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Step right up, boys. Bring us your most horrific, terrifying visions of future war. No idea is too outlandish. A willing government awaits, checkbook in hand.

A folding-wing drone? Cool! We'll slash $150 million from Public Broadcasting. Machine guns that fire a million rounds a minute? We'll take away $30 million from diabetes research.

The Navy commissioned the USS Forrest Sherman, an Arleigh Burke class destroyer, here in Pensacola, calling it the latest anti-terrorism tool. Hurrah for the war on terror! Who could be against that? No word on how the Forrest Sherman's advanced antisubmarine capabilities might bring a car bomber to justice.

Hey, at least the Navy is using Linux on Power architecture. They can't be all bad. ***rant mode OFF***

Yes, because the problem in New Orleans was the precision of measuring the inadequate levees. It couldn't possibly be that the Federal Corps of Engineers built levees that , then claimed they failed because they weren't designed to stand a category 5 hurricane.

YOU ARE A LIAR -- PERIOD.

It's obvious from all the hard working everyman americans willing to stand up and tell the president how proud they are of the current government that you're simply lying.

Go to hell, terrorist scum!

IIRC the russians complained a couple of years ago when the US govt. supplied them with the Excel spreadsheet/Access database they used to track US nuclear material, to help the russians keep track of theirs as they decommissioned some nuclear materials. "But there are bugs in the scripts!" they complained.

quick google later... (a pity the washington post link no longer works).

Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2001 12:14:26 -0400 (EDT)
From: Dudi Feuer
Subject: Microsoft bug causing serious nuclear risk?

According to an article in *The Washington Post*, the US lent Russia
programs with a bug that loses track of nuclear materials over a period of
time. The software has been in use for 10 years, and the latest patch did
not create a fix for the issue. Apparently, the Russians initially
thought the bug was a trojan horse authored by the US. Then, after
applying several patches, they realized it was an inherent flaw in the
program, and most likely exists in the Los Alamos version as well.

    [Source: *The Washington Post*, 11 Jul 2001, A19
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/opinion/A4405 3-2001Jul10.html%5D

Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2001 10:43:21 -0400
From: Levi_M
Subject: Microsoft bug causing serious nuclear risk?

[...] The article goes on to say that the U.S. was warned of the security
risks but has made no public comment on the matter. The article also points
out that the U.S. no longer maintains (and indeed has destroyed) backup
paper copies of their inventory: "To reconstruct a reliably accurate
accounting record, the Energy Department may need to inspect all of
America's nuclear materials -- a huge task that could cost more than $1
billion and still might not detect the diversion of some material, should it
have occurred."

Among other obvious risks is -- always look gift horses in the mouth.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2006/02/03/AR2006020302610.html

Actually, it's an intentional change. A washington post article posted on /. a few hours ago explains:

[The choice of the name Blackworm] runs counter to the naming conventions of the anti-virus community, which generally goes out of its way to bastardize the name it thinks the virus or worm author would like its creation to have. (For example, "Nyxem" was derived by transposing the letters "m" and "x" in "Nymex," which is the common shorthand term for the New York Mercantile Exchange, the worm's original target.)

But it is okay to gut the American economy by taking manufacturing and technology jobs, and exporting them overseas?

But this position is criticised as protectionism. Sure, in a world with a limitation of certain resources, let everyone come in and kill the goose that lays the golden eggs, because everyone one wants a goose dinner. sheesh.

Bottom line: Don't kill the Goose that lays the Golden Eggs. AKA the Tragedy of the Commons.

This, tied in with things like China's long policy of tying the Yuan to the Dollar,(recently changed), led to a flood of resources out of the USA into China, a fine gift of the American people at their own expense. Heck, the situation even made it as a commentary by JibJab, although from another side of the ledger.

(sigh)

>>>>>>>>

Perfect the system we have here and, as in the case of East and West Berlin, the people will vote with their feet.

Which is why the USA has a border problem with Mexico. Not that they want to go to China. Like anything, it's the lure of the perceived "easy life". And in the USA, there is an alarmingly large section of the population who think they deserve the Paris Hilton LifeStyle(TM). Not that they should work for it, but that they deserve it.

There are lots of things that can be considered human rights, but the Paris Hilton LifeStyle(TM) is not one of them.

No. The treaty was with the Soviet Union, the USSR.

Sophistry.

The treaty was useless since the collapse of the Soviet Empire.

Because whatever political entity succeeds the Soviet Empire couldn't possibly launch nuclear missiles at us, could they?

Treaties can also be broken at any time.

People can be murdered at any time as well...that doesn't make it right. For this treaty to be abrogated legitimately, one of the necessary conditions for abrogation spelled out in the treaty must be met. To justify his unilateral action, Bush cited Article XV of the ABM Treaty, which states that the Treaty could be abrogated by one of the parties "if extraordinary events related to the subject matter of this treaty have jeopardized its supreme interests." To date, the President has not specified the 'extraordinary events' which supposedly prompted his decision, and has not explained how the United States' continued adherence to the ABM Treaty could 'jeopardize' its 'supreme interests'.

That treaty would not have stopped nukes from raining down on American cities.

Funny...the treaty was in existence from 1972 to 2002, ans I don't recall a single nuclear incident on U.S soil during that time. Fast forward to now...no treaty, and Putin's bragging about a missile that can penetrate our defense system (admittedly, not much of a boast, given the pathetic state of the 'missile defense system'). Seems to me there's a bit of a correlation there.

The missle[sic] defense shield *might*.

You might want to keep up on current events. Bottom line: our President threw away a 30-year old treaty like so much garbage, needlessly antagonizing other nations, to pursue a technology that is still firmly in pipe-dream status. Not much of a surprise, though, given that this same President pulled out of the Kyoto Accords on Climate Change, withdrew the US from the treaty creating an International Criminal Court, opposed a Protocol to the Biological Weapons Convention that would allow for inspections and verification, and failed to fulfill US obligations related to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. Again, I can't help but see a trend.

The FBI and the military are spying on non violent politcal activists now. Given that we have Alito on the supreme court who supports the power of the "unitary executive," and given that Bush lied to us about always getting a warrant before engaging in phone tapping (in New Mexcio 2004 google it), it's utterly foolish to allow Bush to have the power to spy on anyone in violation of FISA. Lists of links showing Bush's FBI and military spy on domestic activists now from a post to William Arkin's excellent early warning blog at the Washington Post: http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/2006/ 01/nsa_expands_its.html

American Media Dodging U.N. Surveillance Story By Norman Solomon Media Beat March 6, 2003 http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2226&printer_fr iendly=1

###

The unholy trinity of electronic snooping: Bolton, Negroponte and Hayden By Wayne Madsen Online Journal May 5, 2005

###

NSA spy program hinges on state-of-the-art technology By Shane Harris National Journal January 20, 2006 http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=33 212&printerfriendlyVers=1&

### NSA Gave Other U.S. Agencies Information From Surveillance Fruit of Eavesdropping Was Processed and Cross-Checked With Databases By Walter Pincus Washington Post Sunday, January 1, 2006; A08 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2005/12/31/AR2005123100 808_pf.html

### New Documents Show FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force Targeting Peaceful Protest Activity in Colorado ACLU Press Release December 8, 2005 http://www.aclu.org/safefree/spying/22884prs200512 08.html

### New Documents Show FBI Targeting Environmental and Animal Rights Groups Activities as "Domestic Terrorism" ACLU Press Release December 20, 2005 http://www.aclu.org/safefree/spying/23124prs200512 20.html

### Secret Pentagon Unit May Have Gathered and Kept Unauthorized Files on Thousands of Innocent Individuals and Organizations Newsweek Jan 23, 2006 http://www.yubanet.com/artman/publish/printer_3073 0.shtml

### Protesters Subjected To 'Pretext Interviews' FBI Memo Shows No Specific Threats By Dan Eggen Washington Post Wednesday, May 18, 2005; A04 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2005/05/17/AR2005051701 240_pf.html http://www.aclu-co.org/docket/200406/JTTF_file_sar ah_bardwell_08-02-04.pdf

### Battlespace America: The new Pentagon can peruse intelligence on U.S.citizens and send Marines down Main Street Peter Byrne Mother Jones May/June 2005 Issue http://www.motherjones.com/cgi-bin/print_article.p l?url=http://www.motherjon es.com/news/outfront/2005/05/battlespace_america.h tml

The FBI and the military are spying on non violent politcal activists now. Given that we have Alito on the supreme court who supports the power of the "unitary executive," and given that Bush lied to us about always getting a warrant before engaging in phone tapping (in New Mexcio 2004 google it), it's utterly foolish to allow Bush to have the power to spy on anyone in violation of FISA. Lists of links showing Bush's FBI and military spy on domestic activists now from a post to William Arkin's excellent early warning blog at the Washington Post: http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/2006/ 01/nsa_expands_its.html

American Media Dodging U.N. Surveillance Story By Norman Solomon Media Beat March 6, 2003 http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2226&printer_fr iendly=1

###

The unholy trinity of electronic snooping: Bolton, Negroponte and Hayden By Wayne Madsen Online Journal May 5, 2005

###

NSA spy program hinges on state-of-the-art technology By Shane Harris National Journal January 20, 2006 http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=33 212&printerfriendlyVers=1&

### NSA Gave Other U.S. Agencies Information From Surveillance Fruit of Eavesdropping Was Processed and Cross-Checked With Databases By Walter Pincus Washington Post Sunday, January 1, 2006; A08 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2005/12/31/AR2005123100 808_pf.html

### New Documents Show FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force Targeting Peaceful Protest Activity in Colorado ACLU Press Release December 8, 2005 http://www.aclu.org/safefree/spying/22884prs200512 08.html

### New Documents Show FBI Targeting Environmental and Animal Rights Groups Activities as "Domestic Terrorism" ACLU Press Release December 20, 2005 http://www.aclu.org/safefree/spying/23124prs200512 20.html

### Secret Pentagon Unit May Have Gathered and Kept Unauthorized Files on Thousands of Innocent Individuals and Organizations Newsweek Jan 23, 2006 http://www.yubanet.com/artman/publish/printer_3073 0.shtml

### Protesters Subjected To 'Pretext Interviews' FBI Memo Shows No Specific Threats By Dan Eggen Washington Post Wednesday, May 18, 2005; A04 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2005/05/17/AR2005051701 240_pf.html http://www.aclu-co.org/docket/200406/JTTF_file_sar ah_bardwell_08-02-04.pdf

### Battlespace America: The new Pentagon can peruse intelligence on U.S.citizens and send Marines down Main Street Peter Byrne Mother Jones May/June 2005 Issue http://www.motherjones.com/cgi-bin/print_article.p l?url=http://www.motherjon es.com/news/outfront/2005/05/battlespace_america.h tml

The FBI and the military are spying on non violent politcal activists now. Given that we have Alito on the supreme court who supports the power of the "unitary executive," and given that Bush lied to us about always getting a warrant before engaging in phone tapping (in New Mexcio 2004 google it), it's utterly foolish to allow Bush to have the power to spy on anyone in violation of FISA. Lists of links showing Bush's FBI and military spy on domestic activists now from a post to William Arkin's excellent early warning blog at the Washington Post: http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/2006/ 01/nsa_expands_its.html

American Media Dodging U.N. Surveillance Story By Norman Solomon Media Beat March 6, 2003 http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2226&printer_fr iendly=1

###

The unholy trinity of electronic snooping: Bolton, Negroponte and Hayden By Wayne Madsen Online Journal May 5, 2005

###

NSA spy program hinges on state-of-the-art technology By Shane Harris National Journal January 20, 2006 http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=33 212&printerfriendlyVers=1&

### NSA Gave Other U.S. Agencies Information From Surveillance Fruit of Eavesdropping Was Processed and Cross-Checked With Databases By Walter Pincus Washington Post Sunday, January 1, 2006; A08 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2005/12/31/AR2005123100 808_pf.html

### New Documents Show FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force Targeting Peaceful Protest Activity in Colorado ACLU Press Release December 8, 2005 http://www.aclu.org/safefree/spying/22884prs200512 08.html

### New Documents Show FBI Targeting Environmental and Animal Rights Groups Activities as "Domestic Terrorism" ACLU Press Release December 20, 2005 http://www.aclu.org/safefree/spying/23124prs200512 20.html

### Secret Pentagon Unit May Have Gathered and Kept Unauthorized Files on Thousands of Innocent Individuals and Organizations Newsweek Jan 23, 2006 http://www.yubanet.com/artman/publish/printer_3073 0.shtml

### Protesters Subjected To 'Pretext Interviews' FBI Memo Shows No Specific Threats By Dan Eggen Washington Post Wednesday, May 18, 2005; A04 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2005/05/17/AR2005051701 240_pf.html http://www.aclu-co.org/docket/200406/JTTF_file_sar ah_bardwell_08-02-04.pdf

### Battlespace America: The new Pentagon can peruse intelligence on U.S.citizens and send Marines down Main Street Peter Byrne Mother Jones May/June 2005 Issue http://www.motherjones.com/cgi-bin/print_article.p l?url=http://www.motherjon es.com/news/outfront/2005/05/battlespace_america.h tml

See this article or this article for more details.

You'll have to chide the Congressional Research Service (that bunch of zealots!), which stated in its 44-page report:

"It appears unlikely that a court would hold that Congress has expressly or impliedly authorized the NSA electronic surveillance operations here," the authors of the CRS report wrote. The administration's legal justification "does not seem to be ... well-grounded," they said. [WaPo Story]

Whaa? Rush didn't talk about this? Oh, wait, wait, don't tell me, you listen to Neal Boortz. He's the intellectual idiot's radio man.

Porsche is nowhere near the most profitable automaker in the world. According to their financial report, Nissan made upwards of $3.6 billion in 6 months last year with a profit margin of over 10%. In the same time frame, Porsche made a mere $336 million on $4 billion in sales.

The fact of the matter is that Ford and GM have been hamstrung by overly costly retirement plans and a number of poor decisions (like focusing too much on the SUV market). GM pays out a tremendous amount of its revenue in retirement/health plans for baby boomers that worked there after WW2, and I would assume Ford has similar obligations. If they were to replace those with plans with ones that similar to what Porsche offers, GM would probably be making a few billion a year.

Apple may be profitable in their own right, but eeking out a 5% niche in the market is never going to make you a ton of money. In addition, the majority of their profits come from iPod sales (where they have 50%+ of the market) rather than computer sales. Up their pc sales to 10 or 15% and Apple is suddenly going to making a lot more money.

I found a link about this with LiveJournal. Bantown members said they created hundreds of dummy member accounts featuring Web links that used the Javascript flaws to steal "cookies" (small text files on a Web-browsing computer that can be used to identify the user) from people who clicked on the links. Armed with those cookies, the hackers were then able to either log in as the victim, or arbitrarily post or delete entries on the victim's personal page.

Hey! That speech by Al Gore in Constitution Hall two weeks ago was great! Okay, I only heard about it because one of my friends works from home and has CSPAN on around the clock.

Contrast this to the "bipartisan" Abramaoff bribery scandal, where no money was given to Democrats and Abramoff's clients decreased their giving to Democrats at Abramoff's direction. I'm not a Republican or Democrat, so don't kneejerk me here...BUT what you said above is not factually correct or kind of ambiguous. Democrats allegedly DID get money as part of this scandle, such as Daschle, Reid, and Gephardt. (source) (source2) . Dick Durbin, Pelosi and a couple of others are implicated as well. Looks to me like both sides got caught with their hands in the cookie jar, not just one.

Contrast this to the "bipartisan" Abramaoff bribery scandal, where no money was given to Democrats and Abramoff's clients decreased their giving to Democrats at Abramoff's direction. I'm not a Republican or Democrat, so don't kneejerk me here...BUT what you said above is not factually correct or kind of ambiguous. Democrats allegedly DID get money as part of this scandle, such as Daschle, Reid, and Gephardt. (source) (source2) . Dick Durbin, Pelosi and a couple of others are implicated as well. Looks to me like both sides got caught with their hands in the cookie jar, not just one.

Can you show me any short paragraphs or excerpts from your well documented evidence? Or will it be a link to a 5 page article full of vague accusations?

A few minutes with Google provides more than enough citations, even after excluding those from lefty publications:

CBS News says "Mr. Bush appreciates loyalty above all."

In Military Week, Lt. Col (ret) Karen Kwiatkowski lays it on the line: "George W. Bush and Dick Cheney habitually reward cowardice and incompetence. They continually place political loyalty above ethics and loyalty to country."

The British Guardian quotes Michael O'Hanlon saying "I certainly think Bush values loyalty above all else."

Time Magazine says "For a President known to prize loyalty above most else..."

The Washington Post says: "But on a matter of first-order significance to many conservatives, the president let personal loyalty override what had been a central tenet of his political strategy."

The St. Cloud Times says: "George W. Bush's particular brand of immoderation lies in the premium he places on trust and loyalty". It goes on to cite Alberto Gonzalez, Karen Hughes and Don Evans as examples. Of course we can add Harriet Meiers and Michael Brown to that list.

In a Newsday story, James Klurfield writes "What's going on here, folks, is that loyalty to the president is being rewarded above all other values, including competent performance."

The Council on Foreign Relations has an entire article called Loyalty as Foreign Policy

The New Republic says "...Moreover, both Johnson and Bush have been known to place a high premium on personal loyalty."

You can look at the whole of a Knight Ridder wire article entitled Bush's Loyalty Raises Doubts About His Political Judgment.

The British newspaper The Telegraph says "...Mr Tenet, who, like President Bush, prizes loyalty above most other virtues..."

I think I've made my point. You can find more for yourself with minimal effort if you care to.

Contrast this to the "bipartisan" Abramaoff bribery scandal, where no money was given to Democrats and Abramoff's clients decreased their giving to Democrats at Abramoff's direction.

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/1/24/22513 2.shtml: Democratic senator Pat Leahy reseived thousands of dollars from Abramoff (Vermont Guardian)
http://www.americandaily.com/article/11563: Senate Minority Leader Reid received $60,000 from Indian tribes linked to Abramoff
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2005/06/02/AR2005060202158.html : Lists Daschle, Reid, and Gephardt as amongst his biggest recipients.

You are correct in stating that none of these received money directly from Abramoff, but given that Abramoff is a known Republican activist, is it not surprising that he would direct his Democratic donations through the tribes? He's not going to get to be a Democratic insider, but if he's speaking on behalf of a number of organizations having donated tens of thousands of dollars to their cause, he'll get their ear. Finally, though I hadn't heard that he'd instructed people to reduce their Democratic giving, could it be because Democrats now have less power to make changes compared to the Clinton or early Bush administrations?

As paranoid as it might sound, I keep wondering if Bush will invent some 'National Security' Crisis in '08 and announce that it is too dangerous to hold elections at this time.

Come on, you know GW is just a pawn for his daddy. All Daddy has to do is get Jebb a job as president and the monarchy continues. This particular monarchy has been in effect (with the exception of the Clinton years) pretty continuously since Reagan was elected in 1984 [ an auspicious and apropos year for the current regime ]. Reagan could barely do more than a good talking head show, so you know who was really running things don't you (hint: who was Vice President)? If you consider the power of the CIA before the Reagan years (remember the cold war?) and examine who was running the CIA in those days, you may be likely to conclude that this regime has lasted even longer than that... (I suggest researching GW Sr.'s daddy and grand-daddy as well)

It is time for Americans to wake up. It is time for us to ask hard questions and it is time for us to stop buying all the pregenerated propaganda bullshit that is being shoved down our throats by politically owned television networks. If you dig, you will find interesting founding and ownership relationships between the Bush family and a variety of powerful television network interests. This story is intensely more interesting than people are allowing themselves to believe. Here is a good link.

Conspiracy? Hah! Just check the damned facts. They speak for themselves.

But, if you like conspiracies; To get to the conspiracy angle, you have to look at sites like This One . God help us if even a sliver of that tin-foil-hat stuff is true.

When Hansen posted data on the Internet in the fall suggesting that 2005 could be the warmest year on record, NASA officials ordered Hansen to withdraw the information because he had not had it screened by the administration in advance, according to a Goddard scientist who spoke on the condition of anonymity. More recently, NASA officials tried to discourage a reporter from interviewing Hansen for this article and later insisted he could speak on the record only if an agency spokeswoman listened in on the conversation.

This Washington Post article has more about the "tipping point" studies, with less emphasis on the politics.

Niggardly is only racist to ignorant folk. I hope this is a troll, does anyone actually feel offended by 'chink' in this context? Now 'gyp' I can understand, although here is an interesting article.

• "In 2003, during the invasion of Iraq, a U.S. missile hit the network's (al-Jazeera) office in Baghdad, killing a correspondent. U.S. officials called the incident an accident."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3009082.stm

BBC talks about us finally locating most of the 1.8 TONS of yellow cake, and 500 tons of URANIUM. Yeah, those don't count as WMD materials, do they...

Or wait: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2005/08/13/AR2005081300530.html - from August 2005. Only 1500 GALLONS of chemical weapons located. Gee, those don't count as WMDs either, do they?

Or how about this: http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/11/25/iraq.mai n/

Or this: http://www.katc.com/Global/story.asp?S=1873019&nav =EyB0NBHX

That's just a start...

WMDs were there, they're being found. If you want to be an osterich and claim "NO WMDS FOUND!" go ahead. Those who actually use their own brains and eyes to see the truth will see you for the fool you are...

Yes, CNN has plenty of experience as a mouthpiece for propaganda.

First they came for Padilla and I didn't speak out because I was never with al Qaeda.
Then they came for the Muslims and I didn't speak out because I was not a Muslim.
Then they wiretapped Americans with one degree of separation from al Qaeda without probable cause and I didn't speak out because I was not an American with one degree of separation from al Qaeda.
Then they came for me and there was no one to speak for me.

Don't be a fool. The government has detained Americans on American soil without probable cause. Innocent people have been caught in the net and tortured. Enemy combatants have no habeas corpus rights. Even innocent people aren't being let go. Do some Googling, like for "innocent detainee". Here's a reference. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2005/11/13/AR2005111301061.html

The fact that it didn't happen to you is an accident of history. The fact that none of these people can post on Slashdot is an accident of the Internet access in Guantanamo Bay. Andrea Mitchell strongly implied on MSNBC that Christiane Amanpour had probably been wiretapped. Her husband was working for Democrat politicians. So the Republican government is wiretapping journalists and their political opposition and the best you can do is claim that the danger is hypothetical!

Hey, I'm a middle class white, I have the same false sense of security that you do. But obviously you don't understand the magnitude of the legal limbos and circumventions the Bush Administration has created. You, or anyone in America, can be wiretapped, detained indefinitely with no possibility of objective judgment by a court, tortured, and then killed. The fact that it hasn't happened to you is your damn fool luck.

We're on the edge of something here that is much scarier than the next terrorist attack. God forbid, but God also forbid that we sacrifice our essential liberty for momentary security. The first people have already been sent to the Ministry of Love.

I agree that this is how things work in the current political climate, as created by people like Karl Rove. It started (in the national theatre anyway) with his outrageous attacks on John McCain in the primaries, and continues to this day.

Oh boy, do I disagree.

All through the 1980s and 1990s, nonviolent abortion protesters were treated in this same way by the Democrats. Some few murderers and terrorists killed doctors and bombed clinics while hypocritically claiming to support life. Consequently, the pro-choice movement and many leading Democrats take every opportunity to insinuate that anyone who dares to speak out against abortion is a supporter of murder and terrorism.

And so if you participated a few days ago in the Walk For Life in San Francisco, you were likely to be spit upon by counter-demonstrators, jeered at, called a murderer, woman-hater, etc.

When Republicans of the Rovian variety made unfair attacks on (for example) Senator Cleland, associating him with Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, they were only following in a long and ugly tradition of American politics.

Why conservative politicians don't post commentary on conservative blogs, because the commentators on those sites are frequently disappointed out government isn't more like the Nazis rather than less.(don't believe me, check out lgf, freeperville)

Glenn Reynolds explained yesterday during a panel on blogger ethics that he doesn't allow comments on instapundit because he doesn't want to be associated with their extremism. Which is interesting, as he frequently links to such examples on other blogs to prove his own perverted points. So he's afraid others might do to him what he does to them, I guess. Sort of a reverse Golden Rule.

Frankly I don't care what commentators say, and in many cases the extremist comments on these blogs are actually coming from the opposition in an attempt to make people look ridiculous. It's just fucking gotcha politics. Let's deal with the real party platforms and issues, and ignore the lunatics on the fringes who don't get listened to anyway.

Clearly every one of them is literate, very literate.

Except, apparently, when it comes to the Constitution of the United States...

Why don't you simply admit I'm right? I showed you.

No, you haven't. No citation of a law such as you describe has yet been provided.

Along with that question of who you are (which you have no choice but to admit such laws exist in those states, because they do), the very next thing that cop will say to you is "Let's see some ID."

Yes, they will. That doesn't mean that it is a crime to not have any such ID on you. That was your claim: "most states, if not all states, it is illegal to not have a photo identification on your person if you are over 16 years of age". I'm asking you again to substantiate it: name the state and the statute. (California once had one, it was struck down by Kolender v. Lawson.)

I've already stipulated that having and showing an ID can be a useful means of removing any reasonable suspicion. That does not mean that your claim, that it is unlawful to fail to carry such ID, is true. (After all, it would also be a useful means of removing reasonable suspicion to have a tattoo on my face so that I can't easily be confused with someone else.)

I think you should conceed that the Terry stop laws are effectively what I said.

So your arguement is that "stop and identify" laws, which require people to state their name to cops, somehow make it a crime to not carry photo id? No.

The Hiibel opinion states, "The Court is now of the view that Terry principles permit a State to require a suspect to disclose his name in the course of a Terry stop", not "require a suspect to produce identity papers." It also says, "As we understand it, the statute does not require a suspect to give the officer a driver's license or any other document. Provided that the suspect either states his name or communicates it to the officer by other means--a choice, we assume, that the suspect may make--the statute is satisfied and no violation occurs."

Requiring to see my papers is a search under the text of the Fourth Amendment - "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures". A Terry stop is not a warranted search, but a mere "frisk".

Again, I stipulate that concenting to such a search - showing papers - may be in some circumstances a wise means of removing suspicion and preventing arrest for some other crime, but that does not mean that choosing to not carry or display such papers is a crime in itself, as you assert.

Otherwise it is meaningless - I could say I'm one of (Benedict Arnold, John Gacy, Teddy Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Bill Gates), or some other made up name (John Jobs, Jack Sky).

Or I could be carrying an easily obtained fake id. So what? Both lying to the cops and showing fake id are crimes. Leaving my wallet at home while I go walk the dog is not.

Even the best lawyers in the country disagree on the law. That is why we have courts.

Disagreements are over the interpretation and application of law, not on the text of the law itself.

I have worked with the poorest of the poor for over 10 years and I have NEVER found one single solitary poor person that didn't have a photo ID...I have yet to see a good argument as to how getting an ID is somehow hard. It is a myth.

It is a fact that thousands of people in Georgia do not have government-issued identification. And they are hard to

Lott has been pretty thoroughly discredited as a researcher.

This is an ineresting article:
http://www.slate.com/id/2078084/

And here is a U Chicago class that actually uses his work as an example of poor research:
http://harrisschool.uchicago.edu/Academic/syllabi/ PP481HS451.pdf (warning PDF)

Finally, the guy is rather nuts - he's admitted to creating an online fan persona to rally supoort for himself online:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A8884-200 3Jan31?language=printer

I'd recommend not raising John Lott as an authority, it reflects poorly on your ideas regardless of their merit.

No, the idea is a microbicidal cream that will form a barrier against HIV. I must admit to confusion over why this would be such a great breakthrough. It is unlikely to provide better protection than a condom. I guess women could use it where their partners refused to use a condom. Perhaps one idea will be to use it in conjunction with a condom in the way once recommended with nonoxynol-9. Note that creams and gels with similar objectives are already being evaluated (supported by the Gates Foundation and others).

A key concern is that phone and cable companies could potentially use their power over the network to act as gatekeepers of the Internet, discriminating and limiting consumers' access to certain services so that some Web sites and online services are favored.

Game Over

In Maryland they have had the "late" returns, where the dead were voting to put behind Parris Glendenning over the top and steal the election from Saurbrey (she is now an ambassador).

No. A handful a fraudulent votes were found in the first Glendening/Sauerbrey contest, but not enough to matter.

Sauerbrey was an underdog who ran a (from a stickly political-game perspective) very strong campain and almost, but not quite, caught up to Glendening. (Registered Democrats far outnumber Republicans in Maryland, so it was pretty much his race to lose.)

Her allegations of fraud proved baseless, and damaged her image enormously. (I'm not saying there weren't irregularities, only that they weren't significant to the final outcome.) In 1998 the Maryland GOP was silly enough to make her their candidate again and she got defeated again.

(For the record, I didn't vote for either of them either time.)

What they really need is a secure voting system. One that requires positive identification of the voters, cross checking to make sure they only vote once, a paper trail - with incremental checksums.

The problem is that a secure system is one that denies access by default. But a democratic (small-d) voting system must allow access to the polls by default.

I don't understand your reference to checksums.

Purple dye people's thumbs too.

It's nobody's business but my own (and the poll workers) whether I've been to the polls or not. Marking people who have voted in a manner that is publically accessible is a bad idea.

The war's already over. We lost.

Did you actually follow the links, or are you just bitching about the URL? Because, you know, they didn't write either of those. One is from the Washington Post, and one is from the Arizona Republic.

You posted four links, documenting gifts (skybox seats, plane tickets, and hotel fares) which you claimed Abramoff gave to Republicans, but not Democrats.

I responded and provided a number of links 1, 2, 3, 4) showing that every single item you mentioned had been given to Republicans and Democrats alike -- sometimes moreso to the latter than the former (you expressed outrage, for instance, that Tom DeLay got to sit in Abramoff's skybox, yet Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev) got the skybox all to himself to hold a fundraiser in, and has yet to reimburse anyone for this gift).

Game over, man.

This is a truly insightful comment:

The patents HAVE been granted and the courts are obligated to protect them. It's like making up rules for a game and then in the middle deciding which rules are and are not going to be enforced.

This is exactly the same as the Supreme Court deciding in favor of the City of New London, Connecticut in Kelo v. City of New London which has raised considerable furor and activism in one Justice's home town. Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in the majority opinion: "The court should not 'second-guess' local governments ..." and neither ought it to "second-guess" the federal government in this case.

We have a Constitutional right to petition our government for redress in this area of patent. We are grumbling about this presently but I don't see any marches on Washington by geeks like us who want to demand changes to the law.

I also don't see an amicus brief on our behalf, either.

That is the pattern. Democrats got campaign contributes from random groups trying to make their case like they always did. As did Republicans. Some of these groups were serious about influencing people, so they hired various lobbists. Sometimes the lobbist they picked was Abramoff.

Republicans also got free unreported trips, free unreported flights, free unreported skyboxes, and reported money directly from Abramoff. Democrats did not. It is those things that, for example, Ney is indeed under investigation for.

Actually, I'd like to go into more depth on this one, since even on your own terms your claim here is false on its face. Let's look at some of the gifts Democrats got directly from Jack Abramoff, shall we:

• Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev) -- Beneficiary of a fund-raising dinner held in his honor at Abramoff's request by Abramoff employee Edward Ayoob
• Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.) -- received the same free skybox seats that you claim it was a crime for Republicans to receive.
• Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) -- not only received the same skybox seats, he held two fundraisers in Abramoff's skybox, for which he never reimbursed anyone.
• Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) -- received free plane tickets and hotel fares, the same thing you have just told us it was a crime for Tom DeLay to receive.
• Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) -- received the same (see same link)

In other words, even if we took your own absurd definitions at face value, Democrats are guilty of everything you accuse Republicans of.

Is that so? Interesting.

Oh, I'm sorry. Those are, in order, donations to a scam charity, skyboxes, and airplane tickets. There is, indeed, no money there. Except the donations to a 'charity' that doesn't do anything.

Here's some actual money. Hey, look! Campaign contributions to the tune of 4000 by a tribe. And to the tune of 17,000 by Abramoff's own firm.

That is the pattern. Democrats got campaign contributes from random groups trying to make their case like they always did. As did Republicans. Some of these groups were serious about influencing people, so they hired various lobbists. Sometimes the lobbist they picked was Abramoff.

Republicans also got free unreported trips, free unreported flights, free unreported skyboxes, and reported money directly from Abramoff. Democrats did not. It is those things that, for example, Ney is indeed under investigation for.

And, yes, it is because none of those things were declared. I don't understand why you understand that, but then somehow think that reported campaign contributions have anything to do with this. The fact that Abramoff and anyone who's ever hired him, and any money they spent, have become incredibly trainted in DC doesn't mean there is any actual wrongdoing associated with those reported and, as far as we know, legal campaign contributions.

Which, incidentally, means half the Republicans linked to this scandal probably don't belong there either. But none of the Democrats do.

And, just to be through, I will explicitly answer the two questions:

If there is not even the hint of a crime in taking money from Mr. Abramoff's clients and then voting in the way he asked you to, why are politicians of both parties falling over each other to give back the money?

Because the media, at the prompting of the GOP, has made the legal campaign contributions the issue instead of the illegal bribes. Because if they try to spin it as legal contributions, well, everyone gets those.

And there's not the slightest bit of evidence that any legal campaign contribution has swayed the vote for any Democrat, or even any Republican, although there is at least one Republican vote-change that looks fishy. However, now that Abramoff has cut a deal, we shall soon see.

And, well, you want the real answer? Because Democrats are fucking morons who refuse to stand together with any sort of message. Oh no! The GOP is lying about us! We better immediately cave in instead of putting out some sort of counter to their RP!

A number of clients paid Mr. Abramoff a whole lot of money to tell them which politicians (of both parties, as I've demonstrated) to give money to in order to get votes. What were they paying for if, in fact, they had (as you claim) no expectation of getting votes in return for the outlandishly large donations Mr. Abramoff directed them to give?

So you're arguing that not only are campaign contributions evidence of wrongdoing, but hiring a lobbist is? Um, no.

You hire lobbists because the lobbists are the middlemen between you and politicians. They know the politicians, just as importantly they know thir cheif of staff, they know who's on what committee, they know who the enemies are, they know how present arguments that are likely to work, etc.

Not that I like the damn system, bu

Is that so? Interesting.

Oh, I'm sorry. Those are, in order, donations to a scam charity, skyboxes, and airplane tickets. There is, indeed, no money there. Except the donations to a 'charity' that doesn't do anything.

Here's some actual money. Hey, look! Campaign contributions to the tune of 4000 by a tribe. And to the tune of 17,000 by Abramoff's own firm.

That is the pattern. Democrats got campaign contributes from random groups trying to make their case like they always did. As did Republicans. Some of these groups were serious about influencing people, so they hired various lobbists. Sometimes the lobbist they picked was Abramoff.

Republicans also got free unreported trips, free unreported flights, free unreported skyboxes, and reported money directly from Abramoff. Democrats did not. It is those things that, for example, Ney is indeed under investigation for.

And, yes, it is because none of those things were declared. I don't understand why you understand that, but then somehow think that reported campaign contributions have anything to do with this. The fact that Abramoff and anyone who's ever hired him, and any money they spent, have become incredibly trainted in DC doesn't mean there is any actual wrongdoing associated with those reported and, as far as we know, legal campaign contributions.

Which, incidentally, means half the Republicans linked to this scandal probably don't belong there either. But none of the Democrats do.

And, just to be through, I will explicitly answer the two questions:

If there is not even the hint of a crime in taking money from Mr. Abramoff's clients and then voting in the way he asked you to, why are politicians of both parties falling over each other to give back the money?

Because the media, at the prompting of the GOP, has made the legal campaign contributions the issue instead of the illegal bribes. Because if they try to spin it as legal contributions, well, everyone gets those.

And there's not the slightest bit of evidence that any legal campaign contribution has swayed the vote for any Democrat, or even any Republican, although there is at least one Republican vote-change that looks fishy. However, now that Abramoff has cut a deal, we shall soon see.

And, well, you want the real answer? Because Democrats are fucking morons who refuse to stand together with any sort of message. Oh no! The GOP is lying about us! We better immediately cave in instead of putting out some sort of counter to their RP!

A number of clients paid Mr. Abramoff a whole lot of money to tell them which politicians (of both parties, as I've demonstrated) to give money to in order to get votes. What were they paying for if, in fact, they had (as you claim) no expectation of getting votes in return for the outlandishly large donations Mr. Abramoff directed them to give?

So you're arguing that not only are campaign contributions evidence of wrongdoing, but hiring a lobbist is? Um, no.

You hire lobbists because the lobbists are the middlemen between you and politicians. They know the politicians, just as importantly they know thir cheif of staff, they know who's on what committee, they know who the enemies are, they know how present arguments that are likely to work, etc.

Not that I like the damn system, bu

Well, in the interesting thign is, in HTML, you can name links anything you want, even things totally unrelated to page's content.

Like, for example, you just did.

The page says, and I quote, 'dozens of lawmakers said they will donate any Abramoff-related contributions'. 'Related', as is being spun by the Republicans, means 'given by someone who paid Abramoff money'. not 'contributions from Abramoff'

And there are plenty of people who thnk this is, indeed, stupid and a few who got accused when the people making the donatation hasn't even hired Abramoff yet. But I guess the second anyone gave Abramoff a single dime, all those contributions they normally did magically became tainted somehow. (Like I said, the various donors have a hell of a libel case if they want to follow it up.)

But, as you apparently don't understand that, here you go. Where Deborah Howell explicitly says, duh, that Abramoff didn't give any money to Democrats.

However, she's still repeating the lie that he 'directed' his clients to do so, despite her complete inability to actually cite how she would know this, or why their donations in relation to Democrats dropped from the pervious year, while their donations to Republicans rose.

But you don't need stats, you can disprove that claim by simple logic. What Abramoff 'directed' his clients to do would logically be known by two people at the start of this, Abramoff and his clients. The investigation into Abramoff hasn't turned up anything suggesting this, and they certainly haven't admitted it. (No, the PR move of returning the money is not relevant here.)

So...um...how does everyone 'know' this little fact about what was going through everyone's minds when they wrote out the campaign contribution check? Because the Republicans made it up.

I think I've demostrated the campaign contributions didn't pass through Abramoff, and if you want to assert that Abramoff 'directed' donations, feel free to come up with some evidence of that, and not by citing papers that repeat GOP talking points, but actual facts.

at least 75 percent at two-year colleges -- lack the literacy to handle complex, real-life tasks such as understanding credit card offers."

I have a friend, nearly 40, who just recently realized that her 10-year-old student loan has been compounding interest that she must pay. She knew the interest was compounding, but somehow was under the impression that if she paid back the principal, the loan's interest would be forgiven. She does not use any kind of personal finance software.

Her story is not atypical. Lots of my friends have deferred their student loans without bothering to calculate the massive effect this would have on their bottom lines, how in some cases it would double the amount owed over time.

According to Ask Yahoo, the credit card debt carried by the average American is $8562. Americans paid $50 billion in finance charges in 2001.

Thanks to the new bankruptcy laws, largely written by credit companies, it's much harder for an individual to file for chapter 7 now. They put you through all kinds of hoops to do it. So if you get sick or have an accident and go into massive debt, you're just plain screwed.

Student loans are now seen as a HUGE revenue source by private companies because students are very niave about what they're signing up for, because student loans have been traditionally seen as safe, low-interest, and government subsidized investments in one's future. Instead, I've seen people trying to dig their way out of these debts for 10+ years. While the education the loans paid for was useful, it was nearly impossible to get ahead because of the drag these loans had for the ensuing years post-education.

Things are getting even worse. Wanna refinance your student loan to take advantage of falling interest rates? Well....from December's 22, 2005's Washington Post, a just-passed law "Cuts $12.7 billion for education programs by fixing interest rates on student loans at 6.8 percent, even if commercial rates are lower. [MY EMPHASIS] The change comes amid rising tuition costs at colleges and universities."

Financial stuff is complicated, but is there an incentive to simplify it and make it easier to understand? Scott Cook, founder of Intuit "was famous for saying that the more complicated the tax code, the better for Intuit and its TurboTax software.")

The solution seems to be fairer laws and better education. But where is the incentive to make sure no student graduates high school without demonstrating some kind of basic competance in personal finance going to come from?

In my opinion, it must come from the people who will elect an uncorrupted new congress with its priorities straight.

Bruce Schneier has a good article explaining why you shouldn't be "bored"

http://www.schneier.com/essay-102.html

Al Gore does a good job covering the same ground (albeit a bit more verbosely) in his Martin Luther King day speech:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2006/01/16/AR2006011600779.html

Do you work as a professional analyst?

http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/washpostblog/
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You would expect file sharing to grow naturally as more and more people use the internet. The fact that it has merely stagnated suggests that the litigation is succeeding somewhat. My own mother, who doesn't even use a computer, warned me not to file share the other day. She had "heard that people are getting sued".

I wholeheartedly disagree.

Litigation has nothing to do with it.

The assumption that file sharing would grow naturally as more and more people use the internet is useless without context. I would argue that the reason that file-sharing has not grown is because of iTunes and services like it (mostly iTunes, though). The article even points out that: "[...] and the total number of legal downloads shot up to 420 million in 2005."

Think about it. iTunes launched in mid-2003. 420 million legal downloads (total - supposedly) in 2005 that (at least a large % of) would likely have been from illegal file-sharers a mere two years prior. Also, the Washington Post pointed out,

"During the second half of 2004, more than 91 million digital tracks -- songs downloaded from the Internet -- were sold, compared with 19.2 million in the same period in 2003. That's an increase of 376 percent. More than 140 million digital tracks were purchased during 2004. Plus in the last week of 2004, digital track sales hit a record 6.7 million."

I think it is safe to project this (in the context) to the growth of iPod sales as well. In the holiday season in 2004, 4.5 million iPods were sold. In the holiday season in 2005, 14 million iPods sold. 42 million!! iPods sold to date.

Why do you *really* think the numbers of illegal file-sharing has stayed the same? I'll give you a hint:

It has absolutely nothing to do with RIAA lawsuits.

...or at least one the Administration delibrately caused them to make.

Warning: your tinfoil hat is showing.

Oh yeah. She wrote the damn article, and refused to do anything about, and ended up in a online fight.

She did do something about it.

the existing saved copy of the board has almost no imflammetory comments

Of course not! Haven't you been paying attention? They had people actively deleting the inflammatory posts BEFORE they gave up on the avalanche and deleted everything.

With the all the recent news of organisms being able to survive in space, survive shuttle crashes, and all sorts of other crazy environments, we really ought to be careful what we bring back to Earth. I'm all for the advancement of science, and I think this particular experement is incredibly cool (both from a "what we can learn scientifically" standpoint, as well as a "holy crap, you guys were able to do WHAT??" standpoint), it'd really suck if we don't take the proper precautions, and wind up bringing back some organism that can wipe out all life on Earth. That being said, way to go NASA!