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That, and lets not forget:
http://xkcd.com/386/
So here is my contribution to "Going to Africa. Hope I don't get AIDS. Just kidding. I'm white! â" Justine Sacco"

There is this article I remember about British women increasing the chance of getting HIV by having unprotected sex in Africa:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/11/26/us-sextourism-idUSN2638979720071126

There is a clear potential for her being wrong about whiteness causing rational behaviour or something similar. While some might argue that often it is just easier to shut up, she could have rather said something like "I let the guys use condoms".

We frigging doubt it.......

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/outrageous-hsbc-settlement-proves-the-drug-war-is-a-joke-20121213

Or this?

http://www.reuters.com/investigates/pentagon/#article/part3

Certainly, as long as you don't want economic growth. I suppose we can always resort to the guillotines like France did to weed out some of that over-population when it becomes another problem because of lack of economic growth too.

http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2013/09/17/why-conservatives-spin-fairytales-about-the-gold-standard/

It's an inherent weakness in RSA, to generate random prime numbers. In theory, if the attacker knew what method was being used, instead of trying to prime-factorize the modulus by brute force, he or she could just use the same random-prime generating scheme in their attack, that the defender used, and speed up the attack.

Hence, true RSA encryption uses only a small subset of the existing, huge prime numbers.

But then what I'd expect, is that this vulnerability does not extend to users or admins, who were not using the same random-number generating method. In this article: (Suggested Above), the security software was named "BSafe". How would it affect Linux-based Web admins, who never used the compromised generator(s), and who never used BSafe?

There really isn't any way of knowing. The possibility of a weakness with the elliptic curve cryptography is only suspected, suggested, not proven.

Wrong.

Weaknesses have already been academically shown. Both the fact that it's remarkably slow (for the quality of the produced pseudorandom bitstream) and the fact that it displays backdoor-like properties has been shown elsewhere. Contrast that with DES which, although there were suspicions that the design of its S-boxes might have had ulterior motives (which, again, is a FAIR assumption whenever the design guidelines of cryptographic primitives is not transparent), has never been actually proven to actually contain backdoor-like properties (unlike Dual_EC_DRBG).

And, well... I'm not even taking into account the Snowden leaks that strongly suggest that NSA has been subverting standards and coercing companies to weaken their cryptographic algorithms (like this one by Reuters).

Good 'ol Bruce has said that there is nothing in the Snowden leaks to prove that the actual crypto algorithms have been weakened. As far as anyone knows all that NSA has done is try to spread the use of it, which may be because they think that it is better.

[citation needed] on that one. Besides, "good ol' Bruce" has been, from the start, one of the people that kept warning against the use of Dual_EC_DRBG. Why use a slow and inefficient PRNG that has known biases (and possible number-theoretical backdoors), when you can use something more extensively tested (i dunno... Salsa20 or whatever).

Look, either Dual_EC_DRBG is a decent and secure PRNG, within reasonable parameters of computational complexity, or it's not. If it is, why the fuck is NSA paying security companies to adopt it? If it's that good, it should stand on its own and surely people will naturally adopt it (similarly to what happened with DES).

The fact that NSA has paid RSA to give priority to this PRNG is HIGHLY suspect, to put it mildly.

In a way this is no different than the fixes they made to make DES proof against differential cryptanalysis. Everyone suspected that NSA had weakened DES when in fact they made it stronger, but it took 15-20 years for people to see that.

Back then, people _suspected_ that DES might contain a backdoor. Today, we _know_ that Dual_EC_DRBG contains backdoor-like properties: it's not simply a suspicion. Do you understand the difference, or do you prefer to keep invoking this flawed comparison?

Since you like talking about DES, shouldn't you also refer how the US gov, back then, artificially forced DES key length to be ridiculously low, to the point where the keyspace could be directly bruteforced? Oh, let's not talk about that small detail...

For all we know the elliptic stuff only looks like it might be weak, but it may be perfectly fine and strong, but it may have been chosen since the form looks weak as a troll against anyone that would try to crack it. Square the circle, you can do it!

Hello? Are you paying attention? Dual_EC_DRBG has been SHOWN (not suspected) to display biases and to be particularly slow for the quality of its output bitstream (AND display backdoor-like properties). It's not optimal or transparent, and it's certainly NOT "fine and strong": it's shit.

A five-year-old could make a better PRNG using any vaguely-decent stream cipher, block cipher in counter mode or cryptographically-secure ha

Link in "summary" no longer good. Try this one:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/20/us-usa-security-rsa-idUSBRE9BJ1C220131220

The NSA metadata collection (and related programs, like weakening crypto) is the attack. The damage done to the country is something that will become even more evident in the next months/years.

Tell that to Boeing, who just lost a major deal with Brazil over this.

I'll break the code on that for you. The French company Dassault competed for that contract, but the Swedish company Saab made a better bid, so Dassault lost. The US company Boeing competed for that contract, but the Swedish company Saab made a better bid, so Boeing lost. Claiming it had anything to do with the NSA was just a "twist of the knife" at an opportune time. If you want to claim that it was due to NSA, they why did Dassault lose?

Dassault Blasts Brazil's Fighter Decision

You can read a number of comments about the strong position of Saab in the Slashdot story on this.

US Spying Costs Boeing Military Jet Deal With Brazil -- Example

Or go out on the internet and look. Saab has a competitive fighter that has won a number of contracts, both in Europe and around the world.

People are going to be claiming that every lost contract or bid has to do with NSA now, but little of it will be true. But that is an easier explanation to make than how you were underbid, or otherwise made a bad business decision.

Tell that to Boeing, who just lost a major deal with Brazil over this.

Given that the United States just arrested three Chinese nationals over alleged theft of GM corn, it appears that they do not have an issue with GMOs.

In fact, I suspect that this shipment refusal may be retribution for the arrests.

Mossberg's editorial point of view is of the average consumer, and I don't think most people care about computer games. I don't.

He wrote for readers of the WSJ.

The kind of people who never lose sight of the numbers.

Size of global video game market revenue, including mobile games on smart phones and tablets: $66 billion, up from $63 billion in 2012 and is expected to grow to $78 billion in 2017.

FACTBOX - A look at the $66 billion video-games industry

Then next time try to compete on the grounds of merit, not by spying of your customers and competitors. Spend more money in research and less in espionage. Isn't that what "capitalism" is all about?

Tell it to the French.

Dassault Aviation shares fall after Brazil snubs rafale jet

Yup, and as a consequence, Boeing just lost a 5 billion Dollar Brazillian aircraft order to the Swede SAAB.

That damned NSA, always costing Western Europe, costing the French business! Was it spying? Or just a business decision to go with the LOW BIDDER?

UPDATE 3-Saab wins Brazil jet deal after NSA spying sours Boeing bid

Dassault, for its part, said it regrets Brazil's decision and called Saab's fighter an aircraft that was inferior to its Rafale jet.

"The Gripen is a lighter, single engine aircraft that does not match the Rafale in terms of performance and therefore does not carry the same price tag," it said.

Saab says the Gripen NG has the lowest logistical and operational costs of all fighters currently in service.

France soothes nerves over Dassault jets after Brazil setback
Dassault Aviation shares fall after Brazil snubs rafale jet

The simple fact is that Saab has a very competitive fighter that has won contracts in a number of countries, both in and out of Europe in the last few years, long before the NSA controversy. I think it is quite likely that they won completely on the merits but this is just a "twist of the knife" at an opportune time, but it has little reality. If you want to claim that it was really about the NSA instead of Saab being the low bidder with its fabulous Grippen, then you need to explain how Dassault lost too. Or is it French spying to blame? Why haven't we heard about that?

Brazil is continuing to do business with Russia aren't they? If you think that Brazil isn't crawling with Russian spies that are at least as aggressive as any the US has you are crazy. The Brazilians thought that the Russians warranted being spied up, just like they spied on the US.

Report: Brazil spied on property, personnel from US, Russian, Iranian embassies

The Brazilian government confirmed Monday that its intelligence service targeted U.S., Russian, Iranian and Iraqi diplomats and property during spy activities carried out about a decade ago in the capital Brasilia.

Swedish industry has many fine products. They won contracts before the NSA scandal, they will continue to win them after the scandal. The only difference is now various people will engage in demagoguery proclaiming that every win by Sweden over the US, even if the rest of Europe competed and lost, will be because of NSA. "See! See! NSA!"

Thank goodness this isn't a food blog. Every order for Swedish lingonberries, meatballs, or aquavit would be proclaimed a victory over NSA.
 

Yup, and as a consequence, Boeing just lost a 5 billion Dollar Brazillian aircraft order to the Swede SAAB.

That damned NSA, always costing Western Europe, costing the French business! Was it spying? Or just a business decision to go with the LOW BIDDER?

UPDATE 3-Saab wins Brazil jet deal after NSA spying sours Boeing bid

Dassault, for its part, said it regrets Brazil's decision and called Saab's fighter an aircraft that was inferior to its Rafale jet.

"The Gripen is a lighter, single engine aircraft that does not match the Rafale in terms of performance and therefore does not carry the same price tag," it said.

Saab says the Gripen NG has the lowest logistical and operational costs of all fighters currently in service.

France soothes nerves over Dassault jets after Brazil setback
Dassault Aviation shares fall after Brazil snubs rafale jet

The simple fact is that Saab has a very competitive fighter that has won contracts in a number of countries, both in and out of Europe in the last few years, long before the NSA controversy. I think it is quite likely that they won completely on the merits but this is just a "twist of the knife" at an opportune time, but it has little reality. If you want to claim that it was really about the NSA instead of Saab being the low bidder with its fabulous Grippen, then you need to explain how Dassault lost too. Or is it French spying to blame? Why haven't we heard about that?

Brazil is continuing to do business with Russia aren't they? If you think that Brazil isn't crawling with Russian spies that are at least as aggressive as any the US has you are crazy. The Brazilians thought that the Russians warranted being spied up, just like they spied on the US.

Report: Brazil spied on property, personnel from US, Russian, Iranian embassies

The Brazilian government confirmed Monday that its intelligence service targeted U.S., Russian, Iranian and Iraqi diplomats and property during spy activities carried out about a decade ago in the capital Brasilia.

Swedish industry has many fine products. They won contracts before the NSA scandal, they will continue to win them after the scandal. The only difference is now various people will engage in demagoguery proclaiming that every win by Sweden over the US, even if the rest of Europe competed and lost, will be because of NSA. "See! See! NSA!"

Thank goodness this isn't a food blog. Every order for Swedish lingonberries, meatballs, or aquavit would be proclaimed a victory over NSA.
 

Yup, and as a consequence, Boeing just lost a 5 billion Dollar Brazillian aircraft order to the Swede SAAB.

That damned NSA, always costing Western Europe, costing the French business! Was it spying? Or just a business decision to go with the LOW BIDDER?

UPDATE 3-Saab wins Brazil jet deal after NSA spying sours Boeing bid

Dassault, for its part, said it regrets Brazil's decision and called Saab's fighter an aircraft that was inferior to its Rafale jet.

"The Gripen is a lighter, single engine aircraft that does not match the Rafale in terms of performance and therefore does not carry the same price tag," it said.

Saab says the Gripen NG has the lowest logistical and operational costs of all fighters currently in service.

France soothes nerves over Dassault jets after Brazil setback
Dassault Aviation shares fall after Brazil snubs rafale jet

The simple fact is that Saab has a very competitive fighter that has won contracts in a number of countries, both in and out of Europe in the last few years, long before the NSA controversy. I think it is quite likely that they won completely on the merits but this is just a "twist of the knife" at an opportune time, but it has little reality. If you want to claim that it was really about the NSA instead of Saab being the low bidder with its fabulous Grippen, then you need to explain how Dassault lost too. Or is it French spying to blame? Why haven't we heard about that?

Brazil is continuing to do business with Russia aren't they? If you think that Brazil isn't crawling with Russian spies that are at least as aggressive as any the US has you are crazy. The Brazilians thought that the Russians warranted being spied up, just like they spied on the US.

Report: Brazil spied on property, personnel from US, Russian, Iranian embassies

The Brazilian government confirmed Monday that its intelligence service targeted U.S., Russian, Iranian and Iraqi diplomats and property during spy activities carried out about a decade ago in the capital Brasilia.

Swedish industry has many fine products. They won contracts before the NSA scandal, they will continue to win them after the scandal. The only difference is now various people will engage in demagoguery proclaiming that every win by Sweden over the US, even if the rest of Europe competed and lost, will be because of NSA. "See! See! NSA!"

Thank goodness this isn't a food blog. Every order for Swedish lingonberries, meatballs, or aquavit would be proclaimed a victory over NSA.
 

Snowden has offered to help Brazil investigate US intelligence. Is that the patriotism you were referring to?

Why, yes, Yes it is.
Any spying on Brazil was for economic reasons, probably at the behest of corporations, not due to any threat to the US.

Smug AND clueless. Nice. Nice.

THE NEW CHINA-BRAZIL AXIS
http://prospect.org/article/new-china-brazil-axis
"Last week, an interview at a Brazilian defense website revealed that China and Brazil had come to an agreement regarding the training of Chinese naval personnel on board the Sao Paulo, Brazil's only aircraft carrier. Brazil is one of the only four countries in the world to possess an aircraft carrier capable of launching and recovering conventional aircraft; the others are France, Russia, and the United States."

China Carrier Starts Second Round of Jet Tests
http://news.usni.org/2013/06/19/china-carrier-starts-second-round-of-jet-tests
"The People’s Liberation Army Navy has conducted a second round of jet tests aboard its aircraft carrier with its J-15 carrier-based fighter on Wednesday, according to a report from the Xinhua news agency.
The Chinese are being trained in carrier aviation —the most complicated military aviation operations — by a cadre of Brazilian carrier pilots."

Brazilian Nuclear Cooperation with the People's Republic of China
http://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/brazilian-nuclear-cooperation-the-peoples-republic-china

Brazil, China build military industry ties
http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Security-Industry/2009/11/17/Brazil-China-build-military-industry-ties/UPI-86341258474208/

Brazil builds Russian defense ties with missile plan
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/16/brazil-russia-idUSL1N0I61NC20131016

Brazil’s Iran Diplomacy Worries U.S. Officials
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/15/world/americas/15lula.html?_r=0

Proposed Russian-Cuba-Venezuela Space Cooperation Raises Many Questions
http://jasonpoblete.com/2008/09/22/proposed-russian-cuba-venezuela-space-cooperation-raises-many-questions/

Yep, nooooo reason at all to be interested there.

So all the bad-guys have to do is put their jammer on top of a hospital or orphanage or whatever. They they get to put out some nice publicity about how the US is killing orphans and sick people.

No need, the US is ensuring "nice publicity" all by itself. *scnr*

As an AC pointed out, your (delusional) reply illustrates the problem perfectly.

Common sense and hard data both point to strong social safety nets improving opportunity, and increasing entrepreneurship and the number of small businesses. There are two main reasons for this:
1. The safety net makes it much more possible to take the chance of starting your own business. Failure means you may lose your investment capital, but your family won't starve, won't lose their healthcare, won't lose their retirement, and won't lose access to a thorough education.
2. The safety net levels the "benefits" playing field between small business and large corporations. Not only does the US's system of employer-based healthcare make it more difficult and risky for those who try to start a small business, but it gives large, established companies an advantage because they have the size and weight to push for better deals.

The ONLY people whose economic opportunities are strengthened by the lack of a social safety net are the people who are already on top, who already own large companies and already make loads of money. They don't want competition from employees who can easily quit and start their own company. But even the rich would probably benefit in the long run, because pushing your customer base into abject poverty is not a way to increase sales (IMO right now they're coasting along on their ability to make goods dirty cheap by using third-world labor).

I dont think you understand how cookies work:

Spare me the condescension, this is slashdot, nobody reads it without knowing how cookies work.

But of course your consent was implicit in choosing to visit that URL and request resources from that server; its your fault if you walk into a store and then complain that you're now on their CCTV because you chose to visit that store and play by their rules.

There's no such thing as an implicit consent. A web site can't force me to buy an encyclopaedia because I visited their URL. That's because entering a URL doesn't imply buying encyclopaedias, or selling your own private information. Stores have notices that tell you there's CCTV installed, and most importantly, they won't share tapes with your face, name and timestamp with all the other stores, and in particular they won't sell that information.

A lot of browsers (including IE starting with v6) allow you to disable cookies, or prompt you when they are requested. If this actually mattered to you, you could easily be notified when google cookies are "aimed" at your computer, and deny them, and then refuse to visit those sites.

Why, there are lots of legitimate uses for cookies beyond spying my life. I can't be forced to renounce them because some commercial company wants to sell my personal information without my consent.

And regarding the "multiple countries fined google", the US did not.

http://www.ct.gov/ag/cwp/view.asp?Q=520518&A=2341 http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/16/net-us-google-fine-idUSBRE83F00Q20120416 http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/aug/09/google-record-fine-ftc-safari

Find me a conviction for it in the US, otherwise really not interested in what a german court had to say about google.

Not only Germany. The list of countries that fined Google is much longer. Considering that the federal government used Google (and Yahoo, and Facebook, and whomever else) to spy their own citizen and those of the rest of the world, it's no wonder that they couldn't make a big fuss about privacy. Apparently the States are more sensitive about their citizens' privacy.

Your computer is already receiving the traffic, all google did was record it.

I'm certain that Google made no use of the accidentally collected data. The problem is, that when you're collecting large amounts of private data from the whole world, and gathering that information into a single place, you have to be extremely careful about what you do with that much data, and whose hands you put that data in.

Last month, the NSA said maybe 50,000 to 200,000 documents.
Last night, 60 Minutes said it was 1.7 million documents
Today it's "we may never know"

ever-increasing value of a bitcoin

This can also be seen as the ever-decreasing value of the USD. The Federal Reserve has been been buying $80+billion in Treasury Bonds every month since the third round of Quantitative Easing started in September 2012. Lets see if they follow through on the tapering program this time.

Yeah, this overtly trollish "story" appearing on slashdot is a fucking embarrassment.

Nothing to do with news for nerds. Nothing you wouldn't find on any right-wing extreme blog.

According to the linked pdf, Oregon had 20,617 applications completed. Look at the other states-- this one is going through a cluster-fuck, but liberal California, with its well-designed and fully operational web site, is doing just fine, thank you.

Three more Swiss banks join US tax deal - Reuters - 12 hours ago.

Swiss banks are supposedly the safest place to store money, If the Swiss are willing to share customer data with the US, what else can't they share?

Just another tentacle of the Nothing is beyond our reach motto.

I think you are confusing "the safest place to store money" with "the safest place for a US Citizen to hide taxable income from the IRS" and you might be interested to know that the two are very very different. If you don't like the income tax laws or the IRS, there is no law against renouncing your citizenship and taking up residence in a nation with a more lenient tax system. The choice is pretty simple. If you aren't trying to hide money that is legally obligated to someone else, then the Swiss banks are a great, stable place to keep it.

Three more Swiss banks join US tax deal - Reuters - 12 hours ago.

Swiss banks are supposedly the safest place to store money, If the Swiss are willing to share customer data with the US, what else can't they share?

Just another tentacle of the Nothing is beyond our reach motto.

There might be a difference in that the banks that are rolling over have a presence in the US that can be leaned on.

On top of that I'm not sure how the US thinks it has the ability to levy and collect penalties against Swiss banks located in Switzerland that don't have a presence in the US to start with.

If the databanks have no business in the US that can be leaned on, perhaps they will be outside the US' legal pressure. Of course they will remain high profile targets for the NSA and any other criminal organization.

Three more Swiss banks join US tax deal - Reuters - 12 hours ago.

Swiss banks are supposedly the safest place to store money, If the Swiss are willing to share customer data with the US, what else can't they share?

Just another tentacle of the Nothing is beyond our reach motto.

The government previously forgave $15.4 billion in loans to GM: http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/05/19/gm-bankruptcyplan-idUSN1943363120090519

In addition, the government would extend a credit line to the new company and forgive the bulk of the $15.4 billion in emergency loans that the U.S. has already provided to GM, the source said.

The government also made a "special ruling" for companies receiving bailout money... http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748704462704575590642149103202

It [GM] won't have to pay $45.4 billion in taxes on future profits.

Not only is the taxpayer out over $70 billion to bail out GM, but the original bond holders who were illegally robbed are still waiting for their money too.

Sounds like the Yazidis of Iraq who are also thought to worship Satan by others in the region due to coincidental naming.

Or... it is simpy not true: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/22/france-power-grid-idUSL6N0AQECN20130122

Now contrast this statement from the recent "STFU" response to AT&T's shareholders. And the complete silence from Verizon, whose name was on the first round of the salvo.

At least these eight are making noise, rather than just hoping the issue fades from the public's consciousness. Here's wishing there was a telecom provider that wasn't so obviously in bed with the spooks...

Yep, documents released about that months ago. And it goes both ways.

It's not still operating; they shut it down completely after the incident. The subsequent incidents, like this one, have been related to the containment/cooling/cleanup operation.

While most won't mind the NSA blackmailing (potential) terrorists using their web history, why stop there? Hasn't the NSA already blackmailed high ranking EU politicians, using the very same techniques, to ensure that SWIFT data will continue to be shared with the US, despite the European Parliament's motion to suspend this data sharing? See where all this leads to?

That's the more concise headline today at Reuters -- http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/27/us-eu-us-security-idUSBRE9AQ0F120131127

The European Union backed down on Wednesday from threats to suspend agreements granting the United States access to European data, rejecting calls for a tougher stance over alleged U.S. spying.

The move marks an abrupt about-turn for the European Commission, the EU executive, after warnings it issued in July to U.S. officials following revelations that Washington had spied on European citizens and EU institutions.

Cecilia Malmstrom, the EU's commissioner for home affairs, said she had found no proof of U.S. wrongdoing, either in the sharing of flight passenger records or in the tracking of international payments...

Sophie in 't Veld, a Dutch Liberal member of the European Parliament, criticized the Commission's move.

"They are putting diplomatic relations ahead of citizens rights. The Commission is being extremely timid to the Americans," she told Reuters.

"They have done an investigation and concluded that everything is hunky dory. This is not serious," she said, adding that taking the United States at its word was naive.

The FDA bears the brunt of all public outrage of anything even tangentially related to medicine. They are bureaucrats who want to avoid responsibility at any cost. The FDA also bears none of the costs of testing new products.

What outcome did you expect?

A different model might take the utility of public safety into account. Instead of "safety at any cost", it might be "more good than harm".

That's not true. I've read the FDA regulations, and I've read transcripts of FDA hearings, which are now online. They have to weigh the benefits of the new drugs against the dangers. They have long debates in the hearings over the benefits and the potential harm. And some of the people on the panel are sympathetic to the industry. It's a difficult balance http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/18/us-ariad-cancer-idUSBRE99H0BP20131018

There were lots of drugs, like erythropoetin, that the drug companies over-promoted and made lots of money on, even though they were killing people. Their excuse was, "We didn't get a statistical signal." Every time a pro-business administration takes over, the FDA loosens up its regulations, and the bodies start dropping, so they tighten up the regulations again.

The FDA is not allowed to take the financial cost of the new drugs into account. That's not in their legal mandate.

It's not even theirs.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/31/us-oracle-shareholders-idUSBRE99U13720131031

Seems like Palin's making a lot of money saying that. The economic fact is that the Fed creates money to buy govt bonds, and returns the interest to the Treasury. So govt borrowing costs are essentially zero. Like banks, you keep the loans rolling over. (The Fed holds more Treasury bills than China and Japan put together.)

The idea that a government can only spend what it takes in in taxes is feudal, obsolete. Japan has a 230% debt-to-gdp ratio, China over 200% (source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/21/china-banks-shadow-idUSL4N0J426S20131121 ).

Why don't economists who say these are too high (and have been wrongly predicting Japan's imminent collapse for decades) mention that banks are regularly leveraged at 30 to 1, which is equivalent to a debt-to-income level of 3000%?

Why do I get the feeling that we in the US are going to be left in the dust.

China is the world's largest solar panel maker. Its companies, stung by a slowdown in the once-lucrative European market, are moving into Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and southeast Asia, where demand for solar power is rising fast.

The rest of the World sees the writing the on the wall and they are doing something - even the Third World.

As these countries progress forward and develop those energy sources, that will have a long term effect on lowering the cost of "Green"" energy - and less demand on fossil fuels possibly extending their economic life. But one day, those fossil fuels will lose their economic advantage and we, the US, will be behind the curve yet again. This current oil and gas surplus we have will not last forever and unfortunately our short term thinking will bite us in the ass, yet again - like importing Solar, Wind, maybe even nuclear, etc ... technology.

Many states? You offer 2 but fail to offer any citations?

At last check, Nevada's site has only signed up 531 people: http://www.foxreno.com/news/features/top-stories/stories/nevada-health-exchange-signups-790.shtml

Zero for Oregon: http://seattle.cbslocal.com/2013/11/11/oregon-health-care-exchange-has-yet-to-enroll-a-single-person/

We've got the Washington (state) exchange crashing during it's promotional tour: http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Health-exchange-website-goes-down-during-road-tour-229571661.html

Never mind the issues of Washington's site with costing people their projected tax credit: http://washingtonstatewire.com/blog/rude-awakening-for-federal-way-woman-who-got-shout-out-from-president-cant-afford-obamacare-policy-after-all/#.Uoq1uZH1JMg.twitter

Zero plans sold during the first two weeks in Hawaii (due to issues): http://washington.cbslocal.com/2013/10/10/hawaii-relaunching-obamacare-exchange-after-not-selling-any-health-insurance-due-to-software-problems/

Ditto in New York: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/white-house-deems-health-glitches-unacceptable-gop-calls-obamacare-doa-article-1.1491281

And Vermont: http://rutlandherald.com/article/20131031/OPINION04/710319973/0/OPINION

And that a month in, state exchanges had only reached 3% of their target: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/11/usa-healthcare-enrollment-idUSL2N0IW0XX20131111?feedType=RSS&feedName=rbssHealthcareNews&rpc=22

Yes, such a great success.

While you are free to lament about my 'personal politics' into it... I'm sorry that you don't like being confronted with facts... or would you prefer I jump up and down and scream "We told you so, we tried to stop you, you didn't listen... now reap what you've sown!" ?

Na, your dismissiveness of the facts at hand is the truly juvenile part of this.

Roger that:

• The Specter of Bankruptcy Haunts California
• Detroit’s Bankrupt. Is California Next?
• California Bankrupt
• Bankrupt San Bernardino in showdown with California pension fund over arrears
• Bankrupt Cities, Municipalities List and Map

As soon as you're done reviewing that information, plus what you can find with a simple Google query, kindly go fuck yourself.

It isn't though.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/12/us-usa-colorado-election-idUSBRE98B01620130912

Isn't this the familiar anti-bitcoint prick? Right... http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/08/us-financial-bitcoins-idUSTRE7573T320110608 Fucking fascists.

Germany is an interesting example of scale. They are planning to add over 7GW of fossil generation in the next few years.

What an amazing coincidence that this is the first hit in google when searching for "Germany 7GW"

German power utilities seek to close 7 GW in capacity - Oct 24, 2013

This the same Bigelow that laid off half his workers just two years ago?

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/20/uk-space-business-bigelow-idUSLNE79J01T20111020

Oh yeah! But now suddenly it's Moon Hotel time?

Oh wait, didn't someone else want a space hotel?

http://www.cnn.com/TECH/9705/25/japan.space/

Well, it's only been 16 years, maybe they need 50 more?

Actually, pilots falling asleep at the controls, in some cases both at once, is one of the more genuinely terrifying aspects of modern aviation. It reportedly happens often, and the pilots' unions are vocal about the lack of adequate rest between cockpit hours. The only reason we don't hear more about it is because modern planes are (at the risk of grossly oversimplifying) basically flying themselves for much of their journey, so it's not as if they suddenly fall from the sky if someone dozes off for a couple of minutes mid-journey when there's nothing anywhere nearby.

TFA isn't clear on that, but it indicates that all shops of three separate national chains were affected in all cities that they operate in. Consider how small Venezuela is (roughly one tenth our geographic size and population,) and then consider how many big box retail stores you could fit there. In the last decade we've seen most of our big name electronics retailers collapse (Circuit City, Ultimate Electronics, and CompUSA just to name the major ones) and we're mainly down to just one (Best Buy) with several regional chains such as Microcenter, Vann's, Fry's Electronics, Curry's, and HHGregg.

I think three major chains in Venezuela is probably a pretty big deal. And here's the result:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/12/us-venezuela-economy-idUSBRE9AB11120131112

That already tells you that foreign investment into Venezuela is going to be in the shitter really soon.

But that's not enough to qualify GP's statement. Rather this is:

the president, Nicolás Maduro, warned that his policy to stem rising prices would extend to shops selling shoes, clothes and other goods.

"We can't just close the businesses; the owners have to go to jail," Maduro said in a televised speech.

So yeah, I'd say that it's not safe. Only an idiot would exchange dollars for bolivars at the official rate, which is what the retailers are apparently now required to do (they didn't prior to this, apparently, even though the law required it.) If they do, they'll never be able to import anything (nobody outside of that country would sell them anything at effectively below cost) and if they don't, they're likely to end up in jail.

So why on earth would anybody start a business there? You're basically guaranteed to either be a charity or just flat out lose your ass.

What about you? Can you point out any of the United State's secret courts? Can you name judges, or supply the addresses at which these judges hold court? Can you name the officers of the courts?

The FISA court is staffed by regular judges from other courts that rotate through it.

Here are 9 of the 11 judges.

Every few months, the FISA judges set aside their regular, public cases, travel to Washington, and take the bench inside a secure, windowless courtroom at 333 Constitution Avenue. Prosecutors and federal agents appear to answer questions about warrants before individual judges, rather than a panel.

Generally, the judges rotate on a week-long schedule. Three judges live in the Washington area and are available for emergencies. FISA judges do not receive extra pay.

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court

You know what? I agree with you.

That is why it is so important to stamp out signs of genuine oppression and actual thuggish behavior immediately when they are identified, and have good oversight over the rest. That is why I find the indifference on Slashdot to the admitted political oppression engaged in by the IRS to be so appalling.

I'm guessing you are talking about the IRS investigating political tax-exempt groups. Number one, political groups shouldn't be able to get a tax exemption to start with. Number two, one of the IRS's mandates is to vet these groups, number three, they were investigating progressive as well as conservative groups.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/20/us-usa-tax-liberals-idUSBRE97J0V820130820
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-07-13/news/sns-rt-usa-taxfundraisingl2e8icenx-20120713_1_tax-exempt-status-tax-exempt-organizations-ofer-lion
http://gawker.com/irs-didnt-just-hunt-the-tea-party-liberal-churches-al-504685119

Just another non-issue drummed up as a scandal by an increasingly desperate & irrelevant GOP.

LOL cold on 5-7 years. Thanks to the great work by whistleblower the world now understands a lot of the telco data is long term - 10's of years to life.
The past sock puppets tried hard to shape the wider computer-centric community on data been hard to keep, hard to search, political or legal protections, the protection of the marketplace and stock values, domestic protections, courts...its all turning out to be a huge joke with each new press release :)
Readers now know the legal and real world domestic results as "parallel construction":
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/05/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE97409R20130805
i.e. DEA’s Hemisphere program, i.e. records of every phone back to 1987. Just a bit longer than a nice sounding '5-7 years".

The original poster said "The Olympics".

Cites for Sochi:

Billions stolen in Sochi Olympics preparations. The opposition alleges that Putin's buddies have stolen US$30b from the Sochi preparations (over half the $54b budget.)

"Corruption and censorship cast shadow over Russia's Games". Corruption, censorship and human rights violations.

Russia Cracks Down On Journalists, Activists Exposing Corruption Ahead Of Sochi Olympics. Putin's response to corruption claims, shoot the messengers.

And more generally:

Wrestling with corruption at the Olympics. Gives a more general overview of the long history of Olympic corruption. Put simply, it's baked into the DNA of the entire organisation.

If the issue was actually insurance like we issue for cars, then the costs would be trivial. There are really good reasons why this stuff is so expensive.

I think I'll trust an actuary to calculate the actual cost. Put in a reasonable mark-up, and you have: insurance. If the market is, well, efficient, then the mark-up will be reasonable. So let's apply those good-old liberal ideas of free markets, and let the magic happen.

Otherwise, the bill should be in the mail.

And if you can't pay, and declare bankruptcy? Who pays then? You pretending this isn't a problem?

There were issues that could have been addressed by our government that could have actually helped.

Right, like an almost-single-payer system, like what works in most of the OECD. Instead, in an attempt to compromise, we get a regulated insurance market and a mandate, just like leading conservatives supported up until 2008.

What happened in 2008? Obama was elected, adopted the GOP healthcare plan, and was promptly labelled a tyrant by an apocalyptic cult. Just the opinion of a 20+ year GOP insider who knows a hell of a lot more about what happens on the hill than you do.

Now we know the president either lied outright about what would happen to existing policies

You _can_ keep your policy if you like it, so long as you've had the policy since before the ACA was passed. The fact that insurance companies are changing the policies and then trying to up-sell clients onto more expensive planes: who would have thunk it, that businesses would act this way. I agree that Obama shouldn't have used the language he did, because it is too easy to pick apart. But it is hardly the lie you WANT it to be.