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Yep, and this is why businesses rather pay for damages and lost lives than redesign faulty parts.

Sometimes this may be appropriate, yes. It is all about costs — and a cost of a Westerner's life is under $10 million today. So, for example, raising the cost of 20 million cars by 50 cents each to save one life is stupid, but may make sense for two or more lives.

Before you denounce "putting a price on human life", that is the criteria government agencies use to issue their rulings... They just aren't as good about it on average, as the business-owners themselves would be.

Dumbass.

Yes, you certainly seem to be... Read more, write less — there is hope for everyone...

The human body is way more precise in long-term energy intake regulation than any bean-counting diet can ever be. Just have a look at groups of people who diet mostly on energy-dense food, like those on ketogenic diets or ethnic groups eating mostly fatty fish and whale meat etc. - those sure don't have an obesity epidemic because of that.

It's cute how reality disagrees with your unsubstantiated bullshit. Especially when these people are not actually eating ketogenic diets and you're bitching about a carbohydrate replacement.

If there was an explosion inside the cabin or luggage compartment, there will be internal paneling, structural members, etc., blackened and bent and peppered with explosive ejecta littering the deserts of the Sinai.

That's actually part of the difficulty. The parts which clearly indicate it was a bomb because of blackened and bent pieces are scattered around the crash site, impossible to tell where they originally came from. So there's usually no direct evidence of a bomb.

What you end up doing instead is looking for areas of missing pieces from other mundane pieces of debris. In Pan Am 103, they conducted tests using mock bombs stored in retired fuselages. The baggage containers adjacent to the bomb survived like this.. The suspect baggage container in Pan Am 103 was shredded like this. Which was their basis for concluding the bomb was inside that baggage container. A falling object only has so much energy once it hits terminal velocity, and that energy is only sufficient to deform or tear metal by a certain amount. So the pieces end up a certain size on average (that's why the debris from USAir 427 and American 77 were virtually unrecognizable as a plane - they struck head-on at such a high velocity their high kinetic energy went into tearing the metal into tiny pieces).

The evidence which led to the conclusion the bomb on Pan Am 103 was in a radio were these pieces of circuit board (overlayed on top of a pristine board in this first pic). An explosive decompression and free fall from altitude would not have fragmented the circuit board in that manner. An explosion very close to the board had to have done it. The police and investigators at Lockerbie did an impressive job of evidence collection to find these pieces. As Kogalymavia Flight 9268 crashed in a desert, they should be able to recover even small pieces like this and we'll eventually know if it was a bomb.

If there was an explosion inside the cabin or luggage compartment, there will be internal paneling, structural members, etc., blackened and bent and peppered with explosive ejecta littering the deserts of the Sinai.

That's actually part of the difficulty. The parts which clearly indicate it was a bomb because of blackened and bent pieces are scattered around the crash site, impossible to tell where they originally came from. So there's usually no direct evidence of a bomb.

What you end up doing instead is looking for areas of missing pieces from other mundane pieces of debris. In Pan Am 103, they conducted tests using mock bombs stored in retired fuselages. The baggage containers adjacent to the bomb survived like this.. The suspect baggage container in Pan Am 103 was shredded like this. Which was their basis for concluding the bomb was inside that baggage container. A falling object only has so much energy once it hits terminal velocity, and that energy is only sufficient to deform or tear metal by a certain amount. So the pieces end up a certain size on average (that's why the debris from USAir 427 and American 77 were virtually unrecognizable as a plane - they struck head-on at such a high velocity their high kinetic energy went into tearing the metal into tiny pieces).

The evidence which led to the conclusion the bomb on Pan Am 103 was in a radio were these pieces of circuit board (overlayed on top of a pristine board in this first pic). An explosive decompression and free fall from altitude would not have fragmented the circuit board in that manner. An explosion very close to the board had to have done it. The police and investigators at Lockerbie did an impressive job of evidence collection to find these pieces. As Kogalymavia Flight 9268 crashed in a desert, they should be able to recover even small pieces like this and we'll eventually know if it was a bomb.

SETENV.exe
SETENV -m PATH "%PATH%;C:\Somewhere\Else"

Then you don't even need to reboot/logout to have the change take effect.
Or the old-school way, but you'll need to logout/or reboot.

SET PATH=%PATH%;C:\Somewhere\Else

Yeah, I had thought about becoming a charged particle detector technician because it's a lifestyle of high rollers, fast cars, and fast women. Didn't you know that quantum mechanics eat steak?

I think you have it backwards. According to the Maxwell Poll, 60-80% of welfare recipients voted Democrat. Generally speaking, welfare recipients receive welfare because they have low income. People with low income can't afford as much gadgetry. Thus it will make it even more convenient for a higher percentage of Republicans to vote compared to Democrats because more of them can afford the hardware. You can expect Democrats to resist this far more than Republicans.

(I know, I took your post insulting the intelligence of people who disagree with your political viewpoint literally, but you are wrong regardless of your motive)

How is it that they "can't afford gadgetry" yet they all have newer phones than me?

I think you have it backwards. According to the Maxwell Poll, 60-80% of welfare recipients voted Democrat. Generally speaking, welfare recipients receive welfare because they have low income. People with low income can't afford as much gadgetry. Thus it will make it even more convenient for a higher percentage of Republicans to vote compared to Democrats because more of them can afford the hardware. You can expect Democrats to resist this far more than Republicans.

(I know, I took your post insulting the intelligence of people who disagree with your political viewpoint literally, but you are wrong regardless of your motive)

Let's try to make it simple.

If you do a reference check with the Toronto Police this is what you get back:

http://www.torontopolice.on.ca/prcp/process.php

Note that it includes suicide attempt information.

Now be aware that suicide attempts may be exempt from doctor-patient privilege and have to be reported to police under duty to disclose laws.

http://soe.syr.edu/academic/counseling_and_human_services/modules/Suicide_Risk/ethical_and_legal_issues_of_suicide.aspx

I doubt that confidential medical records were accessed.

The Library of Congress is under the Legislative Branch, yes. But is the Librarian?

The Librarian of Congress is sometimes seen as an "Executive branch official" since the President makes the appointment. On the other hand, the President has no authority to remove the Librarian from office. I don't think there's an official procedure for doing so, short of an act of Congress.

So, who's your boss? The one who hired you, or the one who can fire you? It seems that, in the case of the Librarian of Congress, this issue hasn't been resolved quite yet. I doubt Obama will push the issue.

Interestingly, there have been a few calls over time to formally move the Library to the Executive branch, but that so far hasn't happened.

(Interesting relevant reading:
http://library.syr.edu/about/people/thorin_suzanne/Librarians%20of%20Congress.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_federal_agencies
http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-dc-circuit/1461407.html)

From the first link (which is sometimes strongly in favor of fair-use, interestingly):

When the 44th President of the United States assumes office in January 2009, Billington, the 13th Librarian of Congress, will be but four months away from his 80th birthday. If he is still serving, Billington will be the oldest person to hold that office since it was created in 1802. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that due to retirement, politics or both, interested communities may want to think about leadership requirements for the next Librarian of Congress.

In our time, the technology environment has evolved rapidly, and libraries around the world have been among the leading public institutions to transform themselves to meet new demands. The Library of Congress is no exception. Its future leaders will continue to grapple with the demands of collecting, preserving, and making accessible precious analog and digital materials, some of which may be available nowhere else in the world.

Believe it or not, this has been studied.

I can't seem to find the paper I wanted to reference, but here are a few others that might interest you:

The Effects of a LOGO Computer Programming Experience on Readiness for First Grade, Creativity, and Self Concept.
http://eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/search/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=EJ320159&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=EJ320159

http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/edu/76/6/1051/
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1300/J025v04n02_07#preview
http://surface.syr.edu/eecs_etd/256/

Okay, can't watch the youtube video(blocked due to limited bandwidth here), but it let me onto the infowars site.

750M rounds is 2.5 rounds per person in the USA, yes. However: Scare tactics are being used.

First, it's for training ammunition - my training/qualification for the year is at well over 500 rounds between pistol and rifle(~half each). I'm not DHS, but it should be a clue as to how many rounds it takes to train&qualify somebody. It's often an annual requirement.

Second - it's a 'purchase UP TO' order, up to 70M rounds/year, between all winning parties, for a 5 year contract. NOT 'planning to buy 750M rounds of ammo'. Going by the contract, that's a MAX of 350M. The minimum order in a year is 1 lot of 1k rounds. In these sorts of contracts they list the maximum possible they expect for each item - for example, a big purchase of .40S&W handguns, a shift to .357 Sig, whatever. .223 is well represented, though I wonder that they aren't shooting NATO 5.56 spec rifles(the difference is about a human hair; doesn't matter much in training I guess). Going by my figure, a max order of 70M rounds would let you dual-qualify ~140k people. Office types trained 'just in case' would use a bit less ammo, SWAT types far more. A quick search shows 160k employees in DHS. Or maybe it's 188k employees AND 200k contractors. Whatever. I doubt they're going to be qualifying EVERYONE anytime soon, and probably don't plan to short of some crazy doomsday scenarios.

Third - "including 357 mag rounds that are able to penetrate walls." - just about ANY handgun self defense caliber is fully capable of penetrating a wall while remaining potentially lethal. It's a simple fact that a human body, which self defense rounds generally have to be able to completely penetrate to be considered effective, is more difficult to penetrate than 2 sheets of drywall. You want to go back to yea old days - when the .357 was developed, the standard was actually penetrating a car windscreen with a maximum deflection such that you'd still hit the driver. 9mm, btw, is 'normally' powerful enough for this, though you might need 2 shots(not as big of a deal for a semi), but this was back when we were still issuing revolvers to police. While we're at it, the contract also lists rifle calibers - .223, .30-06, and .308; all far more powerful than .357.

In other words, it's a big hoopla over just about nothing.

The very first part of your link contains this statement:

Editor's Note: Media reports about this research have misrepresented the study's findings. For more information read a statement by Zunli Lu.

The same way the global climate change consensus decided the MWP was confined to Europe?

What's that? Antarctica is in Europe now?

http://insidesu.syr.edu/2012/03/21/earth-and-planetary-science-letters/

INTERESTING.

It has rounded corners -> fail.

Yes, but wait till you see the Samsung Galactica Tab:

http://kabohemi.mysite.syr.edu/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/smart-paper.jpg

What if black men are committing 7x the crimes, but only have 5x the incarceration rate? ... Incarceration rate is meaningless without a related criminality rate. Which, incidentally, is 7x higher than whites.

As I said, your rebuttal only makes sense if you think that these disparities between races aren't due to discrimination, but are instead almost entirely due to "confounding factors" which aren't a result of discrimination. Since you didn't address this statement, I'll assume that really is your position.

But as I've been pointing out, these "confounding factors" are themselves partially due to past and/or present discrimination. Since you didn't challenge the notion that geographic correlations are mostly a relic of slavery, I assume that we can agree on this point in at least one instance.

Now you've presented yet another "confounding factor" which, again, you're implicitly saying isn't a result of past or present discrimination. However, you haven't yet established that this 7x disparity in the crime rate between black men and white men isn't a result of past or present discrimination. To do that, you'd have to explain why this 7x disparity in crime rates between black men and white men exists, and show that it's unrelated to past or present discrimination.

The "confounding factors" you listed are, themselves, partially a result of discrimination. Majority-black schools have lower funding than majority-white schools, so they hire less competent teachers.

Fail, fail, fail. POOR schools have lower funding than other schools because schools are paid for by taxation. That's why there's supplementary funding available to them through Title I and related programs. If you can establish for me a majority black school in a rich neighborhood that receives minimal funding, then sure, I'll take that back. ...

This is downright bizarre. The entire point I was making is that being poor is correlated with being black. Thus the fact that poor schools get less funding from taxing neighborhood residents is exactly why majority-black schools have less funding on average than majority-white schools, both across districts and within districts. Outliers simply aren't as important as averages.

... what you'll find is that minority schools get access to a lot of funding sources that majority white schools cannot. I write grants for school districts. We won't even work with a lot of white school districts, since it is so hard to win grants for them. More rich minority school districts get funded than poor white schools. Try to tell me that's fair, eh?

You're comparing rich minority school districts to poor white schools (not districts)? Why? After you explain why you're comparing apples to oranges, it would be necessary to provide at least some evidence that whatever it is you're claiming is true before I'll bother to wonder if it's fair or not. Keep in mind that poor students don't reach testing parity with rich students until significantly more money per student is spent, to compensate for the numerous out-of-school advantages that rich students enjoy.

And don't give me any bullshit about there not being any well to do minority school districts, either. I can only take so much liberal delusion at one time.

Obviously, the point is that the average white-majority school district is

The "four boxes" are from Heinlein's Star Ship Troopers for those of you who haven't read it.

Here's an illegal checkpoint based on that law. here (warning: pdf) is a whole slew of them. This article tells of one specific victim. So does this one. Here's a dragnet for you folks in the UK. This case is the one where they stretched it to include all mail sent anywhere in America. But wait! There's more!

linky
linky
linky

While not specific to the case of searches inside borders based on these laws you may find this link enlightening, it's what our congresscritters are reading about these things.

Warrentless stops and searches inside our borders are being done and it needs to stop.

Maybe he wanted to prove a point about "women's rights" to the women.

I remember years back, when all the talk was how sports clubs for men, 'the old boys network', was illegal and discriminatory, and how no sports club could ban women.

Today there are thousands of female-only fitness centres across the country.

Don't forget other things like how its illegal to have a white only scholarship, but perfectly ok to have a Racial/ethnic only scholarship, if you tried making a 'White Entertainment Television' it'd be shut down before it started but its perfectly fine to have a Black Entertainment Television, as you mentioned it's illegal to have a mens only fitness centre but perfectly fine to have a women's only fitness club. I think it was that one comment I overheard that put it best when applied to these kinds of things "Men can't say that because its sexist. But it's ok if we do because we're women."

I'm not an expert either, but I have at least taken a course in GR once. What you said seems pretty fair. I don't remember these things well enough to give a more detailed intuitive explanation (if such a thing is possible).

One thing that might be useful to note is that the Schwarzschild metric that describes the geometry of spacetime in a black hole has the feature that inside the event horizon the mathematical role of time (in that coordinate system) and the radial coordinate switch (the time part of the metric gets the same sign as the two other spacial directions, while the radial part gets the sign time used to have). Based on this, it's been said that inside the event horizon, "your alarm clock turns into a ruler, and your ruler turns into an alarm clock." Because the role of space and time switch inside the event horizon, an object within is constrained to move only toward the center of the black hole in just the same way that any object is constrained to move only forward in time outside the event horizon. I'm not sure how much that helps, but it is another way of looking at it.

Another picture that is sometimes useful is the diagram showing the light cone, the set of possible future paths, at different positions near the black hole. What you see is that the light cone gets narrower and tips toward the singularity as you approach the black hole. When you get to the event horizon the light cone has tipped so far that all future paths go into the black hole.

The first author's website has the PDF of the original paper: http://jauy.syr.edu/PUBS/Publications.html
It's the first paper on the list: Difference in plumage color used in species recognition between incipient species is linked to a single amino acid substitution in the melanocortin-1 receptor
And here's the abstract if you don't want to read/download the whole paper:

"Many studies demonstrate that differences in mating signals are used by incipient species in recognizing potential mates or sexual competitors (i.e., species recognition). Little is known, however, about the genetic changes responsible for these differences in mating signals. Populations of the Monarcha castaneiventris flycatcher vary in plumage color across the Solomon Islands, with a subspecies on Makira Island having chestnut bellies and blue-black upper parts (Monarcha castaneiventris megarhynchus) and a subspecies on neighboring satellite islands being entirely blue-black (melanic; Monarcha castaneiventris ugiensis). Here we show that a single nonsynonymous point mutation in the melanocortin-1 receptor (MC1R) gene is present in all melanic birds from one island (Santa Ana) but absent in all chestnut-bellied birds from Makira Island, implicating this mutation in causing melanism. Birds from a second satellite island (Ugi) do not show the same perfect association between this MC1R variant and plumage color, suggesting an alternative mechanism for melanism on this island. Finally, taxidermic mount presentation experiments in Makira (chestnut) and Santa Ana (melanic) suggest that the plumage difference mediates species recognition. Assuming that the signals used in species recognition are also used in mutual mate choice, our results indicate that a single amino acid substitution contributes to speciation."

The first author's website has the PDF of the original paper: http://jauy.syr.edu/PUBS/Publications.html
It's the first paper on the list: Difference in plumage color used in species recognition between incipient species is linked to a single amino acid substitution in the melanocortin-1 receptor
And here's the abstract if you don't want to read/download the whole paper:

"Many studies demonstrate that differences in mating signals are used by incipient species in recognizing potential mates or sexual competitors (i.e., species recognition). Little is known, however, about the genetic changes responsible for these differences in mating signals. Populations of the Monarcha castaneiventris flycatcher vary in plumage color across the Solomon Islands, with a subspecies on Makira Island having chestnut bellies and blue-black upper parts (Monarcha castaneiventris megarhynchus) and a subspecies on neighboring satellite islands being entirely blue-black (melanic; Monarcha castaneiventris ugiensis). Here we show that a single nonsynonymous point mutation in the melanocortin-1 receptor (MC1R) gene is present in all melanic birds from one island (Santa Ana) but absent in all chestnut-bellied birds from Makira Island, implicating this mutation in causing melanism. Birds from a second satellite island (Ugi) do not show the same perfect association between this MC1R variant and plumage color, suggesting an alternative mechanism for melanism on this island. Finally, taxidermic mount presentation experiments in Makira (chestnut) and Santa Ana (melanic) suggest that the plumage difference mediates species recognition. Assuming that the signals used in species recognition are also used in mutual mate choice, our results indicate that a single amino acid substitution contributes to speciation."

Well, according to google, 100 horsepower = 254 443.358 btu / hour

[That's just deliveryed power].

Engines are not very efficient.

1 gallon of gasoline per hour = 39 kW
1 Btu per hour = 0.293 W

One gallon of gas per hour = 133105.8 BTU per hour.

But on a highway, you are probably going ~60mhps and getting ~20-30mpg. In other words, you are burning double or triple the 133106 BTU/hour I mentioned above...

At 20mpg, this is about 400 000 BTU per hour.

Is that a lot?

http://www.phy.syr.edu/courses/modules/ENERGY/ENERGY_POLICY/tables.html

Once you came near the event horizon (given current technology) you would more than likely be dead, so this is a pretty pointless video...

Pointless unless you've studied relativistic physics, in which case the video is a modernized version of the classic thought experiment "Einstein's Train.". Everyone involved would be pretty dead if the train was moving at speeds fast enough to introduce relativistic effects perceptable by the ordinary senses, yet the illustration aids in an understanding of the physics.

The article is quite clear:

That's where visualisations like this might just help. "Close to the singularity, it appears that the entire three-dimensional universe is being crushed into a two-dimensional surface," says Hamilton (see Our world may be a giant hologram). But whether it hints that a 2D view is more fundamental is not yet clear. "Does it have any profound significance? I don't know..."

The death of the hypothetical observer is irrelevant to the usefulness of the video.

I could have had a V8!

150 WPM is certainly possible. The world record typist could maintain an average 150 WPM rate for 50 min. She had bursts as high as 212 WPM.

But claiming you can type as fast as the world record typist is like saying you can keep up lap swimming with Michael Phelps.

How could you bring up Barbara Blackburn, without mentioning that she used the Dvorak keyboard?

Of course, the keyboard you use may have nothing to do with how fast you type. I'm sure that it was just coincidence that she used dvorak.

I use dvorak. I type faster than I did with qwerty. When I am forced to use qwerty (on someone else's computer, for example), my fingers ache after about 2 minutes of typing because they aren't accustomed to the extra strain.

There could be 2000 studies that come out, all stating that qwerty is theoretically better, but I'd still use dvorak because in my experience, it delivers what it advertises. I don't understand how they can publish article after article against dvorak without ever talking to those of us who have used both.

If someone beats this, I will agree that Qwerty is superior. http://web.syr.edu/~rcranger/blackburn.htm till then, please, practice qwerty to make it worthy.

150 WPM is certainly possible. The world record typist could maintain an average 150 WPM rate for 50 min. She had bursts as high as 212 WPM.

But claiming you can type as fast as the world record typist is like saying you can keep up lap swimming with Michael Phelps.

Don't know how you would go about verifying these claims, but, these guys claim 800 Watts out at 1/5 gallon of gasoline per hour. If you trust the last link there, a gallon of gasoline contains 36KWh of energy, 1/5 of that is 7.2KWh, giving 11% efficiency if you're getting 800Wh of electricity out while burning 1/5 of a gallon of gas.

Kamen has a pile of Sterling related patents, many centered around more efficient conversion of fuel to mechanical output from the engine. In the past, he has been very cloak and dagger regarding his engine progress (or, at least when I visited DEKA shortly pre-Ginger release, he was). Maybe if you really care, you could approach him and see if he has working models that exceed 11% efficiency.

There's some truth to this ... check out the last graph. Since Clinton FBI prosecutions have changed in a big way: child pornography prosecutions doubled, white collar crime prosecutions halved, organized crime prosecutions halved ...

"How the heck is this constitutional?"

The law making this possible is as old as the 4th Amendment (see page 9):

http://trac.syr.edu/immigration/library/P1075.pdf

Documents supporting my points:

See page 9 of this document. It outlines the history of border searches. Please note that airports are included.

The international border areas are defined by the the treaties between the US, Mexico, and Canada. Where your respective facilities are in relation to that fixed border are covered under those agreements. A quick search found the US-Canada website. A similar quick search didn't turn up something for the US-Mexico border, although I'm sure someone has the info somewhere.

No,no,no,no, if you think 'only the judge is allowed to interpret the law' then you don't live in a Constitutional lawful state. You don't live in Syria by any chance, do ya? ;-)

It's the jury's prerrogative to ignore the judge's instructions on the interpretation of the law

some links where I check up on my sedicious way of thinking before irresponsibly posting:

http://www.caught.net/juror.htm
http://www.fija.org/
http://faculty.maxwell.syr.edu/tmkeck/Cases/USvDougherty1972.htm ( US vs Dougherty 1972, Court of Appeals )

http://web.syr.edu/~rsholmes/reads/reading/vaxen.h tml

Out of the box it only had support for Windows, and was really designed for windows users.

Yes, it was designed for Windows users. That is evident by the the security of the original release. no root password + an ftp server that binds to all interfaces (and can't be disabled without killing the graphical environment) == instant fun!

Reid

When it comes to helping the needy, he writes: "For too long, liberals have been claiming they are the most virtuous members of American society. Although they usually give less to charity, they have nevertheless lambasted conservatives for their callousness in the face of social injustice."

While I'm sure that there is more than one side to the story, your broadbrush treatment of Christians in this regard is simply unwarranted. As a Christian, I will readily admit that we are, as a group, rather hypocritical and self-serving in many ways, but this does not appear to be one of them.

Solar input to the planet is on the order of 10^17 watt.

US generation is on the order of 10^12 already.

Multiply that by 10^3 to 10^5 when energy gets really cheap, and suddenly we're producing a significant fraction of the heat of the sun. That'll be plenty to keep the earth nice and toasty.

A few sources:

http://www.phy.syr.edu/courses/modules/ENERGY/ENER GY_POLICY/tables.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth's_energy_budget
http://www.oilcrisis.com/debate/oilcalcs.htm

But this is all beside the point. The point is that this clearly violates the law. The law says that:

(d) All artificial or prerecorded telephone messages delivered by an automatic telephone dialing system shall:
(1) At the beginning of the message, state clearly the identity of the business, individual, or other entity initiating the call

Now listen to one actual phone call, this one placed five times just today to a female Democrat over 50. See?

One 50+ solid Democratic female voter has received this very same phone call five times just today. This one allegedly differs from some others that were placed in NY-25, as it has no long "inviting you to hang up" pause after "Dan Maffei".

We've contacted news outlets but it's too late for tonight's news cycle.

Oh yeah? I read it was 99.99% in another post. Now I'm all confused. ;-) Exactly what kind of evidence do you think is going to get you a FISA warrant??? Evidence that the person on the phone belongs to Al Qaeda? There's no law against belonging to Al Qaeda. Seriously, what sort of evidence are you suggesting that there should be before the court allows a military spy mission to proceed??? And what does that have to do with a warrant???

OK, you're closer than I was on the acceptance rate... 4 denied out of 19000 issued (assume 1000/year for '01-'06) equals 99.979% acceptance.

Onto more important matters, perhaps evidence that the person in question is a terrorist (Paragraph 6)? Under USC Title 50 Chapter 36-I 1805a, the requirement in question is "probable cause" which 1805-b clarifies to include "past activities of the target, as well as facts and circumstances relating to current or future activities of the target."

It does nothing of the sort. It protects the security of people in the persons, their houses, their papers, and their effects against unreasonable searches and seizures, and it requires probable cause for a judge to issue a warrant. I don't think it has ever been interpreted by any court in the history of the U.S. to require the affirmation of a judge for any search.

A judge doesn't need to affirm a search warrant before a search? That'd be news to the guys who make Law & Order. The 4th Amendment says that the government and it's agents are not allowed to unreasonably search anyone. A judge must issue a warrant based on probable cause for such a search. Therefore, a judge must issue a warrant with probable cause (indicating that the search is reasonable) before the government is allowed to search. If the government is searching without such a warrant, it is violating the Fourth Amendment.

If a person feels that their possessions have been searched or seized unreasonably, then they have recourse to the courts to bring suit against the Administration for their damages. At that point it becomes incumbent upon the Administration to provide evidence of the reasonability of the searches. It's an absurdity to suggest that they need to broadcast that evidence for every search they conduct, and I can't imagine why anyone would even suggest it, unless they were intentionally hoping to undermine the ability of the country to protect itself.

Under the so-called "patriot" act, the government can forbid you from telling anyone about it's secret searches, thereby denying judicial recourse. And if by chance you do manage to try and force the Administration to provide reasonable evidence, they will say "national security" and make the case disappear as they did in the AT&T data-sharing case.

And I'm not suggesting that the government be required to broadcast it's evidence for every warrant on CNN. Perhaps if there were a secret court created by something called "FISA" which could review such things in secret. But taking the executive (any executive)'s word for it that they aren't abusing such a thing is also an absurdity. (I am not a crook!)

So we agree. The FISA law is illegal and void insofar as it appropriates to the courts powers given in the Constitution to the President.

Eh... I'm a little dubious about FISA, but after reading it I fail to see where exactly it gives the power of the courts to the president. Could you point them out?

Well, I hope it wil

Their other products are chump change:

Quarried rock goes for about $3.75/ton. Of the 9000 tons of garbage they burn, they end up with 600 tons of slag, worth about $2000/day.

Steam is worth about $10/1000 lb. The 80000 lbs of steam they'll sell to Tropicana is worth about $800/day.

They don't mention it, but they are probably able to collect tipping fees from the sewage folks and, once this landfill is gone, dumping fees for future garbage.

Still, the bottom line is electricity. If their efficiencies are off or if the market for electricity gets cheap, they may have a hard time amortizing $425 million in debt, even at favorable bond rates. $425 Million at 4.5% over 30 years would require about $2 million/month to service. Their $126K/day income gives them a gross of $3.8 million/month. Enough to service the debt and have about $1.8 million/month for salaries and other recurring costs. It might fly. But if they rack up significant maintenance costs that amount to a significant fraction of their total $425 million plant cost over the 30-year lifetime, it probably won't.

I'm currently a science teacher at a secondary school in sub-saharan africa. My opinion is that one day the concept of a computer for every student could help education tremendously; but I think that today the software to do this just isn't here.

What we need is better (free and open) educational software and material -- interactive text books complete with demos to illustrate abstract difficult to visualize concepts (I like the direction many of the vpython demos are heading for physics demos that I use with my students: http://physics.syr.edu/~salgado/software/vpython/ ), beautiful easy to read text, good content (I'm keeping my eye on wikibooks).

I imagine a physics tutorial program which would have demos on force, motion, an interactive ray-tracer, circuit simulation software, etc, alongside typical textbook text. Right now I find a lot of this stuff from various places. What we need is an integrated solution which brings all of this together into one simple easy to use program which reads an open, easy to use format.

As it is today, most of my students have maybe five (poor) text books in the course of 9 years of education. The cost of new textbooks each year would probably exceed or at least come close to the cost of buying a $100 laptop loaded with all the educational material a student will need for that period of time.

http://cache.aftenposten.no/multimedia/archive/004 11/_L04nedslaget1006_j_411040h.jpg

=

http://www.phy.syr.edu/courses/PHY106/GIF/Still/Ph ysics/Damage13-hiroshima-c.jpg

Did they forget a metric conversion or somthing?

The first line of the article begins with a false premise, and incorrectly reflects the amended law as of any time since 1978, claiming that what was written in 1968 was the correct interpretation of a document written 150 years, before communication could possibly involve anything more than direct than person-to-person or written correspondence.

The Omnibus... act was amended in 1978 to specifically remove the language which places the President's authority over all other concerns. Check out the current version of 18 USC 2511, and specifically the MISC2 section at the end, which outlines the changes to the statute through all amendments. The 1978 amendmeent, in fact, was the same one that overrode the portions of Omnibus... to reflect the details of the FISA legislation passed in the same year, which granted specific powers, to be exercised via specific procedures, with regards to electronic surveillance.

In particular, the "constitutional power" verbage was removed as overreaching, and 2 (e) and (f) were added to reflect the ability of the Federal government to conduct electronic and other surveillance of foreign communications on foreign communications networks granted by FISA. In no way, shape, or form does the collection of data regarding my phone usage fall under those terms, no matter how many degrees of separation from Al-Qaeda I am via Kevin Bacon.

If you want to be a strict Federalist interpretist of the Constitution, you better send your women back to the kitchen and keep your negroes in line...can't have them out, you know, voting and owning property.

That suddenly gives new meaning to the six degrees of Kevin Bacon game.

windbag: The Anti-Friedman

There are several different sites that report the numbers of birds killed by wind turbines in the US and around the world.

• http://web.syr.edu/~bpburtt/Birds/Aug08-04.htm
• http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-01-04-win dmills-usat_x.htm
• DOE.gov
• http://www.njaudubon.org/conservation/Opinions/07- 03.html

Disclaimer: I used to work for GE Energy, which makes wind turbines.

My guess is that you mean CPM (Characters Per Minute), with the standard word defined as 5-characters, that would have put you in the 36 WPM area.

That's pretty much what a black eye looks like. Here is another one I found on the web. And here is a page discussing bruise age versus color. So the students not seeing anything just six hours later (especially if he covered them up with makeup or something) isn't that unusual.

As for his actions lately... you may have a point there. It's always possible he had himself beaten to help with the story. Or maybe he fell down some steps.

http://rmpitzer.syr.edu/rockets/saturn1b.html