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Some freelancers decide to go this route. The Washington Post has an excellent article on whether you should incorporate as a freelance contractor, including the tax ramifications of incorporating vs. working for yourself.

Quite frankly, the few of his own reports he does post nowadays are right far more often than they're wrong. A typical pattern is that he posts a quick paragraph or two about something, then a few days later he'll link to some story in the Washington Post about it saying the exact same thing.

One of the best things he does nowadays is simply scan the foreign or lesser-known news wires or services for interesting or important stories that haven't broken in the US yet.

"Breaking News" on CNN.com is a joke, especially since the pink slips in their internet department. If you want to know what's breaking *now*, visit Drudge. There's a reason the site gets 40 hits/second.

Bork *expected* the crisis to escalate upon the firing (as would *anyone* who gave it serious thought). He was also concerned about the justice department--he was the only senior official left, and *someone* had to mind the store.

What an absurd rewrite of history! Bork simply lacked the moral integrity of Elliot L. Richardson and William Ruckelshaus. They were men of principle and chose to sacrifice their own jobs rather than iterfere with the Watergate Special Prosecutor.

Claiming that Bork's concern was for the Justice Department is idiotic fantasy. Bork was hardly the kind of guy to "mind the store" at the Justice Department after he interfered with a lawful investigation of Nixon and Watergate.

To suggest that he thought that this would in *any* way assist the coverup is to be willfully ignorant.

Cox was attempting to gain access to the full Watergate tapes, not just the snippets that Nixon chose to provide him. Nixon, in a desperate move to prevent that, had Bork fire Cox. What more obvious way could Bork have found to assist Nixon in the coverup?

Bork's own statement at the time was "All I will say is that I carried out the President's directive." Does that sound like the words of a man proudly doing his duty for the Justice Department? Of course those words might have sounded muffled to you given where your head is.

Here is an article from the May 21, 2001 Washington Post entitled Bork Wasn't Borked. I suggest you read it before singing the praises of Bork and rewriting the pages of history while doing so.

There is a recent story here about Amazon's future.

It talks about Amazon making its way to open real stores and even let customers order online and pick up their purchases at stores like Circuit City to save on shipping. Amazon has started working with its competitors by providing them with services instead of competing. Amazon is also going to provide e-commerce services to AOL subscribers starting next year.

some people don't.

I agree with your assessment of the Clinton administration's policy. The Washington Post has an excellent story which includes this. There were continuous efforts to assassinate bin Laden. The Bush administration eventually developed a broader strategy but it did not start to get into gear until August.

Black Hawk Down is a political movie

Not according to Stephen Hunter at the Washington Post. It's a battle movie, not a war (&quotpolitical") movie.

Funny, I always thought the dream of most Slashdotters was to have Red Hat Linux everywhere.

It's not like the US plays by the rules either. 1. 2.

Please someone explain to me what this means (from the first document), Bill is answering:

15 Q. Do you use a computer at home?
16 A. Yes, I do.
17 Q. Do you use that on work-related
18 matters?
19 A. Some of the computers I do and some of
20 the computers I don't.
21 Q. Do you know whether those computers
22 were searched in connection with a document search in
23 this litigation?
24 A. Those computers don't have storage.
25 Q. But you don't know whether the hard
8
1 disk was searched for any material that might be
2 there that --
3 A. You should understand it's a portable
4 computer, it moves back and forth. That's the
5 computer with my e-mail, it moves back and forth. So
6 it's the same computer in my office as at home.
7 Q. I see, okay. And I assume the computer
8 in your office was searched for relevant e-mails; is
9 that your understanding?
10 A. Yes.

No storage? Huh? Back and forth? It's late...anybody make sense of that?

- dave

Gates referred to the new philosophy as "Trustworthy Computing" and called it the "highest priority". ... Meanwhile, Richard Smith notes that the Globally Unique Identifier in every installation of Windows Media Player allows websites to universally track users.

"Trustworthy Computing" doesn't necessarily mean "secure computing." Microsoft wants you to think that, though, just like they want you to assume "we're innovating" means "we're making products better for you." (Incidentally, MS's definition of "innovation" means "finding new ways to solidify our market position.")

Anyone remember Bill Gates's deposition in the MS antitrust trial? His version of the English language is so far out of whack he spent most of each session professing to have no understanding of common words and terms.

In this case, "Trustworthy Computing" means "convincing computer users that they don't have to wory about security... that they can trust MS."

Tidal stresses, such as the ones that drive the volcanos on Io, may produce enough heat to produce liquid water under the surface of Europa. And all you need is heat, hydrogen, and CO2 to have life.

The recent series of articles in the Washingtonpost alluded to this problem. A person doesn't know enough to really evaluate an industry unless she's worked in it, but if she does, she often gets so personally connected that she makes a bad judge. When it comes to deregulation, however, just saying "sic transit gloria mundi" is about the worst the public can do.

When a government makes big changes to the rules that govern a market, it is setting out huge spoils. The key is to have a fair and open, and well-observed process of changing regulations. Otherwise you will end up with Russian-style robber barons.

The current administration's dogmatic approach to deregulation is very dangerous. Not are they for "deregulate now, figure how later", but because of their close ties with business, they are not entirely averse to letting the spoils fall as they will.

Perhaps we should be electing regulators... or at least scrutinizing the process more, but one way or another, the kind of reckless deregulation we are engaging is asking for trouble.

P.S. - /.ers should think harder about this when they calls for lopping off Microsoft's head.

The recent series of articles in the Washingtonpost alluded to this problem. A person doesn't know enough to really evaluate an industry unless she's worked in it, but if she does, she often gets so personally connected that she makes a bad judge. When it comes to deregulation, however, just saying "sic transit gloria mundi" is about the worst the public can do.

When a government makes big changes to the rules that govern a market, it is setting out huge spoils. The key is to have a fair and open, and well-observed process of changing regulations. Otherwise you will end up with Russian-style robber barons.

The current administration's dogmatic approach to deregulation is very dangerous. Not are they for "deregulate now, figure how later", but because of their close ties with business, they are not entirely averse to letting the spoils fall as they will.

Perhaps we should be electing regulators... or at least scrutinizing the process more, but one way or another, the kind of reckless deregulation we are engaging is asking for trouble.

P.S. - /.ers should think harder about this when they calls for lopping off Microsoft's head.

I can see this being a really big deal to the type of people who'll have conniptions over anything sciencey and scary-sounding... you know, the same ones who lobby against genetically-engineered foods with signs like "NO FRANKENFOODS!".

I normally don't bother feeding the trolls (even with genetically-modified foods), but here I'll make an exception.

Ever hear of Monsanto?

They're a corporate giant thats a big player in the GM field. Based on their track record, I wouldn't trust them to provide food for my dog or cat...never mind for my own consumption.

Here are a few lowlights:

Monsanto recently sued canadian canola farmer Percy Schmeiser for patent infringement. The reason? His neighbour had been sowing Monsanto GM canola seed and some of the seed blew onto his property.

The Washington Post recently published this article detailing how for decades Monsanto dumped PCBs into streams in a small Alabama town despite having studies from the '60s describing the damage that was being done.

Monsanto is the parent company of Nutrasweet, one of the nastiest substances approved for human consumption.

Monsanto is also involved with a GM seed technology known as terminator. Terminator involves producing seeds that grow sterile plants, requiring the farmer to aquire new seeds from the company every growing season. It shouldn't take much imagination to realise that if these plants cross-polinate with unmodified plants, the results could be catastrophic.

Is this a company you would trust and whose products you want to be putting in your mouth?

Maybe next time you see people waving signs that that say "NO FRANKENFOODS", you might ask why before pointing the finger and screaming "Conspiracy nut!"

With other technologies, there's an element of trust involved. Break the trust and you will get flak every time you try to introduce something new...good or bad. Have the individuals making these sorts of decisions shown themselves to be responsible, looking out for our best interests? Here's your answer: After approving Nutrasweet for use in carbonated beverages, the Commissioner of the FDA, Arthur Hull Hayes, Jr left his post and went to work for Nutrasweet's PR division.

...through the magic of technology, the song vanishes and you hand over another $10. (For a rundown of online music services, see Page E12.)

Web users can't turn to Page E12 to find this related information, and there is no indication of how to get from the current section (C, for Style) to the "E" section (Business). It would be nice if the good folks at washingtonpost.com would make use of "the magic of technology" by linking see Page E12 to the promised content.

The online music services article appears here, in a section so different it's branded to look like a separate site through the magic of marketing.

The 1913 thing is a law.

Better explanation here

Arafat and the PLO have been walking a fine line for a long time, but my guess is that Arafat's dance is just about over. The Israeli's have nearly gotten to the point where they are willing to completely ignore Arafat as a spokesman for the Palestinians. Unless Arafat can reign in his hounds you can bet that he will quickly become completely irrelevant. Arafat knows this too. Check out this article. He's more than willing to use force against his own people if the alternative is having the Israeli police do it for him.

Besides, the U.S., and most of the rest of the non-Arab world, isn't likely to see suicide bombers as anything but terrorist activity. And if the PLO is unfortunate enough in this present climate to be linked to an attack on American civilians things are likely to become problematic for the PLO and any Arab nation that supports PLO terrorists.

This Link was mentioned on /. a while back. Just don't miss the last paragraph. While the poll fixing was not anywhere near as bad, MS should not have done it. It is a blatent attempt to deceive. Nothing less. Corporations should adhere to codes of conduct which prohibit any unethical beharior.

Dave Thomas, Innovator, Businessman, and Fast Food Icon, was found dead in his house Tuesday morning. He was 69 years old.

Dave Thomas was best known as the founder of the Wendy's fast food chain, which has gone on to become the #3 fast food chain in the nation. He was the last of a breed of CEOs that was not afraid to step in front of the camera. Like Lee Iacocca and Victor Kiam before him, Dave used his face and his friendly demeanor to sell his burgers. In 1989, things were not going well for Wendy's, and a change was needed. Dave stepped up to the plate and put his very image on the line for his restaraunts. The public responded quickly, and they repsonded favoribly.

Dave will no longer be waiting for us behind the counter. Dave Thomas, dead of liver cancer at age 69.

The Washington Post contributed to this report.

According to the Washington Post, she lost the workman's comp case -- they didn't believe the injury was real.

Who's Holding Back Broadband?

It is tailor made for slashdot. It talks about copyright, broadband, etc. I'm too lazy to submit it myself.

"local residents in Paktia province said that as many as 60 people were killed when U.S. aircraft bombed a convoy carrying tribal elders on their way to Kabul to attend the swearing-in of Afghanistan's interim government"...[further down]..."University of New Hampshire professor Marc Herold, using international media reports, has estimated the total at more than 4,000. "

over 100 million users of AIM and you say, AOL won't be there during a holiday?

No; obviously SOMEONE is going to be there; there's a well-staffed 24x7 NOC. But we don't know what his reporting method was, other than that it was via e-mail. He presumably just e-mailed someone at AOL whose name he knew; that person could certainly be on vacation over the holidays.

Note that 5 work days would mean that the report would have been made around 2001-12-20.

And yet that isn't the case, according to the article - he notified "after Christmas" (even though he'd known for a few weeks) and announced on New Years. At best, that's three working days, even if you don't allow extra leniency for the holidays. So he didn't follow the guideline. It says Conover stated he wanted to release the exploit on 1/1 anyway because it was the anniversary of w00w00's previous announcement! Yes, I think that's irresponsible.

Here's a copy of the AP article.

If you look at the article, there's an email this story link which enables you to send the story off to someone of your choice, along with comments. My choices were: NPR and PBS, both organizations which rely heavily upon corporate donations, notably the Monsanto Corporation. In the comments, I requested that they consider refusing donations from Monsanto, which would have the dual effect of making a public stand for what is right as well as denying Monsanto a hefty tax write-off. Like they need it. I agree with a previous poster who compared them to Microsoft. No doubt a merger is in the works :)
Other good choices for the email link would, of course, be your state and national representatives, particularly if you live in a state which Monsanto has operations in (Like, almost anywhere?)
Fortunately, the Post is a big paper with a good reputation. Stories like this need to see the bright light of day. It is what evildoers fear most.

This has got the best PR response I've ever seen to one of these holes:

From the Washington Post Story

A security hole in AOL Time Warner's Instant Messenger program used by millions of users worldwide can let a hacker take full control of a victim's computer, according to security researchers and the company.

An AOL spokesman said the problem will be fixed soon, and users won't have to download anything.

Great idea! Why make the user download and test a patch? We can just use this hole that gives us full control of a vitim's computer...

Beat me to it! I was just gonna submit this. There is a nice article on the Washington Posthttp about this. What bewilders me is that AOL claims that "the problem will be fixed soon, and users won't have to download anything." I have no idea how they can fix this server-side, or is that just a sly way of saying "we're gonna flag AIM and tell it to bring up one of those annoying dialog boxes that says 'There is a new version of AIM available (4.5.87.3413.321.4342)! Go download it now!'" Anyway, I'm logging off AIM now... unlike the XP UPnP flaw, the firewall can't help me here...

The deficiency is about Europeans carping about American ignorance while they still manage to elect governments with strong Neo-Nazi elements.

No, the deficiency is about Americans carping about European ignorance while still electing governments with strong racist elements. [1], [2].

Perhaps, but we are still talking about a Europe intent on ignoring a European government bent on genocide a mere two years ago.

No, we're talking about an America that supported brutal dictatorships all over Latin America and still deprives its aboriginal population of their treaty rights.

Shouldn't Europeans be free to listen or watch whatever they please?

As one example, I read that when Jurassic Park was released, it was playing in one-quarter of all the movie theatres in Paris. How many French films are playing in your town?

I wrote about this CD earlier this month in my column. I didn't test the particular DVD-ROM drive mentioned in the TechTV piece, but I did find several other ways to copy this CD, from the basic ripping utility on a Plextor CD-RW to a Philips standalone CD recorder.

"We maintain the centre at a permanent 17-19 degrees Celsius," says Brown. "And as the heat exchanges are located within the centre they are protected from both the natural elements, and from direct attack."

"Fire prevention and control is provided through a FM200 fire suppressant system under the floor, and dry pipe sprinkler systems."

"On-site diesel storage capacity for over 40 days of full site operation."

Anyone seen the progression of the fires around Sydney. I wonder what effect it would have on such a nice building if it ever got close enough.
Here is a recent report from the Washington Post, SYDNEY, Australia -- Bush fires, many set by arsonists, raged as close as 12 miles to Sydney on Friday after flames 20 feet high consumed more than a hundred outlying homes. Fire officials also warned that hot, dry, windy weather over the next few days could trigger a second wave of destruction along the 370-mile-wide fire front surrounding the city...

Anyone from DC ought remember, and any BS historian ought know about Focke's List, a monthly publication that tracked the DC/VA/MD BBSes. It was quite an exhaustive database.

I can't find any hard links to it anymore -- hence the google reference -- though I'm sure some ancient editions can be found on some dusty FTP server somewhere. This Washington Post article is an interesting time capsule, however, as it references the decline of BBSes, via Focke's, as early as 1997.

Actually, I think this has more to do with it then laziness. But then I could be wrong.

Do what I am doing for my loved ones this Christmas: buy the booze!

The Washington Post panned this movie. One of their critics (Kempley) said "Save your time, save your money, save your soul. Stay at home." Now, I have a dilemma. Should I trust Kempley or Katz?

Since wiredog was so kind as to mention my employer: here's the review I did a few weeks ago. Comments welcome...

If you liked WHFS back in the day, one of their former dj's now works for XM.

XM handles signal fade in cities by putting repeaters up all over the place.

It wasn't his fault... "bitch set him up"

Actually, he didn't really abuse his power with the drugs.. that was just some fun he was having on the side. (The tape is pretty funny... he didn't really want to do drugs; he just wanted to have sex with his ladyfriend informant (not his wife). She knew the cameras were rolling and didn't want to have sex, but kept saying she wanted to do "something else" until barry suggested drugs)

He did abuse his power other ways... excessive security, using public vehicles for personal business, questionable trips to africa, much much chronyism.

He was famous for wearing kente cloth for one audience, and an hour later wearing a brooks brothers suit for another. Two faced; kind of like his "don't do drugs" message he'd give kids.

Read more here, including the time he took a bullet for the city (ok, maybe it was a little his fault for ignoring a warning and walking into a hostage situation).

It wasn't his fault... "bitch set him up"

Actually, he didn't really abuse his power with the drugs.. that was just some fun he was having on the side. (The tape is pretty funny... he didn't really want to do drugs; he just wanted to have sex with his ladyfriend informant (not his wife). She knew the cameras were rolling and didn't want to have sex, but kept saying she wanted to do "something else" until barry suggested drugs)

He did abuse his power other ways... excessive security, using public vehicles for personal business, questionable trips to africa, much much chronyism.

He was famous for wearing kente cloth for one audience, and an hour later wearing a brooks brothers suit for another. Two faced; kind of like his "don't do drugs" message he'd give kids.

Read more here, including the time he took a bullet for the city (ok, maybe it was a little his fault for ignoring a warning and walking into a hostage situation).

It wasn't his fault... "bitch set him up"

Actually, he didn't really abuse his power with the drugs.. that was just some fun he was having on the side. (The tape is pretty funny... he didn't really want to do drugs; he just wanted to have sex with his ladyfriend informant (not his wife). She knew the cameras were rolling and didn't want to have sex, but kept saying she wanted to do "something else" until barry suggested drugs)

He did abuse his power other ways... excessive security, using public vehicles for personal business, questionable trips to africa, much much chronyism.

He was famous for wearing kente cloth for one audience, and an hour later wearing a brooks brothers suit for another. Two faced; kind of like his "don't do drugs" message he'd give kids.

Read more here, including the time he took a bullet for the city (ok, maybe it was a little his fault for ignoring a warning and walking into a hostage situation).

Rite Aid shareholders alleged that consulting fees figured in KPMG's relationship with the drugstore chain, according to their class-action lawsuit against the accounting firm.

Rite Aid acknowledged last year that it had overstated earnings by more than $1 billion over two years. Audit fees were less than 20 percent of what Rite Aid paid KPMG over a 2 1/2-year period in the late 1990s, the suit alleged.

At one point, the suit alleged, Rite Aid's then-chairman, Martin L. Grass, awarded KPMG consulting engagements worth more than $1.5 million "as a sweetener and to ensure the accounting firm's continued cooperation."

An attorney for Grass said the allegations were "wrong" and "grossly unfair." KPMG was given a contract to address weaknesses in Rite Aid's inventory-tracking system, not to ensure cooperation, lawyer Andrew Weissman said.

KPMG said that it was "victimized by company management" and that the consulting it did for Rite Aid was "insignificant to the overall professional relationship."

Thanks for bringing a little sanity to this subject.

And dont forget:

10) Clouds. Laser light does NOT penetrate clouds. The water vapor easily absorbs all the energy.

Also don't forget:

11) Friendly aircraft. On July 4, 1988, the U.S. Navy cruiser Vincennes, in the Persian Gulf, shot down an Iran Air A300 Airbus, killing 290 persons, after mistaking it for an attacking jet fighter. "The U.S. government deeply regrets this incident," Adm. William J. Crowe Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Pentagon news conference.

The cruiser was "equipped with the most sophisticated radar and electronic battle gear in the Navy's surface arsenal."

Organizations that sell weapons are often not honest about the shortcomings.

--
Links to respected news sources show how U.S. government policy contributed to terrorism: What should be the Response to Violence?

Care of WashingtonPost.com: Good action shots. Shows a cool water hazard demo as well. Here it is.

The list of faults that occurred at three mile island is very long. One of the worst of these is the fact that the plant management denied to reporters that there was any problem several hours after they had reported that there was a serious problem to the govenor.

Having begun by lying to the press, the plant management contined to try to lie their way out of it until the NRC took over the media relations and told metropolitan edison to shut up.

The actions of the plant management were not compatible with a concern for public safety, they were however compatible with a desire to protect the reputation of nuclear power by covering up incidents.

TMI is an example of what happens when a company puts its bottom line before safety. Metropolitan Edison had massive tax and rate hike incentives for getting TMI commissioned before the end of 1978. The Washington Post has a retrospective that gives the side of the story the nuclear industry PR flaks try to play down.

The response to TMI was not irrational or unfair. It is not superstition that made it impossible to deploy new reactors after TMI. The regulatory regime had failled.

We understand nuclear physics a lot better than we do genetics. Nobody has any means of predicting the outcome of DNA modifications. This is science, but the experimenters want to do engineering.

Every time a new scientific field gets to the point genetics has there are people who stampede towards production use. They did it in the victorian era building long bridges before they understood resonance, they did it in the aviation industry, building jet planes before they understood the consequences of metal fatigue. But resonance and metal fatigue were both known about long before bridges collapsed and planes started to fall out of the sky.

Notice in the 1998 interview that he denies that viruses in mail attachments are a problem.

I'm a dirty karma whore for posting it, but, here's a web interview with Harold Schmidt I recall from the Washington Post.

I'll spare you reading it for the best quote:

"Howard Schmidt: The security threat I most often see is failing to install security patches on a timely basis. Weak passwords is next inline ".

I wonder if he meant hotfixes or just Service Packs.

Copyright © 2001 Michael D. Crawford. Permission is granted to reproduce this document provided it is copied verbatim, in its entirety and that this copyright statement is preserved.

I just feel the need to write right now. Something has gone terribly wrong with the country I was raised to love. The good things that America stands for are being trampled into the dirt by those charged with the burden of protecting them.

I was raised to be a patriotic American. I grew up a military brat - my father was a proud officer of the United States Navy, who served in the Vietnam War. When I was young, I was always told that my father was fighting to preserve the freedoms that were guaranteed us by the United States Constitution.

In the first grade, I attended a school run by the U.S. Navy in Gaeta, Italy, where my father was stationed aboard the U.S.S. Springfield. Each day when we started school we sang patriotic songs and said the Pledge of Allegiance. We were told that America stood for freedom and democracy and justice.

I loved America for what it stood for.

I was told that things like political persecution, detainment without trial, and beating of prisoners were things that happened in other countries, that they would never happen in America. I was told that we fought the American Revolution and wrote the Constitution specifically to ensure such things would never again happen in America.

But today I see the ugly face of repression rising in America. And it is brought to you by the United States Government.

I am not proud to be an American today. I understand well why people in many other countries hate America. I love America, but I despise what it is rapidly becoming.

Something must be done about this.

There are many things that move me to write this, but what moved to me write this right now is that a member of a registered political party was singled out for harassment, first by American Airlines and then by the United States National Guard because of the opinions she holds.

Nancy Oden, one of the U.S. Green Party's top officials, was traveling to a Green Party national meeting from her hometown airport in Bangor, Maine. She had published a statement that calls for Universal Health Care, limitations on free trade, and a stop to the bombing of Afghanistan.

When she got to the American Airlines ticket counter she was told that there was a record in AA's computer indicating that she should be searched anytime she tried to fly.

During the search, she tried to help the security agent with a stuck zipper. The agent grabbed her arm and she pulled it away. The National Guard instructed the airline not to let her fly. The airline told all the other airlines not to let her fly. She was unable to attend the Green Party meeting.

So an official of a registered political party in the supposedly democratic United States was prevented from participating in the political process because her name had been recorded in a computer as someone who should be treated with suspicion.

I fear what America has become.

Also upsetting to me is the recent decision of the U.S. Bureau of Prisons to allow eavesdropping on attorney-client conversations as well as opening of their mail. Read the ACLU press release opposing this.

From the Washington Post article U.S. Will Monitor Calls to Lawyers:

Attorney General John D. Ashcroft approved the eavesdropping rule on an emergency basis last week, without the usual waiting period for public comment. It went into effect immediately, permitting the government to monitor conversations and intercept mail between people in custody and their attorneys for up to a year at a time.

The right to a vigorous legal defense is one of the cornerstones of our democracy. It is one of the bulwarks that comes between official repression and those who are repressed, underprivileged, despised, outcast, or working for legitimate political change. You can read about the guarantee of legal representation in our Constitution:

Amendment VI

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.

I don't have a URL to link you to ( mail me one), but I read that among the hundreds of "suspects" and "material witnesses" rounded up in the days after September 11, many were held without charge and some were beaten by their jailers. Also some were held without being given access to attorneys or their families. I thought that could not happen here...

The recently signed USA PATRIOT act is an assault on our civil liberties the likes of which have not been seen in decades.

Read the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Analysis of USA PATRIOT Act, which largely discusses the law's impact on online activities - did you know that the government can now spy on the key words you search for at search engines like Google and AltaVista? Because computer cracking is now considered terrorism, searching for exploitz can result in your lengthy imprisonment.

The truth is the first victim of war.

Shortly after the September 11th attacks, President Bush said something to the effect that the reason the U.S. was attacked was because the terrorists hated our freedom, and that we must fight the terrorists in order to preserve it.

But Osama bin Laden does not care either way about our freedom. He has made it very clear why he hates the U.S., and none of this has been acknowledged by any official statements that I have heard. What bin Laden objects to are the stationing of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia, the land of the holy city of Mecca, U.S. support for Israel's repression of the Palestinians, and the continued U.S. bombing of Iraq. More than anything, he feels that the presence of U.S. troops in the Islamic Holy Land is a sacrilege.

Whatever your position is on bin Laden's objections to the U.S., you must agree that it is wrong for our President to lie to us. Get informed, and work to understand the complexities behind the enmity between the Islamic and Western world. It's not as simple as our government would have us believe.

You might be interested to know what the Pentagon is doing to improve the United States' image in the Islamic world. Well, I'll tell you. It has taken out a $400,000 contract with Madison Avenue public relations firm The Rendon Group in an effort to help it "orient to the challenge of communication to a wide range of groups around the world". In addition, former advertising executive Charlotte Beers has been apointed to the post of Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy, a position she qualifies for because of her previous work promoting such products as Head & Shoulders shampoo.

Read about it in Propaganda Wars.

Well, its comforting to know that we'll be winning friends in Central Asia by showing professionally produced TV commercials depicting friendly Americans in between the news reports of mutilated and starving Afghani children.

If you, like myself, feel that something is wrong with America these days, or with whatever country you find yourself in, speak out about it.

In this troubled times, speaking openly to inform others of injustice or to protest may result in a backlash against you from government officials or others. Please read this speech on the importance of speaking your mind. Have courage - it is only by having the courage to speak and to work against injustice that we can prevent it from getting a lot worse.

Among the ways you can speak out

• Participate in online communities
• Send email to people you know
• Write web pages like this one and post the URL around
• Write letters to the editors of your local newspapers
• Staple leaflets to bulletin boards in your community
• Pass out leaflets in public places
• Call in to talk radio shows

Secondly, participate in what we have left of the democratic process. Our government has at least the appearance of having been elected, and the easiest way to make a change is to vote out the ones who have brought this upon us.

• Volunteer for political candidates you believe in
• Get a bunch of voter registration cards and stand in a public place to register voters
• Donate money to political candidates and parties who respect civil liberties
• Vote
• Write letters to your elected representatives. While you can send email, Congress gets so much spam that they pretty much ignore email these days. Instead, you can find your Congressperson's postal address at www.congress.org - write them a paper letter.

Use encryption to protect your privacy. Please read my page Why You Should Use Encryption as well as my letter Protect Your Rights with Encryption.

You can get encryption software for free - you can use either Pretty Good Privacy or The GNU Privacy Guard. Both offer excellent, military strength protection of your data, and the source code to each is freely available so that programmers are able to inspect it for security defects and back doors.

Teach the people you correspond with to use encryption.

Teach people who work for political change to use encryption. If you don't think political candidates and their staff need to use encryption, you're too young to remember Nixon's Plumbers getting caught breaking into the Watergate Hotel to wiretap the Democratic National Committe.

Join organizations that work to protect civil liberties. Among these are:

• The American Civil Liberties Union - Join Here
• The Electronic Frontier Foundation - Join Here - the EFF works to protect our civil liberties in the online world, including working to ensure that the work of computer programmers is protected as free speech under the First Amendment, thereby ensuring you access to software that guards your security and privacy.
• The Center for Democracy and Technology - Get Involved - working "to promote democratic values and constitutional liberties in the digital age"
• The Electronic Privacy Information Center - Donate Here - "established in 1994 to focus public attention on emerging civil liberties issues and to protect privacy, the First Amendment, and constitutional values.

One might think, and one certainly hopes, that the ultimate safeguard against these threats to our civil liberties lies with the Supreme Court of the United States. But I am not so certain myself. The Supreme Court has ruled against the dictates of law and the Constitution during other troubled periods in our nation's history.

And we should remember that the current President received a minority of the popular vote and was only declared to have a majority of the Electoral Vote after an obviously politically motivated ruling by the Supreme Court, a decision that has few pretenses of being based on the rule of law. Even had all the ballots been counted, enough Black Florida citizens were prevented from going to the polls that the election would clearly have gone for Gore had they been allowed to exercise their right to vote.

As said in the dissenting opinion by Justices Stevens, Ginsberg and Breyer in Bush v. Gore (note - this is an Adobe Acrobat document):

What must underlie petitioners' (nb. - George W. Bush') entire federal assault on the Florida election procedures is an unstated lack of confidence in the impartiality and capacity of the state judges who would make critical decisions if the vote count were to proceed. Otherwise, their position is wholly without merit. The endorsement of that position by the majority of this Court can only lend credence to the most cynical appraisal of the work of judges throughout the land. It is confidence in the men and women who administer the judicial system that is the true backbone of the rule of law. Time will one day heal the wound to that confidence that will be inflicted by today's decision. One thing, however, is certain. Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year's Presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the Nation's confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law.

We must work together to restore the rule of law in our country - or we shall surely suffer for it. If you do not agree that Fascism can arise in the United States, take heed of the fact that Adolf Hitler was elected as the leader of his country too.

November 12, 2001

Maybe you can't make people do stuff by changing their dreams, but you can certainly influence important decisions. For example:

"Recent reports suggested that Mullah Omar, facing almost certain defeat, had agreed to surrender Kandahar. But yesterday Ahmad Karzai, whose brother Hamid has been negotiating with the Taliban for the surrender of the city, said Mullah Omar had changed his mind because he had had a prophetic dream in which he remained in power. 'I have had a dream in which I am in charge for as long as I live,' Mr Karzai quoted Mullah Omar as saying."

I sense some serious black-helicopter possibilities here...

Nowhere in the US Constitution does it state that Congress must declare war.

The powers of Congress over the military and military actions are defined in Article I, Section 8:

The Congress shall have Power to [...]
To Declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
To provide and maintain a Navy;
To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;
To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

The Authority of the President as Commander in Chief are defined in Article II, Section 2:

The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States

To summarize the above articles, Congress establishes, maintains, and regulates the military. The President determines how, when, and where will military force be applied.

When the Consitution was written in the 1700's, armed conflicts were rigidly defined, where the the combatants consisted of formally recognized governments. In such an environment a Declaration of War made perfect sense. This system worked fairly well until the Second World War, which was the last time the United States formally declared war..
The tradition context of war was challenged with the rise of the Cold War and modern warfare techniques such as guerrillas, proxy wars, and non-state combatants. As armed conflict evolved, the US government had to address the issue. In 1973 the War Powers Act (WPA) was passed to address these issues. The primary reason for this act was to establish limits on the Commander in Chief's ability to use force without the formal consent of Congress, as exemplified by the Vietnam War. The WPA allows the President to commit military actions without a declaration of war, as long as certain reporting conditions to Congress are met. The heart of the WPA is Section 5 (b), which establishes concrete time limits, and Section 5 (c), which gives Congress the authority to terminate military action.

________________________

None of the words or meaning in the Constitution has changed, either. It still guarantees Justice to All. This includes a fair trial, just as much as it includes the lethal injection as punishment.

The fundamental question here is do we treat acts of terrorism as a crime or as an act of war? The various rights to trial enumerated in Section III and the Bill of Rights apply only to crimes. By history and precedent, acts of war are not treated the same as criminal acts. For example, the Nuremberg Trials were military tribunals with convictions determined by a panel of judges, not juries. Similar tribunals were called for the Japanese military and government, instead of trying them in US criminal courts for the attack on US territory (Pearl Harbor)
The US has been consistent in treating the attacks of September 11th as a military action, not criminal, to include the application of military courts to eventually try Al Qaeda members. This is no different than the application of justice at the end of WWII.

I really can't believe what is being said here.

The moderation is even worse.

First, we (the USA) are at war. When members of one nation attack another nation, that is an act of war. If you don't think that bin Laden is closely enough associated for us to be at war with the Taliban, then you haven't been reading the news.

Now, lawyers and judges don't run wars. Presidents and generals do. There is no "due process" or "burden of proof" involved. You get the best intell you can, and you make the best decisions you can based on that information. OTHERWISE YOU LOOSE WHILE WORRYING THAT YOU MIGHT MAKE A MISTAKE.

As for Somalia, if you think that the US is "taking away" their access because we don't like them, then perhaps you don't remember that WE SENT TROOPS THERE TO MAKE SURE THEY DIDN'T STARVE, and to try to get them to STOP KILLING EACH OTHER. People who hate Muslims don't sacrifice their own men to try to stop them from killing each other.

Finally, this was about MONEY not about internet access. Do you really think that the "common man" in Somalia has internet access?

To summarize: We are in a war. We are doing the things that must be done in a war. We only hate people who kill our people.

Oh, and on the red cross thing, you can't just paint a red cross (or star, or crescent moon and star) on all of your equipment/supplies/strongholds and then cry foul when someone bombs them. They were "rendering comfort to the enemy" which makes them the enemy by assosciation.

-Peter

If there was involvement, don't you think we would have done something to Saudi Arabia?

I would like to think so. I would like to be able to trust my leadership to make decisions based primarily what is best for the American people and for the rest of the "Free World." However, as you correctly observered, the Bush family is deeply involved in the oil industry. How do you know the lessor President Bush hasn't placed the interests of the oil companies that provide him, his parents, his extended family and just about every high ranking official in his administration tremendous wealth over and above any other? For the same reason you don't put the fox in charge of the sheep, you shouldn't trust oil magnates to provide unbiased leadership in middle eastern matters. Even defense contractors are prevented from hiring former government employees under certain circumstances to avoid just this sort of dangerous conflict of interest.

Since I'm doing all the research here, why don't you dig up some evidence Dick Cheney has complied with the standing request from the General Accounting Office's request for a list of people he consulted while forming the administration's energy policy? You know, the GAO may may need to sue the current administration to get access to this information. These are unprecedented times. I'm sure this information will get frozen using some wartime excuse.

...said they were the nicest guys ever, very respectable and successful in their community.

While we may not be able to blame Manson's parents for his crimes, can we blame George Bush's parents for any possible wrongdoing? Unlike the Mr. and Mrs. Manson, George HW Bush has a healthy history of compromising American policy and American law to the benefit of other, conflicting interests.

This newer article http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A337 1-2001Nov22.html says McAfee contacted the FBI to make sure their software doesn't alert users to Magic Lantern..