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Comment Re:The answer to this privacy invasion is data wip (Score 1) 304

If there are 10.000 laws in the US

There are well over 10,000 laws in the US. Last year alone over 31,000 laws were passed across the country. In 2009 over 40,000 new laws were passed.

which everyone is breaking 5 times a day without knowing, it shouldn't be that hard to name a few so us average Joes can learn to avoid breaking that law

Well, there are some books on it (both of these are on my to-read list):

Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target The Innocent

Go Directly to Jail: The Criminalization of Almost Everything

in the first place and/or organize a petition to get rid of them.

You think they really care about petitions? It is very difficult to repeal laws and scale back power.

Comment Re:I'm shocked. (Score 3, Informative) 589

From the FAQ:

Q: What does this announcement mean to other derivatives of OpenOffice.org?

A: We want The Document Foundation to be open to code contributions from as many people as possible. We are delighted to announce that the enhancements produced by the Go-OOo team will be merged into LibreOffice, effective immediately. We hope that others will follow suit.

Comment Re:Queue . . . (Score 1) 542

And I had to make sure only to buy things at Trader Joes since my local grocery store carried but one loaf of bread with no HFCS in it and it was hilariously marked up as some organic bullshit.

Try whole wheat pita bread. It's fairly cheap and doesn't contain HFCS. The ingredient list is very basic.

Due to government subsidies and advanced food science, you cannot control your intake of HFCS.

There is one way to do a good job at avoiding corn products: avoid anything that comes in a bag, box, or can.

Comment Re:Is mandated health care constitutional? (Score 4, Insightful) 1698

You are trying to make it seem as if Congress has no power to do anything other than that which is explicitly granted in the Constitution, which is comically untrue.

So what the hell does the 10th Amendment mean, then?:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

The Virginia Resultion of 1798, written by James Madison (the main author of the Constitution and the author of the Bill of Rights, including the 10th amendment) says:

That this Assembly doth explicitly and peremptorily declare, that it views the powers of the federal government, as resulting from the compact, to which the states are parties; as limited by the plain sense and intention of the instrument constituting the compact; as no further valid that they are authorized by the grants enumerated in that compact; and that in case of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of other powers, not granted by the said compact, the states who are parties thereto, have the right, and are in duty bound, to interpose for arresting the progress of the evil, and for maintaining within their respective limits, the authorities, rights and liberties appertaining to them.

Plus, the Kentucky Resolution of 1798 written by Thomas Jefferson says this:

"Resolved, That the several States composing, the United States of America, are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their general government; but that, by a compact under the style and title of a Constitution for the United States, and of amendments thereto, they constituted a general government for special purposes -- delegated to that government certain definite powers, reserving, each State to itself, the residuary mass of right to their own self-government; and that whensoever the general government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force: that to this compact each State acceded as a State, and is an integral part, its co-States forming, as to itself, the other party: that the government created by this compact was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself; since that would have made its discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure of its powers; but that, as in all other cases of compact among powers having no common judge, each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress."

Comment Re:Missing Option (Score 1) 804

"Health Care Won't Be So Damned Expensive"

Health care is ridiculously overpriced today (at least in the US). If health care wasn't so expensive, we wouldn't need health insurance for simple things like annual exams or a trip to the doctor's office for the occasional infection. We would still need health insurance for the things that might (but probably won't) happen -- such as injuries requiring major surgery. But that health insurance would be much less expensive because the insurance companies would not need to cover nearly as many health care expenses.

I'm glad that we're coming up with new ways to pay for the high costs of health care, but what we really need to do is figure out how to bring those costs down to a reasonable level. Hopefully we will have figured that out 100 years from now.

It's already been figured out.

How you can get more for less

(I actually have this type of health insurance.)

Obama, I Got Your Health Savings Right Here

John Stossel: Insurance, Health Care, Government, and Rising Prices

Comment Re:PR advice (Score 1, Informative) 703

MADD has very little to do with drunk driving or parents at this stage. Even their original founder (who DID loose a child to a drunk driver) is disgusted with them at this point.

The modern version of MADD is more about making money (mmm.. corrupt fundraising) and trying to push neo-prohibition based of iffy 'science'
Plus, if you want to read up on how MADD pushes crap science to try and push their neo-prohibiton agenda, read this:

http://www.duicenter.com/lectures/exception01.html.

It's long, but well worth the read.

Transportation

100-MPG Air-Powered Car Headed To US Next Year 449

An anonymous reader sends us to Popular Mechanics for word on a New York automaker with plans to introduce a US version of the air-powered car, with which India's Tata Motors made a splash last year. Zero Pollution Motors plans a sub-$18,000, 6-passenger vehicle that can hit 96 mph and gets over 100 MPG, using an untried dual engine — the air-powered motor being supplemented by a second (unspecified) engine that would kick in above 35 MPH. The company estimates that "a vehicle with one tank of air and, say, 8 gallons of either conventional petrol, ethanol, or biofuel could hit between 800 and 1000 miles." The vehicle could be introduced to the market as early as 2009.
Patents

Submission + - Vonage III: The Bloodletting (reuters.com)

kickabear writes: "AT&T have filed a lawsuit against popular target Vonage, claiming patent infringement. This is the third major lawsuit to have been brought against Vonage by a major phone company. Vonage lost the previous two lawsuits, brought by Sprint-Nextel and Verizon. How much more money can Vonage afford to give away? How can Vonage educate a jury on prior art?"
The Courts

Submission + - RIAA Accepts $300 Offer of Judment in Carolina

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "In a North Carolina case, Capitol v. Frye, the RIAA has accepted a $300 offer of judgment made by the defendant. This is the first known use, in the RIAA v. Consumer cases, of the formal offer of judgment procedure which provides that if the plaintiff doesn't accept the offer, and doesn't later get a judgment for a larger amount, the plaintiff is responsible for all of the court costs from that point on in the case. The accepted judgment in the Frye case (pdf) also contains an injunction — much more limited than the RIAA's typical "settlement" injunction (pdf) — under which defendant agreed not to infringe plaintiffs' copyrights."
Novell

Submission + - openSUSE Hobbled by Microsoft Patents

kripkenstein writes: "openSUSE 10.2 no longer enables ClearType (which improves the appearance of fonts). The reason given on the openSUSE mailing list for not enabling it is:

Note that this feature is covered by several Microsoft patents and should not be activated in any default build of the library.
As reported on and discussed here and here, this matter may be connected to the Microsoft-Novell deal. If so, Novell should have received a license for the Microsoft patents, assuming the deal covered all relevant patents. Does the license therefore extend only to SUSE, but not openSUSE?"

Feed Feds Pull Traveler Help Site (wired.com)

Homeland Security pulls down a website link for travelers with watchlist problems after 27BStroke6 points out security flaws. But TSA won't say whether the site was legal. In 27B Stroke 6.


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