The New York Times points out that nearly every benefit attributed to drinking a glass of wine each day can be had by drinking grape juice. Skip the sugar-added stuff, though, and aim for dark red or purple varieties, like those from Concord grapes, and you might just see lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels. [photo]
Archive for September, 2008
Grape Juice Has Similar Benefits to Wine [Health]
23
Sep
Kevin Purdy via Lifehacker
shared by 4 people
First Palin, Now Bill … – InternetNews.com
23
Sep
 BBC News | First Palin, Now Bill ... InternetNews.com - 1 hour ago As the FBI focuses in on a Tennessee suspect in the hack on Gov. Sarah Palin's e-mail account, Fox News commentator gets hacked out of spite. Student suspect in Palin hacking BBC News Hunt for Palin hacker shaping up to be simple case The Associated Press CRN - Computerworld - Washington Post - eFluxMedia all 786 news articles |
The Two Classes of Airport Contraband
23
Sep
schneier via Schneier on Security
shared by 5 people
Airport security found a jar of pasta sauce in my luggage last month. It was a 6-ounce jar, above the limit; the official confiscated it, because allowing it on the airplane with me would have been too dangerous. And to demonstrate how dangerous he really thought that jar was, he blithely tossed it in a nearby bin of similar liquid bottles and sent me on my way.
There are two classes of contraband at airport security checkpoints: the class that will get you in trouble if you try to bring it on an airplane, and the class that will cheerily be taken away from you if you try to bring it on an airplane. This difference is important: Making security screeners confiscate anything from that second class is a waste of time. All it does is harm innocents; it doesn't stop terrorists at all.
Let me explain. If you're caught at airport security with a bomb or a gun, the screeners aren't just going to take it away from you. They're going to call the police, and you're going to be stuck for a few hours answering a lot of awkward questions. You may be arrested, and you'll almost certainly miss your flight. At best, you're going to have a very unpleasant day.
This is why articles about how screeners don't catch every -- or even a majority -- of guns and bombs that go through the checkpoints don't bother me. The screeners don't have to be perfect; they just have to be good enough. No terrorist is going to base his plot on getting a gun through airport security if there's decent chance of getting caught, because the consequences of getting caught are too great.
Contrast that with a terrorist plot that requires a 12-ounce bottle of liquid. There's no evidence that the London liquid bombers actually had a workable plot, but assume for the moment they did. If some copycat terrorists try to bring their liquid bomb through airport security and the screeners catch them -- like they caught me with my bottle of pasta sauce -- the terrorists can simply try again. They can try again and again. They can keep trying until they succeed. Because there are no consequences to trying and failing, the screeners have to be 100 percent effective. Even if they slip up one in a hundred times, the plot can succeed.
The same is true for knitting needles, pocketknives, scissors, corkscrews, cigarette lighters and whatever else the airport screeners are confiscating this week. If there's no consequence to getting caught with it, then confiscating it only hurts innocent people. At best, it mildly annoys the terrorists.
To fix this, airport security has to make a choice. If something is dangerous, treat it as dangerous and treat anyone who tries to bring it on as potentially dangerous. If it's not dangerous, then stop trying to keep it off airplanes. Trying to have it both ways just distracts the screeners from actually making us safer.
Rare MLK speech on civil disobedience
22
Sep
Cory Doctorow via Boing Boing
shared by 4 people
Avi sez, "This mp3 of the rarely heard “But If Not†speech by MLK is crucial to grasp his soaring moral vision and deep intimacy with the Bible. Essential listening for our times. The following quote from the speech does it for me (speech begins at 32:32 into the track):"
Avi sez, "This mp3 of the rarely heard “But If Not†speech by MLK is crucial to grasp his soaring moral vision and deep intimacy with the Bible. Essential listening for our times. The following quote from the speech does it for me (speech begins at 32:32 into the track):"
I say to you, this morning, that if you have never found something so dear and precious to you that you will die for it, then you aren’t fit to live.“But If Notâ€: Dr. Martin Luther King Gives a Sermon On Civil Disobedience in a Rare Recording, Direct link to MP3 (Thanks, Avi!)You may be 38 years old, as I happen to be, and one day, some great opportunity stands before you and calls upon you to stand for some great principle, some great issue, some great cause. And you refuse to do it because you are afraid.
You refuse to do it because you want to live longer. You’re afraid that you will lose your job, or you are afraid that you will be criticized or that you will lose your popularity, or you’re afraid that somebody will stab or shoot or bomb your house. So you refuse to take a stand.
Well, you may go on and live until you are ninety, but you are just as dead at 38 as you would be at ninety.
And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit.
You died when you refused to stand up for right.
You died when you refused to stand up for truth.
You died when you refused to stand up for justice.â€
Mars rover heads to largest crater yet – San Jose Mercury News
22
Sep
 NASA | Mars rover heads to largest crater yet San Jose Mercury News - 45 minutes ago AP PASADENA, Calif.—After conquering one Martian crater, the NASA rover Opportunity is setting out to explore a far bigger one. Whether the six-wheel rover will get there is another story. Mars rover targets monster crater MSNBC Bigger Crater Farther South of 'Victoria' on Mars NASA United Press International all 25 news articles |
700Billion bailout ? Ebay it !
22
Sep
markcuban via blog maverick
shared by 4 people
Lack of transparency got us in to this mess, lets not let lack of transparency keep it messy. The government needs to immediately setup an exchange, it could be ebay.gov with more in depth description fields, for all I care. However they do it, EVERY asset the government will buy or sell as part of this buyout needs to be shown and described with the price the government is willing to pay or sell the asset for.
Why ?
To keep government honest.
Not that anyone in our government would ever put their own personal self interest first and over or under pay for an asset. Nor would they ever take those assets and then sell it for less than market value in exchange for “personal considerationsâ€.
I know it could never happen, but just to make sure it doesnt, we need to post the assets involved in the bailout and the prices paid. When the assets are sold, they need to post those prices as well
In addition, by posting the assets in an ebay like auction/sales environment, it would enable independent buyers to come in and buy the assets using private money rather than government money. The benefit of course is obvious. By adding liquidity to the process, the government could be responsible for less and sellers could get more.
This is the only way I can think of to get true transparency. Without it, i promise you that it will be IMPOSSIBLE to account for how much money was spent on the assets and how much cash was generated from the sales process and what the net cost or benefit to taxpayers is.
Without transparency, we wont have any idea how this all played out. None. Which creates the real problem of allowing it to happen again, but with the government needing the bailout.
One last note on Senator Dodd’s proposal to extract shares from companies that the government buys assets from as part of the bailout, all i can say is HELL YES. As a shareholder in the USA Treasury and USA Inc, if you want to borrow money from me or sell assets to me that you cant sell anywhere else, then I want stock/warrants or options as my vig. You got to pay to play. In the real world, if you want mezzanine financing, you pay in kind, and provide warrants. This should be no different.
if you dont like the deal, find someone else to buy the assets.
On the subject of executive compensation, if they need government bailout money, take away 100pct of exit pay and any bonuses. Let them quit if need be.
If you think you cant find someone else to take the current CEOs place,think again. No matter what number they pick for the CEOs compensation, its more than a lot of very smart people are getting paid elsewhere and those people would be more than happy to take a raise and replace the CEO who just took about his/her company
Let me put this a different way. The most powerful person in the world today is Sec Treasury Paulson. There is the very real possibility he will be replaced in January. The person replacing him will be paid a government salary of I think, no more than 400k. if they can find a replacement for him, they can find a replacement for any CEO running any company for a reasonable amount
from my mobile device
      Scenes from India
22
Sep
India is home to over 1.2 billion people of wildly varying religions, cultures and levels of wealth. Only 61 years since declaring its Independence from English rule, modern India is still defining itself, sometimes against the friction inside and outside of its borders. Recent newsworthy events in India include vast Monsoon flooding, conflicts in still-disputed Kashmir, and religious clashes between Hindus and Christians - and celebrations conducted by Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Sikh and more. Though there's no possible way for these images to be comprehensive, here are some recent photos of scenes in India. (34 photos total)
Devotees carry a statue of the Hindu elephant god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, for immersion in the sea, on the last day of "Ganesh Chaturthi", in Mumbai September 14, 2008. Clay statues of Ganesh are made two to three months before this popular religious festival in India. The idols are taken through the streets in a procession accompanied with dancing and singing, to be immersed in a river symbolizing a ritual sendoff on his journey towards his home. (REUTERS/Punit Paranjpe)
Google founder has Parkinson's mutation – Inquirer
22
Sep
 Siliconrepublic.com | Google founder has Parkinson's mutation Inquirer - 6 hours ago By Nick Farrell: Monday, 22 September 2008, 8:57 AM GOOGLE FOUNDER Sergey Brin's investment in his wife's genome-screening company has uncovered the fact he has a genetic mutation linked to Parkinson's disease. DNA testing can lead to networking Columbus Dispatch Google's Sergey Brin Starts Blog, Reveals Predisposition For ... InformationWeek New York Times - ABC News - CRN - Computerworld all 147 news articles |
