If they're so inclined (i.e. if the public reaction is great enough), couldn't they re-try on more appropriate charges?

It probably has to do with the fact that, generally, MIA soldiers are identified publicly by the DoDâ"at least after a while. Once the Pentagon's gone public, there's no reason not to report on it. This sort of goes to my problem with some of the "double standard" replies here: It's true that the media tend to report widely on kidnapping victims when they're not kidnapped by terrorists, but instead by rapists or murderers or just plain crazy folk. I'm uncomfortable with the scope of some of this reporting, but it has a positive function in that it might just help people recognize a kidnap victim. Just like Amber Alerts. Now, the rules should change when terrorists are doing the kidnapping. Many Middle Eastern terrorists have shown a clear pattern of kidnapping, hyping, hyping, threatening, hyping, and then killing their captive, all for publicity and political ends. If the hype and publicity are denied them, they might not cross the line into killing. They're after a fundamentally different thing from what non-terrorists are after. Of course, part of the decision here was that it was a reporter, and the media like to protect their own for obvious and understandable reasons of human emotion; and sometimes (though not always) the media report on terrorist hostages even when it's detrimental to the hostages' interests, but what the Times did here was probably the right thing.

Now that Michael Jackson is dead, who will rear the children?

Aside from being annoyed at the "cloud" buzzword I keep seeing, how (honestly, not rhetorical) would cloud computing help here? Wouldn't the often-updated news content (especially audio and video) still have to come, at its source, from CNN or whoever, since they're the ones writing/saying/videoing the news content? I must be missing something fundamental to cloud computing, so what is it, please?

Nah, I identify more with the WRU side anyway (I'm a social scientist, but don't tell anyone here!).

I'm aware most of the people here probably don't practice a religion. I do. Troll on.

That said, this is ridiculous; just because a technology exists for something, you don't have to use it for everything. If you're truly interested in bringing your friends to (your) religion, Twitter's not gonna do it. You have to actually bring them into the building and break that ice by showing them that, no, you're not snake-handlers speaking in tongues or crazy terrorists preaching jihad or whatever. Besides, the reduction of religious beliefs to sound bytes by believers and non-believers alike is one of the most damaging processes to those who are religious. This will just end up backfiring on them and making them look like fools.

I buy and use what I like and what I feel lets me work best. I don't think the Apple Tax is that high (hell, it might not even exist), but if Apple can command that price and have people pay it, what's wrong with that? It's just economics: things are worth only what people will pay for them.

Yeah, I fail to see how this is bad news for anyone. OK, if the language is code for creationism and is taught accordingly, then that's bad. But if the curriculum is taught as the language says, then it's essentially a rephrase of scientific philosophy: nothing is set in stone, and somebody should always be looking for weaknesses in theories usually taken for granted, just in case they're wrong. Who knows, maybe one of them will find that something in commonly-accepted evolution theory doesn't hold. That's not to say that creationism wins, but human knowledge does. The tendency in this evolution vs. creationism debate of BOTH sides to cling to their beliefs no matter what is troubling. Scientists need to remain always aware that they're probably wrong in the details, and to resist change or criticism makes them no better than creationists.

[To clarify, I am not a fundamentalist creationist or anything like that; I believe in evolution. But I don't treat the prevailing theories necessarily as Holy Gospel. Pun intended.]

Wait. Not excessively intrusive in light of her age and sex? What the hell does THAT mean? Since when does a person's gender or age mean that a strip search is less intrusive? You're making somebody who's dramatically underage, BUT old enough to know what's going on, strip naked. If anything, the fact that she's young and female makes it MORE intrusive (I think the average boy would shrug it off better than a girl would; I might be wrong in that assumption, though). It sounds like whoever said that thinks young girls are worth less than other people, but I hope they're not actually saying that.

I'm not quite THAT dumb. But the resolution only recognizes 14 March of this year as Pi Day, and 14 March 2009, will always be on a Saturday.

[curmudgeon]

Good work on declaring a National Pi Day on 3/14, for whatever significance a Congress-designated "National * Day" has, but they had to do it when it falls on a Saturday? Methinks that schools won't do much to teach about Pi and math on a Saturday, and a lot of the significance of the date would be lost if they taught about it on Friday or Monday, neither of which are 3/14.

[/curmudgeon]

Of course not, but they might if he'd been hit by one. The fact that this court records/streams its proceedings means that the judges on it see no problem with it. Given that, it might be tough to expect them to hear RIAA's argument that there IS a problem with it in quite as unbiased as a way as maybe they should, just like a judge who'd been hit by a car might not be completely impartial during a hit-and-run case. I certainly don't think there's anything wrong with streaming court cases, generally speaking, but this particular situation raises the rather interesting prospect of a venue change or something similar. Unless of course Ray says otherwise.