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Something has been bothering me for months and I’m wondering if anyone knows why. NewEgg has been phasing out all their AMD Opteron processors, selling only Intel. NewEgg does, however, carry a full line of AMD desktop processors. I’ve been thinking of building a new server with a pair of 6 core Opterons. So what’s up with NewEgg?
The head of the Taliban in Pakistan, who was linked to the murder of seven CIA agents, has died after being wounded in a US drone attack, according to reports.
Hakimullah Mehsud died of injuries sustained in an air strike in North Waziristan earlier this month, Pakistan’s state television claimed. The state broadcaster also said the leader had been buried in the Pakistani Taliban-controlled area of Orakzai.
It is believed to have played a role in the suicide bombing of a CIA base in Afghanistan in December last year – one of the worst disasters the American secret service has suffered.
[Via Jack Liberty via Barcepundit]
This is a fascinating article that explains why the quote often attributed to PT Barnum about a sucker is born every minute is even more true in America today where the emotional rantings of Beck, Palin, Rush, et al work and intellectual debate of issues in full doesn’t. Read the whole article (this excerpt only touches the surface) to understand why we have become a nation of ’sheeple’.
Why are so many American voters enraged by attempts to change a horribly inefficient [health care] system that leaves them with premiums they often cannot afford? Why are they manning the barricades to defend insurance companies that routinely deny claims and cancel policies?
It might be tempting to put the whole thing down to what the historian Richard Hofstadter back in the 1960s called “the paranoid style” of American politics, in which God, guns and race get mixed into a toxic stew of resentment at anything coming out of Washington. But that would be a mistake.
If people vote against their own interests, it is not because they do not understand what is in their interest or have not yet had it properly explained to them. They do it because they resent having their interests decided for them by politicians who think they know best. There is nothing voters hate more than having things explained to them as though they were idiots. As the saying goes, in politics, when you are explaining, you are losing. And that makes anything as complex or as messy as healthcare reform a very hard sell.
In his book The Political Brain, psychologist Drew Westen, an exasperated Democrat, tried to show why the Right often wins the argument even when the Left is confident that it has the facts on its side.
[...]
Right-wing politics has become a vehicle for channelling this popular anger against intellectual snobs. The result is that many of America’s poorest citizens have a deep emotional attachment to a party that serves the interests of its richest.Thomas Frank says that whatever disadvantaged Americans think they are voting for, they get something quite different.
The chairman of the leading climate change watchdog was informed that claims about melting Himalayan glaciers were false before the Copenhagen summit, The Times has learnt.
Rajendra Pachauri was told that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment that the glaciers would disappear by 2035 was wrong, but he waited two months to correct it. He failed to act despite learning that the claim had been refuted by several leading glaciologists.
Dr Pachauri, who played a leading role at the summit, corrected the error last week after coming under media pressure. He told The Times on January 22 that he had only known about the error for a few days. He said: “I became aware of this when it was reported in the media about ten days ago. Before that, it was really not made known. Nobody brought it to my attention. There were statements, but we never looked at this 2035 number.”
Key Obama economic adviser Larry Summers coined a telling way to look at the current American economic state of play. He said the U.S. is experiencing a “statistical recovery and a human recession.”
It is a phrase that should resonate through much of the industrial world, where high and long-standing unemployment is increasingly becoming a huge domestic political issue.
Speaking on a panel at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Summers said one in five American men aged 25 to 54 are unemployed. He said given a “reasonable recovery,” that rate could improve to one in seven or one in eight. That still contrasts with a 95% employment rate for that group in the mid-1960s.
He said the U.S. can gain from increased global integration, but if it is to be politically sustainable it “has to work for people.” That means job creation in the U.S. is a crucial issue.
Kevin Hench – MSN Fox Sports – Jan 29, 2010:
The weakest, lamest, least compelling of all All-Star games, the Pro Bowl has long been a pimple carefully hidden on the NFL’s posterior (after the season, off the mainland).
Though they won’t be playing, the 14 Pro Bowlers on the Super Bowl teams will be required to be in the stadium the night of the game or forfeit their Pro Bowl checks. Yep, the league has to bribe its own players to watch this game.
Between injuries, indifference and prep for SB XLIV, less than two-thirds of the originally named Pro Bowlers will play in the game.
Tom Brady, Philip Rivers and Brett Favre have joined Peyton Manning and Drew Brees on the unavailable-to-participate-in-pointless-spectacle list. If one more QB had balked, the next invite was going to be Keanu Reeves.
Just when you thought exhibition tackle football couldn’t get any less meaningful, David Garrard — fresh off a 15-TD, 10-INT season — is a Pro Bowler. That’s right, the No. 1 criterion for a quarterback to make the Pro Bowl is no longer QB rating, TDs or total yards. It’s willingness to participate.
 
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Despite the apparent bias of many climate researchers, they do have one thing right; carbon levels have risen notably over the twentieth century from about 300 ppm to 375 ppm. While still far from the estimated levels of around 3,000 ppm during the time of the dinosaurs (appr. 150 MYA), the rising levels do mark a legitimate trend. However, there is increasing evidence that the rising carbon, contrary to alarmist reports is actually having remarkably little effect on global temperatures.
A new study authored by Susan Solomon, lead author of the study and a researcher at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Boulder, Colo. could explain why atmospheric carbon is not contributing to warming significantly. According to the study, as carbon levels have risen, the cold air at high altitudes over the tropics has actually grown colder. The lower temperatures at this “coldest point” have caused global water vapor levels to drop, even as carbon levels rise.
Water vapor helps trap heat, and is a far the strongest of the major greenhouse gases, contributing 36–72 percent of the greenhouse effect. However more atmospheric carbon has actually decreased water vapor levels. Thus rather than a “doomsday” cycle of runaway warming, Mother Earth appears surprisingly tolerant of carbon, decreasing atmospheric levels of water vapor — a more effective greenhouse gas — to compensate.
Describes Professor Solomon, “There is slow warming that has taken place over the last 100 years. But from one decade to another, there can be fluctuations in the warming trend.”
The study was published in the prestigious journal Science.
- Monday’s PC Magazine Column Online and print columns posted for online viewing
- Spam! End it! Here’s How.
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