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What terrorists do has nothing to do with whether or not we follow our own laws. Waterboarding is torture. This isn't a matter of opinion. We have prosecuted people in the US for doing it, and brought war crimes charges against others. If the people in the Bush administration thought they had no other choice, they should have no problem standing up before a jury and justifying their actions. Otherwise, they are just cowards with no real convictions. They want to take the easy way out and convince everyone that torture is just fine if the 'good guys' are doing it. It's disgusting, and so is anyone who buys into it.

Sadly the latency would make then uncompetitive against Wall Street. They already have bots doing trading.

Besides, do you seriously think you can out-crook the financial sector? These are people that can literally sell you nothing for a billion dollars and get away with it.

"I am pretty sure, the answer is a resounding 'Yes'."

Only if you aren't concerned with democracy. Democracy requires that a government rule by the consent of the governed. We cannot consent to what we do not know.

We may elect government officials, but how meaningful is that really if their activities in office are secret from us? If we are choosing whether or not to re-elect an incumbent candidate, or selecting among candidates who have held previous government office, how can our approval or disapproval of their past performance be meaningful if we don't know what they have been doing?

You may say that the threats to our society from outside it are greater than the threats from government abuse of power. You may say that government officials' priorities are to protect us from those threats. You may say that government officials require secrecy to effectively protect us.

I think the greatest threats to my health and safety come from sources from which government officials have no interest in protecting me (see Toyota product safety, Wall Street sub-prime mortgage derivatives and credit default swaps, etc). How many people have died as a result of terrorism in the US in the past 20 years? How many from on-the-job injuries?

If the largest and most powerful military in the world cannot effectively occupy a devastated, impoverished country a fraction of it's size, how am I supposed to believe that any outside force of Islamic radicals could occupy the US with it's 300 million (often armed) citizens and impose sharia law? I think the greatest threats to my freedom come from the US Government (USA PATRIOT spying, sneak-and-peek break-ins, wiretapping, COINTELPRO disruption of peaceful movements for social change).

In the main, I don't think that the Government is keeping secrets from me to protect me. Rather I believe that the Government keeps secrets from me to protect those in office from being held accountable by me and my fellow citizens.

I want to live in an effective democracy. That desire is greater than my fear of outside threats, threats that I don't believe government secrecy helps to combat anyway

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I wish Slashdot would eliminate that junk at the bottom of the page.

Anyhow, the problem with frying bacon is that the water from the meat explosively exits into the fat, spraying the fat. The bacon burns only when the water is all gone.

Anyhow, don't eat animals. You should minimize your trust in the processed food supply. For example, see Bribes Let Tomato Vendor Sell Tainted Food.

Didn't mean to reply twice but I happened to come across this NY Times op-ed just now which highlights problems with the reported high productivity suggesting it is (at least partly) caused by misreporting due to outsourcing.

"But there’s a problem: labor productivity figures, which are calculated by the Labor Department, count only worker hours in America, even though American-owned factories and labs have been steadily transplanted overseas, and foreign workers have contributed significantly to the final products counted in productivity measures.

The result is an apparent drop in the number of worker hours required to produce goods — and thus increased productivity. But actually, the total number of worker hours does not necessarily change. "

Um, have you read anything about the Japanese justice system? It only recently re-introduced juries and has numerous and well-documented cases of corruption that defy common sense and blatant violations of both domestic and international law.

They have a 98% conviction rate, they execute mentally ill people at about the same rate as Texas and defense attorneys have their hands tied by judges who don't even hide the fact they sympathize with the prosecution.

We in the US have 12 maybe 16 people dead from Toyata's run away cars, in Japan they did not put in cross-bar bracing in Japanese models because it costs an extra few hundred bucks, so 1000's more people have died there as a result of safety issues. In Japan because they have virtually no car safety regulation, one full time inspector and 4 part-time for the WHOLE country this is an ongoing problem with all their industries.

They are just now going through the nascent steps for unionization and they are being crushed by legal vendettas by large corporations against any individual attempting to organize for better working conditions or for consumer protection.

That is why you can't get a fair trial in Japan.

Why would they military attack you, if they already own a nice chunk of your economy? They won't kill you, they'll own you.

...And if you look at the facts, you can see that all of the symptoms could easily be caused by driver error. Look at this http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/11/opinion/11schmidt.html?scp=1&sq=driver%20error&st=cse (currently the page doesn't need registration, your results may change in the coming days/hours).

Did you ever think that maybe the Zeus botnet is produced by Microsoft's marketing department?

Vulnerabilities make money for Microsoft: "This time, our OS is secure. Really. Buy a copy." People go out and buy a new computer because they don't know how to fix the one they have: Corrupted PC's Find New Home in the Dumpster.

True. Not all Republicans are ultra-capitalist fundamentalists, some are stupid rednecks, and some are just insane.

For example the Republican members of the Texas Board of Education think that capitalism is a dirty word.

You couldn't make it up.

Yes they have a choice, and I think they've already chosen.

Most of the citizens in China accept the situation, because things appear to be getting better (and by many measurements they are).

They can look across the Pacific and see that the USA with all their democracy and freedoms isn't improving that much faster (in terms of the general welfare of its citizens).

So why should they force a change _now_? They could still do that later right?

Do people actually think that a switch from One Party to Two Parties will bring such a big improvement to China at this point of time?

More and more Chinese people including top scientists are returning from the USA to China, because more and more think China is not so bad (despite them having experienced the greatness of the USA). See: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/07/world/asia/07scholar.html

Maybe these people will be the seeds of change in China.

To me a peaceful gradual evolution will be a better way of changing things in China than a violent revolution as you all seem to be proposing.

Violent revolutions tend to lead to dictatorships. The person capable and willing of exerting the most violence tends to rise to the top (eliminating the others). And too often this sort of person doesn't let go of the power. That is why those "Communist" revolutions tend to end up with Dictatorships. The Communist Manifesto is fatally flawed since it has violence as part of its "design".

There will be exceptions of course (some say the American Revolution is one of them), but they are rare.

Even if they still end up only having One Party, so what? As long as the citizens are content with it what is the problem? Singapore has only One Party. Most Singaporeans don't really care that much. The US people appear content with their Two Parties, who combined get >95% of all the votes, if they are not content they sure have a strange way of showing their discontent.

Really, looking on European "secularism" as a role model! Perhaps you've heard about the genocide against Jews, or the genocide against Muslims, or widespread laws infringing on the rights of Muslims. Europe's lengthy history of religious discrimination and religious genocide is something every single nation should be working hard to avoid.

How about the fact that we had no growth in middle class income for the last 10 years while at the same time the upper class managed to climb even higher?
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/10/a-decade-with-no-income-gain/
http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2010/01/vicious-cycle-stagnant-wages

As late as the middle of May Dukakis was leading 49 to 37 in the NYT poll.

http://www.nytimes.com/1988/05/17/us/poll-shows-dukakis-leads-bush-many-reagan-backers-shift-sides.html?pagewanted=1

* Only 32 percent of registered voters said the Reagan Administration has done a good job handling the budget deficit; 60 percent said it has not.

* On the problem of illegal drugs, 36 percent said the Administration was doing a good job; 55 percent said it was not.

* On dealing with the conflicts in Central America, 35 percent rated the Administration as having done well; 52 percent said it had not. ...

Moreover, when voters were asked which party would do best at handling whatever they identified as the nation's most important problem - a question poll takers regard as a key leading indicator of voting decision - 40 percent said the Democrats and 29 percent said the Republicans. Democrats have never enjoyed such an advantage since the Times/CBS News Poll first asked the question in 1980, when indeed the Republicans had that big a margin before Mr. Reagan's first victory.

Interestingly, this is a very similar article published by the NYT the day before - http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/11/health/research/11gene.html?ref=health

So, who's getting the $55/hr? The employee of the job shop, or the job shop itself?

This is a big deal, because if the State is paying $55/hr to some contracting outfit, that outfit has to take FICA, State and local taxes and insurance payments out (not to mention something for the job shop overhead). That will leave the employee with little more than minimum wage. $128/hr is cheap when its paid to the job shop.

As to the "independent contractor" idea: Good luck with that. If you think the gov't is going to let you actually take expense deductions and behave as though you were a real business, you to may wind up flying your airplane into the local IRS office.

Put simply, our health care problem is our deficit problem.

And it's true.

His budget decreases the deficit by 60+% over 3 years. It will stabilize at about 60% of GDP which is not bad by historical standards. From there, you're right, we'll have to tackle the long-term picture including social security, etc. But his budget is, in fact, a step in the right direction.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/14/magazine/14texbooks-t.html?pagewanted=all

The state's $22 billion education fund is among the largest educational endowments in the country. Texas uses some of that money to buy or distribute a staggering 48 million textbooks annually -- which rather strongly inclines educational publishers to tailor their products to fit the standards dictated by the Lone Star State. California is the largest textbook market, but besides being bankrupt, it tends to be so specific about what kinds of information its students should learn that few other states follow its lead. Texas, on the other hand, was one of the first states to adopt statewide curriculum guidelines, back in 1998, and the guidelines it came up with (which are referred to as TEKS -- pronounced "teaks" -- for Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills) were clear, broad and inclusive enough that many other states used them as a model in devising their own. And while technology is changing things, textbooks -- printed or online --are still the backbone of education.

Here's an excerpt from: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/11/us/politics/11texas.html?src=me

There have also been efforts among conservatives on the board to tweak the history of the civil rights movement. One amendment states that the movement created “unrealistic expectations of equal outcomes” among minorities. Another proposed change removes any reference to race, sex or religion in talking about how different groups have contributed to the national identity.

The amendments are also intended to emphasize the unalloyed superiority of the “free-enterprise system” over others and the desirability of limited government.

One says publishers should “describe the effects of increasing government regulation and taxation on economic development and business planning.”

Throughout the standards, the conservatives have pushed to drop references to American “imperialism,” preferring to call it expansionism. “Country and western music” has been added to the list of cultural movements to be studied.

References to Ralph Nader and Ross Perot are proposed to be removed, while Stonewall Jackson, the Confederate general, is to be listed as a role model for effective leadership, and the ideas in Jefferson Davis’s inaugural address are to be laid side by side with Abraham Lincoln’s speeches.

Early in the hearing on Wednesday, Mr. McLeroy and other conservatives on the board made it clear they would offer still more planks to highlight what they see as the Christian roots of the Constitution and other founding documents.

“To deny the Judeo-Christian values of our founding fathers is just a lie to our kids,” said Ken Mercer, a San Antonio Republican.

From the NY Times:

"California is the largest textbook market, but besides being bankrupt, it tends to be so specific about what kinds of information its students should learn that few other states follow its lead."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/14/magazine/14texbooks-t.html?scp=3&sq=texas%20education&st=cse

Peasants don't know and don't care about history. They do know that the local party officials are corrupt, and that many of them are getting shafted. An uncensored, free internet would be a great way for them to learn more,share stories, and organize. It would be an amazing platform for the criticism of the communist party.

On this subject, see the recent NY Times article about the Chinese "human search engine":

China’s Cyberposse

The article asserts that the internet is being leveraged by the central party for this very purpose.

The article was a bit eye-opening for me for it showed:

A) how most Chinese citizens' interest and usage of the internet differs from most American (less social networks, more B.B.S.-driven interaction)

B) how the internet is a developing platform for reform in China

C) how it can both be a platform for reform and yet still censored

D) how it could accomplish all these things without Google and still satisfy most Chinese citizens

I'm for Google standing up for principle. I'm not convinced how much impact it would really have.

The basic premise is this:

The economy has a certain potential output at any given time, in the case that it's at full employment and fully utilizing all available resources. But when the economy isn't operating at 100% utilization, the gap between the real output and the maximum potential output (called the "output gap") grows.

To throw in a computer analogy, this is sort of like the gap between your internet connection's theoretical maximum throughput and what you're utilizing at an instant in time, in the sense that once that instant has passed, you can't go back and reclaim that bit of bandwidth that you paid for but didn't use. Hence the aggregate GDP is not as high as it could have been had there been full utilization.

Right now our economy has an output gap of about $1 trillion (per the plot here). The integral over the time period between when the two lines on the plot diverged and today represents lost productivity.

Since right now private demand isn't adequate to utilize the resources available at 100%, the government should be pushing money into the economy to employ these resources and close the output gap until private demand picks up.

As far as the debt is concerned, as a percentage of GDP it will shrink as the GDP grows, hence its real cost will be less than the initial outlay--in essence, we get an increase in productivity and GDP for cents on the dollar. This costs us *less* in real terms than it would cost us to continue to let the output gap grow.

Make sense now?

Under Obama's existing and projected budget, the debt increased by about $25 trillion during 2009, $15 trillion in 2010, and $10 trillion for the years 2011, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16. Look up Obama's budget - it's there in plain balck and white.

Yes--due largely to the unfunded liabilities that the Bush administration incurred before Obama even took office. See also: Medicare part D, estate tax repeal, Bush's tax cuts for the top 1%. Their full cost is playing out *now*.

And you're assigning a numerical value per household, which is at best tangential to the issue of the debt/GDP ratio. See here and the plots here.

Under Obama's existing and projected budget, the debt increased by about $25 trillion during 2009, $15 trillion in 2010, and $10 trillion for the years 2011, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16. Look up Obama's budget - it's there in plain balck and white.

Yes--due largely to the unfunded liabilities that the Bush administration incurred before Obama even took office. See also: Medicare part D, estate tax repeal, Bush's tax cuts for the top 1%. Their full cost is playing out *now*.

And you're assigning a numerical value per household, which is at best tangential to the issue of the debt/GDP ratio. See here and the plots here.

As the Arctic warms, the methane will be released into the atmosphere. It has been happening for years and will continue for the foreseeable future.

That seems to apply to just "single serving" portions, hardly applicable to the tub of crisco I just bought:
http://www.fda.gov/Food/LabelingNutrition/FoodLabelingGuidanceRegulatoryInformation/InspectionCompliance/WarningOtherLetters/ucm110234.htm

There is even an article just last month admitting that they [FDA] are still evaluating the "serving size" issue:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/06/business/06portion.html

Yah, it would take him 2 minutes to find that reducing salt only affects blood pressure in 1/3 of people.

Not only that, but the effect is somewhat variable--in some people, reducing sodium intake increases blood pressure. And the overall health benefits are still a matter of debate. See, for instance:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/06/opinion/06alderman.html?_r=3&emc=eta1

The best available evidence on how salt consumption affects our health comes from observational studies, in which groups of subjects are investigated to identify any correlations between usual sodium intake and subsequent heart attacks and strokes. Nine such studies, looking at a total of more than 100,000 participants who consume as much sodium as New Yorkers do, have had mixed results. In four of them, reduced dietary salt was associated with an increased incidence of death and disability from heart attacks and strokes. In one that focused on obese people, more salt was associated with increased cardiovascular mortality. And in the remaining four, no association between salt and health was seen.

The article also references other studies showing the opposite, but its basic point is pretty clear: we really don't know enough about the generalized effects of altering sodium intake to make any broad sweeping health recommendations yet.

The evidence isn't irrefutable yet -- nobody has taken a large population and randomly divided them into a high-salt and low-salt group for 15 years, and they probably never will. Excess salt is probably safe for young, healthy people. But nobody stays young and healthy forever.

The major problem is that not only isn't the evidence irrefutable, it's also conflicting; a lot of studies show that decreasing salt intake increases mortality rates.

See, e.g., http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/06/opinion/06alderman.html?_r=3&emc=eta1
For most people, wide swings in dietary sodium consumption don’t affect blood pressure, and for some, blood pressure actually rises when they lower their salt intake.

But what really matters is whether reducing salt will ultimately prevent heart attacks and strokes and thus improve or extend life...Nine such studies, looking at a total of more than 100,000 participants who consume as much sodium as New Yorkers do, have had mixed results. In four of them, reduced dietary salt was associated with an increased incidence of death and disability from heart attacks and strokes. In one that focused on obese people, more salt was associated with increased cardiovascular mortality. And in the remaining four, no association between salt and health was seen.

There's more in the article, including some study results that tend to indicate the opposite, but the overall takeaway is that there's a lot more we need to learn before we rush to change things.

Are you serious? $100,000 certainly isn't the top of the heap, but I'm sure there are lots of New Yorkers who could find a way to get by on it:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/18/nyregion/18retire.html

(never mind that the story is about members that are collecting their retirement pensions and salary)

This story belongs under "editorials" not "games". It is expressing the opinion that someone has that this death was related to the Wii. There is not a shred of evidence that this would not have happened had the family not owned a Wii.

When a child burned down the family trailer after watching Beavis and Butt-Head, cooler heads eventually prevailed and realized that the cartoon didn't have anything to do with the fact that the mother of the child was an idiot. While Beavis and Butt-head were never the same afterwards, we collectively came to realize that the cartoon was not actually at fault.

Similarly we need to collectively come to realize that the Wii is not at fault in this child's death. Nintendo did not put a loaded gun within reach of a three-year-old. And the opinion that a three-year-old learned unsafe gun manners from a game console is not news for the slashdot front-page; rather it is an opinion that deserves to be recognized as such.

I agree with the point you're trying to make, although I like numbers, so here there are some:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_in_the_United_States
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/29/business/29tax.html
http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html

Some of the quotes from the NYT article:
"The new data also shows that the top 300,000 Americans collectively enjoyed almost as much income as the bottom 150 million Americans. Per person, the top group received 440 times as much as the average person in the bottom half earned, nearly doubling the gap from 1980."

Or from the tax foundation article on Gross Income:
All Taxpayers (141,070,971) $8,798,500,000,000
Top 1% (1,410,710) $2,008,259,000,000
Bottom 50% (70,535,485) $1,078,287

Or the top 1% of incomes earned about 25% of all income in the USA in 2007. Also they earned about a 100 times more per person than the bottom 50%.

To me it shows the American Dream is only for the lucky few.

As a result, the plant produces one kilowatt-hour -- or 1,000 watt-hours -- of electricity for each 870 watts consumed the previous night. In contrast, the most common mode of energy storage is pumped hydro, in which water is pumped uphill at night, and during the day a valve is turned and the water runs back down, with the pumps recapturing the mechanical energy and turning it into electricity. But in that system, each kilowatt-hour put in delivers no more than 700 or 750 watts back out again. Batteries have about the same ratio.

I assume we should reverse those first numbers: we spend 1,000 watt-hours to gain 870 watt-hours later. Cool to see that it beats pumped hydro.

http://www.nytimes.com/1991/09/29/business/technology-using-compressed-air-to-store-up-electricity.html

Hydroelectric plants often cost $1,000 per kilowatt of capacity, and batteries cost far more. The cost of building the Alabama plant was about $550 per kilowatt of capacity.

And it's cheaper than pumped hydro!

The American plant has one new twist, however: the exhaust gases from the turbine are used to preheat the compressed air after it is brought up from the cavern. That makes it 25 percent more efficient than its German predecessor, the institute says.

Interesting. Of course, if you use this with a wind farm, you don't get this benefit; the plant discussed here is a coal plant, with plenty of waste heat.

The above article is from 1991. Despite all these advantages, the idea never took off before now. It saved money, but not a huge amount. But since the wind blows when it blows, not when you want it to blow, I can see this being a useful thing for a wind farm.

steveha

True. How fortunate that the US is #1 in manufacturing, and vastly ahead of #2 (Japan) and very far ahead of #3 (China).

You know what the most important thing is for statistics? Context. Our manufacturing per capita consistently places us outside of the top 10. It's like people celebrating a US or Canadian women's hockey victory despite the fact that we have more players by a factor of a thousand. Sweden, Norway, Japan, and Germany outperform us in a number of areas. And I bet if you took entertainment out of the equation it would really be illuminating.

You also may want to know that the #2 economy (by GDP alone) is now China. It also just overtook Germany as the world's largest exporter (again, by pure GDP, not per capita).

And worse, Bill Clinton signed a larger tax cut for the rich than George Bush ever did...

Alright, now you're just full of shit, by income tax and by effective tax rates. Read the tax rates here. Top bracket under Bush is 35%. Top bracket under Clinton is 39.6%. Capital gains tax was cut from 20% to 15%. Income from dividends went from 35% to 15%. The Estate Tax was halved, and even completely nonexistent for one year (this year, I think). And that's why you hear the babbling heads screaming bloody murder about keeping the Bush Tax Cuts.

There's even an article in the Times from 2007. This shit is no secret. "Families earning more than $1 million a year saw their federal tax rates drop more sharply than any group in the country as a result of President Bush’s tax cuts, according to a new Congressional study."

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/08/washington/08tax.html

And before you say a word about the richest paying the most taxes - OF COURSE. The top 1% of households hold more than 50% the assets. Why wouldn't they be paying most of the taxes?

If you have any other questions about reality, feel free to ask.

Yeah, why are we worrying so much about bank robbers. They're small potatoes. As long as they don't kill or hurt anyone how much $$$ can they take? Laughable amounts for the jail time and risk.

In contrast:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/24/business/24trading.html

Quotes:

Multiply such trades across thousands of stocks a day, and the profits are substantial. High-frequency traders generated about $21 billion in profits last year, the Tabb Group, a research firm, estimates.

"But we're moving toward a two-tiered marketplace of the high-frequency arbitrage guys, and everyone else. People want to know they have a legitimate shot at getting a fair deal. Otherwise, the markets lose their integrity."

See also this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXBcmqwTV9s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzJmTCYmo9g

OK it's comedy, but so is the real world situation in a way (except more tragic).

Yes, it's ironic because Apple spies on its users, recording their Web searches and most of the URLs they visit via the tendrils of their ad network.

Whoops, sorry, that's Google.

But wait! Apple forces you to join their new social network system without any opt-in notice, exposing the names of everyone you've ever emailed to any idiot with a mail account from them!

Nope, that's Google again.

Don't get me wrong, I love a lot of Google's services (especially Google Books) and I use it every day like every other yutz on the Internet. But don't make the mistake of assuming that your favorite hardware/software/Web company isn't a massive corporate nightmare that would happily sell your porn-viewing habits to the Fed for a nickel if it were legal. It's not Big Brother, it's Big Business-- all about the dollar signs. There's no money in privacy.

Just FYI

Look at prices of Nuclear generation vs Wind generation at http://www.esios.ree.es/web-publica/
France prices for power are mostly due to nuclear costs, prices in Spain and Portugal have a generous mix of renewables (wind, thermosolar and hidro), prices are auctioned on a hourly basis, so when wind blows prices in spain goes down (i've seen prices in the low €5 Mw)

Also look at wind generation anytime at https://demanda.ree.es/eolica.html it shows a variable generation rate but has a 33% average over installed power, it means we currently have 18 Gw installed power base on windmills, that sometimes generates 15 Gw and other times 1 Gw but in average it accounts as a 6 Gw. sustained generation . And Yes sometimes you need to use Gas generated power (as seen on https://demanda.ree.es/demanda.html )

In general the system here WORKS REALLY FINE, and Spain is not a high wind area, but redundancy, and multilocation of windmills, helps us to keep a high usage ratio of the windmills.

Yes this redundancy is expensive, but also is nuclear power, from building to maintaining and to life long storage of radioactive waste, look at the prices for new nuclear plants and you will see prices up in the $8000 to $10000 for Kw http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/29/business/energy-environment/29nuke.html, and that's much more expensive (only in building costs) than windmills, that are in the $1200 Kw range for 2 Mw Models.

Similar story. I only seem to need about 5-6 hours of sleep at night. I've been this way for more than 30 years. I, too, typically wake up before the alarm goes off, which seems to confirm that I am not sleep deprived. I rarely get sick; my blood pressure and cholesterol levels are normal. I get lots of exercise, about an hour a day, on average. I'm a very happy and relaxed guy. No signs of depression, hyperactivity or attention deficit. I'm not even cranky when I first get up. Don't drink coffee or soft drinks, though I do occasionally drink tea - more often than not decafinated. I almost never feel sleepy/awkward/wrongish... just when I travel internationally and my sleep cycle gets thrown off.

There may be a genetic explanation...

Since I really have not experienced any negative reprecussions in all of these years, I have no dissatisfaction with the way I am. I am actually thankful because I think it gives me a slight competitive edge.

HOWEVER... there STILL not enough hours in the day to do everything I want to do...

Also, doesn't Mercedes Benz uses proximity devices to unlock your car (and sometimes start your engine). I think they also have now apps for that

I'd like to point out that health care costs are growing exponentially in almost all developed nations, and in fact faster than GDP which is already exponential. The US simply started higher than most and has grown more strongly than the others that started out near the same level. http://www.kff.org/insurance/snapshot/chcm010307oth.cfm http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/08/us-health-spending-breaks-from-the-pack/

In the long run, socialized medicine in other countries will begin to encounter the same expense problems as the US if they cannot curb the growth of their own health care expenses.

By the way, from that second article: I wonder why US health care spending surged during the 70's oil crisis, the late 80's-early 90's recession, and just after the tech bubble burst. There's probably an important relation there.

The thing is, it is much easier to blame the teacher than to question the entire system itself. To question the meritocracy means questioning our own privilege within it, and who wants to do that? Better to just ignore those nagging doubts that maybe, just maybe, there is something seriously wrong with the whole thing. I mean, how many studies have to show the strong correlation between income and high test scores. Are those rich people just that much smarter than the rest of us, or is there a system (including the makeup of the "standard" tests) that actually strives to pass on privilege to their young ones under the banner of legitimacy.
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/27/sat-scores-and-family-income/

Let's be honest, the bad teacher argument is really a proxy for firing experienced teachers and hiring cheaper (not better) ones. And vouchers and charter schools are simply attempts to divert attention from, rather than actually fix, the massive disparity that is public education. Education is used to sort people in society and therefore no one is talking about real equality.

Yeah, I don't want a faceless government bureaucrat to get in between me and my doctor. That's what private sector bean counting bureaucrats are for!

Unfortunately for you, the facts about socialized medicine are in. They're in from Canada, Europe, Asia, even right here in the USA with Hawaii ("This is a state where regular milk sells for $8 a gallon, gasoline costs $3.60 a gallon and the median price of a home in 2008 was $624,000 — the second-highest in the nation. Despite this, Hawaii’s health insurance premiums are nearly tied with North Dakota for the lowest in the country, and Medicare costs per beneficiary are the nation’s lowest. Hawaii residents live longer than people in the rest of the country, recent surveys have shown, and the state’s health care system may be one reason. In one example, Hawaii has the nation’s highest incidence of breast cancer but the lowest death rate from the disease."), and the facts are that it costs less and improved access to healthcare improves the health of the population.

Meanwhile, the status quo has lead to us having the highest spending in the world, yet getting nothing for it.

The current system is fundamentally broken and doesn't achieve it's social purpose. Scrap it.

You might want to look at the bigger picture. The mobile world is at war and no punches are being pulled, Apple is just the most high profile combatant. (Not that I agree with the lawsuits.)

Well according to AP version of this story (from the NYTimes here), getting a court order is a piece of cake, getting Toyota to cooperate is another matter entirely.

Complaints against Toyota include "Has frequently refused to provide key information sought by crash victims and survivors." and "In some lawsuits, when pressed to provide recorder information Toyota either settled or provided printouts with the key columns blank."

So it would seem that something is going on here, possibly as simple as cost cutting, but it has nothing to do with protecting drivers' privacy.

Umm? Do you even realize who this hedge fund is? I'm going to copy from groklaw here.
Sounds like no, my sarcastic friend. Elliott is run by Paul Singer. Link states:

Paul E. Singer, a former corporate lawyer, is "the founding partner of Elliott Associates, a $7 billion hedge fund with a conservative, risk-averse bias that has been in business since 1977, making it one of the oldest funds around. A reserved, private man who would answer questions only via e-mail, Mr. Singer is a self-described conservative libertarian who has given millions of dollars to Republican organizations that emphasize a strong military and support Israel."

Singer is a member of the Board of Trustees of the neo-conservative think tank the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research; a "member of the boards of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs and of Commentary Magazine, and is on the Board of Advisors of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University", and a member of the Board of Fellows of Harvard Medical School.

Also from the NYT

Paul E. Singer is the founding partner of one of the oldest hedge funds around. And while he has become a major donor to Republican and conservative causes in recent years, he has largely managed to stay out of the limelight, even avoiding having his picture appear in newspapers. [...]

Howard Dean, the chairman of the Democratic Party, questioned “Paul Singer’s involvement in this dirty trick aimed at stealing the White House.” A group of Democrats filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission charging that Mr. Singer had been acting on behalf of Mr. Giuliani in his efforts to change the California law — which Mr. Singer and the campaign deny. And the Democratic National Committee drew attention to the part of Mr. Singer’s business that involves buying the debt of poor countries at a discount and then seeking repayment in full — prompting an article in The Times of London labeling his firm, Elliott Associates, a “vulture fund.”

.

I didn't have to read either of those to already know that. Notice from the NYT: Vulture fund.

Meanwhile, what's the kicker?

The shareholders are pissed already and think it's BS/hostile takeover. from that link:

An investigation on behalf of current long term shareholders in Novell, Inc. (Public, NASDAQ:NOVL) concerning shareholder claims over potential breaches of fiduciary duty and other violations of state law in connection with an alleged unfair takeover was announced.

So umm, whoops?

The US government also censors third-party information so that its citizens cannot access it. Though clearly, tourist information on nice places to visit in Cuba presents a clear and present danger to the State.

Umm? Do you even realize who this hedge fund is? I'm going to copy from groklaw here.
Sounds like no, my sarcastic friend. Elliott is run by Paul Singer. Link states:

Paul E. Singer, a former corporate lawyer, is "the founding partner of Elliott Associates, a $7 billion hedge fund with a conservative, risk-averse bias that has been in business since 1977, making it one of the oldest funds around. A reserved, private man who would answer questions only via e-mail, Mr. Singer is a self-described conservative libertarian who has given millions of dollars to Republican organizations that emphasize a strong military and support Israel."

Singer is a member of the Board of Trustees of the neo-conservative think tank the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research; a "member of the boards of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs and of Commentary Magazine, and is on the Board of Advisors of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University", and a member of the Board of Fellows of Harvard Medical School.

Also from the NYT

Paul E. Singer is the founding partner of one of the oldest hedge funds around. And while he has become a major donor to Republican and conservative causes in recent years, he has largely managed to stay out of the limelight, even avoiding having his picture appear in newspapers. [...]

Howard Dean, the chairman of the Democratic Party, questioned “Paul Singer’s involvement in this dirty trick aimed at stealing the White House.” A group of Democrats filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission charging that Mr. Singer had been acting on behalf of Mr. Giuliani in his efforts to change the California law — which Mr. Singer and the campaign deny. And the Democratic National Committee drew attention to the part of Mr. Singer’s business that involves buying the debt of poor countries at a discount and then seeking repayment in full — prompting an article in The Times of London labeling his firm, Elliott Associates, a “vulture fund.”

.

I didn't have to read either of those to already know that. Notice from the NYT: Vulture fund.

Meanwhile, what's the kicker?

The shareholders are pissed already and think it's BS/hostile takeover. from that link:

An investigation on behalf of current long term shareholders in Novell, Inc. (Public, NASDAQ:NOVL) concerning shareholder claims over potential breaches of fiduciary duty and other violations of state law in connection with an alleged unfair takeover was announced.

So umm, whoops?

sigh. You do realize that the worlds biggest warlord was behind the Somali gov "collapse"

I don't know if the nytimes.com is the world's biggest warlord. Sure, it's annoying to have to register to read the article, but warlord?

After Somalia's former government collapsed, it didn't take long for warlords to consolidate power

sigh. You do realize that the worlds biggest warlord was behind the Somali gov "collapse" and for several years now has been illegally invading the country on the sly.

At first glance you may think that the US invasion will be a good thing for Somalia... but then the horrific details of the methods used might give pause to that romanticized "It'll be good for 'em" notion of war and invasion.

. Of course, It's all about oil, again. Won't someone invent a replacement already.

This is where /. needs a (-1, Wrong) moderation option. I would mod troll, but instead, link.

"China’s snapshot of its January trade data on Wednesday came the morning after Germany released official data confirming that it hads lost its status as the world’s leading exporter.
Chinese exports amounted to $1.2 trillion in 2009, while German exports totaled $1.1 trillion, the German Federal Statistical Office said."

Can someone tell me why the ice doesn't just turn to gas and vent to space?

It's really, really cold in these craters -- they're actually some of the coldest spots in the solar system, at -400F (-240 degrees celsius or a little higher than 30 Kelvin). Ice can remain there for billions of years without sublimation. Heck, you could probably store liquid nitrogen in these craters.