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Could you be more specific? I don't think I'm doing that here.

Speak softly and carry a big stick; which in this case would be credible (read: not left-leaning blogs) citations.

You're implying that my sources are no good without actually making a specific accusation.

My three links were:

1) A video and transcript of the opening of the Senate Judiciary Committee session. A factual record, not an opinion piece.

2) A Washington Post news story. Not an opinion piece. Not a left-leaning blog.

3) Remarks concerning the PATRIOT act by President George W. Bush, which included links to the official transcripts.

None of these items are matters of "strong opinion," and I frankly think that would be clear from even a cursory examination of the actual linked pages rather than just the domain names. The sources in these cases are ultimately 1) The Senate 2) The Attorney General 3) The President.

I hate the way the media has twisted this story. Most of the headlines are along the lines of "The NSA has secretly recorded" or "Our government has secretly recorded" and the democrat agenda is "Lets destroy the republican party so we can win in 2008". Seems like all the democrats are jumping on the bandwagon to try to use this story to influence people politically even though there is not much of a story there. "blah blah blah" is all I hear. This story will be dropped by the democrats and focus will be turned into the Presidents immigrant solutions.

I authorized the National Security Agency to intercept the international communications of people with known links to al Qaeda and related terrorist organizations.
-President Bush
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/05/20 060511-1.html

I didn't call Alberto Gonzales a fascist, or Bush a liar, and I haven't called for Rumsfeld to be fired. (See my earlier point about creating a strawman.)

Let me -- that's a great question. A couple of things that are very important for you to understand about the Patriot Act. First of all, any action that takes place by law enforcement requires a court order. In other words, the government can't move on wiretaps or roving wiretaps without getting a court order.

As a libertarian, from what I read & see in the news every day the situation in the United States seems to quickly be getting intolerable. George Bush erroneously said that terrorists "hate our freedoms"; is his counterterrorism strategy then to take away those same freedoms so that there is no longer any reason to attack a downtrodden people? What I don't understand is why the majority of Americans are actually accepting flagrant erosions of their rights. Hasn't the situation gotten bad enough that a nation famously built on the principle of liberty would do something about this erosion of liberty? I suggest that Americans Escape to Canada, but not to abandon ship - this would only make matters worse - but to stand up for your rights.

Specifically, go to Montreal next year to attend the Computers, Freedom & Privacy Conference. CFP is one of the longest-running conferences about the impact of technologies on society, and specifically on the ways your information can be used against you. This is only a couple of hours away from New York & most of the Northeastern USA. Attendance was really low at this year's Conference in Washington, DC, entitled "Life, Liberty & Digital Rights" despite the fact that the conference is more relevant to Americans than ever: after an opening speech by senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), panelists & speakers included Eric Lichtblau (who broke the story about current NSA wiretapping), James Bamford (aouthor of many books on the NSA), and Stewart Baker (of the Department of Homeland Security, who revealed that it's up to people to take care of themselves in times of crisis, and the government shouldn't be depended upon). The venerable TidBITS Macintosh mailing list has an excellent review of the conference last week, one which included topics such as Wiretapping Victims, DRM & Fair Use, Constitutionality of surveillance & privacy (and the state of these in the US, EU & Canada), E-Voting, the EFF & it's campaigns, Cell Phone Tracking, Advocacy (fighting for your rights), and a tour of the NSA itself. Don't just complain on Slashdot about attacks on your liberty, get educated and do something about it.

I don't believe we'll ever see it below a yellow (elevated) level. Ever.

I do think this is related to the Bush Administration's call for tax free incentives on broadband. When all telecommunications are over a wired network and can be more easily tracked (tv, phone, internet) with CALEA and [certainly] other secret operations that do similar tracking, the push for reasonable encryption over all [or as many] services as possible will be of dire importance.

AIDS is not a bogeyman. It's real, and it's classified as a pandemic. Check out some news that doesn't involve slashdot sometime.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/onap/facts.html
http://www.accessexcellence.org/HHQ/HRC/HF/aids/in dex.html
http://asmallvictory.net/archives/005326.html

paying until 2011 for a Bush is getting off easy. We will be paying much longer for this Bush.

Being a paranoid type, I tend to overreact to things, but consider the following-
Given the US Governments current plans to consolidate all the data they hold about you into ginormous centralized multi-agency databases-
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/egov/c-6-9-ioi.html
They then intend to secure this data with biometric-containing RFID equipped tokens-
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/egov/b-1-information .html#is
But they intend to use Microsoft MIIS as the security engine-
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/technetmag/issues /2005/11/PostMortem/default.aspx
And to save cost they are going to let BANKS issue the RFIDs (the same places that routinely send pre-approved credit cards to your dog)
http://www.bankrate.com/brm/news/cc/20040420a1.asp
http://www.thriftyfun.com/tf209806.tip.html
Put all this together and it becomes frighteningly plausible that the government has little interest in securing citizen data, and a lot of interest in assembling data it can use to control its citizens.
http://www.rense.com/general15/happy.htm
But nobody will complain, becuase totalitarian control of our lives will be, like having a chip implanted, *just so convenient*.
However, for those who are still conscientious, it is possible to comment on the government's plans. But please be restrained and responsible in doing so, ranting and raving will just discredit opposing viewpoints.
http://www.estrategy.gov/lineofbusiness/docs/ioi_r fi.doc

Being a paranoid type, I tend to overreact to things, but consider the following-
Given the US Governments current plans to consolidate all the data they hold about you into ginormous centralized multi-agency databases-
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/egov/c-6-9-ioi.html
They then intend to secure this data with biometric-containing RFID equipped tokens-
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/egov/b-1-information .html#is
But they intend to use Microsoft MIIS as the security engine-
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/technetmag/issues /2005/11/PostMortem/default.aspx
And to save cost they are going to let BANKS issue the RFIDs (the same places that routinely send pre-approved credit cards to your dog)
http://www.bankrate.com/brm/news/cc/20040420a1.asp
http://www.thriftyfun.com/tf209806.tip.html
Put all this together and it becomes frighteningly plausible that the government has little interest in securing citizen data, and a lot of interest in assembling data it can use to control its citizens.
http://www.rense.com/general15/happy.htm
But nobody will complain, becuase totalitarian control of our lives will be, like having a chip implanted, *just so convenient*.
However, for those who are still conscientious, it is possible to comment on the government's plans. But please be restrained and responsible in doing so, ranting and raving will just discredit opposing viewpoints.
http://www.estrategy.gov/lineofbusiness/docs/ioi_r fi.doc

I was digging through some of the old speeches, and I came across this one from the 2001 Radio-Television Correspondents' Dinner. The first book of "Bushisms" had come out a couple of months before and President Bush reads some of the quotes from it and tries to explain what he meant. It is quite funny. I'd love to find a copy of the video. C-SPAN (and the networks, for the older ones) should put up all of these old correspondents' dinners. They offer a very rare glimpse into the lighter side of our presidents.

I'm not a Republican, actually I can't stand the current president, but this whole impeachment nonsense is (a) nonsense and (b) dishonest if people are going to hide links like that, however inconsequential and useless they are in practice.

I'm not a Republican, actually I can't stand the current president, but this whole impeachment nonsense is (a) nonsense and (b) dishonest if people are going to hide links like that, however inconsequential and useless they are in practice.

[From the legal note]
"The President has explained that, following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, he authorized the National Security Agency ("NSA") to intercept international communications into and out of the United States of persons linked to al Qaeda and affiliated organizations. See Press Conference of President Bush (Dec. 19, 2005), available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/ news/releases/2005/12/20051219-2.html. The purpose of these intercepts is to provide the United States with an early warning system to detect and prevent another catastrophic terrorist attack on the United States."

So, let me get this straight -- they're justifying this on the basis of the President's admission and explanation, in 2005, of a secret program that existed since 2001, and that people wouldn't have known anything about unless it had been revealed via the press. Well, I have to give the government credit for making lemonade out of lemons.

Oh, *that* secret program? Why, that's the same secret program we *already* disclosed and explained. And, as everybody knows, the explanation for that was entirely adequate.

The US is getting a similar national ID card, by stealth.
No one is paying attention because it is being sold as a Federal Employee ID card.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/egov/b-1-information .html#is
But it will be required to "do business with" the US Government. Like say, file taxes electronically, apply for research grants, get college loans, etc.
The laughable thing is that although it is billed as a way to *stop terrorists*, the morally corrupt Bush administration is going to let *banks* issue them - the same people who send credit cards pre-approved to your dog.
So clearly this card isn't meant to -secure- anything, it is mean to montior and control the actions of citizens....

[...] (hear that Bush?!). [...]

George Bush lobbied heavily for funding for research into Hydrogen powered cars in 2003 and has been very active in supporting alternative fuels and letting the country know that our dependence on imported oil must be reduced.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/02/20 030206-12.html
http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/energy/
http://www1.eere.energy.gov/hydrogenandfuelcells/

Perhaps it is not George Bush that has the hearing problem. Turn off the blare of Michael Moore screaming "Haliburton Sucks!".

[...] (hear that Bush?!). [...]

George Bush lobbied heavily for funding for research into Hydrogen powered cars in 2003 and has been very active in supporting alternative fuels and letting the country know that our dependence on imported oil must be reduced.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/02/20 030206-12.html
http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/energy/
http://www1.eere.energy.gov/hydrogenandfuelcells/

Perhaps it is not George Bush that has the hearing problem. Turn off the blare of Michael Moore screaming "Haliburton Sucks!".

Yup, it's inauthentic.

"And that's great, except some of the grey-list sites are kind of blocked so basically you can't get porn off it, among other things."

I wonder how good their access to news is considering that 85% of our troops think that their role in Iraq is to retaliate against Saddam for his role in 9-11. There seems to be a disconnect between what the troops believe and what the President has publicly stated before and after the war started.

Have you met this guy? http://www.whitehouse.gov/president/

We know that Iraq and the al Qaeda terrorist network share a common enemy -- the United States of America. We know that Iraq and al Qaeda have had high-level contacts that go back a decade. Some al Qaeda leaders who fled Afghanistan went to Iraq. These include one very senior al Qaeda leader who received medical treatment in Baghdad this year, and who has been associated with planning for chemical and biological attacks. We've learned that Iraq has trained al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases.

Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists. Alliance with terrorists could allow the Iraqi regime to attack America without leaving any fingerprints.

Failure to act would embolden other tyrants, allow terrorists access to new weapons and new resources, and make blackmail a permanent feature of world events.

We could wait and hope that Saddam does not give weapons to terrorists, or develop a nuclear weapon to blackmail the world.

I think this is what Bush was trying to put into words.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/stateoftheunion/2006/ima ges/mp3-technologies.gif

This graphic explains what Bush is talking about. Many of the components in the iPod were made possible because of basic research funded by the federal government. Much of this basic research was done at government labs, universities, and within companies with funding from the Pentagon, Department of Energy's Office of Science, National Science Foundation, etc. Hosts of other individuals and companies developed that basic research into components, but the initial funding and reseach was supported by the U.S. government.

Smaller hard drives, codecs, file compression, etc. are build on the foundation of basic reseach - much of it made possible by initial U.S. funding.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/04/20 060419-5.html

I suppose it's too much to ask that slashdotters actually read it. But I can always hope.

It was a joke. I dug up the speech

Here is more of the quote:
" Here's another interesting example of where basic research can help change quality of life or provide practical applications for people. The government funded research in microdrive storage, electrochemistry and signal compression. They did so for one reason: It turned out that those were the key ingredients for the development of the Ipod. I tune into the Ipod occasionally, you know? (Laughter.) Basic research to meet one set of objectives can lead to interesting ideas for our society. It helps us remain competitive. So the government should double the commitment to the most basic -- critical research programs in the physical sciences over the next 10 years. I look forward to Congress to doubling that commitment."

Where is the US government blocking search results about Iraq that are unfavorable to it?

Here :-)

The Communists are our friends now, didn't you get the memo? It's The Terrorists that are the enemy.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/reports/no-child-le ft-behind.html

Bush is funny, like a soap opera comedy character. The US power houses sure learned thata monkey in a suit makes a better president than a thinking man. I really can't imagine a truly great statesman putting his name to that piece of junk writing.

And, a quote from that page :

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of
civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."

-- Thomas Jefferson, 1816

Sign up today.

Sadly, the internship program isn't as exciting as it used to be. I hear that in previous administrations you could do a job right in the Oval Office -- working under the President even!

Bemopolis

In point of fact, most of the detainees were simply purchased by the military -- not captured as Bush has repeatedly lied. 5% were captured by the military, 86% were turned over by foreign entities in exchange for money.

Why not get the facts (you'll have to look at the PDF) from someone who is in't a bald faced liar.

That's only K-12. Pell grants have been frozen for 4 years, which essentially means they're devaluing due to inflation: ~3% per year means it's decreased by about 12%. Of course quoting percentages says nothing of real dollars. It may be that the 7% increase in K-12 spending was more, less, or equal to the money saved by not increasing Pell grants. The government's income is, unlike most peoples, immune from inflation because it's a portion of GDP rather than a flat value. Meanwhile government budgets are written in actual dollars rather than a percentage of income. Who budgets like that? Only poor planners and (perhaps synonymously) the government. Considering federal income increased 4.7% from 2003-2004 alone (the only figure I could find offhand). Then you have to look at how much educational costs have increased over the same time. Textbooks, chalk, software, etc., etc. Maybe they haven't increased at all. But more likely they've at least followed inflation. I'd say a 7% "increase" in actual dollars of educational spending is more likely a relative decrease, but that's just me.

People often fail to account for inflation, which basically fuels the economy (or at least creates some panacea), because in actual dollars people feel like they're making more money year over year.

If you've ever lived, or at least spent enough time in a small town, you'd know that Wal-Mart comes in like a monster (Super Wal-Marts) and disrupts the local economy to such a degree that they manage to wipe out all other businesses, including most mom and pop shops, grocery stores, mechanics, furniture stores, florists, gardening shops, day care facilities, etc. The problem is this: small-town economies, such as they are, rarely generate income beyond a level of sustenance for small businesses. These businesses goods and services are priced so that they sell to the local consumers at a profit enough to keep the shop open, and provide their owners with some income. Wal-Mart comes in, and undercuts these businesses with greater inventory, larger selection and considerably lower prices, taking the local shop's customers and their owner's income with them. These shop owners sometimes leave town, or sometimes they look for work, finding it at the Super Wal-Mart. In fact, a large percentage of the town becomes employees of the Super Wal-Mart, who are generally low paid. Their low pay is usually spent at the Super Wal-Mart since it's all they can afford (plus they get a discount) much like the company stores of the mining and industrial era. Soon, the whole town is in some way dependent on Super Wal-Mart for everything from employment and benefits, to groceries, clothing, medicine (pharmacies are driven out of business), eyeglasses, you name it. Wal-Mart understands how this works, and essentially exploits these small-town economies.

Now, I don't really know where you live, but if you've ever had the distinct displeasure of driving across the United States, you'd discover that most of the middle of the country consists of a lot of small towns. What do you suggest all those people do, stop shopping at Wal-Mart? You might as well tell them to pack up, leave town and head for the coast, or at least a large metropolitan area like Dallas, or something. If you're not living in a small town, then you might have the good fortune of having a choice of where you shop, but for lots of people across the U.S., there isn't many options.

Lastly, don't underestimate the buying power of the low-end of the market. The Median household income for 2004 was around $44,000 with the poverty rate ringing in around 13% [source: ESRB-Income] You can bet those people aren't spending their money at Sak's and Banana Republic. Wal-Mart's huge margins are created by buying product at dirt prices, and selling them at rock prices to the lowest end of the market, which also happens to be a very LARGE market base in the United States. And for that market, Wal-Mart is about all they've got.

First, read this.

I don't think you have before. It was written in 2001, hardly "recently". Bush had just gotten into office.

What do you think of the point regarding China and the Kyoto Protocol?

Other than avoiding the Kyoto Protocol (which I support) Bush is advocating most of the things that will help in the long-term effort to reduce pollution. Actually, Bush has behaved entirely responsibly with regard to global warming. His administration is also correct in pointing out that the first thing that's needed is definitely a LOT more research!

It's beyond hypocritical. It's evil.

You're misinformed. Or could it be that your distaste for Bush has muddied your thinking?

Believe it or not, someone actually said that stupid thing. And he was being serious. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20 010920-8.html

1. Submit story to Slashdot, wait for it to get rejected
2. Submit story to That Other Site, wait for it to take off
3. Wait for another Slashdot user to submit story to Slashdot.
4. Profit?

Again, the military budget is only 20% of all federal spending. It is certainly not enormous when it is compared to the rest of what the government spends our money on.

A military budget of nearly $440 billion seems like a lot to me. If we could eliminate our military presence in the middle east, I think that number would go down considerably.

What about our military acting as a humanitarian force after the 2004 tsunami (and nearly every other disaster). Should we stop spending money for these things as well?

We should most certainly allow for such uses of our military. But the necessary funds could (and I think would) be acquired by emergency appropriations bills. The same way that the Bush Administration currently gets all of its Iraq war supplements. And furthermore, I would rather see our money spent on humanitarian efforts rather than shipments of cruise missiles and tanks.

As for our “insatiable thirst for oil” ... the last time I checked, no one held a gun to peoples' heads and forced them to drive gas-guzzing SUVs or other junkers. If you really want to affect change, you need to go to the people who are part of the problem and stop them instead of trying to deny reality.

This is a red-herring. Despite the motivations of people to consume far more resources than they should, they are still doing it. The end result is that we are faced with more conflict as we fight to acquire those resources.

Find alternative energy sources and we can have a win-win situation. People can drive their SUVs (which the market seems to demand) and we can avoid creating conditions of suffering for people abroad. No matter how you slice it, using more money now to find better energy sources cuts costs across the board for the long-term. Or we can keep pumping up our military indefinitely and keep applying band-aid solutions to a systemic problem. You be the judge.

Others have linked to left-wing websites, not me. But whatever the political bias of the websites, the facts don't seem to be congruent with what you'll find on that hotbed of left-wing radicalism: the Bush White House website on the federal budget.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2002/guide0 4.html

A short websearch will provide you with lots of US government or even right-wing analyses of government spending. This one here shows that in 2003, the US spent c$400bn on national defense, c$220bn on health (which I'm guessing is Medicaid) and c$250bn on medicare. So you're right that health is a huge category of spending but you're wrong to imply that defense is but a tiny minnow by comparison. And by the way, how come you don't get so steamed up about interest payments? That was c$150bn in 2003!
I should have been clearer -- I intended to say, you *didn't* have to fight *this* war. I accept the principle of the need for self-defense.

And you haven't answered the central charge of what I said: if you don't buy your healthcare with taxes, you'll buy it through insurance or out-of-pocket. Funding sources will make little difference to whole systems costs.

Of course, it *is* true that the UK's NHS (evil socalistic single-payor NHS tax-funded system) provides universal coverage at ~9% of GDP with rationing by waitlists and access to treatments, while the US's mix of private and public systems provides c80% coverage at ~16% of GDP with rationing by costs of insurance and policy exclusions. But that's a different argument.

There is always major confusion over the size of the Federal Budget. There are some major categories of spending to consider (the following figure come from the White House Web Site:

1) Mandatory Spending -- This includes things like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and "Other". The President has proposed spending in this category of around 1.5 Trillion for 2006. These mandatory spending amounts are NOT funded by your regular income tax. Instead, this money is supposed to be coming from the "FICA" tax lines that are listed on your regular paycheck. And, there spending amounts in Mandatory spending are increasing rather quickly, chances are high that any reduction in Medicare or Social Security Benefits would NOT result in a lessening of your FICA tax.

2) Discretionary Spending -- The largest grouping here is for day to day operations of The Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security (this totals about $542 Billion). This category also includes all of "other" departments (Commerce, Education, etc.) and they total about $490 Billion). This gives us about $1.1 Trillion in Discretionary spending. So, between Mandatory and Discretionary Spending, Mandatory is larger.

3) Off-Budget Items -- Of course, there are also a couple of other items that are spending, but are not listed on the official budget of the Federal Government. These include spending for the "War on Terror" (Iraq, Afghanistan) and for "Hurrican Katrina Relief". For Katrina, the President requested about $19.8 Billion in 2006 (on top of the $87 Billion in 2005). For "Terror", the President requested an additional $72.4 Billion in 2006. These off-budget items appear to total about $90 billion.

The cost of the Iraq War, along with all other DoD-related expenses (including funding the entire military) is small potatoes compared to spending on social programs.

Try a pretty picture.

Here's another.

Or, go to the source. HUD is $44b, health and human services is $697b, social security is $624b, military spending is $541b (DoD is $504b plus $37b for veterans' care).

So even by the official figures, it isn't "small potatoes", it's comparable to the entire social security or health budgets. And then there's the deficit interest payments...

Not that I'm against cutting corporate welfare. Far from it.

You seem to forget that the goverment in the US is the people. Contrary to anti-american or anti-republican belief, our officials are elected and while they may not represent every single person down to the exact issue - they try their best. Our goverment does not spend the USA's money, it spends the people's money....money paid into via taxes. If you don't like how it's being spent, you have opportunities to vote for President every 4 years with congressional votes in between.

2004 [budget] (figures are in millions):

Econ. Growth, Agriculture & Trade: $4,421
Global Health: $2,534
Democracy, Conflict, & Humanitarian: $1,198
based on this document US Foreign Aid

• Department of Defense (DoD): $380 billion (+$15 billion or four percent). President Bush's DoD budget is $84 billion higher than the budget he inherited -- the largest increase since the Reagan Administration.
• Missile defense: $9.1 billion in 2004.

So, it looke like the US government spent (of the taxpayer's money):
$8.153 billion on helping people, and
$404.1 billion on defense (or war, and preparation for war).

The original argument still stands: the US government spends a lot more (about 50X) on war than helping people.

Yeah you Texans know a lot.

I know a better one.

1. supported this administration for other reasons.
2. Have faith in the "Power of the market" to do what is
           desired
3. THink that Politics is someone else's problem.

I'm guessing the law you speak of is the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005. Here's Bush's signing statement. For the reason you predicted, Public Citizen has already sued to have this law declared unconstitutional.

I envision the lawsuit failing because the courts will essentially say, "Close enough. It's too cumbersome to send this back to Congress and the President to fix a 'harmless' error." Besides, how can a court strike down a law that gives so many agencies funding for a whole year, especially after they've started spending that money? It would be a budgetary and administrative nightmare. No court is going to penalize all those agencies for Congress' and Bush's error.

but the deficit is now nine billion dollars

I agree with everything you said, but this number is much, much too small. The actual deficit in the US budget for 2005 was $427 billion, not $9 billion.

I think you're thinking of the total debt cap which was just raised to $9 trillion. That's the total amount they can go into debt, not just a single year-over-year shortfall. That's such a mind-bogglingly huge number that it helps to actually type it out to get the full impact. $9,000,000,000,000. A 9, followed by 12 zeroes. That's about $30,000 for every single person in the USA. That's how much debt Bush is comfortable with.

The administration's cutting of the NIH budget is part of an overall effort to reemphasize funding of the physical sciences. In the decade after the Cold War, health and biology research saw a funding boom due to the inherent political attractiveness of funding efforts to fight disease. On the other hand, basic physical sciences suffered from shrinking governmental support because of dissipation of competitive pressure from the USSR. Today, with new competition from Asia and Europe, the US is seeking to reenergize research in the physical sciences with massive budget increases. Not all of this money could come from net increases in the overall science budget, especially in tight fiscal times, so part of the money was shifted from the biological sciences.

From the 2006 State of the Union address:

"...

And to keep America competitive, one commitment is necessary above all: We must continue to lead the world in human talent and creativity. Our greatest advantage in the world has always been our educated, hardworking, ambitious people -- and we're going to keep that edge. Tonight I announce an American Competitiveness Initiative, to encourage innovation throughout our economy, and to give our nation's children a firm grounding in math and science. (Applause.)

First, I propose to double the federal commitment to the most critical basic research programs in the physical sciences over the next 10 years. This funding will support the work of America's most creative minds as they explore promising areas such as nanotechnology, supercomputing, and alternative energy sources.

Second, I propose to make permanent the research and development tax credit -- (applause) -- to encourage bolder private-sector initiatives in technology. With more research in both the public and private sectors, we will improve our quality of life -- and ensure that America will lead the world in opportunity and innovation for decades to come. (Applause.)

..."

Here's another write up from Texas A&M:

"....

President George Bush is proposing to double the budget of the National Science Foundation (NSF) over the next ten years. As the first step in the doubling process, the President's budget request would increase funding for the National Science Foundation by $439 million or 7.9 percent to $6.02 billion in fiscal year 2007.

....

Noting that most of the increase in federal funding for research and development since 2001 has gone toward biomedical research and advanced security technologies, President Bush wrote, "To ensure our continued leadership in the world, I am committed to building on our record of results with new investments - especially in the fields of physical sciences and engineering"

...

Optimism about the current proposal to double the NSF budget in ten years is tempered by the failure of recent legislation to double the NSF budget in five years.... The FY 2007 budget request for NSF is nearly $4 billion below the level authorized in the last doubling initiative. However, the current doubling initiative has been given a high priority in the President's budget request and has strong support from key members of Congress.

"

The bottom line is that one should not jump to conclusions based on one piece of information without knowing its context. People are always going to want more money, but some times one has to juggle between priorities.

Science is the practice of using long words to make things that explode, and is the number three cause of deaths in Americans under 45. Science is performed by Scientists, a cannabalistic but peaceful race who resemble rats more than humans and live deep before the earth. By far the most important scientist today is Pope John Ratzinger, inventor of DNA. Without science, life would not be possible and we would all have to live in big piles of stacked rocks, because we wouldn't be able to invent nails or hammers or wood.

Resources

        * "The Vatican Website". Biography of Pope John Ratzinger.
        * "U.S. Department of Defense". The inventors of science, and giant laser enthusiasts.
        * "NEWTON BBS Ask A Scientist". This site is crap. I don't know why we're linking it but everyone on the talk page is a huge fanboy for it so there you go.
        * "Herbal viagra". Herbal viagra cheap grow a bigger today.

Ok, well, for some people it was. :)

For example, some time ago there was a similar issue (reported here) about the UK Gov's "Preparing for Emergencies" site (the real one is here, the parody one here). There was some fuss about it at the time, but basically the UK Gov cocked up by not registering the .co.uk domain along with the .gov.uk, and there was no case to answer in law, because of the "fair use" clause.

Similarly, whitehouse.org and whitehouse.gov coexist. Indeed, there are probably hundreds of parody sites that work in a similar way.

Now, when I read the story, the quote from Bruce Tonkin at Melbourne IT set off my BS alarm. His claim that Melbourne IT reacts quickly to issues like this is simply not true. If you're involved in the anti-spam or anti-scam business, you'll know that Melbourne IT are one of the domain registrars of choice for phishers and spammers. In fact, Melbourne IT's procedures are so slack that they infamously transferred the panix.com domain to a third party without authorisation last year. The site was offline for several days because Melbourne IT don't work weekends. You'll see that Bruce Tonkin offered another bullshit excuse there too.

So, don't just blame the "Australian government" for this, as it's unclear who exactly intervened. A large part of the blame for this has to fall on Melbourne IT and their pisspoor procedures.. I bet they'd believe ANYBODY who rang up and claimed to be from the government. Shucks, perhaps I should give 'em a call and pretend to be John Howard.. although my English accent might give me away, though probably not.

Here's the link to the full report from OMB:

FY 2005 Report to Congress on Implementation of The Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002

I read through the DHS scorecard... There are a number of initiatives at work in the Department right now that address a number of these issues. (For instance, the 2006 DHS Security Awareness training does talk about the department's policy on P2P networking...)

I don't think anyone's done a good job of saying what this report actually is, and what it isn't. The report talks about FISMA compliance, and how each agency is doing in that respect. It's not a report about Penetration Testing, or anything to that effect.

[Posting anonymously because I like my job a lot.]

First, I propose to double the federal commitment to the most critical basic research programs in the physical sciences over the next 10 years. This funding will support the work of America's most creative minds as they explore promising areas such as nanotechnology, supercomputing, and alternative energy sources.