If the govt wants to use the 'free' internet, then it has to accept the baggage that comes with it, including ads, hackers, potholes and viruses. If they want something different, it's like everyone else here suggests, build their own 'in their own image'. Damn fools to hook up critical systems to the internet anyhow, but then again, that's who we elected, and who the ones we elected selected. or... maybe it's just another exercise to see if we are so dumb we won't see this as a means to further control the citizens of planet Earth. (this IS Earth, isn't it? ooops..)

For some of us less-literate folks, the problem seems even worse. When I try to find something on the web, the first thing I do is enter my quest in the search bar. Soon, a list of 28,132,667,534 hits comes up (in only .00036 microseconds, yet). When I try any of those links, thinking ya, I'm getting somewhere! instead of getting to the place I want, a zillion other websites are there listing all the responses to my original quest. It's like, if I want to buy a pound of apples, I google apples, and then click on one of the resultant links, thinking I will be taken to an apple-provider. No. It's just another site telling me they have a 'better' list of apple-providers! and i never quite get to the store to buy them apples.... (maybe i shudda used as example 'oranges'???) Want another dumb comparison? go to the grocery store, look at the signs hanging from the ceiling for 'soups and veggies'. You get to that isle, and no soups and veggies... instead, shelves lined with ads and instructions on how to get to the 'soups and veggies' isle.

pls send a few cents to the enclosed address, paypal accepted. it's only a few cents. c'mon!

I don't understand why everyone is talking about the new 'owners'. Has anyone 'proven' ownership of the dog, either the first guy or the second? Even in the most jaded locations, if I tell a cop someone stole my property, and I prove it is my property and tell him the name of someone who knows where it is, I'm pretty sure the cop will at least go to the 'end user' and demand proof of ownership. Biggest problem here is we wee folks never get all the right details of a situation, just enough of the inflammatory ones to piss everyone off.

sotomayor and kagan?

"However, when it does come to that point, you'll probably want to consider simply packing up and moving out of the USA, because that'll be a sign that things are about to turn really ugly here." Don't look now, my friend, but that sign not only is 'up', but it has been 'up' for so long that the words are weathered and no longer readable by anyone wondering what it once said.

Gotta find Richard Boone, Paladin, and rejuvenate him. Only guy to play the part of the gunslinger. Just hope they listen to King in keeping things like the books.

Not a good thing to think of books going away like 78 rpm records or 8mm home movies. I read at least a book a month, but many I buy used or at discount. I read fiction, stuff like King, things in paperbacks. On a kindle-type device? never. I read in bed, in my car while parked, on the can. The book is easy to carry around, easy to read, stop, read more. I read them and pass them on. Couldn't do that with the electronics books. We need to keep books alive in their present format, but that doesn't preclude adding additional formats to the printed word. This change should not be stifled. Just remember, change needs acceptance, and there are cycles to that change. At some point, someone will say, 'ok, we tried that, it sux, now take it away'. Change is self-policing. But with books, humanity needs to retain them in their present format. Anyone who has vinyl and tries to find a turntable, or has 8-trax and needs to buy a player will tell you, technology dies, and the information on media along with it, but I tell you, a book on the shelf, no matter how dusty and dog-eared, is always available for reading. Mind you, this has little to do with the publishing industry as it is today. They are only the means to having books to read. If that industry went away in its present format, another industry would replace it, because what is essential is The Book, not who makes the money putting it in my hands.

Most of my emails are able to be viewed on one screen. I can take screen prints, paste into paint, save as a file. In cases where I need access to editable text, I open the em, mouse-select the text and then paste it into word pad. It takes opening each one, but it's still faster than trying to fwd them somewhere. Best is, I can do it all locally without depending on anyone else, isp, em program etc. Now that i/you know you have this problem with the archives, begin today with the new incoming ems and don't get behind, tho a little behind is ok in my book.

i think it still hits our pockets... we pay their bills, don't we?

I don't think we are saying we should keep the Constitution intact because the founders were like gods... rather, we are saying those guys knew some shit, probably way more than you and I, and we ought to take their opinions quite seriously. The case about the feds stealing their power from us has nothing to do with this argument, however, since the theft occurred outside the boundaries of the Constitution. The problem remains that the 'cops' whose job it is to enforce the law, ie the Constitution, don't enforce the law when it's the feds who are the perps. Street cops know about the law. When they observe it being broken, they bring the perp to trial, where it is determined if the law was actually broken. Here, there is no-one bringing the feds to court in the first place. Either the 'cops' don't know a law is being broken, or, there is some reason they decide to turn a blind eye. Now, if you and I and a bunch of other Americans can see what looks like a law, ie the Constitution, is being violated, why can't those 'cops'? That, my friend, is one of our biggest problems we need to fix asap.

Those few were a reflection of what society WAS at the beginning of their first terms. Since then, the rest of us have grown and what we expect and will accept has changed... they have not. It took a lot of crap in the face for us to change, but now we are ready for something better than what the dc group has been handing out, and the only way for us to realize our 'new' dreams and aspirations is to rid ourselves of the group who have proven themselves to be, as you say, taking their slice of the pie. We need to get rid of them all, or we will have accomplished nothing.

Not taking action where it seems to be needed may be because we have 535 +/- folks in dc actively working every day to create new problems for us, and exactly when are we, the little folk, going to find the time to a) research what's coming down the pike and b) do what it takes to stop it. Oh. Sorry. I forgot. ob's wonderful economy has solved the time factor for us... so many of us are out of work that we now have just scads of time to monitor what our govt is doing to us!

The old stuff worked and did the job. So does the new stuff, but the MS's and Appl's try so hard to isolate the user from the technology that we easily lose sight of what the technology is all about. Sure I can click here and there, cut and paste to my heart's content, but when I was working at the DOS level cmd line, I had to know exactly what the chips were all about so's I could tell them what I wanted them to do. Not at all like that today. It's a bit like the difference between driving a '56 xk140mc on a road rally and piloting an Esplanade along a major interstate.

I have a big problem with anyone who defends ob on the basis of 'it isn't his fault', or, 'he isn't responsible for it because it started before 'his watch'', or because someone before him was 'even worse'. In my book, if you are the man in charge, the responsibility is yours. Accept that responsibility or get out da kitchen! If you are in the position of power to change what is, and you don't, especially because you complain you din't 'have enough time to do it', then you are not only responsible, you are part of the cause. We hired that guy and pay him a substantial sum of money and a helluva benefits package to properly watch over the flock, and if he can't or won't do it, then out he goes! Wait until election time to see if others agree with me or not.