Slashdot Mirror

This is actually how we know that he's an Internet expert (well, besides being the Dear Leader) -- he's been providing on-the-spot guidance to the internet noobs for a while now:
http://kimjongillookingatthings.tumblr.com/post/14177194906/looking-at-a-computer-room
http://kimjongillookingatthings.tumblr.com/post/9001585800/looking-at-a-computer-monitor
http://kimjongillookingatthings.tumblr.com/post/3906687832/looking-at-a-computer-mouse

Also, the Boston Globe have a few more unrelated to internet photos of him looking at things, in higher resolution:
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/03/on_the_spot_with_kim_jong-il.html

If a boy likes to play with dolls let him be.
If a girl likes to play with GI-Joe let her be.

This.

I just read this article, it's an extreme, but it proves the point I think: http://articles.boston.com/2011-12-11/lifestyle/30512365_1_twin-boys-transgender-jonas

I remember every year asking for an Erector Set and never getting one; as an adult my mom confided she was hoping I would "come out of it" and get interested in football or something. (She also pushed hard for me to go to a Big Campus (UofA or ASU or ...) like she did (NIU); I chose a small liberal arts school and blossomed... She also mocked (as an adult) the science fiction conventions I used to drag her to (as my essential transportation), and I remember having to save up on the sly and get a ride with one of the adults in the computer club I attended to the local hotel sale to buy my first Apple IIgs...)

Find out what the kids themselves are interested in, and encourage that. Don't try to mold them to what /you/ think it might be cool for them to become. Expose them, sure. "Hey, want to check out this robotics project I've been working on?" But don't wrap it for them under the tree.

There are better articles I've since read. Try one on nydailynews.com or collisionguard.com or drivers.com or slashfood.com or boston.com.

Not all of them make the same case, in fact I'm more inclined to believe now that phone usage is the more dangerous, but come on, if you're gonna criticize the source, maybe find one of the dozens of better ones a google search away!

I am not saying, as you think I've said, that transpersons' gender identities and expressions are not genuine.

The word "emulate" carries a connotation that the emulating person is not being genuine.

Your whole "best effort" paragraph does little to make this sound any better. If a young girl from birth were raised as if a boy, and later decided to shurk this rearing and become a woman, would she be putting on her "best effort" to "emulate" a female, because she doesn't share a girlhood?

For your argument to work, it would have to apply equally well to children who have (abusively) been forced to conform to the opposite gender. That physiological conditions are not relevant, but rather the life experiences of those individuals. And what of children who transition early in life? Is this child emulating being a female as well? Even though she has lived full-time as a female since the 5th grade, and was afforded the courtesy of being gender-non-conformant even before that?

That is not a condemnation, or indictment, or any sort of projected negativity, but an acknowledgement of demonstrable developmental difference.

It would be folly for one to argue that trans people experience the same upbringing and development as cis people of the gender with which the trans person identifies. However, that does not invalidate the genuine nature of the trans person's gender, and certainly does not warrant the term "emulate". If a transperson is acting genuinely and honestly, then there is no "emulation" going on, they are being an honest representation of a woman, or man.

A transwoman is a woman, a transman is a man. They are not "emulating" their gender. Do they share identical developmental histories? No, but then gay people experience different developmental histories as well, sometimes gender non-conforming even. There is an incredible amount of variation in the world, and singling out one group of people and accusing them of "emulation" of their behaviors is offensive and wrong.

You claim to have trans history, yet you clearly don't show any obvious deference towards the feelings of those people. Black people are not immune to racism against blacks, and women are not immune to sexism against women, and homosexuals? All one need do is point to the all of the anti-gay politicians who turn out to be homosexual to demonstrate that homophobia is not limited to the heterosexuals.

Do transpeople have different histories from cispeople? Yes, they do. But there is no reason why that should depict them as less than genuine, especially considering how vast the differences in development of cisgendered people that can occur without even considering the transgendered.

(BTW, it was abundantly clear that your sexuality included a fetish for MTFs. I just didn't touch on it, because it's entirely irrelevant.)

http://www.pgpboard.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=573

Just recently, there has been considerable interest concerning the origin of the Tor projects funding. Never really explored in depth, and dependent upon the information released by the Tor organization themselves; Tor's financial structure has always lacked clarity. PGPBOARD has always been of the opinion that examination an organizations tax returns provides a pretty good indication of income streams, and it was to this end we published Tor's 2008 and 2010 tax returns. The 2010 tax return and commentary can be found here: https://eta.securesslhost.net/~pgpboar/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=563&sid=bd36f28cb0b73dc1231f1d814c151ca2 . The US Government was responsible for 86% of Tor's funding in 2008, and 81% in 2010. See also: http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2009/07/26/us_to_increase_funding_for_hackivists_aiding_iranians/

Tor's management (see: https://eta.securesslhost.net/~pgpboar/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=418&p=590&hilit=lewman&sid=e5dd0ee5637dba1983d55e339e26880e#p590%20) has been less than transparent in revealing just who funds Tor, and their individual contributions, whilst Tor's 2008 and 2010 tax returns are crystal clear in this respect. It's quite clear that Tor comprises the Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Google, EFF cryptorati, with crusty hacker Appelbaum thrown in to give these technocrat elites the necessary street cred amongst the hacker kids. It's the revolving door between NGOs, Corporate Universities, corporations and the USA government, with a dash of hacker underground to give the blandness a bit of a bite.

Andrew Lewman's presentation (attached) demonstrates the Tor projects total lack of transparency and misrepresentation in describing its funding base. Uncle Sam DOES own Tor, and NO organization can preach independence of thought and action when 81% of their funding is from just one source; namely the US Government.

eof
Alan Taylor

PGPBOARD Administrator
London,England

Attachments

Advancing Privacy And Security.pdf
Andrew Lewman's Presentation
(1.55 MiB)

Parents hidden link is to http://www.boston.com/Boston/metrodesk/2011/11/university-utah-professor-due-east-boston-court-child-pornography-charges/83M6ssM6eLLfcwr2Ng44AN/index.html?p1=News_links

Its already saved one life from the vaccine and the boy contracted the virus from his father. Link

Way to sensationalize. Maybe you should sign up as an editor.

Physicians stressed that the boy was not suffering from smallpox, but from the related vaccinia virus which is used to convey immunity to the much deadlier disease. They said the infection was a rare condition called eczema vaccinatum, which has not been reported since at least 1990, when the military ended a previous program of smallpox vaccination. Smallpox was declared eradicated in 1980. ...

Kahana said the boy had been treated with a potent antiviral drug, as well as with an anti vaccinia agent supplied by the Centers for Disease Control and the experimental drug ST-246, which was untried as a therapy in humans. She said the boy appeared to be improving this week.

He was given three drugs and might well have gotten better by himself. Even if your statement proved to be true, it's a bit of an expensive therapy for one life saved. (And eczema vaccinatum is pretty damned rare.)

Its already saved one life from the vaccine and the boy contracted the virus from his father. Link

The first local tea party I attended - and helped organize - was in December 2007. It was a fundraiser for Ron Paul's campaign, and the one in Boston got the majority of the press: http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2007/12/ron_pauls_tea_p.html

Before you go off on me for being a "Paulbot", I'm not a huge fan of Ron Paul. I'm an extreme libertarian - a fiscal conservative and a social liberal. My goal is to move the GOP towards libertarianism at the local level. That's neither here nor there, though - you asked for a link about the tea party prior to Obama's election, and I have provided it.

Locally, we started protesting regularly and calling them "tea parties" after TARP was passed. That was a month prior to the elections, and it was entirely because of the bailouts. Our group at the time was probably 60% GOP, 20% Democrat, and 20% minor parties - Constitution, Libertarian, etc.

No, I'm pointing out that it's an understandable mistake for anyone who isn't a die-hard gun nut.

The "clip" is generally an internal part of the removable magazine. Without the "clip", you don't have the reloading capacity.

Most videogames refer to the "clip size" of a weapon. So it's not surprising that on Slashdot, you'd find someone referring to "clips." Hell, even in the media, the term "clip" is used pretty frequently.

Now, it's not 100% correct usage. But I'm willing to bet most people here knew what the poster was talking about. The fact that Grishnak said he "[hasn't] heard of a rifle that uses a "clip" since World War I" is pretty silly, since just about every gun - rifle or not - that uses a detachable magazine has a clip as part of the mechanism.

It is widely rumored that siri's speech-to-text is performed by Nuance's Dragon Dictation, which has been available (for free) on iOS for a few years now. That, plus Dragon's presence on the market for over a decade, would have provided a substantial database of colloquial english (and other languages) to get started. Plus, Siri was available as its own standalone app for a while on iOS before Apple bought the company. The technology behind Siri has been in development for quite a few years and had ,DARPA backing. Siri didn't just spring out of nothing in Cupertino. I think they've got enough of a database of colloquial english to get going with.

No, I think limiting it to the iPhone 4S is mostly to drive sales to the new device. Limiting the rollout to avoid crushing their servers, as you suggest, is another very plausible reason. I don't buy the argument that Siri requires the extra processing power of the 4S.

So citizens have to pre-pay the tax, and businesses go back to the honor system

The withholding tax was meant to reduce tax cheats among contractors by allowing the government to get a slice of the taxes owed by contractors up front.

Another double standard. I don't care which one we go with, but if corporations are people they should be treated as such.

Oink, oink, oink. Happy now?

Fact is, it buys votes so everyone does it.

This is a better link: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/05/04/the_think_thing/?page=full

http://cache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/gaza_01_07/g30_17512111.jpg

A few citations to get you started:
* Chicago Tribune
* Reason Magazine
* Boston Globe
Many of these also refer to a study by UC Davis which showed that drug dogs will alert without any drugs in the area if the handler believes there are drugs in the area.

Maybe what the "blogosphere" needs is to implement crowd-based moderation systems (like slashdot's, or stackoverflow) on any site taking user content. Ain't saying it's great, but it's nice not seeing all the static under certain mod levels. It's a shitty thing the guy did but making laws based on one horrific incident is usually bad (eg: Patriot Act, Homeland Security, TSA, etc..)

My concern is that in prosecuting this one individual using legal means it will open the door to an already disturbing trend of removing freedoms or censorship (It's legal to record cops but people are still getting brutalized for it).

According to this Doxer offered, in an email to the Israeli consulate, to provide documents.

And the Israelis contacted the FBI. Some spy masters they turned out to be.

Harvard Professor Robert Putnam's study showed that the more racially diverse a society is, the lower the levels of trust.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/08/05/the_downside_of_diversity/

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/city_region/breaking_news/2007/09/mit_student_arr.html

Star Simpson was charged with possessing a hoax device today at Logan International Airport for wearing a sweatshirt that had a circuit board affixed to the front with green LED lights and wires running to a 9-volt battery.

Probably the same ones that revoke your drivers license if you have the wrong face:

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011/07/17/man_sues_registry_after_license_mistakenly_revoked/?page=full

But that is ok since no civil rights are impacted and it is just an inconvenience:

"A driver's license is not a matter of civil rights. It's not a right. It's a privilege," she said. "Yes, it is an inconvenience [to have to clear your name], but lots of people have their identities stolen, and that's an inconvenience, too."

but also note that much of the waste there was brought to you by private industry (hint: google Blackwater)

Who hired Blackwater?

The Big Dig in Boston was not a Federal Project

You may be surprised how much federal money found its way into Boston harbor (at least some $8.55 billion.)
You also didn't mention "Federal" workers in your original post, but TFA is about that, so I'll give ya a pass...

The cost overruns on the F35 were from Lockheed Martin, the private industry tasked with developing the aircraft.

Who hired Lockheed?

You're not helping your case on arguing for an "efficient government" if they can't ever seem to do the work themselves or find decent contractors or even know when to kick out a bad contractor.

They get out voted by the legion of dimwits bred by these creationists. It is already happening.

Here's a depressing thought: not if the "dimwits" are running things. The original poster was right; political conservatives are trying to set up their own parallel institutions to give "backing" to their own opinions.

There was an article in the Boston Globe that the Bush Administration had hired some 150 graduates of Regent law school (which was founded by Pat Robinson), which proclaims its purpose is to "provide [rightwing] Christian leadership to change the world,"

...Regent has had no better friend than the Bush administration. Graduates of the law school have been among the most influential of the more than 150 Regent University alumni hired to federal government positions since President Bush took office in 2001

It's only a matter of time before conservatives start setting up their own politically conservative science departments to match.

But it doesn't even have to wait that long. Next time we get a Republican president, we can look forward to political conservatives making scientific policy there as well. Back in 2005, a Bush administration aide (with no scientific credentials), made edits to government reports on climate change. From the New York Times article:

...In handwritten notes on drafts of several reports issued in 2002 and 2003, the official, Philip A. Cooney, removed or adjusted descriptions of climate research that government scientists and their supervisors, including some senior Bush administration officials, had already approved. In many cases, the changes appeared in the final reports. The dozens of changes, while sometimes as subtle as the insertion of the phrase "significant and fundamental" before the word "uncertainties," tend to produce an air of doubt about findings that most climate experts say are robust. ... A lawyer with a bachelor's degree in economics, [Mr. Cooney] has no scientific training.

So, this victory is important, but the war against science isn't won or even over.

http://articles.boston.com/2011-01-05/news/29335792_1_child-pornography-investigation-pentagon very true.
Could be more into who would be interested in a .mil distro? - who has the skills and who shows an interest.

Republicans dodge farm subsidy cuts
June 15, 2011

Republicans have quietly maneuvered to prevent a House spending bill from chipping away at federal farm subsidies, instead forging ahead with much larger cuts to domestic and international food aid.

The GOP move will probably prevent up to $167 million in cuts in direct payments to farmers, including some of the nation’s wealthiest. The maneuver, along with the Senate’s refusal Tuesday to end a $5 billion annual tax subsidy for ethanol-gasoline blends, illustrates just how difficult it will be for Congress to come up with even a fraction of the trillions in budget savings over the next decade that Republicans have promised.
...
Direct payments to farmers have been a frequent target of fiscal conservatives and other critics of farm programs because they are paid regardless of crop price or yield. They have survived for years, along with tens of billions annually in other subsidies for farmers, because a powerful coalition of farm state lawmakers in both parties has protected them.

http://articles.boston.com/2011-06-15/news/29661688_1_farm-subsidy-cuts-farm-programs-direct-payments

Harvard Professor Robert Putnam's study showed that the more racially diverse a society is, the lower the levels of trust.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/08/05/the_downside_of_diversity/

They're just trying to 'account' for stolen money

Harvard Professor Robert Putnam's study showed that the more racially diverse a society is, the lower the levels of trust.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/08/05/the_downside_of_diversity/

Depends on your clearance level, agency and sexual needs.
http://articles.boston.com/2011-01-05/news/29335792_1_child-pornography-investigation-pentagon
Customs Enforcement agency handed a list of 5,200 Pentagon employees suspected of viewing child pornography to the Pentagon. They looked into about two-thirds of the names, unearthing roughly 300 who had viewed child pornography on their work or home computers.
1,700 names on the list where not checked.

It is pretty well established philosophically that there is no purely logical way to prove or disprove and existence of God (as usually imagined in the Christian) doctrine.

After all these kind of arguments have been going on for about forever.

It's called believe for a good reason. I don't mind believers of whatever persuasion as long as they don't stray onto the turf of science.

The catholic church after fighting this with their considerable power throughout the centuries finally wised up to the fact that they are fighting a loosing battle.

Pretty ironic: I guess if you don't want to have your kids subjected to Intelligent Design in the US you'd better send them to a catholic school.

I, for instance, feel the government should leave marriage to the states to decide, and not step in to defining or regulating it.

Unfortunately for your position, there are significant inter-state commerce issues that revolve around who is and who isn't married. Those can not be resolved by the states.

That is not strictly true. You can resolve the commerce issue without forcing a federal marriage law. Perhaps you don't like what that would end up meaning, but that doesn't mean it can't be done.

Simply because of those views she has you are claiming her religious views rob her of her objectivity?

Yes. When her argument boils down to "God said so", she loses all objectivity.

I'm not talking about her credibility. I'm not enamored with her credibility for other reasons not discussed here. My point is when you jump against her views based on the same religious argument, you aren't furthering anything except making people who already agree with you agree with you again. You fall into the same trap she did, if indeed arguing a religious argument instantly makes you lose credibility, which I would dispute. She says because God says so, so your argument is "if you say God says so you aren't credible". Both of you are not advancing any reason that supports your viewpoints then. You both lose.

Is it now prohibited to let your religious views inform your political ones?

That depends if you believe the founders when they explicitly stated they were not creating a Christian nation, or if you believe the revisionists like Palin who like to claim they did.

That is absolutely and patently false. Read the constitution and tell me where it says you can not have a religious viewpoint in office. The only thing that the separation of church and state part of the constitution asserts is that no state religion can be established. Moral laws are not the same as a state religion. There are so many examples of where this is shown to be true that I need you really to prove your point on this. Examples: prohibition, drug laws, underage pornography, marriage age limits, anti-nudity laws etc. All of these are moral laws where a certain view of morality is enforced and it is not deemed as violating church/state divisions.

If this is the case can we now say that any philosophical position you have rob you of objectivity and allow us to discredit your political positions?

No, because one can back up a philosophical position with a rational argument. See: Rand Paul's foolishness about lunch counters. He backed his bad position with a logical argument. That is not something that is possible when your argument is "God says so".

My point is that while everyone is asserting they "can" back up their position with a logical argument, it is amusing that they are not doing so. The anti Palin people are sounding as ill-informed as the Palin fans. or claiming she has her history wrong so her view is invalid

or claiming she has her history wrong so her view is invalid

Her failure at history is not the disqualifying event. Her failure at history demonstrates she doesn't have the mental faculties for the job. Since this gaffe, she has doubled-down on her error and refused to admit she's wrong. That also disqualifies her for the job.

Ironically, her view is not actually false, and is more accurate than her detractors assert: check this link - http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011/06/06/palin_defends_paul_revere_comments/ [boston.com]

That is a giant myopic self-serving load of unbelievably biased crap. You sound like one of those who believe the only land the Israelis deserve is below ground. Let's look at your arguments:
"occupy a people"- who are they occupying? The palestinians have their own government(s), as usual selected by violence. In Israel, where many 'palestinians' live comfortably and peacefully, there are palestinians elected to office- where else in the middle east can you find that (with a real election)? I'll check back for your answer.
"deny their rights"- The Israelis don't care wtf they do in the palestinian territories, as long as it doesn't involve shooting at Israel. If they shoot at Israel, Israel will shoot back, duh. There are terrible abuses taking place in the palestinian territories, but they're being done by Fatah and Hamas. Complain about that for once if you want to sound credible.
  "imprison them arbitrarily, starve them, terrorize them"- see above.
"steal their water"- wtf are you talking about? IIRC, fresh water flows into Israel from Syria or Jordan, and they basicly dump raw sewage and chemical waste just before it crosses the border. Is that ever mentioned, or is it not a problem because it's happening to Israel?
"and land"- If the palestinians would stop shelling civilian areas, stop trying to blow up school buses, and stop sending terrorists over to
murder children and pregnant women and then gloat about it (see the article about murdering children again, no seriously) then Israel wouldn't feel the need to have a buffer zone. If none of that happened and Israel took land then you would have a right to complain.
"deny them entry to their own country if they visit medical resources outside of occupied territories"- Reference please, sounds like BS unless they're on a terrorist list. Not that the 'medical resources' was probably a free clinic or hospital in Israel. The rest of the arguments in that paragraph are just crap in that they're thoroughly discredited or outright false.

One other point- you keep portraying Israel as the aggressor, and the poor palestinians as the ultimate victims. Do you know that part of the charter of Hamas is to destroy Israel, killing every Israeli man, woman, and child in the process? Admittedly Israel is not perfect, but how can you solely blame them for the continuing violence with a straight face? You say you would defend Sweden, and rightfully so. But if Norway were to start launching artillery into Sweden, and declared they wanted to murder all Swedes, would you just stand at the border and give them the finger? If Denmark decided they wanted Malmo and sent in terrorists to murder women and children who lived nearby, would you just sit there wishing they would stop? Think about how you would react, and how Israel has reacted to a very similar situation. Are you still going to be as critical?

Is this information really necessarily private, or is it private just because we worry that it leaves us somehow more vulnerable? Have any of us really thought through what "vulnerable" might mean?

Some alternative thinking: Our data, ourselves at The Boston Globe.

That's highway robbery for that album. It's pretty much been panned by most critics -- not surprisingly. So what now? She's running out of costumes and gimmicks. http://www.boston.com/ae/music/cd_reviews/articles/2011/05/23/lady_gagas_born_this_way_is_a_long_awaited_letdown/

Sigh...

http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2011/tables/11s0079.pdf

Double the birth rate of whites.
About 150% the birth rate of blacks

http://articles.boston.com/2011-05-04/news/29509479_1_world-population-population-division-wealthy-western-nations

The United States is growing faster than many rich countries, largely because of high immigration and *higher birth rates among Hispanic immigrants.*

Among the reasons -- catholic religion, culture desires children more, parents live at home and provide free baby care.

---
More importantly... you say

For example, is the percentage of Hispanics in the southwest US growing because they are having more children, because they are immigrating, or because whites aren't having enough children to keep their population constant?

This doesn't negate my point. Hispanics comprise a group resistant to the birth rate lowering effects of wealth and better personal living standards. As a result, they are coming to dominate the population.

It's true in most populations- the sub populations which resist and have larger families despite the inducements will come to dominate the population.

I'm not judging hispanics or islamics or whatever other subcultures around the world are doing this. I'm just saying that the population growth is not going to stop the way the UN has projected in the past. If anything, as the population gets higher, living standards will start dropping again, and people will start having children at a higher rate again.

Where do you ride busses? Cop-less busses do fine in the Boston area. My kids have taken mass transit (busses and subway) into Boston, not a problem. Just this morning I read that T ridership is up 5%, year-on-year.

Mass transit won't work everyone, I'll give you that, but lots of people live in places where it will work (density works that way, after all). But for me, I usually prefer a bike; more flexible, more exercise, often faster. If I had a longer commute, I would just add an electric assist.

Yes, it was started by Hillary's campaign in the form of anonymous email chain letters containing a lot of rumors and scurrilous claims, however the first public challenge was made by Jim Geraghty of the conservative website National Review Online on June 9, 2008

Obama released the COLB June 12, 2008 on his web site End the Smears.

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2008/06/obama_launches_4.html

Obama responded to this as fast as could be expected.

What about this interesting suggestion to eliminate suicide attacks: the initiator is motivated by immediate entry into paradise. Word on the ground in Afghanistan is that when the remains are gathered and buried, inclusion of just a small piece of pigmeat with the remains will prevent Allah from seeing the martyr, thus, no paradise, thus, not motivation to die.

You don't think a terrorist imam wouldn't tell a prospective bomber that Allah would give him a pass on that bit of pig meat? Especially if he dies in action against the Great Satan, and even more especially considering this transparent attempt by the same Great Satan to cheat the bomber of his well-deserved martyrdom through the sacrilege and desecration of his corpse? Can't fool Allah that easily. These guys aren't idiots, you know.

Besides, religion is just a garnish, not the actual motivation. I have heard of several more likely ones.

Some suicide bombers are willing to be suicide bombers because they have no chance of getting laid on this earth, and are generally pissed off about it. Point them at someone to focus their pissed-off-ness on, fan it to a flame, and there you go.

Others are — surprise — suicidal. This may or may not be related to not getting laid.

And then there are the ones motivated by revenge.

And a very few are probably intelligent yet naive enough to do this on ideological or rational grounds.

And finally, I figure some suicide bombers have probably succumbed to heavy peer pressure/indoctrination/brain-washing of the sort applied by armies, gangs, abusive spouses, and interrogators.

NY Times also owns the Boston Globe.

There's even a job for an Xbox PR person — fancy being paid to play with toys all day?

Newsflash! PR is one of the most stressful jobs in America.

This article is very misleading. The results reported are for people taking 5mg finasteride, which is dose taken to treat an enlarged prostate. 5mg finasteride tablets are sold by Merck as Proscar. The dose used to treat male pattern baldness, however, is 1mg. 1mg finasteride tablets are sold by Merck as Propecia. The available evidence from randomized controlled trials suggests that sexual side effects from 1mg finasteride (Propecia) are rare, if they exist at all. See this article for a more accurate review of the study.

Yes, noone has ever been tried for harrassing a normal person over the internet, much less threatening them.

Working overtime can kill you.

And what are these "doctor-supervised slimming regimens?" Gastric bypasses, which can kill you?

Using Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Massachusetts, for an example:

CEO Cleve L. Killingsworth gets 26% raise to $3.5m(citation)

Blue Cross Financial results for 2010: $13.4m profit on operating loss of $100.7m and investment profit of $111.4m

BCBSMA % of revenue going to administrative costs: 10%. (Presumably, this includes CEO wages.)

BCBSMA enrollment: 2.9 million members in December 2010.

The thing to remember about soaking the rich is that you're peeing into a very big pool. If you claw back the entirety of the CEO's salary, each member gets just over $1 more of coverage (or rebate) for that year.

Assume for the sake of argument that there are 30 CxO officers getting that same salary. There almost certainly aren't, but we'll pretend for exaggeration purposes. So to be 20% of your insurance premium, you have to be spending no more than $150/year on health insurance. (~$30/year / 20%).

$150/year health insurance is a fantasy. Average annual premium for an individual is over $2,000, for a family, $6,000. (cite)

Could BCBSMA have used a good portion of that $3.5m for coverage? Sure, they could have. But you would not have noticed the difference.

Yeah, but you know what we have that Mass. doesn't? Wait for it... jobs. An economy. High standard of living, low personal taxes (no state income tax), a GDP higher than most countries, and no real estate bubble. We'll eventualy fix the broken shit that is our schools and our 'good old boy' government culture, but I hope we don't lose the rest of it in the process.

Massachusetts, on the other hand, is just fucked. But at least nobody will leak your credit card info.

The Bush Administration was unusually aggressive in politically-motivated prosecutions, and the clearest example was the prosecution of Don Siegelman, the former Democratic Alabama governor. The prosecution of Eliot Spitzer, the former Democratic New York governor, was another example of selective prosecution by Republican prosecutors.

I'm not a lawyer, so I can't rattle off the details, but Glen Greenwald is, and he's described the reasons why the people responsible for the savings and loan crisis were guilty of fraud and other criminal activity, and they weren't prosecuted.

The simplest example I know of selective prosecution under the Bush Administration was the Abu Grarib prosecutions, http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/01/11/military_prosecution_in_abu_ghraib_scandal_ends/ where they prosecuted the lower-ranking soldiers who followed orders, but didn't prosecute the officers responsible. Graner wanted to testify that officers had ordered him to do everything he was charged with, and they knew about it, but the judge wouldn't permit it and the prosecutors ignored it.

The Obama Administration continued to refuse to investigate or prosecute these felonies.

In a way the decline reminds me of the local police - 30 or 40 years ago the local police were your friend - someone you could go to and talk to and who would be willing to help you out. These days it seems like you're best off staying as far away from the police as possible.

Actually, that depends. If you aren't white and are male, then generally speaking the local police hasn't been a friend to you or your family. Ever. It doesn't matter if you're a respected academic, walking down the street minding your own business, or standing in front of your home.

Isn't it funny that China's government recognizes the role the internet plays in culture? And wants to direct it in a positive way that benefits everyone in society? The entire idea is anathema to Westerners, isn't it? China does face some very real language problems and separatist tendencies, Mandarin is the common language that glues all of society together. Without a common language, the country would fragment along ethnic and regional lines and it would be back to the warlord civil war era from the 1920s. The government doesn't want this to happen and is enlightened enough to try to keep the country together in order to save millions of lives. Altruistic, eh? In China, the government really is made up of The Smart People. Not just anyone can join the CCP. It's rather like the US State Department or maybe Harvard, where you have to be really smart or have family connections to get in. If you're a redneck (laobaixing) who loves your country and wants to serve they'll just sneer at you, ridicule your hillbilly Mandarin accent that doesn't sound like a newscaster, slam the door in your face, and tell you to join the Army like all good peasants and hicks are supposed to do. Because if there is one cross-cultural idea that all The Smart People agree on worldwide, it's that lesser intellects (or those not from good families) should be ridiculed and rejected from having their ideas seriously considered in government.

As opposed to, say, America, where the government's idea of benefiting everyone is running up a $223 billion deficit in March 2011 alone, more than all of 2007. The role the internet plays? The internet allows Americans to utterly and completely convince themselves that they live in a real-live functioning fascist police state. And then use that same internet to organize protests against their own government. Inconvenient truths are a bitch, ain't they?

Well, I must have missed where they held elections. Anyway, since the link is a typical Slashdot non-story, let's talk about Harvard university professors supporting Khadaffy instead. Nicholas Negroponte from OLPC accepted his money and is proud of his participation. The really outrageous detail is that these professors were complicit in the award of a fraudulent PhD. For that they should have their tenure revoked and their academic positions removed. Of course, this won't happen. If a buffoon like me showed up to protest Haah-vahd, I'd be laughed out of the discussion due to my lack of a doctorate, and even if I did have one, my Ph.D would be mocked as the award of an inferior school. Khadaffy's son Saif is hardly the first to have his Ph.D thesis written for him. Unfortunately this is a perfect example of the principles (or lack thereof) of the cultured, intellectual elite who are convinced that they should be in charge of America. That they are reprehensible scalawags who are for sale to a tyrant will never be accepted. It would be like a socialist accepting that her ideology resulted in the deaths of millions of 20th century humans. The consequences are just too much to bear thinking about.

Massachusetts has been studying this approach to cost-management for a couple of years now, and the Governor introduced a bill last week to switch all patients paid for by the Commonwealth to capitation. See:

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011/02/18/patrick_unveils_plan_to_curb_health_care_costs/