Slashdot Mirror

A few of the many stories about backdoors in U.S. hardware:

D-Link: Reverse Engineering a D-Link Backdoor (Oct. 12, 2013)

Arris: 600,000 Arris cable modems have 'backdoors in backdoors', researcher claims (Nov. 20, 2015)

Juniper Networks: Juniper drops NSA-developed code following new backdoor revelations (Jan. 10, 2016)

Cisco: Snowden: The NSA planted backdoors in Cisco products (May 15, 2014)

Netgear: Netgear Patch Said to Leave Backdoor Problem in Router (April 23, 2014)

Windows 8: NSA Backdoor Exploit in Windows 8 Uncovered (Aug. 22, 2013)

Windows: NSA "backdoor" mandates lead to a computer-security FREAK show Quote: "Microsoft Windows OS vulnerable to hackers, thanks to National Security Agency requirements." (March 6, 2015)

Windows: NSA Built Back Door In All Windows Software by 1999 (June 7, 2013)

Hard drives: Breaking: Kaspersky Exposes NSA's Worldwide, Backdoor Hacking of Virtually All Hard-Drive Firmware (Feb. 17, 2015)

Is every backdoor the work of the NSA? There is no way of knowing.

Subsidy Comparison
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/3/21/1372244/-New-data-on-energy-subsidies-from-EIA

It's funny when people mention subsidies.

This tells a BIG story. If everyone here who whines about fossil fuel and nuclear subsidies followed that link, they'd have to start whining about something else. The real money column is the last one, Subsidies per MWh. From it we learn that rate/taxpayers in 2010 contributed $935.64 for each solar MWh produced while coal received only $0.74. Any time you see two things equivalent in any way with a 'cost' ratio of 1,264:1, you need to ask, what the hell is going on.

Have a gander at Electricity generation map of the US as of October 15 [XLS]. If you're practical like me you'll have to imagine those green wind blobs are a fifth the size shown, and the yellow solar blobs a third to better judge their intermittent and actual contribution to the human race. For solar (and we are mostly talking utility scale solar I know) this triples the cost ratio to coal to ~3,792:1. And posing that solar produces at 100% for a third of the day is generous.

So in terms of subsidies, is solar worth almost four thousand times as much as coal? Would you be willing to pay 4k as much for it? In certain sense... in 2010 you were. Good thing it was someone else's money. Or was it.

Fuck subsidizing each solar or wind MWh for thousands, or even hundreds, of that same hour's subsidy of coal.

The real clear winner in 2010 was nuclear, at $3.10/MWh produced. Imagine saving the planet from CO2 and coal or weaning us off of natural gas so it can do more chemically productive things for merely 4 times the subsidy than is presently granted coal. If I quoted that same figure for solar you'd be drooling. Someone somewhere is torturing numbers to make the same claim for solar and wind, I can hear their screams.

But never mind my arbitrary 'value' estimates. I consider any energy source that is not running at 100% 24/7 to be a grievous waste of human potential, a financial ruin and (to scale) most likely an environmental disaster waiting to happen.

Proponents of micro-gridding claim that if the grid evolves into a cornucopia of local energy sources, the win will be that utility companies will need to contribute less and spend less. But what is truly less? Does that mean that if current generated capacity is roughly equal to Summer or Winter peak, they could ever really shut down a plant? Not really.

Does it mean that the economics of building plants and stringing transmission lines in the first place, which are amortized over many years based on predictable factors NOT wishful flim-flam such as some guess of consumer uptake of solar toys... will improve in any way? Nope, things will get worse.

I seem to go further than anyone else around here, honestly considering this initiative to push tiny intermittent bits of energy into the grid as a threat to our country's stability and survival because it is a distracting and ultimately useless crap-solution to serious problems. One such problem is, what will happen when a series of massive Winter storms fragments the grid, shuts rail and renders every wind turbine and solar panel it touches, useless?

Could those subsidies and money real people spent on some 'pays for itself in 10 years' go-green plan have been better spent? If you went with the grid-sucking/spitting plans that the solar leasing companies push, absolutely. If you put in some extra money to actually power your home from what you produce you might win the battle if the grid goes down for any reason. But you'll be surrounded on all sides by poor people in th

A few of the many stories about backdoors in U.S. hardware (Copied from another comment.):

D-Link: Reverse Engineering a D-Link Backdoor (Oct. 12, 2013)

Arris: 600,000 Arris cable modems have 'backdoors in backdoors', researcher claims (Nov. 20, 2015)

Juniper Networks: Juniper drops NSA-developed code following new backdoor revelations (Jan. 10, 2016)

Cisco: Snowden: The NSA planted backdoors in Cisco products (May 15, 2014)

Netgear: Netgear Patch Said to Leave Backdoor Problem in Router (April 23, 2014)

Windows 8: NSA Backdoor Exploit in Windows 8 Uncovered (Aug. 22, 2013)

Windows: NSA "backdoor" mandates lead to a computer-security FREAK show Quote: "Microsoft Windows OS vulnerable to hackers, thanks to National Security Agency requirements." (March 6, 2015)

Windows: NSA Built Back Door In All Windows Software by 1999 (June 7, 2013)

Hard drives: Breaking: Kaspersky Exposes NSA's Worldwide, Backdoor Hacking of Virtually All Hard-Drive Firmware (Feb. 17, 2015)

Is every backdoor the work of the NSA? There is no way of knowing.

The full life-cycle GHG emissions of nuclear power is extremely low, comparable to wind and solar. Check this figure from the IPCC: http://srren.ipcc-wg3.de/repor... Read the wikipedia write-up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... I wrote about this a while back using a WNA meta-study: http://www.dailykos.com/storie... There's this persistent myth among the anti-nuclear greens that nuclear power is a big CO2 emitter, but it's based on cherry-picking some discredited studies and ignoring anything that contradicts what you want to believe. This is really no better than the way the global warming denialists rely on minor figures like Singer and Seitz.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/...

So were his employers SJWs? They were sent the video, with little if any comment attached, and fired the man without any SJWs getting involved. They fired him before the SJWs even found out. It hasn't gone nearly as viral as some others because the employer fired him immediately, without suspension, hearing, or anything else. The video spoke for itself.

So who's the SJW here? And what "radical ideology" is at play?

Outside-USA sources - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... , http://blueskydrugs.com/Produc... . and an info post from a 'supposed supplier in CA - http://www.dailykos.com/story/...

Afew years ago they set up random checkpoints for city buses in Indianapolis, just to remind people that the TSA was in charge of that security as well.
As documented here, http://www.dailykos.com/story/...

found this as well, so their still doing it... http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08...

They would change debate rules to keep him out and deny him access to anyone of significance in the party at any level, local, state, or federal.

...and then all of the supporters that he has been very effective in attracting would be asking questions that the DNC and the RNC do not want to answer. It would be very bad for the DNC to deny him access to the primary. Once he started spreading his message so effectively, and people started listening, then he ensured that he would have a place at the table. The DNC didn't help him get his message out, either, that was all his campaign. The DNC has opted out of putting up their own tables outside of his rallies to sign up voters, because those voters would just vote for Sanders. Think about that one for a second.

They would kill his media coverage more than they have.

"More than they have?" His campaign has survived and prospered despite, not because of, media coverage. He has never had good coverage. The media shows him as being fringe. You could see it in the first debate. The "political insiders", talking heads, networks, etc all declared Hillary the winner. The focus groups on both CNN and Fox, as well as data from Google, Facebook, Twitter, and any number of online polls, all suggested that Sanders had won. The media has been pushing the Clinton narrative since day 1, and Sanders has survived despite the media following the DNC plan, not because of any DNC support.

Everyone in the party would get the message that if they went within ten feet of this guy they would be bucking the party establishment and would not have party support come reelection time.

Which is probably why he has only 1 endorsement from Congress.

That's how major political parties work. They are engines of political control, not of democracy.

No shit.

The DNC missed their chance by killing his campaign before it started. Once his message was out and people were paying attention it was too late. They can't put the genie back in the bottle at this point. They, like everyone else, underestimated the appeal of his message.

Another huge issue is their close ties to law enforcement and the resulting biased conclusions.

Drug dogs

Or polygraphs...

Or traffic/speed cameras...

You could not be more wrong about the Koch brothers!!! They, are the most malevolent influence in the US today... you must limit yourself to nothing but the incredibly biased dirt from Fox News, and Rupert Murdoch! It is nearly impossible to pay attention to any less biased news sources for a better view of the poison they spew. Just between the two of them, they are spending close to a billion dollars THIS ELECTION ALONE to drown out any other views, and put as many senators and congressmen in their pockets as possible! http://www.rollingstone.com/po... http://www.kochfaqs.com/ http://www.bloomberg.com/news/... http://m.dailykos.com/story/20... http://www.juancole.com/2013/0... There are tons of such reports from nearly every major news source (notably NOT from FOX or Murdoch!). The only way you can, say they are "pro freedom" is that they don't want any restrictions on what they spend on campaigns, or how they spend it. The Bush administrations loaded the Supreme Court with justices that have been very regressive, such as allowing "Citizens United" to not only out-spend anyone more moderate, but ruling that such news outlets as Fox can report total lies on their broadcasts and it's okay because it's "free press". The Kochs complain angrily about union spending on political campaigns, but they spend TEN TIMES MORE ON ELECTIONS THAN ALL UNIONS COMBINED! Read up on the tons of dirty deals they were involved with, and then tell me how innocent and wonderful they are. The Koch brothers are the most INSIDIOUS siblings on the planet.

Hillary and Republicans, conversely, are in favor of CISA.

This is untrue. Hillary's campaign has not yet released any position on CISA. I suspect you'll find a lot of the Republican "Freedom Caucus" against it too, but I don't have the stomach to check.

She's actually in a bit of a weird position on any pending legislation. As both the "presumptive nominee" (for now) and a Clinton, her coming out against a bill is the one thing that can guarantee its passage in the Republican House. If its mostly a political football bill anyway (eg: The Keystone Pipeline), more's the better for everyone. But if its something that really might do some serious damage to the Republic if passed...

As you might expect, Raytheon spends heavily on political contributions and lobbying.

This is why we must elect a young, smart, well-educated politician with multi-cultural background and compelling life-story to Presidency. Someone, who knows, how to use a computer himself. Who is not beholden to KKKorporate interests. Someone loved and respected overseas. Someone, who cares... Someone, who thrills men and whom women can imagine finding in their showers and be excited, rather than frightened. Someone, who is serious about ending Washington's culture of corruption !

Yes we can!

Let me help you get past your misconceptions and introduce some hard reality regarding subsidies;

http://www.dailykos.com/story/...

2013 Subsidies per MWh
Nuclear: $2.10 per Mwh
Solar: $580.64 per Mwh
Wind: $35.37 per Mwh


And on top of that, Nuclear is returning more back via taxes than it is taking in.

Ironically, there's the possibility that removing the trash could pay for itself and then some. Plastics floating in the ocean tend to slowly intercalate metals - the types and quantities depending on the plastic and the rate depending on the surface area to volume ratio (very high for most pacific garbage patch trash). Plastic trash that's been floating around for a long time tends to become quite contaminated by these metals (as well as some types of persistent biological toxins), making it much more toxic to sea life than new plastic. But these same metal "contamination" problems could make the waste a potential resource back on land. Intercalated metals can be stripped out by a soak in a strong acid bath. And the ratios of metals found in the oceans are very different than those found on land, with some, such as uranium and lithium, being orders of magnitude more common than they are on land.

You do realize that flying in the late 80's would have people having to turn over small (1 1/2 inch) blade pocket knives. I'm sure you're also away that: http://www.dailykos.com/story/... weak gun laws = more guns = more gun deaths. Trying to compare major metropolitan area like Chicago to some podunk backwater burg of 1000 people and saying "see how much gun violence Chicago has" is a fairly stupid, and dishonest way to go about things.

I've worked three jobs where it was required that i carry a firearm. I'm not anti-gun, what i am is anti-stupid-fucking-idiot-with-a-gun. I have seen so many of these good 'ol boy types who treat guns as toys, instead of the tools they are. They think that going out and drinking beer on a weekend while wearing camo is somehow a service to this country in the same vein as our military personnel fighting in a combat zone. They wouldn't know service to this country if it came up and kicked them in the nuts. I hate to say it, but the NRA panders to that type of wasted flesh, and ever since they have, i've no use for them or their kneepad wearing mooks.

Everyone should not be armed, because quite frankly, most people are more a danger with a weapon than an asset. Especially gung-ho idiots with IQ's smaller than their shoe size, whether by nature or by alcohol. And yes, i am aware of what happens when you shove 2.7 million people into a little over 200 square miles.... i am also aware that the violent crime rate in Illinois is far lower than in Alaska and a whole bunch of other states with weaker gun laws.

Mostly because of a little thing called a filibuster and the fact that the Republicans decided, on the night of Obama's inauguration to block him at every turn.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/...

And don't try to play the "supermajority" card before reading the following

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-ma...

I grabbed the stats from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics... The end result is that Obamacare didn't really affect jobs at all -- either negative or positive. I even made an article about it. Read it via the link.

Obamacare has brought down health care costs in the US. It's also brought down the number of uninsured, and seems to be part of the economic recovery. (when small business owners can get health coverage, it removes a dis-incentive to start a business, and thus create new jobs). some stats, and some more stats. or you can just peruse through a tags search on dailyKOS

Strange thing is that the left is all over stats about stuff -- but if you only go to Fox for your news, you won't hear much about hard numbers.

The right was forecasting massive price increases, but California only saw a 4% increase in premiums, compared to a historical (pre-ACA) trend of about 10% per year.

Obamacare has brought down health care costs in the US. It's also brought down the number of uninsured, and seems to be part of the economic recovery. (when small business owners can get health coverage, it removes a dis-incentive to start a business, and thus create new jobs). some stats, and some more stats. or you can just peruse through a tags search on dailyKOS

Strange thing is that the left is all over stats about stuff -- but if you only go to Fox for your news, you won't hear much about hard numbers.

The right was forecasting massive price increases, but California only saw a 4% increase in premiums, compared to a historical (pre-ACA) trend of about 10% per year.

Obamacare has brought down health care costs in the US. It's also brought down the number of uninsured, and seems to be part of the economic recovery. (when small business owners can get health coverage, it removes a dis-incentive to start a business, and thus create new jobs). some stats, and some more stats. or you can just peruse through a tags search on dailyKOS

Strange thing is that the left is all over stats about stuff -- but if you only go to Fox for your news, you won't hear much about hard numbers.

The right was forecasting massive price increases, but California only saw a 4% increase in premiums, compared to a historical (pre-ACA) trend of about 10% per year.

Here's what we know about this most recent "story" so far: http://www.dailykos.com/story/...

Oh, and explain to me again why this is on /. ? I thought this site was about tech and tech-related news. Could it be there's rank partisanship among the editorial staff? I mean, I can't recall seeing any front-page stories here about the comprehensive corruption of, say, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker who, among other things, installed a secret WiFi router in his office so he could exchange email out of sight of mandatory records keeping laws. I mean, that's tech-related, right? Right??

Really... and all the election polls were accurate? http://www.yourememberthat.com...

Nobody said ALL the election polls were accurate. YOU are the one who said:

"...look election polls prior to the election. They very rarely match up with the actual election. Why is that?"

How many times are you going to point to a SINGLE instance where the polls were wrong? Do you honestly think anyone reading this exchange is is as retarded as you are? The fact is, polls very rarely get elections results wrong. Exactly the opposite of your unbelievably ignorant claim.

Election polls are frequently wrong.

What the fuck does "frequently" mean? Your position is that polls "very rarely match up with the actual election." FACTS disagree with you.

The republicans in 2012 thought they were going to win as I remember.

What the Republicans thought in 2012 has shit to do with the historic accuracy of polls. That Gallup got it wrong in the 2012 presidential election doesn't change the fact that Gallup got it right 85% of the time.

There is so much evidence that you're choking on stupidity: http://www.dailykos.com/story/...

I thought you eschewed the validity of citations. Are you sure you want to bring them back into the argument? Why don't you show me some historical data confirming polls "very rarely match up with the actual election."

Your argument would require that the polls all agree with each other... but they don't.

Uh, yeah, more often than not they do. Your argument is that polls are rarely accurate. I have provided DATA nullifying your claim. The best you can do is shit out cherry-picked data.

Continue to make a fool out of yourself. I'd say it's giving me a hard-on, but homo-eroticism is your specialty.

Really... and all the election polls were accurate?
http://www.yourememberthat.com...

Election polls are frequently wrong. The republicans in 2012 thought they were going to win as I remember.

There is so much evidence that you're choking on stupidity:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/...

Your argument would require that the polls all agree with each other... but they don't. Every election cycle we have polls that are all over the place.

Are some of them going to be right? Sure... will a shotgun hit a target with some pellets?... easy to do when you blast out bird shot.

They might go to a shitty underfunded public school.

The very concept of "public school" is fairly recent. Not only did Aristotle grow up without one, neither Benjamin Franklin nor Thomas Jefferson attended one either. Thomas Edison was homeschooled.

They might get harassed by the police on a regular basis, charged with a felony in a situation where a white kid would get a slap on the wrist, and have their lives effectively ruined by a criminal record.

Even if true, how is this different from what Jews suffered in Europe for centuries?

Why are the supposedly "racist cops" (many of them Black, BTW) today only targeting African Americans? If they really were White Supremacists, wouldn't the statistics for Asian Americans be just as gloomy? Immigrant Blacks are doing much better than the native-born ones too.

A theory contradicting observable facts is wrong. Your explanation is thus without merit. Whether or not there really is "institutional racism" or whatever in America, it simply does not explain the woeful underperformance of African Americans.

It's definitely not as bad for black people as it was 50 years ago, or even 25 years ago

Actually, you are wrong again — it is worse than 50 years ago. Despite — or, more likely, because of — decades of various policies advocated by your kind, the Blacks' satisfaction is lower today, than it was in 1964. Although, yeah, it may be better than 20 years ago...

(Note, that I'm not putting forth my own theories here. I'm just obliterating yours.)

While it had its place in the 18th and 19th century, the Electoral college has long outlived its usefulness. The entire concept of winner-take-all in most states means that only a few key states actually decide our election every time it comes around....until the rules change, that's how the system works whether you like it or not.

I'd like to agree with you, but it depends on the proposed method of election. Given the population distribution and unique division of powers between state and national governments within our nation, I'm not a fan of a direct popular vote for the presidency. I just don't believe it best encapsulates the spirit of our nation. While I would generally support a change over to the Congressional District Method, I am greatly concerned about gerrymandering and its affect on such a proposed alternative solution.

In fact, check out the statistics at the Daily Kos, then do the math. If every state followed the Congressional District Method, Romney would have won the 2012 election...by one electoral vote! Interestingly, Obama would have still won the 2008 election. I wonder what happened between 2008 and 2012 that would have made such a difference...

Actually, slavery was waning and neither side considered it the primary issue.

This little tidbit of horseshit is a direct quote from Fox News's Judge Andrew Napolitano, containing tons of lies and half-truths built to support the revisionist myth that "slavery was about to go extinct of its own accord." There's far too many holes in his tripe to list them all here, but if you're interested, Jon Stewart ripped apart Napolitano's lies right to his face, with some help from three history professors: http://www.dailykos.com/story/...

It's highly informative.

Are you too young to remember 2007, or just incredibly stupid?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/...

We will definitely be off fossil fuel by 2100, because we will be out of coal in 23 years http://www.dailykos.com/story/... out of oil in 50 years http://www.cnbc.com/id/4222481... and out of natural gas in 87 at the current rate http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/... (much faster assuming consumption goes up when we run out of oil and coal)

The world is going to become a very different place, in our lifetime. OK so we all have electric cars, but how do you travel to Europe without oil ? In an electric plane ? A battery powered boat ?

How about these:

http://www.msnbc.com
www.dailykos.com

Your suspicions are not citations. Next.

Actually if you'd read beyond the first five words, you'd see that I'm actually making fun of your assertion that the use of military social media accounts is for the servicemembers' own jollies rather than propaganda.

So that "suspicion" you're denying was actually your own absurd implication. I know sarcasm is hard, but come on bro.

Bzzz! A lie! The article makes no mention of "an effort"

You're right, it was actually the article right after that from 2006--two years before--that detailed the actual effort, straight from the horse's mouth. My bad! The 2008 article instead details the planned creation of fake blogs to spread propaganda. Decent writeup here:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/...

dun let the door hit ya on the way out.

The SATs and GREs are not state tests. They are run by private companies.

Distinction without difference — in this case.

Besides, cheating private companies — if they are sufficiently omnipresent to be thought part of "the system" (you know, maintained by "The Man" to keep you down) — is part of Americana since, at least, the hippies.

If it is Ok to squat a bank-owned house or to loot and burn a pharmacy, then cheating on a nationwide standardized exam is Ok too.

Chinese students in particular can further legitimize their case by the racism of American college Admission Boards, which favour Whites over Asians (and Blacks over Whites). This article, for example, provides a table from this book, which calculates the SAT-points benefit/penalty for different races: if Whites are treated neutrally, being a Black gains you 310 points, while being an Asian penalizes you by 140 (out of 1600)!

Cheating to protect oneself from such mistreatment would seem rather acceptable...

The problem is, sewage treatment systems have a lot of trouble (at present, let's just simply say "can't") filtering them out. They go into the sewage, they will go into the sea.

Setting up filters for particles as small as 1 micron for all sewage going out into the ocean is obviously going to be a massive expensive. Who wants to pay for that so that people can keep sticking bits of plastic in cosmetics?

Seriously, whose bright idea was it to make bits of plastic, bite-size for plankton, looking like fish eggs, whose very design intent is to wash out into the ocean? And no, while they're not harmful to us, they absolutely will be to plankton - if not immediately (how healthy do you think you'd be if you wolfed down an entire meal-sized chunk of plastic?), then with time. Plastics act as chelators for heavy metals and a number of organic poisons, to such a degree that they might even be economical to mine. There's simply no way that this isn't going to have an impact.

And it's so stupid when one can just use soluble crystals (salts, sugars, etc) instead of plastic.

buy a lottery ticket and hope to get run over by a rich guy so you can sue them

And the latter part of that dream manages to be an even worse proposal than the former:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/...

..is what Daily Kos calls him. With good reason.
http://www.dailykos.com/search...

Oh, please. If he instead expressed skepticism, you would've dismissed him as a religious bigot, who believes the Earth was created 5 thousand years ago by a Deity and given to Man to control, and is not a scientist.

Now you are willing to praise him because he agrees with you. Bah...

Skeptics certainly have a clue — it an environment as hostile to skepticism as the climate debate is, any contrarian is always far more educated on the subject, than the following-the-flow crowd. They may still be wrong, but clues they have aplenty.

Why don't we play a game: can you cite two predictions made by global warming "alarmists", that actually came true within 80%? Each citation would have to include a link to the prediction and a link to the confirmation — with the two being 5 years apart or more... The first such predictions have been made decades ago — some are bound to have materialized by now... How about it?

I wonder if they could help increase the economic picture via value-added product recovery from the discharge brine. The oceans have an interesting mix of dissolved minerals and there's already interest in recovery of a number of them; perhaps the concentration of the discharge brine could help improve their economics a bit.

(of course, what I find a more interesting possibility for recovery is mining the pacific garbage patch for minerals that have over the course of years soaked up into the plastic from the seawater)

every company I know has 4-5 job openings that are unfilled.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/...
http://www.debbieschlussel.com...
etc etc

The question becomes, how many job postings are real? The second question becomes, of the real job postings, how many of them pay enough to live on, in the place where they are? Or when the jobs are in bumfuck, enough to somehow escape the soul-crushing reality of living there?

Maybe they just want to receive their emails and know that in the past, DNC servers and systems have been hacked. It's ingenious to say that their private system is automatically less secure than the government servers unless someone is an email security specialist and has knowledge of the two systems -- I'm sure someone on Slashdot will weigh in on this. ;-)

Perhaps with the record of Karl Rove and his operatives activities on Democratic servers -- I can definitely understand the Clinton's reticence to be on these same servers they've plagued. Doing the business of the state pre-supposes that all your communications are looked at by friendlies; not that everything you do is looked at in terms to set you up.

I can imagine a scenario where someone from the political opposition can read that you have a meeting with so and so, and can use that against you in some manner. As benign as changing the time of a meeting to making a fraudulent email and leaking it to the press.

Anything can happen if someone else with ill will controls the mail server.

Better to whether the small storm of criticism later, than be naive and pretend that political operatives won't do again what they've done to you in the past.
http://www.dispatch.com/conten...
Anyone remember Mike Connell? http://www.democracynow.org/20...
Former hackers were hired to create the original Diebold voting machines; http://www.dailykos.com/story/...
>> and Anonymous claimed they stopped the voting machines from being manipulated in the last election -- sounds like a quiet political cyber war is going on.

I'm sure to people not involved in politics, they think these are paranoid ramblings like Ross Perot claiming that the Bush crowd was pulling dirty tricks, tapping his conversations, and altering photos of his daughter; http://www.nytimes.com/1992/10...

Ross Perot is a man who used his own money and put is own neck on the line to retrieve kidnapped employees. Like him or not, he seems a bastion of integrity compared to the average politician.

Oh, and let's not forget that the RNC emails went missing;
http://freepress.org/article/a...
Rove's went missing;
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04...
And Iron Mountain lost emails -- and since their whole business model is storing sensitive data is probably one of the few things they've EVER lost;
http://fcw.com/articles/2014/0...

I'm not saying this to excuse a politician from not being transparent -- but I'd think we need to address the fact that dirty tricks are going on, and we need to make sure there are no man-in-the-middle attacks and manipulations of data.

Well, hell, why not? Just remember that it's Climate Change now though, not Global Warming. Among other amazing things, Climate Change is responsible for:

ISIS: Yup, somehow, Climate Change was one of the reasons we have ISIS.
Crime. Climate change is also responsible for more rape.
Prostitution. Yeah, see, climate change may increase prostitution too.

I know, I know, this comment is a little snarky, but even the people here on Slashdot that are hardcore global warming types can see that there's a whacko fringe in their camp that is beyond ridiculous.

I have serious fears that we're facing an unduly high risk of a major wind spill here. :(

Anyone who thinks that the US has spent less than 7 trillion dollars on war, total, and adjusted for inflation, is cherry-picking from a very conservative data set.

Yes, yes, anyone who disagrees with you is a moron, right.

One would have thought, Hans Christian Andersen took care of this kind of argument, but an opinion of a long-dead White dude does not matter to you, does it?

No wonder the linked article doesn't give a citation for that figure.

Well, this one does — and though it disputes a number of claims (referred to as "zombie lies" with the site's usual politeness), it disputes neither the $22 trillion figure nor the "triple the cost of real wars" part.

If you want to quibble, offer your own citations. You can start right here.

Dear Cthulhu, I just noticed that he cited /Infowars/ and expected people to take it seriously.

Seriously? You are disputing the figure, because I cited Infowars? Ok, how about these guys? True to form, and with the customary wit and sophistication, the DailyKos are "killing the zombie lies about the war on poverty" — but even they cite and do not dispute the cost of the war: $22 trillion in today's (well, last year's) dollars.

You *do* realize that the oil that would be flowing though the XL Pipe literally goes solid at room temperature?

How do you think they push it down the pipe, then? Do they heat it up to such a high level so that it maintains an easy flow throughout the entire pipeline, assuming that it might get re-heated at pumping stations? Or do they mix it with something else to allow it to flow easier regardless of temperature? Assuming they do heat it instead of just adding an agent to make it flow easier, how long would it take to cool and solidify in the open air after spilling? What's the flow rate of the pipeline, if there was a breach how much oil could we expect to escape? It looks like someone took the time to try and answer some of these questions here (if you have another source, please share). In any case, it sounds like in the event of a breach that we're looking at a minimum of tens of thousands of gallons spilling (possibly less if the breach occurred just downstream from a shutoff valve and was detected almost immediately). How far would tens of thousands of gallons of your super-heated oil travel in the time it takes that oil to cool before literally going solid? If instead the oil has an additive to allow it to flow easier, wouldn't that also mean that it can flow easier straight down into the ground?

But poor countries face a potential hurdle when it comes to clean-energy technologies—most of the relevant intellectual property is held in the rich world

Whenever you want something that others own, you "face a potential hurdle". It matters little, whether it is tangible item like bicycle, or something, that's harder to design than to manufacture (like intellectual property).

Fortunately, these particular things — unlike, say, medicines — the poor can really do without. Because the science of "climate change" — and thus the very need for "climate mitigation", that TFA asserts — is so far from "settled", that the most ardent alarmists resort to "Pascal Wager" style of argument (as they was predicted to attempt years ago).

Anybody attempting to make a retort here, is politely requested to cite (include links to) at least two past global-warming predictions, that have actually materialized...

the First Ammendment, like the Second Ammendment, is not an absolute

Heh-heh... Yes, finally, the First Amendment is compared with the Second. Indeed, we must introduce the following pragmatic and common sense measures and clarifications:

• The First Amendment only covers the right to petition the government
• For a petition to be covered, it may only be for redress of grievances;
• A petitioner must register with the government, undergo a background check, and have a valid petitioner license at the time of petitioning (which, of course, turns it from a right into a privilege, but never mind that).
• The right may be stripped from convicted (or even merely suspected) criminals.
• Additional restrictions — such as mandatory waiting period — can be added by the States to any would-be petitioner.
• Only the technologies available at the time the Amendment became law can be used — radio, TV, and the Internet are decidedly not covered.

Did I miss anything?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/...

"The ACLU survey found that only 7 percent of SWAT missions involved incidents they were originally designed to handle â" such as hostage situations or shootings â" while 62 percent of their mission involved drug searches."

So its actually I vastly understated and its closer to 1 time in 20 than 1 in 10.

The denialists do not understand science, but they damn well do understand money and lawyers.

You betcha we understand. Being a "climate scientist" is also a great sort of job. One gets paid by the government, which has deep pockets, and does — unlike real scientists — does not need to come up with anything useful.

What "climate scientist" could possibly challenge the doctrine, that pays for his bread and butter? The conflict of interest these people are facing is stupendous. You would not accept a tank-manufacturer's argument, we need more tanks without a giant dollop of the proverbial salt — why do you take a climate-scientist's argument, the humanity is danger unless we continue paying him for more "research", at face value?

it's time to see you in court, denialists, not to prove or disprove the science

Is it because the scientific debate has been lost already? Whatever this particular paper may have said, you have no proof, alarmists. Your best argument is Pascal's Wager, for crying out loud — as was predicted by your laughing opponents a years earlier.

It should make intelligent people stop and think before they jump on the bandwagon of denouncing Muslims for their "barbarity."

What is ISIS doing that isn't as barbaric as the things we do every day?

Burning somebody alive. Big fucking deal. The American Christians burned thousands of people alive.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/... Yes, ISIS Burned a Man Alive: White Americans Did the Same Thing to Black People by the Thousands

At least ISIS burned him alive humanely, compared to the way the Christians did it.

So let's apply the same standards to Christians and Muslims.

BTW, what was that pilot doing when he was flying over the area? He was dropping bombs, which killed a lot of innocent people, a lot of whom were burned just as badly and suffered just as much.

Don't get me wrong. It was not OK. Clearly for ISIS to burn a prisoner to death was [insert the same condemnation you use when Christians and Americans do the same thing]. But be consistent. Whatever you say about the Muslims, you should say about the Christians who caused just as much or more painful suffering and death.

FWIW, I opposed the war in Afghanistan and the war in Iraq. The war in Iraq left a power vacuum for ISIS to move in. So the lesson is, "Don't do stupid things (like elect GWB president)."

In fact, we drove the Soviets out of Afghanistan. If the Soviets had still been running things, we wouldn't have this problem.

If you want to stop this brutality, then stop all wars. Get out in the street and demonstrate against it. And that's just a start.

In other words, every Senator who isn't either a subject-matter expert or an arrogant person and who doesn't want people to think he is in one of those two groups must abstain if this comes to a vote.

Personally I think this was just a way for the Democrats to help Warren Buffet keep his massively profitable oil transportation by rail business intact by making the vote on the KeystoneXL unpalatable to the Republicans.

Extremes that would have happened about 2% of the time in the 30 years prior to the 80's were happening about 6% of the time in the 30 years prior to 2010.

No reliable records exist beyond 1-2 centuries back. Today's data — with climate science being run by government officials and scientists alike with an enormous conflict of interest — can not be trusted either. It can be manipulated too easily ("hide the decline") and even raw unaltered data would depend greatly on where the sensors are placed. Temperature inside a city park can differ from the surrounding streets by as much as 5C, for example!

No, we do not have irrefutable scientific evidence of anthropogenic global warming — what we are told is to act "just in case" it is true.

cohesive if you look at the temperature trend in the context of radiative physics

"Cohesive", huh? It is fairly simple to come up with a theory explaining the past. The global warming alarmists, however, are yet to come up with a theory predicting the future.

But I like your style — when it is cold in North America, well, that's a fluke. But when it is hot in Australia — that's evidence of Global Warming.

what we know about the atmospheric CO2 trend

What do we know about it? CO2 concentration helps plants grow — and is thus a self-regulating problem. What else do we know?