Slashdot Mirror

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-tech/post/fcc-commissioner-meredith-baker-to-join-comcast-nbc/2011/05/11/AFYfl1rG_blog.html

After a stunt like this I really have no faith in government regulation anymore.

Don't hold your breath.

And this must be a new thing - Apple traditionally does not go seeking product-placement anywhere. They let the production company come to them, and even then they refuse any requests for money. They may provide some hardware, but no money.

Nope, they've been doing it longer than just about any other tech company. At least, that's what The Washington Post claimed back in 2006...

The NY Times article that your source is based on has been discredited:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/the-truth-about-ges-tax-bill/2011/04/05/AFZm0L9C_story.html

BAH! In Chicago they riot when the team wins!

A company is a person by the way...This idea originated in the 19th century.

OF COURSE the Rockstar consortium made its Nortel patent purchase with the intent (AND potential result) of limiting competition! Isn't that kind of the point? If owning IP with the purpose of "limiting" competition is the DOJ's sole criterion for evaluating the legitimacy of an enterprise, then every patent owner in existence is running a crooked business! Though I do understand the importance of ensuring fair business dealing, I think that "limiting competition" would have to come perilously close to anti-trust territory before the DOJ would have authority to do much about the deal. Let's put it another way: if Google had handled the deal skillfully (or at least more stealthily) and won its bid, would the DOJ be making similar inquiries into Google's purchase right now?

"We are not seeing destructive flash mobs in Houston. It's won't happen there because both the organizers and participants know that lots of Texans walk around armed all the time. So, the concealed carry law it's self PREVENTS violence because these hooligans don't want to try something that will lead to them being shot dead."

Yes, probably not, because people are probably too busy at the hospital.

I must admit that I've been stymied by Google exec David Drummond's complaints claiming that Microsoft et al are trying to take down Android. OF COURSE THEY ARE. It seems such an obvious, and typical, business tactic that I'm surprised Drummond even mentioned it. The reality is that, if you have a hit, high-quality product, your competitors will try as hard as they can to put you out of commission. The fact that Google's leadership is publicly complaining about such common business tactics makes me wonder whether the company's leaders are experienced and savvy enough to adequately weather the storm of cutthroat, high-stakes business and come out on top in the long run. If I were a Google investor, such comments (as well as Google's recent fumbling of its Nortel patent bid) might make me think twice about the long-term viability of an investment in the company.

You'd be very popular in these places, all of which could produce more food on their own if government was not taxing and subsidizing and regulating food in the world:

Swaziland: HIV patients 'eat dung to make drugs work'

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/out_of_food_zimbabweans_eating_cow_dung/

Food Prices Fuel Egypt Unrest

Egypt and Tunisia usher in the new era of global food revolutions

Spike in global food prices contributes to Tunisian violence

Food price jumps protested in Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco

Egypt and Tunisia: rocked by the global food crisis

Hunger in Syria, Libya and Yemen

Ukraine to control food prices

Rising food prices increase squeeze on poor - Oxfam

As Food Prices Spike, Azerbaijanis Endure Border Chaos To Shop In Iran

For dummies: The impact of the global food crisis on Azerbaijan - in pictures

Estonia Raises Inflation Forecast on Global Food and Fuel Prices

Nigeria: food price up as inflationary rate drop

High food prices 'caused Niger hunger'

Mexico: Food prices reach record high

China's food price inflation hits 14.4% in June

Lithuania and Latvia catching up with Estonia

Food prices rise, wages donâ(TM)t

China food prices spike as floods ruin farmland

Brazil: Food Prices Surge and Head Toward Dangerous Levels

Rise in food prices causing major concerns in Russia

Stockpiling as Russian food prices soar

Food prices have soared most in Venezuela, Bolivia and Argentina

Thousands protest against high food prices in Delhi

India: A spike in food prices is especially painful for the poor

I bet it would get pretty personal for you if you came to these places and started spouting your socialist views on how cheap food is that your government is subsidizing farmers and then paying farmers to destroy it

Swaziland: HIV patients 'eat dung to make drugs work'

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/out_of_food_zimbabweans_eating_cow_dung/

Food Prices Fuel Egypt Unrest

Egypt and Tunisia usher in the new era of global food revolutions

Spike in global food prices contributes to Tunisian violence

Food price jumps protested in Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco

Egypt and Tunisia: rocked by the global food crisis

Hunger in Syria, Libya and Yemen

Ukraine to control food prices

Rising food prices increase squeeze on poor - Oxfam

As Food Prices Spike, Azerbaijanis Endure Border Chaos To Shop In Iran

For dummies: The impact of the global food crisis on Azerbaijan - in pictures

Estonia Raises Inflation Forecast on Global Food and Fuel Prices

Nigeria: food price up as inflationary rate drop

High food prices 'caused Niger hunger'

Mexico: Food prices reach record high

China's food price inflation hits 14.4% in June

Lithuania and Latvia catching up with Estonia

Food prices rise, wages donâ(TM)t

China food prices spike as floods ruin farmland

Brazil: Food Prices Surge and Head Toward Dangerous Levels

Rise in food prices causing major concerns in Russia

Stockpiling as Russian food prices soar

Food prices have soared most in Venezuela, Bolivia and Argentina

Thousands protest against high food prices in Delhi

India: A spike in food prices is especiall

You will care when interest rates rise for everyone from the local bonds building your schools to state bonds building roads and bridges because those levels of gov't are dependent on federal funds, that is taxes paid by state residents and laundered through the federal government and returned at varying ratios with strings attached. It may even effect the interest rate on your home mortgage if it's not fixed.

The ratings agencies have warned the feds for months. They wanted to see $4 trillion in cuts and only one plan offered that. It was the one called "Cut, Cap & Balance" and passed by the Republican-led House first with some Democrats joining in. The Democrat-controlled Senate voted immediately to table the bill. It never even got a debate.

The White House belittled the plan as "Duck, Dodge & Dismantle" when all the cuts talked about are reductions in automatic increases. Since the Budget Act of 1974, the federal government depends on "baseline budgeting" and today that means a guarantee that budgets will rise 7.5% over the prior year every year. We should be using "zero-based budgeting" where departments must justify every budget dollar.

We know from debt commissions and other studies, there are billions--maybe $100-200 billion according to the non-partisan GAO--in overlapping and duplicative spending but we have Democrats screaming nothing should be touched and anyone who wants spending reform is a "terrorist" (Vice Pres. Biden) or wants to "destroy" government (Minority Leader Pelosi). This is NOT helpful.

Republicans offered their long term reform ideas months ago in the form of the so-called "Ryan plan." Democrats offered criticism all year but no formal counter proposal. There was nothing in writing that could be "scored" by the CBO and Obama's budget received ZERO votes in the Senate. Senator Majority Leader Reid said it would be foolish for his congressional Democrats to offer a budget. That body hasn't passed a budget period in 829 days. Way to avoid responsibility and accountability!

Instead the president's party and its allies used the GOP proposal in divisive, misleading campaign ads. One even showed a doppelgänger of Congressman Ryan pushing an wheelchair-bound elderly woman over a cliff when the plan itself doesn't effect existing benefits for anyone 55 or older. Again, NOT helpful. (Hey, what happened to the "new tone" of "civility" after the Tuscan shooting?)

The president talks about "millionaires and billionaires" when the actual tax changes would effect, not those super rich alone, but persons making $200,000 or couples at $250,000. Small business people filing as S-corps or a cops and teachers in some high cost of living areas like NYC. Taxation needs fundamental reform not just higher rates on easy political targets who are also the most able to avoid taxation. Just as Ireland about Bono.

For anyone reading here who doesn't know and feels guilty a

Good post by Klein: how our debt happened.

It is also worth to note that the downgrade is not because of any near term debt problem in the US. The reason given by S&P is that the disfunctional political system in the US at the moment (i.e. the extreme elements taken over the republican party) makes S&P believe that the long term debt problem (i.e. the next decades) will not be dealt with properly. Like this statement:

Compared with previous projections, our revised base case scenario now assumes that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, due to expire by the end of 2012, remain in place. We have changed our assumption on this because the majority of Republicans in Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise revenues, a position we believe Congress reinforced by passing the act.

A last point is how misinformed people in general is on this topic about the US economy and debt (just read some of the slashdot posts here getting modded up). It seems to be the medias responsibility to be fair and balanced and actually call out republicans talking nonsense about what the debt problem is.

No, I do not agree with the premise that Democrats are really no different, that they're all the same. The War of Choice was the most expensive and fiscally irresponsible action we have taken in a long time, dwarfing the bailout. The war was a Republican effort. The Bush administration made it quite clear to any wavering Republican Congress members that voting against the war would be considered disloyalty to their own party. Iraq will cost us at least $3 trillion by the time it is all over. They lowballed the costs so greatly that the only explanation for getting it so wrong is that they willingly live in a fantasy world. They "sexed up" the information to make Iraq seem more dangerous, another blatant disregard for facts. Iraq never had the Weapons of Mass Destruction we were told they had. And so we spent our future, to head off a danger that never was real.

Unlike Democrats, Republicans continue to push an anti-science agenda. So-called social conservatives are almost all Republican. When you can't be sure of any facts at all, you can make up anything, to justify doing whatever you want. They really behave as if science is just a big propaganda effort for liberals, and see no reason why they can't do their own "science", same as what they perceive the other side does. Let's "teach the controversy", they say, and teach Intelligent Design along with Evolution. Dangerous. There is no controversy, ID is flat wrong. Do you recall the Bush administration official who censored NASA's climate research? And big business has noticed this trend. Far from decrying it, they have gotten themselves and their political servants on board to push their own lies. They feel they must, to "compete". Damned fools. Idiots who buy ID are plums ripe for the picking by these unscrupulous business leaders. As the pioneering folks at Big Tobacco said, "Doubt is our product". So we have Big Oil trying to deny that Global Warming is real. The nuclear power industry routinely covers up problems to make nuclear power seem safer. Big Pharma is eager to beat down the FDA. Big Finance insists they are over regulated even now, after the disaster they caused in 2008. Everywhere, referees and watchdogs are under attack, villified as out of control government bureaucrats tangling up our economy with red tape.

Compared to the sheer chutzpah of these right wing loonies, the Democrats look gutless and ineffectual. But I can't see them swallowing the degree of nonsense the Republicans have, nor recklessly committing the nation to very expensive actions on obvious lies and bull. It has been credibly argued that the stimulus was too small. That the best way forward is to stimulate more, and get that money back in the form of greater tax revenue from a bigger, healthier economy. I don't necessarily agree, but the thinking looks much, much sounder than anything I hear out of the born again fiscal conservative camp.

Reagan Policies Gave Green Light to Red Ink [Washington Post]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A26402-2004Jun8

What Killed Off The GOP Deficit Hawks? [Business Week]
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_52/b3914021_mz007.htm

Do Deficits Matter? [The Weekly Standard]
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/245esggv.asp

Indeed. Personally I like this article. If Congress just went away for 10 years the deficit would solve itself!

No. You're repeating a right-wing talking-point lie, spread by a deceptive Wall Street Journal article.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/google-responds-to-microsofts-gotcha-theyre-diverting-attention-with-a-trick-that-failed/2011/08/04/gIQA9UNjuI_story.html

Demonstrates my sentiments precisely, further showing that no one should trust Microsft.

There was a pretty good op-ed yesterday in the Washington Post that talked about this. Shortly after the revolution, most of the scientific institutions in Iran were either shut down or held back during the 1980s, but then started to make a resurgence in the 1990s, which is why it is taking so long for Iran to get anywhere.

Anyway, the whole op-ed focuses on Iran being one of the few countries to not have much external help in their nuclear program. Now, this is just an opinion piece, so I'm not claiming it as being a source of ultimate truth, but I felt the author raised some interesting points.

That does not invalidate your point, however, and you are right, it's still taking Iran decades, and every year we hear that they are "2-3 years" away from the bomb without seeing much success. I personally don't believe that Iran would be crazy enough to use a nuclear bomb, and think that they want to join in on the nuclear club as protection. The current Iranian leadership is power-hungry and greedy, and will do anything to stay in power. That doesn't mean that I would be thrilled that they would have it, since it'll do nothing but create more turmoil in that region.

There were many more factors besides slavery that led to the Civil War and the confederacy.

Your statements demonstrate a determinedly ignorant commitment to apologetics for the Confederacy. Your suggestion that anything other than slavery was the casus belli take only a few minutes with Google to utterly refute, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself for attempting to excuse these evil-doers.

"Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery -- the greatest material interest of the world ... a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization." -- Mississippi's declaration of secession

"We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable". -- Texas Secession Convention

South Carolina's declaration noted "an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery" and protested that Northern states had interfered with the return of fugitive slaves.

"We went to war on account of the thing we quarreled with the North about. I never heard of any other cause of quarrel than slavery. Men fight from sentiment. After the fight is over they invent some fanciful theory on which they imagine that they fought." -- Confederate Col. John S. Mosby

Jefferson Davis himself, in his address at the ratification of the Confederate constitution -- a speech that is nothing but a fairy tale about the wonders of slavery, the evils of abolitionists, and his ignorance about the U.S. Constitution -- said:

In addition to the long-continued and deep-seated resentment felt by the Southern States at the persistent abuse of the powers they had delegated to the Congress, for the purpose of enriching the manufacturing and shipping classes of the North at the expense of the South, there has existed for nearly half a century another subject of discord, involving interests of such transcendent magnitude as at all times to create the apprehension in the minds of many devoted lovers of the Union that its permanence was impossible. When the several States delegated certain powers to the United States Congress, a large portion of the laboring population consisted of African slaves imported into the colonies by the mother country. In twelve out of the thirteen States negro slavery existed, and the right of property in slaves was protected by law. This property was recognized in the Constitution, and provision was made against its loss by the escape of the slave. The increase in the number of slaves by further importation from Africa was also secured by a clause forbidding Congress to prohibit the slave trade anterior to a certain date, and in no clause can there be found any delegation of power to the Congress authorizing it in any manner to legislate to the prejudice, detriment, or discouragement owners of that species of property, or excluding it from the protection of the Government.

...

As soon, how ever, as the Northern States that prohibited African slavery within their limits had reached a number sufficient to give their representation a controlling voice in the Congress, a persistent and organized system of hostile measures a

They already did that with Superman.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A99660-1995Jun1.html

Nope, it's 25 million registered users not just visitors. The visitor count sounds like it's quite significantly higher but I haven't seen any specific numbers.

After the major fumble with its Nortel patent bid, Google is likely quite anxious to get some serious IP assets under its belt ... and rightfully so.

Even assuming Hauser's law is valid, you cannot draw that conclusion from that data. All that would imply is that the slope of Laffer's curve is shallow at this point.

But FWIW, Hauser's law is bunk anyway. Just another case of lying with statistics. The tax code is a very complex beast, and trying to represent it with two numbers, the tax rate and revenues, is a fool's errand. Get back to me when Hauser tries an honest analysis and measures tax rates and tax receipts from the same bracket.

Also, you and I aren't economists. If you ask economists where the Laffer curve peaks, you get answers ranging from around 30-50%. Notice how most economists have a few sentences of qualifiers around their estimates. The guy from the National Review mindlessly parrots back the 19% from Hauser. Figures, because Hauser's "Law" is nothing but a talking point that no actual economist takes seriously.

Sorry, wrong answer AC. And anyway, govt. spending is controlled by congress. See the following: http://mariopiperni.com/republican-madness/the-one-chart-which-explains-the-debt-ceiling-crisis-best.php and also here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/obamas-and-bushs-effect-on-the-deficit-in-one-graph/2011/07/25/gIQAELOrYI_blog.html

You may want to check this out before you decide that military spending is the ONLY problem. I'm all for cutting it, but that alone won't solve the problem.

Raising taxes to a historically high margin won't close the budget gap either... even in conjunction with military cuts.

I'm pretty sure we're fucked.

Adding on to what skids just said, Ezra Klein did a pretty good job of summarizing S&P's movement over the past year, so I'll let him do the work:

But what was it, precisely, that changed S&P’s view?

In [David Beers, director of Standard Poor’s sovereign-debt division]'s telling, it was primarily politics. The growth outlook wasn’t any better than it had been in April, but it wasn’t substantially worse. Nor had the debt burden increased with unexpected speed. It was Washington that had unsettled them. The update was clear about this. The title was “United States of America ‘AAA/A-1+’ Ratings Placed On CreditWatch Negative On Rising Risk Of Policy Stalemate” — italics mine.

“What we’re saying now,” explains Beers, “is we question whether despite all the discussions and intense negotiations, if they can’t reach this agreement, will they be able to reach it after the election?”

In short, our debt/GDP ratio is not what's driving the potential downgrade; rather, it's the concern that we won't be able to make the decisions necessary to eventually get our debt/GDP ratio stable. As I said, the amount the US owes has little to do with our credit rating (note: not "nothing," but "little"), since we are financially able to repay our obligations and any likely new obligations for the foreseeable future.

Yes, but when using your checkbook you take the value of the currency as a given. A state has (limited) control over the value of it's currency (by limiting or expanding the available sum of printed money), thereby it also has (again, limited) control over the value of it's own dept. Now you might say that playing with the value of the currency can have complex consequences, and that would be true. Still, macro economics work differently than micro economics.

I completely agree that the analogy is not perfect (never is). What I'm asking is why, if people like Cheney said that "Reagan proved deficits don't matter" then why are we seeing negative effects? Suddenly we're concerned about our AAA rating? Why should we care? Deficits don't matter, right? If you're saying that a checkbook deficit and national deficit are two completely different things then why are we seeing a threat of losing our credit rating and other money problems that are associated with drowning yourself in debt on a personal level?

You know why most of the gov't positions have pretty good benefits and other protections? Because the gov't uses them as political pawns.

You know how we're currently paying our bills? By raiding the pensions of retired federal workers. linky

Seriously, what would you do if your employer raided your 401k to pay it's bills? Moreover what would you do in negotiating your compensation next time you were up for it? You'd demand serious benefits and pay to cover the fact that your employer is stealing from you...

working link

The gov't already has it.

Seeing as warrantless wiretapping is clearly unconstitutional, it's thoroughly inappropriate to be doing it at all.

Warrantless wiretapping for national security purposes has been found Constitutional by courts repeatedly. You don't know what you are talking about.

Intelligence Court Releases Ruling in Favor of Warrantless Wiretapping

A special federal appeals court yesterday released a rare declassified opinion that backed the government's authority to intercept international phone conversations and e-mails from U.S. soil without a judicial warrant, even those involving Americans, if a significant purpose is to collect foreign intelligence.

Why We Endorsed Warrantless Wiretaps

the special FISA appeals court, which in a 2002 sealed case upholding the constitutionality of the Patriot Act held that "the President did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence information." The court said it took the president's power "for granted," observing that "FISA could not encroach on the President's constitutional power."

For your viewing pleasure, some of the more recent developments regarding would be "Jihadis" in the US:

Yet again: Fort Hood Suspect Mentions al Qaeda Cleric Believed to Have Inspired Previous Attack, Official Says

A U.S. serviceman is in custody after he allegedly admitted he was planning an attack on his fellow servicemen at the U.S. Army base at Fort Hood, Texas, the same base where 13 people were killed in a 2009 terror attack.

Reservist Charged in '10 Building Shootings

WASHINGTON â" The Marine Corps reservist arrested in Arlington National Cemetery last week with suspicious materials in his backpack was charged Thursday with firing shots last year at five military buildings in the Washington area, including the Pentagon.

Investigators said they linked the reservist, Yonathan Melaku, to the shootings by determining that the bullet fragments recovered at those scenes came from the same gun as the spent shell casings found in his backpack last week.

Minneapolis Man Pleads Guilty to Terrorism Offense - July 18, 2011

Pennsylvania Man Indicted for Soliciting Jihadists to Kill Americans - July 14, 2011

Accused al Shabaab Leader Charged with Providing Material Support to al Shabaab and al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula - July 5, 2011

Two Men Charged in Plot to Attack Seattle Military Processing Center - June 23, 2011

Chicago Businessman Tahawwur Hussain Rana Guilty of Providing Material Support to Terror Group and Supporting Role in Denmark Terrorism Conspiracy - June 9, 2011

No

Speaking of which (and all this talk about compromise), just what spending cuts has the Great Man-Child in the Whitehouse proposed?

"Man-child"? Obama is a lot more mature than any president we've had in a while, particularly the last president who thought he was a teenager. He's offered a lot of cuts. Do you not read the news? http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/in-debt-talks-obama-offers-social-security-cuts/2011/07/06/gIQA2sFO1H_story.html?hpid=z1

You can't even get a permit let a lone build a nuclear or coal power plant because of EPA regulations and red tape.

You're not going to hear much sympathy from me. I've been to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, I've seen what natural water should look like. By my own first hand account, there is none of that on the East Coast.

So let's see here, after some shallow checking on Google News we have: Frack water to be dumped in Niagara Falls, the EPA has been completely ignoring Anacostia River pollution and the dead zone in the Chesapeake is growing. And that's just news from the last couple of days. How can I be upset that the EPA wants to tie up companies in "red tape" when this is happening in our country? Why don't the solar companies get the same red tape? Oh, right, they don't produce a byproduct that is often dumped in nearby water. I'm sure the site of solar panel farms suffers the same environmental scrutiny that your poor "hobbled" coal and nuclear power facilities face. It's just that the byproducts and environmental effects appear to be okay for local residents.

It's like watching a race between two people running and one person get's hit by a car every third step they take and acting surprised the other runner is doing so well. It's a rigged race and the desired outcome shouldn't be a huge surprise.

The way I see it, is it's more like two people racing and one person pouring crude oil along the entire race path and then sliding on it with a sled and beating the person that's trying to run through it. Meanwhile the people who live near the race track are drinking shit in their water. Think I'm making that up? Go ask the residents of West Virginia who get to watch their entire state terraformed into slag. PA's natural gas boon could result in the same thing if we don't have that evil evil evil "red tape."

He did put forth a plan, and it's been analyzed by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, which is where the $2.2 trillion figure comes from.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/2chambers/post/budget-office-says-reid-plan-would-cut-deficit-more-than-boehner-proposal/2011/07/27/gIQAWPwncI_blog.html

The 14th amendment may not mean what you think it means. The reason to hang some of the current issue on the President is that he has publicly said he would not sign any of the proposals currently before the house. He put in an ultimatum that the debt ceiling had to be raised enough to push the issue past the next national election. Budgets have to initiate in the house, but the senate and president have to agree for them to pass. That does mean congress has more responsibility to produce something than the president, but they did manage to get something that house democrats would agree to, but that Obama would not.

Seriously?

They faked the results of a recount to try and avoid a full recount.

Smartech was owned by Bush and Blackwell hired them to server as a "mirror" in case of failure, then when it looked like Bush wasn't going to win in Ohio even with the other dirty tricks he pulled, Blackwell sent the people responsible for running the systems home and moved operations over to the "failover", giving Bush (and more importantly Cheney) direct control over the machine where the vote counts were being stored. Yeah, I'm sure that's perfectly legit. There's absolutely no conflict of interest in the Head of the Ohio Campaign to elect Bush to unilaterally turn over the final vote counting to a company owned by Bush. Frankly, we may never know absolutely 100% sure if fraud occurred, but frankly, if it looks like fraud, smells like fraud, and sounds like fraud, it probably is fraud.

Or, take a look at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/24/AR2007012401441.html where you have the evidence of election staff being -convicted- of tampering with the election! Ohio law requires that 3% of votes be manually counted as selected at random, and if there's a discrepancy, to have a full recount to weed out potential tampering; this is a case where workers were convicted of picking ballots they knew would not force a recount.

We need to actually have a system for revotes rather then recounts in our elections. We've had multiple tainted elections now. Wish to god people cared enough to have fair elections in America.

"Just remember, this is the United States of America. We write 80 million checks a month. There are millions and millions of Americans that depend on those checks coming on time," Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner

Well, THERE's your problem.

And of course, it seems the more he talks, the less people like him.

Bill Gates' mother was on the National Board of Directors of the United Way.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/local-breaking-news/virginia/microsoft-founder-bill-gates-w.html

Bill Gates' father was a prominent Washington State attorney who retired in 1998 from the firm he co-founded and helped grow, then known as Preston Gates & Ellis. During his 48 years of practice, Gates was an active bar leader, having served as president of the Washington State Bar Association and the National Conference of Bar Presidents.

http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/lawyers_lawyer_bill_gates_sr._to_receive_abas_highest_honor/

Freedom of the press doesn't mean they are free to commit crimes.
I know just like when GE was charged w/ bribery and Jeff Immelt was called before Congress. Oh wait... That didn't happen instead Jeff is now working for this administration. Perhaps there is a political element to all this fuss.

Conspiracy?

The list price for the drug, Makena, turned out to be a stunning $1,500 per dose. Thatâ(TM)s for a drug that must be injected every week for about 20 weeks, meaning it will cost about $30,000 per at-risk pregnancy. If every eligible American woman were to get Makena, the nationâ(TM)s bloated annual health-care tab would swell by more than $4 billion.

What really infuriates patients and doctors is that the same compound has been available for years at a fraction of the cost â" about $10 or $20 a shot.

---

Here come the unintended consequences. While the FDA says it hoped there wouldnâ(TM)t be a significant run-up in the price of colchicine â" sold as Colcrys by URL â" the retail cost has soared to more than $5 a bill from the previous pennies a tablet. URL Pharma also sued five makers of manufacturers of colchicine, saying they have been illegally marketing their colchicine products since Colcrysâ(TM)s approval. One of those makers has settled the matter and stopped production. The other four companies are fighting the lawsuit.

---
Three years ago, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the drug Ketek (telithromycin), lauding it as the first of a new class of antimicrobial agents that circumvent antibiotic resistance. Since then, Ketek has been linked to dozens of cases of severe liver injury, been the subject of a series of increasingly urgent safety warnings, and sparked two Congressional investigations of the FDA's acceptance of fraudulent safety data and inappropriate trial methods when it reviewed the drug for approval. ...

Despite these discoveries, FDA managers presented study 3014 to the advisory committee in January 2003 without mentioning the issues of data integrity.1 The managers have stated that they were legally barred from disclosing the problems to the committee because there was an open criminal investigation, but they have not explained why the data were presented at all, in view of the evidence of the study's lack of integrity. Unaware of the integrity problems, the committee voted 11 to 1 to recommend approval of Ketek.

--

etc.etc.

You can't dismiss facts, but you sure can call them conspiracies if you wish.

AFAIC, I don't actually care whether his treatment is fake or not, I really do not care. He seems to have gotten the FDA Trial Phase I and Phase II approvals. So the stuff is safe for consumption, that's all that is actually important to know.

At that point I don't want government being anywhere near the treatments. There are plenty of cases where FDA involvement does one thing only: increase the cost of drugs or worse. If FDA even has to exist, it's role should be limited to questions concerning safety and nothing more, as it's useless in most important cases anyway.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mifepristone#FDA_controversy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QqIN9EfQwM

According to a recently-published article, the actual loans were repaid. But more money was spent on it in a different form: money given in exchange for stock. That stock was finally sold at a net loss of $1.3B.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/us-concludes-chrysler-rescue-with-sale-to-fiat/2011/07/21/gIQAzPDZSI_story.html

In theory, they could have continued to negotiate with Fiat to raise the price, but that would almost certainly have queered the deal. Alternatively, they could try to take the money out of the UAW's share, but that would just move the obligation to the Pension Benefit Guaranty, a different arm of the government. By ensuring pension benefits (a deal dating back to 1974), they effectively became on the hook for losses.

In theory that should have forced them to ensure that Chrysler was better managed, or at least raised the insurance rates; insurance always means moral hazard. In this case, the moral hazard tripped them up, and they effectively are simply realizing a loss that was incurred a long time ago.

Here's an update: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/norways-capital-shaken-by-bomb-blast/2011/07/22/gIQABA6dTI_story.html

Turns out this has been a twofold attack. First the bomb was set off in Oslo. About two hours later a camp for political youth from the governing labor party was attacked by a single assailant with a "machine gun", glock and a shotgun. He was dresses as a police officer.
7 has so far been confirmed dead in the bombing
10 has been killed in the shooting at the camp, mostly 15-16 years old. More are suspected.
There are several unexploded bombs at the youth camp. The whole camp is held on a little island in a lake, only accessible by boat. Several kids trying to run away by swimming are suspected drowned.

Turns out the attacker are a Norwegian, suspected neo nazi, and fundamentalist christian. With a gun permit. He's been arrested.
This is the suspect according to the newspapers https://twitter.com/#!/AndersBBreivik

What a horrible day indeed :(

During my time as secretary of homeland security, the Transportation Security Administration began working to replace the 1970s-era metal detectors used at airports across America with modern technology able to detect non-metal weapons concealed by terrorists on their bodies -- even in their underwear, where Abdulmutallab allegedly hid his bomb. The latest versions of these machines -- sometimes called whole-body imagers -- are deployed at 19 airports, and the TSA is attempting to place them throughout the nation.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/31/AR2009123101746.html

What's curious about this: at the time - there was only one company that made full body scanners - Rapiscan.

Anybody can be legally recorded in public, but being legal is no impediment to them getting upset about it.

Here in MD, that's not the case - video is legal, but audio taping (or the audio portion of a video) in public can get wiretapping charges thrown at you. Of course, that's only applied when the video is embarrassing to the police; when it's not, charges are dismissed. It's a bad law, and yes, I've written to my reps.

Given the existence of the placebo effect, in what way do you suppose that the market -- consisting of individuals who operate on limited information -- will be able to tell the difference in efficacy between a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory and acupuncture?

- ha ha, the way it was always done, by doctors sharing information among each other, learning what works and what doesn't - the only real way things are found to be useful or not.

Especially given that so-called "alternative medicines" such as Zicam can effectively compete against science-based medicine even with FDA regulations in place? Do you propose we go back to the patent medicine era?

- I am against all patents altogether. There should be no gov't creating artificial barriers to entry against individuals and for monopolies and there should be no special treatment provided to monopolies, like in case with this, falsifying the results to help out some friends in giant pharma. However FDA routinely denies people in US access to drugs, that are used all over the world, for example the drug RU 386, which was used in Europe and was banned in US by FDA.

Why the fuck should some piece of shit government organization deny you access to drugs, any drugs if you wish so and especially drugs that are known to be effective and are in use in the rest of the world?

The reason we have the regulations we have by the FDA is because we tried working without them and, unsurprisingly, people died and a lot of unscrupulous hucksters made a lot of money.

- no, the reason you have FDA being what it is, is because it has enormous power, which translates into dollars for monopolies, who kill off the small competitors and make sure prices never fall.

We have the same thing going on now with homeopathic medicine.

- there is no reason for FDA to get involved into this homeopathic stuff, especially since it is just placebo.

What we need are good, functional, and smarter regulations, not merely fewer or more regulations.

- seriously? You truly believe that? You truly want government to regulate your life? To tell you, probably a grown ass man, what you can and cannot use in your life as drugs? To ensure that only monopolies can sell you drugs? To make sure you have to pay a small fortune for any real treatment?

Please check your facts before posting; this took me all of a minute with a search engine to find in PLoS.

- I'll give you some facts.

Here is one. A drug that before FDA approval only cost $10/shot (ten dollars), once approved by FDA was immediately repriced at $1500 dollars a shot (one thousand five hundred dollars), as FDA granted a monopoly to the producer company, so nobody could compete with them. This is for a drug that people need to take 20 times, so that's $30,000 for the 20 times instead of $200 as it was prior to FDA 'approval' - in reality granting a monopoly. The orders of magnitude, by which FDA raises costs to the end users are similar with this drug.

And yes, it only takes an Internet search.

By the way, I found a better article here.

My interpretation is that she wasn't arrested for just throwing a fit, but actually walking away from the screeners. I'm presuming this is toward the airplane, but I wasn't there. Seems like an important detail. You obviously can't just let people walk toward the terminal if they haven't been screened.

None of these news outlets got any more detail than was in the stupid police report, so it's hard to get a grip on what happened.

They've been talking about it for the last couple years... I haven't seen much press on it lately, but a bill was introduced to reduce delivery to 5 days.

‘(h) Nothing in this title or any other provision of law shall be considered to prevent the Postal Service from taking whatever actions may be necessary to provide for 5-day delivery of mail and a commensurate adjustment in rural delivery of mail, subject to the requirements of section 3661.’.

Excerpt from the bill (Title I, Subtitle B, section 111(h))
Read this as "allows USPS to move to 5-day delivery" not "mandates USPS to move to 5-day delivery"

- Washington Post article
- from the horse's mouth
- the bill....112th Congress H.R. 2309 (Postal Reform Act of 2011) sponsored by Rep. Darrell Issa [R-CA]
- Press release on Rep. Issa's page with a decent summary

The editing of that video reeked of brietbartism so I hunted down the entire transcript.

In the process, I saw that all the top hits were websites like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, etc. The kind of places that you can count on to take the most fauxrageous interpretation. What I read was obama describing the way things are. People who want to be insulted by Obama are going to see it as an insult.

QUESTION: Thank you, Mr. President.

You've said that everybody in the room is willing to do what they have to do, wants to get something done by August 2nd. But isn't the problem the people who aren't in the room, and in particular Republican presidential candidates, Republican tea partyers on the Hill, and the American public?

The latest CBS News polls show that only 24 percent of Americans said you should raise the debt limit to avoid an economic catastrophe. There are still 69 percent who oppose raising the debt limit.

So is it the problem that you and others have failed to convince the American people that we have a crisis here and how are you going to change that?

OBAMA: Well, let me distinguish between professional politicians and the public at large. You know, the public is not paying close attention to the ins and outs of how a treasury auction goes. They shouldn't.

OBAMA: They're worrying about their family; they're worrying about their jobs; they're worrying about their neighborhood. They've got a lot of other things on their plate.

We're paid to worry about it.

I think, depending on how you phrased the question, if you said to the American people, "Is it a good idea for the United States not to pay its bills and potentially create another recession that could throw millions of more people out of work," I feel pretty confident I can get a majority on my side on that one.

And that's the fact. If we don't raise the debt ceiling and we see a crisis of confidence in the markets, and suddenly interest rates are going up significantly and everybody is paying higher interest rates on their car loans, on their mortgages, on their credit cards, and that's sucking up a whole bunch of additional money out of the pockets of the American people, I promise you, they won't like that.