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I actually agree with you about this in every other case, but Microsoft is a special case. Analysts are already saying that "Failure is not an option." Sigh. I guess we'll have to have one more iteration of this. Here's how it goes:

Normally I'm not one to praise Microsoft's end results, but I'm not stupid. They hire the brightest minds from the best schools with strong foundations in classical IT art as well as contemporary vision and they work them to death because that hazy zone between exhaustion and physical failure is a special point where human brains integrate at miraculous levels. Microsoft has known this for twenty years and organizes its workers accordingly. These folks driven in this way can make an awesome mobile OS, they did, and I'd love to have a copy of the source for that bad boy. These Microsoft developers made a rock solid performant and genuinely innovative phone OS which is the core of Windows Phone 7. It's tiny, boots fast, suspends and resumes instantly, and pinches ergs like they're made of platinum. It has an intuitive touch-centric interface. It works flawlessly with all the latest technologies - hell, it'd make a great HPC OS if these jerks would think out of the box now and then. This was about two years and three reorgs ago. This is the mockup they'll trot out to the major phone vendors hoping to get them to push the platform - short a few apps but you can see the potential because it's beautiful, intuitive, responsive. They built an app store for it, and shopped the mockup around to app developers under NDA. Some of the AC posters here even have it and they're in awe of its incredible flexibility, its power, its potential - and they should be because this bare OS rocks. They float an early 2009 release date to some of their preferred pundits even though it's not finished yet because that's how you feed a flackalyst.

It's a killer mobile OS but it's not a Windows yet. For six months they put some finishing touches on the version they intend to ship - integrating Bing search and Windows Live services into everything, building the Mobile Office apps for it, porting Silverlight, .NET for mobile and a bunch of other stuff. This is leveraging the platform so that it pushes all of the other Microsoft platforms because making products that can be extracted from their internicine application and server dependencies is not the One Microsoft Way. The shipping version then ran like a dog, leaked memory like a seive and crashed every few minutes. So eighteen months ago they rebooted the team and tried again. They got the same result, so nine months ago they reorg the group from higher up and try again. The new group can't get the thing to work right in nine months, so yesterday they reorg the entire entertainment and mobile division to be directly under Steve Ballmer and reboot their efforts yet again. This product was supposed to ship in early 2009. It is not even close to ready. It probably never will be because all of these internicine ties never did work well, are a moving target, and have reached an insurmountable level of complexity for a mobile device which must by definition be the ultimate in computer reliability and stability while remaining cutting edge in a dynamic market. It literally can't be done.

Even today Microsoft executives are shopping around that slick mockup that no end user is ever going to see to their phone partners at the manufacturers and carriers, playing the push/pull game. "You want this. You need this. You're going to want to start planning the marketing around this product right away. This is going to be a slam dunk! And look - it says Microsoft on it everywhere so you know businesses are going to eat it up. [Hushed]It has IE and Outlook." / "Of course, this iPhone killer isn't for everybody - it's exclusive to our special friends. Committed friends l

Mr. Martin M. McGlynn serves as President, Chief Executive Officer, Director of StemCells Inc....$1,324,380 per year

'Tis good to be a patent troll

Why do we have patents on life-saving techniques? Can you imagine if there was a patent on washing your hands or stitching a wound?

Google Finance knows all:

http://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ%3ASTEM

Scroll to the bottom and there is a list of Execs.

Martin McGlynn is CEO:

http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/officerProfile?symbol=STEM.O&officerId=169142

"Mr. Martin M. McGlynn serves as President, Chief Executive Officer, Director of StemCells Inc. Mr. Martin McGlynn joined the company in January 2001, when he was appointed President and Chief Executive Officer of the company and of its wholly-owned subsidiaries. Mr. McGlynn was elected to the Board of Directors in February 2001."

$1,324,380 per year is a pretty decent salary.

And from a liability standpoint, there SHOULDN'T be a difference, but there is. You run into a car, you have to pay for it. BP blows up the gulf: they should pay for it. Except they won't.

Oh, they say they will, and if they don't, they'll be made to.

Which has nothing to do with it, the simple fact is they are not paying the costs and you are shilling for them.

False. The CEO is on record as saying they will. And since the disaster isn't over yet, it's hard to say they aren't paying -- the final bill hasn't arrived yet.

From Reuters:

First, the judge found Gorton, who is also LimeWire's sole director, personally liable for infringement, observing in her ruling that "an individual, including a corporate officer, who has the ability to supervise infringing activity and has a financial interest in that activity, or who personally participates in that activity is personally liable for infringement."

That will likely strike fear in the hearts of would-be P2P moguls who may have been clinging to the belief that they could hide behind corporate shells, insulating their own assets if the law ever caught up with them.

Ruling could have chilling effect on P2P services

The one good thing that may come of this is that if it is upheld, perhaps it will set some sort of precedence for dealing with other corporate "bigwigs" who violate numerous laws with the expectation of hiding behind the "corporate shield" - betcha more companies would be straightforward with their dealings, prevent riskier actions and be less likely to knowingly break the law.

Regardless, every time I skim the article (dont worry... I didnt actually read the whole thing... I do know this is slashdot I'm on) and see the mention of Gorton, I suddenly want to go buy some fish sticks. Cant figure out why. ;-)

From Reuters:

First, the judge found Gorton, who is also LimeWire's sole director, personally liable for infringement, observing in her ruling that "an individual, including a corporate officer, who has the ability to supervise infringing activity and has a financial interest in that activity, or who personally participates in that activity is personally liable for infringement."

That will likely strike fear in the hearts of would-be P2P moguls who may have been clinging to the belief that they could hide behind corporate shells, insulating their own assets if the law ever caught up with them.

Ruling could have chilling effect on P2P services

If it were an article on USA and a Republican wrote it, being a citizen I'd expect his perspective to be biased. On the other hand, if a Democrat wrote it, I'd expect it to be biased. You're correct about assumptions being made, but if I'm a "social studies" major for lack of a better generic term, I'm going to think my objective conclusions are more accurate than some guy who lives there. Especially if he protests.

Countless times I hear how no one likes some politician or pop star, but there are piles of blogs and photos where these people are getting rock star welcomes. Nickelback? No one likes them, except the 90,000 people in Alberta, 2007.

In order to be objective and print all of the facts, not just selected ones, you have to have a detachment that someone passionate and experienced may not have. I have countless arguments with people who switch between valid points and emotional pleas quickly enough that I either ignore the emotional points or say "Too emotional, you're not being objective." And that pisses them off, making them more emotional and it falls apart. Yes there are assumptions involved, but if it went on for pages at least one of them had emotional involvement, if not both.

• It would be just as buggy and crash-prone as it is right now on the Mac. Unless you believe the demo was one that "shouldn't have been shown", and that seeing a U-tube video made behind closed-doors with as many takes as it needs to get right is in any way comparable to running it on nearly every darn page on the web. For adverts.
• Because it's on every darn page on the web - for adverts - it'd be running almost constantly as the user uses Safari; so the other down-side comes into play - it's a huge battery hog. Suddenly Apple's quotes of 10 hours battery life on the iPad are reduced to 5 hours (or whatever). Uninformed users (you know, the 99% majority out there) say Apple is lying about it's battery times. Now every manufacturer lies about it's battery times, right ? Oh, wait, no they don't. Apple's battery-life figures stand alone (as far as I can tell) as a reasonable guide to how long you'll get out of your machine. That's worth a lot, to Apple.

I'm not going to pretend there aren't advantages to Apple in requiring people to use Apple's API to code on Apple's hardware (yeah, yeah, I know you bought it, I know it's *yours*, but you know what I mean). Of course there are. That doesn't invalidate the concerns above. I'm sure 'the Steve' sees it as a bonus.

Knowing people who work at Apple, they're a focussed bunch. They care passionately about making things easy to use, and frankly about making the very best (whatever) possible. There's very little of the jaded cynicism I've found in other companies over the years - they're more willing to "++?????++ Out of Cheese Error. Redo From Start." than anywhere else I've ever seen, and I (personally) can easily see the above being sufficient reason to abandon Flash as a platform if they think it's beyond saving.

Simon

I just happened to come across this a month or so ago and thought it was such a telling statement to Soviet engineering halfassery...

As an illustration as to why we should NOT follow Soviet engineering techniques, I submit Hell's Gate to you... (this thing has been burning for 40 years)
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEjoga1yrn0
A small amount of background: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE63J4H120100420

Consensus to people like Barack Obama means to reverse your opinions and agree with him.

Seriously? Well I guess that's what you get when you link to "America's Watchtower." Check out his About Me page for some clues.

Here's Reuters for some less biased sanity.

That's less space to display stuff, DPI is only a measure of how smooth a line would be.

No, it's not. Anything you can fit on your iPad screen, I can fit on my netbook with 352 x 768 pixels to spare. By your logic, a 52" bigscreen TV with 160 x 90 resolution would be better than a small computer monitor with 1080i. I have some oceanfront property in Arizona I'd like to sell you...

As opposed to the iPad's 256MB?. I'm sorry, 256 is bigger than 1 does not work in this case.

Actually it does. Because all iPad apps are developed against that base target memory size, and the OS and frameworks are all built around the fact the memory is reduced.

That's also why browsing on an iPad is a LOT faster than on the system you brought up, because the software is optimized for the system. With a netbook you are going to be running a lot of software targeting a desktop that will indeed run, but not run that great, on a more constrained system.

Ever heard of "Ubuntu Netbook Remix"? Runs amazingly on this netbook, and it WAS build specifically for netbooks. So sure, you have an app that was developed against 256MB, but an equivalent application for the desktop that was built around 1GB of memory or so will be able to run more quickly, because it can cache more data. The ONLY advantage the iPad has memory wise is that it's permanent memory is Flash.

for some keyboard (like a number pad) the keys will be far larger.

So? Why the hell does that matter? If you've learned touch typing on a number pad, having huge keys is a hindrance not a help. Sorry, I'm no grandpa.

And if I really need to I can use an external Bluetooth keyboard.

So can I. And I can also use a USB one without having to by additional, overpriced, apple accessories, so I have more options than you.

I can just as easily say that I am dubious about Apple's battery claims

Actually

you

can't.

Pogue said he was able to use the device for 12 hours before it needed a charge, while Mossberg said iPad withstood 11 hours and 28 minutes of continuous use.

One thing Apple does, is give a realistic figure for battery life for all its products.

And as I said, I have used my laptop and found that HP's estimates are pretty accurate as well. You have only served to prove my point:

You

can't

either!

WSJ is reporting that the trigger was a very large sell order for P&G coupled with unchecked computer trading and some inherent flaws in the current system of fragmented exchanges.

Felix Salmon also did a good explanatory post that pulled in work from other writers about what might have happened and why.

Mr. Salmon's post links to a thought provoking post by a blogger named Kid Dynamite, who posits that it's a really bad precedent to cancel the erroneous trades because it lets the program traders off the hook for the consequences of their computer mess-up.

But still has 768 pixels! What's your point? I see that you failed to mention that it is LARGER in the other direction

Only in terms of pixels - diagonally it's almost the same size screen as the iPad, which means it's physically about as wide, but not as tall (holding the screen as you would a laptop).

That's less space to display stuff, DPI is only a measure of how smooth a line would be.

Yes, you got me on the IPS display, but that's just one factor.

But an important one for shared viewing, and also long term reading.

As opposed to the iPad's 256MB?. I'm sorry, 256 is bigger than 1 does not work in this case.

Actually it does. Because all iPad apps are developed against that base target memory size, and the OS and frameworks are all built around the fact the memory is reduced.

That's also why browsing on an iPad is a LOT faster than on the system you brought up, because the software is optimized for the system. With a netbook you are going to be running a lot of software targeting a desktop that will indeed run, but not run that great, on a more constrained system.

The largest keyboard you could fit on an iPad is 7.76 inches long.

Yes, but for some keyboard (like a number pad) the keys will be far larger. And if I really need to I can use an external Bluetooth keyboard.

But basically the customizability of the keyboard for the task makes it more useful than a cramped physical keyboard.

I can just as easily say that I am dubious about Apple's battery claims

Actually

you

can't.

Pogue said he was able to use the device for 12 hours before it needed a charge, while Mossberg said iPad withstood 11 hours and 28 minutes of continuous use.

One thing Apple does, is give a realistic figure for battery life for all its products.

Actually, there are many barriers to entry into the Canadian marketplace. Taxes, ownership restrictions, tariffs, operational regulations, etc. are all important considerations. In fact, for many products and services, entry into the Canadian marketplace faces more barriers than many other EU or Asian countries.

One of the first and most restrictive factors is the ownership and management restrictions. Take the wireless industry for example. A wireless carrier has to have at least 50% Canadian ownership in order to operate in Canada. This means that T-Mobile, for example, can't just waddle over across the border and start buying frequency, putting up towers, and offering a service. We've had a recent case where it was debated whether or not a certain wireless carrier (Wind Mobile) actually met that ownership requirement. There's also a general requirement for all corporations that the Board of Directors is comprised of at least 25% Canadians (or a minimum of 1 Canadian if the Board has less than 4 Directors).

Many of our industries are much more tightly regulated than are your industries. As I've briefly mentioned in a previous comment, Canada really is more of a socialist country with a market framework. The skeletal infrastructure of our economy is based on market economics, but we flesh that out with quite a heavy load (comparative to America) of social regulations that protect consumers from power asymmetry that arises from market failure, e.g., information asymmetry, natural monopolies,etc..

Many of these regulations are restrictive enough such that a company may consider that an investment in complying with such regulations would not really be worth it for a shot at the comparatively smaller marketplace. Since American companies design products and their respective distribution plans with American regulations in mind, it would take a significant investment to create another roll-out plan for the Canadian marketplace. We only have 30-odd million people, 1/10 of the American population, and our buying power for non-essential items is generally lower because of the way our consumption taxes are structured*.

On the one hand, we don't get many of the new and sparkly fancy gadgets right away. But that's okay, I'm pretty patient for the most part. It's not that big of a deal. Companies big and successful enough will eventually bring their products over the border. On the other hand, we as consumers and taxpayers are protected from many of the perils that arise from market failure. The biggest recent example is the global financial crisis. While many global banks and companies required bailouts, our financial institutions continued to post modest profits and showed a remarkable ability to quickly recover.

So yeah, there are many barriers to entry into the Canadian marketplace, mostly because of our traditional approach towards market economics that's more skewed towards the socialist side. But even though we may not get the latest cool gadgets or the cheapest deals, we're very well protected from many potential disasters that result from market failure. I wouldn't really call this a fault. I'm a patient guy. I can wait 3 more months for that iPad, or another 6 months for that HTC phone. Small price to pay, in my book.

* It's worth noting that our minimum wage is higher than in America, the last time I checked. The general minimum wage is $10.25 an hour in Ontario, and the average is over $9 across Canada (with only 2 provinces falling below $8.50). However, there are a few factors that influence buying power. The first is that non-essential items are almost always taxed higher throughout Canada. For example, groceries, utilities, etc. are exempt from the federal consumption tax. Alcoh

What's wrong with offshore drilling?

Pojut's post looked like it was about corruption, not drilling. Why change the subject, Shakrai?

Someone has proposed raising the liability cap for this industry. Shit, I didn't even know it had a liability cap. Who bought that? Regulate this industry like most otheres, where if a company makes a huge mistake or lacks insurance, then its stockholders might actually take a hit, and then the industry will start to look more legitimate.

Until then, this topic is barely even about drilling, and only tangentially; it's about payoffs and what we expect from government.

Not sure where you got those facts, but it looks to me like they own a 65% interest in the well. While it could be argued that a "working interest" doesn't imply ownership, it pretty much says 'owns' to me. Mitsui owns 10% and Anadarko the remaining 25%.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/30850121/Deepwater-Horizon
RIG Deepwater Horizon rig owner
BP 65% working interest (operator)
APC 25% working interest (operator)
Mitsui 10% working interest (operator)
CAM Manufacturer of blowout preventer (BOP)
HAL Provided cementing services to the rig

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN3011545120100430
"Transocean Ltd (RIGN.S) (RIG.N) - The Zug, Switzerland-based company owned and operated the Deepwater Horizon Rig. The rig went into service in 2001 and was drilling the Macondo prospect about 40 miles off the coast of Louisiana.

BP Plc (BP.L) (BP.N) - BP hired Transocean's rig at a rate of about $500,000 per day to drill the well. BP is the project's operator and has a 65 percent working interest in the well.

Anadarko Petroleum Corp (APC.N) - The Houston company owns a 25 percent nonoperating interest in the well."

http://www.deepwater.com/fw/main/Deepwater-Horizon-56C17.html?LayoutID=17
It was built by Hyundai Heavy Industries Shipyard, Ulsan, South Korea in 2001.

Link.
i.e., Not coming from just the New York Post.

For the cognitively challenged, you could try searching for "NATO Afghan killings" - just to get started.

"Consumed by fireball, the Afghan village devastated by Nato strike on Taliban" - The Guardian, September 4 2009

"Moeen Marastial, a member of parliament from Kunduz, said: "Local people are telling me 130 people have been killed despite all the promises of Nato to do fewer bombardments and reduce civilian casualties. There will be a reaction to this. It is a very bad day for international forces in Afghanistan."

and

"Nato strike kills 27 Afghanistan civilians" - BBC, February 22, 2010

"At least 27 civilians died in a Nato air strike in southern Afghanistan, the Afghan cabinet says, revising downwards a prior statement that 33 were killed"

and

"U.S. Admits Role in February Killing of Afghan Women" - New York Times, April 4, 2010

"After initially denying involvement or any cover-up in the deaths of three Afghan women during a badly bungled American Special Operations assault in February, the American-led military command in Kabul admitted late on Sunday that its forces had, in fact, killed the women during the nighttime raid."

and

"NATO strikes killing more Afghan civilians" - USA Today, April 16, 2010

"Deaths of Afghan civilians by NATO troops have more than doubled this year, NATO statistics show, jeopardizing a U.S. campaign to win over the local population by protecting them against insurgent attacks."

and

"NATO Investigates 3 Afghan Civilian Deaths" - New York Times, May 1, 2010

"The French military took responsibility on Friday for killing four Afghan children during a missile strike in early April, and NATO said it was investigating allegations of a military convoy gunning down two Afghan women and a girl in southeastern Afghanistan."

and

"NATO checks report of Afghan civilian deaths" - Reuters, May 1, 2010

"NATO said on Saturday it was investigating whether shots fired by its troops in southern Afghanistan had killed two women and a child traveling in car."

Of course, expending any effort whatsoever to consider the plight of those being killed in Afghanistan and finding out some facts - rather than making a false assumption and then using your error to defend killing innocent people - might have taken you almost as much time as you spent supporting the murders committed by "our guys."

I think both approaches are the wrong way to go. Civil disobedience only works if you can get an immense, passionate group of people to partake in it, and do it in such a way as to attract others to the cause. As it stands, most people don't care enough about this for it to actually be a viable form of protest, and those who do are small enough that the public will turn a blind eye to them. More importantly, it is worth noting that this can easily backfire and cause lobbyists to simply push for even harsher laws to combat it, now that they can play the victim even better by pointing to these people as the justification for more regulation.

The hard-lined opposite approach won't work either. Again, because the majority of people aren't passionate about this, they will simply shrug it off and get used to it, whether that is in the form of accepting the new laws or just moving to more covert methods. Furthermore, we already know that Edgar Bronfman isn't (publicly at least) going to give his kids any slack if they are found to be infringing, so what makes you think that any other executives or politicians you mention are going to act differently?

I have another concern, too...the profit motive.

Take, for instance, the recent oil and ongoing oil spill in the gulf...in 2003, an oil industry-friendly White House scrapped plans to make the oil companies tighten up their spill prevention act; a requirement to use the acoustic BOP was tossed because the oil industry argued that it was too expensive and "might not work anyway".

Now we have an oil spill that is going to cost...a lot...to clean up, perhaps because of a desire to avoid spending $500K. I find that to be irksome, when I know that the CEO of BP took home $6.15 million in 2009 even though profits were way down from the year before.

And I find the thought of that same drive to make as much profit as possible being at the intersection of the planet and space to be worrisome...you can do a lot of damage if you ram big things loaded with rocket fuel into other things - or the planet - while going multiples of the speed of sound.

China seizes more melamine-tainted milk powder

(Reuters) - Chinese inspectors tracing new cases of contaminated milk have shut dairy firms in the northwest and seized 72 metric tons of milk powder tainted with melamine, an industrial compound that killed at least six children in 2008.

That's right, solar can't compete on an unsubsidized market, but oil can! Oh... I'm sorry, were we talking about the same thing? The fact that we subsidize perhaps the most profitable industry on the planet is patently absurd.

That's not the point, cellphones can have a ton of megapixels but with their tiny lens setup the image will be garbage no matter how fine grained the sensor is. This isn't about getting more megapixels, it's about getting digital images out of expensive old cameras with very expensive lens setups.

You did not hear? Nokia is going to make SLR camera's obsolete with their future cell phone cameras!

(Yes, yes, I have a feeling mr. Vanjoki is not much of a photographer) http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKLDE63J15F20100420

"Having seen what the Mumbai slums look like" -- where? In a movie?

The poor in Mumbai aren't all beggars waiting for a handout. Dharavi in Mumbai is the largest slum in Asia, but it is also one of the most productive places in the city, generating a revenue of a billion dollars a year.

Also 85% of its households have a television.

Bob Basler?

http://blogs.reuters.com/oddly-enough/

Your comment read just about as clever as stuff he posts.

Fourth option: whether or not filesharing is wrong, using the legal system to nuke the peasants into the poorhouse is just plain evil.

Funny you should mention the sons and daughters of the execs and artists - they fileshare too. The following is an excerpt from Adam Pasick interviewing Warner Music chief executive Edgar Bronfman: http://secondlife.reuters.com/stories/2006/12/01/warner-music-boss-edgar-bronfman/

AP: So, you have seven children, have you ever caught any of them using Gnutella or Limewire or the P2P network?

EB: I have. I explained to them what I believe is right, that the principle involved is that stealing music is stealing music. Frankly, right is right and wrong is wrong, particularly when a parent is talking to a child, a bright line around moral responsibility is very important. I can assure you they no longer do that.

Further context: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Bronfman,_Jr.#Music_piracy

I can assure Edgar that if his children are intelligent enough, they can see the hypocrisy in the system.

We fund so-called 'sustainable energy' projects and other such things that aren't economically viable without government funding.

You do realize that the oil industry has quite a few tax subsidies also, don't you? They've been getting them for years.

And the proposed plan is to grant public access to the data. Have you ever gone down to a government office and tried to get information on anything? A government clerk does the search. Sometimes, when they say they don't find anything, you just have to wonder how hard did they look. Especially some of those old crones that have been there for decades and short of going on a shooting spree, have absolutely no worry of being fired.

Those dealing with such countries are stuck between a rock and a hard place. If they don't bribe they won't suceed, if they do bribe and someone decides to make an example of them for whatever reason then they may end up doing time.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why corruption destroys national economies. Investors and multinationals understand this fact, and only the most desperate or stupid choose to do business in such an environment.

Russia has been hanging foreign and domestic corporations out to dry for a decade using the corruption catch-22. NTV, Yukos... I'll go out on a limb and say that any foreign corporation doing business in Russia is insane. Sorry, my Russian Slashdot friends, you're great people, but your government is a business deathtrap.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62E1SU20100315

"My recommendation is: 'Maybe you should reconsider doing business in Russia,'" she said. "I am considerably more optimistic about Nigeria than I am about Russia on this issue."

"First off, the Army gets to be pretty picky about who it lets in."

WHAT!? They are letting in convicted felons, non U.S. citizens, gang bangers, all kinds of malcontents these days just to get BODIES to go fight in Afganistan and Iraq. I know - I have friends and family SERVING in the Army right now (no none of them are in the above list - they know people who are though). We have PYCHOS's in the Army killing kids FOR FUN, killing dogs FOR FUN, killing reporters and kids FOR FUN! Read the news watch the videos WIkileaks released!

Here is just a few for you:

Wikileaks reveals video showing US air crew shooting down Iraqi civilians
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/05/wikileaks-us-army-iraq-attack
"Footage of July 2007 attack made public as Pentagon identifies website as threat to national security"

Wikileak'd video shows U.S. troops firing on Reuters reporters and Iraqi children
http://www.infowars.com/wikileakd-video-shows-eager-to-kill-troops-firing-on-reuters-reporters-and-children/

http://www.collateralmurder.com/

Neo-Cons Defend Massacre Of Iraqi Journalists, Children
http://www.infowars.com/neo-cons-defend-massacre-of-iraqi-journalists-children/

Wikileaks leaked video of Civilians killed in Baghdad -- Full video
http://www.infowars.com/wikileaks-leaked-video-of-civilians-killed-in-baghdad-full-video/

Wikileaks Video Exposes Apache Murders of Journalists, Children In Iraq
http://www.prisonplanet.com/wikileaks-video-exposes-apache-murders-of-journalists-children-in-iraq.html

Alex Jones Covers the WikiLeaks Pentagon Snuff Video
http://www.infowars.com/alex-jones-covers-the-wikileaks-pentagon-snuff-video/

WikiLeaks VIDEO Exposes 2007 'Collateral Murder' In Iraq
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/05/wikileaks-exposes-video-o_n_525569.html

Mainstream media ignores Wikileaks video and pays more attention to Tiger Woods
http://snardfarker.ning.com/group/MainstreamMediaAndMindControl/forum/topics/rt-video-mainstream-media?commentId=2649739%3AComment%3A167787&xg_source=activity&groupId=2649739%3AGroup%3A134445

Wikileaks Iraq Video Authenticated By Senior Military Officer
http://news.firedoglake.com/2010/04/06/wikileaks-iraq-video-authenticated-by-senior-military-officer/

Leaked U.S. video shows deaths of Reuters' Iraqi staffers
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6344FW20100406?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews

36 Still Images - WikiLeaks Iraq Video (Dial-Up Warning and UPDATE from Wikileaks
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8095770

Violence in Video Games and the Baghdad Massacre

To not show how to have safe sex is pretty much to rely on either teaching the kids nothing and let them learn the hard way, or teach abstinence in the schools. Problem is, abstinence doesn't work. This has been shown many times.

And to not show any safe sex information is worse, as shown in in China where they don't teach much about safe sex and this leads to many unwanted pregnancies. Teens are bombarded with images and messages of sex every day, even in places like the supermarket where the latest issues of magazines like Cosmo, scream sex on their covers for all to see. Then you have ads from companies like American Apparel. These images just play on teenage hormones so teens need to learn this since it's thrown at them so much and so often. And we can already see what happens if we don't.

such as, the FACT that the "civilians" were actually enemy combatants. For more details: http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/201878.php

What disturbs me is how quickly people judge a video when they were two airships meaning you're only seeing one view from one of the apaches. Other people are calling in RPGs and AK47s ... and those that were pulling the triggers were acting on that information. Personally, from watching the video, I saw very unfortunate movement by a photographer with a very large camera (405-415 on the wikileaks site) that at first looks exactly like an insurgent with an RPG trying to get an unseen angle on a gunship. Only after I was told that they were photographers was my imagination allowed to see that as a very large lens camera (and you conveniently can't see those frames where the RPG looks more like a camera at the site you linked to). And even then, with the low resolution Youtube footage, who's to say what it looked like to those there? Missing something like that could cost not only your life but also the lives of people flying with you.

I'm not trying to excuse what happened but I am saying that a series of mistakes were most likely made in those videos that lead to the unfortunate deaths of at least a couple innocent people.

And this is war.

If you're a United States citizen, you paid for that gunship. You paid for that scenario. Don't get me wrong, you also paid for the scenario when real insurgents trying to kill innocent people were stopped. That scenario just isn't interesting to us though. You see it as a byline on a newspaper but those stories are just something to yawn at these days. I was for the war in Afghanistan and I knew that things like this video would happen. I was not for the Iraq war because these scenarios were not worth ousting Saddam. Friendly fire happened in Desert Storm and probably every large scale conflict before that as long as guns have been involved. Do you think a reporter was never killed accidentally by United States forces in Vietnam or even World War II (commonly viewed as one of the few 'justified' war)?

I'm glad everyone got to see one of the faces of war. I'm sad that these people wrongfully died but I'm glad that this rightful outrage might cause us to really reconsider what half or more of us had decided when our elected Commander in Chief brought us into both these wars. I don't get it. I was ~20 years old during our invasion of Afghanistan and people just seemed humdrum "Hey, let's go to war, I won't be dying in it" and I'm still a little bit confused about that sentiment. How many of these conflicts must we have before we realize that declaring war means that civilians -- not just soldiers but women and children -- will die as some direct result of this war?

War is war. At some point the US populace just decided that war is different today. And then once we started two wars, we forgot about them. Just declared victory and tucked them away. Our soldiers are still dying, this is still happening. Wake up.

And lastly, I would like to point out that like soldiers, these reporters did know what they were entering when they entered a war zone. Again, not to absolve the Coalition forces but to quote Reuter's official word on the footage:

There is no better evidence of the dangers each and every journalist in a war zone faces at any time.

And as Newsweek added:

These newsmen knew what they were getting into; it's the public watching the video now that has been caught unawares.

Believe it or not, their deaths were actually reported when they happened, back in 2007. Here is just one example I found from a Reuters blog, but it was in all the mainstream media here in the UK as well. Those of us that pay attention to the news have known about this since it happened.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6311K220100402

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOGX73P8RqM

You still have not presented a falsifiable idea. You claim the statistics I cite are wrong, but you don't provide any reasoning behind it. Moving on...

when the original argument was about what types of weapons may be used

The GP said "You are allowed to use any weapons available on any target available with very few exceptions." (emphasis mine) I can see making a mistake and killing 15 people is SOP for the military. Firing on the van without confirming there are valid targets inside is clearly way out of line. Later in your post you say that I imply that the US military covered it up. Here's what they said at the time:

Noor-Eldeen and Chmagh had gone to the area after hearing of a military raid on a building around dawn that day, and were with a group of men at the time. It is believed two or three of these men may have been carrying weapons, although witnesses said none were assuming a hostile posture.

The U.S. military said the helicopter attack, in which nine other people were killed, occurred after security forces came under fire.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL05399965?loomia_ow=t0:s0:a49:g43:r1:c0.564356:b31590548:z0

which is based on your own little fantasies rather than on how information is actually gathered in combat

I'm not the one who mentioned James Bond. The troops had no confirmation that these were the people the convoy was talking about. They did not wait to see them target their weapons at any US forces.

you again misrepresented your own source by claiming that the casualties were in the "hundreds of thousands"

The stats end in 2008. The lowest possible number is the Iraq Body Count number, which only includes documented deaths from reliable media sources. If you think that every death in war is documented, then you haven't read a page of history.

Moreover you completely ignored the fact that these surveys list estimated cases of "civilian deaths from violent causes", which encompasses civilians executed by militants, civilians blown up by suicide bombers and VBIED's, and civilians killed in sectarian fighting.

And it's your assumption that this civil war would have occurred if we hadn't removed Saddam and disbanded the Iraqi Army and destroyed their power grid and sewer system and water infrastructure and let them loot every government building while we guarded the Ministry of Oil?

Let me quote you some Bush I:

Trying to eliminate Saddam, extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq, would have violated our guideline about not changing objectives in midstream, engaging in "mission creep," and would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible. We had been unable to find Noriega in Panama, which we knew intimately. We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. The coalition would instantly have collapsed, the Arabs deserting it in anger and other allies pulling out as well. Under the circumstances, there was no viable "exit strategy" we could see, violating another of our principles. Furthermore, we had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-Cold War world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations' mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different -- and perhaps barren -- outcome.

And you tried to derail the discussion by bringing up completely irrel

• BBC
• Reuters
• Guardian
• Telegraph

In a press conference on April 5, 2010 at the National Press Club (USA), Wikileaks released a video "showing murder of Iraqi civilians and two Reuters journalists".[106] The 38 min video shot from an Apache helicopter gun-site reveals that US military mistook the journalists' cameras for AK-47s and a Rocket-propelled grenade, and opened fire, resulting in the violent death of several people, including the two Reuters news staff Saeed Chmagh and Namir Noor-Eldeen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikileaks#Airstrike_Video_Release

Reuters article: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL1617459520070716

While I haven't had the opportunity to watch the video or see the accompanying material, I just have to say this - I take anything and everything Reuters says with a grain of salt - a big one - after they published photo's they knew to be doctored, and later admitted it. Not only that, but even after admitting it they continued to publish photos that they knew to be doctored.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikileaks#Airstrike_Video_Release

Reuters article: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL1617459520070716

it seems the whole 'unintended acceleration' phenomenon is to a large extent like a US version of this

How about a service I think is seriously underrated, Reuters news agency? Find it at http://www.reuters.com/. They seem to provide remarkably unbiased news. I guess they make their money selling stores to, well, newspapers. So if the newspapers model dries up, Reuters will too. Still, at the moment, it's good quality news.

Original article, after following three backlinks: http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE62I4AE20100319

So tired of the "news" sites that can't even link the original source anymore.
I hit the source link and goes to someones blog with a source link to someone else's blog, that might have the original story.

It is pathetic, isn't it?
My normal algorithm, when I see something sufficiently interesting, is to RTFA to find the most unusual name for one of the authors (or several if there are ; double check that the name isn't a commentator), then to Google for that author (or authors). very soon you'll find an article that tells you which one of the major science publications the source is in. Most of them are available in abstract form for free ; often your university library will be able to provide you with access (you're not in at least part-time education at a legitimate establishment? I'm sorry to hear of your incapacitating disease and impending death.)

News that comes out on Fridays (US time) is probably from Science ; Nature dis-embargoes things on Wednesday evenings (UK time); PLOS and PNAS are (I think) on Mondays (US time again) ; the rest are pretty random. How long it is before the blogosphere picks up on things ... is rather more variable.

Alternatively, if you're tired of following the blogosphere's useless cross-quoting, just go directly to the original sources. All of the major journals have email distributions of contents, often an RSS feed too if that's what you like. Cut out the regurgitation and start from the sources! (Oh, sorry, that kills the advertising industry. Send me an email address and I'll PayPal you £0.10 as a contribution to your bus fare to go and find someone who gives a fuck.)
On which subject, it's Friday, it's lunchtime, so it's Science's contents ... anything interesting?

• Reviews - Materials and Mechanics for Stretchable Electronics
• Swine Flu Pandemic - What's Old Is New: 1918 Virus Matches 2009 H1N1 Strain
  New findings, reported online this week in Science and Science Translational Medicine indicate that the surface protein, hemagglutinin, of the "novel" H1N1 swine influenza virus that last year caused the first human pandemic in 4 decades closely matches the HA in the H1N1 virus responsible for the 1918 pandemic.
• Strontium-Doped Perovskites Rival Platinum Catalysts for Treating NOx in Simulated Diesel Exhaust

Hmmm, that swine 'flu one might be worth a read.

Yep, there are certainly idiots on both sides.

http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS248104+14-May-2009+PRN20090514
http://cofcc.org/2009/09/actual-political-violence/
http://voices.kansascity.com/node/2670
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/2009/08/24/0824kibby.html
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/president/2004-10-05-gop-office-attack_x.htm
blah, blah, blah...

Again, you need to compare C# + VB.NET to get a meaningful comparison of .NET vs Java.

And if you want to count Groovy and Scala, sure - but then let's also count Boo and F#.

Oh, and the link is from 2006. Here is a newer comparison, from 2009 (though they don't give the methodology they used to determine what ".NET" is). Still shows Java roughly 1.5x ahead in terms of job count, which isn't surprising, considering the head start.

Salary distribution is more interesting. It shows that .NET salary distribution is skewed more towards lower pay, while Java spikes at a higher rate. This also produces an average salary disparsity. Overall, I'd take it to mean what I wrote previously - that .NET has more people in it who are new to this whole programming thing, while Java has more senior devs that specialize in the platform.

Here is a job trend graph for a typical job search web site. Notice how both C# and VB on themselves, and even combined, are way below Java, but .NET is above. Just goes to show how many job postings specify ".NET" without detailing the language...

An unrelated, but also interesting trend is that of technical book sales - have a look, and notice how rapidly Java in particular is falling.

Then also there are studies like this one - but I'm not sure what to look at there, since they don't give neither their sources nor methodology, so the numbers could all just as well be conjured from thin air.

Original article, after following three backlinks: http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE62I4AE20100319

So tired of the "news" sites that can't even link the original source anymore.

I hit the source link and goes to someones blog with a source link to someone else's blog, that might have the original story.

You telling me, your in such a hurry to post it, that you can't bother to go back the 2 links for everyone?

What even cracks me up more, is when a site I go to lists slashdot as the source. lol, slashdot isn't a news source, it's a news regurgator.

Original article, after following three backlinks: http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE62I4AE20100319

Just because you see them as a viable source of "Fair and Balanced" news...

Hey, I realise they’re biased. Everyone is biased to some extent. Fox is quite biased.

doesn't mean that everyone sees it as "The Most Powerful Name in News."

Does this have any consideration in the matter?

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1914020220100319

*A tax credit becomes available for some small businesses to help provide coverage for workers.

*Employers with 50 or more workers who do not offer coverage face a fine of $2,000 for each employee if any worker receives subsidized insurance on the exchange. The first 30 employees aren't counted for the fine.

*State health insurance exchanges for small businesses and individuals open.

*Medicare provides 10 percent bonus payments to primary care physicians and general surgeons.

*The Medicare payroll tax is raised to 2.35 percent from 1.45 percent for individuals earning more than $200,000 and married couples with incomes over $250,000. The tax is imposed on some investment income for that income group

Having not read the full bill i might be missing other tax increases but if that doctor is getting his taxes increased by 100,000$ by a 1% increase i think he'll be okay.

1) What is in it to stop the premiums going up as the money from subsidies comes in? In other words, will the basic laws of supply and demand in a free market not still apply? This bill does not seem to limit the dynamics of the free market.

Why would getting extra money from the gov't make prices go up? What exactly are you asking about? Im confused

2) What will stop the insurance companies from making their own rules that slowly erode the value of coverage by limiting the treatments that they pay for?

A large chunk of the legislation is to restrict what health insurance companies can do. To specifically address that i'll quote the reuters article.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1914020220100319

WHAT HAPPENS IN 2015
*Medicare creates a physician payment program aimed at rewarding quality of care rather than volume of services.

WHAT HAPPENS IN 2012
*Physician payment reforms are implemented in Medicare to enhance primary care services and encourage doctors to form "accountable care organizations" to improve quality and efficiency of care.
*An incentive program is established in Medicare for acute care hospitals to improve quality outcomes.
*The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which oversees the government programs, begin tracking hospital readmission rates and puts in place financial incentives to reduce preventable readmissions.

3) How will someone who is poor be ensured the same treatments as someone who is wealthy?
The wealthy will always be treated better. That just the way things work. Will everyone recieve the care they need? Probably, it just might not be as cushy.

A few of the provisions (eliminating lifetime limits, prohibiting canceling people who get sick) start this year. Here's an interesting link that summarizes by year: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1914020220100319 Another fun one that happens rather immediately: a 10% tax on indoor tanning services that use ultraviolet lamps.

No kidding. This kid was lucky but thousands are not. Got Sick? Goodbye!

Dropped for contracting HIV