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Is Obama any better? Don't know yet, it takes more than a few months after jumping into the cesspool to find out if the new president is actually better, worse, or caught by the undertow.

I'll help you out here and toss an apropos metaphor your way: "Out of the frying pan, into the fire" Let's see why:

• Obama has been paying Perkins Coie something in the order of 2.3 million dollars since he announced his candidacy for president. This law firm is one of a few that have been defending Obama in the courts against people who are demanding more than a COLB as evidence of his place of birth. It is a fact that collections are still being accepted to pay for this.
• How much do we really know about Obama? Not a lot, it seems.
  • We know that Senator McCain's long form and short form birth certificates were released when his citizenship was challenged during the presidential race. To date, we have a COLB from Obama, a document that is not accepted by Federal agencies to obtain so much as a passport.
  • We have Senator McCain's 1974 thesis from his days at the National War College. Obama refuses to allow anyone access to his Columbia thesis.
  • Despite having been president of Harvard Law Review, Matthew Franck noted in National Review Online, "A search of the HeinOnline database of law journals turns up exactly nothing credited to Obama in any law review anywhere at any time."

The list goes on, but this should give you an idea of what we're up against.

If you'd stop rolling your eyes into the back of your head and foaming at the mouth, maybe you can figure out the difference between counterproductive fear/hate mongering and constructive criticism and debate.

Not all criticism of Obama is "foaming at the mouth". Personally, I'd be satisfied with acceptable evidence of his proof of citizenship, so I could move on. I don't have to like the sitting president (I didn't like Bill Clinton either, but I accept the fact that he was the legally-elected persident), but it's a lot easier to accept or deal with the antics of the president when one knows that he actually belongs in the office.

And yes, this is the last post I will make to this article and thread. Rant all you want and spit into the wind to your hearts content, I will not respond.

You're free to ignore this if you want. Last time I checked, that was your right. I hope that you'll at least think about the things I've mentioned.

Is Obama any better? Don't know yet, it takes more than a few months after jumping into the cesspool to find out if the new president is actually better, worse, or caught by the undertow.

I'll help you out here and toss an apropos metaphor your way: "Out of the frying pan, into the fire" Let's see why:

• Obama has been paying Perkins Coie something in the order of 2.3 million dollars since he announced his candidacy for president. This law firm is one of a few that have been defending Obama in the courts against people who are demanding more than a COLB as evidence of his place of birth. It is a fact that collections are still being accepted to pay for this.
• How much do we really know about Obama? Not a lot, it seems.
  • We know that Senator McCain's long form and short form birth certificates were released when his citizenship was challenged during the presidential race. To date, we have a COLB from Obama, a document that is not accepted by Federal agencies to obtain so much as a passport.
  • We have Senator McCain's 1974 thesis from his days at the National War College. Obama refuses to allow anyone access to his Columbia thesis.
  • Despite having been president of Harvard Law Review, Matthew Franck noted in National Review Online, "A search of the HeinOnline database of law journals turns up exactly nothing credited to Obama in any law review anywhere at any time."

The list goes on, but this should give you an idea of what we're up against.

If you'd stop rolling your eyes into the back of your head and foaming at the mouth, maybe you can figure out the difference between counterproductive fear/hate mongering and constructive criticism and debate.

Not all criticism of Obama is "foaming at the mouth". Personally, I'd be satisfied with acceptable evidence of his proof of citizenship, so I could move on. I don't have to like the sitting president (I didn't like Bill Clinton either, but I accept the fact that he was the legally-elected persident), but it's a lot easier to accept or deal with the antics of the president when one knows that he actually belongs in the office.

And yes, this is the last post I will make to this article and thread. Rant all you want and spit into the wind to your hearts content, I will not respond.

You're free to ignore this if you want. Last time I checked, that was your right. I hope that you'll at least think about the things I've mentioned.

Is it just me, or is the image in the article missing the burgers?
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/13/fatty-foods-affect-memory-and-exercise/

It looks like a nice semi-healthy lettuce sandwich with a little cheese.

Perhaps the photographer is a hindu or something...?

The news actually are a cleverly disguised "Fat people are dumb".

They're also more expensive.

Quoth the article:

Two years ago, the Cleveland Clinic stopped hiring smokers. It was one part of a "wellness initiative" that has won the renowned hospital -- which President Obama recently visited -- some very nice publicity. The clinic has a farmers' market on its main campus and has offered smoking-cessation classes for the surrounding community.

Refusing to hire smokers may be more hard-nosed than the other parts of the program. But given the social marginalization of smoking, the policy is hardly shocking. All in all, the wellness initiative seems to be a feel-good story.

Which is why it is so striking to talk to Delos M. Cosgrove, the heart surgeon who is the clinic's chief executive, about the initiative. Cosgrove says that if it were up to him, if there weren't legal issues, he would not only stop hiring smokers. He would also stop hiring obese people. When he mentioned this to me during a recent phone conversation, I told him that I thought many people might consider it unfair. He was unapologetic.

Translation for reading comprehension impaired: Obama wants to kill fat people. ;-)

If it isn't written on his birth certificate, I don't believe it :)

The news actually are a cleverly disguised "Fat people are dumb".

They're also more expensive.

Quoth the article:

Two years ago, the Cleveland Clinic stopped hiring smokers. It was one part of a "wellness initiative" that has won the renowned hospital -- which President Obama recently visited -- some very nice publicity. The clinic has a farmers' market on its main campus and has offered smoking-cessation classes for the surrounding community.

Refusing to hire smokers may be more hard-nosed than the other parts of the program. But given the social marginalization of smoking, the policy is hardly shocking. All in all, the wellness initiative seems to be a feel-good story.

Which is why it is so striking to talk to Delos M. Cosgrove, the heart surgeon who is the clinic's chief executive, about the initiative. Cosgrove says that if it were up to him, if there weren't legal issues, he would not only stop hiring smokers. He would also stop hiring obese people. When he mentioned this to me during a recent phone conversation, I told him that I thought many people might consider it unfair. He was unapologetic.

Translation for reading comprehension impaired: Obama wants to kill fat people. ;-)

What happens if you get "the rest of the word" up to speed economically to the level where they can compete with us - and note that economic competitiveness implies military capability - and it turns out that their morals are diametrically opposite to ours (e.g., "Behead all those who insult Islam!", as written on the sign of one Muslim protester)?

You mean, as opposed to those people whose morals are "like ours"? Maybe the military officer who "made wisecracks about the soldiers heading off to Iraq to kill some ragheads and burn some turbans"? Or forum posts like "Damn Ragheads! We need to simply kill everyone in fuggin Iraq!"? Or "Reaper", the Brit who says "I like to Kill Haji's, they disgust me"? Yep, them Christians and Americans and Brits sure are some peace lovin' people, morally far superior to Muslims.

I'm missing it this year :( quite sadly. I'd highly recommend that you go. It's one of those things where afterwards you'll being wondering why you even considered not going.

Once you get there everything will make sense. You have to remember that this is not a typical event. People who go consider themselves a community and almost everyone supports the EULA because of past problems where people tried to sell videos of people at the event without their consent.

http://archives.cnn.com/2002/LAW/08/26/ctv.burning.man/

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/05/national/05VIDE.html

As for the tickets, they are well worth it and are not sold for profit, but to cover the costs of the event. Such as leasing the land from the BLM, providing toilet facilities for 50,000 people for 1 week, etc ... it's actually a bargain!

Also, most people don't know this, but probably 20%-30% of the population have advanced degrees in science or engineering ... and trust me that you'll be amazed by the art and contraptions that come out of these peoples heads :)

Like a man in a faraday cage with two GIANT tesla coils playing with lightening :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJShbQoXVzo

There's already a company in Boulder, Colorado that tests kids' DNA for a "sports" gene. Apparently there is some sort of link between the ATCN3 gene and athletic ability (like running speed or endurance). This just looks like they're looking at other genes that have a tenuous association with other abilities. That being said, even an overall sports ability is probably based on more than just that gene, so I don't think any of these types of tests are detailed enough to give much of a good result. There was also an article about Atlas Gene in the NY Times last year.

Today, most of what we use the web for on a day-to-day basis aren't just web pages, they're applications. Wouldn't it be great, then, to start from scratch, and design something based on the needs of today's web applications and today's users?
--Google, 9/2/2008

And from today's FA:

But Mr. Andreessen suggested the new browser would be different, saying that most other browsers had not kept pace with the evolution of the Web, which had grown from an array of static Web pages into a network of complex Web sites and applications. "There are all kinds of things that you would do differently if you are building a browser from scratch," Mr. Andreessen said.
--Marc Andreessen, 8/13/2009

It's as if he fell asleep reading the comic, dreamt about it, and woke up thinking he had an original idea. Then again, TFA says he said "most other browsers", so maybe he's specifically excluding Chrome? :-)

Errr, I'm not comparing the US only to genocidal dictatorships. Check out some links, then draw your own conclusions:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/world/americas/23iht-23prison.12253738.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison
Prison population per 100,000 inhabitants:
US - 756
Russia - 611
New Zealand - 186
UK - 148
Netherlands - 128
Australia - 157
Canada - 107

There is something wrong with the SYSTEM. One of the biggest problems, of course, is the "war on drugs". There are, literally, millions of non-dangerous people imprisoned each and every year, for violating drug laws. Our rates should be near those of Canada and Australia - we are similar peole, with similar histories, after all, with slavery being the biggest single difference in our histories.

How much caffeine do you drink per day? I think a lot of the disparity is due to the fact that we (rightly) keep younger people from using caffeine and other stimulants.

You might want to take a look around you - teenagers now seem to be way, waaay more caffeinated than I was at that age - I would have a coke now and again, and the occasional coffee before school, but dem-darn-kids-nowadays guzzle energy drinks like Monster and Redbull at an alarming rate. Not a particularly scientific observation on my part, but others seem to have noticed. Also, check out the caffeine database.

Because I want it. I pay taxes and I think it is ridiculous that we spend 693 times the budget of exploring the fucking solar system on bailing out corporations who were too dumb to not bankrupt themselves. 12.2 TRILLION dollars compared to .176 trillion for NASA.

Are there really conservative groups making claims about death panels and the like? So far all I've heard are sound bites on NPR of Obama and democratic senators debunking the claims and never original sources. It seems shady to me that with such sweeping legislation, the only thing being said about it is that it doesn't have forced abortions or death panels. Well no shit. What does it contain, exactly, and why is it that people who oppose this particular reform are being painted as corporate shills supporting the status quo instead of individuals who have different ideas for reform?

Oh, hell, I'm already off-topic, so I might as well say that I find it interesting that despite all the bad-mouthing of big pharma and how much they'll hate this new plan, they're running ads in support of it.

As for this document, it's a non-issue. That actually increases the chances it will show up in both wings of mass media, first in the right claiming it's an outrage, then in the left to ridicule the right.

Anonymous because I know how this post will get hammered, and since I'm off-topic it might deserve it.

I've been to burning man 7 times ... its an amazing place and a lot of what makes it special would be ruined if you knew that people were videotaping you doing something odd and then trying to sell that video.

That is the basis of this rule ... and this is the only time I ever know of it being enforced.

To PROTECT people's rights ... not limit them.

In fact there are TONS of videos of burning man on Youtube, and http://www.burningman.com/ has a repository of photos from almost every year.

They just don't want the Girls Gone Wild assholes to sell images of you without your consent.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/05/national/05VIDE.html

http://archives.cnn.com/2002/LAW/08/26/ctv.burning.man/

Many of the UAVs currently used are intended for a long-endurance surveillance role. They typically have engines just powerful enough to do that, and lots of wing area to reduce how much fuel it needs to burn.

They are designed to be up for long periods, so if it takes extra time to get there, it's not that big of a deal. The Predator (RQ-1) uses a 115 hp motor. The Reaper (larger Predator) has a 950 hp. For comparison, a Cessna 172 has in the neighborhood of a 160 hp engine, with roughly the same weight and general bounding box, minus the wings being 3/4 (36 vs 48 ft) as wide. The Reaper is about 6 ft longer, and scaled up, but also has a max takeoff weight of about twice the other two. In terms of power/weight, one is worse, the other better than the most produced small manned aircraft, however, I have no knowledge of what else the air frame can handle. I'm thinking that you won't be able to get many Gs out of either one. Typically, you only see those on higher performance, and unstable military fighters. Even there, I think the limit is usually not the pilot, but the structure of the plane.

Oh, and in terms of loss rate on Predators & Reapers: "All told, 55 have been lost because of equipment failure, operator errors or weather. Four were shot down in Bosnia, Kosovo and Iraq; 11 were lost in combat situations, like running out of fuel while protecting troops under fire." (nytimes) Assuming all delivered aircraft are operational or crashed, 195(p)+28(r)+70(l), or 70/293 for a design completed in the mid 90s, not something I'd want to fly on, even removing the 15 shot down/lost in combat situations (weather, equipment failure are typically bad designs, and operator error can be, 17 actions to fire a missile, apparently including drop down menus?).

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/17/business/17uav.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp

While I agree with your assessment of the program, it's erroneous to assume that the US Government is inefficient in handing the money out. Medicare and the SSA have administrative cost loads that are much cheaper than private insurance companies. This gives some data on the subject of Medicare, which notes:

"However, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has found that administrative costs under the public Medicare plan are less than 2 percent of expenditures, compared with approximately 11 percent of spending by private plans under Medicare Advantage. This is a near perfect âoeapples to applesâ comparison of administrative costs, because the public Medicare plan and Medicare Advantage plans are operating under similar rules and treating the same population."

  This gives some information on Social Security's costs, which are a meaty .6% of the benefits distributed. Yes, that's point six percent. See Fact # 10.

Microsoft has been cannibalizing their own business for profits. They don't have the ability to innovate and they have been resorting to forcing upgrades on their customers to maintain revenue.
they could have taken over business software

Slashdot and reality are perilously close to a permanent disconnect:

"SharePoint is saving Microsoft's Office business even as it paves the way for a new era of Microsoft lock-in," said Matt Asay, an executive at Alfresco, which makes an open-source content management system. "It is simultaneously the most interesting and dangerous Microsoft technology, and has largely caught its competitors napping." Microsoft's SharePoint Thrives in the Recession, Slow down, cowboy

With the next version of Office, Microsoft is trying to expand* its desktop hold on the productivity market into one that spans the PC, Web, and phone, and the Nokia deal is seen as a significant move in that last category.
The software maker has already said that, with the next version of Office, it plans to offer browser-based versions of Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and OneNote. Those programs will be able to run inside Safari and Firefox in addition to Microsoft's Internet Explorer. That means that Office, for the first time, will run on Linux-based machines.
Although Nokia and Microsoft have long been rivals in the phone business, the two have also struck deals at times. Nokia already has a license that allows its phones to connect to Exchange Servers using Microsoft's ActiveSync protocol. In 2007, Microsoft also struck a deal with Nokia to have Windows Live services run on the Finnish company's phones. Microsoft, Nokia plan mobile Office deal

*-emphasis added.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/12/nyregion/12screen.html

How's that for predictability?

Does a contract provision trump a Federal law?

Since the ones writing the contracts were allowed to contribute to the campaigns of the justices who later rule on them.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/01/us/01judges.html

Well, you bring up some good questions, the answers to which I do not know. However, given Warren's past history of being exceedingly fastidious when it comes to numbers (and quite good at it), along with this article from a professor at Wharton (arguably, the top MBA program in the US), I would say that there is some merit to this claim:
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/01/taxes-warren-buffett-and-paying-my-fair-share/

Asking an economist to predict the stock market is like asking your channel 7 weather man to model global climate change.

Nevertheless, if you've been following Krugman he's certainly not been an optimist about a lot of the aspects of economy leading up to the meltdown. Here's a pretty pessimistic article about housing prices from 8/2005: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/08/opinion/08krugman.html?_r=1 Of course, at the time people accused him of being a pessimist.

he also claimed on numerous occasions that there was no oil speculation. He finally reversed himself earlier this summer when he acknowledged what those who track oil shipments already knew, that oil was sitting in tankers/storage but prices were high.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/08/oil-speculation/

If the Nobel prize winner can't even figure out trends that basic, how exact can his future predictions be?

Exactly. These morons don't know how to read.

They'll keep spreading this "Krugman advocated the bubble" bullshit meme forever even though it makes absolutely no sense and is clearly contradicted by reading the actual article and everything else Krugman has ever written. If that isn't enough, there's this as well. But these guys are ideology first, facts and common sense... never.

Yes, it couldn't have been the artificially low interest rates, which means they are increasing the monetary supply much more than they should, which caused the housing bubble (not to mention the NASDAQ bubble), its that darn "deregulation," which of course means different regulations and happened over the course of 3 decades.

Of course, Krugman actually advocated created a housing bubble in 2002.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/02/opinion/dubya-s-double-dip.html

Krugman is just an organ for the Federal Reserve and the state.

I just reread that post and I don't understand how in that op-ed piece Krugman advocated creating the housing bubble.

Can you explain this to me?

thanks

To be fair you have to add Krugman's response to this accusation:

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/17/and-i-was-on-the-grassy-knoll-too/

Guys, read it again. It wasn't a piece of policy advocacy, it was just economic analysis. What I said was that the only way the Fed could get traction would be if it could inflate a housing bubble. And that's just what happened.

You, sir, are smoking crack.

Of all the economists to go after for having poor "prognostication skills" you couldn't have picked anyone worse, except for maybe Nuriel Roubini. The fact is that Krugman called the bubble in at least May 2005, warned of disastrous consequences in August of that year, and continued to do so all the way to when the shit hit the fan. From his August 8 2005 piece:

"If housing prices actually started falling, we'd be looking at a very nasty scene, in which both construction and consumer spending would plunge, pushing the economy right back into recession. That's why it's so ominous to see signs that America's housing market, like the stock market at the end of the last decade, is approaching the final, feverish stages of a speculative bubble."

This is when Fox, CNBC, and the Fed were rah-rahing about how everything was fine and shouting down those who'd voice otherwise.

It was worse than even he suspected, as the bubble continued to grow, he continued to point it out. For anyone who read his column and blog in the years leading up to this clusterfuck it was quite clear that Krugman had a very prescient and accurate prediction of the varied causes and effects of the chaos that would ensue along with numerous warnings not to let it happen. So the parent can shut his pie hole because he clearly hasn't read a word the man has written.

I invite anyone to Google and read Krugman's columns for yourself. Because this is insane backwards bullshit. The guy was crying his head off that this was going to happen.

You, sir, are smoking crack.

Of all the economists to go after for having poor "prognostication skills" you couldn't have picked anyone worse, except for maybe Nuriel Roubini. The fact is that Krugman called the bubble in at least May 2005, warned of disastrous consequences in August of that year, and continued to do so all the way to when the shit hit the fan. From his August 8 2005 piece:

"If housing prices actually started falling, we'd be looking at a very nasty scene, in which both construction and consumer spending would plunge, pushing the economy right back into recession. That's why it's so ominous to see signs that America's housing market, like the stock market at the end of the last decade, is approaching the final, feverish stages of a speculative bubble."

This is when Fox, CNBC, and the Fed were rah-rahing about how everything was fine and shouting down those who'd voice otherwise.

It was worse than even he suspected, as the bubble continued to grow, he continued to point it out. For anyone who read his column and blog in the years leading up to this clusterfuck it was quite clear that Krugman had a very prescient and accurate prediction of the varied causes and effects of the chaos that would ensue along with numerous warnings not to let it happen. So the parent can shut his pie hole because he clearly hasn't read a word the man has written.

I invite anyone to Google and read Krugman's columns for yourself. Because this is insane backwards bullshit. The guy was crying his head off that this was going to happen.

You, sir, are smoking crack.

Of all the economists to go after for having poor "prognostication skills" you couldn't have picked anyone worse, except for maybe Nuriel Roubini. The fact is that Krugman called the bubble in at least May 2005, warned of disastrous consequences in August of that year, and continued to do so all the way to when the shit hit the fan. From his August 8 2005 piece:

"If housing prices actually started falling, we'd be looking at a very nasty scene, in which both construction and consumer spending would plunge, pushing the economy right back into recession. That's why it's so ominous to see signs that America's housing market, like the stock market at the end of the last decade, is approaching the final, feverish stages of a speculative bubble."

This is when Fox, CNBC, and the Fed were rah-rahing about how everything was fine and shouting down those who'd voice otherwise.

It was worse than even he suspected, as the bubble continued to grow, he continued to point it out. For anyone who read his column and blog in the years leading up to this clusterfuck it was quite clear that Krugman had a very prescient and accurate prediction of the varied causes and effects of the chaos that would ensue along with numerous warnings not to let it happen. So the parent can shut his pie hole because he clearly hasn't read a word the man has written.

I invite anyone to Google and read Krugman's columns for yourself. Because this is insane backwards bullshit. The guy was crying his head off that this was going to happen.

You, sir, are smoking crack.

Of all the economists to go after for having poor "prognostication skills" you couldn't have picked anyone worse, except for maybe Nuriel Roubini. The fact is that Krugman called the bubble in at least May 2005, warned of disastrous consequences in August of that year, and continued to do so all the way to when the shit hit the fan. From his August 8 2005 piece:

"If housing prices actually started falling, we'd be looking at a very nasty scene, in which both construction and consumer spending would plunge, pushing the economy right back into recession. That's why it's so ominous to see signs that America's housing market, like the stock market at the end of the last decade, is approaching the final, feverish stages of a speculative bubble."

This is when Fox, CNBC, and the Fed were rah-rahing about how everything was fine and shouting down those who'd voice otherwise.

It was worse than even he suspected, as the bubble continued to grow, he continued to point it out. For anyone who read his column and blog in the years leading up to this clusterfuck it was quite clear that Krugman had a very prescient and accurate prediction of the varied causes and effects of the chaos that would ensue along with numerous warnings not to let it happen. So the parent can shut his pie hole because he clearly hasn't read a word the man has written.

I invite anyone to Google and read Krugman's columns for yourself. Because this is insane backwards bullshit. The guy was crying his head off that this was going to happen.

Of course, Krugman actually advocated created a housing bubble in 2002.

For anyone who thinks parent might be exaggerating, it's no joke. Krugman is quite literally insane. Here's a direct quote from the linked article (emphasis added):

The basic point is that the recession of 2001 wasn't a typical postwar slump, brought on when an inflation-fighting Fed raises interest rates and easily ended by a snapback in housing and consumer spending when the Fed brings rates back down again. This was a prewar-style recession, a morning after brought on by irrational exuberance. To fight this recession the Fed needs more than a snapback; it needs soaring household spending to offset moribund business investment. And to do that, as Paul McCulley of Pimco put it, Alan Greenspan needs to create a housing bubble to replace the Nasdaq bubble.

Of course, Krugman actually advocated created a housing bubble in 2002.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/02/opinion/dubya-s-double-dip.html

Krugman is just an organ for the Federal Reserve and the state.

To fight this recession the Fed needsâ¦soaring household spending to offset moribund business investment. [So] Alan Greenspan needs to create a housing bubble to replace the Nasdaq bubble.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/02/opinion/dubya-s-double-dip.html Krugman and the Keynesian economists don't predict economic downturns, they create them. They believe that "bad" money in the short term is better than "good" money and say that in the long term we are all dead. Krugman's prize wasn't for being a good economist but for his mathematical model much like John Nash. Personally after reading Krugman the past two years I believe he is also just as nuts.

After all, Hitler was a professed Christian.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/13/weekinreview/word-for-word-case-against-nazis-hitler-s-forces-planned-destroy-german.html/ "Word for Word/The Case Against the Nazis; How Hitler's Forces Planned To Destroy German Christianity" It's the New York Times, so can take it with grain of salt if you wish.

This looks interesting too: http://www.lawandreligion.com/nurinst1.shtml July 6, 1945 - "The Nazi Master Plan: The Persecution of the Christian Churches"

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/17/technology/companies/17blue.html

I.B.M.â(TM)s earnings per share rose 18 percent in the second quarter. Net income was $3.1 billion, a 12 percent increase from a year earlier.

I.B.M.â(TM)s software business, Mr. Loughridge said, is on track to generate $8 billion in pretax profit this year, compared with $2.5 billion in 2000, while the big services business should produce about $8 billion in profit this year, compared with $4.5 billion in 2000. The two units are expected to account for about 85 percent of I.B.M.â(TM)s pretax profit in 2009.

Microsoft would love to be that profitable; instead, after MS announced their large loss for the first quarter of 2009 they stopped issuing profit forecasts for the rest of the year.

This is what one of Microsoft's Open Source competitors had to say about SharePoint:

Microsoft has found a way to create ties between SharePoint and its more traditional products like Office and Exchange. Companies can tweak Office documents through SharePoint and receive information like whether a worker is online or not through tools in Exchange. These links have Microsoft carrying along its old-line software as it builds a more Internet-focused software line.

"SharePoint is saving Microsoft's Office business even as it paves the way for a new era of Microsoft lock-in," said Matt Asay, an executive at Alfresco, which makes an open-source content management system. "It is simultaneously the most interesting and dangerous Microsoft technology, and has largely caught its competitors napping."

Microsoft has managed to undercut even the open-source companies playing in the business software market by giving away a free basic license to SharePoint if they already have Windows Server. "It's a brilliant strategy that mimics open source in its viral, free distribution, but transcends open source in its ability to lock customers into a complete, not-free-at-all Microsoft stack - one for which they'll pay more and more the deeper they get into SharePoint," Mr. Asay said. Microsoft's SharePoint Thrives in the Recession [Aug 7]

SharePoint is the hottest selling server side product for Microsoft ever.

In its next iteration, SharePoint will have "stronger ties to the corporate search technology Microsoft acquired in the $1.2 billion purchase of Fast Search and Transfer. Best Buy uses the Fast technology today to provide on-the-fly pricing information to customers performing product searches on its Web site."

The Net Applications global market stats for July are out. The weakness of Linux and FOSS in these stats is startling - and if you were looking for evidence of a real "death spiral," this would be a good place to begin.

Operating System Market Share [Rounded]

XP 73%
Vista 18%
OSX 10.5 3%
Linux 1%
OSX 10.4 1%
W2K 1%
Win 7 1%

Browser Version Market Share

IE 6 27%
IE 7 23%
FFOX 3 16%
IE 8 12%
FFOX 3.5 5%
Chrome 2%
Safari 2%

Country Level Weighting

I can't find exact numbers, but if you are curious, here is a nytimes article indicating that Delta cut its pilot pay across the board by 32% even before bankruptcy. Prior to this, they were the highest paid in the industry by a good margin.

Sorry, I prefer the "unfettered capitalism" of the past -- at least, it was efficient and the same rules, however difficult, applied to everyone.

Unfettered capitalism inevitably leads to wealth concentration, and wealth concentration inevitably distorts the political system into favoring those with wealth. Even if you start out with the same rules applying to everyone, after a few decades, that's assuredly not the case anymore. Consider the big trusts of the 19th century, or the original AT&T, or the Teapot Dome scandal, or the more recent Department of the Interior Scandal, or own present-day financial system as described by Simon Johnson.

People like you, against all rational self-interest, argue in favor of those who currently hold the reins of power. People like you comprise the lunatic fringe that's historically impeded any attempt at breaking entrenched powers and enriching the life of the common person. In short, fuck you and the libertarian horse you ride in on.

Just the other day I saw a rich person going all over town setting soup kitchens and churches on fire

The rich establishment does not have to set soup kitchens on fire to destroy them. It can be done more insidiously-- by supporting an economic distribution that erodes the middle class and forces more people into poverty. By overwhelming the soup kitchens. By de-funding social safety nets such as soup kitchens.

It's hilarious that the ones always calling for an end to "class warfare nonsense" are those that identify with the minority upper class. The same ones who by strange coincidence seem to continually start (and win) class warfare attacks on everyone else.

To quote billionaire Warren Buffett:

"There's class warfare, all right. But it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning."

Excellent post, of course, hairyfeet and should anyone have missed this (FINALLY!!!!) NY Times article (once in a while, even they will report the facts!) on the private sector job growth over the last 10 years, effectively ZERO:

JOB GROWTH LACKING IN PRIVATE SECTOR

Geez...I've been saying - ranting about - this for years....

What better way to shut down any future competition than to tell would-be entrepreneurs to pack up their toys and go home?

Perhaps the IBM way?

Semi related as an alternative, here is a short article outlining the rising demand for new wind power tech jobs.

what is he going to do? Jack up the subscription price hoping that'll help?

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YES.
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2007
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YES.
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2008
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YES.
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Note: I really hate this sites commenting system. If I log in, I get booted to the main page and lose my current comment.
And If I don't I can cleanly format my comment.

UGH

Nuclear POWERED, not nuclear ARMED. If you read the source and not the blog refering to the source you'd know this already. "Defense Department officials declined to speculate on which weapons might be aboard the two submarines." http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/05/world/05patrol.html

Oh dear, with twitter down i need to amuse myself through acts of googlecise;
Interviews with Ray Tomlinson

Interview 1: http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article3525110.ece

Interview 2: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/06/technology/looking-back-in-the-beginning-a-note-to-himself.html

Interview 3: http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/entdev/article.php/1408411

1. Some Doctors make extra cash by prescribing particular treatments.

      Crackdown on Doctors Who Take Kickbacks [New York Times]

2. Even when Doctors don't make direct cash, it is said some of them make indirect benefits such as courses which are disguised nice holidays.

3. Even when Doctors don't benefit personally, medical industry reps do benefit from their products being chosen. Behind the Doctor is a whole industry of pressures and reality distortion fields who's agenda includes their own profit, and does not have your health at the top. Doctors are human and are not immune from pressure and reality distortion fields.

2. You are wrong to say "Natural path, homeopaths, acupuncturist and others of there ilk are a different matter. They charge of treatments that do no damn good."
Some of them aren't effective, some of them are. Some patients benefit, some do not. It sounds like you don't.

Even if it's just due to psychology or psychosomatic response, when that does you good, it's good.
Some people think if it's psychology you can do it yourself and get the same result.
That's not true for everyone.

It's not that the notepads and pens they handed out to doctors cost too much, it's that the trade group representing drug companies voluntarily agreed to stop the practice.

And not only has ghostwriting been around forever, but the drug companies have long hired well-respected doctors as consultants (at high rates), or paid for them to give lectures (again, at high rates). These well-respected doctors (called 'Key Opinion Leaders') have considerable influence within their specialty.

Disclosure: I arrange for doctors to work as consultants for drug companies.

Here are few links:
Philadelphia Inquirer,
UPI (Two quotes: "Ghostwriters paid by U.S. pharmaceutical giant Wyeth worked on dozens of articles published in medical journals under doctors' names, court documents indicate." and "A Wyeth spokesman said the ghostwritten articles were scientifically sound and subject to peer review by the journals that published them.")
NYT

Slow Anon-kun, is slow.

I think you see the kind of myth you're repeating perpetuated by the US government; anti-terrorist rhetoric makes a great cover for pushing through an increasingly totalitarian agenda.

There. Fixed that for you. [1]

[1] See also: 43rd President of the United States; Darth Vader

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/03/world/americas/03iht-journalists.1.19890938.html

Perhaps you could explain the point here.

Is there evidence that the journalists referenced in the article in any way distorted facts during the election?

If not, and they were simply pro-Obama, is their evidence or even a good argument that their support was based in zombie-like fervor rather than studied consideration?

Similarly, is there evidence that their decision to enter public service after the election wasn't

Finally, what evidence exists that these journalists represent a critical mass of journalists as a whole?