Slashdot Mirror

Now, let's get back to a real discussion regarding the pros and cons of health care reform!

This thread, and news coverage at large, are incredibly sparse on what the plan actually is! So here it is:

INSURANCE MARKET REFORM

• The legislation would require substantial insurance market reforms that would bar insurers from excluding people for pre-existing conditions and prevent them from arbitrarily dropping policy holders.
• Insurance exchanges would be created where small businesses and individuals without employer-sponsored coverage would be able to shop for coverage. Plans offered on the exchange would have to meet minimum benefit requirements.
• The proposed changes would allow dependent children to remain on their parents' health policies until age 26.
• The Senate bill requires insurers to spend at least 85 cents of every premium dollar on medical care in small group markets and 80 cents in large group markets. The proposed changes also would require Medicare Advantage insurers to spend at least 85 percent of revenues on medical care.

COVERAGE MANDATES, SUBSIDIES AND MEDICAID

• Individuals would be required to obtain health insurance. Those who fail to purchase coverage would face fines of up to 2.5 percent of income by 2016.
• Firms with more than 50 workers who do not offer medical coverage could face fines of $2,000 per full-time employee.
• Federal subsidies would be provided to help people with incomes up to 400 percent of the poverty level purchase coverage on the exchange. Proposed changes would sweeten those subsidies for lower income people.
• Medicaid, the government healthcare program for the poor, would be available to everyone with incomes up to 133 percent of the poverty level, which stood at $10,830 for an individual and $22,050, for a family of four. Many states have eligibility requirements below those levels.
• The proposed changes would get rid of a special deal to help Nebraska pay for the expanded coverage and boost aid to all states.

FINANCING

• The final proposal makes some adjustments to the revenue measures in the Senate-passed bill.
• The Senate bill included a 40 percent excise tax on high-cost health insurance plans. The proposed changes would delay implementation of the tax until 2018 instead of 2013. The tax would kick in on plans costing $10,200 for individuals and $27,500 for family coverage. A higher threshold is allowed for plans covering mostly women, older workers and retirees as well as those in high-risk professions.
• The bill calls for raising the payroll taxes for Medicare, the government health insurance plan for the elderly, to 2.35 percent from the current 1.45 percent for individuals earning $200,000 or more and for couples earning $250,000 or more. The proposed changes would apply the tax to some investment income as well for those high-income groups.
• The bill would impose fees on medical device manufacturers, insurance providers and brand name pharmaceuticals. The proposed changes would delay implementation of those fees.

MEDICARE

• The legislation would freeze payments to insurers that provide coverage to Medicare patients in 2011 and begin reducing the subsidy in 2012.
• It would also gradually close the gap in drug coverage for Medicare beneficiaries by 2020. Those who enter the coverage gap, the so-called doughnut hole, in 2010 will get a $250 rebate. In 2011 they would get a 50 percent discount on brand-name drugs.

But you CAN get it at home, and probably easier than you can get it at the theater.

Best Buy is really pushing 3D TV.

Much of this stuff is not yet ready for mass appeal. But that fact is changing daily.

In a few years 3D source media will be much more prevalent.

This will lead to more demand for 3D programming, and probably more horrid 2D to 3D conversions.

I would be willing to bet that 2D-3D conversion could be done by in-set software on the fly from visual cues as actors and objects move on the screen relative to each other on consecutive frames.

Even today, TV can provide made for 3D content EASIER than theaters, because you can always add another channel to a TV broadcast to carry the other "eye". Right eye image could be carried on normal TV, and left eye could be broadcast on a companion channel and only used on 3D capable sets.

But Movie theaters have to have a special 3D separated film, and colored or polarized glasses, and occasionally special projectors. And the damned throw-away Glasses for every patron.

Looks ok now, the top link is a Reuters article:

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62E0JU20100315

I found one article from Dec 2007 stating they might IPO in the next two years, aka Dec 2009

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN0344600420071204 So, wheres the IPO?

i don't know the specifics of spacex's tech, financials or crookism. but if i owned a company that in 2007 had planned a 2009 IPO, i probably would have postponed it regardless of how awesome/straight-forward my company was. i don't know if you remember, but we had a slight stock market hiccup 'round then. =P

Whens the IPO for spaceX?

I check finance.google.com and its all BS paper shuffling worthless shells of a company. All either struggling, dying, living off the government teat, or all of the above. Its like watching a bad season of survivor and the only ones left on the island are the biggest crooks and cheats so you wish none of them would win.

On the other hand, I'd like to invest in a company doing something interesting, like spacex. Even if they fail, I'd much rather throw away $$$ on a cool rocket than a bunch of thieving financial industry crooks.

I found one article from Dec 2007 stating they might IPO in the next two years, aka Dec 2009

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN0344600420071204

So, wheres the IPO? I was reading slashdot in the Redhat IPO era and I suspect the combined slashdot readership would probably enjoy buying some SPACEX even more so than RHAT.

If 50K slashdotters alone, each bought $1K of SPACEX at an IPO, that would be enough for one Falcon 9 launch right there.

I hate to break it to you, but this court action is by the democrates and your much loved Obama administration. http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6273VW20100308

the parent is of course, referring to the cutbacks the Obama administration has done with the space program like the axing of the Constellation Program manned moon missions.

Im Venezuelan, linving in Venezuela. And the seizing of gaming consoles is a lie.

You're a Venezuelan living in Venezuela, and the only thing you have to say is that the government is not seizing consoles? How about some outrage at the absurdity of this law? How about some disgust at the fact that your government is passing laws that shift parental responsibility to the state?

This is a silly ploy to make it look like the government is tackling crime. In actual fact, they are just trying to get political points at the expense of their citizens' freedoms and on the back of their citizens' fears.

There's quite a bit of pressure from competitors feeling the pinch.

Not that they have their own agenda in applying such pressure, of course, and this is all part of the same posturing in the media

So take anything the Germans want with a grain of salt http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE58G5GS20090917

Uncertain? I was referring to *certain* payback in 20 years.. and this article shows it is actually MUCH MUCH lower than that. 1.5 years in some states.

http://blogs.reuters.com/environment/2009/09/16/new-jersey-has-best-paypack-on-residential-solar-in-us/

1. total cost (panels are expensive

Coal fired and nuclear power plants aren't expensive? Neither coal companies nor the nuclear power industry have their hands out begging for government assistance? Cost Is Chief Barrier to 'Clean Coal' and the Nuclear power industry is Hooked on Subsidies. "Nuclear power appeals to state planners, not market actors."

2. the Return on Investment is low (extreme cases - 10 years, but typically more than 20).

The payback period can be much shorter than that. In one survey New Jersey had a payback period of 1.5 years. New York had a payback period of 3 years and Delaware 6 for residential applications.

Falcon

(Caveat: Kiwi) :)
November 2009: "New Zealand ... named the world's least corrupt nation out of a list of 180 countries..."
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5AH0HA20091118

The notion that "anybody can make it in the US if they work hard" is a fairy tale.

Seriously. Be born rich. That's the way to go.

The notion that the notion is a fairytale is a fairytale. People love to blindly spread memes like this because they enjoy feeling sorry for themselves, but it simply isn't true:

Rags To Riches Billionaires: "Almost two-thirds of the world's 946 billionaires made their fortunes from scratch, relying on grit and determination"

That doesn't mean everyone can end up a billionaire, but it's simply false that this notion that 'anyone can make it' is a fairytale; it's borne out on practically a daily basis. If you open your eyes and look, you'll find true-life rags-to-riches story under every second stone you turn --- especially in the USA, but also these days frequently in places like China. But yeah, not everyone is born hard-working, I guess, so keep sitting and feeling sorry for yourself and you'll definitely ensure that nothing ever changes for you.

Rags to Riches CEOs

7 greatest celebrity rags to riches stories

Rags to Riches

Entrepreneur takes women from rags to riches

Rags to Riches billionaires

Asian American Rags to Riches Sagas

Case Study: From Rags to Riches (Brenda French)

Cordia Harrington: From Rags to Riches Success Story

Local cosmetics magnate reveals rags-to-riches life story

China: A rags-to-riches story to dream about (Yan Huiyan)

China’s paper magnate is a rags-to-riches story, literally

Rags to riches: Bill MacAloney: from orphan to successful business owner to CBA

From rags to riches: Filipino weavers trade up

Etc. etc. blah blah ... I could go on pasting these stories in here all day. Nothing worse than listening to whiny losers feeling sorry for themselves that they weren't born rich.

Once again, when faced with facts such as from the article "The U.S. Postal Service is projecting a loss exceeding $6 billion for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, which puts retiree health benefit contributions in jeopardy unless a bill is passed by the U.S. Congress." you fail to address my actual point.

This is pretty standard tactics from progressives to shift the debate by dismissing facts with non- sequiturs.

Here is another fact : http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN0914233820100209
To quote "The Postal Service, which delivers nearly half of the world's mail, has posted net losses since 2007."

The problem with government is that they do not cut costs and never make it up the next year. That is why we have a 12 Trillion dollar deficit.

Thanks for playing our game, better luck (and facts) next time!

I find this a fascinating debate -

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE58G6W520090917

Nearly 45,000 people die in the United States each year -- one every 12 minutes -- in large part because they lack health insurance and can not get good care, Harvard Medical School researchers found.

You have over 45 million people without insurance - to quote the article: "For any doctor ... it's completely a no-brainer that people who can't get health care are going to die more from the kinds of things that health care is supposed to prevent," said Woolhandler, a professor of medicine at Harvard and a primary care physician in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

And yes, I'm Canadian. Our system is not perfect...but that doesn't happen.

I've also got to question the sense of naming a botnet like this. Sure it's memorable, but what's to stop Chuck Norris from taking legal action against the researchers who coined the name? I certainly wouldn't want my name associated with a criminal enterprise.

Reuters Fri Dec 21, 2007 7:21pm: Tough-guy actor and martial arts expert Chuck Norris sued publisher Penguin on Friday over a book he claims unfairly exploits his famous name, based on a satirical Internet list of "mythical facts" about him.

"Norris, whose real name is Carlos Ray Norris, claims in the suit he is protective of what his name is associated with."

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN2129580420071222

China's already started dumping its T-bills. Strangely, this doesn't seem to be getting a lot of play in the media...I wonder why?

Times of India

Reuters

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is sitting on billions, but only spends 3% of their endowment in a given year.

The correct number is more like twice that, and is typical of foundations that spend money based on endowments, the point of an endowment is to allow an organization to do work over an extended period of time, something impossible to do if you spend 50% of your money every year.

If you looked at actual dollars handed out in a given year, I wouldn't be shocked if Google (and Google.org) hands out more cash than the Gates Foundation.

2009 Gates Foundation: $3.8B: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN2632188420090126

Google.org's entire charitable endowment is less than a third of that: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google.org.

It ain't even close, you're off by at least two orders of magnitude.

The Gates Foundation has been asking others to give to them to hand out. The largest contributer to the Gates Foundation is Warren Buffet.

[citation needed]

Gates' donation to the foundation is of a similar size to Buffet's, the tho had known each other for many years (play bridge together, I'm told). The Gates Foundation survived for many years with no other contributions, and I'm unaware of a single dollar that's come from any other source.

There have been many well-researched in-depth pieces that suggest The Gates Foundation is doing more harm than good right now.

[citation needed]

The LA Times 2007 piece questioning the Foundations never made that particular claim, it did raise a signficant issue in that direction though. Because endowments must invest the money they hope to use for work in the future, conflicts arise when those investments do harm. It's entirely fair to say that it's irreponsible not to look those costs.

Of course, if you read, say, the articles in the Times that discussed this, you almost certainly saw the article in the Times a few days later saying that the Gates Foundation had decided to reassess its investments for social responsiblity.

(I'd admit, by the way, that those questions can still be pretty complex. A few obvious corporations aside, most corporations do quite a number of things, many of them bad, many of them good. "How much?" can be a very challenging thing to quantify.

When The Gates Foundation was pressed about it, they said they can't be bothered to research the firms they invest it.

[citation needed]

But there are people who've linked Gates Foundation investments to Microsoft contracts and strong-armed deals.

[citation needed]

Until it is clear that The Gates Foundation is doing more good than harm, I'm not sure we should be so quick to praise them, let alone donate money to them.

Nobody is asking you to, in fact, can you point me at a place where it is possible to donate to the Gates Foundation? No, you can't, because they don't accept external donations in general. Show me the donate button on this page, and we'll talk:
http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Pages/home.aspx

That would require that the U.S. take the world lead in internet development. It's completely unrealistic to expect something so unprecedented.

Clearly a humorous post but according to some metrics (The Connectivity Scorecard) the United States just lost the telecommunications lead to Sweden as they quietly eke past us.

In related news: Greece is intent on making cash transactions of more than 1500 EUR illegal from 2011 on. (I wish I were joking)

People use less gas, sure, but at higher prices.

Until they don't use gas. All three Detroit companies, Chrysler, Ford, and GM, have or are releasing EVs. Along with Tesla they are also working on fuel cells and plug-ins. Only Natural Gas benefits from either of these, not oil. LNG is used to produce hydrogen and LNG supplies 21.4% of the USA's electricity, second only to coal. Petroleum only supplies 1.1%. However alternative sources are growing as fast if not faster than other sources of energy. Actually more and more people are going off the grid and are producing their own energy. They are finding it a practical alternative. Combining EVs with solar and wind doesn't leave petroleum much moving space. However the ones using their profits to invest in alternative energy sources, Exxon-Mobile is researching the use of algae to produce hydrogen and BP Solar is part of British Petroleum, will come out ahead. In 2004 BP had 20% of the world market for solar panels.

And you still have people worried that China will buy up everything that Canada can supply.

And where did I say that? Or is that more FUD?

Why is it "astroturfing for oil companies" to point out that it is stupid to expect them to conduct climate studies or absorb the cost of a tax increase?

Why is it using the oil companies as boogey men to point out oil companies have more money to spend on research than others have? Others have pointed out just as I have that it is in the interest of those accused of polluting to prove that what they do has no effect. When you stop making things up I'll stop saying you're astroturfing.

Falcon

lets avoid making panic decisions, such as banning oil and coal, but we should be working towards that goal sooner than later regardless of how bad global warming is.

This is reasonable; but rare a green proponent goes that far. At the last AGW conference, for example, African countries just requested $67B "to mitigate the impact of global warming on the world's poorest continent", as they put it. That money will be paid by working people because only working people produce wealth. And this is just one example.

When there is smell of money in the air you'll be amazed how many con artists crawl out of the woodwork. Sure there are a few honest people who talk about valid issues, but their voices are not heard, drowned in the drumbeat. On every even week IPCC releases another dire prediction, and on every odd week this prediction is shown to be a fraud. At some point, perhaps, IPCC needs to either institute some quality control or to classify themselves as comedy performers.

No one is stopping those countries from burning wood to keep warm or cook their food.

Lucky you, not living in California. Here the government stops people from burning wood. New fireplaces and stoves are banned outright, and existing installations are prohibited from burning several days per winter. They justify this by wood smoke; I'd believe that if the restrictions only existed in cities; but no, they cover many counties, where you need a telescope to see a neighbor!

If we put more money into research we'll get answers sooner.

I agree about wars, they are a waste. However money does not guarantee a scientific breakthrough. Even if we somehow get to 100% efficiency of panels, it's only 1.3 kW/m2. It's not that much, considering night, winter, clouds. There are other problems too; on a large scale the panels will absorb more sunlight than before and will result in Earth getting warmer (this time for real.) In general, though, I believe solar energy will be successful - there are many lands that will benefit from the shadow (like deserts, for one.)

Nuclear plants in the USA were a bad word for decades. Fusion research gets plenty of money, but even if you shower the scientists with cash they won't think faster. Everything takes time; and if we look back, our science is expanding at amazing rate now.

You're all at increased risk for heart disease! :-) Bye bye!

http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE61900L20100210

Google is EVIL. Period.

Google is no cooperating with the NSA. They are a fully-funded CIA company operation, with stock-price manipulation managed in a hideous outgrowth of the "plunge protection" team.

Look. George Herbert Walker Bush and his invisible masters are teh real, secret government in the USA. The former head of the secret police has been the Defense Secretary for the past 2 administrations.

The company captured the US. This became apparent as they engineered the killings of JFK, RFK and MLK - then ensured the downfall of Nixon - to be replaced by Ford, one of the lead stooges on the Warren Commission.

Google is the new name for Big Brother. This is the principal tool for social control and monitoring of the shadow-corporatist government, enforced through the "TLA's"

Use this shit, and it's like kissing your own prison floor.

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/technologylive/post/2010/02/googles-reported-tie-up-with-nsa-raises-concern-/1

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/03/AR2010020304057.html?wpisrc=nl_tech

http://www.threadwatch.org/node/9612

http://groups.google.com/group/global-text-project-general-group/browse_thread/thread/d7256b9b18f0b0a7

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6130M120100204

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/CIA_creates_miniGoogle_0331.html

http://www.google-watch.org/jobad.html

http://911review.org/Alex/reference/google_and_CIA.html

Actually, you're wrong.

In the first place, the Patriot missiles were only partially successful. Since they weren't intended for the purpose of defending large areas, that is acceptable, and they've been improved since them. But the Patriot missiles are a short range defense.

There have been previous successful tests. A simple google search turned up the following:

Reuters
Military Defense Agency
Heritage Foundation

I get to pay ...

You don't. You are free to take your money elsewhere - say, to Apple - or keep them to yourself and install some free Linux distro.

Of course, you might want to ask yourself why so many people are willing to fork out the cash for an "operating system that consistently breaks". Perhaps your last Windows experience, circa 2001 (a scarred WinME user?), is a tad outdated, don't you think?

Meanwhile, in the USA, they bailed out the oligarchy that runs the banking system, and then gave money to a bunch of aimless projects that just put band-aids on current infrastructure. There was no national call to action (for example..."we're going to put unemployed auto workers to work building an all-new high-speed rail system to link our urban areas" or "we're going to use this opportunity to completely replace our power grid, because we lose such a high percentage of power to inefficiency of the lines") that would have solidly improved the country for the long-term, improve its ability to transact business.

High Speed Rail? Check
Smart grid? Check

This is exacly what the stimulus is going for. The stimulus is working. If anything, the stimulus isn't big enough, given the problems this country has.

Obama Policies Will Bankrupt USA Tsarkon Reports
(Note: We are not a GOP-sters, Republicans or affiliated with any parties, and as George Washington warned against parties We do not believe in parties and, unlike most people, We evaluate every issue on a case by case basis and do not defer to the judgments of politicians who are corrupted and untrustworthy as a group.)

Obama is controlled by the same people as Bush see The Obama Deception documentary [youtube.com]

Yuan Forwards Show China May Buy Fewer Treasuries, UBS Says [bloomberg.com]
Anemic Treasury auction effects felt beyond bonds [reuters.com]
The Sherminator Kicks Some Wall Street Ass [dailybail.com]
China Angry That Fed Is Deliberately Destroying The Dollar [bloomberg.com]
China suggests switch from dollar as reserve currency [bbc.co.uk]
What are the reserve currencies? [wsj.net]
Anatomy of a taxpayer giveaway to investors [ml-implode.com]
Geithner rescue package 'robbery of the American people' [telegraph.co.uk]
Geithner just put only the rich in Titanics lifeboats [examiner.com]
Geithner Plan Will Rob US Taxpayers [cnbc.com]
A False Choice [viewfromsi...valley.com]
Bargain-hunting house buyers wearing on sellers ajc.com [ajc.com]
Time to Take the Steering Wheel out of Geithner's Hands [alternet.org]
Socialising and Privatising [freeradical.co.nz]
Fannie, Freddie to pay out bonuses [politico.com]
Fitch Raises Prime Jumbo Loan Loss Estimates Sharply [researchrecap.com]

Chinas central bank on Monday proposed replacing the US dollar as the international reserve currency with a new global system controlled by the International Monetary Fund [ft.com]

- Russia on an new world reserve currency: It is necessary to work out and adopt internationally recognized standards for macroeconomic and budget policy, which are binding for the leading world economies, including the countries issuing reserve currencies - the Kremlin proposals read. [en.rian.ru]

- President Barack "The Teleprompter" Obama is deeply connected to corruption. Rahm Emanuel, his Chief of Staff, is radical authoritarian statist whose father was part of the murderous civilian-killing Israeli terrorist organizati

Hmmm, looks like I was partly wrong. Here's a Commercial Space Transportation paper that claims the US had almost $100 billion in economic activity from space-related stuff in 2004. The Space Report 2008 claimed that there was roughly $250 billion in space industry revenue in 2008 of which 25% came from US government spending and 50% from commercial satellite products and services.

It still remains that 25% of the global market is US government spending. I don't know the profit margin for government contracts versus a pretty competitive commercial launch market, but I wouldn't be surprised to find that there's a lot more profit for launch providers in US government contracts than in purely commercial launches.

They did also mention that the base get 16,500 condoms a year. It gets cold and lonely there in Antarctica with nothing else to do except for each other.

TFS: "On Thursday in Washington, DC, Clinton unveiled US initiatives to help people living under repressive governments access the Internet for purposes such as reporting corruption. "

Quote: "Corruption costs Afghans $2.5 billion a year, a United Nations agency said on Tuesday, with the scale of bribery matching Afghanistan's opium trade."

Probably my poor logic, since Afghans do not suffer from a repressive government.

CC.

I'm glad you spoke up. I can't belive the number of supposedly educated people who automatically jump onto the conspiracy/scam conclusion mat. I'm sure that the drug companies rub their hands at this sort of thing but that does not change the risk/benifit analysis. I would much rather the government spent millions on vaccines that are not used than ignore credible warnings and end up spending millions on body bags.

Yes the WHO were wrong about the number of dead but it IS a very nasty strain that causes severe lung infections. Here in Australia swine flu put an unusually heavy load on ICU beds last winter.

Less than 50 years ago a guy named Mao was able to pull together a country of 1.3 billion people and almost wipe out that culture. He brought massive change to the country. It wasn't novel for the world but it was for China. Post-Mao brought an almost complete reversal with what I would say is just as big of a change.

Most people will do anything to make a buck, such as even leaving their children behind, and become part of the largest mass migrations in the world. http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE50C10J20090113

This article pegs it at almost 200million people (2/3 of the US population). If thats not a completely different way of living then I dont know what is. http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Chinese-New-Year-Mass-Migration-As-Chinas-Population-Visit-Their-Families/Article/200901415210152

I sure met a lot of people who were stuck in the old ways and they were mostly over 60. The young are out exploring the world, something their parents would have never had a chance to do. The town I stayed in (pop. > 80000) had very little young as it was a prosperous town and most are foreign students. The young who were in town were mostly the uneducated looking for work.

Well, things are starting to change here and there. I think IT workers are getting sick of being treated as galley slaves:
Workers suing for overtime

Consider the source: AP via Fox News. ANYTHING that counter-terrorism people do is going to be dolled up by News Corp handlers. Compare the Reuters, AFP, and CNN articles, just to grab three likely candidates from Google News. I do not feel that I am exaggerating when I say that the perspective being pushed by Fox News is contemptible. The sad thing is that many of their readers and viewers will just eat up the hard spin and fail to ask the basic reality-check questions that orgelspieler did. The chilly civil-rights questions notwithstanding, the shutdown delayed a number of people, many of whom had work to do at their destinations but were forced to find alternative or later routes to get where they were going. That costs America a healthy number of man-hours. Plus, it sullies our national credibility (when we're already hemorrhaging reputation as-is). All over a substance that should have been identified in short order and a needless lockdown of services.

That's ignoring more fundamental security protocol questions. Even if nothing changed vis a vis security protocols post 9/11, the rulebook for airplane hijacking got revamped that day, and revamped hard. People won't sit back and placidly accept the takeover of an airliner today. Yes, some dork could still smuggle a bomb onto a plane, but 9/11 wasn't a case of plane bombing. Blowing up a plane kills the passengers, plus maybe a few people underneath the plane when it crashes (that's at most a 20% chance if it hits east of the Mississippi, and more like 10% if it's a couple hundred miles inland from the coast). Tragic, but not an earth-shaker like the strike on the WTC. And, there's functionally no level of scrutiny that can stop everything. Some suicidal nutcase with some backing could get a yard of intestine pulled and replaced with several pounds of c4 (which is roughly the consistency of hard cheese, if I remember the ramblings of my space-cadet chemistry professor correctly). Good luck seeing that on a body scanner, and scratch one aircraft. Heck, if he didn't scream "Hail Xenu" before pushing the button, he could probably walk off after a failed detonation and go try it again somewhere else, presuming the complicit sawbones reconnected the intestine properly.

I'm not saying we shouldn't invest in transit security. Cockpits on large aircraft should be secured, firearms should be tightly controlled, and identities ought to be verified and digitally passed by a watch list in the terminal. However, the incredible costs of the current policing apparatus seem disproportionate. Perhaps it's a bit much to hope that passenger screenings, random or otherwise, would welcome the selected individuals into a posh sitting room with state-side cigars and a shot of brandy as an apology for the delay (then again, why not? Getting tagged for additional scrutiny is a non-trivial imposition, and a bit of apologetic pampering might make the pill go down more gently). Victorian fantasies notwithstanding, Fox News, beyond any other major news source (I have to say that without sarcasm because a lot of people actually do believe they're informing themselves about the world by watching it), is a major agent in keeping people scared of terror; whether it's a prelude to pushing for a new McCarthy era (Glenn Beck...oh, just Glenn Beck, Skoern? Really?) or just a matter of business-as-usual for feeding their wing of the Republicans while praying for a Palin candidacy.

Or coat them in honey.

If, say, your first choice for addressing depression is an SSRI prescription, you've been infected by advertising.

Said by someone who has probably never had major depression.

Severe depression isn't the only kind out there.

Make sure you read what I said about treating depression.

And make sure you read the news lately on using SSRIs:

Limits to antidepressants' effectiveness: study

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Mild to severe depression might be better treated with alternatives to antidepressant drugs, which do not help patients much more than an inactive placebo, researchers said Tuesday.

• http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60454020100105
• http://health.msn.com/health-topics/depression/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100252115
• http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/djf500/201001051615DOWJONESDJONLINE000323_FORTUNE5.htm

Oh come on. The section of the wikipedia article you refer to says that we use 7K tonnes per year and there are 8M tonnes left in the ground. At current consumption rates this means we have a 1,000 year supply. But as this Routers article linked to from the bottom of the wikipedia page explains, the production of green product such as hybrid cars and wind turbines is expected to skyrocket. If production Neodymium products is increased by a factor of 10 then we only have a 100 year supply. An increase by a factor of 20 brings it down to a 50 year supply.

If we converted all existing cars and light trucks to hybrid using the technology in the Prius, it would require 1M tonnes of Neodymium, roughly 12% of what is left in the ground. We have enough Neodymium in the ground so each person on earth can have 1kg, or one Prius' worth. Are you going to be up for your grandchildren offing their grandparents to get use of their Neodymium? I find the warnings about running out of Neodymium to be scary, not silly.

sorry to break it to you ass munch but whites will be a minority very soon. http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1110177520080212

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60010D20100101

Burning cars, blowing up airplanes, mutilating female genitalia... Remind me why we in the civilized world must tolerate these barbaric apes?

You can argue that women have a choice, but in poor provinces, you can bet that it would be akin to prostitution, where young women are basically forced into the lifestyle because they have no other options.

Compared to what women would normally do in poor provinces to get by?

I think that if China is worried about 'demeaning women', it should worry more about:

The lopsided male-female ratio is believed to be the result of female infanticide in a society that values boys and where most couples are allowed only one child.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/mar/17/china.mainsection

Or

"China is the only country where suicides among women outnumber men," Yang Fude, vice-president of Beijing Hui Long Guan Hospital, was quoted by the China Daily as saying.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUST2878220070911

I would like more substantial proof that women are being 'demeaned' by internet porn more than China's own disastrous social policies (which began in their current form long before the internet came about).

A quick search for 'rural chinese porn' (in english and chinese) showed nothing but story after story about China's porn crackdown and nothing even remotely resembling the subjugation of poor rural women.

More proof, please.

-b

Context is determinative in interpreting any text. The US Constitution starts: "We the People". Which people? Everyone in the world? No. Only the ones who are forming "a more perfect union" - ie: those citizens of the United States.

Context, exactly. The full phrase that you cite is "We the People of the United States" - the difference is clear, I hope.

Otherwise, you'd have a point, if Constitution always consistently used the term "People" to mean "citizens". But it does not, so we have to assume that any difference is therefore intentional. For example:

"No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President"

"The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States."

"... Controversies between two or more States; between a State and Citizens of another State; between Citizens of different States; between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects." (note how there's a full explicit enumeration)

On the other hand, with regard to suffrage:

"The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States"

And historically it has indeed been the case that you didn't need to be a citizen to vote in federal elections in many states, strange as it may sound today - see the list for yourself.

And, of course, the famous:

"the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed"

Now this is one of the most abused amendments, but even then, historically, before gun control creep-in, this really meant everyone residing, not just citizens. And even today, in the State of Washington, when they tried to remove the gun licensing program for aliens, a court ordered to put the program back in, since denying aliens the right to bear arms would restrict the rights they have under the Second Amendment. So now it's back to what it was, meaning that you can get a license to own a gun even if you're just on a visitor visa.

...if someone could have fired the ivory tower moron Negroponte.

Negroponte described Murdoch as a personal friend
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUKN0223284220070802

Not so sure about the ivory tower, but at least, with the right type of friends, you will not get fired so easily.

CC.

Anti-AGW folks are afraid of economic risks, pro-AGW folks are afraid of climate risks.

I guess I'll have to be the one million and first person to say this: Climate risks are economic risks. Big ones. Increasing numbers of business leaders are coming to the conclusion that a somewhat bigger slice of a much shittier global economy is not a good deal. Droughts, famine, coastal flooding, climate refugees, skyrocketing insurance claims, and resource wars do not make for a friendly economic climate.

If even 10% of the climate "doomsday scenario" outcomes turn out to be true, things are going to get very difficult for the average middle class schmo, even if they are lucky enough to live in an area relatively unaffected by direct environmental impacts.

In any case, while I'm inclined to agree with climate researchers who are experts in their field and have formulated their models on the scientific method, which is itself based on rational thought...

First, "scientific method" involves welcoming peer review of your work. As we now know, many of the leading climatologists working in AGW research have refused to publish their work in scientific journals that post criticism of their work.

Would you listen to Khabibullo Abdusamatov, mathematician and astronomer at Pulkovo Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences? He said:

"Global warming results not from the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, but from an unusually high level of solar radiation and a lengthy – almost throughout the last century – growth in its intensity...Ascribing 'greenhouse' effect properties to the Earth's atmosphere is not scientifically substantiated...Heated greenhouse gases, which become lighter as a result of expansion, ascend to the atmosphere only to give the absorbed heat away."

How about Richard Lindzen, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and member of the National Academy of Sciences:

"We are quite confident (1) that global mean temperature is about 0.5 C higher than it was a century ago; (2) that atmospheric levels of CO2 have risen over the past two centuries; and (3) that CO2 is a greenhouse gas whose increase is likely to warm the earth (one of many, the most important being water vapor and clouds). But – and I cannot stress this enough – we are not in a position to confidently attribute past climate change to CO2 or to forecast what the climate will be in the future... [T]here has been no question whatsoever that CO2 is an infrared absorber (i.e., a greenhouse gas – albeit a minor one), and its increase should theoretically contribute to warming. Indeed, if all else were kept equal, the increase in CO2 should have led to somewhat more warming than has been observed."

Oh, and $40 trillion was a global figure from HERE:

This finding was based on a groundbreaking research paper by renowned climate economist Professor Richard Tol, who showed that a high, global CO2 tax starting at 68 dollars could reduce world GDP by a staggering 12.9 percent in 2100—the equivalent of 40 trillion dollars a year – costing many times the expected damage of global warming.

Or do you consider the work of 5 Nobel laureates to be credible?

>>There is, outside of Iran, a general consensus that Iran is attempting to create nuclear weapons.

You'd be right, except you're wrong.

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

Such as:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL312024420090703?sp=true

IF I were you, I double check your sources... Reuters on the last federal election: "Canada voter turnout lowest on record" with a turn out of 59.1. http://ca.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idCATRE49E9BO20081015 You may be referring a city of some sort, but in Canada, copyright law is not a city responsibility.

UPDATE 1-Obama moves to **** U.S. broadband access
Thu Dec 17, 2009 1:49pm EST(Updates with ******* remarks)

Bonds

WASHINGTON, Dec 17 (Reuters) - The Obama administration on Thursday began the award of $2 billion in grants and loans over the next 75 days as part of a plan to dramatically expand Americans' **** and create *************.

The $2 billion is part of an overall $7.2 billion set aside in President Barack Obama's $787 billion economic recovery package to bring ******* access to unserved or underserved U.S. communities.

Vice President Joe Biden, at an event in Dawsonville, Ga., announced details of an initial $183 million investment in a range of ******* projects in 17 states.

"New **** access means more **** and better **** in rural areas and underserved urban communities around the country," he said in a statement.

Biden's chief economist, Jared Bernstein, told reporters in a briefing the administration was not able to provide more precise figures on exactly how many **** would be created.

UnZuned link

Would you care to provide evidence that Intel never sold an Atom alone for more than the price of the same Atom bundled with a chipset?

There are certainly articles like this one at Reuters saying it did.