Slashdot Mirror

Not a single American was killed on U.S. soil by citizens from any of those countries between 1975 and 2015, according to statistics tallied by the conservative-leaning Cato Institute.

However, the same set of statistics show that nearly 3,000 Americans were killed by citizens from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt in the same time period - with the bulk of those killed being victims of the 9/11 attacks. Yet, people from those three countries are still welcome to apply for U.S. visas and travel permits.

In a striking parallel, Trump’s sprawling business empire — which he has refused to rescind ownership of — holds multi-million dollar licensing and development deals in all of those countries, raising potential conflict of interest concerns and alarming questions over what actually went into the decision process behind Friday’s executive order.

References for information in your post: Who Hasn’t Trump Banned? People From Places Where He’s Done Business

... Trump has kicked the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Director of National Intelligence off the National Security Council and installed Steve Bannon in their place.

That's because Trump Administration Defends Bannon’s Role on Security Council:

“Well, he is a former naval officer,” Mr. Spicer said of Mr. Bannon on ABC’s “This Week.” “He’s got a tremendous understanding of the world and the geopolitical landscape that we have now.”

And I sure that vast experience from his 7 years in the Navy from the late 1970s to early 1980s:

Bannon was an officer in the United States Navy for seven years in the late 1970s and early 1980s, serving on the destroyer USS Paul F. Foster as a Surface Warfare Officer in the Pacific Fleet and stateside as a special assistant to the Chief of Naval Operations at the Pentagon.

Makes him *way* more valuable than the, "four-star general who heads the Joint Chiefs, Joseph F. Dunford Jr., who rose through the Marine Corps and served in Iraq and Afghanistan." who was on the NSC. (from the NY Times article above) /sarcasm

At least with Trump, this will be a HUGE shit-show, the biggest, best shit-show ...

Syria is the only country mentioned in the executive order. The rest were countries that were already on lists for being safe havens for terrorists.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/0...

As a way to somehow (but not completely because I still think that you shouldn't have criticised me so blindly) apologise for the too-hard-tone of my previous message, I recommend you to take a look at his last ban of refugees.

It is easy to forget (I kind of did) that the USA is a presidential system, where the president can do quite a few things. Trump is using such a power already and, what is much worse, is starting to change the way in which everything is supposed to work (I wrote some ideas in other comments in this thread that you might want to read).

It's closer, however not because of Trump. He moved it back probably to just 6:00 PM. However North Korea is trying to get the H bomb, want us to believe they have one and they're exporting this knowledge to bad countries, such as Iran.

Hillary while she was Scty of state worked out a deal for Russians to get Uranium from Canada - https://www.nytimes.com/2015/0... (NY Times because so many of you don't believe anything else). Now they're giving it to Iran - http://www.foxnews.com/world/2... .

We know they want bombs. We know they can do it. What could go wrong, right? Mad Mad Mad world folks.

I said the "administrative class" and I meant it. Yes, the cost of everything you've named has gone down shockingly as a result of automation. However, those costs have been replaced by even more expensive things. Payroll clerks have been replaced by things like "Title IX administrators" and not on a one for one basis--there are MORE of these people than there were payroll clerks.

NY Times Op-Ed piece on the subject contains this gem:

By contrast, a major factor driving increasing costs is the constant expansion of university administration. According to the Department of Education data, administrative positions at colleges and universities grew by 60 percent between 1993 and 2009, which Bloomberg reported was 10 times the rate of growth of tenured faculty positions.

Even more strikingly, an analysis by a professor at California Polytechnic University, Pomona, found that, while the total number of full-time faculty members in the C.S.U. system grew from 11,614 to 12,019 between 1975 and 2008, the total number of administrators grew from 3,800 to 12,183 — a 221 percent increase.

So in the period where we've seen massive improvements in administrative automation (as you yourself note) we've decreased the ratio of professions to admin bodies from around 3:1 to 1:1. Is it any wonder that educational costs are out of control?

Apparently there were, but the media did not make anything of those: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/0...

Best buy a paper copy...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07...

Better treat it with some fire protection stuff - apparently Fahrenheit 451 is also pretty high on the list...

Cars are at the point where people are having problems affording them, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/0... [nytimes.com].

You linked an article that says cars are more affordable in some cities than others, and that the median-income household can't afford the average price of a new car. That's a statistical trick: you're confounding between different classes. There are economy cars, luxury cars, and loads of things in-between.

In the real world, families buy lots of new cars. The price paid for a new car is typically 56% of the household income--$30,000 for the median income--financed over a 5-year loan. That's been true for decades.

Let's take a look at the argument on your link:

In San Jose, Calif. — the heart of Silicon Valley — the median income is about $84,000, and an “affordable” new car purchase price is about $33,000 — close to, but still below, the average new car price.

$33,000 is only 39% of the median income. How does that compare to history?

In 1950 the average income per year was $3,210.00 and by 1959 was $5,010.00. In 1950 the average cost of new car was $1,510.00 and by 1959 was $2,200.00

In 1950, the average cost of a new car was 47% of the average income. In 1959, it was 44%.

$33,000 on a 5-year loan at 3.3% is only $600/month. That's out of a $4,900 after-tax income. That's only 12%, and leaves $4,300/month to spend on food, rent, etc. Hell, I'm looking at buying a car at that price, and I don't make $84,000.

Do I have to even link to stories about health care, education, or housing prices

People spend more on healthcare, and buy better healthcare today. They spent 4% in the 1980s and spent 6% in 2000, and received better care.

I addressed housing prices elsewhere. There are a number of issues. One is that mortgage rate changes have caused a $120,000 house that garnered a $1,200/month mortgage to now sell for $350,000 with a $1,200/month mortgage. Another is that houses have gotten bigger over time and, trending over decades, the price of housing per square foot continues to decrease; while trending over shorter terms, it fluctuates due to being a semi-commodity (bought and sold by owners, rather than newly-produced).

Workforce development--the thing used as "education" so we don't have to talk about education--was moved off the risk and responsibility of businesses and onto the shoulders of the individual. This is wasteful and has caused out-of-control costs in the collegiate system. That's a known issue due to specific bad policy.

Your simple model is deeply flawed and doesn't account for things like farmers turning their farms into developments if they can't get good prices for their crops due to over production.

It doesn't attempt to describe that; I described money and technical progress to demonstrate that inflation and income are not tied together as a zero-sum game.

Inflation tells me people are losing ground.

Then you don't understand what inflation is. You understand what you see and inappropriately attribute things you don't like to things you can identify. This is the same as when you go to a poverty-stricken inner city, notice the level of crime, and identify that black people have an in-born genetic propensity to rape, murder, and drugs because 98% of the people in the city are black--as opposed to identifying the social pressures surrounding the people in the city, such as poverty and racism.

Best buy a paper copy...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07...

When I was a kid, friends of my family who travelled to the Soviet Union during the cold war told me stories of visiting "refuseniks" (ie, Jewish families who were not permitted to get out of the country). I remember distinctly the story of how they used to write on those kids toys-- a writing pad with some kind of black wax on it and an opaque plastic sheet that would flip over the wax. You'd write a message on the plastic and it would stick to the plastic so you could read it, then you'd lift the plastic, the writing would "go away"...

This I was told was how families would talk in the 1970s because of microphones planted in their apartment, invading their privacy, etc. (Never mind the opsec of a wax impression of everything you wrote isn't that great...)

The point is, I'm blown away by the willingness to plop an omnidirectional microphone in the middle of your house. Even if you think you have "nothing to hide"-- maybe your guests do? Maybe you'll say something incredibly embarrassing or revealing or compromising your financial status... never reveal your passwords over the phone? Safe words? Sexual practices? Fetishes? Non-traditional relationships? Gossip? Family secrets? Controversial political views? Drug habits? Health issues? No secrets? Really?

I dunno-- every technology has its pluses and minuses which you gotta balance... yeah cell phones and your laptop have mics and cameras too... But given the fact that fucking Facebook quizzes are being used against you, is it really such a good idea to have an always-on pair of ears specifically designed to be listening?

(Also, don't leave your windows open, your computer speaker on, or your radios on, because I've got a software defined radio. And if you happen to have a text-to-voice browser going, "HELLO COMPUTER PLAY CLASSICAL MUSIC."

For example, he claims that up to 42% in the US are out of work.

No he didn't

“The number’s probably 28, 29, as high as 35. In fact, I even heard recently 42 percent.” The Real Jobless Rate Is 42 Percent? Donald Trump Has a Point, Sort Of

Saying you heard something isn't the same as you saying something is a fact.
In fact, The United States Labor Force Participation Rate is 62.7%, so 1 - 0.627 = 0.337, that's pretty close to his "probably" numbers.

I notice you didn't mention the price of shelter, education, health care, or transportation. Cars are at the point where people are having problems affording them, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/0.... Do I have to even link to stories about health care, education, or housing prices? So what if the new gadget is cheaper. If your wages can't afford those big items you are screwed.

Your simple model is deeply flawed and doesn't account for things like farmers turning their farms into developments if they can't get good prices for their crops due to over production. This is partly why family farms are disappearing, the kids of the farmers see more money in real estate development.

Inflation tells me people are losing ground. The trend I see is more and more ostensibly middle class people, including myself, shopping in thrift stores, using craigslist, or going sites like free cycle. The middle class is in trouble.

Seems in Texas, "other people's money" hasn't been an issue. But we do not just hand out "welfare" to everybody who asks here...

Texas throws around a lot of other people's money to corporations. In fact, they lead the nation in giving other people's money to corporations.

http://www.bizjournals.com/san...

https://www.texasobserver.org/...

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12...

Contrast this with the incoming administration which wants to favor fossil fuels above pretty much all else https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/27/us/politics/donald-trump-global-warming-energy-policy.html, http://www.nature.com/news/trump-s-next-move-scientists-struggle-with-foggy-future-1.21339.

Yes and I read several OTHER studies proving this is false ONCE you compensate for Charter Schools exclusion of disadvantaged kids.
As for Michigan, half the Charters do a POORER job than do public schools stuck with the "unteachables"A truly shitty solution.

Since you seem to know the basics of ANN-based AI but not the details, check this article out to get into the current decade, it's a good overview of how much resources it really takes to do ANN right: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/1...

I seem to have no idea what you are asserting or relevance of this New York times article. It does not address the topic at hand, offers no useful technical details and does not address the premise of my point -- there exists a massive difference in computational requirements between training vs using trained networks.

For example when level 5 self driving cars hit the roads they will be executing against trained networks locally without "the cloud". ANN based systems generally have this property.

Summary is: sure you can do really crappy NLP locally, but what Google has started doing is at another level entirely. And that's not even at the level that will be required to really get "intelligent agents" to be truly useful. The limiting factor to ANN right now is computing power (and/or much more special purpose hardware). That's the reason it was nearly abandoned 20 years ago and revived recently - it was impossible with the previous concepts of "supercomputers", etc and now only with massively distributed computing has it been possible to actually simulate the multilevel networks required.

My own opinion why these things don't see daylight is primarily the value proposition was always so weak in the first place. People are happy with tools that only cover trivial aspects such as managing their schedule, contacts and some interactions with local and external datasets to find common shit like a someone's number or nearest MC Donald's. Speech recognition industry has seen a near total collapse of vendors and crickets in terms of research dollars over the last couple decades. Using Siri/Cortana/Alexa does not make the user more productive or assist them in getting their jobs done.. it is a wiz-bang cool gimmick that many people lose interest in over time. The utility of IA is it's role as "glue". It doesn't need to be anything approaching AGI to be useful to me.

And then you look at other states that are failing

Other states have:

*Taxes that are devastating on people with lower incomes
*Instead of randomly belaboring a single data point, consider the whole picture, including the nastiness of total local government debt
*A regulatory and legal climate that leads to exposure to pollution and injury risks
*Decades old reports with schools that are some of the worst in the nation being hysteria to justify even worse results
*Huge backlogs of road work necessary across the country, and a refusal to pay for it
*Increasing income inequality
*Huge drug problems in rural areas.

I can drop links on you all day, don't pester California or San Francisco when you live in a glass house yourself.

And then you look at other states that are failing

Other states have:

*Taxes that are devastating on people with lower incomes
*Instead of randomly belaboring a single data point, consider the whole picture, including the nastiness of total local government debt
*A regulatory and legal climate that leads to exposure to pollution and injury risks
*Decades old reports with schools that are some of the worst in the nation being hysteria to justify even worse results
*Huge backlogs of road work necessary across the country, and a refusal to pay for it
*Increasing income inequality
*Huge drug problems in rural areas.

I can drop links on you all day, don't pester California or San Francisco when you live in a glass house yourself.

Current systems are more than capable of doing NLP and voice recognition locally. Even if you go with generic ANN approach for recognition you don't need exotic hardware to use a trained network. Granted all of this requires specialized skills but far from unreasonable.

Since you seem to know the basics of ANN-based AI but not the details, check this article out to get into the current decade, it's a good overview of how much resources it really takes to do ANN right: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/1...

Summary is: sure you can do really crappy NLP locally, but what Google has started doing is at another level entirely. And that's not even at the level that will be required to really get "intelligent agents" to be truly useful. The limiting factor to ANN right now is computing power (and/or much more special purpose hardware). That's the reason it was nearly abandoned 20 years ago and revived recently - it was impossible with the previous concepts of "supercomputers", etc and now only with massively distributed computing has it been possible to actually simulate the multilevel networks required.

How many spies and saboteurs with well-placed bombs (or high-powered rifles) would it take to disable the power grid? Not many, I would think. There are a lot of threats besides 'the cyber.'

Far more than it takes to set a flag on a C&C server. Those spies and saboteurs also have to be physically present around the time of the coordinated attack, increasing the risk they'll be caught, and the opportunity for them to double-cross the attacker and reveal the plan to the target.

On the other hand, malware can lurk for years undetected from a single entry point. A small team of sub-sub-sub-contracted service technicians can deploy malware to an embedded system, and walk away. Sufficiently advanced threats can hide their traffic inside the normal monitoring operations of the utility, cross through the network, and even add personnel records, effectively making their actions look like legitimate employee operations until they shut everything down.

Targeting infrastructure has been a military strategy for as long as there have been militaries. Modern tactics, however, focus on efficiency. If five malware-assisted spies can take down a target country's utilities with no risk, why spend the budgeted resources to recruit and train (and possibly extract) fifty to do the same job? That budget can then go toward hiring cryptographers to decrypt the target's movement orders, so you spend less budgeted resources trying to find the enemy units. That leaves more budget to use on building better bombs and guidance systems, and so on.

Ultimately, the goal is to win the war. With modern society relying on border-crossing communications, it is no longer really important who can put supplies into what territory, as was important until around 1960. Now, it's important to convince the locals that you're protecting them from the evil oppressive enemy, and doing that means minimizing civilian deaths. Better targeted bombs, better intel, and attacks that don't involve blowing up a power plant full of civilian workers, are all ways to reduce your side's death count.

Security is something for professionals like us to think about always while we're working, but it's not something to panic about. A lot of these news stories like this one are designed to spread panic...

There's very little panic, except for a few uninformed headlines where a laptop with malware became a complete takeover of the US power grid. On the other hand, the DNC hack is a great example of how information-based warfare will be conducted, and the news article you linked explains it well. Unlike Watergate, there was never a Russian physical presence in the DNC. There's nobody in the US that can be arrested for it. After the initial breaches, there was almost no evidence of the digital presence. The reality of the situation once it was discovered was met with skeptics like you, who underestimate how useful such an attack could be.

While that holds true, the attacks won't likely escalate. As soon as an enemy attacks the American power grid, every American company will treat information attacks more seriously, and the low-hanging fruit will disappear.

...and to increase power to those who are spreading panic.

There's nobody really getting more power from this, though, except for a few hucksters who are selling fraudulent security systems. The threats have been real and the attacks have been ongoing for the past few decades, and the people who have been wise enough to care have found that there are solutions available. There are backup generators and UPSes protecting vital systems from outages of the power grid. There are airgaps and mitigations protecting secret information. There are encryption algorithms and opsec protocols protecting identities... Security is cheap, but it is very user-driven. The user has to care for security

How many spies and saboteurs with well-placed bombs (or high-powered rifles) would it take to disable the power grid? Not many, I would think. There are a lot of threats besides 'the cyber.'

Security is something for professionals like us to think about always while we're working, but it's not something to panic about. A lot of these news stories like this one are designed to spread panic, and to increase power to those who are spreading panic.

They are frightening because they make no sense, because of the utter disarray of their existence. “They run around the floors like they’re on crack, and then they die,” he said. “They’re freakin’ crazy, man.” link: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12...

Citations please? Yea, I didn't think so. You just didn't like him so you're grabbing onto anything to support your view. Even if it's total BS.
You held onto Hillary even though she's a traitor (The e-mail server problem is a violation of the Espionage act, so she's a traitor), she's saw to it when she was secretary of state to sell uranium to the Russians - https://www.nytimes.com/2015/0... . She's corrupt as hell with her "foundation" that's reminiscent of Evita Perone, the fascist dictator's wife.... and so on and so on and so on. You'll overlook everything just as people overlooked Hitler's flaws. Very few differences between Hitler and Hillary when you get right down to it.

So racism? Example?
Sexism? Example?
Cruelty? Example?

There are none, even though Hillary's campaign tried even to buy people to say he was sexist. One by one we showed they were simply paid actors. Good actors. They fooled you. Soros had a lot to lose after all. He lost billions when she lost. He spent billions on her winning so he could make a trillion. You're what he calls - "a useful idiot." Not being a troll here, they actually think that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

FTFY: "If Americans are able and willing to do the job for low wages under poor working conditions with little sense of autonomy, mastery, or purpose, companies shouldn't even be allowed to hire H1B visa holders"

Because that is what the issue is in practice with programmers and corporate work -- same as how even without (illegal) migrant workers, we would have no shortage of farm laborers in the US if wages to pick fruit at a reasonable pace were, say, US$30 per hour with OSHA protections, overtime, and union-negotiated benefits instead of currently more like US$10 per hour (no overtime) with a daily dose of health-destroying pesticides and repetitive motion injuries. Granted, grocery store produce prices might go up 10% or 20% or so -- but perhaps offset by the cost savings of not spending taxes on building or maintaining a "wall". Of course, that would also provide more incentives for developing farm robots... http://www.nytimes.com/roomfor...

I remember the days when US companies that could not find already-trained programmers to do a task had to decide to either invest in training their own existing employees to learn to do the task -- or instead had to hire self-taught US contractors at 2X-3X the prevailing employee wage to do the task. Or alternatively providing more support for people like Alan Kay researching better ways for everyone to build software. Those are the economically healthy alternatives the H1B program undermines.

People advocating hypotheticals based on popular vote are arguing on the basis that fairness (majority wins) should override methodology (Electoral College). The problem with arguing Clinton should've won the election based on fairness is you're artificially limiting the election to just two candidates. Clinton and Trump only got 93.97% of the vote. Your "fair" projection disenfranchises 6.03% of the voters

So in the interest of fairness, say you include as many of those 6% as you can. If you add up the votes for the liberal candidates (Clinton, Stein, Sanders, Riva), you get 49.22%. If you add up the votes for the conservative candidates (Trump, Johnson, McMullin, Castle) you get 49.89%. So in all fairness, based on the popular vote the correct winner of this election should be a conservative candidate.

Also, California's last Republican Senator was John Seymour. (Appointed to replace Pete Wilson, who ran for and won the governorship in the first election I was allowed to vote in. The Republicans had made it a priority to get him elected as governor because the 1990 census was being conducted and the governor could veto the gerrymandering Democrats had done to the state's districts.) And the problems you cite (weak economy, broke government floated on large companies) pre-date Schwarzenegger. Gov. Davis was recalled due to California's poor economy following the dot-com bubble bursting, and the huge budget deficit. Schwarzenegger didn't cause these problems as you claim - he was elected because of these problems. Finally, the governor doesn't control the budget. The legislature does. All the governor can do is sign or veto whatever the legislature passes. And the last time California had Republicans controlling even one branch of the state legislature was the '95-96 state assembly.

So it was Democrats who are responsible for every California problem you cite.

The only time I can think of where Obama attacked some specific, average guy just doing his job, he realized he fucked up and invited him to the White House for beers and things ended amicably. Trump did it unapologetically before even taking office and the guy hadn't even wronged anyone but Trump.

Presidents need to be bigger than that.

Good includes the fact that he's not dependent on campaign contributors like almost all major politicians are.

Um, what planet are you living on?

http://www.politicususa.com/2016/12/31/corruption-overload-trumps-club-sold-tickets-president-elect-years-eve-party.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/29/us/politics/inauguration-donald-trump-president.html?_r=0

Certainly smarter than Obama

DeVos alone as education secretary is enough to make up for any slack in other picks. She may actually be able to help fix the dire state of public education.

***FACEPALM***

https://www.washingtonpost.com...
http://www.theatlantic.com/edu...
https://theintercept.com/2017/...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/0...

Men are the ones who are deciding NOT to treat prostate cancer. They don't want to go through life wearing a diaper because of incontinence caused by surgery for something that can be left untreated because, as I pointed out, it won't be what kills them in the end. Or hormone therapy that means they have to go around in summer wearing bulky jackets to hide their new man-boobs. Or, for younger men, permanent impotence.

So no, I'm not furthering any stereotype, you jerk. I'm well aware of the problems they go through - had someone I knew who didn't tell anyone, went on hormone therapy to kill off his testosterone, and went around in a bulk jacket even in hot weather. Finally it was his wife who clued me in. This was before we knew that it is usually far better to wait and see, because in most cases, it won't be what kills you. He could have avoided years of embarrassment.

If I get you outraged enough to actually throw away the stereotype that all cancers must be treated aggressively, and look at the facts, I'd say that a bit of trolling has done some good. Same as always when nothing else will jar people out of their complacency. :-) Because the treatment options still suck big time.

Big difference between the 1% and the .01%.

The 1% has a lot of doctors/dentists, lawyers, accountants, engineers, educated people who are going to push their kids to get educated.

http://www.nytimes.com/package...

To put it a different way, the 1% value education because for the most part it's why they're the 1%. The values you pass to your kids matter far more than the money.

Kids from families with high incomes have significantly higher test scores; highly competitive universities will therefore overwhelmingly select from high-income families even if they exclusively select based on test scores. So, there is nothing particularly surprising about this result, nor does it demonstrate any kind of discrimination of selective colleges against low income kids.

You can now debate about whether high income causes kids to have high test scores, i.e., if you only gave kids from poor families more money, they'd be doing just as well. That is true to some very limited degree: kids who lack essentials (food, clean water, etc.) are held back by that, but fixing those problems can't increase their intelligence beyond their potential.

Most of the correlation is likely primarily caused by the fact that smart parents tend to have smart kids (through a combination of nature and nurture), and that high test scores and high incomes simply result from that.

This article perfectly encapsulates the extent to which globalists are scared and their complete lack of denial on the inequalities globalism has created:

Davos Elite Fret About Inequality Over Vintage Wine and Canapes

Much of this year's Davos meetings have been globalist hand-wringing over the surge in populism and the rejection of globalism, and the majority of Davos speakers are rejecting any notion of increases in labor negotiating or doing anything substantive about reducing economic inequality.

The article author does a pretty good job in questioning why the Davos globalists are unwilling to do anything that directly addresses the issues that have substantially led to an increase in anti-globalist sentiment.

I think you can create all kinds of narratives about why Hillary lost, and Hillary's personality/image had a lot to do with it, but I think a lot of it had to do with the attitude that Hillary was a big corporation globalist at the end of the day.

You mentioned "next 4 years" as if that were a Trump thing, but you've got it backwards.

Nope, it's forwards, the reality.

Trump appears to be completely pro-consumer in his dealings with corporations; or in other words, a "populist" leader.

Trump appears. That's the correct choice of words. He appears. Actually is.

Recently he came out against the anti-consumer policies of big pharma, and intends to put pressure on them to reduce consumer costs overall.

You mean he randomly babbled a pointless bit of words that mean nothing, and you bought it.

He's met with several companies and suggested that there will be a tariff on off-shored work, with the result that several companies are pledging to keep work in America.

You mean he's met with several companies and offered to hand them taxpayer dollars if they pretend to have work in the country.

He's also convinced Boeing to reduce costs, which isn't a consumer benefit per-se, but it saves the government from being fleeced by Boeing a little.

You mean he randomly spouted his mouth off (again, this is a habit of his), and complained about something that wasn't even real.

It really appears that he's serious about making things better for the people.

Based on what? His complete lack of authenticity and genuineness in his speeches and mannerisms?

He's done a small amount before being elected, and appears to be trying to keep that campaign promise.

When the article about minimum H1B salaries of $100K, people were saying "well, he got one thing right".

Give him a chance.

He might actually make things better.

Nope. He has to change. Stop blathering, stop lambasting, stop acting like a tantrum toddler.

You know, start growing up and acting adult. Not being an asshole.

I don't understand why heads of state don't assume they're being spied on.

By allies? You think there wouldn't be consequences if Greece was caught tapping Obama's Blackberry? This is hand waiving.

I assume all my countries allies are listening to POTUS's unencrypted phone, and all of congressmen's.

But if they do something about it, then we should ramp up for WWIII.

A fifty year old speech from MLK is apropos, just change "white moderate" to "liberal":

I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice..."

This is the line of thinking that leads people to be more outraged by whistleblowers than they are by the fact that their taxpayer dollars are supporting boy-fucking on military bases - a practice revealed by Wikileaks.

Look at you wind yourself up and let yourself go. When you decide to discuss things rationally let me know.

Says the person who who thinks whistleblowing is an unforgivable crime, but boy-fucking is just a distraction from the conversation. Let me know when you actually care about violations of the law. In the meantime, your tax dollars continue to support boy-fucking. Enjoy.

As I documented in those articles I posted, the ratio of Palestinians killed to Israelis killed is about ten to one. Most of those thousands of rockets fall harmlessly without injuring anyone. A few of them injured Israelis, and even fewer killed Israelis. The Israelis respond with massive retaliation, killing dozens, hundreds or thousands of Palestinians.

Meaningless statistic. Being better at war isn't a crime. Firing rockets is an act of war, even if they are destroyed. Do you expect an aircraft carrier to sit and let an enemy boat fire missiles at it all day and not respond because the CWS is able to take out the missiles?

As I also documented, the Palestinians have made many proposals to stop the fighting, and Israel has responded by killing the Palestinians who made peace offers and escalating the fighting. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11... [nytimes.com] Israel's Shortsighted Assassination By Gershon Baskin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

So has Israel, what is your point? Ever peace negotiation has ended with the Palestinians storming off with a refusal to acknowledge Israel's sovereignty. You can't negotiate with people who refuse to acknowledge your rights.

Look, just admit it, you are blind to one side's attacks and only see the "horror" of Israel attacking in self defense.

I don't give a fuck if I'm voted down as a troll or not.

Typical depraved authoritarian groupthink. If you gave two shits about the lawwww, you would in fact demand that Manning and Snowden spend time in prison - behind every politician and official who were revealed to have broken the law by their leaks.

Take FISA just for starters. Up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine for each offense. You guys demanding that Obama be sentenced to a few million years in prison and be fined a quadrillion dollars for tapping every phone call in the US without a warrant?

And then, "Sensitive" "Male", what about the boy fucking in Afghanistan? It was Wikileaks that revealed the contractors were engaged in child rape trafficking. You'll be happy to know that Hillary's State Department cleared itself of any wrong doing in the trafficking. But now it's just "old news", like Obama's drone strikes and repeal of habeas corpus, and soldiers are told to STFU and forget they saw anything.

But you DGAF about any of that, because you're a mindless authoritarian goon.

As I documented in those articles I posted, the ratio of Palestinians killed to Israelis killed is about ten to one. Most of those thousands of rockets fall harmlessly without injuring anyone. A few of them injured Israelis, and even fewer killed Israelis. The Israelis respond with massive retaliation, killing dozens, hundreds or thousands of Palestinians.

As I also documented, the Palestinians have made many proposals to stop the fighting, and Israel has responded by killing the Palestinians who made peace offers and escalating the fighting. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11... Israel's Shortsighted Assassination By Gershon Baskin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

I've been following the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since the 1970s. At one time I was raising money for technology development and medical research in Israel. In the 1970s, it made me very uncomfortable to see that the Israelis were killing many Palestinians, and it was rare for a Palestinian to kill an Israeli. What disturbed me most of all was the cases of Israelis killing innocent children -- not teenagers in demonstrations but young children, even 4-year-olds.

I used to wonder why the Palestinians didn't respond to these killings with violence of their own, and finally they did, although the suicide bombings and bus attacks were more horrific than I had ever expected.

The Israelis responded with what their generals and politicians actually called "disproportionate force" (until their laywers told them to shut up because it was a violation of international law). A Palestinian faction (often opposed to Hamas) would fire a rocket which landed harmlessly in a field, and the IDF would respond with a massive response that would kill Palestinians (who sometimes had nothing to do with the original attack).

An MIT professor once prepared a report which showed that the Palestinians would fire a rocket, and the Israelis would fire back with a massive response. Sometimes there would be a long pause in the Palestinian rocket attacks -- and the Israelis would launch another attack to provoke them.

And the IDF would shoot and kill non-violent demonstrators, and innocent bystanders, in incidents reminiscent of Kent State.

There were Palestinian teenagers who had gone to George Soros' "Peace Camp" in New England, who sat around the campfire singing songs with Israeli teenagers, who returned to Israel and were killed by the IDF for doing nothing.

I've read the Amnesty International reports, and the responses from CAMERA and MEMRI, and I've spoken to many Israeli government officials. After investigating and listening to all sides, it was clear to me that the Israelis started the killings, and weren't trying to break the cycle of violence.

The Amnesty International reports were horribly similar to the stories my own relatives told me about the pogroms in Europe.

They taught me, "Wir schweigen nicht." I recommend that lesson to you.

As I post there are 373 comments, so I apologise if I missed anyone else pointing out the remarkably impressive feat of Ivey's "assistant" Cheng Yin Sun spending hundreds of (possibly up to a thousand) hours training herself over four years to recognise minute variations on the backs of cards which she could detect when the cards were rotated.

If that isn't news for nerds, I don't know what would qualify!

It also means that while she's nowhere near as famous as Ivey, in this enterprise she wasn't a mere "assistant", much more something like an equal partner: despite at least one comment above referring to Ivey having trained himself to recognize by spotting inconsistencies in the card markings, on the facts as reported (I read both the Washington Post article and the judgment linked to in the summary (fwiw I entirely agree with the judge and his reasons for making the judgment he did), *and* I read a New York Times magazine article linked to by the Washington Post article), the only person who could recognise the differences when cards had been rotated was Cheng Yin Sun.

In fact, if the New York Times magazine article is accurate, Sun (the NYT article calls her Cheung Yin Sun, but Cheng Yin Sun as in the judgment seems more likely to be correct) first did this with other people at several casinos, and then *she* recruited Phil Ivey:
"Over the coming week, Sun and her highly organized group used the same strategy to beat more Las Vegas casinos, including Treasure Island and Caesars Palace. They made a trip to Foxwoods Resort Casino in Mashantucket, Conn. Eventually Sun recruited the celebrity poker pro Phil Ivey, who is also known as a high-stakes gambler at craps and baccarat."

Washington Post ... Sun had spent, according to the New York Times magazine, hundreds of hours memorizing tiny flaws in purple Gemaco Borgata playing cards. ... She purchased souvenir playing cards from the Borgata, identical to the ones used on the casino floor save for holes punched in the center. She discovered that patterns on card backs, designed to be symmetrical, were not perfectly so. Sun trained herself to identify aberrations along the left or right margins of the card backs, no wider than 1/32 of an inch, the Times reported. ("Sun's mental acumen in distinguishing the minute differences in the patterns on the back of the playing cards is remarkable," Hillman noted.) So prepared, she helped Ivey on his way to millions.

The technique Ivey and Sun used was called edge-sorting. Sun was allowed to peek at the card before the dealer flipped it over. In Mandarin, she would ask the dealer to rotate the most valuable cards in the baccarat deck -- the sixes through nines -- 180 degrees as they were flipped. The automatic shuffler could randomize the cards, but would not alter their rotation. "Baccarat is a casino game well known for unique and superstitious rituals," Hillman noted in an October opinion. "Thus, Sun telling the dealer to turn a card in a certain way did not raise any red flags for Borgata." With the deck sorted, it was possible for Sun to identify which cards had been rotated. The pair therefore knew the values of the cards while they were being dealt, before completing bets. Ivey adjusted his bets, and once the pair edge-sorted the entire deck, he increased his bids to the maximum allowed. ...

New York Times magazine ... Sun visited several Las Vegas casino gift shops and bough

There's a book titled (roughly) "Think Samsung" that was published in 2010 (link). It's said to give a disturbing picture of Samsung's corruption, and was even reviewed in The New York Times. It was written by Samsung's former chief legal counsel.

In his book, Mr. Kim depicts Mr. Lee and “vassal” executives at Samsung as bribing thieves who “lord over” the country, its government and media. He portrays prosecutors as opportunists who are ruthless to those they regard as “dead” powers, like a former president, but subservient to and afraid of Samsung, which he calls the “power that never dies.”

What I'd like to know is how did his partner get sent to jail for an MGM gambling debt? Anyone know? While looking for the answer, I did come across this interesting article about advantage players, that there are many, that the casinos know of them and don't call them cheaters because what they are doing is legal.

I'm not sure exactly what Cheung Yin Sun did to get locked up, but you could go to jail in relation to a gambling debt if you intentionally misstated something to secure credit, if it can be demonstrated that you never intended to repay the debt when you incurred it, or if you committed wire fraud.

Anyway, casinos will have you arrested if you are cheating, and will definitely still 86 you if they think you are using any sort of legal "system" to take their money. It seem silly that they can ban legal players, as if the law is on their side as well as the odds, but that's what pros have to deal with - you beat them until they get sick of losing and take their ball and go home. That makes it difficult to be a pro gambler unless you limit yourself to poker and beating other gamblers.

Great link by the way, I hadn't seen that particular article - very good read.

They don't have to cheat to make lots of money.

Unless your name is Donald J. Trump, in which case your casino loses money:

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/0...

http://www.motherjones.com/pol...

https://www.theguardian.com/us...

What I'd like to know is how did his partner get sent to jail for an MGM gambling debt? Anyone know? While looking for the answer, I did come across this interesting article about advantage players, that there are many, that the casinos know of them and don't call them cheaters because what they are doing is legal.

So this wasn't expected? I think it surely was.

"Floridaâ(TM)s Governor Rejects High-Speed Rail Line, Fearing Cost to Taxpayers...Mr. Scott said at a news conference in Tallahassee on Wednesday that cost overruns related to the Tampa-to-Orlando line could leave Florida taxpayers stuck with a $3 billion tab."

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02...

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11...
Op-Ed Contributor
America's Failed Palestinian Policy
By YOUSEF MUNAYYER
November 23, 2012

Israel's U.S.-supported policies send the message that the only time the Palestinians will make gains is through arms. The policies penalize peaceful efforts by Fatah, and reward violence by Hamas. Fatah, in 1991, recognized Israel's existence, renounced violence, and agreed to negotiations leading to a Palestinian state. Instead, Israel tripled the number of settlers and Fatah is no closer to a state. Hamas, in 2006, won the election, and refused to recognize Israel's existence or renouce violence. Having seen what happened to Fatah, Hamas refused, and was put under siege. Israeli settlers left Gaza, and Israel returned thousands of prisoners in return for an Israeli captive, which showed Hamas that they could acchieve results from violence. The latest cease-fire rewards Hamas for violence again, by getting Israel to ease collective punishment and extajudicial assassinations (which are against international law anyway). But Israel always ignores the underlying causes -- the denial of human rights and dignity.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cont...
Science 24 August 2007:
Vol. 317 no. 5841 pp. 1039-1040
DOI: 10.1126/science.1144241

Policy Forum
Sacred Barriers to Conflict Resolution
Scott Atran, Robert Axelrod, Richard Davis
Resolution of quarrels arising from conflicting sacred values, as in the Middle East, may require concessions that acknowledge the opposition's core concerns

We went to the Middle East in February 2007 to directly probe issues of material trade-offs and symbolic concessions with leaders of the major parties to the Israel-Palestine dispute. We asked 14 interviewees in Syria, Palestine, and Israel to verify statements for citation. No off-the-record statements contradicted these.

Responses were consistent with our previous findings (1), with one important difference. Previously, people with sacred values had responded "No" to the proposed trade-off; "No" accompanied by emotional outrage and increased support for violence to the trade-off coupled with a substantial and credible material incentive; and "Yes, perhaps" to trade-offs that also involve symbolic concessions (of no material benefit) from the other side. Leaders responded in the same way, except that the symbolic concession was not enough in itself, but only a necessary condition to opening serious negotiations involving material issues as well. For example, Musa Abu Marzouk (former chairman, and current deputy chairman, of Hamas) said "No" to a trade-off for peace without granting a right of return; a more emphatic "No, we do not sell ourselves for any amount," when given a trade-off with a substantial material incentive (credible offering of substantial U.S. aid for the rebuilding of Palestinian infrastructure); but "Yes, an apology is important, but only as a beginning. It's not enough, because our houses and land were taken away from us and something has to be done about that."

Similarly, Binyamin Netanyahu (former Israeli prime minister and current opposition leader in parliament) responded to our question, "Would you seriously consider accepting a two-state solution following the 1967 borders if all major Palestinian factions, including Hamas, were to recognize the right of the Jewish people to an independent state in the region?" with the answer: "Yes, but the Palestinians would have to show that they sincerely mean it, change their textbooks and anti-Semitic characterizations and then allow some border adjustments so that Ben Gurion [Airport] would be out of range of shoulder-fired missiles."

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05...
Who Wants to Be a Martyr?
By Scott Atran
May 5, 2003

One given in the war against terrorism seems to be that suicide attackers are evil, deluded or homicidal misfits who thrive in poverty, ignorance and anarchy.

(Actually they are well-adjusted, successful, and educated. Reviews the evidence based on interviews with terrorists.)

http://www.theatlantic.com/int...
Who Started the Israel-Gaza Conflict?
By Robert Wright
Nov 16 2012,
A summary of events in the renewal of Israeli-Palestinian hostilities, Nov 8 - Nov 15
By Emily Hauser
There's a constant back and forth, and on both sides, there's always something or someone to avenge.
According to Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as of November 13, Palestinian militants had fired 797 rockets into Israel in the course of 2012 , and according to the Israeli human rights organization Btselem, between January 2009 (the conclusion of the last all-out Gaza war) and September of this year, 25 Israelis were killed by Palestinians, and 314 Palestinians were killed by Israeli security forces, with six more being killed by Israeli civilians.
Wednesday November 14
Reports emerged that Israel has targeted Ahmed Jabari, head of Hamas's military wing; Israel confirmed the assassination, citing his "decade-long terrorist activity," and said that killing was the part of an operation in which the military struck 20 different targets across Gaza. HaAretz [Note: Later reports indicate that Jabari was considering a permanent truce agreement at the time of his assassination]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11...
Op-Ed Contributor
Israel's Shortsighted Assassination
By GERSHON BASKIN
Published: November 16, 2012
Passing messages between the two sides, I was able to learn firsthand that Mr. Jabari wasn't just interested in a long-term cease-fire; he was also the person responsible for enforcing previous cease-fire understandings brokered by the Egyptian intelligence agency. Mr. Jabari enforced those cease-fires only after confirming that Israel was prepared to stop its attacks on Gaza. On the morning that he was killed, Mr. Jabari received a draft proposal for an extended cease-fire with Israel, including mechanisms that would verify intentions and ensure compliance. This draft was agreed upon by me and Hamas's deputy foreign minister, Mr. Hamad, when we met last week in Egypt.
Gershon Baskin is a co-chairman of the Israel Palestine Center for Research and Information, a columnist for The Jerusalem Post and the initiator and negotiator of the secret back channel for the release of Gilad Shalit.

Tricky Dicky had a pretty fair record,

Unless you count stuff like sabatoging peace talks in the Vietnam war. Causing the death of thousands of Americans and more Vietnamese is a really heavy counter-weight to the good stuff he did.

Even the whole "open up trade with communist China" thing is backfiring big time.