Comment Re:tops? (Score 4, Funny) 269
So the title is misleading and/or confusing.
Welcome! You must be new here!
Submission + - Church of Scientology violates Federal Law (rapidshare.com) 5
FreedomToThink writes: "This is a very long story I'm sure the editors will have fun with, but I couldn't see how to cut it down at all.
On the eve of the Ides of March protest, from the source of the recent 'Anonymous' submitted CCHR leak on wikileaks, comes this message
Included was yet another PDF this time including yet more emails leaked from a Church of Scientology front group.
Vote Rigging?
Lunch with your preferred Presidential candidates for a high price?
From the head of the "Non Proffit" CCHR Bruce Wiseman
Currently, the law prohibits political campaign activity by charities and churches by defining a 501(c)(3) organization as one "which does not participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or distributing of statements), any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office."
An OCMB (Operation Clambake Message Board)regular adds :
Apologies in advance as the Enturbulation servers will not be up to a slashdotting so the Coral Cache link is here Enturbulation Discussion (already cached for you)
ANYONE CAN REPORT TAX FRAUD DIRECTLY TO THE IRS : http://www.irs.gov/compliance/enforcement/article/0,,id=106778,00.html It does require that you print out and mail in an actual hardcopy, but it does not require you to identify yourself.
Just a casual user passing on a message from the Enturbulation forum, this is already out there, there's no reason to attack the messenger."
On the eve of the Ides of March protest, from the source of the recent 'Anonymous' submitted CCHR leak on wikileaks, comes this message
"Dear $cientology,You attempt injunctions.I respond.Shall we continue the game? Much Love, DEEP CLAM"
Included was yet another PDF this time including yet more emails leaked from a Church of Scientology front group.
Vote Rigging?
From: "Mike Kaplan" <mkaplan@tampabay.rr.com>
To: <Undisclosed-Recipient:;>
Subject: Fw: RE-ELECT FRANK HIBBARD, MAYOR OF CLEARWATER
Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2008 11:53:07 -0400
See below. Everyone in Clearwater MUST vote. Every vote will be needed to be
sure Hibbard gets re-elected. The alternative is Rita Garvey who is an SP.
— Original Message —
From: Shelly <mailto:shelly.bauer@Earthlink.net> Bauer
To: Shelly Bauer <mailto:shelly.bauer@earthlink.net>
Sent: Sunday, January 06, 2008 8:09 AM
Subject: RE-ELECT FRANK HIBBARD, MAYOR OF CLEARWATER
DO YOUR PART
RE-ELECT FRANK HIBBARD
MAYOR OF CLEARWATER
VOTE!!!
JANUARY 29TH
TAKE NOTHING FOR GRANTED!
Lunch with your preferred Presidential candidates for a high price?
ONE SEAT LEFT
I have arranged a private one-hour luncheon with Ron Paul on 11/28 in St.
Pete when he will be in town for the CNN/YouTube Republican debate.
This luncheon is reserved for $1000+ donors to Ron Paul's presidential
campaign. 19 people so far have paid and confirmed and will have the honor
and pleasure of having lunch and communicating with Ron Paul directly.
From the head of the "Non Proffit" CCHR Bruce Wiseman
Go the the HELP committee website. The link is here.
http://help.senate.gov/About.html
Here you will see the names of the Committee members on the left hand
side
of the page. Please go to the individual websites of the Republican =
members
(this will take just a bit of leg work on your part by putting their =
name
into Google) and calling their office or sending a fax to them (email is =
the
least effective) stating your opposition to S. 1375 The Mother's Act.
Currently, the law prohibits political campaign activity by charities and churches by defining a 501(c)(3) organization as one "which does not participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or distributing of statements), any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office."
An OCMB (Operation Clambake Message Board)regular adds
I downloaded myself a copy and started looking through them. I found an interesting one on pages 47-48.
http://rapidshare.com/files/99292051/CCHRLeak3.pdf.html
Karin Pouw of OSA of CofS writes a message.
It's forwarded by Michael Genung. He's the guy who runs ACSR, Association for Citizens Sociel Reform. http://www.citizensforsocialreform.org/ ["CSR Background and Philosopy: CSR was founded in 2001 by a group of Scientologists and other like-minded individuals concerned with the escalating social ills in society. CSR's purpose is to work with in the field of public policy to bring about more effective and humane solutions to these social ills of illiteracy, criminality substance abuse and general decay of character."]
Then it's forwarded by Doyle Mills, of LEAF fame (Letters to the Editor Attack Force).
Then it's forwarded by Mary C. (possibly one of two Mary C's I'm thinking of, but unsure).
Then it's forwarded by Mike Kaplan, another person who runs an email list and forwards CCHR type stuff to CofS members.
If that ain't stringing a line from the CofS to CCHR and the CofS front group ("grassroots") movements, then I don't know what is!
Apologies in advance as the Enturbulation servers will not be up to a slashdotting so the Coral Cache link is here Enturbulation Discussion (already cached for you)
ANYONE CAN REPORT TAX FRAUD DIRECTLY TO THE IRS : http://www.irs.gov/compliance/enforcement/article/0,,id=106778,00.html It does require that you print out and mail in an actual hardcopy, but it does not require you to identify yourself.
Just a casual user passing on a message from the Enturbulation forum, this is already out there, there's no reason to attack the messenger."
Submission + - SPAM: Mozilla opens Thunderbird e-mail subsidiary
alphadogg writes: The Mozilla Foundation Tuesday opened Mozilla Messaging, a new subsidiary focused on developing its free, open-source Thunderbird e-mail software. Mozilla Messaging will initially focus on developing Thunderbird 3, which aims at improving several aspects of the software, including integrated calendaring, better search, as well as enhancements to the overall user experience, the company said in a statement.
Link to Original Source
Link to Original Source
Submission + - New law forces university-RIAA cooperation
ppz003 writes: From a DailyTech article — The College Opportunity and Affordability Act (PDF) aims to amend the Higher Education Act of 1965, and buried deep inside is a nasty secret sponsored by the entertainment industry: universities would be required to help fight piracy or risk the loss of federal funding.
One section of COAA would force universities to publicly disclose their policies and procedures relating to copyright enforcement, and to develop plans for exploring "technology-based deterrents" and alternatives — like Napster or the ad-supported Ruckus service. These requirements would be backed up with federal grant money, which would be authorized for the purchase and implementation of whatever programs a university may try to implement.
One section of COAA would force universities to publicly disclose their policies and procedures relating to copyright enforcement, and to develop plans for exploring "technology-based deterrents" and alternatives — like Napster or the ad-supported Ruckus service. These requirements would be backed up with federal grant money, which would be authorized for the purchase and implementation of whatever programs a university may try to implement.
Submission + - New RIAA Bill to Deny Schools Funding (gizmodo.com)
An anonymous reader writes: In a ridiculous display of just how much you can get done in government if you have enough money, a new bill on the House floor states that if colleges don't police their networks and do the RIAA and MPAA's bidding as well as buy into services such as Napster for their entire student body, they'll lose all their federal funding. Yep, that means if a college doesn't want to hand over names to the RIAA they'll lose things like their Pell grants, depriving thousands of low-income students from financial aid.
The Crafting of Half-Life 2 - Episode Two 39
Now that they have some time to stop and think, the folks behind Half-Life 2: Episode Two are making the interview rounds. Halflife2.net has up a discussion with HL2 scribe Marc Laidlaw. They discuss some of the world-shaking events in this latest chapter of the game, with plenty of spoilers. (So be forewarned.) RPS, meanwhile, has an interview with project lead David Speyrer. The developer talks John Walker through the process of playtesting at Valve, what it's like to work at such a creative company, and the decisions they made regarding DX9 vs. DX10 tradeoffs during the dev process. "RPS: You chose to not use DX10 for the new games. Why was that? DS: For this set of products we decided to use some DX10 features, but not through the API itself. It's because we didn't want to be Vista only. We didn't feel there was an enough of an install base for the Orange Box launch. I'm sure we will use it - it's pretty much inevitable. But this time, things like the hardware face morphing is implemented via a back-door API. RPS: DX9 can do what DX10 offers then? DS: Yeah, but through driver-back doors. And I'm sure we'll rethink it at some point. For this roll out it was fine to do it as we did."
Submission + - Congress to pull Financial Aid for the RIAA (news.com)
malevolentjelly writes: "Several prominent members of the U.S. Congress are now pushing a bill where colleges stand to lose their Financial Aid if they do not participate with the RIAA's demands for student scalps. In a sterling example of corruption, they are even required to advertise alternative DRM-laden solutions to illegal p2p file-sharing:
The U.S. House of Representatives bill (PDF), which was introduced late Friday by top Democratic politicians, could give the movie and music industries a new revenue stream by pressuring schools into signing up for monthly subscription services such as Ruckus and Napster. Ruckus is advertising-supported, and Napster charges a monthly fee per student.
The prospect of losing a combined total of nearly $100 billion a year in federal financial aid, coupled with the possibility of overzealous copyright-bots limiting the sharing of legitimate content, has alarmed university officials.
"
Submission + - Valve to port games to GNU/Linux (valvesoftware.com)
Martin Bozic writes: "Valve is looking for senior engineers to port their games to GNU/Linux. Considering the complaints they've had about Vista this might not be a surprise, but you know that "these are extraordinary times" when a former Microsoft exec orders to jump ship."
Submission + - DashCam Catches Officer Threatening Motorist
januth writes: I just finished reading about
this incident, in which a St. George, Missouri police officer was caught on
a motorist's personal dashcam threatening to invent charges to arrest him even though the motorist had done nothing
wrong.
"The incident began at around 2am. Darrow [the motorist] was to meet a friend who was working late and was going to pick him up. Darrow headed toward a 24-hour commuter parking lot in an unincorporated part of Saint Louis County in his 1997 Nissan Maxima. He put on his turn signal and entered the lot which, aside from Kuehnlein's cruiser, was essentially vacant. After stopping the car, the police officer approached and began questioning Darrow about what he was doing. When Darrow declined to discuss his personal business, the police sergeant exploded. Although the video clearly shows Darrow driving properly and using his turn signal, the police officer insisted that Darrow had broken the law."
Had Darrow not had his own video camera running it would have been his word against the police officer's. He has had another interesting run-in with the police that he captured on video as well. In both cases he's merely asking the questions any citizen should be able to ask of a police officer. In both cases, the police do not respond well.
"The incident began at around 2am. Darrow [the motorist] was to meet a friend who was working late and was going to pick him up. Darrow headed toward a 24-hour commuter parking lot in an unincorporated part of Saint Louis County in his 1997 Nissan Maxima. He put on his turn signal and entered the lot which, aside from Kuehnlein's cruiser, was essentially vacant. After stopping the car, the police officer approached and began questioning Darrow about what he was doing. When Darrow declined to discuss his personal business, the police sergeant exploded. Although the video clearly shows Darrow driving properly and using his turn signal, the police officer insisted that Darrow had broken the law."
Had Darrow not had his own video camera running it would have been his word against the police officer's. He has had another interesting run-in with the police that he captured on video as well. In both cases he's merely asking the questions any citizen should be able to ask of a police officer. In both cases, the police do not respond well.
Submission + - Its official! Denmark votes NO to OOXML (groklaw.net)
SplatMan_DK writes: According to an official press release (Danish only) from Dansk Standard, it is now official: Denmark will vote NO (with comments) to approving Microsoft Open Office XML (OOXML) as an ISO standard at this time. Here is a translation from Groklaw:
Dansk Standard (the Danish Standard's institute) has on behalf of Denmark voted "No with Comments" to the proposed standard ISO/IEC DIS 29500 OOXML. This means, that DS will cooperate with the standards committee to approve Office Open XML as a ISO/IEC standard, if certain problems is addressed.
Submission + - Is "goto" ever ok? 1
An anonymous reader writes: As programmers we spend years being told by our teachers and more experienced people, "goto bad!" And in general it is true, learning to program without goto is a good thing. But as an experienced programmers should the rule change from "never use goto" to "avoid goto" ? Or will the result be something like this.
Submission + - Baiji now officially extinct
jd writes: "A comprehensive survey involving sweeping the entire Yangtze River four times with high-sensitivity hydrophones and high-power binoculars turned up not one single living Baiji. The Baiji, also known as the white river dolphin or Lipotes vexillifer, was the last surviving member of the Lipotidae family which split off from the other cetaceans something like 20-40 million years ago. In 1900, it was believed to number in the tens of thousands. By 1999, this had been reduced to 13 due to illegal fishing practices and heavy pollution, both of which were tolerated by corrupt officials. The last two known to have lived died in captivity due to design flaws in their holding pen. Environmental groups are getting serious flak from scientists for being weak and over-cautious in allowing the extinction to happen."
Submission + - Do Not Call Registry gets wake-up call (networkworld.com) 2
coondoggie writes: "If you signed up for the federal or your state's Do Not Call Registry a few years ago, you might want to thing about refreshing it. Pennsylvanians this week got a wake up call, so to speak from the state's Attorney General Tom Corbett who kicked off a public awareness campaign designed to remind people what many have forgotten or never knew — that the 2002 law set registrations to expire after five years. That is of course unless you want to start hearing from those telemarketers as you sit down to dinner. Corbett said about 2 million people signed up in the immediate aftermath of the law taking effect and those who do not act by Sept. 15 will have their numbers dropped from the registry on Nov. 1. The Pennsylvania action is a reminder that the National Do Not Call Registry has a five year life span as well. The Federal Trade Commission is set to being a nation campaign in Spring 2008 to remind all US citizens to refresh their federal Do Not Call Registry standing.
http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/18066"
Submission + - Astronomer Offers New Theory Into 400-year-old Lun (astronomyreport.com)
webdoodle writes: "Astronomer thinks he has solved a 400-year-old mystery: the origin of strange optical flashes seen on the moon's surface"
Submission + - Eminem Sues Apple for iTunes Sales (macworld.co.uk)
puk writes: MacWorld UK is reporting that Eminem's publisher is suing Apple, alleging that his publisher did not have the right to authorize Apple's online sales of digital versions of Eminem's music through the iTunes Music Store and that therefore Apple is violating Eminem's copyright by doing so.
Of course, if this turns out to be the case, Universal may also be on the hook for the damages, if indirectly. Looks like another more case of trying to figure out whether old contracts authorize new activities...
Of course, if this turns out to be the case, Universal may also be on the hook for the damages, if indirectly. Looks like another more case of trying to figure out whether old contracts authorize new activities...
