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In agreement is shareholder Mike McDonald. McDonald owns 118,000 shares of Microsoft, bought in 2000 at an average price of $36 share (adjusted for splits and dividend payouts).

118K shares huh? Well, that's certainly a lot of money to me and probably most people reading this, but considering the fact that 8.89BILLION shares are outstanding, Bill Gates owns ~766MM, institutions (which are generally very passive owners) own over a billion shares, and mutual funds (mostly owned indirectly by you and me through 401k plans - also very passive owners) own a substantial amount, I'm thinking MS is not too worried about this.

Personally, I'm a little more concerned with the bank stocks I own (a small pittance of, also through my 401k) and what they're doing. If there's a fight to be picked on Wall Street these days, it's with the management at banks which is currently raping us for our money, not with a company that is unsuccessfully trying to conduct R&D.

If you dislike where MS is going so much, don't be an idiot and complain that they should stop their R&D... just sell your stock! If I've got a problem with the banks insisting on hundreds of billions of dollars AND billions in bonuses, THAT'S a problem worth complaining about.

In agreement is shareholder Mike McDonald. McDonald owns 118,000 shares of Microsoft, bought in 2000 at an average price of $36 share (adjusted for splits and dividend payouts).

118K shares huh? Well, that's certainly a lot of money to me and probably most people reading this, but considering the fact that 8.89BILLION shares are outstanding, Bill Gates owns ~766MM, institutions (which are generally very passive owners) own over a billion shares, and mutual funds (mostly owned indirectly by you and me through 401k plans - also very passive owners) own a substantial amount, I'm thinking MS is not too worried about this.

Personally, I'm a little more concerned with the bank stocks I own (a small pittance of, also through my 401k) and what they're doing. If there's a fight to be picked on Wall Street these days, it's with the management at banks which is currently raping us for our money, not with a company that is unsuccessfully trying to conduct R&D.

If you dislike where MS is going so much, don't be an idiot and complain that they should stop their R&D... just sell your stock! If I've got a problem with the banks insisting on hundreds of billions of dollars AND billions in bonuses, THAT'S a problem worth complaining about.

In agreement is shareholder Mike McDonald. McDonald owns 118,000 shares of Microsoft, bought in 2000 at an average price of $36 share (adjusted for splits and dividend payouts).

118K shares huh? Well, that's certainly a lot of money to me and probably most people reading this, but considering the fact that 8.89BILLION shares are outstanding, Bill Gates owns ~766MM, institutions (which are generally very passive owners) own over a billion shares, and mutual funds (mostly owned indirectly by you and me through 401k plans - also very passive owners) own a substantial amount, I'm thinking MS is not too worried about this.

Personally, I'm a little more concerned with the bank stocks I own (a small pittance of, also through my 401k) and what they're doing. If there's a fight to be picked on Wall Street these days, it's with the management at banks which is currently raping us for our money, not with a company that is unsuccessfully trying to conduct R&D.

If you dislike where MS is going so much, don't be an idiot and complain that they should stop their R&D... just sell your stock! If I've got a problem with the banks insisting on hundreds of billions of dollars AND billions in bonuses, THAT'S a problem worth complaining about.

> Darwin didn't have a true theory because the idea he had had no predictive power and little explanatory power

Nonsense. The idea of natural selection had such an impact because it provided a single unifying explanation for a huge range of data, ranging from the fossil record to the geographical distribution of existing species. The Origin of Species went to great lengths of show how all this data could be explained by natural selection, and how a different set of data would have contradicted it.

As for generating predictions, here's one: Darwin's Hawk Moth.

I just found this 2005 MSNBC article that talks about Qchex.com (the company mentioned in the above), and check security.

warrentless wiretaps of ALL calls, domestic and international.

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/12/first-interview-nsa-whistleblower

http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?mkt=en-US&brand=msnbc&vid=297abdd5-d0dc-4617-a6c9-c482fa316b59

They copied EVERYTHING, INDISCRIMINATELY, FROM EVERYBOSY, and then passed a 'law' giving the telecoms retroactive immunity.

http://video.aol.com/video-detail/countdown-12209-fmr-nsa-agent-communications-rights-ignored/2733120647/descr

A few references for the broadcast coverage problems.
http://www.centris.com/pages/viewnews.aspx?newsID=34&SiteID=9
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26858298/
http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2008/11/fcc-oks-digital-workaround-for-dtv-signal-range-problems.ars

"Gee dear, should we just never buy any toys for our baby?"

"I don't know honey bun, perhaps we should just not buy a ChinaCo brand toy."

"Well, farty pants, it appears that - in addition to ChinaCo brand toys - we also have to worry about toys sold with the Fisher Price and Mattel brands, as well as toys not even made in China. Maybe you should just let me make the purchasing decisions from now on.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29049101/

care to make more of your reactionary comparisons again?

you're a known blowhard around here. hopefully more of your swill gets modded down in the future.

No no one's...

http://www.yahoo.com/
http://www.msn.com/
http://www.about.com/
http://www.ask.com/br? etc

Being nice, spending money to help people aside from yourself IS socialism.

No, that is NOT socialism. Socialism refers to the collective or state ownership of the means of production & distribution of goods, and generally condemns private ownership of property & privately-owned industry. What you are referring to is known as Charity, or Philanthropy, as you rightly identified at the start of your post.

That being said - Gates' comment had absolutely no element of "socialism" to it - if he had said "The government should take your companies & your money and use those resources to give everybody malaria medication," *that* would be endorsing socialism.

An honest discussion of class inequities is not tantamount to socialism. In the same way, noting that black women are more likely to get a deadlier form of breast cancer is not a racist statement. Branding something one of your least-liked -isms because it makes you uncomfortable does not make the label stick.

The whole point Bill was trying to make -- and which is being clouded by the usual Slashdot air of cynicism and hatred towards anything Bill Gates does or says -- is this: Malaria is, statistically speaking, a disease of the poor. A disease which is treatable and preventable at a fairly low cost, and a disease which the "rich and powerful" could do a lot to reduce or eliminate - and should do a lot to reduce or eliminate, because it's "the right thing" to do.

Private organizations asking individual citizens for charitable donations has nothing to do with socialism.

The vibration problem appears to have been caused by the engines being "steerable" and having a hard time finding their "sweet spot", so they kept adjusting where they were pointing during the firing.

More information here.

I would like you to actually point me to the text of any speech of Ahmadinejad's where he threatens any state with military action. Just one.

Iran is one of the few countries, which has yet to recognize Israel — their foreign policy is that there is merely a "Zionist entity", which temporarily occupies "Northern Palestine". Their current president's rhetoric certainly matches that. You preemptively reject the most infamous quote regarding the "wiping out off the map" as "mistranslated", but here are two more:

• the ocean of nations of the region will get angry and will cut the root of the Zionist regime from its stem.
• [addressed to Israel's allies]: "It is in your own interest to distance yourself from these criminals [Israel -mi]... This is an ultimatum. Don't complain tomorrow."

Willing to swap Melbourne weather for any weather from the USA or Siberia.

Are you sure about that? A few days over 40, then back to lovely 30s isn't that bad. I prefer it to 11 straight days over 100f (with plenty over 40c). And certainly over a Siberian winter...

We're better off than Adelaide that's for sure.

I was bombarded 24/7 with US political propaganda so much I'm almost surprised I didn't actually get to vote

Sorry about that; I've talked it over with my fellow Americans and we 'feel your pain'. So from now on instead of discussing politics during an election cycle, we'll keep your internet free of such distractions.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4394002

Then in the 80's as the KGB was attempting to steal technology, the CIA slipped them some "modified" hardware and software. Much hilarity ensued. Once the Soviets got wise, they couldn't trust the reliability of their own weapons.

> doesn't have the infrastracture (sic) to handle what they sold me
and to:
> they can no longer deny that they support VOIP or gaming[...]
IMHO, I'd add that selling a 10-20 Mb package (Cox) and their first thought of my usage is web pages...I know msn is bulky, but Jeez Louise!

Also, do you know how quick you can blow through a monthly consumption cap of 60 GB (480 Gb). You can probably do the math in your head, so I won't bother.

First, I'll point out that I believe that nuclear weapons aren't in the same category as nuclear power; that'd be like adding deaths from tank weapons into automotive deaths.

Still, I think it's an interesting topic.
Hiroshima: 140k
Nagasaki: 80k
Chernobyl: 57 direct deaths, 4k 'additional cancer cases', estimated, not all of which would be fatal.
Other: Various accidents; under a hundred. Less than 1% of the above, easily within the margin of error of the nuclear weapons usage.

224k total, of which 1.8% can be attributed, partially, to nuclear power(Chernobyl was also a weapons material plant, which affected it's design).

If you believe this article, 24k lives are 'shortened' by coal power, cause 2.8k cases of lung cancer a year, 4k deaths from asthma, heart attacks, etc... At 4k, we're killing a Chernobyl's worth of citizens each and every year. In the 63 years since the nuclear attacks in 1945, that would be 252,000 people.

On to China - They've made it a 'goal' to reduce their annual coal mining deaths to a 'mere' 5k in 2007 over the 7k of 2003. In 1988 - "chronic
obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) was 26% of all causes of death. If even a fraction of a percent of those deaths are from the pollution from coal power, 26k a year isn't outrageous from a country of over a billion.

Basically; I figure coal power kills more people every year than Chernobyl accident did period, and it bypasses our nuclear bombings in less than five years.

And people wonder why I'd shut down all the coal plants if I could...

Forcing people to buy things they don't need or want with no benefit to them won't stimulate the economy- it will force dollars away from useful purchases to useless ones. It harms the economy, not boosts it.

Actually this conversion is the antitheses of the broken windows fallacy; instead digital uses an existing limited resource more efficiently, which will pay dividends indefinitely. By converting the wasteful analog transmissions to more efficient digital, they reclaimed a resource which then sold for $20 billion dollars. Of that, about $1.3 billion was spent defraying the cost of digital converter boxes, which undercuts your argument of forcing people to buy them.

The spectrum we used to use for TV will now be used for TV plus broadband plus who knows what. That is a net win.

the soap opera medium is slowly dying.

The truly funny thing is, people of the Bush-is-an-idiot persuasion (like yourself) never seem to disagree with the Bush-is-Hitler crowd, despite having near-opposite opinions on the matter...

That said, MAD is not the only struggling publication — seems like getting Obama elected was their swan-song...

And Microsoft's reply is... http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28039226/?pg=7#Tech_JerkGadgets/ Wow. What self-indulgent lunatics.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/30/study-nbc-news-doesnt-fol_n_139162.html

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/vp/28286392#28699663

I can see the partisanship, I don't quite see the childish "haha your stupid!" attitude. I think if you want something that compares to Fox's level of immaturity you need to visit comedy central.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=210922&title=msnbc-replaces-fox-news

The Audubon Society likes windfarms in general and this one in particular.

But thanks for playing.

Video of the speech:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22425001/vp/28738177#28738177


And a transcript:

http://www.bild.de/BILD/news/bild-english/world-news/2009/01/20/barack-obama-speech/first-black-president-historic-inaugural-address.html

Why would the OP call him "B. Hussein Obama"? Is that supposed to mean something?

Perhaps much of the 170 Million went to the enormous security efforts, to keep the enormous crowds safe.

Okay I'm going to wade in here, I think the reason why people are so excited is Segregation and flat out racism are still well with in living memory (Such as http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18034102/this prom).

I moved from the UK to the US only 2 years ago and was amazed by how resent this all is.

http://autos.msn.com/advice/CRArt.aspx?contentid=4023544

The American cars are apparently more reliable than you remember.

And yet every few weeks, we hear of another dumbass getting indicted because his CP collection was found.

I'll stipulate that he's probably not a /. reader at all, and certainly not a regular reader.

It's conceivable that one of us might, as "the resident nerd", get handed a drive, and told "uhh, make sure that gets completely erased, so that, uhh, nobody could read it".

Hundreds of studies have proven that they do. Sticking your fingers in your ears and yelling "NO, NO, NO" is not a valid argument. Where's the evidences that supports your argument? It's all about the truthiness, right?

Site please, because I call BS on all of those studies. The fact remains that (over all) states with the lowest taxes do better than states with higher taxes.

For starters, here is some sites with tax data.

http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2008/08/ten-highest-and.html

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Taxes/Advice/TheBestAndWorstStatesForTaxes.aspx?page=2

http://money.cnn.com/pf/features/lists/taxesbystate2005/

<sarcasm>Your right. China SO much better than Bush. Why didn't I see that?</sarcasm>

I know...because your wrong. Bush didn't wage war on the rest of the world. There was a lot of misrepresentation on the part of most of the media about Iraq. WW II was a lot worse, but if you believed them, then Iraq was far worse! Bush preemptively attacked two nations who were supporters of terrorism before they could harm us more. Both now have a freely elected governments, and Iraq is now running their own security. The plan was always to hand over (& eventually leave) the country when Iraq was capable of protecting itself. That is now the case, and we now have a timetable to leave with Iraq able to stand on their own. If you believed Obama, Clinton, et. al. then this was never going to be possible. They were wrong, and the media, and the liberals, misrepresented Iraq to a majority of the people in order make themselves look better to regain power. A lot of people/suckers fell for the smoke and mirrors.

Bush liberated people, and China suppresses people. They censor the internet, and they use their prisoners (some of whom are just religious people) for spare body parts for other people. Did you get a transplant from China? Then it came from a prisoner (also (second article),). To be fair China has placed a ban on sales of body parts requiring a signature from the donor, but I don't know how this effects the human body parts harvesting from prisoners.

China doesn't need to place a value on human life because they have over a quarter of the population of the Earth (even with the 1 baby per family law). The value of life in China is cheap. Kill one person, and there are still many left to take that persons place. Take the treatment of baby girls. According to this article China is taking steps to prevent this from completely devastating their population.

<sarcasm>Oh yeah, you are so right, Bush is so much worse. Didn't you hear about the human harvesting in the inner city?</sarcasm> For those that don't get it, there is no human harvesting in the inner city.

I understand your point and personally believe two people in marriage should pay the same identical taxes as if they were single, but just to stimulate the contrary side of why to consider taxing married people less, and government motivation:

- Married people are less of an overall burden on society due to being healthier (not that marriage in and of itself necessarily improves health). So, why not tax them less?

- Less overall risk due to higher statistical stability of someone married, as seen by lower insurance rates. Government loves a stable populous paying their taxes, and less likely to revolt or cause other issues, thus less statistical need to pay for any legal enforcement for them.

- Married people often have children. A country wants children for the sake of competing with other countries in terms of economic nationalism. In fact, gay people whom may not conceive through whatever means may adopt abandoned children in society, actually helping out overall.

Again, I agree with you, but I acknowledge their could be a purpose to encouraging marriage through taxes or however.

Would this be considered profanity?

Sounds like a great way to stimulate the economy! Plus, as a bonus we would get more stories like this: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19791644/

-High Caffeine Consumption Causes hallucinations
-Tampa, Fl has the highest caffeine consumption in the US
-Tampa Bay has an extremely high scientologist population

It all makes sense now.

Spectra Visual Newsreader

It might be simpler to just get them an account on some game that demands long login times, like Evercrack or World of Warcraft. If they stay on for hours at a time, they don't really have a serious ADHD problem. They're probably just bored with school. See The Trouble with Boys", from Newsweek. "Very well-meaning people have created a biologically disrespectful model of education."

In fact, games might be a good tool for sorting out students with serious disorders from the merely bored.

If I understand correctly the situation in China, the main reason why the Chinese people let the Communists in power is their double digit yearly economic growth. Since the recent economic downturn, it seems very unlikely that China will manage to maintain a satisfactory growth, which would trigger unrest.

A quick googling brought up this recent article which seems to confirm that what's been predicted since the global economy crashed through the floor is bound to happen in the near future.

So the blocking of Wikinews in China fits in the picture in the damage control part of it, that is pretty much "let's make sure as little of our people learn what's currently happening in our country right now". Failing to control the information about protests across the country means empowering these movements, and the stakes are the future of Communism in China as a whole, although it won't go without a fight either.

Anyone remember the Live Organ Donor skit from Monty Python?

We've come for your kidney?

Then find a site that lists the operating specs and buy from them. Make sure you tell them you like that feature and that's why they got your business if it means that much to you.

Heck, a simple Google search of "KDL-32M4000 power consumption" tells me you should be shopping at:
shopping.msn, Crutchfield, or I'm sure many other locations.

Israel has never targeted even a single civilian

Now that is just utter proven bullshit. There are a lot of cases of Israeli soldiers targeting civilians, aid workers, journalists..

I don't know what lies the media has been feeding you, but never ever, were civilians the target of an Israeli strike. You can call bullshit as much as you like... but for me, having served in the Israeli army, watched leftist journalists deliberately provoking soldiers, walking around a platoons sticking cameras to their faces and shouting "murderers!! death to Jews!!" - in face of all that, they were NEVER the target and we never got an order to attack them.
Eventually they run into the line of fire trying to show the israeli "brutality" from their unbiased point of view.

There are a handful of objective news channels out there... Reuters and the BBC are by far the WORST, with utter lies and photoshopped pictures (I'm not making this up: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13165165/ )

the best one i've seen so far is FOX news. comes second only to Israeli media stations (which are a bit too left biased in my taste)

If this is not a joke, it's got to be one of the saddest things I've ever heard.

Or at least it was, until you clicked this link.

My response to all this, and the snivelling about how their rights were being trampled upon was that I'm unsympathetic to their plight primarily because the Muslim community has brought this upon themselves. I stand by that statement. We never hear the Muslim community being up in arms about a Muslim suicide bomber smearing the good (?) name of Islam

Does the fact that you haven't heard about Muslims condemning suicide bombers mean it doesn't happen?

I think this is the crucial flaw in your position that the Muslim community has brought this on themselves. I've seen some condemnations, but I've also seen complaints that the media doesn't give the same coverage to moderate Muslim statements against radical Islamists as they do to the actions of terrorists. Think about the nature of media coverage, and I'm sure you'll see the bind that both reporters and moderate Muslims are in. "If it bleeds it leads" is the saying in the news business, and a moment's reflection tells you that fearmongering coverage will almost always trump reassuring statements about how not all Muslims are trying to blow you up.

Here's some of the results from a quick google search for "muslims condemn suicide bombings". The first link is a list of public condemnations by Muslim leaders and groups.

Muslims Condemn Terrorist Attacks
Landmark Islamic Ruling Unequivocally Condemns Suicide Bombings
Minister: Muslim decree to condemn suicide bombings
U.K. Sunnis condemn London suicide attacks
Grand Sheikh condemns suicide bombings
Suicide Bombing
INDONESIA: Muslim leaders condemn suicide bombing
A sampling of fatwas and other statements by Muslim individuals and groups condemning terrorist attacks
Muslim Scholars Condemn Terror U.S. Islamic Leaders Issue Edict Against Attacks On Civilians

They get some coverage, but no stories get multiple days/outlets to repeat the message the way an event like a bombing does. The problem isn't that Muslims don't condemn suicide attacks, it's that their condemnations don't get enough play, so people like you think that the Muslim community silently condones the actions of the extremists.

The scenario involved a 'leap second' not a leap year, which might explain why MS & Toshiba got it wrong if they focused on a leap year...

"An extra day was tacked on to February in 2008 and by international agreement, the world's timekeepers also added a "leap second" to Dec. 31 to keep Earth apace with very precise clocks."

>merely updates of existing products - nothing new here.

Put this into up-to-the-minute context. With ZUNEs going to comas around the world, OSPs of any ilk shine, baby, shine - now, isn't that newsworthy!!!

Both MSNBC.com and the official Zune support pages are reporting that Microsoft is aware of the problem and working on it. Course, I wouldn't hold my breath for a fix on this anytime soon.

In fact, several states have already proposed "drug offender" registries similar to what's currently in place for sex offenders.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15971396/

It's easy to sell the public on the concept of sex offender registries, but few of those people seem to realize that once you can force some criminals to register you open the way for the government to force all criminals to register.

People too dangerous to be out should remain in jail. People who aren't so dangerous that they can't be released should be allowed to live normal lives once their sentence is done.

Not to mention the claim about aluminum being "hard to get".

Then again, given what the last order of aluminum pipes that were SUPPOSED to go towards rebuilding the greenhouses the Palestinians themselves destroyed were instead used for, I'm not too surprised about this one.

When will a "generated" paper will be awarded the nobel prize?

Been there, done that.

You can't be serious. http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761596210/Atlas_(rocket).html