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You mean how people might be affected by the Arctic Ocean would be open all year and decrease shipping costs?? Or how growing seasons could shift so that some areas that can't grow much food will now have longer growing seasons, and in areas where people live so transportation costs could decrease? Or how winters would be less severe so fewer people might die?? Or how many low lying areas could be reasonably protected (increasing employment no less), there are already several examples where cities are below sea level. You mean those reasons?? Or how a new NOAA study say that hurricanes will be less severe if the oceans get warmer, so the Gulf of Mexico just might become a safer place to live.

It's funny how everyone concentrates on the bad effects, but fail to mention the positive effects. One might think they are just trying to push the argument their way instead of getting an unbiased look at ALL the issues.

Ok .. for the sake of argument, let's say the earth is warming. Now the question is 'Why?'. If one is is to assume the 'man caused global warming' theory is correct, then decreasing CO2 production might help, but at a very high cost and life style change that will be forced upon people. If they are wrong, and it is just natural, then we might do all this for nothing, and still have to face all the issues.

The seas are not going to rise over night. The growing seasons are not going to shift next year. We can use reasonable measures to decrease CO2 production that won't destroy economies, and at the same time examine and prepare for the changes that could occur no matter what we do. Just stop all the fanatical fear mongering.

BTW -- I live in Phoenix and ride my motorcycle all year. Global warming?? Bring it on!!!! I'd love for it to be about 3-4 degrees warmer in the 'winter' here, and extend my pool season.

California state employees are paid too much, so the furlough days are sort of a workaround for not being able to cut their salaries across the board.

Gotta love blanket statements.

I am a state employee doing IT work and I am easily paid well below what I would make in the private sector doing the same work. Many people like myself trade lower salaries for the nice pension. Regarding pensions, which a lot of people have bashed as being unsustainable, most of the employers who abuse the system are county or city employees. Much less oversight. These people are good examples.

There are some state workers who make more than they would elsewhere, but you know in any place of employment it is easy to find someone who "makes more than they are worth". I've seen it in every job I've had - both private and public sector. It also doesn't help the "paid too much" complaints that approximately 50% of public sector employees have college degrees, versus approximately 25% of private sector employees.

California and Greece. Sister states.

Are you talking about finance or sexual perversion? Because both appear to apply...

California and Greece. Sister states.

"Republicans are bought, lock stock and barrel, by moneyed corporate interests."

And Democrats are bought, lock stock and barrel by Unions, Hollywood, and race baiters. and many others groups.

If you're opposed to being bought(on principle), then I applaud you. If you are just opposed to being bought by people you disagree with, then we have a problem.

Oh, Obama was one of the largest recipients of BP campaign cash

Again, my point, which you can't seem to admit, is that both sides have the exact same problems. And excusing your side (left OR right) because it is "your side" is just stupid and a BIG reason why nothing good comes from it all.

I think it would be a very bad time to enter this market. LG and Nokia have just posted record losses: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-07-28/lg-electronics-profit-falls-33-after-company-falls-behind-in-smartphones.html http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-10725887 BlackBerry is also losing business market share to iPhone and other smartphone makers: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE65N5WC20100624 Microsoft would do better to build their reputation in the mobile marketplace with quality operating systems - for now. Consolidation in the marketplace seems inevitable. When there are fewer competitors and Microsoft is established and trusted in the market, that would be the time to launch microsoft hardware. But its devices would need to rival iPhone in quality and HTC in price.

What do YOU know about Indians, you wife beating child molesting Pakistani arsewipe! By the way, it was pretty ticklish to see you guys masquerade as Indians after the failed Times Square attack: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64655Y20100507

Funny how you piglets turn up everywhere either to blow things up or troll web forums.

Something like this?
Man steals electricity with meat hook

(Reuters) - German police are investigating a man for theft after he siphoned electricity off a high-voltage overhead transmission line for one month with the help of an ordinary meat hook, authorities said on Tuesday.

What I suggested was globalising human rights and using the UN as a vehicle to do that. If every state recognized your right to free speech for example as a constitutional right

Unfortunately, the view in the UN toward free speech as a human right is that speaking in criticism of religion is a violation of human rights. Exactly the opposite of your hope of recognizing a freedom of speech like we strive for in the US.

The practical issue here is that not everybody has the same idea about what constitutes a "human right". And people's concepts of rights often conflict with each other.

If we let the U.N. decide what is a right, they would censor anything that criticizes a religion.

There are several ways that variable wind generation loads can present challenges. Texas, which has a large concentration of wind generation facilities, experienced an incident in early 2008 in which a sudden dropoff in wind triggered a grid emergency. A cold front came through, generation dipped, and utilities had to implement power shaving strategies, primarily reducing service to large customers who trade lower rates by being "interruptible."

• on Taiwan
• on Japan
• on India

When North Korea torpedoed a South Korean vessel, the US and South Korea wanted to hold a joined naval exercise - a rather measured response to an unprovoked attack. But of course China can't let the chance pass to interfere. They are aiming to expand both their military influence and their territory. It's important to them that neighboring countries will not have the means to counter a Chinese threat.

Question is whether the US can allow an already powerful authoritarian regime to expand in this manner. If they succeed in swallowing Taiwan, they'll control most of the world's chip production. Also: China delivers arms to Sudan, Burma and Iran - they don't care whether anyone in the west likes that or not. Is there a particular reason why the US should stop arms sales to democratic countries, just to please China?

You mean the poor farmer in Bangladesh will experience the same hardship from sea level rise than a Miami millionaire? One loses his livelihood and the other has to move his yacht pier up 3 feet - yes, that seems about the same.

Yes, the 2.8mm/year rate of sea level rise is sure to take away the livelihood of that farmer in Bangladesh... he should start running now, or else he may never escape!!!!!

You don't realize the absurdity of your extremist appeals to emotion BECAUSE YOU DONT EVEN KNOW THE FACTS OF THE VERY SHIT YOUR ARE SUPPORTING.

No, you don't know the facts of the "shit" you are supporting. To start with, Bangaldeshi farmers can't start running because they live in one of the most densely populated areas on earth and the national boundaries there have been drawn in the 20th century to stop traditional migrations. And while 2.8mm/y may sound like nothing, try to remember that a) it has been going on for decades, b) that projection is probably too low and c) it is already causing serious problems in low-lying island nations such as Tuvalu and the Maldives as well as in Bangladesh itself.

So get your head out of your fat Western ass and start paying attention.

...and as long as we can tax you so that you never get to keep even 50% of what you earn, Al Gore is happy! His family ran out of dead Kulaks to exploit so they need your property now. Pass the carbon credits!

You mean the poor farmer in Bangladesh will experience the same hardship from sea level rise than a Miami millionaire? One loses his livelihood and the other has to move his yacht pier up 3 feet - yes, that seems about the same.

Yes, the 2.8mm/year rate of sea level rise is sure to take away the livelihood of that farmer in Bangladesh... he should start running now, or else he may never escape!!!!!

You don't realize the absurdity of your extremist appeals to emotion BECAUSE YOU DONT EVEN KNOW THE FACTS OF THE VERY SHIT YOUR ARE SUPPORTING.

No, you don't know the facts of the "shit" you are supporting. To start with, Bangaldeshi farmers can't start running because they live in one of the most densely populated areas on earth and the national boundaries there have been drawn in the 20th century to stop traditional migrations. And while 2.8mm/y may sound like nothing, try to remember that a) it has been going on for decades, b) that projection is probably too low and c) it is already causing serious problems in low-lying island nations such as Tuvalu and the Maldives as well as in Bangladesh itself.

So get your head out of your fat Western ass and start paying attention.

Lets take as an example this little gem...

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN2936724320080729

Lone Star have done nothing particularly wrong in this deal but Merrill Lynch's write down would be considered out and out fraud on top of previous out and out fraud if an individual did it. Ignoring the questionable legality of the original valuation of the CDO the value Merrill Lynch quote this deal as on their balance sheet is a complete fabrication as one look at the deal will tell you. They are hiding the fact that these CDOs are almost certainly worthless by loaning Lone Star the money to buy them from them and then using the CDOs they are buying as collateral for the loan (and making them the only collateral)! If I told people I was good for a debt (which is what a stock basically is) by shifting money around in a similar way I would never get away with it.

Regarding the Arctic ice, I'm not pointing out anything special happening this particular year. I'm pointing out that over the past several decades, the Arctic ice is melting, because the Earth is warming.

Regarding the Antarctic ice, the sea ice extent refers to the surface area of ice, not the mass or volume. The volume and mass of ice in the Antarctic is decreasing because it is melting. This is because the ice is thinning.

"I pushed the gas pedal to pass a car and it did something kind of funny," Sikes told reporters. "It jumped and it just stuck there. As it was going, I was trying the brakes ... It wasn't stopping."

California Highway Patrol spokesman Brian Pennings said police have no reason to doubt Sikes' account, based on officers' own observations and evidence of heavy brake use.

Going off-topic here, but seriously, "dealt with them"?

Yes, they did something, but they hardly solved the problem. Piracy in Somalia is still a booming business with massive return on investment, and the payments to individual pirates are ridiculously high compared to Somali average wages. This means there are a lot of interested investors, and there's a near endless supply of expendable people to send on the actual missions.

Trying to solve this situation with military presence in the area (by means of military ships) simply isn't feasible, because of the size of the area. If you secure the Gulf of Aden, which, by the way, is one of the busiest shipping routes in the world, pirates will simply travel further east into the Indian Ocean, as they have on previous occasions. For example, this story is about a ship hijacked 700 nautical miles from the Somali coast. That's a two to three days' journey for a pirate mothership traveling around 12 knots.

The only way we can solve the situation in the seas around Somalia is by solving the situation in Somalia itself. Somalia needs a stable government with an active police force and/or army to do something about the criminals that are ruling the country today.

The UN has no power to "switch to a basket of currencies" - the UN can recommend all it likes, but the markets still choose for themselves what reserve currencies to use.

Also, the SDR "basket" most certainly includes the dollar, and I've seen no discussion about excluding the dollar from the valuation of the SDR. Perhaps you'd care to share your sources of information, or are you just fearmongering?

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE65S40620100629

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

Actually, Europe is planning to do just that, although possibly not from Qaddafi. See the following article:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE65J1ZO20100620

They are currently looking into receiving power from Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia.

Figures are for the number of people jailed per 100,000 population, for 2007. There is a more up to date list (7th edition) but I couldn't find a link for it that didn't require a PDF download.

We are free for this one number alone. But don't you worry, the powers that be want to "change" that too. Reuters

About half the US population is sitting in jail as a result of drug related offenses - due the the war on drugs and 3 strikes policies there. It's also a big part of the reason why California is going bankrupt.

Why is it that the people most involved with drug trafficking never get caught?
These sites may open your eyes if you have the guts to do so.Site 1
Site 2
As to California's problems, do you think that this may have had something to do with it? Site 3

Of course, as everyone know, Australia is entirely populated by criminals, which may account for the relatively low percentage of us locked up here.

As everyone "knows" America was first made up of religious radicals and status quo malcontents and they were sent west across the Atlantic ocean by the same people who sent criminals to Botany Bay.

Steve Jobs at one point offered to donate MacOSX licenses for every OLPC

I'd love to get a reliable source on that. I always imagine Apple as being evil as sin (ha!); it would do a lot for my impression of the company to believe that they were willing to work on something for nothing (OS X + PostScript GUI on a 433mhz Geode?).

Nearest source I could find was here (which, in turn, cites this, but I can't find the quote on Reuters, so whatever.):

Negroponte said in the interview the foundation is "open to" running Apple Inc.'s OS X Macintosh operating system on the XO laptop. An Apple spokesperson declined comment on its plans for the device.

... which sounds more like the Apple we all know and love.

Thanks in advance

Reuters - Annoyed by cellphones? Scientists explain why

Basically, people will subconsciously try to fill in the gaps in a half-conversation.

All of Nokia's N-series smartphones will run MeeGo not Symbian after the N8.

This guy has huge brass balls: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE65T4SU20100630

What the Pirate Party is doing is sticking a thorn in the tigers paw.

IBecause it's an iPhone people are willing to ignore these issues that should honestly result in a class action lawsuit

But there is a class action lawsuit.

Or in some cases, their standalone sausage.

when swingers are more likely to have an STD than a prostitute and a regular domain has more malware than a porn site.

Obviously, the sex-professionals, be it high tech or human beings, are far more careful than an amateur.

"When consumers have choice they will be more effective than "regulation" ever will be. The problem is regulation almost always reduces chocie."

There will never be choice in the US regarding internet. At least, not until some insanely different technology is invented. Currently, it doesn't look like that is going to happen in our lifetimes.

Why?

It costs money. A lot of it. Running multiple identical cables to your door, just for the sake of competition, is not efficient nor practical, and it's not going to happen for good reason. Deregulation just means that the people who own the one or two cables that do exist are free to rape you for all you can reasonably give them, and give you as little as they want in return. We are ALREADY seeing this happen, so don't go claiming it is somehow not the case.

Is there problem regulation? Yes, there is. There is a lot wrong with giving out artificial monopolies to ISPs in places where none is needed to motivate installation of the wires, and I have horrible problems with the fact that it seems cities cannot give internet to their population without being sued by some private company. On the other hand, I'm sure you think that cities providing internet is evil, because it runs counter to "the free market..."

Get some perspective, though. A few pieces of bad regulation does not make the whole concept bad, nor does it make the alternative any better. Libertarians would love to believe that if the government didn't exist, everything would be great: sorry, no. The government you at least superficially elect, but monopolies you have no say in. You cannot vote with your feet if you have only one option. It has been proven time and again that when infrastructure is handed to private interests, with no public competition, bad things happen. 10 points to you if you can figure out why that's the case.

'Our energy sector is insanely regulated also. The BP oil spill wasn't caused because of deregulation but because the morons "we" elected to congress thought it was a good idea to artificially cap liability.'

And which party did you elect to do that? Oh, right, both the evil democrats and the free-market republicans. Gee, I wonder if they had any ulterior motive...

Or how about the current one, that is working against that?

Wait... are you talking about the cap that, today, is collecting something like 15k barrels a day from an estimated 35-60k?

Because, if so, you have a *very* odd definition of "most".

I'm not sure where you got your numbers from, but as of june 6th, the official US coast guard estimates were that the well was leaking around 19K barrels a day. Collecting 15K is most of the 19K and there is nothing odd about that.

Furthermore, the collection rates aren't higher because they're afraid if they attempt to catch higher volumes, the cap will blow off under the pressure. It's a physical limit on the technique they're using, and they knew that full well before they began, which is why, prior to the operation, the message changed from "we'll stop the leak" to "we'll reduce the outflow as much as we can".Ahh, I see where your numbers are from- there is still something wrong with them.

BP did state that's it was having problems removing the oil because of limits in transportation and burn off capabilities. By mid July, they are supposed to be able to capture or otherwise deal with 60K-80K barrels per day or better.

And at the same time managed to be a critical failure because it wasn't usable for the 95% of the population that don't have the technical sophistication to actually use the device in an appreciable manner. The N900 is a nerd's dream phone, but it would seem that the vast majority of people prefer Android phones.

Reuters has the sales pegged at 100,000 or so tops and say that during the same time 8.75 million iPhones were sold. According to this Slashdot article Android phones outsold the iPhone in that quarter. Basic math suggests that roughly 11.6 million Android phones were sold, a full two orders of magnitude greater than the N900. It may be a toy OS compared to what amounts to Debian Linux, but it's actually something normal people can use.

I'm glad you like your phone, but let's not pretend that it's changing the world. Android is something that's actually useful outside of the niche tech-geek market that is Slashdot. If this is what the year of the Linux Smartphone is supposed to be, I wouldn't call it good by any standards.

Google has made Android a polished experience that's acceptable for the everyman. It might be a thin strand of yarn compared to what's possible with the N900, but to the majority of people buying smartphones, the N900 is just rope with which to hang themselves.

If people are in the database dogs should be too

The tracking of phones should give US readers some ideas of how this will be used.
http://tinyurl.com/y9lh6wq [www.nydailynews.com]
A suspect's cell phone battery is removed to avoid leakage, exposing the International Mobile Equipment Identity number to be noted down.
Also recall how the system seems to work in the UK
"Police arresting people "just for the DNA""
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5AN1FA20091124

We're committed to putting you out of business.

Oh please! Stop it!

If you don't even want to google it, why feel the need to ...

I mean, I didn't know about that, but it took me about two minutes to find out.

This is not just limited to Europe, governments want control of you and the internet and everything they else they can. And when you have lost Constitutional protections (US) all you need is 51% of the people to say it is a good idea:

US last week:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jun/15/epidemic-growth-of-net-porn-cited/
http://www.prisonplanet.com/new-bill-gives-obama-kill-switch-to-shut-down-the-internet.html

Indonesia, June 15, 2010:
http://in.reuters.com/article/idINIndia-49317620100615

The airmen did kill unarmed civilians but you have to realize that these civilians were journalists hanging out with armed men. The journalists were carrying cameras but there were men holding RPGs and AK-47s in that crowd they were hanging out with.

I don't think that's the case. It is my understanding that those civilians weren't killed because they were hanging out with armed men, they were killed because their camera were mistaken for weapons.

From http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6344FW20100406:

The gunsight tracks two of the men, identified by WikiLeaks as the Reuters news staff, as the fliers identify their cameras as weapons. Military spokesman Turner said that during the engagement, the helicopter mistook a camera for a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.

Seems like I keep hearing of breakthroughs, but nothing ever seems to fucking change!

Prices have changed. According to Solarbuzz per watt costs have dropped from about 5.40 euros or a little over that in US dollars in December 2001 to about 4.20 euros or a little less US dollars for June 2010. Further it says "there are now 488 solar module prices below $4.00 per watt (3.24 euros per watt)". Efficiency has also increased. In 2001 conversion efficiency pushed 12%, in 2009 SunPower sold panels with conversion efficiencies of 19.3%, the highest in the industry.

Falcon

Violent football hooliganism is primarily an English rather than specifically a German tradition.

O Rly?

http://www.buzzle.com/articles/117669.html

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,646723,00.html

http://sports.yahoo.com/soccer/news?slug=ap-serbia-fanviolence

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id=406446&cc=5739

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1565414,00.html

http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKL1369951620070313

http://sfcu.com.au/smf111/index.php?topic=5427.175;wap2

Cut the "holier than thou" bullshit.

Estimate of US health care cost in 2009: $2.5 trillion.
CBO estimate of the 2001-2017 total cost of the wars in Iraq and Afganistan: $2.4 trillion .

This is also kinda depressing.
But back to space, NASA's annual budget $18.724 billion.

Because the DPRK is pushing more GDP into the program and there is the threat of prison for the scientists and engineers, families, parents and grandparents.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Aquariums_of_Pyongyang
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yodok_concentration_camp

No one in the RoK will be imprisoned or killed if they fail at the rocket program. Now...how successful has the DPRK ICBM/orbital program been?

Not that successful
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kwangmyngsng%2D2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_North_Korean_missile_test
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kwangmyngsng-1

Now, the DPRK has SCUD and FROG type missiles that can get a nuke (if their nukes are small and light enough) to the RoK, China and Japan

The first DRPK nuclear test was most likely a failure, far less than 4 KT and the second was also small, a 1-5 KT or so

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE55E5BA20090615

The danger from the DPRK is the massive amounts of conventional artillery and battlefield rockets they have, not nukes. FROGs and SCUDs can be shot down by Patriots, the US and RoK will hammer them with long range PGMs like MRLS and with airpower.

Seoul would have to be at least nuked before the US would deploy nuclear weapons that close to Russia and China.

Dare I say Reuters has figured it out, with this story image.

"Why's he getting off better than Bush did with Katrina? Well, probably because he sacked the MMS head who screwed up instead of telling her that she did "a heckuva job". Little things like appearing to recognize when somebody has not, in fact, done a heckuva job seems to count for something."

Obama also didn't fly off to Asia to keep his planned engagements there, as Bush did with his scheduled political events the day Katrina made landfall. I mean, what the !$!#%! was Bush thinking? When the disaster that people had been worrying about for decades finally shows up, with a few days of pretty accurate warnings it was about to happen, he should have been in the situation room, not flying off to New Mexico and California. Heck, I wonder if he played golf that day.

Look, even the State of NY couldn't simply take a cut of horse racing bets without losing money.

There are some choice quotes in the article's source article over at Reuters.

Here's one of my favorites, from Sundar Pichai:

"Chrome OS is one of the few future operating systems for which there are already millions of applications that work," Pichai said. "You don't need to redesign Gmail for it to work on Chrome. Facebook does not need to write a new app for Chrome."

Wow, lots of revisionist history here. It turns out that Microsoft wasn't/isn't bundling web browsers with Windows since Windows 98. I mean, they must not have been, because they weren't one of the "few... operating systems for which there are already millions of applications that work" such as "Gmail" and "Facebook."

Seriously, did he think no one would notice that he was saying that Chrome OS is one of the few operating systems that can run web applications?

I don't need a B.S. in Lieology to detect the problem with that logic!

Per TFA, Chrome OS is being released on Netbooks.

SlashGear mentions Netbooks, but their source (Reuters) does not; there is one mention of Laptops and none of Netbooks.

Is this just an assumption on SlashGear's part, or are they quoting some other, unnamed source?

For those who want to avoid the Slashgear page.

This is all deja vu. This has occures before. In 1979 a oil well in the gulf blew and it took 9 months to close the gap, using the same techniques they used so far.

So expect repost of failed attempts for the next 9 months.... in the true /. tradition. If it is important it will be posted again. ;)

Yeah, you get less. But, man-oh-man, this seems like very high value. For comparison, here are some expenditures from groups that "can't afford" to go to the moon:

• Canada will spend half that amount on a meeting of 20 world leaders next month.
• South Africa will spend that much and half again on a soccer tournament.
• ThyssenKrupp will spend four times that amount on a steel mill.

It's such a small amount of money, I can't even believe it's true.

Am i the only guy in the world here who can see that government regulation has contributed to the lack of doctors in the US?

Probably, because you made that up. The US has 2.50 doctors per 1000 people. England has 2.30, and France has 3.3 per 1000 citizens.

I HATE it when people complain how free markets fail and they point to very regulated industries like medicine or banking. I mean the banking industry is the most regulated this side of child porn, yet all those laws and oops still another crises every ten years.

In the 19th Century there were Panics about every ten years. Then there was the Great Depression, and virtually no banking failures until the Savings & Loan scandals of the 80s, which were caused by deregulation of savings and loan banks. The current banking crisis can be directly traced back to repealing Glass Steagall, which was done in 1999 with the Commodity Futures Modernization Act. Glass Steagall kept the US free of major bank failures for 70 years.

The Canadian Banking system, which is actually regulated, suffered virtually no bank failures, and is now voted the soundest in the world.

In summary, you are flat wrong. Strong government regulation has a long history of success, because it's the only way you can create a market. Markets depend on rules, just like physics. When the rules are not enforced and not followed, there is too much uncertainty, and that almost always leads to a crash once people return to reality. There can be no accountability without enforcement, and no enforcement without regulation.