Slashdot Mirror

Don't worry though, the Postmaster General says they only keep the data for 1-4 weeks.

This is why:

Amazon Erases Orwell Books From Kindle

Fool me once, shame on you...

They actually did a precise chemical analysis, in addition to tasting the whisky.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/04/science/space-whisky-glass.html?_r=0

The article says that the whisky had lower amounts of compounds that are typically extracted from the oak. Most of what I could find online is pretty light on the details of what's different chemically, but there was definitely more done than tasting.

> Licensed the GUI from Xerox, invented by people like Alan Kay.

Apple didn't license the GUI. They got demos, but no code. Bill Atkinson had to guess at how the Alto worked in order to write QuickDraw.

In fact, Xerox later sued Apple over for copyright infringement over the GUI.

1/3 of drivers speed by over 10 MPH:

  http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/...

Risk of death DOUBLES for that increase between 30-40 MPH, and goes up by a factor of 9 from 20-30 MPH:

http://humantransport.org/side...

It's not just technically correct, it's actually correct. You're basically blaming murder victims for getting murdered here - "shouldn't be out at night" type of bullshit. No. It's the driver's fault almost all the time and it's the attitudes of drivers that must be changed.

Skylab has an active Twitter account? I didn't realize they had Internet access in the Australian hinterlands.

There is also little evidence that campaign finance is at the root of our problems.

Paul Krugman had an interesting blog post today about how productivity has increased by about 70% in the USA over the last 40 years but median wages have only increased by about 9%. Do consider that to be a problem? And, if so, what do you think is the root of that problem?

It's obvious that most of the increased productivity is going to people at the very top. So, for example, if your answer is "foreign competition" then why are the people at the top not affected? Whatever you propose as the reason for increasing economic inequality in the USA has to somehow explain why people at the top are benefiting while everyone else is being hurt.

I'm an American, and I find that the Trotskyites here call anything they don't like - "socialism". It's...... complex, some how.

When Americans say socialism, they usually mean taxes. Typically they disregard how society indirectly provides benefits like a skilled labor pool, infrastructure and other foundations for modern civilization that enabled their company to make millions in profit. .

And yet - at least for my my most vociferous peeps who call anything they disagree with, "socialism" they completely ignore the fact that the soocial security they are collecting is an actual socialist program.

Indeed, the most "conservative guy I know, collects social security, has not paid a medical bill in his adult life, went to college fully paid, and worked for the government his entire life. The way I figure, the evil government he so despises, has shelled out many millions for the guy. The only money he hasn't extracted directly from the guvmint is the interest from the banks where he put their money.

Which is why the "Keep your Government hands off my Medicare crowd: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.... is not conservative at all. They are Trotskyites. They will rail on about being conservative, but nothing is further than the truth.

The effect of climate change on forests is important, but "on-the-ground field studies" are not part of NASA's mission. They are a space agency, not the forest service.

Uh, yeah ... because NASA's study of planet Earth was removed quietly from its mission statement during the Bush administration.

Ouch! Hot button issue with me.

The diversity push is one of the more irritating things I've experienced in my career. For several years we have had to interview someone who is a minority or female before we can hire a White male. Sounds like a simple way to improve diversity, doesn't it? 'Course, unless you can get a "diversity candidate" to apply, you can't hire anyone. We love when a "diversity candidate" applies, because we can finally hire a White male. It's even better if the "diversity candidate" is the best-qualified candidate, because then we don't have to argue with HR about not hiring the "diversity candidate".

BTW, the "diversity candidate" phrase came from HR.

Fixed that for you so it reflects the reality of IT in the US in 2015

Did you know that Texas is majority minority today and will be Hispanic majority in a few years. Hiring only White males is racist and sexist but you all do it anyway because White males are somehow "more qualified".

But we minorities all know that the real reason White males hire other White males is that you would rather go out drinking with other White males than us minorities:

Guess Who Doesn’t Fit In at Work

And seriously, they carted him to the ER? It was within golf cart distance? Or was that just an inappropriate choice of words? Maybe the problem isn't limited to the golf crowd at your job...

It's a known turn of phrase at least in American English. 'Hauled off' would have also worked, 'carted off' tends to imply an ambulance to me. IE he was treated as cargo. Then again - being carried off a sporting field after injury seems appropriate:

http://profootballtalk.nbcspor...
http://profootballtalk.nbcspor...
http://www.cincinnati.com/stor...
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08...

There's a fairly good chance that he was indeed carted off, at least initially - by another golf cart.

First, no, they believe that the parchment may have been made between those times.

Second, this is carbon dating, and we are talking about drama involving a couple decades.

From most to least likely, as best I can tell:

1- The carbon dating is off by a couple years. This is extremely likely, especially given that Islamic events *mostly* take place in the light of history (with the typical religious spin regarding their accuracy, of course). They did not date the ink itself, something that the scientists point out but gets lightly treated in media.
2- The parchment, a very valuable and frequently reused substance, was around a few years before being written on. This assumes that the carbon dating is totally accurate. Remember this isn't the difference between something being ten million years old and some guy claiming the earth is 4k years old- this is not a very long time at all. Nor is it like from 200 AD or anything, either.
3- Some parts of the Koran predate Mohammad Since this is just a very small part of the Koran, this is the most interesting claim, but neither is it as the headline is spinning it. While Muslim fundamentalists will fight this conclusion, they have a pretty reasonable leg to stand on- so far, at least. Even if they are wrong and parts of the Koran were repurposed to back some new militant religion, is that really that surprising to the rest of us?

Certainly interesting, but nowhere near as impactful as the headlines sound on this.

Also note, their p is that 5% thing- they are 94.5% sure, meaning they are wrong 1/20th of the time. That means that out of all the 95% confidence claims, 1/20 are wrong- and those would always be the most sensational.

Hey, speaking of sensational, why is the link to daily mail? This is all over the net, is that the best source?
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07...

Also, I'm still not sure what dates are being claimed- each article seems to have slightly different ranges?

Educate thy self troll:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08...

He's one of best President we ever had, who has never gotten enough credit because of the charlatan that followed him.

Sorry troll, but the OP is right. The republicans are already on the warpath:

http://takingnote.blogs.nytime...
http://www.politico.com/story/...
http://www.sanduskyregister.co...
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/oh...

No, he'd need to sign laws passed by Congress to do that. The window to pass legislation like that during his terms has closed. However, there are things he could do, and as I noted, there's a bit of that buried in this executive order. The NYT mentioned this and I'm sure it's been reported elsewhere, but without much attention.

The White House also announced on Sunday that Mr. Obama was expanding government support for programs to allow Alaska Natives to be more involved in developing their own natural resources, including an initiative to include them in the management of Chinook salmon fisheries, a youth exchange council focusing on promoting “an Arctic way of life,” and a program allowing them to serve as advisers to the United States Fish and Wildlife Service.

These are actually more substantial than renaming the mountain. I'd like to see more things done like this. Again, the window to go through Congress closed quite awhile ago, but I'd still like to see more steps like this to help the Alaskan native people return to their way of life as much as possible.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08...

This is a Muslim example, but it could just as well been Timothy McVeigh.

She barely left home for the year that followed, racked by PTSD, depression and insomnia. “I didn’t want to be seen by anyone,” she told me last March at her home in Plymouth, Mass. “I didn’t want people looking at me.”

Fearing for her life, she left her home, sleeping on friends’ couches for the remainder of the year. "I felt betrayed. I felt abandoned. I felt ashamed. I felt rejected. I felt alone.”

This CEO will probably be fine, though.

... you don't make any important decisions based on a single paper. That's true for hard sciences as well as social sciences.

OK, tell that to the NIH. Or hey, tell the APA. The DSM might need a little love. Those traitorous fucks.

The truth is that the course of our lives is often decided, by fiat, on the basis of a single study

So when Coca-Cola funds a study that fits its business needs rather conveniently, it is to be believed at face value? People like you are worse than cancer caused atmospheric radionuclide fallout. The general public *needs* a tinfoil hat, they *need* to be critical because they haven't been for the past human history.

Oh, and right wing dogma is the story you picked. If you really wanted to show real IRS abuse, you would link to the many stories like these that actually mean something. But you prefer to troll with partisan bullshit. And the scorekeepers are giving you the advantage. You win!

Dwarf Fortress!!!!!!!!!1!!!1eleventy!!!!!

Here's a pretty cool article about Tarn Adams. His lifestyle sounds pretty similar to the guy in the cabin.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/magazine/the-brilliance-of-dwarf-fortress.html

The New York times itself disagrees with you

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07...

As to Yucca being unsafe for nuclear waste according to the DoE... cite that please. I can't find anything that says that. What I found was report after report after report after article after article saying it was safe. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10... [nytimes.com] What are you talking about?

You are mis-quoting me. The DOE's own 1982 Nuclear Waste policy Act reported that the Yucca Mountain's geology is "inappropriate to contain nuclear waste". So the most appropriate way to move the Nuclear Industry forward is to develop a geologically stable containment facility (I am reluctant to call plutonium 'waste') inside a mountain. That could also, potentially, house a reactor facility, and an infrastructure plan to move that 70,000 tons of plutonium to that facility would begin to look like sound nuclear policy.

As for safe, well its seismic stability is a good measure of that and I doubt the NYT is qualified to make that assessment.

And then of course there is the whole issue with the storage for the spent fuel.

First of all lets clear up the time frame here, plutonium is radioactive for 25000 years before it decays into it's daughter product, which will then be radioactive for ??000 years and iterate 20 odd times. That's why I refer to it as 'geological time frames.

Yucca mountain is not a appropriate because it is made of pumice and geologically active evidenced by recent aftershocks of 5.6 within ten miles of a repository that is supposed to be geologically stable for at least 500000 years. The DOE's own 1982 Nuclear Waste policy Act reported that the Yucca Mountain's geology is inappropriate to contain nuclear waste, and long term corrosion data on C22 (the material to contain the Pu-239 and mitigate the ingress of water - yet another Yucca problem) is just not available.

As to your rebuttal to my point about nuclear storage... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] "" The location has been highly contested by environmentalists and some Nevada residents[2]. It was approved in 2002 by the United States Congress. Federal funding for the site ended in 2011 under the Obama Administration via amendment to the Department of Defense and Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, passed on April 14, 2011.[3] The Government Accountability Office stated that the closure was for political, not technical or safety reasons.[3] "" Quote: For political not technical or safety reasons.

Studies of the Yucca mountain hydrology revealed that the passage cl-36 from atmospheric nuclear testing took less that 50 years in ground water through Yucca mountain so the reality of Yucca is it is inappropriate to contain *any* kind of radioactive products. Yucca is pumice and volcanic ash, you *need* granite if you want a serious facility. Even the Swedish test facility is better designed than Yucca and the design of the actual facility shows the U.S how it *should* be done.

Go look up the wiki on the act if you are not convinced and you'll see that Yucca was *put* in Nevada because their represenatives did not attend.

Common myth? I can't believe you said that. Seriously. That issue is categorically lost to you.

Act

Just from a risk perspective, I trust Google far less than a random Chinese company. But, even ignoring the risks in each and looking at it from a technical perspective: Google has more technica prowess, more brand power, more politicians on their side, and they've been repeatedly caught doing EXTREMELY sketchy shit.

Who funds terrorists, ultimately? We do

*Who controls the British crown? Who keeps the metric system down? We do! We do!*

Maxing out production? At less then 40 bucks a barrel, that's not bloody likely, unless they're crashing the price intentionally.

All those little wars help to keep out competing 'investors'. Business is what could be called brisk , don't you think?

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08...

Projection much?

In denial much?

Here is a very recent example... Here is a local newspaper's report of somebody named Jesus Deniz Mendoza killing a couple, that stopped to help him on a road. The police mug-shot of the accused is also attached, as is perfectly normal for a simple-minded newspaper, that has no particular agenda — yes, he is obviously a Latino, which might increase "anti-immigrant backlash", but the journalist ethics requires factual reporting....

Now here is the New York Times report of the same crime — posted on the same day, an hour later. Note, how it:

• identifies the man as simply Jesus Deniz — Señor Mendoza became Mister Deniz,
• omits his mug-shot,
• but fails not to point out, that the victims were Crow Indians.

Voilà, instead of an article about a Latino-immigrant murdering Americans, we get a report about violence against a long-suffering minority committed by somebody named Deniz. No, we didn't say he was a White Supremacist, but if you thought so based on his last name and choice of victims, we aren't going to correct you — because in our progressive opinion, White Supremacy is far more dangerous than illegal immigration.

That was a very recent example — less than month old — of how a flagship newspaper of record "plays with language" and "rephrases things" to misrepresent situations, hide inconvenient realities and otherwise push their preferred narrative.

Oh, an pointing this all out has made me a racist, has it not? Please, don't hate...

It only seems like a win, until more people quit their jobs and take the "free money". Pretty soon, all that free money is useless as nobody is working, and everyone is expecting a check every month. This is nothing short of foolishness dreamed up by people who love socialism. It won't work out at all like they expect.

Interesting theory. Not confirmed by reality. There are lots of societies in which people who could be getting "free money," and nonetheless prefer to work, because they want to do something productive and contribute to society. Most people enjoy productive work. Most of the scientists who make the greatest contributions aren't in it for the money. Look at Alexander Flemming.

Here's a story from the New York Times about how, in the Danish system, people can just refuse to work and live off state subsidies, and one guy, "Lazy Robert," actually does it. The striking thing is that so few people do that. They often do continue with their education; you may think that's a bad thing. People in the aggregate don't follow their selfish financial incentives the way free-market economists predict.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04...?
Danes Rethink a Welfare State Ample to a Fault
By SUZANNE DALEY
April 20, 2013
Robert Nielsen ("Lazy Robert"), 45, who was interviewed on TV, was on welfare since 2001. He was able-bodied but didn't want to take a demeaning job, like working in a fast-food restaurant.

It goes without saying that if Hillary wins I win.

That is so sad. She's worse than Nixon. Worse by a long shot.

Allegations of bias by the Huffington Post? WTF, they wear their bias on their sleeve and are unrepentantly far-left. They only tell the side of the story they want their readers to hear. Even the New York Times admitted they were a liberal newspaper, years ago.

People with mental issues should be unemployable as police or security officers.
Timothy Loehmann, who shot Tamir Rice, simply joined police force in a different city after he resigned facing termination for "emotional instability".

The other thing that should not be allowed to happen is the militarization of police force.
Neither through pumping surplus military weapons and equipment through billion dollar "reutilization programs", nor through military tactics and training.

It's Special Weapons and Tactics, not POLICE weapons and tactics.
If all your cops act or look like SWAT teams do... That's not policing crime.
That's a country/state/county/city trying to control its citizens through "superior force".

And police will get BOTH military tactics and training AND mentally unstable police officers when it starts dipping into the pool of military veterans, coming home from a decade or so of war.

There was a truly excellent article on this "Internet Research Agency" group a while back. The ending is just brilliant.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03...

I think more could have been done with ISS if it were a little more national/commonwealth.. I could be wrong but it seemed like just another way to send cash/resources TOO other countries(aid etc, and they build x module for 10x the price it would have cost)... Maybe I'm remembering wrong...

Still 550 Billion/year spent on the military, lets send a few dozen manned "one way'" missions to mars/elsewhere for 1 year instead.

So, if my questions are answered by someone who has financial interest in the answer given should all skepticism be put aside?

Oh look! It's about vaccines, but it has nothing to do with Autism so it doesn't really count.

What happens when the historical records are altered to fit the modern imposed belief? But the science is settled. The science was settled when the global cooling scare of the 70's was settled science, we're in an ice-age already, right now. Then the global warming scare of the 90's was settled. New York City is underwater, right now. Now climate change is settled - I'm on-board with that.

Climate change is not a death sentence. There aren't any reputable scientists saying it is

Yes there are. James Hansen surely has as high a reputation as any scientist, plenty of papers, was the head of a national research center. He says: ".........it will be gameover for climate.......Civilization would be at risk........If this sounds apocalyptic, it is."

James Hansen has never been afraid to warn of the dangers of climate change.

Did you notice the awesome shot of our atmosphere in that photo, and how thin it looks.
Reminds of this visualisation.
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes....

It looks pretty thick to me. It's as big as Betelgeuse in that picture!

Did you notice the awesome shot of our atmosphere in that photo, and how thin it looks.
Reminds of this visualisation.
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes....

((Forgive the style of this, I'm bored, your question is stupid, and I have to keep myself amused somehow... so I'm writing this in a silly fashion because it plays to my inner 4 year old.)) ... You think I'm out of truth bullets?
https://youtu.be/8Xjr2hnOHiM?t...

Well, are you familiar with anchor babies? So you're a woman and you waddle across the border, pop a baby out on US soil, the basic law of the day is that the baby is a citizen, and because you don't want to split the family up she gets to stay, along with pretty much anyone else she calls family, and then of course via the anchor baby they get welfare that way. *Boom - Headshot*

And that's just one of several ways in which the head of your stupid argument gets blown completely off its fucking shoulders.

*blows dramatically into barrel of truth gun (its my penis) and "holsters"*

Let me know if you'd like another example of why you're wrong. I can think of four other ways right off the top of my head. This is all well documented stuff, chum.

*quick draws*

As to manuals:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01...

As reported in the New York fucking Times.
*shakes, dabs, and "reholsters"*

I have to write this way in discussions like this... its like arguing with people that think 1+1=2 is debatable. Its not.
https://youtu.be/Oo9buo9Mtos?t...

*Rawr*

Now when he starts screaming about capital gains being taxed higher, then I'll start listening to him.

This is precisely what he has been screaming about. Here is the first article you will find if you google for "warren buffett capital gains tax":
A Minimum Tax for the Wealthy. It was written by Warren Buffett in 2012. When he talks the decades when our capital gains taxes were almost double what they are now, he says "Never did anyone mention taxes as a reason to forgo an investment opportunity that I offered.

He does want excessive incomes derived from capital gains to be taxed higher, so are you listening now?

It's not necessary to read all the articles above to know that Amazon is an abusive or incompetent company. There is abuse on many Amazon web pages. For example, see the web page for this book: Against Football: One Fan's Reluctant Manifesto.

That page shows a little information and then pushes visitors to buy other books. My opinion: Either Amazon is extremely abusive, or extremely incompetent.

There are plenty of other examples. Amazon allows sellers to abuse customers. Some items list low prices that attract visitors, but the shipping charge is extremely high.

There are more than 5,000 comments on the New York Times article: Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace

Dear Amazon interns, some advice from an old man who has been at Amazon way too long. Quote: "Amazon's work-life balance is awful."

Working for Amazon Sounds Utterly Soul Crushing.

Life in an Amazon Warehouse: Fear and Efficiency at 35 Orders Per Second

Inside Amazon's Kafkaesque performance-improvement plan

Inside Amazon's Bizarre Corporate Culture

Amazon Is a Time Thief, by an Amazon Employee.

Is Amazon an unpleasant place to work? Quote: "Based on my experience, I agree with what everyone has said about the company being a horrible place to work."

Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace

Glassdoor Reviews of Amazon

Here's that NYT article that the Wired story linked to. Lewinski is the guy who testifies that a cop had reasonable fear of his life when he shot a suspect in the back. And the juries pretend to believe him.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08...
Training Officers to Shoot First, and He Will Answer Questions Later
When police officers shoot people under questionable circumstances, William J. Lewinski often appears as an expert witness who says they had no choice but to fire.
By MATT APUZZO
AUG. 1, 2015

A black motorist, pulled to the side of the road for a turn-signal violation, had stuffed his hand into his pocket. The white officer yelled for him to take it out. When the driver started to comply, the officer shot him dead. The driver was unarmed.

(“In simple terms, if I see the gun, I’m dead?”)

(Testified or consulted in nearly 200 cases.)

His conclusions are consistent: The officer acted appropriately, even when shooting an unarmed person.
Even when shooting someone in the back. Even when witness testimony, forensic evidence or video footage contradicts the officer’s story.

before grand juries, where such testimony is given in secret and goes unchallenged. In addition, his company, the Force Science Institute, has trained tens of thousands of police officers
his research has been roundly criticized by experts. An editor for The American Journal of Psychology called his work “pseudoscience.” The Justice Department denounced his findings as “lacking in both foundation and reliability.”

I always get concerned whenever a police captains/spokemen/union reps says something to the effect of "our first priority is going home safely at night". Police's first priority should always making sure members of the public go home safely at the end of the day.

Except police have no legal duty to protect the general public. The only time they must provide protection is if a person is in their custody, or they create the dangerous situation.

That's a different situation. We're talking about the criminal law that says that a cop can't kill someone unless he has a reasonable fear that the cop's life is at risk.

The problem is that cops can give some bullshit excuse about how their life was in danger, and the (white) juries pretend to believe it. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08... Training Officers to Shoot First, and He Will Answer Questions Later. When police officers shoot people under questionable circumstances, William J. Lewinski often appears as an expert witness who says they had no choice but to fire.

Beyond the law, when my city hires a cop, I and my elected officials have a right to tell him that his first priority is to make sure that I, an innocent civilian, get home at night. I don't want him to shoot me because that's the way he deals with people. If he doesn't want to take the job under those terms, there are plenty of other more-qualified people who will.

We don't let firemen say, "I don't want to go into a burning building. I could get hurt."

(I'm not even sure that Warren v. District of Columbia is current law, because a lot of jurisdictions have settled cases like that for big bucks since then.)

At least, this seems to work in Italy quite well: if you're caught with counterfeit goods (no matter if it's a EUR 20 "Prada" handbag or some EUR 10 D&G sunglasses...), you can expect up fines from EUR 1,000 up to EUR 10,000 - and the maximum amount is very often charged.

10 years ago, the word on this new law did spread pretty fast, e.g. here or here, magazines also published articles on some granny on vacation who has been facing EUR 10,000 due to such a "bargain".

The situation is pretty weird: the sellers stay on alert and warn each other, they disappear pretty fast and are rarely caught by police. The buyers on the other hand do show off their bargain hauls, and customs officers are well trained to tell fake goods from real - so it's actually a lot easier to catch the buyers. Since then, folks on vacation in Italy do restrain from buying counterfeit goods and many illegal street sellers are simply "out of business".

The real problem is that California's population has grown by about 30% in the past 20 years, and the water system hasn't kept up. That's a staggering rate of growth. Keeping people out isn't realistic

Actually, keeping people out is the answer. Put national guard on the boarder, specifically the southern border with Mexico to keep out illegal immigrants. You see, there's actually a mass exodus right now -- at least of citizens.

Citations:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304444604577340531861056966
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/15/upshot/the-california-exodus.html
http://www.housingwire.com/articles/32489-high-cost-of-california-housing-driving-resident-exodus

Bush didn't cause the recession via the war. It came about because of years, including his, of allowing Wall Street and the housing bubble to suck the life out of the U.S. economy. Also, the American people bear some of the blame, they took out second and third mortgages, were too busy to read what they were promising in loan payments, more or less lived beyond their means because, what the hell, everyone they knew was doing the same thing. The American people are fucking saints...dumb saints, but saints.

Actually, Bush tried to rein in the housing bubble.

New Agency Proposed to Oversee Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae

The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.

Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry.

The new agency would have the authority, which now rests with Congress, to set one of the two capital-reserve requirements for the companies. It would exercise authority over any new lines of business. And it would determine whether the two are adequately managing the risks of their ballooning portfolios.

The plan is an acknowledgment by the administration that oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- which together have issued more than $1.5 trillion in outstanding debt -- is broken. A report by outside investigators in July concluded that Freddie Mac manipulated its accounting to mislead investors, and critics have said Fannie Mae does not adequately hedge against rising interest rates.

...

''These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis,'' said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ''The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.''

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

''I don't see much other than a shell game going on here, moving something from one agency to another and in the process weakening the bargaining power of poorer families and their ability to get affordable housing,'' Mr. Watt said.

He was stopped by Democrats, like Barney Frank.

Barney Frank's Fannie and Freddie Muddle

Now that crisis management has taken root and Fannie and Freddie have been placed in conservatorship, a number of commentators have remarked that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's actions bear a striking resemblance to what his predecessor proposed five years ago. Whether the two mortgage giants deserve a future will be a pitched battle, but for now, Democratic Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the Financial Services Committee chairman, has issued a press release with a fanciful take on history.

Similar issues have shown up in other fields.

Indeed. The biggest issue is statistical ignorance, but even people with a decent amount of training in stats can be fooled if they want to find a particular result. Anyhow, whenever things like this come out, everyone always thinks it's about scientists who manipulate data deliberately. While that happens, it's more often just researchers who "try things out" after collecting data and notice a pattern (unintentionally skewing things). If they have to declare methods and statistical tests beforehand, it's harder to make these errors.

A few months back, I happened upon a very useful guide to the problems in modern scientific publication, which can be found partly online here. I ended up buying the print edition, and the sheer number of examples of completely bogus research ending up being accepted in various scientific fields due to erroneous stats and various biases that creep into the publication process... well, it's just shocking. Seriously.

As the book notes, the other problem is that even finding these errors is incredibly time-consuming and labor-intensive. I specifically remember one case where a new oncology test was proposed by Duke researchers and seemed to have great results. This case eventually became so infamous that it was reported on in the popular media.

Anyhow, basically they had a couple independent statisticians analyze the work (where they found HUGE numbers of problems in mislabeled data, mistakes in analysis and basic computation, etc., which appear par for the course in many labs, if you believe the studies on this stuff in the book). Ultimately, estimates are that it took TWO THOUSANDS HOURS of work for these independent statisticians to complete their analysis and render a verdict.

And once they did this, the statisticians tried to publish it -- but major journals didn't want it. Groundbreaking results are much more interesting that tedious statistical analysis. The National Cancer Institute caught wind of the problems and initiated an independent review, which found no errors (probably because the review was done by cancer experts, not stats experts, and they hadn't been giving the stats analysis done by the other researchers).

The only reason any of this ever really got much attention is because one of the lead researchers was accused of falsifying some aspects of his resume, which led to people actually going back and questioning his papers.

The book is full of stories like this, though, as well as citations of analyses of how many journal articles in various fields suffer from serious statistical problems.

It's all really scary when you start realizing how much bogus research is out there... most of it completely unintentional, and most of it passing peer review because it follows the field's "standard methodologies."

What did they get out of it? Retroactive immunity for performing illegal warrantless wiretapping at the behest of the government, of course. I remember well back when Obama was starting to get popular and people kept saying how he would be different and bring "hope" and "change", yet supported this attrocity: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07...

More to the point,

1) Someone surrendered under an EAW, in order to be extradited to a third state, requires the consent of both states taking part in the EAW request, rather than just one. Being extradited under an EAW only further complicates any attempts at third party extradition.

2) Sweden is one of the few countries whose extradition treaty with the US flatly bans extradition for military or intelligence crimes, and has a consequence long been a place to where defectors and spies flee (the most famous being Edward Lee Howard, the greatest CIA defector during the Cold War period)

3) Sweden was so mad at the US extradition program ignoring their ban on use of their airspace for extradition flights that they caused a diplomatic rift with the US in 2006 by disguising their special forces soldiers as airport workers to sneak aboard a suspected extradition plane. And how do we know about this event? Why, Wikileaks of course!

4) Sweden has the world's strongest whistleblower protections, so the point where it's not even legal to look for the source of a leak, let alone prosecute them for it.

5) While no country's judicial system is completely devoid of controversial cases (Sweden included), as a whole Sweden has one of the world's highest rankings on judicial fairness according to the peer-reviewed World Justice Project. They actually use it as an example of fairness when discussing how other countries can improve.

6) Assange himself thought so much of Sweden that he was applying for a residence permit there and repeatedly called Sweden his "shield". Funny how Sweden instantly became evil US lackeys the instant he was investigated for rape, isn't it?

WP's are largely a means by which 'health consultants' make money off corporations.
And now FitBit is simply trying to get in on that action.

Now there's a difference between actually caring about your employee's health, and just trying to save money.
But let's be realistic: most companies are trying to save money by doing this.

Multiple independent research studies (have shown that Wellness Programs don't work, and don't save companies any money, nor make them any additional revenue, and actually harm health instead of improving it. Which rather contradicts the (rather self-serving) studies coming out of the wellness industry itself. (And some companies are simply using them to penalize their poorer and/or unhealthier (two conditions that tend to go hand in hand in a vicious cycle) workers.)

Overall what their finding is that there is very little return on investment, basically about breaking even.
The broader wellness programs, with the most preventive measures/incentives (ie the most overbearing) do the least, and actually decrease worker health.

At the same time more narrow, targeted programs, such as specific disease treatment programs (such as asthma, diabetes, etc) do the most, mostly likely because these are conditions people already have, and having a program at work that supports them and helps them manage their conditions does alleviate some burden, compared to the more traditional approach where the company doesn't care and leaves you to worry about it on your own, and/or raises your insurance costs or even dismisses you over it.

http://theincidentaleconomist....
http://www.nationaljournal.com...
https://hbr.org/2010/12/whats-...
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/...
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09...

...and you don't think that it has anything to do at all with the fact that the new business involves a convenient app connected to an efficient centralized planning service, whereas the old business usually involves things like trying to wave down any empty yellow cars that might happen to pass by? Either approach could be implemented with or without unions.

Hardly any cabbies or limo drivers belong to unions or get benefits or even salaries. When I drove a cab I rented it for $75/day(in Baltimore) and took it home with me. I could have had it on a 12-hour shift for less. After a while I bought my own cab. I didn't have a permit/medallion, so I rented one from a friend. Did I make a living? Sure. But I worked a lot of hours.

Limousine: I drove for Maryland Limo, the BWI airport franchisee for a few months to learn the businehss. Then I got my own limo -- and drove it happily and profitably until Andover.net offered me a considerable salary to dump the limo and be their full-time editor in chief.

TODAY, I'd probably drive for Uber, even though it's a shoddy company. Remember when they decided to cut fares? BAM! Every driver who had invested in a nice car got burned. But I would maybe stay with Uber for a year, then go off on my own once I had a decent "book" of private customers built up. I assure you, this is what the smarter Uber drivers are doing. Also: there are people in the big cities who buy Uber-qualified cars and rent them to drivers either for a fixed rate or on a percentage split -- just like a cab company.

Also, Uber may have a nice app, but others are catching on. Read this: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08...

Uber is cute, but it's purely pump and dump. You just wait and see.