Slashdot Mirror

It came up first on Google, and provided a somewhat biased, but mainly factual overview of what happened. Would you prefer...

Wikipedia
Slate's Leftward view where they paint him as a hero. (I wonder how they treated Bernie Ebbers and Ken Lay?)
The New York Times
The Seattle Times
...or just Google him for crying out loud.

Who was in charge of Fannie Mae when they "misreported" $10.8 billion in 2006?

Moreover, look what top Democrats said regarding attempts by the Bush administration to enhance regulation of the GSEs:

Even President Bush weighed in. On Thursday [August, 2007], he said that both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac needed to complete a "robust reform package" before they expanded their mortgage portfolios.

The statement drew fire from many Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

Christopher J. Dodd [Democrat], the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, called upon President Bush to "immediately reconsider his ill-advised" position as problems in the housing market worsen.

In an interview yesterday, Barney Frank [Democrat], the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said that the president's comments were "inane."

I wouldn't call the entire 9/11 truth movement a load of crap... Here's why.

The one thing they establish is that 9/11 was not what it is. Period.

They have made some movies, distribute some literature. Not all of it is great. That does not imply, though, that all of it is garbage.

If you were to ignore everything coming from the 9/11 truth movement, read the oral histories (the interviews obtained by the NYT of firefighters/EMS personnel which span over 12,000 pages) and you'd come to your own conclusion that a lot more went on than the gov't tells.

Forget the "there were no planes, those were missiles". That's not what the 9/11 truth movement believes. That's what some individuals keep on propagating, maybe they're part of the COINTELPRO to paint ALL of 9/11 truthers as wackos and discourage everyone from believing a single word.

Hate to reply to my own post but I neglected to reference my salary statement. Reference here

It appears that the Bush administration did see a train wreck coming:

New Agency Proposed to Oversee Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae

So see why the free market couldn't correct earlier check this commentary out:

Financial Markets Are in a Mess

No, the fact is Olbermann has his ratings because of his attitudes and opposition to Bush, not in spite of them.

And did his ratings stay up? Actually, MSNBC's ratings have been laughable at best and it was Donahue's ratings I was talking about. They benched Olberman's and Mathews because they were too slanted in their reporting of the election news. This was obvious when Olberman made the comment about the 9/11 tribute during the RNC convention. NBC, benched them and decided to put their own anchors in citing issues with regulatory agencies in accusations of biased reporting.

If they were going to draw higher ratings with other hosts, they already would have drawn higher ratings with other hosts on their other shows. You aren't very good at this, are you?

Again, I was talking about Donahue, and yes, they drew higher ratings with other hosts after firing him (donohue). Everyone saw him as the suckup day time talk show not the issues man and no one could stand watching him.

As for Mathews and Olberman being benched, that's not because of any political bias on the owners part but because of an uncomfortable situation they were putting the network and the parent network in. They were mixing commentary with news which wasn't what they were supposed to do and could call some regulatory effects into play where the would of had to offer equal time to opponents. Their coverage ratings dropped and they had some serious image issues. The New York Times spells this out pretty well when they broke the story.

Lets face it, Olberman is embarrassing to NBC. It has nothing to do with any owner (which is GE and some french company). MSNBC's ratings are in the tank and about the only reason Olberman increased ratings is because when your at the bottom, it is easier to go up. Have you ever checked Olberman's ratings compared to other show on CNN or Fox? In fact, MSNBC is last in "cable news" news channels and if you add the specialty cable news channels, only CNN headline news and CNBC (NBC's financial news station) is lower. If you take the ratings for lets say September 12th 2008, you could add all of MSNBC and CNBC's viewers together and still not touch CNN's viewers or Fox's viewers. If you go with the 8:00 pm ratings for ages 2 and up, Olberman's countdown had around 1.726 million viewers or O'Reilly with 4.151 million viewers. Granted Olberman had increased MSNBC's over all ratins but they would be much better as well with an actually talented person filling the seat. That's just facts, not some mythical owner's decision based around the owners political leanings.

She never demanded books be pulled from shelves: she was trying to address the opposite, what would happen if an angry parent, say, demanded a book be pulled?

An angry parent like, say, herself:

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. Chase 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 look forward to hearing your cognitive dissonance in explaining this away.

Here's a brilliantly written piece (IMHO) by DFW on Roger Federer. I'd never heard of the man till I came across this article a couple of years ago.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/20/sports/playmagazine/20federer.html

To be fair, both Obama and McCain are hamstrung in certain areas by their ideological base. McCain, by the religious right - Obama by the environmental left.

In my opinion, the environmental left has created a lot more devastation through forcing coal power on us. Back in the 1970s we could have gone 80% nuclear and 20% renewable like France, instead (thanks to the anti-nuclear left) we are at a paltry 20%. The emissions from this dirty industry kill thousands of US citizens every year. Carter was nothing less than a disaster for fission power research.

McCain:
As President, I will put the country on track to building 45 new reactors by 2030 so that we can meet our growing energy demand and reduce our emissions of greenhouse gases. Nuclear power is a proven, domestic, zero-emission source of energy and it is time to recommit to advancing our use of nuclear energy. The U.S. has not started construction on a new nuclear power plant in over 30 years. Currently, nuclear power provides 20 percent of our overall energy portfolio. Other countries such as China, India and Russia are looking to increase the role of nuclear power in their energy portfolio and the U.S. should not just look to maintain, but increase its own use.

Obama gives a tepid answer, and doesn't propose any increase in nuclear energy.

A new generation of nuclear electric technologies that address cost, safety, waste disposal, and proliferation risks.

Sure the religious right accomplished relatively minor, but worrying, changes to education curriculum in a few states. On the other hand, anti-GM people have got the democrats to cut government research into GM crops with real world consequences.

McCain clearly comes out in favor of GM foods, and his voting record reflects this.

Genetic research can already provide real assistance for those in some of the poorest regions who lack access to adequate food sources. Through increased research and development, we can help foster a new Green Revolution like the one that transformed Asia several decades ago. In partnership with government institutions, our colleges and universities should help train a new generation of African agro-scientists. Our aid programs should help focus on research into higher-yielding crops and make investments in infrastructure that will help farmers increase their yields and deliver their products to market.

Obama is more tepid, and his voting record shows he really doesn't support government sponsored research into GM foods. Only commercial development, which means it won't be destined for those who need it most.

Advances in the genetic engineering of plants have provided enormous benefits to American farmers. I believe that we can continue to modify plants safely with new genetic methods, abetted by stringent tests for environmental and health effects and by stronger regulatory oversight guided by the best available scientific advice.

Don't get me wrong. I support Obama, but I would like to insert some balance into this discussion. (I'm sure I will be modded down, no secret on which side of the political spectrum most Slashdot readers lie).

But the truth is, all we know for certain is that Kurds were bombarded with poison gas that day at Halabja. We cannot say with any certainty that Iraqi chemical weapons killed the Kurds. This is not the only distortion in the Halabja story. I am in a position to know because, as the Central Intelligence Agency's senior political analyst on Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war, and as a professor at the Army War College from 1988 to 2000, I was privy to much of the classified material that flowed through Washington having to do with the Persian Gulf. In addition, I headed a 1991 Army investigation into how the Iraqis would fight a war against the United States; the classified version of the report went into great detail on the Halabja affair.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9902E7DD1638F932A05752C0A9659C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print

Why bother with a torpedo when an accidental collision would probably suffice?

And, seeing as barges don't have engines, cutting the anchor lines would do wonders.

McCain must have had some help with this, we all know he doesn't use computers, doesn't know how to use e-mail and admittedly depends upon his wife for that.

Clinton, reportedly, has personally authored a total of two (that's 2, not 2000) e-mails in eight years in office. Certainly, McCain's wife could help her husband do as many — or more, as she wouldn't be distracted by neither her own senatorial and presidential ambitions nor by having to chase out the pretty interns.

As for McCain's being reluctant to type, maybe, the fact, that his arms were repeatedly broken by his Vietnamese torturers, has something to do with that? The man can't raise his hands above his shoulders — must you blast him for depending upon his wife to comb his hair?

Talk about out of touch with the 21st Century.

Gee, if this were required qualifications for an executive office, certainly, the blind Governor of New York should be disqualified, because he can't drive and is thus "out of touch" with New York's horrific traffic congestion problems.

When repeating Obama's ads on other forums, check the expiration date — they get stale very quickly.

Yeah, like major US investment banks or multinational energy companies?

How about a $100 billion telecom company.

Maybe the Insurance industry has some stocks that don't have volatility? :-)

Just a friendly reminder that your statement is a tad absurd.

Let's actually quote the article, shall we?

The militant Islamic group decided "we should destroy towers in America" because "we are a free people... and we want to regain the freedom of our nation," said bin Laden, dressed in yellow and white robes and videotaped against a plain brown background.

Even better, let's quote the full text, shall we?

"As I watched the destroyed towers in Lebanon, it occurred to me punish the unjust the same way (and) to destroy towers in America so it could taste some of what we are tasting and to stop killing our children and women.

"We had no difficulty in dealing with Bush and his administration because they resemble the regimes in our countries, half of which are ruled by the military and the other half by the sons of kings ... They have a lot of pride, arrogance, greed and thievery.

"He (Bush) adopted despotism and the crushing of freedoms from Arab rulers and called it the Patriot Act under the guise of combating terrorism.....

"We had agreed with the (the Sept. 11) overall commander Mohammed Atta, may God rest his soul, to carry out all operations in 20 minutes before Bush and his administration take notice."

Riddle me this... How is a tacit admission "metaphorical"?

Hmm. I apologize if anything I've said is off the mark. I suppose "sentenced" would have been more accurate than "sent", since apparently they were set free after initially being sentenced to camp.

It's interesting. But nothing really new or groundbreaking; we discussed another pocket projector that uses lasers back in January of this year. We also talked about other small projectors on April 1 of this year, too.

However, evolution is usually taught as a secular religion

Huh?

As far as I am aware, Evolution is taught EXACTLY the same way Chemistry is taught. Or at least it shout be taught exactly the same way.

the people pushing for creationism to be taught alongside it want nothing more than parity for the two philosophical beliefs.

We are talking about SCIENCE CLASS. Not philosophy class.

In science class we teach an accurate overview of the particular field of science as understood and practiced by professionals in that field. In Chemistry class that means teaching Atom Theory. In Biology class that means teaching the Theory of Evolution.

Of course, the "open minded" evolutionists want the other side muzzled, marginalized, fired and otherwise silenced.

A teacher should not be teaching existentialist philosophy in Chemistry class.

Nor should a science teacher be presenting th Electric Universe theory of an electric powered sun. It would be a gross misrepresentation of the facts to give students the slightest impression that professional astronomers or professional physicists consider the electric sun theory to have any scientific basis or any scientific credibility whatsoever. It would be a gross misrepresentation of the facts to give students the slightest impression that professional biologists consider any of the anti-evolution stuff to have any scientific basis or any scientific credibility whatsoever.

People are perfectly free to talk about and teach Creationism in private school sand in the home and pretty much anywhere else. However it in no way represent biology as understood and practiced by professional biologists and has no place in a public school science class, except perhaps as part of a lesson on identifying non-science and fraudulent science.

Oh, and people are completely welcome to actually *DO* some science trying to disprove evolution / support creationism, or any other research they like. In fact Christian groups have TRIED to give these anti-evolution crackpots money.... "Here please take our money and go do some of this wonderful science you keep talking on and on about". And they they still didn't did any science. You can't PAY them to do science because there is no science to back up all of their bogus anti-evolution claims.

The Templeton Foundation, a major supporter of projects seeking to reconcile science and religion, says that after providing a few grants for conferences and courses to debate intelligent design, they asked proponents to submit proposals for actual research.

"They never came in," said Charles L. Harper Jr., senior vice president at the Templeton Foundation, who said that while he was skeptical from the beginning, other foundation officials were initially intrigued and later grew disillusioned.

"From the point of view of rigor and intellectual seriousness, the intelligent design people don't come out very well in our world of scientific review," he said.

Full article.

There is social controversy over evolution and political controversy over evolution, but no scientific controversy. These lying anti-evolution sacks of shit won't even do any actual science even if you shove bags full of money into their hands begging them to do some science. They have a public relations campaign against evolution, but they don't have jack-shit scientifically to back up their claims. They get millions of dollars per year in donations, and what do they spend that money on? Science? No. They spend that money on political influence and on public relations campaigns and on lawyers. They don't spend any of it on science because the science refutes all of their claims.

P.S.
Sorry for the crude&flammish language. I'm in a bad mood, I am sick and tired of all the lies and misinformation, and I haven't gotten any sleep. Oh well. Fuck you to everyone that deserves it. I'll either get modded flamebait or +5... or probably both... and I'm to tired to give a shit either way.

-

Seems like people disagree

Notice that I indicated leasing pipe space to the water vendor (and other, similar products). Some communities own their own water company and/or power company.

Actually in the US most places own their own water system, whether it be city or county. Only about 1 in 20 people get their water from the private sector. Atlanta, GA was one of the first cities in the US to privatize water, when they sold the water system to United Water. United Water is now owned by France based Suez, the world's largest private water company. However the deal went bad, because of poor management Atlanta retook control of the water system.

Falcon

I was actually being facetious. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/washington/11royalty.html?bl&ex=1221278400&en=139555dd265b8c71&ei=5087%0A

Forget buses with automated steering. Let's work on an immediate need -- trains with automated braking!

The digital ecosystem does not need the middle-man, the printing press or recording studio of days gone by.

This whole "middle-man" meme is a red herring. Even if all writers and musicians start selling directly — rather than through publishers and studios — they will still be concerned about people, enjoying (or otherwise benefiting from) their creations without paying for it.

The most honorable Senator Joseph Isadore Lieberman would certainly not promote widespread media censorship and bullying of the press concerning so-called ''anti-semitic' 'self-hate' views on Middle East issues...

All of this may end up affecting no more than a few bomb-making tutorials and turbant fashion-shows, non?

Anyway, Senator Lieberman deserves much praise for his deep concern about videos disseminating propaganda and showing `gratuitous violence or people getting "hurt, attacked, or humiliated."'.

Finally, we should not forget some valuable insight on "the domestic radicalization process" which, with Joseph Lieberman as Chairman, the United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs has included in the report "Violent Islamist Extremism, The Internet, and the Homegrown Terrorist Threat". Apart from minor detais on player identification, the four-stage model in page 4 seems remarkably insightful when confronted with recent US history and even with the good Senator's own radicalizing messages. Will such 'aiding and abetting' discourse be removed from YouTube as part of the ongoing un'unamerican' First Amendment Amendment?

The most honorable Senator Joseph Isadore Lieberman would certainly not promote widespread media censorship and bullying of the press concerning so-called ''anti-semitic' 'self-hate' views on Middle East issues...

All of this may end up affecting no more than a few bomb-making tutorials and turbant fashion-shows, non?

Anyway, Senator Lieberman deserves much praise for his deep concern about videos disseminating propaganda and showing `gratuitous violence or people getting "hurt, attacked, or humiliated."'.

Finally, we should not forget some valuable insight on "the domestic radicalization process" which, with Joseph Lieberman as Chairman, the United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs has included in the report "Violent Islamist Extremism, The Internet, and the Homegrown Terrorist Threat". Apart from minor detais on player identification, the four-stage model in page 4 seems remarkably insightful when confronted with recent US history and even with the good Senator's own radicalizing messages. Will such 'aiding and abetting' discourse be removed from YouTube as part of the ongoing un'unamerican' First Amendment Amendment?

Yes, they accredit school systems. There was a recent story about a school system in Georgia (USA) that lost its accreditation due to a dysfunctional school board. It's a very big deal for the residents of the county and their children.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/29/education/29clayton.html

I thought I had read this before so I did a search and came up with this: http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/10/2/103735/275 This post was made in 2003 (and references a previous post on Slashdot, so it could easily be older than that.) You are simply reposting a 5 year old story word for word. I somehow doubt that you are the original author (which would, ironically, make that post copyright infringement ;-) ).

That said, there are a couple of big holes in this story.

Why is no one buying CDs? Are people not interested in music? Do people prefer to watch TV, see films, read books? I don't know. But there is one, inescapable truth - Internet piracy is mostly to blame.

The author admits to not knowing why people aren't buying CDs, but then immediately jumps to the "inescapable truth" that Internet piracy is to blame. It isn't because the selection isn't to the buying public's taste, or because a Walmart opened down the block with better prices, or because people were buying more DVDs/video games/etc. Nope, it *had* to be Internet Piracy! And why?

The statistics speak for themselves - one in three discs world wide is a pirate.

Not to overuse a XKCD meme, but: Citation Needed. So I did a Google search and came up with this article: http://www.ifpi.org/content/section_news/20050623.html

Ok, the article is 3 years old, but let's let that slide for a bit. The piracy that the article speaks of is commercial CD pressing. You know, the folks who obtain one CD, burn a hundred copies, and sell them on the street corner for $1.50 each. That is a completely different form of piracy than the guy who clicks "share this folder" in LimeWire/Kazaa/etc.

On The Internet, you can find and download hundreds of dollars worth of music in just minutes. It has the potential to destroy the music industry, from artists, to record companies to stores like my own.

Yes, the Internet does make piracy (of the P2P sharing kind) easier than it used to be. It does also have the potential to destroy the music industry as we know it now. However, many new technologies are disruptive events. The industry either has to adapt or die. When cars first came out, it was disruptive to the people in the Horse and Buggy Industry. We don't hold technology back simply because one industry doesn't want to change how they operate. For an example of how the music industry might adapt, look to eMusic and Amiee Street. As far as local record stores go, they either find a way to adapt (perhaps kiosks selling personal mix CDs) or they die out. It's just a fact of business life.

Before you point to the supposed "economic downturn", I'll note that the book store just across from my store is doing great business. Unlike CDs, it's harder to copy books over The Internet.

In the years since this post was originally written, advances in book piracy have been made.

As for the National Register of Pirates idea, it is quite obviously a bad idea. The original poster of this seemed to be of the opinion that the courts were taking too long so pirates should just be added to a list without a trial. Let's put aside the question of how the RIAA would get the pirates' identities and how it would be enforced for a moment. (Big questions, mind you, but let's assume some process gets put into place.) How will the list be kept focused on pirates and kept clean of the falsely accused? We have only to look at the No Fly List for an example of how a blacklist with no oversight or clear removal process can wind up triggering many false positives. If some other Jason Levine pir

For some reason, the BBC are making a big thing of this, and providing a lot of coverage and related programmes on the Radio 4 station.

The BBC provide a listen again service for those of you who are distant but interested. Check out the programmes here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/bigbang/

Assuming that the world isn't swallowed up by a black hole from the experiment, that is:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/15/science/15risk.html

There equally insane, but Scientology goes out of it sway to detroy people...actually, it's part of there belief to destroy people.
That's what makes them dangerous, abusive, liars and a bunch of sacks of shit.

I probably know more about their history then most their members. L. Ron being a family 'friend'.
My grand father could pretty much date L. Ron slide from cute joke to insanity.
If my grandfather was still alive, I'd encourage him to write a book, but he passed away in the early 80's.

On a side note, Two major Harvard studies have shown the circumcised men are more likely to not get aids from a contact.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/background_briefings/aids/434880.stm

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/23/science/23hiv.html

Stop killing people with your lies.

Ah, so you're a PUMA then?

No, but since Obama supporters like you are now making him the candidate of "if you point out any error or inconsistency, my supporters will ignorantly accuse you of being an enemy operative", maybe it's not such a bad idea.

No, that's a lie. Obama never committed to public financing.

The hell he didn't. He's the one who brought it up as an issue. He made it a point of contention with Hillary Clinton, and then turned it on the Republicans. He made the proposal in response to the other candidates hedging on the issue--only to hedge himself, and flat out walk away from his own proposal. He allowed the media to talk about his pledge, his plan, and his commitment while it suited him and was working in his favor. Then he lied about his reason for not taking the money.

Since the option he took has even fewer restrictions and no need for loopholes, he can't complain about a "broken" public fund. It's not broken, except that you can bypass the requirements and limitations by opting out. Since that's exactly what he did, though, it's no protest.

http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/content/Questionnaire_Midwest_Democracy_Network_Obama_02192008.pdf

"I proposed a novel way to preserve the strength of the public financing system in the 2008 election. My plan requires both major party candidates to agree on a fundraising truce, return excess money from donors, and stay within the public financing system for the general election. My proposal followed announcements by some presidential candidates that they would forgo public financing so they could raise unlimited funds in the general election." He made the proposal. HE was the one who made the issue into a campaign issue. He walked away, paying little more than lip service to the idea.

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/04/11/obama-blurs-his-pledge-on-public-financing/

http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/obama/1014824,public061908.article

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/02/us/politics/02fec.html?_r=3&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/06/obama-to-break.html

And now you're saying that a pledge and a commitment isn't a promise. Where is this candidate of change and new politics, exactly? He looks exactly like all the other ones.

Tapper, an Obama supporter, summed it up perfectly: "Declaring independence from a "broken system" by breaking a promise. Obama hopes you'll care more about the former than the latter."

As a liberal, it's the latter that matters, especially when the former is largely a lie. A liberal who tolerates this is no liberal at all, but rather an ideologue trapped by a cult of personality, and unfortunately the Democrats are joining the Republicans in that growing population.

Meanwhile Obama was working with the NATO countries to see what he could do to get more of a NATO presence in Afghanistan and less of our troops there. Sounds to me like Obama wants to get out of Iraq and reduce the number of our troops in Afghanistan - not move from one to the other as you stated. (http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/07/25/obama.trip/index.html)

And to be quite frank (my apologies to those named Frank), had we stayed out of Iraq and focused on the issue at hand in Afghanistan we wouldn't be in the mess we are in now.

I had never heard about Obama's stance towards Iran - do you have a source I can look at to see what he envisions there? The same goes for Georgia.

Georgia:
Biden Calls For $1 Billion In Emergency Aid To Georgia, By Daniel ...
Cheney Backs Membership in NATO for Georgia - NYTimes.com

Buried in this article you'll find that "The current fighting began four days ago (August 6) when Georgian forces launched a surprise attack to regain control of South Ossetia, which has had de facto independence since the end of a civil war in 1992."

YouTube - Saakashvili eats a tie

Iran:
Obama: Nuclear Iran 'unacceptable'

'Iran a major threat; I would never hesitate to use our military force in order to protect homeland, US interests, Democratic presidential candidate tells FOX's 'The Oâ(TM)Reilly Factor'

Afghanistan:
Maybe we wouldn't be in this situation if we didn't fly out hundreds of Taliban on C-130's into Pakistan.

Simply research the Airlift of Evil

TOTALLY worthless

Two step process for me. Mac The Ripper to decrypt/rip the entire DVD (menus and all) to a VIDEO_TS folder on my hard drive.

Who on earth would pay for REALcrap?

Maybe those that think that, unlike Mac the Ripper, REALcrap is "legal" software from a legitimate company? TFA even mentions Mac the Ripper and calls it "illegal":

• "Since then, anyone who wanted to make a backup copy of his "Star Wars" or "Lost" DVDs had to turn to free but illegal programs on the Web, with names like Handbrake and Mac the Ripper. These programs are hard to legally stop because they have many creators who are typically overseas and have few resources. They are used mostly by sophisticated Internet aficionados who may just as easily download movies directly from illicit file-sharing services."

Of course, most Slashdot readers have banned RealNetworks from their computers because of their past asshole-ish behavior. They're also "sophisticated" enough to use the free alternatives. However, some less sophisticated computer users may be scared by recent news headlines of home users being sued by content creators. Software from RealNetworks makes them feel safe from litigation.

*sigh*

All these comments and you all missed this beauty from the last story.

Such as?

such as Aligarh , Deoband, Bengal, Western Gujarat. In contrast, areas in Pakistan with large Hindu populations in Sindh have been completely cleansed of them.

We've always known you wanted our country. India is an expansionist power that has swallowed up huge territories including Hyderabad, Junagarh, Siachen, Sikkim, Goa, Daman, Diu, and Kashmir. But you will never get Pakistan except over our dead bodies - and yours, once the gamma-radiation-emitting isotopes fall on your land, making it uninhabitable and poisoning it for centuries. Never, as long as we have the strength to fight and defend our beloved country, you will not not get it. Never!

Pakistan is a genocidal Islamic theocracy, combined with a Punjabi-dominated racist ethnocracy that has murdered 3 million Hindus in Bangladesh

http://www.genocidebangladesh.org/

and presently institutionally engages in horrific levels of persecution of Hindu and Christian minorities in their savage little Islamofascist country

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6367773.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/1625976.stm
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,273075,00.html
http://www.domini.org/openbook/pak20020925.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/24/nyregion/24missionary.html?_r=2&%20%20%20%20%20%20%20oref=slogin&oref=slogin

The USCIRF denotes Pakistan as a "country of particular concern" for precisely this (well, primarily for the Sangla Hill genocide of Pakistani Christians carried out by the Islamic fascist regime in 2001), as well as charming "Huddood Laws" that let rapists of women go free in the name of Islam, and Hasba bills that allow for public floggings and stonings.

We do not want to have anything to do with this failed genocidal state run by Punjabi Sunni Muslim ethnocrats who have captured and murdered hundreds of thousands Sindhis, Baloch and Pashtun minorities, not to mention Hindus, christians and Sikhs. We just want to watch these people kill each other in the name of a violent totalitarian religion that teaches 3 year old children to hate Jews Christians and Hindus before they teach them math.

The more interesting product is this one.

Washington DC is also an anomaly because it's where the Federal Government is headquartered. It's also NOT A STATE.

If you compare Alaska to other states (in terms of *people* not landmass), you'll find that it's 20x the per capita average.

You're pretty good at making statistics lie, though. But landmass doesn't need money, and the "takes in $1.87 for every dollar it pays" (while running a huge government give-away program) is NOT what any normal person would call "libertarian."

If Alaska were run by Democrats, people would call the state Socialist.

Probably none, nor has Iran.

It is astounding how much innuendo and false propaganda get hyped in the USA mass media and left essentially uncorrected.

I just wanted to point out it's been around for a while now, I actually used it to analyze the Republican debates. Since these new videos aren't debates they don't include a transcript analyzer like the previous ones did.

Take a look at the same tool for the November the 28th CNN/Youtube Republican debates (don't actually watch it though, I beg you). It includes both an interactive transcript (including skipping) and an analyzer showing among other things the time spent on the questions per candidate basis and highlighting to see when they spoke during the debate.

Here's a little something I at the time looked at. Ron Paul was only given 7 minutes of speaking time while the so called front runners were given around 14 minutes, and most of the questions were hostile in nature. Even the moderator had more speaking time than Ron Paul. They also didn't follow their own rules and give him time to respond when Tancredo directly mentioned him, after which he wasn't given a question for 25 full minutes.

Check it out... http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/09/04/us/politics/20080905_WORDS_GRAPHIC.html This link looks at both conventions and tries to quantify the major themes each party has tried to highlight. Unsurprisingly the DNC is leading on "Change", but Biden has used the term more than Obama during the conventions. However, I refuse to believe that Rudy Giuliani referenced 9/11 only once! This is the guy who could bring 9/11 into a discussion on public health for crying out loud!

Sorry, I should quote my sources. The $300K below market came from the Chicago Tribune.

It's not $300K below market, but $300K below the offer price. Given the aviation slump, this is not unusual. How about some sources from the time, free of the election spin and the Chicago-spin:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/25/us/25jet.html?pagewanted=all

http://www.ktuu.com/Global/story.asp?S=6422443

Republican speaker of the Alaska House, John L. Harris, who brokered the no-bid deal.

Not true. The plane was sold through a private aircraft broker named Heckmann, who is anything but a state lackey, having had prior legal encounters with state contracts.

The final price did indeed end up saving money, given the costs of insurance, storage, maintenance. The bid fell through because the buyer backed out.

As a lifelong liberal, even I am disgusted at this smear campaign. It's okay for Obama to be selective about stories from the past, but not for Palin? Let's not lose sight of the fact that she pledged to get rid of the plane and did so, responsibly and through a private broker who signed off on the deal.

Seriously, are we really asking what a creationist book burner thinks about technology? She's literally 1 step away from Ted Stevens, hell she even supported his Bridge to Nowhere (until it became a political hot potato) and was a major member of his PAC. Reading up on JUST what has been found out in the first 24-48 hours after McCain chose her (but, apparently before he vetted her) she's by far the most corrupt politician that I've read up on in a long while.

You guy should read the Open Letter (confirmed true by conservative sources) about what she's pulled in her short stint as a poltician. It's a laundry list of disgusting nepotism and mismanagement.
http://thezaftigredhead.blogspot.com/2008/09/open-letter-from-someone-who-knows-gov.html

In short, she's a female version of George W. Bush. Her views on technology probably involve leeches and "internet tubes." Don't be swindled by the current spin cycle coming out of McCain's campaign -- she's woefully inexperienced and completely unsuited to even run a small town of 5000 -- hell, the almost threw her out of town and she drove them so far into debt they won't get out for 100 years.

Did Bill Ayers ever try to kill anyone? I thought all he did was help blow up a statue?

WordNet defines "terrorism" as (emphasis mine::

The noun terrorism has 1 sense (no senses from tagged texts) 1. terrorism, act of terrorism, terrorist act -- (the calculated use of violence (or the threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or religious or ideological in nature; this is done through intimidation or coercion or instilling fear)

Belonging to a terrorist organization makes one a terrorist too, even if one is not (unlike Ayers) directly involved in any actual terrorism — take Hassan Nasrallah, for example.

Although per the definition above, simply threatening violence to attain certain goals is terrorism, Ayers' organization were planning to blow up an Army NCO club next. Fortunately for most concerned, they blew themselves up instead — the organization changed strategy to try to avoid casualties after this incident... But were also armed robberies (with fatalities) — a revolution always needs cash... (Interestingly, Joseph Stalin's first job in the Communist Party was to "rob the robbers" — what do the owners of "Democracy Now!" have in store for us?).

Just take Ayers' own words, spoken not during an interrogation, and not decades ago, but to the media this year: "I don't regret setting bombs, I feel we didn't do enough."

Whether he actually killed anyone is not relevant to his being a terrorist — only to an additional charge of murder, which, according to his "memoir" he may also have committed, but nobody knows for sure: "''Is this, then, the truth?,'' he writes. ''Not exactly. Although it feels entirely honest to me.''"

But his organization's ideology, as summarized by him back then was: "Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, kill your parents, that's where it's really at."

Back to my original point — although the scumbag's guilt is undeniable (and, indeed, not denied), he avoided any punishment, because of government misconduct in collecting evidence against them...

So, yes, Ayers was a member of a terrorist and otherwise criminal organization, and a terrorist himself — committed to this day to terrorism...

That would be the Parisians. But the French fishermen would blockade the harbours, the French truckers would blockade the ferry ports and oil refineries, while the French farmers will blockade strategic locations such as the trains, the tunnels, and Disneyland.

Put this in the same bin with the FBI's now discredited Lead Bullet analysis, and the idea that DNA matches are "1 in a Trillion", when you mass scan them.

Nothing to see here... move along.

--Mike--

I've found that it is usually possible to read http://nytimes.com/ articles without the need for login via CoralCDN -- in the case of this article, the link would be http://www.nytimes.com.nyud.net/2008/09/05/science/05brain.html?_r=2&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

Doing that doesn't tell anyone that you care about the environment, but buying a Prius does. According to the New York Times, 57% of Prius buyers cited "Makes a statement about me" as the reason they purchased the car.

Software translation has serious problems. Fetching code and executing it in hardware will always be more efficient than running it through a translator, because the translation code itself takes up space in the cache, execution time and memory bandwidth.

If the Risc chip were faster than a comparable x86 it might be tolerable, but this Risc chip isn't. It's comparable to a R16000, a 2002 vintage superscalar MIPS processor. Intel and AMD chips have six years of microarchitectural innovation and are built on better fab plants.

What's interesting about it is that modern x86 chips actually don't execute x86 instructions in their pipelines, they have a hardware decode unit which transforms x86 to some internal format, probably Risc or VLIW. In fact this is what killed Risc. This use of 'decoupled architectures' in x86 is really what killed Risc.

Initially the cost of the hardware decode unit was rather steep

E.g.
http://studies.ac.upc.edu/ETSETB/SEGPAR/microprocessors/pentium2%20(mpr).pdf

The P6â(TM)s CISC handicap shows in two places. Despite the similar microarchitectures, the P6 requires nearly twice as many logic transistors as the MIPS chip; the extra logic handles x86 decode, uop translation, and the foibles of the x86 instruction set. Since both chips have similar die size and transistor budgets, the R10000 is able to include four times as much on-chip cache as the P6, improving performance on many programs. Second, the first P6 will run at 133 MHz, while the R10000 is expected to achieve 200 MHz using a similar manufacturing process. To come even this close in clock speed, Intel uses a very deep pipeline, a concept that MIPS tried and rejected for the R10000. The deeper pipeline has greater branch penalties, sapping performance.
And, of course, the higher clock speed gives the R10000 an intrinsic performance advantage. As a result, the MIPS chip should achieve at least 50% better integer performance than the P6.

At this point, decoupled x86 needed twice as many transistors for the core excluding caches because of the hardware decode. It also ran at a slower clock rate.

But in a modern x86 like Core2 the extra decoding compared to Risc is actually quite a small percentage of the total die size and therefore chip cost. Intel have done very well with clock speed too, outpacing Risc chips.

I suspect that Risc was good initially because you could execute instructions with a small and therefore fast block of logic because the instructions were very well matched to the pipeline. MIPS after all stood for "Microprocessor without interlocked pipeline stages". Branch delays, exposed to the programmer, were a natural consequence of the way the pipeline worked. But later superscalarar, out of order chips with register renaming are much less well suited to classic Risc instruction sets. E.g. a once cycle branch delay is not natural in a two way superscalar chip. Register renaming and out of order execution require loads of hardware whether you have a Risc chip or a Cisc one.

So back when Intel convinced Compaq that switching to Mips processors was a bad idea, it turns out they were right.

I don't need to be a mind reader to see the obvious. Perhaps that is because I'm objective where your convinced.

Say what?

I don't need proof of anything, the cops do. And this proof will come out during their trial.

If there is one. And what if this is one of those "oops we made a mistake" situation? Too bad?

The article presented is a little misleading on facts too.

I have more than one link in my collection:

• I-Witness Video Members Detained En Masse by St.Paul, Minnesota Police in Advance of the 2008 Republican National Convention
• Houses raided, 5 arrested; critics decry crackdown
• National Lawyers Guild: What police seized was not 'weaponized' urine
• Dozens Detained Ahead of Convention
• Dozens Detained Ahead of Convention
• Federal government involved in raids on protesters
• Massive police raids on suspected protesters in Minneapolis

As people posted links in the tread, I'd open then in a new Firefox tab then I'd bookmark after reading them.

The cops said they had informants who told them about the planned activities.

Yea, and those informants were getting paid only if there was an arrest.

They were making, not possession but making devices to cause harm to other people's property

And there were no legitimate uses for any of them? Oh and they were all made illegal?

Now, as for proof, the cops will show that to the courts during their prosecution. I don't need it, all I need is an accusation and charged to be filed which both are true at this point.

In other words it's okay to deny people the right to protest just by making an accusation, or paying an informant to make the accusation. I wonder what you would think if that happened to you.

BTW, possession of dangerous chemicals can be a fire code violation as well as a felony. But there were more then "fire code" violations involved.

And what charges will stand up in court? Or doesn't it matter to you? Is all that counts is that protesters were stopped? Maybe you'll like it with Kim Jong-il then.

Falcon

I don't need to be a mind reader to see the obvious. Perhaps that is because I'm objective where your convinced.

Say what?

I don't need proof of anything, the cops do. And this proof will come out during their trial.

If there is one. And what if this is one of those "oops we made a mistake" situation? Too bad?

The article presented is a little misleading on facts too.

I have more than one link in my collection:

• I-Witness Video Members Detained En Masse by St.Paul, Minnesota Police in Advance of the 2008 Republican National Convention
• Houses raided, 5 arrested; critics decry crackdown
• National Lawyers Guild: What police seized was not 'weaponized' urine
• Dozens Detained Ahead of Convention
• Dozens Detained Ahead of Convention
• Federal government involved in raids on protesters
• Massive police raids on suspected protesters in Minneapolis

As people posted links in the tread, I'd open then in a new Firefox tab then I'd bookmark after reading them.

The cops said they had informants who told them about the planned activities.

Yea, and those informants were getting paid only if there was an arrest.

They were making, not possession but making devices to cause harm to other people's property

And there were no legitimate uses for any of them? Oh and they were all made illegal?

Now, as for proof, the cops will show that to the courts during their prosecution. I don't need it, all I need is an accusation and charged to be filed which both are true at this point.

In other words it's okay to deny people the right to protest just by making an accusation, or paying an informant to make the accusation. I wonder what you would think if that happened to you.

BTW, possession of dangerous chemicals can be a fire code violation as well as a felony. But there were more then "fire code" violations involved.

And what charges will stand up in court? Or doesn't it matter to you? Is all that counts is that protesters were stopped? Maybe you'll like it with Kim Jong-il then.

Falcon

Open Water Circling North Pole? Not Quite

And one of the groups focusing most closely on possible Arctic shipping lanes, the National Ice Center operated by the Navy and Commerce Department, says flatly that the satellites are misreading conditions in many spots and that there is too much ice in a critical spot along the Russian coast (highlighted in the smaller image above) to allow anything but ice-hardened ships to get through. In an e-mail message Wednesday, Sean R. Helfrich, a scientist at the ice center, said that ponds of meltwater pooling on sea ice could fool certain satellite-borne instruments into interpreting ice as open water, âoesuggesting areas that have substantial ice cover as being sea-ice free.â The highlighted area is probably still impassible ice, including large amounts of thick old floes, he said. I sent the note to an array of sea-ice experts, and many, including Mark Serreze at the National Snow and Ice Data Center, concurred.

And you have apparently are not up to date on the volcanic activity on the ocean floor in the Arctic.

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/01/whats-up-with-volcanoes-under-arctic-sea-ice/:

I queried a heap of the Arctic oceanographers and climate and ice experts Iâ(TM)ve gotten to know since my North Pole journey in 2003. They uniformly reject the idea that heat from the bottom â" either from the general geothermal activity beneath the seabed or the occasional outbursts of lava or vents â" could have a significant impact on the veneer of floating, drifting ice on the surface.

And besides: there is no indication that there has been any change in activity in the last centuries.