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You talk about what "would" happen with socialized systems and the problems that "would" occur, almost as if the idea of public healthcare were some sort of daydream. But the results that I and other commenters mentioned above aren't the result of a few years of misguided experimentation. The NHS, for example, is about as old as the US employer-dominated health insurance system, so a claim that the lead that socialized systems currently enjoy is just because they are immature and will run into problems in the future needs a lot more to back it up than you have provided.

You also ignore the fact that free-market health care is not, itself, immune from the economic problems that you claim will make socialized healthcare unworkable. As you point out "there is not such thing as [a] free lunch" - but this applies to private enterprise as much as to government-run schemes. In times of economic difficulty individuals, as well as countries, have to cut back on their spending - and this can be much more dramatic since they do not have the creditworthiness that allows governments to use borrowing to mitigate the shock of the transition. I think it's telling that in the current economic crisis the NHS is having its funding cut by about 5%. This will certainly have some negative consequences, but healthcare will still be available to everyone who needs it. Meanwhile, over in the USA, where the system is much closer to your capitalist ideal, half of the population is either uninsured or underinsured, and the credit crisis has meant that with insurance have reduced their uptake of nonacute or preventative care by up to 29% (source). So it would appear that even in times of economic difficulty socialized health care is able to weather the storm better, and the individual approach lags even further behind.

I recall that as well, quick Google search turned up these two hits, none that I had read at the time, but same story, different vendor: http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/04/06/seismologist-was-forced-to-remove-italy-earthquake-warning-from-the-internet/ http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2009/04/06/scientist-smackdown-did-a-seismologist-accurately-predict-the-italian-quake/

I don't watch Glenn Beck. I didn't realize Obamacare is a dirty word now, that's what a lot of people call it:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20007679-503544.html
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1914973,00.html
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124208383695408513.html ...

I figured out not too long ago that to convert the world to solar power, using generous assumptions...

So what about solar AND wind AND tidal AND etc., all the diverse environmentally-sound energy production methods, not to mention conservation? Did you calculate all that? Or did you just "generously assume" that only one method of energy production will exist in the future? I'd like to see the cocktail napkin on which these "figures" and "assumptions" are written out.

Here's some nuclear for you:
Leaks spotlight aging nuclear plants
New Wave of Nuclear Plants Faces High Costs
An Old Nuclear Problem Creeps Back

Yes it's irrational but after you work an 80 hour week, almost nonstop, let's see how irrational you become.

Mind telling us how many hours people work per week who need to have 2 jobs to make a living?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125962111284270397.html

Typically, he works between 61 and 63 hours per week. It wouldn't be so bad, he says, if the hours were consecutive. But with the gap between jobs, he can only sleep a few hours a night now -- sometimes just an hour. Last week, he managed to clock 87 hours and barely saw his son.

"That's all I do -- every day -- I just keep working," he says. "I've got to. I'm not going to lose everything I have."

Well, Foxconn workers don't have to pay rent, or for (basic) food, nor for medical or psychological treatment. They don't have to work non-consecutive hours with no time to sleep in between, they don't have to commute. They actually have it better than many American workers - not to mention illegal aliens in the US.

destroy them - they are thieves, stealing money every day, every second, millions of times per second. I said on the 7th of April that HFT is theft, have been saying it for years, then of-course on the 6th of May we had the 1000 point drop on the stock market.

If anyone here trades, they know how the stocks have looked for the past 10 years at least - if in a single sector, like banking, a stock dips, it means other stocks in the same sector also went down by about the same number of %. If one mining stock dips, you can be certain the others have dipped at the same time, if a pharma stock dipped, the other pharma stocked dipped with it.

Then they swing back, not to exactly the same levels, just a bit under, but they come back. Much more rare is an occurrence where all stocks in a sector all go up, of-course after they all will come down. In fact it's a nice way to make a quick buck: watch for a dip in all stocks in a sector, buy, don't worry if it does not come back up immediately. They all dipped together, they'll come back up (on average it's true). If they all go up unexpectedly, short them and wait a bit, it may take into the next day, but they'll crash back down.

All of this AFAIC is the doings of the HFT scheme. Those are computers fighting computers, those are programs that synch up together for a reason: they all have very similar algorithms, often it's the same people who write them, of-course the algorithms are similar. Even when different people are involved in writing them, they are all aimed at taking money away from humans.

From humans, but not from machines. When machines fight other machines with the same algorithm that they have for taking money away from humans, then they cause these massive swings.

I am certain that the 1000 point dip in May was nothing more than the same thing taking place, only the synchronization was a little too good, they did not get out of their algorithm loops for a little too long of a time (maybe a few seconds too long really).

Then we had a story about banks hiring logicians to improve the HFT algorithms. They will be trying to 'improve' the algorithms to fight other machines now. So it's another arms race and it will end very very bad. They will eventually crash the market totally. Anyone doing anything long term in the US market right now is insane. You are definitely much better of buying gold/silver or something physical to hold on to rather than being in US market but also in US dollars or Euros it looks like.

Another crash is coming, they'll blame it on terrorists with fat fingers I am sure.

Yes... hydroelectric power, very safe... just ask all the people who live downstream of the Three Gorges, they'll definitely agree!

all of whom were working on a similar concept

No they weren't, enterprise was just one of their stupid directions.

Yes they were. LL says so: http://blogs.secondlife.com/community/features/blog/2010/06/09/a-restructuring-for-linden-lab?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+SecondLife+(Official+Second+Life+Blogs+-+FEATURED)

More sources: http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/06/10/second-life-creator-linden-lab-downsizes-morphs/ http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-20007260-36.html http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2364893,00.asp

Then U.S. ambassador to Turkey Eric Edelman actually felt the need to organize a conference call to explain to the Turkish media that secret U.S. nuclear testing did not cause the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. One of the craziest theories circulating in Ankara was that the U.S. was colonizing the Middle East because its scientists were aware of an impending asteroid strike on North America.

I mean, I've heard a lot of conspiracies about why the US attacked Israel, but that is a new one. It is too bad, Turkey is one place that could use Google (and free, true information).

I think that this isn't a good way to do this. Let's stick with traditional and clear definitions.

Cyber-vandalism, I think, can be characterised by the fact that simple and obvious methods would largely limit the damage. It can still cause surprisingly large damage, but when that happens much of the fault is clearly with the person vandalised or surrounding systems.

There's a real thing going on here and there are real changes in the way that people can carry out some types of attacks. That the military has got it partly "wrong" is inevitable. That doesn't mean that people with lots of "cyber" experience and no "warfare" experience are instant gurus who can tell the military all they need to know. Sensible and valuable discussion will happen when both sides work together and most of all try to work towards civilian systems which have some level of military level survivability as used to happen with telecomms networks.

This article is immensely helpful (print link with pop-up):

No time to read this? Read this.

Of the three techniques mentioned, the "Pomodoro Technique" works best for me:

I start each day by making a log of things to do, then tackle each in 25-minute intervals called Pomodoros. When a Pomodoro is over, I mark an X on the log next to the item I am working on, then take a refreshing 3- to 5-minute break. Nothing must be allowed to interrupt a Pomodoro. If co-workers barge in, Mr. Cirillo advises trying to defer the conversation.

Streak is a 3G GSM 850/1900 device and AT&T is the only major US carrier that supports those frequency bands.

Yeah.... except that tons of Android 3G GSM 850/900/1800/1900 devices built by HTC (desire, dream, hero, magic, passion) are on the market right now, and I don't believe any of them are sold via AT&T. I know the passion is designed to work on AT&T's network, but they don't sell it.

So what carrier is it actually selling all of those? Damn, I can't remember their name, but I pay them $75/mo for unlimited minutes and unlimited data.

Bah who cares. Whoever they are, they must not be a major US carrier, hell they only cover 48 of the 50 states. It's better to stick with AT&T, since they are a "major" network! ;D

The Wall Street Journal writes of "Battling the Cyber Warmongers". The big event in this area seems to have been the Cyber Shock Wave TV special, in which various former senior Federal officials participated in a simulation of a "cyber attack" on the power and phone system. Big names were involved: Michael Chertoff (former head of Homeland Security) and John Negroponte (former acting CIA director).

The show was embarrassing. It was clear that the participants not only had no clue what to do, they didn't know who to call who did. The person representing Energy kept harping on the thousands of energy companies there are in the US, and how they needed more authority over them. The level of cluelessness makes it clear how Hurricane Katrina (for which they had three days warning, and which happened on the watch of many of the participants) was botched.

In reality, the US power grid is divided operationally into seven regional grids, each with a control center and a backup control center. The supervisors at those control centers are the ones who really run things. If someone in the U.S. Government is dealing with an attack on the power grid, they need to have those supervisors on speed dial. In an emergency, the best thing representatives of the Government can do is call up each one and ask "What do you need right now". They're likely to get an answer like "We need troops protecting these key substations", or "We need a heavy-lift helicopter to move a spare transformer." Actions that would help fix the problem. One of the listed duties of the shift supervisor at the PJM Interconnect is to talk to Government officials.

The Government officials in that simulated emergency didn't have that basic info. They didn't know that there were seven people who were really running things. But they wanted to be in charge. That's the problem.

Few high government officials have a background as first responders or in incident management. If anything, the military officers are more likely to have a clue; their training teaches them to prioritize in a crisis and to deal with confusing, conflicting information.

You could have fooled me.

Quite frankly, whatever the reason you support Iran's actions, you cannot seriously deny the left is providing material support to it's genocidal intentions. That's in addition to the open sabotage the left commits to the opposing camp.

Good, or even bad intentions don't matter. Results matter. The real world matters. Almost everyone in Israel thinks they will be fighting a war next year, and they think the consequences of losing that war will be another holocaust. I think they're right, and, quite frankly, it is in large part thanks to material support from lefties in America and Europe to people who've publicly sworn to no end to eradicate them.

As I said, intentions don't matter. The result matters. The fear of the people of Israel, which only a total moron would deny is justified, and the global war that is being created against them and their country by your party, that is real. That is reality. That is your fault.

And the consequences will be on your conscience.

Then, perhaps, caps as per this thread. Cap their wages, whomever is at fault, rather than just skimming a static amount or percent. Or in the case of a corporation, cap profits.

It's, what, day 40 of the leak? 25,000 barrels a day * $4,300 a barrel * 40 days of leaking = $4.3 billion.

Considering that they made over that in the last three months I'd say that much is a decent start to making them feel something for this god damn mess.

Those who blame financial deregulation for the breakdown of U.S. markets should note that Canada shed its version of Glass-Steagall more than 20 years ago. Major banks thereafter rapidly bought and absorbed investment banks.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124165325829393691.html The reality is that Canada's entire banking system is much more conservative than the US: The bank can always go after you if you walk away from your mortgage, mortgage interest is required up to 20% down, etc. One of the provisions of Glass-Steagall was a prohibition on bank nationalization: Canada never had that restriction. Placing the blame on Glass-Steagall is as simple-minded and partisan as those Glen Beck fanbois who blame the entire meltdown on CRA loans.

Citation?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704423504575212031417936798.html

Here's a source. Foxconn has 486,000 employees according to fairly reliable sources.

According to this 2007 WSJ article, they had over 450,000 factory workers, 270,000 of which were at a single 2x1mile site.

In other words, the suicide rates for Foxconn workers is slightly below average.

Covers about a square mile per WSJ:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118677584137994489.html

The majority of America supports health care reform.

56% of likely voters want to appeal healthcare bill

The Democrats have tried to be bipartisan, but the Republicans have stone-walled them.

Democrats change locks in house oversight committee room

I know today was a hard day for you with all the Democratic incumbents being voted out in the primaries I'm sure it has nothing to do with the Democratic party moving so far left that their members can't stand their socialist views, now relax and go back to matching MSNBC.

See here under "Yes, Facebook can get you fired."

Mr. Fulmer and his wife made fun of a local church sermon in a podcast they posted online in 2005. Mr. Fulmer says it got so much attention, his boss listened to it, thought it was offensive and fired him.

The thing is, sharing things about yourself can be objectionable to an employer - and you don't know what they could be.

What may be completely harmless or even your God given right to say or do, may make you unhirable for an employer or even fired. Against the law in some cases - prove it. They can always find a legitimate and legal excuse to not hire you or fire you.

The best thing to do is pass on Facebook.

1. A troll, or
2. Someone so biased by your religion you fail to see the distinction between these cases

I assume the WW I cross issue you refer to is this. The Supreme Court ruled the cross can stay up. That seems to be the opposite of what you have been saying.

Despite the Supreme Court's ruling, I personally do not agree with it. How would you feel about a Muslim symbol being posted there instead? It is on public property, maintained at public expense. Just like the other cases you cite the issue is not whether or not someone can exercise their right to religion. The issue is whether or not the government can endorse a religion. The answer to that is spelled out in the constitution:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof

You will note there are two clauses. The first one applies to the government getting involved in religion. The second one involves the government interfering with religion. Most of the cases you refer to involve people deliberately trying to put these two issues in conflict with each other. Obviously when these two issues conflict one of them is going to lose. The other cases you cite clearly involve a violation of the establishment clause. Because it would be so easy for a government employee to violate the establishment clause by claiming they're just exercising their religion the court has been pretty strict about enforcing it.

Can you find any cases where someone was barred from exercising their religious rights without public funds and without representing the government? No you can't! All the cases the 'persecuted' Christians have complained about for the past few decades involve a violation of the establishment clause. They're complaining because they can't get the government to endorse their religion and they get shot down every time they try to find a loophole in the constitution (the WW I memorial you cited being an exception).

Undoubtedly one of the most controversial cases involved some students selected by the school administration to speak on behalf of their class. The students wanted to say a prayer during their public school graduation ceremony. You could debate this all day long but the fact remains the court looked at the evidence for that specific case and concluded the prayer would violate the establishment clause.

Your right to free exercise of religion has not been infringed. So long as you are not representing the government or exercising your religion with government funds, you are free to carry on.

With that said, this discussion is about citizens' right to speak in public. There is no issue regarding religion. The establishment clause does not apply. The controversies surrounding religion are irrelevant. This is a plain simple free-speech issue without any other constitutional issues conflicting with it.

Absolutely. Well said. To take this further, last year the Wall Street Journal had an excellent editorial that showed the majority of foreclosure issues were not sub-prime mortgages, but normal, prime mortgages. The real culprit was "zero money down". It appears that the need to spend well outside one's means was not limited to people with bad credit.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124657539489189043.html
I am surprised that these studies haven't been taken further. One would hope that if we were to try and prevent such a crisis from recurring, we would analyze the the actual root cause of the problem and devise a solution for it

And the changes to the CRA in the 90's forced banks to make bad loans.

There are arguments on both sides of the fence. I've looked up the facts and I've drawn my conclusions. Any reasonable person can look at the facts and say that CRA *DID* contribute -- but argue on the degree. I believe that the crisis was caused in no small part to lending practices forced on lenders by the CRA -- and made difficult to get out of by those mortgages getting broken up and mixed in with securities. And further compounded by congress blocking a review of Fanny and Freddy in 05.

Of course, if it makes you "feel" better to dismiss "me" by saying the words "Glenn Beck" and putting the word "facts" in "quotes", be my "guest". Says more about your reasoning ability than anything else...

Review this.

The expectation was that people would somehow automagically be changed by home ownership -- that they would start paying their bills on time, save for or insure against a catastrophic event -- in generally, act financially responsible.

Yep, no crisis at all right. Easy to find jobs. We didn't waste billions of taxpayer dollars "bailing out" businesses. Not sure if that was your primary point that it didn't exist, but putting "economic crisis" in quotes seem to indicate it...

The bailouts have been working. Yes, we have lower job numbers than desirable, but that's arguably because the stimulus wasn't big enough.

Because we should all be just happy that we have a president who has wasted billions of taxpayer dollars, supports a supreme court nominee vowed against true freedom of speech and supports unsustainable programs. Right?

I note that the bank bailouts were accomplished under Bush.
I have no idea what you're talking about regarding Kagan or Sotomayor, and i've been following both FOX and other outlets' opinions of her. Many conservatives are supportive of Kagan.
As for unsustainable programs, I assume you are referring to Medicare and Social Security? What would you propose be done with them?

News flash. News sources are biased. It isn't new. Look at MSNBC, heck, look at the Guardian which TFA is taken from. The Guardian doesn't even make any claims to be balanced or fair.

MSNBC has some left wing opinion shows, a right wing morning show, and pretty much run of the mill NBC news otherwise.

I venture that your views above have demonstrated a number of falsehoods mixed in with truths, and some debatable points. You might want to sort out which from which.

As reported by the WSJ

BP PLC successfully inserted a tube into the broken pipe leaking oil into the Gulf of Mexico early Sunday, a person close to the containment operation said, increasing the chances that the company will be able to siphon off much of the oil now gushing into the sea. ...

It's still unclear whether the new siphoning operation will work. Even in the best-case scenario, the tube won't capture all the leaking oil.

The guy who stole/found the phone doesn't look too good from this report, but remember when Gizmodo was talking to him they didn't have Apple's side, or a full police report.

From the WSJ:

Hogan, 21, sold the lost iPhone to Gizmodo.com, which had offered him $10,000 for the prototype, and a "cash bonus" in July should Apple make "an official product announcement regarding the new iPhone," according to the document. Seller Of Lost Apple iPhone Prototype Turned In By Roommate

The one thing you must not do when you are in possession of lost property is to assert any right of ownership:

The longer the phone remains in your hands the more you look like a thief or a receiver of stolen goods.

You have no right to disassemble the prototype.

You have no right to photograph the prototype for commercial purposes.

In case you don't remember, stuff traveling at orbital velocities is positively lethal to spacecraft. The extreme energies involved in these kinds of impacts is enough to send very high velocity fragments in all directions. Sure, some of it will de-orbit, but most will end up in fairly stable orbits that will EVENTUALLY intersect all the other satellites up there. So blowing up one rogue satellite makes one very annoying but eminently predictable problem into a thousand lethal and unpredictable problems.

Last February, a Russian satellite hit a commercial Iridium satellite, and the resulting debris cloud (estimated near 600 pieces in various orbits) has been a HUGE headache for everyone in similar orbital altitudes.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123438921888374497.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29147679/

In 2008, the US got criticized around the world for blowing up a falling satellite because of the health threats of hydrazine if it landed in a populated area. Aside from complaints about military showboating, there were many scientists who complained about the resulting orbital debris; however, in reality it was a very low-altitude explosion and the debris cloud did de-orbit very quickly (unlike a geosynchronous orbit explosion, which would leave practically permanent debris due to the orbit well above any appreciable atmospheric drag).
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_6712/is_35_237/ai_n29417848/

Read here for some details on the general problems with orbital debris.
http://illuminations.nctm.org/LessonDetail.aspx?id=L376

So no more helpful suggestions like this, please.

What whoosh? "Teabaggers" is a sexual slur http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_bag_(sexual_act) which makes it particularly inappropriate for the president to use.

How is it homophobic to use the term "teabagger" especially given the context. Tea bagging isn't strictly a homosexual act, even the article you linked to shows a woman tea bagging a man.

This is an excellent post. To put it another way though, they certainly have a monetary incentive to cap the well: if the well really is leaking 5000 barrels of oil a day, that's 1.8 million barrels per year. At the current crude oil price of $77/barrel, that's $140 million a year they're losing by having all this oil leak out into the gulf since a lot of their development costs are paid for (i.e., drilling the well). Of course, that 5000 barrels/day estimate is malarky, the WSJ is putting it at more like 25,000 barrels per day, that's $700 million per year.

I do wish they'd be less hypocritical about it though. A decent number of politicians are honest enough to admit they've used recreational drugs (and probably a larger number still have used them but refuse to admit it) yet they continue to support the failure known as the War on Drugs.

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration's new drug czar says he wants to banish the idea that the U.S. is fighting "a war on drugs," a move that would underscore a shift favoring treatment over incarceration in trying to reduce illicit drug use.

In his first interview since being confirmed to head the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, Gil Kerlikowske said Wednesday the bellicose analogy was a barrier to dealing with the nation's drug issues.

"Regardless of how you try to explain to people it's a 'war on drugs' or a 'war on a product,' people see a war as a war on them," he said. "We're not at war with people in this country."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703338004575230440147772822.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEADNewsCollection

WSJ is reporting that the trigger was a very large sell order for P&G coupled with unchecked computer trading and some inherent flaws in the current system of fragmented exchanges.

Felix Salmon also did a good explanatory post that pulled in work from other writers about what might have happened and why.

Mr. Salmon's post links to a thought provoking post by a blogger named Kid Dynamite, who posits that it's a really bad precedent to cancel the erroneous trades because it lets the program traders off the hook for the consequences of their computer mess-up.

The major ISP's seem to disagree with you. Time Warner's COO Landel Hobbs has said himself that heavy users pose no threat to their profits. "If you are getting feedback that there is an immediate problem, nothing could be further from the truth," http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/08/time-warner-cable-profits-on-broadband-are-great-and-will-grow-because-of-caps/ Time Warner just reported a 30% increase in earnings http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704302304575213750225569156.html On top of that their bandwidth costs have been steadily decreasing. Seems pretty viable to me

where does that subsidy come from? Why, yes, from economic activity derived from burning fossil fuels.

I dunno. When Northern Europe is reporting that wind energy significantly cuts the cost of power I'd guess that the "subsidies" issue is fast disappearing...

What whoosh? "Teabaggers" is a sexual slur http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_bag_(sexual_act) which makes it particularly inappropriate for the president to use.

But I don't see the meagre profits from the app store, or from video rentals, or similar low-margin operations (possibly, in fact probably, including their music sales) as being reasonable; they strike me as ignorant of how businesses think. Yes, it's all about money with Apple (and every other successful corporation), but for Apple, the money is in the device sales.

Might that be a bit short-sighted over the longer term? Apple might primarily a hardware company today with a smaller content marketing arm, but ten years from now, the profitability of the two might well be reversed. Apple won't be able to dominate the mobile devices market in the future as it has in the past, but it could still be a major player in the ever-expanding business of content distribution. I also wouldn't be surprised to see the often-mooted Apple/Disney deal happen in the years ahead. Disney has already signed on for AppleTV. I bet those programs won't be available via h.264 over Flash.

Launch capabilities.
Armor is expensive to lift.

Doesn't matter. Kinetic energy tearing thru a sat destabilize it and disables it.

We've already seen what happens
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123438921888374497.html

Sorry, I don't buy it. Other than a few barely-acknowledged bill-of-rights issues, the US Constitution is universally ignored by most of the populace and pretty much all of the lawmakers. It's not even taught in law school anymore (just all the case law that provides cover for ignoring what the Constitution says).

Oh now that is bullshit.

the only way your argument works is if you are the type of person who ignores any amendments made to the Constitution even though ANY amendment is constitutional so long as it's passed according to the rules setup in the constitution itself.

You can't ignore them just because you personally don't think they are correct.

Oh, really? Are you sure about that? Certainly the Speaker of the House ignores it. Others don't think they are supposed to be the least bit concerned about it. Often the POTUS just signs executive orders to bypass all the rules whenever they want to create new rules

Bachmann: Sir, in the Constitution. What in the Constitution could you point to, to give authority to the treasury for the extraordinary actions that have been taken.

Geithner: Every action that the treasury and the fed and the FDIC is.been using authority granted by this bodyby the Congress.

Bachmann: And in the Constitution, what could you point to?

Geithner: Under the laws of the land, of course.

Then there are the Constitution-free zones

Napolitano on ignoring the Constitution also, the transcript.

How on earth do they make up laws like "Asset Forfeiture" and still claim to be constrained by the Constitution? They can't

But you don't get to decide that! That's what people such as yourself don't seem to want to understand.

You always throw up completely anecdotal "examples" of your claims of the "vast conspiracy" to ignore the constitution, but you seem to forget the little part in the constitution that says (Article Three Section 2, precisely):

"The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority; to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls; to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction; to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party; to Controversies between two or more States; between a State and Citizens of another State; between Citizens of different States; between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects."

That means that the judgement as to whether anything is or is not constitutional is not in the purview of ANYONE other than the Supreme Court of the United States ...that includes anyone playing arm-chair constitutional scholar.

If anyone feels anything is not being done in accordance with the United States Constitution, then you have a SUPREME RESPONSIBILITY to attempt (they would have to agree to hear it) bring the matter before the Supreme Court.

The fact that no one has tells me volumes.

Sorry, I don't buy it. Other than a few barely-acknowledged bill-of-rights issues, the US Constitution is universally ignored by most of the populace and pretty much all of the lawmakers. It's not even taught in law school anymore (just all the case law that provides cover for ignoring what the Constitution says).

Oh now that is bullshit.

the only way your argument works is if you are the type of person who ignores any amendments made to the Constitution even though ANY amendment is constitutional so long as it's passed according to the rules setup in the constitution itself.

You can't ignore them just because you personally don't think they are correct.

Oh, really? Are you sure about that? Certainly the Speaker of the House ignores it. Others don't think they are supposed to be the least bit concerned about it. Often the POTUS just signs executive orders to bypass all the rules whenever they want to create new rules

Bachmann: Sir, in the Constitution. What in the Constitution could you point to, to give authority to the treasury for the extraordinary actions that have been taken.
Geithner: Every action that the treasury and the fed and the FDIC is.been using authority granted by this bodyby the Congress.
Bachmann: And in the Constitution, what could you point to?
Geithner: Under the laws of the land, of course.

Then there are the Constitution-free zones

Napolitano on ignoring the Constitution also, the transcript.

How on earth do they make up laws like "Asset Forfeiture" and still claim to be constrained by the Constitution? They can't

We've been avoiding this faith since 1993, when acoustic triggers became law in norway.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704423504575212031417936798.html
Offcourse, we are a socialist country which overregulates everything.

One of the problems is that the US and Britain do not have as strong requirements as other countries for deep water drilling. For example, several other countries require an acoustically activated remote shut-off valve.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704423504575212031417936798.html

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/may/01/nation/la-na-oil-spill-investigation-20100501

Halliburton is under investigation for problems cementing near Australia and they had just done this to this rig. About half of the blowouts that have occurred in the gulf were due to cementing problems. There's also concern that curing cement raised the temperature of methane hydrates causing it to become unstable.

Boston civil-liberties lawyer Harvey Silverglate calls his new book "Three Felonies a Day," referring to the number of crimes he estimates the average American now unwittingly commits because of vague laws. New technology adds its own complexity, making innocent activity potentially criminal.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704471504574438900830760842.html

First, there isn't around 10000 barrels of oil coming out of the Mississippi every day in any sort of concentrated form. Second, 5000 barrels a day for 30 days is 150,000 barrels, comparable to the 250k barrels spilled by the Exxon Valdez. Finally, they've no idea how much oil is really coming out (the wsj says today possibly 25000 bpd are coming out) and BP says it will take between 55 and 90 days from now before they can attempt to plug it, even then it is only an attempt. So this is quite likely going to be the worst oil spill ever in the USA. I'd say it'll make quite a significant difference to quite a large area for quite a long time.

At this point it's unclear how much of an environmental threat oil spreading from the BP spill will cause

Actually, it's pretty clear. This likely will go down as the worst environmental disaster in US history, in terms of its environmental and financial impacts. Estimates say it's leaking 1 million gal per day. That means we're just about at EVE already. It will take at least a few months to get another well drilled and this one capped.

In that time, LA and other Gulf oyster and shrimping fisheries are going away. That's $2.5-3 billion to LA per year. Coastal wetlands are going to be devastated - can't scrub the plants, have to burn the wetlands to clean it up. Hundreds of species of wildlife will be impacted. Their marine and estuarine habitats will be severely harmed. And we haven't even discussed the impact to beaches and Florida's $3 billion Gulf Coast tourism industry, yet. Hope the slick/tar balls don't hit the Loop current and end up in Miami Beach or even Daytona.

This is bad, folks.

So the first info about the Courier I can find is dated September 22 2009.

But OLPC already showed off a concept XO-2 back in May 2008.

Funny that earlier - Steve Jobs offered to put OS-X on OLPC for free, but they "declined because it's not open source".
Now, after "a deal with Microsoft" Both XP and Linux will be options.

Makes me wish I hadn't gotten those two OLPC's. when I heard that.
But if the XO-2 ever materializes (and it probably wont) I think I'll just wait for the Mac iPad duo.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704471504574438900830760842.html

You're a criminal too. You just haven't been charged yet.

People like to quote that article as if it's a proven fact, but...

Boston civil-liberties lawyer Harvey Silverglate calls his new book "Three Felonies a Day," referring to the number of crimes he estimates the average American now unwittingly commits because of vague laws. New technology adds its own complexity, making innocent activity potentially criminal.

The article itself doesn't really provide any examples with which to substantiate the claim.

Aside from that, we're talking about apples and oranges. For sake of argument, let's assume you're correct. Still, Childs knowingly and deliberately took the actions he did -- at the very least he knew he was in serious breach of policy, even if not the law.

Given what evidence is available, I don't see any reason to doubt Jobs on this one.

Well I'm sorry, but now that Shantanu Narayen, CEO of Adobe, has clarified that it in fact must a problem with the Apple operating system, I'm afraid you and I will have to retract our unfounded and ignorant criticisms of Flash.

Or maybe not ;-)

Of course, this isn't true with iAds. How convenient...

I think it's very convienent for end users and developers, and not so much for AdMob and Google. Apple's charging a premium, a rather large one if you believe the Wall Street Journal. It would seem that if Apple takes 30% of ad revenue but charges twice as much or more, the developers still get MORE in their pocket. And from a typical end user perspective, I'd rather NO personal information get transferred. But at least by keeping only Apple and very large, pre-screened advertisers involved, I'm slightly less worried about a) my email address getting transmitted and b) that address getting sold to Joe Spammer.

PS, for me, it's all academic. If the apps good, I'll pay $1 to $10 to get an ad-free version.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704471504574438900830760842.html

You're a criminal too. You just haven't been charged yet.