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In a bit of convenient timing, found this news story via Instapundit a few minutes ago, about medical use of a 3-D printer saving a baby suffering from a rare lung ailment.

With hopes dimming that Kaiba would survive, doctors tried the medical equivalent of a “Hail Mary” pass. Using an experimental technique never before tried on a human, they created a splint made out of biological material that effectively carved a path through Kaiba’s blocked airway.

What makes this a medical feat straight out of science fiction: The splint was created on a three-dimensional printer.

Here's hoping that the competition helps stuff like this.

Also, see this: http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/22/health/baby-surgery/index.html

tl;dr a 3d-printed splint to open a baby's airway

Exxon's income tax rate is below the 35% rate mandated by corporate tax law

That is also from a fairly balanced article.

Falling for leftist catchphrases unexamined? Deliberately distorting the facts? I don't know what your problem is, but you're not getting away with it this time.

ChrisMaple (or whatever your real name is), to put an end to my villainous catchphrasing, surely you can save the day by finding some facts to back up the "fact" stated by dublin that "the oil industry evolved from the same people who ran the cattle industry, where a man's word was his bond and multi-million dollar deals were made on a handshake?" No? Well how about evidence that "Government (and 'free governemtn money') corrupts pretty much everything absolutely" and yet the oil industry is not corrupted by government money? How about identifying any "deliberately distorted facts" in my prior post (or this one)? You'll definitely need to do something like that, because calling me a moron is certainly not going to hamper me at all.

"When manufacturers discontinue a brand -- such as Pontiac, Mercury, Oldsmobile or Saturn -- auto dealers still remain to help the customer,"

In reality, if Tesla were to go out of business, individual mechanics would open shop assuming there was a business demand. If there wasn't any demand, then it wouldn't matter if the sale originally involved a dealer or not. (Unless said former-dealer was unclear on the concept of business.)

I think this sends an excellent message to naysayers: Not all American startups with DOE loans end up like Solyndra.

In fact, of the 23 companies that received funding under the same program as Solyndra did, at least 19 of them are still in business - that's an 83% success rate. When you factor in the fact that these were all loans that the free-market was too risk averse to take on itself, that number is pretty fantastic. Most venture capital funds are lucky to have a 10% success rate.

I think I see a trend here:

http://money.cnn.com/gallery/magazines/fortune/2013/05/21/5-worst-internet-acquisitions-of-all-time.fortune/index.html

TOP 5 WORST INTERNET ACQUISITIONS

Yahoo bough Broadcast.com, an online television site founded by Mark Cuban, for $5.7 billion in 1999

Yahoo acquired GeoCities for $3.6 billion

TOP 5 BEST INTERNET ACQUISITIONS

Google's acquisition of Android, the mobile operating system maker, was miniscule at an estimated $50 million. But the deal eight years ago turned out to be the foundation for Google's Android operating system now used in 75% of all smartphones and more than half of all tablets sold.

Google bought YouTube for $1.65 billion in 2006. According to one analyst, it took in $2.4 billion last year

Google bought DoubleClick for $3.1 billion in 2008. The deal helped Google expand from search advertising to selling much bigger ads that appear on partner websites. DoubleClick has an expected 17.6% U.S. market share this year -- greater than Yahoo and Facebook.

You might sound convincing, but what you are describing is BS.

Hackers take aim at prison locks and other real-world targets
Vulnerability allows hackers to open prison doors, hiding activity from central command

Hacking Prisons - John Strauchs, Tiffany Rad, & Teague Newman
Researchers Say Vulnerabilities Could Let Hackers Spring Prisoners From Cells

Clearly, they're all full of shit too.

Electronic locks require voltage to unlock, which is not local to the door, especially in a prison.

The electronic locks run on magical sky energy. There is no voltage in those wires.

Also, this doesnt take into account the cameras, and doors that do not have card readers for egress. These doors require remote unlocking with visual verification.

Right, because there has never been a case of a system being thought of as so foolproof that it didn't need to be monitored. (Ominous look upwards) And what the hell is this "visual verification" you speak of? It sounds impressive, but it could mean "I had to look at the lock," in the same way I have to visually verify that my car's ignition and not just blindly stick the key wherever.

Also, more time shooting the people they're supposed to be helping.

BTW, on a sad note, does anyone remember when Lucent actually innovated stuff? The legitimate heir of Western Electric and Bell Labs has fallen very far.

Do you mean like this? Light Radio, a programmable cell tower the size of your palm?

While true it has been a while since the hey day of Bell Labs coming out with new tech every few years, they don't seem dead just yet. I blame their current state on chasing quarterly or yearly profits and having a somewhat unfair playing field with companies like Huawei and ZTE instead of investing in the long term tech.

Per wikipedia

On August 28, 2008, Alcatel-Lucent announced it was pulling out of basic science, material physics, and semiconductor research, and it will instead focus on more immediately marketable areas, including networking, high-speed electronics, wireless networks, nanotechnology and software.

That and their merger with Alcatel hasn't been very smooth. Though too, perhaps the wireless tech is maturing so there is not the low hanging fruit anymore?

Also for clarification Bell Labs is still around in at least some form, it is the research arm of Alcatel-Lucent. Lucent merged with Alcatel back in 2006.

I mean, in most rampages so far, we have seen the perpetrators use long guns.

No. Not only have plenty of rampage shooters used handguns, some have used revolvers.

Campo Elias Delgado killed between 26 and 30 people (accounts differ and some may have been killed by police in the crossfire) and wounded 15 with a knife and a single revolver..

Wellington Menezes de Oliveira killed 12 (not including himself) and wounded 12, using two revolvers and firing over 60 shots.

Charles Andrew Williams killed 2 people and wounded 13 with a single revolver.

Thomas Hamilton, the Dunblane shooter, killed 17 people (not including himself) and wounded 15 more. He had four handguns: two six-round revolvers and two 9mm pistols.

George Hennard, the Luby's shooter, killed 23 (not including himself) and wounded 20 with two semi-automatic handguns.

Jiverly Antares Wong, the Binghamton shooter, killed 13 people (not including himself) and wounded four more with two handguns.

Nidal Malik Hasan, the Foot Hood shooter, fired 214 rounds from a single handgun, killing 13 people and wounding 13.

Patrick Henry Sherrill, the Edmond post office shooter, killed 14 people and wounded six. He had three handguns and fired approximately 50 rounds.

Howard Unruh killed 13 people and wounded 3 with a Luger (a handgun).

The demonization of rifles is completely irrational, not just in terms of their overall use in homicides but in terms of their use in spree shootings.

Portion that are 'alcohol related': 1/3rd, about 10k total

I'm always a little curious when I hear 'alcohol related' without a description of what information was gathered because MADD and others have done such a good job obscuring the number away form anything meaningful. Things they've included in the past: Accidents caused by a sober driver hitting a driver who had been drinking.
Accidents where one or more passengers were intoxicated even if the driver wasn't
Accidents where beer cans or other alcohol containers were found in the wreckage regardless of circumstances.

Not to defend him, but the last guy ordered capture and detainment. The current guy by far prefers drone strikes, most of which include civilian casualties, and many of which are ONLY civilian casualties (i.e. no terrorist was hit in the strike.)

http://www.policymic.com/articles/16949/predator-drone-strikes-50-civilians-are-killed-for-every-1-terrorist-and-the-cia-only-wants-to-up-drone-warfare
http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/25/world/asia/pakistan-us-drone-strikes

Also, the last guy didn't lie about WMD's. Yes, there were none, that much is true. However the belief that they were there is not just what the last guy beheld, but numerous other nations did as well. Basically everybody believed there were WMD's, not just the US. It isn't a lie unless you were unaware that you weren't speaking the truth.

Now the current guy? He actively and knowingly lies about who he targets:

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/04/09/188062/obamas-drone-war-kills-others.html

If you want to talk about innocents being killed, the current guy is much worse. That, and he himself made the argument that he has the right to hit Americans with drone strikes without due process. Personally I'm happy with the one time that this has been done because that asshole had it coming, but it still sets a bad precedent.

We can't even successfully prevent all idiots from driving at .08

I'm not a professional researcher, but I question their results. I read a different article which said that .05 BAC levels would save 200-300 lives a year.
Some figures:
Annual traffic deaths: ~33k
Portion that are 'alcohol related': 1/3rd, about 10k total
Number of lives estimated to be saved: 500-800 per year, 5-8% of current alcohol deaths.
Extra risk: .05 is 38% over sober .08 169%

Already there's all sorts of activities that will raise the risk of you having an accident more than 38%. The vast majority of the fatal DUI accidents I've read about are for people with BACs north of .24, or triple the current limit.

Meanwhile, I predict that prosecuting people for .05 DUIs is going to be expensive. Most will try to fight it; you're getting into the range where a breath test might not be accurate enough. I question whether the the cost to society for enforcing the rule might not exceed the cost of implementing it.

Realistically you'd be better off somehow stopping the 'should be dead with a BAC that high' people from driving. A bit tough given how creative some of them get - permanently 'borrowing' a friend or relative's vehicle, secretly buying a used car without the mandated interlock, etc...

... legally that is.

BTW the related news: "obviously" as a tit-for-tat move against Russians for expelling a US diplomat in Moscow earlier today, in DC NTSB proposed lowering drivers' legal blood alcohol content http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/14/us/ntsb-blood-alcohol/.

...especially ones who make lots of campaign contributions. For example, the state tried unsuccessfully to require anyone selling on eBay to obtain an auctioneer's license.

Not that this is limited to NC by any means. God forbid anyone should step on the toes of health insurers, real-estate hucksters (sorry, my mistake, Realtors (tm) (c) (R)), taxi operators (jitney laws)...

In general, you're healthier weighing less no matter whether you eat the "right" or "wrong" foods, as the Twinkie Diet guy pointed out.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor/index.html

One wonders what could possibly go wrong regarding Syria.

Turkey claims evidence of Syrian chemical weapons use
UN accuses Syrian rebels of chemical weapons use
An Al-Qaeda Alliance in Syria Demands Response From U.S.
Al Qaeda's track record with chemical weapons

Even if there are chemical weapons laying around, they would still need to get them somewhere where they could be used. They would probably need help for that. Is any available?

US teen accused of seeking to join al Qaeda-linked Syrian group
Danish jihadist killed while fighting for Muhajireen Brigade in Syria

Iran recruiting volunteer troops for Syria
Hezbollah Steps Up in Syria as Israel Tries to Ease Tension

US Congressman: Hezbollah agents in US worse than al-Qaida
Peter King warns: Hezbollah agents in U.S.

Border porous for obvious reason
Official: Book of suicide bombers found in Arizona desert

. . .the book is published in Iran and contains biographies of Islamic suicide bombers and other Islamic militants who died while carrying out their attacks. . .

Yes indeed, what could possibly go wrong?

Once again an anti-gun nut misses the point. Well, more than one actually.

Your recap is backwards, the leading point in that summary is that Bloomberg founded Bloomberg. Jon Stewarts comment would apply to a number of things Bloomberg has done in New York City, not just the soda ban. He has kept himself busy, banning this and that.

The city especially, but also the state, have fairly strict gun laws, but it doesn't help much. It is likely the reverse.

How many people died of gun crime? Isn't the proper metric how many people died of crime? Or do you think that all people killed with knives or hammers go to heaven, while those shot dead go to hell? Isn't the proper strategy to reduce crime? Or is the total number of murders OK as long as the proportion of one means of murder is changed in relation to another? Dead is dead, isn't it?

"Apple's share of the global smartphone market fell from 23% last year to 17% share this year, the largest year-over-year decline in the iPhone's history." According to Sanford Bernstein's Toni Sacconaghi, "if Apple does not introduce a new iPhone or lower-priced phone in CQ3 [Apple's fiscal Q4], it is quite possible that iPhone's smartphone market share could drop into the single digits."

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/tag/toni-sacconaghi/

Which I suspect is due more to lack of innovation since the death of Steve Jobs, for whatever reasons, than to a lock-them-in market strategy

"Apple's share of the global smartphone market fell from 23% last year to 17% share this year, the largest year-over-year decline in the iPhone's history." According to Sanford Bernstein's Toni Sacconaghi, "if Apple does not introduce a new iPhone or lower-priced phone in CQ3 [Apple's fiscal Q4], it is quite possible that iPhone's smartphone market share could drop into the single digits."

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/tag/toni-sacconaghi/

Not all opponents of the president are racist.
On the other hand, all of the racists are opponents of the president.

Are you sure about that?

"According to CNN exit polls, 93% of African-Americans, 71% of Hispanics and 73% of Asians supported Obama over Romney."

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/05/09/blacks-outvoted-whites-in-2012-the-first-time-on-record/

Another typical short sighted anti-MS karmawhoring Slashdot post while whoring Google Docs which Google controls and can take away at moment's notice.
http://ehsanakhgari.org/blog/2012-04-13/how-i-lost-access-my-google-account-today
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4013799
Meanwhile, in the real world, Office is making record revenues.
http://money.cnn.com/2011/10/20/technology/microsoft_earnings/index.htm

i have given up: when a dog damned 5 year old kindergarten kid talking about her HELLO KITTY BUBBLE SQUIRT GUN at the school bus stop is given a 10 day suspension and charged with "TERRORIST THREATS", there is no sane place left to go to...
there is no need to gather further data: the democracy is over, the authoritarians have won, we're all borked...

Wow, I thought you made it up, but I googled just in case: http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/21/us/pennsylvania-girl-suspended

[The Principal] cut the suspension down to two days while changing the categorization of the incident from "terroristic threat" to "threat to harm others."

harm others with a bubble gun? This wasn't a Joker-brand poison-gas-bubble gun. And the bubble gun wasn't even on school property, where the invitation to play with bubbles was made.

The amount of skill and equipment you need to gather to put together a Sten has been a barrier for them being home made for criminal purposes in the UK since WW2. If matters were as easy as you suggest, then our streets would be plagued by Sten-wielding chavs. The reality is that the UK is a largely gun-free culture, and this applies to criminals too. Pretty much every developed nation outside the US is a testament to how gun control is possible and can make society better.

3D printed guns *may* change that by reducing the skill and equipment you require in one place, and kept secret from the police. I'm hoping that they are overhyping things, and their gun is as likely to take off the shooters fingers as it is to harm the intended target. I don't want the morons who think this http://edition.cnn.com/2013/05/01/us/kentucky-accidential-shooting/index.html is "just an accident" to win

When will the first accidental shooting occur with a printed gun?

When will the first child be killed with a printed gun?

When will the first suicide occur with a printed gun?

When will the first robbery occur with a printed gun?

When will the first car jacking occur with a printed gun?

When will the first plane hijack attempt occur with a printed gun?

These are the real world events that no-one in the pro-gun world is willing to acknowledge. It's not a case of if these will happen, but when.

Guns don't make the person carrying one any safer. Remember Christopher Dorner, the rogue cop in LA? He killed two police officers and wounded three others. These were armed trained professionals and they were knew ahead of time that they were the targets. They weren't stupid, they followed protocol, and they all got shot.

Even if you have a gun, if someone gets the drop on you then you are at their mercy. If you think otherwise you're stupid. Rambo, Chuck Norris, John Wayne, James Bond, etc. are people in movies. That's not the real world. Your chances of pulling out your gun and saving the day are something like your chance of being hit by lighting. Saying that you need guns to be safe is a mark of mental instability. As long as you are within shooting range of a gun you are less safe then you would be otherwise. It's simple physics.

I think the first person to be wounded by a printed gun will be in an accidental shooting. This will happen relatively often, because a lot of untrained people will decide to do this with new cheap 3D printers. I also expect there will be a disproportionate number of shootings involving children, because printed guns will seem like toy guns to them, or they will make a mistake. But hey, as long as you have your little penis substitute to make you feel all manly and tough, why should you care?

http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/01/us/kentucky-accidential-shooting

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/3-year-old-accidentally-shoots-dad-death-family-watches-tv-article-1.1116267

While attempting its first overseas deployment to the Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan, on 11 February 2007, six F-22s of 27th Fighter Squadron flying from Hickam AFB, Hawaii, experienced multiple system failures while crossing the International Date Line (or 180th meridian of longitude) caused by software errors.[230][231][232] The fighters were able to return to Hawaii by following tanker aircraft.

From wikipedia. The references are:
230 "F-22 Squadron Shot Down by the International Date Line." Defense Industry Daily, 1 March 2007. Retrieved: 31 August 2011.
231 "This Week at War". CNN, 24 February 2007.
232 Johnson, Maj. Dani. "Raptors arrive at Kadena." US Air Force, 19 February 2007. Retrieved: 9 May 2010.

WTF is an "Oil Company"? Companies like BP and Shell and Exxon started "getting off oil" decades ago. They're all "energy companies" now, and oil is just 1 product.

So you're saying Exxon is an "energy company" because oil is "just 1 product"? Really? That's like saying McDonald's isn't a fast food place because they also sell bottled water. Oil and oil byproducts compose the vast majority of Exxon's operations. Natural gas too, of course, but renewables and other energy sources are pretty minor in comparison. 1%? Don't have recent figures.

As an investor with a serious chunk of change in energy companies, I dearly wish they were this fountain of greed and profits people who know nothing about the industry imagine them to be! The energy company stocks have underperformed the S&P500 by about 30% over the past 5 years.

Gosh, that's amazing! If you start your graph right in the middle of the great recession, it looks like the S&P 500 was doing really well and energy companies barely held. Of course, if you step back a bit you'll see energy companies did fairly well during the bust. Exxon outperformed the S&P 500 over the last 10 years (+144% vs +70%). And it yields decent dividends, too.

Hell, Exxon is doing so terribly they can't even beat their 2008 record of $45.22 billion annual profit on $482 billion revenue. But I guess it's hard being the most profitable company in the world with a P/E of 9 when investors think facebook is worth buying at P/E of 1,800+ and 1/5th the market cap.

We will transition when each of us as consumers finds it cheaper to transition. Neither the oil companies nor the environmentalists can or should do much to delay or hasten that day.

While quite obviously true, you leave out one important fact: policy decisions determine which energy source is cheaper. And there is no "neutral" policy that leaves the market undistorted.

The contracts also typically require you charge the same price for goods whether it be paid for by cash or credit.

Is this still true? I thought that the antitrust settlement was supposed to change that. http://money.cnn.com/2012/07/13/news/companies/visa-mastercard-settlement/index.htm

Apple have this perception that they pushed for removing DRM, which might be true, but it is interesting that at the time of iTunes DRM the competing WMA "plays for sure" (*) stores actually had less DRM restrictions than Apple (you could keep and use more copies of the songs on more devices simultaneously, burn more copies, re-download if license lost, etc

"Plays for sure" - see, that's where the problem with your argument starts. PlaysForSure was introduced late in 2004 - IOW over a year after the iTunes DRM.

But that's just a technicality, so let's look at the actual competition. http://www.salon.com/2003/04/29/itunes/

I have seen the future of music and its name is iTunes

[...] Many online music services are on the market, but they’ve all done poorly, most likely because, as Jobs said, they all “treat you like a criminal.” For the most part, the other services are subscription based — users pay a $10 or $20 per-month fee for access to a catalog of songs, and they must put up with a Byzantine set of rules outlining how they can use the tracks. Some services only offer “streaming” music, meaning that you have to be connected to the Internet when you want to listen to your songs; others let you download songs so long as you play them on a single machine (forget about transferring them to portable MP3 players); a few services let you burn songs to CDs, but only for selected tracks for an extra per-song fee. The worst part is, you have to keep paying to get the music; once you cancel your subscription, you can no longer listen to many of the tracks you’ve downloaded.

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2003/05/12/342289/

Universal and Sony rolled out a joint venture called Pressplay. AOL Time Warner (the parent of both Warner and FORTUNE's publisher), Bertelsmann (BMG's owner), EMI, and RealNetworks launched MusicNet. But instead of trying to cooperate to attract customers, the two ventures competed to dominate the digital market. Pressplay wouldn't license its songs to MusicNet, and MusicNet withheld its tunes from Pressplay.

[...]The record companies were also fearful about doing anything that might cannibalize CD sales. So they decided to "rent" people music through the Internet. You paid a monthly subscription fee for songs from MusicNet and Pressplay. But you could download MusicNet tunes onto only one computer, and they disappeared if you didn't pay your bill. That may have protected the record companies from piracy, but it didn't do much for consumers. Why fork over $10 a month for a subscription when you can't do anything with your music but listen to it on your PC? Pressplay launched with CD burning but only for a limited number of songs.

At the end of last year, Pressplay and MusicNet licensed their catalogues to each other, ending their standoff. MusicNet also now permits subscribers to burn certain songs onto CDs. But MusicNet users still can't download songs onto portable players. "These devices haven't caught on yet," insists MusicNet CEO Alan McGlade. Never mind that U.S. sales of portable MP3 players soared from 724,000 in 2001 to 1.6 million last year. Pressplay, for its part, lets subscribers download some songs onto devices, but only those that use Microsoft's Windows Media software. That means no iPods.

But I'm sure you can come up with others that were around at the time the iTunes Music Store came out.

My point wasn't really who launched the store first, sorry if that was unclear, but that when the WMA stores launched they had less DRM restrictions than iTunes had at the same time. I used both iTunes and MSN Music myself at the same time (yes, really). Especially the option to freely re-download songs if you lost the li

No, the problem pretty much is guns. There are more guns than citizens in the US; it's the fucking supply of guns and the easy access to them that is the problem, not the culture that glorifies them. I can buy a gun legally 24/7 in my state without ever disclosing my identity to the seller, and pretty soon I'll be able to print a durable, functional version of my beloved Mac 10. Until the gun-show and private-sale loopholes in gun laws are closed, and 3D-printing gets the draconian regulation it needs, easy access to guns is what you need to be worrying about. The existing supply of guns in the US is enough to meet any foreseeable demand for them in our violence-saturated culture, even if Glock, Beretta, Sig, and S&W go out of business tomorrow.

Apple have this perception that they pushed for removing DRM, which might be true, but it is interesting that at the time of iTunes DRM the competing WMA "plays for sure" (*) stores actually had less DRM restrictions than Apple (you could keep and use more copies of the songs on more devices simultaneously, burn more copies, re-download if license lost, etc

"Plays for sure" - see, that's where the problem with your argument starts. PlaysForSure was introduced late in 2004 - IOW over a year after the iTunes DRM.

But that's just a technicality, so let's look at the actual competition. http://www.salon.com/2003/04/29/itunes/

I have seen the future of music and its name is iTunes

[...] Many online music services are on the market, but they’ve all done poorly, most likely because, as Jobs said, they all “treat you like a criminal.” For the most part, the other services are subscription based — users pay a $10 or $20 per-month fee for access to a catalog of songs, and they must put up with a Byzantine set of rules outlining how they can use the tracks. Some services only offer “streaming” music, meaning that you have to be connected to the Internet when you want to listen to your songs; others let you download songs so long as you play them on a single machine (forget about transferring them to portable MP3 players); a few services let you burn songs to CDs, but only for selected tracks for an extra per-song fee. The worst part is, you have to keep paying to get the music; once you cancel your subscription, you can no longer listen to many of the tracks you’ve downloaded.

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2003/05/12/342289/

Universal and Sony rolled out a joint venture called Pressplay. AOL Time Warner (the parent of both Warner and FORTUNE's publisher), Bertelsmann (BMG's owner), EMI, and RealNetworks launched MusicNet. But instead of trying to cooperate to attract customers, the two ventures competed to dominate the digital market. Pressplay wouldn't license its songs to MusicNet, and MusicNet withheld its tunes from Pressplay.

[...]The record companies were also fearful about doing anything that might cannibalize CD sales. So they decided to "rent" people music through the Internet. You paid a monthly subscription fee for songs from MusicNet and Pressplay. But you could download MusicNet tunes onto only one computer, and they disappeared if you didn't pay your bill. That may have protected the record companies from piracy, but it didn't do much for consumers. Why fork over $10 a month for a subscription when you can't do anything with your music but listen to it on your PC? Pressplay launched with CD burning but only for a limited number of songs.

At the end of last year, Pressplay and MusicNet licensed their catalogues to each other, ending their standoff. MusicNet also now permits subscribers to burn certain songs onto CDs. But MusicNet users still can't download songs onto portable players. "These devices haven't caught on yet," insists MusicNet CEO Alan McGlade. Never mind that U.S. sales of portable MP3 players soared from 724,000 in 2001 to 1.6 million last year. Pressplay, for its part, lets subscribers download some songs onto devices, but only those that use Microsoft's Windows Media software. That means no iPods.

But I'm sure you can come up with others that were around at the time the iTunes Music Store came out.

A couple of things wrong with that interpretation. First, all of the subjects in the study apparently received treatment, the independent variable was belief in God. So, there isn't really any placebo in the study. Second, the placebo effect has been studied with an interesting result:

Is the placebo powerless? An analysis of clinical trials comparing placebo with no treatment

CONCLUSIONS:
We found little evidence in general that placebos had powerful clinical effects. Although placebos had no significant effects on objective or binary outcomes, they had possible small benefits in studies with continuous subjective outcomes and for the treatment of pain. Outside the setting of clinical trials, there is no justification for the use of placebos.

Third, it isn't hard to find educated, accomplished people that believe in God, including many doctors:

Collins: Why this scientist believes in God
Survey: Most doctors believe in God, afterlife

Just think - if you go to see a doctor for depression, there is a good chance he or she will believe in God.

Fourth, ignorance in this case isn't bliss, it is misery. Those who know God had better clinical outcomes.

Believers are more likely to be less intelligent, which may reduce the risk of depression.

Believers in what? The nonexistence of God?

Collins: Why this scientist believes in God

Editor's note: Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., is the director of the Human Genome Project. His most recent book is The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief.

ROCKVILLE, Maryland (CNN) -- I am a scientist and a believer, and I find no conflict between those world views.

As the director of the Human Genome Project, I have led a consortium of scientists to read out the 3.1 billion letters of the human genome, our own DNA instruction book. As a believer, I see DNA, the information molecule of all living things, as God's language, and the elegance and complexity of our own bodies and the rest of nature as a reflection of God's plan.

I did not always embrace these perspectives. As a graduate student in physical chemistry in the 1970s, I was an atheist, finding no reason to postulate the existence of any truths outside of mathematics, physics and chemistry. But then I went to medical school, and encountered life and death issues at the bedsides of my patients. Challenged by one of those patients, who asked "What do you believe, doctor?", I began searching for answers. . . .more

Survey: Most doctors believe in God, afterlife

CHICAGO — A survey examining religion in medicine found that most U.S. doctors believe in God and an afterlife — a surprising degree of spirituality in a science-based field, researchers say.

  In the survey of 1,044 doctors nationwide, 76 percent said they believe in God, 59 percent said they believe in some sort of afterlife, and 55 percent said their religious beliefs influence how they practice medicine. . . .more

Just think - if you go to see a doctor for depression, there is a good chance he or she will believe in God.

Believers are more likely to be less intelligent, which may reduce the risk of depression.

Believers in what? The nonexistence of God?

Collins: Why this scientist believes in God

Editor's note: Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., is the director of the Human Genome Project. His most recent book is The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief.

ROCKVILLE, Maryland (CNN) -- I am a scientist and a believer, and I find no conflict between those world views.

As the director of the Human Genome Project, I have led a consortium of scientists to read out the 3.1 billion letters of the human genome, our own DNA instruction book. As a believer, I see DNA, the information molecule of all living things, as God's language, and the elegance and complexity of our own bodies and the rest of nature as a reflection of God's plan.

I did not always embrace these perspectives. As a graduate student in physical chemistry in the 1970s, I was an atheist, finding no reason to postulate the existence of any truths outside of mathematics, physics and chemistry. But then I went to medical school, and encountered life and death issues at the bedsides of my patients. Challenged by one of those patients, who asked "What do you believe, doctor?", I began searching for answers. . . .more

Survey: Most doctors believe in God, afterlife

CHICAGO — A survey examining religion in medicine found that most U.S. doctors believe in God and an afterlife — a surprising degree of spirituality in a science-based field, researchers say.

  In the survey of 1,044 doctors nationwide, 76 percent said they believe in God, 59 percent said they believe in some sort of afterlife, and 55 percent said their religious beliefs influence how they practice medicine. . . .more

Just think - if you go to see a doctor for depression, there is a good chance he or she will believe in God.

Frankly, he's a bit of a loose cannon, if I was a Google executive, I'd think about ways to muzzle him.

SS and Medicare are self funding.

Sorry, that's wishful thinking.

SS is almost self funding. If you assume that the SS fund balance invested in loans to the Treasury will be paid, SS still shows a deficit on the 20-30 year time scale unless something comes along to knock off the 'boomers' early. SS can probably be made self funding with some tweaks to how the payroll taxes are done, but there is no political will to fix it and 20-30 years is a long way off in the land of politics. Of course, the longer they wait, the harder it gets.

Medicare has even bigger problems. [CNN] In ~12 years, any trust fund will be exhausted and incoming funds will fall short of expenses. One estimate that I have heard is that to make it self funding with existing benefits, we would need an additional 10-12% payroll tax on top of the current levy. Bear in mind too that medicare (and its bastard stepchild medicaid) generally under pay for services forcing costs to be shifted and creating additional costs in other places.

I am all for cutting a big slice out of military spending - we are far too willing to engage in wars at great distance for little benefit - but please do not ask me to pretend that the entitlement side of the federal ledger is in good order.

You have to look at sequestration in terms of discretionary spending because that's where the cuts are made. The $85 billion represents 12.1% of discretionary spending (source Congressional Research Service). I am sure that we can all agree that a 12.1% cut overnight is pretty significant. Also with regard to the deficit, it is falling dramatically as % of GDP. Here are the relevant articles which shows that government spending as a % of GDP is also at all time lows. http://money.cnn.com/2013/04/22/news/economy/deficits/ http://www.businessinsider.com/show-these-charts-to-anyone-who-thinks-debt-spending-and-taxes-are-at-all-time-highs-2013-4

So the more government and the more taxes and the more regulations and inflation the worse the economy is and the less productive people are the more they have to work to satisfy even basic demands.

Hilariously wrong! Here's a chart of US labor productivity and worker compensation. Note how productivity is steadily climbing? US workers today are more efficient/productive than ever in history. Now, look at worker compensation: it perfectly tracks productivity gains up to ~1980, then completely flatlines once Reagan-era "trickle-up" economics took hold. Since we started down the path towards historically low top tax rates and deregulation, the working class hasn't seen a (inflation-adjusted) penny of gain for all their unceasing productivity increases.

OK, here you go: a CNN report with chart of productivity and inflation-adjusted wages. Note how hourly compensation perfectly tracks steady productivity gains up to ~1980, then completely flatlines thanks to Regan era "trickle-up" policies (continuing into the present day) while productivity continues on the same upwards trend.

They've been outsourcing for many years - to Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia. Most textile and clothing is now in these countries due to the increased labor costs in China. With the cultural and relationships headway China is making in Africa, manufacturing will soon move there once SE Asia becomes too expensive.

Apparently, Chinese companies have been also outsourcing to another Third World location with cheaper land and cheaper electricity - South Carolina.

http://money.cnn.com/2010/05/06/news/international/china_america_full.fortune/

In 2002 MicroSoft's gross profits were $24 billion. In 2012 they were $59 billion. Someone somewhere is doing something right.

Investors don't care about gross profits (difference between sale price and cost to make it). They care about net profits (difference between expenses and revenues). I could have gross profits of $100 Trillion, but if my net profits are only $1 then it the company is not doing well financially despite selling high margin products.

For comparison:

1. 2002: Microsoft had net profit of $7.83 Billion USD. source
2. 2012: Microsoft had net profit of $16.978 Billion USD. source

Now comparing the numbers - 24/7.83 = 3.065; 59/16.978 = 3.475. So Microsoft is doing only marginly better in now than it was a decade ago.

As with other things, John Madden was way out front on this.

Have you not seen a single TV news report or looked at a single newspaper? The answer to your question is NO, it was a fertilizer plant. The same kind of fertilizer McVeigh used to blow up the OK fed building, only tons and tons rather than a single truckfull.

And since I can't log in on this machine and have a limited number of comments I can make, I want to add something from CNN:

In 2006, West Fertilizer had a complaint filed against it for a lingering smell of ammonia, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality website shows.

Separately, the plant had informed the Environmental Protection Agency that it presented no risk of fire or explosion, according to The Dallas Morning News. It did so in an emergency planning report required of facilities that use toxic or hazardous chemicals.

The plant's report to the EPA said even a worst-case scenario wouldn't be that dire: there would be a 10-minute release of ammonia gas that wouldn't kill or injure anyone, the newspaper reported.

Seems like someone should be in some serious trouble over lying to the EPA about the danger.

The danger and "sensitive" nature of a fertilzer plant reminded me of this:

  "CNN) -- A previously secret document found at Osama bin Laden's compound in Pakistan sets out a detailed al Qaeda strategy for attacking targets in Europe and the United States.

The document -- a letter written to bin Laden in March 2010 by a senior operational figure in the terror group -- reveals that tunnels, bridges, dams, undersea pipelines and internet cables were among the targets.

CNN has obtained details of the document from sources briefed on its contents. The 17-page letter is in Arabic.

Al-Mauretani proposed that al Qaeda recruits take jobs with companies transporting gasoline and and other sensitive companies in the West, and await the right moment to strike.

He said targets should include tunnels, airports and even "Love Parades" -- gay and lesbian events held every summer in Germany. "

AQ and Iran have been promising attacks for months now for various reasons (Syria being a main one for Iran).

New al Qaeda document sheds light on Europe, U.S. attack plans

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/03/20/world/new-qaeda-document

Well, thank goodness that these will be engineered to critical standards, not that of your average PC.

Indeed, my earlier post never posits that the auto-drive system will never fail-dangerous, indeed, it figures that accidents and failures WILL happen, and how the government could address said failures in a fashion that still promotes the welfare of everybody, at least on average.

If autodrive cars cut the fatality and accident rates in half, that's roughly 15k people a year saved, in the United States alone. Something like $82-115B/year saved.

I don't know your political persuasion, but something tells me you are quite generous.... ...with other people's money, and never your own.

Anyways, some of the most well known (in terms of media spotlight) libertarians are very charitable, like Penn Jillette. I call him out in particular because he has some words of wisdom that somebody such as yourself probably will never understand:

It's amazing to me how many people think that voting to have the government give poor people money is compassion. Helping poor and suffering people is compassion. Voting for our government to use guns to give money to help poor and suffering people is immoral self-righteous bullying laziness.

People need to be fed, medicated, educated, clothed, and sheltered, and if we're compassionate we'll help them, but you get no moral credit for forcing other people to do what you think is right. There is great joy in helping people, but no joy in doing it at gunpoint.

People try to argue that government isn't really force. You believe that? Try not paying your taxes. (This is only a thought experiment -- suggesting on CNN.com that someone not pay his or her taxes is probably a federal offense, and I'm a nut, but I'm not crazy.). When they come to get you for not paying your taxes, try not going to court. Guns will be drawn. Government is force -- literally, not figuratively.

I don't believe the majority always knows what's best for everyone. The fact that the majority thinks they have a way to get something good does not give them the right to use force on the minority that don't want to pay for it. If you have to use a gun, I don't believe you really know jack. Democracy without respect for individual rights sucks. It's just ganging up against the weird kid, and I'm always the weird kid.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/08/16/jillette.atheist.libertarian/index.html

It's possible. That's why six scientists were jailed for manslaughter after failing to predict an earthquake. http://edition.cnn.com/2012/10/23/world/europe/italy-quake-scientists-guilty

They did not go to jail because they failed to predict an earthquake. They went to jail because they stated there would not be an earthquake in order to discredit somebody who claimed he had a system for predicting earthquakes. If they had stuck to procedure and official press releases, they'd have been fine and some quack would have a following and some new time, but they wanted to discredit the other guy so much they held and unofficial news conference. While starting off ok, they quickly devolved into making what sounded like confident claims there would be no earthquake under the questioning of the locals.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/15/us/boston-marathon-explosions/index.html

Federal authorities are classifying the bombings as a terrorist attack, but it's not clear whether the origin was domestic or foreign, a federal law enforcement official with knowledge of the investigation said.

I believe they're saying its fire related now: http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2013/04/15/explosions-near-finish-of-boston-marathon/?hpt=hp_t2

It's possible. That's why six scientists were jailed for manslaughter after failing to predict an earthquake.
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/10/23/world/europe/italy-quake-scientists-guilty