A skeptical leftist's, or post-capitalist's, or eco-socialist's blog, including skepticism about leftism (and related things under other labels), but even more about other issues of politics. Free of duopoly and minor party ties. Also, a skeptical look at Gnu Atheism, religion, social sciences, more.
Note: Labels can help describe people but should never be used to pin them to an anthill.
As seen at Washington Babylon and other fine establishments
“If a hacker turned their attention to the Mac, it would suffer just as much as Windows,” Ray Wagner said. “Attacking the 95 percent of the market gets them more attention.”
According to research Wagner did in the last year, an operating system would need to hit the 20 to 30 percent penetration level before it really becomes a target for hackers. This is the point where hackers will feel it is worth the time to expose a vulnerability.
Congress enacted a law in 1990 that said companies could not market tuna as “dolphin-safe” if they caught the fish by purposely surrounding dolphins with the nets.
Worrying they could be shut out of the U.S. tuna market, officials in Latin America have since lobbied for a less stringent rule that would allow the “dolphin-safe” label if observers on the foreign boats had not seen dolphins killed or seriously injured.
The U.S. secretary of commerce has backed the rule change, but the 9th Circuit, reaffirming its 2001 ruling on the issue, said the U.S. effort was not based on proper scientific analysis on the impact to dolphins and was politically influenced. In the ruling, the court deemed the secretary’s findings “arbitrary and capricious.”
The federal probe into corruption related to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff could be inching closer to former U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay of Sugar Land as investigators focus on a former DeLay chief of staff who later employed the Republican leader's wife.
DeLay has not been charged with any crime in the Abramoff case. And his lawyer, Richard Cullen, said federal investigators have given DeLay no indication that he is a target of the ongoing grand jury probe, such as subpoenaing documents.
But prosecutors could decide within weeks whether to bring charges against former DeLay staff chief Edwin Buckham, according to sources close to the investigation who spoke on the condition that they not be identified. The decision should give a clear signal on whether DeLay remains in legal jeopardy, the sources said.
In recent days federal prosecutors have served notice that their sprawling Abramoff case has remained very much alive.
Why the sudden explosion of movement on the Abramoff and other GOP corruption investigations? Is it tied in some way to the Purge story? It's always hard to infer just what the delays and speed-ups in these investigations mean. Most of the big developments we don't know about until long after the investigation is completed. Sometimes we never know. And that leaves us like the proverbial blind men and the elephant, each speculating based on our little patch of facts with little understanding of the big picture.
That said, there’s been such an avalanche of developments in recent days and weeks, that I think it's now quite reasonable to conclude that the turnaround is related to the fact that Gonzales and his crew are flat on their backs and aren't able to block them any more. This is the sort of question or charge people only make sheepishly and with some embarrassment. I've been reluctant to come to this conclusion as well. But now I think there are solid reasons to believe this is true.
The National Association of Realtors reported that sales of existing homes fell by 8.4 percent in March, compared with February. It was the biggest one-month decline since a 12.6 percent drop in January 1989, another period of recession conditions in housing. The drop left sales in March at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.12 million units, the slowest pace since June 2003.
The steep sales decline was accompanied by an eighth straight fall in median home prices, the longest such period of falling prices on record. The median price fell to $217,000, a drop of 0.3 percent from the price a year ago.
The fall in sales in March was bigger than had been expected and it dashed hopes that housing was beginning to mount a recovery after last year's big slump. That slowdown occurred after five years in which sales of both existing and new homes had set records.
“We believe this narrative was intended to deceive the family but more importantly the American public,” Kevin Tillman told the committee. “Pat’s death was clearly the result of fratricide,” he said, contending that the military’s misstatements amounted to “fraud.”
“The bottom line is the American people are capable of determining their own ideals of heroes and they don’t need to be told elaborate tales,” Lynch said. “The bottom line is the American people are capable of determining their own ideals of heroes and they don't need to be told elaborate tales,” Lynch said.
Robelius built his model, which serves as his doctoral dissertation, after analyzing the fields’ past production rates and their ultimate recoverable reserves. Then he predicted how production will decline after peaking by incorporating rates of drop-off observed at other fields, ranging from six percent in a best-case scenario to 16 percent in a worst-case scenario. Finally, he combined his results with estimated forecasts for new field developments from sources such as the deep ocean and oil sands in Canada, but he says that these are unlikely to offset the upcoming declines from the giant fields — and there is little chance that new giant fields will be discovered in the future.