SECURITY: Virus infects U.S. military drones. “A computer virus has infected the cockpits of America’s Predator and Reaper drones, logging pilots’ every keystroke as they remotely fly missions over Afghanistan and other warzones. The virus, first detected nearly two weeks ago by the military’s Host-Based Security System, has not prevented pilots at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada from flying their missions overseas. Nor have there been any confirmed incidents of classified information being lost or sent to an outside source. But the virus has resisted multiple efforts to remove it from Creech’s computers, network security specialists say. And the infection underscores the ongoing security risks in what has become the U.S. military’s most important weapons system.”
Archive for 2011
October 7, 2011
The Obama administration has become a house of mirrors.
Wall Street is the wicked enemy.
Geithner is Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs is everywhere in the Obama admin.
Rise up against the evil bankers!
Pay off the evil bankers!
The evil bankers must direct our economy policy or we are doomed!
Like I said yesterday: If you’re not protesting against President Goldman Sachs, you’re not protesting against “Wall Street.” You’re just a hack. Sorry.
AT AMAZON, bestselling books on survival skills.
TED CRUZ: The “Marco Rubio of Texas?”
WHY ARE WE HERE? WHO KNOWS? Occupy Sacramento Protesters Have No Idea Why They’re There; Badger Reporter For Asking Questions. Hey, at least they could speak English.
Plus, ‘Capitalism: Thumbs Up Or Thumbs Down?’: Andrew Breitbart’s Journey Through #OccupyLA.
LES JONES ON PENSIONS AND TAXES: “Government cheerleaders like to pretend that all of your tax money goes to teachers, police, and firefighters. The reality is that cities like San Jose and Vallejo are paying so much to retired government workers of all kinds that they’ve had to lay off teachers, police, and firefighters. That’s what happens when government becomes a pension fund that serves the unions instead of a civil agency that serves the taxpayers. The retired government workers become the zombies that terrorize the city.”
HOW DO YOU autopsy a whale?
AT AMAZON, home improvement warehouse deals.
MEGAN MCARDLE: Debt Jubilee? Start With Student Loans.
I am fully aware of what this would mean: government lending costs would go up, the program might well become unaffordable, and if private loans were included (as they should be, at least for new loans), the private loan market might well disappear altogether for all but the most lucrative specialties. The reason that the bankruptcy exception was written in the first place was that the loans used to have an extraordinarily high default rate.
But I’m not sure this would be a bad thing. By allowing students to shift forward the additional income that their degree will earn them, student loans have allowed universities to capture a huge portion of that future income stream–which really hurts those for whom that stream doesn’t materialize. Moreover, it allows students to make the sort of stupid choices that most 19-year-olds will make if they’re allowed. I don’t have a lot of patience for university administrators claiming that they just can’t possibly charge less than $25,000 for 15 hours a week worth of classes, but they do have one point: they build expensive new facilities and load on the services because students demand them, and threaten to go elsewhere if they can’t get them. Colleges look ever-more like four year resorts with a sideline in academic research.
If students actually had to earn the money to pay for that world-class fitness center, the 2,000 different clubs, and the off-campus apartment with the pizza parties, there would be a lot less of those things. And while I like both world class fitness centers, and apartments, they’re not the sort of thing that should be funded with borrowed money. If the degree caused pain now rather than pain later, they might also think harder about whether what they were studying was likely to deliver a solid return on that investment.
If we start forgiving un-repayable student loans, the colleges where they were spent should have to take a hit. Shared sacrifice, and all.
FASTER, PLEASE: Body suit may soon enable the paralyzed to walk.
FASTER, PLEASE: Diabetic rats cured with their own stem cells. “A cure for diabetes could be sitting in our brains. Neural stem cells, extracted from rats via the nose, have been turned into pancreatic cells that can manufacture insulin to treat diabetes.”
TO A LOT OF PEOPLE, THEY’RE THE SAME THING: Assuring Civility, Or Curbing Criticism?
GIVING PROSTHETICS a sense of touch. “Brain-machine interfaces have made it possible for monkeys and some humans to control robotic limbs using just their thoughts. But ideally, a person using an artificial limb or other device would not only be able to control the device, but also feel what it’s touching. A new study from the lab of Miguel Nicolelis at Duke University Medical Center takes a first step toward such an interface. In a paper published today in Nature, his team reports that monkeys can learn to operate a virtual-reality hand that incorporates tactile feedback.”
VIRGINIA POSTREL: Superheroes, Already Commerce, Grow Up As Art.
21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: “He Wants to Marry Me, But He’s Moving In With His Girlfriend.”
HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): A job is becoming a dim memory for many unemployed. “Nearly one-third of the unemployed — nearly 4.5 million people — have had no job for a year or more. That’s a record high. Many are older workers who have found it especially hard to find jobs. And economists say their prospects won’t brighten much even after the economy starts to strengthen and hiring picks up. Even if they can find a job, it will likely pay far less than their old ones did.”