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That's why we need "corporate death penalties" for this sort of behavior. And payola is/was common, which shows ongoing behavior, or racketeering. And nothing really happens even when they get busted.

    Just being able to pay a joke fine, that is just passed on to their next customers, for criminal actions isn't working with these big corporations very well. They need to lose their charters and their stock made worthless. Shareholders are not doing their due diligence and oversight as owners over their employees very well, and they need to learn the hard way that this free lunch just throw money at some companies comes with some responsibility as well as any profits. We could also try increasing whistle blower protections so that honest employees don't have to worry so much about disclosing criminality and shady dealings, and it wouldn't have to get to the point of delisting corporations then (applies to whistleblowers in their government jobs also).

As a side, to the music and movie industry, just for grins and amusement purposes, I dare some agency to do some surprise raids with drug dogs at any of these *AA affiliated outfits big offices and production and recording studios, just for a starter to get their attention. If they can do that to like junior high schools, just lock them down and run the dogs through there, they can do that to these various big money and entertainment places as well. If you are going fishing, why not try the very well stocked pond *first*? muahahahahaha!

In the last two years over 80,000 people died on US highways, but there wasn't even one death from flying in a commercial airliner.

*...there wasn't even one death from flying in a United States commercial airliner.

In the last two years over 80,000 people died on US highways, but there wasn't even one death from flying in a commercial airliner.

You're more likely to die from falling down your basement stairs, and far more likely to die at the hands of your own family than a terrorist.

You linked to an old article. In the last two years, we had this crash http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colgan_Air_Flight_3407

    However, I believe that crash actually helps make your point. Let's expand the time line from your article to the present. We now have about 130,000 people dead in the USA from car crashes and 50 from airline crashes. There were some smaller crashes (the global list of all crashes is here http://www.planecrashinfo.com/ but it doesn't change the point. The ratio is truly stunning.

In the last two years over 80,000 people died on US highways, but there wasn't even one death from flying in a commercial airliner.

You're more likely to die from falling down your basement stairs, and far more likely to die at the hands of your own family than a terrorist.

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gameon/post/2010/02/halftime-who-dat-whos-greedy-the-nfl/1

You missed the one important part, anywhere there is money involved there will be claims. The NFL is claiming ownership of a fan derived saying, let alone one where most of it has been part of the dialect

Never under estimate money, lawyers, and stupidity, combined.

There's the problem right there -- the power button is placed near the center console stack. The driver could be reaching, whilst keeping eyes fully on the road, for a vent control to adjust the air blowing on them and accidently hit the button, so they had to add a delay. But this is not a button you're going to be operating a lot while driving, like you do the radio or climate controls. Seems like instead they could've just put it over the steering column and below the gauge cluster. Heck, have it recessed in there so anything placed atop the steering column that slides forward say under sudden braking wouldn't be able to push it in. IIRC even my ancient Atari 800 had plastic tabs the height of the reset button on both sides of it, so you had to aim and push just the button to depress it. Either of these "hi-tech engineering" ideas would've allowed Toyota to eschew the time delay.

I found a reference for the time delay:

USA Today

It came up on Prius discussion chat boards early on

...will be broadcasting today's Manchester United vs. Arsenal match in 3D, which I believe will be the first live 3D sports broadcast in Europe (though it's only being piped in to nine pubs in the UK).

ESPN will launch a 3D network in June, though content will be limited.

Microsoft will cooperate as long as they have a shot at public sector revenue. This is hardly unique to China. If the nation of Venezuela wanted Microsoft products, they'd take their money.

I think American crossed the line into full-scale hipocracy(sp!!) by calling China out on censorship. The Chinese are more overt, but the effects are the same.

How about killing prisoners at Guantanamo? http://harpers.org/archive/2010/01/hbc-90006368 How was that story handled?? I'd argue that's a pretty serious situation and yet, somehow the mainstream media won't touch it. The title AP gave it was "Harper's questions three Guantanamo deaths." Somehow, prisoners under 24/7 observation are able to stuff rags down their throats AND THEN hang themselves? There's room for 'a question?' http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2010-01-18-guantanamo-deaths_N.htm?csp=34

How about the *massive* transfer of weath orchestrated by the Fed and Treasury? It's a 'bailout.' Maiden Lane 3 somehow generates profits in a way obvious to exactly no one. GM's debt holders got barely pennies on the dollar depending on their debt senority and yet AIG's counter parties got every single cent back. And the headline is "this is troubling" ?? http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/jan2010/db2010018_994080.htm

Let's go back a few years to Sibel Edmonds story that *no* media would touch.

I missed the part where the American Republic was a bastion of Freedom.

When I looked at this from that perspective, it makes quite a lot of sense. . . They could have just said "No fucking games" and been done with it.

I agree with the "Prison isn't supposed to be fun" point. That's not what they're doing here.

From USA Today:

[The Court] noted that Singer, like other inmates, still has access to other games such as Risk, Stratego, chess and checkers.

January 27th, Sun product fan-boi Geeks the world over who have been fretting, "but they *can't* kill my favorite Sun thing and fire the engineers for it because of x,y, and z" will find their X through Z reasons run through the wood chipper

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/technologylive/post/2010/01/sun-setting-on-jobs/1

Going to be a great splatter-fest, stay tuned.

I believe the total spent on the 2008 campaign was $1 billion for both parties. Fill in the current numbers. The union share is significant but doesn't come close to corporate spending.

The AFL-CIO spent $50+ million on the Presidential election, and the AFL-CIO and its affiliated unions planned on spending $200 million on the 2008 elections.

The unions were the biggest spenders by far, and they were essentially one-sided as well.

IMHO, if the unions - representing the workers - can donate and target funds for elections, then the corporations - the management - should be able to do so as well.

No, but I expect a game that nets $1 Billion to do at least something that has never been done before. Something.

When a first person shooter that brings nothing new to the table sells 4.7 Million copies on its first day, yet a game like Muramasa: The Demon Blade sells under 200,000 copies over the course of 3-4 months, there is something seriously wrong with the culture.

In the US, the lowest average educational metrics or scores pretty much all come from the larger urban areas within the public school system. There are exceptions of course, but generally speaking, this is the case. It is so bad in some areas they have contrived to cook the scoring, giving higher than deserved grades to schools. Your largest urban area, even after massaging the metrics, still scores in the bottom five percent of the state's overall scores.

Here is one reference: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2009/09/09/2009-09-09_bloombergs_bogus_school_report_cards_destroy_real_progres

more

http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2006-06-20-dropout-rates_x.htm

You might want to check your typical urban elitist prejudices against a little research first.

Medical supply companies use Chinese manufacturers all the time. Take this instance where heparin was contaminated with melamine.

The problem is that the NYT has never given us accurate and factual news.

Um, never? How did something *that* obviously false get mod'ed up to 5?

The NYT is a newspaper that won a Pulitzer Prize for stories that said there was no famine in the Ukraine in the 1930s.

According to, e.g., this article, the Pulitzer was for different work by the same journalist, though the work in question was likely just as shoddy--as has been acknowledged inside and out of the Times since then.

As far as I can tell it's a reputable paper that has (not surprisingly, for a major institution with a long history) occasionally screwed up.

"Painful though to watch as some errors are being made and thousands of lives are being lost because of it, the critical 72hr period is what they always tell us."

As of midnight last night, no relief of any significance had reached the victims in the city. 48hour on their own.
News in MSM was of the difficulty of getting past the 'last mile' and the risk to responders' safety.
I googled: "why no heli drops of food and water into port au prince?"

Page1 of the results only had 4 links related to airlifts and/or helicopters. I found this formum interesting:
http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message965870/pg1

"We did it with the Kurds in Iraq and also in Bosnia so I don't know why it can't be done in Haiti.
If not "drop" then how about lower by ropes from helicopters and have some troops on the ground to receive and administer?
Something needs to be done and time is running out quickly.
Another thing, why are there not buneral pyres to burn the corpses because there is not going to even be room to bury them and the health hazard is tremendous.
Those are two things I would already be doing if I were in charge."
Quoting: Bluebird

Yes.
1) Airdrop water to ground troops for orderly dispersal to victims.
2) Dig large fire pits for the corpses, and burn them, asap.
3) Get medical supplies, trained medics and food in country, after 1) and 2) are well under way.

Someone noted that airdrops are against the Geneva Convention, while WHO claims that 3-4 days is all they can hold out.

Anonymous Coward
User ID: 865986
1/15/2010 7:47 PM
Re: WTH??? Why can't they DROP food , water and supplies over Haiti?????? Quote
The argument that you can't do airdrops because there might be rioting is completely ridiculous. What are you people more concerned about, people rioting or people dying without food and water? Turn on your tv, you saw it today, it's just gonna get worse, if they don't get food and water, it will lead to rioting. So your solution of withholding food and water so the won't riot is not gonna work.
Let's take a look at Sarejevo, Bosnia in the early 1990's. It was completely cut off, it was the longest city under siege in Europe since the Middle Ages. What did we let them starve? No, we did airdrops. We kept people alive for years with that. They'd drop them in the surrounding hills. Was there a scramble to get the food? Yes, there was. But they'd be dead otherwise.
These people who say we can't drop them food or they'll riot, that we should just let them die instead, this is the same level of incompetence of George W. Bush and that Brown character he put in charge of Katrina.

Even some retired general has noted the same thing:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2010-01-15-general-criticizes-response_N.htm
"The next morning after the earthquake, as a military man of 37 years service, I assumed ... there would be airplanes delivering aid, not troops, but aid," said retired Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, who coordinated military operations after disaster struck the U.S. Gulf Coast in 2005. "What we saw instead was discussion about, 'Well we've got to send an assessment team in to see what the needs are.' And anytime I hear that, my head turns red."
The problem, Honore told USA TODAY, is that the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development, instead of the military, take the lead in international disaster response.
"I was a little frustrated to hear that USAID was the lead agency," he said. "I respect them, but they're not a rapid deployment unit."
USAID immediately dispatched an assessment team and search-and-rescue teams, but there has still not been widespread distribution of food or water, three days after the Haiti earthquake.
In the first two days after Tuesday evening's quake, "we saw nati

As other posters have noted, current social and cultural conditions in the USA not only allow hypomania to run unchecked, but in some cases actively promote it (eg. universal self-esteem campaigns).

Uhhh...huh? Where? I know in the 70s-early 90s those kinds of campaigns were common, but late 90s to the present I haven't seen much evidence of this. Are there any you can link to?

The situation is indeed improving, but plenty of schools and organizations (and individual parents) are behind the curve and still promoting self-esteem with an "awards/praise for everything" approach. And the kids who are in high-school and college today were in on the tail end of the universal self-esteem bandwagon days, so they can still be considered products of that era.

It's also important to realize that the deliberate campaigns of 20 years ago become the quiet status quo culture of today. People aren't yelling about self-esteem simply because they are already saturated in a culture of self-esteem promotion. Though the confidence-building programs have evolved over the years to reject the worst excesses, they certainly do exist in schools today; they're just a standard part of the curriculum, and are executed without much fanfare.

Here's an article that discusses both the evolution of self-esteem programs and the changes they wrought on kids hitting college in 2005 (just two years prior to last date included in the original topic study):

http://www.usatoday.com/life/lifestyle/2005-02-15-self-esteem_x.htm

Ah, I think I see how this works. Because I believe that the 2nd amendment protects an individual right (an opinion shared by nearly 3/4 of all Americans) I'm a "fundamentalist crackpot"? I guess labeling people as such makes it easier for you to avoid any strenuous intellectual activity when confronted with opposing points of view.

Good day to you sir.

Personally I prefer the much more recent statements from Mr. Ballmer:

There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance. It's a $500 subsidized item. They may make a lot of money. But if you actually take a look at the 1.3 billion phones that get sold, I'd prefer to have our software in 60% or 70% or 80% of them, than I would to have 2% or 3%, which is what Apple might get.

That foresight - it's eerie. It's like he's got some sort of direct view into the future... Maybe we should call him the Oracle of Redmond.

You mean like paying for price fixing?

http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2002-09-30-cd-settlement_x.htm

It seems to me that many of your complaints with formal education would apply equally well to any given private school. It's a difficult problem for teachers when we get a student who is smarter than we are. Private schools and teachers are not immune because they have marketing, branding, and upsell. Gifted and Talented (GT) education is special ed just as much as teaching kids with learning disabilities. GT students often have very frustrating personality traits that one can be trained to recognize and adapt to, but people usually aren't. GT students require smaller classes, and often a different approach to rules and structure. This doesn't only apply to schools, by the way. Try, as a parent, to get your GT child to accept "because I said so" as a reason for anything. (I don't mean you in particular, since I haven't met you or your son, GT is the nearest I can figure from reading your post.) Again, private school teachers (the ones I know) are not any more or less motivated than "part time government employees" to seek out this kind of information. Private schools don't necessarily have the resources to acquire specially trained personnel and have small (5-6 students) classes to meet this need.

Schools don't treat gifted students nearly equally, because standards-based school measurement involves having a percentage of students perform acceptably well, and the ones with the greatest difficulties require the most support to meet this. Spending more money on students who can already meet this baseline doesn't make sense to a lot of school systems, schools, school improvement teams, etc. This attitude is not inherent to the fact that a school is part of a system. An independent school is not automatically more likely to adopt an approach that focuses on the personal growth of each child, and any one that does do that is likely to cost significantly more per pupil than what we see in public schools. Not that the children are not worth the money. I know that and you know that.

Homeschooling is a very good answer to this. A few years ago, I worked with some homeschooled kids whose parents ran out of math expertise and so they hired me to teach Calculus to their 13 and 15 year old boys. Their impetus was their experience in elementary school. The younger son sort of discovered exponents and his teacher was annoyed and frustrated. It wasn't just one incident, of course. This anecdote goes along with your experience of dwindling numbers of religious fanatics as homeschoolers, but none of this is conclusive. This USA Today article is a little better, and supports your case as well.

In the handful of cases where I've had truly gifted students (no, enrollment in "Honors" or AP classes doesn't make you gifted), I've observed that while they're very good with the math, they have other social things to learn from a classroom, like how not to be an ass about their superior intellect. I hope you consider addressing this with your son, because the hard way of learning this is very hard. You may need to learn it yourself first. My sister is homeschooling her daughter, and while she's extremely intelligent and articulate, she's not especially nice, and has a hard time admitting when she's wrong. There's value in those things too.

I must stress that I don't believe it's all roses for the music industry. They're facing harder times, to be sure. But the devil of those hard times are in the details.

The RIAA-sourced chart brit74 linked to is rather misleading. It shows just what the RIAA wants; look at that big huge glob that represents the glory year of 1999! It must be horrible for them to look at that tapering edge that represents 2008 and wistfully wonder what could have been if things just kept waxing instead of waning. But the chart hides more important information. Namely, exactly what were the sales outside those halcyon years bookending 1999?

Finding those numbers aren't easy. Part of it, like a lot of these things, is getting representative data - not just the RIAA's data. One attempt at that is Nielsen which published it's numbers for 2008. Some articles based on that:

http://arstechnica.com/media/news/2009/01/music-sales-up-10-in-2008-thanks-to-downloads-and-vinyl.ars

http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2009-01-01-soundscan-numbers_N.htm

It's hard to find exact matches to compare; apples to apples. But for a "failing" industry, there's a heck of a lot of sales going on. The common theme seems to be that the higher-profit album market is disappearing as consumers and retailers are spending less and less attention on it.

"Whites" that until early last year had held the highest office in the country since its creation

So how's he doing? Other than the fantastic jobs creation work he's diligently doing I mean.

Many European countries are more religious than the U.S. (at least officially)

In practise, many European countries are much less religious than the US. e.g. Here you can see only Ireland has (had?) greater church attendance than the USA.

(And my mandatory religion classes made anyone with a brain less religious. "Compare attitudes to death in Christianity and Buddhism" -- they clearly can't both be correct).

Doesn't seem to stop them from getting a College education.

Plenty of People think they should

And Congress is wanting to make it so

Microsoft is a company that cannot "let go" of anything. Take .NET for example -- it is a miserable failure that they won't let die.

A few web sites that use .NET technology:

Costco - http://www.costco.com/
Crate & Barrel - http://www.crateandbarrel.com/
Home Shopping Network - http://www.hsn.com/
Buy.com - http://www.buy.com/
Dell - http://www.dell.com/
Nasdaq - http://www.nasdaq.com/
Virgin - http://www.virgin.com/
7-Eleven - http://www.7-eleven.com/
Carnival Cruise Lines - http://www.carnival.com/
L'Oreal - http://www.loreal.com/
Remax - http://www.remax.com/
Monster Jobs - http://www.monster.com/
USA Today - http://www.usatoday.com/
ComputerJobs.com - http://computerjobs.com/
Match.com - http://www.match.com/
National Health Services (UK) - http://www.nhs.uk/
CarrerBuilder.com - http://www.careerbuilder.com/
Newegg http://newegg.com/
Geico http://geico.com/
Capital One http://capitalone.com/
Zecco http://zecco.com/

And that is just the tip of the iceberg.

Maybe you should tell all those sites that .NET is a miserable failure? Or if you were just (successfully) karmawhoring, I am sorry to interrupt the circle jerk on here.

Perhaps you weren't paying enough attention. There's a whole bunch of these organizations out there that force pregnant mothers to give up their babies for adoption by making sure they have no other choice, threatening to charge them for their stay unless they do, and various other methods.

While the article does mention aggressive attempts to convince the women to give their children up for adoption, I missed the part in the article where there was a claim that any of the organizations threatened to charge the mother for her stay unless she adopted. Maybe you were thinking of a different article?

Some are quite open in only accepting women who will give their child away. For example, this one: "Any woman is welcome to live at Bethany's House as long as she is considering an adoption plan for her child."

"Considering an adoption plan" does not mean "has chosen adoption". The rep from Bethany claimed that only 25-40% of the women who come to Bethany choose adoption. That's 60-75% that somehow escape being "forced" to give their child up for adoption.

Or this one: "Single-parenting does not fit God's perfect plan for the family".

I have had no experience with this house - which appears to be a small, single location in Ohio.

I'm not exaggerating the amount of money they make on this, either. Private adoptions of this sort have fees in the $15,000-$30,000 range.

Yes, there are private agencies that are successful businesses and make significant profit on each adoption. My experience with the private agencies who are charities is that any amount paid over the costs of setting up the adoption (including expensive, but frequently necessary, attorney fees, as well as medical expenses, etc) is used to help the mothers who choose not to give their child up for adoption, as well as helping less wealthy adoptive parents defray the legal/medical costs.

(The racism is harder to confirm. None of the organizations admit to being racist, but women seeking help have found them suddenly losing all interest when it becomes clear they aren't white. There's not so much demand for black babies, and they aren't nearly as profitable.)

Still no source? Not even some kind of anecdote? If it's "white women with white babies only" for a "fair few" number of these organizations (as you originally claimed) I'd expect at least a couple of anecdotes - from across the thousands of organizations that there are.

Perhaps you weren't paying enough attention. There's a whole bunch of these organizations out there that force pregnant mothers to give up their babies for adoption by making sure they have no other choice, threatening to charge them for their stay unless they do, and various other methods.

Some are quite open in only accepting women who will give their child away. For example, this one: "Any woman is welcome to live at Bethany's House as long as she is considering an adoption plan for her child." Or this one: "Single-parenting does not fit God's perfect plan for the family".

I'm not exaggerating the amount of money they make on this, either. Private adoptions of this sort have fees in the $15,000-$30,000 range.

(The racism is harder to confirm. None of the organizations admit to being racist, but women seeking help have found them suddenly losing all interest when it becomes clear they aren't white. There's not so much demand for black babies, and they aren't nearly as profitable.)

[ Still, at least things have improved a bit over the years, partly because abortion is now legal. Certainly, this couldn't happen nowadays. ]

McDonald's has higher beef standards for its products than the federal government does for school lunches, and the school lunch standards are higher than those for supermarket sale.

Whatever it is, they are held to a higher standard than a school lunch these days.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2009-12-08-school-lunch-standards_N.htm

Why shouldn't they oppose it? The Democrats aren't interested in meeting in the middle. They are interested in pushing their own agenda. The fact that they can't even convince the moderates in their own party to go along with some of the stuff they've tried to pass ought to tell you something. Mind you, this is exactly how the GOP operated when they had control, but the silence coming from the man who promised us a new kind of politics is deafening, isn't it?

Are you serious?

The Democrats have made concession after concession to the Republicans on every major bill they've tried to get through Congress, and the Republicans just move the goalposts. This is why we ended up with a watered-down, crap stimulus bill. This is why we're ending up with a watered-down, crap health reform bill. The Republicans are taking obstructionist tactics to new extremes, like "accidentally" losing their voting cards, and filibustering a defense slash war-funding bill in the hopes that the Senate won't even be able to debate the health insurance reform bill. Meanwhile, the Democrats refuse to use the options at their disposal, like reconciliation, to pass the health care bill without bipartisan support or a supermajority. Senator Baucus worked with Republicans for ages on his version of the health care bill, only for them to oppose it anyway. Republican Senators gleefully announce that they intend to break Obama and make health care his waterloo. Republicans previously for health care reform suddenly oppose it for nebulous reasons.

100% party unity is unrealistic for the Democrats on any issue, and the Democrats have 60 members in their caucus in the Senate, not 60 Democrats. Senator Lieberman lost his Democratic primary and garnered more Republican votes than his Democratic opponent, and also more than his Republican opponent. He opposes pretty much every big-ticket Democratic agenda item. That's hardly a party-line Democrat to begin with. Other Democrats are suggesting they will vote against the bill because of a lack of cost-control options like the public option (removed to appease Republicans, despite it's 60%+ support among the public), or because of compromises made to the Republicans, which have garnered no Republican votes and only weakened the bill.

The Republicans don't want to meet in the middle, and the Democrats are fools for trying to act bipartisan. All they get for it is Republicans shrilly insisting that the Democrats are bullying them around any time they want to pass any of the legislation they were elected to pass. The Republicans don't oppose the health care bill on ideological grounds. Plenty of Republicans have supported health care legislation more liberal than what's in the Senate today, such as, say, Richard Nixon. Mitt Romney imposed a very similar plan to the one in the Senate now while he was governor. And so on and so on and so on. It wasn't until the current cycle that Republicans became opposed to plans such as the one now before the Senate. The ideology behind conservatism didn't suddenly change. No, the Republicans made a political decision that it was in their best interest to do their best to attack and bring down any initiatives Obama came up with.

The Republicans aren't opposed to the health care reform bill for any other reason than they were determined to make the Democrats failures. And they're doing an excellent job of it.

The keywords for a search are "primate culture", in quotes. Here's one such example: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090112110058.htm with stone-throwers. This one http://www.usatoday.com/news/science/2001-06-05-animal-usat.htm mentions different chimpanzees using different methods for termite-fishing, and various grooming methods, and a Japanese primate who learned to wash sandy human-cut potatoes, without humans teaching her about washing them, and then her tribe picked up the trick and her descendents do that to this day, which I think meets the "building on knowledge of previous generations" criteria.

particularly when you can make more money in the private sector

Umm... you actually make way less in the private sector. A USA Today article that appeared last week confirmed what many of us have suspected for years, especially since this recession started. And that is that government employees make more than private sector employees. Period. They make more in salary (approximately 30% more), they have far better benefits (healthcare, pension, etc), and they get more perks. It's not the working/middle class vs the wealthy anymore... the two classes we have now are apparently the unionized government aristocracy and all the private sector schmucks footing the bill for it all.

By the way, I know that in this article some government types tried to explain this away by claiming that salaries are so high because the government only fills really important jobs, and that if government employees took equivalent jobs in the private sector they would be getting paid less (all this was said without any evidence). My assertion (also without proof, but I think fairly likely) is that the people in government could not get the equivalent jobs in the private sector because they aren't qualified enough. Hence, they are still being overpaid. And my empirical evidence is that there really aren't any private sector organizations as disorganized, inefficient and generally inept as the federal government (just think about the failed TSA pdf redacting story that was on here the other day). Are our best and brightest really working there? Are people who would otherwise be qualified for important private sector jobs really giving up their salaries en masse so that they can join the ranks of "public servants"? Maybe at the cabinet secretary level this happens, but at pretty much all the other levels of the bureaucracy, I think not. If you work for the government, you are not a "servant", and all us serfs out in the private sector are overpaying you.

All of the Wikipedia/Wikimedia sites bear the same problem: They're sourced to non-experts, run by people with no administrative experience, and have zero quality control other than obsessive teenagers blocking each other for perceived breakages of obscure MMORPG rules.

In short: Ask John Seigenthaler and Essjay why Wikimedia-related sites suck.

I wasn't in the military, so I can't argue... but, if you have time, look up what 3-7 Cavalry and its Apache Troop did on the way to Baghdad. They were a truly elite squadron, and they had an infinite kill ratio in Iraq: they slaughtered thousands of Fedayeen, Republican Guard, and everyone else who got in their way... and lost nobody.
This book gives a pretty good accounting of it. It confirms the harrowing stories he told about their drive up the Euphrates.

I find it hard to believe that you know much of anything about the cold fusion flap when you can't even spell the names of the scientists involved.

As for the whole "global cooling" thing, it's bullshit. Sorry, anyone who brings up that old chestnut in any climate change discussion immediately loses all credibility.

(Note: if you don't consider USA Today a reliable source, I don't blame you, but the linked article gives the names of the study authors and the peer-reviewed journal in which they were published. What, you don't have access to the literature? Then you have even less credibility than before ... headed into negative numbers territory there, pal.)

America is, and pretty much always has been, a fascist nation. I think the recent bailouts of the banking giants and car manufacturers should prove that it is fascist now; Andrew Jackson himself was fighting fascism when it came to central banking back in the 1830's. War and weapons define the American economy. Boeing and Raytheon and Xi could be considered the ultimate achievement of which a fascist society is capable.

Then why is ovrer 2/3rds of the American economy based on CONSUMER spending[1] instead of WAR or WEAPONS? And of that, most of it is spent by women.[2] (See the numerous articles on ecomomics and how they are all worrying about women not spending more but vowing to spend the same and live more frugal lives for the evidence.)

Not to mention that the USA spends only about 4% GDP on Defense[3] at the national level last I was aware.

Hmm...not much of a leg to stand on for your claims, now is there?

[1]2009-10-11 USA Today Article
[2]dated article on consumer spending (2003), but matches what I've recently read in the last month per the point and a more recent article on women being frugal. and yet another article on frugal consumerism in the USA
[3]Wikipedia USA Military budget - with reference links

"I have yet to see a phone that can take anywhere near as good a picture as some of the most basic point and shoot cameras."

Sure, today. You could have said the same of digital cameras 15 yrs ago, yet today kodak has discontinued production of their once popular kodachrome film "because of declining customer demand in an increasingly digital age."

Digital cameras are becoming slimmer and smaller, it's only a matter of time before the same camera you buy today will fit entirely into the cellphone you buy 5 years from now. Just look how far cellphones have come in just ten years, from being bulky with b&w screens and a 1 day battery life to giant 4" LCDs and far thinner than a deck of cards.

I do think they missed a few things in the article.

For one, mp3 players won't be replaced. The ability to carry a small, cheap mp3 player with a 20+ battery life around is like the argument of the wrist watch being replaced, it's nice to have a practically disposable music player with a long battery life.

Netbooks also aren't going anywhere. The ability to run the same software on your (almost) pocketable netbook as you do on your desktop is an infinitely useful ability. So far no smartphone as even come close, even the amazing iPhone doesn't have Firefox, IE, Chrome or Opera browsers. Only way the Netbook would vanish is if you could emulate Windows XP on your smartphone.

However I'm surprised they didn't mention video cameras. The new nano takes fantastic video and it's only a $150 device, I'm sure the new iPhone will follow suit. Can you imagine the video capabilities in phones 5-10 yrs from now? While I'm sure there will still be camcorders for sale I doubt many people will continue to spend hundreds on a separate camcorder when the cellphone does 99% of what's needed and the price is subsidized by the carriers. Of course there will always be professional videographers who will be needed for weddings, but the average family vacation will be filmed on your 2020 smartphone.

I say opinion because 30,000 scientists have said they feel that Gore
has lied and distorted the facts.

Out of those 30,000 scientists, how many have a background in climatology?

http://www.petitionproject.org/qualifications_of_signers.php

3,804 out of the 30,000 are into "Atmosphere, Earth, & Environment", and of those, 39 are into climatology. 39 out of 30,000 scientists are experts into climatology. That's about a .1%.

I'm certain that a holder of a PhD in physics or chemistry would be more qualified than me, a computer consultant, or Al Gore, a politician, but simply saying 30,000 scientists without mentioning their qualifications is disingenuous. It leads the readers out here to believe that those scientists are all 100% knowledgeable in climatology, which is simply not true.

Now, do we have any numbers regarding how many scientists agree with Al Gore?

The weather balloon data does not show warming at higher altitudes thus it is not Global Warming.

You mean this data?

After examining the satellite data, collected since 1979 by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration weather satellites, Carl Mears and Frank Wentz of Remote Sensing Systems in Santa Rosa, Calif., found that the satellites had drifted in orbit, throwing off the timing of temperature measures. Essentially, the satellites were increasingly reporting nighttime temperatures as daytime ones, leading to a false cooling trend. The team also found a math error in the calculations.

This data doesn't prove that it's man-made, but it certainly takes away the argument that warming isn't happening. It could be cyclical. It could be, as you say, the sun.

Is your insurance company one of the ones who decided to screw their (paying!) customers who had bought flood protection because it was determined that the damage to their homes was caused by wind and rain, and not flooding?

IIRC, you have this backward... homeowners without flood insurance were claiming that their properties--completely washed away by the flooding--were still covered by their policies, because of the wind and rain damage sustained before the flood caused a total loss. In this instance, IMHO, the insurance companies were correct in not paying out. A little googling reveals this story about settlements in the various cases.

There are other variants, but every case I remember was specifically about people without flood insurance, trying to claim against water damage. (If you're still remembering a different set of facts, I would ask: who the heck has flood insurance without a conventional homeowner's policy?)

If I'm not doing anything illegal, then I don't have to worry about being arrested.

Sounds like you will be in for a big surprise when you get arrested for doing nothing illegal.
Happens all the time.

Additionally, no where is it stated you must be breaking a law to be arrested.
You only need to be breaking a law and have proof you did so to be *convicted*

Cops arrest people and hold them for the max allowed time before having to press charges, then releasing you on the side of the street, all the time as a harassment tool.

These days you can be tasered without cause as well!
All you have to do is commit the crime of falling down and breaking your back, and then while paralyzed not standing up when ordered to by the cop and shouting your back is broken. citation

Or the worse crime of not wanting to take a shower will also get you assaulted with a taser. citation

Multi-touch is not supported by windows yet.

Kindle goes multitouch on Windows 7

Dell SX2210T - multi-touch, Windows 7 ready, full HD monitor

Windows 7 could hasten touch-screen computers

It looks like someone is still confused there about copyright treaties like the Berne Convention.

It is perfectly legal to download and re-distribute the copyrighted material when the copyright owner gives permission. MPAA, RIAA, Disney / Microsoft don't want that discussed. And when formerly copyrighted material has its copyright revoked, either by the rights holder or by the passage of time. For example, the early Elvis recordings are now in the public domain in many countries because the copyright on that particular edition has expired.

Further, in some countries, fair use extends to copies for personal use. So while it may give you the warm and fuzzies to Repeat After Bill his every word, consider that the Internet is a global network and not just limited to your block.

What is likely at the heart of the matter is the issue of whether decentralized communications networks shall be allowed by control-freaks in various companies or their subservient governments. If it's not centralized, it's hard to track or censor.

That is the crux of our disagreement - to the best of my knowledge, he did not do so.

So what you're saying is that you don't believe it until you've personally witnessed it. So do you also think evolution cannot occur because you don't live long enough for species to evolve?

You are also missing my initial point - it's not about using a DL as ID, it's about having to produce, in my posession, and actual, certified document in order to GET my driver's license. Or a passport. Or an SSN. Or enroll in grade school. Or play on a youth soccer team. Sure, if I CAN'T produce it, there are official ways around it. But Obama did produce it when he got his driver's license, enrolled in school, etc. But to prove his eligibility to be POTUS he can produce a photocopy, 2 random guys who saw his copy and said "It's ok", and a statement from a state official that says that THEIR copy is good, but can't issue a certified copy.

You missed the entire point utterly and completely. When you run for election even a local one, there is a large amount of paperwork to be filed. Most of this occurs out of the public eye. Did John McCain or Hilary Clinton bring in news camera when they submitted their birth certificates to their election officials? No. Obama has already produced the certificate to the local election officials AND he made if available to general public on his website. That's well beyond what he needed to so.

As for Hawaii not producing a copy for you, state records like birth records are private. I can't ask your state for your birth records anymore than you can ask Hawaii for Obama's records. That's basic common sense.

As for your bringing up the parties, think a bit. He made his assertion after the election. What person in his right mind would assert at that point that Obama wasn't qualified? He may be republican, but Hawaii is as blue as they come. Would you commit career suicide over a done deal? Didn't think so.

If you did one iota of research, that the Hawaii affirmed Obama's birthplace twice. The first time was October 2008. The second time was July of 2009. In October 2008, if the Republican governor of Hawaii could have completely eliminated Obama from the election, he would been a hero to the Republican party. Think about that.

The insinuations about his birth first appeared around 2006. Of all the people that could have challenged Obama's citizenship but didn't include:

1. Hilary Clinton and all his Democratic opponents
2. John McCain and the Republicans
3. Every state election official

Today the only people that challenge his birth are people like you who have no standing to do so and don't have a basic grasp of all the facts.

This might explain why: http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/health/drugs/2006-08-23-drug-lawsuits-usat_x.htm

Willing to risk the entire company by taking a few shortcuts? Ethically you might say it's worth it. Better for a company to risk death than a person. But that's not how things are decided. Both have to live. And that takes a lot of time.

The could have had the dome in place for the premier.

I almost feel like someone's pulling our leg here.

myke

That's because the AMA has lobbied for (and received) federal rules that allow them to set the number of doctors (that is, to ration doctors) in order to keep salaries high.

This isn't adversarial - I'm asking for a reference for this because I'm interested. I have not heard this before. How does this work?

No, Qzukk, I'm not talking about "you have to go to school and get a license", it's much more insidious than that. Here's the deal:

The marketplace doesn't determine how many doctors the nation has, as it does for engineers, pilots and other professions. The number of doctors is a political decision, heavily influenced by doctors themselves. Congress controls the supply of physicians by how much federal funding it provides for medical residencies — the graduate training required of all doctors.

This is from an article in USA Today, but you can find plenty of other sources for information on how the supply of doctors is controlled.

Note that I don't really like the CfC idea, but it's ridiculous to say it failed because it worked too well.

It didn't fail because it worked too well. It failed because it was a waste of fucking money!. $24,000 per car? Really?

If your definition of worked includes selling lots of 12 MPG pickup trucks.