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Your justifaction is the suggestion that anecdotal evidence is better than systematic evidence, which is what quacks have always said when the systematic evidence reveals them to be quacks.

Depends on the context. If I find that rubbing toothpaste on my toes relieves my headaches, my anecdotal evidence trumps any controlled studies showing that rubbing toothpaste on the toes of randomly selected subjects does nothing. It even trumps controlled studies showing that rubbing toothpaste on the toes caues headaches in randomly selected subjects. I'm not a randomly selected subject, I'm me, and my treatment goal is to improve my own subjective experience of health.

On the other hand, if someone comes to me about their headaches, in the absense of controlled studies showing that the treatment works, rubbing toothpaste on the toes would not be at the top of the list of things I'd suggest. (But not absent from that list - it's safe and cheap, it worked for me so maybe those controlled studies are flawed, and at the very least will help clean out toe jam, so why not give it a whirl?)

Of course, we also have to ask how much bearing that systematic evidence has on the actual application in question, how much these objective measurement correspond to the goal of improving subjective experiences of health. I always recommend this article by, and this interview with, Ted Kaptchuk.

Your comment would be more relevant if Wal-Mart actually paid minimum wage. Even this anti-Walmart article says they pay full-time employees $6 to $7.50 an hour. (This may be too low, but it has nothing to do with the federal minimum wage you mentioned.)

Not only does he post outright lies about using a passive repeater in a really long wireless link, he didn't have the balls to admit that he was lying.

For cripe's sake, he even jumped on the Google bandwagon.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, take this gentleman's tech predictions with an extremely large grain of salt.

he is the only pundit that i feel is ballanced, (reasonably) impartial, does his research well, and most important: is not afraid to admit when he is wrong.

i read some of the other guys, usually when thy're linked in sites like /. , ars or digg, but cringely is the only one who deserves a bookmark. most other guys seems to be industry whores, riding on hypes and/or cutting and pasting company's press realeases as if they were prophecies of the next Big Thing(tm).

cringely's column is here

It's not the class, it's the size. According to the "island rule", islands don't provide the territory or food to support a diversity of larger animal species, especially very large animals such as elephants, so for the species that aren't killed off entirely, runts are favored. With the size, number, and variety of upper-level predators greatly reduced, smaller animals can grow larger (which provides advantages such as better body temperature control, more food and water storage, and being a more difficult kill for larger small predators) without risking as much lethal attention from predators.

There are exceptions and there is debate about the details of the island rule mechanism or whether it's even a valid idea at all, but the rule does NOT support the idea that a gorilla-sized animal would get even larger on an island. The factors that keep a large, top-tier animal from getting bigger - finite food supply, body design and that pesky square-cubed law - aren't likely to stop being issues on an island.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/eden/giants.html

You guys are so full of shit propaganda, it's okay, that's what you've been fed. China is following what is called the authoritative model of development, and it's working wonders. It happens to be exactly the same one taken by the Japanese, and the Japanese took it from Germany. If you consider Germany and Japan failtures, I don't think you think well. The statement "Communism will always fail" is bullshit in this context, disproven by history. Compare China with India. China and India are textbook cases of why socialism is good and capitalism is rotten; China and India started from the same post-colonialist situation yet half the Indian population, more than half a billion people, still suffers from endemic hunger, desperate destitution, illiteracy, high infant mortality, disease, low life expectancy, and other problems that would shame any self-respecting nation and that China has done much better on. India has forgotten half its population, half a billion people, the Indian politicians and the Indian well-off classes don't have a care for them, whereas China has provided universal healthcare, education and services or its people that have been decent and wise and now China is in a *far* better situation than India by any measure and that's indisputable.

Just google for information and learn if you don't already know

"In Education, 99.1% of Chinese children attend school for 9 years,
this ensures a high level of literacy. In India, literacy is 50 to
60%... China with lesser cultivable land, produces double the food
grains, at 415 million tons per year compared with India's 208 million
tons per year.... India's per capita earning is US$440 per year against
US$990 per year in China... As per the World Bank, the poverty line
definition is US$1 per person per day or US$365/person/year, for
underdeveloped countries like India, China etc. As per the official
data from both governments, China has 3% population below the poverty
line, compared to India's 26 to 29%... China attracts 87 million
tourists per year (this is expected to reach 90 million in 2002)
against 2.5 million per year to India.... China started their family
planning policy in 1970, India in 1952, in 2001 our birth rate was
nearly 3 times more than China...." From
http://www.wakeupcall.org/china_india_comparision/ china_india_compari...

And there's more and more and more measures why socialism in China had
been a Success and Capitalism in India had been rotten. And guess what,
it isn't limited to China and India, here's the example of Cuba that
the US has terrorised with severe ecomonic sanctions and tried to make
sure it never succeeds as a nation. Compared to Latin America and
despite the US sanctions against it, Cuba has done very, very well. In
fact, socialism is proven

""Cuba's achievements in social development are impressive given the
size of its gross domestic product per capita. As the human development
index of the United Nations makes clear year after year, Cuba should be
the envy of many other nations, ostensibly far richer. [Cuba]
demonstrates how much nations can do with the resources they have if
they focus on the right priorities - health, education, and literacy.""
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/castro/sfeature/sf_vi ews_uriarte.html

whoops, wrong URL. Here's the correct one:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tsunami/ask-050402.ht ml

Are they also adjusting the clock because the Dec 2004 earthquake and tsunami caused a small change in the rotation speed of the earth? I believe it caused the rotation to last a few miliseconds longer for that day. There some info at the NOVA site on pbs.org:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tsunami/ask-050331.ht ml
(scroll down to the sixth question)

You're reading a lot of stuff into my short comment. But let me address just one point, I never said that only the Bushies have done it. In fact, I am well aware that other administrations of both parties have conducted such surveillence. In fact, the FISA legislation was inacted, in 1978, specifically because of what were considered abuses by the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations.

"I'm not debating their points (I've not read the article yet), but it would seem to require us to throw out the data that we already have."

No, it doesn't.

It just asks us to start looking in Asia also. "All the evidence" comes from Africa because all the digs are happening in Africa. Archaeology and paleontology are sciences which suffer from heavy biases in their observations. First off, what are the chances that any bone would become a fossil? Slim to none. Secondly, we can't ramdonly sample the whole earth's surface with dig teams. We dig in places where the lead researcher "has a good feeling", or gets word from a local farmer about strange rocks.

"If homo species migrated to the rest of the world from Asia, then it would have requires Lucy, a relatively primitive human to have gotten to Africa, then start a long series of descendents and multiple branches of evolution there, eventually resulting in homo sapiens."

Lucy, who was an Australopithecus afarensis (way before people -- not even Homo or same as us ) stays in Africa, as does her descendants, A. garhi.

Her even later descendents Homo erectus, H. habilis, or neanderthalis wanders out into Asia and becomes H. sapiens, who in turn wanders back to Africa, and of course, the rest of the world. Note that fossils of H. erectus, which is considered to be two species before modern humans, were found in Dragonbone cave in China.

A good understanding of this wikipedia entry for human evolution might help you understand the situation.

And doesn't it seem good and right that even poor people should have access to healthcare, shelter and education? Of course it does; only a heartless person wouldn't agree.

Or someone with no political sense: happy, healthy, well-fed people with a secure future just don't go around blowing themselves or other poeple up.

The only model that seems to have worked well was the middle path between capitalism and socialism as used by the Nordic countries during the 20th century, go look up how well Sweden, for example, was doing during the years it pursued the middle path. Somethings do better in the free market other things do better with oversight, by taking a middle path, the best of both models can be used. All-or-nothing models rarely work and in the cases of pursuing a purely socialist model or a purely capitalist model, they fail big time as we have seen.

They are going to use their dominance in the console market to try to make Blu-Ray the defacto standard.

Sony doesn't hold a monopoly in the console industry. The market is pretty well divided among the XboX, Gamecube, and Playstation. With each generation of console, it's a wide-open opportunity for any participant to take the lead.

The anti-trust law that Microsoft was convicted of breaking was that they leveraged a monopoly in one industry (Computer Operating Systems) to suppress competition in another (Web Browsers). Other posters on this topic are proposing that this is a repeat offense.

Joel Klein-- "In this specific case the evidence is overwhelming that Microsoft was unable to compete on the merits and decided in its own words "to leverage its monopoly" in order to "make people" use their browser."

Seth

One thing we run into is a problem of definitions. Heck, Jakob Nielsen's thing isn't a blog at all - in the movable-type, bloger, etc sense - but the poster called it a blog.

So, then, what's a video blog?

Do Robert Cringely's NerdTV count? It's updated weekly, high-quality.
Do StrongBad emails count? They're updated "whenever", and quality ... well, it's art. I like 'em.

That is if Masterpiece Theatre wasn't leading me astray.

(Still remember the days when it truly was Masturbation Theater boobies galore (also contains the sentenced to America reference)).

Down with FCC tyranny!!

That is if Masterpiece Theatre wasn't leading me astray.

(Still remember the days when it truly was Masturbation Theater boobies galore (also contains the sentenced to America reference)).

Down with FCC tyranny!!

1. MSN Search will be renamed to MSN Grahams Number
2. Robert Scoble will be fired and/or hired by another company at twice his current salary
3. George Lucas announces three more Star Wars films (dubbed Suckquels), after Special Editions for the Prequels and Super-Duper Mega Deluxe Power Special XP Uber Plus Editions for the Original Trilogy are re-pre-pro-issued
4. Adobe Reader 7.0.1 will be released, solidifying its place in the Guinness Book of Worlds Records as the Most Painfully Long Boot Process for an Application that Everybody Needs.
5. eBay will eBay itself on eBay
6. Microsoft will begin issuing patches as viruses and spyware, thus boosting update adoption by ten billion percent
7. The RIAA will make writing on any kind of CD illegal
8. Everybody and their grandmother will have a podcast thats just as boring and useless as their blogs
9. To compete with Atom in the marketplace, Harvard will start calling RSS Eve
10. It becomes legal to castrate / sterilize spammers under vigilante justice

Robert X. Cringelys 2005 predictions:

1) Microsofts entry into the anti-virus and anti-spyware businesses will be a disaster for users. This is based on everything I know about Microsoft, having watched the company for almost 28 years. They will make a big fanfare, spend a lot of marketing dollars, but in the end, the company simply wont be able to keep up with the demands of keeping virus signatures current, which isnt the real point of this gambit, anyway. There is so much to this story and so much that I could write that I think Ill do so next week, and just move on to the next prediction.
2) Carrying over from last year, I predict that Burst.com will beat Microsoft in their current lawsuit. But to avoid having to eat crow again over timing, let me put this in greater context. IF a trial actually takes place, as it is now scheduled to do this summer, Burst will easily win. Microsoft is at a disadvantage already as a bully. Burst will probably get Judge Motz to tell the jury that Microsoft deliberately destroyed evidence, and it doesnt hurt, either, that Burst is just plain right on all counts Microsoft DID violate their patents, DID violate Bursts non-disclosure agreement, DID attempt to illegally put them out of business, and DID attempt to control the market.

Of course, Microsoft might settle before trial, but at this point, I dont think that is likely out of simple arrogance on Microsofts part. Microsoft is furious with Burst for the little companys continued survival, plus Microsoft is listening to the wrong lawyers on this one. So Burst will win on some or all counts ,and I expect the damage award to be in the billions. Of course, Microsoft will appeal. But the key difference between this case and other Microsoft cases is that once Burst wins, Real Networks and Apple Computer, both of which are also infringing Bursts patents (along with TiVO and a bunch of other companies), will immediately buy Burst licenses, throwing $100+ million into Bursts coffers and leading to everyone else EXCEPT Microsoft taking a Burst license, too. At that point if it goes that far and Microsoft is that stupid Redmond wont be able to risk not having a Burst license and will settle, too. Only by waiting so long Microsoft will have blown any number of advantages it could have had. Typical.

3) Apple will take a big risk in 2005. This could be in the form of a major acquisition. With almost $6 billion in cash, Steve Jobs hinted to a group of employees not long ago that he might want to buy something big, though I am at a loss right now for wh

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is a multinational rules based and membership oriented organization which oversees international agreements between members defining the rules of trade, or more precisely the rules governing access to markets, tariffs, quotas, subsidies and the like. It is the successor to the older General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) which was signed following WWII in 1947 as part of the Bretton Woods meetings, which took place in Bretton Woods New Hampshire beginning in 1944. The famous economist John Maynard Keynes headed the British delegation and was influential in the drafting of the final agreement. The power of the WTO, at least in theory, comes from the ability of the organization to expel members who do not follow the rules although in practice this would seem unlikely as evidenced by all of the rule bending which China gets away with. There are articles on Wikipedia covering the WTO, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, and other issues of International trade for interested readers. The Commanding Heights series, available online at PBS featured a segment with audio selections from Keyne's speech at the Bretton Woods conference as well.

Chapter 6: Worldwide War - Keynes at Bretton Woods

Interesting comparison to mooncheese.

I tried to make a humorous comparison interesting at the same time!

Creationists are indeed free to accept speciation without accepting universal common descent.

Not really, as it makes no sense. It is about as sensible as imagining that, for example, the Earth does not orbit the Sun, but simply happens to find itself in a series of positions on certain days. It is about as sensible as not believing that your motor car has an engine and the 'magic gas' you put in moves it from place to place. The pattern of species over time reveals the 'engine' of evolution'.

You can, I suppose, accept it, but to expect other not to consider your point of view laughable is too much.

It seems you accept that recognition of the process evolution need not conflict with or compromise religious belief.

My view is that it is irrelevant whether or not it conflicts with or compromises religious belief. Science is about trying to find explanations for things and to discover what happens. There should be no barrier to this. Scientific investigation into evolution should no more be hampered by religious considerations that should any other aspect of science. Blocking or ignoring investigations in these areas is simply a way of trying to censor the truth.

It is up to religious people to cope with the findings of science in a mature way, and not to try and pretend that science has not made certain discoveries. It simply makes religious people look foolish. This is a point of view which is well-taken even by most religious people - I believe St Augustine backed this approach centuries ago.

Not only that, but their use could damage the reputation of the scientific community in the same way that their use destroyed the reputation of the religious community

The other options for the scientific community haven't worked - you can't debate rationally with creationists as they simply won't accept your arguments. You can't ignore them as they try to promote their imagined pseudo-science as equal to real science. What is left but ridicule?

However, if it seems to a creationist that the entire scientific community is laughing at them for a personal belief, they may be discouraged from interest in that community's findings.

This seems too optimistic to me - my impression is that someone who labels themselves as creationist has already decided that they aren't interested in scientific findings. Perhaps I am too cynical.

Creationists don't need to view the scientific community as an enemy, there should be no cause to do so.

I'm afraid that they do need to view the scientific community as an enemy, as they have good cause - the findings of the scientific community clearly and unquestionably threaten their core belief - that life needs a creator and that all species need some intelligence for their existence.

BTW, do you have any links to material re. the 'complex eye' debate? Perhaps an essay? Much obliged.

Yes, of course:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/01/1/l_0 11_01.html

One of the most amusing discussions about eye evolution was from Richard Dawkins, regarding his mentor, John Maynard-Smith. "Anyone who thinks that only half an eye would not work should consider Maynard-Smith, who has not cleaned his glasses for a long time". Having met Maynard-Smith, I saw his point :)

Nope, he's right, it is trivial to do. Cringley had a nice article on it a while back.

I'm not worried at all about getting the bird flu and dying, or losing a family member or friend to it.

What I am very worried about is the economic consequences to the worlds reaction to it.

The current Bush plan calls for the closing of all interstate and air travel, and the closing of all ports, the moment the bird flu is detected on U.S. soil in a human communicable form.

I don't know about you, but that would have serious consequences for me. No gas at the gas station. No food at the grocery store. You can't just order crap off the internet, because there will be no UPS or FedEx to deliver it.

This map shows how fast the 1918 flu epidemic (not a pandemic) spread. So it is very reasonable to try to stop it's spread, and no president, not even one as stupid as Bush, wants to be remembered as the one who killed off 1.9 million voters.

So, travel restrictions are necessary, but we shouldn't think there will be no consequences. A real outbreak of the bird flu in the U.S. will make Katrina look like a FEMA picnic.

Irreducible complexity: certain things like the human eye and bacterial flagellum are so complex, relying on so many independent pieces, that it could not have evolved from chance.

For example, if evolution occurs through gradations, how could it have created the separate parts of the eye -- the lens, the retina, the pupil, and so forth -- since none of these structures by themselves would make vision possible? In other words, what good is five percent of an eye?

Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit.

Feel free to take four minutes and eight seconds to learn precisely how the human eye probably evolved.

If you can handle the four minutes and eight seconds, perhaps you'd be willing to do some reading about how a bacterial flagellum could form without a designer.

I'm also sure you've heard the name Behe before. Did you know that in 2001 Michael Behe admitted that his work had a "defect" and does not actually address "the task facing natural selection." Futhermore, irreducible complexity is rejected by the majority of the scientific community. The main concerns with the concept are that it utilises an argument from ignorance, that Behe fails to provide a testable hypothesis, and that there is a lack of evidence in support of the concept. As such, irreducible complexity is seen by the supporters of evolutionary theory as an example of creationist pseudoscience and amounts to a "God of the Gaps" argument.

Can ID answer the following questions?

• Why do we have vestigial fingers on our feet?
• Why do our nasal passages drain into our lungs?
• Why are our ankles so damn thin and weak compared to our weight and height?
• Why are our ribs "designed" to carry weight horizontally?
• Why are some whales born with legs?
• Why do our eyes have blood vessels directly in front of our field of vision?

If you can't answer the last one at the very least, stop reading now. Go back to the link above, click on it, and spend the four minutes and eight seconds educating yourself.

The point to those questions is that NONE of them can be answered with ID. Can't be predicted with. Can't be tested with. None. Zero.

But do you know what can? Evolution, every one of them.

That said, while you accuse others of not understanding what ID actually is, I contend that you do not understand what evolution is.

(1) the specifics of how life evolved from a scientific point of view, ie natural selection etc.
(2) The "big picture" of how the planet is full of human beings now where it was once only a molten planet.

First of all, the article this discussion is linked to references how scientists have learned new "specifics of how life evolved from a scientific point of view..."

Second, evolution has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with how life was created on what was once only a molten planet. Nothing. At all. Evolution is the transition -- of a population -- from one form of life to others forms of life over (usually long periods of) time.

Creation of life where there is no life is what is known as abiogenesis, not evolution. Now stop what you're doing! I can see you reaching for that reply button and Googling for references to the Miller-Urey experiments from the 1950s.

Stop it! You didn't even read that abiogenesis link, did you? I didn't think so. Nothing I can say can convince you to if your mind is already made up (read: clouded by mindless dogma). However I will leave you with one thing so that you can look it up yourself and do the research.

Abiogenesis experiments conducted by Dr. Sidney Fox. Don't even b

Last night I was having dreams that were a bit like twisted news coverage. There were reports of corrupt elections, training grounds terrorists had used were discovered, human rights were restricted - gays couldn't marry and women were having rights threatened. The Canadian military was moving into Florida in an attempt to free the people. Judge Judy had sentenced corrupt FDA leaders to take massive doses of laxatives, and had sent the CEO of Diebold to a cage at the zoo to be with some very aggressive animals during mating season. International protests were covering the actions of Sony and a major drug company. After complaints of flu shots being more painful than usual this season, it was discovered that they'd secretly been injecting us with RFID chips. Sony had secretly been shipping CDs and DVDs with RFID chips in the plastic, and the bio-data of the purchaser was linked to the serial numbers in the media as purchasers passed through scanners by store exits.. People who'd attempted to use their media in an unauthorized way were mysteriously dying. It turned out that when players of net-enabled Xbox and Playstation games were shooting opponents, they were killing those who'd put discs in their PCs as their shots triggered toxic releases from the in-the-flesh RFID chips. Sony executives denied any connection to the terrorist conspiracy (the plan to stick their asses outside and simultaneously fart in the direction of Washington D.C. at 12 midnight on New Year's Eve was unrelated), saying that they weren't the ones doing the shooting, and they were simply keeping people in line while giving gamers the realism they wanted.

Just then I woke up, MPAA president Dan Glickman, was on the Tavis Smiley show on PBS. He confessed that theatre attendance was down, partly due to a shift to DVDs and partly due to consumers not finding the movies compelling enough. The following segment didn't explicitly say that the music industry was lacking great new artists and material, but it featured members of Earth, Wind and Fire whose legacy status was reflected by the line "from 8-track to iPod".

good point. There is also very strong evidence that changes in size occur with you put a speicies on a smaller landmass. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/eden/giants.html The link is pretty self explainatory.

K, but I think the way it works is they base all their expected revenue based on extrapolations of the opening weekend. FrontLine had a good episode on this called The Monster that Ate Hollywood that gets into this issue.

The assertion is that big business interests controlling the studios look at the way movies are funded and marketed differently now. BB wants a reasonably assured return on investment and so factors like script, characters and other "subjective" elements take a back seat to "Star Power" (Tom Cuise draw effect), blockbuster effects, merchandising tie-ins, etc.

A larger-than-expected DVD sales number is going to do little to change the mindset that looks at the opening weekend draw when deciding how/if to make more of the same.

For you Darwin haters: that godless organization known as PBS has a list of about 100 links that provide evidence of evolution. All of these are supposed to be created by scientists (but don't come crawling back complaining if you find out that one of them wasn't - it doesn't invalidate the evidence, it invalidates my statement that they are scientists).

By the eye, what do you mean? A device to detect light? Or a device with an iris, cornea and retina? Light-sensitive cells exist in many simple forms and have evolved to more and more efficient versions of vision. There exist forms of life with simple and complex vision today. See this article about a PBS show on the subject. "The first animals with anything resembling an eye lived about 550 million years ago. And, according to one scientist's calculations, only 364,000 years would have been needed for a camera-like eye to evolve from a light-sensitive patch."

Here is more at this press release about the evolution of the human eye. '"It is not surprising that cells of human eyes come from the brain. We still have light-sensitive cells in our brains today which detect light and influence our daily rhythms of activity," explains Wittbrodt. "Quite possibly, the human eye has originated from light-sensitive cells in the brain. Only later in evolution would such brain cells have relocated into an eye and gained the potential to confer vision."'

And lots more links here. so please let's stop using the eye as an example. What next, bacterial flagella? That one is explained too. Next question?

Is it all figured out? No, but in science when we don't know it all we say that we are still looking, we don't say things we don't know must be explained by supernatural means, which is what ID does. It cops out with, "it must be something intelligent that designed it" instead of trying to understand the real reasons. Science may never find all the answers, it doesn't promise that it will but at least it doesn't have the answers BEFORE it has the QUESTIONS.

How about this as a start? http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/01/1/l_0 11_01.html/

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/01/1/l_0 11_01.html

...

Every change had to confer a survival advantage, no matter how slight. Eventually, the light-sensitive spot evolved into a retina, the layer of cells and pigment at the back of the human eye. Over time a lens formed at the front of the eye. It could have arisen as a double-layered transparent tissue containing increasing amounts of liquid that gave it the convex curvature of the human eye.

In fact, eyes corresponding to every stage in this sequence have been found in existing living species.

...

The article is interesting in the use of GPS recievers to gather information. Let's look at two datasets.

From Wikipedia: "The accuracy of the GPS signal itself is about 5 meters (16 ft) as of 2005 and has steadily improved over the last 15 years. Using differential GPS and other error-correcting techniques, the accuracy can be improved to about 1 cm (.4 in) over short distances."

From NASA: "Large earthquakes often cause permanent movement of the Earth's surface, a result of the motion that occurs deep underground. The tsunamis spawned by the magnitude 9.0 earthquake on December 26, 2004, were the result of motions of the sea floor above the earthquake fault. Seismic measurements and computer models show that the Burma Plate slipped up to 20 meters (66 feet) at the location of the earthquake, 18 kilometers underground. The sea floor above moved less, up to 5 meters (16 feet) vertically and 11 meters (36 feet) horizontally."

So, the practical uses of this, even without error-correction, are theoretically viable for creating an early warning system for Tsunamis.

The article states that it should only really take 70 seconds for "a good idea of the final deformation". Linking this data to website and government run servers, the early warning system for Tsunamis would be far greater and accurate that say, tornado early warning systems. Consider the following exerpt from PBS's NewsHour: Developing a Global Tsunami Warning System: "STUART WEINSTEIN, Geophysicist, Pacific Tsunami Warning Center: I think the 'holy cow' moment didn't occur until we started getting the first preliminary reports over the wire services that, in fact, a damaging wave struck Phuket, Thailand and Sri Lanka.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Were you frustrated?

Stuart WeinsteinSTUART WEINSTEIN: Very frustrated. Frustrated and to a certain extent humiliated. It's humiliating for me as a geophysicist working for a tsunami-warning program to learn first of a tsunami from a wire service than from a tide gauge. That -- it doesn't get any worse than that, quite frankly.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Thousands of miles away at NOAA's Pacific Marine Research Lab in Seattle, tsunami researcher Vasily Titov was also frustrated. It took him until 4 a.m. in the morning of the next day to run this computer model, because he didn't have tsunami readings either."

Considering the earthquake hit at 00:59 GMT, and the wave first makes landfall at Sumatra 01:30 GMT, then 02:30 GMT in Thailand, then 03:00GMT in Sri Lanka and India... having a result from this system at 01:00GMT (70 seconds) automatically piped to the national emergency centers of governments, could have at least mobilized aid faster in Sumatra, and could have evacuated thousands in Thailand, Sri Lanka, and India.

A total of approximately 275,000 died in the Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004. At a cost of even $10,000 per detector, 5000 detectors for $50million USD would have only cost $181 for every person that died.

Don't believe me?

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/july-de c02/college.html

As a former contributor to Greenpeace, in my "youthful days", I would agree wholeheartedly with your assessment that the environmental movement is primarily responsible for propagating irrational fear of nuclear power. The depth of their irrationality on the subject was made plain to me by their active opposition to the small radioisotope thermal power sources on deep space missions such as Galileo and Cassini. The most extreme environmentalists made claims like "millions would die" in the case of an accident. They seem to fear anything nuclear as the superstitious fear demons, and their fear spreads as a contagion. Of course, the Russians didn't help much with their miserly approach to safeguards; the very word "Chernobyl" entered the lexicon as a synonym for something like "hot radioactive wasteland".

Beyond the particular elements of Jimmy Carter's energy policies, what I admire about him most was he was the last President to take on a clear public leadership role in favor of energy independence. Carter's 1977 address to the nation on his National Energy Plan was unprecedented. Carter did much to open Federal Lands for oil and natural gas exploration and production. Like you, tjstork, I suspect that in the 1970's Carter would have supported drilling in the ANWR, if that had been an issue at the time. However, he is on record now as being opposed, due to global warming concerns (which I share). Although, as you point out, the Three Mile Island disaster was a major setback, I think the political symbolism of Ronald Reagan removing the solar panels from the White House marked the end to Carter's dream of energy independence for our country.

Interestingly, supplemental solar power was restored to the White House 23 years after it was first removed. In a world where the Future Shock-wave rolled over us long ago, 23 years is a long, long time. As it is with the environmentalists, so it is with the Lords of Industry; neither can be counted on to be rational players. A laissez-faire approach to markets cannot lead to an ultimate solution to our energy woes. Ultimately, Adam Smith's metaphorical "Invisible Hand" comes to grasp the throat of the common man. I believe more in the wisdom first explored by John Maynard Keynes, that the government's intervention in the market can be beneficial, not only to protect the public from the excesses of an unfettered market, but also to provide a guiding hand in rational long-term policy. Had we continued in the spirit of Jimmy Carter 23 years ago, striving towards national energy independence, then the guiding hand of government could have been gentle. Tax incentives, increased research funding for energy alternatives, small business initiatives, and reliable government support for pilot programs that promised future economic returns would have brought us far beyond where we are today. But now, 23 years later, even the basic task of maintaining a sufficient and affordable future energy supply is more akin in magnitude to President Kennedy's 1961 challenge to put a man on the moon, and can only be envisioned if we roll back the disastrous and irresponsible fiscal policies implemented by the current administration in the last five years.

This is probably a good time to point out that mouse and GUI were pretty much invented by one person, Doug Engelbart, while driving to work in 1951. A NerdTV interview, in which he talks about his inventions, has recently been released online.

How to keep the country running and yet combat the deficit even has party allies drawing swords. It's taxes and spending debated per usual -- but this time it's the difference between the House and Senate budget priorities that's causing all the heat. In an editorial, THE WASHINGTON POST said "though neither offers much to cheer about, the Senate's version is by far the fairer. It would cut $35 billion in projected entitlement spending over the next five years, compared with $50 billion in the House version. But the differences between the two bills are bigger than those numbers suggest. The Senate would make the cuts without digging into programs for low-income people." THE ECONOMIST echoed these sentiments somewhat, noting, " The House package, supported by Mr Bush, tries to cement his tax-cutting legacy...Some 40% of the House tax cuts would go to those earning more than $1m a year; the very rich would get only 8% of the Senate's cuts."

Below are links to the ongoing debates surrounding U.S. fiscal policy -- reducing the deficit, tax cut plans, and budget priorities. Explore both sides of the debates and then do your own number crunching by visiting sites with budget numbers and analyses.
Civil Liberties and the Patriot Act:

The Bill of Rights Defense Committee
Not for profit grassroots group concerned with American civil liberties. The site contains updates on local civil liberties actions, tools for activists, a legislation watch and policy briefs on the Patriot Act.

The Department of Homeland Security
The Department of Homeland Security offers information about Homeland Security legislation, the President's Homeland Security proposal, and analysis of the department. Other features include transcripts of speeches given by Governor Tom Ridge at the National Association of Broadcasters Education Foundation 2002 Service to America Summit and President Bush's Address to the Nation concerning homeland security. Online chat transcripts with Governor Ridge are also included.

Homeland Security, Homeland Profits
On the Corpwatch Web site (a corporate watchdog group), Wayne Madsen argues that corporations are standing to make billions from selling "surveillance and information-gathering systems to government agencies and the private sector." Madsen cautions that this technology will be utilized to intimidate and squelch dissent.

How the USA Patriot Act Puts the CIA Back in the Business of Spying On Americans
In this issue brief, the American Civil Liberties Union argues that the USA Patriot Act includes domestic espionage against American citizens. According to the ACLU, the USA Patriot Act "permits a vast array of information gathering on U.S. citizens from school records, financial transactions, Internet activity, telephone conversations, information gleaned from grand jury proceedings and criminal investigations to be shared with the CIA (and other non-law enforcement officials) even if it pertains to Americans."

How to keep the country running and yet combat the deficit even has party allies drawing swords. It's taxes and spending debated per usual -- but this time it's the difference between the House and Senate budget priorities that's causing all the heat. In an editorial, THE WASHINGTON POST said "though neither offers much to cheer about, the Senate's version is by far the fairer. It would cut $35 billion in projected entitlement spending over the next five years, compared with $50 billion in the House version. But the differences between the two bills are bigger than those numbers suggest. The Senate would make the cuts without digging into programs for low-income people." THE ECONOMIST echoed these sentiments somewhat, noting, " The House package, supported by Mr Bush, tries to cement his tax-cutting legacy...Some 40% of the House tax cuts would go to those earning more than $1m a year; the very rich would get only 8% of the Senate's cuts."

Below are links to the ongoing debates surrounding U.S. fiscal policy -- reducing the deficit, tax cut plans, and budget priorities. Explore both sides of the debates and then do your own number crunching by visiting sites with budget numbers and analyses.
Civil Liberties and the Patriot Act:

The Bill of Rights Defense Committee
Not for profit grassroots group concerned with American civil liberties. The site contains updates on local civil liberties actions, tools for activists, a legislation watch and policy briefs on the Patriot Act.

The Department of Homeland Security
The Department of Homeland Security offers information about Homeland Security legislation, the President's Homeland Security proposal, and analysis of the department. Other features include transcripts of speeches given by Governor Tom Ridge at the National Association of Broadcasters Education Foundation 2002 Service to America Summit and President Bush's Address to the Nation concerning homeland security. Online chat transcripts with Governor Ridge are also included.

Homeland Security, Homeland Profits
On the Corpwatch Web site (a corporate watchdog group), Wayne Madsen argues that corporations are standing to make billions from selling "surveillance and information-gathering systems to government agencies and the private sector." Madsen cautions that this technology will be utilized to intimidate and squelch dissent.

How the USA Patriot Act Puts the CIA Back in the Business of Spying On Americans
In this issue brief, the American Civil Liberties Union argues that the USA Patriot Act includes domestic espionage against American citizens. According to the ACLU, the USA Patriot Act "permits a vast array of information gathering on U.S. citizens from school records, financial transactions, Internet activity, telephone conversations, information gleaned from grand jury proceedings and criminal investigations to be shared with the CIA (and other non-law enforcement officials) even if it pertains to Americans."

How to keep the country running and yet combat the deficit even has party allies drawing swords. It's taxes and spending debated per usual -- but this time it's the difference between the House and Senate budget priorities that's causing all the heat. In an editorial, THE WASHINGTON POST said "though neither offers much to cheer about, the Senate's version is by far the fairer. It would cut $35 billion in projected entitlement spending over the next five years, compared with $50 billion in the House version. But the differences between the two bills are bigger than those numbers suggest. The Senate would make the cuts without digging into programs for low-income people." THE ECONOMIST echoed these sentiments somewhat, noting, " The House package, supported by Mr Bush, tries to cement his tax-cutting legacy...Some 40% of the House tax cuts would go to those earning more than $1m a year; the very rich would get only 8% of the Senate's cuts."

Below are links to the ongoing debates surrounding U.S. fiscal policy -- reducing the deficit, tax cut plans, and budget priorities. Explore both sides of the debates and then do your own number crunching by visiting sites with budget numbers and analyses.
Civil Liberties and the Patriot Act:

The Bill of Rights Defense Committee
Not for profit grassroots group concerned with American civil liberties. The site contains updates on local civil liberties actions, tools for activists, a legislation watch and policy briefs on the Patriot Act.

The Department of Homeland Security
The Department of Homeland Security offers information about Homeland Security legislation, the President's Homeland Security proposal, and analysis of the department. Other features include transcripts of speeches given by Governor Tom Ridge at the National Association of Broadcasters Education Foundation 2002 Service to America Summit and President Bush's Address to the Nation concerning homeland security. Online chat transcripts with Governor Ridge are also included.

Homeland Security, Homeland Profits
On the Corpwatch Web site (a corporate watchdog group), Wayne Madsen argues that corporations are standing to make billions from selling "surveillance and information-gathering systems to government agencies and the private sector." Madsen cautions that this technology will be utilized to intimidate and squelch dissent.

How the USA Patriot Act Puts the CIA Back in the Business of Spying On Americans
In this issue brief, the American Civil Liberties Union argues that the USA Patriot Act includes domestic espionage against American citizens. According to the ACLU, the USA Patriot Act "permits a vast array of information gathering on U.S. citizens from school records, financial transactions, Internet activity, telephone conversations, information gleaned from grand jury proceedings and criminal investigations to be shared with the CIA (and other non-law enforcement officials) even if it pertains to Americans."

How to keep the country running and yet combat the deficit even has party allies drawing swords. It's taxes and spending debated per usual -- but this time it's the difference between the House and Senate budget priorities that's causing all the heat. In an editorial, THE WASHINGTON POST said "though neither offers much to cheer about, the Senate's version is by far the fairer. It would cut $35 billion in projected entitlement spending over the next five years, compared with $50 billion in the House version. But the differences between the two bills are bigger than those numbers suggest. The Senate would make the cuts without digging into programs for low-income people." THE ECONOMIST echoed these sentiments somewhat, noting, " The House package, supported by Mr Bush, tries to cement his tax-cutting legacy...Some 40% of the House tax cuts would go to those earning more than $1m a year; the very rich would get only 8% of the Senate's cuts."

Below are links to the ongoing debates surrounding U.S. fiscal policy -- reducing the deficit, tax cut plans, and budget priorities. Explore both sides of the debates and then do your own number crunching by visiting sites with budget numbers and analyses.
Civil Liberties and the Patriot Act:

The Bill of Rights Defense Committee
Not for profit grassroots group concerned with American civil liberties. The site contains updates on local civil liberties actions, tools for activists, a legislation watch and policy briefs on the Patriot Act.

The Department of Homeland Security
The Department of Homeland Security offers information about Homeland Security legislation, the President's Homeland Security proposal, and analysis of the department. Other features include transcripts of speeches given by Governor Tom Ridge at the National Association of Broadcasters Education Foundation 2002 Service to America Summit and President Bush's Address to the Nation concerning homeland security. Online chat transcripts with Governor Ridge are also included.

Homeland Security, Homeland Profits
On the Corpwatch Web site (a corporate watchdog group), Wayne Madsen argues that corporations are standing to make billions from selling "surveillance and information-gathering systems to government agencies and the private sector." Madsen cautions that this technology will be utilized to intimidate and squelch dissent.

How the USA Patriot Act Puts the CIA Back in the Business of Spying On Americans
In this issue brief, the American Civil Liberties Union argues that the USA Patriot Act includes domestic espionage against American citizens. According to the ACLU, the USA Patriot Act "permits a vast array of information gathering on U.S. citizens from school records, financial transactions, Internet activity, telephone conversations, information gleaned from grand jury proceedings and criminal investigations to be shared with the CIA (and other non-law enforcement officials) even if it pertains to Americans."

The Jesus Factor (torrent)

So get a clue trollboy, Bush is all about religion.

Maybe someone should send the good Senators Professor Jenkin's study debunking the myth that video games cause children to become aggressive homicidal sociopaths as mentioned here on Tuesday.

Better yet, why doesn't everone send them it.

Clinton, Hillary- (D - NY)
476 RUSSELL SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-4451
Web Form: http://clinton.senate.gov/contact


Lieberman, Joseph- (D - CT)
706 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-4041
Web Form: http://lieberman.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm?rega rding=issue
While you're at it, why not contact your Senators and tell them to oppose the bill.

If this is true, it only shows how corrupt our laws have become. No serious person could think that Jefferson, Franklin and the other Constitution authors would ever think it's OK for a president to do something like this.

"The Sedition Act posed the biggest challenge to civil liberties, undermining the core of the First Amendment protections of free speech and press. It prohibited spoken or written criticism of the government, the Congress, or the President."

The founding fathers aren't that high and mighty either. I'm just glad they set up a system where (evenutally) bad politians get what's coming to them. At least the system is transparent enough that we see these things and talk about them.

The funniest thing of it all is we paid china to do it by whoring out most of our economy to them just for the sake of greed , stupid politicians and corporations .

The cause is inflation, moreso than greed and corporations. "Stupid politicians" voted for a central bank, to change the U.S. currency from value-based (Gold & Silver) to debt-based. Politicians like a debt-based (fiat) currency, because then they don't need to tax the citizenry to give money to their fellow bandits - they just "print" up a billion dollars and give it to connected organizations (Military-Industrial Complex, Halliburton, Betchtel, etc).

("stupid politicians" is in quotes because I don't know the veracity of the allegation that the Federal Reserve Bank act was passed by a handful of congressmen on December 23rd, when most of the other congressmen had already left. See Response to crticism of The Creature from Jeckyll Island)

Corporations are just fighting for survival... Because of inflation, employees of American manufacturers are forced to demand higher wages. So the manufacturers send out notices that, because their costs are going up, they're going to be charging more. WalMart ("Always Low Prices. Always") says to their suppliers, "Sorry, no can-do - keep your prices the same or we'll go somewhere else. P.S. Why don't you follow us to China?" See PBS Frontline's Is Wal-Mart Good for America? on how they bitchslapped Rubbermaid when the costs for plastic material went up.

This is not "greed" on wal-mart's part, so much as it is fear that their competitors will undercut them.

So, if not stupid politicians & corporations, who's to blame for the destruction of the economy? Well - George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and John Kerry were all members of Skull & Bones... Bill Clinton was a member of the Bilderberg group (American Free Press is the only American news outlet I know of that reports on Bilderberg). Most of the presidents since the 50's have been a member of Bilderburg, Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission, or Skull & Bones. The push for one-world-government has been going on for over 120 years - these people are dedicated, and this is the end-game. NAFTA, CAFTA, WTO, EU, UN - all these entities play a part in dividing up the world into blocks for efficient global governance.

Someone will dismiss what I've said here with "you're just a conspiracy theorist"... Well - think what you want. You're certainly free to believe that you're as free in America today as you would've been 200 years ago. I have no such delusions.

hey how about doing some of your own thinking for once??

Heres some EVIDENCE to the contrary of what you've been thinking.
How about reading this article. Its called "5 New Things That Will BLOW YOUR MIND". It was written in October of this year. And look, I pointed you to the number 2 thing.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1 118338-2,00.html

there's some news coverage for you!!

how about this article to blow your other myth...
http://www.pbs.org/kcts/videogamerevolution/impact /myths.html

I ABSOLUTELY hate it when people open their mouths and crapola comes out.

I only own a gamecube and am 26 years old. I chose to purchase the gamecube over the other systems because I can get practically all the other games on xbox or ps2 for gamecube, but I can play metroid and zelda also.

and nintendo is going for the 1-100 age old market. not just the 12 year olds.

do yourself a favor (you wont look so foolish next time). do some research.

google already answered that:

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20051013. html
So I ran their conclusions by Jeff Huber at Google, who is in charge of engineering for AdWords. I asked a simple question: Is that what you were doing?

"In short, no," said Jeff.

We are not intentionally introducing "noise factors" or any other perturbations in the style the proposed theory suggests to affect near-term or long-term revenues.

I know it's not quite as exciting, but our model is pretty simple. We want our users to have the most relevant possible content, so we work really hard on an on-going basis to optimize end-user perceived quality. We want our advertisers to have a great return on their investment spent with us...

Sure they found errors in Wikipedia and Britannica, but which one can you go back to and correct?

Unfortunately, humans have selective memory and there will never be one version of a story. Everybody has experienced this to the "he said, she said" thing, to conspiracy theories, padded and/or disinformation from the government to the press, etc. (I bet you never read in a mainstream newspaper that Reagan was a crack dealer, right? And the government recently killed the king Crip.) Also, its a common saying with lawyers that an eye witness is the worst witness.

As if the past really existed anyway. It certainly does not exist anymore.

"..15000 @ 0.15 clicks per day he is paying $1500,- a day in advertising that is $547.500 per year.."

It was an experiment. Since he finish it in 36 days , it was an $50,000 experiment.

Are you suggest google will do something funny for $140??

I know google do send out a lot of checks for amount larger than that.

Like Cringely already pointed out: "...for most AdWords users who are probably making plenty of money from their campaigns otherwise -- as we now know from Nash -- they wouldn't be doing it at all."

In reality "invalid clicks" is a real problem for google. I can't tell what happened to your site. May be a friend being too helpful? Or enemy...

Paul

This is not the whole story! That Sept 22 article was old. People should read the follow up articles from October before comment?

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20051006. html
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20051013. html

This is not the whole story! That Sept 22 article was old. People should read the follow up articles from October before comment?

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20051006. html
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20051013. html

He drones on because at the time (a couple of months ago) the analisys was just starting and he wanted to stir up some activity in his inbox. The results of come out in the weeks following and really should have been linked in the original post but oh well, you can find them easilly enough.

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/archive/

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20050922. html

and there are a couple of additional comments (including replys from google) in the following weeks.

Or more recently and currently ongoing. China's refusal to acknowledge North Korean refugees as refugees and shipping them back by the truckload to North Korea to be knowingly tortured and executed.

http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/seoultrain/time line.html