Slashdot Mirror

I'd say: whose debt is that ?

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/mar/02/chinas-debt-to-us-treasury-more-than-indicated/

You can't mess with China. Because if they want, they can ruin US Economy.

Assange picked a very odd place in introduce Wikileaks...

Shortly after getting WikiLeaks off the ground, Assange flew to Kenya to attend the World Social Forum — a yearly symposium dedicated to the redistribution of wealth and the eradication of capitalism — where he delivered a presentation about his new website.
The Founder of WikiLeaks and His Secret Life *

..if he truly favors free enterprise, a proposition of which I'm a bit skeptical....

Australian acquaintances say he was bitterly disappointed by the outcome of the Cold War with a resounding global victory for the United States and its allies. Mr. Assange then began identifying with the defeated "progressives," from the pensioned-off millions - on starvation stipends - of the old Soviet nomenklatura to the innocent dupes who never realized that the World Peace Council was a KGB-controlled organization ....
DE BORCHGRAVE: International Subversives

Oddly enough, some other people also have a different view of Assange....

Assange and the Anarchist War Against the U.S.

In the late 1960s, I attended a university in Singapore. My dormitory roommate was a 19-year-old American student. He hung pictures of Che Guevara and Mao Zedong on the wall and spent days on end writing a treatise about when and how the “rotten capitalist system” in the United States would be overthrown.

In the 1970s, I worked as the Soviet consul in San Francisco. Every month or so, a crazed American anarchist would approach me and ask the consulate to provide dynamite or Kalashnikov machine guns to fight the “imperialist pigs” in Washington and cleanse U.S. society of the “capitalist filth.” .....

Now, in the 21st century, we have WikiLeaks founded by anarchist and anti-imperialist Julian Assange who is driven by a hatred for capitalism and the United States. In the modern age of the Internet, Kalashnikovs and dynamite are no longer necessary to try to overthrow the enemy. Modern technology and outstanding hacking skills allow anarchists to help weaken the United States, the citadel of capitalism.

Undoubtedly, WikiLeaks delivered a heavy blow to the United States. First, it showed the world that U.S. diplomats might smile to your face while they sharpen their knives behind your back.

Second, WikiLeaks exposed the vulnerability of the world’s most powerful country. Seasoned spies used to hunt for years for a single page of classified information, but WikiLeaks and its alleged main leaker, U.S. Private Bradley Manning, in one fell swoop scored more than 500,000 classified and secret U.S. military and diplomatic documents.

Third, the leaks will surely discourage the world from dealing candidly with the United States. Let’s say, for example, that Russia (or any other country) wanted to sign a secret agreement with Washington on a plan to arrest a top Afghan drug lord. Before any U.S. partner signs the agreement, it will wonder if the details of the operation will be splashed across the Internet before the plan can be executed.

Finally, WikiLeaks will surely inspire copycats who are just as zealous as Assange to undermine the United States at all costs.

Thanks to the cables, Russia and most of the world are once again laughing at Uncle Sam’s gullibility and criticizing the United States for being two-faced. Surely, Russia’s diplomats will now be more tight-lipped in dealing with U.S. diplomats. .....

Of course, radical, anti-establishment rebels like Assange and Che Guevara will always make themselves known in the modern

The stimulus package included many billions of dollars specifically marked for upgrading the grid. While this may seem like no big deal, I'm told that it's one of the biggest single investments in the grid (especially R&D) in decades. And there would have been more except that the funds had to be spent immediately and thus many non-shovel-ready projects were left out. We could do a lot more with a second stimulus package. Unfortunately, as your post illustrates, people are so misinformed about the package that the chances of it happening are zero. Oh, the irony.

  http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jan/24/obama-gives-more-details-stimulus/

SS is still taking in more than it is sending out.

Um, no.

But there's nothing to respect about someone who has now put some very real, very innocent people in danger of being killed by their government or others.

Ohh what about those that have been intentionally killed by the US government?

FYI, the Jordanian president is quoted as having said to the US government in the paragraph that starts with 'A report', "We'll continue saying the bombs are ours, not yours".

Question is, where is the difference? People died, even those who were at weddings!

Wow, that whole post reads like a drug-induced hallucination. Every bit of it is false. However, I'll just comment on this part:

"Terrorists don't go after low-hanging fruit... they go after the spectacular. Otherwise they'd be bombing suburban bus and train routes, malls, and other places which are almost impossible to police."

Um, yeah, that happens, like, every day in Israel, the greater Middle East, Pakistan and Afghanistan? Three days ago a car bomb blew up a building in the center of Karachi (Pakistan's largest city). Link. Two weeks ago a bomber killed 20 people in Istanbul's tourist and shopping center. Link. The last attempted terrorist bombing in the U.S., in May, was in the shopping/entertainment area of Times Square. Link.

Education.

But China most definitely WILL HAVE A REVOLUTION. CPC WILL BE FUCKED.

I can almost bet that if China starts dumping the 1 trillion US bonds it owns, the US economy will go so down so quickly that it would matter for US if CPC is fucked or not (hint: CPC won't be fucked).

The Forbes article that first (AFAIK) broke the story at a national level. Not a happy-day sort of read.

President Obama's Father's Socialism

An article on Cloward-Piven Strategy

Another Cloward-Piven article

Those ought to explain why he could easily send money from the government to anywhere without caring about the plight of the people he's sending money to: He wants to weaken America. The fastest way to do that is to weaken our economy further by spending massive amounts of what we don't have to spend and by getting massive amounts of people to believe they are Entitled to "free money".

Remember - as intelligent and nice as President Obama is, he drew his dreams and values from his father. While that's commendable, his father regarded America as a country whose wealth was drawn from the rest of the world' poor. President Obama's father also felt it was appropriate to drain America's wealth so it could be redistributed entirely to the poor - not just a "little equalization".

And those dreams and thoughts are what drive our President.

Full Disclosure - I didn't vote for him, and I'm an Independent.

Ah, you're one of those guys who likes to tell other people to do research but don't want to bother to do it yourself.

From this article, from March of this year:

Iran is poised to begin producing nuclear weapons after its uranium program expansion in 2009, even though it has had problems with thousands of its centrifuges, according to a newly released CIA report.

"Iran continues to develop a range of capabilities that could be applied to producing nuclear weapons, if a decision is made to do so," the annual report to Congress states.

The CIA report is the latest official study expressing concern over Iran's continuing nuclear activities. The International Atomic Energy Agency on March 3 issued a report warning that continuing nuclear activities in violation of U.N. resolutions raise "concerns about the possible existence in Iran of past or current undisclosed activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile."

On Iran, the report says that it is "keeping open" its options for building nuclear arms, "though we do not know whether Tehran eventually will decide to produce nuclear weapons."

Last year, Iran disclosed it is building a second gas-centrifuge plant near the city of Qom that will house an estimated 3,000 machines. U.S. officials have said the Qom facility, which was discovered in 2007, is a clear sign Iran's nuclear program is geared toward producing weapons, because the facility is too small for nonmilitary uranium enrichment.

On missiles, the report said Iran is building more short- and medium-range ballistic missiles and stated that "producing more capable medium-range ballistic missiles remains one of its highest priorities."

The report also said that Iran has the capability of producing both chemical and biological weapons, and Tehran continued to seek dual-use technology for its bioweapons program.

Clearly nuclear fits the "dual-use" goal perfectly.

Here's the complete CIA report:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/29296633/CIA-Report-WMD-Proliferation-721-Apr10

Did you even try?

Obama angles to turn Gulf oil spill to his advantage

State and Federal Tax Collections on Oil Industry Exceed Oil Industry Profits

This is great now they have control over the "majority of the critical infrastructure". I was getting worried they didn't have enough control, I mean I don't want planes dropping out of the sky or anything, so this is good for everyone!

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jul/14/obama-to-drop-in-at-cybersecurity-review/

The man in the story was deported quickly, too quickly for intelligence services to wring him dry. When spies like him get caught, you need to do a thorough damage assessment, to find out exactly what they knew and how they got the information in the first place. If he penetrated Microsoft, we needed to know everything about it, what he got, how he got it, and who gave it to him. Why so fast? "the prospect of a public trial revealing embarrassing facts about Russian influence operations, like the targeting of a key Democratic Party financier close to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton." The [FBI's] criminal complaint stated that in February 2009 a New Jersey-based Russian, who posed as Cynthia Murphy and was later identified as SVR officer Lydia Guryev, met several times with a "prominent New York-based financier" who was active in politics and a "active fundraiser" for a "major political party, name omitted." He also was described as a "personal friend of [a current Cabinet official, name omitted]." Source. You can fill in the [name omitted] yourself - go ahead and guess.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100707/ap_on_re_us/us_drug_war_agriculture
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/apr/01/violent-mexican-drug-gangs-pose-rising-risk-to-ame/
http://www.elpasotimes.com/ci_15405948

There's been a war going on for quite some time. Apparently, either willful ignorance or your politics have blinded you to reality.

I have a warning to you. We're committed to putting you out of business. Not you in person - your friends in the music and film industries. They are relying on broken, decaying business models, and no matter how much you try, you can't save them.

Even if it were feasible to have some sort of economic impact on the media industry, no matter what you do it'll never have any impact. Remember the "Drudge Tax" that the FTC was mulling over (now bear in mind, this was only a report and not something that is going into effect)? "Oh, but that's just Drudge" you say. "He's a right-wing lunatic."

Think about this carefully: the "Drudge Tax" was an idea concocted to make news aggregators (hi, Slashdot!) pay a small tax for linking to third party stories. Essentially, it would be in place to prop up an industry that is effectively in the process of dying. It sounds a lot like something Rupert Murdoch was proposing, too, doesn't it?

Remember, too, that every blank CD-ROM you purchase includes a small fee that goes straight into the coffers of the RIAA to help offset the costs of piracy. Sure, it's only a few cents, but during the peak of CD-ROM sales it was a figure undoubtedly rather high. Worst of all: most people have no idea they are paying what is effectively a tax.

So, no, I don't think that economically hurting the media industry is going to have any effect. Congress will simply levy taxes against the rest of us to keep their buddies afloat. If we truly professed to be a semi-capitalistic society, we would simply let these companies fail when they can no longer afford to keep their doors open. We're not; instead, we sink countless millions of dollars into failing industries simply because they have lobbyists.

You and I? Well, we're just taxpayers. We have no lobbyists. Plus, even if you could convince the vast majority of consumers to not purchase popular media (hint: won't happen), it'll never work. It'll instead be blamed on piracy, and you might just wind up paying a tax on every hardware component you purchase to build a computer, because--by golly--that device might just be used to pirate goods. In fact, I think there was a proposal of the sorts in the works.

I hate to sound so cynical. Instead, I'll end this on a positive note by welcoming you to serfdom.

No mention in the link about the "experts" that the administration consulted coming out and saying they don't support the ban and that the administration misrepresented their position. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jun/22/judge-halts-obamas-oil-drilling-ban/

This is not just limited to Europe, governments want control of you and the internet and everything they else they can. And when you have lost Constitutional protections (US) all you need is 51% of the people to say it is a good idea:

US last week:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jun/15/epidemic-growth-of-net-porn-cited/
http://www.prisonplanet.com/new-bill-gives-obama-kill-switch-to-shut-down-the-internet.html

Indonesia, June 15, 2010:
http://in.reuters.com/article/idINIndia-49317620100615

There's a whole slough of laws still in effect. They keep talking about it but there's always a ban of some sort. For instance, here's a high profile case for you. But you said that the ban on handguns was repealed? That you can store them without being field stripped? You should talk to Gilbert Arenas about that. The set of laws in place is staggering.

Your quote is also hilarious. Hint: The Washington Times is one of the most conservative paper you'll find. They can't even give it away in DC. Not surprised to find them looking at one year's drop for the most extreme law being repealed. I also find it convenient that they don't look at the 45% drop in violent crime in the capital through the years gun control went into effect.

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

Not since 2008.

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

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

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

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

Not since 2008.

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

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

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

I think perhaps they simply have a different view of what it means to be a Muslim.

And frankly, I'd take their word of it over yours because they have the natural right to define their own religious practices.

Tell that to the Ahmadi

Oh sorry, you can't - they're dead! They had a "different view of what it means to be a Muslim" alright, but they've been well and truly corrected.

"Aside from the fact that a legitimate officer would not fire his gun on a plane for fear of depressurising the aircraft."

Aside from the fact we've had bullets to prevent that very thing from happening for a while, now, you're almost correct.

Aside from the fact that federal air marshals don't use frangible bullets, you're almost correct.

Perhaps this is one of the issues that Congress should address when the next patent reform bill comes up, about ten years from now. I'm not sure we can afford to wait that long for action on this matter, however. Though the Myriad case currently under review might mention the issue of patenting syns, Myriad will not serve as binding precedent for this particular topic. So my guess is that the syn patenting issue will remain undecided until the lawsuits begin ... or until someone in Congress unexpectedly grows a pair.

The antitrust argument doesn't seem to have been too successful in court, at least in the arena of pharmaceutical pay-for-delay agreements (see In re Ciprofloxacin Antitrust Litigation, decided last month). Courts have been loath to inject public interest arguments into issues concerning settled law. That being the case, likely it will be up to Congress to take action to address antitrust concerns in regard to patents. Perhaps when the next patent reform bill is introduced, ten years from now?

It would be nice if the patent reform bills currently before Congress would address critical public interest issues such as this one. However, it looks like it will be up to the courts to decide where and when to place the public interest above the profit motive. Once the Myriad case is decided, perhaps fewer unfortunate situations like this one will occur.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvcUe_yPHdg

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2006/jun/15/20060615-122003-3483r/

But then you have to finish the insides. I could see $20k, especially with insulation.

I bet you've never seen the inside of a shipping container. You can get them with wooden interior walls, floor, and ceiling. Air them out, slap on a coat of paint, and you're good to go. People are buying them to make work sheds, etc., you can get a 40' for $1500 0 $1700 without even trying,

Just about everyone is a criminal.

Keep telling yourself that. In reality, the laws are not being bent; they are being enforced correctly. Praying out loud is just as protected as any other form of speech is, and people like yourself can’t change that no matter how much you’d like to...

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/may/12/hicks-interpreting-rules-of-religion-rights/

In Port Wentworth, Ga., patrons of the Ed Young Senior Center, owned by the city of Port Wentworth but operated contractually by Senior Centers Inc., were told they could observe a moment of silence, but not pray aloud before eating their federally subsidized food.

...

Mayor Glenn "Pig" Jones asked his senior constituents to be patient while he put his legal counsel on the question. Within a few days, the state's Office on Aging clarified that their guidelines do not prohibit citizens from joining together to pray aloud; they only prohibit city employees or employees of the service provider from leading the patrons in prayer.

"We now know that the rules were misinterpreted. There's no language to say people cannot bless their meals, only that city workers or those contracted by the city cannot ask everyone to bow their heads for a blessing," Mr. Jones says.

I’m sorry, I misread your comment. You said HURTING people, not HUNTING them. Me praying in a public place is not hurting anyone.

Anyway, the matter appears to be settled, and correctly at that:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/may/12/hicks-interpreting-rules-of-religion-rights/

But instead, Mayor Glenn "Pig" Jones asked his senior constituents to be patient while he put his legal counsel on the question. Within a few days, the state's Office on Aging clarified that their guidelines do not prohibit citizens from joining together to pray aloud; they only prohibit city employees or employees of the service provider from leading the patrons in prayer.

"We now know that the rules were misinterpreted. There's no language to say people cannot bless their meals, only that city workers or those contracted by the city cannot ask everyone to bow their heads for a blessing," Mr. Jones says.

While we're on the subject of the "law..."

Anyone ever hear of relevant conduct as the feds consider it? Basically it means that your custody can be affected by behavior for which the charges have been dismissed, or even charges for which you were acquitted.

I kid you not. Here's a true scenario:

A man gets caught with five grams of crack. (FIve year mandatory minimum in the feds, until the crack/powder disparity is corrected.) That's five years for about a sugar packet of rock. But when he is arrested,the cop says" hey you look like the guy that hosed down that McDonald's with an AK47, killing 35 schoolkids!"

Of course, you aren't, you go to trial, and after 30 seconds of deliberation, the jury acquits you of the mass murder charge. But you still go away for the crack.

Here's the kicker: when you go to prison, the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) considers the murders "relevant conduct" and sends you to a very nasty pen, puts extreme violence on your record, and puts a Public Safety Factor on you, because of the "relevant conduct"...of which you were acquitted. Due process? Hah!!

Don't believe me?

Want the official Government position?

The US justice system is a fucking travesty, and unfortunately, you don't realize that till you're neck deep in it.

Be careful out there.

Wrong.

Tendency toward violence is not a left/right thing

Absolutely. Really, I should've said "In today's political climate, it's the right-wingers in general that...". I certainly didn't mean to cast aspersions upon *all* right-wingers. But they are *currently* housing (and, I would argue, encouraging) a kernel of extremism within their ranks.

And the highest-ranking members of the left are endorsing stuff like this. He was Obama's nominee for "Green Jobs Adviser".

As GP said, this isn't a left/right thing. No one party is housing or encouraging. There be asshats everywhere.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/apr/15/obamas-earned-55-million-2009b/

LOL, pathetic. I made less than a third of what the Bidens did, yet I gave more than double what they did to charity. Why give to charity when you're busy remaking the government into a charity and making its citizens too poor to give their money away, eh?

FDA smoke screen on e-cigarettes
by Dr. Elizabeth Whelan

Dr. Elizabeth Whelan is president of the American Council on Science and Health.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/aug/06/fda-smoke-screen-on-e-cigarettes/

"The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) held a press conference late last month to scare Americans about the so-called "e-cigarette" -- claiming it was loaded with harmful "toxins" and "carcinogens." The agency was implicitly saying: Stay away from these newfangled, untested cigarette substitutes -- better to stick with the real ones, the ones that we are more familiar with, the ones that cause over 450,000 deaths annually in the U.S.

In making its distorted, incomplete and misleading statement, FDA was violating its long-cherished tradition of sticking to sound science as the basis for its policies. And in doing so, it is putting the lives and health of millions of Americans at risk."

The FDA has shown E-Cigarettes to be less likely to cause cancer than even nicotine gum based on nitrosamine content.

FDA report on nitrosamine content of cigarettes, Nicotine replacements and E-Cigs
http://www.fda.gov/downloads/Drugs/ScienceResearch/UCM173250.pdf

Canadian report on nitrosamine levels in commercial cigarettes
http://smoke-vs-vapor.webs.com/Canadian%20Cigarette%20Data%202004.ods

Website that has compiled data and presented a table of the data for quick viewing
http://smoke-vs-vapor.webs.com/nitrosaminelevels.htm

No one is suggesting getting rid of all nukes- MAD works.

... well, except for President Obama, that is:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/apr/06/obamas-nuclear-free-world-dont-bet-on-it/ Or do you think he meant something else by "a world without nuclear weapons"?

No one here can tell because the damn bills are in such flux that even the goddamn Congress can keep up with it and the GAO is crushed with requests from them to figure it out.

So, I'll restate: no one here will know what's going on with regards to what's in the bill. No one in the news media knows exactly what's going on.

All the doom and gloom you hear and all of the wonderfulness of the plan are all speculation and hyperbole to get viewers and ratings.

http://www.laht.com/article.asp?CategoryId=10717&ArticleId=344086
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/601
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/aug/07/something-fishy-in-venezuela/?feat=home_editorials

Dec 2002 to Mar 2003: Disrupting and attempting destruction of the oil industry, depriving everyone of fuel. Most of the saboteurs were fired and the government acquired more control of the industry.
Dec 2002 to Mac 2003: Owners lock-out attempting to force Chavez a resign, did nothing against the government, deprived people from food and basic consumables. It showed the dangers of leaving everything in private hands, the government started implementing state owned production, distribution, and now retail of goods. In short, backfired horribly to opposition interests.
Dec 2004: Opposition parties decide to retire all their candidates to the National Assembly, as a form of "protest", then proceed to cry the following years for not having any representation; get a little breath from former Chavez supporters turning sides (cheating their voters), but still almost non existent presence in the unicameral legislative branch.
2005 etc: Call to block streets near your home. Of course this works mostly in opposition zones, which makes them self isolated for a couple of days, rest of the country ignores them and lives normally.
2006+ attempts to try Ukraine style "orange" revolt (The Albert Einstein Institute method used in many countries) to use "pacific" methods to overthrown ("anti-us") governments. Unfortunately the Venezuelan "students" didn't get the "pacific" part too well, and ended igniting fires, destroying property and even using firearms, losing what little support from the civic society might have left in them.

I could go on, but you either get it or won't at this point. Opposition fails because of its own stupid mistakes, funny thing is they get openly funded by US Tax payers, in the form of National Endowment for Democracy (bi-partisan institution to fund "pro-american" groups in the world) USAID and such. http://www.venezuelafoia.info/english.html

If the USA used a fraction of the funds they waste all over the world funding parties and movements, and instead used it to solve their own social domestic issues, the effects of the economic crash would have been all gone by know, and wouldn't need people crashing planes against public buildings to show their discontent.

Republicans on the other hand, want the government completely out of their lives

"You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means..."

You seem to have "Republicans" confused with "Conservatives" and "Libertarians". Nowadays, the difference between "Republicans" and "Democrats" (at least among those actually in power) mostly tends to be in WHICH ways to expand Government.

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=3184
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/oct/19/big-government-gets-bigger/

The real crooks extorted $24 trillion from a sovereign nation by threatening elected officials with martial law.

Science also didn't care if preservatives in vaccines led to autism. The media cared a lot. Articles in peer reviewed journals thought it did (until they were retracted in embarrassment).

Those who denied that a bacteria (imagine that) was responsible for most stomach ulcers were ridiculed by the established medical community (until they were proven wrong).

And, both of these were FAR less complex systems than the Earth's climate and far easier to test theories on.

Be very careful of claims of "settled science". AGW may be real (I think it is almost certainly real) - but the magnitude of its is much more uncertain (and, if it's actually a good or bad thing for human survival is unknown -- if we are heading for another mini ice age, we might be happy that a few hundred years of AGW had increased global temps by a degree or two).

Rule of thumb... "Settled Science" should only be applied to PROVABLE premises, else a better term is "hypothesis".

Read this and Re-Educate yourself: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/feb/16/pruden-the-red-hot-scam-begins-to-unravel/

Exactly right! No conservative would stand for this new plan. That's why they all hate it.

Here's what stupid liberals think,

"the new spending plan takes NASA back to its roots of advanced technology development, experimentation and exploration. "

What a stupid statement. Typical idiot liberal Newt Gingrich.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/feb/12/obamas-brave-reboot-for-nasa/

"The Obama space proposal, which seeks to enable a commercial space industry for transportation to and from low Earth orbit

So far true, although there are other parts of the proposal.

while it cancels space exploration beyond LEO,

This is just plain incorrect. It cancels one particular program, which was widely regarded as badly mismanaged and possessing many inherent problems. The Constellation/Ares program also suppressed any research into technologies which weren't seen as immediately relevant to the specific lunar return scheme the former NASA administrator had in mind, with several perfectly good programs getting canceled to pay for the increasingly overbudget and behind schedule Constellation program. It replaces it with a plan initially focused on developing the technologies critical for sustainable exploration of Mars and the rest of the inner solar system.

has sparked a kind of civil war among conservatives.

Well, it's sparked a civil war between those conservative who either have a financial interest in the status quo or are stuck in a cold war-style lust for repeating Apollo. Other conservatives though, such as former House speaker (and National Space Society board member) Newt Gringrich, and former House Science & Technology committee chair Robert S. Walker, have enthusiastically endorsed NASA's new plan, and consider it one of the few positive things to come out of the Obama administration.

Some conservatives hate the proposal because of the retreat from the high frontier and even go so far as to cast doubt on the commercial space aspects.

Uh, strawman much? This isn't a "retreat from the high frontier" -- NASA's getting a significant budget increase, and the new plan is much better suited for engaging in meaningful space exploration than the old one could ever have, even if it hadn't been going drastically overbudget.

Other conservatives like the commercial space part of the Obama policy and tend to gloss over the cancellation of space exploration or even denigrate the Constellation program as 'unworkable' or 'unsustainable.'"

They denigrate it as 'unworkable' and 'unsustainable' because it quite simply was. It had already spent $9 billion just to try to produce yet another medium-lift rocket (the US has had at least two medium-lift rockets already in regular operation for many years now), which only passed its preliminary design review several years late through some fairly blatant bending of the readiness/safety criteria. Independent analysis by the Augustine Committee found that the current program wouldn't even produce its medium-lift booster until 2017-2019, and wouldn't produce a lunar landing until sometime in the late 2030s. At that point all you'd have is an Apollo repeat without any new technological capabilities, since the plan was specifically devised to avoid any new tech development. That seems pretty much by definition 'unworkable' and 'unsustainable.' NASA's new plan is far superior by pretty much any possible metric, with the possible exception of not delivering as much money in the short-term to Alabama.

After the next census it won't be so open for debate. The 2010 census will be the first one that doesn't ask if anyone is a citizen. How do we juggle around the House of Reps if we don't have the consitutionally required head count correct? But we'll know how many toilets every house has, great!

The EU is already the world's biggest economy.

Ah yes. A giant chunk of Europe vs. the US.

China and India have poverty on the run? Define "run."

Putting out fires in Mesopotamia? Hmmm. I hate to break it to you, but Iran doesn't just hate the U.S.

Figuring out HOW to treat people when they're sick? We've got that down. Where to world leaders go to get the best treatment these days? Now, if you're talking about figuring out how to treat EVERYONE when they're sick, then yes. We are trying to figure that out. And doing a very bad job of it, too.

Stop consuming a quarter of the world's resources? Hmmm... [citation needed]. I'd also like to know how much we produce with those resources in comparison to other countries.

when the US is still recovering from the diplomatic and geo-political catastrophe what was the Bush years

Yes, what we need is someone who will do what's best for other countries like Obama has promised. Someone who is willing to work with the UN, seeing how they are looking out for the best interests of us. Someone with a real vision and plan to ... to do something. We're not sure what yet.

Sarcasm aside, Obama vs. Bush is an interesting one. Bush did not have any of the stage presence that Obama did. And yet it seems that Obama, so far, is mostly stage presence and little else. He does not appear to know how to lead anything but a campaign. And the media eats it up, like all the stories about Mrs. Obama and her garden and all that. And I won't even start with Obama's cabinet and officers and whatnot... Gibbs, and Axelrod, and even Vice President Biden.

Yes, I think we definitely need a lot of "change" at the moment. More spending and more deficit is probably not the best change right now. Yes, I know, Obama is "cutting" spending at the moment. Barely, it would seem... a few million, possibly a billion, here and there ... while spending billions on other plans. (Example being the CBO just now telling us that oops, that stimulus package price tag was off by about $75 billion... very few media outlets appear to be covering it though, but here's the Washington Times). And cutting spending isn't and hasn't exactly been the rallying cry of the Democratic party. Unfortunately, the same goes for Republicans... at least, not actually cutting. But it seems they spend a lot less in general, and it seems a lot of conservatives are fed up with both parties. Who knows.

http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/oct/05/criminalizing-everyone/

.. what a one-sided crock.

If you were under attack from a foreign entity wouldn't you fight back with everything you had? Chicken, meet egg.

Mr. Coleman said China's military is equal to U.S. and Russian military cyberwarfare.

"This is a three-horse race, and it is a dead heat," Mr. Coleman said.

The US has been attacking China for years and vice versa. Let's be honest here. If either let their guard down there'd be more of a victim than a search engine and advertising company.

No indicators, no action, as the number of indicators goes up, raise the response level to the appropriate level for the individual at hand. In other words, ACTUALLY USE THE RESULTS OF INVESTIGATION AND INTELLIGENCE IN A TIMELY AND APPROPRIATE MANNER. . .

This presupposes that the indicators are accurate. The TSA "threat levels" are nonsense. People get put on the TSA's lists simply because their names are similar to other people's names. People get beaten by border guards, or detained and interrogated for no apparent reason; want to know the reason, i.e., the "indicator?" -- you're not allowed to, because it's a secret.

I'm not criticizing you for disagreeing with Schneier. He's not a god or an oracle. But when you say "Bruce is only pointing out the obvious...," and then go on to contradict everything he says in the article, it does seem a little odd. Maybe we should check what he has to say about the "indicators" you want to put so much faith in -- "indicators" such as the TSA threat level and the no-fly list. You seem to be advocating strip-searching people because they show up on lists like the no-fly list. Schneier says the no-fly list is bogus.

and sometimes it's your own government that will define you. imagine my surprise to find i just made somebodies watch list. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/apr/16/napolitano-stands-rightwing-extremism/ i guess believing in my oath to the Constitution is enough to get me on a bad person list. it's way too easy to become a wrongdoer.

This ignores some of the more obvious ways in which humans can change the atmosphere.

The point is not, that humans don't change the atmosphere at all. It is that our (anthropogenic) contribution to the change is negligibly small — we also "contribute" to Continental Drift... The cooling of the last 10 years, that so frustrated the CRU alarmists (one of them writes in an e-mail: "The fact is we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't."), is now explained by the lower Sun activity — even when reminding the faithful readers, that "These changes are not enough to reverse global warming". Well, duh, "It is the Sun, stupid". Whatever we do here — and we didn't reduce our emissions (save for those few weeks in Bejing you observed) over the decade — the Sun will trump that many times over.

Oceans rising? Right... There are ancient cities on the sea floor off North Africa. Did Mediterranean rise because the humans were cooking too much 2000 years ago?