Nucular?

Nucular? Seriously? What is that?

"Of, relating to, or constituting a nuculus?"

I must have missed the day in Bio when we learned about that part of the atom. Is that where the potrons and nruons are?

The FBI's Priorities Re: Domestic Terrorism

Director Robert S. Mueller III of the FBI... said one of the bureau's "highest domestic terrorism priorities" is catching and prosecuting "those who commit crime and terrorism in the name of animal rights or environmental issues."

This is from an article in the NY Times today about 11 defendants who were indicted on domestic terrorism charges. They allegedly "caused millions of dollars in damage to public and private facilities" on behalf of the Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front.

I agree that arson isn't the right way to get your point across... but given the full spectrum of "bad guys" that I need to be protected from, these groups ain't causing me to lose much sleep. Hey, Mr. Mueller! Grab a pencil and pull out that list of priorities... see if you can make room for "those who kill to spread a message of hate" somewhere above "those who burn stuff to spread a message of saving the earth and its creatures."

It's No Wonder People Think the IRS is Evil

This just in... the New York Times reported today that "tax refunds sought by hundreds of thousands of poor Americans have been frozen and their returns labeled fraudulent, blocking refunds for years to come." The article focuses on a report by the IRS's taxpayer advocate, Nina Olson:

"The taxpayers, whose average income was $13,000, were not told that they were suspected of fraud, the advocate said in her annual report to Congress... her staff sampled suspected returns and found that, at most, one in five was questionable.

A computer program selected the returns as part of the questionable refund program run by the criminal investigation division of the Internal Revenue Service. In some cases, the criminal division ordered that taxpayers be given no hint that they were suspected of fraud, the report said."

On a happier note, it's good to know that my tax return has less of a chance of being held up, what with the IRS spending so much of its resources freezing legitimate payments to low-income single parents.

It's Illegal to Annoy

Wow, this should make life different in a lot of online communities - it's now illegal for someone to use the Internet "without disclosing his identity and with intent to annoy." There's that sticky problem of how do you prove intent to annoy... and really, what is the standard for annoying, anyway? Anybody want to start trolling some communities to test this new legislation out?

HR 3402 - Violence Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act of 2005 has the following language in the section entitled Preventing Cyberstalking:

"Whoever... utilizes any device or software that can be used to originate telecommunications or other types of communications that are transmitted, in whole or in part, by the Internet... without disclosing his identity and with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any person... who receives the communications... shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than two years, or both."

New Year's Resoution: More Blogging

Happy New Year. Among other resolutions, I have decided to start using this blog. Unfortunately, it's 5am - way too early to start spewing my ideas and opinons. Instead, I need to get ready for my flight to NYC in 2 hours. Stay tuned...