Slashdot Mirror

... you can only legally justify H1Bs on the basis that there's no qualified US residents for the position ...

Do Southern California Edison and Disney know this? Because they had their US employees *train* their H1B replacements...

Unless, of course, "no qualified US residents" also includes "no low(er)-salary US residents".

Guy goes to one of the most expensive schools in the country, in one of the most expensive cities in the world. Gets an advanced degree before starting to earn a living. He doesn't have a full time job till he is 31, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L.... He also manages to get fired from the New Republic for doing things they wouldn't even do http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09....

But somehow Society is to blame for HIS bad decisions.

So you know shit about CPR, the results of it and the working of respirators. Why should we listen to you?

Sure - a "We" person, how cute - here you go, Mr. or Ms. "We":

http://www.radiolab.org/story/...
in there:

A chart of doctor responses from the Precursors Study:
http://www.wnyc.org/i/raw/1/Ga...

and from there:

http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/20...
Now we see a huge Japanese study of more than 400,000 people who experienced out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, published in the JAMA on March 21, 2012. Approximately 18% of those who were administered CPR and epinephrine did achieve spontaneous circulation but fewer than 5% survived 1 month and fewer than 2% survived 1 month with good or moderate cerebral performance.

Maybe you are watching too much TV?

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/...

keep trying...

As good and impressive as this is, in 2012, there was a "chain" of 60 people, 30 kidneys,
transplanted... It's quite amazing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02...

By the time the submission got published here the competition was already over. A South Korean team won.

Better yet, look at the Gates foundation or the like

Yes, just look at the Gates foundation. Everything about it is wonderful. How quickly they forget that Bill Gates stole that money. Microsoft was convicted of abusing its monopoly position and general anticompetitive behavior. Then Bush's dog Ashcroft, in control of the DoJ, let them off with a warning. Not even a handslap. Microsoft is part of the evil that is buying and selling this country, and Bill Gates was chief presiding evil bastard. You really think he's changed? Guess what, the Gates Foundation is making money investing in things that kill people. It's not trying to make the world a better place. It's a tax dodge.

Yes, you're very smart. Now stop reacting long enough to think.

The question isn't where the money came from. The question is whether it is being used intelligently--in an attempt to improve major problems that need reform. When you are deciding where to donate your money, it doesn't matter whether you're leveraging it with money made by a warlord or money made by a church--what matters is that you're leveraging it effectively.

The Gates foundation invests its current money until it spends it. That's normal. Could it have a more socially conscious investment policy? Sure. That's a policy choice, and there are strong reasons for and against.

Stop looking for reasons to hate.

Because the person doing the science is completely fucking wrong too.

Any fucking 'science' that ignores the fact Lactic Acid is produced TO FUEL MUSCLES is ALWAYS going to come to the wrong fucking conclusion.

http://www.berkeley.edu/news/m...

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05...

http://dailyburn.com/life/fitn...

Some idiot failed biology and suddenly this becomes news for Slashdot.

Or rather, news for the moronic and idiotic Hugh Pickens.

Better yet, look at the Gates foundation or the like

Yes, just look at the Gates foundation. Everything about it is wonderful. How quickly they forget that Bill Gates stole that money. Microsoft was convicted of abusing its monopoly position and general anticompetitive behavior. Then Bush's dog Ashcroft, in control of the DoJ, let them off with a warning. Not even a handslap. Microsoft is part of the evil that is buying and selling this country, and Bill Gates was chief presiding evil bastard. You really think he's changed? Guess what, the Gates Foundation is making money investing in things that kill people. It's not trying to make the world a better place. It's a tax dodge.

This article convinced me to donate blood to the local (non-Red Cross) facility, instead of to the Red Cross. Granted the story is old, and hopefully the Red Cross has fixed their problems, but I still lost faith in them.

Another good one is MSF (Doctors Without Borders).

http://www.doctorswithoutborde...

Yes, and as the original Pro Publica article said, MSF collected money for Haitian operations, and then told people not to send any more money because they had enough money. They don't need money. Their main need is for competent personnel. When a crisis hits, MSF is swamped with volunteers, and they have to separate the competent volunteers with experience in crisis work, from the well-meaning inexperienced volunteers who will just create more problems.

When's the last time you heard a charity say they had enough money?

The Red Cross OTOH had meetings where the executives referred to it as a great fund-raising opportunity.

The Red Cross is a parking lot for incompetent, ideologically biased political appointees, like Elizabeth Dole, who among other things edited the AIDS education manuals to eliminate anything that would offend the Christian right, like homosexuality. http://www.thenation.com/artic... http://www.nytimes.com/1996/05...

OTOH, the staff below them includes a lot of dedicated, competent people, which is why they're always blowing the whistle to the press.

Muni broadband does take money, but it brings benefits. Just look at South Korea. See the NY Times story on "what silicon valley can learn from seoul." http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06....

Well, this is what you get when the govt. is fully *bought* and paid for by interests other than the "people".

And this is why we absolutely must through BushCo and the rest of RethugliKKKans out and elect a decent, well-educated, sophisticated, and peace-loving man like Barack Obama.

Mmm, excuse me, I just imagined him in my shower and now my limbs are thrilling...

What Cool New Tech Would You Put In?

Some of the best new home technology is actually old technology:

- Masonry Heaters, were invented in the Neolithic Era. Unlike wood stoves or fireplaces they burn clean with almost 100% efficiency and require infrequent fueling, only once or twice a day. They also look cool, have a neat ambiance and fuel costs are far lower than any alternative.

- Nickel-Iron Edison batteries were invented over 100 years ago by Waldemar Jungner in 1899 and developed by Thomas Edison in 1901. The nickel iron batteries in Jay Leno's 1909 Baker Electric Coupe are as good as new. Unlike any other home electric backup storage technology they last for basically an infinite number of charge/discharge cycles and have many other desirable characteristics such as immunity to 100% depletion (which destroys lithium and lead-acid batteries) and the are environmentally friendly, non-toxic and 100% recyclable. The only downside is their mass, but unless you will be driving your house around, it's by far the best option. And unlike aluminum batteries, and the Tesla Powerwall, the Nickel Iron batteries are available today.

- Used shipping containers: Build your house out of them. Invented, depending on your point of reference, some time between 1933 (first containerized shipping in Europe) and 1968 (ISO standard published). It's environmentally friendly and your house will be impervious to tornadoes and earthquakes. Container homes have gone from being kind of trailer-park to high-design.

Of course I would want modern options such as photovoltaics and a ground-source heat pump, in addition to the old stuff. So my advice: You will do best to select the best of both the old and new, instead of exclusively one or the other.

Smallpox is still maintained in US and Russian laboratories. It was declared eradicated in 1980. The WHO wanted the last of the laboratory samples destroyed, but it has so far been delayed. Interesting history in that link.

Hastert is caught in a similar pickle. Meet the reporting requirements; they're designed to trap this, and other kinds of illicit behavior.

They don't just trap illicit behavior. Legitimate businesses have been hit, many times, for structuring. They charge the money in the bank account, not the individual or business, so you have to *prove* it's legitimate. Often they'll let you get half or so of it back in exchange for not involving the legal system. People have been out of tens of thousands of dollars for this.
Restaurants
A Mexican restaurant: "Critics say the I.R.S. rarely investigates such cases to see if the business owner has legitimate reasons for making small deposits, such as an insurance policy that covers only a limited amount of cash."
Multiple small businesses in Michigan

Simply speaking: Many businesses will frequently make deposits under $10k for two reasons:
1. That's simply what they make
2. Insurance policies that only cover 'up to' $10k or so of cash, so business policy is to make a deposit whenever they're close to that amount so they're always covered.

The IRS doesn't care, will look at it as 'structuring', and seize all your bank accounts.

Hastert is caught in a similar pickle. Meet the reporting requirements; they're designed to trap this, and other kinds of illicit behavior.

They don't just trap illicit behavior. Legitimate businesses have been hit, many times, for structuring. They charge the money in the bank account, not the individual or business, so you have to *prove* it's legitimate. Often they'll let you get half or so of it back in exchange for not involving the legal system. People have been out of tens of thousands of dollars for this.
Restaurants
A Mexican restaurant: "Critics say the I.R.S. rarely investigates such cases to see if the business owner has legitimate reasons for making small deposits, such as an insurance policy that covers only a limited amount of cash."
Multiple small businesses in Michigan

Simply speaking: Many businesses will frequently make deposits under $10k for two reasons:
1. That's simply what they make
2. Insurance policies that only cover 'up to' $10k or so of cash, so business policy is to make a deposit whenever they're close to that amount so they're always covered.

The IRS doesn't care, will look at it as 'structuring', and seize all your bank accounts.

I got plenty of citations

Military Announces New Social Media Policy (Feb. 26th 2010)
http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com...
"Many months behind schedule, the Department of Defense on Friday issued a new policy that, on the surface, seems likely to expand access to popular social networking sites like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter by troops using military computers."

Well, that's pleasant, but.. just how "expanded" has the "access" been?

Revealed: US spy operation that manipulates social media ( March 17th 2011)
Military's 'sock puppet' software creates fake online identities to spread pro-American propaganda
http://www.guardian.co.uk/tech...
"A Californian corporation has been awarded a contract with United States Central Command (Centcom), which oversees US armed operations in the Middle East and Central Asia, to develop what is described as an "online persona management service" that will allow one US serviceman or woman to control up to 10 separate identities based all over the world."

Convinced yet? Want to explain why US contractors had an active online social media presence in 2011, if they couldn't make money off of it?

Propaganda programs hard to justify, Panetta says
http://www.usatoday.com/story/...

"USA TODAY found that the owners of the top propaganda contractor in Afghanistan, Leonie Industries, had failed to pay $4 million in federal taxes on time despite earning more than $200 million in contracts from the government. Their tax bills were paid after the story was published.

Shortly after USA TODAY made inquiries about the tax bills, fake Facebook and Twitter accounts, as well as phony fan club websites, were set up to disparage USA TODAY reporters. The co-owner of the company, Camille Chidiac, admitted to setting up some of the sites but said he did not use company resources in doing so. He had been suspended from receiving federal contracts because of the campaign, but the military lifted the suspension late last year."

I think that "faster" is still the wrong term...

"Cheaper" is likely what counts...

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB...

If that Paywalls (WSJ), then this one:

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/20...

Amazon simply bought a robot company, they are already using thousands of these robots...

---

A 10th of the speed doesn't matter if it is 100th the price...

Robert Murray Wilson, talking about transparent superconductors he's developed.

Chris, from ClickSpring, talking about building a clock.

Myfordboy showing how to cast aluminum at home.

Kevin Karsch et. al. rendering synthetic objects into legacy photographs

It's no great effort to find interesting and informative videos on the net. If you have the time to tape someone talking, you have the time to seek out things that nerds might want to see.

Also, there's really no feedback from the slashdot submission process. If a video doesn't meet your requirements, it's impossible to tell *why* they don't meet them, so that submitters could modify their selection process.

But this is beside the point. I'm not suggesting that you show other peoples' videos, I'm suggesting that *you* use the medium properly when making your own videos.

These same points were made back when Slashdot started video'ing people, to no great effect. Vinegar is needed to catch your attention. You have the perfect opportunity to use "directed practice based on feedback" which would turn you into a world-class videographer in a couple of years.

viz: The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance

Seriously. You have access to high-end feedback you could leverage to improve your technique. You should use it.

Hmm... Halfway down this article, there's a picture with a green border. The picture shows Jack Warner pointing to the Onion article. In that picture, it looks like the lower half of his right arm, and his right hand, are missing - it looks like the index finger to his right hand is joined to his arm where his elbow should be.

Am I mixed up, or did someone do a bad job Photoshopping the image?

Term limits aren't necessarily a good thing

Yeah they are. Seriously, they really are, necessarily.

as they're going to encourage politicians to look for places to be employed once they're finished with their term (as a primary focus for the entire term)

You're confusing a hypothetical with what is actually happening right now. Members of Congress are there to get as much influence as they can before dropping out and being paid ridiculous amounts of money to lobby. Moreover, politicians should look for places to be employed after they're finished, because they should be private citizens that enter public service for a time, then leave to go back into the private sector. Our government does not exist to make the people in it rich, that's not its purpose and it gets corrupted when people use it like that. So, not only do we need term limits, but we also need to find a way to severely restrict lobbying, if not make it outright illegal. One step would be to simply bar any former public official from being a lobbyist. I am not a fan of government placing restrictions on what people can do, but in the case of the people actually leading the government, they most definitely deserve additional restrictions. They have proven that time and time again. I would also like to see politicians barred from investing in public companies or real estate while in office. If they want to be part of the government, if they want to be a public servant, fine, they are there to serve, not to enrich themselves.

They also reinforce short-term thinking, as the individual politicians won't need to deal with the fallout of their decisions if they have no chance to be re-elected.

You're making the assumption that the only fallout one would receive from bad decisions is in the form of people not voting for them. How about society in general shunning them? How about protecting things like their "integrity" or "good name"?

Finally, the networking and experience required to get anything done in any political environment takes quite a while to build up

Which is only because of the current corrupt pay-to-play system which we need to remove. Term limits are a great start.

Most simple solutions are horribly flawed, which is often the main reason they haven't been employed previously.

Some simple solutions are horribly flawed. Others, like congressional term limits, have never been tried previously. For some reason the people in power don't really want to limit their own power. Interesting how that works.

http://www.nytimes.com/interac...

Just more examples of you being wrong.

That you claim to be an expert when it is quite clear you're full of shit and refusing to budge... it damages your intellectual credibility.

I get proven wrong on occasion. And when that happens, I admit it, thank them for correcting me, and move on.

You have promoted untruths, you have presumed to claim knowledge and authority you don't have, you have condescended to me in the face of contradicting facts, and you have shown a tendency to be selectively stupid whenever it suits your argument.

Your position is annihilated. Not so much as a greasy spot on the concrete to show it was even there. Gone.

Not really, some of the analysis following the Challenger disaster at NASA concluded that the use of Powerpoint limited the ability to put enough relevant information on the screen to allow analysts to make the necessary connections to identify risks.
http://www.edwardtufte.com/tuf...

In a similar study performed by the Army, the conclusion was that all of the necessary detail that would have been included in a whitepaper was trimmed away for the 5-bulletpoints that they could put on the screen, to quote the article:“It’s dangerous because it can create the illusion of understanding and the illusion of control,” General McMaster said in a telephone interview afterward. “Some problems in the world are not bullet-izable.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04...

Horsecrap. I can present a single word on a single slide which sums up everything the engineers came up with: "NO". Powerpoint had nothing to do with the challenger disaster and is nothing more than a blame sharing exercise. What caused the disaster was that the information exchange between engineers and managers was poorly facilitated. If the engineers at any point recommended not to launch (which they did) then the fault lies squarely on the other side of the table for not seeking all the relevant information. If the powerpoint had nothing but pictures of rainbow unicorns on it you can still extract all relevant information you need as the information was available in the room at the time. If the decision was to be made after it should have been made from minutes not from presentation slides.

Not really, some of the analysis following the Challenger disaster at NASA concluded that the use of Powerpoint limited the ability to put enough relevant information on the screen to allow analysts to make the necessary connections to identify risks.
http://www.edwardtufte.com/tuf...

In a similar study performed by the Army, the conclusion was that all of the necessary detail that would have been included in a whitepaper was trimmed away for the 5-bulletpoints that they could put on the screen, to quote the article:“It’s dangerous because it can create the illusion of understanding and the illusion of control,” General McMaster said in a telephone interview afterward. “Some problems in the world are not bullet-izable.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04...

Banning things does us no favor, but getting the message out does

http://www.amazon.com/How-Powe...
http://www.computerworld.com/a...
https://www.psychologytoday.co...
http://www.unc.edu/~healdric/P...
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04...

The summary of all of these articles is that Powerpoint has a limit to how much information it can place on a slide, this is largely a function of screen resolution and visible font size

This limit is resolution results in 'high level' 10,000 display of topics that does not adequately represent the subject matter
The result is that people give presentations at a high level and then send out the powerpoint as the notes for the presentation, when in fact any real detailed information would be either omitted or glossed over at that high level

What we really need is to demand improvements to Powerpoint, like
1. displaying at legible resolution on a 6ft high by 30 ft wide screen (remember those old blackboards from college Calculus class, that is the level of information density that we need)
2. Providing linking and drill down like would would expect to see on an executive dashboard. Sure, start at the summary level, but allow the speaker to drill down to the details at any point in the diagram. Also, make this all print out as the 'notes' with footnotes and references to the linked information
3. Train the presenters to not be satisfied working at the outline level

I guess that we should not simply blame Powerpoint for making us stupid, when we are stupid for relying on it as it is

I speak of public universities only. Private universities and corporations can do whatever they want. But if you're taking the public coin then the public has a right to insist on integrity.

The vast majority of research in private universities is government funded, so your public/private university distinction is pretty meaningless. Further, corporations have been eschewing in-house labs in favor of utilizing university labs for some time now.

Simply cutting the sophists off from public funding should largely solve the problem.

So your solution to the problem of bad science is to get rid of bad scientists. Brilliant!

Of course, you have to actually propose a process to eliminate the sophist fungus from the halls of academia - a process that is better than the one currently in place - before you get to claim you've solved anything. Do you know of some test that differentiates a sophist poser from a bona fide scientist?

"(taxi licenses in Italy are numbered, each can cost more than $ 100k to obtain)."

There's the problem. Piss off Italy...

Taxi licenses (cab medallions) in the US can cost over a million to obtain (example New York City just two years ago). http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11...

You're not paying attention to what is being advocated.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04...

Example 2: There are 50 auto dealers in a state. The state raises taxes on car dealers 30%. Now all dealers raise their prices 30%.

Now I ask you "Who is paying that 30% increase?"

God, can your math really be that bad? If the state raises taxes on car dealers by 30%, as you say, and the tax goes from 3% to 4%, why would that require the car dealers to raise the prices of their cars 30%?

That's the first problem with your comment.

Second is the fact that some of the car dealers may choose to let their profits fall the additional 1% (from the taxes being raised from 3% to 4%) and they'll keep their prices lower than the dealers who chose to raise prices and end up being the most successful dealer in the state.

When their competition, and when there's not market consolidation to the extent that it causes concentrated pricing power, taxes will not raise prices significantly.

Let's let Bruce Bartlett, a former economic adviser to Ronald Fucking Reagan explain why "corporations don't pay taxes" is a myth:

http://economix.blogs.nytimes....

By the start of the crisis in 2007 Countrywide held over a 15% share of the subprime mortgage market. The thing is, they were constantly selling their loans to other people. In reality, they were probably the issuers of close to half the subprime market loans from 1994 to 2008. Countrywide was in bed with the Clinton administration http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10... http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB... They were the ones who directly pushed for the expansion of the subprime loan market. Not to mention the real estate bubble while not entirely connected to the dot-com bubble was supremely inflated as it collapsed and investors scrambled for 'safe' investments.

Here's the link to the "Cabal" story:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05...

Remember, it's the shareholders that pay these fines. And no one in the bank corporation is held accountable.

Why not? If you have any information I lack, I would love to be proven wrong. Isn't that the purpose of dialog?

Here are a few data points to prove my point. Austerity in Ireland and Portugal compared to Greece:

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.c...

And Greece compared to Germany (1913-1920)

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.c...

Germany's austerity measures have proven time and time again that they do not work. And it's not a matter of corruption, or public spending, or lazy Greeks and ouzo. It's a matter of austerity in a depression being a big no-no in economics.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04...

If you have any interesting data, please share. Else, I purpose you read up on Krugman, he presents a very interesting case.

Why not? If you have any information I lack, I would love to be proven wrong. Isn't that the purpose of dialog?

Here are a few data points to prove my point. Austerity in Ireland and Portugal compared to Greece:

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.c...

And Greece compared to Germany (1913-1920)

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.c...

Germany's austerity measures have proven time and time again that they do not work. And it's not a matter of corruption, or public spending, or lazy Greeks and ouzo. It's a matter of austerity in a depression being a big no-no in economics.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04...

If you have any interesting data, please share. Else, I purpose you read up on Krugman, he presents a very interesting case.

Why not? If you have any information I lack, I would love to be proven wrong. Isn't that the purpose of dialog?

Here are a few data points to prove my point. Austerity in Ireland and Portugal compared to Greece:

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.c...

And Greece compared to Germany (1913-1920)

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.c...

Germany's austerity measures have proven time and time again that they do not work. And it's not a matter of corruption, or public spending, or lazy Greeks and ouzo. It's a matter of austerity in a depression being a big no-no in economics.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04...

If you have any interesting data, please share. Else, I purpose you read up on Krugman, he presents a very interesting case.

Secret Pentagon Report Reveals US "Created" ISIS As A "Tool" To Overthrow Syria's President Assad
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/...

Saudi Arabia-funded Islamic State
http://www.thedailybeast.com/a...

CIA-funded al Qaeda
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03...

Start with the top link it leads to all the others, and there are a LOT of them.

He's downmodded because there is no evidence for widespread absentee ballot fraud, and many on the site probably use absentee ballot voting for one reason or another.

There is a mile wide gap between "no evidence" and "I don't know of any".
You fall into the second category. Do some research.
Here's one for you: http://www.nytimes.com/1998/03...
I can get many more if you like.

Paul Krugman leans negative about TPP. For this is not a trade agreement. It’s about intellectual property and dispute settlement; the big beneficiaries are likely to be pharma companies and firms that want to sue governments.
In a direct sense, protecting intellectual property means creating a monopoly - letting the holders of a patent or copyright charge a price for something (the use of knowledge) that has a zero social marginal cost. In that direct sense this introduces a distortion that makes the world a bit poorer.

Intellectual property: leaked text suggests very strong, even draconian IP regime on copyright, patents, pharma, etc.

Paul Krugman leans negative about TPP. For this is not a trade agreement. It’s about intellectual property and dispute settlement; the big beneficiaries are likely to be pharma companies and firms that want to sue governments.
In a direct sense, protecting intellectual property means creating a monopoly - letting the holders of a patent or copyright charge a price for something (the use of knowledge) that has a zero social marginal cost. In that direct sense this introduces a distortion that makes the world a bit poorer.

Intellectual property: leaked text suggests very strong, even draconian IP regime on copyright, patents, pharma, etc.

"The great bulk of the money lent to Greece has been used simply to pay interest and principal on debt."

I'm not going to defend the government that got us in the euro by cooking the books. That party is pretty much non existent now cause of its colossal blunder. Nor was I ever aware that such a game was being played. I'll just point you to Paul Krugman on the issue of morality.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01...

No point in pretending there is unity between people of the European Nations and such. Germany pretty much only cares about making an example of the Greek people, painting us as non-working jerks and the sort, when we actually work more than Germans in absolute hours for a lot less pay. I'm just tired of this bullshit. Let's default and lenders get nothing, Greece gets a new start in a weaker economy. I'm pretty sure the EU will fall apart, not out of spite, but exactly because there is no mechanism designed to work out these types of crisis.No federal political ties. Detroit filed for bankruptcy. No one is booting it out of the US :p

Ontopic: Britain is pretty wise of being skeptics.

the entire story about a spontaneous demonstration and a mob angry about some video on YouTube was completely fabricated. They knew it wasn't true

First, we still don't know the full reason why the attack happened. And the main perp admitted he was indeed upset by the video. Wether it was the main reason or not, the perp wouldn't discuss further.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06...

And as far as the Susan Rice announcement, it was suggested by a team member that evidence of possible terrorism not be immediately made public because it may give clues to the terrorists that their involvement was known about. Whether that reason was tainted by political bias or not is hard to say, we can't x-ray their neurons. It's speculative either way.

I've explained this to you before on slashdot, but you ignored it for unknown reasons.

How on earth can opening the footage to the public NOT compromise privacy?

Check the article. They provide examples of over-redacted footage. Had you looked at them, you wouldn't be asking the questions you are.

I asked a cop on a streetcorner for directions the other day, he gave them, I thanked him and went on my way, no problem. I consider that to be a private conversation (it reveals my whereabouts that day and tells where I was trying to go). I don't want video of it to be a public record open to "fishing expeditions" by random jerks

All audio is removed from the over-redacted footage and techniques are used to ensure that people are not readily identifiable. Seriously, just go look at the examples.

And I hate to break it to you, but any video recorded of you by an officer already is a matter of public record. Those "random jerks" just need to file a FOIA request to get the video. And in some states, such as Washington, they can even file those requests anonymously. Any interaction you have with a police officer is a matter of public record, whether you like it or not. This doesn't change that.

Unless there's an actual dispute involving the person requesting the video, nobody (including the police department and the cop wearing the camera) should be allowed to see the video and it should be deleted after 1 year.

Oh, definitely. Great plan. Hey, I think the following people may want to review any available footage the police have regarding their "disputes", but for some reason none of them are speaking...oh, that's right, it's because they were all murdered at the hands of police officers. And what do you know? In the two cases below where footage was available, the police officer is facing murder charges, while in the third one, they aren't. How strange.

1) Walter Scott
2) David Kassick
3) Michael Brown

Those were just off the top of my head. But while simply trying to dig up links for those three, I found out that Olympia, Washington police shot two unarmed brothers at a grocery store yesterday, that a rookie cop in New York fatally shot an innocent, unarmed man who just happened to step out of an apartment at the wrong time, that a cop in South Carolina shot an unarmed man at a traffic stop when the man turned to grab his driver's license, that Anaheim, California cops fatally shot two unarmed men in back-to-back days...the list goes on.

Honestly, it's really depressing. I'm finding more articles about shootings I didn't know about than I am about the high-profile ones I was already aware of. And all of those but the last one are from just the last eight months.

Suffice to say, I vehemently disagree with you.

He got 7% of the vote. Presidential Nominees are chosen by party delegates, not public elections.

http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/primaries/delegates

If you believe the privacy and security claims of a large corporation whose sole purpose is to make a profit, then you just haven't been paying attention to the real world. You can also take the "advertising is inevitable" crap and shove it back where it belongs. There is enough connectivity between people these days through social media that advertising as we know it should go away! If something is worth buying then you will find reviews for it somewhere or find out about it through word of mouth. There are plenty of product driven companies that don't do any advertising at all that are doing just fine. Some are more than a century old!

Hillary Clinton was bribed to grease the sale of 20% of America’s uranium production to Russia, and then it was covered up by lying about a meeting at her home with the principals, and by erasing emails. We might know for sure whether there was or was not bribery, if she hadn’t wiped out thousands of emails.

Colleges definetly use advanced courses such as AP as a basis for admission (Advice From a Dean of Admissions on Selecting High School Courses). Whether it's right or not, colleges consider academic "rigor" in high school to admit students, and the AP courses have a standardized curriculum which makes it easier for colleges to judge their difficulty.

Amusingly, Steve Jobs never let his kids use an iPad growing up. I guess that he didn't buy into Microsoft's argument about technology always being a superior teaching tool either:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09...

That the Citizens United ruling did not say that corporations are people (but instead that tightly-held corporations are effectively partnerships)?

Irrelevant pedantry, the two sentiments you expressed are effectively equivalent. Mitt Romney himself said, "Corporations are people, my friend."

“Corporations are people, my friend,” Mr. Romney responded, as the hecklers shouted back, “No, they’re not!”

“Of course they are,” Mr. Romney said, chuckling slightly. “Everything corporations earn ultimately goes to people. Where do you think it goes?”

Of course, what he forgot to mention is the people everything ultimately goes to is the shareholders (and management) not the workers - who *actually* provide the labor and value of a corporation. In the mind of Republicans like Romney, the workers are replaceable cogs in the money machine who are ultimately only of value if they're inexpensive (as illustrated in recent news)...

Bush made up some evidence

No, the CIA gave him faulty information. New York Times journalist has been researching how she got the WMD story wrong in her reporting back in the day and she writes in http://www.wsj.com/articles/th...

Here's how Paul Krugman described it (more convincingly, to me). GWB wasn't mislead by the CIA. Cheney had convinced him to drive Saddam Hussein out of office before he heard any of the CIA assessments.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.c...
Blinkers and Lies
Paul Krugman
May 16, 2015

"The invasion wasn’t a mistake, it was a crime. We were lied into war."

(First, war in Iraq was not a good faith mistake. Bush and Cheney decided to use 9/11 as an excuse to go after a secular regime that had nothing to do with 9/11. They deliberately mislead the public, making a fake case about WMD.

Second, it was obvious at the time that the case for war was fake, and that post-war Iraq would be a failure.

The question for war supporters is, "Why didn't you see the obvious back then?"

Third, people who knew it was fake supported the war to establish their centrist credentials.)

You made a false claim. The current administration did not decide to yank troops out of Iraq. The Bush administration made an agreement with the Iraqi government on when US troops would be withdrawn. See Pact, Approved in Iraq, Sets Time for U.S. Pullout. It was, as nearly every bit of policy from the Bush administration related to Iraq, optimistic and a bad choice.

The Obama administration tried to extend the presence of US troops in Iraq, but the Iraqi government denied the request. See Despite Difficult Talks, U.S. and Iraq Had Expected Some American Troops to Stay for just one of many contemporaneous articles on the attempts to keep US troops in Iraq.

Yes, there is plenty of blame to go around, but, contrary to your claim, the reason troops were pulled out of Iraq was because of an agreement between the Bush administration and the Iraqi government.

You made a false claim. The current administration did not decide to yank troops out of Iraq. The Bush administration made an agreement with the Iraqi government on when US troops would be withdrawn. See Pact, Approved in Iraq, Sets Time for U.S. Pullout. It was, as nearly every bit of policy from the Bush administration related to Iraq, optimistic and a bad choice.

The Obama administration tried to extend the presence of US troops in Iraq, but the Iraqi government denied the request. See Despite Difficult Talks, U.S. and Iraq Had Expected Some American Troops to Stay for just one of many contemporaneous articles on the attempts to keep US troops in Iraq.

Yes, there is plenty of blame to go around, but, contrary to your claim, the reason troops were pulled out of Iraq was because of an agreement between the Bush administration and the Iraqi government.