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I am not convinced that the "bailout" is necessary, nor that it will have the desired results. The evidence points to something too terrifying to believe, but too credible to be dismissed out of hand: our government is driven by criminal sociopaths whose sole aim is to enrich themselves without regard to our fellow citizens, our nation, or the world as a whole. The Executive and Legislative branches of our government appear to be driven and directed by the overwhelming financial influence of groups, both foreign and domestic, such as the Banking, Finance and Insurance sectors, the defense industry and its dependents (including firearms manufacturers), and the petrochemical and energy sectors, among numerous others.

What is a sociopath? In dictionary definitions we find that a sociopath is a person whose behavior is antisocial and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience. They are interested only in their personal needs and desires, without concern for the effects of their behavior on others.

Tell me if this does not describe the long chain of presumably intelligent and highly educated people who built and operated the business model that has resulted in the crisis that motivates the bailout. How can we consider the supporters of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity_Futures_Modernization_Act_of_2000) or the repealers of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass-Steagall_Act) as anything other than sociopaths? With their fanatical adherence to Free Market fundamentalism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_friedman#Chile and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_market_fundamentalism) they have caused economic damage to our nation and the world comparable to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 (http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/badguys/061025/the_cost_since_911_1.htm), and very likely much more. Why have we allowed this? Where were our senators and congressmen? On whom are we supposed to rely when our own representatives pass suicidal legislation whose financial damage is comparable to the worst terrorist attack in human history? Far from stopping such calamities, we are being stirred into a panic in a reprehensible effort to force us to pay for the fraud and irresponsibility of sociopathic businessmen and politicians.

Fear and imminent large scale damage have been invoked yet again, just as they were in 2002-2003 when we were pushed into a completely unjustified (and unbelievably expensive: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/17/business/17leonhardt.html?_r=1&scp=21&sq=financial%20cost%20of%209/11&st=cse&oref=slogin) war against a third-rate dictator who represented absolutely no threat to us. Our deceitful politicians now claim they were the victims of "flawed intelligence," which apparently consisted of nothing more than the unsubstantiated claims of the notorious swindler and opportunist, Ahmed Chalabi and his self-interested cronies. Is history repeating itself? Are the same lying, cheating, thieving, murderous war criminals robbing us of the largest single disbursement of all time by filling our ears with lies and our hearts with unwarranted terror? Are financial institutions toppling due to their abysmal judgment and incompetence? If so, shouldn't the free market fanatics be cheering their demise? Shouldn't we all be pleased that "free markets correct themselves," and allow the corrupt and the foolish to go under?

No! We are told. Doing nothing is even worse than the colossally stupid act of sorting all existing loans in the nation and using taxpayer dollars to purchase several million of the absolute worst from the resulting list. Politicians and economists have even had the temerity to sugge

so a former CEO is automatically corrupt? how very leftist of you.

Loan Titans Paid McCain Adviser Nearly $2 Million
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/22/us/politics/22mccain.html

Hi Mr Pot, meet Ms Kettle.

Yes, that would be a perfectly reasonable explanation. Unfortunately, it is not the one given by his campaign advisor afterwards

Calling Iran a democracy is a joke when the theocrats can arbitrarily disqualify any reformist candidates that pose a threat, based on nothing more than an allegation that a candidate lacks a sufficient commitment to Islam. In other words, when they disagree with the rulers.

Right, so if you don't take it literally, you can't believe in it. By definition.

I don't think you understand.

Metaphors can describe reality as well as literal texts, and unlike literal texts, they describe it in abstraction and can remain accurate over the centuries as varying scientific ideas come and go.

(See how much the ancients knew about science that we didn't know they knew -- The Ancient Mechanics and How They Thought at the New York Times)

This is why you can believe in them more than you can believe in literal texts; a literal text is detail work you need proven, a metaphorical text is a theory in abstraction.

And Chinese manufacturers didn't know the consequences of spiking milk with melamine -- they thought they were improving the milk. You're just a hypocrite if you think only China makes fatal mistakes.

Of course they knew exactly what they were doing. According to this article in April of 2007 from the New York Times it was an open "secret" that melamine could increase the appearance of protein in animal and human food products without adding any nutritional value.

"Many companies buy melamine scrap to make animal feed, such as fish feed," said Ji Denghui, general manager of the Fujian Sanming Dinghui Chemical Company, which sells melamine. "I don't know if there's a regulation on it. Probably not. No law or regulation says 'don't do it,' so everyone's doing it. The laws in China are like that, aren't they? If there's no accident, there won't be any regulation."

I'm amazed at how many apologists there are for these violations of public health by Chinese businesses and the lack of oversight by the Chinese government, a government that has no accountability to anyone. And because of how much China exports these corrupt business practices affect the health of people outside their borders.

I for one try, as much as possible, to avoid any products that come from China because I have no idea what I'm getting.

Actually, in the plurality voting system we have now, a vote for a third party IS a vote for the candidate you like least. Ralph Nader ran in 2000 knowing full well the possibility of him stealing votes from Gore, and that is exactly what happened in Florida. It is very likely that most people who voted for Nader prefer Gore over Bush. The problem is we'll never know for sure because ballots only provide information on who you like best, not your ranking of all available candidates.

If your candidate has zero chance of winning, you want to be able to vote for him to show your support and also be able to have a say between the two majority candidates. There is a voting system that allows for this called range voting. In a nutshell, it allows voters to rate all candidates on a scale to show their preference. This does not preclude you from choosing ONLY Nader, but it gives the choice of casting multiple votes for people who want to. According to many studies, range voting is as close to perfection as any voting system can get.

There's a great book that goes through the history of various voting systems and their applications over the years in the US called Gaming the Vote by William Poundstone. It's a fascinating read, and the book that turned me to range voting.

>>>recount of all disqualified ballots

Well sure if you CHEAT and IGNORE THE LAW, you can win. But the law has disqualified those ballots; they are null votes. ----- If we instead be good and honest citizens who *obey the law* here's the result we get: http://www.nytimes.com/images/2001/11/12/politics/recount/results/preset-v1.html

Florida Supreme Court recount
If the U.S. had not stopped the recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court.

Winner
George W. Bush +493 votes 0.0080%

I'm sorry if these results displease you, but this is what would have happened in an official LEGAL recount of the entire state of Florida.

It is admitted that the first WTC bombing in 1993 was done BY the FBI. It even came out in the New York Times and in a CBS News broadcast.

The leader of the group to blow up the WTC in 1993 was an FBI informant. They were supposed to build a phony bomb and set the other guys up. When it came time to put in the fake powder, the FBI gave him real powder! The informant was so upset about it he secretly recorded his conversations with the FBI.

Of course the NYT and CBS didn't say the FBI did it. They claim the FBI failed to stop it, although its admitted that the FBI was supposed to supply the fake powder to the informant. The news stories fail to mention that the FBI gave him real powder. But I suppose that was an accident too.

http://www.nytimes.com/images/2001/11/12/politics/recount/results/preset-v4.html

If a statewide recount of all disqualified ballots was undertaken using the standards that each county's election officials have said they would use in a recount.

Winner: Al Gore, by 171 votes

neither has any facts to sustain it.

Just because you don't like the facts doesn't mean they don't exist.

It's ironic that the article would claim cognive dissonance as a fact.

I'm not sure it's not but some guy (John Tierney) does a pretty good job of playing Devil's advocate:

Go Ahead, Rationalize. Monkeys Do It, Too.

And Behind Door No. 1, a Fatal Flaw

It's ironic that the article would claim cognive dissonance as a fact.

I'm not sure it's not but some guy (John Tierney) does a pretty good job of playing Devil's advocate:

Go Ahead, Rationalize. Monkeys Do It, Too.

And Behind Door No. 1, a Fatal Flaw

You handily glossed over the fact she only thought the book did not belong, and never did anything about it.

And you handily glossed over the fact that the GP used a poor quote to support his argument, and you're both missing something important. From the same article (emphasis mine):

The new mayor also tended carefully to her evangelical base. She appointed a pastor to the town planning board. And she began to eye the library. For years, social conservatives had pressed the library director to remove books they considered immoral.

"People would bring books back censored," recalled former Mayor John Stein, Ms. Palin's predecessor. "Pages would get marked up or torn out."

Witnesses and contemporary news accounts say Ms. Palin asked the librarian about removing books from the shelves. The McCain-Palin presidential campaign says Ms. Palin never advocated censorship.

Note: One of these contemporary reports from a different article/reporter claim that it was a little more than a simple request. Now back to the main point:

This presents one heck of a conflict: believe the witness accounts of her constituents garnered from the investigative reporting of news organizations that are trying desperately to dig up dirt on all fronts (yes, all. Just because someone has more dirt than another does not mean that the reporting is unfair.) or the words of the campaign that's trying desperately to get elected. Is there a truth to this? Of course, but it means one side is deliberately lying, spinning the truth, or honestly believes one way or the other despite being wrong. It really comes down to who you believe, if either.

That's a good point, and well taken, except that the Palin book-censorship "myth" was never debunked — the (truthful, as far as it goes) claim that she never attempted to ban specific books as mayor of Wassila is a straw man, a cynical diversion from the fact that she embarked on her campaign of attempted book-censorship as a city councilwoman, before being elected mayor.

But in 1995, Ms. Palin, then a city councilwoman, told colleagues that she had noticed the book "Daddy's Roommate" on the shelves and that it did not belong there, according to Ms. [Laura Chase, the campaign manager during Ms. Palin's first run for mayor in 1996,] and Mr. Stein. Ms. Chase read the book, which helps children understand homosexuality, and said it was inoffensive; she suggested that Ms. Palin read it.

"Sarah said she didn't need to read that stuff," Ms. Chase said. "It was disturbing that someone would be willing to remove a book from the library and she didn't even read it."

"I'm still proud of Sarah," she added, "but she scares the bejeebers out of me."

(From this article in the New York Times.)

And you still have no answer to my assertion that raising taxes during an economic downturn will make the downturn worse. I don't blame you, because that is one of Obama's biggest Achilles' heels, and McCain will be wise to really hammer him on that one in the debates. No credible economist believes raising taxes will help get us out of this downturn.

Have you been paying attention? We're in the situation we're in now thanks to Republican policies. They haven't made anything even remotely better. The economy is screwed and we're practically bankrupt. Why? Because Republicans don't think markets need rules, so they back deregulation at every opportunity. They think there's no such thing as a "too big" corporation, so they back mergers at every opportunity.

Taxes are a red herring. Republicans will rant about how your taxes will go up under the Democrats. They forget to tell you that the economy in general will do better under the Democrats, and that the income levels of the lower tiers will rise faster than the upper tier under Democrats, so most of us will be doing better overall, and the ones at the top are already doing ridiculously well and tend to stay that way.

History supports this. It's very unlikely that most people will do better under a Republican president. You talk about taxes being higher, but that will happen regardless of who wins because the government will be broke by the time Bush leaves. So, what evidence do you have that supports the idea that most people will do better under a Republican?

Republicans, Democrats, National Debt, and Fiscal Responsibility

Jobs created during U.S. presidential terms

National debt by U.S. presidential terms

Would Obama's Plan Be Faster, Fairer, Stronger?

I seem to recall a Nova special I watched many moons ago about "strange attractors" and "fractal behavior" that seemed to indicate that for a large class of complex-valued iterative functions there was a weird phenomenon called the "Butterfly Effect". Apparently... according to this show I saw 20 years ago (and I think that Mandelbrot mentioned it in a lecture I attended a few years later), initial variables which are as intertwined as the rational and irrational numbers can have drastically divergent outcomes in these situations.

It seems that the reason that this was called the Butterfly Effect was actually because the disturbance caused by a butterfly could be enough to change the track of a massive storm some days later. ( Reference)

The fact is that the weather forecasters on the local broadcast channel are less accurate than if they always predicted sun in one study:

"The graph above shows that stations get their precipitation predictions correct about 85 percent of the time one day out and decline to about 73 percent seven days out.

"On the surface, that would not seem too bad. But consider that if a meteorologist always predicted that it would never rain, they would be right 86.3 percent of the time. So if a viewer was looking for more certainty than just assuming it will not rain, a successful meteorologist would have to be better than 86.3 percent. Three of the forecasters were about 87 percent at one day out â" a hair over the threshold for success."

(ref: http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/21/how-valid-are-tv-weather-forecasts/)

It's a wonderful idea that we can model the incredibly complex climate of our huge planet, but I'll believe it once I can trust the weekend forecast before Friday.

Any other ideas about useful purposes to put these huge computers to? Perhaps accounting and auditing for the new Emergency Financial Legislation?

I don't know, who the "repubs" want to pay, but the Democrats' intentions are certainly "less than honorable". Christopher Dodd and Barack Obama are the two-highest beneficiaries of the Fannie and Freddie lobbying efforts -- despite the vast accounting irregularities of both monsters.

IIRC, the total lobbying effort of Fannie and Freddie has been in the hundreds of millions, and the Obama campaign's share is about $112,000. I'm not sure he's received more than 1-2% of their attention. The lobbying effort has been so huge that I doubt there are very many federal offices that haven't been touched by it.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0912/p03s01-usec.html

There are certainly connections with the McCain campaign:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=aQIOOr9klOnE&refer=home
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/22/us/politics/22mccain.html

Not that this is a partisan issue. It's pretty clear Fannie and Freddie really worked hard to have as much influence as possible, and I think that's one of the reasons why the recent bailout had a provision that they had to curtail lobbying activity.

Uhm. No, they weren't WMDs, because they were inert. They could not cause Mass Destruction, which is the "MD" part of "WMD". They were just big hunks of steel.

Besides, chemical weapons were not the "mushroom cloud" Bush was talking about to scare us, nor was it the "Yellow cake" or "aluminum centrifuge tubes" they were screaming about. Bush was talking very specifically about Saddam building nukes.

THERE WERE NO WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION FOUND IN IRAQ. PERIOD.

I think there's some quote relevant here....something about forgetting history and repeating it....

Uh, didn't a whole bunch of yellow cake just end up in Canada from Iraq? Why YES, yes it did.

And again, when you say that there were NO WMD's found... um, my links prove otherwise. I said they were not in the quantities expected, but they were there. And to say they were inert.... well, I guess that inert YellowCake is going to power those inert Canadian homes this winter. Besides, would you like the inside of one of those shells?

THERE WERE NO WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION FOUND IN IRAQ. PERIOD.

So did THESE guys gas themselves? Well, they must have if there were no WMD's in Iraq. Unless, of course, you are wrong, or maybe even lying.

By the way, I found an example: Many Questions About Vytorin. An example of a new, less effective, more dangerous drug which was pushed as being more effective. Hope this helps. You might also read Patent Laws and the War on Good Drugs or Profits-Before-People Delays Release New AIDS Drug.

It's the same reason why Rosie O'Donnell could have gotten in a lawsuit with Donald Trump. She said that he went bankrupt. He filed no bankruptcy proceeding. Because bankruptcy is a legal device, and she was falsely claiming it, she was breaking slander, in that case (was on TV when she said it: library-books-libel)

Donald Trump did go bankrupt. It just wasn't a personal bankruptcy. It was one of his companies going bankrupt (this was the second time a company of his, where he had the controlling interest, went bankrupt). Here are more details. Donald Trump lost a lot in that deal. He was allowed to keep a controlling interest (a smaller one) in the company only if he gave up all the rights of his name and likeness to his casino and only if he paid back 55 million dollars (which was only a tiny fraction of what his company was out to creditors).

And his company did file for Chapter 11, so the paperwork is there. It's just that Donald Trump, just like a two-year old, is lying and playing with the semantics -- it wasn't me -- it was my company.

However, there comes a point where it becomes ABSOLUTELY ridiculous. I am very keen on my sounds, and have some high end equipment in my living room.

As you said, to get the best out of it, you NEED high end throughout, no point having a "weakest link". So the source should be good quality well recorded CD/SACD/DVD-Audio/Other LossLess format. No point using a "high end" system with low quality MP3s.

Where the source is digital, ideally keep the signal digital, and unprocessed to the receiver, via TOSlink/SPDIF/HDMI(BluRay), and use the same transmission as the source, so if the source is CD, ensure the transmission is 44.1khz, 16bit,stereo. I have seen so called "Gold Plated TOSlink Optical cables" begin sold for a huge premium. This is ridiculous, as the gold plating has absolutely no effect on an optical cable. Instead, you want to know the quality of the glass used. Again, this is somethign that makes more of a issue with distance. For a 1m Cable, the absolute top quality may be overkill, as signal degradation will be lower than the tolerances of the error correction system. Again the key here is that Digital degrades differently to analogue, and may be up to a point far more forgiving.

How the hell did the parent get modded "Informative". It's standard audiophile drivel with a tiny hint of awareness of the ridiculousness of the phenomenon...

Let's start with the complete bullshit notion that the composition of digital cables can in any way affect their performance. If a digital signal gets through a $5 Walmart cable, it's as good as a signal that goes through a $5,000 audiophile cable. Period. End of story. Analog degradation of a digital signal makes absolutely no difference as long as the signal is recovered at the other end.

For analogue (and electrical based digital cabling), you need impedance matched "OxygenFree" cabling, where the connectors are electrically/chemically and mechanically matched. No point using a Cable with Gold Plated connectors, if the sockets on the source, or receiver is normal steel (this is a BAD thing, to mix gold plated and non gold plated, especially silver).

The same thing applies to speaker wires/connectors, make sure they are matched to the speakers, and the source.

Oh, goody. Now we move onto the bullshit about analog cables and how audiophiles think they can hear tiny anomalies in the conductance of wires that can hardly be detected by sensitive lab instruments.

Being an audiophile is all about self-delusion and elitism as far as I can tell. There is not a shred of evidence that they can actually tell the difference in carefully controlled double blind listening tests (which tend to really piss them off). This NYT article about high-end speaker wire is pretty funny: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D06E1D61739F930A15751C1A96F958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all.

If I ever find myself out of work, and lose all self-respect and sell my soul, I know I'll be able to make a living inventing bullshit audiophile products and peddling them with a straight face. Like a rock that sits on top of your CD player and adds "sonic purity" to its output. Oh wait, that one already exists.

For a good refutation of "subjectivist audiophile" BS by a respected audio engineer, read this: http://www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/ampins/pseudo/subjectv.htm (WARNING: Contains actual testable scientific arguments.)

Flu shots haven't been shown to be effective, bicycle helmets seem to increase injuries. You can't plan for random events, you can't even imagine how it's going to go down. Work in a tall building? What's the plan? Have a parachute at work and practice your base-jumping I guess.

Please provide some sources for your wildly inaccurate statements.

Flu vaccination is quite efficatious. Helmets are shown to significantly reduce the risk of injury. And the tall building argument is a poorly conceived strawman. However the plan for working in a tall building might include knowing the best route out and practicing it a few times as well as ensuring that you exercise weekly to have adequate physical fitness to promptly exit the building. Though you aren't the first one to suggest parachutes.

What I've seen here is that Palin properly followed the demarcation line between "official business" which is done via official state systems, and "private communications" which may NOT be done via state systems.

Then you've seen only what you've wanted to see. Palin thoughout her time in office has consistently blurred the official with the personal.

For starters, if she wished to keep the line clearly marked, she should have chosen an email handle other than gov.sarah.

Then there's this from the New York Times:

While Ms. Palin took office promising a more open government, her administration has battled to keep information secret. Her inner circle discussed the benefit of using private e-mail addresses. An assistant told her it appeared that such e-mail messages sent to a private address on a "personal device" like a BlackBerry "would be confidential and not subject to subpoena."

Ms. Palin and aides use their private e-mail addresses for state business. A campaign spokesman said the governor copied e-mail messages to her state account "when there was significant state business."

On Feb. 7, Frank Bailey, a high-level aide, wrote to Ms. Palin's state e-mail address to discuss appointments. Another aide fired back: "Frank, this is not the governor's personal account."

Mr. Bailey responded: "Whoops~!"

Whoops, indeed. I wouldn't consider this a distraction from the issues, especially given the Bush Administration's record. I find it among the scariest aspects of her prospective election.

The Times article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/us/politics/14palin.html?pagewanted=all

(I'm looking at you Alaska)

Actually, the IT infrastructure in the State of Alaska is reasonably good. What you are asking for is that Alaska politicians understand the difference between .ak.gov and yahoo.com. Not only that, you're asking for Alaska politicians to not circumvent that difference whenever they feel it's convenient.

Fat Chance. Remember, this is the state that created the Tubes. And that thinks boiled Moose noses are delicacies.

Like the GOP staff that used an exploit to read their oppositions email? Hmm, there were no legal consequences in that case. Maybe there should have been? Report Finds Republican Aides Spied On Democrats http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F00E0D7103FF936A35750C0A9629C8B63

Why is Sarah Palin using a private account when she is Governor?

Because there are laws in place that say what you can and cannot do with government services and equipment. What you do not seem to get is she was abiding by these laws. Thats why she has 2 (or more) email accounts. The hacker ought to be prosecuted, he even said he did it with malicious intent

That's not why she uses personal e-mail accounts for state business.

Interviews show that Ms. Palin runs an administration that puts a premium on loyalty and secrecy. The governor and her top officials sometimes use personal e-mail accounts for state business; dozens of e-mail messages obtained by The New York Times show that her staff members studied whether that could allow them to circumvent subpoenas seeking public records.

Even in cases that are deemed to be of imminent need to gain access for wire tapping a field warrant must be submitted and reviewed by a judge to ensure the process followed standards set in place for proceeding with such action.

What standards? FISA? If they were all just "doin' their jobs," why was it necessary to amend it and provide immunity for the telcoms? An amendment I might add, considered unconstitutional by many, something that hasn't yet been determined by the courts. You're just telling me here what's supposed to happen. That would be great, but it falls somewhat short of reality:

Domestic spying widespread

F.B.I. Data Mining Reached Beyond Initial Targets

Wiretap Whistle-Blower's Account

NSA's Domestic Spying Grows As Agency Sweeps Up Data

Yes, there is an approval procedure, too bad the Bush administration saw fit to bypass it (something they only admitted to doing after being caught at it, BTW). Constitutional lawyer Glenn Greenwald states it thus:

Congress passed a law in 1978 making it a criminal offense to eavesdrop on Americans without judicial oversight. Nobody of any significance ever claimed that that law was unconstitutional. The Administration not only never claimed it was unconstitutional, but Bush expressly asked for changes to the law in the aftermath of 9/11, thereafter praised the law, and misled Congress and the American people into believing that they were complying with the law. In reality, the Administration was secretly breaking the law, and then pleaded with The New York Times not to reveal this. Once caught, the Administration claimed it has the right to break the law and will continue to do so.

_
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(back to your regularly scheduled response:)

Guantanamo is no different than any other prison run by the military in a time of war. As a matter of fact, prisoners held in American military prisons are treated better than those held by any other country in the world. The majority of the people there were actually captured on the battlefield actively trying to kill our soldiers. Several who have been released were subsequently killed or recaptured on the battlefields of Iraq or Afghanistan.

Oh, I'm sure the camp is very nice. Of course, the "war" we are referring to here, is a never ending war on a methodology, rather than one on a nation that could actually come to an "end" at some point. So presumably, these guys are going to be there until they die. And since even some who are tried, don't get released because of a "security threat," one ponders the actual relevance of trials in the process. If some of these detainees were not actually involved in terrorist or violent acts against our soldiers, how would they prove it? Perhaps you would like to cite Hamdan vs Rumsfeld as an example of how the "system works," because subsequently Hamdan and Khadr were released?

And, there's the distinct possibility that some who have been released have been inspired to subsequently join our opposition because of the way they were treated by the US in the process. Find it hard to buy that? Now you know how I feel about your claim that Saddam "might" have buried some WMDs or passed them to Syria. (Why do you think they call it apologetics?)

But I would be willing to accept that Guantanamo is "no different than any other prison run by the military in a time of war." One thing that is different though is the amount of visibility such things have in the modern information age, which in my opinion, is a good thing. It's harder to keep abuses hidden now, th

Researchers have already done this sort of thing with monkeys and quadriplegics. Contrary to what you might think, when something is wired up to our brain, controlling it actually comes quite naturally. In fact, once we get past the moral dilemma of being assimilated, our integration with the Borg should go quite smoothly.

Has anyone ever really tested this?

Yes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/30/business/30carbon.html

http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=14361282

I'm pretty sure they are trying that. Having a national candidate just gets a wider stage for their views.

But ballot access is a huge thing. In Ohio the libertarian party just won a big court case to even be allowed to run as libertarians. You could be Democrat, Republican, or Independent, but you weren't allowed to actively declare a different party. And they had to go to court over that.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/19/us/politics/19ohio.html

Gates once saved Apple from bankruptcy.

Makes you wonder how "cool" Apple really is to turn around and bite the hand that fed it.

Citation please.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/09/10/us/politics/10fannie.graphic.jpg . That's a graphic showing contributions from the officers of Fannie and Freddie.

And then look at this: http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2008/09/update-fannie-mae-and-freddie.html. Read the comments at the bottom. Several people come up with seemingly plausible and vastly conflicting numbers, using cherry-picked data from the source: http://www.fec.gov/disclosure.shtml.

This from politico is ubiquitous: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0708/11781.html. From July.

International Herald Tribune: http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/09/10/america/lobby.php. Note that several top members of McCain's team were actually real-life lobbyists for Fannie Mae (they've all since found Jesus, of course).

Even after all that, I'm not sure what you're trying to say.

[...] or whatever they are called [...]

Indeed. You should read about them. It sounds like you aren't even sure about what they are.

You probably need to know this, too:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subprime
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collateralized_debt_obligation
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subprime_mortgage_crisis

Your credulity is being cynically taken advantage of. Either that, or you're racking up your McCain points.

1) This is relatively old news which you could just as easily Google yourself.
2) I would have thought that the simple fact that they found exactly such an e-mail account and hacked it would constitute sufficient proof of its existence.
3) The whole point was that she was deliberately trying to avoid leaving any public records or documented proof, although she clearly did so in a horribly inept way.
4) but since you asked...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/us/politics/14palin.html?_r=3&pagewanted=4&adxnnlx=1221588185-c0NhbTON3/fDJJQww%20P%20bQ&oref=slogin

Here's the relevant bit from that article:
While Ms. Palin took office promising a more open government, her administration has battled to keep information secret. Her inner circle discussed the benefit of using private e-mail addresses. An assistant told her it appeared that such e-mail messages sent to a private address on a "personal device" like a BlackBerry "would be confidential and not subject to subpoena."

Ms. Palin and aides use their private e-mail addresses for state business. A campaign spokesman said the governor copied e-mail messages to her state account "when there was significant state business."

On Feb. 7, Frank Bailey, a high-level aide, wrote to Ms. Palin's state e-mail address to discuss appointments. Another aide fired back: "Frank, this is not the governorâ(TM)s personal account."

Mr. Bailey responded: "Whoops~!"

Read this 2003 NY Times article about Republican efforts to increase regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. There is plenty of blame to go around. Here's a little snippet from the article:
  Among the groups denouncing the proposal today were the National Association of Home Builders and Congressional Democrats who fear that tighter regulation of the companies could sharply reduce their commitment to financing low-income and affordable housing.

''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.''

Representative Melvin L. Watt, Democrat of North Carolina, agreed.

''I don't see much other than a shell game going on here, moving something from one agency to another and in the process weakening the bargaining power of poorer families and their ability to get affordable housing,'' Mr. Watt said.
 
I'm not a proponent of either party - and so I think it makes it easier to see that they are both grossly incompetent for the most part.

When someone takes an abstract for an upcoming talk, Googles the software-assigned name "K40506A," from said abstract, then plays around with the url to get access to unlinked data, then points their telescope at the spot mentioned in the data, then sends out an email (from the same computer used to access the data in the first place) saying "here's our discovery, look at my new data plus some archival data from this telescope," and doesn't even mention the data access, doesn't even respond when confronted...well yeah, my bullshit alarm goes off.

Look, here's the timeline (which you never read, because your entire expertise on this comes from the link to Mike Brown's blog you saw elsewhere in the discussion -- those who have followed this for a while have a bit of an advantage, eh?).

Maybe Moreno couldn't be convicted in a court of law. But anybody that believes Moreno's highly improbable account has his brain dribbling from his nose-holes.

It seems clear that you simply read my original quote from Wikipedia, thought that was all there was, and became a Slashdot InstaExpert on the subject. You probably do it all the time. Once I called you on it, you did a little extra reading, found that I was right, and retreated to your "no firm evidence" stance. Just because you own a keyboard doesn't mean we need to see you pontificate on every subject under the sun. The internet will be a better place with a little less of your stupidity in the future, huh?

Here's a bit more information from Brown, if you don't really understand how astronomy works: hasty announcement and the reports of "hacking". Yes, yes, I know that you are even now composing a reply with a huge list of your qualifications. The hacking discussion was linked from the original 2005 New York Times article about the controversy, which again, you never read, but which I saw when the story broke.

Pelosi, the spineless wonder of the Democrat leadership. All these blatant breaking of laws by the executive branch (Loss of millions of emails, secret meetings for our Energy policy, warrantless wiretaps, breaking of Geneva convention on torture of prisoners) and she has said impeachment is off the table.

So much for checks and balances between our branches. We now truly have an imperial presidency.

If I were a governor, I certainly wouldn't let emails with state business in them hit a yahoo account, but the assumption of avoidance is a bit of a stretch, at least until it can be verified whether or not any government business emails made it into the state archives.

That's probably a more severe standard than you realize. It hasn't been met here:
From the New York Times:

Interviews show that Ms. Palin runs an administration that puts a premium on loyalty and secrecy. The governor and her top officials sometimes use personal e-mail accounts for state business; dozens of e-mail messages obtained by The New York Times show that her staff members studied whether that could allow them to circumvent subpoenas seeking public records.

A discussion in state email archives about using yahoo and hotmail to avoid subpoenas is already pretty damning.

And it hurts when they vaccinate you with a needle. Boo hoo.

You should read up on why circumcision is sometimes a good thing before denouncing medicine in its entirety.

Microsoft had always said that the Bill & Seinfield ads were not a campaign unto itself, but an icebreaker, or rather, "phase one". Indeed, it would not surprise me if Microsoft's announcement was all about the new ads, and didn't mention Bill & Seinfield at all.

This would actually make the whole thing make sense. The ads were clearly crappy for the purposes of selling Microsoft. However, they did do a good job of personalizing Bill. Perhaps that was the whole point. Perhaps the grand plan is to use Bill like Wendy's used to use founder Dave Thomas after he left the company.

They couldn't just jump right in doing that with Bill, because we would be going, "Hey, there's that billionaire a-hole on TV!". So they had to first run a primer campaign to soften his image and make him seem like a regular guy. That would totally explain the "move in with a regular family" commercial. Seinfeld would be handy for that, because he's got an image as a regular guy from his TV show. Plus his old fans would be excited to see him again.

If that's what's going on, I'm impressed.

This was planned. They are releasing these ads on a Thursday schedule - and the release for today has obviously been in the hopper for a while.

I must be missing something. Cancelled?

Cancelled is what happens when a contract is revoked. As far as I know, Microsoft is continuing with Crispin Porter + Bogusky.

Cancelled is what happens if they were planning to make more of the same vein. I see no indication of that, but of the expectant bloggers.

Microsoft had always said that the Bill & Seinfield ads were not a campaign unto itself, but an icebreaker, or rather, "phase one". Indeed, it would not surprise me if Microsoft's announcement was all about the new ads, and didn't mention Bill & Seinfield at all.

Me thinks Valleywag focused on what they wanted to hear, not what was actually said overall.

I suspect it shows that pretty much anybody, subjected to enough scrutiny, will fall afoul of the law.

Distinctions between use of public and private resources and accountability to the citizens are not some minor legal technicality. This is an issue that pretty much anyone should be able to appreciate, certainly someone with a position as high as Governor of an entire state. More to the point, however, a recent New York Times article suggests this was not a simple oversight:

The governor and her top officials sometimes use personal e-mail accounts for state business; dozens of e-mail messages obtained by The New York Times show that her staff members studied whether that could allow them to circumvent subpoenas seeking public records.

On one hand.. I agree they crossed the line.. on the other I kind of understand people's motives. Now I am in no way shape or form advocating hacking someone's email account, but there's something important to consider here. There's a great article at NY Times which talks about Palin's rise in politics. Here's one excerpt:

Interviews show that Ms. Palin runs an administration that puts a premium on loyalty and secrecy. The governor and her top officials sometimes use personal e-mail accounts for state business; dozens of e-mail messages obtained by The New York Times show that her staff members studied whether that could allow them to circumvent subpoenas seeking public records.

If she does infact use her private email address for correspondence with other staff members or governmental bodies, can you really consider it a private email account anymore? I'm not asking for response from slashdotters with analogies here, but if she does infact potentially use her personal email to avoid subpoenas then why the hell should it be considered personal. She is paid by the taxpayers and they have a right to know what is going on. Why have her staff members been studying the use of personal email accounts for official business anyways?

Maybe the deal with her using personal email for work is just a rumor, and maybe the whole deal with "Anonymous" is not true, but still things aren't just black and white here.

The democrats are known fucking idiots, so who cares. This has to be the ugliest campaign ever run by two political parties. They should all merge to one party and the best man or whomever wins. At least the governor is eye candy compared to that butt ugly bitch Clinton.

On one hand.. I agree they crossed the line.. on the other I kind of understand people's motives. Now I am in no way shape or form advocating hacking someone's email account, but there's something important to consider here. There's a great article at NY Times which talks about Palin's rise in politics. Here's one excerpt:

Interviews show that Ms. Palin runs an administration that puts a premium on loyalty and secrecy. The governor and her top officials sometimes use personal e-mail accounts for state business; dozens of e-mail messages obtained by The New York Times show that her staff members studied whether that could allow them to circumvent subpoenas seeking public records.

If she does infact use her private email address for correspondence with other staff members or governmental bodies, can you really consider it a private email account anymore? I'm not asking for response from slashdotters with analogies here, but if she does infact potentially use her personal email to avoid subpoenas then why the hell should it be considered personal. She is paid by the taxpayers and they have a right to know what is going on. Why have her staff members been studying the use of personal email accounts for official business anyways?

Maybe the deal with her using personal email for work is just a rumor, and maybe the whole deal with "Anonymous" is not true, but still things aren't just black and white here.

I was just trying to be funny. But if you want to debate, here it goes:

I don't blame the Chinese people - China has a rich history and culture - I blame the government. I have been to Hong Kong and Taiwan.

There are thousands if not millions of toys and products that have been recalled from Chinese Manufacturers:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/02/business/02toy.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Chinese_export_recalls

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSPEK15755920070813

Do a google on: china lead recall - only 337,000 hits are returned!

And China is considered one of the biggest havens for piracy.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13617619/

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2006/07/71300

I even "visited" markets in both Taiwan and China where I saw pirated versions of almost every Microsoft and PC software package for sale for a fraction of what they are supposed to retail for. I saw CD's, Movies, everything for sale for a fraction of what the real product costs.

And before you suggest that the products were not pirated, may I add that the manuals with the software were cheesy xeroxed copies. And the CD's and DVD's didn't come in standard cases....

Any place like this would be busted in a few days in the US.

Granted, I haven't been to the mainland, but most of the products probably come from there....

These are facts... The only "people" hurt by denying them are the Chinese people, because as their products get a worse reputation, their economy will suffer.

Recognize also that due to the "firewall" the chinese government has on internet access, that few chinese are probably even aware of the criticism of the Chinese Government or the product recalls or the piracy...

Yeah, the US government kind of sucks. But at least I can read about it and talk about it, without my news or speech being "censured"...

And I can go to a coffee shop, get drunk on Caffine, or go to a bar, and get drunk on beer, and bitch about the US and living here without fear of being thrown in prison because I don't "agree" with my government...

False.

Did you just write "False" in red pen across my entire posting?

Imagine what would happen if, under the guise of "public information," the Democrats and Republicans tracked each other's movements.

What would happen, that has not already happened?

Or realtors with connections tracked the movements of other realtors, only to make counter-offers on all of their good finds.

The customers would benefit — just as they did from pricewatch or Froogle (to name just a few).

But these are all off-topic, because they exemplify non-governmental (ab)use of the cameras.

Ever been to a friend's birthday party at a strip club? You can give up on your goal of becoming a teacher now: it's public.

Nope, not if everyone's behavior is up for a similar review.

What would the cost be if a senator in the pocket of Boeing could smear Northrup out of a bidding war before it happened?

Our entire system — separation of powers, markets, prosecution vs. defense et al. — is based on pitching people (along with their flaws) against each other. These cameras will not represent anything revolutionary new — companies and people already hire private investigators to "smear" others. The proposed cameras would be just the next evolutionary step — and they may equalize us — they would've recorded Ted Kennedy's drunk driving and leaving the scene of an accident just as scrupulously, as a policeman investigates such allegations against an ordinary citizen.

Seriously, I think, you "oversuspect" the technlogy approach. For example, I always argue, that automatic toll-payment systems should be routinely used to issue speeding citations — based on the distance between the vehicle's entrance and exit and the time in between. This would slow everybody down and quickly cause the speeding limits to be raised to reasonable levels or eliminated altogether... As things stand, the policemen's discretion leads inevitably to selective enforcement...

Several years ago I worked in a very large and respectable company that shall remain unnamed (but whose name rhymes with, say, "Nokia"...) and we just shipped our turnkey system with our software AND with the source code. And the company wasn't (and still isn't, AFAIK, but don't work for them since a long time) an open-source company :o) It was a screwup by the consultant guys in India.

I'm surprised this doesn't happen more often, knowing the level of QC that happens in India and China.

oh, right, I forgot that it does indeed happen. Even nowadays (de javu).

Well, the sea used to be red according to Homer. Many scholars have speculated upon it but I doubt many scientists have looked at it as a serious problem. We don't always need the purest explanation. Would you criticise an Aborigional Australians interpretation of the Rainbow Serpent mythology as unscientific? Perhaps there are some arguments best left untouched by scientific reasoning. It is not the only sort.

I heartily agree there Brave New hpycmprok! Education in the USA has tanked. Too many otherwise good people are not completing high school. See the David Brooks editorial below (NyTimes registration required). A summary; the USA was fine and improving through 1970 then from 1975 to 1990 education graduation did not move. Other countries during that time moved ahead. The article is based on two books. Goldin and Katz http://www.amazon.com/Race-between-Education-Technology/dp/0674028678 "Schools, Skills, and Synapses" by Heckman (downloadable PDF) http://ftp.iza.org/dp3515.pdf "The Real Issue", David Brooks http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/29/opinion/29brooks.html?_r=1&oref=slogin Finally people are not concerned about TFA because they a) shelter their knowledge by keeping within circles of limited curiosity. This means they don't care., b) as you said, could not comprehend its impacts. Best wishes oh wise one, Jim Burke

> CEO's make 262 times what a worker makes, up from 24 times in 1966.

How many employees does Ford have?
Per http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/15/business/15ford.html just the hourly is 75,000.

If the worker would have made $40,000 then the CEO would make $10,480,000.
Divide by 75,000 workers and you get ~ $1,400 per worker.
Assume as many salaried as hourly or the average worker $20,000 and it drops to $700.
This is over 40 years. ~ $250,000 per year is excessive, but a $35 increase per year isn't much.

The point? No matter how much money you're handing out, it goes fast with little noticeable impact.

Even so, if the CEO went to half salary, he could still do quite well for himself and holding onto many of the jobs Ford doesn't think it can afford would be much easier.

The big questions.
On average, do CEOs do about as well as a random manager who makes merely double what his employees make?
Has anyone tried to test this?
Why would any board of directors trust the future of their investment to someone whose contract does not base their compensation on performance?

If an average manager can do as well as a CEO, think of how much could be spent on
a: keeping enough employees hired so one person isn't doing the job of 3 (most likely poorly, causing a low quality product)
b: R&D, to not become a has-been overnight
c: Attracting brighter workers

I wonder what the CEO to employee salary ratio is in companies like MS and Google that make a public point of how they want bright employees.

> Who decided to stick with SUVs for far too long?
Most likely anyone who saw them still selling long after rising gas prices should have had them off the road. I'd have axed them long ago, and lost out to other companies that didn't.

> Who decided to kill the electric car?
Depending on who you ask, either unexpected costs and annoying practicalities or Bush, to listen to one dealership a few (~5) years back, we were only MONTHS away from every McDonalds being a charging station. Then again, that was a car dealership speaking, trying to make a BIG sale. Where do you plug in the electric on vacation? Most people want infrastructure before they buy in. I also wonder how long a car would take to charge at said McDonalds.

Fear not though, with recent gas problems shipping companies, and everyone needing their services will be forced to look harder at ways of replacing gas. If it comes down to oil on one side vs wal-mart on the other, expect to see something happen, but everyone else who needs things shipped, from every grocery store chain to every restaurant chain to every major manufacturer stand to lose too much, either in direct costs to themselves, or the consumer's inability to afford what they have to sell. Between Katrina and Ike, oil is getting a reputation as being unreliable, and too dangerous to have everything based around. It will be fought tooth and nail, but there's too much for big business to lose for an oil alternative not to appear.

Management messes up, a lot, and is frequently called down for its arrogance, but I've seen it from both sides. While there's plenty of good employees willing to put in an honest day's work for an honest day's pay, there's seemingly as many unwilling to do ANY work but more demanding than the good employees. Just as "bad management" is a stereotype for most people, "idiot lazy 'workers'" is a stereotype for many managers. Couple this with too many layers of management, and the fact that the several layers above you are all considered idiot-lazies by their next few layers of management, and thus have no real power to do anything to fix problems. This is somewhat by design. If you can't reach anyone with any real power, you can't affect any meaningful (bad to the pockets of those above) change. It tends to backfire though, when employees with no chance of getting ahead or having problems fixed start becomin