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...did you just accidentally bump into that irrelevant thesis? Or are you just trolling?

Cause you are very much confusing someone who consciously chose to be in the spotlight for their own ego-boosting and enjoyment - and someone who was been a victim of "sexual assault".
And now the person who liked the spotlight while it was warming their ego feels bad about "their make up being all smeared from the heat" and doesn't want that kind of publicity?

Sorry, but that is a COMPLETELY different category than someone who has (even *allegedly) been a victim of a CRIME.
And who's privacy is obviously being handled with a little more more logic and reason than what you tried to push there, even by such a crude and cruel judge as public opinion.

Also, my personal view on the subject has about as much influence of public opinion as my ass has influence on oceanic currents and tides.

 
 
 
*I said "allegedly" cause, on one hand all we have so far is a very short yet VERY unclear report on something that has been characterized as "brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating" by thugs yelling, "Jew! Jew!" [sic] (Logan is not Jewish.) while at the same time being "not a rape." - and on another we have a climate of calling a very wide range of actions a "sexual assault".
See: Julian Assange.

...did you just accidentally bump into that irrelevant thesis? Or are you just trolling?

Cause you are very much confusing someone who consciously chose to be in the spotlight for their own ego-boosting and enjoyment - and someone who was been a victim of "sexual assault".
And now the person who liked the spotlight while it was warming their ego feels bad about "their make up being all smeared from the heat" and doesn't want that kind of publicity?

Sorry, but that is a COMPLETELY different category than someone who has (even *allegedly) been a victim of a CRIME.
And who's privacy is obviously being handled with a little more more logic and reason than what you tried to push there, even by such a crude and cruel judge as public opinion.

Also, my personal view on the subject has about as much influence of public opinion as my ass has influence on oceanic currents and tides.

 
 
 
*I said "allegedly" cause, on one hand all we have so far is a very short yet VERY unclear report on something that has been characterized as "brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating" by thugs yelling, "Jew! Jew!" [sic] (Logan is not Jewish.) while at the same time being "not a rape." - and on another we have a climate of calling a very wide range of actions a "sexual assault".
See: Julian Assange.

The former Chinese president Jiang Zemin has admitted in an unpublished memoir that Serbian military intelligence units were hiding inside the Chinese embassy in Belgrade when Nato bombed it in 1999.

A gun only has one purpose, no matter how much fun they might be.

What might that be? Shooting clay pigeons, shooting game, shooting people -- all the same purpose?

Using that logic, a knife has only one purpose. Making people very dead.

...in contrast to other farm crops or any other agriculture? Is it just because the first primaries are in Iowa/Idaho?

The corn lobby is very powerful, as the rather expensive ethanol subsidy was extended for another year in the tax cut deal, adding another $7 billion to the deficit. Kudos to Senator Dianne Feinstein who at least tried to cut the ethanol tax credit slightly to save about $2 billion, but she was rebuffed. Hopefully she won't be overly punished for defying the corn lobby.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/the_tax_deal_corn_lobby_kickback_FhJ8HlZFoMmg1ZQg1aZr0L
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6BE4XY20101215

Tivo has collected this information, which you can opt out of, for a while. Some information about his is in their privacy policy (search it for "Anonymous Viewing Information"). I believe they combine the data per zip code and use it for their "Stop Watch" service. More information here

That's the way it goes? So you can claim that it never happened without offering any proof other than that one of the networks that reported it also reports things with which you disagree? I would have thought the onus would be on you too. Oh well, here's another couple of links.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/editorials/wikikills_LBS03WQRVZuuTYuTYN2t5L

http://www.registan.net/index.php/2010/07/30/taliban-use-wikileaks-to-hunt-murder-named-afghans/

http://www.dailytech.com/Taliban+Murders+Afghan+Elder+Thanks+Wikileaks+for+Revealing+Spies/article19250.htm

I can do this all day, since you apparently can't. Saying I do this for a living and asking what you do is not an ad hominem attack, regardless of how snarkilly I say it. It's directly relevant to the conversation. Your comment about "your cut-price low tax state gave you after cutting back education" and "putting together glorified high school reports from people that don't even speak the fucking language " and "you wouldn't have written the recycled Fox bullshit" when what I posted didn't come from Fox all sound like personal attacks not relevant to the discussion. I am in fact a senior all-source intelligence analyst with 14 years experience in the intelligence community, and have created products using methods such as Social Network Analysis at about a Master's level, Analysis of Competing Hypotheses, human factors analysis, et al, a far cry from "glorified high school projects".

To get back to the point, there are multiple reports of the Taliban targeting the sources reported in wikileaks, in US papers and UK papers as well. We know there are sources named in the leaked documents (it was one of the first things announced in the press). It stands to reason that the Taliban would then target them (why would they let spies just stay in their midst?). IF the Taliban were not in fact targeting them, there should be a reason why there are so many reports in so many newspapers in the US and UK that say they are. No reasons come to mind. My bullshit detector is not going off here. You, on the other hand, rejected all the reports outright on the sole grounds that a news station, Fox, that also separately reports things you disagree with, also reported this, as if the station can never report anything that is true. You have since refused to offer any other evidence or logical argument. My bullshit detector is going off, and it's pointed at you.

I'm willing to bet there are no terrorists whatsoever, this is all just mass hysteria, induced by opportunistic politics, grabbing of attention and votes, selling tons of security equipment, services, jobs, contracts, news, etc.

Regarding your bet, don't give up your day job.

Maybe you haven't heard, but an organization called Al Qaeda declared war on the United States, and essentially the rest of the world for not following their blighted form of Islam. You can read some of the goals of their leader, Osama Bin Laden, in Bin Laden's letter to America. As you can see, he has a fundamental hostility to democracy, non-Islamic religious belief, and many of our basic freedoms. He demands that we convert to Islam, give up democracy, drop the separation of church and state, and change many aspects of our culture or he and his minions will keep trying to kill us. He demands that we stop drinking alcohol, charging interest on bank loans, start separating the sexes, punishing homosexuality, oppress Jews, etc.

The sort term goal they have is to overthrow the governments in Arab & Muslim countries to install religious dictatorships to impose their narrow brand of Islam. They also hope to limit the spread of freedom and other "Western" ideas. Ultimately they plan to take over the world in a reborn Islamic super state. It sounds far fetched, but that is their goal. They understand that it might take 1,000 years, and that they are just moving the ball forward.

You can see a limited list of their handiwork below:

The most recent attempted bombing
The Underwear bomber
African Embassy Bombing
9/11 suicide attacks
Bali bombing
Madrid bombing
7/7 bombing in London
Another of the countless bombings in Iraq
Pakistan hotel bombing
Hotel bombing in Jordan
The "shoe bomber", and his current hijinks
Plan to attack Wembley stadium
Plan to bring down seven airliners
Attempted bombing in Germany

PS - In order to cut down on the confusion, a simple rule of them you can use is that "mass hysteria" doesn't tend to leave craters and stip the walls off buildings, collapse buildings, or rips bodies apart by shrapnel.

You are comparing a period with significant temporary public sector jobs creation (census workers were hired, laid off and rehired, counting each hiring as the "creation" of a new job) with the creation of jobs during a period with no such special event. Please see the NY Post article which refers to these numbers games: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/two_more_census_workers_blow_the_OqY80N3DBTvL17VmxKKR0O

Also, job creation numbers without the incorporation of job loss numbers provides an incomplete picture of the net result.

We haven't had a major terrorist incident in the US for a while. Why?

A: There hasn't been any credible ability to do so by the bad guys
B: Nobody wants to harm the US any more
C: The counterterrorism efforts have prevented such an attack
For ANY of the above choices, how do you know? I mean, REALLY know, not just guessing or trying to shout louder than the guy next to you whose opinion is different than yours?

Survey says....C!

Al Qaeda Video Asks Detroit-Area Muslims to Act
US warned of mail bomb terror tactic last month
Explosive found in Dubai, part of US terror probe
'US terrorist tried to bring slaughter to subway in Washington'
US man pleads guilty in 'South Park' terror threat
'US thrice shared non-specific inputs on Mumbai attack'
Terrorist in failed LAX attack violated prison release with gun purchase
14 Charged with Aiding Terror Group Al-Shabab
Former Staten Island Resident Nabbed in Attempt to Join Taliban
Feds: NYC Subway Plotters Targeted London, Too (From July)

And in other news....

Osama bin Laden threatens French troops, criticizes France burqa ban
Canadian sentenced for leading terrorism plot
Hotels need EU help to defend against attack
MI6 chief Sir John Sawers says secrecy is vital to keep UK safe
Eight Britons 'trained in Pakistan for European terror strikes'
New security threat at Commonwealth Games, police, army seize explosives
British bobbies get SAS training, new weapons in wake of Mumbai-style terror threats
Gunmen storm Parliament in Chechnya, 6 dead
Bomb on bus in Philippines kills 10, wounds 9
Saudis warn Europe of terr

It's against Australian law to reveal the secrets of Australia's allies.

I doubt that, but in any case it is probably beside the point. Even if it is against the law it requires someone in power in Australia to follow it through. Given that Australian intelligence warned Assange that something was up just before the rape allegations that seems unlikely at this point. http://www.nypost.com/p/news/international/australian_intelligence_warned_wikileaks_9YIoc83Fq9VyPJ2FsujU8I

If that's true how can one possibly explain why 99.9% of terrorists are muslim ? And not "just" muslims, but generally relatively rich and powerful people ?

And, just for completeness, while you were writing that this statement was made in court

:

In a 10-minute statement to the court that denounced post-9/11 foreign policy as it threatened future American bloodshed, Faisal Shahzad warned: "Brace yourselves, because the war with Muslims has just begun. Consider me only a first droplet of the blood that will follow me.

Invoking the names of Osama bin Laden and the medieval Muslim sultan Saladin, the 31-year-old Pakistani immigrant justified his evil plot in the name of Islam, insisting that "the Koran gives us the right to defend, and that's all I'm doing."

"We do not accept your democracy or your freedom because we already have Sharia [sacred Muslim] law and freedom . . . The past nine years, the war with Muslims has achieved nothing for the US, except for it has waken up the Muslims for Islam," he said.

"We are only Muslims trying to defend our religion, people, honor and land. But if you call us terrorists for doing that, then we are proud terrorists, and we will keep on terrorizing until you leave our land and people at peace."

Are you saying this was in his genes ? (of course that'd be racist) So where does this guy's words and actions come from ? What, exactly, is the explanation for his behavior ?

We all know the answer, of course. It's because he's a muslim. There I've said it.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/bronx/million_kuj8X4Z2VolVhXnCymfkvM

Apparently, 8,000 signs are replaced in New York every year anyway for wear and tear anyway. And the initiative started in 2003, for a 2018 deadline. If they started sooner, they would be in a better position. This is also a federal program, not a state or city program, both of whom opposed the initiative because they didn't want the deadline. And street signs have a lifetime expectancy of 10 years. 15 years to replace all of the signs, when they're expected to be replaced every 10 years, seems fine.

Better reflective backing, and a font designed for maximum road readability at distances, seems completely reasonable. The increased cost sounds marginal (as the DOD states), as signs aren't really that robust long-term (my sister worked with the sign department for an LA suburb).

Really, this is a controversy manufactured to sell papers. And it worked.

The additional cost to the city, if any, will be "marginal" because it receives a steady stream of state funding for routine sign repairs and replacement, DOT spokesman Seth Solomonow said. The life of a typical sign is about a decade, so most of the city's signs would be replaced in the next few years anyway, Solomonow said.

They didn't follow federal regulations on road signage, but are fixing them now as part of regular maintenance.

NYC tried this kind of stupid stunt to attack our rats with imported possums. The possums didn't kill the rats, and now Brooklyn is infested with rats and possums.

I expect Guam will remain overrun by snakes, and get overrun by mice. So they'll send in the possums, and Guam will be overrun by snakes, mice and possums.

Why can't we learn that simple attacks on complex problems often just make the problem more complex? Hamfisted slaps at nature always have unintended consequences.

For job security, he might consider teaching.

See this is the problem with Wikipedia references.

I haven't seen the show, I'm in the UK, but I know the reason Italian-American interest groups are offended is because of a recent incident where "Snooki" was punched by a man who fits the stereotype they object to.

The interesting thing is MTV's hypocrisy over dealing with the issue, they blacked out the assault when shown on TV and offered a link to a support line after the show but showed a male being assaulted during another show about teen pregnancy.

But you are totally ignoring the reality of a very specific situation - feral cats in urban areas. What exactly is the natural control at work?

With urban sprawl, "urban" or "suburban" areas have grown into what was wild natural areas. At one house I lived in, I was talking to people who had lived there since the community was built. 15 years prior, it wasn't uncommon to see wild foxes or otters. The area was almost infested with large snakes. When I moved in, the first day I saw an osprey land on a tree branch no more than 100 feet from the house. We spotted wild animals on a fairly regular basis.

In Los Angeles, we had a problem with coyotes. When they were hungry and the food supply was poor, they would come into the neighborhoods looking for food. That food could be food left out for pets, but more commonly it was pets themselves who became their food. I called animal control to ask what could be done. This was a few years ago, so the rules may have changed, but what I was told was this. They were not allowed to trap wild animals, unless they posed an immediate threat to a human. The community, or individuals, could hire trappers, but the coyote population was large enough where taking a few out wouldn't pose a significant impact to their population. I asked about shooting them. They were posing a threat to my family (coming up to the house, pawing at the doors because we had pets). I was told that it is illegal to discharge a firearm inside the Los Angeles city limits. I then asked a more subtle question, "What happens if you find a dead coyote that has been shot?" Unofficially, they wouldn't report the fact that it had been shot. They would only report that a dead wild animal was found and disposed of.

Almost anywhere along the edges of a large metro area, you'll find plenty of wild predators. It's perfectly likely to find faster moving ones (such as birds of prey) in the interior of a city. If they are hungry, and can find the food, they will go after it.

I've either spotted or found signs of coyotes, hawks, osprey, huge owls, and buzzards in urban locations. Beyond the predators, I've seen plenty of squirrels, opossums, and armadillos. For example, I almost ran over an armadillo late one night near the intersection of Colorado St and Brand Blvd, in Glendale, CA. There were frequent sightings of coyotes nearby. I'd have a hard time calling that a rural area. It may not be times square, but it's urban.

Well ... I guess even in Manhattan, there are predatory animals. There was coyote caught in Manhattan just a few months ago. I'll concede that other predators, such as alligators, most likely won't be found in too many urban settings (except in US states bordering the Gulf of Mexico, and a few others towards the south on the Atlantic coast).

A really feral cat CANNOT be made a pet. If you get them really, really early as kittens (a few weeks old) you can, but after that - forget it.

Well, you can. It's not like you can walk up and say "hi kitty, let me hold you." It takes significant time.

I grew up on a farm. There were feral cats living in the woods nearby. They would come out looking for food, and we would spot them. With truly feral cats (i.e., several generations wild), it could take months of baiting them with food, just to get them to come close enough to touch. Even then, it was weeks or months of reassurance to get them comfortable enough to be picked up. After a good bit of time, most of them became comf

Denied.

But seriously, Meat Loaf isn't legally Meat Loaf; he's Michael Aday. Whoopi Goldberg isn't legally Whoopi Goldberg; she's Caryn Johnson. And during the height of his gridiron football career, Pacman Jones wasn't legally Pacman Jones; he was and is still Adam Jones. I don't see why he can't remain Gary Guy Mathews and just sign his name "Boomer Mathews".

Sick, but very common. You hear reports of false rape accusations all the time. There was the Duke Lacrosse case. There were the two women recently who claimed a guy raped them, when they were really just upset that the sex they had with him wasn't very good. There are cases where people are not only dragged through reputation-assassination in the public, but spend days, months, or years in prison for it. And of course, the best part of any sort of false accusation like this is that you can't question the supposed victims, because you'll be blamed for "blaming the victim". In fact, because of "rape-shield" laws, the public is almost always given the identity of the accused, but the accuser is protected from being identified. In a lot of cases, they remain protected and unidentified even after they have been found guilty of making up the rape accusation!

Here's a representative news article from a few months ago, where a 27 year old woman accused a man of rape and he SPENT FOUR YEARS IN PRISON for it before they discovered that he was innocent. In return, they sentenced her for "up to" three years. That's right, she'll spend fewer years imprisoned for an actual crime than the real victim spend for doing absolutely nothing.

Why did she accuse him of rape? Because she was hanging out with her girlfriends one night when she decided to head off with the guy in his car. When she came back to her friends, they were angry at her for ditching them. So she made up the rape story.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/bronx/justice_happened_things_system_solomon_JyyLFVitMM4bx63gpD1ouI

Crying "rape" has become the modern "sorry, I'm late - traffic was hell!".

All they have to do is arrest the volunteers for being paedophiles!

I wonder if we may see the end of the religious-driven Great Porn Panic now that the Catholic Church is being hit hard in that area. Catholics are the biggest religious group in Australia, with about 25% market share. The Catholic Church has big problems. Search Google for Catholic priest porn. (I didn't realize, until I did that search, how many cases there were.) Priests have been caught by FBI sting operations. Dozens of priests in different countries have been caught with child porn in the last few years. Last week the Belgian police raided the headquarters of the Catholic Church in Belgium, and they've been interrogating church officials. The Vatican has been in full damage control mode for months.

Now the Vatican is scared because the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that, at least under some circumstances, priests may be considered employees of the Vatican. (A pedophile priest was transferred from Ireland to the US, where he caused further trouble. If a multinational corporation did that for a criminal employee, they'd be liable.) Several archdioceses in the US have already gone bankrupt over molestation suits. Now the bills may be sent to Rome. There's frantic diplomatic maneuvering by the Vatican over their "sovereign immunity", but nobody in politics wants to support the Vatican in this now.

It just keeps getting worse. Just in two days ago: "A Catholic priest stole $1.3 million from his Waterbury, Conn., parish to finance a gay old time in New York, authorities charged yesterday. The Rev. Kevin Gray allegedly blew the money he looted from his financially struggling parish over seven years on male escorts, rooms at hotels, including the Waldorf, designer clothes, trendy restaurants and tuition for several young studs." That's just pathetic.

As for Australia, last week there was "Australian priest jailed for 'sadistic' child sex abuse ". "The indecent assaults involved multiple children, often significant planning, were frequently sadistic and overall persistent, objectively serious, criminal courses of conduct. The offender's actions contributed to a culture of fear and depravity, especially at the school, which allowed these disturbing offences to occur and then remain unpunished for years."

The Catholic Church is no longer in a position to make pronouncements about sexual morality. That may be the one good thing to come of this.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/sexy_russian_spy_anna_chapman_2Zmmc1rSqu2H71x3v7BibM?photo_num=5 One of the spies :P

Communism just isn't that sexy.

I think that I could be persuaded otherwise...

You're sure there are abuses? well so am I. In fact I have no doubt personally that the abuses far outweigh any possible good that can come of the classification system. Time after time throughout history the US government has classified information for the sole reason that it's embarrassing to those currently in power. Until we require a judge to review every classification for legality (and I mean every one from presidential orgies to black ops) the abuses will continue. The government's record on this is absolutely unacceptable.

A more dangerous precedent would be to treat the NY Post as if it were a valid source or took part in any of that journalism stuff. Not only that, but... oooh! lookee!

No one takes low altitude sight seeing flights in a 747.

oh really?
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/regional/item_oNWhYSTmV89BQ5uQZuReBO

My chief gripe with Cablevision is not that they have bad service (at least from a TV technical standpoint, as they have a ton of channels that rarely drop if at all), or even that they try to maintain their monopoly on coverage area and programming while trying to avoid carrying broadcast stations, but that they wield monopoly power in other areas and make Comcast and Microsoft look utterly inept at it, and it barely registers on Slashdot.

Sadly, I know people that, in their words, "need" these vile cowards' cable. It's like I have a truth mom on my back.

The strippers favor a pole tax, actually.

This is certainly cogent analysis, however I think you are missing two things in re Iraq. It's all well to say that Saddam "was making it appear that he had WMDs", but the fact that our intelligence community completely failed to pierce this deception stinks to high heavens. Intelligence is difficult but it's not impossible. What really get my hackles twitching is my perception not that we failed so much as that we gave it a very weak effort. Sort of a damned by faint praise situation. In other words, if we *really* wanted to know the truth, we could have. So why didn't we???

While I agree with your sentiment, I'm not sure it was as easy as you might think. We relied a lot on foreign inteligence sources because most all connections to the US would simply turn into a funnel of misinformation or roadblocks for the information. Remember the fiasco surrounding UN weapons inspectors and how many times they were removed from the country or locked down? Saddam was openly hostile to the US and we trusted a lot of our foreign intelligence sources. Perhaps we could have invested more money and effort but you have to realize the assumed need for that wasn't there until after the intelligence turned out to be sour. In other words, we didn't really see the need to get our guys more involved until "after" we found out what we know wasn't what was happening.

The other thing is that its all very smooth sounding and knowledgeable to claim to know all the dirty things Saddam was going to do, or had said he would do, etc., etc. And, sure, if you're going to throw dirt, it's always a good bet to throw it at a hated asshole like Saddam. But I say that looking at the history of Iraq, if I was Saddam, I might well feel pretty damn betrayed by the US, so why shouldn't I talk trash. We did betray him after all! Of course it's not "us" the people of the United States who betrayed him, but the United States Federal Government, a rogue entity that has as about as much to do with us as Kim Jong Il!

Please enlighten me on how we betrayed Saddam. Our support for him in the Iraq-Iran war was at the request of Kuwait and didn't amount to much as Iraq favored Soviet weapons.

Anyways, I wasn't attempting to justify the actions in Iraq, simply separating the two wars from each other and explain why they were connected to 9/11 but not necessarily because of involvement in 9/11.

Personally, I believe we should have gone in Iraq back in 1994-5 when the UN inspectors were first kicked out and they shot at our planes patrolling the no fly zone. I also believe that given the customs in the middle east where if someone is perceived as a pussy, they get disrespected all over the place verses when someone is perceived as strong, less risked are taken to piss them off, that if we wouldn't have presented ourselves as being week in our dealings with Iraq, 9/11 wouldn't have happened. It's interesting that when we captured the number two Al Qeada officer who played a large role in planning and executing 9/11, he said he had no idea that the US would retaliate the way they did. This is also backed up by former associates of Al Qaeda and various other terrorist captured.

Second-longest now. A British sniper hit two Al-Qaeda members from around 150 feet further out.

Care to link to some actual proof for your assertion?

No, I'd prefer to link to some spurious claims and hearsay, but I'm having a hard time googling some. ;)

But if you insist: http://bigjournalism.com/jhudnall/2010/02/09/teachers-unions-the-child-molesters-best-friend/ which liinks to http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/queens/head_of_the_crass_qWrc4xPXr5UxSo8Npym2vO#ixzz0eseQIbrX

If eBook publishers start suing (which they will once their business grows larger, if people keep pirating their work)

Since eBooks are ridiculously easy to copy (because of their size), I think that only very, very stupid (and unlucky, of course) pirates would end up being caught. Everyone else will be using a distribution method which includes some form of plausible deniability. Or just recursive sneakernet. Or both.

and thus you have no entitlement to an electronic copy. You could always scan and use OCR for private use, if you wanted to.

This is interesting. If I own a physical copy, and it's starting to get too beat up or oxidized, then do you believe I have an "entitlement" to photocopy my old physical copy to produce a nice new one? Somehow, I would guess you'd say no. So if I have a digital copy, do you believe, analogously, that I have no entitlement to copy it to multiple devices?

I haven't heard too many sob stories from artists going broke after their label refused to pay them the money owed to them under contract.

You might want to check out this post by tinkerghost, this article with comments by the Eagles' agent, and you must have missed the 2002 interview of Janis Ian on Slashdot. My guess is that for every artist like Ian who speaks out, there are hundreds, if not thousands, who have just given up.

And besides, it is a contract, voluntarily signed by both parties.

At the time many of these artist signed their contracts, the Big Labels had an illegal stranglehold on most forms of music promotion. So your "voluntarily" isn't so black-and-white.

Groups of bicycle-riding vigilantes have been repainting 14 blocks of Williamsburg roadways ever since the city sandblasted their bike lanes away last week at the request of the Hasidic community.

The Hasids, who have long had a huge enclave in the now-artist-haven neighborhood, had complained that the Bedford Avenue bike paths posed both a safety and religious hazard.

Scantily clad hipster cyclists attracted to the Brooklyn neighborhood made it difficult, the Hasids said, to obey religious laws forbidding them from staring at members of the opposite sex in various states of undress. These riders also were disobeying the traffic laws, they complained.

Two cycling advocates were apprehended by the Shomrim Patrol, a Hasidic neighborhood watch group, as they repainted a section of bike lane at 3:30 a.m. yesterday, but when cops arrived, no one was arrested and no summonses were issued, police said.

"These people should apply for a job at the DOT," neighborhood activist Isaac Abraham said of the repainting. "You put it on, they take it off -- and they will probably do this again."

A Department of Transportation spokesman said: "We will continue to work with any community on ways we can make changes to our streets without compromising safety."

A source close to Mayor Bloomberg said removing the lanes was an effort to appease the Hasidic community just before last month's election.

Abraham contends the bike lanes put children at risk of getting hit by cars or bicycles as they exited school buses.

But Baruch Herzfeld, who has tried to bridge the gap between hipsters and Hasids with a bike-rental program, said safety is not the issue so much as xenophobia.

"They don't want the hipsters in their neighborhood," he said. "It's like in Howard Beach back in the day when they didn't want black people in the neighborhood."

The cycling advocacy group Transportation Alternatives has not taken sides in the dispute.

But bike lane or not, "cyclists have a right to be on Bedford Avenue," said Wiley Norvell, a group spokesman.

(First of all, to clear up the nitpick: "But you don't need a bike lane to ride down the street!" It's there to keep people from running you over, not to give you legal sanction to use the street.) What's amazing here is that an American city outside Utah acquiesced to demands that a piece of public infrastructure be degraded, on the basis of someone's religious objections to women who are not covered. It was a boneheaded decision to enforce values of a single religious group upon the public at large.

In Israel, where I presume there are no bike lanes, there is clearly not the messy separation of church and state that exists here (for now). Maybe it's fine there for religous law to dictate secular law. But there isn't much organ donation in Israel because of people's religious beliefs. An "opt-out" system isn't discriminatory in any way, but the same sort of people who got the City of New York to sandblast its bike lanes are the ones who will claim discrimination.

I know of this issue first hand being a IT contractor and working for the state. Where Im at they have approximately 125 IT contractors. So far they have laid off 15 IT contractors, are trying to convert 15 or so more to government service. Next in Oct all IT companies will have to bid through a Managed Service Provider. Basically an appointed IT contractor that all the agencies will go through to source contractors. I don't believe they plan on eliminating all contractors since I don't think they can do to the fact the most people would rather be a contractor than work for the state. Also a lot of the IT contractors are from overseas and cannot become state employees without a green card. Most of us are just taking a wait and see approach to what our future actually is with the state come Oct. Who knows how many contract slots will be available at that time.

For some people taking the state job is actually good deal. Some prefer the stability that the state has offered in the past. What I can add is the converted contractors will receive a tier 5 pensions not tier 4. The state legislature enacted the tier 5 pension in Jan 2010 in coincidence with the plan to convert the 500 contractors. Here are some of the reduced benefits that they will receive.

Require most public employees to work 10 full years before vesting in the system, rather than the current five, and limit the amount of overtime that can be used in the calculation of a final average salary to 15 percent of regular annual wages.

Raises the minimum full-benefit retirement age for members of the State and Local Retirement System to 62 years from the current 55.

Certain exemptions were granted to firefighters, teachers, and police officers.

They figure they will save $48 billion over 30 years.

Here is the full article. http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/statehouse_oks_deal_to_fix_hyper_p72NcP2a2IegZcBJFKuf0J

Most of the big star bands probably were cheated out of quite a lot of money by slimy accounting practices, and PF is probably just trying to recoup part of that since they found a good excuse to go to court:

Right. Because the income dealings of a non-profit corporation are really just so shrouded in secrecy, loopholes and backroom deals.

It happens.

New York has its own brand of mischief that's more lethal than other states," says Ken Boehm of the National Legal and Policy Center. "When millions of dollars are being sent to non-existent organizations, clearly there's a problem."

Unlike every other state, New York allows legislators to set up their own non-profits and then steer taxpayer money to those same organizations. So, as will happen, many state and city lawmakers have done just that. "Like DC," Boehm says, "New York allows earmarks cloaked in secrecy."

As of 2008 -- the last year for which records are available -- each City Council member has been allocated about $340,000 per year to spend at their own discretion. Quite often, a lot of that money winds up at non-profit organizations run by people very close to the legislator who is dispensing those funds. And the dispersal is very hard to track; non-profit organizations file tax forms called 990s, which are self-reported. What New York's political scandals have in common [Feb 14]

Seems like $700-$800/month is more likely:

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/small_price_to_pay_yk3QVpgdWYWTBnEhJ0QPXN

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/study_cell_phone_cancer_link_D1uu62C2zscTFCnzQTeZwO
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,569465,00.html

As I said - jumping to conclusions . . .

There are no studies that prove things either way, but the WHO thinks there is enough correlation to be concerned.

It's hard to take one study really seriously, when similar studies by another group of people find reason to worry.

As for me, I'll not be holding anything up my ear that emits energy. If it has speakers and microphone that I can hold at arm's length, I'll consider using it.

Indeed...

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5joOOsTVD57lFwm_InpZY_nRbg4KQD9CDRVOO0

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/international/warm_and_fuzzy_facts_RD1aMFGyyvy19b0ZTHaGwO

"You'd think they'd be busy with real crime." You would think. But they're not (or won't, or can't) http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/the_fbi_bungles_on_terror_again_veIVgjepr3ND3gZBitINeM

Quite right - here's a prime example of a story handled two ways, first by a blog, then by a news organization.

(Admittedly it's a stupid story, but it's still a good example.)

This story got rolling by this blog post about a photo of a really big guy not fitting in an airline seat:

http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/unusual-attitude/2009/11/passenger-creates-big-debate-a.html

The blogger hedges his bets on all the "facts" he proffers, stating the story behind the photo was "sent to me with the absolute assurance" of it's authenticity. But even here he's light on the facts, and throws it open to the great unwashed - the commentators - to fill in the gaps. Which they do, many claiming to know what actually happened on the plane. Whether these claims are true are not is another matter. The individuals cannot be verified to see who they are, were they on the plane, and so on.

Now here's what you get when a newspaper handles the story.

(print view)
http://www.nypost.com/f/print/news/national/should_this_man_be_able_to_fly_on_1NoQ5o620LmpkpXtA7tXSP
(web view)
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/should_this_man_be_able_to_fly_on_1NoQ5o620LmpkpXtA7tXSP

Now I make no claim that this is the pinnacle of writing. (The first two sentences - was that really necessary?) And this is the New York Post for fug's sake. But still it has actual facts. Three reporters worked on it. They talked to people. They verified information. They added background. They look things up (presumably not in Wikipedia.)

You can give the blogger some credit for getting this whole mess started, but the photo basically fell in his lap. It took actual journalists to take this thread and turn it into something resembling a rope.

Quite right - here's a prime example of a story handled two ways, first by a blog, then by a news organization.

(Admittedly it's a stupid story, but it's still a good example.)

This story got rolling by this blog post about a photo of a really big guy not fitting in an airline seat:

http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/unusual-attitude/2009/11/passenger-creates-big-debate-a.html

The blogger hedges his bets on all the "facts" he proffers, stating the story behind the photo was "sent to me with the absolute assurance" of it's authenticity. But even here he's light on the facts, and throws it open to the great unwashed - the commentators - to fill in the gaps. Which they do, many claiming to know what actually happened on the plane. Whether these claims are true are not is another matter. The individuals cannot be verified to see who they are, were they on the plane, and so on.

Now here's what you get when a newspaper handles the story.

(print view)
http://www.nypost.com/f/print/news/national/should_this_man_be_able_to_fly_on_1NoQ5o620LmpkpXtA7tXSP
(web view)
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/should_this_man_be_able_to_fly_on_1NoQ5o620LmpkpXtA7tXSP

Now I make no claim that this is the pinnacle of writing. (The first two sentences - was that really necessary?) And this is the New York Post for fug's sake. But still it has actual facts. Three reporters worked on it. They talked to people. They verified information. They added background. They look things up (presumably not in Wikipedia.)

You can give the blogger some credit for getting this whole mess started, but the photo basically fell in his lap. It took actual journalists to take this thread and turn it into something resembling a rope.

Such a convenient excuse (if true)... but still doesn't explain all of the fake jobs 'created or saved' in New Hampshire, Florida and Georgia, Ohio, Wisconsin, New Jersey, Virginia, Texas, Illinois, Colorado, Washington, Massachusetts, Arkansas, Connecticut, or Michigan.

Given the scope of the fakery going on... there are two options... even more errors, or a deliberate attempt to cook the books.

Giving the amazing failure of the stimulus... the latter is far more likely given the continued delusional claims that it saved us from the brink... instead it is setting us up for a double dip and massive inflation.

If the Judge ruled the other way [...]

I'm going off-tangent here, but to me, the whole thing is just another reminder, that our driving — a very important part of life for many — is often not judged by judges. You don't even need to read the article — the /. write-up says: "Last week, Commissioner [emphasis mine -mi] Carla Bonilla ruled [...]"

At some point decades ago, when no one was paying attention, driving on a public road was deemed to be privilege, that the state may grant or take away, rather than a right, to limit which the state has to prove its case to a judge (forget jury).

In many locales, traffic cases are handled by the Judiciary anyway — because the Executive does not want to bother with its own system for hearings and appeals. But in some places — like NYC and, evidently, in Sonoma County, the cases are decided by the Executive branch itself — by people reporting to the same bosses (such as mayors) as the ticket-issuing cops...

And this is just a tip of the legal iceberg, that ACLU and other purported guardians of liberties ignore... In addition to driving, a mind-numbing number of activities require a license. In July two people were arrested on Times Square for "performing in costumes without a license" — they weren't charged with anything else...

This licensing is a terrific way for the Executive to punish anyone they don't like without the trouble of convicting them of any wrongdoing — instead of going to the Judiciary to prove its case, an Executive Branch bureaucrat can simply withdraw the license, or, even simpler — not renew it. At best, you may be able to appeal the action in front of the Judiciary yourself and — presumption of innocence be damned — prove, that the Government erred.

From driving, to selling liquor, to broadcasting — we have to rely on the government's benevolence in order to Pursue our Happiness... How did we get this far along this terrible road? How do we stop marching forward on it?

A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.

It took 7.3 billion years for the data to get here. Sounds on par with Verizon to me.

Ahh... but did the intergalactic delivery guy beat the crap out of the recipient?

Have you listened to the 911 call? I have - the caller did not mention race until the 911 operator asked her. When asked, she replied "one looked kind of Hispanic but I'm not really sure." This hardly jives with your idea that she was "some busybody neighbor doesn't like your skin color living on her street."

Agreed, the situation could have been handled much better on both sides. Personally from what I've read I think Gates was just being a twit and the cop didn't do much to help the situation. Before you spew racial vitriol all over the internets, get your facts straight.

Since you apparently have not yet read the transcript I assume you're too lazy to look it up (it was posted on the front page of major news sites for some time after the incident). I'll save you the google time and provide a link:
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/transcript_of_gates_call_1llqzVbjNMc0kloOxegLhO

http://www.nypost.com/seven/08272009/business/how_goldman_sachs_problems_are_hurting_y_186624.htm Read this article on HFT and how these firms are milking money without any risk (pure technical exploitation of other customers and traders).

Cohen had her face face slashed in a bar a couple of years ago (also here). My guess would be that this lawsuit was an effort to find out if the same guy was after her again.

There's a little more to this than anonymous insults on the Internet, and in this case it is probably justifiable to reveal the blogger's identity. Ideally, the police would look into it and determine whether or not the blogger is a threat (without making his identity public), but they likely do not have time to investigate anonymous Internet insults.

Maybe this guy.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/07312008/news/regionalnews/bar_goons_smash_and_slash_past_122359.htm

  The Manhattan doorman charged with hurling glasses at a woman's face at the Hudson Hotel served a month in jail for horribly disfiguring a top model by smashing a bottle across her cheek at a posh club last year.

Samir Dervisevic, 25, got into a drinking-tossing dust-up with model Liskula Cohen at Ultra on West 26th Street on Jan. 14, 2007, that ended when he cracked a bottle of vodka across her face, she tearfully recalled yesterday.

Actually, he's not. There's no bruise marks on the throat, though.

He apparently also broke his ankle running down the stairs to get away from this guy.