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Unfortunately the confusion comes from the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui. Jurors asked for a definition of WMD'S and the judge instructed them that airplanes used as missiles are considered weapons of mass destruction. This obviously flies in the face of more traditional definitions which excluded conventional explosives unless they were used to dissipate chemical, biological or radiological agents. I think that people would be best served by using the more realistic UN or Office of Technological Assessment definitions instead.

I heard on the radio this morning that the Saudis are researching and considering their investment options with regard to renewable energy sources. They want to match their capacity with demand, and keep making buckets of money even if it's not from oil.

I'm hoping they eventually make it a requirement for stores that sell the bulbs to accept them back for disposal.

I found this article which said the following:

"The only retailer that I know of that is recycling is IKEA," she says, referring to the Swedish-owned furniture chain store. Reed says the EPA has been prodding other retailers, such as Wal-Mart, to do more.

This is an urban legend propagated by conservative propaganda sites. Good thing we have editors to filter this stuff out for us...

Not Cell phones, not parasites (this time), not Genetically Modified crops, and not modern pesticides.
You are technical, that is why you are on Slashdot.
Ask yourself, How do bees navigate, how do they see? Keep those questions in the front of your mind, and read on...
The beekeepers are not reporting dead bees, they are reporting missing bees.

I first hear about this on NPR Science Friday report about missing honey bees.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?story Id=7806292
Although it is 26 minutes long, you need to listen to it.... nothing about sunspots, but about MISSING bees.

As a follow up, just google "bees crops", you will find this is happening in all over planet earth.
The sun spot cycle is just starting, it won't peak until 2010 - 2011. Google nasa sites.
The sun flips its poles every 11 years (yea, I didn't know that either)

The worst is yet to come, the sun spots just started and won't peak until 2010 - 2011.

And finally, I seem to have some independent agreement, I recently found this.
http://science.qj.net/Scientists-honeybee-killer-m ay-be-sunspots/pg/49/aid/88083

We could have won already if the rules of restraint weren't there.

For anybody interested in some actual information on the subject (mostly from the Army point of view), listen to this.

NPR had a longer on-air piece about this, but unfortunately all I could dig up on their website was this brief (though the Listen link provides the whole story).

NPR : IRS Urges E-filing - But by Vendors Only, Please

Basically, Intuit (and presumably H&R Block and any other tax software producers) lobby long and hard to make sure the public can't e-file directly to the IRS, only by proxy. So your $16.95 is presumably going entirely to Intuit. Plus the $44.95 (or more, or less if you're lucky) you paid for the software. Plus the additional $29.95 if you have to file to two states.

It's a pretty nice gig.

Well, not to give too much up, and I won't post my script as that would be uncool to NPR, but...

I save off:

http://www.npr.org/templates/dmg/dmg.php?prgCode=M E&showDate=17-Apr-2007&segNum=&mediaPref=RM&getUnd erwriting=0

as a file with a .smil extension, which gives me a nice file to parse with segment titles, audio src tags and such.

The showcode you can see as the first JavaScript parameter on the webpage link to the audio, and if you leave the segnum parameter blank, you get all of it for that day's show.

Then I just iterate over those (my script starts parallel processes to do more than one at once for speed, NPR hosts on Speedera edge caching servers) and run:

mplayer -nocache -vc dummy -vo null -ao pcm:waveheader:file=out.wav (audio src url)

Then I do the same multiple-process thing with lame to convert the wav files to mp3.

This is script-based stuff for a Linux box, not for real-time browsing. But I would imagine that a GreaseMonkey script could easily piece together a URL like that from the JavaScript code linked to each story.

That list is not a list of "non-US people", it is a list of names, and people (buyers and sellers) are being screwed by it right and left for sales made in the US, by US citizens, to other US citizens, without indictment, warrant, representation or trial. This is not about "sales to Hitler" and to any extent that you believe it is, you are blind. All manner of controls exist for sales that go outside the country, and this list in no way adds any needed teeth to those mechanisms. This list can (and has, and will continue to) prevent US citizens from buying or selling goods and services to other US citizens - if you key a trigger that lands a reference to this list on your credit report, you're done, pal. No loans, no mortgage, no new car, no nothing. Pay attention.

Ever consider seperating your business account from your personal one? Of course, Amazon could also incorporate aspects, profiles or whatever into individual accounts that would solve this problem. I think everyone encounters it in some form or another - whether you are buying gifts, changing jobs or changing as a person.

With that said, I don't think the central concept is screwed. If we can agree that the central concept is about effectively making suggestions to new things based on what we like, then there are many places that do this well. A few examples:

Say you were listening to All Music Considered and you really like the Mavis Staples tune "Down in Mississippi". If you go to AllMusic, you can find similar artists - many which you may already know and like. However, you might discover a few new ones you didn't know anything about and get recommendations of which of their many albums might be most likely to be worth your money - although I don't always agree with Allmusic's assessment, their recommendations are worthwhile when I don't know enough about a group to have an opinion.

Or you could go somewhere like Pandora and put in her name and listen to similar artists right there.

Personally, I like the idea of Pandora better but it is their execution (the inability to select which similar artists you hear, track back to recommended albums, limited fast-forward, iPod centricism (I prefer to buy CDs), etc.) that keeps me going back to Allmusic.

So we have a Podcast that recommends music; a music reference that provides information on artists, albums and songs; and a service that plays similar artist's songs based on your preference for a particular artist. All of these can be useful - which is why they exist. They are each also an example of the central idea - that people want good recommendations and exposure to new things they might like.

Now, I don't particularly care for Amazon's way of going about making recommendations. But, the fact they do it poorly doesn't mean the concept itself is bad.

"It's the energy of a bus moving at a normal velocity," De Rujula says. So imagine a bus rolling along -- which has something like 10,000 trillion, trillion particles -- but transfer all that energy into one single particle. There will actually be a beam of protons; a whole fleet of subatomic particles, each carrying the energy of a bus.

I heard the lead-in for the story you mention this morning, over breakfast, but I did not hear the story myself (left to catch the train to work). But I remember wondering if they were going to mention the accident, and if not, then maybe NPR was running a fluff piece for CERN. You know, essentially recycling a positive press release that CERN may have put out in light of their recent embarrassment. The fact that you say they didn't makes me suspicious that this may be the case.

After a minute of searching, here's the NPR piece that ran this morning.

Yeah. Why not guzzle caffeinated beverages? On Passover, Coke is real.

Look for the yellow cap, while they last.

People tend to talk louder on cell phones than regular phones. There is no feedback of their own voice.

The news here is not that corn is a bad way to make ethanol. Everybody who isn't in the pocket of agribusiness knows that. The news here is that a true blue bushie (or should I say true red bushie? how did Republicans become red?) has reached this conclusion. Which is going to upset a lot of people. Which means they're up to something. What? Is Bush going to invade Iowa?

" David Bransby, professor of energy crops at Auburn University, is an expert on switch grass, which President Bush mentioned in his State of the Union address. Bransby says switch grass is cheap to grow and provides a high yield crop that can make a lot of ethanol for a low cost."

Switchgrass: The Super Plant Savior?
President Touts Alternative Fuel Ingredient, But When Will It Be Ready?
By ADRIENNE MAND LEWIN

Feb. 1, 2006 -- It grows throughout the Great Plains and parts of the South, can be used to make ethanol -- an efficient and environmentally friendly fuel for cars -- and it has the potential to reduce the nation's dependence on oil.

Switchgrass is the perennial wonder plant touted by President Bush in Tuesday's State of the Union address and in his remarks made today in Nashville, Tenn., where he joked that he could have a new career in farming. "All of a sudden, you know, you may be in the energy business," Bush said. "You know, by being able to grow grass on the ranch and have it harvested and converted into energy. And that's what's close to happening." ... ...
Ethanol as a fuel is nothing new. Dan Sperling, a professor at the University of California at Davis and director of its Institute of Transportation Studies, noted that even early Model T Fords used ethanol, and it's an ingredient in beer and wine.

Most ethanol produced in America is made from corn -- a less-efficient material than switchgrass -- but corn producers are supported by a large lobby and huge government subsidies. There is no similar lobby or investment for grass or wood.

"When you make ethanol from corn, for every gallon of fuel you get, you put in about seven-tenths of a gallon of fossil energy, oil or natural gas," he said. "That's only a small improvement in terms of greenhouse gases."

On the other hand, he said, "ethanol from cellulose [like switchgrass] is a great energy strategy because for every gallon of ethanol, a tiny amount of fossil material [is used.] There's a dramatic reduction in greenhouse gases, so from an energy perspective it's far superior." ... ...
For consumers, switching to ethanol would cost only about $100 per car. Kammen said all it takes are some new hoses and a new gas cap. "This is actually a switch we could make very easily and very quickly," he said.

Kammen is working to get an initiative on California's November ballot requiring that all new cars sold in the state be flex-fuel ready within five years. According to UC Berkeley, in 2004, ethanol-blended gasoline accounted for just 2 percent of all fuel sold in the United States, though nearly 5 million vehicles are already equipped.

"Converting to fuel ethanol will not require a big change in the economy," Kammen said. "We are already ethanol ready. If ethanol were available on the supply side, the demand is there."

Are you actually blind on one of your eyes, or are your eyes just misaligned?

Heard an interesting lecture from a doctor who recently (at about 40 or 50?) achieved stereoscopic vision after living for most of her life having no depth perception.

She was born crosseyed, and the corrective surgery was a little late so she didn't retrain her eyes. She ended up using one eye or the other to look at stuff until she started having some bad vision problems (the images from her eyes started "fighting" each other, made the whole world look like it was jittering).

She got "eye focus training" from an stereoscopic-development optometrist (who are apparently a rare breed), and in the process of retraining her eyes to focus on one point, unexpectedly her brain figured out how to achieve stereoscopic vision (even though it was fairly late in her life). According to her, the experience of suddenly achieving stereoscopic vision was quite emotional.

I found an article about the doctor:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?story Id=5507789

there's an effort to make an independent artist #1 on iTunes today
http://bumrushthecharts.blogspot.com/
(dunno if it's a scam or not, but it's an interesting idea)

also, there was an interesting story on NPR a while back about recording technology, including some mention of the fact that some people were upset when it came along and changed the way people experienced music (from gathering around and playing/singing to just listening). Music will always be around. The Recording Industry won't.
The Roots of Audio Recordings Turn at 78 RPM by Susan Stamberg
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?story Id=6645723
http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast.php?id=1019

there's an effort to make an independent artist #1 on iTunes today
http://bumrushthecharts.blogspot.com/
(dunno if it's a scam or not, but it's an interesting idea)

also, there was an interesting story on NPR a while back about recording technology, including some mention of the fact that some people were upset when it came along and changed the way people experienced music (from gathering around and playing/singing to just listening). Music will always be around. The Recording Industry won't.
The Roots of Audio Recordings Turn at 78 RPM by Susan Stamberg
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?story Id=6645723
http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast.php?id=1019

Why do we have to create mutant mosquitos when we can use good old DDT? All we have to do is get rich, white people to get off their high horses at cocktail parties so the rest of the world can be saved from this horrible disease. Too many people have died from malaria because of Silent Spring.

Uh, the WWW is not the internet.

I love The Diane Rehm Show for news and discussion of current events, especially on Fridays when they do a two-hour panel / call-in discussion of the week's current events.

Left, Right and Center is also a good, weekly discussion-style show over current events. Less listener interaction and too short, but still, generally good commentary.

And Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me is a hilarious weekly quiz / comedy show about current events and pop culture.

I catch all three of these, week-in, week-out. They're fantastic.

Actually, NPR doesn't get much public money:

NPR supports its operations through a combination of membership dues and programming fees from over 800 independent radio stations, sponsorship from private foundations and corporations, and revenue from the sales of transcripts, books, CDs, and merchandise. A very small percentage -- between one percent to two percent of NPR's annual budget -- comes from competitive grants sought by NPR from federally funded organizations, such as the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. (emphasis added)

As for the stations themselves:

On average, public radio stations (including NPR Member stations) receive the largest percentage of their revenue (34%) from listener support, 24% from corporate underwriting and foundations, and 13% from CPB allocations.

National Public Radio is public in the sense of being a public service, not in the sense of being primarily funded by tax dollars.

Remeber that NPR has a HUGE endowment from Ray Kroc's (founder of McDonald's) window.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?story Id=1494600

They don't need your money or Congress's

I've only donated to public radio for vanity promotional statements since they received the $200 million Kroc bequest to their endowment fund. I'm not a finance expert, but at some point their costs should be completely covered by their endowment annuities. So many charities are in much greater need.

Outlawing eating beef! Can you believe those backwards bastards?

Obviously, all advanced, non-backwards countries properly outlaw only eating horses.

And thank goodness this issue came up! Congress needs to focus their attention on important issues rather than pandering!

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I could keep going, but I don't really feel like patronizing you. You do read the news, don't you?

NPR says they aren't moving their headquarters, just opening up another one. This of course calls into question the definition of "headquarters," but there seems to be conflicting information. The linked article's alarmism is from yesterday, for what it's worth.

It is said that in the 10th century, the 12th and last Imam of the Shiite branch of Islam disappeared. He is said to be hidden by God and will reappear at the end of history to lead an era of Islamic justice. But lately, actions by -- and rumors about -- Iran's president have renewed interest in the 12th Imam.

Centuries ago, this holy person is said to have disappeared, hidden by God, but kept alive since then, to reappear at the end of history to lead an era of Islamic justice. The belief, which helped to inspire Iran's Islamic Revolution 27 years ago, diminished in importance over the years.

Now it has found renewed inspiration in Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Yup, I heard the story on NPR. It was an interview with Michael Downing, author of the book "Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Savings Time". He said there's not much energy savings, but more shopping because of DST.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?story Id=7779869

The FlipStart team is also working on:

--a revolutionary car bigger than a SmartCar but smaller than a Mini Cooper

--a revolutionary porridge heater that will heat porridge warmer than "too cold," but colder than "too hot"

--a revolutionary Budweiser bigger than a 10-ounce but smaller than a 12-ounce.

Laboratory prototypes of the latter include a 10.5-ounce Bud, an 11-ounce Bud, and an 11.5-ounce Bud. "Really, they give you practically everything that 12-ounce Bud does," said a FlipStart spokesman, appropriately named Budd.

I wonder how it feels to take out that cellphone while the driver is weaving around her lane yapping.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?story Id=4599106

Your signature qualifies as a troll. Let's pretend for a moment that you are interested in rational discourse on the topic of religion and politics. You'll be interested in pondering the question "why do religious people feel the need to tell other people how to live?". Atheists are not intolerant. In fact, on the whole, liberal democratic atheists are entirely too tolerant of the fasisct anti-democratic anti-constitutional actions of religious people. You may find the following book, interesting, if you are actually curious about such things.

NPR story on the book: American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America

Like it or not, the only reason we have anything to fear from Islamic terrorists is because we've spent decades interfering with their politics. You can't fight an idea, but you can arrange things so that people don't have any motive to blow themselves up.

What has Indesia done? How are they interfering in Islamic politics?

Too bad, I was hoping that would explain why alligators are so surly. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?story Id=7442915

'cause apparently, B Flat is 'universal':
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?story Id=7442915

In the US, if you don't have insurance, you are FAR better off in an emergency to have no identification or wallet, because the paramedics will help out. If they find a wallet and you are uninsured, most likely you will be left to "code".

An RFID chip would just make things worse for those who do not have US health insurance... one quick scan of the RFID chip, and the decision is made to pull out the paddles and shout "CLEAR", or just stand there and call the coroner's van, and then make a story that nothing could be done.

If you don't think this occurs, it does.

An example:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?story Id=6376588

http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript .php?storyId=7070098

"By a Frenchman, Bartholdi, who had sold the idea to the Egyptian government to grace the entrance to the Suez Canal. His original vision called for an Arab woman with a veil to hold this torch, and this would serve as a lighthouse at the entrance of the canal. But in 1869, the Egyptian government went bankrupt and Bartholdi was left without a customer for his statue. And in despair he traveled to the United States and he passed Bedlow's Island going in New York Harbor and he thought, that would be a good place to put my statue.

He sold it to the Americans with some French backers, but they insist on replacing the Arab woman with a veil and today you have an American woman holding that torch."

The more you know....

If you can get past the iStalker factor, it's a pretty interesting listen.

So basically you're paying to watch something you dont want to watch, which you yourself paid to get produced, just so you can watch something else you didnt pay to get produced (well, except you did pay to get it produced when you paid for the advertising by buying the advertised product...).

Unless, of course, you participate in a more optimal funding approach typically known for generating better results. Human nature being what it is, participation tends to be low.

On the other hand, I wonder sometimes whether people really do want the advertising.

Its not just Canadian actors. After NAFTA, all North American movie studios, actors, directors, etc. got screwed by Hollywood. Related article on NPR.

A misplaced comma in a contract can give rise to a lawsuit. See, e.g., Crandon v. U.S., 494 U.S. 152, 110 S. Ct. 997, 108 L. Ed. 2d 132 (1990).

Actually, they went to O'Hare.

I think you may be associating non-NPR programs with NPR news. A Prairie Home Companion is produced by American Public Media (APM). APM does not produce NPR news (meaning programs like All Things Considered, Morning Edition, etc). Most likely, you're listening to your local public radio station that airs programs in addition to NPR news. Whatever Garrison Keillor says is not the editorial opinion of NPR.

I had to look up the initialism LGBT (I learned something new on /.!). I can't say I've heard NPR news reports that PROMOTE gay issues. Does reporting on the gay marriage controversy imply an endorsement? If yes, then Fox News is guilty as well.

NPR is the only news outlet I've ever heard that actually provides in-depth news reports. I especially enjoy when they cover Supreme Court cases by reporting on the dialogue between lawyers and the justices.

As for voter fraud reporting, here's just one link I found on the NPR site http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?story Id=6444162/.

As far as being left or right, I prefer to think of myself as independent. I don't subscribe to any extreme or narrow minded agendas.

It is true that there have been some who argue that stewardship of the Earth is unimportant owing to the immanance of the apocalypse. The disposable Earth theory, I guess. However Rev. Leith Anderson, President of the National Association of Evangelicals is a signatory to Climate Change: An Evangelical Call to Action http://www.npr.org/documents/2006/feb/evangelical/ calltoaction.pdf.

There is a diversity of views among christians, but the statement here is pretty stong.

It shouldn't necessarily be about fairness but truth in advertising. These networks should not masquerade as "news" outlets. They are propaganda machines, selling machines, entertainment etc. not news. They should just have classifications of such so that people would know (even if they like it) that they are not actually watching news, but boxed propaganda made to get them to think a certain way, back a certain position or consume merchandise.

The only way people are going to get real "news" is through independantly funded, independant groups that are funded by individuals, a few sources I can think of that do quite well in this model and remain more independant than the others are PBS, NPR and in print the CS Monitor.

Actually we are getting dangerously close to a nuclear war. The US now has TWO Carrier Strike Groups in the Persian Gulf. The Gulf is getting so crowded that a US sub bumped into a Japanese tanker. Ted Koppel on NPR Friday evening said that people in the military have indicated that our assets in the Gulf are not useful for combating the insurgency in Iraq but are well suited for strikes on Iran. Koppel said that senior military personnel have told him that it is likely that the US will be at war with Iran before 2007 is over.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?story Id=6836561

Israel is drawing up plans for a NUCLEAR strike on Iran's nuclear power program.
http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/articlenews.aspx?t ype=topNews&storyID=2007-01-07T185259Z_01_L0675940 5_RTRUKOC_0_UK-IRAN-NUCLEAR-ISRAEL.xml&WTmodLoc=To p%2BNews-C1-Headline-8

In the last several weeks Bush has fired and reassigned several high level military and intelligence people that were in some way in his way to a broader mid-east war. Generals John Abizaid and George Casey who were opposed to an escalation in Iraq and John Negroponte who has recently stated that Iran is 10 years from having the Bomb.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/010807R.shtml

I'd say that the doomsday clock is definitely ticking, and we are in for a shit storm in 2007.

Well, it is hard to directly pinpoint cause and effect, but violent crime is on the rise in the US. Many experts are predicting that there will be a major crime wave in US over the next few years. See this story from NPR

This car looks worse than most cars of the late 70s early 80s

I think the Prius is one of the best looking non-sports cars on the road. It actually looks somewhat like a futuristic "concept car" design, rather than yet another Ford Taurus clone.

if you wanna "support your country" buy american

Or not. Ford are shutting down 14 plants in the US and moving all the jobs to Mexico and China. GM have been moving their manufacturing to Mexico too. Meanwhile, Toyota built their first US plant in Kentucky in 1988. They're still expanding into the US, they just built a big new manufacturing plant in Texas.

Tell me, why should I give my money to Ford and GM who are busy shifting jobs out of the US, rather than to Toyota who are investing in the US? How does that support the US?