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There have been many comments on the previous articles stressing that so far no one has died as a result of this nuclear disaster. Sadly that is no longer the case. http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/japan-struggles-to-contain-radioactive-spread-at-stricken-plant/2011/03/29/AFbQOUuB_story.html

Looks like Google is on its way to obtaining another very valuable patent. Expect a slew of patent infringement suits to follow -- this is probably part of the battleground of the next round of mobile patent wars.

It's an encouraging sign that heavyweights like the DOJ and BIO are supporting i4i. If their arguments succeed, then i4i and future patentees can have it both ways -- they can keep the clear-and-convincing standard, but with certain evidence being given greater "weight." Brilliant. As far as I'm concerned, i4i won this patent battle fairly at the lower courts, and Microsoft should have just let it go long before now.

The article above seems to be fear-mongering. This washington post article discusses what seems to be a more plausible failure mode. Apparently there are gaskets around the control rod penetrations in the bottom of the vessel, and the temperature may have increased enough to damage them allowing primary water to escape into the concrete containment structure. There are also many other penetrations in the vessel for plumbing that may have been damaged during the quake.

This does seem rather uncomfortably close to a patent on an "abstract idea" -- which the Bilski patent litigation was supposed to prevent. If S.23, the patent reform bill, passes in the House in substantially the same form, It will be interesting to see whether and how the business method provisions of that legislation may be asserted in the future against patents like this one.

This brings to mind a quote I once heard from (former Van Halen frontman) David Lee Roth: When asked how you know when you've "made it," Roth responded: "When you can spell 'subpoena' without thinking about it." The abundance of copyright and patent litigation volleyed against Android is testimony to its success. Time will tell whether or not it will be able to survive the onslaught.

Right, perhaps we need some citations from 2006 and 2008 or maybe read some books from 15 years ago to find that indeed the ol' US of A is falling behind instead of anecdotes of a cheating driving school.

I'm NOT an American, but I have lived and worked in the USA and one of my daughters went to school there and I'll tell you, children are promoted even if they should have to take remedial classes or flunk, so spare the anecdotes and give us some hard statistics to prove the USA is not falling behind.

No. They pick a fake name to lie to you.

It's not like there's a culture of honesty and openness in the US nuclear power industry.

More than a quarter of U.S. nuclear plant operators have failed to properly tell regulators about equipment defects that could imperil reactor safety, according to a report by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s inspector general.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/a-quarter-of-us-nuclear-plants-not-reporting-equipment-defects-report-finds/2011/03/24/ABHYa2RB_story.html?hpid=z2

Does your statements equally apply to Apple? Just curious. Apple sued HTC and Motorola over Android for patent infringement..

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/02/AR2010030203916.html

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/12/04/apple_adds_12_more_patents_to_lawsuit_against_motorola.html

To me it applies as much to Apple as it does to Microsoft.

Actually I want almost if not all patenting ended. If you can't compeat with a better product then get out of business.

Falcon

Does your statements equally apply to Apple? Just curious. Apple sued HTC and Motorola over Android for patent infringement..

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/02/AR2010030203916.html

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/12/04/apple_adds_12_more_patents_to_lawsuit_against_motorola.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/barely-half-of-agencies-meeting-obamas-foia-request-goals-study-says/2011/03/11/ABImgsT_story.html

Though 49(of 90) agencies and departments complied with the study’s authors, 17 others — including the Transportation Department and U.S. Postal Service — provided no documents and two withheld information. Another 17 agencies — including the departments of Commerce, Energy, Justice and State — provided no final response, and four smaller agencies never acknowledged receipt of the FOIA request. The figures have improved significantly from last year, when just 13 of 90 agencies complied.

“At this rate, it’ll be the end of his term before the agencies do what Obama asked them to do on the first day,” said Thomas S. Blanton, director of the National Security Archive.

No. Various systems already exist in US communities, and they are used to automatically deploy police when shots are fired. They can even distinguish between the type of gun, let alone distinguish guns from fireworks.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/04/AR2008070402356.html

And the iPad comes with a 30% tax on developers...

And developers don't have to pay anything for the bandwidth to have their app downloaded; nor do they have to with companies like Digital River and pay them a percentage of sales; nor do they have to try to get into various distribution channels since they're included in the now de-facto standard distribution channel for all Macs. Developers are getting something in return for that 30%. Also, for free apps, 30% of $0 is $0.

Your point would be more valid if it was an optional thing instead of forced. Then people would've gone to the best choice.If Digital River changed to take only 10%, some developers might go there putting pressure on Apple. But there's nothing of that sort allowed.

And maybe you missed the latest news ?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/19/AR2011021902399.html

They provide nothing of what you said for in app subscriptions(except exposure), but they still want a 30% cut of revenue. You know what would happen to Apple if someone took 30% of their revenue? They would end up with billions in loss per quarter.

Sec.A51.979. PROHIBITION OF DISCRIMINATION BASED ON RESEARCH RELATED TO INTELLIGENT DESIGN. An institution of higher education may not discriminate against or penalize in any manner, especially with regard to employment or academic support, a faculty member or student based on the faculty member ’s or student ’s conduct of research relating to the theory of intelligent design or other alternate theories of the origination and development of organisms.

(Emphasis added)

It looks to me like followers of the FSM hypothesis (or is it theory?) would also be protected, as well as proponents of evolution theory. This is a win-win proposal. Do you reckon we could get one of these for global warming denial in Virginia?

Dont be coy: "The curriculum plays down the role of Thomas Jefferson among the founding fathers, questions the separation of church and state, and claims that the U.S. government was infiltrated by Communists during the Cold War. "

Sad to see more and more comments about greed and problems in Japan, too. :-( Like this one:
    "Reports: Lax oversight, 'greed' preceded Japan nuclear crisis"
    http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2011/0316/Reports-Lax-oversight-greed-preceded-Japan-nuclear-crisis

Or this:
    "As Japan nuclear crisis unfolds, a small town questions government reassurances"
    http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2011/0316/As-Japan-nuclear-crisis-unfolds-a-small-town-questions-government-reassurances

Now workers are having to abandon a plant, although return:
    http://www.adn.com/2011/03/16/1756438/radiation-level-soars-after-japan.html

And the plant design was said to be unsafe:
    "JAPAN DISASTER: GE engineer says he quit over unsafe reactor design"
    http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2011/03/17/2003498413

Basically, it would seem like any reactor design that requires active cooling is unsafe and should be mothballed? Passive cooling ones like Hyperion or stuff like TRIGA is better.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIGA
    http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/chapter10.html

In the robot capital of the globe as Japan is, where are the robots for nuclear cleanup? I helped a tiny bit with the Workhorse project for TMI (helping make a model mockup that helped get the contract):
    http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=three-mile-island-robots

Do they have stuff like Workhorse for nuclear disasters in Japan? If not, that is indeed lack of planning.

Other comments by me and someone else related to this thread are here:
    http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2036928&cid=35486070

So, it seems like Japan is struggling with issues about corruption and incomplete planning too? Even if so far, overall, they still seem to be doing better than the USA after Katrina under Bush... Or even now? Especially as the USA now is seemingly expanding its torture policies to torturing US soldiers going down a slippery slope as is suggested here (in response to someone probably concerned about wrongdoing by his country):
    http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/03/2011310153040668605.html

Pictures of the Japan devastation:
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/powerful-quake-aftershocks-rattle-tokyo/2011/03/11/ABX65lQ_gallery.html

Very sad to see so much disaster. I can hope for the best for everyone there. "Never send to know for whom the bell tolls..."

Sigh.

A large portion of children are kidnapped by family members who will not otherwise harm the child.

You can't be certain of that.

But it is particularly dangerous to compare the U.S. - where extortion abductions are almost unknown - to a country where kidnapping for profit has become big business.

Colombia was once Latin America's kidnapping capital, where Marxist guerrillas took hostages and held them for months, even years, in recondite jungle camps, using them as political bargaining chips or human shields. But in recent years, as drug cartels in Mexico have branched out into other forms of crime, kidnapping there has become a lucrative cash industry.

As kidnappings for ransom surge in Mexico, victims' families and employers turn to private U.S. firms instead of law enforcement

>Why would it be about 30%, most web apps are free and 30% of zero is zero. Apple allow free apps in their store.

Not anymore if it involves any money exchanged between the user and the app provider. Now Apple is forcing (users of) subscription services like Amazon and Netflix to pay up 30%. ( an extra 43% to the user). It's curtains from June.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/19/AR2011021902399.html

Free app Readability already got banned for this.

http://blog.readability.com/2011/02/an-open-letter-to-apple/

Free Sony e-reader app banned:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fasterforward/2011/02/apple_bans_sony_e-reader_app_a.html

We're not talking about these apps which were native apps and not web apps.

I'm just saying that most webapps are free and so it doesn't affect apples profits whether they're distributed as webapps or through the app store.

Remember, when the iPhone was launched web apps were the only way to get your app on the phone. The app store came later.

>Why would it be about 30%, most web apps are free and 30% of zero is zero. Apple allow free apps in their store.

Not anymore if it involves any money exchanged between the user and the app provider. Now Apple is forcing (users of) subscription services like Amazon and Netflix to pay up 30%. ( an extra 43% to the user). It's curtains from June.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/19/AR2011021902399.html

Free app Readability already got banned for this.

http://blog.readability.com/2011/02/an-open-letter-to-apple/

Free Sony e-reader app banned:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fasterforward/2011/02/apple_bans_sony_e-reader_app_a.html

We're not talking about these apps which were native apps and not web apps.

I'm just saying that most webapps are free and so it doesn't affect apples profits whether they're distributed as webapps or through the app store.

Remember, when the iPhone was launched web apps were the only way to get your app on the phone. The app store came later.

>Why would it be about 30%, most web apps are free and 30% of zero is zero. Apple allow free apps in their store.

Not anymore if it involves any money exchanged between the user and the app provider. Now Apple is forcing (users of) subscription services like Amazon and Netflix to pay up 30%. ( an extra 43% to the user). It's curtains from June.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/19/AR2011021902399.html

Free app Readability already got banned for this.

http://blog.readability.com/2011/02/an-open-letter-to-apple/

Free Sony e-reader app banned:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fasterforward/2011/02/apple_bans_sony_e-reader_app_a.html

>Why would it be about 30%, most web apps are free and 30% of zero is zero. Apple allow free apps in their store.

Not anymore if it involves any money exchanged between the user and the app provider. Now Apple is forcing (users of) subscription services like Amazon and Netflix to pay up 30%. ( an extra 43% to the user). It's curtains from June.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/19/AR2011021902399.html

Free app Readability already got banned for this.

http://blog.readability.com/2011/02/an-open-letter-to-apple/

Free Sony e-reader app banned:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fasterforward/2011/02/apple_bans_sony_e-reader_app_a.html

Looks like Mr Iqbal was actually convicted of "providing material support to Hizballah, a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization." Not just showing their material, as the NYTimes reported. http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/3773
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/24/AR2006082401461.html
Apparently he was "supporting" them simply by promoting these broadcasts? Not sure how I feel on this one. If DVRs are questionable, simply because ads can be skipped, as ads are the only support for television broadcasting companies, how much is something like Mr Iqbal is doing, support?

World dominated by Apple: the hardware costs a bit more for the computers, equal or cheaper for the devices, software is usually much cheaper than competitors but you can't do everything you want. Some features are limited or non-existant, but otherwise things run pretty smoothly, usability is first and 99.9999% of users don't need to rely on a "computer friend" to help them out.

Really? A bit more? Apple will double the prices as soon as Linux is the only alternative. Apple will be the only manufacturer, AMD will go out of business. etc. etc.

And the worst?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/19/AR2011021902399.html

Have you actually read anything that Bill Gates is saying on this issue? He makes pretty much the exact same points. He's already doing the stuff in your "do this" section.

If you want to get angry, go get angry at someone who deserves it.

They also don't have any borders. If you piss them off, they will come to you and stir polonium 210 into your tea when you're not looking. Or, they'll come to your apartment and kill you in your elevator. Or, if they really want to make an example of you they will straight up shoot you in the face on the street in broad daylight.

That's what they taught us in school, yes. But these days you don't even have to be charged with a crime to be detained indefinitely.

The GP is reporting completely the wrong scale.

The exposure being measured is 1015 mSv (millisieverts not micro!!!!).

This is in fact the same as eating 10,290,972 bananas.

I think we can all agree that is not a healthy level of exposure.

The Washington post has a slide show comparing the exposure (see slide 6). This blast of radiation is 1/6th the level that Chernobyl workers that died within a month of exposure were hit with. Again, this is very significant. Mod the GP down please.

See here as well: http://www.worldnuclear.org/_news_database/rss_detail_features.cfm?objID=2278CE2F-A74A-435B-B8E42B1170C3A893

IANANuclear engineer, but I always thought reactors just used regular old water and pumps for cooling. this article appears to confirm it. The Air Force is also denying they sent anything.

The story had an air of unbeleivability right out of the box. Did Hillary even say anything like that? I dunno. If so, where did she get the info? I dunno.

Then again, maybe the USAF has some magical coolant that the aliens at Area 51 showed them. It works like this: 1. Pump coolant into reactor. 2. Heat is transferred to air. 3. Hot air comes out of politician's mouth on the other side of the planet.

That would explain a lot of things.

Well, sure. Obviously UCSF (one of the best medical schools in the world) has a higher quality program. But they do have a LVN program, too.

Doing some digging around, their fees (http://registrar.ucsf.edu/registration/fees/nursing) are comparable with private schools in the area, and there's (less good) public schools that are much cheaper.

I couldn't even find an LVN program at UCSF. If you say they have one, I'll believe you, but all the programs I see there are for people who already have some training.

For LVN or CNA, it seems the most economical route, by far, would be to go to a community college. Those programs have the same low entry requirements as the for-profits, and CA community colleges charge a whopping $26/unit/semester. Since LVN at CCSF is an 18-month program, I'll just go ahead and call it 4 semesters with 15 units/semester, weighing in at a grand total of $1,560. Throw in some fees, textbooks, and a parking permit, and you're close to 5% of a for-profit scam shop with superior training. Granted, CCSF probably has a longer waiting list, but I'm sure their program is plenty good for LVNs, probably even RNs.

Well, sure. You obviously would want to go to UCSF - it's the getting in that's hard. You go to a for-profit when your other options are eliminated. (My wife was fortunate to get into UCSF for pharmacy, and her education and degree have served her well.) The lower pass rate from the for-profits is probably both a function of a less educated applicant pool and the lower quality education. But I don't think the *fees* are excessive when compared with UCSF.

I think that's really my point, though. An extremely prestigious public university, offering an advanced degree (and medical insurance included in those fee totals), is comparable in cost (per year) to for-profits that have come under attack for shady business practices and bad training?

Here's a link to a news story on GAO report about for-profit colleges using deceptive tactics. A rip-off report anecdote about Everett College.

You can't really compare fees without looking at what those expenses get you. UCSF is probably worth the cost. A no-name school with questionable teaching practices, low licensure pass rates, low job placement rates, and extremely high student loan default rates? The fees shouldn't even be comprable.

That drunk guy asleep at the park bench - We don't know his name or damn would he get our vote.

I think you mean Alvin Greene.

They claim that doing this will cut jobs, but have no qualms about their spending cuts which will cost 700,000 people their jobs: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/28/AR2011022802634.html

A feature I wish it didn't come with... 30% of subscription revenues from "publishers" like Netflix, Amazon Kindle etc.

See http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fasterforward/2011/02/apple_30_percent_subscription_tax.html

An app was already pulled for not paying up: http://blog.readability.com/2011/02/an-open-letter-to-apple/

Ironically it's the same app's OSS code that Apple used to implement the Readability function in Safari...
http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2010/06/08/think-safari-reader-looks-familiar-thats-because-apple-used-op/

I guess no company is exempt from extreme corporate greed... sad to see other companies(especially little startups like Readability) get trampled on the way.

1. High margin sales of iDevices to iUsers
2. 30% of all app sales on all the iDevices by iUsers
3. 30% of all subscription revenue that all iUsers pay on all iDevices (will be implemented soon)
4. ???
5. Overtake oil baron Exxon Mobil as the world's largest publicly traded company with most market capitalization (well, gas prices are going up too.. will be interesting to see who wins this one)

Borders has TVs now!

A brain-dead person isn't coming back

And a brain-dead fetus isn't a person.

A fetus will become a baby.

No, a fetus can become a baby.
Each of a womans eggs can become a baby.
In fact a skin cell from your little pinky can become a baby.

Obviously it takes more positive actions for a pinky cell to develop into a person, but it's fundamentally no different. Just to the most simple ordinary example of BOTH positive actions and inactions required for any of those possibilities to become actualities:
If the woman doesn't eat certain foods then she will be perfectly healthy but there will be no development due to lack of specific nutrients.
If the woman does eat certain other foods she will be perfectly healthy, but there will be no development due to the presence of (normally non-toxic) substances in that food.

No person exists where there is no functioning brain, and a wide range of specific positive actions and specific inactions would need to occur (or not occur) before any particular cell (or cluster of cells) actually does develop into a person.

Again, time displacement is applicable.

If I get a vasectomy then "time displacement" says I've murdered a million unborn descendants. That is metaphysical nonsense.

This person's status has to be considered in total.

I did consider the status.
The status is "does not exist".
There is no person there.

We already have the definition for human life.
We already have the definition to determine whether a "person" is present or not.
The definition of personhood lies in a mind.
A functioning mind-bearing brain is a person.

An adult with no little-or-no functioning brain tissue the status is "no person present".
A fetus with little-or-no functioning brain tissue the status is "no person present".

It's the same at both before-and-after you have a person.
The status is empty brain-dead tissue.

--------

I disagree that an early fetus is a person, disagree that abortion is killing a person, but I can understand and respect that as valid logic for criminalizing all abortion. But I want make sure whether that really is your argument, I want to make sure I understand exactly what your position is.

It's impossible to actually stop abortions. Many women will choose to abort, regardless. If you merely propose waging your finger at them and saying "don't do that", then I say we're already in agreement and that we're both effectively Pro-Choice. I'm guessing that's not your position. The only thing that can be done is to criminalize abortion and to imprison those women who go ahead and do it anyway.

Imprisoning women who do abort is, as I see it, the very definition of the argument and the very definition of the two sides. Not imprisoning women who abort is, in all effects and in all results, ultimately Pro-Choice. Imprisoning women who abort, for all practical and functional purposes, the only meaningful definition of an opposing Pro-Life side.

I'm pretty much assuming your position is to imprison women who continue to abort, but there are differing views in cases of rape. I don't want to make any false assumptions about what your position might be.

If a woman is raped and deliberately aborts, do you propose imprisoning her? First degree premeditated murder?
If a 16 year old girl is statutory-raped and deliberately aborts, do you charge her as an adult for murder?
If an 11 year old is raped and deliberately aborts, do you charge her, as a child in the juvenile system, for murder?
And just to be sure we cover all the bases lets add incest in there too:
If an 11 year old is raped by her father and deliberately aborts, do you charge her, as a child in the juvenile system, for murder?

-

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/25/AR2009062501690.html
She was 13. This was in Arizona... Man that place scares me.

What was that saying about good men doing nothing again?

Good men doing nothing is all that is needed for the Slavic race to have been exterminated by the Nazis might do as a stand-in until you remember.

The Russian church faced extermination by the Nazis or harsh repression by the Soviets (who also controlled who was appointed to Church leadership). Do the math.

The Church lived to continue the struggle.

If nothing else, wikileaks made our rulers look like idiots, and their army's stopped supporting them.

That's right! Wikileaks made the US government look bad, and they stopped obeying the President. Err... I mean, they showed the Saudis secretly dealing with the US, and their military ... um...

I mean, Wikileaks showed a lot of malfeasance by the Egyptian government! Oh, er, no. That revolution came after weeks of massive civilian protests. Rather, Wikileaks has shown a trove of cables about the Libyan government showing... oh, wait, it didn't. Er, I mean, Wikileaks really skewered the Algerian government... uh.... I got nothing.

As the GP said: the former head of MI6 suggested that there was a relationship between the Internet (and its attendant weaking of control over communications and power) and the rise of revolutions in politically oppressed nations. You may personally applaud Wikileaks, but the recent rash of revolutions has NOTHING to do with Wikileaks directly - just as it has nothing to do with the previous US administration's efforts to "spread democracy in the Middle East as some have suggested. Let's applaud the Internet as a whole and its users - and not single out individual actors here.

The real news will be on June 30th when Apple wants a 30% cut of Hungary's GDP.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/19/AR2011021902399.html

"Let's agree not to call this a "Republican" or "Democratic" position."

You can agree. The New York Times won't. (Remember how the Obama administration misrepresented scientists in order to get the ban on deep water drilling?)

The article is really an anti-Republican hack job that 1) selectively picks anti-science activity by Republicans and 2) tries to associate it with more Republicans and with the Tea Party when even that is unwarranted.

surprisingly enough many people are almost the opposite.

If you get too far into the uncanny vally people can be hostile but stay well back and people will relate to machines just fine, they won't relate to them as people but they'll be fine thinking of them like really smart pets/animals.

I came across a lovely article a while back.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/05/AR2007050501009_pf.html

People are quite ready to treat machines as they would animals, even going so far as to consider something that's happening to a bot to be inhumane.

"The most effective way to find and destroy a land mine is to step on it.

This has bad results, of course, if you're a human. But not so much if you're a robot and have as many legs as a centipede sticking out from your body. That's why Mark Tilden, a robotics physicist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, built something like that. At the Yuma Test Grounds in Arizona, the autonomous robot, 5 feet long and modeled on a stick-insect, strutted out for a live-fire test and worked beautifully, he says. Every time it found a mine, blew it up and lost a limb, it picked itself up and readjusted to move forward on its remaining legs, continuing to clear a path through the minefield.

Finally it was down to one leg. Still, it pulled itself forward. Tilden was ecstatic. The machine was working splendidly.

The human in command of the exercise, however -- an Army colonel -- blew a fuse.

The colonel ordered the test stopped.

Why? asked Tilden. What's wrong?

The colonel just could not stand the pathos of watching the burned, scarred and crippled machine drag itself forward on its last leg.

This test, he charged, was inhumane. "

It might be easier to get people to bond to a machine as they would a guidedog rather than as they would to another human.

The veteran explosives technician looming over Bogosh was visibly upset. He insisted he did not want a new robot. He wanted Scooby-Doo back.

"Sometimes they get a little emotional over it," Bogosh says. "Like having a pet dog. It attacks the IEDs, comes back, and attacks again. It becomes part of the team, gets a name. They get upset when anything happens to one of the team. They identify with the little robot quickly. They count on it a lot in a mission."

The middle class pays more by percentage of their income than the upper class (even if it's not more total). The middle class also lives much closer to the line of having to cut out various expenses if income changes, as compared to the rich. We already are putting our money where our mouths are.

The only problem I have with your statements is while OSX is based on Unix, Apple hasn't been the most proactive in keeping it's security up to date/maintenance. And when they do patch the holes, 2 3 the list of holes tend to be quite large which means they are doing quite a large backlog (with some of the holes being months overdue, like in the first example having a security hole known since August and not patched until January the next year).

You can take something very secure but if your falter in it's maintenance then it won't be of a lot of use in real world usage. And its due to issues like these that make me believe the opposite. Sure, due to it's Unix background, OSX could be very secure, but its not. And as long as these issues keep happening then people like Charlie Miller will keep breaking into Macs and showing that they are in fact less secure then Windows. And while Microsoft isn't always patching security holes on day 0, they are much more likely to address the holes a lot faster then Apple has.

New York Times good enough?

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/26/world/africa/26iht-iran.html

CNN International work?

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/10/26/ahmadinejad/

Washington Post?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/27/AR2005102702221.html

How about the BBC?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/4384264.stm

Now what the fuck were you saying again?

Repeal the Patriot act? Hell, on Friday he signed a three-month extension of it.

Edge case? You're writing as if this was an isolated incident. Have you really never heard of the secret "war on terror" CIA prisons? The fact that the European governments (not even to speak of Middle Eastern and African ones of course) collaborated, makes it only scarier and lends credence to the claim by Assange's lawyers that a fair trial in Sweden is questionable. And my point is that the veracity of that claim is not even that important - however that may be, the US together with its allies undermined much of the trust people once had in them, and appeals to that sentiment can count on sympathy, and I for one can easily believe that Assange has a right to be paranoid.

Whether the US would want to simply disappear Assange is questionable and at least open to debate. It's one thing to do it to muslims during a so-called war and in the aftermath of the shock about the dead of 9/11, and quite another to do it to a white Australian computer nerd for posting text on the web. I don't think the Obama administration would want to deal with the questions that would arise if Assenge simply vanished. The upholding of the theater of due process is one of the remaining social adhesives that constantly grow thinner anyway.

What what? Claiming Florida will be flooded is not a policy. It's a prediction. A policy would be a proposed course of action to mitigate the predicted effects. I don't see anyone claiming that "Florida will be flooded", although there is a prediction that sea level will rise by about a meter this century, and this would mean that Florida would lose 10% of its area. Those predictions are well supported by the science. I don't see anyone predicting that billions will die -- that is a straw man. A warmer climate indeed has both positive and negative effects, but the net effects on the economy are negative wen the warming is above 2 degrees Celsius. There is widespread agreement on this, which is why it's the target for the Copenhagen Accord.

'The CIA wants the American people and the world to understand its mission and its vital role in keeping our country safe.'

The CIA is trying to regain some credibility/reputation which has rapidly gone downhill since the Iraq war. News and leaks from Wikileaks and other sources keeps throwing their smelly shit into the fan for all to see. It seems to be nearly every day now we hear of a new scandal, or some gross misuse of our taxpayers funds. But never fear, they have a plan: Apart from this new "Spy goodies" for geeks section to woo us with pretty trinkets, they have also thought of the children - adding games and quizzes to their website - helping them become your all American family-friendly organization again. Further, soon there will be no more bad news thanks to the CIA teaming up with the Democrats to clean out those with faulty moral compasses - so we can all live safe and ignorant again.

If you use a live cd, then you're not booting to your [presumably] windows hard drive, so you are therefore avoiding any malware/trojan/virus therein. There are no cookies or session id's or anything else saved from a live cd. All it takes is a reboot to a Live cd, do your online banking, remove cd, reboot to windoze. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2009/10/e-banking_on_a_locked_down_non.html

Safest way to bank online is to use a Linux LiveCD.
No need to learn Linux, nor even install Linux. Simply boot to a Linux live cd. Nothing is written or saved to anywhere on the computer, so nothing for anyone to copy. It's not booting into windows, so no trojan/virus is there to affect it.

Better explanations here, and a simple howto:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2009/10/e-banking_on_a_locked_down_non.html

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2009/10/avoid_windows_malware_bank_on.html

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