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Perhaps if you could give us a list of all that "violence coming from the left" in the US that is somehow being cleverly concealed by all the media of the world (must be some kind of a leftist conspiracy involving all those pinko-commie corporate CEOs!) it would help your points to attain some modicum of credibility. Unless your post was meant to be some very subtle satire, that is.

• It was not the fear of conservative violence that caused Ann Coulter's speech to be cancelled this week.
• It was a liberal who bit the finger off a man who disagreed with him on healthcare.
• It was Obama-loving Amy Bishop who took a gun to work and murdered co-workers.
• Joseph Stack flew his plane into the IRS building after writing an anti-conservative manifesto.
• It was liberals who destroyed AM radio towers outside of Seattle.
• It's liberals who burn down Hummer dealerships.
• It was progressive SEIU union thugs who beat a black conservative man who spoke his mind.
• It's doubtful that a conservative fired shots into a GOP campaign headquarters.
• In fact, Democrats have no monopoly on having their offices vandalized.
• Don't forget it was Obama's friend Bill Ayers who used terrorism as a tool for political change. SDS is still radical, with arrests in 2007 and the storming of the CATO Institute in July 2008.
• It was a liberal who was sentenced to two years for bringing bombs and riot shields to the Republican National Convention in 2008.
• It was a liberal who threatened to kill a government informant who infiltrated her Austin-based group that planned to bomb the RNC.
• It was liberals who assaulted police in Berkeley.
• It was liberals who intimidated and threw rocks through the windows of researchers.
• The two Black Panthers who stood outside polls intimidating people with nightsticks were probably not right-wingers.
• Every time the G20 gets together, it's not conservatives who destroy property and cause chaos.

I could literally go on and on, but let's try to have some perspective here. Violence is a product of the fringe, on either side, and it's sickening to try to use it for political advantage. Those who commit violence in the name of politics deserve political change no more than they deserve leniency in sentencing. Violence furthers no cause. The only call to action that violence has ever moti

When leading politicians in the worlds only remaining superpower calls for fatwas against people they disagree with, then yeah, you do begin to worry.

Besides, Bush isn't president anymore, Obama is. He was elected on a platform to increase government transparency. But the way his government has handled the wikileaks situation pretty much proves nothing has changed.

And a little down the line, some other magazine app gets removed. The reason for rejection, as given by an Apple rep is "You know... your magazine...It had a negative review of the iPad.... we can't have that in our App Store."

Same principle.

Apple certainly can do this sort of thing, but it shows a lack of integrity and a lack of self-confidence. It's the behaviour of a small, petty person. It's short-sighted and it will push people to Android tablets all the more.

It seems like the aim is to keep all the passive people on Apple and to let the people who think independently go. That may be a winning business strategy, but I find it horrifying.

That has already happened http://www.newser.com/off-the-grid/post/451/creepy-steve-jobs-may-not-want-you-to-read-this-or-will-break-down-your-door.html?utm_source=otg&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20100427

in a column that dealt with Jobs’ recently announced intention to police apps for violations of Apple’s new (and undisclosed) rules against porn. I suggested that Jobs was overreaching—and, maybe too, a little messianic and off his nut. (I did not know then that his cop mentality would soon enough involve actual police action.)

The stated reason for the rejection of my free app is that Apple requires "sufficient amounts of content to appeal to a broad audience." Putting aside the fact that this pretty much makes specialty content ineligible for iPhone or iPad apps, it’s also a pretty fudgy standard. For instance, I get a bigger readership for my online columns than I do for my Vanity Fair columns—so Vanity Fair shouldn’t make the cut?

Truth is stranger than fiction.

Back in August - Assange was in Sweden when this first hit the media.
The charges were dropped back then and he was allowed to leave the country after they said they didn't want to talk to him.

From the quotes back in August and those now, it seems that Assange has tried to help the Swedish police with their enquiries as much as possible.

http://www.newser.com/story/98624/sweden-cancels-warrant-for-wikileaks-assange.html
http://www.mediaite.com/online/report-sweden-withdraws-arrest-warrant-for-wikileaks-founder-julian-assange/
http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/08/21/1138240/Julian-Assange-Faces-Rape-Investigation-In-Sweden-mdash-Updated

Just look at the mental state of the people who plan to "take back their country". The Tea Party morons deny global warming. http://www.newser.com/story/103446/among-tea-party-widespread-global-warming-doubt.html

The Conservapedia thinks that Relativity is a liberal plot: http://newsdesk.org/2010/08/conservapedia-calls-theory-of-relativity-a-liberal-conspiracy/

In its “Counterexamples to Relativity” website, Conservapedia says, “The theory of relativity is a mathematical system that allows no exceptions. It is heavily promoted by liberals who like its encouragement of relativism and its tendency to mislead people in how they view the world.”

The Texas Board of Education (take that title with a grain of salt) is putting Christian thought into text books, including trying to teach creationism http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/09/24/texas-state-board-of-education-confirms-irony-is-dead/

The forces of stupidity have a lot of practical power, and they are using (abusing) it. The net result will reduce the USA to a third world country. Most of the people reading this post will live to see it happen. Well, the USA had a good thing going for a while, at leas from 1945 to 2000 or so.

The quality argument is weak. What do political cartoons have to do with "quality?" What do sex themed apps have to do with "quality?" What about banning an app that fetches books from Project Gutenberg http://www.boingboing.net/2009/05/22/apple-says-no-projec.html ? Quality control in all these cases? What about this one: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/04/apple-scratch-app/ ? Was this about quality too: http://www.newser.com/off-the-grid/post/451/creepy-steve-jobs-may-not-want-you-to-read-this-or-will-break-down-your-door.html ?

Apple is not interested in quality, and the argument that they are is nothing more than an excuse from apologists.

What do you think the cure for these fuckers is? Or what punishment do you think fits the crime? Let's hear it Mr.Fucktard of the Year. What is your idea of appropriate justice in the linked case? http://www.newser.com/article/d9erpomo1/5-arrests-made-nj-child-gang-rape-case-police-say-victim-was-7-year-old-sold-by-stepsister.html

This is a far from representative case. Your typical sex offense involving minors is either child porn, an internet-meetup-sting, incest in the home, or a teenage or almost-teenage victim at the hands of someone they know.

Even in this case, I would give the teenagers involved (especially anyone under the age of consent themselves) heavy rehab from day one and probably a "11 to 30" year sentence, and give anyone over about 20 serious rehab and a "20 to 50" year or so sentence, or up to life if they had violent felony priors. I'd probably give very young adults 15 to 40 to split the difference.

Why the long sentencing range and the small low-end numbers? If these guys totally rehabilitate then the only sense in keeping them in prison is to deter others and to provide "satisfaction" for the victims. At some point it's not worth spending money to keep non-dangerous people locked up. These are the kinds of decisions parole boards make all the time. On the other hand, if they don't rehabilitate, I want them locked up for a long long time.

Oh, the 15 year old girl is probably a victim herself, so I like to would cut her a break on the low end but still keep the 30-year number on the high end in case she chooses not to rehabilitate herself. I won't cut her a break though because she should stay behind bars until the girl is 18, which is the same reason I said "11 to 30" above instead of using the round numbers "10 to 30."

What do you think the cure for these fuckers is? Or what punishment do you think fits the crime? Let's hear it Mr.Fucktard of the Year. What is your idea of appropriate justice in the linked case? http://www.newser.com/article/d9erpomo1/5-arrests-made-nj-child-gang-rape-case-police-say-victim-was-7-year-old-sold-by-stepsister.html

Actually, there are those that put the count at FOUR:
"Obama's Nobel Is the 'Not George W. Bush' Award"
http://www.newser.com/story/71348/obamas-nobel-is-the-not-george-w-bush-award.html

gewg_

well I do apologize if using the phrase BS insulted you or was considered an expletive. If it did, that was inappropriate and I do apologize. I do not intend to be ad hominem, even if I disagree with your statements.

Simmons (bedding) declared bankruptcy less than 6 months ago. They were flipped. Care to go read the DNB on them? I don't know if I'd call that a lack of low hanging fruit, even by any stretch. Remind me if it was a hedge or not? Oh right, here - http://www.newser.com/story/70949/simmons-bankruptcy-study-in-private-equity-run-amok.html

Lack of low hanging fruit? I'd say not at all. I was hoping I wouldn't have to mention by the way, that the CPA is also a CFA, and also does risk analysis. A separate family member is risk analysis only and I don't even know what certs they have. Most people do tend to go for a CFA after a CPA if they aren't stupid. I can tell you are knowledgeable about accounting, but wow. I hoped you would figure that part out from the relations - I am not trying to pull some sort of elitism or "holier than thou", I'm just saying I do tend to try to verify information before I make some sort of statement.

If that doesn't work, I suggest that Google just taunt them further. Worst case scenario, Eric Schmidt can wave his private parts at them. That seemed to work for this l'il troublemaker.

The militarization of the police; where every traffic stop is treated as a 'Life or Death' situation, is as much a result of the behavior of the police as it is of the risk.

I understand and agree with your sentiment here but I don't think you can blame the police for this turn of events. We are the ones who tolerated and even encouraged the War on Drugs. We are the ones who tolerated and even encouraged the War on Vice. In so doing we transformed the police from being people that we turned to for protection to being people that we are all afraid of, on one level or another.

We the people created the militarization of the police. In 50 years we went from a police force armed with revolvers and shotguns to SWAT teams packing fully automatic M-16s and armored vehicles. We went from the beat cop who knew everybody on his patrol to nameless faces behind riot shields that kick in your door and shoot your dogs, all in the name of the fucking War on Drugs.

Ever watch the TV series "The Wire"? There's a great scene in it after a police officer gets shot during a drug bust gone wrong. His CO laments the fact that he didn't sign up to do this kind of work and would rather be doing things that are "worth taking a bullet for". I've known my share of police officers and I suspect that most of them share this thought process. For better or worse though they are trapped in the system that we created for them.

Stock trading is meaningless for day to day operations of a company?

Actually yes, it mostly is, unless (as I said) that company is seeking to raise more capital. The stock price has no direct bearing on how much cash the company has in it's bank accounts. It has no direct bearing on whether or not their products will succeed in the marketplace. It has no direct bearing on whether or not a tornado will level their factory.

Being useful certainly isn't required. But being useless shouldn't be respected, should it?

Please explain to me why day traders are "useless". As I said in another post, if nothing else they provide needed liquidity in the marketplace.

How many people can't retire now, because the value of their 401k has dropped?

That's their own damn fault for having so much of their nest egg in volatile investments so close to retirement. For every story you can came up with of someone who can't retire I can counter with a story of someone in his 20s, 30s or 40s who is making a killing. I'm currently up 65% on the investments that I made as the market was tanking. My 403(b) is still down, but why would I care about that? I'm not going to retire for 40 years.

Are you saying day trading can not affect the value of people's 401k?

Day traders and short sellers can't drive down the price of a healthy company over the medium to long term. In the short term they can have an affect but nobody (who is sane) is holding stock investments in a 401(k) for the "short" term, are they?

It sounds as though you are claiming that all this hair trigger, instant trading has no effect outside of the parties involved, no externalities that affect individuals retirement or other accounts, or even entire economies

No, I've claimed nothing of the sort. I've only claimed that day traders can't "kill" an otherwise healthy company. I'm still waiting for you to produce some evidence to the contrary. Am I waiting in vain?

And yet, we've all seen lots of articles regarding automated day trading, and how it does exactly that.

Automated trading does some stupid shit. I recall the price of an airline being driven down to almost nothing over automated trading when a false report of their bankruptcy was published. I don't think it happened that long ago either. Would it surprise you to learn that even though the airline's stock dropped 99.92% that they remained in business? This would seem to run counter to your notion that traders can "kill" an otherwise healthy company.

While this may only apply to Texas, It appears that some juries are in fact buying.

http://www.newser.com/story/31381/no-charges-for-texas-man-who-shot-neighbors-burglars.html

As to the point about calling your bluff when you brandish your firearm, I think you could make an argument that they were assaulting you if they tried to make a grab for your weapon. Plus if you didn't really want to shoot them guns are quite effective as a bludgeoning device. Mmmmmm Pistol Whip.

Dog mod: http://www.newser.com/story/48688/china-knockoff-craze-gains-steam-courage.html See the slideshow, second and third pics.

I think the Chumby guy has his facts wrong about US manufacturing.

FTA:
I was reading the other day Boeing union labor gets paid $110,000 a year for machining parts

I found an article from last September saying this:
While the average salary is about $54,000 a year, more than 4,000 machinists make less than $30,000, Kelliher said.

Earlier in the article it states that Boeing:
... offered a package ... including overtime, bonuses, and benefits ... to $110,400

The union rejected that deal, but accepted a 15% pay increase combined with other concessions.
No details on if that applies to the low end machinists or the overall average salary.

Obviously this is still much higher than Chinese labor wages, but $110,000 is a huge overestimation.

Obama is not now nor at any time a Zune user. He only put on the headphones, he didn't listen.

Remember the story a little while back about them making some sort of discovery that they had to go to the President for before releasing to the public? Did we ever find out what that was..?

Well for some of us, this wasn't all that surprising. I'm not at all sure why they had to brief GWB on this specially. Maybe the 'special' part. As in going very slowly over the words. Twice. But that's just speculation on my part

Regarding the article about not hiring smokers, I'd take a look at this: http://www.newser.com/story/27628.html

Concerning the legislation that was passed, honestly I'm unsure if I agree with it. If I own an insurance company I'm entitled to all the information I can get before accepting certain insurance.

See the matter from another angle. Imagine I know I have a high probability of having decease XPTO, which can only be traced with an exam to my gens. So, in case I get that decease, I make an insurance so my family can get the money when/if I die.

It is important to protect the common people, but that doesn't mean we should give them tools to attack the companies.

Maybe it is because I'm European and around here health insurances aren't so much of a big deal, but I would need a few more details about this legislation before thinking it is a good thing.

I personally consume over 600grams of protein per day

Are you trying to destroy your kidneys, or is this just a side effect of some other goal? That's an obscene amount of protein, even for bodybuilding. Whatever happened to "1 gram per pound"? If you're eating that much protein, you're getting your calories from protein. Which means huge levels of amino acids to be broken down. Amine groups contain nitrogen, which must be excreted as urea. This is hard on your kidneys. ~200g is shown to only be damaging to your kidneys if there are preexisting problems, but that's three times that already "high" number. You probably have ketoacidosis, too. With that mostly coming from meat, I can't imagine your cholesterol and saturated fat intake.

So, now, tell me how, without resorting to a highly processed food powder, do I get that much protein without going over 70 grams of carbs per day?

Off the top of my head, gluten would do it. Most pollens would as well. But again, are you trying to destroy your kidneys? Or, for that matter, your bones? Your blood vessels and heart? Trying to get colon cancer, perhaps? That is simply not healthy.

If they've charged you with some crime, then there may be a precedent.

A first amendment challenge (against being compelled to speak) may also apply.

and finally, if you really are determined, you may find yourself weighing the merits of a contempt citation vs (eg) embezzlement charges. Or just to prove a point. The difference in time spent 'confined', between serving out contempt and being vindicated on privacy grounds, may or may not be comparable.

[sarcasm]xml can be semantic, that's like asking if there's "objects" in the painting [/sarcasm]. Personally, I would let the artist's peers judge him, this is after all a field of professionals and if the music is a good it may simply prove that there is a rhythm to the painting.

after searching google I found this:

http://www.newser.com/story/11396.html

Which apparently can be proven mathematically.

My theory: we can say that Leonardo Da Vinci was smart like Einstein with lots of wide ranging problems rather than a few concentrated ones, and his work will have both breadth AND depth by any typical genius' standards. We're talking people like Einstein, Beethoven, Shakespeare and few others. Now Da Vinci wasn't like any of them, he was a "typical" genius in several fields of study and is known "for" using math in his work http://www.google.com/search?&q=leonardo+da+vinci+math.

Heres an interesting quote:

http://www.hypatiamaze.org/leonardo/leo_vinci.html

Actually, if he was fond of creating his own symbolism you might find something quite "like" xml in his work somewhere... far smarter than you or I. I wrote a phonetic substitution cipher in fourth grade. It was unique in that you could "speak" encrypted English by most laws of the English language. "Peds oue" means "fuck you" that's all I remember, anyways I'm not far above average intelligence. Da Vinci and the others I mentioned are generally considered to be OFF the charts.