Slashdot Mirror

The title is pretty misleading, as it omits "US." One might also look outside of the US borders for some examples of how new nuclear power plants are coming along -- or aren't.

I think it goes a little higher than Foxconn. Remember this is the same country that put to death the former head of thier FDA. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/10/world/asia/10iht-china.1.6587520.html

They do tend to take more responsibility for their actions than we do in the West.

The problem with building ANYTHING in the Panhandle is the same problem that T Boone Pickens had with building wind farms there. There's no infrastructure out there.
Pickens' problem was no transmission lines.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/08/business/energy-environment/08wind.html

Exactly what data lines are they going to connect to their server farm?

AG

[The NYT's] article on the bad photos on Wikipedia doesn't include a single link to the bad photos themselves [...]

NYT, like most newspapers, writes the articles for print, then reproduces them on the web site. Their process simply does not support links in the article body (although you may find a 'related sites' sidebar). This is pretty standard, and you'll see the same on almost all newspaper websites, plus a large proportion of news sites that are written specifically for the web (e.g. news.bbc.co.uk).

This may be true for normal nytimes.com articles, but their OpEd pieces certainly have links embedded in the text (i.e., Frank Rich). These articles also appear in newsprint.

The primary example cited by that NYT article is not the primary picture shown on Halle Berry's Wikipedia page, it's only the second picture shown on that page, and that picture is only one of seven pictures designed to show the progression of her career.

Great catch. Wikipedia does have many biographies with no photos at all, a problem the NYT article points out, but emphasizing the quality of this particular photo is disingenuous at best, and they should be called out for it. What it the best way to take them to task?

Well, Wikipedia does not agree with you:

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

I have found a reference to the story. It is from Historia Norwegia and the quote I was looking for is for example referenced in this NYT 1911 article:

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9D02EFDC1E31E233A25755C2A9679D946096D6CF

So the full quote was actually (about the Skraelings of Greenland):

"...they are struok with weapons when alive, their wounds are white and do not bleed, but when they are dead the blood scarcely stops running."

What about the smart kid who likes working with his hands? The problem works both ways.

American society has shunned blue collar work to the extent that our mechanics can't "fix" cars, but rather run through checklists and replace parts. Our domestic industries have suffered tremendously as well -- GM builds shitty cars...poorly, and at far greater expense than their competitors.

Put smart people back into industry, and we might actually be able to build a ladder to climb out of the hole that we've dug ourselves into. Funneling our best and brightest into finance, medicine, and law have had dire consequences on our society.

Matthew Crawford wrote a fantastic editorial in the New York Times a few weeks ago that touches on this subject far more eloquently than I possibly can in a slashdot comment.

0 copies:

http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f4506t.pdf?portlet=3

Signature and date. Form 4506-T must be
signed and dated by the taxpayer listed on
line 1a or 2a. If you completed line 5
requesting the information be sent to a
third party, the IRS must receive Form
4506-T within 60 days of the date signed
by the taxpayer or it will be rejected.
Individuals. Transcripts of jointly filed
tax returns may be furnished to either
spouse. Only one signature is required.
Sign Form 4506-T exactly as your name
appeared on the original return. If you
changed your name, also sign your current
name.
Corporations. Generally, Form 4506-T
can be signed by: (1) an officer having
legal authority to bind the corporation, (2)
any person designated by the board of
directors or other governing body, or (3)
any officer or employee on written request
by any principal officer and attested

1 copy:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/15/opinion/15dowd.html

But the barbed adjectives didn't match the muted performance on display before the Judiciary Committee. Like the president who picked her, Sotomayor has been a model of professorial rationality. Besides, it's delicious watching Republicans go after Democrats for being too emotional and irrational given the G.O.P. shame spiral.

W. and Dick Cheney made all their bad decisions about Iraq, W.M.D.'s, domestic surveillance, torture, rendition and secret hit squads from the gut, based on false intuitions, fear, paranoia and revenge.

Sarah Palin is the definition of irrational, a volatile and scattered country-music queen without the music. Her Republican fans defend her lack of application and intellect, happy to settle for her emotional electricity.

Senator Graham said Sotomayor would be confirmed unless she had "a meltdown" -- a word applied mostly to women and toddlers until Mark Sanford proudly took ownership of it when he was judged about the wisdom of his Latina woman.

2 copies:

http://pdfoxy.com/8986-excerpt-from-harry-potter-and-the-sorcerers-stone-pdf.html

"Look--" he murmured, holding out his arm to stop Malfoy. Something bright white was gleaming on the ground. They inched closer. It was the unicorn all right, and it was dead. Harry had never seen anything so beautiful and sad. Its long, slender legs were stuck out at odd angles where it had fallen and its mane was spread pearly-white on the dark leaves. Harry had taken one step toward it when a slithering sound made him freeze where he stood. A bush on the edge of the clearing quivered. . . . Then, out of the shadows, a hooded figure came crawling across the ground like some stalking beast. Harry, Malfoy, and Fang stood transfixed. The cloaked figure reached the unicorn, lowered its head over the wound in the animal's side, and began to drink its blood. "AAAAAAAAAAARGH!" Malfoy let out a terrible scream and bolted--so did Fang. The hooded figure raised its head and looked right at Harry--unicorn blood was dribbling down its front. It got to its feet and came swiftly toward Harry--he couldn't move for fear.

.
.
.

256 copies:

http://timecube.com/

Americans are dumb, educated ONE
stupid and they worship ONEism Evil.
It is not immoral to kill believers, for the stupid bastards EVOLVE from son
or daughter who precedes them. NOT one damn human adult has ever been
created - for ONLY babies are CREATED - and every adult has within them the LIFE given by children who DIE to give-up their lives to their parent
image - so their mom or Dad can live. Adults are EVIL to deny they evolved from children - a

Seven times more efficient according to recent article . Its fascinating you can teach an old dog new tricks with sufficient economic incentives. I welcome the competition among old and new technologies.

And here I thought this was going to be about Exxon backing Synthetic Genomics. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/14/business/energy-environment/14fuel.html Algae fuels are just so hot right now!

That would be pretty typical in show business. A major motion picture can have a HUGE box office and still mysteriously show no profit when it comes time to give out the money to the people with "points" in the movie. Peter Jackson had to sue New Line to get his fair share of the The Lord of the Rings movies, after they tried this with him (and he won).

According to The New York Times .

I just downloaded Google Chrome 3.0.192.0 for Mac and it crashed before I could even open a page. There is no excuse for this; my Mac Pro is perfect in every way with eight 2.93 GHz cores, 32 GB RAM, and a fresh install of Mac OS X Leopard v10.5.7. Ergo any crashing Google Chrome does is Google Chrome's own fault!

Why is it that Apple and Mozilla can do this but Google can't? I ran Internet Explorer 8 for months before its final release, Firefox 3.5 since its 3.1 days, and found Safari 4 Developer Preview more stable than Safari 3. In fact, even WebKit is more stable than Chrome.

What really baffles me, however, isn't the instability I've come to expect from Google, but that Google has the audacity to ask for personal user info to improve its browser. Is the search engine maker datamonger really so desperate for my private information that it's stooped to the level of Trojan horses to get it?

They should ask me that when it doesn't crash on launch.

Everything Google does is just another way to sieve personal data away for targeting ads. This kind of Big Brother crap is more repulsive than the fat programmers that make it possible. Google, with its deep pockets and doctoral scholars, thinks that by holding user data hostage it can maneuver around Apple and Microsoft. While this may be true, I'm not willing to be a part of it.

In using Google's search, Gmail, Chrome or whatever else the faceless robot of a company invents, the user is surrendering their personal information to a giant hivemind. No longer are their personal preferences some choice they make; they're a string of data processed by a Google algorithm: Google dehumanizes its users!

So while Google is arrogant enough to paint spyware shiny so it can parse our browsing habits, the least they could do is make sure it doesn't crash. If Apple, Microsoft, and Mozilla can get their preview releases right, why can't Google? And now they're making their own operating systems?

Get real, Google! I'll use your crashing codebloat when my Mac is cold and dead and I'm looking for handouts. Until then, quit mining my personal data!

HVDC can carry about 40% more power over the same lines, compared to AC. The main drawback is that you need to convert to/from AC on either end.

No, you don't need to convert DC to AC and back. Thomas Edison's electric company used DC. The old DC power system wasn't fully converted to AC until 2007. Even today Off the Gridders use DC. It's cheaper and loses less power if you use DC appliances with DC power than it is to convert DC to AC and use AC appliances. Of course this only matters if you only use solar PVs. If you use a hybrid system, solar and geothermal, micro hydro, tidal, or wind, then you'll need an inverter. You'll also need one if you use batteries to store energy.

Falcon

. I don't think that the field of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy has been discredited to the extent you seem to believe. Certainly it has it's opponents, of which you seem to be one, and in that sense it is "discredited" with certain groups or schools of thought.

Sigmund Freud's scientific fraud is well documented. His case studies, while based on actual cases for the most part, contain gross exaggerations and alterations to better fit his preconceived theories. Even university psychology departments and the APA agree:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/25/weekinreview/25cohen.html?_r=4&ref=education&oref&oref=slogin

Astrology is still accepted by a surprising number of people as well. That does not make it science.

. The unconscious is a powerful force in our lives, but it is not something that can be measured with a thermometer, or a blood test, or brain imaging. As with any kind of interpretation, useful results are only achieved with a truly competent analyst. Add to that the natural human inclination to resist the kind of confrontation inherent to psychoanalysis and you have a recipe for the appearance of the kind of hand-waving that you allege.

Subsitute: demons ---> unconcscious, witch doctor ---> psychoanalyst. Same story, right?

Now, I am not in fact refuting that unconscious psychological factors play a significant role in our lives. Nor am I denying that past traumas and experiences significantly influence those factors. To do so would be obviously absurd. I am not even saying that modern psychotherapy is without benefit. What I am saying is that nearly everything in the study of psychology from pre-1950s (give or take a decade) should be treated as sceptically as chemical treatises from pre-1500. Because they are equally likely to be a crock.

Just because the atom theory of the greeks was on the right track (matter is composed of differing kinds of atoms) does not make their four-element theory relevant, and I would describe anyone subscribing to it as equally unscientific as anyone giving credence to Freud's theories. So yes, there is are unconscious factors, and they are important. That does not make Freud relevant, anymore than the existence of atoms makes the Greeks relevant.

. That does not mean, however, that such work should be relegated to the annals of history. It is uncomfortable in the extreme to actively confront and accept our unconscious selves, and it is not a challenge most people are willing to take up. For those that are willing, the rewards can far surpass the results of modern psychopharmacology.

Again, yes it does. And as I said, even the APA agrees with me.

. In computer terms, it is a relatively simple thing to fix a hardware issue - untangling an OS that has been tied up with poor installs and malware is a far more complex and delicate task. In this metaphor, there is no useful human equivalent to wiping the drive and reinstalling, and we must each deal with the install we have been dealt. Sorry, I couldn't come up with a car analogy. =(

Tell that to all the advocates of electro-shock therapy.

I just downloaded Google Chrome 3.0.192.0 for Mac and it crashed before I could even open a page. There is no excuse for this; my Mac Pro is perfect in every way with eight 2.93 GHz cores, 32 GB RAM, and a fresh install of Mac OS X Leopard v10.5.7. Ergo any crashing Google Chrome does is Google Chrome's own fault!

Why is it that Apple and Mozilla can do this but Google can't? I ran Internet Explorer 8 for months before its final release, Firefox 3.5 since its 3.1 days, and found Safari 4 Developer Preview more stable than Safari 3. In fact, even WebKit is more stable than Chrome.

What really baffles me, however, isn't the instability I've come to expect from Google, but that Google has the audacity to ask for personal user info to improve its browser. Is the search engine maker datamonger really so desperate for my private information that it's stooped to the level of Trojan horses to get it?

They should ask me that when it doesn't crash on launch.

Everything Google does is just another way to sieve personal data away for targeting ads. This kind of Big Brother crap is more repulsive than the fat programmers that make it possible. Google, with its deep pockets and doctoral scholars, thinks that by holding user data hostage it can maneuver around Apple and Microsoft. While this may be true, I'm not willing to be a part of it.

In using Google's search, Gmail, Chrome or whatever else the faceless robot of a company invents, the user is surrendering their personal information to a giant hivemind. No longer are their personal preferences some choice they make; they're a string of data processed by a Google algorithm: Google dehumanizes its users!

So while Google is arrogant enough to paint spyware shiny so it can parse our browsing habits, the least they could do is make sure it doesn't crash. If Apple, Microsoft, and Mozilla can get their preview releases right, why can't Google? And now they're making their own operating systems?

Get real, Google! I'll use your crashing codebloat when my Mac is cold and dead and I'm looking for handouts. Until then, quit mining my personal data!

there's about a snowball's chance of nuclear plants being constructed near major population centers. In part that's because the economics suck, but mostly it's because Joe and Jane sixpack don't want them there.

There are already nearly 100 nuclear plants in the U.S. alone, and the people being served by them seem generally fine with it and do not fear it.

Most of the fear-mongering comes, historically, from environmentalists, who essentially place the environment above the well being of humans. Virtually every proposed form of energy production is disliked by core environmentalists, including wind (which takes 10's of thousands of acres of turbines to equal a medium-sized coal plant) and solar (taking 12.5 square miles of cells to match a large coal plant). And those only generate energy when the wind is blowing, or the sun is shining.

The only form I haven't heard environmentalists condemn is geothermal (probably because I'm ignorant of it), but geothermal causes earthquakes

Doesn't FedEx still route everything through one central location, and do all the sorting from that one spot? That's a helluvalot simpler problem than USPS, where there is some level of sorting and routing at every one of the 75,000 US Post Offices. FedEx can get by with a single point of failure system, but the USPS has to continue to work no matter what kinds of regional disasters might impact it: it has to use a distributed model.

Obviously the USPS has a lot more Linux installations to do. But it is impressive that they have managed as many as they have in the first year, without any major SNAFUs.

In any event, the salary and employment of federal judges is guaranteed for life (unless they are impeached by Congress and removed from office), so corruption of federal judges is very rare; they have too much job security and are paid too well to risk it.

Right, this judge and this one not to mention, this one. Hell one even sent children to detention many times
The biggest whopper was the Pirate Bay judge who got them convicted. But then he's in Sweden and not in US.

which could prove a cheaper way to reduce carbon dioxide emissions than transmitting power from North Dakota to New York City

Or, according to this NY Times article:

An influential coalition of East Coast governors and power companies fears that building wind and solar sites in the Midwest would cause their region to miss out on jobs and other economic benefits. The coalition is therefore trying to block a mandate for transcontinental lines.

I just downloaded Google Chrome 3.0.192.0 for Mac and it crashed before I could even open a page. There is no excuse for this; my Mac Pro is perfect in every way with eight 2.93 GHz cores, 32 GB RAM, and a fresh install of Mac OS X Leopard v10.5.7. Ergo any crashing Google Chrome does is Google Chrome's own fault!

Why is it that Apple and Mozilla can do this but Google can't? I ran Internet Explorer 8 for months before its final release, Firefox 3.5 since its 3.1 days, and found Safari 4 Developer Preview more stable than Safari 3. In fact, even WebKit is more stable than Chrome. So what's with Google's Chrome?

What really baffles me, however, isn't the instability I've come to expect from Google, but that Google has the audacity to ask for personal user info to improve its browser. Is the search engine maker datamonger really so desperate for my private information that it's stooped to the level of Trojan horses to get it?

They should ask me that when it doesn't crash on launch.

Everything Google does is just another way to sieve personal data away for targeting ads. This kind of Big Brother crap is more repulsive than the fat programmers that make it possible. Google, with its deep pockets and doctoral scholars, thinks that by holding user data hostage it can maneuver around Apple and Microsoft. While this may be true, I'm not willing to be a part of it.

In using Google's search, Gmail, Chrome or whatever else the faceless robot of a company invents, the user is surrendering their personal information to a giant hivemind. No longer are their personal preferences some choice they make; they're a string of data processed by a Google algorithm: Google dehumanizes its users!

So while Google is arrogant enough to paint spyware shiny so it can mine our browsing habits, the least they could do is make sure it doesn't crash. If Apple, Microsoft, and Mozilla can get their preview releases right, why can't Google? And they're going to come out with their own operating system?

Get real, Google! I'll use your crashing codebloat when my Mac is cold and dead and I'm looking for handouts. Until then, quit trying to syphon off my personal data in between crashes!

It's been shown that dogs can smell some forms of cancer and diabetes.

The NYTimes has devoted its Tuesday Science section to the Apollo 11 anniversary. A feature piece tries to convey just what it was like that summer of '69, and the landing's backdrop of the Cold War. Another tries to list some of the impacts on popular culture of the time. Yet another tries to compare the Apollo effort to what it'll take to get back to the Moon and on to Mars.

Yes, there is also a piece on the hoax-spinners.

The NYTimes has devoted its Tuesday Science section to the Apollo 11 anniversary. A feature piece tries to convey just what it was like that summer of '69, and the landing's backdrop of the Cold War. Another tries to list some of the impacts on popular culture of the time. Yet another tries to compare the Apollo effort to what it'll take to get back to the Moon and on to Mars.

Yes, there is also a piece on the hoax-spinners.

The NYTimes has devoted its Tuesday Science section to the Apollo 11 anniversary. A feature piece tries to convey just what it was like that summer of '69, and the landing's backdrop of the Cold War. Another tries to list some of the impacts on popular culture of the time. Yet another tries to compare the Apollo effort to what it'll take to get back to the Moon and on to Mars.

Yes, there is also a piece on the hoax-spinners.

The NYTimes has devoted its Tuesday Science section to the Apollo 11 anniversary. A feature piece tries to convey just what it was like that summer of '69, and the landing's backdrop of the Cold War. Another tries to list some of the impacts on popular culture of the time. Yet another tries to compare the Apollo effort to what it'll take to get back to the Moon and on to Mars.

Yes, there is also a piece on the hoax-spinners.

The NYTimes has devoted its Tuesday Science section to the Apollo 11 anniversary. A feature piece tries to convey just what it was like that summer of '69, and the landing's backdrop of the Cold War. Another tries to list some of the impacts on popular culture of the time. Yet another tries to compare the Apollo effort to what it'll take to get back to the Moon and on to Mars.

Yes, there is also a piece on the hoax-spinners.

Some banks already have started. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/10/business/economy/10tarp.html

Wrong
Wrong
Wrong

Hmm. How constructive.

While you might actually be correct when we're talking about the majority of cases, in this case I believe you are wrong on all points. The NYT article on the subject (which was linked from a certain well known blog referenced in a recent slashdot discussion (pretty recent, huh?) asserts that "In interviews the artist said that it was one he had found on the Internet." Stop me if I'm wrong, but Fairey doesn't seem like an incompetent to me; I think he's capable of recognizing the photo credit that typically accompanies an AP photo. I clearly am not a lawyer, but I think it's relevant that he likely understands the concept of copyright fairly well. Of course, whether he had the right to utilize that image for this purpose is not something to be decided on Slashdot.

Maybe Mr. Garcia is lying, but given what he has said about the use of the image, it might have been both trivial, and also very inexpensive or even nonexpensive to secure the rights to distribute a derivative work based on it. We'll never know now, I guess. I'm not sure what your primary counterargument is, perhaps it's that the image is iconic? Well, sure, it's iconic now. But maybe I'm attacking straw men here, it's just the argument I've seen used most often in this thread.

Researchers discovered to no one's surprise that a healthy diet can cost up to 10 times more than the crap food, junk food diet that the vast majority of people eat.

The words in bold are important there.

Just changing from chips (en_us fries) to boiled potatoes would make a meal healthier, but I still see people buying big sacks of frozen chips. I see people buying cigarettes and alcohol too, so their health (and their children's health) obviously isn't a priority. A pint of beer in a pub here is about £2.50, that goes a long way to improving a meal.

A bag of crisps (en_us chips) costs about 30p. An apple or orange costs about 25p. Both are common for a snack for children -- but most children seem to be given the crisps.

The cheapest burger in McDonald's is something like £1.20. That'd buy some pasta, an onion, a tin of tomatoes, a tin of chick peas, a pinch of herbs and spices, and serves two (sure, fresh tomatoes and another vegetable would be even better, but the burger has hardly any vegetables).

Mississippi also is a relatively poor state. I tell you what. Why don't you try and house, clothe, and feed a family of four on a salary of 8 dollars / hour. Or lets say you and your spouse is working, and each person works at around 8 dollars / hour. If you are only working 1 full time job each, that puts your weekly gross income at 640 dollars / week. After taxes and insurance (if you are lucky enough to afford health insurance) you are probably pulling in about 500 / week. So you are getting around 2000 per month. A 2 bedroom apartment (if both children are the same sex) will cost you what, 700 a month? If its a 3 bedroom you can expect 850? so you have between 1300 and 1150 a month left. I am going to say there is 1225 left and split the difference.

Then there are utilities. Lets say electricity eats another 200 a month, and water about 75. Now you are down to around 950 a month left. Telephones? another 30 a month. Down to 920. Car payment, can't afford one, lets say you have a 20 year old clunker. Gasoline, how about 100 a month in gas. Down to 820 dollars. Or about 200 a month per person. We haven't considered car insurance, clothing, cell phones, cable or internet. Or credit card bills or anything else you may want to buy. Or any of the million emergencies that can eat up that remaining 800 dollars you have left.

Now, how much more expensive is healthy food that cheap junk food. Pasta is cheap. So you eat a lot of pasta. Do you remember all the Ramen you ate in college?

Researchers discovered to no one's surprise that a healthy diet can cost up to 10 times more than the crap food, junk food diet that the vast majority of people eat. So, is it any wonder that obesity is a problem? People buy lots of carbohydrate foods because they are cheap. That allows them to stretch their meager food budget to the end of the month, with only an occasional stop by the church food pantry to beg.

People, obesity is a problem because a lot of people eat crap food. As a result, they are hungrier more often and their body stores the crap food as fat. And when people are poor, they buy crap food. Mississippi is a relatively poor state.

I don't know, given my experience, and the experience of other commenters, it seems reasonable to me.

One poster asserts a generality without backup, is called out for that by another poster who then goes on to make another assertion without backout and that "seems reasonable"? So be it.

You kind of seem to disagree, however.

I haven't expressed my agreement or disagreement. You can be sure that if I did, I would either support my view with evidence or indicate that it was an opinion based on personal experience.

I think we can reasonably assert at least that most white voters are not racist, since the majority of them voted for Obama.

You can assert no such thing considering that a) voters only represent a subset of white U.S. citizens, and b) McCain won the white vote (another source).

I am certain that walking through the Tenderloin is a completely different experience for a white person and a black person.

I am certain that many different things are a completely different experience for a white person and a black person.

I don't know, given my experience, and the experience of other commenters, it seems reasonable to me.

One poster asserts a generality without backup, is called out for that by another poster who then goes on to make another assertion without backout and that "seems reasonable"? So be it.

You kind of seem to disagree, however.

I haven't expressed my agreement or disagreement. You can be sure that if I did, I would either support my view with evidence or indicate that it was an opinion based on personal experience.

I think we can reasonably assert at least that most white voters are not racist, since the majority of them voted for Obama.

You can assert no such thing considering that a) voters only represent a subset of white U.S. citizens, and b) McCain won the white vote (another source).

I am certain that walking through the Tenderloin is a completely different experience for a white person and a black person.

I am certain that many different things are a completely different experience for a white person and a black person.

I don't know, given my experience, and the experience of other commenters, it seems reasonable to me.

One poster asserts a generality without backup, is called out for that by another poster who then goes on to make another assertion without backout and that "seems reasonable"? So be it.

You kind of seem to disagree, however.

I haven't expressed my agreement or disagreement. You can be sure that if I did, I would either support my view with evidence or indicate that it was an opinion based on personal experience.

I think we can reasonably assert at least that most white voters are not racist, since the majority of them voted for Obama.

You can assert no such thing considering that a) voters only represent a subset of white U.S. citizens, and b) McCain won the white vote (another source).

I am certain that walking through the Tenderloin is a completely different experience for a white person and a black person.

I am certain that many different things are a completely different experience for a white person and a black person.

The FBI arrested two procurers in his office for taking a bribe from a contractor (you'd think, him being the boss and everything, if he knew about it it would be HIM getting the bribe, but I digress). He was not implicated. But if you want to go around accusing people of felonies because it suits your politics, get ready for it to be thrown back at you someday.

Umm, go poke around the archives of Daily Kos and Democratic Underground if you want to see people trying to criminalize policy differences...

Or better yet, ask Barack Obama's Attorney General

I wonder if he'll prosecute Nancy Pelosi?

I see you don't like getting criminilization of policy differences "thrown back at you".

So STFU.

They would need access to a lot of nuclear weapons, which are pretty costly. Iran hasn't even made one bomb yet, let alone many, and North Korea's economy is supported by their weapons programs so they certainly aren't giving out nukes for free.

But, let's say they take out one American city. Katrina beat them to it already, but life moved on pretty well for the rest of the country.

Two? Well, Japan survived after we took out two of their cities with nuclear weapons.

To take multiplie cities, you'd need to do it simultaneously. Once you took out one, we would be on super-high alert everywhere else.

Oh, and you should read this NYT article that summarizes from the IG report how the warrantless surveillance program produced just about no intelligence, but a lot of wild goose chases.

They also discuss how the warrantless surveillance made us less safe because the information was limited to only a few people due to the secrecy surrounding a program of questionable legality. This prevented the intelligence from being used more widely by more agencies; most of the leads provided were vague and without context so as not to allude to the questionable nature of its acquisition. Note that this problem would not exist had the program been done with FISC approval, because there would be no dancing around how you got a hold of the intel.

If the world has been cooling for the last ten years, someone should tell all that Arctic ice to stop melting. Hey, get with the program Arctic ice! Cooling, I tell you! Cooling!1!

OK. Arctic Ice! The globe is cooling! Time to stop lagging.

Remember, you heard it here first.

BTW, if it doesn't worry you A LOT that "Science" is owned by the Democratic party, you are either ignorant or foolish.

Just out of curiosity, how many of the iPhones that you see do you think are grey market iPhones and how many of them are shanzhai phones? This is something I've wondered because both types seem to be popular:

After China Ships Out iPhones, Smugglers Make It a Return Trip

In China, Knockoff Cellphones Are a Hit

Also, what's the prevalence of WAPI vs WiFi near where you live and work? Wikipedia says that there's a "government preference" towards WAPI, but that it's not mandatory. Maybe the Chinese government wants it to be usable by state workers?

Just out of curiosity, how many of the iPhones that you see do you think are grey market iPhones and how many of them are shanzhai phones? This is something I've wondered because both types seem to be popular:

After China Ships Out iPhones, Smugglers Make It a Return Trip

In China, Knockoff Cellphones Are a Hit

Also, what's the prevalence of WAPI vs WiFi near where you live and work? Wikipedia says that there's a "government preference" towards WAPI, but that it's not mandatory. Maybe the Chinese government wants it to be usable by state workers?

If the world has been cooling for the last ten years, someone should tell all that Arctic ice to stop melting. Hey, get with the program Arctic ice! Cooling, I tell you! Cooling!1!

Looks like the administration didn't check their blindspot as well as you think. It appears that the wiretapping program was approved in the same way most decisions in the administration were approved. They made their decisions, then cherrypicked the evidence and strongarmed those that disagreed with those decisions.

From the linked article:

The investigation stopped short of assessing whether the wiretapping program broke the law that required the Justice Department to get a court-ordered warrant before it could wiretap Americans' communications. But the report did find that legal reviews were often short-circuited or kept to such a small number of officials in the government that adequate review could not be conducted.

For instance, the report said that John Yoo, a lawyer in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, gave the White House his first legal opinion endorsing the wiretapping in November 2001, weeks after the program had already begun, and that his boss, Jay Bybee, was not even aware of the program.

Moreover, John Ashcroft, attorney general at the time, gave his legal authorization to the program for the first two-and-a-half years based on a "misimpression" of what activities the N.S.A. was actually conducting. The legal problems led to a showdown at Mr. Ashcroft's hospital room in March 2004, when top Justice Department officials refused to sign off on the legality of the program and threatened to resign.

Nonetheless, the report said, the White House allowed the program to continue the program by having Mr. Ashcroft's successor as attorney general, Alberto R. Gonzales, sign the authorization.

"I guess it would only be right to exhale them too."

So if biodiesel smells like french fries, does that mean my breath can always smell like french fries now? (without eating fries, of course)

Heres a and article about Korea. 60 Minutes or Dateline ran a story on these.

Plus, it launched on July 4th, not a particularly significant day for North Koreans...

Rubbish!

Defying U.S., N. Korea Fires Barrage of Missiles

[...]

The latest launchings came on July 4. The North has a record of timing missile tests to coincide with Independence Day in the United States, as a way of highlighting the provocative gestures. Pyongyang fired off a barrage of missiles, including a long-range Taepodong-2, on the Fourth of July in 2006. The Taepodong launching was a failure, with the projectile falling into the sea less than a minute after blastoff.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/04/world/asia/04korea.html

The fact is, most places are replacing the story with special effects. Why? I think it has to do with corporate types who like to be able to see and understand what they are working on.

Special effects? You can show these guys a clip of this great looking water for 10 seconds and there will be ohhs and ahhs all over.

Try to show them the story line for a game that will make a game last for 20 to 30 hours? That means they would have to pay attention for a certain length of time.

Don't believe me? Here is a nice article on the subject.

While they are referring to pron in the article, I believe this also applies to games. I prefer games where there is some sort of progression or storyline, which is why I have not bought a new computer game in like 2 years.

Here's a crazy idea: how about nuclear power? Oh, that's right, the word "nuclear" is too super-scary for the science-based environmentalists. Never mind that they actually are better for the environment than anything else.

I would agree with you if, by "actually," you really mean "not actually." Many opponents of nuclear power, myself included, are not so much bothered by radioactive waste disposal issues. We are much more concerned about the high cost of system failures.

Everyone here is familiar with how difficult it is to keep defect rates in the 5 sigma region, let alone the 6 sigma region. Even with a spectacular 6 sigma failure rate, that means some failures _will_still_happen_. The longer a plant operates, the more likely a problem with occur. The more plants the operate, the greater the number of towns and cities that will be contaminated.

No control system is fool-proof, as students of the nuclear power industry know. What is most dangerous to safe reactor operation is the idea that a system, or one (or more) engineer(s), is fool-proof. Chernobyl and Three Mile Island should cure anyone of that attitude. The reality is, reactor contamination "events" are much more common that industry advocates would like you to believe (see below).

Remember, nuclear power in some places is a for-profit industry. Nuclear power industry CEO's have the same short-term incentives to minimize labor costs, keeping reactors online, and minimizing maintenance costs that AIG, Comcast, AOL, Best Buy, McDonalds, and every other for-profit company has. In other places, it's run by the incumbent utility company. With threats of budget reductions due to economic trends, political decisions (tax cuts anyone?), etc., event public and quasi-public utilities experience many of these pressures.

So, before portraying opponents of the nuclear power industry as milksops (or whatever you were insinuating), educate yourself a bit.

I prefer no to have a few hundred MBA's riding shotgun on doomsday machines. It's bad enough as it is already.

See also:

• http://news.google.com/news?q=nuclear%20reactor%20leak (way too many results show up)
• http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/17/national/17nuke.html
• http://www.miamiherald.com/982/story/1035992.html
• http://www.physorg.com/news162708897.html
• http://bristol.indymedia.org/article/18446
• https://secure.wikileaks.org/wiki/The_Monju_nuclear_reactor_leak
• http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/HBASE/nucene/nucacc.html

You get the point. You don't want one of these in your backyard. Nobody does. So let's not build any more of 'em.

Oh wait yes they are!

This comes on the same day that an agreement was announced that lowers royalty payments for internet radio stations. The original plan called for royalties of 0.19 cents per streamed song. The new plan sets royalties for large stations at 25% of revenue or .14 cents/song (whichever is greater). Small stations will pay $25,000/yr or 12-14% of revenue (whichever is greater). It sounds like it's still going to be impossible for individuals to set up stations as a hobby, which I guess it was practical to do at one point, but I'm guessing that a lot of college radio stations might find it cheaper to pay the $25k/yr than to maintain an FM broadcast station.

Sentience. If it's not, and never has been sentient it doesn't deserve human rights yet.

How do you test for sentience? I'd say test for brain activity, but it could be simpler than that for the purposes you're after: Apply physical stimulus, check for physical response.

I think that's an extremely safe and generous metric. Some plants would pass it, is that too much to ask of something before granting it human rights?

BTW, on the topic of your sig, I found a source after a long hard googling and in typical right-winger fashion, it is taken out of context:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/22/science/22stem.html

He says he thought long and hard about it - and decided to continue with his research since it was using cells that would have been destroyed anyway. The article also seems to suggest that his primary concern on working with stem cells was political fallout rather than a personal moral dilemma.

Here you go:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/06/us/politics/06biden.html