Slashdot Mirror

The result was at worst neutral, and likely better.

Why President Gore might have gone into Iraq after 9/11, too
What Would Gore Have Done? (WWGHD)

It could have been much better than it was, if only ....

Blame Fannie Mae and Congress For the Credit Mess

Japan gives a lot of aid and comfort to the other thug nations. It's like helping someone dump a body and cover their tracks.

Japan has long been one of the more generous nations for foreign aid and its military has been pretty much limited to almost purely national defense of Japan itself since WW2. Although they can be highly competitive in business, I think it is hard to build a good case that Japan is currently a "thug" nation. Taco Cowboy's comment I can understand as Chinese anti-Japanese sentiment that has existed since at least the 1930s. But yours?

China and Russia aren't especially friendly to Japan, whereas the US is. That leaves you portraying the US and UK as thugs, but not necessarily China or Russia. (The current Chinese regime is the same one that killed 60,000,000 of its own people and is trying to seize territory held by Japan even while it (China) is trying to claim the entire South China Sea as its territory, stepping on its neighbors.)

So you are basically condemning your own country again, seemingly above others, and it isn't clear why. The influence of school reading assignments, perhaps? It's a pity that contemporary American education tends to be unfavorable towards some views.

American History 101

National Review Online:So how different is your history of the United States from, say, Howard Zinn’s?

Larry Schweikart: They are as different as night and day. We assume that people usually mean what they say; that they don’t always have hidden motivations; and that ideas are more important than “class” or “race” or “gender.” Under more normal times, our book would simply be entitled, A History of the United States, because it is accurate.

NRO:So a “Patriot’s Guide” isn’t all good?

Schweikart: Absolutely not. As we say in the intro/jacket flap, we reject “My Country, Right or Wrong,” but we equally reject “My Country, Always Wrong.” I think you’ll find us quite critical of such aspects of our past-such as the Founders’ unwillingness to actually act on slavery on at least three separate occasions; or about Teddy Roosevelt’s paternalistic regulations and his anti-business policies. On the other hand, as conservatives, we nevertheless destroy the myth that FDR “knew” about the Pearl Harbor attack in advance. Instead, we try to always put the past in the context of the time–why did people act then as they did, and was that typical?

History Lies

Yep, this was handled yesterday in: http://news.slashdot.org/story...

http://online.wsj.com/news/art...

Highlights:
In the Thomas Drake case, the administration retroactively marked documents as classified, saying, 'he knew they should have been classified.'
In the Bradley Manning case, the jury wasn't allowed to see what information was leaked.

The FISA court has been a whitewash since the Church Committee days. FISA rejects about one warrant per 3 year period (or 1 in 3000):

From 1979 through 2012, the court overseeing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act has rejected only 11 of the more than 33,900 surveillance applications by the government, according to annual Justice Department reports to Congress.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887324904004578535670310514616

You can't rationally call rubber stamping like that "oversight."

Or the people asking for the warrants know exactly what a judge needs to hear in order to approve the warrant. Whether the warrant information is truthful or not is another matter, and it is doubtful that any judge, anywhere, is in a position to investigate the veracity of a warrant's claims.

And that is the real problem: there is no way to prove that a CIA officer (or whoever is asking for the warrants) is telling the truth. And I can't think of a way that this can happen with transparency in the process, which is kinda counter to the idea of spying and secrecy. All the judges are doing is making sure that the right boxes are checked and filled out. Maybe members of congress (int. committee) could do a quarterly review of a sampling of warrants, like, actually investigate them, interview people, etc... I don't know.

Yes -- and then there is the fact that federal code base of crimes is so vast, vague, and its implementation left up to so many agencies, that even the ABA can't count all of the crimes one can commit, most of which have no element of intent.

Estimates of the number of regulations range from 10,000 to 300,000. None of the legal groups who have studied the code have a firm number.

"There is no one in the United States over the age of 18 who cannot be indicted for some federal crime," said John Baker, a retired Louisiana State University law professor who has also tried counting the number of new federal crimes created in recent years. "That is not an exaggeration."

http://online.wsj.com/news/art...

See also: Three Felonies a Day: http://www.threefeloniesaday.c...

So what would you call it when there is criminal framework that is unknowable and that punishes you even if you have no ill intent? Despotic?

You might have missed these:
Former U.S. Officials Give NSA Whistleblower Snowden Award in Russia

Maybe YOU missed the "in Russia" part. Pretty such any medal pales in comparison to the punishment of having to spend the rest of his life in exile from the country he grew up in and tried to help.

It seems like Mr. Snowden may disagree with you.

Snowden Says He Has No Regrets
Fugitive former intelligence operative Edward Snowden told supporters at a secret dinner this week that he doesn't regret leaking details of classified U.S. surveillance programs, despite having to live his life on the run because he is satisfied his actions have had an impact, a person present at the dinner said.

Mr. Snowden told four former U.S. government agents-turned-whistleblowers, who traveled to Moscow to give him an...
[complete article behind login]

Edward Snowden Statement: 'It was the right thing to do and I have no regrets'

Friday July 12, 15:00 UTC

Hello. My name is Ed Snowden. A little over one month ago, I had family, a home in paradise, and I lived in great comfort. I also had the capability without any warrant to search for, seize, and read your communications. Anyone's communications at any time. That is the power to change people's fates.

It is also a serious violation of the law. The 4th and 5th Amendments to the Constitution of my country, Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and numerous statutes and treaties forbid such systems of massive, pervasive surveillance. While the US Constitution marks these programs as illegal, my government argues that secret court rulings, which the world is not permitted to see, somehow legitimize an illegal affair. These rulings simply corrupt the most basic notion of justice – that it must be seen to be done. The immoral cannot be made moral through the use of secret law.

I believe in the principle declared at Nuremberg in 1945: "Individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience. Therefore individual citizens have the duty to violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring."

Accordingly, I did what I believed right and began a campaign to correct this wrongdoing. I did not seek to enrich myself. I did not seek to sell US secrets. I did not partner with any foreign government to guarantee my safety. Instead, I took what I knew to the public, so what affects all of us can be discussed by all of us in the light of day, and I asked the world for justice.

That moral decision to tell the public about spying that affects all of us has been costly, but it was the right thing to do and I have no regrets.

Since that time, the government and intelligence services of the United States of America have attempted to make an example of me, a warning to all others who might speak out as I have. I have been made stateless and hounded for my act of political expression. The United States Government has placed me on no-fly lists. It demanded Hong Kong return me outside of the framework of its laws, in direct violation of the principle of non-refoulement – the Law of Nations. It has threatened with sanctions countries who would stand up for my human rights and the UN asylum system. It has even taken the unprecedented step of ordering military allies to ground a Latin American president's plane in search for a political refugee. These dangerous escalations represent a threat not just to the dignity of Latin America, but to the basic rights shared by every person, every nation, to live free from persecution, and to seek and enjoy asylum.

Yet even in the face of this historically disproportionate aggression, countries around the world have offered support and asylum.

The EU is also responsible for the Data Retention Directive.

Indeed. Which is - I admit - a shame. But we're also capable of learning from our errors, it seems:

The European Union's data retention directive is incompatible with the bloc's charter of fundamental rights, Advocate General Pedro Cruz VillalÃn said in an opinion Thursday. [...] The opinion isn't binding on the European Court of Justice, Europe's highest court, but in the majority of cases, advocate general opinions are followed.

Source

I wish the same could be said about Obama's administration and its stance towards the NSA spying.

Yes, we should be dumb and stupid...great way to plan for the future.

Repeat after me, throwing money at something does not make it better, it just makes it more expensive. WE are constantly under-performing in test scores compared to other countries that spend a fraction of what we do on education. Not spending more does not equate to being dumb and stupid. Spending more with no or negative results could equal dumb and stupid though.

And 30-40 MILLION more people have health insurance available to them. Overall spending DECREASE since once it's fully in force and people are enrolled the number of ER visits goes way way down. Again, 'decade over decade' and you compare to just 'now'.

No they do not. Right now, the number of people who do not have health insurance available is actually greater then before as policies were canceled and some increased in costs to the point people claim they cannot afford them any more.

Even the government claims less then 6 million people signed up for the exchanges. The CBO claims that after Obamacare is fully implemented, 30 to 40 million people will not have coverage. Before the ACA, it was only 50 million who were uninsured. But right now, we have seen over 80 million policies canceled because of the ACA. So unless you are counting a large amount of people who had their policies canceled as the ones who are going to be getting insurance, the best you can claim is that 10-20 million will have access to insurance. But currently, it seems like only 6 million or so is able to be claimed if you discount anyone who was canceled from the number of people signing up for the exchanges. But that isn't the case in reality.

I know, that is not what you have been told by your handlers. But it actually is the cold hard truth of the matter.

I think the proper question is why aren't you getting off your lazy AC ass and actually doing something about it? If you don't like the government, you're quite free to persuade your neighbors to join you in replacing your representatives.

I think you will find this to be a common theme over the next several elections. Whether the politicians will stand and deliver is another story, but we can expect to see some different talking heads in the mix.

I think you need some citations. And if you're going to declare a post "total BS", perhaps your rebuttals should be on point? Kinda like this:

1) China "will be"? UN says 28.6%, not quite "over 1/3" as you originally said.
2) China is indeed focusing on reducing pollution, but they're also cutting coal consumption, not just consuming it differently. They're using GreatPoint's catalytic hydromethanation process of coal gasification, and the CO2 produced is captured, not released.
3) Primarily stopping desertification as I said, but 500,000,000 hectares of fast-growing trees are a not-insignificant CO2 absorber, as the Chinese are quick to point out.
4) China's top climate negotiator said that China has pledged to cut its carbon intensity by 40-45% by 2020 from 2005 levels. Coal plants are no longer being approved in polluted provinces like Beijing, and their nuclear power program is one of the most ambitious programs in the world.
5) Huh?

I have no problem with the harvesting of Gary Becker(head)'s organs, nor Thomas "three chins" Friedman's organs, nor anyone else's organs at the Hoover Institution, which Becker(head) is a paid member of, but once allowed, forced organ harvesting in a predatory monopolistic capitalistic society will be the order of the day, far worse than it now is!

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304149404579322560004817176?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsFifth

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_transplantation_in_China

http://www.dafoh.org/

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/hospital-errors-lead-to-dead-patient-opening-eyes-during-organ-harvesting/

The FISA court has been a whitewash since the Church Committee days. FISA rejects about one warrant per 3 year period (or 1 in 3000):

From 1979 through 2012, the court overseeing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act has rejected only 11 of the more than 33,900 surveillance applications by the government, according to annual Justice Department reports to Congress.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887324904004578535670310514616

You can't rationally call rubber stamping like that "oversight."

the asshats in DC seem dead set on running our own economy into the dirt.

And they're so incompetent that they're failing even at that.

Ammm that is how things are done. They tracked Polio in India by this method http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303848104579312453860810752?mod=WSJ_hps_LEFTTopStories

Lets see here, IRS was a lie?? If so why did they apologize for it?? I see your daily kos and raise you a wall street journal http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887323744604578474983310370360

Fast and Furious was a lie? Business week would disagree with you and huffpo http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-05-21/fast-and-furious-scandal-returns-to-haunt-obama

I could go on but its not worth my time

Depends which guesstimates you are reading.

.

Looks like half the military budget is for benefits. That makes it difficult to cut the budget.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303755504579204141223865178

You have to trust some exchange. Otherwise where are you going to get your BTC, and how are you going to spend it? Mining today is not for common people. On the spending side, there are a few businesses that take BTC - but they rarely sell what you need (usually it's services that cost very little to provide, like hosting.)

Trusting the exchange means that you need to send your country's currency to a faraway country. The exchange there operates without any oversight, and it is only due to goodness of their heart that they send some BTC into your wallet. The same happens in the opposite direction: you send them your BTC, and in return, at some later time (soon or not so soon) they will send you the national currency - that you may have to explain to your country's tax authorities.

The exchanges are not immune from more common financial difficulties - here is one story as an example. Exchanges are not insured, and they can crash and burn at any time. Sending money to them always carries a high risk of never seeing the money again. This is far less of a concern with a bank, where you have a contract and where your money's path is traceable.

Note that both conversions (to and from BTC) cost you money; and the BTC transfers themselves also cost money. BTC was always claiming that fees are optional and symbolic, but none of that appears to be true today, as mining turned into a for-profit business with hefty investments and running expenses. In the end, the service (BTC or bank) will cost you something because the work has to be done, somewhere and by someone, and the BTC not a network of close friends anymore. People are in it for money, and guess whose pockets that money is supposed to come from?

Economists say otherwise.
More here.

In a nutshell, India is dropping their ruppe to the dollars to scam some jobs from the west, BUT, not enough is flowing there anymore. Now, they are allowing CHinese goods to flow in there, who is manipulating their money relative to India, and making theirs dirt cheap.
Unless India changes SOON, they will see rising inflation, combined with lose of work. For 3rd world nations, that typically leads to a different situation: civil war.

The simple reason is that the people who fund the research feel there is more profit in treating cancer than there ever would be in curing it.

That must be true since we know that there are no actual hard problems in medicine, science, math, or engineering. It's because of the oil companies that we don't have warp drive, antigravity, 500 mpg cars, and personal nuclear piles. The airlines, banks, and credit card companies are holding back time travel (no more late bills or missed flights). We have it on the authority of President Obama himself that surgeons do unnecessary surgery out of greed. Fermat's last theorem could have been solved hundreds of years ago except for the abacus and adding machine lobby. Shoe manufacturers are holding back personal jet packs since shoes would rarely wear out if you fly everywhere. And teacher's unions prevent people from learning foreign languages while they sleep, with one weird trick.

I have no idea where people get these ideas. Maybe food additives have something to do with it. Isn't hydrogenated-crank oil added to some foods? Or maybe it's just a problem due to chronic lack of sleep?

Wouldn't even need to deploy smart bombs, the FBI could yank them right out of class. "If you fund terrorism then your family gets kicked out of university, and gets deported."

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304830704577492450467667154

A fair question. You have to look at the potential harm. The 1/40,000/year LOVEINT at NSA is, in the grander scheme of things, a relatively limited privacy invasion. There aren't any reports of actual identity theft, or other more serious harm, for example. On the other hand, there have been quite a number of terrorist plots that could have killed or wounded hundreds or even thousands per attack. The Boston Marathon attack was a minor plot and it cost about 17 people their limbs, killed others, and wounded many more. It was a significant disruption to a major cultural event for the city, and disruptive overall. You only have to look at the recent Volgograd attacks for another example, and even those were far smaller than a number of plots in the US. Just last month there was an attempted suicide car bomb attack at an airport in Kansas. That could have easily killed a hundred or more people. That really isn't the same sneaking a look at someone's love letter. Another thing to keep in mind is that a string of "successful" attacks would serve as a recruiting tool, and there would be more people volunteering for such attacks.

Um... Have you checked where Panasonic, Sharp, Sony are made in the past 10 years? Korea is still a player. But Hitachi display division is now owned by Foxconn. Taiwan took over touch screen ATM displays in the 1990s, and no one cared because it was a small niche, but the techs who did touch screen made smartphones possible. http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052970203731004576046023889689358

Chances of anyone from Syria actually doing this... 0%. Chances of the NSA and/or other US/Five Eyes countries doing this: 100%.

Why, exactly? SEA did something like this before:
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2013/09/02/syrian-electronic-army-hacks-marines-website/

Or are you saying that the message that they posted back then was also NSA-approved?

Interestingly, famous cello players have problems too. They typically carry their instrument with them (who would dare check in a Stradivarius), and usually buy an extra seat on the plane for the cello.

But now some airlines are not allowing that, and even if you buckle up your cello, they won't let it fly with you. It's a tough problem for cello players.

Google Legal Chief: Patent Reform a Balancing Act: "The U.S. patent system makes it too easy for companies to get patents on software."

Snowden played this excessively smart, and that's the only reason he's sort of free now.

I don't think Snowden is that smart or free. Today he does what the Russian government allows him to do. But consider the Russians have protesters in Moscow, protesters in Kiev, and suicide bombers in their midst. How long will the Russian government tolerate an icon for freedom from surveillance, especially given their history? I believe Snowden is in considerable danger.

Another reference: Sergei Guriev

Also Mikhail Khodorkovsky

As for Snowden, I still think we know 10% or less of the story. There is a lot that does not make sense.

1. energy and or matter cannot be created or destroyed.

That's unknown. They can certainly be interconverted.

2. there is no know process of turning inorganic matter into organic matter

That was disproven in the 19th century with the synthesis of urea. Since then, millions of organic compounds have been synthesized from inorganic compounds.

3. there is no know process of turning organic matter into a life form.

Various simple life forms have been synthesized from organic components.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748703559004575256470152341984

really? i wonder why 1. energy and or matter cannot be created or destroyed. 2. there is no know process of turning inorganic matter into organic matter 3. there is no know process of turning organic matter into a life form.

#1 - This has relevance for what reason?
#2 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urea You are incorrect, it's been done since 1828.
#3 - http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748703559004575256470152341984 You are incorrect, again. This is just one example of continuing research.

My suggestion is that you quit listening to whomever it is that's been filling you head with bullshit, and perhaps start learning some basics of chemistry and biology.

During the Eisenhower administration the tax rate on the uppermost bracket of incomes was 91%. Ninety one friggin' precent. Yet, there were still obscenely wealthy people. It's time to define new upper income brackets. I don't have a problem with someone's five-million-and-oneth dollar being taxed at 90%.

While there technically was a 91% Tax bracket, that single fact in no way communicates the reality of the situation. There were loopholes big enough to drive a Maybach through, and everyone did so. The fact is that wealthier Americans pay a higher share of the tax burden today than in 1958, and lower income Americans pay much less in taxes. More here

While other manufactures have made aluminum for vehicles for a while even this is an old story. Ford announced over a year ago that the next gen F150 was going to be aluminum. The previous announcement stated that it would add about $1500 to the cost of materials. Also this isn't ford's first time working with aluminum bodied vehicles as they have previously experimented with aluminum bodied Tauruses as well as producing aluminum bodied Jaguars.

Your an idiot without any idea of how the law works. So let me point you in the right direction with some links that didn't come from wikipedia.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/forfeiture
http://www.mackinac.org/1274
http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/law-enforcement-bulletin/april-2012/money-laundering-and-asset-forfeiture
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/white_collar/asset-forfeiture
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=19&cad=rja&ved=0CHcQFjAIOAo&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.drugpolicy.org%2FdocUploads%2FAsset_Forfeiture_Briefing.pdf&ei=y6e5UofjNeGqyAGxxoHABQ&usg=AFQjCNH69cfy5T2Ayp8TL9L38XZJ4VPCcw&sig2=g3-gNZLWLpcJMyhtBipLCg

But hey, it's not like there isn't precedent going back centuries for doing this.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424053111903480904576512253265073870

Even if he somehow could get out of the drug dealer and murder for hire charges he would still have the problem of proving how he legitimately got the money and why he didn't pay taxes on it. Penalties for failing to report tens of millions of dollars in income could easily put him in prison for a decades and would still result in the loss of the bitcoins because he can't prove any legitimate means why which he got them.

He admitted an entirely new set of felonies around taxes just to try to claim the bitcoins back. Again, he is one of the biggest idiots that the Internet has ever known.

According to the Globo report, Mr. Snowden said the NSA hasn’t produced evidence to suggest the disclosures have caused harm. He said U.S. law doesn’t distinguish between a whistleblower revealing illegal programs “and a spy secretly selling documents to terrorists.”

The biggest offense one can commit in the U.S. isn’t to damage the government, but rather to “embarrass it. It’s clear that I could not possibly get a fair trial in my country,” he said, according to the report.

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2013/12/22/snowden-criticizes-u-s-panel-overseeing-surveillance/

Which worked so well after WWII. But don't worry. This time we know what we're doing. Really. Trust us. At least we're not using drugs. Drugs are bad mkay?

So without their violation of our rights terrorism would rank behind drug abuse [wikipedia.org] and we don't seem to care that much about drug abuse. Even if all 50 attacks happened this year and each one killed ~3000 people the body count would only be 150,000 and terrorism would come in at #2 between being a fat ass and being a smoker.

So you think there are no problematic aspects to comparing the results of willful, planned human action resulting in violence with events of random chance or personal choice leading to death or disease? Lets continue that line of thinking. Americans lost about $92 billion in gambling in 2007. In 2012, there were 3,870 bank robberies in which the robbers managed to steal $29.5 million, or $7,600 per robbery. Surely by your thinking that must make gambling a much larger problem. Therefore society should totally abandon enforcing laws against bank robbery until it has reduced gambling losses from $92 billion to something close to $29.5 million. Do you think bank robbery would remain static at that level if that were to occur?

Abandoning enforcement of bank robberies (as a proxy for terrorism) will have little effect on the level of gambling (as a proxy for disease or accidents), but will almost certainly result in increased incidence of bank robberies. Bank robbery is a problem that is being kept in check by enforcement - there are people sitting in jail for bank robbery, just as there are for terrorism. Increased enforcement and longer sentences have helped significantly reduce the level of bank robbery. Do you think you would make that much of a dent in gambling as long as it remains legal since it is both enjoyable and addictive as are drugs? The answer is no.

That fact that statistics exist for terrorism and heart attacks doesn't mean that any particular comparison is necessarily valid. Your comparison isn't a reasonable comparison from a public policy perspective, and doesn't account for the secondary affects from those choices. Your argument is largely nonsense.

If you want to protect your information (even from hackers not paid by the government) in any way you will get into their monitoring list. Is not if, is when (and that moment could be in the past already), you will be monitored. And even if you think you have nothing to hide, they could have another opinion.

Don't play boiling frog or by the time you decide that something must be done will be already too late.

Before science gets hot and bothered about the loss of data scientists need to do something about the quality of the data they produce to begin with. Frankly given the complete lack of quality controls that a lot of scientists use the loss of their data is probably for the best. Depending on the field as much as 60% of all scientific research cannot even be reproduced. Work that cannot be reproduced by another team is far from isolated to one field either:

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052970203764804577059841672541590
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-05/half-cancer-scientists-have-been-unable-reproduce-studies-survey-finds
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2012/08/reproducing_scientific_studies_a_good_housekeeping_seal_of_approval_.html
https://www.xsede.org/gateways-for-open-science
http://www.eusci.org.uk/articles/data-doesnt-lie-scientists-do

Depending on the study that means that either the data has been fabricated by unethical scientists, or the data has been misrepresnted for political purposes. Studies are often improperly interpreted by failing to take into account sound statistical modeling and noise is reported as science. In some fields politics have effectively taken over (e.g. social sciences) and standards are used that would never be tolerated in other scientific fields.

The very culture of science that demands quantity over quality needs to change as the rat race that inspires junk science to begin with. I can't think of any other field where those kinds of failure rates about the reproducibility of your work would do anything other than get you fired for fraud and destroy your career. I like science, I have since I was a young child, but the junk were getting labeled as science doesn't deserve the label.

"Netscape Navigator: The first successful consumer Web browser, it was later crushed by Microsoft's Internet Explorer " ..

Only because Microsoft sabotaged Navigator on Windows, mainly by extending the protocols and cloning Netscape eg. a full embrace strategy and excluding them from the development program and implementing a common Netscape/Corel attack group

"What kind of date do we have about how much software companies pay Netscape? In particular I am curious about their deals with Corel, Lotus and Intuit"

Then I suspect the people in the companies you work with aren't particularly observant or thoughtful.

Does Canada do signals intelligence and internet spying? Yes. In fact there was a scandalous revelation a few weeks ago about Canadian spying on Brazil. Does Britain do signals intelligence and internet spying? Yes. Does Australia do signals intelligence and internet spying? Yes. New Zealand? Yes. France? Yes. Sweden? Yes. Germany? Yes. Italy? Yes. Norway? Yes. Netherlands? Yes. Spain? Yes. Russia? Yes. China? Yes. .... N

Canadian Police Arrest Man on Trying to Spy for China
Snowden documents show depth of Canadian spy agency amid ‘misinformation’ fears

You are also incorrect when you refer to "unchecked spying without oversight," that certainly isn't true.

The simple fact is in the competitive business world, people will milk this for all that it is worth. They will do so both to persuade clients, and explain failure of sales. Most of the time it is likely there will be little truth to it.

Grippen won because it was inexpensive to buy and operate, a great, highly capable aircraft, and the business terms were friendly. It is as simple as that.

The Phx AZ traffic light system is built with the data capacity to provide realtime high-resolution imaging that would support online/real-time tracking of individuals. You can (and I have) called 911 to report individuals walking in traffic, and the dispacher was able to identify the individual by color of clothing and where they were. This isn't the speeding-ticket camera, this is city-based camera built into/onto the traffic lights. Whether or not people realize or value it - privacy stopped existing in the USA a long time ago, and it isn't coming back. Big brother thinks he should be trusted AND spends accordingly on infrastructure. These folks like their billion-dollar a year budgets, and the sense of power. That isn't going to change any time soon. The next person you give that billion dollar a year budget and all that power too is going to go just as big-brother as the last guy. Power corrupts, remember?

Maybe the jurisdictions that are opting out of red-light cameras operated by third-parties already have their own infrastructure that makes the third party irrelevant.

I wonder if there are going to be local/city-level disclosures about tracking of girlfriends using this system like there were for the NSA.
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2013/08/23/nsa-officers-sometimes-spy-on-love-interests/

He's leaving next spring anyway. The Obama administration has already decided he should be replaced with a four-star general or an admiral of equivalent rank. They decided this because the head of the NSA is also the head of the armed forces Cyber Command ( http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303293604579256222466393090 , paywall)

China has no debt? Really? China is no paragon of fiscal virtue, they're barreling down the road to financial ruin unless they do some significant restructuring.

China has no debt? Really? China is no paragon of fiscal virtue, they're barreling down the road to financial ruin unless they do some significant restructuring.

Presidential Task Force Recommends Overhaul of NSA Surveillance Tactics

WASHINGTON -- A presidential task force has drafted recommendations that constitute a sweeping overhaul of the National Security Agency, according to people familiar with the recommendations.

The panel's draft proposals would change the spy agency's leadership from military to civilian and limit how it gathers and holds the electronic information of Americans.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304202204579254652728273502

...are you actually trying to use one state-run exchange's technical failure to undermine the other states whose exchanges are working just fine?

That might be over generous.

Juking the ObamaCare Stats - HHS won't disclose the enrollment data that really matter.

A charitable reading suggests that ObamaCare's net enrollment stands at about negative four million. That's the estimated four million to five and a half million people who had their individual health plans liquidated as ObamaCare-noncompliant—offset by the 364,682 who have signed up for a plan on a state or federal exchange and the 803,077 who have been found eligible to receive Medicaid.

HHS is boasting of enrollment for November that was four times as high as October, yet 62% of the total was in the state exchanges, some of which are marginally less prone to crashing than the federal version. Then again, 41 states posted sign-ups only in the three or four figures, including eight states that run their own exchanges. Oregon managed to scrape up 44 people. Among the 137,204 federal sign-ups, no state is reaching the critical mass necessary for stable insurance prices.

The larger problem is that none of these represent true enrollments. HHS is reporting how many people "selected" a plan on the exchange, not how many people have actually enrolled in a plan with an insurance company by paying the first month's premium, which is how the private insurance industry defines enrollment. HHS has made up its own standard. -- more

...are you actually trying to use one state-run exchange's technical failure to undermine the other states whose exchanges are working just fine?

That might be over generous.

Juking the ObamaCare Stats - HHS won't disclose the enrollment data that really matter.

A charitable reading suggests that ObamaCare's net enrollment stands at about negative four million. That's the estimated four million to five and a half million people who had their individual health plans liquidated as ObamaCare-noncompliant—offset by the 364,682 who have signed up for a plan on a state or federal exchange and the 803,077 who have been found eligible to receive Medicaid.

HHS is boasting of enrollment for November that was four times as high as October, yet 62% of the total was in the state exchanges, some of which are marginally less prone to crashing than the federal version. Then again, 41 states posted sign-ups only in the three or four figures, including eight states that run their own exchanges. Oregon managed to scrape up 44 people. Among the 137,204 federal sign-ups, no state is reaching the critical mass necessary for stable insurance prices.

The larger problem is that none of these represent true enrollments. HHS is reporting how many people "selected" a plan on the exchange, not how many people have actually enrolled in a plan with an insurance company by paying the first month's premium, which is how the private insurance industry defines enrollment. HHS has made up its own standard. -- more

1. Washington Examiner is one of the MOST extreme right wing political rags in the country.

Assuming that is even true: Did that change the number of people that signed up? Did that change the amount of money that was spent on the Oregon Obamacare project? It appears the answer to that is "No" and "No." It might make them more interested in doing a key job of the media, which is ferret out waste, fraud, and abuse. If the only media is the sort of tame media that President Obama has had for most of his term, you get what we got.

2. Oregon's web site has not even been online most of the time. It is a total fiasco. Any conclusions on the PPACA based on Oregon are completely ridiculous.

http://news.yahoo.com/oregon-healthcare-exchange-website-never-worked-no-subscribers-130601969--sector.html

Wait, are you suggesting that there is a story here? That the web site was a disaster? Shouldn't that be in the media? Isn't that a story worth being told, especially when it costs $300,000,000 for a state? That is a lot of money for a relatively small state. That seems to suggest that your objections to this being covered are nonsense.

3. The situation is NOT representative of what is going on in the rest of the country where signups are increasing at a brisk pace after the improvements on Healthcare.gov.

Mod story -1 stupid.

You just seemed to indicate above that it was a story worth telling in its own right, that it was a disaster for the state. Why wouldn't you want that story being told? Oh, see #1. You disagree with the viewpoint, and don't want the story being told. That is why having media outlets with a different viewpoint is important. You wouldn't want to tell the story, they would. Moderate your post -1 !insightful.

As to your rosy picture of signups in the rest of the country:

Juking the ObamaCare Stats - HHS won't disclose the enrollment data that really matter.

On Wednesday the Health and Human Services Department continued its Victorian-era strip tease and allowed a glimpse into the Affordable Care Act's "enrollment" for November. Out of respect for a free press, reporters ought to boycott these releases because they're so selective that they reveal little about real enrollment. But we'll try to parse the data as best we can without the White House high gloss.

A charitable reading suggests that ObamaCare's net enrollment stands at about negative four million. That's the estimated four million to five and a half million people who had their individual health plans liquidated as ObamaCare-noncompliant—offset by the 364,682 who have signed up for a plan on a state or federal exchange and the 803,077 who have been found eligible to receive Medicaid.

HHS is boasting of enrollment for November that was four times as high as October, yet 62% of the total was in the state exchanges, some of which are marginally less prone to crashing than the federal version. Then again, 41 states posted sign-ups only in the three or four figures, including eight states that run their own exchanges. Oregon managed to scrape up 44 people. Among the 137,204 federal sign-ups, no state is reaching the critical mass necessary for stable insurance prices. -- more

Not quite so rosy.

1. Washington Examiner is one of the MOST extreme right wing political rags in the country.

Assuming that is even true: Did that change the number of people that signed up? Did that change the amount of money that was spent on the Oregon Obamacare project? It appears the answer to that is "No" and "No." It might make them more interested in doing a key job of the media, which is ferret out waste, fraud, and abuse. If the only media is the sort of tame media that President Obama has had for most of his term, you get what we got.

2. Oregon's web site has not even been online most of the time. It is a total fiasco. Any conclusions on the PPACA based on Oregon are completely ridiculous.

http://news.yahoo.com/oregon-healthcare-exchange-website-never-worked-no-subscribers-130601969--sector.html

Wait, are you suggesting that there is a story here? That the web site was a disaster? Shouldn't that be in the media? Isn't that a story worth being told, especially when it costs $300,000,000 for a state? That is a lot of money for a relatively small state. That seems to suggest that your objections to this being covered are nonsense.

3. The situation is NOT representative of what is going on in the rest of the country where signups are increasing at a brisk pace after the improvements on Healthcare.gov.

Mod story -1 stupid.

You just seemed to indicate above that it was a story worth telling in its own right, that it was a disaster for the state. Why wouldn't you want that story being told? Oh, see #1. You disagree with the viewpoint, and don't want the story being told. That is why having media outlets with a different viewpoint is important. You wouldn't want to tell the story, they would. Moderate your post -1 !insightful.

As to your rosy picture of signups in the rest of the country:

Juking the ObamaCare Stats - HHS won't disclose the enrollment data that really matter.

On Wednesday the Health and Human Services Department continued its Victorian-era strip tease and allowed a glimpse into the Affordable Care Act's "enrollment" for November. Out of respect for a free press, reporters ought to boycott these releases because they're so selective that they reveal little about real enrollment. But we'll try to parse the data as best we can without the White House high gloss.

A charitable reading suggests that ObamaCare's net enrollment stands at about negative four million. That's the estimated four million to five and a half million people who had their individual health plans liquidated as ObamaCare-noncompliant—offset by the 364,682 who have signed up for a plan on a state or federal exchange and the 803,077 who have been found eligible to receive Medicaid.

HHS is boasting of enrollment for November that was four times as high as October, yet 62% of the total was in the state exchanges, some of which are marginally less prone to crashing than the federal version. Then again, 41 states posted sign-ups only in the three or four figures, including eight states that run their own exchanges. Oregon managed to scrape up 44 people. Among the 137,204 federal sign-ups, no state is reaching the critical mass necessary for stable insurance prices. -- more

Not quite so rosy.

FTFY: Everywhere is where everyone wins with technology.

[Explanation: every new technology destroys jobs in one field, while creating even more jobs in other fields, for a net gain of jobs. Far more people have jobs today than had jobs 200 years ago -- and it's not a case of "if you have lots of babies, the jobs for them will magically appear;" it's a case of the additional jobs having been made possible by new tech.

To pessimistically focus on the lost jobs, while ignoring the created jobs which are greater in quantity and quality, creates the anti-technology mindset that infects the world's Luddites.]

"no human jobs are being taken" is complete, utter BS.

You're correct, of course, but but more importantly: every new technology destroys jobs in one field, while creating even more jobs in other fields, for a net gain of jobs. Far more people have jobs today than had jobs 200 years ago -- and it's not a case of "if you have lots of babies, the jobs for them will magically appear;" it's a case of the additional jobs having been made possible by new tech.

To pessimistically focus on the lost jobs, while ignoring the created jobs which are greater in quantity and quality, creates the anti-technology mindset that infects the world's Luddites.

Obama jumped the pension obligation ahead of the secured lien holders. There was no legal reason for this and it was wrong.

The secured lien holders are the ones that refused a debt-for-equity swap, providing for partial repayment, preventing restructuring and and forcing GM into bankruptcy. Here is an account of this in that left-wing rag the Wall Street Journal.

The assertion that there was some sort of violation of law is flatly untrue. See for example: Stephen J. Lubben, "No Big Deal: The GM and Chrysler Cases in Context", 83 Am. Bankr. L. J. 531, 533-34 (2009). The disposition of assets was well within the authority of the bankruptcy judge.

Political factions that despise labor of course are upset that the workers didn't get screwed out of their jobs and pensions, as usual, but dressing this preference up in legal garb is fraudulent.

Even bankruptcy lawyers who would prefer to have seen workers thoroughly shafted admit that the bankruptcy was handled in a fully legal manner: Bankruptcy Law Review.