Domain: charlotteobserver.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to charlotteobserver.com.
Comments · 29
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Re:They should have been doing this all along.
So making phones more available to inmates would solve the issue. Do they need their own cellphone for whatever purposes they choose, to use whenever they want? Including organizing murders of prosecutors?
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Re: Quick, Move Them!!
Once the illegal votes where removed from the record, it is clear that Trump won the popular vote too.
Actually, removing illegal votes would move Trump even more into the hole. Fun fact, the ONLY proven voter fraud occurred in support of Trump: https://www.charlotteobserver....
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Re:And nothing has changed
PS
https://www.charlotteobserver....
"Amazon.com this month narrowed down 238 applicants for its second headquarters to 20 cities, but experts say it got something even from the losing bidders: A rich trove of information that can benefit the company for years to come."
"To dozens of cities across the United States, Amazonâ(TM)s widely publicized search for a âoesecond headquartersâ looked like thousands of new jobs, up for grabs. To Pivot co-host Scott Galloway, it now looks like a âoeruse.âhttps://www.recode.net/2018/11...
"I lease office space all the time for my businesses and I always tell my real estate agent, âWe can lease any office in the world as long as I can walk there from where I live,â(TM)â Galloway said on the latest episode. âoeAmazon is now talking about having three headquarters, Seattle, Crystal City and Long Island City. The Bezosâ(TM)s also own three homes, and the average distance from those three homes to a headquarters is 6.4 miles." -
Re: Democratic control
Interesting how I don't read too many stories about Republicans trying to register illegal aliens and dead people to vote yet every 2 years it happens in Chicago, California, Detroit.
Funny how you don't read stories like this one then.
Meanwhile, your claims of dead people being registered to vote are as bogus as the claims about busloads of illegal voters.
How do we know? Because we found out they lived.
Legit question for you AC- are there any legit reasons to try to suppress voter fraud? And I mean the real fraud committed by people, not the mysterious claims of machines miscounting their votes.
Flawed vote counting is actually a good concern. Why exclude it?
But here's your problem. They aren't trying to suppress voter fraud. By their own documented admission, they are trying to gain partisan advantages by suppressing the actual voter participation.
A common theme in American history. And all the false hysteria that are the mantra of the Kobach's and O'Keefe's of the world only further serves to weigh against the GOP.
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Re:More playtime, less school
We've dumbed-down the last few generations enough. Let's turn that around and get back to actually teaching them the three Rs.
Education isn't rocket surgery. We know how to do it because we've done it before. Discipline, less political correctness, real grading, and no Common Core would be a nice start.
This was just in the news: "Of the more than 1,000 people surveyed in May and June of this year, only one person was able to name all five First Amendment rights. A whopping 40 percent, however, couldn't name any." THAT'S the result of doing it wrong. Fix it before trying something new and unproven.
Why was that modded down? We do need better teaching. We could probably start with better teachers. We're seeing elementary school teachers failing in elementary math.
https://www.charlotteobserver....The complaints were that elementary school teachers were failing math testing with questions being at the difficulty of 11th grade math. Why should we expect elementary school teachers to know 11th grade math? The same reason we'd expect any other employee to know 11th grade math, because they are adults. Their job isn't just to demonstrate to children how to add minutes and hours, or count out coins, but to manage the classroom. That means being able to compute grade averages, know how much supplies will be needed for the class, and to keep the brighter than average student occupied with math problems at their level so they don't distract others.
I have no sympathy for elementary school teachers failing a math test with material at a high school level. These are people that supposedly are intelligent and educated enough to graduate college. I don't want people teaching the next generation if they can't meet the standards of education we expect of people that ring up a sale in a grocery store.
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Re:I tell clients that it is probable
Everything in Gmail, 365, Hotmail, the Cloud that is not encrypted IS being accessed by who knows who. And if that is not OK changes need to be made.
IIRC including the government. They left a nice big loophole in place in a 1986 law that considers any data of yours left on a server more than 180 days to be "abandoned" and thus removed from all expectations of privacy. The house passed The Email Privacy Act in Feb 2017, but it never got brought up in the Senate https://www.charlotteobserver....
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Re:How much of that is the anti nuclear lobby?
Literally how much of the cost inflation is the effect of political activism?
Depends on what you mean by political activism. If you mean "Corporate lobbying to increase their profits at the expense of the public" then quite a lot. Billions of dollars worth to be honest. Just remember Enron for one example, that went too far, and think of how many smarter predators there are.
We have the same problem with the death penality where interference with the logistics is so heavy that they are having a hard time getting their hands on the drugs required to perform a lethal injection.
Some of the drugs have dual uses for other medical proceedures... and the shortages are so heavy that patients that need those drugs to treat them can't get access to the drugs.
Reality: Drug manufacturers don't want to sell their product to the incompetents who run the US prison system and even manage to botch executions, and instead of respecting that wish, the idiots trying to do executions instead seek to circumvent it, and thus the Drug manufacturers have to go to more lengths to keep those idiots out.
Did they ever try just not involving people in their dirty business who didn't want to be? It wouldn't be too hard. Be honest, be upfront, instead of trying to subvert the process, show your actions before the public eye and convince us of the rightness of your actions.
Oh wait, when you're acting not to disclose your bad deeds, you have trouble.
Here is another point on that, look at countries outside of the US regulatory system... say in China etc... they're clearly highly econonical absent anti nuclear activism inflating costs. We can see that very clearly in nations where it is not politically relevant.
You can look at those countries and see MASSIVE expenses, HORRIBLE CORRUPTION, and INCREDIBLE amounts of pollution. In fact, I remember that you personally declared that China was building more coal plants. Yes, you personally.
You can also talk to nuclear engineers that have designed newer reactor designs and they'll validate this position.
Nope. Turns out nuclear engineers that have designed newer reactor designs have been lying to us. How do I know? Their complete failure to build their recent designs without extensive problems.
Here is what we need to fix the situation:
Here's what you need:
An understanding of the situation. You don't have one. Especially not its problems. So you can't fix anything.
1. We need a reasonable place to store spent fuel.
You've had 50 years. I'm not banking on your ability to do that.
2. Life time of reactor regulations that don't change after the fact.
I did not think you could make such a stupid argument, but apparently I was wrong. Apparently you can argue that "We shouldn't change a thing" without realizing how monumentally stupid an idea it is.
Reality: We need to be able to make changes, and yes, tell people to stop what they're doing, and yes, sometimes even hold them accountable for the injury they caused even when they didn't break an official declared rule. The lack of understanding that some people will see no reason not to cause monumental harm because you can't punish them or hold them accountable is an issue for a person like yourself.
And of course, you're wrong in principle. Everything suffers from that pattern. Which is why it's necessary to have the response available to slap it down.
Of course, the fact is, even what little of your proposal is reasonable in some nuance, is actually already the reality.
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Re:Top of first article nullifies your entire post
https://www.nationalreview.com...
North Carolina features one of the closest Senate races in the country this year, between Democratic incumbent Kay Hagan and Republican Thom Tillis. So what guerrilla filmmaker James O'Keefe, the man who has uncovered voter irregularities in states ranging from Colorado to New Hampshire, has learned in North Carolina is disturbing. This month, North Carolina officials found at least 145 illegal aliens, still in the country thanks to the Obama administration's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, registered to vote. Hundreds of other non-citizens may be on the rolls.
A voter-registration card is routinely issued without any identification check, and undocumented workers can use it for many purposes, including obtaining a driver's license and qualifying for a job. And if a non-citizen has a voter-registration card, there are plenty of campaign operatives who will encourage him or her to vote illegally.
O'Keefe had a Brazilian-born immigrant investigator pose as someone who wanted to vote but was not a citizen. Greg Amick, the campaign manager for the Democrat running for sheriff in Mecklenburg County (Charlotte), was only too happy to help.
Greg Amick: Here's a couple of things you can do. You do not have to have your driver's license, but do you have any sort of identification?
Project Veritas investigator: But I do have my driver's license.
Amick: Oh, you do. Show 'em that and you're good.
PV: But the only problem, you know, I don't want to vote if I'm not legal. I think that's going to be a problem. I'm not sure.
Amick: It won't be, it shouldn't be an issue at all.
PV: No?
Amick: As long as you are registered to vote, you'll be fine.But North Carolina officials shouldn't be "fine" with Amick, who appears to be afoul of a state law making it a felony "for any person, knowing that a person is not a citizen of the United States, to instruct or coerce that person to register to vote or to vote."
Amick stepped down
http://www.charlotteobserver.c...
Tillis won by 45608 votes or 1.5% of the total.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
I.e. it was a classic case of an election the Democrats could have won by getting non citizens to vote. North Carolina has about 527,000 non citizens, so about 17K voters assuming 3.3%
https://www.kff.org/other/stat...
In a close race, they could swing it. Amick doesn't seem to have been prosecuted.
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Re:Top of first article nullifies your entire post
Still, like I say, the low end still means 620K illegals voting in 2008.
Then find them. Go forth and find them.
Or you know, prosecute individuals that have been found.
Like this one.
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Re:Gerrymandering?
Judge James A. Wynn Jr. was nominated by Clinton and renominated by Obama. He has been the democrat's 4th Circuit court go-to for political activism since 2011 and he personally has been accused of playing politics in law since 2001.
Please take into consideration that I am a politically independent academic researcher. If anything I should be pro democrat, but critical thinking comes first.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/....
http://www.ncpolicywatch.com/2...
http://www.baltimoresun.com/ne...
https://www.nccivitas.org/2016...
http://www.charlotteobserver.c...
http://www.nationalreview.com/...
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05...
http://womblencappellate.blogs...
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
https://www.lawfareblog.com/ju...When the democratic party wants something political done by the judicial branch. His name and opinions come up. He puts aside the law in favor of party. Lawyers and jurisprudence experts have been talking about it for a long time. This is merely the most recent and high-profile. Either he feels emboldened to ignore his duty (Why did he not go after the equally Gerrymandered democratic states while citing the equal protections clause?) or feels that he is at risk of being replaced.
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Re:Nothing but excuses
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Re:Step 1: Voter ID
Look at all the other countries laughing their asses off at us.
So? People laugh even when they're the fools.
This, as a Spaniard it always amuses me how can people vote without an official ID and how try to enforce that is considered racist.
So a Spaniard is uneducated as to the particulars of American bigotry and racism, as well as the political drive to keep IDs from people? This random, unknown, unidentified person is suppose to know better than any of the multiple federal court judges who have heard the testimony and seen the evidence in Texas, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Alabama, and more?
Sorry guys if it sounds rude, but it makes your Election look as the election from some African cheap dictatorship.
Yeah, an expensive African dictatorship would do a much better job of faking elections, but you know Republicans...cheap.
In here (Spain) you have to bring a national Country-provided ID, national driver's license or passport. All of them have a picture on them to easily figure out if you're that person or not.
Oh goodness, does he or she even know that the National Government of the United States only produces one of those(directly), and the latter is not used or useful to the vast majority of Americans who won't want to bother with the trouble and expense? Or does he or she even know about the court hearings that revealed how DMVs were impeding and misforming citizens who wanted IDs, including the free ones they were supposed to provide?
You wanna vote? Proof that you are a citizen with right to vote.
None of those documents provide any such thing. In fact....watch out.
Any other way sounds like bullshit to me.
That's nice, now what's it got to do with the actual problems people have with the Voter ID system as implemented?
Oh wait, you still deny knowledge of it.
When you have millions of illegals who know they can go vote without repercussion, who know they are at increased risk of deportation under one candidate over another, and who know their access to government provided services are liable to be limited under one candidate, of course some number will vote.
Then you can find them, and identify them. And invalidate every single election, because if you believe millions voted, then you have a serious problem with your entire government. Throw everybody out, and reform things.
They broke the law to cross the border. They will not scruple at voting illegally.
Of course, we've identified some Trump voters who acted illegally.
Odd that you're not calling for their prosecution. Where were their scruples?
Hmm.
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Re: Well, I'm not glad he is gone, but I am not s
You've got nothing but pretend dude. Look at the #s of people in the KKK. It basically no longer exists.
Actually, this Voter fraud was real, and is a Republican, so you lost your bet already.
Now in regards to right-wing hate groups, you are confusing the KKK as a singular entity with representing the far greater whole that is the splintered and fractious bunch today, with the various Aryan Nations and Brotherhoods, the multitude of Patriots and Militias, and quite a few Pseudo-Christian cults.
I would point you to the FBI report on them, but due to Republican clamor and indignation over the idea, they refused to allow it to be studied by the FBI.
You can find others though, if you are brave enough to look beyond Breitbart and their repetitions of Kris Kobach's latest lies.
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Catastrophic bug in the e-commerce site, you say?
Hmm . .
. Looks like Instant Karma -
Re:Of course
Well, we don't know if there's evidence of rampant voter fraud.
We know there isn't evidence of rampant voter fraud. If there was evidence, you'd be able to produce it. Instead, states like North Carolina find...almost no voter fraud.
But hey, you may never know that Trump didn't win the Popular vote either, which makes you a double-sore loser.
Mainly democrat states are blocking the government from trying to determine how much fraud there actually is.
Nope. It's actually mainly Republicans like Kris Kobach miseleading the courts.
But let's go with the extrapolated report from earlier in the year. Which figures that somewhere between 4m and 6m people voted illegally. That includes everything from voting twice, to non-citizens.
Hmm, you want to cite a bogus report with no basis in reality? Hurts your own credibility, as bad as believing a James O'Keefe video.
Of course, if you do insist it's genuine that the elections are so compromised, then absolutely no elected official is legitimate, and they must all be removed, and their official acts rescinded.
The real reason behind voter ID laws is for Republicans to make it harder for people who tend to vote Democratic to vote at all.
So let's run with that. The reason democrats are for amnesty of illegals, is to make sure they always win by subverting democracy.
Sure man, we've been hearing that since the Naturalization Act of 1798.
You keep trying, but for some reason, people ain't buying.
Almost as bad as the whole Trumpcare business.
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Re:What they're all REALLY afraid of
Here's a small sample of 848 criminal voter fraud convictions - not just charges.
And how many of them are related to the possession of ID by the voter? How many of them would be prevented by that ID being presented. It's your only demand, consistently and repetitively insisted upon, so it must be your only solution. Please tell us your count. It will be less than 848. But you chose to inflate the numbers.
But here's one, that wasn't prosecuted: In North Carolina.
Let's see you demand her prosecution. Let's see you demand this district attorney be removed.
Oh wait, crickets.
How many cases of proven voter fraud (you know, where a conviction is reached) do you need before you consider it an issue?
More than zero, since you're confusing "ELECTORAL fraud" with "voter fraud" and that lack of discernment is costing you.
How many shall be disenfranchised before you care?
Good question for you to answer. How many people must lose their votes to discriminatory and abusive demands before you care? Read this and tell us what you think.
What is your tolerance to stealing votes?
What's yours? Do you reject the notion that the state can deny citizens their right to vote based on arbitrary and capricious actions, or is the state affirmatively required to ensure that voters are afforded their right to vote?
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Re: The New Formula
Hillary was endorsed by the KKK in California. One of Trump's children is Jewish, and he has Jewish advisors. Trump has reached out to the Black community and appointed non-whites to important and visible government positions. Think about that.
Trump signs order supporting historically black colleges
These Charlotte kids named their rocket Trump and went to DC. Guess who took notice?
closer lookMeet the Jews in Donald Trump’s administration
Who is Nikki Haley, America's ambassador to the United Nations?
Don't be an ass.
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Re: The New Formula
Hillary was endorsed by the KKK in California. One of Trump's children is Jewish, and he has Jewish advisors. Trump has reached out to the Black community and appointed non-whites to important and visible government positions. Think about that.
Trump signs order supporting historically black colleges
These Charlotte kids named their rocket Trump and went to DC. Guess who took notice?
closer lookMeet the Jews in Donald Trump’s administration
Who is Nikki Haley, America's ambassador to the United Nations?
Don't be an ass.
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Re:Who cares about bathrooms?
Why would I care then? Are you implying that transgender people are in some way dangerous to my child?
Have you no critical-thinking skills?
Chester the Molester does. He figures this will be a pretty sweet opportunity to go into the women's bathroom after your little girl goes in by just saying he identifies as female today.
Aw, are we trying critical thinking today?
- 1. Where is it legal for Chester to molest? If Chester were following any laws at, he'd avoid the biggest one first. This isn't an end-all argument, just used to judge impact vs consequences.
- 2. Almost all the people this law will affect are law abiding citizens. People too afraid to think just haven't noticed most of them before.
- 3. So, now you're creating a law that makes more people uncomfortable than there are right now, and tempting a whole lot of law-abiding citizens to break the law. (I think it's like speeding on the highway, I'd be for autobahn-style laws that actually make sense but I digress).
- 4. It makes me wonder why are normally anti-government-regulation types all of a sudden wanting over-regulation?
- 5. So I looked it up, and found that the idea that sexual predators benefitting from bathroom choice is a myth, and most of the victims of bathroom violence are actually the trans-gender people.
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Re:It's the voters, stupid!
We have no measurements at all on what any sort of fake news could of did. You cannot compare a nebulous quantity like this.
Hmm, I suspect that advertisers would disagree with you. They spent lots of money, they want results. You may not trust them, but they do have measurements.
While we have real studies on the likely number of illegals who voted. Studies that show the numbers are in the hundreds of thousands to millions.
Oh really, and you can cite these studies? Sean Spicer couldn't. And I can find other reports that say numbers such as you and Trump claim are bogus.
Sorry, but actual prosecutions are so low, that you have to ask, if your allegations were true, why isn't anybody being charged? You know that does include Trump voters.
I'll believe you care when you get that woman charged. Absent that, I'll believe you don't even care.
Meanwhile, half of the votes in the recounts we did, in Hillary majority districts, could not even be recounted because of problems.
And these problems were? How many Trump votes were included? You know what I noticed about Michigan though?
2,279,543(DT) 2,268,839(HC)
2,564,569(BO) 2,115,256(MR)
2,872,579(BO) 2,048,639(JM)
2,479,183(JK) 2,313,746(GWB)Hmm. Something odd about how the vote dropped precipitously in 2016. Perhaps you should explain that, instead of chasing a dubious phantom that is ENTIRELY the responsibility of the Republican state government. Because they could have improved the voting systems if they wanted, they could have managed any errors. Mysteriously, they instead chose to gerrymander the state.
And while I suspect you don't want to admit it, if you believe there are indeed millions of unlawful voters, the you can't trust ANY election returns, there are no legally elected officials anywhere.
That means we have an illegitimate government. At all levels. Federal, state, and local.
Good luck calling for all of them to be removed.
I doubt you have the integrity to try.
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Re: Well obviously there's only one answer
Last I checked, Trump was keeping his true value secret, and doing a louse-ridden job as President.
Really, the best thing you can say about Trump, is that he's failed to achieve any of his goals. Can you imagine how bad it would be if he was competent?
Oh well, at least we found an illegal voter. I fully expect Jeff Sessions to prosecute this scurrilous offender. Don't you?
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Re:Why isn't Uber being sued?
Whenever I come by a construction site
http://nwlc.org/resources/wome...
or happen to see the waste collection crew doing their rounds
http://www.charlotteobserver.c...
or when I see combat units deployed to war zones
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
I wonder where all those qualified women are. Must be that damn patriarchy suppressing them.
Yes, in fact, it is. The prohibition on women in combat roles was only lifted in 2013 in principle, and has still yet to be fully implemented. There is pervasive sexism in the garbage collection and the construction trades where women are sexually harrassed, discriminated against, and generally chased away. There are plenty of reports and lawsuits alleging just this. Combat roles were off-limits to women until recently, specifically and explicitly because a bunch of old guys in power (sort of the definition of the "patriarchy", innit?) said that women weren't capable of hacking it in the role.
Didn't think so. Do you know how many male secretaries I have encountered in close to a decade at university? Take a guess.
So your complaint is that more men are not going into low-prestige, low-pay careers?
But mysteriously the focus lies almost exclusively on getting a few more women into the tiny tip.
Because the "few women" in the "tiny tip" have a disproportionately large impact as role models, taste makers, influencers, and policy makers. We don't generally care what a bunch of random econ101 students think about Federal Reserve policies, but we sure as hell take notice when a couple Nobel prize winning Economists speak up about those same policies. The high-prestige, high-pay, high-visibility jobs are important for that reason.
We need a fairer gender distribution throughout the whole job pyramid.
So because somebody hasn't built a program you think is necessary, all programs that focus on PARTS of the problem you've identified are useless and harmful? Why don't you go start a group focused on getting more men into literature, Jewish History, or pedagogics, and then you can stop bitching about how there are some programs focusing on getting more women into construction or solid waste trades? Seriously - this notion that the only solution you'll accept is one which addresses all inequality throughout society is ridiculous. Nobody has the bandwidth to fix all of those problems simultaneously - it requires a concerted effort from many different organizations: for instance, there are organizations aimed at increasing male participation in nursing and primary education. You could start a similar organization for an area where men are underrepresented that's near and dear to your heart, too. Much like women have done for areas of the workforce they understand and work in.
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Re:Doing Trump's work for him
The republicans are saying the government should stay out of it, not take over it.
ROTFL,
It's the republicans in state government telling the democrats in a city government that the city cannot permit those nasty transsexuals to use the public bathroom of their choice.
Transgender people who have not taken surgical and legal steps to change the gender noted on their birth certificates have no legal right under state law to use public restrooms of the gender with which they identify. Cities and counties no longer can establish a different standard. Critics of the Charlotte ordinance cite privacy concerns and say it was "social engineering" to allow people born as biological males to enter women's restrooms.
McCrory's office says businesses arenâ(TM)t limited by the bill, and that private companies and private universities can adopt new or keep existing nondiscrimination policies.
Tell us again how a city government should not set a policy for its own bathrooms and state government is staying out of it, not taking over it.
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Re:sure, works for France
You are not buying stuff at the same price as 6 years ago, maybe you should actually pay attention to the receipts.
beef, pork, avocado, fruits, veggies, almonds, pinenuts, walnuts, mozarella, cheddar, other cheeses, seafood, grains, soy, soy, palm oil, milk, gasoline, beer and more beer, limes, canadian bacon, barley, restaurants, restaurants, restaurants,electrical energy, car rentals, hotel rooms, cab fairs,
air travel and air travel gets more expensive in many other ways, various extra fees, less room, more seats on planes
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Re:The REAL value of the transit system
Should the mobility of labor be comparable to the mobility of capital for a rational market to form?
You are making an assumption the market is rational. You are also making an assumption that available means of transportation are also rational. There are plenty of political favors in mass transit:
http://www.charlotteobserver.c...
Better alternatives exist in Charlotte but are severely underfunded. However, if rational markets existed, yes, I'd agree with you. -
Re:They screwed up the website
> So you're going to be targetted for looking up your representative's record?
Yes. The fact that you cared enough to look up your congressional representative's record on the NSA is valuable data to the data brokers. They will sell it to political campaigns that will attempt to deceive you into voting for their candidate by showing you ads about how their candidate appears to be anti-NSA. They will sell that info to marketing campaigns looking to manipulate you into buying stuff by emphasizing how it might protect you from snooping (whether or not the products is effective is something you'll have to figure out on your own). They could also easily sell it to law enforcement groups looking to put people on their "anti-government" watch lists because for way too many people in the government, criticism of the government makes you a potential terrorist.
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"No evidence of abuse has been found"
Obviously LOVEINT is one example. But more details are coming out about how David Patraues was caught having an affair because of "metadata" collected by the NSA.
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/06/17/4111871/metadata-helped-reveal-gen-petraeus.html#.Utlud2nfqCgWhen Jill Kelley first reported getting threatening emails about Patraues, the FBI read all her emails as part of "a routine step".
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/06/us/from-petraeus-scandal-an-apostle-for-privacy.htmlThey didn't have a warrant to read her email, they just hacked into google and made a copy of everyone's email. If you report a crime to the FBI they read your email. Simple as that.
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Re:IF CO2 is pollution in the air, then...
Clearly you understand neither carbon nor ocean salinity. Human beings have in fact decreased the overall salinity of the ocean and raised the sea level as well as dramatically increased the CO2 levels in the ocean as carbonic acid. We can measure those things. CO2 occurs naturally in the atmosphere. If by human enterprise and the act of burning materials with carbon in them, you dramatically increase the CO2 in the atmosphere, you have polluted the atmosphere by definition. When human activities produce byproducts that impact the normal function of an environmental process or ecology, that is called pollutions. Even if the stuff you're polluting with may have value in say Scotland becoming a wine growing region. It's going to promote wildfires in say someplace like Minnesota and other places that aren't typically noted for wildfire, and worse promote the conversion of global rainforests into desserts. I can take perfectly good clean water. Put it where it will cause an environmental disaster, lets say in some fragile but vital dessert habitat. I've now made that habitat great for old men in golf shoes and lounge singers, but I've destroyed the natural habitat that was already there, and that could be called pollution. It depends on who wins, who loses, and who's getting paid. When Los Angeles sucked the Owen's Valley dry in the early 1900s. L.A. would say they were building a dream. The farmers in the Owens Valley who were wiped off the map would describe it as a nightmare.
Using you salt example, If I dump a billion tons of salt into the San Fransisco bay, the way California agriculture interests did when they tried to flush the salt out of the central valley from years of indiscriminate irrigation, then salt would become a pollutant. By the way, it had tragic consequences killing millions of birds and other local animals as well as ruining a number of estuaries along the Sacramento Delta, essential for fish reproduction. That pollution had profound economic and environmental impact. We addressed that by improving irrigation techniques and preventing the dumping of contaminated salt water into our lakes and waterways.
We need to manage CO2 in exactly the same way (and yes, that includes removing it from industrial exhausts.) The good news, is that a lot of bright folks see industrial exhaust as a gold mine for the production of biofuels. See, cloud has silver lining... just bring adequate technology to the party.
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Re:Assange is the guest of honor
In most places, including the States, if a person gives consent and then withdraws it, there is no longer consent. As far as I know there is no "blue balls" clause letting you finish even if she says no halfway through.
Lots of states in fact. Like North Carolina and Maryland. I'm not saying that such laws are morally right, but I do personally think that the level of protest required during coitus needs to be significantly higher than, "no means no" because the participants can't be expected to be fully in control of their faculties. Everything I've read about the two incidents indicates that neither women claim to have made any physical attempt to stop the act. Plus Assange is completely deaf in one ear and ~50% deaf in the other.
I'm far more interested in the charges leveled by John Young of Cryptome, that he is a mercenary selling access to unredacted source documents to the highest bidder on the black market.
Interesting but it sounds like an exaggeration, apparently this is what Young said:
"Well, it only came up in the topic of raising $5 million the first year.
That was the first red flag that I heard about. I thought that they were
actually a public interest group up until then, but as soon as I heard that,
I know that they were a criminal organisation."To me, that sounds like wikileaks people were brainstorming at its inception and Young has extrapolated the worst possible result from it. Remember at the start wikileaks wasn't redacting anything - they even published their own list of donors. So the implication that they would publicly release redacted documents but privately sell them doesn't fit the circumstances.