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... if it weren't for the fact that I'm skeptical enough to know better.

Ignoring the fact that they spend twice as much on advertising as on R&D, routinely dump their toxic crap in underdeveloped countries; the truth is that the majority of their products are worthless, and may do more harm than good

> How many cars have internet service?

Most posts on the topic rail against the lack of universal 3g coverage: part yourselves on the back---you are spot on!

You know what I want to hear? ONE PANDORA-3G PHONE USER DECLARATIVELY STATE: I DRIVE 80 MILES AN HOUR ON $METROPOLIS AND THE FREAKING EXPERIENCE RATES A PASS, HERE'S WHY. XYZ123!

Do everyone a favor Pandora-3g-user-dude, quantify!!! Whenever sat vs. Net radio rears its head we always read the Pandora-type blissful testimonials. In this thread not one 5-score post describes other than in passing how Pandora/3g/65+mph Just WorksTM. Everyopne else is saying, BS it does not.

Anyhow. Quit your whining and start your pining! Net radio ready automobile stereos are here in the immediate future. Yea, yea, they depend on 3g/bluetooth but the freaking interface is integrated to the screen (Blaupunkt's miRoamer-powered TravelPilot New Jersey 600i internet car stereo." Double DIN, single DIN Hamburg).

Here's how I see it. 3g is sparse, but the market^W^Wme/you/they are/am ready for options, and the tech is here. Sure the monopolist, obstructionist carriers can't see an opportunity staring them in the face, but we have worldwide works projects en route, in the billions (1.000 millions). The USA passed stimulus package has broadband improvement provisions, a President that is aware of alternatives routes other that SOP for telecommunication.

So there were cds and slowly players were bought. So there were an mp3s and less slowly players were bought. So there were dvds and players were much less slowly bought. So there were smart phones, and then there were really smart phones that could play mp3, cd, dvd, game, web, app content! Velocity, momentum, desire is here majorly. Now I hear there's this depression type thing going on, I hear it's globally sucky, but, people will die, get sick, need to eat, be clothed. Shelter themselves. And they want better. That's apparent.

I think it's a chicken thing. I am crowing, now gimme the egg dangit!!! Multiply that sentiment by a thousand, exponent it mildly, compound it by the make jobs, make tech, make green, make hay circumstances and ubiquitous 3g in less than a handful of years is not far fetched.

Oh. Check out Blaupunkt's Internet radio car units:

http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/13/blaupunkt-shows-off-miroamer-powered-internet-car-radios/
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/automobiles/15WEBCAR.html

robie

After just reading this nonsense, my first thought was: "The sky is so broken, it needs to be replaced". It sure would make a good headline.

I think Americans - and many urban Chinese, too - tend to see the factory workers as passive victims, motivated by poverty and desperation. Spending time with these young women taught me the opposite: They are resourceful and ambitious, full of plans to improve their lot and change their fates, willing to challenge their bosses and quit their jobs for better ones, and willing to take night classes to improve themselves. When you ask these migrant workers why they came to the city, they will tell you that their families are poor, but they also talk about the opportunity and adventure of urban life. They may have very little power in our eyes, but in their own they are the leading actors in their own dramas and not victims of circumstance.

The fuel tax is not high enough to pay for the roads.

Even if taxes per gallon of fuel haven't risen significantly, it doesn't mean the tax is particularly low, $0.05/gallon is no small amount,

It is too low if it does not pay for the roads. You use the road you pay for it.

The number of cars, and amount of gasoline consumed has dramatically increased over the years, so tax revenues would naturally rise.

First, though the number of vehicles has increased the number of miles driven has decreased. And even if fuel tax revenue has increased it hasn't increased as much as building and maintaining those roads go up faster.

There would be some needs for increased maintenance of federal roads, but such costs don't necessarily increase proportionally with the number of gallons of gas consumed.

There would be some needs for increased maintenance of federal roads, but such costs don't necessarily increase proportionally with the number of gallons of gas consumed.

But the costs go up with mileage. As I've said elsewhere when someone renews their license plate tags their odometer is read to see how many miles they drive and they are taxed on that.

Toll roads haven't been used in the past, and yet states and cities have still gotten the road work they need done somehow.

Toll roads have most certainly been used. I was on toll roads back in the 1970s. Here's an article from the "New York Times" dated 25 Aug 1918: " ABANDON OLD TOLL ROADS.; Lancaster Turnpike Purchase Frees Pennsylvania of Last Section."

Fuel taxes are not that low, and the tax revenue is enormous, so of course the tax payers are already paying for their road maintenance...

As I said above if they are not high enough to pay for the roads then they are too low. Even the free market institute Reason says "federal gas tax revenues are failing". They want to totally replace the fuel tax with a mileage charge, which I say above should be used.

Falcon

It's true that not everything in the bill will be stimulative. Some of it is the inevitable result of compromise, such as suspending the Alternative Minimum Tax for many so-called middle-income wage earners (they probably needed to keep that to get the three critical Senate Republican votes). There are "safety net" transfer payments to the unemployed, and "neighborhood stabilization" funds to clean up foreclosure blight that - I would call these necessary hygiene rather than stimulus. But they are necessary.

If you look at the list, though, there's a lot of good stuff. Many are long-term investments and capital improvements: highway and bridge construction, high-speed rail, money to clean up hazardous waste sites, research in alternative energy tech, money for NASA ($1B). These are great because 1) they provide a stable target to attract private investment; 2) jobs for American workers, both blue and white collar; and 3) USEFUL work, not New Deal-type boondoggles.

Sen. Gregg showed lack of understanding when he said the stimulus was supposed to be "temporary and targeted". A "temporary" blip in spending by either the govt. or consumers does not attract investment... it just allows some businesses to hang on a little longer.

I'm especially psyched by the money for rail improvements. I would've liked to see a really big bet placed on next generation rail (both passenger and freight) - just think of bullet trains criss-crossing the Midwest and upper Southeast, as well as the Northeast corridor. Industrial production would go through the roof, and we'd have a big piece of a 21st century transportation system. But $10B in the bill that passed for all types of rail (including commuter rail) is a nothing to sneeze at.

...every economist that I've read says that ironically, that massive layoffs are the beginning of the end of an economic downturn, and that it appears as though things will be back into shape around the end of 2009 or the beginning of 2010, and none of their arguments are contingent upon a stimulus package. In fact, none mention it.

I don't know where you're getting your news, but most economists I've been reading (Krugman, Reich, Roubini, Galbraith, Taleb, etc.) say we're at the beginning, not the end, of a massive downturn. That the stimulus is not only necessary but nowhere near big enough to fill the demand gap created by this crisis. We need about 2 trillion in direct, massive government spending. We're getting only 800 billion (so far), of which a huge proportion is political garbage like tax cuts which are not very effective, AMT stuff which will not create jobs, etc.

Note that these are the same economists who long warned this crisis was coming. We ignore them at our peril.

The definition of species is, we know today, rather fuzzy.

A number of closely related modern species--among fish, fruit flies, squirrels, etc.--can be coerced into breeding fertile offspring in laboratory conditions. However, they do not normally breed in the wild, and are considered distinct species. Their phenotypes are different enough that they don't "look like mates" -- e.g., the coloring of the male fish no longer triggers a mating response in the female fish, even though the offspring would be fertile.

With enough generations separated by "cultural" barriers to breeding, eventually the lack of interbreeding in the wild allows the two genomes to diverge enough that they can no longer can produce fertile offspring even when mated. Therefore, even if the neanderthals were a different species, it is possible that humans could have interbred with them. Possible... but, in fact, not the case:

NY Times article: "An early inference that can be drawn from the new findings (...) is that there is no significant trace of Neanderthal genes in modern humans."

No genetic evidence of iterbreeding between human and neanderthal.

- - -

What the heck is this massive interest in "cloning extinct species"?!! Weird. I guess the science fiction lure. A single animal, or even hundreds of cloned extinct animals, would in any event never reproduce their culture. A long-extinct culture cannot be cloned.

From the NY Times article An early inference that can be drawn from the new findings, which were announced Thursday in Leipzig, Germany, is that there is no significant trace of Neanderthal genes in modern humans. This confounds the speculation that modern humans could have interbred with Neanderthals, thus benefiting from the genes that adapted the Neanderthals to the cold climate that prevailed in Europe in last ice age, which ended 10,000 years ago. Researchers have not ascertained if human genes entered the Neanderthal population.

Interbreeding between humans and neanderthal? No.

The Russkies are taking potshots at Iridium! We must save Iridium, just like we did back in 2000!

There was no scientific evidence that Silcone Breast implants caused illness either, but that didn't stop them from driving Dow Corning into bankruptcy with claims that they did. People do have a right to their beliefs, even if they are paranoid delusions, they have a right to refuse to get their kids immunized. What they don't have is a right to is compensation for harm that occurred after another event with no evidence that the other event actually caused the harm. In this case, the original claim was that the mercury (Thimerisol?) caused autism; it was quickly removed from vaccines, and then the claim was changed to the vaccination itself caused autism. When that couldn't be proved, then the claim was changed to several different vaccines taken closely together cause autism. (This last claim isn't quite as ridiculous as the other claims, since vaccine safety is tested a single vaccine at a time, not in combinations.) Yeah, I'm sorry about your kids' medical problems, but, like silicone implants, there is no statistical evidence that the medical problems occur any more frequently in kids that have had the vaccinations than kids that have not. Post Hoc, ergo propter hoc is still a logical fallacy.

Cuba openly supports a violent over-throw of Capitalist economies, and vows to not rest until world wide communism has been achieved.
http://www.newworker.org/athens.htm

In the 1970's, the popular thing for upwardly mobile Communists was to hijack US airliners and divert them to Cuba.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Cuba-US_aircraft_hijackings

In Cuba, attempting to flee to the US is a crime punishable by death.
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&q=cuba+escape+execute&btnG=Search

Cuban refugees living in the US charter small air-craft to fly between Cuba and the US, for the purpose of finding/assisting refugees fleeing Cuba in small boats. These flights have been shot down in international airspace.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E03E5DF1139F936A15751C0A960958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all

So ask your self where you stand... People should be allowed to leave at their own will, or held in the workers paradise for their own good.

Holding people in a country against their will, is that kind of like slavery?

WP, while a useful web site, tends to promote "popular opinion" into "psuedo fact". As long as enough people who edit WP believe something to be true, the entries about that item will promote the popular belief as fact. Eventually, due to WP's popularity, the psuedo fact becomes accepted as an actual fact.

Example: according to linguistics, there are no rules about what words can be added to the English language. Indeed English is the least pure, most widely hybrized language on the planet and new words are added to it daily. For example the verb "slashdotted" :-) or the verb "google" etc.. Nowhere are there any rules saying "these specific things cannot be added to the english language because they don't meet criteria 'x'." According to linguistics, the only rules used to determine if something is actually a word or not are these two:

A: Is the word being used?
B: Is the meaning of the word as used agreed on?
If those two requirements are metthen the word in question is a legitimate word.

The example peevologists hate the most: "virii" (yes, it meets the requirements. Therefore it is a word, despite being desperately hated by peevologists :-) So use it often! ;-)

Instead of following these rules, WP indulges in what linguists call "peevology" which is the process whereby a language myth becomes accepted as "fact" due to aggresive "enforcement" of the myth by people who actually have no idea what they are talking about.
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&client=firefox&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aunofficial&hs=q9z&q=peeveology+OR+peevology+OR+%22peeve-ology%22&btnG=Search

Fortunately even the mainstream peevologists are realizing that language just isn't used the way the 18th century grammarians (who started the whole myth of "standard english) think it ought to be used. In fact it wasn't used that way back then, and never has been from then until now.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9507EFDA113AF93BA2575BC0A9649C8B63

The biggest issue with peevology is that many copy editors have been mis-educated about these very issues and go forth laying waste to perfectly good writing because they (incorrectly) believe said writing is not following "the rules". (the article refers to prescriptivists who have some overlap with peevologists but are generally less harmful, just annoying.)

Examples from the language log http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/
"Singular they" is illegal. http://158.130.17.5/~myl/languagelog/archives/003572.html
"Split infinitives" are not allowed. http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=515
"That isn't a Word." http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001652.html

David Crystal, in his new book How Language Works, says "Language change is inevitable, continuous, universal and multidirectional. Languages do not get better or worse when they change. They just -- change." http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=How+Language+Works&x=15&y=17

Geoffrey K Pullum:

I was walking across campus with a friend and we came upon half a dozen theoretical linguists committing unprovoked physical assault on a defenseless prescriptivist. My friend was shocked. Sh

If we have a problem with the actions of the Egyptian government, then there are numerous ways for us to apply pressure.

And they don't seem to be working. Your idea of sanctions has been tried and tried before ... look at Iran. Did you know that a lot of Iranian people hold United States citizens responsible for the deaths of sick and hungry people in their country. Because we impose sanctions on them (nevermind the UN does it too) and ours are so strict that we refuse them medicine.

If Egypt is acting poorly ...

If Egypt is acting poorly? Take the case of newly released Philip Rizk who was held for five days without reason. And the only reason he was treated so well was that he has dual citizenship with Germany. Look into how they treat members of the Muslim Brotherhood or their own citizens in the name of the war on terror. Many people are disappeared daily that don't get media attention because they aren't foreigners.

If you don't like that, then forbid Vodafone from operating there - don't complain that they are playing by the home field rules.

Well, you can't target a single company with a sanction, can you? It'd have to be the entire industry and I would like to see how Egyptian citizens react to the United States doing that.

You know, we give Egypt so much money to keep their Human Rights up to standard with the UN and they just take our money and laugh. Makes me mad and I hope it makes you mad too. Because those are our tax dollars funding that state police gestapo crap.

If we have a problem with the actions of the Egyptian government, then there are numerous ways for us to apply pressure.

And they don't seem to be working. Your idea of sanctions has been tried and tried before ... look at Iran. Did you know that a lot of Iranian people hold United States citizens responsible for the deaths of sick and hungry people in their country. Because we impose sanctions on them (nevermind the UN does it too) and ours are so strict that we refuse them medicine.

If Egypt is acting poorly ...

If Egypt is acting poorly? Take the case of newly released Philip Rizk who was held for five days without reason. And the only reason he was treated so well was that he has dual citizenship with Germany. Look into how they treat members of the Muslim Brotherhood or their own citizens in the name of the war on terror. Many people are disappeared daily that don't get media attention because they aren't foreigners.

If you don't like that, then forbid Vodafone from operating there - don't complain that they are playing by the home field rules.

Well, you can't target a single company with a sanction, can you? It'd have to be the entire industry and I would like to see how Egyptian citizens react to the United States doing that.

You know, we give Egypt so much money to keep their Human Rights up to standard with the UN and they just take our money and laugh. Makes me mad and I hope it makes you mad too. Because those are our tax dollars funding that state police gestapo crap.

If only a decent party had a chance in America... to claim that the Dems' federal politicians are better than the Republicans' or vice versa is shear wishful thinking.

Um, they are :

Since 1929, Republicans and Democrats have each controlled the presidency for nearly 40 years. So which party has been better for American pocketbooks and capitalism as a whole? Well, here's an experiment: imagine that during these years you had to invest exclusively under either Democratic or Republican administrations. How would you have fared?

As of Friday, a $10,000 investment in the S.& P. stock market index* would have grown to $11,733 if invested under Republican presidents only, although that would be $51,211 if we exclude Herbert Hoover's presidency during the Great Depression. Invested under Democratic presidents only, $10,000 would have grown to ***$300,671*** at a compound rate of 8.9 percent over nearly 40 years.

Not to mention the fact that this current financial crisis is the result of 30 years of Republican economic policy. For 30 years, Republicans pushed for deregulation for the sake of deregulation, and tax cuts for the rich for the sake of giving the rich more money, and now we are reaping the whirlwind.

Unlike the republicans, the democratic party has a lot of people with their own views

And those views are dead on arrival if they conflict with the views of the party/congressional leadership. The NY Times just had an interesting article about the oldest serving member of the House. Here's the interesting part:

More troublesome for Mr. Dingell has been the long-term trend toward ideological polarization, making the Democratic Party less hospitable for members with socially conservative views, like his support for gun rights. When redistricting pitted him against the more liberal Representative Lynn Rivers in a 2002 primary, Representative Nancy Pelosi of California sent $10,000 to Ms. Rivers.

Mr. Dingell survived. But like colleagues in both parties, he has chafed under Ms. Pelosiâ(TM)s speakership at the centralization of decision-making within the House leadership. "It started under Gingrich," he said, "and it continues today."

India.

That argument fails completely. Six of the top ten evolution believing nations are protestant-majority, according to a study in Science.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/313/5788/765

In that survey, 34 industrialized nations were studied and the US comes on a 33rd place just before Turkey.

The results from the Science article was also published in NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2006/08/14/science/sciencespecial2/20050815_EVO_GRAPHIC.html

The reason must be found elsewhere.

Repeat after me: You can't trust closed-source software

A group of Canadian human-rights activists and computer security researchers has discovered a huge surveillance system in China that monitors and archives certain [Skype] Internet text conversations that include politically charged words.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/02/technology/internet/02skype.html?_r=1

I didn't exactly need links to such simple near universal construction materials as concrete, steel, cement, and such. I'm well aware of the nuclear cycle.

I try to provide links so I may support my position and so that people not simply assume I'm making stuff up.

It's not like wind doesn't need them either - and a stand alone solar complex will use them as well.

However neither solar nor wind should need nearly as much of either than a nuclear power plant will. Though I'm not sure I'd think 200 pylons for 5 megawatt wind turbines would use less concrete and steel than a 1 gigawatt nuclear power plant. And all the steel used to make the turbine, tower, and pylons would be less too. Even your link to the environmental effects of wind power "suggested a payback time of 1.1 years". That charter only considers CO2 not other environmental considerations also.

Interesting article on green nuclear power

It offers no substance though, basically it's about greenwashing nuclear power.

Update - found it! - but doesn't want to download completely on my system.

It's not just you, I clicked on the link then the browser and preview stopped responding. I tried to force quit then the computer froze. I've had my Mac for almost 1 1/2 years and that's only the second or third tyme that happened. I wish I didn't have the problem, I'm not going to try again.

While Uranium mining and refining is fairly nasty, the trick is that you need so little of it - You'd end up mining more cadmium and other rare and nasty minerals for photovoltaic panels.

I'm not sure if it was you, or someone else who posted about it above, but someone brought up CSP, Concentrating solar power. While PVs are good for roofs, CSP is better in places like the US southwest.

But you lose the bonus points

Darn, that was stupid. Though I didn't try to get the bonus points I put the part about them in my post.

my article still has relevance, since 'Hooked on Subsidies' only mentions putting it up against coal, which I don't consider a viable clean alternative, even with 'clean' and carbon sequestration.

It may be relevant as far as subsidies are concerned, but I think that's part of the problem, subsidies. At most subsidies should only be used temporarily. Those I hate most are the farm subsidies. Take a look at the Farm bill congress passed last year. Enacted on 22 May 2008 it provided $288 billion in subsidies.

And yes, I do consider 'rebates' subsidies.

Subsidies are taxpayer money, in Germany's case it's not government paying it's the utilities. And like with the states that have net metering laws utilities enjoy an avoided cost.

Not that I necessarily object to all subsidies. For example, energy efficiency deductions. I don't think insulation and other energy saving measures should be factored into real estate taxes. Yes, I include solar panels and such in there. Call it my 'people shouldn't be penalized for owning a quality house'. Not a big house, not a fancy house, but a quality one - safe, efficient, well insulated, etc... People shouldn't be penalized for painting their shack and installing good windows.

Darn, I lied above. Actually I hadn't thought of this but I do support the subsidies

You don't exactly say what the tech level of your customers are but I'd suggest:
1. First tell them it is a great question. Explain to them that your company is very serious about security and they should always feel comfortable asking any question about your architecture, methods,etc..

2. Explain one of the reasons you use Linux is because of your concerns about their security.

3. Be able to link/show them the percentage of infected windows computers compared to Linux. This link should be from a highly reputable news source. (e.g. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/17/technology/17virus.htmll) This is the only stat they need to see.

4. Avoid any evangelism about open source. Most likely they don't care, they want a solution and a provider they can trust.

5. Finally take this as an opportunity to build a better relationship with your customer. The fact that they called you rather than switching providers means they *want* to trust you. Leave them with the feeling that they can.

I didn't exactly need links to such simple near universal construction materials as concrete, steel, cement, and such. I'm well aware of the nuclear cycle.

It's not like wind doesn't need them either - and a stand alone solar complex will use them as well. For solar, roof mounts would be the lightest, structural material wise, but photovoltaic panels use all sorts of nasty stuff anyways.
Nuclear has very low life-cycle CO2 emissions - scroll down a bit for the chart. Coal is 966-1306, Gas 439-688, Solar PV 100-280, Wind 10-48, Nuclear 9-21.
Interesting article on green nuclear power
I'd rather directly link the referenced UC Berkeley study - but This should do:
Wind: 460 Metric tons steel, 870 cubic meters concrete for 1 MW
Nuclear: 40 MT steel, 190 m^3 concrete
Coal: 98 MT, 160 m^3 (there only for comparison purposes)
Update - found it! - but doesn't want to download completely on my system.

While Uranium mining and refining is fairly nasty, the trick is that you need so little of it - You'd end up mining more cadmium and other rare and nasty minerals for photovoltaic panels.

Yes I have. "Hooked on Subsidies: Why conservatives should join the left's campaign against nuclear power" is one. CATO, a Freemarket Institute, also has articles that say something about coal subsidies.

But you lose the bonus points, my article still has relevance, since 'Hooked on Subsidies' only mentions putting it up against coal, which I don't consider a viable clean alternative, even with 'clean' and carbon sequestration. For the energy produced the subsidies on wind/solar are far, far higher than nuclear. And yes, I do consider 'rebates' subsidies.

Not that I necessarily object to all subsidies. For example, energy efficiency deductions. I don't think insulation and other energy saving measures should be factored into real estate taxes. Yes, I include solar panels and such in there. Call it my 'people shouldn't be penalized for owning a quality house'. Not a big house, not a fancy house, but a quality one - safe, efficient, well insulated, etc... People shouldn't be penalized for painting their shack and installing good windows.

Oh, and your syngas link brings up an interesting point. If I got my way, the building of the 300 or so plants needed to shut down our actively carbon emitting power plants would free up a LOT of coal for syngas activities. I know it can be done - the Germans did it during WWII. Economically? That's a better question. Personally, I prefer the idea of algae trays in the desert for biodiesel and biogasoline.

The earliest use on UseNet was 1990, and the earliest mention in the New York Times is 1999. So I'm fairly certain Galen was the first inventor.

Then you wont even know what you are missing out on.

Well there is a much deeper problem... A very prominent US Senator — with, no doubt, unobstructed access to both classified "national security" information and less important secrets — said less than 4 months ago on national TV:

When we kicked -- along with France, we kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon, I said and Barack said, "Move NATO forces in there. Fill the vacuum, because if you don't know -- if you don't, Hezbollah will control it." Now what's happened? Hezbollah is a legitimate part of the government in the country immediately to the north of Israel.

Now Bush had plenty of funny misstatements ("nukular", "misudnerstimate"), but what he meant to say was always completely clear to all listeners. What the above-quoted statement regarding Hezbollah meant, however, remains a mistery:

1. Nobody has ever kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon — or anywhere else, for that matter.
2. Nobody has even tried, except Israel (in 2006) — unsuccessfully.
3. Last time US was in Lebanon, Reagan was President, Hezbollah did not exist, and Barack was still in college.
4. Last time France was in Lebanon was between World Wars.
5. Lebanon is not a NATO member, and neither is Israel — the supposed beneficiary of the Senator's advice. There would be no justification to use NATO forces to secure the Hezbollah-free Lebanon, even if the first four issues did not exist.

And yet, despite all of these facts the Senator's statements went down really well — he was not taken away by mental professionals. In fact, he is now a Vice-President (picked for his supposed "foreign policy expertise").

A population, that votes this way, has far deeper problems than (un)availability of research data — all of the facts, I enumerated, are very well known and available to everyone — no need to bother "leaking" them. And yet, the senile lunatic moved from the Senate not to a retirement facility, but to within "heart-beat away" from the most powerful office on the planet.

The Bush administration cost America something like $15 Trillion in lost equity value in just its last 4 months.

Awesome... Despite the crisis being repeatedly tracked right to the sadly-successful efforts by Democratic Party and "community organizers" to loosen lending standards to provide mortgages to people, who can't pay them off, out comes someone like yourself to lay the blame on the Republican administration...

The 1999 article, which NYT has completely forgotten about, of course, reads: Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people [...] there remain too many borrowers whose credit is just a notch below what our underwriting has required

Ten years later Clinton's chickens are back to roost... Bush's they aren't.

But google brings the magnifying glass of truth to all.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/02/technology/internet/02kenya.html?em=&pagewanted=all

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7171372.stm

http://www.internetbar.org/Sections-article43-p1.html

• The current strategy of privatization with hope for competition under independent regulation has failed in many developed and developing nations. In the US, regulators have been unable to create competition and our infrastructure has suffered.
• The large broadband incumbents have benefited from public subsidy, have failed to live up to commitments, and have used their power to defeat attempts to create competition.
• The US has little fiber in the access network today, but will have fiber to all urban and many rural homes and buildings in the long run. The question is not whether we are going to deploy new infrastructure; the question is who will own it?
• We should take the time to evaluate decentralized alternatives to near-total ownership by the incumbents. Local governments, cooperatives, small ISPs, and home and building owners might own parts of our next generation infrastructure.
• This evaluation can be fast and cheap. The work of the National Science Foundation in designing and creating NSFNet and connecting universities, colleges and foreign networks provides an excellent example of a small government staff calling on experts from academia and industry to design a network and a strategy for deploying it, followed by procurement via competitive bid.
• We need immediate economic stimulus, but that can come from tax cuts and investment in many sectors as well as broadband.
• Nobel economist Paul Krugman acknowledges the need for rapid stimulus, but says we should downplay the "jump start" metaphor and focus on job creation through infrastructure investment over the next four plus years (see http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/12/opinion/12krugman.html).
• We will be living with the fiber and high-speed wireless infrastructure we build today for many decades. We will also be living with its owners.

Click here for a paper with details on the above.

Click here for a PowerPoint presentation on the above.

But then, the additional money would put inflationary pressure on the world economy that people would be worse off.

Well, since there is a very real risk of deflation, I don't see some inflationary pressure as such a terrible thing. If inflation starts to become a problem, the Fed can always raise interest rates. Lowering interest rates, however, is rather difficult when they are almost zero.

There is no real "fix" for this.

What are you trying to say here? Would you argue that the best course of action for the government is to do what ordinary people do when their revenue falls? Because that worked great in 1932.

The right answer are there in front of us

Please share the answers with the rest of us who aren't as enlightened as you are.

But then, the additional money would put inflationary pressure on the world economy that people would be worse off.

Well, since there is a very real risk of deflation, I don't see some inflationary pressure as such a terrible thing. If inflation starts to become a problem, the Fed can always raise interest rates. Lowering interest rates, however, is rather difficult when they are almost zero.

There is no real "fix" for this.

What are you trying to say here? Would you argue that the best course of action for the government is to do what ordinary people do when their revenue falls? Because that worked great in 1932.

The right answer are there in front of us

Please share the answers with the rest of us who aren't as enlightened as you are.

It's funny to see Obamazonians blame Bush for Clinton's mess. NYTimes

From NY Times (Sept 30th 1999) by By STEVEN A. HOLMES.

Original links here and here

In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.

The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets -- including the New York metropolitan region -- will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring.

Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.

In addition, banks, thrift institutions and mortgage companies have been pressing Fannie Mae to help them make more loans to so-called subprime borrowers. These borrowers whose incomes, credit ratings and savings are not good enough to qualify for conventional loans, can only get loans from finance companies that charge much higher interest rates -- anywhere from three to four percentage points higher than conventional loans.

''Fannie Mae has expanded home ownership for millions of families in the 1990's by reducing down payment requirements,'' said Franklin D. Raines, Fannie Mae's chairman and chief executive officer. ''Yet there remain too many borrowers whose credit is just a notch below what our underwriting has required who have been relegated to paying significantly higher mortgage rates in the so-called subprime market.''

Demographic information on these borrowers is sketchy. But at least one study indicates that 18 percent of the loans in the subprime market went to black borrowers, compared to 5 per cent of loans in the conventional loan market.

In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980's.

''From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us,'' said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ''If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.''

Under Fannie Mae's pilot program, consumers who qualify can secure a mortgage with an interest rate one percentage point above that of a conventional, 30-year fixed rate mortgage of less than $240,000 -- a rate that currently averages about 7.76 per cent. If the borrower makes his or her monthly payments on time for two years, the one percentage point premium is dropped.

Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, does not lend money directly to consumers. Instead, it purchases loans that banks make on what is called the secondary market. By expanding the type of loans that it will buy, Fannie Mae is hoping to spur banks to make more loans to people with less-than-stellar credit ratings.

No, it was socialism that got us into this mess. Not the free market. If anything, GWB is culpable for *not* bringing this issue to the public sooner while in office.

There is no difference between the parties these days when it comes to spending.

I'm seeing a lot of terrible misinformation here. This statement is simply inconsistent with the facts.

The Republicans want to spend the money on enormous tax cuts. All but five Senate Republicans voted for an amendment that contains huge permanent tax cuts, including reducing the highest marginal rate from 35% to 25%.

On the other hand, probably the most important piece of spending that was cut from the Senate version of the bill during negotiations that managed to secure three Republican votes was $40 billion in aid to state and local governments.

The Republicans like to complain that much of the stimulus spending isn't on "shovel-ready" projects, but this aid to state and local governments would serve to prevent cutbacks due to declining revenue. This is one of the most rapid forms of stimulus.

Republicans like to demand evidence for the effectiveness of various kinds of spending, but they simply assume that tax cuts are the most effective, without any evidence needed. It's indeed true that tax cuts are faster than many kinds of spending, but evidence (including last year's stimulus package) indicates that many kinds of spending (such as infrastructure spending) is considerably more effective (has a higher multiplier) than tax cuts. The reason is that when people receive a tax rebate, they are likely to add it to their savings rather than spend it.

Also, the focus on "shovel-ready" projects to "jump-start" the economy is somewhat misplaced. Economic forecasts suggest an extended period of unemployment and reduced output. Based on the Obama team's economic forecast, the stimulus should be much larger and extend into 2010 and 2011.

Yes, indeed. Without some serious reforms, just throwing money and calling it "stimulus" is pointless. Some change we're getting...

Do you have ANY idea what "stimulus" means? It means spending money. When demand goes down, as it has, the economy shuts down. The GDP (Gross Domestic Product) falls. Here's a fun formula for you:

GDP= consumption + gross investment + government spending + (exports imports)

Consumption is fucked as everyone is saving money because of the recession. People are not spending, money is not flowing in the economy.
Exports-imports. Fucked. Other countries are not buying. Shipping containers are empty. Some shipping companies are actually transporting things for free if you pay for gas...
Gross Investment. Fucked. The credit freeze has virtually ended the willingness of lenders to loan. Banks, like consumers, are hoarding cash. No one trusts anyone.

What's left? Government spending. Pouring money. Into the economy. The only ones who will not fail us when our "free market" self-destructs as it has.

But- But- what about our national debt?

Fuck it.

This is more important. If our economy completely collapses... it's full-blown Depression time. Massive unemployment, deflation... our CURRENT national debt goes up relative to GDP- as the dollar falls it becomes more impossible to pay off, as do the private debts of everyone. And we go into a "trap" that makes it VERY difficult to get out. In other words, what we are facing as a negative outcome here is SO HUGE that we're going to have to worry about things like the debt and possible inflation (if and when we get out of this) later.

What we need is huge, massive government spending- a shit ton of money poured into places where it will be spent further and circulate. No more tax cuts for the rich-- they won't spend it in a way that the money gets around. And as we've learned from recent stimulus packages, over 80% of money given as tax cuts is saved. Hell, those checks we sent out last year were saved too. We need to massively encourage money to be SPENT. We need to increase DEMAND overall in the economy.

If people won't spend the money (and we won't), the government (who unlike individuals and companies have the good of the economy as a whole in mind) will do it for us.

Don't believe me? Put on Bloomberg.com-- it's not the most exciting media outlet, but they've had an endless parade of economists of all political persuasions on every day for the last 3 months saying we need about 2 trillion to fill the demand hole left by this disaster. Only ideologues at this point- talk show hosts and politicians who think "tax cuts" are always the solution when times are good ("we can afford them!") AND times are bad ("They'll stimulate the economy!") say otherwise. Of course, these jackwads are the ones whose policies have gotten us in this mess, so I think they can shut the fuck up right about now.

Nobel winning economist Paul Krugman recently referred to an analogy for this (originally from Mark Thoma)-- is a car going up a icy hill. You need to hit it with a lot of gas all at once to get it over the top. You need to slam on the gas hard. You can't just tap the pedal.

So yeah, the stimulus *is* throwing money. It's about throwing it into the right places to get the economy going. From the consensus of economists I've been reading, the big problem is we're not spending near enough to do the job.

Yes, indeed. Without some serious reforms, just throwing money and calling it "stimulus" is pointless. Some change we're getting...

Do you have ANY idea what "stimulus" means? It means spending money. When demand goes down, as it has, the economy shuts down. The GDP (Gross Domestic Product) falls. Here's a fun formula for you:

GDP= consumption + gross investment + government spending + (exports imports)

Consumption is fucked as everyone is saving money because of the recession. People are not spending, money is not flowing in the economy.
Exports-imports. Fucked. Other countries are not buying. Shipping containers are empty. Some shipping companies are actually transporting things for free if you pay for gas...
Gross Investment. Fucked. The credit freeze has virtually ended the willingness of lenders to loan. Banks, like consumers, are hoarding cash. No one trusts anyone.

What's left? Government spending. Pouring money. Into the economy. The only ones who will not fail us when our "free market" self-destructs as it has.

But- But- what about our national debt?

Fuck it.

This is more important. If our economy completely collapses... it's full-blown Depression time. Massive unemployment, deflation... our CURRENT national debt goes up relative to GDP- as the dollar falls it becomes more impossible to pay off, as do the private debts of everyone. And we go into a "trap" that makes it VERY difficult to get out. In other words, what we are facing as a negative outcome here is SO HUGE that we're going to have to worry about things like the debt and possible inflation (if and when we get out of this) later.

What we need is huge, massive government spending- a shit ton of money poured into places where it will be spent further and circulate. No more tax cuts for the rich-- they won't spend it in a way that the money gets around. And as we've learned from recent stimulus packages, over 80% of money given as tax cuts is saved. Hell, those checks we sent out last year were saved too. We need to massively encourage money to be SPENT. We need to increase DEMAND overall in the economy.

If people won't spend the money (and we won't), the government (who unlike individuals and companies have the good of the economy as a whole in mind) will do it for us.

Don't believe me? Put on Bloomberg.com-- it's not the most exciting media outlet, but they've had an endless parade of economists of all political persuasions on every day for the last 3 months saying we need about 2 trillion to fill the demand hole left by this disaster. Only ideologues at this point- talk show hosts and politicians who think "tax cuts" are always the solution when times are good ("we can afford them!") AND times are bad ("They'll stimulate the economy!") say otherwise. Of course, these jackwads are the ones whose policies have gotten us in this mess, so I think they can shut the fuck up right about now.

Nobel winning economist Paul Krugman recently referred to an analogy for this (originally from Mark Thoma)-- is a car going up a icy hill. You need to hit it with a lot of gas all at once to get it over the top. You need to slam on the gas hard. You can't just tap the pedal.

So yeah, the stimulus *is* throwing money. It's about throwing it into the right places to get the economy going. From the consensus of economists I've been reading, the big problem is we're not spending near enough to do the job.

With the world's financial system in the brink of collapse from deregulation, isn't it about time to dump the bullshit right-wing ideology behind that deregulation ?

"the past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth."

Sorry, it didn't quote work that way.

The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.
...
''These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis,'' said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ''The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.''

Not that I blame the right any less, but this whole idea that not regulating is a "right-wing" ideology is ridiculous. Both sides want to look the other way when they are getting their short-term gains. Both sides then want to blame the other when the shit hits the fan. I agree there was a regulation failure. I do not agree it was a right-wing ideology that caused it.

More recent PDF (with some newer changes)
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/politics/020209econbill.pdf

FTA:

Partially cut:
* $3.5 billion for energy-efficient federal buildings (original bill $7 billion)
* $75 million from Smithsonian (original bill $150 million)
* $200 million from Environmental Protection Agency Superfund (original bill $800 million)
* $100 million from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (original bill $427 million)


Fully eliminated:
* $55 million for historic preservation
* $50 million for Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service
* $98 million for school nutrition
* $2 billion for broadband
* $100 million for National Institute of Standards and Technology
* $50 million for NASA
* $50 million for aeronautics
* $50 million for exploration
* $200 million for National Science Foundation
* $100 MILLION FOR SCIENCE
* $25 million for Fish and Wildlife
* $55 million for historic preservation
* $90 million for State and Private Wildlife Fire Management
* $16 billion for school construction
* $3.5 billion for higher education construction
~~~
YES I read the entire link I posted (took me just over an hour) and it just seems to me that everything cut was everything Obama promised to keep, and everything kept was what Obama was against when he was running.
OK so my actual question after all of this is this: Why are we cutting sciences yet throwing hundreds of billions of dollars towards the military still (see article X in the linked article.) I'm not an economist, I just noticed a very ugly trend in the above documents and would like someone with a bit more economic experience to explain (please!)

I'm beginning to wonder just what IS in those deadzones.....

Little to no oxygen. Which I think is a more immediate problem than acidification.

If we have documentation about alkaline runoff - there ought to be more documentation about acid runoff.

It's not so much there would be acid runoff, not because of CO2 at least. CO2 is an acidic oxide, which water will absorb. On land though plants will use it to grow.

Oh, something I just recalled. You know how some people say "let's plant more trees"? While CO2 boosts the growth of some trees, it slows the growth of other trees. And guess what plant loves CO2? Poison ivy. It grows faster with higher CO2 levels.

Falcon

What did Linus say a few years ago? Here it is:

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

No problem:

ESPN charges cable and satellite operators an average of $3.65 a month per subscriber, the most in television, according to SNL Kagan, a research organization. Multiply that by 98 million subscribers, over 12 months a year, and ESPNs financial armor adds up to $4.3 billion.

Google has a lot of articles. It's interesting to see that the price has more than doubled in five years and is up from $1.28 in 2000. It's no wonder they want to do the same with 360.

When you have GM going to congress begging for money while their laborers are making near $80k a year with gold plated benefits

They aren't. That was bullshit from the GM execs. They lumped in the retiree benefits and included them into workers. With productivity increases and workforce reductions, that means a lot of retirees are supported by a few current workers. US auto worker compensation is roughly in line with that of Japanese auto workers. In contrast, Japanese CEO compensation is much less than US CEO compensation.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0DEEDA1738F932A25757C0A9629C8B63

I believe when you are born in calif, dna samples are taken (you probably can't even opt-out?) when you are born. ...or slightly afterwards ;)

also see:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E00E4D71231F93BA35751C1A9629C8B63
  (National Briefing | West: California: Challenge To DNA Collection Law)

and:

http://japark.newsvine.com/_news/2008/06/29/1623247-may-2-2008-bush-signs-bill-to-take-all-newborns-dna-
  (May 2, 2008: Bush Signs Bill To Take All Newborns' DNA)

Sure am glad that Obama won't go along with an attack on any of our constitutional rights

Even before he took the mantel he reversed his commitment against telco immunity and gave immunity.

I'll be surprised if Obama actually sheds ANY of the executive powers that Bush gave that branch.

Coincidentally in the NY Times today there is an article on how bad forensics labs really are . A good read.

And we found it so offensive that we did what it took to basically eliminate malaria from our society.

We tried mosquito control for years in this country, but didn't have the amazing success we did until we started using DDT.

Why don't other societies do that, too? Why is it our job to do it for them?

Because we were the first to give it a go, we got to use DDT to clear our mosquito problem out when there was zero resistance, and zero public backlash.

Later on, it got harder to get the same results, as the campaigns were mis-managed - just look at the entry on Wikipedia concerning Sri Lanka. They almost eradicated Malaria, and then stopped (for cost reasons) and the remaining mosquitos had time to gain resistance. It's the same thing we see in eradicating bacteriological bugs: if you're going to use antibiotics, you MUST use the full treatment, or you'll leave the resistant strains alive.

So, today DDT isn't as effective as it once was, becasue it wasn't used properly when it was new. And on-top of the reduced effect, countries are being preached to by the international community to stop using DDT. And we pay for that luxury: the mosquito control budgets of just two counties in New York State top four million dollars! If you extrapolate that for the entire east coast, the US spends billions of dollars just keeping the mosquitos at-bay!

So, how exactly is a 3rd-world country supposed to do what we did, when the costs (both political and monetary) of doing what we did have gone up so much? All our meddleing and mis-management is partially responsible for the mess they're in, so we certainly should pay some of the costs or eradication.

Daschle was announced in early dec. PRIOR to any issues showing up. So yeah. Just like that.

The New York Times ran a story, Dark Days for Green Energy, that takes a more bearish look at the situation.

Take it as an example of how most people think, and why such research shouldn't be allowed.

To me, until people are much clearer on how to define "human" or people are willing to give animals the same rights as humans, you shouldn't allow human-animal hybrids.

Otherwise allowing it is just asking for lots of problems down the line. You have to consider the bad/worst case scenarios.

You may think a total ban is silly, wasteful and arbitrary, but I think not banning it at this stage is worse.

After all, imagine creating intelligent+sentient+conscious robots/cyborgs/creatures in a world where people would just enslave and mistreat them (or "farm" bits of their bodies).

Researchers may say the current creatures won't have a brain. Yes but then you'll still have to draw a line somewhere. Where are you going to draw that line? Keep in mind there's a fair bit of "brain" near where your stomach is (Enteric Nervous System see: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=980CE0DF1F39F930A15752C0A960958260 ). Maybe it's the one that decides you want to eat fried chicken instead of brocolli for lunch.

The masses already have problems with abortion.

So just ban it for now and work on something else - there's plenty of other work to be done, that can be done without such problems. The last I checked we had limited resources. Sure we might waste the experience of some people in transgenic research, but so what - preserve their current work for the future. If they're really smart they might find other ways of curing diseases in the meantime.

"...global warming could actually benefit humanity by expanding the amount of arable land..." Bullshit. Change is bad, any change is bad. One theory is that our temperature has remained artifically stable for the last 10K years because of the gulf stream being shut off as we increased temp. One theory in anthropology is that the only reason we developed a society at all was because of this stability. Why fuck with a known quantity. risk=damagexlikelyhood again. Damage is totally unknown so why risk it?

Even if you kill all the dumb people 50% of the remaining people will still be dumb, statistics are a bitch. I am obviously being absurdest but my point is still valid. If the conservatives think we can preemptively strike Iraq (killing hundreds of thousands of people) to prevent them from attacking us (when there was no way in hell that they would) why can't I kill the people who are risking the only known habitable planet in the universe so they can what??? Not modify their lazy, arrogant, slothful, greedy, murderous lifestyle? What exactly is so important that you are fighting for? Inefficiency. A noble purpose if ever there was one.

Birth rates. Condoms and educating women the only two things that drop it. But you are not taking into account that the Muslims, the Christians, the Hindus, and a lot of other people who KNOW they are right, and think they have a G-d given right to have as many kids as possible hell some think it is an imperative. Religion trumps thinking a frightening proportion of the time. Are you willing to RISK it once again. Any population growth at all will lead to doubling. Per Dr. Albert A. Bartlett at University of Colorado, Boulder...
"The land area of the continents (excluding Antarctica) is 1.24 1014 m2. If this modest annual growth rate of 1.7% were to continue steadily in the future, how long will it take for the population to reach a density of one person per square meter on the continents? Solving, we find t is slightly less than 600 years."

600 fucking years; a little less than half the time since Mohammed, 1/3 of the time since Jesus and it will be one person per square meter. Wake up jackass.

As to Al Gore and propaganda lets look at this critically. You are telling me that scientists, a group of squabbling intellectuals who's only hope of advancement is one-upmanship have conspired to take away our freedom to burn fossil fuels for what? So they can control us? So they can make us suffer? Because they are all secretly communists? Vs. the idea the the MOST PROFITABLE business in human history has to introduce just enough fear uncertainty and doubt to make sheeple like you question the questioners. Oh yes those billions of dollars the ivory tower egg heads have hidden away with their magic lead to gold machines are being used to push a propaganda machine of biblical proportions drowning out the logical dispassionate arguments of the capitalist captains of the oil industry. Follow the money... fuck you you ignorant ass. How much did Exxon make this year? That's the fucking money. "Show me the money" Oh wait here's the money...
"Exxon earned $45.2 billion in 2008, beating the record it set in 2007 for most profitable corporation, at $40.6 billion. That came despite a fourth "quarter in which income fell 33 percent, owing to the steepest drop ever in oil prices, as the economy went into a tailspin." http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/31/business/31oil.html

"hy did the coldest period in the last half billion years have 10 times, that's 1000% the CO2 level we have today if CO2 is such a big driver for temperature increase? There's your bullshit." um... citation?

How about this one http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/28/the-greenhouse-effect-and-the-bathtub-effect/
So what if it is "relatively cold" right now. This temperature range works for us. Don't RISK fucking it up bec