That's assuming that someone sets up a scheduler to actually do these checkups. When my Dad has his pacemaker put in, he was supposed to go back to the hospital every few months to have the data the device was collecting downloaded...
In this case, it sounds like the patient requires continuous monitoring, like you'd get in the ICU. Note that it's not just connecting to the nearest unlocked router -- there's application-specific equipment at her house. This has got to be a ton cheaper than the ICU (or at least it will be when fully rolled out).
In response to all the DDOS jokes -- I can't imagine a device like this *ever* being on the public side of a network connection. Grandma may not understand the need for a firewall between her PC and the Russian hackers, but you can damn well bet she'll want something between them and her freakin' HEART. Now, when our generation gets to "a certain age" (which I'm closer to than y'all, having passed 40)... maybe we'll be more willing to crowdsource our heart rhythm.
I was hoping to see a Slashdot article on the latest Chrome beta, but that's probably a bit much. So can someone tell me what they think will show up in the new "Even More" section of the Chrome browser's New Tab screen?
In 3.0.195.4, the thumbnails have been rearranged (2 rows, 4 cols). Along the bottom is "Recent Activities", which includes closed windows/tabs and downloads. And next to that is "Even More". The content of that box is the simple text, "What will we put here?" My guess: targeted advertising, but I wonder if they've got something else up their sleeve?
(FWIW: the Incognito "new tab" is still nice 'n blank, except for the obvious warning against issues like "people standing behind you".)
Then, if male: "Please, remember that there are ladies in the house, and put the seat down when you're done." Else, if female: "If you're out of toilet paper again, I can call your sister to bring it to you."
But don't feel alone in not immediately saying, "Oh, yeah, THAT Green Party." Even Bill Maher is having trouble remembering:
WASHINGTON, DC -- The Green Party has sent an open letter to Bill Maher after a June 19 broadcast of 'Real Time' in which Mr. Maher said "[W]hat we need is an actual progressive party to represent the millions of Americans who aren't being served by the Democrats. Because, bottom line, Democrats are the new Republicans."
The Green Party's reply to Mr. Maher: "Hey, Bill, we're over here! What you described is the GREEN PARTY! We already exist!"
Not to mention the fact that cattle buyers (like my former stepdad in Oklahoma) seldom if ever need to see a three-dimensional model of a cow before deciding whether to purchase it. They already KNOW what a cow looks like in three dimensions. A grainy video of cattle grazing in a field is more than enough -- and *that* technology has been around since the early 1980s (and has led to the demise of most small-town cattle auctions).
Anyone who proposes an "eBay for Cows" has never been involved in real-world cattle buying. It's like saying "I've got a great idea, I'll make 3D scans of stuff in my garage, and it'll be like 'eBay for Worthless Crap'!"
You have your facts wrong. A detached retina can NOT be cured by a laser. If a laser was used, your grandmother's retina was torn, not detached...
It was the late '60s. If a laser was used, it would have been more like a sci-fi movie than a therapeutic method.
(The confusion is understandable... I wasn't talking about the current advances being used in her case, but instead reminiscing about our family's contribution to medical advancement. Also, all the comments so far had been stupid, so I figured I should add *something* of value to the pot!)
Over 40 years ago, my grandmother was the first successful retina reattachment patient. She wasn't the first to get the surgery (probably the Scleral Buckle surgery described in the Wikipedia article), but she was the first one for whom it actually worked.
Now, repair of a detatched retina is routine, laser eye surgery is advertised on TV and radio like something you'd have done at a kiosk in the mall, and formerly incurable degenerative diseases like macular degeneration are now being treated.
My grandmother is 90 now. If I'm lucky enough to make it to that age (I'm almost halfway there), I wonder if I'll even have my original ocular equipment? I'd love to be able to see me some UV and IR.
A well-maintained gravel road isn't so bad physically. Rain doesn't wash them out as bad as dirt roads and they stay passable in about any kind of weather. The main downside is that you just can't drive as fast on them as asphalt. But, then again, you can't drive very fast on poorly maintained asphalt either (because of the potholes). So it's probably a wash on most of these roads (particularly since a colder state like Michigan probably goes trough asphalt roads a lot faster than warmer areas).
The worst thing the county did with the roads around my grandmother's place (in Texas) was to pave them. Before the roads were paved, it was a bit dusty in the summer, but the road was always good. After paving, the road got potholes almost immediately, and required constant patching.
Winter was particularly tough on the road -- since we have a lot more 100+ days than 32- days, I don't think they're built like the ones up north. We only have a few days when the water in the cracks can freeze, but when it does, the potholes start all over again.
Paving rural roads without a plan to keep them fully maintained is like giving a school a bunch of unpatched Windows boxes. It's not long until you're spending more time working around the new problems than you would if you'd just stuck to the old way of doing things.
See, here's the thing... most meteors enter the atmosphere obliquely, which results in a long path of travel before touchdown (if they don't burn up completely). But just assume that it's possible for a meteor to not hit obliquiely (and factoring in rotation, etc)... surely it is possible for a meteor of sufficient density and size to be traveling at higher than terminal velocity, and above normal temperature, when it hits the surface (or a teen standing on the surface).
You're absolutely right... it's *possible*. But is it probable?
The odds of a person being directly struck are one in billions -- impossible to even calculate, since it's never happened until maybe now (the lady in Alabama got hit on the rebound).
The odds of a meteorite hitting at precisely the right angle (a right angle, in fact) so that it drops out of the sky with minimum atmospheric friction, while not nearly as spectacular, are notable.
It's not outside the realm of possibility that both these things could happen together. But it's certainly not the simplest possiblity. The simplest possibility is that the kid was doing *something* he shouldn't have been, and came up with the Awesomest Story Ever to cover it up. I know that's what my son does.
How the [File System Check] does stupidity of this level get modded up?
As much as I hate replying (twice!) to AC's, I feel compelled to go to the trouble of a Google search.
Meteorite Myths (cribbed in turn from space.com, apparently) "All of these things together mean that not only is the rock not hot when it hits the ground, it can actually be very cold. Some meteorites (what a meteoroid is called after it impacts) have actually been found covered in frost!"
I'm getting a little worried about the story's veracity, too. Just the first two paragraphs have a couple of big issues:
Gerrit Blank, 14, was on his way to school when he saw "ball of light" heading straight towards him from the sky.
A red hot, pea-sized piece of rock then hit his hand before bouncing off and causing a foot wide crater in the ground.
Your average space rock is hurtling through space at ridiculous speeds, and hits the atmosphere hard. Its outer layers burn off... until it slows down to the normal terminal velocity for a rock. At that point, all the hot stuff has sprayed off into the air.
So anything hitting the ground will be 1) not glowing (the glowing part is long over) and 2) not hot (in fact, it should be covered in frost).
I call shenanigans. Show me I'm wrong. There's a first time for everything, after all.:)
Can the barber spring for $10/month cable and get analog broadcast channels over the wire?
Maybe he could... but where can you find $10/month cable of any kind? Much less to a business address, where they can get away with charging an even higher premium.
I did a load of clothes at the local laundromat last night, and enjoyed a episode of the New Twilight Zone (which I guess is itself pretty old now) as my unmentionables tumbled in the dryer. The TV, perched precariously atop a non-functional pop machine, was older than my kids. The signal was fuzzy, and I believe the "antenna" was a brown extension cord, ends stripped and screwed into the old 300-ohm input. Most of the time the color dropped out, leaving the New Twilight Zone looking oddly like the Old Twilight Zone.
A couple of weeks ago, I watched a static-y news broadcast at the local barber shop. His TV was equipped with a newfangled set of rabbit ears of much more recent vintage, maybe 10 years old or even newer.
Tomorrow, both locations will almost certainly dish up nothing but that "analog nightlight". And even if the owners get a fancy new box -- not likely at the laundromat, and not terribly certain at the barber shop -- it won't help. The metal in the washers and dryers will probably futz up the digital signal beyond repair. At the barber shop, every time he turns on the clippers -- instead of just getting a little fuzzy, the screen will likely go blank.
Wow, you brought back a whole 'nother round of memories. The whole "dehydrated people" thing. The great final scene, where Batman has meticulously re-separated the combined dusty remains of the United Nations leaders, rehydrated them in their seats, and the (re-)assembled delegates continue arguing as though they had never been turned into powder by the forces of evil.
In an episode of the original Adam West "Batman" series, the caped crusader was performing a high-tech fingerprint scan on all the citizens leaving some sort of event. Along comes a long-nosed fellow -- obviously The Penguin, since his disguise was about as effective as Superman's "Clark Kent" cover. Batman attempts the fingerprint scan, but the man has no fingerprints.
"Holy Nonsequitur, Batman!" the intrepid Robin exclaims, "it's plastic!"
"Yes, I believe that's what the surgeon used," replies the ersatz innocent civilian.
Batman lets him go, but confides to Robin that he knows it's the Penguin -- but now that the dastardly enemy thinks he's slipped the trap, he will now lead them to the bad guys' secret lair.
Obviously, the TSA should have done the same with this guy. Then, they could have found the entire Al Qaida leadership, probably meeting in a rakishly tilted room, behind the one-way mirror in a seedy magic shop.
Is it wrong, that in Shaun of the Dead, I think Ed comes out the best of all the characters at the end? Condemned to an eternity playing videogames in a shed. I could think of worse fates.
It sounds like this just falls without a chute. I'm not going to do the math, but even if it is subsonic at 800m, you are going to have to brake like mad at the end. 10G braking? 20G doesn't sound like it would be outlandish. OK, so it is a short period of time and with solid-fuel rockets it is just one pulse. But it sounds like it would be ohe heck of a pulse.
You're missing the point, though. Gravity is an *acceleration*. These guys will be *decelerating*. You know, like zero gee is zero acceleration? Since they'll be slowing down, they won't feel a thing. It's genius!
FWIW, it drives me nuts when people think that amateur radio is no longer essential because of the Internet. I thought Broadband over Power Lines was a great idea until I found out how much interference it would generate -- and the comments I saw dismissing ham operators as an anachronism were distressing. We need more stories like the one posted yesterday as a reminder of just how much we need the ham radio community.
I'll grant that I'm largely ignorant of radio power requirements, and in fact I enjoy having my blanket statements corrected by folks who actually *do* have a clue.
However, this statement is teh funneh: Actually the score of '5' also shows a lack of knowledge on the part of the forum operator.
Saying that on Slashdot is like me walking into a ham radio convention with a tinfoil hat. When you have time, you may want to read up on Slashdot's moderation system. And I'll read up on Tesla.
As I recall (and Wikipedia backs it up, FWIW), Vatican Radio may not be such a good example of a successful, well-received project. It takes a lot of juice to pump a radio signal from Italy to Asia, and from what I've heard, the folks who live nearby aren't too happy about it. Take the debate over cell phone (non-ionizing) radiation, and multiply it by a few megawatts.
OTOH, maybe it's a final solution to the problem: buy out everyone living near the tower, and replace the whole swath of land with solar concentrators. It's, um, brilliant!
Seriously, many of the things the public blamed Bush for are the actions of Congress, which has been under Democratic control for several years. CNN isnt going to report that though, its not favorable to their agenda.
It's not favorable to CNN's agenda, but not for the reason you imply. CNN may lean more left than Fox (though that's not saying much), but what makes news has almost nothing to do with political slant. It's all about ratings, eyeballs, "buzz", and ultimately, advertising dollars.
Reporting the truth, that the Democrats and Republicans acted together to get us into this mess (name your mess, they worked together on it), isn't flashy. It doesn't grab headlines like the Pirates of the Carribean, I mean Somalia. It doesn't turn on the tears like the latest suburban child-killing mom. It doesn't generate tempest-in-a-teapot "controversy" like Lou Dobbs' latest proclamations on border security.
Neither CNN, Fox, nor any of the rest of the corporate media shills will report on what's going on, because they think we're too dumb. And in fact, they have a vested interest in keeping us dumb -- smart people make poor consumers of advertising.
And we're getting screwed by both major parties. It's better now than it was for the previous eight years, but putting on a condom doesn't make it any less a rape. That's why I still couldn't bring myself to vote for a D or an R -- I voted for Cynthia McKinney (even though in Texas, I had to write in her name).
The "irony-makes-head-asplode dept." is funny, but inaccurate.
Irony is when something is the opposite of what you would expect.
Hypocrisy, lies, and hardball intimidation tactics are *exactly* what we would expect from proponents of warrantless wiretapping.
This situation contains no irony. Just corruption. We might say, though, that "Ironically, the new administration was elected in hopes of restoring honor to the Justice Department."
I think the problem is that the OP isn't talking about jobs, or the ability to make a living wage, or anything that means a hill of beans to the average Joe and Joanne who just want to live, work, and raise a family.
He's talking about "Wealth". "Wealth" is the supposed "right" to screw over everyone else if your skills and/or luck make it possible for you to live in a McMansion, drive a Hummer, and buy a yacht. He wants to have the right to accumulate "Wealth", just like Ken Lay or Bernie Madoff. Those were a couple of guys with "Wealth" out the wazoo, and I'm sure the OP is absolutely disgusted that their accumulation of "Wealth" was disrupted by evil gubbermint bureaucrats.
So perhaps he's right, that these so-called "pork barrel" projects will move jobs from the "wealth-creating part of the economy to the wealth-destroying part." Because in his definition, making an honest living, sending your kids to college, and retiring with dignity, are all "wealth-destroying". To which I say, bring on the wrecking ball.
Slashdot Mirror
That's assuming that someone sets up a scheduler to actually do these checkups. When my Dad has his pacemaker put in, he was supposed to go back to the hospital every few months to have the data the device was collecting downloaded...
In this case, it sounds like the patient requires continuous monitoring, like you'd get in the ICU. Note that it's not just connecting to the nearest unlocked router -- there's application-specific equipment at her house. This has got to be a ton cheaper than the ICU (or at least it will be when fully rolled out).
In response to all the DDOS jokes -- I can't imagine a device like this *ever* being on the public side of a network connection. Grandma may not understand the need for a firewall between her PC and the Russian hackers, but you can damn well bet she'll want something between them and her freakin' HEART. Now, when our generation gets to "a certain age" (which I'm closer to than y'all, having passed 40)... maybe we'll be more willing to crowdsource our heart rhythm.
I was hoping to see a Slashdot article on the latest Chrome beta, but that's probably a bit much. So can someone tell me what they think will show up in the new "Even More" section of the Chrome browser's New Tab screen?
In 3.0.195.4, the thumbnails have been rearranged (2 rows, 4 cols). Along the bottom is "Recent Activities", which includes closed windows/tabs and downloads. And next to that is "Even More". The content of that box is the simple text, "What will we put here?" My guess: targeted advertising, but I wonder if they've got something else up their sleeve?
(FWIW: the Incognito "new tab" is still nice 'n blank, except for the obvious warning against issues like "people standing behind you".)
"It sounds like you're going pee."
Then, if male: "Please, remember that there are ladies in the house, and put the seat down when you're done."
Else, if female: "If you're out of toilet paper again, I can call your sister to bring it to you."
Someone to run against the two established parties? Done.
Someone with a FULL platform, one that doesn't sway with the political breeze -- like they were Key Values, or something? Done!
Someone to win offices around the country? Done, 160 times over .
But don't feel alone in not immediately saying, "Oh, yeah, THAT Green Party." Even Bill Maher is having trouble remembering:
Not to mention the fact that cattle buyers (like my former stepdad in Oklahoma) seldom if ever need to see a three-dimensional model of a cow before deciding whether to purchase it. They already KNOW what a cow looks like in three dimensions. A grainy video of cattle grazing in a field is more than enough -- and *that* technology has been around since the early 1980s (and has led to the demise of most small-town cattle auctions).
Anyone who proposes an "eBay for Cows" has never been involved in real-world cattle buying. It's like saying "I've got a great idea, I'll make 3D scans of stuff in my garage, and it'll be like 'eBay for Worthless Crap'!"
You have your facts wrong. A detached retina can NOT be cured by a laser. If a laser was used, your grandmother's retina was torn, not detached...
It was the late '60s. If a laser was used, it would have been more like a sci-fi movie than a therapeutic method.
(The confusion is understandable... I wasn't talking about the current advances being used in her case, but instead reminiscing about our family's contribution to medical advancement. Also, all the comments so far had been stupid, so I figured I should add *something* of value to the pot!)
Over 40 years ago, my grandmother was the first successful retina reattachment patient. She wasn't the first to get the surgery (probably the Scleral Buckle surgery described in the Wikipedia article), but she was the first one for whom it actually worked.
Now, repair of a detatched retina is routine, laser eye surgery is advertised on TV and radio like something you'd have done at a kiosk in the mall, and formerly incurable degenerative diseases like macular degeneration are now being treated.
My grandmother is 90 now. If I'm lucky enough to make it to that age (I'm almost halfway there), I wonder if I'll even have my original ocular equipment? I'd love to be able to see me some UV and IR.
A well-maintained gravel road isn't so bad physically. Rain doesn't wash them out as bad as dirt roads and they stay passable in about any kind of weather. The main downside is that you just can't drive as fast on them as asphalt. But, then again, you can't drive very fast on poorly maintained asphalt either (because of the potholes). So it's probably a wash on most of these roads (particularly since a colder state like Michigan probably goes trough asphalt roads a lot faster than warmer areas).
The worst thing the county did with the roads around my grandmother's place (in Texas) was to pave them. Before the roads were paved, it was a bit dusty in the summer, but the road was always good. After paving, the road got potholes almost immediately, and required constant patching.
Winter was particularly tough on the road -- since we have a lot more 100+ days than 32- days, I don't think they're built like the ones up north. We only have a few days when the water in the cracks can freeze, but when it does, the potholes start all over again.
Paving rural roads without a plan to keep them fully maintained is like giving a school a bunch of unpatched Windows boxes. It's not long until you're spending more time working around the new problems than you would if you'd just stuck to the old way of doing things.
See, here's the thing... most meteors enter the atmosphere obliquely, which results in a long path of travel before touchdown (if they don't burn up completely). But just assume that it's possible for a meteor to not hit obliquiely (and factoring in rotation, etc)... surely it is possible for a meteor of sufficient density and size to be traveling at higher than terminal velocity, and above normal temperature, when it hits the surface (or a teen standing on the surface).
You're absolutely right... it's *possible*. But is it probable?
The odds of a person being directly struck are one in billions -- impossible to even calculate, since it's never happened until maybe now (the lady in Alabama got hit on the rebound).
The odds of a meteorite hitting at precisely the right angle (a right angle, in fact) so that it drops out of the sky with minimum atmospheric friction, while not nearly as spectacular, are notable.
It's not outside the realm of possibility that both these things could happen together. But it's certainly not the simplest possiblity. The simplest possibility is that the kid was doing *something* he shouldn't have been, and came up with the Awesomest Story Ever to cover it up. I know that's what my son does.
How the [File System Check] does stupidity of this level get modded up?
As much as I hate replying (twice!) to AC's, I feel compelled to go to the trouble of a Google search.
Meteorite Myths (cribbed in turn from space.com, apparently)
"All of these things together mean that not only is the rock not hot when it hits the ground, it can actually be very cold. Some meteorites (what a meteoroid is called after it impacts) have actually been found covered in frost!"
I'm getting a little worried about the story's veracity, too. Just the first two paragraphs have a couple of big issues:
Gerrit Blank, 14, was on his way to school when he saw "ball of light" heading straight towards him from the sky.
A red hot, pea-sized piece of rock then hit his hand before bouncing off and causing a foot wide crater in the ground.
Your average space rock is hurtling through space at ridiculous speeds, and hits the atmosphere hard. Its outer layers burn off... until it slows down to the normal terminal velocity for a rock. At that point, all the hot stuff has sprayed off into the air.
So anything hitting the ground will be 1) not glowing (the glowing part is long over) and 2) not hot (in fact, it should be covered in frost).
I call shenanigans. Show me I'm wrong. There's a first time for everything, after all. :)
Can the barber spring for $10/month cable and get analog broadcast channels over the wire?
Maybe he could... but where can you find $10/month cable of any kind? Much less to a business address, where they can get away with charging an even higher premium.
I did a load of clothes at the local laundromat last night, and enjoyed a episode of the New Twilight Zone (which I guess is itself pretty old now) as my unmentionables tumbled in the dryer. The TV, perched precariously atop a non-functional pop machine, was older than my kids. The signal was fuzzy, and I believe the "antenna" was a brown extension cord, ends stripped and screwed into the old 300-ohm input. Most of the time the color dropped out, leaving the New Twilight Zone looking oddly like the Old Twilight Zone.
A couple of weeks ago, I watched a static-y news broadcast at the local barber shop. His TV was equipped with a newfangled set of rabbit ears of much more recent vintage, maybe 10 years old or even newer.
Tomorrow, both locations will almost certainly dish up nothing but that "analog nightlight". And even if the owners get a fancy new box -- not likely at the laundromat, and not terribly certain at the barber shop -- it won't help. The metal in the washers and dryers will probably futz up the digital signal beyond repair. At the barber shop, every time he turns on the clippers -- instead of just getting a little fuzzy, the screen will likely go blank.
It should be an interesting day.
Wow, you brought back a whole 'nother round of memories. The whole "dehydrated people" thing. The great final scene, where Batman has meticulously re-separated the combined dusty remains of the United Nations leaders, rehydrated them in their seats, and the (re-)assembled delegates continue arguing as though they had never been turned into powder by the forces of evil.
Time to hit the Netflix queue.
In an episode of the original Adam West "Batman" series, the caped crusader was performing a high-tech fingerprint scan on all the citizens leaving some sort of event. Along comes a long-nosed fellow -- obviously The Penguin, since his disguise was about as effective as Superman's "Clark Kent" cover. Batman attempts the fingerprint scan, but the man has no fingerprints.
"Holy Nonsequitur, Batman!" the intrepid Robin exclaims, "it's plastic!"
"Yes, I believe that's what the surgeon used," replies the ersatz innocent civilian.
Batman lets him go, but confides to Robin that he knows it's the Penguin -- but now that the dastardly enemy thinks he's slipped the trap, he will now lead them to the bad guys' secret lair.
Obviously, the TSA should have done the same with this guy. Then, they could have found the entire Al Qaida leadership, probably meeting in a rakishly tilted room, behind the one-way mirror in a seedy magic shop.
While you are at it (Score:0, Redundant)
Ah, Slashdot. Where even the First Post can be declared "Redundant".
Now, if you can get a "+5, Redundant", you can win teh internets.
Is it wrong, that in Shaun of the Dead, I think Ed comes out the best of all the characters at the end? Condemned to an eternity playing videogames in a shed. I could think of worse fates.
I've already read World War Z, so I'm not worried -- I'm prepared.
You don't have to reload a blade.
It sounds like this just falls without a chute. I'm not going to do the math, but even if it is subsonic at 800m, you are going to have to brake like mad at the end. 10G braking? 20G doesn't sound like it would be outlandish. OK, so it is a short period of time and with solid-fuel rockets it is just one pulse. But it sounds like it would be ohe heck of a pulse.
You're missing the point, though. Gravity is an *acceleration*. These guys will be *decelerating*. You know, like zero gee is zero acceleration? Since they'll be slowing down, they won't feel a thing. It's genius!
(I can feel the karma draining now...)
Cool info, thanks!
FWIW, it drives me nuts when people think that amateur radio is no longer essential because of the Internet. I thought Broadband over Power Lines was a great idea until I found out how much interference it would generate -- and the comments I saw dismissing ham operators as an anachronism were distressing. We need more stories like the one posted yesterday as a reminder of just how much we need the ham radio community.
I'll grant that I'm largely ignorant of radio power requirements, and in fact I enjoy having my blanket statements corrected by folks who actually *do* have a clue.
However, this statement is teh funneh:
Actually the score of '5' also shows a lack of knowledge on the part of the forum operator.
Saying that on Slashdot is like me walking into a ham radio convention with a tinfoil hat. When you have time, you may want to read up on Slashdot's moderation system. And I'll read up on Tesla.
As I recall (and Wikipedia backs it up, FWIW), Vatican Radio may not be such a good example of a successful, well-received project. It takes a lot of juice to pump a radio signal from Italy to Asia, and from what I've heard, the folks who live nearby aren't too happy about it. Take the debate over cell phone (non-ionizing) radiation, and multiply it by a few megawatts.
OTOH, maybe it's a final solution to the problem: buy out everyone living near the tower, and replace the whole swath of land with solar concentrators. It's, um, brilliant!
Seriously, many of the things the public blamed Bush for are the actions of Congress, which has been under Democratic control for several years. CNN isnt going to report that though, its not favorable to their agenda.
It's not favorable to CNN's agenda, but not for the reason you imply. CNN may lean more left than Fox (though that's not saying much), but what makes news has almost nothing to do with political slant. It's all about ratings, eyeballs, "buzz", and ultimately, advertising dollars.
Reporting the truth, that the Democrats and Republicans acted together to get us into this mess (name your mess, they worked together on it), isn't flashy. It doesn't grab headlines like the Pirates of the Carribean, I mean Somalia. It doesn't turn on the tears like the latest suburban child-killing mom. It doesn't generate tempest-in-a-teapot "controversy" like Lou Dobbs' latest proclamations on border security.
Neither CNN, Fox, nor any of the rest of the corporate media shills will report on what's going on, because they think we're too dumb. And in fact, they have a vested interest in keeping us dumb -- smart people make poor consumers of advertising.
And we're getting screwed by both major parties. It's better now than it was for the previous eight years, but putting on a condom doesn't make it any less a rape. That's why I still couldn't bring myself to vote for a D or an R -- I voted for Cynthia McKinney (even though in Texas, I had to write in her name).
The "irony-makes-head-asplode dept." is funny, but inaccurate.
Irony is when something is the opposite of what you would expect.
Hypocrisy, lies, and hardball intimidation tactics are *exactly* what we would expect from proponents of warrantless wiretapping.
This situation contains no irony. Just corruption. We might say, though, that "Ironically, the new administration was elected in hopes of restoring honor to the Justice Department."
I think the problem is that the OP isn't talking about jobs, or the ability to make a living wage, or anything that means a hill of beans to the average Joe and Joanne who just want to live, work, and raise a family.
He's talking about "Wealth". "Wealth" is the supposed "right" to screw over everyone else if your skills and/or luck make it possible for you to live in a McMansion, drive a Hummer, and buy a yacht. He wants to have the right to accumulate "Wealth", just like Ken Lay or Bernie Madoff. Those were a couple of guys with "Wealth" out the wazoo, and I'm sure the OP is absolutely disgusted that their accumulation of "Wealth" was disrupted by evil gubbermint bureaucrats.
So perhaps he's right, that these so-called "pork barrel" projects will move jobs from the "wealth-creating part of the economy to the wealth-destroying part." Because in his definition, making an honest living, sending your kids to college, and retiring with dignity, are all "wealth-destroying". To which I say, bring on the wrecking ball.