Slashdot Mirror

Those guys are really Evil, they even use unlicensed software. Photo of computer screen of Bushehr nuclear power plant.

McDonald's loves suing business with Mc in the name. Oh, charities too.

http://www.upi.com/Business_News/2010/01/26/McDonalds-sues-teen-over-McFest/UPI-33901264537338/

• The high number of infections in Iran
• That the software was so complicated and targeted at very specific PLCs within a Siemens SCADA environment implying a particular installation was being targeted
• That the second point above in turn implied that a nation state that had acquired inside knowledge about the target was behind the worm, although which one wasn't even speculated at
• Bushehr was believed to have experienced some kind of technical issue within a suitable time frame

Assuming the screenshot and target of Stuxnet are both Bushehr, then I don't actually know which is worse; that someone would trust apparently pirated software to run a nuclear plant, or that someone would deliberately try to disrupt the operations of one...

I'm still having a problem with......why ANY nuclear reactor or power plant needs to be directly connected to a computer network. I can see it having say a USB port for upgrades of controller firmware but a network connection? Nope.

So you're saying that you can't see any use for having the two reactors on site both connected to the same control room? I mean, why the hell would people in one central location want to monitor both reactors at once, in real time, right? That's crazy!

What do you think, that when someone needs to shut down or modify the parameters of a reactor or centrifuge that they actually walk up to the component and hit a button on it? What if they need to start 100 centrifuges at the same time, do they have 100 technicians standing there all on a giant conference call waiting for the "go" signal? If they want to check the current core temps or fuel levels, what do they do, call each one and ask them what the gauge says? What the hell do you think all of this equipment is for:

http://www.upi.com/News_Photos/Features/The-Nuclear-Issue-in-Iran/1581/19/

What I'm saying is that there should be no "write access" from an outside network.

In fact I'll even go one further. Any computer system that is connected to the control circuitry of the reactor should have no connection whatsoever to ANY standard network. It should be isolated from both the internal desktops AND the outside. AND you shouldn't be able to put in any device like a USB drive or floppy without the reactor being shut down.

In the case of a central monitoring location install a second set of sensors that are in no way linked to the control systems. Minuscule money compared to the entire cost of the plant.

The consequences of getting this stuff wrong is just too nasty. This of course points me in the direction of wanting smaller PBR units instead of one big unit.

I'm still having a problem with......why ANY nuclear reactor or power plant needs to be directly connected to a computer network. I can see it having say a USB port for upgrades of controller firmware but a network connection? Nope.

So you're saying that you can't see any use for having the two reactors on site both connected to the same control room? I mean, why the hell would people in one central location want to monitor both reactors at once, in real time, right? That's crazy!

What do you think, that when someone needs to shut down or modify the parameters of a reactor or centrifuge that they actually walk up to the component and hit a button on it? What if they need to start 100 centrifuges at the same time, do they have 100 technicians standing there all on a giant conference call waiting for the "go" signal? If they want to check the current core temps or fuel levels, what do they do, call each one and ask them what the gauge says? What the hell do you think all of this equipment is for:

http://www.upi.com/News_Photos/Features/The-Nuclear-Issue-in-Iran/1581/19/

I know this is Idle, but still.

Newspapers: New York Times, Washington Post.

Tabloids: New York Post, Washington Times.

If this is a real story, is there a real paper carrying it somewhere?

Sort of, here's a United Press International feed: http://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2010/09/19/Immigrant-opossums-adapt-to-Brooklyn/UPI-90141284911712/

Yeah, they carve them into their foreheads and then claim they were assaulted.

If you read TFA, you would learn that he wrote many columns about many things, not just PowerPoint.

Also, do we want our Colonels on the payroll of UPI owners, the Unification Church, which is run by Sun Myung Moon? I guess we might say, who better? After all, Moon is coronated with the "Crown of Peace" and "is none other than humanity's Savior, Messiah, Returning Lord and True Parent" Did I mention his reincarnated son?

Ripping on UPI and Moon might seem OT, but you might think twice about anyone who associates with them (I'm looking at you Breitbart).

My concern about caving into the extremist Muslims on this issue is that it is it gives legitimacy to their viewpoint.... to the exclusion of any other viewpoint. The freedom of speech is something that is incredibly important to preserve, including preserving viewpoints that are on occasion distasteful and against your own viewpoint.

Their viewpoint has already been given legitimacy to. By Jews wanting to outlaw Hitler salutes, swastikas and even buildings that are swastika shaped. By think-of-the-children moralists who wants lolicon outlawed and the Virgin Killer album censored. By Chinese who successfully forces search engines to filter Tiannamen Square massacre results.

It's those who can no longer afford to eat or heat their homes etc. and can't get credit that will suffer.

If your country's citizens need to borrow money to meet basic human needs, you have bigger problems than a carbon tax.

And since our country is taxing it's citizens at the lowest rate in more than half a century, I'd say that you need to look elsewhere for your outrage.

Methane has a GWP of 33 in the latest reports, not 20, over 100 years. It has a GWP of 72 over 20 years.

One cubic meter of methane hydrates at the sea floor expands to over 164 cubic meters of natural gas at the surface.

The methane being released from the world's oceans is estimated at 14 teragrams (about 15.4 tons) a year, half of which is from just the East Siberian Arctic Shelf. Researchers are pretty sure the reason it's matching the rest of the oceans is because the type of methane hydrates that we've been talking about are releasing gas and becoming increasingly unstable.

It seems some researchers blame releases from methane hydrates below the seas and below melting permafrost for past rapid warming trends. This is said to be the sort of warming feedback loop that carbon dioxide by itself probably couldn't trigger.

Do note the dates of some of these articles. This is recent reporting.

The short-term effects of methane are very important.

For one, you and I probably won't be worried about it personally in a century. For another, when you have methane estimated in the billions of tons in little sections of the ocean and it seems that a little warming gets that all released, things start to compound rapidly.

While he acknowledged the department's figure of 40 air transport-related incidents since 1991 involving lithium batteries and devices powered by lithium batteries, Kerchner said it is a small number in the context of the 3.3 billion lithium batteries transported in 2008 alone.

This is a pressing matter. 2.105263158 "incidents" per year is obviously unacceptable.

...the battery inside an already-padded box for a new notebook PC might need to be packaged in an additional fiberboard box along with extra shipping documents, he said.

Obviously this is a ploy set up by HP's packaging engineers.

You're now limited to a maximum of two batteries with between 8 and 25 grams of lithium in them. They ... must be carried now in plastic bags... If you carry on three such batteries, security will take one of them away.

So forget bringing multiple 9-cell batteries on a plane. FedEx'ing the whole thing sounds better and better every day now, since TSA can sieze anything they want, including your data and now your expensive extended batteries.

It's sad really and NASA is definitely who should get more budget.

Naw. Instead of an extra billion per year for Constellation we can spend eight billion to study bullet trains.

I wonder... How many people will lose damn good, high-paying jobs because of the Obama cancellations of the F-22 and Constellation programs? It's a good thing that we no longer need the F-22 and can always count on our friends the Chinese, the Russians, and the Indians to accept our manned spaceflight outsourcing.

How's that Hopey-Changey thing working for you now?

you don't seem to argue against it becoming a tiny proportion of it's former size, but you think it impossible that it's pectoral muscles could have enlarged in more than 100 million years? What the crap?

I know how to pick my battles. T-rexes did not go from wimpy arms to the most powerful arms of the animal kingdom, (while shrinking and growing feathers), just because one T-rex, from their future, jumped into a time machine and told them they were going to get wiped out in 100 million years if they didn't start working out their useless foreclaws. If anything, the theory of evolution would say they would have lost their arms during this period of great change. If you are a reasonable man, you can see that this proves the algorithm put forth by the current evolution theorists to be greviously incorrect. You can argue that "their useless arms were the PERFECT candidate for wings, because they weren't being used for anything else!" but that's more rationalization than rationality -- wings are an extremely long and arduous road for evolution to begin sprouting for 100 million years with no immediate reason or intent -- especially when the T-rex, like the alligator, spider, or shark, was likely comfortable at the top of his food chain and therefore had no reason to evolve for another half-billion years, much less to evolve into something LOWER on the food chain.

Citation to a peer reviewed article or it didn't happen

If I must. Looks like it was last fall. What the study of Ardi has taught us.

What if they made Cloverfield in 3D?

Waaaah! Waaah! Big bad guhv'nmint iz takin' our monieezzz! Dey shoodn't taxez mine, just the lib'rals dat i h8tez!

fix'd

And your true colors shine through. /bullshit or GTFO.

Virginia land hides huge uranium deposit

First URL is UPI story. Second is abstract of a scholarly paper from Virginia Tech.

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2008/01/02/Virginia-land-hides-huge-uranium-deposit/UPI-69751199296526/

http://www.geoinformatics.vt.edu/server/docs/jjerden/NA99l.htm

Estimated content 55,000 tons uranium per UPI. The second suggests ~40,000 tonnes of uranium, ~40 million tonnes of 0.1% ore. If the 0.1% ore is itself the usual 0.7% U235, then ~10,000 tonnes of 3% enriched would net from the ore body.

A hacker could might have installed a remote access program, downloaded the files manually, and then uninstalled the remote access program. There wouldn't be much evidence to suggest that this guy didn't download the kiddie porn himself.

Child porn becomes an obsession.

There are usually two elements in an arrest and conviction for possession:

1 The number of files retrieved is enormous.

In the thousands or tens or thousands. Authorities arrest 64-year-old man for child pornography

In this case, 40,000 photos and videos.

2 The defendant's behavior was reckless and self-destructive.

He'll try to slip his porn stash through customs. Va. man headed to prison for child porn It will be found on the cell phone he left behind at Starbucks. The laptop he brought into his grade school classroom. Pike High School teacher charged with possession of child porn

This guy was lucky.

Luck as nothing to do with it. Criminal investigation at its most basic isn't about tech, its about people. The frame has to fit or you look elsewhere.

The geek should give up his life of crime. He isn't as smart as he thinks. The schemes he contrives are overly complex and fragile. The human element is ignored.

In 2006 it was still funny
http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,19869727-15391,00.html
Now its falling into place.
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/09/08/Girl-Scouts-preparedness-patch-unveiled/UPI-76591252438255/
They have the boy scouts, girl scouts trained to spy, down your street, online and not just in the USA.
Next time you buy some high-fructose corn syrup fundraising treats make sure anything that can be seen from your front door is 'boring'.
Dont have your Ron Paul, Bob Barr or Chuck Baldwin campaign material on display.
Army intelligence will get your licence plate number and photo at the next rally anyway.

These are some ways to deal with increasing joblessness, even if our economy recovers for those who still have jobs or money, which will be explored in more depth over time:

• temporary measures like unemployment insurance and retraining funds, and when those fail, letting people live with relatives who still have jobs or be homeless (the USA now has one million homeless schoolchildren, an amount that has doubled in the last two years);
• government public works like in the 1930s (infrastructure, arts, research, medicine, etc.);
• a basic income for everyone, essentially Social Security and Medicaid for all with no means testing;
• improved local subsistence like with 3D printing and organic gardening;
• a p2p gift economy (like Wikipedia and Debian GNU/Linux);
• a shorter work week (like tried in France);
• rethinking work to be more fun so it is done as play;
• alternative currencies or other forms of exchange like barter or more formal rationing;
• increasing advertising to entice people into more debt (one cause of the current economic crisis as the debt bubble burst);
• intentionally producing shoddy merchandise or things with planned obsolescence, perhaps encouraged by promoting faddism in the culture;
• more prisons (employs guards and keeps people out of the labor pool);
• more schooling (employs guards/teachers and keeps people out of the labor pool) while suppressing true education; and
• more war (employs guards/soldiers, blows up and wastes abundance, and kills or disables workers to keep them out of the labor pool).

Likely we will see a mix of all those in the future, and in fact, a mix of all those is what we have now (not that the last five options of advertising, faddism, schooling, prison, and war are recommended, even as our society currently relies on them heavily to destroy abundance and create guarding jobs). This web site will go into the details of all this over time. That list is defining the landscape of a jobless recovery, showing connections between things that dont usually seem connected. Like for example, why President Obama just suggested the school year should be longer while our best educators say compulsory school as we know it should disappear entirely.

The important thing to remember is that joblessness is not necessarily a bad thing. It means people have more time for family, friends, hobbies, and volunteerism. What is bad about formal un

Not like they're buying out Morgan Stanley...

http://www.upi.com/Business_News/2009/06/03/CIC-to-buy-447M-shares-of-Morgan-Stanley/UPI-45271244026009/

Or NBA teams...

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/playoffs/2009/columns/story?columnist=stein_marc&page=CavsChina-090601

Or Automobile companies like Hummer...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/03/business/03auto.html?_r=2&adxnnl=1&partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=1&adxnnlx=1256911465-MYcwhz7EQCEgv2gHJoLH7Q

Or tried to buy out our oil/energy corporations in the past...

http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/archives/2005/08/chinese_ownersh_2.html

Yes, Chinese needs a 'backdoor' entry. This would be similiar to having a co-owner of a house putting in a back door to the house.

Kinda hard to get a backdoor entry when they're already sitting in your living room.

Yup. I'm an Independent and I like Obama, but it's very likely he's going to have to escalate in Afghanistan, due to hawkish things he said on the trail. This is not a man who ran on a peaceable platform. He didn't say "war is wrong," he said Iraq was the wrong war.

From the Nobel site:

Every year since 1901 the Nobel Prize has been awarded for achievements... [in various award categories].

So, the Prize is supposed to be for achievement, not intent. Even for his intent, it's clear he intends to prosecute wars in the interests of our national security, and he has said so explicitly. He just doesn't intend to prosecute them unilaterally.

His Afghan/Pakistani policy is marginal at best (civilian casualties anyone?) and he should not be a Peace Laureate while he's considering additional troop deployments. Furthermore, he has yet to avert a war and thus achieve peace with Iran's nuclear situation. Come January, the Israelis could be bombing them with weapons they bought from us. We could be at war next year and this UPI poll claims that 61% of Americans would back a military solution to Iran's nuclear ambitions.

What has he done to ward that kind of "drum beat" off? Has he come out and said the American public is wrong, at risk to his political skin? Has he made clear statements against the Israeli demonization of Iran? Against the Iranian demonization of Israel? It makes no sense to award this to him as he has been a remarkable coward on the issue, hoping it will blow over, and probably praying that cooler heads will prevail. That is a good way to start a war, not "achieve" peace.

The Nobel foundation may end up looking very foolish next year.

--
Toro

And a quick googling for differently reported versions of the same story, shows that at least some mention microwave radiation explicitly about his complaint. E.g.,
http://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2009/09/16/Garlic-farmer-High-speed-Internet-stinks/UPI-79211253122064/

That article still doesn't credit the farmer with saying microwaves willm damage his crop. It uses the same quote as the one slashdot links to.

If you want to call him an idiot, call him an idiot for the stupid things he actually said (like that a little shaking up mollecules can damage DNA)

Seeing if I could find something using Google's Scholar search to search for microwaves alter dna science study or studies I found studies that concluded microwaves can alter DNA.

Falcon

Actually, no, it doesn't. If you RTFA, the "is afraid his organic crop could be irradiated" is really a piece of text by the journalist, not an actual quote from the guy. The relevant quote from him is in quotation marks: ""I think over a period of time it will change the DNA of the garlic because it shakes up the molecules," It's pretty clearly about micro-wave radiation, not, say, about ionizing radiation.

And a quick googling for differently reported versions of the same story, shows that at least some mention microwave radiation explicitly about his complaint. E.g., http://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2009/09/16/Garlic-farmer-High-speed-Internet-stinks/UPI-79211253122064/

While he _probably_ is uneducated on the matter, enlarging the scope of his complaint yourself and then answering to that is nevertheless a strawman fallacy. If you want to call him an idiot, call him an idiot for the stupid things he actually said (like that a little shaking up mollecules can damage DNA), not about some strawman interpretation of what you guess he might have meant.

Here are few links:
Philadelphia Inquirer,
UPI (Two quotes: "Ghostwriters paid by U.S. pharmaceutical giant Wyeth worked on dozens of articles published in medical journals under doctors' names, court documents indicate." and "A Wyeth spokesman said the ghostwritten articles were scientifically sound and subject to peer review by the journals that published them.")
NYT

Oh, aren't we Mr. Fancy-I-Have-A-Long-Name.

Well, if you don't like it, you're free to build and deploy your own damned GPS system. Don't have hundreds of billions of dollars to spare? Don't have a national interest in precision, real-time mapping? Then shut the hell up.

You called?

This is what they came up with! http://www.upi.com/Business_News/2009/05/31/Obama-GM-plan-is-viable/UPI-17921243823450/

Frankly I'm getting a bit tired of all the links to things that cause autism/asperger etc. Every day its a new thing.

So far we have:
Weather
Premature Birth
Environment
PVC
MMR vaccine
Genes
Vinyl Flooring
Shampoo
(There are probably a lot more)

As a parent of a autistic boy, I'm frankly tired of these so called empirical 'studies' which quite frankly don't prove a thing. The only thing that has helped with my son is ABA. I wish the editors would stop putting each and every one of these on the front page.

While I like the idea of reinforcing what works and discouraging what doesn't, the fact is, this is a federal study, and likely the well-intentioned results will be some government panel or body controlling what doctors can and cannot do, regardless of the patient's circumstances, all in the name of "science" and "efficiency".

I think you're confusing "federal studies" with "federally funded studies".
The reality is that most trials are done by pharmaceutical companies and not impartial non-government organizations.

You can call the status quo a success, if you want the winners to be big pharma's profit margin. Unfortunately, big pharma has one goal: to get the next blockbuster drug (or variation of a previous one) approved by the FDA. Personally, I can't help but observe that the 'free' market has obviously failed "we the people" because there is no incentive for private companies to transparently share their negative results or to conduct tests showing the relative merits of new (expensive) treatements vs out-of-patent (generic, cheap) treatments.

Here's two articles, which just happen to have been written today, that highlight exactly what I'm talking about:
http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2009/03/01/Seroquel_maker_denies_hiding_side_effects/UPI-17851235928556/
http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2009/02/26/another-drug-company-accused-of-hiding-negative-study-results/

Europe lost a satelite a few years ago that was supposed to measure ice melt. Little more than a big coincidence. Any more data on botched climate monitoring missions?

This is not about crime.

This is a system for assisting in coordinating deployment of riot troops and other resources to control the population in an urban setting when things collapse. The government knows the path we are currently traveling will lead to societies' collapse and the revolt of the population against the government.

Heck, the FBI is already training first-responders now in dealing with IEDs, although they say "terrorist-planted IEDs" to cover their butts. If a road is well-traveled by law-abiding citizens (and a well-traveled road is the type that would be the best target), terrorists would find it extremely hard to plant roadside bombs without getting reported. So who do you think the government thinks will be planting IEDs?

http://www.upi.com/Emerging_Threats/2008/03/24/FBI_begins_IED_training/UPI-26431206400450/

Get ready for super-happy-fun-times.

Strat

Oh that right Thai Police are pretty bad ass. http://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2007/08/06/Thai_cops_fear_Hello_Kitty_punishment/UPI-68131186433228/

On his first day, Obama closed the revolving door, closed the secret military base that was holding people without evidence, and instructed his staff to default to leaving files open instead of closed.

That was DAY 1.

Where's the 'delusional' mod when you need it?

How about this lie? : http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2008/09/16/Armey_Cheney_misled_me_on_Iraq/UPI-53871221586641/

The main article case was a child play. 4 year-old shoot his sitter is really news.

Make no mistake, I am not trying to support Obama's decision. Especially considering that his second pick was Ogden who, according to TFA, "...was responsible for organizing the defense of the Child Online Protection Act..." and "...successfully defended the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act before the U.S. Supreme Court."

I did a bit of research using Google and Wikipedia. Wikipedia has some light information on Tom Perrelli. It seems he is most well-known for his copyright litigation, but did do work for the United States Department of Justice, including tobacco industry litigation. Also he was "... defending the constitutionality of federal statutes, defending federal agency action and regulations, representing the diplomatic and national security interests of the United States in courts of law, and conducting significant Title VII, personnel and social security litigation." That's a pretty sanitized summary, and its hard to find out if he was doing good work or bad, but the bit about defending federal agency actions, regulations, and statues against constitutional question leaves me with a bad feeling in my gut. There's a lot of unjust and unconstitutional laws out there, so I'd place my bets on him defending bad laws rather than good ones.

I couldn't find much on David Ogden, other than his firm's bio page, and fluff pieces. Apparently he was already involved with Obama's transition team and worked for Clinton's administration. He also has experience at the federal level. There's a lot of juicy stuff in the firm's bio page, but he seems to be pretty cozy with media and big corporations. Without a lot of detail, a casual reading suggests that he tends to represent the big corps over the little guys. The only two bright spots seem to be "Obtaining summary judgment and affirmance ... rejecting the claims of a major tobacco company seeking to shut down the .. nationwide counter-marketing campaign to discourage young people from smoking", and "Representing a US media company with respect to the detention and threatened prosecution by US Forces and the Iraq government of the company's Iraqi employee."

Overall, not much to be happy about. It looks like he picked two big-business, media-friendly lawyers. They have a lot of federal-level experience, but not the kind I would have wanted.

The same has been true with the USPS since 1970. Their entire budget is financed by people buying stamps and other services. They don't get a dime of taxpayer money.

How did you ever get modded +5 informative with that load of bull?

The total funding for the Postal Service in the administration's 2005 budget is just over $61.7 million.

Appropriation, fiscal year 2004 $65,135,000
Appropriations, 1999 $100,195,000
etc, etc

Obviously a troll that has gotten out of hand, but,

On the news recently your government is seeming to force the closure of many coffee shops and brothels and force them deeper into the red light district, citing 'criminal elements.'

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2008/12/07/Amsterdam_targets_sex_and_drug_crime/UPI-68241228633552/

There's quite a CCTV, speed cameras, and speed measuring devices installation which has the underpinnings of a surveillance society.

Race and race relations are not great there, and there are many news articles and posts about that -- including this one ( a bit old but still relevant, this is a law focused on restricting freedom of expression and religious belief and are even extending it to campuses.)

http://digg.com/world_news/Muslim_women_protest_outside_Dutch_parliament_against_burqa_ban

A law like this would be directly against the US Constitution.

Also it has the 8th highest taxation rate/GDP ratio which I consider oppressive.

While on an individual basis it seems you can do whatever you want to kill yourself, there are some issues as a 'free society' just as in the United States that you guys are dealing with.

The key to the gap in your understanding is that cancer proteins can be found in the blood with out there being any cancer cells that have actually metastasized to the blood. When any cells replicate proteins slip in to the blood for various reasons. Looking at presence and the relative increase of these proteins is the focus for early detection of cancers.

tNOX (tumor-associated NADH oxidase) is a protein some research was looking at.

serum amyloid A elevates for lung cancer

Doctors in india found a protein to indicate the precursor to colon cancer

early detection of ovarian cancer based on four proteins: leptin, prolactin, osteopontin and insulin-like growth factor-II.

All this research is from the last couple years, so it appears that measuring the correlation of these proteins with cancer has been an area of hot research.

What is really surprising is that this is news! The media has admitted to this weeks ago.

I see the "B" still stands for "bullcrap". This talking point was debunked months ago.

Even worse, you will see people deny that Obama was given better treatment than McCain.

As is usually the case, take the opposite of the wingnut viewpoint and you have reality:

I ask you to imagine an alternative universe where the candidates are the same, but what each has said and done, has been reversed.

What would be happening tonight if Senator Obama had stumbled, over everything from arcane details, to sweeping policies of the utmost importance, and not just once or twice, but endlessly?

What if Senator Obama couldn't tell Iran from Iraq?

Iraq from Afghanistan?

Sunni from Shi'a?

Somalia from Sudan?

What would we be asking ourselves about his capabilities, if it had been Senator Obama who had identified General David Petraeus as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff?

And Vladimir Putin as the President of Germany?

And Spain as a country in Latin America?

What if it had been Senator Obama who not only used his POW experience at every turn, but wrote of giving to his captors, not the names of his fellow servicemen, but of the offensive line of the Green Bay Packers football team - only to, when he spoke in Western Pennsylvania, change the story so that he gave to his captors, the names of the offensive line of the Pittsburgh Steelers football team?

We all know exactly what would be happening tonight if Senator Obama had made all those mistakes, contradictions, gaffes, Freudian slips, and hypocritical pronouncements.

He would have long since ceased to be taken seriously by any measurable part of the voting public, as a viable, responsible, self-aware, mentally vigorous, non-dangerous, non-risk.

Reality's well known liberal biases raises it's head yet again.

I would REALLY love to see what study you found that supports that claim.............

I've been looking for years to find one, still haven't ;)

Before you jump to prove me wrong, only peer-reviewed papers count, I hold everything to the same rigor that I hold science.

The studies that I have found, however, and the numbers at that show no problems with gun ownership.

I would REALLY love to see what study you found that supports that claim.............

I've been looking for years to find one, still haven't ;)

Before you jump to prove me wrong, only peer-reviewed papers count, I hold everything to the same rigor that I hold science.

The studies that I have found, however, and the numbers at that show no problems with gun ownership.

Here's a study based on CDC statistics that essentially confirms what everyone should know intuitively - states with more gun owners have more gun related deaths.

Now you want money. In California, New York, Hawaii, Illinois, D.C., or Michigan, you're in heaven.

Depends upon where you are where you are. Trying to lump "California" or "New York" into one unit regarding crime statistics is disingenuous. Hawaii has a lower per-capita violent crime rate than even Massachusetts, People's Republic Of.

Places like Dallas, or Pensacola, Denver, Missoula, Kansas City, or even Miami are quite a bit different. In states and cities that support CCW (Concealed Carry Weapon) permits, now the criminal has some math to do.

The major cities you listed have violent crime rates per capita significantly higher than the national average. Dallas and Miami are your examples of cities that prove the crime-reduction ability of concealed carry laws? Good grief.

To quote a wiser man than me: "An armed society is a polite one."

An armed society is a polite society during the periods that nobody is shooting. One can easily think of any number of societies on the globe that are well-armed that are by no means "polite."

As a gun proponent, I rebuff, I say show me the numbers. Put up or shut up. Prove with credible stats and studies (I.E. anything that can actually stand up to peer review, Daily Kos, bloggers, and the stupid shit you read on the lib pamphlets don't count), and I'll cede the point.

The easiest statistical correlations to draw regarding violent crime is that it moves in lockstep with both poverty levels and the number of Hispanic and African-American residents in a certain area. With regard to current ideals in social discourse it is of course racist to say this, though the FBI statistics show exactly that - but it's in the form of graphs and charts and nobody actually comes out and says it in a straightforward manner.

Depends on the society. The Department of Vice and Virtue or The Department of "Well, that was unexpected"

Punishment will fit the crime, only if society demands it. I doubt the CRTC will even investigate the matter, let alone throw half million dollar fines for what can be seen on regular airwaves after midnight in Toronto.

Exactly, Sweden, the beacon of privacy. Oh wait... http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2008/07/15/Swedish_surveillance_law_gets_legal_test/UPI-17691216144986/

They are the world's equivalent of a broken Xerox machine. Low quality copies, at a high rate.

Or maybe you are just ignorant.

For example, New generation solar cells reach new level of efficiency due to a collaboration between Swiss and Chinese scientists.

And 110 chinese scientists are exploring the Arctic right now.

Or Chinese advances in LIDAR for large area wind speed measurements.

Or Chinese transgenic cloned pigs.

They'll still be in poverty

If you look at the trends, there won't be too many people in absolute poverty (under $1 per day) in China fairly soon. By 2030, China will probably be economically indistinguishable from South Korea (a country that went from large amounts of absolute poverty in the 1950's to fairly advanced economy by the 1980's). By 2050, i suspect China will be indistinguishable from the US. India will probably be behind them by about 10-20 years.

Much of Africa will probably be in poverty for a long time until they give up their ethno-centric / nation-centric / anti-trade / anti-capitalist models. At least India and China are trying.

At this point, one stops looking toward other countries and at saving one's own country.

The global economy is not a zero-sum gain. Improvements in production and techniques in one country help people in other countries. We would all be better off if everyone on the planet was rich.

By the way, if we want to save the US, we should end the war on drugs and consider privatizing our socialist monopoly school system.

I am moderately surprised that this type of research is still going on/causing such controversy.

One would think that with all the evidence pointing at things like:

Multipotential Stem Cells from Menstrual Blood,
  Menstrual Blood Can Provide Adult Stem Cells,
  Menstrual Blood: A Valuable Source Of Multipotential Stem Cells?,
  Stem Cells Have Utility in Fighting Disease> and
  New type of stem cell from menstrual blood
 

would have convinced these scientists to give up splicing pig butts to people and go to the controversy free stem cells by now. Perhaps they don't wan't to get their fingers wet.

Mr. Garrison's: "Well, I'm sorry, Wendy. But I just don't trust anything that bleeds for five days and doesn't die." Was supposed to be irony, you know irony, its a metal, like goldy and silvery.

-m

You know about the "donut effect" - suburbs around an urban core? An exburb is the area outside a suburb, usually developed because land is cheap, not because it's a practical commute to anywhere. Some exburbs become town centers in their own right, others die off and are abandonned, and still others slowly sink into decrepitude.

There are a lot of McMansions in exburbs; combine the rising house payments, the gas-guzzling SUV financed via a HELOC, the long commute times, the lack of a local commercial base, $5-$6/gallon gas, and you'll see why the "ex" is so appropriate.

If you doubt, check this out

Millions in U.S. face energy shutoff

NEW YORK, April 25 (UPI) -- Large numbers of Americans face the prospect of energy shutoffs during the coming months because of rising energy prices and stagnant wages, officials said. Millions of U.S. consumers are behind on paying their utility bills following a winter in which many struggled to cover the increasing cost of heating their homes, The New York Times (NYSE:NYT) reported Friday, citing energy and utilities officials. The cost of heating oil, propane and kerosene is the biggest problem, officials told the newspaper, but natural gas and electricity prices are also a problem for workers at the lower end of the income scale, who are also struggling with higher prices for food and gasoline.

... and here

An NEADA survey this month shows 8% of four-member households earning $33,500 to $55,500 have had their power turned off for non-payment. "It's hitting people in the suburbs with two cars and two kids," Wolfe says.

The disconnects are rising as warm-weather power bills increase, some state moratoriums on winter shutoffs expire, and rates are climbing in many states.

...

In Michigan, where home foreclosures are soaring and the unemployment rate is the USA's highest, more than one in five Detroit Edison customers were behind in their electric bills in May.

We'e talking about the proverbial family with 2 parents and a cuple of kids. 20%. And once you fall behind, its harder to dig yourself out.

(1) put Saddam in power

Care to show some proof? I haven't found anything that said we put him in power.

(2) invaded in the first Gulf war

Last I checked, Kuwait was not part of Iraq, as much as Saddam may have wanted it to be. If we had actually invaded, Saddam wouldn't have been in power after that.

3) imposed strict sanctions, a no-fly zone, and bombed the country from time to time (and *why* did any of you stupid fuckers for a minute think there was the slightest chance he would have WMD? are you just stupid, or what?)

As did the UN and several other countries. Also, supposedly Saddam wanted others to think he had WMDs.Link

invaded again without any thought of the consequences

you mean, without thinking that foriegn fighters would be coming into the country with outside support?

As for the foreign fighter, WTF is your point? There are domestic insurgents as well, as there have been from the beginning. Not counting on foreign fighters coming in as well as al-Qaeda (another American product since we set them up, armed them, and trained them to fight the Soviets) who were not even in Iraq or had anything to do with Iraq before the war is just another of many examples of Cheney et al sticking their heads in the sand (or trying to get us to) and insisting that we would be greeted as liberators. Anyone, including myself, who had been paying any attention to what was going on in Iraq before the war knew already that WMDs and "greeted as liberators" was a load of horse shit. How can a country that we keep bombing the fuck out of for over 10 years possibly have a WMD program and why would they greet us as liberators?

Though the fraud claim will probably lead to slashdot getting sued, Germany http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/2007/12/08/scientology_facing_ban_in_germany/5643/ and several other countries have taken steps to limit scientology within their borders. While many might seek to compare this to the actions of many Islamist states, scientology's claims often involve situations that fall under racketeering laws not aspects of religious freedom.

Though the fraud claim will probably lead to slashdot getting sued, Germany http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/2007/12/08/scientology_facing_ban_in_germany/5643/ and several other countries have taken steps to limit scientology within their borders. While many might seek to compare this to the actions of many Islamist states, scientology's claims often involve situations that fall under racketeering laws not aspects of religious freedom.