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>>>morons here

NPR has trained you well. Repeat the NPR mantra after me: "Libertarians? Morons. Constitutionalists? Morons. Pro-small-government? Morons. We shall do everything we can to marginalize or just plain ignore these anti-government persons... including firing our one and only Libertarian off the staff for something he said while off the clock."

Well done Citizen.
NPR admits Liberal Bias - http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3827/is_200311/ai_n9317144/

US Court Of Appeals Lifts Texas Ban On Sales Of Quicken Family Lawyer (one of the first hits in a search for "quicken family lawyer texas" sans quotes) states:

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has vacated a judgment restraining Parsons Technology Inc. from selling and distributing Quicken Family Lawyer Version 8.0 and Quicken Family Lawyer '99 legal software within the State of Texas.

I see myself as a guy with a gun and a family

You see you are still taking it personally and not thinking about what the imperfect other guy with a gun is going to do. There is no way this can be discussed rationally unless you consider people other than yourself. To avoid later confusion, I learnt to shoot a gun at 7 years old and I'm not opposed to responsible gun use.

Gun rights ... individualist/libertarian ... philosophical basis for founding America ... US Constitution

It looks like the earlier poster was right and it's not possible to discuss this issue in isolation in an adult manner and the it's all going to come down to choices of party and following party lines.

As for the definition of "civilian"

The first link for googling "police civilian staff" is http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2194/is_n11_v63/ai_16473802/
Notice that is the FBI using it. I don't really care about your pet peeve about how you think the word should be used because I cannot see inside your head so only have common usage and the dictionary to go by. You knew what I meant anyway so the entire exercise of attempting to "correct" me was pointless unless it was some silly attempt of trying to make my points appear worthless by making me appear to be poorly educated. In return I've just assumed you are in a place with a lot of local military so local usage overcomes the dictionary meaning. Please stop attempting to "correct" me on this since it is incredibly obvious that I am correct in the part of the world where I sit - it's a big world, live with it.

Gosh I am paranoid but somehow I just always keep looking for what is MISSING from a story. So why the bomb threat? Which is by the way illegal. Why did he threathen people who had no way of knowing whether he was serious or not?

Some of the highschool shootings had the criminals making claims they would do something as well. So clearly the police now HAS to act when someone makes a public threath.

Yet many a slashdotter is saying that terrorists wouldn't use twitter to announce it? How small minded, only terrorists use bombs now? Only terrorists carry out attacks? Plenty of nutters do as well AND some of them make announcements about it. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1355/is_17_112/ai_n27436671/

If only then people had listened. How is the police to know if someone is just spouting off or making a serious threat? Damned if they do nothing, damned if they do something.

Erm...yeah...except the fact that this wouldn't stop him from bombing the airport if he actually wanted to. He is still a free man, he is still perfectly able to kill anyone he wants should he choose to - and do you seriously think the police investigate all statements of this nature? Of course they don't because they usually use discretion. Your average police officer knows the difference between a serious threat and a comment made in the heat of the moment and I would guess that most police officers also recognise when people are joking.

A fine and a criminal record will *not* stop somebody who wants to unleash violence on random strangers so what's the point in even doing it? If anything it would just make him even more bitter and hate society even more. If they really thought he was a genuine threat the punishment would have been much harsher and hopefully they would have attempted to rehabilitate him. Instead he just got a fine and a criminal record - an extremely harsh punishment given the supposed "crime" but if he was actually genuine in his desire to slaughter innocent people (which he wasn't) this punishment would hardly prevent him from going through with his threat.

So who does this punishment benefit? Nobody. Now that this guy has a criminal record he is going to find it more difficult to get a decent job, meaning he will contribute less to the tax base than he would of before (he was a trainee accountant). All because of a flippant comment on Twitter. The depressing thing is that it's not even that shocking, it's indicative of the legal system we have forged for ourselves in this country.

Gosh I am paranoid but somehow I just always keep looking for what is MISSING from a story. So why the bomb threat? Which is by the way illegal. Why did he threathen people who had no way of knowing whether he was serious or not?

Some of the highschool shootings had the criminals making claims they would do something as well. So clearly the police now HAS to act when someone makes a public threath.

Yet many a slashdotter is saying that terrorists wouldn't use twitter to announce it? How small minded, only terrorists use bombs now? Only terrorists carry out attacks? Plenty of nutters do as well AND some of them make announcements about it. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1355/is_17_112/ai_n27436671/

If only then people had listened. How is the police to know if someone is just spouting off or making a serious threat? Damned if they do nothing, damned if they do something.

But the law is very clear, you are not allowed to make threats, no not even as a joke. Just try this at an airport "he got a bomb" and see what happens. But I wasn't serious? Tell that to the police dog chewing on your crotch.

Should the police have ignored the threat, like they ignored others that did turn out to be right? Or just put a fullscale alert on the airport just in case and let the taxpayer pay for it?

This story is just more evidence of the sad state of our voting population who just doesn't seem to be aware of the real world and its rules. If you do not like them vote to change them but don't go into some kind of hissy fit when long established laws end up biting you in the ass.

It reminds me of a story years ago when the british press went into sob story mode about a mum whose driving license was taking away and she needed it so badly... yeah... those anti-drunk driving laws sure do suck don't they. Guess what, freedom of speech does not exist in the UK, stop being suprised by it constantly and either change the law (and invite anarchy) or learn to accept that bomb threats are not allowed.

Real story: Asshole who wanted to show off got send to jail for breaking the law. Fellow assholes outraged that breaking the law is not allowed!

Really, this guy wasn't making a political statement, this was just someone wanting to scare others because his penis is to small. And before you get all outraged, answer me this. WHY did he send this message out into the world? When THAT reason gets reported I think his public sympathy outside wanker land will be lost instantly.

The device shown has the FCC ID number "O9EQ2438F-M" on the outside of the box, as required by law. FCC ID numbers can be looked up in the FCC database, where details of the device and pictures of the electronics are available. It's a cell phone module, of course. The FCC was told it was for "stolen currency tracking". The maker was Wavecom, since acquired by Sierra Wireless. The unit dates from 2005.

That's just a standard RF module. That application covers the addition of a spread-spectrum module to upgrade the cell access to support PCS networks. The base device, according to the FCC application, is FCC ID NBI-MTAG216. This is more interesting. It's a "Trac Pak V", from "Spectrum Management LLC" of Carrolton, TX.

When the spread-spectrum module was added, the company issued a press release about it. "Spectrum Management, L.L.C., a global provider of innovative physical and electronic security products which include its proprietary asset tracking and management systems, announced today the completion of its TracPac CS Tag and the development of an all-new web-based tracking and location system. Spectrum has combined technologies with Wavecom, a leading provider of pre-packaged wireless communications solutions for automotive, industrial and mobile professional applications, with a wide range of fully integrated modules and modems. The new Tag design pairs Wavecom's Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) module with GPSOne, and Spectrum's proprietary VHF homing technology to provide a wide range of Location Based Services (LBS). Spectrum Management expects to offer similar tracking and location services on Global System for Mobile (GSM) communications by simply substituting Wavecom's plug-in compatible GSM module."

Spectrum Management's predecessor company was ProNet, which was a public company in the 1990s. They were acquired by Metrocall, and the tracking business was split off as Electronic Tracking Systems. They started as a pager company, but branched out into tracking devices. From their SEC filing: "In 1988, the Company began to apply advanced wireless technology to the security business by marketing radio-activated electronic tracking systems to financial institutions. At December 31, 1996, the Company's security systems consisted of 29,501 miniature radio transmitters, or "TracPacs," in service." Most of these were leased to banks, and attached to items of value or hidden in bundles of currency. The 1990s model was a pre-GPS technology; they had to get local cops to install receivers (like LoJack does) for this to work. So it only worked in a few markets, and they were having trouble expanding, from their SEC filings. The newer technology doesn't have that limitation.

So it's a stock piece of law enforcement equipment, circa 2005.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1355/is_24_104/ai_111616826/

The govt settled in this case, presumably believing they'd lose more if the jury decided.

http://www.efoxlaw.com/lawyer-attorney-1518294.html
Settled for 2 million. Again, presumably they thought the jury would be worse.

Lynching was most often used in the American West were often carried out against accused criminals in custody. Lynching did not so much substitute for an absent legal system as to provide an alternative system that favored a particular social class or racial group.

Johnson County War, San Francisco Vigilance Movement and the lynching of over 160 Mexicans in California tend to differ from your description of lynching as a rustler/thief punishment

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2005/is_2_37/ai_111897839/pg_9/

"Contrary to the popular understanding, early territorial lynching did not flow from an absence or distance of law enforcement but rather from the social instability of early communities and their contest for property, status, and the definition of social order."
Michael J. Pfeifer, Rough Justice: Lynching and American Society, 1874-1947.

The Tuskegee Institute has recorded 3,446 lynchings of Blacks and 1,297 lynchings of whites between 1882 and 1968 in the South.

He lists the requirements for having a soul as:

- have intelligence
- free will
- freedom to love
- freedom to make decisions

Putting aliens to one side for the moment, as I don't think Lrrr is going to drop in on us tomorrow, I wonder how he feels about some intelligent animals.

Chimps, gorillas and other primates have been shown to fulfill these requirements to varying degrees. Dolphins have also. Would they baptize a dolphin? (How would you do that? Raise it out of water?)

I wondered if anyone ever asked Koko what gorillas think about a creator. Thanks to a Google search, I turned up this exchange:

Francine Patterson: "Who is God?"
Koko: "Me."
Patterson: "Who created the world?"
Koko: "Another woman."
(Source: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1252/is_12_131/ai_n8569017/?tag=content;col1 )

Somehow, I don't think Koko's religious outlook would gel with the Vatican's. ;-)

I can second that man's fears. I, unfortunately, have to suffer the lunacy that has been put in place in western countries by Lawyers and Safety practitioners, both whom are completely out of control. If you want to read one of many instances of stupidity, here's an example,

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_go2438/is_2_32/ai_n31352807/?tag=content;col1

Let's talk about "Contributory Negligence". If I am dealing with a moron who goes out of their way to harm themselves, have I done everything I possibly could have to protect that moron from themselves? "The sign said don't jump, but it didn't warn me of the dangers if I jumped". WHAT THE FUCK? And a LAWYER and SAFETY EXPERT had the BALLS to say that in a COURT OF LAW? what ever happened to personal accountability and common sense? rights and obligations?

Whilst this decision was moderated somewhat after a lengthy and protracted argument, there are many cases where no common-sense applies at all.

I would keep your factory in China too.
AC

Although perhaps just as significant of a misstep in your assumption is taking the statement of "the union representing Colgan's roughly 480 pilots" at face value. You do realize that the Airline Pilots Association represents most of the carriers in the US and Canada, right?

Nothing you've said or linked supports your position that unions aren't fighting against advances in flight data recorders. In particular, the one Union press release you linked doesn't even discuss the issues at hand.

That's because people are erroneously making that assumption when they are not taking that position.

Here's a winner I found from 2004 http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0UBT/is_30_18/ai_n6281128/

So you are taking an interview of one pilot, from 6 years ago, and trying to extrapolate that to cover the opinions of an entire staff of pilots, today?

Although perhaps just as significant of a misstep in your assumption is taking the statement of "the union representing Colgan's roughly 480 pilots" at face value. You do realize that the Airline Pilots Association represents most of the carriers in the US and Canada, right?

Wrong, but thanks for playing.

Nothing you've said or linked supports your position that unions aren't fighting against advances in flight data recorders.
In particular, the one Union press release you linked doesn't even discuss the issues at hand.

Here's a winner I found from 2004
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0UBT/is_30_18/ai_n6281128/

"The cockpit image recorder is not the answer" to missing or uncertain data in accident investigations, declared Capt. John Cox, executive air safety chairman for the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA).

Straight from the horses mouth, 4 years 8 months before the Colgan Air crash.
And FYI, the NTSB first recommended in-cockpit video in 2000.

First of all, the Declaration of Independence is not law in the United States and never has been. It has only sentimental and symbolic influence on our laws. The law has never followed these documents, and in fact for nearly a hundred years after the republic was formed the government did have the power to enslave people. The Declaration of Independence states that all men are created equal,

The Declaration of Independence is a declaration of the rights of ALL man, the foundation from which we declared out power to cede from our previous government with the goal of governing ourselves. Had you paid attention to what I wrote, I said that. I also said that the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution were implementations of self-governance that obviously didn't live up to the declaration of rights itself.

but the Constitution said for nearly a hundred years that slaves were 3/5 of a person. And then for a hundred years after that was repealed, the law said that blacks were not allowed to have the same opportunities as whites. This is not something that some shadowy force "the government" forced on the people. This was the common will of the people, as expressed through the laws made by their representatives.

And why was it the will of the people, do you know? It's for the same reason that the "life, liberty and property" were changed to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Northerners knew that counting slaves in the apportionment of Congress would give the south a secure advantage in the House of Representatives. Counting a slave as a full apportionment allotment, although the slaves had no right to vote, meant that the slave owners in the south would have an undue advantage in the House. Presciently, Ben Franklin warned that the South would further declare the slaves to be property, which is why the wording was changed in the Declaration of Independence, to help bolster the notion that people had the right to self-determination, that they were not the property of anyone else.

So no, the 3/5ths clause has nothing to do with thinking of blacks as less than human, and everything to do with making sure that the North would eventually be able to use their greater representation to eventually push for an end to slavery. Read the works of Frederick Douglass (a summary of how his views changed from your position)

You seem to have a really strange concept of government as an outside force acting on the people. The government is just a concept of the societal rules which we impose on each other by common consensus. There is no such thing as *more* or *less* government in a democracy. There is *more* or *less* regulation, *more* or *fewer* laws, but the government is just a rigidly defined system for enforcing the collective will of the people. There is no difference between "the people" and "the government." You cannot break apart the concept like that. "The Government" is simply the system we have for enacting the will of the people.

The government just passed a health care law that 75% of the population didn't support and even the Speaker of the House said that they had to pass the bill before we could find out what is in it. THAT is "enacting the will of the people?"

The US Federal government is limited to the nineteen powers enumerated to it in the Constitution and no more. An overstep of those powers, an encroachment on power not granted to it, IS, by definition, more government, and an unlawful government at that since it erodes your natural rights (which were further ensured by the oft neglected Ninth and Tenth Amendments). Now, there can be more or less regulation created for a power granted to the government. It doesn't matter if the immigration law is 1 page or 1500 pages, since that is within the scope of Congress to legislate. More regulation has negative effects as well, e

Someone wrote a book about it: The Confederate Dirty War

A short review.

The book details how elements within the Confederacy, acting officially or otherwise, developed and attempted numerous plans to inflict terror and death on the Union populace and bring down the government. Singer introduces the reader to such shadowy characters as Professor Richard Sears McCulloch, who resigned a faculty chair at Columbia College to assist the Confederacy in making a chemical weapon; Luke Pryor Blackburn, a physician and, later, governor of Kentucky, who allegedly spread smallpox and yellow fever throughout the North.

This is a war against other Christians and fellow countrymen. Imagine if South Carolinians were under the thumb of Muslim or Chinese forces.

Air Force Planning Giant Spy Airship
http://www.military.com/news/article/March-2009/air-force-planning-giant-spy-airship.html

ILC Dover has extended its contract with Lockheed Martin to provide lighter-than-air "aerostats", very similar to a blimp. The aerostats are used in Afghanistan and Iraq to provide surveillance and communication for U.S. troops.
http://whyy.org/cms/news/regional-news/delaware/2010/06/24/delaware-company-builds-unmanned-airships-for-u-s-military/40647

Iraqi conflict brings increased interest in military airships
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3738/is_200307/ai_n9258465/

And in case you were wondering, it's not just the US that's interested in modern airship technology. China has plans for them too.
http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=4649479

It's a common observation that small companies hire more people than big ones. This is a myth. The small company jobs don't last as long. The numbers on people hired are easy to get, but the longitudinal studies which track workers over many years tell a different story. It's necessary to distinguish between career progress and churn.

Most startups fail. The median life of newly formed businesses in the US is about three years. (That's pre-recession.) Most venture-funded companies fail. (From talks I've been to by VCs, the most likely outcome is what VCs call a "zombie" - not successful enough to pay back its investors, but just barely able, after downsizing, to pay its current bills and keep operating. Many dot-coms ended up in zombie mode, limping along for years.)

There's a long-term effect that's even more troublesome. Knowledge, as an economic resource, may be mined out. The cost of obtaining new knowledge can exceed its commercial value. Big corporate R&D labs doing basic research, as GE, AT&T, Xerox, HP and IBM once did, are a thing of the past. That trend peaked in the 1950s and 1960s. Venture capital took up some of the slack, but even that is no longer working. Venture capital funds, as a class, have lost money each year since 2000. That's new; from 1970 to 2000, most VC firms were profitable.

There were 543 collisions per year in Toronto involving children under 18, across 1050 schools, from 2000 to 2005. That's 0.518 collisions per school per year. That's 1 collision per school per 705 days. That's 1 collision per school per 16900 hours. On a busy street with 2000 vehicles per hour, that's 1 collision per school per 33,800,000 vehicles.

Assuming a more average rate of 1000 vehicles per hour, that's one collision per school per 16,900,000 vehicles.

It looks like the actual odds, as measured in Toronto, are about 1 in 20 million. 50 years of someone else's life actually saves 200 million seconds, which is 6.3 years. I apologize for the mistake.

Taking into account the increased proportion of kids hit during peak hours (before/after school and lunch), the odds only decrease by 50%. That's still 50 years vs. 12.6. Speeders are still selfish.

I'm intentionally placing no trust in the statement that nothing was happening at the school. First, because I've never known a school (of any level) to be completely empty. Second, because I've never known a driver to hit someone they saw well ahead of time. Third, because if observation were being considered, I'd have to go compare reaction times to speed, and frankly I'd rather spend my time going slowly through school zones. The comparison is unequal by a factor of 4. Is the GP really four times more observant than the average Toronto driver?

"In a trend that we've seen across the country, police have become increasingly hostile to bystanders recording their actions. You can read some examples here, here and here."

It has been obvious to me that he shouldn't be CEO since about 11 years ago when he made the comment There is such an overvaluation of technology stocks that it is absurd. I would include our stock in that category." Although he was telling the truth, the #1 job of a CEO is to prop up the stock price, not drive it down. The officers of a company have a fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders to preserve market value; Steve failed.

If I were SpaceX founder Elon Musk, I'd be hopping mad right now. After developing Falcon9 and Dragon on the basis of a truly competitive commercial space program, the porkbarrel senators for aerospace/defense contractor states wrote a new NASA budget to basically hand money over to Boeing and the rest of the usual cast of trough-feeders to continue but with changes and more delays the Ares/Orion program.

I think you're conflating two separate things, here, which is understandable, because it's kind of convoluted. The thing is, Boeing is involved in -both- the commercial crew capsule, and is also involved with the Ares program (they're contractors on the upper stage, but LM is the contractor for the Orion capsule). If the current push in Congress for a government-designed launch vehicle goes through, Boeing will also probably be one of the main contractors.

I personally think their cost-plus government-designed launch vehicle work is rather unfortunate, but their fixed-price commercial crew work is pretty awesome. It's important for them to be a competitor in the commercial crew arena, and Elon Musk actually agrees:

(This is from a May interview, and Boeing's changed their tone a fair bit since then. I could've sworn I saw a more recent interview with Musk where he stated that he foresees SpaceX being a cheaper provider alongside Boeing/ULA, but I can't find it)

http://findarticles.com/p/news-articles/analyst-wire/mi_8077/is_20100415/elon-musk-ceo-space-exploration/ai_n53180745/

BRENNAN: But when you look at your business, it's a really interesting venture here. But it is relatively untested. We heard from NASA's chief himself who said he might be more comfortable working with a Boeing, with a Northrop Grumman. Why would a start-up like yours really be able to compete in this space? Relatively untested.

MUSK: Yes, and I agree with that assessment. And I agree with the administrator. In fact, the opponents of Constellation cancellation have tried to strong arm the argument by claiming that Constellation will be cancelled and handed over just to SpaceX, which is actually false.

In fact, what will happen is that there will be multiple providers of space transport to orbit. And Boeing and Lockheed will in fact almost certainly be the largest recipients of that funding. They just won't make quite as much as they would have made under the old program. So hence their opposition.

I do think there's a good likelihood that SpaceX will be one of those providers. But we will be just one provider among many.

what?

Back in 1999, a teacher at my High School was injured because a kid thought a dry ice bomb in a trash can would be a "funny" prank. I don't know how much dry ice was placed in the soda bottles -- I suspect they were 2L bottles -- but he put several bottles of dry ice in different trash cans around the school:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4179/is_19990402/ai_n11719980/

It's not mentioned in the article, but the teacher did suffer lacerations on his face -- an inch or two to either side, and he might have actually been blinded.

I don't see how you can not call it a bomb. It's a device that explodes. Improperly placed (or designed), and it can hurt innocent bystanders. Putting dry ice and water in a sealed bottle can *ONLY* result in an explosion. What else would you call it?

"Wildfire smooths the process of completing calls and helps you be more available to callers. The system does a good job of identifying callers, so you spend much less time than before tapping numbers into the dialpad or looking up information in your Filofax or PIM. For example, the informed call waiting feature asks callers to speak their name, then plays that in your ear only (regardless where you're calling from) so you can decide what to do. If you ignore the call, Wildfire takes a message. If Wildfire identifies the caller by recognizing the name, she can take further action."

Lastly, pork is far from the 'other white meat'. Compared to chicken or turkey its incredibly unhealthy.

From the couple of searches I did, pork is (recently at least) very close to chicken and also has other nutrients in addition:

FOR YEARS CHICKEN has been the white meat preferred by Americans--and for good reason: It's naturally low in fat, fairly tasty (what doesn't it taste like?) and a good source of vitamins and minerals. But a study by Duke University showed that lean pork could be just as effective as chicken in helping to lower LDL ("bad") cholesterol--that's the bad stuff, y'all.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1608/is_8_19/ai_105853400/

How exactly does pork hold its own on the pollo grounds? Mainly because one-third of its saturated fat comes from stearic acid, which does not contribute to increased bad cholesterol levels. But pork is also low in sodium and a good source of potassium, iron, magnesium, zinc, riboflavin, and vitamins B12 and B6.

Pork also packs a significant amount of nutrients in every lean portion. A 3-ounce serving of pork tenderloin is an "excellent" source of protein, thiamin, vitamin B6, phosphorus and niacin, and a "good" source of riboflavin, potassium and zinc, yet contributes only 6 percent of the calories to a 2,000-calorie diet.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/46034.php

Odd, I'd heard the opposite. It was in the news a lot a few years back.

Nonsense. You're focusing on a small part of the overall discrepancy. That plus about 10 other factors are why the US is artificially high in infant mortality, especially in regards to quality of health care available.

OK, how about this one then? That got enough facts and numbers for you?

What would be interesting would be survival rates for all births by country. Every single child than emits from between a woman's legs would be counted, every thousand. And from that thousand the number that live to 5 years old.

Care to wager how the US would do against other nations in that comparison? My guess is it wouldn't be 45th. Or 19th. Or 5th. More like top 3.

One cool characteristic of eletric power is that you can send it through dozens of miles with a reasonable efficiency. So it's possible to generate power in rural areas and consume it in urban areas, *pretty much like we do with food*. That's where the name solar farm comes from. While a home grown garden is awesome, the bulk of the food you consume is generated or collected in extensive, mass-producing, corporate farms.

You choose an interesting analogy, and because I think it is an excellent analogy, let me address it first. "Transportation now major production cost for food". When we buy food that's been raised overseas, we're paying a *lot* of money for the oil that's been used to get it to us. For well-off people, that's a reasonable tradeoff right now, although transportation costs and our cultural reliance on just-in-time manufacturing are going to be very challenging for our economy over the next decade.

Likewise, exactly, energy transmission. Transformers are lossy. Interstate power lines are lossy. I work in designing semiconductors that drive LED lighting, and one of the slides we show to people when we're talking about what we do, is a giant energy budget for the US. *Half* the energy we produce is used in moving the other half of the energy to the end users. Now, that's largely driven by coal and gasoline: electricity transports with much better efficiency than those. But it's still not great. (Unfortunately my google-fu is failing me and I can't find a copy of the slide online.) But: dozens of miles is okay for power distribution; however, in most cases dozens of miles doesn't get you to a place where land is non-arable and only useful for massive solar farms. If we manage to start making reasonably-priced superconducting transmission lines, it makes a lot of sense to fill Nevada, the Sahara, and the Gobi with solar cells and move the electricity halfway across the globe. But until then, it's a lot more sensible to have the solar cells tens of meters away from the loads.

For that matter, there's also the problem of maintaining long transmission lines. We've had people killed locally because they decided to strip the valuable copper out of running transformers, and I'm not living in a particularly poverty-stricken area. Imagine trying to keep a transmission line running across multiple feuding countries filled with destitute people.

I just want to make a semi-related comment on this topic. Because of the natural content of radioactive isotopes in coal, coal fired plants actually release significant amounts of radioactive material into the atmosphere during normal operation. Not to mention the other nasty stuff that comes from them. Obviously with nuclear the dangerous stuff is kept contained and in solid form.

"These products emit low-level radiation. But because of regulatory differences, coal-fired power plants are allowed to release quantities of radioactive material that would provoke enormous public outcry if such amounts were released from nuclear facilities" - Radioactivity from burning coal - Brief Article

The sources talking about the relative amounts I have found seem to be biased either one way or the other, but this quote is certainly relevant. There is a fear of anything nuclear, but radiation from other sources seem to be accepted.

Mod me off-topic if you like :)

According to this over 50 LBGT's under the age of 30 have been killed in the USA between 1997 and 2007.

And how does that compare to the number of murders of protestant european-descent heterosexual white males over the age of 30 during the same time period? What would be the "fair" non-prejudicial ratio?

According to this over 50 LBGT's under the age of 30 have been killed in the USA between 1997 and 2007.

Don't think we're all one happy family yet. Prejudice still exists in America.

no actual movement to decriminalize drugs

Just as you said, "You lack of exposure does not constitute a lack of interest." From the "American Journal of Economics and Sociology", Legalize Drugs Now!. Let's see how many others there are...

1. LEAP - Law Enforcement Against Prohibition - Cops Say Legalize Drugs
2. What if we legalized all drugs?
3. Tom Tancredo Says: Legalize Drugs!
4. Commentary: Legalize drugs to stop violence
5. Legalize drugs -- all of them
6. Is Now The Time To Legalize Drugs?
7. Why we should legalize drugs

Those are just the first page of results of legalize drugs. There are about another 245,000 results.

The people want it. That you don't talk to the types of people voting for such things doesn't change the fact they do.

Many of the people don't want it. That you don't talk to the types of people voting for such things doesn't change the fact they don't. And as a matter of fact I have talked to some who want to keep drugs illegal, my sister is one. I've also talked with people who want to bring back Prohibition, they say it will work this tyme. But everyone I know I know where their position is who lives in the real world and not a fantasy want at least some drugs legal. About the only drugs some don't want legal are so called hard drugs like opiates. They don't always know the facts though, for instance it's said an addiction to opiates is nearly if not impossible to break, however as the Rat Park experiment showed given the right environment even those addictions can be broken.

Fight against him? They encouraged him.

Liked J Edgar Hoover? That's a big laugh. Politicians, both Democrats and Republicans, didn't like him. The only reason he kept his position as director of the FBI is because of his extensive collection of private files. They were all afraid he'd blackmail them. As for most people, they didn't know about him or about the files he collected on public figures.

Falcon

In case you don't remember, stuff traveling at orbital velocities is positively lethal to spacecraft. The extreme energies involved in these kinds of impacts is enough to send very high velocity fragments in all directions. Sure, some of it will de-orbit, but most will end up in fairly stable orbits that will EVENTUALLY intersect all the other satellites up there. So blowing up one rogue satellite makes one very annoying but eminently predictable problem into a thousand lethal and unpredictable problems.

Last February, a Russian satellite hit a commercial Iridium satellite, and the resulting debris cloud (estimated near 600 pieces in various orbits) has been a HUGE headache for everyone in similar orbital altitudes.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123438921888374497.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29147679/

In 2008, the US got criticized around the world for blowing up a falling satellite because of the health threats of hydrazine if it landed in a populated area. Aside from complaints about military showboating, there were many scientists who complained about the resulting orbital debris; however, in reality it was a very low-altitude explosion and the debris cloud did de-orbit very quickly (unlike a geosynchronous orbit explosion, which would leave practically permanent debris due to the orbit well above any appreciable atmospheric drag).
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_6712/is_35_237/ai_n29417848/

Read here for some details on the general problems with orbital debris.
http://illuminations.nctm.org/LessonDetail.aspx?id=L376

So no more helpful suggestions like this, please.

Under that theory, gun manufacturers would be liable for murder caused by their guns.

Not really. This case is more like Smith and Wesson's "deal with the devil" when they implicitly acknowledged that their products were enabling illegal activity, so they put more strict controls on their dealers. That led to a boycott and a lot of pissed-off gun-nuts. In that case, S&W were the only manufacturer to cave, but even one acknowledgement looks bad for the whole industry.

It was discussed some time ago on Schneier's blog, but I can't find the proper reference. This is pretty close along with this but I can't find the long term impact on people's travel habits which is needed to get the total up the the level of the casualties on the day. Also the extent to which it's security measures rather than fear of flying is really needed to back up the statistic I stated.

AFAICT, the only biological attacks in the USA have been made by Federal employees.

Google is a good substitute if you can't actually go outside: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_go1613/is_2_16/ai_n29353152/ Unfortunately, when looking at an overrated post there is no good substitute for no mod points.

No, that is incorrect. Stock value has relatively little correlation with how a company is actually performing. Paying executives in stock, vested or not, is still giving a bonus without regard to company improvement. The only difference is will that stock pay a little or a lot, but again, to drive the point home, does not have anything to do with performance, only speculation on the stock price itself. What we need is a 180-degree turn and find a way to tie bonuses to performance.

'In the Netherlands, the effort at establishing a comprehensive
population registration system for administrative and statistical
purposes was completed even before the Nazi-occupation (Methorst,
1936; Thomas, 1937). In 1938 H. W. Methorst, who was then the
director-general of the Dutch Central Bureau of Statistics and
formerly also head of the Dutch office of population registration,
reported on the rapid progress being made in the Netherlands in
implementing a new comprehensive system of population registration
that would follow each person "from cradle to grave" and open "wide
perspectives for simplification of municipal administration and at the
same time social research" (1938: 713-714)... ... These registration systems and the related identity cards played
an important role in the apprehension of Dutch Jews and Gypsies prior
to their eventual deportation to the death camps. Dutch Jews had the
highest death rate (73 percent) of Jews residing in any occupied
western European country--far higher than the death rate among the
Jewish population of Belgium (40 percent) and France (25 percent), for
example."
source:
"The Dark Side of Numbers: The Role of Population Data Systems in
Human Rights Abuses." Social Research, Summer, 2001, by William
Seltzer, Margo Anderson, hosted by findarticles.com:
http://www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/m2267/2_68/77187772/p4/article.jhtml?term=

The US train system is excellent if you are coal...

Not so much. I know what you mean - coal plants rely on the railroad system for the delivery of coal, and as a natural consequence, the railroad system is tailored for delivering coal. But, nevertheless, the coal plant owners are not happy with the US railroad system, and it is far from "excellent" to them.

Coal plants are completely hostage to whomever owns the railroad that goes up to their plant. For some plants, the last 10 miles or so is owned by a different railroad company than the one that provides most of the shipping, and the owner of that "last mile" has absolutely no competition in delivering coal to that one plant. And naturally, they charge an enormous premium, as compared to plants that receive their coal from other railways or other delivery methods (barge, or even trucking).

The US train system is like any other network infrastructure, including the internet - a robust "last mile" is just as important as a robust "backbone." And competition at each segment is a good thing, but rare because such capital-heavy infrastructure is extremely prone to consolidation, monopolies, and rent-seeking - all of which lead to stagnation, and all of which need to be regulated for the public (and economic!) good. In some ways, this might be one explanation as to why the airline industry is doing better than passenger trains - they rely on a completely different (almost "peer to peer," as in, airport to airport) infrastructure that allows competition; and despite the heavy capital investment required, its much harder to exclusively own part of the network and lock out competition.

This is all based on some readings I did in college on the American energy infrastructure. I don't still have those books, so I don't guarantee the accuracy of everything said here, but, consider this article a citation.

Just google for "obgyn leaving state malpractice".

Here's some links from that search:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0CYD/is_19_36/ai_81006732/
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4189/is_20030328/ai_n10166472/
http://www.miwww.acog.org/acog_sections/pa/Pdf/ACOGPatientEdMedMalFinal.pdf
http://greatdivide.typepad.com/across_the_great_divide/2006/09/saving_the_obgy.html

Just google for "obgyn leaving state malpractice".

Here's some links from that search:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0CYD/is_19_36/ai_81006732/
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4189/is_20030328/ai_n10166472/
http://www.miwww.acog.org/acog_sections/pa/Pdf/ACOGPatientEdMedMalFinal.pdf
http://greatdivide.typepad.com/across_the_great_divide/2006/09/saving_the_obgy.html

Here is a snippet of the joy you missed.

>> if you look it from the POV from a paranoid nervous young military helicopter pilot,

Agreed. It raises the question about the minimum requirements of people for doing the job though.

>> I have to say though that the US military seem to have a reputation of being more trigger happy, and even since the WWII days

Agreed again. Only RAF fighter loses in the Iraq war were to 'friendly' fire from US.
http://findarticles.com/p/news-articles/scotsman-edinburgh-scotland-the/mi_7951/is_2003_March_24/inquiry-missile-downs-raf-jet/ai_n33431453/

People pull over all the time on the highway for emergencies such as flat tires.

Wouldn't a significant increase in breakdown lane usage increase accidents and deaths?

The number of lane changes required would also slow down traffic. There would certainly be people rushing to pull over suddenly to answer calls as well. And then add the rubberneckers looking to see why someone is pulled over.

One of the local highways, Interstate 93 north of Boston, has sanctioned use of the breakdown lanes during rush hour to add a 5th lane. So people in on that road wouldn't be able to pull over for that, unless they're driving off the road completely.

Rather than have the police target and fine people for this, why not have them go after distracted and poor driving in general?

These are things I see on a regular basis on Massachusetts highways:

Slow merging onto the highway, partially due to short merge areas.

2/3 of drivers do not use turn signals to change lanes.

Passing lane hogs who are not aware the vehicles behind them who wish to pass.

Would-be NASCAR drivers who do 8 lane changes in a mile to get ahead of everyone - by 4 car-lengths worth.

Idiots who believe CSI is going to show up over their fender-bender and so they don't move their vehicles out of the way. These people should be fined if they don't move.

Breakdown lanes not being used to keep traffic moving when roadwork is being done. There's no reason it can't be used, especially multiple State Police are used on significant projects.

The Big Dig just moved the bottlenecks from Boston to elsewhere.

Would you rather have your children around a pedophile that has an outlet or one that doesn't?

I REALLY hate false choice scenarios. I, of course, would rather have my children not be around ANY pedophile.

Your question also suggests that if someone has child porn they will not become a predator. Many of the pedophiles arrested had collections of child porn or erotica. Many studies have suggested this not to be the case with male->female rape. Example.

Run the numbers and tell me what happens if you can improve the mileage of vehicles like garbage trucks. I'll give you a hint, most such trucks average between one and two mpg.

I'm at 2.8 mpg already! Also, this is not 'road mileage' it includes the fuel while stopped to pickup and compress your bullshit. Social engineering is evil but ignorance is pathetic. Also, you seem to be quite willing to focus on corporations if only to avoid 'social engineering'. Most regulation is also evil (by your standards and mine).

he was not a terrorist. I think since 9/11 we throw that term around too loosely.

"Terrorism" was used improperly before 9/11. Ecoterrorism was used in 1998 by "The Washington Times".

Falcon

When I was at the Natural Food store the other day, I noticed a probiotic in the refridgerator display called femdophilus. This product has two strains of lactic acid-producing bacteria that are well suited to colonizing the vagina.

Here's another one: http://www.gynophilus.ca/

I have an anecdote about conventional medical thought on bacteria, fungi, and the vagina. I took a late trip home a few months back, and Loveline came on the radio. I listened fairly regularly a long time ago, so I 'tuned in' for old times' sake.

One caller asked Dr. Drew what he could do about his new girlfriend's horrible vaginal odor. Dr. Drew & Crew were like, "what can you do? Bacterial Vaginosis is hard to treat. Don't say anything."

A later caller wanted to know what she could do about recurrent yeast infections. She'd tried any number of pharmaceutical anti-fungal medications, but the yeast didn't give up.

Knowing a bit about so-called "alternative" medical technology, I picked up the cell phone and called. While I was on hold, another caller came on to say that she had good luck with dealing with teh yeast by using only polyester underwear.

I asked Dr. Drew if it was safe to use yogurt in the vagina. He was like, "sure, but why bother? It's not going to help. These people have tried the most powerful antifungals available, and still have problems. What can yogurt do that drugs cannot?" (this was his sentiment, if not the exact wording).

While Yogurt is a sub-optimal probiotic solution, at least it's getting to the root of the problem. Yeast infections and bacterial vaginosis are caused when "bad" bacterial and fungi are able to establish themselves. No matter how many of these "bad" bacteria/fungi the antibiotic/antifungal is able to take out (99.9999% is not enough), the survivors will be able to quickly reestablish themselves once the pills are stopped.

In alternative medical thinking, "good" bacteria are used to coat the digestive system / skin / vagina with a protective film. When "bad" bacteria come along, there's no room available, so they can't establish a colony.

I don't know if there's been any research about probiotics & gonorrhea. But it'd be an interesting study...

here's an article about probiotics & Urinary tract infections: Specific probiotic strains are effective for genitourinary infections, Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients, Nov, 2006 by Alan R. Gaby

You may be overestimating how certain we can possibly be about the world

I've explained myself badly. I'm perhaps not overestimating how certain we can be - I lean more towards underestimating how good our guesses are. I'll capitalise the words when I mean the scientific terminology.

Yes I am aware that a Law isn't a Theory, and that a Theory isn't an Hypothesis which is a little better than a Guess.

I still disagree - Law and / or Theory is not the highest level of certainty.

Here are some co-existing competing scientific Theories:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1200/is_n21_v143/ai_13797600/

Perhaps you would argue these are not Theories in the scientific sense? If so ignore the rest :-)

How can multiple Theories have the highest certainty? This makes no sense.

For example - back when just the Theory of relativity existed - did it stop there?

No, they kept working, kept thinking and the Theory of special relativity was born that evolved the Theory into something better, with a higher certainty (than the previous Theory - relativity) that it better resembles the universe around us.

The falsifiability of scientific Theories (and Laws too) is one of the core tenets of scientific principles. We don't accept them as dogma - we continue to re-evaluate their worth and their applicability to evidence and facts.

Just because we haven't yet found a way to falsify a particular Theory or Law doesn't mean we should accept on faith that said Theory or Law is certain, or offers the highest certainty about something that we can imagine.

And if you're confused as to how treating illegal immigrants will fail to bankrupt us, it's the same as with poor people: They already are receiving treatment, but at the ER, not at a regular doctor.

Yep, and they should be fined for each time they go to the emergency room for an obviously non-life-threatening situation.

There are people out there that insist on going to see a doctor basically every time they sneeze. Constant overuse of the emergency room should have consequences.

2000 is entirely plausible. Sonera installed the first set of mobile enabled vending machines selling Coca-Cola at Helsinki-Vantaa airport in 1997. Read the Background section at the bottom of this 2002 article