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It's not everywhere yet. Been on an airplane lately? Been arrested for chewing on the subway? Welcome to anarcho-tyranny.

Violent crime is down - is that due to sweeping increases in police powers and curtailment of civil liberties or is it because of either (a) common sense policing or (b) demographic trends (young men commit most crimes - the number of young men is decreasing)?

Please, go read that. We'll wait.

Got all that? I didn't think so.

For those too sane to try that exercise, here's a representative sample:

(2) PHYSICAL SEARCH- Section 304(d)(1) of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1824(d)(1)) is amended by--

(A) striking `forty-five' and inserting `90';
(B) inserting `(A)' after `except that'; and
(C) inserting before the period the following: `, and (B) an order under this section for a physical search targeted against an agent of a foreign power as defined in section 101(b)(1)(A) may be for the period specified in the application or for 120 days, whichever is less'.

Say what you like about Michael Moore, he's got a point. That is a MESS. Fourty-five whats just became ninety whatevers? Would it not have been easier to read if they had just rewritten the entire phrase they're amending? It goes on and on like that, 402 pages of it, all of it modifying the existing code in these oblique ways. If you submitted a kernel patch like that, Linus would have rejected it out of hand!

Now, I'm not saying they did anything untoward in this machination. I don't know! What I do know is that they made a lot of hey when the Abu Gahrib story broke about everything they did being "100% legal". I don't doubt it! I bet they could enter my house without a search warrant or look at what I've checked out at the library without my knowledge too!

Maybe you're too young to remember the Cold War, but that was what we were told happened in the Soviet Union!

And yes, I will eat my hat and promptly admit I was wrong *IF* this election is monitored by the UN and when he loses the popular vote AGAIN he leaves quietly. Happily.

The first example that you could think of is Abu Ghraib, but from what I've read the incident was quite isolated, and it doesn't reflect American culture very well.

You clearly don't read much, or if you do, you spend a lot of time in the fiction section. Try reading some news. Here I'll help you out:

Israeli interrogators in Iraq

Terror defendant: U.S. interrogators threatened life

Memo Offered Justification for Use of Torture

Leaked Torture Memo: Full Text

Ignorance of the facts, however, may be (at least in the UK).

The same in the USA (and most modern places).

"Yes, I know it's illegal to shoot an unarmed, outnumbered man, but I didn't know he had no gun! That cellphone cuts a really menacing profile!"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A294 28-2004Jul31.html

yeah, washingtonpost.com had a breaking story about this more than three days ago.

yeah, washingtonpost.com had a breaking story about this more than three days ago.

You insensative clod!

Don't blame us DC residents for the politicans. See we like our violence, our sex and corruption, and our baseball like all good Americans. So leave us alone you colonial tyrant. No taxation without representation!

First, apart from Bush and Cheney, none of the administration needed to be elected. Heck, John Ashcroft lost to a dead man. It doesn't seem to matter.

Second, Bush and Cheney didn't win the popular vote either. They didn't need to.

Third, as the Supreme Court made clear last time, you don't even need to win a popular vote in the state to win its electoral college votes. It is up to each state to decide how to form its electoral college: most hold a popular vote and give the winner all their electoral college votes, some split the electoral college votes proportionally, but in principle, if a state decided to throw all popular votes into the sea and give all electoral college votes to the state government majority party, that's constitutional too.

Why does this qualify as a democracy?

And let's not forget that the US historically disenfranchised minorities, and even today disenfranchises entire categories (such as ex-convicts) who tend to be disproportionately minorities. Not because minorities are more criminal. Drug-possession is as common among whites as blacks but far more blacks are jailed for it.

So forgive me if I don't think these further perversions of democracy are going to matter hugely.

Seriously. Los Alamos has had TONS of problems. Remember the Chinese spying scandal under Clinton ? Los Alamos. Intrusion tests have resulted in attackers breaching the facility and leaving with a wheelbarrow filled with nuclear material. More recently, the Los Alamos lab has been losing Classified Removable Electronic Media left and right. Employees have had security badges stolen. Hell, CREM's have been found for sale with obvious confidential labels in nearby stores.

I'm far too lazy to get appropriate links for all of their issues. I've got some examples in a post I made yesterday, but those aren't Los Alamos specific. Why not peruse the summaries and madcap linkage from someplace like DefenseTech ? The vast majority of those articles detail the University of California's complete mismanagement of the Los Alamos facilities.

And 'Liberal Whacko' is a strange term to hurl at them. "Completely oblivious to security concerns".


--LordPixie

More Want to keep playing? Actually, just google for microsoft growth slowing and save me the time.

DOE is more than capable of doing this and have done so for many years. Admittedly there have been a few problems but it never started a real situation of calamatious proportions.

Last I checked, the DoE ran the Pantex nuclear weapons plant. The same site with some obscene safety issues. Accidentally drilling into the core of a nuclear device resulted in the evacuation of the entire plant. Securing a warhead with duct tape increased the chances of a flat out nuclear explosion. And that's ignoring the clichéd "OMG THREE MILE ISLAND" commentary.

+++Warning to any fool that thinks it's easy to steal radioactive material from one of these teams. You'll die twice before you get to pull your trigger once!+++

Perhaps you reached this conclusion because the security teams were cheating during their security drills ? Cheating. for twenty years. It's not too hard to look impenetrable when you know the exact building and wall where an attack will take place. A DoE whistleblower admitted to a 50% success rate for security tests. Special forces teams were able to penetrate Los Alamos and wander off with enough material to create a nuclear bomb. Even an freakin' journalist was able to sneak into Los Alamos. There are plenty of other issues raised over at the Project On Governmental Oversight. Again, that's ignoring all the major security issues with CREM's going on over the last month.

Now, you're absolutely right in the fact that we need to get that waste cleaned up. But thinking that the DoE, NNSA, or the US government on the whole is "more than capable" is bullshit. We're flirting with disaster. If we take the outlook that everything is fine and dandy, we're going to quickly hit the point where someone will cause a situation of calamatious proportions.


--LordPixie

The Bush government's fixation on Saddam is purely political, nastier dictators exist, as do greater threats to the US (N. Korea, for example).

So you don't consider Saddam planning attacks in the US a threat?

Additionally we know he had a relationship with our #1 enemy and directly funding terrorist attacks against our ally, Israel.

You can argue at what point it is judicious to go to war, but I fail to see how you can justify the action as "purely political".

I recently discovered AllOfMP3, a Russian music store, because I was trying to find music by Eva Cassidy online and neither iTunes or Napster carry her music.

This site offers pay by bandwidth download of digital music, $10(US) per 1GB, and even allows you to select the bitrate and format of your download (including MP3, Ogg Vorbis, WMA, etc).

I was a bit wary at first, and I carefully reviewed the legal info provided on the site. I was reassured by the fact that they accept PayPal and are PayPal verified among other payment methods, I decided to risk $10.

I have been greatly pleased with the results.

My questions for the Slashdot community are: Can you see any legal problems with using this site? If so what are they? This is by far the best deal I've seen in digital music, and seems to be legit as far as my understanding goes, so I keep looking for the catch. If there isn't one, well enjoy the music!

And yes I know... in Soviet Russia digital music plays you.

Orrin isn't the only RINO. One of the basic tenets of the Republican Party is that they favor 'smaller government'. In the past four years, the Republicans have lost the ability to taunt the democrats as the 'tax-and-spend liberals'. We now have a $500 trillion deficit and an entire new department in the government with tens of thousands of new federal employees (Homeland Security). Talk about beaureaucratic redundancy! We've now got the CIA, the FBI, and Homeland Security all working in the same field.

Another tenet they've left by the wayside is 'less government intrusion' in peoples' lives through fewer regulations. Well, it seems like regulations are bad when they concern big business, but if it has anything to do with the Bible, then the Republicans will spend countless days trying to pass laws (i.e. Ban on Gay Marriage).

On the plus side, the Republicans seem to be deftly wielding fear and it seems to be working well on controlling the majority of the American Public.

No, actually I'm one of the "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" types.

Sweet! The problem with providing specific examples of individuals whose "rights" have been violated is the very nature of the Patriot Act. The FBI can issue an NSL (National Security Letter) and conduct searches or gather information from ISPs and libraries, and anyone who receives an NSL is bound, by law, not to discuss it. The ACLU is challenging this, but they, too, are hampered by the gag-rule. The provision in the Patriot Act has been used; however, the total number of times it's been used and upon whom is classified. The only example I could find was at the ACLU website. Take it for what it's worth.

I put "rights" in quotes earlier because, while the Constitution guarantees many rights and implies others, the Patriot Act essentially removes those rights. Thus, once an NSL has been issued for you, you no longer have the rights you previously had. In this case, no one's rights have been violated because they lost those rights when the NSL was issued. Rather scary, actually.

Indeed.

Fortunately, Democrats have been listening to their base, and while network security may be a problem at the convetion, Some Democrats have been moving secret information the old-fashioned way:

In their pants.

Happily, they still have time to make sure that those who disagree with them will have to sit at the back of the bus:

Cement barriers, 8-foot-tall chain-link fencing, and heavy black netting have been installed around the protest zone outside the FleetCenter, angering protesters who say they will be penned in and closed off from Democratic National Convention delegates. Much of the area is located under abandoned elevated Green Line tracks that slope downward. The setup, which one netting installer called ''an internment camp," will force tall protesters at the southern end of the zone to lower their heads to avoid banging them on green metal girders.

The fact that this had to happen is scary enough.

The torture policy from August 2001 can be found here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/docu me nts/dojinterrogationmemo20020801.pdf

Well, I call bullshit on you. The staff memo says they're invalid. See it for yourself.

Microsoft, which has delayed Longhorn's rollout, has not said when it will be released as the successor to Windows XP, the current version of the personal-computer operating system. Several industry analysts have predicted introduction of Longhorn in 2006 or possibly 2007, which is when the antitrust settlement is scheduled to expire. - Washington Post Since Longhorn will be distributed after the terms of the antitrust agreement expire they can do whatever the hell they want. They can show one thing when in reality they mean to implement another. I am not saying thats what they are going to do, its just a possibility.

"Berkshire, on your behalf and mine, will send the Treasury $3.3 billion for tax on its 2003 income, a sum
equaling 2½% of the total income tax paid by all U.S. corporations in fiscal 2003. (In contrast, Berkshire's
market valuation is about 1% of the value of all American corporations.) Our payment will almost certainly
place us among our country's top ten taxpayers. Indeed, if only 540 taxpayers paid the amount
Berkshire will pay, no other individual or corporation would have to pay anything to Uncle Sam. That's
right: 290 million Americans and all other businesses would not have to pay a dime in income, social
security, excise or estate taxes to the federal government. (Here's the math: Federal tax receipts, including
social security receipts, in fiscal 2003 totaled $1.782 trillion and 540 "Berkshires," each paying $3.3
billion, would deliver the same $1.782 trillion.)
Our federal tax return for 2002 (2003 is not finalized), when we paid $1.75 billion, covered a mere
8,905 pages. As is required, we dutifully filed two copies of this return, creating a pile of paper seven feet
tall."

... "Corporate income taxes in fiscal 2003 accounted for 7.4% of all federal tax receipts, down from a
post-war peak of 32% in 1952. With one exception (1983), last year's percentage is the lowest recorded
since data was first published in 1934.
Even so, tax breaks for corporations (and their investors, particularly large ones) were a major part
of the Administration's 2002 and 2003 initiatives. If class warfare is being waged in America, my class is
clearly winning. Today, many large corporations - run by CEOs whose fiddle-playing talents make your
Chairman look like he is all thumbs - pay nothing close to the stated federal tax rate of 35%."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/long term/cult/unification/wtimes.htm/

Just google for "moonies" for some even juicier information.

washingtonpost.com first reported on the ICANN Site Finder report last Friday (July 9). Read the story here.

Since Bush has been in power the Geneva convention is more or less void

Well, considering that the Geneva conventions are limits of wartime behaviour, they have been more or less void since December 1941, which is the last time congress declared war.

a country has been overrun

Overrun by what?

the country is spending billions (more) on weapons

Wrong. Defense Spending is significantly lower than previous times of conflict, which is impressive considering that we are not fighting any single nation, but rather a philosophy that is present in many parts of the world.

Israel gets a "do whatever you like" card

US policy regarding Israel hasn't changed over the past 30 years. Why would you blame Bush for this?

rights have been taken away from citizens

And what "rights" would those be? The right to know if a Cell Phone network went down? (Hint: If your phone loses service, there is a good chance the network went down)

corporate america has been placed above the law

Besides the crooks who broke the law.

the VN was almost invalidated

The UN was invalidated because they failed to enforce their own resolutions for 13 years.

money for good causes is being withdrawn

Let me guess, a "good cause" is something that you agree with, right?

America, get yourself another president, _please_.

owlstead, get yourself an educated argument, _please_.

Since Bush has been in power the Geneva convention is more or less void

Well, considering that the Geneva conventions are limits of wartime behaviour, they have been more or less void since December 1941, which is the last time congress declared war.

a country has been overrun

Overrun by what?

the country is spending billions (more) on weapons

Wrong. Defense Spending is significantly lower than previous times of conflict, which is impressive considering that we are not fighting any single nation, but rather a philosophy that is present in many parts of the world.

Israel gets a "do whatever you like" card

US policy regarding Israel hasn't changed over the past 30 years. Why would you blame Bush for this?

rights have been taken away from citizens

And what "rights" would those be? The right to know if a Cell Phone network went down? (Hint: If your phone loses service, there is a good chance the network went down)

corporate america has been placed above the law

Besides the crooks who broke the law.

the VN was almost invalidated

The UN was invalidated because they failed to enforce their own resolutions for 13 years.

money for good causes is being withdrawn

Let me guess, a "good cause" is something that you agree with, right?

America, get yourself another president, _please_.

owlstead, get yourself an educated argument, _please_.

It's simple. Use The Washington Post. The archives remain free as long as you have a valid link....true, you can't search into the past, but for most website with proper uris, you can simply use a search engine, which will link to a blog, which will link to the article in question. Yes, you have to register, but that is what BugMeNot is for. Plus, the WaPo has Dana Milbank, one of the best reporters in the business!

Regarding intelligence failures:
Off the top of your head, tell me how many intelligence successes occur annually? No, don't go looking to the media (not even FoxNews...). No, don't even ask Congress.

Can't think of many, right?

By unofficial definition a true "intelligence success" will never be public knowledge. We, as the general public, have no idea of the staggeringly high number of times intelligence has saved our lives. Ironically, we know all too well a sickening amount of detail from such clusterf$%@s that led to 9/11, the U.S.S Cole bombing, etc.

If we had any clue as to how many "intelligence successes" have saved us from destruction/distress we would probably be scared to get out of bed. We should all be thankful that people are out there working to make sure we don't have to hide under the covers quaking in fear.

You wanted some sources? OK:

• Bureau of Labor and Statistics lists plenty of information on employment/unemployment. Take a look at the historical unemployment rates and whip out a calculator. For '92 to '00 I calculate unemployment to an average of 6.1% -- Nothing wrong with that. That's a very healthy unemployment rate and I couldn't complain, but when you compare that with the current rate quoted at 5.6%, a lot of complaints about the current administration's unemployment rate lose their ability to hold water.

• I see 214,000 jobs added last month. That's bad?

• As for the economic theory, I am a firm believer in Keynesian economics as well as the ideas of John Hicks.

• Bankrate.com has some great information and graphical representations of historical rates and economic indicators. Take a look and let me know how you feel about the current indicators?

• If you want a look at how other people are thanklessly putting their lives on the line for my safety and yours, and hence why they command my utmost respect and gratitude to the extent that I refuse to acknowledge intelligence failures, read Book Of Honor by Ted Gup.

Sorry, no references to anything on the Washington Times, FoxNews, the Washington Post, PBS.org, antiwar.com, or thenation.com. Call me crazy, but I like my data unbiased.

That's all for now.

1) Here is the Washington Post archive on how Clinton is involved in selling missile technology to red China. You will also remember that under Clinton Nuclear secrets got to China. There is so stuff about that there too.

2) Clinton did in fact purjur himself, which is a felony, and that is why he was impeached. It was not about the sex, although that is what he lied about.

3) Here is where you can find the recent Senate SIC report which says Bush didn't do anything wrong, that the CIA is run by lazy people, and that if they got faulty intelligence. It wasn't just the CIA, others (MI6 and others) said the same thing. Bush is not at fault.

The policy of "regieme change" in Iraq was set out by the Clinton Administration. Don;t forget all of the UN resolutions against Iraq. You, sir, should be ashamed of yourself. The facts are not on your side so you claime the president is stupid and things. He is not. Sure Daddy Bush was smarter, sure Reagan was 4x the man as "G-Dub." But democrats are pirates who want to steel from rich people and give to lazy people.

The problem here is the only body with the ability to fix this mess across the entire nation before the November election is Congress and they've already refused. So you are stuck tryng to fix it state by state.

There is a bill with more than a hundred sponsers that would require a paper trail in November but it is being sat on by the same people who wrote HAVA which is the bill that started this mess in the first place.

Here is the statement from the bipartisan representatives and senators that have bottled it up in committee.

It contains some disturbing statements, this one in particular:

"Most importantly, the proposals requiring a voter-verified paper record would force voters with disabilities to go back to using ballots that provide neither privacy nor independence, thereby subverting a hallmark of the HAVA legislation. There must be voter confidence in the accuracy of an electronic tally. However, the current proposals would do nothing to ensure greater trust in vote tabulations"

Not sure how they can claim a recountable paper trail, "would do nothing to ensure greater trust in vote tabulations".

They also want the same agency that is apparently responsible for the current mess to sit on the problem and do nothing in time for this election:

"Questions regarding voting systems security, as well as many others, need to be examined by the entity responsible for doing so under existing law, the Election Assistance Commission, before Congress begins imposing new requirements, just months before the 2004 presidential and congressional elections, that have not been fully considered. The security of voting technology is a non-partisan issue. We encourage you to allow HAVA to be implemented as enacted and provide those who are charged with ensuring the security of voting systems the time and flexibility needed to get the job done effectively. "

As if this whole situation wasn't disturbing enough this same commission is exploring give the Bush administration, and Homeland Security power to postpone the election in the event of a terrorist attack, especially if it looks like Bush might lose in its wake the same way the Spanish government did, if it becomes apparent he may not have made America safer.

> post and times are not liberal

Yes, they are.

Aren't you the lucky ducky?

The producers of the new PBS drama series "Cop Shop" say they're "enormously grateful" to the FCC for an "absurd" new list of words it demands not be used on television no way no how, and to the vice president of the United States for using one of those words on the floor of the U.S. Senate, because they have given people "at last a battle we can all understand -- the forces of dark versus light."

So American news sources weren't keeping anybody guessing. I just had to utterly dismantle your ignorant anti-American idiocy apart.

Sandia's intelligence lab converts business data into 3-D images

I know the taxpayers paid for it, but it always seams like it gets exclusivly [sic] licensed to some company for next to nothing then that company charges the people that paid for it in the first place a lot of money to use it.

You're a wisely cynical man.

In the light of the 9/11 Commission's report of the multiple failures of the CIA and FBI that allowed the terrorists to attack us in 2001, in the light of Sibel Edmonds's allegations that the FBI intentionally destroyed translations of intercepted terrorist conversations, in light of the Senate Intelligence Committee's report about systemic CIA failures to provide accurate intelligence about WMDs in Iraq, why am I less than thrilled to discover that Sandia National Laboratories' businesses?

When I further learn that "Sandia officials say tech firms or venture capitalists can use the lab on a per-request basis," I begin to understand that Sandia's Corporate Business Development and Partnerships aren't using my tax dollars to protect me, they're providing corporate welfare by dong the Research and Development that business wants but doesn't want to pay for.

Remember, these are the same businesses that vociferously object to government programs that might compete with them, whether that's sponsorship of Open Source Software or rural electric cooperatives or IRS software that might be efficient enough to cost H&R Block. These are the same corporations that got a provision added to the Medicare Prescription Drug Bill to prevent the government from getting discounts by buying those drugs in bulk, but which profit from research funded by the National Institutes of Health.

These are the same corporations that want Ashcroft's Department of Justice to stop worrying so much about fixing the FBI's failures, so it can spend government time -- and your money -- prosecuting civil -- civil, not criminal -- suits against file traders under the PIRATE Act on behalf of those corporations. If you need to sue a corporation, you're on your own; maybe you'll get some coupons out of a class action suit. But if the corporation wants to sue you, they get the assistance of top government lawyers and FBI agents packing guns and warrants.

And this just after the U.S. House passed the biggest corporate tax cuts in twenty years, because existing direct subsidies -- or less politely, corporate welfare -- will no longer be permitted under World Trade Organization rules. Even House Republicans admit this tax cut "is riddled with special-interest provisions that would further complicate the tax code, send jobs overseas and worsen a federal deficit already at record highs."

Does anyone really expect Sandia's going to release the source code to the data mining software to us, the citizens who have to pay for it?

Be proud, Americans, of how fat your labor makes your corporate masters! What a joy it is to serve them! It is your privilege to work long hours and pay high taxes so your masters can buy their yachts -- and buy the laws that enslave you.

America, Of the People, By the People, for the Pe^H^H Corporations

Check out this bit from the Duchess of Ettiquette that explains why the invention of the telephone is rude in and of itself.

Now, with the Republicans abandoning fiscal conservatism (cf. latest budget deficit numbers), it's hard to find much of anything left to like about them anymore.

Agreed. Republicans used to aspire to be real conservatives, which would:

1. Defend the bill of rights. The entire thing, not just ammendment 2.
2. Prefer local over remote governance.
3. Defend the little guy against goverment excess.
4. Excercise caution as regards foreign entanglement and "adventures".
5. Practice fiscal restraint.

The republican party doesn't stand for any of these things. Can anyone disagree? The modern republican party is far too cozy with mega-business and the religious-right. Consider what Barry Goldwater would think ( his most famous speech ) of all this.

How many republicans crossed over in the vote? That would be one measure of the number of real conservatives still around.

Well citizens cannot be kept there without just cause. The detainees (the few that are left) are "Enemy Combatants".

Well, in point of fact, until the supreme court ruling the other day, they essentially could, insofar as the determination was left up to the executive with no judicial oversight. Thankfully, that has been remedied.

They eat well, have a roof over their heads and are unable to participate in terrorist organizations. I dont fully agree with their detention, but it could be worse, they might have just been shot instead of captured.

I certainly don't know for a fact that what you're saying is untrue (it may well be correct), but I don't see how we can be sure. We're talking about people who were held incommunicado (at least until now) without any independant oversight (whether that would be a good idea is a different question). Furthermore, denying people proper sleep, exposing them to extreme temperatures, and giving them "less paletable food" were authorized forms of interogation, according to the Washington Post. So, while it's true (as far as anyone knows) that they're not getting electro-genital torture or something, let's not pretend they are nice and comfy. They are being treated with a lower level of respect and comfort than either domestic criminals or POWs.

Abu Ghraib prisoners were abused, not tortured like they were when Saddam was in power. Their abusers should and will be punished. Their is a fine line between abuse and torture.

No, they did not live up to Saddam, but many of the things they did are considered unacceptable forms of coersion by the US military, because they are too close to "torture" as seen under international law. Some of the things done clearly weren't torture, but others may qualify depending on what definition you use. It is not clear.

And who monitors them? Seriously, these days with all sorts of corruption coming to light in business and government, I wouldn't be surprised to find out that some of these "Standards and Practices guys" have ties to the network execs or show owners.

Perhaps this is a test run, to see what the audience will eat up... a quick search on google turned up nothing on these "standards" guys.

I posted this as an Ask Slashdot but it was rejected. Just thought I'd throw it out for anyone looking for good digital music dirt cheap. This seemed an appropriate place.

I recently discovered AllOfMP3, a Russian music store, because I was trying to find music by Eva Cassidy online and neither iTunes or Napster carry her music.

This site offers pay by bandwidth download of digital music, $10(US) per 1GB, and even allows you to select the bitrate and format of your download (including MP3, Ogg Vorbis, WMA, etc). I was a bit wary at first, and I carefully reviewed the legal info provided on the site. I was reassured by the fact that they accept PayPal and are PayPal verified among other payment methods, I decided to risk $10. I have been greatly pleased with the results.

My questions for the Slashdot community are: Are there any legal issues I could run into using this site? If so what are they?

This is by far the best deal I've seen in digital music, so I keep looking for the catch. If there isn't one, well enjoy the music! And yes I know ... in Soviet Russia digital music plays you.

I'm just going to refer you to your original comment:

Oh, you mean the way he's misappropriated Bradbury's title and is getting filthy stinking rich?

I just disagree that this is a perfectly legitimate thing to do over the objections of the original author. Moore is saying something about the situation portrayed in his movie, and is employing Bradbury's title to re-enforce/illustrate that. Bradbury is saying, in effect.. Hey, I wrote that book, and I know what I meant, and you are misusing my title. Whether that's because Moore has pressed it into service in his political agenda, or because he thinks Moore's film is a steaming pile of crap from an artistic point of view and would prefer that his title not be dragged through it, or even if it is a money issue, I don't think it makes much difference.

This is the crux of the matter. Bradbury, in publishing Fahrenheit 451, placed a packaged set of ideas into the public discourse. However invalid Moore's comparisons, he has every right-- morally and ethically-- to refer to those ideas, even to do so in the most convenient way, which is by invoking the title under which they were presented and by which they are most easily identified. It is simply unreasonable for Bradbury or anyone else to cry foul over the fact of the title's adaptation.

What is reasonable is to argue that the comparison is invalid and the use of the title sensationalist and unsupported. But that's not Bradbury's stated objection, and it wasn't yours until just now:

"Michael Moore is a dumb [expletive], that's what I think," Bradbury told the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter during a phone interview from Los Angeles. "He stole my title and changed the numbers without ever asking my permission."

Nothing illegal is going on. Bradbury may even be completely wrong, whatever he thinks. But it just seems really peculiar to me that the same guy who is giving deference to a book refuses to take seriously the wishes of its author. It just isn't very gentlemanly. Moore has, in my mind, shown acute willingness to make his point at all costs, and this is just another example of that.

Moore isn't "giving deference" to Fahrenheit 451, he's using it. My argument is that his use is legitimate, in that it refers to the ideas in the book for the purpose of making a statement. That's so common in conversation and in literature that we have a word for it: "allusion".

Your final point seems to be that Moore behaves like a jackass, and that ignoring the wishes of Bradbury in this matter is more evidence of that. All I can say is that I agree with the first half of that statement, but not the second. It's Bradbury who's behaving like a jackass here, by essentially saying "it's morally wrong for you to allude to my work in order to better convey yours." How is that a reasonable moral argument?

They're sending it to Africa because China is full.

I'm not saying their current process is great but it worked in the last election up to the point that external factors like Fox news and the supreme court interfered otherwise they would of done the recounts, announced Gore the winner and it wouldn't of been such a fiasco.

According to this story, (semi-broken link -- the story is probably the most extensive study of the Florida 2000 vote undertaken), the recounts that were stopped by the US Supreme Court would have still put Bush ahead of Gore. What Gore needed to do in order to achieve the 'win' condition was to get all of the ballots in Florida recounted. Unfortunately for Gore, he did not request this.

Also, in retrospect, he should not have delayed Katherine Harris's certifying of the vote. While he succeeded at this, it gained him practically nothing (except some time to plan out the next legal moves) and cost him about 2 weeks.. which was a huge cost, given that he only had about 5 - 6 weeks to work with.

I should have known from my overflowing inbox that my story had gotten posted on Slashdot...

Well, after reading all 118 e-mails to date and re-reading the column itself, I'd like to address the questions that have come up about it. I'll start by addressing the contention that I am some sort of shill for Microsoft: Please read a few of my recent columns and tell me if you think I'm doing any favors to the good people in Redmond.

Second, the "why didn't you cover distribution X, Y and Z?" question. Since there are only so many hours in the day, I decided I'd only look at distros using the 2.6 kernel; I'd also only look at the distributions readers might already recognize--either by seeing them for sale in computer stores, or by seeing books about them in bookstores.

Third, my comment about NTFS disk partitioning. Throw all the rotten tomatoes at me that you want, because I got this wrong; SuSE and Mandrake can resize NTFS partitions, although Fedora and many other distros cannot. (Granted, there are apparently a few bugs in their implentation of this, but still...)

Fourth, the "what's so hard about using the command line?" gripe. Command-line interfaces have gone out of style in consumer operating systems for Very Sound Reasons. They're not remotely "discoverable"--unlike a row of menus or toolbar icons, a blank command-line prompt has no way of telling you what you *can* do. They're unforgiving--one typo in the command and it won't work.

Fifth, my complaints about the problems of installing software in Linux: The results I reported came from my attempts to install software as most Windows refugees might: by downloading fairly well-known applications (for instance, Firefox and AbiWord) and double-clicking them once they had landed on my desktop.

I went on to note that there are automated package-installers, then focused on Fedora's in particular (I did give Cobind's YumGUI a whirl too, but since that's a) in beta and b) not included with Fedora, I can't consider that the answer). I could have discussed Mandrake's rpmDrake instead, in which case I would have criticized the way it's buried four menus deep (will any new user even think to look under the "Packaging" sub-menu?). I also could have used SuSE's YAST2 as an example, in which case I would have had to note how this was smart enough to alert me of dependency issues while installing downloaded SuSE RPMs, but not smart enough to fix them automatically.

If anybody's actually read this far, I'd add that my goal in this column was to try to assess these three releases not as a Linux expert might find them, but as somebody moving from Windows might find them. I.e., the vast bulk of the potential user base.

I personally found all three of these distributions quite usable once set up properly--certainly much more so than the versions of SuSE, Mandrake and Lycoris that I reviewed two years ago, or the Red Hat release I tried out in late 2002--but that doesn't mean that, say, my brother or my mom would put up with the initial setup work. And I'd be lying to readers if I didn't tell them that.

I should have known from my overflowing inbox that my story had gotten posted on Slashdot...

Well, after reading all 118 e-mails to date and re-reading the column itself, I'd like to address the questions that have come up about it. I'll start by addressing the contention that I am some sort of shill for Microsoft: Please read a few of my recent columns and tell me if you think I'm doing any favors to the good people in Redmond.

Second, the "why didn't you cover distribution X, Y and Z?" question. Since there are only so many hours in the day, I decided I'd only look at distros using the 2.6 kernel; I'd also only look at the distributions readers might already recognize--either by seeing them for sale in computer stores, or by seeing books about them in bookstores.

Third, my comment about NTFS disk partitioning. Throw all the rotten tomatoes at me that you want, because I got this wrong; SuSE and Mandrake can resize NTFS partitions, although Fedora and many other distros cannot. (Granted, there are apparently a few bugs in their implentation of this, but still...)

Fourth, the "what's so hard about using the command line?" gripe. Command-line interfaces have gone out of style in consumer operating systems for Very Sound Reasons. They're not remotely "discoverable"--unlike a row of menus or toolbar icons, a blank command-line prompt has no way of telling you what you *can* do. They're unforgiving--one typo in the command and it won't work.

Fifth, my complaints about the problems of installing software in Linux: The results I reported came from my attempts to install software as most Windows refugees might: by downloading fairly well-known applications (for instance, Firefox and AbiWord) and double-clicking them once they had landed on my desktop.

I went on to note that there are automated package-installers, then focused on Fedora's in particular (I did give Cobind's YumGUI a whirl too, but since that's a) in beta and b) not included with Fedora, I can't consider that the answer). I could have discussed Mandrake's rpmDrake instead, in which case I would have criticized the way it's buried four menus deep (will any new user even think to look under the "Packaging" sub-menu?). I also could have used SuSE's YAST2 as an example, in which case I would have had to note how this was smart enough to alert me of dependency issues while installing downloaded SuSE RPMs, but not smart enough to fix them automatically.

If anybody's actually read this far, I'd add that my goal in this column was to try to assess these three releases not as a Linux expert might find them, but as somebody moving from Windows might find them. I.e., the vast bulk of the potential user base.

I personally found all three of these distributions quite usable once set up properly--certainly much more so than the versions of SuSE, Mandrake and Lycoris that I reviewed two years ago, or the Red Hat release I tried out in late 2002--but that doesn't mean that, say, my brother or my mom would put up with the initial setup work. And I'd be lying to readers if I didn't tell them that.

I should have known from my overflowing inbox that my story had gotten posted on Slashdot...

Well, after reading all 118 e-mails to date and re-reading the column itself, I'd like to address the questions that have come up about it. I'll start by addressing the contention that I am some sort of shill for Microsoft: Please read a few of my recent columns and tell me if you think I'm doing any favors to the good people in Redmond.

Second, the "why didn't you cover distribution X, Y and Z?" question. Since there are only so many hours in the day, I decided I'd only look at distros using the 2.6 kernel; I'd also only look at the distributions readers might already recognize--either by seeing them for sale in computer stores, or by seeing books about them in bookstores.

Third, my comment about NTFS disk partitioning. Throw all the rotten tomatoes at me that you want, because I got this wrong; SuSE and Mandrake can resize NTFS partitions, although Fedora and many other distros cannot. (Granted, there are apparently a few bugs in their implentation of this, but still...)

Fourth, the "what's so hard about using the command line?" gripe. Command-line interfaces have gone out of style in consumer operating systems for Very Sound Reasons. They're not remotely "discoverable"--unlike a row of menus or toolbar icons, a blank command-line prompt has no way of telling you what you *can* do. They're unforgiving--one typo in the command and it won't work.

Fifth, my complaints about the problems of installing software in Linux: The results I reported came from my attempts to install software as most Windows refugees might: by downloading fairly well-known applications (for instance, Firefox and AbiWord) and double-clicking them once they had landed on my desktop.

I went on to note that there are automated package-installers, then focused on Fedora's in particular (I did give Cobind's YumGUI a whirl too, but since that's a) in beta and b) not included with Fedora, I can't consider that the answer). I could have discussed Mandrake's rpmDrake instead, in which case I would have criticized the way it's buried four menus deep (will any new user even think to look under the "Packaging" sub-menu?). I also could have used SuSE's YAST2 as an example, in which case I would have had to note how this was smart enough to alert me of dependency issues while installing downloaded SuSE RPMs, but not smart enough to fix them automatically.

If anybody's actually read this far, I'd add that my goal in this column was to try to assess these three releases not as a Linux expert might find them, but as somebody moving from Windows might find them. I.e., the vast bulk of the potential user base.

I personally found all three of these distributions quite usable once set up properly--certainly much more so than the versions of SuSE, Mandrake and Lycoris that I reviewed two years ago, or the Red Hat release I tried out in late 2002--but that doesn't mean that, say, my brother or my mom would put up with the initial setup work. And I'd be lying to readers if I didn't tell them that.

I should have known from my overflowing inbox that my story had gotten posted on Slashdot...

Well, after reading all 118 e-mails to date and re-reading the column itself, I'd like to address the questions that have come up about it. I'll start by addressing the contention that I am some sort of shill for Microsoft: Please read a few of my recent columns and tell me if you think I'm doing any favors to the good people in Redmond.

Second, the "why didn't you cover distribution X, Y and Z?" question. Since there are only so many hours in the day, I decided I'd only look at distros using the 2.6 kernel; I'd also only look at the distributions readers might already recognize--either by seeing them for sale in computer stores, or by seeing books about them in bookstores.

Third, my comment about NTFS disk partitioning. Throw all the rotten tomatoes at me that you want, because I got this wrong; SuSE and Mandrake can resize NTFS partitions, although Fedora and many other distros cannot. (Granted, there are apparently a few bugs in their implentation of this, but still...)

Fourth, the "what's so hard about using the command line?" gripe. Command-line interfaces have gone out of style in consumer operating systems for Very Sound Reasons. They're not remotely "discoverable"--unlike a row of menus or toolbar icons, a blank command-line prompt has no way of telling you what you *can* do. They're unforgiving--one typo in the command and it won't work.

Fifth, my complaints about the problems of installing software in Linux: The results I reported came from my attempts to install software as most Windows refugees might: by downloading fairly well-known applications (for instance, Firefox and AbiWord) and double-clicking them once they had landed on my desktop.

I went on to note that there are automated package-installers, then focused on Fedora's in particular (I did give Cobind's YumGUI a whirl too, but since that's a) in beta and b) not included with Fedora, I can't consider that the answer). I could have discussed Mandrake's rpmDrake instead, in which case I would have criticized the way it's buried four menus deep (will any new user even think to look under the "Packaging" sub-menu?). I also could have used SuSE's YAST2 as an example, in which case I would have had to note how this was smart enough to alert me of dependency issues while installing downloaded SuSE RPMs, but not smart enough to fix them automatically.

If anybody's actually read this far, I'd add that my goal in this column was to try to assess these three releases not as a Linux expert might find them, but as somebody moving from Windows might find them. I.e., the vast bulk of the potential user base.

I personally found all three of these distributions quite usable once set up properly--certainly much more so than the versions of SuSE, Mandrake and Lycoris that I reviewed two years ago, or the Red Hat release I tried out in late 2002--but that doesn't mean that, say, my brother or my mom would put up with the initial setup work. And I'd be lying to readers if I didn't tell them that.

I should have known from my overflowing inbox that my story had gotten posted on Slashdot...

Well, after reading all 118 e-mails to date and re-reading the column itself, I'd like to address the questions that have come up about it. I'll start by addressing the contention that I am some sort of shill for Microsoft: Please read a few of my recent columns and tell me if you think I'm doing any favors to the good people in Redmond.

Second, the "why didn't you cover distribution X, Y and Z?" question. Since there are only so many hours in the day, I decided I'd only look at distros using the 2.6 kernel; I'd also only look at the distributions readers might already recognize--either by seeing them for sale in computer stores, or by seeing books about them in bookstores.

Third, my comment about NTFS disk partitioning. Throw all the rotten tomatoes at me that you want, because I got this wrong; SuSE and Mandrake can resize NTFS partitions, although Fedora and many other distros cannot. (Granted, there are apparently a few bugs in their implentation of this, but still...)

Fourth, the "what's so hard about using the command line?" gripe. Command-line interfaces have gone out of style in consumer operating systems for Very Sound Reasons. They're not remotely "discoverable"--unlike a row of menus or toolbar icons, a blank command-line prompt has no way of telling you what you *can* do. They're unforgiving--one typo in the command and it won't work.

Fifth, my complaints about the problems of installing software in Linux: The results I reported came from my attempts to install software as most Windows refugees might: by downloading fairly well-known applications (for instance, Firefox and AbiWord) and double-clicking them once they had landed on my desktop.

I went on to note that there are automated package-installers, then focused on Fedora's in particular (I did give Cobind's YumGUI a whirl too, but since that's a) in beta and b) not included with Fedora, I can't consider that the answer). I could have discussed Mandrake's rpmDrake instead, in which case I would have criticized the way it's buried four menus deep (will any new user even think to look under the "Packaging" sub-menu?). I also could have used SuSE's YAST2 as an example, in which case I would have had to note how this was smart enough to alert me of dependency issues while installing downloaded SuSE RPMs, but not smart enough to fix them automatically.

If anybody's actually read this far, I'd add that my goal in this column was to try to assess these three releases not as a Linux expert might find them, but as somebody moving from Windows might find them. I.e., the vast bulk of the potential user base.

I personally found all three of these distributions quite usable once set up properly--certainly much more so than the versions of SuSE, Mandrake and Lycoris that I reviewed two years ago, or the Red Hat release I tried out in late 2002--but that doesn't mean that, say, my brother or my mom would put up with the initial setup work. And I'd be lying to readers if I didn't tell them that.

Powerful oil interests influencing non-Bush Administration White House? Entirely probable. However, the Taliban didn't go to the White House. They went to Texas. Does it erase the fact that Bush's friends had a powerful interest in a pipeline through Afghanistan? Nope, it confirms it. And, Unocal winning the contract from the Taliban is history, not speculation. Even so, Clinton wouldn't recognize the Taliban as a legitimate government, and so the pipeline plans languished, the project (perhaps with different players) on hold until Bush took over. At the very least, Moore provides not only reference but footage. You can do the same.

The pipeline was never built and probably never will be.

Again, your sources? I would say they are out of date, or at worst incorrect.

So, you are mis-informed. Hmmm. It seems people are getting the wrong impressions from this factual movie. How could that be?

Well, you certainly won't get the facts from the Faux News Channel. Try reliable news sources for facts about the pipeline you claim will never will be built.

Unocal's reasons for abandoning the project doesn't necessarily mean there weren't reasons for pursuing it. The fact they did abandon it, means they were pursuing it up to that point. Those reasons may have born fruit as the West's invasion of Afghanistan. It just means that after the damage has been done, making certain factors apparent, a new perception of viability has replaced an old one. New calculations have been made, and it may no longer be considered worth the trouble it once was by certain parties. It doesn't mean that other partners haven't benefited from the leverage pushed by Western partners, even though the West may have done all the work and damage. And, it also doesn't mean the Western partners won't be back to reap what they sowed at a later time when the heat is off, and Moore or others like him have been dissappeared.

= 9J =

Of course the party machines of Nixon and Kennedy were obviously guilty of ballot stuffing. Kennedy had the better stuffers though -- "Thanks, Mayor Daley!". Frankly, I don't think we've ever had 100% honest national elections, but we've only had the technology and information structure to demonstrate it, in a timely manner, in the last 30 years. Landslides are the only things that have kept the vote roughly correct (which you are right, occur more often... though with an electronic system, larger numbers of centralized servers could be compromised depending on how crappy the systems are set up).

OTOH, with the Dems pulling the popular vote and the GOP pulling the strategic/electoral vote, we could still have many close elections in the near future.

-l

Interesting time to publish this - right between last week's IIS/IE multiple exploits and this week's Evaman Worm outbreak.

Now that CERT and the Dept. of Homeland Security both recommend consumers abandon Intenet Explorer, can we get them to recommend dropping Outlook Express?