I hesitate to post this. Last week I was at a small meeting here in Austin, TX. The speaker was a former senior U.S. intelligence official. The meeting was open and I heard nothing that I thought was classified or very surprising.
In the question period a person asked if the Podesta email leak was done by the Russians and was Putin trying to elect Trump. The speaker's answer was that the intelligence community consensus is that the Podesta leak was probably Russian in origin (I’m not sure he said “Russian government”, which is an important distinction). To the “Elect Trump?” question, he said he thought electing Trump was probably not the goal. More likely the aim was to further reduce the American public’s already limited trust in U.S. governmental institutions.
Again, the meeting took place a week ago, I took no contemporaneous notes and I’m paraphrasing what the speaker said from memory, so take it for what it’s worth
"Marijuana provides more pain relief for men than women" does not mean "..more pain relief for men than for women"; it means "more pain relief for men than women do".
The WSJ page one headline is “Trump Urges Russia To Wade Into Race”. The lead sentence says Trump “invited Russia on Wednesday to Unearth some of Hilary Clinton’s missing emails from her time as Secretary of State, drawing sharp criticism that he was urging a foreign power to spy on the U.S.”
Now this is profoundly silly; we spy on them and they spy on us. Both countries treat spying as a crime when someone else is doing it and a necessary when they are doing it.
But what did Trump actually say? The WSJ uses a sophisticated way of hiding the actual quote; they put half of it at the end of page A1 and the rest after the jump on page A8. The aim of this traditional and widespread ploy is to make it unlikely that the reader will read the jump and be able to get the whole sentence. It is a surprisingly effective trick. The full Trump Twitter quote is buried in the following WSJ sentence: “Russia- if you are listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” Mr. Trump told reporters at (Now the Jump to Page A8) his resort near Miami. “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press”.
Upps! So Trump is simply noting the obvious. The Clinton server was probably hacked by multiple parties- the Russians, some Romanian kids and probably others. These parties have the missing 30,000 Clinton “Personal” emails which her attorneys say they would love to turn over to the Court for review but they can’t because they erased them from her computer after deeming them as “Private” (without actually reading the emails- they just looked at the subject line). Trump is calling their bluff. “Fine if you can’t find them I’m sure the Russians can give us a copy”. Then he takes a slam at the press which loves to call the dumps “dangerous leaks” but then proceeds to publish the texts to boost circulation.
The NYT gave the full quote on P1 under the headline “Trump Challenges Russia To Find Clinton’s Emails” with a sub-head “Urges Moscow to Spy on His Rival Amid Hacking of Democratic Committee”. Sorry guys, wrong verb tense. He isn’t encouraging them to spy (neither Russia nor the U.S. neads any encouragement). The spying was done months- maybe years- ago because all the emails were in an insecure server in the Clinton’s New York home. If there is anything incriminating in them, so be it. We Americans have a right to see them.
The federal government's position is "There is nothing we can do about it" even though most of the calls- if you play along- switch you to an America-based phone salesman working on commission. Almost all these folks work and live in Palm Beach County, FL, where boiler room phone scams are the biggest private employer (30,000 people the last time I heard). This has been going on for 30-40 years and started with timeshare and commodities options. The companies use standard credit card merchant accounts the government can quickly find and shut down. The local phone systems can be easily wiretapped. For the few big-wigs in India who are involved ("Hello, my name is Bobby") a few secret international arrest warrants that snag them on vacation in Europe will suffice. This is a huge illegal business, easily shut down. Why it isn't is a bit of a mystery to me.
So here is the thought experiment: Imagine if you picked up the phone tomorrow morning and heard that cheery female voice hidden behind two layers of Skype say "Hi, I'm from the Should We Legalize Presidential Assassinations? Project and we're doing a survey to gauge public support for Presidential assassinations and to see if you would like to make a small contribution to our campaign. To continue press one" . Note that "Presidential assassinations" can mean either assignations authorized by "A President"- (of what isn't specified) or assassinations aimed at a President. A bit ambiguous, but heck, no harm intended.
Exactly how many minutes do you think it will it take before the FBI gets a report, hits the "trace" button, finds the location and comes through the splintered doorway with guns drawn to take away everyone involved? Needless to say, no bail, multiple federal conspiracy charges each worth 20 years in jail on the way. My guess is 30 minutes unless the FBI decides to trace every cellphone call the perps have made in the past 10 years to see if anyone important is involved. Then it may take a few days. The claim that these operations can't be shut down is sheer silliness.
If Trump ever gets up in a debate with Hilary and said "I'll end these calls in the first 90 days of my Presidency" he'd be elected in a landslide. Hilary could do the same but she never does anything spontaneous.
Iowa farmers: Please ask the state to send all property tax bills for John Deere tractors to the "owner" (John Deere) instead of the farmer. Ask for all the state sales tax money back since there was no sale. Ask JD for the liability insurance policy number for all the tractors since they apparently own them. The possibilities are endless
Bad comparison. Try: "Three times more deadly for men than for women",
Literally "Obesity is three times as deadly for men than women" lends itself to the meaning "obesity kills three times as many men as are killed by women", which may be true. Or is it the obesity in women that is killing the men when the women roll over in bed at night? Is this like Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS)?.
I can see it now in the DSM-6 or 7; a new reason for the rise in the male death rate. "Sleeping Male Asphyxiating Syndrome- Help!" (SMASH).
Beautiful sunrise out here on the porch in Rhode Island. I've either have had too much or too little coffee... or maybe as much coffee than I can take.
The big five (Apple, etc) hold roughly 500 billion overseas, not quite Chines government numbers (2,000-4,000 billion) but still significant. How is it invested? Some of the choices are T Bills, TIPS, Euro Bonds, gold and commodities. The companies may be investing the money in ways that meet a number of U.S. government goals (keeping interest rates low, stabilizing markets, supporting weak governments). If so there is more to this story than the usual conflicting "Make them pay taxes" versus "Let them bring it home at a new, low tax rate".
If anyone has any information on how the cash horde is deployed, please post it.
How did a "Scientists say" NYT diet article wind up on Slashdot? Just because the NYT is turning into the National Inquirer doesn't mean Slashdot should.
This article defies the laws of physics; it is bogus science. If you take in X calories and expend X + 1 calories you lose weight . If you expend X - 1 calories you gain weight. If set points were really running the show then in 1945 we would have busted down the gates at Dachau and the Japanese POW camps and found a fair number of fat people. We didn't. Calories in; calories out.
Set points are real and self control is a bitch. Your body is yelling at you "I want more food". Don't feed the body more than it needs, get some exercise and you will lose weight and eventually the body will adjust- it will shut up and stop yelling. The laws of physics are not related to the human urge to have a another bag of jellybeans before bedtime. Slashdot should stick to technology and science.
So what was an open secret to every diesel mechanic in the U.S. and Europe, that the diesels didn't ever pass the emissions tests in the real world, didn't get noticed by anyone in a position of power in Europe or anyone in the the U.S. Department of Transportation, any state DOT, anyone in the general press or anyone in the specialized automotive press. Do we really believe that? Or are we witnessing a breakdown in both government and press accountability?
Part of the problem is bad regs (under certain heavy load conditions diesels really can never meet the requirements). But that is no excuse for allowing VW and the others to get a total "pass" on all pollution control regs in Europe. This is a totally open secret, just like the computer tweaking all manufacturers use so they can claim the magic "40 MPG!". The shift point programmed in make the car burp and barely accelerate so AFTER the certification runs the manufactures issue "software updates" that drop the mileage a bit but make the cars run properly. Now this is an open secret. It is probably illegal (fair trade laws, EPA regs, etc).
I'd like to propose an experiment. There is clearly an important story here. I'll bet that many of the readers here are members of the press or government employees; they are honorable people who know a lot. They tried to report this stuff and were rebuffed. They are rightfully afraid to send the info to Slashdot. In modern America you will be punished or fired for publishing documents that show what is going on so, regretfully, you must learn to think and act like a Soviet or Chinese dissident. This is the only way to publish the often embarrassing truth and still stay under the radar.. ,
The key is a Gmail/hotmail account that is not traceable One way is get a throw-away computer and use wifi at coffee shops. NEVER use the computer for any other purpose except browsing and spreading the word and NEVER leave the battery in while not using the computer. All email is traceable. A second way is use the throwaway computer and a "borrowed" untraceable email address- and that means if you have ever cell-phoned or emailed the person with the account you are traceable. I'd suggest that you use your brother-in-law's or grandma's name to open a gmail account using their computer (with their permission) and report what you know to Slashdot.
And remember on the "how to get the documents" side, if you open, download or copy documents using your work credentials they will trace the leak back.
So folks, if you are an insider, give it some thought. Find a way to get a copy of the documents that matter. Photograph them with a throwaway camera (pay cash at Walmart). Load them on a "safe" computer at the coffeeshop and drop them as a comment here under 'anon coward"- you need to stay "anon" but it is about time you stopped acting like cowards.
Eliminate payroll direct deposits for all TSA and DOT employees, including the Sec. of Transportation. Hand the checks to the security screeners at one of the Reagan Airport security lines. If an employee want to be paid he or she just has to get in line every two weeks, wait the usual 45 minutes and show an ID to get the paycheck.
Then extend the system to Congressmen, Senators and Supreme Court Justices, all of whom get to use a special parking lot for free at Reagan and to use a "courtesy" checkin system- quite private with no lines, no xrays, no shoe removal and best of all, no waiting. If this sounds vaguely like the old Soviet system... can't help that.
High-tech companies like Microsoft depend on employees being able to say proudly "I work at Microsoft". The moment that saying that leads to people screaming at them over the update problem the Microsofties start hiding who they work for and the best ones, the ones with choices, start looking for an employer they can admit to working for. Even better at conventions refuse to let them into conversations- shun them. And don't accept "But that's not my division" as an excuse.
First, Uber spent money to force an election but the city must fund the election, one with only one subject on the ballot, the Uber-fingerprinting issue. The total cost to the city will be hundereds of thousands of dollars. Uber got the signatures to put it on the ballot by having the paid signature-gatherers lie- "The city of Austin is forcing Uber to close down; do you want to stop this?". The mayor tried to come up with a face-saving compromise; Uber said "no". I'll vote against Uber. And remember, there is an alternative start-up in the wings that will accept fingerprinting. I'll bet Uber backs down at the last minute to avoid allowing a new competitor to start us.
Many of the Uber drivers are not legal (immigrants without papers, student visas that don't allow work, people with suspended licences using other people's names, etc) and Uber doesn't want this sort of thing stopped.
This is criminal activity. If the federal government wanted to stop this they CAN trace a call, follow it back to the U.S. call center or credit card billing number. How? Find 100 people willing to have a tap on the phone; tell them to agree to anything and pay with a government credit card they are given; trace the credit card info and land on the U.S. part of the operation HARD using the conspiracy laws.
If you don't think they have the ability to do that do the following though experiment: How fast would it take for the police to arrive at your door if the robo call was saying "I think we should bomb the White House with confetti using toy drones. Would you like to buy one set up to use? If so, press one.
If any of the people running for President made it a campaign promise to shut these people down I'd vote for him or her at the March 1st Texas primary
I've decided to test what I’m fairly sure is the semi-automatic or automatic Slashdot system for identifying and dealing with vulgar and politically incorrect comments. So, with all due respect to those who don't like vulgarity and sexual comments:
1) Am I allowed to say "nigger dick" on Slashdot? 2) What about "I love nigger dick"? 3) Finally what about "I don't like nigger dick'?
If the term "nigger dick" is forbidden, what about "nigger"?, what about "dick"? What about “Negro dick” or Afro-American penis”? Is there any reason why Slashdot should not make public the list of forbidden words or subjects?
One insidious aspect of modern censorship is the secrecy. Traditional western censorship, such as that practiced in the 19th century Catholic and Victorian traditions, created a public record of what was forbidden so that the individual could know what the limits were and the society as a whole could argue about the process and maybe even try to justify or ridicule the results. The last gasp of that wholly honorable and intellectually justifiable system was the federally mandated "seven dirty words" you could not say on broadcast TV, a list ridiculed by Lenny Bruce. In retrospect the seven dirty words system was an attempt to act above-board, the way democracies are supposed to do things.
The alternative to publicly acknowledged censorship is not no censorship; it is "Night and Fog" censorship, which we associate with the inquisition and the modern fascist and communist states. This form of censorship in essence says "We will not tell you what is allowed or forbidden. But if you cross the line you will find out and be harshly punished. There are no rules we must show you, there are only the results which you will see".
So in an attempt to make censorship decisions a matter of public discussion I put forward for the Slashdot censors and readership the "nigger dick" question. If this post is simply rejected I'll use that truly silly modern invention "the N word" to let the Slashdot community know what's up. If the offending words are simply covered up I'll congratulate Slashdot because publicly announced censorship is far preferable to "We don't censor you. But we strongly encourage you to learn to censor yourself". The capitalization or lack thereof is intentional. And as to my personal position on nigger dick... well we all have a right top our own opinions.
I live in an Austin, TX condo and hear the Echo backpack leafblowers every Monday. At 10 feet I measured one at 98 db. The operators are all illegals, 18-20 year-old kids from the hills of Michoacan in Mexico. None of them are given ear protectors by the foodchain of subcontractors-of-subcontractors who are used to provide legal cover for the condo associations (including mine) who hire illegals because they are cheap, obedient and unlikely to complain. Most will be half-deaf at 30. But nobody here cares. No American would put up with the working conditions or they would call OSHA.
Don't kid yourself; illegal immigration and leafblowers are connected. This is both a first and third world problem; a first world problem for the students who would have the jobs and be earning $15/hr if the illegals were not here and a problem for the kids from Mexico who get $7.50/hr and who will go deaf. Talk about a conspiracy of silence...
IRS has said it will not bless the sale of the Alibaba stock, so any sale would lead to a huge tax bill for Yahoo shareholders. The same rule will apply to the Softbank shares. To avoid the issue the Yahoo Board is apparently doing the following: 1) Spinning off all the operating parts of Yahoo to a new company so the sale of the old Yahoo company (meaning the Alibaba and Softbank shares) can be "clean"- no antitrust or national security objections to a sale; 2) sell "old Yahoo" (the shell company that owns the stock) in a reverse takeover to Alibaba or some Chinese ally (probably a Chinese-based company funded by government-controlled banks). This was the route used by Pfizer in the takeover of Allergan last year; the surviving entity was an Irish company so the tax was low and the foreign cash could be unlocked with no tax consequences. People call it "tax avoidance" but it is legal.
If I'm right expect the sale of "old yahoo" a few months after the spinoff and a huge cry of "this sort of thing must be stopped!' by the NYT editorial page
My worst nightmare is coming true, that some morning when I'm 75 (in five years), I'll stumble out of bed, make coffee, turn on my computer and discover there's a cure for aging. So I'll get to spend the next 450 years going to the gym with my 75 year-old body and having to deal with a bunch of forever-40s saying to themselves: "Look at him; I'd rather be dead than 75".
Please Lord, don't make it happen when I'm 85... And I want my erection back! My only consolation is knowing that 20 year-olds will be terrified of being mugged by packs of rich, old bodyswappers. How would you like to be 20 and wake up after a hard night of drinking and flirting with a 75 year-old body? And at least for me this puts a whole new slant on the issue of transgendered rights; after all, I might wind up as a cute, blonde 21 year-old coed... until I get mugged.
Young people in the gig economy are just getting used to the idea that there is no such thing as lifetime employment. Now they may have to get used to the idea that there is no such thing as a lifetime body.
Most Americans hate robocalls. More Americans put themselves on the “Do Not Call” (DNC) list than voted for any presidential candidate. The law does not work for two reasons. First, the federal government refuses to enforce it so none of the robocallers end up in jail. Second, the politicians wrote loopholes for themselves and friends. Political campaigns are allowed to make robocalls as are certain kinds of political non-profits.
The only answer I can see is to create a political non-profit to advocate for the end of all robocals by using.... robocalls. Let’s call it the “ National Association To Stop ALL Robocalls” (NATSAR), and have the organization distribute to its members free software that allows them to randomly robo-call area code 301, 703, 202 and 212 numbers with a message saying “Hi, we are NATSAR and we want your support for legislation to make it a crime to send ANY unwanted/Marketing/Polling/Political message to a person on the DNC list. Would you like to join us?”. When the people in the DC area and NYC who run our government start getting 20 “political”- and thus legal- robocalls every day at dinner they’ll do something about it.
I spend time in the Virginia suburbs of DC and take my word for it they don’t get tons of spam calls like people in the rest of the country. Why? For the same reason that in the 1960s every city in the U.S. except Washington had a Mafia crime family. The deal was “We’ll leave you alone in DC as long as we get a free hand to operate in the rest of the country”.
I accidentally truncated what I wrote by about 50 words. Mia culpa... Here is the last section:
Finally I should say I’m not clear on why the U.S. and NATO have decided to move to Rota although I’ll throw out a few possibilities. First, it may be hard to find places to train in the central Med because of refugee boats. The Navy has not picked up one refugee. The U.S. navy has clearly been told “The President doesn’t want pictures of a hundred Africans on board a U.S. warship with no place to land them except back the U.S.” Second is the Ruskies and ISIS; we may need Marines to land in a hotspot like Syria and for that we need a serious logistical base like Rota. Third, there may be a general NATO realignment in the area. European warships are doing all the refugee rescues. Building “a fence in the Med to stop immigrants” will clearly be a European activity, not an American one.
So we get Rota and the Spaniards get rid of the dirt. The only question is about the 50,000 cubic meter number; is it a firm number or is it guess that might balloon into something much larger.
For the last fifty years the 6th Fleet has been headquartered near Naples, Italy. There are no shore bases in Italy for the roughly 1,100 Marines assigned to the fleet. The fleet is routinely called the Mediterranean fleet but the area it controls includes most of the eastern Atlantic and south western Indian oceans. (See map at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... ). The U.S. has only ten full sized aircraft carriers and none are operating in the Med right now The real action is in the Indian ocean and the western Pacific facing China. http://www.gonavy.jp/CVLocatio....
For some reason the U.S. government and NATO have decided to move the Naples headquarters to Rota, Spain, which is potentially a much larger facility that Naples, with room for a few thousand Marines on shore.
Of course Spain wants something in return and we had to get the deal done before the Spanish election, which might bring in a leftist government. The best article on the deal is, as usual, in the British newspaper the Guardian http://www.theguardian.com/wor.... To quote from the article (paragraph brakes removed):
“The Palomares clean-up deal is seen by many as a sweetener in exchange for Spain agreeing to Washington ramping up its military presence in the country. The number of marine personnel at the base in Morón in southern Spain is to be increased from 850 to 2,200, and to 3,000 in the event of a crisis. Meanwhile, the US navy base at Rota, near Cádiz, is set to become the largest in the Mediterranean. Talks with Spain’s right-wing government over the military build-up have intensified in recent months amid fears that a government less sympathetic to Washington’s strategic aims may be elected in December. Barack Obama said during the King of Spain’s visit to Washington in September that a change of government might harm bilateral relations. Kerry refused to comment on the possible outcome of the election but said that the US supports “a strong and united Spain”, a clear reference to the Catalan region’s aspiration to break away and become independent.”
So in the end the U.S. gets roughly 50,000 cubic meters of irradiated soil- how irradiated is still unclear. 50,000 meters equals roughly 80,000 tons. If the dirt is packaged first, it will take two-or-three medium-sized shiploads to get it to the U.S. and the equivalent of roughly 1,000 railroad freight cars or 2,000-3,000 forty-foot containers to move the dirt inside the U.S. My guess is railroad cars.
The present speculation says it will go to Idaho but I’m not sure. There is always the example of the USS Sturgis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... which had a small reactor that suffered damage during storms in the 1960s and 1970s. The ship had not been designed so the interior of the reactor room could be cleaned by water spray. So for 40 years the ship was stored in Quantico and on the James river, too hot to dismantle and yet not really a danger.
Finally I should say I’m not clear on why the U.S. and NATO have decided to move to Rota although I’ll throw out a few possibilities. First, it may be hard to find places to train in the central Med because
If the prosecutors knew what the money was being used for via a wiretap or an investigation before they "interviewed" Hastard then this was the usual setup of an unwary non-lawyer. Since he is not a public official like Spitzer was (and thus potentially subject to blackmail in his official capacity) I'm not sure that the Hastard interview was so routine. There are a lot of structured cash cases out there to investigate. As this continues we will get a timeline from the Court sometime in 2017 and be able to decide if this was a setup.. And why has the ex-student not been charged or has he? In other words, did he contact the prosecutor or did he cooperate and help set up Hastard.
Paraphrasing the head of the Soviet secret police talking to Stalin in the 1930s, "Show me the man and I'll find you the crime". Finally this is a direct outgrowth of the Al Capone tax evasion charge in the U.S. Just remember, whatever they can do to him they can do to you.
The Japanese did not say what the poster described. They simply said if a missile is aimed at or over Japan they reserve the right to shoot it down. They have posted a destroyer in the sea between Japan and North Korea for the purpose. The Reuters article actually says "a destroyer was dispatched to the Sea of Japan and will fire if North Korea launches a missile that Tokyo deems in danger of striking or falling on Japanese territory, the source said."
Finally we have an objective unit to measure paranoia, the Bruce.
The theoretical relationship between a truth function and the belief in the truth of the truth function has never previously been established.
My hypotheses is that each truth table has a paranoia variable located on the Z axis, measured in Bruce Units, which measures the belief in the reliability of the truth table. A positive Bruce value means you are paranoid and probably an idiot; a negative Bruce value means you are not paranoid and everybody else is an idiot.
I propose that the combination of a truth table and an array of associated Bruce values be called the Bruce Cube. Other proposed names such as the Nixon Cube and the Tom/Friedman Cube lead to the incorrect belief that the paranoia vector is associated exclusively with either the left or right spin. The name “Nixon-Friedman Cube” was just too damn long to use.
I'll leave it to other to work out the details of Bruce calculus. I'm too tired
Slashdot Mirror
I hesitate to post this. Last week I was at a small meeting here in Austin, TX. The speaker was a former senior U.S. intelligence official. The meeting was open and I heard nothing that I thought was classified or very surprising.
In the question period a person asked if the Podesta email leak was done by the Russians and was Putin trying to elect Trump. The speaker's answer was that the intelligence community consensus is that the Podesta leak was probably Russian in origin (I’m not sure he said “Russian government”, which is an important distinction). To the “Elect Trump?” question, he said he thought electing Trump was probably not the goal. More likely the aim was to further reduce the American public’s already limited trust in U.S. governmental institutions.
Again, the meeting took place a week ago, I took no contemporaneous notes and I’m paraphrasing what the speaker said from memory, so take it for what it’s worth
"Marijuana provides more pain relief for men than women" does not mean "..more pain relief for men than for women"; it means "more pain relief for men than women do".
The WSJ page one headline is “Trump Urges Russia To Wade Into Race”. The lead sentence says Trump “invited Russia on Wednesday to Unearth some of Hilary Clinton’s missing emails from her time as Secretary of State, drawing sharp criticism that he was urging a foreign power to spy on the U.S.”
Now this is profoundly silly; we spy on them and they spy on us. Both countries treat spying as a crime when someone else is doing it and a necessary when they are doing it.
But what did Trump actually say? The WSJ uses a sophisticated way of hiding the actual quote; they put half of it at the end of page A1 and the rest after the jump on page A8. The aim of this traditional and widespread ploy is to make it unlikely that the reader will read the jump and be able to get the whole sentence. It is a surprisingly effective trick. The full Trump Twitter quote is buried in the following WSJ sentence: “Russia- if you are listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” Mr. Trump told reporters at (Now the Jump to Page A8) his resort near Miami. “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press”.
Upps! So Trump is simply noting the obvious. The Clinton server was probably hacked by multiple parties- the Russians, some Romanian kids and probably others. These parties have the missing 30,000 Clinton “Personal” emails which her attorneys say they would love to turn over to the Court for review but they can’t because they erased them from her computer after deeming them as “Private” (without actually reading the emails- they just looked at the subject line). Trump is calling their bluff. “Fine if you can’t find them I’m sure the Russians can give us a copy”. Then he takes a slam at the press which loves to call the dumps “dangerous leaks” but then proceeds to publish the texts to boost circulation.
The NYT gave the full quote on P1 under the headline “Trump Challenges Russia To Find Clinton’s Emails” with a sub-head “Urges Moscow to Spy on His Rival Amid Hacking of Democratic Committee”. Sorry guys, wrong verb tense. He isn’t encouraging them to spy (neither Russia nor the U.S. neads any encouragement). The spying was done months- maybe years- ago because all the emails were in an insecure server in the Clinton’s New York home. If there is anything incriminating in them, so be it. We Americans have a right to see them.
The federal government's position is "There is nothing we can do about it" even though most of the calls- if you play along- switch you to an America-based phone salesman working on commission. Almost all these folks work and live in Palm Beach County, FL, where boiler room phone scams are the biggest private employer (30,000 people the last time I heard). This has been going on for 30-40 years and started with timeshare and commodities options. The companies use standard credit card merchant accounts the government can quickly find and shut down. The local phone systems can be easily wiretapped. For the few big-wigs in India who are involved ("Hello, my name is Bobby") a few secret international arrest warrants that snag them on vacation in Europe will suffice. This is a huge illegal business, easily shut down. Why it isn't is a bit of a mystery to me.
So here is the thought experiment: Imagine if you picked up the phone tomorrow morning and heard that cheery female voice hidden behind two layers of Skype say "Hi, I'm from the Should We Legalize Presidential Assassinations? Project and we're doing a survey to gauge public support for Presidential assassinations and to see if you would like to make a small contribution to our campaign. To continue press one" . Note that "Presidential assassinations" can mean either assignations authorized by "A President"- (of what isn't specified) or assassinations aimed at a President. A bit ambiguous, but heck, no harm intended.
Exactly how many minutes do you think it will it take before the FBI gets a report, hits the "trace" button, finds the location and comes through the splintered doorway with guns drawn to take away everyone involved? Needless to say, no bail, multiple federal conspiracy charges each worth 20 years in jail on the way. My guess is 30 minutes unless the FBI decides to trace every cellphone call the perps have made in the past 10 years to see if anyone important is involved. Then it may take a few days. The claim that these operations can't be shut down is sheer silliness.
If Trump ever gets up in a debate with Hilary and said "I'll end these calls in the first 90 days of my Presidency" he'd be elected in a landslide. Hilary could do the same but she never does anything spontaneous.
Iowa farmers: Please ask the state to send all property tax bills for John Deere tractors to the "owner" (John Deere) instead of the farmer. Ask for all the state sales tax money back since there was no sale. Ask JD for the liability insurance policy number for all the tractors since they apparently own them. The possibilities are endless
Bad comparison. Try: "Three times more deadly for men than for women",
Literally "Obesity is three times as deadly for men than women" lends itself to the meaning "obesity kills three times as many men as are killed by women", which may be true. Or is it the obesity in women that is killing the men when the women roll over in bed at night? Is this like Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS)?.
I can see it now in the DSM-6 or 7; a new reason for the rise in the male death rate. "Sleeping Male Asphyxiating Syndrome- Help!" (SMASH).
Beautiful sunrise out here on the porch in Rhode Island. I've either have had too much or too little coffee... or maybe as much coffee than I can take.
The big five (Apple, etc) hold roughly 500 billion overseas, not quite Chines government numbers (2,000-4,000 billion) but still significant. How is it invested? Some of the choices are T Bills, TIPS, Euro Bonds, gold and commodities. The companies may be investing the money in ways that meet a number of U.S. government goals (keeping interest rates low, stabilizing markets, supporting weak governments). If so there is more to this story than the usual conflicting "Make them pay taxes" versus "Let them bring it home at a new, low tax rate".
If anyone has any information on how the cash horde is deployed, please post it.
How did a "Scientists say" NYT diet article wind up on Slashdot? Just because the NYT is turning into the National Inquirer doesn't mean Slashdot should.
This article defies the laws of physics; it is bogus science. If you take in X calories and expend X + 1 calories you lose weight . If you expend X - 1 calories you gain weight. If set points were really running the show then in 1945 we would have busted down the gates at Dachau and the Japanese POW camps and found a fair number of fat people. We didn't. Calories in; calories out.
Set points are real and self control is a bitch. Your body is yelling at you "I want more food". Don't feed the body more than it needs, get some exercise and you will lose weight and eventually the body will adjust- it will shut up and stop yelling. The laws of physics are not related to the human urge to have a another bag of jellybeans before bedtime. Slashdot should stick to technology and science.
Gambling at Ricks? I had no idea.
So what was an open secret to every diesel mechanic in the U.S. and Europe, that the diesels didn't ever pass the emissions tests in the real world, didn't get noticed by anyone in a position of power in Europe or anyone in the the U.S. Department of Transportation, any state DOT, anyone in the general press or anyone in the specialized automotive press. Do we really believe that? Or are we witnessing a breakdown in both government and press accountability?
Part of the problem is bad regs (under certain heavy load conditions diesels really can never meet the requirements). But that is no excuse for allowing VW and the others to get a total "pass" on all pollution control regs in Europe. This is a totally open secret, just like the computer tweaking all manufacturers use so they can claim the magic "40 MPG!". The shift point programmed in make the car burp and barely accelerate so AFTER the certification runs the manufactures issue "software updates" that drop the mileage a bit but make the cars run properly. Now this is an open secret. It is probably illegal (fair trade laws, EPA regs, etc).
I'd like to propose an experiment. There is clearly an important story here. I'll bet that many of the readers here are members of the press or government employees; they are honorable people who know a lot. They tried to report this stuff and were rebuffed. They are rightfully afraid to send the info to Slashdot. In modern America you will be punished or fired for publishing documents that show what is going on so, regretfully, you must learn to think and act like a Soviet or Chinese dissident. This is the only way to publish the often embarrassing truth and still stay under the radar.. ,
The key is a Gmail/hotmail account that is not traceable One way is get a throw-away computer and use wifi at coffee shops. NEVER use the computer for any other purpose except browsing and spreading the word and NEVER leave the battery in while not using the computer. All email is traceable. A second way is use the throwaway computer and a "borrowed" untraceable email address- and that means if you have ever cell-phoned or emailed the person with the account you are traceable. I'd suggest that you use your brother-in-law's or grandma's name to open a gmail account using their computer (with their permission) and report what you know to Slashdot.
And remember on the "how to get the documents" side, if you open, download or copy documents using your work credentials they will trace the leak back.
So folks, if you are an insider, give it some thought. Find a way to get a copy of the documents that matter. Photograph them with a throwaway camera (pay cash at Walmart). Load them on a "safe" computer at the coffeeshop and drop them as a comment here under 'anon coward"- you need to stay "anon" but it is about time you stopped acting like cowards.
Eliminate payroll direct deposits for all TSA and DOT employees, including the Sec. of Transportation. Hand the checks to the security screeners at one of the Reagan Airport security lines. If an employee want to be paid he or she just has to get in line every two weeks, wait the usual 45 minutes and show an ID to get the paycheck.
Then extend the system to Congressmen, Senators and Supreme Court Justices, all of whom get to use a special parking lot for free at Reagan and to use a "courtesy" checkin system- quite private with no lines, no xrays, no shoe removal and best of all, no waiting. If this sounds vaguely like the old Soviet system... can't help that.
High-tech companies like Microsoft depend on employees being able to say proudly "I work at Microsoft". The moment that saying that leads to people screaming at them over the update problem the Microsofties start hiding who they work for and the best ones, the ones with choices, start looking for an employer they can admit to working for. Even better at conventions refuse to let them into conversations- shun them. And don't accept "But that's not my division" as an excuse.
Lots of BS here- everybody has an opinion about the opinion of everybody else.
Where is the text of the hacked documents so I can look at them and make an informed opinion.
Any ideas?
Dave Miller
Two comments:
First, Uber spent money to force an election but the city must fund the election, one with only one subject on the ballot, the Uber-fingerprinting issue. The total cost to the city will be hundereds of thousands of dollars. Uber got the signatures to put it on the ballot by having the paid signature-gatherers lie- "The city of Austin is forcing Uber to close down; do you want to stop this?". The mayor tried to come up with a face-saving compromise; Uber said "no". I'll vote against Uber. And remember, there is an alternative start-up in the wings that will accept fingerprinting. I'll bet Uber backs down at the last minute to avoid allowing a new competitor to start us.
Many of the Uber drivers are not legal (immigrants without papers, student visas that don't allow work, people with suspended licences using other people's names, etc) and Uber doesn't want this sort of thing stopped.
This is criminal activity. If the federal government wanted to stop this they CAN trace a call, follow it back to the U.S. call center or credit card billing number. How? Find 100 people willing to have a tap on the phone; tell them to agree to anything and pay with a government credit card they are given; trace the credit card info and land on the U.S. part of the operation HARD using the conspiracy laws.
If you don't think they have the ability to do that do the following though experiment: How fast would it take for the police to arrive at your door if the robo call was saying "I think we should bomb the White House with confetti using toy drones. Would you like to buy one set up to use? If so, press one.
If any of the people running for President made it a campaign promise to shut these people down I'd vote for him or her at the March 1st Texas primary
I've decided to test what I’m fairly sure is the semi-automatic or automatic Slashdot system for identifying and dealing with vulgar and politically incorrect comments. So, with all due respect to those who don't like vulgarity and sexual comments:
1) Am I allowed to say "nigger dick" on Slashdot?
2) What about "I love nigger dick"?
3) Finally what about "I don't like nigger dick'?
If the term "nigger dick" is forbidden, what about "nigger"?, what about "dick"? What about “Negro dick” or Afro-American penis”? Is there any reason why Slashdot should not make public the list of forbidden words or subjects?
One insidious aspect of modern censorship is the secrecy. Traditional western censorship, such as that practiced in the 19th century Catholic and Victorian traditions, created a public record of what was forbidden so that the individual could know what the limits were and the society as a whole could argue about the process and maybe even try to justify or ridicule the results. The last gasp of that wholly honorable and intellectually justifiable system was the federally mandated "seven dirty words" you could not say on broadcast TV, a list ridiculed by Lenny Bruce. In retrospect the seven dirty words system was an attempt to act above-board, the way democracies are supposed to do things.
The alternative to publicly acknowledged censorship is not no censorship; it is "Night and Fog" censorship, which we associate with the inquisition and the modern fascist and communist states. This form of censorship in essence says "We will not tell you what is allowed or forbidden. But if you cross the line you will find out and be harshly punished. There are no rules we must show you, there are only the results which you will see".
So in an attempt to make censorship decisions a matter of public discussion I put forward for the Slashdot censors and readership the "nigger dick" question. If this post is simply rejected I'll use that truly silly modern invention "the N word" to let the Slashdot community know what's up. If the offending words are simply covered up I'll congratulate Slashdot because publicly announced censorship is far preferable to "We don't censor you. But we strongly encourage you to learn to censor yourself". The capitalization or lack thereof is intentional. And as to my personal position on nigger dick... well we all have a right top our own opinions.
I live in an Austin, TX condo and hear the Echo backpack leafblowers every Monday. At 10 feet I measured one at 98 db. The operators are all illegals, 18-20 year-old kids from the hills of Michoacan in Mexico. None of them are given ear protectors by the foodchain of subcontractors-of-subcontractors who are used to provide legal cover for the condo associations (including mine) who hire illegals because they are cheap, obedient and unlikely to complain. Most will be half-deaf at 30. But nobody here cares. No American would put up with the working conditions or they would call OSHA.
Don't kid yourself; illegal immigration and leafblowers are connected. This is both a first and third world problem; a first world problem for the students who would have the jobs and be earning $15/hr if the illegals were not here and a problem for the kids from Mexico who get $7.50/hr and who will go deaf. Talk about a conspiracy of silence...
The situation pisses me off for both reasons.
Twitter said: "deleting a tweet is an expression of the user's voice"
This is so funny I don't even know where to begin.
IRS has said it will not bless the sale of the Alibaba stock, so any sale would lead to a huge tax bill for Yahoo shareholders. The same rule will apply to the Softbank shares. To avoid the issue the Yahoo Board is apparently doing the following: 1) Spinning off all the operating parts of Yahoo to a new company so the sale of the old Yahoo company (meaning the Alibaba and Softbank shares) can be "clean"- no antitrust or national security objections to a sale; 2) sell "old Yahoo" (the shell company that owns the stock) in a reverse takeover to Alibaba or some Chinese ally (probably a Chinese-based company funded by government-controlled banks). This was the route used by Pfizer in the takeover of Allergan last year; the surviving entity was an Irish company so the tax was low and the foreign cash could be unlocked with no tax consequences. People call it "tax avoidance" but it is legal.
If I'm right expect the sale of "old yahoo" a few months after the spinoff and a huge cry of "this sort of thing must be stopped!' by the NYT editorial page
My worst nightmare is coming true, that some morning when I'm 75 (in five years), I'll stumble out of bed, make coffee, turn on my computer and discover there's a cure for aging. So I'll get to spend the next 450 years going to the gym with my 75 year-old body and having to deal with a bunch of forever-40s saying to themselves: "Look at him; I'd rather be dead than 75".
Please Lord, don't make it happen when I'm 85... And I want my erection back! My only consolation is knowing that 20 year-olds will be terrified of being mugged by packs of rich, old bodyswappers. How would you like to be 20 and wake up after a hard night of drinking and flirting with a 75 year-old body? And at least for me this puts a whole new slant on the issue of transgendered rights; after all, I might wind up as a cute, blonde 21 year-old coed... until I get mugged.
Young people in the gig economy are just getting used to the idea that there is no such thing as lifetime employment. Now they may have to get used to the idea that there is no such thing as a lifetime body.
Most Americans hate robocalls. More Americans put themselves on the “Do Not Call” (DNC) list than voted for any presidential candidate. The law does not work for two reasons. First, the federal government refuses to enforce it so none of the robocallers end up in jail. Second, the politicians wrote loopholes for themselves and friends. Political campaigns are allowed to make robocalls as are certain kinds of political non-profits.
The only answer I can see is to create a political non-profit to advocate for the end of all robocals by using.... robocalls. Let’s call it the “ National Association To Stop ALL Robocalls” (NATSAR), and have the organization distribute to its members free software that allows them to randomly robo-call area code 301, 703, 202 and 212 numbers with a message saying “Hi, we are NATSAR and we want your support for legislation to make it a crime to send ANY unwanted /Marketing/Polling/Political message to a person on the DNC list. Would you like to join us?”. When the people in the DC area and NYC who run our government start getting 20 “political”- and thus legal- robocalls every day at dinner they’ll do something about it.
I spend time in the Virginia suburbs of DC and take my word for it they don’t get tons of spam calls like people in the rest of the country. Why? For the same reason that in the 1960s every city in the U.S. except Washington had a Mafia crime family. The deal was “We’ll leave you alone in DC as long as we get a free hand to operate in the rest of the country”.
I accidentally truncated what I wrote by about 50 words. Mia culpa... Here is the last section:
Finally I should say I’m not clear on why the U.S. and NATO have decided to move to Rota although I’ll throw out a few possibilities. First, it may be hard to find places to train in the central Med because of refugee boats. The Navy has not picked up one refugee. The U.S. navy has clearly been told “The President doesn’t want pictures of a hundred Africans on board a U.S. warship with no place to land them except back the U.S.” Second is the Ruskies and ISIS; we may need Marines to land in a hotspot like Syria and for that we need a serious logistical base like Rota. Third, there may be a general NATO realignment in the area. European warships are doing all the refugee rescues. Building “a fence in the Med to stop immigrants” will clearly be a European activity, not an American one.
So we get Rota and the Spaniards get rid of the dirt. The only question is about the 50,000 cubic meter number; is it a firm number or is it guess that might balloon into something much larger.
Here is what’s really going on.
For the last fifty years the 6th Fleet has been headquartered near Naples, Italy. There are no shore bases in Italy for the roughly 1,100 Marines assigned to the fleet. The fleet is routinely called the Mediterranean fleet but the area it controls includes most of the eastern Atlantic and south western Indian oceans. (See map at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... ). The U.S. has only ten full sized aircraft carriers and none are operating in the Med right now The real action is in the Indian ocean and the western Pacific facing China. http://www.gonavy.jp/CVLocatio....
For some reason the U.S. government and NATO have decided to move the Naples headquarters to Rota, Spain, which is potentially a much larger facility that Naples, with room for a few thousand Marines on shore.
Of course Spain wants something in return and we had to get the deal done before the Spanish election, which might bring in a leftist government. The best article on the deal is, as usual, in the British newspaper the Guardian http://www.theguardian.com/wor.... To quote from the article (paragraph brakes removed):
“The Palomares clean-up deal is seen by many as a sweetener in exchange for Spain agreeing to Washington ramping up its military presence in the country. The number of marine personnel at the base in Morón in southern Spain is to be increased from 850 to 2,200, and to 3,000 in the event of a crisis. Meanwhile, the US navy base at Rota, near Cádiz, is set to become the largest in the Mediterranean. Talks with Spain’s right-wing government over the military build-up have intensified in recent months amid fears that a government less sympathetic to Washington’s strategic aims may be elected in December. Barack Obama said during the King of Spain’s visit to Washington in September that a change of government might harm bilateral relations. Kerry refused to comment on the possible outcome of the election but said that the US supports “a strong and united Spain”, a clear reference to the Catalan region’s aspiration to break away and become independent.”
So in the end the U.S. gets roughly 50,000 cubic meters of irradiated soil- how irradiated is still unclear. 50,000 meters equals roughly 80,000 tons. If the dirt is packaged first, it will take two-or-three medium-sized shiploads to get it to the U.S. and the equivalent of roughly 1,000 railroad freight cars or 2,000-3,000 forty-foot containers to move the dirt inside the U.S. My guess is railroad cars.
The present speculation says it will go to Idaho but I’m not sure. There is always the example of the USS Sturgis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... which had a small reactor that suffered damage during storms in the 1960s and 1970s. The ship had not been designed so the interior of the reactor room could be cleaned by water spray. So for 40 years the ship was stored in Quantico and on the James river, too hot to dismantle and yet not really a danger.
Finally I should say I’m not clear on why the U.S. and NATO have decided to move to Rota although I’ll throw out a few possibilities. First, it may be hard to find places to train in the central Med because
Hastard on his own pederasty (I couldn't resist)
If the prosecutors knew what the money was being used for via a wiretap or an investigation before they "interviewed" Hastard then this was the usual setup of an unwary non-lawyer. Since he is not a public official like Spitzer was (and thus potentially subject to blackmail in his official capacity) I'm not sure that the Hastard interview was so routine. There are a lot of structured cash cases out there to investigate. As this continues we will get a timeline from the Court sometime in 2017 and be able to decide if this was a setup.. And why has the ex-student not been charged or has he? In other words, did he contact the prosecutor or did he cooperate and help set up Hastard.
Paraphrasing the head of the Soviet secret police talking to Stalin in the 1930s, "Show me the man and I'll find you the crime". Finally this is a direct outgrowth of the Al Capone tax evasion charge in the U.S. Just remember, whatever they can do to him they can do to you.
The Japanese did not say what the poster described. They simply said if a missile is aimed at or over Japan they reserve the right to shoot it down. They have posted a destroyer in the sea between Japan and North Korea for the purpose. The Reuters article actually says "a destroyer was dispatched to the Sea of Japan and will fire if North Korea launches a missile that Tokyo deems in danger of striking or falling on Japanese territory, the source said."
Finally we have an objective unit to measure paranoia, the Bruce.
The theoretical relationship between a truth function and the belief in the truth of the truth function has never previously been established.
My hypotheses is that each truth table has a paranoia variable located on the Z axis, measured in Bruce Units, which measures the belief in the reliability of the truth table. A positive Bruce value means you are paranoid and probably an idiot; a negative Bruce value means you are not paranoid and everybody else is an idiot.
I propose that the combination of a truth table and an array of associated Bruce values be called the Bruce Cube. Other proposed names such as the Nixon Cube and the Tom/Friedman Cube lead to the incorrect belief that the paranoia vector is associated exclusively with either the left or right spin. The name “Nixon-Friedman Cube” was just too damn long to use.
I'll leave it to other to work out the details of Bruce calculus. I'm too tired
.