - Saturday Nov 4 2006

Hacked Ad Seen on MySpace Served Spyware to a Million - Wed, 04 Oct 2006

They dug up stupid. He wasn't much halp.

The first 100 hours under a Democratic House.

Day One: Put new rules in place to "break the link between lobbyists and legislation."
I'll side with you on this one. There will never be any such rules because the Dems are owned by lobbyists, just different ones.

Day Two: Enact all the recommendations made by the commission that investigated the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Time remaining until 100 hours: Raise the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour, maybe in one step. Cut the interest rate on student loans in half. Allow the government to negotiate directly with the pharmaceutical companies for lower drug prices for Medicare patients.

The article also goes on to say they'll reimplement pay-as-you-go, which was a Republican priority in the 90s. Also, a rollback of the tax cuts for anyone making over $200,000/yr.

Seems like they do have a few ideas.

1. Um, really? Why? It seems to me like "not saying anything" is not quite the same as "saying something". But in any case, if you want to make some kind of symbolic statement by casting an empty ballot, go ahead. At least it shows that you gave it some thought. We simply take issue with the guy who stays at home and thinks he's "Fulfilling His Civic Responsibility" and/or "Fighting The Man" by rambling cynically into the comment box at Slashdot, to distract himself from the fact that he's just too lazy to get off his ass and vote. You're not one of those guys, though, so you're cool.

2. Yes, obviously you have the right to complain about whatever you want to. That completely misses the point, though. The OP's point was: if you don't like the policies that are being enacted, and you want to continue complaining on the intertubes*, that's fine, and you should do that. But if you want to actually change things, it often helps to vote. It certainly doesn't hurt.

3. Dude. Read the OP's post. He pre-empted you. The fact that we're a representative republic doesn't change his argument. You still have to participate.

3.5 Can we stop with the "Democrats are Republican clones" canard? Just because it's repeated so often, doesn't make it true. Sure, we're all disappointed/angry that the Democrats are more conservative than they should be, but there are still significant differences between them and the Republicans, and if you can't see that, you haven't been paying enough attention. Just take a look at how any of the "Key Congressional Votes" went down: the Democrats opposed the Republicans on all of these issues. Therefore, if you care about any of these issues, replacing a Republican with a Democrat will make a difference.

4. It's fairly obvious that "simple proportioning" doesn't apply in this case**. The OP argues that, if you vote, you'll try to spare more time total to consider the issues.

*(Ok, maybe instead of calling it "complaining", you'd like to call it "being informed and expressing your opinion on the internet". That's certainly a lofty and laudable goal. But it's possible to do that, and also vote. They're not mutually exclusive.)

**To further illustrate the ridiculousness of this argument, try to actually apply it: "I've got a fixed 24 hours of time to consider issues. So if I vote on 2 issues, I get 12 hours of informedness per issue. If I vote on 1 issue, I get 24 hours of informedness per issue. But wait - if I vote on 0 issues, I get INFINITE INFORMEDNESS PER ISSUE!" ... ... ... Is this your argument for why we shouldn't vote? That last step makes no sense, so the best you can get is to argue that everyone should only vote on one issue. And even then, your argument is still flawed. Informedness is not a linear function of the amount of time spent researching; it's more like a sigmoid - at some point, you'll plateau (meaning that you'll be informed enough to vote). You don't have to spend all 24 hours, and become maximally informed on an issue: maybe you only need to spend 4 hours to become informed enough to vote.

Overall, a good effort - I give it a 2/5 - but still no cookie for you.

False. Adult and cord stem cells have actually yielded results, unlike embryonic stem cells.

Embyronic stem cells are such an issue because unlike the other kinds of stem cell research, the fact it yields no results means it has no financial backers, so scientists want to push for federal funding from the government.

Okay, disregard him. The other Democrats are still conservative Democrats.

Apparently you didn't pay attention. Most of the new seats are anti-gay marriage Democrats, pro-gun Democrats, and anti-abortion Democrats. These guys are going to clash with Nancy Pelosi's San Francisco ideals.

Next time you check that calendar, you may want to take note that elections are in November, not January of 2008

and that new seats don't caucus until the beginning of the year afterward.

The sad thing here (to me: a conservative) is that the Democrats made traction with labeling Republicans as not being fiscally responsible. Sure, the Republicans spent more than I had wanted them to, but on every appropration spent less than what the Dems wanted to spend. What did the Democrats not like about prescription drugs? (Answer: didn't spend enough); Homeland Security Funding? (Answer: Not enough funds for infrastructure, roads, firemen, etc...); No-Child Left Behind? (Answer: unfunded mandate!); Veterans Spending? (Answer: It goes up but they call it a cut).

So yes, the Republicans spent too much but the Democrats wanted to spend more. Why did they do this? It is called compromise. Ironically, by compromising with the Democrats (which is what I thought everyone wanted the two parties to do...) the Republicans gave them ammunition with which to finish them off...

I really think the last american elections were rigged

An Ohio woman, who did not leave her name, called The Washington Post in tears yesterday, saying she could not keep her phone line open to hospice workers caring for her terminally ill mother because of nonstop political robo-calls .

Yea, I can't imagine why anybody wouldn't just turn their phone off. It's not as if a jammed phone line can have horrifying consequences on perfectly innocent people, especially when the illegal jamming is done on a massive scale. I know that I've never had reason to try and keep a phone line open in anticipation of important news from family or friends.

Why you think sitting around a web forum and bitching about it will help in the slightest is beyond me.
Typical zealot copout. Your insanely pathetic position is exposed, so now you try to trot out whatever lie you think people won't be able to think up a valid response to. You picked a crummy lie to use.

I should do what exactly? Write my senators who had nothing to do with it and complain? Or maybe ask them to outlaw the illegal behavior? Or should I file a lawsuit that will be immediately dismissed since I didn't receive the calls? Or maybe you'd like me to write to my representative who's almost certainly about to lose his job, replaced by a democrat who had nothing to do with this? Pleae, you know it all, right? So why don't you tell me, what am I supposed to do that will have any impact on this except yell as loudly as I can so that people here about it? Come on, chuckles, let's hear you explain how I can have any impact here other than by educating fellow citizens?

What's your next excuse, that I'm not supposed to be morally outraged at the way innocent people are being harrassed by a massively corrupt political party? Should I just sit back and ignore the way other people are being abused because it didn't affect me and I have no legal recourse?

I guess that makes sense, though. R's didn't get the image of aloofness and callous self-absorption for no reason, after all.