One of the main reasons the Internet has been so successful in the last decade is the fierce resistance given in response to meddling politicians who want to protect us from ourselves. Most of the laws that have been passed to regulate the web have either been ruled unconstitutional, or were completely useless and ineffective.
There is one bill however that has been particularly destructive and dishonest - the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998. Most of it was overturned by the Supreme Court, but one of the provisions that remained is TITLE XIII, which requires parental permission to collect personal information from any child under 13 years of age. "Parental permission" means that a parent must submit their personal information, and a verification of their age using something like a valid credit card. Most websites cannot afford to install such a complex verification system - nor can they afford the legal liability if ingenious kids circumvent that system. Neither will the parents of most 13 year olds submit their credit card numbers to an unknown website. In practice, the majority of community websites that require some information for participation simply say "By Federal Law, ALL applicants MUST be 13 years of age or older."
When faced with such a notice, 99% of kids will simply lie about their age. This is fine for them, but not for the website operators, who are forced to either not collect any information at all, or to ban children from using their website (and hence not be able to market to them.) This is why there are no child-oriented online communities on the web that I'm aware of. There are many child-oriented sites of course, but by "community," I mean a place where individuals can interact with each other and build online personas - something that requires at least a username and email address. The few websites that can afford to spend millions on the technical and legal challenges necessary for children to register usually ban children from its online forums and communities anyway - encouraging them to lie even when parental consent is possible.
In short, the government's attempt to "protect" children has wiped out a major market niche, taught children to lie from an early age, and forced them to move their communities to underground IRC channels and general audience sites - exposing them to much more risk then a properly moderated child-oriented site would. It has also set a precedent for online censorship, one that the Supreme Court has mostly rebuffed, but may not do so in the future.
NEW YORK (AP) - A federal judge on Friday threw out the most serious charge against Martha Stewart, securities fraud, just before her trial goes to a jury.The charge accused Stewart of deceiving investors in her company, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, by lying about her sale of ImClone Systems stock.
"Here, the evidence and inferences the government presents are simply too weak to support a finding beyond a reasonable doubt of criminal intent," the judge wrote.
U.S. District Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum left intact four other charges against the celebrity homemaker - conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and two counts of lying to investigators.
The securities fraud count carried a maximum prison term of 10 years. Each of the remaining four counts against Stewart carries a maximum prison sentence of five years.
This is great news.
The Comanche helicopter program was scrapped today after $6.8 billion, 20 years of development, and not a single operational model. The helicopter was intended to oppose non-existent Soviet super-weapons, and after 1990, a non-existent Soviet empire. It took 13 years for the program to catch up with political reality. The helicopter has been featured in numerous movies, computer games, and television shows as the future of military technology. I think an observation made by my IT professor last week is appropriate: “Military contractors operate in a totally different universe. They have absolutely no conception of business reality, budget constraints, or product marketing -- and thus have a very hard time applying military technology to civilian applications.â€
While the military does need to develop new hardware, the current pork-driven ménage a trois between politicians, local constituencies, and defense contractors is not the right way to do it.
Check out Harry Binswanger's new op-ed - The Big Lie: Intelligence Failure in Iraq
Three thousand Americans died in the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. In the wake of that, the only intelligent question was: which lousy Middle East pesthole-dictatorship are we going to crush first? Not: was or was not the threat from this particular statist sewer "imminent" or only "growing"?The Democrats do have something to pillory Bush with--and they'd get my vote if they used it. It's not: "Why did you think the threat from Iraq was 82% when it was only 58%?" It's: "Why did you go against the Little Satan, Iraq, while turning a blind eye to the Great Satan, Iran?"
Since our own State Department lists Iran as the world's foremost state sponsor of terrorism, our failure to act against Iran is not a failure of intelligence but of wisdom and courage.
Great work from a great mind. If only we had political leaders that embraced the same ideas.
Drudge has a review on the new book "Rumsfeld's War." Drudge picks out the primary reason why pacifists of all flavors despise him: “Rumsfeld changed the rules of fighting against terrorists, focusing on one primary goal- killing them.†Amen!
The find of the advanced centrifuge system is the second piece of evidence uncovered this month that casts new doubt on Iran's commitment to prove it does not want atomic weapons.White House spokesman Scott McClellan (search) said the reported discovery raises "serious concerns."
"A country with the vast oil and gas resources of Iran has no legitimate need for nuclear energy," McClellan told reporters. "And full confidence about Iran's nuclear program requires Iran to abandon uranium enrichment and reprocessing activities."
A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, called the latest find "the second dramatic disclosure" in a row. "We knew that the Iranians were not completely clean, but we were willing to give them the benefit of the doubt."
It is exactly that benefit of the doubt that we should be removing from all dictatorships and terrorist groups across the world.
Islamic radicals are being trained at terrorist camps in Pakistan and Kashmir as part of a conspiracy to send hundreds of operatives to "sleeper cells" in the United States, according to U.S. and foreign officials. The intelligence and law-enforcement officials say dozens of Islamic extremists have already been routed through Europe to Muslim communities in the United States, based on secret intelligence data and information from terrorists and others detained by U.S. authorities. A high-ranking foreign intelligence chief told The Washington Times in an interview last week that this clandestine but aggressive network of training camps "represents a serious threat to the United States, one that cannot be ignored." The official said as many as 400 terrorists have been and are being trained at camps in Pakistan and Kashmir.
Al Qaeda sleeper cells are believed to be operating in 40 states, according to the FBI and other federal authorities, awaiting orders and funding for new attacks in the United States. Financed in part by millions of dollars solicited by an extensive network of bogus charities and foundations, the cells use Muslim communities as cover and places to raise cash and recruit sympathizers.
This is very disturbing, but not surprising. The United States continues to be open to terrorist attack as long as we ignore and appease the terrorist threats that are facing us today. Our government can no longer consider states such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia as allies of the United States. To do so will be to continue our country down the path of disaster.
In the history of American business, Andrew Carnegie stands out as one of the greatest of all time. Unfortunately, the same can not be said of his personal philosophy as can be seen in his writing, Wealth....
"By taxing estates heavily at death the state marks its condemnation of the selfish millionaire's unworthy life. It is desirable that nations should go much further in this direction....This policy would work powerfully to induce the rich man to attend to the administration of wealth during his life, which is the end that society should always have in view, as being that by far most fruitful for the people."
"we shall have an ideal state, in which the surplus wealth of the few will become, in the best sense, the property of the many, because administered for the common good, and this wealth, passing through the hands of the few, can be made a much more potent force for the elevation of our race than if it had been distributed in small sums to the people themselves."
"The highest life is probably to be reached, not by such imitation of the life of Christ as Count Tolstoi gives us, but, while animated by Christ's spirit, by recognizing the changed conditions of this age, and adopting modes of expressing this spirit suitable to the changed conditions under which we live; still laboring for the good of our fellows, which was the essence of his life and teaching, but laboring in a different manner."
"This, then, is held to be the duty of the man of Wealth: First, to set an example of modest, unostentatious living, shunning display of extravagence; to provide moderately for the legitimate wants of those dependent upon him; and after doing so to consider all surplus revenues which come to him simply as trust funds, which he is called upon to administer, and strictly bound as a matter of duty to administer in the manner which, in his judgment, is best calculated to produce the most beneficial results for the community--the man of wealth thus becoming the mere agent and trustee for his poorer brethren, bringing to their service his superior wisdom, experience, and ability to administer, doing for them better than they would or could do for themselves."
It is quite sad that such a great capitalist like Carnegie held such a repulsive and contradictory philosophy in regards to all of the wealth that he created. Ayn Rand demonstrated such a contradiction when she wrote:
If the good, the virtuous, the morally ideal is suffering and self-sacrifice--then by that standard, capitalism had to be damned as evil. Capitalism does not tell men to suffer, but to pursue enjoyment and achievement, here, on earth--capitalism does not tell men to serve and sacrifice, but to produce and profit--capitalism does not preach passivity, humility, resignation, but independence, self-confidence, self-reliance--and above all, capitalism does not permit anyone to except or demand, to give or to take the unearned. In all human relationships--private or public, spiritual or material, social or political or economic or moral--capitalism requires that men be guided by a principle which is the antithesis of altruism: the principle of justice.
If only Andrew Carnegie had read such words in his day....
As the dangerous, antiquated, and hugely expensive space shuttles face yet another setback and Bush launches a Mars mission powered mainly by hot air, mankind’s best hope for manned commercial exploration may be Burt Rutan, a great example of what single-minded dedication to one’s dreams can achieve. Burt Rutan has built 40 and designed over 300 aircraft, many of which featured radically new composite designs and set records on efficiency, range, and speed. Unfortunately, the massive FAA bureaucracy and regulatory muck makes certification of radically new designs so expensive that only one has been approved for commercial production. But Burt hasn’t let that slow him down – he’s currently testing SpaceShipOne, the first privately-created spaceship, and working on a repeat of his record-setting round the world flight in just 80 hours.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Howard Dean will end his campaign for the presidential nomination and oversee a new effort to keep his issues alive and his supporters organized on behalf of Democratic causes, two party officials said Wednesday.Dean was to announce his plans at a news conference Wednesday afternoon, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The sources said the shape of the new effort is still to be determined but that Dean would eventually support the Democratic Party's nominee. One official said Dean would help elect Democrats to Congress in the fall.
Dean was mulling whether to endorse one of his rivals. John Edwards has been reaching out to Dean for several weeks, and the former Vermont governor has been impressed with the North Carolina senator and grateful that he has not criticized Dean, the officials said.
Still, the officials cautioned, the chance for endorsement remained slim.
While on the face of it, this seems like good news because, it will nevertheless be harder for Bush to gain a victory in this year's election than it would be if he were running against Dean.
But, on the other hand, I am happy that Dean's fascism and anti-Americanism will not have the chance of gaining a hold on Washington D.C.:
Dean's Fascism and the Me-Too Right by Joseph Kellard
Presidential Candidate Howard Dean: Fascist of the Left by Michael J. Hurd
Howard Dean's Anti-American Foreign Policy by Allen Forkum
Good riddance.
Yesterday, e-mails were sent out announcing the launch of the new and improved Objectivism Online. Unfortunately, due to e-mail problems, a bunch of duplicates were sent out. Various people got more than one e-mail about the announcement. We apologize for the error!
The doctors told a conference that cells taken from umbilical cord blood can turn into healthy heart cells, for instance, and repair damaged tissue.The research suggests many childhood disorders such as leukaemia can be treated in this method.
For scientists, this confirms what laboratory tests have long suggested - stem cell treatment works in the body.
This is great news in the ever-increasing steps being taken by scientists to improve the health of human beings through stem cell research. Many bioethicists and politicians however, are screaming that stem cell research is immoral and should be banned.
Religious people and environmentalists alike tell us that it is immoral to engage in stem-cell research. While religious people claim our manipulation is equal to "playing God" and is therefore wrong, environmentalists claim that it is wrong for us to manipulate nature for our own ends because nature has intrinsic value. Despite their differences, both views are united by the principle that man's use of nature for his own benefit is inherently evil.
Human beings do not have an automatic means of survival. In order to live and achieve happiness, we must use our minds to determine the proper course of action for ourselves and alter the environment around us accordingly. In the greatest period of growth and material well-being for humans, the era of capitalism, we have used our minds and altered our environment more than ever before. The result? The greatest increase of prosperity that mankind has ever seen.
Since man requires the alteration of his environment for his own survival and happiness, i.e., his existence, and since such actions are inherently evil according to advocates of religion and environmentalists, then man's existence is inherently evil.
So when you hear calls from prominent intellectuals and politicians to ban stem-cell research, remember that there are those people out there who believe that man is inherently evil and subservient to God or nature. Also, remember all of the potentially great increases in health such technology offers to man, only to be taken away from us by such leaders.
Instead of banning such technology, we should be embracing that man's alternation of nature for his own benefit, the virtue of productivity, should be greatly encouraged, not banned.
In our era, the policy of supporting dictatorship regimes across the world is coming back to bite us, hard. One example of this growing problem is in the spread of weapons of mass destruction technology.
As the list of co-conspirators in the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction enlarges, the gravity of this problem becomes clear. Recently, it has been reported that China has been linked to the weapons program of Libya.
Investigators have discovered that the nuclear weapons designs obtained by Libya through a Pakistani smuggling network originated in China, exposing yet another link in a chain of proliferation that stretched across the Middle East and Asia, according to government officials and arms experts. The bomb designs and other papers turned over by Libya have yielded dramatic evidence of China's long-suspected role in transferring nuclear know-how to Pakistan in the early 1980s, they said. The Chinese designs were later resold to Libya by a Pakistani-led trading network that is now the focus of an expanding international probe, added the officials and experts, who are based in the United States and Europe.The packet of documents, some of which included text in Chinese, contained detailed, step-by-step instructions for assembling an implosion-type nuclear bomb that could fit atop a large ballistic missile. They also included technical instructions for manufacturing components for the device, the officials and experts said.
By sponsoring the existence of dictatorships around the world, we have allowed nations such as Pakistan, North Korea, and China to create weapons of mass destruction; as well as allowing nations such as Iran, Libya, and Syria to begin to develop these weapons. It seems clear to me that the policy of the United States towards the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction should be a strong one. However, has this been the case?
In our war on terrorism, President Bush has claimed that we will go after not only the terrorist groups themselves, but also the states that sponsor or harbor them. Included in this so-called "Bush Doctrine" is the idea that we will pre-emptively strike against rogue nations developing weapons of mass destruction so that such weapons will not get into the hands of terrorist groups and states.
This doctrine represents a major break with the foreign policy of the past in regards to weapons of mass destruction. Many liberals have claimed in the past (as they do now with our action against Iraq) that the key to preventing the spread of WMD's is through diplomatic action and treaties. This internationalist view is very naive and harmful to the security of the United States of America. Diplomatic inspections and non-proliferation treaties are not backed up by any threat whatsoever other than an UN resolution. But the UN has absolutely no power to do anything substantial in response to such violations. Worse yet, some of the worst violators of these diplomatic means are members of the UN.
By rejecting this internationalism with the Bush Doctrine, and by invading Iraq, President Bush has sent a strong message of deterrence to other nations with their eyes on WMD's. However, President Bush has not lived up to his own doctrine. Due to increasing international and domestic pressure on Bush's "unilateralism" and failed intelligence on the WMD's in Iraq, Bush is giving into the demands for more diplomatic solutions. Currently we are negotiating with North Korea over the existence of their nuclear weapons program and offer quick appeasement in the form of aid if the North Korean's "promise" to end their program. We are currently encouraging diplomatic inspections of Iran, but continually giving them more time and lenience in doing so. Worst of all, we actively refer to Pakistan as our "ally," meanwhile more evidence rolls in that they are at least partly responsible for a major spread of weapons of mass destruction technology. While President Bush has used force somewhat to deter these states from developing these programs, the return to diplomacy with dictatorships is signaling weakness on our part.
What should be done instead by our government in response to these weapons of mass destruction? I believe that there is only one effective means to deter states from developing weapons of mass destruction: force. By using force against states developing such programs, we send the strong message that it is not in one's best interest to develop WMD's.