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Very interesting read. Thanks for sharing. Gives a new perspective to clicking "place order." For others, here's the link w/o all the page jumps: http://www.alternet.org/print/story/154344/what_happened_when_i_got_a_job_at_a_soul-crushing%2C_abusive_warehouse

Yeah, I've read that fulfulment warehouses are a terrible place to work: http://www.alternet.org/story/154344/what_happened_when_i_got_a_job_at_a_soul-crushing%2C_abusive_warehouse

It does not help that the US has a long (though obviously not unique) history of going back on deals made by previous presidents

Here's an example.

Afghanistan has something like $4 TRILLION of minerals with lots of those rare earths. the russians discovered them first but we are going to get them.

Afghanistan has moderately good sources of lithium (evaporite deposits in dry lake beds). This article is about rare earths. Lithium is not a rare earth.

They may have some rare earth ores as well, but probably no more so than any other location of similar geology.

its not an accident we got out of Iraq and are still in Afghanistan

Yes it is; the idea that we're in Afghanistan to raid the mineral wealth just doesn't hold up; spending a trillion dollars on a war to capture access to a mineral resource of value at most a few trillion dollars, where you'd have to build the mining and transport infrastructure from scratch, just doesn't make sense unless it has a spectacularly high profit margin, and probably not even then. The comment from Marc Ambinder, in the Atlantic, is that "the Pentagon is probably trying to bolster Americans' support for the flagging Afghanistan campaign" by publicizing Afghan mineral wealth-- but it wasn't the reason we went there in the first place.

link: Sorry, Trillions in Unmined Mineral Wealth Is Not a Reason to Keep Occupying Afghanistan

http://www.alternet.org/food/how-mitt-romney-and-bain-helped-grow-monsanto-biotech-giant

95 percent of my assets drive out the front gate every evening. It's my job to bring them back.

Jim Goodnight, SAS Institute CEO, in: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-550102.html

One hundred fifty years of research proves that shorter work hours actually raise productivity and profits - and overtime destroys them.
So why do we still do this?

Sara Robinson, http://www.alternet.org/visions/154518/why_we_have_to_go_back_to_a_40-hour_work_week_to_keep_our_sanity/?page=entire

"Management Summary": It's not Karl Marx ;-) who figured it out, but Henry Ford.

I WOULD count the number of Americans that falsely believe that some their fellow Americans are crazed religious nutbags that want to slaughter people who theologically disagree with them as AT LEAST one, and probably more as I know that there is a strain of anti-religious (Really, Anti-Christian) fervor that has infected some people in America that has no grounding in reality and is instead held up by anti-religiously bigoted propaganda by people with political and financial hay to make.

Congratulations on buying into the lie, BTW.

Guess I should have included:

d) Ever heard of the Family Research Council?

We spend so much time complaining, yet it is us - the people, the voters - who opted to sit around and watch television and let politicians warp the constitution to serve their need for power

You can't blame the people for being vulnerable to the best propaganda system in the world. You can't blame an old man for believing Fox News any more than you can blame him for falling for the typical scams that target the elderly.

You're just blaming the victim here. The ones who really bear the blame are the ones actually comitting the fraud against the American people.

Now that carries some weight!

I hate to disappoint you, but no, it won't. There is some (shaky) evidence that conservatives tend to be much less strongly influenced by facts when dealing with political topics, and that education level does not change the outcome. Chris Mooney wrote a book about it, I haven't read it, but it seems that there isn't a silver bullet so much as a lot of studies suggesting, but not proving, the same thing.

Whatever the reason, the point is that it doesn't matter who funded it, the conservatives won't accept climate change, no matter how many facts or studies you perform. If you confront a conservative with a climate change argument, and show them this study, I guarantee that they will shift the argument to saying that Muller now says, yes there is climate change, but it isn't what caused Katrina, nor what caused the drought in the U.S., nor is what is killing polar bears. If you were to fund a massive to study to prove those things, they would shift the argument to something else.

It's utterly depressing, because it suggests that a lot of the political divide in this country is insurmountable (although it explains a lot about why we had to fight a devastating civil war in order to free slaves).

But?!?!?

If you disable Al Qaeda, how will you get them to overthrow Assad in Syria for Hillary?

You must understand one thing. "Al Qaeda" never stopped being a board piece used by "Western" powers, when they were Reagan's Moral equivalent of our founding fathers."

If you dispute this, it's because YOU have already been trolled into disinformed confusion...

I know companies that don't aim at maximizing profits can be sued by their shareholders

Not true. And even if you WERE trying to maximise value to shareholders, there's a distinction between long-term sustainability and short term profit.

The Myth of Profit Maximizing

        “It is literally – literally – malfeasance for a corporation not to do everything it legally can to maximize its profits. That’s a corporation’s duty to its shareholders.”

Since this sentiment is so familiar, it may come as a surprise that it is factually incorrect: In reality, there is nothing in any U.S. statute, federal or state, that requires corporations to maximize their profits. More surprising still is that, in this instance, the untruth was not uttered as propaganda by a corporate lobbyist but presented as a fact of life by one of the leading lights of the Democratic Party’s progressive wing, Sen. Al Franken.

http://www.alternet.org/economy/154789/whose_corporations_our_corporations!?page=entire

I corrected my mistake right here, in that same topic. Maybe if you stopping hating, your eyes would clear-up and you'd be able to SEE the posts right in front of you:

Re:I don't see the outrage (Score:2)
by cpu6502 (1960974) on Friday June 15, @06:55AM (#40337971)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/29/warren-buffett-taxes-berkshire-hathaway_n_941099.html [huffingtonpost.com]

It's actually 1 billion not 1 trillion (oops). Still my point stands: The politicians let guys him & other megacorps go slide w/o consequences, but instead go after us who owe just 0.0001% as much. Why? Because the rich & corporations buy immunity.

Corporations that paid zero taxes:
http://www.alternet.org/economy/150387/2_3rds_of_us_corporations_pay_zero_federal_taxes%3A_us_uncut_movement_builds_to_make_them_pay_up [alternet.org]

Citation - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/29/warren-buffett-taxes-berkshire-hathaway_n_941099.html

It's actually 1 billion not 1 trillion (oops). Still my point stands: The politicians let guys like Buffett, his company, and CEOs go slide w/o consequences. BUT if one of us owes money they hit us hard, even when we owe just 0.0001% as much as the Big dogs owe. Why? Because the rich & corporations buy immunity from politicians via donations.

Corporations that paid zero taxes:
http://www.alternet.org/economy/150387/2_3rds_of_us_corporations_pay_zero_federal_taxes%3A_us_uncut_movement_builds_to_make_them_pay_up

Israel spies on the US a hell of a lot. So on one hand it seems like a Faustian bargain for the NSA or CIA to get in bed with Mossad.

No, the ACS apparently doesn't need any more money.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/29/warren-buffett-taxes-berkshire-hathaway_n_941099.html

It's actually 1 billion not 1 trillion (oops). Still my point stands: The politicians let guys him & other megacorps go slide w/o consequences, but instead go after us who owe just 0.0001% as much. Why? Because the rich & corporations buy immunity.

Corporations that paid zero taxes:
http://www.alternet.org/economy/150387/2_3rds_of_us_corporations_pay_zero_federal_taxes%3A_us_uncut_movement_builds_to_make_them_pay_up

http://www.alternet.org/story/154252/the_republican_brain:_why_even_educated_conservatives_deny_science_--_and_reality/

http://www.alternet.org/health/68043

it's an advertiser's job to make you unhappy. if you are content with what you have, and only wish to buy things you need, a lot of worthless junk would never get sold. think about how your (imaginary?) girlfriend/wife goes shopping to make herself feel better. materialism is condemned by just about every religion that preaches happiness through the "denial of the crystalline" -- to quote a Meshuggah song (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IiP-Vdx_F8). advertisers want to create depression in you because it's proven to drive sales. you spend to fill the void, and the void is created by attachment to status and the expensive crap required to get it. all of this was true for tv, and now it's our interactive tv, the internet.

http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/news/releases/consumerism-and-its-antisocial-effects-can-be-turned-onor-off.html

Apparently you're referring to the notion that Ron Paul is a great admirer of Ayn Rand and/or follows her philosophy. I hadn't heard that before, and a brief search turned up no real support for that view*. Your post is at best woefully incomplete and at worst simply irrelevant. How you got so many up-mods is beyond me.

* One site implies that Ron Paul's son Rand Paul was named in Ayn's honor, but his actual name is Randal and his wife shortened it to Rand from Randy. Another article says "Dr. Paul has said he is a great admirer of Ayn Rand", though I was unable to locate any direct quote to support this statement. This article is similar. I was unable to locate anything short of a few fringe views. Libertarians and libertarianism was apparently influenced by Ayn, but by no means exclusively.

You are very selective in the conspiracies you choose to decry.

Why aren't you up in arms about things like Big Pharma's focus on peddling more pills rather than finding genuine cures?

What about Big Oil's lies concerning not just AGW (did you know of Exxon's support up to the early 2000s for think tanks and research that denies global warming?), but disasters like Deepwater Horizon?

You're so outraged over Big Government. Yes, bash them hard over tax loopholes. But what about Little Government? For instance, many local governments have engaged in parking meter and red light camera programs of dubious merit that whatever else they are claimed to accomplish, extract quite a bit of money from the public. Many universities and colleges are even more notorious for strict parking enforcement. There's also a classic taxation without representation many have jumped on: special sales taxes for motel rooms, rental cars, and other things that hit travelers only. US sales taxes are under 10% for most items. But for rooms and rental cars, 15% or more is typical.

Speaking of government, what about attempts to rig elections, such as voter caging?

Then there is Big Finance. Madoff is the only perp who has been locked up. The rest of them got off with pathetically small fines. Some even got a free bailout. Why is Goldman Sachs still in business, still paying their executives obscene bonuses? Why is Mozilo not behind bars?

What about Big Media and piracy? Hollywood Accounting, and lobbying for laws like DMCA, SOPA, PIPA, ACTA, and the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998?

But you put your energies towards calling out this supposed great scientific conspiracy over AGW. It's beyond the pail to suppose there could be a deliberate effort with active and explicit collusion among thousands of independent scientists. However, there could indeed be a groupthink problem, motivated in part by the desire to secure more funding. (Do you really think funding is only available for those who will affirm AGW?) Medical research has just such a problem. How can we tell the difference? By reviewing the evidence and the work. And what we see is that it's the deniers who have engaged in bad science, and who have a clear motive and financial interest in doing so.

Follow the money. Follow ALL the money.

[apologies, pholks.. I hit Submit instead of Preview by accident, and am just figuring out that I can't edit a comment. Here's the handy-dandy, and proofread, HTML...}

college&community&public stations a-plenty-- make sure yours is among them:
https://www.democracynow.org/2012/4/26/cispa_critics_warn_cybersecurity_bill_will

And here are the go-to sites for leadership/updates on the issue:
http://www.eff.org/
http://www.epic.org/ (though, just checking.. not sure why EPIC is lagging on this issue thus far.)
And though I don't like ragging on sd'ers, it's a bit troubling that the site which is heralded as bringing the news is "hothardware".. I guess a peeve of mine is overspecialization. Ever the humble polyglot, I make it a point to check aggregators of alternative news daily:
http://www.alternet.org/
http://www.commondreams.org/

and as re Your Rights specifically, a good podcast is http://www.lawanddisorder.org/
... also, CNet puts together a good "Politics and Law" rss feed: http://news.cnet.com/8300-13578_3-38.xml

AMANDLA!

Hey, why leave for Afghanistan when Israel has summer boot camps for foreigners. For those who wish to google it themselves keyword is: MARVA and GADNA

The British children who train to fight in Israel

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=k_aatIlgcmI
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=VM7tDiIzIHk
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=909xamDTsz4

mahal-idf-volunteers.org/

http://www.alternet.org/world/64100/

Let Israelis Show You Israel Web site reads. "The program includes military content such as: navigation, field training, weapons training, shooting ranges, marches and more, as well as educational content such as: Zionism, Jewish Identity, history and knowledge of the land of Israel. All of this is taught in Hebrew in an intensive eight weeks."

Also if you are non-jewish you can join the israeli army in all corps except the elite ones. You will fight side by side with the israeli pretty much what taliban does when they invite foreigners to fight side by side with them. Google is your friend on how to join these programs. And no there is no comparison to the french foreign legionnaire as they are distinctly different army under french command and you become french after 3 years of service and have high honor, ethics and moral which can be seen by their almost 200 years history.

http://www.alternet.org/environment/154709/the_strange_conservative_brain%3A_3_reasons_republicans_refuse_to_accept_reality_about_global_warming/

Are you truly this ignorant? Germany doesn't treat their workers like shit? Germany's trade surplus is due far more to wage suppression than productivity. Indeed, this fact was pointed out to me initially by a German friend, and then I found tons of places that back it up; here's a quick sampling of references that mention it:

http://www.mdx.ac.uk/Assets/onaran2.pdf
http://www.ilo.org/public/english/bureau/inst/download/akyuz.pdf
http://www.alternet.org/economy/154231/german_economic_striving_at_the_expense_of_workers_and_neighbors_will_backfire

Please mod parent down for talking nonsense.

There was an article here on the 40 hour week recently. http://www.alternet.org/visions/154518/why_we_have_to_go_back_to_a_40-hour_work_week_to_keep_our_sanity/?page=entire

Texas wins the number 2 slot in my google search (may be the same source, I didn't rtfa, just looked for Texas):
http://blog.norml.org/2011/05/16/alternet-the-five-worst-states-to-get-busted-with-pot/
http://www.alternet.org/drugs/150935/the_5_worst_states_to_get_busted_with_pot?page=entire

I don't touch the stuff personally, but I know people that do (none in Texas).

Can I get some examples of main stream science denialism by democrats?

Obvious one right here. You can claim this is one both sides ignore - but like Republicans claiming to be "pro family", Democrats should be held to a higher standard when they are always claiming so vociferously to be the "pro science" party.

But there are others examples. Note, for example, that Democrats oppose scientific studies if it involves testing on animals - human embryo research, though, poses no problems for them. Democrats ignore the scientific consensus in favor of more nuclear power plants, and oppose them for mostly emotional reasons. Note also the Democrat's reliance on the Precautionary Principle for evaluating policy decisions. That idea "imposes a burden of proof on those who create potential risks, and it requires regulation of activities even if it cannot be shown that those activities are likely to produce significant harms." - that doesn't sound very scientific at all, but it's used to oppose all forms of GM food, nuclear power, and even to block research funding in the absence of the ability to prove a negative. This entirely unscientific principle was even evident in Katherine Sebelius's justification to block the availability of Plan B contraceptives over-the-counter

Oh, and then there's the Obama administration's decision to support the oil companies in the fracking lawsuit, even when their own task force had had exactly the opposite conclusion. There is even evidence that many in the current administration are guilty of scientific misconduct.

That depends. For example, people with Russian/US dual citizenship can legally enter Russia without a passport (though it would be somewhat complicated) or visa because constitution guarantees that Russian citizens can't be denied the right to enter the country.

What you seem to be saying is that Russia is now more free than the US? I wander how things will be in next 20 years.

http://stateswithoutnations.blogspot.com/2009/04/us-citizen-deported-to-mexico-shipped.html

http://abcnews.go.com/US/14-year-american-citizen-deported-colombia-assuming-false/story?id=15298238

US citizens reported from US

No, I did my own research.

As to the retarded question of whether or not I'm retarded: you've never met me, so you have no idea and don't for one fucking minute try and convince anybody that you do - it makes you look stupid and brands you the liar that you are. My last WAIS-III composite, assessed four years ago, was 223. Make what you will of that.

the NDAA killed the first, fourth, and sixth amendments.

The NDAA provision is a statutory law, it CANNOT overrule any amendment. If they are in conflict, then the NDAA loses.

And after that, WTF? How did it kill the first amendment? Did it establish a relgion? Prohibit the free exercise of religion? Abridge the freedom of speech, or press? Or our right to peacefully assemble? Or did it eliminate our ability to petition the government for a redress of our grievances?

Actually yes, a strong case has been made for how NDAA abridges freedom of speech for the press: http://www.alternet.org/story/153843/chris_hedges%3A_why_i'm_suing_barack_obama/

The argument has been suppressed. That's why you don't hear about it. Sample quote:

Coates - who readily admitted that he barely knows what "standard deviation" is, which implies that his critique of Sullivan is anything but scientifically-based - questioned Sullivan's desire to explore the debate by suggesting that since the science behind racial IQ differences was once embraced by racists, slaveholders, and eugenicists that he can't help but project similar characteristics on anyone, today, who broaches the topic.

Need any more citations? They're out there. Here's another from alternet:

"Why are our minds and their capabilities among the most taboo topics in 21st-century academia? "I believe there are a number of factors involved," says Dennis Garlick, a postdoctoral researcher in psychology at UCLA and the author of Intelligence and the Brain: Solving the Mystery of Why People Differ in IQ and How a Child Can Be a Genius (Aesop, 2010). "Certainly a major factor is the race issue. Arguing that the races differ in IQ has tainted the whole field, and many researchers and commentators would prefer to just avoid the area for fear of being labeled racists."

It's like how people who read the New York Times are woefully uninformed on the Gunwalker scandal. It's been suppressed as it's an inconvenient truth. If you have no idea what the Gunwalker scandal is...well, you just proved the point, didn't you?

Ron Paul is just as batshit crazy as Rick Perry, except he wants to make the USA more isolationist instead of Team America: World Police (fuck yeah!). He's on record saying he doesn't accept evolution, that life begins at conception, and that American Christians are probably God's chosen people in the end of days - and that's completely leaving out the utter irresponsibility of his plan to nuke several government departments*.

Now, you could say, "well, Ron Paul wants to reduce federal interference in our lives, so it doesn't matter what he believes since he's going to let us choose". That would be wrong. Just listen to the second link, starting at 0:15. He says:

But it's academic to talk about civil liberties if you don't talk about the true protection of all life. So if you're going to protect liberty, you've got to protect the life of the unborn just as well.

Do you really think those are the words of a man who's just going to let the states decide on this issue**? Hell no. And I bet you anything that the rest of his "libertarian" position is just that, a position he wouldn't keep up when he has a chance to make changes.

Basically, the only thing that differentiates Ron Paul from the current crop of crazy GOP politicians is the fact that he'd end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Big whoop. He's no better at all in terms of public policy.

**He had to cut five different departments to get his "trillion" number, which utterly ignores the detrimental effects such cuts would have on the GDP; do you really think that cutting the Dept. of Commerce won't affect the economy? That cutting the Dept. of Education along with Housing and Urban Development won't have detrimental effects five, ten years down the line? And there's no mention at all of cutting the Department of Defense, which would probably give you that trillion right there, as long as we're ignoring the ramifications.

*and as well he shouldn't; if life truly begins at conception, he's morally obligated to work to prohibit abortions. Too bad for him that it really doesn't.

the same whore who had railed against social benefits all her life, and then took healthcare and social security when she needed it in later years of her life.

http://www.alternet.org/teaparty/149721/ayn_rand_railed_against_government_benefits,_but_grabbed_social_security_and_medicare_when_she_needed_them/

Actually.... one of the really interesting things here is health care. As you may know, here in the US about 20% of our GDP goes to health care (or so I hear when we have big company meetings). Anyway, 50% of all that spending is spent on the last 5 years of life. We, as a culture, spend about 10% of GDP trying to stave off death, even if it means slow atrophy in a hospital bed.

Now it gets interesting.... what happens when you correlate these habbits with religion? Is it atheists who put off death the longest.... trying to hold on to this one life as long as they can before the eternal black? Afterall, Christians have it all set, as do most religions.... afterlife? Looking at celestial palaces or maybe reincarnation.... way better than laying ina hospital bed...right?

Wel....... survey says.... WRONG

In fact, its the atheists who, on average, spend the least amount of time prolonging life, and hanging on the longest.

Check this out.... http://www.alternet.org/belief/148825/why_atheists_are_better_prepared_for_death_than_believers?page=1

Now, I can only speak for myself but I connect with this article on it.. I have no vision of heaven to fall back on, no belief in some afterlife. SO.... I personally realized that my life was going to come to an end fairly early on. I was 11 when I left the church, and by 15 or 16 had already come to some early terms with my own mortality. Yes, at some point, I end. Its not a big deal, everyone does it.

I don't need to worry about it... what if what I believed my whole life was wrong? Well shit... whats that even mean? If I am wrong then just about anything could be true, and its going to be an adventure no matter what, I have no reason to believe the epic hell afterlife is any more likely than any others, and the most likely.... well... is just nothing.

So I have nothing to dwell on, nothing to be afraid of...beyond the normal urge to live, and avoidance of pain. I don't want to go to my death bed but, someday I will, and I have known that for half my life now. I feel bad for people who suddenly, at 70 years old, suddenly come to feel doubt and worry if it was all worth it.

They're actually not irritating all the truckers. See:
http://cleanandsafeports.org/blog/2011/12/12/an-open-letter-from-america%E2%80%99s-port-truck-drivers-on-occupy-the-ports/
http://www.alternet.org/economy/153393/how_goldman_sachs_and_other_companies_exploit_port_truck_drivers_%E2%80%94_occupy_protesters_plan_to_shut_down_west_coast_ports_in_protest/?page=entire

"Need" is inherently subjective.

Not to somebody who can't afford health insurance and who is dying of cancer or some preventable illness.

But my argument was really more about hypocrisy than about health care or the concept of "NEED".

Perhaps God did it for amusement, perhaps he's artistically inclined. Look at the average painter's paintings (and the stuff the doesn't even like himself and destroys/hides), does he produce useful or aesthetically perfect paintings? How can flaws in nature be an argument against creationism any more than they can be used against evolution theory, when evolution supposedly optimizes away flawed designs in the long run?

You know what we call artists who make their paintings occasionally explode and kill the viewer? Psychopaths.

Now, Jews are okay with God being a dick (there's the saying, "If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans"), but in general modern Christians really aren't. Your analogy only works if you're okay with God not being omnibenevolent (unless you stretch the term "omnibenevolent" to the point where it makes genocide and infanticide a-ok), and that's just not what Christians want to believe.

What allies? How many US allies are there by their own choice and how many are there because the US forced them to be allies?

The "the entire world depends on US military" is such a huge bag of shit. How many countries is the US involved in militarily? 97 according to this article.

As Tyrell says in Bladerunner, "A candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long, and you have burned very brightly". The US as an empire is circling down the drain and the closer we get to the bottom, the faster we go.

Patriotic American, but fucking hell, I think we've gone to far to make any corrections to our downwards spiral.

The police seem to be getting kitted up with all the military hardware:

Why do the police have tanks?

Then there is Operation Fast and Furious

Do you not know what the CIA World Factbook is? It's basically an encyclopedia (and is frequently cited in research papers). And it's not exactly some sort of a secret that Libya's wealth doesn't trickle down. The minimum wage in Libya is about $120 a month.. Law #15 maintains the average salary at about $200 a month. Yet the per-capita GNP works out to about $1200 a month. So, well, you do the math as to where most of the money is going.

FYI: "The top economic 1 percent of the US population now has a record 40 pecent of all wealth, and have more wealth than 90 percent of the population combined." http://www.alternet.org/story/151999/meet_the_global_financial_elites_controlling_%2446_trillion_in_wealth/

There you go, the math is all done for you. (and why does my spell checker insist that "math" is not a word?" LOL!)

1. The rioter being interviewed was talking about himself, not the youth in general
2. The rioter had not been involved in protests prior to the riot
3. The rioter's not having protested invalidates his observation

Frankly, the observation that the media tend to only care about spectacle, and focus in on the spectacle even when it isn't the center of an issue, seems pretty self evident. Not that you need to rely on self evidence when plenty of the usual kind is available. (EG: http://www.alternet.org/environment/134613/media_focus_on_minor_violence%3B_ignore_peaceful_protests_at_global_summit/.)

Is nothing but a useless second-hander after all.

Much like all Objectivists, they are hypocrits.

http://www.alternet.org/investigations/148314/un_report%3A_american_citizen_executed_by_israelis_during_mavi_marmara_raid/

'Based on both "forensic and firearm evidence," the fact-finding panel concluded that Dogan's killing and that of five Turkish citizens by the Israeli troops on the Mavi Marmari May 31 "can be characterized as extra-legal, arbitrary and summary executions." (See Report [.pdf] Page 38, Section 170)"'

http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/15session/A.HRC.15.21_en.pdf

Shut up or they'll require screenings to go into the subway. I'm just waiting for them to realize what a terrorist target those security check points are.

s/terrorist target/cash cow/

This is why transparency is so critical to freedom. It's critical that we know who is profiting, because one of the major benefits of capitalism is being able to follow the money to find out who's fucking who.

This would NOT legalize marijuana. It would allow states to determine if marijuana COULD be legalized or controlled (as in medical marijuana).

This bill, the "Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act of 2011," is broader and bolder than the medical marijuana bills that Congressman Frank has introduced in every Congress since 1995. The bill introduced today would allow states to determine their own marijuana laws -- not just medical marijuana laws -- without federal interference.

Source (and others). Let's try for some accuracy here. It's not all that hard. You'd think the editors were stoned or something.

The summary is perfectly accurate. It said it would legalize marijuana federally. The federal government doesn't have the authority to stop states from prohibiting something, so I don't know why your additional clarification would be needed.

This bill, the "Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act of 2011," is broader and bolder than the medical marijuana bills that Congressman Frank has introduced in every Congress since 1995. The bill introduced today would allow states to determine their own marijuana laws -- not just medical marijuana laws -- without federal interference.

Source (and others).

Let's try for some accuracy here. It's not all that hard. You'd think the editors were stoned or something.

I didn't realize the source was sh*tty (i still have no idea who or what rense is) it happened to be the first 2 or so hits on Google. However this is established that Israel spies on the US just as much, if not more than anyone. If different sources make you feel better:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Franklin_espionage_scandal http://www.alternet.org/world/130891/breaking_the_taboo_on_israel's_spying_efforts_on_the_united_states/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24256527/ns/us_news-security/t/american-charged-giving-secrets-israel/

You could list *any* country here. No need to get your vagina's up in arms because someone said something bad about Israel. The point was China is just the next in a long line of countries spying. Now, it might be much worse given how much they make for the US.

...maybe we should let the younger generation take a crack at it.

I don't think so!!

The basis of both letters and much of the research is the herbicide glyphosate. First commercialized in 1974, glyphosate is the most widely used herbicide in the world and has been for some time. Glyphosate has long been considered a relatively benign product, because it was thought to break down quickly in the environment and harm little other than the weeds it was supposed to kill.

According to the National Pesticide Information Center, glyphosate prevents plants from making a certain enzyme. Without the enzyme, they are unable to make three essential amino acids, and thus, unable to survive. Once applied, glyphosate either binds to soil particles (and is thus immobilized so it can no longer harm plants) or microorganisms break it down into ammonium and carbon dioxide. Very little glyphosate runs off into waterways. For these reasons, glyphosate has been thought of as more or less harmless: you spray the weeds, they die, the glyphosate goes away, and nothing else in the environment is harmed.

But Huber says this is not true. First of all, he points out, evidence began to emerge in the 1980s that "what glyphosate does is, essentially, give a plant AIDS." Just like AIDS, which cripples a human's immune system, glyphosate makes plants unable to mount a defense against pathogens in the soil. Without its defense mechanisms functioning, the plants succumb to pathogens in the soil and die. Furthermore, glyphosate has an impact on microorganisms in the soil, helping some and hurting others. This is potentially problematic for farmers, as the last thing one would want is a buildup of pathogens in the soil where they grow crops.

The fate of glyphosate in the environment is also not as benign as once thought. It's true that glyphosate either binds to soil or is broken down quickly by microbes. Glyphosate binds to any positively charged ion in the soil, with the consequence of making many nutrients (such as iron and manganese) less available to plants. Also, glyphosate stays in the soil bound to particles for a long time and can be released later by normal agricultural practices like phosphorus fertilization. "It's not uncommon to find one to three pounds of glyphosate per acre in agricultural soils in the Midwest," says Huber, noting that this represents one to three times the typical amount of glyphosate applied to a field in a year.

Huber says these facts about glyphosate are very well known scientifically but rarely cited. When asked why, he replied that it would be harder for a company to get glyphosate approved for widespread use if it were known that the product could increase the severity of diseases on normal crop plants as well as the weeds it was intended to kill. Here in the U.S., many academic journals are not even interested in publishing studies that suggest this about glyphosate; a large number of the studies Huber cites were published in the European Journal of Agronomy.

If Huber's claims are true, then it follows that there must be problems with disease in crops where glyphosate is used. Huber's second letter verifies this, saying, "we are experiencing a large number of problems in production agriculture in the U.S. that appear to be intensified and sometimes directly related to genetically engineered (GMO) crops, and/or the products they were engineered to tolerate -- especially those related to glyphosate (the active chemical in Roundup® herbicide and generic versions of this herbicide

There are scads of no-knocks on the net.. but check this 'regular' raid out.