Tension with India disturbing Pak's focus on war on terror: US

http://www.thehindu.com/holnus/001200904221521.htm

That was a good laugh. Pakistan focussing on war on terror ? they must be joking.

Pakistan never focussed on war on terror, even though it affects pakistan too. The government has no control over extremists. All the funds US is providing to Pakistan are only being used for further sponsorship of extremism. How do these idiots even come upto a stage where their comments are published in papers ?

Repost of slashdot comment

I see your problem. You think managers are logical and considerate. You are wrong, sadly.

I worked for the state of Georgia a few years back, during my time there our group cut our districts IT costs essentially in half, not my doing or anything but it happened either way.

At the end of the year we had a large amount of cash left over in our budget because of the ways we came up with to save during the year.

You know what happened? We spent almost every dime we had left over doing stupid training for things we were perfectly qualified to manage already because our next years budget would be based on what we spent the previous year.

So ... rather than doing our jobs well and being rewarded by getting a little more consideration when we actually NEEDED the money in the future, we had to waste it to ensure that we'd get the funds next time around, even though we knew we wouldn't need them unless something unforeseen happened or that we'd need the money in a couple years when the next round of upgrades/replacement needed to occur. You simply can't budget properly in that state because once you've given some money back, getting an increase later is next to impossible, you have to ramp up over several years in order to get some extra for upgrades/replacements of major systems.

It was worse than just that however, not only did we have a surplus that we wasted, we had other groups in our district that had surpluses as well, which rather than losing the funding the following year they would figure out ways to funnel the money to us (legitimately) so we could spend it on new equipment to justify their budget.

The other groups had extra money because they would get grants and federal funding to do projects, but the funding wouldn't be around the following year, so to continue those public health projects in the future, they really needed to keep their allotment for the next year high enough to pay for everthing.

I write this comment and still think it was absolutely retarded, but those poor bastards that were actually doing the work couldn't do 'the right thing' because it would only screw them within a couple of years because managers and politicians up stream are so broken and stupid that they reward wastefulness and punish efficiency.

There really is no reason that your typical government worker wants to be efficient, they just get punished for it later. Try to remember that next time you go to the health department, DMV or whatever government office and you see them doing something that seems like a complete and utter waste of resources. They probably are fully aware of it, but have to do it anyway so they don't get fucked later and end up with too little money and some stupid politician asking them why they ran out.

Another one

I worked as head of Critical Factilities Engineering for a major financial services provider with a 1 MM sq ft campus. There were just over 4000 employees on the campus, each one with at least 1 computer at his/her office/cube. After having a very expensive energy audit performed, a potential savings was (big surprise) shutting down PCs.

Despite calculating that the organization could save $75K annually (this was a conservative estimate), their marketing department put a stop to the idea. Why marketing? Because the company had just gone through a "rebranding" and the marketing department had designed a new screensaver for all workstations with the new logo/slogan. None of these computers were in client facing positions, so effectively, they were insistent on wasting energy to advertise....to themselves!

No, I'm not kidding.

repost of slashdot comment

By definition the world is mostly made up of average people. For those of us that were products of public schools and other institutions that accepted everyone regardless of their abilities or backgrounds we can probably think back on groups that showed exactly what "average" means.

This combines with the most common failure of unfettered democracy, the tyranny of the loud (and perhaps underemployed/bored/obsessed), to create a perfect storm of vitriol, ignorance, and selfishness in places like an open forum online.

Quite simply, people without knowledge or experience in a field deserve less speaking time than those with knowledge and experience. If those people that are excluded from a discussion because they are ignorant or inexperienced want to participate than they should take the time to become knowledgeable and experienced in the field.

I always like to see open discussions but I also like to see comments rated and organized so that I can sift through the crap to get to the gold, something that guyminuslife mentions is missing from the Post's website system.

and some more

The BBC has it's own reader's comments section called "Have Your Say". It's moderated by a BBC team and it's notorious for censoring completely valid and non-abusive opinion. For example, when they had a topic on Google's participation in censorship in China, some posters pointed out that the BBC also censors things. The BBC responded to this by removing their posts (the topic that day had pre-moderation switched off, something that virtually never happens now). This prompted other people to point out the irony of the BBC removing posted about BBC censorship on a topic about censorship. The BBC then quickly pulled those posts. This prompted more similar responses and eventually the BBC gave up.

Police chief quits over blunder

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7991307.stm

secret documents should only be opened in closed containers. Not glassed rooms, or even inside your own vehicle, anyone could use a very high resolution camera to take a picture from far enough and zoom enough to read the text, no wonder there is quite a lot of demand for suitcases

Germany launches Hypo Real Estate takeover bid

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Germany-launches-Hypo-Real-apf-14889108.html

The government's bank rescue fund said it would offer euro1.39 per share of the commercial property lender.

Even germany realises that companies should not be given cash but should be bought to make the right reforms, but US would never realise it.

Japan seeks NKorea debris

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g5bCbd3G8qFoX7H4TvQbUWvBQ08QD97ESFDG1

When i read the title i just felt japan is seeking for NKorea to be reduced to debris, but soon came to senses and reaslised they just want NKorea rocket launch debris.

Why does McCain's statement come into picture here ? He is not president of foreign affairs minister, why does his statement get attached to the title ?

He said, however, that technical difficulties and concerns about cost may make it difficult to renew the search.

It is obvious that searching for debris in oceans are costly, otherwise it would have been already done by curious US or south korea

iF TV science was more like real science

India woman 'divorce scam' arrest

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7986229.stm

seen it movies but never read a article about it.

a 26-year-old woman arrested

His lawyer said the complainant was the woman's ninth husband

wow... that is fast