"Environmentalists who supported an expansion of CAFE standards for
cars and light trucks are allowing their hostility to energy use to override
their common sense. For instance, the National Academy of Sciences reported
last year that the current standards are directly responsible for the deaths
of 1,300 – 2,600 motorists a year. That’s because automakers find that the
cheapest way of incr easing fuel efficiency is to reduce the size and weight
of the cars they sell, making them more dangerous to motorists in a crash.
Dramatically expanding CAFE standards would accelerate this trend and would
directly result in the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands of Americans.

"While the costs of expanding CAFE standards is steep, the benefits
are ephemer al. Expanded standards certainly wouldn’t reduce foreign oil imports.
For instance, since the CAFE standards were first introduced, the average
fuel economy more than doubled for new cars and grew by more than 50 percent
for new light trucks, but imported oil has increased from 35 to 52 percent
of U.S. consumptio n. Reducing oil demand would remove the most expensive
oil sources from the mar ket first, and foreign oil is the cheapest oil supply
source in the world. Dome stic producers, not foreign oil producers, would
be hit hardest if gasoline demand were to decline.

Read on for more

"Nor would an expanded CAFE standard do much about global warming. Gasoline
con sumption in the United States is only responsible for 1.5 percent of all
human- related greenhouse gas emissions. The EPA reports that expanded CAFE
standards wont appreciably change that figure.

"If people want to drive fuel efficient cars, that’s their right. But
forcing people in cars they don’t otherwise wish to drive — or indirectly
taxing them through the regulatory standards for not choosing to drive cars
that environmentalists like is not only wrong, it’s dangerous."

Jerry Taylor is available for comment at 202-789-5240. To schedule an interview
, please contact Joan Kirby at 202-789-5266.

The Cato Institute is a 501(c)(3) nonpartisan public policy research foundation
dedicated to broadening policy debate consistent with the traditional American
principles of individual liberty, limited government, free markets, and peace.

I couldn’t make this stuff up

LAST CHANCE TO STOP DANGEROUS ANTI-TERRORISM BILL

Late Wednesday, the Washington House of Representatives passed Senate Bill
6704, the anti-terrorism bill formerly construed as House Bill 2879, and which
includes the language of the wiretap bill, HB 2416. The vote was 70 – 23, yet
it collected more "no" votes than last time the anti-terrorism bill
was before the House, and one of the "no" votes was actually mistakenly
cast but could not be changed.

This bill is now back before the Senate and we need your help to make sure
that it does not pass there! It seems likely at this time that the Senate is
prepared to vote "not to concur" with the changes the House made to
SB 6704. This Senate vote is scheduled for sometime on Saturday.

TAKE ACTION

We need all E-mail Activists to telephone and e-mail all of the Senate Democratic
leadership listed below, and any other Senator you know, or who directly represents
you. Please start making your calls and e-mails late Friday afternoon and continuing
on through Saturday morning.

Your brief message should be: "Please do not concur with the House amendments
to Senate Bill 6704. The House wiretap and terrorism language is overbroad and
dangerous to civil liberties." . . .

Read on for more

The toll-free legislative hotline can tell you who is your particular Senator:
1-800-562-6000. You can also look it up on the Web at: http://dfind.leg.wa.gov/dfinder.cfm.

Senate Democratic leaders:

Majority Leader, Sid Snyder: 360-786-7636; (no public e-mail)

Majority Caucus Chair, Harriet Spanel: 360-786-7678; [email protected]

Majority Floor Leader, Betti Sheldon: 360-786-7644; [email protected]

Majority Whip, Tracey Eide: 360-786-7658; [email protected]

Majority Caucus Vice Chair, Ken Jacobsen: 360-786-7690; [email protected]

Majority Assistant Floor Leader, Jeri Costa: 360-786-7674; [email protected]

Majority Assistant Whip, Jim Kastama: 360-786-7648; [email protected]

For more information on this legislation and why it is dangerous for civil
liberties, go to http://www.aclu-wa.org/NS-Oppose.Bills.2.14.02.html

Christianne Walker
Field and Legislative Coordinator, ACLU of Washington
705 Second Ave #300, Seattle, WA 98104
www.aclu-wa.org

P.S. Your support is critical to the ACLU’s ability to protect these and
other civil liberties. If you are not already a member, please considering
joining the ACLU today by visiting http://www.aclu-wa.org/membership/Print.join.html

This presents an interesting conundrum for the DOC-ICANN MoU, notwithstanding the pesky issue of who gets to determin what content is “kids-safe”–and how.

Consider:
* ICANN rejected four .KIDs applications in its new TLD process
* New Net launched a .KIDS in its first round of alternative TLDs
* A .KIDS TLD already exists in the parallel root server system http://root-dns.org/VueDig/VueDig_tld.php?record=NS&tld=kids&submit=Submit

All hail “Internet stability”.

The ideology of radical libertarianism is both mistaken and harmful?not least, to legitimate free expression in the service of truth. The error lies in exalting freedom “to such an extent that it becomes an absolute, which would then be the source of values….In this way the inescapable claims of truth disappear, yielding their place to a criterion of sincerity, authenticity and ‘being at peace with oneself’ There is no room for authentic community, the common good, and solidarity in this way of thinking.

Ouch. As a Catholic this harsh criticism from the Church concerns me. They seem to be having as much trouble as anyone adjusting to the changes brought on by the net.

Given your dedication to tolerance and greater understanding, it is with some concern that we write to you about a matter of serious import. During an interview with syndicated columnist and radio personality Cal Thomas, Attorney General John Ashcroft is quoted as having made anti-Muslim remarks that could only serve to incite the very hatred you have worked so hard to combat. Commenting on faith, Attorney General Ashcroft reportedly said, “Islam is a religion in which God requires you to send your son to die for him. Christianity is a faith in which God sends his son to die for you.” This, of course, is a horrible distortion of Islam.

emphasis mine

Last Wednesday something strange happened. The American population was instructed to panic. Place themselves, that is, on a state of highest vigilance. Some cataclysmic act of terrorism would happen – within hours. But nothing terrible happened. Something creepy did. On Thursday there was an inconspicuous news item. John M Poindexter had been appointed to head a new agency “to counter attacks on the US”, such as Wednesday’s no-show. It is equivalent, in British terms, to Jeffrey Archer being made chancellor of the exchequer.

Hello — Just wanted to inform you that we have completed the patch we promised,
and we have implemented the changes so that PrivaSec users can now turn off JavaScript
on their browsers and still have some functionality when surfing the Web anonymously.
This solves all problems pointed out in the paper by Martin and Schulman.

Regards,
====================
Sandra Song
Communications Director
SafeWeb, Inc.
(510) 601-8855 x108
[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>

Nice followup to a previous entry.

if (5 == $id)
{
do stuff
}

Think about it; it’s very logical and if it even saves you a single bug in your code it’s worth it.

Mark Alexander
The American Antitrust Institute
Association for Competitive Technology (ACT)
AOL Time Warner
Joseph L. Bast
John A. Carroll
Catavault
Center for the Moral Defense of Capitalism
Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA)
Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA)
Consumer Federation of America, et al.
Consumers for Computing Choice and Open Platform Working Group
Nicholas S. Economides
Einer Elhauge
John Giannandrea
Jonathan Gifford
Jeffrey E. Harris
Rebecca Henderson
Paul Johnson
KDE League, Inc.
Dan Kegel
The Honorable Herb Kohl, U.S. Senator
Robert E. Litan, Roger D. Noll, and William D. Nordhaus
Litigating States (California, Connecticut, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Utah, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia)
Daniel Maddux
Eben Moglen
Ralph Nader and James Love
NetAction and Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility
The New York Times
Novell, Inc.
Palm, Inc.
Ramon G. Pantin
The Progress & Freedom Foundation
Project to Promote Competition & Innovation in the Digital Age (ProCOMP)
RealNetworks, Inc.
Red Hat, Inc.
Relpromax Antitrust Inc.
SBC Communications Inc.
Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA)
Sony Corporation
Sun Microsystems, Inc.
The Telecommunications Research and Action Center, National Black Chamber of Commerce, and National Native Americans Chamber of Commerce
Mason Thomas
The Honorable John V. Tunney, former U.S. Senator
U.S. Senate
Steven Waldman
Washington Legal Foundation