XM Satellite Radio posted a wider than expected loss yesterday as a result of extra spending to lure subscribers and disclosed that a director had resigned in a dispute over corporate strategy.

The director, Pierce J. Roberts Jr., said in a letter to XM's chairman that he had been "troubled about the current direction of the company" and had shared his concerns with directors and management without "any useful effect." Without offering specifics, Mr. Roberts, the former head of the telecom investment banking unit of Bear Stearns, said that XM faced "a significant chance of a crisis on the horizon."

He went on, "Even absent a crisis, I believe that XM will inevitably serve its shareholders poorly without major changes now."

Mr. Roberts did not return a telephone call yesterday.

XM, which disclosed the letter in a regulatory filing, said its other directors and management executives disagreed with Mr. Roberts about how to balance the company's drive for growth against its desire for cash flow. Mr. Roberts has favored cutting XM's expenses associated with marketing and creating new programming, while other executives believe the company must maintain its spending to attract subscribers to its pay-radio service.

This guy's got the right idea. I know that XM is the no-talent ass clown as far as satelite radio is concerned, but I had to expect that Mr. Roberts will land on his feet.

-janelane, business-minded

Director at XM Resigns as Costs Skyrocket - New York Times

WASHINGTON DC -- Websites get looked at by two different kinds of visitors: the human ones who peer around, look at the graphics, think about the links and click slowly; and the spiders, those automated scanners that come in from search engines like Google, or, more ominously, from malicious attackers, competing businesses and spammers looking for e-mail addresses.

Fortunately, it has always been pretty easy to tell the difference between the two in server logs, and block unwanted or anti-social crawlers. But research presented at the Shmoo Con hacker conference here Friday may change that.

Billy Hoffman, an engineer at Atlanta company SPI Dynamics unveiled a new, smarter web-crawling application that behaves like a person using a browser, rather than a computer program. "Basically this nullifies any traditional form of forensics," says Hoffman.

Look, Ma, it's Acidus on Wired!

-janelane, fiancee extraordinaire

Wired News: Covert Crawler Descends on Web

SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) -- California's oldest death row inmate -- a 75-year-old who is legally blind and nearly deaf -- is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to do something it has never done before: block an execution because of the condemned man's advanced age and infirmity.

Clarence Ray Allen's attorneys contend that executing a feeble old man amounts to cruel and unusual punishment banned by the U.S. Constitution.

Allen is set to die by injection Tuesday for ordering three slayings while behind bars for another murder. He has been on death row for more than 23 years.

"Don't do it! I'm too *OLD* to die!"

CNN.com - Inmate, 75,�says he's too old to execute - Jan 13, 2006

Alito on "Constitutional interpretation":

"I think the Constitution is a living thing in the sense that matters, and that is that it is -- it sets up a framework of government and a protection of fundamental rights that we have lived under very successfully for 200 years. And the genius of it is that it is not terribly specific on certain things.

It sets out -- some things are very specific, but it sets out some general principles and then leaves it for each generation to apply those to the particular factual situations that come up. ...

The liberty component of the Fifth Amendment and the 14th Amendment ... embody the deeply rooted traditions of a country.

And it's up to each -- those traditions and those rights apply to new factual situations that come up. As times change, new factual situations come up, and the principles have to be applied to those situations.

The principles don't change. The Constitution itself doesn't change. But the factual situations change. And, as new situations come up, the principles and the rights have to be applied to them."

Are we to expect any less from a man hand-picked by Dubya? The fundamental principles are correct but the factual situations change...give me a break. The whole document is open to interpretation within the context of the current administration and he knows it.

-janelane, doubleplus good

CNN.com - On the record: Alito's answers - Jan 10, 2006

One of the nation's leading suppliers of electronic voting machines may decide against selling new equipment in North Carolina after a judge declined Monday to protect it from criminal prosecution should it fail to disclose software code as required by state law.

Diebold Inc., which makes automated teller machines and security and voting equipment, is worried it could be charged with a felony if officials determine the company failed to make all of its code — some of which is owned by third-party software firms, including Microsoft — available for examination by election officials in case of a voting mishap.

North Carolina...fuck, yeah!

Take that, Diebold!

-janelane, anti-diebold

Wired News: Another Blow to E-Voting Company

The closing will cut 30,000 hourly jobs, up from its original plan to trim 25,000, with many of the eliminations coming as soon as next year, despite job protection provisions of its union contract that runs through September 2007.

The company said the plan is aimed at saving $7 billion a year by the end of 2006.

The plants being closed include Oklahoma City, and the Lansing, Mich., Craft Centre in 2006, and Doraville, Ga., in 2008.

This city sure better go high-tech before too long. With Delta and GM cutting out, Atlanta's growth is sure to by stymied.

On the bright side, maybe GM'll stop painting their hydrogen vehicle fantasy scape and get down to improving fuel economy and safety like they should have years ago.

-janelane, anti-trade deficit

GM ups job cut target to 30,000 hourly jobs - Nov. 21, 2005

KYOTO, Japan (CNN) -- U.S. President George W. Bush has told Beijing's leaders that it is in their interests to promote greater freedom in the world's most populous nation.

Speaking to media in Japan Wednesday, Bush said China's leaders should not fear a free society.

Saying that regions became better off and more stable as democracy spread, the president said, "What I say to the Chinese is ... a free society is in your interests."

-janelane, *faints*

CNN.com - Bush:China shouldn't fear freedom - Nov 15, 2005

Newsgroups like ASH work something like an online bulletin board. Anyone with a computer and some basic Internet knowledge can gain free access to thousands of messages about suicide. And they can post their own messages.

An archived section of the site called "The Methods File" contains a list of recipes, recommendations and tips on the best and worst ways to commit suicide.

Suzanne's dad believes one of those messages taught her how to illegally obtain and use cyanide to end her life. And he was horrified to learn that an older ASH member who goes by the alias "River" may have helped her.

"Suzy had me proof-read her notes and we went over all the details of her exit, just to be safe," reads one ASH message from "River."

But "River" disputes his role in Suzanne's death.

"No one in ASH encourages anyone else to commit suicide. ASH is pro-choice," he wrote in an e-mail to CNN.

"Geo" is another ASH member. He was the same age as Suzanne when he joined the group last year and thinks suicide groups like ASH actually keep people from committing suicide.

In fact, "Geo" credits ASH with saving his life.

"If it weren't for it, I think the chances of me having committing suicide would have been greater," he said. "Having a place where you can write those thoughts, get them out of your head. It can be very therapeutic."

But Suzanne's dad thinks otherwise.

"That's not pro-choice," Mike Gonzales said of the site. "That's brainwashing. And they are not being held responsible."

Responsibility? How the hell did he not know that his daughter had been thinking about suicide for two months? What the fuck kind of parenting is that?

We should throw his ass in jail for even suggesting that freedom of speech be so controlled that people can't express anything other than "normal" thoughts and behaviors. That just what the internet needs...to become fucking "Friends" from end to end.

-janelane, angrily

CNN.com - Parents: Online newsgroup helped daughter commit suicide - Nov 10, 2005

MONTGOMERY, Alabama (AP) -- Gov. Bob Riley called for a nationwide travel boycott of Aruba on Tuesday until authorities on the Dutch Caribbean island cooperate more fully with the family of a teenager who has been missing since May.

Riley asked the governors of the other 49 states to join him in urging a boycott of Aruba on behalf of the family of Natalee Holloway, the 18-year-old Mountain Brook High graduate last seen on the island on May 30.

She contends Aruban authorities have failed to adequately investigate the possible murder of her daughter, who was with a Dutch teenager and two Surinamese brothers on the night she disappeared.

What part of "they have absolutely no idea what happened to your daughter, mon" doesn't she understand?

-janelane, taser-empowered

CNN.com - Alabama governor calls for Aruba boycott - Nov 8, 2005

The addition of 75 million people each year to an already overcrowded globe is exacerbating the problems of pollution, desertification, underemployment, epidemics, and famine. Because of their own internal problems and priorities, the industrialized countries devote insufficient resources to deal effectively with the poorer areas of the world, which, at least from an economic point of view, are becoming further marginalized. The introduction of the euro as the common currency of much of Western Europe in January 1999, while paving the way for an integrated economic powerhouse, poses economic risks because of varying levels of income and cultural and political differences among the participating nations. The terrorist attacks on the US on 11 September 2001 accentuate a further growing risk to global prosperity, illustrated, for example, by the reallocation of resources away from investment to anti-terrorist programs.

World peace fanatics? Renegade UNICEF volunteers?

No...this is off of the CIA factbook website. Seems bizarrely passionate to be a government resource.

-janelane, "no taxation without representation"

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