Slashdot Mirror

The cold-blooded killers of this couple locked their bullet-riddled bodies in the trunk of a car.

If that murder is not pure evil, then what is pure evil?

The researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute need only to interview Putin and to download his thoughts into their AI computer. It will instantly exhibit pure evil.

Where is James Bond when you need him? A problem in the Kremlin needs to be fixed. Pronto.

Do you mean the US companies helped setup the filters in Iran? I thought that was European companies (Siemens and Nokia):

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124562668777335653.html

In China american companies like Yahoo, Microsoft and Google censor their search engines and content.

I guess Michael S. Malone is stupid then?

Good point, now what are you going to do with your business degree?

Fire all my employees and shut down the company. Take a long vacation. Then get an easy job with moderate pay and a lot of vacation time.

A guy could work long hours and employ people and struggle and risk to try to make money. But what's the point if he only gets to keep a tiny part of it? Why not take the capital and invest it in a country that still allows people to succeed? Why not give up the extra work for the government's benefit and just enjoy some leisure? Sure it doesn't employ anyone or produce anything, but why should we want goods produced or people employed?

Read the Victor Davis Hanson article. It tells an easy-to-understand story about an electrician.

Here is a radical option, drop FICA and Medicare taxes, seeing that College age students will never benefit from the programs because they will be long broke by the time the students reach retirement. Combined that with dropping the aggregate (State + Federal) Corporate tax rate to less than 10% and you will see Companies rushing into the US, bye bye 10% unemployment.

Unfortunately, we are headed in the exact opposite direction with a Government take over of health care. Taxes are going to go through the roof to support all of the spending going on and the US will still not be able to reach it's obligations. Combined that with Cap and Tax, and other countries are starting to look a lot better then the US, especially India and China (sense they don't have the same emissions requirements under Kyoto because they are "developing" countries)

So no, raising taxes in the middle of a recession is not the answer, We are already why to the right on the Laffer Curve and going further to the right is just going to push up unemployment more.

No, it won't be a problem.

There will be very, very few new startups in the US. And many of the existing startups will shut down. There's just not much point in starting a business in the US any more.

- IPOs used to be plentiful, but that was before Sarbanes-Oxley made going public astronomically expensive.
- The government is sucking up most of the country's available capital [to buy votes] for stimulus and other government spending, leaving less available for business growth.
- The new stock option rules more-or-less preclude giving lower-level employees company stock so they share in the success of the company.
- Even for those that do see success, the tax rate will be 60-70% in a few years, so they won't be able to keep much of what they make. They won't be able invest the money in new startups because the taxes will take too much and there will be none left over.
- And don't forget that everyone knows businesses are villains and rich businessmen are hated. Why subject yourself to all that for such low after-tax gains?

See this article by Victor Davis Hanson.
See this article by T. J. Rodgers of Cypress Semiconductor.
See this article by Michael S. Malone.

It's not really the land of opportunity any more -- not unless you know just the right people in government or the environmental industrial complex to steer you an earmark. And even those will run out in a few years after all the money is spent and all the output from the country's slowly-declining future production is borrowed and spent.

There will be plenty of vacant data center space.

read obove, someone else provided it so i did not. But, you can start here, and google around a bit more. Since it's a study people honestly don't want answers to (they want to assume the worst so we can inflict greater and stricter punishments) there's no hard evidence, and even what is out there is skewed by staticticians and discredited as innacurate.

http://blogs.wsj.com/numbersguy/how-likely-are-sex-offenders-to-repeat-their-crimes-258/

Actually, that's a myth (repeated by sensationalistic journalists and opportunistic politicians, both redundant terms of course). Actually, sex offenders have one of the LOWEST recidivism rates of offenders, not that fact that keeps opportunists from cooking the numbers to support their self-serving point. Excellent article on it here.

Sure, we know the terms of the deal. Roughly $50 Million. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124993350820120361.html

First of all, conservatives want government interference in people's lives more than liberals do.

I disagree. I'd take Bush 1 & 2 over what I've seen from BHO and the libs in congress in six months. Maybe you haven't read the news, but there are some very scary things appearing on Government Websites; from the Tell Us about Fishy people email address on the White House website to "all your computers belong to us" notice on the Cash for Clunkers website (for dealers).

Yes, I know there is no way to distinguish the difference between malfeasance and incompetence. I would probabloy agree with you, but one (evil) requires the other(idiocy).

I didn't like Bush, and I don't like Obama. Clinton is starting to look incredibly good these days.

Nokia Siemens Networks provided equipment to Iran last year under the internationally recognized concept of "lawful intercept," said Mr. Roome. That relates to intercepting data for the purposes of combating terrorism, child pornography, drug trafficking and other criminal activities carried out online, a capability that most if not all telecom companies have, he said.

I don't see what's the big deal? They're only blocking criminal activities; which is to say, dissenting from the government.

From a quick Google search:

Iran's Web Spying Aided By Western Technology

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2009/06/30/trickle-down-economics-fails-to-deliver-as-promised/

The day Fox start reporting actual NEWS is the day Satan goes to work in a snowplow.

FOX is just one of the many news and content properties that Murdoch owns. He also owns the Wall Street Journal, which is still far and away the most respected resource for business news. He's already been trying to genericize it into a general-purpose paper (like he did the WSJ website), I expect he'll render it completely useless eventually. Leaving the Financial Times to take up the slack, I suppose.

Until recently, it was possible to pull down a full PDF copy of any WSJ (one page at a time) with URLs like this: http://online.wsj.com/documents/print/WSJ_-A001-20090518.pdf But apparently Mr. Murdoch has finally gotten around to putting the kibosh on that.

I don't think it will backfire.

He is attempting to use the WSJ's model to build from. If you were to visit the Wall Street Journal's site, you will see that most of the coverage is free. The subscriptions give more of a value added then access appeal. There are some news stories held from the free parts of the site but they are very few in contrast. What the subscriptions give you is a 90 day categorically sorted history of articles that you can somewhat customize with access to the few stories withheld from the free content. You also get access to the sister publications in Europe and Asia.

This isn't really a pay site like with porn where they give you a teaser then request a login to see the important stuff. I would describe it as a value added subscription model that will appeal to a lot of people but probably not impact the majority of users.

Go to the wall street journal's site and see what you can get without paying right now. The subscription offers access to features and the few stories they don't freely reproduce.

I guess the real question might be what will you gain by getting a subscription. As it stands, it seems that the WSJ's model they are looking to implement is more of a value added service then a traditional pay site that give part of the story then asks you to log in for the rest. I'm not terribly impressed with the idea but I'm not unimpressed with the WSJ's implementation to date.

Actually, you are partially right. Many of the WSJ articles are freeley availible for a limited amount of time. It's more of a hybrid pay site with more free access then when it was a complete pay site. You can go there right now and browse most all current stories. What the subscription does is give detailed access and historical content and access to some storied which they decided wasn't free. You also get access to the WSJ europe and Asia additions in the same respect.

There is a lot of free content on the WSJ which is why all these other people claiming that he will go under are clueless about the situation. It looks like there are enough articles availible freely that people will become interested in visiting and pay to get more.

I also think this will have some sort of cross site subscription model (like with the WSJ having access to the Europe and Asia editions also). Perhaps a yearly subscription would give you access to all regional news site holdings or something.

Interesting; as of 2007 Raleigh is only 10 hours behind New York in time wasted in traffic.

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2009/07/08/the-upside-of-recession-less-traffic/

Myself and the rest of us who live in The Triangle will agree; those with short commute times and low annual miles live closer to work and thus earn more money and can afford the more expensive housing. That would, by definition, make them elite. :)

I hate to go Godwin on the thread here, but it isn't like IBM hasn't found ways to use data to do evil things before.

Yes, and IBM has a thing about getting into bed with governments, although not always with good results. And you can be pretty sure nothing IBM is up to will be good for Americans given their tendency to take the money and run.

You do NOT get fined for being overweight.

Really now? It's already been suggested here in the states. Something similar is already being done in Japan. I'm supposed to believe that the fans of the big government nanny state are going to stop sin taxes at alcohol and tobacco and not advance them any further? Sorry, but I'm sick of the Government trying to protect me from myself.

"I'm not going to let the government decide my health care! Instead, I'm going to praise the land of the free because my health insurer chooses to deny me cancer coverage because I forgot to mention I had appendicitis 20 years ago."

Stop putting words in my mouth. I never praised the current system. I only said that it's preferable to a Government run one. There's a lot of things we could fix (tort reform, better preventative care, better regulation of the insurance industry, etc) that don't involve handing the whole system over to Washington.

In Australia I paid 1% of my income as a tax, or 1.5% when my income hit 45,000 a year. Alternatively, I could opt in for private coverage, and pay as much or as little as I liked, and not have that tax.

Could you opt out of coverage entirely? If not then the Government has taken away your freedom of choice at gunpoint.

I'm sorry but there isn't any argument you can make that's going to convince me that we need a Government-run health care system. I don't like Government. Government exists for one reason: To deprive individuals of the freedom of choice. When they are depriving you of the free choice to murder your neighbor that's a good thing. When they deprive you of the free choice to spend the fruits of your own labor as you see fit then that's a bad thing.

There goes any remaining chance of anyone actually using this search engine...

you got that right. It has received mixed reviews worldwide, generally underwhelming in comparison to the hype.
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/05/18/wolfram-alpha-gets-mixed-reviews/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/5319884/Wolfram-Alpha-review.html

Can we dispel the myth that sex offenders are more likely to reoffend. I have never seen a study that states this. If you know of one, please share it. I will however link you to an article that disputes this common claim: http://blogs.wsj.com/numbersguy/how-likely-are-sex-offenders-to-repeat-their-crimes-258/

What is with the excessive demonization of sex offenders today? What makes this class of crime the worst by such a large margin that we need a whole separate form of punishment? Why not a murderer registry? Certainly murder is a more serious crime, right?

First, note that I'm not disagreeing with your main point. Still, I'd say the difference is this: there are justifiable homicides, but never any justifiable offenses against children. I'm not condoning murder, but I can imagine circumstances where someone might kill a specific person in retribution or to end long running torture or abuse. The murderer might be an otherwise good person who would never kill again outside that exact situation, and although punishment might be appropriate depending on the facts, they don't pose a danger to society.

Contrast with sexual offenses [1], where a low estimate of recidivism is at about 52%. Such offenders do represent a real, long-term threat to those around them. I'm not sure how to reconcile that with the idea of "paying one's debt to society", because while I believe that serving a prison sentence should wipe the slate clean, there's no way I'd move my family next to someone with "only" a 52% chance of repeating their crime.

[1] I mean real ones, like adults preying on children. 18 year old boys having sex with their 17 year old girlfriends, or peeing on trees, or fooling around in cars doesn't count. I imagine the recidivism rate of those "crimes" approaches 100%.

There is tons of talk like this about swiss banks forcing US clients out.

Switzerland is not part of the EU.

There is tons of talk like this about swiss banks forcing US clients out. I guess the they're caving under pressure.
What I'm curious about are other tax havens people have been using in recent times above and beyond swiss banks...

>Russia has a mandatory program for all telecommunication providers (ISPs included), wherein they should have equipment to log all network usage. According to the law, access to that equipment is restricted to law enforcement and intelligence services, and only with court permission; however, they do not have to show the court order to providers, and some parts of the law can be interpreted as meaning that order can be obtained after the fact.

Something about that sounds vaguely familiar.

Within the last year, we had a new high end FPGA vendor visit us. They mentioned that some of their first customers were people/companies doing these fast trades. They were willing to spend $50k+ per part to increase the algorythm speed by 10 - I think going from 10's of ms to ~1ms, but I'm not sure the exact magnitudes. In some ways, this cost isn't that much, considering that the product development costs are likely $300k+. I do wonder how widely the algorythms vary across the different players. There are definetely some large players in this space, and industrial espionage too.

Where does the waste go?

Well, we could form it into pills and force-feed it to politicians who continue to perpetuate the moronic nuclear reprocessing policies we have here in the US. Read "There Is No Such Thing as Nuclear Waste". It doesn't address recycling of the containment facility & other structures at plant end-of-life, but those materials are safe within centuries - no need for a solution like Yucca Mountain. Nor does the article cover the potential of breeder reactors. Still, with regard to the U-235 itself and the generated isotopes, it's pretty much spot on.

Furthermore, it should be inherently obvious that the misguided decisions of Presidents Ford & Carter, intended to reduce proliferation, have actually created greater vulnerability due to the increasing build-up of nuclear "waste" which must be guarded instead of being returned to the fuel cycle. The threat here is mostly of the "dirty bomb" variety rather than plutonium refinement from stolen material, but it still exists. Ever greater quantities of nuclear material, usually stored on-site at the plants, aren't reducing that risk.

- T

On the Street and On Facebook: The Homeless Stay Wired

Al Gore received 90% of the black vote in 2000, and John Kerry received 88% of the black vote in 2004. (Source: http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/10/21/black-support-for-obama-at-near-record-levels/)

So your 65% number is bullshit.

Since this is off-topic I'll say no more.

Yep...Lets monitor all 145,074 of them at one time. Oh wait.

Kinda funny that this concept was first described for a prison.

Oh well. I sure hope that the residents enjoying paying their taxes for this, considering that a lot of the big banks in CA are not accepting CA IOU's anymore.

This is probably what changed his plan http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124104549891270585.html If this is tapped and properly used we won't need wind or oil

A member of the bipartisan Congressional Strategic Posture Commission -- headed by former secretaries of defense William J. Perry and James R. Schlesinger -- warns that the preliminary agreement signed by Barack Obama guts part of the American nuclear arsenal but does not demand significant gutting of the Russian nuclear arsenal. Two points of serious note are (1) nuclear launchers and (2) tactical nuclear weapons.

Nuclear launchers are mechanisms for launching the intercontinental ballistic missiles. The Russians are demanding that we Americans reduce the number of our launchers to 500, but the Russians were already (before the signing of this agreement) planning to reduce the number of launchers to close that number because they cannot afford to replace the launchers that must be shutdown due to reaching the end of their operational life. In other words, the Russians do not make any sacrifice on this matter but demand that the Americans make all the sacrifices.

As for tactical nuclear weapons, the Russians successfully insisted that these weapons be removed from coverage in this preliminary agreement. The Russians have a 10-to-1 advantage over us Americans in tactical nuclear weapons.

Koenigsegg CCX doesn't fall far behind Bugatti Veyron:
- price: $2,100,000
- 1018 hp
- top speed of 257 mph

And on top of it: it's buying Saab. Koenigsegg has only 45 full time staff empolyees and sold 18 cars last year,which is 97,982 less than SAAB did.

OutputLogic

environmental puritans are often opposed to safe and effective means of disposal of nuclear waste

I would tend to parse those comments as demonstrating poor listening skills.

There's a certain kind of person who divides a debate into factions and then argues in terms of the silliest things said on either side. It's usually easy to spot the polarizers in any debate, they tend to lead with labels (e.g. "puritan").

I've discussed environmental issues with a hundred different people, all of whom had different opinions on the subject, and none as silly as the one you quote. I've overheard the kind of silliness you quote in a public hot tub on the other side of town. Disturbed me enough that I no longer visit that pool. I was waiting for their discussion of the environment to segue into Uri Geller, but I lacked the stomach to stick it out to collect on bet with self.

I don't know anyone on the green side of the debate who would concede that "safe and effective storage of nuclear waste" has yet been achieved. Nor do I know anyone on the hard science side of the debate who thinks that "safe storage" of nuclear waste is a slam dunk.

From http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/WR-Yucca_Mountain_cost_estimate_rises_to_96_billion_dollars-0608085.html

The latest estimate puts the cost of research, construction and operation of the geologic repository over a 150 year period - from when work started in 1983 through to the facility's expected closure and decommissioning in 2133 - at $96.2 billion (in 2007 dollars).

Surprisingly similar time line to Duke Nukem Forever, but with public expense dialed up to 11.

From http://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalcapital/2009/02/26/nuclear-waste-yucca-mountains-scrapped-so-what-now/

The draft budget removes funding for the planned nuclear-waste storage facility in Nevada, which has been 20 years and more than $9 billion in the making. A Department of Energy spokeswoman told Bloomberg that President Obama and Energy Secretary Steven Chu "have been emphatic that nuclear waste storage at Yucca Mountain is not an option, period."

It's just the crazy puritans who are unconvinced by a $9 billion dollar dry hole? If you kick a straw man in the testicles, does he go "oooff"?

What's pretty clear about safe storage is that we don't yet have an option where the party who advocates the solution is still around to clean up the mess if the whole thing goes south after billions of dollars of mostly public money is spent. That should give any pragmatic person cause to pause and think.

In any debate there will be factions (on both sides) who make a point of pride of their ignorance and who become more invested in the drama of the debate than the merits of the final outcome. It's absolutely true that I wish upon these people that their obstreperousness boomerangs and smacks them in the face. There's nothing profound about it, it's just a way to deal with a disheartening reality while plugging away for something better.

Ebert said much the same thing, if you read between the lines.

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070507/COMMENTARY/70507001

"Ill bet you hated to change your mind," I was told. No, I was happy to. It is a hard and frustrating thing to make a movie, and credit must be given where due.

Your ode to pharmaceutical schadenfreude is way overstated.

They are also going to have to get around this:
GPS Satellite Glitches Fuel Concern on Next Generation http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124520702464422059.html

There have been some very vivid demonstrations of the impacts of cyber-warfare, such as the attacks on Estonia and Georgia, Chinese and Iranian suppresion of free speech and media, air traffic control penetrations, and demonstrated penetrations of SCADA networks (power grid in particular). In Estonia, gov't services were disrupted, and the local equivalent of 911 was broken. Georgia was not as badly dinged as Estonia, largely because they're less reliant on networked services. (c.f. http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12673385 ). Power grid infrastructures (as well as telecom, oil pipelines, etc.) are highly automated in the US, and have been demonstrated to have been attacked (c.f. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123914805204099085.html?mod=googlenews_wsj ). Having accidentally broken chunks of telecom infrastructure, I know how easy it is to create large-scale disruptions through control networks - even without ill intent. The FAA IG has reported that air traffic has already been disrupted by system breaches (c.f. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124165272826193727.html, http://www.oig.dot.gov/StreamFile?file=/data/pdfdocs/ATC_Web_Report.pdf ).

And this is the stuff that's publicly visible. There is definitely an iceberg effect here - there's a lot more under the surface that isn't readily visible to the public. There's good reason the Pentagon doesn't publish the full extent of attacks (successful and not) perpetrated against the DoD infrastructure - it's not a good idea to let attackers know how much you see (and don't). But the concern is based on real threats, and real attempts - this is not hysterical speculation. The rules of engagement haven't been defined (when is a hack attempt serious enough to merit retaliation? what's a 'cyber-exercise' v. an act of war? how definite does attribution of an attack need to be to become a diplomatic issue?). There are countries that are pushing all these envelopes to gain an edge.

So if this stuff is already going on at a low-rumble level, the threat is demonstrated, and the consequences can be foreseen, wouldn't it be irresponsible not to develop techniques and strategies to ensure this bad stuff doesn't happen?

Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean people aren't out to get you.

There have been some very vivid demonstrations of the impacts of cyber-warfare, such as the attacks on Estonia and Georgia, Chinese and Iranian suppresion of free speech and media, air traffic control penetrations, and demonstrated penetrations of SCADA networks (power grid in particular). In Estonia, gov't services were disrupted, and the local equivalent of 911 was broken. Georgia was not as badly dinged as Estonia, largely because they're less reliant on networked services. (c.f. http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12673385 ). Power grid infrastructures (as well as telecom, oil pipelines, etc.) are highly automated in the US, and have been demonstrated to have been attacked (c.f. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123914805204099085.html?mod=googlenews_wsj ). Having accidentally broken chunks of telecom infrastructure, I know how easy it is to create large-scale disruptions through control networks - even without ill intent. The FAA IG has reported that air traffic has already been disrupted by system breaches (c.f. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124165272826193727.html, http://www.oig.dot.gov/StreamFile?file=/data/pdfdocs/ATC_Web_Report.pdf ).

And this is the stuff that's publicly visible. There is definitely an iceberg effect here - there's a lot more under the surface that isn't readily visible to the public. There's good reason the Pentagon doesn't publish the full extent of attacks (successful and not) perpetrated against the DoD infrastructure - it's not a good idea to let attackers know how much you see (and don't). But the concern is based on real threats, and real attempts - this is not hysterical speculation. The rules of engagement haven't been defined (when is a hack attempt serious enough to merit retaliation? what's a 'cyber-exercise' v. an act of war? how definite does attribution of an attack need to be to become a diplomatic issue?). There are countries that are pushing all these envelopes to gain an edge.

So if this stuff is already going on at a low-rumble level, the threat is demonstrated, and the consequences can be foreseen, wouldn't it be irresponsible not to develop techniques and strategies to ensure this bad stuff doesn't happen?

Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean people aren't out to get you.

This reminds me of the WSJ "Missing Millionaires" article

You're so insistent on taking me out of context, I'm not sure it's even worth responding.

Ad Hominem.

Even among climate skeptics (at least, the subset of skeptics with scientific credentials in relevant fields), only a handful will go so far as to claim that the warming is imaginary.

Maybe you just don't hear them because they're being suppressed. example A
example B
And have you seen this?

Who is this "we" who wanted to cover the polar ice caps in tar 30 or 40 years ago?

Scientists clamoring for government to do something about Global Cooling
I never claimed it was a consensus, and I didn't mean to imply that.

the number of peer reviewed papers predicting warming outnumbered the number that predicted cooling by about 6 to 1.

Your link does not support this, but suppose I take that as fact. I for one do not care how many people say something is true. In 1300 everyone knew the Earth was flat and everything revolved around it. Just because there is some kind of "consensus" either then or now, doesn't mean it's true.

Remember, the cap doesn't even kick in until 2012, and the industries that are most affected will continue to receive a sizeable number of free carbon permits for at least a decade after that.

Finally some good news. If I work real hard, I can get a raise so that I can pay my taxes. *feel the sarcasm!*

Sure, if somebody burns down your house, it's suddenly "more economical" to live under a bridge than in the middle of a field.

We need to be mindful of the timescales involved here. Burning a house down is a very immediate thing, with no warning, and little that predisposes one to having such a problem to begin with. If you live on the beach, you run the risk of your house being flooded by a storm swell, global warming or not. If you're not smart enough to get insurance, that's what we call natural selection.

Frankly, I'm stunned that someone can simultaneously believe that "the market" is capable of uprooting thousands of coastal cities, and yet is so fragile that it will fall over the moment CO2 pollution gets a price.

I don't think the market will fail. It is very resilient. I'm not like the alarmists- I'm not predicting doom for the economy if we don't do what I want. It'll just be harder on everyone, and you yourself admitted we don't know for sure if it will be a huge disaster. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

It seems that, in your mind, no disaster is truly epic so long as there are survivors, and that it wouldn't be worthwhile to you to take a $1500 pay cut to avert any disaster that leaves a handful of humans behind.

Putting aside your slight on my reasoning and risk evaluation, I maintain that it is not an epic disaster. New York may have to move a few miles up the Hudson. I admit that this is not cheap. But I submit that no one will die in the process. A slug could walk away from the rising sea it's happening so slowly (if it's happening). So it's a choice between economic hardship now, for something that could happen in the future, because of something that we might be causing, or we continue to prosper, allowing businesses to finance R&D that could produce a cheaper cleaner fuel- which they will, because who wouldn't buy that?

A made-up number from Heritage, an right-wing propaganda mill built from the ground up to oppose any and all regulation.

I suppose if Hitler had statistics supp

"No appeals--he pled guilty."

He can still appeal the sentencing, by claiming it is unduly harsh. It will probably not work though.

From an WSJ interview with a lawyer specialising in federal sentencing:

The standard on that, generally speaking, is whether the sentence is sufficient "but not greater than necessary to achieve the purposes of sentencing." He's going to have to convince the Second Circuit of that, which I'd imagine might be tough.

Since this paraphrasing and linking might be illegal in a few years, I'd better get all the linking and paraphrasing I need for the rest of my life crammed in now.

Madoff didn't do a single trade in the past 13 years or so.

Wow, so he actually beat the market?

Seriously, if he had nothing invested, I wonder why the implosion of Wall Street impacted his ponzi scheme at all?

Her $2.5 million settlement should give her an annual income of maybe $125,000 a year [...] That's a pretty good income. It's a lot more than many of her husband's ruined victims will have. But it will hardly support her past lifestyle. [...] The irony, of course, is that Mrs Madoff really needs right now a financial adviser she can trust to handle her money.

http://venturebeat.com/2007/01/15/ethanol-use-causing-corn-shortages-spiking-price-price-of-tortillas/

Well, I haven't done the direct research myself, I just know what I've read.

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2006-07-10-ethanol-study_x.htm

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119258870811261613.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/05/business/05ethanol.html
http://www.heartland.org/policybot/results/20947/Biotech_to_Ease_EthanolRelated_Corn_Shortage.html

And to further your argument (again, I'm more interested in the truth than being right)
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/may/10/ethanol-as-cause-of-food-crisis-flat-out-wrong/
http://www.gminsidenews.com/forums/f81/definitive-proof-ethanol-not-creating-food-corn-shortage-61448/

Yup, same incident. Also mentioned in this WSJ article.

Remember that the Wall Street Journal authors apparently have no knowledge whatsoever of technical things. That doesn't stop them from writing articles about technical things, however.

Air France didn't begin replacing the malfunctioning pitot tubes in the Airbus until April 2009, and the tubes were not replaced yet in the crashed aircraft. The computers were not at fault apparently; there is no reason to suspect a computer malfunction.

Notice that the Wall Street Journal article, Computer Failures Are Probed in Jet Crash, says exactly that: "... seemingly beginning with malfunctioning airspeed sensors..." The "airspeed sensors" are the pitot tubes, which in the Airbus have been known for many years to collect ice in unusual conditions, and to stop giving reliable data.

The computers did what they were programmed to do, apparently. They stopped operating when they calculated that the data was bad. At that point the pilots needed to fly the plane themselves. However, the aircraft was operating in what is known in the aircraft industry as the coffin corner". There was apparently no way a human could fly the aircraft safely at the speeds necessary to get the craft to France in time, since in a severe thunderstorm the airspeed could not be known accurately enough to prevent overstressing the aircraft.

The Wall Street Journal apparently has NO new information. Here is a quote from the article: "The Air France crash could become the first since the 1980s in which U.S. and European investigators try to piece together a probable cause in a high-profile crash without the help of information from at least one of the plane's black boxes -- the digital recorders containing detailed flight data and cockpit conversations from the flight." There is apparently NO honest reason for the Wall Street Journal to publish an article now, claiming "Computer Failures".

Quote from a June 25, 2009 Aviation Week article, EASA: No Action Soon On A330 Pitot Tubes published three days ago: "The pitot tubes have come under fire in the wake of the crash of AF447 because the accident aircraft, an A330-200, broadcast maintenance messages just before all contact was lost, indicating inconsistent speed information and potential problems with the pitot tube."

Should the Wall Street Journal be trusted for financial information? Apparently the publication did NOTHING to stop the present corruption in the financial departments of the U.S. government. Warren Buffett very publically called derivatives "financial weapons of mass destruction" beginning in 2002. The corruption was caused by the removal of laws designed to prevent fraud, at the beginning of George W. Bush's first term.

Apparently the Wall Street Journal always serves the profit of its advertisers and others in the U.S. financial industry. If publishing the article at this time and in the way it did indicates anything other than ignorance, it could be theorized that someone connected with the publication has investments in Air France or Airbus Industries.

Other similar incidents concerning the Airbus 330 are being investigated, according to a June 25, 2009 Associated Press news release, US panel probes 2 incidents involving Airbus A330s. The Wall Street Journal has access to the Associated Press, obviously. Why did it publish its misleading article two days later, which appears to blame the "computers"? The REAL story is apparently that apparently such incidents with the Airbus are common.

Here

Last time I checked the air france black box recorder hasn't been located let alone pulled out of the ocean. Without having the black box how can the NTSB be making speculations as to the cause of the downed flight? Others are speculating things like the Rudder had problems, Turbulence, this computer bug.

Until they know what the actual cause is they should avoid speculation because it does absolutely nothing other then fill media headlines with non-sense.

just how much respect Peter Schiff http://www.wntube.net/play.php?vid=3038 has gotten for that, everyone is still ignoring him. Most people don't even know his name. While the architects of the crash are working on keeping it going. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124605562634763287.html

Most independent voters who voted for Hillary Clinton or wanted to vote for Michael Bloomberg knew what would happen if Obama took office. Our worst fears have been realized.

An early example showing the real Obama is found in a quite startling essay published by the "Wall Street Journal". The Justice Department, under the leadership of Obama, dismissed a "civil lawsuit for voter intimidation against the New Black Panther Party. The Black Panthers weren't content to endorse Barack Obama. They sent their members to the polls last November to 'patrol election sites.' Fox News aired a video of two Black Panthers in military-style uniforms in a Philadelphia precinct. One of them was carrying a nightstick. ... The complaint the Justice Department filed in January (before Messrs. Obama and Holder took over) says the Panthers made 'racial threats and racial insults' to voters and 'menacing and intimidating, gestures, statements and movements directed at individuals who were present to aid voters.' One witness, Bartle Bull, a civil-rights lawyer who worked with Charles Evers in Mississippi in the 1960s, called it the worst voter intimidation he had ever seen.".

The latest example showing the real Obama is this attempt by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to censor opposing opinions. In this case, the EPA claims that the critic, Alan Carlin (BS Physics-Caltech, PhD Econ-MIT), is not a "real" scientist. Yet, Dr. Carlin has a Bachelor's degree in physics from Caltech and a Doctorate in (intensively mathematical) economics from MIT. The Caltech degree, by itself, puts Dr. Carlin in league with the very best. The training that went into that Bachelor's degree is equivalent to a Master's degree (in physics) from a lesser university.

Personally, I believe that global warming is real, but I -- as an educated Westerner -- respect the dissenting opinion of reputable scientists like Dr. Carlin. I oppose censoring them.

Note that the Bush administration attempted the same kind of censorshop in the other direction. According to a report by the "New York Times", the Bush administration had censored a NASA climatologist who was warning about the certainty of global warming.

Here's the bottom line. The emperor has changed, but his clothes remain the same. Hopefully, President Nicolas Sarkozy can save us American voters from our stupidity in electing the worst political candidates -- time after time.

I stick with the science.

Very nice of you. Unfortunately, the legislation being discussed was just passed without most Congressmen even reading it. Do you think, any of them have read "the science" behind it?

The 1934 issue was for the US, not global data. The U.S. makes up what pct. of global land area (hint: it's much less than 100%). Sloppy on your part.

No data even exists for large parts of the world in 1930ies. My point was to emphasize the unreliability of NASA's data — it would've been enough to give reasonable doubt in jury trial. Applying a lesser standard to a life-changing decision affecting the entire nation is lunacy...

No one argues that mankind is solely responsible for climate variability.

Hair-splitting. Do you suppose, Al Gore bothers to point this out in his scare-mongering presentations? You don't have to argue it explicitly, to leave the audience with the impression, that we are all responsible — especially, the capitalists (acting all corporationy) among us.

Honest debates on science and policy are welcome.

Well, the passing of the "bill of the century" has shown, that the above words have no truth in them. There was no debate — it was not welcome. The legislators didn't even have time to read the bill, that was voted on almost entirely on the party-lines. Hopefully, it will die in the Senate now and we'll be able to conduct those "honest debates" you are talking about. The ball is rolling already...

So we should believe you, an anomnymous internet nutjob, over the vast majority of climatologists and atmospheric physicists. Because why?

How about listening to the scientists who don't buy the global warming hype?

The number of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the U.N. -- 13 times the number who authored the U.N.'s 2007 climate summary for policymakers. Joanne Simpson, the world's first woman to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement last year that she was finally free to speak "frankly" of her nonbelief. Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made warming "the worst scientific scandal in history." Norway's Ivar Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the "new religion." A group of 54 noted physicists, led by Princeton's Will Happer, is demanding the American Physical Society revise its position that the science is settled. (Both Nature and Science magazines have refused to run the physicists' open letter.)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124597505076157449.html#mod=djemEditorialPage