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especially when it comes to religion (prayer in schools, prayer at government functions, the flagrant display of religious iconography in public buildings, denial of other religions equal access for displays, etc), the right for one to decide how to best manage body medically, and who one is allowed to have sex with, contraception, and who one is allowed to marry. Those issues hit me a lot closer to home than firearms ownership/carry, and how I'm allowed to access content vis-a-vis music and movies on the Internet.

 
How about the Assassination of American citizens without a trial for the fifth amendment violation, or Indefinite detention of US citizens without being charged with a crime for your 5th and 6th amendment violations? Does the federal government assuming the ability to detain you indefinitely without charging you with a crime, or even to assassinate you, hit you closer to home than denial of marriage to a class of people, or refusal to take down some hundred year old religious display?
 
Not trying to point the finger at you specifically or put words in your mouth, but as a general rule the people in this country have their priorities so fucked up it enrages me sometimes. These two policies recently exercised and or implemented under the demopublican rule can potentially affect any or every individual in the country, whereas the inability for gays to marry affect what, 10% of the population at most? And let's be honest, who really gives a rosy red rats ass if the supreme court has the 10 commandments on it or if some veteran memorial has a cross? FFS.

I always find the "zero tolerance" thing (which seems most prevalent in education) to be annoying. Contrary to the image most people have of every college student texting away on their phones all through class, I took a few classes not long ago and found that the vast majority of students were actually pretty attentive and polite in class. You would have one or two who you would see occasionally texting or playing on their laptops, but they were definitely the exception. Now, the reasonable, sane way to deal with this would be for the professor to pause briefly and say to the idiot texting "Hey dipshit, stop texting in my class, or you're going to be texting 'I failed this class' to your parents very soon." Takes about 3 seconds, everyone gets the message, idiot is suitably embarrassed.

But, of course, in typical "zero tolerance" fashion, rather than manning up and targeting the few abusers with a quick kick in the head, they throw out a blanket proclamation that punishes EVERYONE by threatening them for even having a cellphone or laptop in their bookbag or pocket. So now everyone has to suffer because the faculty and administration are a bunch of pussies who can't wipe their asses if there isn't a regulation somewhere authorizing them to do so.

It's shit like this that leads to teachers calling in the 5-0 to slap the cuffs on a 5-year-old.

Except in Egypt, where even a home team win can lead to 78 deaths on the field.

Excerpt from this article

"Officials say the steam contains low levels of tritium, a radioactive for of hydrogen."
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/ill-nuclear-reactor-loses-power-venting-steam-15474737#.TydCK6ua46c

Lets hope the fallout cloud lands on Chicago.

For reference: upcoming abortion video to play during Super Bowl.

Depends on your definition of a political ad, perhaps.

NBC rejected an anti-abortion ad during the 2009 Superbowl. However, the next year, CBS aired an anti-abortion ad..

I believe it's up to the networks to accept or reject any advertising--political or non.

• 10/31/2008 - NBC News demands that Obama and McCain pull ads it alleges violate its copyright
• 02/11/2004 - NBC News demands that Bush ad it alleges violates its copyright
• 11/03/1990 - NBC News demands candidate Jane Brady pull ad containing video of Sen. Joe Biden's aborted 1987 presidential campaign that it alleges violates its copyright

I'm sure there are many more, but I didn't want to spend my entire Sunday listing them. The point is: they've been doing this for many, many years.

Is this really the best that medical research can come up with?

There's a ton of potential correlations that people have noticed which would be medically relevant if only someone would take the time to check them out.

How about looking into the supplements people take to see if they have any effect? Not just the "trace doses on a population of subjects with a known genetic cause seems to have no effect" kind of study, but a real studies which could validate or dismiss the various claims that people make about supplements.

Does taking extra vitamin D correlate [inversely] with SAD? Or depression in general? How about correlating people who take iodine supplements with depression? Do magnesium supplements help? Does vitamin D help prevent cancer?

How about looking into diseases and conditions for which there is no known cause? Post prandial syndrome? Keratolysis exfoliativa? How about eliminating one or more proposed "possible causes", thus encouraging people to look elsewhere and to not spend money on treatments which can have no effect?

The research in the article has little obvious significance, throws very little light on what appears to be a non-problem, and since there is no sense of importance it doesn't inform policy. (Is this a problem? Should we be concerned? Does this cry out for regulation?)

By way of contrast, Erin Brockovich is looking into an apparent disease (or condition) affecting teenagers in western NY. It's salient, important, and useful both from a medical and political perspective. Even if she finds nothing, her research will eliminate one or more proposed causes.

Shouldn't we be doing that type of research? You know - the type that actually tries to help people?

I can't argue about the security theater, obviously.

  On the subject of El Al, here's a bit more reading.

    2002 El Al LAX shooting is terrorism

    2002 Security guards on Israel's national airline El Al overpowered a man who tried to hijack a flight from Tel Aviv to Istanbul

    2006 El Al bombing foiled by German authorities

    2010 - Former head of El Al security says "... we have learned nothing from our past security breaches, including the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001." ... "We changed from FAA to TSA and guys with new uniforms. The only group being punished is the American traveler who must now endure longer lines."

    Shit. Even El Al says the TSA is dumb.

    But at least several contractors have made an awful lot of money in the process. Oh wait.. Our taxes are paying for that multi-billion dollar mistake. That was an estimated $6.9 billion estimate in 2010, and the number keeps climbing. But hey, it's the US budget. We can always burn up as much as we want, and raise the debt limit. I asked my bank, they said they wouldn't raise *my* debt limit, so I'm a bit confused how this whole thing works. Maybe I shouldn't have said I needed to raise it by $1.2 trillion.

The occupy protests started off well intentioned, but have devolved into not much more than a gathering of homeless, illiterate hippies and morons. There isn't much for "corporate media" to cover.

It isn't just the tech industry under attack. Maybe someone can explain why Chinese contractors and workers are building bridges here?

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/us-bridges-roads-built-chinese-firms-14594513?tab=9482930?ion=1206853&playlist=14594944

This happens more than you know. Chinese workers emigrated to the US en masse to build the first transcontinental railroad, albeit the construction was overseen by US railroad companies. Today, plenty of infrastructure and construction projects in the US are awarded to non-US firms -- Skanska comes readily to mind. The huge gantry cranes you see in every US port are manufactured in China and then shipped here, but I don't know if I'd call those infrastructure.

However, it isn't clear from the link you posted or from searching the internet whether the final assembly for the bridges you mention is performed by Chinese workers. Most of the controversy seems to be about prefab components manufactured overseas and then shipped here. Maybe the final assembly is still performed by Americans. There was also a big fuss about this when Boeing started doing this for the 787, offshoring the fabrication of large pieces of the airframe and then flying them to Everett for final assembly.

It isn't just the tech industry under attack. Maybe someone can explain why Chinese contractors and workers are building bridges here?

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/us-bridges-roads-built-chinese-firms-14594513?tab=9482930?ion=1206853&playlist=14594944

I'm no "Red State USA1 FUCK YEAH" type of person, but maybe we should start looking into a little bit of economic nationalism. This is anathema to the multi-nationals that own our government though, so we'll just keep importing workers and exporting work till we look like any other third world economy, with a very few controlling all the wealth, and the rest of us eating dirt.

4) The stimulus funds did not "take over" any industries. Give one example. Just one. Literally, I want you to name a single American business which is now government owned because of the stimulus. Either that, or come back and apologize for lying.

Stimulus funds came with strings... no, ROPES attached and did amount to a takeover. You want an example?

Second, stimulus dollars came with strings attached that are now causing enormous budget headaches. Many environmental grants have matching requirements, so to get a federal dollar, states and cities had to spend a dollar even when they were facing huge deficits. The new construction projects built with federal funds also have federal Davis-Bacon wage requirements that raise state building costs to pay inflated union salaries.

Worst of all, at the behest of the public employee unions, Congress imposed "maintenance of effort" spending requirements on states. These federal laws prohibit state legislatures from cutting spending on 15 programs, from road building to welfare, if the state took even a dollar of stimulus cash for these purposes.

Here is a story about banks either turning down TARP or leaving the program after the government started changing the rules after the money went out.

5) TARP was passed by Bush, and didn't take over banks in any case.

Passed under Bush, about three months before he left office. Completely administered under Obama and extended by Geitner. Geitner, btw, is the guy who didn't pay his taxes that Obama made treasury secretary. I guess you are OK with that too. Seriously, would you have been OK if Bush put a drug addict in charge of the DEA and a Klan Grand Wizard in charge of Civil Rights?

6) The health care law does not take over anything. It puts some new regulations on private insurance companies, prevents individuals from abusing the system with an individual mandate, and helps individuals for whom the mandate would be burdensome by providing them with subsidies. Stop listening to Rush Limbaugh. The man is lying to you.

Whoever pays the bills makes the rules. If you don't believe that, you are lying to yourself. If you think that it took over 2000 pages of "we have to pass it to know what's in it" to do nothing more than, "It puts some new regulations on private insurance companies, prevents individuals from abusing the system with an individual mandate, and helps individuals for whom the mandate would be burdensome by providing them with subsidies.", then you should not leave the house without your helmet.

7) New environmental controls?

Do you not watch the news? Look up the Keystone Pipeline. You'll also notice how the rejection of the pipeline helps out Obama supporters, like Warren Buffett. Obama rejecting the pipeline is also a boon for China, who will get the oil instead of us.

Of course, there is also the strict limitations on drilling in the Gulf... or off the east or west coast or on land and especially in Alaska. We can't drill in the Gulf of Mexico, but China can for Cuba. Deep water drilling is banned in the Gulf of Mexico, but Obama funded it in Brazil. That oil and those jobs are also going to China, by the way.

Strange. I just noticed that it seems that China is benefiting much more for Obama's environmental concerns than the actual environment is, which was my point. Obama's regulations do nothing for the environment, harm it if anything. The rejection of the keystone pipeline means that oil w

Conservatives want to conserve the status quo. If liberty is the status quo then the conservative position is pro-liberty. If communism is the status quo then the conservative position is pro-communism etc, etc.

The US at it's founding was radically pro-liberty, despite not extending that liberty to everyone. So a conservative can be pro-"the liberties we already have" and anti-"the liberties you want that we don't agree with".

As I understand it, conservative politic perspectives in the U.S. are closely tied to fundamentalist religious viewpoints, which in turn leads to mass suggestion and holier-than-thou politicians becoming successful. It's curious to note that while none of your politicians will officially condone pornography, you are still one of the largest producers of porn in the world.

Utah buys a lot of it (I had some difficulties finding a good source due to noise from mormons trying to explain it away). But let's perpetuate the myth that we give a damn about denying gay marriage, because that's what voters want. That's what they chat with their neighbours about, they'll vote according to who is most adamant about those issues because that's what important in a nation. Yours is a strange society.

PS due to a faulty 'm' key i almost wrote "ass suggestion" above. It'd probably have been appropriate in some manner.

It seemed to me that you were intimating that my support of the Second Amendment was evidence of being uncivilized.

I was, but only in a direct response to your comments. "In a civilized society... In an unarmed society..." Where the implication was that an armed society is civilized and an unarmed society is uncivilized. I find such statements to be provably false (how "polite" are war zones? How "polite" was the Old West?), and as such, I was trying to say "you are provably wrong in an absurdly obvious manner" without being uncivilized. Unfortunately, every comment I made was responded to without continuity of context (is that polite enough for "you only post non sequiturs, so I couldn't stick to the topic at hand").

Civilized is also relative. Shaking hands is civilized to Americans, and offensive in other cultures. So, "civilized" is whatever the speaker at the time wants it to be, and implies that anyone who disagrees isn't. Sort of hard to hit a moving target.

Unarmed societies are uncivilized IN THAT the inalienable right (Delaration of Indepence term) of self defense (see McDonald vs Chicago and the earlier Heller decison) is suppressed by the government, leaving The People (term as used in the US Constition) defenceless against miscreants. When the police are not present, the strong may do as they will to the weak, even to breaking into their domicile while they are home. For instance, I prefer a society where a lady can own a gun ( http://abcnews.go.com/US/okla-woman-shoots-kills-intruder911-operators-shoot/story?id=15285605 ) to one where she is not allowed to keep a gun in her home or is effectively blocked by onerous over-regulation ( http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/guns/2012/jan/23/miller-i-bought-gun-dc/ ).

In my view, a society that allows a woman to protect herself in her own home is more civilized than one that insists she cannot.

That is the fundamental question and if you disagree, you disagree. That's fine...it's a free country!

Just don't try to impose your beliefs on me. The US Constitution and the US Supreme Court both say it's her right to be armed, especially in her home.

it is not up to the Republican party to pick the leading candidate, that is for certain cartels to do.

Slashdotters should realize who exactly calls the shots on this globe, presidential elections are a facade

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/billionaire-expects-millions-gingrich-super-pac-source/story?id=15433505#.TyF_DavLaSA

Ordinance: All private automobiles over 3 meters in length or 2 meters in width or weighing more than 750kg (excluding passengers) are excluded from the downtown business district.

Have fun getting your little folding coffin squished by this. Oh, and as far as "private" goes, no worries - it will be registered to ShompolTech, Inc. This will not be the first time Hummer owners pawn the legislation, either.

I imagine you have a laughably small penis.

Ordinance: All private automobiles over 3 meters in length or 2 meters in width or weighing more than 750kg (excluding passengers) are excluded from the downtown business district.

Have fun getting your little folding coffin squished by this.

You realize that the Hummer is out of production? Not even the Chinese wanted to buy the company.

Oh, and as far as "private" goes, no worries - it will be registered to ShompolTech, Inc. This will not be the first time Hummer owners pawn the legislation, either.

What does that mean "pawn" the legislation? They left it at a second hand shop as collateral on a short-term loan?

In any case there's a big difference between legally using a tax loophole and exploiting a local ordinance prohibiting non delivery vehicles. And it doesn't matter really, if such an ordinance was in place, a business owner could certainly use a commercially registered Hummer to make his delivery, but if the ordinance requires the vehicle to be used for deliveries only, he wouldn't be able to cruise around downtown, squashing small vehicles at will.

I've never understood the blind attraction to oversize cars that some people have (as opposed to legitimate utility-based concerns... my neighbor is a contractor, drives a heavy duty F350, and actually *needs* its hauling capacity... but when he needs to go downtown, he takes the Prius because it's hard to park a full size pickup with dual wheels in a busy city). My primary commute vehicle is a bike so I'm already the smallest vehicle on the road... and I do have a healthy fear of those Hummers.

Ordinance: All private automobiles over 3 meters in length or 2 meters in width or weighing more than 750kg (excluding passengers) are excluded from the downtown business district.

Have fun getting your little folding coffin squished by this. Oh, and as far as "private" goes, no worries - it will be registered to ShompolTech, Inc. This will not be the first time Hummer owners pawn the legislation, either.

Senate is in session at 4:30pm today, Rand Paul was flying to DC to attend the Senate meeting. Speaking to the RTL group was just a stop he was making because he had time to before the Senate convenes. That you don't like him addressing an RTL group changes nothing about the fact that he was flying to DC for official Senate business.

Why exactly do you believe it's worse "these days". Or rather, is yours the "good old days" or the "hear it a lot"? Also, it's in no way limited to the police but it's not discussed much don't since it's easier to rationalize a lot of things if judges are infallible superhuman inteligences instead of people.

I agree with what you're saying as it applies to today ..in the context of the low cost of Chinese labor .. however even for them .. the exception for "final assembly work, such as putting the device together, and maybe packaging it" is rapidly disappearing (youtube has plenty of videos of packaging robots).

As for putting stuff in enclosures, robots will be able to do it in the not too distant future. There has been a lot of advancement in image recognition and robot dexterity. The robot may cost $1 million .. while you can hire 60 (equally productive in sum total) workers for 5 full years at that price ($300 per month is considered a great salary http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Media/foxconn-china-assembly-workers-receive-pay-raise/story?id=10846341#.TxxTTiMq1W4 ). But unlike the robot you won't need a consultant $10,000 to reprogram it every year for the updated product and also hire or contract a full time semi-skilled person to watch for and deal with robot issues. Plus if you lose the next year's manufacturing contract ... you can let the workers go rather than be in debt for the robot.

"To make a robot that places an assembled board into an enclosure, for example, is more difficult because the enclosure could have any number of shapes. "

You'd be correct if many types of enclosures had to be randomly assigned to one worker. However, for most consumer products the sales numbers are in the tens of thousands or even millions, so a single robot would only have to deal with one type of enclosure. Yes .. you do need a skilled programmer to program the robot's movements and failure detection ability and all that. However, you don't need 100 programmers if we are talking about 100 robots doing the same thing.

Watch this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0aZWWZnXDA .. look at what the workers are doing (at the 45 second mark they show some of their work clearly) .. tell me you think a set of modern robots with machine vision capability and all that cannot be programmed do it.

Funnily how people will rabidly fight to preserve every egg that got a sperm in it, right up until the fetus squirts out of a woman's vagina. At that point it's either completely on its own or they actively work to kill it. Right up until it comes down with a terminal illness and wants some "medical lead" to end its suffering. Then it's back to it being immoral and illegal again.

Funnily how people will rabidly fight to preserve every egg that got a sperm in it, right up until the fetus squirts out of a woman's vagina. At that point it's either completely on its own or they actively work to kill it. Right up until it comes down with a terminal illness and wants some "medical lead" to end its suffering. Then it's back to it being immoral and illegal again.

You are wrong by example. And if you can't provide the same value that Louis C.K. provided with this show that he sold exclusively over the Internet without any copyright protection scams, then your work isn't worth the effort as far as the market is concerned.

Regardless of whether or not we obfuscate their attempts at monitoring social sites these attacks are coming anyway,

Yes, that is the point. So why do you try to throw noise in the system to make them harder to detect and prevent?

anyway, you sir are the tool for actually thinking anyone serious about attacking would use Facebook to announce it.

Or simply better informed....

3 Men in NC Terror Ring Get 15-45 Years in Prison

Hassan used his Facebook account and Internet forums to post his own comments and videos by others encouraging Muslims to fight nonbelievers and Muslims who did not agree with their desire to establish mandatory religious law, prosecutors said.

Extremists use the same social media as anyone else. I take it that you've never heard of the Internet Jihad?

This "monitoring" social sites is an attempt at disrupting things like OWS and other legit protest before they gain traction

"Monitoring" is a fancy way of saying "looking". You don't disrupt things bigger than the atomic scale by looking at them. "OWS" and other protests are a city problem, not a federal problem. The same backers for OWS are also largely behind the Obama presidency. If the "Occupy" movement turns violent, then all bets are off. That would seem unlikely as the "Occupy" movement is more hype than substance. You do know that at least some of the protestors were being paid to be there, don't you?

Christ there's one like you born every minute much to my dismay.

Face, meet mirror.

Might I suggest we crowd source spoofing anti US articles to give DHS something to think about?

And you suggest this because.... what? You think that the next bunch of jackals, like these guys, that actually pulls off their attack won't kill anyone you care about?

3 Men in NC Terror Ring Get 15-45 Years in Prison (You do realize that this sort of thing goes on month after month, year after year, right?)

You don't think that the indwelling bureaucratic inertia against taking action even in the face of blatant provocation, like Major Nidal Hasan, doesn't slow things down enough?

Fort Hood Gunman Who Killed 12, Wounded 30 Survived Gun Battle

Of course, someday you might have some bragging rights - "You hear about the Oklahoma bombing? Killed 198, wounded 680. Yep. FBI would've figured it out and stopped it if it wasn't for me and my homies." Charming.

Of course, you could also have an international impact since the US also shares intelligence with other countries. Think of the pride you'll have as you wonder, were they spending time on your nonsense when they missed the message that could've helped stop something like this:

Stockholm blasts: Sweden probes 'terrorist attack'

In reality, I think you would have little impact. You also seem to be providing evidence of being a tool, and not in the good MIT way.

Might I suggest we crowd source spoofing anti US articles to give DHS something to think about?

And you suggest this because.... what? You think that the next bunch of jackals, like these guys, that actually pulls off their attack won't kill anyone you care about?

3 Men in NC Terror Ring Get 15-45 Years in Prison (You do realize that this sort of thing goes on month after month, year after year, right?)

You don't think that the indwelling bureaucratic inertia against taking action even in the face of blatant provocation, like Major Nidal Hasan, doesn't slow things down enough?

Fort Hood Gunman Who Killed 12, Wounded 30 Survived Gun Battle

Of course, someday you might have some bragging rights - "You hear about the Oklahoma bombing? Killed 198, wounded 680. Yep. FBI would've figured it out and stopped it if it wasn't for me and my homies." Charming.

Of course, you could also have an international impact since the US also shares intelligence with other countries. Think of the pride you'll have as you wonder, were they spending time on your nonsense when they missed the message that could've helped stop something like this:

Stockholm blasts: Sweden probes 'terrorist attack'

In reality, I think you would have little impact. You also seem to be providing evidence of being a tool, and not in the good MIT way.

Hear, hear.

To those of you who still have your heads in the sand: Do you at least begin to see now, that the so-called "war on terror" is a bad joke, because the so-called "terrorists" have already won -- and our own government are now the terrorists?

  This shit has got to stop. NOW.

I think you've hit on an important problem in human development. Even though the US Government and the various states arrest and convict people in the US for terrorism related offenses month after month, year after year, people like you claim that terrorist don't really exist, that it is the US government that is the terrorist against its own people. Terrorists and their supporters (like the bunch below) make use of Facebook, Youtube, and other social media, but it is the government that is "in the wrong" to look there to see what they are up to. You seem to have a problem with willful disbelief. And yet Americans continue to enjoy the same rights they've had - they travel where they want, work where they want, vote for who they want, worship or not the god of their choice, speak and write as they always have.

Most recent conviction: 3 Men in NC Terror Ring Get 15-45 Years in Prison

Won't you feel special when a few of these groups don't get caught before their attacks? Especially if it killed friends or family?

3 Men in NC Terror Ring Get 15-45 Years in Prison

These sorts of arrests and convictions are going on all the time. Why don't you try "borking" the guys planning them instead of the guys trying to stop them?

As long as people are willing to trade freedom for illusion of security, DHS and its ilk will prosper.

There, FTFY.

TSA finds 4 guns per day at airports

Do you have anything to fix that? Or are you going to keep living your illusion?

And the latest conviction: 3 Men in NC Terror Ring Get 15-45 Years in Prison

"You have to make people feel safe" - This is a quote from a friend's mother, shortly after 9/11, in response to the absurd increase in airport security procedures. As long as people are willing to trade freedom for security, DHS and its ilk will prosper.

TSA finds 4 guns per day at airports (Wouldn't it be absurd to let those guns on the planes?)

The American security services will be needed as long as there are extremists planning attacks, like in the most recent set of convictions below. This goes on month after month, year after year. And for all of the civil rights theater, Americans continue to travel where they want, vote for who they want, live where they want, and speak or publish as they always have. The same voices that chide Americans as cowards for wanting reasonable precautions to make it less likely that terrorists will deliver truck bombs to malls or attempt another 9/11 seem to come from people who wet themselves at the idea of a Federal employee reading the newspaper or viewing Facebook.* Oh the humanity! An FBI agent might read the profile of another Mohammad Omar Aly Hassan! And by the way - Benjamin Franklin's Committee of Secret Correspondence authorized opening other people's private mail for intelligence purposes during the Revolutionary War.

3 Men in NC Terror Ring Get 15-45 Years in Prison

Three members of a home-grown terror ring who conspired to attack the Quantico U.S. Marine Corps base and foreign targets were sentenced Friday to between 15 and 45 years in federal prison.

Hysen Sherifi, 27, will serve 45 years in prison; Ziyad Yaghi, 23, got nearly 32 years; and Mohammad Omar Aly Hassan, 24, was sentenced to 15 years. They faced the possibility of life in prison. Each said they would appeal their convictions and claimed innocence. Dozens of members of Raleigh's Muslim community made the five-hour round-trip to coastal New Bern to witness the hearing for the men who supporters believe were unjustly convicted. . . .

Hassan used his Facebook account and Internet forums to post his own comments and videos by others encouraging Muslims to fight nonbelievers and Muslims who did not agree with their desire to establish mandatory religious law, prosecutors said. . . .

"You're prosecuting Islam. The judge should be sitting here with the government," Aly Hassan said, pointing to the prosecutors.

Yaghi was convicted of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorism and conspiracy to carry out attacks overseas. Sherifi was convicted of both crimes, two counts of firearms possession, and conspiracy to kill federal officers or employees for plotting the Quantico attack. Hassan was convicted of providing material support to terrorists, but acquitted of a charge of conspiracy to carry out attacks overseas.

* The same Federal government that some think should be given all power over our health care system - the power of life and death.

Apparently this ABC news report agrees with the poster you're replying to. http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/12/with-reservations-obama-signs-act-to-allow-detention-of-citizens/

The linked article kind of doesn't mention that her family was in the shelter for all of a week earlier this month. Still a nice accomplishment, but none of the work she did was done while she was in the shelter.

Perhaps you shouldn't kind of make stuff up that is missing from the linked article, and you know, look up those facts instead.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/technology/2012/01/homeless-teen-could-win-100000-science-prize-and-new-future-for-family/

The 17-year-old high school senior ...
[snip]
Garvey and her family have lived in shelters and hotels since she was a little girl. Seven years ago, they were able to move into a house, but in February 2010, her parents were involved in a car accident. They were forced to leave.

If you assume December of 2010, they have been in that shelter for a year.
If you assume January of 2010, they have been in that shelter for two years.
Either possibilities, and all that are in between, are greater than the 1 week number you pulled out of the dark.

Unless you are new here, you should know better than to assume a single article that makes it to slashdot is authoritative on all the facts when there are plenty of stories about her out there right now each with their additional pieces of information.

Wrong.

Garvey and her family have lived in shelters and hotels since she was a little girl. Seven years ago, they were able to move into a house, but in February 2010, her parents were involved in a car accident. They were forced to leave.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/technology/2012/01/homeless-teen-could-win-100000-science-prize-and-new-future-for-family/

facebook put sponsored ads timeline newsfeed january 2012

And to be completely honest, Iran is not religiously more extreme than Saudi Arabia, or Israeli orthodox jews or US evangelists.

lol.... you know, that is not reassuring...

But hey, no, wait, this is a patriotic matter! I'd put our batshit-crazy, snake-waving, babble-talking, crystal-gazing, pyramid-storing, sweat-lodge having, primal screaming, colloidal silver drinkin' UFO, jebus, Jospeh Smith, Allah, and L Ron Hubbard worshiping kooks up against the furrin Muslims any day when it comes to crazy. Oh, we got crazy. In god we trustith, brudda. One nation, under god (get off, you're crushin' my cigarettes!) You ever hear about the sights for high powered rifles our soldiers were carrying in Iraq? Let me help ya out.

So even our companies are batshit crazy. So if that's a key ingredient for dropping nukes on Iran if they launch or otherwise deliver a nuke to our Sacred Shores... no worries, mate, they're toast. Well, boiling radioactive glass, but you know what I mean.

On the other hand, sea levels have not risen

You'll have to give us a reference for that, since my sources say otherwise:

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

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/slideshow?id=9281281

While we're at it, we should ground the entire Boeing fleet as well...one of their roofs ripped off a couple of days ago during a flight and cracks have been found all over the 737 fleet.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/southwest-airlines-boeing-knew-737-flaw-expect-problem/story?id=13300089#.TwomuU8gifg

Best part: They knew it could happen but they kept it a secret.

according to that article that was a 15 year old plane that was built after the 737's were redesigned in 2000...

Maybe they are reporting from the future?

Would you go in one of these.

While we're at it, we should ground the entire Boeing fleet as well...one of their roofs ripped off a couple of days ago during a flight and cracks have been found all over the 737 fleet.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/southwest-airlines-boeing-knew-737-flaw-expect-problem/story?id=13300089#.TwomuU8gifg

Best part: They knew it could happen but they kept it a secret.

Shhh.... Boeing does not do this....

http://abcnews.go.com/US/southwest-airlines-boeing-knew-737-flaw-expect-problem/story?id=13300089#.TwomuU8gifg

At 00:25 - 00:26, for some strange reason, the news lady says "It's an Airbus jet" very quickly. I don't think the word "Boeing" is even mentioned in the video, yet it is regarding a Boeing 737. Simple slip up? Seems very odd to me.

Shhh.... Boeing does not do this....

http://abcnews.go.com/US/southwest-airlines-boeing-knew-737-flaw-expect-problem/story?id=13300089#.TwomuU8gifg

"The aviation giant Boeing admitted today that it was aware of weaknesses in its 737 jets, but it never expected a 15-year-old Southwest Airlines jet to crack open in mid-flight. "

So why is this an issue with Airbus? One you said union, but I wonder if there is not some Boeing prodding going on here!!!

Not the only one. All terms used are misnomers, and they all desperately try to label something that isn't even a thing anymore. Plus, it has lead to such wonderful things as this gem.

As long as we have any publicly funded health care, then government is paying for the health consequences of smoking. With that in mind, why is it wrong to tax a behavior that increases an individual's societal burden?

Then where's my big tax break for working out 3 times per week, not smoking, and eating healthy?

Oh, wait. Maybe the tobacco tax has nothing to do with health care and is just a money grab.

Find your state government's online law listings. Usually it's in a state's Secretary of State or legislative web sites. Something as simple as searching for your state's name plus "laws" may be sufficient.

And, yes, Wikipedia. There is even an article on the basics of Stop and identify statutes that lists various states laws.

But remember, being difficult with the police WILL cause tension in the encounter. If they have *ANY* reason to bring you in, if you play difficult, they *WILL* bring you in. Be prepared for that if you decide to play hardball. If a police officer stops you on the street and says something like "there was just a crime nearby, I need some identification to prove you're not the criminal - and I'd like to take a look at your cell phone call history," and you do the steps I said before, he/she may very well haul you in and give you a miserable couple days. See the case of Ikenna Njoku for more on that...

From my understanding, they still can get information from cell phones even if they are turned off.

Now in this instance, its wiretapping and the FBI so I'm not sure exactly what it entails if it requires modification to cell phone but according to the article, the only way to defeat the bug is to remove the cell phone battery. Though I'm not sure if this is an unmodified phone or not. If its unmodified, then simply turning off your phone doesn't resolve the issue you talk about.

A blockade may ordinarily be illegal under international law, but there are various exemptions and arguments that will be made both ways - arguments similar to those used during the Gaza blockade (or even legality of the Iraq war). It can also be argued that the US sanctions are themselves also illegal under international law (Ron Paul: Sanctions Against Iran Are an ‘Act of War’) as would a preemptive strike (which the US has threatened in the past).

I love how everyone attacking Paul over the DoE instantly gravitate to nukes, as though that is all that the DoE is doing. This is utterly false. There are certain aspects of these departments that are critical and they get sent to other institutions or decentralized just as they were BEFORE its establishment in 1977. Yeah, that's right, this department is not all that old and there was nuclear oversight before 1977. What Ron Paul is purposing is vast savings by shutting down the aspects of the DoE that have enabled crap like Solyndra and taxpayer money being given to companies that are building cars in FINLAND!?!?!!

Awesome - FINALLY a vet.

Talk to us about zoological transfer in the context of using human sewage sludge (class B or worse) on farm pasture land and allowing your cows graze immediately after application.

Talk about rebloom/growth of ecoli and other bacteria on farm fields.

Talk about molybdenum poisoning (as witnessed in Augusta GA).

Talk about the lack of source tracking when contamination does become a problem (livestock auction breaks chain of custody of poisoned/contaminated cattle).

Talk about ecoli in cookie dough and if that could be linked to sewage sludge.

Talk about bio-aersols and if the wind can carry sludge particulates off site for miles.

Talk about vector transmission of MRSA and ECOLI by birds that feast on our waste and poop on our beach.

Talk about the issue of RCRA regulations of accepting toxic waste and the potential for clean up liability to the farmer who accepts this material.

Talk about the mrsa and ecoli showing up in meat.

This is just a warm up - i've got tons more.

Pretty tired of seeing this nonsense that the U.S. is the only country on the planet that helps other people being repeated.

Firstly, I do hope you realize that very rarely does the U.S. get engaged in something unilaterally. They are usually part of an international force, with many other nations participating.

Look up places like Timor, MINURSO in the Western Sahara, MONUSCO in the Congo, etc., etc. Read the history of WWII. Look up the number of times other countries have offered to help the U.S. and either been refused (goodness knows why - because the U.S. didn't want to look weak?) or their help has been accepted but you never hear about it.

Remember the oil spill off the coast of Louisiana a year ago? 17 countries offered assistance, including several that could've really helped as they had a lot of experience. BP accepted help from Mexico and Norway. The Biscuit fire in Oregon had firefighters helping out from Mexico, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Did you know about these examples and just choose to ignore them because they don't help your case, or had you never heard of them because, well, for whatever reason?

Saying something like this not only betrays your ignorance/xenophobia but is pretty insulting to the millions of brave non-Americans who continue to fight wars, engage in peace keeping missions, and offer assistance to Americans. They may not worry as much about self-publicizing, but it doesn't mean nobody else does it. I'm not bashing the bravery of American peacekeepers, firefighters, what-have-you by any means. But please don't be so insulting to the rest of the world.