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Here is a famous one (i.e. you know about it) from the cold war

http://articles.latimes.com/1991-07-29/news/mn-177_1_embassy-building

The inevitable result, as a former member of the Senate Intelligence Committee later put it, was that the Soviet KGB secret police, in effect, was allowed to become the building's prime contractor.

Confident that they could detect and neutralize whatever Soviet spy masters threw at them, the Americans allowed Soviet workers to build precast concrete pieces for the embassy in their own factories, out of sight of U.S. security experts.

But in 1982, when a U.S. inspection team with experimental X-ray scanners arrived to check what was being built on the 10-acre compound about a mile from the Kremlin, they were flabbergasted by what they found.

Although the U.S. government has never displayed what the inspectors detected, it is widely known that among the spy devices dug out of concrete panels and beams were bugs that normal X-rays couldn't detect and steel reinforcing rods apparently designed to function as antennas.

Do the editors read the news? I first saw this yesterday morning:

http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-privacy-watchdog-epic-files-complaint-against-snapchat-with-ftc-20130517,0,3618395.story

and if they weren't monitoring/storing snap chat, I would think the FBI would be bitching like they do about Skype...

The Chinese government is waging ongoing cyber warfare against the US, and we are loosing the defensive battle.

One of the big problems is that non-governmental organizations that are not part of the defense industry have no legal responsibility to provide security. In fact, there are not even any meaningful federal level guidelines. This is, to a great extent, due to lobbying efforts on the part of entrenched business interests.

http://articles.latimes.com/2012/aug/03/nation/la-na-cyber-security-20120803

So the Republicans and the business community put their own short term interests ahead of the security of the United States. They are literally dumber then a box of rocks. Even so, if you listed to Republican rhetoric/propaganda they claim to be only ones who know how to defend the country. It's pathetic and frightening.

Because Republicans believe that in order to defend the country, one must commit Marines to fighting a land war, while using the Air Force to bomb brown people, then send in the Army to defend private contractors. Cyber security is far too nerdy to to considered "national defense". You needs guns and stuff for that.

Next election term, Republicans will again go on about how we need to "get tough" on China while conspicuously leaving out any specifics as to exactly what that means or how it'll be done. Then nothing will get done and we'll read about some other high-profile leak of sensitive engineering documents lifted off a Lockheed or Raytheon server, or compromised intelligence information from a server in Langley or D.C. Rinse, repeat.

One of the big problems is that non-governmental organizations that are not part of the defense industry have no legal responsibility to provide security. In fact, there are not even any meaningful federal level guidelines. This is, to a great extent, due to lobbying efforts on the part of entrenched business interests.

http://articles.latimes.com/2012/aug/03/nation/la-na-cyber-security-20120803

But theU.S. Chamber of Commerceand other business groups strenuously opposed the measure, condemning it as excessive government interference in the free market and arguing that cumbersome federal regulations could hamper companies trying to defend against cyber intrusions.

Democrats overwhelmingly supported the legislation, but for Republicans, it meant a stark choice between competing constituencies: national security officials and business leaders. Even after the bill's backers made the standards voluntary, the Chamber of Commerce, which spends more on lobbying than any other trade group, opposed it.

On Thursday, the Senate cyber-security bill failed to overcome a Republican-led filibuster. Analysts say the bill couldn't breach a wall of anti-regulatory sentiment that proved resistant to the dire warnings.

The measure fell short of the 60-vote threshold needed to end debate, 52 to 46, with 40 Republicans joined by six Democrats voting in support of the filibuster.

"Rarely have I been so disappointed in the Senate's failure to come to grips with a threat to our country," said Sen. Susan Collins, the ranking Republican on the Senate Homeland Security Committee and one of the bill's chief sponsors, who had tried in vain to sway her GOP colleagues. Just four sided with her.

So the Republicans and the business community put their own short term interests ahead of the security of the United States. They are literally dumber then a box of rocks. Even so, if you listed to Republican rhetoric/propaganda they claim to be only ones who know how to defend the country. It's pathetic and frightening.

Sanctimonious statements are cheap. Actual discussions are worthwhile. There are plenty of facts linked from the Wikipedia article. Here are some more articles with facts (and opinions, just like yours).

But at least this time it looks like you read the link, rather than responding to something that wasn't even asserted. Please note, however, that your mrc.org link seems to be discussing a practice that you were defending just a couple of posts back. And the National Review link talks about just one case.

Anyway, the attorneys controversy serves as a counterpoint to the original post. It was typical partisan dreck, where everything was perfect and/or excusable under Bush, and the problems under Obama are somehow unique. That kind of campaign-like crap is way too common by all parties. It's exhausting, and is inimical to rational discussion and governance.

That's not true. Bush got over 5 years before the media stopped kissing his ass after 9/11.

So you're saying that Bush really only had opposition in the media for the last 2-3 years of his term? I think you have a different recollection than I do, and what the facts might suggest.

Face it, the media sucks up to the GOP because if they don't, the GOP cries about the "liberal" media, never mind that the media itself is already right of center.

Two things. First, I haven't noticed the media bend all that much to that objection.

Second, "right of center" media? It might look that way to you, but that is because you are probably running into a parallax problem which is exacerbated by your left of left of center politics.

Do journalists' political donations (mostly Democratic) = news bias?

All of this prompted Investors Business Daily to publish a trenchant op-ed by William Tate that reported on his examination of Federal Election Commission records for donations by journalists.

You'll never guess what he says he found -- 235 journalists donating to Democrats while only 20 gave to Republicans for a total of $225,563 to Democrats and $16,298 to the the GOP-inclined.

That's small potatoes moneywise in terms of the nearly $1 billion collected so far in this election cycle. But Tate sees a valuable built-in bias among Democratic journalists for candidates of their party.

Last summer Bill Dedman at MSNBC did a massive research project, examining political donations by journalists over several years and found a similar overwhelming number of Democratic journalists (125 of 143 political donors while only 16 gave to Republican candidates

Journalists as a group tend toward progressive or liberal, not center, or center right. If they look right of center to you, you might want to think about recalibrating your mental peg of where your politics are on the continuum.

From the LA times.

Serious editors, that link is even provided at the bottom of the crappy summary article you folks pointed to - and it is MUCH more in-depth.

http://articles.latimes.com/2013/mar/08/local/la-me-holland-pot-councilman-20130308

Bill Rosendahl lifts his walker over the threshold and carries it into the grow room before anyone in his entourage — press secretary, pot shop owner, pot consultant and bud tender — can rush over to help.

Even after 13 hits of radiation and seven rounds of combination chemo, Rosendahl moves steadily, straight as a poplar, past 2-foot-high cannabis plants labeled Hindu Skunk and Humboldt O.G. And, he says, Herbalcure, the Westside pot dispensary we're touring, is responsible for his vigor.

This is what decades of battles over marijuana use have come to in L.A.: A city councilman taking a journalist around to show where he scores his dope.

Fuck you, asshole. My mother died of cancer, and it was literally torture. This was before medical pot was available, so the only pain meds she could get left her incapacitated. It was either suffer agony without the meds, or take them and not be able to function. Either way, she was reduced to a pathetic state of uselessness before she was gone. If I knew back then about how pot can ease cancer pain I would have risked jail to get some to make her final days less horrible.

You are a soulless worm without a shred of human compassion. You are pig ignorant and proud of the fact. Your arrogance matches you stupidity.

You mock those who suffer. Given how many good people die in needless pain, it is obscene that a moral degenerate like you so easily denigrates their tribulations. I wish you and your family nothing but ill.

Oh yeah. You have a "work within the system" and "hope and change" response. Because that works out, so very well.

It's been working for hundreds of years, with degrees of success changing over time, in both the US and UK, and way better than the sort of socialist (or is that communist?) revolution you would prefer*. Why don't you try that in your native Canada first, so we can watch the results before it gets tried in the US?

A big part of the problem is that the news media isn't doing its job. They put their thumb on the scales in favor of Obama, and they still haven't really taken it off. Now, they are reaping their reward - multiple scandals breaking out at once, including the AP incident. It is a simple fact that about 90% of journalists in the US media contribute to Democrats, and probably vote the same. And that should be OK, as long as they report accurately and fairly even on policies they personally desire. But they aren't doing that. They are letting their personal political preferences interfere with their professional obligation. As a result, they cover for the Obama administration, ask friendly questions, continually post stories about "unexpected" outcomes that are bad when they can't otherwise be minimized. It is hard to make good choices for a country when the people and leaders aren't getting good, accurate, information, and that isn't happening. Well, their support of the Obama administration has become a bit strained recently, and it might very well turn shortly. When it does, it won't be pretty for the administration.

It may be already starting.

Obama knee-deep in Nixon-esque scandal (Note: As of posting, this is a front page story on the Boston Herald.)

Republicans could not even have scripted this one. The agency most hated by voters, the Internal Revenue Service, admits to going on a Nixonian witch hunt against Tea Party and conservative groups during the re-election campaign.

This is a story even the most partisan Massachusetts liberal cannot defend. It’s so bad that even Ed Markey is calling for heads to roll.

Now we learn that the Justice Department has secretly obtained the phone records of Associated Press reporters and editors in what appears to be an investigation of an AP story that disclosed details of a CIA operation that stopped a terrorist attack.

Going after the Tea Party is one thing, but the media? What an outrage. Who knows, the press may get so mad they won’t laugh at Obama’s jokes during the next White House Correspondents’ Dinner. . .more

*No, this isn't a troll. The man is very left of centre.

That may have helped ice the unanimous SCOTUS decision, but that's not what the lawsuit was really about. The lawsuit was about planting unauthorized Monsanto seeds, pure and simple. Monsanto is constantly suing farmers who never buy or plant any kind of Monsanto seeds merely because some Monsanto seeds show up in their fields from cross-pollination. In some of these cases Monsanto is even suspected of causing the cross-pollination so they can bring a lawsuit.

http://www.dailytech.com/Monsanto+Defeats+Small+Farmers+in+Critical+Bioethics+Class+Action+Suit/article24118.htm

There's a big fight going on between organic farmers and Monsanto over this issue, because the organic farmers don't want the Monsanto seed at all.

http://articles.latimes.com/2012/feb/17/local/la-me-gs-organic-farmers-sue-monsanto-to-stop-patent-suits-20120217

A quick google search shows dozens of articles about this.

https://www.google.com/search?q=monsanto+cross+pollination+lawsuit

I live in Europe where we don't have school shootings

Oh really?

Too bad your high horse just threw you and then trampled you right in the argument. Ouch!

Pillock. Dunblane was what caused our handgun ban in the first place. At least we only needed one nutjob to get a ban. and have not had any more in the intervening 17 years.

  The NRA solution arm all teachers and how soon till one of them loses it and wastes a pupil.

I live in Europe where we don't have school shootings

Oh really?

Too bad your high horse just threw you and then trampled you right in the argument. Ouch!

Relevant: http://articles.latimes.com/1989-10-05/news/mn-913_1_soviet-union. Those who don't study history are condemned to repeat it.

Actually, this will murder sports channels. They're being subsidized by the packages:
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/dec/01/business/la-fi-1202-ct-sports-cost-20121202

1. A bazooka can do a lot of damage, but hardly more than any of the mass shootings in the history of US (and abroad), most of which were done with regular semi-automatic guns.

2. At the same time I would not trust a stranger with a single-shot musket. There are some pretty strange wierdos out there, and some of them get their hands on guns now and then.

It says something about "well-regulated militia" in the comstitution, something that is being omitted and forgotten most of the time. By "militia" I understand "a group of volunteers, well trained and instructed on safety, who gather twice a year for a weapons drill.", hopefully with some system to filter out dimwits who give guns to children as birthday presents

Tell them that Global warming causes prostitution.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penn_%26_Teller:_Bullshit!#Environmental_skepticism

Environmental skepticism

Penn & Teller describe themselves as environmental skeptics. They have made several television appearances attempting to discredit environmental concerns. The "Environmental Hysteria" episode attempted to "prove the global warming crisis, among other things, was created by the out of control imagination of hysterical hippies and environmentalists".

When subsequently challenged at the James Randi Educational Foundation's The Amazing Meeting 6 about their views on global warming, Penn Jillette published a piece in the Los Angeles Times saying "I don't know about climate change".[16]

Also:

Penn acknowledged his and Teller's biases, saying, "We're fair and we never take people out of context. We're biased, but we try to be honest."

I.e. Biased and with an agenda.
Seek information on recycling and environment elsewhere.
All Penn and Teller provide on that topic is one-sided, "mean-spirited, sanctimonious and self-righteous" bullshit.

Also bigoted, as Jillette's idea of being "fair when one is being mean-spirited, sanctimonious and self-righteous" is saying "Hey! What do I know? Sure. I'm being an asshole and I'm spouting nonsense from my position of authority (just look at all the other crazy shit I very loudly rant about on TV - all the shit I rant about MUST BE crazy) - but it's not like I reeeaaaly know anything.
Cause, in essence - you simply can't know some things. They are beyond our comprehension..."

They are bigoted assholes, just like the creationists bible-thumpers . It's just that they are YOUR KIND of assholes.

I said: The value of bitcoin has nothing to do with the ability to generate a bitcoin.
You said: For every other product; If you increase supply and demand remains constant, the price of said item goes down. For your statement to be true, the laws of supply and demand wouldn't apply to bitcoins. Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof.

Fair enough. I'll concede that the value of a bitcoin is related to the ability to generate a bitcoin. The easier they are to come by, the lower the value will be as supply increases once demand reaches equilibrium with supply. However, reaching that equilibrium takes time and the desire to aquire bitcoin is still driving the value more than the supply. That's not what I was talking about though and why I said "bitcoin" (meaning the system) rather than "a bitcoin." The value of the system is about the use, not the individual coin. If 1000 bitcoins have the value of $0.01, it is just as useful as a system as if 1 bitcoin has a value of $1,000. This goes to many of your other arguments as well. Counterfeiting is a problem that isn't as simple for banks to get away with as you suggest, and various countries do engage in it and it does cause problems, potentially very big ones. (I work in the industry, I know whereof I speak but was indeed surprised to see your flat assertion that Iran has such a thing. I read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdollar and http://articles.latimes.com/1992-07-02/news/mn-1906_1_counterfeit-bills to see but didn't see conclusive information despite dire concerns about the impact on the value of the dollar, perhaps you have a better source?)

You don't even have to remove the chemicals from the environment. They aren't used around bee pollinated crops anyway. The chemicals come from thousands of miles away.

Beekeeper greed induced them to winter their bees using corn syrup so that they could sell off more honey. The production of corn syrup did not remove the pesticides completely, and beekeepers started feeding that to their colonies.

Long life pesticides should not survive food production, but because it was harmless to humans, nobody was watching too closely when beekeepers started raiding the honey and substituting corn syrup.

Wireless communication FUD has been debunked. Completely.

Neonicotinoid chemicals on the other hand are a new field of study that has been tested by simply removing the source of these chemicals from the bee hives. It was creeping in not from the fields, but from the Beekeepers themselves. That too was greed, this time on the part of the beekeepers.

So were the scientists at the chemical companies right or were the 3 million people who signed a petition right? Did an emotional outcry of ignorance just stop the use of something harmless? Guess we'll know in a couple of years... maybe.

Good question. The consequence of delay in allowing the use of Neonicotinoid chemicals in this case is minimal. It seems the prudent thing to do.

There is good science behind this ban. A Harvard study showed that these Neonicotinoids leak through the production chain of corn syrup, which beekeepers are using to winter their colonies. As soon as that news was out, many, if not most US beekeepers immediately switched back to Cane Sugar syrup, or leaving more Honey in the hives for the bees instead of selling it off. The trend to feed bees corn syrup is not something that had been going on for all that long - since the 70s. But the addition of Neonicotinoid chemicals is fairly new.

The pesticides are not actually used on or near crops normally pollinated by bees. It was found to be creeping in through the corn syrup. These pesticides are not harmful to humans (as far as we know) so the regulations governing their presence in industrial corn syrup were simply too lax. It remains to be seen if they can be refined out of corn syrup.

You mean like this one?

I've also seen articles on various other similar robots, including for noodles and pizza.

What are you talking about? They didn't 'grandfather in' any of the genes inserted into crops.

I'm talking about the concept of "substantial equivalence" which presumes that genetic modification is equivalent to selective breeding and thus any significant testing is unnecessary. Even when there is no way one could selectively breed a gene across species the way GM engineering transplants them.

Safety testing is at best limited to comparing changes in the level of certain chemicals that already exist in the original version of the plant with no requirement to look for new substances in the new plant.

http://articles.latimes.com/1992-05-26/news/mn-144_1_genetic-engineering

While I am sure there are some anecdotal tests that go above and beyond the level of treating genetic modification as selective breeding, the fact that the minimum requirements are basically non-existent is the issue of concern.

My personal experience with "substantial equivalence" is in the software world where many government defense contracts use it as an out to avoid rigorous testing of patches and point-releases but still retain various levels of certification. It only works through sheer luck in that world, I don't expect it to work any better with GM foods.

Just so you know, tax avoidance is a bi-partisan thing.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2010/09/congress-taxes-irs.html

Of course nature is dangerous, but not tested? Ever heard of evolution and selection?
Breeding also works since thousands of years and not only 25.

Independant GM research is almost non-existent:

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/feb/13/opinion/la-oe-guriansherman-seeds-20110213
http://e360.yale.edu/feature/companies_put_restrictions_on_research_into_gm_crops/2273/

http://earthopensource.org/files/pdfs/GMO_Myths_and_Truths/GMO_Myths_and_Truths_1.3b.pdf

Please stop spreading lies.

There's no immediate debt crisis, Boehner says, agreeing with Obama
http://articles.latimes.com/2013/mar/17/news/la-pn-no-immediate-debt-crisis-boehner-obama-20130317
March 17, 2013

Boehner expressed agreement with Obama's statement in an ABC interview the other day that the debt doesn't present "an immediate crisis."

But Boehner took issue with Obama's assertion that it doesn't make sense to âoechase a balanced budget just for the sake of balance.â

The new spending plan from House Republicans would balance the budget in 10 years, a priority Boehner said this morning is important to the economy.

Death spiral eh?
Where do you get your facts?

I guess I can understand where you'd get that idea, since Republicans have more or less spent years claiming the debt apocalypse is coming.

Obama trumped the Endangered Species Act to allow our Eastern ports to be dredged for the Super Panamax shipping coming in 2015. Why not for clean energy?

Beating China is easy. Just suspend a few regs, starting with the ESA and exempt 'clean' energy development from pressure group lawsuits.

Instead, our 'clean' energy dies the death of a thousand cuts in courtrooms while you mopes whinge about Republicans and the budget.

Whatever. Suck it. You made it.

Trained professionals like these?

http://articles.latimes.com/2013/feb/08/local/la-me-torrance-shooting-20130209

Wrong make, model, color??? Fuckit kill em all and let their god sort it out.

The gun culture has worked to protect people who handle and traffic in explosives:

NRA Lobbyists Stymie Effort to Trace Explosives

The wars have so far cost about 2.3 trillion. That is not even close to the amount of our debt. To say the wars are the cause of our debt is political wishful thinking.

http://articles.latimes.com/2013/mar/29/nation/la-na-0329-war-costs-20130329

W. never vetoed a spending bill, no matter how bloated it was. He trusted the good people of his party to do what was right. Rather blew up in the entire nation's face in the middle of 2008.

The wars have so far cost about 2.3 trillion. That is not even close to the amount of our debt. To say the wars are the cause of our debt is political wishful thinking.

http://articles.latimes.com/2013/mar/29/nation/la-na-0329-war-costs-20130329

Face it, you can't have great, immersive, polished, professional-quality games for $2.99

Ignoring the fact that you have not looked at Google Play recently :) Lets spend a little time looking at costs.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2010/02/anatomy-of-a-60-dollar-video-game.html

These figures are rough and back in 2010 by Steve Perlman, founder of OnLive That bring the cost of a video game down to $27. For your $2.99 Andoird game the developers pay $25 for registration to distribute on the Google Play Store. Application developers receive 70 percent of the application price...leaving you with $2.09

A quick look at the console market http://www.vgchartz.com/ and consoles average about 80M potential customers at the end of a consoles useful life. Android is Heading towards 1Billion activations, and continue to grow [currently only 12.5x larger than Consoles].

I am making no claims that more money can be made from Android games than tradition console gaming, but comparing on total selling price alone is foolish when Android market is massive and continues to growl; there is no second hand market; risks are smaller; development costs cheaper; Customers buy more games; Alternative revenue streams.

That is ignoring the fact that your favourite engine spits out binaries that will work on a plethora of platforms...Look at Unity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unity_(game_engine)

You're right about it just being an overload of calls beyond the bandwidth capacity. The L.A. Times has updated article at 4:12 pm PDT to say: [Update 4:12 p.m. April 15: The AP is now reporting that cell service has not been shut off in Boston. This has also been reiterated by at least one network, Verizon Wireless, to the Times. Verizon said it has not been asked by government officials to shut off cellphone service.] But earlier, they reported that DHS had asked for cell service to be turned off. Now, it turns out not to be true.

The AP (Associated Press) is reporting that the Boston Police have turned off the cell phone system and infrastructure to prevent the use of cell phone signals from triggering another bomb. Something else to consider when the only means of communication you have left are cell phones and no land lines.

I'm curious as to your sourcing. A quick browse through the last eleven years of FOIA reports shows the backlog at the end of every year under the Obama administration has been lower then the the lowest year under the Bush administration, unless they're lying on their reports. It might also be worth noting the highest backlog under Obama was his first year in office, where Bush's first year was his lowest, indicating the trend is the opposite of what you imply. If fewer requests are being answered, then it must mean fewer have been made, because a smaller number are going unanswered. I do remember Guantanamo, and I understand the difference between a giving an order and having it followed (not that it excuses Obama entirely) but that's not the same thing I was talking about, the order I referred to seems to have been obeyed, I'd venture to guess that's one of the reasons the backlog is so much smaller now. So without excusing his administration for their wrongdoings, it seems things have been more transparent under Obama.

Here's a source, although I'll admit it's old (the article is from 2010).

You seem to have more updated numbers, so can you clarify the context? If a request is outright denied, does that count as a 'response' and is cleared from the backlog? Because, if so, the backlog is just a measure of how fast the replies happen, not of the actual government transparency.

How about they actually answered to FOIA request?

Useless as it is, atleast it's a response. This started when Bush was in office from what I understand. They never even bothered to respond.

I'm not a Bush fan, but the Obama administration has rejected about 50% more FOIA requests than the Bush administration. The article is from 2010, and I can't seem to find updated numbers. If you've got them, and the trend has reversed itself, then I'll stand corrected.

And as to the question of whether these analytics mean anything, the software developer had this to say:

Note the phrase "ultimately show", which means that this is still an experiment. And note the jumping to a conclusion about correlation and causation between engagement and success. While that conclusion may be warranted by other studies, and depending upon the definitions used for "engagement" and for "success" (you can always game the definitions too), the problem is that the monitoring systems way of numerically evaluating "engagement" may be all fucked up if you use handwritten notes or read auxillary works (other textbooks, older classes' texts, or even "outlines" of texts).
.
The worst uses of these metrification analytics was highlighted in a Los Angeles Times article yesterday called "Monitoring upends balance of power at workplace, some say". That article had some examples of over-monitoring and over-detailed "supervising" with bad or partial numbers:

Or the example of how to read in what you want:

Shouldn't it have focussed on finding out the things that made those workers more productive, and wouldn't it have made more sense to have turned those very productive part-time employees into full time employees with better compensation? Having analytics just gives you/the teacher/the supervisor one extra checkbox to check-off as the supposedly valid reason for giving someone a bad evaluation / a bad or failing grade / a demotion or firing. It creates fake evidence or fake justification which can be fallen upon as a crutch or "just cause" for the action which the person in power may have already wanted to take.

There are others, if that one isn't to your liking, and I have yet to come across one that suggests they DO improve safety. Furthermore, whenever I'm talking on a hands free set, I feel about as distracted as when I'm holding it up to my ears. The problem with cell phones isn't, after all, that you have one less hand you're using.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-he-cells30-2008jun30,0,2119996.story
http://ehstoday.com/safety/news/hands-free-phones-driving-5895
http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2012/08/why-cell-phone-bans-dont-work.html

The Jews are so dominant, I had to scour the trades to come up with six Gentiles in high positions at entertainment companies. When I called them to talk about their incredible advancement, five of them refused to talk to me, apparently out of fear of insulting Jews. The sixth, AMC President Charlie Collier, turned out to be Jewish.

As a proud Jew, I want America to know about our accomplishment. Yes, we control Hollywood. Without us, you'd be flipping between "The 700 Club" and "Davey and Goliath" on TV all day.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-stein19-2008dec19,0,4676183.column

Let's be honest with ourselves, here, fellow Jews. We do control the media. We've got so many dudes up in the executive offices in all the big movie production companies it's almost obscene. Just about every movie or TV show, whether it be "Tropic Thunder" or "Curb Your Enthusiasm," is rife with actors, directors, and writers who are Jewish. Did you know that all eight major film studios are run by Jews? But that's not all. We also control the ads that go on those TV shows.

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/jews-do-control-the-media/

If the people producing the software for a product can't even implement a calendar correctly and then others can't find that fault in testing it makes you wonder what else they fucked up. Such a mistake would not even be considered acceptable in a high school project let alone a product.

Like Apple? They can't seem to puzzle out this whole time and date thing.

Just a few example.

http://www.tuaw.com/2011/03/14/more-iphone-clock-problems-reported/

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2011/01/apple-iphone-4-alarm-problems-worldwide-clock-app-alarm-broken-3-days-in-a-row.html

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/02/iphone-do-not-disturb/

For an example of what I'm talking about, look at the Southern Poverty Law Center's pronouncements - including especially their advice to law enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security that displaying bumper stickers supporting Ron Paul during the presidential primary, or any of a number of other pro-Constitution or Tea Party political position messages, was a sign that the driver was a terrorist.

Let's see, upset at SPLC? Wonder why that is...

As far as designating drivers with Ron Paul stickers as terrorists, you are most likely confusing that (deliberately or not) with their investigations into and reporting on right wing hate groups that planned or carried out attacks. Like this one. I mean, if we are talking about militia groups, patriot movement groups, and sovereign citizens, we are talking about groups that have attacked or planned to attack police officers.

Businesses don't give a second glance to PhDs in literature, or sociology, or plant physiology

Your data are wrong. Although I can't comment specifically about lit or plant physiology (do you mean botany?), smart innovative companies are actually highly interested in sociologists and are fiercely recruiting them. Facebook's data science team is run by sociologists, and Google engineers are collaborating with sociology departments on various interesting research topics. This shouldn't be much of a surprise since network analysis was invented in sociology in the 1970s. Today's tweets and likes are still analyzed using techniques that sociologists came up with back when the only twerking going on was led by John Travolta.

It amuses me to no end how so many otherwise intelligent technical people maintain a stubborn bias against social science. Do you have to denigrate other fields in order to keep a sense of self superiority? That is an exceedingly narrow perspective completely unbefitting a rational engineer or a scientist of any stripe. If instead you would take the time to study these other fields, you might find something with which you could collaborate, or at least learn and expand your mind.

> News at 11...

Right after a dozen graphic "news" stories about shootings and other violence just like any other day.

But first the 9 O'clock movie featuring people shooting at each other and getting blown up in various ways with blood and guts everywhere.

Yea, video games are the problem. :P

You are doing the same thing as Senator Feinstein. There is no empirical evidence linking video games to violence, but there is no evidence linking violent movies to real world violence either. Blaming TV and movies, without actual evidence, is just as wrong as blaming video games.

There is some evidence that violent movies temporarily "numb" people to violence, and make them less sympathetic, but no evidence that they cause people to actually commit violent acts. In fact, researchers have found that violence goes down when popular violent movies are in theater. This is similar to the reduction of violence that researchers have found with video games: by engaging young men and teenage boys, and keeping them off the street, violence goes down.

That they pretty much haven't 'done evil' with it so far is to my ken likely singular in history of business

fined $22.5 million for hacking safari privacy controls
$7 million fine for street view
$500m fine for rip off pharmacy ads

for a company that you suggest hasn't "done evil", they sure have been censured by government bodies for a lot of evil stuff. Not to mention all the stuff that the agencies haven't fined.

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/jun/29/local/me-9th-scotus29

The 9th Circuit is a joke. It is the most overturned circuit in the country

Citation needed that a significantly larger percentage of the Ninth Circuit's decisions are overturned than those of other circuits.

Wikipedia lent me one of theirs.

From your article:

The Supreme Court reversed or vacated 19 of the 26 decisions it looked at from the 9th Circuit this judicial term,

73%? Gracious...
But later in the article:

The Supreme Court typically reverses about 75% of the cases it reviews each year, having selected them because they raise important questions of law or to resolve the internal contradictions created when circuits come to different conclusions about the same legal question.

... yeah.

You know it's trendy when Taylor Swift's all over it!

rendered in a faux-retro style. It has also entered the Taylor Swift breakup-song stage:

The 9th Circuit is a joke. It is the most overturned circuit in the country

Citation needed that a significantly larger percentage of the Ninth Circuit's decisions are overturned than those of other circuits.

Wikipedia lent me one of theirs.

Apparently, in europe, shit like this doesn't happen.

When there's a transition in the whitehouse, you probably need to assume everything needs to get replaced, so you start with a clean slate.

And if you are paranoid, you might assume that the previous administration left a few backdoors in the old IT system, so it'd probably be prudent in any case to replace them even if the place wasn't trashed. I haven't met a politician that wasn't paranoid, so well, I guess that says it all...

Also, having been inflicted with IBM/Lotus Notes for many years, replacing it was the smart thing to do in any case. ;^)