And yes, some calls ARE that important. If I and my wife are out for dinner and a movie sans child, we're using our phones for emergency contact numbers.
I'm sorry, but that's just a load of crap. Everyone is worried about there kid, but unless you're a doctor with ueber-specialized knowledge of your kids deadly medical condition I think others will be able to take care of any emergency better IN PERSON than you can over a cell phone perhaps 30-60 minutes away.
I don't know if you know this.. but before cell phones people trusted their kids to babysitters and didn't sit on pins and needles worrying about little Johnny every single second (and thus needed cell phone contact for some emergency). Ok, some insane parents probbably still did, but cell phones have only seemingly broaded that insane impulse. I recall some episodes of crappy sit-coms making fun of such parents. Children can survive quite nicely for the length of dinner and a movie in the care of others. In the event of true emergencies some babysitters even know to call 911! Believe it or not there are better resources for emergencies than you on a phone (poison centers, 911 operators, and good babysitters).
The only thing that comes to mind is having a special node at the theatre thats essentially a repeater (but doesn't ring the phone or allow outgoing calls to be made). Calls to anyone with a phone from a certain prefix or list of numbers (given to any emergency responders) is allowed through. Think of it like a cell-phone firewall.
If that's how they're planning on doing it I don't know. But there has to be some way of distinguishing emergency calls, or emergency cell phones from normal everyday calls/phones.
To be perfectly honest, I think a lot of the climate changes have to do with natural cycles in the Earth's history. Since we've actually been in one of the colder periods of Earth's history, it's only natural that things should warm up a little.
Maybe, but I'm not sure we have the luxury of waiting another 50 years to collect enough data to determine exactly how much of the warming effect is man-made (and controllable) and how much is beyond our control. From everything I hear it sounds like there is an non-negligible impact on global warming from human released greenhouse gasses.
The disaster isn't quite that humans will become extinct, it's that large costal cities will go underwater as glaciers melt and raise sea levels. I just don't think that's a trivial effect that you shouldn't be concerned about. You claim we're "attatched to the geography as we know it today", which I guess is technically true, but it really seems to trivialize the effects of global warming. The gun may not be pointed at our head, but it certainly seems like we could lose some fingers or a hand.
If you accept that human emissions of greenhouse gasses contribute to global warming (which it sounds like you do) then you'd also agree that we have to do something about stopping it. The developed countries including the US should be the ones leading the charge away from greenhouse gas emissions. This is for no other reason than it's the developed countries that are best able to afford the changes to power plants, fuel efficient cars, etc.
We've already done the exact same thing with Ozone depleting chemicals with the Montreal Protocol in 1987. The developed countries largely payed for the technology development for safer ozone depleting gasses and the developing countries get a bit more time to implement it. If developing countries don't, you're in a lot better position to start imposing sanctions, trade policies, etc to try to get them to do so. If you just sit on your hands and do nothing, that's probbably what you're going to get.
Japan is a third world country by your definition, i.e. non-white. I guess the US must be at least partially 3rd world too since it's 23% non white.
The real reason for the correlation has nothing to do with racism and more to do with geography. The 3rd world nations are almost exclusively in the tropics where it's a bitch to live because of the lack of one thing... winter. A constant growing season means insects and disease are a constant threat that never has a chance to die off every year. People living in the tropics develop darker skin after thousands of years to protect them from the higher amount of UV radiation, thus the correlation with skin color and economic prosperity.
The exception to this is China (not in the tropics), which up until relatively recently was a prosperous nation. Then came communism and screwed it all up (though I suspect there might be other factors as well). Since China has now turned to a more market economy they're quickly leaving 3rd world status.
The article seems to exagerate the importance of this hack by talking about voting, credit card numbers, etc. But my question is how significant is this?
How secure something needs to be depends on what it is you're protecting. In this case it's the legitimacy of a chess game played over the internet and ratings of individual players. Is their something at stake more than game fairness and an online chess rating? (prize money for example). The article mentions famous people are on the server, is Madonnas chess account being hacked supposed to make me feel scared?
The problems should be fixed of course (if possible), but it sure seems like we're scraping the bottom of the security alert barrel on this one.
The 'crazy TV tax' as you put it means the UK has the best news service in the world, and have a remit to produce high quality radio and TV programming. And all without any advertising. Oh, and the BBC is not beholden to the government of the day meaning it often takes a contrary stand to hold it accountable.
I'd think the greatest news service in the world would be a newspaper or internet source. Television news has a very limited ability to bring news just based upon the format. No news source I know of in any free country is beholden to the government.
Okay, so the tax is compulsary for TV owners. But how much does *your* TV subscription cost? How much advertising must you put up with (despite subscribing)? How many products do you subconsciously buy because of that advertising?
Advertising doesn't really bother me. It gives you a chance to get up and go to the bathroom, check the roast, etc. If it bothers you a lot it's easy to turn off the sound. I also don't really buy much of anything because of the "subconscious advertising". Anyway, most advertising doesn't really work that way. It's supposed to make you familiar with the product before you make the decision to buy so it doesn't seem so foreign. I can still make rational decisions based on if I really need something and not let the ad bastards control my mind.
Who are your TV stations accountable to? Whose agenda is driving their news and politics? What remit do they use when producing programming for - advertising, ratings, or what?
It's true TV stations are in it all for a profit and the news reflects that. For that reason I don't much watch television news sources. If I want a non-profit driven news source I turn on public radio. If I want non-profit driven entertainment I turn on a PBS station. PBS and public radio produces some of the best informational shows around and it's all voluntary support by the public, and through government support.
Good god. I've known about the crazy TV tax in england for years, but its interesting to hear about it straight from a brit. Hearing about this crazyness in England and Germany just makes me glad to be an American where we don't have such bizzaro taxes.
Granted we still have this idiotic reality TV craze, and US TV rarely produces anything as good as Red Dwarf.. but then that's what PBS is for. BBC must have its crap too, it just doesn't get imported here (though for some strange reason Benny Hill was).
Maybe he beats his wife, hates jews, and is a terrorist too. There's no evidence he isn't! Hell, I already hate this guy based upon what we don't know!
Maybe I'm crazy, but I don't take into consideration anything unless I actually have a reason to believe in it. Imagined justifications for the firing are just that, imagined. Unless you know either of these guys it's unfair to assume there were any straws on anyones backs.
I'll tell you this though, it does sound awfully bizzare this whole thing even gets in the news, and then this Tom Hayes ass makes public statements questioning his intelligence.
If you can tolerate an outage every few weeks, go ahead and use desktops.
That has to be one of the most flat-out wrong statements I've heard this month. I've had several desktops working as servers over the years, and for the most part they all work flawlessly. I had one machine start getting very flaky after 3 years constant uptime, one where the hard drive failed (the HD was probbably 6 years old), and one where a PS failed (probbably about 6 years as well). With the exception of old age, the desktop servers work just fine.
Really if you need hardware that's going to last flawlessly for more than 3-4 years then go with the server HW. All desktops aren't created equally though. You can spend only a little bit more on a good quality motherboard, good PS, quality cooling fans, and probbably some form of RAID and expect no HW problems over a 3-4 year lifespan.
"Could have allowed" is a very tricky statement. If I put confidential records in the trash and didn't shred them that's a very plausible situation where confidentiality could be broken. We have perfect knowledge of such a situation (records sitting in a trash can are obviously a pathway leading to confidentialy breach).
In this case we don't even actually know if there's any security problems in the seti software that could lead to such a breach. So in this case it's only our ignorance that allows for the "could have allowed".
He doesn't have to actually violate confidentiality, just making it possible through negligent behavior is enough to have him fired.
Maybe, but I bet there's tons of other everyday non-technical ways in which people are negligent with regards to security and it doesn't get them fired. The whole incident needs to be placed into context rather than just claiming it was security violation and dismissing it as that. My guess is the fact that's what the guy did was technical and the consequences obscure and mysterious has more to do with his being fired than any actual neglicence.
Wow, great way to work with your employees. You sound like you just dismiss anything anyone knew has to say because they aren't engrained into your culture. Sure, some people have foolish ideas when they start out, but that's not an excuse to ignore people asking for some tool or OS to use. Your post comes off like you're dinosaur still clinging to the mainframes resisting any change to your fiefdom.
Where does it say anything about violating confidentiality? Like the previous poster you're making up claims to justify the actions. There's a big difference between violating confidentiality (giving out information to people you shoulnd't) and running a program you shouldn't. Should you be fired for having a poorly chosen password too?
Not if the employee handbook says that's the consequence.
That's just ridiculous. I've seen "employee handbooks" before and they're not the final word on anything. A book means nothing, it's all about what the people in charge are saying.
Not if Smith was doing other things deserving of termination. Not if his actions endangered adherence to security protocols, placed sensitive data at risk of disclosure, or caused a department to loose certification.
Sure, but we have no evidence of that whatsover. That only exists in your imagination to justify the harsh treatment of this guy. Please stick to the facts and not what you imagine to be the case.
And yes, I _am_ a sysadmin. He shouldn't have been running the program, but based on what we know firing him and making assholish statements about him in print is going way to far.
Of the problem species, are trees really that big of a problem? It seems like they'd be by far the easiest to eradicate as they multiply slowly, don't move real fast, and can be killed quite easily with a cheap chainsaw.
I granted don't know much about invasive species, but this list seems a bit odd in its priorities.
I don't think anyone is talking about some kind of enforceable contract signed, notarized, and legally binding. Turn off the lawyer/MBA part of your brain and turn on the common sense/everday people interaction. This is just an agreement between two people. The enforcing body of the agreement would be the kids parents, not the court system.
The upfront payment has other problems with it, but not being legally enforceable in a court of law isn't one of them.
You can't honestly compare Ventura to these two clowns. Ventura had funding, name recognition, and actual television ads. He also had a popular radio show that got his name out to the non wrastling crowd. These guys have... nothing. I didn't look like Ventura was going to win going into the debates that year, but you'd be hard pressed to say he wasn't on the radar. Christ, even Nadar shows up on the radar, and that's only because he's a news item because the democrats all hate him, and hate sells on the news.
Nobody knows who the third party candidates are because there is a virtual media blackout going on. They don't have the money to buy media like the candidates (and the RNC and DNC) spending multiple millions, and they're not getting most of the earned media they should be.
They don't have any funding because they don't have any support. The media sure isn't going to cover them because no one supports them, or cares about them. There's no conspiracy, it's just about getting eyeballs to TV screens, papers, and monitors. That's even doubly true for O'Reilly. The guy started out on Inside Edition, that tabloid "news" magazine show. You don't think that's all about generating controversy and emotions? I could run for president too.. does that mean the media should cover me? What's the standard that should be set for the media to cover Joe Nobody libertarian candidate?
As for focusing on local elections, there is a big disagreement in the third parties about this very subject. The argument is that the presidential races get us the maximum exposure,
Maximum exposure at looking like a bunch of ass clowns. The 2000 election only alienated democrats from the Green party. Yah yah, I know, know there's no such thing as bad publicity. Maybe that's true when someone has to make that 3 second decision on what brand of salsa to buy, but it falls short in a presidential election. The system may be screwed up, but it's the system we have and it's not changing just because you want it too.
As far as a viable third party, I keep thinking about a quote by Hunter S Thompson from "On The Campaign Trail '72"
Remember the Whigs, Larry? They went belly up, with no warning at all, when a handfull of young politicians like Abe Lincoln decided to move out on their own, and fuck the Whigs... which worked out very nicely, and when it became almost instantly clear that the whig hierarchy was just a gang of old impotent windbags with no real power at all, the Party just curled up and died... and any politician stupid enough to "stay loyal" went down with the ship.
Which I think says a lot. You don't start up a party from nothing. Both parties are pretty shaky right now, but the libertarians or the greens are hardly even sane. Christ, I saw the muddlehead Green candidate for Governor in MN a couple years ago in a debate and all he could rant about was solving transportation problems with bicycles and deficits with taxing water. What average american is going to take a third party candidate serious when he says naive and foolish things like that?
No, I think the biggest problems with establishing a third party is the third parties themselves. They're full of extremist who the average american can't identify with at all. The closest we got was the independance party in 92, and that all self destructed when everyone realized there wasn't anyone holding it together but Ross Perot.
The big problem with "resorting" to braille or VR displays and so many of the solutions others have suggested -- is psychological; it's something that makes the kid different from other kids. And he is, but there's no reason to highlight it needlessly.
Needlessly? The kid is having problems with geography, geography (at least the map variant of it) is a very visual subject. This is EXACTLY the time you just might need to "resort" to brail, or some kind of relief map or whatever. There's no shame in being blind, or near blind. If you're trying to hide the impairment that's what seems to suggest there's something wrong, or embarassing about it.
except maybe that Tacoma doesn't have an evacuation plan in case Mt. Ranier goes.
And that's the big problem as I see it. I don't know much about evacuation, but as I understand it a large part of the increased interstate in FL is for hurricane evaculation. Does Seatle/Tacoma have sufficient evaculation routes to get everyone out of the city in a few days?
Do you really have any reason to believe earthquakes across the globe all causally related (between themselves, or some other phenomenon causing them)? Or are you just connecting events that are close together in time with no real justification other than that? I'm not a geologist, but I've never heard anyone claim there's any connection between earthquake activity around the world.
Huricanes, earthquakes, and volcano eruptions are quite common. Hurricanes hit the US almost every couple years (maybe even on average once a year or more). It's highly unlikely there's any connection between the hurricanes, earthquakes, and volcanoes. Plate tectonics is fairly removed from weather. It's far more likely this is just a co-incidence. (there's a high likelyhood that common events will occur near each other in time, given enough chances).
I could easily believe there's some undiscovered phenomenon creating more hurricanes this year than normal. El Nino was discovered relatively recently, so we do know there's major trends that can effect weather.
Additionally, my friend working at Boston Water and Sewer drinks his tap water over bottled water, because tap water is subject to far more rigorous testing than is bottled water.
This was covered in an episode of Penn & Tellers "Bullshit!", and at least according to them your friend is essentially correct. While bottled water is regulated, it's regulated by the FDA which has less than one guy dedicated to enforcement/monitoring. Tap water is closely monitored and each city has to issue reports on water quality annually.
Nevertheless I still prefer filtering my water because I don't like the taste of chlorine, and there's always the unknown factor of lead leached from the pipes inside your house. The risk is probbably low on the leached lead, but filters are still pretty cheap.
AT&T couldn't get their act together and change a website in time. I tend to trust what's on a websites front page more than a news article on slashdot, or some fool reporter.
Anyway, you're right. It's not $29.99 a month, but it was $20, then up to $35 after 6 months.
What a lot of baloney. In case you've forgotten we're talking about John Lennon being monitored by the Nixon Administration (i.e. dirty tricks, watergate, extreme paranoia). We're NOT talking about terrorism here. The "good reason" is probbably nothing more than protecting themselves from embarassment.
We're also talking about something that happened more than 32 years ago to person that is now dead. If the government can hide this from public view, they can hide anything they want.
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And yes, some calls ARE that important. If I and my wife are out for dinner and a movie sans child, we're using our phones for emergency contact numbers.
I'm sorry, but that's just a load of crap. Everyone is worried about there kid, but unless you're a doctor with ueber-specialized knowledge of your kids deadly medical condition I think others will be able to take care of any emergency better IN PERSON than you can over a cell phone perhaps 30-60 minutes away.
I don't know if you know this.. but before cell phones people trusted their kids to babysitters and didn't sit on pins and needles worrying about little Johnny every single second (and thus needed cell phone contact for some emergency). Ok, some insane parents probbably still did, but cell phones have only seemingly broaded that insane impulse. I recall some episodes of crappy sit-coms making fun of such parents. Children can survive quite nicely for the length of dinner and a movie in the care of others. In the event of true emergencies some babysitters even know to call 911! Believe it or not there are better resources for emergencies than you on a phone (poison centers, 911 operators, and good babysitters).
The only thing that comes to mind is having a special node at the theatre thats essentially a repeater (but doesn't ring the phone or allow outgoing calls to be made). Calls to anyone with a phone from a certain prefix or list of numbers (given to any emergency responders) is allowed through. Think of it like a cell-phone firewall.
If that's how they're planning on doing it I don't know. But there has to be some way of distinguishing emergency calls, or emergency cell phones from normal everyday calls/phones.
To be perfectly honest, I think a lot of the climate changes have to do with natural cycles in the Earth's history. Since we've actually been in one of the colder periods of Earth's history, it's only natural that things should warm up a little.
Maybe, but I'm not sure we have the luxury of waiting another 50 years to collect enough data to determine exactly how much of the warming effect is man-made (and controllable) and how much is beyond our control. From everything I hear it sounds like there is an non-negligible impact on global warming from human released greenhouse gasses.
The disaster isn't quite that humans will become extinct, it's that large costal cities will go underwater as glaciers melt and raise sea levels. I just don't think that's a trivial effect that you shouldn't be concerned about. You claim we're "attatched to the geography as we know it today", which I guess is technically true, but it really seems to trivialize the effects of global warming. The gun may not be pointed at our head, but it certainly seems like we could lose some fingers or a hand.
If you accept that human emissions of greenhouse gasses contribute to global warming (which it sounds like you do) then you'd also agree that we have to do something about stopping it. The developed countries including the US should be the ones leading the charge away from greenhouse gas emissions. This is for no other reason than it's the developed countries that are best able to afford the changes to power plants, fuel efficient cars, etc.
We've already done the exact same thing with Ozone depleting chemicals with the Montreal Protocol in 1987. The developed countries largely payed for the technology development for safer ozone depleting gasses and the developing countries get a bit more time to implement it. If developing countries don't, you're in a lot better position to start imposing sanctions, trade policies, etc to try to get them to do so. If you just sit on your hands and do nothing, that's probbably what you're going to get.
Japan is a third world country by your definition, i.e. non-white. I guess the US must be at least partially 3rd world too since it's 23% non white.
The real reason for the correlation has nothing to do with racism and more to do with geography. The 3rd world nations are almost exclusively in the tropics where it's a bitch to live because of the lack of one thing... winter. A constant growing season means insects and disease are a constant threat that never has a chance to die off every year. People living in the tropics develop darker skin after thousands of years to protect them from the higher amount of UV radiation, thus the correlation with skin color and economic prosperity.
The exception to this is China (not in the tropics), which up until relatively recently was a prosperous nation. Then came communism and screwed it all up (though I suspect there might be other factors as well). Since China has now turned to a more market economy they're quickly leaving 3rd world status.
The article seems to exagerate the importance of this hack by talking about voting, credit card numbers, etc. But my question is how significant is this?
How secure something needs to be depends on what it is you're protecting. In this case it's the legitimacy of a chess game played over the internet and ratings of individual players. Is their something at stake more than game fairness and an online chess rating? (prize money for example). The article mentions famous people are on the server, is Madonnas chess account being hacked supposed to make me feel scared?
The problems should be fixed of course (if possible), but it sure seems like we're scraping the bottom of the security alert barrel on this one.
The 'crazy TV tax' as you put it means the UK has the best news service in the world, and have a remit to produce high quality radio and TV programming. And all without any advertising. Oh, and the BBC is not beholden to the government of the day meaning it often takes a contrary stand to hold it accountable.
I'd think the greatest news service in the world would be a newspaper or internet source. Television news has a very limited ability to bring news just based upon the format. No news source I know of in any free country is beholden to the government.
Okay, so the tax is compulsary for TV owners. But how much does *your* TV subscription cost? How much advertising must you put up with (despite subscribing)? How many products do you subconsciously buy because of that advertising?
Advertising doesn't really bother me. It gives you a chance to get up and go to the bathroom, check the roast, etc. If it bothers you a lot it's easy to turn off the sound. I also don't really buy much of anything because of the "subconscious advertising". Anyway, most advertising doesn't really work that way. It's supposed to make you familiar with the product before you make the decision to buy so it doesn't seem so foreign. I can still make rational decisions based on if I really need something and not let the ad bastards control my mind.
Who are your TV stations accountable to? Whose agenda is driving their news and politics? What remit do they use when producing programming for - advertising, ratings, or what?
It's true TV stations are in it all for a profit and the news reflects that. For that reason I don't much watch television news sources. If I want a non-profit driven news source I turn on public radio. If I want non-profit driven entertainment I turn on a PBS station. PBS and public radio produces some of the best informational shows around and it's all voluntary support by the public, and through government support.
Good god. I've known about the crazy TV tax in england for years, but its interesting to hear about it straight from a brit. Hearing about this crazyness in England and Germany just makes me glad to be an American where we don't have such bizzaro taxes.
Granted we still have this idiotic reality TV craze, and US TV rarely produces anything as good as Red Dwarf.. but then that's what PBS is for. BBC must have its crap too, it just doesn't get imported here (though for some strange reason Benny Hill was).
Maybe he beats his wife, hates jews, and is a terrorist too. There's no evidence he isn't! Hell, I already hate this guy based upon what we don't know!
Maybe I'm crazy, but I don't take into consideration anything unless I actually have a reason to believe in it. Imagined justifications for the firing are just that, imagined. Unless you know either of these guys it's unfair to assume there were any straws on anyones backs.
I'll tell you this though, it does sound awfully bizzare this whole thing even gets in the news, and then this Tom Hayes ass makes public statements questioning his intelligence.
If you can tolerate an outage every few weeks, go ahead and use desktops.
That has to be one of the most flat-out wrong statements I've heard this month. I've had several desktops working as servers over the years, and for the most part they all work flawlessly. I had one machine start getting very flaky after 3 years constant uptime, one where the hard drive failed (the HD was probbably 6 years old), and one where a PS failed (probbably about 6 years as well). With the exception of old age, the desktop servers work just fine.
Really if you need hardware that's going to last flawlessly for more than 3-4 years then go with the server HW. All desktops aren't created equally though. You can spend only a little bit more on a good quality motherboard, good PS, quality cooling fans, and probbably some form of RAID and expect no HW problems over a 3-4 year lifespan.
"Could have allowed" is a very tricky statement. If I put confidential records in the trash and didn't shred them that's a very plausible situation where confidentiality could be broken. We have perfect knowledge of such a situation (records sitting in a trash can are obviously a pathway leading to confidentialy breach).
In this case we don't even actually know if there's any security problems in the seti software that could lead to such a breach. So in this case it's only our ignorance that allows for the "could have allowed".
He doesn't have to actually violate confidentiality, just making it possible through negligent behavior is enough to have him fired.
Maybe, but I bet there's tons of other everyday non-technical ways in which people are negligent with regards to security and it doesn't get them fired. The whole incident needs to be placed into context rather than just claiming it was security violation and dismissing it as that. My guess is the fact that's what the guy did was technical and the consequences obscure and mysterious has more to do with his being fired than any actual neglicence.
Wow, great way to work with your employees. You sound like you just dismiss anything anyone knew has to say because they aren't engrained into your culture. Sure, some people have foolish ideas when they start out, but that's not an excuse to ignore people asking for some tool or OS to use. Your post comes off like you're dinosaur still clinging to the mainframes resisting any change to your fiefdom.
Where does it say anything about violating confidentiality? Like the previous poster you're making up claims to justify the actions. There's a big difference between violating confidentiality (giving out information to people you shoulnd't) and running a program you shouldn't. Should you be fired for having a poorly chosen password too?
Not if the employee handbook says that's the consequence.
That's just ridiculous. I've seen "employee handbooks" before and they're not the final word on anything. A book means nothing, it's all about what the people in charge are saying.
Not if Smith was doing other things deserving of termination. Not if his actions endangered adherence to security protocols, placed sensitive data at risk of disclosure, or caused a department to loose certification.
Sure, but we have no evidence of that whatsover. That only exists in your imagination to justify the harsh treatment of this guy. Please stick to the facts and not what you imagine to be the case.
And yes, I _am_ a sysadmin. He shouldn't have been running the program, but based on what we know firing him and making assholish statements about him in print is going way to far.
Of the problem species, are trees really that big of a problem? It seems like they'd be by far the easiest to eradicate as they multiply slowly, don't move real fast, and can be killed quite easily with a cheap chainsaw.
I granted don't know much about invasive species, but this list seems a bit odd in its priorities.
I don't think anyone is talking about some kind of enforceable contract signed, notarized, and legally binding. Turn off the lawyer/MBA part of your brain and turn on the common sense/everday people interaction. This is just an agreement between two people. The enforcing body of the agreement would be the kids parents, not the court system.
The upfront payment has other problems with it, but not being legally enforceable in a court of law isn't one of them.
Nobody knows who the third party candidates are because there is a virtual media blackout going on. They don't have the money to buy media like the candidates (and the RNC and DNC) spending multiple millions, and they're not getting most of the earned media they should be.
They don't have any funding because they don't have any support. The media sure isn't going to cover them because no one supports them, or cares about them. There's no conspiracy, it's just about getting eyeballs to TV screens, papers, and monitors. That's even doubly true for O'Reilly. The guy started out on Inside Edition, that tabloid "news" magazine show. You don't think that's all about generating controversy and emotions? I could run for president too.. does that mean the media should cover me? What's the standard that should be set for the media to cover Joe Nobody libertarian candidate?
As for focusing on local elections, there is a big disagreement in the third parties about this very subject. The argument is that the presidential races get us the maximum exposure,
Maximum exposure at looking like a bunch of ass clowns. The 2000 election only alienated democrats from the Green party. Yah yah, I know, know there's no such thing as bad publicity. Maybe that's true when someone has to make that 3 second decision on what brand of salsa to buy, but it falls short in a presidential election. The system may be screwed up, but it's the system we have and it's not changing just because you want it too.
As far as a viable third party, I keep thinking about a quote by Hunter S Thompson from "On The Campaign Trail '72"
Which I think says a lot. You don't start up a party from nothing. Both parties are pretty shaky right now, but the libertarians or the greens are hardly even sane. Christ, I saw the muddlehead Green candidate for Governor in MN a couple years ago in a debate and all he could rant about was solving transportation problems with bicycles and deficits with taxing water. What average american is going to take a third party candidate serious when he says naive and foolish things like that?
No, I think the biggest problems with establishing a third party is the third parties themselves. They're full of extremist who the average american can't identify with at all. The closest we got was the independance party in 92, and that all self destructed when everyone realized there wasn't anyone holding it together but Ross Perot.
That is, if you leave me alone with a cat long enough, you'll have zero cats.
The big problem with "resorting" to braille or VR displays and so many of the solutions others have suggested -- is psychological; it's something that makes the kid different from other kids. And he is, but there's no reason to highlight it needlessly.
Needlessly? The kid is having problems with geography, geography (at least the map variant of it) is a very visual subject. This is EXACTLY the time you just might need to "resort" to brail, or some kind of relief map or whatever. There's no shame in being blind, or near blind. If you're trying to hide the impairment that's what seems to suggest there's something wrong, or embarassing about it.
except maybe that Tacoma doesn't have an evacuation plan in case Mt. Ranier goes.
And that's the big problem as I see it. I don't know much about evacuation, but as I understand it a large part of the increased interstate in FL is for hurricane evaculation. Does Seatle/Tacoma have sufficient evaculation routes to get everyone out of the city in a few days?
Do you really have any reason to believe earthquakes across the globe all causally related (between themselves, or some other phenomenon causing them)? Or are you just connecting events that are close together in time with no real justification other than that? I'm not a geologist, but I've never heard anyone claim there's any connection between earthquake activity around the world.
Huricanes, earthquakes, and volcano eruptions are quite common. Hurricanes hit the US almost every couple years (maybe even on average once a year or more). It's highly unlikely there's any connection between the hurricanes, earthquakes, and volcanoes. Plate tectonics is fairly removed from weather. It's far more likely this is just a co-incidence. (there's a high likelyhood that common events will occur near each other in time, given enough chances).
I could easily believe there's some undiscovered phenomenon creating more hurricanes this year than normal. El Nino was discovered relatively recently, so we do know there's major trends that can effect weather.
Additionally, my friend working at Boston Water and Sewer drinks his tap water over bottled water, because tap water is subject to far more rigorous testing than is bottled water.
This was covered in an episode of Penn & Tellers "Bullshit!", and at least according to them your friend is essentially correct. While bottled water is regulated, it's regulated by the FDA which has less than one guy dedicated to enforcement/monitoring. Tap water is closely monitored and each city has to issue reports on water quality annually.
Nevertheless I still prefer filtering my water because I don't like the taste of chlorine, and there's always the unknown factor of lead leached from the pipes inside your house. The risk is probbably low on the leached lead, but filters are still pretty cheap.
AT&T couldn't get their act together and change a website in time. I tend to trust what's on a websites front page more than a news article on slashdot, or some fool reporter.
Anyway, you're right. It's not $29.99 a month, but it was $20, then up to $35 after 6 months.
What a lot of baloney. In case you've forgotten we're talking about John Lennon being monitored by the Nixon Administration (i.e. dirty tricks, watergate, extreme paranoia). We're NOT talking about terrorism here. The "good reason" is probbably nothing more than protecting themselves from embarassment.
We're also talking about something that happened more than 32 years ago to person that is now dead. If the government can hide this from public view, they can hide anything they want.