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I notice a number of replies telling you you're crazy, but interestingly enough there's this article in today's Wall Street Journal which says the same thing with different reasons.

A passenger on a 15-hour flight uses more fuel for each mile of the trip than someone on an eight-hour trip, but the airfare per mile generally doesn't rise proportionally. When fuel is cheap and traffic strong, airlines can absorb the difference.

It makes for interesting reading, particularly as it's talking about what's happening here and now, rather than merely speculating wildly.

Joe Wilson went on a fact-finding mission to Niger and returned and reported that Saddam was likely trying to get more yellowcake from Niger in his report. Wilson said Cheney sent him on that trip to Niger (lie). Then Wilson wrote the opposite of his report findings in a NY Times Op-Ed, that Saddam wasn't seeking more yellowcake. So either Wilson was lying the first time or the second. Which was it?

Wilson has certainly stated more unequivocally false things than your examples, including that his trip to Niger had nothing to do with his wife. If this was indeed false, which it seems to be, he certainly ought to have known this.

I've never seen this argument (that Wilson changed his story) before, and I can't find an easy summary of what his report said. But let's suppose your claim is true: Wilson said Saddam was "likely trying" to get yellowcake from Niger:

Saying that claim X is "probably true" is a far cry from saying that there is proof or compelling evidence for it. There is no shortage of plausible hypotheses in this world which a reasonable person might suspect and which follow deductively but for which there is no compelling evidence because they happen to be false!

In any case, even if we are utterly uncharitable towards Wilson, at worst his report had no intelligence value. Nothing Wilson said or did changes the important point, which was that Bush made a grandiose claim to justify a war based on no solid evidence.

Joe Wilson went on a fact-finding mission to Niger and returned and reported that Saddam was likely trying to get more yellowcake from Niger in his report. Wilson said Cheney sent him on that trip to Niger (lie). Then Wilson wrote the opposite of his report findings in a NY Times Op-Ed, that Saddam wasn't seeking more yellowcake. So either Wilson was lying the first time or the second. Which was it?

Wilson has certainly stated more unequivocally false things than your examples, including that his trip to Niger had nothing to do with his wife. If this was indeed false, which it seems to be, he certainly ought to have known this.

I've never seen this argument (that Wilson changed his story) before, and I can't find an easy summary of what his report said. But let's suppose your claim is true: Wilson said Saddam was "likely trying" to get yellowcake from Niger:

Saying that claim X is "probably true" is a far cry from saying that there is proof or compelling evidence for it. There is no shortage of plausible hypotheses in this world which a reasonable person might suspect and which follow deductively but for which there is no compelling evidence because they happen to be false!

In any case, even if we are utterly uncharitable towards Wilson, at worst his report had no intelligence value. Nothing Wilson said or did changes the important point, which was that Bush made a grandiose claim to justify a war based on no solid evidence.

Preservation of human life (any human life, not just our fellow Jews) is Orthodox Judaism's highest value.

It's reasons like this why people should support Israel and be very afraid of imperialist orthodox Islam. As Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah said, "We [ the Muslims ] are going to win, because they [ the Jews / Westerners ] love life and we [the Muslims ] love death"

Look who submitted this story, it was apparently someone at the Wall Street Journal: "WSJdpatton". I copied the link from the Slashdot story. I wish Slashdot would post a notice that a story is either influenced/paid, or a real reader-written story.

I agree, it's flawed, and the results are vastly exaggerated: ' "The idea that conscious deliberation before making a decision is always good is simply one of those illusions consciousness creates for us," Dr. Dijksterhuis said.'

Slashdot material will also cover accusations of LimitNone being a M$ proxy and the perills of non free software in general. The senseless accusations you are talking about will be half covered by the Wintel trade press as they did with the SCO case.

The statement:

People need to realize that Google is just another large publicly traded corporation that will do whatever it takes to increase its revenue, even if that means risking its reputation among developers." is right out of the M$ FUD book.

The alleged theft is laughable:

The lawsuit alleges that Google's product, called "Google Email Uploader" steals gMove's look, feel and functionality.

There were also Vague accusations of "trade secret theft" but there are several excellent free software tools that have been getting this kind of information for years. No further details were given by business wire. Let's look for more, shall we?

• Wired, same stuff Google has not had time to look over the suit and comment.
• CNet, same kind of thing with market size and potential price thrown in for fun.
• TechTree bare facts, no Google comment.
• The Inquirer does better with a brief statement of facts, without Google comment.
• The Wall Street Journal adds insight by noticing that there is a conflict of interest between small companies and large ones in any business relationship but only applies this wisdom to Google. No comment from Google.
• There are many echos in other papers and blog space which contain even less information than the Slashdot summary.
• Something to spook clueless investors about "another" billion dollar suit for Google without background information about the frequency of such things.

So, we see a one sided media blitz, complete with stock market "advice", but completely lacking in input from Google, technical insight and other information. These are M$ hallmarks.

Check out this article which details exactly what this lease and usage entails.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121391719487790187.html?mod=rss_opinion_main

In other words, the politicians are using word play to infer that the oil companies are drilling on the lands relying on public ignorance that a lease of oil producing lands does not equate to a guarantee of oil.

So basically, the process is.
1. Secure the lease
2. Get the permits to do test drilling
3. Do test drilling
4. Determine if its economically feasible to recover the oil
5. Get permits to actually to set up a site to manage it
6. Get permits to drill on the site
7. Go to court to keep your permits after being sued by every other environmentalist group
8. Drill for oil
9. Profit?

Remember the first rule : If a Congressman's lips are moving he is 99% of the time telling you a lie or a falsehood by omission.

Thanks for adding some sensible information to the discussion. Slashdot editors seem not to be able to know the difference between science and foolish imaginings.

Here is a quote, a comment to the Wall Street Journal story:

"interference changed breathing machines' ventilation rates and caused syringe pumps to stop."
These things are FCC regulated. Should I feel safe knowing that not only are some of the systems in a hospital sensitive to EMF below FCC limits, but also that several life-critical devices FAIL under such radiation levels? For example, WHY should a syringe pump be designed so fragile that some radio waves can cause it to utterly stop?
Comment by RH - June 24, 2008 at 5:00 pm

Exactly. That's what I would have said. Here's another comment (my emphasis):

The usual ignorant hysteria. First of all, the test was of the reader, not the tags. "The median distance between the RFID reader and the medical device in all EMI incidents was 30 cm (range, 0.1-600 cm)." Second, and not available in the abstract is the AE classification. OBTW, Berwick is a shill for the trial lawyers, not a serious person.
Comment by jon - June 24, 2008 at 6:06 pm

Thanks for adding some sensible information to the discussion. Slashdot editors seem not to be able to know the difference between science and foolish imaginings.

Here is a quote, a comment to the Wall Street Journal story:

"interference changed breathing machines' ventilation rates and caused syringe pumps to stop."
These things are FCC regulated. Should I feel safe knowing that not only are some of the systems in a hospital sensitive to EMF below FCC limits, but also that several life-critical devices FAIL under such radiation levels? For example, WHY should a syringe pump be designed so fragile that some radio waves can cause it to utterly stop?
Comment by RH - June 24, 2008 at 5:00 pm

Exactly. That's what I would have said. Here's another comment (my emphasis):

The usual ignorant hysteria. First of all, the test was of the reader, not the tags. "The median distance between the RFID reader and the medical device in all EMI incidents was 30 cm (range, 0.1-600 cm)." Second, and not available in the abstract is the AE classification. OBTW, Berwick is a shill for the trial lawyers, not a serious person.
Comment by jon - June 24, 2008 at 6:06 pm

from Suzlon. Their turbines crack.

Here's the WSJ article that is the source for the PC world writeup ...

Pfft, please. Amazon's algorithms are so advanced they can determine if you're a pregnant gay man, so you must really want those items, even if you don't think so.

YES:

The government has not only been intercepting international communications — they've also been intercepting communications that begin and end inside the USA. Even if you've never phoned or emailed outside the US, it's likely that communications you've made have been intercepted by the Bush administration under this program.

We know this through a careful technical analysis of the evidence provided to EFF by whistleblower and former AT&T employee Mark Klein. (You can read the analysis [PDF] and see the evidence [PDF] for yourself.) A March 2008 article in the Wall Street Journal confirmed the program's domestic focus.

Folks, call Congress, it's not too late!

=Tim=
EFF

Well, at least my Tivo doesn't think I'm gay.

The death of OLPC is obviously Intel and M$'s fault. Executives from both companies derided the device as a "toy" and failure before it was designed and then did everything possible to kill it. Here are the the short version and detailed original accusation stories. Intel kept up the FUD war, destroying sales that had been committed before the device was complete. Their employees even ran a hostile news site to make bad press.

No, you actually implied that it was illegal to resist a buyout.

No, it isn't. That's just what Carl Icahn has said. And that is his "batshit crazy" opinion.

You should think really carefully about this opinion. It is uninformed. Yes, people invest to make money, but deciding against a one-time payout in favor of growing the company is a valid position. You can't possibly be saying that accepting a buyout is always the only option for a board of directors of a publicly traded company. That's absurd.

And about this "always has been, always will be" stuff: Public corporations as we know them have been around since 1934. There have been some pretty drastic changes in the philosophy of investing since that time.

This might seem pretty obvious: Yes, it is subjective. Everyone likes money, and people invest to make money, but over what term? There is nothing to back up your claim that companies must destroy themselves if it results in a moderate-sized payday for some investors.

Eww. I don't want to know what a "big boy meeting" is.

Why are they screwed if they are not owned by somebody else?

Also, speaking of legal matters, I think that the SEC is probably (if there is any justice) looking into manipulation of Yahoo's price.

Man... Quit watching so much CNBC. Google is your friend (hah!).

And as for the kind of lawyer who would take up the kind of litigation you advocate:

Clearly the experts did not know better... http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121314811278463077.html?mod=fpa_editors_picks

When did I say that I took out a home equity loan? All I am doing is paying attention to the economic conditions around me that are in a position to affect my personal financial situation, and those that are close to me. My personal financial situation is very comfortable... for now. But things are changing rapidly around us.

Things are bad, and they are getting worse... fast. When the bank failures start to come, and they will, the remaining outstanding debt will be called in to balance the books for the unitholders of the bank. This isnt sensationalism either, the FDIC is planning for a huge increase in bank failures by hiring additional staff to deal specifically with the upcoming wave of failures [1]

Yeah! Let's charge President Bush with all kinds of crimes! But make sure we get Clinton, too! He bombed those folks in Europe. Get him!

Stirring up the mob with this impeachment nonsense is a way to get people to ignore what's going on around them. Congress has driven us to start putting food in our gas tanks. The end result will be famine and food riots. Way to go!

"American's demand we do something about these obscene oil profits." I actually heard this quote on the radio driving home. No, we don't. We want our lower cost of living back. The U.S. is the only nation on earth with abundant untouched oil resources that has decided not to harvest them. Thanks Congress! No off shore oil, no shale processing, no drilling in ANWR, and no reasonable alternatives (nuclear, darn it, like France).

Congress is currently trying their best to centralize the U.S. economy under the guise of phony environmentalism (Cap & Trade). With even limited use, cap and trade schemes have led to worse pollution, because now companies can simply pay money to pollute more. So why write it into law? Why, to lock down that nasty free market thing, of course. Free markets are key to free societies.

But just so people don't notice this tilt toward a centralized economy (which historically always leads to a weak economy and totalitarianism), we'll prattle on about how horrible we think President Bush is.

Fire and motion. The American people are the ones pinned down.

/rant... You can mod me down now. Sigh.

I really think we had a bunch of Cold War guys that got blindsided by 9/11 and overreacted. They sincerely wanted to protect U.S. interests and scraped and fought for any means to do it. Reign them in, vote them out. But this frothing at the mouth has got to stop. Bring back the debate of clear ideas, unclouded with slippery half-statements.

To Congress: Stop telling me what I demand. Stop putting words in my mouth. I want to be able to work hard and enjoy what I've earned. If I work harder, produce more or better than my neighbor, then I do deserve more. Let me keep it. I'll pay you to keep criminals at bay. I'll pay you to keep the opportunities equal. I'm not paying you to keep the results equal. That only achieves a lowest common denominator. I'll pay you for the infrastructure you maintain on my behalf. But please, no more power grabs. I demand the rule of law, tempered by the application of principle, guided by the restraint of morals. You must serve, you must not rule.

It's not just Google that's doing this. CNBC and the Wall Street Journal also started providing free real-time quotes today. MSN Money has been doing this for a while.

Granted, some of these require a subscription (MSN, WSJ)--a point noted by the submitter--but all of these services appear to be free-as-in-beer. I don't think a subscription is that big a deal; YMMV.

From what I can tell, CNBC doesn't mention either a subscription or a daily/monthly limit; I admit I haven't looked at their service in detail though.

Certain skills still are in strong demand, says Ms. Chota, adding that the company can't find enough qualified graduates with degrees in computer science and those who have knowledge of both business and IT. "In the U.S., unfortunately, there are not enough great computer-science graduates," Ms. Chota says.""

Um excuse me? So, Americans are not good enough for IBM. Even though they go to the same great American universities just like the smarter foreigners.

So, which is it?!?

So if you go in and attempt to withdraw your money on deposit, and they pay you with an asset (other than cash on hand), they'd have to somehow give you a note - an IOU, where someone owes the bank money. That doesn't work too well.

If you don't think bank runs exist today, you need to just look back 2 months ago, to the Bear Stearns failure.

Didn't see anybody mention this yet, however, Scott Bloch, the Special Prosecutor, is a big-time political hack,:

Watchdog: Doc Shows Bloch Ginned Up White House Investigation to Protect Himself

Since 2005, Special Counsel Scott Bloch, whose office is charged in part with protecting federal whistleblowers, has been under investigation for retaliating against whistleblowers in his own office and generally politicizing the OSC.

Also of interest here is the fact that Bloch used Geeks On Call to delete information off his govt-issued laptop:

Recently, investigators learned that Mr. Bloch erased all the files on his office personal computer late last year. They are now trying to determine whether the deletions were improper or part of a cover-up, lawyers close to the case said.

Bypassing his agency's computer technicians, Mr. Bloch phoned 1-800-905-GEEKS for Geeks on Call, the mobile PC-help service. It dispatched a technician in one of its signature PT Cruiser wagons. In an interview, [Bloch] confirmed that he contacted Geeks on Call but said he was trying to eradicate a virus that had seized control of his computer....

Bloch must be trying to take the heat off himself, after the recent FBI raid on his house and office.

Besides covering up for the White House, Karl Rove, and himself, he also indulged in some old-fashioned perks, picking up some $400 hand towels on the OSP tab.

In response to you and the ACs who posted. I don't live on or really even near a farm so I just have what I read to go by. These farmers seem to be doing just fine.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120303832040070169.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

From the article:
"Farmers have a lot of money to spend," says Jerry Carder, a 49-year-old Albion corn and soybean farmer who recently bought a $40,000 2008 Mercedes-Benz ML350.

... it seems that J&J was miffed that the Red Cross was licensing the logo to other commercial partners, "such as Target" ... http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2008/05/16/american-red-cross-defeats-johnson-johnson-in-trademark-spat/?mod=WSJBlog

http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2008/05/16/american-red-cross-defeats-johnson-johnson-in-trademark-spat/?mod=WSJBlog

It's remarkable how he can paint a happy face on the steepest decline in the history of the company.

If his figures are correct, the PC market just experienced the largest contraction ever and nobody noticed. Especially odd in that Intel's operating income is up 23%. Top PC seller HP's net income is up 16% on strong notebook sales and huge growth in emerging markets. Lenovo is reporting a 17% increase in sales on strong global demand.

Is anybody besides Microsoft seeing this decline? Is somebody lying to Ballmer? "Gee, no, Steve. Business is off everywhere. It's a recession. People adore Vista. You can put the chair down now."

I don't think you can teach a child to be a better nagger, like skin, the ability to nag comes with every child.

As early as 6 months of age persistant nagging manifests in the physical form, followed shortly thereafter by the verbal form.

But I get your point - marketers will go to the limit to sell something, thankfully that's why the standards exist. So when they pass the threshold they can be nailed against the wall. Some times it costs them a little, some times it costs them $58 million dollars.*

*Merck 2008; Deceptive advertising settlement, see: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121130041562407333.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

I am jaded enough to think there are lawyers happy to see studies like this. I know some people who worked with asbestos a long time did get legitimately ill, but it was sad to see how false and exaggerated claims of illness were used to make money and ruin businesses. The extent of ploy might be suggested in the tort reform that took place in Texas:

"Why Doctors Are Heading for Texas"

"In sum, these reforms have worked wonders. There are about 85,000 asbestos plaintiffs in Texas. Under the old system, each would be advancing in the courts. But in the four years since the creation of MDLs, only 300 plaintiffs' cases have been certified ready for trial. And in each case the plaintiff is almost certainly sick with mesothelioma or cancer.

No one else claiming "asbestosis" has yet filed a pulmonology report showing diminished lung capacity. This means that only one-third of 1% of all those people who have filed suit claiming they were sick with asbestosis have actually had a qualified and impartial doctor agree that they have an asbestos-caused illness."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121097874071799863.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

It's wise to be careful with nanotube technology of course - and also to be careful with studies that give the legal types excuses to plunder.

Do you have a link on the dropping subsidies?

I can't speak of all of Germany, of course, but at least in the USA coal is among the least subsidized power sources going. I found the article here. Traditional coal is second only to natural gas among receiving the least amount of subsidy.

Nuclear power, per kwh, only receives 5% of the subsidy compared to 'clean' coal, wind, and solar.

I have no engineering problem with wind or solar other than the fact that it's too expensive. It's also currently not good for base load power, but we can work around that.

Why does this surprise anybody?

It surprises some people, because the current (highly unpopular) Administration of the US has criticized Syria very harshly for, basically, being evil.

A substantial (and highly vocal) group of Americans consider the President himself to be the evil incarnate, and thus take his words and actions to mean the exact opposite. Just recently one of their major leaders even visited Syria — much to the delight of the country's dictatorship and in direct violation of the federal law...

Pelosi's followers must be dumbfounded (those, for whom this is not the permanent state), that anybody could be imprisoned for "undermining the prestige of the state and weakening national morale" anywhere outside of Bush's America (where they suffer daily persecutions in their fight for a better tomorrow), and especially in the friendly and peaceful Syria...

Hey, thanks! Just a few weeks ago I read an article in the Wall Street Journal about the cars that were on that ship and the methods that Mazda is using to dispose of them. It's interesting to read about the accident that led to that strange situation.

The State of Mississippi was for many years among the poorest and most litigious states in the entire United States. There have been some recent attempts at reforms which seem to be bearing fruit, but it is not surprising that a new innovation in lawyers and lawsuits has come out of the State of Mississippi. The Wall Street Journal had a recent article describing the litigious history of Mississippi.

I don't think Rowling should be able to kill the Harry Potter Lexicon either, but to call her "a pretentious, puffed-up coward" and "lack[ing] a brain, a heart and courage" is going a bit overboard. It's a tough case and certainly a far cry from the purposefully abstract "comparison" with Ender's Game that Orson Scott Card uses. Maybe he makes a different decision if someone publishes an encyclopedia on the very same characters and universe that he created, but let's not act like she burned an original copy of the First Amendment or anything. Reasonable people disagree on this one.

If your in darknet mode isnt that the same as a private tracker?

Not really - with a private tracker, the other users (including the tracker) know what you're uploading and downloading. That's not the case in Freenet. Also, any user of a private tracker can invite their friends, who can also see what you're uploading and downloading, so the network becomes less private as it grows. Freenet becomes more private as it grows, because there are more users who might have initiated any given request.

If your not in darknet mode arnt you just as exposed as BT?

No, requests travel for multiple hops through the network, so if you receive a request from an opennet peer it doesn't mean that peer initiated the request - it might be forwarding the request on behalf of another peer.

If you want to carry out conversations, then i suppose BT isnt a good medium, But isnt that what public/private mailing lists are for?

Mailing lists aren't much good if you need to be anonymous. You could use Tor to set up a webmail account, but then the webmail provider can read your email, so you have anonymity but not privacy. You could use Tor and GnuPG and webmail, but by that point it's probably easier to install Freenet.

Another disadvantage of Tor is that even though your traffic is encrypted, it's easy for someone monitoring your network connection to tell when you're using Tor. If they can correlate the times you connect to Tor with the times a certain webmail account is active then your anonymity is broken. By running a Freenet node 24/7 you make it much harder for an eavesdropper to link your activity patterns to anonymous or pseudonymous messages, because your node is always sending and receiving encrypted packets regardless of whether you're active.

Every time I hear about the foundation talking about Windows on XO I think about Jobs giving OS X free to OLPC and being turned down.

How is it that OS X can't go on the XO because it's not free (as in speech) but Windows can even though it's not free (as in speech or beer).

I'm a supporter of the OLPC project but this is getting really disturbing.

That would definitely be the case, since they initially rejected free Mac OS for the platform. It seems that the idea of the OLPC has been corrupted by influence.(one can only speculate what kind or how much.)

I also seem to remember that Russia had done the same about 4-5 years before.

No, a lot more recently. When Estonia last year move a monument to Soviet Soldier from the center of a city to the cemetery, Russians (who refuse to accept, that for most of their neighbors their occupation were worse than the Nazis') were very upset.

Both — the government and the people...

In today's China the same sentiment prevails — the Han nationalists are very upset and demand from their government far stronger actions against both the hapless Tibetans and the foreign critics of the Chinese...

And what they see right now is that Chinese Supremacy is being challenged by the "Western Government Propaganda Machine", which today means CNN.

While we remain split and agonizing over our foreign policy, Chinese (and Russian) publics' main qualm is that their governments are not aggressive enough.

Your LA Times link is broken. I imagine that article measures ticket sales in dollars. Measuring ticket sales by revenue is a terrible way to measure the success of an industry because it doesn't account for inflation. After accounting for inflation, movie ticket sales have indeed remained flat.

There is also this:

> "Job security for IT professionals plummeted more than 10% from January to February of this year, far surpassing the average job security declines seen nationwide in a rigorous analysis of U.S. employment patterns."

http://www.networkworld.com/newsletters/edu/2008/033108ed1.html

And this:

> WSJ: "Government Quietly Changes Rules on Foreign Tech Workers"

> On Friday, DHS issued a press release saying that businesses could now hire foreign students who attended American schools for 29 months without obtaining an H-1B visa,

http://blogs.wsj.com/biztech/2008/04/07/government-quietly-changes-rules-on-foreign-tech-workers/?mod=WSJBlog#comment-18914

If you are in the sort of place that needs Freenet you can be certain your ISP will report you to the government for using freenet.

I would have thought so too, but technology moves faster than the law, and governments have conflicting demands on their resources. China has the most advanced internet censorship in the world. How do people get around it? They google for proxy servers. The government could stop them if it tried, but like any government it has a lot of other demands on its time and money, so it applies the 80/20 rule and finds a cheap solution that keeps most people away from banned information most of the time.

In the sort of places that need Freenet, possession of Freenet will get you shot.

You need Freenet in the "free world" right now if you don't want the NSA to mine your web searches, phone calls, social contacts and email subject lines (none of which requires a warrant or even probable cause). Yet using Freenet in the "free world" won't get you shot (or at least I haven't been shot yet).

Amazon isn't preventing anyone from selling POD books in any other market - all they are saying is if you want us to sell your book it needs to be in the following format.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120667525724970997.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
http://www.writersweekly.com/the_latest_from_angelahoycom/004597_03272008.html

If they said you can *only* publish with our vendor, then they might be stifling competition.

What in the world are they thinking? This seems to be a pretty flagrant abuse of power.

Wall Street Journal: March 20, 2008;

"Want More Engineers? Provide Jobs for Them"
  . . .
"However, the declining number of students enrolled in technical programs has nothing to do with the quality of our schools or the natural talents and interests of our students. It has everything to do with the massive loss of domestic technology jobs to outsourcing, offshoring and the importation of foreign technology workers through the H1-B visa program. It has everything to do with vanishing opportunities, declining compensation and decreasing job security."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120598693755151313.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Do some more research about the church before you write this off.

The UCC is currently under investigation from the IRS for illegal campaign contributions to Obama.

They're known to have funded astroturf campaigns in support of the cable companies against telecoms - really! There's some irony there, though: you know those ads that various religions run? The UCC attempted to run a TV ad campaign, but the broadcasters refused to run it because it was so offensive!

But in any case, ignoring their illegal activities and merely questionable activities, we're left with one truth. When the UCC learned of Wright's rhetoric, did they condemn him? Of course not, they came out in strong support.

So it's not just a single pastor, it's the entire church, a church that Obama has been a member of for 20 years.

This isn't something new. This isn't something Obama should be shocked about. This is standard practice for the UCC.

Its like the holy grail of data analysis;

And just like the holy grail, it doesn't exist. Ever heard the expression "garbage in, garbage out"? Now imagine how that applies to a huge database of information compiled from diverse sources (including unverified, anonymous tips), where nothing is ever thrown away, and where nobody's quite sure what they're looking for.

The human brain is amazingly good at finding patterns - so good that it often finds patterns that aren't really there. Even with years of experience, training, and peer review, professional scientists are pretty bad at handling problems like confirmation bias, post hoc reasoning and the file-drawer effect - how are law enforcement agents likely to fare, with no statistical training and no effective oversight?

The people constructing these databases are falling into the trap of believing that more data means better data. That's an understandable mistake for people who are usually "data-poor", such as archaeologists, historians and detectives. But anyone from the "data-rich" sciences will tell you that once you have the data you face a whole new set of problems, and I very much doubt that counterterrorism officials, working in conditions of secrecy and under pressure to justify their jobs, are going to handle those problems in a rigorous way.

Please note that I'm not trying to say "police officers are too stupid to understand statistics" - scientists make these mistakes all the time, but they operate in an atmosphere of relative transparency and competition, where it's usually in some other scientist's interest to bring errors to light. The same conditions don't apply to government officials.

What does this mean? It means that false positives will lead to innocent people being monitored, blacklisted and imprisoned without trial, while false negatives will mean genuine threats go undetected. We urgently need to make our governments understand that more data doesn't necessarily lead to better decisions.

Exactly... if the software is really so simple, then, just why do the voting machine companies call it proprietary and refuse to let anybody inspect their code or their machines? Sequoia just threatened the state of New Jersey with a lawsuit if they let an outside lab access to a voting machine to test it after about 60 Sequoia voting machines across the state seemed to malfunction during the state's Feb. 5 primary.