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Re: Iraq II, Come to think of it (was...China's wealthy)
by Tyler Durden 14 Nov '04

14 Nov '04

James Donald wrote... >Bullshit. Everyone knew that which the regime decided they >must know. And if true, which I very much doubt, you are not >only arguing that Qin's legalism was a different thing than >communism/nazism, This is where the "Simplistic Grid" comes in. The momentum of Chinese culture will oalways outlive any short-term despotism, and the Chinese on many levels know this. When it comes to China, even some of the Han-dominated areas are incredibly difficult to get to, and when you start talking about Southern parts of Yunnan, most parts of Tibet, and places like Qinhai and Xinjiang, the idea of a lightening-fast and efficient despotism starts to sound dubious. Indeed, these areas are only barely under Beijing control today. It's also a main reason why Burma and the Golden triangle find it very easy to ship heroin overland through China to Hong Kong rather than go at it via a more direct route. >When, during the great leap forward, Peking commanded >unreasonable grain requisitions from the provinces, *all* >provinces contributed, and *all* provinces suffered starvation. Anhui and central China suffered far more than other parts of China. I'd guess that 70% of the deaths due to starvation during 58 to about 64 occurred in that part of Central China. The obvious reasons were: 1) Proximity and easy communicatuion with Beijing, and 2) Large tracts of previously arable land (ie, you don't bother exerting despotism over an area that can't do much anyway). >you are also arguing that Mao's communism was >a different thing than Stalin's communism. No, I am arguing that Chinese communism was a different thing from Soviet commusim, for the precise reason that the weight of Chinese history would be fairly quick to erase Chinese commusim. Any China hand could have predicted exactly that, and indeed that's precisely what happened. Our decision to back the far-more corrupt Chiang regime all the way to 1973 or whenever, was a major blunder, if for no other reason then to accelerate the isolation of the Soviets. Mao would have been very hip to the manuever, and I bet would have welcomed it (The Soviets were never very useful to the Chinese communists). In other words, even a smart rabid anti-communist should have recognized that backing Mao's "Bandits" was at some point obvious, but most were far too blinded by their ideology to see that. The same thing's happening with Iraq and Iran. Iran's making overtures that we consistently ignore because were too darned dumb and power-oriented to see the opportunity. -TD > >Both used ruthless terror to establish extraordinary control >over a far flung empire that had formerly been ruled by >relatively light hand, and then used that extraordinary control >to extort extraordinary resources from the peasantry. The >difference between Stalin's frequent references to the poor >peasants (who were supposedly carrying out the liquidation of >the kulaks in revolutionary zeal) and Mao's similar references >is merely that Mao was more thorough in creating the simulation >of a mass movement. > > --digsig > James A. Donald > 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG > xGYJrVMJ5Hx9Dgyly/Lt7Vk6TKJAugVqAcp3+7mq > 4rvMXJ51mdk2UqHkU40M50T9s5aAMzX99JW0hQGT/

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Re: Iraq II, Come to think of it (was...China's wealthy)
by Tyler Durden 14 Nov '04

14 Nov '04

>That seems improbable: Qin had a cult of personality, in >which every single person subject to his control had to >participate. A subject of Qin, like a subject of Mao, was >more aware of Qin, than he was of his mother and father. You are apparently simply unaware of the real size and terrain of China. There were villages in remote parts of China that were unaware of Mao's death into the early 1980s. Travel around in China for a while and you'll get the picture. Just to give you an idea, short of renting out a helicopter, there are plenty of parts of China that are more than a week away from even me, living here in NYC. >The proposition that the chinese emperors ruled with a light >hand is historical revisionism. Some of them ruled with a >moderately heavy hand, some of them with an extremely heavy >hand, and Qin was as heavy as it gets No, as usual you seem to think that because I disagree with the simplicity of your "grid" that I must believe the opposite. Let's put it this way: The Qin was absolutely despotic in areas that could be guessed at ("Burn Books Kill Scholars"), as well as quite despotic in areas that would seem pointless now (like bell volumes, because bells were also measurements for grain). They also completely didn't care about other things that you would think a despot would really care about. A thing to think about was that Qin Shr Huang seemed to truly believe that everything he did was necessary for the unification of China (which he accomplished). YOU (not me) might argue that by unifying a large portion of central China he actually prevented a lot more deaths due to "Barbarian" incursion by "Unfree and uncivilized" Muslims...OOPS--Did I say that? I mean "Unfree and backward people that should be killed". -TD >I did not pack them in to one simplistic grid - I said that >legalism was much the same thing as communism/nazism, whereas >Confucianism is a mixture of that, and also of rule by social >conservatives. The rule of Qin was very similar to commie nazi >rule. The rule of Qianlong was substantially different. Both >were despots, but Qianlong was no totalitarian. > > --digsig > James A. Donald > 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG > k6s+2bFmGHKlU9v6wCbmGCo+6m4eAEfjtEfJ3b3W > 4EcgDCvx/77or2uD2Vhx/20HURcJ8XVeRylOk8puI

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Re: Cell Phone Jammer?
by Major Variola (ret) 13 Nov '04

13 Nov '04

At 04:19 PM 11/11/04 -0500, Tyler Durden wrote: >Anyone know from first-hand experience about cellphone jammers? > >I need... > >1) A nice little portable, and >2) A higher-powered one that can black out cell phone calls within, say, 50 >to 100 feet of a moving vehicle. Cell Jammers do a DoS on the frequency used by the base station to contact the handset, preventing a ring-in. Or a ring-out; the handset reports no service. After a ring-in the base tells the handset to jump to another freq, so you can't drop an ongoing conversation with a typical jammer. The < $200 jammers will stop folks in the next car, or in your office, but not too much farther; depends on the strength of the local base station. To jam the entire cell freq *bands* would take more power and more complex circuits. A jacob's ladder and/or tesla coil might work but would be indiscrete at least.

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Re: Cell Phone Jammer?
by Major Variola (ret) 13 Nov '04

13 Nov '04

At 02:12 PM 11/13/04 -0600, Riad S. Wahby wrote: >"Major Variola (ret)" <mv(a)cdc.gov> wrote: >> To jam the entire cell freq *bands* would take more power and >> more complex circuits. A jacob's ladder and/or tesla coil might >> work but would be indiscrete at least. > >A plasma speaker > http://images.jfet.org/20031027/imgp1255.jpg >would also work, assuming that you've got the tube to drive those >frequencies and an appropriately-constructed coil. Mine runs at ~25 MHz >and broadcasts like a bitch (prolly 100+ Watts). > >Discrete? What does that mean? You know, bug-soldered components :-) Is that a jacobs ladder in your pocket or are you just glad to see me? You disturb my aether, I decode your signal, fuck the 900 MHz (or whatever, analog cell) prohibition, eh? Have we state-licenced SPICE, or compilers yet?

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Iraq II, Come to think of it (was...China's wealthy)
by Tyler Durden 13 Nov '04

13 Nov '04

>My delusion is evidently widely shared: I did a google search >for legalism. http://tinyurl.com/56n2m The first link, and >many of the subsequent links, equated legalism with >totalitarianism, or concluded that legalism resulted in >totalitarianism. Wow! A GOOGLE search did you say? Well I'm convinced. >When a provincial commander marched fresh conscripts from place >A to place B, he would do it in the time alloted, and be there >on the date specified, or the Ch'in emperor would cut his head >off. Well kind of. But even Qin Shr Huang Di knew that you couldn't force-march soldiers from Xian to Suzhou in 4 days. And the remotest parts of China at that time (the borders are far larger now, of course) weren't any closer than a month or two, no matter what the orders. (Qin Shr Huang probably was no idiot...if it was physically impossible then he could not gain power.) >It is the cut-his-head off bit, and the minute and overly >detailed instructions concocted by a far away bureaucracy, that >made it a modern totalitarianism. You seem to be thinking that I am arguing that Qin Shr Huang was not a despot. However, comparisons to modern totalitarian states are filled with >Pol Pot's Cambodia was, like Ch'in dynasty china, decentralized >in that they had twenty thousand separate killing fields, but >was, like Ch'in dynasty china, highly centralized in that the >man digging a ditch dug it along a line drawn by a man far away >who had never seen the ground that was being dug. Well, this was difficult given that there were probably a good number of Qin Shr Huang's 'subjects' that didn't even know they were subjects until well after Qin Shr Huang died. Camodia is just a TEENSY bit smaller than China. Now the reason this excersize is not completely futile is that it's pretty clear that the notion of a "Despot" is very different from place to place. If push comes to shove, I of course will probabluy agree that most of the leaders you claim were despots probably were (though I'd bet my list is MUCH larger than yours). However, the nature, reasons, and byproducts of any particular instance of despotism very hugely...trying to pack them all into one simplistic grid is a formula for...Iraq II, come to think of it. Without understanding the details on their own terms, you're liable to get the locals a little upset with you if you try to force-fix their problems. -TD

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RE: Mr. Blue Goes Deaf When He Sees Red
by Tyler Durden 13 Nov '04

13 Nov '04

That's the thing that sucks. The US's Liberals are almost as fascisistic as the clouds of middle-counrty hillbillies. I figured that out as a Brooklyn HS teacher when I realized the true meaning of an oft-repeated phrase of the time: "STAY IN SCHOOL". -TD >From: "R.A. Hettinga" <rah(a)shipwright.com> >To: cypherpunks(a)al-qaeda.net >Subject: Mr. Blue Goes Deaf When He Sees Red >Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 22:16:19 -0500 > >Mostly because I sent his "Declaration of Expulsion" here... > >It's entirely possible that, absent a physical threat to keep the country >together, we have all the necessary ingredients to go the way of the Soviet >Union someday, and devolve. > >Cheers, >RAH >------ > ><http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?print=yes&id=5750> > >HUMAN EVENTS ONLINE: The National Conservative Weekly Since 1944 > >Mr. Blue Goes Deaf When He Sees Red > >by Mike Thompson >Posted Nov 12, 2004 > > Twenty-four hours after the dramatic U.S. presidential-election results >were validated, Human Events Online published my essay (which I had been >hatching for two weeks), "Declaration of Expulsion," a slightly satiric >proposal to kick out of the Union the 12 most liberal states, either to >join the People's Socialist Dominion of Canada or, on their own, go >straight to Hell. > > Within hours (and I do not claim that my piece was a causal effect), >liberal voices formed into an enthusiastic chorus for roughly the same >idea: Democrat gurus Lawrence O'Donnell and Robert Beckel, as angry talking >heads on two separate TV news shows, taunted the newly solid-Republican >South (all states of which actually are overfed "welfare clients" of the >affluent, heavily taxed North, huffed O'Donnell) to secede, for the second >time since 1860; The reliably opportunistic Internet erupted with "I >Seceded" T-shirts for sale, plus the mocking map of a 31-Red-state nation >called "Jesusland," and An e-mail rapidly circulating among liberals touted >creation of the country of "American Coastopia," whose upscale Atlantic- >and Pacific-rim inhabitants joyfully would (what else?) fly over Fly-Over >Country to get away from "rednecks in Oklahoma and homophobic >knuckle-draggers in Wyoming." > > Then came confirmation of the growing fascination for dividing what once >was "one nation indivisible," when Manhattan-based liberal talk-show host >Alan Colmes invited me to be a guest for 15 minutes on his late-night radio >program. > > My on-air "15 minutes of fame" would mushroom into 45 minutes of >defamation: "Why are you so intolerant of liberals?" asked Herr Colmes, who >apparently had forgotten that he was supposed to ask me when I had stopped >beating my wife. I explained to him factually that more liberals than >conservatives publicly are advocating dissolution of the Union, and that >the issue, in either event, is not intolerance but rather >insolubility--that is, there is no middle ground, no compromise possible on >most CultureWar issues. > > "That's exactly what intolerance is!" asserted the intolerant >talkmeister. > > "Listen carefully, Alan," I urged. "If you want Congress to pass a >10-dollar minimum wage and I want an eight-dollar cap, it's possible for us >to compromise at nine dollars. But how do we compromise on abortion? Shall >we kill only half as many babies? How do we compromise on gay marriage? >Shall we allow a lesbian to marry a lesbian but forbid a man to marry a >man? There are too many of these insoluble differences between the Red >states and the Blue states." > > "I can't believe how intolerant you are!" screamed Alan. > > Soon a self-identified lesbian called in breathlessly to confess "intense >fear of intolerant Red states." (Why, I thought, was she phoning a radio >show in the middle of the night instead of her local 911 operator?) The >perceptive host again verbally pounced on me, his guest, who safely lives >in the brimstone warmth of Red Florida: "Do you think, Mr. Thompson, that >this woman is evil or immoral?" > > "Alan, I have no idea who the woman is," I answered. "I have just met her >anonymously over the phone. All I know is that she has made a bad choice of >lifestyle, because lesbians have a documented higher rate of alcoholism, a >higher rate of mental problems and a higher rate of suicide than >heterosexual women." > > Alan, who apparently is aurally challenged, now was in the full-boost >stage of liberal ballistics: "What do you mean, this woman RAPES other >women? You are filled with hate! How DARE you say such a thing!" > > "Rape?" I asked, flabbergasted. "I said RATE--as in 'suicide rate.' >RATE--as in 'alcoholism rate'! Please listen to me, Alan. Is your phone >bad?" > > With no apology to his mystified guest, Alan disconnected the lesbian's >call and radically changed the subject: "Do you think John Kerry is a >traitor?" > > "Yes, Alan. One who commits treason," I observed coolly, "by definition >is >a traitor. Kerry went to Paris and consulted with our Communist Vietnam >enemies, not with U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Subsequently, >Kerry publicly endorsed the outrageous Communist 'peace plan,' not his own >country's plan. > > "In uniform, Kerry during the war and under oath before the U.S. Senate >also accused his fellow American soldiers of indiscriminately raping and >killing Vietnamese civilians and destroying their villages just for the fun >of it--false charges that were welcomed and used by the Communist nation's >cruel jailers for years to torture American prisoners. Therefore, Mr. Kerry >is a double traitor." > > Unguided-missile Colmes finally reached the smoking-burnout stage, >spewing >invectives and ridicule at me as fast as his facile, bifurcated tongue >could wag. > > "How can you just sit there and libel a statesman like John Kerry?" he >sputtered. > > "How dare you sit in judgment of a great American patriot!" > > My answer: "Apparently you have forgotten, Alan, but you asked me to 'sit >in judgment' of John Kerry--you asked me if I thought he was a traitor. I >didn't bring up the subject." Pausing, I asked, "By the way, can you tell >your audience how the Constitution defines a traitor? Go ahead. Surely you >must know." > > Retorted Prof. Colmes testily: "I'm not going to play your little quiz >game!" > > "It's not a game, Alan," I said. "Are you ignorant and don't know the >answer, or are you afraid to speak the truth? The Constitution defines a >traitor as someone who in time of war adheres to our enemy and gives the >enemy 'aid and comfort'--those are the exact words. Listen, Alan, listen." > > His response was a curt good-bye before going to the final break of the >hour to promote rupture-easers and get-rich-quick books from unknown >con-artists. > > When I submitted "Declaration of Expulsion," I felt a bit like Jonathan >Swift must have when he wrote "A Modest Proposal," a tongue-in-dark-cheek >suggestion that the "excess" babies born to Irish Catholics should be eaten >by Englishmen as a cheap source of meat. After my 45-minute broadcast >encounter with a typical American liberal, however, I believe that >expulsion of the most egregiously leftwing states is anything but a slight >"joke'; it is, in fact, clearly the serious and necessary path for rescue >and revival of the United States of America. > > I am also sure that God will be understanding when the U.S.A., a reborn >nation with revised borders, reaffirms the entire First Amendment and does >not change its name at this time, even if well intended, to Jesusland. > > >-- >----------------- >R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> >The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> >44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA >"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, >[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to >experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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Freedom of Expression
by Major Variola (ret) 12 Nov '04

12 Nov '04

At 09:41 AM 11/10/04 -0500, R.A. Hettinga wrote: >Those who love operas get what they want, and those who love rock and roll >get what they want, and both can live in peace with one another. Not if that manic-depressive, mother of controlled-substance-abusing spawn named Tipper Gore had maintained the power that she rode when her "Internet-Inventing" husband was fighting for his moronic political life. She would have banned R&R, see the Mothers of Prevention album, by the premiere American composer of the 20th century, among others. Not that I wouldn't pay good money to see her, William Cohen's bipolar negress, and Condosleeza Rice duke it out, in a tub of Jello (tm), on pay-per-view, officiated by the elder lackey Powell's FCC son officiating, of course. My money's on Rice, she knows how to fight, damn the collateral damage, full speed ahead.

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Mr. Blue Goes Deaf When He Sees Red
by R.A. Hettinga 12 Nov '04

12 Nov '04

Mostly because I sent his "Declaration of Expulsion" here... It's entirely possible that, absent a physical threat to keep the country together, we have all the necessary ingredients to go the way of the Soviet Union someday, and devolve. Cheers, RAH ------ <http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?print=yes&id=5750> HUMAN EVENTS ONLINE: The National Conservative Weekly Since 1944 Mr. Blue Goes Deaf When He Sees Red by Mike Thompson Posted Nov 12, 2004 Twenty-four hours after the dramatic U.S. presidential-election results were validated, Human Events Online published my essay (which I had been hatching for two weeks), "Declaration of Expulsion," a slightly satiric proposal to kick out of the Union the 12 most liberal states, either to join the People's Socialist Dominion of Canada or, on their own, go straight to Hell. Within hours (and I do not claim that my piece was a causal effect), liberal voices formed into an enthusiastic chorus for roughly the same idea: Democrat gurus Lawrence O'Donnell and Robert Beckel, as angry talking heads on two separate TV news shows, taunted the newly solid-Republican South (all states of which actually are overfed "welfare clients" of the affluent, heavily taxed North, huffed O'Donnell) to secede, for the second time since 1860; The reliably opportunistic Internet erupted with "I Seceded" T-shirts for sale, plus the mocking map of a 31-Red-state nation called "Jesusland," and An e-mail rapidly circulating among liberals touted creation of the country of "American Coastopia," whose upscale Atlantic- and Pacific-rim inhabitants joyfully would (what else?) fly over Fly-Over Country to get away from "rednecks in Oklahoma and homophobic knuckle-draggers in Wyoming." Then came confirmation of the growing fascination for dividing what once was "one nation indivisible," when Manhattan-based liberal talk-show host Alan Colmes invited me to be a guest for 15 minutes on his late-night radio program. My on-air "15 minutes of fame" would mushroom into 45 minutes of defamation: "Why are you so intolerant of liberals?" asked Herr Colmes, who apparently had forgotten that he was supposed to ask me when I had stopped beating my wife. I explained to him factually that more liberals than conservatives publicly are advocating dissolution of the Union, and that the issue, in either event, is not intolerance but rather insolubility--that is, there is no middle ground, no compromise possible on most CultureWar issues. "That's exactly what intolerance is!" asserted the intolerant talkmeister. "Listen carefully, Alan," I urged. "If you want Congress to pass a 10-dollar minimum wage and I want an eight-dollar cap, it's possible for us to compromise at nine dollars. But how do we compromise on abortion? Shall we kill only half as many babies? How do we compromise on gay marriage? Shall we allow a lesbian to marry a lesbian but forbid a man to marry a man? There are too many of these insoluble differences between the Red states and the Blue states." "I can't believe how intolerant you are!" screamed Alan. Soon a self-identified lesbian called in breathlessly to confess "intense fear of intolerant Red states." (Why, I thought, was she phoning a radio show in the middle of the night instead of her local 911 operator?) The perceptive host again verbally pounced on me, his guest, who safely lives in the brimstone warmth of Red Florida: "Do you think, Mr. Thompson, that this woman is evil or immoral?" "Alan, I have no idea who the woman is," I answered. "I have just met her anonymously over the phone. All I know is that she has made a bad choice of lifestyle, because lesbians have a documented higher rate of alcoholism, a higher rate of mental problems and a higher rate of suicide than heterosexual women." Alan, who apparently is aurally challenged, now was in the full-boost stage of liberal ballistics: "What do you mean, this woman RAPES other women? You are filled with hate! How DARE you say such a thing!" "Rape?" I asked, flabbergasted. "I said RATE--as in 'suicide rate.' RATE--as in 'alcoholism rate'! Please listen to me, Alan. Is your phone bad?" With no apology to his mystified guest, Alan disconnected the lesbian's call and radically changed the subject: "Do you think John Kerry is a traitor?" "Yes, Alan. One who commits treason," I observed coolly, "by definition is a traitor. Kerry went to Paris and consulted with our Communist Vietnam enemies, not with U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Subsequently, Kerry publicly endorsed the outrageous Communist 'peace plan,' not his own country's plan. "In uniform, Kerry during the war and under oath before the U.S. Senate also accused his fellow American soldiers of indiscriminately raping and killing Vietnamese civilians and destroying their villages just for the fun of it--false charges that were welcomed and used by the Communist nation's cruel jailers for years to torture American prisoners. Therefore, Mr. Kerry is a double traitor." Unguided-missile Colmes finally reached the smoking-burnout stage, spewing invectives and ridicule at me as fast as his facile, bifurcated tongue could wag. "How can you just sit there and libel a statesman like John Kerry?" he sputtered. "How dare you sit in judgment of a great American patriot!" My answer: "Apparently you have forgotten, Alan, but you asked me to 'sit in judgment' of John Kerry--you asked me if I thought he was a traitor. I didn't bring up the subject." Pausing, I asked, "By the way, can you tell your audience how the Constitution defines a traitor? Go ahead. Surely you must know." Retorted Prof. Colmes testily: "I'm not going to play your little quiz game!" "It's not a game, Alan," I said. "Are you ignorant and don't know the answer, or are you afraid to speak the truth? The Constitution defines a traitor as someone who in time of war adheres to our enemy and gives the enemy 'aid and comfort'--those are the exact words. Listen, Alan, listen." His response was a curt good-bye before going to the final break of the hour to promote rupture-easers and get-rich-quick books from unknown con-artists. When I submitted "Declaration of Expulsion," I felt a bit like Jonathan Swift must have when he wrote "A Modest Proposal," a tongue-in-dark-cheek suggestion that the "excess" babies born to Irish Catholics should be eaten by Englishmen as a cheap source of meat. After my 45-minute broadcast encounter with a typical American liberal, however, I believe that expulsion of the most egregiously leftwing states is anything but a slight "joke'; it is, in fact, clearly the serious and necessary path for rescue and revival of the United States of America. I am also sure that God will be understanding when the U.S.A., a reborn nation with revised borders, reaffirms the entire First Amendment and does not change its name at this time, even if well intended, to Jesusland. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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Stewart, Esq
by Major Variola (ret) 12 Nov '04

12 Nov '04

Moses Washington Sitting Bull Bin Laden Let my people go, Any Questions? >"I believe that entrenched institutions will not be changed except by violence," Stewart said. "I believe in the politics that lead to violence being exerted by people on their own behalf to effectuate change." Stewart cited the American Revolution and the struggle to end slavery as such examples but emphasized that she did not support terrorism, saying, "I do not believe in civilian deaths or wanton massacres.">

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Gov't Orders Air Passenger Data for Test
by R.A. Hettinga 12 Nov '04

12 Nov '04

<http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&u=/ap/20041112/ap_on_re_us/pa…> Yahoo! Gov't Orders Air Passenger Data for Test Fri Nov 12, 2:35 PM ET By LESLIE MILLER, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON - The government on Friday ordered airlines to turn over personal information about passengers who flew within the United States in June in order to test a new system for identifying potential terrorists. The system, dubbed "Secure Flight," will compare passenger data with names on two government watch lists, a "no fly" list comprised of people who are known or suspected to be terrorists, and a list of people who require more scrutiny before boarding planes. "Secure Flight represents a significant step in securing domestic air travel and safeguarding national security information, namely, the watchlists," the Transportation Security Administration said in a notice announcing the order. Currently, the federal government shares parts of the list with airlines, which are responsible for making sure suspected terrorists don't get on planes. People within the commercial aviation industry say the lists have the names of more than 100,000 people on them. The order follows a 30-day period during which the public was allowed to comment on the Secure Flight proposal. About 500 people commented on the plan; the overwhelming majority opposed it, saying it would invade their privacy and infringe on their civil liberties. An airline industry representative said the carriers, which support the plan, are studying the order. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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