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. . . .and when the FBI started to develop its' own case manager, the "Virtual Case File", which was one of the more spectacular failures in Government IT Development.

When the post-mortem finally comes in, I'd be more than willing to bet that it was due to (1) lack of formalized baseline requirements to hang an initial design on, and the real program-killer, (2) constant requirements creep. Because contractors are unwilling to tell a Federal Customer "no" (because it usually results in decreases in funding in the next task order, or re-allocation of slots to another contractor. . .), there's a constant "just add this one little thing". Over and over again, until you have an unworkable mess and a design that looks nothing like the initial requirement.

The same kind of pressures destroyed the Navy A-12 "Avenger" attack jet in 1991: constant scope creep, until the aircraft was too heavy to fly off an aircraft carrier. The resulting legal fight lasted 13 years. . .

Then they aren't handling their customer properly. I used to do contracting with the Department of Defense. I also helped with business development (including some pretty huge dollar value contracts) by writing technical approaches to these RFPs. When we got these contracts I was the lead engineer and often handled some of the project management aspects as they related to the engineering efforts. I went to every meeting with the customer, from cradle to grave. And you're right, I never did tell the customer 'No - I can't do that.' Because the customer doesn't want to think you cannot do something, even if the reason you're declining the task is merely to prevent feature creep and schedule slip. Instead, you have to convince the customer that while what they want is technically feasible, it is not in their best interests to pursue whatever feature they're asking for. Once you get the customer on the boat with you, make it feel like it was their decision not to implement the feature, they will love you. They will do everything they can to make sure you get every single follow on contract possible. Sometimes they'll even subtly alter their future requirements in order to make it easier for your company to win a contract from GSA or whatever agency is handling procurement.

. . . .and when the FBI started to develop its' own case manager, the "Virtual Case File", which was one of the more spectacular failures in Government IT Development.

When the post-mortem finally comes in, I'd be more than willing to bet that it was due to (1) lack of formalized baseline requirements to hang an initial design on, and the real program-killer, (2) constant requirements creep. Because contractors are unwilling to tell a Federal Customer "no" (because it usually results in decreases in funding in the next task order, or re-allocation of slots to another contractor. . .), there's a constant "just add this one little thing". Over and over again, until you have an unworkable mess and a design that looks nothing like the initial requirement.

The same kind of pressures destroyed the Navy A-12 "Avenger" attack jet in 1991: constant scope creep, until the aircraft was too heavy to fly off an aircraft carrier. The resulting legal fight lasted 13 years. . .

See http://www.reuters.com/article...

The consume 5550000000000000 kWh, which is 5550000000 GWh. So... either my calculations are off, I misinterpreted something, or it's just a drop on a hot plate.

The issue is not the anti-terror agencies (nor the press which here in Belgium choose to follow the non mandatory request of being silent during the investigations) who are really efficient and routinely acts quietly but the political establishment blinded by their greed. The minister Reynders leaked crucial information. It is not surprise if some of the cell of Salah Abdeslam went on rampage. Thank to ours ministers, they knew that:

- Abdeslamthat was arrested
- he was talking
- Police found some new members, new cells
- Police is on the verge to capture them (just the matter of some days)

Knowing that they probably choose to advance their actions.

According to Reuters, "The U.S. budget deficit narrowed to $439 billion in fiscal 2015, the lowest level since 2008." (I don't know where you're getting the 'over $1T' number from.) So your hypothetical 100% top marginal rate would just about cover it.

But let's be more realistic, and say we boost that top bracket to 50%... That would only add another 15% of that $622.8B or $93.4B, which does not eliminate the deficit, but it makes a big dent in it. What else could we do...?

    * Equalize tax rates for investment income and income from work.
    * Eliminate the ability of U.S. corporations to defer taxes on offshore profits.
    * End corporate inversions that allow U.S. companies to merge offshore to avoid taxes.
    * Enact a Financial Transaction Tax on various financial market transactions.
    * End unlimited executive pay tax write-offs.

I'm too lazy to look up specifics, but I believe that's close to another $100B in annual revenue, so we're already near halfway toward eliminating the deficit. Throw in a few other things like lifting the cap on FICA withholding and eliminating subsidies to Big Oil, Big Ag, and Big Pharma, and then add some judicious cuts to, say, the military and the DEA, and you're pretty much done.

It's not that hard to do.

if we raised the top marginal rate to 100%. How much revenue would that generate? Why, all of $622.8B

BTW, for anyone who's not clear on how marginal tax rates work, this hypothetical 100% top bracket would only apply to the portion of income above the $357,700 ($388,350 in my link) cutoff. The income up to that amount would be taxed at the normal rates.

For individuals:
        10% on taxable income from $0 to $8,700
        15% on taxable income over $8,700 to $35,350
        25% on taxable income over $35,350 to $85,650
        28% on taxable income over $85,650 to $178,650
        33% on taxable income over $178,650 to $388,350
        35% on taxable income over $388,350.

So, a person who makes $388,349 pays taxes equal to 0.1 * 8,700 + 0.15 * (35,350 - 8,700) + 0.25 * (85,650 - 35,350) + 0.28 * (178,650 - 85,650) + 0.33 * (388,350 - 178,650) = $112,683.50. That leaves a net income of $275,665.50, having paid an effective rate of about 29% overall. Thus, $275k would effectively be the maximum income (for an individual).

I could live pretty comfortably on that.

In the most recent quarter, Amazon posted record profits, but they weren't high enough, so the value of their shares (what people are willing to pay to invest their money in Amazon) plunged 13%. So I guess you're right, that IS a perfect example of low profits = investors flee.

http://www.reuters.com/article...

Amazon is still in, though preparing to graduate from, the early phase of the cloud business in which the goal is to gain and hold market share in order to reap high profits later, after the cloud industry stabilizes. People were buying Amazon based on the high profits expected in 2018, 1019, 2020, etc, not for last years low profits. As they've recently failed to make the turn, investors are leaving.

The Senate Intelligence Committee is on the job! http://www.reuters.com/article...

Yet, every slow news day we hear of someone (the boogyman?) claiming that there has been another small step in the path that eventually leads to an indictment. If they have the evidence, and it is court-worthy (as opposed to National Enquirer-worthy) and indictment would be trivially easy. The lack of indicting her seems to indicate that such evidence is lacking.

No, it indicates that the politically elite are treated differently than peons.

So far the closest thing we have is that someone claims to have been told to remove secret markings on documents to send to the Secretary of State on a non-secure channel during a critical time period in the Benghazi attacks. We have no evidence that such a thing was done, nor do we know if such a thing was requested. We have no idea of the witness is credible, or if the witness has an agenda.

Do you just make this shit up as you go along? It was uncovered in Hillary's email:

"Hillary Clinton, who has been hounded by questions about her use of a private email account while heading the State Department, instructed a staffer in 2011 to send her a talking points memo by a nonsecure system after it could not be sent by secure fax.

Clinton also expressed surprise in another 2011 email that a State Department staffer would use a private email account for work, according to the latest batch of Clinton emails released by the State Department under a schedule ordered by a federal judge.

[..]

But the latest batch of emails sheds light on her sometimes contradictory attitudes about email security.

In June 2011, after an aide said staffers were having trouble sending her talking points by secure fax, Clinton advised: 'If they can't, turn into nonpaper w no identifying heading and send nonsecure.' "

And the context appears to be a sensitive issue that was going on in Sudan: http://dailycaller.com/2016/01...

I'm not even going to get to the rest of your post. Too much bullshit already.

In fact, at least for black prisoners, they do live longer in prison. Oh look, a source: http://www.reuters.com/article...

Being kept away from alcohol and drugs helps people live longer, who'da thunk.

Exposure of spying by the US on the Chancellor and other high government officials has poisoned the well.

Oh that? The Germans got over it.

German spies revive internet snooping work with US: reports Berlin

Because Russia invading a sovereign country is perfectly acceptable because they weren't doing what Russia wanted them to do. Of course, pointing to another country doing something kind of the same excuses what Russia is doing, it is all perfectly acceptable to annex the territory of another country.

Great Powers do it all the time. I don't expect it to change. But I do aim to point out the hypocrisy and/or naivete of anyone who thinks the US's foreign policy has altruistic motives or that the "Other Guys" are inherently evil.

Yeah, screw those other countries, China has a huge population, so they should just be able to steal territory that they have no valid claim to.

Might makes right. Just ask any sovereign nation that's been subject to a US invasion. As an aside, note that no nuclear-armed state has suffered a regime change at US hands. And yet Americans are surprised when antagonists pursue nuclear arms? As for "stealing territory they have no valid claim to"....the validity of their claim stems from their ability to enforce their will. Hence the fortification of their man-made islands. Also note that the US has progressed to a uniquely insidious alternative to directly "stealing" territory: the Petrodollar system. But it requires constant enforcement by the US, and controlling/manipulating central banks, financial institutions, and the exchange of oil are all aspects of this enforcement.

2000: Saddam was planning to switch sales of Iraqi oil from dollars to Euros. Within 3 years he was deposed.
2009: Gaddafi was doing his best to reconcile with the West. Unfortunately for him, he also planned a gold-and-oil-backed Libyan currency. He was dead within 3 years of shaking Obama's hand. And the "rebels" sure were quick to set up a Central Bank (less than 2 months into the civil war).
2012: Iran was planning to sell oil in exchange for gold. Despite having them bracketed with bases in both Afghanistan and Iraq, the US military was in no position to invade. So Iran instead found themselves promptly disconnected from global financial institutions: http://www.reuters.com/article...
2014: Ukraine has a revolution....and suddenly all the gold is missing from their central bank. Now they are stuck with fiat currency and IMF obligations. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/... Meanwhile, Russia and China are buying up gold like crazy ( http://www.mining.com/china-ru... ), and started their own alternative-IMF (the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank). Both have stated intentions to end the US's hegemonic influence. These are two nuclear-armed Great Powers that are closing the conventional military gap, and despite shaky economies, having been consistently moving to eliminate US dollar influence across their entire sphere of influence. Which, IMO, will eventually be a good thing for everyone, including the average (productive) American citizen.

Oh, let us ignore all the people Assad was murdering, and that a large percentage of the population wants him out of office.

If you have a problem with murderous heads of state that are unpopular, perhaps you should look a little closer to home before trying to solve other people's problems? https://theintercept.com/drone...

Lets just prop up that dictator because he is our friend and is nice to us.

Yes, the Russian relationship with Assad closely parallels the relationship the United States has with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States. Ya know, the guys who are busy bombing the shit out of Yemen? These are also the same people who are VERY close ideologically to ISIS and al Qaeda....who we've spent the past 15 yea

Except your wrong

Nevermind that public assistance isn't only an expense, it also boosts the economy and eases the burden on hospitals because people can afford to eat and heat their homes so they don't get sick.

The Iraq war tally will easily reach 6 trillion plus we have a ton of Veterans we aren't taking care of which is costing more and more money to deal with. But by all means, let's keep making more veterans, put more people needlessly into harms way to accomplish what?

Weapons got us into this mess, if we hadn't armed people during Iran Contra there would be a hell of a lot less weapons in the area and if we hadn't toppled the democratically elected Iran the whole region would be a lot more stable.

I have no idea why Reagan is held up as some kind of standard for Presidents. From what I can tell he united Germany, that was about it from what he did that was good. I'm sure there is more but trickle down economics started with him which was horrible, he helped solve Childhood hunger but then cut taxes so we couldn't afford it anymore. He removed our ability to deduct credit card interest rates on taxes. I would say he probably started the battle with the middle class.

Refresh my memory, was this before or after he started to succumb to his Alzheimers disease? Was this during the time he started nodding off in cabinet meetings and Nancy was essentially grabbing the wheel while he was asleep at it? That was where the disparity you are talking about between military spending and the middle class started. That was the beginning of the war on the middle class, when we transitioned from Reagan to Bush classic.

You're seriously underestimating the cost of the war. The newest data suggests the total cost will be close to $6 Trillion, which is a staggering sum for such a low return. Citation: http://www.reuters.com/article...

The food stamp program is $74 billion according to this story http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/...

According to http://www.reuters.com/article... the iraq war has cost roughly 2 Trillion. So the GP is correct.

Actually I found a better website http://www.usgovernmentspendin... If you add up the Pensions (which the lions share is SSA), Health (Medicare), and Welfare, You get a total spend of 2287.5 billion spent on social welfare programs.

Considering that our total 2015 budget was 3,650.5 billion, that means we spent 62% of our budget on welfare programs. If my math is correct.

Now look at military spending for 2015 and it is 820.2, smaller than either SSA, or Health spending. and only 22% of the budget. If my math is correct

Except your wrong

Nevermind that public assistance isn't only an expense, it also boosts the economy and eases the burden on hospitals because people can afford to eat and heat their homes so they don't get sick.

The Iraq war tally will easily reach 6 trillion plus we have a ton of Veterans we aren't taking care of which is costing more and more money to deal with. But by all means, let's keep making more veterans, put more people needlessly into harms way to accomplish what?

Weapons got us into this mess, if we hadn't armed people during Iran Contra there would be a hell of a lot less weapons in the area and if we hadn't toppled the democratically elected Iran the whole region would be a lot more stable.

I have no idea why Reagan is held up as some kind of standard for Presidents. From what I can tell he united Germany, that was about it from what he did that was good. I'm sure there is more but trickle down economics started with him which was horrible, he helped solve Childhood hunger but then cut taxes so we couldn't afford it anymore. He removed our ability to deduct credit card interest rates on taxes. I would say he probably started the battle with the middle class.

This is the big difference between the worker bees and the higher ups. The worker bees get an example made of them, just like Manning and Snowden. The higher ups get a wrist slap, at most a demotion and coerced retirement, like Patraeus when he gave his mistress classified info. Consider that Colin Powell and Condeleeza Rice both got classified emails on personal accounts and we don't see them rotting in a cell.

It's a total double standard and Hillary will never set foot in a prison. With the publicity she may even be rewarded for it (book deals, higher fees for public speeches, interviews, etc...). Call it within borders diplomatic immunity.

He has 99% of repeating Mitt Romney's performance in 2012, failing to get enough minority and independent voters to win the election.

In 2012, Obama was running. Presidents have a higher chance of being reelected than of their party staying in power.

If you check out Primary Model it gives Trump an 87% chance against Hillary and that >99% chance against Bernie. It used to give Trump and even higher chance against her but revised it down.

Bottom line: This time next year we'll have President Trump.

On the other hand, Trump looks to get the GOP nod...so does the world really make sense?

Trump's got his own fraud trial coming up.

This is the FBI jackass. Not a Congressional investigation. Some emails where classified from the beginning not after the fact. http://www.reuters.com/article... You would know if you bothered to look it up.

And yet there were emails that were BORN classified that were on her private email server. http://www.reuters.com/article...

> Because paper is immutable and can never be forged or replaced?

See my earlier comment about ballot stuffing.

> Of course the keywords are "correctly designed" and since politicians are the ones authorising the purchase of these machines, they either deliberately or incompetently leave that bit out.

Electronic ballot machines are designed by people, and people are fallable and make mistakes, cut corners, etc. The machines are sold by the lowest bidder. The companies in this business are the companies that make ATMs, like Diebold. Have you ever seen those pics of ATMs with a blue screen of death? Nuff said.

Also, its been shown that NSA (and presumably other countries) have subverted industry standard encryption. So it's hard to say if a well designed system is truly secure.

Then there's the open source issue. If a company makes the product, will the source code be auditable. Who will do the auditing?

Considering all these factors, why not just use paper, which is much more transparent? Also, paper is much more democratic, because anybody with a calculator can audit it. With comptuers, only a small subset of people have the skills to do the auditing.

The vast majority of warrants are actually issued prior to charges being sent down, because charges are what you do after you've got your investigative ducks in a row, not when you're in the middle of looking for evidence. Writs follow the same pattern. This one could actually be part of an investigation where charges have been filed, because their the shooter's neighbor has been charged with supporting terrorism.

But even without that looking into potential contacts of a guy who murdered a dozen-odd people in case he's got a bigger cell or something is a perfectly legitimate use of FBI resources, and since he's dead his Fourth Amendment rights are gone. The owner of the phone retains a privacy interest, but that owner is the County, which wants the phone cracked.

The All Writs Act is quite broad, and says the Courts have the authority to issue any order you can imagine that is "necessary or appropriate in aid of their respective jurisdictions and agreeable to the usages and principles of law." So the Court has the authority to use the All Writs Act to aid the investigation, and get info off the phone. There really isn't any way for Apple to dispute that bit.

What they're disputing the hell out of is whether this specific order is "agreeable to the principles of the law."

http://www.reuters.com/article... So maybe this is a better story ;)

And lets not forget that China backs the DPRK,

You might want to get caught up on current events.

Largely what you are seeing is houses becoming uninsurable. State governments are swooping in with your money to rebuild and cover these folks. I doubt you will see many people abandon their homes as long as you are willing to rebuild for them. We've basically borked the market with socialism - and it's red states like Florida that are the worst offenders.

But since you asked, this article mentions hectares of farmland lost to rising sea levels in some county or other and also talks about abandoned houses and impacted infrastructure. How many times can they rebuild that darned parking lot before they realize that it's probably not a prime location for cars at this point?

Here are a some non-paywalled links:

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-encryption-idUSKCN0VW0BM
http://www.macrumors.com/2016/02/23/doj-vs-apple-12-court-orders

If the new owners of Slashdot really want to improve this site (and I have seen no evidence that they do), a good first step would be stop linking to stories that are paywalled, or that prohibit adblockers. There are always plenty of alternatives.

But women do more housework than men and they probably do more shopping than men so it seems smart marketing to appeal to a larger demographic than simply basing the cleaning product on touted merits alone.

The parent may have made an emotional decision in almost not trying the product, or will not buy the product again, but how many women have done the opposite, and decided to purchase the product because they knew the company was owned by women?

Donald Trump, a leading candidate for his party's nomination to run for president on Nov. 8, said on Wednesday that unlocking the iPhone is "common sense."

"Who do they think they are?" the billionaire developer said of Apple in an interview on Fox News. "We have to open it up."

"I agree 100 percent with the courts," he said.

http://www.reuters.com/article...

Great, now show me the 'other' set of books... I kid... kinda..

Heh, checking out more recent figures (lord knows why you wouldn't link to them :-), looks like Homes brought the deficit spending down by almost 70% since he took office (p. 359? feel free to correct). It's very phony of course because of the Wall Street bailouts. When you exclude them, the deficit almost tripled since 2007, which may not be true either, since the bailouts are still ongoing, so the 'real' deficit might be hard to pinpoint. The whole thing is a fantasy anyway.

Anyway, your new number for defense is 3.6, more bang for the buck, where's the beef? Still, I wouldn't mind if they found that eight and a half tril, it's not exactly chump change.

Getting back to the story, let's all be happy that people are making censorship in Iran (and everywhere else) a little easier to circumvent. Freedom of speech is always a good thing, right?

The linked article is a short version of the Reuters article that is much more informative.

To address the concerns of European authorities, the Internet giant will soon start polishing search results across all its websites when someone conducts a search from the country where the removal request originated, a person close to the company said.

That means that if a German resident asks Google to de-list a link popping up under searches for his or her name, the link will not be visible on any version of Google's website, including Google.com, when the search engine is accessed from Germany.

The company will filter search results according to a user's IP address, meaning people accessing Google from outside Europe will not be affected, the person added.

So once again Anti-Geoblocking/Anti-Georestriction VPN becomes the solution for folks.

This report of the tumbling satellite is from Tuesday, here is a report from 4 hours ago stating the satellite is in a stable orbit:


North Korea satellite in stable orbit but not seen transmitting: U.S. sources
http://www.reuters.com/article...

According to multiple sources, the satellite is no longer tumbling.

The new stamps indicate that some of Clinton's emails from her time as the nation's most senior diplomat are filled with a type of information the U.S. government and the department's own regulations automatically deems classified from the get-go — regardless of whether it is already marked that way or not.

And this from August of last year. Yet this DOJ refuses to even appoint a special prosecutor to even give an appearance of taking the alllegations seriously.

For the purpose of trade, let the banks handle the transaction:
http://uk.reuters.com/article/...

Soon, I'll be able to send funds via Bitcoin through my bank's web interface.
I won't worry about losing my Bitcoin wallet - the bank will take over that risk.
I'll log in and choose to send regular currency to another account; one of my options will be a Bitcoin transaction.
My bank and the other account's bank will handle the Bitcoin.
I'll see regular currency leave my account and the other party will see regular currency enter his/her account.

Here Mr Whiny. Took 2 seconds with Google, you might try it.

Don't expect the authorities to give him back his passport any time ever.

http://www.reuters.com/article...

E

In fact, German government has suggested exactly that - a law that disallows cash transactions above 5000 EUR.

I'll vote for her before Trump or Cruz

Trump is the only candidate the powers-that-be in Davos appeared the least bit concerned about. Hillary, on the other hand, will fit right in with that crowd. You people bitch and moan about the "one percent" but when you're given the unique opportunity to vote for someone the "one percent" don't like you run right into the arms of your preferred statists.

These days, I have to seriously consider the possibility that you're part of a paid smear campaign by one of Musk's competitors. Because that's actually done these days. Ethical standards in marketing, never very high in the first place, have slipped that far. I suppose it's not the ethical standards of marketers that bother me so much, it's the public acceptance of such methods.

I have to agree with you. I have been watching Musk and his companies for a long time, and it seems to me that these trolling posts about Space X seemed to start appearing at a particular time, I think about two to three years ago. ULA, Space X's competitor in the US hired S-3 Group as a their propaganda and lobbying company about that time. I think what may have provoked it was that Space X was calling out ULA for using Russian rocket engines in its Atlas V rocket. They were involved in legal motions to prevent the Air Force from buying Russian engines. It seems to me that ULA likely realized that Space X was a real competitor. They likely wrote them off before as a joke because they Elon Musk kept making promises that seemed impossible. However those promises started coming true, albeit a bit later than promised. One thing that I have learned about Elon Musk is that he may make pronouncements that seem impossible, but usually they come true. He is quite brilliant and for the most part honest in what he says. He predicted that Space X would become a globally competitive launcher during a speech he made after their first successful launch, and this has come true. He predicted they would be able to land a first stage, and they succeeded last month. He predicted they would make a capsule that would land like a helicopter, and so far testing looks promising. I know the Mars idea seems unlikely at first glance, but if re-usability pans out (which seems likely because he has landed a first stage, which is the hardest part), then sending three or so astronauts on a fly-by won't be that expensive. Building a lander would be hard, but their experience with supersonic retropropulsion will help, as will their experience landing rockets. As for making fuel on Mars, I think that would require time and testing. I suspect the first flight will be a fly-by, just as it was with the Moon program. That is definitely feasible in the 10-year time frame.

I didn't mention the budgets because all of them have not been released yet but Bernie's math doesn't add up either way: http://blogs.reuters.com/break... So, I wouldn't put your money on Sanders anytime soon.

How the hell did this get modded 'funny'!? It's real, it's scary:
Obama declares emergency in Michigan over bad water
How tap water became toxic in Flint, Michigan

Oh..and also the thing that kicked it all off: http://www.reuters.com/article... I don't think anyone is saying they can't waste their money; it's just we have regulations on station ownership. CRI is "bending" the rules by having majority stakes in the companies that own and lease these stations; and it's just natural they'd use it to spread their propaganda.

I use ad blockers, but we are the problem. I don't pay for any of the sites I visit,

Adblock Plus has a program to allow non-annoying advertising. And if you don't like their program, just about any site can stick up a banner ad, served from their site and not a 3rd party, and ad blockers won't pick-up on it for quite some time.

More than that, the internet allows those newspaper companies to eliminate their capital-intensive printing business, saving them loads of money. And even more, it allows any Podunk little city newspaper that actually does good reporting, to have readers around the world, at no additional cost.

That does mean far fewer journalists, and quite a painful transition until everything finishes shaking out, but something good in the end.

I don't get my news from the NYT... I prefer Reuters... Try disabling your ad blocker and going to http://www.reuters.com/ Then tell me about all their intrusive and annoying ads, paywall begging you to pay a subscription fee, etc.

I think we can all agree on one thing... I hope Forbes dies in a fire, and SOON.

A semi-applicable example would be Android and its applications.

Originally it was pretty much free as in speech, but in recent years Google licenses the newer, proprietary versions of the apps only under the condition that the phone manufacturer does not make "competing" phones outside the android ecosystem.
One instance is reported here: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-acer-alibaba-google-idUSBRE88C0HW20120913
Semi-applicable example because the "rug" is not the open source project itself, but the proprietary apps running on it.

"During all the time I'm here, I haven't met a single person who would say corruption had waned since the times of Yanukovich," Saakashvili noted. "What's more, I'm hearing now and then that the fees today are much higher. I haven't spoken to a single small or medium-sized business owner who wouldn't tell me the situation at present is as bad as it ever was under Kuchma or the 'orange' government or Yanukovich,"

Note: It's also funny that, Saakashvili is 'gray' as well:
http://www.day.kiev.ua/en/arti...

After the incident, Saakashvili immediately gave a press conference at the Presidential Administration, where he said: “From the first minute of his speech, Avakov began to say that I was not speaking emotionally, unlike in a TV show. He insulted me and raised the question of Uralkhim. I do not know this oligarch, I do not know what Uralkhim is, and I have never met this oligarch [although later the Ministry of Interior published a video of Saakashvili meeting with the Russian oligarch Dmitry Mazepin. – Author]

At least, under Yanukovich, there were some 'democracy', parties supported him and others against him. After the 'activists' forced oppositions resigned and/or beat them, the 'lustration' law becomes reality, which bans all the officials under old government participate in the new one to 'clean' the corruption (of course, not the 'revolution' leaders) WITHOUT any judgment. Now all against them be named 'FSB agents'.

After years of propaganda in the media, such as 'President v oligarch', it likely that the West can't stand with their 'chosen' people: Corruption in Ukraine is so bad, a Nigerian prince would be embarrassed, Poroshenko, Yatseniuk, Avakov... all are even worse than Yanukovich before. Here is just a snippet:

Poroshenko is the only one of Ukraine’s 10 richest people to see his net worth actually increase in the past year, and his bank continues to expand while others lose their licenses. One of his industrial compa

Uhh... I read it

Reuters revealed that the Special Operations Division (SOD) of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration advises DEA agents to practice parallel construction when creating criminal cases against Americans that are actually based on NSA warrantless surveillance

And the sited article:

http://www.reuters.com/article...

Of course two senior DEA agents said your quote, so it must all be hogwash.

BTW, the presentation at BlackHat about serious flaws in ADT's security was pulled due to legal pressure from vendors: Two more talks pulled from Black Hat hacking conference

The paper, however, may be found here

HOLY FUCK! North Korea has the H-Bomb!

Why the fuck isn't Slashdot reporting this?!

Okay, let me see if I remember things properly, and in the right order.

GM was headed into bankruptcy, but the US government bailed them out because they were too big to fail.

Over the next couple of years, the government lost 11 billion dollars on the deal, money that all the rest of us taxpayers have to make up.

During that same time, GM made 22.6 billion dollars..

Also during that time, GM made vehicles with faulty ignition switches which killed over a hundred people, vigorously denied doing so, quietly fixed the problem, and back-edited the documentation to show that it was fixed all along.

Today, GM has enough spare cash to invest in other companies.

Oh, and also today we have an article on the front page about improving school performance by fighting poverty, and the comments are all responses to people who want to eliminate handouts to the poor.

This is the news and state of the world presented to us on the first working day of the new year.

Very old article, not even true, and refuted by Blackberry.

http://in.reuters.com/article/...

"RIM is providing an appropriate lawful access solution that enables India's telecom operators to be legally compliant with respect to their BlackBerry consumer traffic, to the same degree as other smartphone providers in India, but this does not extend to secure BlackBerry enterprise communications"