Now is the time to invest in US property, Don’t abandon it, invest in it….

Please keep these excellent posts coming….

Hi – just wanted to say good design and blog -…

Clinton/Gore picked up Montana’s 3 electoral votes in the 1992 election. 16 years ago is a little shy of almost four deacdes.

Data mining works best when there’s a well-defined profile you’re searching for, a reasonable number of attacks per year, and a low cost of false alarms. Credit card fraud is one of data mining’s success stories: all credit card companies data mine their transaction databases, looking for spending patterns that indicate a stolen card. Many credit card thieves share a pattern — purchase expensive luxury goods, purchase things that can be easily fenced, etc. — and data mining systems can minimize the losses in many cases by shutting down the card. In addition, the cost of false alarms is only a phone call to the cardholder asking him to verify a couple of purchases. The cardholders don’t even resent these phone calls — as long as they’re infrequent — so the cost is just a few minutes of operator time.

Let’s look at some numbers. We’ll be optimistic. We’ll assume the system has a 1 in 100 false positive rate (99% accurate), and a 1 in 1,000 false negative rate (99.9% accurate).

More here:
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/03/data_mining_for.html

My apologies for not having the facts at my fingertips–I’ve’ working on comprehensive analysis when I have time. . .and time is running out.

I suggest googling “data Mining” “false positives” for staters. The general gist is that the dragnet surveillance that the bill authorizes (so long the “target” of the dragnet surveillance is “reasonably believed” to be outside the US) will intercept mountains of unorganized data packets in transit, scooping up communications of every conceivable type, format, and source.

Never mind the privacy issues–it’s a dumb way to fight terrorism. While it’s easy enough to parse such for evidence of petty crimes (or, perhaps, keep tabs on political opponents), terrorists, like drug dealers, take great pains to blend in with the crowd, using innocuous code language (when they actually communicate online), hiding messages in images, and other techiques.

I think people who support this kind of crap see the NSA’s approach as a high-power search engine, but there’s a big difference. Websites want to be found. The protocols, the formats, indeed even the ‘meta’ tags are all very ho-hum standard.

Contrast that with international criminals who are seeking to be invisible. Yes, clues and tips can help, but more information is not necessarily better information. Getting back to the “organized” web, try typing in “Osama”–and see how much irrelevant crap.

More information is not always better information. The noise obscures the signal, false correlatiosn multiply, endless hours are wasted pursuing blind alleys.

A responsible FISA bill would demand specificity–specific IP addresses, at a mininum, and would be based on hard evidence.

Don’t get me wrong: I understand and agree with the need for pre-emptive electronic intelligence. But it needs to be done smart. This bill is DUMB.

And Obama’s support cannot be even minimally defended, except to the extent that McCain’s position is far worse.

So much stupidity, so little time. Where to begin………..

“refrain from disciplining children”

Child abuse is not “disciplining” a child.

“that allows the government to order adults to wear seatbelts and helmets”

They also require that you have working brakes on your vehicle. Any issue with that?

“We have cameras to catch speeders all over the place”

Sounds good to me, speed is one of the primary reasons for traffic deaths.

“mandatory drug testing at most workplaces”

Do you want the forklift driver in the warehouse driving stoned?

“and freedom of religion”

How is your freedom to practice your religion restricted?

“satellite pictures that can zoom down to street level”

I handle most of my personal business inside my house.

“restrictions on clearly defined rights such as gun ownership”

You can own a gun, just not a mortar or a bazooka.

“because the government looked at phone records to see who was calling countries that support terrorists”

No, they weren’t looking at “phone records” they were wiretapping without warrants.

FISA is not the issue, it is the warrantless wiretapping that is the issue. Past FISA bills already provide for “emergency” wiretaps with the warrant to be issued within a short period of time.

The Bush Administration decided that wasn’t good enough, they wanted to wiretap ANYONE they wanted.

I find it hilarious that you are so ill-informed on this issue.

The problem is also that no where in the law does it say that there has to be grounds to believe the person is a terrorist or has terrorist connections. Their answer to the question is answered with
“We are with the government trust us!”.

This is the same government that has suspended Habeas corpus in the United States and that does and can effect everyone. Whether you are involved in blowing up a building or a speeding ticket, but than so far either one has no been in the news. It was done in the first patriot act and little has been said of it.

I am sure we all can cherry-pick info that supports our views… but it seems to me that when US insurance companies pocket 30% to shuffle paper.. we are not getting a good deal…

You can read more about our two systems at: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_and_American_health_care_systems_compared if you want some better info …

Correct, Mr. Hawk (I don’t know you well enough to call you by your first name) but the Constitution is not about individual rights, it is about limiting the power of government OVER individual rights.

But specifically, there is not a “Right to Privacy” in the Constitution, nor is there any amendment that would specifically address the issue of abortion.

Mostly, the Constitution says that government should keep it’s nose out of a private citizen’s business.

Sounds good to me.

hmmm wonders never cease…socialist realizes its a crap system.

I guess paying those airline bills for flying all the mothers to Billings Montana for good csre got to costly for them. When there is a 6 week wait for hospital rooms….guess you better plan ahead for that bad wreck…

“The word “privacy” is not in the Constitution.”

The word, no.

The concept is all the way through it.

If the Bill of Rights were the 7 Dwarfs, the poor ol’ 3rd Amendment is “Bashful.” And even if the specific issue of quartering troops in yet another anachronism (like militias?) the underlying concept is pretty explicit. “A man’s home his his castle,” is the folksier concept from English common law. Doctor/patient confidentiality is old common and case law, too.

The concept of privacy rights is what the 4th Amendment is all about, too. And the provision of the 5th Amendment preventing forced self-incrimination is a hard-wired issue of privacy.

To present such a picayune sophomoric nit-pick is a mere attempt to distract from the issue at hand.

What is the government’s compelling interest in broaching doctor/patient confidentiality?

What constitutes legal person-hood in the eyes of the law?

Birth? (in most matters, yes)
Viability outside the womb? (perhaps, maybe)
“Quickening?” (worked for the Catholics for 1700 years)
Implantation of a zygote in the uterus? (there’s a case that might be made)
Conception? (begs the ectopic pregnancy question)
When you light up the post-coital cigarettes?
At the twinkle in your daddy’s eye?

Phrased that incorrectly – my bad.

What I should have said is; there is not expressed “right of privacy” in the Constitution to tie the issue of abortion to.

Or words to that effect.

The Ninth Amendment…………….. “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

This amendment is often cited as support for a “right of privacy.”

Who tied it to a right of privacy, and where is that in the US Constitution?

Hint: The word “privacy” is not in the Constitution.

Methodology is the determining factor in these ratings..

“In Obama’s first splash on the national stage, as keynote speaker at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, he disparaged ideological labels as weapons used by partisans who have little else to offer. “Even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spinmasters and negative-ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything-goes,” he said. “Well, I say to them tonight: There’s not a liberal America and a conservative America — there is the United States of America.” – nj.nationaljournal.com/voteratings/

Someone on here yesterday was making much ado about the right to an abortion and questioning why the right didn’t overturn it. Well that is a moral issue for most and a matter of life of the child for some.

Sorry I keep losing my train of thought. Mabe in America is on CMT and it is hilarious. Some of the funniest videos ever. I’ll have to solve the problems of the world later.

Wrong, new LAWS are enacted, but not new rights. The Constitution does not cover every eventuality.

By Brian Friel, Richard E. Cohen and Kirk Victor, National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Thursday, Jan. 31, 2008

Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., was the most liberal senator in 2007, according to National Journal’s 27th annual vote ratings. The insurgent presidential candidate shifted further to the left last year in the run-up to the primaries, after ranking as the 16th- and 10th-most-liberal during his first two years in the Senate.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., the other front-runner in the Democratic presidential race, also shifted to the left last year. She ranked as the 16th-most-liberal senator in the 2007 ratings, a computer-assisted analysis that used 99 key Senate votes, selected by NJ reporters and editors, to place every senator on a liberal-to-conservative scale in each of three issue categories. In 2006, Clinton was the 32nd-most-liberal senator.

In their yearlong race for the Democratic presidential nomination, Obama and Clinton have had strikingly similar voting records. Of the 267 measures on which both senators cast votes in 2007, the two differed on only 10. “The policy differences between Clinton and Obama are so slight they are almost nonexistent to the average voter,” said Richard Lau, a Rutgers University political scientist.

The “most liberal senator” claim with regards to Barack Obama is extremely questionable. The Americans For Democratic Action, a self described liberal advocacy group that has monitored members of congress for years according to their degree of being “correct” on their (generally considered liberal) issues, gave Obama a rating of 75% for 2007 (Dick Durbin, the other Democratic Senator from Illinois, got a rating of 95%). Even Webb got a rating of 85% (which shocked me).

Interestingly, Clinton also got a rating of 75%.

http://www.adaction.org/media/votingrecords/2007.pdf

Show me an amendment that guarantees the right of the fetus to harm its mother.

Scalia has gone on record as stating that abortion is NOT a constitutional issue.