I think that OS X does have a great interface in general, but I don't want to get into an argument with you about it. I do wish that I could make any window transparent, but it's not a big-enough deal for me to actually pay for an add-on. Expose and multiple desktops help so I don't feel the lack of window shading.
However, zooming in to the desktop is very easy, built-in and intuitive in OS X. With the auto-smoothing, I think it makes for decent full screen YouTube viewing. I use it all the time to full screen whatever I'm showing to my coworkers.
Ctrl-. You can change the behavior details in the Keyboard and Mouse preferences.
It has nothing to do with the OS or security. It's all about market share. You can reach more people with a Windows virus/worm/spyware than you can with an OSX virus/worm/spyware. If you want maximum penetration, you hit the one with the most market share.
Why would any malware writer target an unexploited segment of several million households that have an above average amount of disposable income? They'd be crazy to waste their efforts, right? Even though, as you suggest, it's just as easy to remotely exploit an Mac OS X system as a Windows system. Right?
This is an old excuse, and it's still wrong. Old Mac OS versions had viruses. I get the impression that you think that all vulnerabilities are equal. That if any vulnerability exists, then the system is insecure. Security isn't just about the potential to get hacked, with the only two choices being "100% secure" and "0% secure". Nothing is 100% secure with finite resources. OS X is "more secure" than Windows because, in normal circumstances, it is much more difficult for a remote and untrusted person to gain privileged access to an OS X system.
OS X IS MORE SECURE, BY FAR, than a Windows system. Here are some of the many reasons: * There are many fewer open ports and services by default. * OS X security updates are installed in a timely manner by a simple but effective dedicated application..whereas Windows requires that the default web browser be insecure enough to install kernel updates,..and Windows does not automatically check for security updates by default. When they are set to automatically check for updates, either the notification can go unnoticed in the system tray, or the pop-to-front notification can cause inadvertent reboots (by stealing the focus and defaulting to reboot). * Many services and apps in OS X come from well-tested open source. * The OS X user is prompted for changes to the system or startup items, even as an administrator. * It is much easier to be a non-admin user in OS X. * OS X does not auto-run programs on removable media.
Windows is designed for the Enterprise, which emphasizes remote administration and local user restriction. OS X is designed for local administration and protection from remote commands. Both can be changed, but by default, OS X is far more secure from remote exploits.
Also, because of the way that multi-user is broken in Windows, and the mess that is the Windows folder structure, Windows is less secure from local exploits in practice. My Mac friends find it simple to setup and use separate user accounts for each member of the family, and in the absence of malicious and experienced local activity, they are pretty secure. My Windows friends find the multi-user experience so frustrating that often they don't even bother, or if they do, everyone is an administrator.
In a bank or hospital where significant threats come from malicious employees and have IT departments to manage the systems, I can't say which is more secure, in practice. But for home or small business use, where the security threats are likely to come from outside or from user negligence, OS X is by far more secure.
Well, you could always run a browser in a virtual machine and not allow it to save state.
Not that you were implying otherwise, but...
It's bloody difficult to do that with the Windows Internet Explorer (explorer.exe) because it is also: -- the File Manager -- the Start Menu and Start Bar -- the Desktop -- embedded in CA Anti-Virus, Veritas, and Quickbooks and many other business apps
If you go into the Advanced options you can choose to run each instance in a different process, but that's not the default.
First, the term "Zero Day means that there is an exploit already.
Second, If you had clicked on either link in the article, or bothered to read the other replies, before clicking the "Reply" link, typing in your questions, and clicking Submit, you would have discovered that an exploit does exist, and the result is "arbitrary code with the same rights as the user". Vulnerability and prevention details are in said articles.
Third, I also use a Mac and manage a Windows network. And I am restraining myself when I say, "Argh! You..!"
Heh. I felt that too, but honestly, he's a geek and an engineer, not a sales toastmaster. It's an impressive technology, and it just hasn't found its applications yet.
I could see this interface used for large-scale resource management-- emergency services and military being the most obvious. Or World of Warcraft and Civilization.;) The data-mining aspect he mentioned is interesting, but three dimensions is probably too limiting-- we probably don't need better visualization, but better search/modeling algorithms. It might be useful in network analysis, like in biochemistry. I'm not sure the lightroom aspect is very useful, but it could find a use in detective work for managing photos and evidence (like in Minority Report, I suppose). Anyway, I wish them well.
I appreciated that at the end it seemed that the conference was setup specifically to find those applications.
Nice little arrangement of words. "Bush has been wiretapping US phone calls"... hah. As if he's sitting in the oval office listening to your conversation with your mother. The NSA has been tapping suspected terrorist phone calls.
Wow. This is inane. I didn't think I needed to specify that Bush wasn't personally wiretapping US phone calls without a warrant. But it was done on his orders. Or are you suggesting that there was a conspiracy to wiretap without Bush's approval? I did forgot to mention that the problem with the wiretapping was that the wiretapping wasn't being approved by the Judicial Branch as required by law. Remember the Judicial Branch? Remember the checks-and-balances-thing to prevent the abuse of power by one branch of government?
Bush has paid journalists to repeat his propaganda? Bullshit. Show me your source for that.
BUSH delayed the federal response? Strike 3. Bush didn't delay anything.
House Republicans plan to issue a blistering report on Wednesday that says the Bush administration delayed the evacuation of thousands of New Orleans residents by failing to act quickly on early reports that the levees had broken during Hurricane Katrina.
Osama Bin Laden is still at large? Yes, he is. Why? Because he has multiple Middle-Eastern states cooperating with him and Al-Queda. The search for Bin Laden is still ongoing. We haven't forgotten at all.
"I don't know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority."
- G.W. Bush, 3/13/02"
"I am truly not that concerned about him."
- G.W. Bush, repsonding to a question about bin Laden's whereabouts,
3/13/02 (The New American, 4/8/02)
"I don't spend much time on him." -G.W. Bush, six months after 9/11 event. [video]
Troll...or ditto-head. LA governor Blanco declared a state of emergency 2 days before landfall when predictions upgraded the severity of Katrina. The day before landfall, Bush, Chertov, and Brown were warned about the possibility of the levee failures. Brown and Chertov were the incompetent asses that botched the response, and Bush was the incompetent ass who hired him, and put FEMA under the DoHS against the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission.
(2 days before landfall) GOV. BLANCO ASKS BUSH TO DECLARE FEDERAL STATE OF EMERGENCY IN LOUISIANA: "I have determined that this incident is of such severity and magnitude that effective response is beyond the capabilities of the State and affected local governments, and that supplementary Federal assistance is necessary to save lives, protect property, public health, and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a disaster.
You may want to read up on a good FEMA director. James Lee Witt was the FEMA director during the Clinton administration, and is credited with turning FEMA into a top-notch emergency response team. Possibly because he had real emergency preparedness experience. <snark>
By 1996 an Atlanta Journal-Constitution editorial said that "FEMA has developed a sterling reputation for delivering disaster-relief services, a far cry from its abysmal standing before James Lee Witt took its helm in 1993. How did Witt turn FEMA around so quickly? Well, he is the first director of the agency to have emergency-management experience. He stopped the staffing of the agency by political patronage. He removed layers of bureaucracy. Most important, he instilled in the agency a spirit of preparedness, of service to the customer, of willingness to listen to ideas of local and state officials to make the system work better."
Witt's term of office saw approximately 348 Presidential declared disaster areas in more than 6,500 counties and in all 50 states and territories. Witt supervised the response to the most costly flood disaster in the nation's history at that time, the most costly earthquake, and a dozen serious hurricanes.
Bush isn't going to abuse this, Bush is trying to make America safer... Everyone is so afraid of Bush, but when you look at what he does, it's not the sign of a dictator, it's the sign of a president trying to protect the American people and solve problems ignored by his predecessors.
Iraq war was started because of his lies (alleged Weapons of Mass Distraction, outing of Valerie Plame, alleged Yellow cake, alleged Al Quida connection) Bush refused to discuss exit plans with his generals. Bush refused to accept the CIA claims that Saddam was not involved with 9/11 and not a threat. Osama Bin Laden is still at large, which apparently matters to Bush only during election times. We now have 2,800 dead US soldiers, ten times that wounded. Our Iraq Plan For Success was written by a lobbyist after the invasion. Our military has been weakened in numbers and in character from this immoral war. Bush gutted FEMA before Katrina hit, and placed FEMA under the DoHS against the 9/11 Commission's recommendations. Bush delayed the federal response to Katrina disaster. Bush has been wiretapping US phone calls since 2001. Bush is disregarding the Geneva Convention. Utilized torture since 2001. (What kind of person uses TORTURE!?) Bush's appearance attendees must sign loyalty oaths. Bush has paid journalists to repeat his propaganda. Routinely sensors scientific reports and studies in the Executive Branch. Ignores (the few) requests by Congress for information. Bush continually uses terror to keep Americans afraid and under control. that's just off the top of my head...
Not to mention.. he's polarized this country more than any other president. He recently announced that if the Democrats took the House or the Senate that it would be a disaster for National Security. Gosh, what could he mean by that?
George W. Bush doesn't give a damn about the average American citizen. He has greatly weakened our national security. It will take decades to recover from his Presidency and the.
The scary part about this bill is not that Bush gets to send in troops to respond to Katrina-like disasters even if the governor disagrees. (Although in the actual Katrina disaster, the LA governor requested troops, but FEMA and Bush failed to respond in a timely manner.)
The problem is that this allows the executive branch to declare martial law in any state, with any troops, any time. The Founding Fathers expressly did not want the President to have this sort of power. States' Rights, remember? They did not want another King in America.
China used this sort of power to break up the Tiananmen Square protests. The protests were against the perceived corruption in the Chinese government. The first set of troops sent in were local troops, who were familiar with the issues, and refused to use fatal force against the protesters. The Chinese solved that problem by bringing in troops from the other side of China, unfamiliar with the issues or protesters, and only saw the conflict in black-and-white. 7,000 protesters were killed.
Bush was just given these same powers, unilaterally.
Even during the Little Rock Integration Crisis the matter was handled diplomatically, with National Troops sent in only after being requested.
With the new law, Bush can declare martial law and send troops in -- against the state's wishes -- to break up protesters. I wouldn't be surprised if this new law were used during the upcoming elections. Even if the courts invalidate the law (as expected), Bush has a history of ignoring laws, judgments, and Congress. Protesters can now also be declared War Criminals, and tried in a military tribunal. The law prohibits the any courts from determining the legality of any particular military tribunal.
This is so against the intent of the Founding Fathers.
Bush was allowed to send in troops. The LA governor had declared a state of emergency and requested troops, but delays and in FEMA and the Bush administration made the response lackluster. It didn't help that the competent and experienced FEMA director had been replaced by a total boob.
And of course, we blame Bush for sending our troops off to Iraq, meaning that we didn't have them at home where they actually could have helped Americans. If Iraq were actually making "weapons of mass distraction", or had been buying nuclear arms on the black market, we wouldn't blame Bush for the lack of troops in America. But since he pushed and pushed to go to war without a just cause, he can accept responsibility for all the outcomes.
First off, from what I understand, negative campaigning is encouraged by current laws that prohibit endorsing a particular candidate, but allow negative ads.
Second, I was for this when it was paid-for Google Ads, but I agree the Google Bombing is sleezy.
I fully support a comprehensive campaign funding overhaul with 99% transparency (don't care how much they spend on donuts) and stricter libel / truth-in-advertising / labelling laws for campaigns. It's gotten to the point that if the Foundation for Children, or the American Heritage, or the Lobby for Homeless Puppies endorses something, I can safely assume the candidate or law is backed by the devil himself.
Maybe if the television station is held partly responsible for the libel damages, and increase the damages, it will decrease the worst negative campaigning.
There is no contradiction in wanting limited government AND due process and oversight. Giving any branch of government unchecked power is senseless.
It's like putting brakes on a car so that it doesn't go over a cliff.
By the way, what we liberals want is sensible security. Like checking containers coming into the US at the ports, and scanning luggage, but not wasting peoples time and liberties by confiscating laptops, shoes, and nail clippers. By God, why do these Republicans do the terrorists' work encouraging baseless fear in America and savagely stripping freedoms and checks out of the Constitution? (free press, freedom of religion, due process, habeas corpus, checks and balances)
It may cost an extra $15, but I've been using Sidetrack for the last three years to turn my 3.5 year-old TiBook trackpad into a five-button trackpad with trackwheel. It's very smooth and I've never had a problem with it. (Left-, Right-, Middle-clicks, two Expose functions, and vertical scrolling. Plus drag-lock, and an improved acceleration curve.) I also have a graphics tablet, a 3B+wheel pocket mouse, and the iGesture tablet for input devices.
I'm considering whether to buy USB Overdrive ($20) to get the full 10-button support for my new laser mouse at work..
Point is.. there's simple work arounds for minor annoyances, just like there are third-party replacements for Windows Media Player, and replacements for the gawd-awful Explorer and Finder. So I think you're being silly if you let the one-button default be a deal-breaker. Not able to run your company's CRM app? --that's a deal-breaker.:)
Ditto. I trust Apple to make a phone that Steve Jobs will be happy with.
The last decent phone I had was the Motorola Startac. All the Motorola and LG phones I've used since then have had crap for UI. They'd hang up phone calls as I accidentally press the side buttons when I'd grab it out of my pocket. It took me an hour to set a neutral background on the LG. 10+ clicks to change the ringer-mode every time I enter or leave the theater. The Startac was the smallest phone I've had, had a bright display, picked up vmail with a single click, and it didn't play mode-roulette and randomly switch ringer settings whenever I was expecting an important phone call.
Thanks for the fallback recommendation, just in case.
Not having played the last two, I'd replace them with 4) Quake 2, Multi-player, with Grappling Hook mod and 5) Nethack. Stars! was great too; I'm sorry that the sequal couldn't find the finishing funding.
UPS delivered a large box to our work about 30"x20"x12".. nearly large enough for the tape library we ordered. Inside was some plastic balloon padding and another heavy-duty shipping box about the size of a briefcase. Inside that was a tiny box containing a plastic bag containing a stupid promotional pen... and the warranty paper for the Quantum tape library.
The pen is pinned to my cubicle wall. I think I referred to the warranty paper once.
The phrase "separation of church and state" was coined by Thomas Jefferson, though it is used as a handy reference to the First Amendment. Thomas Paine and Benjamin Franklin also used the phrase.
It's interesting to note that the phrase you quoted "Laws of Nature" is actually capitalized in the Declaration of Independence.
The reference to "Laws of Nature" is an even more direct reference to Deism, because the deistic belief was that some supreme being created the universe and the laws of nature and the rest of what progressed from that point on followed the laws of nature. Most Deists did not believe in divine intervention or supernatural occurrences, and they definitely did not believe that Jesus was the son of God. Mention of the Laws of Nature would have been an extremely obvious reference to Deism in 1776. It was progressive at the time, and depressingly, is once again.
I seems that you were taught the same crap I was growing up.:) Good luck waking up from it, but once you do you'll find the whole of existence will be more beautiful and less terrifying.
In fact, I really can't see much of any reason why it matters for anyone in any usual profession what one believes about evolution. My doctor, for example, is one of those nasty fundamentalist creationists that people keep bitching about, and yet he manages to be a very good doctor.
Why should we teach in schools that the Earth is round, or that the Earth orbits the sun in an airless void? There are plenty of other theories out there. Why should it matter if your doctor or the U.S. president believes that the Earth is really flat, or that the malaria parasite was designed and created by God (possibly to punish the blacks), or that homosexuality is caused by a blighted soul?
It should matter to you because the people who distrust scientists and believe their pastors vote and raise children. They will come into positions of power and will -- based on their belief of the Bible or Qur'an or an invisible, silent power -- they will make our laws.
I don't care if your doctor signed up to meet the aliens on Halley's Comet. I don't care if your doctor believes that all disease and the pain of childbirth was created by the same higher power he worships. I do care that a majority of our voting citizens do. It matters a lot to me that Bush seems to disbelieve science and trusts "truthiness" instead.
By logical necessity, historical studies are NOT subject to reproducible experimentation.
Historical theories can still make PREDICTIONS, which can be tested. What is the detected/predicted level of lithium in deep space? What amounts of radiation-derived isotopes are in this fossil and the earth it came from? Where would we find other fossils of this type and in what strata? What geological features can we expect to find here or there? Do the differences in DNA match predictions based on distance (in age) between species? Do ancient fossils of bats appear more mammal-like? Are modern horses found in ancient fossils? Where do new viruses come from?
If everything was created ten thousand years ago, then why are horse fossils different than modern horses? Why does radioactive-dating yield ancient results? Creationists try to make the facts fit their beliefs, awkwardly, just like the geocentrists trying to explain the planets' occasional reversals. Evolution, both micro- and macro-, started out with bizarre facts (fossils, etc.) that could not be explained by the existing theory.
Nah, just make everyone curse the Qur'an, and spit on the Bible before boarding. Anyone praying on the plane goes in the locked and padded prayer room in the back. Atheist Air would be the safest airline in the world. After all, we only got the one life, and no mansions or virgins in the afterlife to encourage us to haste or waste.
Those US soldiers in Iraq are not protecting MY freedoms. If that's their goal, they're doing a piss-poor job of it, because MY freedoms have been getting reduced and eliminated left and right since the infamous 9/11 tragedy.
Maybe they are over there to "bring freedom and democracy to Iraq" instead? That wasn't the given reason at the beginning. The Bush administration was telling everyone that Saddam had "ties" with Al Quaeda and Saddam was actively developing chemical and nuclear WMDs, and Rumsfeld said they knew exactly where. Fast forward several years.. We are $450 BILLION dollars deeper in debt because of this war (here you are, son), even while pork spending has increased, freedoms and rights have decreased, our volunteer forces have been stretched beyond their sustainable limits, and over 100 THOUSAND people have died as a result of this incompetently planned war. And we are no safer from terrorism in 2006 than in 1996.
Truth is, the soldiers over there are obeying orders, and generally obeying them well. The orders are what's fucked up, and the reason we're over there in the first place, and it's a fucking crime that we're at WAR in Iraq at all.
Back to the shampoo bottles.. do you think it matters to a suicide bomber whether the explosives are in the carry-ons or the checked luggage? Or whether the utensils are plastic? Forget whether you feel safer? Are you safer?
Resisting graffiti... Cleaning up graffiti promptly so it doesn't encourage more graffiti and without resorting to draconion methods of prevention. Or in gaming terms.. "resistance" is not "immunity".
Slashdot Mirror
I think that OS X does have a great interface in general, but I don't want to get into an argument with you about it. I do wish that I could make any window transparent, but it's not a big-enough deal for me to actually pay for an add-on. Expose and multiple desktops help so I don't feel the lack of window shading.
However, zooming in to the desktop is very easy, built-in and intuitive in OS X. With the auto-smoothing, I think it makes for decent full screen YouTube viewing. I use it all the time to full screen whatever I'm showing to my coworkers.
Ctrl-. You can change the behavior details in the Keyboard and Mouse preferences.
It has nothing to do with the OS or security. It's all about market share. You can reach more people with a Windows virus/worm/spyware than you can with an OSX virus/worm/spyware. If you want maximum penetration, you hit the one with the most market share.
..whereas Windows requires that the default web browser be insecure enough to install kernel updates, ..and Windows does not automatically check for security updates by default. When they are set to automatically check for updates, either the notification can go unnoticed in the system tray, or the pop-to-front notification can cause inadvertent reboots (by stealing the focus and defaulting to reboot).
Why would any malware writer target an unexploited segment of several million households that have an above average amount of disposable income? They'd be crazy to waste their efforts, right? Even though, as you suggest, it's just as easy to remotely exploit an Mac OS X system as a Windows system. Right?
This is an old excuse, and it's still wrong. Old Mac OS versions had viruses. I get the impression that you think that all vulnerabilities are equal. That if any vulnerability exists, then the system is insecure. Security isn't just about the potential to get hacked, with the only two choices being "100% secure" and "0% secure". Nothing is 100% secure with finite resources. OS X is "more secure" than Windows because, in normal circumstances, it is much more difficult for a remote and untrusted person to gain privileged access to an OS X system.
OS X IS MORE SECURE, BY FAR, than a Windows system. Here are some of the many reasons:
* There are many fewer open ports and services by default.
* OS X security updates are installed in a timely manner by a simple but effective dedicated application
* Many services and apps in OS X come from well-tested open source.
* The OS X user is prompted for changes to the system or startup items, even as an administrator.
* It is much easier to be a non-admin user in OS X.
* OS X does not auto-run programs on removable media.
Windows is designed for the Enterprise, which emphasizes remote administration and local user restriction. OS X is designed for local administration and protection from remote commands. Both can be changed, but by default, OS X is far more secure from remote exploits.
Also, because of the way that multi-user is broken in Windows, and the mess that is the Windows folder structure, Windows is less secure from local exploits in practice. My Mac friends find it simple to setup and use separate user accounts for each member of the family, and in the absence of malicious and experienced local activity, they are pretty secure. My Windows friends find the multi-user experience so frustrating that often they don't even bother, or if they do, everyone is an administrator.
In a bank or hospital where significant threats come from malicious employees and have IT departments to manage the systems, I can't say which is more secure, in practice. But for home or small business use, where the security threats are likely to come from outside or from user negligence, OS X is by far more secure.
Well, you could always run a browser in a virtual machine and not allow it to save state.
Not that you were implying otherwise, but...
It's bloody difficult to do that with the Windows Internet Explorer (explorer.exe) because it is also:
-- the File Manager
-- the Start Menu and Start Bar
-- the Desktop
-- embedded in CA Anti-Virus, Veritas, and Quickbooks and many other business apps
If you go into the Advanced options you can choose to run each instance in a different process, but that's not the default.
Stupid! Stupid! Stupid, Microsoft!
First, the term "Zero Day means that there is an exploit already.
Second, If you had clicked on either link in the article, or bothered to read the other replies, before clicking the "Reply" link, typing in your questions, and clicking Submit, you would have discovered that an exploit does exist, and the result is "arbitrary code with the same rights as the user". Vulnerability and prevention details are in said articles.
Third, I also use a Mac and manage a Windows network. And I am restraining myself when I say, "Argh! You..!"
Doh! My bad.
Just to nitpik, no bugs are flies, and no flies are bugs, but some bugs can fly.
Bugs are in the order Hemiptera, whereas flies are in the order Diptera. IANAE.
Heh. I felt that too, but honestly, he's a geek and an engineer, not a sales toastmaster. It's an impressive technology, and it just hasn't found its applications yet.
;) The data-mining aspect he mentioned is interesting, but three dimensions is probably too limiting-- we probably don't need better visualization, but better search/modeling algorithms. It might be useful in network analysis, like in biochemistry. I'm not sure the lightroom aspect is very useful, but it could find a use in detective work for managing photos and evidence (like in Minority Report, I suppose). Anyway, I wish them well.
I could see this interface used for large-scale resource management-- emergency services and military being the most obvious. Or World of Warcraft and Civilization.
I appreciated that at the end it seemed that the conference was setup specifically to find those applications.
Wow. This is inane. I didn't think I needed to specify that Bush wasn't personally wiretapping US phone calls without a warrant. But it was done on his orders. Or are you suggesting that there was a conspiracy to wiretap without Bush's approval? I did forgot to mention that the problem with the wiretapping was that the wiretapping wasn't being approved by the Judicial Branch as required by law. Remember the Judicial Branch? Remember the checks-and-balances-thing to prevent the abuse of power by one branch of government?
Bush has paid journalists to repeat his propaganda? Bullshit. Show me your source for that.
Routinely censors scientific reports? Strike 2. Source, please.
BUSH delayed the federal response? Strike 3. Bush didn't delay anything.
Osama Bin Laden is still at large? Yes, he is. Why? Because he has multiple Middle-Eastern states cooperating with him and Al-Queda. The search for Bin Laden is still ongoing. We haven't forgotten at all.
Troll. ..or ditto-head. LA governor Blanco declared a state of emergency 2 days before landfall when predictions upgraded the severity of Katrina. The day before landfall, Bush, Chertov, and Brown were warned about the possibility of the levee failures. Brown and Chertov were the incompetent asses that botched the response, and Bush was the incompetent ass who hired him, and put FEMA under the DoHS against the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission.
(2 days before landfall) GOV. BLANCO ASKS BUSH TO DECLARE FEDERAL STATE OF EMERGENCY IN LOUISIANA: "I have determined that this incident is of such severity and magnitude that effective response is beyond the capabilities of the State and affected local governments, and that supplementary Federal assistance is necessary to save lives, protect property, public health, and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a disaster.
You may want to read up on a good FEMA director. James Lee Witt was the FEMA director during the Clinton administration, and is credited with turning FEMA into a top-notch emergency response team. Possibly because he had real emergency preparedness experience. <snark>
By 1996 an Atlanta Journal-Constitution editorial said that "FEMA has developed a sterling reputation for delivering disaster-relief services, a far cry from its abysmal standing before James Lee Witt took its helm in 1993. How did Witt turn FEMA around so quickly? Well, he is the first director of the agency to have emergency-management experience. He stopped the staffing of the agency by political patronage. He removed layers of bureaucracy. Most important, he instilled in the agency a spirit of preparedness, of service to the customer, of willingness to listen to ideas of local and state officials to make the system work better."
Witt's term of office saw approximately 348 Presidential declared disaster areas in more than 6,500 counties and in all 50 states and territories. Witt supervised the response to the most costly flood disaster in the nation's history at that time, the most costly earthquake, and a dozen serious hurricanes.
Amazingly, Bush has declared his intention to disregard a law passed by Congress that requires real emergency preparedness experience when hiring a FEMA director with one of his infamous signing statements.
Bush isn't going to abuse this, Bush is trying to make America safer ...
.
Everyone is so afraid of Bush, but when you look at what he does, it's not the sign of a dictator, it's the sign of a president trying to protect the American people and solve problems ignored by his predecessors.
Iraq war was started because of his lies (alleged Weapons of Mass Distraction, outing of Valerie Plame, alleged Yellow cake, alleged Al Quida connection)
Bush refused to discuss exit plans with his generals.
Bush refused to accept the CIA claims that Saddam was not involved with 9/11 and not a threat.
Osama Bin Laden is still at large, which apparently matters to Bush only during election times.
We now have 2,800 dead US soldiers, ten times that wounded.
Our Iraq Plan For Success was written by a lobbyist after the invasion.
Our military has been weakened in numbers and in character from this immoral war.
Bush gutted FEMA before Katrina hit, and placed FEMA under the DoHS against the 9/11 Commission's recommendations.
Bush delayed the federal response to Katrina disaster.
Bush has been wiretapping US phone calls since 2001.
Bush is disregarding the Geneva Convention.
Utilized torture since 2001. (What kind of person uses TORTURE!?)
Bush's appearance attendees must sign loyalty oaths.
Bush has paid journalists to repeat his propaganda.
Routinely sensors scientific reports and studies in the Executive Branch.
Ignores (the few) requests by Congress for information.
Bush continually uses terror to keep Americans afraid and under control.
that's just off the top of my head...
Not to mention.. he's polarized this country more than any other president. He recently announced that if the Democrats took the House or the Senate that it would be a disaster for National Security. Gosh, what could he mean by that?
George W. Bush doesn't give a damn about the average American citizen.
He has greatly weakened our national security.
It will take decades to recover from his Presidency and the
..follow-up to my previous reply...
The scary part about this bill is not that Bush gets to send in troops to respond to Katrina-like disasters even if the governor disagrees. (Although in the actual Katrina disaster, the LA governor requested troops, but FEMA and Bush failed to respond in a timely manner.)
The problem is that this allows the executive branch to declare martial law in any state, with any troops, any time. The Founding Fathers expressly did not want the President to have this sort of power. States' Rights, remember? They did not want another King in America.
China used this sort of power to break up the Tiananmen Square protests. The protests were against the perceived corruption in the Chinese government. The first set of troops sent in were local troops, who were familiar with the issues, and refused to use fatal force against the protesters. The Chinese solved that problem by bringing in troops from the other side of China, unfamiliar with the issues or protesters, and only saw the conflict in black-and-white. 7,000 protesters were killed.
Bush was just given these same powers, unilaterally.
Even during the Little Rock Integration Crisis the matter was handled diplomatically, with National Troops sent in only after being requested.
With the new law, Bush can declare martial law and send troops in -- against the state's wishes -- to break up protesters. I wouldn't be surprised if this new law were used during the upcoming elections. Even if the courts invalidate the law (as expected), Bush has a history of ignoring laws, judgments, and Congress. Protesters can now also be declared War Criminals, and tried in a military tribunal. The law prohibits the any courts from determining the legality of any particular military tribunal.
This is so against the intent of the Founding Fathers.
Bush was allowed to send in troops. The LA governor had declared a state of emergency and requested troops, but delays and in FEMA and the Bush administration made the response lackluster. It didn't help that the competent and experienced FEMA director had been replaced by a total boob.
And of course, we blame Bush for sending our troops off to Iraq, meaning that we didn't have them at home where they actually could have helped Americans. If Iraq were actually making "weapons of mass distraction", or had been buying nuclear arms on the black market, we wouldn't blame Bush for the lack of troops in America. But since he pushed and pushed to go to war without a just cause, he can accept responsibility for all the outcomes.
First off, from what I understand, negative campaigning is encouraged by current laws that prohibit endorsing a particular candidate, but allow negative ads.
Second, I was for this when it was paid-for Google Ads, but I agree the Google Bombing is sleezy.
I fully support a comprehensive campaign funding overhaul with 99% transparency (don't care how much they spend on donuts) and stricter libel / truth-in-advertising / labelling laws for campaigns. It's gotten to the point that if the Foundation for Children, or the American Heritage, or the Lobby for Homeless Puppies endorses something, I can safely assume the candidate or law is backed by the devil himself.
Maybe if the television station is held partly responsible for the libel damages, and increase the damages, it will decrease the worst negative campaigning.
There is no contradiction in wanting limited government AND due process and oversight. Giving any branch of government unchecked power is senseless.
It's like putting brakes on a car so that it doesn't go over a cliff.
By the way, what we liberals want is sensible security. Like checking containers coming into the US at the ports, and scanning luggage, but not wasting peoples time and liberties by confiscating laptops, shoes, and nail clippers. By God, why do these Republicans do the terrorists' work encouraging baseless fear in America and savagely stripping freedoms and checks out of the Constitution? (free press, freedom of religion, due process, habeas corpus, checks and balances)
For the sake of Windows users, please don't ever link directly to an .exe hosted on someone else's website.
It may cost an extra $15, but I've been using Sidetrack for the last three years to turn my 3.5 year-old TiBook trackpad into a five-button trackpad with trackwheel. It's very smooth and I've never had a problem with it. (Left-, Right-, Middle-clicks, two Expose functions, and vertical scrolling. Plus drag-lock, and an improved acceleration curve.) I also have a graphics tablet, a 3B+wheel pocket mouse, and the iGesture tablet for input devices.
:)
I'm considering whether to buy USB Overdrive ($20) to get the full 10-button support for my new laser mouse at work..
Point is.. there's simple work arounds for minor annoyances, just like there are third-party replacements for Windows Media Player, and replacements for the gawd-awful Explorer and Finder. So I think you're being silly if you let the one-button default be a deal-breaker. Not able to run your company's CRM app? --that's a deal-breaker.
Ditto. I trust Apple to make a phone that Steve Jobs will be happy with.
The last decent phone I had was the Motorola Startac. All the Motorola and LG phones I've used since then have had crap for UI. They'd hang up phone calls as I accidentally press the side buttons when I'd grab it out of my pocket. It took me an hour to set a neutral background on the LG. 10+ clicks to change the ringer-mode every time I enter or leave the theater. The Startac was the smallest phone I've had, had a bright display, picked up vmail with a single click, and it didn't play mode-roulette and randomly switch ringer settings whenever I was expecting an important phone call.
Thanks for the fallback recommendation, just in case.
Not having played the last two, I'd replace them with 4) Quake 2, Multi-player, with Grappling Hook mod and 5) Nethack. Stars! was great too; I'm sorry that the sequal couldn't find the finishing funding.
UPS delivered a large box to our work about 30"x20"x12".. nearly large enough for the tape library we ordered. Inside was some plastic balloon padding and another heavy-duty shipping box about the size of a briefcase. Inside that was a tiny box containing a plastic bag containing a stupid promotional pen... and the warranty paper for the Quantum tape library.
The pen is pinned to my cubicle wall. I think I referred to the warranty paper once.
The phrase "separation of church and state" was coined by Thomas Jefferson, though it is used as a handy reference to the First Amendment. Thomas Paine and Benjamin Franklin also used the phrase.
:) Good luck waking up from it, but once you do you'll find the whole of existence will be more beautiful and less terrifying.
It's interesting to note that the phrase you quoted "Laws of Nature" is actually capitalized in the Declaration of Independence.
The reference to "Laws of Nature" is an even more direct reference to Deism, because the deistic belief was that some supreme being created the universe and the laws of nature and the rest of what progressed from that point on followed the laws of nature. Most Deists did not believe in divine intervention or supernatural occurrences, and they definitely did not believe that Jesus was the son of God. Mention of the Laws of Nature would have been an extremely obvious reference to Deism in 1776. It was progressive at the time, and depressingly, is once again.
I seems that you were taught the same crap I was growing up.
Where is that? Even here in the "godless" Silicon Valley, there are plenty of literal creationists.
In fact, I really can't see much of any reason why it matters for anyone in any usual profession what one believes about evolution. My doctor, for example, is one of those nasty fundamentalist creationists that people keep bitching about, and yet he manages to be a very good doctor.
Why should we teach in schools that the Earth is round, or that the Earth orbits the sun in an airless void? There are plenty of other theories out there. Why should it matter if your doctor or the U.S. president believes that the Earth is really flat, or that the malaria parasite was designed and created by God (possibly to punish the blacks), or that homosexuality is caused by a blighted soul?
It should matter to you because the people who distrust scientists and believe their pastors vote and raise children. They will come into positions of power and will -- based on their belief of the Bible or Qur'an or an invisible, silent power -- they will make our laws.
I don't care if your doctor signed up to meet the aliens on Halley's Comet. I don't care if your doctor believes that all disease and the pain of childbirth was created by the same higher power he worships. I do care that a majority of our voting citizens do. It matters a lot to me that Bush seems to disbelieve science and trusts "truthiness" instead.
By logical necessity, historical studies are NOT subject to reproducible experimentation.
Historical theories can still make PREDICTIONS, which can be tested. What is the detected/predicted level of lithium in deep space? What amounts of radiation-derived isotopes are in this fossil and the earth it came from? Where would we find other fossils of this type and in what strata? What geological features can we expect to find here or there? Do the differences in DNA match predictions based on distance (in age) between species? Do ancient fossils of bats appear more mammal-like? Are modern horses found in ancient fossils? Where do new viruses come from?
If everything was created ten thousand years ago, then why are horse fossils different than modern horses? Why does radioactive-dating yield ancient results? Creationists try to make the facts fit their beliefs, awkwardly, just like the geocentrists trying to explain the planets' occasional reversals. Evolution, both micro- and macro-, started out with bizarre facts (fossils, etc.) that could not be explained by the existing theory.
Nah, just make everyone curse the Qur'an, and spit on the Bible before boarding. Anyone praying on the plane goes in the locked and padded prayer room in the back. Atheist Air would be the safest airline in the world. After all, we only got the one life, and no mansions or virgins in the afterlife to encourage us to haste or waste.
Is this a troll? I just can't tell anymore..
Those US soldiers in Iraq are not protecting MY freedoms. If that's their goal, they're doing a piss-poor job of it, because MY freedoms have been getting reduced and eliminated left and right since the infamous 9/11 tragedy.
Maybe they are over there to "bring freedom and democracy to Iraq" instead? That wasn't the given reason at the beginning. The Bush administration was telling everyone that Saddam had "ties" with Al Quaeda and Saddam was actively developing chemical and nuclear WMDs, and Rumsfeld said they knew exactly where. Fast forward several years.. We are $450 BILLION dollars deeper in debt because of this war (here you are, son), even while pork spending has increased, freedoms and rights have decreased, our volunteer forces have been stretched beyond their sustainable limits, and over 100 THOUSAND people have died as a result of this incompetently planned war. And we are no safer from terrorism in 2006 than in 1996.
Truth is, the soldiers over there are obeying orders, and generally obeying them well. The orders are what's fucked up, and the reason we're over there in the first place, and it's a fucking crime that we're at WAR in Iraq at all.
Back to the shampoo bottles.. do you think it matters to a suicide bomber whether the explosives are in the carry-ons or the checked luggage? Or whether the utensils are plastic? Forget whether you feel safer? Are you safer?
Resisting graffiti... Cleaning up graffiti promptly so it doesn't encourage more graffiti and without resorting to draconion methods of prevention. Or in gaming terms.. "resistance" is not "immunity".