20514500
submission
Frosty Piss writes:
Lazar Greenfield, M.D. is no ordinary surgeon. Until last week, he was the president-elect of the American College of Surgeons, and was also the lead editor of the Surgery News. In the February issue, he penned some thoughts on Valentine's Day under the heading of "Gut Feelings." Greenfield proceeded to then discuss the mating habits of fruit flies, the mating habits of the rotifer. In each case, Dr. Greenfield made sure to reference to the scientific literature. Then he turned his attention to humans. Dr. Greenfield noted the therapeutic effects of semen, citing research from the Archives of Sexual Behavior which found that female college students practicing unprotected sex were less likely to suffer from depression than those whose partners used condoms (as well as those who remained abstinent). His comments apparently didn't sit well in certain quarters. Dr. Greenfield was forced to resigne as editor of the Surgery News and gave up his stewardship of ACS after learning that his article had spurred threats of protests from outside women's groups.
20303106
submission
Frosty Piss writes:
Former San Diego Chargers musical director Bobby Kent says he wrote "da-da-da-DA da-DACharge!" and is suing ASCAP for not paying him any of the profit from the ubiquitous line from a song he wrote more than 33 years ago, one that is now a staple in sports arenas Back in the 1970s, Kent and co-writer Bernardo M. Hollman created song titled "Stadium Doo Dads." Sports fans know one line from the song — da-da-da-DA da-DACharge! — which Kent registered with ASCAP in 1978. But according to Kent, he never saw any royalties.
19917756
submission
Frosty Piss writes:
General Electric, the nation’s largest corporation, had a very good year in 2010. The company reported worldwide profits of $14.2 billion, and said $5.1 billion of the total came from its operations in the United States. Its American tax bill? None. In fact, G.E. claimed a tax benefit of $3.2 billion. Strategies like GE's, as well as changes in tax laws that encouraged some businesses and professionals to file as individuals, have pushed down the corporate share of the nation’s tax receipts — from 30 percent of all federal revenue in the mid-1950s to 6.6 percent in 2009.
18633364
submission
Frosty Piss writes:
The lawyer for alleged Wikileaker Pfc. Bradley E. Manning has filed a request to military officials on Thursday seeking Manning's release. 'This request is based upon the fact that the confinement conditions currently being endured by Pfc. Manning are more rigorous than necessary to guarantee his presence at trial, and that the concerns raised by the government at the time of pretrial confinement are no longer applicable,' attorney David Coombs wrote. Meanwhile, the United Nations' anti-torture chief said Friday that he has asked the U.S. State Department to investigate Manning's treatment at a Marine Corps brig in Quantico, Va. Confinement rules require guards to question Manning about his welfare every five minutes when he's awake, prevent him from exercising in his cell and bar him from keeping reading material overnight.
18433232
submission
Frosty Piss writes:
A now-retracted 1998 British study that linked autism to childhood vaccines was an "elaborate fraud" that has done long-lasting damage to public health, a leading medical publication reported Wednesday. An investigation published by the British medical journal BMJ concludes the study's author, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, misrepresented or altered the medical histories of all 12 of the patients whose cases formed the basis of the 1998 study — and that there was "no doubt" Wakefield was responsible.
18425354
submission
Frosty Piss writes:
The first clear pictures of what appears to be a Chinese stealth fighter prototype have been published online The photographs, published on several unofficial Chinese and foreign defense-related websites, appear to show a J-20 prototype making a high-speed taxi test — usually one of the last steps before an aircraft makes its first flight—according to experts on aviation and China's military. Several experts said the prototype's body appeared to borrow from the F-22 and other U.S. stealth aircraft. The U.S. cut funding for the F-22 in 2009 in favor of the F-35, a smaller, cheaper stealth fighter that made its first test flight in 2006 and is expected to be fully deployed by around 2014.
18322956
submission
Frosty Piss writes:
As a result of the US Government’s complete failure to investigate credible warnings about "Underwear Bomber" Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab from none other than Abdulmutallab’s father, senior American counterterrorism officials say they have altered their criteria so that a single-source tip can lead to a name being placed on the watch list. But civil liberties groups warn that it is now even more likely that individuals who pose no threat will be swept up in the America’s security apparatus, leading to potential violations of their privacy and making it difficult for them to travel. 'They are secret lists with no way for people to petition to get off or even to know if they're on,' said Chris Calabrese, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union.
18267472
submission
Frosty Piss writes:
Government auditors have faulted the TSA and its parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, for failing to properly test and evaluate technology before spending money on it. The TSA spent about $36 million on devices that puffed air on travelers to "sniff" them out for explosives residue. All 207 of those machines ended up in warehouses, abandoned as unable to perform as advertised, deployed in many airports before the TSA had fully tested them. Since it was founded in 2001, the TSA has spent roughly $14 billion in more than 20,900 transactions with dozens of contractors, including $8 billion for the famous new body scanners that have recently come under scrutiny for being unable to perform the task for which they are advertised. 'TSA has an obsession of finding a single box that will solve all its problems. They've spent and wasted money looking for that one box, and there is no such solution.' Said John Huey, an airport security expert.
17959436
submission
Frosty Piss writes:
The operators of a notorious porn site Free6.com granted federal agents administrative access to the site, giving investigators the ability to monitor traffic and public and private chats in an effort to identify users trading “a significant amount of child pornography”. Though some bloggers have speculated about whether law enforcement officials have secretly been given administrative access to sites where users have been known to post child pornography (like 4chan), the Free6.com arrangement is apparently the first such compact to be disclosed by investigators.
17940898
submission
Frosty Piss writes:
The suits, filed in Delaware, mark an aggressive new approach for the Bellevue company, which former Microsoft executives Nathan Myhrvold and Edward Jung formed in 2000 to amass and license patents. Investors in the venture include Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates. The company has bristled at being labeled a "patent troll" that only reaps profits from others' inventions. It's also tried to cultivate an image of being a think-tank were ideas are generated by in-house researchers who have generated their own patents. But that image may be harder to sustain now that it's entering the courts. “This is setting up perhaps the biggest battle in the history of the patent system,” noted Noted patent attorney Gerald Hosier said. “Every company you can think of in the information technology space is a target.”
17524132
submission
Frosty Piss writes:
When the IndyCar Series introduces its new chassis and turbo engine formula in 2012, it will feature technical competition for the first time since 2005, ending a widely lampooned period of spec-car racing that went wholly against the grain of the Indy 500's tradition of open innovation, with only Honda providing engines for the past four years.That changes in 2012, when General Motors will start providing 2.4-liter V6 engines to the racing series.GM has developed a twin-turbocharged direct-injection engine specifically for IndyCar that will, like Honda's engine, run on E85.
17404370
submission
Frosty Piss writes:
Washington State's community and technical colleges are leading the way with an ambitious new initiative: They're assembling previously published "open-source" textbooks and course materials for the 81 most popular classes at state two-year colleges. "The power of this is that we're going to go from a couple hundred dollars per year [for each textbook] to $10 or $20," said state Rep. Reuven Carlyle, D-Seattle, who sponsored legislation that set aside $750,000 for the initiative. It's a robust level of funding, experts say. The textbooks and curriculum materials are being developed this fall and winter for the first 43 classes with the highest enrollment in the state's two-year colleges, including English Composition I and II, General Psychology, Introduction to Sociology and Introduction to Chemistry. By fall 2012, textbooks and curriculum materials will be completed for all 81 of the most popular classes.
7065482
submission
Frosty Piss writes:
Seattle mayor-elect Mike McGinn wants to chuck the Windows-based PCs out the window — to make room for the Mac. "We've asked the city IT folks about it [switcing to Macs] and they're looking into it for us," said transition spokesman Aaron Pickus. "They were talking about new computers for the mayor's office anyway, so right now we are looking to see if Mike and the mayor's staff can work on Macs." As well, the new mayor wants to ditch the city issued Blackberries for iPhones.
6936486
submission
Frosty Piss writes:
The word in economic circles is that the Chinese economy is going to pull the global economy out of recession and back into growth. That’s prompted some cheerleading from U.S. officials, who want to see those Chinese consumers begin to pick up the slack in the global economy. But a growing group of market professionals see it different, that the Chinese economic miracle is nothing but a paper dragon. They argue that the Chinese have dangerously overheated their economy, building malls, luxury stores and infrastructure for which there is almost no demand, and that the entire system is teetering toward collapse.
