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Apparently, the logs also showed he took a lengthy detour through Manhattan, rather than a direct route.

According to the reporter in a subsequent followup:
Mr. Musk has referred to a “long detour” on my trip. He is apparently referring to a brief stop in Manhattan on my way to Connecticut that, according to Google Maps, added precisely two miles to the overall distance traveled from the Delaware Supercharger to Milford (202 miles with the stop versus 200 miles had I taken the George Washington Bridge instead of the Lincoln Tunnel)
http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/12/the-charges-are-flying-over-a-test-of-teslas-charging-network/?hp

There are always at least two sides to every story... To wit: http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/12/the-charges-are-flying-over-a-test-of-teslas-charging-network/

http://www.nytimes.com/1998/04/27/business/how-a-tax-law-helps-insure-a-scarcity-of-programmers.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

I cannot find the references, but the reason I remember this factoid is because there was a man who went postal, citing his inability to make a living as a programmer due to tax laws.

Or this ones. But how you distinguish evil cops from good ones? Because good ones don't lie? And how you distinguish evil (or crazy, or plain stupid) civilians/cops from good ones when giving them a gun permit, if current tests/training don't work?

... however:

If their firmware updates were breaking devices left and right, they'd be out one hell of a lot of money.

And if the actions brick 2/3 of the systems, and support says "You are on your own", how are "we" going to find out that "their" upgrade (which only affects out of warranty systems) is the causing this failure? The few that are in warranty are being upgraded and replaced (Oh, must have been a componant failure). The rest are bing scrapped due to a bad BIOS upgrade (Oh, must have been a componant failure). Who is asking: Wow, must have been a bad BIOS upgrade! Given the history of some makers of motherboards to lie about the cause of the failure, just how are we going to know?

People with kids are less happy? I find that hard to believe - definitely citation needed. My kids make me far happier than anything else in my life and most parents I know feel the same.

We're talking about statistics here, not individual experience or anecdotes, but here's a NY Times Post about the topic with numerous citations. Studies of happiness are fairly similar in this regard, although I did see at least one that ended up concluding men are slightly happier if they have children while women are much less happy. You'd think this would be taught in school as it is one of the most basic choices we all make.

HTC's problems werent from Microsoft.. HTC was the target of the opening salvo of mobile patent lawsuits, initiated by Apple.

N.B. I'm not saying that Microsoft's patent attacks directly went against HTC. HTC's poblems seem to be largely from redirecting R&D in the direction Windows Phone. Have a look at exactly when the competitiveness of their phones went down and it's exactly the time when they must have been directing a large effort to porting Windows to their hardware. What I'm saying is that it was partnering with Microsoft that damaged HTC. That at least partly will have

When the first wave of the mobile lawsuit armageddon geared up, the three companies distinctly absent from either end of these lawsuits were Google, Palm, and Microsoft (citation.)

A long time ago Microsoft even opposed patents. That attitude, however changed much earlier than people realise. Please remember that Microsoft v. TomTom took place in 2009 noticably before Apple started suing HTC.

To accuse Microsoft of being somehow a big offender is ignoring the history of these battles. Patent lawsuits wasn't how Microsoft operated, and to a large extent still isn't because nearly every lawsuit that targets Microsoft or is initiated by Microsoft ends in a (cross)licensing deal rather than a judgment and that includes Microsoft taking the short end of it (ex: licensing from Acacia Research.)

Microsoft has repeatedly spun off or supported companies like intellectual vendors which are archetypal patent trolls. Microsoft funded SCO in several direct and indirect ways (see groklaw.net for details) and it doesn't seem to be a coincidence that soon after Microsoft funding SCO started talking of patents. Microsoft claimed in 2007 that "Linux violated 235 of their patents" and it took years to prove that they were lying. They are circumspect; they do attempt to do most of their patent extortion behind NDAs. However that does not make things better. The opposite in fact. Microsoft is trying to use patents to set up a system where it alone has control of all software. Companies like Google which stand up to this should be seen as heroic.

I do understand that Microsoft is one of the only companies that have gone after Linux, and its probably unforgivable, but that doesnt make them one of the big offenders in mobile patent lawsuits. Making that claim just doesnt hold up to reality.

Microsoft extorted more from Android vendors than they charged for Windows 7. Most of this action was done under NDA and it wasn't until Barnes & Noble exposed this that it was clear how outrageous and ridiculous Microsoft's patent claims that they managed to get away with elsewhere are. Even then, Barnes & Noble were forced into selling off part of their E-reader business to Microsoft and investigating windows for tablets. Where Apple is a street punk, Microsoft is a mafia don. You hear more noise from Apple's legal action than Microsofts simply because the level of intimidation is lower and so people are more likely to stand up to them.

HTC's problems werent from Microsoft.. HTC was the target of the opening salvo of mobile patent lawsuits, initiated by Apple.

When the first wave of the mobile lawsuit armageddon geared up, the three companies distinctly absent from either end of these lawsuits were Google, Palm, and Microsoft (citation.)

To accuse Microsoft of being somehow a big offender is ignoring the history of these battles. Patent lawsuits wasn't how Microsoft operated, and to a large extent still isn't because nearly every lawsuit that targets Microsoft or is initiated by Microsoft ends in a (cross)licensing deal rather than a judgment and that includes Microsoft taking the short end of it (ex: licensing from Acacia Research.)

I do understand that Microsoft is one of the only companies that have gone after Linux, and its probably unforgivable, but that doesnt make them one of the big offenders in mobile patent lawsuits. Making that claim just doesnt hold up to reality.

Oh yea, I almost forgot.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/29/world/state-union-iraq-issue-bush-enlarges-case-for-war-linking-iraq-with-terrorists.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War_Resolution

Read the reasons on the war resolution. And understand this is not exact but edited by the fine morons slanting everything to their advantage for wikipedia. Here are some highlights in case you can't figure out how to find the link.

• Iraq's "capability and willingness to use weapons of mass destruction against other nations and its own people".
• 
  Members of al-Qaeda, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in Iraq.
• 
  Iraq's "continu[ing] to aid and harbor other international terrorist organizations," including anti-United States terrorist organizations.
• 
  Iraq paid bounty to families of suicide bombers.

This one is from the actual resolution itself

Whereas Iraqâ(TM)s demonstrated capability and willingness to use
weapons of mass destruction, the risk that the current Iraqi
regime will either employ those weapons to launch a surprise
attack against the United States or its Armed Forces or provide
them to international terrorists who would do so, and the extreme
magnitude of harm that would result to the United States and
its citizens from such an attack, combine to justify action by
the United States to defend itself;

Oh, one more thing, it appears that the mass media actually knows Al Qaeda was in Iraq pre9/11 and attempted to blame their killing people after the invasion on Bush failing to act before the invasion.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brad-wilmouth/2008/02/29/nbc-claimed-bush-allowed-al-qaeda-iraq-war-media-now-ignore-pre-war-p

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Musab_al-Zarqawi#Known_attacks

and according to George Tenet's book, July 2001, an associate of Zarqawi had been detained and, during interrogations, linked Zarqawi with al-Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah. Of course I don't have a direct link to the book, but you can find reference to it on one of the links I already posted.

But hey, continue being a delusional moron tolling me. Opps, I have smacked you once again. I hope that doesn't mean you will start stalking me in real life or other sites.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/09/us/for-some-suspects-charges-of-police-racism-resound.html

this dorner guy is systematically going after those whom he has targeted as being responsible for grave wrongs in the lapd

and a lot of people sympathize with him

the problem is, you don't actually solve any of the problems he's complaining about by shooting people

we live in a civil society. if you want to change a law, you change it. if you want to change a status quo, you agitate

shooting people does what? turns you into a target for a manhunt. that's it

you don't solve these problems with a gun. sorry

i don't really know why this stupid idea appeals to some people unless you are actually an unhinged individual

and yet your comment is modded +5 insightful? seriously?

all this tells me is there are far too many unstable people with guns in this country

there is no ammo box option. it's not an option in a civil society

really

and if you believe the ammo box is still an option, YOU are yet another problem the rest of us sane people who are pissed off with the DHS have to deal with

put away the fucking guns, you fucking wackjobs

not an option

Yes, so the government shouldn't be selling licenses to the rating agencies and shouldn't be forcing mutual funds, especially pension funds to only buy debt that is rated by the agencies that the government licenses.

US government treasury bonds are rated as high as they are by the agencies that are licensed by the government, and the moment one of these agencies decides to downgrade US Treasuries because US Tresuries are actually junk, it is sued and prohibited from rating US Treasuries. Of-course that one agency actually gets paid by the buyers of the bond, not by the sellers.

Here is a good take on this issue in the first 10 minutes of the show.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/15/technology/microsoft-battles-google-by-hiring-political-brawler-mark-penn.html?_r=1&

If you want to know more details about Microsoft's Head of the pleasant "Strategic and special projects"

Very little that you see on Fox News is actually classified as news. Even three years ago, their only news programming was from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. and 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. (New York Times source, reference to New York Times article in case of paywall).

It's funny you should mention that. I think that fundamentally the US mining laws being what they are and after all the fun there was after WWII with Uranium mining in the Southwest US, there is a more conservative view on some of these deposits. We have quite a bit here in the US according to this.

There was also a recent announcement of a large find in Nebraska as well so I don't really believe there will be a rare earth mineral shortage anytime soon. I think Helium will probably be depleted long before the rare earth minerals run out.

I think John Gruber's take on David Pogue's Surface review nails it:

DP: "Everybody knows what a tablet is, right? It's a black touch-screen slab, like an iPad or an Android tablet. It doesn't run real Windows or Mac software -- it runs much simpler apps. It's not a real computer."

JG: "That's the same shortsighted opinion that command-line DOS advocates had of the Mac in the '80s. Anyone who thinks OS X and Windows PCs are "real" computers and that the iPad (and Android tablets) are anything less just isn't getting it."

My dad was one of those people. Back then (mid/late 80s) "computer" meant "I can write programs on it." Every computer today looks like the Macintosh did back then: windows, icons, WYSIWYG documents, etc. "Computer" came to mean "something you can use to create documents on and play games."

Remember, once upon a time, what we call "personal computers" themselves weren't considered "real" computers at all by those who were using "computers" (i.e, big iron in schools and businesses) at the time.

Q: Who's the #1 mainframe vendor today?

A: Who cares?

So just as "computer" once meant one thing and now refers to what we call PCs, the definition of "PC" will change over time too. It's a continuum, not black and white. Does a "PC" become not a PC when you take its keyboard off? Does a "tablet" become a "PC" when you add a keyboard? Is an iPad you can hold in one hand less personal, or less of a computer, than an old Kaypro luggable?

I think I'll write a children's book: The Velveteen iPad (or How Tablets Become Real).

Here's a story from 2008 where
Steve Jobs once again repeated the claim that Apple didn't expect to make a lot of money through iTunes selling phone Apps. However, the author disagrees and compares iTunes to other e-commerce businesses like Amazon and eBay..

Given that Amazon is making almost no profit, if the iTunes store makes almost no profit, that would make them very comparable.

It's not that they aren't competitive. It's that the demand for their entire industry has dropped, and their bosses are actively trying to screw them up.

There's more package traffic than ever. What has dropped is the sending of junk mail (in letter and catalog form). What has increased is the sending of packages. USPS has now upped its rates on those, and can't even do that right. Amazon just changed our local delivery from USPS to Fedex, and according to the user support person I talked to, they'd had a lot of issues with USPS. Packages go missing on a routine basis, where they don't with UPS and FedEx.

In the meantime, let's go down to our local post office. At any hour of the day, there is one person on duty at the desk. Laughter, music and conversation flow from the back room. Checking my PO box, I refile yet another two misdirected envelopes.

The problem with USPS is that it can't reduce its cost. There are many anti-business factors here, but the two biggest are (a) unions and (b) feelgood government regulation.

Here are mainstream published sources that agree with me and which would be voted -1, Troll here on Slashdot by the feelgood social emotions hive mind:

Free the Post Office!, by Joe Nocera

Postal Service To Default On $5.5 Billion Payment As Congress Heads Into Recess, by Dave Jamieson

Notice how these are both consistent with what I posted.

I realize that unions and affirmative action are sacred cows around here, but from a business standpoint, that's nonsense. Unions raise costs and make it impossible to fire employees who need to go. Affirmative action makes it impossible to fire employees who are from any protected group, which includes homosexuals, ethnic minorities, religious minorities, gender minorities (women/trans), and probably many more. Attacking affirmative action does not say "these people are incompetent," which would require all of them to be incompetent, but by the same token it says that neither are they all competent, and we need the ability to drop the incompetent ones.

This society does itself a disfavor by producing myths and illusions that are then viewed as an attack on The People if they are broached. This makes us just as much lock-step conformist as a totalitarian regime, and makes us unable to view the realistic solutions we need to in order to save things like our Postal Service.

Here's a story from 2008 where Steve Jobs once again repeated the claim that Apple didn't expect to make a lot of money through iTunes selling phone Apps. However, the author disagrees and compares iTunes to other e-commerce businesses like Amazon and eBay.

In 2008, iTunes had "margins that are better than the best e-commerce companies around; no marketing costs and a built in audience; Sales of nearly $3 billion a year in its existing business; and a new $1 billion business on the way."

In 2013, we now know the sales projections were conservative, and with a need to show revenue growth to investors, I'm sure Tim Cook would not announce that Apple would begin quarterly reports of software revenue (e.g. iTunes) without being certain he can produce big numbers.

The companies sending you the junk mail is the only reason that the USPS is not losing more money than they are. The revenue from the junk mailers more than makes up for the relatively low cost to send a letter via USPS.

In fact, the USPS wants to send you more junk mail.

"Reputation defense" on Wikipedia has become an issue. Here's a wash cycle on Wikipedia, carried out on behalf of Michael Milken, one of the notorious financial crooks of the 1980s. ("Biggest fraud case in the history of the securities industry." back in 1990.) He has a self-admitted paid editor on Wikipedia editing his article to make him look good.

It fails their own stated goals of making a just world â"â" "climate justice" â"â"when a shack in Kenya that's supposed to store medicines and have a bed for the sick, has to choose between either keeping the fridge on, or the fan and lights, because the solar panel they have can't do both. And that's "climate justice" ????

No, that's a slippery slope leading to an imaginary dilemma, in service of your balance fallacy.

That's actually a rather strange scenario for you to create, since solar power is bringing energy to areas of Kenya traditional power doesn't or won't go.

Is it a reference to this? Are they having problems with their equipment? If so, it is rather obnoxious of you to call their hospital a "shack".

Or, is the scenario made-up, but still plausible? So where in Kenya are diesel generators illegal?

Basically, what I'm asking is, is there some reason for us to not believe you are completely full of shit?

And who are the shareholders? Bad people, the best I can work out. Large financial firms that buy and sell stock in complex, indecipherable financial schemes. Any one holding company could own a significant chunk of any number of large companies

I know that some of my 401k is in Dell stock, from back when I worked for them.

So when a company says "shareholders" they really mean wallstreet, as a whole. Really, companies just do what a whole bunch of wall street analysts say they should do. Which means we have one of the most corrupt and greedy institutions known to man telling every public company how to run their business.

Correct, even though one of my 401k's holds Dell stock I personally have absolutely no input since I am not "shareholder". These big faceless wall street organizations are mainly funded by the everyday workers 401k.

Looks like there is currently around $3.3 Trillion dollars in 401k investments.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/12/business/retirementspecial/should-the-401-k-be-reformed-or-replaced.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Barack Obama: I am someone who is no doubt progressive

Maybe you can say he's hijacked the moniker, but when all the "progressives" in office supported by most of the "progressive" voters aren't really progressive, you're going to need to come up with a different word to describe yourself.

Iceland seems to be doing great actually http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/iceland/index.html

Hush, you're not supposed to mention Iceland anywhere in the 'free' world. It might lead to subversion.

We had a solution to "too big to fail" for banks. There was the Glass-Steagall Act, which forced a complete separation between brokerage and banking. Worked fine from the 1930s to 1999. Then it was repealed because the big banks wanted to get bigger. "Today, Congress voted to update the rules that have governed financial services since the Great Depression and replace them with a system for the 21st century. This historic legislation will better enable American companies to compete in the new economy.", said the Treasury secretary in 1999.

Right there is how we got into this mess.

Yes, the racism is in the fact that blacks get arrested much more than whites.
There are many factors. Racial profiling means that blacks are more likely to be stopped and questioned then arrested for minor offenses ("resisting arrest", etc.).
Also, more likely to be arrested for drugs... (see this article on marijuana: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/23/nyregion/23about.html)
Another article about drugs from the UK but reporting on the US: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/oct/31/race-bias-drug-arrests-claim
Another reference: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2981137/

For instance, divide their income by the number of full-time employees they have (averaged over the year, not just on a particular date), and determine their tax rate based on that metric.

Don't you know that many profitable corporations have NO INCOME to divide?
That's the problem we need to solve.

Case study from the Netherlands.

A couple years ago we 'had to' nationalize the remainder of the ABN bank after the credit crisis and the failed takeover by RBS, Fortis, and Santander. The shareholders received (afaik) a ton of money because there was no legislation in place as you suggest.

After this, 'we' enacted legislation to intervene in banks and nationalise them as needed. A week ago, the fourh biggest bank, SNS, failed and they were nationalised. The shareholders and "subordinated bondholders" (?) got due compensation for the price of their holdings assuming SNS would have gone bankrupt without the intervantion, i.e. nil. Normal bondholders and people with savings accounts (even above the government guaranteed 100k) don't notice anything.

This is leading to a lot of public discussion. First is a (knee jerk?) call for the responsible to be put to justice, both the bank's old management and the overseers, especially the Dutch Central Bank. Second there is a group of shareholders and especially subordinated bondholders who think that they are ripped off by the expropriation. Third is a discussion on whether the government should not have just let them gone bankrupt and deal with the results rather than the 3.7B euro bailout, even if the owners of the bank loose all their investment and the management is replaced.

As a social capitalist / rheinland model adapt with strong liberal (in the european sense, e.g. free market) leanings, I think this is a test case of how we as a culture should react to the obvious problem of private gains / public losses with the current banking sector.

Some English language sources:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323701904578277253567195598.html
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/02/01/dutch-government-takes-control-of-sns-reaal/
http://blogs.wsj.com/eurocrisis/2013/02/04/when-not-all-bonds-are-bonds/

Iceland seems to be doing great actually http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/iceland/index.html

Of course, these laws are rarely if ever enforced, just like many other labor laws, such as age discrimination. Companies politely urinate on these laws and keep on going exploiting desperate young people for corporate gains. There have been many reports about this, for example:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/03/business/03intern.html?pagewanted=all

Laws mean nothing without enforcement. Corporations are bribing government not to enforce the laws. Until we put a stop on the abuse, corporations will keep exploiting workers like sheep.

To believe otherwise goes against our religion, and dis-believers shall be beheaded! - Signed, The current Ayatollah of Iran

Official Correction by a Senior Official of the Ayatollah's Space Commission

The Ayatollah who signed that statement was not in fact "the" current Ayatollah of Iran, as there are actually 31 Ayatollahs of Iran. He was simply a man sporting similarly-patterned headwear. However, Grand Ayatollah Khamenei agrees with and endorses the statement, which makes it as true and internationally-significant as the indisputable fact that Iran has put a monkey into space and returned him safely.

Furthermore, the previous senior official who released the signed statement has been beheaded for his failure to recognize an actual Ayatollah. Interviews for those seeking to succeed that official will take place starting Monday, as the Grand Ayatollah will be occupied watching the Superbowl today. He graciously thanks all of the Iranian citizens who have donated their satellite dishes to make this possible.

So, Iran's got a bit of history with PhotoShop.:
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/10/in-an-iranian-image-a-missile-too-many/

It seems quite reasonable for folks to question ANY photographic evidence / propaganda / news releases from Iranian sources.

So long as it's not "malevolent, it's ok. Just ask Joe Biden. He's done ok.......

http://www.nytimes.com/1987/09/18/us/biden-admits-plagiarism-in-school-but-says-it-was-not-malevolent.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

• The New York Times
• The Washington Post
• The Wall Street Journal
• Bloomberg News

Coffee shops are a totally different licensing scheme, usually ASCAP, and they're assholes too:

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100518/2341299481.shtml

As per radio:

Music industry groups also want one standard, but one that keeps rates high. For years they have also been pushing for laws that would require terrestrial stations to pay royalties to labels and artists. (In the United States - and almost nowhere else in the world - radio stations pay royalties only to music publishers.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/05/business/media/fight-growing-over-online-royalties.html

publisher = songwriter

First: To label any government monopoly as "non-profit" is misleading; it only means that they aren't incorporated, really, and have no investors to grovel to. Most government-run monopolies are behemoths that only passably serve customers if all profits are channeled into large parasitic private interests - most of which wouldn't exist if the government hadn't bloated them to gross extremes. Example: the military-industrial complex, the pharmaceutical industry, education, agriculture, energy, telecommunications, etc. etc.

Second: you seem to largely believe that I'm a "Bug". Let me clear the record: I'm not a gold bug. Tying any currency to a single commodity is disastrous, and the reason for a lot of our problems in the late 19th century. The silver act I was talking about? It put us on a de facto gold standard, and that is what ruined us. Multiple commodities - and I mean 50+ strong, stable commodities (think energy, or agricultural staples, or heavy metals - or all of the above) - would tie currency into the very web that it is supposed to represent, preventing shocks and fluctuations without apocalyptic economic conditions (in which case, we'd all have bigger problems to worry about anyway).

Third: I'd like to dispel some misconceptions: Glass-Steagall wasn't completely repealed, and those parts of it that were had absolutely nothing to do with the financial crisis.

Hoarding does one thing: it allows prices to rise. This only becomes a problem when suddenly someone is dumping things back into the market. However, this isn't a problem if you have a currency based on multiple, stable commodities. Hoarding would only cause a rise in a particular market (and a loss to the hoarders), while providing an advantage to competitors that use the rise of demand to elbow into the market. Hoarding doesn't make sense to any businessman. Anywhere.

Debt-to-asset ratios are nothing to the Fed. The expansion of their books? That's like writing a ton of zeroes at the end of their listed bonds, and for some reason they don't think this will create wild changes when those bonds spread around... sigh...

Systems only wipe out everyone in interdependent webs of finance. If you have your own backed currency with controls based on contracts with private interests, your currency is essentially tied to its own micro-economy, and truly earth-shattering effects would have to be felt across the board in order to shake it.

Here in ermer'ka, we don't have to chew the air because of the EPA.

No chewing required. For the most part we just swallow whatever industries put in the air because of what they put in politicians' piggy banks. It goes down easier when you don't have to chew... which is probably why you didn't notice.

Trademark infringement is judged under a likelihood of confusion standard. Note that there does not have to be proof of actual confusion (although that's pretty strong evidence of a likelihood of confusion). So it wouldn't necessarily have to be a perfect copy so long as the typical, reasonably prudent consumer passing by the store would likely be confused as to whether it was an Apple Store or not.

Fake Apple Stores are a thing, so one can see why Apple did this. Whether or not one agrees with the trademarkability of store designs as a policy matter is another issue.

The idea that Iceland has recovered in a short time is a great exaggeration.

Intentional misreading of "has been recovering" as "has recovered" and "steadily for a few years now" as "in a short time" does not help your argument. Of course they went through severe pain; the point is that they took the necessary medicine and are now recovering, unlike pretty much everywhere else where organized wealth confiscation continues either under the guise of austerity, or monetary easing such as Japan and the US.

Your numbers are off base too, both in absolute and relative terms: 213% of household disposable income was incurred before the crisis, as a direct result of bank deregulation in 2001 (which caused the crisis itself) and has been unwinding since. The 80% savings loss number perhaps comes from the 80% external debt holdings of the banks that were nationalized/placed in receiverships, which includes Icesave holdings in the UK and NL. These were eventually made whole, up to certain limits (in NL the deposit guaranteed by the state was raised from 40 to 100k Euro per account as a response), so most ordinary people lost no money. The main losers were the carry trade speculators and large bond holders taking unwarranted risks.

Relative to the rest of the world their numbers look pretty damned good too:
- unemployment was down to 6.3% in mid 2012, compared to 25% in Spain (50% (!) for youth) and 11% EU average, 8% in the US (which in itself is a lie, considering the mechanism invented to suppress this: due to Obamacare many small companies switched from full employment to part-timers under 25 hours, thus increasing the number of workplaces - as well as not counting those who have been looking for work for more than four weeks, or those that have simply given up and started to claim disability benefits). BTW, almost 50 million Americans are now on foodstamps. Which is administered and profited from by the largest bank, JP Morgan Chase.
- government debt has stabilized at 80-90% of GDP, which is lower than a lot of countries (including the US) and nowhere near extremes like Japan, with well over 200% and a promise to ramp it up some more with the new government. Also compare overall levels of debt: the UK for example has a staggering 900%+ debt to GDP ratio due to their financial sector, which is - unsurprisingly - guaranteed by the government.

It needs no mention that FT is a City publication that toes the party line; Fitch, Moody's and Standard & Poor's are the chief ratings component enablers involved in massive fraudulent misrating of securities and sovereign debts, spanning from Goldman's swaps for obfuscating Greece's accounting for entry into the Euro through the subprime MBSs that have already blown up through various others such as CDOs, CDSs, now student debt etc. They are part and parcel of the racket that is rampaging all over the world: TBTF banks enabled by complicit ratings agencies, unscrupulous accountancy bureaus, captured regulators and corrupt politicians.

This has taken such forms that they no longer even care to hide the facts, as even the New York times freely reports about these abuses.

I hear much of this Apple did/Xerox did...but how about this for something concrete. http://www.nytimes.com/1990/03/24/business/most-of-xerox-s-suit-against-apple-barred.html

The hypocrisy is quite evident in the article.

The locking of phones may have been ok in the beginning, but this is a business practice that needs to stop right now.

Ever wonder why you can't file your taxes at irs.gov?

In the 1990s the IRS wanted to let you file your taxes online as you currently can do in many other countries. It would have been faster, more secure, and cost less to process than paper-based filing. The infrastructure was there already. In short, it totally made sense in every way.

That's when lobbyists for Intuit, H&R Block, and the other tax preparation software manufacturers jumped in. The result? A "compromise" that maintains their business model. Only they can file returns electronically. In return, they have to provide their software (albeit crippled) to a portion of the country that is taxed on less than $57K a year.

Never heard of this? That's how they like it.

The point is that the government is so vulnerable to lobbying that it will enforce any cartel's business model no matter how absurd nor how much it wastes taxpayer's time and money.

I wonder if a petition called "Allow all citizens to file their taxes directly to the IRS" would make a difference. Somehow I doubt it. But prove me wrong.

I know I'm late for a nice flamefest, but I'm sure someone will point out how Krugman was wrong about this when he discussed it almost two years ago: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/19/thank-you-boeing/

There are lists of rendered obsolete apps for Lion, Mountain Lion, and IOS6 in a few minutes of searching. I'm most amused by how Instapaper started on the iPhone, became a widely lauded app, moved to Android, and then the core idea was integrated into IOS6 as Safari's Offline Reading feature. I suspect it's only the Android users who are keeping the company viable now.

This reminds me of the 2004 incident where the bullets were live.

somehow the pilot was miles off course when he started shooting...

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/05/nyregion/05strafe.html

The Air National Guard warplane, flying a night training mission out of Andrews Air Force Base near Washington, fired a burst of 27 rounds from its 20-millimeter cannon shortly before 10:15 p.m. as it streaked over Little Egg Harbor Township, 20 miles north of Atlantic City, New Jersey military officials said last night

Potable water is literally priceless.

Both tap water and bottled water are available for purchase. The idea of economically mining asteroids for water in the near future is absurd. An article from 2007 says:

"And almost all municipal water in America is so good that nobody needs to import a single bottle from Italy or France or the Fiji Islands. Meanwhile, if you choose to get your recommended eight glasses a day from bottled water, you could spend up to $1,400 annually. The same amount of tap water would cost about 49 cents."

The infidels not wanting child labour is their way of doing things and it works in many countries that aren't rich - children go to school and learn to read and write amongst other things. Pakistani 15 year olds not being able to go to school is Pakistan's problem and responsibility to fix[1]. When the technology gets better, you're not going to be able to make better and cheaper footballs by hand. Unless you are really cheap - which is not a good place to be in this world.

[1] The dismal state of Pakistan is mostly due to Pakistanis:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/19/world/asia/attackers-in-pakistan-kill-anti-polio-workers.html?_r=0
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/09/us-pakistan-schoolgirl-idUSBRE8980EB20121009

And why are Pakistanis getting money, help and jobs from infidels? Why not get money and help from rich muslim brothers in the Middle East?

the majority of judges just don't care on a personal level about the parties before them, they just want to get the cases moved through their court

What do you think explains the jurisdiction shopping that lead to a large increase of these cases being pursued in East Texas?

North Korea announced that it had put a "satellite" into "orbit," accomplishing two goals: artificially inflating national pride and telling the world "we're actually just practicing building rockets that may one day deliver nuclear weapons to your cities." Iran plays the same games with its own people and the world, so it's logical that they had to craft a similar announcement, whether it's true or not. The day North Korea announced the "success" of its satellite, you can bet Ahmadinejad called his advisors and said, "I need a space program milestone announcement ASAP!" Ahmadinejad doesn't want his people, or the world, to think he's not keeping up with poor Kim Jong-un.

In both cases, you have countries that can barely afford to take care of their citizens, yet they are claiming to be building a full-fledged space program. Iran is a far more resource-wealthy country and its GDP is more than 10 times North Korea's, but its economy is suffering badly because of the international sanctions for its nuclear program, and the health of its people is suffering even worse. So the only reason they would make such an announcement would be to artificially inflate national pride and try to scare the rest of the world.

Of course, Iran's people are not cut off from news from the outside world as effectively as North Korea's (despite police ripping satellite dishes off rooftops and a plan to unplug the country from the Internet), so this could backfire when the people protest about resources being spent on keeping monkeys breathing in space when there isn't enough air to breathe on the ground in Tehran.

North Korea announced that it had put a "satellite" into "orbit," accomplishing two goals: artificially inflating national pride and telling the world "we're actually just practicing building rockets that may one day deliver nuclear weapons to your cities." Iran plays the same games with its own people and the world, so it's logical that they had to craft a similar announcement, whether it's true or not. The day North Korea announced the "success" of its satellite, you can bet Ahmadinejad called his advisors and said, "I need a space program milestone announcement ASAP!" Ahmadinejad doesn't want his people, or the world, to think he's not keeping up with poor Kim Jong-un.

In both cases, you have countries that can barely afford to take care of their citizens, yet they are claiming to be building a full-fledged space program. Iran is a far more resource-wealthy country and its GDP is more than 10 times North Korea's, but its economy is suffering badly because of the international sanctions for its nuclear program, and the health of its people is suffering even worse. So the only reason they would make such an announcement would be to artificially inflate national pride and try to scare the rest of the world.

Of course, Iran's people are not cut off from news from the outside world as effectively as North Korea's (despite police ripping satellite dishes off rooftops and a plan to unplug the country from the Internet), so this could backfire when the people protest about resources being spent on keeping monkeys breathing in space when there isn't enough air to breathe on the ground in Tehran.

North Korea announced that it had put a "satellite" into "orbit," accomplishing two goals: artificially inflating national pride and telling the world "we're actually just practicing building rockets that may one day deliver nuclear weapons to your cities." Iran plays the same games with its own people and the world, so it's logical that they had to craft a similar announcement, whether it's true or not. The day North Korea announced the "success" of its satellite, you can bet Ahmadinejad called his advisors and said, "I need a space program milestone announcement ASAP!" Ahmadinejad doesn't want his people, or the world, to think he's not keeping up with poor Kim Jong-un.

In both cases, you have countries that can barely afford to take care of their citizens, yet they are claiming to be building a full-fledged space program. Iran is a far more resource-wealthy country and its GDP is more than 10 times North Korea's, but its economy is suffering badly because of the international sanctions for its nuclear program, and the health of its people is suffering even worse. So the only reason they would make such an announcement would be to artificially inflate national pride and try to scare the rest of the world.

Of course, Iran's people are not cut off from news from the outside world as effectively as North Korea's (despite police ripping satellite dishes off rooftops and a plan to unplug the country from the Internet), so this could backfire when the people protest about resources being spent on keeping monkeys breathing in space when there isn't enough air to breathe on the ground in Tehran.