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Not long ago, I read an article about how Cuban police will sometimes stop buses to search for contraband food. Is it endangered species they're after? Nope, extra cans of stuff we can legally get off the shelf for about $1 in our Oppressive, Reactionary, Sexist Hellhole.

Sounds like when the US government was taking legally purchased Bean Babies from people.

I don't know how much porn the Utah government downloads, but according to a researcher at Harvard, the *people* of Utah are quite the dawgs, which was my point.

No, that wasn't your point at all. You were smearing the "feminist Left" as being the greatest incipient threat to porn.

I don't know how much porn the Utah government downloads, but according to a researcher at Harvard, the *people* of Utah are quite the dawgs, which was my point.

... most of the highway they use had no speed limit ...

In 1994, the world's first, true 'cannonball run' didn't go well.

I- want global coorperation for our global problems, and I want as much freedom as possible without destroying the world in exploding anarchy.

The explosion I see coming is a mix of cultural and economic - and those in power (both parties) use the one against the other. Freedom to me means being able to do what you want without forcing your view on others. For example if the Catholic church doesn't want to marry gays or accept gay marriage that's fine. If gay people want to get married they will need to find someone willing to do the ceremony and bake their cake. When people start forcing their will on others - ie you must bake my cake or else - that's when freedom gets reduced. Live and let live but don't force others. Forcing bakers to declare messages that they don't believe in is at least as bad as not allowing gays to marry and probably worse. Live and let live won't work unless both sides respect it. UT is the leader in this common sense approach as described here: https://www.deseretnews.com/ar...

but those who insist on controlling others won't allow it as described here: http://www.slate.com/blogs/out...

only the approach of not forcing others allows for avoiding conflict. I try and live peacefully but if every wish of the SJW crowd was enacted in law eventually I would be forced to take up arms. I'm not alone. Sadly I think the SJW crowd would gladly kill me and another 100M+ off to achieve their "paradise". It's nothing the left hasn't done before after all.

http://cdn.deseretnews.com/ima...

If we want to talk about pollutants, how about concerning ourselves with actual, cancer causing particulates? I live in the Salt Lake valley and every winter, as we're surrounded by mountains and like in a kind-of bowl, we experience periods of "inversion" where pollutants are trapped in the air in the valley. Studies have shown that much of these pollutants (actual pollutants) come from China, of all places.

Sure, let's reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But, I'm more concerns with pollutants.

Whoa there dude. Practically everything in that paragraph has something wrong with it.

I don't think that's a supportable opinion.

Did you mean viable? Because plenty of people hold and support that position.

If religions were not useful for propagating a people and culture into the future we wouldn't have so many religions that have endured for thousands of years.

By that logic addictive substances wouldn't have endured for thousands of years and we wouldn't have so many. People have been using and abusing opium for a long time, but you have to do some pretty serious libertarian-grade mental gymnastics to say that opium dens are a net gain.

And areligious people tend to not have children, so their culture dies out.

So the Mormons and Muslims are going to inherit the world? I understand the concept of outbreeding the competition... but that doesn't seem like the best solution in today's modern world with the whole lack of resources thing and limited fossil fuel situation.

Indeed, having fewer kids seems to be the consensus among developed nations. Religion or no. I'd even go so far as to say that's the rational viewpoint. Especially when your retirement plans aren't "hope one of the children feed you".

Religion must have been a net positive (even if locally negative for those who don't conform to the predominant religion) because otherwise, the areligious would have had an evolutionary advantage over the religious and would have dominated and killed them off millennia ago. Instead just the opposite happened.

It's not a gene. It's not something you inherit from your parents. You could be talking about how much people appreciate Shakespeare. Do you think that gives people a evolutionary edge to out-compete the rest?

"The opposite happened"? Care to name an areligious group of people that were killed off by a religious group 1000+ years ago? PLENTY of examples of two religions making war upon each other, but I don't think that's helping your case.

Furthermore, if you're talking about evolutionary time-scales, and ideas rather than gene-pools, the decline of religious participation indicates that it might be on it's way out. But I doubt it will ever completely disappear.

You can certainly argue that religion was or is a net gain for society. And there are plenty of valid points to that effect. But all of these arguments are just plain bad.

The original series was *full* of religion.

“Battlestar Galactica” — the original, not the nihilistic, joyless reboot of the series that aired on the SyFy Network around the turn of the century — wasn’t Larson’s most successful series, but it was arguably the most personal to him. It was launched in the wake of “Star Wars” mania, and it spurred a lawsuit from George Lucas for copyright infringement. Lucas lost that battle, and rightly so. Yes, there are superficial similarities between the two space operas, but “Galactica” offered a premise that was actually something much deeper and richer than the “Star Wars” universe.

“Battlestar Galactica,” in essence, was Mormons in space.

Glen Larson, himself a Latter-day Saint, had infused his series mythology with too many Mormon references to ignore. His Twelve Colonies of Man were essentially the Lost Tribes of Israel whose history began at Kobol, an obvious anagram for Kolob, which, in Mormon theology, is the star nearest to the throne of God. The colonies were led by a "Quorum of 12," and marriages were referred to as “sealings” that extended beyond mortality and “through all the eternities.” The show never shied away from religious themes, and, at one point, the characters encounter a group of angels who paraphrase LDS Church President Lorenzo Snow.

“As you are, we once were,” the angels tell the Galactica crew. “As we are, you may become.”

Sound familiar? It certainly did to me.

I was thrilled to see Mormon themes woven into pop culture, but not everyone shared my enthusiasm. My mother thought it was a light-minded approach to sacred things, and I have to concede that time has provided some evidence for that point of view. Critics of my faith take Mormon precepts and present them with a Galactica-esque spin to make them sound kooky and bizarre. An anti-Mormon film in the 1980s sneeringly referred to the LDS concept of heaven as “Starbase Kolob,” and during the so-called “Mormon Moment,” I sensed “Galactica’s” influence in the media reports about Mormons “getting their own planet” after they die.

Source

My only hope is, that Amazon doesn't ever open a distribution or other brick and mortar physical presence in my state, and force me to start paying sales tax for purchases from them.

Don't hold your breath. Utah just negotiated a deal with Amazon to voluntarily collect sales taxes for the state even through Amazon does not have a physical presence in Utah. In return, Amazon gets to keep 1.31% of taxes collected (with allowances of up to 18% according to the law).

With $29 million unpaid sales taxes for Amazon sales to Utah in 2015, that's $400,000 of free money for Amazon. This kind of deal will spread like wildfire to other states.

Preface: I am married and reasonably happily.

Women are incongruent with men in most cases, once you get past the hormone stage of needing a sexual partner. You can see this in the divorce rates and marriage rates.

The overoptimism in the article about divorce rates is counteracted by the much lower marriage rates in younger cohorts of the population. With that said, a lot of people are living together without doing the marriage thing, which is fine, and not captured in the statistics. But I have two takeways. First, people aren't pairing up as consistently as in the past, by a relatively large number. Second, the very reason people aren't marrying (or pairing up) is that they want to be free to move on when they think it is time - ie, not making a lifelong commitment.

Women have to blame something for this, for the idea of having a lifelong partner is an ingrained female desire. Just anecdotally, I have a lot of sisters and two daughters - every one of them wants a long term relationship with a man with the same passion a geek has for his geekery. And they're not finding as many takers now as in the 80s, just a bunch of guys wanting a quick fuck. Porn is one place women could lay the blame, though I don't think that is correct. They are switching cause and effect. The porn is a substitute to take care of the hormonal desires. The reason men don't want to pair up with them long term is that it isn't seen as a value proposition.

Examining why having a wife isn't considered a value proposition for most men is going to turn up some interesting data. I don't think there is a silver bullet here, but the tendency over the last fifty years for the law to favor women in _all_ disputes relating to marriage probably didn't help. Another issue is that having children isn't considered a value proposition, either, and that was a significant justification for marriage in the past.

The article is about Canada, where FAA regulations don't apply. America has dumb regulations on drones. Most other countries are far more sensible.

Maybe Canada has fewer goofballs with drones who think their hobby takes precedence over people's lives and property.

http://www.deseretnews.com/art...

more people obviously can afford to HAVE a household

To misquote Babbage: I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a statement.

Home ownership is 3rd lowest ever.

Marriage is at an all time low.

Family size is decreasing - YOUR OWN STATS. Meanwhile, Cohabitation is increasing. So are non-sexual roommates.

So please explain what the hell went on in your head that produced the output "more people obviously can afford to HAVE a household", because all signs are pointing the other way.

In Utah, a man was arrested for taking pics holding his kid
http://www.deseretnews.com/art...

17 days later, charges finally dropped....
http://archive.sltrib.com/stor...

Sure he got off, but the damage to this man is without end.

SCOTUS occasionally gets it wrong, and sometimes that stands for a long time. Or perhaps you would prefer that the Dred Scott decision were still the law of the land?

Sorry, but the "looney leftists" on the Supreme Court didn't interpret it that way until 2008 after the NRA and their backers, Remington and Winchester threw millions of dollars at politicians.

If you have evidence showing that any of the SCOTUS Justices took money from Remington, Winchester, or any other entity in return for a favorable ruling, I'm sure the national media would be extremely interested. Otherwise, you have conflated the traditional vices of the legislative and judicial branches. US legislators certainly take in quite a bit of (questionable) monies from all sorts of (unseemly) interests. In contrast, SCOTUS Justices, not needing to concern themselves with campaigning and re-election, do not.

Prior to the '80s the NRA was small organization primarily composed of local hunters, the gun and ammunition manufacturers threw millions at the NRA and turned it into a lobby promoting all sorts of gun rights.

While you're generally correct about the historical demographics of the membership, the NRA supported the 2nd Amendment as an individual right for all, specifically including self defense, well before the 1980s. All you have to do is find some old issues of "American Rifleman" magazine to confirm this for yourself. Perhaps your local library has some available. There's a section titled Armed Citizen (usually one page) near the front with reprints of news articles where a citizen defended himself or others with a lawfully owned firearm, often without firing it.

The NRA was founded in 1871 with a focus on marksmanship, not hunting - obviously one needs good marksmanship to be an effective hunter, but hunting was not the original intent of the organization. That said, the NRA did grow to focus more on hunting rights than on pure 2nd Amendment rights in the early 1900s, but given the composition of the membership at the time, that shouldn't be surprising. They even supported the 1934 and parts of the 1968 federal gun control legislation. That stance changed in 1975 with the establishment of the NRA-ILA, not as a result of monied interests from Remington, Winchester, etc., but due to growing concerns over gun control legislation, mostly at the federal level, but also increasingly at the state and local levels. The Second Amendment Foundation and Gun Owners of America were also founded in the mid-1970s, not at the behest of arms makers, but due to concerns over problematic (in their view) gun control legislation.

It should be noted that one of the long-held euphemistic criticisms of the NRA by supporters of an originalist interpretation of the 2nd Amendment is that "NRA" stands for "Negotiating Rights Away". That critique was rooted in the NRA's willingness to trust the US government to be reasonable, even as officials such as Janet Reno openly declared a need to eliminate civilian ownership of firearms which "have no sporting purposes". The 2nd Amendment isn't about the "right to track and take game". In recent years, the NRA has been more active in defending 2nd Amendment rights, and that euphemism seems to be fading.

FWIW, I'm not an NRA, GOA, or 2AF member, but I've started to give it serious consideration in recent years.

- T

There are targeted attacks where people are told to withdraw some amount of money from the bank or their loved ones suffer the consequences.

Two cases here from 2015:
http://legacy.wbir.com/story/n...
http://www.mansfieldnewsjourna...

And here's one from 1992:
http://www.deseretnews.com/art...

Using an ATM card isn't any safer, with robberies involving forced ATM withdrawals happening frequently. Fraudulent activity is covered by banking regulations and FDIC insurance.

If correlation = causation, there may be something else we need to take a look at: http://politicsthatwork.com/gr...

The rest of these point out that you're statement of "easy access to firearms actually protects people" is most likely bullshit.

http://www.factcheck.org/2015/...

http://www.nationaljournal.com...

http://www.nydailynews.com/new...

http://www.inquisitr.com/18064...

http://www.deseretnews.com/top...

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/50...

Two of the top ten stats with the strictest gun laws. Obviously the laws are not working http://www.deseretnews.com/top...

So you're talking about the city of Up Your Own Ass, in the state of Nowhere? Got it.

EMTALA is a federal law which access to the ER, but despite the insistence of Republicans everywhere, it isn't healthcare. The ER will stop your bleeding and patch you up, but once you're not immediately dying, if you can't pay for a room, you're back on the street.

I know it just boils your balls that a Democrat was in charge at the time, but Clinton (who was twice the man and three times as fiscally conservative than Bush the lesser ever was) signed the bill that killed welfare. It's dead, get the fuck over it already.

If you weren't a flaming retarded troll, you could have at least cited Utah for their Housing First program that essentially eliminated chronic homelessness (They know who the 178 homeless people that are left, and are working on getting them to recognize that they need help)

They are the only state in the nation with such a program.

A good write-up on the current abysmal tax situation in New York: http://national.deseretnews.co...

Fortunately, at least Shatner is still with us. And his toupee will live on forever.

http://www.deseretnews.com/art...

"But crime experts warn that statistics about child homicides and how often such cases are solved are imperfect. Participation in the FBI's Supplementary Homicide Report program is entirely voluntary. Many police departments decline to report how many cases they've solved or how many cases involved juvenile victims."

You are only as good as the numbers you are given to work with. I'd rather go with reported missing numbers (which are more accurate) then try to whittle it down than look at numbers that aren't consistently or completely reported to the FBI. This is one of the issues I have with these numbers and reports of how the numbers appear today.

the whole thing may either turn around or at least shift toward day-time electricity being cheaper simply because of basic economy principles, not because of some malicious intent.

We should stop pretending that there is anything like a "Law of Supply and Demand" when it comes to energy.

And if you want proof of "malicious intent"...

http://thinkprogress.org/clima...

http://www.tulsaworld.com/news...

http://www.deseretnews.com/art...

The Koch Brothers (and others) are pushing these "solar tariff", sun tax and surcharge laws all across the country. The rationale in their advertisements has varied from place to place, but generally it's "Solar energy is costing us money so people who use solar energy should pay double, one way or the other, because screw you, that's why". And yes, it even applies to solar which is not on the grid. So if you want to set up some solar panels to augment your daytime energy use and maybe a battery for night time, be prepared to pay this new tariff because of the Koch Brothers and their representatives at Americans For Prosperity

They're determined to send a message: "If you think you can leave us and go back to your mother, think again sweetie, or maybe you'll run into another door."

"Is About More Than Just Drugs"

But really...it's about drugs. You don't need to sell Beanie Babies anonymously.

Oh yea?
http://www.deseretnews.com/art...

Have faith, eventually everything ends up illegal.

FYI: The "Mormon Church" as you describe it is actually a team at BYU that specializes in genetic identification of family relationships.

Which is funded by the Mormons as it's Brigham Young University

One of their geneticists is one of the top in the country and to date, they have identified a number of unknown mummies who have been floating around various museums.

And he's also a high ranking member of the Church of Latter Day Saints

They have also built a genetic family tree. There is all sorts of things one can learn about ancient Egypt this way. (For example, just because historical records say that two people are related, it doesn't mean they are genetically.)

LDS also has strategic partnerships with Ancestry.com and FamilySearch Do I need to connect the dots for you here too?

The BYU team has no interest in it from a religious perspective. King Tut wouldn't provide any additional "religious" information than the other 30+ mummies they have already worked with. They are very interested in it from a scientific perspective which is another way of saying that they are curious as all scientists should be.

I'm not denying their scientific acumen. It's obvious they are very adept at what they are doing. But the reason this program exists in BYU is to find proof that the native americans were really descended from a lost tribe of Jewish settlers who came to America. Even if the head of this program, who is a high ranking Mormon, isn't interested in this; the LDS would use this as a reason to posthumously baptize Tutankhamun.

That's the reason for the law. Some woman in New Mexico was fined for refusing to be a wedding photographer for a lesbian wedding.

http://www.deseretnews.com/art...

The law is to keep innocent people from being bullied by (or with in the case of lawsuits) the government for choosing who they do business with.

It will also be the backbone of their diet in the process. It won't just be empty calories but will be a good chunk of most of what they need to live on since we are mammals.

Lots of people cannot consume milk past infancy. Most of the population of the world actually. About 30-50 million people in the US are lactose intolerant including 75% of Native Americans and 90% of those of Asian descent. Worldwide about 65% of people have some form of lactose intolerance. The percentage of people in north america and europe that can consume milk products without ill effects is actually unusually high.

Also bear in mind that most milk is heavily subsidized in price. The real price of a gallon of milk is somewhere closer to $4-$8 per gallon. Even higher for organic stuff.

You also can't easily replace that calcium.

You do not need milk or milk products to get the needed amount of calcium. There are plenty of fortified foods with extra calcium. Dark leafy greens are an excellent source as are sardines, soybeans, tofu, oranges, sesame seeds, almonds, salmon, white beans, figs, broccoli, and quite a few other foods. The notion that you need milk to get adequate calcium is easily and demonstrably not true.

The moment it hits the brakes it transmit an emergency network STOP code to cars behind it. They are "bumper to bumper", or within 1 meter of each other. Every car in the chain behind will apply maximum braking force the very moment it receives the STOP code, bringing the entire chain of cars to a smooth halt.

You can imagine what would happen as soon as some sociopathic teenagers/hackers/terrorists/what-have-you figured out how to hack their car's firmware to send the STOP code at the press of a dashboard button.

A hacker could certainly send out a STOP code, but all it would do is bring the cars to a safe stop. (Obviously, the car firmware would be programmed to come to a stop that would not subject the occupants to damaging G forces.) This would be far more complex, and far less dangerous than the people pointing LASERs at aircraft now.

While irritating, it wouldn't cause a fatal pile-up.

For the hacker, they would face felony penalties. Similar penalties are already on the books.

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/532992/SIGNAL-TAMPERING-TO-BRING-FELONY-CHARGES.html?pg=all

Every car could have a constellation of sensors that would combine the wireless network info as well as motion sensor and camera data:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdlSvtUInu0

As I write this, I don't see a single mention on cnn.com of this story.

As if CNN is the only news outlet.
In our opinion: Make the NSA accountable
NSA maps some Americans' social connections, says report
N.S.A. Gathers Data on Social Connections of U.S. Citizens

I first heard about it on Good Morning America this morning. It was an AP story. Getting your news from a single source isn't very smart.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_and_radiation_accidents_by_death_toll

http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/pgms/worknotify/uranium.html

http://m.deseretnews.com/article/250010691/Uranium-mining-left-a-legacy-of-death.html?pg=all

http://journals.lww.com/health-physics/Abstract/1992/11000/Navajo_Birth_Outcomes_in_the_Shiprock_Uranium.5.aspx

Etc

...as Yorke was able to pull the albums from Spotify. In the old days, he would have had to take the label to court to block distribution (see Ringo Starr's suit against Chips Moman)

That is true, but I thought that part of the reason this is being discussed is because the message people are trying to boycott isn't in 'Ender's Game'. So you aren't disagreeing with a work's message, you are disagreeing with the politics of the IP owner of the work.

Well, actually, I'm not all that fond of the messages in Ender's Game either.

But even if I thought Ender's Game was an important movie with positive moral lessons in it, I would, in fact, be boycotting it because I "disagree[] with the politics of the IP owner of the work".

Card isn't just a random bigot. He actually joined the board of directors of the main lobbying organization against same-sex marriage, and publicly advocated the overthrow of the government if same-sex marriage were made legal. (Of course, now it's "moot".)

Some works can be separated from their authors, or excused as having flaws endemic to the time they were created. But there's a continuum between that and profiting a leader of a movement you disagree with deeply. I don't know where the line is - there probably isn't a bright sharp line anyway - but Card is way past that line.

From the Deseret News, no less.

Umm, let me think ... opening a case, like on PayPal? Where the two can confront each other? Scanned IDs? Hand written papers like certificate of birth is hard to fake. It's not like everyone is a fucking Photoshop guru. And if you provide a scan with high dpi, it will be really hard to fake. Not fool proof, but discouraging. And if you can't solve that, warn that police might be notified and consequences could be nasty.
Even if you can't handle that, at least pretend you're trying. But they can't do anything about it, because this kind of work is conducted probably by some african vilagers. And moving anything in that direction would cut a slice from Zuckerberg's pie. Who would like that?

Beanie Babies are no longer illegal immigrants. The maker of the much sought-after toys, Ty Inc., agreed Friday to allow international travelers to bring up to 30 of the stuffed animals into the country. The previous limit was one."I'm glad they loosened their grip on them," said U.S. Customs Supervisor Bill Timothy in Port Huron, where the Blue Water Bridge links Michigan to Canada. "It makes our job easier." Until this week, border inspectors had to tell people carrying too many Beanies from Canada to either return them or turn them over. Customs has already seized thousands of undeclared Beanie Babies. They will probably be burned, said Pat Jones, a Customs Service spokesman in Washington.

Another case against inferring rank on Senators based on Seniority: You may get somebody very qualified to lead however you may just get an old fart that has nothing better to do with his retirement.

There was a congressman from Mississippi, Jamie Whittenwho was on the house appropriations committee. Because of Seniority rank, he was the second longest serving member of the house, ever, obtained that powerful position because of those rules alone. He pumped billions into Mississippi and he along with Byrd are always named the worst in terms of pork barrel politics. Funny, they were both Democrats too.

Anyway, to make this tech news worthy, from personal experience here as well, there was a place in Iuka Mississippi that had been a weapons depot, a site for a Tennessee Valley Authority Nuclear Power Plant which construction stopped after Three Mile Island and finally the site of the now defunct NASA ASRM project. Billions have been spent in that location and it also has the distinction for being a red line district area that after the Nuke Plant construction was halted, there was a very high incidents of "lightening strikes" causing total loss house fires in the area.

Anyway through his advocacy, Whitten pushed for the ASRM (Advanced Solid Rocket Motor) plant to be at Yellow Creek, Iuka MS.

http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4310/ch14.htm

largely through the advocacy of U.S. Representative Jamie Whitten, chairman of the powerful and influential House Appropriations Committee, the Yellow Creek site near Iuka, Mississippi, was chosen as the ASRM manufacturing site in July 1988. The Iuka location, on Tennessee Valley Authority property, was in close proximity to the MSFC at Huntsville, Alabama. At the same time, the SSC was selected as the site for static firing and certifying the new solid rocket motors.57

This guy pumped billions into Mississippi and while he created a spur of job growth, ultimately it all fell apart without government support. The ASRM plans were abandoned in 1993 and in a deal with Thiolkol, the RSRM contractor, they were going to do Nozzle/Manufacturing Refurbishment there. This was of course to "do something" with all of the Iuka facilities that were there, lots of buildings and infrastructure. It was a make work project, more pork. It eventually fell apart though when NASA's budget was needing cuts. But it was also taking jobs from one state and putting them in another. Talk about the phrase "all politics is local."

Sad really, what a waste of money.

Another case against inferring rank on Senators based on Seniority: You may get somebody very qualified to lead however you may just get an old fart that has nothing better to do with his retirement.

There was a congressman from Mississippi, Jamie Whittenwho was on the house appropriations committee. Because of Seniority rank, he was the second longest serving member of the house, ever, obtained that powerful position because of those rules alone. He pumped billions into Mississippi and he along with Byrd are always named the worst in terms of pork barrel politics. Funny, they were both Democrats too.

Anyway, to make this tech news worthy, from personal experience here as well, there was a place in Iuka Mississippi that had been a weapons depot, a site for a Tennessee Valley Authority Nuclear Power Plant which construction stopped after Three Mile Island and finally the site of the now defunct NASA ASRM project. Billions have been spent in that location and it also has the distinction for being a red line district area that after the Nuke Plant construction was halted, there was a very high incidents of "lightening strikes" causing total loss house fires in the area.

Anyway through his advocacy, Whitten pushed for the ASRM (Advanced Solid Rocket Motor) plant to be at Yellow Creek, Iuka MS.

http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4310/ch14.htm

largely through the advocacy of U.S. Representative Jamie Whitten, chairman of the powerful and influential House Appropriations Committee, the Yellow Creek site near Iuka, Mississippi, was chosen as the ASRM manufacturing site in July 1988. The Iuka location, on Tennessee Valley Authority property, was in close proximity to the MSFC at Huntsville, Alabama. At the same time, the SSC was selected as the site for static firing and certifying the new solid rocket motors.57

This guy pumped billions into Mississippi and while he created a spur of job growth, ultimately it all fell apart without government support. The ASRM plans were abandoned in 1993 and in a deal with Thiolkol, the RSRM contractor, they were going to do Nozzle/Manufacturing Refurbishment there. This was of course to "do something" with all of the Iuka facilities that were there, lots of buildings and infrastructure. It was a make work project, more pork. It eventually fell apart though when NASA's budget was needing cuts. But it was also taking jobs from one state and putting them in another. Talk about the phrase "all politics is local."

Sad really, what a waste of money.

Endemic Corruption - How your American tax dollars are spent by Israel.

Fascinating. And you know this how?

You're assuming that those jets were not ones the Israelis purchased? Do you have any grounds for that?

Were these jet engines stolen at an American Air Force base due to "endemic corruption," or the activity of simple thieves?
HAFB THIEVES CANNOT SET THE VALUE OF 3 STOLEN JET ENGINES, SAYS JUDGE

Do you have equal concerns about Venezuela and Iran? Or just the Jewish state?

Do you think Israel is less corrupt, as corrupt, or more corrupt than Egypt, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Palestinian Authority, all of whom receive large amounts of US aid?

Speaking of endemic:
Rising Anti-Semitism on the Left
The European Left and Its Trouble With Jews
The Full-Blown Return of Anti-Semitism in Europe

They did record audio (in some cities atleast) - http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865564397/UHP-comes-under-fire-over-internal-memo-questioning-troopers-arrest-practices.html?pg=all

UHP has already done similar. This girl would routinely leave her mic in her car when doing DUI stops. http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865564397/UHP-comes-under-fire-over-internal-memo-questioning-troopers-arrest-practices.html?pg=all

Wrong assumption there, buddy. Turns out that poor people give more to charity than rich people.

The Gates are a positive example, among the rich. Relatively speaking, they aren't that much more charitable than the 99%. So your question is addressed at the wrong audience.

That's not true, and the article you link makes it clear that it's not true: the poor give a greater proportion of their wealth to charity, which is different to giving more to charity.

It's also important to consider who receives the money. The Economist recently had an article analysing charitable giving in America, and found that the majority of charitable giving among non-wealthy people was to religious institutions that they personally attended. I'm loath to suggest that there are different "classes" of charitable giving, but I would also be hesitant to say that it's more generous to give more money but to things more closely connected to yourself.

As for your relative generosity point, that's surely just bonkers: your link claims that the "99%" give 4% of their income; Gates has given away around 50% of his net worth since 2007, and (according to Wikipedia) has pledged to eventually give away 95%. I don't see how you can look at those figures and arrive at the conclusion that he's not bee much more charitable than the ordinary person.

Wrong assumption there, buddy. Turns out that poor people give more to charity than rich people.

The Gates are a positive example, among the rich. Relatively speaking, they aren't that much more charitable than the 99%. So your question is addressed at the wrong audience.

You're a fucking moron. I'm seriously angry.

Robber barons have long played this scam, and there are still people falling for it? You're probably also a friend of drug trade, forced prostitution and shooting people, because the Mafia is known to support the local churches and in the USA the italian communities, yes?

Gates' riches are ill-gotten. That a large part of them is now given to charity is a PR stunt, but most importantly, it does not offset the damage, because monopoly rent causes more damage than it generates in profit for the monopolist.

The "look, our robber baron has turned philanthrop, all hail him" mentality is the same stupidity that still believes in "trickle down", even though it's been shown not to work for decades.
And poor people actually give more to charity than wealthy people. So it stands to argue that if all those billions hadn't been robbed through monopoly rent from the general public, as much or more of it would have ended up going to charity.

The Gates aren't heroes, you moron. They robbed your farm and slaughtered your pigs and you applaud them for donating your goat to the poor neighbours down the road? They "show the best side of capitalism" in the same sense that the mafia don who donates to his local church shows the best side of organized crime.

I have an even bigger problem with legislators who are more concerned with protecting irresponsible behavior by gun owners than they are with protecting the public.

I live in Utah. The only parts of the state where anywhere close to even a quarter of households have firearms are low-population areas far away from the Wasatch Front (and far from this fire, the smoke from which was easily visible from where I live). Also, having a firearm in the house certainly doesn't imply that you're a target shooter.

Gang activity and burglary may be lower in Kanab or whatever than in LA but that has little to do with gun ownership.

I don't have any problem with people owning guns. I do have a problem with people leaving spent ammunition and casings all over everywhere, behaving irresponsibly by target shooting outside of gun ranges during a red flag fire warning, and brandishing assault rifles in public. I have an even bigger problem with legislators who are more concerned with protecting irresponsible behavior by gun owners than they are with protecting the public.

I live in Utah. The only parts of the state where anywhere close to even a quarter of households have firearms are low-population areas far away from the Wasatch Front (and far from this fire, the smoke from which was easily visible from where I live). Also, having a firearm in the house certainly doesn't imply that you're a target shooter.

Gang activity and burglary may be lower in Kanab or whatever than in LA but that has little to do with gun ownership.

I don't have any problem with people owning guns. I do have a problem with people leaving spent ammunition and casings all over everywhere, behaving irresponsibly by target shooting outside of gun ranges during a red flag fire warning, and brandishing assault rifles in public. I have an even bigger problem with legislators who are more concerned with protecting irresponsible behavior by gun owners than they are with protecting the public.

The government declares a 20 km evacuation zone around nuclear disaster site causing mass panic and everyone leaves, including rescue workers. The unrescued, sick and elderly are stranded and left to die.

"drivers and transportation company workers fled or refused to come to Okuma because of radiation fears."
"We knew there would be risks, but we were left with no choice," Sakashita told the AP. "There is no doubt in my mind that if there had been better planning in advance by the city, this person would not have died. The same is true for the people who died while being evacuated from Futaba. Their deaths were a direct result of the nuclear accident." Masahiro Sakashita - nursing home director in Minami-Soma whose residents faced starvation and lack of medicine because of the evacuation.

Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear evacuation fatal for old, sick
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/765558622/Fukushima-Dai-ichi-nuclear-evacuation-fatal-for-old-sick.html?pg=all

"Nevertheless, rumor spread quickly that the radiation emitted by the explosion was so deadly that it would kill everyone in the vicinity unless they escaped immediately.... Much later, elderly people, hospital patients and physically and mentally handicapped people were evacuated. A lack of suitable accommodation for these unfortunate souls meant that they were transferred from one place to another, sometimes spending long hours in cars. Some were moved to large cities hundreds of kilometers away. By March 15, 50 elderly people had died. On that day, the No 2 and No 3 reactor buildings also exploded, causing anxiety among people in other regions of Fukushima prefecture, as well as neighboring prefectures and even Tokyo. In addition, 1,800 people were missing as a result of the tsunami, but high levels of radiation prevented search and rescue work."

"6,600 deaths resulted from the devastating effects of the aftermath of the earthquake and the nuclear power accident. Many people committed suicide, like the 64-year-old farmer, who had produced organic cabbages for more than 30 years in Sugagawa, 70 km away. He took his life on March 24. Prior to the disaster, Fukushima Prefecture had 150,000 hectares of rice and vegetable fields and 80,000 farming households.... The nuclear explosion subjected the entire region, as well as areas far beyond, to radiation levels equivalent to 20 times that inflicted on Hiroshima by the atomic bomb. Radiation continues to permeate the surrounds. The damage to the agricultural and fishery industries is beyond speculation. In addition to the initial destruction, “hot spots” - places contaminated with high levels of radiation, such as the village of Iidate – outside the 20km zone continue to cause great concern. It is most unlikely that those who lived within the 20km zone or in these hot-spot areas will ever be able to return to their homes and resume their interrupted lives."

An interesting bit...

"People in Fukushima are also facing “social discrimination,” in the same way that atomic bombing survivors in Hiroshima and Nagasaki have done for decades. In Japan it is widely believed that many children born to victims of the atomic bombings carry genetic defects, caused by their parents’ exposure to high levels of radiation. As yet there is no clear medical or scientific evidence to prove such claims. However, many people still try to avoid marrying the descendants of atomic bomb survivors. Sadly, this same myth is now emerging with regard to Fukushima. Such discrimination is also happening in schools, where children from Fukushima are being bullied by their classmates, who think radiation is contaminating."

A Lesson from the Fukushima Nuclear Accident
http://www.japanfocus.org/events/view/149

Loss of life after evacuation: lessons learned from the Fukushima accid

consenting humans

Who would not consent to be an organ donor? I'm curious. I want to know what kind of person says, "No, I don't want any of my parts used to save anyone's life after I die."

Is it a superstitious thing or something? I'm not joking or trying to provoke. I cannot grasp not being willing to donate one's organs after death.

There are religious groups that discourage it. It's an area of active argument in Judaism. Here's an article that discusses some different religious opposition. Generally speaking, a lot of religions that posit an afterlife, have individuals within that religion who come to the conclusion that they'll be reincarnated missing their body parts, even though apparently no religions actually say anything like that.

But it's my belief the main reason is because people think maybe a miracle will happen and they'll recover from the coma/brain death/whatever but that instead they'll have life support switched off to have their organs removed.

Not for very long, though. If you follow the media, espicially the more conservative media, there is a fair bit of public outrage at the ruling - lots of headlines along the lines of 'New York legalises child pornography!'. So much that within less than a day of the ruling, the legislature was already in the process of passing a bill to reverse it. It will, without a shadow of a doubt, sail through unchallenged.
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/765576135/New-York-bill-quickly-follows-court-ruling-on-child-porn.html

If students at the University of Utah where I studied Physics can run one of 33 teaching nuclear reactors in the U.S., I'm pretty sure letting them near an email server would probably be OK. http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705368841/University-of-Utah-has-own-nuclear-reactor-tucked-away.html

When I was working on a CS degree, one of the work study jobs a number of people in CS could get was computer operator on the campus computer system, which in fact gave them the keys to the kingdom. Unsurprisingly, the world didn't end as a result, nor were the operators grades ever 4.0 across the board.

-- Terry