The law, signed last week by President Obama, exempts the SEC from disclosing records or information derived from "surveillance, risk assessments, or other regulatory and oversight activities." Given that the SEC is a regulatory body, the provision covers almost every action by the agency, lawyers say. Congress and federal agencies can request information, but the public cannot.
The Commerce Department, in revisions issued Friday, estimates the economy shrank 2.6 percent last year -- the steepest drop since 1946. That's worse than the 2.4 percent decline originally estimated.
In related news, 2+2=4, up is up, down is down, and you can't spend yourself into prosperity--no matter how much the Gov't/Federal Reserve speak to the contrary. (15,512)
Hank: what is hate? Cpt. F: that's just how it do Cpt. F: That reminds me of the old stileproject game "JUNGLE COCK" Cpt. F: it was an RPG where you had tons of items, but the answer to every situation was to use the jungle cock Cpt. F: "the door is locked, what it do?" Hank: hahahar Cpt. F: "use key or JUNGLE COCK" Hank: JUNGLE COCK Hank: the old internets sucked yet ruled Cpt. F: aye Hank: new internets are 99.999999999999999999999997% gay Cpt. F: yeah but a frilllion times bigger Cpt. F: and scary too Cpt. F: I refuse to go to /b/ anymoar as I'm afraid of law enfoarcement Hank: you fool, you aren't going to get busted for lurking /b/ Hank: myhate, hatebook, ***tube, whoresquare -- all this ego bullshit that is not fun Cpt. F: you foargot twitter Cpt. F: hippo(crite) Hank: twitter is email Cpt. F: o'rly? Hank: really Cpt. F: shall I consult some of my fellow twats? Hank: please do Cpt. F: "laurenhorn Super Coffee is cash only Note to self: Start carrying real monies!" Cpt. F: FASCINATING Hank: it's as if she sent it just to you! Hank: hahahahhaar u follow hr0n Cpt. F: "pennjillette I just got back to the hotel after the Hammersmith Apollo show. It went well, great audiences. TV breakfast show tomorrow - up at 6:30" AM Cpt. F: HOW INFOARMATIVE Hank: CHUT UP Hank: those people are doing it wrong Hank: @Stalkzilla : U are gonna get buzted foar creeping on hr0n before /b/ gets you into trouble Hank: ^^ doing it rite Cpt. F: o ok Cpt. F: wtf du u mean? she has 900 followers Cpt. F: she's not gonna notice Cpt. F: besides, I never read this shit, I forgot I even had her on here Hank: that was a jolk Hank: I'm demonstrating how to do it right Cpt. F: right, I got that Cpt. F: your strawman had a point though. the fucker Hank: hahar Cpt. F: POINT BEING: twitter = gay Hank: you freak, twitter is like gold underpants Hank: it's only gay if YOU are Cpt. F: haha (8,792)
Markets are panicking, Greeks are rioting, Hungarians are having conniptions, and the rest of the over-leveraged world is finally asking the question: when is it going to be my turn?
Meanwhile, the economics enthusiasts here at Latewire/InflationHell, as well as some of the actual experts have been notably silent. You may be wondering why that is (or you may be wondering how water-activated growable sponge animals work, but we're not going there so shut up). I think even some of the more famous soothsayers (who we plagiarize unabashedly) have been a little quiet lately on the bad reports (only today did Peter Schiff release something about it).
The reason why is that... well... what's there to say? The writers here as well as other believers in Austrian Economics have put enormous effort into writing essays, books, lectures, and even publishing educational videos on history and governmental fiscal figures. We explained why 2+2 does not equal 5, no matter how much the Fed says it does. We told you things were unsustainable, we told you the how and the why. You'll notice that some other economists/financial "experts" who were predicting a continued rally or recovery are either scared speechless or rationalizing/modifying their statements.
It dawned on me today, after a long night of heavy drinking, that there is one thing we should probably be reporting at this point.:
We told you so.
But don't worry, this is only the beginning. This is just the tip of the debt-crises iceberg.
Yes, we realize that these numbers are wacky partially out of fear and panic, and they'll wax and wane for a while as the changes set in. We also realize that it is extremely early in the decline, and that these "bumps in the road" are unpredictable in the temporal sense. Rest assured though, soon enough the people of these countries will finally realize how leveraged they are, that their standard of living has been a lie, and that now they and their children are going to pay for their mistakes with compounding interest for a very, very long time. At that point, you wont have to come to our website to view images like these, you can just look out your front window.
So a few weeks ago Blizzard, makers of World of Warcraft (as well as some games that aren't gay), announced that they weren't going to invest a lot of resources in preventing piracy of their new game, Starcraft II. They basically said it's a losing battle (can't win, don't try).
This was met with a lot of press from the nerd communities who somehow think they finally have found a company that shares their idiotic view of the world that says that piracy has zero negative consequences, and that battling it is futile.
The reason companies use copy protection is because it works. Nerds will use the absolutist argument of "No it doesn't work, people defeat copy protection all the time." Well, nerds say that because nerds defeat copy protection all the time, and they have no notion of what's actually going on outside their mother's basement.
The truth is, all copy protection has to do is hassle pirates slightly more than their time is worth. Some are willing to go to great lengths to pirate, and those will usually find a solution. Others wont.
So the real question is: how rampant is piracy, and how well does copy protection curtail it? To give you some idea, check out THIS article from a shareware software writer who works for Ambrosia Software. It's got nothing to do with morals or how much money you make. From "poor college students" to "well todo capitalists," people love the convenience and cost savings of piracy.
As soon Ambrosia they started implementing real copy protection, they saw a 5 fold increase in sales. When they implemented expiring licenses for "Snapz X", they found that nearly half of all people who upgraded attempted to do so with a pirated code. Ambrosia was a tiny firm started by some bored college students trying to get beer money. They are now a good sized, successful software firm. Most of that, according to these numbers, is due to copy protection.
I think that pretty well answers the question of how rampant piracy is. If you don't have copy protection, people steal the fuck out of shit.
Let's get back to Blizzard. If copy protection is so effective, and they've used it so successfully in the past (with WoW [2007], Warcraft 3 [2002], and Starcraft 1 [1998], for instance), why give up on it?
It's simple really: They haven't given up on shit.
90+% of Starcraft II games are going to be played online. THAT copy protection will still be in place and extremely (if not entirely) effective. All codes are created and archived by Blizzard before the product ships. If you're attempting to play online, you're forced to use Blizzard's proprietary intermediary, Battle.net. Before you can play, the code is matched to one in the archive. If two machines are using the code on Battle.net at the same time, the code is flagged and it wont let you play. The code is disabled and one or both of you will have to purchase a new copy. This kind of protection, barring some fuck-up with key generators, is pretty much unbeatable.
Also, that's not to mention that you still need to activate the product over the internet (Ala M$ Windows) and I'm sure they'll crack down on "[k]racks" with every update--probably even verifying the license code for every update as well. Also remember that for Starcraft 1, you didn't even need to activate the product before you used it (it'd be a dick-move as most people were using dialup then).
Yes, they're saying they're allowing more freedom, but more freedom than what exactly?? There exist some Nazi-ass games that require you to be connected to the internet all the time (if you get disconnected, the game quits), but those are typically games that can function offline (single player). SC2 requires the internet for most of its gameplay anyway, so it doesn't have the same issue. It's very easy for makers of an almost entirely multiplayer game like SC2 to say "Oh yeah, single player mode can be pirated. We're sooo much cooler than those other meanie developers" with a big shit-eating grin on their faces, knowing that most people aren't going to play the single player much as it's a short campaign that will be entirely ignored or only played once by most users.
So to all those who thought this shifts the paradigm about anti-piracy and are spouting off in internet forums about Blizzard's pseudo-crusade: Congrats, you've just been suckered by a multibillion dollar corporation into aiding them in selling more video games. How does it feel to be a tool? (8,428)
So this month, the motion picture companies have been suing people who download movies. ~25,000 in all. The Hurt Locker was the latest on the "if you downloaded it, you wont be sleeping well for a long time" list. They're not suing for much, just their legal fees (thousands?) and an assurance that you deleted the offending files from your computer.
Luckily, I don't download shitty movies so I've managed to avoid all the targeted files in the MPAA's latest hit-list. However, there may well come a day where I have to resort to proxies or tapping into unprotected wifi hotspots to get my movies. Maybe someday I'll have to abstain entirely. Lord knows I'm not paying $25 for a BluRay disc that may not even work.
On a related note, my parents just bought 2 movies on BluRay that wont work with their player because of DRM incompatibility (yes, I updated the firmware... which is the gayest thing to have to do). Outstanding. So you, the MPAA, make your products defective, punish those who circumvent your copy protection, and then sue your fans who would probably be willing to pay if not for your stupidly high prices, unending restrictions, and outright unplayable media.
Get ready to have done to DVD/BluRay sales the same thing that happened to album sales. (8,158)
The epitome of the Fat-cat is back, and his name rhymes with "sacks." This is appropriate, considering that not since Lincoln's prostitution to the Railroad companies have we seen such shameless and unapologetic chrome-plated balls in our corporate governance.
A few days ago Sachs was sued by the SEC, ostensibly out of nowhere (they weren't even given the customary prior-notice to prepare). This is an unquantifiable mountain of horse-shit. I'm not saying they haven't done anything wrong, I'm saying that everybody knows it's a show-trial and nothing will come of it... well, everybody but the average American, that is.
The average American will see this as a fresh reminder of why we "need" financial reform. When Obama gets up on stage and finally signs this shit into law, most Americans will be watching it live on TV--clapping their sausage-digitted mits together, resulting an enormous orange plume of Dorito-dust which will likely be the 3rd of man's creations that will be visible from space.
Make no mistake: This isn't being done to penalize Goldman Sachs. This fact is so obvious that even the GOP is calling them out on it.
It's not just about the financial reform bill, either. What makes this particular moment in time the most strategic for distraction is that the SEC was finally forced to acknowledge 13 years of epic failure. Long story short: A guy ran a $7 billion ponzi scheme, was investigated by the SEC for 13 years and found to be extremely dirty. Four Times. They never prosecuted--that is, until now. This whole Goldman Shit-fit is almost certainly related. (35,712)
Fantastic: "Researchers believe technology could be used to determine a computer typist's age, sex and culture within 10 keystrokes by monitoring their speed and rhythm." Fantastic: they're using this to track pedophiles or at least thinking about it m0nster: yeah I saw that Fantastic: I'm interested to see how it works Fantastic: I wonder if pedophiles are confused with programmers or anime fans m0nster: men apparently bang on the keyboard more m0nster: and I'm assuming people have individual typo and tempo patterns Fantastic: I type differently depending on a lot of factors though Fantastic: like if my hands are sore from working out, when I'm drunk, when I'm typing one handed Fantastic: actually, maybe the pedos are tracked based on 1-handed typing Fantastic: but that would mean Captain Hook would get raided Fantastic: But that dude really was a pedophile, so maybe the system works (7,790)
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Hank: the old internets sucked yet ruled
Note to self: Start carrying real monies!"
Markets are panicking, Greeks are rioting, Hungarians are having conniptions, and the rest of the over-leveraged world is finally asking the question: when is it going to be my turn?
The epitome of the 
I'm not talking about the fact that most of the commissars and stooges in our government's interventionary nightmare have either 
