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Umm.. did you look at the picture of it? That doesn't look like a bomb. It's a bread board with some wires in it. You know what looks more like a bomb? A cell phone. Fortnately they didn't arrest everyone who had one of those!

Take a look at these pictures. What she was wearing looks like a mini version of one of THESE. None of which, looks anything like a cell phone, btw, but look strikingly similar to what she had on.

Other pictures.
HERE
and HERE (this actually looks more like what was on her shirt, minus the wires)

Of course, she could have easily ended up like THIS guy who was only wearing a vest with a bunch of pockets! (warning, graphic)

Ah, screw it... use google images and search for "suicide bomb vest". You won't find any cell phones there, but you might find a few that look very similar to her shirt!

So I went about researching this myself (thanks for the input so far) and found a few good links...

Although the layout of this page is awful (and they beg for click-fraud abuse), it does show a few really good maps of the current undersea cable infrastructure. Pretty neat stuff.

http://eyeball-series.org/cable-eyeball.htm

Pot. Kettle. Black. In essence, you have just pointed out that you believe the current "flat earth" economic theories that have been spouted for decades.

Capitalism does one thing really well. It allocates scarce resources efficiently. As oil diminishes prices will rise and demand will fall. The market will clear. This isn't good news for consumers and those of us raised on $15 a barrel oil. It isn't good news if you own a gas guzzeling SUV. It isn't good news for unemployment.

• Define your point of view when you say "Efficient". If you mean "Bread is scarce, people are starving (going without), I will have enough money to by a loaf of bread, but you will starve", then do you think I'll really be motivated by economics when I can just get a gun, kill you, take the bread, and feed myself (and my family)? Do you really think that anyone will care that "the market has cleared"?
• If the prior sentence shows an "externality" of economics, then what happens when you have millions of people that become "externalities"? Do they behave like rational economic consumers? Or do they fight in a civil war over scarce resources? Will they show restraint due to "ethics" or "morals", even though they are starving? In other parts of the planet, where people ARE starving, have they been peaceful? (Hint: see Africa)
• "It isn't good news for unemployment". Holy oblivious statement, Batman! If there is no employment, then how will people obtain the money they need to purchase goods and services? If there is no demand for goods and services, what will that do to the capitalists running the businesses that make them money? What will that do to the economy as a whole?

But it isn't the end of the world. We will end up living in a more energy efficient world. We will end up using other forms of power (solar, nuclear, coal, gas, etc.) Humankind will not be wiped out. Democracy will not die.

• It is the end of the world if you die of starvation. At least, from your own point-of-view.
• Yes, we will be in a very very very energy efficient world, I don't disagree. How that world looks might be something we do disagree on.
• All other forms of power combined would not be enough to replace the energy used from refined oil.
• Oil is used for more than just energy. Drastic changes would be required for the way we live in the US.
• There are strong indications (but nothing more than theory) that the earth's human population is 3 times larger than can be sustained; the theory more-or-less ties human population growth to the availability of cheap energy. Anyone care to prove or disprove this theory? Either way, what does it say about long-term prospects for the human race?
• Democracy IS dying. For shit's sake, our national government has all but removed the bill of rights, if not in name (on paper), then in spirit. Total Information Awareness? The ADVISE software project, just recently announced in slashdot to tie together internet communications (websites, blogs, IM chat)? Our President admitting that he's all for domestic spy programs? The push for a national ID card? This is Seriously Evil Shit.(tm) Any of this ring a bell? Papers, please.

You state that capitalism can't deal with this. I think this is the only thing c

> Asking Google to censor it just means that the "terrorists" will just go to
> Microsoft's new beta map.

Or Cryptome.org, with it's collection of satellite images:

http://www.eyeball-series.org/

Jesus, could this "story's" headline be any less thought out? When Adm. Poindexter was leading the Total Information Awareness project, this sort of digital dumpster diving was news three years ago. If someone wants to report on something fresh, they'll need to exploit search engines to find agents when you don't know who they are.

Sinus0idal: hmmm, I'm sure the whitehouse roof isn't quite that plain in real life :-)

ajm: Nor are the buildings next door a flat green color on top.

You're both quite correct. See the SecurityFocus article "Secret Service airbrushes aerial photos". Note that the link to the old vs new images has changed since the article was written - they're now here. You might notice a remarkable similarity between a couple of the retouched pictures and Google's White House imagery.

Predictive behavior analysis requires lots and lots of data so the signal can be filtered out of the noise... for a reminder, you might want to refresh yourself on Poindexter's Total Information Awareness project.

Go nuts.