* Posts by John

12 publicly visible posts • joined 19 Mar 2008

YouTube rolls out Scientology double standard

John
Alien

L. Ron Hubbard biography

http://www.religio.de/books/bfm/bfmconte.html

No clue how accurate it is, but assuming it is accurate, it's an interesting read. Since the OSA actively tried to suppress it, I would have to assume it's at least somewhat accurate. If it has even a fleeting relationship with the truth, the man was a paranoid schizophrenic manic depressive compulsive liar who took all the wrong drugs.

(Some of the internal links on that site don't work, but most will work if you change .htm to .html)

Your personal data just got permanently cached at the US border

John
Black Helicopters

Need to amend the Constitution

Congress needs to start the Admendment process, to formally put in place a garuantee in the Constitution itself against stuff like this. I suggest "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause".

I like the poison pill on the desktop idea. If they ask what it is, tell them it's a program a friend put there, and you're not sure what it is (make it the truth if you want, a friend can place a random virus on the desktop). If they choose to run it, it's their problem they deleted everything. F* 'em.

And, if you get held up, I'm sorry, but it is a small price to pay to throw a wrench in the machine.

Pain ray really killer ray gun, many goats dead, says 'expert'

John
Thumb Down

Should have been titled...

...Whack-job Spouts Off. Would have save me time reading up to that point.

Police likely to ignore Brown's cannabis changes

John
Black Helicopters

Because...

...law enforcement just doesn't have enough "flexibility".

Hell, we should make everything illegal, just to be on the safe side.

No-fly list grounds US Air Marshals

John

Good thing...

...that they've figured out how to let their own employees through. Damn glad they aren't going to relax restrictions for anyone else matching one of a million plus names.

Solution: Use a random generator to name your children. "Yes, my name is wKs0ek3 amP2Lsnqm."

John

"Similiar" name...

...the Canadian couple were stopped because "Chris Allen" was similiar... I wonder if it was "Chris" or "Allen"? It's also deploreable that we should treat celebrities like that, what with "Karen Allen" being in the Indian Jones movies!

Governator outs Dubya's global-warming 'time bomb'

John
Flame

@Anonymous Coward

>> I always think references a great so here's one: <http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2008/04/21/ask_pablo_cars/>. It addresses both points and it's even got numbers and stuff in it.

Damn shame the "stuff" far outweighs the numbers. Believe it or not... a battery is not just bits of steel, iron, copper, plastic, etc. According to that site, either roughly 50% of the BTUs of the Prius manufacturing comes from the battery (and it's otherwise the most efficiently manufactured car on the planet), or it's off by at least 25%.

But, that was only one of the glaring problems with the reference...

US court waves through border laptop searches

John
Black Helicopters

First Amendment

>> Certain medical conditions (yellow fever or other contagious diseases) are good reasons to either refuse entry or quarantine a person (HIV is not really a good reason IMHO).

So is any information that might indicate illegal or terrorist behaviors. Such things as being a civil rights activist, journalist, or social researcher included.

But First Admendment rights are not supposed to only extend to what we say, but to activities that prevent us from saying what we want to say. This clearly causes travelers (excersizing their right to gather) to be less likely to freely express themselves. If compared to a breifcase, a breifcase should be able to be searched/scanned for explosive devices, which are an explicit danger of travel, or even other physical contraband (aka drugs). However, upon search, they should not be able to open documents without further cause of suspicion. If there is a book titled "Journal," they should not be able to open it for further examination, but "Al-kida Ji-had Bomb Plot" could be opened. Applied to a laptop, the data on the computer could not contain any danger to other travelers, so should not be searchable. Turning the computer on as an expiendient method to determine it is, in fact, a computer is as far as it should go.

Quite frankly, there is no reason why a traveler should be any more afraid to carry questionable pictures in their laptop or in a bound folder in a breifcase, than a journalist carry pictures exposing governmental wrong-doing. Unfortunatly, the first will land you in jail, the other a free vacation to the tropics for some water boarding.

Congo lynch mobs attack penis-snatching sorcerers

John
Paris Hilton

Enlarge

If they can shrink it, one would think they could enlarge it... No lynchings for that?!?

Paris for her ability to shink and enlarge.

New York lawmakers approve 'Amazon Tax'

John

Call customers affiliates!

So, if Affiliate XYZ does not charge tax, what will NY do? Seize the property of Affiliate ZYX? Or if Amazon doesn't charge tax, they can seize the property of anybody who puts an Amazon affiliate link on their site? That sounds perfectly reasonable and constitutional.

@Solomon Grundy The reason congress keeps the Internet Tax moratorium is because the only way to enforce it is to introduce a federal sales tax system. States cannot collect this money (see above, no enforcement ability, and one state has no jurisdiction over anothers tax laws, etc.), so the feds would have to enforce it, if not actually collect it.

UK.gov will force paedophiles to register email addresses

John
Joke

@Daniel

>> I tend to agree with the principle of making life as awkward as possible for genuine paedophiles.

Yes, I agree. I think the governement should make badges for sexual offenders to wear (perhaps a fylfot symbol), and make standard issue pokie sticks for everyone else. If you see someone wearing a pedo badge, you may poke at will. Or better yet, they could have an elctro-shock device implanted, that could be triggered by random passers-by.

And of course, all sexual offenders should be required to use a dodgy copy of Windows ME, so that even if they manage to get online, they problably won't have time to load a social networking site, let alone chat anyone up.

>>One of the problems with the existing system is that paedophiles are very difficult to lock away. Not because they don't get caught, but because they're becoming increasingly adept at exploiting loopholes and getting away with a slapped wrist. If they have committed a crime for which the police want to prosecute, but they can't convict on the available evidence (or if the punishment is so small as to be risible) they can use this law to get a jail sentence anyway.

Damn habeus corpus! Mere suspicion should be enough! Those poor police, if they can't produce actual evidence, they have to come up with some trumped up bogus crap like "failure to register an email address" to lock people up!

It would be so much easier for the state to provide all sexual affenders with approved physical addresses. For convenience, it could be the address of a state facility, such as a prison. And they should be shot on sight if they try to exploit some "loop hole" like trying to tunneling out, registering a false email address, or attempting to visit any social networking sight, including Yahoo, MSN, AOL, Google, and of course el Reg!

Ohio voting machines confiscated in criminal investigation

John
Thumb Down

Ohio uses Diebold

http://www.vote.nyc.ny.us/pdf/documents/boe/rfi/g4/diebold/Users%20List.pdf