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Science vessels? According to Newsweek, it's photographers and people looking to document the damage that BP is turning away. Now that's some unadulterated bullshit "damage control."

Ostensibly all that gawker traffic could just get in the way. But earlier on there were some science vessels offering to drop in and help measure the progress of the oil plume in the region, and they were turned away. Though now it looks like just last week, NOAA's started deploying a fleet of research vessels to start measuring
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/06/01/95170/noaa-research-ship-to-search-gulf.html

Anyway, just another lame episode of politicians vs. scientists vs. politicized environmentalists where the scientists are kind of caught in the middle again.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/deepwaterhorizon/7011584.html

Ya, there was a bit much, and the trunk was just tied half way open. I was hoping they wouldn't notice.

  I swear, I just found it, and I was taking it to the police station. :)

This. Although the numbers you're looking for are even worse than you're thinking. Between June 2007 and February 2010, OSHA recorded 851 willful violations at refineries. 829 of those were at BP refineries. Sunoco came in second, with eight. Source

In the United States Corporations are given "Personhood" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood_debate This provides them with the rights of individuals. This is why corporations can donate to political campaigns. Donating to a political campaign is protected free speech. Now that's a whole new topic, the point is, the door swings both ways. If any corporation has the rights of an individual, then they must have the same responsibilities as well. In reading all of the news, it is pretty clear that BP circumvented safety procedures (and the permit was violated and that is criminal) http://blogs.chron.com/newswatchenergy/archives/2010/05/one_half_of_the_1.html about 3/4 of the way down: "...the drilling permit BP filed with federal officials they were supposed to do the test on the kill pipe, not down the drill pipe"

In the end, BP is responsible. How you make BP responsible without making the individuals that are BP responsible is beyond me...

This one. He was born 1950, or thereabouts.

There's a lot of conservatives who hate the idea of state education and want all the schools to be private with no government standards. Cynthia Dunbar, one of the bigger whackjobs on the board, isn't a fan of public schools according to her book where She calls public education a "subtly deceptive tool of perversion." The establishment of public schools is unconstitutional and even "tyrannical".

I wonder if that motivation isn't at play here, try to politicize the education standards so much that people lose faith in a state run education system.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6092712.html

The woman is an absolute wack-job!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynthia_Dunbar

There is no particular evidence that the oil spill is inexorably destined to reach land.

It's not inexorable, but it's predicted to hit land in the next 3 days as winds turn unfavorable.

And likewise calling it a world changing environmental catastrophe is vastly premature when the evidence of damage is slight indeed.

Good thing I'm not then.

And talking about "evidence of damage" as if present damage is all that matters and the future need not be considered is retarded.

The potential for damage is extremely high, and is what we are all worried about. Hopefully you can at least comprehend that.

I'll be positively ecstatic if your prediction comes true, the slick never hits land, and nothing bad happens.

What will you say if it hits the shores and contaminates the estuaries and an already shrinking ecosystem is further damaged?

Oh poppycock. This does not endanger the Brown Pelican - a bird whose range covers the east, gulf and west coasts of the US, and extends all the way south to Chile.

Poppycock yourself. Do you understand that the gulf coast is an important breeding area for the pelican? Do you understand that when an animal just last year came off the endangered species list, that significant damage in the breeding season could put it right back on? But I guess because you can google up their range, you know better than the experts

Filtered through sediments? Nonsense. You can see globs of it rising to the surface in seepage areas.

Which are not exclusive in any way, and implying so is nonsense. Much of the oil is filtered by the sediment, so only some globs up. The fact that it's globs and not a continuous stream, and that despite 2,000 barrels a day being leaked there are not oil slicks visible by satellite, puts the lie to the idea that the natural seepage and this disaster are in any way comparable.

Nature and ecosystems are not static; they are in constant flux and have a high degree of resiliency and adaptability. The only real danger is that man's population growth extends to a point where it strips the planet of its biosphere to the point where recovery in not possible.

No shit they aren't static and they do have resilience, but they also aren't immortal! Plenty of ecosystems have completely ceased to be in the past, some ecosystems are vanishing right out from under our noses! We have recorded the extinction of a wide variety of animals -- ones with ranges as wide as the Brown Pelican -- because individual species are certainly not as resilient as entire ecosystems, yet the loss of individual species can affect the ecosystem as a whole.

And in what universe do ecological disasters like this not contribute to the stresses on the biosphere that may push it past the point of recovery? Do you think the mere existence of too many humans is going to cause the collapse? Obviously not. Obviously you think that humans consuming the resources of the earth, stripping the oceans of fish and the land of forests and the Great Plains of resources in the soils and so on, will cause collapse.

Trying to separate this disaster from that, when it is in fact a symptom of our growing demand for resources, is ludicrous and contrary to your own line of reasoning.

Talking only about population, and not how the population manages their resources, despite some of the most polluting and most resource intensive societies being population-negative, is just silly.

And the silliest thing of all is saying that nature itself, and to a degree specific ecosystems, are resilient, by way of implying that this negates the risk to ourselves if too many of these ecosystems are damaged. Have you not realized that one of nature's ways of adapting is by letting certain problematic species go extinct?

"Balance of power" during the Cold War consisted of the Soviet Union arming and funding communist insurgencies, coups and outright invasions, and the US desperately trying to contain the spread, until around 1980.

Oooh! Scarrry communists! They're teaching children to read in Nicaragua and kicking out our corporations in El Salvador! Quick, someone rape and kill some nuns! For freedom!

By the way, if you're afraid of the Nicaraguan Army, you're a coward.

Negotiation with a sovereign nation with an elected government is quite different from dictating to a puppet regime that came to power in a coup.

Is it different from overthrowing a democracy in Iran in 1953 and installing the Shah? Or funding coups throughout central and south America and in fact, all over the world? Is it different from hand-picking Saddam Hussein to rule the Ba'ath Party, support his rise to power, removing him from the State Sponsors of Terror in order to arm him with chemical weapons, and then claim America had nothing to do with it when he stops following orders?

Your best evidence is that the Ford administration and subsequent administrations are guilty of not caring enough about East Timor. Not caring enough does not equal support.

You're a fucking liar. Again.

Here's the source document: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB62/doc4.pdf

Here's the important text:

SUHARTO: I would like to speak to you, Mr. President, about another problem, Timor... in the latest Rome Agreement the Portuguese government wanted to invite all parties to negotiate... Fretelin has declared it's independence unilaterally... if this continues it will prolong the suffering of the refugees and increase the instability in the area... We want your understanding if we deem it necessary to take rapid or drastic action.

FORD: We will understand and will not press you on the issue. We understand the problem you have and the intentions you have.

KISSINGER: You appreciate that the use of US made arms could create problems... It depends on how we construe it, whether it is in self interest or is a foreign operation. It is important that whatever you do succeeds quickly, we would be able to influence the reaction in America if whatever happens happens after we return. This may be there would be less chance of people talking in an unauthorized way... We understand your problem and the need to move quickly but I am only saying that it would be better if it were done after we returned.

FORD: It would be more authoritative if we can do it in person...

KISSINGER: If you have made plans, we will do our best to keep everyone quiet until the president returns home.

There's a cable called "Plans for Indonesian Invasion of East Timor" that is still classified which Kissinger received before this conversation occurred.

A more appropriate spectrum would be 'totalitarianism' and 'freedom', with people like me coming down on the side of 'freedom', and "leftists" like Chomsky coming down on the side of totalitarianism.

You're an apologist for depraved violence as long as the person holding the gun is wrapped in an American flag and saying some nice words that you don't really comprehend. The only difference between you and a sovi

A young woman arrived in a WalMart in near Houston, with ~$4,700 worth of Walmart money orders. It has been proven conclusively that the money orders were genuine, and lawfully hers - but she was charged by the Walmart manager with trying to pass counterfeit money orders. False arrest and false imprisonment (which, by any reasonable definition amounts to kidnapping) committed by a corporation. http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6932914.html

WalMart did not arrest and imprison the woman, the government did. WalMart has no power whatsoever to come to my home and arrest me. No power whatsoever to throw me in jail. The most WalMart can do is file a complaint with the government, just like any citizen can.

and they also enable the gubbermint to monitor your telephone traffic without warrants. http://arstechnica.com/telecom/news/2008/01/senate-blocks-vote-on-surveillance-bill-that-would-grant-telecom-immunity.ars

Once again, it is not the government that enables (or prevents) the corporation from doing this and not the other way around.

Corporations don't knock your door down, and sieze your goods? How about taking your property at gunpoint, in public, with witnesses? California

May 15-16, 2002 - The RIAA and Fonovisa representatives executed a series of voluntary surrender actions at two flea markets in Indio, CA and Torrance, CA. 11 vendors were issued notices and 3,637 alleged illicit sound recordings were recovered from both locations. Artist recordings seized included works from top-selling acts such as Thalia and Shaggy. http://www.grayzone.com/october2008busts.htm

Don't let the terminology fool you, in that story. A "voluntary surrender action" involves the presence of armed men telling you that you can't have certain items in your possession. In most times and places throughout history, this would be considered robbery.

That link doesn't even contain that story. What it does contain are several examples where pirates were found, government authorities were called in, and government authorities took care of the situation.

You are obviously missing the entire point of my post. Filling a complaint with the government and the government deciding to take some kind of action does not mean the person who filled the complaint actually has the power to do what the government can do.

Given the choice between overpowered government or overpowered corporations, I am far more scared of overpowered government because government has FAR more power to dramatically affect my life.

Corporations can't do what, exactly? Perhaps you should check out some of the draconian moves made by corporations over the past years.

A young woman arrived in a WalMart in near Houston, with ~$4,700 worth of Walmart money orders. It has been proven conclusively that the money orders were genuine, and lawfully hers - but she was charged by the Walmart manager with trying to pass counterfeit money orders. False arrest and false imprisonment (which, by any reasonable definition amounts to kidnapping) committed by a corporation. http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6932914.html

Corporations routinely monitor your internet traffice, as well as your cell phone traffic, for reasons of their own, and they also enable the gubbermint to monitor your telephone traffic without warrants. http://arstechnica.com/telecom/news/2008/01/senate-blocks-vote-on-surveillance-bill-that-would-grant-telecom-immunity.ars

Corporations don't knock your door down, and sieze your goods? How about taking your property at gunpoint, in public, with witnesses? California

May 15-16, 2002 - The RIAA and Fonovisa representatives executed a series of voluntary surrender actions at two flea markets in Indio, CA and Torrance, CA. 11 vendors were issued notices and 3,637 alleged illicit sound recordings were recovered from both locations. Artist recordings seized included works from top-selling acts such as Thalia and Shaggy. http://www.grayzone.com/october2008busts.htm

Don't let the terminology fool you, in that story. A "voluntary surrender action" involves the presence of armed men telling you that you can't have certain items in your possession. In most times and places throughout history, this would be considered robbery.

Corporations do a lot of things that aren't publicized, and the ones that do get into the news are sanitized with meaningless phrases such as "voluntary surrender action".

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/hotstories/6930138.html

I see these "Free Public WiFi" ESSIDs all over the place in public areas, such as airports. They never work. They're usually ad-hoc networks.

I assumed for a while that they're symptoms/carriers of some kind of malware, but didn't really worry about it since I don't use Windows.

I just read this article which has a slightly crazy but just-maybe-plausible theory to explain them. They think that it's a weird, propagating out-of-control Windows XP feature, which makes every network to which an XP computer connects propagate its name as an ad-hoc network. And then when somebody else tries to connect because of the enticing name, they keep the ESSID alive for another minute since it's an ad-hoc network, and this continues ad infinitum. So the whole thing is nothing but a long-lasting "echo" of a forgotten network that keeps alive in heavily trafficked public areas. The whole idea seems nuts. Dumber than dumb. Dumber than Microsoft even.

But I haven't heard of any better explanation for the "Free Public Wifi" phenomenon. Anyone else???

That's the conclusion of an independent fact-checking organization known as PolitiFact.

The organization's nonpartisan assessment is expected to be widely quoted by supporters of NASA who are trying to reverse Obama's decision on Capitol Hill. "

Like many politicians before him, Barack Hussein Obama broke a campaign promise. He outright lied in order to get the votes independent voters.

Many news wires are now reporting that Obama broke his presidential-campaign promise to fund Constellation. In response, his supporters (of whom many are African-American) -- e. g., Beelzebud -- are pumping messages into the blogs and online forums to defend Obama.

When a system is broken, like this ultra-politicized textbook process, its justifiable to give up on it. Some people take principled stands in life. Sometimes you just need to walk away from a game that's impossible to win.

Id also walk out if a room full of fundies told me that the best compromise is "making sure to list evolution as an untested theory full of flaws and we'll consider mentioning that man and dinosaurs didnt live together, but we're not budging on Christian values forming America."

Its these bullshit compromises that have lead to the US being mocked by other western governments for its pitiful education system.

Oh well, a small percentage of them will go away to college away from their right-wing monoculture and be exposed to different ideas. Lets just ignore this headline then: Texas graduation rate worst in nation, again. Theyre up to 69.2 percent now, err, I guess thats progress.

Godless liberal countries with universal healthcare like Canada and Finland have the best graduation rates in the world. Sorry Texas conservsatives, youre on the losing side of history.

I read about "Directed Teaching" (also called "Directed Instruction") in the book "Supercrunchers" by Ian Ayers and have done a little research since. Here is a good article: http://www.jefflindsay.com/EducData.shtml . I went to Catholic schools (over 50 years ago) and the experience of directed teaching read as similar to how I was instructed by all those nuns. In the last year, every single time I've brought up the subject to a public school teacher I've been met with anger, fear, and VERY strong resistance. They hate my argument that, "If teachers were really concerned about being the best, they would adopt what works." (Forgive the rhetorical fallacy in that statement. Reason is usually not a prominent feature of these conversations by that point.)

I'm not a teacher, but over the last 40-some years I've never had a 4th-grader (or older) that I couldn't teach to do Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, Division and Square Roots in their head in less than two months. There is no excuse for people graduating from school without those skills. (I teach them the Trachtenberg System of Basic Mathematics. Teachers hate that because they don't know what the student is doing, but they know it works better than what they are teaching.)

Another interesting read is "The Underground History of American Education" by John Taylor Gatto http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/ . This book disturbs me for its lack of citations and the fact that it reads as if it were constructed on the same blueprint as a Dan Brown novel, but if you are concerned about the "school-as-prison" mentality, it is a good place to start. One of his other books, "Dumbing us Down" is very thought-provoking. He claims it takes about 200 hours to teach English Reading and Writing. If that's so, how can people spend 12 years in school and graduate without the ability to read and write?

As an interesting side note: The new head of the Houston Independent School District (HISD) is removing the barbed wire around his schools so they don't look so much like prisons. http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6886238.html

That freewifi one might be a guy who isn't even using wifi. If you've ever hung around airports looking for a wireless signal, there is always somebody broadcasting "Free Wireless Internet" or similar SSIDs in ad-hoc mode. Apparently this is a side effect of how some drivers deal with the situation where they can't find a usable access point. If they see an ad-hoc network, they'll "join" it as well, and then start broadcasting the ad-hoc ssid as their own. Thus, in crowded places where people are using Windows (like airport waiting areas), the Free Wifi bug will spread like a disease. It has been like this for years too.

Actually, it's more of a Windows side effect.

User connects their laptop to "Free Wireless Internet" AP (a real, live accesspoint). User then leaves, and parks butt in another location. Windows again looks for a network with SSID "Free Wireless Internet" as well as doing scans for other networks (ad-hoc or otherwise). Inadvertently, it also broadcasts this as an ad-hoc SSID, so a second user doing a scan sees it and tries to connect. They fail (obviously), but now their laptop will look for an ad-hoc network called "Free Wireless Internet", to which others will try to connect, fail, and broadcast anew ad-hoc network.

It's spread to the point where you can see that SSID everywhere. A viral SSID, effectively.

http://www.wlanbook.com/free-public-wifi-ssid/
http://blogs.chron.com/techblog/archives/2006/09/free_public_wif.html

A bit more Googling will reveal a ton more of same. Of course, it's trivially simple for someone to really do set up a real MITM using tihs viral SSID, so beware.

I did look at the url properties. It was the plain url. A search for "houston chronicle" returns this Houston Chronicle right clicking and copying the link location copies "http://www.chron.com"

Sweet, we could finally get rid of Ron Paul.

Houston, today. Read. It's certainly NOT an isolated incident.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/hotstories/6760853.html

Read the Chron, the Statesman, the Dallas Morning News - check those Texas papers frequently. The interstates are filled with human traffickers. A steady stream of humanity flows out of Mexico, hauling people around for this sort of purpose. Two babies were abandoned in a field recently in Texas. Life means little to these scum - unless it is their own life at stake.

No it is not. Here is an article from someone who shares your own view also responding to my post. http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssEnergyNews/idUSL0490971420080604 He has a 9.6% stake (~$12M) in a company whose total worth is estimated at ~$120M. The value of the company would have to increase its value by more than 100 for him to reach billionaire status. Not impossible, but hardly a slam dunk.

But quite likely if cap and trade becomes law. He also has stakes in several "green" energy companies.

No you just implied it.

I implied no such thing. If you actually read my first post you'll see that I said both he and the mega-corps love the idea of all of this global warming alarmism because it benefits both groups. I stated they both had influence without any indication of whose was greater.

What??? I can barely even parse what you are saying, but what ever it is it doesn't make any sense.

So you're saying you don't have an understanding of basic economics? Or that you refuse to understand it because it violates your simplistic world view? Both are sad.

Huh? What do you mean again? Are those your true colors shining through?

You caught me. I'm actually an American who believes in outdated concepts like freedom, and not the empty phrase George W. Bush would spout every minute or so in a speech. I'm one of those whack-job extremists like George Washington or Thomas Jefferson. I dislike fascism, or corporatism, or crony-capitalism, or whatever you choose to call our current system where the right campaign contribution can be more important than a good business plan.

So I'm basically right. A few dozen respected scientists and a several thousand pulled off the internet.

If you said that a significant portion of the scientific community does not support the alarmist theory, then yes you are right. But I don't think you said that. That's just what I found in a few minutes of searching. There are thousands more out there. Here's another one: A majority of American meteorologists disagree with the "consensus". Do you not find it odd that a significant number of experts in the field completely disagree? And that many have claimed that they had pressure put on them (like that alluded to in the CRU emails) to toe the party line? THAT IS NOT HOW SCIENCE WORKS! That is religion, plain and simple.
To draw a parallel, look at evolution. The only scientists in a related field who disagree with the theory of evolution (in general, not the guys who disagree on smaller details) do so because of religious beliefs. That's not science either. And yes, I just compared you with the evolution deniers, and it fits.

So you/they claim GISS falsified data once so that invalidates all data ever produced by the institution?

Yes. That's how science works. It's all about reputation. In any other field, those people would have been ostracized by now, and rightly so. If the data is falsified by one person, who is fired for it, then the institution can begin to repair its reputation. When the person falsifying data is in charge of the institution, everything they produce must be suspect.

Right, so convincing a statement right after this one:

My apologies for assuming you could discern obvious sarcasm.

So you do believe in the scientific method, but you've already made up your mind? And who is they. You are making some pretty serious quantification errors. It is not true because one or more people do not accept dissenting opinions that they, in your words, do not accept dissenting opinions. Th

I am fairly sure a hurricane would make short work of that dome long before the residents of Houston would gas (or murder) each other.

Ike did a pretty good number on their baseball stadium: http://www.chron.com/sports/photogallery/TEXANS_RELIANT_STADIUM_AFTER_IKE.html

the pills cost cents to make, but determining of they are safe costs hundreds of millions of dollars, plus lots of waste on stuff that doesn't pan out.

Bad example. The pharmaceutical industry spend much more on marketing than on research. The pharmaceutical industry doesn't even spend money to develop some drugs. The National Cancer Institute spent $183 million to develop and test the cancer drug Taxol. In 1988-9 Bristol-Myers Squibb(BMS) paid the NCI $43 million for exclusive rights to Taxol, $140 less than taxpayers paid for it. By 2000 BMS was making almost a billion dollars a year on Taxol. One dose of Taxol cost less than a dollar to make but one treatment cost thousands of dollars.

Don't tell me drug companies spend a lot to develop drugs.

Falcon

http://blogs.chron.com/techblog/archives/2006/09/free_public_wif.html. points out that any time you connect to a WiFi SSID, your laptop will then appear to be hosting an adhoc SSID of the same name.... weird but true, at least on XP, and explains why I see so many "Free Public WiFi" adhoc mode SSIDs almost anywhere, including on trains where I know there is no official WiFi hotspot. Most of these are probably not hackers trying to do a MITM attack, since this is something XP does automatically.

Does Windows 7 do the same thing?

Am I to take it that you would disapprove if I upgraded my shootin' iron?

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/hotstories/6668884.html

Whatever - I'm reminded of the difference between a freedman and a vassal. It amounts to little more than possession of a weapon. Whatever the law says, I will be armed, as will my sons. You city boys stay in the city, us country boys will stay in the country, and everyone can be happy. And, keep your cars in the city too, alright? I'm tired of country boys being killed by city cars.

Wanna hear something funny? The Saudis say they'll be wanting aid money if any of us do manage to cut our dependence on foreign oil. Hey having a Rolls for every day of the week and funneling money to terrorists ain't cheap you know!

The sophisticated high tech criminals are not in prison. They're on a beach somewhere enjoying your money.

You are absolutely right.

Oh, pardon, did you say something about "sophisticated high tech" ...?

It's particularly worth noting that what's been done so far science-wise is only the beginning of science results from the ISS, as most of the effort so far has been in construction. The crew size was also just doubled this year, allowing for even more time to be spent devoted to science:

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/6628585.html

After 15 years of construction, narrow congressional votes, delays and, yes, cost overruns, the $100 billion international space station finally appears ready for prime time. ... In May the space station doubled its crew from three to six astronauts, and this summer two space shuttle missions delivered a new laboratory and critical scientific equipment.
Then, earlier this month, a panel appointed by President Barack Obama to study the future of human spaceflight gave the station high marks, recommending its life be extended until at least 2020 and full funding to reach its potential.
The station is now beginning to do just that, as astronauts use the ISS for its intended purpose as an outpost for scientific research in a weightless environment, and learning to live for long periods in space. ...

Until now, crew efforts have focused on assembling disparate modules built by Russia, the United States, Japan and Europe into a cohesive whole. Since habitation began in 2000, therefore, astronauts have devoted only about 12,000 hours to scientific research.
Now with the crew expansion, and likely completion of the station by early 2011 allowing astronauts to swap their hard hats for test tubes, NASA estimates that total to increase by a factor of eight by 2015, to about 90,000 hours.
"We're just beginning to scratch the surface," said Julie Robinson, who oversees the ISS science program.

"Law enforcement officials have long described Texas as a major corridor exploited by human traffickers. According to the U.S. State Department, between 14,500 and 17,500 people are trafficked into the United States each year, with nearly one in five victims of human trafficking traveling through Texas."

I snagged that from the Houston Chronicle. http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6626053.html

Here is an earlier Chronicle article with >300 comments. Decide for yourself how many of them show inside knowledge.

Augustine's personal views on human spaceflight have been known since 1990:

--
In its original report, the [Augustine] committee ranked five space activities in order of priority:

      1. Space science
      2. Technology development
      3. Earth science
      4. Unmanned launch vehicle
      5. Human spaceflight
--
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advisory_Committee_on_the_Future_of_the_United_States_Space_Program

http://blogs.chron.com/sciguy/archives/2009/05/does_the_choice_1.html

Not to mention,
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/6579362.html

Which starts...
"Death panels? I'll tell you about death panels. My husband faced one some years ago, and it didn't involve any government bureaucrat. It was run by our private insurer, the sort of corporate entity that foes of health care reform say will give you anything you want."

I say..

Under the current setup, if you lose your job and are chronically ill, you just go bankrupt first and then die a few years later.

I understand that we can't cure everyone and it has to be rationed somehow-- but currently its rationed to rich people first-- and then even when they get sick- unless they are leading a corporation, they are dumped.

I suspect that the people who are bragging that they'd shoot someone over trespassing are teenage armchair internet warriors trying to convince themselves that they are tough.

You have obviously never been to Texas.

I'll give you another link to a local paper's editorial decrying the action the man in the earlier link I posted took. Take some time to read through the comments attached to it. You will find that the majority of the comments not only support the man's actions but laud him as a hero and upstanding citizen.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/falkenberg/5865045.html

Now don't take my posts as an argument that it is proper to shoot someone just for trespassing or even burglarizing your neighbors property. I personally would never kill someone over anything as trivial as property. I was merely pointing out that you may be a little naive about many peoples' attitudes as to when deadly force is acceptable.

"while MS users largely resent MS" Where the hell did you get this idea?

Oh gee I don't know, maybe here, here, and here, as well as many real-life office conversations?

The XO-1 was something of a cross between an e-book reader and a netbook

I have to disagree. The XO-1 is a cross between a computer and a fisher price toy, and I mean that in the best possible way (I own one, and I'm quite happy with it). IMO the only reason it gets a comparison to an ebook reader is because they had to figure out a way to make the screen readable outside. Frankly, I wish I could say that either my laptop or my netbook were usable outside, that would be really nice.

The first to dive off the pier-
usually misses the deeps, hits his head on a rock and drowns.

Sad, but true...

The netbook may still lack a clearly defined market: Many netbook buyers aren't happy [June 21]

Well yeah, they're unhappy for the same reason a lot of XO-1 buyers are unhappy: they had no understanding of what it was they were buying.

I'm quite happy with my netbook (HP mini still running HP's distro), but when my non-computer-geek friends use it, they question my sanity for buying it. The difference is, I'm not expecting it to be a real computer. I already have one of those sitting on my desk hooked up to a 26" monitor, plus a real laptop for when I need to do some real computing on the go.

The netbook is light and small, so I don't mind carrying it around everywhere I go. I can get on the net, run openoffice, do a bit of coding in vi... basically, it does most of the things I need a computer for when I'm on the go. I'm not going to try and squeeze MATLAB onto it, but if I ever get around to setting up remote access on my desktop that should be taken care of as well.

In short, the key to being happy with your purchase is to know what you're buying, and don't expect it to be more than that.

They didn't just lose focus, they lost a lot of goodwill by working with MS.

The push for XP came from the education minister - the guy who is expected to sign a purchase order for 100,000 units.

This was a fatal mistake since their plan required being able to produce large enough amounts of these to be able to sell them cheaply, and they were turning away the people who were willing and able to buy at the time.

The XO-1 was something of a cross between an e-book reader and a netbook - when neither product was clearly defined or particularly economical to produce.

The first to dive off the pier-
usually misses the deeps, hits his head on a rock and drowns.

The netbook may still lack a clearly defined market: Many netbook buyers aren't happy [June 21]

It wouldn't be entirely unfair to describe sales of the Linux netbook as "a flash in the pan."

OLPC needed to sell millions of units each year to avoid being lapped by its commercial competitors. I don't think that was ever going to happen.

You may or may not be able to install a fresh copy of Windows 7 using the upgrade discs (which just ended the half-off preorder promotion). This article (Jun 25) says you can, while these two (July 10 and July 13, respectively) say you cannot. What do the 3 articles have in common? No sources besides, "I've been asking a spokesman for the company about this for about a month, and he's finally been able to offer an answer." (the July 13 one). While I haven't really given anything substantial, I'm hoping somebody else out there will see this and can clear it up.

I wonder what it would cost to build computers without the annoying shit installed.

Apparently, thirty bucks

The planet has not shown substantial warming for a decade now. The Gore Effect seems to be holding. Some glaciers are advancing . And the Arctic Sea ice appears to have halted its decline, if only temporarily.

It's one of those once-in-a-lifetime events. I could be worried about an elevator car falling 20 stories and killing me in the fall, or being hit by lightning. Either of those are more likely than a repeat of 9/11.

I doubted this claim, so I had to check it. I don't think you're right. In the case of lightning, it's true that lightning strikes are much, much more frequent than terrorist attacks; but since one terrorist attack can cause many fatalities, you may still be more at risk from terrorists than you are from lightning. Reportedly lightning killed about 90 people in the US per year in the period 1959-1994. It'd take 30 years of lightning to make one 9/11.

As far as I can tell about falling lifts, there seems to be very very sparse evidence of people dying in falling lifts. In fact there seem to have been only two cases, ever. The first, as it happens, is precisely the case of 9/11. The other is a case from 1945 mentioned in the same link -- the article claims that that was the only fatality caused by a falling lift, prior to 9/11. There's also one case (near the bottom of the page) where a man in a hospital gurney was trapped when a lift slipped a couple of metres while his gurney was partway out the door, but that's not quite the same thing.

Most lift fatalities appear to be a result of people falling down an empty shaft, with a minority caused by people being trapped between moving parts (including a couple of famous decapitation cases) and electrocutions. And one case of a person drowning in a lift. But reports of lift fatalities seems to range between 16 and 30 per year within the US. I'd say you're definitely more at risk from terrorists than you are from lift accidents of any kind.

The case he reports? The linked article which you obviously didn't read details an issue of a crime lab misreporting results, the very top of the story says Houston crime lab analysts skewed reports to fit police theories in several cases, ignoring results that conflicted with police expectations because of a lack of confidence in their own skills or a conscious effort to secure convictions. In other words, the data is not necessarily going to be used correctly, and more importantly, there is no real way to protect citizens from misuse.

Do you live deep underground in fear of meteorites as well?

No, he probably lives in Houston.

No, I was thinking of the time when a crazy person shot four police officers. That got a lot of media attention in comparison to the BART Police murder.

Its happening as you write. Just got back from a new field in Oregon. Coast farms are nothing new, and Texas is under construction. By the way, there's job growth in this sector. I think your argument is getting blown away daily.

Probably the first OS X virus in the wild is from 2006:
* http://www.heise.de/newsticker/Virus-fuer-Mac-OS-X-aufgetaucht--/meldung/69677 (german, sorry)
* http://www.sophos.com/pressoffice/news/articles/2006/02/macosxleap.htm

Then there was some malware released in 2007 and 2008:
* http://blogs.chron.com/techblog/archives/2007/10/mac_os_x_malware_targets_porn_surfers.html
* http://www.tuaw.com/2008/11/21/new-mac-os-x-malware-osx_lamzev-a/

And then there was something early this year where I can't find the link right now.

It's that someone thought that they should be able to exclusively use or sell something they created, and we as a society think that's true.

They, BMS, didn't create it nor did they pay for it, taxpayers did.

I'm not intimately familiar with the Taxol thing in specific, but I would guess that the majority of the rights BMS owns have to do with the sequences of plasmids used to produce the drug and the techniques used to develop and insert them.

BMS owns the rights taxpayers paid for.

I don't know what your second paragraph is about.

Your health insurance premiums, which in many cases you are required by your employer to pay

When I last had insurance, I haven't had insurnace in more than 6 years, I did not get it through an employer. When I did have insurance through an employer it was optional not mandatory like you make it out to be. I had the choice to get and pay for insurance or not get it.

by that theory, every patent held by a company or individual who generates income by working for the federal government should belong to the government

There's a difference between working for the government and the government basically giving away taxpayer paid for research.

BMS had the resources to make something of it

BMS brought nothing to the table, other than perhaps marketing. But pharmaceutical companies spend a lot more on marketing than on research.

Falcon

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6252365.html

Can you imagine stuff like this going on if everyone were armed?

Can you imagine it becoming utterly routine when everyone is not? (Gee, sounds like an Iron Curtain country to me...)

....here: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6264797.html

I just read this astonishing report in Houston.

The report, authored by researchers at Rice University and Texas A&M University's Texas Transportation Institute, showed crashes increased slightly at intersection approaches where cameras had been installed. The number of crashes, however, rose dramatically at unmonitored lanes of those same intersections, leading the study authors to conclude that the cameras had kept collisions lower than they would have been without the devices.

Astonishing. More accidents in lanes with cameras, crashes up dramatically in unmonitored lanes of the same intersections. Basically, the cameras increase accidents. And so of course...

They also could add to the 70 cameras now placed at 50 intersections around the city.

You can't make this stuff up.

Cell phones in prisons have been big news in Texas, after a Death Row inmate was stupid enough to make threatening calls to the chairman of the state Senate's Criminal Justice Committee. They're still being found, weeks after a supposed crackdown that turned up dozens of in-cell cell phones systemwide, along with an inordinate amount of drugs and weapons.

The Grits For Breakfast criminal justice blog has been following the issue closely, asking questions like "Will we see prosecutions of staff who smuggle cell phones in addition to inmates and family members paying for their minutes?" Answer: probably not. Sen. Whitmire, whose family was the target of phoned-in threats from Death Row, summed it up pretty nicely at an emergency Senate hearing on the issue. TDCJ officials promised to implement a plan they'd been working on, to prevent guards from smuggling contraband to prisoners, to which Whitmire responded with a question: Why the hell weren't you doing that already?

One story mentioned a phone that was only found by an abdominal X-ray. I wonder if it was this little bugger? Oh, sorry, bad choice of words.