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This sounds like a lot of the same wilful ignorance.

A convenience store has a concrete, objective measure of whether it succeeds or not. Namely, can the owner keep it in business? None of the above jobs has such a criteria.

Really? Non profits can and do go out of business all the time. But, for example, in the case of DCP we know that in the three years Obama was there he grew the organization from one (him) to 13 employees, and from an annual budget of $70,000 to $400,000. (While being paid $13,000/year, by the way.)

And in any event, are you seriously telling me that you think running a convenience store is a better qualification to be president than being the president of the Harvard Law Review?

[Writing his books] would be valid experience, assuming he wrote them, which again he probably did not.

Supposedly he wrote both of them. It certainly makes sense for the first one: he was just out of law school at that point and didn't have the money to hire a ghostwriter. (Not to mention that he was pretty much a nobody when the book came out, so why hire a ghostwiter?) And his editor says he didn't use one for The Audacity of Hope either. See e.g. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/02/22/opinion/main3865576.shtml

Again, I'm not saying that I think that these jobs necessarily qualify one to be president (I think they're mostly irrelevant). I'm just struck by the willingness of some to jump to these sorts of conclusions to paint Obama in the worst light possible when they could just think and Google for five minutes.

Here's one reason botnets thrive: In addition to the fact that the perpetrators are likely to get away with it, per one article, They face up to six years in prison if convicted of hacking charges..

6 years max? For hacking 12 million computers? Ignoring the intrusions, how much did it cost the victims in labor and downtime to fix it? Hundreds of millions? And add to that the damage they did with the botnet; I don't know what this one did, but it could be spam, DDoS attacks, stolen personal info, extortion, etc.

Also, I still don't understand why the U.S. government doesn't treat these wide-spread, expensive crimes as a priority. Given the scale of these crimes, there should be a large task force pursuing them. I get the sense they are looked on as computer problems, not crimes.

Some of those accelerator parts are made in the USA, some in Japan.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/01/30/business/main6158199.shtml

Is Toyota's acceleration problem happening in significant numbers elsewhere in the world? Or is this limited to the USA?

You get care on a par with most everyone else.

The Emergency Room is the only access to the medical system for those without insurance (some 45 million people). ER is the most expensive place to receive care (e.g. $75 aspirin). The uninsured statistics get marginal attention in the corporate press, for obvious reasons, but you can find them:

• All people are at risk for traumatic accidents, but the uninsured are twice as likely to die (if you can believe Harvard).
• One new study by Oregon State University's Sheryl Thorburn found that pregnant Oregon women with annual incomes below $50,000 were three times more likely than other pregnant women to report getting worse treatment at the doctor because of their insurance.
• A new American Cancer Society study published in the journal Lancet looked at 3.7 million cancer patients - the largest study of its kind - and found that uninsured and underinsured patients are twice as likely to learn about their cancer in its late stages of cancer as people who have private insurance.
• Getting treated in an emergency room is 3-4 times more expensive than a trip to the doctor’s office, according to the California Health care Foundation.

Billing is up to each doctor, to each hospital, to each billing service (collection department), sometimes even to each collection agent. Some write off bills far more willingly than others. Some never let go, and your credit report reflects these choices.

Try a thought experiment: you have 3 new clients with broken computers. Client 1 is well off and will pay you $120 per hour, plus parts, no questions. Client 2 can afford a $60 repair. Client 3 has no money, but needs their computer operational. Which one gets most of your attention, has priority? Sure every analogy is flawed, and a broken computer does not equal a sick person and the difference in consequences are huge (and give me credit for not using a car analogy). Still, how much difference is there between your ethics and a doctor's?

It seems dramatically cutting antibiotic use promotes the growth treatable bacteria over non-treatable bacteria in human environments.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/12/23/tech/main6014559.shtml

Yeah, they are gonna have a bit of a problem with that seeing as how street gangs have learned and are now using the US military as their own training camp. Each one the military teaches goes home to teach a dozen gang members, how long until the gang bangers are better at it? After all, the gang bangers have more reasons to fight, not only money but drugs power and turf.

Should be interesting when it all collapses, but they may come to regret teaching all those poor how to use all those nice big guns.

I think he's referring to Plaxico Burris having a concealed weapon and accidentally shooting himself with it, resulting in gun charges against him.

If they really want a balanced budget they should tax religion. It would serve dual purposes: fix the budget and cut back the parasites sucking on society. The religious have nothing to fear, since god loves them so much he (they know god is a dude with a white beard) will make up any material loss. If they complain they jsut don't have enough faith...

I don't know which rock you (and the mods who modded you up) have been living under for the past few years but this has already happened. Ethanol induced food shortages were front page news in 2008 when oil prices skyrocketed and ethanol production increased. I know it's easy to forget these things when they doesn't affect you but the billions of people world wide who went hungry (and the many who died) definitely haven't forgotten. This all occurred very quickly in response to a rather small increase in ethanol production.

Here are a few articles I found for your reference...

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/04/23/earlyshow/main4036816.shtml

http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2008/06/04/un_warns_of_food_shortage_and_unrest/?page=full3

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/article678698.ece

Go for the gusto. Play Obama's latest SOTU speech. It's nasty, offensive, AND completely untruthful for a 3-in-1.

Congratulations -- you're officially part of the far right. Under 17% of speech watchers disapproved of the speech in general, let alone found it "nasty, offensive, AND completely untruthful". Even though democratic viewers outnumbered Republican viewers 2:1, independents were well represented, and combined with the fact that you expressed much more than simple disapproval, this places you solidly in the right-wing column.

It may be a surprise for you to learn that most of America doesn't think the way you do. They don't view Republicans as an oppressed minority suffering from an evil socialist conspiracy. 58% actually view them as obstructionists. Heck, over 10% of Scott Brown's vote came from Obama voters, who were overwhelmingly trying to punish the democrats for not getting enough done (82% of Obama voters who voted brown support the public option; 86% of Obama voters who stayed home do).

It's not a politically viable solution, no. But it is the ethical solution. Those who let their religious beliefs stand in the way of the humane way of dealing with incurable debilitating genetic diseases are no better than those who let their religious beliefs stand in the way of getting treatment for curable diseases.(e.g faith healers)

Good one! Say, what's the reason for the Earthquake in Haiti again? Plate tectonics, or... A DEAL WITH THE DEVIL!!! Maybe we should ask Pat Robertson.

So, I have presented one example of the small minded hate filled racist trash that Fox News viewers love so much. Here's another recent example: http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2010/01/15/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry6100434.shtml

Maybe you could give some example to illustrate YOUR point? Yeah, thought not.

Good one! Say, what's the reason for the Earthquake in Haiti again? Plate tectonics, or... A DEAL WITH THE DEVIL!!! Maybe we should ask Pat Robertson.

So, I have presented one example of the small minded hate filled racist trash that Fox News viewers love so much. Here's another recent example: http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2010/01/15/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry6100434.shtml

Maybe you could give some example to illustrate YOUR point? Yeah, thought not.

Take a tip from drug smuggers. Oh wait, Al Queda already did. Why is money being wasted on things that terrorists have already worked around? /people advocating these stupid machines should be liable.

As long as they don't blow up the planet before May, it's all good. I mean, after that last scare...

Do you remember ABC/CBS/NBC/MSNBC/CNN/NYT/LAT/WaPo etc running stories front and center on their flagships about, say, Obama's admitted drug use? I can remember those same outlets attacking GWB the weekend before the 2000 election front and center. I can remember Dan Rather using phony evidence to push a story about GWB's National Guard years (again, remember, Obama's actions during the same time are irrelevant per you).

YES!

I'm at work so I can't dig up footage, but look around on youtube. I 100% PROMISE that you will find news footage from all of the major networks covering everything about Obama that Fox did, minus the frothing at the mouth.

And, some NON-BLOG sources for you that is either about or mentions his drug use:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/02/12/politics/uwire/main3823725.shtml
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/24/world/americas/24iht-dems.3272493.html
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/12/13/clinton.obama/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/11/27/costello.drug.use/index.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/02/AR2007010201359.html
http://www.obamapedia.org/page/Barack+Obama's+Drug+Use

Are you honestly going to tell me that the same amount of reporting went into Obama's past by the mainstream media as went into Palin's past?

YES I FUCKING AM! Again, check youtube. You will find MANY MANY MANY videos of mainstream news agencies questioning things about Obama's past.

Or did I just imagine that I heard "God Damn America" and "William Ayers" nonstop during election season?

If so, defend the statement by Tom Brokaw, one of the most entrenched national news anchors, that we didn't get to know Obama before the election

I will answer this by asking a question: if you have such a problem with the way the MSM handled Obama, why are you quoting one of its most prolific members to support your argument?

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/24/tech/main595595.shtml

Bill Gates promised in 2004 that spam would be completely solved within 2 years.

It was more likely the source of the exploit, the Government of China using the source code provided by M$ to attack users of M$ software, pretty much a double attack, one aimed at Google and the other aimed at M$. Ballmer is likely throwing around more furniture than just chairs at the moment, "Because you, Mr. Bill Gates, are a friend of China, I'm a friend of Microsoft," http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/04/19/politics/main1510792.shtml?source=related_story, with friends like M$ and the government of China, who needs enemies.

Sometimes things do manage to work out for the best.

But then, you discover that your child's toys are full of lead (or worse, cadmium), that practically all canned foods contain BPA, and that building codes are sometimes ignored, especially in countries like Haiti.

You definitely want to make sure that the multi-ton metal box you ride around in is not provided by the lowest bidder.

And maybe those mass-produced foodstuffs are truly scary, and really shouldn't be called foodstuffs.

I, for one, am worried.

Still waiting to get my own F-14.

Unless you steal one from Iran, that will never happen. After the last F-14 squadron retired their birds in 2006, Dick Cheney ordered all Tomcats (with the exception of a very few set aside for museums) to be destroyed. Usually, we send freshly retired birds to the "Boneyard" at Davis-Monthan AFB in the desert... the dry conditions preserve the aircraft well in case we need them in an emergency. But Iran needs parts for their Tomcasts so badly that Cheney was afraid a black market would spring up and that parts would start making their way to the Islamic regime. So the birds were literally shredded. A sad end to arguably the greatest Navy fighter of the jet age.

You're on the right track. Torture backfires in a variety of ways on a regular basis. When it comes to effective interrogation, I always like to cite the FBI agent who interrogated Saddam Hussein.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/01/24/60minutes/main3749494.shtml

This isn't terribly shocking. Both agencies also wasted millions of tax payer dollars on the failed "Deep Water" initiative, which sought to modernize some of the Coast Guard's old vessels: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/05/17/60minutes/main2823448.shtml

It was only when a retired FBI metallurgist did testing by himself that he proved that the technique was useless. Then the NSF did a study and found the same result, and the FBI stopped using this test. http://www.fbi.gov/pressrel/pressrel05/bullet_lead_analysis.htm [fbi.gov]

Now the FBI has a secret data base that they use to claim that people are guilty. They will not release the data for independent verification of their results. Do you really think that they can be trusted one more time?

There is also the fact that it did not explode, and perhaps never could actually explode. Nobody has demonstrated that it a similar device could in fact explode. We have vague statements to this effect, but that's all.

If you wanted to sell something, and you wanted the public to line up like sheep to accept yet another humiliation, what better TIME and what better way than a "near miss" at Christmas? Hire dome gullible but not to bright Jihadist-wanna-be and tell him he won't feel a thing.

Meanwhile a Saudi Prince is injured by an ass-bomb and we will need yet more invasive measures to detect that.

Sooner or later people are simply going to say "I will not fly under these conditions."

of the financial bust below.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/01/02/eveningnews/main4696300.shtml

When you come up with a stinker of a health care plan that causes your 60th vote in the Senate to wind up 31 points behind the opposition, you call your fuck-up a hard pivot.

The way laws in the UK are going, soon it will be a crime to have an internet-capable device. (We can't have those prisoners using it as a shank!)

Fortunately, it's not a crime if slashdot links to cnet who claims cbnsews has the scoop, where we find that CNN is the source.

Otherwise, where would we get "news for nerds, hyperlink puzzles that matter"?

* For the lazy, here's the solution: http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~jdevor/links/n_nfshost_com-solution.htm

No, unless you provide us with evidence.

Its called stalling for time. Nobody with any credibility seriously believes that Al-Qaeda wasn't behind 9-11 or that Bin Laden and other top leadership didn't plan, coordinate, and approve the attacks. If you believe that the Taliban ever would have handed him over then you are being naive.

Proceed with the invasion.

It wasn't an invasion, at least not at first. The CIA landed very small groups, as small as eight man teams, to organize the tribesman and coordinate air strikes. There was a segment on 60 Minutes just tonight, Out of the Shadows where former CIA operative Henry Crumpton describes how the initial operations in 2001 were handled. As Crumpton and others point out, you cannot invade a country with 8 men; they had to get the cooperation of the local tribesmen to kick the Taliban out. The number of US forces directly involved, especially on the ground, was actually quite small back then.

BTW: I especially liked the comments of the head of Afghan intelligence in the interview. He strikes me as being a credible, pragmatic, and realistic sort who understands the threat of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Not just to his own skin (which is of course at risk), but to the United States itself if we fail in Afghanistan. In his words, if Al-Qaeda "wins" in the Afghanistan because American forces pull out, then watch out. They will not wait long before they come back with attacks on the US homeland from a secured base in a "failed" Afghanistan. In his words, many Americans underestimate the Taliban and Al-Qaeda and I agree with him.

Many on the left, including some here on Slashdot, like to point out that terrorism is "no big deal" or "not very important" and so they miss the long term threat to the west posed by militant Islam, not just the prospect of more frequent or regular attacks. The survival of Europe and the United States beyond the 21st century will depend upon, among other things, dealing successfully with the problem of militant Islamists. Does that mean that we simply kill em all? Of course not, it isn't that simple; but it will involve some long term commitments, like in Afghanistan, and that means some amount of ongoing fighting. To suggest otherwise is to be naive and in error about that nature and scope of the threat posed by militant Islamists.

Oh ok, so the skeptics are all in it for the money while the climate "scientists" are in it only for the love of humanity.

The Climategate emails reveal that Phil Jones and his bunch of crooks have been actively seeking funding from the same "Fossil Fuel" companies:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/04/climategate-cru-looks-to-big-oil-for-support/

Robert Socolow the President of the APS and a prominent supporter of the link between CO2 and global warming has received millions in funding from British Petroleum. Please read up on what the "scientists" think about this (since you are convinced that not a single scientist could possibly disagree with AGW).

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/12/10/taking_liberties/entry5964504.shtml

Also, since you are convinced that this is some sort of American right wing conspiracy, may I point you to this Open Letter sent by German Scientists to the German President Angela Merkel way before the Climategate controversy:

http://www.eike-klima-energie.eu/news-anzeige/klimawandel-offener-brief-an-kanzlerin-merkel-temperaturmessungen-ab-1701-widerlegen-anthropogen-verursachte-temperaturschwankungen/

If you want the English translation:

http://www.climatedepot.com/a/2282/Consensus-Takes-Another-Hit-More-than-60-German-Scientists-Dissent-Over-Global-Warming-Claims-Call-Climate-Fears-Pseudo-Religion-Urge-Chancellor-to-reconsider-views

Japanese Climatologists and their disagreement over AGW:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/japanese-scientists-cool-on-theories/story-e6frg6t6-1111119126656

They weren't preventing dissenting opinions from being accepting into peer reviewed journals - they expressed disappointment in the fact that the peer review process wasn't doing its job: weeding out bad science.

I don't think you've captured the true flavor of their hijinks.

Rigging a Climate 'Consensus' - About those emails and 'peer review.'

This September, Mr. Mann told a New York Times reporter in one of the leaked emails that: "Those such as [Stephen] McIntyre who operate almost entirely outside of this system are not to be trusted." Mr. McIntyre is a retired Canadian businessman who checks the findings of climate scientists and often publishes the mistakes he finds on his Web site, Climateaudit.org. He holds the rare distinction of having forced Mr. Mann to publish a correction to one of his more famous papers.

As anonymous reviewers of choice for certain journals, Mr. Mann & Co. had considerable power to enforce the consensus, but it was not absolute, as they discovered in 2003. Mr. Mann noted in a March 2003 email, after the journal "Climate Research" published a paper not to Mr. Mann's liking, that "This was the danger of always criticising the skeptics for not publishing in the 'peer-reviewed literature'. Obviously, they found a solution to that--take over a journal!"

Mr. Mann went on to suggest that the journal itself be blackballed: "Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal. We would also need to consider what we tell or request of our more reasonable colleagues who currently sit on the editorial board." In other words, keep dissent out of the respected journals. When that fails, redefine what constitutes a respected journal to exclude any that publish inconvenient views.

Scientists actually are pretty skeptical people by nature,...... Most "skeptics" are nothing more than contrarians; skepticism to me implies a willingness to investigate the issue for one's self, but most of the denial movement shows such a poor grasp of the science that they clearly haven't done so.

When it comes to climate, there seems to be two groups - skeptics, and believers. It is amazingly difficult to get believers to reevaluate new data (and perhaps endanger millions in grants?).

Climate of Fear - Global-warming alarmists intimidate dissenting scientists into silence.
Physics Group Splinters Over Global Warming Review
Climate change: this is the worst scientific scandal of our generation

Can most scientists afford to be skeptics?

To which Paul Vaughan responded as follows:

Personal anecdote:
Last spring when I was shopping around for a new source of funding, after having my funding slashed to zero 15 days after going public with a finding about natural climate variations, I kept running into funding application instructions of the following variety:

Successful candidates will:
1) Demonstrate AGW.
2) Demonstrate the catastrophic consequences of AGW.
3) Explore policy implications stemming from 1 & 2.

Follow the money -- perhaps a conspiracy is unnecessary where a carrot will suffice.

Opposing toxic pollution is not synonymous with supporting AGW.

After all, there is huge money to be made and transferred due to "Climate change", even if it all turns out to b

There is a reason that Bush didn't go into Iran, and it was that people in the military were actively thwarting him.

I believe the quote was: "[An attack on Iran] will not happen on my watch...There are several of us trying to put the crazies back in the box." --Admiral William Fallon

That's because they are normal people that see Copenhagen as nothing more than a power grab by international bodies. If there is no AGW, there is no need for world homogenizing global treaties to come out of Copenhagen, is there?

People are rising up and making noise, because they are tired of the smug blowhards looking down their noses when some "ignoramus" dares question the veracity of the aloof chosen ones and their "consensus".

I wouldn't worry too much about international bodies. Kyoto came and went and in the EU only the UK and Sweden cut their CO2. In the UK case at least the cut was not expensive - it was a move from coal to gas which made economic sense at that point anyway. China and India were exempt, the US declined to sign and everyone else signed it and then ignored it.

And no national government would be dumb enough to cause its own voters economic pain cutting CO2 for its own sake, rather than as a side effect of doing something that is itself economically rational.

Oh wait

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/09/15/taking_liberties/entry5314040.shtml

The following is taken from a recent article on the question of arming merchant ships:

"It's something that could actually stoke up the attacks, take the attacks to a higher level," said Andrew Linington of London-based Nautilus International, a union that represents 24,000 mariners, most of whom work on British- or Dutch-registered ships. But internal polling among Nautilus members has indicated a "hardening of attitudes" in recent months, with more calling for armed protection, Linington said.

This distinction was ignored, barely commented on in the press, and the invasion proceeded anyway. Draw your own conclusions about the actual motive for invasion..

e.g: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/09/11/world/main310852.shtml - Ignore the headline, read the article.

Waaaah! Waaah! Big bad guhv'nmint iz takin' our monieezzz! Dey shoodn't taxez mine, just the lib'rals dat i h8tez!

fix'd

And your true colors shine through. /bullshit or GTFO.

1) Apparently you failed to comprehend that Bluefin tuna is the type most commonly used in sushi/sashimi. That, by its very definition, means that yes, most people obviously are willing to pay for it

2) $300/lbs? What? Where the fuck did you make up that bullshit from? Here's a 60 minutes article from just over a year ago.:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/01/11/60minutes/main3700644.shtml

In that article, a guy whose "family has been bidding on top quality bluefin for seven generations" bought a "450 pounder for $8,500". Thats only $20 a pound (minus whatever inedible parts there are), which is only a bit higher than a good steak. And that's only for a "top quality" bluefin.

And remember, even with a high price, sushi/sashimi is often an indulgence food, and it is usually sold in very small portions. If you put an ounce of bluefin on it (which is probably around a typical portion) and then charge $5 for it (not a ridiculous price in that market), that's $80 from a $20 pound of the tuna (plus a small cost for the other ingredients) which is a pretty respectable markup.

Again, that was high end bluefin. Looking at average bluefin, here's an article from last week quoting bluefin at $6-9/lb

http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091112/NEWS/911120322/-1/NEWSMAP

Linus has certainly done more to deserve it than Obama.

I'm sure you trying to be funny, but the peace prize is more often awarded as encouragement.
See this from, Nobel Peace Prize Myths, Explained:

- Myth: The prize is awarded to recognize efforts for peace, human rights and democracy only after they have proven successful.

More often, the prize is awarded to encourage those who receive it to see the effort through, sometimes at critical moments.

The road that goes by my house benefits far less than 5% of the state I live in, yet it it was paid for out of state funds. Likewise, I have help build roads that I will never see, never drive on, and never directly benefit from. Building infrastructure allows all of society to enjoy a higher standard of living, not just those with the resources to pave their way. That road that I will never see lets my neighbors have easier access to the small business I work at, thus indirectly increasing revenues, and (theoretically) my pay.

You might only use the internet for trolling slashdot, but some of us actually buy stuff. Some people do this thing called "telecommuting" where you work from home using your internet connection. You can take classes online now, do your taxes, even vote in some countries. There will be a point where you will not be able to be a functional member of society without an internet connection. We aren't there yet so this may be a little early, but isn't it prudent to build the infrastructure before you need it?

You are against public education. I'd rather pay for my neighbor's kid to get a proper education so that they can become a productive member of society, than pay to lock up some uneducated idiot that can't make a living. For the record, I do not have children of my own. I think the underlying problem is that you are too shortsighted to see that most of the things that government does are for the indirect good. It may be that many policies are implemented poorly but that is a separate problem. Police mostly benefit you indirectly as well. I know I sure as hell don't have a police escort everywhere I go, but somehow I don't get mugged every time I step out my door.

On a related note, what are your ideas for ending the cycle of poverty? I have yet to hear a libertarian approach that doesn't consist of "people will give more money to charity when taxes are eliminated." And it doesn't matter if you pay 10% less on your taxes if your income is $0 to begin with. This is why libertarianism is just as unrealistic as any other pure political philosophy, and it would do you well to be less dogmatic. I really want to know what you propose to do about the 40 million people that are in poverty right here in the United States.

Reminds me of when Fox News tried to sue The Simpsons, of Fox Enterntainment, who put a fake news crawl across the bottom of the screen because it could confuse the viewers into thinking the items were real news items.

Same thing with Bill O'Reilly who tried to sue Al Franken when Franken used Bill's image on the cover of his book, claiming people might think Bill endorsed the book. Fox also participated because Franken used the words, 'Fair and Balanced' on the cover and, like Bill, claimed people would think Fox had a hand in the book.

Guess it just goes to show the mentality of some groups of people.

The U.S. sold anthrax and bubonic plague to Iraq 1 2 3. It may not be nerve gas itself, but there is plenty of evidence the U.S. supplied Saddam with WMD.

Milli Vanilli: they settled a class action lawsuit.

A more recent example is the class action lawsuit brought against auto dealerships for refusing to disclose hidden points the added to financing charges. "Those few percentage points of interest that dealers add on for themselves - without telling the customer - is called "dealer reserve," and it can add thousands of dollars to the cost of buying a car." http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/04/01/60minutes/main609870.shtml

Excluding scams from operating businesses seems to me an inaccurate distinction -- an operating business can be a scam. Just look at magnetic arthritis bracelets, or The Secret.

My favorite is Excel Communications -- a wildly successful business that managed to beat Microsoft to become the youngest operating billion-dollar-annual company in history. Their MLM scheme was practically indistinguishable from any gifting club pyramid scheme. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excel_Communications

I do not know of any class action lawsuits against them, but believe there were a number of actions brought against them by state consumer agencies.

1. A good portion of our congress is owned by the oil companies
2. These oil companies want to continue to sell as much oil as possible, ergo...
3. These oil companies oppose anything that might reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, so...
4. Any information that might result in an increased sense of urgency to develop alternative energy sources is suppressed, or at least massaged.

Don't believe me? Hey, they did the same for global warming

Unfortunately your argument holds as little ground as the ones you shunned in your post.

The fact of the matter is if:
A) No sales are lost because of pirating (disputable)
and B) Nothing is being destroyed

Then why is it unethical? Digital reproduction isn't killing babies (despite what 60 minutes will have you believe)

Now I agree with you. While something is still illegal we are not to break that law citing that it is 'ethical' or 'not hurting anyone'. Our job, as the citizens of a country, is to have it changed through legal matters. Consult your local representative and let them know your position. This online 'revolution' is just digging a hole.

I am against the current copyright laws because they are out dated. They were designed to prevent illegal copying and profit of one's work. This inspired people to create original content and not copy others. Unfortunately this is used to stop people from accessing media they enjoy.

No, genetic testing of the virus is EXPENSIVE and generally not needed at this point as we are so early in the normal flu season that it is obvious on the face that the majority of cases are related to H1N1.

I've decided that anybody who prefaces some idiotic statement with the word, "Obviously" is more than likely an ignoramus trying to sound more informed and intelligent than they really are.

Please do some research before you open your mouth and advance the agenda of planned hysteria.

H1N1 Cases Overestimated? - CBS

-FL

Back in July, the CDC told the states to not to bother to test people for H1N1; they should just count people that appear to have H1N1 symptoms as a positive test result since it is a "OMG! We're all fucked! Pig are flying and they have teh flu!" situation.

Of course, the fact that this overestimates the reported occurence of H1N1 by a factor of 5 to 50 times is of no concern to us peasants.

with the few exceptions of people like Warren Buffet, corporations are run by highly functional psychopaths.
As long as we're naming names of good guys, don't forget Aaron Feuerstein,
The Mensch Of Malden Mills

gewg_

Here's one example. And here's another. Virtually all teachers in US public schools are unionized and strong supporters of the Democratic party.

Wasn't there widespread public opinion in say, 1965 that maybe the reefer should be legal?

There still is:

A new poll from Gallup shows that 44 percent of Americans now support legalizing marijuana, with 54 percent opposed. This is the highest-ever support for legalization in the Gallup poll.
[...]
Gallup reports that support for pot legalization was in the 25 percent range during the 1970s through the 1990s, but jumped to 31 percent in 2001 and has been rising throughout this decade.

If advertising is the problem, the solution might be on its way. Hulu is apparently considering charging for their service directly.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/10/23/entertainment/main5415678.shtml

This ties into your second point. You are confusing the "epidemic cycle" timeline with the flu season. Flu season is 5 months long solely due to environmental temperatures - they are the 5 coldest months, which makes the virus easier to transmit via environmental surfaces. That's it. Since we already know that H1N1 has a higher temperature tolerance, there is no reason whatsoever to assume that it will have a 5 month "duration". Given the way it's behaved so far, it's more like 10 months - September to June.

That environmental explanation for the flu cycle is only a partial explanation. Otherwise, flu season would be 365 days per year in places where the temperature variation is much smaller, e.g. California. Recent studies suggest that infection rate varies also based on humidity. When your sinuses are dry, you are more susceptible to infectious agents like viruses. This has actually been well understood by some of us for decades, but apparently it took until about a year ago for the scientific community to figure it out. *sigh*

The reason H1N1 started off season is also fairly obvious. It tends to be easier to pick up than the seasonal flu because there are fewer people with immunity. More people to spread it means greater numbers of infections during the off season.

And although environmental factors do play a role in the flu season dying down, were that the only reason, again, we would have flu season in certain western states all year 'round. We don't. Flu dies out anyway. Why? Because of herd immunity. As the number of people who have been exposed to a particular flu strain exceeds a certain threshold, there are not enough people who are susceptible to the strain to continue propagating it to others during its incubation period (after which people stay home and don't infect others very frequently).

To determine the epidemic cycle, as you put it, we have to look at the last big H1N1 pandemic in 1918. How long did it last in any given region? About the same as normal flu---four or five months per wave. Yes, there were about three waves over a two year period, but again, that's exactly what normal flu does as it mutates.

Also, there might be fewer waves in a modern society because rapid movement of people around the globe causes a much more rapid increase in herd immunity globally, reducing the chances of it lasting long enough to mutate sufficiently to trigger a third or fourth wave.

Oh, and the rate of infection may be vastly overblown. If those numbers are right, then this H1N1 strain was actually affecting fewer people than the seasonal flu was during the first wave. This was, of course, out of season. The Florida data seems suspect, as it reports no seasonal flu activity while every other state reported significant seasonal flu. This might have something to do with higher rates of travel to countries with significant H1N1 rates, though.

In the U.S., given that the second wave is not significantly mutated from the first bump, I'd expect the second wave to be maybe 1.5x or 2x the damage of a normal seasonal flu, and I'm not expecting much of a third wave at all, if any. I would expect it to die out in December or January. We'll know for sure in a year or so.

But what if we wound up with the transmissibility of H1N1 and the CFR of H5N1?

Then we would take appropriate action to reduce the spread of that new strain, which would not be this strain. There are a million "what if" scenarios. What if it recombined with the immunosuppression of AIDS? What if it recombined with the cancer-causing properties of HPV? Those "what if" scenarios mean we need to calmly take actions to prepare for them, not spread panic in the general public ove