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You don't have to believe me.

But wait! There's more. Here's a link to a summary of another study. Sorry I don't subscribe to the Journal of Geophysical Research, or I'd link that actual study.

Sorry, link was on another site... not slashdot.

Here's the article in question re: particulate, SO2, and NOx emissions of superfreighters.

How can the above be a troll in light of a) my posting history and b) the fact that trillions of dollars are being handed out to people who already have probably more money than any ten slashdotters with at least one comment posted combined? It's long past time to wake up and realize that both parties are mostly engaged in siphoning money out of the nation and into the pockets of the elite. This has long been the primary function of the United States government. If you look at the history of American military operations around the world, probably half or more of them are obviously entirely financially motivated. Some of our earliest military actions involved killing numerous innocents (shelling towns, capturing ports, etc) specifically to force people to sell product to United Fruit (at a given price, no less) so that it could be sold to American citizens at a profit.

Yes I know my enemies
Theyre the teachers who taught me to fight me
Compromise, conformity, assimilation, submission
Ignorance, hypocrisy, brutality, the elite
All of which are american dreams

There is a big case here at the moment involving the PMs adviser in an email discussing how to smear opponents. The question no one seems to be asking is, how did the emails get leaked.

From the country that brought you outrageous adultery laws.

"It has far less to do with religion and far more to do with male chauvinist pigs, the misogynists."

You don't know how right you are. :-( A sad day. What a bunch of cowards for killing a 52-year-old women who was simply speaking her mind.

But then, Islam is hardly unique in terms of misogyny, and some Islamic countries are genuinely more enlightened than others. Also, if you turned back the clock a mere 50 years in most western countries, women weren't exactly treated well either. We mostly got over it. Slowly. And both men and women are better off for it. But apparently men in some parts of the world are still frightened by the prospects of women having any political or social say in their lives -- frightened enough to kill a brave women who wasn't afraid to do what was right. And now the killers will hide behind their religion as an excuse for their abominable actions. What an insult.

Members of the public don't view the Met as spending their time at Crispy Creme scoffing donuts. That would be better than beating passers by to death and then lying their asses off afterwards.

Members of the public don't view the Met as spending their time at Crispy Creme scoffing donuts. That would be better than beating passers by to death and then lying their asses off afterwards.

My apologies.

No, not to you.
  To the (probably) non-existent shredding machine.

Seeing THIS CITATION below has somewhat widened my already-open eyes. First time I had ever read such a rebuttal ('tho I certainly suspected so)

While true that the focus was mainly on WMDs, Bush certainly mentioned bringing freedom to Iraq as a goal:

America is a friend to the people of Iraq. Our demands are directed only at the regime that enslaves them and threatens us. When these demands are met, the first and greatest benefit will come to Iraqi men, women and children. The oppression of Kurds, Assyrians, Turkomen, Shia, Sunnis and others will be lifted, the long captivity of Iraq will end, and an era of new hope will begin. That's from October, 2002.

Also, "we" didn't invade because "we" were told there were WMDs in Iraq: those who told us there were WMDs there then invaded. It was propaganda. So was, of course, the talk of bringing freedom to Iraq.

"On Parker's office wall is a signed photo of Saddam Hussein, gifted to him by the US Army's 4th Infantry Division. During his time in captivity, Hussein was apparently shown the 1999 movie South Park: Bigger, Longer And Uncut, in which he's depicted as gay, and enjoying intercourse with the devil, repeatedly. "I have it on pretty good information from the marines on detail in Iraq that they showed him the movie," says Stone. "That's really adding insult to injury."

Could be a ruse by Matt Stone, I wouldn't put it past them.

I think most people don't know just how bad Saddam was...

yeah! and he had weapons of mass destruction! we have evidence!
this "people-shredder" you talk about was a lie, it was propaganda, that you fell for!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2004/feb/25/iraq.iraqandthemedia

IMHO, Saddam was almost as evil as George W Bush!

This has been pretty thoroughly debunked, actually:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddam_Hussein's_alleged_shredder

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2004/feb/25/iraq.iraqandthemedia

And nobody is fooled except the people who modded up your post.

Saddam Hussein was a bad guy for sure, but that whole shredder thing was a classic example of an inflammatory story that is later proved false in the run up to a war.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2004/feb/25/iraq.iraqandthemedia

Becasue a species must watch out for themselves first.

I'd personally kill every Dolphin myself if it would save a human life.

Thats mighty white of you, though genetic diversity is valuable too. I wonder if you would do anything to help dolphins if they saved any human lives ?

By your writing style you are from the US.

Canada. Close, but no cigar.

1. You sent us there. If you don't like the government of the country then do something about it, but don't complain that the soldiers who swear to go wherever your government sends them are "glorified mercenaries". Verbally attacking the soldiers themselves is just childish.

See above. Also, if I were a German in 1939, even though my "government" and even the majority of citizenry supported the Führer's little adventure, I would still expect men of conscience to scoot (along with me) away from the Wehrmacht (preferably with their guns). If there were enough of us, that little mess called the WWII wouldn't have happened, no? Isn't this how the Reds put the brakes on the Czar's fun with his toy-soldiers in the WWI?

Note that the penalty for desertion from Wehrmacht (as well as Czar's army) was death, along with a high chance of the whole family of the deserter landing in some concentration camp ... and they still did it. The penalty for deserting from the US Army is jail time measured in few years. So the excuse "Moooooom! They ... they ... made me do it! Waaaaah!" rings rather hollow ... or should I send you some spare diapers?

2. Moral absolutism is comforting, especially when you're sitting in a comfortable chair in your favorite free-trade coffee shop talking to people who think just like you do.

Bullshit. "Moral absolutism" is supposed to be the foundation of our whole civilization. And one of the "absolute" rules, as old as the first tribe that formed somewhere on the steppes of Africa is "if one group attacks another the villain is always the attacker". You cannot change this now, when it becomes inconvenient to you. Neither could the Nazis.

It doesn't work when people are trying to kill you. Try it some time on a dirt street with an open air sewer running through the middle and bullets cracking around you.It doesn't work when people are trying to kill you. Try it some time on a dirt street with an open air sewer running through the middle and bullets cracking around you.

More bullshit. If people are shooting at you because you invaded their country, it is their right to do so. And you have exactly zero moral authority to whine about it. If they are shooting at you because they invaded your country, then you are in the right and are entitled to shoot back for all its worth. So the whizzing bullets themselves have nothing whatsoever to do with the shooters being "right" or "wrong", it is the determination of who attacked whom. Your whining is akin to some gang-banger who shot up the neighbourhood, killing innocent bystanders and is now squealing in front of a jury about how the cops were shooting at him too and so the jury has no idea how it is when people are shooting at you ...

Umm, yeah, now people want to listen to you. Does it really seem highly likely to you that this practice *ever* took place?

It has been widely reported, example here.

For the sake of argument say there was one person sick enough to do this.

Far more then one. The "bad apples" crap is starting to wear real thin. Try more like "cultural problem". If you keep pounding into the heads of the mercenaries that they are the "good guys" no matter what they do, sooner or later they start believing that crap and the enemy becomes "ragheads" instead of "people".

Do you really think it's likely that the practice is common enough to justify accusing a poster in an online forum of such a thing? Or do you think that what you said amounts to a fallacious (and ridiculous) ad-hominem/appe

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2009/apr/06/google-wallstreetjournal "Most newspapers would prefer a fraction of their current traffic in exchange for a core set of engaged, frequent, transacting users."

I'd argue that the 'would' should be a 'should'.

It's probably not what Google wants to hear, but more visits and ad views doesn't necessarilly help most newspaper sites as they won't sell out their ad inventory anyway. What the newspapers need to do is focus on building up a bigger core audience (through building authorative links to informative, well written articles) who are more likely to interact with the site and add value based on however the newspaper sees its business model. The real trouble is that they don't really have detailed business models at the moment apart from putting ads on the pages. However if you don't sell all your ads, then more page views does not equal more money.

Plus, the US allows Pakistan to spend aid money on weapons against India

"People having their flesh burned to the bone while they are alive."

No, no, you seem to have misunderstood, this game is about Fallujah, not Viet Nam

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/apr/04/iraq.iraq Guess someone doesn't read the news much?

It would take as little as a public statement that he's ok with insults. "Hear me, my people! Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me! So chill out and let those people out of jail mmkay?"

He basically did that, but it didn't seem to have helped any. See his 2005 birthday speech, where he says, "If you say that the King cannot be criticised, it suggests that the King is not human ... If we hold that the King cannot be criticised or violated, then the King ends up in a difficult situation." and "If they get sent to prison, I pardon them. If they don't go to prison, I wonâ(TM)t sue them, because those who violate the King and are punished are not the ones who are in trouble. It would be the King who was in trouble. It is strange, but the lawyers like to send people to prison (for allegedly violating the King)."

The lawmakers have their own reason for keeping the lèse majesté law—it's a great weapon against their political enemies. See for example, the case of Giles Ungpakorn, who wrote a book criticizing the 2006 military coup.

"Italy earthquake leaves 130 dead and scores more trapped under rubble" http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/06/italy-earthquake-victims I'd say being off by a week or so in this case isn't bad science at all.

Actually, most monarchies (including the one I live in) have similar laws. The main difference is to which degree these laws are being used to silence political dissidence. In Thailand they are being used heavily to silence criticisms of the current state of affairs. One example is the case of Giles Ji Ungpakorn, who had to flee Thailand because of his book A Coup for Rich. One of the passages that got him charged were:

The major forces behind the 19th September [2006] coup were anti-democratic groups in the military and civilian elite, disgruntled business leaders and neoliberal intellectuals and politicians. The coup was also supported by the monarchy.

Data retention is optional in mainland Europe but mandatory in Britain. The UK Government are using the EU to implement the laws they want, and then blaming those laws on Brussels. Our taxes, hard at work - when we're not paying for their second homes, we're paying for surveillance and the PR that sells the need for it to the main stream media. And through all this, they still have the brass balls to tell us that talk of a police state is daft. Where does it end? All you US'ians who have complained about Obama or Bush - consider how much worse it would be if you lived over here.

You cold not be more right.
You probably already know this, but the situation in North Korea is so
horrible that the average north korean male is 5.9cm shorter than
the average south korean male, due to chronic famine.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/dec/05/northkorea
The government, instead of fighting of famine (or simply accepting the
foreign help), tries to stimulate people's growth with gymnastics
(this isn't present in the link above; I read it on a newspaper and
don't have a link right now).

North Korea is both metaphorically and literally on the Dark.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/dprk/dprk-dark.htm

Its leader, however, is a buffoon that lives with comfort, luxuries
and ostensible wealth.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/portuguese/noticias/2009/03/090316_coreiadonorte_pizza_cq.shtml
(the above link is in Portuguese, sorry)

Eurotrash:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/03/g20-barack-obama-nick-robinson-question

Barack Hussein Obumbler's theory of economics - the swimming pool model:

Moving water from the deep end of the pool to the shallow end tends to equalize the depth of the two ends.

Yeah right. Talking nonsense again, right?

European surveys have proved that French people actually work longer hours than Brits.

Don't believe me?

Check this:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2009/mar/31/uk-long-working-hours
http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/ewco/surveys/ewcs2005/index.htm

I have seen Brits and Swiss jerks leave their office at 5:00pm while I stayed at my desk until 10:00pm past. So that kind of "joke" is truly lame.

And yes, I work in France.

Or torched like the car owned by a paed...iatrician.

You realise of course that this is an April Fool. The author of the article, http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/apr/01/guardian-twitter-media-technology, is Rio Palof - an anagram of "April Fool"...

Ireland is, in many respects, a fairly civilized country

With its debt being about eleven times their GDP, which is huge even by European standards, Ireland may, indeed, be considered "civilized"... But only by those, who share the America's Administration vision of civilization...

Of note, for instance, is the fact that divorce only became constitutional in 1995.

And abortions are still prohibited. Unbeknown to most of Bono's "liberal" fans, moaning: "Why can't the US be more like Europe?"

Being an avid cyclist I hear about new blood drugs frequently.

The same hype was used for Hemopure when it first came out, except it had the nasty side effect of kidney failure, or so far as I can tell. Anyone else know definitively why the FDA won't test Hemopure? If this makes it out of the lab, I wonder how long it will be in the wild before they develop a test for it in endurance sports. Personally, I don't think it will. Blood drugs like Hemopure and Erythropoietin have a nasty side effect of death. I doubt this one will fair any better despite TFA's claims of safety.

Are we really to believe that a paragraph on Slashdot or Google News is as bad for Guardian Media Group as would be simply reading their articles straight from their RSS feed? Make no mistake: a ruling against aggregators is a ruling against RSS!!!

Half of Britons do not believe in evolution, survey finds

A new survey in the UK found that 29 percent of teachers think creationism and intelligent design should be taught as science

More schools teaching biblical creation are to be established across the north east of England.

The cdesign proponentsists are everywhere. The sooner you recognize the problem exists where you are too, the sooner you can fix it.

Yes it is, and this is not a new thing. Example: $cientology go to great lengths, whenever some new exposé book on their cult comes out, to buy a copy in the UK - despite the fact they are not usually sold there for precisely this reason. (Which in of itself is a censorship chilling effect.) The moment they manage this, they contact evil libel specialists such as Carter-Fuck and the author is suddenly in a lot of trouble. UK law is ridiculously biased in favour of the rich accuser, and consquently they usually win. (Don't know if this is still the case, but at one point Ian Hislop of Private Eye had lost every single libel allegation brought against him, despite the stories all being true ... except for that of Robert Maxwell, and that was only because he died first.)

The same principle can be, and is, applied to web content. Admittedly it's less common because proof of "publishing" in the UK is required, which is easier with a physical book and a receipt for it, but it happens. It's become depressingly common for neither of the parties in a UK libel case to actually be UK residents, the accusing party having managed to have it heard in the UK anyway via such dodgy practices as outlined above.

Florida just had a bill to introduce "critical analysis of evolution." That bill just died. http://www.flascience.org/wp/?p=975. So right now it looks like the creationists are losing. However, this anti-science agenda has been going on for a very long time and it isn't likely to end anytime soon. Even in Great Britain which has a much smaller percentage of people who are creationist http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/02/charles-darwin-creationism-intelligent-design there are still pushes for creationism.

Moreover, what matters isn't just what is officially in public school curriculum. Many teachers will skip evolution entirely simply to avoid controversy while teachers sympathetic to creationism will add it in even when they have no permission. Furthermore, even if children are taught evolution in schools, if they hear everywhere else (parents, peers, pastors etc.) that evolution is a satanic lie, then what is being taught in school won't matter much.

Overall, this is a good thing. But this particular set of anti-science memes will likely stick around for the expected life times of all Slashdotters (unless Duncan McCloud reads Slashdot).

your claim has been debunked. before. lots of times.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/jul/11/climatechange.climatechange1

Interesting enough he's also a believer im the theories of Tommy Gold which propose that there is an abundance of OIL in the earths mantle and was not produced by biological processes in ancient times. So we should all carry on our current energy policies and use OIL in the certitude that none of these activities will have a serious impact on human life on this planet. Of course if he's wrong humanity will be reduced to a pre-industrial marginalized existence.

This reminds of certain utterances by James Watson regarding the inferior intellect of the non-white races. Just because you're clever in one area don't mean you necessarily know anything in another.

'There is no doubt that parts of the world are getting warmer, but the warming is not global'

Arctic summers ice-free 'by 2013'

Ice-free Arctic could be here in 23 years

In the past 60 years or so human activity has contributed to the deterioration of the ozone layer

For starters, you will not run your HIPAA compliant health care system or your damn investment bank datacenter using some random shmucks pool of servers. That is silly. Privacy issues aside, both systems probably have very predictable loads and wouldn't benefit from cloud computing.

Second, even if you did, you'll probably be able to specify which data centers your virtual machines will run. After all, they want to charge you more for running stuff overseas!

Third, you aren't the market. Startups and web companies with spikey traffic are. If you have a predictable amount of traffic, odds are good this kind of provisioning would cost more. But if you are prone to unpredictable spikes, or you just don't want to deal with maintaining your own equipment, this is probably a good deal.

Lastly, just because RMS says something is evil, doesn't mean he is right. I'll just leave it at that. I know you didn't specify the keyword "RMS", but rest assured that there are a lot of "haters" who have never even heard of the term before that windbag piped up. Now they hate it without even knowing what it means (kinda like how RMS hates it without understanding it).

Since those that would and can pay for it will not take advantage of it.

This statement makes no sense. You take advantage of it by *not* using it. That is the point. You only pay for what you use and no more. Prior to cloud computing (okay, the term is kinda silly), you'd have to provision for your peak load. Now you just provision for your baseline and fire up a potentially infinite pool of servers during peak loads.

I'm not sure what war you're talking about, but it's got nothing to do with the discussion anyway.

Oh great, now you don't even remember what we are talking about.. Americans not wanting to go get killed in Iraq, and us giving them refuge. We're done here.

Oh so you're an anti-semite, too?

1000 people are dead in Gaza. 2/3 of them civilians. Similar numbers in Lebanon. I'm an antisemite for thinking they overstepped their bounds and someone should tell them so or at the very least stop giving them weapons until they do. You are a fool for saying so.

United Nations investigators have accused the Israeli army of using an 11-year-old boy as a human shield during its recent Gaza offensive.
Israel accused of indiscriminate phosphorus use in Gaza

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/mar/26/seth-finkelstein-google-advertising
"Google recently took another step along the path of surveillance as a service, launching what it called "interest-based advertising", and which everyone else calls "behavioural targeting". These are systems that collect extensive personal data, for marketing purposes. To best understand the issues,"

http://sethf.com/infothought/blog/archives/001422.html

I once upon a time worked for a statistics agency and even without names and addresses it is surprisingly easy to identify people in anonymous data, even anonymised unit record data can be deconstructed to some degree. Depending on what you want to achieve don't even need to identify them.

Marrying up these datasets and ideas would be gruesome.

The CIA, which has in the past actively worked to overthrow (and has succeeded in overthrowing) South American regimes the United States doesn't like, now claims that Venezuela used vote rigging to win a 2004 election recount just two years after a failed coup took place against Chavez that the United State sanctioned.

Forgive me if I don't take this seriously.

We had the same problem in the UK - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2307983.stm
This prompted a change in the law - http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2004/jul/03/NHS.politics

The moment I saw the headline, I was looking for this response. It's usually within 5 minutes of any article that mentions Stallman that someone will jump in and say one of the following: "he's living in a bubble", "it's either GNU or it's not software to him", or "he's finally lost it". It's gotten to the point where this response seems to be reflexive, and some people just read these articles to get more anti-RMS fodder.

Stallman will give you opportunities to either make fun of, or dismiss some his opinions completely, I'll give you that. But this is definitely not of of these cases. And neither was his opinion about cloud computing. Both of these have a common element, though they're not entirely the same.

Here he points out that the basis of Free Software isn't present in the setting of a Web App, in most cases. I don't just mean the simplest example where the server can go down, since that's a pragmatic, short-term problem. Suppose you had extraordinary redundancy: the servers can never be offline. Would that mean that you could modify the the software which is on the server? Could you share the functionality, as a whole, with anyone? Could you examine the program, for any purpose?
In most web apps today, only the first criteria, out of the four that make up the definition of Free Software, is met.

It doesn't have to be that way. A simple example would be running WordPress which is mirrored on a server somewhere. You make changes and updates on your end (the client), and they are updated to the server whenever you choose. This includes both the content *and* the code. On the browser side, it could run a Free JavaScript program/library, like jQuery, which is indeed Free Software. Needless to say, this example is far too complicated for most users of WordPress to implement, but it's *possible*, just like it's possible to make modification to GCC, though in reality not many people would know how or be able to.

There should be better mechanisms, one of which is arguably some variation on Gears, which would allow you to make changes on your end if you choose.

Try and consider that in expressing these concerns of his, he's not thinking of himself, he's thinking of others. Even if some of those opinions are difficult to imagine would ever come to pass: like an entire operating system, or several, which you can just download and install anywhere and use freely without having to sign up or give any explanation as to what you intend to do with it.

This is interesting considering that India has participated in the ongoing battle to make things cheap.

Of course, the billions of dollars keeping AIG and the megabanks on life support is only worth it if you actually believe that the government will be able to successfully stabilize them. Do you find the level of transparency forthcoming from the treasury encouraging? Do you think it is wise to buy these "troubled assets" at above market rates? These things don't seem encouraging if we're looking to turn a profit for the taxpayer and not just leave the taxpayer as the last sucker.

The fact is that a lot of the money created in this boom never existed except on paper. Do you think that making these dollars loaned into existence (cite: http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse/chapter-7-money-creation ) into real dollars will not lead to the very Zimbabwe-style inflation that you think that the AIG bailouts are protecting us from?

Then there's the issue that we're maxing out the US credit card on a gamble that we can actually fix a problem that we don't understand since there were few or no regulators watching. You point to Sweden's bailouts as a success, but what about Japan's "lost economic decade"? (cite: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/sep/30/japan.japan ) This is an extreme gamble, especially for a country essentially surviving on foreign credit, that in the worst case could lead to government collapse.

I do not believe that Wall Street has been honest about its assets versus liabilities. I do not believe that the inflationary risks or the risk of losing billions or trillions of taxpayer money in the event that the treasury cannot actually save the banks or AIG (as you know, these two things are related, since survival of banks is related to whether AIG can come through on its CDS obligations) is worth the potential benefit of saving them. Because the details were unknown even to the executives at the time, I doubt that anyone in Washington does either. A more reasonable idea might have been to give bailout money to the FDIC, and save taxpayer assets with taxpayer money should a bank actually have to fold to the FDIC.

By the way, when I have a memory leak, I typically start by shutting down the offending application. I question whether you actually understand the situation well enough to be qualified in throwing "sheep" around. In fact, if anyone's a sheep, one might even say it would be the one trusting enough to think that what goes against common sense is a good idea. But then, maybe you have some really good answers to the issues above that I don't. I'll be interested to see which is the case.

Well, the Pennines in England are contaminated by iron-eating bacteria, and there is a particularly nasty form of Strep that actually digests the entire human body within 24 hours.

• Metal-cleanup bacteria found in contaminated regions of the Pennines
• Iron-reducing bacteria
• Really nasty metal-eating bacteria

• Flesh-eating Strep

As all naysayers regarding civil liberty chant; "What good is your freedom if you're dead?" seems to be the prevailing wisdom in Europe. Can't fault them too much, poor bastards, they have a legacy of subservience, caving, and generally attempting to wheel and deal their way out of disaster.

I'm frequently amazed, however, at how little regard the average EU citizen has for recent history. Every time something like Al Quaeda comes along they try to send a diplomat to "work it out" and they come home like Chamberlain waving a piece paper and yell "Peace in our time!"

Then Al Qaueda bombs one of their train stations.

What's that about???

Motorists in Britain alone kill, every single year, more people than Al Quaeda have ever killed, world wide, in any single year. On the general scale of things, Al Quaeda are an incredibly minor threat. You are less likely to be killed by Al Quaeda than you are to be killed by falling down and bumping your head.

Yes, we are destroying all the things which made our civilisation worth living in, but we're not doing it because Al Quaeda are a serious threat. We're doing it because our politicians think they can get away with it. In the meantime, we only make Al Quaeda stronger by pandering to this ridiculous and disproportionate fear of them.

Basing a business model on profit (needs of the few) vs people benefit (needs of the many) is at the core of the current economic crisis.

It not much different than the RIAA attacking it's customers, except here Shell is slowly killing us while still making obscene profits.

.

The only way Sony can win is if they pretend they're not competing with Nintendo, and say that the Xbox 360 will be surpassed in 10 years. This conveniently ignores the high probability that the PS3 will be completely dead in ten years if they don't do something now.

I actually agree that PS3 would outsell Xbox360 in 10 years. (Probably even Wii.) The problem for Sony here is that in 10 years, MSFT would already release Xbox1440 and Nintendo - Wiiii.

Kaz Hirai is a lunatic and he's going to run the PS3 into the ground.

Japs traditionally do things with devotion. And devoted people tend to make themselves believe in what they say.

It's not like in the situation Sony management can do anything radical. They have to balance profits with long term plans. They invested lots of time/money and have no choice but to push whatever they have for sale - at a price which has a distant chance of turning a profit.

For whatever reason PS3/BD fails - management heads in Sony would roll. It doesn't matter how it would fail - it would be spectacular. That means the management to succeed have to put a kind smile on and try to sell it more aggressively.

The only way Sony can win is if they pretend they're not competing with Nintendo, and say that the Xbox 360 will be surpassed in 10 years. This conveniently ignores the high probability that the PS3 will be completely dead in ten years if they don't do something now.

Kaz Hirai is a lunatic and he's going to run the PS3 into the ground.

I didn't see any mention of the terror attacks in Africa, which are primarily guns.

11 terror attacks - 10 were bombings, one was a shooting.

Also, bombs don't stop people who bomb, guns do.

Has this ever happened?

There doesn't seem to be any evidence that public ownership of guns will in any way affect the tactics or effectiveness of terror attacks.

Hell, even shooting rampages have been rarely need ended because of an armed populace. A quick search on Google and all of them seem to have been ended by suicide or police action.