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Unless what they're pumping is a trade secret.

"The solution was a new form requiring a company to attest — under penalty of perjury — that a chemical is proprietary."
http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_19542430#ixzz1gWXCPYOi

Too bad the chemicals aren't required to be listed if they're trade secrets.

"The solution was a new form requiring a company to attest — under penalty of perjury — that a chemical is proprietary."
http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_19542430#ixzz1gWXCPYOi

Like that electric toy robot they found in some street, I forget the details but the police were called because some kid left his toy robot in the street and they got the bomb squad out there to detonate it.

This one? Priceless.

Assuming you are NOT under arrest, and they don't seem to be digging on you (eg "did you see such and such back over there") not being an ass and actually being helpful is the nice and ethical thing to do.

Completely wrong. The problem is that police officers have shown time and again that they are NOT ethical. Keep in mind that a cop is ALWAYS gathering evidence. Sure you know you didn't do anything, but you were nearby. Now you're a suspect. Wait, you were by yourself, so now no alibi. The cop will then of course make stuff up like you looked nervous or seemed anxious. Suddenly you're a prime suspect. At this point all it takes is an eye witness (people see things incorrectly all the time, police can pressure someone to talk) which carry way more weight in court than they should and you're going to jail.

You may think this sounds crazy, but just look at people finally being proven innocent by DNA years later. Turns out the cops and prosecutors got a bead on them and simply make stuff up to make the case work. Don't think police make stuff up? Read this.

A friend of mine is a lawyer. His advice, never speak to the police without your lawyer present. First, he can obviously advise you and second the cop can't later lie in court about what was said.

You think Ohio is bad? Read about the crooked cops in Denver. Better yet they are still on the force! Even better is that these are only the ones they know about!

The list includes the names of about 81 officers still on the force out of 1,434. At least eight officers on the list have two or more violations. One officer has three violations.

The officers on the list have been found to have committed violations in at least one of the following categories: departing from the truth, violating the law, making false reports, making misleading or inaccurate statements, committing a deceptive act, engaging in conduct prohibited by law, engaging in aggravated conduct prohibited by law, conspiring to commit conduct prohibited by law, soliciting or accepting a bribe, removing reports or records, destroying reports or records or altering information on official documents.

At least seven officers are on the list for driving under the influence. At least 13 of the officers are on the list for violations involving dishonesty, considered a fireable offense at many police departments because such a finding could call into question whether an officer would testify truthfully.

And those are just the ones whose cases have been resolved with a finding that the complaint was "sustained." An untold number of other officers may be under investigation for dishonesty but testifying on any given day with no notice to the defense.

It's a good thing they don't test for safety. Hear about the plutonium spill in Boulder a few years back?

The whole story is designed to make it hard to visualize to make it scarier.

Agreed. The fact is this event is a success for nuclear power. The regulator, in conjunction with the Army Corps of Engineers, determined the original design basis was insufficient and changed the design basis. The utility did due diligence and pushed back, but ultimately the utility complied and improved the flood defenses. Today the plant is dry and will resume generating clean base-load power when the refueling operation is complete.

Guess that's what happens when your regulators aren't sniffing coke off asses (MMS) or browsing porn all day (SEC). Those regulators gave us Deepwater Horizon and Madoff, respectively.

BTW, the Pakistani paper 'The Nation' is trash. Pakistan doesn't have credible media.

Yet Canadians are happier about their universal health-care system than US citizens - and Canadian GDP proportional health care costs are half that of the US.

I think you got tricked by British tabloids: they are able to complain about Grandma's Sunday cookies, let alone about a huge health care system that covers and helps tens of millions of people in some of the most dramatic moments in their lives ...

The thing is, in the US there are huge private monopolies that have cornered the market for fun and profits and US citizens still don't have universal health-care - you cannot really do worse than that.

Actually quite a few of the jobs will be in Colorado according to this Denver Post article http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_18132552.

Hell, the bar is even lower than that.

The news agency used a stock photo. The actual photo (clickable) is here [www.isna.ir].

and here http://ing.dk/artikel/106472-engelsk-politi-brugte-en-foererloes-drone-under-en-anholdelse?utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=nyheder

and here http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_13608730?source=rss

and here http://www.gjfreepress.com/article/20091021/COMMUNITY_NEWS/910209967/-1/RSS01

and especially here http://www.draganfly.com/uav-helicopter/draganflyer-x6/

In Iran, we don't have actual photos like in your country.

Meth is not a drug its poison to the human body and society for both use and manufacture.
It has not a peer to alcohol, or other lesser drugs.

War on Drugs? How about War on Money Laundering?! Thats the imperialism of the mafia over civil society.

I say money laundering is the serious and imminent threat to geek culture.
Too many geeks are getting sucked into the underworld's lure of fast money, trinkets and bobbles and hallmarks of evil-geekdom.

Will anyone miss the old days when geeks would just rip-off cpu cycles, disk space and bandwidth for wares & p0rn from their company sites.
Next it moved into fencing parts -- where did all that Disk & memory go from the upgrades last month?
Now entire data centers have been compromised in Eastern Europe by mafia seeking to money launder all sorts of activity.

Looking at one of the mug shots. gang / mafia is involved: Nasty stuff, stone cold died in the wool killers & innocent lives wreaked.

Here is the AG post

Its enlightening the AG says it accounts for 2/3 of the ID theft: probably to cloak procurement of the means to manufacture, warehouse, and transport the nasty stuff. That means other much more serious crimes have to be committed in support of this industry... not just the simple possession.

Here are general facts about meth and more reading.

You mean like vodafone just did in Egypt? http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_17226433?source=pkg

Imagine if the casino exploited a bug that displayed "you lose" when the randomizer actually produced a winning combination.

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_14795166

Not far off the mark, really.

There was a case of someone winning a jackpot a while back and the casino claiming the jackpot was a "software error" after the fact. Denver Post Article. As the article shows, such "errors" are relatively common.

And of course, the casinos always reserve the right to claim someone is "cheating" or simply "winning too much", or "card counting", and pull all sorts of nasty tricks.

Also remember: in a gambling town, the cops and judges aren't paid by the local government. They're paid by the casinos. Period.

The Interior Department was the most corrupt department (that we know of) during the Bush/Cheney administration. It was the main feeding grounds for Jack Abramoff, centered on using Indian tribes to grab casino industry money. It was the Interior Department's MMS office that traded favors to oil corps for coke and hookers, then let BP drill the Gulf despite its obvious contempt for safety, and let it slide through the resulting Macondo Well blowout through this Summer.

"Most corrupt department" was the hardest fought competition this whole decade, and it's clearly continued even after Bush/Cheney left. I am not at all surprised that the Interior Department is in bed with another monopoly disserving the people it's supposed to protect.

Imagine a day when people realize that the government isn't corrupt only when people they disagree with are in power...

Maybe that'll be the day that we can actually deal with our problems in an honest and pragmatic way...

But, for now, we're arguing over whose flavor of kool-aid we should be drinking... I'll just have to take your word as to how delicious the one you're drinking is...

It was the Interior Department's MMS office that traded favors to oil corps for coke and hookers

yeah, they should have at least considered pepsi and "escort" services.

The Interior Department was the most corrupt department (that we know of) during the Bush/Cheney administration. It was the main feeding grounds for Jack Abramoff, centered on using Indian tribes to grab casino industry money. It was the Interior Department's MMS office that traded favors to oil corps for coke and hookers, then let BP drill the Gulf despite its obvious contempt for safety, and let it slide through the resulting Macondo Well blowout through this Summer.

"Most corrupt department" was the hardest fought competition this whole decade, and it's clearly continued even after Bush/Cheney left. I am not at all surprised that the Interior Department is in bed with another monopoly disserving the people it's supposed to protect.

I believe the original (perhaps not the first, but the most media-friendly) quote from Maes warned that the bike-sharing program was "converting Denver into a United Nations community." Now, depending on who you talk to, this may not even be such a bad thing; but the most entertaining part is how huge he blows the conspiracy theory, claiming that "this is bigger than it looks like on the surface, and it could threaten our personal freedoms." This leaves Colorado conservatives with a difficult choice: Dan Maes, or ex-Republican Tom Tancredo, who is running for the American Constitution Party and believes that we should repeal the Voting Rights Act. Jim Crow mk II, anyone?

One correction - The incumbent in this election for governor is Bill Ritter who is not running for re-election. Maes Democratic opponent is John Hickenlooper who is currently the mayor of Denver

Correction to correction: Dan Maes somehow managed to win the Republican primary so he's the Republican candidate. He's facing Hickenlooper and independent-with-name-recognition Tom Tancredo, who ran for US President in 2008. Usually third-party candidates don't have a chance, but Tancredo has a lot of local support, so right now he's polling 18% with Hickenlooper at about 40% and Maes with about 30%.

As an aside, every time I ride through Denver I see dozens of people out on those cute red bicycles. It's an amazingly successful program, that isn't supported by Federal, State, or local funds, and since the individuals who use the bikes have a financial stake (deposit, credit card info) in keeping the bikes in reasonable shape, it has a much higher chance of being successful in the long-term than many of the other city bike programs that have been floated. Plus, the bikes are keen. They weigh a ton but they have a huge cargo basket, so they're actually useful for lugging stuff. Two weeks ago I saw a couple riding them and they had a kid's bicycle in the basket of one bike, and the kid herself in the basket of the other bike -- not a WISE thing, but indicative of the flexibility the bikes can provide. They have front and rear lights that are always on when the bike's moving, compliments of a hub generator system, so they're quite visible. I think it's a fantastic program.

I can't find the article right now but Dan Maes is on record as saying that Denver's bike program "may threaten our personal freedoms". Once you realize that the last job Maes had was as a used car salesman, his feelings might be more understandable, if not more sensible.

Trinchera Ranch has been the source of some of these kind of troubles, I remember seeing a 60 minutes on something like this too, can't find it right now or remember if it's the same place (I think that was on a place in New Mexico, probably had turtles).

Protip: Read more than the first editorial returned, like how Trinchera Ranch was the single largest real estate purchase by an Environmentalist ... Hedge Fund Manager.

source for that one too: http://origin.denverpost.com/headlines/ci_7577768

I'm not sure if you were trolling or being serious (haven't had my morning caffeine infusion yet), but here's a real-world example of pigeon-net doing exactly what you describe:

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_6209735

Well, here's a follow-up on that $42.9M story:

At the time, the top award on the slot, a progressive game that takes a percentage of bets placed in all similar machines, was $251,183.16. But to be eligible for the top award, a maximum wager of 400 credits, or $4, was required. Chavez's 40-cent wager was eligible for a prize of 20,000 credits, or $200, if she would have hit the progressive.

So.... you're playing a 40 cent game for $200 max, who cares if it shows 42 millions when it's impossible? I can tell you what happened too, a 32 bit unsigned has a max of 4,294,967,295 <-- seem familiar? Somehow a subtraction lacked a bounds check and it underflowed to be UINT_MAX cents. And for that they should pay out 200,000 times her largest possible theoretical winnings? Sorry, but I'll side with the casino on this one.

Thats why you pay people to test the code.

Sorry, I still side with the winners, the casino is just trying to weasel out of paying what it owes. Mistake or not, they are responsible for it.

Well, here's a follow-up on that $42.9M story:

At the time, the top award on the slot, a progressive game that takes a percentage of bets placed in all similar machines, was $251,183.16. But to be eligible for the top award, a maximum wager of 400 credits, or $4, was required. Chavez's 40-cent wager was eligible for a prize of 20,000 credits, or $200, if she would have hit the progressive.

So.... you're playing a 40 cent game for $200 max, who cares if it shows 42 millions when it's impossible? I can tell you what happened too, a 32 bit unsigned has a max of 4,294,967,295 <-- seem familiar? Somehow a subtraction lacked a bounds check and it underflowed to be UINT_MAX cents. And for that they should pay out 200,000 times her largest possible theoretical winnings? Sorry, but I'll side with the casino on this one.

There's a pretty notable precedent.

Hes definition of species was incomplete. Its the inability to mate outside a genetic group and produce fertile offspring. A mule is not fertile so horses and donkeys remain separate species.

dozens of stubborn mules that have bred would disagree with you

Here's one documented case (the second story, further below, confirms the results of the gene testing)

Mule's foal fools genetics

It's an event so rare that the Romans had a saying, "when a mule foals" - the equivalent of "when hell freezes over."
By Nancy Lofholm, Denver Post Staff Writer

Colbran - When it reportedly happened in Morocco five years ago, locals feared it signaled the end of the world. In Albania in 1994, it was thought to have unleashed the spawn of the devil on a small village.

But on a Grand Mesa ranch, the once-in-a-million, genetically "impossible" occurrence of a mule giving birth has only drawn keen interest from the scientific world. That, and a stream of the locally curious driving up from the small town of Colbran to check out and snap pictures of a frisky, huge-eared, gangly-legged foal.

"No one has run away in fear yet," laughed Laura Amos, the owner of the foal, along with her husband, Larry.

The foal is being called a miracle because mules aren't supposed to give birth. Mules are a hybrid of two species - a female horse and a male donkey - so they end up with an odd number of chromosomes. A horse has 64 chromosomes and a donkey has 62. A mule inherits 63. An even number of chromosomes is needed to divide into pairs and reproduce.

But those numbers added up to implausibility in late April when the Amoses awoke to a braying and whinnying ruckus in the corral behind their house.

Running to the rescue

They spotted a foal peeking out from between the front legs of one of their favorite black mules, Kate. They tore outside to save the baby from the male mules - the johns - that were trying to stomp the little critter and the other female mules - the mollies - that were trying to steal it.

And then the Amoses began to ponder how the foal had fooled mule sterility, a phenomenon first noted by the Greek philosopher Aristotle.

The Amoses, who have about 100 horses and mules at their Winterhawk Outfitters business, knew that what they were seeing is considered scientifically impossible - as much so today as in ancient Greece. They began doing research and found that in the past two centuries about 50 cases of mules giving birth have been recorded. Only two of those were proved with genetic testing.

It's an event so rare that the Romans had a saying, "cum mula peperit," meaning "when a mule foals" - the equivalent of "when hell freezes over."

Genetic testing at the University of Kentucky and the University of California at Davis confirmed that Kate is indeed a mule and that the still unnamed foal really is her offspring. That ruled out factors that have explained away some of the past births mistakenly attributed to mules. Those mules had stolen foals or they were not really mules themselves. They were donkeys or mulish-looking horses.

Now, the Amoses are waiting for chromosome testing from the University of California to determine exactly what is the fast-growing foal cavorting clumsily around their corral. He could be a smidgen of horse and a lot of donkey or mostly horse with just a bit of donkey genes.

"He's got a donkey look now, but they all do at that age," Larry Amos said.

Surprise findings

Dr. Oliver Ryder, associate director of the Conservation and Research of Endangered Species division at the San Diego Zoo, said the answer to how Kate could give birth could be surprising. There were very unexpected - and still unexplained - findings when a molly mule gave birth to two foals in Nebraska in the mid-1980s.

they are not allowed to "suspect" you do to skin color, race, or country of origin...

Driving While Black isn't a crime either, so I'm SURE minorities aren't subject to any extra traffic enforcement either... right?

The law carefully avoids requiring a "REALLY good reason" by avoiding the words "probable cause."

If it isn't based on skin color, what will it be based on? English competency? Off-brand tennis shoes? We already have Tom Tancredo calling for poll tests! Wow, next week it will be "separate but equal."

is financial. There's no point maintaining a secure reliable grid if you can't afford to use it.

Um, health care reform? Don't ask, don't tell? Closing Guantanamo? Helping Haiti quicker than Bush helped New Orleans?

here's a hufpo article on his first hundred days:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/29/obamas-first-100-days-10_n_192603.html

Here's a Media Matters article: http://mediamatters.org/research/201001270003

Denver post: http://www.denverpost.com/ci_14226357

I'm no fan of the man myself, and I agree, he could do a lot more. If only he really were the socialist some right wing loons claim he is. But he's not, he's a center-right politician.

But I am interested, what harm do you think he has done?

That's the CSI belief.

Now, for reality:
http://www.denverpost.com/nationworld/ci_10026634

Thanks for the long condescending response.

Any time!

If you enjoy standing in a cemetery, pretending you're at a funeral than I guess you're in luck.

The venue is a bar.

This article really explains it: http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_13655311

The largest wind turbine manufacturer in the world, Vestas, has just built a plant in Colorado and is building a second. However, due to the credit crisis they are having a harder time selling turbines worldwide since its difficult for customers to get financing.

The reason the project in Texas is going forward is because one of the few countries in the world that is still in a good position to finance, China, is willing to do so with the obvious catch that he must use Chinese turbines.

I think once the credit market improves US-built turbines will be more attractive for other projects. The reason Vestas is building the two plants in Colorado is because there are many skilled laborers there that cost less to employ than similar ones in Europe (a Vestas plant over there was closed due to the creation of the new plants in Colorado).

To Pickens' credit, he tried hard for years to get financing for this project, but if he was to get this thing going while he was still alive this was probably the only way for him to proceed. I think it's still a smart move and hopefully will lead to similar projects in other states. If his project succeeds it should make it easier for other companies to get domestic financing so won't be forced to purchase Chinese turbines in the future.

The Denver Mayor is cutting police funding (nearly 100 police will be laid off), and asking for 2.3 million to build 500 homes for the homeless. http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/21210487/detail.html http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/20659996/detail.html http://www.denverpost.com/election08/ci_13249592

The really interesting part of all this that the Central East African countries, North and South Rhodisa and Nyaserland had both the malaria and other insect born diseases effectively conquered by the mid 1950s.

And what effect does DDT and other pesticides have on wildlife? If mosquitoes are wiped out then the food for other species is wiped out as well. Such as bats, birds, dragonflies, and frogs.

In addition, we now have vocal, and well funded NGOs, with a vested interest in keeping the third world poor, but pacified.

You can apply that to big business as well. Such as Big Oil. A sovereign nation is invaded for it's oil. The EU, Japan, and US all give billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies so large agribusinesses can export food to the third world and sell it there cheaper than farmers there can grow it. Check out the suicide of farmers in not just India but the US as well. Large businesses like Archer Daniels Midland,ADM, and Cargill get money from government while third world and small farmers in the US, who can't compeat against those large businesses, struggle financially if not goes bankrupt. The freemarket institute CATO has a Case Study In Corporate Welfare about ADM who has been called the biggest corporate welfare queen in history.

Sorry, insects and politicians that cause death, ignorance and disease need killing, not paying.

As entomologists have said if all those insects are wiped out you'd be dead soon, you'd have no food to eat.

Honduras is the classic example of armchair liberals, in the first world, making problems out vanity, ego and stupidity.

How so? Liberals, not the fake ones but Classical Liberals believe in liberty and small government. And it wasn't either them or the fake ones that massacred the Mayas in not just Honduras but Central America itself. Neither one supported the US Army's School of America, which taught Central and South American militaries how to subjugate and torture people.

It appears, from another article, that Xcel wants to charge a fee based on the power generation capacity of a customer's solar panels. This seems totally unreasonable, except for one thing -- net metering. Net metering means Xcel essentially buys the customer's power at _retail_. So Xcel has to eat part of the transmission and distribution costs for the customer electricity. Net metering is required by federal law, so they can't just not do it. This seems to be an attempt to find a way around it.

Xcel already charges a flat fee to all customers (in addition to metered charges); this is on top of that.

http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_12914520?source=rss

Having used the interwebs, I'm sure you've noticed the large number of folks not in their right mind.
They did use a '65 instead of a '67, so maybe they aren't as crazy as you had hoped.

And then there is the former Ford engineer modding new style 'Stangs

This is probably the case you are referring to.

It's so bad here in California that folks from Colorado have been actively soliciting businesses to relocate to a more tax friendly environment: http://www.denverpost.com/theeconomy/ci_11708094 Their timing is perfect, since our state's legislator was schedule to hash out a tax increase package over this past weekend.

Some mules can reproduce. http://www.denverpost.com/headlines/ci_6464853

A space weapon ban would prevent This type of attack

"They're already blind."

Unfortunately not, otherwise they couldn't see the photos.

my gf says she should be in jail and so should her teenage sister. According to her, 90% of teenage girls with cellphones would be in jail if authorities looked at their phones.

Can you imagine the conversation with police being a 15 yr old girl and being "caught" with photos of yourself?

cop: YOU'RE UNDER ARREST FOR KIDDIE PORN!
girl: huh? what porn? oh, yeah that's me, i sent it to my bf
cop: YOU'RE UNDER ARREST
girl: what? for what? that's me, i took that photo, i took a photo of myself
cop: that's right, and you're under arrest
girl: why? I don't think you understand: I took a photo of MYSELF, I am a teenage girl, I took a photo of myself with my phone, how is that "kiddie porn"?
cop: so you admit to talking naked photos teenage girls? I have to remind you anything you say can and will be used against you in the court of law
girl: What?! *shocked* ... but... I... nvmd...

This is the most asine thing I've ever heard, but I don't think the laws will change until:
A) the girls become lawmakers and politicians in 10 yrs
b) lawmakers look at their daughter's phone and find the nude photos of their *own* daughters

I can't believe the legal system is taking normal teens and turning them into criminal sex offenders. For the rest of their lives these girls will be considered "sex offenders", won't be able to live near schools, their name, address and police photos will be listed online for all to see, and will not be able to get a job that works with children and will probably be denied many jobs because they are "sex offenders", lumped in the same category as rapists. Even if someday the laws are reversed and they're cleared of all charges it'll still follow them, searches online will probably pick up their names for many years.

Child pornography laws were put in place to prevent dirty old men from offering little children candy in exchange for getting naked for photos. Unfortunately the laws were worded very poorly and now *anyone*, including the children taking photos of themselves, are being treated like dirty old men. They're martyrs. The laws need to be re-written so it only applies to the dirty old men taking the photos, not the child that takes photos of themselves or the men that downloads a photo of a girl and finds out later the girl was 17 and not 18 and goes to jail, similar to marijuana laws in many states, where police won't even enforce laws saying to arrest offenders with less than an ounce of marijuana

And don't even get me started how stupid it is we as Americans teach our children that the nude body is horrible and disgusting and should be hidden but showing people being murdered and chopped into pieces on TV and video games is fine. A teen just got 36 yrs for murder for doing what he saw on mortal kombat, if he was re-enacting nudity videos instead of violent video games he probably wouldn't be in jail.

If I was one of those girls I think I'd move to another country and change my name.

Actually more people are killed in automobile accidents than accidental shootings but I'm guessing you really don't care about facts and are only interested in pushing your gun-control agenda.

I'm unsure why you're limiting your argument to accidents, nor why you are ignoring the vastly larger number of and hours spent using cars compared to guns, but the fact of the matter is that an automobile is a device which is designed to transport, whereas a gun is a device which is designed to wound or kill. Those are the facts.

Your "lot's of shootings" argument has been dispelled by every single state that has passed shall-issue legislation.

And it's upheld by every third-world hellhole in existence. Your theory that more guns equals less crime/violence means Mexico, Columbia, and the whole of the Middle East should be veritable Gardens of Eden, yes?

No, the stupid bullshit is you putting words in my mouth and claiming that I was advocating for killing people "with ease". The vast majority of cases where firearms are used defensively end without a single shot being fired.

I didn't need to put any words in your mouth. You advocate more guns; guns are there to make it easier to kill; therefore, you advocate greater ease of killing. Period.

You'll note I said "defend", not "kill", although I suspect the difference is lost on someone like you. The law says you can only use deadly force if you have a reasonable belief that your own life or the life of another is in danger. What's the problem?

This is the problem. Well, one of the many.

throughout the us and much fo the west, traditional newspaper and television news rooms are dying and laying off personnel left and right. the ad revenue just isn't there anymore

http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/nbc/nbcu_to_cut_500_jobs_layoffs_begin_at_nbc_news_bureaus_102371.asp

http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_11142071

pretty soon, all we will be left with are 10 reporters, the drudgereport and 10,000 bloviating bloggers

(shudder)

Microsoft is the only US industrial company to be given a AAA rating by S&P and Moody's in ten years.

It's a damn short list:

In addition to Microsoft: ADP, Exxon Mobil, General Electric and Johnson & Johnson. Rounding out the list for S&P is Pfizer; for Moody's, it's Toyota. Microsoft mint [Sept 27]

This is a slump? Operating System Market Share, Top Operating System Share Trend

The classic site was Voice of Jihad, but that's been more or less dead for a while. Back in August, it was apparently taken over by some McCain supporter. Now it's a misconfigured shared-IP site on Dreamhost.

bin Laden's annual video didn't get much press this year. He's released his 2008 video, and it's 87 minutes long, but it's hard to find. Reuters has a summary..

I suspect that the main reason there's pressure to suppress his videos is that he always has something tellingly negative to say about Bush. This year, bin Laden's sound bite is "And in fact, the subject of the Mujahideen has become an inseparable part of the speech of your leader and the effects and signs are not hidden."

It's worth remembering that the bin Laden family supported Bush's first presidential campaign. In 1978, Bush and Osama bin Laden's brother, Salem bin Laden, founded Arbusto Energy, an oil company based in Texas. Sometimes one wonders if the plan was to get an incompetent into the US presidency, then apply enough pressure to make him overreact. A pre 9-11 bio of bin Laden, "The Man who Declared War on America", has quotes from him indicating that he felt America needed to be corrupted before it could be taken down, and outlined what needed to be done to make that happen. All the family had to do was to get someone in office who thought tax cuts would fix anything, get him to overspend on the wrong war, and wait for the US economy to collapse.

We may yet see a "Mission Accomplished" from bin Laden.

Warming, for all its predicted deleterious effects, would potentially thaw out land that is currently unproductive for food crops.

Warming would also take land out of agricultural production. Some land that's now used for growing crops will become deserts. Other areas will become flooded. Especially with saltwater. As it is now, Southern California is a major source of produce. However all those crops get their water from the Colorado River, which is drying up. As another /.er has posted a number of tymes, people in Colorado can't even use cisterns to capture and store rainwater without a license or permit as people downstream already have "rights" to that water. Farmers in a desert have more "rights" to rainwater than those who live where it rains?

I can see your economic education has been dismally incomplete.

And yours is compleat? The book "Natural Capitalism", called by Frances Cairncross, a writer for the Economist and others as breaming with ideas to bridge the gulf between business and the environment. Some have said it's the followup to Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations". In it a number of studies are cited whereby businesses have reduced their ecological footprint and saved money at the same tyme. Environmental responsibility can even be traced back to Adam Smith the father of capitalism.

You're making the assumption that this climate change -- if it even exists

Even skeptics of human induced global warming admit the world is warming. Heck even President Bush said it was real.

I bet even the day after you won't get 100% agreement, being afterwards, on the cause.

And I'm sure you're right. There are still people who believe the Earth is flat. Those people are a decided minority.

Just as those who deny Global Warming is false is a decided minority. To me there's little difference, both discount or ignore facts. Yes, there are facts showing cooling in some places, but the world as a whole is warming.

Falcon

BT are in a strange half way house where they have obligations that other companies don't such as providing telecom services to remote areas yet they are expected to compete privately with other companies. I am no fan of BT, they are a monolithic organisation but their position in the industry is crazy.

Telstra (Australia) is in a very similar position.
Unfortunately, it has moved from being government owned to a semi-autonomous organization thanks to a previous government (Johnny Howard? May your mobile be cursed!).
The most unfortunate part is that the CEO is Sol Trujillo, (thanks Johnny Howard - May your Windows BSOD forever), whose history with telecommunications is pretty incompetent according to some sources. http://blogs.denverpost.com/lewis/2005/06/09/sol-trujillo-the-man-the-myth-the-highly-paid-legend/ and there's a lot more too.
Telstra is supposed to provide the infrastructure for voice and data across thousands of miles of desert for a few farmers to get access - and at high speed.
I live within 50km of a major city and I haven't got mobile reception because the carrier I'm with doesn't have a tower in my area, and the default Telstra tower doesn't have enough power to get to me.
The story is the same for many people here.
With Sol Trujillo not co-operating with the Australian government (are you listening Johnny?) - it is now forced into tendering for another company to provide duplicate infrastructure (WiFi everywhere). Not only that, but even if that all happens and we do get the proposed upgrade in data service, it is still a generation older than what is current.
We're pretty stuffed here and there is no hope of getting speeds up for at least a decade. They are just rolling out ADSL2 with many exchanges unable to support the tech. While the rest of the world is beginning to experience streamed TV at high res, were stuck with P2P/downloads and maybe YouTube quality streaming.
It's bad here. Expensive, slow and comparatively low data availability.

I've been following Gov. Palin for more than half a year now, long before she was on the mainstream political radar. I figured that she was a stretch candidate with little chance of actually getting picked, and was quite surprised to wake up to today's news. Of course, I suspect I still might not be voting for her ticket and I disagree with her on a number of issues, but she was definitely my favorite of the potential GOP picks. She has a Cha stat rivaling Obama's, and is IMHO quite a better speaker than McCain.

Even before her pick as VP, I'd estimated that there was a good chance that the 2012 Presidential contest would be Hillary Clinton vs. Sarah Palin, which would undoubtedly result in a record number of spontaneous cranial detonations amongst the talking heads. I am worried that although she's a political rising star her pick this year might be premature, but I guess we'll see. I'm also pretty amused at the people citing her inexperience, considering that she has more experience with running a government than McCain, Obama, Biden, and Barr combined. I sympathize somewhat with those who wish that she were on the top of the GOP ticket instead of McCain.

Most pundits seem to be focused on Palin's being a woman, but I see her as a way for McCain to reach out to the libertarian crowd. One commentator described her as the "libertarian VP candidate," or at least the closest thing to a libertarian that we're likely to see on a major-party ticket: http://blogs.denverpost.com/opinion/2008/08/29/the-libertarian-vp-canidate/

Her being pro-life impacts that somewhat, but then again, so was Ron Paul. Palin's libertarian tendencies should help somewhat with voters who are worried about McCain's occasional populist streaks. Also, assuming that nothing comes out of the TrooperGate mini-scandal (which, since she survived the vetting process, I'm assuming nothing will), McCain and Palin should be able to use their histories to milk the anti-pork, anti-corruption angle quite a bit.

The next few months will be very interesting.

If one were spending a lot of time on Digg last year, they were probably surprised by how poorly Ron Paul did.

Heck, not just digg. If you were paying any attention to the fundraising numbers you were probably surprised by how poorly he did.

Or, for that matter, if you saw the crowds he drew whenever he spoke, you were probably surprised by how poorly he did.

Heck, even if you counted yard signs or just talked to your local Republican-on-the-street, you were probably surprised by how poorly he did.

In fact, I'd bet only the people who get most of their news from corporate media knew how badly he would do at the polls, but most of them probably don't know why*.

--MarkusQ

* Diebold / Premiere finally admitted that their machines drop some votes. And they've previously admitted that they also add votes. And they've famously expressed strong preferences over who should when an election.

I want congress to SMACK THE TELCOS HARD.

Sigh. What you *should* want is for your local government to stop giving your ISP an unfair advantage. Then other ISPs could start providing service if they wanted to. I don't know where you live, but the reason your broadband options suck is almost certainly the fault of your local government, and not some evil plot by the ISPs. Your local government being stupid isn't a problem for Congress. But hey, maybe you're right and there's really nothing the Internet Service Providers want more than to *not* sell you internet access.

They have been collecting Billions of dollars in fees to provide Broadband and have delivered nothing.
I want the money paid back with interest NOW!

What? They're obviously delivering the internet service you agreed to buy, otherwise you wouldn't be posting on Slashdot right now, amirite?

Oh, and by the way, once you give your money to a company in exchange for goods or services, it's not your money anymore. You don't get a say in what that money gets spent on, it belongs to the company you gave it to. Just like your employer doesn't get to tell you what you can spend your money on after they pay you.

How does this bullshit get modded "Insightful"?