Slashdot Mirror

there is a better article here: http://www.csmonitor.com/Scien...
you can read the full paper (for free) here: http://www.researchgate.net/pr...

yes... as a PRIVATE citizen. as a GOVERNMENT official, it screams shady

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2...

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

http://theadvocate.com/news/12...

Jeb Bush, Bobby Jindal, Scott Walker, Rand Paul, Rick Perry, Chris Christie all used private email as GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS.

Or things you're surprised about because you are so young. Look back at the last 30-40 years, most if not all minority leaders were screaming to keep foreign workers out of the country, especially illegal immigrants.

http://www.usnews.com/debate-c...

Libs are so cute when you all twist yourselves up. I remember 50 years of "Minorities" backing the democrats while they did everything they could bring illegals. BTW the last president to do anything about illegal immigration was Eike

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/...

If I were waging a propaganda war against Russia, (and we are; it is ferocious, filled with an utterly astonishing amount of crap; hell, the entire Western media coverage of the last Olympic games was one giant psychological warfare operation.)

Given that, then this little article is *exactly* the kind of spoof I'd publish. Not saying it isn't truthful. Maybe it is. But it could very easily be a complete or partial fabrication. It has the same flavor as that "Incubator Babies" lie packaged and sold by the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador posing as a refugee before a congressional committee, and all packaged up neat and tidy by American PR firm, Hill & Knowlton.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/...

And why not? That kind of shit is incredibly effective. If you use the "who benefits" measure to determine the likelihood of a story being a fabrication, then this one stinks to high heaven. -It casts doubt on any of the counter-arguments Russia might present in defense of itself against many of the ludicrous claims of the West. I mean, how many times has the West claimed that Russia has "invaded" Ukraine? FFS.

Seriously. Would this kid be allowed to report on his psy-ops activities were he really what he claims? Would an intelligence operation really not be able to vet this kid's past political leanings? He's an internet child, for goodness sake. According to the propaganda, the Russian secret services should render this kind of leak next to impossible. So which is it? Is Russia a fascist empire or a clown show incapable of controlling a bunch of trolls for hire? You can't have it both ways. Unless you're dumb.

And how dumb are we?

Well, just look at the number of people posting today who have taken for granted that this article represents reality.

So one way or another, this astroturfing bullshit works.

For those who want to work out what is *really* going on, you need to do three things:

1. Take the time to listen, read and sift through the media.

2. Measure the claims against the samples of objective reality you can distill.

3. (And this is the most important one) Remember past behavior patterns of the players involved and use those recollections in your calculations. Psychopaths who have lied and manipulated once will not suddenly be truthful and honest just because today is a new day.

-This message brought to you by a completely unpaid Western idiot who should really be working right now but is instead wasting time throwing useless punches at a tidal wave of bullshit.

Hill and Knowlton earned a reported 10 million for their efforts which sent us to war. I'm trying to scrape a few bucks together for my next rent check. Go America.

First, I should point out that land area is not an issue for solar. http://www.csmonitor.com/Envir... But when we speak of wind or solar doing the whole job, (about our only choice when the oil, gas, coal and uranium run out) certainly we can see how some energy needs will require fuels. Aviation would be difficult without jet fuel. But synthetic hydrocarbon fuels are already a part of Sachs' Deep Decarbonization Pathways. http://unsdsn.org/what-we-do/d... Calm nights can be handled that way as well.

Yeah, the only problem is that it most certainly doesn't require a Borg-like singularity. We already have direct evidence of our ability to effect climate. 9/11 provided us a unique opportunity to see this first hand with now planes in the sky.

It is not that hard to extrapolate the number of airplanes flying at the same time we have trucks and cars and trains and power stations spewing a lot of the very same materials. So you're pretty much fooling yourself trying to claim we are not having an impact. Warming and cooling of the Earth has always happened, just like my 16 year old son wants to drive faster and faster. That doesn't mean I give him a Ferrari and say go as fast as you can! We don't need to be pushing the Earth to warm faster than it would on its own.

I don't understand how it is still possible that people can deny this. I would much prefer changing the debate to sensible ways we can prepare for the changes and what we can do to slow our impact rather than "crackpots" still trying to claim something we knew 30 years ago was still not happening despite more and more evidence. Almost every test we have derived so far all says we have an impact, the only thing they don't agree on is how that impact will effect the future. Quite frankly if the oceans rise by a foot in 30 years or 150 we should probably start acting now. There is most definitely a critical mass that we will hit that will start a rapid change in our climate.

Police who commit misconduct of any kind is are the extreme minority

When sharing an opinion that is counter to public sentiment, it is often helpful to provide links to sources that back up your point.

As of now, there is just your claim of "extreme minority" to go against documented cases of entire police departments having a "pattern of using unreasonable force" while entire divisions within still larger forces have been implicated in actual criminal conspiracies; and even entire town's police forces abusing civil forfeiture laws to STEAL from those passing through town.

"Extreme Minority" you say?

Prove it.

That's right. Iraq actually had a valid complaint about Kuwait's pumping oil in a way that interfered with Iraq's oil. The U.S. told Sadam Hussain to settle it with Kuwait himself. Then when he followed U.S. advice, they went to war with him. There was no U.S. interest in getting involved. Kuwait bought influence.

http://foreignpolicy.com/2011/...

In a now famous interview with the Iraqi leader, U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie told Saddam, ‘[W]e have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait.’ The U.S. State Department had earlier told Saddam that Washington had ‘no special defense or security commitments to Kuwait.’ The United States may not have intended to give Iraq a green light, but that is effectively what it did."

The war was justified, as usual, with lies, like Nayirah's story about the incubators, which she later admitted was a lie, created by one of Kuwait's lobbying and PR firms, Hill & Knowlton.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/...

Yeah, that would suck to change NASA's primary mission away from "Muslim Outreach". http://www.csmonitor.com/Scien...

So it's okay to put up a sign in a bar that says "no blacks or hispanics?"

There is the gun range which has a sign saying, "Muslim Free Zone" and so far they're able to get away with it.

or for a pharmacist to refuse to fill a prescription because the person is a Muslim?

No, but we do have pharmacists refusing to fill prescriptions for birth control because it might offend their religion.

Not to mention there are those bakeries and photographers who refuse to cater to gay people who want to get married.

While the courts have ruled against the above practices, the owners can simply be more selective in who their clients are, thus getting around the issue. This is the same thing businesses do when interviewing. They see someone's great resume but when they come in they realize the person is over 40 and disqualify them.

The reason they can give is simply, "We found someone more aligned with our requirements" even though they are discriminating by age.

What is the problem that a driverless car is going to fix?

To paraphrase Henry Ford, it sounds to me like google is actually trying to build a faster horse,

Uh - maybe auto accidents and deaths for a starter [1] ? Computer driven cars are much more ikely to be safer than manually driven ones in aggregate.

To flip the tables, lets use a computing analogy for cars: Imagine if each TCP-IP packet (or connection) were hand-driven or managed. Lots of collisions and traffic jams. Some packets/connections would have unbelievable latency/throughput. Others (most) would be stuck in traffic that was inherently preventable assuming some rules were in place that would need special permissions to override.

Now compare with our Internet (as sucky as it is, buffer-bloat and all) - it's a goddamned paradise in comparison to the above.

Now imagine the flip side analogy - cars "routed" by algorithms, protocols and, where applicable, user intervention. That's Google's vision - it's not a new one, just one where they're building it out. Actions >> Words.

I would love to commute to work not actually doing any of the driving (secretly I'd prefer public transport, but only if it were nearly as convenient as point-to-point driving that I can do now). A driverless car is a great idea - sure my commute might take a few min longer as "the system" routes me, but the likelihood of traffic incidents and the like would probably be lower, preventing those 2-3x longer commute days.

Sign me the fuck up.

[1] http://www.csmonitor.com/Busin...

this explains the word and why: http://www.csmonitor.com/Innov...

The scientist that proves that AGW is a lot of HooHaw (technical term) will win a Nobel prize. It should be simple to do really, and the Koch Brothers should be able to provide for his or her future so they don't have to worry one iota about the mean scientists at Universities "cowing" them. Simply shifting that money should do the trick.

They have and all that happens is another skeptical scientist gets turned into a non-skeptic.
The best example is Richard A. Muller, Professor if Physics at Berkley who was very critical of climate science and was sponsored by the Koch brothers to do exhaustive research on climate science and ended up convinced it is real, humans are mostly responsible and that prior estimates of global warming are correct. Not very good results for the deniers.
Use Google for lots of results or start here with a fairly reputable publication, http://www.csmonitor.com/Scien...

Hahahahahaha you think tax money goes to pay for water and highways. No. Tax money goes to pay for stuff like this, this and this.

I know that *some* (not all) taxes go to stuff like that. If you are claiming that NO TAXES go ever to public infrastructure, then you are going to have to do better than just pointing at counter examples.

I never claimed that ALL TAXES go to public infrastructure. I claim that taxes PAY for infrastructure. That claim does not says "ALL TAXES go to infrastructure" or that "infrastructure gets funded PROPERLY by ALL TAXES."

As a result, your reply, by logical necessity, is misplaced and inadequate. Unless you can prove anywhere that I've said anything that warrants your reply, you have to admit, if you are honest, that you are simply building a strawman.

Haven't you noticed that America's infrastructure is crumbling?

Yes.

Now why is that?

Because its maintenance and expansion is not funded properly. This is no proof that taxes never go there. It is certainly not proof of the following statement:

And taxes are good, right? Not like that's stealing or anything.

People shouldn't expect not to be challenged when they post asinine shit like that without a context or at least some thought behind it.

Giving more tax income for the government is no better than giving a crackhead more money.

There is not one government. There is federal government, there is state and local government, and depending on the region, tribal government. Each operates differently, with different levels of efficiency and honesty (or lack thereof) when it comes to collecting taxes (and putting them to good use.)

In this specific context, this thread, taxation is being referred to state and local taxation. It is not accurate to describe taxation and public spending in such over-generalized terms. It is great from the point of rhetoric.

It has been a long time since the US government has made effective use of its money. Besides - all tax revenue is barely enough to cover the INTEREST on the deficit (even at these low low rates) - let alone the deficit. A few hundred million here or there will make zero difference to the ocean of pork.

Here you are properly elaborating a good point (finally). It still does not explain what states are to do with pot legalization, the war on drugs, state rights over their own taxation, their relation on that topic to the federal state, the nature of interstate commerce, free passage of citizens from one state to another to purchase an item and the arbiter role of federal government in such activities.

There are the goddamned subjects of this threat. Alcohol is already taxed with different sale taxes across the states, so logically legalization of pot by a state will imply its taxation by said state.

Inefficiency of (or even corruption during) taxation of an item by a government, be it local, state or federal, does not preclude a government, in particular a state government from exercising that sovereign power. If you oppose a state from taxing pot as a condition for legalization, you are going to have to do better than saying "taxation is bad or badly done."

Hahahahahaha you think tax money goes to pay for water and highways. No. Tax money goes to pay for stuff like this, this and this.

Haven't you noticed that America's infrastructure is crumbling? Now why is that?

Giving more tax income for the government is no better than giving a crackhead more money. It has been a long time since the US government has made effective use of its money. Besides - all tax revenue is barely enough to cover the INTEREST on the deficit (even at these low low rates) - let alone the deficit. A few hundred million here or there will make zero difference to the ocean of pork.

yes, he absolutely did.

"George Bush has claimed he was on a mission from God when he launched the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, according to a senior Palestinian politician in an interview to be broadcast by the BBC later this month." (emphasis mine - I mean, Blues Brothers much?) http://www.theguardian.com/wor...

"President Bush's reference to a "crusade" against terrorism, which passed almost unnoticed by Americans, rang alarm bells in Europe. It raised fears that the terrorist attacks could spark a 'clash of civilizations' between Christians and Muslims, sowing fresh winds of hatred and mistrust." http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/...

Non-Christian Presidents of the United States:

(Unitarian)
W. H. Taft
M. Filmore
J. Q. Adams
J. Adams

(No formal affiliations)
A. Johnson
A. Lincoln
T. Jefferson

(Source: Miller Center of Public Affairs, University of Virginia)

Says teh anonymous coward. Each party gerrymanders to try and preserve their power. Look at what happened in California when the Dems used their experts to bias the supposedly "non-partisan" redistricting committee, or Illinois, for that matter: http://www.csmonitor.com/Comme...

Yes, the plan drafted by him years earlier

Not _drafted_, but agreed with Iraq government. Or do you want the US to violate its foreign treaties?

Hah! You lie, but that's a good example, thank you! USSR invaded Afghanistain [wikipedia.org] in 1979, when Jimmy Carter was is office — another example of a weak "it is all America's fault" excuse for a President. But even he imposed sanctions against USSR. And the whole world boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics.

And then Reagan lifted most of the sanctions by 1984 (after Brezhnev's death and the right noises in Poland about democracy). See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1... , http://www.csmonitor.com/1984/... and so on.

Yes, which is an embarrassment for Obama.

Moving goalposts, are we? I did say that Obama is a mainstream Republican by his actions, so naturally he expanded the policies of his predecessors.

On top of that you got Reagan's reaction to USSR's invasion exactly backwards, which demonstrates the level of ignorance so deep, I'm unlikely to respond again...

When the facts contradict your ideology, you damn the facts.

Nonsense. You have no leg to stand on in this argument — the extrajudicial killing of bin Laden (ordered by Obama) defeats your point by itself

Don't worry, Republicans _love_ extra-judicial killings. As witnessed by their support of Bush's war and Israel.

In my opinion, the most obvious and interesting theory [maxkeiser.com] is that Putin's plane was near the same air space close to the same time as MH17 ...

Your sense of what is "obvious" might be a bit off.

Web evidence points to pro-Russia rebels in downing of MH17 (+video)

Igor Girkin, a Ukrainian separatist leader also known as Strelkov, claimed responsibility on a popular Russian social-networking site for the downing of what he thought was a Ukrainian military transport plane shortly before reports that Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 had crashed near the rebel held Ukrainian city of Donetsk.

MH17 disaster: Social media posts, phone recording used to blame Russian separatists

Social media posts by pro-Russian insurgents - most of them hastily removed - suggest the rebels thought they had shot down a Ukrainian army plane before realising in horror that it was in fact a packed Malaysian airliner.

Ukraine and MH17: Who are the separatists?

On Thursday evening a Russian social media page linked to the rebels announced they had knocked down a Ukrainian An-26, adding, “We warned them – don’t fly ‘in our sky’”. The post – which was accompanied by distant video-shots of smoke rising after an apparent crash – was later removed, but it has stoked suspicions that pro-Russian militiamen shot the Malaysian Airlines jet by mistake.

The evidence that may prove pro-Russian separatists shot down MH17

Deadly Ukraine Crash: German Intelligence Claims Pro-Russian Separatists Downed MH17

Putin's plane was an hour away.

This could have been a simple, yet tragic, case of mistaken identity.

It was, but not as you apparently intend. It wasn't the Ukrainians trying to shoot down Putin and being mistaken but rather the "separatists" shooting at what they mistakenly assumed was a Ukrainian aircraft.

One more reason to move this country to a pure democracy. The republic model worked fine in colonial times because of the logistical nightmares of getting everyone's vote. But now in the digital age all those nightmares are effectively vanquished.

Vanquished? Really!?

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/E...

Yeah, I'm sure netflix just goes around dumping truckloads of data on the information superhighway just at random, and picked on Comcast like a bully.

Oh wait, every one of those streams were requested from users of Comcast's network who thought that those awesome 150mbit internet speeds comcast advertised were real.

Yes, there is a Wikileaks investigation - one which has been declared all but impossible to charge Assange in. There are no charges. The GP is correct.

Even Mr. Conspiracy Theory, Assange himself, doesn't believe the "Stratfor endictment". Stratfor for the most part is just people BSing about what they read from things that are in the public record. The most hilarious example was when Wikileaks retweeted from one of their Stratfor docs, "New #Stratfor docs: US soldier stealing $22M from Iraq?" What was this amazing Stratfor doc? It was a Stratfor guy commenting on an email that he received:

Dear Friend,

My name is Sgt.Walter Evans, an American soldier; with Swiss Background, serving in the military of the 3rd Infantry Division in Iraq with a very desperate need for Assistance. I and my partners moved one of the boxes containing funds which we believe is belonging to Saddam Hussein in March 2003, the total fund in this box is (TWENTY-TWO MILLION UNITED STATE DOLLARS), this fund had been moved via a safe Diplomatic Courier Service to a secured security company...

Basically since we are working for the American government we cannot keep these funds, we are Three (3) persons in involved. This means that you will take 25% percent and 75% will be for me / my partners.

Yes, that's a typical Nigerian-style spam email. Which Wikileaks retweeted as being a Stratfor-sourced scandal.

Stage 1 was confiscation of private pensions. No nation can not tax or confiscate its way out of political incompetence and corruption. This road leads to anarchy or war.

Unfortunately I afraid i have to inform you that the supreme court has affirmed that it is constitutional. sigh. Maybe you can take it up with them.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/...

Ill just leave this here. Feel free to ignore it if it doesn't match your version of reality.
NASA can't hire enough engineers. Why?
NASA faces looming engineer shortage.
The ones they have are leaving. Why?
The Flight of Gifted Engineers From NASA
Bureaucracy is great when they are getting the job done. Not so much when they slow and often halt progress. They are inefficient with the current management style they use. Bureaucracy run amok is my take on it. Poor decision making and bureaucratic overhead preventing things from being done cheaper. Wasteful money pits where they pour cash and get nothing in return.
NASA Has Spent $20 Billion On Canceled Projects

> BTW, this is emblematic of the Obama administration

It's emblematic of EVERY administration going back thousands of years. Right wing present that this is something new but their world view seems to be completely uninfluenced by an appreciation of human nature or history.

For example:

Augustus was a shrewd and effective manager of his own public image. Itâ(TM)s now easy to take for granted that images of political leaders decorate our currency â" Augustus was among the first rulers to widely disseminate images of his own face on coins.

Itâ(TM)s hard to imagine even the most ardent Democrats supporting the literal deification of Barack Obama or erecting small shrines in his honor throughout Washington DC. By contrast, after Julius Caesar was posthumously declared a god, Augustus, as his adopted son, became known as the son of god. Along with the other gods, he received dedications at small crossroads shrines throughout Rome.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Books...

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/P...

Direct Subsidies:
$41-52 billion / 254 million vehicles = $161 / yr * 13 years = $2,100-$2,500. From the US.

Military Subsidies:
$20-250B in military expenditures to protect oil supplies / 254 million vehicles = ($80-900 /yr) * 13 years = $1,000-11,700

Health:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10...
32% of Fossil fuel burning (aka not coal) is transportation. It's estimated by the National Academy of Sciences that $120B /yr in health costs are absorbed by society due to pollution. $120B * .33 = $40B / 254 million vehicles = $157/yr * 13 years = $2050

So all told we're conservatively looking at:
$2,050 + $6,350 + $2,300 = $10,700

That's before you look at environmental impacts and climate change.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Busin...

FTFA:
"We feel that Gibson was inappropriately targeted, and a matter that could have been addressed with a simple contact a caring human being representing the government," he said in his statement. "Instead, the Government used violent and hostile means with the full force of the US Government and several armed law enforcement agencies costing the tax payer millions of dollars and putting a job creating US manufacture at risk and at a competitive disadvantage."

The article states "two dimensional area". A couple of years ago satilite images showed more ice coverage then expected. What they found was that instead of the meters thick ice they found chucks of ice that had melted and then refroze, it was thin and brittle with notice loss of over volume of ice.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Envir...

The same decline can be seen in northern lakes
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activit...

Are you trying to suggest that the earths ice sheets are NOT diminishing?

There's a thriving skeptic group actively doing just that, so you can still feel you're among your own kind when you look into it.

A "skeptic" group already did this. The other "skeptics" didn't like the outcome:

http://www.csmonitor.com/Envir...

I am not "astroturfing". I am fully for nuclear and renewables and against fossil fuels for a multitude of reasons, global warming being supreme. I agree with all the reasons why nuclear has not been used as the dreamers of the 1950's envisioned (nuclear cars and planes). But the railgun idea is not crazy. Unless you think NASA is crazy as well. Link: http://www.csmonitor.com/Scien... (among many).

And it worked? No, you just have a censored internet. http://www.csmonitor.com/Innov...

Ummm... Not according to Charity Navigator.
http://www.charitynavigator.or...
They get 4 stars.
Or give.org
http://www.give.org/charity-re...
Or the Christian Science monitor.
http://www.csmonitor.com/Busin...

According to the article, out of 800 positions created under DOJ's COPS program, 629 MUST go to veterans who have served at least 180 days of active duty since 9/11. Although this does not provide statistics for the existing law enforcement population, it does provide some insight. There are also numerous articles on the web that talk about transitioning veterans to local police forces.

When he revealed the war-related documents he did without sanitizing them, he put the lives of many Iraqi and Afgani citizens who worked with our forces at risk,

[Citation Needed]
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2010/1015/Wikileaks-US-says-limited-damage-from-leak-of-Afghan-war-logs

No U.S. intelligence sources or practices were compromised by the posting of secret Afghan war logs by the WikiLeaks website, the Pentagon has concluded, but the military thinks the leaks could still cause significant damage to U.S. security interests.

The assessment, outlined in a letter [written by Defense Secretary Robert Gates] obtained Friday by The Associated Press, suggests that some of the Obama administration's worst fears about the July disclosure of almost 77,000 secret U.S. war reports have so far failed to materialize.

The White House led with the notion that Wikileaks War Logs might put people at risk, but that talking point has long since been abandoned.

If you keep in mind that the Government (via the NY Times) already knew what was going to be published,
it's hard to imagine that they didn't mitigate the potential fallout and that's why there's no harm that can be shown.

Not to mention that the Feds have been doing everything to keep Manning's lawyers from seeing the damage assessments from the leaks.

1. Israel can prevent civilian deaths.

During the course of the past twelve days, Israeli air strikeshave killedover 1000Palestinians—mostly civilians.

Israelsaysthe deaths are a result of Hamas using ordinary Palestinians as human shields, and the gruesome toll has been met with a shrug.

It’s an issue thathas come upduring past operations in Gaza.

Back in 2009, during Operation Cast Lead, the president of the United Nations General Assembly Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann,condemnedIsrael for violating international law in Gaza by targeting civilians.

Brockmanncalledthe offensive “a war against a helpless defenceless and imprisoned people.”

“Theviolationsof international law inherent in the Gaza assault have been well documented,” he added, listing collective punishment, disproportionate military force [and]attacks on civilian targets, including homes, mosques, universities, schools.”

Israel doesn’t have to fire at the civilian targets, it’s a choice that they make. Hamas rockets are broadlyineffectiveanyway—given Israel’s comprehensive network of bomb shelters. Just three civilians in Israel have been killed so far.

Noting the Israeli military’s “long record of unlawful airstrikes with high civilian casualties”, Human Rights Watch Middle East director Sarah Leah Whitsoncommentedthat Israel “would never accept an argument that any Israeli home of an Israel Defense Force member would be a valid military target.”

IDF spokesperson Peter Lerner also couldn’t provide any evidence of houses being used to command in control rocket attacks, when directlyqueriedby reporters.

2. The three Israeli teenswere killed immediately after being kidnapped.

Investigative journalist Max Blumenthal recently revealed that the Israeli governmentknewthatthe three missing Israeli teens, whowere abductedin June from Hebron in the West Bank, were murdered almost as soon as they were kidnapped. However, this was not revealed to the public, and insteadthe search forthe missing teenagers unleashed to a brutal crackdown on the West Bank.

Blumenthal says that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu used outrage around the kidnapping to whip up enough support to justify the aggressive military campaign that has ensued.

3. Gaza is basically an open-air prison.

The economic blockade of Gaz

Let me guess.... the article you link to details how every tunnel they've found contains a strictly audited log of past use which conclusively demonstrates your point? No?

I know you are being sarcastic here, but seriously, what would it take to convince you that a tunnel from Gaza into Israel was intended for attacking Israel?

How about if it was actually used to attack Israel... would that be enough to convince you? (Link with no subscription needed)

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2014/0728/Hamas-attacks-by-tunnel-rattle-Israelis-on-Gaza-border-video

It sucks to have rockets raining down on civilians, but those are because Israel prevents Hamas from acquiring more sophisticated weaponry capable of being targeted.

You are seriously arguing the moral equivalence of Hamas and Israel? You are seriously saying that it's okay for Hamas to rain down rockets indiscriminately on civilians because Israel has been able to keep them from getting better weapons?

This is where I say "Have a nice life" and stop bothering to try to talk to you about this, or anything.

Much like the purpose of the IDF is to kill Palestinians

The "D" stands for "Defense", not for "Kill Palestinians". And if Israel really wanted to kill Palestinians, why do they go to so much trouble to try to warn people to get out of areas that are about to be hit?

If they really wanted to just kill people, they could be racking up the kills a lot faster than they are.

But you don't even believe that yourself. You are either trolling me or trying to make some sort of point with hyperbole.

Or perhaps we can be reasonable people and acknowledge that these tunnels have been being used to smuggle essential supplies ever since the Israeli-Egyptian blockade was put into place

No, the tunnels from Gaza into Israel have never been used to smuggle essential supplies. The tunnels from Gaza to Egypt, yeah sure.

Worse still, such dangerously reasonable lines of thought might lead to a peaceful agreement between the two warring parties.

If only a peaceful agreement were possible.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/charles-krauthammer-moral-clarity-in-gaza/2014/07/17/0adabe0c-0de4-11e4-8c9a-923ecc0c7d23_story.html

http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/why-dont-i-criticize-israel#.U9WnT5ebKes.twitter

Have a nice life.

I think you should be taken seriously for the same reasons Jenny McCarthy should - the utter garbage you spew on a regular basis could lead innocent people with pitiful levels of scientific literacy to make harmful choices.

I take you seriously.

BTW everything roughly matches up with GISS. Everything. There's nothing wrong with adjustments as Rei helpfully explained below.

If it isn't better, why would you do it?

Small online book shop - you didn't hear about them so .... they don't exist? Is that what you're implying?

Read this article about a commercial dispute between Amazon and a large publisher (Hachette). It was on the Colbert Report, a US news comedy show. The hosts book was caught up in this dispute and so he told people to go buy his book and others at Powell's Books, which I can only describe as a small (relative to Amazon) online book store.

This is great news! Zero income means zero income taxes. How much food can I buy with zero dollars?

Whatever your yearly stipend from the government will get you.

(Hey, if it works for Alaska, it could work elsewhere -- just fund it by taxing cheap robot labor instead of petroleum)

It's very un-American to do something without the plan to profit from it!

Interesting. . . . . So what do you think Snowden makes? I hear he only gave about 200,000 of the 1,700,000 documents to reporters. A buck a page? Two? Ten?

American Generosity
Americans are the most generous, global poll finds

Americans are more apt to donate to a charity, volunteer, or help a stranger than residents of 152 other countries.
 

Generosity in America

Stone Aerospace has some elaborate plans:

"When we speak of the Europa mission at our shop we are talking about going for the gold ring: landing on the surface of Europa; sending a nuclear-powered cryobot carrier vehicle through the ice crust; discharging a nuclear-powered 'fast mover' autonomous underwater carrier vehicle that has planet-scale range, and selectively launching a series of miniaturized, highly intelligent AUVs [Autonomous Underwater Vehicles] to go into the more dangerous areas (e.g. around black smokers, up into ice cracks, into corrosive chemical plumes) to search for and collect biological samples and bring them back to the mother ship,"

but I don't know anything about their comms plans. A german group plans to have a submersible return to the surface and then broadcast everything back.

I would strongly prefer to have a transmitter on the surface (sending either back to Earth, or to an orbiter somewhere), and use acoustic signaling, just as you would do with a deep submersible here on Earth. Problems with the "go back to the hole" plan include

- a failure on the return trip means no data comes back at all
- a good fraction of the under-ice mission time would be spent going back to the hole, or making a new one, rather than further exploration.
- if the submersible gets into trouble, or has to make a decision as to what would be best to sample/explore/go to next, Earth cannot help.

Of course, we know nothing of the acoustic noise level in Europa, so this might require a precursor seismology mission just make sure it would work.

Dem Congress killed the funding for it and objected to making it mandatory - even though it was required by the last comprehensive immigration reform (Simpson-Mazzoli, 1986).

30 yrs ago, this story was written - does it sound familiar? measuring compliance

the police don't actually have to protect the citizens.

Given the shootings (yes, plural) in Las Vegas and Georgia by "patriots" over the weekend, it appears the police have to protect themselves from the citizens.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2...

http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/09/...

Hilarious!

Government, Not Globalization, Destroyed Detroit

How the Democrats Destroyed Detroit

How Coleman Young Ruined Detroit

With Detroit bankrupt, is 'blue model' to blame?

Yep, next thing you know Democrats will again be trying to get into our bedrooms.

California Legislators Want to Tell College Kids When to Have Sex

Ford recall affects Ford Escape and Mercury models from 2008 through 2011 model years and some 2011-2013 Ford Explorer models. The Ford recall was made due to issues with electric power steering systems.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/In-Gear/2014/0530/Ford-recall-includes-914-000-Escape-Explorer-SUVs-with-power-steering-issue

Really Ford?

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014... http://m.washingtonpost.com/lo... http://www.thetruthaboutguns.c... http://m.csmonitor.com/USA/201... http://m.washingtontimes.com/n...

http://www.csmonitor.com/Envir...

"Some" is a word with very little precision. Your slashdot ID is pretty low, so I suspect you know enough people over 40 that you should see fairly widespread racism. I live in a little island of relative racial harmony in a city with terrible race relations (Philadelphia). But any East Coast city is going to be the same, as are rust belt cities. I don't have much in the way of personal experience with the West Coast, except for San Francisco - and that was pretty terrible 10 years ago anyway.

The younger kids aren't nearly as fazed by it - you see integrated groups of younger people walking around all the time now. There is a lot of hope for the future, but until the old people all die racism is going to continue to be a problem. Remember that the people who were keeping the status quo alive and well during Jim Crow are still alive. We get reminded that these people still wield influence whenever they open their bigoted mouths.

And it isn't just cliche racism, where white men with some influence are screwing minorities. Look at the way Democratic strategists are using race to fire up their supporters. Look at the way race is used to fire up the immigration debate on both sides. These tactics simply would not be effective if race were not a huge factor in our society.