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Comment Re:Conservatives against Wikileaks.. (Score 1) 810

He has total control, and is exerting it. He's spreading different leaks at different times, and using some of it as an insurance policy for leverage so he can continue. If he was just the messenger he'd dump the lot all in one go; but he's not, he's trying to influence an outcome. Exposing corruption & fraud - sure, I get that, for both governments and business. But to expose private comments, details irrelevant to "freedom of information", details on security matters is flat out wrong - its pretty much established he has an agenda. Who made him King of everything to decide what to publish? Just because he can doesn't mean he should.

Comment Re:Cutting corners is the name of the game (Score 1) 383

And the ever present demand of lower consumer prices is whats ultimately pushing that. For the overwhelming majority of people, cost of goods, is the determining factor of what, and how much, they buy. No one is blameless in our society - corporations are driven by what the consumer demands, and what they demand is the lowest cost without thinking what that means in terms of quality. For the oil companies, that means he who can deliver gas at the cheapest price [as an example] wins.

Comment Re:Losing Constellation is a set back (Score 2, Insightful) 279

NASA incompetence? Nothing in engineering is truly bug-free. Unfortunately with NASA the consequences can be dire; doesn't make them incompetent. And your analysis is off the mark - you need to understand that what we got from the money spent on the shuttle [since Challenger] was 20+ years of grunt work. Are your preposing that NASA should've stopped at the Challenger disaster and wait 20 years until SpaceX has the technology to start doing things 'better' ? Getting something done, as the parent says at 95% well, is better than not at all and waiting for the perfect vehicle.

Comment Re:The New Ethics in America (Score 1) 280

What a load of tosh. American and European economies and business practices ethics] are pretty much the same. You quote the US unemployment rate but not the EU - why? Is it because they're just about the same and that collapses your arguement? Just in the same way that companies use recessions to shed jobs, individuals use boom times to insist on signing bonuses and benefits up the wazoo. Quit ya whining.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_European_Union/

Comment Re:Well yes... (Score 1) 645

Well that WHO report is from Y2000 - a little out of date don't you think? You would do well to read this - it clearly is a case of statistics gone awry. I would even go as far to say that ranking countries in healthcare is pointless at best, deceptive at worst. Its as flawed as the order of 100 Best Songs of All Time on MTV.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/sep/14/paul-hipp/rocker-viral-video-mocks-us-37th-best-health-care-/

Now, a real world test : I've had children in both the UK and the USA. There are some differences, but in an interesting way each system reflects the mindset of each culture. For instance in the UK the resources were more frugal - I didn't even know what an epidural was until I came to the US - my wife was only offered gas and air in the UK. The US had doctors and midwives on standby and the facilities were much better. However in the UK my wife had someone come visit her 2 or 3 times a week for a while whereas in the US she had to go for checkups.

Its horses for courses and some arbitrary ranking system concocted by health administrators / politicians looking at tables of spreadsheets is meaningless.

Comment Re:Surprise Surprise. (Score 2, Interesting) 224

British too (and Dr Who is great) - I don't think American acting is better or worse; its just that theres more American "stuff" to pick bad examples from and highlight. Now if you want to see bad acting you should see TV from Latin America. So that begs the question : why is it so popular? I think its more about the culture that surrounds it. One talks with family / friends / work colleagues / radio / internet forums about these shows and it makes you feel part of something. The bad acting or the cardboard sets then become irrelevant.

Comment Re:Why not.... (Score 1) 162

Is it in poor taste when that happens? Sure. BUT you're picking a news worthy item about some CEO lying, wealth grabbing, bastards and forgetting this is perhaps 1%, if that, of CEOs out there. You're condemning CEOs and Execs out there with a very few rotten apples. Most *don't* have golden parachutes. Most *don't* have massive bonuses. Basically if you don't want to be laid off then sink your life savings into an company, become a CEO, pour every last minute of your life into it, and then never fire anybody you hire. That was the point of my post. People are hired and fired irrespective of the salaries / bonuses of the higher ups. Now, when government money is involved, then sure, thats a different matter of course.

Comment Re:Why not.... (Score 1) 162

You're using an extreme or non existant example to try and defunct the parents point. If a typical entry level worker is on say $20K, 100K x that would be $2 Billion a year. At best x1 K as you approach a tiny fraction of high profile companies. A much bigger fraction are on x50 of an entry level job. Most CEOs, by no short margin, would agree with you. The CEOs that are typically making the big bucks (at least in the tech sector) are the ones that started the company and took the risk.

Comment Re:Lessons Learned?? (Score 1) 450

Actually it *is* the first thing you learn, from a technical POV. If you have spent time to code a website up, you have time to create a form of backup. I have always taken the view that when I save a file, or make a backup that is the last data checkpoint I know I don't want to lose. And .5 TB isn't much and it doesn't take time - heck it shouldn't be much more than a copy-paste.

Now, there are a billion things with a new venture, that is very true, but one has to prioritize.

Comment Re:Who is dumb enough to believe a politician? (Score 1) 546

Well when the press overwhelmingly describe themselves as liberal (or slanted in a particular direction) its a serious concern: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1919999
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1001/campaign-media

The problem is, that those that are liberal think of themselves as centralists \ moderates to validate their opinion and that becomes pervasive in their reporting. Now on the left we have MSNBC with their inspiring "worse, worser, worsest" mantra and on the right we have the ever forgiving O'Reilly from Fox. There's also Rush on the right but on the left is Rather, Bill Maher, Moore and a whole slew of other commentators. And in pop culture, SNL \ Daily Show \ Colbert Report \ The View as obvious examples, that are so left leaning. Was there a Lil' Clinton show on Comedy Central that I missed? Perhaps they're going to be adding Lil'Obama...'cos if they weren't biased they'd have done it right?

So you can bleat on all day until you're blue in the face about the liberal bias "myth" but it doesn't make it any less true. Now obviously anyone is entitled to their opinion, that I'm ok with - just don't tell me its not biased.

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