the Supremes...have actually begun to recover, fitfully, from the "revolution" of 1933 in the last decade or so
I'm curious: what indication(s) have you seen of this recovery? I just see it getting worse and worse. Our current president, while conservative in some ways, is still very liberal when it comes to the Constitution, and has been restricting rights and adding more social programs, thereby increasing taxes in the near future (such as the prescription drug bill which added $5E11 to our $25E11 federal budget, and I haven't heard a mention of it from the Justice Department (nor has any person sued over it, that I've heard). It really scares me, I worry that we are nearing the end of the democratic republic, and will soon see a dictatorship, as prophesied.
I wasn't referring to the Seal, I was specifically referring to the Masonic symbols therein. Now I'm not saying I agree with these wa^H^Hwriters conclusions, but I think it's pretty obvious that the symbols are there.
Ditto that. In the Canon 3200 Color Printer/Copier we just got, we tried copying a dollar bill folded in half. Some of the lines were turned from green to black.
I didn't try, however, to change the size. The most important thing about these devices detecting violations when printing is that they must check the size of the printed image!!! It's not illegal or irresponsible to print dollar bills that are much smaller or much larger than normal size.
That is why having PhotoShop do this is not only goddamn stupid but completely unnecessary. There are plenty of reasons why someone would want to print part of a dollar bill, or take a small portion of it from the image and use it elsewhere. For instance, when talking about the Mason symbols on the bill, showing an image would be necessary. But by blocking one from opening the file, they are stopping fair use, while not stopping actual counterfeiting.
In addition, it seems to me that by including this software, they are opening themselves up to liability for not applying it fully or correctly and allowing people to bypass it. It would seem that by not doing anything, they can point out that their software has plenty of uses, the least of which is for counterfeiting. This is analogous to the manufacturer of a printing press being sued because their press was used to counterfeit money. The defense? "We sold 500 of these presses, and are not responsible for their use." This is not the case of a firearm, which when used as intended results in death or injury. The software, printers, presses, etc, are designed for other use, not for counterfeiting.
Please report these to the company on their site. They have a form for reporting these, which is much like SpamCop's form. SpamCop reports the abuses to all ISPs involved. Additionally, reporting it to Habeas allows them to add the senders to their blacklist, which is already used by some mail blockers (SpamAssassin already uses it by default).
I got one of these emails last week, reported it right away, and haven't seen another since. Habeas may not be able to sue (yet|ever), but they've already fixed the problem to a great degree by providng the blacklist.
My sequence of events follows yours exactly, except that my hosting provider didn't have sendmail set up to allow external SMTP relaying. Now that my domains are hosted at home, I got everything working except the component of postfix that authenticates SMTP connections. So until I get that working, I have to SSH into my home network, and tunnel port 25 to the mail server. This is not a viable solution for most people (IMHO). It should be easier to get working.
Also aren't other mail servers supposed to check that the envelope sender matches the host it's being sent from?
Absolutely not, that would break most people's sending of email, since they use their ISP to send, which may or may not be the same as their sending domain.
SCO is an entity. As such, it should be referred to in the singular. "SCO Lies," "When SCO appears to be..."
I keep seeing this, and it makes me think that perhaps the Brits treat a corporation differently. Maybe it's because corporations are different in the UK. However, in the US a corporation is an entity (SCO is a US corporation), and therefore is not treated grammatically as a plural of 'person.'
If the FBI had properly done its job (as Bush alleges, shifting the blame from him)...
The job of the President does NOT include foreign intelligence, that is the CIA's job. The President's job does not include screening travellers at the airport, that is the FAA's job. When Bush got the job the security and military forces were in tatters, and the blame for this can be placed squarely on Clinton, who dismantled the military and the CIA during his office, and BRAGGED ABOUT IT.
That's correct. And the cure is to use Anomy Sanitizer or something similar that obfuscates IMG tags and drops or obfuscates attachments. I have been using it alongside SpamAssassin with Postfix for two months, and I'll never look back. I haven't had a piece of spam in three weeks.
Some reasons the mother's life might be in danger include deformities of the skull, specifically an oversized skull with little or no brain inside.
If the skull is oversized, then how in the world could a PBA help? A PBA requires that the head pass through the birth canal, only backward. The only reason a PBA would be desired is to terminate the baby's life without it being fully born. It is then legally stillborn.
In the extremely rare, unheard of case of "oversized skull, undersized brain" in babies, a Cesearian Section would remove the baby and the danger to the mother, without terminating the baby's life. If the child is not viable, it will die anyway. Without having the baby alive, it will not be known if it is actually a vegetable, or if it was a false positive.
More frequently than not, ultrasound exams or hormonal testing can be quite misleading, and only give the doctor an indication that something may be wrong. In nearly every case (such as life is) it is usually simply a case where certain dimensions or hormones were slightly out of spec based on statistics.
I am not a doctor. But I have children of my own, and I have been through every imaginable class, numerous ultrasound exams, one "the baby might have..." scare, and three births. My children scoff at statistics, and are always outside projections of one type or another.
Does China imprison people for organized religious worship? Yes. Does the US FORCE children to acknowledge God as their god? Yes. No. If you are referring to the Pledge of Allegience, the phrase is, "one nation, under God." This is not acknowledging God as their god, it is acknowledging that the country was created under the belief of God as god. PARENTS HAVE THE ABILITY AND OPTION TO TALK TO THEIR CHILDREN ABOUT THIS AND TELL THEM OTHERWISE.
Does China imprison political activists based ENTIRELY on words? Yes. Does the US allow and encourage litigation against people who posted links to the DeCSS source code and still to this day the US Government bans its presence on the internet? Yes. This is not only the US government, and the action was not instigated by "the US Goverment."
Does the US imprison political activists based ENTIRELY on what plant they choose to grow in their garden? Yes. NO. The US government arrests and charges those who grow or possess illegal drugs, regardless of whether they are a 'political activitist.'
Does the United States not gas and beat thousands of peacefull protesters on a regular basis? Yes. YES. That is correct, the US does NOT do this. The closest thing you could cite is the riots in Seattle, and I read a number of accounts by protesters that showed that some of the protesters were violent long before the police were.
Does China force women to undergo abortions? Yes. Does the US force women to die because of laws banning late term abortions? Yes. No. This is not only completely false, but quite inflamatory as well. The banning of partial-birth abortions, which involves sucking the brain out of a living baby who just happens to have its head in the birth canal, specifically allows abortions where the mothers health is at risk. So you are very WRONG.
I've been saying that about ATI for ages, but I have been hearing much better things in the last year or so--apparently ATI finally got some software talent is nearly caught up to nVidia in that respect.
Re:Linux written to compete with SCO?
on
SCO News Roundup
·
· Score: 1
In a US court, either side can demand a jury trial. The side that demands it also pays the jury fee, which amounts to a small amount for each day that jurors are used (the fee is to pay the jurors, and is usually about $5 per day per juror). If neither side demands a trial by jury, the judge will decide the case.
Second, they will not be calling phone numbers that are in the Do-Not-Call registry. They CAN'T.
Third, E-911 does not provide address information to telemarketers, it is a system where CALLING OUT from a cellphone allows the 911 provider to get the location of the phone. The cellphone provider's location-tracking system is not part of E-911, but is a requirement for it. And if the provider is going to use advertising to recoup the cost of adding the tracking to the phone system, I'm not necessarily against it. But I certainly won't be getting or keeping an phone that will be getting advertising on it, and I imagine those who care will feel the same.
In 1998, UN inspectors found evidence and in fact found biological agents in Iraq. They were shortly after ordered by the UN to leave Iraq because the Iraqi government had stopped "cooperating" with them (according to the inspectors) and the US was going to bomb Iraq in response.
Shortly after this, the head of the inspectors (Richard Butler) gave an account of the "incident" where they came to a base to inspect and saw trucks leaving through the rear gates. Some googling turned up this article: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/printpage/0,5 942,6545273,00.html
Although his conclusion is odd, considering the content, this is what it comes down to: If there are not currently WMDs in Iraq, where are they? We know that they had them, and all Iraq needed to do was prove that they had destroyed them. There would be witnesses, evidence that the destruction had taken place. But Hussein's government was not willing (or able) to fulfill this requirement.
To top it off, the nearly 18 months of delay caused by the UN gave the Iraqis plenty of time to either hide, destroy, or give away their weapons. Had the US not essentially forced the inspectors out, they would have continued to "inspect" forever. In 1998, Iraqi intelligence had infiltrated the UN inspectors, according to Richard Butler. The fact that the inspectors were not turning anything up in 2002-2003 is not surprising in the least.
Anyway, the cease-fire agreement with Iraq simply stated that they had to show exactly what they had and that they had destroyed it. Iraq did not provide the list, and when they finally did, it was missing many things that were already known about. In short, the Iraqis lied repeatedly about what they had. Even if they did destroy all of the items (which is doubtful) they could have shown evidence of it. But they did not even show what they had, much less suggest they had destroyed it.
Note that in nearly every case, the US went in as part of the UN force. The US provided the vast majority of troops and money, but they did not make the decisions (though they influenced them). Panama being the obvious exception, the conflicts you mention involved either the UN or a joint force (Grenada had the assistance of six neighboring countries).
However, I recall "the world" begging the UN to take care of Somalia, Kosovo, and Bosnia. Keep in mind that very few European nations have the money to put together a force to take care of issues like this, so they defer to the US to do the work.
I think that if France or Germany were put in the same circumstances the US was in following 9/11/01, the US would have been helping the UN remove the Taliban from power, rather than going it alone. The fact is, even though the UN is mostly funded by the US, it is run by Europe, and usually does not have the US' interests in mind. Had Germany been attacked, the US would have helped them take care of the problem.
You are leaving out the numerous invasions and rebellions in Africa and South America, of which the UN paid little attention to in most cases. These were quite bloody, and the US has not been tied to any that I know of.
Also keep in mind that the Falklands conflict was an invasion of sorts, Argentina had invaded the island, which was under British rule. Unfortunately Argentina sunk the British ship that was defending it, and the English would never let that stand. Had Argentina taken over the island without doing so much damage to England's honor, they might have been able to keep it.
I certainly can't blame the EU for not wanting to help out in Iraq. They were making plenty of money with the 'Money for Food' program and were selling Iraq all kinds of stuff. However, since it was the UN's responsibility to take care of a dictator who gasses his own people, we were forced to act without France, Germany, or Russia. Very few countries failed to agree that Hussein needed to be removed. In the end, it is the job of a country's government to act in the best interests of its people. It is in the US' best interests to remove Hussein, and it is in the UK's best interest to do so, whether because they want to be US allies, or for other reasons. France, Germany, and Russia were protecting the interests of their own people, who were in trade with Iraq. Regardless of the legality of the trade itself, it was still the job of those governments to keep the US from doing the job in Iraq. I know, I know, OT, but I was just thinking it all through.
8 digits starting at 2026273892 8 digits starting at 3875924540 7 digits starting at 187621964 9 digits starting at 3373081788 8 digits starting at 1650438606 6 digits starting at 1118959488 4 digits starting at 2071552868
Pair off the numbers, and use them as decimal ASCII values (all two-digit) to determine alphanum chars.
At least with a government-controlled concern, they'll be directly answerable to their customers
Seriously, what the fuch are you smoking? Name one government organization that is answerable to their customers.
Also, the fact that the last mile is expensive is not the issue. The fact is that the government has given the local telco the exclusive right to run cable. No other person or company can run their own regardless of how much money they have to invest.
The issue here is that SBC, the worst phone company in the country, wants to strengthen a monopoly they already have. In exchange they will build a DATA network. A network such as that is NOT regulated, and they are not required to share/lease/sell any of it. They will lease part of it, I'm sure, and will make a nice sum on that as well.
The state has made the right decision, and I hope the State Senate does the same. The State of Ohio has opened up SBC/Ameritech's Ohio territory to competition by Cincinnati Bell. Bell is allowed to run their own loop and install their own network and equipment. The problem is, there is really no money in it--even with the big companies that they are trying to get on the new network. There never was money in the local loop, and that's why AT&T subsidized it with their extremely high long distance rates. Now we have to pay a 'Universal Service Fee' for the exact same purpose.
The interesting thing here is that as the RIAA members' sales decline (if that is really happening), it's pretty obvious that independant labels' sales may be increasing. In fact, I think it's quit likely that that is what is happening.
As independant labels are selling more, RIAA members are selling less, and the RIAA is telling everyone that 'sales' or 'profits' are off, without qualifying that with "RIAA members'".
And the absolutely stunning thing is this quote:
"The economy was slow and 9/11 interrupted the fourth quarter plans, but, a large factor contributing to the decrease in overall shipments last year is online piracy and CD-burning," said Hilary Rosen, President and CEO of the RIAA.
I use Mozilla 1.0 through 1.2a on various desktops, and browse microsoft.com on a regular basis (after finding things on it with google). I have never had a single incompatibility problem.
The only problem I have ever had with Mozilla is when validating my CSS content. (And it is of course, not even remotely the fault of Mozilla.)
In order to get the 'cursor' property to work in IE and Mozilla, I have to specify both the correct and incorrect values: 'pointer' (proper), and 'hand' (IE). The css validator tells me it's wrong, but there's nothing I can do about it!
Re:Wonder what the heck this is all about?
on
Crushing Experience
·
· Score: 2
Similar to the nausea I got when hearing about the shit-sharing sodomy 'artwork' done a few months ago in California (don't recall the details). Just about as useful, not nearly as offensive.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm curious: what indication(s) have you seen of this recovery? I just see it getting worse and worse. Our current president, while conservative in some ways, is still very liberal when it comes to the Constitution, and has been restricting rights and adding more social programs, thereby increasing taxes in the near future (such as the prescription drug bill which added $5E11 to our $25E11 federal budget, and I haven't heard a mention of it from the Justice Department (nor has any person sued over it, that I've heard). It really scares me, I worry that we are nearing the end of the democratic republic, and will soon see a dictatorship, as prophesied.
http://www.theinsider.org/news/dollar_bill_symbols .asp
http://watch.pair.com/mason.html#seal
I wasn't referring to the Seal, I was specifically referring to the Masonic symbols therein. Now I'm not saying I agree with these wa^H^Hwriters conclusions, but I think it's pretty obvious that the symbols are there.
Mkay?
Ditto that. In the Canon 3200 Color Printer/Copier we just got, we tried copying a dollar bill folded in half. Some of the lines were turned from green to black.
I didn't try, however, to change the size. The most important thing about these devices detecting violations when printing is that they must check the size of the printed image!!! It's not illegal or irresponsible to print dollar bills that are much smaller or much larger than normal size.
That is why having PhotoShop do this is not only goddamn stupid but completely unnecessary. There are plenty of reasons why someone would want to print part of a dollar bill, or take a small portion of it from the image and use it elsewhere. For instance, when talking about the Mason symbols on the bill, showing an image would be necessary. But by blocking one from opening the file, they are stopping fair use, while not stopping actual counterfeiting.
In addition, it seems to me that by including this software, they are opening themselves up to liability for not applying it fully or correctly and allowing people to bypass it. It would seem that by not doing anything, they can point out that their software has plenty of uses, the least of which is for counterfeiting. This is analogous to the manufacturer of a printing press being sued because their press was used to counterfeit money. The defense? "We sold 500 of these presses, and are not responsible for their use." This is not the case of a firearm, which when used as intended results in death or injury. The software, printers, presses, etc, are designed for other use, not for counterfeiting.
Sorry, but the six character string "©" is absolutely part of fucking UTF-7. That's the entire fucking reason that is is written that way.
Please report these to the company on their site. They have a form for reporting these, which is much like SpamCop's form. SpamCop reports the abuses to all ISPs involved. Additionally, reporting it to Habeas allows them to add the senders to their blacklist, which is already used by some mail blockers (SpamAssassin already uses it by default).
I got one of these emails last week, reported it right away, and haven't seen another since. Habeas may not be able to sue (yet|ever), but they've already fixed the problem to a great degree by providng the blacklist.
My sequence of events follows yours exactly, except that my hosting provider didn't have sendmail set up to allow external SMTP relaying. Now that my domains are hosted at home, I got everything working except the component of postfix that authenticates SMTP connections. So until I get that working, I have to SSH into my home network, and tunnel port 25 to the mail server. This is not a viable solution for most people (IMHO). It should be easier to get working.
Also aren't other mail servers supposed to check that the envelope sender matches the host it's being sent from?
Absolutely not, that would break most people's sending of email, since they use their ISP to send, which may or may not be the same as their sending domain.
SCO is an entity. As such, it should be referred to in the singular. "SCO Lies," "When SCO appears to be..."
I keep seeing this, and it makes me think that perhaps the Brits treat a corporation differently. Maybe it's because corporations are different in the UK. However, in the US a corporation is an entity (SCO is a US corporation), and therefore is not treated grammatically as a plural of 'person.'
If the FBI had properly done its job (as Bush alleges, shifting the blame from him)...
The job of the President does NOT include foreign intelligence, that is the CIA's job. The President's job does not include screening travellers at the airport, that is the FAA's job. When Bush got the job the security and military forces were in tatters, and the blame for this can be placed squarely on Clinton, who dismantled the military and the CIA during his office, and BRAGGED ABOUT IT.
Not only that, but it has been documented and admitted to by Clinton that he was offered Bin Laden by the Sudanese. http://www.papillonsartpalace.com/clintBon.htm
There is no reason to "shift the blame" from Bush. There is no sane way to blame Bush in the first place.
That's correct. And the cure is to use Anomy Sanitizer or something similar that obfuscates IMG tags and drops or obfuscates attachments. I have been using it alongside SpamAssassin with Postfix for two months, and I'll never look back. I haven't had a piece of spam in three weeks.
Some reasons the mother's life might be in danger include deformities of the skull, specifically an oversized skull with little or no brain inside.
If the skull is oversized, then how in the world could a PBA help? A PBA requires that the head pass through the birth canal, only backward. The only reason a PBA would be desired is to terminate the baby's life without it being fully born. It is then legally stillborn.
In the extremely rare, unheard of case of "oversized skull, undersized brain" in babies, a Cesearian Section would remove the baby and the danger to the mother, without terminating the baby's life. If the child is not viable, it will die anyway. Without having the baby alive, it will not be known if it is actually a vegetable, or if it was a false positive.
More frequently than not, ultrasound exams or hormonal testing can be quite misleading, and only give the doctor an indication that something may be wrong. In nearly every case (such as life is) it is usually simply a case where certain dimensions or hormones were slightly out of spec based on statistics.
I am not a doctor. But I have children of my own, and I have been through every imaginable class, numerous ultrasound exams, one "the baby might have..." scare, and three births. My children scoff at statistics, and are always outside projections of one type or another.
Here are a couple of resources:
n al.pdf
http://www.house.gov/burton/RSC/haskellinstructio
http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/pba/diagram.html
Does China imprison people for organized religious worship? Yes.
Does the US FORCE children to acknowledge God as their god? Yes.
No. If you are referring to the Pledge of Allegience, the phrase is, "one nation, under God." This is not acknowledging God as their god, it is acknowledging that the country was created under the belief of God as god. PARENTS HAVE THE ABILITY AND OPTION TO TALK TO THEIR CHILDREN ABOUT THIS AND TELL THEM OTHERWISE.
Does China imprison political activists based ENTIRELY on words? Yes.
Does the US allow and encourage litigation against people who posted links to the DeCSS source code and still to this day the US Government bans its presence on the internet? Yes.
This is not only the US government, and the action was not instigated by "the US Goverment."
Does the US imprison political activists based ENTIRELY on what plant they choose to grow in their garden? Yes.
NO. The US government arrests and charges those who grow or possess illegal drugs, regardless of whether they are a 'political activitist.'
Does the United States not gas and beat thousands of peacefull protesters on a regular basis? Yes.
YES. That is correct, the US does NOT do this. The closest thing you could cite is the riots in Seattle, and I read a number of accounts by protesters that showed that some of the protesters were violent long before the police were.
Does China force women to undergo abortions? Yes.
Does the US force women to die because of laws banning late term abortions? Yes.
No. This is not only completely false, but quite inflamatory as well. The banning of partial-birth abortions, which involves sucking the brain out of a living baby who just happens to have its head in the birth canal, specifically allows abortions where the mothers health is at risk. So you are very WRONG.
I've been saying that about ATI for ages, but I have been hearing much better things in the last year or so--apparently ATI finally got some software talent is nearly caught up to nVidia in that respect.
In a US court, either side can demand a jury trial. The side that demands it also pays the jury fee, which amounts to a small amount for each day that jurors are used (the fee is to pay the jurors, and is usually about $5 per day per juror). If neither side demands a trial by jury, the judge will decide the case.
(IANAL)
This article is absolutely pointless.
First, they will not be 'targeting' cellphones.
Second, they will not be calling phone numbers that are in the Do-Not-Call registry. They CAN'T.
Third, E-911 does not provide address information to telemarketers, it is a system where CALLING OUT from a cellphone allows the 911 provider to get the location of the phone. The cellphone provider's location-tracking system is not part of E-911, but is a requirement for it. And if the provider is going to use advertising to recoup the cost of adding the tracking to the phone system, I'm not necessarily against it. But I certainly won't be getting or keeping an phone that will be getting advertising on it, and I imagine those who care will feel the same.
In 1998, UN inspectors found evidence and in fact found biological agents in Iraq. They were shortly after ordered by the UN to leave Iraq because the Iraqi government had stopped "cooperating" with them (according to the inspectors) and the US was going to bomb Iraq in response.
5 942,6545273,00.html
f orum=73&thread=8608
Shortly after this, the head of the inspectors (Richard Butler) gave an account of the "incident" where they came to a base to inspect and saw trucks leaving through the rear gates. Some googling turned up this article:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/printpage/0,
Although his conclusion is odd, considering the content, this is what it comes down to: If there are not currently WMDs in Iraq, where are they? We know that they had them, and all Iraq needed to do was prove that they had destroyed them. There would be witnesses, evidence that the destruction had taken place. But Hussein's government was not willing (or able) to fulfill this requirement.
Also, here is an article from the History Channel: http://boards.historychannel.com/threadedout.jsp?
To top it off, the nearly 18 months of delay caused by the UN gave the Iraqis plenty of time to either hide, destroy, or give away their weapons. Had the US not essentially forced the inspectors out, they would have continued to "inspect" forever. In 1998, Iraqi intelligence had infiltrated the UN inspectors, according to Richard Butler. The fact that the inspectors were not turning anything up in 2002-2003 is not surprising in the least.
Anyway, the cease-fire agreement with Iraq simply stated that they had to show exactly what they had and that they had destroyed it. Iraq did not provide the list, and when they finally did, it was missing many things that were already known about. In short, the Iraqis lied repeatedly about what they had. Even if they did destroy all of the items (which is doubtful) they could have shown evidence of it. But they did not even show what they had, much less suggest they had destroyed it.
Only if SCO's code had been found repeatedly in Linux by inspectors before Linus kicked them out. :)
NEC's phone switches have an API which runs on either Windows or UnixWare. Think expensive.
Note that in nearly every case, the US went in as part of the UN force. The US provided the vast majority of troops and money, but they did not make the decisions (though they influenced them). Panama being the obvious exception, the conflicts you mention involved either the UN or a joint force (Grenada had the assistance of six neighboring countries).
However, I recall "the world" begging the UN to take care of Somalia, Kosovo, and Bosnia. Keep in mind that very few European nations have the money to put together a force to take care of issues like this, so they defer to the US to do the work.
I think that if France or Germany were put in the same circumstances the US was in following 9/11/01, the US would have been helping the UN remove the Taliban from power, rather than going it alone. The fact is, even though the UN is mostly funded by the US, it is run by Europe, and usually does not have the US' interests in mind. Had Germany been attacked, the US would have helped them take care of the problem.
You are leaving out the numerous invasions and rebellions in Africa and South America, of which the UN paid little attention to in most cases. These were quite bloody, and the US has not been tied to any that I know of.
Also keep in mind that the Falklands conflict was an invasion of sorts, Argentina had invaded the island, which was under British rule. Unfortunately Argentina sunk the British ship that was defending it, and the English would never let that stand. Had Argentina taken over the island without doing so much damage to England's honor, they might have been able to keep it.
I certainly can't blame the EU for not wanting to help out in Iraq. They were making plenty of money with the 'Money for Food' program and were selling Iraq all kinds of stuff. However, since it was the UN's responsibility to take care of a dictator who gasses his own people, we were forced to act without France, Germany, or Russia. Very few countries failed to agree that Hussein needed to be removed. In the end, it is the job of a country's government to act in the best interests of its people. It is in the US' best interests to remove Hussein, and it is in the UK's best interest to do so, whether because they want to be US allies, or for other reasons. France, Germany, and Russia were protecting the interests of their own people, who were in trade with Iraq. Regardless of the legality of the trade itself, it was still the job of those governments to keep the US from doing the job in Iraq. I know, I know, OT, but I was just thinking it all through.
Get the following hex digits:
8 digits starting at 2026273892
8 digits starting at 3875924540
7 digits starting at 187621964
9 digits starting at 3373081788
8 digits starting at 1650438606
6 digits starting at 1118959488
4 digits starting at 2071552868
Pair off the numbers, and use them as decimal ASCII values (all two-digit) to determine alphanum chars.
Seriously, what the fuch are you smoking? Name one government organization that is answerable to their customers.
Also, the fact that the last mile is expensive is not the issue. The fact is that the government has given the local telco the exclusive right to run cable. No other person or company can run their own regardless of how much money they have to invest.
The issue here is that SBC, the worst phone company in the country, wants to strengthen a monopoly they already have. In exchange they will build a DATA network. A network such as that is NOT regulated, and they are not required to share/lease/sell any of it. They will lease part of it, I'm sure, and will make a nice sum on that as well.
The state has made the right decision, and I hope the State Senate does the same. The State of Ohio has opened up SBC/Ameritech's Ohio territory to competition by Cincinnati Bell. Bell is allowed to run their own loop and install their own network and equipment. The problem is, there is really no money in it--even with the big companies that they are trying to get on the new network. There never was money in the local loop, and that's why AT&T subsidized it with their extremely high long distance rates. Now we have to pay a 'Universal Service Fee' for the exact same purpose.
The interesting thing here is that as the RIAA members' sales decline (if that is really happening), it's pretty obvious that independant labels' sales may be increasing. In fact, I think it's quit likely that that is what is happening.
As independant labels are selling more, RIAA members are selling less, and the RIAA is telling everyone that 'sales' or 'profits' are off, without qualifying that with "RIAA members'".
And the absolutely stunning thing is this quote:
How could they possibly prove that?
The only problem I have ever had with Mozilla is when validating my CSS content. (And it is of course, not even remotely the fault of Mozilla.)
In order to get the 'cursor' property to work in IE and Mozilla, I have to specify both the correct and incorrect values: 'pointer' (proper), and 'hand' (IE). The css validator tells me it's wrong, but there's nothing I can do about it!
Similar to the nausea I got when hearing about the shit-sharing sodomy 'artwork' done a few months ago in California (don't recall the details). Just about as useful, not nearly as offensive.