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I wasn't aware of the French study most of my reading had to do with observations made by farmers, and scientist on the ground working with these crops.
Here is an article on the French study if anyone is interested, because I was curious to see why posting this would be embarrassing.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/19/gmcrops-safety-idUSL5E8KJAGN20120919

Will I get into a post war pasting links and shouting "discredited" with you or anyone else? No. What's the point? What I believe and what you believe make no difference.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_controversies

The general populace *is* armed. In the US, there are 90 guns for every 100 people. We have 30% of the guns worldwide despite having less than 5% of the world's population! And yet shootings still happen, en masse and in public. There were even armed guards at Columbine but that didn't prevent it.

Sure, people with guns could stop a shooter sooner - but to think that no one will die is foolish. But being armed won't prevent mass shootings the way that keeping air in your tires will prevent your tire from blowing out, or how not playing football will prevent you from getting a degenerative brain disease as a result of multiple concussions. And that was my entire point - mass shootings are terrifying precisely because we can't take any actions personally to prevent them, all we can do is mitigate the damage once it has begun.

And there's one major flaw with your plan. What about convicted felons? They are by law required to be unarmed at all times. So every felon in the US is by definition neglecting their own personal safety?

"I didn't say that, I said the goal is not to make profit. In fact how about "preserve future profits".

So you didn't say the goal of a company is not to make a profit but you said it is not to make a profit?

And strangely enough, they seem to be growing profitabilty,,,,Are you suggesting that Apple won't see year over year growth in 2013? 2014? 2015?

"Your right growing revenues "unprofitably" is not a recipe for success [its not true]"

So, if they grew revenue by adding MMI and MMI is losing money, what is that if not growing revenue unprofitably?

"The fact that it is affecting third party development support is a simply another sign."

http://www.idownloadblog.com/2012/12/20/google-play-grows-app-store-king/

" Because right now I see Google investing in their future"

You obviously haven't looked at Apple's long term capital expenditures,,,,

"The Motorola deal cuts their tax bill because Google is vastly profitable :)"

You get "tax breaks" on losses. Losing money to pay less taxes is not a "strategy".

"Since when did selling one million devices a month become a bad thing :"

http://allthingsd.com/20120711/googles-nexus-7-costs-152-to-make-ihs-isuppli-teardown-finds/

And it sells for $199. Of course Asus doesn't make the whole $58 per device, they sell it at a discount to wholesellers.

"The reality is companies make massive profits from Android phones...don't pretend otherwise"

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/04/us-google-motorola-idUSBRE8930L020121004

"Google Inc raised its estimate of the cost of job cuts at its money-losing Motorola Mobility unit in the third quarter and warned of "significant" additional charges from further restructuring."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444897304578043782276831090.html

"HTC Profit Falls 79% Amid Competition "

http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/23/sony-mobile-to-lay-off-off-1000-people-as-part-of-restructuring/

"Today, Android OEM Sony announced that its loss-making mobile handset division Sony Mobile Communications would be laying out 15% of its workforce "

LG's profit is far from massive....
http://bgr.com/2012/10/24/lg-q3-2012-earnings-138-6-million-dollars/

So where are all of these Android manufacturers that are making tons of profits?

Apple accounts for 60% of the profit in the mobile industry.

http://www.intomobile.com/2012/11/14/asymco-apple-and-samsung-account-99-smartphone-profits-q3-htc-and-lg-only-other-profitable-companies/

"You need to make up your mind what you are arguing with Apples store. I have one point, Apples pursuit of Profits over market share is stupid, "

So, if it were stupid, then how does it make 60% of all mobile profit?

"It also means less money from its store."

Facts are your friends.....
http://www.idownloadblog.com/2012/12/20/google-play-grows-app-store-king/

"Apple does not make an awful lot of money from the computer market."

So which PC company makes more money selling computers than Apple makes selling Macs?

" I notice that the Chromebook is the best selling device on Amazon."

Yes and Amaz

"You seem confused. The answer is NO! a publicly traded companys goal is not to make profit."

So you realize how utterly insane it sounds for anyone to say that the purpose of a public comps y is not to make a profit?

"Look at my Amazon example, almost every company has some investing activity can be tangibles "

And Apples CAPEX is one of the largest in the industry. Amazon has been using the excuse for its meager profits that it has been reinvesting for growth for over 15 years.

"The whole point is that Apple is now growing *slower* than the market, so its market share is lower. Its why apple used to have 23% of the market and now occupies 14.9%, In fact the profit margin of the iphone5 is less than that of its predecessors too just makes it more worrying."

So how has its slower than market growth affected its profitability? How has it affected its third party development support?

"I don't think you understand your Google link. The link I provide is to the financial statements discussed in your [albeit short] article, I actually quote the figures,"

Yes you quoted "revenue" growth that was caused by the money losing Motorola. Growing revenues unprofitabity is not a recipe for success.

"re-read my comment on Google it even covers how Google is expanding beyond advertising...it even owns a phone company :) (like a suggest Apple should)"

Google may be trying to expand but again "right now" 95% of their revenue comes from advertising and their phone company hasn't been competitive for years.

"I would comment on the acquisition of Motorola, but the reason why your maths is completely wrong is tax (and patents). Motorola may look 12.5Billion on the books, but in reality read it http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/31/us-motorolamobility-google-tax-idUSTRE77U1QX20110831. The short version is owning Motorola will cuts Googles Tax Bill by 80% It was incredibly good value."

It cuts their tax bill because they lost money.

"As for you criticism of Motorola...LG recently is having a massive success with the Nexus Phone, "

Define "massive success".

"Asus is having massive success with the Nexus Tablet, its likely to be a success...the concern is upsetting its partners."

The last report was one million a month. Not a massive success by any definition.

"I lave looked through you link. I will have to read it better later, but the whole point of it is to choose market share over profits, by cutting price...and do it before your competitors. (although Apple already has many of the Advantages of Scale and brand now...although you can already see it losing these)"

Really? Apple losing scale? The only other company that has any scale to speak of is Samsung.

"HP is trying to move to get money work harder, by getting into different markets as the PC market is mature 5% margin (Microsoft get all the real profit) Although that CEO got sacked. Like I say I'm not comfortable talking about Microsoft."

You really think the margins for Android phones are any better, especially with the Chinese manufacturers moving in?

"i am astonished that Apple cannot make money from the itunes store. Apparently Google/Amazon can. I suspect your just making that up...it currently is small compared to what they make from their hardware...but as I repeatly argue..this one is all about marketshare. Apple have already lost this book/movie/App market to Google/Amazon."

Uhh, Apple's App Store revenue is still 4x that of Google. And where are you getting your figures for movies? As far as "losing" the book market. Amazon's was in the market first and Apple tool market share away from Amazon.

So how do you know how profitable the Google Play store is?

"I don't argue the market is rational, but money is normally pretty unbiased,"

Have you seen Amazons P/E ratio?
" and right now it does

So is profit not the main goal of a publicly traded company?

You seem confused. The answer is NO! a publicly traded companys goal is not to make profit. Look at my Amazon example, almost every company has some investing activity can be tangibles (New premises, R&D, Advertising...right now Google is making a land grab with Android (its trying with Google+), as is Amazon. Normally companies make various strategic plans (expand market share; extend product Line etc etc)

The whole point is that Apple is now growing *slower* than the market, so its market share is lower. Its why apple used to have 23% of the market and now occupies 14.9%, In fact the profit margin of the iphone5 is less than that of its predecessors too just makes it more worrying.

I don't think you understand your Google link. The link I provide is to the financial statements discussed in your [albeit short] article, I actually quote the figures, re-read my comment on Google it even covers how Google is expanding beyond advertising...it even owns a phone company :) (like a suggest Apple should)

I would comment on the acquisition of Motorola, but the reason why your maths is completely wrong is tax (and patents). Motorola may look 12.5Billion on the books, but in reality read it http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/31/us-motorolamobility-google-tax-idUSTRE77U1QX20110831. The short version is owning Motorola will cuts Googles Tax Bill by 80% It was incredibly good value.

As for you criticism of Motorola...LG recently is having a massive success with the Nexus Phone, Asus is having massive success with the Nexus Tablet, its likely to be a success...the concern is upsetting its partners.

I lave looked through you link. I will have to read it better later, but the whole point of it is to choose market share over profits, by cutting price...and do it before your competitors. (although Apple already has many of the Advantages of Scale and brand now...although you can already see it losing these)

HP is trying to move to get money work harder, by getting into different markets as the PC market is mature 5% margin (Microsoft get all the real profit) Although that CEO got sacked. Like I say I'm not comfortable talking about Microsoft.

I am astonished that Apple cannot make money from the itunes store. Apparently Google/Amazon can. I suspect your just making that up...it currently is small compared to what they make from their hardware...but as I repeatly argue..this one is all about marketshare. Apple have already lost this book/movie/App market to Google/Amazon.

I don't argue the market is rational, but money is normally pretty unbiased, and right now it does not see Apple making the big gains it once had, and everyone agrees.

Microsoft is not growing, but its a utility product and pretty stable (makes lots of profits), Apple could have gone for the PC market...its not like a great deal of profits come from their current PC presence...and it could compete on price, or licensed its OS, but again it has no interest in market share.

The truth is Apple has to change because the market changed...and Steve Jobs made no prevision for surviving in a maturing market, although a master at overtaking immature ones. The game as changes, and I see nothing in your comments which will change the current *trend*.

Except the big problem in the recession has been too little inflation, which is why the fed started setting inflation targets.

Besides, the US is in an unusually good position wrt to hyperinflation because you're the world's reserve currency (and will be for the foreseeable future). So you can safely maintain much higher dept levels than other countries since there's so many USD out there, and so many parties with a vested interest in its stability.

Think of all the wonderful things the USA could afford to do if we weren't so busy destroying capitalism. We've got record numbers of people out of work and on government assistance and an administration who only knows how to grow Washington DC in response. We are in a death spiral because we treat our elections like another episode of American Idol. We have a blueprint of how to be free and prosperous, but nobody pays attention to it anymore.

The administration did spend some money on R&D. It gave the money to a company that did some R&D and was then sold, presumably along with the R&D, to China. ( http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/09/us-a123-sale-confirmation-idUSBRE8B80I420121209 )

If Slashdot were broadcast news, this article would be the "dog bites man" story, except no-one was bitten, and it's a cat.

No , if Slashdot were Broadcast news the article would be "Tired Gay Succumbs to Dix".

Because while the title is TECHNICALLY accurate, it is entirely missing the point of the article.

Every dollar of profit is not taxed eventually. For the most part, corporations sit on their profits to increase cash-on-hand [1]. This increases flexibility for them, gives them better banking terms, and causes share price to increase. This increases the wealth of those who own the shares, but this increase in wealth is untaxed unless these shares were to be sold. Once you are a millionaire or billionaire, you don't need to sell shares--instead, you can take out loans against them [2].

Effectively, reducing corporate tax to 0% would be a 100% loss. Corporations do not spend more money on cap ex just because they have more cash on hand. Similarly, they do not increase salaries; U.S. wages have fallen by more than 50% since 1970 (in inflation-adjusted dollars) [3].

Here are my references, which are pretty half-assed since I just googled for stuff I'd already read and linked the first similar thing. But hey, it's already 50% more informative than the average post.
[1] http://blogs.reuters.com/david-cay-johnston/2012/07/16/idle-corporate-cash-piles-up/
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/08/opinion/the-zuckerberg-tax.html?_r=0
[3] http://www.thestreet.com/story/11480568/1/us-standard-of-living-has-fallen-more-than-50-opinion.html

"I'm just going to hang in Miami for a while. I like Miami," he told Reuters by telephone just before his plane left. "There is a great sushi place there and I really like sushi."

"Vringo is seeking at least $696 million from Google, financial website iStockAnalyst had reported."

(but, that's for other patents, not the Nokia patents, as it says later: )

"Vringo bought 500 wireless patents from Nokia in August to strengthen its intellectual property portfolio.
The company on Monday filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Chinese telecommunications equipment maker ZTE in the U.K. High Court of Justice.
The ZTE lawsuit involves patents acquired from Nokia, Perlman said.
He, however, declined to say if the company plans to pursue further lawsuits using the Nokia patents."

Nokia collects on everyone, since they used to own a bunch of patents that the cellphone standards are based on.

FTFY.
Source: Reuters, 2012-08-09 "Struggling cellphone giant Nokia will sell some 500 wireless patents to U.S. firm Vringo and divest its Qt software business to Finnish IT services firm Digia Oyj to bolster its fast-shrinking cash reserves."
<sarcasm>
As Nokia stopped their $ 1 billion loss by selling those 500 fundamental cellphone patents for only $ 22 million, surely this buying company "Vringo" (which used to sell ringtones before) will have trouble making a profit on those deerly paid patents
</sarcasm>

Uhm, since deployed Windows systems largely don't support SMB 2.x much less SMB 3.x I fail to see how this is a major failing on the part of Linux. Although I am of course entirely for supporting the current protocols.

Windows 8 supports SMB3, and MS claims to have sold 40 million copies already. Sources: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/27/us-microsoft-windows-idUSBRE8AQ18W20121127 and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Message_Block#SMB_3.0

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/01/us-foxconn-robots-idUSTRE77016B20110801

No Assembly jobs, just robot repair and janitors.

An interesting note on how McAfee was busted:

To promote its exclusive access, VICE published a smartphone picture of McAfee with reporter Rocco Castoro. That was a big mistake.

Digitally embedded in the photo was the location where it was taken, and it placed McAfee in Guatemala -- just across the border from Belize. Now the world knew where John McAfee was hiding.

From http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/12/06/belize-mcafee-arrest-idINDEE8B501X20121206

Yep, much better to send control to the UN, where "criticizing our stuff should be criminal."

Why, we could learn to embrace religious freedom if they did that. Isn't that progress?!

And, he got it in one. And it's not really all that niche an idea; even TED has presented talks on the subject. And it's not just the US any more; Foxconn is getting in on the action and replacing workers with a million robots. (Incidentally, this may cause the American lead in precision manufacturing to narrow, or vanish entirely)

But what happens when everyone who is manufacturing anything automates the entire process? Our agricultural system is already hugely centralized and automated. White collar "knowledge work" is on the chopping block next. Why? IBM wants it to happen, and has the ability to make it happen.

We're also making more and more people; nobody really wants to stop screwing. So we've got more people and less work - how do we allocate enough purchasing power so they can pay for food, medicine, and housing? Two ideas spring to mind: A command economy, which is a terrible idea, and make-work, which is merely bad. Bad because it could either be terrible, or if we get really ambitious, we could make work space exploration, asteroid mining, building orbital elevators and ending our dependence on fossil fuels. So, not necessarily terrible. Except some significant portion of that work is going to be automated.

I don't know the answer, but at least I can direct your attention to the problem.

This is no longer needed. Some countries are phasing out even CFLs in favor of LEDs, for example China by 2016 won't allow sale of units over 15w. LEDs are already "shatter proof" and they don't carry any gases inside ("solid state").

China will ban imports and sales of certain incandescent light bulbs starting October 2012 to encourage the use of alternative lighting sources such as light-emitting diodes (LEDs), with a 5-year plan of phasing-out incandescent light bulbs over 100 watts starting October 1, 2012, and gradually extend the ban to those over 15 watts on October 1, 2016. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/05/us-china-light-bulbs-idUSTRE7A40MV20111105

I have a couple of 10w (4x 2.5w pcs) LED flood lamps, they are too strong for direct lightning but pointing them up allows the light to reflect and diffuse back down nicely. They come up instantly and there is no flickering. Unfortunately they get a little too hot at the base because of the AC/DC transformer, thankfully i'm not enclosing them but overheating could be a problem for others. Perhaps we should adopt some form of DC power distribution inside the house to keep away this conversion from the lamps (and so many devices use DC anyway).

Have you seen white LED street lamps? I have, and they work perfectly. They are also instant (instead of minutes) and the light lets you see many more colors at night. They are about 80w to 100w, instead of the usual 250w, and happen to last 10x more.

And where is the profit in manufacturing cheap cameras? Kodak had to limit personal CEO jet travel to 100k a year. These are the things that one is talking about when keeping a company like Kodak afloat. It was a big old style US corporation. It was there to make globs of money that it could then flush down the toilet.

When I say there is nothing Kodak could have done, I don't mean they could not have come out a with a product. What I mean is the model was based on selling consumables at a huge profit, then pissing that profit away. There was no way for them to make those profits on the cheap cameras they sold. They have not, for a long time,like Nikon or Canon with a tradition or selling $10,000 cameras. Kodaks innovation was the Advantix.

and all you'll be left with is your conspiracy theories.

You mean Information Week's conspiracy theories. I just copy/pasted.

Here's SMH's conspiracy theory:

Windows 8 sales in Australia and overseas are below expectations, with one US expert describing its user interface as "a monster that terrorises poor office workers and strangles their productivity".

http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/computers/windows-8-sales-flounder-as-critics-pan-clumsy-interface-20121126-2a2d0.html#ixzz2Drq6iNt7/

The Register's conspiracy theory:

Reports that Windows 8 hasn't been moving as briskly as the industry had hoped continue to emerge, with major retailers reporting slow sales and Microsoft insiders allegedly describing the initial numbers as "disappointing."

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/11/19/retailers_report_slow_win8_sales/

Reuters conspiracy theory:

Consumer sales of Windows-powered personal computers fell 21 percent overall last month, figures released by a leading retail research firm showed on Thursday, indicating a lackluster debut for Microsoft Corp's Windows 8 operating system.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/29/us-microsoft-windows-idUSBRE8AS12Y20121129

ComputerWorld's conspiracy theory:

Microsoft has been touting its claim of 40 million Windows 8 licenses sold as evidence of a booming launch. But analysts and Asian PC makers beg to disagree, and say sales of the new operating system have been sluggish.

http://blogs.computerworld.com/windows/21410/windows-8-sales-are-sluggish-not-booming-say-analysts-and-asian-pc-makers

Looks like the whole damn world's in on it!

However unscrupulous investors do manipulate the price of oil, and there's nothing stopping oil companies from colluding with said unscrupulous investors if its in the oil companies favor. You want to face the fact that on numerous occasions, massive price fluctuations in the price of oil have been the result of somebody somewhere taking unspeakable profits out of screwing tens of millions of consumers. These parasites don't make anything except everyone else poorer.

as described by Reuters at http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/27/us-amd-blackfriday-idUSBRE8AQ12I20121127

Well, you were wondering, right?

The fight's over. RIM lost

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/11/28/us-nokia-rim-idUKBRE8AR08320121128 [reuters.com]

The colonies are explicitly approved by the Israeli government. Most so-called "outposts" are promoted to full "settlement" status. There is nothing tacit about it. Their plan is to colonize and annex as much territory as possible with as few non-Jews as possible. So they can preserve their precious Jewish majority that was created by force. Jewish settlers receive assistance from the Israeli government, protection from the army, special roads that only they can drive on, and are under the Israeli legal system. The indiginous non-Jews can't drive from town to town, are under martial law, and suffer from malnutrition while their crops wither in their fields because they are unable to leave their homes to harvest them. In Gaza, Israel counts their calories and prevents the importation of food leading to stunted growth of children. Israel even prevents the export of food and goods, ensuring that the Palestinians remain under the thumb of Israel. All of this has been going on for decades prior to the establishment of Hamas.

But hey, they shoot rockets back at Israel so it's all OK, right?

I don't want this in the hands of the same people who made Vioxx, Thalidomide or Lipitor.

Hey, one of these, Thalidomide to be exact, is a bad example. Insufficient clinical trials leading to careless administration in pregnant women (who very often didn't even know they were pregnant) caused the deplorable results. That aside, the drug is very safe and effective.

The argument is devolved to a binary straw-man: a "pro/con" proposition - to the end of stifling nuanced inquiry and actual understanding.

Mary Shelly wasn't anti-science when she wrote "Frankenstein".

Goethe wasn't "anti-science" when he wrote "The Sorcerer's Apprentice". If you aren't immediately familiar with the fable, it is worth revisiting. The story concerns the casual nature of hubris, particularly in the domain of technical insight.

There is a very real delusional aspect to a culture that uses scientific method in an atomised scope and then applies one technical outcome in a pervasive manner.

The operative phrase here is: "knows enough to be dangerous." Another such is "unintended consequences".

Let us quote from the article, and allow the unintended consequences aspect to unfold its manifest possibilities in our imaginations:

The negative sides, however, are very substantial. Cytomegalovirus doesn't normally cause symptoms in healthy people, but it tends to be active in very young babies and among those with immune defects, where it can cause serious complications. Herpes viruses cause unpleasant symptoms as well.

I don't want this in the hands of the same people who made Vioxx, Thalidomide or Lipitor.

A former prime minister of Sweden said that those who are in debt aren't free.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/15/saudi-cenbank-idUSCENBANKSA20111215
http://www.majalla.com/eng/2011/09/article55226132
"the Saudi stakes in the US economy could hardly be higher: more than half of Saudi overseas assets are held in the US, the Saudi riyal is pegged to the dollar, and the US is responsible for 22 percent of global oil consumption, making US demand the single most important driver of oil prices."

"The Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA) currently holds about $500 billion worth of overseas assets, of which some $360 billion are held in foreign securities. The majority of the latter are US treasury bills. Banks in Saudi Arabia also have considerable holdings of US treasuries, and private Saudi business families hold large portfolio investments in the US. With the decline of the dollar relative to other major currencies since 2002, these assets have lost international purchasing power. But most of that decline happened before the international economic crisis of 2008-2009â"the US recession and the recent downgrade have hardly affected the value of the dollar."

I don't know. But maybe Saudi Arabia oil and money got something to do with it?

Now if this was Iran, oh the horrors! Or Iraq a few years ago, but not a few decennias ago, then it would be just fine ;D

Yeah we do. I can understand HTC and Apple wanting confidentiality, there's all sorts of confidentiality clauses and Samsung seemed happy at first with the redacted document. Clearly the judge isn't and has ordered this limited disclosure.

It looks like HTC asked for the redactions and Samsung accepted.

"HTC has advised the parties that it is willing to acquiesce to Apple’s production of the agreement on two conditions: (1) the Agreement must be marked Highly Confidential – Attorneys’ Eyes Only under the protective order; and (2) the consideration amount must be redacted," Apple said, "Samsung has agreed to both conditions."

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/11/21/apple_redacted_agreement_samsung/

Sadly no source from The Registers article. Afterwards Samsung asked to see the whole thing.

http://allthingsd.com/20121121/apple-happy-to-redact-htc-deal-down-to-33-words-just-for-samsung/

Now it looks like Samsung gets to see the whole document "without delay" now that the judge has ordered it.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/22/us-apple-samsung-idUSBRE8AL04020121122

Nstar has a less than stellar record with maintain the metal.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/14/us-boston-fire-idUSBRE82D0DS20120314

Actually the two states that recently legalized pot were NOT for medical use.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/07/us-usa-marijuana-legalization-idUSBRE8A602D20121107

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE8A602D20121107?irpc=932

Washington and Oregon have legalized recreational use as well.

"Mr. Raymond J. Lane is Executive Chairman of the Board of Hewlett Packard Co., since September 22, 2011. Mr. Lane served as HP's non-executive Chairman since November 2010. Mr. Lane has served as Managing Partner of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a private equity firm, since 2000. Prior to joining Kleiner Perkins, Mr. Lane was President and Chief Operating Officer and a director of Oracle Corporation, a software company. Before joining Oracle in 1992, Mr. Lane was a senior partner of Booz Allen Hamilton, a consulting company. Prior to Booz Allen Hamilton, Mr. Lane served as a division vice president with Electronic Data Systems Corporation, an IT services company that HP acquired in August 2008. Mr. Lane is a director of several private companies and is a former director of Quest Software, Inc." - source

Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.

There's also big money to be had in the carbon trade markets. $180 billion worth of carbon dioxide emission credits were outstanding in 2011.

Holy smokes thats a lot of money! Thats over a third of Exxon's revenue for 2011! It was $486 Billion btw. For one oil company. What got me is back when BP had that the oil spill in the gulf and everyone was reporting that they put $20 Billion in escrow, a few sources reported that's less than a years worth of profits (note profits, not revenue which is also in the hundred billions). If Germany is increasing its power exports with a $130B investment (http://cleantechnica.com/2012/02/09/clean-energy-loving-germany-increasingly-exporting-electricity-to-nuclear-heavy-france/), Imagine what they could do with $500B. As for political motherlodes, what do you call the 10's of millions the Koch brothers spend on lobbying every year?

How about all the money that the developed world is pouring into renewable energy, both directly and via subsidy and loan guarantees? For example, Germany sunk $130 billion into solar power subsidies in recent years. The US stimulus bill from 2009 dumped $80 billion into renewable energy. That's big money right there.

There's also big money to be had in the carbon trade markets. $180 billion worth of carbon dioxide emission credits were outstanding in 2011. If the cap credits is restricted more than the very generous amounts today and remains "hard" (that is, no expansion of emission credits at any price), then there's a lot of opportunity for vast profits. This alone has the potential to dwarf the profits to be had from fossil fuels. But it requires societies willing to harm their economies in order to prop up carbon emission credit prices and trader profits. That's where AGW hysteria becomes very profitable to support.

Then there's the politicians who benefit from the power and money flow of engorged regulatory bureaucracies supporting new carbon emission regulations and renewable energy production. No similar bureaucratic motherlode exists for fossil fuel development.

With most people in the 1st world countries under debt...

...the banks will sell those debts at an even greater profit.. big win for them.

...only if the debt is larger than the value of their property

The debts are larger than the output of entire countries

If it weren't for being legally required to pre-fund 75 years worth of pensions then the postal service would be massively profitable right now.

Congress is killing the postal service.

Sorry to burst your bias against Bitcoin, but you are simply spreading FUD. The volume of trade does not exist to launder significant amounts of money. Aside from some drug sales (which still pale in comparison the sales made in UNTRACEABLE fiat on the street) I don't think what actually happens on the network is quite like what you think happens.Your highly regulated and supervised system is still the monetary system of choice to launder money. The Internationale crime syndicate really doesn't need the Bitcoin network, they are doing quite well as is.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/03/us-bank-mexico-drug-gangs
http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2010/06/29/u-s-banks-still-very-involved-in-money-laundering/

Regardless, bad original is no excuse to repeat the drivel in summary. I could decipher the meaning of those two statements, but I'm sure most random readers couldn't. Those are far from the only problems with the article, of course, I just stopped there. Another thing already pointed out is that "remained fixed at around 1,000 becquerels" makes no sense without the volume or even weight specified. There's certain to be more than 1,000 bequerels in the Pacific total!

Another issue is that according to the nuclear company TEPCO the atmospheric release during first three weeks alone was 900 petabequerels. About half of it was Iodine-131 with half-life of 8 days leaving 360 petabequerels for Cesium (over 4 times Chernobyl's Cesium release) and quite where the article came up with "roughly the same amount that went into the atmosphere" isn't clear.

But, all this is enough to make the average person's head rotate around like in Exorcist, so better not get too detailed. The bottom line is the article is factually incorrect gibberish and the summary only makes it worse.

Sandy is being treated (appropriately) as proof of climate change's impact: changing weather patterns. These more extreme/unusual patterns lead to storms that have already killed people who would be otherwise be alive. The Pentagon is treating the threat as a serious one, when will we take the steps necessary to end it?

Actually, Google has a track record of doing exactly that. They just fought (and lost) a case this last week to a patent troll company. In it, the jury awarded a 3.5% royalty of (bear with me here) the amount of demonstrated revenue increase for the previous year of infringement for U.S. revenues, plus 3.5% going forward until the patent expires. This amounts to an estimated $700-900 million over the next 4 years. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/08/idUS136757+08-Nov-2012+HUG20121108

They could have settled for about half that based on the offers the patent holder made, but they went to the mattresses, and lost big time, even though the evidence was CLEARLY in favor of the patent inventor. (He was CTO at Lycos, who owned the patent before they went tits up and sold it back to the inventor, who formed the company which sued Google.)

So, even when Google KNOWS they're infringing on a valid patent, they still fight it to the end. Why would they start settling cases in which they know they are not infringing a patent?

Also, the generalizations are just unfair.

Not necessarily. His point, that whenever evidence contradicts ideology on nuclear matters, supporters of nuclear energy tend to brush away the evidence (and get modded up as a result) is definitively true.

It's key to note that Germany has exported the most electricity this year despite beginning to phase out nuclear. This bit of reporting sounds a bit slanted to me and designed to preclude the eventual outcome;

I know that if evidence doesn't fit the model, pro nuke people throw away the evidence (the same way as other right wing, libertarian, religious people do) so this all may be lost on you. The fact is that germany continued to export electricity some time ago despite the fact that 8 of their 17 nuclear reactors were down. A lot of that was sold to France, where the nuclear industry has traditionally had free reign, and yet consistenly (and "misteriously") fails to deliver.

Reuters on this: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/14/europe-power-supply-idUSL5E8DD87020120214

(There is one error in the article. That fact did not silence critics of the nuclear phaseout. Nothing short of a gunshot will silence the hard-headed pro nuke fools. Not that I advocate that, mind you, just stating an empirical fact).

Oh, and at some point there was only one nuclear reactor running in Japan. That didn't push them to the stone age nor anything of the sort.

OFN my friend: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/19/us-samsung-seagate-idUSTRE73I1CG20110419

Samsung is the biggest investment competitor to Intel in the chip market, right? [ http://tinyurl.com/samsungintel ] What does Apple need Intel for, give the guys at Samsung a call. What could go wrong?

Apple and Samsung are getting along so well these days... I'm sure the thought to buy chips from Samsung crossed a few minds at Apple.... NOT!

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/07/net-us-apple-samsung-supply-idUSBRE88603A20120907

http://www.zdnet.com/samsung-to-stop-providing-lcds-to-apple-7000006182/

For now, Nokia is downsizing and cost cutting big time. Their credit has been rated to junk and the company is in the red. They're trying to minimize all costs while the transition to WP is underway

Yeah, just like SGI minimized all costs while transitioning to Windows NT. Selling your soul to MS has worked amazingly well for companies in the past.

For now, Nokia is downsizing and cost cutting big time. Their credit has been rated to junk and the company is in the red. They're trying to minimize all costs while the transition to WP is underway to avoid borrowing any money and slowly burning through their cash reservers instead. So it aligns very well with the big picture to cut all programs that are not part of their core business right now.

Should Windows Phone really fail, they can always buy out Jolla or some of the other startup companies by ex-Nokia employees.

In case you are wondering what Elop thought of this news.

"in a conference call two weeks ago, Nokia CEO Stephen Elop said that he would welcome such a rival. Elop said that a Microsoft smartphone would act as a “stimulant” to all companies making Windows Phone 8 devices, but added that he wasn’t aware of any plans to do so." http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/news/microsoft-smartphone-windows-phone-8-98096

Whatever you think of Steve Ballmer how he for the record got for a bargain the most expensive advertising campaign in history for next to nothing, and a patent cartel with Nokia, and it seems things are unlikely to change in the future.

I'm astonished the Finnish Government has done nothing all I can find is this quote http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/20/us-finnish-government-wont-buy-nokia-sha-idUSBRE85J15V20120620?irpc=932 "This is not our business. We are developing Finland into a country where companies can do well, but this is not the way of support along which the government will go,"

At this point, people with their head in the sand can't entice the rest of us to join them. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/26/us-climate-thresholds-idUSBRE82P0UJ20120326

The linked article seems to be a retooling of this article from Reuters. It seems that DHS is considering setting up this program, it's not actually in place yet.