Slashdot Mirror

We had a state politician submit a bill that government buildings should be built and decorated according the fung shui.

A Democrat this time. Here's the actual bill.

http://www.fengshui88.be/docs/fs_bsc%202.doc

NYT article

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D03E6DA1138F933A05752C0A9629C8B63

Ah, for the days when we were only $14 billion in debt...

You'll note that McCain himself didn't seem to eager to buy his own insurance rather than take his employers.

A more bogus statement is hard to find... How could McCain possibly switch to his own insurance — or even display notable reluctance to do so — if no such insurance plans are being offered to individuals, because no market exists for them, thanks to the decades of government's insistence, the insurance must go either through employers or, uhm, the government?

Going off-tangent (a little), if you and your "inspiring" president have your way, US Health Care will be as awful (and embarrassing) as US Public Schools (or highways, or trains, or prisons, or anything else the government does, really). And here, BTW, the major proponent's hypocrisy can be seen very easily. Despite pushing $100bln inside "stimulus" package for "education" and banning use of of that money on private schools, Obama sends his own daughters to a private one... And so did Clintons...

The most efficiently run medical payment service in this country right now is medicare with over 95% efficiency in terms of money going to treatment vs. overhead.

Another bogus statement — the number is often-cited and quoted to the point of self-perpetuation, but makes little sense, for it is derived from Medicare's Board of Trustees' own reports. They count overhead costs and the care costs themselves, and — spending somebody else's money — pay no attention to:

1. fraud,
2. waste,
3. customer satisfaction.

Here, from "your own" newspaper:

according to a confidential draft of a federal inspector general's report, those claims of success, which earned Medicare wide praise from lawmakers, were misleading.

In calculating the agency's rate of improper payments, Medicare officials told outside auditors to ignore government policies that would have accurately measured fraud, according to the report. For example, auditors were told not to compare invoices from salespeople against doctors' records, as required by law, to make sure that medical equipment went to actual patients.

As a result, Medicare did not detect that more than one-third of spending for wheelchairs, oxygen supplies and other medical equipment in its 2006 fiscal year was improper, according to the report. Based on data in other Medicare reports, that would be about $2.8 billion in improper spending.

Whether or not the $2.8 billion is accurate, the report touches on only a small subset of Medicare-paid items — why would waste/fraud in other areas be much different? Sure, private plans have to spend on advertising (Medicare does plenty of lobbying too), but do you wish for the government to provide us all with, say, food — to save the monies currently going to restaurants' advertising and supermarket circulars?

Personally I have a major problem with a legal system that can deprive me of my liberty without the consent of the community. One more reason to be happy I was born in the United States I suppose.

What about these kids?

Kinda funny, I think. We are so constantly lectured that the US should not have any "protectionist" policies against India, because protectionism never works.

March 1, 2009

India Maintains Sense of Optimism and Growth

India's trillion-dollar economy remains a relative bright spot, some say, in part because the country's bureaucracy and its protectionist polices have kept it insulated from the fallout of the global downturn.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/02/business/worldbusiness/02rupee.html?_r=1&ref=world

-Cause stagnation via protectionist policies, then wait for other nations to pass us by on their way to a higher standard of livin and eocnomic vitality?

[Citation Needed]

Citations:

http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Protectionism.html
For you Austrian school folks (God, I can't believe I'm linking to Mises to support my position): http://mises.org/rothbard/protectionism.asp
For the interventionists, a counterpiece by Krugman, saying protectionism has a place... provided that other means fail: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/01/protectionism-and-stimulus-wonkish/
Another piece:http://www.morganstanley.com/views/gef/archive/2007/20070126-Fri.html

In the news, another danger of protectionism (as was seen in the great depression): http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/world/world/general/wto-fears-protectionism-domino-effect/1449424.aspx

The risk is that we adopt protectionist policies, and other nations adopt them against us -- but not with eachother. Thus we get left behind in the expansionary economies the other nations will go through. This is the problem that Krugman misses... protectionism globally will reduce the impact of economic problems in each country on the whole, only if the protectionism is directed to all trading partners. If the EU, for example, raises protective barriers agains the US, but not the rest of the world, we've got problems. Please note that this is in re: protective trade restrictions; subsidies (like the stimulus package) are another form of protectionism, that by nature are partner-agnostic, and I think this form of protectionism is what Krugman refers to.

However, we're discussing labor protectionism, which is a slightly different beast.

I know it must be hard for you to bear, having a responsible centrist president. But fortunately THESE election results were valid, unlike your Mr. Chimp's first election by judge. It shows your real character, that winning is more important to you than democracy. So I don't feel too sorry for you. In fact, I'm glad the Republicans have become the marginalized party of the deep south, religious fanatics, and wingnuts everywhere. Please, please run Palin for president! That would guarantee another four years of Obama. Seriously, you guys just need to form a new conservative party. Your current one is deceased.

Centrist!=responsible any more than left/right-wing==irresponsible.

You want responsible? Don't look at BHO. He just ballooned your personal debt to $42521.12 (individual share = total debt/population). That's debt you can't escape by filing bankruptcy. And if you don't pay it, <hyperbole>Dog the bounty hunter will come to your door with a Swat team of</hyperbole> IRS agents and take your freedom.

Bush wasn't particularly responsible in a lot of ways. I most certainly didn't agree with his actions regarding my freedoms enumerated in the constitution. I didn't agree with a lot of his fiscal policy, either. Especially towards the end. He wasn't the worst president, but he aslo wasn't the best. However, this isn't about him. He can never be president again. I wash my hands of him as much as I can.

Now, let's address your messiah, Obama. Noted in various sources to have been one of the most liberal senators in office (when he showed up for a vote), he arose out of nowhere in the political landscape and won his elections by invalidating his opponents' candidacies (not challenging the election counts, or mudslinging, he literally made himself the only choice).

He promised Hope(tm) and Change(tm) and to Clean Up Washington(tm). And how does he Change(tm) things? Hmmm, let's see. Looks like a more liberal version of the Clinton administration (complete with insiders from the original Clinton administration!). Obama also seems to have a distinct preference for nominating people for his cabinet who have tax issues. Definitely a Change(tm) we can all Believe(tm) in.

He promised responsibility, but we got a pork-laden "stimulus" package with such gems as more funding for ACORN and MoveOn.org. Certainly these wonderful organizations simply want to empower you! What's that? You went to ACORN and asked them to help you get out the vote for Ron Paul? Oh, right. They want to empower you only so long as you vote for their approved candidate. I knew there was a catch in there.

"But...", I hear you say, "he's upstanding and honest, a real bang up guy who wants to stand up for me!" O`Rly? That's why his VP is one Joeseph Biden, a known copyright hound. That's why three of his top appointments to the justice dept were lawyers for the RIAA. You know, the RIAA that seems to think suing children, grandmothers, disabled people, state universities, and laser printers is a good business model. That's why he stands up for more regulation and law like Roe v Wade which purports a right to privacy, but in reality just usurps state control for the federal government. That must be why he wants to send your money to other countries to support abortion. Surely that's out of the goodness of his heart.

I could go o

Bad Government. but like there is any other type. Ny Times.

If you are using bad data.

I like linux because it gives me flexibility. You like MacOS X because it is easy to use. I like Wordpress because it is simple. You like Joomla because it is adaptable.

Fair enough, but how do you explain all the Macbooks visible at this Drupal Conference? :-)

From your link

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/02/nyregion/02open.html?ref=technology

There were people who were proud to call themselves tech geeks and a few who admitted being near-Luddites, and there was at least one person who called herself a radical technologist. They joined book publishers, librarians and computer consultants, some of whom had come from as far as Ireland and Brazil, at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University in Downtown Brooklyn on Saturday for something akin to a happening for the Internet age â" Drupal Camp.

"Radical technologists" and self proclaimed geeks all gather and socialise. All of whom are very keen to talk eloquently to the NYT and their blogs about what sort of geek they are and (I'm guessing) very few of whom would be happy coding away on their own.

Does that answer your question?

I like linux because it gives me flexibility. You like MacOS X because it is easy to use. I like Wordpress because it is simple. You like Joomla because it is adaptable.

Fair enough, but how do you explain all the Macbooks visible at this Drupal Conference? :-)

From your link

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/02/nyregion/02open.html?ref=technology

There were people who were proud to call themselves tech geeks and a few who admitted being near-Luddites, and there was at least one person who called herself a radical technologist. They joined book publishers, librarians and computer consultants, some of whom had come from as far as Ireland and Brazil, at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University in Downtown Brooklyn on Saturday for something akin to a happening for the Internet age â" Drupal Camp.

"Radical technologists" and self proclaimed geeks all gather and socialise. All of whom are very keen to talk eloquently to the NYT and their blogs about what sort of geek they are and (I'm guessing) very few of whom would be happy coding away on their own.

Does that answer your question?

I like linux because it gives me flexibility. You like MacOS X because it is easy to use. I like Wordpress because it is simple. You like Joomla because it is adaptable.

Fair enough, but how do you explain all the Macbooks visible at this Drupal Conference? :-)

They were just experimenting with the latest video.
Source: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/02/white-house-denies-it-is-shunning-youtube/

Perhaps it's because the Supreme Court is starting to use the service...

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/03/why-twitter-turned-down-facebook/

Who would want facebook stock? It's like being bought with sub-prime mortgages as the payment. "They're worth it, I swear!"

...the real problem. Doctors won't use the best course of treatment as long as they are encouraged by big pharma and HMOs to do otherwise

Re: A related article was just posted on nytimes If anyone is interested:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/02/health/02scans.html?hp=&pagewanted=print [nytimes.com]

(a) Coincidence or

(b) organized health insurance industry propaganda campaign?

(c) It doesn't matter.

I think you are right to be skeptical of insurance companies because their greed causes a conflict of interest with their customers, but I think this research is good for exactly the same reason.

We live in a society where doctors are actively marketed to and recruited by drug companies.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/08/21/ep.conflicts/index.html

If you can be treated equally well with a cheap generic drug or an expensive newly patented drug, which drug are you going to receive? I'd hope the former, but from my experience with doctors, I really don't think the Hippocratic Oath applies to bank accounts.

This research aims to address that question of which drug is truly better for the public and to hopefully standardize the most effective practices. I think that's a good thing.

The insurance companies will most definitely try to use this research to increase their profit margins by saying things like, "the more expensive drug x is only marginally better than drug y, so we're not paying for it," but they already do that. It's really a separate battle.

I do think that battle deserves to be fought. I just don't think fighting it by knocking this research is the best way.

Re: A related article was just posted on nytimes If anyone is interested: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/02/health/02scans.html?hp=&pagewanted=print [nytimes.com]

(a) Coincidence or

(b) organized health insurance industry propaganda campaign?

If anyone is interested:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/02/health/02scans.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

Now the consumer electronics industry just needs to convert everything over to run on DC and I'm all set.

Not asking for much, are you? With a little hacking, you can probably adapt all your devices that already use wall-wart DC. But don't expect a basic change in your lifetime. Consolidated Edison just finished a changeover that went the other way, and it took them 79 years. The original plan, their final white flag in he Current Wars, was for 45 years. That turned out to be too optimistic!

And this was for just one city! And it was in a country where AC had long been the dominant current format. I can't see a similar national changeover in less than a century.

Besides, the original reason that AC triumphed over DC still applies. No matter how many people have solar cells on their roofs, most power will still be centrally generated, and you'll need to access it as a backup on cloudy days. As of now, AC is the only way to transmit power long distances efficiently. I've been hearing talk of "high energy DC" for this purpose, but that's decades in the future, if it's doable at all.

You'll just have to buy a rectifier. Inefficient, but that's the price of backward compatibility!

Funny how this should happen so recently after Obama and McCain publically agreed that the plan to replace the aging Marine One fleet should be cancelled...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/24/us/politics/24chopper.html

How about, specifically, the margin on texting? http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/28/business/28digi.html [nytimes.com]

Hmm. yeah, that invisible hand does a really great job eh?

The invisible hand is working just fine. If people weren't willing to pay that much for texting then the cost would come down. Nobody needs texting. People want texting but few people can make the argument that they need it.

In a free market a company will charge what the market will bear. Their competitors will lower their price if they think they will make more money by doing so, otherwise they have no incentive. Do you think Verizon/AT&T would steal enough customers from the competition if they lowered their SMS rates to make up for the revenue they'd lose? If lower SMS rates were all it took to attract customers then Sprint and T-Mobile would be #1 and #2 instead of #3 and #4. Apparently there are other factors at play though.

Your need for increased revenue presumes, of course, that you *need* all the profit you were originally making. What is the margin on cell phone services? I have no idea.

How about, specifically, the margin on texting? http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/28/business/28digi.html

Hmm. yeah, that invisible hand does a really great job eh? So I guess if a text tax were in place, they would *have* to raise their prices. of course!

I don't know what the margins are on the overall business model. But it's simply not ture that there is "no way" these costs will not be born by the consumer: that is, if those "costs" are already born by the consumer, and the company is simply profiteering on OUR wireless spectrum. If that is not happening, of course, then I fully agree with your point.

But what do you think is a fair price for using our wireless spectrum then? by your argument, it should be free, so the service can be given at minimal cost to the consumer, or it's a 'stealth tax'. Is that really what you advocate? How about logging national forests for free to get the price of lumber down?

"Continued funding of robotic exploration of everything outside of the Earth/Moon"

The grownups are also bringing back Earth science.

As for the shuttle, Hubble, ect, I always feel like I'm betraying an old freind when I trade in my car but the smell of fresh leather more than compensates.

Most tickets are in the $5 to $20 range.

No, parking fines in Manhattan range from $65 to $115. See http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/02/nyregion/02parking.html (multimedia sidebar popup).

read please:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/business/economy/27policy.html

That's interesting, because I've lived here all my life and what you're describing is a pretty small minority.

Odd how such a small minority seems to be able to pass so many oppressive laws in its favour.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9402E5DA1538F937A25756C0A964948260

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2002/12/12/quesigns_021212.html

You'd think in a democracy a amall minority wouldn't be able to do that. So either Canada's system is seriously flawed, or you're a liar.

all societies are dynamic, not static

there is a large movement in the middle east for women's rights

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/lipstick-revolution-irans-women-are-taking-on-the-mullahs-1632257.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/26/opinion/26thu2.html

women's liberation contrasts with traditional thinking

proponents of traditional thinking in the middle east portray the movement for women's rights as a western plot to destabilize the middle east and destroy traditional culture and traditional islam

this is true of any society: take the argument over gay marriage in the united states

all societies are changing in one way or another, pitting traditionalists against liberal thinkers. the traditionalists use scare tactics. for example, in the usa the propagandizers say gay marriage will lead to legalized bestiality, polygamy, pedophilia and necrophilia. yes, some idiots in the usa really believe that's what gay marriqage will lead to. just like some idiots in the middle east think women can't drive a car, according to islam

I found a much better informative article. Even though the damn site won't let you see the printable version first since web browsers tell the NYT server you came from slashdot. ;)

'While hundreds of companies have donated to this week's Republican presidential convention, Microsoft may have the most at stake. Microsoft gave US$900,000 in software and US$100,000 in cash to the committee hosting the convention'

'Microsoft's budget for political lobbying exceeded that of Enron, the judge residing over the antitrust case has heard'.

'the Bush administration has sharply changed course by repeatedly defending the company both in the United States and abroad against accusations of anticompetitive conduct'

Yes, thereby forcing anyone with federal funding of any sort that wanted to research on lines that weren't already in place by 2001 to create entirely separate laboratories to work with these new lines.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/24/science/24conv.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

Gosh, I sure am glad that he supported stem cell research.

My first response is, "So?"

Next, you know they could actually pay for the research themselves. The research was not banned, just not funded with tax payer dollars. Maybe they could ask the German government for grant money. Maybe hit up the Saudi's for cash. Science is not dependent on government funding.

Yes, thereby forcing anyone with federal funding of any sort that wanted to research on lines that weren't already in place by 2001 to create entirely separate laboratories to work with these new lines.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/24/science/24conv.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

Gosh, I sure am glad that he supported stem cell research.

Actually royal navy subs have a long and proud tradition of becoming caught in fishing gear and attempting to drag the vessel above beneath the waves. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9807E2D91139F93AA25757C0A964948260 Took ages to get them to admit to it too, until one vessel managed to stay afloat and landed a sonar array, another sadly sank, but an rn sub went back to Faslane with a damaged periscope.

The $1 trillion in spending in the Iraq war isn't seemingly helping as much as investment in WWII. But then again, with the Bush administration forcing the military to fund research programs for immediate needs, rather than doing long term research when they want to, had to cause that. I guess in their minds the jet engine (ok that was the British), radar (uh British again), aircraft carriers, nuclear weapons, nuclear power, ICBMs, ARPAnet were pointless wastes of time too. The typical problem of late has been nearsightedness, and Obama isn't improving on that front as much as he should. The military would probably fund investments in alternative fusion and nanotechnology research if they could, but they are hamstrung by policy from above.

Just as long as it isn't this sprinter.

According to the NYT, that's pretty much what happened: NASA Satellite Lands in Ocean

Yep, they claim to be training Americans, but they're training them for jobs that are disappearing forever.

You pathetic little hypocrite. That blog has, on its front page, an unsourced link to an article from the New York Times and you have the shit-eating audacity to point to that as a proof that independent journalism is alive and well.

That's the most pathetic thing I've ever seen.

http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/17/good-bye-from-a-hedge-fund-manager/

October 17, 2008
Today I write not to gloat. Given the pain that nearly everyone is experiencing, that would be entirely inappropriate. Nor am I writing to make further predictions, as most of my forecasts in previous letters have unfolded or are in the process of unfolding. Instead, I am writing to say good-bye.

Recently, on the front page of Section C of the Wall Street Journal, a hedge fund manager who was also closing up shop (a $300 million fund), was quoted as saying, "What I have learned about the hedge fund business is that I hate it." I could not agree more with that statement. I was in this game for the money. The low hanging fruit, i.e. idiots whose parents paid for prep school, Yale, and then the Harvard MBA, was there for the taking. These people who were (often) truly not worthy of
the education they received (or supposedly received) rose to the top of companies such as AIG, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers and all levels of our government. All of this behavior supporting the Aristocracy, only ended up making it easier for me to find people stupid enough to take the other side of my trades. God bless America.

There are far too many people for me to sincerely thank for my success. However, I do not want to sound like a Hollywood actor accepting an award. The money was reward enough. Furthermore, the endless list of those deserving thanks know who they are.

I will no longer manage money for other people or institutions. I have enough of my own wealth to manage. Some people, who think they have arrived at a reasonable estimate of my net worth, might be surprised that I would call it quits with such a small war chest. That is fine; I am content with my rewards. Moreover, I will let others try to amass nine, ten or eleven figure net worths. Meanwhile, their lives suck. Appointments back to back, booked solid for the next three months, they look
forward to their two week vacation in January during which they will likely be glued to their Blackberries or other such devices. What is the point? They will all be forgotten in fifty years anyway. Steve Balmer, Steven Cohen, and Larry Ellison will all be forgotten. I do not understand the legacy thing. Nearly everyone will be forgotten. Give up on leaving your mark. Throw the Blackberry away and enjoy life.

So this is it. With all due respect, I am dropping out. Please do not expect any type of reply to emails or voicemails within normal time frames or at all. Andy Springer and his company will be handling the dissolution of the fund. And don't worry about my employees, they were always employed by Mr. Springer's company and only one (who has been well-rewarded) will lose his job.

I have no interest in any deals in which anyone would like me to participate. I truly do not have a strong opinion about any market right now, other than to say that things will continue to get worse for some time, probably years. I am content sitting on the sidelines and waiting. After all, sitting and waiting is how we made money from the subprime debacle. I now have time to repair my health, which was destroyed by the stress I layered onto myself over the past two years, as well as my
entire life - where I had to compete for spaces in universities and graduate schools, jobs and assets under management - with those who had all the advantages (rich parents) that I did not. May meritocracy be part of a new form of government, which needs to be established.

On the issue of the U.S. Government, I would like to make a modest proposal. First, I point out the obvious flaws, whereby legislation was repeatedly brought forth to Congress over the past eight years, which would have reigned in the predatory lending practices of now mostly defunct institutions. These institutions regularly filled the coffers of both parties in return for voting down all of th

[T]he words "geek" and "nerd" exchanged status positions. A nerd was still socially tainted, but geekdom acquired its own cool counterculture. A geek possessed a certain passion for specialized knowledge, but also a high degree of cultural awareness and poise that a nerd lacked.

From The Alpha Geeks, an op-ed piece by David Brooks. It's actually an interesting read -- worth checking out.

You can bash the man if you like, but you'd be more convincing if you laid off the ad hominem attacks and got your facts straight:

This latest is just the gasp of a flunkie, uneducated has-been science fiction author whose work is so spectacularly bad that he had never had a commercially successful work.

On the contrary; his latest novel "Little Brother" made the New York Times Bestseller list (Childrens), reaching the #8 spot after 6 weeks. It's had multiple print runs, been published in both the US and the UK, where they've sold well, and has been nominated for and granted a range of literary awards.

I'd say that qualifies as a commercially successful work by any reasonable definition!

The failing auto industry got billions as soon as the Dems took over

No that was Bush.

Obama's mortgage assistance program will reward people that are significantly behind in their mortgage payments.

If you did everything right and did not get suckered into a ridiculous mortgage you couldn't pay, then you should be fine anyway. But a lot of hardworking people that did get suckered do need help.

There will be no incentives for ... people interested in buying foreclosed properties.

Of course there is : do you how CHEAP you can buy an investment property now ? If you have the money now is definitely a good time.

No car analogy comes to mind. I can, however, offer a Linux simile:

The King Kong defense is like when Linus told the New York Times: Really, I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a completely unintentional side effect.
Interview with the New York Times, September, 2003

Not to put too fine a point on it: TPB's defense is that there has been no intentional collusion or activity linking anyone who has alledgedly infringed a copyright and any of the defendants in this case. So none of the defendants can be guilty of assisting in any of the alledged infringements. I think there is a good telephone analogy: you cannot hold any telephone company employees guilty of assisting someone who has been making obscene phone calls.

(This is worth repeating whenever possible. Apparently the defense lawyer managed to repeat "King Kong" some 80 times in his presentation. I bet that drove Sony and the prosecutors apeshit.)

Are you talking about Canada? Because the united states effective tax rate is no where near that high. I'm not sure where you got that impression either. Here's a source for you. And another and here which actually states the corporate tax rate as 35% for the upper end. Sorry, that doesn't sound very socialist. It's definitely on the upper end of world wide tax rates but dictatorships, communist countries, and the rest all seem to do roughly the same.

Also I fail to see how even tax rates on revenue relate to ownership in the company. You mean to say that all the money the government put into public works like roads, power, and telecomm shouldn't be compensated by the people that use it the most?

Oh come on. Are you really seriously arguing that gasoline usage is not connected to price at all over the long term? You think that if gas had stayed at $0.22/gal we wouldn't be using more now? You think that if gas went to $20/gal we wouldn't use less 10 years from now? You have to be seriously deluded to believe that.

To see why gasoline usage hasn't gone down, take a look at this chart and learn something about inflation. The price of gas hasn't actually gone up.

TFA, er, TFS says that some of the team members are American. At least one of them are from Georgia (the state, not the country).

I didn't listen to the whole thing, but I imagine that much of the incentive for searching in Russia as opposed to within the US is that most of the thermal features in the states are located within national parks. With the NPS having been "ripped off" (their own language, not mine) over the Taq enzyme (this New York Times article outlines the story), any of us wishing to do research in a national park must go through a seemingly endless process of permits, paperwork, and regulations. This can severely limit what you can do with the organisms you find.

I know, since I've been through the permit process. In my case, I am not surveying for bacteria, but for viruses of the chestnut blight fungus. If we find any on NPS land, they may be useful as a biological control of the fungus, but the conditions of our collection permits specifically limit any commercial use of anything we remove from the park.

Of course this sort of thing exists in other countries, at least for broadcast media. France, for example, has quotas on both television and radio content.

I'm not sure that it makes as much sense for the Internet, though. The French idea is that you have limited broadcast time, and without a quota, they'd be playing American music and television shows 24/7. Maybe that makes sense, but with the Internet, you don't have the same broadcasting limits. People choose what they want to listen to with ease, actively seeking out their preferred content from any number of sources.

They can promote domestic content all they want, and it might even be a good thing, but it's not going to have the same "cultural preservation" effects as with broadcast media.

Someone can distribute copyrighted work without a right to do so. That's called copyright infringement, not theft. There is a tremendous difference between infringement and theft so it's important to call it by it's correct terminology.

A "right" is a creation of humans and we agree(or are forced to) to abide by the rights granted to others by whatever entity we chose to recognize. I don't know if your from the US, but here we have different laws regarding intellectual rights. It is an ongoing struggle to reach that definition as intellectual property is about ideas, not physical goods. This quote from Thomas Jefferson sums it up:

If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.

Laws are different regarding intellectual property due to philosophy along the lines of that quote. I hope you can see how important that is. I'm not advocating an absence of copyright or IP protections. That would be silly for me because that's a big chunk of my income. I oppose current copyright reforms by groups like RIAA not because I don't care about an authors right to profit. In fact it is just the opposite because if RIAA got their proposed reforms passed, it would simply be a benefit to corporate entities. They could process legal cases in much greater volume and a higher success rate. This will lead to more power in the hands of the business elite who IMO don't need any more. That's the reason sites like this exist:

http://www.savenetradio.org/

If you want to help the author buy their works, don't contribute to a system designed make the suits more money. The current system already provides recourse for violations and it's more than adequate if used properly.

Another angle is the gross over-valuing of of IP (even if something is way over-valued that doesn't make infringement okay). For example, if you take the price of distributing movies today versus 30 years ago, modern distribution channels are far more efficient. It costs just a fraction of what it did in the past to get the goods to the consumer, yet if a person from the current generation wants to get the same amount of content as the previous they would need to spend a larger percentage of their income to maintain the level. This is because of the parasitical suits who need to get their cut of every transaction. Its sort of like how an HMO works, doctors get screwed in pay http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/22/business/22doctors.html?_r=1 and patients get poor service and nasty surprises like "You're not covered for that".

Is a new blueray seriously worth $30-40? How many of these infringers would pay $10 if they could download it immediately? The business model is flawed, and they want this legislation so they can force the old ways on the consumer instead of adapting to where the market is today. The price is artificially high to support the lawyers and other types who add no value to the product. Don't make them happy by calling it theft.

During the war in Bosnia, a French Officer didn't exactly cover himself in glory.

That old story. I'm surprised people don't know it's fake when they hear it:

1. Given the curvature of the earth, if the ship saw the light from the lighthouse, how close is he?

2. If he is seeing the lighthouse on radar, why doesn't the radar show the coast?

3. Carriers and battleships usually sail in the middle of a task force.

4. Someone in charge of a multi-million dollar capital ship is too stupid to know where land is? Come on.

You'd have to be stuck on stupid to believe it is true.

It's rare, but it does happen. August 28, 1913: Battleship Louisiana ran aground in the harbor in Vera Cruz, Mexico. It was re-floated without damage later that day.

Naval commanders, even highly experienced ones, do occasional f*ck up.

A PERSON could go mad trying to pinpoint the moment he lost a friend. So seldom does that friend make his feelings clear by sending out an e-mail alert.

It's not just a fact of life, but also a policy on Facebook. While many trivial actions do prompt Facebook to post an alert to all your friends -- adding a photo, changing your relationship status, using Fandango to buy tickets to "Paul Blart: Mall Cop" -- striking someone off your list simply is not one of them.

It is this policy that Burger King ran afoul of this month with its "Whopper Sacrifice" campaign, which offered a free hamburger to anyone who severed the sacred bonds with 10 of the friends they had accumulated on Facebook. Facebook suspended the program because Burger King was sending notifications to the castoffs letting them know they'd been dropped for a sandwich (or, more accurately, a tenth of a sandwich).

The campaign, which boasted of ending 234,000 friendships, is history now -- Burger King chose to end it rather than tweak it to fit Facebook's policy -- but the same can hardly be said of the emerging anxiety it tapped. As social networking becomes ubiquitous, people with an otherwise steady grip on social etiquette find themselves flummoxed by questions about "unfriending" people: how to do it, when to do it and how to get away with it quietly.

"If someone with more than 1,000 friends unfriends me, I get offended," said Greg Atwan, an author of "The Facebook Book," a satirical guide. "But if someone only has 100 friends, you understand they're trying to limit it to their intimates."

Mr. Atwan, a recent graduate of Harvard (where Facebook got its start), recommends culling your friend list once a year to remove total strangers and other hangers-on. Keeping your numbers down gives you more leeway to be selective about whom you approve in the first place, he said.

(While some people prefer the term "defriending," a quick survey of user-created groups on Facebook shows "unfriending" to be the more popular choice. A Facebook spokeswoman, Brandee Barker, said there was no officially preferred term.)

Of course, not all unfriendings are equal. There seem to be several varieties, ranging from the completely impersonal to the utterly vindictive. First is the simple thinning of the herd, removing that grad student you met at a party two years ago and haven't spoken to since or that kid from middle school you barely remember.

These were the people whom Steven Schiff, a news assistant at Vault.com, a career services Web site, sacrificed to get his Whopper.

"I found there were quite a few people on my list that I'd never even spoken to, much less been close friends with," he said by telephone.

Mr. Schiff, 25, said he experienced only the slightest guilt at eliminating those people. While he didn't feel the need to write to them individually to explain things, he did use his personal blog to address them en masse.

"Let's be honest here, questionable Facebook friend," he wrote. "We've been keeping you around all this time because we'd just feel bad if you ever found out that you got the ax. It's just, well, up until now nobody offered us a Whopper in exchange for your feelings."

This was just the sort of sentiment that Burger King and its advertising agency, Crispin Porter & Bogusky, were aiming to evoke when they set up the campaign. Burger King decided that it would do the talking for this article rather than its agency and delegated the task to Brian Gies, a vice president of marketing who said he was not a member of Facebook and therefore had not participated in the "Whopper Sacrifice."

Mr. Gies explained the marketing team's thinking about Facebook. "It s