Slashdot Mirror

While Mr. Yanukovich accused his pro-Western opponent of being an American stooge, he himself is quite blatantly a Russian stooge.

As for the impending bankruptcy of the US, you obviously don't understand how the trade deficit, the budget deficit, and the exchange rate work. Things won't be pretty, though it'll take longer than ten years for the situation to come to a head, but the US won't declare bankruptcy like Russia did in '98. Read this for a current analysis.

American manufacturing is in serious decline

Not true. The manufacturing output of the US and other first world nations has continuously increased, but fewer workers are needed due to greatly increased productivity. This is a good thing.

There's still good journalism in America, but you have to read it, not watch it:

The New York Times is widely derided for having a "liberal bias," but there is still no paper in the US that covers as much of what is going on in the world today and presents as wide a range of intelligent and interesting commentary. The print edition is jam-packed with info, and while people complain about the fact that you have to register to get free news from NYT online, it's more than worth the money. ;-)

The Christian Science Monitor, despite the name is a scrupulously independent voice. Their print version is formatted not to bring you every ounce of news, but to pick and choose stories of interest from around the world. CSM doesn't focus on immediacy, which is quite refreshing in the era of instant news stories without any meat.

The Wall Street Journal takes flak because it represents the voice of The Man, but if you recognize that the Journal's bias is in favor of the capitalist marketplace, it's an excellent source of information. The reporting is solid and the range of coverage is impressive.

Getting back to the theme of going beyond knee-jerk immediacy, there are several excellent weekly and monthly magazines available in the states. I'm partial to The Economist, which is not published in the States, and so provides much more coverage of the rest off the world. I happen to agree with most of their editorial bias, but I sometimes disagree with it. One of the nice things about the Economist is that they state their views in a way that allows you to separate the facts from their views.

I'm also partial to The Atlantic, a monthly magazine that explores a wide range of issues. Their coverage of 9/11, the war in Afghanistan, and the war in Iraq has been superb for its depth, range of viewpoints, and clarity.

There are plenty of other great news sources in the United States. I merely listed some of my favorites. My point is that if you expect the television to provide you with serious news coverage, you'll continue to be disappointed. If you take the time to sift through a few print publications, you may be amazed at what's out there.

its not the thing to do anymore ? America bashing at its finest
you are a fucking prick I guess 250 BILLION dollars doesnt cut it anymore

/hates america bashers
/and threadjackers

That is what happens with the FCC today. It is used -by- the people who it was originally created to defend -against-.

Exactly. It's called regulatory capture.

Second try

In case you haven't heard, Microsoft (MSFT) has been deeply unprofitable since 1996, when it began to rely on holes in the GAAP accounting standards that allowed it to report historic profits in its NASDAQ filings. Large fund managers bought into it to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars, making MS at its peak ($700B) which for comparison made it the largest component of the S&P 500, the equivalent of the 16th largest country or ~1.5% of the GDP of Earth. Though billed (no pun intended) as a success story, when the bubble burst investors lost billions.

Who cares? The biggest funds involved were pension funds of large social programs across the US, e.g. the California Teachers Union, who automatically invest in S&P components at rates proportional to the components' value. MS paid for its bottom line with those peoples' money, so much so that pensioners are majority owners of MS today. Too bad for them that the bottom fell out of MS stock and their savings are worthless. But it did help create two of the richest personal accounts on Earth.

You could argue that this was all legal and that they won the king of the hill prize. Perhaps. But is it ethical to block GAAP reforms via corporate shills in Congress (e.g. Joe Lieberman) so your huge losses won't be exposed? Enron execs are being hung out to dry for being only slightly on the other side of that thin line in the sand. No, it's likely MS knew what it was up to. As Bill Parish, who broke the story, tells:

"Microsoft's perspective is best reflected by Bob Herbold, Chief Operating Officer, to whom the CFO reports. Bob very sincerely [explained the situation to Gates], "Bill, everyone is doing it.""

I would have absolutely no problem with H1Bs coming to the United States, if they were actually immigrants. Like the author said, that's how most Americans got to be here in the first place. I proudly welcome any and all Indian programmers as US citizens -- more talent and initiative benefits us in the long run, even if I have to compete harder for a job.

However, the flood of overseas workers are on sponsored visas, which means it's uncertain they'll actually get permanent residency status in the long run. Much of the money they receive tends to go to nest eggs or remittances, to be spent on making a life for themselves or their families back in the home country. Fifteen years later, they're running an outsourcing business and the US economy is left with squat.

Call me an imperialist, but I believe that if you want to benefit from the American economy, you should become an American (with all of the rights and responsibilities that entails). We should get rid of the H1B program and replace it with a more streamlined immigration process, a la Canada.

For Economist.com readers, there was a great article last July with some stats about the rising tide of remittances, and the degree to which many developing countries' economies are becoming dependant upon them.

Video games, while outselling movies (in dollars), don't have "video game stars" that can attract a large audience to a televised awards show. I guess the geniuses at SpikeTV saw a huge video game industry (around $20 billion), a relatively narrow demographic (young males), but no "video game stars" to sell the telecast. The result: babes and loud music.

Even the Oscars Scientific and Technical Awards ceremony is held at a seperate venue on a different date than the main awards ceremony. Only brief highlights of the Sci & Tech Awards are shown during the Oscars telecast. And guess what: they use babes (J Garn, Ch Ther, R Zell, S Hay, A Heche) to keep viewers from changing the channel.

But that remains ahead, and meanwhile Mr Bush's credibility has been considerably undermined not just by Guantánamo but also by two big things: by the sheer incompetence and hubristic thinking evident in the way in which his team set about the rebuilding of Iraq, once Saddam Hussein's regime had been toppled; and by the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, which strengthened the suspicion that the mistreatment or even torture of prisoners was being condoned.

Claiming that the Rev. Moon-owned Washington Times, the long-time Conservative lap-dog The Wall Street Journal, and most especially Fox News (which Rupert Murdoch explicitly founded as a right-wing news channel) are "less bias[ed]" simply reinforces the perception of your poor judgment one would form from your bizarre claim that running stories about Abu Ghraib would affect a newspaper's circulation to its detriment while at the same time singling out The Economist for "experienc[ing] strong growth." (By the way, the magazine that published the source material for most of the Abu Ghraib stories, Seymour Hersh's superb series of articles, the New Yorker, saw its circulation increase to 1,000,000 for the very first time in its 79 year history.)

So I think we can all pretty much assume that you have no idea what you're talking about. By the way, you know how many times the Abu Ghraib story ran on the Times front page - not sure where it appears on this Physicians for Human Rights page about Tibet which you cited, nor could I find anything on their page about Abu Ghraib - I would guess that the link here is a red herring. What I really want to know, though, is where you got your figures for how many times Hussein's very real acts of genocide (hey, look, Physicians for Human Rights were talking about Hussein's use of weapons of mass killing back in 1993, and they talked about Abu Ghraib!), extra-judicial execution, torture, violence against women were covered. I was not surprised to see that you have no figures or links to back up your assertions on that! I chose to link to Amnesty International coverage, by the way, because they are an organization that was heavily criticized for its response to the Abu Ghraib scandal as being too liberal and ignoring Hussein's mistreatment of the Iraqi people.

This is not a competition, "whose the bigger torturer?" This is not a case in which we can apply a calculus of torture and murder and use of weapons of mass killing and determine that so much torture in Abu Ghraib is justified because we are preventing the far greater tortures that Hussein committed. President Bush himself denounced the abuse of US prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Do you wonder why? It's because he at least realizes that the US has a responsiblity to rescue the people of Iraq from Hussein in a way that will not make them think there is no qualitative difference between us and Hussein, only a quantative one - which is something some of his most ardent supports do not seem to grasp. And people think GWB is stupid!

The US can

SOME say that a dollar spent on nuclear fusion is a dollar wasted. And many, many dollars have been spent on it, as physicists try to duplicate, in a controlled setting, the process by which the sun shines. Since 1951, America alone has devoted more than $17 billion (see chart) to working out how to fuse atomic nuclei so as to generate an inexhaustible supply of clean, safe power.

The claim that this money is wholly wasted may not be entirely fair, though. Fusion science has made a big return on this investment in the form of a new universal constant. This constant is the number 30, a figure that has for the past half-century or so been cited almost religiously by researchers as the number of years that it will take before fusion power becomes a commercial reality. ...[continues]

I believe the term they use in Silicon Valley (and Cryptonomicon) is "Fuck You Money". The Economist's current estimate is about $10 million.

Actually, "bluyins" (as far as the pronounciation goes) is pretty correct.

Yeah, this is common enough to be mentioned in this fun article about languages borrowing words from English.

Hmm . . . sounds like more disinformation for me . . perhaps you beleive in censorship and other illiberal policies of the Chinese government.

From The Economist "The World in 2005" Which is available now in the US and most of the western world and eastern world (including Taiwan). The Economist is arguably the most well respected business news weekly in the world.

Page 86: Taiwan ranks 21 in the worldwide quality of life index. China ranks 60.

Page 82: In a world poll, people ranked "Political and Civil Liberty in Your Country" as the third most important thing for personal happiness. Only "Personal Health" and "Family Relations" ranked higher. I won't even bother to get into details of China's record on Civil Liberties compared with Taiwan. I think that the lack of free elections in China and the fact that you mocked the free elections in Taiwan speak for themself.

Page 36:Average Gross Wages China under US$200/month. Taiwan over US$1500/month.

Its quite clear to me which country has done the better job of taking care of its people. The success of China is limited to a small economic region. The overall population of China is still very very poor.

I don't know where you get your information from, but I would suggest searching out some unbiased sources for information when comparing China to Taiwan. I can only assume that growing up in China, your information may not be impartial . . .

well life for this techie hasn't been too bad. but before you drop a zillion bucks on that mba i recommend giving this article about increasing mba applicants rising inversely proportional to mba job offers a read.

The Economist has a good article on how the legal system is running the schools amok: "Who needs a bad teacher when you can get a worse judge?"

I see the problems being the following:

- too much leeway in defining curricula
- too difficult to fire useless teachers
- too difficult to censure/expel misfit kids
- too much "money = results" mentality
- not enough standardized testing
- too much pandering to the LCD (the troglodytes)
- too much of the pervasive culture of ignorance that the US peddles in. Kids don't get education from the media any longer.
- disengaged parents
- subcultures: Black and Chicano subcultures in the US just don't emphasize the importance of school as much as others (Asian/Euro-Americana cultures for instance). It's time that ghetto culture is not sexed up and sold to us on CDs because it doesn't deserve any clout.

There's a problem with test methodology here.

One problem is how we count money. $1 in the US is not $1 in the Czech republic. You can get a very nice meal at a restaurant in the Czech republic for under $5 (US) (groceries/rent/etc are much cheaper as well). Trickle this down, and the Czech republic can afford to pay their teachers much less while maintaining a better standard of living than US teachers.

Another issue: it's mandatory for everyone in the US to go to school. Everyone. In other countries, it's voluntary or not strictly enforced. Because it's mandatory, not all parents really care about their kids performance. My mom read to me since I was born, and I learned math skills at home before I ever went to school. I don't think it's purely coincidental I managed a 650 in math on the SATs while going to public schools my entire life.

Lastly, immigrants. The majority come from poorer countries. The proble is that kids who never went to school in Haiti, come over to the US and take this test, aren't going to do so hot. In addition to not having an education, malnourishment is a problem in many poorer counties. Early malnourishment has been scientifically shown to have a stifling and sometimes permanent effect on intellectual capacity.

I like the use of empirical methodology to measure these things, but we have to study the data a bit more thoroughly before making conclusions (even radical things like spending more money on foreign aid to the world's poorest countries instead of more nuclear subs we're never going to use).

When I was in England in the late 90's there was debate about whether or not the UK should use the Euro. They (the english decided against it.)

The Euro has increased a lot in value relative to other currencies this year so it would make sense that it seems like overcharging. Much like the dollar vs. the canadian dollar. There is no equity in currency values.
The Ecomists big mac index shows that big macs cost different ammounts in different places, even adjusted for currency differences. Why wouldn't music?

Is apple expected to change the cost of songs every couple months due to currency valuations?

I agree. This type of scare mongering is, in my opinion, very dangerous to our society. The Berkeley study got a lot of hype (not enough for most liberals), yet their study has been thoroughly DEBUNKED.

Here's a choice quote from one of the debunking statisticians: "If I were to get this article as (an academic) reviewer, I would turn it around and say they were fishing to find a result," Stewart said. "I know of no theory or no prior set of intuitions that would have led me to run the analysis they ran."

Talk about timely, the Economist magazine is this week running an article about the extreme liberal bias of American academia, and the hypocrisy of it. (think: we love diversity, so long as you are a liberal). I say ENOUGH of the rabble rousing crap. I've had enough of the academic liberal elites using their credentials to foist lies on the American people.

I agree we should always try to find flaws in any voter-related processes (electronic or otherwise). But spreading lies to undermine an election is tantamount to treason, in my book.

The dollar is falling. If Bush succeeds in privatizing social security, it will require going a couple trillion further into debt, and the dollar will fall still further.

Your "lesson on tax cuts" is both apocryphal and idiotic. First, when a tax cut is given to those who have the least, each dollar is more valuable (more likely to be spent on necessities) than if the same tax cut is given to those who pay the most. Second, it's inappropriate to describe those earning the least as "paying nothing" because the (non-PhD-holding) author has ignored payroll deductions. Finally, those who "paid nothing" are actually worse off than before the tax cut, because of corresponding cuts in government services to the poor.

Let's face it. The rich loved the tax cuts. The rest of us were hypnotized by a $300 check.

For a nice counter to this absurd analogy, find a copy of Al Frankin's "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them". It has an illustrative dialogue between an imagined wealthy lawyer who made out like a bandit on Bush's tax cut, and a waitress whose small tax break was swamped by cuts in government services.

Regarding your barb towards the McCain-Feingold bill, why should having more money give you more control over the political process? Didn't we do away with that sort of thing in the 1800's?

Please do yourself a favor and consult this week's Economist , particularly the cover article and the "Special Report" halfway down the right-hand column. I hate to fob you off like this on an external source, even one as intelligent as The Economist--I'd prefer to address your bizarre misconceptions directly and individually--but I'm pressed for time, so I hope you'll accept my apologies.

I will, however, take a moment to point out that one serious concern to we Americans is that the dollar will lose its status as an international currency of reserve--notably, the price of gold has nearly doubled since the late 1990s--and this loss will make it much harder for our country to borrow money and finance private industry.

Please do read the articles I mentioned, and perhaps you will understand why so many people are terrified at our administration's callous neglect of our decades-old strong dollar policy.

"Revaluate" is indeed an uncommon word; I believe the word you were looking for was "revalue." As you indicate, Chinese authorities have indicated a willingness to repeg the yuan to the dollar at a higher rate, though a completely free-floating yuan is still some time off due to concerns about the fragility of the nation's, indeed all Asia's, financial system.

Incidentally, this week's Economist has a pair of articles (one, two) you might be interested in.

"Revaluate" is indeed an uncommon word; I believe the word you were looking for was "revalue." As you indicate, Chinese authorities have indicated a willingness to repeg the yuan to the dollar at a higher rate, though a completely free-floating yuan is still some time off due to concerns about the fragility of the nation's, indeed all Asia's, financial system.

Incidentally, this week's Economist has a pair of articles (one, two) you might be interested in.

I feel the VOIP explosion is upon us...

Check this article from the Economist

Goddamnit, I'm tired of these stupid "wtf japan=tentacle rape, suicide, geishas, robots, cults LOLOL01!!1!" posts that people spew on the internet. Those things (with the exception of robots) are considered fringe in Japan, and it sure as hell is not representative of the country. Does it ever occur to you that the reason why those things became so prominent in western views of Japan was precicely because they were exotic and strange, and not 'normal', even in Japan?

And the reason they're using robots is because their birthrate is so low that their population is actually going to shrink in the coming years. Traditionally, Japanese families had lots of kids, and one of them would be expected to stay home and take care of his/her parents. However with many families having only one child or none, people are finding that Japan doesn't have much of a governmental or private care system for the elderly.

Most industrialzed nations like the U.S. are dealing with the same issues, but they're less severe for a few reasons:

1) They take in more immigrants, the U.S. in particular. They add to the economy and can pay for native workers to care for the elderly, so it helps. If the U.S. stopped immigration entirely, their population growth would barely break even.

2) Their life expectancy is lower. Japan has one of the highest life expectancies in the world, so there are a lot more old people in Japan than in the U.S.

So it's no suprise that they're relying on technology to help, especially with the Japanese love of technology. However, it might be more helpful to import immigrant workers, but I doubt Japan will do so.

Sources: The Economist, CNN

Economies can get truly richer only through increased productivity growth, either from technological advances or from more efficient production thanks to international trade. Thus China's integration into the world economy genuinely creates wealth. The same cannot be said of all the "wealth" produced by stockmarket or housing bubbles.

I do not have the figures available, but for your argument to be correct, you must claim that we have had 0% (or .5% or whatever you're trying to say) productivity increase. Everybody knows that we have dramatically increased our productivity over the last fifty years and especially the last fifteen years, which is why America is the richest country (has the highest purchasing power) in the world. Oh and by the way, the price of the average home is about 10% higher than it was last year. But that doesn't take into account inflation or America's increased purchasing power during the last year.

A 100-level college economics class would have saved you the embarrassment of your post, and me the time to correct it.

Actually, the AIDS education groups have more money at their disposal now than they are able to spend. Most of them have not been able to scale their operations as fast as the US government, WHO, and other governments and private groups have been increasing funds. They are also having problems coordinating all the different aid groups and governments to get treatment/education where it is needed.

trying to remember where I read about this ... well here is an article in the economist . It mainly talks about some peoples complaints with the money that is being given (mostly that it could go farther if the people giving it didn't require it to be spent in certain ways), but gets into some of the logistical issues towards the ends. Don't know if this article is available to nonsubscribers - googling for variations of the words 'ACHAP PEPFAR overload' might find other references.

http://www.economist.com/people/displayStory.cfm?s tory_id=3428729

The failure of Chinese society is the failure of its culture. Look at Taiwan and Singapore, both being Chinese states. In the latter, the Chinese practice eugenics and have repeatedly banned or censored journals like "The Economist". In the former, the Chinese actually support all the geopolitical objectives of Beijing, including the integration of Tibet into "One China".

The link to large and unwieldy software projects is classified as PREMIUM CONTENT which, unfortunately, I, and many other people, do not have access to.

Can anyone please share it with the rest of us ?

Thank you !

Here's the Economist's definition of Liberal

Yea, but I'd rather believe anything the Economist says, than anything you say. Marx was a load of shit. Capitalism is the Natural Order of Things translated into Economics, unless of course you belive in Creationism (the kind that disputes evolution, not the kind that says God is in the details somewhere.._, in which case there's absolutely no point arguing with you at all. Further, the WHOLE reason The Economist was started by Walter Bagehot, and a load of other, was "To Promote the values of Liberty and Freedom, in Economics and Politics" - so naturally it is displaying a "bias". LinkyBut it's ok, we still need a few marxists around to remind us of what not to do, and to be able to form arguments for capitalism in a well reasoned manner to dispute everything you throw at them. But I, on the other hand am too lazy. So I'm just going to ask you to name the most successful Marxist/Communist/Socialist countries in existence today, the sizes of their population, and the mark they've left on the world, compared to the the champions of Capitalism (i.e. Hong Kong, Singapore, USA, UK, China in that order).

I didn't see any articles on Economist.com related to outsourcing

Actually, they've given this topic quite a bit of coverage over the last year or so.

Two weeks ago, the Economist published a survey on outsourcing. Their "surveys" are extensive reports, consisting of about 14-16 printed pages, and 10-12 separate articles. It covers the topic from several different angles, and its helpful to see outsourcing in all its complexity, rather than the "Indians took my job, outsourcing is evil," perspective that dominates here.

That the European welfare states are collapsing-- but they just keep plugging along.

But not as well as Britain after Britain made their economy more market-oriented.

Sorry, but I wasn't referring to the primary article, the User Interface one (as I mentioned), I was writing in responce to one of the secondary links "The Economist writes against software complexity".

You make valid points, but irrelavent to the point I was attempting to make with my post. Bad UI is a completely different issue (and will always be an issue).

You can't compare it to air, because spectrum is a scarce resource.

When I clicked on the link, and ended up HERE what I got is an incomplete article.

Anyone here got a copy at hand to share ?

and a good article from the economist giving more examples of homebrew coders and how they fit in.

and a good article from the economist giving more examples of homebrew coders and how they fit in.

The Economist has a timely opinion piece about the patent problem in their most recent issue.
http://economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?stor y_id=3376181"

I realize they [the Economist] only print on dead trees...

Minor nitpick; they do put out a website http://economist.com/. YOu have to pay for access to a lot of it, but it is there.

Tell that to France. They have a GREAT nuclear program, AND lower energy costs. The generate over 75% of their electricity from nuclear power.

1. Did you even read your own link? It says "France has been one of the slowest countries in the EU to open its electricity and natural gas sectors to competition in line with EU regulations." Why? Because they are not competitive. In fact "In France, the nation that made the biggest investment in nuclear energy, the national utility, Electricite de France, is carrying a $30 billion debt, mostly because of its nuclear investments"

"And while French nuclear advocates like to praise the nation's cheap domestic power prices, in reality, when compared to 10 other European Union nations, France ranks fifth in domestic power prices. In fact, since 1985, France's electricity prices have seen the smallest decrease in the EU. And while four new reactors are under construction there, none have been initiated since 1996."

Your link also says: "French government organized a national energy policy debate, which focused on determining France's energy mix for the next 30 years, particularly the status of nuclear power and the future role of renewables...Key of the aspects of the white paper included: increasing the use of renewables..."

Smart engineers are able to solve problems....they leave that to management.

2. You read too much Dilbert. Engineering is finding the best solution to a constellation of problems. Those problems include cost, schedule, profit, economics, safety, nuclear proliferation, waste disposal, operational reliability, etc. etc. etc. If you think you can develop a 100% perfect system (not 6 nines, or 9 nines, or whatever, but perfect) you are naive and potentially dangerous to those who use your products. You have two technological design options, one where the stakes are VERY high no matter how unlikely, but has NO advantages over the other path, which tromps it on almost every measure. Would you pick the first one? Just cause its technologically wizbang geeky?

Nuclear proliferation...Pretty much a non-issue,

3. Don't you even read the news? How did North Korea build their nuclear weapons? With a breeder reactor built for power generation. Many other countries have followed this same formula, A nuclear power plant is the fast track to nuclear weapons. Read, learn. (Try "Nuclear Choices", MIT press for a nonbiased technical but down to earth read).

For example, solar power is definitely NOT cheaper than nuclear power on any meaningful scale.

4. Wrong. On capital costs alone solar is competitive with nuclear, and after you consider operational costs, security cost, waste disposal costs, decommissioning costs, and etc - solar tromps it. Nuclear cost $2/W in capital cost alone. New photovoltaic technologies are being produced for $1/W, and wind hydro and geothermal even less, never mind all the other "hidden" external costs of nuclear. In fact, nuclear After a trillion-dollar taxpayer investment, it delivers little more U.S. energy than wood. Globally, it produces less energy than renewables."

That's a policy issue not a technical one. Let the gov't build the plants then

5. Of course its not a technical issue. Technically Nuclear power works just fine. But outside of science experiments, just because something is cool doesn't mean it should be done. It would be cool to freeze your arm in liquid nitrogen, hit it with a hammer and watch it shatter to

"the discrepancy between the Lancet estimate and the aggregated press reports is not as large as it seems at first. The Lancet figure implies that 60,000 people have been killed by violence, including insurgents, while the aggregated press reports give a figure of 15,000, counting only civilians. Nonetheless, Dr Roberts points out that press reports are a "passive-surveillance system". Reporters do not actively go out to many random areas and see if anyone has been killed in a violent attack, but wait for reports to come in. And, Dr Roberts says, passive-surveillance systems tend to undercount mortality. For instance, when he was head of health policy for the International Rescue Committee in the Congo, in 2001, he found that only 7% of meningitis deaths in an outbreak were recorded by the IRC's passive system. The study is not perfect. But then it does not claim to be. The way forward is to duplicate the Lancet study independently, and at a larger scale."

"The centre of its estimated range of death tolls--the most probable number according to the data collected and the statistics used--is almost 100,000. And even though the limits of that range are very wide, from 8,000 to 194,000, the study concludes with 90% certainty that more than 40,000 Iraqis have died. This is an extraordinary claim, and so requires extraordinary evidence. Is the methodology used... sound enough for reliable conclusions to be drawn from it?"

"Dr Roberts used a technique called clustering, which has been employed extensively in other situations where census data are lacking, such as studying infectious disease in poor countries... They interviewed a total of 7,868 people in 988 households. But the relevant sample size for many purposes--for instance, measuring the uncertainty of the analysis--is 33, the number of clusters. "...the data from individuals within a given cluster are highly correlated. Statistically, 33 is a relatively small sample (though it is the best that could be obtained by a small number of investigators in a country at war). That is the reason for the large range around the central value of 98,000, and is one reason why that figure might be wrong. (Though if this is the case, the true value is as likely to be larger than 98,000 as it is to be smaller.) It does not, however, mean, as some commentators have argued in response to this study, that figures of 8,000 or 194,000 are as likely as one of 98,000. Quite the contrary. The farther one goes from 98,000, the less likely the figure is."

"The second reason the figure might be wrong is if there are mistakes in the analysis, and the whole exercise is thus unreliable. Nan Laird, a professor of biostatistics at the Harvard School of Public Health, who was not involved with the study, says that she believes both the analysis and the data-gathering techniques used by Dr Roberts to be sound. She points out the possibility of "recall bias"--people may have reported more deaths more recently because they did not recall earlier ones. However, because most people do not forget about the death of a family member, she thinks that this effect, if present, would be small. Arthur Dempster, also a professor of statistics at Harvard, though in a different department from Dr Laird, agrees that the methodology in both design and analysis is at the standard professional level. However, he raises the concern that because violence can be very localised, a sample of 33 clusters really might be too small to be representative."

"This concern is highlighted by the case of

I mean the 48% that find this an abhorent monstrosity that will be allowed to continue because Jeebus hates homos and Muslims.

The Iraqis are quite grateful that the vast majority stand for the right thing

Yeah, they had to change it from "Still Better Than Saddam" after this happened. ;)

That's what "demagogue" means to me,

Ok, so you use words without knowing their meanings.

At least some of the shit promised by Bush was realistic.

Kerry promised enlarged spending and high taxes, while Bush wanted increased spending and lower taxes. One of those perspectives is infinitely more realistic than the other, in that it at least recognizes minimal arthimetic.

because Bush is a fucking moron.

If you think he's stupid, then why did you just say he had more realistic ideas? Morons typically have trouble accurately planning for the future.

This article from The Economist suggests that Kyoto-land companies may not lose out compared to American companies if an efficient emissions trading system is set up. This means that businesses will make emissions cuts where it makes most economic sense to do so. Also many multinationals that do business in Kyoto-land may choose to implement new Kyoto-related measures across the corporation. For example DuPont has cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 65% compared with 1990.