Slashdot Mirror

Obama Treasury dude Jack Lew knows where to hide his cash

DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz knows where to hide hers

Obama's pal and advisor Valerie Jarrett seems to like Bermuda for her cash

Nancy Pelosi Seems to like hiding her money in asia (see: Matthews International Capital Management LLC)

And then Obama himself seems to like parking cash in the Cayman Islands

The truth is that the political class lives by a very different set of rules than the rest of us and if you think Democrats are any more "for the people" than Republicans then you're just another "useful idiot". Many of the richest politicians in the US who hide cash offshore to avoid taxes are Democrats.... and it's worse when they do it because they are being hypocrites; Republicans at least call for everybody to have lower, flatter taxes...... but Democrats are always trying to fool the public into liking them by yelling "Tax the Rich!" while quietly hiding their personal fortunes from those very taxes they endorsed.

Seeing that a reasonable amount of your rant was about the Israel-bans-thin-models story:

Note the Israeli law on thin models ONLY applies to females.

According to abc new, the law "targets adults in general, [but] it is clearly aimed at female models."

(I think that law btw, while possibly well-intentioned is not thought through & impossible to enforce.)

Slashdot should stop the Iran bashing already

So, when the Iranian government imposes yet another new repressive measure to build on its existing repressive measures against the Iranian people that result in death, mutilation, torture, and other atrocities, your concern is that people on Slashdot don't criticize - don't say harsh things against the Iranian government? I think there is a word for that, Mr. Liberty.

If you think the Iranian government is for peace, you aren't listening carefully.

All Iran is saying,
is give cutting people into pieces a chance.

Iranian Women Prisoners Detail Torture

Iran as continual regional menace
Iran's Menace in Azerbaijan
15,000 Elite Iranian special-ops 'head' to Syria ---- Iran confirms it has forces in Syria ...
Gulf states lash out at Iran 'interference'

The six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) said in a statement that Tehran's actions were threatening regional security and stability.
The GCC said it "rejects and denounces" Iran's "continued interference" in their internal affairs and Tehran must "immediately and completely stop these actions and policies that increase regional tension and threaten security and stability".

Iranian Bomb Suspects 'Targeted' Israelis, Thai Police Say
Report: Turkey thwarts Iran weapons shipment to Hezbollah
      Why Hezbollah is sitting on 40,000 rockets and missiles ...
            Iran and Hezbollah: The Balance of Power Shifts in Lebanon
Afghanistan war logs: Iran's covert operations in Afghanistan
Iran Steps Up Threats to Rub Out Israel

Discussing the record of Iran's actions and behavior doesn't constitutes "warmongering."

oh, and it's a very interesting case. Current TV got all this access to various networks, you think that's a coincidence? You think you can start a media company and just get access to various networks and distributors? The entire concept was predicated on the Gore's persona, his ties to the government. He is a perfect example of the problem that he himself talks about.

Money in politics? How did Gore become partial owner of Fisker , a "car company" that just happened to get 529Billion USD subsidy (a loan) and ended up building luxury (90K Fisker Karma) sedans in Finland? Never mind the hypocrisy of this 'climate change' warrior, profiting from a gov't loan, given to a company that outsourced to another country manufacturing of a expensive luxury gas guzzler (20m/gallon)

Hey, hypocrisy is thick with this one.

They hide anything and everything that might threaten their place in power.

And this is distinctive from America how? In America, the State Secrets Doctrine has its roots in a wrongful death suit by the widows of some RCA engineers who were working for the US Air Force when they died in a plane crash in 1948. During discovery, the widows sought the accident report. The Air Force said that it contained information vital to national security and would not turn it over. Eventually, the case got to the Supreme Court, and without actually looking at the document, ruled that it could be kept secret. 40 some years later, it was declassified. It contained nothing in it beyond what was publicly known about the project, but it also revealed that the Air Force had negligently failed to install manufacturer recommended heat shields in the engines, among other issues with the plane, and that the engines caught fire leading to the crash.

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/383/origin-story?act=2#play

So you tell me, is our State Secrets doctrine, the one that Obama has used to prevent people from suing for unlawful detention, unlawful torture, unlawful wiretapping, and unlawful execution, based in anything but an attempt to avoid embarrassment and liability? How is it that we are morally superior to the Chinese government on this issue?

Examples:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/10/us/10torture.html?_r=0
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2009/10/obama-administration-invokes-state-secrets-privilegeagain/
http://www.politico.com/blogs/joshgerstein/0811/Obama_admin_asserts_state_secrets_privilege_to_dismiss_Muslims_suit.html
http://www.salon.com/2010/09/25/secrecy_7/

Democracy in the middle east is not considered a "good" by the Feds. They much prefer friendly ruthless dictators. Not for example how we've never invaded Saudia Arabia and never have a bad word to say about them. Or how HRC considered Mubarak a friend of the family ( http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/01/secretary-clinton-in-2009-i-really-consider-president-and-mrs-mubarak-to-be-friends-of-my-family/ ).

A Pelco camera at an ATM tied Timothy McVeigh to the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. [citation] ATM camera robots that can see beyond the bank's property line would be illegal in Texas.

If your neighbor's house is burning down in the middle of the night and you call the fire department after your smoke alarm goes off, then you will be breaking the law in Texas. Your little smoke detector robot is illegal if it can smell your neighbor's smoke.

Would barometers that automatically warn you of extreme weather events (tornado conditions) be illegal since they detect "other conditions"?

I doubt the Texas proposal will be come law. The unintended consequences are too obvious. ... unless the idea is to make everyone a criminal, of course.

The "mosaic" of issues, Lyon said, includes a malfunctioning valve on the pilot's upper pressure vest, the size and shape of hoses and connectors in the pilot's gear and, for a period, a charcoal filter that the Air Force installed after the problems began to try and catch potential contaminates.

Instead of re-evaluating the system when experts first brought it to the Air Force's attention, they decided that the recommended fixes would be too expensive on the already overbudget jet and they basically said 'fuck it' and let one of our servicemen die. Now, experienced Air Force fighter pilots (not exactly the type known to be sissies) across the country refuse to fly this jet because it is unsafe. But that's pretty damned good, right?

The "mosaic" of issues, Lyon said, includes a malfunctioning valve on the pilot's upper pressure vest, the size and shape of hoses and connectors in the pilot's gear and, for a period, a charcoal filter that the Air Force installed after the problems began to try and catch potential contaminates.

Instead of re-evaluating the system when experts first brought it to the Air Force's attention, they decided that the recommended fixes would be too expensive on the already overbudget jet and they basically said 'fuck it' and let one of our servicemen die. Now, experienced Air Force fighter pilots (not exactly the type known to be sissies) across the country refuse to fly this jet because it is unsafe. But that's pretty damned good, right?

I'm not the sort to don a tinfoil hat, but given some questionable decisions by human planners (such as the recent military helicopter exercises in Miami and Houston which for some reason involved strafing freeways with blank rounds), I think the last thing we need to do is allow the executive access to an armed air force completely free from lowly human judgment and morality.

Even a reduction in human judgment is a grave risk. When you have one operator manning several drones, he's a lot less likely to devote his full attention to the mission of only one. If he balks at his orders, it's a lot easier to breathe down his neck and intimidate him into action when he's sitting a warehouse in Fresno instead of a distant cockpit. And if he still refuses, they can transfer his controls over to another operator who has no qualms about completing the mission. They can then replace the objector with a new, loyal operator a lot more cheaply and easily than they could have gotten a new, highly-trained pilot.

This is a dangerous notion to be toying with.

The "sequestration" cuts are $85B out of $3.6T, or ~2.4 %. This has motivated politicians from both parties, and loud-mouthed political actors of all stripes, to make wild claims about terrible consequences if the cuts were to be made. The implicit claim is that cutting 2.4% across the board would result in an "unready, hollow force", 9% unemployment, and all sorts of other horrific things (which I'm sure you've heard of by now).

Is it even true? From cutting a measly 2.4% of future spending? Or is it yet another shock doctrine exercise to distract us from other things we should be paying attention to instead? There's a book, BTW.

• How did we get de-industrialized over the past 40 years? Was there an upside for someone, and if so, who?
• Why does petroleum cost over $100/bbl when there is no shortage, demand has been decreasing since 2008, and it costs a small fraction of that to produce?
• Who supports "Al Qaeda"? (Hint)
• Why is wealth distribution becoming more and more polarized?
• Do wealthy companies, individuals, and organizations control the world's governments through (surprisingly affordable) "lobbying"?
• What will you retire on?
• How will climate change affect you over your lifetime?
• Where will your potable water come from 20 years from now?
• Why do we continue to eat such a massively unhealthy diet? What fraction of "out of control" medical care costs are directly attributable to that?
• Will your job or a job like it still exist in 2025? What will you be doing then?
• Why did we invade Iraq? Why are we still in Afghanistan? Why are we rattling our sabers at Iran if our "allies" in the middle east are by far the greatest financiers of terrorism?

etc.

So then I hunted for "dui+sting" on your friendly neighborhood search engines and got:
.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/man-claims-dui-sting-child-custody-dispute-wife/story?id=14207264
.
http://www.harriscountydivorceattorneys.com/2011/08/man-blames-wife-for-plotting-dui-to-benefit-from-divorce.shtml

In response to this, I googled " Sweden that had genetically engineered some mouth bacteria", straight from your post.

The first entry was Wikipedia. The second entry, from ABC news, was as follows:

"A Bacteria That Could Keep Your Mouth Clean for Good - ABC News"

Google is your friend. Enjoy your mouthwash.

Bionic Wrench: lawsuit

http://abcnews.go.com/US/MadeInAmerica/wrench-inventor-claims-sears-stole-idea-china/story?id=17720122

The lollacup episode on Shark Tank had some interesting tidbits about contracts with marketing firms. To summarize, do not give your marketers exclusivity to profits for a market (asia for instance) and make sure they profit from their contributions to the market success of your product. The Lollacup creators had good business sense but still managed to make a contract with a marketing firm which took advantage of them.

There was also a meteor that was seen from San Francisco

Make illegal to get warned that you are insecure and you will deserve being raped by unethical hackers. Is pretty much like suing the ones that could predict quakes, making sure that noone, ever, will warn you till is too late.

The oil companies are subsidized by US taxpayers to the total of 20 BILLion dollars a year.

Give that twenty billion to electric battery producers to subsidize their costs, and you'll see $19,0000 cars that get 500 miles per charge. It's all a matter of what we think is a "subsidy".

Yea I can't imagine anything going wrong with that...

Oh, wait, yes I can, because it's happened.

Oil powered cars are subsidized by direct payouts to oil companies for drilling. We don't charge oil companies for the direct damage they do to the planet; that's "external" cost, not slapped on the price of your car. The cost of global warming will be hundreds of trillions. Your car company will not have to pay that. We have gone to war in Kuwait, Iraq, and soon Iran and Africa to secure oil fields, at the cost of trillions; that cost, for decades to come, is carried by taxpayers, and never charged on the pump or in the cost of your car.

I take it, then, that you don't know where the lithium for those batteries comes from, or the environmental damage done in order to make them?

Perspective - it matters.

Let me Google that for you...

Here you go, 7,719 arrests, WITH LINKS to the stories.

Enjoy!

http://stpeteforpeace.org/occupyarrests.sources.html

Here are some specifics:

Destruction:

http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/2012/05/protesters-take-over-city

General mayhem, including 200lbs of human feces:

http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_19373284

Rape:

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2011/11/woman-raped-at-occupy-philadelphia/

Enjoy the read!

Ok, I'm confused. The University of Tennessee posted a $3.98M deficit for 2012 while simultaneously making a profit of $35M.

Something reeks of Hollywood accounting.

"It is difficult to stay focused on the task at all times. So when a single user has momentary attention lapses, it matters. But when there are two users, a lapse by one will not have much effect, so you stay on target,"

They correlate inputs from two pilots to improve accuracy, but at the same time in the quote above they assume that the inputs from the pilots would not correlate. Its is not like two pilots in a jet liner would miss something as big as their destination airport.

You do understand that he will lose all those thousands of free bodyguards once he is out of office, don't you?

You do understand that former presidents are entitled to Secret Service protection for life? Obama signed it (back) into law on Jan. 1.

So, your argument looks like p=!p.

wonder how much a system would cost that could switch my light from green to red if it detected a vehicle approaching from a red-lit direction at dangerous speeds. Can you think of an other alternative uses for these cameras?"

Such a proposed system would quicly train motorists to rush red lights even more than they already do, because they could supposedly depend on the system stopping motorists coming the other way. Problem is, if a red light isn't stopping a guy running a red light in one diection, what's going to stop a like minded driver in the other direction?

The cost wold probably be not a lot more than about 1000 deaths a year, based on http://abcnews.go.com/Travel/story?id=118914&page=1 but it would have the bonus of selectively knocking off the idiots that think it's ok to run red lights, as more safety concious drivers will be safely stopped.

Dollars wise? probably not too much given the hardware is already mostly in place.

It looks like the BB 10 specs are the same or better than the iPhone 5 at least. It only comes with 16GB storage, but upgradable with a card. Faster processors on BB 10 and a few more pixels on the screen (if you get the big one) and better resolution.

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/specs-blackberry-10-models-stack-18357208

BB Z10 (big touch screen version):
Display: 4.2-inch (diagonal) with a resolution of 1280 by 768 pixels (356 pixels per inch)

iPhone 5:
Display: 4-inch (diagonal) with a resolution of 1136 by 640 pixels (326 pixels per inch).

Weird, I don't see the processor specs on that page, but I checked them at another site a week or two ago.

More on these pages:
http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/blackberry-z10-vs-iphone-5-vs-galaxy-s3/

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/iphone-5-benchmark-lightning,3312-3.html

Says that iPhone 5 is dual core 1.29 GHz, while the BB 10 is dual core 1.5 GHz.

My biggest thing is the CAMERA! Not the specs so much, but the software. You take one picture, it gives you a couple of seconds to scroll through and pick the best picture during that time... so no more blinks and yawns in my damn pictures. THANK YOU!

So the Savior of the Left is having Army drills in U.S. Cities, His D.O.J. is on a tear and even the left wing media is describing His D.O.J as a "sick culture".

We are one a well worn path that has been blazed by the best of Despots.

Do you have your AR yet?

I guess we need those Rocket Launchers after all eh?

There was something like this that just happened in Houston.

What potential threat do they believe is coming that requires attack helicopters to respond and support?

Even if you argue that video games destroy young minds, what more damage could be done? I'll remind you of the toddler that was run over (twice) and then passed by numerous times by its fellow countrymen. The unedited video is not for the faint-of-heart, but ABC had a nicely summed up version... http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2011/10/chinese-toddlers-hit-and-run-mother-praises-rescuer/

Exactly. Corporations will establish whatever corporate presence is necessary to avoid taxation. Recently I came across this. It seems that United and American Airlines have been using an office park location as the receiving location for fuel, avoiding transit taxes that are imposed in Chicago. Presumably all of the fuel received here is used at Chicago O'Hare (ORD) airport. I doubt that the tankers will fit in the parking lot.

While I'm not on the tax the wealthy bandwagon, I find it difficult to imagine how convoluted some of these schemes that corporations (and wealthier individuals) have concocted just to avoid paying a few bucks in tax.

Pacifism? Fine - next time you're accosted by a big bastard in a dark alley, tell him that you're a pacifist. Don't go down dark alleys? Well, the next time you meet a big bastard in your basement, tell him you're a pacifist.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/dr-william-petit-testifies-trial-familys-alleged-murderer/story?id=11633236

The philosophy of a pacifist sounds like this to me:
"I'm much to evolved to be out fighting, that's for morons. If some moron bothers me, I'll just call the police."
Do you see a flaw in this philosophy? It seems so obvious to me, that there are TWO major flaws. First, you assume that only morons brawl, so you're going to rely on moron B to defend you against Moron A. Second, you ASSume that you'll be able to communicate to Moron B that you need his assistance when Moron A attacks you. Second, again, you're ASSuming that Moron B can get to you in time to defend you, before Moron A has killed/raped/mutilate/relieved_you_of_your_possessions.

There's a Darwin award available for pacifists, every single day.

You will note that most victims of insane shooters are pacifists? Not all, but most.

No, we have tons that we can't access due to environmental restriction. But we are gaining more access to oil as technology improves. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/13/business/energy-environment/report-sees-us-as-top-oil-producer-in-5-years.html?_r=0. This is partially due to shale reserves. http://abcnews.go.com/Business/american-oil-find-holds-oil-opec/story?id=17536852. We have even more if we can hydrofrack. In short, we will be fine energy-wise as long as people allow us to access it.

The IEA report[pdf] linked by the NY Times article says there's an abundance of gas, which I mentioned before, but does not provide scientific data or links to support the idea that the US can become petroleum independent never mind an oil export. And a lot of the gas being pumped now was made possible by fracking. Now the ABC report, which also says the IEA report does not provide data, does say shale oil can be recovered from the Green River Formation of Colorado and Utah. However it also says that large amounts of water required to recover the oil are needed. That presents another problem. The Colorado River is the major source of water for all 7 states in the Colorado River Compact. The compact was created in 1922 when the river's water level was above average, so the river is over tapped now. One of the states that gets water from the river is California, and the river does not flow through the state. Instead through a system of canals water is pumped to the Imperial Valley in Southern CA. And by treaty Mexico is supposed to get some of the water from the river, after all the river is supposed to drain into the Sea of Cortez or Gulf of California, which is Mexican.

And while CO2 emissions are lower burning natural gas than burning coal, oil, and gas, it still emits CO2. Also the IEA report brings up alternative energy sources saying renewable sources can provide one third of the US's electricity. That is half of what an article in SciAm said was possible in 2050. A Grand Solar Plansays Solar power alone can provide 69% of the electricity and 35% of the total energy needs of the US. Elsewhere a study, sorry I don't have a link right now, based on the Wind Energy Resource Atlas of the United States concluded wind energy from the Rocky Mountains alone can provide all the electricity for the 48 contiguous states. And that's just from the Rockies. The atlas shows other places in the US with abundant wind energy as well.

As you say "we will be fine energy-wise as long as people allow us to access it" applies to geothermal, solar, wind, and other alternative energy sources. Unfortunately NIMBYs block solar and wind throughout the US. Along the East Coast from Cape Hatteras to Cape Cod can provide significant amounts of energy. Using these sources, and increasing energy efficiency which the IEA report brings up, coal, nuclear, and petroleum can all be fazed out now. Not included here is natural gas fired power plants, that's because they are needed right now for baseline loads. Geothermal can be and is used for that also but can it supply all baseload needs? I don't know. And later storage technologies may enable mass energy to be stored economically.

Of course to bring all these electrical sources online requires the national electrical grid to be upgraded. While it will take Billions of Dollars, if not One Hundred Billion or more, US businesses lose about

No, we have tons that we can't access due to environmental restriction. But we are gaining more access to oil as technology improves. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/13/business/energy-environment/report-sees-us-as-top-oil-producer-in-5-years.html?_r=0. This is partially due to shale reserves. http://abcnews.go.com/Business/american-oil-find-holds-oil-opec/story?id=17536852. We have even more if we can hydrofrack. In short, we will be fine energy-wise as long as people allow us to access it.

Unless of course I missed the epidemic of cops beating and shooting little children.

Yes
you
fucking
did!

mentally unbalanced or professional criminals can very easily get a hold of guns. Smart people know that we are never going to reduce gun violence unless we start filtering out the nutters and criminals right at the source, i.e. the gun shop

Here's a Free Clue: criminals don't obey the law. Even if you did somehow, magically, stop criminals or 'nutters' from buying guns legitimately, they'd just buy them illegitimately- from other criminals or smugglers who get them into the country (like drugs) from Mexico. Or they'd lay in wait for a cop, hit him upside the head with a baseball bat, and take his gun.

Here's a free clue: It is a lot harder for a nutter to get a gun in Europe than it is in the USA. I live here and I would not begin to know how to get a gun without having a license. The only thing I can think of, off the top of my head, is that I could travel to... say... the Ukraine buy a gun there and smuggle it over two national borders into the Shengen zone but even if I did get in my car and travel to the Ukraine I would not know where to go. I do, however, have a very good idea of how to get a gun without having a license in the USA. Western Europe borders several countries sitting on huge cold war arsenals that leak guns. European criminals who want to get a gun can get it but our gun violence problem is still smaller than that in the USA. Over here the only way to get a gun without a license is through illegal sources and monitoring them is way easier than keeping track of thousands of unregulated gun shows and other forums where guns change hands without any oversight or background checks. This guy went to a gun show in Virginia and bought 10 guns in an hour without any background checks and without anybody even asking any questions:
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=7297745
I would love to see you pull this off in Britain, Germany or France, walk into a gun show and walk out with a bunch of pistols and Colt Carbines without even having a firearms license or being asked for it.

The problem with the old method is that it's often a game of attrition, namely you keep dating until you give up on finding someone that you are lifetime compatible with, and settle whoever's around at the time.

Agreed. Mr Ludlow has the whole premise upside down to me.

When dating is expensive you are LESS likely to date around till you find a closely compatible person, and more likely to settle.
He has the whole situation upside down.

It will take a few years to find out if internet dating will produce more enduring relationships, but the old method wasn't working
all that well either. Some sites claim internet dating works better for the marriage minded. Other sources ask the divorce question in their headlines. (So we must invoke Betteridge).

One service actually publishes some numbers from an internal (and rather self congratulatory) study. They claim: "eHarmony couples had a 66.6% lower risk for divorce than would have been expected given eHarmony’s share of marriages in the population".

I suspect the study is rather flawed, but its the only one out there that I am aware of.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/officials-fear-terrorists-body-bombs-us-bound-planes/story?id=16245827#.UOiuQHduKSo

just wait for a full body cavity searchs be for flying now this can be be bound that. But a bomb / dugs up someones butt can happen.

Considering that a 1st grader just got suspended from school for making a gun with his finger and saying "pow" http://abcnews.go.com/US/maryland-grader-suspended-pointing-finger-shape-gun/story?id=18123294#.UOcsEaXstuo , I can totally see the son pursuing his father in court for "attempted murder". And then he won't need a job. He can just sue and live off the money he gets from his father. Oh the irony...

If someone didn't look for ways to get as many deductions as possible on their tax return, you'd wonder if they were mental and just enjoyed paying a higher rate?

You mean like this: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/romney-paid-required-raising-tax-rate-141-percent/story?id=17291504#.UN4jLHc5dLk

I would go further though, I would argue that firearms of any type do not have a place in society.

I think the old and the weak who live alone would not think much of your civilization as you turn them into defenseless victims.

Elderly Des Moines woman uses her handgun in self defense against a burglar

Who knows, perhaps the US will start to think a little differently about its huge arsenal of weapons in public hands now that so many children have paid with their lives?

So, is the US is one bus crash away from banning buses in your utopia too? You know the Amish get along fine without buses now, as did many American cities with street cars.

One panic leading to a theater stampede away from banning free speech?

You seem to give a lot of power to the mentally ill to define the limits of freedom for the innocent and responsible.

Well, these massacres are truly different from everyday gun control and require a different response. The response they require is basically Ban assault weapons. This will not prevent crazy people from snapping, but it will turn massacres such as the one we're dealing with into something more akin to this: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/12/22-kids-slashed-in-china-elementary-school-knife-attack/

Terrible, but a world apart from the carnage these weapons cause.

If you want to do something about gun violence in general though, then go after hand guns, as you point out. New York City is now 136th on the list of 100.000+ people cities in terms of violent crime in the US. Gun control, combined with better policing, and intelligent social policies (legalisation of abortion), worked.

Form wikipedia: "While crime rates have stopped decreasing for a decade in the rest of the United States, in New York the murder rate for 2009 is at an all time low of 466, more than a 10% decline from the previous year, and the lowest count during the period that crime statistics have been recorded."

Yup.. http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/12/22-kids-slashed-in-china-elementary-school-knife-attack/

Many very bad injuries. But no fatalities.

> and turning away all other customers who want to buy an iPhone...

... not so much unless it's a really really poorly stocked apple store.

Scientists has not been "keeping changing your story"

Did you actually read the summary we're commenting under?

Yes. Did you read the actual article being summarized? Here is a direct quote:

"The field of climate research has advanced since the IPCC's last assessment report, released in 2007, as computers have grown faster and models more complex. In fact, these developments make what insiders say the IPCC's message will be all the more astonishing: The new forecasts, they say, will be more or less the same as the old ones, just more precise."

I'd say Monday night's game is gonna be very interesting.

More precise modeling alows IPCC climate report to backstep from previous hysterical claims and hoopla that every recent unusual weather event was a harbinger of doom to come.

Sea level rise in next century, not even a meter. Hurricanes & sever storms, somewhat LESS of them. Arid areas, become slightly more arid and areas with frequent precipitation have somewhat more rain. Total temperature rise in next 100 years, 2 degrees C on top of the 1 degree C rise over 20th century.

In short, not a doomsday scenario, not the end of the world.

      http://abcnews.go.com/International/science-hone-climate-change-warnings/story?id=17906408#.UMVJntHQQSk

ABC News is reporting that a Guatemala City hospital found no reason to keep McAfee overnight.

Call it an anxiety attack, if you like.

You might want to compare and contrast these two photographs :

[This photo of McAfee and Vice editor-in-chief Rocco Castoro] included meta-data revealing their precise location, which a reader quickly pinpointed as ''next to the pool at Nana Juana Hotel Marina and Yacht Club'' in Guatemala. McAfee was soon arrested. Oops.

McAfee, Vice, and the limits of hipster journalism

John McAfee Returned to Guatemala Detention Center After Hospitalization [Guatemala's National Police/AP Photo]

The impression I have is of a man who was flying high uo in the clouds only to come crashing down hard --- and not for the first time.

It would seem that your supreme leader thinks himself to be a king-maker... http://abcnews.go.com/m/blogEntry?id=17877729

That's always been a concern. To put it in perspective, continental drift is an order of magnitude faster than that.

The only reason that the US government has treated Manning the way it did was to break him and to try and get him to sign some fake confession that would help them to accuse Wikileaks and Assange in some form or 'espionage' or even 'treason' (which is pure nonsense, can't charge a foreigner with treason).

I agree with the latter part. As for the former, I think a good part of the reason is that they assumed he's guilty and are basically a bunch of shitheads. They don't seem to realise that there is a really good reason for the presumption of innocence: not only do you put an innocent guy in gaol, but you don't catch the bad guy either!

They obviously don't care about the innocent guy, but they really ought to care about getting the bad guy.

the rich are paying more taxes now than they have ever paid in America, regardless of the nominal marginal tax rates

Aaaah and now er have slashdot's favourite capitalista. If the government taxes the rich so hard then how come Warren Buffet's secretary pays a higher rate of tax than Warren Buffet?

Here's last year's attempt to do something about it. Maybe something is happening this time?

Oh and,

this has implications for law firms and military organizations

Not to mention for terrorist organizations...

The DHS warned about this last year. Where there aint be no terrorists or journalists, there be birds without feathers.
And don't mind that strange man in a trench-coat lurking outside your house; he's just one of many TSA agents volunteering to frisk your turkey. If you stuff it in a diaper first, he'll give you free Pre-Check when he's finished.