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Time Magazine reports ...

It was BookTwo that originated this story because that's written by the guy who put the book together (which was picked up by a blog which was picked up by The Awl which was picked up by Time's NewsFeed). Of course, we are talking about Time here. I found the images of what's actually inside very interesting but I would bet that the guy who used some simple code to create the Creative Commons work is probably the only person to tender cash for a physical copy.

Here's another complete rewrite reducing the whole article to:

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Iraq War, eh???
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All your oil are belong to U.S.
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Stup up stoopid Americans

But you know what's really interesting? When Bridle compiled this used their lexer to transform the XML, he kept the IP address in the upper right of each edit. So the above edit's IP address is forever in print: 68.162.123.240 Of course if you had used a username to make an edit, that was put in place of the IP address.

This whole thing reminds me of the time lapse video done of the Virginia Tech shootings. Creative stuff you can do with Wikipedia.

So, you're comparing a religion that put 13 people in the hospital to a religion that kills hundreds of thousands?

So, you think that was the only violent Christian event, ever?

Albigensian Crusade: Christian militia forces ordered by the Pope killed an estimated 1 million "heretics" simply for following a different interpretation of the Bible.

St. Bartholomew's Day massacre: estimated upto 100,000 Protestants killed by Catholic mobs. What does the Pope do? Send the leader a blessed Golden Rose and hang paintings of the massacre in the Vatican.

Christians believe in The New Covenant that changes "Eye for an Eye" to "Turn the Other Cheek".

Really? Are you so sure that every single Christian in the world believes that? Given that it is only 15 years since Christian militias were massacring Muslims in Serbia and calling for "a Christian, Orthodox Serbia with no Muslims and no unbelievers", I somehow doubt that. And where were all the Christians shouting for forgiveness and "turning the other cheek" after the twin towers were attacked? Where were all the Christians arguing to not invade Iraq (a country that had nothing to do with 9/11)? Peace and forgiveness and turning the other cheek sound great, but it's a lot harder to actually live up to those standards when it matters, isn't it?

Second, the Holocaust was not a Christian thing

I suggest you visit the Holocaust Museum in Berlin and become educated about the history of German anti-semitism. Germany has historically been a Christian nation, and the anti-semitic history of its Christian people has been well documented. Please don't try to rewrite history by pretending that religion was not involved. The Nazi propaganda newspaper Der Stürmer frequently invoked stories and images of supposed Jewish assaults and plots against Christians. There were numerous pro-Nazi Christian groups that wove Nazi propaganda into their theology (Rexists, etc.)

"Christianity, however, did play a critical role, not perhaps in motivating the top decision makers, but in making their commands comprehensible and tolerable to the rank-and-file - the people who actively carried out the measures against the Jews as well as those who passively condoned their implementation.... The old antisemitism had created a climate in which the 'new' antisemitism was, at the very least, acceptable to millions of Germans." - Catholics, Protestants and Christian Antisemitism in Nazi Germany

Some of the top Christian leaders actively supported the Holocaust:

"The duty of a Christian is to love himself first and to see that his needs are satisfied. Only then can he help his neighbor... Why should we not get rid of these parasites [Jews] who suck Rumanian Christian blood? It is logical and holy to react against them." - Patriarch Miron Cristea

You'd have to be an idiot to think a tactical nuke is the way to go.

For one thing, it's never been done under water.

For another thing, it only worked three out of the five times the Russians tried it.

Do you really want to try something that is definitely going to cause severe damage to the environment (nuclear radiation in the Gulf Stream - that sounds great!) for something that only has a 60% success rate in ideal conditions?

As for the environmental damage, it's pretty hard to find any information about any damage related to the spill. Aside from a few tarballs and a handful of coated animals, there is been nothing. In fact, not a single piece of seafood from the gulf has shown any sort of contamination, and this is five months after the fact. About 350 acres of wetlands have been damaged, but you compare that to the 15,000 acres of wetlands Louisiana loses every year and you realize it's almost nothing.

In fact, the only articles I can find after May/Jun suggest the environmental damage has been exaggerated. To avoid citing Fox News, which is so reviled here but also happens to be the only news agency with an article on the environmental impacts of the spill in the last month, here's an excerpt from a June 29 Times article:

Marine scientist Ivor van Heerden, another former LSU prof, who's working for a spill-response contractor, says, "There's just no data to suggest this is an environmental disaster. I have no interest in making BP look good — I think they lied about the size of the spill — but we're not seeing catastrophic impacts." Van Heerden, like just about everyone else working in the Gulf these days, is being paid from BP's spill-response funds. "There's a lot of hype, but no evidence to justify it."

Yeah, I'm very glad we didn't listen to idiots like you.

"It's also just the usual bullshit and propaganda how bad North Korea supposedly is for wanting to defend their own country"

Defend against.... who, exactly? Is anyone invading them? They've been at war with South Korea for almost 60 years because they only signed an armistice, meaning they're going to stop fighting but may resume at anytime. All N Korea has to do is stop screwing around and agree to make peace and they'd be welcomed into the world but they refuse. They're like to stubborn child that's sent to their room for not finishing supper but instead of coming down 10 minutes later to eat they sulk in their room.... for 60 years.

"North Korea isn't even as bad as US and all news outlets try to draw it as. Take a travel there and see yourself "

Why would anyone want to go to North Korea?! The last journalists that went there were sentenced to 12 years in N Korea jail just for entering the country. And North Korea isn't like France, where if the US govt said "Hey can we have our people back?" the French would oblige, North Korea can keep you and you're never released and no one rescues you.

If you think North Korea is a great place to visit maybe you should go there and tell us how it turns out. In fact go to the DMZ and cross, it will be the last thing you ever do

Don't forget their exemption from:
minimum wage laws
OSHA regulations
equal employment laws
the Americans With Disabilities Act
and the cash cow, a one-year lobbying restriction that applies to executive branch employees...

I remember the 1970's plenty well enough to recall that the great fear then was, are you ready for this, Global Cooling!

Hate to snow on your parade, but that's a myth.

Actually, he's right. Here's a Time magazine article from 1974 which was one of the earlier ones talking about the coming Ice Age. In the 70s, a new Ice Age was the fear (I never heard it called "global cooling"). However, I personally do think the concept of anthropogenic global warming due to CO2 emission is correct FYI. Pretty simple really - higher atmospheric amounts of CO2, plus it's a heat trapping gas = voila! Anthropogenic global warming.

Prohibition didn't work the first time

That depends upon what you mean by "work".

From http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1989146,00.html:

In one sense, Prohibition worked: less booze was consumed.

Without governments accepting the expertise they employed and where Portugal has demonstrated that the decriminalization of drugs actually works, then this type of tracking system will only ever work when there is a root and branch reform of the criminal system.

This really is a bandaid.

The problem here is that there are people in prison because they need therapy for drug addiction. Cannabis is less destructive than Alcohol.

I know this is a rant about drugs, but prohibition, really comes with massive social costs and to lock away people that actually need therapy is wrong.

Especially since one of the main physicists on this paper, Ephraim Fischback, is one of the main physicists pushing the fifth force idea.

I didn't find this correlation though... Credit where credit is due

Gee, sorry I missed the correction to the NY Times

It wasn't a correction. You went by the accusations, not by what was proven. There's a big difference.

Spitzer was only there for the press conference. The people who took the Mob on were all Feds.

Do you know about anything you say, or do you just say whatever nonsense comes to mind?

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1003960-5,00.html
(starts at paragraph 2)

He headed the three year investigation, and masterminded the operation that brought him down. He was a modern day Eliot Ness.

As far as whether anything he did affected you, I recommend you read the whole Time article. It's titled: Eliot Spitzer: Wall Street's Top Cop

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1003960-1,00.html

Gee, sorry I missed the correction to the NY Times

It wasn't a correction. You went by the accusations, not by what was proven. There's a big difference.

Spitzer was only there for the press conference. The people who took the Mob on were all Feds.

Do you know about anything you say, or do you just say whatever nonsense comes to mind?

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1003960-5,00.html
(starts at paragraph 2)

He headed the three year investigation, and masterminded the operation that brought him down. He was a modern day Eliot Ness.

As far as whether anything he did affected you, I recommend you read the whole Time article. It's titled: Eliot Spitzer: Wall Street's Top Cop

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1003960-1,00.html

In one documented case, a surprise common factor was a quality control person who didn't know the non-sterile swabs still couldn't be touched before packaging..

Happened actually in Germany:

Germany's Phantom Serial Killer: A DNA Blunder

To save everyone some time and since the point you brought up is rather important, here's a good link. Somewhere else I saw that is trial is scheduled for October of this year, so we can't actually see the full result. Since the Maryland AG has come out as saying this was not a private conversation (required for the law as written in MD), I think he'll stand a good chance of getting off on that charge, but then again, IANAL.

heya,

Err, no, I think they're both pretty s*itty situations. But if you're a women, living under Taliban rule was much, much worse.

You say that Afghan women were "safe" under the Taliban? What are you smoking.

I mean, the most recent copy of Time magazine floating in my house has a photo of an Afghan women with her nose cut off. Apparently she ran away from her wife-beating husband, and the Taliban went after her, held her down while her husband watched (and I assume cheered), and cut off her nose. She's currently residing with some care organisation, I believe, after they left her for dead.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2007269,00.html

Oh, and just look here for some classic examples:

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

I mean, the Taliban would rather they die slowly than get medical aid, because *gasp* male doctors can't treat female patients. Oh, and since women are denied education after the age of 8, it's hardly like they're going to become doctors, is it?

The thing is, any society like this is eventually going to run itself into the ground, or degenerate into some pre-Industrial revolution tribal free-for-all. The thing is, as developed Western countries, many of us find it somewhat difficult to stomach something like that happening in our backyard. That sort of widespread damage being caused to people...I think we have a phrase for that...hmm...human rights abuse?

Now, that wasn't the primary reason for ousting the Taliban - their support and harbouring of Osama Bin Laden, and continued funding for Al Qaeda was, but hey, it's not that bad a thing, what we're doing in Afghanistan, giving them the vote, and emancipating their women.

Also, it's funny how now that the American public has revealed themselves as spineless and without enough stomach to see things through to the end, and the US government has opened up the possibility of negotiating with the Taliban. Guess who's screaming the loudest "NO! NO!" - gee, gosh, how about the Afghan people themselves? I think most of the 22 million people in that country wouldn't want that pack of sadistic and heartless sycophants back.

Cheers,
Victor

I dunno, one of the functions of your average grazing animal is to be food for those higher up in the food chain, and that includes humans.

Very few of the animals eaten by people presently are "grazing animals". To cite an earlier post, given that a tiny proportion of cows actually slaughtered for sale of their parts have actually eaten grass in their lives, they are also full of all sorts of pesticides, dioxins in the fatty tissue being one particularly nasty result. These mutants don't eat eat grass, as their ancestors have, but corn, soya beans and oats.

Around 70% of all grains grown in the U.S are fed to animals to turn into tissue which is then eaten. A highly inefficient and environmentally costly source of proteins. In fact the inefficiency ratio is widely considered to be around 54:1.

Looks like nobody's mentioned polyphasic sleep so far, so I guess I'll do it:

Polyphasic sleep is sleeping in multiple phases in a day. So you don't sleep for 8 hours, and stay awake for 16. Instead, you spread your sleep out over the day.

Although spreading 8 hours over multiple stretches might be beneficial for some, reducing your total sleep time is where it gets interesting.

A article in Time Magazine from 1943 describes how Buckminster Fuller devised a system (called Dymaxion sleep) where he slept a half-hour every 6 hours, sleeping 2 hours in a day. That gives an amazing 22 hours a day to do stuff, build Beowulf clusters of N900s, keep a watch out for the Bat-Signal, or whatever.

The biggest problem with minimal, polyphase sleep systems is that you have to sleep on a schedule. You can't postpone sleep for a business meeting or a late lunch. That's the reason most people (including Fuller) have to drop it.

No money is needed for this...someone else had it first. Remember?

all true, and besides, even today there are many populated areas in the world that are probably as, if not more, dangerous for humans as chernobyl - http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,1661031,00.html

America is at war.

Ummm - I don't think we are. That is part of the problem: "A mere declaration of war would not have made that kind of appealing ending much likelier, but it couldn't have hurt either. Sixty-five years ago, we declared war against Japan and Germany, and we fought that one tenaciously and decisively and won it conclusively. We did not send the same message before hostilities began with either Iraq or Afghanistan, and there we drift and dither still. Now, we await commissions and coalitions to help extricate us from the shambles Iraq has become and achieve the stable state that Afghanistan could still be. Knowing what we were getting into in the beginning — and saying so out loud — might have helped spare us and the world a lot of pain."

Any evidence to back this up? Or are you just guessing?

I think it's the latter, plus a bit of the former. ;) This post has a chart of subsidies of various energy firms. This post with punny headline states the case for marginal producers: Vladimir's Energy Blog - Obama’s Energy Tax Will Even Tax Strippers TIME had this also LOL (unintended, I assume) headline in 1944: OIL: Subsidy for Strippers. "I call for a fixed deductable on pasties!"

Little of the subsidy cash would go to the big integrated companies. (They and the Oil Congressmen prefer Mr. Ickes' plan for a price boost.) OPA tailored its plan to fit only the small operators of the 200,000 "stripper" wells—the marginal producers who turn out some 15% of all U.S. oil. Squeezed between rising costs and OPA's ceilings many a stripper has been forced to plug his wells and go out of business. And once plugged, the wells are often ruined by salt water seepage.

So even 66 years ago these minor operators were making a substantial contribution to supply, and wanted some assistance to make their operations economical. We could have told them to just take it up the hindquarters of course, but that was way ahead of real consideration of the negative implications of using hydrocarbons. No other nation has drilled anything like the number of wells the US has: Distribution and Production of Oil & Gas Wells. Wells long given up for dead are reopened when the price rises high enough; some of the oldest in the country were fired up in 2008 when the price was on its uptick. We could repeal subsidies, but then the US would have to import more to make up for lost domestic production, putting us in competition with other nations and driving the price up to the point where the wells would be economical again anyway...likely there's a sweet spot somewhere. I'm not in favor of subsidizing the majors much, either. But these small fry are worth helping out while we transition away to something better. I'm waiting for the NOCs around the world to follow the US example, if that's possible given their societal constraints. Seems like a surefire way to boost their production and mitigate their declines a titch.

widespread devastation? you may want to read the latest reports concerning on the oil leak... apparently (as with global warming) it may have been blown out of proportion cause they can't seem to find the oil...

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2007202,00.html

http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2010/07/so-has-anyone-seen-the-oil-that-spilled-into-the-gulf.html

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews_excl/ynews_excl_sc3270

Interesting that we never see any studies of the effectiveness of such unconstitutional laws and the cost of FBI and other law enforcement agencies infringing on our rights. It's like the US air marshal program and the cost associated with it. $200 million per arrest @ 4 per year hardly seem effective nor cost worthy and probably hasn't made anyone safer, never mind the conviction rate that's enough to make you sick.

Can you give me some link to that research? To the best of my knowledge about 5-7 hours is the norm for a typical adult. Not all people need the same amout, but 8-10 is well more than most adults need.

I'm not suggesting you sleep-deprive yourself, I'm suggesting you don't sleep more than you need to. For children and teenagers there are reasons for longer sleep, for an adult it's just a waste of time.

Personally I usually sleep for about 5 hours. Doesn't matter how late or early I go to bed, I always wake well rested in about 5 hours.

Non-authoritive links, these were just the first few to show up on google.
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1812420,00.html
http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/sleep-needs
http://www.wikihow.com/Know-How-Much-Sleep-You-Need

Again; please provide some backup for your claim of what "every sleep scientist on the planet" will tell me.

The problem is that everyone would do the drugs, we'd get addicted,

Far from true - look at Portugal - they have effectively decriminalized all drugs, even the hard ones, for about a decade now. The result? Proportionally, more Americans have used cocaine than Portuguese have used marijuana.

Oh - I don't know about that. All Russia needed to do was wait for the idiots in Germany to launch a couple more winter campaigns against Moscow.

Your right, you don't know about it. The Soviet Union's entire logistical apparatus was dependent on lend-lease. They brought American supplies to the front using American trucks. Their fighters flew with high octane gasoline that was refined in American refineries. Their trains were pulled by American locomotives. Their troops were fed American rations.

For the most part they made their own weapons (though in some instances these with combined with American material aid, i.e: Katyusha rockets that were launched from the back of Studebaker trucks) systems but in so doing they neglected the rest of their economy. That's where lend-lease came in. Don't take my word for it though, ask Uncle Joe: "Without American production the United Nations could never have won the war."

I hate when my fellow Americans take the attitude that we won the war after Europe lost it.

I didn't take that attitude. I just pointed out that the Soviet Union would have not survived without Western material aid. That's a historical fact that isn't in much dispute -- even most Russian historians will acknowledge it.

Those people forget that we actually helped to enable Hitler in his earlier years. How 'bout those IBM contracts, that helped to chart all those Jew's geneology?

Peacetime trade is not the same thing as enabling. The real enabling occurred in Paris and London. If the French had marched into the Rhineland and enforced the Versailles treaty the war might never have happened. Ask the man himself:

Once again, the whole world waited to see how the French and British would react. German troops entering the Rhineland even had orders to scoot back across the Rhine bridges if the French Army attacked. But in France, the politicians were simply unable to convince their generals to act, and were also unable to get any British support for a military response. So they did nothing. The French Army, with its one hundred divisions, never budged against the 30,000 lightly armed German soldiers occupying the Rhineland, even though France and Britain were both obligated to preserve the demilitarized zone by the Treaty of Versailles and the Locarno Pact of mutual assistance.

It had been a tremendous gamble for Hitler, one that might have cost him everything if his troops had been humiliated by their old enemies. Later, Hitler would privately admit: "The forty-eight hours after the march into the Rhineland were the most nerve-racking in my life. If the French had marched into the Rhineland, we would have had to withdraw with our tail between our legs, for the military resources at our disposal would have been wholly inadequate for even a moderate resistance."

Why would they have to kill someone in a raid when they can kill someone with the flu, or with something which will look like natural causes? You underestimate the abilities of the government. They have biological weapons, this means viruses of all sorts which can kill in all kinds of ways without a trace or shred of evidence so that it's completely deniable. The same legal authority which allows the government to conduct raids and trample free speech is the legal authority which allows them to assassinate American citizens. It's the law that if you are considered to be a terrorist, it's open season on you.

Once the government declares you fair game, they'll put the green light on you and whoever takes you out will become a millionaire. Fortunately it's still expensive for them to do this so they don't have the ability to kill millions of people, but it should be common knowledge that the US government has the power to assassinate American citizens.

The proof is here:
  http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2010/04/07/can-the-u-s-government-assassinate-u-s-citizens-based-on-secret-evidence/

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/04/07/assassinations

They've got a lot of catching up to do, 26% of land area on earth is used for grazing, not to mention an area almost as large to grow grains to feed cows. Large tracts of land are being dehydrated as water is pumped in from elsewhere to feed these cattle. It takes 7000lbs of water just to produce 7lbs of feedlot grain which in turn is sufficient to grow 1lb of beef.

The impact of the oil and automobile industries are small concerns in comparison. If you want to help the planet, eat less (ideally no) meat.

Fortunately you don't have to secure the entire area. You just have to secure safe transit lanes for merchant shipping.

This picture might be old, but it does illustrate the point. There are dozens of traffic lanes in the Indian Ocean, and if you secure one the pirates will attack the next. You can't expect to secure dozens of shipping lanes, each thousands of miles long.

Regarding your other post,

Yes. When the Somalis are willing to behave in the manner of civilized nations then they can have the same rights as those civilized nations. As long as they permit their citizens to commit crimes on the high seas they have no grounds to complain when we deny them access to those same seas.

I'd hardly call Somalia a nation. It's an area that's been in civil war for almost 20 years, there's about 30 groups struggling over control, their waters are being plundered by international fishing ships, and "in the coastal areas of war-ridden Somalia, piracy still is the only show in town, the only booming economy." (source)

Words like "nation" and "allowing" their "citizens" don't apply here. It's harder to survive there than most of us can imagine, and piracy is their one source of income.

If you won't take my word for it (and I sincerely hope you won't), I suggest you read this article, written by someone who spent the last 17 years covering the situation in Somalia, and knows what he's talking about.

According to the European Union’s Scientific Committee on Veterinary Measures Relating to Public Health, the use of six natural and artificial growth hormones in beef production poses a potential risk to human health.iii These six hormones include three which are naturally occurring—Oestradiol, Progesterone and Testosterone—and three which are synthetic—Zeranol, Trenbolone, and Melengestrol. The Committee also questioned whether hormone residues in the meat of "growth enhanced" animals and can disrupt human hormone balance, causing developmental problems, interfering with the reproductive system, and even leading to the development of breast, prostate or colon cancer.iv

Hormone imbalances are also a problem:

Diethylstilbestrol (DES) was one of the first hormones used to fatten feedlots. It was banned in 1979 after forty years of evidence that DES was cancer-causing. In its place, sex hormones, such as estradiol and progestins (synthetic forms of the naturally occurring hormone progesterone) have been implanted to virtually all feedlot cattle. The least hazardous way to administer hormones to animals is through an implant near the animals ear. Unfortunately, many farmers inject hormones directly into the muscle tissue that will be later used to make meat products. The only USDA-imposed requirement is that residue levels in meat must be less than one percent of the daily hormone production of children. This requirement is unenforceable because there is no USDA testing for hormone residues in meat. Furthermore, hormonal residues are not practically differentiable from natural hormones created by the cow's body. As a result, the use of hormones to boost meat production is completely unregulated.

Moreso, the impact of all this extra estrogen is having on people (especially men) is particularly worrying. Maybe meat is making today's boys a little soft.

The amount of estradiol in two hamburgers eaten in one day by an 8-year-old boy could increase his total hormone levels by as much as 10%, based on conservative assumptions, because young children have very low natural hormone levels. In real life, the situation may be much worse. An unpublicized random USDA survey of 32 large feedlots found that as many as half the cattle had visible illegal "misplaced implants" in muscle, rather than under ear skin. This would result in very high local concentrations of hormones, and also elevated levels in muscle meat at distant sites. Such abuse is very hard to detect.

Given that a tiny proportion of cows actually slaughtered for sale of their parts have actually eaten grass in their lives, they are also full of all sorts of pesticides, dioxins in the fatty tissue being one particularly nasty result. These mutants don't eat eat grass, as their ancestors have, but corn, soya beans and oats. 70% of all grains grown in the U.S are fed to animals to turn into tissue which is then eaten. A highly inefficient and environmentally costly source of proteins.

Like it or not, any non-grass-grown meat is pretty much poisonous. Sadly grass grown meat is such a tiny proportion of meat eaten as it's just not a market-competitive means of production. It's all hormones, antibiotics and a high protein diet for the animals that are eaten these days. Any vet will tell you we're eating very sick beasts.

Even we Europeans are not safe - most of the meat eaten here is raised on imported grains. Farmers have a practice of putting a f

Stuff like this, from June 1999 (six months before):

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,991216,00.html

This patent is worthless. Shame on the USPTO for ever granting it.

http://2007-08.archives.ebudget.ca.gov/BudgetSummary/SUM/1249561.html

California spends 10,000,000,000 dollars or so a year for prisons

http://nicic.gov/Library/021777

Says 20% of males are in prison for drug related offences, 30% of females but as im rounding the hell outta some numbers im not going to include them as women only account for 7% of the overall population in prison

20% of 10 billion? 2 billion

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1884956,00.html

Says California's Pot Crop is worth around 14 billion
The estimate the tax will bring in another 1.3 billion per year

3.3 billion

The current budget deficit in california is 19.1 billion

So legalizing weed could see an impact as much as 1/6 of the deficit.

That doesnt take into account that all of those prisoners will be consuming, working, and paying taxes.
Or it could help with the litigation expenses for the prison overcrowding lawsuits that the state is paying for.. all the way to the supreme court

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2010/0614/Supreme-Court-to-hear-California-prison-overcrowding-case

People sitting in jail are a BIG reason that California is having difficulty.. I mean 150,000 people sitting in facilites designed for 80,000 people costs alot of money.. guards.. food.. clothing.. electricity.. medical.. mental health.. dental.. courts.. parole boards.. probation officers.. electronic monitoring.. they all cost money..

Approximately 70% of the American population lives in 1% of it's landmass, which I believe is about 100 metro areas. We are not a rural nation, and haven't been for some time. (Here's an article that says 80% of the population lives within metro areas.)

Norway and Sweden have similar population clusters and sparse country areas, and they have near universal broadband coverage, both wired and wireless. The difference is that they spend more money on investing in infrastructure and less on maintaining an overseas empire and a police state.

As far as average population density, America has 83 people per square mile, Norway has 32 per square mile, and Sweden has 53 per square mile.

It's a failure of vision, investment, and will. It has nothing to do with population density.

I'm guessing that most of the intelligent, technically knowledgeable people have left Microsoft. So now non-technical employees are pretending to run a technological company. It's worth it to them to put a lot of effort into pretending that they are doing a good job, because they would not be paid as much somewhere else.

One indication that the smart people have left is when a company brings out a new version of software, and the big change is in the menus. Menu changes are something people who don't care about technology can do.

There have been a lot of technological embarrassments at Microsoft in recent years. An obvious patent is just one of them.

(The Microsoft Vista operating system was, it is said, not a failure, but an intentional method of getting people to pay for two operating systems, by deliberately releasing an unfinished one.)

I'm guessing that most of the intelligent, technically knowledgeable people have left Microsoft. So now non-technical employees are pretending to run a technological company. It's worth it to them to put a lot of effort into pretending that they are doing a good job, because they would not be paid as much somewhere else.

One indication that the smart people have left is when a company brings out a new version of software, and the big change is in the menus. Menu changes are something people who don't care about technology can do.

There have been a lot of technological embarrassments at Microsoft in recent years. An obvious patent is just one of them.

(The Microsoft Vista operating system was, it is said, not a failure, but an intentional method of getting people to pay for two operating systems, by deliberately releasing an unfinished one.)

They don't let banks cheat and collapse the country like in the US where everyone must get the latest HDTV, big cars and just spend money on non-important items and entertainment.

Lol. Just because you aren't aware of the problems doesn't mean they don't exist. For example, the housing market in China has tripled prices over the last 5 years. The details aren't identical to the US (and European) problems, but they've still got problems. Plus, you can expect the one-child policy to have a massive impact as their workforce ages and there are only half as many people in the next generation to support them - think US social-security's problems to the 10th.

No, the battle is GM vs non-GM. I will not buy GM food. Nor will many other people. How about this, have GM food labeled then see how many people buy it. Companies like Monsanto fight attempts to require labeling.

The push for profit has given us radical increase in agricultural yield over the past 80 years

One, for most of those 80 years foreign genes were not inserted into plants. Two, more than one thing accounts for increases in yield, And three, a lack of food is not the problem. The problems are political and armed conflicts. With neoliberal policies yields only went up modestly. Here's a story about millions of metric tons of wheat rotting away in a warehouse in India. Another one says how the supply chain is messed up, "Industry experts estimate more than 30% of all fresh produce is lost or spoils before it reaches the market." Many more stories like these can be found. How about in Africa? In the Democratic Republic of Congo looting of crops by armed groups and general insecurity has undermined farming. Or take Zimbabwe. Before Robert Mugabe came to power the country was a bread basket for southern Africa, ie a net food exporter. Food was the one of the biggest if not the biggest cash earner for Zimbabwe. After he came to power he forced white farmers off the farms then gave the land to his cronies, who do not know how to farm. Now Zimbabwe does not grow enough food for its own population.

Quite simply GM will not "fix" the problem of too little food. There's plenty of food so genetic engineering is not needed. To go further Infrastructure: The new gold explains how infrastructure is part of the problem. It blames the rotting food in India on the "country's creaky infrastructure".

Falcon

The Telegraph - 2nd March
New Scientist - 2nd March
Fox News - 2nd March
Popsci - 3rd March
Huffington Post - 2nd March
The Economist - 22nd April
The Daily Mail - 2nd March
Time - 10th March

Etc etc.

It worked for Prince.

From the linked article:

Prince was reportedly paid $500,000 over and above the royalties for each CD — typically around 10%. Considering that his last album, 3121, sold only 80,000 copies in the U.K., this deal may have earned him more than eight times as much.

Wages have been rising in China, for those who have a job, but unemployment is off the charts in China's old industrial rust belt (20% or higher - it's hard to get accurate statistics out of the Chinese government). Here's an article from a few years back:

http://www.time.com/time/asia/covers/1101020617/cover.html

It's not clear to me if rising wages in China have offset the loss in jobs. Costs are also rising fast in China. Essential commodities like food and fuel have become much more expensive in the past decade, which is crippling to the poor - especially rural peasants, given that well north of 20% of them don't have a job. If your wages go up by $10 a month but your costs go up by $15, and half your family is unemployed, you aren't exactly better off.

Right now the real urban unemployment rate in China is sitting at around 9.5% (the government figures are closer to 5%, but nobody believes those).

The global free trade bandwagon has been great for the wealthy, especially bankers. A tiny middle class gets to feed off their crumbs, and it's looking more and more like starvation for everybody else. We've seen this story before, and the ending is never pretty, but the free trade "let them eat cake" crowd never learns from its mistakes until their heads start bouncing off the cobblestones.

slashdot has exactly zero stuff that needs encrypting. Yes, including slashdot login/password details.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano wants to monitor everything you read so she can ascertain if you are the sort of person who is likely to go on a shooting spree.

"The First Amendment protects radical opinions, but we need the legal tools to do things like monitor the recruitment of terrorists via the Internet," Napolitano told a gathering of the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy.

Underscoring her comments are a number of recent terror attacks over the past year where legal U.S. residents such as Times Square bombing suspect Faisal Shahzad and accused Fort Hood, Texas, shooter Maj. Nidal Hasan, are believed to have been inspired by the Internet postings of violent Islamic extremists.

but apparently it's a deadly neurotoxin.

And here like sheep we simply drink it. Well I don't, I have an reverse osmosis water filter.

What does he have to say about earthquake prediction? "Everyone knows that you can't predict earthquakes."

Case closed?

Very entertaining. I don't know why you're taking medical advice from a physicist though.

NYU - Langone Medical Center
http://www.med.nyu.edu/patientcare/library/article.html?ChunkIID=94085

Children who lived less than 200 meters away from a high voltage power line at birth were 70% more likely to develop leukemia than children who lived more 600 meters away at birth. Children who lived between 200 and 599 meters away from a high voltage power line at birth were 23% more likely to develop leukemia than children who lived more than 600 meters away.

Dr. David Carpenter, MD, Director of the Institute for Health and the Environment at University at Albany, SUNY
(Dr. Carpenter is a public health physician trained at Harvard Medical School and Director of the Institute for Health and the Environment at the State University of New York at Albany)
http://weeksmd.com/?p=3226

There is definitive scientific evidence that exposure to magnetic fields from power lines greater than 4 milligauss (a level significantly less that what is expected to occur near this proposed power line) is associated with an elevated risk of childhood leukemia. Some scientific research indicates an elevated risk at levels of 2 milligauss. A home not near a power line will usually have a level of less than 1 milligauss.

University of Oxford and National Grid owners, Transco
(note: Transco would have an interest to find no correlation between power lines and any ill effects)
http://www.powerlinefacts.com/large_study_links_power_lines_to_leukemia.htm

Comparing the children who had cancer with a control group of 29,000 children without cancer but who lived in comparable districts, found that children whose birth address was within 200 metres of an overhead power line had a 70% increased risk of leukemia. Children living 200 to 600 m away from power lines had a 20% increased risk.

Time Magazine
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,158193,00.html

One of the most telling results was that the cancer risk grew in proportion to the strength of the electromagnetic field. Children with constant exposure to the weakest fields, calculated at less than 1 milligauss (about the same that a coffee maker generates when it is brewing), had the lowest incidence of cancer. Those exposed to fields of 2 milligauss showed a threefold increase in their risk, while children exposed to 3 milligauss showed a fourfold increase in the risk of leukemia. Such a clear progression makes it difficult to argue that factors other than exposure to the electromagnetic field were responsible for the extra cases of leukemia.

The Straight Dope
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2699/electrifying

I'll say this, though. Evidence for a link between EMF exposure and childhood leukemia turns up just often enough that it can't be entirely dismissed.

Best snippet from the Time article linked to in the first of your WSJ articles:

The researcher had said that a "disastrous" earthquake would strike on March 29, but when it didn't, Guido Bertolaso, head of Italy's Civil Protection Agency, officially denounced Giuliani in court last week for "false alarm." "These imbeciles enjoy spreading false news," Bertolaso was quoted as saying. "Everyone knows that you can't predict earthquakes."

Priceless.

I don't watch Glenn Beck. I didn't realize Obamacare is a dirty word now, that's what a lot of people call it:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20007679-503544.html
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1914973,00.html
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124208383695408513.html ...

Violent football hooliganism is primarily an English rather than specifically a German tradition.

O Rly?

http://www.buzzle.com/articles/117669.html

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,646723,00.html

http://sports.yahoo.com/soccer/news?slug=ap-serbia-fanviolence

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id=406446&cc=5739

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1565414,00.html

http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKL1369951620070313

http://sfcu.com.au/smf111/index.php?topic=5427.175;wap2

Cut the "holier than thou" bullshit.

"the comments read "fascinating future" "imagination" "great stuff" etc. "

I guess I missed those comments, I saw spooky, porn and banned from theaters.

Seems more like a publicity stunt from a no name film maker... sorry there's no link, I couldn't find him on IMDB, unless he's this Robert Spence who's earned such illustrious titles as "additional assistant production office coordinator" in recent years (is that the assistant to the assistant to the coordinator?)

We all have cellphones, we've all see how teeny-tiny the camera chips can be (head of a pen) and pair that with wifi that fits in a SD card and your favor power source and you're done. Not really newest worthy, certainly not best invention of 2009.

Now if he could actually see with this device that'd be different, that's a bionic eye, but all he did was replace his false eye with a small streaming webcam. That's not a bionic eye anymore than a false arm with a webcam is a bionic arm.

If Medicare sucks so bad, why aren't you on private insurance and off of Medicare entirely?

I wish I were on private health insurance but there is no free market in it. Government has been interfering with the markets for many years. As for me being on Medicare, I never did apply for it, first my mother did then my sister did. My mother did while I was in a coma, and my sister did after the last private insurance I had lapsed. Instead of reapplying for private insurance my sister, who controls most of my finances, applied for Medicare.

Hell, I'd love to get the same tax breaks employers get for offering insurance to employees as well as being able to cross state lines to buy insurance. But I like nobody does get those tax deductions, nor can they cross state lines.

The only logical answer is, Medicare is better.

Remove government inference in the market and that will no longer be true.

As for a national market, the problem there is insurance companies competing for all the healthy patients who **don't need** health care - because they're the cheapest for the companies - and charging so much for people who might need it that the needy can't afford it.

All that requires to be fixed is a law saying "No insurance may disallow pre-existing conditions". That's 6 words whereas the health care bills Obama signed were a thousand tymes as many pages. Add "No insurance issuer may drop a person from coverage due to an injury or illness." Fifteen more words. I could keep going yet use only 1 page of paper.

This is why a free market is great for things we can live without, but terrible for things we need to live

We, the USA, has not had a free market in health insurance since World War II. I dare you to try to prove me wrong. You'll have to go before World War II as explained by The Real Health Care Radicals to find a free market in health insurance. During WWII government the federal government passed wage and price control laws, the Office of Price Administration was created, by executive order, in 1941 to control prices and rent. These laws made it illegal for employers to give employees raises in pay. However because these laws made it hard for employers to hire and keep employees employers started offering benefits such as health insurance. Government then gave those employers tax deductions, but government did not give people who bought their own insurance the same tax deductions. That is a massive interference in the market.

Falcon

When is the last time you heard anyone calling for murder of Jews

Documentary on the British National Party. The speaker was white and British.

Back in the day calling for the murder of Jews was quite the fashion amongst certain circles of European Christians - remember "Why should we not get rid of these parasites [Jews] who suck Rumanian Christian blood? It is logical and holy to react against them." There were Christian militias in WWII that carried out terrible pogroms, killing thousands of Jews at a time. If you're going to argue that Christianity is a peaceful religion, then the treatment of the Jews isn't exactly a great example to use.

or demonstrating to kill a book author, a colmunist or a cartoonist?

Author Philip Pullman received threats from militant Christians a couple of months ago.

Do you remember the arson attack on the Saint Michel theater in Paris when it showed The Last Temptation of Christ in 1988? Many people ended up in hospital. There were Christians all over the world calling for the film to be banned. Muslims hardly have a monopoly on calls for censorship.