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Exactly. We don't have a collection problem, we have an outradeous spending problem.

Federal Budget Death & Taxes:
2004
2007
2008
2009
2011
2012

I.e. The government collect more tax dollars from the people than any nation in recorded history, still spend a Trillion dollars more than it has per year - for total spending of $7 Million PER MINUTE and complain that it doesn't have nearly enough money!?!?

Spending money to kill other people is NOT the solution to balance the budget.

Top 10 Most Successful Kickstarter Projects http://startupbros.com/top-10-...

But I recall watching Penn Jillette making an argument for charity and against government funding a while back on some cable news interview. Oh, Piers Morgan; it was a while back.

Mind you, I like Penn, and I don't think the government always makes the wisest decisions with money, but the concept that people directly funding critical social infrastructure would be enough to keep our system afloat frightens the hell out of me. Crowdfunding hasn't exactly proven a smashing success across the board. And there are charities that will collect donations and make grants based on where their focus and community needs intersect, but then find themselves run afoul of some of the same complaints about accountability the government does (which, at least with charities, seems as much driven by people who think they should be funding one thing and not another as anything else.)

It's kind of a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. I don't think most individuals or companies have the wherewithal and patience to research individually all of the aspects of our society that could use charity, rank them, and fund the most important. But when that authority is delegated to another entity, whether a grantmaker or a government, they want to be able to exercise a level of control over their (and others!) funds that is impractical. And I find myself leaning towards having a dedicated entity allocating funds because, well, there are causes everybody wants to fund and causes few particularly care about, and whether or not people care may often more be a result of awareness-building than it is the actual value-per-dollar impact to society.

The whole thing seems like a clever scheme by Chinese companies and Goldman Sachs to sucker money out of U.S. investors.

It is. What do you really own with Alibaba? The websites? No.

What's really for sale: When investors buy Alibaba, they are actually purchasing shares in a Cayman Islands entity called Alibaba Group Holding Limited.

But that company -- surprise! -- doesn't actually own Alibaba. Instead, Ma and another co-founder, Simon Xie, own most of Alibaba's biggest businesses according to Chinese law. Ma and Xie are then under contract to turn profits over to the Cayman entity.

The arrangement is called a variable interest entity (VIE), and is necessary to get around China's strict foreign investment rules. But investors should be aware of the structure -- especially since Chinese courts have not clarified the legality of the arrangement.

Voting rights and control in the company? No.

So what the fuck do you actually own? Hope and promises. My ex-wife gave me those.

P.S. Even the Hong Kong stock exchange spurned Alibaba.

Sci-Fi can paint any picture it wants, but so far it has never asked, "Will people still be useful in the 21st Century?" Great question and the answer is likely no, and that answer in no way leads to Utopia in my opinion.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/17/...

http://money.cnn.com/2014/05/2...

A reference to this series of events

When I watched Justin Ross Harris' Preliminary Hearing, I was stunned by how little work Home Depot's developers seem to do.

Harris worked for Home Depot's ".com business" per a quote from the Home Depot Corporate Communications Manager in this CNN article. The Preliminary Hearing did an amazing job of describing his typical workday: After watching cartoons with his child, then taking him out for breakfast, Harris eventually arrived at his office at about 10 AM. About 90 minutes later, he went out for a long lunch, with a carload of coworkers. After eating, the group stopped at a store to puchase some items. After lunch, Harris is at his desk for a few hours, but then he was out the door at 4 PM, off to watch a movie with some of his coworkers.

The hearing documented that he put in, at most, about five hours of work. During those five hours, he was IMing women on dating sites and also IMing a couple coworkers about a small startup/consulting business they had.

Preferably for people who want to turn America's farmland into some sprawling metropolis...

You blithering idiot! A blubbering fool! A nincompoop! Nobody is talking about your precious farmland (which produces far too much stuff anyway, but that's a separate story).

I said Midwest. The Midwest, that is so bloody empty of anything (crops included), towns are offering free land to anybody willing to build a home. And still they can't attract enough people...

Except they did, and this entire story is full of shit (or based on some early rumors)

http://money.cnn.com/2014/09/1...

The Coast Guard is considered law enforcement unless acting under the direction of the Navy in wartime.

Then what the hell was the Coast Guard doing a few weeks ago in the Persian Gulf firing on Iranian ships?

The reason that dogs invariably alert to cash: 90% of bills are tainted by cocaine

Was RT anchor Abby Martin's condemnation of Russia's invasion of Ukraine "propaganda"? http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/04/... RT is state-funded, but its anchors are not controlled by any means. There are US government-paid trolls all over this thread.

Yes! Someone should really try something more scientific. Because that worked out so well last time.

Wow, I forgot about this recent trivia and had to confirm. Lazy admins do not just meet deadlines - http://money.cnn.com/2014/03/0...
XP is probably silently breaking laws everywhere in the US. I doubt many embedded shops really know fresher versions on windows enough to trust them like the obsolete but venerable devil they know in XP

My credit card expired recently and I was sad to realize only as I signed the new one that despite having recieved a new number and a new 2018 expiration, they missed the opportunity to chip-and-pin.

I get the feeling that even if the USA mandates this thing next year, I am not going to just get a surprise in the mail because they will probably claim I am not a new user and try some waiting game to save a few bucks.
I imagine it will take just as long after 2018 for chip and pin to be an option at your favorite online site. Physical stores will actually be scared into lawful submission because the breaking laws is much more visible.

Slow uptakes in IT disappointme. First, https encryption. Then universal USB and NIC availability. WPA, Wireless G in mainstream routers... then same crap with N, and I am STILL waiting for dual band tablets/cellphones that arent $500+ flagships... but with how slowly all those solved/easy problems have been treated by money grubbers, we are starting to become accustomed to vaporware like ipv6 and cheap retina-like screens.

CAPTCHA: toggle

THIS is why people of my political persuasion are teaching our nine-year-olds how to handle machine guns. We would all rather that little girls be learning to code Swift at that age, but when cops have a license to steal, meaning just grab cash and property without due process and not even to contribute to a general revenue fund but to use it to buy paramilitary toys for themselves, this is what happens:
http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/03/...

Tall people can afford premium economy.

A 2004 study by psychologist Timothy A. Judge, Ph.D., of the University of Florida, and researcher Daniel M. Cable, Ph.D., of the University of North Carolina, found that every inch of height amounts to a salary increase of about $789 per year (the study controlled for gender, weight and age).

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/Car...

Let's make US tech workers even less competitive.

Clearly, not enough of the industry has moved overseas yet.

The author of the summary is not up to date on the recent release of info on Dreadnoughtus schrani, now believed to be the largest creature to ever have walked on land. See the following:

http://drexel.edu/now/archive/2014/September/Dreadnoughtus-Dinosaur/

http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/04/world/americas/dreadnoughtus-huge-dinosaur/index.html

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

Damn Whales, walking on land everywhere. Oh what's that, they swim? And they way three times as much as the Dreadnoughtus? The author of this comment is not up to date...

http://drexel.edu/now/archive/2014/September/Dreadnoughtus-Dinosaur/

http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/04/world/americas/dreadnoughtus-huge-dinosaur/index.html

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

The bigots are awake early this morning.

Gotcha. You have no coherent argument against my statement, so you resort to the old standby in an attempt to squash dissenting views. Calling people a "bigot or racist." Sorry, that doesn't fly, time to look outside of your protective bubble. Even CNN is questioning the narrative that "there isn't something wrong with islam," they're saying something is wrong with it. Might have something to do with people like adam chaudhry going off and saying apostates should be killed live on TV, or things like this. Hey would you look at that? It's those "moderate muslims" slaughtering yazidi's because isis rolled into town.

Better get some for Houston too

"Houston police shot to death a double amputee in a wheelchair who they said was trying to stab an officer with a pen."

http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/23/...

You can't make this shit up.

Bwahahah. Yes, that's right, RT is a magical press outlet, the only one in the world that just happens to be right. Well at least we're getting somewhere now, at least we're getting to the point that you are after all mindlessly fed propaganda by RT. You realise that defending RT is a bit like defending Fox News or The Daily Mail right?

Yes, in this case RT is the only English-speaking TV outlet that tells the other side of the story. And it's more compelling than what the Western media parrots. Russian media actually has reporters on the ground and they are working in the midst of the fighting and just in recent weeks, several reporters were wounded or killed.

And even Fox News gets their facts right sometimes. However, other news companies are starting to get a clue: http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/02/...

Just this day the State Department has admitted that they actually have no concrete proofs apart from the satellite pictures. Not from commercial satellites, mind you. OSCE traitors also told that they don't actually have proof of direct Russian military involvement.

Even CNN ran a news article about suffering of civilians because of shelling of the cities by the Ukrainian army: http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/02/... ,which really is a first. Most other articles carefully skirted that point.

The stories linked to were at:

News.com.au
CNN
Newsweek

Those are hardly obscure names in the world of journalism.

The pattern I see is that that you won't go to where the stories are posted and try to manufacture a controversy from it.

ooh, poor uber. they have to have drivers pass an exam and get proper insurance. that's NOT anti-competitive.. that's actually extremely helpful to know exactly what they have to do to be legit...

but HERE is what's anti-competitive... (hint: its not the governments, or even the taxi drivers, doing this shit):

http://money.cnn.com/2014/08/1...
http://money.cnn.com/2014/08/0...
http://www.techhive.com/articl...

do not blindly go "ohh, poor uber. thats not fair'' every time a government takes a stand against them. they do NOT deserve the support. they should get a red hot poker shoved up their collective corporate asses for how they conduct their business... and then they should be banned for not having proper insurance, drivers licensed/permitted to carry passengers for hire, and regularly inspected vehicles... just as germany did... but globally.

ooh, poor uber. they have to have drivers pass an exam and get proper insurance. that's NOT anti-competitive.. that's actually extremely helpful to know exactly what they have to do to be legit...

but HERE is what's anti-competitive... (hint: its not the governments, or even the taxi drivers, doing this shit):

http://money.cnn.com/2014/08/1...
http://money.cnn.com/2014/08/0...
http://www.techhive.com/articl...

do not blindly go "ohh, poor uber. thats not fair'' every time a government takes a stand against them. they do NOT deserve the support. they should get a red hot poker shoved up their collective corporate asses for how they conduct their business... and then they should be banned for not having proper insurance, drivers licensed/permitted to carry passengers for hire, and regularly inspected vehicles... just as germany did... but globally.

This will make one of the few jobs that still pays decently

The median household income in the US is $51,000. 15% of Americans living in poverty

The median annual wage for computer programmers [is] $74,000. Computer Programmers

You mean these satellite images? The ones that have the following quotes attached to them?

At a press conference on Thursday, August 28, Dutch Brig. Gen. Nico Tak, a senior NATO commander, revealed satellite images of what NATO says are Russian combat forces engaged in military operations in or near Ukrainian territory. NATO said this image shows Russian self-propelled artillery units set up in firing positions near Krasnodon, in eastern Ukraine.

This is an extremely misleading way to phrase things. Krasnodon is not just "in eastern Ukraine". It's right on the border. So being near it can also mean in Russia. The above comments from NATO mean nothing, assuming CNN is reporting them accurately. What about the others .... hmm let's see.

Image 2 is from inside Russia and they say so. Image 3 is also in Russia. Image 5 is captioned twice, once with "Russian self propelled artillery unit inside Ukraine" and again, but this time it's again "near Krasnodon", which is practically in Russia. If there's an obviously demarcated border in this area it's hard to see based on the Google satellite images. The last image doesn't even claim to be of anything in particular, the caption is merely summarising story in general.

Both Russian and Ukranian troops appear to regularly cross the border without realising it - there have been repeated reports of Ukrainian forces entering Russia and then being redirected back across the border, with no obvious blowback. Given these things, and the fact that western media is in full-blown propaganda mode and not even hiding it, I'm going to want way stronger evidence than this.

But honestly, even if Russia did invade, this would merely make it on par with the USA and UK, both countries that practically revel in invading other countries and wading into other countries civil wars. So a part of me couldn't get too excited even if it did happen. It's definitely NOT worth a serious, major conflict between Russia and the west.

is going to make Apple look very bad.

Many of the news reports are not mentioning Apple, so most people are unaware.

No, every number except for the world population and the final calculated number for mortality rate is from that WHO report.

About the same way that every letter is in the alphabet.

I used the numbers most favorable to producing a high mortality rate

No you didn't.

If we go with the lowest number of infected, 5%, and multiple it by the 7 billion on this planet, we have 350 million.

You used imaginary numbers for determining your supposed population, and you purposefully used lowest numbers which you've also imagined.
Those numbers are nowhere to be found in the WHO report.

THIS is what the report says. Again...

Influenza occurs globally with an annual attack rate estimated at 5% - 10% in adults and 20% - 30% in children.

NOT 5% of 7.2 billion.
5-10% of adults (so "most favorable to producing a high mortality rate" would be 10% based on adults alone) and 20-30% of children (where "most favorable to producing a high mortality rate" would be 30%).

Have fun figuring out how many "children" that is as not only do they NOT provide such numbers, but they don't even define "children".
Prepubescent? Everyone under 18? 16? Babies?

ON THE OTHER HAND...
8-10% is the number you get when comparing lowest number of deaths to lowest numbers of severe illness, while comparing highest numbers of deaths to highest numbers of severe illness.
It is a moderate guesstimate value based on known relations between known facts.

Just taking 5% out of 7.2 billion is practically the same as taking any random number.
8%. 19%. 56% 807%. Pumpkin %.
I.e. Completely unrelated to given facts.

The flu virus changes in ways that require us to update our vaccines practically every year. That makes a complete cure for the flu virtually impossible.

Again, that is not the issue. Vaccines are kept up to date.

From the same WHO report.

For many years WHO has updated its recommendation on vaccine composition biannually that targets the 3 (trivalent) most representative virus types in circulation (two subtypes of influenza A viruses and one B virus). Starting with the 2013-2014 northern hemisphere influenza season, quadrivalent vaccine composition has been recommended with a second influenza B virus in addition to the viruses in the conventional trivalent vaccines. Quadrivalent influenza vaccines are expected to provide wider protection against influenza B virus infections.

The issue is the unavailability of vaccines everywhere and the disregard of the disease as people "don't die of influenza very often".
With a dose of that general trend of fear of vaccination on top of it all.

Meanwhile, a couple of thousand dead, ONLY in Africa, over several decades, is a cause of panic because that disease is much more sexy.
Cause everyone dies from ebola. Almost nobody gets it but everyone DIES.
Clearly, we should all panic and duct-tape our doors and windows to stop the virus from coming in.

No it doesn't, the separatist movement has never had popular support in east Ukraine, the argument for populist support was tenuous even in Crimea that is by far the most pro-Russian part of Ukraine.

"If you don't believe me, just look at the photos of the East Ukraine during March and April when citizens were blocking off roads to stop tanks, in some cases just like the Tiananmen Man."

If you think tens, at most hundreds of people, some of whom were themselves "rebels" aka Putin's agent provocateurs in regions of millions is a sign of popular support than I urge you to go and get a better grasp of millions of numbers. A counterpoint to yours would be the citizens of Mariupol who are currently helping the Ukrainian military dig trenches against the Russian invaders and who formed a many mile long chain of people to make the point that they don't want Putin's soldiers to take over their territory.

There are polls both before:

http://www.cityam.com/blog/139...

and after shit kicked off:

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/05...

That show that the Russian made myth of support for joining Russia or being independent from Ukraine is just that, a myth.

Putin is trying to make Eastern Ukraine a buffer zone by injecting his own Russian puppet leadership there just as he did with Crimea, and just as he did with Ukraine (which is what led to this situation). It has nothing to do with what the people there want and everything to do with Putin's paranoia that Europe is somehow out to get him, rather than the actual reality - that Ukrainians would rather just join modern prosperous democratic Europe, than corrupt, poverty stricken, dictatorial Russia. That's why Putin has manufactured the myth you're parroting.

Stop propping up the propaganda of a brutal dictator, because that's what Putin is.

There are two types of "nuclear waste", actual spent fuel rods which are a real problem, and a lot of "definitional" nuclear waste, like contaminated hard hats, which may or may not be dangerous but may just be landfilled in other nations. TFA implies

Saw on CNN Fareed Zakaria 2 weeks ago that for the former nuclear waste there's a USA technology to use it as fuel. Similar to "breeder reactor" use, but evidently cheaper and safer. http://cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn....

Train transport would have to be modular by the way, using containers that go on trucks before the truck puts it on a train. That's the way most of the containers you see on trains get there. The trains don't actually, like, go up to loading docks. Or even go to most cities at all. See photos here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... If they are actually talking about actual train cars, they better first do a study of how many nuke plants have rail spurs!

It seems to presuppose the long-discredited Conflict Thesis, which states that religion and science are inherently always in conflict.

Long discredited? That may be so but we still have lots of religious people who oppose teaching evolution or reproductive biology on a religious basis, disbelieve climate change in disproportionate numbers, believe the earth is about 6000 years old, or even, in some parts of the world, think that girls have no need for education.

Finally most religions require one to accept truths on faith, that is without objective reproducible proof. That's the anti-thesis of the scientific method.

When they called me, I was overcome with passion, and yelled "You are a lying cunt" into the phone. Man, I hate these parasites. The other guys I hate are the robocallers who pretend to be the IRS. Sadly, it is a generated female voice, and so can't be usefully yelled at. Dialing their number may be dangerous, so I haven't just called them up and yelled at them. Assholes

Given that all our leaders in both the west and Russia are pathological liars, I'm always interested to find the other side of the story. Not that our media makes it easy.

This slashdot story reports what's happening as fact. But as far as I can tell what we have is actually only quotes from Kiev, the same people who have been claiming that Russia was invading for weeks. The same people who claimed that a convoy of aid was actually full of soldiers and military equipment, even after it was repeatedly spot checked by journalists and found to contain exactly what Russia claimed it did (food and aid). This is coming just days after Poroshenko dissolved his Parliament, there were apparently rising protests against conscription into the Ukrainian army, and the separatists were able to make progress.

Just to make things even more complicated: simultaneous with the claim that Russian troops are crossing into Ukraine, RT is claiming that Ukrainian troops crossed into Russia, in order to defect, and the Ukranian government admits this.

This comment on the Guardian story (which incidentally is much less biased than this Slashdot article and presents this as an accusation by Kiev) is what got me to look for these stories and I think interesting enough to quote in full:

Nothing really to explain. Ukraine troops, left without leadership and provisions, have been deserting and losing ground all week. Now that people are demonstrating in Kiev calling for Poroshenko's resignation, he's calling invasion.

- Close to 2,000 Ukraine combatants have put down their guns and asked for asylum in Russia.
- In the last 4 or 5 days, the DPR army has encircled and captured more than 7,000 troops, and all the hardware they possessed.
- On the 24th we all saw thousands of these defeated troops marched through Donesk city centre.

Now they have close to 80 tanks, and various other armored vehicles, all acquired from defeated Ukraine troops, and are sweeping over eastern Ukraine.

Poroshenko was given billions of dollars, and some how failed to pay pensions, salaries, or to send adequate supplies to the forces. He's losing this war, that's all.

Everyone from climate scientists to Exxon executives get that sort of shit continuously, it's (sadly) part of being a public figure.

More than just public figures now.

iPhones have had the ability to be remote wiped for a long time. Yet I have not heard of a pandemic of hacker-led mass bricking of iPhones.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/27/...

Now you have.

According to the Ministry the criminals used two “well-established schemes.” One of them was hacking users’ email accounts and elaborate phishing pages to glean victims’ Apple ID credentials. The second scheme – which may or may not related to the Oleg Pliss scam – allegedly bound devices to prearranged accounts and used “various internet resources to create ads.” Those ads promised access to Apple ID accounts that contained “a large amount of media content.” As soon as someone accepted the offer and linked their device to the account, attackers hijacked the devices.

Phishing to obtain email credentials and then presenting yourself as the legitimate user, or offering access to free media to suck in greedy people. Social engineering - not the same thing as hacking the bricking/remote wipe protocol.

iPhones have had the ability to be remote wiped for a long time. Yet I have not heard of a pandemic of hacker-led mass bricking of iPhones.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/27/...

Now you have.

if all rapes were reported, we may well see that men rape women no more often than women rape men

I don't think that is in any way very likely.

According to a 2010 report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 1 in 5 women and 1 in 71 men in theed States have been raped. The actual number is likely higher, experts say, as incidents of sexual violence are severely underreported in the United States -- particularly among male victims.

Against his will: Female-on-male rape

we're worried about dying from Global Warming . . . getting hit by an asteroid . . . an Ebola epidemic . . . but nobody seems concerned that maybe the Earth could bust apart at its seems.

You're kidding, right?

Just after people's terror of word-ending asteroids wore off, the media was pushing the Yellowstone Supervolcano (very hard) as the thing we should all be pissing our pants about. And they really never gave-up on it, either:

http://www.inquisitr.com/10848...

http://www.bbc.com/news/scienc...

http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/30/...

http://news.nationalgeographic...

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt04...

Might it be one of the most expensive movies ever?

Asks an ignorant troll...

Considering it was made with 25 year old footage, it was probably one of the cheapest movies ever made.

The U.S. spends $324 billion dollars a year on entertainment*. tThe cost of the Voyager II program ($865 million dollars*) over 40 years is equal to about 22 millon dollars per year. A drop in the bucket. The Pioneer and Voyager missions have spawned an entire cottage industry of "science-based edutainment shows" on TV like "Through the Wormhole" and "Cosmos". That program has paid for itself many, many times over.

How do we determine how much to spend on stuff with little or no payback?

I have no idea. But the Voyager mission has certainly paid for itself many times over.

*CONSUMER EXPENDITURES--2012; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

**Voyager, The Interstallar Mission; NASA

Wrong: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...

The minimum wage in China is between 1$ and 2$ depending on region.

According to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L... Mexico is at 60cents and China at 110cents

Keep in mind, the US is the only country out of those 3 where the minimum wage means anything.
I should also clarify, in the US and Mexico there are large startup costs as well. When you manufacture here or Mexico you need to build a plant, hire management, etc... I wasn't including that in.

Things are different in china. You approach a, usually, government owned manufacturing company and say I need X number of this part... then they quote you. You really think the government follows it's own labor laws? Because they definitely do not.

A government-mandated 11-hour workday was routinely ignored, and factories frequently paid less than the minimum wage or withheld pay for minor infractions. Injuries on the factory floor resulted from safety violations and minimal employee training. Workers might sleep 10 or 15 to a room, with 50 people sharing one bathroom.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/30/...

This is how all that crap in your house gets made. By slaves, sleeping in dark holes. Don't like it? Stop expecting to pay $200 for a tablet. US Manufacturing companies would like nothing more. They hate this to.

As that culture changes for China, they will make the exact same mistakes the other industrialized countries have made.

Very unlikely as their management of their currency and the investments in third world countries show.

Yes, chances are they will make their own mistakes.

One big problem they've got is an inverted population. The 1-child rule has created a situation where there won't be enough young workers to support the elderly pensioners. To the best of my knowledge (which isn't very comprehensive), that is a new problem for a developing economy.

Another problem is their sex-ratio is really out of whack, an indirect result of the 1-child rule. When there are more men than women, there is usually excess violence. Not to be reductionist but when large numbers of men don't get laid on a regular basis, they get frustrated and angry. One way to fix the problem is to go to war and kill off the extra men. Let's hope that doesn't happen.

If so, I wonder if this is related to Chinese spies stealing US corn

If so, I wonder if this is related to Chinese spies stealing US corn?

Sure I'm playing with android. Given the choice of developing for blackberry or android, why would I play with a phone that's got almost zero market share?

What killed Blackberry: Terrible apps.

Many of the most popular apps on the iPhone and Android are nowhere to be found. There's no Instagram, Netflix (NFLX), Candy Crush or Google (GOOG) Maps. Many of the big-brand apps that do exist for BlackBerry, including Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp, are infrequently updated and have received dismal reviews from users.

Meanwhile, BlackBerry news site BerryReview revealed last month that a single developer is responsible for 48,000, or 40%, of BlackBerry's apps. Some of those apps developed by Hong Kong outfit S4BB many seem legit and functional. But many of them are either generic clones of other apps or possess minimal usefulness.

... and ...

BlackBerry is also rapidly losing subscribers, so big app makers don't want to devote resources to a vanishing platform. But BlackBerry also gives free rein to small developers to fill its app store with spam apps.

Although the open-ended strategy may be mildly beneficial to BlackBerry and a few ambitious developers in the short term, encouraging such a large ratio of garbage apps to quality apps poses consequences in the long run: Smaller developers don't want to invest in BlackBerry, because it it's hard for consumers to stumble upon their apps in a diluted pool.

BlackBerry isn't a "competitor" to anybody any more. They sold fewer phones last year than in 2008. And worse ...

analysts remained sceptical about the future of the firm formerly known as Research in Motion. "If you wouldn't lend money to buy BlackBerry, why would you lend money to BlackBerry?" queried Benedict Evans, of Enders Analysis.

... and ...

One major supplier, Jabil, warned in September that it might stop building parts for the company, which could completely kill off the handset business.

When such a critical supplier says they're thinking of bailing, there's no way to spin it.

This is why we Americans now have the Fourth Amendment, requiring due process (with various levels of proof) before interfering with someone's life.

Well, but that was a while ago. Now the legal system is using rationales like "hey, your MONEY doesn't have any rights, so we don't need due process to seize it, just suspicion" and also "terrorism", "you are on this list", and the big winner, "I think I'll just shoot you" (and often your dog, even, every once in a while, your cat), plus "we like searching your finances and communications without a warrant, so we do (IRS, NSA, DEA, other TLAs)", etc.

You gotta keep up a little better.

Also, the 4th constrains the federal government. With significant optimism poured on the 14th amendment, plus a judge who hasn't received his most recent bribes, the 4th also constrains state governments. It does not, however, constrain corporations or individuals. That is, of course, if anyone was still paying it serious notice, which is clearly not the case anyway.

This stuff actually depends upon civil law, and there, the rules are *completely* different and not at all what you expect. Or will enjoy. Civil law exists specifically so the system can hammer you in the event that criminal law is not up to the job. Any other usefulness is wholly coincidental.

You cannot prove a negative.

Sure you can. I was once falsely (and maliciously) accused of something, and was able to prove that I was 100 km away in a different city for the extended weekend, with hundreds of witnesses. 7 witnesses was more than sufficient.

Then you're a durn sight luckier than this guy http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/08/justice/new-york-wrongful-conviction/ who spent 25 years in prison on a false accusation despite having evidence in his pocket that proved he was more than 100 km away at the time of the crime.

Finished? We're sending more troops to Iraq, as well as increasing airstrikes. Hardly over, it's escalating back up...