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Anonymous Cowards is almost correct. That's from the PROPOSED budget for 2012. What Anonymous coward forgot was that Social Security and Medicare is only 44% of the next proposed budget. The final 35% is discretionary, down from around 38% in 2008.

The 44% is nearly non-negotiable mandated spending. You can't really cut mandated spending except to streamline the programs. You can't just cut parts out you don't like. Not in the budgetary process, at least (or they're not supposed to, anyways).

The defense budget is entirely different. It is not mandatory, but it is not discretionary either. You CAN cut parts out you don't like with the wave of a budgetary wand... you just piss representatives off who lose military and defense contractor jobs in their districts. On the whole, military spending has no real "net gain". There is no financial return on $1 million Tomahawk missiles, whether fired or sitting in storage. It's therefore harder to justify investments in technology.

This doesn't mean such investments aren't needed. What liberals rail at is that we spend more than all of NATO combined on our military, and more than any single country. Our military spending is so large that it makes even China look minuscule. Conservatives point out that the reason our allies don't spend as much is that they rely on us for their security for the most part. Nobody is invading France, Britain, or Germany without having to deal with us.

However, as history tells us, spending too much on your military and not enough on your economy will lead to your downfall. While Sparta eventually defeated Athens, it was unable to take on the economic burden left by the spoils of war which lead to its downfall.

We could be the next Spartans, and China the next Athens. Sure, we can whip their ass, but in 30 years if we're paying $5 a gallon because we didn't go all electirc, and China did... who cares?

Nukes were supposed to level the field. It's not like we're going to have a ground war with any other nuclear power. We'll all glow in the dark long before then.

http://whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/rss_viewer/birth-certificate-long-form.pdf

If it's fake it's a very bad fake. For example there's stuff like one number being antialiased but the rest aren't.

My company's receptionist does a better job at scanning stuff to PDF.

So what's their excuse?

This level of incompetence is hard to distinguish from malice.

http://whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/rss_viewer/birth-certificate-long-form.pdf

Anyone else think of donating one to each of the whitehouse staff? They might appreciate the thought...

From http://www.whitehouse.gov/thank-you:

For security reasons, please do not send perishable gifts -- such as food, liquids or flowers -- to the White House. The White House is unable to accept cash, checks, bonds, gift certificates, foreign currency, or other monetary equivalents. Additionally, items sent to the White House are often significantly delayed and can be irreparably harmed during the security screening process. Therefore, please do not send items of personal importance, such as family photographs, because items may not be returned.

People should check out the nice tax receipt:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/taxes/tax-receipt

Then, having some context, decide if giving NASA a little more money or even doubling NASA would be that big of a deal.

What should be obvious (but isn't, are Americans stupid or their press?) is that if people don't mind a $1 more per year on their taxes for NASA to boost their budget by 10% they must RAISE TAXES to pay for that - I bet most Americans would be ok with $1 more on their NASA tax if it was an increase and not merely shifting money to loan sharks (interest on debt + they gain power over us.)

Going to the moon again is crazy expensive.
Going to mars is crazy expensive.
Improving space travel, developing robotics (which already surpass humans in this area) and climate science - those are priceless.

Don't forget, one of the reasons for the Mission to Mars program was to undermine climate science.

We all know the point of many programs is merely to maintain the status quot because their districts don't like change that can impact their local economies. We don't need much of the farming welfare or military welfare (oh yeah, I went there! I dare you think over what "defense" spending really means!) Those add up to a HUGE waste of money but those interests are so diversified that you'll never get enough politicians to take the blow for doing the right thing. Farming has a power bias due to the design of the election system while the military industry would attack any democratic system.

We have a lot of waste but we MOSTLY have a revenue problem and that is not being discussed because of the big elephants in the room. We also shouldn't have to be playing catch up pointing things that should be obvious.

I disagree with your statement, "the private sector will ... manage the entire system..."

The private sector will do everything else you said, including compete, but they will not manage it. Start here, then here, but this site is a total waste of your time.

There are already multiple competing Single Sign-On systems -- hardware-based, device-based, and cloud-based. This is only different because it is government run.

More importantly, make sure they read AT LEAST THIS FAR:

The government has set out principles — chief among them “choice, efficiency, security and privacy” — more than mechanics. But the basic idea is that you could have your offline identity verified online by a company of your choosing. That company would then provide you with a single credential you could then present (when you don’t want to be anonymous online) to Amazon, or VA.gov, instead of having to re-establish that you are who you say you are with every online transaction.
The device carrying your credential — a flash drive, a cellphone, a smart card of some kind — would authenticate itself, rather than referring Amazon to the company that vouches for you. Amazon would know the buyer was secure, and the credential would know it was communicating with a bookseller, but the authentication provider would never learn that you just bought Bob Woodward’s new book. In this way, all of the parties involved would never freely communicate with each other, preventing precisely the web of information that you probably don’t want anyone — private company or government agency — to track.

In short it is a strictly voluntary program of obtaining authentication credentials which only YOU say what you share with each. Like your PGP signature with a somewhat more reliable web of trust than some guy in Slovenia that signed your key.

Seriously, you can tell the author simply skimmed, and never read the actual government release on this idea, which can be found in pdf form here: http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/rss_viewer/NSTICstrategy_041511.pdf

The biggest problem I see is the mentioned "Mission Creep", where such an ID becomes mandatory in order to purchase anything on line. I could easily see that happening at the insistence of credit card companies.

The Department of Defense's budget for FY2012 is $553 billion. $76.7 billion is allocated to "research, development, test and evaluation". $113 billion is allocated for "procurement". The bulk of the budget goes to personnel costs ($142 billion) and operation/maintenance costs ($204 billion).

PDF: FY2012 DoD budget

For reference, the federal budget can be found here.

Ah, I see. Women who have gone through college (and probably have much more debt for it) are finally making more money than men who haven't. That's the conclusion from the article you linked. Well, bully for them. However if you account for education, women are still making 75% of what men do: http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/rss_viewer/Women_in_America.pdf. So forgive me for not celebrating yet.

Look at who started using Drupal in the last year or two: The Economist, The Grammys, Fast Company, The Examiner, House.gov (and all ~535 house websites) recently moved to Drupal, Energy.gov, WhiteHouse.gov, and here's a list of some 120 national governments using Drupal.

But hey, Drupal only has 2% market share of all sites on the web, is being adopted by government and corporate organizations at a maddening pace, and just had their first major release in 3 years. There's no reason why this Drupal shit should be discussed on Slashdot.

All I see is an upward trend from FY01 to FY08 then it holds steady from FY08 to FY10. Absolutely NO downward trend. So where did your evidence of a downward trend come from originally? Oh yea that that chart from cbo.gov that ends at 2001. BTW as I mentioned before that chart does not include the war operations.

I just want to make sure you remember that before 2001, we were not at war in Afghanistan, and before 2003 we were not at war in Iraq. Likewise, the numbers you list are not inflation adjusted, which is one of the errors Solandri was highlighting. There's no question that a certain war monger managed to expand military spending. For 15 years before that (including both Dem and Rep administrations), DoD spending decreased in real dollars and as a percentage of GDP. As a fraction of the total federal budget, defense spending has been declining since 1955, and especially since Medicare was started in 1965. http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2009/pdf/hist.pdf or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._Defense_Spending_-_%25_to_Outlays.png

You're either not familiar with smartphones and the costs associated with internet access (here's a clue - that landline you propose people replace with a smartphone is mucn MUCH cheaper than the wireless data plan) or you are one of the middle-class employed people that doesn't really understand how expensive this stuff actually is, and how unaffordable for the poor.

Or you are not familiar with the President's National Wireless Initiative that is being discussed here, which includes:

reform of the “Universal Service Fund” to ensure millions more Americans will be able to use this technology.

http://www.facebook.com/login.php, yahoo (and Steve Ballmer said that if they had bought Yahoo, Microsoft would have been the biggest user of php on the net), http://photobucket.com/index.php, digg, etc. Even the white house's site http://whitehouse.gov/ runs php.

Not too many large sites use Java. Mostly corporate e-payment systems.

Yes, every year on the day of the SotU, the Washington Post White House and New York Times will link to an article that is no longer under embargo with the outline of the speech, and a couple minutes after the President starts speaking the full text of the SotU will be out from embargo and printed.

Example - http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-state-union-address

Time the President started was a 9:00 pm, time of the article is 9:13 pm

While for weeks leading up to the SotU the President will use speeches as sounding boards for his ideas, hell NPR was just talking about this yesterday.

Furthermore, on the rebuttal, Congress members will leave the House early to rebut or support the SotU address for the media.

This year there are two rebuttals by Republicans, both will be available right after President Obama is done with his speech.

Note here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_response_to_the_State_of_the_Union_address - Pre-recorded for some, obviously they had to have some advance knowledge of the speech to record it beforehand.

The official link: http://www.whitehouse.gov/sotu

All I get is:

"Our Apologies....The site is currently undergoing maintenance. We appreciate your patience while we make some improvements. Please check back soon."

I was very disappointed. I was so looking forward to getting a message about how my standards-based Linux + Firefox could not watch the video because I am not using MS-Windows, IE, and/or Silverlight.

Bill Gates, 1998: "About 3 million computers get sold every year in China, but people don't pay for the software. Someday they will, though. As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade."
http://news.cnet.com/2100-1023-212942.html

Bill Gates, 2007: "It's easier for our software to compete with Linux when there's piracy than when there's not."
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/technology/article2098235.ece

Steve Ballmer, 2001: "Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches. That's the way that the license works."
"Microsoft CEO takes launch break with the Sun-Times" (1 June 2001) Chicago Sun Times

Barack Obama, 2011: "So we were just in a meeting with business leaders, and Steve Ballmer of Microsoft pointed out that their estimate is that only one customer in every 10 of their products is actually paying for it in China. And so can we get better enforcement, since that is an area where America excels -- intellectual property and high-value added products and services."
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/01/19/press-conference-president-obama-and-president-hu-peoples-republic-china

The numbers, 2009: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/19/software-piracy-in-china/


Microsoft wants hegemony in China over free (and freedom-respecting) options like GNU/Linux. It has always viewed piracy as a way to achieve this goal, but it doesn't have any real plan to turn those pirated copies of Windows and MS Office into revenue. Are they changing strategies and trying to muscle China now? Or is the U.S. gov't playing hardball for its own reasons? Or is it all just bullshit sabre-rattling? A real crackdown on Windows bootlegging would almost certainly make GNU/Linux the dominant platform in China. Parts of the Chinese gov't have pushed the Red Flag Linux distro in the past (specifically to avoid Windows licensing costs in Internet cafes), and there has been plenty of talk about the arrogance of Microsoft and the West, along with fears of potential backdoors in Windows. I'm sure the Chinese would prefer to be distributing a homegrown distro rather than having to pay up when Microsoft and the U.S. gov't come to collect.

You realize it takes only 3 lines of code to hide http://www.whitehouse.gov/node ?

That's not Drupal. If it were Drupal, http://www.whitehouse.gov/node wouldn't 404. But it does. Likewise, you'd be able to pull up nodes using URLS like http://www.whitehouse.gov/node/1, but again, you can't.

That's not Drupal. If it were Drupal, http://www.whitehouse.gov/node wouldn't 404. But it does. Likewise, you'd be able to pull up nodes using URLS like http://www.whitehouse.gov/node/1, but again, you can't.

www.whitehouse.gov comes to mind.

Seriously? http://www.whitehouse.gov/

The White House also has a convenient Web contact form. How about this?

Dear President Obama:

During your Presidential campiagn, you made a specific promise to reform the Patriot Act. I quote from an official campaign document:

"Revise the PATRIOT Act. Barack Obama believes that we must provide law
        enforcement the tools it needs to investigate, disrupt, and capture terrorists, but he
        also believes we need real oversight to avoid jeopardizing the rights and ideals of all
        Americans. There is no reason we cannot fight terrorism while maintaining our civil
        liberties. Unfortunately, the current administration has abused the powers given to it
        by the PATRIOT Act. A March 2007 Justice Department audit found the FBI
        improperly and, in some cases, illegally used the PATRIOT Act to secretly obtain
        personal information about American citizens. As president, Barack Obama would
        revisit the PATRIOT Act to ensure that there is real and robust oversight of tools like
        National Security Letters, sneak-and-peek searches, and the use of the material
        witness provision."

I and many other Americans would rather prefer you allow it to fully expire or repeal it. In fact, the current Department of Justice has vigorously resisted any proposals to change it. Thus far it appears that you have neither reformed nor repealed it. Why?

I further understand that the Patriot Act is yet again due to expire, and that predictably a House member, Mike Rogers, has introduced a bill, H.R. 67, which would yet again extend the effects of this repugnant legislation. Will you please honor your campaign promise and at least vow to veto this bill if Congress quietly rubber-stamps its renewal yet again?

Sincerely,

Cut, paste, and Submit....

Julius Genachowsk
Appointed by Obama

I assume the latter if he's bending-over to appease the megacorps.

Ha! so you think there's a difference between how the two parties appease their corporate masters?
And to be clear, it's not him who's getting bent over, it's YOU.

US Government begins shutting down any and all web sites with the term "Open" in their URL or contained within their web pages...

Unfortunately caught in the net is http://www.whitehouse.gov/open

While the treatment of WikiLeaks and Julian Assange is important, it's USUALLY misdirection, to divert public attention.

How effective is the (replacment) EO 13526 http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2010/pdf/E9-31418.pdf or http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/executive-order-classified-national-security-information

Was it followed by State and DoD? Have NIST/FISMA security guidelines been properly implemented (even yet)?

Are there actual timing considerations, when-leaked, vs when EO 13526 went into force? (Signed: December 29, 2009)

WHY would there be no "alarms" when a PFC accesses an enormous number of documents?

Someplace between a half-million and 3 million people with full access to these documents BEFORE they got to WikiLeaks?

What about "the State Department's Risk Scoring tool"?

STREUFERT: "...the continuous monitoring has something that is an assessment capacity of the organization to deal with outside risk that is never longer than a month and scanning data in fact could be as fresh as 24 hours old." (but are they looking at the RIGHT THINGS)?

Refs: http://gcn.com/articles/2010/03/03/rsa-futue-of-fisma.aspx
            http://www.govinfosecurity.com/podcasts.php?podcastID=276 [John Streufert, State Department Deputy CIO and CISO]
            http://www.darkreading.com/database-security/167901020/security/news/224200410/ninth-state-department-insider-found-guilty-of-illegal-database-access.html [Ninth State Department Insider Found Guilty Of Illegal Database Access - Mar 25, 2010]

For investigation:
http://www.state.gov/m/pri/rls/plans/146301.htm
> For example, weekly reports to senior management are now routed through Microsoft
> SharePoint websites instead of by paper or individual emails. -- August 30, 2010

In case you think this is "picking on Microsoft" ...
http://www.federaltimes.com/article/20101205/IT03/12050306/
> Besides limiting access to Net Centric Diplomacy, the State Department has recently
> suspended SIPRNet access to two classified sites, ClassNet and SharePoint, according
> to the White House. In an apparent reference to those actions, State Department
> spokesman P.J. Crowley said last week that access to diplomatic cables has been narrowed
> across the government "for the time being."

Sorry, citizen, but how we determine what IS and is NOT classified is classified information.

It's fun to be snide, but sometimes the facts get in the way. How the U.S. Govt. determines what should and shouldn't be classified is spelled out in Executive Order 13526, the text of which is not classified.

Sec. 1.4. Classification Categories. Information shall not be considered for classification unless its unauthorized disclosure could reasonably be expected to cause identifiable or describable damage to the national security in accordance with section 1.2 of this order, and it pertains to one or more of the following: (a) military plans, weapons systems, or operations; (b) foreign government information; (c) intelligence activities (including covert action), intelligence sources or methods, or cryptology; (d) foreign relations or foreign activities of the United States, including confidential sources; (e) scientific, technological, or economic matters relating to the national security; (f) United States Government programs for safeguarding nuclear materials or facilities; (g) vulnerabilities or capabilities of systems, installations, infrastructures, projects, plans, or protection services relating to the national security; or (h) the development, production, or use of weapons of mass destruction.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/executive-order-classified-national-security-information

Barack Obama promised increased government openness and transparency.

There's another explanation: the owners of GM are pushing this for political reasons. Considering the rhetoric about making them make cleaner cars when the bailout occurred, it would be a conspiracy theory to NOT believe that the government had a hand in this.

Your first explanation of economies of scale not being applicable and GM taking a loss now to enable future profits is spot-on. This government conspiracy bit is not. GM told us what their strategy was way back in 2007 when they announced the Volt (in pre-government-bailout days): They want to get to where the vehicles aren't a pollution-emitting device so that they don't have to deal with all the EPA regulations. If they can displace the problem to electricity generation companies, that makes good business sense for them. They'll take a loss now to develop the technology that will benefit them later.

I have serious doubts as to the likelihood of their strategy succeeding to that extent: I think liquid fuels will remain the dominant energy source for vehicles for the foreseeable future, as they have major fundamental advantages (energy density, ease of refueling, infrastructure, etc.), especially given the significant improvements in engine efficiency that are being realized with new technologies (e.g. Ford's EcoBoost engines now; maybe things like HCCI and waste heat recovery systems in the future). But GM's big enough to pursue multiple technology paths at the same time, and it makes business sense for them to establish a leadership position in the EV market if there's a reasonable chance of it ever becoming profitable, even if it remains a niche market and doesn't displace the ICE as the dominant transportation power source.

You're misreading the difference between constant costs (overhead) and variable costs (production costs). Volume only works if you can get the variable costs (the costs of producing each item) below the profit of selling each item.

Economies of scale (making each item cheaper to produce by producing more) doesn't work for the Volt: the batteries have a constant cost and making more only makes them MORE expensive if anything. This is because the resources to make them are limited and increasing demand causes prices to increase.

Therefore they can't overcome the cost penalty by making it up in volume. This move only makes sense for GM if the practice and market establishment of selling now will later be useful for them when making the cars is profitable. There's another explanation: the owners of GM are pushing this for political reasons. Considering the rhetoric about making them make cleaner cars when the bailout occurred, it would be a conspiracy theory to NOT believe that the government had a hand in this.

Then again.... I'm an idiot.....

BINGO! (except the "world government police" part)

Does anybody remember the "Pentagon Papers" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Co._v._United_States

The problem *is* government mishandling. There's been a LOT of talk about Assange, a little talk about Private Bradley Manning.

There has been NO talk about the adjunct to US classified information "Need To Know". No talk about Manning's chain of command that apparently put him in line to have access to such content. Not even a hint that the Department of State bureaucracy might have found proper handling procedures "inconvenient", and relaxed them -- or just plain ignored them -- probably in violation of US Federal Law.

Asst Secretary of State said Tuesday (the 30th) that the documents were in one database. Was the database set up so inexpertly that it was an all-or-none for access to the content? If so, what are the chances that a private had "need to know" the content of all of those documents? And if not, why did he have access? That part shows through the cracks. Ineffective COTS or setups or improper actions by beurocrats is only supposition.

So far, the whole event (at least as the talking heads portray) has been a bunch of CYA and finger pointing, by and on behalf of people who SHOULD be held responsible for the leak to wikileaks.

Individuals, businesses and other governments take note. It doesn't matter how good policies and procedures are when they are ignored! Is "Executive Order 12958, as amended" sufficient? Are NIST developed standards sufficient? Neither, if they are ignored!

Ref: http://www.archives.gov/isoo/policy-documents/eo-12958-amendment.html
or if you prefer, perhaps http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_12958

Oh, wait! Both Executive Order 12958 and Executive Order 13292 were revoked and replaced in full by President Barack Obama in the issuance of Executive Order 13526. I guess we need, instead, to look at http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/executive-order-classified-national-security-information

"PART 4 -- SAFEGUARDING" assigns the responsibility for the leaks, as I read it. E.g. "an agency head or senior agency official .. shall establish uniform procedures to ensure that automated information systems, including networks and telecommunications systems, that collect, create, communicate, compute, disseminate, process, or store classified information: (1) prevent access by unauthorized persons;" and "the Department of Defense shall be considered one agency". "Unless otherwise authorized by the President, only the Secretaries of State, Defense, Energy, and Homeland Security, the Attorney General, and the Director of National Intelligence, or the principal deputy of each, may create a special access program."

Perhaps there are some specified individuals who need to answer how and why, the documents got to wikileaks.

And here is the Executive Order

Read between the lines:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2010/11/17/executive-order-fundamental-principles-and-policymaking-criteria-partner

- Dan.

Barack Obama's. I voted for him. I've also written the White House respectfully laying out my position in opposition to these obscene displays of security theater. I urge everyone to do the same. http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact

The TSA is under direct control of the executive branch, the President, and he has full power and authority to curb these actions, but it won't happen without public pressure. (Hint: YOU are the public.)

..are underway in the US. But judging from the list of Indian investment in America or Indian purchasing of American technology none on the list will be part of the new effort that the US needs in order to compete with a lesser reliance on fossil fuels. Gas and steam turbines, a variety of aircraft that use fossil fuels, diesel locomotive manufacturing and a gas powered motorcycle plant are ok for now but use your imagination people and see what future technology will be required in say 10 years down the road. I look forward to hearing about these technological advances from the US and not only China. (based on what little I have heard about Chinese efforts in clean technology or "less polluting" technology for those who look at it that way..)

I know this is a foreign site and only one sample but there were (and are) left-wingers who believe Obama is the Messiah, or ever better: http://politiken.dk/newsinenglish/article868683.ece

Also, check out the first photo here: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Photostream-Business-and-Pleasure-in-August/ - that's from the White House's official photostream.

Also, http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2008/06/06/notes060608.DTL

There are many more. Yes, there are some conservatives that are calling Obama Messiah (or at least implying that liberals think he is) but there are plenty of liberals who actually believe it.

I think they should sue everyone who is in violation. To help them identify people who are causing them harm by violating their patents, I have compiled this short list:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/
http://www.supremecourt.gov/
http://www.uspto.gov/

FYI - here's the press release on the topic of broadband auctions by the White House recently: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/fact-sheet-doubling-amount-commercial-spectrum-unleash-innovative-potential-wireles

You may know more than I do, but I've talked with FCC economists and they never mentioned holding off on this auction until 2020. They seem to think they can reallocate spectrum today and make it work..

I'm glad that the bill has been passed. Now, could someone enlighten me on how it differs from those goals announced on April 15th?

http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/ostp-space-conf-factsheet.pdf

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2010/04/15/obamas-space-speech-well-go-to-mars-in-this-lifetime/

A group of data related to public information/services, however, can and should be reorganized into a form that can be interpreted by both the blind and deaf.

There is a picture slideshow on WhiteHouse.gov at the moment titled This is What Change Looks Like: Passing Health Care Reform. There are descriptions, but to give the blind as much information as the sighted would require spending substantial taxpayer money on writing the proverbial 1000 words as a long description for each image.

How about a Drupal site that can do 2.8 million page views per day? And actually the figures have been higher since with a peak of 3.4 million per day, and 92 million per month. And all that is on a single medium box.

And for the rest of the drivel in that link, how about sites like The White House using it?

Here's another recent example of a quote taken deliberately out of context. President Obama a couple weeks ago:

Out of context:

Taxes are scheduled to go up substantially next year -- for everybody.

In context:

I’ll give you one final example of the differences between us and the Republicans, and that’s on the issue of tax cuts. Under the tax plan passed by the last administration, taxes are scheduled to go up substantially next year -- for everybody. By the way, this was by design. ...Now, I believe we ought to make the tax cuts for the middle class permanent...

YouTube
Full transcript

Democracy only works correctly when the voters aren't being lied to by the media. We know politicians lie all the time, but I believe it is vitally important that their lies are reported to us accurately in good faith, so that we can exercise our own judgment. This isn't biased reporting, this is deliberate deception, pure and simple.

I'm going to reserve judgement until the exact text of the e-mail is published. He can't remember what he wrote? BS. There will be a copy in his Sent E-mail folder. I'm guessing he did a lot more than call the POS a bad name. He probably included some threats, veiled or not, and that is the real reason he was paid a visit and banned from entering the country. But until we know what the e-mail says, we can't tell if the reaction was proportionate to the action. Basically, it's a chance for political bashing. Worthless journalism.

He wouldn't have a copy if he used http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact to send the email.

I can understand his message, but unfortunately this sort of things always backfires. I'm not sure how he thinks a virus is going to convince the super patriotic Luddites who support the war that their beliefs are totally wrong.

You guys need to keep up on current events. The war in Iraq has officially been over for nearly two weeks!!!! Mission accomplished!

Of course, we're still in a state of national emergency.

But that [PA-DSS...] is a legal requirement, not a licensing requirement.

Actually, according to the Wikipedia page (see the link in my comment below), it appears that PA-DSS is just an industry standard, not one bearing any requirements under current law.

The article does point out that the Legislature (Big "L") is/was considering putting into effect laws to regulate such systems, and it's highly likely that such legislation would build from current industry practices, but AFAIK there's actually nothing outside de-facto standardization at the moment.

Turning to H.264...

No one's forcing you to use H.264 from legal perspective.

Actually, I think that they might be. Here's a video from the President. It's available as

• Video, MP4 container (likely with a creamy H.264 center)
• Audio, MP3
• Transcript, HTML

Were it not for the transcript, you'd have to use a patented codec to consume that content. Even as it is, if you want more than a boring, flat, text file, you need to interact with MP3 or H.264 codecs.

It appears that everything on the Whitehouse video site is in MP4/H.264 formats. The basic message is: Pay up for the codecs or you don't get to enjoy that content from the President.

But that [PA-DSS...] is a legal requirement, not a licensing requirement.

Actually, according to the Wikipedia page (see the link in my comment below), it appears that PA-DSS is just an industry standard, not one bearing any requirements under current law.

The article does point out that the Legislature (Big "L") is/was considering putting into effect laws to regulate such systems, and it's highly likely that such legislation would build from current industry practices, but AFAIK there's actually nothing outside de-facto standardization at the moment.

Turning to H.264...

No one's forcing you to use H.264 from legal perspective.

Actually, I think that they might be. Here's a video from the President. It's available as

• Video, MP4 container (likely with a creamy H.264 center)
• Audio, MP3
• Transcript, HTML

Were it not for the transcript, you'd have to use a patented codec to consume that content. Even as it is, if you want more than a boring, flat, text file, you need to interact with MP3 or H.264 codecs.

It appears that everything on the Whitehouse video site is in MP4/H.264 formats. The basic message is: Pay up for the codecs or you don't get to enjoy that content from the President.

You watche too much Fox News.

Troll around in here for awhile, then come back and try to tell me it's the same-old, same-old:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/

If you wish to visit the White House and are a citizen of a foreign country, please contact your embassy in Washington, DC for assistance in submitting a tour request.

You can visit the White House for free, troll.

"Jeffrey Zeldman brings up the interesting issue of the paradox between Japan's strong cultural preference for simplicity in design, contrasted with the complexity of Japanese websites.

japan's preference for minimalism created a writing style that fits entire words in single character space. with this minimalism their bandwidth per character space increased... they could either take their gains, or up their usage of the character space to that of other writing styles, and see compounded returns, maximizing their value. the japanese written language is about maximizing space. the website is space. japan maximizes the utilization of the space. isn't that what modern minimalist design is all about? if the space is to be utilized for sitting, then all it needs is a chair. there is no paradox here, just a simple minded article author with questionable motives especially considering our government pages full of graphics and text and even video. extra digital content is effectively free. a moose head on the wall isn't. what do racist patriots have to gain by attempting to propagate a labeled paradoxical stereotype upon others? why would they try when their claims fall flat under the least scrutiny? does jeffrey often wonder if all of his countrymen are illogical as he is? if you do, jeffrey, THEY AREN'T.

I'm not at all surprised you ignored the link I gave you. It even comes with a search box for buzzwords:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/search/site/wiretapping
http://www.whitehouse.gov/search/site/guantanamo
http://www.whitehouse.gov/search/site/usa%20patriot

If your only standard for "change we can believe in" is your own random defintion of which of "my civil liberties" you don't "have back", then you're not arguing from a democratic perspective, you're just denigrating what has been accomplished because you don't want anyone to believe anything has been accomplished.