SLAPP... Have you never heard of such an acrhonimus?
We'd better know what it means because our freedom of thinking is at odd.
SLAPP stands for Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation.
So it means that if I say that my last 7 cats died because I live next to nuclear plant I can be sued by the big company and surelly enough (I don't have money) I will pay.
Some examples
here or keep reading: "In Las Vegas, a local doctor was sued for his allegation that a city hospital violated the state's cost-containment law.
In Baltimore, members of a community group faced a $252 million lawsuit after circulating a letter questioning the property-buying practices of a local housing developer.
In West Virginia, an environmental activist was sued for $200,000 for criticizing a coal-mining company for activities that were poisoning a local river.
In Pennsylvania, a farmer was sued after testifying to his township supervisors that a low-flying helicopter owned by a local landfill operator caused a stampede that killed several of his cows.
In Washington state, a homeowner found that she couldn't get a mortgage because her real-estate company had failed to pay taxes owed on her house. She uncovered hundreds of similar cases, and the company was forced to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in back taxes. In retaliation, it sued the woman for slander and dragged her through six years of legal harassment before a jury found her innocent.
In Missouri, a high-school English teacher was sued for $1 million after complaining to a weekly newspaper that an incinerator burning hospital waste was a health hazard."

The situation of drafting the Costitution for Iraq looks pretty shacky.
A friend sent me a draft of the Costitution.

I found this new web site that is very cool.
You can share your videos with others and I found even a video of the bridge that collaspe under vibrations.
You can find the website here
and the video of the bridge here

Rome, August 14, 2005 – The scandal exploded only during the 2003
summer when the US daily Worcester Telegram & Gazette obtained a copy
of a document that for 40 years had been kept as "strictly
confidential" in the secret archives of the Holy See that
describes
the story of a lawyer from Boston, Carmen Durso, who filed a complain
with the Prosecutor Michel J. Sullivan containing a copy of the 1962
Instruction "Crimen Sollicitationis" and asking to verify if,
within
the federal jurisdiction, would have been possible to prosecute the
Vatican hierarchies that he claimed were guilty of deliberately
covering from the US authorities the sexual abuses committed by
members of the clergy.

At the same time, another letter signed by Daniel Shea, a lawyer and
former seminarist who discovered the 1962 document and gave a copy of
it to the Boston daily and to Mr. Durso, reached the desk of the
Prosecutor. The document, said Shea in the letter, is quoted as still
applicable in a note of the epistle "De Delictis Gravioribus" of 18
May 2001 that the then Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine
of the Faith, Joseph Ratzinger, delivered to the bishops and other
ordained and members of the ecclesiastic hierarchy.

This episode was brought to the attention of the international public
opinion by the US Television CBSand the Vatican hierarchies replied
by stating that the norms contained in the 1962 document could not be
anymore considered as binding after the entry into force of the 1983
reform of the Codice di Diritto Canonico, despite the fact that the
Ratzinger letter did not support this; in fact, the current Pope
Benedict XVI in such letter not only recalled the instruction
"Crimen
Sollicitationis", but concerning the "crimes under the
jurisdiction
of Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith" states that
"In the
Tribunals set up upon the ordained or the members of the Catholic
hierarchies only priests can validly carry out the function of judge,
justice promoter, notary and counsel for the defence" and it
restates
that "the trials of this kind are the subject of papal
secret".

Over the last two years the US judiciary has continued the
investigations and since January 2005, a prosecution against Joseph
Ratzinger is taking place at the District Court of Harris County
(Texas).

Mr. Daniel Shea, the lawyer who brought this case before the District
Court of Harris County, will join the demonstration entitled "For
sexual freedom and freedom of conscience, against the causes of the
deviations and sufferings, starting with those of the phedofile
priests and the phedofobic organizations" convened by the
association
anticlericale.net on Tuesday 16 August at 8 p.m. in S. Peter Square,
the exact time of the opening of the World Youth Day in Cologne,
Germany.

AWEA News Release >> Energy Bill Extends Wind Power Incentive through 2007: "Up to 2,500 megawatts of wind energy capacity are scheduled to come on line in the U.S. this year, bringing new power to the equivalent of 700,000 homes and injecting over $3 billion of investment into the power generation sector. With the timely extension of the PTC, the American Wind Energy Association anticipates that strong growth momentum will continue in 2006 and 2007. "

Entropy Production: The Feebate: "The best way I know of to encourage more efficient automobile buying habits is called a feebate. A feebate is a zero-sum tax-slash-rebate on motor vehicle fuel economy. Car buyers with fuel economy above the mean get a cash rebate, while gas guzzlers must pay an additional tax. The government simply acts as the creditor in the exchange -- it gains no net tax revenue. E.g. it is a very socialist concept. The nature of the feebate helps offset the higher capital investment of a hybrid vehicle. Increased mileage is, of course, a built-in reduction in operating costs."

A U.S. Navy photographer with lightning-fast reflexes captured this image of a fighter plane blasting through a "sonic boom cloud" as the jet broke the sound barrier. Petty Officer 3rd Class Jonathan Chandler shot the picture as the F/A-18F Super Hornet blew past the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Kitty Hawk in the Philippine Sea on July 27.

Finding warez using Google | The days start here: "Finding pirated software is surprisingly easy with Google. Yes, we have astalavista to find the serial numbers and key generators, but it might take you a little more time to find the original setup files, and software that do not use serial numbers to validate the license."

The Poor Man Cafe
“You are not what you think you are, but you are what you think.” The statement is not merely an ancient proverb, but it is also a Bible truth. The Bible states that as a man thinks in his heart, so is he (Proverbs 23:7).

How-to: Share your keyboard and mouse in realtime with Synergy - Engadget - www.engadget.com: "Synergy is an open source and free software project that allows one to share a keyboard and mouse across multiple monitors on separate computers and even between different operating systems. You may be a prime candidate for Synergy's superbum synergy if you code multi-platform software, use more than one computer at home such as a laptop and a tower, or if your computers have different functions (media server, net machine, etc.). Personally we do all of the above and were in dire need of a swift way to dispose of our old keyboards and mice to make way for all sorts of fun new usb gadgetry."

Housing Prices High for Low Income Workers
For example, the median household income for a nurse rose 10 percent between 2003 and 2005, to about $36,000. For a firefighter, wages were flat, remaining at about $37,000 a year.

Those salaries don't come close to the $71,000 annual income needed to qualify to purchase a $225,000 home. The number is based on a down payment of 10 percent.

The real reason American high-schoolers have such dismal test scores.

If you believe in test scores—and education policymakers seem to believe in little else these days—American high-school students are a pathetic bunch. Witness the results of National Assessment of Educational Progress (or NAEP)—the "nation's report card"—which were released last month. While younger students broke records in both math and reading, 17-year olds' scores as a whole showed no improvement from the early 1970s.

Ricotta
Homemade Ricotta
1 gallon whole milk
1 quart buttermilk

Select a sieve or colander with a wide surface area so the curds will cool quickly. Rinse a large piece of cheesecloth or muslin with cold water, then fold it so that it is 6 or more layers, and arrange it in the sieve, or colander placed in the sink.

Pour the milk and buttermilk into a large nonreactive saucepan. Place over high heat and heat, stirring the mixture frequently with a rubber spatula and making sure to scrape the whole pan bottom to prevent scorching. Once the mixture is warm, stop stirring, As the milk heats, curds wili begin to rise and clump on the surface. As the curds begin to form, gently scrape the bottom of the pan with the spatula to release any stuck curds.

When the mixture reaches 175 to 180F, the curds and whey wili separate. The whey looks like cloudy water underneath a mass of thick white curds on the surface. Immediately remove the pan from the heat. Working from the side of the pan, gently ladle the whey into the prepared sieve. Go slowly so as not to break up the curds. Finally, ladle the curds into the sieve. Lift the sides of the cloth to help the liquid drain. Don't press on the curds. When the draining slows, gather the edges of the cloth, tie into a bag, and hang from the faucet. Drain until the dripping stops, about 15 minutes. Untie the bag and pack the ricotta into airtight containers. Refrigerate and use within 1 week. Makes about 4 cups.

From Michael Chiarello's Casual Cooking (Chronicle Books, 2002)

eigelb.at - Paul Schmidinger - Screendesign and Webprogramming

This is a wonderful website for very high level web art.

Philadelphia Inquirer | 08/07/2005 | Priest: Silence ordered on abuse: "When the Rev. James Gigliotti told church officials in the early 1980s that a Northeast Philadelphia priest was molesting boys, he remembers receiving a stern warning.
'This comes from the highest authority: You're to keep your mouth shut,' Gigliotti said an assistant chancellor told him.
The Philadelphia Archdiocese quickly removed the accused priest, the Rev. James J. Brzyski, from his parish in the Fox Chase section.
But the archdiocese did not tell parishioners the reason. Nor did it report Brzyski to police.
With his conduct a secret, Brzyski remained a welcome guest in parishioners' homes. A former altar boy said this meant Brzyski kept abusing him - for years.
'I was raped by the time I was 13,' said John Delaney, a father of two who works as a roofer. 'I don't have any religious beliefs anymore because of what he did to me. I have no faith in anything anymore.'
Brzyski's run of alleged attacks took place in the late 1970s and early '80s. Ten men have said he assaulted them as boys during his six years of active service as a priest. That would make him one of the worst known offenders in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.
Three of his accusers have told The Inquirer that Brzyski plied them with candy, ice cream or alcohol before assaulting them - in rectories, in their homes, in his car, in a house at the Jersey Shore. Two say he molested them in the sacristy, the room near the altar where priests don their vestments.
Even so, the church did not identify him publicly as an abuser until this year, in a brief notice published June 23. It said only that Brzyski and six other priests had been defrocked for 'misconduct involving minors.'
After Brzyski left the church, he worked as a computer technician in Philadelphia. He lived for a time in East Falls, where he incorporated a talent and modeling agency, as well as a children's birthday party business, out of his home, public records show. It's unclear how much business, if any, his companies did.

He once told a neighbor that children loved it when he wore a Barney costume.

By 2002, Brzyski had moved to Virginia. That year, a 17-year-old filed a criminal complaint accusing him of attempted sexual battery, a misdemeanor. The teenager said he had dozed off from drinking at a cookout at Brzyski's house and awoke to discover Brzyski groping him in his underpants.

Brzyski filed a countercharge, accusing the teenager of kicking him and trespassing.

In court, both charges were withdrawn. Court papers don't explain why, and Brzyski's Virginia lawyer, Steven Shames, has declined to comment.
Why did no one call the police about Brzyski 20 years ago?

The answer is complicated.

"We were just so disturbed to find out that this creature was out there among young boys, and we kind of felt guilty," said the mother of one Brzyski accuser. "We should have gone to the police back then, and it would have stopped. Being good Catholics, we didn't do that."

Gigliotti said, "I think we'd all go back and say we should bring the police in right away."

When love has entirely cast out fear, and fear has been transformed into love, then the unity brought us by our saviour will be fully realized, for all men will be united with one another through their union with the one supreme Good. They will possess the perfection ascribed to the dove, according to our interpretation of the text: One alone is my dove, my perfect one. She is the only child of her mother, her chosen one.

Our Lord’s words in the gospel bring out the meaning of this text more clearly. After having conferred all power on his disciples by his blessing, he obtained many other gifts for them by his prayer to the Father. Among these was included the greatest gift of all, which was that they were no longer to be divided in their judgement of what was right and good, for they were all to be united to the one supreme Good. As the Apostle says, they were to be bound together with the bonds of peace in the unity that comes from the Holy Spirit. They were to be made one body and one spirit by the one hope to which they were all called. We shall do better, however, to quote the sacred words of the gospel itself. I pray, the Lord says, that they all may be one; that as you, Father, are in me and I am in you, so they also may be one in us.

Now the bond that creates this unity is glory. That the Holy Spirit is called glory no one can deny if he thinks carefully about the Lord’s words: The glory you gave to me, I have given to them. In fact, he gave this glory to his disciples when he said to them: Receive the Holy Spirit. Although he had always possessed it, even before the world existed, he himself received this glory when he put on human nature. Then, when his human nature had been glorified by the Spirit, the glory of the Spirit was passed on to all his kin, beginning with his disciples. This is why he said: The glory you gave to me, I have given to them, so that they may be one as we are one. With me in them and you in me, I want them to be perfectly one.

Whoever has grown from infancy to manhood and attained to spiritual maturity possesses the mastery over his passions and the purity that makes it possible for him to receive the glory of the Spirit. He is that perfect dove upon whom the eyes of the bridegroom rest when he says: One alone is my dove, my perfect one.

St Gregory of Nyssa

Pontifications: "The question for each orthodox Catholic is whether to take up the Magisterium's challenge or be content with the fundamental option of the rich young man, who is more comfortable with a religion based on rules than on self-donation."

John Paul II's Theology of the Body: "GENERAL AUDIENCES: JOHN PAUL II'S THEOLOGY OF THE BODY
Pope John Paul II"

Really to study in order to understand JPII.

Scary tatics of McCartism flavor!
EFF: Breaking News: "Today the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued a release announcing its new rule expanding the reach of the Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act (CALEA). The ruling is a reinterpretation of the scope of CALEA and will force Internet broadband providers and certain voice-over-IP (VoIP) providers to build backdoors into their networks that make it easier for law enforcement to wiretap them. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has argued against this expansion of CALEA in several rounds of comments to the FCC on its proposed rule."

Sunbeltblog: Massive identity theft ring: "In some recent research into a spyware exploit, our research team has discovered a massive identity theft ring.
We also found the keylogger transcript files that are being uploaded to the servers.
This is real spyware stuff�chat sessions, user names, passwords, bank information, etc. We have confirmed that this data is valid. Highly personal information, including even one fellow who has a penchant for pedophilia -- all logged in detail and returned a webserver.
Note that there is a LOT of bank information in here, including one company bank account with over US$350,000 and another small company in California with over $11,000 readily accessible. This list goes on and on and on. Of course, there's also eBay accounts and much more.
We have notified the FBI, but of course no response (too busy doing other more important things). We have notified a few of the parties involved.
If anyone has any other ideas, send �em to us. Right now, we�re sitting upon literally thousands of pages of stolen identities that are being used right now.
Alex Eckelberry"