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And you think Apple and Microsoft are any less evil?? How many wind and solar farms are they bankrolling? What kind of phone are YOU using, hypocrite?

I have two words for you -- bribery and extortion. It's how politics work in the US.

The thing is, in this case, the union is pitted against a governmental organization, not a private corporation. So the concessions they're asking from are coming from taxpayers. And, in this case, BART workers are already among the highest paid in the country (see here: notice station agents making close to $140k/yr) and BART is among the most expensive public transit systems in the country partly because of that...riding every day to work can easily run $300/mo.

So it's easy to see how the public would be very against this strike. It will result in higher taxes and fares for lots of people who make a lot less than the people striking. I'd actually like to hear what the argument is from those striking...they seem very fairly compensated to my mind.

Yes, I believe the Bolivian president just made the whole thing up.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/03/edward-snowden-bolivia-plane-vienna

Officials at Portugal's foreign ministry and National Civil Aviation Authority could not be reached for comment. French government officials reached overnight said they could not confirm whether Morales' plane was denied permission to fly over France.

The Austrian president, Heinz Fischer, visited Morales at the airport in the early hours of Wednesday and later said that the plane had been cleared to leave. "The flight route is normal, as far as I am informed. Spain's airspace is also open for him. [Morales] will resume his trip shortly," he said.

When I read the news stories on the subject France had not yet denied the accusation. They are certainly denying it now. Although the wording of the denial seems a bit suspicious. It makes it ambiguous as to whether they did in fact deny the flight flyover permission initially and then allow it later.

Portugal seems to claim that they denied landing permission but that they did not deny permission to fly through their airspace.

Here's an interesting link:
http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_23590259/snowden-france-denies-blocking-bolivian-plane

Portugal said it had granted permission for the plane to fly through its air space but declined Bolivia's request for a refueling stop in Lisbon due to unspecified technical reasons.

It seems unlikely that President Morales just decided out of the blue to humiliate himself and his country and spend an extra 14 hours in Vienna in order to, what? Just to make Latin Americans angry? If that is all they wanted they could have invented a much better story that did not also delay and humilate the president.

I've now also read some reports of responses from Washington. They are unwilling to explicitly deny that they contacted Portugal, France, Spain, or Italy about the Morales flight. That seems odd. That would be an easy thing to deny.

So, to me, the events are still unclear. A misunderstanding brought about by Portugal's refusal to allow a refueling and heightened by miscommunications with France is possible, but until/unless further evidence is revealed I find Bolivia's story more convincing than the alternative. It would definitely be in France's interest to deny the accusations. Portugal's answer sounds more like the truth. That they didn't deny a flyover. Just a refuelling stop.

I have only anecdotal evidence about Prius battery life but the link below has lots of names and locations of owners claiming anywhere from 100000 - half a million mile s (this last I find implausible).
Feel free to let them know what lying sacks of shit you think they are. Let us know what they have to say and thanks in advance.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mr-roadshow/ci_23057096/prius-goes-530-000-miles-same-battery

Interesting -- I'm an Oregonian who has lived in the Bay Area for the past 16 years (and 13 of that has been Mountain View).

Despite our generation and age difference, you and I have the same viewpoint and take on the situation.

And the weather here has nothing going for it, considering that all the buildings (barring those god-awful HOAs) were built in the 1940s (read: building construction and insulation is bizarre -- buildings that don't hold heat during the winter and won't cool off during the summer), backed by landlords who don't/won't install ACs. I still find it very strange how few apartments have AC here; for a region/state that, annually, has temperatures of 85F during the summer time to not have ACs is just bizarre.

For those unfamiliar with the city, the rent here for a 1BD/1BA (roughly 750sqft) is, on average, US$2200/month. Six years ago, that was $1500/month. Homes here tend to start at around the $1M mark (but end up selling for $700-800K), even if the home is old (i.e. I'm not exclusively talking about the aforementioned HOAs). Some folks I know who are native to this area insist its due to Google's presence, but I don't believe this -- I believe it's due to a much deeper-rooted problem:

Mountain View especially, but Silicon Valley in general is completely detached from reality and the rest of the world, particularly when it comes to anything financial (read: anything that involves money). There is a very strange thought process and mentality that happens here which is very hard to put into words. I guess if I had to try and summarise it (albeit badly), the belief seems to be that of "money grows on trees" and that material wealth is important -- all while damning that exact mentality/lifestyle. I saw a license plate the other day which might work as a better example: MTBPERU on a gold Lexus with all the options and in dire need of a wash.

http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_11290227

The Fry's CEO accepted all sorts of kickbacks to try to pay down his gambling debts. As I recall, he was only caught when an employee happened to find some incriminating paperwork he threw in a trashcan....

Really? Because of network effects. That's it. Everyone else is communicating on it.

It's purely a predatory play- they capture people who are at a time in their lives when they're well known to be indiscreet. They then record all that indiscretion. Then they monetize it.

Meanwhile, Zuckerberg is taking the results of that monetization and campaigning -hard - for XL Keystone pipeline.

http://www.mercurynews.com/peninsula/ci_23151754/keystone-xl-foes-rally-front-facebook-protest-zuckerbergs

a fact he's aggressively trying to lie about:

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2013/04/30/1943091/facebook-rejects-ad-highlighting-zuckerberg-groups-support-for-keystone-xl/

because like all other deniers,. he's first and foremost a narcissist:

http://www.afterpsychotherapy.com/narcissistic-personality-disorder/

who relishes the idea that he's smarter and more knowledgeable across a highly technical domain than are the the world's scientists who have spent their lives disciplined in and mastering that domain.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-scientific-consensus.htm

But one thing he doesn't have in common with other deniers

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer

is he's going to be around long enough to be forced by society to bear, without reserve, the consequences of his actions today, which depending on how bad things get, could range anywhere from total dissolution of his personal wealth to fund emergency, remedial action against global warming - an outcome that is now a virtually certainty- to extended torture at the hands of enraged mobs / quasi-civilization, should we reach five degrees of warming and real civilization just breaks down.:

http://globalwarming.berrens.nl/globalwarming.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nRf2RTqANg

Pretty sure that Virginia is doing the same thing: law requires that dealers sell cars, not manufacturers. http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_23091404/virginia-dmv-denies-tesla-request-run-its-own-dealership

2013-04-21
_KGO San Francisco CA_/_AP_
executives oppose privacy
Steven Harmon: San Jose CA Mercury News

If you'd like to actually make a difference, email your state assemblymember (and senator when it comes up).

Find Your Rep: http://findyourrep.legislature.ca.gov/
Find Their Email: http://clerk.assembly.ca.gov//clerk/memberinformation/memberdir_1.asp

AB1291: The Right to Know Act

Dear Assemblymember,

I am writing you in support of retaining strong privacy safeguards in AB 1291: The Right to Know Act.

I am concerned that large data mining companies and their lobbyists are exerting significant influence over this legislation and individual consumers need strong defenders in our desire to control our own data. For all their protests of the expense of complying with this privacy law, these multinational corporations already have to follow much stricter EU privacy laws.

From the Mercury News: "Consumers who live in 27 countries that belong to the European Union already have the right to know what data companies have on them -- laws that are being complied by Facebook, Google and others that are opposing the California legislation." - http://www.mercurynews.com/politics-government/ci_23067322/silicon-valley-companies-quietly-try-kill-internet-privacy

As mentioned by a former employee in the area: "As a former employee of a business that tracks a huge amount of personal information, I can tell you that most of these companies are already required to keep these records because of EU privacy records. Our databases were literally divided domestic and foreign for this reason.
So while it would take some effort in moving data and changing internal procedures, the bulk of the work is already done for most of these companies."

I hope you are one of us, someone who uses a credit card or spends time online, and want to know what data is being stored about us and how it is being used. Please support strong privacy legislation. Do not be swayed by big money lobbyists.

Thank you,
Me

http://www.mercurynews.com/politics-government/ci_23067322/silicon-valley-companies-quietly-try-kill-internet-privacy

"... A recent letter signed by 15 companies and trade groups -- including TechAmerica, which represents Google, Facebook, Microsoft and other technology companies -- demanded that the measure's author, Assemblywoman Bonnie Lowenthal, D-Long Beach, drop her bill. They complain it would open up businesses to an avalanche of requests from individuals as well as costly lawsuits.

One early consequence of the heavy lobbying: A hearing on the bill, AB1291, scheduled for last week, has been pushed to next month.

The American Civil Liberties Union, a co-sponsor of the Right to Know Act, accuses the business groups of overreacting to hide their true intentions: to keep out of the public's eye the lucrative practice of amassing personal information on people who use online services, computer apps, social networking sites and other portals that track people's locations, buying habits, favorite foods and movies, and even their sexual orientation.... ... ... The push for the new law comes as tech, banking and marketing firms find more ways to mine vast amounts of personal information on consumers to target their specific needs. Some websites have installed as many as 100 tracking tools that kick in when consumers visit them, according to the bill's analysis.

Many Facebook apps tap into their users' and their friends' profiles, including sections on religious, political and sexual preferences; race; income; and health concerns. Third-party advertising and marketing companies buy, sell and trade personal information that they get from mobile phones, financial institutions and social media sites.

Some mobile applications share location information and phone numbers of users -- a concern to advocates of domestic violence victims.
Consumers who live in 27 countries that belong to the European Union already have the right to know what data companies have on them -- laws that are being complied by Facebook, Google and others that are opposing the California legislation.

Google did not reply to requests for an interview; a Facebook spokesman declined to talk about the bill. The California Chamber of Commerce referred all calls to TechAmerica, the trade group that represents major Internet companies...."

Well an obvious way is to complain if you're an Apple customer

You can complain till you're blue in the face. It won't make them change their policy. That is the core problem. They might even change their minds and reinstate the app, but you're right back where you started the next time Apple bans an app for stupid reasons.

France has a better idea. They're considering legislation after the same thing happened to AppGratis. The EU could outlaw Apple's policy. I would greatly enjoy watching that happen after seeing Apple abuse developers for years.

I/4 of illegal immigrants are under 24 years of age
http://www.mercurynews.com/politics-national/2013/01/seven-facts-about-illegal-immigrants-in-the-united-states/

I'd rather live in a world where I could have spent plenty of time fooling around when I was a kid. Personally, I had a hard time with math classes sometimes because I was actually interested. I was reprimanded by my geometry teacher for showing him my studies of the pythagorean theorem on a day when I didn't turn in my homework, but I think I learned more when I followed my interests. I'd rather work on interesting coding problems, even for lower wages, than constantly seek the highest fiduciary recognition for troubleshooting problems with fundamentally flawed APIs or hyper-proprietary BS.

State officials in California have asked municipalities to reduce their storm drain waste by 40%. Whatever the solution to that would end up being, it would be expensive, if not impossible. How do you prevent 40% of the waste in your storm drains, which are publicly accessible all over town? The requirement wasn't to reduce waste to a certain level... it was to reduce it by 40% below what it already is... so if your numbers are already good, you have to make them that much better. It's chasing after a rainbow.

So the state gave the municipalities a loophole: you don't have to reduce your storm drain waste by 40% (or at all) if you institute a plastic bag ban. No questions asked. The municipalities get to avoid costly Environmental Impact Reports, and they get to tell their residents "look! We're doing something for the environment," so they're passing these bans with little or no discussion. So now you have just as much waste in the storm drains, restaurants and other places that have been given a pass are still handing out plastic bags all day long, and stores that weren't given a pass are either giving out thicker plastic bags with handles that are labelled as "reusable" or selling people paper bags for 10 cents. You don't see people walking into stores with these thicker bags or the paper bags, so that means they're being thrown out anyway, and they have more mass than the "banned" bags, so we really haven't reduced waste at all... we've made it worse.

Google announces they're tracking the flu (hey everyone, come see a map that will tell you how bad the flu is in your area!), Larry Page announces he's offering free flu shots to all kids in the Bay Area, and Google announces it's launching a flu shot locator. Of course searches for "flu" and "influenza" are going to increase. That will throw off the accuracy of your model. What they're really measuring is this: "people who are thinking about the flu and proactively reaching out to learn more."

Let me Google that for you...

Here you go, 7,719 arrests, WITH LINKS to the stories.

Enjoy!

http://stpeteforpeace.org/occupyarrests.sources.html

Here are some specifics:

Destruction:

http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/2012/05/protesters-take-over-city

General mayhem, including 200lbs of human feces:

http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_19373284

Rape:

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2011/11/woman-raped-at-occupy-philadelphia/

Enjoy the read!

Sorry for beating this poor dead horse, but when I look at a picture of the Iranian's "stealth fighter" cockpit linked to a few posts above this one, then compare it to what one airplane enthusiast created in his spare time: http://photos.mercurynews.com/2012/04/17/video-pleasanton-man-flies-a-boeing-737-in-his-garage/9029/, I have a hard time associating the concept of "professional military" with the term "Iran".

I doubt they even sent a monkey up at all. If he knew what was good for him, he'd have scrammed.

I knew it!

We should get rid of pensions and have each person have their own 401(k) or similar account.

â¦BUT I think that CURRENT employees should be bound by the pension plan that was in place when they were hired, with voluntary (including via inducements) changing to other later plans.

There are some slimy things going on locally with employees suing to keep the ability to "spike" pension payments. http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_22457589/daniel-borenstein-jerry-brown-kamala-harris-ducking-legal

Unfortunately this article lacks detail, it seems that Bernstein Research considers Intel's latest smartphone designs to be as energy efficient as competitors. Intel's latest smartphone chip is Medfield, which is 32nm. Unfortunately the article does not say what chips they compared... but it would be surprising if they didn't include the Qualcomm (Snapdragon S4 @ 28nm node) in their comparison. So we at least have some indirect evidence that even when they are at the same technology node, Intel's design is still close to ARM's. It will be interesting to see what Silvermont (22 nm) brings in 2013, at which point Intel SoCs will have LTE capability (instead of 3G GSM only) as well as Ivybridge graphics (instead of PowerVR), and they will be Quad-core. The smaller technology node paired with the new design features is probably going to yield an awesome smartphone/tablet platform.

Then I should have the right to break into your car and take what I want, because I know how to work a rock that can break your window. Hacking is criminal for a reason, and the courts are catching up to proper sentences for tech crimes. This is a high profile case, which will usually get a longer sentence to discourage others. Hey, IMO murder should be life w/o parole every time, but some get out after a couple years. Justice isn't always equal. And this sentence is meant to 'send a message' to any future hackers to not do the crime if you can't do the time. Ask Michael Douglas's son how much fun jail is...

"Michael Douglas' son had his leg and finger broke in prison, according to the Huffington Post. Cameron Douglas is serving a nine-and-a-half year prison sentence on drug charges. The 34-year-old is recovering from his injuries after a New York crime boss reportedly put a $100 bounty on his head. According to the New York Post, getting beat up is payback for Douglas being a "rat," a title he may have earned after his psychiatrist accidentally revealed Cameron once testified against his drug suppliers. Nice one, doc. "He broke his femur, which is hard to snap, and had to have a rod inserted," an anonymous source told the Post. "He told health services staff that he hurt them playing handball. You don't break a femur playing handball." Maybe if you're playing with a cannon ball." http://www.mercurynews.com/entertainment/ci_22215182/hicks-michael-douglas-son-allegedly-beat-up-prison

True, but there were some news articles about the Pearl Harbor Day ceremonies this year that had several 90+ year old survivors that attended.

(Unfortunately, in my googling, I can't find reference to the articles I read the other day, and it's not in my history. I did find the one about the guy identifying the dead.)

From http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_22130205/pearl-harbor-why-remembering-matters-71-years-later

Only about 1.5 million of the 16 million soldiers who served in World War II are still alive, with nearly 700 of them dying per day, according to the National World War II Museum.

Reaction time to a specific, anticipated event, you're likely right. But there's one crucial element to navigation that humans can do that computers currently can't - make arbitrary, seemingly illogical decisions in the heat of the moment. Take GP's hypothetical about the cliffside road - most humans, thanks to self-preservation instinct, will choose to rear-end the other car rather than drive off the ledge; what would a computer that is programmed to "avoid contact with other cars at all costs" do in that situation? Hyperbole aside, there's no way of knowing until we put one in that real world situation.

Yes. Humans would never drive off a cliff, thanks to this self-preservation instinct. A self-driving car, on the other hand, could make such mistakes, because the engineers would never think of a scenario slashdotters come up with 5 seconds after seeing a story about self-driving cars. They would certainly never put their algorithms to the test. If it compiles, ship it. Right?

Relevant quote from the last link:

So confident is Volvo in this safety mechanism, it says that if the lead vehicle were to drive off a cliff, the next vehicle could stop before reaching the edge.

Am I the only one who does not see the quoted number of 20,000 on either website? TFA, on the other hand, links to Fox News.

I didn't see it either... just last year's warning from the CDC and this week's warning from Homeland Security about Zombie attacks. I don't really care about the number of people who may be infected because that number doesn't really have any bearing on my safety. What really concerns me is this: can zombies transmit the hantavirus?

And then there's the MTC in the San Francisco Bay Area (funded through sales tax and bridge tolls among other sources) that purchased an entire building in downtown San Francisco and is renovating it to become offices for $170M. It's not clear why they couldn't stay in Oakland where office space is much cheaper than downtown San Francisco. Well, it is clear -- they have unlimited funding since residents are forced to fund them, if they need more money they can just raise tolls and/or taxes.

http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_21418357/mtcs-san-francisco-office-building-purchase-bridge-tolls
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/matier-ross/article/MTC-project-may-cost-Bay-Area-drivers-more-3822760.php

When confronted with the fact that their purchase may not have been cost effective, the MTC rep said:

a San Mateo County supervisor who chairs the commission, insisted that the agency's goal was never to make money - or even necessarily to break even.
"We're not looking at it as investment per se," Tissier said. "We look at it as moving into your own home."

That's the problem with government agencies - what incentive do they have to spend money wisely?

Hi, welcome to the US where we have massive unemployment and employer-based health insurance. Most people have zero choice in their healthcare provider.

You identify another problem, caused by government. Perhaps tying healthcare to employment wasn't the brightest idea. So we do we continue it?

I looked at your cite, which says nothing about wasting money to keep people alive.

Except the line I quoted that specifically stated "about 27% of Medicare's annual $327 billion budget goes to care for patients in their final year of life."? Would you like more cites?

http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-18560_162-6747002.html
"Last year, Medicare paid $55 billion just for doctor and hospital bills during the last two months of patients' lives. That's more than the budget for the Department of Homeland Security, or the Department of Education. And it has been estimated that 20 to 30 percent of these medical expenses may have had no meaningful impact. Most of the bills are paid for by the federal government with few or no questions asked. "

http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_19905093
The federal government estimates that 70 percent of health-care expenditures are spent on the elderly, 80 percent of that in the last month of life -- and often for aggressive, life-sustaining care that is futile. Think what America could do if it invested that $140 billion a year in other arenas. By comparison, the 2012 budget request for the National Institutes of Health, the largest supporter of biomedical research in the world, is $31 billion.

The United States spends nearly twice as much per capita on health care costs compared with most Western nations, yet it leaves millions of people with no health insurance at all. The bubble of end-of-life care is one reason.

How much are a few extra months worth? A few extra months with my family? A few extra months with my wife? A few extra months to say good-bye? Sometimes even just a few extra minutes are everything... Of course, that argument just bounced right off of you.

No, in fact it did not -- because I measured it against all the good that money could have done (say, for all the people without healthcare, or all the diseases we can't cure because we have no room in the healthcare budget to spend on research). YOU apparently live in a bubble where whenever you need more money you just stroll over to the wall safe and pull it out. I, on the other hand, live in reality where we're forced to prioritize . And yes it sucks, and is a hard and painful decision, but spending millions and millions of dollars giving terminal patients an extra month is not worth the sacrifices our society must endure to provide it. Ever wonder why the European systems have healthcare costs that are far cheaper than ours? And why everyone throughout the system is healthier as a result. It's because they let terminal patients die rather than spending every last penny to give them just a few hours more. I would gladly give up 2 months at the end of my life to provide healthcare for so many: babies, children, poor working single mothers, etc, etc -- if my death 2 months early saved even one young life, it would be worth it.

Wow. Just wow. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. The kind of mental pain and anguish necessary to build such solitary callousness... I'm sorry.

And I'm sorry you're so far offbase that you apparently like in a world of naivety, where nothing has a cost and we can give everyone everything with a snap of our fingers. You must be young.

Except the cops won't arrest you for a 'claimed act of murder' unless there were:

1. a real provable murder.

Really?

With no body, you can't prove the "victim" didn't run away to South America, yet they still arrest someone and charge they with murder. Where's the "real provable murder" in this case?
There are plenty of others, too.

I would like a source for the statements "He apparently thought he was the Joker" and "disarming the booby traps in his apartment".

CNN: "The suspect in the mass shooting at an Aurora, Colorado, movie theater screening of the new Batman film early Friday had colored his hair red and told police he was "the Joker," according to a federal law enforcement source with detailed knowledge of the investigation."

Denver Post via Mercury News -- "Aurora shooting suspect left apartment "booby trapped," music blaring": "Oates said Holmes made a statement to officers about possible explosives in his home. That prompted police to evacuate five buildings nearby and begin searching his third-floor apartment using a police robot and camera attached to a long pole. Inside, officers found trip wires attached to 1-liter plastic bottles that contain an unknown substance. Police Chief Dan Oates said the explosive devices were "pretty sophisticated." "We could be here for days," he said at midday."

It's five in the morning here and I am in no mood to be charitable.

The lawsuit was initiated by the children's grandmother. Their legal guardian. Her lawyers are working pro bono.

No fees. No slice of the pie. Got that?

Moving on.

Reiser is defending himself.

In a way, he is always defending himself. Reiser, it seems, can do no wrong.

He is the one who asked the judge to drag the kids into court.

"Why?" you ask.

What he wanted to do was to draw them into a grandiose scheme to promote his new and improved conspiracy theories and defense for the murder. The judge isn't playing along.

He claims his wife was abusing the kids, that she had Factitious disorder by proxy --- often referred to as Munchausen syndrome by proxy --- where a caregiver harms or even kills someone they are in charge of in order to gain sympathy and attention. During the 2008 trial, Reiser alluded to that as well, accusing his wife of having the disease when she wanted to get their son surgery for severe hearing loss.

In the unlawful death case, he now says why: ''I defended my children from harm.'' He added that, by murdering his wife, ''I stopped multiple felonies by doing so.''

In his papers, he accuses the courts, the prison system, county children's services, his trial attorneys and others of conspiring against him, during his murder trial and now in the civil case.

''There are extensive legal grounds under multiple arguments for defending an innocent child when the state will not, at the cost of a non-innocent party's life,'' Hans Reiser wrote.

Convicted of Murder, Linux Guru Hans Reiser Returns to Court to Fight Civil Suit

"Wired" has it all, in Reiser's own handwriting.

More.

The beginning of Monday's trial was marked by impatience from the judge and the children's legal team. The complaint against Reiser was originally filed in August 2008 by the children's maternal grandmother and legal guardian, Irina Sharanova. The case has been stalled as Reiser filed various motions to delay proceedings and claimed that he has not had adequate access to his legal documents while at Pleasant Valley State Prison in Coalinga.

''This trial has been pending for a really long time,'' said Judge Dennis Hayashi about the pretrial claims. ''I also made it clear that I'm not delaying this any further. ... We need to move on.''

Reiser, dressed in his orange prison uniform and appearing antsy at Hayashi's denials, has subpoenaed his children to appear in court.

They are living in Russia with Sharanova and are not expected at the trial, [Sharanova's attorney] said.

"I personally don't think it would do the children any good to come here and testify in this trial,"

"They'd have to relive what they went through as very young children."

Both of the children were at their father's house in the Montclair district when the killing is believed to have taken place.

Jury selection begins in Hans Reiser civil trial

Because never in all of history has someone in America been arrested without good reason. And certainly no one has ever been charged with "resisting arrest" and nothing else.

For example:
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_13686438
http://articles.philly.com/2010-06-29/news/24962922_1_wawa-officers-civilians

And your word of caution. No it doesn't matter if you are right. If I shoot a cop who was trying to arrest me without valid cause, the fact that he didn't have a valid cause isn't going to stop the "large body of law enforcement officers out to cease my free movement". Just look at the cases of the non-knock warrant being served on the wrong house and the people inside doing what you say and getting shot because they dared defend themselves.

For example:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18328267/
http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=95475

I think it's important to know that the cat died a natural death...

Actually, the cat was killed by a car. It's even in the URL of the story that TFA is citing. "Orvillecopter-takes-flight-cat-run-over-by-car-gets-extra-life-as-a-remote-controlled-helicopter." One cannot claim there's anything natural about the cat's death, unless it was a Prius that ran it over.

There might be some supernatural justice involved if the owner retaliates against the driver who hit the cat by flying it into his windshield while driving, scaring the living crap out of him. Actually, that would make for a great 21st-century sequel to The Birds: Dutch artist turns dead animals hit by motorists into helicopters and uses them to run those motorists off the road with an ever-growing swarm of dead, flying remote-control animals. Will he be stopped before he sets off an actual robotic-zombie apocalypse?

I've heard many arguments over the years from people who claim the rest of the world should follow the Dutch policy on drugs. From now on, I'm going to rebut those arguments by showing the video of this catcopter. "See what happens when you let everyone smoke whatever they want? They start turning dead animals into UAVs and flying them all over the place. Still think it's a good idea?"

I just noticed from the chart at the bottom of the Mercury News story that with the changes just announced (including the departures of five longtime directors), the board has now turned over completely since 2009 when Carol Bartz was hired. If I'm reading this correctly, nobody on the new board was present when that happened.

The new chairman, Fred Amoroso, joined the board in February.

Yale and Harvard, to take two, are both 'non-profit' and yet they are arguably extremely rich.

True they are rich, but they use that wealth to help students instead of shareholders. Because of extreme cuts to education funding, non-profits like Harvard and Yale are now cheaper than some California public schools for many people.

It's a cafeteria, How can you run off at the mouth without doing a little research? eg http://www.mercurynews.com/cupertino/ci_20481367/apple-gets-green-light-new-21-468-square or http://www.macrumors.com/2012/04/26/apple-building-new-cafeteria-in-cupertino-to-enhance-security-for-satellite-campus-workers/ Most reporters are reporting it as a cafeteria.

Nope, they just vote up laws that make the government bigger and more intrusive without yelling about small government at all. That's much better.

Obama is proposing, again, to consolidate multiple agencies.

http://www.mercurynews.com/nation-world/ci_19739447

You both asked:

I'm surprised you didn't include Occupy

and answered your own question:

Freedom of speech rights my ass. Occupy doesn't know what their rights are and what they mean, how to deliver a message, or how to work for change. Instead, they come across as a bunch of posers and whiners squatting in the parks and demanding the right to squat there for the rest of their lives while they wait for the world to change itself just because they discovered the world isn't fair.

Despite that, Occupy was the news story of the year to me. It was a brief spark of hope dashed by the incompetence of self-styled "victims" who insult those who know what actual oppression is.

The Occupy movement in the US is essentially the political equivalent of bitcoint: It takes large amounts of valuable time and energy and produces seeming random outputs that are claimed to be valuable but which in fact are largely useless despite the claims of their respective supporters.

Excellent: “Daily Show” on class divisions at Occupy Wall Street

Occupy’s Misogyny

When are the feminists going to speak out on the abuse of women that’s happening at the hands of the Occupy crowd? Rapes and sexual assaults are rampant among the Occupy movement in cities across the nation. According to ABC News, this past Saturday night a 23-year-old reported being raped by a 50-year-old inside a tent at Occupy Philadelphia. Similarly, a 14-year-old child was allegedly raped at Occupy Dallas. And at Occupy Cleveland, a 19-year-old told police she was raped after sharing a tent with an unknown man. After reporting her rape at Occupy Baltimore, a young woman claimed occupiers refused to help find her attacker. Now reports of rape and attempted rape in Zuccotti Park are surfacing. These are just the ones that were reported.

In addition to rapists, suicidal folks are causing emotional distress within the movement. After a 32-year-old man shot himself inside his tent at Occupy Burlington, Vermont protesters were so traumatized that they readily agreed to pack up and end their demonstration.

Besides rapes and suicides, occupiers have injured women in the midst of their shameless attempts to grab attention. A couple weeks ago, I attended Americans for Prosperity’s “Defending the American Dream” Summit, which was crashed by Occupy D.C. I was able to depart safely, with my frightened guests in tow, as protesters hissed vile remarks in our direction. Others weren’t that lucky. The Daily Caller reports that an elderly woman was pushed down the stairs during the occupiers’ stampede into the convention center. Not one protester stopped to help her, even as she lay in pain from severe injuries to her wrists, ankles, and legs.

Despite claiming to represent the 99%, Occupy Wall Street managed to cost at least 91 people their jobs: Milk Street Cafe, FiDi eatery that lost business due to Occupy Wall Street barricades, to close for good

During a time when most city governments have having a very difficult time financially, the Occupy movment jacked up the costs. It cost Oakland CA about $2.4 million, LA is looking at $2.3 million, with some more big bills coming in shortly. Many other cities are in a similar position.

A number of "Occupy" site around the world was hit by revelations that

Whatever it is, AMD is up to something new, and will announce in February.

Umm, Amazon *did* agree to pay the tax.

http://www.mercurynews.com/california-budget/ci_18849537

How do you come by that they need a bailout? AMD's profits, forecasts exceed projections, share price jumps (10/27/2011).

Bethany University near San Jose just closed its doors this year.

Given the fact that there is a supreme court ruling from the Sears days which is in Amazon's favor, I'm really surprised by this.

What. The. Fuck.

http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_18816728

After first telling this newspaper that it could find no record of its officers taking part in the search, SFPD on Friday acknowledged its personnel had gone to the house, but said only Apple employees went inside to search.

this is wrong in so many ways. I wonder if SFPD can be sued.. while the search wasn't conducted by LE (therefore technically no illegal search) - they were there which implies (to the resident) this is a sanctioned police action.

anyone notice that Google is paying TAU % over the stock price 6.283185307179586 http://www.mercurynews.com/top-stories/ci_18684398 hwere it says "Google said it will pay $40 a share in cash for Motorola Mobility's stock, a premium 63 percent higher than the stock's closing value on Friday. Shares in Motorola Mobility were climbing on Monday"

According to this story, it's not that the DA didn't have a case against them, but he knew Gizmodo would try a First Amendment defense, and didn't want to get into a protracted legal battle over it.

'Perlman estimates that the first commercial use of DIDO technology could come as early as the end of next year. But even then, the first deployments are likely to be outside of the United States.
In a DIDO system, a data center on the Internet determines the wireless signals that each transmitter will send based in part on the location and number of other DIDO transmitters in the area. In order for the data center to know what the resulting interference patterns will be, there can't be any other sources of signals outside those generated by the DIDO transmitters.
What that means is that a DIDO system would have to be used on currently unused or completely reclaimed spectrum. So DIDO won't be improving your Wi-Fi or 3G experience, because those parts of the spectrum are already crowded with transmitters. It's more likely to be embraced in the near term in countries that have a lot more unused spectrum than does the United States, Perlman said.' (Source: San Jose Mercury News, 8/3/2011 http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_18603178)

So Perlman himself says that, yes, in a closed system, his design works -- but only in that closed system. Given that some stray RF emissions are generated from various things (as we know from the amateur radio folks whenever BPL comes up, for example), there is an interference problem.

[* ...actially, if you're really gonzo, you can adjust all the transmitters to make their signals cancel out exactly, at everyone else's cell phones, so long as you have more transmitters than cell phones. In principle. But I don't think anyone is seriously proposing that...]

From the above-mentioned article, Perlman says you do not need more transmitters than cell phones. He suggests a 1:1 ratio instead. "To offer everyone on a DIDO system the maximum data rate and the best experience, a DIDO system would require one transmitter for every user on the system."

US-Advised-on-using-Stuxnet-style-attacks-in-Libya

http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_18263468

http://slashdot.org/submission/1647610/US-Advised-on-using-Stuxnet-style-attacks-in-Libya

From the paper that obtained the emails: http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_17960065

You do realize that an empty desk outside of one of the co-founder's offices isn't exactly "a random Google office," right?

Building out the network is easier said than done due to NIMBY syndrome:

http://www.mercurynews.com/peninsula/ci_17878746?nclick_check=1
http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2010/03/exposing_brugmanns_cell_phone.php

Article: Magnitude 7.4 earthquake hits off Japan coast

Some quotes: "Officials say Thursday's quake was a 7.4-magnitude and hit 25 miles (40 kilometers) under the water and off the coast of Miyagi prefecture." "Buildings as far away as Tokyo shook for about a minute." "The Japan meteorological agency issued a tsunami warning for a wave of up to one meter." "Hundreds of aftershocks have shaken the northeast region devastated by the March 11 earthquake, but few have been stronger than 7.0."