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From what I understand, satellite dishes are pretty popular in Iran....

Consider the case of the firefighters in New Haven. If the SCOTUS decides this case on the sole basis of the legal statutes (that government shall not hire or promote on the basis of skin color), then the results of the exam will be upheld. All the white firefighters and the 1 Hispanic firefighter should be promoted. If the SCOTUS decides this case on the basis of ideology (i. e., the idea that racial quotas are in the best interest of the USA regardless of the law), then the results of the exam will be rescinded, denying promotion to the firefighters.

These days, the SCOTUS is expected to be ideological. So, political parties, lobbyists, and any other political critter will try his hardest to support a candidate (for justice of SCOTUS) who (1) is willing to make a decision on the basis of ideology and (2) exhibits the ideology that the political critter supports.

I think this is called a threadjack. Been here a long time, don't do this much.

Here's the LA Times view. Here's the Flik'r slideshow.

As of now, the top story on CNN is FCC gets 300,000 calls as analog TV disappears.

1. solar power: more than 20 cents/kwh, 10 to 14 cents/kwh

2. wind power: 5 to 7 cents/kwh, 3 to 6 cents/kwh

3. nuclear power: more than 3 cents/kwh, more than 3 cents/kwh

Here, "wind power" refers to wind turbines on land. A wind turbine at sea would surely cost more than a land-based one.

In other worse, nuclear power is still the best solution until we can significantly improve the efficiency of generating solar power and wind power.

We should also address the major reason for the growing demand for energy. That reason is overpopulation. However, no American politician has the guts to touch that topic. It is too closely tied to illegal immigration. When a faction in the Sierra Club tried to address that issue, the members of that faction were accused of being "racist".

Overall, the proposal has a lot of merit and I'm hoping the rest of the nation can benefit from California's efforts here. It would be good to have a state like California to lead this effort, and then allow other districts in other states be able to leverage what they do.

Typically, I'd agree with you. However, California's budget crisis is ridiculous right now, and I don't think that experimenting with untested methods is a good idea for us. Experiments tend to have budget overruns. California needs to spend it's effort trying to figure out how to get it's overpaid, deadweight, (and sometimes criminal) teachers out of the system. Maybe in the future.

Actually, I think the ball is in your court. Letting local conscientious districts work out the details is a better way to get started. In general, I like to see good ideas & practices trickle upwards in American government, from grassroots to the federal level, rather than the other way. Yes it takes longer, but you're far more likely to get it right the first time.

Of course, everyone fails to mention that Japan has the lowest rape rate per capita [nationmaster.com] in the world.

Besides the potential gender bias that other commentors have mentioned, it should also be noted that crime statistics in Japan should be taken with a very large grain of salt. This news article from a couple years ago talks about how many deaths which were obvious murders were classified as things like "heart disease" to make police statistics look better:

Photos of the teenager's corpse show a deep cut on his right arm, horrific bruising on his neck and chest. His face is swollen and covered with cuts. A silhouette of violence runs from the corner of his left eye over the cheekbone to his jaw, and his legs are pocked with small burns the size of a lighted cigarette.

But police in Japan's Aichi prefecture saw something else when they looked at the body of Takashi Saito, a 17-year-old sumo wrestler who arrived at a hospital in June. The cause of death was "heart disease," police declared. ...

But Saito's case has given credence to complaints by a group of frustrated doctors, former pathologists and ex-cops who argue that Japan's police culture is the main obstacle.

Police discourage autopsies that might reveal a higher homicide rate in their jurisdiction, and pressure doctors to attribute unnatural deaths to health reasons, usually heart failure, the group alleges. Odds are, it says, that people are getting away with murder in Japan, a country that officially claims one of the lowest per capita homicide rates in the world. ...

Japan's annual police report says its officers made arrests in 96.6% of the country's 1,392 homicides in 2005.

But Saikawa, who says he became disillusioned by "fishy" police practices and in 1997 left the force in disgust after 30 years, claims that police try to avoid adding homicides to their caseload unless the identity of the killer is obvious. "All the police care about is how they look to people; it's all PR to show that their capabilities are high," Saikawa says. "Without autopsies they can keep their percentage [of solved cases] high. It's all about numbers."...

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-rutten6-2009jun06,0,7067783.column

"As The Times noted in January of last year, the government demanded that the scientists fill out questionnaires on their personal lives and waive the privacy of their financial, medical and psychiatric records. The government also wanted permission to gather information about them by interviewing third parties. At one point, JPL's internal website posted an "issue characterization chart" -- since taken down -- that indicated the snoops would be looking for a "pattern of irresponsibility as reflected in credit history ... sodomy ... incest ... abusive language ... unlawful assembly." It also said homosexuality could be a security issue under some circumstances."

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-rutten6-2009jun06,0,7067783.column

Get real, dood!

Perhaps Mc$oft should move all there jobs to the SAME PLACE where they cause all those health and environmental problems, thus economically aiding those they are ALSO exploiting....

" If California's standard of living drops, then wages will drop,.."

HUH??? Cali is bankrupt, chump! Catch a clue --- those clowns keep voting the likes of Nixon, Reagan and now Schwarzenneger - vote the slime, catch the crime.....

I've owned a domain name in .org that is my cat's name. It's been a personal domain since then.

It's amazing how shitheaded businesses can get. They think, because they stand to make a dollar from something, that they have acquired a superior right to it.

One man registered veronica.org for his two tear old daughter of the same name. Archie comics tried first to get him to turn the domain name over to them at no cost because they have a character named Veronica. The owner of the domain refused. They finally gave up. From http://articles.latimes.com/1999/jan/20/business/fi-65256: "Although the official reason for Archie Comics' change of heart had nothing to do with public opinion, the company's decision was lauded by cyber-law experts."

Similarly The Laura Scudder company came after a woman in Marin county, CA, for naming her children's wear shop "Grammy Goose". It wasn't looking good for her until there was a campaign by a lot of well-to-do and activism-prone residents of Marin put together a boycott of all Laura Scudder products on store shelves. Laura backed down.

His philanthropic accomplishments are certainly praiseworthy

O RLY?

First, you have to consider the source. Of course Nalgene would say that. What else would you expect them to say?

But, since you brought it up, here are a few papers that contradict what you say.

Endocrine disruptors and reproductive health: the case of bisphenol-A.

Bisphenol A (BPA) has been linked to damage in developing brain tissue.

Scientists issue group warning on plastic chemical's hazards.

The Real Story Behind Bisphenol A

That last one is perhaps the most telling: "... consider this: Of the more than 100 independently funded experiments on BPA, about 90% have found evidence of adverse health effects at levels similar to human exposure. On the other hand, every single industry-funded study ever conducted -- 14 in all -- has found no such effects."

Sometimes it pays to spend just a few minutes on Google, rather than just arguing from ignorance.

Walt Disney Co. has asked the Los Angeles Superior Court to dismiss a lawsuit raised almost 12 years ago by a family-owned firm that owns the rights to Winnie the Pooh which alleges that Disney owes it merchandising royalties of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Disney has been mainly losing but has managed to draw this out, as far as I can tell, to this very day (18 years). On Monday, June 26, 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the case, thus sustaining the Appeals Court ruling. (cited reference)

Or maybe not. Disney managed to drag out the proceedings long enough that eventually they won the proceedings in the state of California, in the end. It seems that the other side had hired the wrong P.I. after starting to get crazy about Disney's creative accounting (there was a claim that Disney had been destroying evidence in this case, also).

And as far as I can see, the Federal lawsuit which was threatened by the rights owners isn't going to finish in the near future, even as the big D continues to rake it in, year after year.

Actually, Dan Ackroyd likes Alyssa Milano and Eliza Dushku http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/herocomplex/2009/05/dan-aykroyd-says-ghostbusters-3-may-start-filming-in-winter.html

Sandy Berger borrowed it. I'm sure he will return it soon with no revisions made. :-) http://articles.latimes.com/2005/apr/02/nation/na-berger2

Lots of stores in the news about US guns in Mexico... the problem is, those are very tortured statistics. Sure, most of the guns that can be traced do get traced back to the US. But for the overall total of guns sourced from the US, nobody knows for sure.

The LA Times has been on it much longer than CNN and Fox have.

http://projects.latimes.com/mexico-drug-war/#/its-a-war

"The Commission finds that Intel did not compete fairly, frustrating innovation and reducing consumer welfare in the process," Neelie Kroes, the European Commissioner for Competition Policy, said at a Brussels news conference announcing the fine. "Given that Intel has harmed millions of European consumers by deliberately acting to keep competitors out of the market for over five years, the size of the fine should come as no surprise."

The violations took place between 2002 and 2007, when Intel controlled at least 70% of the world market for microprocessors, Kroes said.

"Intel awarded major computer manufacturers rebates on condition that they purchased all or almost all of their supplies, at least in certain defined segments, from Intel," the Commission concluded.

...

The Europeans began their investigation in July 2007, and their findings should help U.S. regulators, said David Balto, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and a former antitrust official at the FTC and the Department of Justice. He noted that Intel also has been found in violation of antitrust laws by Japan and Korea.

"The relief that the Europeans imposed I think will provide an excellent guide to U.S. enforcers as they try to determine what to do about Intel's exclusionary conduct," Balto said today.

...

"Their website invites visitors to add their 'vision of tomorrow,' " [Kroes] said. "Well, I can give my vision of tomorrow for Intel here and now: "Obey the law"."

Link.

Yes.

Beyond the constitutional arguments, The exclusionary rule is, arguably, one of the few effective measures for keeping police from disregarding due process and abusing their power. Otherwise, it is oh-so-very-very-tempting to just bend the rules a little to get the guy you "know" is the right one. If doing the wrong thing is a good way of getting your case thrown out, you'll be a lot less likely to do the wrong thing.

There is empirical evidence, as well, for this position. This is an op-ed from a legal academic who has studied the matter.

"Getting tough on crime" at the expense of method is initially attractive; but it is extraordinarily corrosive to our rights and liberties in the medium and long terms. The ethical flexibility that allows the cops to create a fictional confidential informant to seize otherwise unavailable evidence today, will be the same flexibility that allows the cops to create fictional evidence tomorrow.

Not a whole lot along the Canada border

I live across the lake from Toronto.

The Border Patrol has a very visible presence here - and cameras cover every inch of the Niagara. U.S. gets tough on Canadian border

The LA Times article says that the "mastermind" Thad Roberts received a sentence of eight years and four months in federal prison. Gordon McWhorter was sentenced to 5 years and 10 months. The others received no jail time.

Can be found here.

Not only is it somewhat painful to read, as far as I can tell it is mostly fiction, no fact checking at all. And it also seems partially plagiarized from this article:
http://www.latimes.com/features/printedition/magazine/la-tm-moonrocks23jun06,1,1392690.story?coll=la-home-magazine

And that one is by an actual reporter with actual fact checking. Obviously some of it is left up to how the perpetrators described it, but it doesn't have stupid made up stuff like a nitrogen filled lab and thermal suits and such. I would guess the crime played out more like the LA Times article, rather than this embellished piece of pulp fiction

The 2nd case facing the Court is the outdated parts of the Voting Rights Act. The Court should completely invalidate the entire Voting Rights Act. In both the Democratic primary and the general election, roughly 95% of African-Americans voted for Barack Hussein Obama due solely to the color of his skin. Clearly, the racism is coming almost entirely from the African-American community. The racism is not coming from either the European-American or Japanese-American community. So, the Voting Rights Act is unnecessary.

The 2nd case facing the Court is the outdated parts of the Voting Rights Act. The Court should completely invalidate the entire Voting Rights Act. In both the Democratic primary and the general election, roughly 95% of African-Americans voted for Barack Hussein Obama due solely to the color of his skin. Clearly, the racism is coming almost entirely from the African-American community. The racism is not coming from either the European-American or Japanese-American community. So, the Voting Rights Act is unnecessary.

The 2nd case facing the Court is the outdated parts of the Voting Rights Act. The Court should completely invalidate the entire Voting Rights Act. In both the Democratic primary and the general election, roughly 95% of African-Americans voted for Barack Hussein Obama due solely to the color of his skin. Clearly, the racism is coming almost entirely from the African-American community. The racism is not coming from either the European-American or Japanese-American community. So, the Voting Rights Act is unnecessary.

So, I am guessing that in your opinion Global Warming is not a major problem.

And I am guessing you either have incredibly poor reading comprehension skills, a truly tragic and delusional level of confirmation bias, or just a that pathetic, partisan mindset that lumps everyone who disagrees with you on any point as all being just the same on every point, since I never said anything about global warming one way or the other.

The waste storage solution that the Man in the White House decided to stop funding was an valid medium term solution.

Yucca Mountain is a combination of both being a victim of the very NIMBY-ism I mentioned earlier and also turning out to be a faulty solution (pun intended). Read more.

The thing with the Wall Street Journal is that most of the subscriptions are directly paid by companies or else put on the subscribers expense account.

[citation needed]

OK

"You can imagine European bureaucrats coming up with a handbook of acceptable thought and using that as a guide for website banning."

I don't have to IMAGINE that as they are already DOING it!

Germany: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-shermer22feb22,0,2752813.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions

U.K.: http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=97127

France: http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2000/11/20/202040.shtml

Those are just the tip of the iceberg. France started doing this back in 2000. Germany fired it up in 2008 with state created "for teh childrenz!!!11!!!" anti-porn / anti-torrent laws. The U.K. is increasingly surveillance happy and began banning "sex offenders" from social networking sites.

Now the U.S. may or may not have free-er speech than those three countries but if it cannot be conclusively demonstrated that they DO then what rationale is there for making the change? You'll also note that those are generally considered first world countries with good to excellent free speech track records. When you start examining other countries like China, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Venezuala, etc you can see how censorship would QUICKLY become the order of the day.

You'll note that all of my examples show censorship being applied using the foundation of FEDERAL (National) law. It's not some hurk hurk jerk judge in a single state or municipality (like Kentucky) showing stupidity about how the Internet works.

Long post short: Without any sense of national patriotism, I am American, I am VERY happy that ICANN has remained here. We may not be the best at free speech but we are a *very* long way from the worst.

I agree with you. Something of value WILL be lost when the newspapers are gone. However, their added value has still diminished over the years.

Here's some of my favorite articles produced by major news outlets:

What if It's All Been a Big Fat Lie?
Dark cloud over good works of Gates Foundation
How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power

I understand that, in a religious-based school, abstinence will be taught as the best method possible (and yes, it is 100% effective)

There are ways to introduce semen into the vagina that don't involve penile insertion.

Thus, abstinence from sex is not a guarantee. As if we needed any more evidence that teaching abstinence-only is not realistic? I realize that you're not backing that horse (at least not in your comment above) but come on, your statement is erroneous. Only abstinence from all sexual activity is 100% guaranteed to prevent STDs and pregnancy. (Arguably, it's kind of hypocritical for Christians to claim that abstinence from sexual activity is 100% guaranteed to prevent pregnancy, though) :D

A group that is so far right they call Mike Huckabee a "tax-increasing liberal governor of Arkansas" is quite extreme. Likewise, targetting blue state Republican senators like Arlen Specter and Lincoln Chafee for their refusal to support knee-jerk tax cuts regardless of the actual fiscal situation is not a sign of moderation. If the Club for Growth wants to not be considered a right-wing Republican faction, it would behoove them to stop supporting solely right-wing candidates (yes, including Henry Cuellar, as he was clearly more right-wing than Ciro Rodriguez).

eight (8) confirmed deaths in the US

Eight confirmed CASES. None of them died. In fact, they've all recovered.

Amtrak has dragged it's feet on restoring the Sunset line east of New Orleans for over 3 years! Keep in mind that Amtrak now gets $2.6 BILLION annually.

CSX confirmed that all track repairs had been completed in mid-2006.

Believe me, I'm heading back to Houston from Tallahassee for Mother's Day and I'd love to grab a ride on sunset, but it looks like another airport shake-n-dance. Amtrak has 3 more months to offer a "plan" to restore service...wanna bet that no one ever asks for this plan?

A government controlled-business does not make it some magical, ne'er-do-bad business.

Except Clinton told Bush that bin Laden was someone to watch out for

You have a record of that conversation? If bin Laden was such a concern for Clinton, why didn't he target himself — there is perfectly credible evidence, that he could've done it himself even as late as July 2000 — mere six months before Bush assumed power... Perhaps, Clinton didn't really consider bin Laden to be such a threat, after all... Foolishly so.

because the only threat in his eyes was Iraq.

No, actually, prior to 9/11 Bush was concentrating on his domestic agenda in 2001 — cutting taxes to get out of Clinton's bubble-bursting (NASDAQ fell nearly 3-times in 2000, remember?), reforming education, Social Security, and Medicare. It was only after 9/11, that he decided to stop "fly-swatting" (taking out individual terrorists) and go to Middle East in force (starting with Iraq)...

There's a lot of room for religion to cause harm without actually causing death. Ask anyone tortured but not killed by the inquisition, or for that matter any of these kids taught only about abstinence.

Or, indeed, ask my wife about her schooldays, when friendship was forbidden (and team sports banned because they fostered friendship) because friendship meant treating some citizens more favourably than others. That was an attempt to seriously screw up social relationships (it failed dismally, fortunately) but of course was done in the name of an atheistic ideology (Maoism) rather than religion. As you say, "these kinds of badness are not reserved for the religious."

To my mind there are two bad kinds of religious people: Those who are fucking up the world by expecting everyone to be like them, and those who are letting the world go to hell while assuming that they aren't. There are certainly people whose religion suggests that they go out and do good works but don't try to shit on people, and those people are not bad people. The rest of them are, and I'm not going to apologize for that.

I want to say also that these kinds of badness are not reserved for the religious

Yes, that's why I've been careful not to talk about "tolerance" -- there are things we should not be tolerant of, and things we should. We can fall off the horse on either side, but it's infamously difficult to find a satisfactory point of balance.

With all this said, I do not believe you can stamp out religion by eliminating religious freedom

Albania probably tried the hardest of any of the communist states, ruthlessly killing anybody who was suspected of religious belief. Since the collapse of communism there it became very religious again very quickly.

so I'm not advocating the forcible elimination of the stuff. However, I think that an educated populace (and by educated I mean taught how to use their brain, not what to think with it) will eventually reject religion. So far, statistics have borne this out, as well as the converse; religion impedes education.

Agree completely, but be careful: in a lot of the anti-religious talk I hear -- here on /. and elsewhere -- I hear echoes that are so similar to the communist persecution of the religious that it's creepy, and one aspect of that was seeing any dissent as either a sign of lack of education or of mental illness, leading to the religious (along with anybody else who dissented from state dogma) at risk of being sent for "re-education" or of being committed to a mental hospital. So a wholehearted "yes" to an education that teaches "how to use their brain, not what to think with it" provided the educators accept that if a product of that system doesn't think what they're "supposed" to then the education has failed in some way and needs to be continued more forcefully.

the issue isn't whether or not they're living in a fantasy world, it's whether they're trying to kill people.

There's a lot of room for religion to cause harm without actually causing death. Ask anyone tortured but not killed by the inquisition, or for that matter any of these kids taught only about abstinence. To my mind there are two bad kinds of religious people: Those who are fucking up the world by expecting everyone to be like them, and those who are letting the world go to hell while assuming that they aren't. There are certainly people whose religion suggests that they go out and do good works but don't try to shit on people, and those people are not bad people. The rest of them are, and I'm not going to apologize for that.

I want to say also that these kinds of badness are not reserved for the religious. All of us who have become too complacent to go out and make the world a better place instead of watching it go to hell on TV are jackasses, too.

With all this said, I do not believe you can stamp out religion by eliminating religious freedom, so I'm not advocating the forcible elimination of the stuff. However, I think that an educated populace (and by educated I mean taught how to use their brain, not what to think with it) will eventually reject religion. So far, statistics have borne this out, as well as the converse; religion impedes education. (I'm prepared to defend that statement, don't worry. But I'd prefer to skip it until the next time the subject of education is the focus of the religion-bashing.)

If you (the global you) are a good person, and you believe in God, that's okay. This comment wasn't for you, except perhaps as validation.

Here are two sources, saying that there was a mistake in the system.

AP: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iFAIOIDnSsgrsaXKgoEH9kaWAmlwD97HAGUO1
La time (blog) http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2009/04/amazon-responds-to-adult-queries-blames-a-glitch.html

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2009/04/amazon-deranks-gayfriendly-books-the-twitterverse-notices.html

wow, twitterverse? really? I also think I saw a try at twittersphere. what will they think of next?

LA Times blog ok? http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2009/04/amazon-deranks-gayfriendly-books-the-twitterverse-notices.html

The source for your link is an LA Times opinion piece.

Actually, it is an "opinion" of a man, who organized and participated in the negotiations. Unless he is lying, what he says is facts — not mere speculation.

President Clinton and his national security team ignored several opportunities to capture Osama bin Laden and his terrorist associates, including one as late as last year.

I know because I negotiated more than one of the opportunities.

Interestingly, the strongest statement intended to counter the above allegation falls completely flat and, in fact, supports the conclusion, that Clinton (and the rest of us) was let down by his legal background:

Sudan's minister of defense, Fatih Erwa, has claimed that Sudan offered to hand Bin Ladin over to the United States. The Commission has found no credible evidence that this was so. Ambassador Carney had instructions only to push the Sudanese to expel Bin Ladin. Ambassador Carney had no legal basis to ask for more from the Sudanese since, at the time, there was no indictment out-standing.

Please don't do that here.

Your snobbery may have gathered you some "insightful" moderations, but you are still full of shit, fluxrad...

This is a step in the right direction. However Walter Mooney (NPR interview) never specifies who he means when he says "we": he might be attempting to represent all geologists everywhere, but it is more likely that he is representing only the experts with the US Geological Survey, and much more likely that he is representing only his colleagues at Menlo Park. There is also the possibility he is representing only his own household (himself, his dog, his cat, and his goldfish), but that is as absurd as thinking that he is speaking for all of Science.

Best guess: Mooney is saying that his group at Menlo Park has not found a way to predict earthquakes by monitoring radon levels. If he had been asked to do so, he would most likely would have been able to easily count off the methods his group explored, and he would most likely have been able to imagine several other possible methods that were not explored for one reason or another.

Main points: Mooney appears to have the background to assess Giuliani's work, and is familiar with similar approaches that have not led anywhere. But he does not offer a critique of Giuliani's work, nor does he say he knows anything about Giuliani's methods. His statement condenses down to "We tried some things that are probably similar to what Giuliani did, and we couldn't make any of them work."

The LA Times story is similar to other rehashes of the story. Basically, it is saying that authorities on earthquake prediction have found that none of the other work to date has shown radon emissions to be good predictors of earthquakes. Again notable for its absence is any statement by any scientist that he has looked at Giuliana's specific methodology and data.

Basically, Giuliani's work is being dismissed in the media based on statements of authority, not on scientific principles. We don't know what Giuliani based his predictions upon (perhaps he was seeing radon spikes a hundred times greater than anyone else had ever seen; perhaps he was seeing a perfect correlation between radon spikes and pre-shocks... who knows?)

Undoubtedly Mooney's group at Menlo Park will review Giuliani's data, methods, and conclusions when these become available. It would be imprudent to do otherwise. So at some point we can expect a judgment based on scientific principles. But that hasn't happened yet.

</rant>

Yeah, above is a rant. As I get older, I get increasingly intolerant of the failure of intelligent people to use critical reading skills. Especially with regard to confusing the current beliefs of "scientific authorities" with the actual practice of the scientific method. Yeah, reporters are not making the distinction and it would be good if they would do so, but they are simply reporters, fercryinoutloud, not rocket surgeons. Besides, the responsibility for assessing the value of the written word always belongs to the reader, and cannot be reassigned.

Bush didn't clear house in the DoJ like previous Presidents had in an attempt for both sides to get along. Most of the prosecutors on this case were leftovers from Clinton.

Then what's up with this press release from the DoJ under Bush saying that a third had submitted their resignations by March 14th and the remaining lawyers were set to be "transitioned" by June? Why did Gonzalez's Chief of Staff claim they fired all the Clinton appointees, with most gone by April 2001?

The Department of Justice isn't supposed to be full of partisan hacks, and most of them aren't. Just because the case was against a prominent Republican Senator doesn't mean Democratic lawyers were on the case. That's why there was such a big hullaboo about the firings of DoJ lawyers for political reasons. Those lawyers were Bush appointees, and they were allegedly fired because they weren't going after enough Democrats.

Here's a quick one from an interview on NPR with Walter Mooney of the US Geological Survey. He basically said that scientists had aggressively researched the radon emissions theory a few decades back but the data proved no correlation. Another article from the LA Times interview with Tom Jordan, director of the Southern California Earthquake Center, and principal investigator on the international Collaboratory for the Study of Earthquake Predictability. Both gentlemen essentially say that the approach used by Giuliani is not at all a reliable indicator for earthquake predictions.

From the article:
Interest in radon as an earthquake signal peaked in the 1970s in California, said Susan Hough, who serves as scientist in charge at the U.S. Geological Survey in Pasadena and is writing a book on earthquake prediction. In 1979, for instance, scientists at Caltech and other institutions said they found changes in gas levels in Southern California wells right before earthquakes in Malibu and Big Bear that year.

"The whole thing deflated when the places where they had detected [radon] had no earthquakes and earthquakes happened in different areas," Hough said.

Warpspeed and hyperspace aren't really used outside of science fiction though. Space elevator and grey goo I'll grant you. A portal is just an opening or a doorway.

That's just not true. Google has 974,000 hits on "warpspeed" including:

http://www.warpspeedperformance.com/ - Exhaust and chassis upgrades

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/booster_shots/2009/02/hiv-evolving-at.html - Article about evolution of HIV

http://www.opera.com/press/releases/2009/04/02/ - Apparently Opera allows you to browse the web quickly. (Admittedly that's rather science-fictiony.)

And many others.

Granted, not used currently in *science* but it's certainly used outside science fiction!

Well, TFA is just about incoherent as to what percentage of whose demand when could be produced from wind turbines where. This article is a great deal clearer about its claims.

Or, you could peruse the report summary itself.

Obviously it will be run by PENGUINS!

In my country, we have a very proactive security and intelligence force because for the terrorism that we suffer, also theres a lot of NGO's doing work that the government would not like to see the light. These NGO's runs Linux I know it from first hand, custom build or handed by other international NGO's that trains them to use secure communications PGP Tor etc. For them thats the difference between an alive NGO worker and a positive

Yes, security forces are aware of Linux and it's a target too.

So how do you explain your dna at the crime site?

I don't have to explain my DNA being at the crime scene, I have to explain DNA that matched mine being at the lab.

You took a sample of my DNA. You took it to the lab. Please prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you didn't screw up and contaminate a sample somewhere with my DNA.

Furthermore, spurious DNA matches are not as improbable as cops and prosecutors like to suggest.

DNA is lousy forensic evidence, and should be used only for exoneration.

And the scary thing is that other forensic "science" is even worse.

Personally, I don't trust the carter center, and don't respect Jimmy Carter either. Most people here believe that the elections were rigged, but there is nothing they can do about it.

The 2004 elections were a recall referendum after collecting millions of signatures (as the law requires) twice. The first collection was deemed invalid by the CNE (national electoral institution) controlled by Chavez people. This single decision gave him yet one more year in power.

The CNE's president of that time was rewarded by being appointed vice-president.

See, that's how it works here, if you help Chavez, you get a reward (for a period of time, nobody can become more powerful than Chavez himself). If you are against Chavez, you'll be imprisoned or be shot at.