Slashdot Mirror

You listen.

If you want quality talent and people more difficult to bribe/influence, you MUST pick them well.

Paying Bernie Madoff a larger salary would not have stopped him from running a pyramid scheme. Overcompensating the CEOs of Fannie May, Freddie Mac, AIG, Enron, or a host of other companies would not have prevented the global financial meltdown.

In fact, there is a general negative correlation between executive compensation and performance, although proper performance measurement can lead to positive correlation.

Given the abysmal rate of turnover in current government offices it is quite clear that salaries should not be significantly raised; the newly elected are rarely better than the incumbents and simply offering more money will not attract the right kind of people. The problem is the broken political system in the U.S. that is crippled by its inability to truly analyze the performance of its elected leaders. Lobbying and cronyism in the political system makes it impossible to choose candidates from the major parties without virtually guaranteeing that the public's interests will not be made a top priority. Who pays for electoral campaigns? Worse; who actually pays attention to the official electoral campaigns and bases their voting decisions on them? Far too many people substitute a few ads on TV for accurate performance analysis.

It really annoys me when I see people working in a government leadership position who have only a meager grasp of economic or political theory and almost never any engineering or scientific experience. Why should we pay such people any more than a manager at mcdonalds where similar interpersonal and leadership skills would be appreciated? Who are the morons who thought such a person should be making policies on scientific research, the Internet, and global finance?

I see this all the time on Slashdot but I don't see why it's a bizarre idea that companies want to grow. Many companies want to grow because it makes them more efficient

[snip]

So in (oversimplified) summation - growth is what stockholders want to see. So public companies want to make their shareholders happy.

You are 100% correct Schnell. However, that doesn't mean that the results are a net benefit to society.
The ever-present push for growth drives down wages, drives up inflation and, in general, makes things more difficult for the vast majority who get their income from wages and not investments.

Those who would disagree and say things like "A rising tide raises all boats." or "We all benefit when the richest get richer." seem to have very short memories. Ronald Reagan called it "Trickle-Down Economics." Those of us who experienced it first hand called it "Pissing on the poor."

Don't get me wrong. Our capitalist system can (and has) work(ed). It has raised millions out of crushing poverty and improved the lives of even the worst off among us. But when almost 15% WSJ, USDA of the US population requires government assistance (food stamps) to get enough to eat while the richest 3% control more and more of our capital and resources, something is wrong and we need to fix it.

IMHO, creating incentives for corporations to think, at a minimum, in the medium (2-5 years) term rather than focus exclusively on quarterly gains, should be part of such a fix.

Once one of the largest cities in America, Detroit has no chance for surviving. In the latest tally the population is down to just 700,000. The city is finished, it really is.

From an article in today's Wall Street Journal:

"For years, Detroit was a synonym for American energy and opportunity. Here Motown Records was born and General Motors became the first company to make a billion dollars in a single year. And here the auto industry that we now think of as geriatric drove the American economy, helped create the American Dream, and defined American culture to the world."

Times change, people move on, they leave the city, website, whatever it is, because it is no longer relevant.

It's not too dangerous to use for something because the radioactivity is very useful. The US has archaic laws that prevent spent fuel in the US from being processed. France has no such laws, produces a large percentage of their power from nuclear and has very little unusable waste. Oh, you probably want a citation.

And still the industries out there cannot manage to resist Microsoft's call. When Microsoft partners up with you, watch out. If the partnership goes bad, you are the loser. If the partnership goes good, Microsoft will buy you in short order. This has been going on for a very long time. No one seems to notice.

Nokia stupidly brought onboard an ex-Microsoft/Adobe/Macromedia guy as CEO. Sure these companies have all been successful in some regards, but they generally write awful bloated and insecure software, which is not something I'd want on a lightweight mobile device.. or indeed any device.

Every time I see someone make a post with this sentiment, I want to vomit in their face. Are you not aware of what happened? Do you never read anything? Check out this graph. Note that over one trillion dollars on the fed's balance sheet went to buy mortgage backed securities. That is money that went to banks. Note that this is more than TARP. Note that this is just one of the ways the fed has been subsidizing banks. It's really bad, look at the numbers. Now, sorry for the vomit in your face.

"You should have chosen a law school."

You're really joking right? more and more

Lawyer's have is worse than IT!

First, do you believe that American citizens are beholden to contribute to the well being of India? Why?

No, I and I have no idea how you could interpret anything I wrote in the previous post to mean such a thing. My statement regarding the wages of the bottom 90% of American workers is simply that rich is a relative term.

Second, when the article says that the bottom 60% of Americans have 65% of their net worth tied up in their homes, how can you possibly read that as "Americans have mortgaged their homes to the hilt?" If that were that case, Americans would have NO net worth tied up in their homes. You do know what "net worth" means, right? Most Americans do not want to "participate in the culture of excess," they want to be able to eat, house themselves, heat their homes in the winter, and buy necessary medicine, all at the same time. Is that excess?

Net worth is simply Assets-Liabilities. If your 65% of your net worth is tied up in your home, it means could either mean 65% of your assets are represented by your actual house, or 65% of your liabilities is tied up in mortgage payments. Either way, it is not good financial practice to have that much of your net worth tied up in an asset that is not easily convertible to cash.
As for the assertion that most Americans do not wish to participate in the culture of excess:
LCD sales in decline for 2010 compared to double-digit growth for previous two years
Auto sales in America on considerable upturn
Spending on American travel - note especially travel expenditure as a function of household income - it remained remarkably consistent regardless of income.
To me that doesn't read as simply wanting to "eat, house themselves, heat homes in the winter, and buy necessary medicine"...but then I'm just a simple Canadian yokel.
Additionally - I am not advocating for the demise of the American worker - I am saying their needs to be a fundamental shift in consumer attitudes, and there also needs to be a fundamental shift in the way corporate capitalism is viewed and regulated in America (and around the world). However the importance of the corporation and the overvaluation of the CEOs won't change until consumer culture changes.

Gadhafi already called for a ceasefire Friday before the deadline, to talk things about with the rebels.

This isn't a peace talk. This is the West imposing their will on the Middle East again.

First Gaddafi broke his own "cease fire".

As for who is imposing their will, it appears that Gaddafi imposing his will on the African country he has ruled for 41 years. Strange that you would support a dictator. I guess you may have a case if the dictator had stayed in power by winning free and open elections for over 40 years, but that's not even the case here. It's not like the population is laying flowers down at his feet. There is an open rebellion going on over there.

So, again, it doesn't seem like it's the west imposing their will. It looks to me like the west is trying to remove the people out from under the oppressive rule of a dictator.

Go ahead and tell me where I'm wrong here.

I haven't watched "Expelled", but I've heard that all the "discrimination" presented in the documentary had much simpler explanations, most if not all of the subjects failed to perform their regular duties and were terminated for both failure to perform the duties of the jobs and failure to improve on that performance after receiving several warnings.

Perhaps it is sort of like the way shining employees with strong performance records over many years who act as whistle blowers develop sudden performance problems that ultimately, and "sadly", result in their being fired?

"The Bureaus second most powerful manager Deputy Director Edgar Domenech, himself filed a whistleblower complaint and publicly stated that the Bureau of ATF has a propensity for reprisal and he "knew" such actions would result in career suicide."

"A Special Agent attempts to resist an investigation using unlawful wiretaps. The Special Agent openly challenges and reports it to superiors. After 20 + years of exemplary service, the next 1½ years results in the Special Agent and his family being transferred 5 times, suspended for 3 days, attempts made to have a psyche evaluation conducted, 2 letters of reprimand, and ultimately a termination." 25 ATF Agents write letter outlining scandals

Of course scientists are only interested in arriving at the truth, right?

It also seems Mr. Mann and his friends weren't averse to blacklisting scientists who disputed some of their contentions, or journals that published their work. "I think we have to stop considering 'Climate Research' as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal," goes one email, apparently written by Mr. Mann to several recipients in March 2003. "Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal."

Mr. Mann's main beef was that the journal had published several articles challenging aspects of the anthropogenic theory of global warming. Global Warming With the Lid Off - The emails that reveal an effort to hide the truth about climate science

I doubt that the departments dealing with matters touching on evolutionary biology would be much (any?) better than the tainted "Climate Change" nee "Global Warming" departments in dealing with dissenting views regardless of the strength of the scientific case. That is really too bad. The skeptics are going to bring closer scrutiny of the theories and help weed out the bad ones better than those who love the theories. The scientists may deal with the ideas of evolution, but they are still only human.

Hence academic life is a mad hazard. If the young scholar asks for my advice with regard to habilitation, the responsibility of encouraging him can hardly be borne. If he is a Jew, of course one says, give up any hope. But one must ask every other man: Do you in all conscience believe that you can stand seeing mediocrity after mediocrity, year after year, climb beyond you, without becoming embittered and without coming to grief? Naturally, one always receives the answer: 'Of course, I live only for my "calling."' Yet, I have found that only a few persons could endure this situation without coming to grief -- Science as a Vocation by Max Weber

By 'everything short of an invasion' we are unquestionably violating Libya's sovereignty. However, there's a pretty big 'we' who are doing this: The League Of Arab States is requesting this, and Arab states are saying they'll *help* enforce a no-fly zone -- not just allow overflights or refueling.

I think unilateral activity -- Iraq invading Kuwait -- or nearly unilateral activity -- the USA, along with a bunch of allies who seemed to be having their arms twisted, invading Iraq -- is not civilized behavior. But at some point, a state's violence against others and against its own citizens becomes unacceptable to observers.

This is war, as you say, and I'm not at all sure it's going to end well. Things like rights and ethics shouldn't be a majority-rule issue, so just because practically everyone from his own citizens, to his neighbors, to countries who have historically had a lot of conflict with him are all saying he has to go isn't in itself a sufficient reason for the UN to pretty much say we're committing ourselves to overthrowing him. But at the same time, you don't just stand around and watch a father beat his children to death, even if he holds that position of power.

I don't like interfering with other countries: I think it's a bad idea and leads to all sorts of unanticipated problems. But I think there are times when *not* interfering is worse. Whether this is one of those times -- and whether it'll actually do any good -- is a much harder question for me.

I think you mean the ones that are the most successful are pay TV which was my point.

No, I meant the pay model is not very successful. HBO is hurting, despite having awesome content. Far from gaining viewership, they are bleeding subscribers. One explanation could be that people who care about commercials find Netflix more appealing. But my point is that on the broadcast television "platform", commercial-free TV is an aberration. Commercials pay most of the bills.

"Also, doesn't this raise the issue of Netflix both producing and being the main distributor for this series?"
You mean like HBO?

"It seems that this show is only going to be offered through Netflix. Having content exclusive not only to their competitors but their suppliers seems foolish."
No need to worry. The Wall Street Journal reports:

Under the terms being discussed, Netflix would have the right to distribute the series online before any other outlet carried it. But Media Rights Capital would be free to make arrangements for later broadcast or DVD sales, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704164204576203262433339214.html#ixzz1GnbRCkOL

I expected someone who would listen to the people instead of the will of large corps. I was wrong.

88% to 95% of voters feel better after a recall. No corporation needed. Now that's a mandate!

the primary being related to energy consumption-- less heat is needed

In summer? We cool our homes in North America while on DST, so the result of Daylight "Saving" Time is that people that use automatic thermostats are cooling their homes at a hotter time of the day. Businesses are generally unaffected due to multiple working shifts or cleaning crews usually in the building to sunset regardless of DST.

less electricity for lights

Which do you think uses more, air conditioning or lighting (now that CFLs are so much more common)?

Please google the topic before opening your mouth, next time.

Same to you: http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB120406767043794825.html
http://www.physorg.com/news187946326.html

An overview opinion here on next generation reactors http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704893604576198421680697248.html?mod=WSJ_hp_mostpop_read

"Clear conjecture?" Surely you jest. Unless you've made an enormous breakthrough in networking technology, all existing network interfaces can only handle a finite amount of information at once.

From the Wall Street Journal:

AT&T said it made the move because a small percentage of customers has been using a disproportionate amount of data, causing congestion in certain points of the network and interfering with other people's access.

Wow, that sure sounds like they're denying that congestion is an issue!

As for U-verse, it's not primarily an on-demand service—its competitors are cable television providers, whom AT&T has no power to cap, not services like Hulu and Netflix.

The global nuclear industry is effectively dead as of now.

The global nuclear industry will be fine. China is building about 10 reactors a year. They have already stated that their plans will continue apace despite Fukushima. They are even working on a pebble bed research reactor. China is not ruled by hysterical malcontents. Neither is Turkey. Brazil is building plants as well.

As the 'first world' embraces its self induced energy poverty, emerging economies are building plentiful energy supplies. Walmart's 'low-low' price supply chain is assured.

Fukushima Dai-ichi No.1, the reactor inside the building that blew up March 12, was part of the power supply that made Japan what it is today. It has been generating power for 40 years and essentially every Japanese car you see on the road today has some Fukushima Dai-ichi No.1 in it. For the same reason there hasn't been any looting or riots in Japan since the quake/tsunami, I suspect Japan may also fail to abandon nuclear power as the pundits universally prescribe for the rest of the first world. If so then Japan will provide at least one instance of a liberal democracy that is also not ruled by hysteria.

Exactly. And in real life, if you are "a suspect" in a rape case - according to hundreds of media outlets - then it doesn't matter if the identified, confessed, prosecuted, guilty-found and locked-up rapist has since popped up. Your exoneration is going to be on page 13 in a 20-word article. If anywhere at all.

In the mean time, any Google search on your name is still going to pop up a lot of "suspected of the rape of" stories.

A similar story is what's playing in a case against Google in Spain, who - last I checked - pondered poking at the EU's courts to figure out wtf to do here;

Plastic Surgeon and Net's Memory Figure in Google Face-Off in Spain
Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703921504576094130793996412.html#ixzz1Gc3F6v82

Note that this would battle the symptom, not the cause.. honestly, all media should really be forced to go back to previous articles and make clear that the information is outdated, provide links to the new information, and summarize what, if anything, the new information contradicts in the older article, including editorial edits. But that's never going to happen due to zomg freedom of the press (to be lazy assholes), so perhaps there's something to this right to be forgotten thing for those cases.

From the Wall Street Journal: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703555404576195700301455480.html

"Tepco's last safety test of nuclear power plant Number 1--one that is currently in danger of meltdown--was done at a seismic magnitude the company considered the highest possible, but in fact turned out to be lower than Friday's quake. The information comes from the company's "Fukushima No. 1 and No. 2 Updated Safety Measures" documents written in Japanese in 2010 and 2009. The documents were reviewed by Dow Jones. The company said in the documents that 7.9 was the highest magnitude for which they tested the safety for their No. 1 and No. 2 nuclear power plants in Fukushima".

I agree that Tepco isn't a third party, but this was their own filing on a safety issue before this happened. If they were distorting, you'd expect them to say it would take a greater quake, not lesser.

WSJ is just one source that mentions several of the things I said including mentioning the RCIC. The failures of the power and RCIC backup cooling systems have been in mutiple places in the news as well as Tepco's own reporting on their (highly slashdotted) site.

The height of the tsunami was from memory of CNN reporting a couple of days ago. That might be criticized as not being accurate, but if you look at the before and after pics of the plant waterfront area it went over some pretty high seawalls regardless.

Godzilla and the Smog Monster: Toho Film Company, 1972. ;)

Number of current Android tablet-specific apps (running Honeycomb): less than 100

Number of current iPad apps: over 65,000

Number of iPad apps at launch in April 2010: 2300 (citation)

I'm still not sure who would buy an Android tablet. Buying one is like buying a TV that gets only 3 channels. Why purchase a tablet hoping that the app inventory will grow when you can get a state-of-the-art iPad with 65,000 apps?

Kids go where the hardware is. Adults go where the applications are. I remember learning this when I switched from Sega to Playstation when I was in college and when I switched from MacOS 7.6 to Windows 2000 when I was in grad school.

Also, to get the Xoom's 3G, you have to commit to a 2-year contract, whereas the iPad's 3G has a monthly contract.

For the MOX in Unit 3 comment http://www.allgov.com/Top_Stories/ViewNews/Meltdown_at_Japanese_Nuclear_Power_Plant__A_Disaster_Waiting_to_Happen_110313
Not much MOX news in google.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704893604576199884191526312.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/8379134/Nuclear-meltdown-threat-Japan-preparing-for-a-worst-case-scenario.html
and for the "minimal" http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1366055/Japan-earthquake-tsunami-Navy-crew-months-radiation-1-HOUR.html
The USS Ronald Reagan was around 100 miles (160km) offshore.

Yeah, I tried to go that route, but the nice locally-owned bank couldn't resist being bought out --- two name changes later and I now own a couple of dozen shares of a Spanish bank --- curious how honest / decent they are? Check the news:

http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20110310-709686.html

William

The only reason the US has much nuclear waste at all is because of stupid laws that were made years ago because of unfounded fears. Here is a great article where the 'waste' is broken down.

Only when government is involved can you have something like this (from the article)

Of the remaining 5% of a rod, one-fifth is fissionable U-235 -- which can be recycled as fuel. Another one-fifth is plutonium, also recyclable as fuel. Much of the remaining three-fifths has important uses as medical and industrial isotopes. Forty percent of all medical diagnostic procedures in this country now involve some form of radioactive isotope, and nuclear medicine is a $4 billion business. Unfortunately, we must import all our tracer material from Canada, because all of our isotopes have been headed for Yucca Mountain.

They're reporting that the earthquake warning system DID work, but you've got to wonder how much warning did they get. Report are that "Hundreds of bodies found after 23-foot tsunami strikes northern coast of Japan." There is also a passenger train unaccounted for.

China says it will step up administration of the Internet this year

If politically, the US is a nation of lawyers, then, as a single-party state, the PROC is effectively a nation of administrators. The US Congress might debate about network neutrality, but in China all issues pertaining to the Internet are viewed as problems of administration (management). China, Inc. makes more sense than the old Japan, Inc.

The PC World article references a downloadable PDF translation of Premier Wen's report to the National People's Congress from the Wall Street Journal. The part about administering the Internet comes from a section titled "Vigorously enhancing cultural development".

We will develop the press and publishing, radio and television, film, literature and art and archives. We will step up the use and administration of the Internet. We will deepen reform of the cultural management system and actively push forward the transformation of cultural institutions that are operating as commercial entities into real businesses.

The word "administration" occurs at least 15 times throughout the document, chiefly in the construct "social administration" and goes well with an image of Wen as some sort of company president or CEO delivering his annual stockholders' (party) report.

Geek note: The ~3 MB PDF appears to be a series of scanned pages overlaid upon the OCR'ed text version of the document. So you can actually cut and paste the text.

This isn't all that different from when Seagate bought Maxtor. Back then, after the sale, Seagate controlled 44% of the market, compared to nearly 50 percent market share which this deal has bestowed upon Western Digital.

But if you don't have the special contacts, property and cash to co-locate and server farms, you can't take advantage. The reality is special people get special privileged access.

Actually, a 12A supply in a colo facility will cost you about a grand a month. Half that if you are happy to share rack space. The relevant facilities are known to everyone,

Apparently not. :) Also a grand a month is not pocket change, That's more than a lot of mortgage payments. I dare say the majority of people can't afford a second house. So my statement about being specially privileged stands even if it's no longer licensed that way.

you can just ask the exchange if you want to know which warehouse you need to be in. You don't need special contacts; the exchange will tell you what you need to know to trade with it. You need to buy the servers yourself, but that's not exactly privileged knowledge.

You link actually says "the exchange has ended the practice" re flash orders. I wasn't a big fan of them either.

I could not find which practice re: flash orders were actually limited. The orders themselves or the practice of only letting a select group see them. Also the articles point out that regardless of the NYSE's support, other large brokerage firms support the feature internally and even other excchanges are popping up that offer it. This piece was amusing: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124940289965505053.html. Plainly stated the exact same thing in both the pros and cons of flash trading (i.e. the flash traders get a better price. This means they got a competitive advantage over other traders). Fundamentally the practice still exists in large volume and is not at this point in time outright illegal. It needs to be.

Sorry, I got a bit muddled up when referring to the "previous" question. I meant to address how one really knows what the market would have looked like without HFT.

Regarding spending/saving/tax, remember that saved money ends up back in the system somewhere. The question of growth is not as simple as deciding the tax rates.

Perhaps, but the market did function before HFT. It's probably safe to assume it would continue to function just fine if it was eliminated. As for what's better for growth? The rich tend to save money not spend it. Money that isn't moving around is not good for the economy. This is an interesting paper about the subject, but it isn't the first place I've read about the idea: http://www.uml.edu/centers/cic/Research/Tilly_Research/tilly-Geese,%20golden%20eggs,%20traps-6.04.pdf

What you are observing may be the division between the political class and mainstream America. Here is an interesting breakdown of the polling. Note how similar democrats and republicans are on the issue. That is not the main division in America, it just seems like it because politicians have incentive to drive a wedge of difference between us because that's how they get elected.

>>>He did the crime,

I doubt it. The docs were also being leaked to the New York Times, and they say their source was not a private. This looks like a frame job to me.

The docs were initially given to the Times by Julian Assange himself. Once that relationship went sour, the Guardian continued to share (initially quietly) the information with the Times. Citation. There was a much, much longer story in the Times itself on the entire relationship between WikiLeaks, the Times, the Guardian, and that paper from Spain, but I can't find it now. The before-linked WSJ article sums it up nicely, however.

It looks like a competitor to the Overdrive system many libraries use."

That's exactly what I was thinking. My local library uses Overdrive, and I've downloaded many new audio books to my ipod from the comfort of my home for completely free.

But thanks to this article I found out that Overdrive offers an iPhone app so I can download books and audio straight to my phone. This is great! They even made a video explaining how it works.

They also have an Android version and here's a video by a user.

Heh. Let's just say, don't go to Chuck E. Cheese's after the first of the month. Why? Because that's when the welfare checks come in. Think I'm joking? The Wall Street Journal did a piece on the high number of police calls at Chuck E. Cheeses. Biker bars record fewer calls. Look at the Google search.

Debt was two years ago. This was famine; food prices have gone up by thirty percent in the past year, due to several factors but most notably global warming causing higher instances of storms, leading to lower crop yields around the world.

Iran might go on about American President X being the some sort of demon, or President Y declaring war on them, but what they really needed to worry about was the third horseman...

Hmm... this tells me that his administration isn't as bad as paid political operatives, maybe such as yourself, make him out to be. Boy you guys come out early to fling mud... wait a second... what was your point? and how is it relevant? and... how the heck is it insightful? This shit, the shenanigans at the MMS, the environmental rape, the greed... this is the mess of Republicans. But go ahead... try to blame the president, you guys have less than 2 years to get your shit together and FIND SOMEONE ELECTABLE ROFLMAOKTHXBAI

Had this happened on Bush's watch, he'd be excoriated (and deservedly so). But Obama? Not at all.

No political fallout at all. None.

Typically the accusations are that the ACLU protects the speech of abortion-protestors, but not anti-abortion-protestors, of feminists but not anti-feminists (are there even anti-feminists around anymore?), of atheists, but not religious types. They ostensibly support free speech, but then get gag orders to stop criticism of their own organization.

I don't know if any of that is true, it doesn't matter to me enough to check, but here is a review of an 'expose' by a former member of the ACLU board. Seems there is at least some truth to the issue. In this case I would support the ACLU, though.

"Syria is stable. Why?" Mr. Assad said. "Because [the dictator has to] be very closely linked to the beliefs of the people. This is the core issue. When there is divergenceyou will have this vacuum that creates disturbances."

He's probably right.

The lesson other dictators learned, like Kadafi in Libya, is to be proactive in countering the revolution. Organize counter-protests (Iran is trying that tactic too, we'll see if it works). Use violence when necessary. Arrest key people. The Egyptians didn't use violence, the lesson other dictators learned is to use more violence.

Windows has 90 percent of the market. All other desktop/laptop OSes combined are, quite frankly, irrelevant.

Toyota has a 14% market share in the US. Nobody considers them irrelevent. Honda is 9%. Irrelevant?

http://online.wsj.com/mdc/public/page/2_3022-autosales.html

GM, Ford, Chrysler...all fighting for irrlevancy, based on your criteria.

Wash, rinse, repeat for any other industry, to include the desktop OS market. 5% is not irrelevant, unless you write malware for a living, I suppose.

Whose signing statements? You mean Obama's?

Signing Statements Reappear in Obama White House

Surely a social safety net is far more important than invading nations half way around the world.

Sure, a small safety net is useful. But I'd rather have a war in Iraq than the retirement portion of the US's Social Security system (even though the latter is, until recently, "revenue neutral"). At least the former served a useful role in knocking over a particularly odious tyrant and stabilizing the oil market.

Calling something a "social safety net" doesn't mean it actually works as a social safety net. Money for it has to come from somewhere. And that usually means lower employment and standards of living either now or in the future. Also, the government needs to have power to enforce the social safety net. That invariably means intrusion of government power into my life.

If you don't like paying for civilization I would be glad to provide you a one way ticket to Somalia or Liberia. If you decide to come back to the States I would require you give my money back so I can continue my "Educate a Libertarian Program".

"Paying for civilization"? Such a clean spin on the bullshit. In my view, the vast majority of so-called "social safety nets" undermine civilization and destroy wealth that hires people and builds infrastructure (directly or through taxes). So paying for them, isn't paying for civilization, it's paying for the bullet.

I think I'll continue to vote for people who will cut government spending. Thankyouverymuch.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704803604576078131322160002.html

Oh, please. Don't you think you're missing the big picture a bit perhaps? They have an informant willing to wear a wire. How much do you want to bet this informant is willing to testify as to the other illegal things that were going on (the alleged insider trading)? How many hours of tape do you think they have? How many documents did this informant pass to them?

If this small snippet was all they have, I might be inclined to agree that it stinks, but by itself isn't enough to convict. But that's why this isn't all they have. Given what's in this article, I presume the feds have more evidence than just the snippet in the summary. They have a lot of allegations of specific wrongdoing. The article doesn't disclose what evidence the feds say they have, but you can't put things in an indictment without at least SOME evidence to back it up.

For example imagine if YouTube had a profit split model where the uploaders got part of the ad revenue.

They do.

The last one I saw, by Rand Paul (a deliciously titled article for those with a sense of irony), included the Department of Defense, the Homeland Security department, and the Agriculture department. I don't know the details of the plan, but it doesn't seem completely hare-brained, and certainly there is fat in all those departments.

People who vote for politicians that promise tax cuts shouldn't vote.

The very fact you chose to emphasize that point shows you are mired in an old mindset.

The key is spending reduction.

I rarely if ever hear of a politician with the stones to tell the voters what he or she intends to cut

Then you aren't paying attention.

Wake the fuck up and start supporting plans that reduce spending. That means calling your congressman and telling them to support measures like this.

Otherwise to back to bleating about how things are impossible with the rest of the sheeple.

Globalization means you can't not invest in China. For example, GM now sells more cars and trucks in China than the US. The Asia-Pacific region has been Caterpillar's fastest-growing geographic market in recent years. GE's China sales are rising at about 20 percent annually. And IBM is a partner in this new datacenter project.

I think this line alone is a commentary on both the hyperbole used by his lawyers and the sad state of the US reputation in Europe.

ORLY? When the Wall Street Journal is saying that he should be tried under the Espionage Act ... I don't think Guantanamo is exactly a big huge stretch to imagine.

ORLY?
i must have missed when the WSJ became a part of the judicial branch.

I think this line alone is a commentary on both the hyperbole used by his lawyers and the sad state of the US reputation in Europe.

ORLY? When the Wall Street Journal is saying that he should be tried under the Espionage Act ... I don't think Guantanamo is exactly a big huge stretch to imagine.

Maybe that reputation is based on things like the CIA kidnapping people in foreign countries to be whisked away to "unofficial" places?

That's likely what will happen, but not necessarily the only result.

To lower company premiums, Safeway bribes employees to quit smoking and/or lose weight:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124476804026308603.html

Then why did you run the story knowing that it's "incomplete" instead of waiting for more details to become available? It's not like this is a story that needs to be rushed out before deadline. The lead sentence says this story covers events that happened last year.

If you are going to run a story like this, you need some significantly better editorial controls that what it seems were employed. How about starting off with a specific time-line of events so we can have some idea which systems were involved, when the attacks took place, etc., rather than the jumbled mess your publication released?

You really shouldn't be surprised that a story like this might be seen as FUD. From my reading of the story you released, I don't see any evidence that Linux was involved in these attacks whatsoever. Instead you chose, as another poster here suggests, to run a headline with the words "Linux" and "cyberattack" in it with literally no justification for suggesting Linux was involved at all.

It's certainly possible that the transition to the new trading system provided opportunities for hackers the way bomb threats in the Czech Republic facilitated the thefts from carbon traders accounts recently. You could have written an article with the headline "London Stock Exchange under 'major cyber-attack' during software switch." Instead you chose to include Linux along the way. Somehow I suspect your headline editors know that suggesting there might be security issues with "that geeky Linux stuff" draws attention among your readership of CIOs afraid of that "stuff."