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You mean this statement?

http://www.newsweek.com/id/179530?from=rss

The fact that he didn't commit to following up on sweeping criminal prosecutions for people in the previous administration is not at all the same thing as saying he is in favor of continuing the same policies of Mr. Bush in this area.

In fact Obama has been one of the most severe critics of the Bush administration in this area.

http://usliberals.about.com/od/extraordinaryspeeches/a/ObamaTorture.htm

http://www.barackobama.com/2007/10/04/obama_torture_and_secrecy_betr.php

So let's be a little more reasonable about the level of cynicism here. Yes, I don't expect miracles, but I do expect an big improvement over the Bush policies.

You quoted salon.com which is no better than quoting a propaganda piece.

*I* quoted the New York Times, which is also corroborated by the L.A. Times, Newsweek, and of course the U.S. Congress itself (the General Accounting Office).

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CEFDE163CF931A25755C0A9649C8B63
http://articles.latimes.com/2002/jun/12/nation/na-clinton12
http://www.newsweek.com/id/167691

The weird thing about this is that there's such an emphasis on pictures. Penalties for live acts are much lower. A club in Dallas had a 12-year old working as a stripper, and nothing happened to them. No charges at all. A 14 year old stripping in Kentucky resulted in no penalties for the club owner; the kid's aunt, who was driving the girl to work at the strip club, got 60 days in jail.

Live acts are only subject to municipal regulations, apparently. Many jurisdictions don't regulate this at all.

This is a child labor issue, and the Bush Administration didn't want to "unduly impact businesses" by actually enforcing child labor laws.

No, we do have a pretty good idea what happened

No, we don't. Last I checked there was only on-the-record sources for that story. So no, we don't have a good idea of what happened at all.

and we know that Bush was deeply involved

Again, no, we don't know that. We only know one person implied that.

It was certainly illegal, at least according to James Comey

Yes, based on details he won't share.

But more importantly, the plan Ashcroft was supposedly ready to resign over was, from all appearances, not the one that was actually implemented.

Wrong again. See above. The program was already running, and they were trying to reauthorize it.

Who said it was a mere reauthorization? The reporter. Did Comey say that? Not that I see. And even if he did, all we know is that there was an order -- we don't know what it said, or whether it was significantly different from a previous one -- and that he wouldn't sign it and that changes were made.

You're right. The original program was obviously much worse.

Since you have a habit of saying you know things you obviously don't, I am unsurprised you'd make such an assertion. Obviously, Ashcroft and Comey thought the one in the original authorization that wasn't signed was worse, but we know nothing more than that.

>Not much, first, since I don't even believe those stories entirely. Usually stories like that are way overblown. We don't know what happened with Ashcroft.

No, we do have a pretty good idea what happened, and we know that Bush was deeply involved. It was certainly illegal, at least according to James Comey:

"Mr. Comey, the former No. 2 official in the Justice Department, said the crisis began when he refused to sign a presidential order reauthorizing the program, which allowed monitoring of international telephone calls and e-mail of people inside the United States who were suspected of having terrorist ties. He said he made his decision after the department's Office of Legal Counsel, based on an extensive review, concluded that the program did not comply with the law."

>But more importantly, the plan Ashcroft was supposedly ready to resign over was, from all appearances, not the one that was actually implemented.

Wrong again. See above. The program was already running, and they were trying to reauthorize it.

>because what the "hero" leaked to the press was NOT what made them "freak out like that."

You're right. The original program was obviously much worse.

Print link.

And a damned interesting read, no matter your political stripe.

So, for all the conspiracy theory fanatics out there. It comes down to the all-mighty dollar, not some nefarious deed

So, in your mind, dollars rule out nefarious deeds. that's stupid.

... to spy on your daily surfing and email habits....unless of course your are a child predator, drug dealer, human trafficker, organized crime-lord, etc.

Yes, well, the problem is that to be accurate you would have to also let "etc" = 100% legal statuses including political opponent, personal rival, and superior inventor, especially in a field with government-sponsored monopolies like telecomms and passenger transportation. Yes, government-sponsored monopolies, in the form of exclusive telecomms franchises and direct subsidies to oil companies, and farm corporations to burn food, are all highly suspicious as possible real motives for the blatantly criminal activities of the FBI and NSA, in the name of "Homeland Security." So who are you, that you claim to know that only criminals are subject to NSA spying? That is certainly not true. And in case you complain that Rachel Maddow is liberal, yes she is, she believes in liberty. And if you don't, emigrate to Saudi Arabia. Liberty is patriotic and searches and seizures without a warrant are not. The abuses by the NSA are not a concoction or an exaggeration from "liberal" MSNBC, the Associated Press carried the same story and Newsweek has yet another scoop. You cannot even send a bit across the publicly owned Internet anymore without the NSA committing surveillance crime against you. You'd have to be a neo-con conspiracy nut to believe any of Alberto Gonzales's arguments that NSA has any legal grounds to exist.

I almost universally tend to agree that speculation about ID adds nothing to the knowledge of our own universe. Whether there is any interesting (though perhaps of no practical value, notwithstanding fruitful linguistic consequences of David Lewis's many-worlds modal realism (a distinct beast from the quantum many-worlds interpretation and cosmological multiverse theories, be careful here!)) information to be garnered from philosophical exploration of any members of the general class of things that we can never actually determine by observation and measurement of the natural world is another question outside of the scope of this discussion. (It's a lot more than just theology, if you've never checked into it; for example, one of the more interesting modern developments in ontology is Saul Kripke's lectures on the subject.)

However, humans have a natural propensity for spirituality, and it does seem to make them happy. I don't see any point in deceiving yourself about the nature of the universe by pursuing many of the popular theological fallacies currently prevailing, but certain types of panentheism are rather fun (see Margot Adler's Drawing Down the Moon for an introduction to lots of things outside of the modern major religions; also, many slashdotters or Douglas Adams readers would probably enjoy the Principia Discordia as reading material).

To use an arbitrary, off-the-top-of-my-head analogy (likely needing solid refinement in order to avoid easy refutation (exercise for the interested reader?)): Humans have to eat food. We could just take a handful of vitamins and supplements with a bucket of flavorless carbohydrates, proteins, fats, and fiber in the proper proportions, but I think most people find exercising their senses in the process of eating to be far more enjoyable. We don't have to deceive ourselves about what foods are detrimental to us in the process of receiving the natural enjoyment of eating, so I don't see a similar situation can't exist with spirituality (note, spirituality can be a very different thing from organized religion if one so chooses).

The tendency for humans to come up with the "I can't explain it, therefore God did it" argument time and again has many possible origins. Brain systems that evolved to do one thing often have other odd effects in situations very different from those in which they evolved (I linked to the 3rd page in that atricle, but the rest of it is also relevant and informative). There's a lot of interesting speculation among neurologists on the various direct evolutionary advantages of animism for our ancient ancestors, and we've all heard the somewhat misunderstood Karl Marx quote about religion and opium. Human culture tends to be memetic, with its own form of "DNA" for concepts and ideas. It's no surprise that the phenomenon is still so persistent, especially when people will stubbornly cling on to ideas (beyond the point of healthy promotion of short-term stability required for any idea to mature; rather, into the territory of irrational tenacity), finding curious ways to interpret reality so they don't have to re-evaluate their own beliefs nor find solutions to their own problems rather than hoping some mysterious, transcendental, benevolent thingamagod is going to fix everything for them.

[Grammar nazis: go to town! I don't feel like fixing my run-on sentences or horrible paragraph structures right now, but you're welcome to do so. *g*]

You should check out the NewsWeek articles on 'Secrets of the 2008 campaign

Basically, Obama was disciplined and thoughtful, had a strategic plan that extended well into the future for the entire campaign, and got a lot of smart people who were frustrated by Republican incompetence and partisanship on board. He listened to them and went with their best ideas.

McCain flailed around wildly, without long term planning and had to give in to vested GOP interests at various important turning points.

You think journalism is dead because the two candidates got different press coverage? That's because the news media was paying attention. If the Olympic games altered the results to make it seem like mismatched competitors were much closer than they actually were, that would be a travesty.

Given all the material that has come out in the aftermath, I don't think you can plausibly say that McCain/Palin operated a functional campaign. If the news coverage had been 'more balanced' and you found out after the election that they were incompetent, wouldn't that indicate that journalism had failed?

feel that the election was close

From here:On the Sunday night before the last debate, McCain's core group of advisers - Steve Schmidt, Rick Davis, adman Fred Davis, strategist Greg Strimple, pollster Bill McInturff and strategy director Sarah Simmons - met to decide whether to tell McCain that the race was effectively over, that he no longer had a chance to win. The consensus in the room was no, not yet, not while he still had "a pulse."

I'm not disagreeing with your take on the mortgage industry's "creative underwriting", but rather the blame that is placed on the CRA, in particular, as a way to shove the blame on poor people.

Banks, as supposedly respectable lending institutions, shouldn't under any circumstances make loans which would lose them money, and complaining that the government "made them" give loans to people who don't have credit coming out their ears sounds like a really lousy way to push the blame off of the real estate and mortgage business. A great piece on this was done a while back on This American Life, which gave some more background to the extreme excesses spilling from the real estate bubble.

You pointed out a quite from the Boston Fed which said that they weren't discounting low credit scores. That may be the case, but granting NINA or "No Doc" loans was just plain *greedy* by any standard.

It's also likely that bills like the Fair Housing Act and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act would not have been necessary if not for historically discriminatory lending practices.

Francis Fukuyama has an interesting article on this in the current issue of Newsweek. The following link is to the relevant page of article.

Reagan abandoned the idea that you only spent what you took in for the idea that tax-cuts were self-funding. Sounds like the ways CDOs were sold. The risk was spread so broadly that no one could ever get hurt. This is called The Rose-Colored Glasses for the Rich economic theory. When things benefit the rich, and Wall St. salesmen, put on your rose-colored glasses and pretend not to see any possible negatives.

But what if JPMorgan could create a device that would protect it if those loans defaulted, and free up that capital?

What the bankers hit on [in the 1990s] was a sort of insurance policy: a third party would assume the risk of the debt going sour, and in exchange would receive regular payments from the bank, similar to insurance premiums. JPMorgan would then get to remove the risk from its books and free up the reserves. The scheme was called a "credit default swap," and it was a twist on something bankers had been doing for a while to hedge against fluctuations in interest rates and commodity prices... [JPMorgan] built up a "swaps" desk in the mid-'90s and hired young math and science grads from schools like MIT and Cambridge to create a market for the complex instruments. Within a few years, the credit default swap (CDS) became the hot financial instrument, the safest way to parse out risk while maintaining a steady return.

...

Before long, credit default swaps were being used to encourage investors to buy into risky emerging markets such as Latin America and Russia by insuring the debt of developing countries. Later, after corporate blowouts like Enron and WorldCom, it became clear there was a big need for protection against company implosions, and credit default swaps proved just the tool.

...

AIG's fatal flaw appears to have been applying traditional insurance methods to the CDS market. There is no correlation between traditional insurance events; if your neighbor gets into a car wreck, it doesn't necessarily increase your risk of getting into one. But with bonds, it's a different story: when one defaults, it starts a chain reaction that increases the risk of others going bust. Investors get skittish, worrying that the issues plaguing one big player will affect another. So they start to bail, the markets freak out and lenders pull back credit.

The problem was exacerbated by the fact that so many institutions were tethered to one another through these deals. For example, Lehman Brothers had itself made more than $700 billion worth of swaps, and many of them were backed by AIG.

It's technically neither and both - of course they didn't just get some leftover Gamecubes and up the clock speeds in them, but it's closer to being an "Overclocked gamecube" than simply being compatible with the Gamecube. It's not literally overclocked, but the processors inside are of the same type as in the Gamecube, just clocked slightly higher. Go have a read here if you don't believe me:

Hollywood, the Wii's GPU, also contains the southbridge and a DSP for audio processing. It is based on the GameCube's GPU, Flipper, and has no notable increases in programmability. However, it is clocked 50 percent higher (243Mhz versus 162Mhz). Most of the chip remains unchanged; for example, it still sports the same 3.1MB of embedded memory, distributed into separate pools for the frame buffer and textures. Similar to Flipper, Hollywood still sports a fixed-function pipeline, with no programmable vertex shaders. However, like in the GameCube, it is possible to emulate some pixel shaders by using "texture environment stages (TEVs)."

I've worked with the Wii on a professional level, Nintendo's OWN programming guidelines literally say something like "Develop your game as if it were a Gamecube game, then add in some nicer effects for polish". I'll dig out the manual if you still don't believe me.

Yes, Barack Obama, by mentioning arugula, has shown he is the elitist among the major party candidates.

John McCain, on the other hand, is just chock-full of mavericky goodness and simple values, and isn't elitist at all, despite the fact that he and his wife own a private jet and 8-12 homes on 8 properties (McCain says he doesn't know... it must be hard to keep track), spent $273,000 on household employees last year, and THIS JUST IN: own 13 cars. Oh, and despite McCain's claims that he has only bought American cars all his life, those cars include a Honda, a Lexus, and a Volkswagen, and also in the family is the Prius he boasted about his daughter buying just last year when he was pandering to voters with different concerns.

Oh, and Cindy McCain may have worn a $313,100 outfit on the first night of the Republican convention and said you just can't get around Arizona without a private plane, but trust the people who brought you the Iraq war: she's as down-to-Earth and "simple folk" as they come.

Those "uppity" Obamas, with their one house, on which they got a better-than-average mortgage deal (gasp!) based on Obama's senate income and book proceeds, have one car for the family. And both Obamas paid for their education with student loans, with Barack, who was raised by a single mother and his grandparents, ending up as president of the Harvard Law Review. John McCain, the son and grandson of Navy Admirals, was practically the definition of a legacy admission at the U.S. Naval Academy.

Yeah, that arugula comment really tells the whole story of who's an elitist.

So we are now accepting posts from readers confused about the concept of net neutrality? Don't post how Palin is pro-internet if you don't understand the concept.

The parent is dead on, you can have all the government transparency you want on the internet, so long as you weren't hoping to find copies of our emails!

Palin will be nothing different.

Oh you mean McCain won't be having a birthday cake delivered by President Bush when a hurricane hits New Orleans this time around?

Glad to know he cares when votes are at stake.

Come on, it's not exactly hard to find Palin saying things that will alienate Hillary supporters (#2) other than about abortion. Calling Hillary a whiner probably won't win her any friends with her supporters. Of course, the fact that Palin's beliefs about abortion are inline with only 14% of Americans ("illegal in all circumstances") certainly isn't a good start for her, either.

I know he's for "change." That's evidenced by getting a VP pick who's been involved in normal Washington politics for 35 years. I know that not voting for him will "prove the US is racist", so failure to vote for him will obviously prove I'm racist regardless of how I feel about his stance on issues.

WOW! what a vile, disgusting article. The author would have you believe that that McCain is a stupid, corrupt, bumbling old man, and Obama is jesus himself. I've never seen such one sided "journalism"

I know he's for "change." That's evidenced by getting a VP pick who's been involved in normal Washington politics for 35 years. I know that not voting for him will "prove the US is racist", so failure to vote for him will obviously prove I'm racist regardless of how I feel about his stance on issues. I guess the US is already sexist because of our failure to get Hillary elected. I know he voted for telecom immunity.

The more I learn about him, the more I view him as just another politician.

Too bad. I'm sure we'll hear that the Sahara would still be green except George Bush doesn't care about black people. The desert undoubtedly spread because of global warming (er, I mean "climate change" because you can't sell warming when it's cold -- and scientific consensus is all about marketing for some reason) caused by those evil SUVs of the time.

I hope The One can bring the green back. And future generations will say "... this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal...".

The United States is going through a transition period. They used to be the center of an empire, with all the wealth in the world flowing to their shores. Soon, they will be just another nation.

I suppose our falling behind in technological infrastructure could be just another sign of Post-Americanism.

That's the difference between science and religion. For science, new information enlarges our understanding of the world. For religion, new information only threatens sanctified prejudices.

It seems that the scientists in the different alzheimer's camps would beg to differ. Do you really think that's the only line of scientific study that suffers from this problem?

The sad truth is that scientists can be just as fanatical as any religious fanatic. This is /not/ the norm - but then, neither is the religion fanatic.

McCain's Economic Brain -- Why Carly Fiorina is so important to his campaign.

You can read about the history of the 1970s global cooling scare on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling

Here's Newsweek talking about its own coverage of the issue, and quoting William Connolley (whose website you linked above):

The point to remember, says Connolley, is that predictions of global cooling never approached the kind of widespread scientific consensus that supports the greenhouse effect today.

From http://www.newsweek.com/id/72481

And finally here's Connolley himself:

Was an imminent Ice Age predicted in the '70's? No. If you can find me a reference saying otherwise, I'll put it here.

From http://www.wmconnolley.org.uk/sci/iceage/

He was born on the same day as Abraham Lincoln - Feb 12th 2009. Newsweek compares the two men, giving a slightly great edge to Abraham in terms of historical importance. Hopefully the 2009 celebrations will clear up some of the fundie BS about Charles.

Whoa. Dude.

First off, learn to read. I didn't say anything about Obama, or carbon caps, or global warming, or any of that stuff, and your assumptions about what I would have said are faulty.

Second, to the extent that your points are on topic they are generally illogical, and sound more like memorized talking points that rational responses to what I said. For instance, you try to justify Bush lying when the point in question is whether or not he did lie, not whether or not it was justified. And what congress did with the information they were given is irrelevant to the question of Bush's honesty in saying that the information they saw was "the same" as what he saw. The information was not the same, he knew it, he lied when he said it was the same, and the stupidity of the Democrats in not seeing this isn't germane.

Finally, when you do make an on topic factual claim, it's wrong. For example:

Even the "he tried to kill my daddy claim" was a lie; there is no credible evidence that Sadam ever tried to kill Bush Sr

Uh, no. Bill Clinton actually broke up a plan by Saddam to try and whack Bush Sr on a trip to Kuwait.

Not according to the recent pentagon report:

The review, conducted for the Pentagon's Joint Forces Command, combed through 600,000 pages of Iraqi intelligence documents seized after the fall of Baghdad, as well as thousands of hours of audio- and videotapes of Saddam's conversations with his ministers and top aides. The study found that the IIS kept remarkably detailed records of virtually every operation it planned, including plots to assassinate Iraqi exiles and to supply explosives and booby-trapped suitcases to Iraqi embassies. But the Pentagon researchers found no documents that referred to a plan to kill Bush. The absence was conspicuous because researchers, aware of its potential significance, were looking for such evidence. "It was surprising," said one source familiar with the preparation of the report (who under Pentagon ground rules was not permitted to speak on the record). Given how much the Iraqis did document, "you would have thought there would have been some veiled reference to something about [the plot]."

...which continues to agree with what the CIA was saying as far back as 1993, less than a month after the event. The fact that Clinton acted on the story says more about Clinton's judgment than the truth of the story. In any case, Clinton didn't "break up" the plan, or claim to; he just retaliated. And unless you are trying to argue something along the lines of "Clinton acted on this rumor, so it must be true" I think you'd better just give up.

--MarkusQ

P.S. If you are trying to argue that Clinton's actions are an unassailable proof that something is true, please let me know. I could have some fun with that one. Seriously.

Compare this from TFA to this on Flickr, same times.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/12693492@N04/1339024810/ --> Woz and Sjobs

http://ndn.newsweek.com/media/36/microsoft-bill-gates-technology-company-BZ04-wide-horizontal.jpg --> MS

Comparing the old photo and the new photo I can't help but notice there are three women in center on the left, and two on the right. Other than that they seem to match up, though the distance in years does make it a little muddy.

Does anyone have the list of names to go with the faces, for both?

Comparing the old photo and the new photo I can't help but notice there are three women in center on the left, and two on the right. Other than that they seem to match up, though the distance in years does make it a little muddy.

Does anyone have the list of names to go with the faces, for both?

I think most people in France agree on that, and there are laws that already enable cops to crack down on kiddie porn networks.

So why these new measures ? Well, four words : control of the media.

President Sarkozy already has a record of trying to influence mainstream medias, either by having his closest friends acquire newspapers or TV networks, or harassing news directors on the phone. Most blogs are still out of reach for him though, and this is where the most vocal opponents thrive.

The whole proposed policy (Google translation here) is outrageous; but the most despicable point in my view is that the ISPs and the web hosts should agree to "delete any content that has not been updated in the last 3 months", which would remove a lot of valuable (and politically embarrassing) information from the web -- event if only blogs are targeted at this point.

The costs are overstated, and, really all you have is some anecdotal evidence and you aren't considering the benefits side of the equation at all.

Life is one cost, are you saying life isn't worth it? If so then why won't people lower their living standards, after all it's not worth it. As for the benefits it wasn't my aim to consider them, my aim was to show that even those who don't use coal are made to pay for it's usage.

1. Artic ice is actually thicker and wider this year, so the inuit are fine for now.

Oh really, that would surprise those scientists who have said the ice covering the Arctic Sea ice coverage has shrunken for the fifth year. Do you know more than they do? Scientist now say the Arctic will be ice free by 2030, decades before the models forecast. "Global Warming Is Rapidly Raising Sea Levels, Studies Warn". "Sea Level Rise During Past 40 Years Determined from Satellite and in Situ Observations". And Inuit's would either laugh or cry if you were to tell them they were fine. Oh and if it's not so bad then why is the government considering putting the polar bears on the endangered species list? But I guess you know more than the scientists, Inuits, and polar bears do, or more likely you're a troll.

I can't go on anymore with such nonsense.

I have never read a reputable article that shows organic to be any healthier for the consumer or the environment

Organics' not any healthier than conventional food? Face Off: Organic vs. Conventional. "Since 2001 more than 40 studies comparing the nutrient content of organic and conventional foods have been published. From those and some earlier studies, the Organic Center identified 236 scientifically-valid head-to-head match ups between an organic food and a conventional one. The nutrients included antioxidants (total phenolics, total antioxidant capacity, quercetin and kaempferol), three precursors of key vitamins (Vitamins A, C, and E), two minerals (potassium and phosphorous) and total protein."

Next, environment. So you haven't heard about estrogen mimics that mess with the reproduction of fish, alligators, and other wildlife?

Thank you for writing back. I'd appreciate very much if you could spare a few minutes, forget the ideological differences, and read a small piece by Fareed Zakaria:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/36493

As one who protested in Beijing in 1989, I should have more to dislike CCP than you. Yet I don't. And it's not because I belonged to the well-off class. Most Chinese students came to the US not because we can afford the tuition, but because we tested high in GRE and can get scholarships and assistantships to cover the tuitions and fees. Most well-off Chinese kids nowadays go to the UK.

Then why, you may ask? Because after coming to the US, experienced three presidential elections and watched C-SPAN and local politics constantly, I realized it's painfully naive to assume that just because China is not democratic in the same way that you elect your president and congress, then CCP automatically reflects less Chinese population than your president and congress reflects the US population. Right on the contrary.

Deng, Jiang, and the current Hu-Wen have all enjoyed very high approval rate. My mother who retired 10 years ago from a teaching post and only earns a small pension approves them. My older brother who was laid off from a state-owned enterprise then found himself a contractor's job approves them. Our cousins in the countryside who don't farm the corps anymore but worked in the "sweatshops" had a lot to complain before, but also say they're much better off therefore thought the government is OK. And about Tiananmen, tell you the truth, it's much less about democracy than about inflation. Also it's interesting to note that empirically I feel the the current government enjoys the highest approval rate, and Deng's approval rate is lower.

So, please read Fareed Zakaria and admit you don't know much about China, and let us deal with our own problems. Also Chinese normally don't like finger-pointing unless it's our business, so if you want to complain the US wasn't treated fairly around the globe, please don't take it on us.

Yes, and iron is a big factor in this process apparently. When oxygen-filled blood finally reaches the damaged tissues, the liberated iron acts as a super free-radical and wreaks havoc.


I think the article you're referring to is http://www.newsweek.com/id/35045

If you jettison anyone fighting for your side (i.e. science) as soon as they are attacked, you will very soon run out of smart people like Gore and Dawkins.

Escuse me? Isn't the core of this conversation about how politics + science = bad times for science? The problem with "global warming" is that Gore, a politician, is speaking a story that climatologists, meteorologists, scientists are denying is occurring. I'm more concerned that he is profiting from involvement in venture capitalists tied to "green" alternatives, while driving the national conversation to enable "carbon credits" managed by his firms.

This guy's not a "smart person", he's an "opportunist"... I'd even go as far as a textbook "special interest", which is doing nothing but driving a weakly supported climatology theory into our nation's science classrooms, and through his political history drives it into our nightly news. Newsflash: The Polar Bear population is not decreasing, and the earth is not getting warmer over the last decade despite predictions, and there's good evidence that the rush to follow the Kyoto treaty is now damaging the ozone layer again. I'd prefer to stick to the measured facts instead of politically jumping the gun just because it's a good "story".

-- Scott

Here's another then: Steven Levy thinks his wife threw his MacBook Air out with the newspaper:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/120052/output/print

There's plenty of evidence that in both Texas and Ohio, Republicans are voting for Hillary in order to "bloody Obama" politically. Rush Limbaugh has been urging his listeners to do that for weeks. http://www.middletownjournal.com/hp/content/oh/story/news/local/2008/03/04/mj030408switchweb.html Similar stories are coming in about Ohio. The political machine is starting to conspire against Obama from both sides. But I still believe that Obama will win the nomination because Hillary has a math problem. http://www.newsweek.com/id/118240 But the feeling of dread comes from the notion that even if she loses the delegate count, that she'll still be able to pull out a victory via her usual shenanigans. She's going to fight to have Michigan and Florida's delegates seated even though in Michigan for instance, Barack's name wasnt even on the ballot.

I'm happy that slashdot continues to have some sort of respect for the intellect of the reader. I'm pretty sure that everybody here made the mental connection to Italy, and if they didn't, they should be reading Geography 101 instead of slashdot. Espicially with the "Google Translate" link. And the original document in Italian.

Crafications such as 'London, England' are only necessary when it is likely that the reader could be confused. Hence there is no need to write 'Beijing, China', for example

The "dumbing down" of American media isn't really apparent until you compare similar publications from the US to their closest British counterparts. Compare Newsweek or Time Magazine to The Economist or The New York Times to The Guardian. And this isn't just my opinion, it has been validated in studies of the matter.

Here is a MicroHoo related stories box at MSNBC @ http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23237868/

Microsoft: Yahoo would stay in Silicon Valley
Microsoft bid 'unnerving' to Google co-founder
Analysis: Microsoft will win proxy battle
Microsoft to authorize Yahoo proxy battle
Gates: Microsoft's offer to Yahoo is fair
Yahoo's big investors may back Microsoft
Yahoo's CEO explains Microsoft rebuttal
Newsweek: Why this deal won't happen
Why Google will remain king of search
Vote: Can Microsoft-Yahoo beat Google?

Guess which link doesn't work?
Newsweek: Why this deal won't happen

Page not found Our web servers cannot find the page or file you asked for. The link you followed may be broken or expired.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/110796 Nope not expired, guess it was just misplaced.

Oddly enough this link works fine Why Google will remain king of search I guess it was left to show that there are no antitrust issues.

On the story itself
The company also adopted new severance packages that would protect employees in the event of a Microsoft takeover, a move the lawsuit labels as a blatant effort to drive up the cost of an acquisition.

It couldn't be an attempt to protect their employees, nah what does that have to do with profits?

The company said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Tuesday that workers who lose their jobs without "cause" or quit "for good reason," as Yahoo defines it, would continue to receive their salary and medical benefits for four to 24 months, plus reimbursement for "outplacement services" for two years. A Yahoo spokeswoman would not say what might constitute good reason.

I dunno, how about: I was purchased by a soul crushing monopolist.

This one, which is part 2 of the interview, and linked in the phrase "why it has taken so long" in the summary. It's the second question in the article.

If you enjoyed reading and posting that so much, why didn't you go all the way and credit Fareed Zakaria for writing it in the first place? You probably would have still gotten mod points out of it.

How about this way...

The 'Hot or Not' Solution

A mathematical--but controversial--idea for fixing the flaws in voting.
Dec 17, 2007 | Updated: 5:57 p.m. ET Dec 17, 2007

In the history of U.S. elections, the fall of 2000 is notorious for the debacle that occurred in the country's attempt to elect a president that year. But if a compelling new book is to be heeded, an even more significant election development occurred in the month before America went to the polls that November: the launching of the "Hot or Not" Web site.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/78467

The important thing isn't whether Chavez could be confident of the vote count handed to him, but whether Venezuelans could be confident of the vote count handed to them by Chavez.

I've heard that Venezuela's military commanders promised a coup d'etat if Chavez tried to ramrod his wildly unpopular socialist reforms down the nation's throat, but you'll notice that the vote count released to the public indicated that the margin of defeat was under 1%. That's what's called in the political industry "saving face".

http://www.newsweek.com/id/74230

I guess Japan is finally taking lessons from Disney World. You should see the people allowing their fingerprints to be scanned with nothing more than a smile.

Well there is no mention of price in the article, but ya 400$ would be a bit steep for an ebook reader.

2nd page of the article, 5th paragraph: "$399"

All 7 pages of TFA with no ads

Sure, the Hitler-era Germans were taught to fear the Jews and for a long time American white women were taught to fear muscular black men

I have never heard of what you mention above. It smells like bull shit to me.

With that said.... Mice that are not affraid of cats...what the fuck is that? No wonder the re-search to fiding a cure for deadly "uncureable" diseases is so fucking slow, those geeks are too busy using the re-search money to create mice that are not affraid of cats. http://www.newsweek.com/id/68221

Schmidt's quote appears on Page 2 of the Newsweek article (first linked article).

Not that you would read it, but here's the print version.