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http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/01/20 040114-3.html

While I normally am suspicious of almost everything done by DHS, I do see this as a good thing. It seems like a good start, anyway. If only we could get them to put the other 99.997% of their budget (based on their 2005 budget) behind Open Source...

Some quotes from the President's speech announcing the end of major combat operations in Iraq:

• We have difficult work to do in Iraq. We're bringing order to parts of that country that remain dangerous.
• The transition from dictatorship to democracy will take time, but it is worth every effort. Our coalition will stay until our work is done.
• Our mission continues. Al Qaeda is wounded, not destroyed. The scattered cells of the terrorist network still operate in many nations, and we know from daily intelligence that they continue to plot against free people.

CBO has no basis for estimating other costs that might be associated with a conflict with Iraq such as the costs for coalition war fighting, reconstruction or foreign aid that the United States might choose to extend after a conflict ends, or assistance to casualties, including those that might result from the enemy's use of weapons of mass destruction.

Though admittedly they had no idea how expensive post-war operations in Iraq would be, this clearly shows they anticipated significant and difficult to estimate costs after the initial fighting, which Congress and the White House were aware of before use of force was authorized.

If anyone is guilty of not anticipating the mess in Iraq, it is the American public. I believe the President's words and actions clearly show that he had a pretty good idea of how difficult Iraq would be, but that he thought it would be worth the sacrifice. That may be more disturbing to people than the idea that it was mere miscalculation, but I believe that a few more years will show whether he was right.

I think you mean 43.

I too am waiting to see Google take this one all the way to the Supreme Court.

I think we need to think a bit bigger than just setting some sort of limited precedent here. Companies like this live on the threat of a lawsuit being remotely credible. So, as long as the patent office continues to issue patents regardless of merit, then the problem will not go away. Sure sometimes big companies act with impunity to other people's intelectual property and it is right that they are sued, but seemingly more often these days it really is the little guy that is just trying to pull a scam on the big company for a few bucks. With a patent office like we have now (and have had for the past couple decades) we will continue to have a breeding ground for parasites that add nothing to our base of knowledge, but rather simply serve to restrain true innovation and thus the economy under a threat of nearly baseless lawsuits.

If the judgement of the patent clerks cannot be trusted then put a hard cap on the number of patents that are issued each year. Perhaps even have the patent office rate the patents that they issue for originality and scope to make it clearer to the courts when companies over reach the original scope of the patent. And the patent office should be continuously reviewing patents that have been issued in view to revoke them. And there should be an easy and innexpensive way to challenge a patent without suing in the Federal courts. Regardless, we are the ones that need to put pressure on Congress and the President to reform the patent office because issuing so many bad patents does nothing but hurt the economy as a whole.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/
http://www.house.gov/
http://www.senate.gov/

The problem is that it's against the government's own guidelines. Specifically, OMB memo 00-13, which it's my understanding was to clarify 5 USC 552a, aka. The Privacy Act of 1974.

So, by the Privacy Act of 1974, setting cookies may be illegal for the government to do. (I'm not saying 'is illegal', as I'm not a lawyer, and I have no idea if there is a legal precident for this)

When a nuclear-armed nutcase talks of turning his neighbors's countries into a "sea of fire", and then starts showing off the weapons capable of doing so, then starts developing ICBMs, I think we should take notice.

You mean when people like this say things like this?

How can we as the American people cope with a President that doesn't even acknowledge that what he's doing is illegial? How can we further cope with a Congress that hasn't already 'stopped the presses' by calling for immediate hearings on the matter? I don't mean hearings next week, or next month. I want hearings now. This is a grave threat to our liberties, and I want it addressed right now.

Of course, this President speaks about 'freedom', but does 'freedom' include not being able to openly discuss laws and policies?

Oh, and the 'fanboy' contingent that believes that civil liberties must be curtailed in a time of conflict need not reply, because I'm not listening, and I doubt Thomas Jefferson would listen to it either.

After McClellen said Bush would veto a short PATRIOT 3 month extension, and after the Senate approved a 6 month extension, which the President apparently liked- the House comes in, led by Republicans to pass a 1 month extension. Will Bush veto? What the hell is even going on in Washington today?

the misinformation. I've seen these allegations that Clinton spied on american citizens without a court order on Drudge, NRO and all the conservative blogs. They all reference executive order 12949 which states " Pursuant to section 302(a)(1) of the Act, theAttorney General is authorized to approve physical searches, without a court order" What does text of the law say, the president can authorize searches of foreign powers without a court order. No where does the law say American Citizens. King George could have easily followed the law but didn't, other presidents did.

Q: If FISA didn't work, why didn't you seek a new statute that allowed
something like this legally?

GONZALES: That question was asked earlier. We've had discussions with
members of Congress, certain members of Congress, about whether or not
we could get an amendment to FISA, and we were advised that that was
not likely to be -- that was not something we could likely get,
certainly not without jeopardizing the existence of the program, and
therefore, killing the program. And that -- and so a decision was made
that because we felt that the authorities were there, that we should
continue moving forward with this program.

-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales (from http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/12/20 051219-1.html qtd at Billmon)
December 19, 2005

We didn't ask... because we knew you'd say 'no'. Best excuse ever!
Keep it up White House!

Power corrupts...

Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

People are tempted to use whatever power they have. Unfortunately, some people's domains are larger than warranted.

Yup. Fascist.

all executive agencies operate PRECISELY by decree. EPA? They make the rules with no review. The FAA? FCC? DoEd? DoEn? The executive branch is allowed to issue mandates that have the full weight of law, ergo they are law.

Rule making follows an established process, is subject to law and Congressional oversight, and review by the Courts. You can even participate by commenting on proposed rules. There is also Presidential guidance and oversight of the rule making process. The world is far too complex and rapidly changing for Congress to have to pass a law about everything.

After TWA 800 went down President Clinton issued executive order 13039, eliminating whistleblower protection from the members of the primary recovery team: the president wanted to change the law so he changed the law by decree.

Sorry, but no.

fixing it is definitely our responsiblity

Well, my point is this is the kind of thing that dominates the war debate before the war has happened. As it is going on, the cost will naturally increase in prominence, perhaps eclipsing what our moral responsiblities are. Which is why it's a good idea to know how you are going to prevail before you start a war. I agree we have a special responsiblity towards Iraq, particulary the Sunni minority. However, I'd be careful about using words like "fixing". It implies we have powers we don't really have.

By the way, I highly recommend people download and read the White House's "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq". Granted, it's only a pdf of a powerpoint presentation, but it does outline the administration's case. It's worth going through it with a open, but skeptical mind. Since it's just a printout of a powerpoint, you can go through it in about an hour.

This is fascism, by definition, yet we keep saying, "Thank you sir; may I have another?"

I agree with the latter, but not the former. As the quoted definition says, fascism has a "dictator" which is someone who convinces up to many millions of people that he (or never to date that I know of, a she) rules almost exclusively, and usually is pretty nasty to people of their country and others as well. Mentioning Hitler automatically lowers ones perceived knowledge and respect based on common knowledge, but he is the most well known, and probably the nastiest of all fascists.

Bush, although I don't believe he is a man in power says silly stuff.

Yesteday, he said "On the political side, we know that free societies are peaceful societies, so we're helping the Iraqis build a free society with inclusive democratic institutions that will protect the interests of all Iraqis." I thought of immediately moving to Iraq in order to have freedom and to live in a peaceful society, but my intuition and all of the other junk that I have heard from other people makes me believe that Iraq is not very free or peaceful.

I've got other things to do now while I get moderated between flamebate, insightful, and troll.

To fight the war on terror, I am using authority vested in me by Congress, including the Joint Authorization for Use of Military Force, which passed overwhelmingly in the first week after September the 11th. I'm also using constitutional authority vested in me as Commander-in-Chief.

In the weeks following the terrorist attacks on our nation, I authorized the National Security Agency, consistent with U.S. law and the Constitution, to intercept the international communications of people with known links to al Qaeda and related terrorist organizations. Before we intercept these communications, the government must have information that establishes a clear link to these terrorist networks.

This is a highly classified program that is crucial to our national security. Its purpose is to detect and prevent terrorist attacks against the United States, our friends and allies. Yesterday the existence of this secret program was revealed in media reports, after being improperly provided to news organizations. As a result, our enemies have learned information they should not have, and the unauthorized disclosure of this effort damages our national security and puts our citizens at risk. Revealing classified information is illegal, alerts our enemies, and endangers our country.

Translation: the government is not currently acting as a civilian government.

Supporting occupied peoples in regaining their freedom is clearly a hindrance to trade when politicians and their corporate cronies have manufacturing bases to export and bucks to be made. It is interesting how the empires of Mao and Lenin, both of whom remain on display full of preservatives, have turned to imperialist fascism (made infamous by their past opponents Japan and Germany respectively, although e.g. the British Empire certainly had such tendencies as well) in order to "earn their rehabilitation" in the eyes of the West.

Western leaders are full of love and affection for dictators like Putin and Hu Jintao (aka the Butcher of Tibet after his brutal crackdown on Tibetans during his reign as the supreme chinese party chief in occupied Tibet) while the non-expansionist socialist dictators of smaller countries, like Cuba's Castro and Zimbabwe's Mugabe, are still being treated like pariahs.

If the western democracies actually asked their electorate which is worse, a small non-expansionist socialist state like Cuba or a genocidally expansionist one-party dictatorship like China, would the western leaders have to act surprised by the answer?

How to keep the country running and yet combat the deficit even has party allies drawing swords. It's taxes and spending debated per usual -- but this time it's the difference between the House and Senate budget priorities that's causing all the heat. In an editorial, THE WASHINGTON POST said "though neither offers much to cheer about, the Senate's version is by far the fairer. It would cut $35 billion in projected entitlement spending over the next five years, compared with $50 billion in the House version. But the differences between the two bills are bigger than those numbers suggest. The Senate would make the cuts without digging into programs for low-income people." THE ECONOMIST echoed these sentiments somewhat, noting, " The House package, supported by Mr Bush, tries to cement his tax-cutting legacy...Some 40% of the House tax cuts would go to those earning more than $1m a year; the very rich would get only 8% of the Senate's cuts."

Below are links to the ongoing debates surrounding U.S. fiscal policy -- reducing the deficit, tax cut plans, and budget priorities. Explore both sides of the debates and then do your own number crunching by visiting sites with budget numbers and analyses.
Civil Liberties and the Patriot Act:

The Bill of Rights Defense Committee
Not for profit grassroots group concerned with American civil liberties. The site contains updates on local civil liberties actions, tools for activists, a legislation watch and policy briefs on the Patriot Act.

The Department of Homeland Security
The Department of Homeland Security offers information about Homeland Security legislation, the President's Homeland Security proposal, and analysis of the department. Other features include transcripts of speeches given by Governor Tom Ridge at the National Association of Broadcasters Education Foundation 2002 Service to America Summit and President Bush's Address to the Nation concerning homeland security. Online chat transcripts with Governor Ridge are also included.

Homeland Security, Homeland Profits
On the Corpwatch Web site (a corporate watchdog group), Wayne Madsen argues that corporations are standing to make billions from selling "surveillance and information-gathering systems to government agencies and the private sector." Madsen cautions that this technology will be utilized to intimidate and squelch dissent.

How the USA Patriot Act Puts the CIA Back in the Business of Spying On Americans
In this issue brief, the American Civil Liberties Union argues that the USA Patriot Act includes domestic espionage against American citizens. According to the ACLU, the USA Patriot Act "permits a vast array of information gathering on U.S. citizens from school records, financial transactions, Internet activity, telephone conversations, information gleaned from grand jury proceedings and criminal investigations to be shared with the CIA (and other non-law enforcement officials) even if it pertains to Americans."

I apologize for exaggerating in my initial statement. The Bush administration has not broken ALL laws, rules, treaties and international regulations. Im sorry for making such a blatant generalisation. Do you follow the same logic in other contexts? Is it wrong to say that Saddam killed Kurds because he didnt kill ALL Kurds?

What I said in the original post, and for clarification will repeat here is that the Bush administration have shown that any law, rule, treaty or regulation by any national (US) or international forum will be broken, bent or circumvented if they see fit to do so.

The current administration has

Tortured
Kidnapped
Murdered
Instigated coups
Lied (Take your pick. My favourite is: "Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons.")
Broken treaties
Hindered international courts

The list goes on and on. I could list more points, various incidents on each point and various sources for each incident but frankly, I can't be bothered. Those who realize that these atrocities are being committed need no persuasions and those who refuse to acknowledge or refuse to see the harm... well... I have no illusion of "converting" anyone.

So; have a nice weekend, and don't let the clue-by-four hit you on the way out.

...

Do you not know what bracketted taxation is? Then what are you doing in this debate? Lets back up to income taxes 101.

No, I know what tax brackets are, thanks, (though you appear to be the only person to refer to it as "bracketted taxation"). And by "I don't know what you're getting at, here," I thought I made myself clear with the link I posted, which I guess I'll have to post again. As I said, the difference is even more dramatic now. Over a full third of taxpayers in this country pay no taxes at all. The top 1% of taxpayers - and these aren't all or even mostly people who are fabulously wealthy; these include people who make just over $250,000/year in household income - as of 2004, pay over 40% of the tax. The top 5% now pay over 60% of the tax. The entire bottom 50% now pay less than 3% of the tax burden, and most of them are at the upper part of the 50%. The bottom 35% pay nothing.

So, I ask you: how is this not fair? Or should the entire tax burden be paid by the top, say, 5%? The poor - the bottom, say, 20%, will still be poor and struggling. Since, as you say, the more fortunate have more than enough money, perhaps we could take some of theirs, and simply give it to the poor?

If you're going to respond to this, please do so directly, as I did.

Clinton: Signed the Kyoto protocol; spoke regularly about the need to stop global warming
Bush: Unsigned the Kyoto protocol. First denied any global warming, then admitted it but downplayed human effect on it.
Summary: Complete Opposites.

"Unsigned." That's rich. Bush didn't "unsign" anything. Clinton signed the Kyoto protocol, which does nothing until it's submitted for ratification. We are still a signatory of the protocol (which means we support the basic tenets of it in principle), and it has still not been submitted for ratification. Literally no change from Clinton. Our position can be summed up as follows:

This is a challenge that requires a 100 percent effort; ours, and the rest of the world's. The world's second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases is China. Yet, China was entirely exempted from the requirements of the Kyoto Protocol. India and Germany are among the top emitters. Yet, India was also exempt from Kyoto. . . . America's unwillingness to embrace a flawed treaty should not be read by our friends and allies as any abdication of responsibility. To the contrary, my administration is committed to a leadership role on the issue of climate change. . . . . Our approach must be consistent with the long-term goal of stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere. (Ref)

In other words, it's unfair if other nations - like, oh, the second largest consumer of petroleum products and the second largest emitter of greenhouse gases, and the one who is angling to become the world's next superpower and will essentially be in direct comp

Can I see?

Yup.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/

"from disinformation planted in european newspapers"

How about disinformation planted on your own governments website?

http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/nationalsecurity /disarm.html

Here is the source for these numbers.

But voting machines are a different beast. If they don't work (and this is only more of a problem without a paper trail) it's very difficult to prove it. So the real question is this -- do we want people taking risks with the electoral process?

No they're not!

A voting machine is a machine. An airplane is a machine. We know they work or don't work by testing them.

Your comparison is flawed, because you allow testing on the airplane. Anybody who gets on your example airplane after it crashes in the desert is an idiot, as is anybody who gets on before the plane makes a few hundred safe trips. Anybody who bought those diebold machines before knowing anything about them was an idiot, anybody who bought them when the problems were coming out is an idiot, and anybody who buys them in the future is an idiot.

The problem in this case, is nobody has tested this product adequately. A smart consumer wouldn't buy an airplane held together with duct tape and powered by rubber bands, and that's essentially what the diebold machines are with their numerous security flaws, and lack of paper trail.

In this case, the problem is that there is no smart consumer. There is only the government.

is President_Vice Richard B. Cheney

is to become President of Al-Qaedastan.

Stay tuned.

Patriotically,
Kilgore Trout, C.E.O.

Not to be a troll or anything, but why does slashdot deam every minor release of Firefox to be worthy of a story? Its no different from any other OSS.

You just answered your own question. Slashdot deems every minor release of every OSS thing to be incredible breaking news.

I can't count the number of times I've seen front page Slashdot posts that essentially boil down to:

ThingYouNeverHeardOf 0.6.3 Released

Slashdot user Doofus reports that ThingYouNeverHeardOf 0.6.3 has been released. Many cool new features in this version, such as the blarglefier tool no longer causing a crash when run under Ubuntu 4.6. Licensed under the GPL! Is this the end for Microsoft?

Half the time, they never even give you a hint as to what ThingYouNeverHeardOf is supposed to be used for. Is it an email client? Is it an IDE? Is it a MIDI playback library? Does it cook my eggs? Who knows.

I think you mean 4 legs good, 2 legs better.

Most Americans don't like the idea of a huge corrupt overpowered beauracracy that seems to do nothing

At least we don't like corrupt FOREIGN beauracracies... Homegrown ones are just fine.

See http://www.whitehouse.gov/president/. Currently sitting on VP Dick Cheney's knee, with a string coming out the back of his neck. Distant relative of Mortimer Snerd.

How does the cost of NASA compare the amount squandered on the military?

I interviewed Vint Cerf, who yesterday coincidentally was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, about U.S. control of the Net earlier in the week.

somehow, Reagan was the "greatest conservative" of all time...

He was very conservative in is tripling of the national debt...

I swear, if we keep conserving like this, we'll be broke!

National Debt before Reagan: $1,000,000,000,000
National Debt after Reagan: $3,300,000,000,000

Then, of course, was nutjob liberal crazy-ass socialist Clinton:

National Debt before Clinton:$4,400,000,000,000
National Debt after Clinton:$5,600,000,000,000

Then, the latest "great conservative" "best-since-Reagan" president

National Debt before Bush II:$5,600,000,000,000
National Debt today :$8,000,000,000,000

And Bush still has three years left. At the current rate, we'll pick up about another $1,500,000,000,000 before he leaves office, putting us at about $9.5 trillion.

So, the liberals tax us to death and then spend all our money on crap. The conservatives, on the other hand, don't tax us much at all -- and then spend *even more* than the liberals.

The problem is, just the interest on our debt $174 billion/year. By 2010, the estimate is over $310 billion. And that estimate is done by the white house.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2006/tables .html

Compared with a current budget of $2.2 trillion dollars, that means that interest payments will increase by about 55% to about 15% of the total annual budget! At some point, we'll stop having any money for anything except interest payments -- you'll notice I didn't include any principle payments here -- because that seems not to have a line-item on the budget. But then, why pay off the debt, when you can just incur more!

meanwhile: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2006/images /overview-1.jpg

That graph claims that Bush has showed great restraint, decreasing "non-security" spending. Who decides what's security? Is throwing a big $25,000,000 party a "security expense" just because the Dept. of Homeland Security "paid" the bill?

somehow, Reagan was the "greatest conservative" of all time...

He was very conservative in is tripling of the national debt...

I swear, if we keep conserving like this, we'll be broke!

National Debt before Reagan: $1,000,000,000,000
National Debt after Reagan: $3,300,000,000,000

Then, of course, was nutjob liberal crazy-ass socialist Clinton:

National Debt before Clinton:$4,400,000,000,000
National Debt after Clinton:$5,600,000,000,000

Then, the latest "great conservative" "best-since-Reagan" president

National Debt before Bush II:$5,600,000,000,000
National Debt today :$8,000,000,000,000

And Bush still has three years left. At the current rate, we'll pick up about another $1,500,000,000,000 before he leaves office, putting us at about $9.5 trillion.

So, the liberals tax us to death and then spend all our money on crap. The conservatives, on the other hand, don't tax us much at all -- and then spend *even more* than the liberals.

The problem is, just the interest on our debt $174 billion/year. By 2010, the estimate is over $310 billion. And that estimate is done by the white house.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2006/tables .html

Compared with a current budget of $2.2 trillion dollars, that means that interest payments will increase by about 55% to about 15% of the total annual budget! At some point, we'll stop having any money for anything except interest payments -- you'll notice I didn't include any principle payments here -- because that seems not to have a line-item on the budget. But then, why pay off the debt, when you can just incur more!

meanwhile: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2006/images /overview-1.jpg

That graph claims that Bush has showed great restraint, decreasing "non-security" spending. Who decides what's security? Is throwing a big $25,000,000 party a "security expense" just because the Dept. of Homeland Security "paid" the bill?

The argument he was addressing was that the government should wait until 2009 to do the conversion, because it would cost less. His point was that, by waiting so long, many people would be left out for a long time (~2 years), and he believes that it would affect their lives in a negative manner. This all leads up to the quote: money shouldn't be the most important thing to the government in this debate; the lives of the people should be paramount.

Actually, the money vs lives bit came from his declaration that the analog TV channels should be turned over to local fire/police departments sooner, rather than later, with the impression that doing so would save lives.

However, since there is no federal interest in ensuring that people have access to television it is painfully clear that Sen McCain's agreement to spend $3 billion on such a project is a direct acknowledgement that he believes money is more important than pesky questions of Constitutionality or even wisdom.

To put this in perspective, as of 2002 the nation was collectively spending about $3.5 billion/year on public transportation. So for the cost of getting countless millions of people to work - while many others can't work because they have no means of getting to work - the Federal Government will ensure that they can watch crisp, clean TV.

As for the person who rated the parent troll, I simply ask for examples where requiring lawyers to be present improved the situation. ANY situation. Lawyers don't argue the law anymore so much as they manipulate the presentation thereof.

I think there's an underpining discussion that has to come about in order to fully understand the whole context. Simply, the label of "classification" is directly related to that aspect of national security which involves one of several areas as listed by Executive Order.

In other words, you (collective) elected the man that makes the rules.

Part and parcel with that is a misinterpretation that the man who makes the rules wants the strongest implementation of those rules. Not always the case, but it can often be taken to extremes - especially since folks who have clearances often times don't read the originating Executive Order that precipitated the whole thing. So you're left with the impression that "I have a clearance, this information might possibly be used, somewhere, somehow, someway, to cause harm to the US Government." It's an education issue.

And, in case you're really got a penchant for reading exceptionally long government documents, here's a link to a semi-recent version of the Executive Order 12958, which has been superceeded but I can't recall the 13 thousandish EO that's the new one.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/03/20 030325-11.html Executive Order 12958

In the United States, democracy does work. So instead of bantering the chant about a huge government conspiracy, the next time you talk to a friend who works for the government (with or without clearance), say to them, "Do you understand the precepts behind your requirement for protecting information? Here, let me point you to this URL."

-some schmo

I mean... they could find somebody dull enough to believe the Onion was actually a real presidential announcement.

Duh.

the fact that you cannot distinguish between parody and official message

is all the more reason to worry about this country today... and is all the more reason to use the seal.

the fact that you cannot distinguish between parody and official message

is all the more reason to worry about this country today... and is all the more reason to use the seal.

the fact that you cannot distinguish between parody and official message

is all the more reason to worry about this country today... and is all the more reason to use the seal.

Showing the Presidential seal does not fall outside of the bounds of Satire, because clearly they are not implying Presidential support or endorcement. Therefore the use is acceptable.

More insidious is the site http://www.weeklyradioaddress.com./ This site (which seems to provide the content to the Onion) steals the layout of the official site (http://www.whitehouse.gov/radio), without providing anything to tell us that it's fake.

Something like this could quite possibly cause confusion to the unaware. So I think that it is within the rights of the White House to try and prevent that confusion.

" I mean... they could find somebody dull enough to believe the Onion was actually a real presidential announcement."

someone like this one???

Oh that's simple. We just load it all onto a rocket and shoot it into the Sun. And if one or two happen to fall back down to Earth and land on.. say, Syria, then... Oops!

Works great with the President's agenda too. My personal feelings on the subject aside, you gotta love a president that can in one press release deny that human activity is related to global warming and yet suggest we can somehow mitigate global warming by changing our energy practices. And he said Kerry was a fence sitter...

P.S. Slashbots, this is not your que to start a Dem/Rep flame war. Bush and Kerry both suck. Bush, Kerry, the Dem's and Rep's are all just fucking aristocrats out to screw you. The sooner you all recognize that fact, the better off we'll all be. BTW, you global warming whiners should get off your dead asses and start seeding the oceans with iron sulfate. Either prove you are right and fix the problem in the process, or STFU. I'm sick to death of hearing about your fucking computer models.

Some parts of Australia have adopted daylight time. Of course, it's done a little differently than in the Northern Hemisphere where seasons are opposite. So, when daylight time starts in Canada, it comes to an end in Australia and vice versa. When Canadians are waxing their skis in December, Australians are waxing their surfboards because it's summer there. (Emphasis mine)

Are there actually people who don't know that it's summer in the southern hemisphere when it's winter in the northern? Although I do know that you north americans have some stunningly thick people (+1 Insightful, -1 Troll), it beggars belief that this is sufficiently unknown to warrant comment.

explain me just one thing: why http://www.whitehouse.gov/ points to something that should be http://www.whitehouse.gov.us/ ?

It's the same reason stamps from England do not have their country named on them; the country that invents the technology gets the prevelidge of being the default. England invented the postal stamp.

explain me just one thing: why http://www.whitehouse.gov/ points to something that should be http://www.whitehouse.gov.us/ ? If aliens would like to see webpage of WHOLE earth's goverment, where would they go?

In fairness (to the US) the whole thing's a mess: the EU uses eu.int, the UN uses un.org, the UK uses .gov.uk. Outside politics, it's much the same: the US and Australia, say, use "edu" for schools and universities; the UK and New Zealand use "ac".

I'm happy to let the US keep using the ".gov" and ".edu" domains, though - so long as "France gets control of teh intarweb bwahahaha" ;-)

explain me just one thing: why http://www.whitehouse.gov/ points to something that should be http://www.whitehouse.gov.us/ ? If aliens would like to see webpage of WHOLE earth's goverment, where would they go?