Slashdot Mirror

I wouldn't bill Twitter as a general communication tool, anymore than I would bill the telephone, Skype or email as a general communication tool. Each serves a slightly different communication purpose, and both have their pros and cons.

Twitter is very effective as a link aggregator; I follow a collection of news outlets and journalists and it provides me with a nice, custom news feed. Incidents like the Arab Spring or the Occupy movement (and I'm sure there are other, better examples) show that it can be effectively used by strangers to coordinate and organize via hash- and geotags.

One way of looking at it is Twitter is user-friendly RSS.

Of course, one of the drawbacks is the fact that it's centralized, US based, and not-private-even-if-it's-private.

We should just lower taxes. Sounds counter intuitive, but it's true. A lot of companies move their administrative operations overseas because it is cheaper to do so. Not because the labor is cheaper, but because other countries have a lower tax rate. Our statutory tax rate is the highest in the world.

If we made our tax rate more competitive, you'd probably see those operations heading back. Not only that, but you'd see companies in foreign countries end up incorporating over here, and we'd be the ones collecting that tax revenue. In my opinion, 10% would bring a ton of corporate interest in our direction. Let's not stop there though, let's remove all possible exemptions. All of them, including green subsidies (remember, this is part of the reason GE pays no taxes, not only that but green subsidies haven't done a damn thing to improve green tech, and let's not even get into Solyndra.)

As it is right now for the large corporations, we collect virtually zero income tax. Instead Ireland and Bermuda collect that money.

The only alternative to this is forbid transfer pricing. Obama tried to do that, and a bunch of companies said they would just move their entire operations overseas in order to remain competitive. When that happens, the jobs go bye-bye and you lose even more tax revenue, not to mention piss off your constituents. So naturally he backed down.

If you don't believe that raising taxes can lower revenue, think again:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/15/AR2006071501010_2.html

France's opposition Socialist Party leader Francois Hollande said recently that his party's -- and his country's -- opposition to proposals to lower high-income taxes has nothing to do with disdain for the wealthy. "I don't have anything against rich people, as such," Hollande said in a recent political debate. "They have the right to be rich. But I can't accept that the richest can have their taxes lowered."

"This tendency to take from the rich and give to the poor which is supposed to solve all the problems in France is ruining the country," said Alain Marchand, who left France six years ago and now has a London-based consulting business that helps relocate French business leaders and entrepreneurs in England and other countries. "That's an incredibly stupid and narrow-minded vision of economic life."

Eric Pinchet, author of a French tax guide, estimates the wealth tax earns the government about $2.6 billion a year but has cost the country more than $125 billion in capital flight since 1998.

FRAUD ALERT: It was not a mathematical model that caused the problem. It was fraud. Financial organizations convinced investors that they had a "mathematical model" so that they could steal. The theft was ENTIRELY deliberate, as is described in detail in the 1997 book F.I.A.S.C.O.: Blood in the Water on Wall Street, by Frank Partnoy. Somehow the issues were kept quiet for 11 more years until the theft could be completed in the 2008 financial crash. Traders called their work "ripping the client's face off" .

There are other editions of the book, such as this one published in 1999, Fiasco: The Inside Story of a Wall Street Trader, and a 2009 I-told-you-so edition of the original name.

Nothing has been done to reform the extremely corrupt financial system in the United States. No one in the SEC, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the government organization that is supposed to police financial fraud, was prosecuted, even though the agency knew of the abuses. See the February 17, 2009 show Frontline: Inside the Meltdown.

Even though the U.S. dollar is experiencing rampant inflation in 2012, U.S. banks give less than 1% interest on savings. Those who would like to invest can't because the system is so corrupt it cannot be trusted. Corporations hold unprecedented amounts of cash. See, for example, the October 7, 2010 Washington Post article, U.S. companies buy back stock in droves as they hold record levels of cash.

F.I.A.S.C.O. stands for "Fixed Income Annual Sporting Clays Outing" (See page 100 of the 2009 edition.), held at a shooting range called "Sandanona, a club in upstate New York" (Page 97 of the 2009 edition). Traders would go there to shoot guns. The idea was to encourage their taste for violence so that they would be even more financially violent toward the customer.

Perhaps the April 27, 2012 BBC article, Black-Scholes: The maths formula linked to the financial crash referenced in this Slashdot story was influenced by public relations agencies trying to get people to believe that the crash was caused by errors in mathematical thinking, and not by fraud, so that the financial industry can continue stealing.

It would be helpful if Slashdot editors signed a statement about each story saying that they know of no conflict of interest, and no one was paid to run the story.

heads up, those companies hire people and pay them.

" the financial industry got its payday when Obama" I'm not sure what the means? Are you referring to the programs Bush started?

Obama is tighten regulations, the republicans are fighting.

So, are you delusional?

I can see how it might seem to someone like you (an ignorant fool) that I'm delusional. http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-has-more-cash-from-financial-sector-than-gop-hopefuls-combined-data-show/2011/10/18/gIQAX4rAyL_story.html

There has been a crazy boom in contracting out U.S. intelligence work in the last ten years. And hey, they even contract out their torturing to other countries. So why not contract out their rape of the 4th Amendment too?

Hmm, it was the conservatives who voted for this travesty.

Obama is threatening to veto it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-threatens-to-veto-cispa-cybersecurity-bill-citing-privacy-concerns/2012/04/25/gIQAkS3khT_story.html

Looks like the president is threatening to veto. http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-threatens-to-veto-cispa-cybersecurity-bill-citing-privacy-concerns/2012/04/25/gIQAkS3khT_story.html

You know...if he did, it would finally be one thing I could support that he'd done since he reached office.

It would be nice to like one thing he did, before he (hopefully) leaves office soon....

Looks like the president is threatening to veto. http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-threatens-to-veto-cispa-cybersecurity-bill-citing-privacy-concerns/2012/04/25/gIQAkS3khT_story.html

Whilst the story in itself is deeply distressing, so are some of the comments from the Washington Post's article on it: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/grandma-tsa-agents-forced-crying-4-year-old-to-undergo-tsa-pat-down-at-kan-airport-after-hug/2012/04/25/gIQAojLohT_allComments.html?ctab=all_&#comments One prime one being: "In this case, however, the child had completed screening but had contact with another member of her family who had not completed the screening process. This absolves the TSA entirely. I do not want ANYONE (muslim or christian or young or old) passing through a checkpoint after making contact with an unscreened passenger."

We know that Muslims use children as bombs so it is a legitimate worry

Whilst the story in itself is deeply distressing, so are some of the comments from the Washington Post's article on it: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/grandma-tsa-agents-forced-crying-4-year-old-to-undergo-tsa-pat-down-at-kan-airport-after-hug/2012/04/25/gIQAojLohT_allComments.html?ctab=all_&#comments One prime one being: "In this case, however, the child had completed screening but had contact with another member of her family who had not completed the screening process. This absolves the TSA entirely. I do not want ANYONE (muslim or christian or young or old) passing through a checkpoint after making contact with an unscreened passenger."

Maybe they have a secret warrant? Maybe they don't have a warrant but intend to retroactively get one in the future by notifying a judge within the next 72 hours? Since 911 we are living in Jack Bauer land. Better hope the Good Guys never lose their moral compass.

As glad as I am we got rid of CFCs, it's actually a bit of a funny story where things went from there. The replacement chemicals for CFCs are greenhouses gasses over 4,000 times more potent than Carbon Dioxide. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/19/AR2009071901817.html

Too bad your article forgot to mention that CFCs were actually 10 times worse even.

As glad as I am we got rid of CFCs, it's actually a bit of a funny story where things went from there. The replacement chemicals for CFCs are greenhouses gasses over 4,000 times more potent than Carbon Dioxide. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/19/AR2009071901817.html

how long? before Iran retaliates and the whole thing escalates into WW3

You mean like seeking regional hegemony, running terrorist campaigns worldwide, threaten to close the Strait of Hormuz, threaten Europe's energy supplies to freeze people, use suicide boats to attack gulf shipping, arm Hezbollah to attack Israel with and ultimate goal of destroying Israel, attack US troops, send suicide bombers to Europe and America, aid America's enemies, threaten attacks on nearby countries and cities with missiles, kill diplomats, subvert nearby countries, unleash the suicide bomb brigades (serious), and the ninjas (you decide), perhaps adding some WMDs to the attacks?

I doubt that many people will buy it.

how long? before Iran retaliates and the whole thing escalates into WW3

You mean like seeking regional hegemony, running terrorist campaigns worldwide, threaten to close the Strait of Hormuz, threaten Europe's energy supplies to freeze people, use suicide boats to attack gulf shipping, arm Hezbollah to attack Israel with and ultimate goal of destroying Israel, attack US troops, send suicide bombers to Europe and America, aid America's enemies, threaten attacks on nearby countries and cities with missiles, kill diplomats, subvert nearby countries, unleash the suicide bomb brigades (serious), and the ninjas (you decide), perhaps adding some WMDs to the attacks?

I doubt that many people will buy it.

You don't think you can be ripped off just as efficiently (if not more so) on a local level?

I'll see your Bell scandal ($5,500,000) and raise you the war that would "paid for itself" ($3,000,000,000,000)

So no, not really. That 3 tril for the Iraq war is more than the GDP of every country on the planet except the USA, China, Japan, and Germany. I know people who could lose $5 mil in their couch. $5 bil? Not so much. And a million five millions - that is to say, trillions? No, only George W. Bush could do that.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/31/AR2010123102727.html

Well, let's see — not only is Iran Times is not state-owned, it is published in the US. It is also just repeating a Washington Post story. Further, the fact that the US is continuing to fly drone missions over Iran unabated runs counter to the Iranian government's narrative that they have the capability to "take down" a US drone in the first place.

Is FOX News a better source?

How about:

Stars and Stripes
Business Insider

Maybe not to the President, for all of your elected officials below him it does seem to work.

If your letter is unexceptional, it may be it actually has a marginally higher probability of getting read if it's written to this President.

They say that this shower will be very nice to watch because it will be during a new moon phase, making the meteors more visible due to less ambient light. The Washington Post reports that Saturn will be in a good position for us to view its rings with a telescope.

I don't intend to do any sky watching, but I love it when these articles show up for one reason- they are REAL news, not "So-and-so said bs-and-such", or "Dear Slashdot, why can't I get no Tang round here?"

The "state's rights" argument is nothing more than "state's right to discriminate". You never hear "state's rights" being bandied about for good things,

Yea, you're completely full of shit, and even Senator Dianne Feinstein agrees that states' rights are important.

"They" "knew" about Sept. 11. And if we work backwards from the solution, physically stopping people from smuggling drugs across the border by force, isn't the problem fundamentally one of manpower?

Nehemiah Scudder 2012!

And let's not forget who was part of this the last time the olympics were held in the United States,. . .

No air compressor need be connected to the water system in order to get compressed air in the system.

This has a better explanation.

Though very rare, it is not unheard of for flush valve water closets to explode. The flush valves need 20+psig to operate, and most codes allow up to 80 psig. Water is, practically, incompressible, so the release of pressure from a suddenly opening valve will create sudden acceleration that may cause "water hammer" and jerk the pipes some. But air is compressible, and if there is air in the pipes, a sudden release of pressure can cause the air to expand explosively, adding much greater acceleration and velocity to the water entering the fixture, and possibly rupturing the brittle ceramics that the fixture is made of.

In most buildings more than a few stories high, you need a pump to raise the water to the top floors and still have enough pressure. Especially in older buildings, this pump is a constant RPM centrifugal pump, which cannot adjust to the variability in flow rates, especially at times of low usage. So the discharge of the pump fills a bladder tank, which contains water on one side of the bladder and air compressed by the water on the other. The pump does not have to turn on and off all the time, because the bladder tank holds enough water and pressure to keep the water flowing for a minute or two after the pump turns off (much longer in times of low flow) and it takes a minute or two for the tank to fill to full pressure while the pump is running ( longer at times of high demand).

Apparently, in this case, the air got into the system because some part of the system failed, the water pressure dropped, and air got sucked in. It was then pressurized by the normal water pressures.

Thanks for the great explanation. If I could I would reward you with points.

Right. Except folks like Neely have the hotel gift them a 2000 sq. ft. suite for booking all the peon attendees at that hotel. Zero cost, so no problem. Cha-ching. Shit went on for years, will continue, and 99% won't ever be caught.

The difference is you're one of the peons that has to follow the rules.

Here is another 140+ DC city employees fraudulently collecting unemployment while employed. This shit with the GSA isn't surprising; the place is full of corruption.

You're either a cynic, a sucker or both.

No air compressor need be connected to the water system in order to get compressed air in the system.
This has a better explanation.

Though very rare, it is not unheard of for flush valve water closets to explode. The flush valves need 20+psig to operate, and most codes allow up to 80 psig. Water is, practically, incompressible, so the release of pressure from a suddenly opening valve will create sudden acceleration that may cause "water hammer" and jerk the pipes some. But air is compressible, and if there is air in the pipes, a sudden release of pressure can cause the air to expand explosively, adding much greater acceleration and velocity to the water entering the fixture, and possibly rupturing the brittle ceramics that the fixture is made of.

In most buildings more than a few stories high, you need a pump to raise the water to the top floors and still have enough pressure. Especially in older buildings, this pump is a constant RPM centrifugal pump, which cannot adjust to the variability in flow rates, especially at times of low usage. So the discharge of the pump fills a bladder tank, which contains water on one side of the bladder and air compressed by the water on the other. The pump does not have to turn on and off all the time, because the bladder tank holds enough water and pressure to keep the water flowing for a minute or two after the pump turns off (much longer in times of low flow) and it takes a minute or two for the tank to fill to full pressure while the pump is running ( longer at times of high demand).

Apparently, in this case, the air got into the system because some part of the system failed, the water pressure dropped, and air got sucked in. It was then pressurized by the normal water pressures.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/stand-your-ground-laws-coincide-with-jump-in-justifiable-homicide-cases/2012/04/07/gIQAS2v51S_print.html

Billy Kuch was a troubled kid. As an adolescent, he had bipolar disorder diagnosed and he’d been arrested a couple of times for driving under the influence. He drank too much, and he knew it.

So when he was out at a party that August night on Golden Eagle Drive near the intersection of Gun Smoke Drive, he decided he was too blitzed to drive home. He left the party to lock his keys inside his car so he couldn’t get behind the wheel later that night.

Kuch, then 23, stumbled back toward the party but forgot which beige stucco house was hosting the bash. He knocked on the wrong door, the one belonging to Gregory Stewart, a 32-year-old homeowner who did not appreciate having his wife and baby disturbed by a drunk kid after 4 in the morning. Kuch went away and texted his sister that he was totally confused about what was going on.

Then Kuch found what he thought was the party house and tried the door. But he’d landed at Stewart’s place, again.

This time, after Kuch turned the doorknob, Stewart told his wife to call 911. Then he grabbed his Smith & Wesson semiautomatic and went into his front yard.

Stewart said he kept asking Kuch to leave, but Kuch, thinking the guys at the party were playing a joke on him, stayed.

“Don’t make me shoot you,” warned the 6-foot-1 Stewart, according to police records. “I don’t want to shoot you.”

Kuch, who stands 5-foot-9, raised his hands, asked for a light and lurched toward the homeowner. Stewart fired.

Stewart broke down in tears when police arrived. “I could have given him a light,” he said. But he said he had felt threatened.

Police asked Stewart why he hadn’t just waited inside until officers arrived.

“I don’t know,” replied Stewart. His unwanted visitor, he said, was unarmed.

“If I had a crazy drunk guy at my door,” said Jeanann Kuch, Billy’s mother, “I’d have locked my door and called 911.”

Kuch spent five weeks in a coma. He woke with no recollection of the incident.

Before the shooting, Kuch had supported the Stand Your Ground law, his parents said. Stewart’s view of the law is not known. He did not return repeated calls, and no court ever asked, because Stewart was never brought before a judge.

Stewart was arrested that night, but Assistant State Attorney Manny Garcia concluded that his actions were “justified.”

The North Korean dictatorship pursues nuclear and missile weapons while its people starve. It maintains order with torture, arbitrary executions and a network of prison/slave labour camps. It sells nuclear and missile weapons technology to anyone who'll buy, making the world a more dangerous place. It is a very, very nasty regime. It blackmails countries into sending food aid by making promises to change, and then breaking them --- and aid is diverted to the military anyway. So yeah, anyone in their right mind doesn't like them.

Here's some light reading:
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/03/24/us/north-korean-refugees/index.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/north-koreas-hidden-gulag/2012/04/12/gIQASJP3CT_story.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/mar/16/escape-north-korea-prison-camp

I hope you realize that this means poor people who need abortions in anti-abortion states will be screwed unless they can drive across state lines, while rich people who need abortions will be fine since they can just catch a flight and spend a couple of days recuperating.

And then, of course, the anti-abortion states will start passing laws that make it illegal for anyone to drive a minor across state lines for the purposes of abortion, unless the driver is a legal guardian of the minor or has the guardian's permission.

Which then means that you can't help your teenage niece or granddaughter get an abortion, just because her parents are controlling fundie assholes who think she should suffer for her sins (and keep in mind that the stats which will outlaw abortion are also the states that will push abstinence-only sex ed, which tends to correlate really well with a rise in teenage pregnancy - meaning that this will happen a lot).

Basically, turning abortion into a per-state decision is an absolutely terrible policy.

Just the other week: Richmond woman finds Civil War-era cannonball in her garden (and I have no idea as to why this was posted in the crime section)
 
And from a few years ago Virginia Man Killed In Civil War Cannonball Blast
 

Do you remember when they fired all their knowledgeable long-term floor sales staff because they were "too expensive?"

That was Circuit City not BBY. BBY never had that problem in the first place because they never really paid senior staff much of a premium to begin with and consequently they've pretty much always sucked.

I guess some people are more worthy of protection against this sort of thing than others. The internet needs its own version of the NRA

None. Really???

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/scotland-yard-suspends-8-officers-20-being-investigated-over-new-allegations-of-racism/2012/04/06/gIQAB3HGzS_story.html
http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/president-pleads-for-a-tolerant-society-189495.html
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2012/0404/breaking34.html

That's from a quick google search. I also have some personal experience...

A couple years ago, I lived in a neighborhood that had an apartment building that a large university (UCSD) would rent out for hundreds of Irish students to stay at during a summer exchange program. They (Irish students) would sometimes crash our local pub in large numbers (20+ people) completely wasted out of their minds. Usually they'd start speaking about us in gaelic (I guess they teach it in the schools over there nowadays, and the Irish students delighted in using it to talk crap about us), start smashing things, and on multiple occasions young Irish guys called my black friend a n**ger within ear shot. Every time they crashed the bar in numbers, the bartender(s) would eventually have to call the cops. The Irish kids would smash glasses and anything else they could get their hands on, then run off like a bunch of hooligans before the police showed up. And it wasn't like this only happened once with one group of students, it was a running joke at the bar because every summer the same thing would happen 4 or 5 times from a different group of Irish punks, I mean students.

My favorite part is that supposedly, this was the cream of the crop of Irish youth, students at prestigious universities that were well on their way to being productive members of Irish society... After my experience, I don't have a lot of respect for Irish "culture" anymore, nor do I have any interest in visiting the town in Ireland my family is supposed to be from originally.

The US military already has a pretty bad record when it comes to the environment (http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/2-us-department-of-defense-is-the-worst-polluter-on-the-planet/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/29/AR2008062901977.html). What happens when one of these is shot down, or malfunctions? What if it does so over a populated area? What impact could it have on the groundwater, etc...

The US Government never proved that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and never said so.

Except for the fact that WMDs were found in Iraq and it is common knowledge. But don't let facts get in the way of your ignorance.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/13/AR2005081300530.html
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/international/us_did_find_iraq_wmd_AYiLgNbw7pDf7AZ3RO9qnM

Zimmerman's case if facing the grand jury. April 10th:

http://www.hlntv.com/article/2012/04/04/when-will-we-find-out-if-zimmerman-going-be-charged

Your buddy already faced a grand jury:
"Robert F. Horan Jr., who retired as Fairfax commonwealth's attorney last year, took the unusual step of presenting the case to a county grand jury for possible indictment. After hearing testimony from police homicide detective Chester Toney, the grand jury declined to charge Gotwalt."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/30/AR2008073001039.html

I don't know that the right decision was made or will be made in the Zimmerman case.

Oh - I should point out - "arrested" means jack shit in this instance. Zimmerman was detained and questioned (declining his right to remain silent). Arrest is fucking irrelevant and I can only assume the people calling for it are mentally deficient. Charged, indicted, convicted. These things mean something. "Arrested" is bullshit.

Also, given that this friend of yours had a grand jury view the evidence, I think you are misleading in this comment: "The shooter claimed self defense was not charged." Grand juries evaluate charges so I'm not sure in what sense you are abusing the language:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_jury

Here's a good example:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/post/fox-newss-unemployment-chart-better-graphics/2011/12/12/gIQAUVgNqO_blog.html

The best way to deal with them is to keep them OUT of the country in the first place (yes that means walls on both borders; enemies shouldn't be able to just walk in).

Sure, because all terrorists are foreigners.

If it was a White Extremest Christian my money is on property damage, or arson at most.

Yep, everyone refers to the 168 dead from the Oklahoma City bombing as "property damage" and no one ever refers to Timothy McVeigh as a terrorist.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/oklahoma/stories/ok042597.htm
http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0106/09/pitn.00.html
http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=93055&page=1

Unless you don't count CNN, ABC and the Washington Post as "MSM".

I am curious of what they think about Fox news ?

Probably big fans.

Actually, they hate Fox, and are big MSNBC fans. The same piece in the Washington Post also said that they were bummed when Keith Olbermann was fired.

They must be as dumb as most Americans, who haven't figured out that they're all corporate propaganda outlets and are all unreliable news sources.

I am curious of what they think about Fox news ?

Probably big fans.

Actually, they hate Fox, and are big MSNBC fans. The same piece in the Washington Post also said that they were bummed when Keith Olbermann was fired.

Still better than using Android. Because Apple is making money off of selling the device not ads or services, they are actually de-incentivized from abusing that info because it could drive away their customers and as a consequence they've got a pretty good track record on not giving away your info. Google's whole raison d'être on the other hand is actually gathering that info, correlating it with info from all of their other services and then using it to target you. Plus they've been known to make a run around privacy protections.

How many Slashdotters argued voraciously that Hans Reiser was innocent before all the facts were in? How many people signed the anti-Apple-FoxConn petition before the basis was found to be a hoax?

Aren't those protesting -- asking for "justice" (code word for arrest and conviction) -- engaged in the same sort of vigilante justice that got Trayvon killed?

Yes. I know, it's more politically correct to demand Zimmerman's head than to wait for facts to emerge. It's better to react to the distorted photos and the doctored 9-1-1 tapes then to wait for those who are dealing with all the facts.

Please, go ahead, mark this as "troll" because it doesn't fit your world view -- and you certainly can make all the correct decisions without really knowing what happened.

What you're missing here is that had the roles been reversed, Trayvon Martin would be sitting in a jail cell, probably without bail (or some huge amount that pretty much ensures that he'd stay in jail), awaiting trial for murder and/or manslaughter. What's pissing people off is the lack of equal treatment under the law.

. . .that it got done at all, Consider its' predecessor, the Virtual Case File. . . .. It was developed. or at least they TRIED to develop it, at the FBI "CJIS" Data Center in Clarksburg, WV. I know, I've worked there. One huge building, 15 interlocking directorates which overlap and routinely ignore each other.

What happened to the Virtual Case File ??? Death by Bureaucracy. Not to mention the lack of a requirements baseline on which to design and build. In the end, huge amounts of money was wasted. $170 million on software development alone, but that doesn't include the hardware buy, all of which was nearly obsolete when they pulled the plug in 2005, but was still mouldering in an underground storeroom at CJIS in early 2007.

How many Slashdotters argued voraciously that Hans Reiser was innocent before all the facts were in? How many people signed the anti-Apple-FoxConn petition before the basis was found to be a hoax?

Aren't those protesting -- asking for "justice" (code word for arrest and conviction) -- engaged in the same sort of vigilante justice that got Trayvon killed?

Yes. I know, it's more politically correct to demand Zimmerman's head than to wait for facts to emerge. It's better to react to the distorted photos and the doctored 9-1-1 tapes then to wait for those who are dealing with all the facts.

Please, go ahead, mark this as "troll" because it doesn't fit your world view -- and you certainly can make all the correct decisions without really knowing what happened.

So, if we assume, as pundits say, that big donors are not going to Obama because he wants to transfer all wealth to the lazy people, and the only people who support him are the young people who don't know any better, kids that are hoping for a socialist government so they do not have to work, how does Obama capitalize on that demographic? By using the one tool all these kids know. The phone. These kids, while they are in their drug induced stupor on payday, can click to donate a few bucks. They would never actually be able to write a check and address an envelope. But over a few months, they can donate $50 bucks.

Really, all kidding aside, this is the way a modern politician needs to collect funds. The maximum donation to a politician should be $50 a month. Anyone can do that. This idea of stealth funding of campaigns by a few large donors need to go. In the republican race, this has resulted in our choices being a polygamist in spirit, a polygamist in reality, a jihadist, and a one that wants to promote the idea that we should pay our troops to sit around the base playing video games and get high. Not a great list for a party that claims to be pro america.

Imagine a Republican president, where the call for wars is more overt (none of this Nobel Peace Prize stuff):

"Before September the 11th, many in the world believed that Saddam Hussein could be contained. But chemical agents, lethal viruses and shadowy terrorist networks are not easily contained."

(SMS to donate to Fisher House, since a direct donation to Halliburton would be just too crass.)

I use a slug gun. Mostly the shotgun is for bear defense (although I'm using it less and less for that these days, firearms are not very good against bear attacks). For home defense, I'm going to use 00 buck at about 6 feet. A non choked shotgun should dissolve the perp and spray just a few pellets around. Actually, the first round in the shotgun is a seal bomb - basically a loud blank. That's likely to have the perp shit his pants and run. The next round gets serious.

Not to imply that you can shoot a shotgun in a residence without some forethought about what's behind the target (as uncqual points out). That's always an enormous problem using a firearm for self defense.

I love how you created the strawman that better working conditions equates to soap in the executive bathroom. Also, I could find no source for Apple giving bonuses to supplier workers. If you want something real to sink your teeth into, I did find a survey in the news that what Foxconn workers really want is increased pay, but not so much shorter hours or better working conditions:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/foxconn-workers-would-rather-get-salary-boost-than-reduced-hours/2012/03/30/gIQA27NvlS_story.html

The same article I originally quoted from said that Apple was notorious for driving down the prices paid to suppliers, which must ultimately come out of wages paid to workers.