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It just goes to show how a few incredibly selfish individuals can bring chaos and ruin to society.

I agree 100%.

Y'see, doing this is likely to seriously piss off some very important people. Even if EMI & Universal manage to get through this without being hamstringed, it just brings them closer to the boundary they need to cross before that happens.

They're really taking this shit way too far. They seem to think that they're invulnerable (so far, they have good reason to believe that). The nice part about this is that big-time investors are close buddies with Washington. They're gonna be scared, not because they invested in Napster, but because of the precedent that this sets.

Tobacco and oil investors should be very afraid, and we all know what oil investors are capable of. Hopefully, this will result in Hillary Rosen looking like the Goatse guy.

Even worse, they even re-elect them!

Even worse, they even re-elect them!

from the American public's propensity to elect the worst candidates

Even worse, they even re-elect them!

The reason Saddam has been "idle" when it comes to threatening neighbors is because he's been contained since Desert Storm. You can bet that if he had been allowed to annex Kuwait back then, he'd have picked up one or two more countries by now.

Maybe you've got a nuke in your basement. Maybe you don't. After we level your house then we'll know for sure.

Now we'll have to wait and see if the WMD claims pan out. If Saddam's history of lies and deception is any example, we're almost certain to find evidence.

they do get publishing money, in Albini's case the song writers get $.07 per song per album sold minus ascap fees, if we assume 10 songs then the writers are getting $150,000

And they may not even get that. To the best of my knowledte, before a songwriter publishes a song, there is no reliable way to check whether or not that song infringes the copyright in another musical work. George Harrison got burned by this.

How do you solve the problem of accidental infringement?

Ask Albini what he thinks of Shawn Fanning or the like getting rich on the backs of Slint, Low, Big Black, The Pixies, or even Bush and he will tell you another story.

President Bush hasn't really done much about copyright. Or is there another Bush that I don't know about?

Now that you've explained your position a little better, I think I understand what you're saying. Just giving 2 examples of schools that seem to be doing fine, without any other information at all, and expecting the opposition to surmise your point is asking a bit much from anyone.

You seem to be a fairly intelligent guy, so it doesn't surprise me that you didn't go to public schools. Perhaps if you did, you would know that many teachers simply don't want to be there. They don't care about the education of the children... they're just there for a paycheck. That's why private schools excel. Public schools, like any government-run organization now-a-days, have quotas that must be met, and more often than not, those quotas require hiring someone based more off skin color and ethnicity than skill or talent for the job.

Now for a little math lesson...

The 2003 budget of the United States (www.whitehouse.gov) has $47.6 billion for the federal Department of Education. The Dept. of Education has 4,710 employees. If you divide $47.6 billion into 4710 employees, each employee has an average of $10.1 million dollars available to them, for salary, building, bills, supplies, etc. Most people look at that and say "Holy Shit! ... But what about the Department of Defense?" The Dept. of Defense has $330.6 billion in the budget, but also has 2.3 million members of the Military, and 667,750 civilian employees. Added together, that's around 2.9 - 3.0 million employees. If you divide the total budget into the number of employees, you get... uh oh... only $110,020. Suddenly it doesn't seem like too much, does it? Let's go down the rest of the departments:

Agriculture = $76.6 billion / 131,385 employees = $.583 million per employee
Commerce = $5.5 billion / 37,000 employees = $.14 million per employee
Energy = $19.1 billion / 15,000 federal + 100,000 contractors = $.16 million per employee
Health and Human Services = $459.4 billion / 65,000 employees = $70 million per employee (isn't government health care great?)
Housing & Urban Development = $30.9 billion / 10,300 employees = $3 million per employee (another drain)
Interior = $10.3 billion / 69,718 employees = $.15 million per employee
Justice = $23.1 billion / 129,679 employees = $.18 million per employee
Labor = $58.6 billion / 17,432 employees = $3.4 million per employee (yet another drain)
State = $15.9 billion / 28,967 employees = $.55 million per employee
Transportation = $60.8 billion / 118,447 employees = $.51 million per employee
Treasury = $16.8 billion / 150,532 employees = $.11 million per employee
Veterans Affairs = $51.5 billion / 207,028 employees = $.25 million per employee

Granted, everything there is absolutely abhorrent compared to most evil corporations, but the government is losing more money on Education (right after Health Services) than any other department. Who's getting all that money? Obviously not the children, since our test scores are so bad. I think you get my point about education...

I know Americans are stupid. It's because of the bad education they recieve that they can't see the long-term effects their decisions will have. It's also because of Democrats in the White House that we're plagued by such horrible things as Labor Unions, Social Security, and Welfare, all of which are designed to let the government step in and give people more money for not doing anything. Unions had a place at one time, but when they won't take a 5% paycut to keep their jobs, it becomes clear they want a government-run airline, like Amtrak. That way, their jobs will be secure. (How many manual labor workers do you know that make $100,000? The Airlines have plenty... baggage throwers mostly.)

I'm not trying to argue that the current government hasn't made bad choices. One of them was starting the department of Homeland Security (or Defense, I can't remember which at the moment). (Wha

The real problem is that most /.'ers would rather browse http://www.whitehouse.com than http://www.whitehouse.gov.

How will they deal with evolving documents modified by many people in many different countries?

The potential for invasion of privacy also seems extremely high. Think of oppressive governments using any lists to find "undesirable" documents published in their country and taking "appropriate measures" to stop their production. Although maybe The National Security Strategy will soon take care of such situations (here's hoping :).

He Hosts under a UK IP Block! The Whitehouse is hosted Here!

Looks like Georgie Boy is looking for an exit plan :-)

Check out his biography at the White House:

After graduating, he moved back to Midland and began a career in the energy business.

The energy business? Gee, I wonder what that could mean? Could it be... OIL?

Declan's story points to the Executive Order itself, and it only applies to information about the Federally owned parts of the infrastructure and things owned, built for, or under control of the Federal Government. The Internet doesn't fit into that, as much as ICANN might like. That fact re-does emphasize the importance of having critical infrastructure that's not owned by any single government or under the control of any single government - it's better off in the private sector, and distributed around the world. But if the Feds want to classify the details of the infrastructure of Milnet, fine, as long as they're not too mean to the next 14-year-old gamer kid from Seoul who cracks into it.

Let me link you again idiot:

PNAC

NSS

Now instead of being a moron, how about backing up yer verbosity with some facts? or are you a typical conservative who comes to us sans factoid?

I will add to this if you please. The portion I am adding reads like a conspiracy theory. Its not. It has been documented in many places, including PBS and the White House itself.

I wont go into details here, I will allow one to read the material themselves. You can also watch the video as PBS online is currently hosting a story frontline did about the mess.

In brief:

The Project for the New American Century is a DC based think tank that has imagined a world under complete US military and economic domination (or "freedom" as it were). They have fiddled with and written documents concerning a post cold war world where the USA has become the Worlds Only Superpower and what that means from a Strategic viewpoint.

In the early days, Paul Wolfowitz produced a document that detailed the expansion of the American empire that seemed too radical at the time and was cleaned up and rewritten and stowed away. Over time, and through the most recent Coup by this incredibly radical group of men, this updated document, with the help of the PNAC, became the National Security Strategy Of the United States. Most chilling about this turn of eventls and policy is the new found policy of "pre-emption". Which I think we are seeing now in the creation of the 51st state.

Also chilling (to me anyway) is the fact that this is the "official story", the one being reported by the obviously biased media.

Anyway.. some more links..

CBC.ca's take.

More Canadian Insight

The Frontline Special

n top of everything, most of the powerful people of the bush administartion (such as Cheney, Powel and Rumsfield for example) were important people in the reagan administration.

not so.

this may be ot but the parent was modded up, so...

Rumsfeld was Secretary of Defense under Gerald Ford. He left public life in 1977.

Cheney was a US Congressman from Wyoming during the Reagan administration. He was White House Chief of Staff under Ford, and Secretary of Defense under Bush I.

Powell was in the military until 1993.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/government/fbci/

To the first two points have a look here:

http://www.newamericancentury.org/

PNAC is a rather conservative Think Tank who has interresting articles titled:

Richard Perl on Iraq

The UN trap?

A Necessary War

And much much more, read it, it is almost a blue print for the current US foreign policy.

"So what?" You might ask, it's a Think Tank they're supposed to do something like that. True but members of that Think Tank include:

Richard Cheney

Richard Perle

Both of them quite clearly influence american policy, wouldn't you agree?

Chirac said that under no circumstances would the use of force be appropriate, and they would oppose any resolution setting a deadline. That eliminated any incentive for Saddam to disarm or truly cooperate with inspectors. France also opposed a stronger inspection regime than the one led by Hans Blix, again weakening inspections.

Yes he did, because it was clear at that point in time that this was the only thing the US wanted: To use force.

The US also careered quite niecly around on what they actually wanted:

First it was inspections, then it was disarmament, then all of the sudden that wasn't good enough either and it was clear they wanted to oust Saddam.

Someone has agendas here and if you read on the PNAC website you'll realize that it is about power. Oil might not be the number one reason for them to go in, but I am sure it is a nice price once they get it.

link: here

And it will be no defense to say, "I was just following orders."

Isn't it ironic that on the same day Bush defies the UN he also turns in his UN participation report? (yeah 2001, but still)

Thanks for pointing that out, here is the link HTMLized for the lazy Tax Revenues

Sure thing, the last updated news was that Saddam must leave in 48 hours. Enjoy!

There's a PerlTray sample in the ActiveState Perl Dev Kit 5.0 that pulls the current threat level from the Homeland Security webpage. Cute, but Windows only though...

I'd say that the government and people of the US have stated again and again what our aims are. Here are some examples, if you want:

• Here's Bush's speech on the subject to the United Nations, given September 12, 2002.
• Here's the Joint Congressional Resolution which almost the entire Senate, and about 75% of the house voted for.
• Here's the statement of the nations of Spain, Portugal, Italy, the United Kingdom, Hungary, Poland, Denmark, and the Czech Republic.
• Here's the statement of the nations of Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.

Of course, to hear you tell it, all of these people are just in it to make some money for President Bush's father. Is that really your claim?

It sounds like you already know everything you need to know. Now you simply need to summon the courage of your beliefs.

You may be fired because of your beliefs. At that point, you just have to decide which is more valuable: your beliefs or your jobs (hint: your beliefs are). On the other hand, your boss may simply be having a weak moment in his own beliefs. You ought to try to talk to him about this, and not in a self-righteous way. Try to make the case that you can't build a successful company or a successful life without character. Your company and your own bank account might prosper in the short run, but eventually the way the universe works catches up to you...even if it's not before you die.

At any rate, it sounds like you've got the right tickets to begin with. Good luck.

And according to the Dept. of Homeland Security it's an effective barrier to a chemical or biological attack! Go out and support the economy by buying these supplies, don't worry, we're not trying to stir up paranoia for our own domestic agenda...

*cough*
PATRIOT ACTS I and II
*cough*

We would never play with the American people like that.

Well, in that case someone better tell the White House that their web page violates a patent (look in the middle of the page). How dare the government use Apple(tm)'s IP! The presidency should be handed over to Steve Jobs, effective immediately.

I assume you meant did, and I really doubt it. Look at this timeline from George W. Bush's bio.

Bachelor's from Yale, 1968

Fighter pilot

MBA, 1975 His father did head the CIA, but not until 1976, after he finished his MBA.

Interestingly. looking up when GHWB was head of the CIA, I found out he was involved in the assasination of JFK, and the Bay of Pigs invasion.

Did Rumsfield suddenly realize that giving WMD's to Sadaam was a bad thing, maybe even immoral?

You joke, but it is possible. September 11th changed the way a lot of us think, the Adminstration not excluded. And George W. Bush never supported Saddam.

It really doesn't matter what this is "about". If this is about stopping terrorism, but we also liberate millions of Iraqis by accident, liberation still occurs. I don't care if we're invading Iraq for their turnip crop. Facts are facts. The Iraqis would be better off with anyone but Saddam -- even a makeshift republic that we have to piece together. Fortunately, President Bush has committed to democracy in Iraq, in the form of a very public speech which has been covered by all the major media outlets, even though i did link to the press release. (If you're afraid a transcript might somehow be biased, feel free to look it up in the NYT)

And you didn't answer my question. What SHOULD we do, if not war? Let the people suffer? Let Iraq pose a threat to the world? You wake up. There is real suffering in the world. We have the power to stop it.

The world has a clear interest in the spread of democratic values, because stable and free nations do not breed the ideologies of murder. They encourage the peaceful pursuit of a better life.

Your right.. Bribery and coercion goes a long way.

Oh and don't forget China.

Bribery


Q Ari, in Mexico, the President will continue to call President Fox to pressure him to change his mind against -- and to vote in the Security Council? What Mexico can get from the United States if it votes yes for the resolution that was presented by this country?

MR. FLEISCHER: First of all, this entire matter will be dealt with in a matter of diplomacy and logic and expressions of our position. And nations then will be in a position as sovereigns to evaluate that information. This is why the Security Council is set up with 10 members who rotate on to the Council. This is a moment for 10 nations that would not typically be on the Security Council to have their moment, as part of the international community's regimes to enforce peace and to fight proliferation.

Q But Mexico can get something from the United States, from the President --

MR. FLEISCHER: This is a time -- no, the President is not offering quid pro quos. This is a time for nations to do what they estimate is the right thing to do to promote the peace.

Q Ari, just to follow up on Mexico. Is it true that the administration is willing to give Mexico some sort of immigration agreements like amnesty or guest worker program, to assure the Mexican vote, as the French press is pointing out today and is quoting, actually, two different diplomats from the State Department?

MR. FLEISCHER: No, it's exactly as I indicated, that we have, on this issue, a matter of diplomacy and a matter of the merits. We ask each nation on the Security Council to weigh the merits and make a decision about war and peace. And if anybody thinks that there are nations like Mexico, whose vote could be bought on the basis of a trade issue or something else like that, I think you're giving -- doing grave injustice to the independence and the judgment of the leaders of other nations.

Q -- the French press is quoting actually two different diplomats from the United States State Department that -- they're highlighting that the United States is giving some sort of agreements or benefits to Colombia -- and other non-members of the Security Council --

MR. FLEISCHER: I haven't seen the story. And you already have the answer, about what this will be decided on. But think about the implications of what you're saying. You're saying that the leaders of other nations are buyable. And that is not an acceptable proposition. (Laughter.)


Coercion


Countries have learned to fear Washington's wrath over key U.N. votes. When Yemen, along with Cuba, cast the only negative votes against a U.N. resolution in 1990 authorizing the Gulf War, Washington almost immediately withdrew a $70 million aid package to Yemen. Immediately after the vote in the Security Council chamber, a U.S. official was overheard telling Yemen's ambassador, ''That will be the most expensive 'no' vote you ever cast.''


Lobbying to secure the support of six nations from a group of seven that remain on the fence, President Bush is sending diplomats across Africa, making personal calls to Chile, and entertaining Bulgaria's premier. For the seven countries in the spotlight -- Angola, Bulgaria, Cameroon, Chile, Guinea, Mexico, and Pakistan -- a yes vote could mean more US aid, more US trade, and Washington's help on a score of issues.

More Coercion:


US bullies Security Council members

uploaded 25 Feb 2003

United Nations- Senior U.S. officials have been quietly dispatched in recent days to the capitals of key Security Council countries where they are warning leaders to vote with the United States on Iraq or risk "paying a heavy price."
For some of the countries, such as Angola, Guinea and Cameroon - poor African nations whose concerns drew little attention before they landed seats on the council - there is the possibility that supporting Washington's drive for a new U.N. resolution authorizing war may reap benefits down the line.
"For a long time now, we have been asking for help to rebuild our country after years of war," said Angolan Ambassador Ismael Gaspar Martins. "No one is tying the request to support on Iraq but it is all happening at the same time."
Angola's president, Jose Eduardo dos Santos, met in Luanda Thursday with U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Walter Kansteiner, who was diverted from a trip to South Africa to meet with the leaders of the council's three African nations.
"In Africa, the message is simple: Time is running out and we think they should support us," said one U.S. diplomat on condition of anonymity.
The United States and Britain plan to submit their resolution to the Security Council this week and will ask for a vote by the middle of March.
In the meantime, the State Department has sent some of its top people to the world's capitals to lobby for support even as President Bush, Secretary of State Colin Powell and British Prime Minister Tony Blair work the phones. The Bush administration has also recruited the leaders of Australia and Spain to help push for votes.
"The order from the White House was to use 'all diplomatic means necessary,' " another U.S. diplomat said. "And that really means everything."
In the past three weeks, the administration has sent Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman and Kim Holmes, the assistant secretary of state for international organizations, to Mexico City.
Mexican diplomats described the visits as hostile in tone and complained that Washington was demonstrating little concern for the constraints of the Mexican government, whose people are overwhelmingly opposed to a war with Iraq.
"They actually told us: 'Any country that doesn't go along with us will be paying a very heavy price,' " said one Mexican diplomat.
To get its resolution through, the United States must secure nine votes in the 15-member council while preventing France, Russia or China - which are pushing for continued weapons inspections - from using their vetoes. The United States and Britain hold the two other vetoes.
While Washington and London believe they already have the necessary authorization to forcefully disarm Iraq, many key allies - Turkey included - have said a new resolution would help them overcome opposition at home.
But so far, Washington is at least five votes short with support guaranteed only from Britain, Spain and Bulgaria.
Since both Germany and Syria have said they would not support the resolution, and Pakistan is almost certain to abstain, the United States must persuade the African trio as well as Chile and Mexico to vote yes. Otherwise, the resolution will fail.
Diplomats said there was little the Bush administration could use to scare or entice Mexico now since it does not receive U.S. aid and the one thing it had wanted most - legalizing the status of undocumented Mexicans in the United States - was taken off the table more than a year ago.

Source:cleveland.com / Associated Press


I could go on and on.

You know, you could use all those same adjectives, "belligerent", "aggressor" to a certain other government we all know.

Over 90% of the serving members of the 3 branches of government were lawyers.

Not even close ....

• About 35% of Congress are lawyers reference
  
• Neither the President nor the Vice President have a law degree reference
  
• Nine of the fifteen cabinet officers have law degrees (you'll have to walk through the various department websites, just like I did)
  
• I couldn't find numbers on federal judgeships held by lawyers ... but I'm certainly willing to concede that branch.
  

Just some food for thought....

Okay, everybody, okay!! :-) Too much coffee I guess.

Irony kinda went out the window after 9/11, and sarcasm too. Ashcroft has actually threatened members of Congress and the press with prosecution under USA PATRIOT if they spoke against it. If that's not fascism, I don't know what is.

Now who's stupid, Patriot act part 2 is already here in the Homeland Security Action. Who needed rights anyways. Furthermore I'm insulted by you generalization about slashdoters. I for one would like to point out that it's not a coin flip because the 2 parties are the same. Shoot the middle is the way to play the political game. The reason the libertarian, green and reform party dont win is because the are "extreme" in that they ask for the ultimate sin in politics. Change. People are content even when things are some what bad not to venture into changing the system. Next time you feel like voicing your opinion try not to step out to far because there are people out there that actually do understand whats going on.

Just when I thought that the United States was starting to fall into an unabortable tailspin to a fascist's wet dream, I see this article and my faith in the American Way has been restored.

Not totally restored, mind you. That will happen when King George II is dethroned. But this is a very good thing for all those out there who still believe in democratic/republican Constitutional American government.

But still. Viva Americana!

This can still be over-ridden by an executive order of the president... which sounds likely in the "name of national security" and our orange alert level.

One of the thoughts that I would just simply share with you, it's probably not a bad idea to sit down and just arrange some kind of a contact plan, that if an event occurred you want to make sure you can -- the family wants to get in touch with one another. That's not a bad thing to do to prepare in advance of any kind of emergency, whether it's a natural disaster or a terrorist attack. Doesn't take a great deal of time. And I think it would make family members a lot more comfortable if they knew they were able to get in touch with one another in the event something happened.

Hate to by cynical, but...

Funny how the Homeland Security Advisory System went up a notch when it looks like CPI was calling around to the DoJ asking about this legislation...

America the Evil Empire. Give me a fucking break. Yeah, Saddam is a wonderful leader for his people and he loves to play nice with his neighbors and should be allowed to carry a huge stock of WMD against the will of the UN. Condoning the 9/11 trajedy should say a lot about his viewpoint on conventional war. I don't care what nation gets innocent civilians killed. It's wrong and should be avoided. Before you comment on civilian casualties we have caused, remember that there will be honest mistakes that are regretted. I'm talking about dictators that think civilian casualties are a great way to win a war.

Do you really think we want to go to war? If he disarmed, we would love to bring our brothers, sisters, and fathers back home! Unfortunately, he hasn't disarmed yet. -Lucas

You cannot say that the club is unbiased - but you do not know that the club is biased either. This is not because it straddles some ambiguous nether-region. It is because you know nothing of the club beyond what you have heard or read. (Come visit sometime, the pizza is for non-members too!)

At the foundation of the club is a set of values that supercedes any corporate affiliation. At the core is the desire to learn about technologies that we are not exposed to in course material, yet may encounter in the business world.

Since Ohio State students are likely to graduate without meaningful technical exposure to Microsoft products, this is often the logical choice when looking for a solution to explore. Undoubtedly we can fall back on the assumption that if we choose a Microsoft solution it will be provided to us free of charge, but this does not drive our selection process as much as an outsider might imagine.

In a recent discussion on source control there were over 60 discussion posts over the course of two days - largely debating the merits of CVS vs. VSS. Ultimately we elected to set them both up and conduct an analytical study of the merits of each. If anything, as with society at large, I've noticed a subtle anti-MS bias among club members.

Later in your post you complain about a professor of yours whom you feel is being tempted by the beast.

You then comment on his apparently poor administration skills (only negligent admins were hit by the SQL worm). Maybe he's still learning?

You also use the term "allegedly" to describe your lack of knowledge regarding the financing behind the lab in question. I suspect that in your unbiased comments regarding the many Unix, Solaris and Mac labs in campus, you replace "allegedly" with "generously" when describing how financing for these labs were secured?

Perplexed at how an instructor might achieve impartiality given all of this bribery, you retreat to the rationalization that Java (with an 7 year head-start) development outpaces development in (1 year old) .NET. You sound like a boastful mother bragging that her son can read to the parent of an infant who still needs his diapers changed!

My point is that for someone who seems to continually lace his/her prose with subtle inferences to your distaste for MS, you're not a poster child for objectivity.

"has no intention of allowing any foreign power to catch up with the huge lead the United States has opened since the fall of the Soviet Union [..]"

president@whitehouse.gov and vice.president@whitehouse.gov??? I thought everybody knew this...

president@whitehouse.gov and vice.president@whitehouse.gov??? I thought everybody knew this...

Jesus H. Christ, you're on the Internet. Why don't you looks this shit up:

• Whitehouse
• Defense Link
• a comment I made with some detail

President George W. Bush today released the details of his 2003 Department of Defense budget proposal to fight the war against terrorism, provide for homeland defense and accelerate changes to transform the U.S. military. To address these needs, the President's budget proposes $369 billion for DoD plus $10 billion, if needed, to fight the war on terrorism - for a total of $379 billion.

A lot of this money is salary and benefits for our volunteer military: about $200 billion (see my comment). You could call that warmongering I guess.

You should feel free to whine, but at least try to use the occasional fact. Fuckwit.

"US Military Budget this year is something like $780 billion US dollars."

BEEEP! I'm sorry, crack monkey, you don't win the microwave!

I know actually spending 90 seconds to bother searching for the information on the Internet is much more labor intensive than your tried and true "smoke some rock and pull the numbers out of my ass" method, but if you had bothered to do any research, you would see that the President's budget for FY2003 tops out at $379 billion."

From:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2003/bud1 2. html

"To address these needs the President's Budget proposes $369 billion in 2003 for DoD and an additional $10 billion, if needed, to fight the war on terrorism."

With this correction and my handy research tips in hand, I'll let you get back to trying to pull those invisible ants off your face. And remember: Drug abuse and Slashdot just don't mix!

and that continue to make money from the
Cheney Rumsfeld regime in their War on Everybody.

The bonobos who have earlier developed a simple vocabulary have rapidly evolved to include more complex vocabulary like warfore, compassionated, pillared, and vulcanize. Who knows that if this trend were to continue unabated, might they in the future be regarded not just as an equal to humans, but also be eligible to run for the highest office?

It's pretty obvious most of those replying haven't read the draft proposal. Regardless of whether you genuflect three times to it or think it sucks pondwater, it looks kinda silly to rant about things that aren't in it as several here have done.

The draft proposal. Dry government-ese, but worth reading, yay or nay.