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Corpse man.. Anyways, it seems like Sara's refudiate was seen as a plus by those in the know.

“From a strictly lexical interpretation of the different contexts in which Palin has used ‘refudiate,’ we have concluded that neither ‘refute’ nor ‘repudiate’ seems consistently precise, and that ‘refudiate’ more or less stands on its own, suggesting a general sense of ‘reject.’”

The system was set up to track IRA truck bombs. A ton of fertilizer-based explosives, in booby trapped trucks.
As this now seems a distant memory for some, the push is now on to keep the budgets and mindset.
GCHQ is doing net tracking and voice prints. The revenue issues of OCR vehicle license plates is also fun.
CCTV seems to be waiting for something. When the UK gov needs mass face recognition after random net organised riots?
"Cameraman filmed Hungarian revolt" http://articles.latimes.com/2008/may/11/local/me-miko11" Miko was shocked to learn that the Soviets had found and confiscated the footage in his locker and were using it to identify people."
Any real threat will be one way, as the IRA showed or false flag/state sponsored groups seem to understand their missions will be one way or testing ect.
Public confidence is low as they have a feel for how this system is going to be upgraded.

This was true in Paulson's financial bailout as well. No major CEO, board member or other major player was held accountable or lost their job, or has even been named in public as doing something wrong. For example, the ratings agencies, who clearly failed all their legal fiduciary requirements have been completely ignored.

So far the only big player who has faced any legal action is Earnst and Young, the accounting firm for Lehman Bros. They are accused of helping Lehman avoid disclosure of their weak financial condition by a trick known as "Repo 105". E&Y is being sued by Cuomo in New York State, not by the Feds. http://articles.latimes.com/2010/dec/22/business/la-fi-ernst-young-20101222

The Feds have done almost nothing looking for illegal behavior among the financial elites. Their recent "big announcement" was about going after illegal insider information trading, mostly in the high tech sector. This is about as far from the financial meltdown as you can get and still be pretending that Wall St. is involved.

This is why the WikiLeaks dump of (most likely) BofA is so important. It will show massive wrong doing and that the Feds are consciously ignoring massive criminal activity on the part of the banks. It has the potential to change the public perception and possible change how these institutions are being regulated. One can always hope.

This is why trying to buy up domain names is so lame. This is going to be so meaningless if even part of the truth comes out.

And by the way, in the medieval hierarchy, anyone who reads this is a pesent.

I was stating the fact that proselytizers face prosecution in Saudi Arabia all the time. And in fact, if a woman is raped, she can be punished:

The couple was sitting in a car when a group of seven Sunni men kidnapped them and raped them both, lawyers in the case told Arab News. The former boyfriend was also sentenced to 90 lashes for being with her in private.

A review of the sentence was ordered after condemnation from the international community and human rights groups.

However the Saudi Justice Ministry today maintained that the ruling was legal and followed the "the book of God and the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad".

The Justice Ministry's account of the incident differed substantially from that given by the woman and her lawyer.

It largely glossed over her rape, focusing instead on her plan to meet her lover in his car "in a dark place where they stayed for a while".

"Then they where spotted by the other defendants as the woman was in an indecent condition as she had tossed away her clothes, then the assault occurred on her and the man," the statement said.

Why should a stupid person have fewer rights than a genius? Driving is a privilege rather than a right. I'm far more concerned with idiot drivers; an automobile is far more dangerous than a handgun. At most, a handgun can kill 7 or 8 people at a time, and only one at a time by accident. Meanwhile, an idiot behind the wheel can easily kill and maim a dozen or more with one shot, even an accidental shot. And it's no easier to suicide with a gun than any other means; lots of people hang themselves.

There were about 9,000 handgun shooting deaths in 2004 (the last year in wikipedia's graph), while around 45,000 die annually on our highways.

People were driving exceptionally stupid yesterday, maybe it had to do with the mayor shooting himself? (The press is backtracking on the "self inflicted shooting", and the State Police are being tight lipped about it)

Funny, wasn't it just a month ago when the internet was up in arms because they were offering such a book?

Just this morning I read this story about the pretty crappy way immigrants are treated in Germany. And I know for a fact that in Italy it's even worse, they are very draconian in that regard.

Indeed, whereas Mexican immigrants in the US are welcomed and pampered.....

(Of course, that is no excuse for treating immigrants badly in Europe)

Our political mobthink currently is that "80% sure" isn't good enough. Nor is 90% or 95% or 99-44/100ths sure good enough, because...we really like to grasp on to the "but what if it was your kid that was the .00001%" these days, and "shit happens" has left our collective meme space, as has some level of reasonableness and perspective, not only as a whole, but individually.

As an engineer, I think this every time I read about a recall of millions of baby products because 4 of them died. That's well below 6 Sigma. (Yes, I understand it's a design flaw, and not a manufacturing defect. It's still an extremely rare occurrence.)

I'm always told, "when lives are at stake, you can't be too careful," but I disagree. I wish it were possible to prevent every tragedy, but it's not. At some point you have determine what losses are acceptable, or you will never get anything done.

Thank God I don't design baby products!

The explanation for Cuba's healthcare system that I've always heard is it's a tourist attraction. http://articles.latimes.com/1996-11-29/news/mn-4098_1_health-care

If Cuba is so poor, then who do you think the rich are? If you go to Cuba for treatment, you will get excellent healthcare; but the reports I've seen have documented that this isn't the same healthcare a poor useless Cuban gets. This is healthcare for people who can bring hard currency into the country. It's an export.

Except most people probably agree with Amazon's decision. It probably helped them. Surely you have noticed that Slashdot is not very representative of what we might call the "general population," falling somewhere to the left of where most people are, at least in the United States, Amazon's largest market.

I agree for the most part. However I am not sure that the /. mantra of "a US liberal would be considered a right wing fascist in Europe" is true or not... I'm starting to think that's a myth.

Just this morning I read this story about the pretty crappy way immigrants are treated in Germany. And I know for a fact that in Italy it's even worse, they are very draconian in that regard. And lately in the news are all those budget cuts in Ireland France UK and other EU countries, due to their huge government debt problem... cuts in SOCIAL BENEFITS! Reduced wealth redistribution. This is actually happening in Europe as we speak. It would be UNIMAGINABLE in the USA still, there is no way in hell there will ever be any reduction in welfare or unemployment or healthcare benefits..... at least not while Obama and Pelosi and Reid are still alive. So all in all I would say in many respects, USA is quite liberal even compared to Eurozone.

List fails without the therac 25

Fatal radiation dosage mistakes like those involving the Therac-25 make you wonder how well and how often airport body scanners will be calibrated as they remain in service for years. Whose responsibility is this, if anyone's?

Here's a more recent example proving accidents continue to happen:

In October, 2009, news broke that CT scanners in several hospitals had been calibrated incorrectly and operated in the wrong mode for a year and a half, exposing hundreds of patients to 6 – 13 times the intended dose of radiation, putting many at risk for developing new cancer on top of their pre-existing conditions. These CT scanners were located in top-flight hospitals such as Cedars Sinai in Los Angeles and operated by the best-trained technicians following the manufacturer’s guidelines and yet nobody – in eighteen months – spotted this gross error. The lawsuits resulting from this egregious cock-up continue to wend their way through court.

"Ultimately, it was a patient who alerted Cedars-Sinai to the problem. In August, a stroke victim informed the hospital that he had suffered patchy hair loss after a scan."

You're right. It IS interesting: http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jul/19/local/la-me-state-computers-20100719

Pretty much. There always an "ist" of some sort to battle against. There were fascists, that went away. Then came communists, that got old.

You seem to be confusing militant, aggressive, ideological nation states like Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union with women's fashions. They didn't just "go away" or "get old". Nazi Germany was defeated by a hideously expensive war* that ultimately resulted in its invasion, military defeat, and dismemberment into 4 occupied zones and 2 countries (East & West Germany). The West contended with Communism's greatest power block (the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact) in Eastern Europe at great expense through the Cold War. It was by no means clear that the West and the values of democracy and free enterprise would win against them. And the struggle against Communism isn't really over yet, is it? At least the Chinese are reforming themselves a bit. Good thing too, since Communism killed about 100,000,000 people.

Now it's terrorist. You have to tell people who the bad guys are or else they start looking at what you've been up to.

Really? You have to be told? Just a little help? Well, things can get a little confusing for some, I guess.

*That was the 2nd World War - maybe you've heard of it? All the other wars are jealous about its death toll and cost.

his goal is to overthrow all governments, not just the usa. obviously this is stupid, because anarchy is always temporary, and whatever government replaces the previous one will have its own set of crimes

True if you see it in short / medium term

so obviously, as you say, the proper goal is to reform government from within. the problem is complacency, secrets, inertia and lies. so you have to stir things up. how about: dump a bunch of secrets. this changes government behavior. it shows they can't hide, so they better just act honestly. in this regard, assange furthers the noble cause you agree with, even if his cause is loony

True, there was a change in behavior from various governments indeed. But for the worst, just talking about our "brave free democratic world": In USA seems he's being called a terrorist, Italy's foreign minister saying "the worst thing happening after 11/9", and in other "civil" countries forks are up.
Maybe it's just me, but i think we're passing another era. Like with Guttenberg or during the Industrial revolution. A new technology that changes people's lives in ways never expected.
This time around i think it's computers & Internet which will cause the shift.

If you didn't read the contract you signed when they bought your copyright from you, that's too bad for you, and a good example of where the government should keep its nose out of private individuals' business.

But if you can prove the RIAA or MPAA stole your stuff, you win:

http://articles.latimes.com/2001/mar/07/business/fi-34293

I think that most parts of Central and South America have a very different view of the US's benevolence than you do.

Yes, and these leaks tend to confirm that view. In particular they reveal the US State Department was entirely aware that the recent coup in Honduras was illegal. Of course, their public statements were rather different - they tried to obfuscate as much as possible, while providing funding that US law forbade them from giving due to the coup, because it was in their political interest to see the then-President kicked out.

Have you got a citation for that? It sounds exaggerated.

Here you go.

What if you're a pro-western government official secretly helping the USA by providing information against Hezbollah?

Minister gave Israel invasion advice

Now Wikileaks has put a good guy's life in grave danger.

If you're trying to imply that GM can do whatever it wants fiscally because the US Government owns it, you're wrong. In case you haven't heard, GM had an IPO a week ago and it is now a public company. As a public company, they have a fiduciary duty to be fiscally responsible.

The US is now just a minority shareholder, owning about a third of the shares.

dom

Then there is this: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2009/03/ron-paul-defend.html

You mean like this?

Whoops, that's actually an example of him voting for money for his district, and unabashedly defending the practice. My bad.

This past election cycle over $400 million was spent on independent expenditures.

Are you sure that's all? In the California governor's race alone Meg Whitman spent more than $140 million of her own money in the campaign. All together she spent more than $160 million. Her opponent Jerry Brown's spending topped $50 million. Now according to those who claim money buys political offices she should have won, spending 3 tymes as much as he did, but he won.

On Anthony Kennedy's decision on the Citizens United case:

It sounds to me like he naively believed that there would be automatic disclosure. I think given that there is a good chance a full disclosure law would be found constitutional.

It was naive of him. However if a law were proposed that addressed full disclosure, and only that, then it may pass USSC scrutiny. Now if that was his thinking I don't know how the government's lawyers overlooked that thinking. A quick google returns results saying that corporations do not have to disclose them. The first two results, Why Don’t Corporations Have To Disclose Their Campaign Contributions Like Unions? and again Why don't corporations have to disclose their campaign contributions like unions? answer the question.

Falcon

Copper conducts electricity a hell of a lot better than fiber optic though. Not that that's stopped some people:
Couple electrocuted while stealing copper wire
Graphic photos too

All true, but it's worth noting that Wii sales have been on a steep decline for a while now, and profits are also down significantly whilst both MS and Sony are doing rather well, with the 360 in particular continuing to increase it's sales month on month. It's true that MS sunk a lot of cash into the Xbox project as a whole and is clearly very far from making a positive ROI, but the quarterly results are showing decent profits and have been for quite some time now. They're very far from hurting and if things continue the way they have (at least in the US) they're in very good shape for the next round. I, for one, most likely won't be bothering to upgrade my Wii to whatever Nintendo come out with next.

http://articles.latimes.com/2008/may/30/business/fi-outage30 la times good enough?

People are leaving California. It's not JUST the rotten schools, the traffic jams, the lack of jobs, the rising budget deficit, with no solution in sight, the huge stockpile of underwater homes - it's all of them combined.

A destitute California won't be able to continue to offer state $$$$ (or IOUs, since they won't have any "real" money) for switching to an electric car.

A mountain lion took an elderly German Shepherd out of a yard in our area (foothills of the San Gabriel mountains north of Los Angeles) last year. We had a huge fire out here and all the wildlife came into the city looking for food. And two years before that, my wife said she saw a bobcat in our backyard.

But regarding the article, hasn't I'm surprised Illinois is using this strategy given their success with the Asian Carp eating the algae.

And as of yesterday (Nov 23), Zogby & LA Times shows 61% oppose.

Rapidly going down the tubes.

Infecting a single beef feedlot? I think it's time to wake up and think about other ways the bastards could get at us.

Except then it's hard to tell if it's laissez-faire capitalism or terrorism. Or how about billions of poisoned eggs? Or maybe we shouldn't attribute to malice what can be explained by unchecked profit motive?

There are several other large companies in the same region as Google who provide similar benefits to their employees. Normally I'd be concerned of the potential doomsday scenario which you speak of, however these employees could jump ship to another company which offers the same benefits.

Just because there are 9 different models does not mean there will automatically be more sales. The point of different models is to appeal to users who have different needs. That is, some users might want a physical keyboard while others might want just a touch screen. You can also offer a cheaper version with lesser specifications for people who don't want to spend as much money. So the end result of a diverse product line is that over time you can potentially sell more units.

But who buys a first generation phone for a brand new platform on launch day? Mostly power users who probably want the top of the line phone. It's entirely plausible then that the higher end models sold out at some stores, leaving lower end models on the shelves. An early adopter would choose to wait for the better phone rather than settle for the lower end model, especially considering purchase is usually contingent on signing a two year contract. What's waiting a couple more weeks compared to two years?

In fact, this seems to at least be the case for T-Mobile, who temporarily sold out of HD7s on Monday, so my rambling may not be too far from the truth.

This NASA illustration does.

Startled astronomers said Tuesday they had discovered two massive bubbles of gamma-ray energy extending 25,000 light-years above and below the plane of the Milky Way galaxy like a squat hourglass.

"They're big, they're sharp-edged and they contain a lot of energy," astrophysicist Douglas Finkbeiner of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., said in a news conference. Finkbeiner led a team that used data from NASA's 2-year-old orbiting Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope to discover the bubbles hiding behind a fog of gamma rays.

And 20 years ago it was frogs

Okay. http://articles.latimes.com/2005/aug/12/nation/na-gop12

And since they were caught and sentenced to jail time, what's the difference?

You're not taking into consideration the energy required to make the book, or to transport it to the marketplace. The amount of carbon sequestered in the physical pages of a book is insignificant in comparison.

The production of a book releases 8.85 lbs. of CO_2:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/emeraldcity/2008/06/paper-vs-paperl.html

Here's a page which indicates most CO_2 production is for energy:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/ggrpt/carbon.html

And here's a page which indicates that CO_2 production is a much larger problem for the manufacturing of electronics:
http://www.energybulletin.net/node/49730
w/ a ratio of 12 to 1 for energy usage to weight, so my PRS-505 weighs roughly 9 ozs., so presumably required 108 ounces of fuel to manufacture (on-going energy usage is trivial and not considered)
http://www.epa.gov/oms/climate/420f05001.htm
gives us a figure of 19.4 pounds of CO_2 per gallon of gasoline which equals roughly 16.36875 pounds of CO_2 to make the ebook reader.

So getting two books for the Sony should make it roughly break even, and each printed book beyond that which is not purchased should result in a net reduction of CO_2 emissions, since the energybulletin.net page indicates that the embodied energy usage for electronics is much greater than the lifetime usage.

Your reasoning is flawed, there is a reason why industrial and medical equipment costs thousands of dollars

It is not, as being expensive does not make anything immune to fatal flaws (think spacecraft, Therac-25). Actually more of the code than on an OS may have been written by people predominantly trained in fields other than computer systems engineering.
While allusions to Homer Simpson's workplace could not possibly be taken seriously, in fact trains are stopped for an hour and ERP systems are shut down that night for a reason - as experienced administrators are seriously inconvenienced by, if not feeling uneasy about, DST.

If you look at the spec's, it claims "up to" an 8 hour battery life with airplane mode, which is drastically shorter than current eInk based technology (I routinely get 25-30 hours of reading out of a nook easily with airplane mode on).

It is also backlit, which contributes to insomnia for those who read late at night or in bed (see La Times).

I'd love to see a color, eInk based technology, but if I wanted a tablet instead of a ebook reader, I'd buy one. They both have their places, but LCD screens are not a substitute yet.

Thought? Mark Pincus (CEO) admits it blatantly in the below video (circa 2009), quote: "We did anything possible to just get revenue".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7YaVVpK1G4

His use of the word "did" implies that is no longer the case (especially mentioning the "toolbar", which has now evolved into a per-game per-browser toolbar), so shady revenue acquisition is still their modus operandi.

It's also pretty """cool""" how Zynga is named after Pincus' dead dog. Maybe I'll name my next company after my late ex-wife... because, you know, it makes perfect sense and represents what the company does (doggy style?).

Zynga -- just another dot-com O-ring blow-out company. Keep on making badly-written Flash games that chew up 40% of a 4-core processor!

Once the prices dropped under a certain threshold the CRTs disappeared off the shelves virtually overnight.

Actually, CRT's dropped off the shelves for three reasons:
#1 - Collusion by the "beige box" computer manufacturers (Dell, Gateway, etc) to only offer LCD monitors.
#2 - Collusion by the "Big Box" retailers (Worst Buy, Circuit Scammy, etc) to no longer sell CRT's because they got better margin on higher-priced, but same sized, LCD TV's.
#3 - Bought-and-Paid-For legislation in states like California creating regulatory nightmares that basically ensured only LCD/"flat panel" monitors could be sold. Remember the uproar over crap like this last year? What you forget is that a number of states passed earlier legislation that made nightmares for CRT's in relation to disposal and components.

LCD TV's are not being pushed for any other reason other than that they are what the retailers want to sell - higher margin, more prone to breaking down (average life of LCDTV: 5 years, average life of CRT: 15+).

It will be clear to other readers that this doesn't mean what you claim it does.

Regardless of what you or I say, I think other readers and (more importantly) other voters will be smart enough to see the truth.

The text says clearly and specifically that only "consumption that actually impairs job performance" may be addressed. This is not my interpretation. This is not something I made up. This is an actual quote.

The text clearly and specifically forbids discrimination. It clearly and specifically uses the word "discriminated". If this does not constitute creation of a protected class under anti-discrimination statutes, then I don't know what does.

Under existing law, it is legal for me to fire or refuse to hire smokers based solely on the fact that they smoke. I do not need to defend my decision on the basis of job performance. Hell, I can even legally fire someone based solely on the fact that their spouse smokes. Even you, despite all our disagreements, seem to agree that Prop. 19 bans this practice with respect to marijuana use. I see no reason why Prop. 19 needs to address this issue. Legalization of tobacco or alcohol is not tied to anti-discrimination laws in any way. Why does there need to be a link for marijuana?

Didn't SpaceX get fined for cutting too many corners? Yep, you don't need many people if you don't intend to do the whole job.

And considering they are only where NASA was 50 years ago, "The company plans next to launch a Falcon 9 to place a capsule into orbit." I wouldn't be comparing them to a fully developed operation just yet. NASA might be fat but they at least can get a fully mission capable shot off.

iPhone apps don't have to track your GPS data and sell it, when Apple will do it for you.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2010/06/apple-location-privacy-iphone-ipad.html

Here's one: Tom Mundy and his lawyer Morse Mehrban both make an estimated $300,000 a year suing small businesses

Mundy says he has filed more than 150 lawsuits in 18 months demanding damages from small businesses in violation of the exacting requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
[...]
Mundy, a beefy ex-contractor with longish brown hair and a daily routine of dining out and enjoying the ocean, spies an 8-inch concrete platform on which a woman in a dark-green sari has set up a table of sunglasses under an awning.

"There's nothing in there that I'd want to buy but this might be of interest to a judge," 50-year-old Mundy, a paraplegic since a 1988 motorcycle accident in Maryland, observed with a knowing air.

[...]
"Confined to a wheelchair in California?" Mehrban asks potential clients on his website, www.mehrban.com. "You may be entitled to $1,000 each time you can't use something at a business because of your disability."

While we're at it, I think we should examine the churches and all of the money and votes they command their sheeple to throw at their pet issues.

Churches are a huge political and financial force and they should be taxed as businesses are or, better, abolished outright.

MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Do you want to know why I have a file that I've been working on with the White House—and I'll be very transparent about that? Plus she's the daughter of Carter's National Security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski.

When Matthews first arrived in Washington, D.C., he worked as a police officer with the United States Capitol Police.[5] Subsequently, he served on the staffs of four Democratic members of Congress, including Senators Frank Moss and Edmund Muskie. In 1974, he mounted an unsuccessful campaign for Pennsylvania's 4th congressional district seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, in which he received about 24% of the vote in the primary.[6] Matthews was a presidential speechwriter during the Carter administration, and later worked for six years as a top aide to long-time Speaker of the House of Representatives Tip O'Neill, playing a direct role in many key political battles with the Reagan administration.

albeit deceased: Prior to becoming host of Meet the Press, Russert worked as a special counsel, and later as chief of staff, to U.S. Senator Daniel Moynihan, a Democrat from New York. In 1983, he became the counsel to New York Governor Mario Cuomo, also a Democrat.

Before coming to the world of political reporting and analysis, Todd earned practical political experience on initiative campaigns in Florida and various national campaigns based in Washington, D.C.[3] While in college, Todd worked for the 1992 presidential campaign of Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and later started part time at The Hotline.

NBC is owned be General Electric, which is chaired by Jeffrey Immelt, whom sits on Obama's Economic Recovery Advisory Board. GE stands to make bucket loads of money off Obama's various programs, including health care reform, green energy initiatives, ACTA (through NBC Universal), etc.

And that's to say nothing of Ed Schultz, Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow which are self-admitted partisans but they do commentary not hard news, so I'll give them a pass just like O'Reilly, Hannity and Beck, none of which claim to do hard news either.


So, uh, yeah, MSNBC is very much a Fox News on the left. You may have some confirmation bias issues and whatnot that keep you from seeing it, but that doesn't mean MSNBC doesn't have staunch Democrats on staff... and those are just the hosts, whereas you seem to be stuck on Fox News's regular contributors... I'll bet you that I can find just as many liberal partisans with government ties on MSNBC's payroll too.

Useless without knowing the distribution, much like "TV viewing hours".

Example, the supposedly average American watches TV for 5 hours per day. Every Day.

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/feb/24/business/fi-tvwatching24

However the way that actually works, is out of ten people, lets say 3 of them are semi-institutionalized. Either prison, nursing home, elderly shut-in, hospital stay, unemployed, jury duty, home on a sick day from work, whatever, so three of them watch TV for sixteen hours a day, just to fill up their empty lives. Of the remaining seven or so people, a couple of them might watch for an hour. That adds up to 50 hours for 10 people, theoretically 5 hours per person.

I suspect texting has a similar distribution. One overly social teenage girl whom sends 500 texts per day (spam the entire class to vote for her for class president? Vote for some moron over and over on a TV game show?) and nine normal people whom don't send texts at all, theoretically averages out to 50 texts per person per day.

The median would have been much more interesting. And probably a low single digit number.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0912-san-bruno-explosion-20100912,0,251794.story

I think the states would be a lot better served if we moved away from heating/cooking by gas.

ng is good for peak power but honestly it is not very well suited for home use.

I crunched the numbers on this a while ago ( http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showpost.php?p=619831&postcount=11 ).

Given that each hardcover book releases ~8.85 pounds of CO_2 ( http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/emeraldcity/2008/06/paper-vs-paperl.html )

And a Sony ebook reader (I used the weight of my old Sony PRS-505, 9 ozs.) requires ~16 pounds of CO_2 to manufacture (CO_2 footprint for energy: http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/ggrpt/carbon.html role in manufacturing: http://www.energybulletin.net/node/49730 and ratio of 12 to 1 for energy usage to weight: http://www.epa.gov/oms/climate/420f05001.htm )

Reading 3 books on an ebook reader (which otherwise would have been purchased as printed books) puts one ahead (of course in a library situation this is ameliorated by the sharing out of the book among many readers).

That said, I mostly read public domain classics which I get from sites like www.mobileread.com

William

Dude, Attila made a statement based on fact that you blasted him/her for and you were wrong. Wish I could say I was surprised at how you handle that. Maybe if you spent more time reading opposing ideas and viewpoints and less time trying to filter out the boogeyman you would have been able to google it and avoid looking like an ass.

This one's cool, Beck rally vs. inaguration http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7y8gEcoqas
A little longer with a funny title "Post-Barackalyptic Wasteland" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMrJE7J3fWU
This one's all dramatic looking http://www.audacityofhypocrisy.com/2009/09/13/they-say-a-picture-is-worth-a-thousand-words-photo-after-obama-inauguration-ceremony-versus-photo-after-9-12-tea-party-rally/
Here's one from a liberal rag for you. Scroll down to "Tell your grandchildren: 'I was there'. Two people sitting on a pile of trash looking super happy about it http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/cold_weather/page/2/

if there had never been a profitability aspect of the internet it would not have become as big and powerful as it is now.

That's interesting, because there never was a profitability aspect to the Internet.

Allow me to drag up a popular quote from 2001 (Taming the Wild, Wild Web from July 26, 2001 LA Times). It's a great time to revisit that article, since even then the foundations of Net Discrimination were being laid.

Telcom consultant, Thomas Nolle said:

The Internet is an important cultural phenomenon, but that doesn't excuse its failure to comply with basic economic laws. The problem is that it was devised by a bunch of hippie anarchists who didn't have a strong profit motive. But this is a business, not a government-sponsored network.

Let's not make any bones about this. This anti-neutrality movement started with the dot-com boom when the telcoms become no longer content in their roles as a utility, but now wanted to extract commission from everyone using the wires. This is no different if PG&E wanted to a cut for everything a factory made, because PG&E's electricity is being used for someone else's profit.

We've seen the world of dumb ends and smart wires. It was bad old days of Ma Bell. We would not have seen the growth and revolution that the Internet has given if the entrenched monied establishment. Like all businesses, they do no want competition. They do no want change. They want everything to remain the same, except for the prices, which always go higher. They want control, of each and everyone of us.