Option 1: No members of any group (as there are no "members") attend any sessions but an innocent person who supports anonymous but has never participated in their activities decides on the day of attendance at a conference to take a little sign to stick to a booth and to follow a public request to heckle. Oh my goodness you've unraveled a plot by a bunch of dastardly evil people Dudley Doright, good job!
See that's exactly how silly their accusations are. The whole idea of anonymous is that there isn't an organization. It's a bunch of individuals who are barely even associated acting in concert after a discussion. This is no different than a group of unassociated individuals making a group decisions to heckle someone. As someone else said, trying to cut the head off anonymous is like trying to cut the head off the headless horseman.
A such Moral absolutism. So anyone that does an action you deem good is automatically good no matter what else. So even if they torture puppies in their spare time they are good dammit because "they help you know what your government is doing".
The statement in the header is misleading. Yes Utah charges a surcharge to fund the Poison Control Centers (someone you call if you or your child have been potentially poisoned so they can tell you what to do before the ambulance arrives, such as drink milk or charcoal or vomit depending on the substance). But Utah charges this surcharge against all phone bills not just Wireless. This post phrases it as if Wireless is the only phone hit with the fee. Maybe some of you kids without Landlines don't think you are on the hook for the taxes that landline users pay but that's not the way it should be. Everyone should pay the fee that goes to support 911 and other emergency services like the poison control center. Wireless should be no exception to these very legitimate taxes.
Now on the other hand, if the fee is simply to go around the regular tax system and is being used for general services it's a bad tax.
I'm surprised there hasn't been more outrage about the Computer abuse charges in Sony's lawsuit. The only way to make those claims is to assert that they own the playstation you think you own. There's a BIG news story in there and some really scary wake up juice to people that buy Sony consoles.
Intentional tax evasion has statue of limitations of about 7 years, unintentional about 3 years. Intentional and unintentional are defined and they aren't what you think. If you it said on the tax forms/books you had to pay sales/use tax and you didn't you are an intentional violator. If you failed to declare and pay sales/use tax in your community with your annual taxes you are a tax violator and could be sentenced to prison. Tax evasion is a big deal and the penalties are very severe. 10-20% interest from the day it was due, penalties that exceed the actual value by 3-4 times and interest accumulates on the penalties as well. It's a common occurrence for the interest and penalties combined to be in excess of 10 times the value of the original evasion.
All the state needs is an online retailer to turn over the records and they can hit all the purchasers in their state with back taxes, penalties and interest. If you think buying online avoids taxes you are VERY wrong. In about a year or two I expect the states will work together and go after everyone who hasn't paid, people are going to get a real eyeopener when it happens.
If you're taking classes on jazz history, literary analysis, political science, etc, I sincerely hope you're interested in it, because it's probably costing you something on the order of $200 per class session. If you wanted to attend a school with practically no requirements beyond technical work, you should be looking to transfer to a school that has that.
There is no such College in Engineering. ABET accreditation requires a full general education program and if you wish to have a degree that means more than a degree in poetry you need an ABET accredited institution. The general education is a good thing, the 20 hours of busy work assigned with those courses is silly and pointless. Most engineering students enjoy and function fine in General ED classes, but it's the silly busy work that drives most to cheat.
For instance, if you were designing 'green architecture' buildings, wouldn't it help you to be able to make sense of all the political, scientific, and economic discussions around green architecture?
ABSOLUTELY NOT. If someone is relying on political discussions to design anything they should be drummed out of the profession. People's lives depend on structural engineers knowing what they are doing and relying on real science to ensure life safety. If they start relying on politics for the design of buildings we are all in serious danger.
Being able to write well really matters, because part of your job as an engineer is being able to describe your designs.
It's called CADD and construction plans. Paragraphs and functional sentences aren't even common and the standard is to write everything in capital letters. Although writing is certainly part of Engineering, it's technical writing and the class is administered by the engineering department. Learning to write a story about Grandma has little to no relationship to being able to prepare plans and specifications.
Why would your life possibly be worse off by knowing something about jazz history or literary analysis?
It wouldn't. The point is that when you are taking 18 hours and 15 of those are engineering courses that expect nearly 40 hours of work per class (I'm not exaggerating) then the liberal arts classes required by the collage become much less important. This doesn't even factor in that most of those 100 level liberal arts courses are 100% busy work with little to no learning potential. Those classes by design are structured to be busy work that's meant to help weed out undelcared students that aren't in college to learn, not students with too much workload to worry about writing a 10 page paper on something that has little value, relevance or learning potential. I'd wager 90% of the required general education courses are nothing but busy work. There are certainly good classes and personally I enjoyed the classes immensely but that doesn't change what they are and what the homework is structured to do. Although I didn't do it myself (I didn't work while school was in session) I certainly will throw no stones at people that work part or full time jobs to support themselves and attend engineering school and simply don't have the time to complete the busy work these courses foster on people.
If they're overworked and under-rested, they need to find a way to lower their courseload or get some more rest, not find a way to cheat.
And they should add another $20,000 in debt to go to school another year simply because they have a hard workload right?
Although I went through a pretty rigorous program myself, my solution to the rest problem was to get to sleep at more-or-less the same time every day, get up at more-or-less the same time every day, and work on schoolwork from about 9 to 4:30 unless I was in class.
Your program wasn't that rigorous if you think structural designers should be
The problem is everyone wants to fight traffic citations even if they are wrong. People go in trying to challenge the law, speed measurements, signs, striping, officer behavior, you name it. There are so many of them handed out every year that even if 1% were challenged the courts would grind to a halt. So for the reason the courts the US basically ignore any plea regardless of merits unless you hire a lawyer. Hire a lawyer and show you are serious and the case will probably be dismissed or pleaded to nothing. In most US jurisdictions the Judge will cut the fine in half or less if you come to court and be respectful and ask to reduce the fine but they won't usually knock off the points on your license. But come in there challenging the validity of radar speed enforcement or something else and you will likely get tossed out with the full fine.
Well, we do have something like 50,000 nuclear warheads we (hopefully) don't ever plan on using. At an average yield of about 400MegaTons each we should have enough as long as everything is planned and the blasts are as focused as possible. How about we land a shuttle on the asteroid, drill a shaft to act as focus for the blast energy, then set off several weapons from within the asteroid to redirect it's path. Maybe we can hire Bruce Willis do to the drilling!
I on the other hand have no port 22 active and all my SSH services operate on port 23. Exploitation scripts then need the intelligence to recognize a SSH response on the telnet port.
Probably doesn't filter very many attacks but it's just that little extra bit to confuse the idiots.
You are correct and I apologizes. The brave men destroyed (the Russians were ordered to take no prisoners) at Stalingrad were the professional army correctly referred to as the Wehrmacht as you has noted. I was being sloppy in referring to them as the Nazi army.
Wikipedia isn't a source, anyone with any sense would know that.
I have studied this war and I have taken collage courses that discussed it extensively including reading the logs and diaries of those involved. Stalin tried extensively to rewrite history after the war and claim holding onto Stalingrad was his idea at the start. Reading Wikipedia it's clear he was at least partially successful in that some fool that read the "corrected" version posted it. Stalin evacuated the entire Red Army across the Volgo river and committed the 6th army one of the weakest in the corp to defend the city at pain of death (if they tried to evacuate they would be shot). As the only army still remaining on the western side of the Volga it wasn't until the Nazi's were already in the city that the 6th arrived and began defensive maneuvers. I doubt Stalin thought they would succeed but he believed they would distract the Nazi's from severing the bridgeheads that allowed the Red army counterattack to cross.
Stalin committed the rest of the army to defense of two bridgeheads and crossings of the Volga while the rest of red army regrouped, reinforced and rearmed. As the Volga is a very large and dangerous river (compared to the Mississippi) with limited crossings. It wasn't until it was clear that the citizens along with their only reinforcements in the 6th Red Army had held the city (under penalty of death) that Stalin allowed real professional generals to began planing the offensive that cut off the Nazi supply lines and cost the Nazi's the most battle hardened and experienced divisions in the Nazi army. Later in the early winter when it was clear that Hitler was fully committed and the 6th was almost fully exhausted did Stalin order reinforcements boated across the river to hold the city until the remainder of the army was ready. Make no mistake, Stalin didn't order the holding of the city at any cost until it was clear that it could be done and he had the reinforcements on the way to perform the pincer maneuver from the two bridge heads that isolated the heart of the German army and starved them to death.
Stalin made sure to claim after the war that he planned it all from the start but the history is pretty clear that he didn't take that path until it was clear that the 6th with the help of the citizens and under threat of being shot by their own side did it become clear he could actually turn the tide. Incidentally it was his success in forcing the 6th to fight that caused him to create the suicide divisions in the army (that would be shot if they didn't advance) that was so successful in destroying the german army. Make no mistake, when he ordered the sixth to hold the city at any cost he did so with the belief that they wouldn't succeed and it wasn't until after they were nearly wiped out and he was in danger of losing the bridgeheads that he committed reinforcements.
Now if you relied on real history sources rather that Wikipedia you would know how inaccurate it can be.
Stalin DID evacuate Stalingrad. He evacuated the Red Army, the only group of people he cared about. That the citizens of Stalingrad took up arms and defended the city was a completely unexpected turn of events for both Stalin and the Nazi's. Only after the good people of Stalingrad ground the Nazis to a stop in street to street urban warfare did the Red Army regroup across the river and hit the Nazi's back, but not until after the Nazi's has killed a good portion of the citizens resisting. Don't credit Stalin with the bravery in Volograd (formally stalingrad), he had nothing to do with it.
As has been pointed out all ready. The reason they are doing this is to avoid the SEC putting a bunch of people in jail. The fact that this stock offering violates US law thus exposing themselves to the wrath of the SEC and G-S recognizes this and is refusing to sell to US shareholders should absolutely scare the bejesus out of any potential investor. This offering is structured so that they are concealing public company financials in an illegal way in the US (so that if Zuckerberg empties the bank account and goes to tailand and spends it on hookers and blow no one will know), that the executives want to do this and that a major stockholder and investment bank (and one of the investment banks most responsible for the mortgage problems) is participating in the scam should throw up all sorts of warning signs for everyone involved.
But I guess if Madoff can take 50 billion from investors and spend it on yachts and watches, G-S and the executives of Facebook felt left out and wanted their piece of the sucker investor pie. That anyone would think they are doing this because the US has too much regulation is MIND BOGGLING stupid.
There have been numerous historic incidents. The least of which was upper level people in the Nazi party storing money and valuables stolen from people sent to the death camps in Swiss banks. The Swiss apologized after the war and it became public what they did, but the true extent of the evil in the swiss banking industry is very vigorously guarded using national security and some very nasty (as far as penalties for violation) privacy laws. Most of the nations around the world have been actively trying to get the Swiss to reveal the tax cheats using their system for decades now.
Frankly, IMO the Swiss have a LOT of blood on their hands being the bankers for war lords, dictators and tax cheats. It's what they do and it's basis of most of their economy.
I don't smoke, I wouldn't recommend it either. Even if it takes 50 years for the sea level rises predicted in the models you are talking massive displacements in a single lifetime. Consider for a moment that 50% of the world's populations lives within 60 miles of the coast and 10% live within 30' of sea level. Most of the models are predicting multiple foot rises (anywhere from several feet to the neighborhood of 50' in the more extreme models) in sea level which will inundate trillions of square kilometers and almost every hectare of this ground is populated. Even if the rises are in a single lifetime and over multiple decades you are discussing the displacement of hundreds of millions people and that's a conservative number. Again, even if this is a slow and gradual process over several decades the effects cannot be overlooked. Where do they go? How much farmland is lost and can the resulting population survive on the remaining farmland still in production?
I stand by my position that the magnitude of displacement is far larger than anything we have ever seen in human history. Consider for a moment that many of the displacements of less than a million people during wartime in Africa actually created additional conflicts and some serious human suffering. What happens if an entire country of several million people is completely lost (Most of the populated areas of Indonesia are less than 10 feet of above sea level), for example a large island nation, maybe Ireland. Where do they go? Who feeds them?
Some of the more aggressive models are predicting the inundation of most of the US eastern seaboard, Manhattan would be lost almost completely and much of the NY metro area will be under water. The NY metro area contains some 15 million people. Where would we put them? The answer is on unpopulated Farm land. Now we have lost the X amount of land to inundation by the seas and we have lost X amount of additional Farmland to house said displaced people. What would happen if that was down the entire Eastern Seaboard? I'm talking displacing every city within say 20 miles of the coast and the entire state of Florida. That's in the neighborhood of a 50 million people.
In addition the west coast is inundated with the loss of almost all the land from the coast to the foothills of the sierra's (most of LA, a portion of San Diego, orange county, most of the central valley) and about 10-25% of the population of California. Tack in much of Portland and portion of the Seattle metro area. In addition the rising sea level will pollute ground water sources and deprive much of what remains near the new coast of clean water. Even if the US successfully displaces those people inland the enormity of the displacements cannot be overlooked. So much usable farmland will be lost that it's conceivable the US would no longer have surplus agriculture and it's even possible that the resulting change in weather patterns could result in not being able to grow enough food to even feed the population. Countries with major land masses would probably be able to displace the people but what about those that can't?
Move that around the world and displace the same area in China, all of Bangladesh, most of India, Myanmar, Thailand, Singapore, most of the populated areas in Australia, a good portion of Africa, Japan including the complete loss of Okinawa, Indonesia would be lost almost completely. In total as I said above you could be talking the displacement of 500 million to a billion people. Even if you spread that over 50 years there will be many many wars over food, land and resources. Those that have lost everything will try to take what they need from those that haven't. Once you move to the point of nations being unsustainable with the losses in land the only solution is to take land from someone else or build enough sky scrapers to hold them, which do you think would be easier, building 3 new cities or taking 3 cities from someone else? What would India do if they had to find new ground for 100 million people (lost 3-4 major coast
Yes, the people will move and infrastructure will be lost and billions of dollars in damage will be done. Big DEAL. None of that is even important to the main problem that was glossed over. Of those people who's property,land and livelihood is destroyed where will they go? Will they be welcomed and provided housing and jobs and food by the people who occupy the land they are moving to?
The great fear of Global Climate Change (warming, cooling anything drastic) isn't the destruction of property or loss of any lives due to flooding, it's the massive and persistent wars that WILL break out between the refugees and those who occupy the higher ground. It's the starvation, violence and sheer depravity the human race will engage in for individual survival. If there are large displacements of people in a world with 6 billion there is going to be violence of the scale that makes WWII look like a minor conflict. No doubt nuclear weapons will end up used, and I personally would be surprised if biological weapons were deployed as well. Entire countries and even continents will be devastated by those seeking the resources contained within.
CalTrans has a lot of employees, I know it's over 50,000 and I seem to recall the figure 120,000 being about the number of employees. A fair percentage of those employees, probably around 30% are going to be field positions with no real office. Some will operate from field offices with phones but you don't run back to the office to make an emergency phone call that needs an answer within minutes. Other positions will be maintenance type jobs such as snow plow drivers who I guess you expect to find a phone if their is something that needs to be called in. Either that or you expect everyone to go back to VHF radios that ultimately probably cost more than the cellular phones.
Then there are departments that fight fires, respond to emergencies or inspect working conditions. Area's where response time can be the difference between the loss of lives.
It's not quite so simple to take a number out of a hat and say no more cell phones for that number of people. I agree with his cost cutting measures in principle but the execution leaves a lot to be desired. My state handles things a bit differently, the governor tells the departments to freeze all hiring and then cuts the salary budget 10% and expects the losses to come through attrition and employees to work harder. Cell phone expenses are a trivial amount of money in the scope of the problem and there are a lot of people that really do need them. Pulling a figure out of a hat and saying turn the phones in could cost lives or more money in damages than the total cost savings in taking the phones away (the CalTrans example above, say running back to the office to make a phone call causes a structure to collapse before a response could be made killing a dozen people).
From my reading of the leaked police report the primary issue appears to be that after the two women compared notes and confirmed that he had sex with both in a very short period indicating a level of promiscuity that both ladies apparently didn't appreciate they demanded he have STD screenings done and he refused. Although the first prosecutor dropped the case the one that has it now is a very big advocate for womens rights and apparently has a bug up her butt about this. Although his refusal to be tested must be treated innocently you can't help but wonder why he refused. The prosecutor may be speculating that he's HIV positive or has a communicable STD and failed to inform the women thereby committing a much larger crime than he is being questioned for. The prosecutor may also wish to get him back on Swedish soil so she can force and STD test on him, something he appears to be avoiding at all cost. In fact from my reading of the documents leaked it is precisely the issue of the STD test that appears to have caused him to leave Sweden in the first place (at least according to my interpretation of the document and the time line in question) and possibly indicated even more issue for concern.
I guess my biggest question is why on earth he thinks the UK is safer than Sweden and why he is not only adamant about not returning to Sweden but so insistent on not getting an STD test? I understand his apprehension about being extradited to the US but I'd think he's as likely to be extradited from the UK as he is to be extradited from Sweden unless AU citizens receive special extradition protections under UK law it frankly doesn't make any sense given the close UK cooperation with the US in the past. And the issue of refusing the STD is quite baffling. It would seem trivial to get a signed agreement protecting the confidentiality of the results if nothing turns up and as a result I don't understand his reluctance to get the test and waive that concern by the prosecutor and ladies in question.
I know he been spinning this to be about wikileaks but IMO there is an underlying issue he's not addressing with the refusal to get an STD test.
Perhaps you might also consider that the reason might not be what you think it is rather than assuming its cause. The US is a convenient scape goat because it's own people are so critical of it's government but there are plenty of nations that like to feed a mythology that diverts attention from their own bad behavior. The US is far far away from being the worst offender in international politics. After all the Russians dumped polonium in a dissidents dinner in a foreign country and the Mossad strangled a guy in his own hotel room, even with the illegal renditions and using predator drones in extra judicial killings I personally don't consider that in the same league.
They might be throwing down the gauntlet so to speak in the attempt to get the patent cartels to stop the FUD and either sue them or shut up. With all the talk 6 month ago it's very likely that patent cartels decided the risks of suing Google over WebM far outweighed any potential benefit. Afterall if they do litigate it and it's decided it doesn't violate the H264 cartel then the cartel is out of business.
A year or two ago the chipset business was nearly 1/3 of nVidia's business. When the i7 was introduced Intel refused to license it to nVidia and 1/3 of nvidia's revenue and profit died. The CEO of nVidia opened an anti-trust complaint and threatened to sue. It got really nasty. Without replacing that revenue there will be a very significant drop in nvidia's stock price and value.
The VIA license is non-transferable. In the event Via changes ownership the x86 license terminates. The only way VIA and nvidia could merge with Via retaining the license would be fore Via to buy nVidia.
Slashdot Mirror
Yep, and after everyone but the filthy rich is in prison working for slave wages the ideal economy is born!
Another possibility:
Option 1: No members of any group (as there are no "members") attend any sessions but an innocent person who supports anonymous but has never participated in their activities decides on the day of attendance at a conference to take a little sign to stick to a booth and to follow a public request to heckle. Oh my goodness you've unraveled a plot by a bunch of dastardly evil people Dudley Doright, good job!
See that's exactly how silly their accusations are. The whole idea of anonymous is that there isn't an organization. It's a bunch of individuals who are barely even associated acting in concert after a discussion. This is no different than a group of unassociated individuals making a group decisions to heckle someone. As someone else said, trying to cut the head off anonymous is like trying to cut the head off the headless horseman.
A such Moral absolutism. So anyone that does an action you deem good is automatically good no matter what else. So even if they torture puppies in their spare time they are good dammit because "they help you know what your government is doing".
How silly. Ah the folly of youth.
The statement in the header is misleading. Yes Utah charges a surcharge to fund the Poison Control Centers (someone you call if you or your child have been potentially poisoned so they can tell you what to do before the ambulance arrives, such as drink milk or charcoal or vomit depending on the substance). But Utah charges this surcharge against all phone bills not just Wireless. This post phrases it as if Wireless is the only phone hit with the fee. Maybe some of you kids without Landlines don't think you are on the hook for the taxes that landline users pay but that's not the way it should be. Everyone should pay the fee that goes to support 911 and other emergency services like the poison control center. Wireless should be no exception to these very legitimate taxes.
Now on the other hand, if the fee is simply to go around the regular tax system and is being used for general services it's a bad tax.
I'm surprised there hasn't been more outrage about the Computer abuse charges in Sony's lawsuit. The only way to make those claims is to assert that they own the playstation you think you own. There's a BIG news story in there and some really scary wake up juice to people that buy Sony consoles.
Intentional tax evasion has statue of limitations of about 7 years, unintentional about 3 years. Intentional and unintentional are defined and they aren't what you think. If you it said on the tax forms/books you had to pay sales/use tax and you didn't you are an intentional violator. If you failed to declare and pay sales/use tax in your community with your annual taxes you are a tax violator and could be sentenced to prison. Tax evasion is a big deal and the penalties are very severe. 10-20% interest from the day it was due, penalties that exceed the actual value by 3-4 times and interest accumulates on the penalties as well. It's a common occurrence for the interest and penalties combined to be in excess of 10 times the value of the original evasion.
All the state needs is an online retailer to turn over the records and they can hit all the purchasers in their state with back taxes, penalties and interest. If you think buying online avoids taxes you are VERY wrong. In about a year or two I expect the states will work together and go after everyone who hasn't paid, people are going to get a real eyeopener when it happens.
There is no such College in Engineering. ABET accreditation requires a full general education program and if you wish to have a degree that means more than a degree in poetry you need an ABET accredited institution. The general education is a good thing, the 20 hours of busy work assigned with those courses is silly and pointless. Most engineering students enjoy and function fine in General ED classes, but it's the silly busy work that drives most to cheat.
ABSOLUTELY NOT. If someone is relying on political discussions to design anything they should be drummed out of the profession. People's lives depend on structural engineers knowing what they are doing and relying on real science to ensure life safety. If they start relying on politics for the design of buildings we are all in serious danger.
It's called CADD and construction plans. Paragraphs and functional sentences aren't even common and the standard is to write everything in capital letters. Although writing is certainly part of Engineering, it's technical writing and the class is administered by the engineering department. Learning to write a story about Grandma has little to no relationship to being able to prepare plans and specifications.
It wouldn't. The point is that when you are taking 18 hours and 15 of those are engineering courses that expect nearly 40 hours of work per class (I'm not exaggerating) then the liberal arts classes required by the collage become much less important. This doesn't even factor in that most of those 100 level liberal arts courses are 100% busy work with little to no learning potential. Those classes by design are structured to be busy work that's meant to help weed out undelcared students that aren't in college to learn, not students with too much workload to worry about writing a 10 page paper on something that has little value, relevance or learning potential. I'd wager 90% of the required general education courses are nothing but busy work. There are certainly good classes and personally I enjoyed the classes immensely but that doesn't change what they are and what the homework is structured to do. Although I didn't do it myself (I didn't work while school was in session) I certainly will throw no stones at people that work part or full time jobs to support themselves and attend engineering school and simply don't have the time to complete the busy work these courses foster on people.
And they should add another $20,000 in debt to go to school another year simply because they have a hard workload right?
The problem is everyone wants to fight traffic citations even if they are wrong. People go in trying to challenge the law, speed measurements, signs, striping, officer behavior, you name it. There are so many of them handed out every year that even if 1% were challenged the courts would grind to a halt. So for the reason the courts the US basically ignore any plea regardless of merits unless you hire a lawyer. Hire a lawyer and show you are serious and the case will probably be dismissed or pleaded to nothing. In most US jurisdictions the Judge will cut the fine in half or less if you come to court and be respectful and ask to reduce the fine but they won't usually knock off the points on your license. But come in there challenging the validity of radar speed enforcement or something else and you will likely get tossed out with the full fine.
Well, we do have something like 50,000 nuclear warheads we (hopefully) don't ever plan on using. At an average yield of about 400MegaTons each we should have enough as long as everything is planned and the blasts are as focused as possible. How about we land a shuttle on the asteroid, drill a shaft to act as focus for the blast energy, then set off several weapons from within the asteroid to redirect it's path. Maybe we can hire Bruce Willis do to the drilling!
Water is absolutely not wet. You need soap to make water wet.
I on the other hand have no port 22 active and all my SSH services operate on port 23. Exploitation scripts then need the intelligence to recognize a SSH response on the telnet port.
Probably doesn't filter very many attacks but it's just that little extra bit to confuse the idiots.
You are correct and I apologizes. The brave men destroyed (the Russians were ordered to take no prisoners) at Stalingrad were the professional army correctly referred to as the Wehrmacht as you has noted. I was being sloppy in referring to them as the Nazi army.
Wikipedia isn't a source, anyone with any sense would know that.
I have studied this war and I have taken collage courses that discussed it extensively including reading the logs and diaries of those involved. Stalin tried extensively to rewrite history after the war and claim holding onto Stalingrad was his idea at the start. Reading Wikipedia it's clear he was at least partially successful in that some fool that read the "corrected" version posted it. Stalin evacuated the entire Red Army across the Volgo river and committed the 6th army one of the weakest in the corp to defend the city at pain of death (if they tried to evacuate they would be shot). As the only army still remaining on the western side of the Volga it wasn't until the Nazi's were already in the city that the 6th arrived and began defensive maneuvers. I doubt Stalin thought they would succeed but he believed they would distract the Nazi's from severing the bridgeheads that allowed the Red army counterattack to cross.
Stalin committed the rest of the army to defense of two bridgeheads and crossings of the Volga while the rest of red army regrouped, reinforced and rearmed. As the Volga is a very large and dangerous river (compared to the Mississippi) with limited crossings. It wasn't until it was clear that the citizens along with their only reinforcements in the 6th Red Army had held the city (under penalty of death) that Stalin allowed real professional generals to began planing the offensive that cut off the Nazi supply lines and cost the Nazi's the most battle hardened and experienced divisions in the Nazi army. Later in the early winter when it was clear that Hitler was fully committed and the 6th was almost fully exhausted did Stalin order reinforcements boated across the river to hold the city until the remainder of the army was ready. Make no mistake, Stalin didn't order the holding of the city at any cost until it was clear that it could be done and he had the reinforcements on the way to perform the pincer maneuver from the two bridge heads that isolated the heart of the German army and starved them to death.
Stalin made sure to claim after the war that he planned it all from the start but the history is pretty clear that he didn't take that path until it was clear that the 6th with the help of the citizens and under threat of being shot by their own side did it become clear he could actually turn the tide. Incidentally it was his success in forcing the 6th to fight that caused him to create the suicide divisions in the army (that would be shot if they didn't advance) that was so successful in destroying the german army. Make no mistake, when he ordered the sixth to hold the city at any cost he did so with the belief that they wouldn't succeed and it wasn't until after they were nearly wiped out and he was in danger of losing the bridgeheads that he committed reinforcements.
Now if you relied on real history sources rather that Wikipedia you would know how inaccurate it can be.
Stalin DID evacuate Stalingrad. He evacuated the Red Army, the only group of people he cared about. That the citizens of Stalingrad took up arms and defended the city was a completely unexpected turn of events for both Stalin and the Nazi's. Only after the good people of Stalingrad ground the Nazis to a stop in street to street urban warfare did the Red Army regroup across the river and hit the Nazi's back, but not until after the Nazi's has killed a good portion of the citizens resisting. Don't credit Stalin with the bravery in Volograd (formally stalingrad), he had nothing to do with it.
Done? You can be done?
As has been pointed out all ready. The reason they are doing this is to avoid the SEC putting a bunch of people in jail. The fact that this stock offering violates US law thus exposing themselves to the wrath of the SEC and G-S recognizes this and is refusing to sell to US shareholders should absolutely scare the bejesus out of any potential investor. This offering is structured so that they are concealing public company financials in an illegal way in the US (so that if Zuckerberg empties the bank account and goes to tailand and spends it on hookers and blow no one will know), that the executives want to do this and that a major stockholder and investment bank (and one of the investment banks most responsible for the mortgage problems) is participating in the scam should throw up all sorts of warning signs for everyone involved.
But I guess if Madoff can take 50 billion from investors and spend it on yachts and watches, G-S and the executives of Facebook felt left out and wanted their piece of the sucker investor pie. That anyone would think they are doing this because the US has too much regulation is MIND BOGGLING stupid.
There have been numerous historic incidents. The least of which was upper level people in the Nazi party storing money and valuables stolen from people sent to the death camps in Swiss banks. The Swiss apologized after the war and it became public what they did, but the true extent of the evil in the swiss banking industry is very vigorously guarded using national security and some very nasty (as far as penalties for violation) privacy laws. Most of the nations around the world have been actively trying to get the Swiss to reveal the tax cheats using their system for decades now.
Frankly, IMO the Swiss have a LOT of blood on their hands being the bankers for war lords, dictators and tax cheats. It's what they do and it's basis of most of their economy.
I don't smoke, I wouldn't recommend it either. Even if it takes 50 years for the sea level rises predicted in the models you are talking massive displacements in a single lifetime. Consider for a moment that 50% of the world's populations lives within 60 miles of the coast and 10% live within 30' of sea level. Most of the models are predicting multiple foot rises (anywhere from several feet to the neighborhood of 50' in the more extreme models) in sea level which will inundate trillions of square kilometers and almost every hectare of this ground is populated. Even if the rises are in a single lifetime and over multiple decades you are discussing the displacement of hundreds of millions people and that's a conservative number. Again, even if this is a slow and gradual process over several decades the effects cannot be overlooked. Where do they go? How much farmland is lost and can the resulting population survive on the remaining farmland still in production?
I stand by my position that the magnitude of displacement is far larger than anything we have ever seen in human history. Consider for a moment that many of the displacements of less than a million people during wartime in Africa actually created additional conflicts and some serious human suffering. What happens if an entire country of several million people is completely lost (Most of the populated areas of Indonesia are less than 10 feet of above sea level), for example a large island nation, maybe Ireland. Where do they go? Who feeds them?
Some of the more aggressive models are predicting the inundation of most of the US eastern seaboard, Manhattan would be lost almost completely and much of the NY metro area will be under water. The NY metro area contains some 15 million people. Where would we put them? The answer is on unpopulated Farm land. Now we have lost the X amount of land to inundation by the seas and we have lost X amount of additional Farmland to house said displaced people. What would happen if that was down the entire Eastern Seaboard? I'm talking displacing every city within say 20 miles of the coast and the entire state of Florida. That's in the neighborhood of a 50 million people.
In addition the west coast is inundated with the loss of almost all the land from the coast to the foothills of the sierra's (most of LA, a portion of San Diego, orange county, most of the central valley) and about 10-25% of the population of California. Tack in much of Portland and portion of the Seattle metro area. In addition the rising sea level will pollute ground water sources and deprive much of what remains near the new coast of clean water. Even if the US successfully displaces those people inland the enormity of the displacements cannot be overlooked. So much usable farmland will be lost that it's conceivable the US would no longer have surplus agriculture and it's even possible that the resulting change in weather patterns could result in not being able to grow enough food to even feed the population. Countries with major land masses would probably be able to displace the people but what about those that can't?
Move that around the world and displace the same area in China, all of Bangladesh, most of India, Myanmar, Thailand, Singapore, most of the populated areas in Australia, a good portion of Africa, Japan including the complete loss of Okinawa, Indonesia would be lost almost completely. In total as I said above you could be talking the displacement of 500 million to a billion people. Even if you spread that over 50 years there will be many many wars over food, land and resources. Those that have lost everything will try to take what they need from those that haven't. Once you move to the point of nations being unsustainable with the losses in land the only solution is to take land from someone else or build enough sky scrapers to hold them, which do you think would be easier, building 3 new cities or taking 3 cities from someone else? What would India do if they had to find new ground for 100 million people (lost 3-4 major coast
Yes, the people will move and infrastructure will be lost and billions of dollars in damage will be done. Big DEAL. None of that is even important to the main problem that was glossed over. Of those people who's property,land and livelihood is destroyed where will they go? Will they be welcomed and provided housing and jobs and food by the people who occupy the land they are moving to?
The great fear of Global Climate Change (warming, cooling anything drastic) isn't the destruction of property or loss of any lives due to flooding, it's the massive and persistent wars that WILL break out between the refugees and those who occupy the higher ground. It's the starvation, violence and sheer depravity the human race will engage in for individual survival. If there are large displacements of people in a world with 6 billion there is going to be violence of the scale that makes WWII look like a minor conflict. No doubt nuclear weapons will end up used, and I personally would be surprised if biological weapons were deployed as well. Entire countries and even continents will be devastated by those seeking the resources contained within.
CalTrans has a lot of employees, I know it's over 50,000 and I seem to recall the figure 120,000 being about the number of employees. A fair percentage of those employees, probably around 30% are going to be field positions with no real office. Some will operate from field offices with phones but you don't run back to the office to make an emergency phone call that needs an answer within minutes. Other positions will be maintenance type jobs such as snow plow drivers who I guess you expect to find a phone if their is something that needs to be called in. Either that or you expect everyone to go back to VHF radios that ultimately probably cost more than the cellular phones.
Then there are departments that fight fires, respond to emergencies or inspect working conditions. Area's where response time can be the difference between the loss of lives.
It's not quite so simple to take a number out of a hat and say no more cell phones for that number of people. I agree with his cost cutting measures in principle but the execution leaves a lot to be desired. My state handles things a bit differently, the governor tells the departments to freeze all hiring and then cuts the salary budget 10% and expects the losses to come through attrition and employees to work harder. Cell phone expenses are a trivial amount of money in the scope of the problem and there are a lot of people that really do need them. Pulling a figure out of a hat and saying turn the phones in could cost lives or more money in damages than the total cost savings in taking the phones away (the CalTrans example above, say running back to the office to make a phone call causes a structure to collapse before a response could be made killing a dozen people).
From my reading of the leaked police report the primary issue appears to be that after the two women compared notes and confirmed that he had sex with both in a very short period indicating a level of promiscuity that both ladies apparently didn't appreciate they demanded he have STD screenings done and he refused. Although the first prosecutor dropped the case the one that has it now is a very big advocate for womens rights and apparently has a bug up her butt about this. Although his refusal to be tested must be treated innocently you can't help but wonder why he refused. The prosecutor may be speculating that he's HIV positive or has a communicable STD and failed to inform the women thereby committing a much larger crime than he is being questioned for. The prosecutor may also wish to get him back on Swedish soil so she can force and STD test on him, something he appears to be avoiding at all cost. In fact from my reading of the documents leaked it is precisely the issue of the STD test that appears to have caused him to leave Sweden in the first place (at least according to my interpretation of the document and the time line in question) and possibly indicated even more issue for concern.
I guess my biggest question is why on earth he thinks the UK is safer than Sweden and why he is not only adamant about not returning to Sweden but so insistent on not getting an STD test? I understand his apprehension about being extradited to the US but I'd think he's as likely to be extradited from the UK as he is to be extradited from Sweden unless AU citizens receive special extradition protections under UK law it frankly doesn't make any sense given the close UK cooperation with the US in the past. And the issue of refusing the STD is quite baffling. It would seem trivial to get a signed agreement protecting the confidentiality of the results if nothing turns up and as a result I don't understand his reluctance to get the test and waive that concern by the prosecutor and ladies in question.
I know he been spinning this to be about wikileaks but IMO there is an underlying issue he's not addressing with the refusal to get an STD test.
Perhaps you might also consider that the reason might not be what you think it is rather than assuming its cause. The US is a convenient scape goat because it's own people are so critical of it's government but there are plenty of nations that like to feed a mythology that diverts attention from their own bad behavior. The US is far far away from being the worst offender in international politics. After all the Russians dumped polonium in a dissidents dinner in a foreign country and the Mossad strangled a guy in his own hotel room, even with the illegal renditions and using predator drones in extra judicial killings I personally don't consider that in the same league.
They might be throwing down the gauntlet so to speak in the attempt to get the patent cartels to stop the FUD and either sue them or shut up. With all the talk 6 month ago it's very likely that patent cartels decided the risks of suing Google over WebM far outweighed any potential benefit. Afterall if they do litigate it and it's decided it doesn't violate the H264 cartel then the cartel is out of business.
A year or two ago the chipset business was nearly 1/3 of nVidia's business. When the i7 was introduced Intel refused to license it to nVidia and 1/3 of nvidia's revenue and profit died. The CEO of nVidia opened an anti-trust complaint and threatened to sue. It got really nasty. Without replacing that revenue there will be a very significant drop in nvidia's stock price and value.
The VIA license is non-transferable. In the event Via changes ownership the x86 license terminates. The only way VIA and nvidia could merge with Via retaining the license would be fore Via to buy nVidia.