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I turned on the TV to see the mayor of Ocala, FL, trying to defend himself. So there's at least one active politician on the list.

Leaving aside that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder", here are some rape reports that might interest you:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-57511997-504083/elderly-woman-raped-and-mugged-in-central-park-in-broad-daylight-nypd-says/

http://www.wesh.com/news/central-florida/orange-county/Police-Man-raped-82-year-old-woman-at-knifepoint/-/12978032/19838444/-/f5q5ybz/-/index.html

http://www.foxlexington.com/newsroom/top-stories/videos/elderly-woman-robbed-raped-home-invasion-2435.shtml

Ah, that's enough for me; you can find lots more if you want just like I did, with Google.

According to a retired deputy in Florida the bag that has been shown at the railing was his, and was gone before the explosion.

So let me get this straight... If a workstation is compromised, it's cleaned, but there's no need to bother reimaging. If a server is compromised, and data is lost/damaged, it doesn't matter because it was already the admin's job to fix it, so it doesn't cost anything? And the lost productivity due to countless meetings to review doesn't cost anything? And the projects that get delayed don't cost anything, regardless of being under contracts? And the resulting investigation, likely involving travel to foreign countries, doesn't cost anything?

That is what I call nonsense.

But hey... I guess you know your stuff. After all, banks are very secure.

"Where do you live that there are NOT heavy taxes on tobacco?"

Japan does not have heavy taxes on tobacco (not where I live Japan is the country of topic):

http://www.wesh.com/money/1823235/detail.html

Funny how so many of them smoke (50% of the males) and yet so few die. Maybe they are smoking much better stuff than everyone else?

quote: "The numbers have fallen steadily since their peak back in 1966, when about half of all adults indulged, compared with only about 30% now. But even today, about half of all Japanese men smoke. "

Nope. I'd just like know what this does at all to prevent anything.

Clearly it prevents your kid from exceeding 80mph. That would eliminate a certain degree of street and highway racing...

"An Ontario couple on their way home from celebrating their 17th wedding anniversary are the innocent victims of a street race between two young men, police say....Police say the two racing vehicles were travelling 150 km/h in the 80 km/h zone..."

"Earlier this year, Toronto cab driver Tahir Khan was killed after two teens were allegedly street racing along Mount Pleasant Avenue, reaching speeds of up to 140 km/h in the 50 km/h zone."

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060528/crash_fatal_060528/20060528?hub=CTVNewsAt11

"Orlando Fla... FHP investigators said Eleazar Rodriguez Jr. was traveling more than 100 m.p.h. when he was cut off by the Eclipse.

Investigators said the Eclipse apparently hit the Oldsmobile and sent it into oncoming traffic, where it clipped a truck. The people inside the truck said the Oldsmobile came right at them."

http://www.wesh.com/news/14287006/detail.html?subid=10100244

Sure the kids might still speed, and do 80mph. But as fast as 80mph is its a lot slower than 100mph and beyond. And it might have prevented the race from occurring all if the drivers knew the cars were speed-capped anyway.

Its obviously not going to stop all accidents, but it might stop a few, and I don't think anyone can really make a coherent argument that limiting the kids to 80mph is ever going to be a credible threat to their lives. The potential liklihood for a "need" to do 100mph to escape a collapsing bridge in an earthquake notwithstanding. ;)

Seems there was a TV Show on the History channel or something like it, relating to the Bush Election and how those machines could be duped by stacking the data in favor of one candidate or the other, before voting could take place, but the city (might have been this one) went ahead and approved the purchase of the machines.

Here's an article about it from 2006:
http://www.securityfocus.com/news/11391

Even earlier - 2005:
http://www.wesh.com/news/5542983/detail.html

Heck it was even posted and discussed on Slashdot:
http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/07/31/1646246

Unfortunately, I can't find the TV show that I watched, where some City was presented evidence and went ahead anyway and purchased it.

Apopka will issue fines of $125 to the registered owner of the vehicle, regardless of who is behind the wheel at the time of the violation. The fine carries no points on a person's driver license.

Interestingly enough, the Russian's keep a gun on board the international space station. Or more specificly its part of a survival kit on the Soyuz space capsule which is always docked to the station. http://www.wesh.com/news/15298911/detail.html

Or you could just use a gun. . . .

        I'd like to state at the beginning , that this post is not for points , a zero is fine by me , just want you to know I really mean the next sentence . I thank Slashdot for going ahead and publishing this story ; you had to know it would generate some heat, also for keeping it up when it seemed there were those that would rather it not remain. A big thumbs up for integrity.
As for the story, there were many important parts that are being missed; the lives of the Astronauts, granted they signed on for the job, but space is a cold unforgiving mistress, and there is so little room for error, we should give them every chance they can have.Also note that in the slightest chance that something could go wrong, this is an International Space Station. International means that Nations would be pointing fingers at Nations, the World situation does not need further problems right now. There have been many cuts in recent years in R&D budgets, if there was a spectacular failure in space, then expect science cuts everywhere ! There were some comments about; just fix the gyro problem, there is no emergency . My point exactly , but changing is not at the top of the list at NASA, I felt I had to report this as I have been on this story for over 2 weeks. You may think this all happened on the 11th, but I have read and posted on mission reports of this gyro problem for weeks and asked why was this story not going public ? By the way I was sent an url from a local TV station near the Space Center about the need for changes on the upcoming mission here it is;
http://www.wesh.com/news/10057885/detail.html

From this story it would seem a change was in the works, but as another mentioned in the comments, on the other hand , they are proceeding with the mission as scheduled. Smoke and mirrors, there are more politics running this than the scientists. I wish the Rocket Scientists WERE allowed to do their jobs. They have pointed out the problems!

        As for the comments about the author, I accept any blame for errors that I may have made. But from the number of detractors on such a worthless and undeserving story, I am reminded of a quote from Shakespeare's play Hamlet ; "The lady doth protest too much". And there was one particular comment framed as sarcastic reply : "Mysterystevenson to the rescue!" Ok aside from the intent, I had to laugh, it really was funny. I mean I loved it. LOL , LOL ,LOL... I actually now have that posted on my wall in multicolored letters.A friend dropped by and cracked up too.LOL. Anyhow I did get some emails, and a confidential thankyou, and was asked why don't I respond ? I said I will, and I am now , but I like to let a pot cook and taste before I season. That is not to take away from the importance of this issue , but it can be reviewed now as a whole and hence a summary is in order. I am not a detractor of the space program, in fact I wish it would speed up considerably in a safe manner, or as safe as is reasonable and marked by sound judgement. Problem is they have not been given the funds to do the job, and are being ordered to go ahead despite any situation.

This is what I found on Google:

"
Sancho began investigating the problem after watching the votes come in during the infamous 2000 presidential election. In Volusia County precinct 216, a memory card added more than 200 votes to George W. Bush's total and subtracted 16,000 votes from Al Gore. The mistake was later corrected during a hand count.

After watching his computer expert change vote totals this week, Sancho said that he now believes someone on the inside did the same thing in Volusia County in 2000.

"Someone with access to the vote center in Volusia County put it on a memory card and uploaded it into the main system," Sancho said.
"

http://www.wesh.com/news/5542983/detail.html

Kind Regards

Here's a link to some of the photos taken on board with some of our tourists: zero-g.smugmug.com

Here's a link to a recent local news video covering our very first flights from KSC: www.wesh.com/spacenews/5267185/detail.html

And, for those of you who watched American TV last night, you would have seen us on NBC's Three Wishes and if you're really a couch potato, you've seen us on The Apprentice, The Biggest Loser, and The Rebel Millionare

Better tracker:
http://html.wesh.com/sh/idi/weather/hurricanes/hur ricanetracker.html

(no projection though. . . )

"[W]hen Waller called 911 through Vonage, her broadband phone service provider, all she got was a non-emergency sheriff's recording. She ran to a neighbor's house and finally got through to a 911 dispatcher.

So, Vonage connected her to a non-emergency number that is not answered 24/7. Not a good idea. I know that in some cities (such as Denver, where I live), there is no emergency number that is widely published. I can't look one up; 911 is the only number the police provide.

Bet me it won't. We were supposed to use the shuttle to get to Skylab, but we were a little late there. We're currently not using the shuttle to get to Hubble and fix it/push it around.

No reason to think anything will be different now

In many cases, [police]

turned a valuable crime-fighting tool into a personal search engine for home addresses, for driving records and for criminal files of love interests, colleagues, bosses or rivals.
. . . .
Part-time Memphis police officer Scott Woods.... [used the database] to find out personal information about a woman he met on the Internet....
. . . .
Woods later told the woman he had followed her home the night before, according to police records. He called her by her middle name, which she had not told him. He described her height and weight. And he went on to call her at home and work up to three times a day, according to police and sheriff's records.

But there are laws in place to prevent these abuses.

[Orange County, Florida, Sheriff Kevin] Beary was so upset by [a critical Letter to the Editor] that he had his staff look up [the letter writer's] address using driver's license records and fired off a letter to her.

"I never in any way sent that letter to you with the intent of intimidating you. Please know that I am confident I was within the purview of the Florida Public Records Law when I obtained your mailing address. I sincerely regret the fact that my letter upset you," Beary wrote.

Violators of the driver's privacy act can be sued in U.S. District Court for damages of at least $2,500, punitive damages, attorney's fees and all other relief the court determines to be appropriate.

But sheriff's officials said that it was legal to look up Gawronski's address on the driver's database. Sheriff's spokesman Jim Solomons said responding to a resident's concern is well within Beary's official duties.

Ok, so maybe those laws have loopholes. But all he did was send her an intimidating letter. Cops would never use databases to do worse.

Prosecutor's Office Uses Database to Smear Prosecutor's Political Opponent,
Police Lieutenant Charged With Abusing Database to Influence Elections
Cop Uses Database to Find Woman's Unlisted Phone Number -- Gives It to Woman's Ex

A few bad apples. The databases wouldn't be used to frame political opponents.

[A U.S. Federal Court jury]

concluded that the FBI and the Police had framed the two activists in an effort to stifle Earth First! and stop participation in 'Redwood Summer', a planned campaign of non-violent direct action against the destruction of old-growth forest.

But we all know that those Earth Firsters are, essentially, terrorists. Why should terrorists be protected by laws? The FBI doesn't frame peaceful protesters!

More ominously,

the FBI suggested that "legal" efforts to deal with [Martin Luther] King [Jr.] might not be enough. "It may be unrealistic," the memorandum went on, to limit ourselves as we have been doing to legalistic proofs or definitely conclusive evidence that would stand up in testimony in court or before Congressional Committees...
. . . .
[FBI officials] agreed to use "all available investigative techniques" to develop information for use "to discredit" King. Proposals discussed included using ministers, "disgruntled" acquaintances, "aggress

Curiously, many of the Google links display "story not available". Are six week old stories normally flushed from on-line archives? In such cases use Googles's "cached" link to see the story.