"Greenspan says (basically) that with higher MPG cars, Iraq war could have been avoided"

Ummm....no.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/16/AR2007091601287.html?hpid=topnews

"I'm saying taking Saddam out was essential," he said. But he added that he was not implying that the war was an oil grab.

"No, no, no," he said. Getting rid of Hussein achieved the purpose of "making certain that the existing system [of oil markets] continues to work, frankly, until we find other [energy supplies], which ultimately we will."

If only people weren't so obsessed with the "blood for oil" boogeyman, they'd actually listen to what Greenspan really said instead of making things up out of whole cloth.

How about this gem:

"As for Iraq, Greenspan said that at the time of the invasion, he believed, like Bush, that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction 'because Saddam was acting so guiltily trying to protect something.' While he was 'reasonably sure he did not have an atomic weapon," he added, "my view was that if we do nothing, eventually he would gain control of a weapon.'

Yo, to the idiot that made this post. READ UP! Greenspan was TOTALLY misquote by people looking for fantasy fulfillment of their conspiracy theories.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/16/AR2007091601287.html?hpid=topnews

Read up, yo! Greenspan SUPPORTED an Iraq war because he felt that would it would be the best way to stabilize the world's oil supply. Why? Because Greenspan felt the costs of fighting a war were much less than the cost of Middle East oil threatened by Saddam Hussein.

Quoted from the Washington Post article clarifying his statements:

"His main support for Hussein's ouster, though, was economically motivated. "If Saddam Hussein had been head of Iraq and there was no oil under those sands," Greenspan said, "our response to him would not have been as strong as it was in the first gulf war. And the second gulf war is an extension of the first. My view is that Saddam, looking over his 30-year history, very clearly was giving evidence of moving towards controlling the Straits of Hormuz, where there are 17, 18, 19 million barrels a day" passing through.

Greenspan said disruption of even 3 to 4 million barrels a day could translate into oil prices as high as $120 a barrel -- far above even the recent highs of $80 set last week -- and the loss of anything more would mean "chaos" to the global economy."

Secondly, the idiot who posted this without actually reading what Greenspan said should realize that the Secretary of the Treasury's opinions about war with a foreign country count very little. It is Congress' job to declare war and the President's job to wage it. How about studying up some Constitution instead of succumbing to mind-numbing conventional (but thoughtless) "wisdom?"

Interesting: compare the Peugeot 308 Hybrid HDi (69 mpg and 90 g/km of CO2) to the Smart ForTwo micro hybrid (55 mpg; CO2 of 103g/km).

Which just confirms my belief that SMART is nothing but a sad marketing gimmick and there really is nothing special in terms of engineering above it.

Would love to see that Peugeot sold in the American market, on a positive note.

@10

Wow, emrys, you need to get some professional help dude.

Otherwise, keep it up man - then we'll get to watch you on YouTube being taken away in a white jacket raving about how Apple destroyed your life as you stalk the District Manager with insane phone calls.

Yo moron - Apple clearly said during the conference call with analysts that they sold 270,000 iPhones in the first 30 hours.

By the way, it's not even 30 hours, as all the Apple Stores were open at 6 pm to 12 am on Friday and 9 am to 9 pm on Saturday. That's 6 + 12 hours or just 18 hours of sales (with the exception of the NY 5th Avenue Store, which is open 24/7).

270,000 units in 18 hours sounds pretty damn good to all but the craziest, frothing-at-the-mouth apple haters.

Wow, I guess the Kyoto Treaty would have prevented this.

Not. Especially since China and India would have been totally exempt from the treaty. Now we can watch as China leaves the U.S. in the dust with regard to CO2 emissions and maybe people will realize the Kyoto Treaty was nothing but a sham.

It'd be nice if so-called environmentalists were focused on enabling green processes and methods by ALL nations instead of focused on U.S. bashing.

@Argot

How specious. Yeah, Apple has only been working on the iPhone for 2+ years in secret and when LG shows the Prada phone in December, Apple somehow copies it in 2 weeks to show off at MacWorld Expo in January.

Apple's engineers are MUCH better than anyone realized, by your supposed insightful observation!

Or maybe you're just drowning in iPhone envy.

Doubloon wrote: "And what ... an email sent around to all employees "before business hours on the West coast" didn't tickle your spidey sense at all? Did you think they sent it in their pyjamas?"

Which just goes to show that Ryan needs to stop justifying his "correct decision at the time" and simply say, "I screwed up. I'm sorry."

It's interesting to see so many people say, "It's okay because Ryan didn't lie, he thought it was true at the time" - WMDs in Iraq, anyone?

Journalism isn't about publishing something you "thought was true at the time." Real journalism is about doing the necessary legwork and approaching any hot story like this with a healthy dose of skepticism. Maybe it was hard to verify the truth, but then the decision of any responsible journalist is to NOT PUBLISH IT IN THE FIRST PLACE.

For all your explanations and posturing, Ryan, the one thing that comes across crystal clear is that Engadget was more interested in getting the scoop that "providing a valuable service to readers."

As others have noted, the real value of Engadget is TIMELY AND ACCURATE INFORMATION, not BEING FIRST information. You talk about a loss of reputation? You know why? Because for all your justifications, you are saying you are no different than the idiots posting, "FIRST!" on the boards.

As for all the defenders, I understand how you guys love Engadget, but the lot of you need to stop defending Ryan simply out of blind loyalty. If you really love the site, then you need to demand a real apology, and only then move on. If a friend rushed up to you and said, "Hey, I just heard from Joe that your dad was shot and your mom raped - it's gonna be all over the evening news!" and it later turned out he was one confused kid who got some names mixed up, are you gonna tell him, "Oh, that's okay, no need to apologize, anyone could have gotten the story wrong based on the information available at the time."

No. You expect an outright apology, then you forgive and forget.

Weasly explanations without an apology is what politicians do, not responsible journalists. Your assurances are empty, Ryan, because you spent the entire post talking about how other people would have done the same thing in your position (funny how other people didn't, isn't it?) You can either choose to be a man or continue being a weasel with a high opinion of his mistakes.

And until you really do apologize, Ryan, let's just say I'm fully expecting the upcoming story about how PayPal is limiting account access to all PayPal users because you got emailed something "official" from PayPal.

Just like to point out the article specifies rather clearly that power can be generated from a variety of sources such as "ultrasonic waves, mechanical vibration or blood flow."

Given the size of the devices, a device could derive energy in a number of ways. Don't know why you are suddenly singling out blood flow as the only mechanical source of energy.

Secondly, they are not talking about mechanical hearts here. The amount of energy needed to power something as large as a human heart is clearly enormous, and something that may not be practical for an implanted generators. But can these generators power an artificial ear? How about an implant that helps control epileptic seizures or Parkinson's tremors? Or a pacemaker that only occasionally sends out electric signals to keep a heart beating regularly?

No need to automatically come up with an impractical example for using this technology is all I'm saying.

"...and while this invention may not quite match up with wireless charging..."

Are you guys nuts? An invention like this, with improvements, has the potential to remove the need to charge anything in the first place! All electronic devices would "self-charge" by grabbing power directly from the environment. Essentially, its a minaturized version of those Seiko kinetic watches that never need to be wound up or have their batteries replaced (cause they don't have one)