In spite of, or maybe because of all the Doppler radar, satellites, hurricane hunter flights, computer models, fancy computer graphics, live TV news and weather coverage including from within the eye not five miles from landfall on Atlantic Beach, highly accurate forecasts by the NHC, and in spite of all the experts and all the rest of us looking at the data, few of us noticed a key aspect of this data and its many implications. Remember the talking points Friday night and Saturday as Irene was...

Got to this thread really late but had to check in. After all I am one of those Boomers who can't let go and move forward. Just another aging Boomer still caught up re-fighting those same old tired battles. Another dirty stinking lazy hippy who hates his country and who should just shutup or leave. Those fights are ancient history. Just realized I can't remember the "last" time I spit on one of our proud fighting men and women returning from war. Maybe the next I see one of my family mem...

Many of you may know about the trial in Wake County of Cary resident Brad Cooper for the murder of his wife Nancy Cooper. He claims she went jogging on a Saturday morning and never came back. Her nearly nude body was found several days later in a drainage ditch several miles away. Police immediately claim it was severe case of domestic violence, that he killed her, and faked his alibit (a phone call from the home phone while he was at Harris Teeter). Another abusive husband kills his wife. ...

There have been recently a rash of high-profile security breaches at Internet sites crucial to authentican and security, for sites, for users, for digital signatures, etc. plus new malware kits to attack SCADA systems used to control critical infrasture (pipelines, factories, water systems, power generation of all types, refineries). They seem to be coming together with the potential to cause widespread disruption and damage. No system on the Internet is completely secure. The more secure tho...

In other words, the more secure you think your system, the less secure it probably is. If you think it possible to have a highlysecure system on the internet, you probably are not aware of many of the threat types. Typical computer security features are like having locks on the doors of your home -- They help honest people remain honest people. A building security system that requires swiping a card plus entering a keypad code provides little security if people leaving the building are likely ...

If both houses go to the Repubs in NC, they will control redistricting, massive budget cuts to deal with $3B deficit. all sorts of RW social activism. and God knows what else. If this happens, Bev must use her veto power and the threat of it as a bulwark to protect the citizens of our state, even those so ignorant and misinformed that they are ecstatic tonight at what they are bringing down upon themselves and the rest of us. Seemingly not aware of the consequences awaiting. Much of what happ...

During the summer of 1967, I was employed in the Public Works Department at MCAF New River, now MCAS New River. One of my reponsibilities was private telephone billing on-base. New River Air Facility was the helicopter field for Camp Lejeune, and had a modest amount of on-base housing for families. One of my tasks was to TYPE the individual phone bills, manually combining the fixed charges for local services (in-house by PW) with the long-distance charges provided by AT&T or CT&T. Using a ...

Zillow (and similar systems) gives the illusion of providing "valuations" for properties (Zestimate) for comparisons and trends. There are so many problems with the underlying datasets supporting their computer "models" and with those models themselves that the results are far worse than useless -- they contribute to misinformation, misleading media articles, frenzied panic decisions by buyers and sellers, counter productive or wasteful public policies, and much more. I think Zillow is tryin...

The profits from owning slaves and from slave labor were rarely as great as generally believed, while the risk of losses is much greater. How many years are needed to recoup what you had paid for the slave, How likely is it that the slave will suffer injury or die sooner than that? Or that the market value of the goods produced will collapse? Remember property taxes. Remember your obligation to feed, clothe, and house elderly slaves until their death. At various times and places, indentur...

I am white and from NC, grew up under segregation in the 1950's, and have tried to deal with my "inherited guilt" in several ways. First, in my personal and political actions to do what I can to end segregation, discrimination, poverty, hate, and bigotry; I can't change the past, but I can change my present and maybe the future. I helped integrate my school, worked for civil rights and human rights in various ways, but I have made less of a difference than I had hoped. Second, I have tried to...

While I am wary of his intentions in VA, I think that we would all benefit from re-examining the events from 150 years ago to understand their complexities, rather than simplistically having "feeing the slaves" is one episode in the morality play that passes for American history, a series of triumphs of good over evil, following God's preordained plan for this bountiful land He has bestowed. Columbia. "Preserving the Union" was one of the primary justifications for the war. That was importa...

This goes far beyond normal manipulation of markets and has implications that are dangerous to even contemplate. First a little background: Manipulation is standard operating procedures for all the financial markets. The market insiders, usually the owners and operators of the exchanges (e.g. NYSE market makers) are also the main "regulators" of the markets, the brokers with supposed fiduciary obligations to their clients, the rule makers, and often the largest participants in the markets -- ...

Follow the money, and the power and the control. What powerful interests are benefiting from the policy? Who are the winners and losers? Which powerful groups are using Afghanistan as a proxy for larger conflicts among the groups? War is good for business, at least for those arming and supplying the combatants on all sides and for those allied with the "winners" and thus gain the highly profitable contracts to rebuild and redevelop, including industries like oil, construction, mining, etc. ...

By the time I voted for Obama in the general election, I had concluded that things had progressed beyond my worst fears, with scant hope for future elections. Little of this had to do with anything about Obama himself, his campaign, or his policies. I admit I was never a big fan of Obama, hated that he began his campaign by attacking Boomers and the battles they continued fighting, was livid over his Reagan remarks and his use of RW attacks against fellow Dems (many were Jesse Helms attacks th...

The iPhone is always charged through the USB connection, whether connected to a computer or using the small "charger" that has a USB socket. It seems a good design, with me having to keep up with a single cable with an attached plug. During a power outage, I can recharge my phone using the reserve in my laptop. Handy when traveling or otherwise inconvenient to recharge from the grid. We see attacks like this all the time, backdoor trojans and other malware hidden optional software included ...

We are one of the states dealing with the Rove strategy for the GOP to cry corruption while pointing at Dem office holders. The state elections commission and others have been investigating other things. Even when the corruption involves Repubs, most of the public, the blogs, and the local media barely notice or even misrepresent the political parties involved. Former Gov Easley (D) seems at high risk after indictment of senior staff and a real mess involving Mrs. Easley gaining a high-salary...

There are some very aggressive efforts to keep various topics out of discussion. The most obvious of these have been certain critiques of Obama that have been attacked with the vigor usually reserved for Holocaust deniers. Aggressive use of "Alert", sympathetic moderators, and hard-to-comprehend results go hand in hand. Even posting this limited amount makes me look over my shoulder. Not a good feeling for somewhere I usually think of as a "home".

One doesn't even have to be TSed to disappear. There are a number of posters I don't see being very active, and when they do post they are likely met by the unrec squad. It doesn't take that many unrecs to keep a post off the greatest page, not enough to have it show up on the "Tens" page. Just keep it off long enough to "age" off the first page of "Latest". That technique for hiding something often includes posting something quickly that misframes the OP and hijacks the thread before others...

The big problems I have with the Cuomo complaint are not with the timeline. While the complaint overstates the timing of things here and there by a day or two, only the report delivered the Friday night after the shareholder vote (Dec 5, 2008) is of important in this area. That is the report that I suspect finally made it clear to some at BofA what was wrong with the ML reports, plus it had nearly $2 billion in other surprises. The complaint implies that BofA knew those numbers before the sh...

But you seem much too emotionally and with too much of your personal reputation involved in these issues to review what is actually going on. I have a far different opinion than you on what is going on within the NY AG office in regard to BofA disclosure of ML status. I have posted my alternative view (key items in my journal). Nothing I can say has received anything approaching a critical review versus the evidence. The critical new information I noticed was that the ML internal reports o...

The excerpt below from the Complaint describes the ML reports to BofA. I have not seen any of these reports, but the complaint (quoted below) in (64.) states the reports uses out-of-date ("anachronistic") labels. Many of the actions and decisions by those at BofA make a lot more sense if those involved had thought they were dealing with full-quarter projections. From just the Complaint, I can't tell if someone expecting to see a full-quarter forecast would immediately see that it was only t...

I already posted I thought it likely that Cuomo was making a big show going after "Wall Street" by going after one of the few large banks not in NY, BofA located in NC, and not after any of those with political clout in NY. I decided to read the filing (all 90 pages) before considering the merits of the case. (Edit to remove distracting side comment unrelated to issues with the complaint.) As I started reading the complaint, I noticed statements like someone "knew or should have known" some f...

Unless I see similar actions by NY AG against some very powerful people and firms located in NY, I see no evidence this is anthing more than for show. Going after Lewis and BofA on the disclosure issue poses no actual risk to any of various powerful interest involved, particularly if it is ultimately "resolved" by settlement which NY is able to spin as a win, while limiting the public inquiry of actions by Paulson, Berneke, or those at NYC-based investment banks, hedge funds, etc. Actually goi...

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is a major scandal as previously reported. I had not realized that direct corporate "donations" did not require public disclosure. There is a far worse problem in plain sight which no one seems to be covering. Taxpayer "funding" of RW groups and candidates via various "money laundering" techniques. In most cases, trying to unravel the various layers is extremely difficult even for DUers; trying to explain it to others, impossible and likely gets one branded a ...

This is a good example of a thread that overcame the "Unrec" problem I see at DU, increasingly used to prevent threads ever reaching the Greatest and its wider audience, threads that previously might have received 5-20 recs and spent some time on the greatest-sorted-by-time list before dropping off the first page. BTW this thread had about 70 unrecs when I last checked. Most times, all it takes to keep a page off the Greatest is to have a couple of replies that misrepresent the OP, dismiss the...

While this particular story was reported widely enough and recently enough that the archives are relatively intact, that isn't always the case. I routinely see examples that are rather unsettling. For most purposes, if you can't find an article using the various search engines, the article doesn't exist for you. Same when that article you carefully bookmarked now reports a non-existent page. The first of many problems involves cases where the online version is changed or even removed from t...

Nearly everything that underpins macro and micro economics (all versions) is rapidly being swept away by the onslaught of automation and the increasing velocity of information and its availability to everyone. This time things really are different, and the change is so great that we now should speak of quantum economics. We are witnessing the end of the Industrial Age and the ascendance of the Information Age; unfortunately, nothing can prepared us adequately for what will follow. Wealth, p...

The electronic markets for financial instruments is no different than any other industry where automation and competition ultimately match and overwhelm advantages from quality, features, longterm relationships, specialized knowledge, locality, or anything else and leaving price as the primary competition. Any advantages gained by redefining the product space through R&D to create a new class of product or to subsume an existing one is soon lost as remaining competitors follow suit. For a whil...

Most the the so-called public options will not be subject to existing state laws requiring coverage beyond the Federally mandated levels and with less consumer protection than these states currently require. Remember what happened when credit card reform made things much worse for consumers by barring states from regulation and oversight. The insurance companies lobbied hard to get Federal approval that would allow them to sell health insurance in multiple states without having to be licensed ...

NOTE: I posted this as a reply on another site and decided to add it to my DU journal. This mostly examines one of Zeke's recent articles in its context and my critique is so limited. I posted earlier that those for HC/HI reform could not allow its opponents to make Zeke the "face" to be feared by the general public. Until we get closer to a "real" bill, the debate will be vulnerable to misleading claims not supported by any likely variant of a bill but rather by various other statements. ...