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Comment That's it exactly. (Score 4, Insightful) 728

9/11 killed a few thousand people...far less than die every year on our roads. The property damage was signifigant...but less than we've been spending on the TSA and our nation building. Osama knew the American people had an absurd expectation that their government's foreign policy could never come home to roost in that way. Who knew that training killers to stir up civil strife and kill other people backed by our enemy in a third nation would come back to bite us in the ass! Everyone over-reacted after 9/11 and we've been punked like nobody has been punked before...by ourselves.

Comment Re:Some People (Score 0, Troll) 728

I don't want the risk of an airliner crashing into my house just because a bunch of pillow-biters don't want to be seen nekid. Don't you know you have no expectation of privacy in public?!

I just think it's funny that it took these back-scatter machines for the American people to take such an about-face in their rush to trade freedom for the illusion of security. Ahhhh...back in 2002 you were an America-hating terrorist-sympathiser with a dangerous tendency to disagree with government during war time if you spoke up about how silly the TSA's measures were. It's like they're still bolting the barn door after the cows had escaped, bred a new generation and died in the surrounding fields...

Comment The terrorists would carry illegal weapons. (Score 1, Troll) 890

We need to subsidise firearm ownership and training for our most vulnerable people: the poor. I'm considering setting up a charity that gives guns, ammo and range time to inner-city minorities so that they can protect themselves from terrorists. Seems like such an obvious thing, I wonder why the NRA doesn't reach out to the urban non-white populations and encourage them to exercise their 2nd amendment rights. Perhaps the NAACP could change that A from Advancement to Arming.

Comment Americans are odd. (Score 3, Insightful) 1135

Trillion dollar wars that kill tens of thousands are OK when our government tells us they are protecting us from terrorist attacks. But a screening and/or pat down is going too far!

Seems like the same people complaining the loudest today were bashing me for being against the TSA back when it was first created.

Science

Submission + - Cats' Tongues Employ Tricky Physics (sciencemag.org)

sciencehabit writes: Cats like to do things their own way—even, it seems, when it comes to drinking. Researchers have discovered that felines have their own style of lapping water. Their tongues perform a complex maneuver that pits gravity versus inertia in a delicate balance.
Government

Submission + - Competition May Not Preserve Net Neutrality (itworld.com)

jfruhlinger writes: Most 'Net denizens are in favor of an Internet that doesn't favor some packets over others. The question is, how do we make sure that stays the case? While the more libertarian-minded believe that competition between ISPs will keep the net neutral, Neelie Kroes, who was the European Union official who regulated corporate competition, believes that in the end it won't be enough.
Government

Submission + - State Threatens Blog It Gave Info To Under FOIA (techdirt.com) 1

An anonymous reader writes: The Massachusetts Department of Transitional Assistance received a Freedom of Information Act request from the site MuckRock.com, concerning its food stamp program. It dutifully provided the site with the information it requested, which the site then posted. All good so far. Somewhere along the way, the Federal government decided this was a problem, and alerted the Massachusetts Department of Transitional Assistance that revealing such data was actually against the law, and anyone who revealed it could face jailtime. Rather than recognizing that they themselves could face jailtime for revealing the info, the Department sent MuckRock.com a threat letter, demanding they take down the info, or suggesting that the site's publisher could face jailtime. So, yes, for posting the information which the Department happily gave the site, the site's operator is now being threatened with jail.
Google

Submission + - Fearing Defections, Google Employees Get 10% Raise

Hugh Pickens writes: "The Mercury News reports that as part of a strategy to slow defections to up-and-coming Internet rivals such as Facebook, Google is giving all 23,300 of its employees 10 percent raises next year at cost to the company of about an additional $233 million annually . "While we don't typically comment on internal matters, we do believe that competitive compensation plans are important to the future of the company," says Google spokesman Jordan Newman. Facebook, located just a few miles away from Google's headquarters, has become more aggressive about recruiting Google workers since it hired one of Google's top sales executives, Sheryl Sandberg, as its president two-and-half years ago and recently hired Google Wave creator Lars Rasmussen. Google's employee stock options, once a major enticement, have been producing smaller windfalls for company employees, as the company has matured since its own IPO six years ago while Facebook has been able to dangle stock options in what is expected to be a highly lucrative initial public offering within the next few years."

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