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In this case, last I've seen a study based on data from an actual health insurance company, it turned out that smokers and the obese actually cost LESS. Summary, for example, here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/05/health/05iht-obese.1.9748884.html

I don't just mean on the total with pensions and all. Even just the healthcare taken separately, actually cost less. Why? (snip)

One of the most insightful comments I've read this week. Reminds me of an old sitcom "married with children" where somehow a uber-athlete ends up having to live with the Bundys and even though he exercised all the time and ate tofu and bean sprouts and was super healthy, he had a heart attack after eating Bundy food for a week - he just couldn't handle it.

Parent post is very insightful. Regarding the people who live to 100 and are constantly sick and miserable for the last 35 years of that, going to the doctor weekly and on a fistful of different pills every day - from a gov't expense cost-cutting perspective, yes, it is a huge drain if they are on public funds for all that. And many are.

From a pharmaceutical and hospital/nursinghome revenue perspective - they are a FREAKING GOLD MINE and don't ever forget it.

I've seen it with more than one grandparent. They string them along with as much work as they can until they get so bad they are a hassle, then they get put into a place where they can quietly die. If the people are *just* healthy enough to make it into the Dr office on a regular basis, *just* sick enough to need a constant regimen of some sort of procedures and meds, that is great. Get them in a vegetative state in a nursing home bed with a colostomy bag where it's just "yucky" and a hassle for the Dr to go there - just watch, they'll be dead in a couple months.

Pessimistic? Unrealistic? Well, I saw it happen more than once.

Actually, while smoking tends to be more expensive it is completely offset by the savings later on by dieing earlier. In fact, there was a study done a little while ago that finally proved what every health care government system hates to hear because it makes it harder to raise taxes for no reason.

Both smoking and obesity don't cost the health care system any more over the long haul.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/05/health/05iht-obese.1.9748884.html

Working on either solutions or explanations before knowing if there is an actual problem, is called Tooth Fairy Science. You know, the kind where you figure the market value and profits/losses per tooth type, before even knowing if there is a Tooth Fairy.

In this case, last I've seen a study based on data from an actual health insurance company, it turned out that smokers and the obese actually cost LESS. Summary, for example, here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/05/health/05iht-obese.1.9748884.html

I don't just mean on the total with pensions and all. Even just the healthcare taken separately, actually cost less. Why? Because they die earlier and need less medicine in the long run.

The problem is that you don't need the most care when you're 30. You need the most care when you're 70, and the latter is for decades if you prolong it.

The fat smokers need expensive chemotherapy or surgery for maybe a year, then die. That is, if they don't just keel over and die of a heart attack. If not the first time around, the second will get them. And that's that. While the guy who was fit and lean and never had any vices, if he lives to 100, will likely be on expensive anti-Alzheimer medication for two decades. Plus various other trips to the doctor as their body is barely functioning and getting worse by the year. The guys who died a horrible death in their 50's just saved you all those costs.

So, really, the smokers and obese actually subsidize healthcare for everyone else just by biting the dust earlier. And that's in addition to paying for a pension they won't get as much of, or at all. And subsidizing the government via tobacco taxes.

So, really, WTF? You'd think someone would at least say, "hey, thanks fatty" ;) The notion that, OMG, let's tax them some more 'cause they cost us money, is provably false, and fucking stupid too.

But it keeps happening because it's two overlapping groups of people who already feel bad and guilty about it, and have been amply proven to be easy to guilt trip some more into paying even more.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/25/business/economy/25tax.html

Its all over the news. Not just NY Times either. If you're gonna lambast me for the accuracy of my post at least get it right and lambast me for not knowing what a CDO is before popping off, instead of splitting hairs about something they've *all* been doing since well *BEFORE* such a law was explicitly put into place and that needs to be marked [citation needed] anyway. FYI I now agree with the original post having been informed of my lack of understanding of its context.

Social Security still has a surplus.

Nope. Social Security this year started paying out more than it's taking in.

Wikileaks has gone quiet because there has been a lot of real news lately. E.g. The Arab Spring, nuclear meltdown, et cetera.

You can safely assume that once the news gets back to 'What color underwear did Brittany Spears flash to Charlie Sheen', Wikileaks will be back in the news. As they have already told us, the next target is a major US bank. If Wikileaks were to release incriminating documents about, say, Bank of America, while a nuclear power plant is melting down, this would not get maximum exposure. Wikileaks knows that their maximum exposure will come when the 'news' is 'quiet'. After all, they can control the timing of their releases. Think about it.

One other note: most readers probably missed it, but just two weeks ago Wikileaks released another State Department cable that is causing a huge political kerfuffle in India - something to do with which Indian politicians bribed which other politicians, and how much it cost: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/18/world/asia/18india.html

I'd say that's hardly 'really quiet'.

When pharmaceutical companies receive a trillion-dollar giftâ"through legislation prohibiting the government, the largest buyer of drugs, from bargaining over price â" it should not come as cause for wonder. It should not make jaws drop that a tax bill cannot emerge from Congress unless big tax cuts are put in place for the wealthy. Given the power of the top 1 percent, this is the way you would expect the system to work.

you want to balance the budget, get rid of crap like this, and this http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/25/business/economy/25tax.html?_r=4

The company reported worldwide profits of $14.2 billion, and said $5.1 billion of the total came from its operations in the United States. Its American tax bill? None. In fact, G.E. claimed a tax benefit of $3.2 billion.

bold added for emphasis

No, they are not fair use. Remixes require permission from the original author to create, and distribute, and require royalties be paid to be performed live, just like covers. Here are articles by people who agree and disagree with the idea that remixes should be made fair use, but they both confirm that they are not fair use now.

Exactly where do you get your information about the tea party movement? Because just about everything you say is wrong.

First, Tea Party supporters are wealthier and more well-educated than the general public, and are no more or less afraid of falling into a lower socioeconomic class, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.

Second, the single greatest expansion of federal government spending has been entitlements - namely, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Social spending eclipsed military spending in 1971 and has been skyrocketing since, but just stick to your talking point (oh, I know, now you'll fall back on "discretionary spending" while ignoring that Congress still has to approve social spending and can change it any time they wish). Oh, and nevermind all of the state and local social spending on to of that, ignoring that state military budgets are essentially nonexistant so military spending doesn't increase with it.

Third, you can take 100% of the WEALTH of the Forbes 400, at $1.54 trillion, and pay off last year's deficit spending. The tea party isn't just about cutting taxes, in fact, it's more about cutting spending than it is cutting taxes. Our spending levels are completely unsustainable and going into the future, we've got annual trillion dollar deficits are far as the eye can see before you even take into account the ENRON level fraud of the cost estimates of ObamaCare.

As for your Jefferson quote, most of the tea partiers would love an end to the Fed. It's the big government types that like it since it allows them to keep spending without actually being accountable for what they're doing, just like the decision to raid the Social Security Trust Fund in 1967 because the costs of the Great Society programs massively exceeded its estimates and Congress/LBJ wanted to pretend they didn't bankrupt us.

Apparently you missed this and this and this and this and this and and and and

They don't SAY it ran out, but they do IMPLY it ran out. They go "But then... Oh..." he looks down and it decreases its acceleration.

Or possibly the car deliberately decreased its acceleration because the battery was running low. Note that "low" doesn't mean "close to 0%" - it would seem that the car stops running completely at 10% battery left unless you want to reduce your battery life by overriding this. 20% battery when the warnings come on and the car starts reducing its performance to get you to recharge is totally plausible.

Which is presumably the point at which the fuel warning light comes on and the car starts to deliberately limit performance in order to encourage you to recharge. Not sure when the car stops running totally - none of this appears to be documented anywhere - but I suspect it's closer to 20% full than 0% given that fully discharging lithium ion batteries does reduce their lifespan.

I'll tell you what foot dragging. There still isn't proper road access to the site and the logistics in general are so bad that the workers are subsisting on incredibly small rations.

The accident started on the 11th. The linemen were gathered on the 14th, got to the site and started working on the 16th, at which date they completed the connection, whereupon they were promptly told that there was testing to do and they were to wait.

In the meantime, TEPCO management was spouting pious bullshit on how they were doing their utmost and refusing help from the Japanese gov't and the US military.

...but Microsoft is trying to fool us twice... yeah, shame on us.

Choice quote below, the parallel with this http "bug" is impressive::

When I originally wrote about this issue [bing Chinese search censorship] back in June, Microsoft protested. “From what you described, that’s not the way Bing is supposed to work,” wrote Kevin Kutz, a company spokesman. He said that Chinese speakers at Microsoft could not replicate my results and did not detect this kind of skewed result. I sent screen shots, and then Microsoft acknowledged the issue but said that it was simply a temporary mistake. “It’s a bug,” Kutz told me. Later, he added: “What’s important is it’s getting fixed.” Soon, he said, Bing searches would be the same for Tiananmen and other sensitive subjects, whatever the language.

(Thanks to pushing-robot for originally posting the link on /. here.

Don't worry... you have brethren in Japan ;)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/26/magazine/26FOB-2DLove-t.html

McCain, however, after his rightward lurch during the election would probably have gone to war with Iran, would have appointed right-wing nutjobs to the EPA, Department of the Interior, etc., and would have emboldened the Republican party for generations --"look how much we screwed the country up with Bush, and we still got re-elected, we can do anything!" So he was still worth voting for.

He [Ralph Nader] ruled out the possibility that he would prevent a Democratic victory in 2008.
“Not a chance,” he said. “If the Democrats can’t landslide the Republicans this year, they ought to just wrap up, close down, and emerge in a different form.”
-Ralph Nader on whether he will prevent a Democratic win in the 08 election. (New York TImes)

It wasn't a landslide, but then the Republicans had their secret weapon: Sarah Palin

Reactor 1 had just got another 10 years. Dunno about the others, but they weren't yet due to shut.

160,000 three mile islands you mean.

it's now 10% of chernobyl, but hey, who's counting? this is slashdot. we're just denying.

https://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/30/world/asia/30japan.html

nuclear power: it's safer than ponies.

This is what poses as +5 insightful on /., an AC screed against conservatives? Does Soros own /. now, too?

You DO realize that it was conservative, deeply religious people that BUILT this country - the industry, the infrastructure, the economy? It was their hard work, their dollars, their effort that has produced anything of value. The effete intellectuals pretty much just sat around and whined about how bad everything is/was.

No, I think when the US is a downtrodden 3rd-rate country, people are going to wonder why the Left built a massive, overwhelming government that stole from the productive and handed it all to the non-productive. Self-evidently an economically suicidal plan.

Perhaps if scientific research is worthwhile, someone will INVEST in it, rather than needing to steal tax dollars to fund the study of the mating strategies of violets?

Perhaps tax dollars taken from the public should be put to positive use beyond funding giant government agencies that perform little to no useful function? (Dept of Energy, Dept of Education)

Perhaps not everyone needs to go to college? And if you want to go, rather than making Joe and Joanne Public help pay for your lazy ass you could SAVE UP YOUR OWN MONEY and pay your own way. If you don't have enough, perhaps you could work hard and save enough for your kids to go? It's amusingly naive that you think it's strange that people are reluctant to give their dollars to you, so you can go to school.

And insofar as politicians contradicting scientists? I'm glad the Left doesn't do that!...oh wait: http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2010/11/10/10greenwire-white-house-changed-report-implying-experts-su-96097.html

I think it can be traced back to Ronald Reagan ripping off the solar powers placed on the White House by his predecessor, as if they were an abomination in the eyes of god.

You discredited your entire posting with a bogus claim that can easily be refuted:

White House Will Not Replace Solar Water-Heating System

The panels of the system had been dismantled to fix the roof underneath. Dale A. Petroskey, a White House spokesman, said Friday, ''Putting them back up would be very unwise, based on cost.''

Rolled up things are not necessarily an inefficient use of space... Check out this NYTimes piece where a flight attendant shows how to get 10 days of clothes in a carry on by roll-packing: 10 Days in a Carry-On

you don't understand human psychology

here's a guide to help you get started as to how and why you are so out of touch with the subject matter:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/27/weekinreview/27johnson.html

Measured by sheer fury, the magnitude 9.0 earthquake that damaged the reactors was mightier than millions of Hiroshima bombs. It shoved the northeastern coast of Japan eastward and unleashed a tsunami that wiped civilization from the coast. But explosive power comes and goes in an instant. It is something the brain can process.

With radiation, the terror lies in the abstraction. It kills incrementally — slowly, diffusely, invisibly. “Afterheat,” Robert Socolow, a Princeton University professor, called it in an essay for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, “the fire that you can’t put out.”

Nuclear scientists speak in terms of half-life, the time it takes for random disintegrations to reduce a radioactive sample to half its size. Then a quarter, an eighth, a 16th — whether measured in microseconds or eons, the mathematical progression never ends.

When traces of radioactive iodine were found last week in the drinking water in Tokyo, officials expressed the danger in becquerels, the number of nuclear disintegrations per second: 210 per liter, safe for adults but high enough to warn that infants should not drink it. As the government began distributing bottled water, the level fell significantly but not the fear. As far away as California there was a run on fallout detectors.

As these hypothetical microthreats ate at the mind, rescue workers were piling up real bodies — 10,000 so far — killed by crushing waves or their aftereffects, deaths caused by gravity, not nuclear forces. These dead will be tabulated, mourned and eventually forgotten. The toll will converge on a finite number.

In Chernobyl, the site of the world’s previous big nuclear accident, the counting continues, like languid ticks from a Geiger counter. A United Nations study in 2005 concluded that about 50 people had been killed by the meltdown but that 4,000 would ultimately die from radiation-caused cancer — victims who do not know who they are. The most debilitating effect, one investigator said, has been “a paralyzing fatalism,” a malaise brought on by an alien presence that almost seems alive.

human psychology, smug techies. learn it, or be irrelevant

The NYT has a nice summary of recent work on renewable energy on the large scale. http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/28/renewing-support-for-renewables/

Basically, nukes are so expensive that they suck up resources for GHG emissions mitigation and slow things down. Renewables cost less even when you work in storage.

Umm, I wouldn't consider $191 Billion paid last year in interest to be close to zero. http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/ir/ir_expense.htm

At it's current rate of spending and debt gathering, the US will pay $1 Trillion in interest every year by 2020. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/12/opinion/12brooks.html?hp

Considering our budget is about $4 Trillion a year, I'd consider the interest payments to be pretty significant. This year we borrow more than ever before, about $4/$10 we spend.

They just recently cut it to the same 35% the US is at. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/14/business/global/14yen.html

Comment 57 of the NYT post has another example: What we got was an email from a gun enthusiast telling us to put plastic bags over our heads and kill ourselves. What was ominous is that the author of that email was a former army special forces who lived near some of the researchers.

We also got 'investigated' by one of the groups whom we invited to participate--a group funded by the gun industry. They used Freedom of Information Act requests to demand all of our emails relating to the research, all of our data, all of our files. As Mr. Krugman accurately points out, none of us assumed that our emails would be a fishbowl for any group of ideologues to plunder for out of context blurbs that could, quite literally in this situation, paint a bullseye on our backs. The process of giving all the information to these groups is immensely time-consuming and burdensome for us and still ongoing. For example, I have over 30,000 emails that need to be searched for the ones in which they are interested. Then, every email has to be examined to see if certain information, like participant names which are confidential, need to be redacted. - http://community.nytimes.com/comments/krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/25/academic-intimidation/?permid=57#comment57

While you're at it, read this: In Prison for Taking a Liar Loan.

Summary, since no one RTFA's:
Guy takes out "liar" loan from bank, after much encouragement from Countrywide (now BoA)
Guy defaults on loan, like so many others, losing his home. Bankers make millions.
Guy runs a marathon for charity across the Sahara Desert
Federal agent sees marathon coverage, thinks "How can some working stiff afford to do that? He should be keeping his head down like the rest of the slaves!"
Feds send hot undercover agent to flirt with the guy, extract a confession
Guy sent to jail, ordered to pay a quarter million dollars restitution to Bank of America

In short, while you're robbing the banks from within, not only do you have no worries about being prosecuted -- the people you're robbing can be prosecuted and forced to pay you even more!

But even if companies aren't allowed to outright fail, I've only heard of one person in jail, and his case seems like prosecutorial misconduct. There was plenty of fraud, from the liar loans to rating agencies giving trash AAA status.

>>Linky or it doesn't count.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/19/us/19prop8.html
http://www.sfgate.com/webdb/prop8/
http://www.afterellen.com/node/39787

You deserve a mod point for that link. MS "bugs" indeed.

Ah, those silly Microsoft programmers with their "bugs."

I thought it was already quite clear that Microsoft doesn't let morality get in the way of income.

The top four things we spend money on are: Social Security, Medicare, Defense, and Medicaid. Which of those would you like to cut first? And where will you be hiding when the interests behind each one come after you?

Infographic (i.e., me doing your homework): http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/02/01/us/budget.html?src=tp

This is very much in violation of the spirit of Open Source, on which Google relies for its entire existence.

Actually it relies on advertising for its entire existence (96% of its revenue.) That's why it's in the smartphone, tablet business in the first place: because they don't want Apple (and their iAds) between you and them (and their Google ads.) If you think it has anything to do with open source you've drunken the cool-aid.

This is very much in violation of the spirit of Open Source, on which Google relies for its entire existence.

What a load of horse shit. Google's search algorithms are hardly open source. There's a lot of things at Google that aren't open.

Like almost every other company, they use open source where it's convenient. Anything else is kept under lock and key.

They may be more or less open than other companies, but pretending they're some kind of champion for the open source movement is complete crap. If their business model weren't built around search, they probably wouldn't be giving Android away for free.

the bloggers seem to have been doing a vastly better job of reporting on this than almost any major paper or news corp.

It's actually stunning how poor the reporting has been from the major news networks .

The somthingawful GBS topic on it outlined the situation clearly and explained it far far better than any news article, after reading it I was left agape thinking "why the fuck can't reuters explain the situation that well when some kneckbeard with time on his hands can"

Umm.. the blog that started this discussion is outright fear mongering, and here's a quote from the nytimes that I think is informative and representative.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/25/world/asia/25japan.html?_r=1&hp

Japanâ(TM)s limits on iodine 131 are far lower than those of the International Atomic Energy Agency, measured in a unit called a becquerel. Japan says older children and adults should get no more than 300 becquerels per liter while the I.A.E.A. recommends a limit of 3,000 becquerels. Greg Webb, an I.A.E.A. spokesman in Vienna, said he could not immediately provide his agencyâ(TM)s recommendation for infants. The level that raised the alarm for infants on Wednesday was 120 becquerels; that had fallen to 79 on Thursday, according to the Tokyo city authorities.

I think that like radiation levels in Japan, quality of journalism is being discussed with complete disregard to scale.
Bloggers... blech.

How that measured response sneak onto slashdot? Also, if you Bieber and you could cash in, wouldn't you? It's not like he was in punk highschool band where he had to act like "I'll never sellout". (Do kids still even refer to "selling out"? It doesn't even seem possible TO sell out.)

Against Bieber, this comment from his mom leaves a bad taste in my mouth:

Mallette was reluctant because of Braun's Jewish religion; she remembered praying, "God, I gave him to you. You could send me a Christian man, a Christian label! ... you don’t want this Jewish kid to be Justin’s man, do you?”

[from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_Bieber#2008.E2.80.9309:_Discovery_and_My_World%5D
[in ref to this article: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/fashion/03bieber.html?_r=1%5D

Somebody from Canada, is Ontario like the Alabama of the north? (I'm from Alabama, and I can confirm, while not everybody is like that .. well, lets just say mixed couples aren't a big deal in the city or country. But, if one of them is Jewish or Catholic ... it's a lake of fire for you!)

I leave you with some MST3K:

[Servo expressing that Canada bashing has gone on for far too long ...]

Servo:

Oh, I wish I was back in old Canada,
A land which I never shall lampoon!
How I pine for the ice covering Lake Manitoba,
And the beauty that is Saskatoon!

Mike:

Oh, I wish I was stuck in the hills of Alberta,
Drinking beer with some big dumb guy trapping fur!
As he scraped and chiseled all the moose dung off his boots,
I would learn that he's the Prime Minister!

Spoken:

Tom: Oh, stop that!

Crow:

Oh, I wish I was in the land that gave us Peter Jennings,
Alanis Morissette, Mike Myers, too!
No, I take that back, I wouldn't go there even if you paid me,
Oh, Canada, you are a place I must eschew!

Spoken:

Tom: Now, this is NOT in the spirit I intended!
Mike: Oh, come on, give in! I mean, after all, they gave us Ed the Sock and Rush!
Crow: Yeah, what are you defending? They're such feebs!'
Tom: Okay, I'll try!'
Mike: All right! Good man!

Servo: (harshly)

Oh, I wish I was blowing up Prince Edward Island,
And going on to bomb Ontario!
The destruction of Canada and all of its culture,
Is by far my fav-o-rite scenario!

Spoken:

Mike: Okay, well that's a little strong....
Tom: No, no, you were right Mike, this is much more fun!

Servo (maniacally):

Just where the hell does Canada get off sharing a border
With countries far superior to it? (Crow: Yikes!)
Why, you lousy, stinking, francophonic, bacon-loving bastards,
Your country's just a giant piece of sh...

Spoken:

Mike, Crow (ab-lib): Whoa! Okay! Whoa!
Tom (sobbing): Sorry! I have no sense of proportion! I'm a disgrace to my uniform!
Mike: That's ok. Calm down. Mustn't hate, mustn't hat

Actually, in some parts of the US collecting rainwater for you own use *is* illegal. It isn't called 'water piracy' but the concept isn't dissimilar. The state sells the rights to all the water falling in the catchment area of a river to a private company for processing into treated water for drinking or agriculture. By collecting the water en route from sky to river you are essentially stealing water the state has promised to the company.

Details: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/29/us/29rain.html

Anyway, back to bottled water. I imagine that if by some quirk of history piped water had never happened, and a government in the US (Be it town, county, state or federal) were to propose introducing a municipal water supply, it would face extremally powerful opposition from the bottled water and drinks industry. In the same way, I couldn't imagine libraries would be permitted if the idea were only invented today - they would be shut down in a very short time for some form of copyright infringment, or else a whole new law passed to criminalise them.

Here in the EU, we've had cases of record labels threatening legal action against the BBC for producing music - on the grounds that it was unfair competition, since the BBC doesn't have to turn a profit. Once there is money to be made in something, there will be pressure to keep making that money - the best lawyers, the best lobbyists, the best PR companies. It makes change very difficult.

Zill writes

...all of which can also be found on the Times' website...

I just checked and that page is no longer available on the NYT website -- no surprise there given their request to Twitter.

Anonymous Coward writes

"According to PCMag.com, the New York Times has asked Twitter to shut down the FreeNYT Twitter feed that basically retweets all of the Times' articles. Is this really possible? After all, the feed just points to a list of Times Twitter accounts, all of which can also be found on the Times' website. If the Times succeeds in shutting this down, it could have a chilling effect for Twitter and online free speech in general."

"According to PCMag.com, the New York Times has asked Twitter to shut down the FreeNYT Twitter feed that basically retweets all of the Times' articles. Is this really possible? After all, the feed just points to a list of Times Twitter accounts, all of which can also be found on the Times' website. If the Times succeeds in shutting this down, it could have a chilling effect for Twitter and online free speech in general."

So you have no issues with people taking abandoned GPL projects and relicensing them as they see fit?

If the abandoned works had their copyright abrogated then those works would enter public domain. They couldn't be "relicensed" at that point, but you are correct that derivative works could be made with alternative licenses to the original GPL that was attached to the work.

However, I don't believe that would be a catastrophic situation. It is not as though the source would be lost—as a matter of fact it would still be Free. No matter whether you are in the BSD or GPL license advocacy camp, everyone will agree that the public domain is very Free. Someone wishing to pick up where the "abandoned to public domain" project left off could license their derivative work as GPL and the growing project would rapidly become effectively GPL'd (until abandoned again, or copyright was otherwise terminated). If someone made a derivative work with a license that displeased you, you would also be free to make your own GPL'd derivative competitive fork from the original, public domain code.

There will never be a perfect solution that pleases everyone. However, the original intent of copyright was to encourage the creation and sharing of works that would eventually be public domain so that everyone would benefit. It's so bad right now that there is a pending US Supreme Court case where the government is arguing that it has the power to yank stuff back out of the public domain and restore copyright to it.

From the NYT (sorry) article:
"If Congress tomorrow wants to give a copyright to a publisher solely for the purpose of publishing and disseminating Ben Jonson, Shakespeare, it can do it?" Justice Stephen G. Breyer asked a lawyer for the government.
"It may," said the lawyer, Theodore B. Olson, who was United States solicitor general at the time.

If not, why do you think it's okay to strip the authors of these books of their copyright?

The current copyright regime has effectively killed the public domain, and the public domain must be restored. Personally, I am willing to surrender some of the IP protection currently provided to my own work in favor of forming a more robust public domain.

High deductible (aka catastrophic coverage) insurance is a crock of shit. The savings in premiums may exist, but often its insubstantial -- possibly as little as 5 or 10% -- unless other provisions exist, such as low lifetime caps on treatment, which completely defeats the purpose of having insurance in the first place. Worse, the lack of any co-pay before meeting the deductible discourages people from seeking treatment *before* something minor turns into something big. That's the point when a true savings can be realized, not to mention treatability and life expectancy for many ailments that get worse, sometimes irreversibly, over time.

The NYT had a great article on high deductible policies...

âoeFor most people, a high-deductible plan is basically a bet against yourself,â said Ms. Stoll. âoeYouâ(TM)re betting that you wonâ(TM)t get sick and you wonâ(TM)t have an accident. But isnâ(TM)t that exactly what insurance is supposed to be? A bet that something might happen, and if it does youâ(TM)ll be protected?â

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/30/health/30patient.html?_r=1&pagewanted=2

Basically, unless you get very sick within a very short window after starting high deductible coverage, you're probably better off putting your money into an HSA. Still, saving money specifically for potential healthcare expenses only really benefits a very narrow window of people: those who can save enough money to cover potential expenses AND never need to use that money. For everyone else, standard insurance is the far better option, which is why we carry it on almost everything else of value that we insure in life.

I guess Con Edison should have waited just a few more years. Apparently 125 was not quite enough.

Women under the age of 30 in urban centers make more money than men. More women today are graduating with college degrees than men. This has been happening for years.

Basically, in places where the average man doesn't burn out his body working on a farm or in construction, women are making more money than men.

The feminist movement is over. They won. Women are now equal or superior to men.

It is time to end Title IX. It is time to bring education standards back up so that we can make sure little Johnny gets the same education little Suzie does.

Japan Tsunami = massive natural disaster - GUN TOTING POPULATION -> no looting & roving gangs -> no murder, assault -> no need for way to "protect" self and family

Thai Tsunami = massive natural disaster - GUN TOTING POPULATION -> no looting & roving gangs -> no murder, assault -> no need for way to "protect" self and family

See a pattern here?

Yes, I do see a pattern - you either don't know what you are talking about or are making things up.

There was looting in Thailand after the 2004 Tsunami (and after their recent unrest), and in Japan now.

Thailand 2004: Thai looters cash in on tsunami destruction
Thailand 2010: Thai forces to fire on looters and arsonists
Japan 2011: Japan earthquake: Looting reported by desperate survivors

Now, is it firearms that causes people to form mobs with ill intent? Apparently not as they will form with makeshift weapons:

Recently in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, dozens of men, armed with machetes and make-shift weapons, broke into and looted stores along the capital's main commercial street. Natural Disasters in Chile and Haiti the Psychology of Looting

And what of Sweden, who lost a number of citizens in the 2004 disaster in Thailand?

Even famously law-abiding Sweden and Norway have been hit by scammers who have robbed and looted the homes of tourists who vanished in the chaos.

"It is, unfortunately, a reality that people who are known to be missing . . . have had their homes gone through and partly emptied," Swedish State Secretary Lars Danielsson said.......

Fearing an outbreak of looting akin to what occurred after the 1994 sinking of the ferryboat Estonia that killed 551 Swedes, police refused to release the names of the dead and missing. Somehow, though, the names got out, and now police are standing watch over hundreds of homes scattered across the country. Gangs pillage tsunami villages, stealing corpses & selling orphans

And more of the same: Robbery, rape and kidnap

Sri Lanka Churches Worried about Looting in Tsunami-hit Areas

Referring to the looters, the Sri Lanka church council said: "We appeal to them to kindly desist from such dastardly conduct and join with the several who are helping those in need," as it urged more church volunteers and others to join in the relief work.

The criticism came after reports that thugs were looting homes of some tsunami victims and rapists were preying on homeless survivors.

"We have received reports of incidents of rape, gang rape, molestation and physical abuse of women and girls in the course of unsupervised rescue operations," the Women and Media Collective group in Sri Lanka was quoted saying by the Reuters news agency.

But don't only bad people have guns? No. For example, Dr. Martin Luther King owned guns for protection.

I also suggest that you become clear on this point: Justices Rule Police Do Not Have a Constitutional Duty to Protect Someone . This has been the law for quite some time.

You can't necessarily count on the police:

Humpf! I lost my rather long reply and I have run out of time.
Briefly:
Check out http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/24/opinion/24davies.html?_r=1 regarding faith in immutable scientific laws.
I'm talking about the disparity of world-views between physics and meta-physics as being a positive force for human enlightenment.
Flagellum and other difficult to explain* (though not necessarily ID concepts) are worthwhile as they allow us to re-examine current theories and therefore are valuable.
And finally, the a priori assumptions that theoretical physicists make about the first few planck seconds of the Big Bang, where the laws of physics do not exist yet, that energy/matter travels faster than the speed of light. Also, since there is no hypothesis or theory on the origin of the primordial atom, does that mean that a creator is responsible? Is this possible to know at all or does science relent?

*Dwarf Elephants and Mammoths
*Homo Floresiensis - both a result of insular dwarfism. Current evolutionary theory doesn't sit right in my opinion. One clue is the explanation that 'evolved gene encoded stress' may be responsible. Natural selection of smaller mammals as the reason for survival doesn't fit well either as the critical mass of the gene pool must be maintained during isolation and the statistical probability of a single dwarf occuring, replicating and maintaining a minimal gene pool is very low. There may be other forces at work that are not apparent yet.

Once again, the folks at Freakonomics suggest that the solution to a problems is some new technology.

But they just won't go far enough and say "What about a "new technology" for energy that is not based upon another scarce resource?"

It's surprising to me that this "Freakonomics" movement, which prides itself on "thinking outside the box" is such a prolific purveyor of short-sighted conventional wisdom.

If they were just engaging in thought experiments it might be benign, but you've got people out there who take what these economists say as gospel. Instead of attacking the pseudo-science of Economics as the drivel that it is, they are simply supplanting it with even more banal pronouncements.

I think it's time to say to all of the post WWI economists, including the Freakshop, that you've done enough damage and put them on the shelf next to astrology and phrenology where they belong.

Which reminds me, that the Nosferatu of Economists, Alan Greenspan, showed his ugly face in public again in the past few days, demonstrating again that when you are among the economic or political elite, no matter how badly you fuck up everything that can be fucked up, no matter how much pain you cause to fellow humans, no matter how often you are catastrophically wrong, again and again, once the Media Elite believe you are one of the "Wise Old Men" you never ever have to feel the least bit of shame or remorse and there will always be a seat for you at the tables of the Sunday Morning News Shows. (See McCain, John and Lieberman, Joe for further examples).

As long as I'm at it, did anyone else notice that Colin Powell's son, who was the head of the FCC under George W Bush has now taken a job at the head of the largest and richest lobbying firms representing the Cable Television Industry? What are the chances that he was auditioning for this job when he was making cable TV policy at the FCC? These fuckers will destroy our world, utterly.

Because the people smart enough for it see it as a bad career. Why slave to make 80-100k a year with a Masters degree when you could be making 250-300k as a lawyer....

I realize you are just choosing one career as an example, but law school is actually a terrible choice these days as far too many people have used that logic and now the industry is flooded with fresh lawyers. The law schools, predictably, have been lying about postgraduate employment statistics for years now, so nothing is being done to stop the problem.

I realized xkcd is the master of sarcasm and irony, and fear over nuclear radiation is great target, but he's way overstating his case. It's nice to throw in the bananna, I did it too in my analysis. There are definite medical estimates of cancer causing from smaller amounts of radiation than 100mSieverts. This is radically oversimplified and optimistic. I have some different figures, from different wikipedia articles (CT scan) and papers in medical journals (no cites handy at this location, sorry) For an adult, estimated increased risk of cancer from an abdominal CT scan: +0.018% Estimated lifetime risk of cancer to a 1 year old from a single abdominal CT-scan: +0.1% head scan: +0.07% Given that there are hotspots 19 miles away reported in the times (can't find the interactive NY Times map. at 171uSievert/hour, it's not that many days before you have a CT-scan worth. So any babies at that location, outside the evacuation radius, have a growing, and measurable risk. Down's syndrome spiked to double the incidence in Europe from babies conceived around the time the cloud from Chernobyl passed over, so obviously genetic damage is measurable, and that implies many deaths, even if we're not so good at measuring it. Estimates vary from thousands (International Health Organization, which seems biased by a relationship with IAE) to hundreds of thousands (various Russian and Ukranian doctor's groups). Anecdotal evidence from visitors to Ukraine reports a LOT of people with cancers in their 40s and 50s, and with severe genetic damage, which is certainly going to shorten their lives. How do you quantify someone who dies at 50 instead of 70 because of radiation? I would say, you define the number of person-years of life lost as a result of an accident, and on that basis, Fukushima is not a joke. I'm going to go out on a limb, and guess this will end up as a minimum of 1 million person-years, and it could easily be far higher when the cancers are all in 50-60 years from now. Just because it's a slow-motion disaster doesn't mean it's less serious than the tsunami, it's just a lot less obvious. The New York Times had an article on dosages: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/14/world/asia/14health.html?scp=5&sq=japan%20dosage%20map&st=cse The worst complacency of this graph is that it implies that these are the dosages from Fukushima when in fact the accident is anything but contained. And the more radioactive the site gets, the harder it gets to do any work on it at all. This isn't three mile island. It may not be Chernobyl either , but there's a lot more material there to be dispersed. We can only hope that work to contain the situation is successful.