This is the future, and don't guile yourself into believing you can make a difference here by voting. The Democrats pursue stuff like this even more ferociously then the Republicans. Kerry is already promising to increase funding for these programs.

[ I guess we're all fucked then. I better run down to the Ministry and sign up for my subdermal RFID, and start checking eBay for a Penfield Mood Organ and a sheep to raise. -k]

[Politech] TSA trials registered travelers

] It's a groundbreaking court decision that legal experts
] say will affect everyone: Police officers in Louisiana no
] longer need a search or arrest warrant to conduct a brief
] search of your home or business.

This is a little hard to cipher through. The crimes the perp in question is accused of cloud the issue. Basically, these two officers show up at a residence looking to question someone. They have no warrants of any kind. Someone lets them into the residence, so they go back to the room the person they are looking for lives in. The person isn't there. So they go in and have a look around. They find evidence and submit it.

The police claim they felt at risk, and were worried that the individual might be hiding. Thing is, they weren't executing an arrest warrant, so basically the person in question had every right to hide, and if they felt they were at risk snooping around for him they should have left.

Typically the police are allowed to perform a "protective sweep" of a residence if they are there executing an arrest warrant. Now, in these states, they can execute a "protective sweep" at any time if they feel the situation poses a danger. In this case they were probably justified in feeling there was a danger. However, the fact is that the police consider any situation to be risky, and rightly so. You never know when you might end up in a dicey situation. That means they can perform a search any time they enter any residence for any reason. If they want to search your residence all they have to do is question you. Good by forth.

Whats really disturbing about this is that this is the 5th circuit to come to this conclusion. These rules might already apply to you.

[ That sucks total balls. -k]

TheNewOrleansChannel.com - News - Court Opens Door To Searches Without Warrants

... ... ... [crickets] ... I... I don't know what to say.

[ Even more reason to shove his "John Kerry is exploiting the Scriptures!" bullshit right back in his face. Fuck you George. Politicizing religion is what you bastards are all about. -k]

GWB proclaims Jesus Day!

] We need honest discussion about the trade-offs between
] child quantity and quality.

[ Some good points in this article. Sure to raise hackles, but honestly, big families make less and less sense. -k]

Two Is Enough - Why large families don't deserve tax breaks. By Dalton Conley

from Slate. The PowerPoint version.

Objective: To "Pledge Allegience"

to:
* Flag (U.S.A.)
*Republic (ditto)

[ Funny... esp the "Citizens for whom there is liberty and justice" slide... -k]

Pledge of Allegience (the Powerpoint version)

Berger had left the room by the time Clarke, using a Powerpoint presentation, outlined his thinking to Rice. A senior Bush Administration official denies being handed a formal plan to take the offensive against al-Qaeda, and says Clarke's materials merely dealt with whether the new Administration should take "a more active approach" to the terrorist group. (Rice declined to comment, but through a spokeswoman said she recalled no briefing at which Berger was present.) Other senior officials from both the Clinton and Bush administrations, however, say that Clarke had a set of proposals to "roll back" al-Qaeda. In fact, the heading on Slide 14 of the Powerpoint presentation reads, "Response to al Qaeda: Roll back." Clarke's proposals called for the "breakup" of al-Qaeda cells and the arrest of their personnel. The financial support for its terrorist activities would be systematically attacked, its assets frozen, its funding from fake charities stopped. Nations where al-Qaeda was causing trouble-Uzbekistan, the Philippines, Yemen-would be given aid to fight the terrorists. Most important, Clarke wanted to see a dramatic increase in covert action in Afghanistan to "eliminate the sanctuary" where al-Qaeda had its terrorist training camps and bin Laden was being protected by the radical Islamic Taliban regime. The Taliban had come to power in 1996, bringing a sort of order to a nation that had been riven by bloody feuds between ethnic warlords since the Soviets had pulled out. Clarke supported a substantial increase in American support for the Northern Alliance, the last remaining resistance to the Taliban. That way, terrorists graduating from the training camps would have been forced to stay in Afghanistan, fighting (and dying) for the Taliban on the front lines. At the same time, the U.S. military would start planning for air strikes on the camps and for the introduction of special-operations forces into Afghanistan. The plan was estimated to cost "several hundreds of millions of dollars." In the words of a senior Bush Administration official, the proposals amounted to "everything we've done since 9/11."

George Bush... Keeping America safe. Almost makes you wonder if he was waiting for something to happen.

TIME.com: Could 9/11 Have Been Prevented?

] In a riveting television performance, Mr Clarke called on
] his principal critic and former employer, the national
] security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, to release the entire
] record of their emails in the months up to the September
] 11 terror attacks to prove his contention that the White
] House did not then take the threat of al-Qaida seriously.
]
] He also agreed to Republican demands to declassify
] testimony he gave to the Senate two years ago - to
] "prove" there were no inconsistencies. "Let's take all of
] my emails and all the memos I sent to the national
] security adviser and her deputy from January 20 to
] September 11 and let's declassify all of them," Mr Clarke
] told NBC television.

[ Calling the bluff. This is Clarke saying "Bring It On." I doubt the administration has anything to gain by exposing the truth here... they've built their entire foundation on mistruths and secrecy. -k]

Guardian Unlimited | US elections 2004 | Clarke challenges Rice to reveal secret emails

Shrook 2 is a next-generation news reader that offers advanced features not available to Mac users anywhere else. Some aren't available on any platform. It supports all versions of RSS, as well as the current draft of Atom. And it's all really easy to use, too. Shrook 2 is a free upgrade for users of Shrook v1.x.

[ I'm sorry to hear that it's a bit unreliable... I've been looking at installing an aggregator on my mac, but didn't want to pay for NNW. This thing appears to have some really nice features, like being able to check your feeds online or from multiple systems, and have all your instances sync up... very cool. Also, the mirroring of feeds to mitigate publisher loads is a good call. I look forward to version 2.1 -k]

Shrook 2 - RSS and Atom Newsreader for Mac OS X

[ /. had a few links about this book today... looks like it may be a real interesting read. Develops some concepts that I, and I'm sure many of you, have spent some time mulling in the past. Excessive choice is another result of increasd connectedness, cheaper manufacturing, greater wealth... why is it that we, who *can* choose from so many different things to do, often choose none of them? Why, out of the many, MANY excellent restaurants in Atlanta do we spend so much time deciding which one to go to on any given night?

This is an area screaming for technology to help ease the problems it created... systems which help us remember, keep us on task, make suggestions based on previous behavior, etc. It's time for agents. -k]

Amazon.com: Books: The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less

] On Saturday 3 April, over 1000 laptop owners will
] converge on the university gym in an attempt to build a
] "flash mob" supercomputer. The project's organisers hope
] that FlashMob will run fast enough to beat supercomputers
] in the list of the world's top 500 supercomputers.
]
] "We are attempting to popularise supercomputing," says
] John Witchel, the USF graduate student running the
] project. "Ordinary individuals, people with good ideas
] will now be empowered to put a flash mob together to
] solve a specific problem."

[ Cool idea. That's this saturday... be interested to see what happens. The Top500 guy says they can't lose a single node, or the LinPack computation is shot... i guess that's because they left out fault tolerance in order to obtain low overhead for testing? Batteries charged people... someone may trip over your power cord. -k]

New Scientist