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Gov't Computers Used to Find Info on "Joe the Plumber" 793

Posted by timothy from the wurzelbacher-wurzelbacher-french-is-it? dept.
After Joe Wurzelbacher of Ohio gained fame as "Joe the Plumber" in the course of the current presidential campaign, it seems that he's drawn more than idle curiosity from people with access to what should probably be confidential information. An anonymous reader writes with a story from The Columbus Dispatch that "government insiders accessed Joe the Plumber's records soon after the McCain-Obama debate. 'Public records requested by The Dispatch disclose that information on Wurzelbacher's driver's license or his sport-utility vehicle was pulled from the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles database three times shortly after the debate. Information on Wurzelbacher was accessed by accounts assigned to the office of Ohio Attorney General Nancy H. Rogers, the Cuyahoga County Child Support Enforcement Agency and the Toledo Police Department.' Welcome to 1984."

Comment No subtitles; No menu features (Score 4, Informative) 113

by ahbi (#23698363) Attached to: An Early Review of Roku's Netflix-Streaming Appliance
OK, first off I love Netflix Video On Demand feature. It was in fact one of the main reasons I setup my Media Center.
I suggest either Anthony Perkin's (IIRC) MyNetflix plugin or the better vmcNetflix plugin (both for Vista)

But here is the deal:
What you get is essentially VHS. Both in terms of features & resolution.
No subsitiles option (forgien you have them; English you don't)
No menus and therefore no special features.

Selection:
This is an odd mix.
You don't have the full Netflix selection.
New releases are hit and miss. It really depends on what the studios let Netflix put on there.
The selection compaired to other VoD systems is very good. Especially the TV shows (which aren't in HD anyhow).
Also I al amazed by how quickly they are adding titles to the VoD service

So, Netflix VoD is not a replacement for TV.
Or cable VoD services (for new releases)
However, with your normal Netflix subscription (~$15) it is free. And that makes a huge difference.
Now I have a massive selection of shows I can watch anytime I want. I have access to TV shows that really aren't rerun anymore.
User Journal

Journal Journal: From PajamasMedia on MSM

Journal by ahbi

al-AP and the MSM are as dangerous as the terrorists. The only reason people still don't see through the Democrat Party is because the media is their right arm. Why else would libs hate talk radio, blogs and Fox News so much. Without the media--PBS, NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, all big city papers--the Democrat Party would be dead. After all, how else can you survive slavery, segregation, Jim Crow, KKK and horrible president after horrible president (and now Obama!) and still come out looking decent?
User Journal

Journal Journal: The ERA and Judicial Review

Journal by ahbi

Take equality for gays: the constitution clearly bars discrimination, yet there is one group not allowed to enter into the same legal contracts as the rest of us. One day, a case will be brought to the SC for equality, and it will win. And just like other equality cases, it will have come decades too late. The Constitution always guaranteed that right; but the courts have yet to allow that right to be exercised.
No it didn't and doesn't guarantee that right.
This is a case th
User Journal

Journal Journal: Blacks & Democrats

Journal by ahbi

The Republican's have more blacks in high offices of the WH administration than any other WH in history.
The only black SC justice is Republican.
Republicans have many strong black candidates at Congress-level (senate & house) over the last few election cycles
User Journal

Journal Journal: Now for a preview of the Israeli/Palestinian negotiations ..

Journal by ahbi

And now for a preview of the Israeli/Palestinian negotiations ...

UN: To understand things, let us have both of you say what you want.

Israel: We want to live in peace. Watch our children grow up. Watch them enjoy their lives and be happy.

Palestinians: We want to kill all the Jews.

UN: Well, I think we can find a compromise. What if we just kill half the Jews?

Israel: What ?!? You can't be serious?
User Journal

Journal Journal: Environmentalists will shut this down

Journal by ahbi

Little point looking into wave power, environmentalists will just shut it down.
They have shut down wind farms (Nantucket Sound ala Ted Kennedy, and Walter Cronkite)
They are trying to reverse hydro-power (dam removal in the northwest)
They have killed off nuclear (oh, just pick one)

At some point you just give up and keep buying oil.
Internet Explorer

Submission + - How do you block ads in embedded IE?

Submitted by Anonymous
Anonymous writes: There are plenty of ad/pop-up blockers than work well when running IE as a stand alone application, but how do you block ads when running IE as an embedded object (e.g., in Firefox using the IE Tab plug-in)? Are proxies, either local or as a server, the only solution?
User Journal

Journal Journal: WAR-fare, not LAW-fare

Journal by ahbi

from: http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=387487&cid=21680537

innocent people simply because guilty people use
This is WAR-fare, not LAW-fare.
We are not establishing guilt or innocence.
Censorship

Submission + - Canada bans complaining about speech restrictions

Submitted by Anon E. Mouse
Anon E. Mouse writes: Calling Speech Restrictors "Enemies of Free Speech" Can Now Lead to Legal Liability in Canada:

Richard Warman, a lawyer who worked as an investigator for the Canadian Human Rights Commission, often filed complaints against "hate speech" sites — complaints that were generally upheld under Canadian speech restrictions.
Paul Fromm, a defender of various Holocaust deniers and anti-Semites, has been publicly condemning Warman for, among other things, being "an enemy of free speech."
Warman sued, claiming that these condemnations are defamatory.

Friday, the Ontario Superior Court held for Warman — chiefly on the grounds that because Warman's claims were accepted by the legal system, they couldn't accurately be called an attack on free speech.

Snippets of the opinion may be found at the legal blog, The Volokh Conspiracy.

Eugene Volokh writes:

It seems to me that Fromm was simply expressing opinions that the court disapproved of — that people who try to restrict "hate speech" are "enem[ies] of free speech," that people who are punished for hate speech are "dissidents," that people who for ideological reasons use the law to restrict speech they disagree with are ideologues who want only to deny freedom of speech to those with whom they disagree. Who is an "enemy of free speech" obviously turns on the speaker's view of free speech, and the view that he expects his audience to share, or that he wants to persuade his audience to share. Who deserves to be labeled with the generally positive term "dissident" depends on what dissent the speaker believes to be legitimate and morally proper.

Yet the Canadian justice system not only allows the suppression of certain viewpoints, and excludes them from free speech restrictions. With this case, it also tries to deny critics the right to label the speech they support "free speech," and the dissenters they like "dissidents."

The court is insisting that Canadians' speech not only follows the government-approved ideology on the topic of race, ethnicity, and religion (an ideology that I agree with, but that I don't think should be legally coerced). It is also insisting that Canadians' speech follows the government-approved ideology and terminology on the topic of free speech itself.
Software

Submission + - Microsoft kills off HP legacy drivers 1

Submitted by couchslug
couchslug writes: I went looking for drivers for a friend and found this proof that Microsoft can make use of older Windows versions more difficult." http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01080344&lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en&product=59270&lang=en "As of July 2007, HP will no longer be able to offer driver downloads or replacement driver CD ordering for Windows 98, 98 Second Edition (SE), or Windows Millennium (Me) for your HP printer, all-in-one, camera, or scanner. Microsoft has stopped providing and supporting certain files related specifically to Windows 98 SE, and this change affects all technology companies. HP, along with other technology companies, is no longer able to use selected components in support of Windows 98SE, which has an impact on our software strategy for Windows 98, Windows 98 SE, and Windows Me. HP will continue to provide other selected HP software and applications that do not depend on Windows 98 SE components for the foreseeable future."

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