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Yay more useless nonsense that people get all worked up about... Don't worry your life can go back to normal after Tuesday...you know the day you go into vote for the lesser of 2 evils, you vote for a person to keep the other person out... What a great system...don't worry they will find some state that has to do a "Recount" and then the election gets rigged... Just Don't Vote...everyone, no voting, everywhere, no voting...its the only way to go. http://irishdeath.blogspot.com/

Given that I don't have medical insurance, never have had as an adult, I don't run into that set of perverse disincentives. I'm a cash buyer. I'm enjoying my retirement now in my 40s.

Here's that wired article on 23andme, a google-backed $1000 genetic screening company.
http://www.wired.com/medtech/genetics/magazine/15-12/ff_genomics?currentPage=all

Sergey Brin's blog, http://too.blogspot.com/, is about Parkinson's not Huntingdon's, I had those mixed up. But the principle is the same - if I'm at high risk of some rare disease, all I have to do is find a kabillionaire to fund research and I can ride his/her coattails.

If genetic screening showed that I have a high risk of some rare and currently fatal disease, then I refocus to become an expert in that disease and make sure I'm first in line for the beta testing on new treatments or cures.

post is informative but inciteful.

This was under the "Moral" section, not the "Legal" section. You ask whether she had "power/ability". They are 2 different questions. Legally she does not have the power. However, being a federal judge, she has the "ability" to persuade lawyers to take cases pro bono. In fact, the court probably has a pro bono panel of lawyers who have volunteered to serve. Not to mention legal clinics, etc. If a federal judge calls up a lawyer and asks him to take a case pro bono, most lawyers would not say no. She only has to take 2 minutes of her time to do it... and in fact, on a net/net basis, she'd spend less time making those phone calls, than the time she spends engaging in meaningless pitter patter with pro se litigants. I.e. it doesn't cost her a dime. In fact it appears she made such a call to Prof. Nesson, and here he is, already doing battle with the Clone Army. So at least, after 5 years, she's starting to wake up.

In any case... Bob Barr 2008! I'm just so sick of dumb and dumber

Your second sentence is in opposition to your first.

Let's remember that Barr was the author of the "Defense of Marriage Act"; he radically opposed medical marijuana laws, going so far as to create the "Barr Amendment" that prohibited future laws that would "decrease the penalties for marijuana or other Schedule I drugs" in Washington, D.C.; proposed that Wiccans be banned from the military; and voted for the Patriot Act and for the Iraq invasion. He was the leading cheerleader for impeaching Clinton over a blow job, but said that as of this summer it's too late to impeach Bush for his crimes against the Constitution. ("Hey, you've really been ruining the country and violating the most fundamental law of the land! We're going to give you just half a year longer to keep it up!")

He claims to have changed many of these positions within the past few years. Maybe so. But he was either ignorant enough or dumb enough to buy into them a few years ago. In the former case, there's no excuse for an adult college graduate to be that ignorant; in the later, it's not like IQ radically increases in adulthood. (Unless maybe he had a brain disorder that's been treated?)

I'm really disappointed in both the Libertarian and Green parties this year for running washed-up bottom-of-the-barrel nutjob major-party politicians who are recently converts to their respective new parties. Being in a solid blue state (Maryland) I usually like voting for third-party candidates, since it won't effect the outcome of the election and might help ballot access next time around. But I can't in good conscience vote for either Barr or McKinney.

Or you could use sheets ...

http://diagonalslash.blogspot.com/search/label/US%20politics

Frankly, while individuals may make different choices given a circumstance the chance that they will make the right choice, if one can ever ascertain what the right choice is, holds little correlation historically to what majority may feel. For example, lets look at the Iraq decision
Assuming Gore was the President during 9/11, how would Gore have reacted ?

1. Gore would have done exactly what Bush did
2. Gore would have not reacted at all
3. Gore would have reacted in a more diffused way and try get our allies together and push for greater understanding in the Muslim world
4. Gore would have..... (myriad of possibilities here)

None of us know Gore well enough to predict what course of action Gore would have taken. So we dont know if we'd have been worse off or better off than where we are today. To take it a step further, we don't even know if the stated premise of invading Iraq, spreading of democracy, is a bad or a good idea. It may seem like a bad idea today but may prove to be good a few years from now. There is no way to predict before hand the chances of failure or success when those terms themselves stop to have little shared meaning.

and so on.....

It'd probably be more effective if we knew the credentials of the economists they're talking to

Well, in the case of McCain it seems to be (among others) Kevin Hassett, author of "Dow 36000: The New Strategy for Profiting from the Coming Rise in the Stock Market", published in 1999. http://econ4obama.blogspot.com/2008/06/other-list-mccains-economists.html

Like wasting the taxpayer's money on crap, you mean? The NSA should do its homework and realize that QC is crackpottery. Unless, of course, they want to fool the other spy agencies into thinking that they've got a working QC machine. hahaha... Yeah, sure. They believe you. hahaha...

...that quantum computing is pure crackpottery.

The platform for this will be windows based! http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com/

to end all of this, is for one, just one, defendant to either win their case or to get it dismissed, and win on appeal, so that other defendants in these actions can apply the affirmative defense of collateral estoppel. NewYorkCountryLawyer may be able to affirm or enlighten us as to the viability of this as a defense.

Oh, and once again, "Damn their oily hides!"

she didn't create the imbalance

As I said in my "Editor's Note" in the underlying article she has contributed to the imbalance:

[Ed. Note. While it is heartening to see Judge Gertner show some recognition of the unfairness in the way these cases are being handled, it is unclear how she can say that the law is overwhelmingly on the side of the record companies when she recognizes that for the past 5 years she's only been hearing one side of the argument. It is also disheartening that she evidences no recognition of how she has herself contributed to the "imbalance" by consolidating all of the cases, thus (a) providing the record companies with massive economies of scale not available to the defendants, (b) providing virtually untrammeled ex parte access to the Court on all common legal issues, and (c) creating a one-sided atmosphere in the courthouse that causes all defendants to abandon hope. How can Judge Gertner conclude that the settlements have come about because the law is on the record companies' side, when she knows full well that the reason the settlements have come about is that there is no economically viable way for defendants to defend themselves? -R.B.]

Summary author is a Lawyer who has been fighting the RIAA for years now. I believe he does understand the role that judges fill, one is to make sure that the court is fair to both sides.

Thank you, Gutboy. I've actually written an article about the very issue of the economic "imbalance" in these cases, and the unlevel "playing field", Large Recording Companies vs. The Defenseless: Some Common Sense Solutions to the Challenges of the RIAA Litigations. It was written for the "equal access to justice" issue of the ABA Judges Journal.

And so MS is doing just like the gas companies: make the world addict to their product, brignin' the price VERY high, and when everybody is thinking about alternatives, lower the price or, in the case of MS, paying people to use the product.

I would have thought it's more like when Nestle pushed milk powder in Africa. (see second item) and here.

The student might have been wiser to openly identify himself and his intentions before conducting his security analysis and then to identify himself fully in the e-mail disclosing what he found. See discussion of white hat hacking--Ben

People are talking as if Chrome's V8 was the fastest JavaScript engine around, but it wasn't - WebKit's SquirrelFish Extreme was faster. Is Minefield's engine even faster? Ars Technica's tests show that TraceMonkey runs the SunSpider benchmark in between 78% and 84% of V8's time. However, according to earlier tests, SquirelFish Extreme completes the benchmark in 74% of V8's time, making it even faster than the newest TraceMonkey. So it looks like Minefield, though fast, is not the fastest browser in JavaScript.

Political problems, bah! The Chinese will do this first, launching a nuclear version that is. They will simply do it and dare the world to do anything about it! Domestic protest, if it occurs in China, will simply be harvested and skinned for their collagen so western women can have skin with the 'high pro glow'. Foreign protest can simply be dealt with by secretly threatening the protester hosting nations with trade repercussions against their bloodsucking co-conspirator industrialists. Look what happens when Canadians protest! See how fast they get absolutely hosed with pepper spray if they dare to breath a word of complaint against Chinese actions...or corporate monopolist actions as well.

    Actually I say more power to the Chinese. They have the will to be winners in the world survival game. We in the west have lost our will, and survival will go to those able to achieve the triumph of the will, as then they will prove themselves fit to rule. We have proved ourselves unfit as we are weak and internally conflicted, lacking the guts to survive.

You remind me of D S Savage

http://antichomsky.blogspot.com/2004/07/orwell-vs-proto-chomskyites.html

he said
The pacifists' "championing" of Hitler referred to by Orwell is simply a recognition by us that Hitler and Germany contain a real historical dynamic, whereas we do not. Whereas the rest of the nation is content with calling down obloquy on Hitler's head, we regard this as superficial. Hitler requires, not condemnation, but understanding. This does not mean that we like, or defend him. Persoanlly, I do not care for Hitler. He is, however, "realler" than Chamberlain, Churchill, Cripps, etc, in that he is the vehicle of raw historical forces, whereas they are stuffed dummies...living in unreality. We do not desire a German "victory"...but there would be a profound justice, I feel, however terrible, in a German victory.

Being like him is a very bad thing. George Orwell wrote acidly that "pacifism is objectively pro Fascist".

Goodness me...

I work on RabbitMQ which is a messaging implementation that provides AMQP and other patterns. I hope my comment here can clear up some misunderstandings in the community.

Here is an introduction to AMQP from the RabbitMQ team - there are two presentations and a video - made at Google a few weeks ago: http://google-ukdev.blogspot.com/2008/09/rabbitmq-tech-talk-at-google-london.html

People who are wondering why AMQP is important compared to MQ, JMS, or whatever, should check out the first presentation. The second presentation includes information about XMPP vs AMQP. The two protocols are strongly complementary and are not alternatives. You can use these today: RabbitMQ as someone mentioned above has clients in lots of languages like Java, Ruby, Python, .., and including .NET WCF and C#.

Integration with Visual Studio has been done: http://www.rabbitmq.com/dotnet.html

As someone else pointed out there are protocol adaptors including STOMP and XMPP: http://www.lshift.net/blog/2008/07/01/rabbitmq-xmpp-gateway-released

It is open source - we welcome questions on the mailing list which you can find linked to from the home page: http://www.rabbitmq.com/

Cheers,

alexis

Have fun at Gitmo.

Cordially,
Kilgore Trout

Actually, no, I'd like to know, that who I'm voting for will be who hands the power over to the next president-elect. I don't want an opportunist, who "adapts and changes" with the latest breeze.

Fixed that for you.

Typically, absentee ballots and any other form of mail-in votes are not even counted unless the outcome is very close and/or disputed.

What you are talking about is a provisional ballot. I have heard that some states used to count absentee ballots as provisional ballots (Florida?). However, I don't actually know of any state that still does this. I know for a fact that Oklahoma does not. A quick web search brought me citations that "battleground" states Ohio and Pennsylvania also count all absentee votes unconditionally. Check with your own state's board of elections if you are unsure.

Turnout is expected to be so huge next Tuesday, and lines in some places so long, that voting absentee is liable to be the best thing you can do to amplify your vote. Not only are you assured of getting a chance to vote, but by making the line one person shorter you may allow some other person to vote who would not have been able to wait otherwise. For that reason, one of the local Obama campaigns here is asking everyone to vote absentee.

I also think it is a superior way to vote, as you don't have to worry about making snap decisions on unexpected things you find on the ballot when you get there. There's nothing like being faced with playing "creationist roulette" on a school board ballot full of unfamiliar names.

Deadlines for applying for absentee ballots are fast approaching though. In Oklahoma, it is the day after tomorrow.

Which begs the question, if we could fix those disorders including restoring the myelin around the nerve fibers, could we keep people's brains working better for longer?

that's exactly the argument made by dr. sears and dr. julian bailes.

dr. sears is a phd lipid researcher (formerly employed by boston university and mit) and creator the zone diet, an anti-inflammatory diet designed keep you insulin, glucagon and eicosanoids in a zone to promote peak human performance.

dr. bailes is the chair of WVU's Department of Neurosurgery.

dr. bailes called dr. sears days after randal mccloy, the lone survivor of the sago mining disaster, was put under his care. dr. sears recommended high does epa/dha concentrate (epa reduces inflammation and dha is required for optimal brain health).

dr. sears' efforts, in conjunction with more traditional forms of treatment, led to a recovery called "miraculous" by the medical press.

http://myhealthcafe.blogspot.com/2006/04/miracle-of-fish-oil-randall-mccloy-jr.html

This story illustrates the unprecedented transparency that technology is bringing to society. Just as (allegedly) Plumber Joe's privacy was breached, access logs in Ohio's information systems show when his data was accessed and from which particular government offices. That's powerful stuff. Data logs can probably enable a deeper investigation into precisely who made the access and whether it was legal. If people acted illegally, the digital evidence can lead to their punishment. Such transparency represents a big trend in society http://hack-igations.blogspot.com/2007/12/people-in-authority-sometimes-abuse.html --Ben

For the record, his name is not Joe -- it's Sam.

That matters as a bellwether to the fact that pretty much everything he said was a lie.

There is some case law support for enforcement of web terms of service. It's a complex topic. For discussion, see http://hack-igations.blogspot.com/2008/05/google-privacy-policy-terms-of-service.html and http://hack-igations.blogspot.com/2008/02/contracts-for-patient-privacy.html -Ben

There is some case law support for enforcement of web terms of service. It's a complex topic. For discussion, see http://hack-igations.blogspot.com/2008/05/google-privacy-policy-terms-of-service.html and http://hack-igations.blogspot.com/2008/02/contracts-for-patient-privacy.html -Ben

As far as I can tell no one has suggested a couple of things which can be very useful. You can use a mobile proxy - Google has one you can reach from http://m.google.com./ It reformats pages for mobile phones, getting rid of most bandwidth intensive stuff, and scaling down images - seriously reduces bandwidth usage. If I access, say, Slashdot through it, then every link I follow will go through Google's mobile proxy.

The other option is to use a mobile browser like Opera Mini. This will work full screen on your computer if you do it right, and uses Opera's mobile proxy to do something similar to the Google proxy. It will probably look better from what I can tell, and it will be more convenient. It does require installing a couple of things like Java Development Kit and Wireless Toolkit. Full instructions can be found here: http://java4me.blogspot.com/2008/01/opera-mini-as-pc-browser-big-screen.html

How much?

As others have posted, about $50, see source. This was in september 2007, and I can hardly imagine that production costs would have increased since then (to the contrary..) The price of the Wii is however still $/EUR 250 worldwide.

The reason I ask is because it's unusual.

It is. Good job for them, especially as compared to Microsoft where the total losses in the X-box division likely run into the 11-digit range by now; see here and here, and note that this is even before the infamous $2B "red ring of death" recall.

How much?

As others have posted, about $50, see source. This was in september 2007, and I can hardly imagine that production costs would have increased since then (to the contrary..) The price of the Wii is however still $/EUR 250 worldwide.

The reason I ask is because it's unusual.

It is. Good job for them, especially as compared to Microsoft where the total losses in the X-box division likely run into the 11-digit range by now; see here and here, and note that this is even before the infamous $2B "red ring of death" recall.

An even more bleak picture comes from this blog/editorial:

http://rocketsandsuch.blogspot.com/2008/10/getting-specific.html

It seems as though NASA hasn't learned about what went wrong with the development of the Space Shuttle and are bound and determined to repeat those mistakes of the past and make new ones on top of that. This is a rocket being designed by committee, with some of the top management folks who don't want to compromise on the basic premise: to "reuse" as many of the Shuttle parts as possible.

I hate to break the word to anybody still ignorant on this, but so little is being re-used from the Shuttle design that they might as well have gone back to the Saturn V design instead, or even made something completely from a blank piece of paper and rebuilt the supply chains from scratch.

There are also so many engineers who are working for NASA that are complaining about this design that at the very least somebody in political leadership (aka congressmen & senators) ought to be starting to listen to the grumblings going on here. The lines of communication between Griffin and the engineers doing the actual number crunching and the basic design of this vehicle are completely broken.

Of course, NASA has a wonderful reputation for listenting to its engineers that you can put full confidence in the NASA administration being able to listen to what needs to be fixed.

You have a point. I would conjecture that the dissimilarities of OpenOffice.org and Microsoft Office 2007 are one of the driving factors in OpenOffice.org's adoption.

Really? It seems pretty obvious to me that Sun tried hard to mimic almsot every aspect of MSO's UI and feature set for the simple reason that doing so is probably the only way you are going to ensure Joe Sixpack migrates.

Personally, I was hugely disappointed by OO the first time I used it. Not that it's bad as such, but that it fails to address so many things in MSO that have been crying out for improvement. Thanks to the flatulent Microsoft monopoly that means they don't give a cr*p about quality, MS Word, Excel and (OMFG) PowerPoint remain difficult to use and suffer from poor design almost 20 years after they were first produced.

What are things coming to if we have to beg? ("Are you really listening to your customers' cries for help?" Answer: "Why should we? We're making money in a monopoly! See ya!")

Very few, if any, of the very long-standing usability issues with MSO are addressed in OO. Perhaps the greatest tragedy is that none of the many principles of efficient word precessing laid down years ago by the likes of Jef Raskin or Don Norman look likely ever to see the light of day.

So while using MSO is a teeth-grinding, desk pounding slog though bone-headed "features", I would say that OO is a huge, but perhaps necessary, disappointment.

PS: Coincidentally, my father was wondering why spell check wasn't working in Word today. Every time he tried it, he got a message saying "Cannot find blahblahspell24.dll and somethingdict55.dll." After several hours of fumbling, he found out that this meant MSO didn't have its spelling and grammar tools installed (he was trying to save space when installing). Now, in a application over 20 years old, it takes a special kind of arrogance to let an error condition like that stand without having it say "Please install the spelling and grammar tools."

I work for Adobe on the ODF Technical Committee. ODF made some great decisions that make the format much more admirable over others (use of RelaxNG Schema, open formats wherever possible etc.). I am happy about the growing use of OO. Jon Bosak also has posted some great thoughts on this. Jon's thoughts on ODF, OOXML and PDF.

Hey now, you know what happens when you start treating one as being better than the other.

I recently did a head to head comparison between Win2k and Xubuntu on a 800mhz Thinkpad with 384MB. Both ran pretty well, but Win2k had the distinct advantage of booting faster, as well as resuming from hibernate faster. If you intend to carry the machine around with you and use it during the 10 minutes between classes, etc, then that's pretty important.

Once loaded, however, both OSes were perfectly snappy. More details:

http://alantechreview.blogspot.com/2008/10/what-os-is-best-for-low-end-laptop.html

http://alantechreview.blogspot.com/2008/10/evaluating-linux-for-low-end-laptop-my.html

I recently did a head to head comparison between Win2k and Xubuntu on a 800mhz Thinkpad with 384MB. Both ran pretty well, but Win2k had the distinct advantage of booting faster, as well as resuming from hibernate faster. If you intend to carry the machine around with you and use it during the 10 minutes between classes, etc, then that's pretty important.

Once loaded, however, both OSes were perfectly snappy. More details:

http://alantechreview.blogspot.com/2008/10/what-os-is-best-for-low-end-laptop.html

http://alantechreview.blogspot.com/2008/10/evaluating-linux-for-low-end-laptop-my.html

Best Practices. M$ and tons of 3rd party software makers, don't make it easy to adhere to Best Practices, I'm sure if they did they'd be called Easy Practices. http://richrumble.blogspot.com/2006/08/anti-admin-vs-anti-virus.html When was the last time you had to run a video game as root? Never. On M$, games and lot's of other things do need admin to run about 70% of the time probably more, however you don't have to be logged in as a member of the admin or power users group to run them. You can use runas (similar to su) with a simple right-click. Why don't virus "shoot-outs" and other types of comparisons ever put all those Anti-/spyware/virus software up against a non-admin user... You may actually find the non-admin wins. My wife/kids and myself don't run as admins on my M$ machines, and for good measure we do scan nightly (TY ClamWin) for good measure, nothing for over 3 years. The only spy-ware we've gotten are some "browser helper objects" but since I hid the IE icon under the FF icon, it's never happened again. Remember, *nix started out as a multi-user system, and windows did not, they kludged a mult-user system (version after version) on top of a single user system, and security is/was an after thought, clearly. -rich

well, Android Market takes 30% as well. according to Google, developers are required to pay a one time $25 application fee when they register, after which they're free to upload their applications without any need for validation or approval. so instead of having to go through Apple's block box approval process, quality control will be implemented through a collaborative filtering system (user ratings) similar to Mozilla's extensions library.

it's been stated that developers will receive 70% of the revenue from each purchase, so that's inline with Apple's 30% service fee. though apparently Google doesn't receive any of the money made from Android Market:

developers will get 70% of the revenue from each purchase; the remaining amount goes to carriers and billing settlement fees--Google does not take a percentage. We believe this revenue model creates a fair and positive experience for users, developers, and carriers.

so again it looks like the cellphone carriers are trying to get their grubby little fingers on other people's money solely on the basis that they control the proprietary cellular networks the public depends on. well, at least it's good that Google is encouraging innovation and opening the platform to independent developers.

with the collective weight of the Open Handset Alliance (which is composed of pretty much all of the major players in the mobile phone/smart devices industry) behind the Android platform, it has a good chance over overtaking Windows Mobile and dominating the mobile devices market. i mean, Android has pretty much vertical as well as horizontal integration. they've got all the major mobile carriers, software developers, handset manufacturers, semiconductor manufacturers, and handset manufacturers. the only big names companies that aren't behind Android are Apple, Microsoft, and Verizon. personally, i don't think they stand much of a chance against the OHA.

Apple gets their iPhone processor/chipset from Samsung and Marvell, both of who are now member of the OHA. and HTC, a major Taiwanese ODM that develops many popular Windows Mobile-based carrier-rebranded handsets has also joined the OHA. we know that their recently released T-Mobile G1/HTC Dream's Qualcomm MSM7201A processors (shared by the Palm Trio Pro) supports Android, so it's likely that other Qualcomm MSM line processors will also run Android. and it's reported that the HTC Vogue/Touch (Vodafone VDA Touch, Okta Touch, O2 XDA Nova, T-Mobile MDA Touch) can also run Android on is TI OMAP 850 processor. so chances are, other handsets based on the OMAP line will also support Android.

in fact, _all_ of HTC's smartphones, which represent a major segement of Windows Mobile handsets, use CPUs designed by other OHA members, including Texas Instruments, Intel, Samsung, Marvell, and Qualcomm. and if the one of HTC's Windows Mobile-based devices already runs Android, then the rest may will likely follow.

and a look at other Windows Mobile Smartphones shows that they all pretty much run on the same TI, Intel, Marvell, Qualcomm CPUs. so it seems these OHA members produce the vast majority (if not all) the CPUs used in mobile devices--or at least those currently running Windows Mobile. under these circumstances, i would not be surprised at all if Android starts supporting replacing Windows Mobile as the dominant mobile operating system.

However, I just heard Petraeus quote those numbers last week. For one, I think you underestimate how safe a good chunk of Iraq is these days. Angelina Jolie went over a few months back, toured the country, and as a vocal opponent of the war she said she was amazed the positive progress. She said millions of refugees have reentered cities, returned to their homes and resumed their lives. She spoke of the safety in cities, and how it must be preserved.

And do you really believe that the US forces would let a celebrity travel without armed escorts, people cleaning the trail ahead, and an itinerary planned by US forces? May have well been a congressional trip to Iraq(read: useless)

Conversely, Detroit often bounces back and forth as the murder capitol of the country.

http://engram-backtalk.blogspot.com/2008/10/murder-rate-in-baghdad.html

From the linked article: "As I noted in previous posts, the AP reports that the number of violent deaths in the entire country of Iraq has recently hovered at about 500 per month."

Okay, that's 500/month compared to Detroit's 400/year. I think your math is off a little.

"Here at Google, we're committed to helping build a clean energy future and reducing our carbon footprint."

That'll help them in their quest to be carbon-neutral won't it?

Although the law is motivating enterprises to keep e-mail in reliable archival systems, confidentiality concerns suggest a preference for record-retention systems to be in-house rather than in the cloud. On the topic of enterprise confidentiality in the cloud, stay tuned to commentary in the legal community. The topic merits careful review and more analysis. --Ben http://hack-igations.blogspot.com/2008/02/collaboration-e-discovery-and-record.html

I would suggest that statistics don't lie, except that isn't true.

However, I just heard Petraeus quote those numbers last week. For one, I think you underestimate how safe a good chunk of Iraq is these days. Angelina Jolie went over a few months back, toured the country, and as a vocal opponent of the war she said she was amazed the positive progress. She said millions of refugees have reentered cities, returned to their homes and resumed their lives. She spoke of the safety in cities, and how it must be preserved.

Conversely, Detroit often bounces back and forth as the murder capitol of the country.

http://engram-backtalk.blogspot.com/2008/10/murder-rate-in-baghdad.html

A quick Google search shows someone's (crude) estimates coming up with similar results. For one, he estimates the population around 6 million in Baghdad, while many others claim 7 million, so he estimated on the high side for murder ratios. Still, it was lower than Detroit.

If we hadn't had things like CRA and community activist groups painting banks that didn't paint lots of bad loans into 'underserved' areas as racists, then we might not have had quite so many bad loans.

The myth that the CRA and other goverment housing initiatives were largely responsible for the current economic debacle has been so thoroughly discredited it's tiresome to see it trotted out again.

This article makes the case that Fannie Mae started accepting risky mortgages in response to market and investor pressures. The originators of mortgages were making it clear they had alternatives to Fannie, and large investors in Fannie were pressuring it to take greater risks in order to earn a higher return. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were owned by private shareholders who invested in those corporations to make money.

The study discussed in this article makes the case that it's not the type of borrower that determines the default rate, but the type of loan. As one of the authors of the study says "These results show clearly that mortgages made using traditional affordable housing guidelines are holding up much better than subprime mortgages." A significant portion of subprime borrowers could have qualified for much lower cost traditional mortgages. Lewis Ranieri, considered by some to be the founder of mortgage backed securities, is quoted in this transcript as estimating that 50% of subprime borrowers could have qualified for Alt-A or prime mortgages. Government housing initiatives like the CRA did not push these people into subprime mortgages.

If what you're telling us is true, then how come...

1. ...only about 20-30% of subprime loans in recent years were made by lenders fully subject to CRA supervision? (source; another)
2. ...mortgage-backed securities based on CRA mortgages aren't the worst performers in the crisis, because Fannie and Freddie had higher standards for subprime loans they would buy?
3. ...we had the CRA for well over 20 years, without any mortgage crashes, before the explosion of subprime lending by non-CRA institutions?
4. ...a lot of the problem mortgages aren't actually subprime (i.e., made to people with weaker credit histories), but rather, Alt-A (made to people with good credit histories, but without documenting their ability to pay)?

While I don't mean to suggest that the CRA is perfect, the recent criticism of it is opportunistic, agenda-driven, and not based on actual facts. The reason we have a CRA and non-discrimination laws for mortgage lending is that: (a) for decades, mortgage lenders refused to lend to some people, irrespective of their credit history, based on criteria like their race or the neighborhood they were looking to purchase in (redlining); (b) even today, minority borrowers have a harder time getting loans than white folks, even after you control for income and creditworthiness.

What policies like the CRA aim to achieve is to make lenders lend to minorities on the same terms. A black applicant looking to buy in certain neighborhoods has a lower chance of getting a loan compared to a white applicant with the same income and credit history, looking to buy in a different neighborhood. Policies like the CRA aren't aimed to forcing lenders to lend to that black guy. The point is that if a bank judges the black guy to be an unacceptable risk, then it should reach the same conclusion about the equivalent white guys that it gets applications from.

Not that this is terribly relevant, again, because the recent boom of subprime lending was due to institutions not subject to the CRA. The argument just fails to get off the ground because of this.

Finally, let me challenge this widespread assumption that your whole argument requires: subprime = poor folk = minorities. That just ain't so; being brown, black or poor doesn't automatically make you uncreditworthy (which is the whole damn point of programs like the CRA). To quote a really good blogger on this topic (Tanta from Calculated Risk):

The association of subprime lending with the brown people is just the most overtly disgusting bit of bigotry to arise from the great mess. The belief that subprime borrowers are "poor people" has taken root so deeply that you need a jackhammer to rip it out. The capacity C of traditional underwriting was, of course, always relative to the proposed transaction. A lower-income person buying a lower-priced property was, you see, not a case of subprime lending; assuming a reasonable credit history, it was a prime loan. People with quite good incomes and stellar credit histories who tried to buy way too much house got turned down by the prime lenders. That was back in the days when you could live within your means, and you were expected to do so.

The blog post in question is worth reading.

If what you're telling us is true, then how come...

1. ...only about 20-30% of subprime loans in recent years were made by lenders fully subject to CRA supervision? (source; another)
2. ...mortgage-backed securities based on CRA mortgages aren't the worst performers in the crisis, because Fannie and Freddie had higher standards for subprime loans they would buy?
3. ...we had the CRA for well over 20 years, without any mortgage crashes, before the explosion of subprime lending by non-CRA institutions?
4. ...a lot of the problem mortgages aren't actually subprime (i.e., made to people with weaker credit histories), but rather, Alt-A (made to people with good credit histories, but without documenting their ability to pay)?

While I don't mean to suggest that the CRA is perfect, the recent criticism of it is opportunistic, agenda-driven, and not based on actual facts. The reason we have a CRA and non-discrimination laws for mortgage lending is that: (a) for decades, mortgage lenders refused to lend to some people, irrespective of their credit history, based on criteria like their race or the neighborhood they were looking to purchase in (redlining); (b) even today, minority borrowers have a harder time getting loans than white folks, even after you control for income and creditworthiness.

What policies like the CRA aim to achieve is to make lenders lend to minorities on the same terms. A black applicant looking to buy in certain neighborhoods has a lower chance of getting a loan compared to a white applicant with the same income and credit history, looking to buy in a different neighborhood. Policies like the CRA aren't aimed to forcing lenders to lend to that black guy. The point is that if a bank judges the black guy to be an unacceptable risk, then it should reach the same conclusion about the equivalent white guys that it gets applications from.

Not that this is terribly relevant, again, because the recent boom of subprime lending was due to institutions not subject to the CRA. The argument just fails to get off the ground because of this.

Finally, let me challenge this widespread assumption that your whole argument requires: subprime = poor folk = minorities. That just ain't so; being brown, black or poor doesn't automatically make you uncreditworthy (which is the whole damn point of programs like the CRA). To quote a really good blogger on this topic (Tanta from Calculated Risk):

The association of subprime lending with the brown people is just the most overtly disgusting bit of bigotry to arise from the great mess. The belief that subprime borrowers are "poor people" has taken root so deeply that you need a jackhammer to rip it out. The capacity C of traditional underwriting was, of course, always relative to the proposed transaction. A lower-income person buying a lower-priced property was, you see, not a case of subprime lending; assuming a reasonable credit history, it was a prime loan. People with quite good incomes and stellar credit histories who tried to buy way too much house got turned down by the prime lenders. That was back in the days when you could live within your means, and you were expected to do so.

The blog post in question is worth reading.

"Also part of the consortium is ALT Linux, rapidly emerging as a serious force in the world of Linux distributions (and of which, more later), Linux Ink - developer of SciLinux - and system integrators RAMEK and NCIT.

By September of this year Armada reported that Linux software had been installed in 1092 schools in the three trial areas, while a further 200 schools from outside the trial regions had also expressed an interest in testing the Open Source operating systems being developed by ALT Linux."

http://reddevil62-techhead.blogspot.com/2008/10/russias-open-source-revolution.html

I've read this blog. I know how wikipedia works.

Or rather... how it doesn't work at all.

The worst thing you could do is feed the Wikipedia brand of nonsense to kids as "educational" material. Might as well give them a set of unshielded wires and an electric socket and tell them to learn about electricity. And it's not just the situations this Parker Peters describes above: you people fuck up on a pretty regular basis.

Well? I'm not comfortable knowing an "encyclopedia" infested with this kind of behavior is being given to kids as "educational" and "correct" learning material. How do you justify it?

ATTEMPTS ON OUR LIVES FOR SPEAKING OUT AGAINST NORTHWEST AIRLINES AND MCCAIN ONLINE AFTER VICIOUS ATTACK UPON US. McCain is backed by Northwest Air as a primary sponsor-We did not know this until just this moment-It is clear now why my mother and I's online protest on WWW.AARONJAMESSTORY.COM was removed (removed from Archive.org also!), and why there are ongoing attempts upon our lives at this time and threats from FBI: Our story: McCain Northwest Air Campaign Ties Exposed In Airline Profiling Attack Murder Attempts Ongoing PLEASE SPREAD!! ***>>http://McCainATTACKS.BLOGSPOT.COMhttp://mccainattacks.blogspot.com/ Presidential candidate John McCain I have now discovered, is deeply connected to the persecution ongoing against my mother and I in the wake of the Jan 18/06 Minneapolis Northwest Airlines profiling attack upon my mother and I (EVIDENCE BELOW), via his close association with Northwest Airlines, the official airline of his political campaign and the fact that his lawyers have Northwest Airlines as one of their top two primary clients!!- a detail which I have just this second uncovered, the most profound aspect, bar none of our ordeal. Our website: http://mccainattacks.blogspot.com/ Northwest Airlines Profiling attack, Northwest Air a McCain campaign affiliate and sponsor and amongst the top 2 clients of the McCain legal counsel. (proof and links below), now ongoing kidnapping attempts in Canada via Canadian police acting on behalf of U.S. to silence our online voice http://aaronjamesstory-importantlinks.blogspot.com/ THE EVIDENCE OF MCCAIN NORTHWEST AIRLINES TIES: ***--->>>Northwest Airlines is primary supporter of McCain re airlines CEO Douglass Steeland is very pro McCain and primary airlines supporter of his campaign complete with magazine photos and coverage in Daily Traveler magazine http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/08/northwest-airlines-supporting.php ARTICLE McCain Supporting Northwest Airlines: http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/08/northwest-airlines-supporting.php "1) If you've taken a flight on Northwest Airlines in August you may have noticed the full cover of their in-flight magazine, World Traveler, greets you with the trio of Norm Coleman, John McCain, and Tim Pawlenty with the headline "The Republican's Are Coming!" The full-length photo identifies "Presidential candidate John McCain is flanked by Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., and Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty." Meanwhile Barack Obama gets a less than two inch inset headshot photo which fails to mention that he is a senator, also a Presidential candidate, oh, yeah, and that his name is Barack Obama. 2) Then there's the message from NWA President & CEO Doug Streland which reminds us that his airline is the official airline of the Republican convention. ... 3) Inside the magazine, the splashy feature article on the Republican convention includes the cover photo of the three men again along with brief descriptions of them, including "fun facts." ***McCain's lawyers amongst the 133 lobbyists working for McCain have Northwest Airlines as their primary clients!!!http://mccainsource.com/corruption?id=0006 Firm / Employer Campaign Role Lawyers for McCain Select List of Clients Northwest Airlines Union Telephone U.S. Chamber of Commerce Source JohnMcCain.com Corporate interests are at play here, and McCain's racially bigoted campaign strategy (Palan labeling Obama a consorter with terrorists and their supporters shouting "lynch him, kill him etc) is consistent with the profiling mandate of Northwest Airlines and their 6000 CD release to the FBI developing the profiling system (CAPS-Computer assisted profiling system) targeting U.S. civilians. Treading on McCainâ(TM)s Corporate

ATTEMPTS ON OUR LIVES FOR SPEAKING OUT AGAINST NORTHWEST AIRLINES AND MCCAIN ONLINE AFTER VICIOUS ATTACK UPON US. McCain is backed by Northwest Air as a primary sponsor-We did not know this until just this moment-It is clear now why my mother and I's online protest on WWW.AARONJAMESSTORY.COM was removed (removed from Archive.org also!), and why there are ongoing attempts upon our lives at this time and threats from FBI: Our story: McCain Northwest Air Campaign Ties Exposed In Airline Profiling Attack Murder Attempts Ongoing PLEASE SPREAD!! ***>>http://McCainATTACKS.BLOGSPOT.COMhttp://mccainattacks.blogspot.com/ Presidential candidate John McCain I have now discovered, is deeply connected to the persecution ongoing against my mother and I in the wake of the Jan 18/06 Minneapolis Northwest Airlines profiling attack upon my mother and I (EVIDENCE BELOW), via his close association with Northwest Airlines, the official airline of his political campaign and the fact that his lawyers have Northwest Airlines as one of their top two primary clients!!- a detail which I have just this second uncovered, the most profound aspect, bar none of our ordeal. Our website: http://mccainattacks.blogspot.com/ Northwest Airlines Profiling attack, Northwest Air a McCain campaign affiliate and sponsor and amongst the top 2 clients of the McCain legal counsel. (proof and links below), now ongoing kidnapping attempts in Canada via Canadian police acting on behalf of U.S. to silence our online voice http://aaronjamesstory-importantlinks.blogspot.com/ THE EVIDENCE OF MCCAIN NORTHWEST AIRLINES TIES: ***--->>>Northwest Airlines is primary supporter of McCain re airlines CEO Douglass Steeland is very pro McCain and primary airlines supporter of his campaign complete with magazine photos and coverage in Daily Traveler magazine http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/08/northwest-airlines-supporting.php ARTICLE McCain Supporting Northwest Airlines: http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/08/northwest-airlines-supporting.php "1) If you've taken a flight on Northwest Airlines in August you may have noticed the full cover of their in-flight magazine, World Traveler, greets you with the trio of Norm Coleman, John McCain, and Tim Pawlenty with the headline "The Republican's Are Coming!" The full-length photo identifies "Presidential candidate John McCain is flanked by Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., and Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty." Meanwhile Barack Obama gets a less than two inch inset headshot photo which fails to mention that he is a senator, also a Presidential candidate, oh, yeah, and that his name is Barack Obama. 2) Then there's the message from NWA President & CEO Doug Streland which reminds us that his airline is the official airline of the Republican convention. ... 3) Inside the magazine, the splashy feature article on the Republican convention includes the cover photo of the three men again along with brief descriptions of them, including "fun facts." ***McCain's lawyers amongst the 133 lobbyists working for McCain have Northwest Airlines as their primary clients!!!http://mccainsource.com/corruption?id=0006 Firm / Employer Campaign Role Lawyers for McCain Select List of Clients Northwest Airlines Union Telephone U.S. Chamber of Commerce Source JohnMcCain.com Corporate interests are at play here, and McCain's racially bigoted campaign strategy (Palan labeling Obama a consorter with terrorists and their supporters shouting "lynch him, kill him etc) is consistent with the profiling mandate of Northwest Airlines and their 6000 CD release to the FBI developing the profiling system (CAPS-Computer assisted profiling system) targeting U.S. civilians. Treading on McCainâ(TM)s Corporate

McCain Northwest Air Campaign Ties Exposed In Airline Profiling Attack Murder Attempts Ongoing PLEASE SPREAD!! ***>>http://McCainATTACKS.BLOGSPOT.COMhttp://mccainattacks.blogspot.com/ Presidential candidate John McCain I have now discovered, is deeply connected to the persecution ongoing against my mother and I in the wake of the Jan 18/06 Minneapolis Northwest Airlines profiling attack upon my mother and I (EVIDENCE BELOW), via his close association with Northwest Airlines, the official airline of his political campaign and the fact that his lawyers have Northwest Airlines as one of their top two primary clients!!- a detail which I have just this second uncovered, the most profound aspect, bar none of our ordeal. Our website: http://mccainattacks.blogspot.com/ Northwest Airlines Profiling attack, Northwest Air a McCain campaign affiliate and sponsor and amongst the top 2 clients of the McCain legal counsel. (proof and links below), now ongoing kidnapping attempts in Canada via Canadian police acting on behalf of U.S. to silence our online voice http://aaronjamesstory-importantlinks.blogspot.com/ ***>>THE EVIDENCE OF MCCAIN NORTHWEST AIRLINES TIES: ***--->>>Northwest Airlines is primary supporter of McCain re airlines CEO Douglass Steeland is very pro McCain and primary airlines supporter of his campaign complete with magazine photos and coverage in World Traveler magazine http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/08/northwest-airlines-supporting.php ARTICLE McCain Supporting Northwest Airlines: http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/08/northwest-airlines-supporting.php "1) If you've taken a flight on Northwest Airlines in August you may have noticed the full cover of their in-flight magazine, World Traveler, greets you with the trio of Norm Coleman, John McCain, and Tim Pawlenty with the headline "The Republican's Are Coming!" The full-length photo identifies "Presidential candidate John McCain is flanked by Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., and Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty." Meanwhile Barack Obama gets a less than two inch inset headshot photo which fails to mention that he is a senator, also a Presidential candidate, oh, yeah, and that his name is Barack Obama. 2) Then there's the message from NWA President & CEO Doug Streland which reminds us that his airline is the official airline of the Republican convention. ... 3) Inside the magazine, the splashy feature article on the Republican convention includes the cover photo of the three men again along with brief descriptions of them, including "fun facts." ***McCain's lawyers amongst the 133 lobbyists working for McCain have Northwest Airlines as their primary clients!!!http://mccainsource.com/corruption?id=0006 Firm / Employer Campaign Role Lawyers for McCain Select List of Clients Northwest Airlines Union Telephone U.S. Chamber of Commerce Source JohnMcCain.com Corporate interests are at play here, and McCain's racially bigoted campaign strategy (Palan labeling Obama a consorter with terrorists and their supporters shouting "lynch him, kill him etc) is consistent with the profiling mandate of Northwest Airlines and their 6000 CD release to the FBI developing the profiling system (CAPS-Computer assisted profiling system) targeting U.S. civilians. Treading on McCainâ(TM)s Corporate interests: Penalty: Attempts on Our lives: Northwest Was in Bankruptcy Protection, Now in Delicate Merger with Delta Airlines-McCain does not want upset in the balance of status quo Moreover, at the time of the attack, Northwest Air was in bankruptcy protection and did not want a potential civil suit action- currently they are in a delicate negotiation of merger with Delta Airlines that is hanging in the bala