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here the damage to T-Mobile is compounded by their tone deafness on customer support.

Uh, T-Mobile, can I offer a hint here? This is not the time to nickel-and-dime cranky customers. Let them go now, and maybe they won't spend the next nine months telling everybody they know to avoid your service -- instead, if you're lucky, they'll find a new hobby after only two months.

Please add the cost of running the IRS to Medicare's overhead, add fraud to both sides of the ledger, and then see who comes out ahead. Also, I assume you mean the health insurance industry, since that actually has a comparable function to medicare. A large portion of the overhead goes to fraud prevention, which Medicare does very little of and consequently wastes about 29 percent on fraudulent claims. I can't find a source with fraud as a percentage of payouts for private insurance for comparison, so I can't rule out the possibility that private insurance has greater losses to fraud and fraud prevention, but the point stands that the overhead numbers usually given are misleading.

Public schools, USPS, and highways are enough...

You were giving positive examples here, right?

You really think so? Our public schools are constantly derided by all — left and right — for producing rather mediocre results. A particular example:

In international comparisons, American 12th-graders rank in the 14th percentile in math and the 29th percentile in science. The U.S. outperformed only Cyprus and South Africa in general math and science knowledge. Worse, Asian countries didn't participate in the last 12th-grade assessment tests.

Next. USPS sucks and can't pay for itself — needs billions of "bailouts" every once in a while — including right now. Had it not been for the government support, and the government-mandated monopoly (private companies aren't allowed to compete with the "First Class" mail) they would've gone bankrupt long ago.

And highways? Are you really proud of them? Despite insane amounts of money put into them (thanks to the inflated union contracts), an average American spends a week waiting in traffic. For Los Angeles (and, other big cities) the time is two weeks...

Is this — the mediocre results, the constant cost overruns, and pathetic wait times, what you think are "positive examples"? Something you want to see in health care?

Central Point of Failure.

Attention terrorists: we have a new target to aim for.

The USA's infrastructure is full of bottlenecks and chokepoints.
Internet/phone/gas/power, airlines, stock markets, highways, warehouses, ports, payment processing, etc etc etc.

This article comes to mind:
"Classify my dissertation? Crap. Does this mean I have to redo my PhD?" he said. "They're worried about national security. I'm worried about getting my degree." For academics, there always has been the imperative to publish or perish. In Gorman's case, there's a new concern: publish and perish.

He eventually got his PHD and started a GIS company called FortiusOne.

...is Capitol Hill's very own coal-fired power plant,. Sucker is still belching tons of pollutants without producing a watt of electricity, thank you very much Senators Byrd & McConnell. And take a look at all the other coal-fired plants in the US. Awesome. Obviously, doing nothing is a bad idea. Even if what the Danes have pulled off isn't truly 100% clean & pollution free, could it possibly be as bad as what we have now?

Bush did more to stop AIDS in Africa than any person in the world, anywhere at any time.

Really! How? Did he promote condoms? I thought he was all about abstinence-only education

Sorry, but you've been misinformed. It's a lot more than abstinence-only education. Neither condoms nor abstinence will help you once you have AIDS. The don't do much against malaria either. From HERE:

The malaria program complements the president's largest global health initiative, the $15 billion, five-year plan known as the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Under the program, about 800,000 Africans are receiving drugs that enable them to live longer with the disease and help to prevent mother-to-child transmission of the virus.

The plan you speak of is called PEPFAR (U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief). What do they teach?

PEPFAR follows an ABC strategy through "population-specific interventions" that emphasise:

        * A bstinence for youth, including the delay of sexual debut and abstinence until marriage
        * B eing tested for HIV and being faithful in marriage and monogamous relationships
        * C orrect and consistent use of condoms for those who practice high-risk behaviours.

According to the Washington Post, the deficit tripled. The factors they cited were the drop in tax revenues from the recession, the bailouts, the stimulus, and increased unemployment benefits.

So the coward was off a bit, but not much.

While we're on the subject, what has people all worked up is not so much the present-year's deficit (which is somewhat expected due to the recession) but the 10-year Congressional Budget Office projections of Obama's proposed budget. See graphic. According to that, Obama's budget, if passed, would rack up huge deficits even after the economy recovers, resulting in over $9 trillion in new debt.

According to the Washington Post, the deficit tripled. The factors they cited were the drop in tax revenues from the recession, the bailouts, the stimulus, and increased unemployment benefits.

So the coward was off a bit, but not much.

While we're on the subject, what has people all worked up is not so much the present-year's deficit (which is somewhat expected due to the recession) but the 10-year Congressional Budget Office projections of Obama's proposed budget. See graphic. According to that, Obama's budget, if passed, would rack up huge deficits even after the economy recovers, resulting in over $9 trillion in new debt.

Speech transcript.

To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who've been honored by this prize, men and women who've inspired me and inspired the entire world through their courageous pursuit of peace.

But I also know that this prize reflects the kind of world that those men and women and all Americans want to build, a world that gives life to the promise of our founding documents.

And I know that throughout history the Nobel Peace Prize has not just been used to honor specific achievement; it's also been used as a means to give momentum to a set of causes.

Hamas says Obama hasn't accomplished enough, and awarding this prize was premature.
Israel says it was awarded for "wishful thinking".

Why am I not surprised by either?

From the Washington Post, scroll down to "Updated 7:34 a.m.":

"We congratulate him for this," said Ahmed Yousef, deputy foreign minister of Hamas, the Islamist group that runs the Gaza Strip and which remains isolated by the U.S. from peace talks because of its refusal to recognize Israel. But "we believe he has been rewarded or judged based on good intentions towards peace but not on his achievement. It was too early to award him. He has not don't that much yet."

Danny Danon, a member of the Israeli Knesset from the ruling Likud Party who has been critical of Obama's efforts to force Israel to freeze construction of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, also said the new U.S. president is being rewarded for a relatively thin list of accomplishments.

"This is the first time the award is given for wishful thinking," Danon said.

Wait a minute. Obama, a Nobel laureate, just refused to meet with the The 14th Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso), another Nobel laureate. Does that mean he will have to give his medal back?

Guantanamo Bay hasn't been closed yet because the previous administration didn't care enough about many of the prisoners there to keep proper files on why they were there in the first place, and they don't want to release everyone on the grounds that they don't quite remember what they did. Granted, a lot of them shouldn't have been there in the first place, but they don't want to accidentally release some criminals along with however many presumably innocent people are there...the point is that they don't know whether releasing them or not would be really, really dangerous, and they're trying to find places to move them while they figure it out.

Similarly, with the health care reform...well, I don't know if you've heard, but there's been somewhat of a debate on the issue holding it up a bit? Nothing huge, it'll probably blow over soon.

Why the FBI Director Doesn't Bank Online

Based on their past problems replacing their IT systems, my guess is that it's because he can't find his computer's "on" switch.

...it's news because Microsoft bragged on .NET being in the LSE for a couple of years, pointing to it as proof that they were enterprise-ready and such.

Then at about this time last year, the TradElect system (which was the .NET bits which ran the LSE) went 'splat', taking the London Stock Exchange down with it.

The relevant info should be sitting right there in TFA.

Google Apps/Gmail has gone down multiple times in the past several years. I suppose that means linux sucks? I mean sheesh, this Microsoft solution only went down one time in 3 years. Google/Linux couldn't even handle the lower-volume, less-stressed, less mission critical email market...

Implementation is the important factor.

Oh, and it's not like the linux based NYSE has never had an issue. Or the Frankfurt Exchange. Or the Australian Exchange. Or the Moscow Exchange. Or the Tokyo Exchange.

In fact, we have had 8 major failures of linux based exchanges this decade.

...it's news because Microsoft bragged on .NET being in the LSE for a couple of years, pointing to it as proof that they were enterprise-ready and such.

Then at about this time last year, the TradElect system (which was the .NET bits which ran the LSE) went 'splat', taking the London Stock Exchange down with it.

The relevant info should be sitting right there in TFA.

Google Apps/Gmail has gone down multiple times in the past several years. I suppose that means linux sucks? I mean sheesh, this Microsoft solution only went down one time in 3 years. Google/Linux couldn't even handle the lower-volume, less-stressed, less mission critical email market...

Implementation is the important factor.

Oh, and it's not like the linux based NYSE has never had an issue. Or the Frankfurt Exchange. Or the Australian Exchange. Or the Moscow Exchange. Or the Tokyo Exchange.

In fact, we have had 8 major failures of linux based exchanges this decade.

DHS's cyber security operation is headed by Phil Reitinger, who's from Microsoft. So DHS won't be allowed to do anything that would seriously impact Microsoft's business models. Which means nothing significant will happen.
Here's his list of priorities. You'll see the problem.

+1

      1. Building Capability: âoeThatâ(TM)s primarily about people. I have some awesome people here at DHS; we have a great team, but we just donâ(TM)t have enough of them yetâ¦â
      2. Building Partnerships: âoeWeâ(TM)re defining our partnership models, making sure theyâ(TM)re as efficient as possible, that they let the private sector work effectively with us and as one, and weâ(TM)re starting the process of developing a national cyberincident response processâ¦â
      3. Building the âoeEcosystem of the Future:â âoeMaking sure that weâ(TM)re building the Internet and the cyberinfrastructure of the future that will have the foundations of a more secure tomorrowâ¦â
      4. Establish Cyber Metrics. âoe[Metrics] enable the people throughout government and industry to make better decisions about cybersecurity, so they donâ(TM)t do this or that based on religion, but based on dataâ¦â
      5. Identity Management. âoeIf weâ(TM)re going to allow people to protect themselves, theyâ(TM)re going to need to be able to make effective decisions about, do they want to communicate with this person or not, do they want to open this file, do they want to open this program, do they want to allow a machine to connect to their machineâ¦â

So, that seems to be his single-point agenda.
He starts well by obfuscating the aim itself !! :-)

DHS's cyber security operation is headed by Phil Reitinger, who's from Microsoft. So DHS won't be allowed to do anything that would seriously impact Microsoft's business models. Which means nothing significant will happen. Here's his list of priorities. You'll see the problem.

The first guy in that job, Amit Yoran, came out and said the big problem was weak security in Microsoft operating systems. He was ignored, then quit in disgust. The next guy was Cisco's lobbyist, who was not only useless, the job was downgraded during his tenure.

I'm not expecting much from that crowd.

In 2007, the news was that the National Intelligence Estimate was saying that Iran had stopped working on the bomb. Now, the news is 180 degrees the other way from the same source.

Which report we chose to believe, if any, depends ultimately on what makes sense to us as individuals. With the Iranian Parliament chanting "Death to the USA", I tended to disbelieve the 2007 spin.

Now its up to the Post to fail in the same way.
Both the DP & RMN were overspecialized and did not really promote a culture of journalism in the region.

Both backed off stories of importance in seeking short team profit gains from info-tainment.

I only cite one example of why most news outlets are failing in Denver.
$117k was stolen by cyber-criminals from stanford school district in an obscure corner of Colorado.
It was up to the Washington post -- covering a story about money mules to break this good news to the citizens of Colorado.

There is not very good basic gumshoe journalism left in Denver, Colorado or much of the USA.
RMN & DP are good about reading police blotters and picking up AP wire but real stories that need to be investigated seem to be beyond their scope.

Perhaps the good journalists will go to Huffingtonpost and evolve to superbloggers

Reports indicate that there are many bones from other specimens.... http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/01/AR2009100103432.html

They did make a mistake on that article, admitted it here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/21/AR2009092103762.html and also posted feedback on the specific mistake here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/25/AR2009092503359.html

The article in question is here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/17/AR2009091704805.html

Now, let's consider this error in context of its article relative to the errors in the Washington Times article.

First, the title of the Washington Post article is "The $1,300 Mission to Fell ACORN
Duo in Sting Video Say Their Effort Was Independent." This error has no direct impact on the accuracy of the article's title--it still was an independent, $1,300 effort to stop ACORN regardless of motive.

I've read the entire article including the error in question. The very next statement, which was not a mistake, is:

"Politicians are getting elected single-handedly due to this organization," he said. "No one was holding this organization accountable. No one in the media is putting pressure on them. We wanted to do a stunt and see what we could find."

Now you can argue all you want how important this error was to the effect of this article. However, it certainly is true that ACORN does focus on getting poor, largely African American and Latinos out to vote and they mostly vote against Republicans.

There are many other quotes and statements in that article that are completely accurate and certainly support the article. I fail to see how this one mistake picks apart the article at all.

However, in the case of the Washington Times piece, the title was "EXCLUSIVE: Porn surfing rampant at U.S. science foundation."

This is so easy to pick apart it's ridiculous. It can be done in a single sentence: 10 people were reprimanded, 7 involving viewing porn--how is that 'rampant' at an organization of the size of the NSF?

They did make a mistake on that article, admitted it here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/21/AR2009092103762.html and also posted feedback on the specific mistake here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/25/AR2009092503359.html

The article in question is here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/17/AR2009091704805.html

Now, let's consider this error in context of its article relative to the errors in the Washington Times article.

First, the title of the Washington Post article is "The $1,300 Mission to Fell ACORN
Duo in Sting Video Say Their Effort Was Independent." This error has no direct impact on the accuracy of the article's title--it still was an independent, $1,300 effort to stop ACORN regardless of motive.

I've read the entire article including the error in question. The very next statement, which was not a mistake, is:

"Politicians are getting elected single-handedly due to this organization," he said. "No one was holding this organization accountable. No one in the media is putting pressure on them. We wanted to do a stunt and see what we could find."

Now you can argue all you want how important this error was to the effect of this article. However, it certainly is true that ACORN does focus on getting poor, largely African American and Latinos out to vote and they mostly vote against Republicans.

There are many other quotes and statements in that article that are completely accurate and certainly support the article. I fail to see how this one mistake picks apart the article at all.

However, in the case of the Washington Times piece, the title was "EXCLUSIVE: Porn surfing rampant at U.S. science foundation."

This is so easy to pick apart it's ridiculous. It can be done in a single sentence: 10 people were reprimanded, 7 involving viewing porn--how is that 'rampant' at an organization of the size of the NSF?

They did make a mistake on that article, admitted it here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/21/AR2009092103762.html and also posted feedback on the specific mistake here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/25/AR2009092503359.html

The article in question is here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/17/AR2009091704805.html

Now, let's consider this error in context of its article relative to the errors in the Washington Times article.

First, the title of the Washington Post article is "The $1,300 Mission to Fell ACORN
Duo in Sting Video Say Their Effort Was Independent." This error has no direct impact on the accuracy of the article's title--it still was an independent, $1,300 effort to stop ACORN regardless of motive.

I've read the entire article including the error in question. The very next statement, which was not a mistake, is:

"Politicians are getting elected single-handedly due to this organization," he said. "No one was holding this organization accountable. No one in the media is putting pressure on them. We wanted to do a stunt and see what we could find."

Now you can argue all you want how important this error was to the effect of this article. However, it certainly is true that ACORN does focus on getting poor, largely African American and Latinos out to vote and they mostly vote against Republicans.

There are many other quotes and statements in that article that are completely accurate and certainly support the article. I fail to see how this one mistake picks apart the article at all.

However, in the case of the Washington Times piece, the title was "EXCLUSIVE: Porn surfing rampant at U.S. science foundation."

This is so easy to pick apart it's ridiculous. It can be done in a single sentence: 10 people were reprimanded, 7 involving viewing porn--how is that 'rampant' at an organization of the size of the NSF?

Most proprietary software companies spend little money on software development. The big players have margins close to 80% with a significant portion of their expenses in marketing and sales.

The geek throws out numbers without proof and expects them to be taken at face value.

MIcrosoft spends $9.5 billion a year on R&D.

That represents 50% of its pre-tax profit:

$250-300 million in pure research. Investments in applied research - not product related - on the same scale. Call it $1-1.5 billion total.

The rest of the money going to Microsoft's five core business groups.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer On "Moving The Needle" [Sept 28], Microsoft boosts research budget and targets public safety[April 15]

Now, a massive movement to open source software will cause less total employment in the software industry, but the vast majority of those losses will be in non-technical fields.

You could argue - with some justice, I think - that FOSS needs dramatically more investment and staffing in "non-technical" fields.

The FOSS-oriented geek tends to see everything in software development as a narrowly defined problem in engineering.

There are times when he never sees it coming.

When he misses his chance:

Ask CIOs about their collaboration strategy, and a good number will start rattling off SharePoint projects. The software's Swiss Army knife approach helps companies create more useful intranets, set up document sharing, offer blogs and wikis, and build a richer online company directory. This boundary-blurring nature is part of its appeal, and can even help in budgeting: IT teams that might not get the nod for document management software have been known to slip SharePoint into the Microsoft Office budget. Can Microsoft Keep SharePoint Rolling?

Wouldn't this be like having a package wrongly delivered to your house (through no fault of your own: the sender had the wrong address), and since it contained highly confidential information, a judge ordered your house to be burned to the ground? (Okay, that's a bit extreme, but you get my point.)

No, they shoot your dogs instead.

Well, the judge didn't order the SWAT team to kill the dogs in this case, but they did sign on the no-knock warrant on the wrong house. This story actually fits your analogy. A bunch of delivery guys had a scam going on where they would leave packages of drugs in front of innocent people's homes, and other guys would come over and pick it up. The police somewhat caught on, but didn't realize that the packages were being sent to people who had nothing to do with this. So they set up a sting operation where an officer delivered a 32 pound box of marijuana. The person who opened the door - the mayor's mother-in-law - initially refused to sign for the package, but eventually they took it in.

In this story, it was the Mayor of Berwynn Heights who was the victim, and the police didn't seem to realize this until after the raid. Even with as much political clout that this Mayor had, he still couldn't get the Sheriff's department to change their ways.

It's just an ugly story all around.

Wouldn't this be like having a package wrongly delivered to your house (through no fault of your own: the sender had the wrong address), and since it contained highly confidential information, a judge ordered your house to be burned to the ground? (Okay, that's a bit extreme, but you get my point.)

No, they shoot your dogs instead.

Well, the judge didn't order the SWAT team to kill the dogs in this case, but they did sign on the no-knock warrant on the wrong house. This story actually fits your analogy. A bunch of delivery guys had a scam going on where they would leave packages of drugs in front of innocent people's homes, and other guys would come over and pick it up. The police somewhat caught on, but didn't realize that the packages were being sent to people who had nothing to do with this. So they set up a sting operation where an officer delivered a 32 pound box of marijuana. The person who opened the door - the mayor's mother-in-law - initially refused to sign for the package, but eventually they took it in.

In this story, it was the Mayor of Berwynn Heights who was the victim, and the police didn't seem to realize this until after the raid. Even with as much political clout that this Mayor had, he still couldn't get the Sheriff's department to change their ways.

It's just an ugly story all around.

The checkups at the airport are not the main issue. As you say, when you are coming in a flight from the US or Europe, usually they are not very strict when it comes to checkups (flights coming from Colombia or Central America have a little more scrutiny)

The real difference is going to be when you cross the border driving. There's been waaay too many documented cases of people buying guns (and I mean big guns, like assault rifles) legally in the US with their God-given 2nd ammendment right and smuggling them to the drug cartels here.

http://articles.latimes.com/2008/aug/10/nation/na-guns10
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/28/AR2007102801654.html
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/03/26/kennedy.townsend.guns/index.html

They not only add the .Net plugin to Firefox without asking you, they change the useragent string for Firefox... oh and the .Net plugin doesn't have a built-in uninstaller like every other plugin.

I thought I had a virus the first time I noticed it. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2009/05/microsoft_update_quietly_insta.html

What's most interesting about the lawsuit is a single disclosure early in the lawsuit complaint. Not only does Skype not own the core P2P technology underlying the service, but they don't even have access to the source code (emphasis added):

A source code version of the GI Software is licenced by Joltid to Joost, allowing Joost to be the first company to successfully deliver television and other video content in real-time over a peer-to-peer network. An executable-only object code form of the GI Software was licensed by Loltid to Skype, a well-known Internet-based company that provides users throughout the world wiht free or low-cost telephone services over the Internet. Skype did not obtain a license to the GI Software source code, however, and the license it did obtain was terminated based on SKype's breaches of the license agreement.

I don't know enough of either suit to definitively make heads or tails out of it, but it appears that the code Skype is suing eBay over may not even be theirs to begin with.

eBay doesn't even have a source code license. They're just a binary licensee with a bulk buy deal, like any other end user of commercial software.

They bought the customer base, but not the software.

I sent an email to the address at the bottom of the site...

Dear Sir or Madam,

It was with great interest that I perused the materials on the Music Rules website. (On a side note, it doesn't work properly with Firefox 3.0.) I agree that piracy of music is a problem, and some reform of copyright law is needed. However, I believe that your educational materials are misleading and sometimes directly contradict actions of the RIAA in the past.

In the teacher's guide, on page 4, the answer to question #2 (left column) is given:

Caitlin is not a songlifter because personal use is permitted when music fans buy their music. Caitlin can copy her music onto her hard drive and her MP3 player. Caitlin can even burn a CD with her own special mix of music she has purchased.

This however contradicts earlier cases where the RIAA has pursued music pirates for doing this exact same thing. A Washington Post article from 2007:

Now, in an unusual case in which an Arizona recipient of an RIAA letter has fought back in court rather than write a check to avoid hefty legal fees, the industry is taking its argument against music sharing one step further: In legal documents in its federal case against Jeffrey Howell, a Scottsdale, Ariz., man who kept a collection of about 2,000 music recordings on his personal computer, the industry maintains that it is illegal for someone who has legally purchased a CD to transfer that music into his computer.

The industry's lawyer in the case, Ira Schwartz, argues in a brief filed earlier this month that the MP3 files Howell made on his computer from legally bought CDs are "unauthorized copies" of copyrighted recordings.

The teacher's guide also ignores the term, "fair use." While fair use is quite limited in U.S. law, generally being restricted to purposes of research and parody, if the RIAA wants to teach third-graders the term, "DMCA notice," why not "fair use?"

Coverage of alternative forms of copyright appears to be non-existent as well, such as the Creative Commons licenses, which allow the creator to turn over specific rights to others, such as the right to modify, or distribute. Public domain coverage is missing as well. Old recordings from before 1923 (such as Edison's early record player) on the Library of Congress site thus would be public domain, and free to download. The materials would scare kids into thinking that everything is copyrighted, and thus illegal.

The materials also should recommend sites where music can be legally downloaded for free. One example is Musopen.com, which contains recordings of public domain works, but also contemporary works where the composer has expressed willingness for his music to be shared. . Warnings should be balanced with alternatives. Also, you could recommend the students to whenever possible purchase music directly from the artist, so that the artist is paid a fair amount.

U.S. federal government training materials ignore this distinction, preferring the "all downloaded music is illegal" mantra. For example, see this training website (it's screen 27 of 48). I can disprove this by visiting this Wikipedia link, where I can download a copy of the W.W.S.S. Wind Ensemble with Dennis Smith playing Arthur Pryor's arrangement of "Blue Bells of Scotland," released under the EFF's Open Audio License (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Arthur_Pryor_-_Blue_Bells_of_Scotland,_for_Trombone_and_Band.ogg). Similarly, recordings by U.S. military bands, being created by the U.S. government, are generally also public domain.

Copyright reform does need to be effected in the United States. The clause in the Constitution governing copy

Here

Color Code Fuchsia Security Status ("Relatively High").

Color Code Magenta Security Status ("A Tad Higher Than Relatively High, but Not Totally High.")

Color Code Security Status Mauve ("Calm, but Tense").

Color Code Security Status Key Lime ("Partly Cloudy").

Color Code Security Status Maroon ("Dark Brownish Red").

Color Code Security Status Peach ("Viewer Discretion Advised").

Color Code Security Status Burnt Umber ("Medium Rare").

Color Code Security Status Tangerine ("Uh-Oh").

Color Code Security Status Jalapeno ("Everyone Down!").

Color Code Security Status Traffic Cone Orange ("Yipes!").

Breaching HIPPA is a big deal.

Is it? Have things changed since 2006?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/04/AR2006060400672.html

"In the three years since Americans gained federal protection for their private medical information, the Bush administration has received thousands of complaints alleging violations but has not imposed a single civil fine and has prosecuted just two criminal cases."

Lots of legislation gets passed to placate voters, but is deliberately de-fanged by not providing funding or a directive for enforcement. The trick is probably as old as politics.

It's common knowledge that the Chinese, whether sponsored by the government or not, have concerted attacks against US computer systems. They have succeeded quite a few times in gaining access to technological data from high security sources. It's simply common sense. If you visit a bad neighborhood, you take precautions.

You would rather they ignore a known security risk all in the name of being 'PC'?

Here's a few more:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/24/AR2005082402318.html
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123834671171466791.html
http://www.securitywatch.co.uk/2009/09/02/new-wave-of-sql-attacks-from-china/

Asking to buy health insurance when you're sick is like asking to buy car insurance after you've already wrecked your car. If you want to have coverage, you must begin paying for it before you need it. By the way, I'm certain that there are abuses that go on in the insurance industry, but if you want health insurance, the general idea is that you sign up for it before you need it.

This is indeed the argument for health insurance mandates (which I support as long as there's a public option health insurance plan), but it fails to address one of the bigger, more pervasive problems with the American private health insurance industry: they're perfectly happy to take your money for years on end, and then when you actually need coverage, to dig out your insurance application and rescind your coverage over any little excuse they can find.

Basically, in actual practice, that argument is defeated by the abuse that the insurers make of it. The best you can do to strengthen it is to forbid insurers from rescinding policy coverage after a certain period of time, say, one year.

We don't know what the impact is. Several security holes have been classified as "important" because it's only a DoS, then someone figures out how to exploit it, and all of a sudden it's "critical".

We don't have the source, so we can only trust them. They have a vested interest in making security problems look as innocuous as possible.

I spent 15 mins moderating, then got here and had to post. We can't trust someone with a history of getting it wrong, when that person won't show us proof.

One flaw reclassified (read the first comment):
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2005/11/exploit_for_unpatched_ie_flaw_1.html

Outlook DoS reclassified as remote code execution:
http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2004/03/15/201044/ms-outlook-hole-is-more-serious-than-first-thought.htm

For example, it's pretty hard to be aware of the situation of AIDS in Africa without being either a complete religious moron, or being appalled at the Pope telling people that condoms are not the answer. There really isn't a middle ground there.

Right, no middle ground at all.

Yes, it's just influenza...that kills healthy kids, teenagers, and young adults.

[citation needed]

Young people may be catching the H1N1 virus more so than older people, but it hasn't been killing or hospitalizaing them in high numbers. From the news reports I've seen H1N1 has been hospitalizing people with chronic illnesses such as asthma, diabetes and other serious lung ailments. It also seems to hospitalize blacks and hispanics more so than white people, which tend to have those illnesses more so.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/31/AR2009083100393.html
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125139557410564177.html

This is the real issue. Citizens, power companies, rational environmentalists and all the rest can get just as enthusiastic as they wish but if every new plant comes with 20 years of built-in legal delays and costs the investors will not show up. Some percentage of our contemporary pool of judges will not hesitate to leverage or invent whatever justifications are necessary to hinder zoning, construction or whatever.

This is what is required. Congress must make law that trumps the enviros, NIMBYers, the Sierra Club judges and the rest. It will literally require an Act Of Congress, probably one for each plant, before anything can happen.

Don't hold your breath.

A word document, made by bunch of Scientologist, for people opposing them...
Targeted malware anyone? Something like this http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/21/AR2008032102605.html
In some cases some healthy paranoia is good.

Yet you're perfectly ok with people being able to allow knives, which are infinitely more dangerous? Glad I don't like in the U.K.

As a matter of fact, Britain is in fact enacting 'knife control'.

British Medical Experts Campaign for Long, Pointy Knife Control

Britain Cracks Down on Knives After 11th Teen Is Slain in London

War on Knives

Statistics on Knife Crime in Britain

Just try googling for "knife control in britain" and you'll find lots of stories on the subject.

I've seen them ship free product to people who didn't order it to inflate their "install base" of a particular item.

Does this have anything to do with the allegation that trialware subsidizes the Windows royalty, which began soon after Sony experimented with charging extra not to include trialware? People who buy a new PC get a copy that they didn't pay for; trialware publishers paid for it instead.

I've often been annoyed by the excessive focus on the iconic and popular species in many endangered species awareness campaigns. It is easy to say "we are spending a million dollars on protecting a worm?" in Congress, but when more renowned species like a hammerhead shark variety are endangered, they will naturally get more attention. Now scientists can defend their case for funding by pointing to this algorithm.

Oh joy, more hippies wasting stimulus money. Take as many DNA samples as we can, freeze them, store them, and be done with it until we have solved all of humanity's issues.

I've often been annoyed by the excessive focus on the iconic and popular species in many endangered species awareness campaigns. It is easy to say "we are spending a million dollars on protecting a worm?" in Congress, but when more renowned species like a hammerhead shark variety are endangered, they will naturally get more attention. Now scientists can defend their case for funding by pointing to this algorithm.

From Princeton's web site: //Princeton welcomes applications from home schooled students. Although they still make up a very small portion of the applicant pool, applications from home schooled students have been increasing. Among the home schooled students admitted in recent years was a student who graduated as valedictorian of the Class of 2002.// http://www.princeton.edu/admission/applyingforadmission/tips_for_home_schooled/ Stanford likes homeschoolers, too: //Former Stanford University admissions counselor Jon Reider, one of the first to draft an admissions policy for home-schoolers, said such applicants often stood out for their maturity. "There were things these home-schoolers had," Reider said. "A certain amount of responsibility. They were in charge of their learning process. They were impatient with normal assignments and reading lists." When Reider left Stanford seven years ago, he said there were 36 home-school applications. This year, the university counted 104. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/10/AR2007061001351.html There are more, of course. But I think these two examples disprove your claim.

To cite Microsoft alone, was shipping Windows Media Player with Windows a crime?

Erm.. yes, it might have been, but Microsoft settled out of court - the court in San Jose that is. I guess that makes it not a crime, technically.

How much did MS have to pay out to other American companies, $4.6bn last time I looked. So the fact that the EU got involved with dodgy dealings by Microsoft isn't really without cause, and isn't somehow anti-American.

As for Intel.. they've never been sued by any American company for anti-competitive practices, have they?

Kind of like the oversight the government implemented on the bailout of the banks?

It wouldn't be the first time.

I have no idea about the relative sunniness of the two countries, but (due to a law adopted in 2000), Germany is the world's top PV installer (according to Wikipedia).

A Washington Post article about Germany's solar installations is here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/04/AR2007050402466.html

I think I remembered this tidbit from a previous Slashdot discussion.

According to the Washington Post, they are selling a 65% stake and are retaining the other 35%. This values it at $2.75 Billion so not as big a loss as originally stated.