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This is a very simple situation. Comcast is a huge company leveraging its position as Internet gateway for approximately 20 million subscribers to get cash from others trying to provide services to those customers. In particular, they targeted Netflix because it competes with Comcast's cable TV and video on demand services.

Capacity was never the problem. The interfaces required to upgrade Comcast's interface with Cogent cost a few thousand dollars. Cogent offered to give Comcast those interfaces for free. Netfilx also offered Comcast free caching servers and a royalty free direct peering agreement that would have slashed congestion on the Comcast-Cogent interconnects and reduced both of their costs dramatically. Comcast wasn't interested.

What Comcast wanted was payola to allow Netflix access to Comcast's subscriber base. Comcast didn't care if that came in the form of Netflix using a CDN (Content Delivery Network), who pay Comcast for interconnects, or for direct payments from Netflix. They just wanted their pound of flesh.

Incidentally, in 2014 Netflix made about 267 million dollars in profit. Comcast made over 8 billion. I don't know what Netfilx is paying Comcast, but it can't be more than a drop in the bucket that is Comcast's approximately 69 billion dollar annual revenue. I suspect this was more about hurting Netflix than it is about protecting their bottom line.

Here are some sources backing up the facts and figures.
http://www.marketwatch.com/inv...
http://www.marketwatch.com/inv...
https://gigaom.com/2013/11/11/...
http://www.multichannel.com/ne...
http://www.practicalecommerce....

Prince Alwaleed agrees with you.

https://secure.marketwatch.com...

I know a company has to be profitable to keep people employed...

IBM's net profit in FY2014 was $15.75B (down from $16.48B in FY2013).

It looks to me like you've got this wrong.

According to this Forbes article from 2013, Apple routes all non-US sales revenue through Ireland. That's sketchy on the part of both Ireland and Apple, and offensive to all the other countries that get no cut from Apple's sales within their borders.

According to this financial statement, Apple paid $9.48b in current US income tax in 2014, $2.15b in current foreign income tax.

Pooling everything, in 2014 Apple had pre-tax income of $53.48b, $13.97b total income tax, for a net income of $39.51b.

I don't know how those numbers compare to other large corporations, or "socially responsible corporations", or whatever you want to compare to. But claiming that Apple routes US sales revenues through Ireland, or that Apple doesn't pay tax on its profits, appears to be completely false.

If I'm misinterpreting these numbers, please post corrections.

Not in the sense were are talking about on Slashdot, and as others have noted it's a pretty flawed study (including the interesting fact that women supposedly had the same bias, which means it's not men you should be worried about).

No, people have said it's a flawed study, but so foar no one has actually listed any of the flaws. Showing that women are apparently as biased against women as men are isn't a flaw in the study: it's a conclusion of the study. It's an interesting conclusion to be sure, but unless there's an actual flaw in the study which doesn't involve wishful thinking, the conclusion is sound.

Basing your entire worldview on a single flawed study seems to be way more in denial to me, you simply don't want to admit the real world works differently than preconceptions you hold dearly.

Hey, I'm not the one claiming an interesting conclusion is a flaw in the method.

Besides, my worldview is not based on this one study. My assessment of what is happening is based on my own observations, and those of my friends. Now of course we know that anecdoes!=data, but here is a randomised, double blind study which supports my conclusion. I don't see any good reason to disbelieve it right now. Do you?

*Technical workers*, and yes they are - outside silicon valley.

Ah so only TRUE Scotsmen^WTechnical Workers make rational hiring decisions.

I've seen people behave irrationally my whole life. I've read scores and scores of popular science press articles over the years highlighting various interesting instances where humans are irrational. I don't think I've ever seen the reverse. Unless you provide some evidence that humans act rationally in this circumstance, I'm going to accuse you of wishful thinking.

Here's a nice one: the world apparently prefers promoting tall men over short men:

http://www.marketwatch.com/sto...

How is that rational. And I know you're going to yet again refer to non-silicon-valley-tech-workers, but why? What on earth makes you think these people are rational.

One of us is being rational and the other is not. We are both tech workers. Based on you're UID, I'd say you're not young and so, like me, have been involved in hiring at some point. So you have in front of you two people who have been hiring in tech. Only one is rational. How can you claim that tech hiring is always rational?

Get a job and see for yourself.

I have. And in my various jobs, spanning academia, government and industry I have seen people do all sorts of silly, irrational things.

Nothing is stopping you...

To what end should slashdot secure itself? Are you storing confidential info here? It is a public forum. Anyone, including an NSA agent can browse all your postings regardless of any encryption used between you and this site.

I visit slashdot.org in my browser, but instead I get kiddie porn (or other government-objectionable material, think China), or malware (but I wasn't expecting an executable), or a zero-day exploit for my client (but I should make sure not to have any), just because slashdot isn't using TLS. I give /. a password, maybe some users have password reuse problems. Maybe I visit /. but the MitM injects a fake story claiming that the president has been shot. Maybe even more things I haven't thought of.

There would need to be a compelling business/financial reason for any site to do so. Helping others hide their traffic is not all that compelling from a beancounters point of view.

We need to change the default to secure. A lack of imagination to identify the risks is not a good enough excuse to avoid encryption.

Yes, you read it correctly. It's now China's time. to shine.

As we debate the real meaning of these numbers, let's remember that our economy is mostly financed by debt. We're indebted to those nations we despise.

Sadly, the ordinary American just doesn't get it.

Sorry, figure corrections (I got my info from http://www.marketwatch.com/inv..., which lists figures in yen):

$4,799B - North Korean GDP 2014
$7,770B - Sony Gross Sales/Revenue 2014
$2,280B - Sony Gross Income 2014

Sony is only really worth 1.6 North Koreas.

They would set up some poor sap like Sergey Aleynikov to take the fall for them.

Barbie is in decline world-wide.

For nearly 70 years, Barbie has ruled the dollhouse. But Mattel’s star may now be a relic of the past. Mattel shares sank slightly on Thursday morning after the company announced a net loss of $11.2 million and shrinking sales – $946 million, down 5% compared last year. The company’s biggest problem was its declining Barbie sales. Worldwide gross sales for the brand were down 14%.

... and ...

The sharp decline was especially disappointing as Barbie is still Mattel’s biggest single brand, generating $1.15 billion in 2013 sales, according to Needham & Co. analyst Sean McGowan.

Barbie’s North American sales have now fallen for eight straight quarters, and worldwide sales have dropped in eight of the past 10 quarters, according to McGowan.

Barbie’s popularity slide has come at a time of shifting demographics.

"Barbie is sort of stuck with its own fame as a blond girl, which just doesn’t resonate with girls anymore," said Matthew Hudak, an analyst in toys and games at research firm Euromonitor.

Mattel has tried to address the issue with Barbies from different ethnic backgrounds, but it’s difficult to change consumer perception of the doll, he said.

"Barbie is just going to continue to be hard to relate to. It doesn’t look like it’s in for a fun ride the next few years," Hudak said.

Barbie also has been hurt by the marketing to girls of toys that were once geared only toward boys, such as Hasbro’s Nerf Rebelle, a feminine spin on the classic Nerf foam-dart shooter.

"Maybe Mattel should be more conscious of gender neutrality?" said Jamie Gutfreund, chief marketing officer at Noise and The Intelligence Group, adding the majority of young parents it surveyed are okay with boys playing with dolls.

While over a billion in sales is nothing to sneeze at, the fact that it's declining despite attempts to enlarge and diversify the market is significant. Mattel is now marketling Barbies to the parents, not the kids - kids just aren't asking for them any more. They want an iPod, an iPad, a Nerf gun, a Smartphone ...

>> I'm not hearing Republicans saying this should stop.

Meet Rand Paul (R): http://lmgtfy.com/?q=rand+paul...

Also, here's a 2013 poll demonstrating most of the support for wiretapping is now in the Democratic party:
http://blogs.marketwatch.com/c...

Long story short, if you're not hearing people say it should stop, it's time to open your ears.

There are a few objective measures that can be made. We know that professional employment was once considered to be life-long.

Not true. Average job tenure is higher today than in the past. "Lifetime jobs" are a myth that never happened for most people.

We know that employers used to offer on the job training and actual entry level employment.

Citation please. Can you provide any evidence that job training was more prevalent in the past?

According to this map, state bans on Tesla sales are a Republican thing.

The Governor of Michigan, Rick Snyder, is a Republican. The Michigan State Senate has a 26-to-12 Republican majority and in the House a 59-to-50 Republican majority. With control of both the executive and legislative branches of government, it is certainly Republicans who are accountable for revoking the freedom to purchase a Tesla in Michigan.

By the way, it is election season, and I have noticed signs in my neighborhood stating, "For freedom, vote Republican."

How quickly we forget who's behind the changes to net neutrality. Here's a quick reminder from early 2011: http://www.marketwatch.com/sto... Are the Koch Brothers gonna be celebrating yet another victory over us?

Alibaba Group Holding Limited (NYSE: BABA) is a publicly traded Hangzhou-based group of Internet-based e-commerce businesses, including business-to-business online web portals, online retail and payment services, a shopping search engine and data-centric cloud computing services.

That business is **not** what is traded on the NYSE under BABA. What is actually traded is a Cayman Islands "variable-interest entity". It seems that foreigners are not allowed to own shares in the business you describe.
http://www.marketwatch.com/sto...

You seem to be speaking of Alibaba the Chinese retailer, so you are off on a tangent since that is not what US investors are putting their money into.

What US investors are buying is interest in a Cayman Island “variable-interest entity”. Stockholders won't have the usual influence on corporate governance or management, such as it is. My understanding is that Chinese law doesn't allow foreigners to own a Chinese strategic asset. So this Cayman Island entity was created.

http://www.marketwatch.com/sto...

On the other hand who owns Alibaba's 120 billion? Americans now.

US investors don't own Alibaba, the Chinese retail giant. Chinese law doesn't allow foreigners to own a Chinese strategic asset. What US investors are buying is interest in a Cayman Island “variable-interest entity”. Stockholders won't have the usual influence on corporate governance or management.
http://www.marketwatch.com/sto...

Apple Pay works with Visa, Mastercard, and American express? And it'll ship working with these while on AT&T & Verizon's networks? If I were Google, I'd lawyer up.

Visa, Mastercard, AT&T, and Verizon have all tried to ruin Google Wallet because they wanted to come up with their own standard for everyone to adopt. They are why Google Wallet isn't available on non Nexus devices from the big 2 wireless providers in the US.

So, if Google does it, these companies actively block it. If Apple does it, they welcome them with open arms?

That's bullshit.

So please tell me: Is there another "Wallet" system that has hardware integration, creating what amounts to a "Double-Blind" transaction that is essentially immune from hacking?

If Google cared about your privacy (which Eric Schmidt has publicly stated is a dead issue), and cared about selling hardware (which they clearly don't), then they could have made Google Wallet be as secure, or perhaps even more secure, than Apple's Wallet.

But they don't, so they didn't, so now Apple does their usual bit of swooping in from behind and blindsiding the competition with a system that in one fell swoop, overcomes the limitations and objections that NFC-based payment systems have.

Nope, it's called competition; something that Slashdot readers prize beyond many other things...

Fukushima put quite a kink in any new construction in China, as there was a construction approval halt for near-sea reactors from April to at least October in 2011 (and Taishan is what you might call close to the sea) - half a year delay can easily get you some delay in onlining. You also need to keep in mind that 46 months was the planned construction time, not when it enters commercial service. With first concrete being poured in October 2009, construction should have been complete in about autumn 2013, but adding the half- to one-year delay due to Fukushima, we'd expect it to complete construction some time in 2014. And according to the WNN article I linked, startup should indeed happen this year and commissioning into commercial service, next year (you need to train people, run safety drills, test out all the maintenance and refueling equipment and failsafes, etc. - that takes some time after construction).
So if you consider the ripple that Fukushima sent into the world of nuclear reactor construction projects, Taishan is indeed roughly on schedule. I guess if you wanted to split hairs and talk about plus or minus a few months, sure, but I don't see it as much of a problem, especially when you compare it to the monumental management disaster that is Olkiluoto 3.

"We just passed another hugely expensive entitlement (health care reform), but with no regard to how the government is going to pay for it without crippling increases in taxes, deficit spending, or inflationary money printing."

This claim is either ignorant, or you're just lying. The ACA _reduces_ the deficit over time - the incremental taxes in the bill more than pay for the incremental costs of it.

http://blogs.marketwatch.com/h...

By what metric? http://www.marketwatch.com/inv... $62 Billion in revenue in 2010 and 87 Billion when he retired.

Fuck revenues, show me some earnings!

Net income: 18.76B 23.15B 16.98B 21.86B 22.07B.

So he brought in $25B more in 2014 than in 2010? So what? Almost all the revenue gains are being consumed by management. Bloated headcount, top-heavy management, and everyone right down to the line employees looking out for their own little fiefdoms instead of, you know, the shareholders.

I am so fucking sick of this "grow or die" mentality in tech. It's bullshit. MSFT had an enormous and wonderful cash cow in the form of XP/7/Office. XBox is fun but has cost the company billions over the past decade. 8 has destroyed their former desktop dominance.

The company needs core team to maintain and upgrade the core OS and office components, maintain the UI as-is because it was complete 14 years ago, and fire the UX team that wants to dynamically e-leverage your synergies every six months. Make the OS and office suite a subscription service: $5/month for security updates. Fire everybody who's not part of the core business, along with the bloated management structures they bring along with them. Milk the cash cow.

MSFT trades at $45/sh and reports about $2.50/sh in earnings. Even its current bloated structure would pay investors back in 18 years. Well, you don't have 18 years under this business model, but since I've just fired two-thirds of the company (fuck your Xbone, fuck the UX team, fuck the 8/Mobile failures) and cut its SG&A and Development expenses (about $2/sh and $1/sh respectively), I've just doubled your earnings. Now you have a company that does about $70B revenues and $40B in profits , or $5/sh. Hike the dividend to $4/sh, save $1/sh for a rainy day or further stock buybacks (same thing as a dividend, really), and the time to get your money back is now less than 10 years.

If anyone is still using MSFT products 10 years from now, everything you get after that point is free money. If you're a real company, stop acting like a two-bit startup without an exit plan, and start making some actual money, rather than just squandering your revenues on whatever your management's latest pipe dream is.

You can be forgiven for thinking this, since the law changed very recently. Several states had passed industrial hemp bills that were void until the Federal government acted. They finally acted. Note that some of the industrial hemp states do not allow recreational. I haven't checked to see if they all allow medical. Thus, it's legal to grow industrial hemp in California, but recreational marijuana is still an infraction/$100 fine for less than on oz., criminal for more than an ounce, etc. I don't know what the regs are for joe blow growing industrial hemp. I don't think I'm going to try since it would attract unwanted attention for obvious reasons.

Why shouldn't the same insurance rates apply to everybody, simply based on mileage, driving history, and vehicle type? I mean, if I wanted to pick out a category of drivers to charge more, it would be mothers with children in their cars (they are dangerous), not Uber drivers looking for rides.

Consider the scenario where you are standing on a street corner and a car comes rushing towards you at a high rate of speed. Collision is imminent. You're going to survive the impact, but you'll be paralyzed from the neck down for the rest of your life.

If the car that crippled you was operated by an employee of a cab company, it might mean that a legal settlement would be reached such that you'd spend the rest of your life at your house with inhouse nurse care.

If the car was an Uber driver rushing down the street to pick up a customer before becoming inpatient and choosing a different car in the app, well, I hope you have substantial insurance through your own job. When you attempt to sue Uber over your injuries, they'll say they have no liability in the matter because their driver wasn't on the clock with a passenger. And they'll exert significant legal resources to prevent creating a precedent that'll put them out of business. They'll happily spend more fighting your case than the amount for which your suing. In this scenario, you're likely to have to live at an institution to be provided needed medical care for the rest of your life.

As for your stereotyping of mothers with infants, the most common cause of car accidents is distracted driving due to cellphone usage. Seems that Uber drivers looking for fares would strongly fit into that category....

"Now" is misleading when the article is 2 years old?

lol :D

Oh well, more recently they hit 74% with all renewable energy combined:
http://thinkprogress.org/clima...

Maybe the 50% is correct for this year or other pages have just picked up the hype and not checked the sources or noticed the dates either.
http://www.thelocal.de/2014061...
http://www.forbes.com/sites/qu...

Did I Fucking Love Science got it wrong?
http://www.iflscience.com/tech...

More 2012:
http://www.marketwatch.com/sto...
I can't see a year here:
http://theweek.com/speedreads/...

Anyway, even if it has happened recently too it's less impressive when it has already been done more than 2 years ago..

HP's annual revenue is on the order of $100Bn, so $108m is about 0.1% of their income.

Revenue and income are two different things. Last year their revenue was $112B. Their income was $5B.

HP 2013 Financial Report

Interesting that the 45% rate isn't really California's tax.

http://www.marketwatch.com/sto...

Federal death tax is 40%.

The gloom and doom forecasts presume it won't be paid back. They refer to the paybacks as draining the budget.

Have some actual info.

Yes, in 2033 there is a projected shortfall. That gives them only 19 years to come up with an answer.

Saw this on Suze Orman.

$1 billion in gift cards go unredeemed
http://www.marketwatch.com/sto...

I wonder how much Microsoft makes this way with their Xbox live points.

Considering Bitcoin is trading around $300 on at least one exchange, I'll take my $500 now, Alex.

They all pay US income taxes. In 2012:

Microsoft: $2.4 billion

Apple: $8.4 billion

Google: $2.5 billion

IBM: $1.5 billion

CItigroup: $229 million

ExxonMobil: $2.5 billion

Seems to me that they all pay income taxes - and quite a bit of it. It's a common fallacy that big companies don't pay taxes. Just take a look at the facts for yourself and find out that they do, in fact, pay income taxes - and a lot of them at that.

They all pay US income taxes. In 2012:

Microsoft: $2.4 billion

Apple: $8.4 billion

Google: $2.5 billion

IBM: $1.5 billion

CItigroup: $229 million

ExxonMobil: $2.5 billion

Seems to me that they all pay income taxes - and quite a bit of it. It's a common fallacy that big companies don't pay taxes. Just take a look at the facts for yourself and find out that they do, in fact, pay income taxes - and a lot of them at that.

They all pay US income taxes. In 2012:

Microsoft: $2.4 billion

Apple: $8.4 billion

Google: $2.5 billion

IBM: $1.5 billion

CItigroup: $229 million

ExxonMobil: $2.5 billion

Seems to me that they all pay income taxes - and quite a bit of it. It's a common fallacy that big companies don't pay taxes. Just take a look at the facts for yourself and find out that they do, in fact, pay income taxes - and a lot of them at that.

They all pay US income taxes. In 2012:

Microsoft: $2.4 billion

Apple: $8.4 billion

Google: $2.5 billion

IBM: $1.5 billion

CItigroup: $229 million

ExxonMobil: $2.5 billion

Seems to me that they all pay income taxes - and quite a bit of it. It's a common fallacy that big companies don't pay taxes. Just take a look at the facts for yourself and find out that they do, in fact, pay income taxes - and a lot of them at that.

They all pay US income taxes. In 2012:

Microsoft: $2.4 billion

Apple: $8.4 billion

Google: $2.5 billion

IBM: $1.5 billion

CItigroup: $229 million

ExxonMobil: $2.5 billion

Seems to me that they all pay income taxes - and quite a bit of it. It's a common fallacy that big companies don't pay taxes. Just take a look at the facts for yourself and find out that they do, in fact, pay income taxes - and a lot of them at that.

They all pay US income taxes. In 2012:

Microsoft: $2.4 billion

Apple: $8.4 billion

Google: $2.5 billion

IBM: $1.5 billion

CItigroup: $229 million

ExxonMobil: $2.5 billion

Seems to me that they all pay income taxes - and quite a bit of it. It's a common fallacy that big companies don't pay taxes. Just take a look at the facts for yourself and find out that they do, in fact, pay income taxes - and a lot of them at that.

Thank tho Snowden we now know that Cisco is even worse in that regard.

Do we? Really?

Can someone tell me why BlackBerry is so disregarded? I see a few posters saying that they love their Q10 (I love mine) - and people immediately jump on them saying that it's a sinking ship. Aside from their financial trouble, what exactly is wrong with the phones? The new OS is amazing, based on nerd-friendly QNX, and the keyboard is the best hardware keyboard you can get. The software keyboard on the all-touch devices is pretty damn good too. The only reason I keep hearing that people don't want a BlackBerry is because they're not doing well. Shouldn't quality of a product dictate what phone you get more than their status on the stock market?

Its not rootable.

Its not open.

I can not install the software of my choosing on it.

Does it have a microSD card slot for sharing data between the handheld, your laptop and your desktop PC? (Granted many larger corporations irrationally lock the USB slots down, which would be the same for SD card slots. Those same irrational large corporations are either no longer funding staff to perform the Windows automated updates or are planning too. Thus they lock out use of USB, but stop providing security updates to Windows machines, the most afflicted infection vector in the IT world! I call this mentality insanity. Stop expecting a different result!)

Can I connect via WiFi with a BlackBerry?

I don't need Microsoft Office, love LibreOffice, so any advantage with MS Office is a non-issue for many of us.

I can run LibreOffice on my tablet / Linux handheld and love to not have to worry about the mindless data format upgrades by Microsoft that served no purpose and cost organizations significant dollars to convert their proprietary documents to the new format, only because Microsoft told them, they had too to run the latest version of MS Office.

I don't need Adobe anything (including Flash) on my device, though occasionally I have to update the .so file, thanks to Adobe no longer supporting Linux but putting out a new security update for Windows. Never mind that when you drill down into the security exploits, 98% of the time they require local access. Meaning its a non issue if you do not hand over you device to another or give a cracker the keys to your home/apt!

I could go on, but enough.

BTW, Blackberry is a sinking ship! Its just a fact. Been watching the stock (marketwatch), BBRY (Google Finance), not sure they will survive, such is life for any company stupid enough to get in bed with Microsoft and Microsoft only applications and development tool chains.

Almost every company that gets in bed with Microsoft is acquired or put out of business in 4 - 5 years from the start of that relationship.

If a company's vertical market is lucrative, Microsoft will take it away from them or purchase the company within 4 to 5 years of the arrangement. There are many examples of this happening over the last 30 years. I wonder how many went out of business or saw their market share significantly eroded as Blackberry has? Had Blackberry catered to both Linux and Windows, they might still have a market and a business.

Only Hyper FEARful corporate/government entities are bothering with Blackberry today.

Yes FEAR is a motivator, however when a company acts out of fear primarily, without growing their company through new product offerings, its only a matter of time until they are diminished or gone.

We are finally getting to the point, economically, where companies that have cut their way to stock increases are up against walls created primarily due to their letting so many employees knowledable about their market and business go, they are discovering it very difficult to change their mindsets from one of offshoring/layoffs to one of growth. This too is a normal part of the business cycle. Their loss.

As far as the lack of professionalism in the IT sector, I worked in various professional enterprises. Some allow men to do whatever they want. Others have higher standards and require men to think. Say that men cannot think is silly. Men can think before they say or do stupid things. The trick is to fire the incompetent men who refuse to do so.

XBox is not a loser like surface, and trying to monetize Xbox is not dumb. MS responded to the issue.

The internship was stupid, but so are half the movies that get made.

The new Apple mail does suck. Where have you been? Every release Apple screws up one or two of the applications. Who is using google mail anyway? Google is the one company with a direct high speed link to the NSA, if a not NSA mining servers directly in their facility. The must have done something to rate the cheap gas.

Although the GM bailout ended with a $10.5-billion loss for taxpayers, Treasury officials say the goal never was to turn a profit.

Well done - maybe next time you could try and break even? (Depending on how you look at it, AIG was a profitable bailout, for example.)

Is this true, or are there more important factors to consider when choosing an SSD brand/model?

Not saying I necessarily agree, but you may want to read this.

What a strange reply. As far as bang for one's buck goes, the US healthcare system is severely lagging and pretty much everyone knows this. Perhaps you should go back and read what he had to say instead of spouting nonsense about the need for facts without providing any.

You've never heard of Geordi La Forge from Star Trek?

He just didn't recognize Geordi without his Visual Instrument and Sensory Organ Replacement. Happens all the time, and Burton likes it that way. If everyone wore Google Glass he'd be recognized everywhere he goes, like poor Patrick Stewart. He couldn't ring the bell at the NYSE the other day for Twitter without people yelling, "Look, it's Captain Picard! Make it so! Come on, say it!" The guy dressed up as Nerval's Lobster for Halloween, but people still recognized him. Burton has plenty of reason to value his visual anonymity.

FEAR: feeling of anxiety: an unpleasant feeling of anxiety or apprehension caused by the presence or anticipation of danger

The family of the victims of various shootings at the hands of the mentally ill would beg to differ with you as to something perceived to be a danger, and something that kills your family. There are already gun control laws, and the 2nd amendment doesn't guarantee unrestricted access to any weapons a citizen might want. There are already restrictions on automatic weapons, as well as a wide range of military grade weapons, explosives, poisons, WMD's, etc. There are also restrictions on who can gain access to weapons based on criminal history, as well as location. Not one single bill being seriously discussed in congress was taking away anyone's guns, as in every case, currently owned guns were grandfathered in. The vast majority of such legislation was aimed more at sensible background checks. Something even the NRA used to support before they were against it.

Can you cite any sources whatsoever as to the cost of shutting down a park as opposed to keeping it open? Unless you handle the billing for the various public park departments, you are just parroting talking points you read online or heard on the 'news'. You are also suggesting that they just leave these parks open to the public, which would be like opening the door to your home, and going on vacation for a month, and hoping everyone was on their best behavior. The Fed is legally required to shut down any services that are payed for with discretionary funds when they are no longer legally authorized to pay for such parks to remain open. Period, end of statement. The fact that you are more concerned about some park begin shut down, rather than people being denied food, social services, life saving medicines through various studies, etc, speaks volumes about your priorities.

No one is 'ignoring' the debt ceiling, and it has been dropping steadily for the last few years. In fact, it's dropping faster than it has since the 1950's. This is probably something you might be aware of if you weren't solidly wrapped up in your fear based news network.

http://money.cnn.com/2013/04/22/news/economy/deficits/index.html
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-debt-load-falling-at-fastest-pace-since-1950s-2012-06-08

Just as an FYI, Benghazi was a TERRORIST ATTACK, not a 'scandal'.

The dirty secret is that in recent auctions, the Federal Reserve bought 90+% of those - nobody else wants them.

What the heck are you talking about? Even in the most recent auction, in the middle of the government shutdown, there were still bids for 2.75 times the amount of debt the Treasury was actually offering in 1-month T-bills, which are the most volatile. For longer-term T-bills, the numbers are much better. In recent years, you often tend to see bids for at least 4 times the value of securities at auction.

Claiming that "nobody else wants them" is pure BS. There is no "dirty secret" here. The Fed often gets "first dibs" at auctions because of their role in managing the money supply, so they do buy up a lot of T-bills, but that doesn't mean there weren't lots of people waiting in line to buy that debt.

Admittedly, the numbers are down in terms of the numbers of bids in recent auctions (and we'd expect short-term bids to be down given the craziness in Washington), but your implication that the Fed is buying them up because no one else would is completely and utterly bogus.

The summary is misleading to the point where I think it's deliberate:

"Healthcare.gov, the site to be used by people in 36 states to get insurance as part of the Affordable Care Act, has apparently cost the U.S. Government $634 million. Not only is this more than Facebook spent during its first 6 years in operation, it is also over $500 million above what the original estimate was: $93.7 million. Why, in a country with some of the best web development companies in the world, has this website, which is poor quality at best, cost so much?"

Lets look at "Not only is this more than Facebook spent during its first 6 years in operation"

This is worded like it's comparing the cumulative cost of Facebook's first 6 years to the ~3 years that Healthcare.gov has been in development. But they're actually talking about the annual cost of Facebook compared to the cumulative cost of Healthcare.gov. As for Facebooks annual cost Facebook spent 449M in 2010, 1.1B in 2011, and 3.19B in 2012. FB also has the advantage of a far slower rollout, dealing with far less sensitive data, and needing far less integration with other systems so it's unclear if it's a valid comparison for things other than load.

There's another whopper in "it is also over $500 million above what the original estimate was: $93.7 million". So lets look at what the article actually said:

Take that out, and you’re left with roughly $363 million spent on technology-related costs to the healthcare exchanges – the bulk of which ($88 million) went to CGI Federal, the company awarded a $93.7 million contract to build Healthcare.gov and other technology portions of the FFEs.

So Healthcare.gov was never supposed to cost $93.7 million, only the contract to CGI to write the code was $93.7 million, the rest of the numbers had nothing to do with that.

There's certainly issues with Healthcare.gov but this story looks like a partisan plant to me.

Except that 18 times over the last 7 months the House has REFUSED to appoint anyone to the committee to discuss it. Now who exactly isn't negotiating?

The President, that's who: http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/brenner-brief/2013/oct/1/government-shutdown-and-assigning-blame-claims-ver/

It is true that the Senate Republicans blocked Leader Reid from setting up a conference committee on the budget back in April of this year, after the Senate passed a budget in March. However, the reason for doing so was not simply because the GOP did not want a conference committee. The real reason is that President Obama refused at the time to take tax increases off the table, saying they were a must. Knowing that the Republicans did not support any type of tax increase, GOP leadership simply said that there was no reason for the conference committee given that a parameter was already set in place that the GOP could not accept. In reality, Obama was not allowing for any compromise, making a demand before the negotiations even began.

the majority wants it.

Try again: http://blogs.marketwatch.com/health-exchange/2013/09/16/majority-disapprove-obamacare-but-divided-on-whether-to-enact-survey/

I'm sorry but that's NOT how things are supposed to be done

And yet it's been done time and time again, by both parties (actually more often by Democratic Congresses).

This is clearly hostage taking tactics

Only if seen through partisan goggles. The Republicans want to meet in the middle. The Democrats think they can unilaterally define what the middle is and what people want (which is especially humorous considering the fact Obamcare was passed with a Democratic supermajority with zero Republican votes and very little public support).

The minority doesn't get to control the majority, or shouldn't, in a Democracy

Except that the Republicans ARE the majority in the House, you blithering idiot.

Except Apple aren't king of the hill any more, they have less than 20% of the smartphone market.

Hmm... your strawman is compelling, but it is difficult to ignore that Apple is the king of the stock market by value, the most valuable brand in the world, and with more than $150B in cash and about that much in projected annual revenue, if they're not yet richer than New Zealand (GDP ~$170B), they will be soon. So even if it is perhaps arguable that they lost some specific market battle, if, the point is overshadowed by the fact that Apple decisively won the war.

You can add to that that she is now dead.

That is what MarketWatch is reporting. I saw elsewhere there was a kid in the car with her but I have not seen corroboration for that point.