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Thanks! I just used some abstract rules in my efficiency, and cut my heating bills by 27%!

That would be your fault for over paying in the first place.

Your quoted costs are from The Heritage Foundation. Frankly, I trust the CBO numbers to be closer to reality. To get where the Heritage Foundation wants you to go, the permits have to auction at around $50/ton, and the money has to simply disappear from the economy.

You can listen to lies on blind faith all you want, just don't expect anyone else to seriously consider your opinion. The CBO pretty much backs my conclusion that it will decrease the standard of living for many people by attempting to assert an offset in the cost per household by the inflation it causes and thereby automagically reducing the tax burden.

I don't know where you got the $50/ton number the heritage foundation supposedly uses. I just checked and they seem to be getting the the $1,870 by factoring the hit to the GDP that the CBO admits they ignored. Perhaps you should read both for yourself instead of blindly trusting someone who is obviously out to screw you. That, or you could show me how this $50/ton number comes into play.

he $1300 figure comes from the Britain Taxpayer Alliance. Since their numbers are exactly the sort an anti-tax group could use as the basis of a splashy, self-promoting report, I refuse to accept the figure without outside verification. They have an agenda, The Heritage Foundation has an agenda. The CBO at least has a mission of non-partisanship.

You mean like your $50/ton figure that doesn't seem to fit where you want it too? You have the ability to refuse to accept anything but it's you that will be ignorant, not everyone else.

Finally, since you've said you're not against caps in general, how would you construct a cap so that it caused no undue hardship to anybody? What is your path to reducing emissions by 80% by 2050, and why is it superior to what is now before Congress?

First of all, I don't think I would need a hard cap in the first place. All we need is a target number and a process to outline a transition in which power companies have to move over to renewable or relatively carbon neutral production capabilities by requiring them to plan all new expansions after 10 years in either of the two, estimating an useful life on existing production facilities, then require them to stick to that number and replace the facilities with one of the newer availible alternative models. This could take somewhere between 20 to 80 years to get all electric generation on something more friendly to the environment. It would also cause the transition to be gradual over this time and allows for improvements in designs and efficiencies that limit the impact of inflation. The other thing is to increase the cafe standards for new cars 20-50 years out to be either carbon neutral or completely renewable. This again allows for a graceful transition where the increases are in line with inflation without harming the economy. Finally, I would employ government funded research to assist in finding the technology making this possible and instead of the current model of licensing a patent, I would offer it free to any company/person based in America and paying taxes in America under the condition of them having a compulsory licensing policy in which any improvements they make are to be shared for a small fee with other American people or companies and allow them to license to foreign companies based on however they see fit.

Finally, once the electricity is all neutral and friendly, we should offer one time gas-electric conversions for HVAC and water heaters for all private citizens at their convenience and allow companies to use a portion of

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124597505076157449.html

pollution per capita has a lot more to do with population density then efficiency unless your going to use abstract rules in your efficiency.

Anyways, the cap and trade laws are not identical to those in Europe. It turns out that in Europe, they increased the costs to the "average" family by $1,300 a year. In the US with the US limits in this bill being voted on, we are looking at an estimated costs starting out at adding $1,870 in costs for the average family which will increase to over $6,800 by the time everything is implemented.

Yes, it's most likely you are over estimating a lot of things. The biggest is your intellect and ability to fathom the real implications of this program. And no, people are not saying no caps at all, they are saying it has to be done in ways that do not damage the economy or place people through hardships that aren't necessary. Why is taking the time to do it right such a big fucking inconvenience for this democrat congress. It's like the bailouts in which they claimed to be outraged a bonuses being paid when the democrats wrote the law to allow the bonuses to be paid then forgot it was there (or didn't think anyone was actually smart enough to look) and acted outrages at their own actions.

This will be the largest tax increase in United States history. The House Dems are rushing this bill through without even reading the bill. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124597505076157449.html

You're right. This bill should really be called "A Tax Increase For All Americans." The estimated tax revenue the government expects to extract from the population from the passage of this bill is huge.

The Wall Street Journal would certainly agree with you.

Britain did something similar, and the average family is paying an extra $1,300 (USD) in taxes per year.

According to Wall Street Journal, at least, the "Cap & Trade" law will constitute the biggest tax in US history...

The sad part is, even after the human-caused "global warming" proves to be either grossly overstated or completely bogus, the tax will stay on for decades — just like all other taxes have...

Global warming advocates don't bother with proofs, burdening the skeptics (branded "deniers") with that instead. They only adjust their PR-campaigning, such as switching to the term "climate change", when the actual weather changes from hotter to colder such as over the past two years. Indeed, as Che Guevarra repeats from millions of their T-shirts:

To send men to the firing squad, judicial proof is unnecessary. These procedures are an archaic bourgeois detail.

("Flamebait" my capitalist behind.)

But, hey, if the true goal is destruction of Capitalism, one should not bother with too much honesty — it only slows down the fall of the hated civilization.

But isn't a bigger problem the cost of malpractice insurance?

Yes, but not directly. The root problem is that even allegations of malpractice are so career-ending that almost all directs practice defensive medicine. If there is a 1:10,000,000 chance of the patient having some condition, then just about every doctor will write for the $2,000 test to detect it because they're screwed if they don't.

That's pointing out that fanatical rants against anything government run ignore the military because it would disprove their argument.

The military employs a lot of dedicated and good people in a system that's almost hopelessly inefficient. I've never, not even once, heard a vet talk about how well-run their command was.

I imagine her biggest single expense is malpractice. Well, let's compromise: let's do away with private and non-regulated malpractice insurance in exchange for caps on lawsuits to an arbitrarily high number, like 20 million dollars.

You and I agree, but Obama doesn't:

Now, I recognize that it will be hard to make some of these changes if doctors feel like they are constantly looking over their shoulder for fear of lawsuits. Some doctors may feel the need to order more tests and treatments to avoid being legally vulnerable. That's a real issue. And while I'm not advocating caps on malpractice awards which I believe can be unfair to people who've been wrongfully harmed, I do think we need to explore a range of ideas about how to put patient safety first, let doctors focus on practicing medicine, and encourage broader use of evidence-based guidelines. That's how we can scale back the excessive defensive medicine reinforcing our current system of more treatment rather than better care.

Let's require private health insurance companies and hospitals to have limits on how much they can mark up toilet paper.

Sure, but can hospitals then be allowed to turn away patients that can't pay since they'd no longer be able to subsidize them via paying patients?

Or we can pretend that everything is fine.

It's clearly not, but I don't think that saturating the market with low-cost doctors is the answer.

The point is, maybe the US are unable to build profitable nuclear power, but that doesn't make nuclear power unprofitable.

Except that even a Freemarket think tank and business magazines say that even China, France, India, and Russis doesn't have profitable nuclear power plants. Or do you not consider the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, or Fortune reputable.

Well what that article mainly states is that the capital costs are rising. While this might affect nuclear power plants more than many other energy production methods, the current economic situation probably corrects some of this. But anyway, capital costs aren't bound to one specific energy production type, all of them are affected.

The same stands for uranium mining. Just because the US has one/some mines that have issues,

And what of other nations? The US isn't the only nation that has had problems with uranium mining. Canada has had problems, so has Austrslia.

I'm not saying that uranium mines can't be a problem. Any mines can have huge ecological impact. However it can't be generalized to all of them.

I dug out the following page about nuclear power in Finland.

I have one question and one problem. The question is is nuclear power profitable in Finland without government subsidies? And the problem is is that that webpage is on the industry's website and is therefor biased. Sure, the links I provided are to websites that are biased as well, but they are biased to the free market and business. If there were money to be made in nuclear power, without government subsidies, they're be at the head of the line in support of nuclear power.

Uhm nuclear power is _not_ subsidised in Finland, so please, welcome to the ranks :).

"Plus really, considering that Apple has plans to appoint a new CEO if Jobs dies, they have done all they need to for their shareholders."

Today's Wall Street Journal made the argument that it is in fact more important to hang onto the guy that's been running the shop in Jobs' absence. Tim Cook has now run Apple twice in Jobs' stead, and has impressed both times. Jobs will inevitably retire (or die) sooner rather than later, and there seems to be no doubt that they want to keep the captain's chair for Cook. While he was never given the "interim CEO" title, the Journal notes that he's pretty much done the CEO job this past year, including negotiations with AT&T on iPhone issues. He's already on Nike's board, and again, according to the same story, Motorola and Dell both tried to snatch him a year ago. Right now, he's making a pittance compared to Jobs, and under his watch, Apple's stock has gone up 60% since January. I agree with the Journal here, and I think Apple would be wise to cough up a lot of cash to keep this guy. Pretty much everyone agrees the guy is indispensable.

WSJ: Stand-In shines at Apple

And that's where Ahmadinejad got his 60% of the vote. It might be interesting to enable the 'intellectual elite' of Iran living in the big cities to make their displeasure known to the rest of the world. But as long as they have a semblance of a democratic system, their fundies are going to run the place.

It is also where more than 100% of the people voted (you'll have to scroll down on that link, I don't know why I can't get a static link directly to that article), and somehow Ahmadinejad got a lot of new support since the previous election. Seems a bit unlikely, don't you think? If Ahmadinejad does have such huge support, why does he have to photoshop his crowds?

The people in the countryside are religious, but so are the people in the city, and so are the reformists. In fact, the entire basis for this democratic push is based on Islamic religious principles. Notice also that Mousavi is not trying to force himself to become president, he is merely asking for fair elections. This must be something even people in mud huts must want, otherwise they wouldn't have voted. There was a poll taken before the election that confirms this point: nearly 4 out of 5 said they wanted to elect even the supreme leader.

While none of us can go to Iran and ask people what they think, and while it is possible that Ahmadinejad won the election and might possibly even win a revote, it is hard to find a reason to think that most Iranians don't support Mousavi's ideas of fair, honest elections. Who votes and then doesn't want their vote counted?

The point is, maybe the US are unable to build profitable nuclear power, but that doesn't make nuclear power unprofitable.

Except that even a Freemarket think tank and business magazines say that even China, France, India, and Russis doesn't have profitable nuclear power plants. Or do you not consider the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, or Fortune reputable.

The same stands for uranium mining. Just because the US has one/some mines that have issues,

And what of other nations? The US isn't the only nation that has had problems with uranium mining. Canada has had problems, so has Austrslia.

I dug out the following page about nuclear power in Finland.

I have one question and one problem. The question is is nuclear power profitable in Finland without government subsidies? And the problem is is that that webpage is on the industry's website and is therefor biased. Sure, the links I provided are to websites that are biased as well, but they are biased to the free market and business. If there were money to be made in nuclear power, without government subsidies, they're be at the head of the line in support of nuclear power.

Falcon

Nokia Siemens Networks, the joint venture of Siemens AG and Nokia Corp, provided the deep packet inspection monitoring center within the Iranian government's telecom monopoly as part of a larger contract with Iran that included mobile-phone networking technology, according to the following article:

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

I dunno why you have to bring political parties into it. Tax and spend is absolute garbage regardless of your party. Oregon is primarily a democratic state and they just train wrecked themselves - http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124545298617532789.html

Good job Oregon government. Way to help out your citizens by jacking up taxes and chasing away businesses rather than cutting back on government crap. We're in a recession. Citizens have no money because they have no jobs. That means the state government gets less money. That means government should also get to spend less money, but in fact it usually means they just invent new taxes.

I wouldn't go THAT far to say she lied. I would at least like to give her the benefit of the doubt before attaching labels.

In other words, you do not want to believe that she lied because it makes her look bad. She misstated the date of when the drive was replaced by more than a year. That was a lie, pure and simple.

The babysitter did it? On her computer, under her password protected user ID? I know it is hard for you to accept, but you have at least some responsibility for what other people do on your equipment when you allow them access. Just like when you lend someone your car.

There was another story this last week about someone going to jail for making an unauthorized copy of the movie "The Love Guru" and passing this same onto a relative. Something is amiss here in the legalese forest...$US1.92M for 24 songs, jailed for "distributing" a lousy movie (shame alone should be punishment)...what next?

Really? Let's look at the actual facts of that "Love Guru" case (emphasis added):

Jack Yates, 28, was sentenced to six months in prison today for making an unauthorized pre-release copy of "The Love Guru," the Mike Myers comedy that Paramount Pictures released last summer. Yates made the illegal DVD when he worked at a Burbank-based tape duplication company that Paramount hired last May to make a promotional DVD copy of the film to show on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno." Soon after, a high-quality version of the movie popped up on the Internet -- and was subsequently downloaded more than 85,000 times (sadly, the film made less of an impact on audiences when it debuted in theaters on June 20th, receiving dismal reviews and grossing a paltry $13.9 million its opening weekend).

When confronted, Yates accused co-workers and Paramount employees of putting the contraband copy on the Internet. But videotaped footage showed Yates making the unauthorized copy of "The Love Guru" at work before leaving the building and then going into his car, Assistant U.S. Attorney Erik M. Silber said. Yates subsequently blamed his grandmother, saying that he showed the movie at her birthday party and she then gave it away to a cousin who gave it to a friend who was the former roommate of the man who is believed to have uploaded the movie, but has not yet been charged. In his plea agreement, Yates confessed to making a copy of the comedy and later distributing it to others.

Oh, yes, poor Mr. Yates obviously didn't know he was violating his employer's trust, making an unauthorized copy of a movie on stolen material, sneaking it out of the building, and then blaming everyone else. He is just a victim of MPAA and these pesky copyright laws he was completely ignorant of even though he works in the legal copying industry. /sarcasm

I do not feel sorry for either of these people. Neither should have infringed on the copyrights of others. Neither would have gotten in trouble if they had not infringed. Moral of the story: Don't infringe on the copyrights of others. That is what you, in your infinite self-centered selfishness, miss. Every single person your little heart bleeds for and for whom you cry tears is in the wrong.

And, just to hoist you on your own petard, why is it that so many slashdotters only thinks copyright is OK when it works for FLOSS?

There may be enough wind in the world to supply our need 40 times over, but is the cost of tapping the energy source competitive with the cost of coal, gas, or nuclear power?

All of this get subsidies, as well as pass costs to others. Coal slurry spills happen all too frequently. Mountain top removal contaminates a lot of land. As does uranium mining. Without government subsidies nuclear power isn't even profitable. Though natural gas emits a lot less CO2 than coal when burned it releases a lot more methane, which is more than 20 tymes as potent a greenhouse gas as CO2. Then it needs pipelines to deliver it.

Well, actually, just because those two articles found negative aspects of nuclear power price, I dug out the following page about nuclear power in Finland. Here the price of nuclear power was EUR 2.37 c/kWh, when the closest second one, coal was 2.81 c/kWh. Wind power was somewhere around 5 c/kWh. The point is, maybe the US are unable to build profitable nuclear power, but that doesn't make nuclear power unprofitable. The same stands for uranium mining. Just because the US has one/some mines that have issues, is no reason to condemn uranium mining in general, at least with modern methods.

There may be enough wind in the world to supply our need 40 times over, but is the cost of tapping the energy source competitive with the cost of coal, gas, or nuclear power?

All of this get subsidies, as well as pass costs to others. Coal slurry spills happen all too frequently. Mountain top removal contaminates a lot of land. As does uranium mining. Without government subsidies nuclear power isn't even profitable. Though natural gas emits a lot less CO2 than coal when burned it releases a lot more methane, which is more than 20 tymes as potent a greenhouse gas as CO2. Then it needs pipelines to deliver it.

We know that there are all sorts of natural energy sources around us, but its the financial cost that keeps us from recovering it.

More like it's politics. If financial costs were that important there would be no nuclear power. As I said before even coal gets subsidies. "Chevron agrees to lobby with Sierra Club to end coal subsidies". In "My Climate Bill 'Has Huge Subsidies For Clean Coal! Huge!' Rep Edward Markey goes over some of the subsidies different energy sources get.

Personaly I think that we really ought to build more nuclear power plants. Yes there is waste but overall it is fairly clean and cheap and would do more for preserving the environment and supplying electricity than this would.

BS. Mining for nuclear fuel is probably the dirtiest mining there is. Reprocessing, sure fuel can be reprocessed but as the world leader in reprocessing France found it leaves behind a lot of toxic chemicals. Not only that but if not for massive government subsidies nuclear power would not be profitable, it may actually loose money. Here's an article from a Wall Street Journal blog: "It's the Economics, Stupid: Nuclear Power's Bogeyman. The Freemarket think tank CATO reprinted this Forbes article "Hooked on Subsidies. Notice this paragraph:
"How do France (and India, China and Russia) build cost-effective nuclear power plants? They don't. Governmental officials in those countries, not private investors, decide what is built. Nuclear power appeals to state planners, not market actors."

Falcon

(Safeway for example managed to reduce health insurance costs by 40% or so by encouraging their employees to take care of themselves)

And also in the Wall Street Journal, here is an article about Mr. Burd, of Safeway, going to Washington to lobby regarding how the market can rein in costs:

Today, Safeway has accomplished what Washington claims is the goal: The company's per-capita health-care expenses have remained flat, compared to the near 40% increase experienced by the rest of corporate America over the past four years. This has not been done by cutting care or shifting costs to employees. Nearly 80% of the 30,000 nonunion Safeway workers who take part in the program rate it good, very good, or excellent.

It's so much more complicated than that. It's a debate where two sides can argue opposite points, and both be absolutely correct. Here is an article that addresses one side of it:

Short answer: there's no easy fix. Medical costs are rising for several reasons:

* Rising costs and quality of medical care (30 years ago there were no MRIs, hip replacements).
* Corrupt doctors, ordering tests because they are profitable (read the article, it goes into great detail on that point)
* Corrupt insurance agencies (sometimes charging 30% overhead)
* Incompetent government (a point which you outlined)
* Clueless patients wanting every possible test (I can't blame them for this, it's not like we have medical degrees) and not taking care of themselves (Safeway for example managed to reduce health insurance costs by 40% or so by encouraging their employees to take care of themselves)
* Oh yes, and how can any such list be incomplete without including pharmaceutical companies and medical lobbies? Many problems there.

I'm sure I'm missing some. The good news is with all these problems, there is lots of room for improvement. The bad news is that these problems exist, and the path to fixing them isn't entirely clear. I am not sure that I favor this bill, but I think it is good we are having a debate about it. We should have had this debate 10, 20, or 40 years ago.

The Wall Street Journal articles have problems with lack of attribution and stated lack of verification of this info. If the story true (and I think it probably is), the authors of the articles need to elaborate.

Immediately after the article was posted on their site, I wrote the writers and editors the following email:

Date: Sat, Jun 20, 2009 at 01:23
Subject: Questionable standards for reporting by Wall Street Journal journalists Kane, Lublin, and Meckler
To: Yukari Iwatani Kane , "Joann S. Lublin" , Laura Meckler
Cc: "Robert J. Thomson" , New York Times News Department

Dear Journalists of The Wall Street Journal,

The two articles referred to below, published June 20, 2009 on the website of The Wall Street Journal, state controversially without attribution that Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs received a liver transplant in Tennessee approximately two months ago:

Reported June 20, 2009 by Yukari Iwatani Kane and Joann S. Lublin, "Jobs Had Liver Transplant",
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124546193182433491.html

Reported June 20, 2009 by Laura Meckler, "Jobs's Transplant Highlights Differing Wait Times",
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124546226305633529.html


As journalists you are expected to seek reliable sources and to accompany reports of controversial facts with attribution. However, as Yukari Iwatani Kane and Joann S. Lublin state in the first article, "The specifics of Mr. Jobs's surgery couldn't be established." They further state explicit lack of verification of Job's putative surgery by spokespeople for each of the three hospitals in Tennessee designated as liver-transplant centers.

As of ten minutes ago I could find only the following two other online articles reporting on this topic. As their sources these articles cite only The Wall Street Journal, and at that as a secondary source:

Reported June 19, 2009 by MG Siegler, "Not Only Was Steve Jobs Sick. He Had A Liver Transplant",
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/06/19/not-only-was-steve-jobs-sick-he-had-a-liver-transplant/

Reported June 19, 2009 by Peter Kavka, "Report: Steve Jobs Is Recovering From Liver Transplant, Still Coming Back to Apple",
http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20090619/report-steve-jobs-is-recovering-from-liver-transplant-still-coming-back-to-apple/


Do you have primary sources of this information? Have you checked and cross checked this information? If you have evidence, have you validated its authenticity? Do you have corroboration?

If so, please elaborate in your articles.

The Wall Street Journal articles have problems with lack of attribution and stated lack of verification of this info. If the story true (and I think it probably is), the authors of the articles need to elaborate.

Immediately after the article was posted on their site, I wrote the writers and editors the following email:

Date: Sat, Jun 20, 2009 at 01:23
Subject: Questionable standards for reporting by Wall Street Journal journalists Kane, Lublin, and Meckler
To: Yukari Iwatani Kane , "Joann S. Lublin" , Laura Meckler
Cc: "Robert J. Thomson" , New York Times News Department

Dear Journalists of The Wall Street Journal,

The two articles referred to below, published June 20, 2009 on the website of The Wall Street Journal, state controversially without attribution that Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs received a liver transplant in Tennessee approximately two months ago:

Reported June 20, 2009 by Yukari Iwatani Kane and Joann S. Lublin, "Jobs Had Liver Transplant",
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124546193182433491.html

Reported June 20, 2009 by Laura Meckler, "Jobs's Transplant Highlights Differing Wait Times",
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124546226305633529.html


As journalists you are expected to seek reliable sources and to accompany reports of controversial facts with attribution. However, as Yukari Iwatani Kane and Joann S. Lublin state in the first article, "The specifics of Mr. Jobs's surgery couldn't be established." They further state explicit lack of verification of Job's putative surgery by spokespeople for each of the three hospitals in Tennessee designated as liver-transplant centers.

As of ten minutes ago I could find only the following two other online articles reporting on this topic. As their sources these articles cite only The Wall Street Journal, and at that as a secondary source:

Reported June 19, 2009 by MG Siegler, "Not Only Was Steve Jobs Sick. He Had A Liver Transplant",
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/06/19/not-only-was-steve-jobs-sick-he-had-a-liver-transplant/

Reported June 19, 2009 by Peter Kavka, "Report: Steve Jobs Is Recovering From Liver Transplant, Still Coming Back to Apple",
http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20090619/report-steve-jobs-is-recovering-from-liver-transplant-still-coming-back-to-apple/


Do you have primary sources of this information? Have you checked and cross checked this information? If you have evidence, have you validated its authenticity? Do you have corroboration?

If so, please elaborate in your articles.

Leveraged funds (like ProShares Ultra and UltraShort funds) are only designed to work over a single day. Holding a leveraged fund for a long period may have very bad consequences. For example, SLL (ProShares UltraShort Real Estate) was down 43% in 2008, when it should have been up 100%.

Once unaccounted money gets decent buying power, then corruption sets in

Yeah, because there's no corruption in Obama's government now (cough Geithner) (cough Daschle) (cough brewing AmeriCorps scandal). Thanks for figuring it all out for the rest of us dummies, liberal elite!

In Iran, the Revolutionary Guards (RG) -- effectively, a council of religious enforcers -- determine who can run for the office of president. The demonstrators in the streets of Iran are not complaining about the theocracy. Indeed, most Iranians love a brutal theocracy. The demonstrators are complaining that one of the candidates approved by the RG did not get all the votes that were cast for him.

Complaining only about the "rigged" election is like complaining only about the bad sound from a cheap radio in a car but ignoring the fact that the car has a broken transmission.

Note the following. After the Kremlin exited Eastern Europe in 1989, the peoples of each nation in Eastern Europe rapidly established a genuine democracy and a free market. Except for Romania (where its people killed their dictator), there was no violence.

That is how people act when they want freedom and free markets.

In 1979, after the Iranian people overthrow the despot whom the Americans supported, the Iranians immediately established a brutal, authoritarian theocracy.

That is how people act when they reject both freedom and free markets.

Cultures are different. Eastern-European culture and Iranian culture are different. The Iranians bear 100% of the blame for the existence of a tyrannical government in Iran.

Now, look at Vietnam. According to a reliable source, "approximately 20 million gallons of [agent orange] were used in Vietnam between 1962 and 1971 to remove unwanted plant life and leaves which otherwise provided cover for enemy forces during the Vietnam Conflict."

This injustice (committed by the Americans) in Vietnam occurred 10 years after the injustice in Iran. The injustice in Vietnam occurred over a 10-year period.

The Americans doused large areas of Vietnam with agent orange, poisoning both the land and the people. Yet, the Vietnamese do not channel their energies into seeking revenge (by, e. g., building a nuclear bomb) against the West. The Vietnamese do not aid and abet terrorist groups seeking to kill Americans. Rather, the Vietnamese are diligently modernizing their society. They will reach 1st-world status (i. e., a prosperous liberal Western democracy) long before the Iranians.

Cultures are different. Vietnamese culture and Iranian culture are different. The Iranians bear 100% of the blame for the existence of a tyrannical government in Iran.

Yeah. I've been looking at it, and there are a number of anomalies with the election. The state news announced the winner (by two thirds) even before the official count was released. The votes themselves were counted extremely quickly, by hand. Ahmadinejad won more votes than any president in Iran, ever. Apparently he won in all regions and demographic groups. So I have come to agree with you.

Another point, there seems to be some question about who is actually in control. Here's an article http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124502114089613711.html Some are saying that the Supreme Leader Khamenei was coerced into accepting the election results by the military elite. Ahmadinejad is planning on purging 'corruption' from the state, taking the assets of many mullahs and redistributing it to the poor.

Apparently there is right now a struggle between the religious and military sectors of Iran for power over the country. The military side has just seized control, but at the rate they are going, they will end try to push their power too far and collapse. This is often the way of dictators.

Using this model the itunes store could distribute music for "free" although it would be charged at the per GB rate.

Then when every content provider demands "their pound of flesh" only the rich could afford access.

Market competition should keep the costs down.

There is no competition in broadband access. Many don't have an option to get broadband and most of those who do have access to broadband have either cable or DSL through one company. And that's how it's going to remain unless and until there is an open infrastructure.

An ISP would pay big bucks to host the WSJ

If I want I can already get an online subscription to WSJ. WSJ does not need to demand payments from ISPs. Other services do the same. Heck /. does. However I don't want a subscription and I don't want to have to pay more for my net access.

Falcon

It has NOTHING to do with Iraq. Funding is totally driven by votes. The only reason people in Washington bellyache about Iraq is that is means less money to buy votes with. After all, what Congressman doesn't want a library, pool, road, or bridge, named after them to enforce upon the people " I DID THIS "

I can guarantee you will see more money pissed away on climate sciences. You will see all the wonderful funds that could go into research instead piped into ethanol subsidies, bailing out the UAW and a few more unions who spent themselves broke during the election http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124458836591599769.html, you have another soon to be mismanaged payout through the http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124467696781404127.html, and what about the fact there is no money and Congress constantly doesn't even follow their own rules http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124467627264104053.html

Sorry, Iraq is a bullshit answer and we all her know it. It is the latte sipping head nodding know-nothing response. It was funny/stupid when Bush was around but it was just as relevant as to why little money goes into science now as it was then - which is it has no effect - but it does make a good excuse for the uninformed.

Look at our budget expenditures, WHERE THE FUCK IS THERE ANY MONEY LEFT? Hell, where does the real money end and the funny money begin?

Battery research gets no votes. NASA gets hardly any votes. If you noticed outside of pandering to specific groups through health research almost all science related grants are for building named sites (named as in after the sponsors)

OK, lets say we come up with some money. Well how long after we start funding research into better automobiles before the EU screams we are breaking rules by funding research the auto companies should do themselves? We see examples all the time with Boeing.

No its not Iraq, it never was. Congress is buried under the din of thousands of screaming special interest groups and they know who keeps them in office.

It has NOTHING to do with Iraq. Funding is totally driven by votes. The only reason people in Washington bellyache about Iraq is that is means less money to buy votes with. After all, what Congressman doesn't want a library, pool, road, or bridge, named after them to enforce upon the people " I DID THIS "

I can guarantee you will see more money pissed away on climate sciences. You will see all the wonderful funds that could go into research instead piped into ethanol subsidies, bailing out the UAW and a few more unions who spent themselves broke during the election http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124458836591599769.html, you have another soon to be mismanaged payout through the http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124467696781404127.html, and what about the fact there is no money and Congress constantly doesn't even follow their own rules http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124467627264104053.html

Sorry, Iraq is a bullshit answer and we all her know it. It is the latte sipping head nodding know-nothing response. It was funny/stupid when Bush was around but it was just as relevant as to why little money goes into science now as it was then - which is it has no effect - but it does make a good excuse for the uninformed.

Look at our budget expenditures, WHERE THE FUCK IS THERE ANY MONEY LEFT? Hell, where does the real money end and the funny money begin?

Battery research gets no votes. NASA gets hardly any votes. If you noticed outside of pandering to specific groups through health research almost all science related grants are for building named sites (named as in after the sponsors)

OK, lets say we come up with some money. Well how long after we start funding research into better automobiles before the EU screams we are breaking rules by funding research the auto companies should do themselves? We see examples all the time with Boeing.

No its not Iraq, it never was. Congress is buried under the din of thousands of screaming special interest groups and they know who keeps them in office.

It has NOTHING to do with Iraq. Funding is totally driven by votes. The only reason people in Washington bellyache about Iraq is that is means less money to buy votes with. After all, what Congressman doesn't want a library, pool, road, or bridge, named after them to enforce upon the people " I DID THIS "

I can guarantee you will see more money pissed away on climate sciences. You will see all the wonderful funds that could go into research instead piped into ethanol subsidies, bailing out the UAW and a few more unions who spent themselves broke during the election http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124458836591599769.html, you have another soon to be mismanaged payout through the http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124467696781404127.html, and what about the fact there is no money and Congress constantly doesn't even follow their own rules http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124467627264104053.html

Sorry, Iraq is a bullshit answer and we all her know it. It is the latte sipping head nodding know-nothing response. It was funny/stupid when Bush was around but it was just as relevant as to why little money goes into science now as it was then - which is it has no effect - but it does make a good excuse for the uninformed.

Look at our budget expenditures, WHERE THE FUCK IS THERE ANY MONEY LEFT? Hell, where does the real money end and the funny money begin?

Battery research gets no votes. NASA gets hardly any votes. If you noticed outside of pandering to specific groups through health research almost all science related grants are for building named sites (named as in after the sponsors)

OK, lets say we come up with some money. Well how long after we start funding research into better automobiles before the EU screams we are breaking rules by funding research the auto companies should do themselves? We see examples all the time with Boeing.

No its not Iraq, it never was. Congress is buried under the din of thousands of screaming special interest groups and they know who keeps them in office.

Except in some questionable cases where it appears the treasury pressured companies to make deals that might not have been in their interest. Or in other cases where it exercised non-controlling pressure to get things it wanted. In the first case, the CEO of Bank of America indicated that the board would be removed if he didn't approve a deal to merge with Merrill Lynch http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124045610029046349.html. In the second case, the White House forced out the CEO of GM by threatening to withhold funding http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/29/AR2009032900708.html. Admittedly a legal action, but the government is leveraging itself a little uncomfortably.

The most recent bad accident before the recent one--the one we actually know the cause of--was caused by pilots overriding their computerized safety systems: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124212789938210353.html

The plane iced up and lost speed, and the computer sent the plane into a dive to regain the critical speed. The pilots responded by thinking "Down? We don't want to go down!" and pulled up, which meant they lost the acceleration, the ability to stay airborne, and fifty-some passengers. The transcripts are chilling and gruesome.

Human nature apparently makes people more willing to trust human judgment than machines. I very much *don't* want to give the public, who may be perfectly sensible and intelligent in their areas of expertise but who are utterly ignorant of modern aircraft the right to override actual, scientific determination of what the safest way is to handle a specific emergency. Which is exactly what will happen if airlines need to pander to passengers going by zero knowledge and a ton of gut instinct about what makes them feel good.

> "I have no idea what a functional market is supposed to be"

Yes, you've already shown that. Thanks, economists:

http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20090605-709515.html

Dysfunctional market plays havoc with instruments

By Lindsay Whipp

Published: March 17 2009 11:47 | Last updated: March 17 2009 11:47

When investors are looking for healthy yields on government debt in advanced countries, Japan does not generally leap to mind, as its interest rates have been so low for so long.

However, its inflation-linked bonds are one of the highest yielding government securities in the developed world, according to Royal Bank of Scotland.

But this is the case only because the market has become dysfunctional. Prices on these bonds â" which are linked to Japanâ(TM)s consumer price index â" have fallen sharply and many investors have had to mark those losses to market.

Price movements have lost any obvious link to inflation and demand has dried up to the extent that estimates suggest daily turnover now reaches just a few billion yen.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8017452.stm

Mortgage market 'dysfunctional'

The UK mortgage market remains "highly dysfunctional", according to the chairman of the lenders' trade body.

Matthew Wyles, chairman of the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML), said early signs of a seasonal increase in demand showed the market could be stabilising.

But he warned that 2009 was going to be "very, very tough" for lenders.

The group's director general claimed that a "backroom industry" of top-up loans could emerge if high loan-to-value mortgages were banned.

It is clearly a message of solidarity.

An article in the Wall Street Journal (http://blogs.wsj.com/chinajournal/2009/06/02/twitter-goes-down-in-china/) says, "A Twitter spokeswoman didn't have an immediate comment and couldn't confirm whether the service was blocked in China." while Australian news media (http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,25581519-5001028,00.html) report, "A Microsoft official said Tuesday its Bing.com, Live.com and Hotmail.com sites were among several to have been blocked for customers in China."

Doesn't sound like the block is self-imposed. But would that make sense in any case? Self-imposed censorship in the name of free speech?

As someone who lives in China

As someone who also lives in China, my attempts to load Twitter bear the usual Great Firewall earmarks: "The connection was reset" errors with easy circumvention via anonymous proxy. Note that as of this writing (June 5, 9 PM local time), MSN, LiveMail and HotMail are accessible in Shanghai; Twitter and YouTube are not.

Lee Kaiwen, Shanghai, Chine

Heck, even guys living in boxes under bridges have Internet access and accounts on Facebook.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124363359881267523.html

[John]

Well, I'd argue that its pretty well established that women can't compete in raw strength to the same level as men, so in many athletic fields they can't.

I'd say that's inaccurate, too. It would be more accurate to say that the top end of all women can't reach the level of raw strength as that of the top end of all men. There are many women who are stronger and faster than a number of men.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_and_intelligence - variation (standard deviation) is higher in males than in females across a number of different measurement categories, including (presumably) factors that lead to any posited mathematical ability. This has been put forth to explain the "drop-off" effect in any number of fields.

See also http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121691806472381521.html and of course, The Bell Curve...

They had asbestos plaintiffs who were diagnosed with asbestosis but not silicosis, rediagnosed with silicosis but not asbestosis, by the same doctor, with the same X-ray. They laid the seeds for their own destruction."

Or how about in New Mexico where the attorney general seems to give good contracts to those who pay? Or maybe that's just a general politician thing.

Or how about doctors who are no longer paying for malpractice insurance as a way to ensure against lawsuits? Here's a quote from one of those doctors:

"I have a strong feeling I'll never hear from another attorney again," Rosenbaum said. "Sure, I'm nervous. But I practice carefully. The first thing lawyers do when they have a case is [check] all the doctors involved to see who has how much coverage."

In theory the law is great: it prevents doctors from malpracticing by allowing lawsuits. In practice, it's only turned to increase expenses for everyone, while enriching customers (and a few lucky clients).

These are not isolated examples. The list goes on and on. If lawyers want to have a good reputation, they sure don't act like it (of course there are exceptions).

1. google for this: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124362706194767281.html 2. click on 1st link 3. no paywall if you come from google

I think you misunderstood - It didn't find it surprising or cool that the WSJ was bashing Obama's plan for the future. That's pretty standard practice. But the fact that the WSJ was referencing the Underpants Gnomes from South Park was both novel and pretty cool.

Wasn't trying to go on an Obama rant, just saying that Underpants Gnomes in the WSJ was kinda neat. Also, I messed up - it wasn't his financial plan, it was his plan for closing Gitmo. Although dangerously off-topic here, have a link for those curious:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124329131991652291.html

I think Microsoft might be making another push to get Windows on more netbooks. There was a poorly-written piece in the Wall Street Journal today warning consumers not to buy netbooks with Linux. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124346723960760371.html Once, just once, I would like to see a column from them warning consumers that their Windows netbooks will not work out-of-the-box with Office documents -- which is true (what netbook comes with an Office license?).

Beavis and Butthead creator has a new show airing on ABC. It should be funny.

Any volunteers?

well this guy could probably do a lot of it...

1) CBS has denied this yesterday:

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/05/26/lastfm-denies-data-sharing-accusations-again/

âoeBoth CBS and the RIAA have already stated quite clearly, for the record, that absolutely no individual user or listener information was supplied to the RIAA by Last.fm or any division of CBS Corporation in the past, nor do we plan to do so in the future. The story posted by the Web site was based on an unnamed tipster. No inquiry was made to CBS or Last.fm about the veracity of the anonymous source. Those who consult such blogs should be aware of the standard by which such postings are sourced and published.â

2) The RIAA denied it back when it was originally a story:

http://arstechnica.com/media/news/2009/02/riaa-denies-rumors-that-lastfm-turned-over-data.ars

The RIAA has finally chimed in as well, categorically denying that any such request was ever made. "[We're] not sure where that rumor came from," RIAA spokesperson Cara Duckworth told Ars on Saturday. "It's not true."

3) Last.fm has denied this:

"Nobody at Last.fm knows anything about such a leak. We didn't when they last wrote an article, and we don't now. Any suggestion that we were complicit in transferring user data to any third party is incorrect."

"...transferring personally identifiable data from the UK to the US is against data protection laws. We wouldn't risk a lawsuit to pander to the RIAA's requests."

http://www.last.fm/forum/21717/_/535934/8#f9525592

"Last.fm has never given data linking IP addresses and scrobbles to any third party."

---------------

And 4) TechCrunch posts an article with anonymous sources claiming everything they say to be fact.

Every single party involved has denied it, all we have is the babblings of someone who has in the past been proven wrong on his attacks, and for some reason has a personal vendetta against last.fm.

To the people who were stupid enough to believe him, and deleted your accounts, good. You don't belong on the internet much less last.fm for believing everything you read as truth.

Whole Grain food is not a drug.

Now that's funny Cheerios Warning

My favorite comment was from Dr Kim

I hope it remains over-the-counter

lol

Next I'll have to get a prescription for my Quaker Oats

I started to question the whole "3 meals a day" that is brainwashed by well meaning friends and family

Right. Because for decades and centuries, people ate three meals a day because they too were brainwashed by well meaning friends and families, not to mention that evil medical industry who only wants to take your money.

Let me guess, you probably don't eat breakfast either despite the weight loss benefits.

If your every other day of eating works for you, congrats. But trying to tie it to the "typical slashdot geek" because it's a stab at societal convention and how, miraculously, today's lifestyle is so much different than the past, is crap. The only thing that has changed is people's beliefs that they need to be answerable 24/7 because without the narcissistic urge to relate to everyone and anyone how busy they are, they'd realize they're simply making excuses for not eating right.

Eating a balanced diet has ALWAYS been the correct way to maintain ones health. The fact that we ignore this simple mantra and have epiphanies when we 'discover' these miracle diets merely shows that in some cases, there's a reason for societal conventions.

> but to say that people cutting the sugary shit out of their drinks is statistically false needs citing.

And so does any claim that diet soda is effective way to control obesity.
I know of no study that shows that switching from sugar soda to aspartame helps control obesity.

http://www.webmd.com/diet/news/20050613/drink-more-diet-soda-gain-more-weight
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118523105635575469.html

1) Copy and paste the url http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124283370260739663.html

2) Copy and paste into google, resulting in a link like this

Click link and read page.

Not pasting full text of article though, so you're gonna have to do it yourself.

Is drug smuggling really such a big problem to require the use of military resources?

Yes. Hell yes.

most people who want an iphone already have one.

Not according to the WSJ.

Verification needed: "To continue reading, subscribe now!"

most people who want an iphone already have one.

Not according to the WSJ.

Whatever happened to those two girls charged with distribution of child porn for taking pictures of themselves and sending them to their boyfriends? This reminds me of that.

Nothing, yet.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124026115528336397.html