The danger and "sensitive" nature of a fertilzer plant reminded me of this:
"CNN) -- A previously secret document found at Osama bin Laden's compound in Pakistan sets out a detailed al Qaeda strategy for attacking targets in Europe and the United States.
The document -- a letter written to bin Laden in March 2010 by a senior operational figure in the terror group -- reveals that tunnels, bridges, dams, undersea pipelines and internet cables were among the targets.
CNN has obtained details of the document from sources briefed on its contents. The 17-page letter is in Arabic.
Al-Mauretani proposed that al Qaeda recruits take jobs with companies transporting gasoline and and other sensitive companies in the West, and await the right moment to strike.
He said targets should include tunnels, airports and even "Love Parades" -- gay and lesbian events held every summer in Germany. "
AQ and Iran have been promising attacks for months now for various reasons (Syria being a main one for Iran).
New al Qaeda document sheds light on Europe, U.S. attack plans
A recent study by the preestigous National Bureau of Economic Research found the Community Reinvestment Act was the initial cause for banks to lose their bearings. They were intimidated intimidated into making bad loans on one hand and relaxed into doing so by gov promises to back up losses. The private/public partnership removed barriers to sound financial practice.
"NBER: "There is a clear pattern of increased defaults for loans made by these banks in quarters around the (CRA) exam. Moreover, the effects are larger for loans made within CRA tracts," or predominantly low-income and minority areas.
To satisfy CRA examiners, "flexible" lending by large banks rose an average 5% and those loans defaulted about 15% more often, the 43-page study found.
The strongest link between CRA lending and defaults took place in the runup to the crisis — 2004 to 2006 — when banks rapidly sold CRA mortgages for securitization by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and Wall Street.
CRA regulations are at the core of Fannie's and Freddie's so-called affordable housing mission. In the early 1990s, a Democrat Congress gave HUD the authority to set and enforce (through fines) CRA-grade loan quotas at Fannie and Freddie.
It passed a law requiring the government-backed agencies to "assist insured depository institutions to meet their obligations under the (CRA)." The goal was to help banks meet lending quotas by buying their CRA loans.
But they had to loosen underwriting standards to do it. And that's what they did...
"We want your CRA loans because they help us meet our housing goals," Fannie Vice Chair Jamie Gorelick beseeched lenders gathered at a banking conference in 2000, just after HUD hiked the mortgage giant's affordable housing quotas to 50% and pressed it to buy more CRA-eligible loans to help meet those new targets. "We will buy them from your portfolios or package them into securities."
Its pretty funny to see Federal Housing Finance Agency suing banks like Chase (who was actually one of the banks least caught up in the sub-prime fiasco)
The interesting thing about Jobs is people already saw what happened to Apple when he left the company (and it wasn't pretty) and what happened when he came back (pulled Apple's butt out of a sling). I can see why people follow Jobs health from all kinds of perspectives.
NASA, GISS and James Hansen have been busted before (by amateurs) for being wrong several times :
Deja Vu All Over Again: Blogger Again Finds Error in NASA Climate Data
NASA'S Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) is one of the world's primary sources for climate data. GISS issues regular updates on world temperatures based on their analysis of temperature readings from thousands of monitoring stations over the globe.
GISS’ most recent data release originally reported last October as being extraordinarily warm-- a full 0.78C above normal. This would have made it the warmest October on record; a huge increase over the previous month's data.
Those results set off alarm bells with Steve McIntyre and his gang of Baker Street irregulars at Climateaudit.org. They noted that NASA's data didn't agree at all with the satellite temperature record, which showed October to be very mild, continuing the same trend of slight cooling that has persisted since 1998. So they dug a little deeper.
An alert reader on McIntyre's blog revealed that there was a very large problem. Looking at the actual readings from individual stations in Russia showed a curious anomaly. The locations had all been assigned the exact temperatures from a month earlier-- the much warmer month of September. Russia cools very rapidly in the fall months, so recycling the data from the earlier month had led to a massive temperature increase.
A few locations in Ireland were also found to be using September data..
Steve McIntyre informed GISS (run by Hansen) of the error by email. According to McIntyre, there was no response, but within "about an hour", GISS pulled down the erroneous data, citing a "mishap" and pointing the finger of blame upstream to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)."
"The moment came Wednesday when Apple, the maker of iPods, iPhones and iPads, shot past Microsoft, the computer software giant, to become the world’s most valuable technology company."
Now the politicians, regulators etc will be looking for their pound (or two) of flesh. Being #2 isn't so bad really.
Ubi should realize how easy it will be for gamers to stay away from their games. Ubi has nothing THAT compelling that people would have a problem not buying a game from them for a good long while.
I put it on a netbook with Win 7 Stater and its pretty lean. I saw most netbook users in my forum recommending it as well (and they usually advise Avira or something like that for bigger computers).
I was just thinking of this last night. I'm over 40 and just got into PC gaming. It seems odd at times, but blowing past zombies in L4D with the characters bellowing "hell yeah that's what I'm talkin about!" is too hard to pass up now.
Homosexuals represent one of the greatest disease vectors in society and that alone is reason to keep them out of military. Emergency medical staff have to wear protective clothing because of AIDS. It makes no sense to inflict people with a known 44x(CDC) AIDs rate on soldiers who can't protect themselves from blood in battle. Homosexuals also account (CDC) for 10% of hepatitis A and 20% of hepatitis B. New syphilis cases are homosexuals 64% of the time (CDC). Anal infection with human papilloma virus (HPV) is "at near universal levels in gay men". Homosexual populations in cities are undergoing a huge epidemic of a new MRSA strain - a strain a research doctor in San Francisco said would be lethal to the general population if combined with VRE infections also taking place. The homosexual groups went after that doctor to silence her.
Homosexuality was never proven not to be a disorder. It was dropped as one under political pressure. Indeed GID (Gender Identity Disorder) still exists but will be dropped because of political pressure as well. Of course they will want the military to be forced to accommodate them as well. The behavior of homosexuality is not the same as race etc and deserves no special rights and protections. Like the hoax of global warming, the "homosexual behavior as civil rights issue" is more heat then light. Liberals push the agenda just like they support for terrorists over CIA, illegals over citizens, speech rights for pornographers but not the religious (unless they are terrorists etc). The Democrats pulled the rug from under US troops in 2005 and the left generally resent the military. Homosexualizing it is more important to them than making is safe and effective for members.
On a final note, a congressional report showed most soldiers who were discharged from military under DADT where homosexuals who reported themselves as a way to get out of the military. The idea that there are legions of soldiers waiting to die for the country but being witched hunted out is false. Indeed its a testament to how unintelligent America has become that Dems repeal DADT juts as story broke about an emotionally disturbed (he attacked an officer in Iraq etc) homosexual wiki-leaker betrayed the country because of his displeasure with military. Average people think the DADT thing is over now and they fail to appreciate the PC carnival that is about to fire up and how it will harm the military (and Americans love their military). Repeal of DADT will backfire in a major way. Homosexuals really should have left well enough alone.
"Flesh-eating bug spreads among gays"
"Once this reaches the general population, it will be truly unstoppable," Binh Diep, a researcher at the University of California, San Francisco, who led the study, told the Telegraph. "That's why we're trying to spread the message of prevention."
"take too long to make today because hardware power has increased asset production time exponentially. So it's obvious why console generations are no longer 5 years, its pretty much approaching 3+ years between a game and its sequel."
Unless its Half Life 3 then the wait is at least three presidents
"Homophobia" is just a stick for angry people like yourself to try an suppress dissent. The president of the American Psychological Association at the time when homosexuality was dropped as a disorder ("pending further research") was Nicholas Cummings. Cummings has said his profession was characterized by:
"intellectual arrogance and zealotry" and homophobia as intimidation is one of the the most pervasive techniques used to silence anyone who would disagree with the gay activist agenda..sadly, I have seen militant gay men and lesbians-- who I am certain do not represent all homosexuals, and who themselves have been the object of derision and oppression-- once gaining freedom and power, then becoming oppressors themselves."
Gender Identity Disorder of course still remains a recognized disorder (for the time being) and Manning really wasn't military service material.
The "gay suicide" epidemic is also mostly a media creation. Youth suicides are down drastically from the 80's and 90's with only a mild uptick in early 2000's. There are less than 5k suicides of people under 25 - and none of them fill out questionnaires about their sexuality before dying so the "gay suicide epidemic" is not substantiated (and a video that recently went viral showed a 14 yr old boy at a school board meeting lamenting the "gay holocaust" of 6 million gay suicide deaths a year - preposterous of course). Some have tried to use (as evidence) half-way house and drug rehab surveys that suggested homosexuals in the surveys had more suicidal ideation but that was a small sample of an extreme population.
As for the "gay linguists" - they were discharged before even finishing training and were not even translators yet.
As a Congressional Research Service report made clear, homosexuals discharged from the military have decreased in numbers and most of the homosexuals discharged (almost 100% "honorably") "out" themselves most of the time because they want to get out of the military.
The initial source of the military leaks - Bradley Manning - shows why "Don't Ask Don't Tell" is a sound policy and that Manning should have been dismissed. Not only was he openly protesting homosexual political causes while in the military (and posting about them on Facebook) but he had also assaulted and officer in Iraq. This was clearly not a person who should have had top security clearance. According to the New York Times even past classmates and employers described Manning as erratic:
“He would get upset, slam books on the desk if people wouldn’t listen to him or understand his point of view,” said Chera Moore, who attended elementary and junior high school with him. “He would get really mad, and the teacher would say, ‘O.K., Bradley, get out.’...He was hired and quickly fired from a small software company, where his employer, Kord Campbell, recalled him as clean-cut and highly intelligent with an almost innate sense for programming, as well as the personality of a bull in a china shop.
Add to all this the fact that Manning was gender dysphoric (easy to see why from his cruel father and dysfunctional family) and felt he was a woman in a man's body. GID (Gender Identity Disorder) is still an official disorder (but probably soon to be dropped as one due to political pressures)
Aggravating the situation even more is the fact Manning was discussing his problems with bisexual hacker Adrian Lamo - who friends say may have been goading Manning on in order to get info and acquire notoriety for himself.
People who study a lot and who often use their imaginations (like artists) are often the easiest to hypnotize (and the most susceptible to psychotic illness). One reason is that they get conditioned to focus tightly one one thing to the exclusion of others. Concentration and exclusion are fundamental to a hypnotic state. Another reason people who study a lot can be suggestible is that they are more prone to authority (look for approval from teachers , profs etc). Any good hypnotist knows their greatest asset is an authoritarian manner. Of course people can be intelligent in healthy ways but the people who fall into their intellectualism to the exclusion of other aspects of their psyche are lopsided ( a reason they are often neurotic).
Many people have absorbed warming theories uncritically because some authority (an academic or artist etc) told them it was "settled science" when it wasn't. Experts also offered up congested articles that were scientism more than science, and like art consumers who get bamboozled into accepting dung on a museum floor as art people went along with studies as long as they sounded scientific.
AGW is a perfect illustration of the naked emperor syndrome. Lots and lots of people have insisted the emperor was not naked when in fact he was. We live in an age of junk science where money/fame has more influence on individuals than a desire to know the truth.
Robert Rubin was calling for reform of Glass-Stegall at least as early as 1995. Clinton People wanted the repeal as well and didn't just meander into it.
Monday, May 1 1995
"Rubin calls for modernization through reform of Glass-Steagall Act."
"Robert E. Rubin, secretary of the Treasury, recommended that Congress pass legislation to reform or repeal the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 to modernize the country's financial system. In testimony before the House Committee on Banking and Financial Services, Rubin said Clinton administration proposals, would permit affiliations between banks and other financial services companies, such as securities firms and insurance companies...
Rubin said Glass-Steagall imposed unnecessary costs and made providing financial services less efficient and more costly. He said the act can "conceivably impede safety and soundness by limiting revenue diversification."..
Rubin said bills introduced in the House and the Senate to modernize the financial services system were highly constructive, although somewhat different from the Clinton administration's recommendations, and that a bipartisan effort could yield significant results this year."
Also from 1999 the Times ran an article about relaxed subprime mortgages that might become a problem in the future:
"Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending"
September 30, 1999
"In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.
The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets -- including the New York metropolitan region -- will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring.
In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980's.
''From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us,'' said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ''If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.' "
I know a guy who was president of Fox TV in the 90's. I used to get the impression (listening to him) that the network was always working against itself (they had had something like 6 presidents in a row lose their jobs in brief stints). I recall talking about Jennifer Love Hewitt's failed series that was a spinoff from "Party of Five". When I asked him about show he said "They guessed her horrible. They should have put her in a tube top and forgot about it". Since then whenever I hear the expression "screw up a wet dream" I think of Fox Entertainment.
A prior report out last year also said concerns could overblown. However some kids were more apt to be targeted.
"Study: Fears of Online 'Sexual Predators' Are Greatly Exaggerated"
"Fears that children are at risk to sexual predators on the Internet are greatly exaggerated, according to a study published today in American Psychologist, the journal of the American Psychological Association. Janis Wolak and her collaborators at the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire in Durham conducted the research."
Myth: Internet predators go after any child.
Fact:
Finding: Usually their targets are adolescent girls or adolescent boys of uncertain sexual orientation, according to Wolak. Youths with histories of sexual abuse, sexual orientation concerns and patterns of off- and online risk-taking are especially at risk
USB 3.0 will be out in another year, and with speeds of 4.8 Gbit/s (600 MB/s) and a new powering system Firewire would have been on its way out anyway.
I run across a fair amount of Iranians on my art site. The language barrier isn't that big a deal since people post photos and such and don't need to be very fluent in any one language. I see a lot of US and UK bands listed as favs on young people's sites. Their own work is conservative and I see nice landscape photos etc. Once or twice I have seen an Iranian with links to friends who have some nude art works and I often wondered if they could get in trouble for those things.
Slashdot Mirror
The danger and "sensitive" nature of a fertilzer plant reminded me of this:
"CNN) -- A previously secret document found at Osama bin Laden's compound in Pakistan sets out a detailed al Qaeda strategy for attacking targets in Europe and the United States.
The document -- a letter written to bin Laden in March 2010 by a senior operational figure in the terror group -- reveals that tunnels, bridges, dams, undersea pipelines and internet cables were among the targets.
CNN has obtained details of the document from sources briefed on its contents. The 17-page letter is in Arabic.
Al-Mauretani proposed that al Qaeda recruits take jobs with companies transporting gasoline and and other sensitive companies in the West, and await the right moment to strike.
He said targets should include tunnels, airports and even "Love Parades" -- gay and lesbian events held every summer in Germany. "
AQ and Iran have been promising attacks for months now for various reasons (Syria being a main one for Iran).
New al Qaeda document sheds light on Europe, U.S. attack plans
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/03/20/world/new-qaeda-document
A recent study by the preestigous National Bureau of Economic Research found the Community Reinvestment Act was the initial cause for banks to lose their bearings. They were intimidated intimidated into making bad loans on one hand and relaxed into doing so by gov promises to back up losses. The private/public partnership removed barriers to sound financial practice.
"NBER: "There is a clear pattern of increased defaults for loans made by these banks in quarters around the (CRA) exam. Moreover, the effects are larger for loans made within CRA tracts," or predominantly low-income and minority areas.
To satisfy CRA examiners, "flexible" lending by large banks rose an average 5% and those loans defaulted about 15% more often, the 43-page study found.
The strongest link between CRA lending and defaults took place in the runup to the crisis — 2004 to 2006 — when banks rapidly sold CRA mortgages for securitization by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and Wall Street.
CRA regulations are at the core of Fannie's and Freddie's so-called affordable housing mission. In the early 1990s, a Democrat Congress gave HUD the authority to set and enforce (through fines) CRA-grade loan quotas at Fannie and Freddie.
It passed a law requiring the government-backed agencies to "assist insured depository institutions to meet their obligations under the (CRA)." The goal was to help banks meet lending quotas by buying their CRA loans.
But they had to loosen underwriting standards to do it. And that's what they did...
"We want your CRA loans because they help us meet our housing goals," Fannie Vice Chair Jamie Gorelick beseeched lenders gathered at a banking conference in 2000, just after HUD hiked the mortgage giant's affordable housing quotas to 50% and pressed it to buy more CRA-eligible loans to help meet those new targets. "We will buy them from your portfolios or package them into securities."
Its pretty funny to see Federal Housing Finance Agency suing banks like Chase (who was actually one of the banks least caught up in the sub-prime fiasco)
New Study Finds CRA 'Clearly' Did Lead To Risky Lending"
http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials-perspective/122012-637924-faults-community-reinvestment-act-cra-mortgage-defaults.htm#ixzz2KKE5CMwm
The interesting thing about Jobs is people already saw what happened to Apple when he left the company (and it wasn't pretty) and what happened when he came back (pulled Apple's butt out of a sling). I can see why people follow Jobs health from all kinds of perspectives.
NASA, GISS and James Hansen have been busted before (by amateurs) for being wrong several times :
Deja Vu All Over Again: Blogger Again Finds Error in NASA Climate Data
NASA'S Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) is one of the world's primary sources for climate data. GISS issues regular updates on world temperatures based on their analysis of temperature readings from thousands of monitoring stations over the globe.
GISS’ most recent data release originally reported last October as being extraordinarily warm-- a full 0.78C above normal. This would have made it the warmest October on record; a huge increase over the previous month's data.
Those results set off alarm bells with Steve McIntyre and his gang of Baker Street irregulars at Climateaudit.org. They noted that NASA's data didn't agree at all with the satellite temperature record, which showed October to be very mild, continuing the same trend of slight cooling that has persisted since 1998. So they dug a little deeper.
An alert reader on McIntyre's blog revealed that there was a very large problem. Looking at the actual readings from individual stations in Russia showed a curious anomaly. The locations had all been assigned the exact temperatures from a month earlier-- the much warmer month of September. Russia cools very rapidly in the fall months, so recycling the data from the earlier month had led to a massive temperature increase.
A few locations in Ireland were also found to be using September data..
Steve McIntyre informed GISS (run by Hansen) of the error by email. According to McIntyre, there was no response, but within "about an hour", GISS pulled down the erroneous data, citing a "mishap" and pointing the finger of blame upstream to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)."
http://www.dailytech.com/Article.aspx?newsid=13410&red=y#366381
NOAA has been singled out for calling 2010 the warmest year using faulty data
NOAA’s Jan-Jun 2010 Warmest Ever: Missing Data, False Impressions
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/17/noaas-jan-jun-2010-warmest-ever-missing-data-false-impressions/
"The moment came Wednesday when Apple, the maker of iPods, iPhones and iPads, shot past Microsoft, the computer software giant, to become the world’s most valuable technology company."
Now the politicians, regulators etc will be looking for their pound (or two) of flesh.
Being #2 isn't so bad really.
Ubi should realize how easy it will be for gamers to stay away from their games. Ubi has nothing THAT compelling that people would have a problem not buying a game from them for a good long while.
I put it on a netbook with Win 7 Stater and its pretty lean. I saw most netbook users in my forum recommending it as well (and they usually advise Avira or something like that for bigger computers).
I was just thinking of this last night. I'm over 40 and just got into PC gaming. It seems odd at times, but blowing past zombies in L4D with the characters bellowing "hell yeah that's what I'm talkin about!" is too hard to pass up now.
I pull my hair out over people who expect Atoms, netbooks etc. to be like notebooks.
Homosexuals represent one of the greatest disease vectors in society and that alone is reason to keep them out of military. Emergency medical staff have to wear protective clothing because of AIDS. It makes no sense to inflict people with a known 44x(CDC) AIDs rate on soldiers who can't protect themselves from blood in battle. Homosexuals also account (CDC) for 10% of hepatitis A and 20% of hepatitis B. New syphilis cases are homosexuals 64% of the time (CDC). Anal infection with human papilloma virus (HPV) is "at near universal levels in gay men". Homosexual populations in cities are undergoing a huge epidemic of a new MRSA strain - a strain a research doctor in San Francisco said would be lethal to the general population if combined with VRE infections also taking place. The homosexual groups went after that doctor to silence her.
Homosexuality was never proven not to be a disorder. It was dropped as one under political pressure. Indeed GID (Gender Identity Disorder) still exists but will be dropped because of political pressure as well. Of course they will want the military to be forced to accommodate them as well. The behavior of homosexuality is not the same as race etc and deserves no special rights and protections. Like the hoax of global warming, the "homosexual behavior as civil rights issue" is more heat then light. Liberals push the agenda just like they support for terrorists over CIA, illegals over citizens, speech rights for pornographers but not the religious (unless they are terrorists etc). The Democrats pulled the rug from under US troops in 2005 and the left generally resent the military. Homosexualizing it is more important to them than making is safe and effective for members.
On a final note, a congressional report showed most soldiers who were discharged from military under DADT where homosexuals who reported themselves as a way to get out of the military. The idea that there are legions of soldiers waiting to die for the country but being witched hunted out is false. Indeed its a testament to how unintelligent America has become that Dems repeal DADT juts as story broke about an emotionally disturbed (he attacked an officer in Iraq etc) homosexual wiki-leaker betrayed the country because of his displeasure with military. Average people think the DADT thing is over now and they fail to appreciate the PC carnival that is about to fire up and how it will harm the military (and Americans love their military). Repeal of DADT will backfire in a major way. Homosexuals really should have left well enough alone.
"Flesh-eating bug spreads among gays"
"Once this reaches the general population, it will be truly unstoppable," Binh Diep, a researcher at the University of California, San Francisco, who led the study, told the Telegraph. "That's why we're trying to spread the message of prevention."
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/flesh-eating-bug-spreads-among-gays/story-e6frg6to-1111115341040
"take too long to make today because hardware power has increased asset production time exponentially. So it's obvious why console generations are no longer 5 years, its pretty much approaching 3+ years between a game and its sequel."
Unless its Half Life 3 then the wait is at least three presidents
Its odd to think that you would get sicker going to the hospital where its really clean - and the germs thrive.
"Homophobia" is just a stick for angry people like yourself to try an suppress dissent. The president of the American Psychological Association at the time when homosexuality was dropped as a disorder ("pending further research") was Nicholas Cummings. Cummings has said his profession was characterized by:
"intellectual arrogance and zealotry" and homophobia as intimidation is one of the the most pervasive techniques used to silence anyone who would disagree with the gay activist agenda..sadly, I have seen militant gay men and lesbians-- who I am certain do not represent all homosexuals, and who themselves have been the object of derision and oppression-- once gaining freedom and power, then becoming oppressors themselves."
Gender Identity Disorder of course still remains a recognized disorder (for the time being) and Manning really wasn't military service material.
The "gay suicide" epidemic is also mostly a media creation. Youth suicides are down drastically from the 80's and 90's with only a mild uptick in early 2000's. There are less than 5k suicides of people under 25 - and none of them fill out questionnaires about their sexuality before dying so the "gay suicide epidemic" is not substantiated (and a video that recently went viral showed a 14 yr old boy at a school board meeting lamenting
the "gay holocaust" of 6 million gay suicide deaths a year - preposterous of course). Some have tried to use (as evidence) half-way house and drug rehab surveys that suggested homosexuals in the surveys had more suicidal ideation but that was a small sample of an extreme population.
As for the "gay linguists" - they were discharged before even finishing training and were not even translators yet.
As a Congressional Research Service report made clear, homosexuals discharged from the military have decreased in numbers and most of the homosexuals discharged (almost 100% "honorably") "out" themselves most of the time because they want to get out of the military.
DADT - The Law And Military Policy On Same Sex Behavior"
http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/150775.pdf
The initial source of the military leaks - Bradley Manning - shows why "Don't Ask Don't Tell" is a sound policy and that Manning should have been dismissed. Not only was he openly protesting homosexual political causes while in the military (and posting about them on Facebook) but he had also assaulted and officer in Iraq. This was clearly not a person who should have had top security clearance. According to the New York Times even past classmates and employers described Manning as erratic:
“He would get upset, slam books on the desk if people wouldn’t listen to him or understand his point of view,” said Chera Moore, who attended elementary and junior high school with him. “He would get really mad, and the teacher would say, ‘O.K., Bradley, get out.’ ...He was hired and quickly fired from a small software company, where his employer, Kord Campbell, recalled him as clean-cut and highly intelligent with an almost innate sense for programming, as well as the personality of a bull in a china shop.
Add to all this the fact that Manning was gender dysphoric (easy to see why from his cruel father and dysfunctional family) and felt he was a woman in a man's body. GID (Gender Identity Disorder) is still an official disorder (but probably soon to be dropped as one due to political pressures)
http://gawker.com/5571388/was-wikileaker-bradley-manning-betrayed-by-his-queer-identity
'Is Alleged Wikileaker Bradley Manning Pre-Transition Transgendered?
http://gawker.com/5568351/is-wikileaker-bradley-manning-pre+transition-transgendered
Aggravating the situation even more is the fact Manning was discussing his problems with bisexual hacker Adrian Lamo - who friends say may have been goading Manning on in order to get info and acquire notoriety for himself.
"Was Wikileaker Bradley Manning Betrayed By His Queer Identity?"
http://gawker.com/5571388/was-wikileaker-bradley-manning-betrayed-by-his-queer-identity
Bradley Manning really should have been removed from the service and certainly not allowed security clearance
People who study a lot and who often use their imaginations (like artists) are often the easiest to hypnotize (and the most susceptible to psychotic illness). One reason is that they get conditioned to focus tightly one one thing to the exclusion of others. Concentration and exclusion are fundamental to a hypnotic state. Another reason people who study a lot can be suggestible is that they are more prone to authority (look for approval from teachers , profs etc). Any good hypnotist knows their greatest asset is an authoritarian manner. Of course people can be intelligent in healthy ways but the people who fall into their intellectualism to the exclusion of other aspects of their psyche are lopsided ( a reason they are often neurotic).
Many people have absorbed warming theories uncritically because some authority (an academic or artist etc) told them it was "settled science" when it wasn't. Experts also offered up congested articles that were scientism more than science, and like art consumers who get bamboozled into accepting dung on a museum floor as art people went along with studies as long as they sounded scientific.
AGW is a perfect illustration of the naked emperor syndrome. Lots and lots of people have insisted the emperor was not naked when in fact he was. We live in an age of junk science where money/fame has more influence on individuals than a desire to know the truth.
Yep - nothing like going out of business to be safe from pirates.
You might even get some missile secrets on the drives. Our secret of course..
"Computer hard drive sold on eBay 'had details of top secret U.S. missile defence system"
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1178239/Computer-hard-drive-sold-eBay-details-secret-U-S-missile-defence-system.html
"According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, scientists have discovered the common ancestor of monkeys, apes, and Slashdotters."
Defaming monkeys and apes are we?
Robert Rubin was calling for reform of Glass-Stegall at least as early as 1995. Clinton People wanted the repeal as well and didn't just meander into it.
Monday, May 1 1995
"Rubin calls for modernization through reform of Glass-Steagall Act."
"Robert E. Rubin, secretary of the Treasury, recommended that Congress pass legislation to reform or repeal the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 to modernize the country's financial system. In testimony before the House Committee on Banking and Financial Services, Rubin said Clinton administration proposals, would permit affiliations between banks and other financial services companies, such as securities firms and insurance companies...
Rubin said Glass-Steagall imposed unnecessary costs and made providing financial services less efficient and more costly. He said the act can "conceivably impede safety and soundness by limiting revenue diversification."..
Rubin said bills introduced in the House and the Senate to modernize the financial services system were highly constructive, although somewhat different from the Clinton administration's recommendations, and that a bipartisan effort could yield significant results this year."
http://www.allbusiness.com/government/business-regulations/500983-1.html
Also from 1999 the Times ran an article about relaxed subprime mortgages that might become a problem in the future:
"Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending"
September 30, 1999
"In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.
The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets -- including the New York metropolitan region -- will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring.
In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980's.
''From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us,'' said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ''If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.' "
New mobos have 2 bios chips - or at least ASUS and Gigabyte do
That was "They dressed her horrible"
I know a guy who was president of Fox TV in the 90's. I used to get the impression (listening to him) that the network was always working against itself (they had had something like 6 presidents in a row lose their jobs in brief stints). I recall talking about Jennifer Love Hewitt's failed series that was a spinoff from "Party of Five". When I asked him about show he said "They guessed her horrible. They should have put her in a tube top and forgot about it". Since then whenever I hear the expression "screw up a wet dream" I think of Fox Entertainment.
A prior report out last year also said concerns could overblown. However some kids were more apt to be targeted.
"Study: Fears of Online 'Sexual Predators' Are Greatly Exaggerated"
"Fears that children are at risk to sexual predators on the Internet are greatly exaggerated, according to a study published today in American Psychologist, the journal of the American Psychological Association. Janis Wolak and her collaborators at the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire in Durham conducted the research."
Myth:
Internet predators go after any child.
Fact:
Finding: Usually their targets are adolescent girls or adolescent boys of uncertain sexual orientation, according to Wolak. Youths with histories of sexual abuse, sexual orientation concerns and patterns of off- and online risk-taking are especially at risk
http://www.spicejar.org/asiplease/archives/000669.html
USB 3.0 will be out in another year, and with speeds of 4.8 Gbit/s (600 MB/s) and a new powering system Firewire would have been on its way out anyway.
http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/10/usb-3-0-in-the-flesh/
I run across a fair amount of Iranians on my art site. The language barrier isn't that big a deal since people post photos and such and don't need to be very fluent in any one language. I see a lot of US and UK bands listed as favs on young people's sites. Their own work is conservative and I see nice landscape photos etc. Once or twice I have seen an Iranian with links to friends who have some nude art works and I often wondered if they could get in trouble for those things.