Slashdot Mirror

The parent is not the only person making similar arguments. http://www.slate.com/id/2125822/ and http://www.slate.com/?id=2125810&nav=tap1/

The parent is not the only person making similar arguments. http://www.slate.com/id/2125822/ and http://www.slate.com/?id=2125810&nav=tap1/

What part of mandatory evacuation order can be interpreted as leaving people to their own devices? So maybe people aren't criticizing him for not managing events he doesn't have the resources to handle.

http://www.slate.com/id/2125587/?nav=tap3 ...In the days prior to Hurricane Katrina's landfall, the 49-year-old mayor ordered New Orleans' first-ever mandatory evacuation. He told those in the most flood-prone areas to leave early, and he set up shuttles to get the 100,000 or so residents without cars to shelters. He announced that the potentially catastrophic hurricane represented "an opportunity for us to come together in a way we've never done before." Instead, Katrina's aftermath turned into a typical--if unimaginably and hellaciously tragic--scene from New Orleans politics, with the requisite allegations that the rudderless, incompetent city government can't deal with the city's intrinsic geographic, economic, and racial problems...

The President and the director of FEMA may not have consciously decided to let tens of thousands of people die but when the president barely mentions the people flooded in the Hurricane at a fundraiser, jokes about partying with Lott when they rebuild his house, smirkingly plays guitar and only sent help 4 days after the flooding because his incompetent political hack doesn't even know about the looting and starvation, people tend to get the impression that he doesn't care. Bush might not hate blacks but he certainly doesn't seem to give a damn about a whole lot of people. Not just blacks but also people who value reason over superstition (creationists); people who need abortions; people who need stem cell research; etc...

Since you've chalked the fuck-ups to incompetence, now would actually be a hell of a good to find out who's screwing up so they can be replaced with people who can actually do the job. Especially since the people we're pointing fingers at haven't gotten the fucking job done! Look at who is running FEMA now and compare him with the guy who ran FEMA under Clinton.

James Witt http://www.slate.com/id/2125224/?nav=tap3
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Lee_Witt

with Mike Brown

http://www.horsesass.org/

"An unmitigated, total fucking disaster." That's not a quote from Mike Brown, but rather, a quote describing him. And most disturbingly, it's not even a reference to his dismal performance as director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). This blunt critique was emailed to me from a regular reader who was apparently attracted to HorsesAss.org by her passion for politics and her love of Arabian horses.

I think I've told you that I'm into Arab horses. Well, for 3 years Michael Brown was hired and then fired by our IAHA, the International Arabian Horse Assoc. He was an unmitigated, total fucking disaster. I was shocked as hell when captain clueless put him in charge of FEMA a couple of years ago.

* Goldy at HorsesAss's diary :: ::
*

He or the WH lied on the WH presser announcing him to FEMA. IAHA was never connected to the Olympic Comm, only the half Arab registry then and the governing body to the state and local Arabian horse clubs. He ruined IAHA financially so badly that we had to change the name and combine it with the Purebred registry.

I am telling you this after watching the fucking shipwreck in the Gulf. His incompetence is KILLING people.

Yes, that's right... the man responsible for directing federal relief operations in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, sharpened his emergency management skills as the "Judges and Stewards Commissioner" for the International Arabian Hors

What part of mandatory evacuation order can be interpreted as leaving people to their own devices? So maybe people aren't criticizing him for not managing events he doesn't have the resources to handle.

http://www.slate.com/id/2125587/?nav=tap3 ...In the days prior to Hurricane Katrina's landfall, the 49-year-old mayor ordered New Orleans' first-ever mandatory evacuation. He told those in the most flood-prone areas to leave early, and he set up shuttles to get the 100,000 or so residents without cars to shelters. He announced that the potentially catastrophic hurricane represented "an opportunity for us to come together in a way we've never done before." Instead, Katrina's aftermath turned into a typical--if unimaginably and hellaciously tragic--scene from New Orleans politics, with the requisite allegations that the rudderless, incompetent city government can't deal with the city's intrinsic geographic, economic, and racial problems...

The President and the director of FEMA may not have consciously decided to let tens of thousands of people die but when the president barely mentions the people flooded in the Hurricane at a fundraiser, jokes about partying with Lott when they rebuild his house, smirkingly plays guitar and only sent help 4 days after the flooding because his incompetent political hack doesn't even know about the looting and starvation, people tend to get the impression that he doesn't care. Bush might not hate blacks but he certainly doesn't seem to give a damn about a whole lot of people. Not just blacks but also people who value reason over superstition (creationists); people who need abortions; people who need stem cell research; etc...

Since you've chalked the fuck-ups to incompetence, now would actually be a hell of a good to find out who's screwing up so they can be replaced with people who can actually do the job. Especially since the people we're pointing fingers at haven't gotten the fucking job done! Look at who is running FEMA now and compare him with the guy who ran FEMA under Clinton.

James Witt http://www.slate.com/id/2125224/?nav=tap3
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Lee_Witt

with Mike Brown

http://www.horsesass.org/

"An unmitigated, total fucking disaster." That's not a quote from Mike Brown, but rather, a quote describing him. And most disturbingly, it's not even a reference to his dismal performance as director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). This blunt critique was emailed to me from a regular reader who was apparently attracted to HorsesAss.org by her passion for politics and her love of Arabian horses.

I think I've told you that I'm into Arab horses. Well, for 3 years Michael Brown was hired and then fired by our IAHA, the International Arabian Horse Assoc. He was an unmitigated, total fucking disaster. I was shocked as hell when captain clueless put him in charge of FEMA a couple of years ago.

* Goldy at HorsesAss's diary :: ::
*

He or the WH lied on the WH presser announcing him to FEMA. IAHA was never connected to the Olympic Comm, only the half Arab registry then and the governing body to the state and local Arabian horse clubs. He ruined IAHA financially so badly that we had to change the name and combine it with the Purebred registry.

I am telling you this after watching the fucking shipwreck in the Gulf. His incompetence is KILLING people.

Yes, that's right... the man responsible for directing federal relief operations in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, sharpened his emergency management skills as the "Judges and Stewards Commissioner" for the International Arabian Hors

You've got to be kidding. The bulk of revenue for studios comes from TV, homevideo, licensing and other ancillary revenues. Theatrical profits are the smallest slice of the pie these days, and only a fraction of titles are profitable during their their original release.

The rule of thumb is that a film has to gross domestically at least the equivalent of its budget to even hope to break even. Apart from bonafide hits, many films these days don't even come close (but handsomely recoup their investment once they hit video). In fact, in many cases the theatrical release these days is nothing more than promotional/marketing for the upcoming homevideo release. On many studio productions, advertising and print costs alone amount to more than the negative cost.

You may want to read this for some more info.

Movie ticket sales have been declining since the invention of television. According to Edward Jay Epstein, "In 1948, 90 million Americans--65 percent of the population--went to a movie house in an average week; in 2004, 30 million Americans--roughly 10 percent of the population--went to see a movie in an average week."

Epstein has been writing a number of quality articles for NPR & Slate about the Hollywood profit shift from movie theatres to home theatres. Here are a few of the recent ones.

The Vanishing Box Office
Hollywood's Death Spiral
Hollywood's Death Spiral, Part 2
Hollywood's Profits, Demystified

Movie ticket sales have been declining since the invention of television. According to Edward Jay Epstein, "In 1948, 90 million Americans--65 percent of the population--went to a movie house in an average week; in 2004, 30 million Americans--roughly 10 percent of the population--went to see a movie in an average week."

Epstein has been writing a number of quality articles for NPR & Slate about the Hollywood profit shift from movie theatres to home theatres. Here are a few of the recent ones.

The Vanishing Box Office
Hollywood's Death Spiral
Hollywood's Death Spiral, Part 2
Hollywood's Profits, Demystified

Movie ticket sales have been declining since the invention of television. According to Edward Jay Epstein, "In 1948, 90 million Americans--65 percent of the population--went to a movie house in an average week; in 2004, 30 million Americans--roughly 10 percent of the population--went to see a movie in an average week."

Epstein has been writing a number of quality articles for NPR & Slate about the Hollywood profit shift from movie theatres to home theatres. Here are a few of the recent ones.

The Vanishing Box Office
Hollywood's Death Spiral
Hollywood's Death Spiral, Part 2
Hollywood's Profits, Demystified

Movie ticket sales have been declining since the invention of television. According to Edward Jay Epstein, "In 1948, 90 million Americans--65 percent of the population--went to a movie house in an average week; in 2004, 30 million Americans--roughly 10 percent of the population--went to see a movie in an average week."

Epstein has been writing a number of quality articles for NPR & Slate about the Hollywood profit shift from movie theatres to home theatres. Here are a few of the recent ones.

The Vanishing Box Office
Hollywood's Death Spiral
Hollywood's Death Spiral, Part 2
Hollywood's Profits, Demystified

Exactly. And the Slate Article points out - all this author did was poorly recap the 8/20 speculation from the Financial Times. I hope I can write (without having pesky things like research or interviews) about whatever is next week's headline in Time Magazine and people will fancy that a Slashdot article.

Slate has a much more plausible explanation for Google's secondary offering.

Google Talk's Developers' Page both explicitly says that GTalk will move over to SIP for VoIP services, and makes a big deal out of "Client Choice" and "Service" choice, which apparently they plan to accomplish through inter-connecting to SIP providers.

Skype itself released an SDK for third parties to hook up to its own network. That doesn't sound like a good move from a company that's in talks to be acquired by an IM operator.

It's probably more likely that Skype will be acquired by a phone company (probably a mobile one that's not afraid to undercut PSTN, Vodafone would be a good choice), and that Google plans to use SIP to reach Skype-scale quickly, without paying Skype prices...

Evolution happens over incredibly long periods of time. It is truly doubtful that something like this would have affected the genetic makeup of humans enough to have any impact.

http://www.slate.com/id/2124503/

Wrong, that is where Philip Stewart got the inspiration from:

Quoted From:
Stewart created his table in part because he remembered being deeply impressed, at the age of 12, by a similar one he saw at the science pavilion of the 1951 Festival of Britain. An impressionistic swirl in vivid colors created by the artist Edgar Longman, the table stood little hope of being adopted by classrooms, but it spurred Stewart to study science. He recalls being struck by nature's underlying order: "I realized that the atoms that make up a galaxy can be arranged in just the same form as the galaxy itself."
Illustration by Edgar Longman, as reconstructed by Philip Stewart.

I rather like this table, rather than the busy one with the galaxy as a background: more information with less cruft.

...featuring headlines like "Turd Blossom Must Go."

This reminds me of this issue:

From Hubble Space Telescope pictures to the vocabulary used to describe the stars, astronomers and the media are coloring our universe, and they've been doing it for decades. While not intended to deceive, the efforts can range from the overly subjective to the absurd.

Slate explains that the raw images from space telescopes are colored with Photoshop before they are released to the public. The 'Pillars of Creation' shows the difference that color makes. You can download the free Photoshop plug-in to color your own images.

He turned to Puppy Theft . I'm not kidding you.

You might want to read this interesting article on the liberal love for our man Rehnquist. http://www.slate.com/id/2121352/

In any situation when we cite anonymous sources, at least some readers may suspect that the newspaper is being used to convey tainted information or special pleading. If the impetus for anonymity has originated with the source, further reporting is essential to satisfy the reporter and the reader that the paper has sought the whole story. ...

We do not grant anonymity to people who use it as cover for a personal or partisan attack. If pejorative opinions are worth reporting and cannot be specifically attributed, they may be paraphrased or described after thorough discussion between writer and editor. The vivid language of direct quotation confers an unfair advantage on a speaker or writer who hides behind the newspaper, and turns of phrase are valueless to a reader who cannot assess the source.

Apart from that, isn't it too precious to hear a lawyer complaining about "piggishness".

These numbers tell the story. Ticket sales from theaters provided 100 percent of the studios' revenues in 1948; in 2003, they accounted for less than 20 percent. Instead, home entertainment provided 82 percent of the 2003 revenues. In terms of profits, the studios can make an even larger proportion from home entertainment since most, if not all, of the theatrical revenues go to pay for the prints and advertising required to get audiences into theaters. (Video, DVDs, and TV have much lower marketing costs.)

This profit reality has transformed the way Hollywood operates. Theatrical releases now essentially serve as launching platforms for videos, DVDs, network TV, pay TV, games, and a host of other products. Even so, the box-office totals are losing their traditional influence. Up until a few years ago, the results from the U.S. box office largely drove secondary markets, especially video. If a film had a huge opening, the video chains would order 200,000 or more copies (at $60 or more apiece wholesale) for rentals. But this buying formula ended when consumers began buying DVDs at mass retailers. By 2004, Wal-Mart was accounting for more than one-third of the studios' revenues in video and DVD.
~Edward Jay Epstein for Slate.

So basically the theatrical release is a gimmic to get consumers to buy DVDs and other stuff later.

There was an interesting article on this topic on Slate (http://www.slate.com/id/2082960) two years ago. The article points out that the stereotype of the mathematician as a youthful prodigy is no longer the rule but the exception. It includes an interesting quote by mathemtician Henri Poincaré: "[L]ogic and intuition have each their necessary role. Each is indispensable." By logic, I'm guessing he means a more deliberate method of arriving at an answer, something that does require those years of learning and research, while intuition refers to that singular moment of clarity, the very thing that might've struck a twenty-year old mathematician a hundred years ago. So what's changed? Like Poincaré says, both are indispensable. You can stay in school for twenty-years, memorizing every theorem, every proof, every fundamentals of mathematics to heart, but if you don't have the capacity for intuition, you are never going to come upon something new. Likewise, even if the potential for greatness is in you, you won't be able to achieve it without first laying out your foundations. And that's all there is to it. There's simply more to learn, and without that learning, you'll never have a chance to exercise your intuition.

Did anybody try http://mybraintrainer.com/? It has 8 online excersises which when performed daily seem to improve I.Q. by few points. Personally,I did feel sharper (for that day only :-)) whenever I did these excersises. However, the downside is that it might get boring after few days. This Slate article http://slate.com/id/2111758// compares several IQ boosting products and finds that the Mybraintrainer is one of the most effective ones. Give it a try !

Besides the the sarcasm he probably intended?

Here are some various and recent articles on (not) making money in Hollywood. They're not all related to (lack) of profit, but all at mention in different ways where all the money comes from and where it goes.

First three by Leonard Klady, who writes for moviecitynews.com:

Lies, Damn Lies And Statistics... (the average cost to produce and market a major Hollywood studio picture is $98 million)
Profits of Doom ... (this one goes gets around to showing how a blockbuster movie might never break even)
In Praise of Popcorn...

Then three from Slate, all written by Edward Jay Epstein:

Concessions Are for Girlie Men: Arnold Schwarzenegger's absurdly advantageous contract for Terminator 3 (a brand new article on a movie released in 2003)
How Did Michael Eisner Make Disney Profitable? Not with cartoons. (

"In 1984, when Eisner took command, the "Mouse House" produced only one animated picture every three to five years. Its entire film library had only 158 features, and its single cable channel, the Disney Channel, lost money. In addition, Disney had virtually no income from sales of videos. To keep afloat, the company depended on its amusement parks and its Mickey Mouse licensing. Yet even with these assets Disney had a tax-free cash flow of just $100 million. Its share price, reflecting this precarious financial position, was $1.33 (adjusted for splits).
In 2005, Disney was one of the richest companies in America. Its enterprise value--Wall street's favored measure of an entertainment company--had increased 32-fold since 1984 and stood at $69 billion."

)
How To Finance a Hollywood Blockbuster. Start with a German tax shelter; How NOT To Make Any Money On A Hollywood Blockbuster, a comment on the article written by David Poland, editor of moviecitynews.com, who finds it interesting but is not impressed by its accuracy.

And can a slashdot posting be complete without porn?

How much money did perhaps the most famous porn movie of all time, Deep Throat (1972), gross? The documentary Inside Deep Throat (2005) claims that it that it is the most profitable picture ever made, and that it has grossed $600 million.
Michael Hiltzik of The Los Angeles Times disputes this, using the technical term "baloney". This set off a number of responses back and forth between Hiltzik and Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato who wrote, co-produced and directed the documentary.

Initial Hiltzik column: 'Deep Throat' Numbers Just Don't Add Up
Bailey and Barbato: More Numbers for 'Deep Throat', a somewhat longer version of their response: 'Throat' Gets Cut, Directors Perform Surgery
Hiltzik then asked them to answer twelve questions, which resulted in this column:
Hiltzik: Bad 'Deep Throat' Revenue Number

Besides the the sarcasm he probably intended?

Here are some various and recent articles on (not) making money in Hollywood. They're not all related to (lack) of profit, but all at mention in different ways where all the money comes from and where it goes.

First three by Leonard Klady, who writes for moviecitynews.com:

Lies, Damn Lies And Statistics... (the average cost to produce and market a major Hollywood studio picture is $98 million)
Profits of Doom ... (this one goes gets around to showing how a blockbuster movie might never break even)
In Praise of Popcorn...

Then three from Slate, all written by Edward Jay Epstein:

Concessions Are for Girlie Men: Arnold Schwarzenegger's absurdly advantageous contract for Terminator 3 (a brand new article on a movie released in 2003)
How Did Michael Eisner Make Disney Profitable? Not with cartoons. (

"In 1984, when Eisner took command, the "Mouse House" produced only one animated picture every three to five years. Its entire film library had only 158 features, and its single cable channel, the Disney Channel, lost money. In addition, Disney had virtually no income from sales of videos. To keep afloat, the company depended on its amusement parks and its Mickey Mouse licensing. Yet even with these assets Disney had a tax-free cash flow of just $100 million. Its share price, reflecting this precarious financial position, was $1.33 (adjusted for splits).
In 2005, Disney was one of the richest companies in America. Its enterprise value--Wall street's favored measure of an entertainment company--had increased 32-fold since 1984 and stood at $69 billion."

)
How To Finance a Hollywood Blockbuster. Start with a German tax shelter; How NOT To Make Any Money On A Hollywood Blockbuster, a comment on the article written by David Poland, editor of moviecitynews.com, who finds it interesting but is not impressed by its accuracy.

And can a slashdot posting be complete without porn?

How much money did perhaps the most famous porn movie of all time, Deep Throat (1972), gross? The documentary Inside Deep Throat (2005) claims that it that it is the most profitable picture ever made, and that it has grossed $600 million.
Michael Hiltzik of The Los Angeles Times disputes this, using the technical term "baloney". This set off a number of responses back and forth between Hiltzik and Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato who wrote, co-produced and directed the documentary.

Initial Hiltzik column: 'Deep Throat' Numbers Just Don't Add Up
Bailey and Barbato: More Numbers for 'Deep Throat', a somewhat longer version of their response: 'Throat' Gets Cut, Directors Perform Surgery
Hiltzik then asked them to answer twelve questions, which resulted in this column:
Hiltzik: Bad 'Deep Throat' Revenue Number

Besides the the sarcasm he probably intended?

Here are some various and recent articles on (not) making money in Hollywood. They're not all related to (lack) of profit, but all at mention in different ways where all the money comes from and where it goes.

First three by Leonard Klady, who writes for moviecitynews.com:

Lies, Damn Lies And Statistics... (the average cost to produce and market a major Hollywood studio picture is $98 million)
Profits of Doom ... (this one goes gets around to showing how a blockbuster movie might never break even)
In Praise of Popcorn...

Then three from Slate, all written by Edward Jay Epstein:

Concessions Are for Girlie Men: Arnold Schwarzenegger's absurdly advantageous contract for Terminator 3 (a brand new article on a movie released in 2003)
How Did Michael Eisner Make Disney Profitable? Not with cartoons. (

"In 1984, when Eisner took command, the "Mouse House" produced only one animated picture every three to five years. Its entire film library had only 158 features, and its single cable channel, the Disney Channel, lost money. In addition, Disney had virtually no income from sales of videos. To keep afloat, the company depended on its amusement parks and its Mickey Mouse licensing. Yet even with these assets Disney had a tax-free cash flow of just $100 million. Its share price, reflecting this precarious financial position, was $1.33 (adjusted for splits).
In 2005, Disney was one of the richest companies in America. Its enterprise value--Wall street's favored measure of an entertainment company--had increased 32-fold since 1984 and stood at $69 billion."

)
How To Finance a Hollywood Blockbuster. Start with a German tax shelter; How NOT To Make Any Money On A Hollywood Blockbuster, a comment on the article written by David Poland, editor of moviecitynews.com, who finds it interesting but is not impressed by its accuracy.

And can a slashdot posting be complete without porn?

How much money did perhaps the most famous porn movie of all time, Deep Throat (1972), gross? The documentary Inside Deep Throat (2005) claims that it that it is the most profitable picture ever made, and that it has grossed $600 million.
Michael Hiltzik of The Los Angeles Times disputes this, using the technical term "baloney". This set off a number of responses back and forth between Hiltzik and Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato who wrote, co-produced and directed the documentary.

Initial Hiltzik column: 'Deep Throat' Numbers Just Don't Add Up
Bailey and Barbato: More Numbers for 'Deep Throat', a somewhat longer version of their response: 'Throat' Gets Cut, Directors Perform Surgery
Hiltzik then asked them to answer twelve questions, which resulted in this column:
Hiltzik: Bad 'Deep Throat' Revenue Number

Actually, contacts apparently mix quite well with baseball. Or professional baseball, anyways. Many players wear contact lenses to enhance their vision to "better" than normal (i.e. 20/15). Of course, if the dust bothers you, you can just opt for LASIK. Slate had an excellent article on this a couple weeks back that posed some interesting questions about what, exactly, is "cheating" in sports. Good read. I thought it was much better than the story posted on Slashdot, actually.

What about the questionable status of Fiona Apple's latest album? Some say it was intentionally leaked, too. On the other hand, if it was actually 'shelved', would it technically still be prerelease? Would fans face a three year sentence for sharing something that might not have seen the light of day anyway?

1. 1. Something, such as a thought or conception, that potentially or actually exists in the mind as a product of mental activity.

New punctuation.

Obviously you don't remember Jon Katz.

Did you know that Jon Katz is a puppy thief?

Seriously.

http://www.slate.com/Default.aspx?id=2113564&GT1=6 082

What facts do I have wrong? Gates has pledged a lot of money, but he hasn't actually given it. He didn't even give the most money this year: Slate

And what is this about the moral high ground? Am I not allowed to criticize anyone with more money than me?

Though the link is appreciated, I'm not inclined to trust a man who wrote a novel where Environmentalists use weather-alteration technology to commit ecoterrorism as a person I can trust for an objective analysis of the situation.

Seriously, cars have high gasoline consumption for one (or both) of two reasons:

1. They are big
2. They are fast

Bigger, faster cars do more damage to the roads and kill more people each year, so it makes sense that their drivers should have to pay more in gas taxes.

Like California needs any more laws that encourage people to drive bigger cars- they already have the loophole described in this article.

And actually even the claim that Saddam gassed his own people in the 80s has been disputed.

Jude Wanniski (whose website you linked to), is quite alone in denying that Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons against Iraqi Kurds. Slate has a good article that discusses the issue. Besides, several of his claims are clearly false:

To begin with there were never any victims produced.

A quick Google image search for Halabja belies that claim. There are numerous photos of the immediate after-effects of the attack. More recently, there was a study to investigate the long term effects of the chemical exposure. The victims of the attack suffer from high rates of respiratory problems, cancer, birth defects, neurological disorders, and skin and eye problems. Maybe part of the reason he claims victims can't be found is because they're some of the 300,000 bodies discovered in mass graves.

The claim rests solely on testimony of the Kurds who had crossed the border into Turkey, where they were interviewed by staffers of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The reports of the chemical bombing were not just from Kurds who crossed into Turkey. Some of the pictures linked above were from journalists flown in from Tehran the next day.

Wanniski even mentions the oft repeated myth: that at the very least our State Department gave a "green light" to Saddam Hussein to go into Kuwait in August 1990. According to this article from the Christian Science Monitor, that myth has been debunked by no less than Iraq's former Foreign Minister, Tariq Aziz.

It may well have been Iran, and in either case it happened on a battlefield.

It is highly doubtful Iran was behind the attack. In the first place, their troops and allies were the ones attacked (see here). Secondly, there is no evidence of Iranian use of the type of chemicals at Halabja (see here).

In addition, although chemical weapons were used multiple times in the Iran-Iraq war, the reason the Halabja attack sticks out is precisely because it was not a battlefield. At the time, Halabja was a city with a population of about 80,000 which had just recently came under control of Iran and their Kurdish allies. Many of the approximately 5000 victims of that particluar attack were civilians. Most of the published photos were of women and children killed, for the simple reason that news media thrives on sensationalism.

We've managed to kill 100,000 civilians with our advanced "smart" bombs - is it surprising that primitive mortars would kill 5,000?

First, the claim of 100,000 dead is based on an extrapolation from a survey. I'd take the 100,000 figure with a grain of salt until a more extensive survey is done. There is a Slate article that dissects their methodology. A reliable number of civilians deaths reported can be found at the Iraq Body Count (IBC) website. As of Feb 10, 2005, they count less than 18,000 civilians reported killed.

Second, most of the deaths are not from our precision guided munitions, the so-called "smart bombs." In fact, most of them

Malcolm Gladwell and James Surowiecki (author of The Wisdom of Crowds) discussed the relative merits of snap decision-making and collective decision-making in a recent Slate "Book Club."

Last I heard, WinAmp was a discontinued product.

Slate has a thing on computer aided trading today as well: http://www.slate.com/id/2112392/

http://www.slate.com/id/2112357/ "Explaining how both the "Social Security crisis" and the "privatization solution" rely on faulty math misses the point of the president's plan entirely. Like supply-side tax cuts, Social Security reform is a subject on which conservatives prize philosophy--or, if you prefer, ideology--over arithmetic."

The idea is to promote an ownership society if I read the article correctly. My favorite quote: (second hand) "Republicans control the entire federal government. If they want to cut government spending, they should do it. They don't need to trash Social Security along the way."

The guy living on $77 a month isn't Costco's target demographic. The point is, Wal-Mart is not unstoppable. Costco finds ways to compete AND treat employees well. And U.S. workers will have find ways to compete against global trends -- fair or unfair -- outside of their control.

well, even if we assume that Slate has been biased, why would it remain so now - after being approved to be owned by WP?

BTW, deal is not finalized? er.. how? I guess Slate themselves announced the deal to the whole world some time back. Or wait. They did not!?

Slate's article last week discussed both Raleigh Waves and Infrasound as possible information sources coming from the Tsunami.

France wears its pride on its sleeve a lot these days, and the fact that the U.S. does not have to go to the same desperate measures in order to avoid being humbled every day- b/c it knows that if IBM fails it'll be because of an Intel or a Microsoft, and if Intel fails it'll be because of an AMD...- explains a lot about international relations over the last 50 years, including how today's U.N. security council votes go. It's bad enough when you have to give 110% just to not fall behind, but when the other guy looks like he's going to lap you and isn't even trying or cares about it, that can lead to insane jealousy...

Read this. It's a writer's explanation for the need for a sarcasm point as a new form of punctuation.

I'd show it to you, but Slashdot doesn't seem to want to allow it to be displayed. Glad I previewed the original sarcastic comment about the strict adherence to spelling, grammar and punctuation conventions here on Slashdot.

Who reads Slate? I do...obsessively. Some reasons why:

• Dahlia Lithwick's blow-by-blow accounts of Supreme Court arguments provide much more detail and insight than you'll find in a newspaper. Take a look at this report on the medicinal marijuana case .
• "Explainers" provide interesting background information on recent news, such as this article on dioxin poisoning, published after the recent events in the Ukraine.
• Their editorials and analyses are both carefully thought out and bolder than what you'll typically see in print--sometimes to the point of being a bit disturbing, like this article advocating "minimally invasive" interrogation techniques. (For the record, I don't agree with this article, but I found it thought-provoking.)

Slate isn't a substitute for reading a newspaper, but if you want to get more insight into what's going on, it's a good place to look.

Who reads Slate? I do...obsessively. Some reasons why:

• Dahlia Lithwick's blow-by-blow accounts of Supreme Court arguments provide much more detail and insight than you'll find in a newspaper. Take a look at this report on the medicinal marijuana case .
• "Explainers" provide interesting background information on recent news, such as this article on dioxin poisoning, published after the recent events in the Ukraine.
• Their editorials and analyses are both carefully thought out and bolder than what you'll typically see in print--sometimes to the point of being a bit disturbing, like this article advocating "minimally invasive" interrogation techniques. (For the record, I don't agree with this article, but I found it thought-provoking.)

Slate isn't a substitute for reading a newspaper, but if you want to get more insight into what's going on, it's a good place to look.

Who reads Slate? I do...obsessively. Some reasons why:

• Dahlia Lithwick's blow-by-blow accounts of Supreme Court arguments provide much more detail and insight than you'll find in a newspaper. Take a look at this report on the medicinal marijuana case .
• "Explainers" provide interesting background information on recent news, such as this article on dioxin poisoning, published after the recent events in the Ukraine.
• Their editorials and analyses are both carefully thought out and bolder than what you'll typically see in print--sometimes to the point of being a bit disturbing, like this article advocating "minimally invasive" interrogation techniques. (For the record, I don't agree with this article, but I found it thought-provoking.)

Slate isn't a substitute for reading a newspaper, but if you want to get more insight into what's going on, it's a good place to look.

Yes, the rest of us read the Slate article that is 80% about how race was a big thing in the Earthsea (and other Le Guin) books.

The author another set of gripes which she shares with us on Slate.

Thanks for pointing out Wal*Mart. Everybody needs to read this about Costco vs. Wal*Mart which owns Sam's Club. The problem isn't unions. It's companies that treat their employees like shit, who are coincidentally also companies who like to bust up unions. Treat people like shit and you'll get shitty workers who hate their jobs. I like shopping at Costco knowing they treat their employees well, and the staff seems to have a better attitude than most retail places, not the fake friendliness and politeness you see in most stores, the genuine friendliness you see from people who *don't hate their jobs*.

Slate just posted an interesting analysis of the differences between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. The article indicates that Blu-Ray is a far superior standard, and the only reason that some studios are lining up behind HD-DVD is to spare the expense of buying new production equipment. HD-DVD disks can be made using existing production machinery, whereas Blu-Ray requires all-new equipment to manufacture.