Slashdot Mirror

Paid back?

hahahahahahahahahahhahahahhahah

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2011/1026/Student-loan-forgiveness-5-ways-Obama-wants-to-ease-student-debt/Pay-as-you-earn

You might want to review the Student Loan Forgiveness Act of 2012.

"Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF)
Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) is a program for federal student loan borrowers who work in certain kinds of jobs. It will forgive remaining debt after 10 years of eligible employment and qualifying loan payments. (During those 10 years, the Income-Based Repayment (IBR) plan can help keep your loan payments affordable.)"

So....you were saying?

If it was only 2 days later, it sure as h*** didn't go via Canada Post.

It's not like anyone uses them all that much any more. The month-long postal strike last summer (and the subsequent month to clear out the backlog) was the final straw for a lot of people.

‘If temperatures continue to stay flat or start to cool again, the divergence between the models and recorded data will eventually become so great that the whole scientific community will question the current theories,’ he said. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2093264/Forget-global-warming--Cycle-25-need-worry-NASA-scientists-right-Thames-freezing-again.html#ixzz1s2afhAhY

Funny you mention that: for the last sixty-seven years, it has been the North Korean government that is doing the raping, murdering and plundering. But enough with the facts. Carry on, comrade.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/the-monitors-view/2012/0411/A-tsunami-warning-system-makes-waves

I'd have expected to see something in slashdot about the huge earthquakes near Indonesia and their results. Why do undersea earthquakes sometimes cause catastrophe and sometimes do not?

The Zimmerman arrest poses no such nerdish question.

Yeah, we just overthrow governments and set up their elected officials to take the blame: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'%C3%A9tat

Come now, you are being reckless with the facts. The coup you speak of was a counter-coup that retuned the Shaw to power as the head of state of Iran

No, if you want to see real bare knuckled power you need to look at how the Soviet Union overthrew the governments of the independent nations of the Baltic States, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, and incorporated them into the territory of the Soviet Union as puppet states.
Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic
Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic
Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic

The Soviet Union also attacked Finland and seized 11% of its territory, and 30% of its economic assets.
The Soviet Union also invaded Poland with Germany, and ultimately annexed 21,275 square Km of Poland's territory as well.

Next we can consider the puppet governments of Eastern Europe that were installed by the Soviet Union: East Germany, Poland, Romania, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, and Albania. And don't forget that the Soviet Union led Warsaw Pact forces in to crush the protests of workers in Eastern Europe, such as the the '53 uprising in East Germany , the revolution in Hungary in '56, Czechoslovakia in '68 (the "Prague Spring), and threatened to do in Poland in the 80s.

The People's Republic of China certainly isn't blameless either - note its treatment of Tibet as a similar example. It continues to threaten Taiwan with invasion, and to attack the United States as well over the status of Taiwan. There are other examples as well.

These are by no means the only examples of Soviet Communist and Communist Chinese oppression and adventurism. If you only remember what the US has done then I would say your memory is quite stunted and selective.

like when aristocrats used to fund and participate in science. We're seeing more of this kind of thing now, like this study, or this. I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing, but there are definitely parallels to the way science was done during the renaissance.

During George "duh" Bush's administration the number of regulations increased from 110,000 to 150,000 pages. The New York Times must be using a definition of the word "deregulation" that I am not familiar with, because I would call a ~50% increase in regulations the Exact Opposite of deregulation.

Without context, the figure is pointless. It is like claiming that my software is better than yours, because mine has 150000 LOC while yours only has 110000 LOC(*). Likewise, they could have heavily regulated certains practices that affected only to marginal parts of the economy and deregulated critical ones.

For what I read here and in other articles, private companies were pretty much happy with signing away untenable mortgages because they were just selling them away, without sharing the risk. This lead to a situation where doing such simple things as checking if the borrower had a stable income and how much it was in relation to the loan where "unwise", because it could lead to the mortgage not being allowed (which meant less money for the company who sold those loans to idio... investors because they got AAA+ from a rating firm).

When the government allows this (a company profitting from brokering deals and without any responsability, and an investor who does not know what he is buying), it will end always the same way. The only incognite is how much time it will take.

(*) No car analogy, sorry.

For what I read, very few of the loans were "mandated". Instead, there was a massive impulse to loan to anyone without proper checks, because in the end the banks were just going to sell the junk to other investors (assured by the AAA+ from rating companies that are still out there).

This article explain why people with no ability to repay the mortgage where granted one, not because mandated loans but because the mortgaging company got its benefit from firming and selling the loan (doing a risk analysis might mean that the loan was not granted --> less profits). Also in the CS Monitor I found an article (can't found it right now, I will be grateful if someone points a link) about workers in banks and mortgage agencies, relating how they were forced (by their bosses) to accept anything as a proof of the capability of the borrower to repay the loan. Those who tried to do things in a sane way were reprimanded because they did not met the quotas that the "insane" agents did met.

In one of the stories, someone did arrive with a picture of himself in front of a bussiness (IIRC it was a gardening one), claimed that this was proof that he owned the bussiness and demanded a loan. He got it.

I think that the Traditional College system is not the best fit for lot’s of jobs and there are better ways to learn and to show that you have skills.

Harvard Study: Too Much Emphasis On College Education?
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Education/2011/0202/Does-everyone-need-a-college-degree-Maybe-not-says-Harvard-study [csmonitor.com] [CC] [MD] [GC]

http://hotair.com/archives/2011/02/02/harvard-study-hey-maybe-were-placing-too-much-emphasis-on-a-college-education/ [hotair.com] [CC] [MD] [GC]
“It would be fine if we had an alternative system [for students who don’t get college degrees], but we’re virtually unique among industrialized countries in terms of not having another system and relying so heavily on higher education,” says Robert Schwartz, who heads the Pathways to Prosperity project at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education.
Emphasizing college as the only path may actually cause some students – who are bored in class but could enjoy learning that’s more entwined with the workplace – to drop out, he adds. “If the image [of college] is more years of just sitting in classrooms, that’s not very persuasive.”
The United States can learn from other countries, particularly in northern Europe, Professor Schwartz says. In Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, and Switzerland, for instance, between 40 and 70 percent of high-schoolers opt for programs that combine classroom and workplace learning, many of them involving apprenticeships. These pathways result in a “qualification” that has real currency in the labor market”

“It would be fine if we had an alternative system [for students who don’t get college degrees], but we’re virtually unique among industrialized countries in terms of not having another system and relying so heavily on higher education,” says Robert Schwartz, who heads the Pathways to Prosperity project at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education.
Emphasizing college as the only path may actually cause some students – who are bored in class but could enjoy learning that’s more entwined with the workplace – to drop out, he adds. “If the image [of college] is more years of just sitting in classrooms, that’s not very persuasive.”
The United States can learn from other countries, particularly in northern Europe, Professor Schwartz says. In Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, and Switzerland, for instance, between 40 and 70 percent of high-schoolers opt for programs that combine classroom and workplace learning, many of them involving apprenticeships. These pathways result in a “qualification” that has real currency in the labor market”

http://ketchumgroup.net/blog/skills-needed-skills-defined/
“This determination could have long-range impact in the use of diplomas as blanket screening tools. Unlike industry-based certification, diplomas and degrees from schools seldom define demonstrated and assessed skills. This EEOC guidance could speed the adoption of skill-based, industry driven, skill certification. Currently, the US Department of Labor lists over 4,400 industry-based certifications on the Certification Finder at the CareerOneStop.com website. These certifications will rise in importance to employers while education-based credentials may fade. Effective skill development on the job requires a structured approach based on the defined skills used in the workplace. In such a structured OJT workplace, meeting this EEOC guidance will be readily accomplished, and new employees quickly trained in the need skills.”

http://www.csmonitor.com/var/ezflow_site/storage/images/media/content/2012/0316-supersonic-skydiver-baumgartner/12036629-2-eng-US/0316-Supersonic-Skydiver-Baumgartner_full_600.jpg

I think that the Traditional College system is not the best fit for lot’s of jobs and there are better ways to learn and to show that you have skills.

Harvard Study: Too Much Emphasis On College Education?
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Education/2011/0202/Does-everyone-need-a-college-degree-Maybe-not-says-Harvard-study [CC] [MD] [GC]

http://hotair.com/archives/2011/02/02/harvard-study-hey-maybe-were-placing-too-much-emphasis-on-a-college-education/ [CC] [MD] [GC]
“It would be fine if we had an alternative system [for students who don’t get college degrees], but we’re virtually unique among industrialized countries in terms of not having another system and relying so heavily on higher education,” says Robert Schwartz, who heads the Pathways to Prosperity project at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education.
Emphasizing college as the only path may actually cause some students – who are bored in class but could enjoy learning that’s more entwined with the workplace – to drop out, he adds. “If the image [of college] is more years of just sitting in classrooms, that’s not very persuasive.”
The United States can learn from other countries, particularly in northern Europe, Professor Schwartz says. In Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, and Switzerland, for instance, between 40 and 70 percent of high-schoolers opt for programs that combine classroom and workplace learning, many of them involving apprenticeships. These pathways result in a “qualification” that has real currency in the labor market”

“It would be fine if we had an alternative system [for students who don’t get college degrees], but we’re virtually unique among industrialized countries in terms of not having another system and relying so heavily on higher education,” says Robert Schwartz, who heads the Pathways to Prosperity project at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education.
Emphasizing college as the only path may actually cause some students – who are bored in class but could enjoy learning that’s more entwined with the workplace – to drop out, he adds. “If the image [of college] is more years of just sitting in classrooms, that’s not very persuasive.”
The United States can learn from other countries, particularly in northern Europe, Professor Schwartz says. In Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, and Switzerland, for instance, between 40 and 70 percent of high-schoolers opt for programs that combine classroom and workplace learning, many of them involving apprenticeships. These pathways result in a “qualification” that has real currency in the labor market”

It's just fallout from a blind belief that abstinence programs actually work

There is some scientific proof. Of course there are counter-studies, some of which have to be parsed carefully, and controversies. It is certainly an unpopular finding in some quarters - the idea that people can control themselves. It is demanded for cigarettes as that is the new taboo, but not sex, at least in many quarters.

Abstinence-only study could alter sex-education landscape

The study found that abstinence-only sex education programs showed relative success in dissuading 12 year olds from having sex for two years afterward. It is the most comprehensive study to date to bolster an abstinence-only approach to reducing teen pregnancy. . . .

A new study published in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine Monday showed that young teens given an abstinence-only message were significantly more likely to delay having sex than those receiving more comprehensive sex education.

The research is gaining attention since it’s the first rigorously conducted study demonstrating that an abstinence-only program can be effective.

“This is really game-changing research, because it provides the first strong evidence that abstinence-only education can help very young teens delay sex,” says Bill Albert, chief program officer for that National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, a nonpartisan organization. “The menu of proven options just got larger, and that’s good news.”

I think that the Traditional College system is not the best fit for lot’s of jobs and there are better ways to learn and to show that you have skills.

Harvard Study: Too Much Emphasis On College Education?
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Education/2011/0202/Does-everyone-need-a-college-degree-Maybe-not-says-Harvard-study

http://hotair.com/archives/2011/02/02/harvard-study-hey-maybe-were-placing-too-much-emphasis-on-a-college-education/
“It would be fine if we had an alternative system [for students who don’t get college degrees], but we’re virtually unique among industrialized countries in terms of not having another system and relying so heavily on higher education,” says Robert Schwartz, who heads the Pathways to Prosperity project at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education.
Emphasizing college as the only path may actually cause some students – who are bored in class but could enjoy learning that’s more entwined with the workplace – to drop out, he adds. “If the image [of college] is more years of just sitting in classrooms, that’s not very persuasive.”
The United States can learn from other countries, particularly in northern Europe, Professor Schwartz says. In Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, and Switzerland, for instance, between 40 and 70 percent of high-schoolers opt for programs that combine classroom and workplace learning, many of them involving apprenticeships. These pathways result in a “qualification” that has real currency in the labor market”

“It would be fine if we had an alternative system [for students who don’t get college degrees], but we’re virtually unique among industrialized countries in terms of not having another system and relying so heavily on higher education,” says Robert Schwartz, who heads the Pathways to Prosperity project at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education.
Emphasizing college as the only path may actually cause some students – who are bored in class but could enjoy learning that’s more entwined with the workplace – to drop out, he adds. “If the image [of college] is more years of just sitting in classrooms, that’s not very persuasive.”
The United States can learn from other countries, particularly in northern Europe, Professor Schwartz says. In Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, and Switzerland, for instance, between 40 and 70 percent of high-schoolers opt for programs that combine classroom and workplace learning, many of them involving apprenticeships. These pathways result in a “qualification” that has real currency in the labor market”

Puh: that's nothing. HMS Victory was launched in 1765, and is still in commission. She's even older than the United States!

If the UK doesn't reverse course on defense cuts, there may not be much more than HMS Victory left to protect the British Isles, and the only waves Britsh sailors will be familiar with are these.

Cuts to the Royal Navy
British defence cuts will help make ADF shipshape
Navy chief: Britain cannot keep up its role in Libya air war due to cuts
Big British defense cuts weaken Pentagon's top military partner
Defense Cuts Mean UK Would Lose A New Falklands War, Veteran Claims

Why should I have to work to provide you a minimum level of food, shelter, and clothing? Are you my master? Am I your slave? How many hours of my labor do you require to take care of you and the results of your breeding activities? At what point during the day can I take care of my own needs and pursue my own desires?

Am I selfish for choosing how to spend the fruits of my labor? Or are you selfish for wanting to take the fruits of my labor by force through government?

Maybe if giving people people minimum levels of food, shelter, and clothing didn't do anything besides create a culture of dependence, I might agree that the good of the results is worth the price of tyranny against individual liberty... but it just isn't.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Latest-News-Wires/2012/0309/Lottery-winner.-Food-stamps.-In-Michigan.-Again

there is close to 0 public support for another war

Not true. Americans are sick of *some* wars; 75% of Americans support withdrawal from Afghanistan by Obama's timetable or earlier. But... 70% of Americans believe Iran already has nuclear weapons, and 58% of Americans say they support U.S. military attacks on Iran. The Young Turks: Can we stop a war with Iran?

5000 or so dead soldiers

6,300 U.S. soldiers killed, 46,000 U.S. soldiers wounded, estimated hundreds of thousands of civilian dead, and $3 trillion of public money given to "defense contractors".

And now Iran is being blamed for 9/11: U.S. District Court Rules Iran Behind 9/11 Attacks (December 23rd 2011)

How convenient. After 2001, 44% of Americans believed that the 9/11 hijackers were Iraqi, and 70% of Americans believed Saddam did 9/11. In fact, not a single one of the hijackers were Iraqi, and secularist Hussein and Islamist bin Laden were known to hate each other. It was all a lie. Even now, after the whole argument has been completely discredited time and again, including by the CIA, 41% of Americans still believe that Saddam Hussein was directly involved in 9/11. But now Iran did it, so we have to attack them.... omg..

I can't believe people are falling for this again...

Details on who is not paying income tax.

(1) The people not paying income tax are so poor they can barely afford to the price of living; perhaps it is a legitment political issue that there are so many people in that situation. (2) Not paying income tax != not paying taxes. Particuarly, the "payroll tax" is not part of the "income tax" despite being a tax on income.

Show me a report that shows a correlation between per student funding and performance. Despite what "seems" to be a common sense idea, it's not founded in reality. Same with classroom size. I'm not talking about how a classroom "feels" but how effective size is on determining student success. If size was important, then you wouldn't have mega sized Freshman Intro to Calculus at so many schools.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/03/california-school-distric_n_870921.html

http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/The-Adam-Smith-Institute-Blog/2010/0428/No-correlation-between-education-funding-and-student-performance

Oh, and just in case you want to save yourself the effort of re-reproducing the effort:

http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2011/1021/Climate-study-funded-in-part-by-conservative-group-confirms-global-warming

Read the article at

http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2012/0208/NASA-satellites-reveal-colossal-ice-melt-greenhouse-gasses-blamed

and look at the image

http://www.csmonitor.com/var/ezflow_site/storage/images/media/content/2012/0208-ice/11695646-1-eng-US/0208-ice_full_600.jpg

Most areas are unchanged, like the one the article mentions, but other glacial areas have had a colossal ice melt.

The main changes are in the northern hemishpere (http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=42392), as predicted.

Read the article at

http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2012/0208/NASA-satellites-reveal-colossal-ice-melt-greenhouse-gasses-blamed

and look at the image

http://www.csmonitor.com/var/ezflow_site/storage/images/media/content/2012/0208-ice/11695646-1-eng-US/0208-ice_full_600.jpg

Most areas are unchanged, like the one the article mentions, but other glacial areas have had a colossal ice melt.

The main changes are in the northern hemishpere (http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=42392), as predicted.

According to: http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2012/0210/Tesla-Model-X-Era-of-the-all-electric-SUV-is-arriving 80-100 mile range. Probably enough for about 90% of everyone's one go trips. I really don't get this crazy worry about electric: oh but I can't go for 300 miles on a charge. How often do you do 5 hrs of non-stop driving anyways? If the technology for rapid charging comes out it wouldn't matter much either since you could just stop at a restaurant for an hour break and recharge. At any rate for the very rare times you need to drive 5hrs at a go run a car. The other 340 days a year your electric will be fine.

http://www.levada.ru/25-11-2011/noyabrskie-reitingi-odobreniya-i-doveriya-reitingi-partii

The Levada Center is independent. Here you can see a shot of its early history, as a breakaway from the VTSIOM: http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/1001/p07s02-woeu.html

So, you're complaining that you don't have enough money to give a substantial chunk of it to a charity, in order to decrease your tax liability.

Did you forget that while they are paying less taxes, they are also paying the substantial chunk of money out to charity too? Using Mitt Romney as an example, add his effective tax rate (~15%) to his charity payout (~16% according to this) and you see that he actually paid out 31% of his income in taxes and charity.

What was your effective tax rate with charity added, on your income again? I'll bet it's less.

Afghanistan?

Not sure which one you're referring to, but yes, both were religious.

The Soviet-Afghan war was actually a civil war between socialist secularists and moderate-to-radical Islamists, with the first faction backed by USSR, and the second backed by Pakistan and USA. The primary reason for the war was that Islamists were offended at such horrible Soviet innovations as mixed-gender schools and universities.

The second war was against Taliban - 'nuff said.

Kosovo?

Definitely religious. Serbs are Orthodox Christian, Albanians are mostly Muslim. Kosovo itself is called "Kosovo and Metohija" in Serbian, and "Metohija" literally means "monastery lands" - because that was the historical seat of the Church in Serbia, and it's where most of its monasteries were. Then it also has Kosovo Polje, the place of the historical battle where (Christian) Serbian forces were defeated by the invading (Muslim) Ottoman army, after which Serbia was annexed into Ottoman Empire.

And yes, it also comes up in the fighting - Albanians burn down churches, and Serbs burned mosques.

Libya?

What, did you miss the jihad flag flying over Bengazi in the wake of rebel victory? Or that the country is transitioning to Sharia as its primary source of legislation?

Trending...but only in certain countries. Twitter plays for Big Brother, now: http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/2012/0127/Twitter-censorship-Posts-now-yanked-country-by-country

Really?

There really is a lot of corporate based funding for anti-climate change "science". (Though, right there, it's not really science, as it starts with bias. But the funding is there.)

And even when they manage to get scientists to go along with the whole denial thing, it has been known to backfire. Rather spectacularly.

The fallacy of your argument is this: you equate the leaders of the argument of both sides, and give them equal footing.

Leading those who accept the scientific evidence are... the scientists. Yes, the people who train for their lives, who thrive on evidence, logic and the scientific method. To be sure, some are corrupt, but if you argue the majority of them are, then you are effectively arguing against the entire profession. You sure you want to go there?

Leading the other side are those who profit from denial, and those who just don't want to change their way of life, or have religious beliefs about the matter.

These groups are not equally qualified to talk about the matter. And to paint the entire climatologist community as high priests is to equate their science with religion, which is in and of itself a fallacy. An effective one, but a fallacy nevertheless.

Oh yes and thank god Ron Paul Mr. Get Govt Out Of Our Lives thinks that it's OK and in fact right to FORCE a woman to undergo an UNEEDED ultrasound before she can have an abortion even if her doctor thinks it's not a good idea for her and even if she doesn't want to. http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002161152

Lets get govt off our backs and into our beds, shall we? Vote Ron Paul!

Yeah, I hate to be the one to break this to you but Ron Paul is a total fraud. He wants HIS VERSION of Big Government rammed right up every woman's body.

And of course he's was a massive racist, opposed as he is to the 1964 civil right's legislation that said among other things that blacks could drink out of the same drinking fountains as whites, could marry whites, couldn't be discriminated against in hiring and housing etc etc you know, all the basics of a civil society....

Oh and I think there was something in that legislation that said the government couldn't refer to them in legislation as 40 swiggin' porch monkey niggers who want our white women too.

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/ron-paul-tells-cnns-candy-crowley-civil-rights-act-destroyed-privacy/

Ron Paul is a

homophobic

, ahref=http://www.mediaite.com/tv/ed-schultz-tears-into-ron-paul-for-anti-gay-stances-after-praising-rick-santorum/rel=url2html-32508http://www.mediaite.com/tv/ed-schultz-tears-into-ron-paul-for-anti-gay-stances-after-praising-rick-santorum/>

racist,

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Elections/President/2011/1229/Racist-newsletter-timeline-What-Ron-Paul-has-said

http://www.towleroad.com/2011/12/ron-pauls-homophobia-in-context.html

sexist

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/275198/20120102/ron-paul-laws-against-sexual-harassment-s.htm

Bible thumping

ahref=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JyvkjSKMLwrel=url2html-32508http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JyvkjSKMLw>

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2011/08/29/ron-paul-doesnt-accept-evolution-as-a-theory/

piece of fucking shit dressed up as "a man of principle" and his schtick is bought only by infinitely gullible, extremely naive people who are too stupid to use Google and, of course, other racist, sexist homophobic Bible thumpers of which there are, it goes without saying, entirely too many .

Oh and one more thing. He's never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever going to be the President of the United States of America.

So be sure to write-in vote for Ron Paul, because we need as many stupid people to throw away their votes as possible !

Really?

The homeless rate amoungst school kids is about 2.2%:

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2011/1213/Homeless-children-at-record-high-in-US.-Can-the-trend-be-reversed

There were 300 semifinalists. This means that all other things considered equal, there should be 7 homeless semifinalists.

Of course, given the situations that homeless kids are in, I wouldn't at all expect that other things should be considered equal, and that it would be extremely surprising to find the same distribution for such achievers between homeless and non-homeless kids.

With that said, though, one semifinalist is not at all surprising.

Especially with what's being done to the middle and working classes in this nation.

Please, please, PLEASE stop spreading this lie. We can't run a country based on false information.

The NDAA is a military spending bill. It gets passed every year. For several years it has allowed the military to detain members of Al Qaeda, and no one had a problem with this. In the latest version, this was expanded to cover members of other terrorists organizations, but it still states that it cannot be applied to United States citizens or immigrants.

What Section 1021, subsection (e), of H.R. 1540 as enrolled says is

Authorities- Nothing in this section shall be construed to affect existing law or authorities relating to the detention of United States citizens, lawful resident aliens of the United States, or any other persons who are captured or arrested in the United States.

which doesn't explicitly say it cannot be applied to US citizens etc.. The question is what "existing law or authorities" say. Senator Carl Levin quoted the Supreme Court as saying "There is no bar to this nation's holding one of its own citizens as an enemy combatant.", which comes from the O'Connor/Rehnquist/Kennedy/Breyer opinion in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld. On the other hand, they also say "It is a clearly established principle of the law of war that detention may last no longer than active hostilities.", but if active hostilities continue until we've defeated "those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons", who knows when they'll cease.

You mean that your houses can't withstand a 5.0 magnitude quake? We don't even wake up here in Mexico City unless the quake is 6.5 or higher, and the last time we had a major quake (7.8), no one was injured and no buildings were damaged. http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0124/p07s02-woam.html

But you americans have this strange tendency to build your homes out of wood and cardboard, for some weird reason...

I live in Mexico for the time being and the shoddily built, uninspected houses here are terrible. We may use wood and sheetrock in the USA but we also require insulation be installed as well. And before you ask why I live in a shanty, I don't. It's a walled community with the nicer homes in the city.

You mean that your houses can't withstand a 5.0 magnitude quake? We don't even wake up here in Mexico City unless the quake is 6.5 or higher, and the last time we had a major quake (7.8), no one was injured and no buildings were damaged. http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0124/p07s02-woam.html

But you americans have this strange tendency to build your homes out of wood and cardboard, for some weird reason...

You might be surprised that there is still a restriction in Germany on eating wild boars because of Chernobyl.

Hundreds of miles away, 25 years later. They don't reclaim stuff to the point of being able to consume the produced goods quickly enough to support a planet when the arable land area starts changing by the decade.

Skeptics worry that the readings would be inaccurate if the melted fuel rods punctured their containment vessels and fell to the bottoms of the outer containment tanks. TEPCO has not been able to take direct measurements of the temperatures at the bottoms of the containment vessels, and the site is still too radioactive for the fuel rods' status to be visually confirmed.

("Skeptics cast doubt on Fukushima status, even as Japan declares nuclear reactors 'stable'", Arthur Bright, 16 DEC 2011, The Christian Science Monitor)

i.e. since they removed their puppet leader. Before that the US was helping with the program.

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2011/1108/Imminent-Iran-nuclear-threat-A-timeline-of-warnings-since-1979/Earliest-warnings-1979-84

Though I'll point out that the US only taxes for about 60% of it's spending, the rest is borrowed, so the taxpayer isn't paying yet. The bill hasn't yet come due.

Also, there was the 2nd drone crash that happened recently after the Iran one, here. They didn't cover this one as voluminously it seems. And now we see this.

Bad month for US drone interest and parties involved.

Discredited by whom? I won't take such claims seriously unless I can evaluate the merit of the claim.

I don't know if the IAEA report is "entirely discredited" but there definitely seems to be some sketchy stuff in there. I found this link that talks about it (and I didn't really look very hard).

1. None of the employment problems that you mention occurred until Euro-zone trade liberalization moved jobs overseas. In other words the job loss was caused by free market policies not by socialism. 2. You did not account for the real unemployment rate witch under-reports employment in Europe and over-reports it in the us. The massive prison population alone in the us would account for a 2% increase in our unemployment rate if they were counted as unemployed. http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/The-Entrepreneurial-Mind/2011/1109/The-real-unemployment-rate-and-Europe-s-underground-economy 3. You specifically neglected to mention countries where socialist protectionist policies cause unemployment to remain low like Norway. 4. Losing a job in any of those countries you mentioned is not nearly as bad as losing a job here because they have a functioning social contract. When you lose a job here you lose your health insurance. Also your comment specifically neglected to mention any of the other positive effects of socialism that I mentioned in my post. 5. The employment rate here is artificially low due to an excess of shitty part time and/or minimum wage jobs. 6. I think you meant I should stop smoking some elicit substance. When you say I should simply stop smoking that imply you are talking about smoking tobacco products which are usually not considered to impair mental ability.

About the only useful thing I've found is this (from the Christian Science Monitor)

In addition, ground stations didn't have orbital information accurate enough to allow them to aim their highly directional antennas with any precision, ESA officials explained on Wednesday. So ESA added a small, wider-angle antenna to its 15-meter dish near Perth to try to communicate with the craft.

and

In the end, the reason for the radio blackout appears to be that the craft's transmitter was off. Russian engineers used the wide-angle antenna at Perth to transmit commands that activated the transmitter when the craft passed within the antenna's coverage zone. Phobos-Grunt returned the favor and began sending telemetry back for analysis, according to ESA.

So, if that is indeed the case, it's certainly possible that the satellite can be re oriented and controlled. They only have a couple of days to shuffle it into the loop that would get them to Mars but they could at least do something with it (aside from nuking Washington, DC which would be my first choice).

Said video is an animation of the Falcon HTV-2 which was tested several weeks ago.

Am I the only one that noticed that the animation on the abc news article linked to in the original posting IS FOR THE WRONG WEAPON?

The video is for the recent test of the Falcon HTV-2 test flight which took place several weeks ago.

(Having the patience to sit through the same commercials you see on TV is worth it if you get to embarrass a major news network ;)

"literally falling down"?

Name me one bridge collapse that was due to repairs that couldn't be afforded.

Done. Now go back to your coward-hole.

That I thought I read about 3 years ago
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/30/us/30grease.html?pagewanted=all
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2008/0506/p01s03-usgn.html
http://blog.oregonlive.com/nwheadlines/2008/05/restaurant_kitchen_grease_thef.html
http://www.biodieselmagazine.com/articles/2884/california-cop-is-arrested-for-grease-theft/

And last year
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-09-29-restaurant-grease-thieves_N.htm

But apparently has been around much longer, maybe even before the Simpsons episode (1998)
http://www.salon.com/2000/11/06/grease_wars/

According to this article, you are entirely wrong.

  Excerpt:

Variances in the number of police officers killed from year to year are common. In 2009, 117 were killed, a 50-year low, compared with 160 killed in 2010 – 59 of them in shootouts. But in five of the past 10 years, the number of police officer deaths topped 160, making the decade almost as dangerous for police as the street wars of the 1970s, when the average number of officers killed per year hovered around 200. And in the gangster heyday of the 1920s, about 150 died every year.

the Christian Science Monitor was created to show how science doesn't rule out the existence of a higher power

Actually, it was not created for this purpose. It's a newspaper. It covers science, just like the New York Times does, but its mission as a newspaper has very little to do with science or "the existence of a higher power," but with reporting the news. If you're curious, you might want to find out something about its history. From its own Web page:

The Christian Science church doesn’t publish news to propagate denominational doctrine; it provides news purely as a public service. Here’s why: If the basic theology of that church says that what reaches and affects thought shapes experience, it follows that a newspaper would have significant impact on the lives of those who read it.
News with the motive “to injure no man, but to bless all mankind” cannot but help improve society and individual lives. The idea is that the unblemished truth is freeing (as a fundamental human right); with it, citizens can make informed decisions and take intelligent action, for themselves and for society.

The Monitor was founded more than 100 years ago, in an era when "fair, unbiased journalism" was virtually an alien concept in the United States, around the heyday of what came to be called "yellow journalism." The tabloid papers of the time were filled with slanders, misreporting and outright lies. In that business climate, the idea that a church would start a fair and accurate newspaper seemed natural -- because who else would embark on such a fool's errand, when it would put them in competition with men like Pullitzer and Hearst? Those two made Fox News look like pikers. The Monitor stepped in to provide the public with news -- real news -- not as an opportunity to preach, but in the same spirit that many churches feed the poor.

As for the rest of your childish, ignorant rant, may I kindly suggest that you slow your roll.

"There is no way for the parent to know if issues in the classroom are from poor learning on the child's side or poor teaching on the teacher's side."

Or just because the whole idea of compulsory school is broken:
http://www.thewaronkids.com/
http://www.newciv.org/whole/schoolteacher.txt
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/16a.htm
http://www.holtgws.com/whatisunschoolin.html
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1215/p01s01-ussc.html (A bit too business focused though and expands school instead of contracts it)
http://www.pdfernhout.net/towards-a-post-scarcity-new-york-state-of-mind.html
http://p2pfoundation.net/backups/p2p_research-archives/2009-October/005379.html

Speaking of which, I wonder how US-based network providers like Cisco feel about this? They make a lot of money in China, helping them build the Great Firewall and all that. If there is one sure outcome of this action, it's that China will want to reciprocate in kind. There is no way an insult like this will go unanswered. So I think we have to see this as part of a larger trade war that may be brewing. Stock up on iPhones, everybody!

I raise you this study saying that Americans pay twice as much and the outcome is just average among the rich countries compared. Your move.