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It really illustrates how easy it is to believe anything about your enemies once you regard them as "morally bankrupt animals."

It really illustrates how easy it is to believe anything about your enemies once you regard them as "morally bankrupt animals."

It really illustrates how easy it is to believe anything about your enemies once you regard them as "morally bankrupt animals."

"One thing they cannot do is reveal statistical manipulation in climate-change studies that require a PhD in a related field to understand." Hmm, that must explain why Freeman Dyson is so skeptical! He has no PhD either!

"Drop into the glacier"?????? Errr, no - you didn't read that anywhere, did you? You've presumed or assumed that he fell into a crevasse. From his wounds, he was hunted down by enemies. Nothing indicates that he fell - it seems that he died of an arrow wound, bleeding, and exposure. My reading suggests that he was encased by the glacier after death. If you care to look around the 'net, there are other instances of people being exposed after thousands of years, from other glaciers.

http://www.nytimes.com/1999/08/25/world/body-of-ancient-man-found-in-west-canada-glacier.html

http://frankwarner.typepad.com/free_frank_warner/2009/08/melting-glaciers-reveal-bodies-from-the-ice.html?cid=6a00d83451cd3769e20120a4d01ff2970b

This one begins to explain why a body falling into a crevasse is unlikely to remain intact for thousands of years.
http://www.mummytombs.com/mummylocator/featured/glacier.htm

http://archaeological-burial-practices.suite101.com/article.cfm/the_qilakitsoq_mummies

You can dig around more if you like. I'm not especially enamored with conspiracy theories, but things that might throw a monkey wrench into the works of climate change advocates don't tend to make it into the news.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/08/arts/television/08assassin.html Made me want to buy the game.

They're probably ramping up the program in response to the Americans' plans to put missile defense batteries in Central Europe.

You're right, we should cancel that plan. Oh wait.

Hot on the heels of the suspicious satellite crash. The Baklava, er, Bulava missile is designed to "penetrate missile-defense systems". They're probably ramping up the program in response to the Americans' plans to put missile defense batteries in Central Europe.

some of the 'right wing' publications
http://www.newscientist.com/blog/.../10/al-gores-inconvenient-truth.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/13/science/13gore.html
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/10/an-inconvenient/
need I go on?

Nice article highlighting the fragility of reputation. The author goes on to screw it up by saying:

"The Obama administration's new head of policy at EPA, Lisa Heinzerling, is an advocate of turning precaution into standard policy."

Government should absolutely prepare for events that _might_ happen (that's what the DoD is all about). Ex-VP Cheney pushed "The One Percent Doctrine," for threats to the US, but somehow only wanted it to apply to military threats. More at: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/09/opinion/09friedman.html

All I want is Motorola hardware with... someone else's OS.

You're in luck - they're going with Android.

Mr. Jha soon decided to axe the entire Symbian product line as well as phones using several other operating systems. He wanted to simplify product development to standardize on one or two core systems. It came down to a Microsoft Windows mobile operating system and Android. When Microsoft said that a crucial release of its mobile operating system would be delayed, Mr. Jha gave Microsoft the stiff arm and bet on Android.

The Russians have admitted it was an ICBM test. They were trying a launch from a nuclear submarine from a submerged position in the White Sea. The third stage of the ICBM failed.

Actually, thanks to the recession, you have thousands of young people paying search firms to get into internship programs that pay $0 an hour (for instance, this story).

As I wrote in to a magazine recently, the interesting thing about the recession is that it started for young people long before the housing crash in 2008. Wages were dropping like a rock for our parents too, but they could keep afloat with home equity loans until the entire system unravelled. 20-somethings, on the other hand, almost never have a home of their own and thus no home equity. The best the new BA grads could manage was to use grad school as a way to delay entering the real world, and a strikingly high percentage of them have done just that, running up massive student loans in the process.

Almost a year ago the NYT wrote about the joys of vinyl, is this a seasonal thing? The article (half hidden behind a registration) extolles the virtues of vinyl and how it can be used to better your social life by following the story of Melissa Walker of Brooklyn after discovering vinyl records in crates, and she has made playing them part of her life. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/02/technology/techspecial2/02table.html?_r=1

but don't take my word for it: allow an actual iranian to complain about ill-informed american armchair analysts who spout stupidity based on crap assumptions like yourself:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/19/opinion/19shane.html

...

For instance, some American analysts assert that the demonstrations are taking place only in the sections of Tehran -- in the north, around the university and Azadi Square -- where the educated and well-off reside. Of course, those neighborhoods were home to the well-to-do ... 30 years ago. The notion that these areas represent "the nice part of town" will come as a surprise to their residents, who endure the noise, congestion and pollution of living in the center of a megalopolis.

People who haven't visited a city in decades are bound to give out bad directions. But their descriptions of where the protests are taking place, and why, also draw on pernicious myths of an iron correlation between religion and class, between location and voting tendency, in Iran.

This false geography imagines South Tehran and the countryside as home only to the poor, those natural allies of political Islam, while North Tehran embodies unbridled gharbzadegi (translated as "Weststruckness" or "Westernitis") and is populated by people addicted to the Internet and vacations in Paris. It is as if political Islam withers north of Vanak Square and the only residents to be found are "liberals" who voted for the opposition leader, Mir Hussein Moussavi.

We must not assume that the engagement of members of society with their religion is uniform or that religious devotion equals automatic loyalty to a particular brand of politics. To do so is certainly to deny Iran's poor the capacity to think for themselves, to deny that the politics of the past four years may have made their lives worse -- and plays right into Mr. Ahmadinejad's dubious claim to be the most authentic representative of the 1979 revolution. Mr. Moussavi was, let's not forget, a favored son of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and a member of Iran's original cohort of revolutionaries, and he remains a firm believer in the revolution and the framework of the Islamic Republic.

But the United States seems able to view our country only through anxieties left over from the 1979 revolution. In the "how did we lose Iran?" assessments after the overthrow of the shah, many American intelligence agents and policy makers decided that their great mistake was to spend too much time canoodling with the royal family and intellectual elites of the capital. Commentators now are worried that, by siding with the opposition today, the United States will once again fall into the trap of backing the losing side.

But the fact is, Tehran is not the Iranian anomaly it was 30 years ago. It has become more like the rest of the country. Internal migration, not just to Tehran but to other major cities, has accelerated, driven in part by the growth of universities in places like Isfahan, Tabriz, Mashad and Shiraz, and now nearly 70 percent of Iranians live in cities. The much vaunted rural vote represents not a decisive bloc for Mr. Ahmadinejad but a minimum, one that was easily swamped by the increased turnout of city dwellers, who normally sit elections out.

And, of course, Iran in 2009 -- better yet, Iran on June 12, 2009 -- is not the same as Iran in 1979. Just as Tehran's neighborhoods cannot be fixed in time, the cultural lives of Iranians have greatly changed in the past 30 years. The postrevolutionary period has seen the expansion of education, the entry of women into the work force in large numbers, and changing patterns of marriage and even of divorce. These have all shaped Iranian society. The pseudo-sociology peddled by so many in the West would easily dissolve with a week's visit. ...

Ummm... no. You're wrong. Absolutely fucking retardedly wrong. Women breed MUCH more often than men, and much more successfully. We wouldn't exist as a species if most women didn't successfully reproduce:
http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/08/20/is-there-anything-good-about-men-and-other-tricky-questions/

Really... killing most women before 30? Where did that stupidity come from? Childbirth did not oppress women. Men died by the scores in wars, and just general work, much more so as a percentage of the population than women did.

All of the Wikipedia/Wikimedia sites bear the same problem: They're sourced to non-experts, run by people with no administrative experience, and have zero quality control other than obsessive teenagers blocking each other for perceived breakages of obscure MMORPG rules.

In short: Ask John Seigenthaler and Essjay why Wikimedia-related sites suck.

Read about NITV:

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/24/magazine/24NITV.html?pagewanted=all

One of the regulars on there was attacked in Los Angeles with a bat and lost an eye.

Last I checked Yahoo was THE #1 Web Mail provider in the USA, and many Asian countries Yahoo Mail is also #1 or a close #2.

The geek's notions of "relevance" are not always to be trusted:

Yahoo and Facebook have struck a deal that will allow people to log into Yahoo's vast stable of sites using their Facebook credentials. Already there is an overlap between the two sites' audiences.
52 per cent of Yahoo visitors are also visiting Facebook, while 84 per cent of Facebook users also visit Yahoo sites.
Yahoo still maintains one of the most popular collections of sites on the web. These include the photo sharing site Flickr, the careers site HotJobs and its self-branded sports and finance pages.Yahoo strikes deal with Facebook's Connect service

But the endgame of Internet marketing is converting browsers to buyers. Next Jump says that for every 11 people who see one of its ads, one person makes a purchase. In Web commerce generally, 1,000 to 1 is deemed a good performance. Until recently, the Next Jump e-commerce engine was entirely unbranded, working unseen underneath corporate intranets or retailer's rewards Web sites. "We were all white label," Mr. Kim said. "Nobody knew who we were."
But that is starting to change. The Yahoo Deals shopping area now has a Personal Offers site, whose logo says "Powered by Next Jump" -- co-branding similar to the Intel Inside campaign of the big chip maker. The Data That Turns Browsing to Buying

US prisons are for the most part owned and operated by private corporations for profit. The money isn't in letting prisoners go free. Hell we have judges getting kickbacks to send kids to juvie.

Anyone who would have the world cripple itself economically

[Citation needed]
Amory Lovins, Paul Krugman and many, many, many others would disagree with you on that point.

"Maybe we have better law enforcement?"

Good explaination, if you define "better" as more profitable then law enforcement in the US can look forward to further improvements.

There's a New York Times article that discusses the conflict of interest. Of particular interest is this quote:

“Hollywood needs a toll collector,” said Todd Dagres of the venture capital firm Spark Capital, and “Comcast can play the part because online video will erode traditional cable.”

Hulu's not going anywhere. Instead, it will probably be relegated to second-tier content. The content providers will charge for the new stuff and continue to file DMCA notices if content ends up elsewhere. They'll throw the people a bone, charge for the meat, and sue the pants off the vegetarians. Sounds like a Murdochian utopia.

Thanks for the info, I didn't realize that typical gasoline had ethanol in it. However, you are exaggerating a bit. At least according to Wikipedia, only 10 states mandate E10. This NYTimes article, from mid-2008, says that "ethanol blends" (not necessarily 10%) are found in 2/3 of the nation's gas supply. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/26/business/26ethanol.html

I can't reasonably see devices like the Kindle being nothing more than a technological fad unless the costs come down for purchasing a unit and subsequent books. Many users of said devices say they are flimsy and break easily, and several months ago there was the controversial story of the 1984 book deletions by Amazon: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html/. Why not just carry around PDF's of books you legally own on a Netbook?

"Exxon also set an annual profit record by earning $40.61 billion last year - or nearly $1,300 per second in 2007." -- Exxon shatters profit records

"Exxon earned $45.2 billion in 2008, beating the record it set in 2007 for most profitable corporation, at $40.6 billion." -- Exxon Posts Record 2008 Profit Despite Slip in 4th Quarter

In short, in two years (admittedly record years), Exxon has made more in after taxes profit than what basically all world governments and private companies have ever spent on global warming research, pro or con, and anti-global warming technology in 20 years. Further:

"I'm pretty sure that Exxon's tax payment in 2007 of $30 billion (that's $30,000,000,000) is a record, exceeding the $28 billion it paid last year. ... By the way, Exxon pays taxes at a rate of 41% on its taxable income!" -- Exxon's 2007 Tax Bill: $30 Billion

Ie, the government gets tons of money from Exxon through taxes. What exactly is their incentive to cut Exxon off again? Personal enrichment? It'd seem Exxon could trivially bribe politicians if that was what it was about. For politicians and private citizens to create a huge global warming conspiracy sounds more like a religion than one based upon money. Of course, that's a harder point to prove, especially with all the evidence by multiple, independent scientists.

PS - Just to be clear, again, Exxon made ~$40 Billion in 2007 after taxes. Their before taxes income in 2007 was ~$70 Billion. If the US wasn't spending money like a drunken sailor, there'd be plenty of money from the taxes on Exxon alone to do substantial technological and research development to combat global warming. The idea that in 20 years we've spent a meager $70 Billion is depressing.

"That's a very poor argument. You can swap out "church" for almost any other childhood activity. For example, soccer:"

A soccer coach has less scope for compelling sodomy than does a priest representing an imaginary celestial friend.

BTW, soccer coaches aren't paying hundreds of millions of dollars in pedophilia settlement money.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19762878/

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/04/us/boston-archbishop-will-sell-residence-for-abuse-payout.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4655265.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4147431.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3872083.stm

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/29/us/catholic-priest-who-aids-church-sexual-abuse-victims-loses-job-military-chaplain.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/aug/17/religion.childprotection

http://www.boston.com/globe/spotlight/abuse/scandal/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/aug/17/religion.childprotection

Too bad this doesn't happen more often:

http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/08/24/geoghan/index.html

"That's a very poor argument. You can swap out "church" for almost any other childhood activity. For example, soccer:"

A soccer coach has less scope for compelling sodomy than does a priest representing an imaginary celestial friend.

BTW, soccer coaches aren't paying hundreds of millions of dollars in pedophilia settlement money.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19762878/

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/04/us/boston-archbishop-will-sell-residence-for-abuse-payout.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4655265.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4147431.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3872083.stm

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/29/us/catholic-priest-who-aids-church-sexual-abuse-victims-loses-job-military-chaplain.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/aug/17/religion.childprotection

http://www.boston.com/globe/spotlight/abuse/scandal/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/aug/17/religion.childprotection

Too bad this doesn't happen more often:

http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/08/24/geoghan/index.html

As I posted further on: http://politics.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1461912&cid=30282926
I think it is illegal to snoop even clear text per the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Communications_Privacy_Act [wikipedia.org]. "ECPA prohibits unlawful access and certain disclosures of communication contents. " See also: John and Alice Martin http://www.nytimes.com/1997/04/24/us/florida-couple-are-charged-in-taping-of-gingrich-call.html [nytimes.com]

Just because you can do something does not make it legal to do.
Or, do you believe that an door is unlocked door is an invitation to enter? I believe what you describe doing falls under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Communications_Privacy_Act. "ECPA prohibits unlawful access and certain disclosures of communication contents. " See also: John and Alice Martin http://www.nytimes.com/1997/04/24/us/florida-couple-are-charged-in-taping-of-gingrich-call.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/29/us/29foodstamps.html So how's that sustained economic growth going in the US?

I take it you didn't see that study recently that showed that America alone wastes 1 400 kilocalories per person per day, or 150 trillion kilocalories per year. It takes roughly 1 000 kilocalories per day to reverse malnutrition in children. So, just taking food from America's trash, we could eradicate hunger in children. Of course, then they'd be poisoned by all the crap in fast food, but nevertheless.

Alternatively, you could just read this .doc file, pointing out that we already produce enough food to feed double the population of the world? I know, accepting the idea that people starve because of the greed and apathy of wealthy nations combined with the corrupt governments of rich and poor nations, rather than because of some complex socio-economic problem, but it simply isn't true that world hunger is a complex problem.

tl;dr: the world produces enough food to make everyone in the world fat, we just throw it away instead of feeding the 1 000 000 000 starving people.

go to the place they are making the meat

You mean the place they told you they were making the meat. 'Round back is the slaughterhouse where the stuff you bought actually came from.

I think you underestimate the power of "or else you lose your job" when it comes to keeping secrets. If people really were as glib as you suggest, we wouldn't have whistle-blower laws, everyone would be bouncing around like a giddy 6 year old screaming "I've got a secret I've got a secret".

for a start, people with ethical considerations will now be eating meat

Yeah, you would think, but when PETA offered their million dollar prize for in-vitro meat, there was a substantial portion of the organization who were still opposed to it. Why, I don't know, I suppose some people are so caught up in their ideology they don't think critically about it anymore.

That aside, I wonder how much consumer acceptance this will have. I'm all for it (guilt free snow leopard sandwich here I come!), but people don't like 'fake' food. Look at all the bullshit flying out of the rumor machine about genetically modified foods. How long before in-vitro meat also is a shadow government and/or evil corporation conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids?

Great work, but it would be nice if there were a non-evil product to make it with.

400 hours though - the surface characteristics of Lego plastic seem ideal for 3D rendering. Great practice of patience, guys.

Those were the days before sovereignty-imparing deficits and debt.

But, the next attempt to take the Maersk Alabama failed immediately...

BECAUSE THEY HAD SECURITY AND FOUGHT BACK.

And your point was?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/29/business/29walmart.html

He was exaggerating about this year I think (not seen any trampling to death news reports), but it happened last year on Black Friday.

Were you seriously to expect liberals to respond to insults towards someone who will not hurt them in revenge ? Why ? Sure it would be immoral to aim gratuitous insults at someone who will not respond to them, but you know, there's no such thing as moral or immoral. Besides you're such a depressing medieval white male to say such a thing, right ?

Now if Bush would have ordered the killing of a journalist or some such. Then, obviously, you would have seen them falling over their own feet censoring themselves, apologizing and groveling. But attacking Bush was cheap. Whatever else Bush was, he is a man of principles, and will never attack an American for any speech whatsoever. Even if it's personal slander he would not do so. So all shots at Bush are cheap shots, certain to go without retribution. Of course that sort of thinking means liberals think Obama's capable of attacking and destroying individuals. Of course they want him to do so. Too many people in America are defending obvious facts or truths, like that communism, and communist policies like national health care, don't work. Lower quality, more expenses, "government cutbacks" and so on are the obvious results, and in medicine such things lead to deaths for obvious reasons. Evident. Proven time and again in economics. Forbidden to say in any liberal paper.

Besides, liberals are right ... Obama, the president of America, does attack individuals and companies, and even the sort of departments he doesn't like (ever notice how liberals complain to no end about ignoring "inconvenient truths" and then their elected candidate does this). Singling them out and using the office of the president to attack political adversaries.

And of course, here's exactly how Obama won't raise taxes for his friends : all his friends are criminals, tax evaders to be precise. Perhaps we should get his message.

It's not that I care all that much about these people or companies. I just worry who's next. I get the impression more and more people do so.

I can't speak to whether relocation is generally supported: I assume that it is for such witnesses. But that's a one-time investment, not an ongoing investment in qualified personnel to protect and secure those witnesses. Check out the article at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/28/nyregion/28witness.html?_r=1 for some details about the kind of problems that occur in funding witness protection. And sadly, many potential such witnesses have a long criminal history. That makes them very dangerous to relocate, since they're likely to return to their old criminal ways.

I guess I'm not sure what you want to talk to my printer about. Maybe you're alluding to some story I haven't haerd

If I may, I believe this is about some of the DMCA takedown notices received by University of Washington from the MPAA in the summer of 2008. A few of them were directed at laser printers because researchers at the university pulled some tricks with IP addresses in an attempt to prove that, no, they really don't tell you about identity and, no, the MPAA doesn't care.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/05/the-inexact-science-behind-dmca-takedown-notices/
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/06/05/entertainment-indust-1.html

I don't know if any changes have been made in response to the embarrassment, nor whether the embarrassment has even been acknowledged as such.

The fact that it's in the immediate interest of public safety. Watch the video from TFA; it looks like the event was far larger than anticipated, with completely inadequate crowd control. People were being shoved by the crowd through doors and down stairs. Mobs of people like this can easily knock someone down and trample them to death; it happens when there are fires in crowded space, or even when people are excited about being let into Wal-Mart on Black Friday. As the event had been announced through twitter, and the vast majority of the crowd was teenage girls with cell phones, so the hope was probably that getting a message from the official Twitter account itself would help disperse the crowd a lot better than the single cop getting up there with the megaphone, causing the crowd to just get angry.

When there's an immediate threat to life and health, compelling someone to make an announcement to disperse the crowd is an entirely reasonable thing to do. This is essentially the same case as that of calling "fire" in a crowded theater; inducing a panic in a confined space can cost lives, and likewise refusing to cooperate in trying to disperse a mob can cost lives as well.

What about this? Are we just supposed to pretend it never happened?

You need 10 more points now

zomg! argh! violate the constitution. Dude, chill the localized rhetoric out.

Giving the Federal DoE the power to trump local governments would violate the Constitution by giving the Federal Government a right, that it is not explicitly given to it by the document. All such powers belong to the States — and the people. That this is happening in other areas is not an excuse.

You say that without the DoE, it might get better. Considering the Kansas precedence, it is also obvious that it *might not*... or better yet, that the situation will degrade.

Actually, no, the Kansas precedent shows the exact opposite — it will not get any worse, because DoE currently has no control over local boards anyway. It might or it might not get better, but it will not degrade and we'll save a ton money spent on Washington bureaucrats. Just this year — despite the dire crisis, we rewarded failure at the DoE with about $100 bln dollars. It was trumpeted as "Money for Education" (think of the children!), but it was, in fact, "Money for the Department of Education"...

There are three scenarios where the Kansas fuckapocalipse wouldn't have taken place

You focus so much on Kansas' decision to teach, that Humanity has other explanations for nature's diversity, but you miss the bigger picture — Kansas' SAT-scores are quite a bit higher, than national average, while New York's are way lower. And New York spends the most per pupil of all States of the Union. And they have a lot of pupils, so one would think, they enjoy the economy of scale...

Something tells me, the Federally-guided education practices are closer to New York's — and, in particular, you would want them to be, even if you aren't happy with the results.

by replacing it with something more effective, run by educated men of science determined to bring US scholastic averages to same levels as in other developed countries, and with the teeth to force local school districts to implement said curriculums.

Oh, boy, you have a long way to go, before you realize, that "educated men of science" are just as prone to petty politicking, championing their own pet projects, and justifying their political agenda by "science" (climate cough research cough) etc. as the local dunces...

At least, if a State's board screws up, only that State's education is affected. If the Federal DoE screws up (or, deliberately sets some aspect of education onto a wrong track), the entire Union is screwed up. Seriously, what happened to the Celebrate Diversity slogan?

and with the teeth to force local school districts to implement said curriculums.

Unconstitutional...

What were Opera's alternatives?

They could have refused to do business in China, as long as the Chinese policy doesn't change.

Just like IKEA have stopped doing business in Russia, for slightly different reasons.

When was the last time you thought about your municipal water and sewer service?

Hot, hot, hot ... off the presses at the New York Times.

Many sewer systems are overwhelmed, spilling excrement, medical waste and chemicals into waterways

Talk to your Congressman or the President. The president is charged with the power to set foreign policy. Currently, US policy is to increase freedom in China via economic growth. Like it or not, that's the policy, and it hasn't changed in 30 years.

...meshes quite tidily with this, a couple posts further up:

It's a dangerous world you wish for, where corporations pressure governments into taking certain actions or making certain policies.

It wasn't clear to me whether the earlier post was intended to be ironic, but the irony is made explicit here. Of course corporations "pressure governments", and nothing could make this clearer than the hypocricy of US policy, foreign and domestic, endlessly talking about human rights while acting largely or solely in the interests of corporate wealth. Cf. the embarrassing inclusion of verbatim text from lobbyists in the Congressional Record (from NY Times http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/us/politics/15health.html). The distinction between corporate "influence" and simple corruption is very hard to see sometimes.

I've taken to pretty much completely skipping the tuna when I'm getting sushi - not because of concerns about which fish I'm getting, but because of mercury levels. Since commercial tuna are very large pinnacle fish, they tend to accumulate significant amounts of mercury - much higher than is found in smaller fish such as salmon. There's a nice little article about mercury levels in tuna sushi in NYC from early 2008: High Mercury Levels Are Found in Tuna Sushi (NYTimes January 23, 2008)

I currently live in an inland city, hundreds of kilometers from the the nearest ocean. This is why I refuse to eat sushi at the restaurants here since the fish will not be very fresh.

I remember reading this years ago:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/08/nyregion/08SUSH.html?pagewanted=all

Food and Drug Administration regulations stipulate that fish to be eaten raw ? whether as sushi, sashimi, seviche, or tartare ? must be frozen first, to kill parasites. "I would desperately hope that all the sushi we eat is frozen," said George Hoskin, a director of the agency's Office of Seafood. Tuna, a deep-sea fish with exceptionally clean flesh, is the only exception to the rule.

It seems once a year, someone re-discovers the amazing fact that uncooked fish should not be served fresh.