Buttons, I used to target shoot at least once a week using a variety of
firearms. I keep a loaded sig ready and lying on the bedside table.

Anyone breaks into my house with the intent of causing bodily harm to my
friend (who is severly handicapped) or moi gets the rude end of it.
Safety is the issue on that one. I do have to lock it up when the
grand-sugars come over though.

For a while I was a collector. I just ran out of funds to buy, some
years ago... heh. Go figure.

And am thinking of starting to sell off a few. I hate too, but you gotta
do, whacha gotta do sometimes.

Newguy, got one, forgot to mention it though... yeesh.

Thanks for the offer! HeeHee

LOL islandking. I have to agreee!

beerrunner, DUDE! You must be waaaayy out. I love the idea of being
waaaaayy out but since my work depends on this 'puter, and it's speed, I
have no choice but to stay in some kind of (or close to) a metro area.

I envy your peace but not your dial up speed!

NOTE:

Downloading Mariah Carey's 'Always Be My Baby' can be as fast at 1.4
seconds or as long as 10.2 minutes.

Holy Crap Batman!

Speed thrills on the Internet, but how fast is fast enough, really?
Dial-up Internet access is the cheapest. At about $10 a month, it's less
than half the typical $20 cost of entry-level DSL broadband and much
less than $35 to $60 for faster DSL and cable broadband.

But cable TV and phone companies, which are spending billions to turn
their networks into state-of-the-art Internet playgrounds for consumers,
continue to push their fastest — and most expensive — broadband. They'll
turn up the juice even more as time goes by. Few offer home users
ultra-fast broadband speeds, but some are heading that way. Verizon, the
New York-based communications giant, is running fiber-optic lines to
homes with the goal of offering mind-bending browsing speeds of 100
megabits per second or more.

Is dial-up really dead, then, when it comes to Web browsing? Do you
really need to pay more for a faster broadband service?

Bottom line: How fast is fast enough?

The rest of the article is HERE:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/2007-03-25-download-speed_N.htm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Very interesting article. I had no idea that some folks are still on
dial-up. I see some saying that from time to time but have been on
high-speed broadband for a lonnnngggg time. But thinking back, I do
remember the poky download times highlighted in the article...

Yikes! I don't think I could stand it now! Nope, I would go nuts!

I remember, back in the 70's when cable came to KS. There were no
commmercials on any cable station then. NONE. I watched more as there
was a lot more educational stuff on too, not the crap of today.

HBO was even commercial free. Movies and shorts only. Some of the
shorts were highly entertaining in and of themselves.

In just six years, Wikipedia has mushroomed into one of the Web's most
astonishing successes, with 1.7 million articles in English alone. The
downside is that the free encyclopedia has its share of errors and
juvenile vandalism, and sometimes the writing is incomprehensibly
arcane.

To Wikipedia fans, these blemishes are an unavoidable — and relatively
small — price to pay for the dazzling breadth spawned by its "anyone can
edit" open design.

But Larry Sanger doesn't buy it. To Sanger — who was present at the
creation of Wikipedia (in fact, call him a co-founder, although that,
like many things within Wikipedia, is disputed)— its charms seem to
outweigh its warts simply because it has no competition.

And that's precisely what Sanger hopes to change.

This week, Sanger takes the wraps off a Wikipedia alternative,
Citizendium. His goal is to capture Wikipedia's bustle but this time,
avoid the vandalism and inconsistency that are its pitfalls.

Like Wikipedia, Citizendium will be non-profit, devoid of ads and free
to read and edit. Unlike Wikipedia, Citizendium's volunteer contributors
will be expected to provide their real names. Experts in given fields
will be asked to check articles for accuracy.

"If there's going to be a free encyclopedia, I'd like there to be a
better free encyclopedia," says Sanger, 38, who has a doctorate in
philosophy and speaks slowly, as if cautiously choosing every word. "It
has bothered me that I helped to get a project started, Wikipedia, that
people are misusing in this way, and yet the project itself has little
chance of radically improving."

Citizendium is hardly the first Wikipedia alternative. But this is
different — not only because of Sanger, but because of the questions at
its core: Would Wikipedia be better if its contributors fully identified
themselves? Would Wikipedia be better if it solicited guidance from
academics and other specialists?

The rest of the article is HERE:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/webguide/2007-03-25-wikipedia-alternative_N.htm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I use the wiki on a daily basis. I love it and have a link set up in my
browser. How can anyone improve on it? It sounds right, what this guy
says and having real names and credentials would make a difference, I
guess. I don't know though, read the article and see what you think. It
is long but worth it.

OH, wiki is Hawaiian for "fast". Something I had wondered about but did
not know. It is in the article.

I have been using the wiki almost since it's inception, I guess I
started at the end of the second year and met some nice folks there
too... just a tidbit!

Have a great day all,

Verb

Local DNA labs avoid state and U.S. limits

WASHINGTON — A growing number of police crime labs are adding DNA from
suspects to databases that operate outside of state and federal law by
matching those suspects to unrelated crimes.
Proponents say the databases, which have solved more than 50 crimes, are
legitimate because no laws forbid them.

Defense lawyers and privacy advocates counter that the federal
government and all 50 states require individuals to be convicted or in
some cases indicted for a serious crime before their DNA can be added to
the FBI's national criminal database. Searching a suspect's DNA, they
argue, violates privacy rights.

"It's a cloudy area," says David Kaye, a law professor at Arizona State
University.

Few court rulings exist to say whether these databases are legal or
whether data contained in them can be used in criminal cases.

State legislators in Illinois and New York this year are among the first
to consider bills that would regulate or forbid the databases.

Since 1990, states and the federal government have matched DNA from
unsolved crimes to convicts or in seven states to some arrestees through
an FBI computer system.

That system, called CODIS, has matched DNA from convicted offenders and
arrestees to over 35,000 unsolved crimes since 1990, FBI spokeswoman Ann
Todd says.

However, there's a growing number of DNA samples the FBI can't store.
They include DNA taken from criminal suspects who are later cleared and
from persons who volunteer to give DNA to convince police they are
innocent.

Laboratories in at least five states — California, Florida, Illinois,
Missouri and New York — use local databases to store DNA data ineligible
for the FBI database.

New York state has at least eight local crime labs that keep over 2,000
DNA profiles of suspects, according to documents obtained under a
Freedom of Information request by the New York-based Innocence Project,
which specializes in overturning convictions through DNA evidence, and
shared with USA TODAY.

"They're rogue databases that operate without the public's knowledge and
without the security and privacy considerations of the government
databases," says Stephen Saloom, the Innocence Project's policy
director. "This is an issue the public ought to decide."

John Feinblatt, criminal justice coordinator for New York City Mayor
Michael Bloomberg, says using suspect DNA is no different than using
fingerprints from one case to help solve another — a practice that
courts condone.

"Nothing happens to a person who has DNA on file unless they commit a
crime," Feinblatt says.

"The law has to catch up with science."

The article is HERE:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-03-25-dna-databases_N.htm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It does not seem like a bad thing to me and privacy aside, I thought we
WERE doing this...

If you are not a criminal, why would you holler "you are invading my
privacy!"

?????

.02

MIAMI — Tiger Woods is in Masters mode, and that doesn't bode well for
the competition.
Woods finished up his last competitive golf before The Masters by
winning the CA Championship on Sunday at Doral.

"You can't have a better way than getting a W before you go," he said of
his tune-up for the first major of the year, April 5-8 at Augusta, Ga.
"I'm very excited."

Woods controlled this tournament, but he came home with a disappointing
73 on the Blue Monster course to beat Brett Wetterich by two strokes.
Wetterich shot 71, but he said afterward that he really didn't expect to
win.

The rest of the article is here:
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/golf/pga/2007-03-25-ca-final_N.htm
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

CA tourny top 10:

1 1 Tiger Woods +1 F -10 71 66 68 73 278 $1,350,000
2 2 Brett Wetterich -1 F -8 72 70 67 71 280 $800,000
T3 T21 Robert Allenby -5 F -6 67 74 74 67 282 $378,333
T3 T10 Geoff Ogilvy -2 F -6 72 69 71 70 282 $378,333
T3 T10 Sergio Garcia -2 F -6 71 70 71 70 282 $378,333
T6 T10 Niclas Fasth -1 F -5 72 70 70 71 283 $212,500
T6 T4 Aaron Baddeley E F -5 69 71 71 72 283 $212,500
T6 3 Nick O'Hern +1 F -5 72 72 66 73 283 $212,500
T9 T15 Zach Johnson -1 F -4 72 68 73 71 284 $157,500
T9 T10 Paul Casey E F -4 76 70 66 72 284 $157,500

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

OK, I have just about had it with the ads in online news. I read two
local papers but mostly read world news on the internet these days.

I have pop-up protection turned on so am not supposed to get pop-ups. I
still get those windows with "pop-up" ads though and in the front of ANY
video and there are multiple ads on most news sites.

It is starting to irritate the SNOT out of me.

Does it bug you too?

Ooopppss!

caulking... lol.

I have 32 firearms.
I have 4 cauling guns.

Will this help you find a girlfriend?
Will this help you find any friends?

Just a thought...

I pretty much came here looking for online friends, mostly. If
something else happened, well great. But that is certainly not the end
all and be all of my presence here.

I like the chatter back and forth, the folks are mostly quite real and
nice (there are exceptions everywhere) and it is easy going and laid
back to the extent that I like to come in and read, when I can.

I don't feel "bothered" by emails here as at some other sites.

SO, I guess I am here for the friendship. Yep, that's it! LOL.

Hiya, Hey, I am not in Texas but wanted to say "nice pic!" anyhousen.

Yeah, from what I read you will also be able to watch DVD's and all that
that some of the others have been able to do for some time. Nintendo has
tried to stay strictly gaming but have changed that position recently.

My daughter had the Nintendo 64 and later one game boy which was stolen
at school from her backpack and we did not replace that. We played
board games with the kids and then of course, I played games on the
pc... the only one in my family to be "hooked" on that for some time.
lol.

I will be interested in this new Nintendo as you will be able to get
Mario Brothers and Zelda on it. Two oldies but goodies!

Great information. I spend most of the morning and some time this
afternoon looking for just this "kind" of thing, believe it or not...

do do do do do do do do

THANK YOU!!!!!

"...line my hat with tinfoil so the government can't read my thoughts."

Too funny garden...

Hiya Sushi - I agree that plenty can happen in our own gardens but what
I mean is that there are no preserving additives, colors or bulk
enhancers.

It seems that however that happened, why were we getting wheat gluten
from China? Cheaper? or what...