Pangloss

I agree with that. I think the Times' "error" story is more or less over, though I hope there's a lesson learned there (I think there probably was, though they're not likely to admit it openly). The story on McCain is likely to continue. Whether that story is true or not, it seems to underscore what is likely to be the theme of this election -- good ol' boy network versus new blood. Both sides will have "pro" to go with the "con" there, and it's ironic that McCain will be cast as "Bush III", given how different they really are. But they're too similar on Iraq, and this establishes a secondary connection in terms of hinting corruption, pandering, favoritism, etc, which may overwhelm those differences. Whereas Obama has very little baggage. It's really hard to see how that will translate to anything less than an overwhelming Obama victory in the fall.

Just to add a bit to the "aftermath" side of the discussion here, there's been a lot more criticism of the Times article coming from objective (or at least non-partisan/bi-partisan) sources. Howard Kurtz, the generally-recognized singular authority on media analysis, wrote the following the other day: Ouch. This article from the Huffington Post (!) further describes the aftermath (casting the Times in a very negative light), if any are interested: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jay-rosen/bill-keller-im-proud-_b_88437.html I think that aspect of this story has reached a bit of an end point. Ironically, if the Times did screw up here, it may have had a positive impact in bringing the discussion to light, even if it had a negative impact (this is just my perspective here, others may disagree of course) in terms of igniting the conservative base which had been reluctant to support McCain (and it remains to be seen if that will actually happen). But there's another interesting aspect to this that touches on the "Times bias assumption" issue that is so prevalent amongst conservatives -- this article actually seems to demonstrate a LACK of liberal bias at the Times. Though it rather tragically suggests a lowering of standards. (I don't plan on beating this Times drum any more, because I think the resulting McCain situation is a more valuable discussion, but I did want to pass that along.)

I have a robots.txt file in my abdomen.

We talked a couple years back about the hidden cost of participating in distributed computing projects like SETI@home. One of the problems with the calculations is that energy costs vary from place to place, and season to season, and various other factors are involved. Energy is gradually getting more expensive, but processors are getting more efficient, so in fairness it may warrant another look, and it may be that there are ways that home users can contribute here without spending an arm and a leg. But the subject came up again about a year ago in a different way. Sony decided to include Folding@Home software in its Playstation 3 gaming console, and of course users immediately leapt on the opportunity to do something nice with their "spare", "unused" CPU cycles. But as the article below attests, the Playstation 3 consumes a whopping 200 WATTS when folding. Yowsa! That could cost a typical user over $7 per month! So much for free, spare cycles! And nobody's telling PS3 users about this, they're having to find it out on their own. That's really unfortunate, IMO. The article below shows some simple calculations on this, but actually views that as a bargain. To each his own, I guess. I certainly don't object if people WANT to do this, but the costs should be made more apparent to unsuspecting PS3 buyers, at least. http://www.hardcoreware.net/ps3-power-usage-during-foldinghome/

Very cool pic of the Large Hadron Collider on today's Astronomy Picture of the Day: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap080225.html (That's a perma-link, so it should work even after "today".) Pretty exciting that they're just about ready to fire that thing up. Almost makes me want to donate CPU cycles to the LHC@Home project.

Sure, it's a perfectly viable path to take. Information Technology is typically an extremely practical degree, focusing on things like day-to-day operations -- networks, servers, user administration, security policy enforcement, etc. These roles are becoming increasingly sophisticated -- in the old days it was enough that you knew how to change a user's password or plug their computer into the network. Today you really need a lot of diverse and detailed knowledge -- the more the better. IT degrees are extremely broad in scope, covering subjects as diverse as network topology and database management. As such, they also make a good basis for further academic study, like a masters in CIS or MIS, if you're so inclined, which can lead to a more advanced career in something like IT security management or project planning, which would also build off your career experience. Post more questions if you like; folks here have a variety of experience you can tap into.

Interesting, thanks. Yes, we have a poll that says that (when poll participants were asked that specific question). For the curious, I deleted two posts that (I felt, apparently erroneously on one of them, as I was overruled, but that's cool) were too personal in nature, and when I posted a further message it was merged with my previous one, and it placed my "merged" post after the two deleted ones. I believe that's what caused the renumbering. As for the rest, I have explained my position. If you want to discuss it further, my in-box is open.

The change of focus coincided with the vast reduction in hostilities under the surge. The media, having had Iraq front-and-center on a nightly basis for several years, reported the success and then moved on to other stories. If it were just a matter of tiring of Iraq, that would have happened much sooner. In general, media focus is a very short-term thing. The "media cycle" is typically something measured in days, not years. I agree, the media places more importance on the loss of a single life than the public generally does (if I'm interpreting what you're saying correctly). But what's more important to the media is something called "the focus of the story", or more simply put, "the story" (often phrased as the question, "What is the story here?"). In this case the story was that the casualty count dropped radically, and therefore its value as a story dropped as well. If individual loss of life were the main determining factor, the 30-minute nightly network news would never make it past reporting on highway deaths and cancer. Casualty counts may have been up in late January and early February, I'm not sure. There were a few specific incidents of suicide bombing that reached the level of national reportage. I haven't looked into this, but I suspect the latter was more a factor than the former. They're watching the situation, and if the casualties increase dramatically again, that will be a big story. My GUESS is that with Al Sadr extending his cease fire for another six months that we will not see this issue come up again for... well... six months. That would put us into August, which is, interestingly, just enough time for violence in Iraq to become a central-focus issue again before the election. So the anti-war can probably just relax and pray for the cease fire to have a monumentally bloody end.

Casting aspersions on my opinion won't change the fact that Americans seem steadfastly uninterested in rallying behind the anti-war cause. My opinion is based on 30 years of following politics. I'm sorry if you find that unacceptable. Yes, it became less costly in lives, to the point of public acceptability and was dropped from primary media focus. To the point where only PBS's Lehrer was reporting American casualties on a nightly basis from something like November through much of February. (Recently that's changed a bit, I've noticed, with regular casualty reporting on ABC and NBC.)

I wonder how much petrol was consumed transporting the nuts from South America to Europe.

Certainly Iraq will be an issue. But unless the situation on the ground goes sour again (which is certainly possible), the primary emphasis will be on support prior to the war (where Obama has a clear advantage over McCain), not so much withdrawl. And under no circumstances will any candidate advocate immediate withdrawl regardless of the situation on the ground. Not that this necessarily applies to anyone here, but I think those the far left want this issue to return to the front-and-center for ideological reasons -- they hate all war, they think Republicans are responsible for it, and they think we can just snap our fingers and it'll never happen again. The situation in Iraq is irrelevent to these people. But I don't think the majority of American people think that way. The message that premature departure is bad has sunk in, and will only be rejected if the situation on the ground becomes costly in lives again. And it's even worse than the far left may think. If Obama tries to play the immediate withdrawl card, it will fail with moderates, and open the door for McCain to use it against him. So they may want to be careful what you wish for. What works in those discussions over at MoveOn.org is very different from what works around the family dinner table in Ohio or Nebraska.

Meanwhile we have a wheat shortage and prices that growers haven't seen in their lifetime due to wheat crops being changed to "ethanol crops". Alternative fuels were supposed to SAVE us from inflation; instead it's CAUSING it.

Well that's the beauty of personal opinion. You have yours, and I have mine. Nobody's asking you to accept anything. If you don't like how I reply to your condescending personal lessons, iNow, then my advice to you is to stop posting them. Let's keep it clean, please, folks. My PM box is open if needed.

What relevancy? If he had any he spent it all years ago. The answer to the OP question (IMO) is no. Obama isn't a candidate, he's a "movement", and as such, way too big for this sort of distraction to matter. In fact there's exit polling to back this up -- the defections of Hillary voters suggests that they're done with this and ready to get on with the face-off with McCain.

It's not just subjective, it's complex. I stand by what I said earlier -- the Times cannot be blanketly condemned for this story, as the far right has been doing, and I don't think that's what Clark Hoyt (the public editor) was doing either. As he says, the Times was on to a good story, and it's one that needs to be reported. Just as it also needs to be reported (and has) that Obama promised to take public money and has since changed his mind, having discovered the wonders that being a front-runner can do for your coffers.

I thought folks here might find this story interesting. Apparently Virgin Atlantic ran run one of its 747s on 20% biofuel (80% regular avgas) today on a no-passengers run from London to Amsterdam. http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/187798,virgin-atlantic-boeing-makes-first-bio-fuelled-flight.html

The New York Times Public Editor (ombudsman) took the paper to task today for its decision. This quote cuts to the heart of the matter: Story here.

No, that's not correct. Nice effort, though -- especially the faux objectivity couched as a lecture on context. The Democratic candidates had Iraq front-and-center in their headlights before, well into primary season. And while they do largely agree in their plans for withdrawl (though notably neither favor the extremism of immediate withdrawl that is the politically correct position here at SFN), Obama still found plenty to talk about regarding Hillary's votes regarding Iraq in 2003. They didn't take Iraq off the top burner because they agree, or because it's primary season, or because the economy got bad (just to toss out another likely excuse). They changed the subject because Iraq got better.

Very clever. I have a Wii and I can certainly see what he's talking about. I might have to set up a little experiment with this in our game design lab. Thanks ecoli!

Looking a little deeper, we see that more than a third (34%) wanted the troops to stay until the job was done. What these numbers strongly suggest is that if you filter out to a much more specific range of questions, including likely scenarios such as "what if the majority of the troops were brought home immediately but some stayed behind and were rotated until the job was done", support would be much higher. The fact that ONLY 24% want them brought home immediately supports this analysis. Which is why Democratic presidential candidates aren't talking about Iraq. Iraqi disaster rhetoric just isn't playing in Peoria.

You think the moral onus of cheating or the ethical onus of favoritism will outweigh the predisposition to rally behind him because of partisan hatred of the New York Times?

Who is it you think I'm crying "poor old me" about?

Two weeks ago I wouldn't have thought much of anything could convince Rush Limbaugh and the far right to get behind John McCain. But this story seems to be doing exactly that. I doubt Limbaugh is outright supporting him (has anybody caught his show this week, by any chance?), but he certainly railed at the New York Times over this story. McCain stood before reporters yesterday and fielded questions until they literally ran out of them. As I understand it, the general idea is that he's being accused of cheating on his wife with a lobbyist about eight years ago, and more importantly, giving inappropriate legislative favors to the lobbyist in question. This is a relevent story if it's true, but there appears to be real doubt about whether it IS true, or really if there's anything to it at all. The only evidence is the anonymous testimony of two "former aids" who believed he was seeing her romantically, but never saw any actual direct sign of that (like a personal display of affection). Charles Gibson on ABC News said last night that it raises legitimate questions about the New York Times' reporting methods. They headlined their story "Fit to Print?", a play on the Times' banner slogan "All the news that's fit to print". The Times apparently sat on the story since November, but actually ENDORSED McCain in January -- and since then no new facts have turned up, apparently. Talk about fuel for the partisanship fire! But I've read the NYT story (which can be found here), and I have to say that for the most part it appears to be legitimate news/analysis. The retrospective of McCain's participation in the Keating Five scandal is directly relevent to the campaign -- it is entirely appropriate (arguably even necessary) to resurrect that issue and direct the public's attention to it in order that voters understand what his role was, what the resolution of that issue was, and decide for themselves if that resolution was satisfactory. McCain is the self-declared champion of ethical government. Why wouldn't we inspect that carefully? And in further defense of the Times, the story portrayed McCain's side of both the historical and current issues fairly, even publishing his reaction. Still, the accusations against the Times on this issue do seem to have merit as well, and extend well beyond the province of conservative talk radio. This interesting story at the New Republic (a moderately liberal political magazine whose cover this month features an image of Obama with a HALO around his head!) treats the allegations against the Times seriously: This fascinating paragraph shows just how interesting the story BEHIND this story really is: Definitely worth reading. Anyway, just to get the thread going, here are the three issues that I see as central to this discussion: 1) Is the story legitimate fodder for discussion & reporting? (I believe it is.) 2) Is there valid room for criticism of the New York Times on this story. (I'm not sure, but it sounds like there may be.) 3) Is this going to rally the right behind McCain? (I think it's having a huge impact.) What do you all think?

You could be right, and I don't know that that's such a bad thing, but I think there is no reason to really doubt what's being reported about the situation. The thing that really irks me are these claims that the US is heating up a space arms race. Like this quote from a Reuters article today: But China's ASAT program was pursued when the United States didn't HAVE an ASAT program. The US has been scrambling to cobble together a patchwork system that was designed for a different purpose entirely. Sure, that's an arms race, but the United States can hardly be held responsible for it, and regardless of whether the US participates in it, at least one other country is going to develop their program anyway. The overall political situation is almost comical. If a killer asteroid were heading for the Earth right now and the only thing that could stop it from wiping out a major city was an SM3 missile, SOMEBODY would find some reason to criticize the US for using it. More ridiculous quotes from the media: (source) No it wasn't! The China test was "unwise" because the satellite it shot "down" was 500 miles up, and the debris created by that test may be cluttering up orbital space for years. The result of THIS action was exactly the opposite -- it made something, however small the odds, SAFER. John Barry in Newsweek raises this ridiculous tripe: Uh, if the US has the means to easily rectify a dangerous threat, shouldn't it use those means? How much does anyone want to bet that if we HADN'T shot down this thing, and the toxic mass were dumped on a school house in Europe, that we would have had to listen to ENDLESS roasting of the Bush administration over its failure to act? The only quote that I thought was really on-point and relevent today was this one from Ivan Oelrich at the Federation of American Scientists: I think that's a reasonable point, not hype or exaggeration. Most of the rest of what I'm hearing right now, though, is just jumping on the ABB bandwagon.

Then we're on agreement in principle, we just disagree on the specific case of Kosovo, which is a matter of opinion. (shrug)