Eyewitness: "I Never Heard the Word 'Bomb'"
A passenger on Flight 924 gives his account of the shooting and says Rigoberto Alpizar never claimed to have a bomb
By SIOBHAN MORRISSEY/MIAMI

Posted Thursday, Dec. 08, 2005
At least one passenger aboard American Airlines Flight 924 maintains the federal air marshals were a little too quick on the draw when they shot and killed Rigoberto Alpizar as he frantically attempted to run off the airplane shortly before take-off.

"I don't think they needed to use deadly force with the guy," says John McAlhany, a 44-year-old construction worker from Sebastian, Fla. "He was getting off the plane." McAlhany also maintains that Alpizar never mentioned having a bomb.

"I never heard the word 'bomb' on the plane," McAlhany told TIME in a telephone interview. "I never heard the word bomb until the FBI asked me did you hear the word bomb. That is ridiculous." Even the authorities didn't come out and say bomb, McAlhany says. "They asked, 'Did you hear anything about the b-word?'" he says. "That's what they called it."

When the incident began McAlhany was in seat 24C, in the middle of the plane. "[Alpizar] was in the back," McAlhany says, "a few seats from the back bathroom. He sat down." Then, McAlhany says, "I heard an argument with his wife. He was saying 'I have to get off the plane.' She said, 'Calm down.'"

Alpizar took off running down the aisle, with his wife close behind him. "She was running behind him saying, 'He's sick. He's sick. He's ill. He's got a disorder," McAlhany recalls. "I don't know if she said bipolar disorder [as one witness has alleged]. She was trying to explain to the marshals that he was ill. He just wanted to get off the plane."

McAlhany described Alpizar as carrying a big backpack and wearing a fanny pack in front. He says it would have been impossible for Alpizar to lie flat on the floor of the plane, as marshals ordered him to do, with the fanny pack on. "You can't get on the ground with a fanny pack," he says. "You have to move it to the side."

By the time Alpizar made it to the front of the airplane, the crew had ordered the rest of the passengers to get down between the seats. "I didn't see him get shot," he says. "They kept telling me to get down. I heard about five shots."

McAlhany says he tried to see what was happening just in case he needed to take evasive action. "I wanted to make sure if anything was coming toward me and they were killing passengers I would have a chance to break somebody's neck," he says. "I was looking through the seats because I wanted to see what was coming.

"I was on the phone with my brother. Somebody came down the aisle and put a shotgun to the back of my head and said put your hands on the seat in front of you. I got my cell phone karate chopped out of my hand. Then I realized it was an official."

In the ensuing events, many of the passengers began crying in fear, he recalls. "They were pointing the guns directly at us instead of pointing them to the ground," he says "One little girl was crying. There was a lady crying all the way to the hotel."

McAlhany said he saw Alpizar before the flight and is absolutely stunned by what unfolded on the airplane. He says he saw Alpizar eating a sandwich in the boarding area before getting on the plane. He looked normal at that time, McAlhany says. He thinks the whole thing was a mistake: "I don't believe he should be dead right now."

German Sues Over Abduction Said to Be at Hands of C.I.A.
By SCOTT SHANE
Published: December 6, 2005

WASHINGTON, Dec. 6 - A German citizen who says he was abducted, beaten and taken to Afghanistan by American agents in an apparent case of mistaken identity in 2003 filed suit in federal court today against George J. Tenet, the former C.I.A. director, and three companies said to have been involved in secret flight operations.

The suit came three days after Khaled el-Masri, a 42-year-old Lebanese-born former car salesman, was refused entrance to the United States after arriving Saturday in Atlanta on a flight from Germany with the intention of appearing at a news conference today in Washington. He spoke instead by video satellite link, describing somberly how he was beaten, photographed nude and injected with drugs during five months in detention in Macedonia and Afghanistan.

Speaking from Germany, Khaled el-Masri told reporters in Washington that he was tortured at the hands of the C.I.A.

"I want to know why they did this to me," Mr. Masri said, speaking in German. He said that he had been reunited with his wife and children and was seeking work in Germany but that he had not fully recovered from the trauma of his experience.

"I don't think I'm the human being I used to be," he told reporters through an interpreter.

In a separate interview in Germany, Mr. Masri said his weekend encounter with federal immigration officers in Atlanta made him briefly fear that the ordeal might be repeated or that he might be taken to the American detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

"My heart was beating very fast," he said. "I have remembered that time, what has happened to me, when they kidnapped me to Afghanistan. I have remembered and was afraid."

The lawsuit, filed by lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union in Alexandria, Va., came on a day of talks between Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, who said Ms. Rice had admitted that Mr. Masri's detention had been a mistake.

Since it was first reported in January, the Masri case has become an oft-cited example of tough American counterterrorism policies gone awry.

His lawsuit is the latest development in a series of challenges by human rights groups on the Central Intelligence Agency's clandestine operations to transport, detain and interrogate suspected terrorists since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Under particular scrutiny are secret detention centers, including some reported to be in Eastern Europe; the use of harsh interrogation methods by American intelligence officers; and the delivery of more than 100 suspects to other countries, including some where torture has been routine, in a practice known as rendition.

The lawsuit appears to be the first to target a web of companies that own and operate a fleet of aircraft used by the C.I.A., including many based at the rural Johnston County Airport in Smithfield, N.C. The companies named in the suit were Aero Contractors Ltd., a Smithfield company that provides crews and maintenance; Premier Executive Transport Services of Dedham, Mass., which previously owned the Boeing business jet used to take Mr. Masri from Macedonia to Afghanistan; and Keeler and Tate Management L.L.C., of Reno, Nev., which owns the jet today.

The lawsuit could force the C.I.A. to acknowledge its secret relationship with the companies, said Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the A.C.L.U. "That's what's novel here," he said. "What we learn of these three companies will be as interesting as the outcome of the case."

A spokesman for Mr. Tenet, who served as C.I.A. director from 1997 to 2004, said he had no comment, as did a spokesman for the C.I.A. Initial attempts to reach executives of the three air companies named in the lawsuit were unsuccessful.

Mr. Romero of the A.C.L.U. said the lawsuit was an attempt to counter the "culture of impunity" in the Bush administration for human rights violations and to force the C.I.A. to abandon practices in conflict with American values. The organization has obtained 77,000 pages of government documents on detention and interrogation under the Freedom of Information Act that have been the basis for thousands of news reports.

Mr. Romero took issue with a statement Ms. Rice made on Monday before leaving for Germany denying accusations of human rights violations and declaring that "the United States does not transport, and has not transported, detainees from one country to another for the purpose of interrogation using torture."

"Unfortunately, as our lawsuit shows today, those statements are patently false," Mr. Romero said.

Miami Police Take New Tack Against Terror
Nov 28 9:28 PM US/Eastern
Email this story

By CURT ANDERSON
Associated Press Writer

MIAMI

Miami police announced Monday they will stage random shows of force at hotels, banks and other public places to keep terrorists guessing and remind people to be vigilant.

Deputy Police Chief Frank Fernandez said officers might, for example, surround a bank building, check the IDs of everyone going in and out and hand out leaflets about terror threats.

"This is an in-your-face type of strategy. It's letting the terrorists know we are out there," Fernandez said.

The operations will keep terrorists off guard, Fernandez said. He said al-Qaida and other terrorist groups plot attacks by putting places under surveillance and watching for flaws and patterns in security.

Police Chief John Timoney said there was no specific, credible threat of an imminent terror attack in Miami. But he said the city has repeatedly been mentioned in intelligence reports as a potential target.

Timoney also noted that 14 of the 19 hijackers who took part in the Sept. 11 attacks lived in South Florida at various times and that other alleged terror cells have operated in the area.

Both uniformed and plainclothes police will ride buses and trains, while others will conduct longer-term surveillance operations.

"People are definitely going to notice it," Fernandez said. "We want that shock. We want that awe. But at the same time, we don't want people to feel their rights are being threatened. We need them to be our eyes and ears."

Howard Simon, executive director of ACLU of Florida, said the Miami initiative appears aimed at ensuring that people's rights are not violated.

"What we're dealing with is officers on street patrol, which is more effective and more consistent with the Constitution," Simon said. "We'll have to see how it is implemented."

Mary Ann Viverette, president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, said the Miami program is similar to those used for years during the holiday season to deter criminals at busy places such as shopping malls.

"You want to make your presence known and that's a great way to do it," said Viverette, police chief in Gaithersburg, Md. "We want people to feel they can go about their normal course of business, but we want them to be aware."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/01/politics/01educ.html?hp&ex=1128225600&en=ed2345e1f9cc06db&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Buying of News by Bush's Aides Is Ruled Illegal
By ROBERT PEAR
Published: October 1, 2005

WASHINGTON, Sept. 30 - Federal auditors said on Friday that the Bush administration violated the law by buying favorable news coverage of President Bush's education policies, by making payments to the conservative commentator Armstrong Williams and by hiring a public relations company to analyze media perceptions of the Republican Party.

In a blistering report, the investigators, from the Government Accountability Office, said the administration had disseminated "covert propaganda" in the United States, in violation of a statutory ban.

The contract with Mr. Williams and the general contours of the public relations campaign had been known for months. The report Friday provided the first definitive ruling on the legality of the activities.

Lawyers from the accountability office, an independent nonpartisan arm of Congress, found that the administration systematically analyzed news articles to see if they carried the message, "The Bush administration/the G.O.P. is committed to education."

The auditors declared: "We see no use for such information except for partisan political purposes. Engaging in a purely political activity such as this is not a proper use of appropriated funds."

The report also sharply criticized the Education Department for telling Ketchum Inc., a public relations company, to pay Mr. Williams for newspaper columns and television appearances praising Mr. Bush's education initiative, the No Child Left Behind Act.

When that arrangement became public, it set off widespread criticism. At a news conference in January, Mr. Bush said: "We will not be paying commentators to advance our agenda. Our agenda ought to be able to stand on its own two feet."

But the Education Department has since defended its payments to Mr. Williams, saying his commentaries were "no more than the legitimate dissemination of information to the public."

The G.A.O. said the Education Department had no money or authority to "procure favorable commentary in violation of the publicity or propaganda prohibition" in federal law.

The ruling comes with no penalty, but under federal law the department is supposed to report the violations to the White House and Congress.

In the course of its work, the accountability office discovered a previously undisclosed instance in which the Education Department had commissioned a newspaper article. The article, on the "declining science literacy of students," was distributed by the North American Precis Syndicate and appeared in numerous small newspapers around the country. Readers were not informed of the government's role in the writing of the article, which praised the department's role in promoting science education.

The auditors denounced a prepackaged television story disseminated by the Education Department. The segment, a "video news release" narrated by a woman named Karen Ryan, said that President Bush's program for providing remedial instruction and tutoring to children "gets an A-plus."

Ms. Ryan also narrated two videos praising the new Medicare drug benefit last year. In those segments, as in the education video, the narrator ended by saying, "In Washington, I'm Karen Ryan reporting."

The television news segments on education and on Medicare did not state that they had been prepared and distributed by the government. The G.A.O. did not say how many stations carried the reports.

The public relations efforts came to light weeks before Margaret Spellings became education secretary in January. Susan Aspey, a spokeswoman for the secretary, said on Friday that Ms. Spellings regarded the efforts as "stupid, wrong and ill-advised." She said Ms. Spellings had taken steps "to ensure these types of missteps don't happen again."

The investigation by the accountability office was requested by Senators Frank R. Lautenberg of New Jersey and Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, both Democrats. Mr. Lautenberg expressed concern about a section of the report in which investigators said they could not find records to confirm that Mr. Williams had performed all the activities for which he billed the government.

The Education Department said it had paid Ketchum $186,000 for services performed by Mr. Williams's company. But it could not provide transcripts of speeches, articles or records of other services invoiced by Mr. Williams, the report said.

In March, the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel said that federal agencies did not have to acknowledge their role in producing television news segments if they were factual. The inspector general of the Education Department recently reiterated that position.

But the accountability office said on Friday: "The failure of an agency to identify itself as the source of a prepackaged news story misleads the viewing public by encouraging the audience to believe that the broadcasting news organization developed the information. The prepackaged news stories are purposefully designed to be indistinguishable from news segments broadcast to the public. When the television viewing public does not know that the stories they watched on television news programs about the government were in fact prepared by the government, the stories are, in this sense, no longer purely factual. The essential fact of attribution is missing."

The office said Mr. Williams's work for the government resulted from a written proposal that he submitted to the Education Department in March 2003. The department directed Ketchum to use Mr. Williams as a regular commentator on Mr. Bush's education policies. Ketchum had a federal contract to help publicize those policies, signed by Mr. Bush in 2002.

The Education Department flouted the law by telling Ketchum to use Mr. Williams to "convey a message to the public on behalf of the government, without disclosing to the public that the messengers were acting on the government's behalf and in return for the payment of public funds," the G.A.O. said.

The Education Department spent $38,421 for production and distribution of the video news release and $96,850 for the evaluation of newspaper articles and radio and television programs. Ketchum assigned a score to each article, indicating how often and favorably it mentioned features of the new education law.

Congress tried to clarify the ban on "covert propaganda" in a bill signed by Mr. Bush in May. The law says that no federal money may be used to produce or distribute a news story unless the government's role is openly acknowledged.

19 September 2005
EXCLUSIVE: UP IN FLAMES
Tons of British aid donated to help Hurricane Katrina victims to be BURNED by Americans
From Ryan Parry, US Correspondent in New York

HUNDREDS of tons of British food aid shipped to America for starving Hurricane Katrina survivors is to be burned.

US red tape is stopping it from reaching hungry evacuees.

Instead tons of the badly needed Nato ration packs, the same as those eaten by British troops in Iraq, has been condemned as unfit for human consumption.

And unless the bureaucratic mess is cleared up soon it could be sent for incineration.

One British aid worker last night called the move "sickening senselessness" and said furious colleagues were "spitting blood".

The food, which cost British taxpayers millions, is sitting idle in a huge warehouse after the Food and Drug Agency recalled it when it had already left to be distributed.

Scores of lorries headed back to a warehouse in Little Rock, Arkansas, to dump it at an FDA incineration plant.

The Ministry of Defence in London said last night that 400,000 operational ration packs had been shipped to the US.

But officials blamed the US Department of Agriculture, which impounded the shipment under regulations relating to the import and export of meat.

The aid worker, who would not be named, said: "This is the most appalling act of sickening senselessness while people starve.

"The FDA has recalled aid from Britain because it has been condemned as unfit for human consumption, despite the fact that these are Nato approved rations of exactly the same type fed to British soldiers in Iraq.

"Under Nato, American soldiers are also entitled to eat such rations, yet the starving of the American South will see them go up in smoke because of FDA red tape madness."

The worker added: "There will be a cloud of smoke above Little Rock soon - of burned food, of anger and of shame that the world's richest nation couldn't organise a p**s up in a brewery and lets Americans starve while they arrogantly observe petty regulations.

"Everyone is revolted by the chaotic shambles the US is making of this crisis. Guys from Unicef are walking around spitting blood.

"This is utter madness. People have worked their socks off to get food into the region.

"It is perfectly good Nato approved food of the type British servicemen have. Yet the FDA are saying that because there is a meat content and it has come from Britain it must be destroyed.

"If they are trying to argue there is a BSE reason then that is ludicrously out of date. There is more BSE in the States than there ever was in Britain and UK meat has been safe for years."

The Ministry of Defence said: "We understand there was a glitch and these packs have been impounded by the US Department of Agriculture under regulations relating to the import and export of meat.

"The situation is changing all the time and at our last meeting on Friday we were told progress was being made in relation to the release of these packs. The Americans certainly haven't indicated to us that there are any more problems and they haven't asked us to take them back."

Food from Spain and Italy is also being held because it fails to meet US standards and has been judged unfit for human consumption.

And Israeli relief agencies are furious that thousands of gallons of pear juice are to be destroyed because it has been judged unfit.

The FDA said: "We did inspect some MREs (meals ready to eat) on September 13. They are the only MREs we looked at. There were 70 huge pallets of vegetarian MREs.

"They were from a foreign nation. We inspected them and then released them for distribution."

Jun 30, 5:48 PM (ET)

By FRANK GRIFFITHS

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Baghdad's mayor decried the capital's crumbling infrastructure and its inability to supply enough clean water to residents, threatening Thursday to resign if the government won't provide more money.

The statement from Mayor Alaa Mahmoud al-Timimi was an indication of the daily misery that Baghdad's 6.45 million people still endure more than two years after the U.S.-led invasion. They are wracked not only by unrelenting bombings and kidnappings, but by serious shortages in water, electricity and fuel.

"It's useless for any official to stay in office without the means to accomplish his job," al-Timimi told reporters.

Al-Timimi is seeking $1.5 billion for Baghdad in 2005 but so far has received only $85 million, said his spokesman, Ameer Ali Hasson.

Efforts to expand Baghdad's water projects were set back earlier this month when insurgents sabotaged a pipeline near Baghdad. Now, some complain the water they do get smells bad, and Hasson acknowledged in some areas, the water gets mixed with sewage.

"The problem is escalating," said al-Timimi, a Shiite who took office in May 2004.

The pipeline has been repaired and water levels are expected to return to normal in the coming days, the mayor told reporters. But that won't help with shortages that existed before the sabotage, he said.

"I am part of the government and aware of the problems the country is facing," al-Timimi said. "But I need to have technical support from the concerned parties at the government. The people are blaming me and the Baghdad municipality."

According to City Hall, Baghdad produces about 544 million gallons of water per day, some 370 million gallons short of its required amount. Some 55 percent of the water is lost through leakage in the pipes.

Iraqis also complain of shortages of power and fuel.

Electrical shortfalls were common during the Saddam Hussein era and attributed to a poor distribution network, but the situation has worsened due to sabotage and lack of maintenance.

Before the U.S.-led invasion, Baghdad residents had about 20 hours of electricity a day. Today, they get about 10, usually broken into two-hour chunks.

In addition, Iraq is not able to refine enough oil, so must import gasoline. Convoys carrying fuel are often attacked by insurgents and the ensuing shortage has led to a black market in Baghdad.

Meanwhile Thursday, the U.S. military claimed some success over Baghdad's other major problem - car bombs and suicide attackers. A spokesman said a recent security operation had worked.

"We had a measurable success," said U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. Don Alston, a spokesman for coalition forces in Iraq. He did not offer specifics.

In western Anbar province, U.S.-led forces also have detained more than a dozen suspected militants in a counterinsurgency sweep aimed at disrupting the flow of foreign militants into Iraq, the military said.

More than 1,000 members of the Iraqi security services had died since the transfer of sovereignty one year ago, the U.S. military said without giving an exact figure.

At least 1,743 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. At least 1,341 died as a result of hostile action. Of those, 75 were killed in June, one of the deadlier months.

Three militant groups on Thursday vowed to target former Cabinet member Ayham al-Samarie, a Sunni Arab politician who has formed a group to bring Iraqi militants into the political process, according to a statement on an Islamic Web site.

"We announce that it's allowed to spill the blood of Ayham al-Samarie. We have been too patient with his lies," the statement said that claimed to be issued by the Ansar al-Sunnah Army, the Islamic Army in Iraq and the Army of Mujahedeen. Its authenticity could not be verified.

More than 1,370 people have been killed by a Sunni-fueled insurgency since Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari announced his Shiite-led government April 28.

In other developments Thursday, Knight Ridder identified an Iraqi journalist who was shot and killed in the capital last week when his car approached an U.S.-Iraqi military patrol as one of its special correspondents.

Yasser Salihee, 30, was killed while driving alone in Baghdad on June 24, his day off. A single bullet pierced his windshield and struck him in the head. It appeared that a U.S. sniper shot him, but Iraqi soldiers in the area at the time also may have been shooting, the California-based newspaper company said.

Knight Ridder Inc. (KRI), which publishes 31 dailies in the United States and is the second-largest newspaper publisher in the country, hadn't reported on Salihee's death until now because his family feared reprisals from insurgents, who often target Iraqis working for foreign media organizations.

The U.S. Army was investigating the incident. Two other journalists were killed in similar incidents a few days later.

---

Associated Press writers Mariam Fam, Sinan Salaheddin and Hamid Ahmed contributed to this report from Baghdad.

Beating Specialist Baker
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

New York Times

The prison abuse scandal refuses to die because soothing White House explanations keep colliding with revelations about dead prisoners and further connivance by senior military officers -- and newly discovered victims, like Sean Baker.

If Sean Baker doesn't sound like an Iraqi name, it isn't. Specialist Baker, 37, is an American, and he was a proud U.S. soldier. An Air Force veteran and member of the Kentucky National Guard, he served in the first gulf war and more recently was a military policeman in Guantánamo Bay.

Then in January 2003, an officer in Guantánamo asked him to pretend to be a prisoner in a training drill. As instructed, Mr. Baker put on an orange prison jumpsuit over his uniform, and then crawled under a bunk in a cell so an "internal reaction force" could practice extracting an uncooperative inmate. The five U.S. soldiers in the reaction force were told that he was a genuine detainee who had already assaulted a sergeant.

Despite more than a week of coaxing, I haven't been able to get Mr. Baker to give an interview. But he earlier told a Kentucky television station what happened next:

"They grabbed my arms, my legs, twisted me up and unfortunately one of the individuals got up on my back from behind and put pressure down on me while I was face down. Then he -- the same individual -- reached around and began to choke me and press my head down against the steel floor. After several seconds, 20 to 30 seconds, it seemed like an eternity because I couldn't breathe. When I couldn't breathe, I began to panic and I gave the code word I was supposed to give to stop the exercise, which was `red.' . . . That individual slammed my head against the floor and continued to choke me. Somehow I got enough air. I muttered out: `I'm a U.S. soldier. I'm a U.S. soldier.' "

Then the soldiers noticed that he was wearing a U.S. battle dress uniform under the jumpsuit. Mr. Baker was taken to a military hospital for treatment of his head injuries, then flown to a Navy hospital in Portsmouth, Va. After a six-day hospitalization there, he was given a two-week discharge to rest.

But Mr. Baker began suffering seizures, so the military sent him to the Walter Reed Army Medical Center for treatment of a traumatic brain injury. He stayed at the hospital for 48 days, was transferred to light duty in an honor burial detail at Fort Dix, N.J., and was finally given a medical discharge two months ago.

Meanwhile, a military investigation concluded that there had been no misconduct involved in Mr. Baker's injury. Hmm. The military also says it can't find a videotape that is believed to have been made of the incident.

Most appalling, when Mr. Baker told his story to a Kentucky reporter, the military lied in a disgraceful effort to undermine his credibility. Maj. Laurie Arellano, a spokeswoman for the Southern Command, questioned the extent of Mr. Baker's injuries and told reporters that his medical discharge was unrelated to the injuries he had suffered in the training drill.

In fact, however, the Physical Evaluation Board of the Army stated in a document dated Sept. 29, 2003: "The TBI [traumatic brain injury] was due to soldier playing role of detainee who was non-cooperative and was being extracted from detention cell in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, during a training exercise."

Major Arellano acknowledges that she misstated the facts and says she had been misinformed herself by medical personnel. She now says the medical discharge was related in part -- but only in part, she says -- to the "accident."

Mr. Baker, who is married and has a 14-year-old son, is now unemployed, taking nine prescription medications and still suffering frequent seizures. His lawyer, Bruce Simpson, has been told that Mr. Baker may not begin to get disability payments for up to 18 months. If he is judged 100 percent disabled, he will then get a maximum of $2,100 a month.

If the U.S. military treats one of its own soldiers this way -- allowing him to be battered, and lying to cover it up -- then imagine what happens to Afghans and Iraqis.

President Bush attributed the problems uncovered at Abu Ghraib to "a few American troops who dishonored our country." Mr. Bush, the problems go deeper than a few bad apples.

• Glaciers swim - like meat.
• In and Out - More meat than you can shake butter at. A stick of butter.
• of meat that looks like genitalia. - or vice versa.

More useful stuff!:

Fill in the blanks: a loaf of ___, a container of ___, and a stick of ___.

Something that is fun to say: "the angry man has tiny genitals."

$ stty sane

• Trollback!
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Trollback!

Yes folks, it's Slim Pickins this month, though while the pearls are fewer they shine just as bright. We blame not you, readers and participants, but ourselves, as our always-present eye on Slashdot got infected for a few weeks; you'll note a preponderance of late September postings. Open Source people often say that "many eyes make all bugs shallow", which while demonstrably false sure is fun to say. Even so, we always accept links to excellent postings from anywhere on the World Wide Internet at our e-cyberspace address, trollback at gmail dot com. So send us your favorites, and thanks for reading.

This month's topic icon is a ass. We don't really feel the need to qualify.

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"fuck me Santa!"

100|(-1,22,28,8%) Anonymous Coward | "IPv6: Not Ready For Prime Time"

I do not see IPv6 being accelerated with proxy servers - IPv6 deployment is already going as fast as it can.While IPv6 fixes many problems in IPv4, the developed world will not embrace IPv6 until many shortcomings in the protocol are addressed. As a Brown University grad student, the subject of IPv6 is what my disseration is upon. Allow me to include a few talking-points on what I've learned. Cisco routers suck at IPv6. Many of cisco's routers use the router's CPU to process IPv6 [cont]...

• 14AC, Awards:+14acct+3low+1acup+1bab+10mod

95|(1,17,36,22%) Anonymous Coward | "DHS"

I can't post non-anonymously as it could jeapordize my career. I work at a mid-level office position at the DHS (Department of Homeland Security). Several months ago papers started to circulate about how to effectively ban arial photoography to prevent precise measurement and targetting of sensitive targets (nuclear power plants, etc). If you live near a target like this you'll soon notice a large fenced area with a large white square building in the center. This building hides a [cont]...

• 10AC, Awards:+26acct+1acup+9mod

90|(2,12,40,10%) Anonymous Coward | "Good news? Bad news"

Wow, I can't believe people are so selfish that they'd risk the U.S.'s relations with another country just so they, and _possibly_ others, can see what happened. If the FBI wants documents classified, the FBI has a good reason. I don't want another 9/11 in the U.S. or a foreign country just because people want to see some documents.

• 6AC, Awards:+34acct+2low+14mod

84|(5,13,35,18%) mekkab | "Second rate!"

Great! A second-rate search engine buys a second rate MP3 player! News at 11!

• 11AC, Awards:+24acct+14mod

77|(5,8,27,25%) Dancin_Santa | "The WTO move is the prime incentive"

Joining the WTO would require Iran to abide by internationally agreed upon IP regulations (Bourne Convention) and the impact of suddenly enforcing copyright law against its citizens would be very heavy.Even limiting enforcement to the government computer systems would result in significant layouts of cash to Microsoft (and other software makers). Iran is simply not in a position to make that kind of investment.Likewise, it is difficult to see how Microsoft could do business with the r [cont]...

• 6AC, Awards:+21acct+1low+2bab+6mod

72|(-1,10,33,6%) Dancin_Santa | "Not spam"

First off, I fully agree with the Linux folks on this one and rebuff the MPAA demands. It is absolutely idiotic for this kind of action to be taken without even the slightest consideration of the actual infringement impossibilities of the software names.That said, I think there's a lot to be considered when choosing a software project name. One that quickly and accurately describes or at the very least gives a hint as to the functionality of the package is great. The kinds that the [cont]...

• 8AC, Awards:+25acct+1low+8mod

64|(0,8,20,19%) Dancin_Santa | "My Roomba doesn't take pictures"

And I can safely assume that it doesn't because I trust that no hackers have entered my home (except myself, of course) and altered the hardware to such an extent that paranoia regarding the hardware is necessary.I think that every time stories like this appear in the mainstream press, that hackers in general become more and more externalized from society. You start to change things such that you end up being your own 'Little Brother' with your prying eyes everywhere and soon enough y [cont]...

• 8AC, Awards:+12acct+2low+9mod

64|(-1,8,24,8%) Anonymous Coward | "Hmmm"

What happens when people start dying?

• 6AC, Awards:+19acct+1low+11mod

60|(2,9,24,14%) Three Headed Man | "As someone who actually used it..."

I had VoIP for about 3 weeks (early June to June 30) before I got too frustrated. It was down pretty frequently; not nearly as dependable as my AT&T line. I got an echo, and the sound quality never was as good as a phone. I just decided to stick to cellular access, and cancelled before I started another month of fees. I'm happy with AT&T.

• 7AC, Awards:+17acct+2bust+1low+10mod

50|(1,11,19,9%) FortKnox | "Front Page Material!"

Now this is what I call front page material. Any normal slashdot article would have about 50-100 comments by now. This one has 5 (4 of which are trolls). Anime should be in its own section, IMHO. Its only here because of Taco's love of it. I really don't consider it a 'nerdy' thing. Sure, lotsa geeks are anime fanboys, and some actually enjoy the plots and stuff in the movies, but it really doesn't fit in with technology and science in my opinion. So I say give it its own section s [cont]...

• 4AC, Awards:+15acct+1low+4mod

49|(5,9,13,3%) Sheetrock | "Conversely..."

My question is: Is this software as good as the ever-extensible Kwiki implementation?My question is: is there anything Microsoft can do that we won't question?Applaud them for their newfound approach to open source. More alternatives are always better. I'll bet this software does something Kwiki can't do.

• 4AC, Awards:+9acct+3low+4mod

48|(0,7,23,5%) rd_syringe | "Rules for this story"

I feel the need to lay out some ground rules before we go on:1.) Microsoft is somehow responsible for all third-party DLLs on a system. Their scanner must contain a self-sufficient, learning AI that just knows which DLLs to scan on any system in existence.2.) Mozilla was affected by this same vulnerability, but it's okay because it's Mozilla and not Microsoft.3.) When Mozilla's XUL bug was marked Confidential since 1999 only to be revealed earlier this year when exploits came out [cont]...

• 8AC, Awards:+15acct+1low+12mod

48|(0,6,19,10%) Sheetrock | "It's pretty amazing when you think about it."

Mars always seemed just out of reach when I first took interest in astrology. The planet most like our own in the solar system, it's the logical next step for our move off this planet as we begin to explore and colonize space and it's quite encouraging to see that this is a possibility -- although hopefully more success will be had with landing manned spacecraft on its surface.I suppose another thing I've always hoped to see was signs of life in the universe. Although we've discovere [cont]...

• 4AC, Awards:+15acct+4bab+6mod

45|(1,7,23,4%) Three Headed Man | "Cheap"

Nothing better. Maybe Solitare too.

• 5AC, Awards:+18acct+9mod

42|(-1,9,16,6%) Anton Anatopopov | "All of this could easily have been avoided."

It's obvious to anyone that this scenario could easily have been avoided. The issue here is the restrictive nature of the GPL. Had this code been released under the more flexible and free BSD license, none of these issues would arise.Stallman has set back the cause of quality free software by 20 years with his viral-like GPL, which infects everything it comes into contact with.Notice that Apple based their OS around the Darwin kernel, precisely because of the major problems inhera [cont]...

• 3AC, Awards:+13acct+7mod

40|(-1,8,14,5%) Sheetrock | "What's wrong with flexibility?"

I see a few comments in here questioning the logic or similarity of this project to the already failed thin-client model that was once promised to revolutionize business computing. It seems to me the point is not to put all the eggs in one handbag -- but quite the opposite; to increase the capability and flexibility of an already capable and flexible system. This isn't an end in itself, but rather a means to discover or fully realize other possibilities with Linux that hinge upon gre [cont]...

• 4AC, Awards:+10acct+1low+5mod

32|(5,5,17,3%) Dancin_Santa | "Your rationale vs. their rationale"

You want to put Debian on the systems because of the vast array of software available for it.They want to run IBM solutions because they can trust that the few apps that they actually want to run on the system will run with no trouble.The trouble here is that you want Debian on the systems for your own selfish reasons. They want to run their systems as reliably as possible. Since this is a business and not a college dorm room, the business case will always win out.Debian is a fine di [cont]...

• 4AC, Awards:+13acct+2mod

30|(5,8,12,2%) Sheetrock | "Re:But what about text to speech?"

Given that there is already a rudimentary text-to-speech package available for Linux, and now a speech-to-text package, perhaps the secret is to pipe one to the other in a closed loop until one learns how to enunciate and the other how to listen?

• 4AC, Awards:+8acct+1acup+4mod

29|(3,6,9,7%) Dancin_Santa | "Expect ISP rates to rise"

It seems like this is a good deal for everyone all around except that in the end VoIP is still another manifestation of the infinitely malleable POTS system. All those bits are travelling over the same wires as those expensive long distance calls are. The only difference is in who is paying for that bandwidth.With normal long distance calling, the burden is borne by the person making the call or the receiver in the case of a collect call. In VoIP, the burden is already being paid fo [cont]...

• 1AC, Awards:+8acct+5mod

23|(-1,7,8,2%) Anonymous Coward | "Solar Electricity"

I think I've read somewhere that solar panels cost more in energy to create than they ever produce. Is this correct? When I thought about it, it seemed entirely plausible, as there is a lot of steel in there that needs to be welded.On another note, I've also read that the Chinese were not responsible for chopsticks, although they were responsible for fortune cookies. Apparently chopsticks were invented just 200 years ago in San Francisco.Can anyone clear this up for me please? [cont]...

• 3AC, Awards:+5acct+7mod

12|(2,4,6,0%) SimianOverlord | "Just some thoughts"

A question we have to ask oursevles is why did the jenemy attack the WTC, when there were more politically explosive (White House) and economically important (NY stock exchange) targets? My best guess is that it was due to the underlying symbol of the twin towers.It's a well established fact of modern architecture that skyscrapers represent masculinity. I don't want to make it anymore explicit than that. The act of throwing up a huge public, tapering monument is very symbolic of what d [cont]...

• 3AC, Awards:+3acct+1mod

5|(2,2,2,0%) Anonymous Coward | "Re:FAA?"

When someone as prominent and as much an annoyance to the coporate capitalist power structure as Richard Stallman has a nearly fatal accident we SHOULD start asking if there is a conspiracy to murder him.The free software movement is in the crosshairs. Why do you think software patents have become such an issue recently? Did SCO come up with the idea of its copyright attack on Linux on its own all of a sudden? Some investor immediately gave it the cash infusion it needed to per [cont]...

• 1AC, Awards:+1acct+1mod

LA Confidential

CmdrTaco is going to be on television in LA, before his globe trotting lifestyle takes him to Google and universities worldwide to teach them how to build scaleable next generation Linux based websites. Additionally he notes that the few readers of his journal can send in email to get free tickets. Now, so can you. Plz snd pix thx.

Is it troll or is it Memorex?

This post over at dKos: is it good or is it whack? Either way, we're having fun watching the locals stick up for their local troll, er, satirist? We thought "oversampling" was some electronica nerd thing, but perhaps it's also the tool of the carpetbagger. Who knew.

Food for dogs, Pate on platters:

We couldn't help but chuckle at this last minute substitution. Let them eat cake!

Excessive Bad Stories:

What's the sound of one web site biting? Probably something akin to the collective groan that went up from this submission about eliminating "Pirate to Pirate" file sharing tools on a network. Shockingly absolutely no on-topic comments were posted, though to prove that denial isn't just the world we live in, Linux apologists kicked it up to 11 in this story about a company reversing its Linux migration. We're sure it was all the fault of Harvard MBA's, who are all uneducated, worthless jerks (+1, Informative).

Area Man Inadvertently Becomes Statistic:

Yes.

Free Teh iPods:

The long awaited successor to the Amazon affiliate link?

That's it for this month. As always, email your links to trollback at gmail dot com. Subscribe to Trollback Magazine by befriending; Slashdot will notify you of upcoming issues! And please remember,

....JOHN F KERRY
..... _ ._ ._ , _ ._.......
... (_ ' ( ` .)_. .__).....
..( ( .( .. ) . `) .) _)...
.(__ (_.. (_ . _) _) ,__)..
.....`~~`\ ' . /`~~`.......
.....,::: ; ..; :::,.......
....':::::::::::::::'......
_________/_____\___________
A MUSHROOM CLOUD
WAITING TO HAPPEN

• Trollback!
• The List [VOTE]
• We Want Negrodamus
• Selected Reading
• I Wanted to Be a Coward
• Daily WHAT?
• The Cathedral and the Bizarre
• The 10th Circle
• Hurricane-force Quickies

Trollback!

No apologies for the delay, dear readers, hurricane season is afoot and we've learned our lesson. For future reference, we present the following tips to publishing a successful online magazine during tropical storms:

1. Peapod does not deliver to disaster areas.
2. An Internet cafe in Sheboygan does actually beat a T1 line under water, no matter what your cousin told you.
3. "Like, totally staying up late, looting, smoking whatever, burning shit down" sounds a lot cooler than it actually is.
4. Floating, immobile animals not necessarily dead.
5. Apparently, shit floats.

This month's topic icon is a wheelbarrow, always useful when you're digging shit. Somehow, we felt it was appropriate.

The List [VOTE]

Now with 400% more Voodoo.

462|(5,35,197,26%) Lostie | "Not the first time..."

This isn't the first time a huge company has made an embarassing translation error.There is that old classic when Ford introduced the Pinto in Brazil. After watching sales go nowhere, the company learned that Pinto is Brazilian slang for small penis. Ford pried the nameplates off all of the cars and substituted them with Corcel which means horse.

• 55AC, Awards:+143acct+8bust+7low+3acup+6bab+40mod

344|(5,59,104,30%) ObviousGuy | "The whole idea is crazy"

I don't get it.

• 33AC, Awards:+71acct+2bust+6low+34mod

321|(5,22,166,14%) Madison K | "Re:Aim a little lower...."

How about just respecting women? So many times I talk or I see another woman talk to you guys and your eyes just gloss over like you go into some standby mode until we finish. Then many of you keep right on as if we said nothing at all. Just a thought. Madison

• 88AC, Awards:+80acct+1bust+9low+1acup+1bab+27mod

316|(5,35,132,24%) USAPatriot | "Microsoft and Windows Topics Icons"

Of the list of slashdot topics [slashdot.org], only Microsoft and the Windows icons are of a derogatory and belittling nature. Why is it so hard that the editors can't use the appropriate icons for them? It's time this site starts to grow up.

• 50AC, Awards:+82acct+1bust+3low+2acup+44mod

238|(5,10,119,15%) Anonymous Coward | "There is a simple reason"

There are two simple reasons why microsoft does not incorporate these techniques into windows. Windows runs on many different pieces of hardware. Not all hardware supports the options that these accelerators need. Believe it or not, not everyone has an AGP video card. Linux is not faster as a desktop than windows. As the gnome and kde desktops are the main competition for Microsoft Windows, it does not make sense for microsoft to make windows as fast as it can, because Linux is [cont]...

• 28AC, Awards:+92acct+2bust+5low+1acup+31mod

200|(4,33,74,17%) Sanity | "News about how great Apple is, Stuff that Matters"

congrats to Apple for a job well doneDo Apple have to pay for all the free advertising and advocacy they geton Slashdot? I mean, lets take a look at some of the opinions youwon't hear on Slashdot (from here [downhillbattle.org]): It's too expensive Let's start simple: the iTunes Music Store is not a good value forcustomers. Apple says many users are buying whole albums for $8-$12each. That's less than the $16 store price, but used CDs at Amazon orebay cost $5, and those come with line [cont]...

• 24AC, Awards:+50acct+1bust+1low+1acup+1bab+31mod

178|(1,12,88,16%) Sheetrock | "One possible explanation"

Before getting all excited about this, it is worth noting the following:Photons have mass.An eclipse means less photons are emitted and reach the measurer.Ergo, gravitational effect.Although it is well known that if your effect has a name it instantly has more credibility, I'm a bit skeptical that this is the one that'll turn relativity on its ear (dark matter is another story...)

• 23AC, Awards:+66acct+2low+1acup+18mod

174|(3,38,72,10%) Exmet Paff Daxx | "What a week for women's rights"

Ten years after Demi Moore went for a million bucks, we've found a way to bring the objectification of women to a new level. The computer is apparently Larry Flynt's new meat grinder.It's sad to see the rate at which our runaway technological advances outstrip the advancement of society. In one hundred years we've developed flight, space travel, nuclear physics, gene therapy, and global digital communications networks, but we still can't get past treating women like property instead of [cont]...

• 25AC, Awards:+47acct+3low+13mod

155|(5,18,86,5%) Anonymous Coward | "Worst movie I've seen"

Goatse.cx: The Movie - Tagline: Opening Soon Near You

• 27AC, Awards:+60acct+1bust+2low+20mod

153|(5,22,69,9%) rd_syringe | "Article summary--uh, "recent mass migration?""

All the submitter did was link to a blog entry that listed a couple of public advisories and mentioned Mozilla. Apparently, when put through the Slashbot filter, that becomes recent mass migration away from MSIE?According to Google Zeitgeist [google.com], IE 6 hasn't dropped at all and is still massively slaughtering the competition. In fact, Slashdot's own browser statistics show that IE is the majority browser for people accessing this website! Also note that every year is th [cont]...

• 23AC, Awards:+46acct+2low+2acup+27mod

148|(-1,8,74,11%) Omnifarious | "Re:ext3 to reiser4 ?"

MD5 has been proven to have collisions. Use sha1sum, not md5sum. IMHO, the md5sum tool should be deprecated and removed from all future Linux distributions.

• 19AC, Awards:+55acct+2low+1acup+1bab+28mod

131|(0,27,60,5%) vuvewux | "Funny enough, I was planning on voting for Kerry."

I don't agree with most of the crap Bush believes in. For what it's worth, I think Bush is a sleazy, shady douchebag. And, save for the level-headed folk I see on Slashdot, I can't fucking stand Bush supporters and militant Republicans. I really hate those fucking pudgy, clean-shaven, uptight business suit republican twats on my campus. But my distaste for conservatives and Republicans pales in comparison to my distaste for whackjob liberals.The way the left-leaning have conducted [cont]...

• 28AC, Awards:+32acct+1bust+2low+1acup+1bab+9mod

126|(4,14,57,20%) rd_syringe | "Kinda sad..."

You basically admitted that nobody will use it because copyrights are enforced. Heaven forbid people respect copyrights. You know, like we demand with the GPL. I actually got accused of trolling the other day because of my sig.

• 13AC, Awards:+44acct+17mod

122|(4,1,79,5%) ron_ivi | "Re:Democracy.."

So who would be for reasonable copyright use? Badnarik [badnarik.org]?Just remember, unless the voting results in an exact tie, you're throwing your vote out anyway, so a vote for a third party candidate is as good as any.

• 13AC, Awards:+66acct+1bab+19mod

122|(2,8,70,4%) Zabu | "All the studies show"

Stroke victims prefer Bush.

• 14AC, Awards:+56acct+1bust+1bab+20mod

107|(3,3,65,4%) Anonymous Coward | "Re:Florida is going to sink anyway..."

They made Bush our president. They're just catching payback for the last 4 years from someone upstairs :)

• 15AC, Awards:+50acct+1bust+1low+2acup+16mod

104|(4,14,49,8%) FortKnox | "From memory"

I'm going off of memory, which may not be correct at all. But here are my assumptions:X-Chat is freeX-Chat may or may not be open sourceX-Chat borrows off of other GPL code What's the big deal? Its a free project that no one is getting money from. Now if it was a big corporation, trying to make a profit off of GPL'ed code, I'd see a problem, but this is just silly. The thing I notice most about GPL and open source in general is how many internal flame wars ensue. Just be happy thin [cont]...

• 9AC, Awards:+40acct+1low+11mod

101|(4,10,51,10%) Anonymous Coward | "Non-Moderated, not Slashdot"

PJ reckons: 'an astroturf campaign depends upon a non-moderated site Which, thankfully isn't slashdot. Most readers probably don't know this, but the editors have full control over moderation, and can use their unlimited mod points to mod stuff over and over again. It doesn't show up publicly, but editors have been doing this for quite some time.By doing this, they can trigger IP bans and therefore thwart these nefarious astroturfing campaigns. I trust the good editors here to [cont]...

• 20AC, Awards:+31acct+2low+24mod

75|(4,6,43,4%) fiannaFailMan | "Another terror alert?"

I smell the work of the GOP trying to get the geek vote.

• 21AC, Awards:+22acct+21mod

73|(5,17,28,6%) Exmet Paff Daxx | "This is probably a good thing."

People need to confront the DMCA, really see it for what it is. Right now, the law says thou shalt only play the movies in the way Hollywood prescribes, but it hasn't really internalized because so many people can use unlicensed software to do things like copy DVDs, play them without commercials, etc. I think the FBI needs to really crack down on anyone who violates the DMCA, by imprisoning everyone who copies a DVD for home use, especially rich and politically connected people. We co [cont]...

• 10AC, Awards:+18acct+2low+7mod

65|(1,10,34,7%) cubicledrone | "Oh good"

All Apple does invent one great product after another:iPodG5PowerbookOS XCinema Display(for openers)and they invest millions to make inexpensive music downloads available (at almost no profit). But they don't sell shovelboxes at $299 each, so let's kick Apple in the face again. Sounds great.

• 13AC, Awards:+21acct+1low+5mod

62|(2,10,27,5%) dasmegabyte | "Re:...EU software patents?"

Fuck you, man, thinkers got to eat. They shouldn't have to hope nobody else can figure out what they're doing and sell it better than they can (which wouldn't be hard...inventors are as bad at marketing as markeeters are at invention). And hey, we developed the same thing at the same time, what a coinky-dink isn't an excuse -- if it were, there'd be less impetus to publish ideas, resulting in less knowledge. Anybody could read the journals and claim coincidental development. It's [cont]...

• 5AC, Awards:+22acct+1bust+12mod

59|(3,18,24,3%) Exmet Paff Daxx | "This is not wise."

The most popular P2P software vendor is AOL, maker of AOL Instant Messenger which allows for direct file transfers between users of the service. It's important to keep in mind that the chairman of the FCC, Mike Powell, has a huge number of shares of AOL stock. So when you go after American P2P companies, you're going after Mike Powell's pocket, and in turn that means you're going to be invoking the wrath of Colin Powell.Like I said, not smart.By the way, did anyone know that Colin Powe [cont]...

• 8AC, Awards:+16acct+1low+5mod

58|(0,8,23,5%) hanssprudel | "A job well done indeed!"

Most of all, I would like to congratulate Apple on their fantastic use of the DMCA to crush free software developer writing applications (PlayFair) that can handle the formats in which they sell music. We like to commend such positive use of the DMCA here on Slashdot, so that perhaps more companies will start using the DMCA and attacking small developers!It is very important that companies like Apple help show the world that is completely possible to shove DRM down consumers throw [cont]...

• 9AC, Awards:+14acct+1bust+1low+9mod

55|(5,9,30,1%) Exmet Paff Daxx | "Nothing shocking about it."

Terrorism works. Terrorism causes fear, and the people whom terrorism works best on are those who fear the most and are most able to emphatize with victims. This has been aided by modern media, which is able to deliver maximum shock images instantly via a worldwide television network.I will be moderated down for saying this, but it's on-topic, it's factual, and it's my well reasoned opinion. Not good material for Slashdot, but my conscience dictates my actions.If we lived in a world of [cont]...

• 7AC, Awards:+23acct+6mod

54|(2,10,29,2%) Brandybuck | "Re:Why Harry?"

I used to work at a bookstore that occasionally sold controversial books. So let me tell you the difference between Christians and Muslems when it comes to sacrilege...When we sold Last Temptation of Christ, some Christians boycotted, some urged others to boycott, and some wrote letters to the newspapers. The author never had his life threatened. When we sold Satanic Verses, Muslems threatened us with bombings and death. The author of the book actually had to go into hiding, and is sti [cont]...

• 12AC, Awards:+17acct+9mod

53|(-1,11,22,5%) vuvewux | "Engineering?"

EE here. Please stop calling yourself Engineers, because you're not (B/M/PhD.Sc vs B/M/PhD.Eng), and you doing so degrades my trade.

• 7AC, Awards:+15acct+1bust+1low+8mod

52|(-1,9,22,9%) USAPatriot | "The Privacy Jihad"

I'm concerned that in these times, the privacy advocates and other luddites just want to block any technological advances towards thwarting terrorists and other evildoers.They want to shackle law enforcement in the name of privacy. It's clear that 'privacy concerns' have become a catch-all to dismantle any tool that may be useful to government agencies. I'm not saying they can't be used for evil, harassing the innocent isn't what its primarily used for. Evoking 'Big Brother' at eve [cont]...

• 6AC, Awards:+16acct+9mod

45|(5,12,18,4%) Anonymous Coward | "No..."

I am a windows developer of a small program with about 4000 users. Without spyware I would not be in business, since most people crack my s/w and dont pay after the trial.Thanks to spyware, I am still make a living.

• 11AC, Awards:+7acct+1acup+10mod

37|(4,10,16,3%) USAPatriot | "Good For Them"

Microsoft has decided not to rush a release just for the sake of releasing it. They want to get it right the first time. I congratulate them for doing the Right Thing and making sure they deliver a rock solid Service Pack for the millions of XP users out there.Before the slashdot editors and crowd crow over this delay, just remember the 503 errors and flakiness this site has experienced since maintenance was performed. Don't throw stones in glass houses, kids.

• 4AC, Awards:+12acct+5mod

35|(2,6,19,3%) Exmet Paff Daxx | "Let's get this straight."

A lawyer posted on Yahoo to protect his reputation, was attacked by a bunch of faceless Anonymous Cowards, and is angry because he can't determine their identity because Yahoo's moderation system won't filter them out?Sounds like your typical Slashdot user.I think among the Slashdot crowd it's of course common knowledge that Yahoo deletes comments all the time, just full time staff with unlimited moderation power [slashdot.org] to instantly IP ban anyone who disagrees too much - but wh [cont]...

• 4AC, Awards:+15acct+5mod

27|(0,7,8,5%) after | "What about 5001?"

Why must Slashdot get all excited when a number like 5000 pops up? I don't understand why everyone is so excited about numbers. I took my 500th shit this month, you dont hear me calling the press do you?What about the 5001st book? Will that also yeild a news item?

• 2AC, Awards:+6acct+1bust+7mod

22|(4,8,8,4%) Exmet Paff Daxx | "Way to turn the tables on M$!"

Micro$oft gives out millions of dollars to catch people who exploit bugs in their browser! Now Linux gives out cash directly to people who find the bugs, rewarding engineers instead of snitches. I hope the major news outlets cover the huge difference in paradigm here- good cop instead of bad cop.Everyone failed my last Gmail invite challenge, and I'm up to three invites, so here's a new one: there are sixteen factual errors in this article [nytimes.com]. I'll give you one for free: Bus [cont]...

• 3AC, Awards:+5acct+1mod

22|(3,2,12,1%) Have Blue | "Re:Interesting timing.."

Maybe the passengers upset with the terrorists' plans to crash them into the Internet.

• 2AC, Awards:+10acct+2bust+8mod

19|(5,4,7,6%) Anonymous Coward | "A word if I may:"

Gentlemen, the time has come for a serious discussion on whether ornot to continue using Perl for serious programming projects. As I willexplain, I feel that Perl needs to be retired, much the same way thatFortran, Cobol and Java have been. Furthermore, allow me to be so boldas to suggest a superior replacement to this outdated language.To give you a little background on this subject, I was recently askedto develop a client/server project on a Unix platform for a Fortune500 compan [cont]...

• 2AC, Awards:+6acct+3mod

17|(5,7,7,1%) orangesquid | "Re:Very Easy"

Not if your car is a webserver. That's like having a car with a big sign that says LOOK IN THE WINDOWS! THERE'S COOL STUFF INSIDE THIS CAR! Of course some people are bound to try the handle, at least to get a closer look. I attempt anonymous ftp logins and try /pub URLs on webservers all the time, as well as ascending to the parent directory and such. Sometimes I find some really neat stuff that way. I'm not about to attempt a root login, but, it's human nature [cont]...

• 3AC, Awards:+4acct+1mod

9|(-1,1,5,1%) Anonymous Coward | "What really happened to Zeitgeist"

I'm a google enginer in an unrelated department. I can shed light on what actully happened. While I could get fired, I want all Linux Zealots to take note.Zeitgeist has freqently been used by pragmatists to show that Linux is not redy for the desktop based on the user agents presented during a search. If it were ready, more people would send user agent Mozila/Linux. 1% of all browsers is below the margin of error.A common rasponse to Zeitgeist is that Linux users set there bro [cont]...

• 4AC, Awards:+2acct+1mod

We Want Negrodamus

An alert reader alerted us to this profoundly poor appraisal of the iPod by Slashdot's preeminent portly prognosticator:

"No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame."

• -Cmdrtaco, on the iPod

Unsurprisingly, he seems to be getting called on it now and then. To be fair, hindsight is 20/20. Looking back, writing a million reader site in an interpreted language probably wasn't the best idea - it might scale poorly.

Selected Reading

While there's a lot of good stuff in this month's List, we wanted to direct reader's attention to this highly rated comment suggesting gene therapy as the cure for liberalism, Slashdot's millionth comment, and the best retort you never saw.

I Wanted to Be a Coward

Lest we get burned again, we point you in the direction of this suspiciously non-anonymous post about a user... by the same user. Remember kids, you can check "post anonymously" in your preferences.

Daily WHAT?

Apparently Rusty of the busted-bridge site has come to consensus with CmdrTaco: k5 is a failure. Rusty's new bid for fame is a site called "DailyKos", which is "untrollable" because they have an ex-military administrator deleting accounts and posts in true Free Republic style. An alert reader, however, points out that nothing is impossible.

The Cathedral and the Bizarre

If Microsoft sometimes has obtuse development practices, it is highly probable that they are merely learning from the leader. With developers like that, who needs espionage? [cache]

The 10th Circle

We think this journal entry should be required reading for Slashdot moderators. Feel free to email the admins and suggest that it be added to the moderator guidelines.

Hurricane-force Quickies

September marked the continuing success of the lame filter's War on ASCII Art, Gnome Developers and their secret Adequacy ties, and a boot stomping on a Slashdot comment, forever. If you're going to use a banned script to read Slashdot, you should archive your journal first. Here's a script that reads Slashdot to do it.

That's it for this month. As always, email your links to trollback at gmail dot com. Subscribe to Trollback Magazine by befriending; Slashdot will notify you of upcoming issues! And please remember,

....MODBOMBING IS JIHAD
..... _ ._ ._ , _ ._.......
... (_ ' ( ` .)_. .__).....
..( ( .( .. ) . `) .) _)...
.(__ (_.. (_ . _) _) ,__)..
.....`~~`\ ' . /`~~`.......
.....,::: ; ..; :::,.......
....':::::::::::::::'......
_________/_____\___________
DECAPITATE JUNIS AFGHANISTAN

• Trollback!
• We've got Gmail!
• Jews in Spaaaaaaaaaace!
• The List [VOTE]
• We're perverted!
• Netcraft confirms it: USENET is dying
• Failing it like a porn star
• You dare to succeed?
• I'd like a Meximelt and a Jackito, please
• The "Moon": A Ridiculous Liberal Myth
• Slashdot Gold
• Lifetime Achievement Award
• I, HBT
• (secret)
• Quickies

Trollback!

This July had some marvelous things to offer. Scantily clad young redheads! Stripping schoolgirls! Slashbots, however, are far more interested in arguing online - bad for them but GOOD FOR TROLLBACK! So without further ado, the Trollback editorial staff is proud to present our roundup for the month of July, 2004.

We've got Gmail!

For a solid gigabyte of righteous trolling feedback, we've decided to go with Gmail.NET as our single-source e-mail solutions provider. Give us a ring at trollback@gmail.com!

Jews in Spaaaaaaaaaaace!

We have to tip our collective hat to the ongoing efforts of Baldrson, who got his tidy little article about Spaceplane-2 posted to Slashdot's front page this month. As with his other front page stories, Baldrson also managed to get a link to his website included, featuring enthusiastic information about rocketry, science, racial superiority, the nonexistence of the Holocaust and some handy facts about how killing the Jews is a great idea, along with that fantastic mug shot. Congratulations go to Simoniker for upping the Pagerank(tm)(R) of one of America's premier Neonazi crackpots.

The List [VOTE]

Well here it is, this month's hand picked list of links, scored by an arbitrary closed-source mechanism we call Voodoo. Some of you may note that the number of direct replies to a comment as reported by Trollback is wildly different than the count reported in a user's comment summary. Is it whack? No, yuo. We've hand-checked this anomoly a number of times now, and believe it or not Slashdot's Perl scripts incorrectly count the number of direct replies. It's true. Keep in mind we also discount replies by the author of the post in question. We thought about reporting this bug but the last guy to try that hasn't gotten very far. In short: we're right, they're wrong, and nothing's new! Slashdot dealt everyone a straight flush this month by introducing a shit-flavored color scheme to match their content - and we've tinted our List to match. Enjoy.

458|(4,63,188,15%) Real Troll Talk | "Microsoft are lying to us"

People choose, replied Hachamovitch (IE lead engineer). Hundreds of millions of people actively use Windows and they get to choose. Nothing in Windows as it ships keeps them from downloading other software that extends their browsing experience (e.g. the Google or Ebay toolbars) or changes it (e.g. an alternative browser).No they don't. Maybe I do, but I'm a computer expert.My mom certainly has no clue that there even IS anything other than IE to use. Most of our mothers probably don [cont]...

• 47AC, Awards:+142acct+3bust+7low+2acup+58mod

267|(5,5,122,31%) Sheetrock | "Isn't this illegal?"

I thought most (if not all) DVDs come with a warning about not being used for public performances.

• 29AC, Awards:+93acct+3low+2acup+42mod

210|(5,28,85,22%) FortKnox | "Firefox"

Note that this does not mean that they are replacing IE with FireFox. Good, cause firefox has render problems on slashdot all the time (where as IE doesn't). I don't think its firefox, either, cause it doesn't happen on any other site I go to.

• 15AC, Awards:+70acct+2low+1bab+18mod

185|(0,17,78,23%) britneys 9th husband | "Careful"

We humans aren't going to have any immunity to these microbes that have been isolated for 500000 years. I hope whoever's studying these lakes takes appropriate precautions against both accidental release and theft by terrorist organizations.

• 10AC, Awards:+68acct+1bust+1bab+30mod

171|(3,34,62,18%) Real Troll Talk | "This is great because it's Google"

Nothing was greater than when Google bought out Delphi and took over the largest USENET archive of all-time.Google always does things the right way without ruining the user experience or their wallets.In Google We Trust...(P.S. I have three Gmail invites anyone up for one -- I already gave away 5 to friends/family?)

• 17AC, Awards:+45acct+5bust+1low+26mod

161|(0,9,89,7%) bje2 | "Re:Old Ben said it best"

Except that in Ben's time people weren't flying airplanes into skyscrapers...

• 24AC, Awards:+66acct+1bust+4low+22mod

152|(-1,20,74,6%) Squeezer | "whats the problem with the patriot act?"

i don't see what the problem is. there haven't been any cases of abuse. if you don't want to be spied upon, then don't do suspicious things. how has the patriot act directly affected you?

• 31AC, Awards:+43acct+1bust+2low+1acup+15mod

128|(5,17,48,6%) circletimessquare | "i didn't like the demonization of fusion"

i liked the movie, but i did not like the demonization of fusion in spider man iiin a world of smog and wars fought over oil prices (pro-iraq war people: read why iraq invaded kuwait, anti-iraq war people: read why us invaded iraq) we do not need an ultra-pop movie demonizing one of the few technologies which could save us from the petroleum agein spider man ii, fusion can go chernobyl, this is a fallacyif something goes wrong with a fusion reaction, it just fizzles out, it can NE [cont]...

• 12AC, Awards:+36acct+7low+13mod

125|(2,6,66,12%) Milo of Kroton | "Why Censor?"

Really, is only naked women or men. In Mozilla Firebird, I have setted it to Block images from goat.cx (not visit!) and if my kids pictures of naked people find, fine. I did as child. I run linux but don't need this. As friend said You Americans are so puritanical!

• 22AC, Awards:+44acct+4low+14mod

121|(-1,9,49,26%) Anonymous Coward | "Obligatory"

But as both the company behind this TDA, Novinit, and myself are French, I decided to investigate You misspelled surrender.

• 15AC, Awards:+34acct+1bust+3low+15mod

108|(5,8,50,26%) Real Troll Talk | "I don't believe the news anymore these days"

How can we TRUST the big bully corporations to tell us the truth?After F9/11, I just don't trust anyone with $ any more.

• 19AC, Awards:+31acct+1low+1acup+16mod

93|(5,15,29,15%) Exmet Paff Daxx | "I remain: Unafraid, Undeterred."

Mod me down as troll, but I'm about to speak the truth. Ubiquitous surveillance? There are cameras covering every inch of the city I walk in. Massive government analysis? A huge database called MATRIX contains all my financial and medical records, searchable by federal agents. I have to give my SSN, despite the law, to every two-bit huckster who asks for it, to buy a house, a car, a plane ticket, you name it.And you know what? I don't care. Because I've made a choice to deal with this [cont]...

• 10AC, Awards:+19acct+3low+11mod

62|(5,11,27,6%) Anonymous Coward | "Actually Tolkien was a Genius, read on..."

Here's a brief explanation for beginners of Tolkien's mythology and worldscape: Q: Is LoTR really based on Christian Mythology?A: Yes. Tolkien wanted to demonstrate that even the mentally and physically challenged were capable of success and that therefore we should love everyone, regardless of their defects.Q: So who represents the mentally and physically challenged?A: Well obviously the hobbits are the physically challenged ones here, but the central mentally challenged figure i [cont]...

• 10AC, Awards:+18acct+2low+5mod

56|(-1,9,24,11%) Anonymous Coward | "Huh?"

How do you make money in a job working on a free operating system? Just wondering.

• 9AC, Awards:+16acct+9mod

55|(2,14,27,8%) Lover's Arrival, The | "Help"

I have gentoo on my computer. You might think this is good, but its bad. My ex-boyfriend was a big gentoo-lover, in fact he was a developer for it or something. But now he's left me, and all that's left of him are some books and the impact he made on my computer.I would love to be able to use linux more, I am taking a course in community college and my boyfriend was wonderful for helping me out with that but when I told him that I hated him developing for gentoo all the time (he even f [cont]...

• 17AC, Awards:+10acct+5mod

55|(1,9,23,2%) Sheetrock | "Space science isn't something you can do in a jar."

I was just thinking about this today during my ruminescing aboutthe crazy and sometimes haphazard ways in which spaceflight and NASA has returned benefits to our society against adversity from folks not unlike Van Allen. In it's own way, this is comparable to the battleagainst entrenched interests that new theories must undergo beforethey become the accepted norm.Take, for example, the struggle of Galileo against the church topermit society to recognize the fact that the world is roun [cont]...

• 5AC, Awards:+18acct+1low+7mod

51|(2,4,28,12%) Viol8 | "Spaceship One isn't even a space ship"

Its an aircraft with a rocket motor attached. Real spaceships can't use wings to slow themselves down and manuouveaure because there is no air to do it in! I'm sorry if I sound churlish but this whole enterprise to me smacks more of someones ego than anything practical. When they've solved the problems of manourveuring in a vacuum , long duration human life support (an O2 cylinder doesn't really count) , proper re-entry from near orbital speeds (which are required for any useful f [cont]...

• 4AC, Awards:+24acct+5mod

48|(4,8,20,4%) 91degrees | "The DMCA explicitely permits reverse engineering"

I have no idea why people who haven't even read the legislation keep making comments that are plain incorrect. The only time reverse engineering is illegal under the DMCA is when it is used for making infringing copies.

• 3AC, Awards:+17acct+1low+5mod

47|(-1,8,18,7%) BWJones | "It's about the music....."

I've been watching this whole thing unfold for some time now and paid attention to the overtures Real was making to Apple some time ago. Basically issue here is that the folks who designed the iPod and the iTunes music store really cared about the music, whereas Real is concerned with making money by delivering media rather than caring anything about the media per se. Let me repeat that for the folks at Real........It's about the music.

• 3AC, Awards:+15acct+1low+1acup+9mod

46|(1,6,21,9%) AvantLegion | "Die already!"

What's your problem, CS?It's way past time to die!BSD died nice and gracefully - why won't you go? Are you too good for your destiny?

• 2AC, Awards:+19acct+8mod

46|(-1,8,25,5%) The Pim | "tall tales"

In 1996, he developed a solar-powered pump powerful enough to lift water from wells up to 20 metres deep. His invention is widely used in his home province of Wardak and the neighbouring province of Logar as well.One atmosphere of pressure is about 10 meters of water. You can't pump water any higher than that. I smell exaggeration.

• 10AC, Awards:+15acct+6mod

46|(0,10,22,7%) Exmet Paff Daxx | "Re: Killing Muslims"

Just kill some muslims and take their oil! They'll only use it for terrorism anyway!I'm pretty sure the parent post was meant as a joke, but this is actually a serious business. The reason for this guy's adventure, and other adventures into alternative energy sources, is very real: Prince Bandar and his Saudi friends are currently in control of America via a proxy named George Bush. If you've seen Farenheit 9/11 you know what I'm talking about. At last night's convention John Kerry add [cont]...

• 9AC, Awards:+13acct+5mod

45|(-1,6,24,5%) CatKnight | "WMD"

Great, now we have yet another form of weapon of mass destruction. Terrorists could cook up a batch of prions and dump it in a water or food supply, thus killing off lots of people a short period of time later. Ahh, the miracles of modern science.

• 5AC, Awards:+19acct+1bust+9mod

43|(-1,7,19,5%) Noose For A Neck | "Burt Rutan does not matter."

You know what really irritates me these days is the sheer pomposity of the name SpaceShip One. Hello? It's not a spaceship. It's an airplane. They did not even get close to entering orbit. They have done nothing to solve the re-entry problem. It's an (ugly-looking) airplane with a rocket strapped to the back that can't even take off on its own power.So why is Burt Rutan suddenly the go-to guy for all things space-related - what's he going to do, drop payloads off in the high atmos [cont]...

• 4AC, Awards:+15acct+6mod

41|(5,4,28,3%) AKAImBatman | "Work harder"

Personally, I download Open Source software. Warez and Crackz are great for teenagers, but I don't really have time or energy for this stuff. If an Open Source piece of software does the job, I'll use it. If only a commerical piece of software does the job, I'll buy it. Unfortuately for software makers, I'm buying less and less. Either the product has to be REALLY good, or it has to do something no other product does. e.g. My last few purchases were WMA Recorder, PalmBasket, and Budget [cont]...

• 11AC, Awards:+17acct+2mod

32|(-1,5,9,7%) Anonymous Coward | "I'm so lonely"

It's been almost two months since graduation, and I'm still living on campus, by myself, in a hundred twenty square foot single. I haven't left the building in more than three weeks. Perhaps the Chinese delivery place will wonder why I stopped calling. More likely, they won't even notice, and wouldn't care if they did. My so-called friends packed up and left without saying goodbye, and the only phone call I've answered since then was a wrong number; the other party hung up immedia [cont]...

• 4AC, Awards:+5acct+2bust+2low+5mod

30|(5,8,13,6%) Sheetrock | "BOINC has issues..."

We've tried deploying BOINC before for distributed biologic research on our internal workstations to create an informal cluster of sorts, with dissatisfying results. While BOINC is considered the provolone cheese of the distributed computing industry, we found that it behaves in a somewhat inconsistent manner.For one thing, on most of the workstations BOINC would appear to work very quickly on the data only to crash out well before the computation was created. Indeed, sometimes it wo [cont]...

• 4AC, Awards:+9acct+3mod

25|(4,6,13,4%) Milo of Kroton | "It do Work here"

Government can't switch to Linux or even free software, people say. Well, such has done München (Munich you say) here in my country. I am professional involved with some of people who are with the project involved, and it is as they are accorded going smooth move, exlax as you Americans say.

• 9AC, Awards:+4acct+3mod

21|(3,6,11,1%) Dozix007 | "Many ways to get around GPL"

There are sadly many ways to get around GPL. One being the method they use by offering to ship the source only. This can be done in many different shapes to get around anything. You simply charge an irrate fee for packaging, documentation, or something of the sort. There are a few liscences that will not allow this, sadly they are not widely used.

• 5AC, Awards:+6acct+1mod

20|(0,6,11,1%) the_2nd_coming | "Re:P3 CPUs?"

umm, you have a Xeon system based off the P3, not a P3 duely since the P3 is incapable of duel proc setups.

• 8AC, Awards:+3acct+3mod

20|(5,1,6,1%) Sheetrock | "Proof that technology (not legislation) works."

Part of the secret to the success of the Internet is in allowing unfettered communication between endpoints. While I am to some degree concerned about the technical approach to solving the spam problem, because of the collateral consequences it may have, it does not raise the spectre of 1st Amendment violation that anti-spam legislation does.That Microsoft is taking part is to their credit. Finally the Internet at large is going to actually try to apply a solution to spam at the sour [cont]...

• 1AC, Awards:+5acct+2low+1mod

14|(2,5,6,3%) trifakir | "cDc and 2600"

Cool, all the old geeks. I shall admit that I've always been sympathetic to the cause of the good hackers who fight for freedom of speach and all these liberties, many of your ancestors had died for...But on the other side, I wonder where is now and for them the border of what is allowed and what is not. Is this hackers ethics they define something too murky or it is non-existing at all? How do we prevent the proceedings about the Distributed Password Cracking API from their confe [cont]...

• 2AC, Awards:+4acct+1mod

The GNAA is there!

Last month's GNAA coup involved getting some interesting screenshots posted on a couple high-profile Mac sites, promoting plenty of... discussion. For firsthand coverage visit the official GNAA press releases here and here.

We're perverted!

One of the best "trolling definitions" ever seen popped up here:

Sometimes trolls feel that they serve a community purpose, by shaking things up, stirring up discussion, playing the DevilsAdvocate, by being the CourtJesters, but they really aren't. They are a perversion of all those purposes.

In short, folks, you'd be better off if editor moderation on Slashdot was still a secret. For our part, we're pretty impressed that a site which encourages ignoring trolls has devoted nearly an entire book to the subject of trolls.

Netcraft confirms it: USENET is dying

All the same, an alert reader pointed out that the fish are still biting.

Failing it like a porn star

Note to would-be trollerization specialists: when scraping the bottom of the barrel with that random right-wing crapflood, don't paste your real username in when posting AC. Real or faked, it's funny either way.

Update: Trollback investigates. This cache appears to show that OverlordQ was a Slashdot subscriber as of May, 2004, predating this comment (which includes a link to subscribe). We find this highly inconclusive, not to mention insulting - giving money to Rob Malda is totally unacceptable - but as always, the final decision belongs to our dear readers. HTH, HAND.

You dare to succeed?

Trollback enjoyed the treatment of a capitalist trying to make money by patenting his invention when he tried to post to Slashdot. Stuff that matters to people who don't? Almost certainly.

I'd like a Meximelt and a Jackito, please

Is it real? Is it a plane? Is it a French Fraud or a Freedom Swindle? Trollback isn't taking bets, but we'd totally fail it if we didn't mention Michael's dangerous liasons with a very shady weblog and its assertion that the escrow paramid built on the "Jackito TDA" is too legit to quit. It's a fraud!. No it's not!. Yes it is! Huh? They've posted a low resolution movie of an oversize grayscale mockup prototype of the device, and that's proof enough for us.

The "Moon": A Ridiculous Liberal Myth

It's true. Now you and other god-fearing Americans can fight back with this commemorative T-shirt. Let's see how those gun grabbers like it when we blow their observation platform clear out of the sky.

Slashdot Gold!

For this month's blast from the past, we thought we'd rally the party faithful with one of the best documented examples of outright lying from Slashteam. Jamie McCarthy used his iron wit to lay the smack down with a fearsome Simpsons reference a few years back when denying that he wrote the censorware code in Slash. You doubt the Trollback? Check the author of comments.pl(line 522), the portion of Slashcode that halts posting based on some very questionable "math". But is it Censorware? Jamie confirms it - Censorware!!

Lifetime Achievement Award

While Mike Miller is certainly on the road to greatness in trolling, it's well past time we honored Michael Moore for a lifetime of successful trolling. Fat, ugly, and wildly rich, Moore's romp past $100 million in bites shows a rich flair for capitalism, karma whoring and specious reasoning. Without even mentioning brand name biters such as Guiliani, we feel pretty safe in saying that Michael's Voodoo is permanently off the map. In his recent book, "Stupid White Men", Moore asserted that because of the assymetrical opportunity structure in place in America he would never hire anyone who wasn't black ever again. We're not entirely sure, but Trollback suspects that this marked the birth of the GNAA.

I, HBT

A monumental work of trolling hit the box office this weekend as director Alex Proyas released his Isaac Asimov "adaptation" to the enjoyment of ignorant buffoons nationwide. Asimov spent his entire lifetime creating a world of fiction in which robots were not the dystopic, soulless horrors of his contemporaries but rather a failsafe, harmless aid to mankind. Since Asimov had invested forty years of his life facing off against literary technophobia, Proyas saw fit to honor him with a movie based on Asimov's books in which evil, murderous robots controlled by a central hive-mind engage in a terrifying quest to enslave mankind. Released to general acclaim and the muted background death-shriek of Asimov fanboys everywhere, Proyas's feat establishes him as the newest Fresh Prince of Hollywood trolling. Well done, Alex.

A license to steal

You've made it to the end of Trollback! For our faithful readers, we have a gift. Ever tried to read the darling magazine of granola munchers everywhere, Salon , but been stopped short by their draconian money-grubbing subscription scheme? Trollback has no idea how a communist magazine like Salon could be so craven as to attempt such a capitalist undertaking, but we intend to set them straight. Right then: http://www.salon.com/news/cookie.html. Visiting that URL gives you the "free day pass" cookie, opening all content on the site for 24 hours if you accept the cookie. Three cheers for bad web design! Four cheers for Trollback!

Quickies:

Trollback apologizes for missing this total gem in May, A license to cyber-surf, the total nonexistence of piracy, retarded Slashbot loose in Best Buy, USENET troll kicks Hawking ass, the stench of death, Slashdot's ASCII filter performing admirably, proof that Mozilla developers bumble security holes too, the return of the ring, and the return of the Apple thing, and not truly a troll but we liked the use of "Gay AIDS" and Caps Lock.

That's it for this month. As always, email your links to trollback at gmail dot com. Subscribe to Trollback Magazine by befriending; Slashdot will notify you of upcoming issues! And please remember,

..MODBOMBING IS TERRORISM
..... _ ._ ._ , _ ._.......
... (_ ' ( ` .)_. .__).....
..( ( .( .. ) . `) .) _)...
.(__ (_.. (_ . _) _) ,__)..
.....`~~`\ ' . /`~~`.......
.....,::: ; ..; :::,.......
....':::::::::::::::'......
_________/_____\___________
FREE JUNIS FROM AFGHANI503 SERVICE DOES NOT SCALE

• Format change for Trollback
• Flamewar 9/11
• Spider-Man 2 Reviewed (Reviewed)
• I can watch ICANNWATCH
• Sheetrock 2 Reviewed
• The List
• OSnews: Hotbed of Agreement

Format change for Trollback

You may notice some formatting changes this month; someone yelled rotate and we all switched desks. This month marks the return of Voodoo, our answer to Karma and a numerical approximation of just how black your magic truly is. Here's a breakdown of the new scheme:

Voodoo|(Score,Direct Replies,Total Replies,Percentage of Story) Name | Subject

Comment text summarized

Number of anonymous comments AC, Awards +stuff

The story percentage is the fraction of comments in the story which are nested under the linked comment. If you managed to Parent 50% of the discussion in the story, you'll see 50% here, and your Voodoo score will reflect this. Voodoo is also influenced by the +awards section, which we decline to further elaborate on. Our system for measuring Voodoo must not fall into the hands of crack reverse engineers such as Jamie McCarthy (played brilliantly by Ben Affleck) so for deciphering this section, you're on your own. Suffice it to say that every factor available is taken into account.
Note: Voodoo is calculated from a browser-cached version of the page, not by scripted interaction with the site. That means that late replies may be missed by our scoring system. Complaints? Let us know what you think of the new system by voting in our poll.

Flamewar 9/11

As we noted in last month's issue, class C subnet bans are in effect for anyone whose posts consist of "Bad Behavior". What is "Bad Behavior"? Well according to pudge, anyone who asks is a "doo doo head" [sic]. Trollback decided to fact check pudge's assertion:

[trollback@dotnetenabled faq]$ pwd
/cvs/slash/plugins/FAQSlashdot/faq
[trollback@dotnetenabled faq]$ cvs update
cvs update: Updating .
P com-mod.shtml
[trollback@dotnetenabled faq]$ grep -i "bad behavior" *
[trollback@dotnetenabled faq]$

Unsurprisingly, pudge has no idea what he's talking about. So what exactly is "Bad Behavior" on Slashdot? Turns out, "Bad Behavior" means, among other things, being a Republican, not entirely trusting Michael Moore, or asserting that self-described Op-Eds are Op-Eds. This is made abundantly clear in the most deliberate (and successful) troll of the month.

CmdrTaco decided that this month, "News for Nerds" included reviewing a highly charged political movie and noting that it "speaks much truth", on the front page. This is the guy who won't post stories on Slashdot about Slashdot because it's not "News for Nerds". This 3200+ comment flamefest generated all the histrionics you'd expect, with one interesting caveat: anyone who questioned Moore's impartiality was moderated Troll, and thereby subnet banned from the site. This is, in a nutshell, the very definition of "Bad Behavior" - disagreeing with CmdrTaco's politics. To quote from their beloved FAQ:

"The Slashdot Editors have unlimited mod points, and we have no problem using them."

Bad Behavior indeed. Here's a quick guide to understanding how bad the problem is:

1. Edit your comment preferences
2. Set the following "Reason Modifiers":
   Insightful: -6
   Offtopic: -6
   Interesting: -6
   Flamebait: +6
   Funny: -6
   Troll: +6
   Informative: -6
   Redundant: -6
3. Set your browsing mode to 4,Threaded,Highest Scores First

Now click on the F911 story. You will basically only be reading Republican points of view now; these are the only people who got moderated down. In a story which was basically an open invitation to political discussion, with a highly polarized electorate, the political faction that agreed with the editors was moderated up, while the political faction that disagreed, no matter how calmly presented, was moderated Troll/Flamebait and banned from posting to the site. And moderation is anonymous, so we'll never know who did it.

Now and then trollback gets email from people who don't understand why we publish our magazine. We don't want to come down on either side of the F-911 debate (except perhaps to say that we consider Mr. Moore living proof that you can troll for a living) but we do think that trying to use Perl to silence your political opposition might not be Fair & Balanced. Blatant flamebait posted as a story? Your political opposition moderated out of sight and IP blocked from posting? And remember, it's not censorship!
Vive le resistance!

Update: An alert reader has pointed out that while nearly every anti-Moore poster was modbombed into a subnet ban, pro-Moore posters who linked to the websites of holocaust deniers as evidence escaped the carpet bombing. Yes indeedy, Stuff that Matters.


Spider-Man 2 Reviewed Reviewed

Bonch got his review of Spiderman 2 posted to the front page of Slashdot, the only comment being "Thanks to bonch for this review". Sadly no one remembered to thank Google for not being consulted, as this review had been written and posted the day before at Chud.com. As legions of Slashbots began to moan about the plagiarism, the story stayed unedited on the front page until it reached the very bottom, at which point a retraction was posted. Bonch wins Trollback's Bayesian Filter Food Award this month, proving once again what an effective anti-trolling tool a Bayes filter would be.

I can watch ICANNWATCH

Near and dear to our hearts is ICANNWATCH, a Slash-based site devoted to meticulously monitoring ICANN for signs of abuse. Now, we love an Internet crank as much as anybody, but unlike Slashdot, we're pretty sure that ICANN's ethics are unassailable. Nevertheless, it seems they've got a problem over there with something called "Anonymous Posting". Switch to -1 Nested to see some of the best...

Sheetrock 2 Reviewed

Yes it's true, Sheetrock is back. Posting from behind enemy subnet lines, you'll note he found a way to keep his powder dry and make an appearance in this month's List.

The List, now with voting!

198|(2,17,84,7%) AKAImBatman | "Tactical Flexibility"

What I'd like to know is, what kind of tactical advantage does a railgun bring? Sure, it can hit a target some 200+ miles out, but so can a missile. Missiles also have the advantage of being self-guided. All this thing is, is a way to build a more powerful battleship. And yet, the U.S. has put all of its Battleships on active reserve. In their place, they've been deploying missile carriers at a lower cost and higher degree of flexibility.In short, what does the railgun bring to a Real [cont]...

• 18AC, Awards:+67acct+7low+5bab+20mod

175|(4,5,86,15%) Lyssa Watson | "Just Great..."

A key benefit of the e-Plate is that the tag provides an encrypted and secure ID code which is registered in the UK Ministry of Transport's vehicle database. This code prevents tampering, cloning, or other forms of fraud that can currently happen with camera-based systems. Additionally, the e-Plate is designed to shatter if anyone tries to remove or otherwise tamper with it, and the tag can be programmed to transmit a warning if any attempt is made to dislodge the plate. They said tha [cont]...

• 16AC, Awards:+70acct+6low+25mod

161|(5,10,85,7%) adequacy | "In the land of empty tanks"

Cyclists are gods.Fuckin bring it on.

• 12AC, Awards:+74acct+4low+12mod

159|(5,29,73,10%) Anonymous Coward | "This is another reason why C should be deprecated"

Gentlemen, the time has come for a serious discussion on whether or not to continue using C for serious programming projects. As I will explain, I feel that C needs to be retired, much the same way that Fortran, Cobol and Perl have been. Furthermore, allow me to be so bold as to suggest a superior replacement to this outdated language.To give you a little background on this subject, I was recently asked to develop a client/server project on a Unix platform for a Fortune 500 compan [cont]...

• 35AC, Awards:+39acct+4bust+1low+19mod

131|(1,9,73,10%) Anonymous Coward | "Re:Absolutely Stupid!"

DVDs are manufactured with recyclable plastic. It's your fault if you buy this and don't recycle it. Only you can prevent forest fires.

• 13AC, Awards:+60acct+1low+22mod

119|(2,14,41,17%) Tim_F | "Correct me if I'm wrong"

But an F/OSS hacker has taken a company's proprietary work and made it available for free, even giving it a similar name.Why is this a good thing?If F/OSS developers want to speed up Linux, the corporate environment is where they should be looking. By doing this they have enabled corporations to get something for free which could cause a company (and a lot of potential Linux users) to go out of business.How are the developers supposed to feed their children if they're unemployed? [cont]...

• 12AC, Awards:+29acct+2low+1bab+12mod

119|(4,14,47,23%) Sheetrock | "Worth it?"

While the iPos looks nice, and admittedly has the best interface of all the MP3 players (owing to the simple design Macintosh has become a master of), is it worth dropping a couple hundred on it? I've heard of two design flaws now -- both of which they seem less than inclined to fix beyond a short period of ownership -- and have noticed that PDAs in a similar price range can do MP3, video, and even word processing. If it was reliable I'd buy one tomorrow, but are they yet? [cont]...

• 6AC, Awards:+41acct+1low+12mod

114|(0,22,53,4%) Anonymous Coward | "Sorry, no."

Java Faster Than C++?No, it isn't. It's much slower.I wrote a program that simply counts to 10000 and then quits. Time from double-clicking the icon until when the program exits: C++: 0.5 secondsJava: 20 seconds How hard is that?

• 15AC, Awards:+38acct+1low+15mod

91|(3,10,46,3%) b.foster | "The lesson to be learned here"

...is to hire a good lawyer. Hint: a lawyer who advises you to settle when you have done nothing wrong is not a good lawyer. Most lawyers are too lazy to take cases that they do not understand, which explains why so many tech-related cases wind up costing the protagonist money. This is even worse in the criminal law arena, because these lazy attorneys can cost an innocent man his freedom. IMHO there is no excuse for this, but it happens every day. Case in point: my roommate [cont]...

• 7AC, Awards:+39acct+1low+6mod

87|(3,15,33,3%) Exmet Paff Daxx | "Overturn Betamax?"

My reading of the bill is that the law would not overturn Betamax so much as explicitly prevent Betamax from being applied to digital media. Betamax and VHS were both analog formats with cumulative degradation, that is, a copy of a copy was degraded, and at enough generations the quality would be unusable. Perfect digital copies, however, do not have this limitation, and it is merely common sense that they should be covered by a different law. Betamax was a Supreme Court decision, and [cont]...

• 10AC, Awards:+23acct+4low+7mod

83|(0,23,38,3%) Exmet Paff Daxx | "Typical liberal court"

Despite the first amendment, there are restrictions on what you can say in America. Now, I understand that this bill is not worded as well as it could have been. A sensible restriction would be self-classification of pornographers into a .XXX TLD, with jail time and other punishments only for those who attempt to sneak into .COM and others. This would allow respectable ISPs such as AOL to block all pornographers simply by blocking [cont]...

• 12AC, Awards:+26acct+6mod

77|(2,10,41,7%) WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWX | "That's cool"

It's good to see Microsoft trying to get on board with at least the spirit of Open Source.

• 11AC, Awards:+30acct+9mod

65|(-1,7,23,7%) Dozix007 | "I Love Terminal Emulators"

I can't count the number of times a Terminal Emulator has either saved me from boredom, or prevented me from booting into Windows. Nothing like playing Crusader or Warcraft II in Linux.

• 7AC, Awards:+16acct+1bust+3low+1acup+14mod

61|(1,9,24,2%) Midnight Thunder | "Luckily this is the US"

Luckily this is the US, otherwise we would be considering sanctions and maybe even sending UN inspectors.I know this sounds like a troll, but just think about it for two minutes.

• 7AC, Awards:+17acct+2low+10mod

53|(2,8,25,20%) Milo of Kroton | "Is not"

Faster importantless? With 64 bit processing power for all available by athlon 64 made available that works with 64 bit yes immdiately we would switch. These chip make futiliity. Why make processors of like these new when you can improve on 64 bit? The battle is to will be lost to Athlon without 64 bit competition by.

• 11AC, Awards:+14acct+7mod

39|(0,7,18,7%) Exmet Paff Daxx | "Confirmed: Architect not a verb"

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=architect : 1. One who designs and supervises the construction of buildings or other large structures.2. One that plans or devises: a country considered to be the chief architect of war in the Middle East.I mean, it's not even a second meaning. It's just plain English abuse. I hope this Zdziarski guy's paper is decent, since he's pretty tripped my spam filter from the gate.

• 9AC, Awards:+9acct+8mod

37|(0,4,13,56%) Anonymous Coward | "Important note:"

The passing lane is for passing, and the law of the passing lane is this: Slower Traffic Always Yields To Overtaking Traffic. She couldn't pass you, because overtaking on the right is illegal. By blocking the passing lane, you've gone ahead and blocked the entire freeway to anyone who obeys the law.You were in the wrong, she did the right thing. If it were me, I'd have shot you.FYI.

• 2AC, Awards:+11acct+1bab+1mod

34|(3,8,11,3%) Milo of Kroton | "Yes, fast"

But what cost? Only government would want new technology this fast, maybe your NSA, that around codebreaking.

• 3AC, Awards:+8acct+1bust+1broken+5mod

32|(3,8,17,5%) Milo of Kroton | "Greatness!"

I am for cannot waiting able frequency to this have! I too am so greatness compression going to get. I am ask: can use this games? UT2k4 is good. It is very big game however maybe some for people. Can this technology fast enough for gaming be?

• 12AC, Awards:+5acct+4mod

30|(-1,9,11,1%) Sheetrock | "Go back to basics?"

This brings up a complaint I've got with the way the industry works nowadays.

As a programmer, I feel the continual march of progress in computing has beenhampered as of late because of a major misconception in some segments of thesoftware industry. Some would argue that the process of refinement byiterative design, which is the subject of many texts in the field -- extremeprogramming being the most recent -- demonstrates that applying the theory ofevolution to coding is the most ef [cont]...

• 6AC, Awards:+5acct+1low+1mod

29|(-1,5,14,2%) Exmet Paff Daxx | "That is correct."

BMW parts are much harder to fence, as car thieves steal cars for their parts, and the market is entirely an economy of scale. The more popular a car, the more the car is worth. Which is why BMW has never made the most stolen car list [cnn.com]. The parts to a Honda Accord, for instance, are worth a lot more and are easier to sell.Of course, stealing an iPod from a BMW doesn't mean you have to steal the whole car, just smash the window. This will be a huge boon to radio thieves, as the [cont]...

• 5AC, Awards:+9acct+5mod

25|(4,5,7,1%) Exmet Paff Daxx | "Ugh"

I wonder if they have plans to move this into other, higher quality vehicles in the future? While I admit that BMW's are very expensive and prestigous, independent car reviews like Consumer Reports always give them the lowest possible marks for reliability, a key indicator of quality. Any chance they're going to port this to high quality makes such as Nissan, Honda or (the king of reliability) Toyota?Before anyone flames me -1 Troll or something, here's a link [consumerreports.org] to [cont]...

• 0AC, Awards:+7acct+1low+2mod

18|(-1,2,12,6%) hkhanna | "Steve Wozniack's Son"

Steve Wozniack's son and I got in a fight at a Jack-In-The-Box in Los Gatos, California last year. He told me to go back to Iraq (I have brown skin color).I would have kicked the shit out of him but he had a bunch of his buddies from Los Gatos High there and I only had a couple friends with me. The cops showed up really soon so it was all over anyway.

• 8AC, Awards:+4acct+4mod

OSnews: Hotbed of Agreement

OSnews, a highly moderated forum, is pretty much troll-proof. We think. On the other hand, there might be some exceptions. An alert reader has sent in the following links:

• "I do all my Perl hacking in Visual Studio"
• "The anonymous glibc developer"
• "whoever this "Havoc" is"
• "The year of the Linux desktop"
• "XP does all this stuff for me"
• "Freebsd is (dying) for losers"
• "Root exploits!"

Coming next month: The GNAA captures some truly unbelievable screenshots!

That's it for this month. As always, email your links to trollback at ziplip dot com. Subscribe to Trollback Magazine by befriending; Slashdot will notify you of upcoming issues! And please remember,

..MODBOMBING IS TERRORISM
..... _ ._ ._ , _ ._.......
... (_ ' ( ` .)_. .__).....
..( ( .( .. ) . `) .) _)...
.(__ (_.. (_ . _) _) ,__)..
.....`~~`\ ' . /`~~`.......
.....,::: ; ..; :::,.......
....':::::::::::::::'......
_________/_____\___________
FREE JUNIS FROM AFGHANISTAN

Well, this is not so much a post about our Criminal-in-Chief, so much as it is a place to put links to interesting news blurbs that I don't want clogging up my bookmarks. News that the "liberal media" covers up or just doesn't cover. You know, like Georgie's links to the Bin Ladens? That whole illegal war on false pretenses thing. How many of our "allies," such as Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, are breeding grounds for fundamental Islamists ripe for terrorism? BLAH!

If TrollBack seems a little late to you, please understand that the best things in life take time. When was the last time you saw Quickies? Exactly.

Please remember that the TrollBack team welcomes guest editors and content. Send us an email if you're interested in helping.

As the Greatest Generation finally gets a Memorial in Washington D.C., we here at TrollBack find ourselves mourning the passing of fallen comrades. Cmdr Stalin has passed a new subnet banning decree, signalling the end of such greats as SCO$699FeeTroll. Slashdot trolls will rise from the ashes of fascism to circumvent their subnet bans and post again.

(Ban)-ana Monkeys

The IP ban code has been given a new set of very sharp teeth, causing many everyday Slashdot users to get IP banned. Most of these people will just quietly leave, but a small fraction are figuring out that they can still post journal entries on the subject. Here's a small sampler:

• illuminata: 'I can't post because of too many negative moderations that were done by some people who don't like what I have to say.'
• October_30th: 'This must be the longest ban I've ever been subjected to. A week or so short of a month already.'
• Mirko: 'So, here's the deal : I will deactivate the Slashdot ad blocker (do you really sell stuff to Swiss people, anyway ?!) until I can post again.'

  To follow this up, we have a priceless response in which the Swiss guy's grammar is mocked. Yes, Slashdot mocked someone else's use of English - a foreign national, to boot. We just can't make this stuff up: 'We will get back to you when we are done "Thinking of it."'

• YAJoe: 'According to Slashdot, my IP address has had several bad posts and therefore I cannot post again. To them, I am a bad egg.'
• monstroyer: 'Slashdot took a page from the entertainment industry and banned this account because I have too much karma and paid a subscriber bonus. Now that's service!'
• pluvius: 'I just noticed that I'm no longer able to post anonymously because of "excessive bad posting on my subnet or IP."'
• Cyrax: 'im reading a article decide to post a comment and boom i get this crap "Due to excessive bad posting..."'
• Bajanman: 'Well, it looks like I'm blocked for good here at slashdot.org.'
• sulli: 'I posted two cheap flames. Maybe three. I knew slashdot was getting strict, but damn.'
• Benna: 'It was a perfectly reasoned opinion and certainly not a troll. I thought slashdot stood for free speech but apperently not.'

These are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg: you can find more diaries on the topic.

If you're an unaffiliated, non-trolling Slashbot who got banned for posting something truthful about Microsoft, the DMCA, or any other Kool-Aid laden topic at Slashdot, take a moment to share your story in the comments of this diary. For those who are wondering how the new IP ban code works, it's just a simple change to an old system. Basically if you get moderated down by any moderator, they put a posting ban on the entire class C network you posted from, and if it happens more than once, the ban can last for months. Many people who are angry at 'the jerk on my network who got me banned' are unaware that the 'jerk' is probably them. Look in your history: do you have a single post at -1? That's probably why you can't post.

Some of you may be thinking "you mean I can ban an entire dorm of nerds, or my company, or an entire cable modem block, just by posting goatse links a few times?". The answer, in short, is yes. Troublemakers have been handed a new form of troublemaking: just visit a network with a lot of Slashdot users, go on an anonymous posting spree, and you can get them shipped off to Gauntanamo for months. If you're intending to use a proxy to get its subnet banned, please be aware that they don't proxy scan you if you post logged in, so use a fresh account.

In other news, we can finally tell (sometimes) when editors are moderating a story. Moderators can now moderate posts down from -1 to -1 (-1 + -1 = -1, Slashdot math, etc). This allows the editors to put IP bans on users posting at -1. Here's coverage, and here's a race condition in Slashcode.

Robbie the Slashbot

After careful consideration, we here at Trollback have decided on a new Mascot: Robbie the Slashbot, pictured upper right. Robbie won out because despite his total lack of a brain, he's managed to get his right arm in the air for a healthy Sig Heil. Robbie knows that BSD isn't dying, Linux is the best operating system and Osama bin Laden was probably a freedom fighter. Welcome, Robbie! Here at Slashdot, you're among friends. Lots of them.

The List

(0,5,20) ObviousGuy | Why doesn't Unix die?
(4,14,36) bonch | I'll come right out and say it
(-1,8,32) ObviousGuy | CS has very little to do with math
(3,10,22) ObviousGuy | International relations
(2,7,30) ObviousGuy | Well, yes..
(2,6,7) ObviousGuy | Well, yes..
(4,23,58) Ckwop | A few suggestions
(3,6,14) ObviousGuy | Microsoft does what it does best
(5,6,51) ObviousGuy | Reinventing X?
(4,10,19) Debian Troll's Best | Article puts it all in perspective
(5,5,8) Anonymous Coward | As an insider for Microsoft
(3,6,7) Debian Troll's Best | Re:Turing was also...
(5,19,136) palndron | How is this different?
(1,10,44) tacobot | Before anyone spouts off at the mouth
(3,9,40) Power Everywhere | 10-15 years?
(5,13,20) Hanna's Goblin Toys | SO cool.
(-1,8,27) Exmet Paff Daxx | Fantastic
(5,19,58) Power Everywhere | Let me tell you how it differs.
(2,25,351) Vokbain | Your civil rights called...
(5,27,70) Noose For A Neck | I never understood the Bittorrent thing...
(4,10,53) Noose For A Neck | Already in use
(-1,6,10) Noose For A Neck | Anybody have a bittorrent link?
(4,5,13) Noose For A Neck | Good to see them in headlines again
(-1,11,23) dnoyeb | Hype
(0,6,26) USAPatriot | Beat The Chinese
(-1,6,12) Debian Troll's Best | FUD not a serious threat to Linux at this stage
(0,11,47) A. Pizmo Clam | Ho Hum
(-1,6,40) Exmet Paff Daxx | That's nice.
(4,72,334) Anonymous Coward | Fuck you America
(-1,6,18) Anonymous Coward | You GOTTA read this: WARNING!!!
(1,5,8) Anonymous Coward | iPod and UFS
(1,8,31) Tuvai | How Lovely

Honourable Mentions

• Last measure is used educationally in a story on hijacking web browsers.
• Tarantolato slips a link to an extreme fundamentalist website into his submission about Inferno OS, generating a good deal of offtopic/offended churn in the comments.
• In a story on embedding ascii art in ICMP, the inevitable happens.

Veni, Vedi, Wiki

Let's take a stroll down amnesia lane. In June of 2003, Hemos & CmdrTaco settled down with a few mixed drinks and a keyboard to discuss Slashdot on IRC. When a Slashdot reader asked what they thought of the Wiki concept, they had this to say:

<Questions> erigol asks: Have you considered setting up a slashdot Wiki, since Wiki's are, like, the rage, and stuff.
<CmdrTaco> Wiki is silly. Not scalalble.
<hemos> Wiki's make me want to guage my eyes out.
<hemos> gouge, even.
<CmdrTaco> They're fun for small groups.
<hemos> No, I like the idea.
<CmdrTaco> Slashdot is for millions.
<hemos> And yeah, for smaller groups is great.
<hemos> But we spent the 3 years scaling up to this level of users
<CmdrTaco> Thats the thing that people don't understand

Strangely, just 6 months later, a site called Wikipedia blew by Slashdot so fast that it nearly knocked them off the Internet, utilizing only unscaleable Wiki technology. As Slashdot continues to decline, Wikipedia now has nearly doubled Slashdot's Alexa traffic ranking. Strangely in only a few years, a site not for millions blew millions past a site for millions. Pretty confusing, even to a Slashbot. Trollback has not yet learned how this amazing event took place, but we encourage you to write CmdrTaco to find out.

That's it for this month! See you in two weeks, sanity permitting.

[Befriend TrollBack and get notified of upcoming issues]

It's time to tell the truth. I am a 55 year-old man. My name is Andy Kaufman, and I live in New York City.

I am sincerely sorry to everyone for all my lies.

--Andy