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The Washington Post decided to create an entire web site to publish all of the information in this expose. Beyond the usual articles, the site includes interactive maps, interactive infographics, a search engine and an online database. All of this material is delivered via a Flash-based applet, and serves as a good, real-world example of what a rich internet client can do when there is a lot of data to be conveyed, and not just multimedia.

Herewith The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly:

The Good
The articles are properly paginated for the screen, which makes reading online so very much easier. Each page spans two columns, which are fitted in about 600px of vertical space, which eliminates the need for scroll bars. The sides of the columns have click regions to navigate forward and back through the poages, like on a mobile reader. Perfect.

The interactive maps and infographics are very polished, but not as useful as they could be. As Prof. Tufte taught us, every graphic is supposed to make a point and tell a story. The purpose of these graphics seem to be to help us visually sort the data. While sorting is useful, it's not really telling a story; I think they could have done better. A key point in the article, for example, was that no one really knows who's doing what, and there are surely massive areas of overlap. It'd be nice to have an infographic that really made that point in a visual way.

The Bad
For some reason, many Flash developers insist on messing about with utterly standardized widgets such as the scroll bar. In this case, the UI designers chose to use a middling-grey rectangle for the scrollbar pointer, and a lighter-middling-grey line for the scrollbar background; very difficult to see, much less to click upon. Worse yet, the standard scrollbar behaviors were not supported, and the Page Down/Page Up keys were not active. The upshot is that one has to click and drag the small scrollbar pointer up and down just to move the page. Bad designer! Bad!

The Ugly
There are no words that can convey the ugliness that is the Comments interface. A complete UI failure. See it for yourself at
http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/articles/COMMENTSLINK

All in all, I think the Washington Post deserves an A+ for effort, and a B for execution. The only really sour note is the Comments interface. But delivering the entire expose as a web site shows just how fast and how far the Post has gone towards leveraging the web as an information resource.

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/companies/microsoft-enterprise-services/

The "Where-do-your-files-want-to-go-today" company is listed as one of the government top-secret contractors.

You can all now sleep better, knowing how safe your secrets are.

People are moderating above post as funny. In fact, a Microsoft Security Update really did shut down a nuclear reactor.

Nuclear reactors are vulnerable to shut downs caused by network, malware, and "normal" Microsoft Windows related issues. See: malware shutting down a nuclear reactor, and network trouble shuts down a nuclear reactor.

Here's a chart showing a very strong correlation between health care costs and wages. For a period in the 90s health care costs grew very slowly and wages shot up, and when health care costs started rising more sharply during the 00s wages became stagnant. It makes sense that an employer would spend less on an employees wages as the cost of their benefits go up.

Warrants are used for entry and seizure of property. He didn't "own" any of the things the company was hosting for him: the hosting company had a right to terminate him as a customer on a moment's notice. And they did.

The hosting company told him they weren't allowed to give him his data. So it's been seized by the government, they're the only ones that could order the hosting company not to give him a copy of his data. And no, it's unlikely that the hosting company simply didn't want to bother doing so, they'd just have said that (every hosting company I've dealt with has policies where they don't have to give you a copy of your data if you're terminated for TOS violations, although most of them will still do so).

It's very unusual for a domain to be taken down like this. Even in cases of definite, repeated long-term copyright violations the government doesn't order the site taken down, order the hosting company that they can't give the customer a copy of the data and also order them to not tell the customer why they took it down in the first place (beyond a "we had no choice"). Even the recent domain seizures the US government did against sites that were streaming new-release movies illegally they got warrants for. And the court gave them the power to seize the domain names as well as the servers in those cases.

Here there's apparently no warrant and a seal of secrecy The whole thing sounds like one of the FBI's national security letters, which they don't have a very good track record on using correctly.

Uh, the media did not tear her apart.

Do you remember the coming-out interview she had with Charlie Gibson? He clearly had it in for her with his paternalistic tone and silly gotcha about the "Bush Doctrine". That got the ball rolling and the media picked up on it from there. This article sums it up nicely.

She self-destructed by whiffing on the softball questions tossed to by Katie Couric

On that I agree, not being able to answer the question of what newspapers she read was cringe-worthy. She really should have just been honest, and stated what was obvious: She was focused on local politics, not national, and that she was going to have to ramp up in a hurry. The media would have pounced on that too, but at least it would have been refreshingly candid, and as a vice president candidate something I suspect many voters could have forgiven her for if they agreed with her politics and job as governor of Alaska.

McCain's choice of such a woefully inadequate running mate showed that his judgement was indeed poor, and as such the so-called "Independent voters" broke for Obama.

I disagree. She certainly wasn't any worse a choice than Quayle, and the first Bush got elected with him. The independent voters had already broken for Obama by the time McCain picked her. McCain wasn't going to win with a traditional VP pick. I think it was a smart choice, and for awhile it worked. The funny thing is Palin is still relevant in politics. This has worked out pretty well for her.

Bush Has Quietly Tripled Aid to Africa

Wasn't a Bush supporter (I hate both D's and R's), but the facts are what they are.

Please note that they seem to have gotten that news 2 weeks after the Washington Post reported it:

One of these friends may have been Alan Patricof, a Democratic fundraiser and friend of the Clintons.

You're only looking at a small piece of the puzzle... it's not a simple zero sum game. Somebody either in the record companies or in the RIAA believes that even though their legal fees exceeded the awards they received, the net result is that it will result in profits exceeding the apparent loss of these legal actions. You can perhaps argue that they're guilty of the same sort of math another prominent figure has been touting as being a wise investment; but regardless, the RIAA is unlikely to back down unless they become convinced it becomes a broader losing strategy.

It's stupid because it makes a baseless assumption about the nature of a specific type of human behavior, uses that assumption to propose an extremely complex solution, and ignores the multitude of side-effects which would most likely occur even if the initial premise were valid and a solution were found.

It's like saying "hey, why are we wasting money on kevlar vests when we could just cure the bullet-permeability gene?"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/09/AR2005110902079.html

According to this article it was possible to screen for downsyndrome 5 years ago. They could determine if the fetus would have downsyndrome and abort the fetus. This can be done today, right now.

In the future they will be able to activate or deactivate genes, or at least screen the fetus for the activated genes so that fetuses with these genes need not be born.

Tell me what would be so bad about this? If mental illness is genetic and we can screen for the genes associated with specific mental illnesses, why give birth to babies who will suffer a lifetime of mental illness?

I'm saying women should be given the abortion to abort an unhealthy fetus.

Fetal screening technology allows a mother to detect whether or not their fetus has down syndrome by the first trimester.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/09/AR2005110902079.html

He was talking about "foremost" in the context of the interview, not NASA as a whole.

Yes, he was.

""When I became the NASA administrator -- or before I became the NASA administrator -- he charged me with three things. One was he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math, he wanted me to expand our international relationships, and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science ... and math and engineering,""

Your excuse for the guy was weasel words. He said what he said, and he wasn't taken out of context. Further, the White House itself has gently reprimanded him for his comments:

"But White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Monday, "That was not his task, and that's not the task of NASA." Gibbs said White House officials have spoken to Bolden and NASA about the comments."

If you'll read the Washington Post link, you'll see that this is just the tip of the iceberg for Bolden. The Post piece refers to him as, and I quote, a "headache for the White House".

Thanks for the attention. One of NTP's PR folks just e-mailed a copy of the company's complaint against Google. There's a copy embedded after the jump of my post, and you can also read or download the PDF via Scribd. I encourage you all to give that document a careful read, then look through the patents claimed (I've linked to the relevant USPTO pages in the post as well).

- RP

They are very long and steep.

Many stretch deep into the ground, including the 230-foot-long moving stairs at Wheaton, the longest escalator in the Western Hemisphere. To reduce accidents, Metro keeps the speed of its escalators relatively slow -- 90 feet a minute, compared with the 120 [but up to 150] feet a minute that is typical of escalators at shopping malls, said Fred Goodine, Metro's assistant general manager for system safety and risk protection.

That means that riding the Wheaton escalator can take three minutes; and the Dupont Circle Metro's 2 minutes and 10 seconds. The escalator at Woodley Park Zoo/Adams Morgan, a favorite of tourists with small children, clocks in at 2 minutes and 20 seconds.
From a Washington Post article
We have elevators (and shuttles when they're broken, which is common). It's a decision, but the decision is because of the slope, walking is due to the length. By walking you can easily cut that 2 minutes in half. That can the difference between making the next train which can be 5-10 minutes depending on whether it's rush hour or off times.

As it turns out walking is pretty dangerous. As a result many other escalator systems boost speeds above the ones listed above in an effort to discourage walking. So Metro's policy is fairly counter-productive.

Accordingly, you could argue that the discrepancy caused by old users might be balanced out by young users who wasted a lot of time saying, "Where's the damn 'on button' on this old-fashioned block of papers?"

You mean, "I've read a whole page and I haven't received a single tweet. This sucks. Damn, how do I post on facebook with this thing. What was I doing again? This thing is heavier than my xbox controller. Ooooh, XBOX. Gotta go."

Or if they were American, they were looking at the "book thingy" and wandering what it was for. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/21/AR2007082101045.html

In 2004, a National Endowment for the Arts report titled "Reading at Risk" found only 57 percent of American adults had read a book in 2002

And by your logic, the fame one would gain by proving George Bush was a criminal would be the holy grail of liberalism... So why hasnt it happened?

Here is a list of some of the research papers that somehow never made it into the IPCC inner circle of journals.

Here are some scientist associated with the fields of climatology and atmospherics who dissent.

Here's a report on the US Senate Commitee on Environmental and Public Works about 100 scientists (many formerly of the IPCC) who are skeptics and who sent letters to the UN declaring so

Here's a Senate report on scientists who were proponents, but are since turned skeptics of global warming:

If none of that is bad enough, lets talk about the intimidation?

Here is a link, again on the US Senate Committe on Environment and Public works talking about the NASA scientist calling for charges of Treason against for skeptics.

Here's another Senate report on the Intimidation that skeptics face for "climate blasphemy":

Here's a Washington Post article about a skeptic fired from his post as Virginia State Climatologist becuase he used it as a "platform as state climatologist to promote his views on global warming, including that the issue was overemphasized" after clashing with the Governer

Another case of intimidation

Here's an aricle about a man whose career in television as a science journalist ended because of his beliefs about global warming

Here's a Senate report about a climatologist calling for the scientific certifications of skeptics to be revoked:

So yeah... There's no evidence of intimidation or ignoring the legitimate dissent....

So a bunch of professors got together and cleared ... one of their own. No surprise there. You can read the first 2 paragraphs under the "Background of the alleged misconduct" and you can tell right away what the conclusion is going to be by the way it's written.

This is no different than the Investigation of Chris Dodd's Mortgage deal.. A so-called "inquiry" by members of his own party concluded that receiving "VIP" mortgage deals did not constitute preferential treatment.

A whitewash is a whitewash is a whitewash.

The reason iPhone 4 has a 960x640 resolution on such a small screen is not because it's good for you, it's because their software is not resolution independent so they need to use pixel doubling.

No. That was true for PalmOS back in the day, but it's not true for iOS. iOS is every bit as resolution independent as Android is. All coordinates are given in points, not pixels. Font sizes are given in points, not pixels. On old iPhones one point was 1.0 pixels. On the new iPhones 1 point is 2.0 pixels.

Views can be set to use absolute co-ordinates, or to scale automatically. Images scale to whatever dimensions they are given. etc. The developer documentation encourages you to query the sizes of screens, windows, controls, not to assume certain sizes etc.

If there is a difference at all its only that Android app developers have actually had the opportunity to test on devices with different screen sizes.

It's perfectly possible for Apple to have introduced a new iPhone where there was a non integer number of pixels. The reason they didn't is because a UI scaled by a non integer number wouldn't look as good. That's true whether you are talking about iOS or Android.

It's not something to brag about really.

It's the highest res screen on a smartphone. That would be something to brag about no matter what the reasons behind it.

The iPhone camera is pretty comparable to the latest Android phones, and it's far worse than the best phone cameras on the market.

Nonsense. Here's a couple of comparisons. They both come to the same conclusion: The iPhone 4 comes out top amongst the smartphones by a good margin. It's only beaten by dedicated cameras.
http://www.gadgetsdna.com/iphone-4-vs-motorola-droid-x-vs-htc-evo-4g-vs-samsung-galaxy-s-camera-comparison/4247/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/25/AR2010062504039_2.html

Given the steep price that iPhone hardware effectively commands, they have room for some gimmicks that other companies cut out.

Again, complete nonsense. The better Android smartphones (i.e. the ones that are always brought up by people trying to claim that Android has caught up with iPhone) cost about the same as the iPhone. For example the HTC Evo 4G with 8GB costs $199.99 with a 2 year contract. The iPhone 4 16GB costs $199 with a 2 year contract.

The iPhone is a luxury product at a premium price, nothing more.

The Android followers are inferior to the iPhone and cost more. The only way to get a cheap Android is to get an old or inferior model. There is neither luxury nor value in the Android world.

You've got to be kidding me. To quote Jon Stewart, "Democrats... have an 18 vote majority in the Senate. Which is more than George W Bush ever had in the Senate when he did whatever the f*ck he wanted to do. In fact the Democrats have a greater majority than Republicans have had since 1923. But for Democrats apparently a majority of 100 is 60?"

The Republican party does not vote in lock-step. They have moderate members who will vote against their party. In fact, of Senators in the current term who vote against their party more than 20% of the time, 5 are Republicans (out of 43) and 4 are Democrats (out of 62). In the 2007-2008 Senate when Republicans held a 51:49 majority, the 9 Senators who voted against their party more than 20% of the time were all Republicans.

The problems the Democrats are having passing anything is because when they effectively got 60 Senate seats, their leadership went into the throes of a collective orgasm and dreamt up every far-left bill they could think of and tried to pass them. Not only did Republicans vote against them, they had to beg and bribe moderate Democrats to support those bills. If a bill you propose is opposed by all Republicans and a significant number of moderate Democrats, most intelligent people would logically conclude that the bill is far too liberal and needs to come back to center to have a chance at passing. Not that there's some right-wing conspiracy to thwart you.

You've got to be kidding me. To quote Jon Stewart, "Democrats... have an 18 vote majority in the Senate. Which is more than George W Bush ever had in the Senate when he did whatever the f*ck he wanted to do. In fact the Democrats have a greater majority than Republicans have had since 1923. But for Democrats apparently a majority of 100 is 60?"

The Republican party does not vote in lock-step. They have moderate members who will vote against their party. In fact, of Senators in the current term who vote against their party more than 20% of the time, 5 are Republicans (out of 43) and 4 are Democrats (out of 62). In the 2007-2008 Senate when Republicans held a 51:49 majority, the 9 Senators who voted against their party more than 20% of the time were all Republicans.

The problems the Democrats are having passing anything is because when they effectively got 60 Senate seats, their leadership went into the throes of a collective orgasm and dreamt up every far-left bill they could think of and tried to pass them. Not only did Republicans vote against them, they had to beg and bribe moderate Democrats to support those bills. If a bill you propose is opposed by all Republicans and a significant number of moderate Democrats, most intelligent people would logically conclude that the bill is far too liberal and needs to come back to center to have a chance at passing. Not that there's some right-wing conspiracy to thwart you.

You've got to be kidding me. To quote Jon Stewart, "Democrats... have an 18 vote majority in the Senate. Which is more than George W Bush ever had in the Senate when he did whatever the f*ck he wanted to do. In fact the Democrats have a greater majority than Republicans have had since 1923. But for Democrats apparently a majority of 100 is 60?"

The Republican party does not vote in lock-step. They have moderate members who will vote against their party. In fact, of Senators in the current term who vote against their party more than 20% of the time, 5 are Republicans (out of 43) and 4 are Democrats (out of 62). In the 2007-2008 Senate when Republicans held a 51:49 majority, the 9 Senators who voted against their party more than 20% of the time were all Republicans.

The problems the Democrats are having passing anything is because when they effectively got 60 Senate seats, their leadership went into the throes of a collective orgasm and dreamt up every far-left bill they could think of and tried to pass them. Not only did Republicans vote against them, they had to beg and bribe moderate Democrats to support those bills. If a bill you propose is opposed by all Republicans and a significant number of moderate Democrats, most intelligent people would logically conclude that the bill is far too liberal and needs to come back to center to have a chance at passing. Not that there's some right-wing conspiracy to thwart you.

You've got to be kidding me. To quote Jon Stewart, "Democrats... have an 18 vote majority in the Senate. Which is more than George W Bush ever had in the Senate when he did whatever the f*ck he wanted to do. In fact the Democrats have a greater majority than Republicans have had since 1923. But for Democrats apparently a majority of 100 is 60?"

The Republican party does not vote in lock-step. They have moderate members who will vote against their party. In fact, of Senators in the current term who vote against their party more than 20% of the time, 5 are Republicans (out of 43) and 4 are Democrats (out of 62). In the 2007-2008 Senate when Republicans held a 51:49 majority, the 9 Senators who voted against their party more than 20% of the time were all Republicans.

The problems the Democrats are having passing anything is because when they effectively got 60 Senate seats, their leadership went into the throes of a collective orgasm and dreamt up every far-left bill they could think of and tried to pass them. Not only did Republicans vote against them, they had to beg and bribe moderate Democrats to support those bills. If a bill you propose is opposed by all Republicans and a significant number of moderate Democrats, most intelligent people would logically conclude that the bill is far too liberal and needs to come back to center to have a chance at passing. Not that there's some right-wing conspiracy to thwart you.

Perhaps you should be more annoyed at the people that approved the drilling of this well.

"The Interior Department exempted BP's calamitous Gulf of Mexico drilling operation from a detailed environmental impact analysis last year, according to government documents, after three reviews of the area concluded that a massive oil spill was unlikely.

The decision by the department's Minerals Management Service (MMS) to give BP's lease at Deepwater Horizon a "categorical exclusion" from the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) on April 6, 2009 -- and BP's lobbying efforts just 11 days before the explosion to expand those exemptions -- show that neither federal regulators nor the company anticipated an accident of the scale of the one unfolding in the gulf. "

Note the date, that would be the Obama administration. Funny how this barely appeared in most media outlets.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/04/AR2010050404118.html

And yet, the Government of the US, lead by the President of the US, fought a battle all the way to the Supreme Court of the US, arguing that they had the right to detain US citizens indefinitely without recourse to the courts simply because they called the citizen a name - "Terrorist" and "enemy combatant".

And the courts of the US haven't yet issued a ruling that this is against our precious constitution. Nor has our president, running on a platform of change, spoken out against this travesty:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Padilla_(prisoner)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,506265,00.html

So, if a Police official steps up to you, and says "I think you are a Terrorist and an Enemy Combatant; please give me your encryption keys to prove your innocence", your refusal means indefinite detention in a military detention facility, subject to military interrogation methods which include those which we ourselves have called war crimes:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/02/AR2007110201170.html

A piece of paper protects no rights.

The article states that, overall, two thirds of corporations don't pay income taxes, meaning that large corporations are actually better at paying taxes than other corporations.

Those corporations barely make any money - they are created mostly for legal reasons. How are they going to pay taxes?

Claiming that large corporations don't pay taxes because of loopholes and sheltering schemes is patently false.

That's a parroted statement from the conservative think tank mentioned in the article, which has every reason to continue the charade about "net losses." Take a look at a more recent article:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/16/AR2009011602602.html

Most of America's largest publicly traded corporations -- including several that are receiving billions of dollars from U.S. taxpayers to finance their recovery -- have set up offshore operations that could help them avoid paying U.S. taxes on their profits, a government study released yesterday found.

American International Group, Bank of America, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley are among the companies that are getting bailed out by U.S. taxpayers while having subsidiaries in locations where they can avoid paying U.S. taxes, according to the Government Accountability Office.

Of the 100 largest public companies, 83 do business in tax-haven hotspots like the Cayman Islands, Bermuda and the British Virgin Islands, where they can move their income into tax-free accounts. ...The Treasury estimates that it loses $100 billion a year in tax revenue as a result of companies shipping their income off shore, and congressional leaders are vowing to introduce legislation forcing big companies to pay full freight.

The GAO did not independently review company transactions to see if the companies purposely created tax-haven businesses to avoid U.S. taxes. But it said that historically, offshore subsidiaries are used for reducing tax costs and shielding transactions from public view.

So, 83% of the Fortune 100 does a lot of business in "tax-haven hotspots.. historically used for reducing tax costs and shielding transactions from public view." Interested in evading US taxes through loopholes? You can even go shopping for holding companies: http://www.lowtax.net/

Kudos on reinforcing your biases through sheer repetition of lies. Oh, and the credulity! I'll bet you're never out of stock of that, eh?

The post office would also be able to reduce staff. The regular, full-time carriers work 5 days a week, which means they need a sub for the sixth day. This article suggests they can cut 40,000 positions by doing this.

5,492 Total Fatalities

Operation Iraqi Freedom: 4,394
Operation Enduring Freedom: 1,098
(Updated June 20, 2010)

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/fallen/branches/

By Military Branch

Air Force (97)
Air National Guard (2)
Army (3,424)
Army Reserves (119)
Army National Guard (466)
Coast Guard (1)
Marines (1,136)
Marine Reserves (90)
Navy (149)
Navy Reserves (3)

Actually yes http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/16/AR2010061605541.html?hpid=sec-business Lawmakers on Wednesday reached a compromise to allow expanded audits of the Federal Reserve, part of an effort to shine light on the central bank's emergency lending during the financial crisis while safeguarding its independence in setting monetary policy.

The news was the court filing by Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald reporting that Bush, through Vice President Cheney, had authorized I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby to leak sensitive intelligence information in July 2003 to discredit claims made by former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV.

You're sure there are abuses? well so am I. In fact I have no doubt personally that the abuses far outweigh any possible good that can come of the classification system. Time after time throughout history the US government has classified information for the sole reason that it's embarrassing to those currently in power. Until we require a judge to review every classification for legality (and I mean every one from presidential orgies to black ops) the abuses will continue. The government's record on this is absolutely unacceptable.

If there are problems with the workforce, it is mostly among the youth who are far too easily distracted and don't commit themselves too much to their work. (once again, YMMV)

There might be a reason for their distractions. See this article from the Harvard Business Review which talks about the differences between the current and former generations when it comes to work.

Then there is this article from Bloomberg Businessweek which talks about the same issue. Both came about because of the Washington Post article which essentially said that the current generation has a lazy work ethic.

While it can be said the current generation (gees, does that make me sound old) doesn't seem to want to get their hands dirty (so to speak), they are willing to work on a problem until they find a resolution. Whether that is good or bad is up to the manager.

They got an exemption from the National Environmental Policy Act
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/04/AR2010050404118.html

Since this exemption was given by the government, it by definition wasn't against the law, but IMHO it counts as "skirting around the [environmental] safety procedures."

Sensational? And from anecdotes I've heard some people have rather difficult- or impossible-to-stick veins, and need to request senior nurses or have alternate veins used for their non-lethal injections.

I am a religious freak. And I do not oppose adult stem cell research at all. Hey, my nephew probably owes his life to it. I do oppose embryonic stem cell research, because it creates a demand for dead babies, which I have a huge moral problem with.

Also, adult stem cell research has led to over seventy approved treatments being used today. The number from embryonic research? Zero. But for some reason all the noise is made about embryonic research. I really do not understand why. Especially with the 2005 discovery that skin cells can essentially be transformed into stem cells without killing anyone.

To summarize: no, we (or at least my circle of contacts) are not

flat out fucking wrong

, anti-science, or subhuman. There is also little reason to fund embryonic stem cell research when adult stem cell research is so much more promising.

It's funny that everyone is up in arms about a nobody winning this race. If there's fraud, may it be found and dealt with (not fabricated). But couple this with Bob Ethridge's behavior http://voices.washingtonpost.com/reliable-source/2010/06/rs-_etheridge.html and the arrogance of the professional politician is revealed, it would seem. I recall some local podcasters being called to a "meeting" to discuss new media with some journalists from our local newspaper (a major city newspaper, mind you). Essentially they were sat down and told who the real journalists were. Arrogance generally reveals more stupidity than mastery.

It's enough to drive the pissant commie sympathizers to bother someone else. Or maybe not. [nytimes.com]

Precisely the problem.

The FBI has a similar problem - you can smoke (but not inhale) and become President (Clinton, Bush II, Obama) - but you can't join the FBI if you answer honestly.

Actually, the FBI has relaxed those rules somewhat:

http://www.fbijobs.gov/52.asp

Here's a story about the policy change:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/06/AR2007080601260.html

I remember when this happened with some Silverlight thing in the past, but I can't remember what the reason was the Mozilla devs gave for allowing this type of silent local add on installation.

Found an old bugzilla debate/bug from 2009 (!) about when this happened previously. It seems some consider it a moot point because Firefox reports add-ons have been installed when it boots. Did this MS update get around that somehow?

Here's the link: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=476430

And the old story from the last time MS did this: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2009/06/microsoft_patch_to_fix_firefox.html

Didn't they ever hear what happened and still happens in Universities ?

A generation ago, academia embraced the laptop as the most welcome classroom innovation since the ballpoint pen. But during the past decade, it has evolved into a powerful distraction.

I know in DC you must have a permit for a handgun and you must store it field stripped. If you have a handgun stored assembled in DC, you're breaking the law.
 

Not since 2008.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60034-2004Sep29.html
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/mar/02/learning-from-the-dc-handgun-ban/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/26/AR2008062600615.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/09/AR2007030902416.html

"The year after the Supreme Court struck down the District of Columbia's handgun ban and gun-lock requirements, the capital city's murder rate plummeted 25 percent. The high court should keep that in mind today as it hears oral arguments about a Chicago handgun ban. "

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/mar/02/learning-from-the-dc-handgun-ban/

I know in DC you must have a permit for a handgun and you must store it field stripped. If you have a handgun stored assembled in DC, you're breaking the law.
 

Not since 2008.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60034-2004Sep29.html
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/mar/02/learning-from-the-dc-handgun-ban/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/26/AR2008062600615.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/09/AR2007030902416.html

"The year after the Supreme Court struck down the District of Columbia's handgun ban and gun-lock requirements, the capital city's murder rate plummeted 25 percent. The high court should keep that in mind today as it hears oral arguments about a Chicago handgun ban. "

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/mar/02/learning-from-the-dc-handgun-ban/

I know in DC you must have a permit for a handgun and you must store it field stripped. If you have a handgun stored assembled in DC, you're breaking the law.
 

Not since 2008.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60034-2004Sep29.html
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/mar/02/learning-from-the-dc-handgun-ban/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/26/AR2008062600615.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/09/AR2007030902416.html

"The year after the Supreme Court struck down the District of Columbia's handgun ban and gun-lock requirements, the capital city's murder rate plummeted 25 percent. The high court should keep that in mind today as it hears oral arguments about a Chicago handgun ban. "

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/mar/02/learning-from-the-dc-handgun-ban/

But I guess they're doing pretty well so far with their coverage on bp.com and using dispersants to keep most of the spill at depth and keeping away science vessels so they're free to misunderestimate the true magnitude.

Science vessels? According to Newsweek, it's photographers and people looking to document the damage that BP is turning away. Now that's some unadulterated bullshit "damage control."

I heard on NPR that some people looking to investigate beaches were turned away by policeman and when they asked the policemen who was paying them to do that the policeman said they were off duty police officers employed by BP. I don't know if that's true or if the people are lying but the stinks worse than crude if it's the truth and I hope the US AG criminal investigation gets to the bottom of that.

"Corporate whores" isn't just a metaphor either. They were known as the "MMS chicks"...
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/sleuth/2008/09/mms_chicks_drilling_for_dollar.html?hpid=topnews

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/10/AR2008091001829.html

"Corporate whores" isn't just a metaphor either. They were known as the "MMS chicks"...
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/sleuth/2008/09/mms_chicks_drilling_for_dollar.html?hpid=topnews

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/10/AR2008091001829.html

So, climate satts have been underfunded for ten years. Who took over the funding and policy apparatus in 2000 that might have led to this? Hmmm, could it be... SATAN?

The financial meltdown of 2008 was caused by the subprime mortgage disaster, which was directly *encouraged* by the Federal government through Fanny Mae and the "community reinvestment" requirements.

Why won't this myth die? CRA was not the cause of the sub-prime mortgage disaster.

As the University of Michigan's Michael Barr points out, half of sub-prime loans came from those mortgage companies beyond the reach of CRA. A further 25 to 30 percent came from bank subsidiaries and affiliates, which come under CRA to varying degrees but not as fully as banks themselves. (With affiliates, banks can choose whether to count the loans.) Perhaps one in four sub-prime loans were made by the institutions fully governed by CRA.

Janet Yellen, president of the San Francisco Federal Reserve, offers the killer statistic: Independent mortgage companies, which are not covered by CRA, made high-priced loans at more than twice the rate of the banks and thrifts.

You're right about Fannie and Freddie. They did contribute to the problem, although the problems there were actually due to poor policies: investments in sub-prime mortgages should have been regulated, HUD's affordable housing goal increases ignored reality, etc.

Ok, fine, let's assume it's greater than zero. If that's your standard for accepting something as truthful enough to be taught or even believed, then you've set the bar so unimaginably low that we should believe in aliens, fairies, the loch ness monster, sasquatch, vampires, ghosts, etc. Because there are a hell of a lot more people who claim to have seen these things than any of the miracles in the Bible. My point is that your definition of evidence is utterly useless for any reason whatsoever.

Fair enough. However, I've never seen a teacher get fired for mentioning the possibility of extraterrestrial life, intelligent or otherwise.

Nice red herring. Who's advocating firing teachers for quoting Einstein? If that's the best you've got, you might as well give up.

Here is one. http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/undergod/2010/03/the_classroom_wall_of_separation.html And another http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/23671

The first link sounds like the courts did their job and the wall was restored. Like I said, I'm not advocating the removal of any reference whatsoever. Just that the school doesn't involve itself in the teaching of religious belief or the promotion of any religion over any others or none at all. As long as the wall displays are open to images and text regardless of what faith position they might represent or imply, and they don't cross into proselytizing, I don't have a problem with it.

The second link was just ridiculous. Devoid of information about what was actually said by the atheist teacher, or what occurred in the incident, but chock full of unsubstantiated allegations made against him by the writer of what I assume is some kind of opinion piece. It goes on to make some utterly moronic claims about both atheism and Christianity. Worthless article. The writer is more interested in preaching than reporting facts.

Ok, fine, let's assume it's greater than zero. If that's your standard for accepting something as truthful enough to be taught or even believed, then you've set the bar so unimaginably low that we should believe in aliens, fairies, the loch ness monster, sasquatch, vampires, ghosts, etc. Because there are a hell of a lot more people who claim to have seen these things than any of the miracles in the Bible. My point is that your definition of evidence is utterly useless for any reason whatsoever.

Fair enough. However, I've never seen a teacher get fired for mentioning the possibility of extraterrestrial life, intelligent or otherwise.

Nice red herring. Who's advocating firing teachers for quoting Einstein? If that's the best you've got, you might as well give up.

Here is one.
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/undergod/2010/03/the_classroom_wall_of_separation.html
And another
http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/23671

The UK went to war in Iraq and contributed towards the estimated total 665 thousand deaths since the 2003 conflict began, based largely upon a war dossier that has been proven to be a complete fabrication. In America they still don't know who murdered their president 47 years ago and despite the fact an alleged 80% of Americans seem to think the official line was bullshit, there doesn't seem to have been any reliable inquests.

Sure the majority of us in the west don't throwing around death threats because someone drew cartoons but we are still very happy to murder someone because of their sexuality, dress sense or because of what football team they support.

I know its a difficult concept to grasp, but how about we shovel the shit out of our own gardens before we roll the bulldozers over other peoples.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/10/AR2006101001442.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy_assassination

The new Internet also allows for new tactics of protest. When people organize to post this type of offensive content all over the place the hardliners will find the Internet is shrinking and becoming less useful for their people. Are these types of protests basically trolling the hardliners?