As reported here, authorities in Sydney claim that by having the “blacklist” leaked, it will ‘”the concerned parent’s worst nightmare” as curious children would inevitably seek it out.’. Oh come on! Kids can find anything they want anyways. I certainly could when I was younger – and it didn’t require the internet. Encyclopedias, libraries, talking …
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Category:politics
guess it’s good this server is in the united states
Because this link to wikileaks would be illegal in Australia. That’s right – if you operate a website in Australia, just linking to a banned site will cost you $11k per day. So. Mr Australia government guy… you’re banning domains? What happens when folks copy data from places like http://wikileaks.org to their own sites? Or …
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jim hansen – climatologist
A friend pointed-out Jim Hansen’s profile page on the NASA site: http://www.giss.nasa.gov/staff/jhansen.html. I find this quote amazing on his profile, “The hardest part is trying to influence the nature of the measurements obtained, so that the key information can be obtained.” He flat-out admits to manipulating data to better his study’s goal. I’ve seen brazen …
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how is this racist?
Yes, I am aware of regional American history in which black people were sometimes referred-to as ‘porch monkeys’. But please tell me how this cartoon is racist? According to Roland Martin, it’s a racist attack on the president. “The cartoonist didn’t hang a sign around the neck of the chimp, so he left it up …
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a [short] review
Regardless of for whom you voted in 2000, 2004, or 2008, and regardless of whether or not you approve of the out-going president, or his replacement, certainly one thing can be agreed-upon. Less than 8 months after President George W Bush took office, some group of people hostile to the United States flew aircraft into …
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us urges merchant ships to try steps to foil pirates
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/20/washington/20military.html?_r=1 “The commander of American and allied naval forces off the coast of Somalia has begun efforts to halt a spike in piracy, urging merchant vessels to sail with armed guards on board and to travel only within lanes now patrolled by warships. The commander, Vice Adm. William E. Gortney of the United States Navy, …
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al qaeda greets obama victory with an insult
From http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/11/19/mideast/qaeda.php: “In Al Qaeda’s first response to the American election, Osama bin Laden’s top deputy condemned President-elect Barack Obama as a “house Negro” who will continue a campaign against Islam begun by President George W. Bush.” … “American officials dismissed the new video as spin control and a desperate tactic by a terror group that …
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disingenuity
I read this Reuters story today on Americans being against helping Detroit’s Big Three. This is the self-same America that just authorized $700 billion (with a “B”!) dollars to bail-out struggling financial services companies. Now $25 billion is too much to help keep hundreds of thousands of jobs around? That seems to be a double …
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obama’s anti-gun campaign has already started
“After months of telling the American people that he supports the Second Amendment, and only hours after being declared the president-elect, the Obama transition team website announced an agenda taken straight from the anti-gun lobby.” For anyone who actually believed this man, he’s living proof he’s a liar. For more information: http://www.nraila.org/Legislation/Federal/Read.aspx?id=4227
why i won’t – can’t – vote for obama
The list is short, and simple. He’s pro-death. Anyone who votes to deny medical care to an infant born after a botched abortion is not fit to be a leader. Anyone who is pro-abortion for any reason (not merely in the [uncommon] event of endangering the life of the mother) is pro-death, and I will …
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please stay home next week tuesday
if you’re undecided. If by now, with a week left, you haven’t picked who you’re going to vote for as President (and I almost don’t care who you pick [I do, but that’s another story]), don’t vote. I’d like to tell you to vote for the guy I want to win, but I don’t like …
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why are geeks liberal?
I’ve noticed that most technical forums, from user groups to mailing lists, slashdot to stackoverflow, all tend liberal. I want to know why there seems to be a paucity of conservatives in these settings. I want to know why the libertarians that show tend towards the radical fringe of the party. With the size of …
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comment to rush
I emailed the Rush Limbaugh show Friday, and proffered the following: What if John McCain picked Sarah Palin because he’s planning to retire before his term is up, and this is a masterful plan to pull the biggest political coup d’etat, a la femme? If McCain/Palin get elected and McCain retires/resigns, Republicans will have the …
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the planet is doing great!
Full transcript – again, Mr Carlin, you are missed. You got people like this around you? Country is full of them now! People walking around all day long, every minute of the day — worried about EVERYTHING! Worried about the air, worried about the water, worried about the soil. Worried about insecticides, pesticides, food additives, …
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toll revenues are down, and they do what?
USA Today reports that toll revenues are down because (drum roll please): fewer people are driving, they’re driving shorter distances, or they’re taking mass transit. What is the response from the organizations that run toll roads? Why, raise tolls of course. That’s right: like any other time the government gets involved in something, instead of …
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it’s a great start
Today the Supreme Court of the United States struck down Washington DC’s handgun ban, by upholding the plain text of the Second Amendment to our Constitution stating that gun ownership is a personal right. CNN story: cnn.com/2008/US/06/26/scotus.guns. The full text of the decision: 07-290.pdf. Hopefully this will start a trend across all of our courts …
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burma allowing help… finally
I read in the Wall Street Journal this morning that, 5 weeks after the cyclone that devastated their country, the Burmese (“Myanmarish”) government is finally allowing UN relief helicopters to bring food to the needy.It’s truly sad. The government sent the US Navy, who wanted to help, away. And they’ve disallowed UN relief efforts for …
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my first act as president…
…will be to eliminate the TSA. I was in Chicago this week for work, and on my way back the TSA gerbil found a knife in my briefcase. The same briefcase that made it through RDU without anyone noticing a knife. When I am elected president in 2016 the first thing to go will be …
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there is no perfect candidate
I have determined there are no perfect political candidates. I like parts of what several folks stand for, and will end up voting for the one I think to be the best, but none of those running for President of the United States fully lines-up with what I want in an elected official. In 2016 …
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that’s right – we’re not falling behind
There was an article recently on Business Week (here) on how the US is not falling behind in math, science, and technology. In fact, we seem to be turning-out more technologists and engineers than we can use. I disagree. The problem seems to be that those technically-minded people that US schools are churning-out won’t work …
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flat budgets are a good thing
To quote “Science in the News Weekly”, Issue: 3 Volume: 5 – “Federal Budget Freeze Straps American Science The incoming 110th U.S. Congress has decided to keep most federal agencies operating under their current budgets until the fall, calling for an unexpected belt-tightening that could mean potentially grievous effects for American science, federal and private …
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an article in elon university’s school paper
This post is an extended response to Daniel Shutt’s “Something to think about before voting” [original: elon.edu/e-web/pendulum/Issues/2006/11_02/opinions/voting.xhtml] I think it’s unfortunate that the College Republicans didn’t submit a response/rebuttal to your article in this week’s Pendulum – especially with Election Day occurring before the next issue of The Pendulum hitting the press. And though I …
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it’s not my problem
Security, air quality, water potability, land use, and the list goes on and on. When any one thing is too big to be one person’s problem, it becomes a problem for the populace, and once it’s everyone’s problem, it’s no one’s problem. Securing airports is too complicated for one person to do, so a committee …
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follow the dollars
I came across this research project today, and though I don’t normally post multiple times in a day, you might find this interesting: Follow the Dollars. What I’ve found so far is that while Democrats seem to make up the majority of zip codes I have lived in, they do not donate to their party …
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never apologize for being right
Pope Benedict XVI recently made some ‘anti-Islamic’ comments in an academic conference that has gotten the Islamic world in an uproar (and has actually proved what he said to be correct). It has also gotten the politically correct crowd leveling some pretty harsh words against the pontiff. I do not agree with several of the …
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