Are any of y’all “cell phone geniuses”? I have AT&T. I’m eligible to upgrade phone now but can’t spend big $$$ (I’ve always bought re-furbs). My complete contract expires in December. My current phone’s keyboard is acting up, and I want another smartphone, but not iPhone, and prefer Android OS. Do I wait for my contract to expire and go to T-Moblie? Get the cheap Moto Blackflip? Wife likes Samsung Solstice, I like Samsung Captivate.

I understand that AT&T is nerfing half of Android’s goodies at the factory before you even get the phone. What if I find a phone somewhere else and just “attach” it to AT&T’s network (legally, of course).

If you root an Android do you get the goodies back?

I’ve had a phone for 10 years, and they’re still alchemy to me (although I DID remove AT&T’s restrictions on my current Samsung Blackjack II, runs fine, does what it’s supposed to do).

All of those “buy cheap phones here” sites online always force you to get a contract for something I don’t want (4,000,000 minutes for 5 years).

cell phone, AT&T, iPhone, Android, T-Moblie, Samsung

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In time for the widely expected launch of a new iPhone model, carrier AT&T Inc. is pulling in the reins on data usage by its customers with smart phones and iPads.

The sole U.S. carrier of the iPhone is introducing two new data plans, starting June 7, with limits on data consumption. They’ll replace the $30 per month plan with unlimited usage that it has required for all smart phones, including the iPhone.

Subscribers who use little data or learn to limit their consumption will pay slightly less every month than they do now, while heavy users will be dinged with extra consumption fees.

Time to move to Verizon and the Droid?

iPhone, AT&T, iPad, data consumption, unlimited usage, Verizon, Droid

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All told, (U.K. scientist and Green Party activist William) Connolley created or rewrote 5,428 unique Wikipedia articles. His control over Wikipedia was greater still, however, through the role he obtained at Wikipedia as a website administrator, which allowed him to act with virtual impunity. When Connolley didn’t like the subject of a certain article, he removed it — more than 500 articles of various descriptions disappeared at his hand. When he disapproved of the arguments that others were making, he often had them barred — over 2,000 Wikipedia contributors who ran afoul of him found themselves blocked from making further contributions. Acolytes whose writing conformed to Connolley’s global warming views, in contrast, were rewarded with Wikipedia’s blessings. In these ways, Connolley turned Wikipedia into the missionary wing of the global warming movement.

The Medieval Warm Period disappeared, as did criticism of the global warming orthodoxy. With the release of the Climategate Emails, the disappearing trick has been exposed. The glorious Medieval Warm Period will remain in the history books, perhaps with an asterisk to describe how a band of zealots once tried to make it disappear.

How many high school and college assignments were written based on what the students read (and copied) from Wikipedia? How many otherwise intelligent people have had their opinions swayed based on what they discovered at Wikipedia?

Sure, Connolley is no longer a Wikipedia administrator. He was de-sysoped for an unrelated topic, cold fusion, not for anything to do with the global warming issue. Yet for the last dozen years it was HIS opinions that were “translated” into fact at Wikipedia.

What type of person erases facts in order to allow his disillusioned beliefs to become the “new facts”? Sounds like some of the Holocaust deniers.

What type of encyclopedia can Wikipedia claim to be? How many more of these situations have we simply not discovered yet? Is there anyone out there that still believes in Wikipedia?

Connolley, Wikipedia, global warming, Medieval Warm Period, Climategate

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Microsoft Corp. Chief Executive Officer Steven Ballmer said the world’s largest software company would move some employees offshore if Congress enacts President Barack Obama’s plans to impose higher taxes on U.S. companies’ foreign profits.

“It makes U.S. jobs more expensive,” Ballmer said in an interview. “We’re better off taking lots of people and moving them out of the U.S. as opposed to keeping them inside the U.S.”

U.S. tax rules let companies defer paying corporate rates as high as 35 percent on most types of foreign profits as long as that money remains invested overseas. Obama says he wants to end such incentives to keep foreign profits tax-deferred so that companies would invest them in the U.S.

Microsoft reported an overall effective tax rate of 26 percent for 2008 in its last annual report. “Our effective tax rates are less than the statutory tax rate due to foreign earnings taxed at lower rates,” the report said.

In a roundtable discussion, Ballmer, Symantec Corp. Chairman John Thompson and the heads of smaller companies such as privately held Bentley Systems, an Exton, Pennsylvania-based maker of engineering software, said such policies [Obama’s plans to impose higher taxes] would hurt domestic investment, reduce shareholder value and increase the cost of employing U.S. workers.

“It is a little bit ironic that most of our most significant trading partners and partners globally have taken the tack that they’ll reduce corporate tax rates to stimulate economic growth and not raise corporate tax rates [Obama proposals],” Thompson said.

Maybe we should just “allow” Obama and his government to acquire/own these technology giants. Maybe the federal government should own all private businesses. Or just let these companies be driven out of the U.S. by our draconian tax policies.

No company CEO simply wakes up one morning and says, “Gee, let’s move all our money and assets to Ireland,” – they’re driven unwillingly to that solution by the federal government. And an exodus of business and the huge monies involved certainly will not help our current economic woes.

So is Obama really wanting to help the country’s economy, or control it? This is the Hope And Change you so desperately wanted back in November 2008.

Obama, tax, corporate tax, Hope And Change

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The clock is ticking.

At 12:30 a.m. EDT Wednesday, scientists on the Franco-Swiss border will flip the switch on the Large Hadron Collider, a 17-mile underground ring where subatomic particles will be accelerated to astonishing speeds and then smashed into each other.

It’ll be months before any usable data comes out from the experiments, but the so-called “Big Bang machine” already has physicists salivating at the prospect of unlocking the mysteries of the universe — and many other people worried it’ll create a black hole or strange self-replicating particle that will gobble up the Earth.

A pair of Russian scientists even think the LHC would be the world’s first time machine, and that we should expect visitors from the future to arrive soon after it goes into operation.

Large Hadron Collider operator CERN — officially the European Organization for Nuclear Research — has conducted several safety reviews and concluded that there is very little risk of something going horribly wrong.

But that hasn’t stopped several people, including a former nuclear engineer from Hawaii and a German biochemist, from speaking out against the project.

“Someone will spot a light ray coming out of the Indian Ocean during the night and no one will be able to explain it, retired Professor Otto Roessler told London’s Mail on Sunday. “Very soon the whole planet will be eaten in a magnificent scenario — if you could watch it from the moon. A Biblical Armageddon. Even cloud and fire will form, as it says in the Bible.”

“[T]he compression of the two atoms colliding together at nearly light speed will cause an irreversible implosion, forming a miniature version of a giant black hole,” reads a lawsuit filed in March in U.S. District Court in Honolulu by Walter L. Wagner and a Spanish colleague, Luis Sancho.

!!!

Is anyone else thinking that the Large Hadron Collide could inadvertently create a resonance cascade effect that tears dimensional rifts in the space-time continuum, causing intelligent and confused alien life forms from the Xen dimension to come pouring through multiple breaches scattered about the Earth, attacking anything in sight? Grab your crowbars!

Large Hadron Collider, Big Bang, LHC, CERN

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MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIF. – June 17, 2008 – Mozilla today released Firefox® 3, a major update to its popular and acclaimed free, open source Web browser. Firefox 3 is the culmination of three years of efforts from thousands of developers, security experts, localization and support communities, and testers from around the globe.

Available today in approximately 50 languages, Firefox 3 is two to three times faster than its predecessor and offers more than 15,000 improvements, including the revolutionary smart location bar, malware protection, and extensive under the hood work to improve the speed and performance of the browser.

“We’re really proud of Firefox 3 and it just shows what a committed, energized global community can do when they work together,” said John Lilly, CEO of Mozilla.

Mozilla Firefox is a web browser descended from the Mozilla Application Suite, managed by the Mozilla Corporation. Firefox had 18.41% of the recorded usage share of web browsers as of May 2008, making it the second-most popular browser in current use worldwide, after Internet Explorer.

Firefox uses the open source Gecko layout engine, which implements some current web standards plus a few features which are intended to anticipate likely additions to the standards.

Firefox runs on various versions of Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and many other Unix-like operating systems. Its current stable release is version 3.0, released on June 17, 2008. Firefox’s source code is free software, released under a tri-license GPL/LGPL/MPL.

Mozilla Firefox supports many web standards, including HTML, XML, XHTML, SVG 1.1 (partial), CSS (with extensions), ECMAScript (JavaScript), DOM, MathML, DTD, XSLT, XPath, and PNG images with alpha transparency. Firefox also supports standards proposals created by the WHATWG such as client-side storage, and canvas element.

Although Firefox 2 does not pass the Acid2 standards-compliance test, all releases since Firefox 3.0 Beta 2 do.

Forbes.com called Firefox the best browser in a 2004 commentary piece. PC World named Firefox “Product of the Year” in 2005 on their “100 Best Products of 2005″ list. After the release of Firefox 2 and Internet Explorer 7 in 2006, PC World reviewed both and declared that Firefox was the better browser. Which? Magazine named Firefox its “Best Buy” web browser.

Download here.

There is no reason to still be using the bloated and vulnerable Internet Explorer.

Mozilla, Firefox, Firefox 3, John Lilly, Gecko

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For several decades, the Democratic Party has pursued policies designed to drive up the cost of petroleum, and therefore gas at the pump. Remarkably, the Democrats don’t seem to have taken much of a political hit from the current spike in gas prices. Probably that’s because most people don’t realize how different the two parties’ energy policies have been.

Congressman Roy Blunt put together these data to highlight the differences between House Republicans and House Democrats on energy policy:

ANWR Exploration
House Republicans: 91% Supported
House Democrats: 86% Opposed

Coal-to-Liquid
House Republicans: 97% Supported
House Democrats: 78% Opposed

Oil Shale Exploration
House Republicans: 90% Supported
House Democrats: 86% Opposed

Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Exploration
House Republicans: 81% Supported
House Democrats: 83% Opposed

Refinery Increased Capacity
House Republicans: 97% Supported
House Democrats: 96% Opposed

SUMMARY

91% of House Republicans have historically voted to increase the production of American-made oil and gas.
86% of House Democrats have historically voted against increasing the production of American-made oil and gas.

So while you’re paying more than $4 per gallon of gasoline why don’t you send a “thank you” email to Speaker Of The House Nancy Pelosi for listening to the will of the people.

Republican, Democrat, ANWR, Oil Shale, Continental Shelf, Refinery, gasoline, Pelosi

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To our neighbors, my wife, Nancy, and I don’t appear in the least unusual. To those in the quiet Oregon community where we live, we are viewed just as we are — a happy couple deeply in love. Our desire to work hard, buy our first home, and start a family was nothing out of the ordinary. That is, until we decided that I would carry our child.

I am transgender, legally male, and legally married to Nancy. Unlike those in same-sex marriages, domestic partnerships, or civil unions, Nancy and I are afforded the more than 1,100 federal rights of marriage. Sterilization is not a requirement for sex reassignment, so I decided to have chest reconstruction and testosterone therapy but kept my reproductive rights. Wanting to have a biological child is neither a male nor female desire, but a human desire.

Ten years ago, when Nancy and I became a couple, the idea of us having a child was more dream than plan. I always wanted to have children. However, due to severe endometriosis 20 years ago, Nancy had to undergo a hysterectomy and is unable to carry a child. But after the success of our custom screen-printing business and a move from Hawaii to the Pacific Northwest two years ago, the timing finally seemed right. I stopped taking my bimonthly testosterone injections. It had been roughly eight years since I had my last menstrual cycle, so this wasn’t a decision that I took lightly. My body regulated itself after about four months, and I didn’t have to take any exogenous estrogen, progesterone, or fertility drugs to aid my pregnancy.

Huh?

OK, he was born a woman, decided to become a man, did all the reconstruction and testosterone therapy, and became a man … except that he still had all his reproductive organs.

Then this man finds and marries a woman. The woman cannot become pregnant, so he decided to forgo any more testosterone therapy (does this make him 1/2 woman?) and become pregnant himself. So now the husband is carrying and going to deliver the child for his wife.

I need a drink.

Our situation sparks legal, political, and social unknowns. We have only begun experiencing opposition from people who are upset by our situation. Doctors have discriminated against us, turning us away due to their religious beliefs. Health care professionals have refused to call me by a male pronoun or recognize Nancy as my wife. Receptionists have laughed at us. Friends and family have been unsupportive; most of Nancy’s family doesn’t even know I’m transgender.

Most of Nancy’s family doesn’t even know he’s transgender? Oh, that ought to go over well this Thanksgiving.

This whole process, from trying to get pregnant to being pregnant, has been a challenge for us. The first doctor we approached was a reproductive endocrinologist. He was shocked by our situation and told me to shave my facial hair. After a $300 consultation, he reluctantly performed my initial checkups. He then required us to see the clinic’s psychologist to see if we were fit to bring a child into this world and consulted with the ethics board of his hospital. A few months and a couple thousand dollars later, he told us that he would no longer treat us, saying he and his staff felt uncomfortable working with “someone like me.”

Hmmm, but I bet that doctor would have continued working with a cracked-out Welfare brood mare taking thousands of taxpayer dollars and promising to bring up the child in wretched poverty and crime.

How does it feel to be a pregnant man? Incredible. Despite the fact that my belly is growing with a new life inside me, I am stable and confident being the man that I am. In a technical sense I see myself as my own surrogate, though my gender identity as male is constant. To Nancy, I am her husband carrying our child — I am so lucky to have such a loving, supportive wife. I will be my daughter’s father, and Nancy will be her mother. We will be a family.

Outside the local medical community, people don’t know I’m five months’ pregnant. But our situation ultimately will ask everyone to embrace the gamut of human possibility and to define for themselves what is normal.

“Our situation ultimately will ask everyone to embrace the gamut of human possibility and to define for themselves what is normal.” That’s an understatement.

Look, I’m not entirely comfortable with this medical circus act. But the focus should not be either him or his wife – it should be with the child. As long as they can and will raise a healthy baby, educate the child, and providing a loving home they will be doing better than a lot of other households, including the Bible-thumping ones that will be most upset with this story.

But I still need a drink.

transgender, sex reassignment

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• Islamic Jihad terrorist captured near Tel Aviv after his bomb belt fails to detonate
• Palestinian bride arrested on suspicion of planning to carry out suicide bombing
• Three Israelis injured in shooting attack near Modi’in
• Hamas calls for further kidnappings of Israeli soldiers
• Israeli cars shot at in West Bank
• Israeli civilian wounded in West Bank drive-by shooting
• Arrests prevent huge Hamas-planned car bomb in Tel Aviv
• Egypt arrests would-be Hamas suicide bomber near Israeli border
• Palestinian rockets hit Sderot home; several Israelis treated for shock

Even after all this action by Hamas and the Palestinians the world media still claim a ceasefire is working.

Reuters says “Hamas’s armed wing broke a five-month ceasefire on Tuesday by firing rockets into Israel from the Gaza Strip after Israeli forces killed nine Palestinians over the weekend.”

Broke a five-month ceasefire? What about the earlier Islamic Jihad terrorist captured near Tel Aviv after his bomb belt fails to detonate? That doesn’t count?

The barrages of Kassam rockets and mortar shells Hamas fired at Israel on Tuesday morning were meant to provide cover for and distract attention from an attempted infiltration by a terror cell, whose members intended to kidnap IDF soldiers deployed along the Gaza border, IDF sources reported Tuesday afternoon.

Over at the AP they say “Hamas militants called Sunday for a fresh wave of attacks against Israel after troops killed nine Palestinians in weekend fighting, straining a five-month-old cease-fire.”

What about the Egyptian arrest of a would-be Hamas suicide bomber near the Israeli border? The relentless pro-Palestinian bias of the AP is very obvious in this one. Notice that the first sentence blames the “strained cease-fire” on Israel. It’s doubly deceptive because (1) it doesn’t mention the previous rocket attacks by Hamas, and (2) there is no “cease-fire” because the rockets have never stopped coming from Gaza during any time of the ceasefire.

The BBC continues the lie with “The armed wing of the Palestinian Hamas movement has said it is ending its five-month truce with Israel. Earlier in the day the group launched a sustained barrage of rockets and mortars into Israel, the first such attack since November. ”

Ended its five-month truce with Israel? What about the Palestinian rockets that hit a Sderot home? What about the Israeli civilian that was wounded in a West Bank drive-by shooting? Do those signify an adherence to any ceasefire?

Over the past few years the media has consistently downplayed or ignored Palestinian violence, once giving militant Islam a free pass, while apportioning blame on Israeli retaliatory or preventative actions as the cause of “escalating violence” or “breaking of ceasefires”. It appears, yet again, necessary to showcase this inaccurate and misleading representation of the conflict.

At what point do Palestinian terror and missile attacks constitute a breach of a “ceasefire”? Does Hamas have to kill 100 Israels before the ceasefire is considered broken? Or 1,000? If a single Palestinian is killed by Israeli forces the world media and the UN would certainly consider the ceasefire broken.

Remember this well: Neither Hamas nor the Palestinians want any sort of peace; they simply and singularly want the complete elimination of Israel and nothing less.

The appeasers around the globe keep insisting that Islam is not the aggressor, it’s just a few radials posing a threat to the civilized world, even though Islam itself has been blatantly telling us for centuries that Muslims have the right and the duty to enslave and murder us for no reason other than we exist. What other faith makes such a claim? And yet so many of us fall all over ourselves excusing and apologizing for any terrible action done by a Muslim.

Why?

Israel, Palestinian, Islam, Jihad, terrorist, West Bank, Hamas, Gaza

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Give or take a few minutes, that’s about how often a commercial comes on during Prime Time during network broadcast. So just think about this for a minute: what would you do if everytime a commercial came on TV a missile were fired from your neighbor’s house towards your house, and all the while all the other neighbors on your street, as well as the police, were telling you not to do anything against such a neighbor because, after all, it’s YOUR fault that you moved into the neighborhood?

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