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?? Confused here ... so are you saying that you HOPE he CHANGES?

That being said, he's "at the mercy" of what his managers tell him. I'm sure news is filtered every which way but loose and that he's told "ignore the TV", as those guys only reflect some public opinion, and they don't have all of the facts anyway.

After all, we know he's proficient in technically matters, so I'm sure that him deep understanding the NSA technical functions is just obvious.

Not a worry- seems like many cops would just shoot Lassie first and then try to ask questions (probably "bark if you don't want us to search").

Yeah, over forty people could be killed and half of downtown destroyed! Oh wait, that wasn't a pipeline.

What rock didn't get that news?

Even so, in what world is transporting oil in vehicles safer? Is your heart at ease when an SUV drives around crossing gates, barely clearing the tracks before a 40 car train of tankers moving at 70MPH rolls through? Do you live for the moments when you're driving among several of these tankers on the interstate? Or behind one at a railroad crossing (while it was a gasoline truck, I can't imagine the effect of oil being much better).

apparently the darling child of the automotive industry

What's with the snide side commentary? Tesla isn't the "darling" of anyone. Snide, obnoxious comments like this are pretty much du jour in any coverage. Everyone's gunning for them, simply because they're odd kid on the block.

A Tesla catches fire after hitting a piece of massive road debris or getiting into a crash, and it's a fucking national emergency, their stock tanks, electric cars are suddenly "unsafe", etc.

Meanwhile: do you drive a Ford SUV made in the 90's? Twice, Ford weakened the roof and support pillars to save money, against the recommendation of their engineers.

Drive a 90's Ford? Their ignition switches were substandard and could short out, causing your car to catch fire at random. 8.6 million vehicles: http://articles.baltimoresun.c...

Drive a recent GM truck? They've also got a "randomly burst into fire" problem; 370,000 vehicles: http://money.cnn.com/2014/01/1...

Just google "GM recall fire" or "Ford recall fire" and read page after page of recalls that affect hundreds of thousands if not millions of vehicles.

Now it's 2014 and the President is using the IRS, EPA, and ATF to harass and attack his political opponents.

Yeah, using the IRS, the Secret Service, the FBI, and perhaps the CIA against political opponents isn't a good thing.

Hi ReaI Re: "I am interested in who started the program of backbone taps with dark-fiber shunts and assemble;ed the data for the back-end." My super short time line on POTS, fax, embassy junk encryption and national domestic database work.
Tempest was early 1950's in the real world by ~CIA. NATO and ~EU and neutral embassies junk US/ UK crypto where all fair game.
Grab Galactic Radiation and Background was the first elint sat (under a science cover story) was early 1960.
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1998-06-18/news/1998169123_1_spy-satellites-grab-naval-research
The US COINS (Community On-line Intelligence System) as a database was late 1960's (vs paper files/cards).
1964 was Intelsat and the total collection of all calls by US/UK.
So a lot of data storing/searching ideas and the constant flow of calls and signals world wide by that time.
All the NSA had to do was set US and the peering of telcos to the US as international standards - junk crypto by default and super cheap calls.
The backbone taps with dark-fiber would have been some fancy, new expensive all 'digital exchange' upgrades back in the early 1980's.
Telcos worldwide that had always been tight/happy with regional copper and layers, over priced data serves suddenly did expensive national upgrades to new tech....
Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act in 1994 was useful too. Trade deals to ensure the world would have to buy the same equipment vs recoding and upgrades for the US only. Other nations where not going to be allowed to keep selling old tech vs the price of new US tech.
Its a bit like thanks to Snowden more people finally understanding that the US hardware, OS and brands are the way in by default over generations.
The telco system was the same idea.
I am interested what the crypto staff, mil and govs of other countries where thinking when they handed US/UK crypto to their mil/gov/banks/telcos/industry/legal systems. Did they not have the skills to test, know to look deeper, any understanding of what they where handing in bulk to other countries (UK?US and others)? Yet they seemed to be able to keep the Soviet Union out...

And at least Carter has tried to make up for it, often acting as an envoy, or making sure that elections aren't rigged in third world countries.

He needs to check out elections in most US states and organizations that are helping to allow people to undermine the system.

http://dailycaller.com/2012/10/10/new-okeefe-video-obama-campaign-staffer-caught-helping-activist-vote-twice/
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/feb/19/ohio-poll-worker-who-admits-voting-twice-obama-may/
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2012-09-14/news/bs-md-wendy-rosen-withdraws-20120910_1_wendy-rosen-maryland-democratic-party-general-election

And it's funny how the DOJ goes after states that try to enact voter ID laws because it will somehow disenfranchise voters. It's one person, one vote.

Right, this has nothing to do with the fact that a no strings attached version of the bill had enough Republican votes in the house to pass from the get go but the republican caucus in the house changed the parliamentary rules so only the majority leader could bring the bill to vote, ie boehner, who proceeded to refuse to do so to begin this whole charade of brinkmanship to begin with. Citation: http://touch.baltimoresun.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-77802818/

Official site http://www.newyorkcomiccon.com/

Europe is complicated and while I'm no economist I can say that Banks, the EU and Germany wants austerity but the problem with that is with high unemployment and an expectation of high social program spending, where does the revenue come in? You can only tax the wealthy and corporations so much before that money shifts somewhere else. With the "strings attached" bailouts in Greece and other nations in the EU, you have governments having to accept terms and conditions that make them unpopular with their citizens and actually create more misery. You also can't keep spending more than you take in and while raising taxes and reducing programs is a start in these countries I don't think you'll be able to ween people off the government teats. It's a vicious cycle and as Margaret Thatcher said "The problem with Socialism is that eventually you run out of other peoples' money." So what do you do then? You've taxed everybody to the point of hilarity and yet you're still spending more than you can afford. People and Companies with half a brain and money will move to countries that are more favorable in terms of tax policies which makes the situation worse. It's already happened in the US with states like Maryland passing additional taxes on high incomes to balance the books, with negative results.

But back to third parties. I wouldn't advocate having 30 parties in this country but what about the ability to write-in candidates? In all states it requires petitions with 10s of thousands of signatures to be eligible to run for state office, that takes resources and only the Democrats and Republicans can consistently get their candidates on a ballot, why? Because they wrote the rules and they have huge coffers and committees dedicated to getting slates of representatives elected in multiple states. That squeezes out the possibility of an independent or a third party candidate from getting any kind of momentum and in the last presidential election where a third party candidate made an impact, was 1992 with Ross Perot where to the chagrin of both parties he took votes away from their candidates, almost 20 million. Clinton that year only won with 44 million votes so what Perot did was quite significant and it probably cost GHW Bush the election. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1992 That was over 20 years ago and no third party candidate has made that kind of impact. Sure, Perot threw tons of his own money into it and that's my point about money in politics, whoever has the biggest war chest usually wins. Republicans and Democrats have spend decades tuning the funding system, the coffers are full and big money is not playing a bigger part with folks like the Koch Brothers pushing their draconian agenda into the fray. But they're not the only ones, Defense Contractors, Government Contractors and a slew of special interests constantly bombard DC with their lobbyists and their money, buying access and ultimately they get the ears of the representatives. It's so bad now that members of Congress don't even write their own legislation, they get it from lobbyists and plaster their name on it as the sponsor. So, the only way to cure it is to get the elected elite out of office, push alternative candidates from alternative parties and to get campaign finance reform in place then maybe you'll see some true intellectuals and leaders step up, ones that don't have the connections or the money backing them but ones who can actually lead and who have a vision.

The big winners weren't today, they were the insider options trades that executed long before the news was public. See Who Knew What When for some of that. The SEC won't do anything, since some of those trades are likely to have high political connections. When Congress won't stop insider trading, no one in the SEC wants to rock that boat. They only take on little fish.

Guys, lots of other countries use incinerators for non-recyclable stuff. You get rid of it, and get electricity and heat as a bonus. Modern incinerators are so clean, they rarely even emit visible steam.

Why is the US so allergic to incinerators?

Here in Maryland, we know incinerators are a form of renewable energy because trash is a renewable, and never ending product.

Unlike your claim that "Modern incinerators are so clean", we also know that "the trash incinerators emit more pollution per hour of energy than each of Maryland's four largest coal-fired power plants".

Maryland for example, has set up a rain tax to tax people for the amount of rain that falls on their property

It's worse than that. As a Marylander (not for long because of this type of nonsense), I can also tell you that the rain tax, like most other taxes rammed through in the last five years or so, does NOT have to go towards saving the Chesapeake Bay (the justification used to pass it). The revenue goes into the state's general fund, where it is pissed away by the politicians to do things like give state loans to sports bars. This is a huge reason why states like CA, MD, and MA are destroying their tax bases as people and businesses flee by the millions to more tax-friendly states.

And even something more recent and Snowden specific:

Local NAACP leaders rally around Snowden.

If NSA or marketing get their way, we'll all be sporting these soon enough.

No, I doubt it was what was intended.

I fully concede that the story used the wrong spelling, but occasionally grammar Nazis need to be shown that their way is not the only way, and old idioms are re-purposed in English. Verbing Weirds Language, yet we do it every day.

What cuts? There are no cuts, merely reductions in the rate of increase. I assume everybody here took calculus and knows about rates of increase.

The only reason the FAA is reducing air service is because the administration wants to apply as much pain as possible to blackmail the public into crying about restoring the "cuts".

This is called the "Firemen First" approach (cut the fire dept so the mayor won't have to cut back on patronage funds or whatever):

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2013-03-14/news/bs-ed-turkey-farms

The problem with speed scameras is that they really are not about safety. A wise man once said. "measure what is important, not what is easy to measure". It is easy to measure speed, that doesn't mean that micro managing this is a good idea. It is not. Speed scamera side is not interested in safety (beyond the talking points). They don't care if you are guilty or innocent. http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/40/4009.asp don't care if they make mistakes, unless it makes the press like this one out of Baltimore. http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2012-12-14/news/bs-md-speed-camera-error-rate-20121214_1_camera-tickets-camera-contractor-xerox-state don't even care if you are not speeding. http://www.eveningnews24.co.uk/news/the_18mph_taxi_driver_clocked_doing_50mph_by_misfiring_speed_camera_1_1831308 They will even issue a ticket on speeding at 0 mph! http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2012-12-12/news/bs-md-speed-camera-stopped-car-20121212_1_potential-citation-xerox-state-camera-ticket Heck, they have gotten to the point of not just 1 km/h tickets http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/32/3266.asp Quote: Vehicle owners have begun to protest after receiving 45 euro (US $58) tickets for driving as little as 61 km/h (38 MPH) in a 60 zone -- just 1 km/h or sixth-tenths of a mile-per-hour over the limit. The camera in question is positioned just a few yards away from a sign that lowers the limit on the road from 90 km/h (56 MPH) to 60, Varese Notizie reported. Vendors have in Europe now citing for driving UNDER the speed limit. http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/35/3523.asp The speed scamera are a tax. On those who say "big" deal, so they go "after" those "car" drivers, REALIZE that this style of enforcement will creep outside of cars. Already there have been speed scamera tickets to bike riders. http://www.banthecams.org/Speed-Camera-News/poland-naked-speed-camera-protester-fined-315-bike-riders-in-poland-are-cited-by-speed-scameras.html Scameras are about petty enforcement to make dollars, NOT safety. Safety is pulling over a dangerous driver, not sending a bill weeks later to benefit a private company. www.motorists.org www.banthecams.org camerafraud on Facebook.

The problem with speed scameras is that they really are not about safety. A wise man once said. "measure what is important, not what is easy to measure". It is easy to measure speed, that doesn't mean that micro managing this is a good idea. It is not. Speed scamera side is not interested in safety (beyond the talking points). They don't care if you are guilty or innocent. http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/40/4009.asp don't care if they make mistakes, unless it makes the press like this one out of Baltimore. http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2012-12-14/news/bs-md-speed-camera-error-rate-20121214_1_camera-tickets-camera-contractor-xerox-state don't even care if you are not speeding. http://www.eveningnews24.co.uk/news/the_18mph_taxi_driver_clocked_doing_50mph_by_misfiring_speed_camera_1_1831308 They will even issue a ticket on speeding at 0 mph! http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2012-12-12/news/bs-md-speed-camera-stopped-car-20121212_1_potential-citation-xerox-state-camera-ticket Heck, they have gotten to the point of not just 1 km/h tickets http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/32/3266.asp Quote: Vehicle owners have begun to protest after receiving 45 euro (US $58) tickets for driving as little as 61 km/h (38 MPH) in a 60 zone -- just 1 km/h or sixth-tenths of a mile-per-hour over the limit. The camera in question is positioned just a few yards away from a sign that lowers the limit on the road from 90 km/h (56 MPH) to 60, Varese Notizie reported. Vendors have in Europe now citing for driving UNDER the speed limit. http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/35/3523.asp The speed scamera are a tax. On those who say "big" deal, so they go "after" those "car" drivers, REALIZE that this style of enforcement will creep outside of cars. Already there have been speed scamera tickets to bike riders. http://www.banthecams.org/Speed-Camera-News/poland-naked-speed-camera-protester-fined-315-bike-riders-in-poland-are-cited-by-speed-scameras.html Scameras are about petty enforcement to make dollars, NOT safety. Safety is pulling over a dangerous driver, not sending a bill weeks later to benefit a private company. www.motorists.org www.banthecams.org camerafraud on Facebook.

Now for lasers:
Sentencing is all over the map, but 2.5 years is not outrageous here.

Lets compare it to kids sentenced for throwing rocks at cars. We will see that it is all over the map as far as sentencing goes.

5 years 1 person injured
Probation+Restitution
Probation 1 child seriously injured

i would say the probation people got off way too easy. Though most of the articles I found were of people being killed, most of those were murder charges and life-sentences. Very few articles about non-fatal events. It makes me wonder if non-injury rock throwings are even investigated at all.

I can't begin to see how any extra power that the state has would give them any particular advantage in that matter, nor how it would negatively impact citizenry in any more significant way,

Your phrasing is interesting - "give them any particularl advantage" - it isn't about giving the state an advantage because they already have one by virtue of being the state. It is about preventing abuse of that advantage.

As for an example - warrantless infiltration of church meetings and civil-rights groups was SOP for COINTELPRO. A practice that was officially banned until the PATRIOT act. After which they started doing it again, putting 100% inncocent people on terrorist watch lists as a result.

As you said, law enforcement would be unreasonable to do that, yet they have a long history of doing it.

Some tech input will show up regardless of what's in TFS/A. General science articles are always welcome for me at any rate. Regarding this topic, here's a good photo gallery: Notable sinkholes from around the globe.

Nikon resigns...

And here is another, from December:

We are in the middle of a huge, global experiment. One the one side we have the American model of almost infinite copyright, fiercely defended by the RIAA and MPAA middlemen, who load on extra costs while a pittance goes to the artists – see http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2012-08-27/entertainment/bs-ae-sugarman-film-20120824_1_strydom-royalty-checks-music-industry for an example.

On the other side, we have the rest of the world, where copyright does not exist or cannot be practically enforced. Where people in the industry really have to hustle and be creative to make a dime.

Which paradigm will prevail? My bet is on the open, crowd-sourced concept. A Korean Psy going Gangnam will become the mainstream (how many DCMA takedowns has he issued?) and the locked-down Americans will fade to obscurity. Your children are going to grow up listening to world music and watching Bollywood for this reason. The Beatles will pass them by because Apple and Apple took so long to come to their senses.

Do you remember what happened when he actually tried to close it? Congress refused to let it happen. The only way he's going to get the detention camp closed is if he orders the release of all the prisoners.

Congress refused to let the DREAM Act happen, too. But he actually cared about that so he just said F Congress and made it happen by issuing an Executive Order: http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2012-08-19/news/bs-ed-immigration-20120819_1_immigration-policy-legal-status-dream-act

We are in the middle of a huge, global experiment. One the one side we have the American model of almost infinite copyright, fiercely defended by the RIAA and MPAA middlemen, who load on extra costs while a pittance goes to the artists – see http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2012-08-27/entertainment/bs-ae-sugarman-film-20120824_1_strydom-royalty-checks-music-industry for an example.

On the other side, we have the rest of the world, where copyright does not exist or cannot be practically enforced. Where people in the industry really have to hustle and be creative to make a dime.

Which paradigm will prevail? My bet is on the open, crowd-sourced concept. A Korean Psy going Gangnam will become the mainstream (how many DCMA takedowns has he issued?) and the locked-down Americans will fade to obscurity. Your children are going to grow up listening to world music and watching Bollywood for this reason. The Beatles will pass them by because Apple and Apple took so long to come to their senses.

Yeah, we're talking about meth, not alcohol.

Teresa Heinz comes to mind.

Um, if you think that copyrighting/trademarking a common word is reaching, what about color?

I don't have links for the recent decision over red soles on women's shoes, nor the company in Germany that trademarked the color blue, but how about this item from 1995, in which Justice Breyer decided that companies DO have the right to trademark colors: http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1995-03-29/news/1995088024_1_color-trademark-protection-pink

Compared to that, a simple little thing like trademarking a common word is pretty tame.

This whole bruhahaha over voter rights and disenfranchising voters is what elections have been about in this country since it was founded. It's been a tug of war ever since the constitution was signed.

Remember that Women weren't allowed to vote? That was in the constitution as well, not in a state law. Poll Taxes weren't abolished until the 1960s!
T
Now all of this voter "deletion" and other unscrupulous acts cause people to take notice? I just ask those people "Where the fuck have you been? Under a rock?"

Look, people in power don't like to give up power, that's why we have really two parties in the US. They've come to write the laws including voter registration laws and the oh so popular redistricting battles that come around every 10 years with the Census. They agree that when one party is in charge that the other will cause no end of fighting and finger pointing to say how fraudulent the process is, no matter how fair people try to make it. Don't like a congressman? We'll redistrict his ass out to the pasture by bringing in more voters of one racial or bias group that will vote more the way we like it.

It's been going on since the country was founded and simply put, it's not fair to some but it's always fair to the politicians who want to hold onto office despite their deplorable voting records and obstructionism.

What's also lost on a lot of people is that Texas picked up a few seats in the house at the loss of predominantly Democratic States. Remember Congressman "I didn't take lude pics of my weiner" Weiner? His seat went *poof* because of the Census and more people moving to Texas. And the Democrats are worried that these 4 extra seats may just go Red. That's why there's been constant legal challenges to the redistricting going on in the state and every left and right wing fringe element is coming to the party. It's just wonderful to watch our courts and our processes get drug into the mud with all this Gerrymandering but it's a fact of life and ultimately the guys who make the laws could fix it but again they have agreement with their counterparts across the aisle to keep the status quo because it keeps them both gainfully in power and employed. You also have a white house with AG Holder that has been playing whack-a-mole with ever voter registration change or requirement that has come along in the last four years to weed out voter fraud. All the while Holder is playing up to every racial minority and pulls the race card out at every opportunity. Having an Picture ID? That's a minimal requirement nowadays even if you want to cash a check, get a bank account or even travel on a train or airplane and this whole bunch of bullshit around this in Texas and in Pennsylvania is another smoke screen to make sure that voter fraud can continue. You see we have to maintain that status quo.

Oh and if you don't think that voter fraud actually exists, how about something that was smoothed over recently. A woman and a democrat, suddenly withdrew from running for Congress when it was alleged that she voted in Maryland and in Florida during the 2006 and 2008 elections. So if you think that voter fraud doesn't exist, here's a woman, running for office with the ethics of a crack dealer. Now it's alleged but her own party called her out! Maybe she can do some arts and crafts when she's in prison?

So who represents you? That's why you vote and that's why every vote does count and I don't care if you're black, white, green or brown but if you're here in the US, are a citizen op age and a resident of the state where you're voting, you should be able to vote. Each state can come up with requirements to assure that

Under these guidelines, the Social Security Administration qualifies as terrorists.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bs-md-social-security-bullets-20120910,0,2812457.story/

Yes, they absolutely should; for the consumer, to prevent abominations like this. I would say that anything more interactive than a reference document or log book. For more real medical software (i.e. patient monitors or diagnostic tools), just because it's on a smartphone and not a dedicated box doesn't mean it suddenly stops being a medical tool.

I don't see how this is any different from saying that desk lamps can heal your acne, or holding a desk lamp to your face will heal your acne (Disclaimer: I just made this example up, pimple-faced Slashdotters -- DO NOT TRY this at home).

In such a case, a reference document on a phone, or a reference document on a web site, or a logbook that keeps track of the number of times you hold up the desk lamp to your face, can be just as abominable and as dangerous as the interactive app you just referenced.

And in that sense, no separate laws needs to be created for mobile applications. If you make unsubstantiated health claims whether they be on leaflets, books, foods, supplements, cosmetics, shampoo bottles, web pages, or even mobile applications, then I would hope the government would come after you irregardless of the medium you used. And of course, since the government can't be everywhere at once, the more dangerous a health claim is, the quicker the government should intervene in that case.

Actually, yes:

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2012-04-24/news/bs-ed-horsey-immigration-text-20120424_1_arizona-statute-illegal-immigration-mexicans

Yes, they absolutely should; for the consumer, to prevent abominations like this. I would say that anything more interactive than a reference document or log book. For more real medical software (i.e. patient monitors or diagnostic tools), just because it's on a smartphone and not a dedicated box doesn't mean it suddenly stops being a medical tool.

No, Obama's death panels will decide that.

Tea Partiers would ask you why you don't have a church to help you out. Hell, they might even help you if you're an avowed atheist.

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2009-09-24/news/0909230103_1_acorn-bertha-lewis-maryland-court-records

The Baltimore Sun is known to be a left leaning newspaper even in the significantly left-leaning state of Maryland.

The case was later dropped after the plaintiffs failed to meet a 120 day deadline for filing. And by the way AC, all you had to plug in to Google was O'keefe acorn maryland and you'd have seen results.

Funny how GrokLaw forgets to mention that the same Judge had previously ruled against Microsoft in the 2002 Sun case. (Just one random article)

Or also that he rejected MS's (hilariously self-serving) class action "settlement offer" (Another example article.)

In fact, this this article asserts this judge was biased against Microsoft:

During the hearing to decide this injunction, Judge Motz made a number of questionable comments from the bench, as noted by CAC's Nicholas Provenzo in this post. From the tone of his comments, Motz clearly was ready to rule for Sun almost from the beginning. But at the same time, I would not presume to argue (in the absence of additional evidence, that is) that Motz was not acting correctly under the law. After all, antitrust generally presumes the defendant's guilt from the outset. Unlike murder, rape, or any other objectively defined crime, antitrust violations exist entirely in the eye of the beholder. What this means, more often than not, is that the defendant must prove his conduct wasn't "anti-competitive" or otherwise illegal. Microsoft's very dominance of Windows was itself a presumption of guilt. After all, what rational company wouldn't abuse its monopoly? Of course, the fact that Microsoft had no monopoly—such things are solely the creation of governments, not private businesses—is irrelevant. Facts rarely get in the way of antitrust.

This was not the first time Microsoft faced a clearly biased judge, either.

Oh, there was a 11-1 hung jury? Well, of course, juries can never be wrong, say, like award ridiculous damages for infringement on two claims of a single patent whose validity is still doubtful (The recent RIM case.).

Oh, he's flown in from outside his district to oversee this case? Could just maybe possibly because he has a lot of experience with Microsoft anti-trust cases?

Oh, right, this is /. and OF COURSE MS is evil and so OF COURSE let's ignore all the inconvenient facts and call the Judge corrupt.

Your comment is timely and extremely accurate: "Korean-American liquor store owners feel targeted by city; City effort to close some liquor stores disproportionately affects Korean-Americans owners"

This is a restaurant. Why can't it run if the POS is down for a while?

The waitresses can write orders on a pad, the kitchen staff can cook meals, the guy manning the front counter can grab a calculator to figure the taxes due on an individual order.

It's less convenient. But the doors can stay open.

I can tell by your UID why you think that.

But haven't you seen kids try to count nowadays? Subtraction might as well be Aramaic
for them. And want to cause some confusion or get the cops called on you? Try to spend
some $2 bills when their POS is down, lol.

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2005-03-08/news/0503080089_1_bolesta-pole-baltimore-county

-AI

Yea, comparison with Chernobyl were totally unnecessary. Chernobyl was a limited release from a plant operating a residual power (around 7%).

Chernobly was not a limited release. Saying the core was at 7% power is meaningless in an RBMK reactor because of the positive void coefficient. The RMBK reactor is designed to output about 1.5 GW of power. The last reading on the Chernobly controls was 33 GW of thermal power. What happened at Chernobly was the cooling was flash boiled pockets of steam (voids) in the cooling pipes. The positive void coefficient means that when voids form, the reaction speeds up. This increased reaction rate caused more voids to form which caused the reaction to speed up even more. This positive feedback loop continued until the steam pressure caused a steam explosion. Chunks of the reactor were thrown outside the building through the gapping hole in the roof. The reactor core was actually exposed to air. You can see in photographs the biological shield sitting on its side. The residual heat of the reactor continued to meltdown through several layers of concrete eventually solidifying in the basement of reactor building. The graphite moderator, used in the RMBK design, was also on fire spewing large amounts of radio active ash in the atmosphere.

Oh god, please. Compare to this case in Baltimore from just last month: BPD is hauled into court by the ACLU for routinely arresting people when they video police, under wiretapping statutes. Three days before the court hearing, BPD announces that they concede that people shouldn't be arrested for photography -- but within the same day, BPD are still arresting people taking video: except the charge has now magically changed to loitering.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/blog/bal-in-federal-hill-citizens-allowed-to-record-police-but-then-theres-loitering-20120211,0,3706866.story

The police departments are very consciously corrupting the law to benefit themselves, doing everything they can to delay and obstruct justice, and prosecutors are helping them along. If they get definitively slapped down in court for one thing, then within 24 hours they come up with brand-new bogus legal readings and go on with their abusive behavior unchanged. This is not remotely a "decision beyond their capability" one-time accident.

For the "sake of accuracy" this was a federal grand jury indictment and seizure that happened to take place in the district that covers Maryland.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/blog/bal-bodog-founder-operators-federally-indicted-in-maryland-20120228,0,3131584.story

... Scientists can make mistakes. They can misinterpret data. They can make bad theories. Lots of people were eating bran muffins everyday in the 80's because they were told... by scientists... that eating them would reduce cholesterol. In the 90's, scientists told them Sorry, you're wasting your time.

...

Er... did scientists say to eat bran muffins? Probably not. There was simply scientific evidence that getting more soluble fiber is good for lowering cholesterol and that's not wrong at all. If you read the second link, that even confirms it. The problem is strictly a problem with bran muffins as they also contain egg yolks that increase cholesterol. Again, was the science wrong? No. Was the popularization of eating bran muffins wrong? Yes, but who actually popularized that?

There seems to be something in the US psyche that resists anything like "best practices".

No, there's something in the US psyche that makes us go "OK, you say we should do this, or stop doing that. Prove it". And that takes time. We've seen too many snap-judgement science mistakes... Alar on apples anyone?... to just blindly fall into line. We see "best practices" discredited all the time, usually after a decade or more (Huh, how about that?) of experience on the issue. Scientists can make mistakes. They can misinterpret data. They can make bad theories. Lots of people were eating bran muffins everyday in the 80's because they were told... by scientists... that eating them would reduce cholesterol. In the 90's, scientists told them Sorry, you're wasting your time.

Best practices? Sure. But prove it first.

BTW, obesity is on the rise in Europe too. Guess they're developing a resistance to "best practices"?

Wow, you'd make a really terrible archivist.

As someone who works with archivists and preservationists all over the country, every day, I can tell you that whether or not you feel "ripped off" is completely irrelevant to that community of folks. Archivists have two main missions. First and foremost, preservation: keeping the original artifact / object / document / etc. intact and protected, as close to its original state as possible. If this means keeping the original out of bright light, prohibiting flash photography, or even eliminating public access altogether and vaulting it, then so be it. This is becoming more and more of a popular trend in museums, for example at certain branches of the Smithsonian -- high-quality repros of paintings, documents, and photographs are displayed, and the originals are vaulted. Secondarily, access is another goal -- again, so long as the artifact can be protected. The high-profile case of theft of original presidential papers at the MD Historical Society last year has made archivists re-think public access to original artifacts, and sent shock waves through institutions all across the country. Digitization efforts, such as the one in TFA, have taken on an even more important role in terms of achieving the goal of increasing access.

But don't think for a second that archivists value your selfish desire to view an object "in person" over the need to preserve that object, ever.

Ron Paul's biggest problem is that he is honest.People want to be lied to. Go look at the protestors out there asking for the impossible and people who want power are there to tell them they can have it. See this article and the NPR interview referenced.

People have never understood who Satan really is or more precise evil actually looks like. You don't have to believe in god, I don't, but the people who wrote the bible weren't idiots. The Devil is the false promiser, he tell you if what you want to hear. Elect him you won't have to work and if you put his people in complete charge they'll be free food of course. But when get comes time for him to fulfill his end of the deal he always comes up short.

So you're the one who shut down the Hollywood Porn industry last month.

Before you condemn American people for being unstable, you may want to step back and examine the relationship between medicare, medicaid, and substance abuse clinics in the states.

Short story is that some substance abuse clinics have started to diagnose abusers with mental disorders in proportions never seen before. Why? Possibly because state and federal funds will unquestionably reimburse for treating users - but the DSM IV diagnoses cost astronomically more than weaning drugs. This trend alone is responsible for pharmaceutical ramp-up, as drug prescriptions went up more than 100-fold in some places.

The Baltimore Sun investigated this trend and wrote up a series of articles. http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2010-11-07/health/bs-md-bbh-housing-day-two-20101107_1_mental-illness-rowhouses-that-bbh-rents-interviews-with-former-patients

Nope, just a county circuit court is enough, and you probably wouldn't have as much difficulty now that there is a precedent.

The Baltimore Sun has another twist on that story: http://articles.baltimoresun.com/keyword/bonaparte/featured/4 But it's a good one, in either case. Good enough to post as a facebook status ;)