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"Weeding out naysayers" is a advice that should be applied very carefully IMHO. Anybody who's worked around engineers and been on slashdot a while can get the point - there are plenty of guys who never heard an idea they didn't hate, who only ever see problems and never opportunities. On the other hand, I imagine a few level-headed and empowered naysayers could have done a lot of good at Enron and Bear Stearns. I am not sure if there is really a principled way to tell the difference defeatists and prophets though. I spent a good part of this morning reading Sundown in America, and the reader replies to it, and trying to decide whether the guy is loony, or America is doomed.

"From the standpoint of governance, what is at stake is our ability to use the rule of law as an instrument of human redemption."

Preach it, #ManBearPig!

Might I direct your attention to: http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2012/03/14/arts/design/13PORTRAIT.html

Here is a link ( NO paywall, NO signup). These portraits are simply fantastic.

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2012/03/14/arts/design/13PORTRAIT.html

Smoker hate is so last century. Its the anti fat bastards laws that we need to be considering now. Why should fat people pay the same for aeroplane seats and why should health insurance insure them at all because we must be subsidizing them with their self inflicted diabetes and heart disease.

Because the US government spent literally hundreds of millions of The People's money lying to us about what we should eat. Start here and work your way forward. (There is a "rebuttal" to the article, and a rebuttal to the rebuttal, and then there are followup articles...)

The sanctions are exactly what are imperiling that complex--nobody can import computers there because of the sanctions. Pretty hard to keep up without computers.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/31/world/asia/north-korean-sites-are-down-in-possible-cyberattacks.html?hp&_r=0

My guess is that they are trying to pressure a change in specific language (the ban on exporting computers to NK), so that they can actually compete. It seems slave wages are not enough.

Yep you can buy fruit, since the people complained about the law EU passed. But EU passed that law and it did it recently.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/12/world/europe/12iht-food.4.17771299.html?_r=0

No, moron, you couldn't sell them to resellers to sell them EU wide, you could always sell them directly. Learn to read.

Milk quotas still stand.
http://www.reformthecap.eu/issues/policy-instruments/milk-quota

Was it difficult to google before accusing people of spewing propaganda, fellow EU citizen?

Did you know that before the quota the EU had a "butter mountain", because the farmers produced so much milk they couldn't sell them at a price to account for the cost to produce the milk, and the EU had to bail them out by buying up the milk and dumping it on the international market as butter or milk powder or giving it away to certain people?

Unregulated "free" markets don't work, period.

Thank you.

But if I'm not mistaken, a lot of those satellites are not US satellites. I'm pretty sure that the European ones are courtesy of ESA or somebody like that.

Yep. To the AC above. Been there, done that

> Are you sure they restrict export of these materials to curtail polution.

The NYT had a good article on this issue.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/business/global/china-vows-tighter-controls-over-rare-earth-mining.html

> First, you have to achieve legitimacy. In the USA, the power of currency, essentially, belongs to the federal government.

You have heard of Local Currency, right?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_exchange_trading_system

You don't federal permission to use your own currency. If a community agrees upon a common standard that is THEIR RIGHT.

This bullshit injustice against the Liberty Dollar is just that -- injustice and contempt for the rights of private citizens to agree upon a DIFFERENT standard of value.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/25/us/liberty-dollar-creator-awaits-his-fate-behind-bars.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Dollar

The problem is this: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/25/magazine/skills-dont-pay-the-bills.html Managers still live the early '900, practicing what looks like class warfare, trying to run companies like sweatshops and forgetting the supply-demand rule when it's time for them to cough up... ;)

http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/11/f-c-c-commissioner-to-join-comcast/

Four months after the Federal Communications Commission approved a hotly contested merger of Comcast and NBC Universal,
one of the commissioners who voted for the deal said on Wednesday that she would soon join Comcast's Washington lobbying office.

Yep you can buy fruit, since the people complained about the law EU passed. But EU passed that law and it did it recently.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/12/world/europe/12iht-food.4.17771299.html?_r=0
Milk quotas still stand.
http://www.reformthecap.eu/issues/policy-instruments/milk-quota

Was it difficult to google before accusing people of spewing propaganda, fellow EU citizen?

This is as misleading as the studies that "disproved" that organic food is more nutritious. Nobody was making the claim they disproved.

There are absolutely many people making the claim that organic foods are more nutritious. Like here, here and here.

And yes, there are people making the claim that MSNBC is not biased or much less biased than Fox News.

Solar thermal isn't without its problems, mainly that it needs cooling. A proposal for a solar thermal plant here in Arizona was opposed because of its high water usage, and water is by far our biggest environmental concern (it's currently on hold for financial reasons). Dry cooling is possible, but it's much less efficient and therefore more expensive.

Other desert states like California and Nevada are also having problems with solar thermal. Some form of solar energy should be our future, but getting there hasn't been as easy as advertised.

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/27/water-use-by-solar-projects-intensifies/

That's why people should get on the America's Test Kitchen bandwagon. The recipes they put into their books and on their Public Television show (of the same name) are tested in their kitchen sometimes 20-60 times for the most "bulletproof" version. Check out this article for more about the magazine/movement.

I bought two of their books and record their show. Every recipe I've tried I've messed up a little bit and the dish still came out with rave reviews from myself, wife and party guests.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/11/technology/foxconn-said-to-use-forced-student-labor-to-make-iphones.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

According to the department of labor, slave labor is

"Forced labor" under international standards means all work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty for its nonperformance and for which the worker does not offer himself voluntarily, and includes indentured labor. "Forced labor" includes work provided or obtained by force, fraud, or coercion ...

Threats of university punishment if the internships is not taken is a kind of coercion, therefore making this sort of behavior slave labor.

Do note that I said allegations in my previous post, which are quite legitimate claims. These aren't just being made up to try to trash Apple.

On what fucking planet? The NYT treated anonymous, unverified administration claims as fact. Over and over again.

This planet:

"From here, the sound of the war that began last night is inaudible. As veterans realize and almost every writer on the subject of war has reminded us, the experience of this new, unwanted war will be unknowable except among those who will be there for the fighting. " (emphasis mine) ...and here's a whole pile more

But you know, go ahead and pretend otherwise.

On what fucking planet? The NYT treated anonymous, unverified administration claims as fact. Over and over again.

This planet:

"From here, the sound of the war that began last night is inaudible. As veterans realize and almost every writer on the subject of war has reminded us, the experience of this new, unwanted war will be unknowable except among those who will be there for the fighting. " (emphasis mine) ...and here's a whole pile more

But you know, go ahead and pretend otherwise.

IOW, I'm a lot more scared of Goldman Sachs than I am scared of China.

That is because you haven't the slightest clue what the Communist Chinese has done in the past sixty years, and still take extreme steps to keep their citizens ignorant, repressing those who do not stay quiet. Oh, and did I mention rampant kleptocracy, and Big Business choking the country to death in a very literal sense?

If that scares you less than Goldman Sachs, well, by all means go ahead and move to China.

So, after 5 years without Fidel nothing has changed huh?
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/06/world/americas/06cuba.html?ref=cuba&_r=0

The reality of the Civil War was a *lot* more complicated. Slavery was only the third or fourth most important issue until Lincoln turned it into the moral justification for the war. Which was a brilliant PR move on his part, since even a century later we're believing in it.

The difficulty with your version of history is that it is directly contradicted by documents and statements made before and during the Civil War.
Here are Declarations of Secession from the four States that decided to explain their reasons

I could give you an almost endless list of primary sources to dig through,
but if those declarations aren't convincing, I don't know what else would do it.
Anyone who says that slavery was not central to the issues of the Civil War is engaging in historical revisionism.

And, Lincoln didn't really want to end slavery in the South, his plan was to prevent any new States from having slaves, thus allowing slavery in the South to die out in its own time.

If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time save Slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy Slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy Slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that.

Ignore whatever you learned growing up and go straight to the sources.

Could you provide references for that?

My bad, I meant HSBC, not Santander: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/12/opinion/hsbc-too-big-to-indict.html?_r=0

But Santander came to my mind probably because of the episode you mentioned: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/markets/2812719/Santander-traded-with-blacklist-Iranian-bank.html

In Europe just the other day, a guy was sentenced to jail for tearing up a Qur'an. Let me know when that happens in the US.

Yeah, it's not like in the US you were one Senate vote away from Congress approving an amendment to the Constitution specifically to penalise flag burning or anything. Oh, wait, you were. And that was not the first attempt to get such a measure through, and it was within the last decade.

Taxpayer money was also used to develop the patent being used to prevent production of Butanol fuel for sale to the public. The company suing to prevent is is Butamax, a shell company for GE and DuPont. The patent is also blatantly obvious and should never have been granted on that basis.

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/24/business/energy-environment/weighing-butanol-as-an-alternative-to-ethanol.html?_r=0

"Several companies are leading the push for butanol, including Gevo of Englewood, Colo., and Butamax Advanced Biofuels, a joint venture of BP and DuPont based in Wilmington, Del."
"Butamax is producing butanol at a demonstration plant in Hull, England. And in the United States, it has organized an alliance of ethanol producers who are considering making the shift. "

These don't seem like people gungho on preventing the release of this technology...are you tinfoil-hatting?

I don't know why they killed the Nexus Q.
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/05/the-google-nexus-q-is-baffling/

If you’re having friends over, and they, too, have Android phones, and they, too, have bought songs from Google’s music store, then they can add their own songs to your Q’s queue.

Sounds interesting in theory. In practice, there’s a lot of spontaneity-killing setup. You have to go into Settings to turn on the feature. Then you have to invite your friend to participate by — get this — sending an e-mail message. Then your friend has to download the Nexus Q app.

If you or the friend then taps the name of a song in your online Google account, it starts playing immediately, rather than being added to the queue as you’d expect. A Google rep explained to me that you’re not supposed to tap a song to add it to the playlist; you have to use a tiny pop-up menu to add it. More bafflement.

Sounds like a great party addon!

Strategy, though is frowned upon in most cases. This, however, goes a bit beyond typical strategy. It does, to me, justify the assertion that poker is not gambling. I think it is crap, but if you can rig the game so you win, by whatever means, then it no longer gambling.

IMHO, follow the money.

I'd say it's even simpler than that. A classic method of deflecting criticism is to set up an external boogeyman. People are starting to demand employment rights from the government. The government could change, or they could set up some big, bad, foreign companies to take the rap.

The only surprise is that they didn't choose a Japanese corporation. Oh, wait, they did...

You will remember great hits like Solendra, A123, and Fisker.

Last year, the US Department of Commerce slapped tariffs on Chinese solar panels after the WTO agreed that the Chinese were dumping (too late for Solyndra).
And Solyndra is suing 3 Chinese solar companies under the Sherman anti-trust act for driving the company out of business

The Chinese bought A123, with the US Government's approval.
Fisker is the last man standing, but they're at the whim of their now-chinese-owned battery supplier, who has been trying to invalidate their previous contract.

All your examples had negative narratives pushed by conservative media.
Unfortunately, those narratives never actually had much relation to reality.

1. 1- Tell China that cyberattacks must stop: the enemy is named
2. 2- Announce offensive force: the weapons are ready
3. 3- Next step is: use weapons to attack enemy. Then enemy will fight back

This looks ugly, but it seems the only possible scenario since defensive strategies are out of reach because of their cost (replace everything everywhere)

Funnily enough, China would say exactly the same thing.

Or innovations like GPS navigation and maps? http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/28/tim-cook-maps/

Or innovations like a free, standards-based web-browser financed by a non-profit organization? http://arstechnica.com/apple/2013/03/firefox-is-out-of-the-ios-game-until-apple-changes-its-ways/

Is Adobe Flash innovative? I'm not sure, but for some it certainly might be, and worth having.

Personally I enjoyed my A2DP bluetooth headsets in the office, both for calls and hi-fi music, for several years before iPhone users could use something other than wired earphones. (Nokia N95)

Between you and me, I dig on how nice and easy it is to 3g-tether between my Nokia N9 and Ubuntu 12.04/ Gnome3 notebooks, wirelessly via bluetooth. Very low power and battery drain when doing so, much lower than otherwise using the included Nokia N9 802.11 wifi hotspot tool. Not sure if this qualifies as innovative or not, but it sure is mighty nice on a phone released in 2009. That team got it right.

1. 1- Tell China that cyberattacks must stop: the enemy is named
2. 2- Announce offensive force: the weapons are ready
3. 3- Next step is: use weapons to attack enemy. Then enemy will fight back

This looks ugly, but it seems the only possible scenario since defensive strategies are out of reach because of their cost (replace everything everywhere)

Today Obama called the new Chinese President, Xi Jinping, to congratulate him on his confirmation as head of state and chairman of the people's republic central military commission (he was already General Secretary of the Communist Party of China and chairman of the Party Central Military Commission). In that call, Obama made a point of addressing cyberattacks as one of the most prominent issues in their relationship.

It's no accident that two days earlier NSA Chief Keith Alexander "disclosed" to the House Armed Services Committee that the U.S. has offensive cyberwarfare capabilities, not just defensive capabilities.

I find it hard to believe that this is new information to the members of the Committee. The U.S. has had and used offensive cyberwarfare capabilities for years, even decades. The Internet itself arose from a DARPA project. The "disclosure" is a well-timed veiled threat meant to add teeth to Obama's diplomatic "congratulatory phone call" on his Chinese counterpart's first official day, in much the same way that China just used its congratulatory message to new Pope Francis on his first full day in office to warn him not to "meddle" in its affairs and that it hopes their relationship could be improved by cutting ties with Taiwan.

Neither one of these statements change anything. China knows the U.S. has had offensive capabilities for years, and will probably not alter its stance on cyberattacks. The Vatican knows China wants to appoint its own bishops who answer to the Party rather than the Pope, and it will probably not issue a statement saying that "God has decided that the Chinese Communist Party shall be his hand and mouthpiece for 12 million Chinese Catholics."

If anything, Obama is pleading with the new president to tone down the attacks and choose some less-conspicuous targets so he doesn't have to publicly come out against China. And the Chinese are pleading with the new Pope to tone down any statements he may make about China so they don't have to make his bishops disappear (Francis knows what it's like to live in a country where people are "disappeared" for political reasons, as in Argentina's "Dirty War" of the 1970s).

Today Obama called the new Chinese President, Xi Jinping, to congratulate him on his confirmation as head of state and chairman of the people's republic central military commission (he was already General Secretary of the Communist Party of China and chairman of the Party Central Military Commission). In that call, Obama made a point of addressing cyberattacks as one of the most prominent issues in their relationship.

It's no accident that two days earlier NSA Chief Keith Alexander "disclosed" to the House Armed Services Committee that the U.S. has offensive cyberwarfare capabilities, not just defensive capabilities.

I find it hard to believe that this is new information to the members of the Committee. The U.S. has had and used offensive cyberwarfare capabilities for years, even decades. The Internet itself arose from a DARPA project. The "disclosure" is a well-timed veiled threat meant to add teeth to Obama's diplomatic "congratulatory phone call" on his Chinese counterpart's first official day, in much the same way that China just used its congratulatory message to new Pope Francis on his first full day in office to warn him not to "meddle" in its affairs and that it hopes their relationship could be improved by cutting ties with Taiwan.

Neither one of these statements change anything. China knows the U.S. has had offensive capabilities for years, and will probably not alter its stance on cyberattacks. The Vatican knows China wants to appoint its own bishops who answer to the Party rather than the Pope, and it will probably not issue a statement saying that "God has decided that the Chinese Communist Party shall be his hand and mouthpiece for 12 million Chinese Catholics."

If anything, Obama is pleading with the new president to tone down the attacks and choose some less-conspicuous targets so he doesn't have to publicly come out against China. And the Chinese are pleading with the new Pope to tone down any statements he may make about China so they don't have to make his bishops disappear (Francis knows what it's like to live in a country where people are "disappeared" for political reasons, as in Argentina's "Dirty War" of the 1970s).

Today Obama called the new Chinese President, Xi Jinping, to congratulate him on his confirmation as head of state and chairman of the people's republic central military commission (he was already General Secretary of the Communist Party of China and chairman of the Party Central Military Commission). In that call, Obama made a point of addressing cyberattacks as one of the most prominent issues in their relationship.

It's no accident that two days earlier NSA Chief Keith Alexander "disclosed" to the House Armed Services Committee that the U.S. has offensive cyberwarfare capabilities, not just defensive capabilities.

I find it hard to believe that this is new information to the members of the Committee. The U.S. has had and used offensive cyberwarfare capabilities for years, even decades. The Internet itself arose from a DARPA project. The "disclosure" is a well-timed veiled threat meant to add teeth to Obama's diplomatic "congratulatory phone call" on his Chinese counterpart's first official day, in much the same way that China just used its congratulatory message to new Pope Francis on his first full day in office to warn him not to "meddle" in its affairs and that it hopes their relationship could be improved by cutting ties with Taiwan.

Neither one of these statements change anything. China knows the U.S. has had offensive capabilities for years, and will probably not alter its stance on cyberattacks. The Vatican knows China wants to appoint its own bishops who answer to the Party rather than the Pope, and it will probably not issue a statement saying that "God has decided that the Chinese Communist Party shall be his hand and mouthpiece for 12 million Chinese Catholics."

If anything, Obama is pleading with the new president to tone down the attacks and choose some less-conspicuous targets so he doesn't have to publicly come out against China. And the Chinese are pleading with the new Pope to tone down any statements he may make about China so they don't have to make his bishops disappear (Francis knows what it's like to live in a country where people are "disappeared" for political reasons, as in Argentina's "Dirty War" of the 1970s).

Ralph Langner (the guy who figured out Stuxnet was designed to attack Iran) has been critical of the US's policies of focusing on offensive capabilities while largely ignoring or grossly underfunding defensive capabilities. He wrote a op-ed in the NYT about this. Hereis his rebuttal to Obama's executive order on critical infrastructure cyber security.

One of the problems with cyber defensive security is that too many companies use "risk assessment", which is inappropriate for security concerns. This is because risk assessment assumes that you are aware of all possible vulnerabilities and what impact these vulnerabilities will have, which is impossible. It is too easy for companies to use a risk assessment model as an excuse for not spending any money on their security, because the costs of security show up on a balance sheet while the benefits do not.

I have a standing desk. See this NYT article (which may or may not have been contradicted by a different pop-science NYT article): http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/23/stand-up-while-you-read-this/

Is different reading what routers are publishing in the open air than a fully political prosecution. Google isn't, and is not treated as an enemy of the state, and is an US company after all (Samsung, as is not, had pay 1 Billon over for selling rectangular devices).

Anyway, is not as bad as banks

Obviously you did not follow recent events where the French government forced Google to pay $81 million, or where the Free ips threatened Google by blocking every ad on their internet service. And after all, France is in Europe, you know, the union that fined Microsoft $672 million.

It explains that the Japanese found a way to send a pipeline down to the hydrates and depressurize them. This caused some of the released methane to travel up the pipeline they had dropped to the surface, where it could be captured as a gas.

Note it does not say how much of the gas is wasted/escapes into the ocean (which might have some very serious effects). On the other hand, they left most of the ocean pressurized (obviously) so it should hopefully re-sublimate back down to a methane hydrate.

It is actually a real breakthrough, rather than a mere translation problem. That said, a lot matters about efficiency. Merely getting a gallon of methane to the surface is not a huge deal if they have to burn 3/4 of a gallon to get it up (let alone transport it to someplace useful via a pressurized gas transport ship/pipeline).

That seems better. "More than a decade" sounds too short term of an investment.

According to the NY Times, the overall gas available may be more like 100 years' worth:

Jogmec estimates that the surrounding area in the Nankai submarine trough holds at least 1.1 trillion cubic meters, or 39 trillion cubic feet, of methane hydrate, enough to meet 11 years’ worth of gas imports to Japan.

A separate, rough estimate by the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology has put the total amount of methane hydrate in the waters surrounding Japan at more than 7 trillion cubic meters, or what researchers have long said is closer to 100 years’ worth of Japan’s natural gas needs.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/13/business/global/japan-says-it-is-first-to-tap-methane-hydrate-deposit.html?hp

Whereas NYT can't even get basic information right, wikileaks actually edited the information before releasing it.

Dude, that's a blog. Yes, it's hosted at the NYTimes, but that's an f'ing blog. See in the URL? Bits.blog.nytimes.com? The NYTimes remains the best source of journalism in the US. I agree that it should be supplemented with foreign journalism for you to get a better worldview (I choose BBC and Al Jazeera in addition to the NYT), but it's still far above most outlets.

"The moves followed concerns raised by the company’s auditors over more than $1.5 million payments to Intrade’s founder, John Delaney, and other unnamed third parties. The transactions, according Intrade’s auditors, were not sufficiently documented."

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/03/11/online-betting-site-intrade-halts-operations/

meanwhile the line of unedited cables line is full of shit. minstrelmike is clearly trolling. Whereas NYT can't even get basic information right, wikileaks actually edited the information before releasing it.

I think it was intentional lie, not just an omission or lack of fact checking on behalf of NYT. After all this is corporate media producing corporate propaganda on behalf of your corporate government. A while ago they boasted that they "fact checked" all their wikileaks-related publications with Obama administration itself. "Mr President, can we publish this or that ?" I urge to NOT believe anything NYT writes without confronting it with other sources (preferably non-corporate and non-US).

exactly. This would never see the light of day with the NY times, because the NY times is not a press/journalism organization. It's a media-spin government friendly organization which refuses to cover actual issues.

Where was the NYT with the revolutions in the middle east? Not covering them, that's where. NYT is instead always too busy not fact checking anything .

meanwhile the line of unedited cables line is full of shit. minstrelmike is clearly trolling. Whereas NYT can't even get basic information right, wikileaks actually edited the information before releasing it.

WikiLeaks would not have been able to post the unedited cables, as it ultimately did, heedless of the risk to human rights advocates

That's one whopper of a half truth.

I wonder if they would have simply sat on them for a year, like they did with the NSA wiretapping matter just because the feds asked them to?

At this point, "Why didn't he leak to the Times?" is only slightly less risible than "Why didn't he just register his concerns with the chain of command?"
 

Let's not kid ourselfs, this is probably all about cheap nuclear power production:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/10/business/energy-environment/10nukes.html?_r=0

We've surrounded Iran with dozens of military bases, crashed their economy and currency with sanctions, illegally threatened them with military force, and committed multiple acts of war on a country over the....nuclear weapons program both the CIA and Israelis admit they don't have.

So when does Iran get to threaten the United States for being in "material breach" of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which requires disarmament for countries already in possession of nuclear weapons?

is that you just catching on to that?

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/12/arts/television/doomsday-preppers-and-doomsday-bunkers-tv-reality-shows.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2012/aug/30/america-religious-fundamentalists-rewrite-history