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Encryption

Submission + - Legal Battle For AACS Begins

Submitted by henrypijames
henrypijames writes: As widely expected, the MPAA has learned nothing from the debacle of its failed prosecution against DVD Jon (of DeCSS) and is now releasing its army of lawyers to fight against the circumvention of AACS (the successor of CSS): Upon the reception of a DMCA takedown notice, SourceForge has immediately terminated its hosting of BackupHDDVD (a tool to backup HD DVD movies, as its suggestes). The project leader is seeking advice on how to proceed.
Announcements

Submission + - Canadian Gov't Votes Down Anti-Terrorism Measures

Submitted by jon_anderson_ca
jon_anderson_ca writes: The CBC reports:

Opposition parties banded together Tuesday to defeat a controversial Conservative proposal to extend two anti-terrorism measures contained in the Criminal Code.
It should be noted that neither of these measures, put in place in December 2001, were ever used.
The Internet

Submission + - Updated Top 100 Alternative Search Engines

Submitted by
ReadWriteWeb
ReadWriteWeb writes: "In a follow-up to his Top 100 Alternative Search Engines article at the end of January, Search Engine Optimizer (SEO) Charles S. Knight has produced an updated list, featuring 32 new search engines. The criteria for the list is that search engines should exhibit superiority to Google — not as a whole, but in just one particular area. An example is "Search Engine of the Month" GoshME, a Meta-Meta-Search Engine which searches across a variety of specialized search engines and databases, then categorizes and filters the results.

Knight writes that 68 of the original 100 search engines are still firmly in the top 100, either because they have continued to improve (see Zuula), or because they have yet to be challenged (amongst the "Answers" search engines, only ChaCha uses paid guides, not volunteers or community members). This block of 68 search engines, says Knight, forms a sort of "core" representation of the new breed of alternative search engines."
Media

Submission + - Argentina Storm Chase Expedition, Strongest Storms

Submitted by
Jeff Gammons
Jeff Gammons writes: "A group of storm chasers from the United States are currently on a storm expedition in search of the worlds most intense lightning storms. The group is filming with the BBC for a upcoming documentary on National Geographic about these intense thunderstorm convergence area's in Argentina east of the Andes mountains. A NASA study identified these thunderstorms to be the most intense on earth. The strongest of the storms were found to occur east of the Andes Mountains in Argentina, where warm, humid air often collides with cooler, drier air, similar to storms that form east of the Rockies over the Plains in the United States.
http://www.stormvideographer.com/blog/2007/02/27/a rgentina-storm-chase-expedition-exclusive/"
Robotics

First Dynamically Balancing Biped Robot 155

Posted by kdawson from the mister-rossum-on-line-1 dept.
damg writes "Anybots, which is three guys led by Trevor Blackwell, has developed the first robot that walks like we do, by dynamically balancing itself rather than being pre-programmed for walking like Asimo. The video shows the robot walking and being pushed by another 'bully' robot to demonstrate that it can't easily be pushed over."
Security

Submission + - NZ Banks want .bank domain to reduce fraud

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Banks want a new internet classification to help combat online fraud. Banks' internet addresses would then read westpac.bank.nz, for example, rather than westpac.co.nz. The . bank address would join the five current "moderated" addresses with restricted memberships. http://www.stuff.co.nz/3976481a28.html
OS X

Submission + - Customize the Mac OS X Login Screen - for Free

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: After several hundred times of logging into your Mac you may be tired of looking at the same old login screen. Maybe you'd like to have a customized login screen for your school or employer's workstations. Forget the $10 programs that automate the process, we'll show you how to customize the login screen entirely on your own, for free. It's not as difficult as you might think, and it's a fun way to personalize your Mac a bit more. Be sure to check out the screenshot below for an example of the results. http://osxdaily.com/2007/02/22/customize-the-mac-o s-x-login-screen/
United States

Submission + - American Founding Fathers

Submitted by
Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward writes: "THE AMERICAN VALUES OF THE FOUNDING FATHERS
A book of pamphlets by Ronald B. White

These pamphlets begin with the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights in order that its author can express his ideas on other's liberal and anti-American statements.

THE BILL OF RIGHTS
Amendments 1-10 of the Constitution
________________________________________
Amendment I
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
________________________________________
INALIENABLE RIGHTS

Inalienable rights: "incapable of being surrendered a moral propriety." Webster's Dictionary

"...endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights ..." Declaration of Independence

This email begins a short series of how the divide within our Founding Fathers strengthened their fundamental doctrines and that those doctrines have been distorted by internal enemies of the United States of America. I do not believe in conspiracy theories nor do I believe in fairies. I believe in our inalienable rights are the power against all our enemies both within and without the United States.

"Some gentlemen have affected to call the principles upon which this work and the former part of Rights of Man are founded, 'a new-fangled doctrine'. The question is not whether those principles are new or old, but whether they are right or wrong." Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man

As the reader has seen, I am a conservative, financially by necessity and politically by necessity. I do not know if my friends or business associates had political leanings to liberal or conservative causes unless they offer it.

Political liberal: "one who emphasizes intellectual liberty; one who emphasizes individual freedom from restraint; subtlety, craftiness."

Political conservative: "one who preserves what is established; one who bases economic philosophy on social stability."

In reviewing a recent New York Times, I read the article 'California Court Upholds Ban on Same Sex-Marriage' by Jesse McKinley [10/06/06]

"Courts simply do not have the authority to create new rights, especially when doing so involves changing the definition of so fundamental an institution as marriage." Justice William McGuiness

The major terrorist of the Twenty-First Century is, in my opinion, has been our lack of faith in our inalienable rights. At the end of his piece, I have put together a short time-line from the starting dates of the American Revolution, the Afghanistan Revolution, and the Iraq Revolution because of criticisms about the length of time it has taken for Afghan and Iraqi independence in our liberal and the length of time it took for our Founding Fathers to write a Constitution and establish law and order.

It is my belief the inalienable rights of the Declaration of Independence have become a sort of civil rights divide between those who seek to defend these inalienable rights and those who desire others' alienable rights — the dividing line between those who fight for conservative values and those who fight for liberal immoralities that, in my opinion, create the clash between liberty and slavery.

How far has the moral pendulum swung away from the values of America Founding Fathers seems to have been demonstrated by the actions and words of our own elected and appointed officials.

"There's not a liberal America and a conservative America — there's the United States of America."

"There's not a liberal America and a conservative America — there's the United States of America."

Illinois Senator Barack Obama

  In comparing the abuses by these elected and appointed officials can be seen, again in my opinion, through the ruling made by a Federal Court judge that it was unconstitutional to have reference to those inalienable rights in the American Pledge of Allegiance since the words "under God" appear in our National pledge which some public school children are not allowed again by a United States court decision a U.S. district judge has stopped the wiretap of suspected terrorists need for national security and a bill sent to Congress by the President of the United. How can America right itself when its ability to defend itself against Islamic terrorism is usurped by American judges who have been funded by anti-Christian organizations? The organizations against civil liberty violations step up their fight to levels of damaging national security in step with the threat of Islamic terrorism and skewed liberalism within our country.

One of the examples of this radical ideological divide that has usurped our inalienable rights of the Declaration of Independence is the order of the Alabama Supreme Judiciary to remove the monument in his office of the Ten Commandments. Alabama Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore was forced to remove the monument of the Ten Commandments — symbol of Judeo-Christian morals and laws.

Debate in our country of accepting God the only Supreme Being or Allah, the pagan god of the Islam could challenge our faith in our inalienable rights as long as we do not stand for the fundamental American values of our Founding Fathers, becoming their equals in moral courage as we have done in every world conflict since the founding of America. The simplicity of the words of Patrick Henry tell me that our own Fathers have survived by their adherence to the duties of the American citizen.

"Religion I have disposed of all my property to my family. There is one thing more I wish I could give to them, and that is the Christian religion. If they had that and I had not given them one cent, they would be rich. If they have not that, and I had given them the world, they would be poor."
Patrick Henry

  As we must exercise the same sense of integrity, same sense of moral courage, same sense of valor, as our Fathers, American values such as self-evident truths, prudence, integrity, courage, ambition — the same strengths that General George Washington availed himself of and demanded of his Army are those same inalienable strengths that we either possess or can lose today by our indifference.

In his liberal comments titled "Injecting religion into debates about public policy?, Senator John Kerry has put his spin on how the Founding Fathers should have "shuttered to see how easily" Americans are manipulated.

"Our Founding Fathers would shudder to see how easily forces outside the mainstream now seem to effortlessly push some Senate leaders toward conduct the American people don't want from their elected leaders: Abusing power. Inserting the government into our private lives. Injecting religion into debates about public policy. Jumping through hoops to ingratiate themselves to their party's base, while step by step, day by day, real problems that keep American families up at night fall by the wayside here in Washington." Senator John Kerry

One of our Founding Fathers might have warned us of this kind of manipulation when wrote this note two hundred years ago.

"Do not separate text from historical background. If you do, you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can only end in a distorted, bastardized form of illegitimate government." President James Madison
In a recent interview with Bill O'Reilly of Fox News, President George W. Bush responded to a question about what is being done to fight Islamic terrorists, etc President George W. Bush replied that he is widely criticized for preaching liberty. This criticism derives, in my opinion, from advertised opponents of liberty — political liberals, Islamic terrorists, etc.
"Freedom is not a gift bestowed upon us by other men, but a right that belongs to us by the laws of God and nature. " Founding Father, Benjamin Franklin

"[Our] principles [are] founded on the immovable basis of equal right and reason." -President Thomas Jefferson in a letter to James Sullivan, 1797

The Founding Fathers fought as minute men against the inequalities and oppressions imposed by British tyranny and were aware of their inherent or inalienable rights that were theirs to express.

President James Madison was a strong proponent for the truths in the Ten Commandments. On page 120 of The Myth of Separation, its author, quotes President Madison.

"We have staked the whole future of American civilization not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government, upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments." President James Madison

On September 11, 2001, American was attacked by a religious adherents of Islam. It has been inane , in my opinion, for the American public to decide after the murders of that day to elect the political party that has resisted war against the Al Qaeda, Islamic terrorists of 9/11, of the brotherhood of Islamic terrorist.
Liberty is the quality or state of being free who liberal opponent believes in slavery of man. A political conservative is one who believes in established, traditional opponents whose liberal opponent believes in looser restraints and moral standards. An atheist is one who believes there is no God whose opponent is a Christian who believes in the tenets of Christianity that God is Supreme over all. That liberty to be free has never been demonstrated with effect than the American President who was assassinated for freeing slaves.
"I am not bound to win, but bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right, and stands with him while he is right., and part with him he goes wrong." President Abraham Lincoln
Alienable is the transfer of ownership from one person to another, but a free man's rights cannot be transferred, they are inherent rights or moral prosperities.
"I must stand with anybody that stands right' is not the popular way to go. In my opinion, the liberal does not stand with liberty but opposes it. There are exceptions to my opinion, and Liberal Senator Joseph Lieberman is one. Again, the person who opposed Senator Joseph Lieberman won the Primary Democratic election in Connecticut on the issue of withdrawing American military personnel from Iraq.. The opponents debated the withdrawal of troops in Iraq with the mass murders of the Islamic terrorists' attacks of 9/11 still at large, and yet the victor was the American who pushed for not pursuing the enemy.
Americans for the most part are a people whose freedom has allowed them to move ahead and not look back. In my opinion, the battle cries of "Remember the Alamo!" will never be forgotten by Americans who love liberty enough to die for it. Patrick Henry was right when he said the following in the Virginia House of Burgesses:

"We are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of Nature has placed in our power... the battle, sir, is not to the strong alone it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. "Patrick Henry
" This is all the inheritance I can give my dear family. The religion of Christ can give them one which will make them rich indeed."
Patrick Henry wrote in his Last Will and Testament
It would be a dream come true for Thomas Jefferson to invite such liberals as Ward Churchill, professor at Colorado University to the Monticello for a course in American History.
Ward Churchill opening statement from a paper he has written:
"The great bulk of my scholarly work has been devoted to documenting the United States' disregard for law and the resulting violence it has perpetrated both domestically and internationally. I believe that such practices inevitably breed violence in response, and that the most effective way to ensure the security of all peoples is adherence to the Constitution and international law, particularly the laws of war and fundamental human rights law. "

Thomas Jefferson's course correction to Ward Churchill's statement from Jefferson's own library of statement might be:

"Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong. "

"An enemy generally says and believes what he wishes. "

Time table comparisons
April 1775- War initiated by Massachusetts Governor Gage ordered by British to bring Coercive Acts to bear on colonists. Paul Revere alerts and minute men formed and 'shot heard round the world is fired.
June 1775-Battle of Bunker Hill
July 4, 1776 — United States Declaration of Independence signed on August 2 by fifty-five patriots
December 25-26, 1776 — On Christmas, George Washington takes 2400 of his men and re-crosses the Delaware River. Thomas Paine writes in his pamphlet Common Sense the following: "These are the times that try men's souls".
June 14, 1777 — American flag bearing 13 stars and 13 red and white stripes is flown. U.S. Ranger is first American frigate commissioned. Commodore John Paul Jones is her captain.
November 15, 1777 — Articles of Confederation signed forming the government of the United States of America. Congress is the sole power under Articles of Confederation.
September 23, 1779- Commodore Jones engages as captain of U.S. Bon Homme Richard a superior British fleet and sinks British flagship Serapis. Sea battle took place near the coast of England in which British captain of the Serapis offers surrender terms to Commodore Jones whose ship is damaged and sinking. Commodore Jones politely declined the offer of the British flagship by saying,
        "Sir, I have not begun to fight!"
June 11, 1781 — Boston attorney John Adams become only person to negotiate peace treaty with England.
September 28, 1781 — General Washington abandons plans and wins decisive victory at Yorktown against British General Cornwallis.
February 27, 1782 to March 5 — England's House of Commons votes against war with American colonies and King George III signs treat with f American colonies

March 15, 1783 — General Washington meets with his officers to persuade them to go along with the actions of the Continental Congress. [Washington's army had pledged to serve only first year. There was growing animosity for the poor repayment of their service to their country.]
December 23, 1783 — General Washington is given victory parade at Annapolis, Maryland and addresses Congress for the last time as Commanding General of the Army.

Afghanistan Revolution

September 11, 2001: Al Qaeda terrorists hijack and murder 2,800 Americans

January 2004: Afghanistan government adopts and signs new Constitution

Iraq Revolution:

September 11, 2001: Al Qaeda terrorists hijack and murder 2,800 Americans

March 2004: Iraq government adopts and signs new Constitution"
Toys

Submission + - Cheney Globetrots in an Airstream trailer in C-17

Submitted by
vidaddy
vidaddy writes: "First let's get this straight. There is nothing about VP Cheney that I admire or aspire to. Having said that we have something in common. We both spend some of our time in classic Airstream trailers. Cheney's Airstream is buried in the bowels of a "C-17, a hulking gray cargo jet out of Charleston, S.C. . . dubbed The Spirit of Strom Thurmond". This story from the Chicago Tribune coupled with today's 416 point loss in the Dow Jones Industrial Average have motivated me to sell my Airstream."
Software

Submission + - Timesheet management software.

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: I currently work as a help desk supervisor for the IT department of a top 30 american university. We have around 40 graduate and undergraduate students manning our support areas at different times of the day and night, and a recent augmentation of our budget has us in the position to hire more. We still do our master schedule with a moderately complex Excel file, our timesheets are submitted online using a webpage, and our workers' clock in and out with a seperate webpage which gives us reports in CSVs that we import into yet another spreadsheet. Needless to say, our current, time-consuming method is rather clunky and has us looking at alternatives.

What existing systems are out there that might fill our needs? What systems should we avoid?
Music

Submission + - Music execs: Apple and DRM are the problem

Submitted by EMB Numbers
EMB Numbers writes: C-Net says last year saw a 131 percent jump in digital sales, but overall the industry still saw about a 4 percent decline in revenue. http://news.com.com/2100-1027_3-6162729.html?part= rss&tag=2547-1_3-0-5&subj=news At the opening of the conference, some of the panel members lashed out at Jobs. Members said Jobs' call three weeks ago for DRM-free music was "insincere" and a "red herring." Apple has maintained a stranglehold on the digital music industry by locking up iTunes music with DRM......and "it's causing everybody else who is participating in the marketplace — the other service providers, the labels, the users — a lot of pain. If they could simply open it up, everybody would love them."
Sony

Submission + - The $600 Stand-alone Blue-Ray Player

Submitted by Dr. Eggman
Dr. Eggman writes: PCWorld brings us news of a cheaper stand-alone Blu-Ray Player Sony will introduce this summer. Costing $600, the player will be a significant price reduction over the $1000 BDP-S1 Sony introduced just ahead of Christmas. The $600 player is designed with the same features as the S1, but at a price to compete with the $500 Toshiba HD DVD player. While it was originally speculated that the PS3's Blu-Ray player would essentially serve the role of the cheap Blu-Ray player, this new announcement raises questions about the PS3's place in the HD Format battle. Sony has managed to pull out a strange new twist in the Home Entertainment War, but will it pay off?

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