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Isn't traffic usually higher during business days than during the weekends? If so, during a pandemic I'd expect lower traffic, not higher.

Exactly. But as a thought experiment, let's stop and consider what would happen if every single child and adult in the country stayed home for a day and watched TV or surfed the web. In terms of Internet traffic and operations, how exactly would that be any different than every single weeknight between the hours of 8PM and 10PM? How about during the holidays where there is an entire week out of the year where almost no one goes work or school?

Why do big government agencies never seem to realize that the Internet is really pretty robust as it is? Can we stop already with the wacky movie-plot security theories?

Whoever in the GAO wasted the American people's taxes on this asinine venture needs to be reported via FraudNet.

The actual report from the GAO is available here: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d108.pdf

Hmmm. I think that the 35 billion is for BOTH Ares I and V, NOT ares I.

I've been double-checking, and it doesn't seem to be. In fact, it looks like the estimates are higher now. From a recent GAO report (although this does include the Orion cost as well):

http://www.hobbyspace.com/nucleus/?itemid=15541
http://gao.gov/products/GAO-09-844

Nevertheless, NASA estimates that Ares I and Orion represent up to $49 billion of the over $97 billion estimated to be spent on the Constellation program through 2020. While the agency has already obligated more than $10 billion in contracts, at this point NASA does not know how much Ares I and Orion will ultimately cost, and will not know until technical and design challenges have been addressed.

http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-05-806

For those who don't want to read the report, this GAO study from 2003-2004 indicated that college textbooks were a 6 *billion* dollar industry, plus another several billion for K-12.

This industry has a lot of weight to throw around when it comes to pressuring congressmen.

The causes of the X-33 program failure are the subject of considerable debate. Here are several good sources of information. You can see that the program received criticism from the GAO, and other sources. I've seen several references to the DoD effort to fund the flight test program, and that request being over-ruled by the Bush administration. I can't recall if these sources below include that claim or not, but you can probably find one or more if you use Google.

excellent X-33 overview
X-33 VentureStar what really happened?
New Mission for Lockheed Spaceplane?
X-33 and NASA's Proposed 2001-2005 Space Launch Initiative
GAO: SPACE TRANSPORTATION Status of the X-33 Reusable Launch Vehicle Program
GAO: SPACE TRANSPORTATION Progress of the X-33 Reusable Launch Vehicle Program
NASA Defends Itself Against X-33 Critique

The causes of the X-33 program failure are the subject of considerable debate. Here are several good sources of information. You can see that the program received criticism from the GAO, and other sources. I've seen several references to the DoD effort to fund the flight test program, and that request being over-ruled by the Bush administration. I can't recall if these sources below include that claim or not, but you can probably find one or more if you use Google.

excellent X-33 overview
X-33 VentureStar what really happened?
New Mission for Lockheed Spaceplane?
X-33 and NASA's Proposed 2001-2005 Space Launch Initiative
GAO: SPACE TRANSPORTATION Status of the X-33 Reusable Launch Vehicle Program
GAO: SPACE TRANSPORTATION Progress of the X-33 Reusable Launch Vehicle Program
NASA Defends Itself Against X-33 Critique

In 1998, Congress made identity theft a federal crime when it enacted the Identity Theft and Assumption Deterrence Act (Identity Theft Act).5 The act made it a criminal offense for a person to "knowingly transfer, possess, or use without lawful authority," another person's means of identification "with the intent to commit, or to aid or abet, or in connection with, any unlawful activity that constitutes a violation of federal law, or that constitutes a felony under any applicable state or local law." Under the act, a name or SSN is considered a "means of identification," and a number of cases have been prosecuted under this law.

Now, with that, I would seek a lawyer who would take this case (maybe even some high profile lawyer or a member of the EFF) and clearly outline the above in a written letter with your signature informing them that they are in violation of the "Identity Theft and Assumption Deterrence Act (Identity Theft Act)" and if they do not remove your Social Security Numbers, you will take legal action. If your case is solid enough, you might be able to really stick it to DirectTV for storing personal private data "without lawful authority" as they do not have the written consent of every customer.

In 1998, Congress made identity theft a federal crime when it enacted the Identity Theft and Assumption Deterrence Act (Identity Theft Act).5 The act made it a criminal offense for a person to "knowingly transfer, possess, or use without lawful authority," another person's means of identification "with the intent to commit, or to aid or abet, or in connection with, any unlawful activity that constitutes a violation of federal law, or that constitutes a felony under any applicable state or local law." Under the act, a name or SSN is considered a "means of identification," and a number of cases have been prosecuted under this law.

Now, with that, I would seek a lawyer who would take this case (maybe even some high profile lawyer or a member of the EFF) and clearly outline the above in a written letter with your signature informing them that they are in violation of the "Identity Theft and Assumption Deterrence Act (Identity Theft Act)" and if they do not remove your Social Security Numbers, you will take legal action. If your case is solid enough, you might be able to really stick it to DirectTV for storing personal private data "without lawful authority" as they do not have the written consent of every customer.

• Innovative aerospike engine for better performance with fewer moving parts than SSME
• SSTO lifting body design, vertical takeoff, horizontal landing (and importantly, horizontal processing, cheaper and more flexible launch infrastructure)
• novel metalic thermal protection system, more reliable, more durable, dramatically easier to service
• vehicle designed for high flight rates, quick turn-around time (no noxious propellant for on-orbit maneuvering system, contrast the Shuttle, for example)
• VentureStar provided simplified, standardized ("container" based) payload integration, rather than an orbiting space station capability like the Shuttle

Hell. I'll give you a very long list. If you think it's bad enough that the kids are dead, look up how they died. Check out Michelle Sutton's story. A while back the GAO did an investigative report on it. Written report here. Video of hearing here. There was a second report and hearing as well but that mainly concentrated on deceptive marketing practices (how the kids end up in these places). Has anything been done yet about it? Nope. The congressman Miller acted mighty angry in the hearings but the regulation legislation get anywhere (not that it would have done much anyway)... nope!

It's standard practice to at least mention what an acronym stands for before using it, especially when it's not well known. The GAO is the Government Accountability Office, which is apparently designed to provide some oversight to what Congress does.

Which is why I call BS, there is something we aren't being told here. They need to itemize that budget. Theres a website for that. gao.gov, I may come back with my findings

I have carried a one inch blade with me every time I've flown. It always passes without question, even though I put it in plain view in the X-ray bin.

The rules include a very difficult to parse list that says scissors with up to 4 inch blades are allowed, it is easy for someone to read it as all blades up to 4 inches are allowed.

Here, on Page 5

Description of Prohibited Items
Axes and hatchets; bows and arrows; ice axes/ice picks; knives of any length, except rounded-blade butter and plastic cutlery; meat cleavers; razor-type blades, such as box cutters, utility knives, and razor blades not in a cartridge, but excluding safety razors; sabers; scissors, metal with pointed tips and a blade length greater than 4 inches as measured from the fulcrum; swords; throwing stars (martial arts).

The government did a study a few years aback, regarding the legitimacy of online genetic testing companies. The whole report can be found here: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d06977t.pdf Their findings are a bit disturbing to say the least, it seems like some of the genetic testing companies out there try to sell you their "nutritional supplements" and none of the companies that were tested seemed to provide solid, accurate results. There also seems to be a lack of oversight regarding the procedures.

GAO study between the years 1996-2000 which found that 61% of all American corporations paid NO FED TAXES

I assume you're referring to this GAO report

Take a look at just the small corporations; that is, those with gross receipts of less than $50M. So we're talking about maybe a couple hundred employees at most, even in a labor-intensive business. In a capital-intensive business, or anything selling a low-margin product, and we're talking about a dozen people or so. It's no surprise at all that many of these companies are either (a) not profitable yet; (b) just managing to pay the owners' living expenses; or (c) happen to not be profitable in every year, but sometimes earn a profit.

Now, the graph shows that, out of "large" businesses, 30-50% pay corporate income taxes, much more reasonable than the 61% you cite. That's not really a surprise, because (c) still applies to large corporations.

Businesses aren't magical profit machines. Sometimes they make money and sometimes they don't. In competitive markets, it's challenging to make any money at all, and you just basically pay the salaries of the employees and your lease payments. On the whole, yes, corporations make money, but not every year.

due mostly to the process of "profit laundering" in the Caymans and various other joints

Cite your source. The GAO report's 61% figure is dominated by small corporations, which don't have the money to fly around the world just to open bank accounts, nor do they have the money to pay the big accounting firms to shave off a few tax dollars. The large corporations that don't pay taxes are, as I said, a much more reasonable 30-50%, which can be expected with the up-and-down nature of profits year to year.

Now, that figure has risen to around, or over 73%.

I didn't see this number, but if true, reinforces my point. We are in troubled economic times, so it's no surprise that fewer corporations are profitable this year, and so fewer are subject to the double taxation.

The entire stock market is based entirely on future profits of companies, and those profits are all taxable. So, either a lot of stockholders are being really dumb, or profits do exist, and taxes are paid on those profits. Any time the company avoids the double-taxation, it also shorts the stockholders on their money. And generally, the business incentives are in favor of stockholders (who can hire and fire board members), not against. So the incentives are in favor of profits, not against.

Now, that being said, I'm sure that there are all kinds of tricks to keep a business from being profitable even though the people might make money. Bonuses, extra employee benefits, and higher salaries can all prevent the double taxation. And there are interests that drive this, as well, like executives that stand in line for a huge bonus, or unions that demand higher compensation; both at the expense of stockholders. However, eventually the money will be taxed as income to someone, so it will at least be single-taxed.

It isnt just social security...

The national debt is now over 11 trillion dollars and there hasn't been a real budget surplus since 1969.

The federal government has borrowed money and can not pay the prior lenders back, so they borrow more money in order to do so. This has been going on for so long that only a few people still recognize it as an active ponzi scheme, as is evident by the ignorant people modding my post as a troll.

The interest payments on the debt will crest half a trillion dollars this year, and will be over a trillion/year by the time Obama's 1st term is up. The government will likely borrow more from social security (why not? its doomed anyways) in order to pay off prior lenders as it becomes more and more difficult to find new lenders.

There are other areas where the government is actively ponzi as well, such as medicare (medicare is a bigger problem than social security.)

Check out (U.S. Government Accounting Office) http://www.gao.gov/cghome/d08446cg.pdf to see how grim the pyramid really is.

It wont be possible to take down the pyramids through force (taxation at gunpoint) for much longer. If ponzi could have gone out and robbed some banks, he could have paid off all of his lenders. But imagine the point where even if he robbed every bank in the country he couldn't pay them off. America is pretty much there, right now, at the point of no return.

The most efficiently run medical payment service in this country right now is medicare with over 95% efficiency in terms of money going to treatment vs. overhead.

I've found this report that specifically talks about how INEFFICIENT Medicare is and makes recommendations to change that.

This USA Today article complains that Medicare funds the vast majority of residency training in the USA. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it is a substantial amount of money that is not going to treatment as you said.

This report says fraud is costing in the billions. And this article says that fraud is a growing problem in Medicare costing $60 billion per year and says that fewer than 5%... that's 5% of claims are audited.

According to this Congressional Research Service report Medicare's budget is $420 billion for 2009. If $60 billion is just fraud, that means nearly 15% of Medicare's budget is NOT going to treatment not including all the rest of Medicare's expenses (funding residency, other misc overhead).

Sorry, but to say that Medicare is efficient is just plain wrong.

The most efficiently run medical payment service in this country right now is medicare with over 95% efficiency in terms of money going to treatment vs. overhead.

I've found this report that specifically talks about how INEFFICIENT Medicare is and makes recommendations to change that.

This USA Today article complains that Medicare funds the vast majority of residency training in the USA. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it is a substantial amount of money that is not going to treatment as you said.

This report says fraud is costing in the billions. And this article says that fraud is a growing problem in Medicare costing $60 billion per year and says that fewer than 5%... that's 5% of claims are audited.

According to this Congressional Research Service report Medicare's budget is $420 billion for 2009. If $60 billion is just fraud, that means nearly 15% of Medicare's budget is NOT going to treatment not including all the rest of Medicare's expenses (funding residency, other misc overhead).

Sorry, but to say that Medicare is efficient is just plain wrong.

Honest question - who decides what American workers get paid? Does the average for the foreign workers have to be the same as the national average? Or some other metric? Or does the company just have to pay their own foreign and American workers the same for the same position?

The honest answer: the employer supplies the average in the Labor Condition Application (LCA) that makes up part of the application for an H1-b visa. They may use any source they please and the Employment and Training Administration which processes the LCA is permitted review the LCA only for completeness and obvious inaccuracies.

http://www.gao.gov/archive/2000/he00157.pdf

"H1B rules say that you specifically cannot pay them less"

According to the United States General Accounting Office the protections provided by the H1-b rules are ineffective.

For example (all quotes below taken directly from above linked document):
The rules also say that the Employment and Training Administration (ETA) has just 7 days to accept or reject an application and that they can only check for "completeness and obvious inaccuracies". Further, "ETA officials said employers can use almost any source to determine a prevailing wage and ETA does not have the authority to verify the authenticity of the information unless officials can demonstrate that the source is obviously inaccurate on its face. According to ETA officials, even if they know a prevailing wage is incorrect, they must approve the LCA (Labor Condition Application)." nb clarification of acronym in parentheses not in original document

"...An American worker has the right to go to a company, demand the salary, related qualifications and job descriptions. If the American citizen can prove that she is qualified for that position, then the company cannot continue hiring the H1B"

It is true that an American worker can demand an investigation, however, the company is not compelled to employ that individual if the investigation is unfavorable to the employer in question. I'd in fact be quite certain that the employer would specifically not employ the complaining individual.

Most damning of all IMO is the following passage from the report: "Although its authority to investigate is limited, there is evidence to believe that program noncompliance under the H-1B program exists. For example, even though there has not been a large number of complaints, WHD is significantly more likely to find violations in H-1B complaint cases than in complaint cases under other laws, according to WHD officials. As shown in table 1, over the last 4 1/2 years, 83 percent of the closed H-1B investigations found violations-compared to about 40 to 60 percent under other labor laws, according to Labor officials, and the amount of back wages owed to H-1B workers has been substantialâ"over $2 million, or about $3,800 per employee found to have back wages due. Finally, according to WHD officials, there are increasing instances of program abuse in which workers are brought into the United States to work, but are not employed and receive no pay until jobs are available (often called "benching"). Other violations have included employers withholding wages from employees who have voluntarily left for employment elsewhere. WHD's investigative findings are corroborated by a 1996 Labor Inspector General report that found 75 percent of the aliens were working for employers who did not adequately document the proper wage on the LCA and, when the actual wage could be determined, 19 percent of the H-1B workers were paid less than the wage specified on the LCA"

Here's a link for you.

Parent post not troll. Parent post just give information. That information available from General Accounting office. Moderator have agenda.

Link?

Cause the right-wing NY Times, covering a GAO report in the middle of '02, specifically disagrees with your "debunked myth" of damaged W keys.

Since it highlights the safety concerns of putting nuclear warheads on aircraft, this seems like a good excuse to resurrect a faded story that didn't live past the UK arms deal scandal. Whether or not the U.S. has, ahem, only a small number of serious incidents in its past, there's no doubting that we're guilty of significant negligence in our handling of nuclear weapons.

This first article was first published in July 2005, Lost Nuclear Warheads from a B-52 Now in Iran? and the second nearly a year later in April 2006, Cheney Violated International Law In Failing To Report The 1991 B-52 'Lost Nuke Incident' In Iran, According To Former Forensic Intelligence Officer. According to both, the incident involved W-69 SRAM warheads.

Here we have then Senator and later Secretary of Defense William Cohen's timely comments in 1992 regarding the W-69 warhead:

The Senator from Louisiana has pointed out--and I think very effectively, as has the Senator from New Mexico--that there are serious safety issues that have been raised... The Drell panel was the one that came to the conclusion that a substantial portion of our inventory still has major safety problems... The Senator from Louisiana started to deal with that, and he showed a photograph, which I did not see at the time, but perhaps it was that accident we had at Grand Forks Air Force Base, North Dakota, in 1980 with a B-52 bomber. That bomber was loaded with SRAM-A missiles, and the W-69 warhead on that SRAM-A missile is not equipped with insensitive high explosives, or with a fire resistant pit, or with the enhanced nuclear detonation safety systems. It has none of those safety systems. We were lucky in this particular tragedy. As I recall, it was Dan Rowen who used the expression `the fickle finger of fate.' We were spared a major catastrophe by that fickle finger of fate, because the wind was blowing the wrong way that day.

So the Pentagon and perhaps the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services let a known safety problem and potential environmental disaster persist between 1980 and 1992 and more likely since the weapon's development in 1972. That doesn't exactly inspire confidence. I think their sudden interest in safer warheads in 1992 and the subsequent retirement of the W69 (pg 27) add credibility to the story's allegations. They may have been willing to overlook the risks until chance conspired to illustrate that it's also a proliferation risk. It'll be a few more decades before we admit that we actually lost them.

Scary report http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d08957.pdf (i just started on it), but the gist seems to be:

Step 1: I'm going to start a company.
Step 2: I make 100,000 dollars profit.
Step 3: I pay myself 100,000 dollars salary.
Step 4: I didn't make any profit, so I pay no taxes.

Obviously some of the steps are done in a sneaky fashion, but broken down that's what happens. A similar thing happened with one of those big financial bank type companies that just got bailed out here in the US... they paid a bunch of huge million dollar "bonuses" right before they went bankrupt. How fucking convenient. And the stock holders got screwed.

Companies will screw people over in most cases. I don't trust them. Never did.

• Considering that the average CEO makes something like 400x the average worker in America, has been raiding pension plans, and the like, and has been getting away with it for the last eight years (or more), I'm not sure that wealth redistribution, as you call it, is that big a problem. The workers are putting in tons of work (albeit of a different expertise), and being cheated of overtime pay, healthcare and the works, while the executives in suits are riding high. Why is it such a problem that workers get something back from the government when companies are too greedy to give it to them in the first place? None of the wealthy seem to be complaining that the government just poured $700 billion into bailing them out on trickle-down economic theory.
• As someone who once worked in an accounting shop, I can tell you that I worked on the taxes of people who were making many times more than I was (as a graduate student) and who paid much less because of tax loopholes. The larger tax-rates applied to wealthy people was sometimes rationalized by my employers as being a way to get *something* out of the wealthy at all.
• The GAO Report "Comparison of Reported Tax Liabilities of Foreign- and U.S.-Controlled Corporations, 1998-2005" (PDF) is highly illuminating with regards to McCain's claim that US corporations are overtaxed:

  Most FDCDs and USCCs (US Controlled Corporations) that reported no tax liabilities in 2005 also reported that they had no current-year income.

  At the bottom of this first page of the report is a graph showing what "most" actually is, 70%. So only 30% of US corporations generally pay ANY tax in a given year according to the GAO.

So again, why shouldn't we be clamouring for rich people and corporations to be paying up like the rest of us?

The Real Deal on the Current Economic Crisis

So who is to blame? There's plenty of blame to go around, and it doesn't fasten only on one party or even mainly on what Washington did or didn't do. As The Economist magazine noted recently, the problem is one of "layered irresponsibility ... with hard-working home owners and billionaire villains each playing a role." Here's a partial list of those alleged to be at fault:

The Federal Reserve, which slashed interest rates after the dot-com bubble burst, making credit cheap.

Home buyers, who took advantage of easy credit to bid up the prices of homes excessively.

Congress, which continues to support a mortgage tax deduction that gives consumers a tax incentive to buy more expensive houses.

Real estate agents, most of whom work for the sellers rather than the buyers and who earned higher commissions from selling more expensive homes.

The Clinton administration, which pushed for less stringent credit and downpayment requirements for working- and middle-class families.

Mortgage brokers, who offered less-credit-worthy home buyers subprime, adjustable rate loans with low initial payments, but exploding interest rates.

Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, who in 2004, near the peak of the housing bubble, encouraged Americans to take out adjustable rate mortgages.

Wall Street firms, who paid too little attention to the quality of the risky loans that they bundled into Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS), and issued bonds using those securities as collateral.

The Bush administration, which failed to provide needed government oversight of the increasingly dicey mortgage-backed securities market.

An obscure accounting rule called mark-to-market, which can have the paradoxical result of making assets be worth less on paper than they are in reality during times of panic.

Collective delusion, or a belief on the part of all parties that home prices would keep rising forever, no matter how high or how fast they had already gone up.

The U.S. economy is enormously complicated. Screwing it up takes a great deal of cooperation. Claiming that a single piece of legislation was responsible for (or could have averted) is just political grandstanding. We have no advice to offer on how best to solve the financial crisis. But these sorts of partisan caricatures can only make the task more difficult.

From the page you cite, emphasis mine:

About three quarters of all U.S. business firms have no payroll. Most are self-employed persons operating unincorporated businesses, and may or may not be the owner's principal source of income.

So I was specifically talking about corporate taxes. Anyway here is the GAO paper that I referred too. Tax Administration: Comparison of the Reported Tax Liabilities of Foreign- and U.S.-Controlled Corporations, 1998-2005. While it does focus on all USCCs and FCDCs (which ~60% did not report tax liability) it also refers to "Large" USCCs and FCDCs which is defined as:

"Large" FCDCs or USCCs are those with assets of at least $250 million dollars or gross receipts of at least $50 million dollars. Differences between all FCDCs and all USCCs were not statistically significant in 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005.

In 2005 ~25% of both Large USCCs and FCDCs reported no tax liabity.

So btw, look up the facts!

But I did!

Buy into what? It is an objective observation based on independent data.

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05952.pdf

if you want to see the raw data collected by the GAO.

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d07246r.pdf

That letter gives a lot of information, and you can follow up on their references.

The "official" US budget numbers are misleading, as they are based on "cash" accounting and do not include a couple of key things, like:
  - Special Appropriations (ie. the War)
  - Liabilities from Unsecured IOUs (ie. the surpluses from Social Security which are "invested" in a special series of non-marketable treasury bonds)
  - The NPV of future expenditures, such as Medicare Part D and Social Security

If you re-ran the 2007 budget using the "accrual" method of accounting that corporations must use, the "official" deficit of $163 billion balloons to over $2.4 trillion dollars -- FOR 2007 ALONE!

Don't take my word for it -- read the reports from the US Treasury or read the testimony and presentations given by the former Comptroller of the Currency.

Another fact-free response.

What's the point? It'd be easier to convince a Creationist that God doesn't exist.

Doesn't matter, really, because someone else - rpillala - posted a link to a GAO report. You may want to look for it, since - ah, well - that's what people mean when they say non-partisan.

It's damn disturbing. And frustrating - because of the age of the report and the lack of analysis of socioeconomic factors.

You're going to have to do better than that, son.

Ugh. No. I don't. You're a self-satisfied twerp that wants to fight for the hell of it. Get a hobby.

Most things I hear or read deal with sentencing disparities based on the race of the victim. Here's a GAO report (PDF) from 1990 submitted by what appears to be the Senate judiciary committee. Strom Thurmond is listed among the submitters. He's hardly leftist.

From the findings:

In 82 percent of the studies, race of victim was found to influence the likelihood of being charged with capital murder or receiving the death penalty, i.e., those who murdered whites were found to be more likely to be sentenced to death than those who murdered blacks.

...

The race of victim influence was found at all stages of the criminal justice system process, although there were variations among studies as to whether there was a race of victim influence at specific stages. The evidence for the race of victim influence was stronger for the earlier stages of the judicial process (e.g. prosecutorial decision to charge defendant with a capital offense, decision to proceed to trial rather than plea bargain) than in later stages.

The findings section does discuss some reasons their results are not the last word on this subject.

http://archive.gao.gov/t2pbat11/140845.pdf

Thanks for the link. Since we're at it, I'll repost a link I posted in response to the thread a couple of weeks ago on the same subject.

The US Government Accountability Office compiled a report of genetic testing that is available here. I'm not posting any quotes from it but its quite strongly worded conclusions are that these online genetic tests are at best worthless and at worst harmful. Any government that doesn't try to shut them down is being negligent.

There's been a formal study of bad WHOIS data by the Government Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, titled "Prevalence of False Contact Information for Registered Domain Names", on this topic. They found at least 8% of contact info in WHOIS to be totally bogus. They also, as a test of ICANN, submitted 45 "WHOIS information problem reports", of which 11 resulted in correction and 33 did not. But GAO didn't break down the data by registrar.

We've been interested in this issue at SiteTruth for some time. We take a broader view of "bad" web sites than most; we consider any commercial site that lacks valid business name and address information to be bogus. Over 35% of Google AdWords advertisers fail that test. For advertisers whose ads appear on Myspace, the ratio is much higher.

Originally, we tried to get contact information from WHOIS data, but the data quality was so appallingly bad that we had to develop another approach. We have a system that looks for contact info the way a user would, looking at pages with names like "About", "Contact", and such, trying to find a user-readable street address. We also have some big databases of business addresses to check against. This turns out to work much better than looking at WHOIS data when the goal is to find the business behind the web site.

(You can see this info using our AdRater plug-in for Firefox. Download our plug-in to see the ratings for each Google advertiser as the ads go by. Unless you're already blocking all such ads, of course.)

The US Government Accountability Office compiled a report of genetic testing that is available here, although it's only a smallish snapshot of the current situation.

Both the positive and negative implications for widespread genetic testing are favourite subjects of Ron Zimmern and Muin Khoury, and if you're interested you'll find a lot of discussion of genetic test regulation by searching for them. There's a newspaper report of a study by Khoury here, but annoyingly I can't find the original work.

"The real issue is why did the primary control system accept a reset..."

That was my first thought, too: a huge separation of privilege flaw. But, from TFA, "...when the updated computer rebooted, it reset the data on the control system, causing safety systems to errantly interpret the lack of data as a drop in water reservoirs that cool the plant's radioactive nuclear fuel rods."

So it's not that the system on the control side accepted a restart command that it shouldn't have. I'm not saying there's no problem--just that this wasn't the failure mode.

But it does make you wonder what else is wrong at this place, doesn't it?

TFA has a link to a Government Accounting Office paper on problems they found with TVA, which operates multiple reactors. Have a look at that thing http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d08526.pdf
to see a real mess. It's 62 pages of badness, but just reading page 2, "Results in Brief," will give most people the twitching horrors.

Password issues, bypassed firewalls, unpatched systems, limited logging, limited IDS, configuration management policy problems, physical security and training problems, etc. Apparently TVA has left no stone unturned in their efforts to fail an audit.

Seriously, this is the least bullshit excuse the could come up with? If ANY corporation in the US tried this kind of thing, the wrath of SARBOX would rain down on them like you wouldn't believe.


No, it would not.

SARBOX does not protect against poor judgement, it merely documents it.

IF a plan is proposed and everyone says it handles the risks, and they turn out to be wrong, SARBOX doesn't provide for punishment. And if you think about it, that makes sense.

The best you can do is to analyze the risks as you can identify them, prepare a plan that fits the risks and needs, and then execute the plan and do what you can to ensure the plan is followed. Sarbanes-Oxley essentially insists the plan be made, risks identified and bought off on, and the plan executed. It does and CAN NOT protect from bad decisions. SOX is essentially a CYA plan. If you can prove you went through the steps, SOX passes the bill elsewhere. Contrary to popular, and wrong, opinion, SOX does not mean the management (the "deciders" hehe) have to know anything about the real technical details. Nor should they, really. As long as they have people to do that analysis for them, and said people have not proven themselves untrustworthy of full of bad judgement on the matters.

As far as blaming Bush, that's just stupid. No, wait it's asinine. The decision to move from Lotus to Exchange was not made by Bush. That type of stuff doesn't make it to those levels. It likely never made it past the CIO. That is what they are for.

It isn't like Bush swept into office and replaced all the IT folk. That happens in corporations, sure. But not federal employees. They're special.

For those who think this was allplanned on Bush's part, consider this evidence: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d01446.pdf
See in particular Page 41 of that PDf, it's a timeline of "the Clinton Administration's IT department"'s failures to properly back up email for years. Oh and look, it happened with an "upgrade" from Netware to NT. You know, minor things like backups not working for 14+ months, and people with names starting with the letter D not being subject to archiving, and having their own implementation of an archiving system, and incurring over 11 Million dollars to not successfully recover the lost emails. They had problems for about 4 years. If Bush is to blame for the current fiasco, Clinton is to blame for the previous one.

Yet somehow, Bush The Ignorant was Bush The Brilliant Mastermind Who Knew that He Would Need To Not Have Emails In The Future. No, you don't get it both ways. Anybody that thinks Bush knows anything more about email than how to use it is being ridiculous. I don't think the man stupid but like most people he probably just writes, reads, and sends email and that's his understanding of it. It goes through the Tubes somehow but that's not his deal.

I figure about 97-99% of the stuff any given (modern) US president is given credit for or assigned the blame for is stuff he (or she when it happens - but no not her either. ;) ) is not something they had control over or did. Sadly we avoid dealing with the real culprits or accidents by blaming it on the face.

In this case the main culprit is the underlying technology change coupled with ignorant laws (SOX, for example). Following that is the failure to operate a secondary system for testing and validation that mirrors production.

  I find that article at Arstechnica to be blatant political crap instead of good and proper journalism. Like most "journalists" and "articles" these days, sadly. There is almost a non-stop line of email archiving troubles and failures dating back to the mid-nineties by the same group of IT staff, yet somehow that is cut off and the fault laid on Bush. So we all get riled up about Bush, and those people who _actually_ failed remain government employees for the next Administration. And the cycle continues.

The Register's article is definitely a much more detailed (and entertaining) account of the GAO Report...which The Washington Post conveniently forgets to link up. But here it is for your reading pleasure:

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d08644t.pdf

The situation in the US is not the way you are portraying it. Foreign workers are well paid (by definition, given the kind of visa they need to enter the country) so they are not driving salaries down

Except that you're wrong.

...10% bonus if a 130% efficiency rating is maintained for the 4 quarters...

If I were president, the first thing I would do is declare a sort of marshal law because there are major problems with the environment, and with current system of political BS in washington with lobbyist and the old boy network of politics nothing really get done...

By executive order, I'd term limit all elected officials that way there would be no entrenced political BS, for example

the president (1) six year term - that way he does not have to worry about re-election and can concentrate on the job at hand
a state senator would have (1) six year term - that way he does not have to worry about re-election and can concentrate on the job at hand
a state representative in the house would have (1) three year term - ditto

this would get rid of political lifers, and I'd try and lead by example.

To make sure the transition of power goes somewhat smooth, I would mandate all elected officials to serve a 1 year internship with the official they were going to replace, that way they have some kind of institutional insight what the job will require and learn what works and what does not work. Since there are two state senitors, I'd have there terms overlap (so a senator would be a jr the first three years, then a sr senator the last three)

During an elected officials internship, since I think there has not been enough scientific knowledge and too much legal BS in government, so I would require all elected officials to take basic math, physics, chemistry, biology and world history exams (say basic freshman college level exams), and post the score for the public to see that officials have some basic knowledge and understand (a side benefit would be since people are competive who knows they might even be driven to learn, and show how smart they are).

For my own personal term in office, I would be dedicaed to one topic, investing in the environment!

As it stands the global demand for basic resources like oil and water is far out pacing limited global suppies. For example in the southeast united states, the is just a little bit of a demend imbalance with water supplies, as it stands I give the atlanta region just about a year before the shit hits the fan, because water demand is pretty quickly depleating water supplies.

so far elected officials don't have the balls to take a stand or make a plan to deal with a worst case scenario, even FOX news has a report "No Backup Water Plan in Place for Drought-Stricken Atlanta"

Water is not a sexy subject and most people don't realize that 97 percent of all water is in the oceans. ONLY three percent of all Earth's water that is freshwater. The majority of the freshwater, about 69 percent, is locked up in glaciers and icecaps, mainly in Greenland and Antarctica. You might be surprised that of the remaining freshwater, almost all of it is below your feet, as ground water. No matter where on Earth you are standing, chances are that, at some depth, the ground below you is saturated with water. Of all the freshwater on Earth, only about 0.3 percent is contained in rivers and lakes.

To put this into perspective, if 100 liters represented all the water in the world, then only about a shot glass full would be all the fresh water available for our use!

There is a similar problem with oil, BTW did you know it takes about 98 tons of biological matter in 1 gal of oil. As it stands the IEA is reporting that at current depleation rates oil production, peak oil might have occured or will occur within a short time frame, best case estimate is 40 years from now, but I'm not buying that...

now that ya have an idea about the concerns I have as president, I will try and direct the economy and society toward solutions...

as everyone knows, there are lots of bible thu

If your information is right it seems to fly in the face of several acts and laws...

http://www.ssa.gov/legislation/legis_bulletin_010705.html
"Section 7214. Prohibition of the Display of Social Security Account Numbers on Drivers' Licenses or Motor Vehicle Registrations

        * Prohibits Federal, State, and local governments from displaying SSNs, or any derivative thereof, on drivers' licenses, motor vehicle registrations, or other identification documents issued by State departments of motor vehicles. "

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d051016t.pdf
Regarding many uses of your SSN

https://www.smartwebmove.navsup.navy.mil/swm/documents/SWM1Authority9397.pdf
The executive order regarding SSNs as use for identification

It is also surprising to note that there is no mandatory requirement to have a SSN, however in practice this is like saying there is no mandatory requirement to have a driver's license; it is next to impossible to do anything without one. It is also worth noting that many of the forms which ask for a SSN can be skipped; particularly those which are government oriented and not directly related to the uses authorized for the number. Doing so simply may mean that your forms don't get processed in a timely manner.

It's not a question of Capitalism, but one of government - specifically failing to properly allocate the resources needed to do the job. This was detailed in a recent gao report - patent examiners simply have too much production pressure to reliably and consistently discover and consider the best available prior art. This was already a problem when I started in the PTO way back in the '70s and only has intesified as production pressure has increased plus tasks not directly related to prior art search and action formation has been heaped on the examining corps.

Note that this scheme of running the PTO has festered over 4 decades and several administrations and Congresses both Democratic and Republican. No reform proposals I am aware of seems to address this fundamental problem, or seem to gloss over it (e. g. opposition? that time will have to be compensated; if examiners are forced to absorb it there won't be any remaining to examine anything).

I'll give you a good reason: because it's a dying business[1] and no company in their right mind would want to compete there. Low-cost, high-volume mail is sinking fast due to email and other replacements. Maybe it made sense 150 years ago to compete with the USPS for first-class mail, but here in the 21st century it's quite different.

[1] http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d04565t.pdf

I think ending medicare would help health prices decrease. Free markets work - government-subsidized price floors don't.

Does it sound drastic? The nation's chief accountability officer, the Comptroller General, has been preaching for years about financial doom if we don't fix medicare and social security.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/03/01/60minutes/main2528226.shtml
http://www.gao.gov/cghome.htm

Seems Ron Paul has a plan to save our economy. What's your candidate got?

GAO Reports are available on-line at gao.gov I am guessing the report under consideration is this one

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d071046.pdf

but neither the slashdot notice or the article it references gives the report number.

Actual report: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d071046.pdf

Report Summary http://gao.gov/docsearch/abstract.php?rptno=GAO-07-1046

Telecommunications: FCC Should Take Steps to Ensure Equal Access to Rulemaking Information
GAO-07-1046 September 6, 2007
Highlights Page (PDF) Full Report (PDF, 34 pages)

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is charged with regulating interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 established that FCC should promote competition and reduce regulation to secure lower prices and higher-quality services for American consumers. FCC implements its policy aims through rulemaking, whereby the agency notifies the public of a proposed rule and provides an opportunity for the public to participate in the rule's development. These rulemakings are documented within a public docket that contains the rulemaking record. In response to a congressional request on FCC rulemaking, GAO (1) described FCC's rulemaking process; (2) determined, for specific rulemakings, the extent to which FCC followed its process; and (3) identified factors that contributed to some dockets and rulemakings remaining open. GAO reviewed recent FCC rules, interviewed FCC officials and stakeholders, and conducted case studies of rulemakings.

FCC's rulemaking process includes multiple steps as outlined by law, with several opportunities for public participation. FCC generally begins the process by releasing a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and establishing a docket to gather information submitted by the public or developed within FCC to support the proposed rule. Outside parties may meet with FCC officials but must file a disclosure in the docket, called an ex parte filing, that includes any new data or arguments presented at the meeting. FCC analyzes information in the docket and drafts a final rule for the commission to adopt. The FCC chairman decides which rules the commission will consider and whether to adopt them by vote at a public meeting or by circulating them to each commissioner for approval. Stakeholders unsatisfied with a rule may file a petition for reconsideration with the commission or petition for review in federal court. FCC generally followed the rulemaking process in the four case studies of completed rulemakings that GAO reviewed, but several stakeholders had access to nonpublic information. Specifically, each of the four rulemakings included steps as required by law and opportunities for public participation. Within the case studies, most ex parte filings complied with FCC rules. However, in the case studies and in discussions with other stakeholders that regularly participate in FCC rulemakings, multiple stakeholders generally knew when the commission scheduled votes on proposed rules well before FCC notified the public. FCC rules prohibit disclosing this information outside of FCC. Other stakeholders said that they cannot learn when rules are scheduled for a vote until FCC releases the public meeting agenda, at which time FCC rules prohibit stakeholders from lobbying FCC. As a result, stakeholders with advance information about which rules are scheduled for a vote would know when it is most effective to lobby FCC, while stakeholders without this information would not. The complexity and number of rulemakings within a docket and the priority the commission places on a rulemaking contribute to dockets and rulemakings remaining open. The commission determines when to open and close a docket and which rulemakings are a priority; therefore, the commission determines how a docket and rulemaking progress. Dockets and the rulemakings within them may remain open because the dockets are broad and include multiple rulemakings, or because the commission has not yet voted to close the dockets even though they include completed rules. Within dockets, some rule

Actual report: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d071046.pdf

Report Summary http://gao.gov/docsearch/abstract.php?rptno=GAO-07-1046

Telecommunications: FCC Should Take Steps to Ensure Equal Access to Rulemaking Information
GAO-07-1046 September 6, 2007
Highlights Page (PDF) Full Report (PDF, 34 pages)

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is charged with regulating interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 established that FCC should promote competition and reduce regulation to secure lower prices and higher-quality services for American consumers. FCC implements its policy aims through rulemaking, whereby the agency notifies the public of a proposed rule and provides an opportunity for the public to participate in the rule's development. These rulemakings are documented within a public docket that contains the rulemaking record. In response to a congressional request on FCC rulemaking, GAO (1) described FCC's rulemaking process; (2) determined, for specific rulemakings, the extent to which FCC followed its process; and (3) identified factors that contributed to some dockets and rulemakings remaining open. GAO reviewed recent FCC rules, interviewed FCC officials and stakeholders, and conducted case studies of rulemakings.

FCC's rulemaking process includes multiple steps as outlined by law, with several opportunities for public participation. FCC generally begins the process by releasing a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and establishing a docket to gather information submitted by the public or developed within FCC to support the proposed rule. Outside parties may meet with FCC officials but must file a disclosure in the docket, called an ex parte filing, that includes any new data or arguments presented at the meeting. FCC analyzes information in the docket and drafts a final rule for the commission to adopt. The FCC chairman decides which rules the commission will consider and whether to adopt them by vote at a public meeting or by circulating them to each commissioner for approval. Stakeholders unsatisfied with a rule may file a petition for reconsideration with the commission or petition for review in federal court. FCC generally followed the rulemaking process in the four case studies of completed rulemakings that GAO reviewed, but several stakeholders had access to nonpublic information. Specifically, each of the four rulemakings included steps as required by law and opportunities for public participation. Within the case studies, most ex parte filings complied with FCC rules. However, in the case studies and in discussions with other stakeholders that regularly participate in FCC rulemakings, multiple stakeholders generally knew when the commission scheduled votes on proposed rules well before FCC notified the public. FCC rules prohibit disclosing this information outside of FCC. Other stakeholders said that they cannot learn when rules are scheduled for a vote until FCC releases the public meeting agenda, at which time FCC rules prohibit stakeholders from lobbying FCC. As a result, stakeholders with advance information about which rules are scheduled for a vote would know when it is most effective to lobby FCC, while stakeholders without this information would not. The complexity and number of rulemakings within a docket and the priority the commission places on a rulemaking contribute to dockets and rulemakings remaining open. The commission determines when to open and close a docket and which rulemakings are a priority; therefore, the commission determines how a docket and rulemaking progress. Dockets and the rulemakings within them may remain open because the dockets are broad and include multiple rulemakings, or because the commission has not yet voted to close the dockets even though they include completed rules. Within dockets, some rule

The number of US students going into Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) careers dropped in the 1994-2004 period ( http://www.gao.gov/docsearch/abstract.php?rptno=GAO-06-114 ).

It's time to wake up and do something! Help pre-college kids have fun with technology - the USFIRST program has kids in Kindergarten-High School building things that move, from simple machines up through 25 kilo semi-autonomous robots. Team oriented so the kids learn more than just technology - teamwork, competition and professionalism to name a few. See http://www.usfirst.org/ for details.