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This is a bad thing since experience working at Fox news does not exactly enhance your resume when applying for a job with the real media

So much for this theory:

Miller hired by CNBC

[Ailes] was put in charge of the news operation for the sole purpose of slanting the news to the extreme right.

Extreme right, like Nazi Germany? Please. That's what we regularly see Susan Estrich, Davis Korn, Paul Krugman, and scores of other libs on FNC?

What notable conservatives are on CNN, except anti-war paleocon Bob Novak? How about ABC, whose only foriegn policy "experts" are from the Carter or Clinton administration, or from the leftie Brookings Institution?

Nice link to the far-left Salon.com, BTW. Nice story, which calls ABC "objective." In a recent poll, Peter Jennings was called the most anti-war reporter in all of American news.

ABC News admits to excessively negative Iraq coverage

The problem is that its core democratic of poor middle aged southern white racist men do not have much in the way of buying power. Advertisers much prefer to reach 18-35 audiences, gays, professionals, etc. in short pretty much everyone who is unlikely to watch Fox. In fact advertising on Fox News actually trades at a discount to other broadcasts reaching the same demographic because advertisers know that many of the demographics they do want are actually less likely to buy a product they see advertised on a channel they associate with biggotry.

You fail to provide a link to this claim of FNC's core demo, because it has no basis in fact. Why does FNC constantly run endless home refi adds? For all those poor southerners to refi their trailers? LOL! First time I've ever heard libs call Republicans "poor!" Hilarious. I thought we were rich guys who wanted tax cuts?

You are flat-out wrong. The FNC demo is better than CNN's; it is popular with young republican YUPPIEs. Newscorp is kicking a$$, and CNN is in the dumper financially, in case you haven't checked recently, if ever.

Although a typical liberal refrain is labeling conservatives "bigots" (although they often misspell it), it's an insulting, inaccurate troll, and your post should be rated as such.

You libs are only about 17-20% of the population, compared to about 34% conservative and the rest moderate (see Gallup - sorry, but their older polls require subscription).

Fox news will flip flop to the left.

Sorry, that (19%) demo is already filled by CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, AP, Reuters, NPR...not enough libs left to go around, LOL!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A448 98-2003Oct30.html

#1 job is... Student! (Hey, I fit both of those!)

This was in a paper "Voices from the Pagan Census: A National Survey of Witches and Neo-Pagans in the United States".

My reference can be validated via the Washington Post Here

~D

#1 job is... Student! (Hey, I fit both of those!)

This was in a paper "Voices from the Pagan Census: A National Survey of Witches and Neo-Pagans in the United States".

My reference can be validated via the Washington Post Here

~D

Today the Washington Post ran this comment from the creators of The Simpsons:

Matt was being satirical and certainly there was never any issue between the show and Fox News. We regret any confusion.

Now I'm curious: I don't watch Fox news (or any television news, for that matter) so I don't really have a dog in this hunt. But for all you who piled on Fox news and their viewers in this thread, do you now feel a little sheepish? Does it suggest maybe you are a little quick to believe things you believe *should* be true? Or do you just shrug it off?

They took 3 polls with 3334 respondents, gathering data on three misperceptions about the Iraq war
(1) Evidence found for link between Iraq and Al Queda
(2) Evidence found of WMDs in Iraq
(3) Positive world opinion about Iraq war

News_source______FOX_____CBS_____ABC_____NBC_____ CNN___Print_____NPR/
_________________________________________________ _____Sources____PBS

0_misperceptions_20%_____30%_____39%_____45%_____ 45%_____53%_____77%
1_or_more
misperceptions___80______71______61______55______ 55______47______23

Yep, you read that right; fully 80% of Faux watchers had at least 1 of the misperceptions; fully 77% of the NPR/PBS crowd had zero. Wow!

They also attempted to control for demographic variations in the audience. Here's what they say (end of P.15)

Looking just at Republicans, the average rate for the three key misperceptions was 43%. For Republican Fox viewers, however the average rate was 54% while for Republicans who get their news from PBS- NPR the average rate is 32%. This same pattern obtains with Democrats and independents.

Misperceptions According to Level of Attention to News
While it would seem that misperceptions are derived from a failure to pay attention to the news, overall, those who pay greater attention to the news are no less likely to have misperceptions. Among those who primarily watch Fox, those who pay more attention are more likely to have misperceptions. Only those who mostly get their news from print media, and to some extent those who primarily watch CNN, have fewer misperceptions as they pay more attention.

This study was commented on in the wash post seattle times twin cities and other places

The one place you I can guarentee you won't find it is fox news!

Friends, Congress is debating a bill to permanently extend the federal ban on taxing Internet access -- like DSL, cable ISP etc. Several states can actually tax these services under a grandfather clause in the original moratorium. The new bill would ban access taxes everywhere.

This is NOT about sales taxes. That's a whole other debate. If you want to know more about it, go here.

Wasn't Bill Gates Bashing outlook just last week?

I think he called it clunky. Just a thought...

It is cold here in the winter, but then we take revenge in the summer by basking half-nude and usually slightly sloshed in the many public parks. Yes, we are allowed to carry, and even drink, alcohol in public here. Ah, the joys of socialism ;)

It is a spiritual enemy that will only be defeated if we come against them in the name of Jesus and pray for this nation and for our leaders.

It is a demonic presence ... that God revealed to me as the enemy.

We should invade immediately

I always find it interesting when Slashdot links to everyone, but the actual source. The Washington Post, which broke the story has an article as well as a followup on how the ISS crew reacted to the news. The reporter also gave an interview.

I always find it interesting when Slashdot links to everyone, but the actual source. The Washington Post, which broke the story has an article as well as a followup on how the ISS crew reacted to the news. The reporter also gave an interview.

I always find it interesting when Slashdot links to everyone, but the actual source. The Washington Post, which broke the story has an article as well as a followup on how the ISS crew reacted to the news. The reporter also gave an interview.

After reading about this in the Washington Post, where they noted that only e-mail providers or government entities could bring suit, I decided to look up the actuall bill to see if I, as a private e-mail administrator, could bring an action against someone under this bill. The text in question, however, said only "A provider of Internet access service adversely affected" could bring action. So I wrote my Senators to find out if they meant this to be only those who provide actual ISP service, or if people like me who run private e-mail servers could bring complaints. Should be interesting to find out what they say.

After reading about this in the Washington Post, where they noted that only e-mail providers or government entities could bring suit, I decided to look up the actuall bill to see if I, as a private e-mail administrator, could bring an action against someone under this bill. The text in question, however, said only "A provider of Internet access service adversely affected" could bring action. So I wrote my Senators to find out if they meant this to be only those who provide actual ISP service, or if people like me who run private e-mail servers could bring complaints. Should be interesting to find out what they say.

1. Preemption of state anti-spam laws.

2. Individual right of civil action against spammers is expressly denied.

I'm not sure why, but a couple of links were removed from the edited post. I haven't yet used MS Office 2003, so I'm not in a position to say whether or not the PC World review 'sums things up pretty well' (not my words) or not. Some of the other edits do clarify, however. As for the "spectacular-conglomeration dept.", if that referred to this post, a tip of the hat to simoniker.

For anyone who cares, here's how it looked as submitted, with an additional Google link for PC Pro article to bypass their registration page. The interesting thing is that PC Pro changed the headline which was definitive about shutting out Macs to something less than absolute.

The first users of MS Office 2003 are weighing in and the response is decidedly mixed. The new Outlook has received a favorable response but the mantra seems to be there's little reason to upgrade unless you absolutely need the new features. Microsoft probably heard this in beta trials and has adopted the curious strategy of denigrating previous versions of Office as "too hard to find things" and having a "clunky" interface. Meanwhile, Bill Gates dismissed the open source competition. One of the new features - self-destructing documents - seems to have caused some confusion because 'Microsoft says the new feature is not designed to remove all traces of a file' and MS spokesman Mike Pryke-Smith says, "The message will still be in various places." E-mails will not self-destruct. Another problem is the permissions technology called Information Rights Management that will shut out Mac users (Google link). PC World has a long and detailed review of Microsoft Office 2003 (single-page).

I'm not sure why, but a couple of links were removed from the edited post. I haven't yet used MS Office 2003, so I'm not in a position to say whether or not the PC World review 'sums things up pretty well' (not my words) or not. Some of the other edits do clarify, however. As for the "spectacular-conglomeration dept.", if that referred to this post, a tip of the hat to simoniker.

For anyone who cares, here's how it looked as submitted, with an additional Google link for PC Pro article to bypass their registration page. The interesting thing is that PC Pro changed the headline which was definitive about shutting out Macs to something less than absolute.

The first users of MS Office 2003 are weighing in and the response is decidedly mixed. The new Outlook has received a favorable response but the mantra seems to be there's little reason to upgrade unless you absolutely need the new features. Microsoft probably heard this in beta trials and has adopted the curious strategy of denigrating previous versions of Office as "too hard to find things" and having a "clunky" interface. Meanwhile, Bill Gates dismissed the open source competition. One of the new features - self-destructing documents - seems to have caused some confusion because 'Microsoft says the new feature is not designed to remove all traces of a file' and MS spokesman Mike Pryke-Smith says, "The message will still be in various places." E-mails will not self-destruct. Another problem is the permissions technology called Information Rights Management that will shut out Mac users (Google link). PC World has a long and detailed review of Microsoft Office 2003 (single-page).

While version 3 provides many compelling new features, some customers will wish to continue to use version 2.1.

Today's Washington Post reports that the major automakers are abandoning their electric car research programs, putting all their eggs into development of hybrids and hydrogen fuel cells.

you cannot name one lie the president told

Wrong. I can, and I will.

Anything similar to the tornado in a can?

Terrorism is only vaguely connected to religion. Most terrorism has political/ideologist motivations; religion is dragged in by the hairs later on. Most terrorism starts as a struggle for land or against conceived opression. It's advantagous for terrorists to play the religious card because they can mobilize much broader support this way than by just advertizing their radical political ideas.

By the way, Bush is doing a great job of making terrorism into a religious issue right now by dissing Muslim fundamentalists abroad, while keeping quiet about Christian fundamentalist generals saying stupid and dangerous things back home.

• It's not like you can use corn for anything else, is it ? - like feeding the starving millions in the third world.

Your title wouldn't perhaps be referring to US sugar tariffs, which artificially inflate the price of suger to protect domestic producers, at the expense of making sugar and sugar related products more expensive in the US by up to a factor of 10, not to mention destroying other countries local economies, and denying the laws of economics that state the most efficient solution is to produce goods in places that enjoy a relative (key word) advantage?

The only conceivable reason that the Chinese (which includes the people in Taiwan province and Hong Kong) are developing their space program is to advance their military technology and their special brand of nationalism, which is based on race. (Another name for this nationalism is fascism.)

In addition, there is a moral crisis in China. According to "China Detains Health Official for Publicizing AIDS Coverup", the Chinese arrested (and possibly tortured) a person for revealing that Chinese officials had attempted to sell AIDS-tainted blood products to Americans in the USA. Further, the Chinese still practice female infanticide and abortions targetting female fetuses. The ratio of male babies to female babies is 1.15 and has resulted in a dire shortage of marriage-age females. Responding to this shortage, Chinese men resort to kidnapping Vietnamese women to force them into marriage. When they try to escape, the men cut their achilles tendon, according to the "Wall Street Journal" (1999).

The billions of dollars wasted on China's military-based space program would be better spent on educating the Chinese about Western notions of right and wrong. There is simply a bankruptcy of values in China.

... from the desk of the reporter

Totally OT so I'm posting AC.

First, your link with properly formatted HTML tags:

Why did IBM stock go down?

Now to explain. IBM made their earnings numbers last quarter, but missed on revenues. Lately the market has been paying a lot of attention to IBM's revenues, and not just profits, because actually growing the business is more important (in a long term sense) then growing profits by cutting expenses. Also, the article mentions at the bottom an analyst that put out a "sell" rating on IBM. It must be bad; we all know how common sell ratings are.

What an astoundingly acute observer of the human condition Stereophile's editor proved to be! Of course, there were guys walking around with 'em (many wearing "Think Different!" T-shirts), but the streets were filled with fashionably dressed young women brandishing iPods as though they were this season's trendiest little Manolo Blahnik sling-back.

Chicks dig iPods! This is good news for slashdotters and audiophiles alike (as, in a previously referenced article most audiophiles are men.

Ah but slashdot missed the chance to point this out, and stereophile recoiled from the idea they might be playing with the same toys as the girls. What horrors! Too bad they did not think they could play with the same toys with the girls, or wonder of wonders, talk with them! That would be horrid!

Supreme Court Weighs 'Under God' Reference in Pledge
Justice Scalia Recuses Himself; Could Lead to a 4-4 Split Decision

By Charles Lane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 14, 2003; 1:07 PM

The Supreme Court announced today that it will attempt to settle the legal battle over the Pledge of Allegiance -- but without the participation of one of its most conservative justices.

The court said it would consider whether the Constitution's ban on official establishment of religion prohibits Elk Grove Unified School District near Sacramento, Calif., from asking children to recite the pledge, which includes the phrase "one Nation, under God."

The court will also consider whether lower courts were correct in giving Michael A. Newdow, the atheist activist who sued to stop the pledge from being recited in his daughter's school, the legal right to bring the case in the first place.

But, in a surprise move, Justice Antonin Scalia recused himself from the case, leaving only eight justices to hear arguments and reach a judgment. In the event of a 4-4 tie vote, the ruling of the San Francisco-based federal appeals court that struck down the pledge in schools would stand.

Scalia offered no public explanation for his unusual and unexpected decision, but Newdow filed papers with the court last month, asking for Scalia's recusal based on the fact that the justice had spoken critically of the appeals court's ruling at a January 13 Knights of Columbus-sponsored religious freedom rally in Virginia.

"Under such circumstances . . . one might reasonably question his impartiality," Newdow wrote.

Scalia's recusal is a big victory for Newdow in a case that began in March 2000, when Newdow, who has argued the entire matter personally in the lower courts and plans to do so at the Supreme Court, filed a lawsuit in a California federal court.

He argued first that the 1954 federal law amending the pledge to include "under God" was unconstitutional, and second that a California law requiring teachers to lead their classes in the pledge each day imposed an unconstitutional sectarian observance on him and his daughter, an elementary school student.

Newdow's claim that the pledge itself is unconstitutional was upheld in June 2002, by a 2 to 1 vote of a three-judge panel of the San Francisco-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.

But after the ensuing public outcry, the panel modified its ruling, issuing a new opinion last February that bars the recitation of the pledge in schools throughout the 9th Circuit, which encompasses nine western states, rather than invalidating the pledge as such.

It has long been impermissible to require individual students to recite the pledge, but the 9th Circuit ruled that Newdow's constitutional rights, and those of his daughter, were infringed merely by having to stand by as a state-sponsored religious ritual took place.

The case is Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow, No. 02-1624. Oral argument will take place at the court early in 2004, and a decision is expected by July.

Those who take such pronouncements as something more than government propoganda should read about the real Chinese space program:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A337 -2003Oct8.html

China's space program also has a madcap side. Since 1987, for example, its scientists have been sending seeds and seedlings aboard rockets. When Russian and U.S. scientists have done this, their goal generally was to test the environment in a spaceship or probe the possibilities of raising plants in outer space.

But China's scientists have hitched rides for thousands of seeds as part of a program to mutate them and turn them into high-yielding crops on Earth, viewed as unusual by Western scientists because seeds can be irradiated more easily in a laboratory. So far, according to Liu Luxiang, the director of the Center of Space Breeding at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, China has approved for farming 11 types of seeds that are descended from those irradiated in space -- six types of rice, two types of wheat, one green pepper, a tomato and a sesame seed. China's state-run media have also heralded cucumbers from space, saying they taste better and resist diseases.

Boy, this kind of irrationalism mixed with China's current political situation is more dangerous than dynamite. The leaders there have been promoting a virulent form of nationalism since communism was abandoned as a viable ideology 20 years ago. China right now is basically 2nd Reich Germany- a resentful, up-and-coming power that feels it's been denied its place in the sun for too long. I hope that when their space program meets with its inevitable first disaster they do not decide to lash out by invading Taiwan or something.

Combine it with this earlier story:

Monkeys Control Robotic Arm With Brain Implants

I, for one, welcome our new monkey-mind-controlled kung-fu robotic overlords!

paulb

Don't let the monkeys get hold of these! We'll all be doomed!

a beowulf cluster of Wireless Borg Monkeys and you'll have some /real/ fun.

George Bush said that because he, unlike you, is not a fuzzy brained bunny hugger. If the enemy is predisposed to run himself up onto your bayonet, shout encouragement!

Wow, wouldn't that be great? Meanwhile, back in the real world, that's not what they do. Damn. For a second there you almost sounded like someone who gave a shit about our soldiers wounded and dying in Iraq.

News that IBM is opening a Linux Competency Center in Russia comes a day before Moody's Investors Service upgrades Russia's foreign debt to investment grade, according to "Russia Earns Investment-Grade Status". These developments are wonderful news for Russia and the West.

Russia certainly has many flaws: there are signs that civil rights are being abridged in Russia under the Putin government. However, Russia is far ahead of China in human rights, civil rights, and basic decency. Consider the recent atrocity described in "China Detains Health Official for Publicizing AIDS Coverup". The Chinese arrested (and possibly tortured) a person for revealing that Chinese officials had attempted to sell AIDS-tainted blood products to Americans in the USA.

It is a no-brainer as to which country deserves American support. American companies should bypass China and put all their investments into Russia and Eastern Europe. American consumers can encourage the American companies to do so by boycotting any product or service that is "Made in China" (which includes "Made in Hong Kong" or "Made in Taiwan"). Furthermore, we should pull our money out of mutual funds that invest in any company located in China (which includes Hong Kong and Taiwan).

It is imperative (for the preservation of Western society) that Russia outperforms China economically. The Russian value system shares much more in common with the American value system than the Chinese value system.

... from the desk of the reporter

Two weeks ago the Washington Post did several articles on this topic, and they put together an interactive Guide to Cell Phone Plans. Admittedly the coverage maps focus on the Washington DC area, but the rest of the information should be good nationwide. Click the 'printable' links for PDFs describing all of the plans offered by each of the carriers.

As for me? I'll be dropping SprintPCS (after 7 years) like a hot potato -- in the last 3 months they've gone from excellent to pitiful for my daily commute, which is where I need the phone the most.

Two weeks ago the Washington Post did several articles on this topic, and they put together an interactive Guide to Cell Phone Plans. Admittedly the coverage maps focus on the Washington DC area, but the rest of the information should be good nationwide. Click the 'printable' links for PDFs describing all of the plans offered by each of the carriers.

As for me? I'll be dropping SprintPCS (after 7 years) like a hot potato -- in the last 3 months they've gone from excellent to pitiful for my daily commute, which is where I need the phone the most.

Princeton Student Sued Over Paper on CD Copying

Reuters
Thursday, October 9, 2003; 6:07 PM

By Ben Berkowitz

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Three days after a Princeton graduate student posted a paper on his Web site detailing how to defeat the copy-protection software on a new music CD by pressing a single computer key, the maker of the software said on Thursday it would sue him.

In a statement, SunnComm Technologies Inc. said it would sue Alex Halderman over the paper, which said SunnComm's MediaMax CD-3 software could be blocked by holding down the "Shift" key on a computer keyboard as a CD using the software was inserted into a disc drive.

"SunnComm believes that by making erroneous assumptions in putting together his critical review of the MediaMax CD-3 technology, Halderman came to false conclusions concerning the robustness and efficacy of SunnComm's MediaMax technology," it said.

SunnComm, which trades on the Over-the-Counter Bulletin Board, said it has lost more than $10 million of its market value since Halderman published his report.

The software was used on a CD, Anthony Hamilton's "Comin' From Where I'm From," released last month. Halderman, who has done research in the past on other CD protection technologies, said the software could also be disabled by stopping a driver the software loads on the computer when the CD is played.

SunnComm alleged Halderman violated criminal provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in disclosing the existence of those driver files.

Halderman -- who received an undergraduate degree from Princeton earlier this year and is now pursuing a doctorate in computer science with an emphasis on computer security -- said he had not yet heard directly from SunnComm in regards to litigation but was unconcerned.

"I'm still not very worried about litigation under the DMCA, I don't think there's any case," he told Reuters. "I don't think telling people to press the 'Shift' key is a violation of the DMCA."

A spokesman for BMG, the unit of Bertelsmann AG that licensed SunnComm's software and released the Hamilton CD, declined to comment on the planned suit.

The music industry, claiming a sharp decline in CD sales is the result of digital piracy through online file-sharing services, has worked to develop methods to secure music on discs and restrict its copying.

Halderman's graduate advisor at Princeton is Ed Felten, a computer science professor who once sued the Recording Industry Association of America in a challenge to the constitutionality of the DMCA.

The RIAA had threatened action under the DMCA against Felten and colleagues after they said they would publish a paper disclosing flaws in an industry security initiative. That suit was eventually dismissed.

Things similar to this have pissed me off in the past, but this is over the line. I'm totally pissed. Time for a valium.

Quoth a story in the Washington Post, the legendary Chinese inventor Wan Hoo made a fatal manned launch attempt some 600 years ago, strapping rockets under his chair. However, as a single-seater, it would not qualify for the X Prize. The Shenzhou 5, to be flown next week, aims to correct this defect by having 3 seats strapped into a rocket.

As well, you can be sure that Taiwan supplied China with many of the key technologies that accelerated its space program. Numerous Taiwanese living in the USA have been arrested over the years on charges of spying on behalf of mainland China. Some of those arrests involved the theft of American aerospace technology.

To understand why the Chinese space effort is ominous, you need to read no further than the article, "China Detains Health Official for Publicizing AIDS Coverup". Within the same month that the Chinese express fascist pride at their ability to challenge democracies like the USA in space technology, the Chinese arrested and imprisoned a person who revealed an AIDS coverup. This person revealed information that the Chinese were trying to sell AIDS-tained blood products to Americans in 1993-1994.

... from the desk of the reporter

Under its contracts with VeriSign ICANN can impose up to $100,000 in fines or strip the company of its authority to operate the registries that handle dot-com and dot-net Internet addresses.

Addition to my parent post: This article on a U.S. military web site implies that ALL U.S. military personnel are vaccinated against smallpox: Smallpox Research Project Data Presented

Apparently they were doing what I suggested in my parent post, although the research report doesn't say that: GMU, GW in Patent, Ethics Dispute. The Washington Post article is badly reported, because it doesn't mention the scientific basis for believing smallpox vaccine could stop AIDS.

This one took a real long time to load, but it's one of the better articles on the whole mess that hasn't disappeared to the misty voids of the 404 error. Apparently, this was said at the Texas State House in 1999 in reference to campaign parody site gwbush.com. The full quote is:

"There ought to be limits to freedom. We're aware of this site, and this guy is just a garbage man, that's all he is."

Additionally, if your total Nationwide sales are $5 mill, you are by no means a big business.

That's right, eBay would be like your parent company in the eyes of the government.

Take a look at this story in the Washington Post

relevant quotes: Amazon wants the bill to exempt online merchants if they bring in less than $25,000 per year.

Amazon has built the infrastructure to collect sales taxes for most of the 160 retailers that sell items through its Web site, and believes its competitors should do the same for their merchants, said Paul Misener, Amazon's vice president of global public policy. "It makes no sense to us for certain large entities doing billions of dollars in business and with extremely sophisticated computer systems to not be able to provide this kind of service," Misener said. "If the system the states have put in place is in fact simplified, and we think it is, it shouldn't cost businesses anything to collect." Amazon's efforts to change the legislation could doom the states' sales tax plans, said an official with eBay who is familiar with the negotiations.

"The fundamental problem with Amazon's proposal is that it treats someone who sells through one channel online differently than a person who sells through another," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity. "To discriminate against online aggregators is a guaranteed way to stop any distance sales tax plan for at least 10 years, and we'll go to the mat on that one."

The Washington Post says Verizon just announced they are rolling out high-speed wireless internet for $80/mo in Washington DC and San Diego. Industry analysts are skeptical that Verizon can make any money. Hmmmm... <sarcasm>I wonder why.</sarcasm>

Funny how they're treating the suspects in that case with kid gloves, even though quite a few journos know exactly who the leakers are.

The linked article is missing the last 3 paragraphs, included in the Washington Post version:

The NigeriaSat-1 was produced by British-based company, Surrey Satellite Technology, with the help of Nigerian technicians trained in Britain, Olaniyi said.

The Russian Kosmos-3M rocket that lifted off from Plesetsk Cosmodrome with NigeriaSat-1 carried five other satellites with it - two from Russia, and one each from Turkey, Britain and South Korea.

A team of 15 Nigerian scientists and engineers will control their country's satellite from a ground station in Abuja during its five to seven year life-span, Olaniyi said.

If you want the "Scoop" on this story, go to washingtonpost.com's story, which reports that Amazon.com is about to endorse the Internet sales tax plan. And it gives really good background on this whole issue. Kudos for AP for reporting a good story, but check out the facts at washingtonpost.com.

Internet Sales Tax May Get Amazon.com's Support

The legislation would put the federal government's stamp of approval on a state-led effort to require online retailers to apply sales taxes to nearly all of their transactions. In return, states would simplify their complex tax laws to make collecting taxes easier for Internet businesses.