Slashdot Mirror

Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger, a former White House national security adviser, plans to plead guilty to a misdemeanor, and will acknowledge intentionally removing and destroying copies of a classified document about the Clinton administration's record on terrorism.

On Sept. 2, 2003, the associate said, Berger put a copy of the Clarke report in his suit jacket. He did not put it in his socks or underwear, as was alleged by some Republicans last summer. On Oct. 2, 2003, he again spent hours at the archives and took four more versions of the document. Back in his office, he studied them in detail, realized they were largely identical, and took the scissors to three of the copies, the associate said.

"Now, as we all can see, pension and health care obligations are eating GM alive."

Washington Post

"The carmaker is saddled with a $1,600-per-vehicle handicap in so-called legacy costs, mostly retiree health and pension benefits"

Business Week

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/o ctober/16/newsid_2535000/2535301.stm
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/11/23/politics /main1070503.shtml
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/2000/vi etnam092799.htm

Need more? Use google you ignoramus fucktard.

I'd hit hit!

Especially when they are as hot as this woman! The Overlord from the article! Wait is that a woman or a man with a bad hair cut and two earings! Let's start a pole! Please cast your ballots 1)Woman 2)Man 3)Troll
I vote 3

"So why aren't they speaking up about this." Actually, they have.

most physically handicapped people would choose a good-looking but non-functional prosthetic over a functioning but ugly one

It's not either-or, it's both-and. This guy has four kinds of prosthetic hands, plus a spare for each kind. The cosmetic one looks perfect and works okay, but he only uses it a couple of times a week. The rest of the time he uses the more functional ones.

Not all newspapers are behind the times. I'm fortunate to have worked for the Web sites of two news companies that really "get it" -- the Lawrence Journal-World in Lawrence, Kansas, and the Washington Post.

The Journal-World's Web sites (including http://www.ljworld.com/ and http://www.lawrence.com/ allow comments on every story. Readers can have their own weblogs, and the site makes intensive database apps, on deadline, for all sorts of stuff -- like a database of every little-league game (e.g. http://www2.ljworld.com/game/2005/fields/langston_ hughes/). FWIW, the operation has been covered by the New York Times and NPR.

Similarly, washingtonpost.com is quite good. We just launched Post Remix, which encourages developers to put together apps with our RSS feeds. Check it out.

  No, the government wouldn't censor the internet for the very reason that it is a "pull" media.

Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham pleaded guilty Monday to conspiracy and tax charges and tearfully resigned from office, admitting he took $2.4 million in bribes to steer defense contracts to conspirators.

His constituents sent this sleazeball to DC eight freaking times. How could any congressional district be that incredibly stupid?

Meanwhile, George II seeks to essentially eliminate the privacy act. How many senators and reps will lose their jobs for refusing to put a stop to this? How many judges will be thrown off the bench for refusing to declare it unconstitutional?

I've said it before... people deserve what they elect.

Or perhaps you havn't been paying attention?

A quote:

Dr. Andrew Johnson, an infectious diseases specialist, said he left Canada six years ago to pursue his career in the U.S.

"At the time it was really just the opportunity to perform research," he told CTV News.

Now with two children of his own, Johnson has returned to live in Calgary.

"Canada is a great place to raise children and has a good education system," he said. "We don't have quite the same problems like violence and hand guns."

Not that it'd matter much to you "Hate Canada First" types.

Just a note about your sacred NASA suit Griffin: not only is he running NASA's budget into the ground, but he's lying to Congress about how badly he's ruining their budget.

'"The budget associated with the Vision's announcement in 2004 [anticipated] that the shuttle's demands would significantly decrease in 2008 and 2009," said one longtime NASA watcher. "That was a myth."

Griffin acknowledged as much at a Nov. 3 House Science Committee hearing, saying the plan to finish the space station and retire the shuttle in 2010 faces a "$3 billion to $5 billion" funding shortfall.'

That's despite Congress overfunding NASA, against Bush's moronic complaints. Is it a surprise that Griffin is screwing the Shuttle and farming deficits while overseeing a military base on the Moon? As I said, he's a complicit bureaucrat with a Star Wars hidden agenda. And you are a gutless, sleazy TrollBot.

Really? I thought the invasion rested on Saddam continuation to break UN resolutions time and time again. Should we just not invade and thus not inforce these resolutions? Do you prefer a nice slap on the wrist to and from a bunch of corrupt beurocrats?

You pretend that there were only two options: invade or ignore Iraq completely. In fact there was a much better option, to enforce the resolutions using sanctions and inspections. In case you haven't noticed, sanctions actually worked, and achieved their goal without producing huge number of flag-drapped coffins.

Second, Saddam (his party to be exact whome he was a part of) was implicitly allied with al Qaeda as he aided and supported them. Did you not listen to Bush durring his address to the nation?

Factually wrong, pure and simple. Saddam Hussein had no links with Al-Quaida, as was proven by 9/11 commision. Bush lied during his address to the nation (if you look at the video, you'll see that Bush's lips are moving, which means he is lying).

Third, we did not invade Iraq per say. We invaded Saddam and his supporters.

Bullshit. We murdered innocent civilians, like for instance these Iraqi children. I'm sorry, but 10 year old children aren't part of Saddam's government.

And wow! did they come out in droves to vote dispite the weekly car bombings and threats.

If you really take those "elections" seriously, read this.
And weekly car bombings means they hate us so much that they are actually willing to attack us with car bombs. I know that there's a lot of cultural misunderstanding going on, so let me clear this up for you: in Iraqi culture blowing up someone with a car bomb means you dislike them. It's not some form of holliday fireworks, but rather a statement that they want you dead - as expressed by their attempt to kill you. Similarly, the act of, say, shooting at you with AK-47 does not mean they tried to fire in the air to congratulate you and missed.
  To put it simply, if they try to kill you it means they want you dead, and that means they dislike you. I know it's kind of hard to interpret at first, but Iraq is pretty similar to Vietnam in this regard.

What is interesting to note is that many Koreans support what "Dr." Woo Suk Hwang did and claim that he did nothing wrong. The Korean government, in an investigation of the matter, concluded that Hwang acted ethically.

As I have said repeatedly, the Chinese and Korean notion of right and wrong is vastly different from the standard of right and wrong in the West: USA, Canada, Japan, etc. Mark my words. A Chinese or Korean scientist will develop and rear the first human-animal hybrid creature. Already, the Chinese created a human-rabbit-hybrid embryo but destroyed it after a few days.

>>the patriot act gave the DOJ to ability to monitor anything when they invoke a terrorism charge.

Except it didn't. Most of the PA just codified existing practice as Slate's four part analysis piece explains.

What parts were more radical (215) have been struck down as unconstitutional as can be seen on the EFF's (join EFF now!! the sky is falling!!) Patriot Act webpage.
One might want to notice that the PA renewal substantially weakened govt power while demanding new accountability.

Don't let the facts stop a good bout of paranoia. It is more fun to pretend that life is a black and white cyberpunk airport thriller novel than to recognize shades of gray. It makes us feel more important.

Attention slashbots: your next move is the slippery slope. In which you argue that searches approved by judges aren't bad but searches not approved are and therefore we need to freak out about about warranted searches because they might lead to unwarranted searches.

I haven't heard about that but here's a site advocating a Constitutional Monarchy for Alaska.

Might be something to it. The previous attempt might have been too far off. I know other states, esp. Texas and Arizona, are working on something similar. Seems that someone from the Washington Post wants to sell Alaska back to Russia.

How about this? Or this? Or this? Or this?

the security fix blog over at washingtonpost.com appears to be suggesting so...

Yes, but how will you coordinate your bank robberies?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2005/11/14/AR2005111400635.html

There is not a single fossil that is part-ape part-man.

The software in the detector picks up uncontrollable tremors in the voice that give away liars or those with something to hide, say its designers. Passengers that fail the test are then required to undergo further questioning or even search.

Sounds like sufferers of spasmodic dysphonia, such as NPR's Diane Rehm are going to have a hell of a time at airports in the near future...

Look, while this is somewhat off-topic, I think it's important to understand that at least some of the "antibushitarians" like myself are ultimately critics of this administration not because of choices they made that we wouldn't have (not solely, anyway) -- reasonable people can disagree over a wide range of topics, and even though I may not be persuaded by some of the arguments the Bush supporters have made about various actions, most of those arguments are at least reasoned. No, the criticism is that more than any other administration I'm aware of, the Bush administration has a demonstrable and pervasive disdain for the ideas of accountability and transparency. They want to conduct as much of their activities as they can in secrecy and they impugn the integrity and patriotism of anyone who criticizes this. And this is a really profoundly worrisome precedent for anyone who cares about responsible -- or even responsive -- government.

As to Guantanamo and who's held there, the poster you cheered on in particular might want to read this Washington Post piece by a lawyer who wrote:

[My client] is innocent. I don't mean he claims to be. I mean the military says so. It held a secret tribunal and ruled that he is not al Qaeda, not Taliban, not a terrorist. The whole thing was a mistake: The Pentagon paid $5,000 to a bounty hunter, and it got taken. The military people reached this conclusion, and they wrote it down on a memo, and then they classified the memo and Adel went from the hearing room back to his prison cell. He is a prisoner today, eight months later. And [...] only habeas corpus revealed that it wasn't just Adel who was innocent -- it was Abu Bakker and Ahmet and Ayoub and Zakerjain and Sadiq -- all Guantanamo "terrorists" whom the military has found innocent.

I know that what happens to "suspected terrorists" seems awfully remote: sure, the president has extraordinary powers to designate someone, even an American citizen, as an "enemy combatant" and whisk them off into a secretive system where they lose many constitutional rights, but it's quite a stretch to say he's going to abuse that power, right? It's Chicken Little hyperbole to think that expanding executive powers under the auspices of wartime is a harbinger of impending fascism.

But the question isn't what this president will do with that power, but what that power will allow any president to do. Think of a president you don't like with the power to do that, or even one you might generally like who falls under the sway of a Joe McCarthy type who sees enemies under every rock. Or, hell, ask the folks who call a certain Senator from New York "Hitlery Clinton" if they'd really like her to have that power. And if these are "wartime powers," when do they end when the war is against not a state but a concept? There will, after all, always be terrorism.

And before you think the abuse of that power to really go after political opponents is so far-fetched in today's America, ask yourself what's traditionally kept that power in check. Look, they're back: transparency and accountability! Our entire political system is supposed to function on the premise that no one branch of government has power that's so broad that we, the American people, have to just trust them not to abuse it. But that's exactly the kind of power that the Bush administration has been arguing they need.

So the next time an "antibushitarian" gets a little twitchy when someone says that by criticizing the president they're "supporting the terrorists," think about what that accusation really means. And when that's being used to describe the political opponents of an administration that's created a whole new prison system expressly designed to be as opaque as possible...

Rather than ignoring people and allowing them to find happiness in what may be an obscure or disgusting manner to us (or just posting friggin blurbs on a board), we comment on it and judge it.

You include this statement (without the slightest sign of intentional irony) in your own judgemental comment on someone else's judgemental comment. Ironically, I feel that I must comment judgementally on this.

This is why I have lunches with Andrea Dworkin and not a bunch of catty women whose sense of humor is so constrained by the mores of society that they don't even laugh at stories of Penis Puppetry.

When you last ate with Andrea, did she happen to mention that she had died in April? I'd have thought that your lunch dates would have been somewhat constrained by that event.

That should have been...From the Washington Post:

Here

The controversy 'stems' from the fact that human embryos are used to acquire (embryonic) stem cells. However, Catherine Verfaillie, a researcher at our university (www.kuleuven.be), has recently discovered that bone marrow contains stem cells with similar traits as embryonic stem cells. There's an article on that in the WP: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A553 69-2005Feb1.html.

really? well, that's good, because i was afraid things like this: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2005/11/16/AR2005111601047.html?nav=rss_email/c omponents would happen. you're right, people would never let a freedom-bearing principle be taken away from us...the votes aren't what matters, we like it, and they can't take it! ...oops...

captured on the battlefield engaged in hostile actions against American Armed Forces?

Adel is innocent. I don't mean he claims to be. I mean the military says so. It held a secret tribunal and ruled that he is not al Qaeda, not Taliban, not a terrorist. The whole thing was a mistake: The Pentagon paid $5,000 to a bounty hunter, and it got taken.

The military people reached this conclusion, and they wrote it down on a memo, and then they classified the memo and Adel went from the hearing room back to his prison cell. He is a prisoner today, eight months later. And these facts would still be a secret but for one thing: habeas corpus.

It doesn't matter if there aren't laws specifically against standing in New York with an "Osama Rules" t-shirt, if the US government can arbitrarily arrest people and put them in prison without trials. You don't need to have violated any laws, you're still in prison.

I don't think you would be allowed to wear a t-shirt with a Hitler motive in Germany. But if you are in America and female, you can be arrested for taking off your t-shirt in public. I don't really see why one law means "free speech" and the other doesn't. It's essentially the same thing, it's just that Hitler is taboo in Germany and sex is taboo in America. The difference is that in Germany you would at least have a trial, in America you can be thrown in jail without a trial and tortured (not theoretically, this is happening as we speak).

What other nation of the world could guarantee the free speech implicit to the internet

And what are your thoughts on "Evil Empire's" ActiveX now? http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2005/1 1/sony_uninstall_.html

Here's another link to the story.

Also, if you want to read the NYT version but don't want to create a login, check out BugMeNot.com.

I remember back in the 90's taking some Amantadine to help fight the flu. And I wondered why the news keeps going on and on about Tamiflu. So I did a quick check and yes Amantadine is an antiviral drug, but thanks to the fucking Chinese they have made it useless to fight H5N1 because they'd been abusing it the way our ranchers abuse antibiotics. Amantadine costs a lot less but it doesn't matter. Now we have to use the much more expensive Tamiflu.

It gets better. One of the primary ingredients for making Tamiflu is something called Shikimic acid which is difficult to produce and is extracted from star anise that is only grown in four provinces in China. And their is a global shortage of star anise so that's why their's a global shortage of Tamiflu. Anyway it probably won't matter since H5N1 will probably develop a resistance to Tamiflu because of overuse. Anyway, we'll just have to wait and how the next pandemic evolves.

Here's a snippet of the relevant section:

For many months after Hwang's 2004 publication, rumors had spread in scientific circles that the eggs Hwang used to achieve that landmark result had been taken from a junior scientist in his lab. That situation, if true, would be in violation of widely held ethics principles that preclude people in positions of authority from accepting egg donations from underlings. The rules are meant to prevent subtle -- or not-so-subtle -- acts of coercion.

Questions have also circulated as to whether the woman received illegal payments for her role.

Schatten said that Hwang had repeatedly denied the rumor and that he had believed Hwang until yesterday. "I now have information that leads me to believe he had misled me," Schatten said. "My trust has been shaken. I am sick at heart. I am not going to be able to collaborate with Woo Suk."

I guess you haven't been reading the news like this:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2005/11/05/AR2005110501366.html

Hate to break this to you bubba but Sony was not "slapped down" by PotUS. They were admonished by Stewart Baker from the Department of Homeland Security http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2005/1 1/the_bush_admini.html , huge difference. But more to the point no that isn't being "slapped down" as the Department of Homeland Security has little to no ability to directly impact what Sony is doing. As an aside even if it had been shrub it would have been less effective given the fact that his influence and strong arm tactics are becoming less effective all the time. Sorry to burst your smarmy bubble but that's just the way it is, (save your mod points, I don't give a shit about them). If these companies can be shut down for exploiting computers and installing spyware then Sony can as well, they wont however due to their sheer size. The people who were prosecuted in this case deserved what they got but Sony et all will go along unscathed because they have deeper pockets and higher paid lawyers. Despite the fact that they deserve the same treatment under the law as this group of companies received.

Look for legislation in future designed to give *AA companies immunity from the consequences of future machine-frying DRM.

Or as Sony's CEO Howard Stringer put it in 2001:

"Right now it would be possible for us, and I've often thought it would cheer me up to do it, you could dispatch a virus to anybody whose files contain us or Columbia records, and make them listen to four hours of Yanni" (Source) )

The way I read the story, W didn't say anything. It was Stewart Baker, his newly appointed "Assistant Secretary of Nobody knows who I am or what my job is; not that it matters because I'm probably just as qualified as Michael Brown so I won't really be doing much anyway."

I seem to have gone off on a tangent. Anyway. It wasn't the President who "told them off" in a fairly nice way.

From the Washington Post article:

[Stewart Baker, Homeland Security's assistant secretary for policy, said:]
"If we have an avian flu outbreak here and it is even half as bad as the 1918 flu epidemic, we will be enormously dependent on being able to get remote access for a large number of people, and keeping the infrastructure functioning is a matter of life and death and we take it very seriously."

Does this mean if malware keeps people from getting medical help the authors can be convicted of manslaughter?

Jury: We find the defendant guilty on each of the 100 million counts of computer tampering and 2 million counts of involuntary manslaughter.
Judge: I hereby sentence you to 10 million sentences of 2 years of probation and 2 million sentences of 6 months in jail followed by 5 years probation. Due to the outrageous nature of your conduct, sentences are to be served consecutively. You should be out in time to watch the sun swallow the earth.

Delicious!!!!!!!

I mean look at the critism that most Europeans have over the U.S. ... it is too easy to get guns, there aren't enough laws to restrict buisnesses, taxes are too low, "hate speech" is not punished, health care should be nationalized and controlled by a central authority, etc., etc. They are not complaining for the most part that the U.S. restricts freedoms, they are complaining that the U.S. is too free and a "cowboy culture"

No.

Europe is complaining how freedom of press is killed. Europe is complaining how freedom of life is restricted by people being imprisoned for years without trial.

Europe is laughing when a chick flashing some nipple causes a national scandal, and frightened when secret mass surveillance projects and torture facilities do not.

Europe is complaining that corruption and ridiculous massive secrecy restricts freedom. Europe wants things to be managed transparently, so at least abuses can be exposed.

Oh, and Europe is complaining that America's freedom to become better is restricted by automatic labeling of any not-in-Fox-News observations or suggestions as "anti-american".

Washingtonpost.com's Security Fix blog has dug up an interesting quote from Sony CEO Howard Stringer way back in 2001 that presages this whole problem:

Sony CEO Howard Stringer, who kept the audience laughing throughout the night with a battery of quips, said, "Right now it would be possible for us, and I've often thought it would cheer me up to do it, you could dispatch a virus to anybody whose files contain us or Columbia records, and make them listen to four hours of Yanni ... but in the end we're going to have to get serious about encryption and digital-rights management and watermarking."

He goes on to say:

So we play defense on the one hand and offense on the other hand. And if it seems a little illogical it's only defending our turf."

"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"

You need to read "Sundown Towns", which describes and documents how black people were systematically prevented from moving into white neighborhoods in many cities and towns throughout the United States. Segregated housing was as much a "choice" as attending segregated schools.

...iven the closed speech society that exists over there, I'm not willing to claim that they've had no fatalities. They could have had dozens at this point, we'd never know.

How are those secret CIA prisons working out for you guys in the nice open US?

People in glass houses.

A blog entry that has the news
http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2005/1 1/calif_ny_lawsui.html

and a link to the court paper
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/technology/da ily/graphics/ca_complaint_110805.pdf

A blog entry that has the news
http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2005/1 1/calif_ny_lawsui.html

and a link to the court paper
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/technology/da ily/graphics/ca_complaint_110805.pdf

detailed at Washingtonpost.com's Security fix blog.:

From the article: "A class-action lawsuit has been filed on behalf of California consumers who may have been harmed by anti-piracy software installed by some Sony music CDs. A second, nationwide class-action lawsuit is expected to be filed against Sony in a New York court on Wednesday seeking relief for all U.S. consumers who have purchased any of the 20 music CDs in question.

The suit alleges that Sony's software violates at least three California statutes, including the "Consumer Legal Remedies Act," which governs unfair and/or deceptive trade acts; and the "Consumer Protection against Computer Spyware Act," which prohibits -- among other things -- software that takes control over the user's computer or misrepresents the user's ability or right to uninstall the program. The suit also alleges that Sony's actions violate the California Unfair Competition law, which allows public prosecutors and private citizens to file lawsuits to protect businesses and consumers from unfair business practice."


The Post also has a PDF of the California filing and suggests another nationwide class action will be filed in New York shortly.

detailed at Washingtonpost.com's Security fix blog.:

From the article: "A class-action lawsuit has been filed on behalf of California consumers who may have been harmed by anti-piracy software installed by some Sony music CDs. A second, nationwide class-action lawsuit is expected to be filed against Sony in a New York court on Wednesday seeking relief for all U.S. consumers who have purchased any of the 20 music CDs in question.

The suit alleges that Sony's software violates at least three California statutes, including the "Consumer Legal Remedies Act," which governs unfair and/or deceptive trade acts; and the "Consumer Protection against Computer Spyware Act," which prohibits -- among other things -- software that takes control over the user's computer or misrepresents the user's ability or right to uninstall the program. The suit also alleges that Sony's actions violate the California Unfair Competition law, which allows public prosecutors and private citizens to file lawsuits to protect businesses and consumers from unfair business practice."


The Post also has a PDF of the California filing and suggests another nationwide class action will be filed in New York shortly.

If you say anything critical of darwinian evolution around on /. - you'll oft be modded a troll, for example linking the fossils that appear to challenge the darwinian evolution timeline
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v18/i4/di nosaurs.asp
http://www.bible.ca/tracks/tracks.htm

Darwinian evolution is supposed to be a well grounded theory on origin, not a philosophy.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/20 05/05/01/evolutionary_war/

The rise of ID or creationism, can be seen as a challenge to the humanist/atheist adoption of darwinian evolution.

Merely giving a voice to ID supporters, can be dangerous to your career in the scientific community.
http://www.rsternberg.net/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2005/08/18/AR2005081801680.html
http://www.opinionjournal.com/taste/?id=110006220

There are arguements to be made in favor of teaching ID
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles.php?articl e_id=4761

I take a more dialectic approach, instead of one based on censorship or herd mentality.

Geneva conventions bar the use of maiming weapons, and one that would blind the enemy combatant is right out.

Since when has the US ever obeyed the Geneva convention?

It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation for the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes ... Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.

• Why is deprecated evidence for evolution spoon-fed to children alongside real, valid results? Why do we tolerate this? (Granted, we are finally starting to fix this one.)
• When honest questioners (Christians or not!) raise valid issues, they are not answered but instead accused of being creationists. Why do we tolerate this?
• In my high school physics class my teacher read aloud Bertrand Russell's essay, Why I am not a Christian. Why do we tolerate this?