Slashdot Mirror

It's not an American phenomenon. It's a phenomenon that happens when people have a lot of disposable income.

I'm tired of this "Americans suck" bullshit. People suck, it doesn't matter where you come from.

Accusing Republicans of being idiots is standard operating procedure for all liberals; it has nothing to do with Palin. They exaggerate Republican mis-statements and even true statements (Russia is visibile from Alaska), while ignoring similar statements by Democrats (e.g., Obama and Biden). Private jets and designer clothes? Are you under the impression that Palin is rich? She may be now, after publishing two books, but she worked her way through college -- unlike Obama, Kerry, Gore, etc. She has no privileged background.

Time Person of Year 2006

If Assange thinks everything should be open, why isnt he (or wikileaks) releasing all the information, why are they redacting there information to protect individuals.

Well...maybe not everything.

Taliban Seeks Vengeance in Wake of WikiLeaks
Leaked U.S. Intel documents listed the names and villages of Afghan collaborators—and the Taliban is starting to retaliate.

After WikiLeaks published a trove of U.S. intelligence documents—some of which listed the names and villages of Afghans who had been secretly cooperating with the American military—it didn’t take long for the Taliban to react. A spokesman for the group quickly threatened to “punish” any Afghan listed as having “collaborated” with the U.S. and the Kabul authorities against the growing Taliban insurgency. In recent days, the Taliban has demonstrated how seriously those threats should be considered. Late last week, just four days after the documents were published, death threats began arriving at the homes of key tribal elders in southern Afghanistan. And over the weekend one tribal elder, Khalifa Abdullah, who the Taliban believed had been in close contact with the Americans, was taken from his home in Monar village, in Kandahar province’s embattled Arghandab district, and executed by insurgent gunmen.

The violence may just be beginning. According to Agha Lali, the deputy head of Kandahar’s provincial council, threatening letters have been delivered to 70 elders in Panjwaii district. While it is unknown whether any of the men were indeed named in the WikiLeaks documents, it’s clear the Taliban believes they have been cooperating with Western forces and the Afghan government. One short handwritten note, shown to NEWSWEEK, said: “We have made a decision for your death. You have five days to leave Afghan soil. If you don’t, you don’t have the right to complain.” The screed, written on the letterhead of Mullah Mohammed Omar’s defunct Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, bore the signature of Abdul Rauf Khadim, a senior Taliban official and former inmate at the American lockup in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, who had been released into—and subsequently escaped from—Kabul’s custody last year.

The frightening combination of the Taliban spokesman’s threat, Abdullah’s death, and the spate of letters has sparked a panic among many Afghans who have worked closely with coalition forces in the past, according to a senior Taliban intelligence officer who declined to be named for security reasons. The officer said he has seen reports of Afghans rushing to U.S. and coalition bases in southern and eastern Afghanistan over the past few days, seeking protection and even asking for political asylum. (U.S. military officials would not verify this information.) The Taliban officer claimed that the group’s English-language media department continues to actively examine the WikiLeaks material and intends to draw up lists of collaborators in each province, to add to the hit lists of local insurgent commanders.

WikiLeaks Comes Under Fire from Rights Groups

After drawing ire from officials in Kabul and Washington who claimed the WikiLeaks files put the lives of NATO soldiers at risk, Assange received a letter from a coalition of leading human-rights groups last week that criticized his decision to publish the names of hundreds of Afghans identified in the war logs as helpers of the NATO war effort, saying that this could make them targets of the Taliban. WikiLeaks joint-published the Afghan documents with the New York Times, the Guardian and the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel. While those publications redacted names in the documents they published, WikiLeaks' version was largely unedit

The image at the head of this story looks positively evil.

I won it in 2006.

Sounds to me like you're grasping at straws there. Regardless of the reasons for a shortfall a hospital will have to raise the rates on those who do pay to remain solvent. Here's a couple more links on the cost of the uninsured.

From a 2009 article Do Your Premiums Help Cover the Uninsured?.

What the new study suggests, though, is that providers often pass along the cost of treating the uninsured to their insured patients. Its analysis found that families pay, on average, as much as $1,100 extra and individuals $410 extra in health-care premiums each year in order to cover the cost of treatment to uninsured patients who cannot afford to pay their bills.

This page has links to a 2003 Kaiser Family Foundation study on the issue. I particularly direct your attention to "Link to full report, Who Pays and How Much? The Cost of Caring for the Uninsured". It's 7 years old but I imagine it still pretty much accurate if you account for the cost inflation in medical care and the increase in the numbers and percentage of the population that is uninsured.

Where are you getting information that says that he is NOT facing the rape charges? Forgive me for quoting a media source as unreliable as TIME. I don't have a personal copy of the Interpol warrant or the Swede charges.
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2035032,00.html

It's definately NOT the violent Rapey-Rape-Rape with a knife to the throat. That is how lay-people generally define "rape". It is infact "rape" as defined by law.

Sex without a condom against the wishes of the women. = Non-consensual sex = rape.

It worked in 1973. Range was only 50m, but any experiments should be based off this one rather than Adam And Jamie's failures

Just want to verify that everyone who is full-on convinced about the negative effects of climate change is a vegetarian. At this point it's essentially indisputable that eating meat -- particularly beef, but all meat due to second order effects aside from methane (increased fuel usage for the additional grain required to grow animals, etc) -- is a significant factor in greenhouse gas production. If every American became vegetarian, the reduction of greenhouse gasses would be greater than swapping out every SUV for an electric car. So, those of you pilloring consumers, government, or industry -- you've already made the switch, right? Cause you wouldn't want to be hypocritical.

He made it the list of potential candidates. Don't forget to rate him. It might make prosecuting him into oblivion a bit harder.

So because you don't like how some frank discussions were revealed, you think it's appropriate to cover up killings and who knows what else under a veil of "classified"?

There are procedures for dealing with questionable deaths on the battlefield, both as potential war crimes and for compensating the victim's families. Manning didn't make use of them, but instead collected and distributed secret government documents to do as much damage as he could. Now we are dealing with informants against terrorists being killed, disruption of highly sensitve diplomatic discussions that could lead to open war, and more destabilization of the Middle East.

EU officials give first analysis of WikiLeaks impact

More investment in European External Action Service (EEAS) security, loss of goodwill in the EU's special relationship with the US and heightened tension in the Middle East are all likely consequences of the WikiLeaks scandal, EU insiders say.

Loose lips sink friendly ships

The publishing of the stolen secret documents by Wikileaks makes about as much sense as protesting problems with the Social Security Administration driving some people to suicide due to delays by publishing the social security number of all Americans and exposing them to identity theft, fraud, and other problems.

Wikileaks is worse than that - it's actions will result in people being killed, and maybe a fresh war or two.

Mmm, no. The CIA ran brothels during the 1950s and 1960s to recruit johns for mind control experiments, and they were particularly fond of LSD. This was explored at length in the late 1970s when the US Senate took an interest. Time Magazine seems like a decent source.

Where is there any connection between the Shia Iranian government, and the sternly (as in "we hate the Shia") sunni terrorists of Al-Qaeda?

I read about it in a book last year the name of which name escapes me, but a simple Google search yields the following results:

http://www.meforum.org/670/irans-link-to-al-qaeda-the-9-11-commissions
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,664967,00.html

It's an the-enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend type situation. They may be on opposite sides of the Islamic conflict but that doesn't mean they don't have similar end goals in mind.

Is this another of those "WMDs in Iraq" things you people pull to justify the failed attempts at neo-colonialism?

Ahem. Fuck you. Call it what you will, America will put the interests of its people first and foremost in deciding on courses of action when it comes to judgment of foreign nations based on credible intelligence. I stand by former President Bush's actions 100%, and think that the invasion was justified even without the consideration of WMDs. America is the leader of the free world and has a moral responsibility to take care of unstable, evil dictators like Saddam Hussein. Deal with it.

"Actually, if Russia were going to "plug" a leak, Assange wouldn't be the target, the person who leaked the information in the first place would."

Nonsense. Many reporters have died under mysterious circumstances for investigating corruption in the Russian government. Many non-Russians have been poisoned or died under mysterious circumstances for being an inconvenience to the interests of the Russian government.

Assange would be a target. The original leaker would be the target, they are not mutually exclusive. It's probably easier to track down and kill Assange if he SAYS he has Russian docs, and either one would make a satisfactory deterrent message for the next guy who thinks about it.

Furthermore, Assange has stated intent to leak Russian documents. The Russian government has already started the smear process: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2028283,00.html

maybe some day we can go back to probably cause.

Fareed Zakaria: "While businesses have a way to navigate this new world of technological change and globalization, the ordinary American worker does not. Capital and technology are mobile; labor isn't...That makes it more difficult for the American middle-class worker to benefit from technology and global growth in the same way that companies do. At this point, economists will protest. Historically, free trade has been beneficial to rich and poor. By forcing you out of industries in which you are inefficient, trade makes you strengthen those industries in which you are world-class. That's right in theory, and it has been right in practice...And yet something feels different this time."

"As in looking at the world with your head stuck firmly up your ass."

What do you expect from a society asking for Victor Bout back? This man has said publicly that his fondest wish is that the weapons he sells be used to kill Americans. Now an IT professional in Russia is crying that Linux isn't Russian enough. Well good luck with that. How many man-years and billions of (calculated) dollars were used to develop the Linux kernel? And this Pryanishnikov clown wants to dump it all for not being Russian enough.

Its also funny that he's the head of Microsoft's Russian presence. The man is obviously a clown.

Funny how your arguments keep being lies. The claim that Jews drink blood of anything is a lie.

I am not sure you are being mentally coherent at this point. Of course the blood libel against Jews is a lie. What do you think I meant?

Why do you claim that I was lying when I said that Arnaud Amalric said "Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius"? It is accepted by historians that he did say that. It was reported at the time that he did say this, and he never denied saying it. Your quote from Wikipedia about the unarmed servants attacking the city is not a denial that he said that phrase. As to the attack on Beziers - why do you think it was okay for Christian soldiers to murder 20,000 innocent people in cold blood? Why was it okay for the Pope to order the extermination of the Cathari people anyway?. Why do you make excuses when Christian forces commit atrocities, but when Muslim forces do the same, you blame Islam?

nazis in America 50 years ago played the racism card

Nazis claimed that other races were inferior to whites. You are suggesting that Nazis claimed to be the victims of racism from other white people? That makes no sense - because white Germans and white Americans are the same race.

I am surprised and saddened to hear that you have travelled and talked to people of other cultures and still feel the way that you do. If you honestly believe that over one sixth of the humans on this planet are genocidal maniacs, then it is no wonder the world seems like a scary place, and that you are so angry and defensive.

http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2010/11/17/tsa-defends-new-screening-procedures/ The TSA administrator declined to provide some details about the nature of the pat-downs, citing security concerns. But he tried to allay fears stoked by the media rumor-mill. Children under 12 are exempted from the pat-down process, he said. (A viral tale about a three-year old bursting into tears after being prodded by an officer is, in fact, from two-year-old footage of a three-year old crying after her teddy bear was taken from her at a security checkpoint. And that viral snapshot of the nun-frisking--which the Drudge Report headlined, in typically restrained fashion, "THE TERRORISTS HAVE WON"--is actually at least three years old.) Read more: http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2010/11/17/tsa-defends-new-screening-procedures/#ixzz15a9QfLOw

http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2010/11/17/tsa-defends-new-screening-procedures/ The TSA administrator declined to provide some details about the nature of the pat-downs, citing security concerns. But he tried to allay fears stoked by the media rumor-mill. Children under 12 are exempted from the pat-down process, he said. (A viral tale about a three-year old bursting into tears after being prodded by an officer is, in fact, from two-year-old footage of a three-year old crying after her teddy bear was taken from her at a security checkpoint. And that viral snapshot of the nun-frisking--which the Drudge Report headlined, in typically restrained fashion, "THE TERRORISTS HAVE WON"--is actually at least three years old.) Read more: http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2010/11/17/tsa-defends-new-screening-procedures/#ixzz15a9QfLOw

I remember the same, but IIRC the companies involved were fatalistic about it - they knew the score but again "could not afford to miss out". The problem is, the same technology will later appear in your own market in much cheaper Chinese products.

It happens in other sectors as well.

Worthwhile reading for tech companies planning to "partner" with Chinese businesses:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1955426,00.html

Sure, German banks hold Greek bonds. So basically Germans have had to lend money to Greece and then let it go. That counts for about 45 billion Euro. And then the total bailout package cost about 120 billion Euro. I don't know how you figure that the Euro came at the expense of "places like Greece". Places are Greece are not forced into the EU or the EEZ. They vie for it. And Germany has always been the most generous funding source for the EU.

As Time puts it :

According to polls conducted in Germany last week, 53% of people want Greece tossed out of the euro zone if it can't resolve its deficit dilemma without outside funding — a financial helping hand that a full 71% of Germans don't want their government to extend. Though no similar surveys have been conducted in France, leaders there say the public sentiment is much the same. "There are cultural differences for why the French wait for something to happen before reacting when the Germans respond as they see it developing, but opposition to a bailout — if that happens — is likely to be similar in both [countries]," says an adviser to French Economy Minister Christine Lagarde, who commented on background due to the sensitive nature of the situation. "Try explaining to public opinion you're using its money to help Greece after it kept building up debt and lied about it the whole way."

This is bullshit, I'm from Switzerland and we get fined based on how fast we were going. I've never heard of this story or this practices, and I have gotten plenty of speeding tickets (well my g/f, I don't drive but whatever).

Time Magazine disagrees with you, as do the BBC News, Huliq and 0-60 Magazine.

Explain this. Note the date on that article.

WSJ was a unique newspaper. They were publishing unbiased, reliable, useful news, which is why so many people (including me) were willing to pay any reasonable price for it, certainly $150 a year. I don't think you say that about any other Murdoch publication (and I'm not sure you can say that about the WSJ any more). I'm not going to pay $150 a year (or anything) for right-wing propaganda.

The WSJ's news was as objective as humanly possible. Their news department had an independence from the advertising department and the publisher's personal causes that was legendary. The far right editorial page was a useful cover for reporters who were free to tell it like it is. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,956896,00.html

For example, when General Motors threatened to withdraw all their advertising from the WSJ if they printed a story GM didn't like, the WSJ told GM to go fuck themselves. It was a long time, after GM finally came crawling back, before the WSJ let them advertise again.

The New York Times in contrast used to print puff pieces on for example the auto industry, because they were big advertisers, and the publisher used to promote his or her pet causes all the time. See Gay Talese's "The Kingdom and the Power" or Robert Moses' "The Power Broker."

Rupert Murdoch was willing to tell any lie, break any promise, or betray any trust to get a reputation for integrity. That's how he bought the WSJ.

Unfortunately, since Murdoch bought it, not only the integrity but the quality has gone down. In my reading, they don't always give both sides of the story they way they used to, doesn't always have the depth it used to, and now has a Republican tilt. According to the NYT, one of Murdoch's new editors in the Washington bureau was cutting out paragraphs that were favorable to Democrats and unfavorable to Republicans. You want me to pay for that?

What politicians won't say: want to win the drug war? Lose it!

Compared to the European Union and the U.S., Portugal's drug use numbers are impressive. Following decriminalization, Portugal had the lowest rate of lifetime marijuana use in people over 15 in the E.U.: 10%. The most comparable figure in America is in people over 12: 39.8%. Proportionally, more Americans have used cocaine than Portuguese have used marijuana.

I wish I was. While I hate citing Time as a source, I've seen this other places, this is just the first that came up when I went looking.

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1967306,00.html

"We have studies that claim up to 90% effectiveness against death from all causes [in inoculated patients compared with the nonvaccinated]. If you were to believe that evidence, you would believe that flu vaccine is effective against death not only from influenza, but also from heart attack, stroke, hypothermia, accidents and all other common causes of death among the elderly. That is quite clearly nonsense."

>>>Video games where not dead,

Right. People just write multi-page articles about things that never happened? I guess this article I'm about to quote is an ILLUZIONS and doesn't exist? You're probably one of those NUTTERS who thinks the moon landing enver happened either, or that the Dot-Com Crash of 2000 is mythology. Dumb fuck.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_video_game_crash_of_1983

The '''North American video game crash of 1983''' (sometimes known as the '''[[Atari, Inc.|Atari]] Debacle''' or the '''video game crash of 1983 and 1984''' because it was in that year that the full effects of the crash became apparent to consumers) brought an abrupt end to what is considered the [[History of video game consoles (second generation)|second generation]] of console video gaming in North America. It almost destroyed the then-fledgling industry and led to the [[bankruptcy]] of several companies producing [[home computer]]s and [[video game console]]s in [[North America]]. It lasted about two years, and many business analysts of the time expressed doubts about the long-term viability of video game consoles. The video-game industry was revitalized a few years later, mostly due to the widespread success of the [[Nintendo Entertainment System]] (NES), which was released in North America in {{vgy|1985}} and became extremely popular by {{vgy|1987}}.{{cite journal |author=Consalvo, Mia |year=2006 |title=Console video games and global corporations: Creating a hybrid culture |journal=New Media Society |volume=8 |issue=1 |pages=117-137 |doi=10.1177/1461444806059921 |url=http://nms.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/8/1/117 |archiveurl=http://web.archive.org/web/20080228191914/http://intl-nms.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/8/1/117.pdf |archivedate=2008-02-28 |format=PDF}}

There were several reasons for the crash, but the main cause was supersaturation of the market with hundreds of mostly low-quality games.

== Causes and factors ==

The American video game console crash of 1983 was caused by a combination of factors. Although some were more important than others, all played a role in saturating, and then imploding, the video game industry.

=== Plethora of games and consoles ===
At the time of the US crash, there were numerous consoles on the market, including the [[Atari 2600]], the [[Atari 5200]], the [[Bally Astrocade]], the [[ColecoVision]], the Coleco Gemini (a 2600 clone), the [[Emerson Arcadia 2001]], the [[Fairchild Channel F|Fairchild Channel F System II]], the [[Odyssey 2|Magnavox Odyssey2]], the [[Mattel]] [[Intellivision]] (and its just-released update with several peripherals, the [[Intellivision II]]), the [[Sears]] Tele-Games systems (which included both 2600 and Intellivision clones), the TandyvisioN (an Intellivision clone for [[Radio Shack]]), and the [[Vectrex]].

Each one of these consoles had its own library of games, and many had large third-party libraries. Likewise, many of these same companies announced yet another generation of consoles for {{vgy|1984}}, such as the [[Odyssey3]], and [[Atari 7800]].{{cite news| last = Taylor| first = Alexander L. III| title = Pac-Man Finally Meets His Match| publisher = Time Magazine|date=1982-12-20| url = http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,923197,00.html| accessdate = 2006-12-04 }}

Adding to the industry's woes was a glut of poor titles from hastily financed startup companies. These games, combined with weak high-profile Atari 2600 games, such as the [[E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (video game)|video game version]] of the hit movie ''[[E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial]]'' and an [[Pac-Man (Atari 2600)|infamous port]] of the popular [[arcade game]] ''[[Pac-Man]]'', seriously damaged the reputation of the industry. Finally, Atari's market-leading [[Atari 2600|2600]], now in its sixth year, was starting to approach [[market saturation|saturation]]

They have busted it twice now, and both times it was with two guys and small mirrors. Archimedes would have used large polished shields and have each held by a man.

An experiment in 1973 used 0.75 square metre polished brass mirrors and 70 Greek sailors and had considerably more success at 50m.

Whether it actually happened or not is up for speculation, but it seems that it was at least plausible.

Wasn't totally convinced by the steam cannon either:)

Unlike Jenny McCarthy, I am an Autism advocate. Advocating for Autism does not mean trying to ensure that there are no more Autistic people, that is not advocating, that is iradicating. Autism is a different way of looking at the world, a different route for physical neuro pathways. It is different, not worse than being neurotypical.

It is fuckwads that think Autism is a disease and that children and adults who function differently are broken that are deeply insensitive.

And for the record, when the book tour ended, Jenny McCarthy's kid wasn't autistic anymore. Mine still was.

If I don't physically bar someone from parking in my driveway, that's OK?/quote>

The Supreme Court of the United Status has ruled that, yes, if you don't physically bar someone from your driveway then your driveway is public:

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2013150,00.html

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,915637,00.html

It just may happen... in california. Prop 19!

Coincidentally, much of it ends up in China, poisoning the local population.

Similar dumps can be found all over Africa and Asia.

by Securityemo (1407943)...These ineffectual DDOS attacks are getting boring. ;_;

Says the crying emo-faggot. You're looking a bit fat, I suggest you vomit up that wrap you ate earlier and ditch your macbook in the trash. One more instance of why I believe Mexican justice should be implemented wherever you live.

It's time to stomp emos and chew bubble gum...and I just ran out or gum. Pusilanimous emo-skinnies are the cancer that is killing America's once-rebellious youth.

They're a real commercial product, it's just that the factory output is booked years in advance.

What we need then is for the evil Chinese to copy or buy the technology, and start making zillions of them in Shenzen or wherever they make those sort of stuff.

There are already millions of electric bikes in use in China: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1904334,00.html

They're also planning to build more than 100 nuclear reactors. If they succeed that might help clear up the smog in their cities.

Say what you like about their Gov, but they appear to have a long term plan that might actually work.

Hallo.

You've hit on a topic I've pondered for a long time now.

Following the version concept, I think we're well past 2.0 now, right? Wouldn't "2.0" be "Look, it's free! * "
Your choice if we're at 2.2, or 2.6, or something, but now "free * " is now clearly known as "but we'll do stuff with your data". People still like Facebook, but I'm pretty sure most of the users now have a vague inkling that they're being marketed to, even if they can't figure all of it out.

(Facebook, the movie!? http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,2021322,00.html?xid=rss-topstories )

I like to think Web 3.0 might be a pro-privacy backlash, however long it takes to get here, and however short lived.

(Thank you for just now making me wonder what Web 4.0 is!? )

This. The only time I thought "wow, maybe Twitter has a use" was during the American-sponsored protests of the election in Iran. But then I was reminded:

As is so often the case in the media world, Twitter's strengths are also its weaknesses. The vast body of information about current events in Iran that circulates on Twitter is chaotic, subjective and totally unverifiable. It's impossible to authenticate sources. It's also not clear who exactly is using Twitter within Iran, especially in English. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the bulk of tweets are coming from "hyphenated" Iranians not actually in the country who are getting the word out to Western observers, rather than from the protesters themselves, who favor other, less public media. This is, after all, a country where the government once debated the death penalty for dissident bloggers.

It generally wasn't people running around watching things and sending updates on their mobiles. 140 soon-forgotten characters on yet another lazy Internet user medium isn't worth risking your life for when you're protesting such a government. The useful information was exported and placed on traditional and independent news sites/blogs.

In any case, are you saying they don't have a right to defend themselves from Israel's IDF paramilitary terrorists?

The IDF are not paramilitary, they are Israel's military.

Is there any evidence that the IDF attacked Iran with this worm? No.

The notorious war criminal Ariel Sharon said that all Arabs should be exterminated (yes, I know the Iranians are Persians, not Arabs).

Alleged to be a war criminal by some. Never prosecuted.

And if Ariel Sharon said that, you correctly point out that it doesn't apply to Iran. Incidentally, Ariel Sharon hasn't been prime minister of Israel for many many years. In fact, he is in a coma, and has no influence on current affairs.

The present Israeli government seems to be doing a good job of herding the Palestinians into ghettos

Not true. There are many types of "Palestinians".

1. There are those who live in Israel and are citizens of Israel.

These people have Israeli passports, they vote, run for office (some are elected), and serve on the Israeli supreme court.

2. There are those who live in the West Bank and Gaza.

These people fall under the Palestinian Authority.

3. There are those that live in other countries.

If these people live in Arab countries, they are treated like dogs.

Plus, you need to define who Palestinians are, because that word predates the arrival of Arabs & Muslims to what is currently called Israel, Gaza & West Bank. If you are referring to Arab residents of the British Mandate of Palestine, then a Palestinian state exists - it's called Jordan.

And read the words of the current Palestinian Authority Chairman, Mahmoud Abbas (also called Abu Mazen). In the words of Abbas:

"I am among those who were born in the city of Tzfat (Safed). We were a family of means. I studied in elementary school, and then came the naqba [calamity, namely, the founding of the State of Israel - ed.]. At night, we left by foot from Tzfat, to the Jordan River, where we remained for a month. Then we went to Damascus, and then to our relatives in Jordan, and then we settled in Damascus.

"My father had money, and he spent his money systematically, and after a year, the money ran out and we began to work.

"The people's basic motives brought them to run away for their lives and with their property. These [motives] were very important, for they feared the violence of the Zionist terrorist organizations - and especially those of us from Tzfat felt that there was an old desire for revenge from the rebellion of 1929, and this was in the memory of our families and parents."

The "rebellion" Abbas referred to was a series of brutal Arab attacks on Jewish towns in the summer of 1929. Nearly 70 Jews were slaughtered in their homes in Hevron, 20 in Tzfat, 17 in Jerusalem, and others were murdered in Motza, Kfar Uriah and Tel Aviv.

TV-era politics is more about having good hair than policies.

Go ahead, name a modern president who was bald.

It's not just e-waste. The same thing happens with decommissioned ships and other dangerous waste. In the U.S., the show "60 Minutes" has done a number of pieces on this, most notably Following The Trail Of Toxic E-Waste and The Ship-Breakers of Bangladesh. Basically, when it comes to dangerous materials (with the exception of nuclear waste) poor countries inevitably become the dumping grounds for the first world. I would bet that, if you were to really track that e-waste in Australia, I mean REALLY track it (not just taking someone's word for it), you would find it eventually in a cargo container with the shippers being surprisingly reticent on the details of its actual destination.

International agreements and European regulations have made a dent in the export of old electronics to China, but loopholes - and sometimes bribes - allow many to skirt the requirements. And only a sliver of the electronics sold gets returned to manufacturers such as Dell and Hewlett Packard for safe recycling. Upward of 90 percent ends up in dumps that observe no environmental standards, where shredders, open fires, acid baths and broilers are used to recover gold, silver, copper and other valuable metals while spewing toxic fumes and runoff into the skies and rivers.

Accurate figures about the shady and unregulated trade are hard to come by. However, experts agree that it is overwhelmingly a problem of the developing world. They estimate that 70 percent of the 20 million to 50 million tons of electronic waste produced globally each year is dumped in China, with most of the rest going to India and African nations.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, it is 10 times cheaper to export e-waste than to dispose of it at home.

There's a pretty awesome photo-essay following the process over on Time.

And how has that worked for China?

Their population continues to RISE, with a slight increase over what was seen at the beginning of the 60s.

One Child became the law in 1979, and is already being reconsidered (yet again).

40 years is long enough to see at least 50% of the 50% reduction you claim. Yet its not there.

The carrying capacity of China's land mass seem to keep up, as there has been no huge famine and standards of living have raised significantly. That rise in SOL and education alone will account for a more significant population reduction than will a policy of forced abortions.

The coolaid isn't as sweet as you make ot out to be.

When I was learning to fly gliders at the Princeton University airport (sadly now given up to development), as I was circling to land and had right of way some helicopter flew across my path at a very fast rate and landed there. It was some executive from Time I guess (and they had copies of the magazine you could see through the bubble canopy). Anyway, when Time says non-mainstream stuff, it is interesting to me. When they echo a mainstream line, I can wonder.

Is this the article?
"What Makes A School Great"
http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,20100920,00.html
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2016978,00.html
"But the film succeeds because it also lays out the solutions, something no one could credibly attempt to do until very recently. Today, several decades into America's long fight over how to upend the status quo in public education, three remarkable things are happening simultaneously. First, thanks partly to the blunt instruments of No Child Left Behind, we can now track how well individual students are doing from year to year -- and figure out which schools are working and which are not. Second, legions of public schools -- some charters, some not -- are succeeding while others flounder. These schools are altering fundamentals that were for so long untouchable, insisting on great teachers, more class time and higher standards. The third novelty is in Washington, where a Democratic President is standing up to his party's most dysfunctional long-term romantic interest, the teachers' unions. ... It's worth noting that these are early days. The vast majority of American kids have yet to be affected by any of these changes. But the drumbeat is hard to ignore. We may be on the cusp of running schools -- brace yourself -- according to what actually works."

As I said, you get what you measure. Are people measuring how happy kids are during school or during their lifetime? Saying schools are good because some kid does well on a test is like saying some drug like Vioxx is good because it works in the short term (and we don't care what it does to anyone ten years down the road).

So, if you want to measure, you should measure a lot of things. :-) But how do you measure someone's soul? So there are limits to measurement too. As Einstein said, our goals need to come from some process outside of what we are measuring in some way.

Which just gets back to the goals of education. If a goal is to get people participating in our democracy in a healthy way, then common sense suggests making them spend thirteen years of their life in a day-prison is probably not the best way to do it, whatever the numbers say. We know how most kids learn, and learning by doing is very important.

Again though, this is not to dispute the value of learning communities, good role models, tutoring, mentoring, well-equipped labs, and so on.

Anyway, I guess another aspect of this is to separate the term "schooling" from "education". The two are just not the same, even if there is sometimes some overlap. And you may never fix the social problem that the people who have become and stayed schoolteachers are those willing to jump through hoops on demand and make other staff as well as students do the same. Because you are a self-starter, that may not be so obvious to you, because you, like I, have probably enjoyed jumping through those hoops because we were good at it and did get something out of it. But that is not true for most people, and even for us, it may not have been very healthy in the long term.

Really, what is the justification for schools at all, as opposed to better libraries and a network of other learning opportunities (with families having enough to afford tutors through a basic income)? Locking children away for their entire youth is just a dim vie

When I was learning to fly gliders at the Princeton University airport (sadly now given up to development), as I was circling to land and had right of way some helicopter flew across my path at a very fast rate and landed there. It was some executive from Time I guess (and they had copies of the magazine you could see through the bubble canopy). Anyway, when Time says non-mainstream stuff, it is interesting to me. When they echo a mainstream line, I can wonder.

Is this the article?
"What Makes A School Great"
http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,20100920,00.html
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2016978,00.html
"But the film succeeds because it also lays out the solutions, something no one could credibly attempt to do until very recently. Today, several decades into America's long fight over how to upend the status quo in public education, three remarkable things are happening simultaneously. First, thanks partly to the blunt instruments of No Child Left Behind, we can now track how well individual students are doing from year to year -- and figure out which schools are working and which are not. Second, legions of public schools -- some charters, some not -- are succeeding while others flounder. These schools are altering fundamentals that were for so long untouchable, insisting on great teachers, more class time and higher standards. The third novelty is in Washington, where a Democratic President is standing up to his party's most dysfunctional long-term romantic interest, the teachers' unions. ... It's worth noting that these are early days. The vast majority of American kids have yet to be affected by any of these changes. But the drumbeat is hard to ignore. We may be on the cusp of running schools -- brace yourself -- according to what actually works."

As I said, you get what you measure. Are people measuring how happy kids are during school or during their lifetime? Saying schools are good because some kid does well on a test is like saying some drug like Vioxx is good because it works in the short term (and we don't care what it does to anyone ten years down the road).

So, if you want to measure, you should measure a lot of things. :-) But how do you measure someone's soul? So there are limits to measurement too. As Einstein said, our goals need to come from some process outside of what we are measuring in some way.

Which just gets back to the goals of education. If a goal is to get people participating in our democracy in a healthy way, then common sense suggests making them spend thirteen years of their life in a day-prison is probably not the best way to do it, whatever the numbers say. We know how most kids learn, and learning by doing is very important.

Again though, this is not to dispute the value of learning communities, good role models, tutoring, mentoring, well-equipped labs, and so on.

Anyway, I guess another aspect of this is to separate the term "schooling" from "education". The two are just not the same, even if there is sometimes some overlap. And you may never fix the social problem that the people who have become and stayed schoolteachers are those willing to jump through hoops on demand and make other staff as well as students do the same. Because you are a self-starter, that may not be so obvious to you, because you, like I, have probably enjoyed jumping through those hoops because we were good at it and did get something out of it. But that is not true for most people, and even for us, it may not have been very healthy in the long term.

Really, what is the justification for schools at all, as opposed to better libraries and a network of other learning opportunities (with families having enough to afford tutors through a basic income)? Locking children away for their entire youth is just a dim vie

It already is.

Of course, ironically, we can just use renewable energy and not have so much controversy... But fossil fuels are heavily subsidized in terms of both government incentives and ignored externalities...
http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/oil-gas-crude/461
http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html

See also:
"Report: Famed Civil Rights Photographer Ernest Withers Spied for FBI"
http://newsfeed.time.com/2010/09/14/report-famed-civil-rights-photographer-ernest-withers-spied-for-fbi/
"Ernest C. Withers had been the photographer who chronicled the civil rights movement through the 50s and 60s. His photos of the gruesome racial murder of teenager Emmitt Till still resonate to this day; he was there when nine students integrated Little Rock Central High School; and his camera shutters snapped just moments after Martin Luther King was assassinated. And all the while, according to the Memphis Commercial Appeal, Withers was betraying everything he knew about the civil rights movement to the FBI."

Which connects to my previous post on the open manufacturing list:
http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/ae28e8971f8f9669?hl=en
"My advice to people here is to build movements in such a way that the CIA can be proud of them :-) as well as so Smári and Bryan and others here can be proud of them too. :-) And, given the CIA is hiring machinists, build a movement where, in a good way, you assume everyone in it is working for the CIA, :-) but where you still get important stuff done in moving the world towards a post-scarcity open future. Just like people should assume Google is a division of the NSA and/or CIA. :-) An impossible task? Well, consider it more like a creative challenge. :-) "

And:
"The need for FOSS intelligence tools for sensemaking etc."
http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/2846ca1b6bee64e1
"As I see it, there is a race going on. The race is between two trends. On the one hand, the internet can be used to profile and round up dissenters to the scarcity-based economic status quo (thus legitimate worries about privacy and something like TIA). On the other hand, the internet can be used to change the status quo in various ways (better designs, better science, stronger social networks advocating for things like a basic income, all supported by better structured arguments like with the Genoa II approach) to the point where there is abundance for all and rounding up dissenters to mainstream economics is a non-issue because material abundance is everywhere. So, as Bucky Fuller said, whether is will be Utopia or Oblivion will be a touch-and-go relay race to the very end. While I can't guarantee success at the second option of using the internet for abundance for all, I can guarantee that if we do nothing, the first option of using the internet to round up dissenters (or really, anybody who is different, like was done using IBM computers in WWII Germany) will probably prevail. So, I feel the global public really needs access to these sorts of sensemaking tools in an open source way, and the way to use them is not so much to "fight back" as to "transform and/or transcend the system". As Bucky Fuller said, you never change thing by fighting the old paradigm directly; you change things by inventing a new way that makes the old paradigm obsolete."

By the way, someone (mrbrod) in the com

Einstein did not fail math.

cite

according to wikipedia, he did fail an entrance exam to Eidgenössische Polytechnische Schule, but scored extremely well in math and science.

sorry about being pedantic, but this is a pet peeve.

That's just some extra marketing for iPad during the time that iPad was announced

He said the same thing in 2007.

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1575743,00.html