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My credibility, that derives from knowing how to read, and having read the SIGMA website and several of the blogs of its members?

And yet, you are completely incapable of providing a single link to back up your claims. Funny that.

As to your assertion, that a bureaucrat can anticipate threats better than science fiction authors

Not at all what I wrote. What I wrote was that focusing on the billions of one-off threats is a total waste of time and money because we can't afford to protect against every single threat someone can dream up.

But thanks for providing a perfect example of what I was talking about. So far we've had one semi-movie plot threat come true - just one. And look at the billions of dollars we've wasted on preventing it from happening again. Pick 10 more threats just like that and the war in Iraq starts to look cheap.

But lets take a step further and look at the kind of utterly ridiculous and pointless ideas these sci-fi writers have proposed:

Grind up and aerosolize pigs, spray it over an unruly population. Let the population know what just happened and remind them they won't go to Heaven with pork in their systems so it's not a good time to die.

an antibiotic that cures martyrdom;

At the Washington conference, Bear offered to put biometrics researchers in touch with movie special-effects experts. The experts might be able to help the government determine how to match the face of someone walking through an airport to a grainy photo of a known terrorist. -- Because we all know that movie special effects let you zoom in on any picture until it is clear, but only hollywood scientists know how to do that.

Bear says the writers offer powerful imaginations that can conjure up not only possible methods of attack, but also ideas about how governments and individuals will respond and what kinds of high-tech tools could prevent attacks.

Gee, he even comes right out and admits they aren't about broad-based planning, they are about conjuring up the improbable stuff.

And finally, the group includes fucking Jerry Pournelle. Anyone who has ever read his columns in Byte knows the guy is a bumbling narcissist who has a completely mis
guided view about his own technical competence.

So yeah, I DO know WTF I'm talking about and you've proven quite well that YOU don't know jack shit.

The latter is something that an agent or a marketing company or a PR firm can do. Really, this is what a record company will eventually evolve to.

I agree, your post is spot-on.

The first thing that has to happen though is to get the record companies to not be so damn dangerous. Pull their fangs.

They killed internet radio because of ideas like this, you know. They still have enough power to get insane laws like this one passed (you actually have to pay the RIAA to broadcast your own unlicensed non-RIAA member music if you can imagine that!) And they'll do anything they can to remain relevant.

Free money and piles of it - who wouldn't fight for that?

So good job Amazon (never thought I'd say that) and keep chipping away at these jerks. Eventually they'll go the way of the dodo.

I'm going to switch to good old tap water for a change.

No luck there either. Meds found in tap-water:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-03-10-drugs-tap-water_N.htm
     

Only thing he can chew on and pull a win is the fact that MediaSentry evidence is not valid for court.

Maybe he has chosen this as the case that will make his name, and is planning to take it to the supremes.

I'm just speculating wildly; surely it can't be that the RIAA just pisses him off?

Before people start saying this is a WiiMote rip-off, be aware that Andy Wilson has been working on this stuff for many years. From an article November 2002: '"We're trying to get away from ... the universal remote where you have 300 buttons," says Andy Wilson, the Microsoft researcher who was key in developing the device. The Xwand, a prototype, contains a set of motion sensors that tell a nearby computer whether it is pointing left or right, up or down.' See http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techinnovations/2002-11-18-bonus-microsoft-xwand_x.htm

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-06-07-evolution-debate_N.htm
Two-thirds in the poll said creationism, the idea that God created humans in their present form within the past 10,000 years, is definitely or probably true.

That's interesting.... the question just before that shows that 54% of the respondents believe in "Evolution, that is, the idea that human beings developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life"

How is there an overlap?

creationism is very much a minority opinion amongst christians (in fact I've only ever met one who thought like that, and I've met a lot of christians over the years). The belief in a literal 7 days is something that historically would have been laughed at long before darwin. A few noisy fundies in the US don't get to choose what christianity is, no matter what you might want to think.

I'm sorry but what possible evidence other than the one anecdotal occurrence can you offer? I have statistics that show that creationism combined with 'god guiding evolution' is a shared belief by an overwhelming majority of Americans. Even if you remove 'god guiding evolution' from the equation the numbers believing in strict creationism are close to half of Americans believing in it.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-06-07-evolution-debate_N.htm
Two-thirds in the poll said creationism, the idea that God created humans in their present form within the past 10,000 years, is definitely or probably true.

http://people-press.org/commentary/?analysisid=118
Surveys are also fairly consistent in their estimates of how many Americans believe in evolution or creationism. Approximately 40%-50% of the public accepts a biblical creationist account of the origins of life, while comparable numbers accept the idea that humans evolved over time. (But keep in mind that many people who believe in evolution in the U.S. think that god was making humans evolve).

http://www.gallup.com/poll/21814/Evolution-Creationism-Intelligent-Design.aspxGallupPollincreationismandevolutiontrendsfrom1982to2008.
Breakdown of creationism and evolution views between Bush and Kerry voters in 2008.

If you want good healthy food, go for fresh vegetables (and fruit, meat and fish) instead of the processed kind.

Unless it's tainted spinach. Or tainted peanuts. Or tainted organic eggs. Or tainted organic sesame seeds. Or tainted organic alfalfa....

Or perhaps instead, if they're really concerned, they could set up a hood and have one person restock the machine under it, while the other guards. If that's too much for one, then hire another. Maybe then I'll feel better about the $3/transaction they're charging.

Personally, since the internals of the stupid machines are all over the internet for interested parties to see, I think they should just ignore the guy with the camera. The store undoubtedly has video of him and would probably share it with them if they were really concerned. Did you look at the photo? They were right next to a full floor-to-ceiling window, and neither one was looking around for "robbers". Maybe what they were afraid of is that someone would send the picture to Loomis and they'd be fired for being inattentive to their surroundings?

I empathize with the majority of the polite security guards trying to their jobs, but there's just enough jerks who think their guns make them gods to spoil the barrel. And that's from a guy who DOES speak politely to security guards.

Not all companies go into debt. See the list on this article: http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/columnist/krantz/2007-03-20-debt-free_N.htm

That's NOT a feature, it's definitely a BUG. The fact WILL be used to engage in illegal arrests for the purpose of fishing. "So sorry, our systems are having problems. But look at all the criminals we catch as a result! Obviously we need more wiretapping &c!"

In the US, the police have a bit more latitude, for sure, but any evidence they gather in violation of the law is absolutely inadmissible.

Not anymore.

Studies have shown wikipedia to be, in general, nearly as accurate as more established encyclopedias.

One study by Nature -- a bogus one -- which was published SIX years ago in 2003, claimed to show that wikipedia was the equivalent of Britannica in error rate. This, as mentioned, id a bogus study. If you know of others to cite and validate your claim, bring it on! If not, stop bringing up this disproven study as fact. It isn't. It is 100% pure wikiality.

There are plenty more I'm sure but don't have the time or energy to look more than this right now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Republican_National_Convention_protest_activity
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1007-06.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-02-06-nyc-protesters_x.htm
http://www.nyclu.org/node/1137

Of those sources, only one was valid, and that one was USA Today. NYCLU? Come on! I saw those guys and even talked with a few of them. The one that I remember most was the one that said that the police should not try to prosecute NAMBLA members because their lust for small boys should be considered a "thought crime", even if they act on it.

Now, for the USA Today article. Here is a snippet:

Fiore, 46, was one of 1,806 people arrested here during the four-day gathering last summer. Police used orange netting, plastic handcuffs and city buses to handle the crowd. When Fiore was arrested, she was part of a group chanting slogans against President Bush on the sidewalk across from Macy's. According to police, she resisted arrest, obstructed governmental administration and committed disorderly conduct.

But Fiore says she did nothing other than exercise her right to free speech and has challenged the city to prove otherwise in court. So have nearly 200 other protesters whose cases are making their way through the courts five months later.

That "obstructed governmental administration" charge, means that she blocked a bus or delegates. Sorry, but these people had a right to attend the convention, even if she disagreed with their politics.

The part that really got me was when she said, "did nothing other than exercise her right to free speech". That's exactly what these guys would shout as they were fighting the police that were trying to arrest them. I saw one guy get in the face of a delegate members screaming at the top of his lungs, "BLOOD IS ON YOUR HANDS!!! YOU WILL PAY FOR THE 100 MILLION DEATHS IN IRAQ!" (Iraq's total population is 20 million, btw). He was arrested because he would not allow the delegates to pass. I saw him do this for at least half an hour before they took him away. What was he yelling as they hauled him off? You guessed it: "My First Amendment rights are being violated! I wasn't doing anything!"

Another quote from the USA Today article:

Protesters who blocked a bus carrying Republican delegates to the Republican National Convention await police transport.

There are plenty more I'm sure but don't have the time or energy to look more than this right now. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Republican_National_Convention_protest_activity http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1007-06.htm http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-02-06-nyc-protesters_x.htm http://www.nyclu.org/node/1137

It's one of those once-in-a-lifetime events. I could be worried about an elevator car falling 20 stories and killing me in the fall, or being hit by lightning. Either of those are more likely than a repeat of 9/11.

I doubted this claim, so I had to check it. I don't think you're right. In the case of lightning, it's true that lightning strikes are much, much more frequent than terrorist attacks; but since one terrorist attack can cause many fatalities, you may still be more at risk from terrorists than you are from lightning. Reportedly lightning killed about 90 people in the US per year in the period 1959-1994. It'd take 30 years of lightning to make one 9/11.

As far as I can tell about falling lifts, there seems to be very very sparse evidence of people dying in falling lifts. In fact there seem to have been only two cases, ever. The first, as it happens, is precisely the case of 9/11. The other is a case from 1945 mentioned in the same link -- the article claims that that was the only fatality caused by a falling lift, prior to 9/11. There's also one case (near the bottom of the page) where a man in a hospital gurney was trapped when a lift slipped a couple of metres while his gurney was partway out the door, but that's not quite the same thing.

Most lift fatalities appear to be a result of people falling down an empty shaft, with a minority caused by people being trapped between moving parts (including a couple of famous decapitation cases) and electrocutions. And one case of a person drowning in a lift. But reports of lift fatalities seems to range between 16 and 30 per year within the US. I'd say you're definitely more at risk from terrorists than you are from lift accidents of any kind.

* If I buy an original potatoe at a store and I reproduce it and share copies with my friends, why isn't that called theft? Making that initial potatoe available can potentially cost the store thousands in lost potatoe sales.

Monsanto has already done this with farmers using some of their seeds. Monsanto has even gone after farmers who don't use Monsanto seed, but get cross-pollinated from crops that do use the engineered seed.

And BTW...toss out the "Dan Quayle does Spelling" book. It's 'potato' :) (had to toss that one in there)

despises Bush ... Infantry and medical in my case, including Desert Storm.

You are a tiny minority, and you know it... Bush may have lost some military support since the linked article, but most in the military supported him — unlike the new President.

Try wrapping your right-wing-chickenhawk

Now, now... Do we really need these slurs? Not sure, why chicken hawk has become such a derogatory term among Bush-hating leftists, but for a mature (Desert Storm was 18 years ago!) person to use it seems quite wrong. I suspect, you weren't anything more than an enlisted man, got out as soon as you could, and have been nourishing your Leftist Illiberalism in academia ever since...

Thank you for your service nonetheless, of course.

I thought I had read the same thing once and I found the article.

From USA Today article http://www.usatoday.com/weather/climate/globalwarming/2009-03-29-nuclear-power-energy-return_N.htm/.

Only one company, Japan Steel Works, builds the 600-ton steel forgings used to make reactor vessels. It can make only five or six a year.

*sighs* The Saddam9/11 crowd was never that large a subset of bush supporters.

*sighs*

9/6/2003: WASHINGTON (AP) â" Nearly seven in 10 Americans believe it is likely that ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the Sept. 11 attacks, says a poll out almost two years after the terrorists' strike against this country.

Sixty-nine percent in a Washington Post poll published Saturday said they believe it is likely the Iraqi leader was personally involved in the attacks carried out by al-Qaeda. A majority of Democrats, Republicans and independents believe it's likely Saddam was involved.

Source.

So no, not a large subset, but a MAJORITY of Republican supporters (and Democrat supporters too, for that matter) were part of the 'Saddam/911 crowd'.

Jupiter

Bush: "I find it very interesting that when the heat got on, you dug yourself a hole, and you crawled in it."

A couple years earlier, a small group of murderers with a handful of commercial jets had managed to immediately drive Cheney into a hole^H^H^H^H^H undisclosed location and Bush into underground shelter. A couple years later, it just took a single report of an off-course plane to send Bush underground again. Was it so tactically unreasonable to expect Saddam to hide from a hundred thousand men armed with the best military technology in the world?

Even if this was propaganda for the Iraqis' benefit, it seems like condescending propaganda. Go for the root of the problem, and persuade people that a strongman ruler is illegitimate if he isn't democratically supported and/or if he violates human rights. Don't just cop out and try to paint yourself as the stronger man.

You are the 2nd to respond as such. I refreshed my memory with a quick trip down google lane.

And technically, adding soldiers to Afghanistan is the exact opposite of "bringing our troops home"

You are aware that throughout his campaign, he was fairly consistent about the idea that we should be escalating in Afghanistan and Pakistan, right?

He didn't campaign on the idea that aren't wars we should be fighting, nor on the idea all troops should be home. He *did* focus against the Iraq war, which, as he'd been saying since 2002, he thought was a problematic conflict to begin with.

When Biden and Obama were in opposition for the Presidential candidacy, Biden had stated that Obama was a "johnny come lately" on afghanistan. In addition many had thought that Obama was less than useful in his role as chairman of the subcommittee that oversights NATO and "he has never had a hearing nor has he ever visited Afghanistan". link here

It was after the Democratic Primary that Obama changed his tune, and supported sending "2 combat brigades to finish the work in Pakistan". There are several google links to credible sources that detail in fact, Obama had campaigned (for a period of time) for increasing troop strength in Afghanistan.

I was wrong, in part, and freely admit my mistake in memory and time line. He is still a sleazy politician when the only fact that changed was Biden was not an opponent any longer.

The old Western Union trick

I have a friend who fell for this scam. How did he fall for it? Well, even though he was suspicious of the check that he received from the scammer, his bank told him the check had cleared, and he saw that the money had been added to his account. So, he assumed everything was on the up and up. But a few days later, the bank said the check had bounced, and they froze my friend's account.

Now, why do banks add money to their customers' accounts before everything has been fully validated? Turns out the government is at it again:

"Banks are required to make funds available to customers within a few days of when the check is deposited -- even if the check has yet to clear. This law was enacted in the 1980s after consumers complained that banks were holding onto deposits for inordinate amounts of time. The law has, indeed, allowed consumers to access their money more quickly. But it's also provided another avenue for fraud." -- Con artists take advantage of check rules

Here's quote from a USAToday article.

Pezzopane, the provincial president, said residents may have been lulled into complacency because so many smaller quakes had jolted the area, including two or three earlier in the night.

"Considering what happened, a bit more concern, more attention might have saved lives," she said.

National officials insisted no quake can ever be predicted and that no evacuation could have been ordered on the basis of the recent jolts.

"There is no possibility of making any predictions on earthquakes. This is a fact in the world's scientific community," Civil protection chief Guido Bertolaso told reporters

Talk about saving face...

They're not completely wrong - there currently is no scientifically acceptable method of predicting earthquakes that is time-tested, but at the very least, they could give some credit to Giuliani for seemingly predicting this earthquake, and offer him a full apology for calling him an imbecile.

Except the Southern half of that coast for a good four months of the year.

Bermuda High

I live in Southeastern Virginia. In the summertime, there isn't much wind unless there's a storm. Yes, right along the coast, you get morning and evening breeziness due to temperature differences between the air over the water and over the land. Once you get a few miles off shore it's, as the locals say, "slickcalm." The same is true a few miles inland.

I often can see the harbor in Norfolk looking like a mirror at night; not even the slightest hint of a wave, absent the occasional passing boat.

And, of course, those four months when this sets up are the months when power is at peak demand (A/C for the folks inland who get up to 100F, and have no breeze or water temperature stabilization at all. It's not at all uncommon to see a 25 degree difference in temperatures between Williamsburg and Virginia Beach during the day in the summer and at night in the winter.)

There seems to be a bit of missing pragmatism in Obama's energy plans. There is no way to know if this will work as well as his experts expect. But an ounce of Uranium, or a barrel of oil will contain the same amount of energy in ten years as they do today. Focusing solely on "green" sources of energy is a huge leap of faith.

Proof of claim of aerosols caused famine in Africa in the 80's? It's called google! Maybe if you have been using this internet thing for a while you should try it. But since you are too lazy I guess I will do it for you. How about:
http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2002/07/22/aerosol020722.html
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-54622826.html
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0721-07.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/news/2002/2002-07-22-africandrought.htm
Basically all over the freaking place. I also saw it once on nova on pbs, here I think:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sun/

Nice post. So, my question is this: are you saying the political movement that is Global Warming is more along the lines of Global Socialism?

No it's not illegal to ask about anything in a job interview.

Actually, you are wrong. In the United States, asking the following types questions of a candidate are illegal:

1. Age.
   "When did you graduate from high school?" (legal "are you over 18?")
2. Nationality.
   "What is your native language?" ("Are you authorized to work in the US" is okay)
3. Marrital status/Family Status.
   "Are you married?", "Do you have any children?"
4. Affiliations
   "Are you a member of the Illuminati?"
5. Personal
   "What is your weight?" (legal: "can you lift 40 pounds?)
6. Disability
   "Have you ever had a heart attack?" (this is a grey area though--think airline pilots, etc)
7. Arrest Record
   "Ever been arrested?" (legal: "Ever been convicted of money laundering", and you are applying to be an accountant)
8. Military
   "Did you serve in Vietnam?"

(USATODAY)

Know your rights--keep in mind you may have more depending on the state you live in.

Know that people aren't always aware they can't ask these kinds of questions. You are also free to disclose any of it, like your age, even if they don't ask (many people disclose their age on their resume and don't even realize it. Never add the date when you graduated from high school.)

The key here is that if an employer bases their hiring decision on the fact you served in Vietnam, they are in the wrong. If they didn't hire you as a programmer because you are 45, they are wrong. If they didn't hire you as some hot-shot because you have kids, they are wrong.

A shitload less than "social contracts", welfare, workfare, interest on debt, social security, medicare and medicaid.
2007 high level pie chart, Federal Budget, USA
2009 Pie chart, detailed, Federal Budget, USA

Fools and "useful idiots" twist the pie charts by leaving welfare, workfare, interest on debt, social security, medicare and medicaid out and focusing only on non-whole "discretionary" pie charts.

Clinton appointed David Walker of the GAO, he quit, the unfunded debt obligations have rendered the USA insolvent according to accounting standards.
Taxpayers on the hook for $59 trillion - USATODAY.com
US Public Debt Unfunded Debt Obligations

As bad as Bush was, Chairman Obama is drastically increasing spending and creating more entitlements that will make the US less competitive (especially against China, India, East Europe/Russia). This will be a huge disaster and change you can believe in will strap you and your grandkids with more debt. No taxation without representation ? HA! Obama is spending money for the next two-three generations and they can't even vote yet, or even have been born.

It is easy to misunderstand Swiss banking secrecy as some kind of dodgy way of assisting rich foreigners with tax fraud/evasion.

Especially considering that UBS, one of the biggest Swiss banks, has admitted to having sent representatives to the US for exactly that purpose.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/20/business/20tax.html?pagewanted=print

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/banking/2009-02-19-ubs-tax-evaders-irs_N.htm

Yes, it's possible that UBS was an isolated case (though, given UBS's size, it's hard to call anything it does "isolated.") and that other banks weren't being so blatant in their flouting of other countries' laws. It's also very likely that UBS's actions were completely in line with Swiss law and traditions.

  According to an article I just read*, that piece of junk was estimated to be about five inches in diameter and traveling at a relative velocity (to the ISS) of about 22,000 mph. That's almost ten kilometers a second**.

  If that had hit the Soyuz, it would have went in one side and out the other likely without even slowing down much, vaporizing a significant chunk of the hull - think white-hot metal shrapnel and shredded astronauts.

  Look at what happens to an armored tank when a depleted uranium shell hits it at a much slower velocity. At the velocities we're talking about here, even a pebble can cause a lot of destruction; a five inch piece of debris likely weighing at least a kg has an effect like a large artillery shell. Remember the flake of paint that put an inch diameter pit into the shuttle's windshield all those years ago?

  The only effective armor against something like this is a meter or so of rock.

* http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/space/2009-03-12-space-station_N.htm

**Google: 22000 mph in meters per second = 9834.88 meters per second.

SB

You mean this thing?

I hope they sit down with the Warner execs and say: Have a look at album sales after we release a track. If you want us to use your songs, pay up. If not, we can always go elsewhere.

Woooe there!

"As of Sept. 30 (2007), the two wars have cost $604 billion, the CBO says"

http://www.usatoday.com/news/military/2007-10-23-wacosts_N.htm

As of this year, the cost is probably closer to $800 if not more.

Which render your post null and void.

Even the AP isn't everywhere.. I would be willing to bet that the AP isn't everywhere either! AP has "reporters" in Bangalore, India writing on US events. Reuters reports on wall street from India. I wonder how many newspapers write reports based on what they see happening LIVE on CNN or BBC? Here is the real kicker: Even the Chairman of the Board of the Associated Press says that your location is irrelevant. http://www.usatoday.com/money/media/2008-10-20-singleton_N.htm

If it doesn't work then what are these people doing?

Losing money.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/energy/environment/2008-01-20-solar-power_N.htm (worth reading)
"Osborn agrees cost is Stirling's biggest technical challenge. Each hand-built test dish cost $225,000. That needs to drop to less than $50,000, Osborn says."

Let's say that this is a 40ft. diameter dish in 6kWh/m^2 per day, 365 days per year territory with a thermal efficiency of 25%

that's about 63,000 kWh per year, if I've done my math right, which means $6300 at 10 cents/kWh. I think that's a realistic number. But let's say they get $10,000 a year for the power from one dish. The dishes aren't going to cost $50000, it'll be more. Then they'll need land, permits, environmental studies. Then they need power lines, which can't be bought for any price in California, but even if they could, would add tens of thousands of dollars per dish. Then there will be maintenance - the mirrors need cleaning, the moving parts in the Stirlings will wear out, and unforeseen expenses are inevitable. At the end of the day they simply can't make a return on capital that is attractive. If everything goes perfectly, the projections they make to get investors turn out to be correct, there are no expenses other than their $50,000 projected equipment costs (...hell freezes over, monkeys fly out my butt...)they make 20% return. Given the factors mentioned above, it's more likely that the best case is they net $3000 after maintenance and land on $100,000 investment, which means they don't cover real inflation, let alone the cost of capital.

You should really read what you linked to.

Members of the public have a very limited scope of privacy rights when they are in public places. Basically, anyone can be photographed without their consent except when they have secluded themselves in places where they have a reasonable expectation of privacy such as dressing rooms, restrooms, medical facilities, and inside their homes.

You also may want to review this USA Todayarticle, which goes into a bit more detail.

Finally, you can't use someone's likeness for a purely commercial purpose â" using a photo of someone in an ad, for example. That isn't to say you can't publish a photo in a commercial environment, such as a newspaper or a blog that accepts ads. If the photo is being used in a news or artistic sense as opposed to a commercial one you're OK.

That's the part I think you thought you were talking about. You can sell make a profit from pictures with someone in them, you can't make it appear (as I learned in journalism classes in college) they're endorsing a product, or put them in a false light, or take pictures when there's a reasonable expectation of privacy.

Legally speaking, walking down the road while someone takes a picture of a tourist destination (for example) gives you absolutely no recourse. They can make as much money from selling that image as they want, so long as they don't try to imply something that did not happen did.

The whole purpose of news is to get eyes to look at the ads they show for about 8 to 10 minutes per half hour. Why should newsworthiness make a difference if any for-profit photography was banned? Are news agencies non-profits now?

I fully agree. See Steve Martin's "Theodoric of York, Medieval Barber" skit from SNL.
See this example of "fixing" a potential problem.
Sometimes it is better to let nature take its course, but we get so full of ourselves and believe we have some obligation to "fix" nature.

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/environment/2009-01-13-australia-rabbits_N.htm

Worse we've raised a couple generations of fat stupid people who will gladly give up their rights as long as you give them a Whopper(tm) and American Idol at the properly programmed times periods.

It's not just Americans. In Hong Kong a passenger who is late to catch a flight "throws epic tantrum at Hong Kong airport"

Falcon

Nah; PETA's too busy burning crosses at the westminster dog show in their white robes and hoods

Not true. Commercial aircraft are spec'd so that they can take off safely with the loss of one engine at the most critical time during the takeoff. Power needed in cruise is not that high compared with power needed at takeoff. Indeed, there was an incident a few years ago where a British Airways 747 flight continued on 3 engines for 11 hours rather than divert due to loss of an engine. (It did eventually divert because of low fuel due to unexpectedly strong headwinds.) http://www.usatoday.com/travel/flights/2005-03-01-britair-la_x.htm

... these same climate experts were also spouting off that there would be an ice age not so long ago.

Citation needed.

Try this one: Study Debunks Global Cooling myth of the 90s (or here)

"The supposed "global cooling" consensus among scientists in the 1970s -- frequently offered by global-warming skeptics as proof that climatologists can't make up their minds -- is a myth, according to a survey of the scientific literature of the era....

But Thomas Peterson of the National Climatic Data Center surveyed dozens of peer-reviewed scientific articles from 1965 to 1979 and found that only seven supported global cooling, while 44 predicted warming. Peterson says 20 others were neutral in their assessments of climate trends. The study reports, "There was no scientific consensus in the 1970s that the Earth was headed into an imminent ice age.

"A review of the literature suggests that, to the contrary, greenhouse warming even then dominated scientists' thinking about the most important forces shaping Earth's climate on human time scales."

The handouts/coupons are only a few million dollars.

A little bit of Googling:

"Federal law allocated $1.5 billion toward the coupon program with a maximum of $160 million to be used toward administrative expenses."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2008-09-19-DigitalTV_N.htm

That's from last September when they were out of administrative money and asking for more. I'm too lazy to get up-to-date stats. Maybe you can provide more favorable figures?

About a dozen states â" Oregon, Arizona, California and Iowa, among others â" have call centers in state and federal prisons, underscoring a push to employ inmates in telemarketing jobs that might otherwise go to low-wage countries such as India and the Philippines. Arizona prisoners make business calls, as do inmates in Oklahoma. A call center for the DMV is run out of an all-female prison in Oregon. Other companies are keeping manufacturing jobs in the USA. More than 150 inmates in a Virginia federal prison build car parts for Delco Remy International. Previously, some of those jobs were overseas. At least 2,000 inmates nationwide work in call centers, and that number is rising as companies seek cheap labor without incurring the wrath of politicians and unions. At the same time, prison populations are ballooning, offering U.S. companies another way to slash costs.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/employment/2004-07-06-call-center_x.htm
And they work for $200 dollars. A month. I'm glad that the prisoners get to do something productive...but it feels kind of weird/prison-industrial complexish. =0

The problem is that your premise, that they have only a set amount of money for coupons, is false.

Uh, in what way is it false? I'll answer that for you—it is in no way false; it is absolutely true. About $1.34 billion was allocated to the coupon program, with a cap of $160 million on administrative costs.

Just thought I'd mention it:

http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2009-01-21-job-cuts_N.htm

Sorry, that is not what I am reading. Some are stating, quite plainly, that they do not deserve any protection. Until people are charged, which I have not seen happening, their identities should be obscured as they may be innocent or found innocent.

There are two possibilities:
(1) They are government agents acting lawfully in their official capacity, in which case neither the acts nor their identities deserve protection against public scrutiny and accountability (barring some other reason than "people might not like what they've done"), or
(2) They are government agents acting unlawfully and contrary to their official responsibilities, in which case neither their acts nor their identities deserve protection against public scrutiny (again, barring some other reason than "people might not like what they've done").

They are entitled to protection from retaliation in the same way that all citizens are entitled to protection from violent crime, but not in any other way.

[citation needed]
I have seen no investigations as yet, only the threat of same.

Then you haven't been paying the slightest bit of attention, which is hardly anyone's fault but your own. The amount of media attention the various investigations and prosecutions received was immense.

Here's just a few bits:
Military prosecution in Abu Ghraib scandal ends (01/11/2008)
For Abu Ghraib, a limited prosecution (03/29/2006)
The Unlearned Lessons of Abu Ghraib (10/19/2006)
Iraq prison report details lax discipline (5/8/2004)
CIA personnel, civilians cited in abuse (8/20/2004)
Trial Starts in Abu Ghraib Death (5/25/2005)
C.I.A. to Avoid Charges in Most Prisoner Deaths (10/23/2005)

Sorry, that is not what I am reading. Some are stating, quite plainly, that they do not deserve any protection. Until people are charged, which I have not seen happening, their identities should be obscured as they may be innocent or found innocent.

There are two possibilities:
(1) They are government agents acting lawfully in their official capacity, in which case neither the acts nor their identities deserve protection against public scrutiny and accountability (barring some other reason than "people might not like what they've done"), or
(2) They are government agents acting unlawfully and contrary to their official responsibilities, in which case neither their acts nor their identities deserve protection against public scrutiny (again, barring some other reason than "people might not like what they've done").

They are entitled to protection from retaliation in the same way that all citizens are entitled to protection from violent crime, but not in any other way.

[citation needed]
I have seen no investigations as yet, only the threat of same.

Then you haven't been paying the slightest bit of attention, which is hardly anyone's fault but your own. The amount of media attention the various investigations and prosecutions received was immense.

Here's just a few bits:
Military prosecution in Abu Ghraib scandal ends (01/11/2008)
For Abu Ghraib, a limited prosecution (03/29/2006)
The Unlearned Lessons of Abu Ghraib (10/19/2006)
Iraq prison report details lax discipline (5/8/2004)
CIA personnel, civilians cited in abuse (8/20/2004)
Trial Starts in Abu Ghraib Death (5/25/2005)
C.I.A. to Avoid Charges in Most Prisoner Deaths (10/23/2005)

can be passed on to a 3G mobile network

So... how secure is this? I can't imagine anyone other than my doctor (and not even him, probably) are that interested in my biometrics, but I am not comfortable with the information being broadcast over a network.

The summary links to a stub which links to the actual article, which describes how the network-enabled system could be used:

Caregivers or relatives will know when and what pills patients have taken or if the patients failed to take their medications.

So you can watch Grandma forget to take her pills - in real time!