Can you conjure up some "good News"

Red Sox back in 1st place. Dodgers solidly in 1st place. October fireworks in the Dawghouse.

You can buy a 2 year old Infiniti G37 and get almost identical performance for less than 25k.

//costs about 10 time a ford fusion ? no?//

"Americans are paying about $1.55 less per gallon than they were on July 11, 2008, when the price-per-gallon of gas touched a high of $4.11."

Ahhahaa.....oh. That wasn't the punchline. I see.

Scrooge McDuck (profile) wrote on Sun, 7/12/2009 - 9:59 pm

"Americans are paying about $1.55 less per gallon than they were on July 11, 2008, when the price-per-gallon of gas touched a high of $4.11."
Ahhahaa.....oh. That wasn't the punchline. I see.

The joke is on all the peakenese who used last summer as a soapbox.

anyone heard of any companies hiring lately?

Sigh ...

Bank of America Said to Balk at Paying Fee to U.S. for Backstop
Bank of America Said to Balk at Paying Backstop Fee (Update2) - Bloomberg.com 

By David Mildenberg and Rebecca Christie

July 13 (Bloomberg) -- Bank of America Corp. is trying to avoid paying billions of dollars in fees to U.S. taxpayers for guarantees against losses at Merrill Lynch & Co., saying the rescue agreement was never signed and the funding never used. Regulators contend Bank of America owes at least part of a $4 billion fee it agreed to pay in January -- even without a completed legal document -- because the company benefited from implied U.S. backing on about $118 billion of Merrill Lynch assets, such as mortgage-backed bonds, people familiar with the matter said. The Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank says it owes the Treasury nothing, according to the people, who declined to be identified because the negotiations are confidential.

anyone heard of any companies hiring lately?

Wal-Mart expects to add 22,000 jobs at new stores in '09 - Jun. 4, 2009

"Wal-mart: We're Hiring 22,000"

Gasoline prices...

I live in the East Bay of SF region and recently noticed a change in gasoline pricing. For a very long time, the difference in price between the lowest and middle grade was always 10 cents. For the last month or so, the difference between these two grades has run 15-20 cents at most stations.

Is anybody seeing this elsewhere? When "average" prices based on surveys are published would a such a change be reported?

Kidney transplants are very cost effective for someone of his age. He can work and most transplant medications are off patent.

In thailand, hospitals that put most american hospitals to shame (services and outcome) can perform that operation for less than 1/4th the price here.

Slump Spreads to Health Care as Michigan Loses Auto Jobs
Slump Spreads to Health Care as Michigan Loses Auto Jobs - WSJ.com

By KATE LINEBAUGH

TROY, Mich. -- The sputtering Michigan economy is dragging down the state's once-strong health-care system, offering a preview of how a lingering recession could corrode Americans' hospitals, savings and health. When software engineer Bruce Markel arrived in Michigan in 1990, he had a failing kidney. Though the government pays for kidney transplants, the insurance plan offered at the time by Mr. Markel's employer, Electronic Data Systems Corp. -- the big consulting firm then owned by General Motors Corp. -- covered nearly all the costs before and after his transplant. Mr. Markel says his coverage was so good that he turned down federal benefits for his postoperative care.

YLSP

I will be one of those 70 yr old parents. So on top of taking care of mom, helping my son and his family, a bit of help for my brother and manging to care for myself - things get a bit tight.

Once mom is gone I really need to make sure I can take care of me for the rest of my life. There will be no fall back position for me in my old age. Makes life interesting.

"life is not possible as we know it" and "It is the fate of the majority of the human race past present and future."

Bingo, bango, bongo: the time has come to kick our standard of living in the teeth. What's half-way between Orange County 2005 and Nicaragua 2009? Probably happiness.
I, for one, will love the non-stop family reunion.

What's wrong with dying broke? Can't take it with ya. Unless you reincarnate. into the same family.

Nothing IF you can time it right. Fact is most can't and the skew is toward the side of running out of money LONG before you run out of years. That is when you burden the next generation [either direct family or 'society' as a whole].

"During this difficult economic time, we're proud to be able to create quality jobs for thousands of Americans this year," Eduardo Castro-Wright, vice chairman of Wal-Mart U.S., said in a statement"

Quality!?! Many Wallmart employees are on some sort of state aid. Did this guy really say that with a straight face?

Ya... but most don't get it!

//No matter how much the elderly have "saved", it's not gonna last long.//

Didn't Wal-mart improve? I believe they now provide heatlh coverage and gave their employees bonuses recently.

hell, the retirement industry sprung up in the last 50 years or so. life expectancy didnt exceed 65 or so until the 60s or 70s.

it is a relatively new paradigm

butter,

Nope.. it is just that many more people are reaching 65.. life expectancy after 65 has not changed much since the 1960s.

Though it may increase for those born after the 1960s, since a whole new level of treatment and lifestyle changes have made our bodies wear down much less than they used to.

//life expectancy didnt exceed 65 or so until the 60s or 70s.//

Didn't Wal-mart improve? I believe they now provide heatlh coverage and gave their employees bonuses recently.

Yes - not exactly Goldman Sachs but better. Here in my corner of flyover I see workers at Wally World who used to work at the local mom-n-pops [they are still in business]... WalMart pays better money and offers better benefits than the old local main street mom-n-pops. That one is lost on the always bash WalMart crowd.

Slave owners always hated industrialists. Not that industrialists were good, but slave owners were worser.

// That one is lost on the always bash WalMart crowd.//

Europe will offer an interesting preview of demographic induced economic collapse. Will very low birth rates and overly generous pension obligations, it is all but certain. Eastern Europe will go first, followed by the Med states. If CIA world factbook is accurate with their demographic stats, this should begin any day now. We will follow a couple decades later.

anyone heard of any companies hiring lately?

I got this letter from a recruiter this week. This may be the new growth industry:
.
.
Note from Susan Haddad
Today, I am networking with Engineers and individuals with an engineering background in hopes to find a few Mechanical Design Engineers and Materials Science Engineers. These job opportunities are for a widely recognized Firearms and Ammunition Company, who is hoping to find good engineers with a similar background. These positions are very specific in their job requirements. As well, the Materials Science Engineers would have experience with various metals, ceramics and polymers. This company offers an excellent relocation package. If you know anyone, please send my information along, or call me at 800-903-0426 ext. 309 Thank you for your time. Susan Haddad, VP, Operations
.
.

It has already begun.. the property bubble was the last gasp of that system.

many people bought into the whole property bubble idea, because they did not see any other way out..

//If CIA world factbook is accurate with their demographic stats, this should begin any day now. //

since a whole new level of treatment and lifestyle changes have made our bodies wear down much less than they used to.

Now it's all over the news about how super low calories are actually (they say) really good for you.

Which actually might come in handy in the near future.

They don't like darkies there.. but reality will prevail.

For all it's faults, the US has integrated immigrants very well.

//Would not immigration take care of some of the low birth rates in Europe?//

Josap:

Most of my family is still in the EU. They do a very poor job if assimilating immigrants over there. I don't think that immigration is the answer. Actually, the US is probably the best place in the world for assimilating immigrants. Look at me: first generation, grew up speaking a foreign language at home, and indistinguishable from a 10th generation son of the american revolution.

Look at me: first generation, grew up speaking a foreign language at home, and indistinguishable from a 10th generation son of the american revolution.

My grandparents came over from Greece. They did not encourage their children to speak Greek in America. When you're in America, you do as Americans do. My mother does not know the Greek language, unfortunately.

But I think that's changed with today's immigrants. Seems they bring their culture over with them.

They will pay for it.. because nobody else will!

//They do a very poor job if assimilating immigrants over there//

re: Broadmoor.

Poor sod.Its a pretty infamous holding place for infamous killers - Ian Brady of 1966 "Moors Murders" fame was held there; so is Peter Sutcliffe (1976-81 "Yorkshire Ripper") - one of the Kray brothers(1960s) ( the real life counterpart(?) to the Piranha Brothers in the Monty Python sketch) and so on..

-K

Nuke, there's nothing like lamb (or maybe souvlaki) at a Greek festival. And my g'mother's rice pudding.... ahhhh....

L. - One thing my MD relative (the ER guy, don't worry) always said was the reason people who live so long live so long is because they don't get sick.

But I think that's changed with today's immigrants. Seems they bring their culture over with them.

There were plenty of older immigrants that were slow to assimilate... my grandfather's family were all Norwegian... they emptied a village in Norway and came to America - most settled in the same town in SW Minnesota [on the prairie]... 63 families 62 of them were Norwegian - one family in town was german... they actually changed their name from something like Schmidt to the 'Germans' because everyone called them that anyway.

Point is everyone in town spoke Norwegian for a full generation after they landed in America... and why not? They had very little contact with anyone else. My grandfather didn't learn English until he went to school [first grade] he was born 20 years after the family settled there.

My wife's Norwegian father had the same experience - didn't learn English until first grade - originally spoke Norwegian in the home.

That is a religious question..

//Now, is modern medicine a blessing or a curse?//

"Now, is modern medicine a blessing or a curse? "

neither, people just had more kids. they still do in places with very high infant mortality (central america, sub-saharan africa, etc).

dryfly, that's interesting. I guess it does depend on the immigrant. The fact that the whole town came over intact may have motivated them to hang onto their culture.

I think my other g'mother was norwegian. We have a family history book, I'll have to look that up.

L - would you say that antibiotics are probably THE most important medical discovery of our time?

Its also much easier to stay in touch with the motherland with technology. After all, Netflix carries a solid collection of Bollywood and there's even some on On Demand.

what is this thing with ayn rand. i read some of her books, okay writer, nothing that i remember to start her own ecnomic whatever with. so whats up.

gabyjan,

Ayn Rand's books == cult of simple minded people.

""L - would you say that antibiotics are probably THE most important medical discovery of our time? ""

What I recall reading was that the most important medical discovery was bacteria, and how NOT to poison the town's wells with garbage and effluent.

"63 families 62 of them were Norwegian"

sounds like a genetic cesspool of inbreeding

Why Hollywood, surely you of all people would know that in Lake Wobegon
"all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average"

"all the children are above average"

especially in regards to incidents of microencephalitis

The whole concept that a zero sum, every man for himself world can be anything more than a jungle populated by murderous monkeys in suits who spend every waking moment trying to steal from or murder their neighbours.

//which part of that essay do you disagree with?//

sounds like a genetic cesspool of inbreeding

Might to someone who doesn't know any better. There is PLENTY of genetic variety in a pool that large. If those 63 families stayed there 1000 years like easter island - maybe. But that isn't what happened in their world then or now.

FWIW towns like that to this day test higher than about anywhere in America... full of 30 plus ACTs and 1400 plus SATs. My kids all had 30 plus ACTs and weren't even the highest scores in their home room - let alone the school - not even close. Regular old public school out in the middle of nowhere too.

All descended from residents of cesspools.

what is this thing with ayn rand. i read some of her books, okay writer, nothing that i remember to start her own ecnomic whatever with. so whats up.
She's kinda like Austrian Economics - a system so detached from reality that it can never actually be implemented, and therefore can never be disproven in practice, and therefore draws all kinds of malcontents looking for a silver bullet answer that doesn't exist.

Sounds a bit like Keynsian economics where it always would have worked if we'd just tried spending a bit more. Seems to be a more pragmatic and less idealogic approach mixing pieces of multilevel approachs works the best.

Meme-tracking and the Dynamics of the News Cycle
http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/kleinber/kdd09-quotes.pdf

talks about MSM and blog interplay.

There you go, dryfly, you pointed out the SAT scores. I know I was really surprised to learn that. I would've thought for sure the northeast would have the highest scores. We do have some of the best colleges/univ in the NE.

Um, hollywood, are you dissin my terrain here? Because whose state is now in unrelenting IOU land and whose state actually got their budget passed w/little harm?

c'mon, put up your dukes.

"My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute."

--Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

I agree with most of the statement, except for the line about "with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life". I believe helping others, who share the same virtues (integrity, honesty, persistence, etc) as you, achieve self-actualization, is the big purpose in life.

As we all know dryfly, state univ's can have just as good of an education. And besides, when my daughter was applying to the ivies (and didn't get in), I was really surprised at the heavy party influence. Not that state doesn't have it, but I'd rather pay, well, $2K for a party school than, well, the ivy would've been free, but still.

Oh, I meant to tell you, it's not bio med, it's bio chem. I can't keep those majors straight. I stunk in science, I don't where mine got the science gene, not from my side anyway.

Why would ivy leagues be any better? What do they know that the others do not?

//As we all know dryfly, state univ's can have just as good of an education.//

2 advantages to the ivies - for us anyway.

1 FREE. (did I mention FREE?)

2 Reputation, as in getting a job or getting into med school or whatever.

That's all. Other than that, nothing.

Smartest gal I ever met came from Three Rivers, Michigan. Where are you, Kathy?

For me it was a gal from a one room school house in the Sandhills of Nebraska. Absolutely blew away the whole chem engineering class and was fast tracked into grad school. Her whole school K-12 never had more than 8 kids at one time. She finished her full K-12 curriculum by the time she was 12 and from that time on it was all independent study & also acting as 'teachers aide'. She frequently corrected the prof's during recitations and lecture. Unbelievable. Last I heard was doing grad work at U Penn.

"Other than that, nothing. "

the chance to hang out with kids from all over the world is nice. unfortunately, they often are all from the same socioeconomic slice, just from 100 different nations. still, the average ivy probably beats CSU Bakersfield in terms of exposure to new and different ideas.

dryfly she was lucky they let her fast track rather than keep her with her peers.

Last I heard was doing grad work at U Penn.

As my b-i-l always said, the flame flickers but it never dies.

I've known my husband since I was 16. So I've had experience in snuffing that flame on several occasions. Still, you can't beat young love.

Oh, I meant to tell you, it's not bio med, it's bio chem. I can't keep those majors straight. I stunk in science, I don't where mine got the science gene, not from my side anyway.

LOL - my wife feels the same way. She was an art major & married an engineer... so far of the three kids... one studying IT... one bio med engineer and one wanting to study physics/math [freshman next year - not sure he has the horse power to do physics/math its tougher than engineering - we'll see].

I started out pre-med then switched to biochem but finished chem engineering. Almost a full double major biochem & chem engineering. So did a bit of the 'science thing'.

Here's some humor for you:

'Oh The Banker Man...He Rob You With A Pen' (Corruption Song)

'Oh The Banker Man...He Rob You With A Pen' (Corruption Song) - Home - The Daily Bail

No Alexis Glick In My Obamamobile (Song)

No Alexis Glick In My Obamamobile (Song By Mike Robinson) - Home - The Daily Bail

dryfly - my husband is an artist. I stink at art and I stink at science. Eldest kid is the science buff, middle is a computer buff, hopefully he'll go into IT but he's only going into 9th, and the youngest, she's a nothing-buff, but she sure is cute.

Actually, I should add that you have to self-actualize first, before helping others. Otherwise it's like blind leading the blind.

"You feeling lucky punk? Well are ya?"

Can't count on Luck, it has always avoided me. I survive relying on patience and discipline. Now, someone please tell me, this war is going to end someday.
Yes we can! (good night you all, wish yo all the best, etc)

nuke can you get visa to live in china? not tourist , longer?

"I really am not 100% sure why the Upper Midwest does so well test score wise."

my physics professor always blamed the weather; in there the weather is garbage, so all you can do is study... : )

I know a couple of engineers that got visas and moved to China. It doesn't seem that difficult. Also, my wife is Chinese, which should make some of the cultural adjustments easier.

They can't touch him. He's an American.

@barfly

You're right. I mean "you should to self-actualize first"

"the character triumphs despite not learning a damn thing or changing in any appreciable way"

But the three act structure says that the character must And usually around 1:30 minutes in.

self-actualization is a process that happens through gaining experience. You can't study for it
(edit) the most you can do is try to remain open to the possibility..

Nuke (profile) wrote on Sun, 7/12/2009 - 11:43 pm
reply ignore user
I know a couple of engineers that got visas and moved to China. It doesn't seem that difficult. Also, my wife is Chinese, which should make some of the cultural adjustments easier.

I would recommend taking an extended vacation there to see how well you adjust.

The first time we went to Asia we went to Hong Kong but not China and I found Hong Kong pretty busy.  The second time we went to Hong Kong after 3 weeks in Beijing and Hong Kong felt amazingly laid back after China.

We tend to slum it a little bit when we travel and Beijing is the first place where I'd ever been that I would have paid for for a high end hotel just to get  away from the non stop bustle/ action.  But we were staying in local areas with very few foreigners as my inlaws still have an apartment there.

It can also appear to be a real dog eat dog world in the big cities.  My wife grew up in Beijing and doesn't truly know whether she could get used to the lifestyle again.

If you keep your nose clean and don't get publicly involved in politics you shouldn't have any issues as a foreigner  with communism.

Nationalistic feelings during economic upheaval would be much more likely to cause problems for foreigners IMO ( especially if you are a visibly non-white foreigner) 

Orwells Fargo clone:

MAN SUES HIMSELF FOR $8 MILLION | Weekly World News

Europe will offer an interesting preview of demographic induced economic collapse. Will very low birth rates and overly generous pension obligations, it is all but certain. Eastern Europe will go first, followed by the Med states. If CIA world factbook is accurate with their demographic stats, this should begin any day now. We will follow a couple decades later.
.
Really fascinating but what's odd is Japan.
Their demographics are "worse" than Europe's, their debt-to-GDP is out of sight,
and the Yen ... is strong and getting stronger.
The most expensive place to live in the WORLD is Tokyo.
.
I do not understand how these facts can co-exist in the present. So I sure don't know where the future is headed.

"I do not understand how these facts can co-exist in the present."

aging demographics could logically lead to a very strong currency and very weak equities market, especially in a nation of compulsive savers. and tokyo may seem expensive now, but RE there is a tiny fraction of what it cost 18 years ago.

squidward do you link to debt to gdp ? the one i have is 2008 (latest)

Nothing IF you can time it right. Fact is most can't and the skew is toward the side of running out of money LONG before you run out of years. That is when you burden the next generation [either direct family or 'society' as a whole.

Don't the Japanese have 60 or 100 year mortgages ie you die and pass it on to your descendants? With the property market having declined for 20 years that has to really bite the next generation. ie I give my son my 1 bedroom apartment AND the remaining 83 year mortgage!

this is where we plug this for the umpteenth time:

Amazon.com: Dogs and Demons: Tales from the Dark Side of Japan (9780809039432): Alex Kerr: Books

yet another perspective that bernanke, geithner, summers, and the big O himself are too ignorant to have absorbed

my pleasure.

Really fascinating but what's odd is Japan.
Their demographics are "worse" than Europe's, their debt-to-GDP is out of sight,
and the Yen ... is strong and getting stronger.
The most expensive place to live in the WORLD is Tokyo.
.
I do not understand how these facts can co-exist in the present. So I sure don't know where the future is headed.

Is this not simply the unwind of the so called carry trade? ie Japanese invest in other currencies with higher interest rates - but now with ZIRP all around the world and a revised view of default risk they unwind their trades and bring the yen home?

Another possibility is people using Yen as an alternative save haven currency to the US$ or Euro...

yes and yes IMO

hans, you are correct that almost no one takes the SAT in the midwest. It's only the top students who are aiming for fancy out-of-state colleges who do. I would know, because I went to public school in one of those midwestern states that are so proud of their SAT scores. 95% of the kids only took the ACT, so I don't think it means a lot that the 5 kids who were gunning for valedictorian took the SAT and did well. My school was still an utterly crap school, as were most other schools in that state. Check out the participation rates here, and you'll see that Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, the Dakotas, etc., all have single-digit participation rates: SAT scores by state - USATODAY.com

Scorched Earth -
Is this not simply the unwind of the so called carry trade? ie Japanese invest in other currencies with higher interest rates - but now with ZIRP all around the world and a revised view of default risk they unwind their trades and bring the yen home?

Maybe, I don't know.
Can forex be dominated by "Japanese investing in other currencies" when the Japanese are the most indebted?

Another possibility is people using Yen as an alternative save haven currency to the US$ or Euro...
Why would it be a safe haven if Japan has the worst debt and worst demographics?

"Why would it be a safe haven if Japan has the worst debt and worst demographics? "

because that debt is at a microscopic interest rate and it is still the greatest export nation in the world, emphatically so now that germany is caught in bed with housing-drunk spain, ireland, greece, etc.

I walked into the bar around 10pm and saw three customers. The bartender chick confirms that most places are now closed on Sunday nights and she was suppose to close after 10pm if she has less than ten customers. But she's not in a hurry and could use the hours so I play some pool until 12:00pm with a South Seas Islander kid wearing a "SoCal' t-shirt who sings along to Country Western tunes.

Then I walk him home because I'm already headed that way and he seems a little too drunk to be left alone.

Damn.
I probably have to drive into Boise proper to get any Sunday night pool action now.

Scrooge - I especially like your #4.
So maybe bad debt & bad demographics aren't so bad?

Meme-tracking and the Dynamics of the News Cycle
http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/kleinber/kdd09-quotes.pdf
talks about MSM and blog interplay.

must... resist... boomer même... must... resist...

I just can't see why you're so upset with Boomers.
You're going to outlive virtually all of them.

Meme-tracking and the Dynamics of the News Cycle

The big change in this technology cycle is the speed and accuracy of the feedback cycle and the incredible granularity of what can be tracked. I was thinking about old-style advertising yesterday and I realized that it was a coarse and blunt tool in the television age, and determining its effectiveness was difficult.

I think the granularity and traceability imply that advertising has to truly be advertising, i.e. something relevant to the target audience instead of something that can be force-fed down the customer's throat.

But they don't want to admit it.

//The big change in this technology cycle is the speed and accuracy of the feedback cycle and the incredible granularity of what can be tracked.///

The meme-tracking paper is interesting. I knew it was only a matter of time before somebody with a substantial math background got into it. They're still focused on quantification rather than manipulation, though. It's likely that the Internet will differentiate over the next few years as an auto-immune response to manipulation, I think it's already happening when you look at censorship trends.

What's really interesting is what doesn't happen, the dead spots.

broward: It's likely that the Internet will differentiate over the next few years as an auto-immune response to manipulation, I think it's already happening when you look at censorship trends.

If I understand you correctly, then, John Gilmore's law or observation is still in effect: “The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it."

I continue to be impressed with the sheer number of communication methods, from voice inside video games to text inside everything, to skype over wifi smartphones on public LANs to everything inside everything else, and the proliferation of useful tunneling tools.

It's hard to keep a good packet down.

NervousRex (profile) wrote on Mon, 7/13/2009 - 2:42 am

If I understand you correctly, then, John Gilmore's law or observation is still in effect: “The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it."

The 5-0 is trying VERY HARD to bring the nation state to cyberspace. They REALLY cannot deal with the fact that it isn't geographically coincident with the actors, and being modern police, everything that is not actively subject to their surveillance and control "outside the wire" / "red territory".

I think the nation-state as we know it is passing away in the modern era, but we'll still see lots of walled gardens springing up in the net over the next few years and lots of people persecuted. You can see it in the way the international LEO community is lining up to trot out the terrors of free speech on the American internet and how we're "our own worst enemy supporting fundie muslim websites" (for domestic consumption to whip up the Fox Friends) / "global bastion of hate speech" (for foreign first world consumption, playing on the image of us as white supremacist yokels).

It's a big deal -- the net is antagonizing a lot of established power structures, specially information distribution monopolies, and they are trying very hard to silence the free voices of the world and make the anonymous wags of the internet either have to join established power hierarchies or be criminalized. The global lie that there was a "true" accepted media narrative with clearly delineated truth and falsehood, white and black hats, is coming apart and a lot of people see their grip on power eroding as a result.

I was putting together a presentation for Defcon 17 but I bailed out on it.
Here's a listing of "internet differentation" links that I compiled for the presentation.

The theory that "information routes around damage" is a simplistic idea from the early days of the Internet when it was far more Libertarian.
It may be technically correct but it is socially wrong.
As you've seen day in and day out during the Credit Crisis, people do not WANT the truth.
They want to be comforted and they want to fit in to the social norm.

http://www.realmeme.com/roller/page/realmeme/?entry=marginal_utility

Mental Saturation

Islamic Strategy For Facebook

Chinese Spin Doctors

The Power Of PR

Astro-turfing

Disruptive Techniques

Australia Proposed Censorship

Italian Proposed Censorship

Japan Proposed Censorship

Possible U.S. Censorship

Surveillance Laws In India

Wiki Restrictions

broward (homepage, profile) wrote on Mon, 7/13/2009 - 6:23 am

The governments don't have to make their communication channels bullet-proof, only a socially preferred choice.

I think you have a particularly defeatist attitude, in that I think in a bygone era you might be talking about how nobody would ever be able to seriously dispute the nature of divine right to a popular audience. The real basis of the previous regime of intellectual content was the one->many, capital-intensive, limited-station nature of television & radio broadcast media, and I think that is gone forever. You will see a lot of effort at establishing "defined channels" and a lot of people may die or go to prison over it, but you won't get the cat back into the bag. It's ultimately geezer-placation, like the War on Minorities, err, pardon me, Drugs, here in America.

There are a lot of hacked-off power structures, cops, media and corporate interests are all offended by the architecture of the modern internet, but I don't think you're going to see a viable replacement to the data architecture, just the almight dying struggle of a foundering monoculture drowning in information.

I won't disupte that the interactive nature of the Internet can't be replaced.

But I dispute that it matters.

I think you're just alienated from the human race and it's coloring your judgement.

hahahahah.

And I think that you need to believe that it's all about me.

Come on, BR, you watched it, right here on CR.

You can see it still in the "green shoots" stuff.

Will people rise up and do something about it?
Possible but that's not a function of technology.
There was no Internet during the Kent State riots.

broward (homepage, profile) wrote on Mon, 7/13/2009 - 6:47 am

And I think that you need to believe that it's all about me.

Believe what you want, I have been watching the ebb and flow of this game for about 20 years now. There ain't no great white hope for the media mononarrative, it's too co-opted and produces too much information that obviously conflicts with reality. If "green shoots" had actually turned the economy around, or if there had been nuclear weapons in Iraq, it would be different, but there is no way arguments for a 'responsible internet' are going to get the kind of serious long-term traction they need to make them stick. I see the argument and the trend, I just don't think the context supports the maturation.

Kent State struck a nerve.

No, no internet. Only Village Voice and Dick Gregory to fend off the MSMedia machine. Enough, though, to drive a wedge between the great generation and their offspring. And also, a year later, one of the finest moments in the New Yorker's history, Philip Hamburger's "Aftermath", June 5, 1971. Which NYer archives online as abstract only.

edit: If you can find the complete article, it should put paid to any impulse to characterize 1970 as a simpler time.

Randomly.

Agreed wholeheartedly BR in the self-limiting aspects of control states. As a personal note, if we've actually reached the point where these inefficiencies are broadly manifest it is too late to do much useful, and (probably past) time to hide. As it is I have convinced myself there are myriad widely beneficial tasks to attend to now.

Multicast and unicast and point-to-point (edit) will continue to steal bandwidth and importance from broadcast unless there are limits of some sort imposed on them.

We use broadcast TeeVee as a source of humor around this house, and not much more.

Broward, your work is right there and I'm reading more all the time. Much appreciation.

One more thought about control societies in this context.

It is drastically easier to control electrons than paper and people. It is no longer necessary to assign N police per target to get good surveillance coverage (edit: as it was for the Soviets, and to store and process vast paper). It's just a very slight incremental cost over the baseline technology per person. E-911 will do it for you, along with data-mined correlated peer matching so you can track important peers.

The cost of surveillance, at least, will approximate zero. Then the practical inhibition to the control society (other than laws or customs of course) must be the cost of controlling a citizen. If that asymptotically approaches zero then you're down to laws and customs as the only limit to complete control.

That is where my speculation will end. Hoping for the best.

Talk them to death, Timmy.

RIYADH/LONDON (Reuters) - Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will seek to reassure Gulf Arab states this week that U.S. dollar assets they hold in large quantities remain a strong investment.

A recent decline in Saudi foreign assets shows the purchase of U.S. treasuries by Washington's Gulf allies, five having currencies pegged to the dollar, at levels seen in the past decades should no longer be taken for granted.

The day is drawing closer when the USD is NO LONGER the reserve currency, IMO.

--Morning all.

"New England is horrible. Is there a lower circle of hell than upstate New York?"

Spoken like a true provincial.

bring them own and let them spend. bring back the illegals give them social security card, and green card (no citizenship) at the borders we need the money.

thats bring them on....

Is there a lower circle of hell than upstate New York? A worse job market?

If Upstate NY is so hellish, then why do so many "post-apocalyptic" TV shows and movies paint it as the green and pleasant promised land that everyone tries to escape to after the world blows up? Damnation Alley (Albany, NY). Jericho (Rome NY one of the six remaining seats of government). The recent ABC scarefest Earth 2100 ends in idyllic upstate NY.

The real idiots are the ones who assume that a "great job market" will be important in the next 50 years.

Rex,
TPTB want TOTAL INFORMATIONAL AWARENESS; as I'm sure you know.
Information Awareness Office - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The idea of total informational awareness is completely the opposite of our ideal of freedom.
But this is America, and something like the Stasi could never go on here.
//snark off//

Morning all from the Marynam. Looks like a week for Judge Dredd memes. Block wars, maybe.

Ooooweee java. With chili chocolate.

C

I AM THE LAW!

YouTube - Anthrax - I Am The Law

This is for you, C.

All makes perfect sense.

Well, it's easy, if you know what GS's book is.

SPX..... 920, today!

Everyday, it seems, America looks more an more like some third world Banana Republic.

America looks more an more like some third world Banana Republic.

You sound like you're not proud that you financed GS's return to greatness.

Hater.

"return to greatness?

Blowout quarter, great year, huge bonuses..... stock from $60 -> $150..... what's not to like.

(Assuming they can pay out before TSHTF, of course).

Eric,
Put me firmly in the GS' hater column.

Seems the Financial Mafia has busted the US out.

Hey, is that a Bazooka in your pocket, Hank?

wasnt ....the old fashioned way.. merrell?

laters people dont want to get cr in trouble. or myself

wasnt ....the old fashioned way.. merrell?

Smith Barney.

"
Outsider (profile) wrote on Mon, 7/13/2009 - 1:12 am

Not only are gasoline prices falling, but mortgage rates are falling. That's good news. For re-fi's."

Good news immediately, but in the long haul, it's just another indicator that the economy is cratering.

I'll add it to the "USD will never lose reserve currency status" list.

JPMorgan is loaning Air India $1-billion to buy 10-new jets. Money from the billions they received in the TARP. It's also GUARANTEED by the US? (US taxpayers) Was THAT part of TARP also - monies going to bailout other countries as well? (Air India is owned by NACIL - The Indian Government)

Indian national airline raising $1 bln loan - report
| Business News
| Reuters

Government loses £10.9 Billion in RBS and Lloyds

........thnx, Home.......I need to stop visiting the site before breakfast.

LOL.......