Slashdot Mirror

Huh? It hasn't even gone to trial yet.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/06/us-japan-nuclear-health-idUSTRE7354H920110406

From the article: 'Asked what health consequences he expected from Fukushima, he said: "From what I know now, nothing, because levels are so low. In food, people are talking about levels which would give you one millisieverts per year, five millisieverts per year ... this is nothing where we would expect major health impacts."'

There is a UN investigation team tasked with long term health monitoring. It will be interesting to see what their findings are 10 or 20 years from now. This does not mean that there are no problems. There are problems to the environment and those problems will continue for quite a long time. This is going to be one messy and costly clean up.

A lot of people don't have a good handle on what level of (and especially what sorts of) radioactivity are likely to cause health problems. They often incorrectly assume that any level of radiation exposure will lead to a statistically significant number of cancers. Standards for radiation exposure are set incredibly low compared to the amount necessary to cause health effects. There is a misunderstanding that exceeding an exposure standard will lead to health problems.

Personally, I found it really helpful to read the collections of reports here: http://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/chernobyl.html These talk about the amount of radiation that came from Chernobyl, how people were exposed, the type of treatment they received and the long term health effects. It's kind of a hard read, but if you keep Wikipedia open in another tab, you can slowly make your way through it. Finally, information about radioactive contamination in Fukushima is available from the International Atomic Energy Agency at the UN http://www.iaea.org/ After you get a handle on the effects of what happened at Chernobyl you can compare it to Fukushima using real data.

Nobody who matters, anyway

A decade and a half before it blew apart in a hydrogen blast that punctuated the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl, the No. 3 reactor at the Fukushima nuclear power plant was the scene of an earlier safety crisis.
Then, as now, a small army of transient workers was put to work to try to stem the damage at the oldest nuclear reactor run by Japan's largest utility.

At the time, workers were racing to finish an unprecedented repair to address a dangerous defect: cracks in the drum-like steel assembly known as the "shroud" surrounding the radioactive core of the reactor.
But in 1997, the effort to save the 21-year-old reactor from being scrapped at a large loss to its operator, Tokyo Electric, also included a quiet effort to skirt Japan's safety rules: foreign workers were brought in for the most dangerous jobs, a manager of the project said.

"It's not well known, but I know what happened," Kazunori Fujii, who managed part of the shroud replacement in 1997, told Reuters. "What we did would not have been allowed under Japanese safety standards."

The previously undisclosed hiring of welders from the United States and Southeast Asia underscores the way Tokyo Electric, a powerful monopoly with deep political connections in Japan, outsourced its riskiest work and developed a lax safety culture in the years leading to the Fukushima disaster, experts say.

Hastily hired workers were sent into the plant without radiation meters. Two splashed into radioactive water wearing street shoes because rubber boots were not available. Even now, few have been given training on radiation risks that meets international standards, according to their accounts and the evaluation of experts.
The workers who stayed on to try to stabilize the plant in the darkest hours after March 11 were lauded as the "Fukushima 50" for their selflessness. But behind the heroism is a legacy of Japanese nuclear workers facing hazards with little oversight, according to interviews with more than two dozen current and former nuclear workers, doctors and others.

Since the start of the nuclear boom in the 1970s, Japan's utilities have relied on temporary workers for maintenance and plant repair jobs, the experts said. They were often paid in cash with little training and no follow-up health screening.
This practice has eroded the ability of nuclear plant operators to manage the massive risks workers now face and prompted calls for the Japanese government to take over the Fukushima clean-up effort.
Although almost 9,000 workers have been involved in work around the mangled reactors, Tokyo Electric did not have a Japan-made robot capable of monitoring radiation inside the reactors until this week. That job was left to workers, reflecting the industry's reliance on cheap labor, critics say.

"I can only think that to the power companies, contract workers are just disposable pieces of equipment," said Kunio Horie, who worked at nuclear plants, including Fukushima Daiichi, in the late 1970s and wrote about his experience in a book "Nuclear Gypsy."
Tokyo Electric said this week it cannot find 69 of the more than 3,600 workers who were brought in to Fukushima just after the disaster because their names were never recorded. Others were identified by Tepco in accident reports only by initials: "A-san" or "B-san."

Makoto Akashi, executive director at the National Institute of Radiological Sciences near Tokyo, said he was shocked to learn Tokyo Electric had not screened some of the earliest workers for radiation inside their bodies until June while others had to share monitors to measure external radiation.
That means health risks for workers - and future costs - will be difficult to estimate.

Felix Salmon dug deeper into the story and it's even worse than originally described, with significant deliberate obfuscation on the part of Silver Light, the financiers, mostly, as well as Skype. Wow. Supposedly, to "retain the best and the brightest," they buried a clause in a subclause in a contract which allows them to repurchase options at the original price, completely antithetical to the whole idea of vesting options. If this becomes a precedent, people are going to have to spend thousands of dollars on lawyers multiple times per year to comb through stuff looking for things like this. From Felix:

All of this makes any Skype investor saying “it’s not us, it’s the CEO” sound naive at best and, more likely, downright disingenuous. Unless and until such an investor wants to go on the record defending Silver Lake here, I’m going to believe Lee, and assume that it’s Silver Lake who’s largely to blame for the utter breakdown of employer-employee relations at Skype. I don’t know where they got these techniques from, but they’re very alien to Silicon Valley and indeed the rest of the business world. And they do no good at all for the reputation of private equity companies more generally.
 

Is there even one Muslim country where porn is not outlawed?

Is there even one Muslim country where porn is not found?

No. 1 Nation in Sexy Web Searches? Call it Pornistan

Random connection: Exclusive: Pornography found in bin Laden hideout: officials

Far more troubling than the porn:

"I hope that Kuwait will enact the law for...sex slaves"
"When I want a sex slave, I just go to the market and choose the woman I like and purchase her"

Pakistan: In the Land of Conspiracy Theories
What explains those crazed conspiracy theories running wild in Pakistan?

The government can spy on everybody, and shouldn't, but does; but they aren't acting on it very much.

Yes well, amassing power and abusing power at the same time doesn't tend to work so well. Dictatorship 101 says that by the time the public starts protesting, it should already be too late. The barriers, the self-imposed compartmentalization and restrictions the government puts on itself are nothing but curtains the government could pull aside or pierce at will. Handing them more and more power is like sticking your hand deeper and deeper in a bear trap on the logic that it hasn't snapped shut yet.

Besides, does the public really know what's going on? Give AT&T a national security lettter, hook up the NSA to their core server and boom, instant mass surveillance with 99.9% of AT&T not even knowing that it happens. What if the same happened to VISA, cell phone tower records, all tax records and so on, except you never heard about it? We do know they collected international transfers through the SWIFT system for years, and we only know that because other governments demand answers.

The government wants to give the impression that they're not acting on it very much. But they have over a million people on their terrorist watch list. The government has fiddled with total information awareness programs before and probably still do in secret. Don't expect them to be so blunt as to throw you in a jail cell without trial, you'll just subtly find that you kept away from any critical positions and every government agency is going over you with a fine tooth comb.

The only points you list are those where the government as a power entity doesn't care. They care about threats to their own power, who you sleep with they honestly don't care except as a potential weapon to make you resign. They only care if you want to reduce their power or increase oversight, transparency and accountability. As long as people quibble over social issues or tax rates while the power grab continues, they're happy. Why ruin people's illusion of choice? Make people believe they want it and chose it.

Care to revise that Paul Revere statement?

http://www.npr.org/2011/06/06/137011636/how-accurate-were-palins-comments-on-paul-revere

^ that's not exactly a "right-wing" organization defending her, BTW.

Care to revise that bus tour statement?

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/23/us-usa-palin-idUSTRE75M0N720110623

Care to acknowledge that maybe regurgitating the pre-chewed media talking points may not be the best way to win an argument?

Gee, lookitthat, 10 seconds' worth of Googling, and 90% of your bullshit is out the window. Your move.

Never say never :D

The Tea Party passed voter ID in Wisconsin, and it's looking promising in Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Use a carrier pigeon :

Australia's problems with high-speed Internet can be summed up in one word: Margaret.

Margaret is a carrier pigeon that raced the nation's biggest broadband service to send a 700 megabit file over a distance of 132 km (82 miles) -- a televised contest that Margaret, with a memory stick taped to her leg, won easily.

Source: Reuters

Ok, that estimate is two years old, but still, huge ... no?

Complete bullshit. First of all, the treaty says no such thing. More importantly, 10 seconds of Googling found the following case

Check this out http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2011/06/20/beware-silicon-valley-financiers-skype-edition/

Felix Salmon has some analysis here. He's got a fair amount of experience from the finance side and here is his take on it:

This does seem pretty evil. I’m sure it makes financial sense for Silver Lake, which will be less diluted by the immediate vesting of lots of options. But when you’ve just scored one of the biggest home runs in the history of private-equity investing, it’s generally considered polite to share the spoils with the people who actually run the company. Rather than summarily firing them for no obvious reason but sheer greed.

This stands as a contrast to the Zappos/Amazon deal where at least the proceeds were shared with the people who developed things. Presumably this makes people more resistant to bring in private capital or at least try to spend some energy writing yet more complicated contracts and conditions, where it will take volumes of boilerplate to express what a normal person could say in three words: "Don't be jerks."

Felix Salmon has some analysis here. He's got a fair amount of experience from the finance side and here is his take on it:

This does seem pretty evil. I’m sure it makes financial sense for Silver Lake, which will be less diluted by the immediate vesting of lots of options. But when you’ve just scored one of the biggest home runs in the history of private-equity investing, it’s generally considered polite to share the spoils with the people who actually run the company. Rather than summarily firing them for no obvious reason but sheer greed.

This stands as a contrast to the Zappos/Amazon deal where at least the proceeds were shared with the people who developed things. Presumably this makes people more resistant to bring in private capital or at least try to spend some energy writing yet more complicated contracts and conditions, where it will take volumes of boilerplate to express what a normal person could say in three words: "Don't be jerks."

I'm sorry, but I just had to point out how silly your suggestion was in light of these facts.

We, Norway and Denmark, don't offer our children to outsiders... Why would we? We're wealthy and stable nations.

Norway is even richer than Sweden, and we pay mothers a monthly stipend for each child until it reaches 18 years of age. Not to mention the lump sump of money given at birth ($9000) to help you get started. Oh, if you're a working mother the state offers paid maternity leave for 12-16 months, fathers are also offered paid paternal leave.

In a country where religion is irrelevant, college education is free, teenage pregnancy uncommon, welfare covers cradle-to-grave. Why would we have any children to offer foreigners? This is the same for Denmark as well. The UN however ranks Norway the best country to live in, in general, and specifically for mothers...

Almost half of individuals in the U.S. pay no taxes.

The same can be said for the corporations in the U.S.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/08/12/us-usa-taxes-corporations-idUSN1249465620080812

"The malware at issue, known as "agent.btz," infiltrated the computer systems of the U.S. Central Command in 2008" link

Don't you mean someone opened an attachment in Microsoft Exchange or clicked on a URL in Microsoft Internet Explorer, or plugged a USB device into a computer running Microsoft Windows.

Name : Worm:W32/Agent.BTZ

Category: Malware

Type: Worm

Platform: W32 link

Its all about the almighty dollar - go read up on HR254 Sludge Labeling bill - u're tonites dinner was probably grown in sewage.

Yum.

And we wonder why we have MRSA in meat and EColi in our sprouts.

"At present, RKI says the possibility of human introduction of the E. coli pathogen into the sprouts at the farm can't be ruled out" is just a nice way of saying human turds were probably to blame.

Bon appetit.

Nonsense. Political corruption is the bread and butter of media because it sells. As noted in the first linked article, the LA Times investigated and broke the Bell corruption story.

Nonsense right back at you. Stories about the tweets and love lives of politicians are the bread and butter of media because it sells, and it creates distractions from the real issues. Actual political corruption, such as Obama secretly negotiating with Health care companies, running a covert war in Yemen, and then lying about it, and of course I shouldn't even have to mention all stuff that went on under Bush. Actual corruption gets very little, if any, coverage.

> No.

Elaborating on that very informative answer, I offer the following two observations.

1. The current rise in fuel prices are due to political issues driving fear and speculation in the oil market, not due to a lack of adequate supply.

2. Global food prices are elevated because of ethanol subsidies and increased fuel prices. If the ethanol blender credit withers and oil politics settle down, then commodity food prices will decline significantly.

To avert the inevitable [citation needed], I offer the following.
1. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/17/us-saudi-oil-idUSTRE73G14020110417
2. http://www.card.iastate.edu/publications/dbs/pdffiles/11pb5.pdf

-eag

India:
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf53.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_policy_of_India

China:
http://world-nuclear.org/info/inf63.html
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2011-05/26/content_12580470.htm

China is starting to suffer brownouts due to policy to limit coal. China is using 50% of world coal production.

http://www.worldcoal.org/resources/coal-statistics/
http://www.eia.gov/oiaf/ieo/world.html

I will disagree with EIA about coal in China. There is currently a new policy that says no more new coal power plants unless they replace old coal plants. New coal plants have to be more efficient too (eg. combined cycle, or coal gassification). China will also run out of its coal reserves within 30 years at current extraction rates.

China cannot grow coal because lack of the resource - they are become one of the largest importers of coal. This is expecting to cause brownouts this summer,

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2011/05/energy-shortages-spreading-rationing-in.html

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/30/us-china-power-price-idUSTRE74T1TG20110530

http://www.cnbc.com/id/43219200

I ask not to argue, but to have something to slap in the faces of all the treehuggers...

You can say I am a treehugger - a nuclear treehugger ;) I view fossil based energy sources as vastly more damaging than nuclear. I would prefer that fusion be available, but alas, you have to do with what you have. Renewables are OK but there is a problem when you have 8 billion people and each one wants to have their energy (transport, heat, air conditioning, food, etc).

Energy independence is paramount and if nuclear is the only option for base-load non-CO2 emitting energy source, then I have no choice but welcome nuclear.

Frankly, I don't know what the "green" crowd (anti-everything crowd these days - can't call them rational anymore) wants. In Germany now they are protesting that they don't want the power lines to move power from north to south because they look ugly.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13257804
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,757658,00.html

> Merkel vows to replace nuclear power with alternatives that do not increase greenhouse gases

Really? Did she say that? Sounds like a contraddiction

Merkel: new gas and coal plants to replace nuclear (Reuters Fri Apr 15, 2011)

You forget that the biggest reason that fukushima was still running is because of NIMBY concerns in Japan not wanting new reactors built. The money was there for replacing it 10 years ago, but it was politically inconvenient and tepco couldn't get the permits. Based on a normal construction time it would have been replaced with a newer, safer design and we wouldn't be talking about this if it wasn't for the anti-nuclear nutjobs.

I suspect TEPCO's, the IAEA's and governments track record with the truth and compliance comes into the equation (imo).
TEPCO failed to meet it's obligations regarding maintenance of pumps and their word that it will be done was accepted despite being caught falsifying records on more than one occasion.
Why did they get the green light to keep operating let alone extend the life of reactors operated by them that should have been decommissioned?
The risk of the generators failing due to a tsunami were identified in 1990 and raised in 2004, the only comment made now is that "it appears TEPCO did not address the risk"

To argue that the NIMBY crowd is at fault I believe is disengenuous when the root cause is more than likely profit and expediency. Who will foot the bill?

. France appears to be doing a good job and apparently the populace were quite happy having nuclear plants in their neighbourhood - until this "accident". No NIMBYers there for some reason......

Another interesting point: based on the screenshot, you can't touch the center of the touchscreen without changing the way you hold the controller. Wouldn't that be fairly bad design?

You would take a retarded quitter over a right-center business friendly genius?

Even though President Obama did resign from the Senate before his term was up, I think calling him a retarded quitter is a bit harsh.

Anyway, the other fellow was for Palin, not President Obama.

And this is why.
How many of you knew that most of your food comes from sewage land applied farm fields?
Its perfectly legal. Farmers demand it.

You can have what are called phobe/bacteria blooms after land application.

Could this be the smoking gun for all the MRSA reports, contamination of our produce, and now in E.Coli Germany.

They take the digestate and apply it to farm fields to grow food.

If you are unaware, bacteria mutate thru a process called gene swapping.

I believe multi-drug resistance is a byproduct of the Waste Water Treatment industry - take these bacteria, kill off the weak with the pharmasuticals we dump into waste stream (penecillin, etc), and you end up with super tough bacteria that can take us out.

And this is why.
How many of you knew that most of your food comes from sewage land applied farm fields?
Its perfectly legal. Farmers demand it.

You can have what are called phobe/bacteria blooms after land application.

Could this be the smoking gun for all the MRSA reports, contamination of our produce, and now in E.Coli Germany.

They take the digestate and apply it to farm fields to grow food.

If you are unaware, bacteria mutate thru a process called gene swapping.

I believe multi-drug resistance is a byproduct of the Waste Water Treatment industry - take these bacteria, kill off the weak with the pharmasuticals we dump into waste stream (penecillin, etc), and you end up with super tough bacteria that can take us out.

Star Trek reboot? You mean Star Trek the Next Generation, right?

That's a continuation. A reboot takes the original story and characters and retells it in a different manner.

Gene Roddenberry himself endorsed the idea decades ago, when a reporter asked him about the future of Star Trek, he said that he envisioned someone taking Star Trek and doing it all over again -- but bigger and better. And he wished them well. Link

Here's what the IPCC has to say about it in the Fourth Assessment Report:

"Since 1950, the number of heat waves has increased and widespread increases have occurred in the numbers of warm nights. The extent of regions affected by droughts has also increased as precipitation over land has marginally decreased while evaporation has increased due to warmer conditions. Generally, numbers of heavy daily precipitation events that lead to flooding have increased, but not everywhere. Tropical storm and hurricane frequencies vary considerably from year to year, but evidence suggests substantial increases in intensity and duration since the 1970s. In the extratropics, variations in tracks and intensity of storms reflect variations in major features of the atmospheric circulation, such as the North Atlantic Oscillation."

This article discusses a report from the Global Humanitarian Fund that estimates that 40% of 2010's severe weather events are attributable to global warming, which is in line with Peter Baines estimate that 37% of Australia's drought severity can be attributed to Global warming.

So to put it plainly, there has been a significant increase in both flooding and droughts. I don't think there's been much research into the effects of climate change on hailstorms and blizzards.

They are heros for saving our food supply.

GMO foods have serious health effects on people who eat them. Way more dangerous than the corn fructose they are already forcing millions to eat.

GMO corn causes liver, kidney problems in rats: study

I don't think disinfectants do a very good job. Not to mention bacteria build up resistances to disinfectants and become more dangerous. Tossing them into a super heated furnace sounds like it would be much more difficult for them to adapt.

http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2011/03/04/hospital-bacteria-strain-killing-patients/

http://www.sacbee.com/2011/05/29/3661803/deadly-bacteria-lurk-inside-hospital.html

http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/08/10/us-bacteria-hospital-idUSTRE5795AN20090810

Actually the earthquake was predicted

If by predicted an earthquake, you mean he predicted the wrong time and the wrong place, then yes, he predicted an earthquake. And this is not the first time he has predicted an earthquake, this is just the first time his prediction was within a week of an earthquake actually occurring.

Giuliani uses radon as a measure of earths movement, and tries to use increased radon levels as a sign of an impending earthquake. This method has never been found to predict earthquakes, but even a broken clock is correct twice a day.

Scientists respond...

Please downvote, radon prediction is not a reliable predictor for earthquakes, and this guy is known in the seismology communities to be a bit of a loony. He has a history of mispridicting earthquakes, in fact suggesting that this earthquake would occur one week prior to when it did and in a completely different city 30+ miles away.

I saw him present his findings at AGU in 2009, and came to the conclusion of many others: a broken clock is still correct twice a day. Based on the science today, it is completely disingenuous for someone to claim they can predict where and when an earthquake would occur with accuracy and precision.

Please don't perpetuate his myths:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake_prediction#L.27Aquila_controversy

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/2009/0408/p06s02-wogn.html

http://www.nytimes.com/1995/08/08/science/hopes-for-predicting-earthquakes-once-so-bright-are-growing-dim.html?pagewanted=all

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/06/earthquake-warning-was-removed-from-internet/

http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/04/07/us-italy-quake-prediction-idUSTRE5365GO20090407

http://in.reuters.com/article/2009/04/06/idINIndia-38908220090406

Please downvote, radon prediction is not a reliable predictor for earthquakes, and this guy is known in the seismology communities to be a bit of a loony. He has a history of mispridicting earthquakes, in fact suggesting that this earthquake would occur one week prior to when it did and in a completely different city 30+ miles away.

I saw him present his findings at AGU in 2009, and came to the conclusion of many others: a broken clock is still correct twice a day. Based on the science today, it is completely disingenuous for someone to claim they can predict where and when an earthquake would occur with accuracy and precision.

Please don't perpetuate his myths:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake_prediction#L.27Aquila_controversy

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/2009/0408/p06s02-wogn.html

http://www.nytimes.com/1995/08/08/science/hopes-for-predicting-earthquakes-once-so-bright-are-growing-dim.html?pagewanted=all

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/06/earthquake-warning-was-removed-from-internet/

http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/04/07/us-italy-quake-prediction-idUSTRE5365GO20090407

http://in.reuters.com/article/2009/04/06/idINIndia-38908220090406

Sorry, but there are far too many stories about how you can buy reviews, both good and bad, and Yelp can't catch them all. I can see why Doctors are concerned. Are they taking the right course of action, not in my book. I heard two stories just today about micro transaction sites where you can buy reviews for less than a quarter, even going so far as stating what you wanted. Another story stated how Yelp was removing reviews from their patients that were positive.

There are also numerous articles on how someone representing Yelp may be asking for money to take down bad reviews or allow good ones to stay.

So in other words, it might have been a good service until people figured out how to game it. It might have been a good one until someone on the inside learned how to make extra money on it. Yet another site where its best to ignore the very good and very bad and aim for whats in the middle.

Search for Mechanical Turk and tell me, would you as a Doctor not be afraid? So what can they do?

Here, to save some time http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2011/05/23/how-to-ethically-improve-your-customer-reviews/

There is a bigger picture involved.

During the Egyptian revolution the telecom companies, instead of supporting the people, complied with and acted upon the requests of a tyrannical leader to shut down internet access, in an attempt to silence the people. [1]

They also complied to send out pro-government, anti-democracy [2] mobile text messages [3].

Don't buy Vodafone's excuse, they abide to a mad man's "emergency laws", while the people and journalists risked life and limb to have their voice heard. Vodafone agreed to his terms, a guy who is now facing the death penalty under charge or premeditated murder against civilians[5], and need to grow a pair.

And do you know why?
"Its not clear who paid for the messages which could amount to hundred of thousands of dollars worth of messaging."

[1] http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/01/2011128796164380.html
[2] http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=133349
[3] http://liberalconspiracy.org/2011/02/03/unsolicited-pro-mubarak-text-messages-from-egypt/
[4] http://www.renesys.com/blog/2011/01/egypt-leaves-the-internet.shtml
[5] http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/24/us-egypt-mubarak-idUSTRE74N3LG20110524

Not tax breaks, exactly. Subsidies.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/08/us-fcc-internet-rural-idUSTRE71759V20110208
http://www.nber.org/papers/w9090.pdf

The telcos and other ISP's have taken money from the government, many times, mostly to aid in that "last mile" crap. And, the "last mile" just never materializes.

Although - the idea of tax breaks conferring partial ownership upon the government isn't a bad idea either. Tax breaks are, after all, just another form of subsidy.

At least we can count on both the Republicans and Democrats to stop their partisan bickering for a moment, and reach across the isle in solidarity to screw the American public over.

Because nothing tells the American public that they've been "screwed" like:

Not having hundreds of passenger jets shot out of the sky by surface to air missiles
Oddly enough, this is also covered under a new law passed after 9/11 - shall we start the bitching about that too? Oooh, those Feds! Oooh... %()*#)($% Bush!!

(Reuters) - A California man who was the first person indicted under a law passed after the September 11, 2001 attacks that bans importing missiles able to shoot down airplanes, was sentenced on Monday to 25 years in prison.

Not having Talib Islam blow up a federal court with a one ton tuck bomb
Not having Farooque Ahmed bomb the subway
Not having Ferid "Yousef” Imam set off his Improvised Explosive Device
Disrupting Nadeem Akhtar's plan to illegally export nuclear processing equipment to..... Pakistan.
Interrupting the violent Jihad plots of “JihadJane" and company..... very interesting.
Preventing Khalid Ali-M Aldawsari from using a large Improvised Explosive Device
Jailing Zachary Adam Chesser for threats against South Park and attempting to support al Shabaab
Convicting Russell Defreitas and coconspirator Abdul Kadir for a plot to blow up JFK Airport

Hmmmm... only back to mid Feb 2011....and this probably isn't everything..... lets skip back to November 2010.

Not getting blown up at a Christmas tree lighting by Mohamed Osman Mohamud

Imagine how "cheated" the American public feels without all those explosions going off?

By the way.... I'll let you in on a little secret... OK, two secrets.

First, for those that crave them, terrorist attacks are kind of like potato chips.... it seldom stops with just one.

Second, NSA cares if somebody in the US is in direct communication with members of terrorist organizations. That's terrorist organizations that are trying to kill people, not illegal mp3 downloaders, Ron Paul/Dennis Kucinich voters, members of the people's pop tart party, or gold fish fetishists.

As to civil liberties, the fact that these were published tells me we are probably in pretty good shape overall.

Won't spread that fast? All it takes is one infectious person on an international flight to spread it across borders. That's before they close any borders. There are constant reports of less serious outbreaks like measles that infect hundreds of people because someone boarded a flight.

Yes, just like their archiving of your location data keeps you more secure... Apple is totally perfect, right? They wouldn't EVER let anything unknown or an app that did more than it said into the app store, right?

This is simply an implementation flaw. Shit like that happens on ANY system. It's just that with open systems you actually learn about it. Are you SURE that you know all the security weaknesses in your iProduct? Are you sure Apple is telling you everything? How can you be?

Reuters: "The U.S. special forces team that hunted down Osama bin Laden was under orders to kill the al Qaeda mastermind, not capture him, a U.S. national security official told Reuters."

CBN News: "U.S. special forces set out to kill Osama bin Laden and dump his body in the sea to make it harder for the al-Qaeda founder to become a martyr, U.S. national security officials told Reuters on Monday. "This was a kill operation," one of the officials said."

CDN: "During the May 3rd interview of CIA director Leon Penetta by NBC Nightly News’ Brian Williams, Mr. Penetta all but admitted that killing Osama bin Laden was the intent of the mission."

The Telegraph: "Several US national security officials have briefed that there was in fact no intention to capture bin Laden, contrary to Mr Brennan’s statement. “This was a kill operation,” one official said. "

That was from 30 seconds on google, I'm sure you can find more if you want. These statements from US officials are why I'm questioning the motives of the operation - and so should you, my friend.

Obviously you can't have the whole investigation team shorting Airbus stock right away, that would be too obvious; you need time for some "regularly scheduled transactions".

On a more serious note, there is 2 hours of voice recording plus lots of instrument data. Better to go through it thoroughly and recover everything you can rather than immediately issue a report just to satiate the curiosity of the public. I mean, it isn't like there is a rush - what are the chances that another A330 might fall out of the sky in the mean time? Hmm, maybe I should be shorting Rolls-Royce stock instead of Airbus...(Yeah, sorry, I got silly again for a minute there.)

Well, to be fair. Engine failures happen all the time albeit the one you found was slightly worse than usual if firefighters had to douse it. The day after the spectacular A380 engine explosion a Qantas 747 had an engine fire and had to return to LAX but few people outside the aviation community cared about it (I'm a jetphotos.net regular and even there, it drowned in the discussion about the A380). And that too was a Rolls-Royce :)

Since engine issues aren't all that rare (despite what the stakeholders say), safety requirements are pretty strict: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j973645y5AA

On a sidenote: If there is only 2 hours of voice recording, why will it take weeks to listen to it?

Obviously you can't have the whole investigation team shorting Airbus stock right away, that would be too obvious; you need time for some "regularly scheduled transactions".

On a more serious note, there is 2 hours of voice recording plus lots of instrument data. Better to go through it thoroughly and recover everything you can rather than immediately issue a report just to satiate the curiosity of the public. I mean, it isn't like there is a rush - what are the chances that another A330 might fall out of the sky in the mean time? Hmm, maybe I should be shorting Rolls-Royce stock instead of Airbus...(Yeah, sorry, I got silly again for a minute there.)

Do you think Bill Clinton will want us to first clarify the truth about Hillary's story about landing in Bosnia under sniper fire ?

A natural gas plant in CT blew up a year ago due to improper purging of the gas lines during testing. Managed to rattle windows 30 miles away and if I remember correcltly, it registered as a 2 or 3 on the nearest seismograph. http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/02/07/us-energy-explosion-idUSTRE61619Q20100207

Much of this is TEPCO's fault, and specifically the fault of their CEO, Masataka Shimizu. A few weeks after the hydrogen explosions, it came out that the CEO had ruled that only he could authorize any release of radioactive material, including venting hydrogen to the atmosphere to avoid an explosion.

When that decision needed to be made, the CEO was not present when wanted. When the earthquake occurred, he happened to be in another part of Japan and had trouble getting to TEPCO HQ. But there was no backup plan if the CEO was unavailable. Nobody took over and made the decision. (In the US, policy is that the on-site plant manager can make that decision.)

The CEO wasn't seen in public for weeks after the disaster. He was rumored to have fled the country, that he'd committed suicide, or that he was in a hospital. The Prime Minister of Japan personally went over to TEPCO headquarters to demand answers and action. Even that didn't help, and his office had to directly take over management of the disaster.

Masataka Shimizu is still CEO of TEPCO.

Japan used to have a tradition of seppuku in such situations.

There are reports today that Sony's networks still are oblivious to real security. Among the serious vulnerabilities are links to globally viewable security consoles in robots.txt files, ID web-management consoles being publicly available and indexed in Google, and more!

I guess the upside is that if the hackers are going to get your credit card from Sony, they already have it so you may as well play your games too.

The essentials of the story didn't change:

Navy SEALs flew to Pakistan in helicopters to Bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad where they shot him dead, and one of his wives in the leg after she came between the SEALs and Bin Laden. The SEALs took Bin Laden's body and the US buried it at sea in accordance with Muslim custom. The rest is relatively minor detail.

Then they don't even keep the body around long enough for anyone else to verify it. They just go dump it in the sea? Seriously?

They didn't just dump his body in the sea, they buried it at sea in accordance with Muslim tradtion (though there are disputes among Muslim scholars about when and how it is permitted). Muslim custom requires quick burial. Besides, DNA tests provide all the certainty needed. (How many other 6'4" Muslims that look exactly like Bin Laden are there in Pakistan living in million dollar compounds with vast quantities of communications with Al Qadea and Bin Laden's wives present? That many?)

Why is it so important for a Muslim to buried their dead in a day?

Muslims strive to bury the deceased as soon as possible after death, avoiding the need for embalming or otherwise disturbing the body of the deceased.

Islamic Scholars Split Over Sea Burial for Bin Laden

... Mr. Brennan said that appealing to other countries would have exceeded the time frame that Islamic custom requires, of burial within 24 hours of death.

I don't think there is any serious reason to doubt a quick burial at sea, especially since the US is trying to account for Muslim sensitivities.

They are all pathological liars in my book.

President Obama announced Bin Laden was killed by American forces:
Obama Announces Death of Osama bin Laden

Al Qaeda has announced he is dead:
Text: Al Qaeda statement confirming bin Laden's death

Iran says he is dead:
Iran's intelligence chief says bin Laden died long before the 'alleged raid'

Family members denounce his death:
My father's death was criminal and I may sue the U.S.

Locals protest his death:
Pakistani tribesmen protest

So tell me, are all of these people with multiple and conflicting interests lying about Bin Laden being dead? Is it just to fool you? If so, why?

If "credit protection" worked like you seem to think it does, none of us would need it because we'd already be protected. In fact, "credit protection" is a big, time consuming pain in the ass that only works (if it works at all) for a limited time and in limited circumstances.

But in this case the point is moot, since Sony isn't actually offering you anything at all.

I do not trust the government to tell the truth on matters this large. While I doubt bin Laden is alive, I doubt the official version of his death even more.

Let's see..... the US Government announces he is dead:

Obama Announces Death of Osama bin Laden

The terrorist organization he headed announces he is dead:

Text: Al Qaeda statement confirming bin Laden's death

The regional troublemaker with a strong intelligence agency and an avowed enemy of the US announces he was dead before the operation:

Iran's intelligence chief says bin Laden died long before the 'alleged raid'

Family members denounce his death:

My father's death was criminal and I may sue the U.S.: Bin Laden's son slams Al Qaeda leader's killing

The locals are protesting his death:

Pakistani tribesmen protest

At this point, I think anyone doubting Bin Laden's death is about ready to star in their own personal Truman Show, and doesn't really need more news or photographs.... maybe a shrink or philosopher. Cogito ergo Bin Laden moritur.

The looney bin is getting crowded. Sanity: step 1, step 2....