If the systems the FAA used in the field were the same as their training/testing center at FAA HQ in Washington, DC (unknown), then the equipment wasn't just OLD, it was ANTIQUE!
I worked for a contractor installing new color printers there 12 or 13 years ago, and their equipment consisted of HP Apollo (unix) workstation front-ends tied to DEC MicroVAX 400's (DEC unix) via DECNet. HIPPI(sp?) high speed interfaces linked the MicroVAXs to the live & canned radar data.
Talk about a/. article dredging up an old, old memory (of mine).
Back about 12 or 13 years ago, the company I was working for won a bid for new Tektronix Phaser color wax printers for capturing screen images from the computers used in the FAA's training center at FAA HQ in Washington, DC.
The front-end (w/User Interface and Display) were Apollo work- stations running some flavor of unix, while the back-end processors were DEC MicroVAXs, tied into real and canned radar data. The cable runs were chock-full of (at that time) high speed HIPPI(sp?) interconnect wiring, as well as DECNet -- a real rats-nest.
Perhaps someone else on/. can fill in the blanks of any intermediate progression of hardware and software there at FAA HQ, presuming that the training/testing center hardware was similar to the FAA field centers.
This looks like a product I an just going to have to try out - the relatively new ASUS Model A8N-SLI Premium retail motherboard kit not only includes SATA RAID on the motherboard, it also has an external eSATA (2 channel) breakout via a slot cover.
Imagine two of these external SATA RAID boxes tied together in a 10 disk RAID 10 (RAID 5 + 0) configuration, and using XFS or Reister FS...
Coming from the third most congested traffic system in the USA (Metro DC), I have seen it all regarding stupid drivers. I thought I had seen the worst when, on the I-495 beltway, I saw a woman reading a newspaper folded over the steering wheel, and putting on her makeup, and talking on her cellphone. She was totally oblivious to the fact that she was drifting dangerously between two lanes, or to the traffic adjusting around her. But I was wrong! A few weeks later, I cautiously passed a man drifting between lanes, looked over and saw that he was busy changing clothes (including pants) while juggling a cellphone from one shoulder to the other. Yikes!
The basic problem is "stupid drivers", and not merely drivers with cellphones. One would hope that between law enforcement, insurance rates, and natural selection these drivers would eventually permanently leave the roads, but I have seen it trending the opposite direction. No wonder people like to drive big SUVs -- it has to help them feel lesss vulnerable to all the really stupid drivers out there.
I would be very happy to jump on the pro-nuclear power bandwagon myself, just as soon as the USA's nuclear power industry and their cheerleaders/shills can explain the long term (250,000 year) cost-benefit ratio. Continuous recorded human history hardly exceeds 5,000 years -- so how does this industry group plan to handle rising materials, healthcare, and labor costs for the continuous monitoring and every 5,000 year re-casking project that our as-yet-to-be- determined "radiation religious order" will require in 20,000 years.
Oh, wait. Dealing with a known hazard over a 250,000 year period at an unknown cost equals NO COST. Just ignore this cost; it falls from the cost/benefit equation, and suddenly nuclear power looks "cheap and clean". Our current neo-Con(artist) government, and the industries (oil, energy, defense, banking) that own them, continue to show their disrespect to the American voter's intelligence with so many of their policies.
Microsoft has:
instituted not only License 6, but also "phone home" validation. At any time, MS may
decide to shut down any business worldwide that uses their products, at their (or a
malviolent government's) discretion;
embraced and extended(tm) LDAP with kerberos authentication that is not industry-
standard or cross-platform compatible;
embraced and extended(tm) web browser standards that have made Internet and
platform security a nightmare;
implimented a software firewall (XP SP2) that doesn't actually control/restrict all
incoming and outgoing packets, making the use of a third party (H/W?) firewall
less redundant and more actually necessary;
stripped nearly all OS improvements out of their upcoming flagship OS, excepting
Digital Rights Restrictions -- which may also remotely disable or remove products
and/or services which they choose to disallow for any reason.
Bypassing DNS and the hosts file on the OS platform is their "camel's nose under the tent flap" for future modifications to the network stack, all in the name of their brand of "security", which is (frankly) appalling. Given Microsoft's current product direction, it is not outside the realm of possibility that the future average computer user's experience will be some cross between a WebTV and an XBox.
No doubt the Department of Homeland Security Department will be tapping the pool of Security Experts(TM) at FCW for their next IT/Security management position. Thank goodness!! Certainly wouldn't want the DHS to make another $6 Billion USD mistake buying Microsoft server software. Of course, the caviat about limiting physical access to the DHS servers might mean they will need to hire a more expensive night cleaning crew.
Oh, wait! A collossal government agency that focuses more attention on wiretapping every American man, woman, and child's voice and data traffic, all while leaving USA borders and ports unsecured 4 years after 9-11 will not care about this report. What part of the term "oxymoronic" doesn't apply to the Department of Homeland Security?
I will be the first to admit that the capabilities of the Iowa class battleship were awesome -- especially their batteries of 16 inch guns that could propel VW Beetle-sized (2,000 pound) shells.
The US Navy, however, has a brand new bag getting ready to be deployed -- electrically actuated railguns capable of firing aluminum projectiles at over 10,000 meters per second. At that speed, no explosives need to be used -- the sheer MxA of the projectiles are sufficient to destroy the target. Instead of ballistic aiming, nearly direct aiming can be used once the earth's curvature is taken into account. A rapid fire volley of such projectiles will actually create its own weather pattern. (Think supersonic flight, partial vacuum behind the projectiles, and shock waves.)
Modern Aegis class destroyers have power plants capable of generating over 30 MW of power, used for everything from propulsion to radar to ECM. Railguns will make a far better fit on these destroyers than on the old Iowa class destroyers of WW-II. The Iowa class destroyer was heavily dependent upon manpower -- with a standard crew of about 2,400 sailors, while aircraft carrier crews are typically 5,000 or more (including air crews and pilots.)
The combined British-French project for highly automated aircraft carriers does make sense, but only in conjunction with modern destroyers capable of providing the necessary defensive screen.
I guess you could just rewrite the makeconfig file to build it on Debian.
OTOH, if you are using a linux distribution that closely follows the file/
directory structure that many F/OSS projects expect, like Slackware does, then Amanda will build and run without any problems
So, I guess you have choices: (1) you yourself contribute to a Debian version of this software, (2) wait until someone else does this work for you, or (3) switch to a supported linux distribution. Not to be a troll or anything, but these options are what makes F/OSS so great.
But I still submit that the Bush administration has all of the bases covered when it comes to any legal challenge to the neocon policies, or to their continued hold on power. Any potential illegal uprising by those USA citizens that still honor the Constitution and Bill of Rights would never succeed due to disorganization, and lack of the ability to counter the military's planes and tanks and Predators. The neocon take-over of the US government was presaged by the Iran-Contra Scandal, channelled by Gingrich's "Contract On America", and orchestrated by certain right wing think tanks. In the course of a mere 20 years, this country has relinquished the rule of law in favor of absolutism and corporate national socialism. Each and every signatory of the "New American Century" document should be tried for treason. The ballot box has already been compromised beyond timely repair before further unjustified preemptive wars will have been started. Iran, Syria, Sudan, Venezuela, Nigeria and North Korea are all on the neocon list.
That having been said, there is absolutely nothing wrong with this GW Bush regime that a couple of dozen patriotic USMC sniper teams could not rectify.
He wan't a spammer, but was an Islamic Jihadist hacker. The moniker (nom de guerre?) he chose would suggest that he was a British citizen rather than a recent immigrant.
OTOH, spammers fit rather well into the disinformation war that the USA and British
governments have maintained since before the start of the Iraqi war. After all, viral marketing is still just marketing, all in the name of capitalism. Spammers need only be "turned" by our collective governments to become additional ag-prop disinformation
assets for the multinational oil-military-industrial complex.
That both groups of hackers are evil does not imply that they share the same agendas. AFAICare, both groups deserve an extended "vacation" at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
I wonder just how many National Guardsmen, Army, Air Force, Marine Corp, or Navy who have gone through the meatgrinder that is Iraq today have not "swallowed the blue pill" that this corrupt, illegal and imperial USA regime offered them. Dubya's poll numbers would tend to indicate that the American public has seen that "the emperor has no clothes". Considering the level of domestic spying, covert "black bag" ops against politica;/policy opposition, it is no wonder that the Democratic opposition is so disorganized. Crooked elections, rampant graft, and a rubber stamp legislative branch could make this country's return to the Constutution, the Bill or Rights, and respect for the law take even longer than the interminable "war on terrorism".
If a rational pupulist government cannot be attained through legal avenues such as honest and fair elections, no "revolution" by the people against the yoke of oppression can stand against a cynical and battle-hardened military returned from combat. But I would be willing to bet that the twisted evil regime currently in power could be "overturned" by no more than a couple of dozen USMC Scout Sniper teams, given a real respect for the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
So, where are they? The Dubya regime cannot be allowed to destroy this country.
The origin and/or vectors spreading bird flu have yet to be definitively determined.
The anthrax letters of October 2001 are a different matter altogether. The first strike was against the National Enquirer offices in FL, where a series of articles were being published regarding the connections between Gov. Jeb Bush, his Sec. of State, Marvin Bush, the company involved in disenfranchising FL voters in Democrat-heavy precincts, and the sad state of vote recounts in FL. The subsequent letters were directed against the NY liberal press, as well as against key opposition (Democratic) political leadership.
The person/persons involved in sending these deadly letters has/have never been caught. The genome of the anthrax directly matches the Ames strain upon which all USA biological warfare testing has been based. The anthrax had been milled to between 4 and 8 microns, and chemically treated to aerosolize readily. The particular chemical treatment can be traced back to methods used at Ft. Dettrick MD and nowhere else. Neither the Iraqi's nor their Russian technical advisors use the same techniques. The only conclusion that can be drawn is that the anthrax did, in fact, originate at the US Army's Ft. Dettrick facility.
One might speculate that whomever was involved in these attacks did not realize that the milled anthrax was small enough to pass through the pores of the envelopes used, and would thus cause considerable collatteral damage. Perhaps that is the only reason that further domestic anthrax attacks have not taken place. The score- card of no designated targets killed, but only collateral damage sounds very much like the typical "black ops" results of one particular 3 letter US government agency (, unamed.)
The result, however, has been spectacular in regard to (1) a message to this regime's political opposition in the press and in the government, and (2) as an underlying pretext for immediate (and largely unquestioned) passage of the US Patriot Act.
Wow! That's a great idea -- just vote out of office all our bad Congress-critters!
Apparently you have not been paying attention to the real current reality in the USA. The very same conspiracies that have successfully disenfranchized voters in FL, OH, and elsewhere in the last 3 elections are still in play. I am talking about: illegal and fraudulent lists of "likely" felons, Presidential selection by the SCOTUS,
gerrymandering in TX, exit polls ignored in favor of recount-disabled electronic voting machines susceptible to multiple levels of hacking, and a taxpayer-funded (albeit unwittingly) propaganda machine that has usurped the challenges of a free press, etcetera...
And don't even think about organizing any widespread opposition to this evil regime currently in power -- between the NSA's "eavesdrop on everyone & collate the data" program and the illegal use of DoD's anti-terrorist infiltration program against anti- war/anti-Bush opposition domestically, the Dubya regime has pretty much got all the "bases" covered. Become effective enough in organizing opposition, and suddenly you may find yourself out of job, under investigation by the IRS, or worse (like contracting anthrax or bird flu, subjected to RENDITION, or an extended stay at GITMO.
There is very little to distinguish between a "default" kernel and a fully supported kernel. Slackware has fully supported the 2.6 kernel since release 9.1, fully 2 years ago. And if you prefer not to use the included 2.6 kernel, no problem -- I can download the very latest 2.6 kernel directly from kernel.org, compile it and drop it in. Far too many linux distributions use back-porting of kernel or library patches that break other applications. That, and artificial dependence upon the specific distribution's "special version" of the 2.6 kernel turned me off from other linux distributions, and back to Slackware.
Within a week of getting the 9.1 Slackware CD set, I had SCSI RAID-5 with XFS, SMB, and the latest 2.6 kernel all functional, and without any problems. Slackware does something that few other distributions do -- it honors the directory structure that the various F/OSS packages want, out of the box. I can go back to the original vendor for a new package, if I like, without waiting for distribution "X" to finally repackage it for me.
That was Slackware 9.1, and Slackware only gets better and better. Why switch?
So if a consumer (individual or corporate) buys a shiny new computer BUNDLED with the OEM OS, the OEM OFFICE SUITE, etcetera and decides that he/she/they did NOT actually want to pay (or wanted a rebate on) the proverbial MICROSOFT tax imposed (and perhaps install LINUX or SOLARIS x86 instead), they will be prosecuted for being a GRAY MARKET source of MS software (as opposed to BLACK MARKET)?
Whatever happened to the concept of FAIR USE? I do know that M$ License 6 tries to tie their OS and other software to a specific computer, but is that actually LEGAL?
It looks more to me like MICROSOFT is actually trying to prop up their RETAIL distribution channels and their related PRICE FIXING monopoly, rather than a new attempt at combatting PIRACY.
Of course, in this day and time, UP == DOWN, BLUE == BLACK, RIGHT == WRONG, and PEACE == WAR. How... Orwellian!
The GB Bush regime was swept into power in 2000 illegally -- first disenfranchizing thousands of Florida voters accused of being ineligible to vote, then failing to recount ALL Florida votes in a timely fashion, and then relying upon the SCOTUS (filled with Reaganite nominees) to determine the Presidency.
After the illegal DeLay gerrimandering of Texas, the GOP made gains in the HR. Combined with the no-paper-trail-audit electronic voting machine debacle of 2004, in which vote tallies were wildly different from exit poll data, the GOP stole the 2004 election. (I think that 24 states have now reverted to recount-enabled paper ballots for the mid-term elections this fall. That, however, does not adequately counter the continued use of the fraud-enabled electronic voting machines still in use - funded in 2002 to the tune of $6
Billion USD by the appropriately misnamed "Help America Vote (Our Way)" legislation.
Between the full-court propaganda press by the GW Bush regime, partially funded by our tax dollars, and the nearly total shutdown of information not following the official "party line" from the Executive branch to either Congress or the Press, I hold out little hope for this country to throw off the yoke of an increasingly totalitarian government in 2006, or even in 2008. The opposition party doesn't have either a unified message nor a viable party platform, AFAIK. Between the anthrax letters of October 2001 and the illegal domestic spying that has continued against all political opposition, they are (apparently) scared shitless.
The official Federal minimum wage is $5.15/hour, and has not be changed in nearly 10 years. Many employers would like nothing better that to pay only the minimum wage, if they could only get away with it. In the mean time (in case you haven't been paying attention), the ACTUAL cost of living has far exceeded what the Federal government statisticians have "cooked-the-books" OFFICIAL cost-of-living numbers are -- it drives Federal, State, and Local government pay raises, as well as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid benefits adjustments.
And the Metropolitan DC area is in no way representative of what the real starting pay level is, above the official minimum wage, across the rest of the country. Washington DC raised their minimum wage, in opposition to their Congressional overseers, to $10/hour only because it costs so much to live there. Baltimore area McDonald's restaurants tried outsourcing their drive-through service order-takers to a call center in Wisconsin this last summer -- because they could not get enough part-time employees to work there for what they were willing to pay (plus no benefits). Maryland just passed a law that penalizes their single largest employer, Wal-Mart, in order to force them to provide access to some form of affordable healthcare coverage. In response, Wal-Mart has threated to lay off many of their full-time employees in favor of part-time workers who would not be eligible for coverage.
The neocon(artist) myth that raising minimum wages drives businesses out of business was proved wrong the last time it was done -- the raises "lifted the boats" of all employees, and improved the economy overall. The typical neocon(artist) response would be to lobby their Congress-critters to expand the visa program (for skilled high tech labor) or else the GW Bush agenda of amnesty for all the illegal aliens already here.
This country needs to seal it's borders and tighten seaport and air cargo inspections to 100%. That is a matter of preserving national soverienty, and aiding national security. The Feds also need to crack down - hard - on employers that continue to hire illegal aliens. $10k per employee per month fines, and then prison time for repeat offenders. Non-profits that aid and abet illegal immigration should be stripped of their tax-exempt status (including religious organizations), and their leaders charged under RICO statutes. The illegal aliens need to be rounded up (no more catch and release policy) when they are discovered, put into detention camps until their identities have been ascertained, and then either deported or shipped off to prison, dependent upon criminal history and/or illegal immigration recividism. OTOH, persons wanting to immigrate the the USA through LEGAL MEANS should not have to wait for years and years in order to be processed.
Propaganda? Not at all like the pitchforkfulls of BS that this administration has dished out the the American people, the UN Security Council, and the rest of the world at large. The ONLY Republicans that are NOT in favor of GW Bush's amnesty/legalization of the virtual invasion of illegall aliens are the one's who, under pressure from their constituents, have split with the official plank of the neocon(artists). Generally, those are the ones whose own jobs are at risk in the midterm elections this fall. And I am enough of a cynic to believe that as soon as the elections are over (, and they return to Washington,) they will moderate their position regarding illegal immigration and fall in line with the Bush regime.
Xenophobia? Typical neocon(artist) defend-by-personal-attack (Swift Boat- type) response. That, or else an equally totally inaccurate attack of being either (1) a bigot, (2) a racist, or (3) a vigilante. The truth is that the New World Order/neocon(artists)/globalists' true agenda is this nation's relinquishing national soverienty (including our borders and seaports) to the will of the multinational corporations and their international banking masters. Illegal aliens provide a cheap source of labor to force American wages into a downward spiral. But the illegals, and the employers that hire them, and the nonprofit organizations that assist them are all, by definition, already breaking the law.
Of course, the regime currently in power has no respect for the rule of law, US Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the balance of power between the three branches of government, or of the rights of a free and open press. Except for those laws that forward their agenda.
Of course this country has slipped backwards from being a "developed country" into merely a "developing country". That is a basic tenet of the neocon agenda - globalization of the economy. High tech and skilled labor jobs are shifted to the lowest labor cost country -- whichever can barely "get the job done" and at the lowest price "wins the contract". USA employers who cannot shift their labor costs overseas are busy importing cheaper labor under increased numbers of L1-A and H1-B visas. That, or busy jumping on the neocon bandwagon to legalize the 28 million illegal aliens that are already in this country. Hand-in- hand with the influx of illegal alien labor is a massive spike in identity theft and fraudulent identity documents. The GWB administration favors hiring fellow neocons, regardless of either their real CV or their civil ethics. Helping to forward their neocon agenda by any means possible outweighs any concept of good governance, or even of the Constitutional balance of power, let alone the Bill of Rights.
Why, considering the response to 9-11, to the illegal Iraq war, the "Pharmacutical Company Welfare Act of 2003", or the Gulf Coast-Katrina disaster, would any sentient being ever be surprised by what the GWB administration is incapable of doing right?
The Department of Homeland Security is a non sequitor at best (oxymoronic?), and little more than a tool of the emerging National Corporate Socialist state's grab for absolute executive power, at worst.
The Bush administration has frittered away a $500 Billion USD surplus, along with a healthy respect for (financially speaking) real scientific advances into a $3 Trillion USD debt and "Intelligent Design". Basic science has been sacrificed on the alter of high technology war-making. Their reliance upon Madison Avenue marketing and Hollywood propaganda, image over substance and fiction over reality, covers every aspect of their policies and agenda.
Small wonder, then, that fusion reactors, anti-gravity force fields, and warp drives are a sizable portion of a Bush administration scientific conference. Fiction is so much rewarding to their egos than the stark reality of slashing funding in basic scientific research. Being governed by neocons [Neo-con(artists)] is a bit too close to "Planet of The Apes" -- not unexpected for the mouth-breathing, knuckle- dragging hairless apes currently in power.
The parent poster is (mostly) correct. The linux community could do a lot more to provide a stable, predictable distribution that Dell could use.
That being said, however, I can remember back in the day when I worked as a Dell-certified Server Engineer for a third-party vendor. (Okay, use your Way-Back Time Machine TM to get there...)
Dell servers came with an option software pack of WInNT Server, Novell Netware, Novell Unixware, Solaris x86, and SCO Unix CD media. Dell would furnish the software key to whichever OS server package was paid for. Dell Customer Support actually provided 1st Tier support to determine whether it was a hardware or software problem. Hardware problems were, generally speaking, rectified within a 24-hour period. Software problems were always referred back to the OS OEM, always!
This was, of course, before M$ became the only server option except for RedHat Enterprise Linux. Just like many current linux distributions, RH has followed their own path when it came to the directory structure, where configuration files are located, as well as their proprietary (and IMHO nasty) habit of back-patching the kernel and supporting library files. AFAIK, Dell today still doesn't really support RHEL fully, instead relying upon their OS OEM. Standard Base Linux never really gained widespread support, because the commercial vendors went one way, and everyone else went their own separate ways. RHEL is what Dell hung their hat on, not some free-as-in-beer linux distribution. I don't think that Dell's current business model (including commoditized bottom-feeding) will permit supporting a non-profit-center OS like brand-x (your favorite downloadable distribution here) linux.
I can certainly understand Michael Dell's reluctance to support a linux distro - ANY linux distro. It is not just the Average Joe User who buys his shiny new Dell on-line (consumer grade machine) that is a Dell Computer support issue. As someone who has deployed Dell servers and (corporate) workstations for a large defense contractor, I can tell you that OEM's (not just Dell) have a huge problem delivering a single shipment of computers with the same hardware. Unlike the good old days, motherboards, video cards, memory sticks, and more are all commodity items that change at will.
Bringing some level of driver support in-house would require a level of QA and revision control that Dell does not now have, and at a price that would degrade their margins. They, like many other OEMs, rely upon their vendors to supply working drivers. With vendor NDA agreements that preclude furnishing source code, Dell is totally reliant upon binary drivers. Imagine a product manager that would have to deal with issues related to 100 different system components and their associated binary drivers, their mutual compatability, and support across dozens of different linux distributions.
The proverbial "Microsoft tax" extends well upstream from Dell's assembly lines.
Dell, HP, and other computer OEMs that "bottom-feed" both the consumer and corporate market don't control their product as much as their component vendors do. If you're looking for decent QA and version control of your computer hardware, expect to pay a premium and at a different vendor, like Apple or Sun.
I'm not so certain that the Canon S80 is what you are really looking for. My Canon S110 (2.1 MP) recently crapped out. When I went shopping for its replacement, I was surprised by the features (and pricing) on a demo model Casio (Exilim) EX-P700 digital camera.
7.0 MP// Canon 3x Optical Zoom// Auto/BestShot/AP/SP/Manual/Movie Modes ISO640 equivilent// Exposure/WB/Focus Bracketing// Ext.Flash// even a Remote! 3072x2304/3072x2048/2304x1728/1600x1200/1280x960/6 40x480// 3 JPG + RAW
Would I like more/better? You bet: 12 - 15 MP, plus better dynamic range (ISO2000). But this camera has prosumer-level features, and I bought it for USD $360. It will do.
BTW: Penn Camera was also the ONLY bricks-and-mortor shop where ALL their cameras actually worked, as opposed to non-functioning gear and idiot salespeople.
"I don't want the government spying on its populace. That isn't really what is happening here. We're spying on OTHER peoples populaces, and should they happen to call someone inside our borders, well so be it. And as far as checks and balances go, again I'm really not so concerned as there are far more checks today than there ever have been."
Apparently, you have decided to take the blue pill, and have relinquished all personal responsibility for a citizen to remain well-informed and to think for him/her self. It shows. The government has, for many many years been involved in spying upon citizens of other countries -- the program is called ECHELON. There is a sort of "gentleman's club" agreement that the USA spies on the Brits (legal), the Brits spy on the USA, etc. The results are shared. Herbert Hoover's FBI was fully involved in domestic spying, for many years, which is how Hoover managed to stay head of the FBI for so many years -- he could blackmail any politician that threatened his hold on power. The FISA law was passed in 1978 in order to curtail further Executive Branch violations of privacy as had been exhibited by Nixon's wiretaps (and burglaries/break-ins). There is a panel of Federal judges that hold security clearances in order to provide "checks and balances" against a unitary executive branch. FISA court approval for wiretapping can be up to 72 hours AFTER such wiretapping occurs. Approval of such wiretapping is very nearly automatic, with very few instances refused. There is really only one reason to avoid FISA approval -- a program of wiretapping that is far broader than the publically stated "war against terror". The George W. Bush presidency has exercised an extremely broad definition of "terrorist", to include his political opponents, anti-war activists, journalists, etcetera. In point of fact, he clearly stated his emperial missive with the words "If you are not with me, then you are against me" (and, hence may also be considered terrorists.) The Bush regime has refused to testify under oath regarding the 9-11 Commission investigation (which he opposed), has refused to keep even Republicans in Congress apprised of pertinent information required in their Constitutional mandate of "advise and consent", has stonewalled regarding administration positions on torture, the RENDITION program, his administration's response to the Katrina disaster, and now his program of illegal domestic spying. Pray tell -- exactly in what manner has the George W. Bush administration NOT overridden the US Constitution, the US Bill of Rights, and the checks and balances between Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of our democratic republic? No regime has taken the USA so far down the path to emperial perogative since it's founding and the revolution against the last "King George". He needs to be impeached and tried for treason, and then turned over to the Hauge's International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
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If the systems the FAA used in the field were the same as their training/testing
center at FAA HQ in Washington, DC (unknown), then the equipment wasn't just
OLD, it was ANTIQUE!
I worked for a contractor installing new color printers there 12 or 13 years ago,
and their equipment consisted of HP Apollo (unix) workstation front-ends tied
to DEC MicroVAX 400's (DEC unix) via DECNet. HIPPI(sp?) high speed interfaces
linked the MicroVAXs to the live & canned radar data.
OMG!
/. article dredging up an old, old memory (of mine).
/. can fill in the blanks of any intermediate
Talk about a
Back about 12 or 13 years ago, the company I was working for won
a bid for new Tektronix Phaser color wax printers for capturing
screen images from the computers used in the FAA's training
center at FAA HQ in Washington, DC.
The front-end (w/User Interface and Display) were Apollo work-
stations running some flavor of unix, while the back-end processors
were DEC MicroVAXs, tied into real and canned radar data. The cable
runs were chock-full of (at that time) high speed HIPPI(sp?) interconnect
wiring, as well as DECNet -- a real rats-nest.
Perhaps someone else on
progression of hardware and software there at FAA HQ, presuming that
the training/testing center hardware was similar to the FAA field centers.
This looks like a product I an just going to have to try out - the relatively new
...
ASUS Model A8N-SLI Premium retail motherboard kit not only includes SATA
RAID on the motherboard, it also has an external eSATA (2 channel) breakout
via a slot cover.
Imagine two of these external SATA RAID boxes tied together in a 10 disk
RAID 10 (RAID 5 + 0) configuration, and using XFS or Reister FS
Coming from the third most congested traffic system in the USA (Metro DC), I have seen
it all regarding stupid drivers. I thought I had seen the worst when, on the I-495 beltway,
I saw a woman reading a newspaper folded over the steering wheel, and putting on her
makeup, and talking on her cellphone. She was totally oblivious to the fact that she was
drifting dangerously between two lanes, or to the traffic adjusting around her. But I was
wrong! A few weeks later, I cautiously passed a man drifting between lanes, looked over
and saw that he was busy changing clothes (including pants) while juggling a cellphone
from one shoulder to the other. Yikes!
The basic problem is "stupid drivers", and not merely drivers with cellphones. One would
hope that between law enforcement, insurance rates, and natural selection these drivers
would eventually permanently leave the roads, but I have seen it trending the opposite
direction. No wonder people like to drive big SUVs -- it has to help them feel lesss
vulnerable to all the really stupid drivers out there.
I would be very happy to jump on the pro-nuclear power bandwagon myself, just
as soon as the USA's nuclear power industry and their cheerleaders/shills can
explain the long term (250,000 year) cost-benefit ratio. Continuous recorded
human history hardly exceeds 5,000 years -- so how does this industry group
plan to handle rising materials, healthcare, and labor costs for the continuous
monitoring and every 5,000 year re-casking project that our as-yet-to-be-
determined "radiation religious order" will require in 20,000 years.
Oh, wait. Dealing with a known hazard over a 250,000 year period at an unknown
cost equals NO COST. Just ignore this cost; it falls from the cost/benefit equation,
and suddenly nuclear power looks "cheap and clean". Our current neo-Con(artist)
government, and the industries (oil, energy, defense, banking) that own them,
continue to show their disrespect to the American voter's intelligence with so many
of their policies.
Absolutely, yes, it is a bad thing.
Microsoft has:
instituted not only License 6, but also "phone home" validation. At any time, MS may
decide to shut down any business worldwide that uses their products, at their (or a
malviolent government's) discretion;
embraced and extended(tm) LDAP with kerberos authentication that is not industry-
standard or cross-platform compatible;
embraced and extended(tm) web browser standards that have made Internet and
platform security a nightmare;
implimented a software firewall (XP SP2) that doesn't actually control/restrict all
incoming and outgoing packets, making the use of a third party (H/W?) firewall
less redundant and more actually necessary;
stripped nearly all OS improvements out of their upcoming flagship OS, excepting
Digital Rights Restrictions -- which may also remotely disable or remove products
and/or services which they choose to disallow for any reason.
Bypassing DNS and the hosts file on the OS platform is their "camel's nose under the
tent flap" for future modifications to the network stack, all in the name of their brand
of "security", which is (frankly) appalling. Given Microsoft's current product direction,
it is not outside the realm of possibility that the future average computer user's
experience will be some cross between a WebTV and an XBox.
No doubt the Department of Homeland Security Department will be tapping the pool
of Security Experts(TM) at FCW for their next IT/Security management position. Thank
goodness!! Certainly wouldn't want the DHS to make another $6 Billion USD mistake
buying Microsoft server software. Of course, the caviat about limiting physical access
to the DHS servers might mean they will need to hire a more expensive night cleaning
crew.
Oh, wait! A collossal government agency that focuses more attention on wiretapping
every American man, woman, and child's voice and data traffic, all while leaving USA
borders and ports unsecured 4 years after 9-11 will not care about this report. What
part of the term "oxymoronic" doesn't apply to the Department of Homeland Security?
I will be the first to admit that the capabilities of the Iowa class battleship were
awesome -- especially their batteries of 16 inch guns that could propel VW
Beetle-sized (2,000 pound) shells.
The US Navy, however, has a brand new bag getting ready to be deployed --
electrically actuated railguns capable of firing aluminum projectiles at over
10,000 meters per second. At that speed, no explosives need to be used --
the sheer MxA of the projectiles are sufficient to destroy the target. Instead
of ballistic aiming, nearly direct aiming can be used once the earth's curvature
is taken into account. A rapid fire volley of such projectiles will actually create
its own weather pattern. (Think supersonic flight, partial vacuum behind the
projectiles, and shock waves.)
Modern Aegis class destroyers have power plants capable of generating over
30 MW of power, used for everything from propulsion to radar to ECM. Railguns
will make a far better fit on these destroyers than on the old Iowa class destroyers
of WW-II. The Iowa class destroyer was heavily dependent upon manpower --
with a standard crew of about 2,400 sailors, while aircraft carrier crews are
typically 5,000 or more (including air crews and pilots.)
The combined British-French project for highly automated aircraft carriers does
make sense, but only in conjunction with modern destroyers capable of providing
the necessary defensive screen.
I guess you could just rewrite the makeconfig file to build it on Debian.
OTOH, if you are using a linux distribution that closely follows the file/
directory structure that many F/OSS projects expect, like Slackware does,
then Amanda will build and run without any problems
So, I guess you have choices: (1) you yourself contribute to a Debian
version of this software, (2) wait until someone else does this work for
you, or (3) switch to a supported linux distribution. Not to be a troll or
anything, but these options are what makes F/OSS so great.
Perhaps ...
But I still submit that the Bush administration has all of the bases covered when it
comes to any legal challenge to the neocon policies, or to their continued hold on
power. Any potential illegal uprising by those USA citizens that still honor the
Constitution and Bill of Rights would never succeed due to disorganization, and
lack of the ability to counter the military's planes and tanks and Predators. The
neocon take-over of the US government was presaged by the Iran-Contra Scandal,
channelled by Gingrich's "Contract On America", and orchestrated by certain right
wing think tanks. In the course of a mere 20 years, this country has relinquished
the rule of law in favor of absolutism and corporate national socialism. Each and
every signatory of the "New American Century" document should be tried for treason.
The ballot box has already been compromised beyond timely repair before further
unjustified preemptive wars will have been started. Iran, Syria, Sudan, Venezuela,
Nigeria and North Korea are all on the neocon list.
That having been said, there is absolutely nothing wrong with this GW Bush regime
that a couple of dozen patriotic USMC sniper teams could not rectify.
He wan't a spammer, but was an Islamic Jihadist hacker. The moniker (nom de guerre?)
he chose would suggest that he was a British citizen rather than a recent immigrant.
OTOH, spammers fit rather well into the disinformation war that the USA and British
governments have maintained since before the start of the Iraqi war. After all, viral
marketing is still just marketing, all in the name of capitalism. Spammers need only
be "turned" by our collective governments to become additional ag-prop disinformation
assets for the multinational oil-military-industrial complex.
That both groups of hackers are evil does not imply that they share the same agendas.
AFAICare, both groups deserve an extended "vacation" at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
I wonder just how many National Guardsmen, Army, Air Force, Marine Corp, or Navy
who have gone through the meatgrinder that is Iraq today have not "swallowed the
blue pill" that this corrupt, illegal and imperial USA regime offered them. Dubya's
poll numbers would tend to indicate that the American public has seen that "the
emperor has no clothes". Considering the level of domestic spying, covert "black
bag" ops against politica;/policy opposition, it is no wonder that the Democratic
opposition is so disorganized. Crooked elections, rampant graft, and a rubber
stamp legislative branch could make this country's return to the Constutution,
the Bill or Rights, and respect for the law take even longer than the interminable
"war on terrorism".
If a rational pupulist government cannot be attained through legal avenues such
as honest and fair elections, no "revolution" by the people against the yoke of
oppression can stand against a cynical and battle-hardened military returned
from combat. But I would be willing to bet that the twisted evil regime currently
in power could be "overturned" by no more than a couple of dozen USMC Scout
Sniper teams, given a real respect for the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
So, where are they? The Dubya regime cannot be allowed to destroy this country.
The origin and/or vectors spreading bird flu have yet to be definitively determined.
The anthrax letters of October 2001 are a different matter altogether. The first strike
was against the National Enquirer offices in FL, where a series of articles were being
published regarding the connections between Gov. Jeb Bush, his Sec. of State, Marvin
Bush, the company involved in disenfranchising FL voters in Democrat-heavy precincts,
and the sad state of vote recounts in FL. The subsequent letters were directed against
the NY liberal press, as well as against key opposition (Democratic) political leadership.
The person/persons involved in sending these deadly letters has/have never been
caught. The genome of the anthrax directly matches the Ames strain upon which
all USA biological warfare testing has been based. The anthrax had been milled
to between 4 and 8 microns, and chemically treated to aerosolize readily. The
particular chemical treatment can be traced back to methods used at Ft. Dettrick MD
and nowhere else. Neither the Iraqi's nor their Russian technical advisors use the
same techniques. The only conclusion that can be drawn is that the anthrax did,
in fact, originate at the US Army's Ft. Dettrick facility.
One might speculate that whomever was involved in these attacks did not realize
that the milled anthrax was small enough to pass through the pores of the envelopes
used, and would thus cause considerable collatteral damage. Perhaps that is the
only reason that further domestic anthrax attacks have not taken place. The score-
card of no designated targets killed, but only collateral damage sounds very much
like the typical "black ops" results of one particular 3 letter US government agency
(, unamed.)
The result, however, has been spectacular in regard to (1) a message to this regime's
political opposition in the press and in the government, and (2) as an underlying pretext
for immediate (and largely unquestioned) passage of the US Patriot Act.
Wow! That's a great idea -- just vote out of office all our bad Congress-critters!
...
Apparently you have not been paying attention to the real current reality in the
USA. The very same conspiracies that have successfully disenfranchized voters
in FL, OH, and elsewhere in the last 3 elections are still in play. I am talking about:
illegal and fraudulent lists of "likely" felons, Presidential selection by the SCOTUS,
gerrymandering in TX, exit polls ignored in favor of recount-disabled electronic
voting machines susceptible to multiple levels of hacking, and a taxpayer-funded
(albeit unwittingly) propaganda machine that has usurped the challenges of a free
press, etcetera
And don't even think about organizing any widespread opposition to this evil regime
currently in power -- between the NSA's "eavesdrop on everyone & collate the data"
program and the illegal use of DoD's anti-terrorist infiltration program against anti-
war/anti-Bush opposition domestically, the Dubya regime has pretty much got all the
"bases" covered. Become effective enough in organizing opposition, and suddenly
you may find yourself out of job, under investigation by the IRS, or worse (like
contracting anthrax or bird flu, subjected to RENDITION, or an extended stay at GITMO.
Any other, more constructive suggestions?
You wouldn't be a troll, would you?
There is very little to distinguish between a "default" kernel and a fully supported kernel.
Slackware has fully supported the 2.6 kernel since release 9.1, fully 2 years ago. And if
you prefer not to use the included 2.6 kernel, no problem -- I can download the very
latest 2.6 kernel directly from kernel.org, compile it and drop it in. Far too many linux
distributions use back-porting of kernel or library patches that break other applications.
That, and artificial dependence upon the specific distribution's "special version" of the
2.6 kernel turned me off from other linux distributions, and back to Slackware.
Within a week of getting the 9.1 Slackware CD set, I had SCSI RAID-5 with XFS, SMB, and
the latest 2.6 kernel all functional, and without any problems. Slackware does something
that few other distributions do -- it honors the directory structure that the various F/OSS
packages want, out of the box. I can go back to the original vendor for a new package,
if I like, without waiting for distribution "X" to finally repackage it for me.
That was Slackware 9.1, and Slackware only gets better and better. Why switch?
Piracy? Really?
... Orwellian!
So if a consumer (individual or corporate) buys a shiny new computer BUNDLED with the
OEM OS, the OEM OFFICE SUITE, etcetera and decides that he/she/they did NOT actually
want to pay (or wanted a rebate on) the proverbial MICROSOFT tax imposed (and perhaps
install LINUX or SOLARIS x86 instead), they will be prosecuted for being a GRAY MARKET
source of MS software (as opposed to BLACK MARKET)?
Whatever happened to the concept of FAIR USE?
I do know that M$ License 6 tries to tie their OS and other software to a specific computer,
but is that actually LEGAL?
It looks more to me like MICROSOFT is actually trying to prop up their RETAIL distribution
channels and their related PRICE FIXING monopoly, rather than a new attempt at combatting
PIRACY.
Of course, in this day and time, UP == DOWN, BLUE == BLACK, RIGHT == WRONG, and
PEACE == WAR. How
The GB Bush regime was swept into power in 2000 illegally -- first disenfranchizing
thousands of Florida voters accused of being ineligible to vote, then failing to recount
ALL Florida votes in a timely fashion, and then relying upon the SCOTUS (filled with
Reaganite nominees) to determine the Presidency.
After the illegal DeLay gerrimandering of Texas, the GOP made gains in the HR. Combined
with the no-paper-trail-audit electronic voting machine debacle of 2004, in which vote
tallies were wildly different from exit poll data, the GOP stole the 2004 election. (I think
that 24 states have now reverted to recount-enabled paper ballots for the mid-term
elections this fall. That, however, does not adequately counter the continued use of the
fraud-enabled electronic voting machines still in use - funded in 2002 to the tune of $6
Billion USD by the appropriately misnamed "Help America Vote (Our Way)" legislation.
Between the full-court propaganda press by the GW Bush regime, partially funded by our
tax dollars, and the nearly total shutdown of information not following the official "party
line" from the Executive branch to either Congress or the Press, I hold out little hope for
this country to throw off the yoke of an increasingly totalitarian government in 2006,
or even in 2008. The opposition party doesn't have either a unified message nor a viable
party platform, AFAIK. Between the anthrax letters of October 2001 and the illegal domestic
spying that has continued against all political opposition, they are (apparently) scared shitless.
The official Federal minimum wage is $5.15/hour, and has not be changed in nearly 10
years. Many employers would like nothing better that to pay only the minimum wage,
if they could only get away with it. In the mean time (in case you haven't been paying
attention), the ACTUAL cost of living has far exceeded what the Federal government
statisticians have "cooked-the-books" OFFICIAL cost-of-living numbers are -- it drives
Federal, State, and Local government pay raises, as well as Social Security, Medicare, and
Medicaid benefits adjustments.
And the Metropolitan DC area is in no way representative of what the real starting pay
level is, above the official minimum wage, across the rest of the country. Washington DC
raised their minimum wage, in opposition to their Congressional overseers, to $10/hour
only because it costs so much to live there. Baltimore area McDonald's restaurants tried
outsourcing their drive-through service order-takers to a call center in Wisconsin this last
summer -- because they could not get enough part-time employees to work there for what
they were willing to pay (plus no benefits). Maryland just passed a law that penalizes their
single largest employer, Wal-Mart, in order to force them to provide access to some form of
affordable healthcare coverage. In response, Wal-Mart has threated to lay off many of their
full-time employees in favor of part-time workers who would not be eligible for coverage.
The neocon(artist) myth that raising minimum wages drives businesses out of business
was proved wrong the last time it was done -- the raises "lifted the boats" of all employees,
and improved the economy overall. The typical neocon(artist) response would be to lobby
their Congress-critters to expand the visa program (for skilled high tech labor) or else the
GW Bush agenda of amnesty for all the illegal aliens already here.
This country needs to seal it's borders and tighten seaport and air cargo inspections to 100%.
That is a matter of preserving national soverienty, and aiding national security. The Feds
also need to crack down - hard - on employers that continue to hire illegal aliens. $10k per
employee per month fines, and then prison time for repeat offenders. Non-profits that aid
and abet illegal immigration should be stripped of their tax-exempt status (including
religious organizations), and their leaders charged under RICO statutes. The illegal aliens
need to be rounded up (no more catch and release policy) when they are discovered, put
into detention camps until their identities have been ascertained, and then either deported
or shipped off to prison, dependent upon criminal history and/or illegal immigration
recividism. OTOH, persons wanting to immigrate the the USA through LEGAL MEANS should
not have to wait for years and years in order to be processed.
Propaganda? Not at all like the pitchforkfulls of BS that this administration has dished out
the the American people, the UN Security Council, and the rest of the world at large. The
ONLY Republicans that are NOT in favor of GW Bush's amnesty/legalization of the virtual
invasion of illegall aliens are the one's who, under pressure from their constituents, have
split with the official plank of the neocon(artists). Generally, those are the ones whose
own jobs are at risk in the midterm elections this fall. And I am enough of a cynic to
believe that as soon as the elections are over (, and they return to Washington,) they will
moderate their position regarding illegal immigration and fall in line with the Bush regime.
Xenophobia? Typical neocon(artist) defend-by-personal-attack (Swift Boat- type) response.
That, or else an equally totally inaccurate attack of being either (1) a bigot, (2) a racist, or
(3) a vigilante. The truth is that the New World Order/neocon(artists)/globalists' true agenda
is this nation's relinquishing national soverienty (including our borders and seaports) to the
will of the multinational corporations and their international banking masters. Illegal aliens
provide a cheap source of labor to force American wages into a downward spiral. But the
illegals, and the employers that hire them, and the nonprofit organizations that assist them
are all, by definition, already breaking the law.
Of course, the regime currently in power has no respect for the rule of law, US Constitution,
the Bill of Rights, the balance of power between the three branches of government, or of
the rights of a free and open press. Except for those laws that forward their agenda.
Of course this country has slipped backwards from being a "developed country" into merely
a "developing country". That is a basic tenet of the neocon agenda - globalization of the
economy. High tech and skilled labor jobs are shifted to the lowest labor cost country --
whichever can barely "get the job done" and at the lowest price "wins the contract". USA
employers who cannot shift their labor costs overseas are busy importing cheaper labor
under increased numbers of L1-A and H1-B visas. That, or busy jumping on the neocon
bandwagon to legalize the 28 million illegal aliens that are already in this country. Hand-in-
hand with the influx of illegal alien labor is a massive spike in identity theft and fraudulent
identity documents. The GWB administration favors hiring fellow neocons, regardless of
either their real CV or their civil ethics. Helping to forward their neocon agenda by any means
possible outweighs any concept of good governance, or even of the Constitutional balance
of power, let alone the Bill of Rights.
Why, considering the response to 9-11, to the illegal Iraq war, the "Pharmacutical Company
Welfare Act of 2003", or the Gulf Coast-Katrina disaster, would any sentient being ever be
surprised by what the GWB administration is incapable of doing right?
The Department of Homeland Security is a non sequitor at best (oxymoronic?), and little more
than a tool of the emerging National Corporate Socialist state's grab for absolute executive
power, at worst.
The Bush administration has frittered away a $500 Billion USD surplus, along with
a healthy respect for (financially speaking) real scientific advances into a $3 Trillion
USD debt and "Intelligent Design". Basic science has been sacrificed on the alter of
high technology war-making. Their reliance upon Madison Avenue marketing and
Hollywood propaganda, image over substance and fiction over reality, covers every
aspect of their policies and agenda.
Small wonder, then, that fusion reactors, anti-gravity force fields, and warp drives
are a sizable portion of a Bush administration scientific conference. Fiction is so
much rewarding to their egos than the stark reality of slashing funding in basic
scientific research. Being governed by neocons [Neo-con(artists)] is a bit too
close to "Planet of The Apes" -- not unexpected for the mouth-breathing, knuckle-
dragging hairless apes currently in power.
The parent poster is (mostly) correct. The linux community could do a lot
more to provide a stable, predictable distribution that Dell could use.
That being said, however, I can remember back in the day when I worked
as a Dell-certified Server Engineer for a third-party vendor. (Okay, use
your Way-Back Time Machine TM to get there...)
Dell servers came with an option software pack of WInNT Server, Novell
Netware, Novell Unixware, Solaris x86, and SCO Unix CD media. Dell
would furnish the software key to whichever OS server package was paid
for. Dell Customer Support actually provided 1st Tier support to determine
whether it was a hardware or software problem. Hardware problems were,
generally speaking, rectified within a 24-hour period. Software problems
were always referred back to the OS OEM, always!
This was, of course, before M$ became the only server option except for
RedHat Enterprise Linux. Just like many current linux distributions, RH
has followed their own path when it came to the directory structure, where
configuration files are located, as well as their proprietary (and IMHO nasty)
habit of back-patching the kernel and supporting library files. AFAIK, Dell
today still doesn't really support RHEL fully, instead relying upon their OS
OEM. Standard Base Linux never really gained widespread support, because
the commercial vendors went one way, and everyone else went their own
separate ways. RHEL is what Dell hung their hat on, not some free-as-in-beer
linux distribution. I don't think that Dell's current business model (including
commoditized bottom-feeding) will permit supporting a non-profit-center OS
like brand-x (your favorite downloadable distribution here) linux.
Get over it, and open your wallets...
I can certainly understand Michael Dell's reluctance to support a linux distro -
ANY linux distro. It is not just the Average Joe User who buys his shiny new
Dell on-line (consumer grade machine) that is a Dell Computer support issue.
As someone who has deployed Dell servers and (corporate) workstations for
a large defense contractor, I can tell you that OEM's (not just Dell) have a huge
problem delivering a single shipment of computers with the same hardware.
Unlike the good old days, motherboards, video cards, memory sticks, and
more are all commodity items that change at will.
Bringing some level of driver support in-house would require a level of QA and
revision control that Dell does not now have, and at a price that would degrade
their margins. They, like many other OEMs, rely upon their vendors to supply
working drivers. With vendor NDA agreements that preclude furnishing source
code, Dell is totally reliant upon binary drivers. Imagine a product manager that
would have to deal with issues related to 100 different system components and
their associated binary drivers, their mutual compatability, and support across
dozens of different linux distributions.
The proverbial "Microsoft tax" extends well upstream from Dell's assembly lines.
Dell, HP, and other computer OEMs that "bottom-feed" both the consumer and
corporate market don't control their product as much as their component vendors
do. If you're looking for decent QA and version control of your computer hardware,
expect to pay a premium and at a different vendor, like Apple or Sun.
I'm not so certain that the Canon S80 is what you are really looking for. My Canon S110
// Canon 3x Optical Zoom // Auto/BestShot/AP/SP/Manual/Movie Modes // Exposure/WB/Focus Bracketing // Ext.Flash // even a Remote!6 40x480 // 3 JPG + RAW
(2.1 MP) recently crapped out. When I went shopping for its replacement, I was surprised
by the features (and pricing) on a demo model Casio (Exilim) EX-P700 digital camera.
7.0 MP
ISO640 equivilent
3072x2304/3072x2048/2304x1728/1600x1200/1280x960/
Would I like more/better? You bet: 12 - 15 MP, plus better dynamic range (ISO2000).
But this camera has prosumer-level features, and I bought it for USD $360. It will do.
BTW: Penn Camera was also the ONLY bricks-and-mortor shop where ALL their cameras
actually worked, as opposed to non-functioning gear and idiot salespeople.
"I don't want the government spying on its populace. That isn't really what is happening here. We're spying on OTHER peoples populaces, and should they happen to call someone inside our borders, well so be it. And as far as checks and balances go, again I'm really not so concerned as there are far more checks today than there ever have been."
Apparently, you have decided to take the blue pill, and have relinquished all personal responsibility for a citizen to remain well-informed and to think for him/her self. It shows. The government has, for many many years been involved in spying upon citizens of other countries -- the program is called ECHELON. There is a sort of "gentleman's club" agreement that the USA spies on the Brits (legal), the Brits spy on the USA, etc. The results are shared.
Herbert Hoover's FBI was fully involved in domestic spying, for many years, which is how Hoover managed to stay head of the FBI for so many years -- he could blackmail any politician that threatened his hold on power. The FISA law was passed in 1978 in order to curtail further Executive Branch violations of privacy as had been exhibited by Nixon's wiretaps (and burglaries/break-ins). There is a panel of Federal judges that hold security clearances in order to provide "checks and balances" against a unitary executive branch.
FISA court approval for wiretapping can be up to 72 hours AFTER such wiretapping occurs.
Approval of such wiretapping is very nearly automatic, with very few instances refused. There is really only one reason to avoid FISA approval -- a program of wiretapping that is far broader than the publically stated "war against terror".
The George W. Bush presidency has exercised an extremely broad definition of "terrorist", to include his political opponents, anti-war activists, journalists, etcetera. In point of fact, he clearly stated his emperial missive with the words "If you are not with me, then you are against me" (and, hence may also be considered terrorists.)
The Bush regime has refused to testify under oath regarding the 9-11 Commission investigation (which he opposed), has refused to keep even Republicans in Congress apprised of pertinent information required in their Constitutional mandate of "advise and consent", has stonewalled regarding administration positions on torture, the RENDITION program, his administration's response to the Katrina disaster, and now his program of illegal domestic spying.
Pray tell -- exactly in what manner has the George W. Bush administration NOT overridden the US Constitution, the US Bill of Rights, and the checks and balances between Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of our democratic republic? No regime has taken the USA so far down the path to emperial perogative since it's founding and the revolution against the last "King George". He needs to be impeached and tried for treason, and then turned over to the Hauge's International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity.