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There are a few democrats mentioned here...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2005/06/02/AR2005060202158.html

To quote:
"Among the biggest beneficiaries were Capitol Hill's most powerful Democrats, including Thomas A. Daschle (S.D.) and Harry M. Reid (Nev.), the top two Senate Democrats at the time, Richard A. Gephardt (Mo.), then-leader of the House Democrats, and the two lawmakers in charge of raising funds for their Democratic colleagues in both chambers, according to a Washington Post study. Reid succeeded Daschle as Democratic leader after Daschle lost his Senate seat last November."

and

"Because of the makeup of his team and the composition of Congress, the Abramoff lobbyists channeled most of their clients' giving to GOP legislators, according to a review of public records. Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.), chairman of an Appropriations subcommittee that frequently deals with Indian matters, received the largest amount from the tribes as well as from the Greenberg Traurig lobbyists who helped direct those donations: $141,590 from 1999 to 2004, the study showed.

But Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy (D-R.I.) ran second, with $128,000 in the same period. From 1999 to 2001, Kennedy chaired the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which solicited campaign donations for House candidates."

Last time I checked, $128,000 was greater that $1 but with the new math being taught by NEA union and Democratic math where decreases in the rate of spending increases are "cuts" I might be wrong...

Good effort though, keep trying to spin it that it is a republican problem and not an everybody in Washinton problem.

p.s. I'm not a republican or democrat...

They hid them. They did not delete them.

From the chat today (emphasis mine):

"The reason was that shutting them all off together was just that it was the quickest way to remove the problematic ones that were starting to overwhelm our ability to get rid of them. But, you're right, there were lots of good posts, and over the next few days, we'll go back through them and restore the ones that did not violate our rules, though we're still going to leave comments off on that blog for the time being."

Your analogy with the red cross and boy scouts is really poor. Lobbying is the business of giving money / donations / etc in exchange for political influence. A lobbying donation to a congressman is quite different than a donation to a charitable organization. Also, while some are pointing out that money to dems didn't go directly though Abramoff (true), it was Abramoff who told his clients where to put their money. It's a deception to believe that the money "directly from the tribes" wasn't actually money Abramoff was using ... in fact he was the one directing it. Further reading: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graph ic/2005/12/12/GR2005121200286.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graph ic/2006/01/18/GR2006011801026.html

Your analogy with the red cross and boy scouts is really poor. Lobbying is the business of giving money / donations / etc in exchange for political influence. A lobbying donation to a congressman is quite different than a donation to a charitable organization. Also, while some are pointing out that money to dems didn't go directly though Abramoff (true), it was Abramoff who told his clients where to put their money. It's a deception to believe that the money "directly from the tribes" wasn't actually money Abramoff was using ... in fact he was the one directing it. Further reading: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graph ic/2005/12/12/GR2005121200286.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graph ic/2006/01/18/GR2006011801026.html

So now you get one side pissed off because of a percieved inaccuracy (and literally, they are right), and the other side feeling like they have to defend themselves (which they should), and then it's a flame war and OMG! LIKE THE END of the WORLD or something!

Some people are posting "oh the comments weren't so bad" with a link to whatever used to be posted.

That's because the comments you see being posted on other sites isn't really what they were concerned about. Of course, most people posting this apparently read DemocraticUnderground, so it's not really worth responding to them, but just in case anyone else falls for it.

Here's a link to discussion with the executive editor of the Post website:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discu ssion/2006/01/20/DI2006012000566.html

See in particular:

Pensacola, Fla.: After reading the over 400 of the comments in question, which by the way, were saved by someone before they were removed, I saw no hate speech, one four letter word, and I can't imagine what you found so offensive as to remove them. Could you please explain exactly what problem you had with them?

Jim Brady: You were reading the ones that were posted live. There were a few hundred others that were removed the site altogether, and those would not be on the page you're looking at.

and:

Jim Brady: As I said earlier, that screen shot is only what was live, not what we blocked. There's no way for you to see what we blocked, and you should be happy about that, believe me. I learned some new words this week.

Of course, this is obviously spoken like someone who has never read Slashdot at -1. :)

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/annapolis/2006/01/d uncans_dough_1.html

> Suuuurrre they did. Why don't you submit a link from a credible source, numbnuts.

Sorry, I forgot my opponents are all idiots and can't handle high tech like Google. But I'm here trying to help ya out so..

Credible.. How about the WaPo?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac3/ContentServer?pa gename=article&articleid=A61251-2001Oct2&node=nati on/specials/attacked/archive

Headline: U.S. Was Foiled Multiple Times in Efforts To Capture Bin Laden or Have Him Killed

Slight;y less cannonical for you lefties, but mainstream media nonetheless, I give you The Guardian:

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story /0,6903,560624,00.html

Headline: Resentful west spurned Sudan's key terror files

A little more bloggish, but Horowitz runs a fairly reputable operation, he ain't some idiot in his pajamas

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.a sp?ID=9721

Headline: How Clinton Kept Bin Laden Free

Racism and sexism remain problems in hiring in IT as well as other fields in the US. I have personally observed racism and sexism in hiring both in the US and abroad. The dot-com era seemed to have particular discrimination as people with little experience who physically looked like an IT stereotype got the job (highly qualified candidates being generally lacking). This hurt women and some people of color.

Overall racism in hiring practices is substantially less of a problem in the US than most other countries in the world. In the US, it is commonly accepted that racism is bad. Period. Most people know that there are at least a few racists out there and condem their actions. People who do overtly racist things such as say they won't hire non-whites are looked down on. In much of Europe racism in hiring is very common and even fairly overt. This is a good article about racism in hiring in France in the Washington Post.

One could argue that because of the Afghan and Iraq wars, all the focus for the "terrorists" is on/in the middle east. Now while I'll generally agree with this assertion, it can also be said that because of the Iraq war, there are far more "terrorists" to be afraid of.

At this point, I agree with one of my fellow responders - I'm now more afraid of the government then of the "terrorists". Although, this is only very shortly followed by my fear of the "American people".

For example - the president institutes a secret spying campaign on the American people that is expressly forbidden by the law (as well as known by NSA agents as "it's something that we all know you just don't do") that was designed to avoid all checks and balances (in this case, judicial oversight). Now, the idea of "checks and balances" is a central tenant of the founding fathers vision of what was to become America. This is something that I was taught in primary school. And yet, when one of the major American news organization did a poll on if the president should have gotten warrants (read: judicial oversight) in this campaign, only 56% said that he should have (I could only find this story in the Google cache which claims only 47% believe he should have gotten warrants - far scarier).

That right there scared the living shit out of me! Only 56% (or 47%) of the (responding) population has a sense that the idea of an Executive with unchecked power is a bad idea!?!?

Danger, Will Robinson, Danger!

Do you mean like them?

Presumably there were several legislative initiatives on their corporate mind, trying to charge users at both ends of the pipe was probably one of them.

If Bellsouth was giving me broadband this would be fine, but I'm PAYING for broadband. Why would I want Bellsouth picking and choosing which sites are going to load faster?

Greedy fucktards.

Yeah, that is odd, especially as I was talking about American citizens captured in the US. Who we did, indeed, tried during WWII, even while the war was going on. In civilian courts.(1)

No, the Nazi saboteurs were tried by a Military Commission, including the US citizens.

In fact, the courts ruled, during WWII, they must be tried in civilian courts if said courts were operating, unlike the military courts the president wanted to use.

That is wrong. I think that you are confusing things with a Civil War decision over the question of martial law.

However, every enemy soldier captures during WWII did, indeed, have access to a lawyer, and we did, indeed, tell people we had captured them. I'm sure that's just a minor point, though.

We informed the governments, as provided for in the Geneva Convention. Al Qaeda and kin do not qualify for the protections of the Geneva Convention. There are tests in the treaty to qualify for its protections, and they fail them.

Of course, we didn't capture random people handed to us by bounty hunters, but solely people in uniform on the battlefield, and there wouldn't have been a lot of point in them using lawyers to challenge their status, so almost none of them used a lawyer to do so.

On the contrary, we did intern large numbers of people toward the end of the war until their status could be settled. At that point there were many members of the Gestapo, SS and other criminal organizations that were trying to blend into the civilian population. It got sorted out over time.

With the war on terror, of course, there is plenty of reason for them to do that, because not only are many of them innocent, but the whole point of POWs is that you get returned after the war is over, and one's bothered to come up when that might be in the war on terror. So even if they are guilty of everything anyone vaguely asserted about them when given 500 dollars for turning a 'terrorist' over, they would still need to be entered into the legal system at some point.

No, they don't have to be entered into the legal system. The findings could be essentially administrative, much like the determination of POW status.

As far as the issue of "returning after the war", ... well, that is part of the hazard of taking up arms to make war as a member of a non-state actor without diplomatic recognition, and acting outside the law, isn't it? If it had been, say, the Sovereign Military Order of Malta that had taken up arms against the US, there would have been a non-state actor with diplomatic status who would be accountable for the actions of its members, a semblance of control, and would be likely to adhere to the law of war. As it is, Al Qaeda and kin are making war not merely outside the law, but often violate the law of war, and as a result they have very little legal protection and enormous personal risk. (The hazards of becoming a martyr, I guess.) Since their ultimate goal is to reestablish the Caliphage, this could be a very long war. Some of them may be held for a very long time. It should come as no surprise that a number of fighters have been captured, released based on lies, and then recaptured on the battlefield. That makes for a subtle problem.

Nevertheless, the American Civil Liberties Union has been requesting congressional hearings on Echelon for nearly a year. In a letter sent to the House Government Reform Committee in April 1999, the ACLU said: "It is important that Congress investigate to determine if the Echelon program is as sweeping and intrusive as has been reported."

Does Microsoft support Full-Disclosure? Given that it is stated on the Microsoft website in specific regard to security that "We share our knowledge, learn from others, and collaborate at every stage, so each successive partnership makes technology environments stronger"(1), it would seem that if MS does not support full-disclosure we must draw the conclusion that sharing knowledge, learning from others and collaborating is only permissible between MS and its industry partners. On the other hand, if Microsoft does support full-disclosure, this seems to be in direct contrast with facts such as that the average patch time is 46 days(2). If Microsoft really does support full-disclosure, why are patches not released sooner?(3) 1 http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/twc/security/overv iew.mspx 2 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2006/01/14/AR2006011400218.html 3 I realise this is a second question and hence may be ignored if you wish.

Congress needs to declare the war OVER so we can have our Constitution back.

Under the Administration's view of presidential power under time of war, the Congress does not have the authority to end a conflict. The only power Congress is Constitutionally allowed to exercise is one of bugetary control; They can cut-off all appropriations (it can't be done selectively) and thereby 'starve' the military into a surrender, but that's the only authority the Constitution reserves for them.

Senator Biden referred to this on the 4th day of the Alito hearings, if you read the transcripts (search for "architect of the president's memorandum").

Understand, I'm not making that claim; I tend to agree with the "majority of the constitutional scholarship", but Bush appears to be asserting that, now that Congress has issued the AUMF, laws no longer apply to the President.

Remembering Bush's continued assertion that this "War on Terror" is likely to continue indefinitely, that ought to frighten any Democrat. Then again, if you figure that someday there might be a (perhaps even loonier) Democrat in the Oval Office, ought to frighten any Republican, too. Of course, the rest of us have already soiled our pants.

Or maybe that explains what's been happening with the elections lately: If the First and Fourth Amendments are no longer applicable, why should anyone expect Bush to respect the Twenty-Second?

If this post prompts at least one of you to become interested enough in your own government to read a bit of a Supreme Court confirmation hearing transcript, I'll consider it to be a success.

First thing we do is smash all the secret Scientology vaults -- because after emerging from a Logan's Run type complex after hundreds of years underground, the last thing people need is a Personality Test! You can spot the vaults by their special signs in deserts and parking lots.

Ability to remove foil when asked by TSA means I don't lose my wallet the first time I try to board an airplane with it.

Not likely, actually. My wife is a former TSA employee (who couldn't stay on due to a health condition which precluded her from passing the now-required military medical examination), and from I've discussed with her, it actually isn't likely that you would lose the wallet. Metal objects can be taken on an airplane without too much difficulty as long as they can't be used as a stabbing weapon or a gun or something like that. For example, a wedding ring would definitely set off the metal detectors, but there's no reason you couldn't take it on the plane because it can't be used to kill anyone (well, it can for a specially-trained individual, but that's another story).

In fact, with the recent security changes made by DHS, it isn't likely that you would even get a small pocket knife taken from you anymore.

Don't believe everything you read on the internet, kid.

That wiki is completely wrong. Line item veto was used 82 times by Clinton and on some major spending bills. Here's one quick reference.

I agree that the line item veto was grossly unconstitutional.

And if you believe that the impeachment was about one lie in a 4 year prosecutorial fishing trip, you either were not paying attention or are completely brainwashed. I'm not a fan of either party, but you missed some good theater in the war over power between the executive and congressional branches.

What bizarro world are you living in where Russia - what's left of it, Russia, not the ex-USSR, is capable of, let alone having any interest in, invading "Baltic States, Bulgaria, Poland, Romania, Ukraine"

From: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2005/05/05/AR2005050501684.html

Russia issued a testy rebuke of President Bush yesterday on the eve of his departure for Europe, denying that Moscow had forcibly occupied the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia in 1940. This restatement of a Soviet view of history provoked a new round of controversy over modern Russia's intentions toward the now-independent states.

You can google other stories to find that there is tension between Russia and the Baltics... and the Baltics do have a fear of invasion. Much like Caribbean and Central American nations have fears of US invasion.

The Washington Post
CNN
The New York Times

I recognize that the life of Joe Schmoe might be less important than, say, airstrikes in Pakistan. Nevertheless, I would expect truly indepedent and free-thinking press staffs to have significant differences of opinion on what's important to run.

Instead, it appears that they steal story ideas from each other.

"Under Nevada law, a person stopped by a police officer under a reasonable suspicion standard "shall identify himself". After 11 denied requests for identification, Dove finally arrested Hiibel, who was subsequently convicted of resisting an officer."

A few more references.

It is not clear to me whether or not a verbal "My name is Joe Smith", assuming your name actually is Joe Smith, would meet the requirement of 'shall identify himself' - some will most assuredly take that to mean "prove" it with official papers. Keep in mind that the Nevada Supreme Court *upheld* the charges against Hiibel, so thinking this was overturned on the first appeal, as it should have been IMHO, would be incorrect.

Living outside the system in Nevada means buying a lot of shoes, apparently. Or, perhaps, never leaving the house, as Hiibel wasn't driving at the time.

I think there are two reasons for this, the first is that housing is crashing - so that means that all that money that was going into houses is now looking a lot more seriously at stocks, the second is that the Fed has special team called the PPT - an internal operation designed to buy huge amounts of equities in the event of emergency ( like say the collapse of refco which makes enron look like a saint ). With 270 trillion with a T derivatives on the line, you can better believe that they won't hesitate to buy stocks as needed. Anyhow, be very carefull about stocks, be it housing or PPT, it's a false market and there is a high probability of being shot down no matter how smart you are. My guess is that whatever the market goes up, gold will go up doubble. If you must play the market, try a pool of precious metal mining stocks like PD, NEM, PAAS, SSRI, GG - for higher risk and profit try ones like TRE and RGLD. ( there is also a gold ETF, GLD - but some experts don't trust it) I think most commodities are in for the long term, but in the event of a large economic meltdown all immediate bets other than precious metals are off.

Here's what happened. After 9/11, authorities found a bunch of e-mail addresses and phone numbers in the phones and computers of confirmed terrorists. They tracked down those leads. Most of the people the NSA started eavesdropping on -- about 7,000 -- lived overseas, and their phone calls were to other foreigners living abroad. But, according to Risen's book, "about 500 people" living in the U.S. who were in contact with suspected terrorists had their communications tapped. Risen calls this "large-scale" spying on the American people even though, as the Weekly Standard recently noted, this constitutes "1.7 ten-thousandths of 1 percent of the U.S. population."

There ist quite a good podcast-episode from Slate over at http://media2.washingtonpost.com/media/slate/Podca sts/Slate_05101401.mp3

Check it out, it's worth the while.

Or in other words: LtTFA ;-)

Or does somebody use MF for action shots?

This guy does.

Confirmed by Microsoft according to the article.

In 2003, Microsoft took an average of three months to issue patches for problems reported to them. In 2004, that time frame shot up to 134.5 days, a number that remained virtually unchanged in 2005.

I'm certain that critical flaws for other OSes are always fixed faster.

but torture most certainly does provide reliable information in certain situations. If you are looking for specific verifiable information (where is the bomb planted) and the person knows, torture will get that information from them.

Military interrogators say otherwise.

If the bomb is ticking, the bomber will just give you false information. Yes, it's verifiable information, so you know he lied when it blows up across town as your bomb squad converges on the false leads he gave you, but so what?

Non-embryonic stem-cell research is already miles ahead in providing cures

Embryonic lines consistently develop mutations that make them unusable.

Non-embryonic lines are progressing towards embryonic flexibility.

All of this pales, however, in view of the green dollar signs that float in front of researcher's eyes. Somehow, money seems to make morally outrageous actions seem legit. I have no problem turning off the flow of cash to research that amounts to cannibalism.

Non-embryonic stem-cell research is already miles ahead in providing cures

Embryonic lines consistently develop mutations that make them unusable.

Non-embryonic lines are progressing towards embryonic flexibility.

All of this pales, however, in view of the green dollar signs that float in front of researcher's eyes. Somehow, money seems to make morally outrageous actions seem legit. I have no problem turning off the flow of cash to research that amounts to cannibalism.

You do realize that the US as a whole has grown wealthier, not poorer, right?

The Ultra-rich have accumulated more wealth, yes, this is true .

News stories have been done on the vanishing middle class :

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A342 35-2004Sep19.html

The Stock Market correction of 2000 and then 9-11, was more massive then I think you
can imagine, it bankrupted most of the major airlines in the US .

Just now we have risen to the point we were at before 9-11, aka
the same spot we were at after the DOT COM crash .

Lay offs were literally in the millions .

Do you understand " MILLIONS "

They like to make like it has "recovered", but all that has really happened is
a shell game . It's all bullshit, just like Enron, Global Crossing, MCI, Ad naseum .

Greenspan knows this, thus his warning on a housing bubble .

Excerpt: ( 4 paragraphs up from the last )

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/040 4.wallace-wells.html

That job fell to Greenspan: Finally, on Feb. 24, testifying before the Senate Banking Committee, he came clean about the risks of the housing market, in a speech reminiscent of his 1996 warning about "irrational exuberance" in the stock market. In his familiar, glum posture, his bald head slouching low over the table, he warned that the GSEs weren't just unstable, but also posed a "systemic risk" to the economy of the United States. He suggested debt caps, to reduce Fannie and Freddie's role in the market, and urged stricter regulation.

These EXACT tactics have played out before, but we refuse to look back to 1929 .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_depression#Caus es_of_the_Great_Depression

They want to maximize the profit, raise the stock price, lower overhead ...Ad naseum .

I go back to the simplicity method .

If anyone can do any job here for less, then no citizen will be doing the job if the
bottomline is all to consider .

corporate funded slums to house the visa workers, because they aren't even paid enough to
afford the housing that the citizens have to pay for .

Read this woman's story :

http://wwwa.house.gov/international_relations/108/ sha020404.htm

Ex-MislTech

about their employees, outside the highest levels of management, what makes you think they'd give a flip about their customers?

The McCain-Feingold bill (a.k.a. Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2001) did impose some limitations that might be fairly said to be limitations on political speech. Specifically, there is a provision that prevents other political groups (e.g. 527 committees) from airing "issue ads" around election time. From the Brookings institution analysis:

Electioneering Communication: Restrictions on Corporations and Labor Unions (sec. 203)

Corporations and labor unions are prohibited from running or indirectly financing electioneering communications identifying or targeting a federal candidate within 60 days of a general election. Only a corporation or labor union's registered PAC may fund such activities with hard dollars.

Now, of course, it doesn't actually prevent people from voicing their views, but it does in theory make it harder for citizens to have their voices heard during the most crucial time (usually FEC restrictions are put on candidates, not all citizens). It's debatable whether this is limiting money or limiting speech, but it sure looks uncomfortably close to effectively limiting political speech to those of us concerned with protecting the 1st amendment. One instance in which this came up was in 2004, when the conservative group Citizens United tried to get the FEC to stop Michael Moore from running adds for his movie Fahrenheit 9/11, claiming it was clearly political content covered under McCain-Feingold.

All that being said, Russ Feingold was the only person in the U.S. Senate to have the balls to vote against the USA PATRIOT act. In a time when other politicians were pandering to hystaria and rushing to take what they knew would be (at least in the near term) a popular position, he stood up for principle; he stood for liberty. So, yeah, I don't think I agree with that part of McCain-Feingold, but it's just foolishness to suggest that Feingold has not been a defender of liberty.

# Republican Secretary of State Blackwell reversed a long-standing Ohio practice and is barring voters from casting provisional ballots within their county if they are registered to vote but there's been a mistake about where they are expected to cast their ballot. In this year's spring primaries, Blackwell allowed voters to cast provisional ballots by county, even if they were in the wrong precinct. But this fall, voters had to leave if they were in the wrong precinct and find their way to the right one even though they had waited in line two to three hours. Blackwell hopes to succeed Republican Bob Taft as governor, and has labored hard to install Diebold e-voting machines with no paper trail throughout Ohio. Blackwell is being widely compared to the infamous Katherine Harris, who handed Florida to George W. Bush in 2000 and was rewarded with a safe Congressional seat. Representative Stephanie Tubbs Jones accused Blackwell of seeking "to disenfranchise the people of the state of Ohio." Tubbs Jones pointed out that the 2000 census had caused massive redistricting, particularly within inner city precincts, which would lead to many people ending up at the wrong voting site.

Ohio Democrats have filed a federal lawsuit this week over Blackwell's order to deny provisional ballots for people who show up at the wrong polling place. The secretary of state has instructed election officials to issue provisional ballots only to those who are in the correct polling location. Federal law gives voters the right to obtain a provisional ballot and have it counted if they mistakenly go to the wrong precinct.

That is a critical issue in light of a federal appeals court ruling Saturday that voters with provisional ballots -- backup ballots for voters whose names do not appear on the rolls -- must cast them in their own precinct for the votes to count.

Unfortunately, this issue is nothing new.

Lots of good info on this problem can be found here, courtesy of the good folks at EPIC.

And finally, you can choose to opt-out of the releasing of your phone data here (at least you can try...opt-out information isn't listed for many of the companies). Also, many of these data brokers employ less-than-legal means to obtain the phone data anyway.

Heh, this is almost fun.

Nope, this is just your usual dictatorship FUD; keep the population poor, afraid and ignorant.

Poor:

An Analysis of the Presidents Who Are Responsible For Excessive Spending
Bush Borrowed More Than All Previous Presidents Combined, Group Says
Surplus? US Debt Pushes $6 Trillion
U.S. NATIONAL DEBT CLOCK (this is a very interesting one, in my humble opinion)

(hint: guess whose taxes are going to pay for that)

Afraid:

U.S. Department of Defense News About The War On Terrorism
The War On Terrorism
AMERICA'S WAR AGAINST TERRORISM

Ignorant:

Education Not a Bush Budget Priority, Representative Miller to Testify
Bush Budget Slashes Education, Other Domestic Programs
$2.5 Trillion Budget Plan Cuts Many Programs
Bush administration Cuts Public School Funding to Pay for New Private School Voucher Scheme

And you complain about China? I'm afraid you have the same problems in your country (assuming you're American).

Read the writings of Justices Hand and Holmes. I suggest "In Perilous Times" by Geoffrey R. Stone. It treats the history of free speech in the US, but gives great insight into the theory behind it as well. According to US political theory, anyway, government acts that would cause people to censor themselves are acts of government censorship.

It doesn't matter of MSN is pulling the blog voluntarily (in order to avoid negative repercussions with the Chinese government), or if the Chinese government orders them to do so. Either way, it's a government-caused limit to free speech.

What about the meaning of "LLC"? Limited Liability Company

Like I said, "Corporations shield their owners from bankruptcy and civil courts (to an extent)." And note it's Limitied Liability Company, not Zero Liability Company.

Did anything actually happen after California's energy crisis?

You mean other than Enron going out of business, along with many of its competitors? And considering the fact that the energy crisis was created when idiot politicians decided to lift the limits off the price of wholesale energy, but kept the reins on the price of retail energy, it's not wonder the whole thing blew up. That crisis had more to do with socialist tampering with market than anything else.

What about the billions of profit gas company are reporting for last year after increasing gas prices because of "shortage"?

What about 'em? First, read this. Then consider the following breakdown of profit margin of companies mentioned in that article:
* Altria, maker of Marlboro Cigarrettes...22c per $
* Merck...25.3c per $
* Exxon Mobile...9.8c per $

If you think a company with profit margins that slim isn't competing heavily to get as many customers as possible, you have no understanding of market economics. Also, keep in mind that the profit margin at the pump is even tighter. Typically, gas station owners will make between one and two cents per gallon. At today's prices, that's a profit margin of about half a percent.

You can look up others here. Just plug in the company's ticker symbol, click on "Financial Results", and look at the net profit margin. Some other interesting ones:
* Wal-Mart...3.5
* Coca-Cola...22.8
* Google...24.7
* Yahoo...32.8(!!!)

So Google makes two and a half times as much as Exxon-Mobile on every dollar earned, and Yahoo makes a staggering three times as much (ten times as much as Wal-Mart, the pinacle of retail evil). Yeah, those evil oil companies, gotta watch out for them.

http://www.heritage.org/Research/MiddleEast/wm217. cfm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2005/10/11/AR2005101101384.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/france/story/0,11882,132 3967,00.html
I'm not saying other countries weren't involved in the same thing (they were, Russia is notable, there were even Americans caught up in scandal) but France did have some shady deals, and some corruption.

Actually, it is the same comparison.

There are companies now that test potential employees to see if they are smokers and refuse to hire them if they are.

Example, Example 2, Example 3.

Your NewsMax story contained a deception, according to the Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/spec ial/campfin/stories/circuit070898.htm


At a Senate Governmental Affairs committee hearing today, administration officials are expected to repeat their view that the sensitive devices were destroyed in the crash. But they say that even if the Chinese did recover the microprocessor chips, it's unlikely they learned anything. "The National Security Agency doesn't consider it a big deal," the administration official said.

"Any loss of the chips . . . would have had only minimal impact on national security," the NSA said in a statement last month, in part because the 20-year-old chips could have worked to encrypt or decrypt signals, controlling the spacecraft's movement in space, beamed only to or from that particular satellite.

The agency also said it has made routine upgrades since the accident to the algorithms or sets of instructions governing U.S. satellite cryptographic gear, so even if the Chinese found a device, it "cannot be employed to gain access to or control" other satellites.

Within a day after the February 1996 accident, a U.S. search team that thoroughly inspected the debris-strewn hillside in southern China where the crash occurred concluded there was "slim to no chance" the Chinese found the two American cryptographic chips, informed industry executives said.


The military and NSA changes it's cyrptographic ALL THE TIME. AND, the codes in question only referenced point to point communications between THAT PARTICULAR SATELLITE. Since that satellite was destroyed, there was ZERO impact on US communication security.

The posession of a radioactive hardened chip will give you little or no clue as to it's fabrication. If so, China would be manufacturing cheap knock off Pentium 4s.

You know, 8 years ago I wish I knew more about the way the right wing handles things. Pretty much EVERYTHING that comes out of a Republicans mouth is some twisted fabrication. I'm sick of having to listen to this BS and nod and be polite and than have to waste my time doing research as to why what they say might hold a nugget of factual information but in substance be complete and utter nonsense.

Well, from what I can find, Clinton NEVER authorized the export of any particular technology. He approved the launching of satellites by Loral on Chinese rockets.

Loral passed some "hints" as part of a joint examination of a failed missle launch.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/spec ial/missile/keystories.htm

Republicans believed that the Clinton administration was protecting Loral as part of an "intentional" technology transfer. But you will see from Newsmax.com (a conservative news portal) that the Bush Jr administration really didn't take the issue too seriously: http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2001/9/3/ 210022.shtml


#

Avoiding Criminal Liability

# First, the U.S. attorney's office in Washington, which was handling the Loral investigation, had transferred the case out of the Justice Department and over to the State Department "for a civil settlement."

That means Loral is out from under any criminal charges or prosecution.

Instead, it faces a negotiated penalty - estimated in the range of $10 million, which is a token slap on the wrist in a business deal of this potential magnitude - and some technical revisions in the way it goes about handling its export-license applications.

# Second, as part of the settlement, which has been negotiated by Loral attorneys and the State Department for months, the door would be opened again for the company to resume shipping satellites and other sensitive missile technology to the Chinese communists.

That settlement is purported to be ready for announcement by mid-September.


The whole language is completely twisted here. It makes Clinton's approval of TRANSPORTING A SATELLITE TO CHINA FOR LAUNCH sound like Clinton was approving the transfer of documents relating to how to improve missle technology. This IS NOT TRUE.

The worst possible effect of this would be that the Chinese did yank that crypto board before launch and managed to snoop some US messages before the NSA changed the keys. As far as "missle technology", defense analysts typically stated that this was of no real effect as the Chinese already have enough nukes to destroy all major US cities. "Close" counts in nuclear warfare and it really doesn't matter much whether the Chinese can engage in a "tactical" nuclear strike since such a conflict is inherently unwinnable.

I object to all this from the standpoint that all this money for satellite launching was going oversees. The ONLY thing wrong with the NASA commercial satellite launches was that it was "competing" with a potential US competitor. But no US competitor EVER emerged, only the Chinese government. So if you want to blame someone, blame the Reagan administration who started the policy of launching US communication satellites in China.

Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion. Amazon pays $40m in patent settlement. HP pays $141m in patent settlement. Digene Corp. pays Georgetown University $7.5m plus royalties in patent settlement. Medtronic pays $1.35 billion in patent settlement. I mean, I don't want to call you a liar, but it seems to me, just kinda, jumps out at me, maybe I'm just mistaken, but it seems like patents are worth more than the paper they're printed on.

I've said it before (check my post history) and I'll say it again. Slashdot is the Fox News of Patents. It's just a bunch of people standing around a burning barrel bitching about something they don't (or refuse) to understand.

And no shit nobody pays any attention to that.

But if you ask anybody around Slashdot, it's because Slashdot has the geniuses while they system is filled with idiots. I'm no psychologist, but I'm pretty sure that begins to meet the symptoms of schizophrenia.

But don't let me slow anybody down. By the way, I'm in no way associated with but recommend Patently-O. Try understanding the system that you hate so that you don't end up making statement like:

For example, it's not unusual to word a patent in such a way that a genuinely innovative company that would not even compete with the patent 'taker' will have to go and license (overbroad patenting by design).

I mean seriously, WTF. Please show one legitimate example of this . Don't be like this guy. Know what you're talking about.

Lindner said the real problem -- a vulnerability in the way Blackberry servers handle portable network graphics (PNG) images, was not disclosed by either RIM or the US-CERT advisory.

From the top of the CERT advisory:

By causing the service to render a specially crafted TIFF file, an attacker could execute arbitrary code or cause a denial of service.

From the advisory:

To disable the image attachment distiller 1. On the desktop, click Start > Programs > BlackBerry Enterprise Server > BlackBerry Enterprise Server Configuration. 2. On the Attachment Server tab, select Attachment Server from the Configuration Option drop-down list. 3. In the Distiller Settings section of the window, clear the Enabled check box for Image Attachments. 4. Click Apply, then click OK. 5. In Microsoft Windows® Administrative Tools, double-click Services. 6. Right-click BlackBerry Attachment Service, then click Stop. 7. Right-click BlackBerry Attachment Service, then click Start. 8. Close the Services window.

In summary, the CERT advisory says it might be possible to execute arbitrary code on the server. The Blackberry advisory recommends disabling all image attachment processing on the server. No one has proved that an exploit exists to take advantage of this, but how can you know there isn't an exploit. In cases like this, the burden of proof lies with the one who claims it's safe to continue processing image attachments. Maybe there isn't a serious problem. Would you leave the attachment service running with without disabling the image attachments?

Has the Bush administration actually invoked FISA as their legal basis? If so, I missed it. And, from what I've heard, it wouldn't fit. AFAIK, FISA requires either a warrant or only monitoring where no US person is likely to be involved (see Q18 in the EFF writeup).

Carter and Clinton both issued executive orders authorizing FISA monitoring, but specifically quoted FISA regulations to be followed. I haven't seen a similar order from Bush, and even according to legendary conservative Rush Limbaugh, the FISA courts were bypassed. Limbaugh's take on it was that the unprecedented denials and modifications of Bush's FISA requests forced him to go around the process.

In short, the President is not asserting legal authority under FISA. According to the Attorney General, his authority hinges (PDF) on his "inherent authority" as Commander-In-Chief, and Congress's Use of Force Resolution.

Of course, in my strict interpretation, I missed the part of the Presidential Oath, Constitution or the above resolution that grants him any power over surveillance. And, according to Daschle (partisan to be sure, but you'd think records of this kind of stuff would be easily checked), Congress specifically rejected the administration's request for having the resolution cover actions in the US.

Has the Bush administration actually invoked FISA as their legal basis? If so, I missed it. And, from what I've heard, it wouldn't fit. AFAIK, FISA requires either a warrant or only monitoring where no US person is likely to be involved (see Q18 in the EFF writeup).

Carter and Clinton both issued executive orders authorizing FISA monitoring, but specifically quoted FISA regulations to be followed. I haven't seen a similar order from Bush, and even according to legendary conservative Rush Limbaugh, the FISA courts were bypassed. Limbaugh's take on it was that the unprecedented denials and modifications of Bush's FISA requests forced him to go around the process.

In short, the President is not asserting legal authority under FISA. According to the Attorney General, his authority hinges (PDF) on his "inherent authority" as Commander-In-Chief, and Congress's Use of Force Resolution.

Of course, in my strict interpretation, I missed the part of the Presidential Oath, Constitution or the above resolution that grants him any power over surveillance. And, according to Daschle (partisan to be sure, but you'd think records of this kind of stuff would be easily checked), Congress specifically rejected the administration's request for having the resolution cover actions in the US.

Chuck Norris has achieved some kind of cult status. I know, because the Washington Post told me so (after I registered).

Well, at least our friendly Bush administration has something in common with Communist China:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2005/09/19/AR2005091901570.html

Now who knows what other similiarities they have? Perhaps we'll find out that they actually torture prisoners in secret locations to fight the war on terror, similiar as China tortures a diverse range of seperatists for their own "war on terror":

http://www.cfr.org/publication/4765/chinas_war_on_ terror.html?breadcrumb=default

Nothing to see here, move along people!

I had a huge laugh tonight after I read about the US Army's plans to invade CANADA! Seems that back in the 1930s we made plans just in case we went to war with Britain. And back then the Canucks had a plan to invade the US. Let's see, where's the link...

Raiding The Icebox

I figure the Canadians will never forgive US for neglecting to conquer them.

Years back, I went to Tijuana and looked around and thought, "this place needs adult supervision." And a few years after that, I went to Sault Ste. Marie and saw the perfectly manicured lawns, clean streets, and perfect order. And I thought, "this place has a bit too much adult supervision."