Who pays for crap like this?

If you live in the US, you do. This was a NOAA (hence government, hence paid by taxes) report.

And yeah, it's crap, but it strokes the malthusians and doomsayers nicely, so it will be popular crap.

And yet, between YouTube, iTMS, Amazon, a local indie station, and satellite radio, I am finding and hearing more great music than any time since the early 80s. And far more of the money I'm spending on music is going to the artists than did then. So in short, I think you're wrong.

Statistically nobody asks "how do I change the screen resolution on Linux".

You're proving his point: statistically no one uses Linux on the desktop.

Knowing where a person is coming from is useful. I did not use "activist" in a context that implies a negative, but it certainly implies a bias. I, too, have a bia on issues of interest to me; I think everyone does. But do keep in mind that someone who is an activist on a particular issue is going to have a very different viewpoint from someone who is not.

You'd think the government would be all over the Central Authentication Service.

I doubt that would stop them for a moment. After all, the Muslims are constantly on about how we can't fight them during Ramadan, but they fight each other all through Ramadan. I suspect Iran would not hesitate a moment before killing millions of Arabs (the Iranians are Persian after all, and the Arabs they'd be killing are largely Sunni anyway, while the Iranians are Shi'a) and destroying Islam's "third holiest site," which became so rather notably about the time that Israel took control of it. Odd, that. In any event, I certainly wouldn't count on the Iranians being held back from striking Israel directly for these reasons. They aren't likely to attack Israel directly, though, mainly because Israel has a survivable nuclear force, and would immolate Iran in response.

Actually, I suspect that you misunderstand their objective. Oh, maybe stopping a US invasion is a secondary objective, but I don't think that's their primary objective. Their primary objective seems to be (if you take their word for it) bringing about a new Caliphate under Shi'a dominance. To that end, nuclear weapons would be a huge advantage.

Iran wants to meddle deeply in the affairs of its neighbors, maybe assassinate those who don't play along, support those who strike at Israel (HAMAS and Hizb'allah, for instance) and the like. This furthers their objective of establishing a renewed Caliphate that they control. So when they do those things today, the US and the Saudis and the Emirates and others fight back in numerous ways. But we are very, very, very limited in what we can do once they have working nuclear weapons. And so even if they don't strike Israel (which they might, if they felt it could bring about their objectives), their possession of nuclear weapons would be hugely destabilizing for the region, and not in good ways.

The two most likely responses though are that Israel would strike Iran to prevent them getting nuclear weapons (which might require a pre-emptive nuclear attack by Israel, given the range) or that the Saudis would also obtain nuclear weapons in an attempt to balance the situation and limit Iran's options. Basically, the Middle East is in the process of descending into an even bigger mess than it has been the last century, or millenium depending on how you measure it, and the US is not only not the prime mover in this, it's basically being ignored by all sides.

Looking at his bio, most of his work for FAS seems to be arguing against missile defense. He seems to be a bit of an activist. Basically, he comes across as a bit of an ostrich about Iran's nuclear program: nuclear weapons are bad, and war is bad; therefore if the Iranians are seeking nuclear weapons, it justifies ballistic missile defense (which he's against) and possibly an attack (which he's against) to stop Iran from reaching their goal; therefore Iran must not be seeking nuclear weapons. Not exactly a scientific chain of argument, but it seems to be the path he's on (based on that last link, and two of his other articles that I read through).

That's not what WMD means. WMD is a term that replaced NBC or CBN or a variety of other acronyms to differentiate chemical, biological and nuclear weapons from other weapons. It's a useful distinction (between weapons that are designed so that their normal use kills over a large area with each use, and those which kill in small increments). By your usage, a knife is a WMD if the population being attacked is unarmed.

+1 Funny

Officially? Really? Read up about the Kulaks before you talk about the "official" numbers.

Actually, Mao is first, followed by Stalin and then Hitler.

Don't be too snide. A lot of people are graduating college these days with enough debt to equate to a house, but without the house. It's not a bad thing to make decent money without first going into massive debt, and given the bubble of college tuition prices in the US, it's far from clear that a degree is a better deal than, say, tech school for HVAC or auto mechanics or what have you.

You don't need the words "for profit" there. Non-profit schools, state schools for example, are doing the same thing and for the same reasons.

I addressed the research to the extent of saying that I don't know what it shows, but I don't care either. I did not advocate drone strikes; noting who is responsible for those deaths is not necessarily an endorsement of the method. I used the word "presumably" because there have been many, many, many examples of people being killed in airstrikes (whether or not by drones) being touted by the enemy as civilians when they were actually combatants.