HarveyTheWonderBug - Slashdot User

Australian Politician Caught Viewing Porn 150

Posted by samzenpus on Monday September 13, 2010 @02:00PM from the stiff-opposition-party dept.

destinyland writes "An Australian Parliament member has resigned after admitting he'd used government computers to access porn and gambling sites. McLeay 'gave an uncomfortable press conference outside Parliament House,' notes one technology site, 'during which he admitted he had acted in a standard not expected of cabinet ministers.' Paul McLeay was also the Minister for Mineral and Forest Resources as well as the Minister for Ports and Waterways. In resigning, he apologized to his constituents and parliamentary colleagues, as well as to his wife and family."

National Debt Clock Overflowed, Extended By a Digit 696

Posted by timothy on Sunday October 12, 2008 @10:51PM from the but-don't-worry-balanced-budget's-a-crazy-idea dept.

hackingbear writes "The National Debt Counter, erected in 1989 when the US debt was 'merely' a tiny $2.7 trillion, has been moving so much that it recently ran out of digits to display the ballooning figure: $10,150,603,734,720, or roughly $10.2 trillion, as of Saturday afternoon. To accommodate the extra '1,' the clock was hacked: the '1' from "$10.2" has been moved left to the LCD square once occupied solely by the digital dollar sign. A non-digital, improvised dollar sign has been pasted next to the '1.' It will be replaced in 2009 with a new clock able to track debt up to a quadrillion dollars, which is a '1' followed by 15 zeros. That should be good enough for a few more months at least, I believe." Adds reader MarkusQ, "I know Dick Cheney has assured us that 'Deficits don't matter' but I can't help wondering if we should be fixing the problem rather than the sign."

Comment Re:Agreed, and more so... (Score 1) 103

by HarveyTheWonderBug on Thursday April 26, 2007 @03:57PM (#18890043) Attached to: Fair Use In Scientific Blogging

Unfortunately, the more I think about it, the more I doubt it: I'm fairly sure the publisher (not the blogger herself) of the blog is not a non-profit organization: they probably make money from advertisement, etc... Given the current atmosphere about IP, it gets scary... Argh, i don't wanna become a lawyer to continue my job !

Submission + - Congress Hears From Muzzled Scientists

Submitted by BendingSpoons on Wednesday January 31, 2007 @12:20PM

BendingSpoons writes: More than 120 scientists across seven federal agencies have been pressured to remove the phrases "global warming" and "climate change" from various documents. The documents include press releases and, more importantly, communications with congress. Evidence of this sort of political interference has been largely annecdotal to date, but is now detailed in a new report by the Union of Concerned Scientists. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee held hearings on this issue yesterday; the hearing began by Committee members, including most Republicans, stating that global warming was happening and greenhouse gas emissions from human activity were largely to blame.

The OGR hearings presage a landmark moment in climate change research: the release of the 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The IPCC report, drafted by 1,250 scientists and reviewed by an additional 2,500 scientists, is expected to state that "there is a 90% chance humans are responsible for climate change" — up from the 2001 report's 66% chance. It probably won't make for comfortable bedtime reading; "The future is bleak", said scientists.

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