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They care about having customers to employ their workers. Past money spent is under the bridge. Sure they'll pick up commodities where they can with it, but really, by the time they finish spending it, the dollar is going to be toilet paper. It's the real stuff like the jobs, the factories, the infrastructure etc that they were after, and you gave them that... LOL. Paid them to take it.

Thing is, Americans are no longer the customers they were. So China has started appreciating their currency and is actively diversifying out of US debt.

Customers? There are 1.2 billion Chinese. Bout ~400 million modernised, that's more consumers than America, ~800 million still to go.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/43877263/

Basically, you've been betrayed. You have elected traitors, you work for traitors, but in a democracy you get the government you deserve.

Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting. -- Sun Tzu

China won, without a shot being fired. It is now only a matter of time, in less than a decade, as your public debt (never mind private and commercial debt) grows larger than 100% of GDP, China will become the pre-eminent nation on the planet... And it took only 50 years, basically only 1 generation, the Boomers, to do it.
 

Strategy Analytics is talking about units shipped. Unit shipments aren't the same as actual sales to customers. Microsoft used that same word-twisting when they tried to convince everyone that Vista was doing well. As John Gruber pointed out yesterday, what Strategy Analytics is calling market share is actually "shipment share." That's not market share in the way most people think of it. If you go by actual sales, the iPad has sold almost 30 million total, while Android tablets have only sold about 1.35 million.

I'm surprised Apple's earnings report didn't make it to Slashdot's front page. Sales of the iPad have tripled since last year, at 9.25 million, and iPhone sales more than doubled. iPad sales have been so successful that retailers reserved inventory space for them at the expense of PCs. PC shipments declined by about 6%, and the PC industry overall declined by 4.2%. I think that's the biggest untold story of all in this--after decades of growth, the PC is in a downward trend because of the iPad.

Because it's percentage-based and can therefore fluctuate based on total size, market share is not as important a figure as it's often made out to be. It can be used to paint a negative picture where there isn't one. It can also be twisted by citing units shipped rather than sold. The iPad is doing better than ever and doesn't seem to be stopping any time soon. I realize that Slashdot is historically pro-Linux and will present Linux-based products as always "catching up" or being on the cusp of taking over, but there's just no evidence of that happening at this point in time.

And yet corporate profits are up, corporations have record amounts of cash on hand, economic demand is down, and capcity is idle, inflation is nonexistent, and with interest rates near zero, credit is cheap.

If there wasn't enough money in the economy, then the corporations wouldn't have cash, there would be no excess production capacity, and inflation would be high. None of these are true. Taxes ain't the problem kid. They haven't been for 40(!) years. What is moving production overseas? Labor arbitrage -- the race to the bottom. And no, we don't have to accept this as a nation, and no unions, nor regulations are the cause. Case in point: The world's second largest exporter: Germany.

There was a recent call for the Treasury to audit the gold storage at Ft Knox. The treasury doesn't want to go along with the request.

Something about the fact that they've formed their own central bank seems less than grass-roots to me.

Given the country's vast oil resources, it's pretty clear that the rest of the world is more interested in hedging their bets and ensuring the proper flow of oil. This entails working with whoever controls the oil fields, and making sure the currency exchange is stable for both groups (already solved for Ghaddafi's folks). Given the rebels are not going away any time soon, it's pretty clear that a stable currency exchange requires some form of central banking.

Something about the fact that they've formed their own central bank seems less than grass-roots to me.

India:
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf53.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_policy_of_India

China:
http://world-nuclear.org/info/inf63.html
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2011-05/26/content_12580470.htm

China is starting to suffer brownouts due to policy to limit coal. China is using 50% of world coal production.

http://www.worldcoal.org/resources/coal-statistics/
http://www.eia.gov/oiaf/ieo/world.html

I will disagree with EIA about coal in China. There is currently a new policy that says no more new coal power plants unless they replace old coal plants. New coal plants have to be more efficient too (eg. combined cycle, or coal gassification). China will also run out of its coal reserves within 30 years at current extraction rates.

China cannot grow coal because lack of the resource - they are become one of the largest importers of coal. This is expecting to cause brownouts this summer,

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2011/05/energy-shortages-spreading-rationing-in.html

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/30/us-china-power-price-idUSTRE74T1TG20110530

http://www.cnbc.com/id/43219200

I ask not to argue, but to have something to slap in the faces of all the treehuggers...

You can say I am a treehugger - a nuclear treehugger ;) I view fossil based energy sources as vastly more damaging than nuclear. I would prefer that fusion be available, but alas, you have to do with what you have. Renewables are OK but there is a problem when you have 8 billion people and each one wants to have their energy (transport, heat, air conditioning, food, etc).

Energy independence is paramount and if nuclear is the only option for base-load non-CO2 emitting energy source, then I have no choice but welcome nuclear.

Frankly, I don't know what the "green" crowd (anti-everything crowd these days - can't call them rational anymore) wants. In Germany now they are protesting that they don't want the power lines to move power from north to south because they look ugly.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13257804
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,757658,00.html

and there's a finite quantity to mine, most of which is already in the hands of BC's founders. Why exactly is this a good thing? Count me out.

And I suppose you know where the vast majority
of issued US currency is oh wise one?

And whereas... bitcoin has set a LIMIT on the
amount of currency they will produce... our
lovely country... has NOT.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/43233866

So... shun one fiat currency in favor of another,
good game plan.

Honestly we need to start passing out forceps
so the americans drinking the kool aid can at
least have a cranialectomy so their straws don't
have to be so long.

-AI

Private schools do better because the class clown that disrupts the learning environment is not required to remain in the classroom. Search online for student videos of my science class or other cell phone videos of public classroom teaching. Most of them show the learning environment is a zoo and can be hardly listed as a learning environment.

Schools cut down on special ed and tried to integrate special needs kids back into the classroom. This was followed with no child left behind. This coupled with regulations against effective discipline to maintain classroom order and the aggressive kids without the same rules then can make the rules. This went unchecked for a while which is now followed by anti bully reactions.

It is time to stop applying patch on top of patch and wishing it will work. It's broken and not working. Public school is not a place to advance your learning, feel good about doing well, and becoming well prepared to face the future.

Those who can use private school. Those who can't afford private school home school and use co-op schooling. ( a huge part of my community does co-op )

The main difference in this is the privileged are taught by the successful to succeed in business. The under privileged are taught how to use social services, run a hidden grow operation, or other business to be successful with their peers. They are not afforded the same educational opportunities as they are taught early on that they will not be able to succeed. They are taught instead how to work the system.

I was raised in public school. It was NOTHING like public school today. I too have had to use an alternative to educate my kids. Unfortunately I didn't start early enough so bad habits learned in public schools from their peers is still negatively impacting them. Due to this some are ill prepared to take on secondary education at this time and will not be wasting money on student loans only to fail.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/39911910
http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/business/Cramer_Tackles_the_Student_Loans_Crisis_Philadelphia-115674714.html
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/01/11-2

College if it happens will be pay as you go instead of being part of the next sub prime bubble.

ha ha ha ha ha - too funny.

This is not very useful of-course yet, as the Fed will want a cut from any appreciation of the price of the metal in USD, though any appreciation is purely due to the dilution of the value of the fiat, so this is just theft, still, it will be interesting to see where this will go and how the Fed will be challenged in court to try and prevent the Fed from collecting the capital gain tax from the gold appreciating due to the inflation.

There was also like the 40%-ish customer satisfaction rate. IIRC. People like the idea of tablets and netbooks, but that loathe actually using them.

Good job attempting to lump tablets in with netbooks. Too bad you're completely off base.

I have no idea why, but the submitter put a link to the mobile version of the CNBC article. I noticed the URL is http://m.cnbc.com/id/39618344/, and removed the 'm.' part, and the page loaded, no problem.

Today's news has it that there won't be any gasoline left for Europe then anyway so banning it is unnecessary.

Social Game Maker Zynga’s Market Valuation Tops $5.5B
http://www.cnbc.com/id/39869254/Social_Game_Maker_Zynga_s_Market_Valuation_Tops_5_5B

Who's laughing now?

Wow. You really need to find another employer with benefits that don't suck. My rates went down a little and were only 2/3rd yours to begin with.

You must live in Maine.

My health care costs nearly doubled from $160/mo to $300/mo with no change in benefits.

This just in, Smartphones outsell computers for the first time. And almost all of those are NOT Microsoft smart phones. They are replacing computers for many people, and yet Microsoft is not targeting any phone save for the ones labeled with "Microsoft" on them somewhere. Take a look around your office, look for a Windows Mobile phone, see any?

Ignoring an entire market space because it doesn't have "Microsoft" on it is just plain stupid.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jv0mxMUeIcToktm19cnHdHqGEiLg?docId=5a76d0b346bd4162a17079ed98ac44b8

In related news, Apple is slated to become the #1 Company in the world.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/41473211

If you call that "success" for Microsoft, great. I don't.

It wouldn't surprise me if they bring a 500MB cap to the data plans in 2012 and also began charging for tethering, much like how providers such as Orange have done in the UK...

Wow, that's very plausible. They could be hoping to get all the anti-AT&T folks onboard with the soon-to-be-dead iPhone4, into a 2 year contract. Then before that contract ends, they throw in the cap. Terms in the US can be changed randomly, and I'm no smartphone user, but /. has been an indication that VZ loves nickel&diming people for even *viewing* "basic" GPS data that the phone collects by law anyway (to enable emergency 911-tracking services)

A juicy thought from Bloomberg TV I haven't seen here yet:
VZ iPhone 4 is out in Feb 2010 ... the usual AT&T iPhone 5 comes out shortly after... will version 5 be an AT&T exclusive?

And here is the proof :)

And here is the proof :)

Here is the most recent break down of U.S. debt I could find.

Taiwan $126.9 Billion (not China though the Chinese like to think so)
Hong Kong $151.8 (China-ish you could argue either way but I'll get back to that)
Caribbean Banking Centers $153.2 Billion
Brazil $164.3 Billion
Depository Institutions $206.6 Billion (these are commercial banks etc.)
Insurance Companies $235.7 Billion
Oil Exporting Nations $239.3 Billion (China is not an exporter of oil)
United Kingdom $321.2 Billion
Pension Funds $513.1 Billion
State & Local Governments $531.3 Billion
Mutual Funds $663.9 Billion
Japan $795.5 Billion
China $900.2 Billion
Other $1.193 Trillion (these are bank trusts, corporate business, estates etc)
Federal Reserve Intergovernmental Holdings $5.259 Trillion (This is the federal reserve itself)

http://www.cnbc.com/id/29880401/The_Biggest_Holders_of_US_Government_Debt?slide=16

When Bush was president and all of his little helpers kept telling everyone that there was nothing wrong with the market, how did denying reality end up helping anyone? I mean, besides postponing the inevitable to hang the albatross on the next administration.

Well all they can do is lobby against these measures which they do (in UK at least). I guess Americans are scared of being called unpatriotic or something.

UK Should Not 'Kowtow' to the US on Flight Security
http://www.cnbc.com/id/39863854/

Airport Security Checks 'Bizarre, Ineffective': Ryanair CEO
http://www.cnbc.com/id/39950166

Well all they can do is lobby against these measures which they do (in UK at least). I guess Americans are scared of being called unpatriotic or something.

UK Should Not 'Kowtow' to the US on Flight Security
http://www.cnbc.com/id/39863854/

Airport Security Checks 'Bizarre, Ineffective': Ryanair CEO
http://www.cnbc.com/id/39950166

Please observe what happened to Japan in the 1990s with regard to deflation.

- yeah. If only Japan did the reasonable thing and didn't follow the advice of Ben Bernanke and didn't inflate their monetary supply and thus didn't try to propel forward all of this magic of subsidizing the US consumer through punishing its own consumers and by killing the purchasing power of the Japanese people.

The Japan would have been better off and in the long run the US would have been better off.

The Japan would have quickly recovered, just the way US recovered from a recession in 1920, when gov't just cut its spending by 70% and allowed the economy to restructure, and the 'roaring twenties' followed. Instead Japan inflated its money and destroyed its economy, and in an aging population that they have, their problems are going to bite them even more, it's not over for them, they didn't see the last chapter in this depression they created for themselves.

I argue that deflation is a GOOD thing, not a bad one. Deflation is contraction of monetary supply and it causes prices to fall and economy to restructure by cutting out jobs that shouldn't exist.

Of-course the gov'ts hate deflation, as they have to cut their spending like everybody else does (and US did in 1920).

However Japan was not in such a terrible shape as USA is in today. Japan had its debt, but almost ALL of the Japanese debt was internal! It was all bonds sold to their own citizens and their own companies.

US has all this debt all over the world.

Japan had the highest savings rate in the 90s, so they had enough capital to last them through even worse a recession.

US has the lowest savings rate it ever had.

Japan was a net exporter of consumer goods.

US has a 50Billion/month trade deficit.

Deflation is the last thing you want your economy to do systematically, across the board. It encourages people to put off consumption and make a recession last a lot longer than it could.

- what? You really think that? But dude, Japan would have had deflation if it didn't follow Bernanke and didn't INFLATE its monetary supply.

Japan would have had deflation if only it didn't ruin its economy by inflating its money and stealing the purchasing power from its citizens. You know, you should research and show us a single time that deflation actually HURT somebody! (as opposed to inflation, which actually DESTROYED entire countries).

The recession of the 19 century and the one in 1920, they had deflation, but all of these recessions were over in a year or even in a few months! Yet the inflation causes the recessions even to turn into depressions, you should really look into that.

This is precisely why the Fed continues to print money.

- the Fed is printing 600 Billion now with QE2, that's exactly how much US federal gov't will borrow by June 2011. Don't tell me you don't see what's going on - they are printing their own debt. They are not expecting to be able to sell all of those gov't bonds anymore, and they are right. Nobody wants US bonds, the prices are falling and the long term interest rates are rising.

(look at all of these answers to my comments, look at how I have been moderated as 'troll' or 'flamebait', isn't that striking that so many people are so blind and not seeing the economic destruction brought upon them by their own gov't?)

By trying to keep inflation above 2% we can avoid the nasty business of dealing with a deflationary spiral

- well, gee, even WallMart is reporting inflation rates much higher than that.

I do not trust US gov't to report anything correctly and without cooking the books. The GDP, the CPI are bullshit numbers. They are not reporting M3 anymore, well no surprise, they don't want you to know what the real numbers are.

WallM

http://www.cnbc.com/id/40257359

Yeah, they're called "Progressives," and their idea of progress is to concentrate the world's wealth and power into the hands of a very few privileged elites and condemn the rest of us to serfdom.

This is part of the US's PUBLICLY REVEALED campaign to discredit WikiLeaks. The way to do so? Ad Hominem. Make the story about the messenger - over and over, again.

It wouldn't matter if WikiLeaks were fronted by Charles Manson - that's not the point of the disclosures.

But once more, you fall for the legerdemain.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/39729526
http://www.ufppc.org/us-a-world-news-mainmenu-35/9948-news-a-comment-pentagon-campaign-to-discredit-wikileaks-downshifts.html
http://www.itbusinessedge.com/cm/community/news/gt/blog/us-plan-to-discredit-wikileaks-leaked/?cs=40078
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/oct2010/time-o25.shtml

Actually Avatar is like #14 most profitable film ever when adjusted for inflation. First goes to Gone with the wind by a HUGE margin that it will probably remain there until some really new ground breaking thing happens in the movie industry. Reference here: http://boxofficemojo.com/alltime/adjusted.htm note that if you want to use worldwide adjusted gross, you will find Gone with the wind brought in ~3.2 billion 2010 USD, using simple maths from http://boxofficemojo.com/alltime/world/?pagenum=2&p=.htm shows worldwide gross was approximately double it's domestic (1.6b * 2 =3.2b) and comparing it to the worldwide adjusted Avatar at 2.7b.

If you are using ROI as the metric, then Paranormal Activity stomps the hell out of Avatar (as does Star Wars, and a dozen other movies). One reference here: http://www.cnbc.com/id/39083257?slide=1

Using just about any metric shows Avatar did extremely well, but usually not first.

Where to start... okay. We'll start with the debt. China hold's a smallish fraction of the U.S. debt. Here is the list and the sources.
Taiwan $126.9 Billion (not China though the Chinese like to think so)
Hong Kong $151.8 (China-ish you could argue either way but I'll get back to that)
Caribbean Banking Centers $153.2 Billion
Brazil $164.3 Billion
Depository Institutions $206.6 Billion (these are commercial banks etc.)
Insurance Companies $235.7 Billion
Oil Exporting Nations $239.3 Billion (China is not an exporter of oil)
United Kingdom $321.2 Billion
Pension Funds $513.1 Billion
State & Local Governments $531.3 Billion
Mutual Funds $663.9 Billion
Japan $795.5 Billion
China $900.2 Billion
Other $1.193 Trillion (these are bank trusts, corporate business, estates etc)
Federal Reserve Intergovernmental Holdings $5.259 Trillion (This is the federal reserve itself)
Source Here

Okay... so now you know. China, even if you can include Hong Kong (which I say you really shouldn't but whatever) doesn't own anywhere near a majority of U.S. Debt.

Now on to nukes. Read THIS in order to get a better understanding. The opinions you have appear to have no basis in fact or reality.

You're missing the problem of the unfunded entitlements. Boomers have officially started retiring and over the next decade, the costs associated that will quickly escalate. Current 2015 estimates project costs exceeding $2 trillion annually just for Social Security and Medicare compared to a little over $1 trillion back in 2005.

On top of that, we continue to spend money we don't have. GWB's $450ish billion deficit was bad, Obama's is 3 times that. If the government spending money actually produced growth, it should spend like there's no tomorrow (of course, that is the economic version of perpetual motion and it is just as false)... but it doesn't produce growth and it doesn't spend money efficiently, it tries to force the market into doing things that don't make sense (or private investment would already be in that market), which always results in waste. And yes, we do overspend on roads (bridges to nowhere anyone?), police (why do we have state troopers, sheriff deputies, town cops and university police all in my neighboring small college town of about 9000 people (college kids included) when the big crimes are vandalism, underage drinking and minor domestic disputes?), etc.

Further, you haven't disputed my claim that we've never, EVER reduced the debt in more than a century, we just pay the interest, and frequently, we have to borrow to pay that. Existing debt to GDP isn't all that meaningful of a statistic since it ignores things like the unfunded entitlements that are coming due, inflation, etc.

We ARE in the same type of deep shit as the morons that bought the $1 million house despite an income of $28k a year... For the first 5 years, all we had to pay was $800 a month on our interest only loan, a mere fraction of our GDP, er, income, but now, our first balloon payment is coming due and our interest rates are about to reset higher. Just like the house buyer that didn't understand the terms of his mortgage, don't forget about the bigger picture of unfunded entitlements nor that fact that our debts are being sold around the world and sooner or later, someone is going to want to cash in...

The solution is to cut our losses and stop spending on things that aren't absolutely vital. Instead, Obama doubled down on Bush's mistakes just like FDR did with Hoover's, and we're being setup for at least a decade of misery... only this time, I don't see the military collapse of Europe or China on the horizon as a means to us jumpstarting our domestic economy again. In fact, thanks to the mistakes of nearly every President and Congress over the last century+, we may already be too sick to recover even if we were to somehow suddenly become the world's virtual sole manufacturer again.

The debt simply is not payable. You could confiscate 100% of the wealth of the Forbes 400 richest Americans and you'd still only get $1.27 trillion, or roughly enough to pay off just this year's deficit. And that means they have no assets for you to tax in the future... If we were to cut the entire military budget to $0, ignoring that we'd immediately be attacked, it would take decades just to pay off the principle of the existing debt, ignoring the rapidly oncoming entitlement spending owed to the boomers (which will grow from about $1 trillion to $2 trillion over the period of 2005-2015). Seriously, we're screwed... the only thing that might help is deep, deep cuts. But good luck getting any of that through with the political environment we have today where people, corporations and special interests demand "their" share of your money that the government took for them. Really, I don't understand how you can't see that we really are screwed, especially if you're as into statistics as your moniker would suggest.

You trade your cash for gold at these ... then you go to Cash4Gold and trade the gold for cash?

Well, Castro has subsequently said that's not what I meant."
He's probably just senile. Or insane. Or a liar. Or some combination thereof.

Texting while driving is as bad or worse than drinking and driving.

You know this is bunk, right?
All they've done is measure reaction times from a couple of old fogeys who can barely operate a cell phone anyway.

How many people died during their tests of drunk drivers vs their tests of texting drivers?

Oh, you mean they didn't actually test that?

So, did they at least factor in the ability of a texter to put down the phone, text only at red lights, etc?

Oh, you mean they didn't?

Oh, you mean the test was an unfamiliar obstacle course with REQUIRED texting?

Texting while driving is bad, but it is nowhere near as dangerous as drunk driving. It's no worse than operating the fucking radio or air conditioner while driving. You fucking wait until you have a moment to diddle with it.

When you drive drunk, you're drunk for the entire fucking ride.

. where do we draw the line?

Every time you get into a car drunk and endanger other innocent people on the road. Exactly how many times am I supposed to let your old girlfriend try to kill me and/or my family before we crack down?

Oh I hear you man. Now that you put it that way and appealed to my emotion of my old girlfriend endangering your family, I am pissed. But you know what's really gone unchecked? Texting while driving is as bad or worse than drinking and driving. You know what I think should be instituted on the first offense? Lose your license for a year and you should have to have a device that verifies no cell phones are in the car before you start and periodically check while you operate it. And you should have to pay for that just like the Interlock device.

Listen, there's a happy medium here. And every year it seems like the legal limit gets lower or the first offense ranges get lowered. All I'm asking is how low those limits are going to go before you're okay with it.

Fine, you can't argue with MADD, hell, you can't even reason with them and if you're fine with the above impositions on driving then you'll be fine with cops taking away licenses when they see a woman doing her hair in her car or applying lipstick or texting/talking on a cell phone. Because all of those things endanger you and your family to some degree. They're just not as sinful as drinking.

I was all excited to see DEC back in the news. Oh how I missed you since that fateful day in 1998 when you got bought by Compaq, which inturn got bought by HP by the woman who now hopes to do for California and America, what she did for HP.

But alas, no. You are gone and shall never return. I guess I'll just have to file your section next to Enlightenment's, and all the other sections that people have no idea what they're for. Can't someone over clock a a DEC Alpha or something?

I'm really tempted to post some enlightenment news, but I wish it was something more than their most recent point release.

Detroit is b-r-o-k-e, broke.

They sold their water and sewer system to a neighboring county because they couldn't afford to operate it. There is consideration being given to filing Chapter 9 bankruptcy. The mayor has seriously proposed bulldozing a quarter of the city. Detroit can't afford to build anything. And, IMO, a company would be nuts to put any significant money into infrastructure in that environment.

And at the same time managed to be a critical failure because it wasn't usable for the 95% of the population that don't have the technical sophistication to actually use the device in an appreciable manner. The N900 is a nerd's dream phone, but it would seem that the vast majority of people prefer Android phones.

Reuters has the sales pegged at 100,000 or so tops and say that during the same time 8.75 million iPhones were sold. According to this Slashdot article Android phones outsold the iPhone in that quarter. Basic math suggests that roughly 11.6 million Android phones were sold, a full two orders of magnitude greater than the N900. It may be a toy OS compared to what amounts to Debian Linux, but it's actually something normal people can use.

I'm glad you like your phone, but let's not pretend that it's changing the world. Android is something that's actually useful outside of the niche tech-geek market that is Slashdot. If this is what the year of the Linux Smartphone is supposed to be, I wouldn't call it good by any standards.

Google has made Android a polished experience that's acceptable for the everyman. It might be a thin strand of yarn compared to what's possible with the N900, but to the majority of people buying smartphones, the N900 is just rope with which to hang themselves.

CNBC did run an article on this.

If it is a hoax, they bought it hook, line, and sinker!

http://www.cnbc.com/id/37747904

no actual movement to decriminalize drugs

Just as you said, "You lack of exposure does not constitute a lack of interest." From the "American Journal of Economics and Sociology", Legalize Drugs Now!. Let's see how many others there are...

1. LEAP - Law Enforcement Against Prohibition - Cops Say Legalize Drugs
2. What if we legalized all drugs?
3. Tom Tancredo Says: Legalize Drugs!
4. Commentary: Legalize drugs to stop violence
5. Legalize drugs -- all of them
6. Is Now The Time To Legalize Drugs?
7. Why we should legalize drugs

Those are just the first page of results of legalize drugs. There are about another 245,000 results.

The people want it. That you don't talk to the types of people voting for such things doesn't change the fact they do.

Many of the people don't want it. That you don't talk to the types of people voting for such things doesn't change the fact they don't. And as a matter of fact I have talked to some who want to keep drugs illegal, my sister is one. I've also talked with people who want to bring back Prohibition, they say it will work this tyme. But everyone I know I know where their position is who lives in the real world and not a fantasy want at least some drugs legal. About the only drugs some don't want legal are so called hard drugs like opiates. They don't always know the facts though, for instance it's said an addiction to opiates is nearly if not impossible to break, however as the Rat Park experiment showed given the right environment even those addictions can be broken.

Fight against him? They encouraged him.

Liked J Edgar Hoover? That's a big laugh. Politicians, both Democrats and Republicans, didn't like him. The only reason he kept his position as director of the FBI is because of his extensive collection of private files. They were all afraid he'd blackmail them. As for most people, they didn't know about him or about the files he collected on public figures.

Falcon

Yeah, Google is currently the hot topic of the tech week: Nearly every tech-related blog has some negative opinion about Google either taking on the telcos, privacy concerns, anti-publisher/book settlements, or too big to fail...

Considering they're mainly all blogs, I'd say there maybe some strings being pulled, paid for in the form of cash by a certain rival. That because what Google is doing is no different from that rival, nor what MS, Novell, IBM, HP, etc... has done in the past.

Agreed. The "internet" should be declared as a specific place (like an embassy is actually "foreign soil")

Then, there could be a separate community standard just for the internet.

One of the problems with establishing a realistic community standard is that most people don't want to go on record and say they watch lots of pr0n, or buy sex toys; so the community standard comes out artificially low.

According to a CNBC report on adult entertaiment, there's:

* $3,075 is spent on it
* More than 28,000 Internet users are viewing it
* 372 Internet users are using search engines to find it
...that's every SECOND

So somebody is buying it!

http://www.cnbc.com/id/31586577?slide=2

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

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

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

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

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

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

http://corporate.discovery.com/discovery-news/discovery-communications-sony-and-imax-announce-pl/

Yep - a 24/7 fully dedicated 3D network in the US.

I think 3D is an epic fail right out of the gate. Autostereoscopy has been on the market already, so the whole add glasses thing is idiotic.

Samsung showed it at this year's CES, but it didn't get the big exposure... but still, it's out there:

http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1379458976&play=1

Autostereoscopic info here (one example) - meaning, 3D without glasses:

http://www.xyz3d.tv/

In addition - 3D headsets with 1.44 megapixel/eye glasses have been out for some time. All it would take would be a few minor upgrades, and for about a grand, you'd have the equivalent of a 3D 70" set at 13'. See, for example:

http://www.i-glassesstore.com/ig-hrvpro.html

Oh - and wait for it - the Blu-ray kiddies have decided that the correct term is now 3-D, not 3D, unless it is.

http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=3924

A note on spelling

Earlier this year, the blu-ray.com team unanimously decided to use the spelling "3-D", with a hyphen, for everything related to stereoscopic images, and "3D", without a hyphen, for three-dimensional graphics and animation. We shall continue to do so, except when citing the name of the "Blu-ray 3D" specification, which doesn't use the hyphen.

OBTW - Did we all notice that the proposed tech is going to eat an additional 50% of bandwidth? For those suffering from compression/decompression artifacting - read: for everyone with digital cable or satellite HD - it's going to get worse as the 3D premiums are added. Woot!

I loved David Pogue's view (amusing as always) on 3D TV in his Truth Serum video.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1386497920&play=1

Let's not forget - the Avatar craze was with circularly polarized PASSIVE GLASSES - not Bluetooth'd active shutters!

http://www.pcauthority.com.au/News/164200,3d-tv-buzz-at-ces-2010-just-another-gimmick-or-should-you-hang-onto-those-avatar-glasses.aspx

I think this is a simple case of **I AM** ready for 3D-D ... ready to wait until it dies or makes sense!

BTW - Let's not forget Johnny Lee's head-tracking system (if you watch nothing else - watch this!!) - at least that was cool:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd3-eiid-Uw

http://corporate.discovery.com/discovery-news/discovery-communications-sony-and-imax-announce-pl/

Yep - a 24/7 fully dedicated 3D network in the US.

I think 3D is an epic fail right out of the gate. Autostereoscopy has been on the market already, so the whole add glasses thing is idiotic.

Samsung showed it at this year's CES, but it didn't get the big exposure... but still, it's out there:

http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1379458976&play=1

Autostereoscopic info here (one example) - meaning, 3D without glasses:

http://www.xyz3d.tv/

In addition - 3D headsets with 1.44 megapixel/eye glasses have been out for some time. All it would take would be a few minor upgrades, and for about a grand, you'd have the equivalent of a 3D 70" set at 13'. See, for example:

http://www.i-glassesstore.com/ig-hrvpro.html

Oh - and wait for it - the Blu-ray kiddies have decided that the correct term is now 3-D, not 3D, unless it is.

http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=3924

A note on spelling

Earlier this year, the blu-ray.com team unanimously decided to use the spelling "3-D", with a hyphen, for everything related to stereoscopic images, and "3D", without a hyphen, for three-dimensional graphics and animation. We shall continue to do so, except when citing the name of the "Blu-ray 3D" specification, which doesn't use the hyphen.

OBTW - Did we all notice that the proposed tech is going to eat an additional 50% of bandwidth? For those suffering from compression/decompression artifacting - read: for everyone with digital cable or satellite HD - it's going to get worse as the 3D premiums are added. Woot!

I loved David Pogue's view (amusing as always) on 3D TV in his Truth Serum video.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1386497920&play=1

Let's not forget - the Avatar craze was with circularly polarized PASSIVE GLASSES - not Bluetooth'd active shutters!

http://www.pcauthority.com.au/News/164200,3d-tv-buzz-at-ces-2010-just-another-gimmick-or-should-you-hang-onto-those-avatar-glasses.aspx

I think this is a simple case of **I AM** ready for 3D-D ... ready to wait until it dies or makes sense!

BTW - Let's not forget Johnny Lee's head-tracking system (if you watch nothing else - watch this!!) - at least that was cool:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd3-eiid-Uw

Until Bush's tax cuts expire later this year and Obama doesn't renew them and then NOBODY invests in the stock market because the risk just isn't worth it when 35% of your investment gains are taken away.

I trust Warren Buffet's insight more than I trust yours:

I've been around rich people all my life. And I have seen capital gains taxes close to 40 percent. No one went home at 3 in the afternoon and said, "I've worked enough, and because tax rates are so high, I think I'll go to the movies." I mean, people want to maximize their after tax income, and there's two ways to do it: Increase their income, or get Congress to lower the tax rates for them. But I have never seen anybody with capital say, "I'm going on strike. I won't invest." I've been managing capital for 50 years for other people. No one left and said, you know, "The taxation system's too tough. I think I'll just stick it all under my mattress." They can't stick under their mattress. They're going to invest their money regardless.

The porn industry is on this.

Umm, we pretty much are at 20% unemployment:

http://www.cnbc.com/id/34040009

17.5%. And getting closer every day. The stimulus spending is stealing future wealth to produce fake wealth today. It's stealing real savings today (which creates real wealth and investment) to produce fake wealth tomorrow.

The Bush administration gave this welfare to the telcos, not the Obama administration. The telcos are trying to get more corporate welfare from Obama. Blame Obama for giving my tax money to the telcos when he actually does it, not when the telcos are standing on the corner with a cardboard sign that reads "will lobby for cash".

For Christ's sake, man, open your eyes. Bush was a disaster for this country; indeed, for the entire world -- for everyone but the corporates and the uber-rich.

The 'Real' Jobless Rate: 17.5% Of Workers Are Unemployed

As experts debate the potential speed of the US recovery, one figure looms large but is often overlooked: nearly 1 in 5 Americans is either out of work or under-employed.

According to the government's broadest measure of unemployment, some 17.5 percent are either without a job entirely or underemployed. The so-called U-6 number is at the highest rate since becoming an official labor statistic in 1994.

Whatever happened to all those clowns that would deride unemployment numbers during Bush's years as inaccurate because of "all those people who have given up looking"?

Guess what, clowns: NOW it's TRUE.

What has Baracky's (and never forget Pelosi's!) bailouts^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hhandouts have done? Has Government Motors turned around yet?

The only good news is that the recent ASS WHIPPINGS that Obama-linked Dems got in states Obama carried just 12 months ago (Virginia and New Jersey - holy fuck, New Jersey voted for a REPUBLICAN!!!!) means that Obamacare is DOA. Do you REALLY think Harry Reid is going to let a bill get passed when doing that means Nevada's unemployment rolls will swell by one when he becomes an ex-Senator?

Read it and weep - the middle-class voters who put Obama into office because he wasn't George W. Bush DO NOT want him FUCKING UP their just-fine health care just so Dems can bribe votes from a bunch of people who can't keep a job.

Democrats - what you get when the public realizes it can vote itself bread and circuses.

"Saudi Arabia has led OPEC through the largest supply cut in its history to boost oil prices to the level publicly favored by Saudi King Abdullah, $75 a barrel." http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2009-09/09/content_8669671.htm

"Back in December, the blog analysed statements by King Abdullah, and concluded that Saudi Arabia had a 'target range' for oil prices of $75 - 100/bbl. Yesterday, this analysis was confirmed by Saudi Oil Minister, Ali Naimi, who said the world economy could now 'weather oil prices at $75 - 80/bbl'." http://www.icis.com/blogs/chemicals-and-the-economy/2009/05/saudi-confirms-75bbl-oil-price.html

"Saudi Arabia on Saturday cited $75 a barrel as a "fair price" for oil, the first time in years that the world's biggest exporter has identifed a target for crude prices.

Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said oil prices needed to return to $75 to keep the more expensive new projects at the margins of world supply on track. His comments may come as a relief to consumer nations fearful of a return to $100-plus oil." http://www.cnbc.com/id/27967401

"Big Asian oil consumers India and Japan gave a cool response to Saudi Arabia's suggestion that $75 a barrel was a "fair" price for oil, saying cheaper crude was preferable during the worst economic crisis in generations." http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-191062480.html

"At a meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) over the weekend, Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah reportedly said the "fair price" for petroleum is $75 per barrel." http://www.autoobserver.com/2008/12/saudi-king-suddenly-hopeful-for-75-oil-us-too.html

Can it change? Sure, and it has in the past, but it's pretty apparent that they've seen something in the $75 price point for a good while now.

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

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

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

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

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

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

My bad, clicked on a brand new top article when I came back to slashdot from the Win 7 party http://www.cnbc.com/id/33007219/

Noticed immediatly but of course I'm still getting with each attempt... "Slashdot requires you to wait between each successful posting of a comment to allow everyone a fair chance at posting a comment. It's been 4 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment"