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And yet at about the same time Google was the only holdout against the US government when they demanded private information on search-engine users. (link)

Making ethical decisions like that is hard. What's better for the Chinese public: a search engine that omits results due to censorship (and says so) or no search engine at all? I don't know, but I'm tempted to say the former.

you could look at on actual experiments that (under very controlled conditions) appear to show information transfer at greater than light speed. Clicky

isn't that the same phase velocity story that shows up on /. every six months or so? afaik it's still meaningless/P

You could use bad logic to argue for FTL, or you could look at on actual experiments that (under very controlled conditions) appear to show information transfer at greater than light speed. Clicky

I know this doesn't seem like much right now, but given a few hundred years of research, who knows how far it could come.

Also, isn't FTL essentially time travel?

Mod parent up. Never understood this particular American obsession with tearing down the government and then proudly claiming it sucks. Sounds insane to me.

Blame Ronnie Raygun. He popularized the idea that "government is the problem", while blowing enormous quantities of money on militarization, possibly in hopes of bankrupting the federal government. Never trust someone to run something when they believe it's a stupid idea to begin with, they'll usually just mess it up.

I've worked for government. The reason people thinks it sucks is because it is inefficient and bureaucratic. I've also worked for two Fortune 10 companies. They suffer from much the same issues but at a smaller scale. Even a 100,000+ person company can't compete with the weirdness of policy mazes and pencil pushers that fill the halls of government (at least in the state I worked for).

Having seen both sides I choose Padmasseraseserr....screw it, the cute chick from Cisco. She's industry based rather than career government and she has the last name "Warrior". Come on how could she not be the choice.

Mod parent up. Never understood this particular American obsession with tearing down the government and then proudly claiming it sucks. Sounds insane to me.

Blame Ronnie Raygun. He popularized the idea that "government is the problem", while blowing enormous quantities of money on militarization, possibly in hopes of bankrupting the federal government. Never trust someone to run something when they believe it's a stupid idea to begin with, they'll usually just mess it up.

I seriously doubt that by the time I would be done with my fellowship that there will be an over abundance of cardiologists.

Well, you'd be wrong. There is a strong and increasing trend for medical students to avoid primary care. The lifestyle and affluent specialties are ballooning. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/12/health/11doctors.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

You can't seriously believe that there aren't scads of premeds thinking exactly what you are? And unless cardiology practices some serious birth control like Anesthesia did, there will be a glut. Though if they do practice serious birth control to avoid a glut, a cards fellowship will be harder to come by than an ENT spot.

I'm not in it for seven figures, six figures is the goal.

Good. You'll probably make well over 100,000 by the time you graduate. However as I said, that's not a ton if you are entering it for the money (given that you'll first spend 8 years going into debt unless you've got rich parents) followed by 5 years making around minimum wage (you'll make a small salary as a resident, but because of the hours you work it ends up being for crap hourly.) And with debts in the 200-300k range common, you won't break even with your friends who entered a career after undergrad till you are a decade out from finishing your training.

Plus, I'd rather be private practice than in the cath lab. It's also a disease that is pretty much supported by our lifestyle here in the US and abroad in first world countries.

Ah, that's almost cute in its naivete. If you spend a day in the cath lab (now) doing procedures you'll make $5000. If you spend the day in clinic (which is I think what you mean by 'private practice') you will be lucky to clear $1000. The whole reason that people enter fields like cardiology to make money is that they are procedure heavy. Seeing grandma in clinic gets you squat (except the chance that grandma might need a cath or a pacer from you.)

As an example from my own practice, if I spend 60 minutes with you assessing and diagnosing your abdominal pain, doing a big work-up, and admitting you to the hospital for appendicitis, I make less than if I pull a bean out of a toddlers nose. Procedures are the cash cow of medicine and you will be a pretty poor cardiologist indeed if you keep the attitude that you'd rather be in clinic than the cath lab.

Of course those figures are today, and the well will be drier when you come out. Insurers and the government are seriously putting the clamps on high ticket procedure-monkeys. For example, CA just recently enacted a rule that says hospital based physicians can't bill HMO patients the balance of what their insurer doesn't pay for. So if you do a cath at a hospital in CA and bill Ms Smith's HMO $2000, they can pay you $500 and your only real recourse is a lawsuit against the insurer. And that's just one example. Making money from procedures is going to be far less guaranteed than it is now.

I see little evidence to suggest that I won't be making bank by the time I'm out. Thanks for the condescending "sport" though.

Well as Carl Sagan said: "The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." This is especially the case when you don't seem to have looked at the abundance of evidence out there suggesting you're projected income will be significantly less than you seem to think. But at least you were a nice young man and demonstrated that my use of 'Sport' was in fact, appropriate.

One thing that I'm certain would be a part of future "wishes and plans" to censor (if not already part of the proposed filter) would be Nazi paraphernalia.

This is already being done [German], at least in the state NRW. They starting blocking in 2002, and a court determined it's legal in 2005.

To provide some perspective for US readers, here's a NY Times article on how unique the First Amendment is.

Err, no. The main reason they are held in Guantanemo was for a jurisdictional dodge about holding them at all. One that didn't work out, as it turns out; the courts didn't buy the idea that they were beyond the reach of US courts just because they weren't within the boundaries of the United States.

Nope.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/17/opinion/17davis.html?_r=1&ex=1360990800&en=a3b1d35d17a4d480&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

My policy as the chief prosecutor for the military commissions at Guantanamo was that evidence derived through waterboarding was off limits. That should still be our policy. To do otherwise is not only an affront to American justice, it will potentially put prosecutors at risk for using illegally obtained evidence.

Emphasis mine.

Eeerhm.... Ether I am missing something or you are replying to a correction regarding issue -A- by proving that there existed (rather unrelated) issue -B-. My basic preschool-level logic is pretty bad these days thou, so I might be mistaken...

Err, no. The main reason they are held in Guantanemo was for a jurisdictional dodge about holding them at all. One that didn't work out, as it turns out; the courts didn't buy the idea that they were beyond the reach of US courts just because they weren't within the boundaries of the United States.

Nope.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/17/opinion/17davis.html?_r=1&ex=1360990800&en=a3b1d35d17a4d480&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

My policy as the chief prosecutor for the military commissions at Guantanamo was that evidence derived through waterboarding was off limits. That should still be our policy. To do otherwise is not only an affront to American justice, it will potentially put prosecutors at risk for using illegally obtained evidence.

Emphasis mine.

Nothing in this report says the companies do no business in the "tax haven" countries.

Sure. If I posited the same argument that a person who fit the profile of a crack dealer was passing "something" to someone in a car after exchanging money, you'd be the first in line to throw him into prison. I'm not saying they don't deserve due process, but a judicial branch that wasn't a secretarial service for corporate America would at least investigate.

Horrors. Why would a country ever want to do that?

I'm not blaming the country, or claiming the corporations are automatically guilty. When they do business that removes tax money from the community that built it's wealth, I consider that a worse offense than someone who is falsely collecting welfare.

I'm upset with the habit of Americans getting upset over social welfare and not over corporate welfare. When corporations have more rights than an individual person, not even equal rights, I consider that to be reprehensible. I can't buy a palm tree in Costa Rica and reduce my tax liability as an individual, but I could if I formed an LLC. In my opinion, that's bullshit.

2008? So, you're talking about something that has nothing to so with the court ruling in the Slashdot article?

No, actually it's completely related to this court ruling. The court ruling itself was in August 2008, by the way, and the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 is directly related to all of the issues which the FISC Review decision is about.

One of the key objections to the Bush wiretapping (which the current court ruling seems to be OK with), was that US-persons were being wiretapped without a warrant. Specifically, phone calls involving US citizens were being listened to in cases were one end of the call was outside the USA.

No...that was the Terrorist Surveillance Program (TSP), which is separate from this issue, did target some Americans of interest in terrorism investigations without a warrant, and hasn't been reauthorized since it was discontinued in January 2007.

The current law allows for foreign intelligence collection on non-US Persons without a warrant -- and one end of the conversation may be a US Person, as long as that person is NOT the target of the surveillance, and the targeting of a non-US Person isn't used to sidestep warrant requirements. This is necessary, because when a non-US Person is legitimately targeted for foreign intelligence purposes, a warrant can't suddenly be required if that person happens to talk to a US Person. So, as long as the US Person is not a target of the collection and the content of that portion of the communication is protected as required by law, the collection is allowed.

In fact, such collection has ALWAYS been allowed without a warrant -- as long as the collection occurred outside of the United States. The difference is that the collection is now occurring inside the US, with the assistance of US telecom operators. The provisions protecting US Persons are now more stringent than previous law, and require an individualized warrant whenever a US Person is targeted anywhere on the globe for foreign intelligence purposes.

Soon after the September 11, 2001 attacks U.S. President George W. Bush issued an executive order that authorized the National Security Agency (NSA) to conduct surveillance of certain telephone calls without obtaining a warrant from the FISC as stipulated by FISA (see 50 U.S.C. Â 1802 50 U.S.C. Â 1809 ).

That's from this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_warrantless_surveillance_controversy. Read it, time and time again Bush pushes for this kind of wiretapping. Obama on the other hand voted for the latest FISA bill because

It restores FISA and existing criminal wiretap statutes as the exclusive means to conduct surveillance making it clear that the President cannot circumvent the law and disregard the civil liberties of the American people. It also firmly re-establishes basic judicial oversight over all domestic surveillance in the future. It does, however, grant retroactive immunity, and I will work in the Senate to remove this provision so that we can seek full accountability for past offenses.

From http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/20/obama-mccain-reluctantly-endorse-surveillance-deal/

Like the GP said, this is getting old and we all know what happened. Stop spreading FUD. Wait until you actually see Obama do something as bad as Bush before you make it seem he is some kind of Bush 3.

Last week, when Steve Jobs announced that his recent weight loss was due to "a hormone imbalance," I got calls from reporters and others (which, I must admit, I ducked) asking me if that was the medical problem he had confessed to when he and I had had our infamous phone call last summer -- the one where he called me a slime bucket and denied that he had a recurrence of cancer. The answer is no, it wasn't. It was something else -- which of course I still can't disclose because the conversation was off the record.

http://executivesuite.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/15/its-time-for-apple-to-come-clean/?hp

This has caused at least one reputable news source to report that Steve Jobs is dying of AIDS.

The thing is you cannot have freedom of speech and censorship at the same time

It seems that many European countries have decided that this isn't the case.

Fridges as we know them are pretty sad contraptions with no shortage of room for improvement. They put a whopping big heat source under the chamber they're trying to keep cool. They use room air from the hottest part of the house, even though in most homes that room is a foot or two away from outside air that is much cooler, if not actually even cooler than the fridge interior should be. In general, they're an agglomeration of kluges and marketroid idiocies. So yeah, this could be a key part of a rethinking of what a fridge is and how it works that could eventually cut power usage by as much as eighty to ninety percent. The same could be said of quite a lot of appliances and HVAC components. Hell, done right, we now know that comfortable homes can be built that require no conventional heating or cooling systems at all.

Kinda makes you wonder why we're supposed to need this "smart grid" for all this massive increased demand we supposedly have no way to avoid, doesn't it?

(...) irrespective of Bush's theft of two elections.

From my point of view, there could have been a theft of ONE election, not TWO. In any case, he still got a few people to vote for him, hasn't he? (2000, 2004)

Who's to blame, here?

RTFA. The reason that people are casually dismissing it is that this isn't even about someone on Obama's transition team, just someone advising him in an informal capacity (i.e., someone who's unpaid, and is using his own vacation time to boot). Never mind the fact that Obama's laid out the strictest ever set of ethics rules for his transition team. The fact is that there is a certain subset of ./ers who actually want to see Obama become another Bush, and will cry "Corruption!" at even the slightest impropriety.

Funny that the suicide bombers always seem to come from theocracies.

One word for you: Kamikaze

Also, you might even be wrong about more contemporary events as well.

The New York Times has introduced an API that will help with data mining for congressional voting. Hopefully the budgeting aspect is included. http://open.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/08/introducing-the-congress-api/

Say what you want about the NYT as an old media organization, but I can't think of any other media group (ALL media, not just journalistic) that has been so open to creating APIs for their collections of data (campaign money, movie reviews, etc), and I think they are putting out a few open-source projects too. Their blog about "open source technology" (their words): http://open.blogs.nytimes.com/

Yeah, because that's important. Has anybody polled any of the Israeli settlers in the west bank about how they feel about the various killings and house burnings perpetrated there by Israeli settlers?

The poll was not conducted among a fringe group which the general public tends to regard as extremists. The poll was conducted among the general public, with a 91% approval rate for murder. What does that tell you about the populace?

How many of those religious assholes who think "God" gave them their land are now cheering at pictures of dead children in the Gaza strip?

from personal experience - none whatsoever. Can the reverse be said of the other side? But hey, if you can provide hard evidence of majority Israelis cheering, I'd be happy to denounce them.

So again, neither side is right. It's just that we, the US, are arming one side while they slaughter insanely poor and hopeless people like fish in a barrel with our munitions.

That is a whole new subject, and not quite as simplistic as you present. A couple of things to keep in mind - that money buys the US political leverage, and quite a lot of it. Also consider the fact that several Israeli weapons contracts have suffered due to US objections - a deal with china comes to mind, the fact that not a single instance of bid for armor (tanks) involving the abrams, also included the merkava MBT. The US is quite open in it's repression of Israel's military industries when seen as competitors to US mil industries. The so called give away munitions you complain about gives the US the right to monopolize (as in curtail competition) the weapons market, amongst other things. Not quite as one sided as you presented.

And the main question remains - why on earth would a people who are being slaughtered for fighting back not simply surrender and save themselves? why keep on fighting, when it is quite obvious, even to them, that surrender would guarantee (not virtually but actually) their survival?

Knowing the military strength differential, why start a fight you can't win?

Stopping the occupation is not valid reasoning when they are self governed and without military presence in their current land. The blockade is a rather cynical manipulation of the facts - it has started only after HAMAS who promised as part of their election campaign to murder civilians as much as they could, brought the blockade on themselves. Would you open your borders to a people who promise to kill you given half a chance?

It is well documented that Israel officials promised better relations with HAMAS should it renounce violence as legitimate diplomatic practice, and change it's charter to something which has any kind of semblance to tolerance towards Jews in general and the state of Israel in particular. HAMAS leaders were adamant in their refusal, and to this date continue calling for the total anihilation of all thigs Jewish.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/29/international/middleeast/29hamasx.html

Can I just add a [citation needed] to that "history of easily folding to law enforcement" statement? Last time I checked, they fought harder than Yahoo or Microsoft when they were subpoenaed for search data.

1. USA vs Japan (WWII)

The world was in a global Great Depression.

2. Germany vs France (Franco-Prussian War)

Check out this article written 20 days before the start of that war.

3. USA vs UK (War of 1812)

"Failing in peaceful efforts and facing an economic depression, some Americans began to argue for a declaration of war to redeem the national honor." source

4. France vs UK (Napoleonic Wars)

"It has been estimated that in France and Britain by the end of the [18th] century 10 percent of the people were dependent on charity or begging for food." source

5. France vs UK (Seven Years War)

See rebuke of number 4.

I probably could have named five just between UK and France. Seriously, they must hate each other.

Or they are just near each other and fight every time economic conditions drop.

"HP prototyped a crossbar latch memory using the devices that can fit 100 gigabits in a square centimeter.[10] HP has reported that its version of the memristor is about one-tenth the speed of DRAM.[27]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memristor#Potential_applications
[27] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/01/technology/01chip.html

A car arrived with more patients. One was a 21-year-old man with shrapnel in his left leg who demanded quick treatment. He turned out to be a militant with Islamic Jihad. He was smiling a big smile. "Hurry, I must get back so I can keep fighting," he told the doctors. He was told that there were more serious cases than his, that he needed to wait. But he insisted. "We are fighting the Israelis," he said. "When we fire we run, but they hit back so fast. We run into the houses to get away." He continued smiling. "Why are you so happy?" this reporter asked. "Look around you." A girl who looked about 18 screamed as a surgeon removed shrapnel from her leg. An elderly man was soaked in blood. A baby a few weeks old and slightly wounded looked around helplessly. A man lay with parts of his brain coming out. His family wailed at his side. "Don't you see that these people are hurting?" the militant was asked. "But I am from the people, too," he said, his smile incandescent. "They lost their loved ones as martyrs. They should be happy. I want to be a martyr, too."

While you are correct in thinking that the term POTUS has a military background, it has been used in main stream media for years.

I suppose you believe that Israel should just accept the fact that no matter what they do, leave Gaze, let them elect their own government, etc. that the rockets will keep coming. The rockets will be come more and more sophisticated and eventualy kill more and more.

This notion of proportional response is bullshit. When someone is trying to kill you, then you you have the right to employ whatever amount of force is necessary to stop it.

Read this, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/09/world/09fighter.html?_r=3&scp=2&sq=islamic%20jihad&st=cse

"When we fire we run, but they hit back so fast. We run into the houses to get away." He continued smiling

"Don't you see that these people are hurting?" the militant was asked.
"But I am from the people, too," he said, his smile incandescent. "They lost their loved ones as martyrs. They should be happy. I want to be a martyr, too."

This is the kind of sick and twisted thinking that Israel is facing.

Best thing that could happen is for Israel and the Palestinian population is that the IDF martyrs every last one of these terrorist fucks.

In a submission I made that didn't get accepted, I linked the New York Times article on Israel's use of Twitter to give their side (israelconsulate page). Favorite response?

israelconsulate: we R pro nego[tiation]. crntly tlks r held w the PA + tlks on the 2 state soln. we talk only w/ ppl who accept R rt 2 live."

It is a sad thing that nobody tells you anything and that you do not know how to use Google.
Algae is COMING on line NOW. Cellulosic ethanol will most likely fail before Algae owns the AE market. The reason is that Algae can be grown 3d, whereas Cellulose comes from a 2D. How different is it? Solix has already achieved production of 1,500 gallons an acre per year at a test plot in Fort Collins, and the company is expecting yields of 2,500 to 3,000 gallons an acre per year, said Mr. Henston.
In contrast, soybeans, the main source of biodiesel used in this country, yields 50 to 70 gallons per acre. BTW, this is just ONE of more than 5 companies gearing up for this. Take a look at green Gunk.

The tough part about this is that while the oil price remains low, it will hurt these efforts. EVERYBODY, but Saudi Arabia wants oil prices up around 70-90/bl. Saudi realizes that America is gearing up to dump oil and wants price at around 60 for awhile (which is their minimum needed). Of course that is hurting not just our AE efforts, but also Iran and Venezuela. I am not sure that the Saud's care one way or another about these 2 countries.

This would be funny, except that there are innocent civilians who are dying by the hundreds. 760 deaths since Dec 27,, one third of them children, over half civilians. 3100 injured, once again a third of them children.

The Red Cross found starving Palestinian children next to their dead mothers

Re: "firewall", kudos for knowing that Israel made the Gaza Strip a gentler version of a concentration camp.

Sigh, wasting a good thread for modding by replying to this but since no one else has I'll bite.

Why legislate? If the lamps were cost effective, then the municipalities would make the switch. Right now in central Ohio the primary electric provider charges in the neighborhood of $5 per lamp per month for power. The muni is responsible for purchasing the bulbs if I am remembering correctly.

First, you legislate it since its the only way to get it done. Sad but true. Next, you only need LED light bulbs. You don't have to replace the full lamp, at least if these consumer sites are anything to go by.

If the cost of power and the cost of the bulb are figured in, the LED street lamps take an insane amount of time to recoup the cost. Even when you figure in the labor to replace the bulbs every couple of years it still doesn't add up.

Per the source Wikipedia provided the extra initial cost is paid off within two years just from the electricity savings, and barring a physical disaster (such as the streetlamp falling over or getting shot with a gun) you don't have to change the bulb for 20 years. Really, it is a better choice but it would require work by city employees to actually make the change happen. They may even have to do a slide show!

When many budgets are being stretched to the breaking point would you advocate for your town to install LED street lights that will cost more? Would you vote for your taxes to be increased to purchase the lights, or would you prefer that a couple of employees be terminated to pay for the cost difference? I, myself, am not opposed to the idea of installing power saving, pollution reducing equipment, but there has to be a balance somewhere.

Hell yes I would advocate for this. Budgets don't magically get bigger on their own. You have to work for it. You have to plan and invest for it. This is a very, fucking, simple, means to save the city/town a lot of money and power, and it cuts down on light pollution as an added bonus!

Oh and something else to chew on: as more demand for LED lights increases, in the form of cities and towns using them for streetlights, the manufacturing process will be improved as companies compete with one another to produce a cheaper light bulb to sell. That's basic market principles. Demand drives innovation. Yet another long term economic bonus by mandating a switch to LED lights.

Apparently the Department of Energy in the US thinks they're a damn good thing that should be improved so they can become the defacto light source. They're hosting a contest since May 2008 to create a better LED light bulb. They call it the L-Prize.

Really, once you look at the known facts and the future potential you have to ask yourself why not? A handful of employees might lose their job? Taxes may go up a fraction of a percent? You can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, and you can't make improvements for the future without paying for it. To hold back on something as simple as this for the reasons you gave is petty, just petty.

Yea! New York and California are shining examples of successful economies working without the need of government handouts!

Perhaps if the federal government didn't take our money and redistribute it to fly-over states, we wouldn't need to ask for some of it back.

Yea! New York and California are shining examples of successful economies working without the need of government handouts!

Perhaps if the federal government didn't take our money and redistribute it to fly-over states, we wouldn't need to ask for some of it back.

"defining what Bush's Vision for Space Exploration meant"

It meant: stop looking at Earth's environment.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940CE6D7123AF933A15757C0A9659C8B63
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/1429096/British-cameraman-shot-dead-by-Israeli-soldiers.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/jun/06/israel2
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/889281.html
http://www.usatoday.com/travel/cruises/item.aspx?type=photo&photo_id=0eY4akVfByfWH&tid=05YG14l3Yj8zn&pn=1
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=5480&Cr=unrwa&Cr1=

None of those are Reuters, none of those are BBC.

Paul Krugman wrote on this topic a bit ago:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/22/bad-anti-stimulus-arguments/

Krugman? Seriously? That guy is still stubbornly refusing to acknowledge the failure of the philosophy that he has been espousing for years. You know, the one that created the economic mess we're in right now.

Why even when Keynesian economics has been proven a failure do people keep trying to claim it works?

Jobs would only be reallocated if someone were actually going to pay them. Currently, nobody wants to pay for new employees (check the current unemployment trends). Therefore government intervention is the only way to take the otherwise idle hands and put them to work.

Paul Krugman wrote on this topic a bit ago:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/22/bad-anti-stimulus-arguments/

Actually she is very popular with woman in the Middle East. In countries like Saudi Arabia copies of her "O" magazine are in great demand.

Let's see. We spent the last decade or so focusing on consumer electronics and where has that gotten us? We owe China over half a trillion dollars. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt.) We owe our souls to the credit card companies. (http://www.blacklistednews.com/view.asp?ID=6397.) The U.S. lost a half-million jobs in November. (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/06/business/economy/06jobs.html.) Maybe it's time to focus on something besides game consoles and big-screen TVs.

There's plenty of important things that we can be doing with technology. Here's one http://change.gov/newsroom/entry/american_recovery_and_reinvestment:

To save not only jobs, but money and lives, we will update and computerize our health care system to cut red tape, prevent medical mistakes, and help reduce health care costs by billions of dollars each year.

Why don't we spend some time and money on something more important than shiny new toys?

Yea! New York and California are shining examples of successful economies working without the need of government handouts!

Yea! New York and California are shining examples of successful economies working without the need of government handouts!

Hmm, it was an interesting situation

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/09/national/nationalspecial/09military.html?pagewanted=print
WASHINGTON, Sept. 8 - As New Orleans descended into chaos last week and Louisiana's governor asked for 40,000 soldiers, President Bush's senior advisers debated whether the president should speed the arrival of active-duty troops by seizing control of the hurricane relief mission from the governor.

For reasons of practicality and politics, officials at the Justice Department and the Pentagon, and then at the White House, decided not to urge Mr. Bush to take command of the effort. Instead, the Washington officials decided to rely on the growing number of National Guard personnel flowing into Louisiana, who were under Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco's control.

The debate began after officials realized that Hurricane Katrina had exposed a critical flaw in the national disaster response plans created after the Sept. 11 attacks. According to the administration's senior domestic security officials, the plan failed to recognize that local police, fire and medical personnel might be incapacitated.

As criticism of the response to Hurricane Katrina has mounted, one of the most pointed questions has been why more troops were not available more quickly to restore order and offer aid. Interviews with officials in Washington and Louisiana show that as the situation grew worse, they were wrangling with questions of federal/state authority, weighing the realities of military logistics and perhaps talking past each other in the crisis.

To seize control of the mission, Mr. Bush would have had to invoke the Insurrection Act, which allows the president in times of unrest to command active-duty forces into the states to perform law enforcement duties. But decision makers in Washington felt certain that Ms. Blanco would have resisted surrendering control, as Bush administration officials believe would have been required to deploy active-duty combat forces before law and order had been re-established.

While combat troops can conduct relief missions without the legal authority of the Insurrection Act, Pentagon and military officials say that no active-duty forces could have been sent into the chaos of New Orleans on Wednesday or Thursday without confronting law-and-order challenges.

But just as important to the administration were worries about the message that would have been sent by a president ousting a Southern governor of another party from command of her National Guard, according to administration, Pentagon and Justice Department officials.

So Bush's advisers clearly thought Blanco was incompetent and discussed using the Insurrection Act to send Federal troops and decided against it. This was in 2005. In 2006 they modified the Insurrection Act.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insurrection_Act#Differences_between_old_and_new_wording
Differences between old and new wording

The original wording of the Act required the conditions as worded in Paragraph (2), above, to be met as the result of

    insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy

The new wording of the Act, as amended, still requires the same conditions as worded in Paragraph (2), above, but those conditions could, after the changes, also be a result of

    natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident, or other condition

and only if

    domestic violence has occurred to such an extent that the constituted authorities of the State or possession are incapable of maintaining public order.

No. I place as much value on a Palestinian life as an Israeli one. My values are not what is under question, though. What I'm saying is that the IDF values, and should value, the lives of the citizens that it is their duty to protect over the lives of Palestinian civilians (which they are under no obligation to keep out of harm's way).

So yes, innocent Palestinians do have as much right to like as innocent Israelis. However, the hostile militants that they put in power do not.

Your last comment is simply ignorance. Suicide bombs that purposefully target city buses? http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D07E5D7123FF935A35750C0A9659C8B63 How about hotel lobbies - on passover? http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/suicide-bomber-kills-19-in-passover-feast-massacre-750377.html More recently, how about a shopping center? http://middleeast.about.com/b/2008/02/04/first-suicide-bombing-in-israel-in-over-a-year.htm Try searching "Hamas target civilians" compared with HAmas target military" on google. The results are pretty self-evident.

Suggesting that Hamas militants habitually target anything other than innocent civilians is astonishingly naive. But that's not the point. If I had my way, everyone would simply forget past deaths, get over it, and live together. However, that's not going to happen anytime soon. Until it does, until the Palestinian populace says "hey, maybe we shouldn't vote in bloodthirsty psychos to lead us," there will be no peace. The IDF has always attacked military targets in immediate retaliation or, very rarely, pre-emptive strike. But always military targets - buildings or personnel. Therefore, the burden is on Hamas to stop attacking or on the Palestinian people to get them out of power.

Another list of Guantanamo detainess, compiled by NYTimes.

I'm having a hard time understanding what about that upsets you so much. Don't they have a right to present their case to the world? So what difference does it make if they, on terms available to anyone else, buy advertising for purposes of promoting that message? (and it sounds like that's not even Israel, just like-minded people)

What do you think about Israel getting its message out through Twitter on their page?

By the way, I submitted that as a story, and, because merit has nothing to do with the selection process here, it didn't make it. But you can smirk at this part anyway:

backlotops: 1 side has to stop. Why continue what hasn't worked (mass arial/grnd retaliation)? Arab Peace Initiative?

israelconsulate: we R pro nego. crntly tlks r held w the PA + tlks on the 2 state soln. we talk only w/ ppl who accept R rt 2 live.

Well, they aren't declared enemy combatants but they are held to account for the laws they break.....

Thanks, I forgot to mention that in the summary. There are a lot of myths surrounding the transition and I don't want to inadvertently start any more.

Posting as AC as I am a mod today,
Thelasko

FYI, the only fetal stem cells that have ever been considered for R&D or treatment purposes have been those of embryos created for in-vitro fertilization purposes that would have otherwise been destroyed anyway because the host mother got pregnant with one of the other embryos.

You are just plain wrong about this.

From the New York Times, 1999:
"In the 14 years since discovering he has Parkinson's disease, Steve Ashworth has slowly lost control of his muscles. Two years ago, with simple tasks like brushing his teeth becoming next to impossible, he eagerly signed up for a chance to stave off his slide into immobility, the first Government-financed study of brain-cell transplants using tissue from aborted fetuses."

I'm sure there were people back then who said the same thing about emergining technologies not being practical.

Instead of waving our canes around whilst gumming on our false teeth screaming at those damn kids and their new fangled computers, we'll be waving around our laptops and yelling into our bluetooth headsets at those damn kids and their new fangled brain interfaces.

Also, I don't think the author of the parent article said anything about typing up a report on their cell phone. Stop using unrelated arugments to give yourself an excuse to post.

Oh, and if you think typing a report up on a cell phone is stupid, I give you this. Just in case you don't think it's possible.

Mining in general is dangerous and sometimes toxic to the surrounding areas.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/30/us/30sludge.html?em

You're right, using nuclear instead of coal doesn't change the fact that mining is dangerous. But it does remove the "definitely release tons of toxic and radioactive waste into the air" issue and replace it with a "if everything went horribly wrong, radioactive materials might escape".

I think the point is that "small is harmless" -

Nuclear fuel doesn't become small enough to be harmless until we're talking about a handful of atoms. Also, when it comes to safeguarding the public, the *number* of threats is far more important than their individual severity. A couple hundred kilos of nuclear fuel, which is what we're talking about, is a massive regional security, safety, and environmental threat. And the article wants to build thousands.

you've already got isotopes all over your hospitals.

Yeah, good thing nothing ever goes wrong with them...

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9501E7D71338F932A35756C0A962948260

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident

You may say "but these incidents happened in Mexico and Brazil; here in the US we got the knowhow to do it right." But that's the point. There's only so much knowhow. The more different nuclear sites you have, the more highly skilled people you need to keep each site safe. Inevitably, you increase the odds that a moron or bad guy will interact with nuclear material.