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Can you believe this:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1 101030519-450997,00.html

Can you believe this -

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1 101030519-450997,00.html

Can you believe that CNN's front page has link to this article on TIME magazine's website:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1 101030519-450997,00.html

1. If they weren't U.S. citizens, how could they have been eligible in the first place?

2. Half of the people who were removed from the rolls were caucasian, take whatever you like from that.

3. Many of the people had no criminal records.

4. Take a look. Apparently it was more important to get the felons off the rolls than to allow the innocent to exercise their franchise. Seems kinda backwards in the land of "guilty until proven innocent."

Along with all the military votes thrown out by LePore and the rest of the crooked Democrats, it's just more AlGore dishonesty.

No more crooked than letting party workers to prepare absentee ballots before they go out, and error check them when they come back in. Everyone in that election was dirty, and insisting the rules be followed to the letter is better than tweaking ballots once they've come back in.

This never would have been an issue if AlGore hadn't pissed on the Greens over the Florida Everglades, or even if he had won his home states of Tennessee or Arkansas.

Not sure what you mean regarding the first case. The main issue for the Greens was the attempt to get 5% of the national vote in order to qualify for federal election money.

And overall, no matter who you believe should have won, you miss the point of the article. The election system is already creaky, and adding more bells and whistles to it is only going to make it even harder work towards making it honest.

<ad hominem attack gleefully snipped>

Can you focus and read this on time magazine and then answer all the questions correctly at the end on third page without looking back ?

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1 101030519-450997,00.html

The Oily Americans !!

Why the world doesn't trust the U.S. about petroleum: A history of meddling
By DONALD L. BARLETT AND JAMES B. STEELE
Monday, May. 12, 2003

(on TIME.com)

For more than a half-century, American foreign policy dealing with oil has typically been manipulative and misguided, often both at the same time. The pattern of intrigue has ranged from U.S. officials' secretly writing tax laws in the 1950s (so the Saudi royal family could collect more money from the sale of its oil and American companies could write off the added payments on their tax returns) to overthrowing a government that showed too much independence in handling its oil sales. To illustrate the dark side of American oil policy, we offer two tales, stitched together from declassified government documents and oil-industry memos, involving a pair of Iraq's neighbors, Iran and Afghanistan.

READ THE REST OF THIS STORY HERE - TIME.com: The Oily Americans

The Oily Americans

Why the world doesn't trust the U.S. about petroleum: A history of meddling
By DONALD L. BARLETT AND JAMES B. STEELE
Monday, May. 12, 2003

(on TIME.com)

For more than a half-century, American foreign policy dealing with oil has typically been manipulative and misguided, often both at the same time. The pattern of intrigue has ranged from U.S. officials' secretly writing tax laws in the 1950s (so the Saudi royal family could collect more money from the sale of its oil and American companies could write off the added payments on their tax returns) to overthrowing a government that showed too much independence in handling its oil sales. To illustrate the dark side of American oil policy, we offer two tales, stitched together from declassified government documents and oil-industry memos, involving a pair of Iraq's neighbors, Iran and Afghanistan.

READ THE REST OF THIS STORY HERE.. TIME.com: The Oily Americans

I can understand this for a startup company, as long as the company quickly moves to start covering the costs of its labor. But in the case of a wealthy organization, this means that the wealthy organization just *chooses* not to give economic justice. More for me, nothing for you.

I have been seeing this more and more, and it is part of what ails America. It comes from the move to give more to the investors, and comes from the blinds that are provided by corporate coverage, in which the investors can't see the plight of their workers.

But let me point out the results of economic injustice: if there is economic injustice, then the victim's investments remain unpaid, and in that case, it does not pay for the victim to invest!

In the case of inventors who can't afford to patent and defend their inventions, because the patent system only benefits wealthy corporations, the proper response is to not devote effort to inventing.

In the case where your compensation is not based upon justice, it does not pay to invest in an education that will make you a more valuable employee.

In the case where businesses are taxed to death, so that other businesses can recieve lucrative government contracts, it does not pay to start a business and help the economy: it pays to work your own garden instead.

In the case where individuals are taxed to death, to pay for more tax collectors, the farmer's strategy doesn't pay -- only the highway robber's strategy pays. If you want to see what this is like, look at Congo/Zaire.

If you think it is getting bad, and the problem is the government, then tell the government. If you don't think they'll listen, then it's better to leave, and find a better place.

Here's How.

If you think it is getting bad, and the problem is the people (yeah, they're all good people, they just, well, you can depend on them to do really evil things), then it's doubly important to find a better group of people.

Here's a hint.

If worst comes to worst, duck, cover the ones you love as well as possible, stay out of the way of wars as much as possible, and try to live with as much justice and charity as possible.

But the bible is absolutely right: when we choose to withhold a man's wages, we commit violence. When we choose economic theft as a regular diet, we commit murder. And we recreate our world to become a horror. Our spiritual failings definitely bring physical problems and death.

Just my two cents. That's all.

Time magazine put a review on their website, that supposedly spoils the ending.

DO NOT CLICK ON THIS LINK IF YOU DO WANT THE ENDING SPOILED

Matrix spoiler

Watch out for spoilers -- there's a multi-page section discussing the plot which is well-marked with warnings.

Now where did I put my wooden teeth... ?

if you read the Time article - it is clear. Apple is going to lead the way. Just not in 48 hours.

TIME: What about independent labels? Will they follow suit?

Jobs: Yes. They've already been calling us like crazy. We've had to put most of them off until after launch just because the big five have most of the music, and we only had so many hours in the day. But now we're really going to have time to focus on a lot of the independents and that will be really great.

There is no moral dilemma... unless Apple sold the soul of iTMS and their deal stipluated "no indie music" - then I'm planning on taking Jobs at his word.

I also assume that what they did for music buying, they'll do for music selling... that there will be some simple, easy to use interface for musicians to put their stuff on iTMS which will be fair and a fair price.

Apple is going to be one of the largest music labels out there... and i bet it will happen very soon - can you say Apple Records?

Better yet, they should go by the label name "Sosumi Records".

check this out from a time article

"TIME: What about independent labels? Will they follow suit?

Jobs: Yes. They've already been calling us like crazy. We've had to put most of them off until after launch just because the big five have most of the music, and we only had so many hours in the day. But now we're really going to have time to focus on a lot of the independents and that will be really great. "

here is the article.

THE ARTICLE

From This Time Magazine interview with Steve Jobs TIME: What about independent labels? Will they follow suit? Jobs: Yes. They've already been calling us like crazy. We've had to put most of them off until after launch just because the big five have most of the music, and we only had so many hours in the day. But now we're really going to have time to focus on a lot of the independents and that will be really great.

Apple may very well succeed because of the low investment necessary...

Not that low of an investmet at all, actually. According to this interview:

TIME: Can you say anything about [Music Store's] development costs or Apple's investment?

Jobs: I had somebody comment today, "Now that you have introduced your store, do you expect a lot others?" And I guess our answer is no. This is really hard. Over the last several years we've created an infrastructure to pump oceans of bits out in the world for movie trailers and stuff, and that's tens of millions of dollars for server farms and networking farms ? it's huge ? and we've already got that in place. And to have millions of transactions, and to get our online store all tied into SAP and have the auditors bless it, that's tens of millions of dollars. We have one-click shopping, only us and Amazon have that, and then to make a jukebox ? how much does it cost to make iTunes and make it popular? A lot! But we've got that. And then iPod, if you want to make an iPod, what does that cost? Well, nobody has done it but us, people have tried, but they haven't even come close. That's a lot of money. So we've already made these investments and we can leverage them. And then we've invested more on top of that to make a store. But to recreate this, it's tens of millions of dollars and years. That's why I don't think this is going to be so easy to copy.

after playing around with it, my real complaint was how there wasn't much music that i didn't have, or else didn't have anyone who i was looking for..
then i read this interview with steve which gave me something to look forward too once the indie labels get on there..

don't worry, apple is working on adding independent artists
you can check the article here, towards the bottom, third from last question

I know of a guy who would have loved that kind of news.. a couple years ago.

Michael Moore is a loud mouth liar who is himself, the fear mongering media he encourages everyone to despise.

Moore isn't a liberal. He's "moore" likely to be a republican mole. He should move out of his 1.2 million dollar Manhattan apartment and get out of the country and away from the people he hates so much. Ofcourse he won't because Moore really doesn't care about what he preaches. Moore only cares about getting attention to feed his ego. Guess who once said "My biggest failing is that I have absolutely no ego"?

Truth about columbine:

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.a sp?ID=6841

http://www.atomiq.org/archives/000524.html

http://www.opinionjournal.com/forms/printThis.html ?id=110003233

http://www.spinsanity.org/columns/20021119.html

http://www.time.com/time/columnist/printout/0,8816 ,436268,00.html

http://www.hollywoodhalfwits.com/michaelmoore/inde x.shtm

http://www.moorewatch.com/index.php

http://www.coxandforkum.com/archives/000037.html

Cars are cool, no doubt about it, but instead of Firebird how about Mad Dog, Mogen David, or Night Train?

Drink up!

Mmm... a uniformed girl with an assault rifle. Sexy...

A story here about the Russian Concorde.

I'll ignore the last flame-bait-ing sentence, but I think it's quite apparent that the Chinese have fuddled with information. The first cases apparently came out in November in Guandong, but it appears to me that the first reports came only out of Hong Kong, which, unlike the mainland, has a thriving free media.

The Chinese government, apparently, is still under-reporting the number of people affected.

Now, it must be said that it's quite possible that the Chinese government might think it's doing the right thing in not disclosing completely, and certainly, it has apparently given the fullest co-operation to the WHO, but we can't avoid the fact that SARS infection rates have been under-reported and withheld from the outside world. Symptomatic, I'd say, of the oh-what-will-the-outside-world-think-about-us mentality that most governments in Asia, including India, Singapore, Malaysia, Pakistan, Indonesia to name a few, share. All these governments have, on earlier ocassions, done similar subterfuge, although not necessarily with respect to information on SARS.

Time Magazine Asia Edition

This isn't like the AIDS epidemic, which has had governments all over the world making terrible missteps, in a slowly unfolding saga of policy horrors with no strong correlation to political system.

China *may* prove to be significantly at fault here, in failing to acknowledge and contain the epidemic in its very earliest hours, in strict contrast to the rest of the civilized world.

This is potentially much more significant than Chernobyl in relation to body count. Very few deaths can be connected to Russia's coverup of Chernobyl. While Chernobyl is widely considered as a critical turning point in the last days of the USSR, Russia's denials led mainly to delayed administration of Iodine to prevent Thyroid Cancer in Ukraine, the Baltics, Poland and Skandinavia -- not a massive body count.

It is more a question of striking intense fear in the populace.

Does anyone want to deny Asia is in a panic over SARS?

Depending on its spread, far more people could conceivably die from SARS (even given its posited low death rate) in one year than AIDS, even twenty years into the AIDS epidemic.

Chinese government is not exactly The cooperating with the investigations.

Looking for more to support your theory I found articles from USA Today, Time, and IOCOM.

USA Today also has a link to a very nice graphical representation of the sensor failures.

The Time article interestingly describes what the final moments may have been like on board for the astronauts. It appears there was another 2 Sec burst of data after contact was lost. Time states, "For 5 sec. after that, only computer data streamed down, and then all contact was lost. Finally, 25 sec. later, the ship crackled back online for just 2 sec., but the data packed into that brief burst told a chilling tale. According to the readings, the ship was in a flat, counterclockwise spin, moving at 20 per second, meaning it would complete a full rotation in 18 sec. Actually, Columbia was probably twirling faster than that, but 20 per second is as much as its systems could record, given that that's more than the ship could take. The data also suggest that Husband switched the spacecraft from autopilot to manual, evidently fighting to stabilize his spacecraft. There was no "Oh, shoot" this time."

IOCOM's FAQ is pack full of info. I have not had a chance to read it completely, but it does contain dialog that does mention "we bumped the stick earlier".

I have to agree with you that this may be one of the many things that when looked at alone would not have caused a catastrophic failure. I am very interested in what the final findings will be.

Yet fooling the press and the anti-scientific does not fact make. Those who dispute global warming are like Flat Earth types and creationists, rallying around fallacy and refusing to consider facts they find inconvenient. It's all Cargo Cult Science.

Some /. readers are probably adept enough at math to review the raw data and decide for themselves: solar irradiance data has been tracked and known for many years and is built into climate models that show, unequivocally, the consequences of human induced climate change. Even Bush finally admitted it.

Will the earth survive such changes? Of course it will. Will the human race survive? Probably. Will the long term cost of continuing to burn fossil fuels exceed the short term cost of switching to low carbon-load alternatives? Almost certainly.

But when evaluating the arguments of anti-environmentalists, which seem so utterly out of sync with even basic science, one must remember that, like their spiritual mentor James Watt, those that believe that Armageddon is around the corner will do nothing to protect the rights of future generations.

Roadmap for War on Iraq and the New American Empire brought to by:

Elliott Abrams , Gary Bauer
William J. Bennett, Jeb Bush
Dick Cheney , Eliot A. Cohen
Midge Decter, Paula Dobriansky
Steve Forbes , Aaron Friedberg
Francis Fukuyama, Frank Gaffney
Fred C. Ikle, Donald Kagan
Zalmay Khalilzad, I. Lewis Libby
Norman Podhoretz, Dan Quayle
Peter W. Rodman, Stephen P. Rosen, Henry S. Rowen
Donald Rumsfeld , Vin Weber, George Weigel, Paul Wolfowitz

xyzzyxyzzyxyzzyxyzzyxyzzyxyzzyxyzzyxyzzyxyzzy

That's a contextual definition. There's no law that says that must be true.

Using this, some people define the purpose the the media as Entertainment and/or cash cow.

I'd like to see more accountability and professionalism in broadcasting.

So would I.

• Easterbrook's recent TIME article
  
• Easterbrook's 1980 article...
  
• A rebuttal of the Easterbrook article
  

That's right, the Yankees Eat Shit network. Now I don't have to fight gridlock to go to a game I have no interest in, the cable company's being strongarmed to send the game to me!

"We should be deluding neither ourselves nor the American people that there is any way the FBI, despite the various improvements you are implementing, will be able to stem the flood of terrorism that will likely head our way in the wake of an attack on Iraq."

There have been quite a few lone wolves in history who have made important discoveries. (Farnsworth and TV for example). Though the article states specifically that this happens less nowadays, I don't think if some individual makes an important discovery on his or her own that it should be greeted with so much skepticism that it's just discounted sight unseen.

Which Country poses the greatest Threat to World Peace?

Here

So far,

546808 votes,
North Korea 5.8%,
Iraq 6.9%
The United States 87.3%

Have your say!

Well that would, of course, depend on how much bandwith is running to said server now wouldn't it? =)

Found some nice info (good old google) on said Supercomputer though since the sites linked article didn't have much.

A Time Article on The Earth Simulator

Top 500 page on Earth Simulator

NEC page on the Earth Simulator

Google Translated Powerpoint presentation on the Earth Simulator

A snippet(s) of info:
"Based on the NEC SX architecture, 640 nodes, each node with 8 vector processors (8 Gflop/s peak per processor), 2 ns cycle time, 16GB shared memory. Total of 5120 total processors, 40 TFlop/s peak, and 10 TB memory. "

"Earth Simulator's processors are one-chip LSIs fabricated with 0.15 micron CMOS process and copper wiring. Highly optimized software and high-speed networks that pump massive amounts of data through 7.8TB/s bandwidth connecting the 640 processing nodes are key to the amazing efficiency of Earth Simulator."

*sigh* I searched, and I've thrown the magazine away in the move.

It might be this article, which could not have originated in an October issue of FOCUS, since it's in July. Sadly, I've cut up all my credit cards for the time being, and they don't accept PayPal.
http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/from_sear ch/0,10987,1101950605-134241,00.html

IPv6 is an attempt to return to the principles that gave the internet it's growth and democracy in the beginning:

Dumb network, smart edges.

When IPv4 was designed, there was no plan for exponential user growth outside of military/R&D/education. If there had been, addresses would've been 48+ bits from 1980 onward.

The failing with pre-existing networks which IP was meant to surmount is that the interior of the network was too intelligent. That sounds like a good thing, but it means that the network as a whole is less flexible- the inner nodes (routers) cannot be easily upgraded to support new applications and features. Under IP, all interesting computers are into hosts on the edge of the network. Each can be upgraded by an end-user, without supplication to the network templars- be they Bell Atlantic frame relay technicians, or Novell NOS admins. Those smart edges are served by a dumb cloud- the rest of the network just passes data from one place to another, without translating or modifying it in anyway. In the past, network application growth was slowed because users couldn't easily tell what was going on inside the cloud. IP made the cloud's job boring, so that you were no longer interested in seeing what went on there.

That change triggered the explosive growth of computer networks until they combined into the shared entity we all know and love.

NAT betrays this heritage

NAT boxes move intelligence back into the cloud- instead of IP packets being routed to the desired host and no other, there are now entities hidden in the cloud which waylay your packets. They seize them, pull them apart, inspect their innards- then, maybe, they'll deign to alter the packet and send it along further.

The damage isn't just a theoretical one- real end-users are being held back by NAT and other violations of the IP promise. New applications which would be easier to deploy with real per-host addressing are difficult or impossible to install reliably. This is things like high-speed game servers, file/web servers, P2P clients, cheap VOIP, videoconferencing, VPN, and prehaps things that haven't been invented yet.

The internet should be about giving power to the users on its edges. IPv6 would encourage that, but NAT hinders it. There are forces who don't want to empower users- major content providers and big ISPs. (Which may be the same thing). Fearful of losing control of mass audience's entertainment patterns, they want to keep mass creativity centralized. AOL doesn't want users to download ClickNRun IRC-like servers to create TeenTalkDaytonville chatrooms, they want to sell them as a value added service. Time Warner doesn't want 100s of cheap FTP servers passing out free copies of 56 year old TV shows (which by rights are public domain), they want you to wait for the DVD or PPV options.

The desire exists. A chicken in every pot, and permanent IP address in every study! The powers that be are fearful, though. The existing entertainment/datacomm oligopoly was harmed enough by the Internet. End-users sharing data amoung themselves could ruin them- but the exhaustion of IP addresses provided an excuse to keep end-users cordoned off from the real internet. They could download, but not serve files- as long as the people remain "consumers", the corporations can keep them under control.

NAT boxes bring the internet a tiny bit back towards the shape of traditional TV and telephone networks, which is just how big business likes it.

From near the end of the article:

"It raises a lot of serious concerns and is troubling as a generic matter that they have gotten this far along and tell people that there is nothing in the works. What that suggests is that they're waiting for a propitious time to introduce it, which might well be when a war is begun. At that time there would be less opportunity for discussion and they'll have a much stronger hand in saying that they need these right away."

This has been the tactic of the Bush administration from the very beginning - control and timing of information to maximize spin and reduce adverse effects on the administration's goals. Yes, other administrations have done this, but this one has an incredible mastery of it. Or are we just not paying attention? The author of this article "gets it."

I've got a hundred dollar bill that says that, even though we've already seen the first drafts of what they propose, it won't be sent to lawmakers until the war starts... or ends. And there is going to be a war, Bush needs it to prop up his approval ratings. And he has to have it now, Next year will be too close to the election.

If it started next year and dragged on into the time of the elections, it could be a benefit for him as the people don't usually like to change administrations in the middle of a war. But if it went badly, there wouldn't be enough time to spin it positively before the election. But this year is perfect. If it goes well, he will be "the war-time president that kept us safe from those dirty terrorists." If it goes badly, the people will forget or at least the emotional intensity about it will fade by election time. (BTW, regards the 'dirty terrorists' issue, there was a poll conducted (not by salon, but by the Princeton Survey Research Associates) that said that 50% of the American public believed that one or more of the 9/11 hijackers was an Iraqi, 33% didn't answer and only 17% knew the truth that none were. - That's how well the spin and disinformation works.)

The chief architect of the administration's PR, spin and disinformation organization is Karl Rove, one of the members of Richard Nixon's dirty tricks squad and a long-time political strategist who has been a consultant on many campaigns over the years. There is a good article here that describes Rove's tactics.

The key points of this strategy are:

Use whatever excuse is available at the time to justify the administration's long-term ideological agenda. That's what we're talking about here.

Count on the American public's (and the media's) inability to remember anything from one year to the next. Ok, pop quiz. Who remembers that in the debates Bush said that the military should not be used for 'nation building'? Sort of like what we're doing in Afghanistan and about to do in Iraq?

Keep everything under wraps. J. H. Hatfield's book Fortunate Son - The Making of an American President (70,000+ copies of the uncomplimentary biography suggesting Bush's cocaine conviction were recalled by the publisher and shredded at the reqest of the Bush campaign. Hatfield himself turned up dead a few months later. I had a helluva time finding any information on that. The book is still available here but it's not on the newsstands or in bookstores.) Dick Cheney's energy task force - the court has ordered him to turn over the list of the attendees (not even the notes) and the administration is still fighting it. Not a document has been produced yet. Just the list of attendees eems sort of innocuous, doesn't it? Jose Padilla, the 'dirty bomber'? (See more below on this.)

Cut embarrassing players loose and pretend they're exceptions. Harvey Pitt resigning on the eve of the election. Trent Lott stepping down as Senate majority leader after failing to get the backing of the White House.

And as an example of the biggest threat to our hard-fought constitutional rights, does anyone remember the "dirty bomber" Jose Padilla? He had been in custody for some time before Ashcroft announced his alleged activities and his arrest. Ashcroft made the announcement on the day that FBI agent Coleen Rowley was scheduled to give a press conference to discuss her observation of failures in intelligence analysis that might have helped the FBI uncover the 9/11 hijacking plan. Without question, this was timed to steal the media attention from her press conference.

On the same day, the administration labeled Padilla an "enemy combatant" and had him moved from the civillian justice system (a New Jersey jail) to a military brig in North Carolina where he remains to this day with no contact from his attorney. His attorney has attempted to file a writ of habeus corpus on his behalf, but has been prevented from doing so because the writ must be signed by the defendent who she can't get in to see! (Sorry, it's realaudio but worth the listen) In effect, the administration has suspended habeus corpus, a 700 year legal tradition and one of the foundations (some say *the foundation*) of modern jurisprudence.

Many noble and honorable people have died to protect the freedoms that this administration is removing wholesale. The oft repeated Ben Franklin quote is right on the mark: The examples of Israel and Ireland have long proved that you can not "win a war on terrorism." And removing the very freedoms that the administration claims are the reason that the terrorists "hate us so much" results in a win for the terrorists. How about removing instead the real reasons that many in the Islamic world are opposed to the United States; forced exportation of our culture, religion and business interests to other countries through globalization and our interference in their affairs. The path we are on can only reduce our freedoms and turn more people of this Islamic world against us.

We need PATRIOT II like we need a damn hole in the head. I'm really concerned about the state of our constitutionally guaranteed freedoms in this country and I'm not sure who I should be more afraid of, George Bush, John Ashcroft or Karl Rove. I'm certainly more afraid of them than I am of terrorists.

Ok, I've got my Nomex undies on, flame away. But if you must, don't just label me a liberal, commie, pinko hippie, counter my logic or refute my facts. I'm not trying to be a troll, just covering my ass. :)

Microsoft has been losing the battle of the mobile phones, both in OS implementation for SmartPhones and in the specific browsers carried. If you look here or here, you can read further about the success Opera has been having in the field. Damaging the reputation of Opera, even in so petty, small and childish a manner, would help Microsoft in their eyes.

Not talking about the disaster here, but I can't imagine how they use up a budget of fifteen billion dollars, every year! That's $ 41.1 Million every day (well a bit less for 2004 because it has an extra day).. geez, that's 47.5 cents every millisecond.

A critic already claims the shuttle is too old and too expensive, but the management likes it that way because a cheaper shuttle means less money for the contractors.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A213 40-2003Feb3.html
http://slate.msn.com/id/2078104/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A167 19-2003Feb2.html
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/035/oped/Rebuild ing_the_dream_of_space_exploration+.shtml
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/editorial/17 63385
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/editorial/68231. htm
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,482-564534 ,00.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/03/opinion/03ALDR.h tml
http://www.msnbc.com/news/867640.asp?0cv=KB10
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Artic les/000/000/002/204pkfxj.asp
http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101030210/sctone. html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A134 74-2003Feb2.html
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/editorial/ 5086944.htm
http://www2.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/bev02 022003.htm

One more post in this regard from TIME

Also, it's interesting to look back at Feynman's analysis of the Challenger case.

Concluding quote from the doc: "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled"...

Although some of his arguments are not convincing or even insulting ("Did Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon really have to be there to push a couple of buttons..."), the article makes several important points. Here's one of them:

The emphasis now must be on designing an all-new system that is lower priced and reliable. And if human space flight stops for a decade while that happens, so be it. Once there is a cheaper and safer way to get people and cargo into orbit, talk of grand goals might become reality.

They need to cancel the shuttle program and replace it.

Here is an article from 1980

And here is an article from this same author this last weekend.

We all love the space program and grew up with it. But no significant science is being gained from continuing to send man into space. Having to send man into space is a cold-war relic of the space-race. And so for the cries "we need to send man back to the moon" or "we need to send man to mars" is looking for something for man to do in space, not accomplish science. Because that science can be accomplished with unmanned probes just as well.

I am not saying kill the space program. I am saying that a major reorganizing is appropriate. And I am not saying stop space science. I am saying that spending billions on continued shuttle flights and space station to achieve it is not justified and fiscally irresponsible. NASA would get far better science by increasing probes to the planets.

It's so irrelevant that the general public never notices the shuttle program unless there is a disaster. That was same in 1986 and its true this past weekend.

The statement by NASA administrator O'Keefe that "We will find out what is wrong, fix the problem, and continue flying" particularly saccharin. Is everybody's eyes so glassed over with the idea of a man in space that they are willing to go forward until this tragedy repeats itself for a third time, and another seven astronauts die?? What then? Is spider's spinning their webs and ants digging tunnels in weightlessness worth seven men dying? Doesn't the technology exist that this could be done on an ummanned rocket?

From a scientific perspective that NASA seems to sorely lack, the Space Shuttle is something that needs to be retired now.

The Tooth phone. I would just love to hear (arh arh) his take on it.

Actually, there's a fairly interesting piece up on the TIME website where they discuss the three most probable (in their opinion) causes for the crash. Their 3 leading suspicions are improper piloting leading to a roll which caused structural breakup, the heat tiles that fell of during launch, and the possibility that what little fuel is reserved for the maneuvering engines ignited somehow.

They also toss some juicy quotes like: "The shuttle was built as a space truck, and then the International Space Station was built to give it something to do. Both programs are likely to suffer as a result of this disaster. " and "it's unlikely that NASA will undertake any further shuttle missions or any other manned space flights for the next two years."

What makes you so sure? Time presents 3 possible explanations (by a TIME science correspondant, who presumably knows something), and his most likely theory is aerodynamic breakup due to a bad reentry roll.

Tom Peters, a respected management consultant wrote in Time Magazine that:

"I believe that 90% of white-collar jobs in the U.S. will be either destroyed or altered beyond recognition in the next 10 to 15 years. That's a catastrophic prediction, given that 90% of us are engaged in white-collar work of one sort or another. Even most manufacturing jobs these days are connected to such white-collar services as finance, human resources and engineering."

As he points out later in the article, there is a lot more political power in white-collar workers and there is potential of stronger anti-globalization sentiment as a result.

In any case, it is happening across the board today. My fortune 50 employer has stated that up to 40% of our engineering work will be "globalized" within 5 years.

As always though, continuing education, flexibility, and functional excellence will be key. Your only job security in the future will be your commitment to constant growth and a virtual global reputation for doing hi quality work.