In many jurisdictions, including San Francisco, officers do not have to present the physical evidence of a search warrant; it merely has to be on file with the court.

Ben Stein is the new Cat Stevens.

These kits are fun, and certainly small enough to keep in a place you might want one, but for real preparation, I cannot recommend highly enough making a kit yourself.

Here's what I've got:
http://wiki.ratwerks.com/BePrepared

Keep in mind that the best emergency kit you can have is the emergency kit you *have*. Having a crappy kit beats not having a great kit any day.

Also, putting candy in it makes checking it twice a year (or so) more fun. And who wouldn't want candy during the zombie apocalypse?

I work for the DOI, had to sign a loyalty oath, and gotta say that I feel pretty good about it.

I'm not a spy or an officer or anything like that, but in my job it would be very easy for someone to ask me to break a law, regulation or rule. It would be difficult to ask me to do something unconstitional, but definitely there are smaller laws I'm responsible for upholding.

I take the "defending the Constitution" part of my oath quite seriously, but in reality mostly take it to mean that I won't enable people to do illegal stuff on my watch.

I equate it with being a mandated reporter for child abuse. Now, whether this particular job should have had this oath at all is definitely not clear, and it really is insane to ask people to sign something they don't intend to support.

DOI blocks LiveJournal, Twitter, MySpace, and comic pages. Reasons: online community, and stunningly: comics. They also block the usual porn and gambling and videos.

Personally I feel online activity, as long as it isn't bandwith binging or child porn, is an issue between the supervisor and the employee. Get yer job done, surf away.

Professionally it bugs me because I have legitimate work related reasons for going to LJ and MySpace. I thought Google's cached pages would work, but they don't.

(It also bugs me personally because I'm so addicted to LJ et al.)

Only work around I know is a proxy, which I'm sure the DOI would not like either.

There is one on Alcatraz, upstairs is the hospital.

Kucinich is vegan, so I hope it's a soy/almond/rice/whatever "milk"shake.

It is cute, but what I really want to know is when did sweatshirts become "hoodies"?

Who says a computer will help them in any conceivable way? Wouldn't a book be a better learning tool or a qualified teacher or a school?

There are other companies that donate books and money for teachers. That doesn't mean there isn't room for other companies to exist. And in fact this company, which wishes to stay in existance, has done just a wee bit of research to determine that their product actually has an eager market.

What's stopping them or their parents from selling their laptops and buying necessities like clothing, food, medicine, shelter, or something they don't need?

Nothing. Why should there be something? There is nothing stopping you from doing the same with your possesions. Do you think other people are dumber than you with decisions?

It cracks me up when people whine about other people using money to buy "something they don't need." Look around your place and tell me you own nothing you don't NEED. Life is not merely about needs.

This is a beautiful project. And sexy laptops too.

I was fast in QWERTY, but never touch typed. I was having some wrist pain, and decided that if I was going to learn to touch type I would go Dvorak.

I love it. Fast and comfy and it's a little security feature if I forget to lock my laptop - from my friends I mean, not some serious attack.

It has a pain in the butt factor, but since I never learned to touch type QWERTY, it wasn't a big deal for me. I did feel like a lobotomy patient while I was learning and agree with the earlier comment - hard stuff is good for your brain.