Slashdot Mirror

Ok I'll bite - What you say is assumes that there is a functioning Law Enforcement institution in the country that is trusted by the public to be fair, mostly honest and trustworthy... which there is not. Instead, there is no Law there greater than that of a weapon in one's hand and the influence of a local warlord. Whether it is due to intimidation of the Police[1] or fake police [2] or corrupt police, there exists a huge credibility gap between the average Joe and Law Enforcement.

Who knows what was going on in that guy's mind but by taking on a checkpoint he did assume a very big risk knowing that incidents like this go unaccounted and he would be dead. Consider that no one keeps count of how many Afghanis (or Iraqis) die. Sure, you could be a trigger happy Cop firing at 2 ton worth of metal coming at you... or you could be a better Cop and follow some other strategy that would inspire greater public confidence and show your professionalism... e.g., give chase and apprehend, or radio others for support.

IMHO, what we lack here is a government, transparency and it really sucks for us to be there and be the enforcers of checkpoints... Worse, when we have Marines covering up Haditha[3] then we get to be the bad guys and it only fuels rage and resentment.

This is a war that has no meaning for us... as each day goes by, it brings more insinuation and bad repute to us, empties our treasury and distracts from more pressing issues. It greatly saddens me to read stuff like this where once the Russians were seen as thugs disguised as the Great Russian Army, now we are maligned in the same way.

[1] http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104607440
[2] Sorry can't find a reference right now
[3] http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5670345
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5439816

The air in the 70's wasn't lethal over a week's time. Didn't you learn about the great smogs and killer fogs in London? In 1952 upwards of 12,000 people died, and back in the 19th century it was a relatively common occurrence.

"1873 -- London fog kills 1,150. Similar incidents in 1880, 1882, 1891 and 1892."

Not that I expect you to accept any of this, as a recent story here has pointed out: the truth only makes some folks believe the lies more; ACORN has been fully exonerated. Just as with Sherrod, Breitbart and the right wing have orchestrated a campaign of lies and destroyed an innocent progressive institution that has done nothing but good in the world. It's disgusting how these underhanded and dishonest bullies actually get their way using the cheapest and dirtiest tactics. To the right wing, this is brutal, all out war, we are the enemy of all that is good and decent, and must be destroyed at any cost. It's sickening how far they will go, and terrifying that their tactics work. Just remember, you reap what you sow.

http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/pdf/CRS-ACORN091222.pdf

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2009/12/acorn_workers_cleared_of_illeg.html

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2009/11/acorn_got_no_direct_justice_de.html

Not that I expect you to accept any of this, as a recent story here has pointed out: the truth only makes some folks believe the lies more; ACORN has been fully exonerated. Just as with Sherrod, Breitbart and the right wing have orchestrated a campaign of lies and destroyed an innocent progressive institution that has done nothing but good in the world. It's disgusting how these underhanded and dishonest bullies actually get their way using the cheapest and dirtiest tactics. To the right wing, this is brutal, all out war, we are the enemy of all that is good and decent, and must be destroyed at any cost. It's sickening how far they will go, and terrifying that their tactics work. Just remember, you reap what you sow.

http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/pdf/CRS-ACORN091222.pdf

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2009/12/acorn_workers_cleared_of_illeg.html

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2009/11/acorn_got_no_direct_justice_de.html

"The slums will soon be only a memory. We will turn our prisons into factories and our jails into storehouses and corncribs. Men will walk upright now, women will smile, and the children will laugh. Hell will be forever for rent."

Beware of wackos bearing bayonets! Keep your powder dry.

But don't let facts stop you now!

It never did.

In Politics, Sometimes The Facts Don't Matter
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128490874

CONAN: Well, Brendan Nyhan is a health policy researcher at the University of Michigan. He recently published "When Corrections Fail: The Persistence of Political Misperceptions." That was in the June issue of the Journal of Political Behavior, and he joins us now from the studios of WUOM, Michigan Radio, our member station in Ann Arbor. Nice to have you with us today.

I guess I should do some research before hazarding a guess, though.

New York Times had an interesting writeup on a fecal transplant case just the other day, so it's funny that this comes up in conversation now. NPR had an interesting story about how bacteria affect the efficiency of digestion a while back too. It's amazing what we don't know about our bodies, and a little bit scary how willing we are to wade into that unknown and just start changing things

I don't think it is as easy as you make it out. Theory vs. Practice. Take a look at from NPR who interviewed OK Go! http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2010/04/the_tuesday_podcast.html In it the lead of OK Go! says they are leaving their major labor record for thier own. Basicly the reasons you mentioned.On the other hand, he is not sure if they could have started out as you suggested. He thinks it takes 250k to lauch a low cost, no thrills alt-indie band like his. More if you want to go mainstream. He talks ab

I don't think it is as easy as you make it out. Theory vs. Practice. Take a look at from NPR who interviewed OK Go!

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2010/04/the_tuesday_podcast.html

In it the lead of OK Go! says they are leaving their major labor record for thier own. Basicly the reasons you mentioned.

On the other hand, he is not sure if they could have started out as you suggested. He thinks it takes 250k to lauch a low cost, no thrills alt-indie band like his. More if you want to go mainstream. He talks about the months that it took to write, produce and polish their first albume. Quiting their part time jobs to work full time on the album. Thier first tour, upfront costs, etc.

He could not get a bank loan to lauch this because 19 out of 20 bands fail comericially. So they needed the upfront loan to lauch.

He think the internet is getting to the point where a start up band could by-pass the major labors and their label is going to try it. So, yeah, in theory you don't. In practice, for today....

Side Note: Why do Rock Bands make more money then Rap Acts? It not because of the white/black divided. It because Rock Bands then to have a uncle who is a accountant who tell them if the thier agent gets 50% and the managment company gets 50% it is not a good deal.

Let us note the differance between a good / bad idea and a good / bad execution of that idea.

Really interesting story about a neuroscientist who studies the links between genes, neurobiology, and crime. He's always argued that genes determine behavior: serial killers are killers because of their genes and their brain structure. But one day, at the family barbecue, he learns that his family tree is full of violent criminals and killers, including the infamous axe-murderess Lizzy Borden. So as an experiment, he decides to do genetic testing and brain scans on his family. His mother, his siblings, his kids: all normal. No abnormal genes. No unusual brain activity. Except for *one* family member, one person who was tested and who has both the abnormal genes and abnormal brain activity linked with sociopathic behavior. The person? It's the researcher himself.

So, assuming the dude doesn't have a freezer full of dead hookers we haven't found out about, that would seem to argue that it's a little simplistic to argue that a gene or genes automatically turn you into a serial killer. Studies of mental disorders have long shown that these things are complicated. If you have an identical twin who's schizophrenic, odds are pretty good that you're going to be schizophrenic- but it's not even close to 100% of the time, it's more like 50%.

Let's look at this practically, though. Say that you find out your mother, your father, your brother, or your sister has a gene that is linked with sociopathic behavior. Should they be locked up or prevented from reproducing? What if a routine screening discovered that you had that gene?

NPR's Planet Money covered this before too. Gone in 60 Seconds grossed $240 million at the box office, but somehow "lost" $212 million. Their accounting is about as realistic as their movies.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2010/05/the_friday_podcast_angelina_sh.html

Here in the States, National Public Radio has an iPhone app, and my local station, the uber-cool KCRW, also has one.

Granted, neither of those apps provide motorcycle information, but NPR is, in part, publically funded.

The thing is, none of these things are going to happen overnight.

Nope. But humans, particularly poor humans subsisting on farming or fishing with no resources to relocate, are notoriously slow at reacting to changes in their environment.

Even in the worst case scenarios (hundreds of miles of coastland flooded, large areas of arable land gone) it will happen over decades.

Yup. So over decades, you'll have millions of people suddenly displaced. Yeah, that's gonna work out *really* well...

People living on the coastline would have to move, but they'd fine new homes inland.

You say that as if it's no big deal. Presumably you have absolutely no idea how many people live on or near coastlines. Answer roughly 600 *million* people would be affected by coastline destruction. And over 2 *billion* people live within 100km of a coastline. That's a *lot* of people who would either be directly displaced by, or whose food and livelihood would be directly affected by, rising sealevels.

Now, suppose it takes, oh, 50 years for sea levels to rise 1 meter. Do you *really* thing we're equipped to handle over half a billion people being forced to migrate during that time? Not to mention the destruction of docks, ports, etc, that would drastically affect those other 1.6 billion? Somehow, I doubt it...

For the optical wizards out there, what would it take to make
eyeglasses that can correct extreme myopia without changing
the magnification? Would a multiple element lens be able to
do this?

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99838367
Adjustable power lenses for $19 ? What's the catch?
More distortion or other optical problem? Are they fragile
or otherwise not very durable? These sound wonderful as
an alternative to bifocals/trifocals/etc. Need to look
at something X distance away? Just adjust your glasses
as needed.

> The classification as "medical devices" by the FDA is what
> attaches the requirement of a prescription.

Why aren't drugstore reading glasses classified as "medical devices"?
If you are slightly far-sighted you can get 3 pairs for $10 and
the quality is surprising decent. If you are near-sighted you
have to spend hundreds of dollars.

The eyephone app thingy sounds useful, (was planning on actually
reading TFA ( *gasp* ), but it crashed my browser) but will it
check your eyes for health problems? Of course none of my eye
doctors ever warned me that I was at high risk for retinal
detachment, so maybe the eyephone app would have been just as good?
GRUMBLE

Wouldn't it be better to actually _correct_ the problem, rather than just diagnose it with an app?

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99838367

It would be. Of course, a doctor with the app and an assortment of premade glasses can correct the vision of several people for the cost of one of those self-adjusting things.

Wouldn't it be better to actually _correct_ the problem, rather than just diagnose it with an app?

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99838367

Nice try Slashdot.

You obviously got the story from
Tatoos For Lamerz.

You may now return to listening to commercial radio, a.k.a. N.P.R..

Yours In Krasnovarsk,
Kilgore Trout, Esq.

This stuff seems to me more the product of totalitarian thinking and less uniquely "Islamic". Case in point, these Russians facing jail for blasphemy:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104734902

Fundamentalists of all stripes are a threat to basic freedoms.

Nobody is going to invest the needed billions of dollars in a country with no real government, no laws, no protection for private property, and every expectation of being taken over by the Taliban as soon as the US army leaves.

The Chinese would. In fact, they already are.

On average sex offenders serve longer terms in prison and jail than persons convicted of other felony offenses. In fiscal year 2003, the average sentence length for all felonies was 37.3 months, compared to 90.8 months for sex offenses.

Then there was the recent Supreme Court ruling that "federal officials can indefinitely hold inmates considered "sexually dangerous," even after they complete their prison terms." which you can read more about at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126887029. The case itself can be found at http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-1224.pdf .

How about turning back the clock to 1978 and stopping Afghanistan from winding up in the middle of the US/Soviet pissing contest? Don't get me wrong, I fully think the Soviets are to blame for spoiling a hundred years of hard work by the Afghanis. But, it's all too easy to wonder what the world would have been like if the "communist threat" could have stayed inside Russia's borders, through decisive action instead of slow, "cold" influences on the region. Heck, in hindsight they may have been better off just becoming a part of the Soviet Union; we see a lot less terrorism and unrest out of the former Soviet states than this one that "won" against them. It's hard to argue that Afghanistan of today is in any better shape than the Soviet Union was at any point in it's past; if they had started rebuilding in 1991 instead of 20?? who knows how close they could be to a functioning country again.

For a look into what Afghanistan was like (and in all likelihood would still be like without direct foreign intervention) see this story: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127914602

Expect leases to go up for bid as in Iraq. This is probably for the best, as competing major nations can buy in rather than fight over the nasty little place.

Of course, when the buy-ins are bribes, it doesn't matter:

Just last year, Afghanistan’s minister of mines was accused by American officials of accepting a $30 million bribe to award China the rights to develop its copper mine. The minister has since been replaced.

So while the proceeds should go toward the people and public projects, it probably won't. Hopefully Kabul can get at least a reasonable handle on corruption and make something good out of this, but it's going to take a lot of work to get there.

Scientists define a suicide cluster as three or more suicides in a specific location that occur over a short period of time. On average, there are five suicide clusters each year in the United States, according to psychiatric epidemiologist Madelyn Gould at Columbia University in New York City.

If the first suicide gets media attention, then it's more apt to trigger other suicides. So, Gould cautions, the way the media cover a suicide can be critical. "We know from studies that have looked at the impact of the media that there is something called the 'dose-response association.' So the size of the increase in suicides following a suicide story is proportional to the amount, and the duration, and the prominence of the coverage."

Only a small proportion of market participants (about 2%) are "high-frequency traders" but they account for 60 to 70% of the transactions, according to a very interesting NPR podcast that I just listened to: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2010/06/08/127563433/the-tuesday-podcast-the-million-dollar-microsecond. Also according to that podcast, real-life long-term institutional investors actually hate the high-frequency traders. The investors say the high-frequency traders don't bring any value to the marketplace, and in fact make life more expensive for investors because when large investors make a series of transactions (they make big trades in several parts, not all at once), the traders see this and make trades between the investors' trades, driving prices further in the unfavourable direction (up or down, depending on the transaction).

Here's a link to an NPR summary that then links to the Fox News article. Does that help unbunch your undies any? I mean -- my gosh -- it's NPR for goodness sake.

http://topics.npr.org/article/03B10xA9RTaef

The 'average' household uses something around 700-1400 kwh a month.
The 'average' electronic vehicle gets about 5 miles to the kwh, and the average vehicle is driven around 10-15k miles a year.
Don't forget that the average household is 2 cars today.

So, you're looking at probably around a 22% increase in electricity usage if people go to EVs. You just can't reduce energy usage that much via other means, especially when you also have 5% growth in population/households on top of it.

1) Upgrade the power grid (Thankyou Obama)
2) Embrace nuclear (Thankyou Obama)
3) Fund Battery and EV R&D (Thankyou Obama)
4) ...
5) All of the issues you listed are addressed (Thankyou Obama)

This is perfectly within our means, provided big oil and auto makers are unsuccessful at stonewalling these initiatives (which they are desperately trying to do through their mostly Republican congress critters). The auto-industry relies on planned obsolesence, which is much more difficult to hide using simple electric engines that can last for decades.

If Eisenhower could get an interstate system built, there is no reason we can't do this.

NPR covered this a week go. Granted, this is idle, but come on...

This may prove to be an unpopular POV among some of you, but seeing it from a bit of a different angle - US always has to worry about the way things are somewhere else. Why don't we let these figure it out for themselves, let them ask for help when they need to and only get concerned when they get a new line of centrifuges going, besides it's not like ./ is going to see a drop in traffic because of this. The only ones who have consistenly benefitted from this are the military and the big pharmas, handing out anti-anxiety and PTSD prescriptions. So let's do some real work for once - plenty of problems to take care of this end.

Forget N.P.R..

National Public Radio IS commercial radio. Try to find content with a random listen. You likely WON'T.

Thanks in advance.

Yours In Ashgabat,
Kilgore Trout

From Wikipedia

David Hoffman wrote on the semi-automatic nature of Dead Hand:

And they [the Soviets] thought that they could help those leaders by creating an alternative system so that the leader could just press a button that would say: I delegate this to somebody else. I don't know if there are missiles coming or not. Somebody else decide.

If that were the case, he [the Soviet leader] would flip on a system that would send a signal to a deep underground bunker in the shape of a globe where three duty officers sat. If there were real missiles and the Kremlin were hit and the Soviet leadership was wiped out, which is what they feared, those three guys in that deep underground bunker would have to decide whether to launch very small command rockets that would take off, fly across the huge vast territory of the Soviet Union and launch all their remaining missiles.

Now, the Soviets had once thought about creating a fully automatic system. Sort of a machine, a doomsday machine, that would launch without any human action at all. When they drew that blueprint up and looked at it, they thought, you know, this is absolutely crazy.

Which cites: http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=113579843 as its source.

So while the Soviets (and by extension; the Russians) considered a system for automatically launching missiles and ordering bombers to strike, they decided against it for reasons which are hopefully obvious.

That being said it is still a Fail-deadly system, in so far as it is designed to act as a countermeasure against a decapitation strike (that is a strike that takes out the regular command infrastructure), it achieves this by automatically transferring launch authority to "three guys in a bunker".

I would suspect years of defunding regulators and appointing industry allies in key enforcement positions.

It's SOP for the GOP. Cases in point:
MMS and Deepwater Horizon. ("The reports portray a dysfunctional organization that has been riddled with conflicts of interest, unprofessional behavior and a free-for-all atmosphere for much of the Bush administration’s watch.")

Tax enforcement ("over the past dozen years, staff at the Internal Revenue Service has shrunk by about 20 percent. That affects the agency's ability to catch people who cheat on their taxes. One estimate of the annual loss in tax revenue is $300 billion.") And before anyone apologist says, "BV-b-but C-C-Clinton!", tell me who ran the House and Senate? That's right, the GOP.

As I've already pointed out, when you vote anti-government, you get sabotaged government. So let me take a page out of the right's rhetorical playbook and ask them, "Why do you hate America?"

Dear troll:

I'll just comment on your first point -- the rest of your statements appear to follow from that:

On the Gaza Relief Flotilla, an American Citizen - born in New York, Was Shot Five Times, including Four Times in Head. That is not self defense, that is execution.

The American Citizen who was shot was Furkan Dogan. A Turkish-American, 19 years old who is ONLY an American Citizen because of the 14th amendment. He was born here while is father was attending school in NY. He left the US with his family when he was 2 years old. Your self-edited statement gives an incomplete, if not utterly misleading picture.

NPR Interview. Quite interesting

Talking about the region where Furkan lived and was raised:

SIEGEL: From what I hear you saying, these people would be regarded by most Turks as not exactly typical. They were from a particular stream of Turkish life, on the religious side, perhaps on the extremely religious side. Fair?

Ms. ROOKE: They certainly are extremely religious, yes. I mean a lot of them belong to, like I said, political parties that associated with political Islam. There was one man who worked Vakat, which is considered to be a very conservative Islamic publication.

In fact, some of them are quite controversial characters, that political affiliations would be considered as radical Islam. But, of course, the people on the boat, they're not radical Islamists at all, they're just people providing humanitarian aid to those in need on the Gaza Strip.

So there's a debate and a big divide within Turkish society about whether they shouldve gone in the first place or not.

Rooke, along with reporting, also includes the commentary: "But, of course, the people on the boat, they're not radical Islamists at all, they're just people providing humanitarian aid to those in need on the Gaza Strip." It's an interesting comment from her when this hasn't been established and there are reports to the contrary and considering the origins of at least the "American"...

I'm not saying this was right or wrong. I'm saying we don't know everything yet and you are painting an incomplete and VERY slanted picture.

But that's your job, isn't? As a troll?

www.rebeccaborgman.com
williampatry.blogsppot.com
www.scenenewspaper.com
www.killuglyradio.com

etc

The only "legitimate" source I found was this story from NPR which shed a little light on the issue. I will admit, this is the first time I've heard of this (incidentally, at no point did I claim to be on a first name basis with Dweezil, so I'm not trying to create the impression that I know all things Zappa happening at all times).

In actually reading the article, I understand better what's actualy going on, and suffice to say, it's more complex than you're describing. As opposed to what you're implying (i.e. that Gail and the rest of the Zappa Family Trust are indiscriminately suing various "cover bands" as you call them for playing Frank's music), the only real documented cases I found were of them suing the Zappanale festival, and the band "Project/Object". These suits involve branding, copyright issues, and licensing issues pretty clearly, and thus, I see no problem with them wanting to protect this. Your arrogant ranting makes it sound as though anyone playing a cover version anywhere is just setting themselves up for a lawsuit, which is very clearly not the case. You seem convinced that FZ was a jerk, and seem content to try to paint his surviving family as such, all of which is your choice, just try not to get your panties in a bunch when someone calls you out, hot shot.

Oh, and to the original point, which you so cleverly avoided since I was nice enough to educate you, if you're going to lecture others about replying to things that they may be under-informed about, perhaps you might take your own advice, huh?

Neither is, with some training, estimating approximate speeds for a narrow class of objects (e.g., "cars") under very specific situations (e.g., "being observed from rest from the roadside"). Surprisingly enough, its fairly common for traffic police to be trained in that skill.

Just like arson forensic investigators?

http://search1.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=114005470

In that case, an innocent person was put to death because being 'trained in that skill' usually means the older guy saying 'Yeah, the new guy can do this.'

Yup. And a lot of it is actually being funded by the drug dealers...somewhat indirectly. As "incentive" for police to catch dealers, they get to keep a large portion of the assets they seize. So rather than catching the drugs on their way in, a lot of departments wait until the drugs have already been sold before busting the dealers. They can't keep the drugs, but any money, cars, etc that they confiscate are fair game. There are some agencies that are funded exclusively through seized assets.

A bunch of guys with military style weaponry, funded entirely from things that they seize from other people. That doesn't sound like a police force anymore. I mean, these are the police. _These_ are the guys who enforce the laws. If the government can't control them through their budgets, then who can?

Source: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91490480

http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=126386819

Seriously. I don't understand all of the hate being thrown at BP. We don't even know what happened yet (and probably will never know). It's possible that some of the decisions they made contributed to the gas explosion, but it's also possible that this would have happened no matter what. Until the last hour before the explosion or so everything was "ok". Not great, but not terrible either.

In addition, BP seems to be doing the right thing in terms of response and clean-up so far. They have already spent close to $1B on response and mitigation/ clean-up without anyone twisting their arm when technically their liability is limited to something like $10M or $75M and there is still no end in sight.

Finally, given the volume of oil that's been spilled, the impact SO FAR has been pretty limited. Only a small amount of wetlands have been affected (36 acres was the number i saw) and ~150 miles of shoreline. The bulk of the oil is in these underwater "plumes", but those have yet to be shown to have any serious impact. (see e.g. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127263477 (note that the phrase "The oxygen levels are crazy low..." is mis-transcribed. If you listen to the audio the prof says "AREN'T" which makes more sense in context)). The long and the short of it is that oil in the deep waters and these oil plumes MAY be bad but they may not be and really we don't know much about them.

So yes, this spill is bad, and it might get worse, but right now it's not the end of the world and BP seems to be behaving quite well so far during the response.

It's not interesting, it's stupid.

http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/gwdepletion.html

I think in Phoenix, Arizona they banned any further homes from having a grass turf and going instead with native vegetation which is what they ought to be doing.

Golf courses are a major culprit:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91363837

First off, fashion occupies a unique niche in culture and purchasing decisions. As noted http://www.publicknowledge.org/node/597on a relevent blog "The fashion industry profits by setting trends in clothing, and then inducing consumers to follow those trends. This process leads us to treat clothing as a status-conferring good to be replaced once the fashion changes, rather than as a durable good to be replaced only when all the buttons fall off. Trend-driven consumption is good for the fashion industry, because it sells more clothing. " That nature is hardly applicable to software, literature, film, or design.

The New York times http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/04/us/04fashion.html?_r=2&hp=&oref=slogin&pagewanted=allran a story that included this telling quote, "“If I see something on Style.com, all I have to do is e-mail the picture to my factory and say, ‘I want something similar, or a silhouette made just like this,’ ” Ms. Anand said. The factory, in Jaipur, India, can deliver stores a knockoff months before the designer version."

An NPR story http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1434815noted that "it's expensive and risky to actually create new designs. It's cheaper and easier to simply knock off successful ones."

The entire point of IP is to encourage social and cultural development through the protection of initial investment. The fashion industry demonstrates what happens when IP is weakened or non-existant - a disincentive to create and develop and a thriving copy-culture.

Actually assuming the demographics of those doing the testing are fairly consistent across populations it's probably a fair method of pulling a representative sample. As a report on NPR yesterday reminded me yesterday, you don't need perfect data or even perfect sampling to be able to get an accurate picture of the whole.

Compare with Olweus Bullying Prevention Program, in a district with a zero-tolerance policy for violence, which has had success telling kids and their parents that returning physical violence is wrong.

Fair point. I would like to counter with this where they say that there's no reliable way to measure the flow of oil and that they dispute the large 3rd party estimates while relying CG and NOAA estimates.

Here's a better article that brings up some good points: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/14/us/14oil.html

After the rig went down, it was 1000 barrels a day. When SkyTruth published their estimates (low end was 5000), the government raised the publicly stated figure (over BP's objections) to... 5000 a day!

All this while dispersants are being pumped into the oil stream under water, limiting the amount that reaches the surface. I'd say BP damn well knew they had a huge fuck up and have been shown fighting every step into admitting it so you'll have to excuse me if I doubt the sincerity of their promise to not hide behind loopholes.

NPR also ran a story critical of Obama's 'scientific approach' that he promised to use in office and how well it's being applied and holding up during this crisis."

The story isn't actually very critical. At least the editors/journalists involved in the creation of the article don't seem to be critical at all to me. If you feel the need to comment on this sentence, please please read the article first. It's mostly about how a couple of scientists are critical of the fact that stopping the flow has been prioritized over providing an accurate measurement of how much oil is leaking per time unit. Obama said he would release a directive detailing what his science policy (FTA: "he promised a science-based, data-driven approach to solving problems") means, but hasn't done so, even though the deadline he'd promised was already almost a year ago, and at least one scientist says it could have provided guidance that could have made a difference in this situation. It appears that the aforementioned prioritization might be in conflict with solving problems in a "data-driven" way.

It only has to be rounded to the nearest cent when you're paying... and they could in fact round all transactions to the nearest 10c instead of to the nearest penny and as long as you both agreed on the goods and the price it'd be perfectly legal to do that.

That reminds me of a completely off-topic story from NPR about a office supply store in Berkeley that eliminated pennies. They simply round down to the nearest nickel.

From the article, they sound like they're pretty pleased with it, even though they stand to "lose" as much as 4 cents per transaction.

Steve is really trying to sell himself short, here. His reality distortion field has gone to his head, and he thinks he's bulletproof. And you know what? When he was the only game in town, he was bulletproof.

But he's not the only game in town. In fact, as of 1st Q 2010, he's not even the biggest game in town! As an application developer myself, the recent shenanigans around dictating to developers like me how we can or can't do our job and/or what tools we can use make the iphone a non-starter.

Sorry, too hostile for me, too much lockin for my clients, and not enough benefit. Android it is!

Isn't it ironic that the company responsible for opening up the smartphone market is now offering the most closed platform?

When he states how he will pay for the federal government with just $160 billion in revenue I'll start paying attention to what he says.

He's also hardly the only politician who has been a doctor and the majority of practicing doctors were in favor of the health care overhaul (63% were in favor of the public option too: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112818960 ). Just because you can find a doctor with a particular political point of view doesn't really mean a whole lot to me.

NPR got some experts to use various techniques to analyze the flow. They came up with numbers around a factor of 10 higher than the 5000 bpd estimate.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126809525

This interview from May 12 with Bob Bennett I find interesting:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126782931

While I don't agree with the guy very much on political issues, he does make some interesting points. This time around tea partiers flooded primaries with themselves. Worse, they didn't want to engage in rational discussion of the issues and were unwilling to consider compromise. They also seem to misunderstand what exactly one senator, or every Republican senator could do with respect to HCR. All you got was just a drumbeat about the "loving" the Constitution. This will get them nowhere in Congress.

Also, if TARP was unconstitutional, why has there been no case heard before the Supreme Court on it? If TARP had not been passed allowing the large banks to fail we would have probably followed a path similar to that of Herbert Hoover administration after the crash of 1929, a steep decline in the economy and a recovery only when the remaining banks were propped up. It would have been nice for the government to have been able to take the banks over, saving the depositors' money, but clearing out the investors. However, the final trashing of Glass-Stegall in 2002 made separating these two groups impossible.

PERIOD !

Yours In Astrakhan,
Kilgore T.

P.S.: N.P.R. IS Commercial Radio ! Simply Listen to the list of sponsors every 15 minutes after 5 minutes for a local station pause followed by 15 minutes of "music" at any_hour:45 a.m. or p.m.

The NPR Website looks as if it was designed by someone from F.ear
O.ppression X.enophobia News, C.N.N., or C.B.S.