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This just looks like the security people are getting desprate and trying to cast a wider net. The secret wiretaps used on citizens was a wide net that seems to have had poor results.

I'd just read the article below before seeing this as well.

86 Evangelical Leaders Join to Fight Global Warming

Could this actually mean that well intentioned christians are actually beginning to crawl out from under the thumb of the right-wing extremists like Dobson, Robertson, Bush, etc?

I know this is only a small beginning and may be offering false hope, but at least its better than the complete lack of any hope for American socieity I'd been feeling recently.

The increasing availability and ease of access of information is making it increasingly difficult to get away with lying.

Good news for the people, bad news for governments.

On a related note, that same increasing availability is starting to render traditional news outlets obselete. No wonder they're so upset.

I had no idea I was also "U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky, a Chief Deputy Democratic Whip" (as referenced in the GGP post), I guess it was me on my U.S. Representative web site that compiled that list of quotes from the administration. Otherwise, if I wasn't also Jan, then I wouldn't have been "The only person making inferences...". Nevermind the fact that I am also obviously slashdot user "NMerriam (15122)", as it was s/he who made the original comment. Damn, I must be schizophrenic. Thanks for the info!

You have inferred that Bush is just about the worst person on earth

Actually, no. I have simply inferred (to you and you alone I guess, as it was not my original intent) the W "is just about the worst [president] on earth". It that case, I'd have to agree with myself (but which myself? the Jan myself, or the NMerriam myself? Fuck, this is confusing).

which you know isn't true

Actually, none of the me's are positive about that point.

and you can't offer any support for that argument

(Neverminding the fact that that was not *my* argument) You are so right, I offered absolutely no support for that argument what-so-ever. Silly me, I thought we were talking about W's (and HIS administrations) references to the Iraqi's footing part of the bill. I apologize. Excellent use of the NeoCon-ish-ness "demean your critics, divert the debate and ignore the issues", well played!

I have showed you concrete numbers, yet the OBVIOUSNESS of everything still isn't getting into your skull.

To paraphrase W (and yes, I lived in Texas) - "There's an old saying in Tennessee... well, it's an old saying in Texas, I believe also in Tennessee. Actions [pauses] speak louder then [pauses] government documentation on a National Development Strategy authored more then 2 years after the invasion was 'complete'". Shouldn't that have been done BEFORE the invasion? Or at least very soon there after? Or am I a "dick" to assume some leadership in a war that "we" "choose".
Have there been elections? Yes. Have they represented the population? Depends on if your a Sunni, Kurd or Shiite. We've killed 30,000 of them (W's numbers, not mine), is that considered progress? Guess that depends on if your PWT, KKK, or NeoCon.

You're not even a very smart liberal man, why bother?

I enjoy a bit of intellectual masturbation every once in a while. Besides, since I don't go to church, I don't have a clergy thinking for me, so I guess that makes me more dumber two.

Some guys can hold their ground, but I've reduced you to this? Sad.

Let's take score, shall we?

You referenced 1 document authored by the Republic of Iraq, Iraqi Strategic Review Board, Ministry of Planning and Development Cooperation to support your position.

I referenced the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, The Associated Press/Ex-President Jimmy Carter, The Washington Post, CNN, San Francisco Gate, and U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky's website (which itself references NYT, Reuters, The Washington Post, House Budget Committee, Congressional Testimony, CNBC, White House Press Briefings, House Committee on Appropriations Hearing on a Supplem

Of course, the rebuilding effort was never a high priority for W.

Bush (and by this I mean Rove) is very, VERY good at inference. Sentences for "...9/11...", "...Al-Qaeda..." and "...Saddam..." being back to back in countless speeches. Did he ever *SAY* they were connected? No. Did he repeatedly infer that they were, absol-fucking-lutly! But that's not the same as catching him in a lie, now is it? No, no it is not.

Funny, but Clinton's Iraq approach seems to have been much more effective (in hindsight). There were no WMDs, now were there? Saddam was completely isolated and more or less starved of funds (save the Aussies and their oil-for-wheat scandal going on right now).

More then anything, Bush has been a divider. Half the country hates him, half loves to re-elect him. He has started the first global holy war in more then a century. He has swelled the ranks of terrorists. He has burned thru all of the global pro-American sediment we enjoyed in the days following 9/11. He has stressed that we do not have to follow the Geneva conventions!? Freedom of speech has been limited during his tenure. Check and balances have been avoided (some, like former president Carter say illegally) at his explicate direction. He has lied (or changed his criteria, if you want to spin it that way). He has spent nearly a trillion (that's with a 'T') more then his predecessor ($400+ billion surpluses turned into $400+ billion deficits). By the time he leaves office, he will have added more then 3 trillion to the national debt (and that's being generous, it'll probably be nearly 4, or just about double when he started).

Now, this is a bit unfair as he was at the helm while America suffered one of it's most high profile disasters, and more money would have been spent by anyone in the office at the time. But for a man who comes from a party that believes in small government and smaller government spending, he has done most certainly the opposite (but Halliburton is up 10 fold).

This part of American history will be looked back upon in the same way the McCarthy trials are, with a moral disgust and the question of how in the hell could that have been let to happen. We used to make fun of the Russians for "papers please" for travel within their own country, and were appalled that this African dictator or that Eastern European police state were violating the Geneva conventions, and said "that would NEVER happen here" when news reports told of countries who lock up their own citizens without trial and without charge. That was 1980-1990's America, yet in America 2k...

America has lost her way.

Actually, chips for Apple accounted for less than 2% of the capacity of just one IBM fab. IBM's tech division (which does chip fabbing) accounted for less than 3% of IBM's total revenue. That's a really small piece of IBM's global business. It's kind of like an oil company losing one gas station...not really gonna hurt them that much.

Here it is. Free registration/bugmenot required :-).
-A

There are a lot of reasons not to accept Israel that aren't religious, they do have more UN resolutions against them than any other country. Certainly the evil-doing has not been limited to Arabs. It seems completely logical to me that the Arabs would be suspect of our ridiculously blind support of Israel, and be wise to count us as enemies for it. It's not like there's much logic to it, aside from perhaps the naive belief that democracies can't be evil. We only harm ourselves by painting either side as more insane. Especially when Israel's entire claim to its land rests in the idea that the invisible creator of the universe dictated a book in which he specifically promised that part of the surface of this planet to their race and only their race, as the new Israeli foreign minister believes.

Try it.

So, like gravity for a flat Earth, the single time dimension for the 'big box universe' points in one direction, from the Big-Bang into the future.

The Big Bang memo came from Mr. Deutsch, a 24-year-old presidential appointee in the press office at NASA headquarters whose résumé says he was an intern in the "war room" of the 2004 Bush-Cheney re-election campaign. A 2003 journalism graduate of Texas A&M, he was also the public-affairs officer who sought more control over Dr. Hansen's public statements.

In October 2005, Mr. Deutsch sent an e-mail message to Flint Wild, a NASA contractor working on a set of Web presentations about Einstein for middle-school students. The message said the word "theory" needed to be added after every mention of the Big Bang.

The Big Bang is "not proven fact; it is opinion," Mr. Deutsch wrote, adding, "It is not NASA's place, nor should it be to make a declaration such as this about the existence of the universe that discounts intelligent design by a creator."

It continued: "This is more than a science issue, it is a religious issue. And I would hate to think that young people would only be getting one-half of this debate from NASA. That would mean we had failed to properly educate the very people who rely on us for factual information the most."

So, let's give [Samuel Gross of the University of Michigan] the benefit of the doubt: let's assume that he understated the number of innocents by roughly a factor of 10, that instead of 340 there were 4,000 people in prison who weren't involved in the crime in any way. During that same 15 years, there were more than 15 million felony convictions across the country. That would make the error rate .027 percent -- or, to put it another way, a success rate of 99.973 percent.

Most industries would like to claim such a record of efficiency. And while, of course, people's lives are far more important than widgets, we have an entire appeals court system intended to intervene in those few cases where the innocent are in jeopardy...

Americans should be far more worried about the wrongfully freed than the wrongfully convicted.

Specifically Goddard Institute for Space Studies Director James E. Hansen's allegation that NASA's public affairs commisars upset with his stand on global warming have been denying journalists official access to him and censoring his lectures, papers and postings on the Goddard Web site. Other NASA employees have corroberated his story.

It seems like the operations that NASA does get right are ultimately quashed. Remember this little tidbit from last week about silencing a scientist's findings on global warming?

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/29/science/earth/29 climate.html

All in all, the last week has been harsh press for NASA (and in spite of such a good year with respect to the Mars rover).

It's hard to understand what you write when you mistake "Administration backs off Bush's vow to reduce Mideast oil imports" as badly as Bush misunderstood "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US". Of course, the laid off Renewable Energy Lab workers make no mistake about Bush's SOTU energy lies.

This is nothing new at all

I'll grant you that yes, prices have come down recently but surely every geek wants our scientific research budgets spent on a much worthier use for nanotubes.

In case anyone wonders, the struggle has been real tough the last week. We're usually a nice country interested in helping others. But when we see our flag and images of our PM being burned in the streets of Gaza, whom we have helped extensively in order to give them peace, we get pissed. It's all over Danish media and has been for months, but Monday the story also broke in the international media, like in New York Times. The 12 cartoons that started the whole thing has been republished in a series of other newspapers Tuesday. Reprints here.

Sometimes it takes guts to fight for freedoms we used to take for granted. "Idealistic" resistance to anything military can cost us dearly.

prison hasn't been a place for rehab for years. according to this judge in the NY times , he says few judges believe in the prison system as a place for rehab.

but the real question as to whether or not this is civil disobediance will be how they act from here on out. If they were doing this because they hated the copyright system, then they now have an international forum to say this and defend the position as a way to fight something they didn't believe in. of course, I highly doubt that is why they did it and will be willing to bet their defense will be some BS which makes no other point other than "hey, I pirated warez and want out now because I'm real sorry".

of course, remember what you imply by your response. you assume that every person who pirates software would never have bought it if it weren't available for download. I"m betting the truth is somehwere in between. But the fine doesn't have anything to do with the book value of those items. The fine they could face is up to a quarter million per title, which is probably something like one hundred million dollars if they have been pirating even a small amount of stuff(400 titles).

The interesting question to ask is "if there were no pirates, would companies have ever started puting security measures on there software". i.e. if the only copying that ever happened was the small scale, let my friends check it out type, would they have taken the time to put software protections schemes in place? no one really knows, but it would seem from my point of view that the answer is no. Every security measure has been taken to prevent copying on a large scale.

[American Exspress Lost] included the names and Social Security numbers of about 70,000 current and former financial advisers and the names and internal account numbers of about 158,000 customers, about 6 percent of its 2.8 million clients.

And shoving your fingers deep into your ears and singing lalala doesn't make anything not true, so thanks for that nugget of information.

My previous statement had two salient points: 1. The NSA tapped or datamined information for possibly thousands of people and inundated the FBI with this information, according to the NYTimes. 2. Noted journalist Christopher Hitchens, a pro-Iraq war writer, has joined the case against the NSA along with the ACLU and EFF.

Further reports indicate that not only Hitchens, but also Christine Amanpour a CNN reporter as well as many others also had their phone tapped. This program was far-reaching, did not follow the FISA requirements, and was lied about by current Attorney General Gonzales while under oath and by President Bush during a press conference.

This program did not merely focus on "immigrants" but on many more people and included domestic calls within the United States.

Finally, these are internet links so I guess they can't be true since the seem to put some rent into your well-defined reality.

Specifically Goddard Institute for Space Studies Director James E. Hansen's allegations of censorship by NASA's public affairs staff. According to him commisars upset with his stand on global warming have been denying journalists official access to him and censoring his lectures, papers and postings on the Goddard Web site.

La La La La LA!!!!

Can't hear you! Not happening! No consensus!

Love,
George

Thats cute. Now see what's he's really doing:

At climate laboratories of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, for example, many scientists who routinely took calls from reporters five years ago can now do so only if the interview is approved by administration officials in Washington, and then only if a public affairs officer is present or on the phone.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/29/science/earth/29 climate.html?hp&ex=1138510800&en=0a858f5230677507& ei=5094&partner=homepage

At least some of Exxon Mobile shareholders will be able to buy up all the high ground to build their houses. If you are 40 or 50 miles away from the ocean, you should be ok though.

The problem is that Bush is ACTIVELY ignoring the problem and actively stifling those who would
give voice to the reality of the problem. I'm sure the fact that the fact that Exxon Mobile
has had record profits this year has absolutely nothing to do with the Exxon's perspective on global
warming.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/30/business/30cnd-e xxon.html?hp&ex=1138683600&en=ed7ac90463244e93&ei= 5094&partner=homepage
I'm also sure that the secret meetings between Bush and the energy sector in the start of his first term
has nothing to do with Bush's disinclination to treat the issue of global warming with any kind of thought that it deserves.

The Bush administration has not placed any priority on climate research. It as if President Bush
doesn't really want to explore lines of research that might discover a link between various climatic
events and the possibility that these events have their roots in man made causes. Disputing various
reports about global warming is one thing, actively derailing avenues of research is another.

1. The Global Precipitation Measurement project has been delayed. This project would have helped us understand what is happending to our climate.
2. The Glory Project has been canceled. This would haved studied the behaviour aerosols in the atmosphere.
3. Our system of "system of environmental satellites is at risk of collapse." warned the National Academy of Sciences warned in April 2005. This happened in an unscheduled report, which underscores the importance that the National Academy of Sciences views this. Of course, the administration will conveniantly use the National Academy of Science when it aligns with their preconcieved notions but ignores them when it doesn't. When the Bush administration asked the NAS to find weaknesses in climate studies to justify their climate policy the commision's report didn't come back to their liking. So they dropped that report and used a study funded by the American Petroleum Institute (an independent unbiased organization fund by GUESS WHO: Exxon). So the Report on the Environment ended up with something that reflected Exxon policy instead of science.
4. Even relatively inexpensive systems like the Earth System Pathfinder missions and Explorer class satellites have been eliminated or subject to prolonged delays.

From
http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/archives/2004/04-1 0-08.html
"To prove that he took the issue of global warming seriously, Marburger shamelessly cited a study that President Bush had commissioned from the National Academy of Sciences. The administration had asked the NAS to find "weaknesses" in climate science studies to justify their efforts to derail an international global warming treaty. When the commissioned report instead confirmed human-induced climate change and mentioned fossil fuels as a major culprit the EPA decided to replace the findings in its Report on the Environment with a discredited study funded by the American Petroleum Institute"
You remember who the American Petroleum Institute is funded by, right?

"Maybe this is a feature of global warming, but maybe not," Polyakov said of the presence of warm Atlantic water in the Arctic Ocean. "We should think about what's causing this, but it's just as important to monitor it."
http://www.sitnews.us/0605news/061205/061205_ak_sc ience.html

Powerful ocean currents are grinding slowly to a halt, raising the possibility of a catastrophic climate "flip" that could chill Europe and warm New Zealand, startling new evidence sug

See for example: James E. Hansen at NASA

Censorship is bad. It's not only in China. It's here (US) too.

i said QUIT YER BITCHIN!! http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/29/science/earth/29 climate.html

Nack when the Chernobyl accident happened, I had a girlfriend whom's dad is a farmer. Now, I live in western Europe, so quite a bit away from Chernobyl, but despite that, this farmer could throw away part of his products of that season due to contamination. He was nto alone in that.
A: Chernobyl was a flawed design
B: I was only listing reported deaths from the accident, which included estimated deaths attributed to increased cancer, primarily due to radioactive iodine release.
C: I'll fully admit that it was a widespread disaster.

You may have noticed (or heard) that there were quite a few people living in the vicinity of the power plant. They had to leave their houses, many of their belongings, and generally spoken, their livelyhood.
Yeah, like chemical spills and contamination haven't ever required relocation.
80% of black population of New Orleans may not return

You may have noticed (or heard) that there were quite a few people living in the vicinity of the power plant. They had to leave their houses, many of their belongings, and generally spoken, their livelyhood.
Like New Orleans? Heck, even like NO, some people stayed behind, and are still living there. The ones allowed to stay were older folks past child-bearing, but many are still around there, and they're dying at ages not much under residents outside the area.

If you believe that the consequences of Chernobyl were 56 dead and thats it then you are stupidly naive.
56 dead and billions of dollars worth of damage from lost crops, contaminated ground and equipment, relocation expenses, emergency measures to build the sarcophagus. Add some more millions for treatment for the treatment costs for the increase in thyroid cancer.

That is not to say that it was worse then Nohpal, it doesn't compare because it is an entirely different kind of accident. Comparing it to the death toll from coal mining makes as little sense because those deaths do not happen in a single accident usually.

People died. You can average it out over number of workers per year, per hours worked, per megawatt produced. While indeed, the big accident has more psychological impact, I care about rate and averages. For example, remember the whole 'air travel is safer than cars' thing? Any individual accident with a plane tends to kill more people than even the worst car wrecks, simply because you have hundreds of people on commercial planes.

Also, little of the fear for nuclear power is based on reason, and no amount of reason is going to 'fix' that fear.
Sadly true. Fortuantly, the two big disasters just keep getting older and older, so hopefully we'll be able to get some uncommon sense into policies soon.

Dr. Hansen is not a crackpot. If you would RTFA, you might see that in fact there is a real censorship issue going on here. There was nothing in the original lecture which should have prompted this sort of behavior from the administration. The lecture provides a very clear and well-supported case for anthropogenic global climate change; one which is anathema to the current administration's well-documented ties to the energy industry.

The real news is that a slashdotter is defaming a well-respected scientist who provides a very good scientific case for something. Oh, wait...

Bush didn't hire him, he's been working at NASA since 1967. Even then, Bush doesn't pay this guy. Congress does.

What this sounds like to me is an attempt to unofficially pressure him withhold his opinion outside of NASA buisness. This administrations seems to be able to get very far by extending plausible deniablity to the realm of policy. They exert pressure unofficialy then back off and say "no we didn't," and it seems to work most of the time.

If you want another demonstration of this in action, the NYT published a very detailed story about US policy in Haiti over the last several years.

See here how CNN sold biased coverage to Saddam in order to keep their newsmen in Baghdad.

Geez, I guess that's what passes for balanced "news" today.

Take bribes from both sides.

It may not be the last laugh, but on Friday afternoon, after the close of the stock market, Steven P. Jobs, the chief executive of Apple Computer, shared an e-mail chuckle with his employees at the expense of Dell, a big rival.

The message was prompted by the 12 percent surge in Apple's stock price last week, which pushed the company's market capitalization to $72.13 billion, passing Dell's value of $71.97 billion.

In 1997, shortly after Mr. Jobs returned to Apple, the company he helped start in 1976, Dell's founder and chairman, Michael S. Dell, was asked at a technology conference what might be done to fix Apple, then deeply troubled financially.

"What would I do?" Mr. Dell said to an audience of several thousand information technology managers. "I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders."

On Friday, apparently savoring the moment, Mr. Jobs sent a brief e-mail message to Apple employees, which read: "Team, it turned out that Michael Dell wasn't perfect at predicting the future. Based on today's stock market close, Apple is worth more than Dell. Stocks go up and down, and things may be different tomorrow, but I thought it was worth a moment of reflection today. Steve."

It's an open question as to whether any purely domestic conversations have been tapped; the administration has claimed not, but there have been leaks to the opposite. There are also serious questions as to whether results from the warrantless wiretaps were used to seek later FISA warrants without informing the judges - causing one FISA judge to resign in protest. The program also seems to have changed at least once based on questions about its legality, so that even if warrants are sought for domestic wiretaps now it doesn't mean this was the case throughout the program. IMO, only an independent investigation by someone with a very high security clearance can sort it out for certain.

Given that this administration seems to be treating vegans as terrorists and this warrantless wiretap program may have been the mother of all dead ends, skepticism is warranted. There are reasons why one branch of government isn't allowed to go off wandering on its own.

Not "has probable cause to search." "Is suspicious of."

Lesson: Your fellow Americans don't care about your privacy, and trust the feds to decide whether or not to search you (and them), without court review, warrants, probable cause, or anything else. Where's PGPfone when we need it?

There isn't much of a privacy argument around an aggregation of the times someone types in "boston hotels" in Google. I think its bullshit that Google is hiding the truth of why they dont want to share this info.

Read more @ NYtimes: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/26/technology/26pri vacy.html?hp&ex=1138251600&en=b4a2e39a6aacb8c1&ei= 5094&partner=homepage

• The refusal for giving data over a subpoena to the US Government has nothing to do with my privacy. See this NY Times article. I hate the fact that Google is pretending that this has anything to do with my privacy. Come on Google, we're not that stupid - if you're worried about your trade secrets, fine, just say so. Don't pretend you're protecting me.
• Rolling over and panting with eagerness to help the communist goons in China hardly qualifies as doing no evil. The whole point of Google's stock structure where the shares of Brin/Page/Schmidt (see here) are worth 10 times the ordinary schmo's shares voting-wise was precisely because they said that this way they could run the company they way they wanted without worrying what the shareholders thought. The only conclusion is that Google wants to be communist enforcers, and is too worried about their valuation to stand up for core values.

Also, I want to ask the Google apologists - how many of you work for Google? If you do, then stop eating the free food and drinking the kool aid.

As someone interested in informational hygeine, it seems to me that a Yahoo! article about the evils of Google is not exactly an unbiased source (seeing as they're -duh- bitter rivals). Nor is the articles claim of Google hypocrisy entirely without irony, as Yahoo! is known to roll over to any government that looks at them crosseyed, regardless of the request's civil rights implications. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/20/technology/20goo gle.html?hp&ex=1137819600&en=827292691dc60fc1&ei=5 094&partner=homepage

I would classify your post as FUD. Google's witholding of data has almost nothing to do with privacy -- rather, they were just trying to protect their trade secrets. See this NY Times article for more information.

So the battle they were picking wasn't a "good" one in the sense that you think it was. They were protecting themselves, not our privacy. Yes, their stock took a dive for a day, but in Google's estimation it's worth it to protect the long-term value of the stock.

I myself read it as "Sony kills off Abbas, Qurei"

Duncan Harris, senior director of security assurance for Oracle, said in an interview with SecurityFocus.
"What David Litchfield has done is put our customers at risk."

This is the same argument that the Bush Administration used when the NYTimes published their story about how Bush & Co. are conducting domestic spying operations in the US.
Bush & Co. said this story should not have been published because it makes us less safe.

So instead of acknowledging your shortcomings or wrongdoing, you blame the messenger. This is not very fair in my opinion.
Why doesn't Oracle just acknowledge the problem and then fix it?

But still, the amount of time it takes for to pop up has little to do with an increase in processor power. If you want to give comparisons like that to lay-persons, thats fine. Its just that this one in particular doesn't prove anything one way or the other, and the fact that he even cites it proves his lack of any real technical prowess (therefore killing any authority he has in the first place).

The comment would be legitiately "Insightful" if Pogue were using web pages as a measure of processor power. However for those who bother to read the article will discover, he doesn't. In fact engagebot's argument is a straw man.

What you'll discover is that the new iMac is deliciously fast when it's running Intel-ready software. Just turning the machine on is a joy, because starting up now takes 20 seconds instead of 60, like the previous model; you'll want to do it again and again. Programs open up a lot faster, too: GarageBand, for example, is ready for your musical inspiration in only 9 seconds, rather than 20. Web pages appear startlingly quickly: nytimes.com pops open in about 1 second (versus 2), Amazon is ready in 2 seconds (versus 4) and MSN appears in 6 seconds (versus 8).

Pogue is clearly describing how fast the new Intel-Macs feel doing things the the old Power-Macs do, but with the new Intel-based universal applications. No reference to the CPU here, none to megafoofoos-per-second, bajillions-of-fakestones, or other like esoterica. Not even the Intel processor makes these faster. Just that this new Intel Mac boots fast and runs these Intel-compiled apps just as well or better then the older Macs.

In case anyone was too obtuse to clearly understand this the next paragraph makes this absolutely clear by spelling it out:

In other words, if your computer world is complete with programs for e-mail, the Web, word processing, graphics viewing, music playing and editing of photos, movies, basic Web sites and music tracks, then choosing the IntelliMac over the regular iMac is a no-brainer. The computer comes preloaded with all the software you need, all Intel-ready. You get a heck of a lot more speed for the same price.

"Speed". Not CPU speed, just speed. Indeed later in the article he takes care to point out all of the places where things run slower, and why, and how some won't run at all.

So, the only one "therefore killing any authority he has in the first place" is engagebot for setting up a completely false argument then using it to grind his own axe. And whoever so carelessly moderated his posting as "Insightful".

But still, the amount of time it takes for to pop up has little to do with an increase in processor power. If you want to give comparisons like that to lay-persons, thats fine. Its just that this one in particular doesn't prove anything one way or the other, and the fact that he even cites it proves his lack of any real technical prowess (therefore killing any authority he has in the first place).

The comment would be legitiately "Insightful" if Pogue were using web pages as a measure of processor power. However for those who bother to read the article will discover, he doesn't. In fact engagebot's argument is a straw man.

What you'll discover is that the new iMac is deliciously fast when it's running Intel-ready software. Just turning the machine on is a joy, because starting up now takes 20 seconds instead of 60, like the previous model; you'll want to do it again and again. Programs open up a lot faster, too: GarageBand, for example, is ready for your musical inspiration in only 9 seconds, rather than 20. Web pages appear startlingly quickly: nytimes.com pops open in about 1 second (versus 2), Amazon is ready in 2 seconds (versus 4) and MSN appears in 6 seconds (versus 8).

Pogue is clearly describing how fast the new Intel-Macs feel doing things the the old Power-Macs do, but with the new Intel-based universal applications. No reference to the CPU here, none to megafoofoos-per-second, bajillions-of-fakestones, or other like esoterica. Not even the Intel processor makes these faster. Just that this new Intel Mac boots fast and runs these Intel-compiled apps just as well or better then the older Macs.

In case anyone was too obtuse to clearly understand this the next paragraph makes this absolutely clear by spelling it out:

In other words, if your computer world is complete with programs for e-mail, the Web, word processing, graphics viewing, music playing and editing of photos, movies, basic Web sites and music tracks, then choosing the IntelliMac over the regular iMac is a no-brainer. The computer comes preloaded with all the software you need, all Intel-ready. You get a heck of a lot more speed for the same price.

"Speed". Not CPU speed, just speed. Indeed later in the article he takes care to point out all of the places where things run slower, and why, and how some won't run at all.

So, the only one "therefore killing any authority he has in the first place" is engagebot for setting up a completely false argument then using it to grind his own axe. And whoever so carelessly moderated his posting as "Insightful".

Ya' know, this study is really interesting, but the so-called "journalism" practiced by the folks at Livescience is highly, highly suspect. This article is poorly written, and has implicit conclusions built into the "facts" it reports on -- it makes the whole thing hard to trust. Of course, it's not like this is a heck of a lot better...

If you learn political ideology from the Daily Show, you are an idiot.

I used to joke that I got all my news from The Daily Show, Doonesbury, and The Onion, but it's not really true. I actually do learn things from these, but mainly I like them because I am well informed about the news.

My alarm clock is set to NPR at 6:00 a.m., and I continue to listen to it during my commute. I read at least the headlines in my local paper and the New York Times every day, and of course, I read Slashdot obsessively. At least for me, the reason I love shows that make fun of the news, like The Daily Show, and Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me is because I am liberal, intelligent, educated, and informed.

On a side note, and totally seriously, I'm not trying to troll, can you recommend a conservative pundit that isn't an idiot? For instance, I read the comic strip Prickly City which seems to me to have a conservative slant. Sometimes it aggravates me, but I keep reading it because sometimes I agree with it, and sometimes it's worth it to see another person's point of view. All I know about conservative pundits is O'Reilly, and Limbaugh. I agree that it's not worth it to listen to idiots. I think Al Franken took the wrong tack by trying to bring his views to their level. So, I would like to see conservative arguments presented intelligently, even humorously. Maybe I would enjoy them too.

"We will not pull back on our commitments to employees," Ms. Brown said. "The last thing we would do is take it out of the hide of our employees. That is a path to a downward spiral."

Against whom has abuse been proven? Who has successfully won a trial against the government yet? Oh, that's right, no one. There have been a few suits putting the "burden of proof" on the government to prove they haven't tapped the plantifs. Those suits have been filed, not won. I won't call you a terrorist supporter. Just uninformed.

And if you can't understand why it's important to at least try and protect children, then I don't know what to say. If your porn is that important to you... That's just sad.

How's that for starters?

Umm... irrelevant?

NASDAQ fell 3% Friday due to increased petroleum prices. Google fell 8% (RTFA).

So, you're saying Google was "overvalued" because investors hadn't realized Google relies on oil-fired servers? And what's this got to do with the subpoena?

I don't follow.

How's that for starters?

Umm... irrelevant?

NASDAQ fell 3% Friday due to increased petroleum prices. Google fell 8% (RTFA).

So, you're saying Google was "overvalued" because investors hadn't realized Google relies on oil-fired servers? And what's this got to do with the subpoena?

I don't follow.

The Post.Blog wasn't closed down - comments were disabled. The New York Times corrected the article.

"Correction: Jan. 20, 2006: An earlier version of this story reported incorrectly that The Washington Post had closed a blog. The blog has not been shut; it has stopped accepting comments from readers."

disclaimer: i'm an intern at washingtonpost.com; my words are solely mine and not the Company's

Don't forget this (found on another /. thread just today)

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/18/technology/circu its/19POGUE-EMAIL.html

1. Use the strongest language possible. Calling names is always effective, and four-letter words show that you mean business. 6. If you find a sentence early in the article that rubs you the wrong way, you are by no means obligated to finish reading. Stop right where you are--express your anger while it's still good and hot! What are the odds that the writer is going to say anything else relevant to your point later in the piece, anyway? Bravo! http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/18/technology/circu its/19POGUE-EMAIL.html

One of Pogue's observations, which is by no means original, was that this sort of thing is partially driven by anonymity. You can say the meanest, most unreasonable, stupid crap in an e-mail or blog comment, and there are no consequences. If you want, you don't even have to deal with the consequence of a reasoned reply or rebuttal.

The Post could employ some automatic filters to weed out some of the worst offenders, and thus it seems hard to believe their claim that it was requiring two full-time moderators to keep out the blog comments that violated their standards. Either those were some pretty heavy standards that made context such an issue that automated filtering was ineffective, or their web guys are pretty inept.

- Greg