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thanks for your pointless sophistry

the simple fact is we do not fund american infrastructure enough, and this hurts our economy in relation to places that do

it's not complicated nor difficult to understand

here, educate yourself:

http://www.economist.com/news/...

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/fa...

http://www.infrastructurerepor...

after you have some actual understanding of a topic, only then should you speak on the topic

Some fairly positive results that I wasn't expecting to find http://www.cbsnews.com/news/ca...

The idea behind a vaccine is not to just protect the individual who gets it, but to protect the population at large. Those who choose not to get vaccinated are threatening other people's lives—the lives of those who may not even know they are being threatened.

Measles? http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd-vac/measles/faqs-dis-vac-risks.htm

We are starting to see just the beginnings of the results of this anti-vaccination movement:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2014/05/29/u-s-measles-outbreak-sets-record-for-post-elimination-era
http://news.health.com/2015/01/28/u-s-measles-outbreak-now-numbers-87-cases/
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/whooping-cough-outbreak-reaches-epidemic-level-in-california/
http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/24/health/ohio-mumps/index.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/24/nhl-mumps-vaccines_n_6375744.html

I think the most sickening part of it all is that most anti-vax parents have gotten their immunisations when they were a child, yet refuse to let their own children get them. It's sad that it will take at least another 5-10+ years, and many more outbreaks, before the anti-vaxers will even start to get swayed. We may likely see pre-immunisation-era numbers of infections before then though, especially with the world being as small as it is today compared to yesteryear.

Well, colleges and the healthcare industry, since you're asking. :)

Good examples both! Although their hold on the respective markets aren't quite as monopolistic, their pay-structures is just as divorced from the immediate consumers of their services as that of public schools.

If today we upped school-loans to $1 million per year, the colleges would've upped their fees up to $1 million by September. And they would've found reasons...

Likewise, if insurers today agreed to pay twice more for a particular procedure, the price of it would've doubled overnight.

At least the schools don't cause too many deaths

Not sure, what you mean by "causing deaths", but schools definitely are places, where children are in high danger of sexual predators (far more so than churches, for example).

and the first 12 years are free

If it were free, I would've not have been talking about quadrupling of the costs, would we have?

To put us back on topic, at least, you can switch your doctor or transfer to a different college. Public school? You are stuck with it...

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/te...

"Domestic producers 'won't rely on Google' he stressed.""

Makes sense when the main brain behind Google's effort is gone.

That the other autonomous projects, like project Wing has its members leaving or funds being rerouted to other companies, or VPs of the robotic future just disappearing.

Google is obviously demoing these projects as PR to the public and as IP threats to the industry considering it bought a lot of IP recently. Germany's making the right decision--and it will promote competition--which is a good thing.

These assholes at Anonymous are so stupid that they identify people with the same name as the criminals. In other words, they're just as stupid as Homeland Security.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/sp...
Spike Lee retweets incorrect address of George Zimmerman, violates Twitter rules
By Chenda Ngak CBS News December 13, 2012, 4:03 PM

I could see this as a growth industry for hospitals (hey, we need the money)

Not really, according to 60 minutes. Hospitals have no problem getting money. They're rolling in the dough and can afford to pay their CEOs millions of dollars. So called non-profit hospitals mark up prices many times. Really, don't fool yourself with a statement like that.

Maybe, but you haven't proven that. You quoted cost per student. I quoted cost per tax payer, of which there are vastly more of.

You compared cost per tax payer for public schools to cost per student for private schools. That's not valid.

Says the cost per student is closer to $10k

The article on the OECD study explains that:

The United States spent more than $11,000 per elementary student in 2010 and more than $12,000 per high school student. When researchers factored in the cost for programs after high school education such as college or vocational training, the United States spent $15,171 on each young person in the system â" more than any other nation covered in the report.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/us...

Either way, US public education is hugely expensive, both compared to other school systems around the world, many of which yield better results, and compared to existing private schools in the US.

And the cost for private schools in the US would fall further if they were freed from the ridiculous constraints and costs that public school-related special interests impose on them in an attempt to keep them from competing too much.

In light of hard facts and numbers, it is difficult to see what kind of rational argument anybody can make for keeping the public school system as the primary educational system in the US.

A rough estimate for total public education cost to "Most of us" is $2500.

Your numbers are bogus. Public K-12 schools spend an average of around $15000/student/year, the largest amount in the world:

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/us...

Many other nations that get better results than we do while spending much less (in PPP$). That alone tells you that our system is highly inefficient.

How many private schools have yearly tuition for less than that? Community colleges? Colleges? pre-schools???

Catholic schools cost, on average, half as much per student as public schools, and that's with the onerous and costly government educational regulations in place. Other private schools are also much cheaper on average than public schools. And without regulations, K-12 private education would be even cheaper.

Sometimes one of these inspires me to (internet) research the topic enough for a properly cited rebuttal and in the process I learn something. Hopefully you do too.

You need to do a lot more research because your numbers are way off.

It is not "political correctness" to differentiate between ordinary Muslims and terrorists who are Muslims

Hmm no!

It's PRECISELY because of Poltical Correctness that the Islamic Barbarism movement has sprouted

Those who subscribe to Political Correctness will label people who dare to call a spade, a spade, such as identifying the barbaric tendency amongst many Muslims "Haters"

Precisely because of Political Correctness no one dare to voice out when things started to go wrong

And when no one voicing out when things started to go wrong, the things that went wrong went MORE wrong, and those things grew and grew, until we have ...

* The Boston Marathon Bombing, the
http://www.cbsnews.com/feature...

* The Murder and videotaping of an 8-year old girl in Toulouse
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012...

* The Hostage taking and murder saga at Sydney
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new...

The list could go on, and on, and on, and the one common thread, apart from the Islamic barbarism is POLITICAL CORRECTNESS

If it wasn't because of POLITICAL CORRECTNESS all those barbaric fuckers would have been flushed out long before they carried out their dastard acts

Those motherfucking Islamic barbarians hide behind the curtains of POLITICAL CORRECTNESS and thriving

Their number is growing, and they are everywhere

Thanks to the motherfucking POLITICAL CORRECTNESS more and more bloody episodes of Islamic Barbarism will happen on the Western soil

More and more innocent people will be needlessly butchered, and we have POLITICAL CORRECTNESS to thank for !

While recycled waste water is usually used for non-potable purposes, as you mention it has been -indirectly- used by adding treated water to a stream above a reservoir used for potable water in VA, to replenish ground water aquifers that are used as potable water sources in California, as well as possible future addition to a San Diego reservoir also directly used as potable water source.

However, sadly a Texas community started directly using treated waste water for drinking water earlier in 2014
Ewww
Gross
 

The point is, it is very doubtful that the WaPo or any other similar papers, who have vowed to not publish material contrary to Global Warming Consensus, will print opinions that clearly contradict the prevailing AGW narrative despite the author's impeccable credentials.

I don't believe it's happened yet even though both are rather prolific authors.

Here's a lesson in scientific method. You form a hypothesis that the Washington Post won't print opinions by Judith Curry or Roy Spencer. You can test that hypothesis by searching for their names in the Washington Post. In fact, they do. Here's the first of a large number:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

The point is, it is very doubtful that the WaPo or any other similar papers, who have vowed to not publish material contrary to Global Warming Consensus, will print opinions that clearly contradict the prevailing AGW narrative despite the author's impeccable credentials.

I don't believe it's happened yet even though both are rather prolific authors.

Justice served. Just like when we invaded Iraq.

FTFY

Bush: No Saddam Links To 9/11
JUSTIFICATIONS FOR THE WAR

Ok, so how was it unlikely that NK did the hack?

Technical fingerprints: the tools used in the hack were not unique to NK and the hackers' "C&C infrastructure" was public proxies. This renders worthless all of the FBI's proof against NK since it was based on no one else having these tools or IPs.

More technical fingerprints: Sony has been hacked by everyone for years. It can be assumed that multiple hacker groups were inside Sony at any time, and any one of them could have been the one to take over Sony's network and destroy their data.

Motive: One of the GOP hackers has been identified as a Sony sysadmin who said their motivation was equality. Sony had been caught paying a newly hired male executive $1 million more than a woman with the same job title a few months before that sysadmin lost their job at Sony. The stuff about North Korea came after the equality claim, after the media raised it as a possibility.

Brown was shot because he escalated the situation to a "high risk arrest" by going for the cop's gun.

it was never an arrest situation to begin with, it was just an a-hole cop bullying people on the street. sometimes people get tired of being bullied.

"At 11:53 a.m., a dispatcher reported a "stealing in progress" at the Ferguson Market and a brief description of the suspect, who was believed to have taken a packet of cigars. Officers were told to look for a black male wearing a white T-shirt, running toward the QuikTrip convenience store. Additional information was soon added: the man was wearing a red Cardinals hat, khaki shorts and yellow socks; a second man was with him. At noon, Wilson asked the officers searching for the robbery suspects if they needed assistance. An officer responded that the men had disappeared. Two minutes later, at 12:02 p.m. Wilson radioed in, "Put me on Canfield with two. And send me another car," a request for additional officers. Sources have told the newspaper that prior to making that call, Wilson claimed he told Brown and his friend Dorian Johnson to stop walking in the street. Wilson said it was after that that he recognized that Brown matched the robbery suspect's description, called for backup and stopped his SUV next to the two men."
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/fe...

He's run up the debt while cutting spending? That's some fucking amazing Kenyan voodoo.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/is...

"One of the problems included a toolkit that included a wrench needed to install a nuclear warhead atop an ICBM. Only one of the toolkits remained available for three bases to maintain the fleet of 450 Minuteman ICBMs. Crews working on the missile fleet relied on Fed-Ex to deliver the copy of one wrench." http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/...

"Real" Unemployment rate is whatever you measure, as long as you're consistent. We can call this "real" one U4 (currently around 6%), or the one you seem to like U6 which has dropped significantly since your reference. Both are better when Obama took office, when the nation was shedding jobs like crazy. Both are better overall even though the government has shed jobs since Obama took office (yes the government is smaller under Obama, you don't hear about that much). To get a better unemployment number, the private sector needs to grow to offset the losses in the public sector, and still some more. Obama's not doing a horrible job.

Obama did have a decent hand in lowering unemployment. It's just not enough. Even early on in the recession people told him to spend more, and he knew he couldn't get a real spending bill past Congress (and we're still at historically low interest rates on bonds, money is cheap! Build infrastructure, baby!). But, instead of saying "hey we need more, but this is all those suckers will give us" he was very "this should be enough". He never recovered from that. It truly is his mistake, and it cost him much in both sets of midterms.

There is a narrative that Democrats are lousy on the economy, when the economy tends to do better with Democratic Presidents.

As far as how many he should have added, hmm, that's a good question. Comparing to the 60's - hmmmmmm. We had a postwar dividend, in both pent up consumer demand, and baby boomers becoming new consumption targets. We didn't have globalization then. Japan and Germany were still recovering from the war. China wasn't even on the map economically. No Internet, no offshoring, no robots. It would be an interesting discussion on whether we could *ever* get back to that kind of increase. I have kids, I wish we could. But can they ever win a job from Watson?

Winning, as von Clausowitz said, is accomplishing policy

Well, of course, if von Clausowitz said it, it must be truth and nothing but the truth, sure...

Roosevelt and Truman won World War II in less time.

We remained in Germany for decades after that — had we withdrawn in 1955, Germany too could've become a failed state — or be run over by USSR.

It might take another 10 years, 20 years, 50 years. You can't blame that on Obama.

Yes, I can. And I am far from being the only one. And I'm not just talking about RethugliKKKans: even Leon Panetta was rather critical of the President over this.

I wasn't real thrilled with the linked article. All it did was call out a number with nothing to scale it against.

A real quick search brought up an estimate of three years worth of rain like this would be needed to make up for the drought and also had some other ways of relating what 11 trillion gallons actually means as precipitation received is traditionally measured in inches.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/wh...

cbsn is running sky news, which is running some australian news (abc? maybe)

http://cbsn.cbsnews.com/

That's why there were raids at 149 locations this morning in Australia too. It's only one...yep. And that's why if you go look at the studies on "who supports fundamentalism" and "jihad to install islam" you'll find that in western countries 8-25%(sometimes more) support the use of violence to do so, that includes suicide bombings.

Just a few links:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new...
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories...
http://pewresearch.org/assets/...
http://www.pewforum.org/upload...

When Caille took us on a tour of the site, we were fitted with dosimeters to tell us how much we were being exposed to. Suddenly, a sound we didn't want to hear. Bob Simon: Hey, there's beepers going off. Nicolas Caille: No, no. It's not. It's normal. Bob Simon: You're sure? Nicolas Caille: Yes, yes, yes. I'm definitively sure. Bob Simon: I don't like a beeper in Chernobyl. I don't like that sound.

However, although Bob Simon twice shows he has no depth of understanding, there is no technical error in the transcript of that 60 Minutes show. Aside from the ooh-wow reactions of Bob Simon, it is exactly correct. (I haven't watched the video. I can imagine there is more ooh-wow in the video editing.) The main idea of the story is illustrated by this quote: "There's still so much radiation coming from the reactor that workers have to construct the arch nearly a thousand feet away, shielded by a massive concrete wall. When finished, the arch will be slid into place around the Sarcophagus, then sealed up."

In fact, the expense of covering the extremely dangerous parts of the area is enormous. That is a very serious issue, an issue of concern to everyone in the world. After many years, the work of reducing the danger is still not finished.

There is a nuclear disaster area in the United States, the Hanford nuclear site. I've heard about the some of the problems over many years from a manager of one of the departments of the U.S. Department of Energy. The Wikipedia article mentions some of the problems. Here is one quote: "Citing the 2014 Hanford Lifecycle Scope Schedule and Cost report, the 2014 estimated cost of the remaining Hanford clean up is $113.6 billion..." [my emphasis] Retrieved Dec. 3, 2014.

Here is another quote from the Hanford Wikipedia article: "From 1944 to 1971, pump systems drew cooling water from the river and, after treating this water for use by the reactors, returned it to the river. Before being released back into the river, the used water was held in large tanks known as retention basin for up to six hours. Longer-lived isotopes were not affected by this retention, and several terabecquerels entered the river every day. These releases were kept secret by the federal government."

What is called cleaning Hanford has now taken more than 50 years. The Wikipedia article is not, at present, completely clear about that fact, apparently because, as the quote above says, the U.S. government managed the information so that it did not get into the news, although much of the information was not actually a secret.

The problem is not in what is said in the transcript of 60 Minutes show, but in what is communicated. The average viewer has no understanding of nuclear radiation. The author of the Atomic Insights story is annoyed by the fact that the 60 Min

Citations, please.

I found the following related to the above quotes. The first one I couldn't find anything in context, only that Bush supposedly said it, and the second one is part of the the Constitution being just a piece of paper quote which was false. As to the rest. . .

"I'll be long gone before some smart person ever figures out what happened inside this Oval Office." George W. Bush - Link

"See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda." - George W. Bush - Link

"You can fool some of the people all the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on." - George W. Bush - Link

"You know, one of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror." - George W. Bush - Link

Sorry that life doesn't imitate your nationalist stereotypes.

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpb... "French workers are ...only marginally less productive than American workers."

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/us...

Only part of the U.S. productivity growth, which has outpaced that of many other developed economies, can be explained by the longer hours Americans are putting in, the ILO said.

The U.S., according to the report, also beats all 27 nations in the European Union, Japan and Switzerland in the amount of wealth created per hour of work - a second key measure of productivity.

Norway, which is not an EU member, generates the most output per working hour, $37.99, a figure inflated by the country's billions of dollars in oil exports and high prices for goods at home. The U.S. is second at $35.63, about a half-dollar ahead of third-placed France.

Yep, that is why we have higher productivity per worker, both per hour, and per year. We get more done per hour, and also work more hours. I'm assuming these "Americans" "fucking off" for 6 hrs on the computer... you saw them on the TV, right? Get back to work!!!

Snowden is a U.S. citizen, and so the CIA is limited in how far they can go with him.

Since he's no longer on American soil, it appears they really aren't that limited. Except for whether or not the country he is in can/will retaliate in a meaningful way.

"Based on generations-old legal principles and Supreme Court decisions handed down from WWII, as well as during the current conflict, it is clear and logical the United States Citizenship alone does not make such citizens immune from being targeted," - Eric Holder

A Republican by his actions and policies.

Oh, no you don't... You keep him. A Republican would not have withdrawn all troops from Iraq — allowing ISIS to bloom and necessitating a painful return.

A Republican would not have encouraged Putin to invade Ukraine by lifting all sanctions imposed over a similar invasion into Georgia.

A Republican would've continued to detain terrorist suspects — in Guantanamo or elsewhere — rather then order extrajudicial killings — most infamously one of Osama bin Laden himself.

No, Obama is an Illiberal Democrat through and through. But such people — yourself included — are famous for inability to recognize each other — so far are their deeds from their proclaimed ideals.

No one makes or has ever sold sterile seeds. A gene is not "for" an organism. A gene is a sequence of DNA code that does something. There's nothing inherently "spider" about a gene. And here's the most hilarious part.

How do I know an increase in Vitamin A production is the only thing you added to your seed? I don't. And that is where this distrust comes from.

The simple economic argument is that it would probably be against a company's best interest to produce and release a foodstuff that was toxic or poisonous (which is why these things are tested for, sequenced out for verification, and chemically analyzed to check for this kind of thing). Not many companies make a good living on killing their customers. But even more basic than that, how do you know that your conventional or organic plant doesn't have a random mutation that makes the plant create cyanide? You don't. Why don't you distrust any of that? Because you don't know anything about biology or genetics beyond what you read at Natural News or Mercola. And these are the very sites that were screaming about this being genetically modified grass as their shining example when that was exactly not the case at all. Such credible. Wow.

I guess you didn't read the summary:

A news story about the capture of a kidnapper mentioned that he was caught because a car dealer had secretly installed a GPS device on his car.

or the article;

Law enforcement officials say a woman who was kidnapped off the streets in Philadelphia was ultimately rescued with the help of a GPS tracking device that had been installed on the suspect's car.

Carlesha Freeland-Gaither, 22, was rescued three days after being kidnapped when authorities spotted a used-car dealer's name on a traffic camera photo of the suspect's car.

very well.

There is further evidence from this article;

Surveillance video released Monday by Philadelphia police shows a man driving down a street, parking his car and walking a short distance out of the camera's view, back towards the direction from which he came. He's then seen apparently chasing a woman across the street before grabbing her and forcing her down the block and into the car.

It was the suspect's car that was involved in the crime and being tracked not the victim's.

Oh, it's certainly happening. As you point out, in 2011, 234 companies left California.

What's entertaining is about 132,000 new businesses were started--tied with Texas. And California leads the nation in job creation, which is why these other states are trying to steal businesses from California.

Why is it immoral to force Peter to pay for Paul's food and housing? It's immoral to let Paul starve.

What?! Why? Where? Which school of thought or religions has ever said anything of the kind?

Or are you conflating the volitional charitable help to fellow human beings with the mandatory? Jesus helped the poor — and encouraged followers to do so as well — but he never called for Caesar to raise taxes and give free food to anyone...

I'm sure Paul will agree that he'd pay for Peter's food and housing if their situations were reversed, and Peter would accept rather than starve.

Once again, if you are so "sure", why do you need the tax authorities to force Pauls into paying for Peters? Not encourage, mind you, but force? Why can't Paul voluntarily give Peter the extra monies for whatever service Peter goes to work to do? Perhaps, you aren't quite as sure as you claim to be...

But it not only moreally wrong to force people to pay for things, they don't want to pay for. It is also destructive to economy. If Peter's work does not pay enough for him to eat well and afford his own transport, then either he should be doing something else, or he should raise his prices. By forcing Paul to keep paying Peter anyway, you perpetuate the misery of both sides — and the economic inefficiency of making something, that not enough people want to make it worthwhile on its own.

If your friend or relative are starving, perhaps you should help them (note, I don't say "must"). But you aren't responsible for total strangers you've never seen, who — living in the same perfectly decent country as yourself — aren't, for some reason, able to afford basic necessities. Not in my school of morality. And if your beliefs are different, you are welcome to act on them by donating to a charity of your choice — but that's not enough for you, is it? You aren't satisfied, until you've forced everybody else to act as if they were their beliefs too — and that's immoral.

I consider selfishness as unacceptable.

There you go — this one phrase is the tell-tale. You find selfishness unacceptable, and therefor it is Ok — in your opinion — to crush the "selfish" into obedience by force of arms... That's moral?

You can buy large cars in Europe.

You can. And you can have a white Mercedes 6xx in Thailand. But few people can afford them and therefor there aren't many...

And how big does a shower need to be!?

Big enough to be comfortable. Until you've had a chance to compare 5 or more German showers to that many American ones, you wouldn't understand. And I have — perhaps, on this one you can just take my word...

Do you think that North Carolina could repel a Russian invasion without the military contribution of the rest of the US

The entire Europe (population over 700 mln) would not be able to resist a Russian (population under 150 mln) invasion... Because you don't spend enough money on equipment and training. And not just that, unfortunately...

The reason we're not spending a lot on the military though, is because we find that cooperation and social reforms have reduced the need.

Yeah? Russia's leaders — from Stalin to Putin — loved that line of reasoning among their would-be victims. There is a good reason they hate America most and foremost, without us you would've been as fluent in Russian as Czechs and Poles are...

You joke, but I am starting to become convinced that the only reason they have not used cluster bombs is because the police do not have them (yet). Police rarely receive any repercussions for excessive use of force, and any repercussions they do face are disproportionately light compared to a civilian or even ROE violations for service members. For example two situations that were similar but had vastly different outcomes:

• On July 2 2012 1LT Clint Lorance was leading a patrol in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan when his platoon was approached by three unidentified Afghans on motorcycles. he gave the order to open fire, killing two while the third man fled. He was found guilty of murder by court martial and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
• On February 7th 2013 seven police officers opened fire on a blue toyota pickup containing Maggie Carranza and Emma Hernandez during their search for Christopher Dorner. The officers were not charged with any crime and will face at most dismissal from the police force.

Two cases, two similar situations (unknown target moving in on a position). Yet it is the soldier who is found guilty of murder while the police get a slap on the wrist if that. I find it incredulous that soldiers in a hostile encounter situation are held to a higher standard to positively identify their target than the police in peacetime. And no I am not arguing that the Military should be held to a lower standard, I think the US military is the best and most professional fighting force in the world. But I do think the police should be held to a higher one, right now they are not seen as professionals but a bunch of thugs with guns and it should not be that way.

It is very illegal for a merchant to store your credit card number for more than the 5 seconds it takes to authorize the transaction, unless they implement fairly strong protection to make sure nobody can steal those numbers later. But even if they do this, it is still very illegal for them to try to share those card numbers and what they purchased, which would be necessary for different merchants to "track" your purchases.

You seem to have a pretty good understanding of the topic and I'd like to expand upon it. I've worked with several payment processors and been involved with many systems which handle credit card data and PCI compliance has very a specific definition (expanded, see also) about what card holder data is. Your first and last name, billing address, expiration, last 4 and the card type are not card holder data. Plenty there to "track" legally without touching the PAN (Primary Account Number). That said, I have no desire to see CurrentC implemented.

This doesn't even really touch companies like Acxiom. Here's a little scoop on the whole data broker thing for those unfamiliar with the scope of collection.

pigs gone crazy

-KI

you have heard of waldo, fl, no?
link here link here
so although I am happy you consider yourself not a selfish asshole, your argument falls apart when the local pig patrol becomes selfish assholes...

This is another symptom that the US is sliding out of the first world and into the third world. It goes along with our creaky unmaintained road, water and sewage infrastructure, along with our badly out of date airports and crappy passenger rail system.

You have OBVIOUSLY never been to a real third world country, or anywhere even close. What you call an unmaintained road is like a forty lane superhighway in some places.

And then there's our overpriced and underperforming health delivery system. (Note: ACA/Obamacare is a part of the solution

HA HA HA HO HE HA HA HO HO HA HA HA!!!

Oh man, that was hysterical! The very force that is dramatically raising healthcare costs, by pouring "free" government money into the system! God that was funny.

And our failing K-12 education, which is severely underfunded

OMG!!! Just as I thought you couldn't get any more hilarious, you claim the nation spending more than any other country in the world per student is "underfunded". And pretending the problem with U.S. schools has anything to do with money whatsoever! HA HA HO HOE HO HA HA HA HA HA HA HE HO HA HO HA HA HA HAH AH....

But it's all OK, because the upper 10%, and mostly the upper .01% and above are doing really good

I hope you smile when you stare at the mirror that hard.

You are just a walking platitude, aren't you. Thanks for the laugh!

Egalitarianism

Wage gap myth:

http://www.consad.com/content/reports/Gender%20Wage%20Gap%20Final%20Report.pdf

Majors by Gender: Is It Bias or the Major that Determines Future Pay?

There Is No Male-Female Wage Gap

The Gender Pay Gap is a Complete Myth

Gender pay gap is not what activists claim

Equal pay statistics are bogus because they don’t compare like with like

Fair Pay Isn’t Always Equal Pay

Wage Gap Myth Exposed -- By Feminists

5 Feminist Myths That Will Not Die

The Wage Gap Myth

Don’t Blame Discrimination for Gender Wage Gap

The pay inequality myth: Women are more equal than you think

Women Now a Majority in American Workplaces

Labor force participation rate for men has never been lower.

Share of Men in Labor Force at All-Time Low

Women In Tech Make More Money And Land Better Jobs Than Men

Female U.S. corporate directors out-earn men: study

Female CEOs outearned men in 2009.

Women between ages 21 and 30 working full-time made 117% of men’s wages.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, single women between 22 and 30 years old earn an average of $27,000 a year. That’s 8% more than comparable men.

Workplace Salaries: At Last, Women on Top

Young Women’s Pay Exceeds Male Peers

The 15 Jobs Where Women Earn More Than Men

Women aged between 22 and 29 earn over £10 per hour on average, compared to men their same age who earn just under this amount.

Young women now earn more than men in UK

The hospital admins are most likely to blame, not the poor nurses who were thrust into a life-threatening situation with inadequate resources and support: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/nu...

This is two weeks ago, but I don't think it popped up on Slashdot;
Feds charge tech CEO with making app for stalkers, domestic abusers

Although people are usually quick to defend the tool (and its makers) and suggest authorities go after its users instead, similar stories from the past seem to suggest that not very many would be jumping to his defense:
Man Creates "Creepy" Stalking App
World's Creepiest iPhone App Pulled After Outcry

.. Ebola survivors suffer from many post illness conditions.. link

Dr. Amar Safdar, associate professor of infectious diseases and immunology at NYU Langone Medical Center, told CBS News these chronic conditions are a result of the body's immune response.
He said Ebola survivors are at risk for arthralgia, a type of joint and bone pain that can feel similar to arthritis. Ebola survivors also frequently report complications with eyes and vision, an inflammatory condition known as uveitis which can cause excess tearing, eye sensitivity, eye inflammation and even blindness. .

It''s only a matter of time before the extremists in society deploy bio-weapons.. (natural or man-made).. Be prepared to deal with it..

The US has a huge shortage in the trades because we stopped telling high school students to go into plumbing, welding, electrical

Thanks... that explains why half the time when I turn on the faucet or the light switch, nothing happens, and the other half of the time, it only works because I've spent a large fraction of my income on maintaining those systems, due to the exorbitant wages those tradesmen are able to demand due to the shortage of those skillsets.

Oh... the previous paragraph wasn't true at all? There isn't a shortage of those skillsets?

Actually, contrary to being a shortage, demand for most kinds of workers is too low. That's why the labor participation rate just fell to a 36-year low.

Back in 2006, then outgoing network news anchor Ted Koppel wrote a New York Times editorial stating the obvious: The Iraq war is about oil. And though the Bush Administration at the time had vociferously denied this fact, two years before that even former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neil had said the same during a CBS interview.

So now Panetta's saying it will be a thirty year war. Prepare ourselves for lost treasure, spilled blood, and the tears of war over this nearly indefinite period that compares in length to England's old The War of Roses. All to control a declining resource that's causing serious global environmental harm to boot.

Who here notices that this 30 year timeline dovetails in nicely with the UN's IPCC's Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation

Scenarios generally indicate that growth in RE [Renewable Energy] will be widespread around the world. Although the precise
distribution of RE deployment among regions varies substantially across scenarios, the scenarios are largely consistent
in indicating widespread growth in RE deployment around the globe. In addition, the total RE deployment is higher over
the long term in the group of non-Annex I countries12 than in the group of Annex I countries in most scenarios (Figure
SPM.10).

[chart in document]

Scenarios generally indicate that growth in RE will be widespread around the world. Although the precise
distribution of RE deployment among regions varies substantially across scenarios, the scenarios are largely consistent
in indicating widespread growth in RE deployment around the globe. In addition, the total RE deployment is higher over
the long term in the group of non-Annex I countries12 than in the group of Annex I countries in most scenarios (Figure
SPM.10).

So a thirty year war to control world oil that ends at just about the same time global deployment of renewable systems are predicted to offset world energy needs. Huh.

Why the fuck did the US invade Iraq in 2003?

We resumed the hostilities suspended in 1992, because Saddam Hussein failed to fulfill his cease-fire obligations and our patience finally ran out. Yes, we should've done it earlier, but Bill Clinton was not the kind...

the US young service men and women I feel sorry for.

Yeah, the "sophisticated" (but impotent) Europe might be understanding it, but here in America we have a distinct dislike for mad dictators. Why, some of us even still subscribe to the doctrine of that previous adorable President from Chicago:

“Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”

By withdrawing from Iraq too early, we failed the Iraqis. The fault, however, is not in invading in the first place, but in electing an incompetent "community organizer" to Presidency on account of his race — with a lunatic providing "foreign policy expertise"...

It is a shame, which Obama is finally beginning to rectify. Unfortunately, I doubt he'll succeed — not for lack of trying, but simply due to incompetence of a man, who never ran anything successful until his own election campaigns. Maybe, his spectacular failure will inoculate Americans against his kind of approach for a few decades — the way Jimmy Carter's presidency did in its time...

Why the fuck do you think we went on this eternal war?

Because we — and our allies — were being attacked.

Or do you suppose, the attacks will cease as soon as we apologize to everyone, who feels slighted?

Wrong.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/wa...

Vitamins didn't seem to affect longevity, but alcohol intake did, with people who drank up to two drinks per day having a 10-15 percent reduced risk of death compared to non-drinkers. "A lot of people like to say it's only red wine. In our hands it didn't seem to matter," says Dr. Kawas.

might want to check the facts on this.

Considering there was the recent killings of doctors who were trying to educate the unwashed masses on how to prevent or mitigate the spread of Ebola, along with the other attacks and general mistrust of health workers, letting the disease spread might not be a bad option.

Those who don't want to listen to experts die off, those who are too panicked to touch the dead bodies live, and things work themselves out.

Cruel? Maybe. But when you're already putting your life on the line trying to help people and those people attack and kill you, sometimes you have to make the tough decision to let nature take its course.

Even Democratic Congressmen use (and defend the use rather than apologize for it) the "Uncle Tom" racial slur to refer to Justice Thomas because he, apparently, doesn't "think Black enough".

This same Congressman asserts that another Congressman stating he would not support Obama's polices was because of racism -- ignoring the fact that President Obama is the least experienced President and ran on the most progressive platform (albeit, he hasn't followed through on his stated principles) of any President in decades (to say nothing of probably being the most publicly arrogant) and that their viewpoints on political issues were radically different. (Both viewpoints, IMHO, wrong - but that's another issue.)

If logic isn't on your side, scream racism and that will surely win the argument -- or so some liberals seem to believe.

water is necessary for human life

yet, humans can **poison** themselves by drinking too much water: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/wo...

A 28-year-old woman died of water intoxication after taking part in a radio station's water drinking contest to win a Nintendo Wii video game system, the coroner's office said.

water = necessary for life

too much water = deadly poison