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Thanks! Here's the next step, you complainers: Get your lazy fingers moving and e-mail your representatives on these issues. The more people that make their views known, the better. Some congress-critters might be swayed by this. http://www.webslingerz.com/jhoffman/congress-email .html (e-mail addresses or links to contact pages for each state's congressional delegation)

Why go to all the hassle of snail-mail to the USCO when you can easily express your concern to your congresscritters online?

Use http://www.webslingerz.com/jhoffman/congress-email .html to get the addresses to your two senators and one congressman. Or google on "[your state] congressmen addresses".

Key phrases that could be useful:

• disenfranchises constituents who use Linux, BSD or Unix operating systems (since there is no MSIE available for them)
• shows a reckless disregard for the security issues surrounding MSIE
• suggests fiscal irresponsibility and limited expertise in the USCO IT department for them to have come up with this harebrained proposal

Yeah, I know that USCO is saying that they will eventually support other OS, yaddayadda. But there is no need to mention that in a message to your congresscritters-- they can get those details direct from the USCO when their office requests more info.

If a senator's office or a couple of representatives request more info from the USCO because they are hearing complaints from constituents, then whoever is running this project is going to get told by his boss that this approach has become a big problem on the congressional radar screen and they need to get that fixed right away.

Stay below 92.5MHz on your FM dial and you're usually a lot better off.

You'll often find NPR stations and college radio, often almost completely void of annoying DJs and commercial interruptions.

In the triangle we've got:

88.1 -- WKNC @ NC State Listen in high-quality .mp3 or .ogg (station formats and history) I have really grown to like "After Hours" between 20:00 and 23:00Eastern on weekdays. Saturday evening is pretty decent hip hop mix. You're in for a surprise if you try Friday evenings or Sunday mornings :) Some PSA's.

88.9 -- WSHA @ Shaw University Listen in .wma or Real. Mostly Jazz. SUPPORT

89.3 -- WXYC @ Duke Listen in .mp3, .ogg, or Real to one of the first radio station in the world to rebroadcast over the net. Eclectic and chill.

89.7 -- TheClassicalStation, WCPE Listen in .mp3, .ogg, .wma, Quicktime, or Real. (please send them a few bucks if you stream their music!) All classical all the time. (Just disconnect if you're not listening!) SUPPORT

91.5 -- WUNC in Chapel Hill Listen in .mp3, .wma, or Real (from iBiblio) to a well funded public radio station. You get Terry Gross, BBC and Day to Day. "Back Porch Music" on weekend evenings (great bluegrass). Program Schedule SUPPORT

I know everybody doen't have such a wonderful selection at the bottom of the dial as the Triangle, but check it out locally - you may discover something... (tune manually rather than with "seek" or "scan" as these will often miss low powered - sometimes high quality - listening opportunities). If you don't have a FM tuner onboard your music player, you can either pipe in audio from a regular radio to your soundcard for automatic recordings and conversion to your favorite format or use the FM tuner that's built in to many TV capture cards and do the same.

http://gary.burd.info/2003/07/time-shifting-fm-rad io.html
http://osl.iu.edu/~tveldhui/radio/
http://jaeger.blogmatrix.com/radio/
http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/05/15 40231&tid=141&tid=185&tid=95&tid=4

Maybe if we all flood our Senators with the way we all feel about this bill instead of just ranting on Slashdot, they might actually notice. To get your Congressmen's email addresses (and links to their home pages for snail mail addresses) try this page . Maybe you didn't vote (not like most of us had much in the way of a choice), but it's not too late to tell these people how Americans feel about the laws they want to govern us with.

And is it just me, or are Congressmen's web pages very frightening places? I may have nightmares for days...

Or write Rep. Miller. Miller's site cleverly does not include his email address, but according to this site turned up by Google , Miller's email is miller13@mail.house.gov. Seems plausible, since he represents the 13th district in Florida. It won't be his personal email address, however. Ask him or his flacks to explain the apparent inconsistency in his two positions, as indicated by the links in the header. Note that http://www.house.gov/danmiller/census/faq.htm , the official FAQ of the Census Subcommittee, hosted by Miller's office, encourages people to divulge all the requested information to the Census, and states the following to assuage their privacy concerns:

5. Is the information I provide contained in my Census 2000 questionnaire private?

Yes. In fact, it is against the law for Census employees to disclose the information you provide. Information that is gathered and released by the Census Bureau is not connected with your household's address. By law, the Bureau cannot and will not share your households census information with the IRS, FBI, INS -- or any other government agency for that matter. There is no court of law that can subpoena this information, not even the President of the United States.

If you live in his District, write your local paper. Get them to ask him to explain the apparent inconsistency in his public statements. He's up for reelection. Make it an issue if you are a constituent.

You only have yourself to blame for your cynicism and inaction. Bitching on Slashdot won't change the world. At least not in politics. Slashdot is useful to let you know what's going on, but bitching here won't do much of anything except give you some catharsis.

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