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... That Berlusconi, beside being the president of that country, is too the manager of almost every TV stations in Italy (Mediaset).
I live in Switzerland, and I cannot find it again, but I read some weeks ago that a law was to be enforced to regulate the viewing of on demand video.

The article was relating the big amount of money that where being put into a on-demand video platform for mediaset at the same time, and how youtube was the first competitor to put aside.
http://www.totaltele.com/view.aspx?ID=450891
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Berlusconi-s-Government-Plans-to-Severely-Restrict-Online-Video-in-Italy-132350.shtml

Given the fact that Berlusconi says all the time that "The bad journalists are attacking me without reasons all the time" http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2009/10/15/f-berlusconi-saga.html, and how he consider that the fist in face he received some times ago was "organized and planed via facebook" http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601085&sid=alDDK9lGqxtY I am not that surprised of that move.
After all, he passed a law giving him immunity in every lawsuit for corruption that where opened against him when he came back to the government.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/18/silvio-berlusconi-immunity-prosecution

Obvious troll is obvious.

And misinformed.

This type of Orwellian crap comes directly from the same people who run the same banks that ran our economy into the ground

The Democratic party?

Don't mind me. I am expecting troll even though the parent straight out lied about the big banks requiring fingerprints and got a +3.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aSKSoiNbnQY0

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122212948811465427.html

http://www.usnews.com/blogs/barone/2008/10/06/democrats-were-wrong-on-fannie-mae-and-freddie-mac.html

These were the ones from the top 10 (non-you-tube / video / blog) results from my google search of "democrats freddie mae"

But then, the search is probably specific to me since I "signed away my privacy" to Google and plan to continue to do so for every search and email I receive :)

I used to worry about my figerprints being taken. In Texas they require a fingerprint (forget which finger) to get a driver's license.

IIRC, it's because there's a unique steel foundry in Japan which is the only place that can make a solid steel containment vessel large enough. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aaVMzCTMz3ms

And how exactly do you propose airlines make up the money they'd lose by making seats larger, and thereby reducing the number of passengers they can book and carry per flight? Many airlines are already barely making a profit, and some are taking significant losses.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?sid=aQSs9CGd9Auc&pid=20601087
http://www.consumertraveler.com/today/2009-u-s-airline-profitloss-results-%E2%80%94-airtran-earns-and-aa-loses-the-most/

We as consumers (myself included) have spoken with our wallets, and what we have told them is that we will nearly always take the cheapest ticket we can find, based on price alone. Sometimes even if we have to drive an hour or two further to get to a different airport to save only a hundred bucks.

So genius, let's see your brilliant idea for how to make everyone happy and comfortable without going bankrupt in today's market.

perhaps you've noticed that a huge chunk of the previous stimulus package went into just that

No, I haven't noticed that unless by "huge chunk" you mean 3%. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aJAoR5GECKWo

He is a naturalized US citizen according to bloomberg

Besides the one in TFA, there's PETA, and a few fairly cheesy commercials I have seen on late night TV here (I have no idea what they're for anymore, I like to defeat the point of commercials that way).

A fair number of other cases going back to before he was even elected are named Here.

So if ya want to bring about "The Year of the Linux Desktop" helping Microsoft turn the screws on unlicensed installs is probably the most productive thing a non-coder can do. Especially outside the US.

Three stories the geek will studiously ignore:

Microsoft revealed that it had sold over 60 million Windows 7 licenses through the second quarter. This not only made it a record quarter for Windows units in general, but it makes Windows 7 the fastest selling operating system in history. Windows 7 leads the way to record quarter for Microsoft [Jan 28]

Apple's Aug. 28 release of its Snow Leopard software resulted in a boost of 1 point to 65 percent in the first week. Through the end of the year, the increase was 6.9 percent.
The percentage of customers satisfied with Microsoft reached 73 percent on Dec. 31, the highest since YouGov started surveying in 2007. Microsoft's reputation is benefiting from the positively reviewed Windows 7, after some customers held off personal-computer purchases to avoid the product's predecessor, Vista, said Matt Rosoff, an analyst at Kirkland, Washington- based Directions on Microsoft.
"People are saying, 'Okay, Microsoft got its mojo back,'" he said. "People who were thinking about buying a new PC are more likely to do so now. You'll see slightly better sales." Rosoff said the boost is probably also due to the June release of Microsoft's overhauled Bing Internet search engine.
  Microsoft Outpaces Apple in Customer Satisfaction: Chart of Day [Feb 1]

For the last day in January Windows 7 Breaks 10% in Daily Tracking. Global Market Share Statistics [Feb 1]

_____

Highest Windows 7 Usage in U.S. - Redmond Area
Surprise! The Redmond, WA area has the highest usage share of Windows 7 in the U.S. Within the actual city of Redmond, 42% of internet users are on Windows 7. Market Share By Postal Code [Feb 1]

Obama Policies Will Bankrupt USA Tsarkon Reports
(Note: We are not a GOP-sters, Republicans or affiliated with any parties, and as George Washington warned against parties We do not believe in parties and, unlike most people, We evaluate every issue on a case by case basis and do not defer to the judgments of politicians who are corrupted and untrustworthy as a group.)

Obama is controlled by the same people as Bush see The Obama Deception documentary [youtube.com]

Yuan Forwards Show China May Buy Fewer Treasuries, UBS Says [bloomberg.com]
Anemic Treasury auction effects felt beyond bonds [reuters.com]
The Sherminator Kicks Some Wall Street Ass [dailybail.com]
China Angry That Fed Is Deliberately Destroying The Dollar [bloomberg.com]
China suggests switch from dollar as reserve currency [bbc.co.uk]
What are the reserve currencies? [wsj.net]
Anatomy of a taxpayer giveaway to investors [ml-implode.com]
Geithner rescue package 'robbery of the American people' [telegraph.co.uk]
Geithner just put only the rich in Titanics lifeboats [examiner.com]
Geithner Plan Will Rob US Taxpayers [cnbc.com]
A False Choice [viewfromsi...valley.com]
Bargain-hunting house buyers wearing on sellers ajc.com [ajc.com]
Time to Take the Steering Wheel out of Geithner's Hands [alternet.org]
Socialising and Privatising [freeradical.co.nz]
Fannie, Freddie to pay out bonuses [politico.com]
Fitch Raises Prime Jumbo Loan Loss Estimates Sharply [researchrecap.com]

Chinas central bank on Monday proposed replacing the US dollar as the international reserve currency with a new global system controlled by the International Monetary Fund [ft.com]

- Russia on an new world reserve currency: It is necessary to work out and adopt internationally recognized standards for macroeconomic and budget policy, which are binding for the leading world economies, including the countries issuing reserve currencies - the Kremlin proposals read. [en.rian.ru]

- President Barack "The Teleprompter" Obama is deeply connected to corruption. Rahm Emanuel, his Chief of Staff, is radical authoritarian statist whose father was part of the murderous civilian-killing Israeli terrorist organizati

Obama Policies Will Bankrupt USA Tsarkon Reports
(Note: We are not a GOP-sters, Republicans or affiliated with any parties, and as George Washington warned against parties We do not believe in parties and, unlike most people, We evaluate every issue on a case by case basis and do not defer to the judgments of politicians who are corrupted and untrustworthy as a group.)

Obama is controlled by the same people as Bush see The Obama Deception documentary [youtube.com]

Yuan Forwards Show China May Buy Fewer Treasuries, UBS Says [bloomberg.com]
Anemic Treasury auction effects felt beyond bonds [reuters.com]
The Sherminator Kicks Some Wall Street Ass [dailybail.com]
China Angry That Fed Is Deliberately Destroying The Dollar [bloomberg.com]
China suggests switch from dollar as reserve currency [bbc.co.uk]
What are the reserve currencies? [wsj.net]
Anatomy of a taxpayer giveaway to investors [ml-implode.com]
Geithner rescue package 'robbery of the American people' [telegraph.co.uk]
Geithner just put only the rich in Titanics lifeboats [examiner.com]
Geithner Plan Will Rob US Taxpayers [cnbc.com]
A False Choice [viewfromsi...valley.com]
Bargain-hunting house buyers wearing on sellers ajc.com [ajc.com]
Time to Take the Steering Wheel out of Geithner's Hands [alternet.org]
Socialising and Privatising [freeradical.co.nz]
Fannie, Freddie to pay out bonuses [politico.com]
Fitch Raises Prime Jumbo Loan Loss Estimates Sharply [researchrecap.com]

Chinas central bank on Monday proposed replacing the US dollar as the international reserve currency with a new global system controlled by the International Monetary Fund [ft.com]

- Russia on an new world reserve currency: It is necessary to work out and adopt internationally recognized standards for macroeconomic and budget policy, which are binding for the leading world economies, including the countries issuing reserve currencies - the Kremlin proposals read. [en.rian.ru]

- President Barack "The Teleprompter" Obama is deeply connected to corruption. Rahm Emanuel, his Chief of Staff, is radical authoritarian statist whose father was part of the murderous civilian-killing Israeli terrorist organizati

Hmm ... I can't reprogram the computer built into my new car - by your logic, I don't own my car, and Toyota hates tinkerers.

That's your fault for having no skills. People who do love to Hack the Prius car computer to improve the mileage. Sort of the opposite of the earlier breed who liked to hack their car for better horsepower etc. This stuff has been going on for years now.

Bloomberg: "We got the first reports about difficulties in August" from the U.S., Etienne Plas, a Brussels-based spokesman for the Japanese company [Toyota], said today by telephone. "The quality standard wasn't exactly met, but we didn't find that there was a safety risk, so we didn't start a recall."

Bush also didn't inherit an enormous national debt from a previous administration, did he? No, I do believe he started out with a surplus... The sad thing is, somehow, the far right has managed to cloud the issue by calling into question the surplus, and, what's worse, spread the untrue and utterly ludicrous notion that Bush reduced spending. They mysteriously pull a few cherry-picked and sometimes completely fictitious numbers out of their hat, and *WHRRRR-CHUGA-CHUGA-CHUGA-CHUGA* there goes the spin machine, hard at work.

What's interesting to note is the record of debt between the two major parties, going back all the way to the Kennedy-Johnson era. Neither party has been stellar, but it does seem an awful lot that during the periods of the so-called "fiscal conservatives" have actually been some of the highest debt periods our nation has had. Care to explain that?

This is all off-topic anyway. This is an article about freaking India and their space program, ergo, the wrong place to start a squabble over US politics.

> As I've said before, all they'd need to do is get us dangled over a big enough debt barrel that we can't pay it off

Why wouldn't the USA be able to pay it off?

I believe the USA owes China money that is payable in US dollars and NOT yuan or renminbi or gold or whatever else.

That's like an amusement park owing China a debt that's payable in amusement park tokens.

Tokens which the amusement park can print more of if really necessary and probably has already been printing like crazy[1].

The amusement park workers are also paid in tokens, but if the park operators are savvy enough they should throw some newly minted higher denomination tokens at the workers to keep them quiet.

Otherwise the workers are going to be very unhappy since the price of oil, wheat, computers, orange juice etc, normally traded in tokens will most certainly go up.

Sure it will hurt the USA, but it will hurt China a lot too. So China will have to do a lot of damage control first.

[1] http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601110&sid=aEfuO342uoj8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00ECLxK2YTs

The USA owes China about 2 trillion right? Doesn't seem like it would be a big problem for the Fed Reserve to "not disclose" where two or three more trillions have gone.

This incident underscores the importance of fighting monopolies and ensuring the availability of competitive choices. If Microsoft had succeeded in driving all other browsers out of the market in 2000, then today, we would not have any other choice and would be forced to use a browser with a dangerous security risk.

We should applaud the recent work by the European Commission in demanding that Microsoft design their European version of Windows to allow users to choose the browser that they want -- thus, allowing them to never install Internet Explorer. The European Commission has been better advocate of free-market competition than the American Federal Trade Commission.

Therein lies a bit of irony. Washington often claims that the USA is a freer free market than the European Union. Yet, the Union is the political body which hit -- hard -- Microsoft's anticompetitive behavior.

Hell No! Microsoft is an American company - AMERICAN!

WE are the only ones that can pick on them - not those cigarette smoking - wine sipping - half-assed socialist - high tax - cowardly - freedom hating - Europeans!

It's one thing for us to bitch and moan about MS -we're Americans - but the Europeans!? Hell no! MS brings MONEY into the US! They provide jobs to Americans!

Wait a tic, I think I'll change my mind.

Ah, fuck'em.

. So so far it has been:

Step 1)Nokia sues Apple
Step 2) Apple counter sues Nokia

Step 3)Nokia seeks to ban Apple Imports via ITC
Step 4) Apple responds by seeking to ban Nokia imports via the ITC

info from Bloomberg: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=ao_5HVbD_IRM

Step 5) Lawyers profit

In all fairness, this is a response to Nokia's filing last month to ban Apple imports. So so far it has been:

Nokia sues Apple
Apple counter sues Nokia

Nokia seeks to ban Apple Imports via ITC
Apple responds by seeking to ban Nokia imports via the ITC

info from Bloomberg: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=ao_5HVbD_IRM

Was that due to competition or what the unions did which drove costs up for the US steel plants?

Competition - Japan has some of the best quality - and even a nearly exclusive ability to forge some parts (an example)

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aaVMzCTMz3ms

it's an interesting read

Yeah I think the Chinese government will now cease all property that belongs to Google, send all employees to work camps......

You mean like Stern Hu, the Australian executive for Rio Tinto, who has been held by the Chinese since July 5, 2009?

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601081&sid=aq9DMlCuW45M

"It's a bit different because polio is a crippling, life-threatening illness. It can kill and it can maim for life. By contrast, in my amateur not-a-doctor opinion and speaking only for myself, the swine flu has been blown totally out of proportion." Swine flu deaths: "Deaths totaled more than 7,820 as of Nov. 22" SOURCE: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601124&sid=akODnI6cicxw The flu can, and does, kill. Sure, not most completely healthy 20 year olds, but it can kill a good deal of people.

Why don't you do a bit more research, compare that to the number of people killed by the regular (not swine) influenza every year, and then get back to me. I can tell that you have done no such research. Why? Because had you done that beforehand, you'd have never written this post.

Go ahead and do the research. Don't take my word for it, for that would be meaningless and would deprive you of personal realization. See for yourself. Then ask whether the media fear-machine has become too powerful. If you actually do the research and go wherever the facts may take you, you will inevitably come to the same conclusion at which I have arrived.

TheLink (130905) sayeth:

2) There seems to be only one company in the whole world that can build a reactor containment vessel in a single piece (to reduce risk of radiation leaks), and it's already build at max capacity (four per year). http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aaVMzCTMz3ms

So? Molten salt thorium reactors are not giant 'splosive teakettles. A site-welded containment would be just dandy, since they don't run at dozens of atmospheres of pressure. They run at local atmospheric pressure, or even below that, which is just one of the inherent safety features that BWRs and PWRs don't have. BWRs and PWRs evolved from USN designs made to fit into a small hull, sacrificing safety for compactness. We can redo it right, with molten salt thorium reactors which will slow down if overheated, as a part of their basic design.

3) After spending lots of money, resources and time on building reactors and the super expensive tools to build the parts to build them, and you hit "Peak Uranium" within 100 years, it might not be really worth it. Might be better to look for something else to bet big on.

Umm... did you forget to read the headline of this article. We're talking *Thorium* here, many times more plentiful than Uranium to begin with, and that was before we started using up Uranium to make Plutonium. This also puts paid to the specious straw man argument of your first point.

From your link:

"Thus the world's present measured resources of uranium (5.5 Mt) in the cost category somewhat below present spot prices and used only in conventional reactors, are enough to last for over 80 years"

"This is in fact suggested in the IAEA-NEA figures if those covering estimates of all conventional resources are considered - 10.5 million tonnes (beyond the 5.5 Mt known economic resources), which takes us to over 200 years' supply at today's rate of consumption"

80-200 years at current consumption rates isn't very long IMO.

1) If the USA and China replace all their coal and fossil fuel power plants with uranium nuclear reactors, that 200 years is going to be a lot shorter. And you'd have to start figuring out how to get more uranium in fancier ways. Saying that there must be other sources doesn't make it so. It's far from the old days of oil where it was just gushing out when you dig a hole.

As it is, my reading of the article sure doesn't give me much confidence that "Peak Uranium" would be that far away.

2) There seems to be only one company in the whole world that can build a reactor containment vessel in a single piece (to reduce risk of radiation leaks), and it's already build at max capacity (four per year). http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aaVMzCTMz3ms

3) After spending lots of money, resources and time on building reactors and the super expensive tools to build the parts to build them, and you hit "Peak Uranium" within 100 years, it might not be really worth it. Might be better to look for something else to bet big on.

High temperature fuel cells like sulfur would be my suggestion also. Utilities use them, and there are practical examples of scaling down well below building-scale, like the ZEBRA mobile battery. (The ZEBRA is not sodium-sulfur, but is molten salt and shares the hot-insulated-box Nature.)

I don't see an insulated 300C box as much of a problem. Sure, they don't scale down to a single apartment, but at a building scale, no big deal. Counting in my head, I think I have seven appliances that regularly exceed that temperature, all perfectly typical.

The real issue seems to be the prices of the scaled-down stacks. ZEBRA batteries are expensive. So are sodium-sulfur batteries, even at utility scale.

As others have pointed out, lead-acid and iron-nickel batteries are also practical for sessile applications and already readily available at the home scale.

Who wrote this?

Some Guy In A Blog, apparently. It's attributed to Fumio Ohtsubo, President of Panasonic (under a different, less common spelling) but links to no press releases or speeches.

Ohtsubo did an interview about Panasonic working on a kind of fuel cell/LiIon hybrid battery and making a $1B investment (in 2012!) in home power systems, including solar. Here is a link to an actual reputable news source rather than a blogger with poor reading comprehension skills:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601101&sid=ajhto3eO4fpM

That's rounding error from the whole fallout from those silly little "off-balance-sheet" activities they were running with up until about a year ago. I mean, you can only get *so* accurate when dealing with numbers like those.

Oracle has announced a statement today making commitments concerning MySQL that may (or may not) address some of these concerns -- of both Widenius and the EU.

http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/Oracle-Corporation-NASDAQ-ORCL-1090000.html

These include:

* Continued Availability of Storage Engine APIs
* Commitment to enhance MySQL in the future under the GPL
* Support not mandatory
* Increase spending on MySQL research and development
* Continuing to maintain the MySQL Reference Manual
* Preserve Customer Choice for Support

And some other things about preserving the conditions of licenses currently held by storage vendors.

Healthy skepticism is of course always a good idea. On first reading, I can't tell how binding these commitments are (the statement says "Oracle hereby publicly commits to the following", and that's about it), and it doesn't exactly make Widenius' commitment to the timeliness of new releases and patches, except for the commitment to increase spending, which Oracle presumably would like to have result in new revenue.

But Oracle is evidently trying to address the EU's concerns in an effort to get the deal approved, and the EU might get them to make these commitments binding. The EU's initial reaction appears to be positive:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a4SRxTHKHzTA&pos=7

The European Commission said Oracle’s proposal addresses concerns about the acquisition of Sun’s MySQL database product, signaling the EU will approve the acquisition next month. European Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said in a statement that she’s “optimistic that the case will have a satisfactory outcome.”

“Neelie Kroes has switched on the green traffic light,” Charles van Sasse van Ysselt, a competition lawyer at NautaDutilh in Brussels, said in a telephone interview today. “She is optimistic and this is a step in the right direction.”

Typical denialist lies.

See:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601124&sid=a6J6mhLRdll4

Fuckwad.

Ford Seeks to Stop Imports of Replacement Car Parts: Ford Motor Co., the second-biggest U.S.-based automaker, filed a trade complaint to block imports of replacement parts for Mustang cars, saying they impermissibly copy its patented designs..."The car companies are intentionally looking to wipe out competition and using the ITC and the patent system," said Eileen Sottile, the coalition's executive director. "This is going to hit consumer pocketbooks."

How about http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8233632.stm

Or maybe http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601081&sid=a5LmlZgQzoPQ&refer=australia

And http://www.azocleantech.com/details.asp?newsID=3740

Then there is http://ecobridge.org/content/g_evd.htm#Disintegration

Also http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/07/29/coral-reefs-glue.html

Of course there is also the http://www.coral.org/resources/about_coral_reefs/threats_to_coral_reefs

I could go on, but I have a feeling that it still wouldn't convince you. Global Warming is not a myth. True, the Earth does go through cycles. I don't dispute that. However, the rate of climate change is far faster than previous cyclic rates. The rate now versus that of the pre-industrial age is much, much faster. The global ecology cannot adapt fast enough to the change. What used to take thousands of years now takes hundreds, and increasingly, decades. There is plenty of research all around to find. Pretty much the only studies that disagree with the idea of global warming are those that are done by the oil companies and their allies.

Exactly like Citigroup: more here. And look how well that has turned out...

You suggest a version of the future that I would certainly like to see playing out, but if you add the following news tidbit into the mix

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=afcIzFP3iNrY

i.e. Apple looking to buy an advertising company, then I'm not sure what to make out of this story.

I think the point that people miss is that every country has some degree of corruption, but it is what levels it is active at and how they deal with that corruption that is important.

In the US, what we might term "corruption" in the sense of favoritism (or deviations from a US sense of "meritocracy") tend to occur at the very local level (small town nepotism, "networking", etc), or at the more rarefied levels of government and business (quod pro quos from both of the political parties, lobbying, the kind of no-bid blackwater/Halliburton sort of think, insider trading, etc). This isn't to say that corruption at the top is not a problem (in fact, it is much more influential in the long run than corruption at the bottom), but simply in the US it tends to be limited to the upper reaches of government and finance.

In many other countries, the striking contrast to this is corruption in the middle, in addition to the top and bottom. Getting a job is basically impossible in some countries without appropriate connections, bribery is rampant and expected for basic "government provided" services, public works are often mired in those same problems of bribery (not scratching enough backs, etc). Even worse is when the guardians of civil society, the police, are dangerous to approach and more often on the side of criminals, as in Russia.

The other major dividing line is the public reaction to exposure of corruption. In societies where corruption is most widespread, "revelations" are generally shrugged off (and have been probably more widely known prior to their revelation), whereas in less corrupt economies, there is at least some backlash against corruption, rather than simple apathy or active suppression. Being a whistleblower in the US can be bad for your job. Being a whistleblower in other countries (as shown by many of the posts pointing out other instances where political opponents have been assassinated, etc) can result in indefinite incarceration and torture, perhaps with an "accidental" death in prison.

The advent of youtube, on the other hand, gives a voice to those who would be otherwise suppressed. Take the story of Imad Kabir, an Egyptian taxi driver. He was arrested (without charges) for participating in a fight. He was subsequently sodomized with a broomstick, which was video taped by the perpetrators. They were so sure of their immunity that they showed it to his co-workers, perhaps as a warning. When Kabir initially complained, he was actually prosecuted and jailed for assaulting an officer (dating back to his original assault arrest), but as the youtube video spread on various blogs, the officers were finally arrested. Without the internet, the officers who tortured Kabir probably would still be doing that kind of shit. Even the people who did post it to their blogs were threatened by the authorities.

That link is terrible. With quotes such as

a collection of filthy whores and pederasts who were one of the main contributors to the economic collapse

it hardly lends itself out as a reliable, fair analysis of what happened.

Here's the link to bloomberg article (which doesn't even mention Buffet or Berkshire Hathaway)
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=adO7ckroZNOc&pos=6

Where did you get that figure? I keep track of this daily:

http://www.bloomberg.com/energy/

We've been flirting with $80/bbl for quite some time.

This price range is the Saudi target range for a bbl. I'm not entirely surprised we've been in this trading range for a while.

Where did you get that figure? I keep track of this daily:

http://www.bloomberg.com/energy/

We've been flirting with $80/bbl for quite some time.

There have been definite improvements in the past two decades or so (OK so Mao took them backwards a huge bit). So most of the people in China will just put up with it - they are getting richer. Many of them are rabidly proud of their country.

Car analogy: they're stuck in the car and the CCP is driving, the scenery is crap, but getting better and they look like they're getting somewhere[1] (and quite fast too by some standards). So most will stick around for the ride, grumble a bit ("are we there yet?"), but not really care that they can't change the driver. A few will even be singing nationalistic songs of their own free will, and there'll be a bunch who'd get off ASAP and go to some other country.

[1] For example, their ambitious push for more nuclear power stations, which should reduce pollution significantly:

quote: "The country may build about 22 reactors in the five years ending 2010 and 132 units thereafter,"

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601101&sid=a2lUkzmYNGWI
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-08/05/content_8967806.htm

In contrast I'm not sure when my own country (Malaysia) will significantly reduce its dependence on fossil fuels (without screwing up projects massively) - they don't seem to be good at getting things done and instead are fond of coming up with really stupid ideas.

Um, no, that's another program. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_Allowance_Rebate_System [wikipedia.org] or CARS. THATS cash for clunkers.

Yes, please read that link. Scroll down to section 'legislative history', fourth paragraph. Notice this is Betty Sutton's bill. She got it passed on HR2454 on May 19th. Here's John Dingell congratulating her about "Fleet Modernization/Cash for Clunkers". Check that previous link I sent you to her website - as of May 21st, it was pulled as an amendment and offered as its own bill, HR 2640, which was re-introduced as HR 2751, which Wikipedia verifies as the CARS program. Go ahead and compare the bills, there are some minor changes (always are if the bill number changes), but it's the same bill.

The full title of HR2751, aka CARS aka C4C, is: To accelerate motor fuel savings nationwide and provide incentives to registered owners of high polluting automobiles to replace such automobiles with new fuel efficient and less polluting automobiles.

But please, feel free to check out the offical site and show me where it says businesses are eligible for the rebate: http://www.cars.gov/ [cars.gov]

Who ever said anything about businesses?

If you've been curious, why have you wanted until now to search?

Eh? I'm well aware of the issues, I was giving you some links since you couldn't find the first hit on Google.

But let me do some searching for you and point you to an article thats NOT three months old already: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aQcFan9QMe0k [bloomberg.com]

Do you understand that article? It says that the booked revenue in GDP was inflated due to the Cash for Clunkers sales. It does not refute the source I showed you that the auto manufacturers were ramping up production to back-fill inventory due to C4C, which was counter to your claim. Manufacturing activity would not be booked as GDP revenue.

Wow, really? The very first hit from Google?

To save you the trouble, "Cash for Clunkers" is the colloquial name for the Sutton Fleet Modernization Amendment.

Um, no, that's another program. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_Allowance_Rebate_System or CARS. THATS cash for clunkers. But please, feel free to check out the offical site and show me where it says businesses are eligible for the rebate: http://www.cars.gov/

This is all I've been asking as well. To save you the trouble of searching again

If you've been curious, why have you wanted until now to search? But let me do some searching for you and point you to an article thats NOT three months old already: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aQcFan9QMe0k

"No brand of smart phone is as popular as the Blackberry line, which still far out-sells the iPhone."

If your yardstick for "popular" is market share then you are correct, as of today. If you mean the most happy customers then you've mentioned the wrong brand.

Anyway, it will only be a few months until your statement will need to be reversed. In 2nd Qtr BB had 18.7% market share, up from 17.3% the prior year. iPhone, on the other hand, was at 13.3%, up from 2.8% the prior year. With growth like that, or even a fraction of that, it won't be long before you can say iPhone "far out-sells" the Blackberry line. So hurry and repeat it as many times as you can.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601204&sid=aOx3BCCWAaes

so, you did not get many replies:)

I will give a try. Here is a slightly relevant url:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=a8gkj6sgD6dw#

Somewhere else I hear that about 40% of us manufacturing is shutting down because of the credit crunch.

I think free enterprise ideology is junk and I am not an adam smith free trader, but capitalists can do a good job at introducing new tech into the productive process and I regard that as the best measure of the wealth of a nation. Obviously, if you let capitalists run wild, they end up pushing paper and you get maybe a quadrillion dollars of derivatives, world-wide, and that suck the life out of both you and manufacturing. Looking locally, I hear the big bail-out banks still have a 100 trillion of derivatives. And looking still more locally, I live near a small town that has one bank. It is a part of a regional chain. The parent just got hit with a requirement to raise 300 million in new capital. I wonder if they can do that. In any case, they are not going to be easy to get credit from. Perhaps in normal times, they would have been closed down. Hah, I just cashed a $5000 check and they had difficulty coming up with the cash.

Anyway, upgrade productive processes and junk the WTO, and do bilateral trade deals. You still need a competent government and you need lots of effective creativity, from scientists down to the factory floor. So, I admit there are some issues with which to deal.

As opposed to the $23.7 trillion of taxpayer exposure for all of the bailout programs, which has so far cost us over $12.8 trillion.

Most economists say that all of this money has just postponed the inevitable and done nothing to truly fix the situation.

With $12.8 trillion we could launch one of those rockets every day for over 70 years.

As opposed to the $23.7 trillion of taxpayer exposure for all of the bailout programs, which has so far cost us over $12.8 trillion.

Most economists say that all of this money has just postponed the inevitable and done nothing to truly fix the situation.

With $12.8 trillion we could launch one of those rockets every day for over 70 years.

I really wish you were joking. The taxpayer exposure to all of the bailouts is at $23.7 Trillion.

Back in April it was reported that bailouts had already reached near our entire GDP at $12.8 Trillion. With that much money you could launch an Ares rocket every day for 78 years.

Medicare fraud is estimated to be at least $60 Billion.

Letting banks steal whatever wealth is left in the US doesn't seem like money well spent by Congress.

You are making the wholly unfounded assumption that half of the dead kids were obese. Where is your justification for that?

Over half the US population is obese.

It sounds like you have a personal issue with obese people. That's well and good, but that doesn't translate into "data"

Ya, but i'm not putting together the data, I'm just telling you about it. Really, is google now beyond the means of the average /.er?

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-07-10-swine-flu_N.htm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/19/AR2009051902609.html
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601202&sid=aM.7Dg3Z_msI

http://www.naturalnews.com/006781.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/dec/11/medicalresearch.health
http://health.families.com/blog/a-link-between-obesity-and-your-immune-system

Apple could buy Nokia in cash and a bit of stock.

But seriously, why would they want to?

And if you read that article, you'll understand the real reason Nokia is suing Apple...

Vote! Vote my little worms!
Divert your will and energies into our little show of "change"!

While another Goldman exec is put in charge of "Enforcement - ensuring that there is none...

You see, under the post-Kennedy era system of American government, executive and legislative sideshows are intended not to demonstrate and direct power - but to distract from the real power of the land.

Bang! One magic bullet. You buy that story, and they already had you in the Matrix.

The rise in tuition rates are the big issue. Without gov't sponsored loans, colleges wouldn't have as many customers who could pay the bills. The loans allow college prices to rise much faster than general inflation.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=a.VIge7LL0e0&refer=us College Tuition Rises Faster Than Inflation Yet Again "Costs rose 5.9 percent this year at private four-year colleges in the U.S., outpacing the biggest gain in inflation in 17 years and increasing the demand for financial aid."
The entire loan program is riddled with fraudulent activity including payoffs and kickbacks for the schools, school administrators, and alumni groups. This fraud is real, as detailed in a hundred page sealed indictment against some of the lenders for "defrauding the United States government". http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Sealed_complaint_against_JP_Morgan_Chase,_Citigroup_and_Nelnet_for_defrauding_the_United_States_government,_19_May_2008

So all we have to do is give everyone in the country $1/day

The really great thing about it is you only have to give them a dollar a day for something-like 18 months. After which time, they'll no longer be eligible for unemployment benefits.

No longer eligible for benefits == No longer counted as unemployed.

According to this recent article:

The share of the unemployed who were out of work for at least six months reached 35.6 percent in September, the most since the agency began keeping statistics in 1948.

So... the official unemployment rate is hovering just under 10%, and yet a third of those people have been unemployed for at least 6 months.

That "just under 10%" figure is a blatant fucking lie, and the government knows it but won't change their official metrics because honesty is just too damned discouraging. The real unemployment rate is well into the double digits.

You mean one of these pie-in-the-sky alternative energy ideas was actually over-hyped and too good to be true!!???? Unbelievable! Next you'll be telling us that there weren't as many "green jobs" as we were promised and that they don't help the economy.

What about the power of HOPE? Can I use that to fuel my car?