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Hell, it's even a higher chance of getting struck by lightning than getting killed by a terrorist...

Chance of getting struck by lightning in a year 1 in 1000000 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_strike )
Chance of getting killed by a terrorist 1 in 20000000 ( http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/06/chances-of-dying-in-a-terrorist-attack-number/ )

Some more statistics on helthcare-risks http://www.washingtonsblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/CDC-Mortality-CHart.jpg

http://terrorism.about.com/od/issuestrends/a/EconomicImpact.htm :

The US alone now spends about US $500 billion annually--20 percent of the US federal budget--on departments directly engaged in combating or preventing terrorism, most notably Defense and Homeland Security. The Defense budget increased by one-third, or over $100 billion, from 2001 to 2003 in response to the heightened sense of the threat of terrorism – an increase equivalent to 0.7 per cent of US GDP. Expenditures on defense and security are essential for any nation, but of course they also come with an opportunity cost; those resources are not available for other purposes, from spending on health and education to reductions in taxes. A higher risk of terrorism, and the need to combat it, simply raises that opportunity cost.

Estimated cost of NSA per year ~$4 Billion
Amount spent on cancer research by US goverment per year ~$5.6 Billion ( http://report.nih.gov/categorical_spending.aspx )
Amount needed to end world hunger ~$30 Billion per year.
Amount needed for universal healthcare in the US ~$200 Billion ( http://truecostblog.com/2009/05/13/how-much-would-universal-healthcare-cost/ )

Are you willfully blind or just ignorant? The top 1% don't claim income on a large portion of their income.

I know I can have a discussion without automatically resorting to name calling.

If you have evidence that someone isn't reporting all their income, report them to the IRS. That's a crime.

They define what "is" income for those with large amounts of income.

The tax codes define what is income for those with any amount of income, even none at all. They define what is income for me, for you, and for the person next door.

For example, investing private funds in a Government approved business alleviates that sum of money from their potential income.

Now you're using the term "potential income". I don't know what that is, or why someone should be taxed on income that is only potentially theirs.

Now, if you mean that there are deductions from income granted for certain things, well, yes, of course there are. But first you have to report the income to deduct it legally. I can't just change the amounts on my W2s when I want to deduct mortgage interest or charities. Neither can those awful rich people.

Certain tax investments available to those that can afford them also remove that income from taxes.

Of course. But that's different than not claiming the income in the first place, and deductions aren't limited to certain people. Of course if you can't afford to give $10,000 to charity you can't claim a $10,000 deduction on your tax form. You didn't give $10,000 to charity, the charity didn't get the benefit of $10,000, so why would you expect to be able to deduct a charitable contribution of that size that you didn't make? You also still have whatever money you didn't donate, and the rich person does not. He can't spend the $10,000 he gave to charity, the charity did get the benefit of $10,000, and so he should get the benefit of the deduction.

Those deductions are in addition to, and exactly like, what you and I see for on our tax forms.

Yes. They are on our tax forms, too. If we could qualify, we could take those deductions. But that's STILL different than not claiming the income.

Notice that if you make X dollars and can take 9,600.00 per person from your income, that income is removed and your taxable income is lower than you started with.

The personal exemption was $3900 for someone who made less than $250,000 AGI, but was zero for anyone over $397,500. (Source: here..) This same amount applies to dependents. That's the only "per person" number I know.

So, you should note that the awful rich people you hate so much don't get that deduction, at least not most of it. The latest number I have is for 2009 and the bottom end of the 1% was $343,927. I suspect that 2013 was higher, and it wouldn't take but $50k added to the bottom of that bracket to put that deduction out of reach entirely. And they don't get the child tax credit of $1000, which does nothing to reduce AGI but is a straight subtraction from the tax you owe. If you owed $1000 in taxes and had a child, and made less than $75,000 AGI, you would owe ZERO in taxes. If you managed to get your tax bill down to zero for the year and had an AGI of less than the stated amount, you'd get a check for $1000 from the other taxpayers.

It seems rather silly to complain about a deduction that rich people can't use when you're complaining about all the deductions the rich people have that you don't. Given that the latter is "none", it seems even sillier.

If a person pays a hundred thousand dollars to a tax account a year, are you foolish enough to believe t

...and apparently mountain dew can all do that...

Apparently not true.

How about Massachusetts? Or Louis Cuff? Or the octomom? Or these two?

2. Politicians (the kind who can convince the state to pay for a chauffeur for them, usually on the premise that it leaves them free to attend to important business while in transit)

Nah, they'll just vote an exemption for themselves

I don't think China's holdings have that kind of power. If they sell prices would fall, rates would rise. I suspect these events might entice additional demand from other investors causing prices to rise and rates to drop. Also, the U.S. economy is currently growing, not collapsing so there is currently nothing to exacerbate. I would hold off on the bomb shelter for now.

China "owns more about $1.2 trillion in bills, notes and bonds" -- so even if investors wanted to snap up China's holdings as they sell, they'd have to sell other holdings so it would still have a large effect on the world economy.

if you create a batch file with
shutdown /s /t 0
as the contents you can even give it a nifty Stopsign icon

please be aware [color=red][style=blinking]THIS WILL BE AN IMMEDIATE SHUTDOWN NO WARNING[/color][/style]

if you want a warning set /t to say 30

full details at http://pcsupport.about.com/od/commandlinereference/p/shutdown-command.htm

Europe is big. Much bigger than the US.

No, it isn't.

http://goeurope.about.com/od/europeanmaps/l/bl-country-size-comparison-map.htm

Assuming you're talking about the human race, it's currently somewhere between 5 and 10 percent.
http://geography.about.com/library/faq/blqzalivetoday.htm/

We now strongly discourage all Americans from learning how to make things for themselves, and as a consequence the Chinese are now much better at machining than we are.

Dude, who are you telling. This is how I learned chemistry as a kid. I've got a couple of copies of the book, and I'm pretty sure that if you order everything needed for the book in this day and age you'd either get a visit from law enforcement or at the very least end up on a watch list. Not surprisingly, some states like Texas have gone full retard.

Yes, I can get all the ammo in the world for my Glock 32 chambered in Sig .357, but don't you goddamned order an Erlenmeyer flask.

Whereas you probably preferred an ignorant former alcoholic puppet who couldn't react well in emergencies and an equally ignorant schizophrenic religious nutcase who couldn't keep her own teenage daughter from getting pregnant out of wedlock and divorcing a year after the shotgun wedding.

You are not even getting the basic facts right. Bristol Palin was never married to Levi. They had an on again/off again engagement but never married.

I would bet that you're one of those Palin haters who can't identify which quotes were hers and which were Tina Fey's.

LK

Okay you're right they never got married but that does not at all change the substance of what I said. Here, I fixed it for you:

"...an equally ignorant schizophrenic religious nutcase who couldn't keep her own teenage daughter from getting pregnant during her political campaign.

It's not difficult to find her quotes: http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/sarahpalin/a/palinisms.htm

She throws out sound bites well, as many right wingers do, but she's either extremely ignorant or a bald faced liar...or both.

Nice try, but inflation has actually been consistent except for a small spike at the height of the recession. Please try your pseudo science somewhere where the gullible believe it. I think Fox has a pseudo science division.

http://economics.about.com/cs/money/a/recession_price.htm

That is one thing that separating ourselves from the gold standard allows. A much finer control of inflation, and any economist worth their salt will agree that a slight increase in inflation is healthy for an economy.

I'm a bit doubtful that those are correlated. I think that higher socioeconomic status of the parents has an equal chance in resulting in spoiled brat syndrome. That, and most people with wealth weren't born into wealth.

http://www.consumerismcommentary.com/most-wealthy-individuals-earned-not-inherited-their-wealth/

The only potential correlation I could see would be that those in private schools do better than in public schools. Private schools aren't as heavily bogged down by unions and politicians which allows them to focus more on the teaching.

http://privateschool.about.com/cs/employment/a/advantages.htm

You must never have heard of a "Blue Dog Democrat," have you?

http://uspolitics.about.com/od/democrats/a/Blue-Dog-Democrat.htm

Isn't the whole point of open source to take good ideas and merge them together?

What gave you that idea? There are many Linux window managers, Word Processors, Image Editors, etc. That diversity is both a strength and a weakness.

So you'd be cool with Photoshop CS2. Looks like a used copy of CS2 will run you $150-$300 depending on your OS.

Have you ever been to Israel? I have.. many times.. I have yet to witness anyone being indoctrinated.. Perhaps you should make a convincing argument rather than resorting to personal attacks.. In regards to the U.S. not having a draft.. what exactly are we forcing everyone to register for.. See: http://usmilitary.about.com/cs/wars/a/draft2.htm

Bhoosh. http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/bushvideos/youtube/bushfoolme.htm

citation of what that boston is a gun free zone yet someone did major damage there a few weeks back?

- http://crime.about.com/od/gunlawsbystate/a/gunlaws_ma_3.htm

but again even if it were not, it just shows that if you take away the guns, you can still buy a crockpot. or are you claiming the boston bombing did not happen??

Try again. The max tax rate in new york is 8.97% on people making more than 500K. Source: http://taxes.about.com/od/statetaxes/a/New-York-income-taxes.htm

The top rate for federal income tax is 35% for 2012. Source: http://taxes.about.com/od/Federal-Income-Taxes/qt/Tax-Rates-For-The-2012-Tax-Year.htm

So if you made more than 500K, you may have paid a 44% marginal rate. Of course, that doesn't mean a 44% total rate- the top rate is only for money over a certain amount. If the tax rate goes from 30% to 35% at 100K (numbers made up) and you made 150K, you'd pay 30% of the first 100 and 35% of the last 50, for a total of 47.5K, or 31.67% overall rate. This is assuming you have absolutely no deductions, including the personal deduction. Realistically if you have that much money, you're sheltering at least 20-30% of it in real estate or other deductions, so you're unlikely to pay more than 20%. The last year I made 150 I ended up paying about 20% federal taxes.

TL;DR- OP is a liar who completely made up his numbers.

Try again. The max tax rate in new york is 8.97% on people making more than 500K. Source: http://taxes.about.com/od/statetaxes/a/New-York-income-taxes.htm

The top rate for federal income tax is 35% for 2012. Source: http://taxes.about.com/od/Federal-Income-Taxes/qt/Tax-Rates-For-The-2012-Tax-Year.htm

So if you made more than 500K, you may have paid a 44% marginal rate. Of course, that doesn't mean a 44% total rate- the top rate is only for money over a certain amount. If the tax rate goes from 30% to 35% at 100K (numbers made up) and you made 150K, you'd pay 30% of the first 100 and 35% of the last 50, for a total of 47.5K, or 31.67% overall rate. This is assuming you have absolutely no deductions, including the personal deduction. Realistically if you have that much money, you're sheltering at least 20-30% of it in real estate or other deductions, so you're unlikely to pay more than 20%. The last year I made 150 I ended up paying about 20% federal taxes.

TL;DR- OP is a liar who completely made up his numbers.

The Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments would be a start.. at least it was for me.

On the fiction front I liked Robert Heinlein's Red Planet.

FTTH is between $1,500 and $3,000 in suburban markets which is recouped by annual customer commitments. The only way these costs are made affordable is through government subsidies.

Pfft, those prices are right in line with the total price for a two year contract on an iPhone, which I don't have but lots of people do. I've had Comcast cable Internet (@home initially) for 14 years now, which is somewhat over $15,000 in total. Customers are laying out enough money is being laid out to justify some re-investment now and then.

Read actual UCMJ article http://usmilitary.about.com/od/punitivearticles/a/mcm104.htm, it's actually very clear that releasing any classified information released knowingly it will "leak" to the enemy is enough for "aiding enemy" definition (in eyes of UCMJ, remember Manning isn't civilian in this case). Prosecution will have to prove that Manning truly knew what WikiLeaks will do with them though.

I can agree with judge, this charge can't be dismissed. Will see what will be decision on this case.

Government money doesn't mean that you can research things of no significance...

Shrimp treadmill. http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/federalbudgetprocess/a/How-Much-Shrimp-Treadmill-Study-Cost-Taxpayers.htm

This and all other research should be privately funded. This, just like the treadmill for shrimp, is a waste of my and many other people's tax dollars.

http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/federalbudgetprocess/a/How-Much-Shrimp-Treadmill-Study-Cost-Taxpayers.htm

Another similar survey did just that. Instead of asking people based just on religion, they added "rapist".

http://atheism.about.com/od/atheistbigotryprejudice/a/Atheists-Trusted-Less-Than-Rapists.htm

The URL spoils it, but yeah, atheists were trusted LESS THAN RAPISTS.

That depends on if the US government can confiscate money held in banks like what happened in Cyprus, or not. The question is, do you trust government to honor its promises.

The government confiscates money all the time. It's call taxes. This version was just a little less democratic and done in an unusual way which freaks people out.

Generally speaking, no I'm not especially worried about the US government confiscating my money ala Cyprus. Furthermore even making the comparison between the two economies is a bit absurd since the situations are about as different as possible. Put a few billion into Cyprus and you'll hose the economy when you take it out. A few billion is a rounding error in the US economy and most US debt is not actually held by foreigners. Furthermore every penny the US government owes is denominated in dollars which the government can (though shouldn't) print whenever they want. Cyprus uses the Euro over which it has limited control. There is no possible way for the largest US creditors to pull their money out quickly. People make a big deal out of China and Japan each holding $1 trillion in treasury notes but what they usually don't consider is that China doesn't really have any alternative and they cannot sell them quickly to anyone. There literally are no other buyers for that much US debt especially in a short time frame.

Thank you for providing statistics that provide neither cause nor effect that are also based on estimates. Those same statistics also do not in anyway shape or form counter the op's argument that "More people end up homeless from relatively minor psychological issues than drug issues". Those stats you quote don't even seem to fall too far out of the general population abuse of alcohol (30%) and most drug users are employed.

And yet atheists are still the least liked segment of society. We're held in even less esteem than muslims.

That is such BS. Atheism is only the least liked among those categories. Add some other minority categories such as transgender people, burglars, car salesmen, and pedophiles and you'd get lower ratings.

And yet atheists are still the least liked segment of society. We're held in even less esteem than muslims.

Try "sex offenders" some day.

And yet atheists are still the least liked segment of society. We're held in even less esteem than muslims.

That's because they're usually the most annoying jackasses around (even factoring in all the different muslim terrorist factions).

And yet atheists are still the least liked segment of society. We're held in even less esteem than muslims.

Probably not, in the US atheists are hated more than Muslims and distrusted as much as rapists.

How about recognising that your constitution was not written by God and brought down from the mountain by Moses. Nor is it a universal truth of the physical world discovered by mathematicians or scientists.

What it is is a bunch of rules that a few men in the 1780s thought were good ideas. Written for the experience that they had of the world in the 1780s. (The American Revolution, the emergence from being a colony, primitive policing, and no standing army.)

Times change. Smart people adapt, ignorant people cling on to the past.

OK, so if you don't like the Constitution's current iteration, there's a legal process to amend it. in fact, that process is the only legal way to alter a right enshrined in the Constitution.

Good luck with that... unless you're not an American. In that case, mind your own fucking business.

The official figure of casualties for the invasion and aftermath is around 66 thousand (according to wikipedia). There are hundreds of thousands more killed by Sunni and Shia militias (not the Americans). There are all sorts of wild and unsubstantiated estimates from politically motivated anti-war pundits from their comfy armchairs in London, but these are clearly hokum (compared to the counts from military intelligence actually on the ground).

Now, let's see, Saddam killed between 3 to 5 thousand with a chemical WMD attack in one afternoon in Halabja (with around twice that number maimed/injured). Then we have the war he started with Iran where the combined casualties were around 1 million. Then we have the invasion of Kuwait and subsequent loss of life. Then we have his vicious war against the marsh Shia that caused thousands more dead and an environmental catastrophe. Then we have the Anfal campaign with around 182000 Iraqis killed by Saddam. Then we have the continuous daily tortures and killings by his secret police. http://history1900s.about.com/od/saddamhussein/a/husseincrimes.htm

So you still want to defend that monster? you think it was wrong for the Coalition to remove that evil evil man who caused millions of deaths? you think that the evil of the war to remove Saddam compares anything to the utter evil of leaving him to scourge his people and neighbours? once you get numerical about it you can see that your position (and the position of the clueless Left in general) is counter factual and as a consequence, immoral. You have the soft racism that it is only bad if white people kill - it's okay for non-whites to slaughter as many people as they like and we have no say in it (especially those with the courage to prevent it, like the Americans). You racism and supporting of evil tyrants is disgusting to anyone who supports liberation of everyone, regardless of creed, gender or color. Supporting tyrants and opposing those who would remove them is an immoral position to have - yet that is the position your argument supports.

Nope. This exact thing has happened before - except it was Nike, not Apple:

http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/blnike.htm

If we could use open source, we could at least read the source and even compile it to ensure the source we read was the binary which was compiled

Or maybe not.

Of course, you could argue, "well, that wouldn't happen if I could see the source code of the compiler!" but then malware-authors can just shift the problem back one level into the hardware.

Open Source is not a guarantee of security. It can help, sure, but it is not a panacea. In fact, it can even be counter-productive if anyone can see the source-code since then they can see vulnerabilities you may have missed. Which is not to say that closed-source is necessarily any better, but one should not assume that open source is always the answer.

Seems like this is something technology always deals with - cars and roads OR cell phones and cell towers - early adopters always have difficulties. How is this surprising?

It is apparently surprising to some people. Almost every article about electric vehicles have tons of comments from people how say that it will never take off.

Yea, I mean, it's not like they've been trying to make a successful electric car for neigh over 100 years or anything...

What I find funny is, the problem with today's electrics are the exact same problems with the electrics from my Great-Grandpa's era - battery tech sucks.

Credit card companies are looking for people with okay credit with okay reasoning skills and okay income who will pay the minimum payment.

They don't want deadbeats who pay their balance in full each month.

That is a low-impurity source of carbon that is going to end up getting incorporated into the steel itself - it is a raw material, not a fuel.

The coal they are shipping there will be converted into coke in China and that is a rather dirty process that hasn't changed much since 1920s. Or in fact, 1800s.
And as they don't have to care about various environmental regulations over there, they can turn all that coking coal into coke a lot cheaper than what it would cost them to do that in the USA.
Also, if a couple of dozen guys "expire" way before their due date cause they've been inhaling arsenic vapors during quenching of the coke... Whose gonna notice that when there are 1.3 billion more of them?

During the coking process, you are basically releasing in the air all those wonderful impurities (like arsenic, mercury, nitrogen, sulfur etc.) from the cooking coal, without burning up the carbon.
What are you using to heat up the coking coal? More coal.
Naturally, any of those byproducts that can be used do get used - like the coal gas, which is usually used either to produce ammonia or is burned to produce electricity for the coking plant, or both.
Both also release carbon into the air.

THEN, you take the coke you made, and use it to fire up the smelting furnaces (i.e. you burn more coal) during which it is also used as a reducing agent.
That's when you release most of the carbon in the coke into the air as CO and CO2. The rest gets burned out of pig iron when you heat it up with oxygen to produce steel.
Anything more than 2% of carbon in steel classifies that steel as cast iron. Pig iron is 4-5% carbon.

So basically... All coal is very dirty and it is primarily a fuel, not a raw material.

China also owns most of US foreign debt.

Actually, China owns about 8% of our national debt.

Even if you only consider debt own by foreign countries, China owns only 26% of that, about the same as Japan.

You're on to something there - there have been several psychological experiments showing that almost everyone* is capable of truly atrocious behavior in the right circumstances. Sadly I can't remember the names of the studies,

The Stanford Prison Experiment: http://www.prisonexp.org/ The Milgram Obedience Experiment: http://psychology.about.com/od/historyofpsychology/a/milgram.htm

It's perfectly reasonable for charity workers to be paid reasonable salaries. It's unreasonable for them to be paid unreasonable ones. The American Red Cross got a lot of flack a few years ago because of the high salary it paid Marsha Evans. Other charities were unfairly accused of doing the same thing but it turned out those claims were exaggerated.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/charities.asp
http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_charities_salaries.htm

If you do donate to a charity, make sure it's an efficient one that serves the cause and not the office holders:
http://www.forbes.com/2009/11/23/charities-most-efficient-personal-finance-charity-09-efficiency_slide_2.html

My 2c on old PCs: Yes, I have lots, but really they are practically worthless. Recipients would do better with a cheap modern netbook than they would a hulking power-guzzling iron monster. Like a story I read about how people donating their old books to libraries: "People can't bare to throw out their old books, so they donate them to us (libraries), and we throw them out for them."

Exercise as the main feature of staying fit is also a cop-out even if you DO go to a gym. One can of mountain dew has 700 Calories. Assuming you're jogging at 5 mph, that one can is going to take you an hour of jogging to burn off.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. It would be a hell of a lot easier to just not drink the soda. You'll stop even craving it before too long, it's the caffeine that is addictive, not the soda or sugar. And the caffeine addiction gives you a headache if you go off of it, not heroin withdrawal induced seizures. If you can't take the time to go all biggest loser and spend 10 hours a day on a treadmill, you've got to change your diet. Eat the junk food if you want, but don't delude yourself into thinking you'll make up for it in your office chair.

Sites that are particularly large, or under a big umbrella, Slashdot for example, can avoid this kind of thing by running their own in-house network... but smaller sites don't have that kind of luxury. There still needs to be an interest in vetting submitted ads by those internal networks as well-- curse.com is basically an ad network with forums and MMO add-ons floating on top, and they have a bad history of serving malware and spear-phishing attacks to their users.

Nope. Acid mines are weird.

How are "we" (yes I am a doctor" colluding with the government? The government programs - medicare/medicaid pay pennies on the dollar.

The AMA limits the supply of doctors by controlling the "standards".

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/health/2005-03-02-doctor-shortage_x.htm
http://www.forbes.com/2009/08/25/american-medical-association-opinions-columnists-shikha-dalmia.html

Some reporting has suggested that one of the early anti-abortion pushes was doctors trying to eliminate the competition (midwives, moon-tea peddlers) and increase demand for their services (live birth = more medical care than an abortion):

http://studentsforlife.org/prolifefacts/history-of-abortion/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_abortion
http://womenshistory.about.com/od/abortionuslegal/a/abortion.htm

There are two excuses for you not knowing this
1) willful ignorance
2) you're not an AMA-trained doctor

I'm strongly pro-pirate party but..

Falkvinge set up an email list that lets people email every MEP. So maybe they merely banned Falkvinge email list, rather than filtering out the email on the ban.

I'm completely fine with voters emailing every MEP when they care about an issue, but (a) send a different email to your own MEPs so that they know you know their names, and (b) doing so via an email list downgrades the importance further.

As MEPs are nationwide, these issues are already sorted out partially by simply the language and dialect the email is written in. If you email an Italian MEP in English they probably won't give your email too much weight, although a British person living in Italy does vote for Italian MEPs.

Ideally, Falkvinge should set up mail too links page that addresses each country specifically, offering emails in all national languages and english for non-natives who wish to customize it. If you want to click em' all, that's great.

Yup. It's called Hyponatremia: http://sportsmedicine.about.com/od/hydrationandfluid/a/Hyponatremia.htm