Slashdot Mirror

Yeah! Just imagine if Stephen Hawking had been British! He'd have never survived!

lol.

Sales of CDs and music are falling world.

[citation needed]

Oh, you don't have any? Well, I do: First article I found in a very simple Google search; article by Huffington Post

The report found that total music purchases (physical albums, digital albums and digital songs) totaled an all-time high of 1.65 billion units in 2012, a rise of 3.1 percent over 2011.

Well, looks like you're wrong on the broad scope of music sales, for sure.

Unsurprisingly, physical music continued its yearly decline, with sales down by 12.8 percent in 2012. Despite this big drop -- including a 13 percent drop in CD sales -- physical remained the dominant format for music purchases, the study found.

Ok, that one supports your side, but only taken out of the context of my last post (except that you're point that CD sales are dropping--seems to be being replaced by digital and vinyl to make up for it, though).

Vinyls saw sales growth for the fifth straight year in 2012, with a 17.7 percent surge complementing 4.6 millions records sold.

Definitely against your point of music sales falling. Vinyl is blowing up.

While physical continued its decline, digital sales of music continued to rise in 2012. Thanks in large part to digital music stores on iTunes and Amazon, digital music's 9.1 percent growth meant the format accounted for 37 percent of all album purchases during the year.

Again, music sales rising. Just in a different format. This time, digital.

The positive sales figures have temporarily quelled some of the debate over whether streaming services like Spotify, Pandora or Rdio are killing the music industry. According to Greg Sandoval at CNET, the Nielsen figures don't actually take into account plays or revenue generated from streaming or subscription services, or from satellite or web radio. That's not to say streaming services didn't have a tremendous year too: Spotify racked up 5 million paying subscribers this year, and Pandora saw a record number of listener hours logged on its service.

Well. You don't think that's making up for the dropping CD sales at all, either? Because it most definitely does. Many people listen to Spotify, Pandora, Rdio, etc. instead of buying any of their music directly. Music companies are still making money off of that, while total music sales are growing not even accounting for that.

Sales of CDs and music are falling world.

No source to back up this claim (or any of your other claims for that matter), and the only valid point based on the very first source (which is citing from a Nielsen's Report study, which tends to be a pretty reliable source for these things) is that CD sales are dropping. Otherwise, music sales in general seem to be on the rise.

People (drunk, ignorant, criminal, other, or any combination of the aforementioned) will attempt to shove it up your ass...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/17/steve-mann-attacked-paris-mcdonalds-digital-eye-glass-photos_n_1680263.html

Employers are largely composed of con men and criminals. Ask any IRS agent about it; they just take this as an accepted fact going in and they're not wrong. I have worked for upwards of 20 employers of various descriptions from flipping burgers to mega corps and I can say with certainty that each and every one of them was some species of scammer.

Congress listens to them at all because Congress is more of the same- ambitious men who want money, women and power. Anything that gets in the way- in this case paying Americans American wages instead of pretending there's a desperate STEM labor shortage and flooding the market with H1Bs- is a total non-starter for them. They don't even think twice about it- "oh... here's how you run THIS scam ..."

There's not really more to it than that. Employers are liars through and through and the companies they create are in a constant game of cat and mouse with the law, with their customers and with their employees.

It's genetic and what we need to find is a genetic cure for it. We need to tone down the sociopathic impulses that drive people and tone up the empathetic ones. Doing that will be THE achievement of the 21st century.

It's not panacea, but any little movement in that direction would yield huge savings in law enforcement, regulation, societal disruption and a massive increase in egalitarian outcomes. We can then take all that saved energy and money and attention and put it on creating even better things and circumstances for ourselves.

People from future generations will look at our literature and TV and movies and culture and be glad they didn't now just as we're glad we didn't live in the Dark Ages.

In all projections of a future (where humans have survived), we're more peaceful, more productive, there aren't have and have nots , there isn't just base level strife that causes grown men to rape 5 year old children.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/18/africa-child-rape-crisis_n_3103558.html

How do we get there? By religion? By indoctrination? By capitalism? By communism? The fact is men are genetically predisposed to not just crave having more than the other guy but to FLAUNT it and to absolutely GRIND the other guy down. This is how men show their brightly colored feathers to females and females do indeed prefer men who have more stuff, power and prestige.

Women like winners and men like to win. It's a marriage made by hell.

So sure, the corporations are knowing and deliberately lying about the STEM graduate situation. They've been doing that since at least 1995 according to Norm Matloff.

http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/h1b.html

http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2012/feb/08/citylights1-fed-H1B-visa-engineers/

  And Congress and the press go along with the lie because all the men at the top of THOSE hierarchies stand to benefit by undermining other men who do not hold those positions of power. This is just instinctive knowledge. Congress knows they're lying, knows why they're lying and knows it's their part in this scam to wring their hands and decry their fellow (male) citizens qualifications.

Important: If you have a relationship (other than as an ordinary reader) to the author or publisher of a book you're reviewing, disclose that relationship. This means not only cases like "My brother, the author, has given me a million dollars to type this review, and is holding me at gunpoint, while dictating to me from the Amazon review he himself wrote," but also "I used to work at this book's publisher, and was a technical reviewer for this book's three chapters on networking," or "The author is a good friend of mine." Better to disclose more than you think necessary (it can always be edited out if sensible; we'll let you know if we think there's an inappropriate conflict of interest) than less than actually necessary. If in doubt, please speak up.

Yet the author of the review is a "Senior Editor at Slashdot," Nick Kolakowski (Twitter, Literary Gun For Hire), who writes articles for Slashdot (and other places) and apparently submits them under the guise of a "user" named Nerval's Lobster. Nerval's Lobster's submissions are "accepted" by the editors nearly every day, and always link to Slashdot's "Business Intelligence" or "Cloud" content... effectively passing off paid content as normal, user-submitted content.

Two of the three links in the review are to Kolakowski's own "Business Intelligence" articles. The link to the book itself goes to Amazon and contains Slashdot's "Associates ID" (slashdot0c-20) to ensure Slashdot gets a cut of any sales this review drives.

Piece it together:
1. A Slashdot employee writes a favorable (7/10) review of a book
2. The same employee submits it under the guise of a normal reader (see the summary which ends with "Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here...")
3. The editors post the review (because nearly everything "Nerval's Lobster" submits gets accepted by the editors, and it all links back to Slashdot paid content)
4. Readers believe the review was submitted by a regular reader, and the huge wave of traffic invariably-driven by any Slashdot story results in a fair number of click throughs and purchases
5. Slashdot gets a referral fee from Amazon for getting people to buy the book from them

I have no problem with Slashdot staff writing a book review, as long as the relationship is disclosed, per Slashdot's own guidelines. I have no problem with a regular user writing a review and Slashdot making a few bucks by pointing readers to Amazon to buy that book. But he way they did it today makes it look like Kolakowski only wrote the review and the editors only accepted it because their employer is getting a kickback from Amazon. Making money is OK, but disguising paid content as user-submitted content is not. That's not what people come to Slashdot to find--it's a sleight of hand.

Before you mod me down as a troll, consider that Kolakowski's review points out that one should take the business motivations of the book's authors into account when weighing what they have to say:

Of course, Schmidt and Cohen extolling the virtues of the cloud is like two corporate board-members of McDonald's insisting that burgers are delicious and everyone in the world should eat them three times a day.

Slashdot readers should be able to do the same with the authorship of stories and book reviews.

PETA isn't exaclty known for being smart: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nathan-j-winograd/peta-kills-puppies-kittens_b_2979220.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003

Sad, but true. As an update, Obama now actually has a worse record on prosecuting whistle blowers than all previous administrations. Combined. Transparent indeed.

The NYPD came up and was grilling out for them.

Here in Massachusetts he may be freed due to governmental incompetence.

A Justice Department official says the Boston Marathon bombing suspect will not be read his Miranda rights because the government is invoking a public safety exception. (emphasis mine)

I just heard a senior lawyer on CNN talking how the bombing can be hardly classified as terrorism because it was carried out by an American citizen on US soil (or something along those words) and so suspending his citizen rights may be unconstitutional which would play well for his defense ... Dzhokhar possibly did not even commit a federal crime - so the maximum punishment is not death penalty but life imprisonment. Overall I'm going to watch closely how the human rights aspect will play out - his rights as well as the rights of general public, in both directions: upkeeping and restricting.

Don't forget the New York Post's involvement in the affair.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/18/ny-post-boston-suspects-bag-men-front-page_n_3109052.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/18/cispa-vote-house-approves_n_3109504.html

We need something more than a non-profit. Unfortunately, or fortunately dependent on your worldview, we need an organization that is able to financially at least make the congresscritters consider that going against this particular organization, might cost them future seat in a position of power.

SOPA failed partly because Google got involved. CISPA faced challenges only from normal peons like me or you, non-profits and few companies (FB and MS ).

And some recent speeches from people in power prove that they simply do not care. The attitude of "I IS A SENATOR, I OWN YOU LIL MAN" starts becoming a norm and not a stigmatized exception.

Sheet, Rogers simply dismissed us as lil ppl who don't know shit.

For instance, I could say that Hitler was an artist, who had an accomplished military career, as well as a career in politics (which must mean he was popular, right?)

Well, he did win the popular vote, so I fail to see the problem here.

but looking through that Wikipedia article makes it fairly clear that his father was abusive, and he joined the military to get away from him. These two facts scream "predisposition to violence" to me, and I think most other rational thinking people.

And unfortunately, you'd be very wrong. There is no such thing as a "predisposition to violence". There are risk factors, but these are not predictive at an individual (micro) level, only at a macro level. Or put another way, if I run into a crowd and start shooting a gun into the air, I cannot predict how any particular individual will react in that situation... but I can predict to a reasonably high accuracy what the group will do.

Your comment, on the other hand, is your own statement of belief.

Statement of belief #1, by Dr. Michael Koenigs of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Neuroscience Training Program. His conclusion? I'm right, you're wrong.

The informally-named Connally Commission also concluded that the brain lesion likely played a role in his violent impulses. This report was produced under the direction of the office of the Governor of Texas, and was prepared by medical experts with the sole purpose of answering the question I outlined earlier.

I could go on, if you'd like. Wikipedia is not the only citation I can provide, just the easiest.

I'm afraid I have to point out that the burden of proof lies with you,

*punt* Your turn.

The authors of the study have posted a response that refutes these criticisms.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-gongloff/reinhart-rogoff-research-response_b_3099185.html?utm_hp_ref=tw

The real issue here is not the data which seems to be holding up, but the deeper question as to whether correlation implies causation. It clearly does not - that is low economic growth could be causing high deficits just as likely as the reverse.

HOWEVER it does seem pretty unlikely that one can claim that high deficits cause higher economic growth. That is the real take away here.

Within a generation of the Roman Empire collapsing, and hence the tax man no longer being a problem, people stopped using currency and reverted to barter. In the 19th century, the British engaged in all sorts of social engineering to get Africans to work for money.

Then the British must suck at education. Money is so simple a capuchin monkey could use it.

Some think you can use it to win the lottery. Like a certain math professor may have done. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/14/joan-ginther-wins-texas-l_n_645520.html

Currently, the Democrats benefit from the voter fraud, nominally through a misapplication of the 1973 Voting Rights Act, predominantly in Florida, but one in eight voting registrations are flawed and/or illegal , while the Republicans benefit from the below market labor costs, so neither party actually wants the practice of illegal immigration stopped. Here is the NY Times article on it from the Pew Center for the States: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/14/us/politics/us-voter-registration-rolls-are-in-disarray-pew-report-finds.html?_r=0 [nytimes.com]

What a bullshitter you are. The article basically says there are lot of errors in the registration systems to the point that dead people are still in the roles (not that other people are using those identities to vote), that people that move often end up registered in more than one state (not that they are voting in more than one), that a high percentage of registrations contain data errors serious enough that the voter will not receive a ballot (flawed, but not "illegal" as you insinuate), and that approximately 1 in 4 eligible voters isn't even registered. It then says that Democrats want to make it easier to register people, but that Republicans don't want that because of fear that it could introduce fraud. The last election highlighted several occurrences of voter fraud, none of which being identity fraud that the Voter ID laws Republicans have been pushing would have stopped, and the most serious being perpetrated by Republicans.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/25/gop-voter-fraud_n_1990104.html
http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/10/19/14556980-gop-registration-worker-charged-with-voter-fraud?lite
http://www.salon.com/2012/10/19/gop_voter_registration_scandal_widens/
http://www.npr.org/2012/10/02/162176990/republican-firm-tied-to-voter-fraud-allegations
http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/03/06/the-real-gop-voter-fraud-employees-admit-forging-voter-registration-forms/

Want proof that Google, Verizon, etc. are in on the privacy nightmares of Android?

They keep releasing new versions that prevent people (who own their phones) from rooting them to

1) block ads ( from their Google Play store)

2) prevent you from using apps to control permissions (like LBE Privacy Guard that now reboots your phone in an endless loop)

With all the time and effort put into their OS, why have they not allowed users to control permissions on apps in any way, shape, or form? Why? Because they are marketing companies that also sell your data to other companies (including all the top mobile carriers). They make deals with these companies and propagate the problem - turning smart phones into a privacy nightmare. And it's not like the iPhone is any better.

Until people take a stand (and stop being a bunch of apathetic consumers), it's not going to change. People allow themselves to be taken advantage of. It's sad. Most don't even care. They'll happily give Facebook and Google all their information because "they don't have anything to hide" - which we all know is the lamest excuse for apathy possible and is easily dismissed as moronic. And it just keeps getting worse - and now our governments collect this data too.

And what is the effect? People are not getting jobs or losing their jobs due to their Facebook posts. Insurance companies are increasing rates on people who type certain terms into their search engines. And that's just barely getting started!

Wake up, folks!

Why pandering government officials need to die screaming like pigs in Hell.

This is just ridiculous. Hell, just the infinitesimal decrease in future scientists because some kids won't be mesmerized will slow technological development enough to cause, by lack of invention, deaths to occur that wouldn't otherwise.

Lawyers are indistinguishable from a disease on the body of the populace. A parasite -- an organism that exists drawing resources from the host organism, and causing degradation to the host organism.

He perceives the farthest, most exotic places in the universe, but can't comprehend more than half of the human population. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/04/stephen-hawking-women-a-mystery_n_1184468.html

I think you're smart and your theory is well thought out. You have obviously invested considerable mental energy to it. I don't think you have an ulterior motive.

But there's this really smart guy who agrees with me. His name is Stephen Hawking. He thinks if we don't get off this rock, we're doomed.

they're pretty evenly divided between wanting slow upward wealth redistribution, or very rapid upward wealth redistribution

An even more accurate way to say this -- which is backed up by their actions and proposals -- is that some want wealth redistribution programs to continue to grow faster than GDP (with no regard to the unsustainability of this), and the rest want wealth redistribution programs to grow at a sustainable rate.

There are (in theory) actual budget cuts, and then there are Washington-style "cuts," which are actually budget increases that don't quite live up to the expectation of faster-than-GDP growth. I know of only one politician who proposed actual cuts -- and that politician was voted out in November.

For example, sending comrades to forced labor camps (where 40% die of malnutrition) if they participated in organized gatherings to mourn the death of Kim Jong Il, but "didn't cry and didn't seem genuine." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/13/north-korea-punish-mourners-insincere-kim-jong-il_n_1204377.html

The fact that a video game company was voted worst company in America is ridiculous and would be laughable if it was not so frightening. Come on! Is there nothing more serious on the planet than botching a game release? Aren't companies that fight like crazy to deprive cancer patients from inexpensive treatments a little worse? Or companies who lie to be free to play with your health in the name of profit? Or companies using child labor to lower the price of smartphones? Or simply profitable companies planning massive layoffs? Or media associations with an agenda built on layers of lies?

Apparently, for the majority of Slashdot readers, getting a perspective chip would be a good idea.

Police forces, especially in Australia have repeatedly said there is no quota....No matter how much evidence against their conspiracy theory there is, because they cant admit responsibility for it they cant thing straight about it.

I can't speak for Australia, but in the US, quotas are common practice. Some places mask the quotas because they are controversial. There is a court case going on right now over the firing of several NYPD officers for not meeting their "Stop and frisk" quotas.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/20/nypd-stop-and-frisk-trial-quota-brass_n_2914795.html

One of the officers actually recorded the police chief stating the quota and chastising the officers who didn't meet them. There's been lots of cases like this over the years. Google News even indexed an article about a similar case back in 1985.

Not that this makes speeding right - but I just want to make sure you know this is really common practice in many places. It's no conspiracy theory.

Sure, but that wouldn't be very Japanese. On the windows of some trains on the Tokyo subway, there were big warnings that the window could not open. The windows in question were clearly stationary, if you broke your fingers trying to pry them open, that was on you. This is the same country that practices tiger escape drills in their zoos using costumes.

This whole thread is quibbling about taxing pennies on employee lunches, when Google works overtime to avoid paying taxes on billions of dollars on its profits. I'm surprised that not one person in this thread has noticed the disparity. Did you notice?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/20/microsoft-taxes-profits-offshore_n_1901398.html
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-13/irs-auditing-how-google-shifted-profits-offshore-to-avoid-taxes.html
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-10/google-revenues-sheltered-in-no-tax-bermuda-soar-to-10-billion.html

Really. Buy some perspective.

sc

This is not a new thing. The US has a Bill of Rights for a reason -- direct experience of government without it. If only the citizens would keep that in mind...

What was that reason again? Abdulrahman al-Awlaki thinks (or, I think would have thought) the Bill of Rights is about as useful as an empty zigzag box.

If you didn't know, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki is the son of Anwar Al-Awlaki. Both were US citizens executed via drone missile in Yemen on orders of Obama. Anwar was "the spokesperson" of Al-Qaeda.

Just to be clear, the 16 year old US citizen son of a man supposedly exercising his 1st amendment rights was executed on the orders of the President without a trial, charges, judge, jury, conviction, or indeed any judicial review whatsoever, away from any field of battle. What was the charge against the 16 year old child? Who knows. But according to Robert Gibbs, Abdulrahman "should have [had] a far more responsible father". Direct quote.

The Bill of Rights... If by bill you mean "I owe money"... maybe.

Indirect quote, sorry. I didn't personally hear it. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/24/robert-gibbs-anwar-al-awlaki_n_2012438.html did.

This article really says it all ...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/07/snl-kim-jong-un-declares-gay-marriage-legal-in-north-korea_n_3032251.html

This is what happens when you send Dennis Rodman over as an ambassador!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/8570506/Police-covered-up-violent-campaign-to-turn-London-area-Islamic.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1374443/Police-hid-abuse-60-girls-Asian-takeaway-workers-linked-Charlene-Downes-murder.html
http://www.bnp.org.uk/news/muslim-paedophile-gangs-have-been-operating-%E2%80%9Cdecades%E2%80%9D-admits-former-police-chief
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/14/iran-gay-men-executed-hanging_n_1515207.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/07/iran-executes-men-homosexuality-charges
http://www.gaypatriot.net/2006/11/27/gay-holocaust-in-iran-4000-killed-and-counting/
http://www.torontosun.com/2012/03/26/disgust-over-muslim-wife-beating-book
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2012/03/23/19543371.html
https://www.google.ca/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=police+in+UK+scared+of+muslims&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&redir_esc=&ei=PpFhUd0HwpaIAojLgagO#hl=en&gs_rn=8&gs_ri=psy-ab&tok=YRHZtAg-ihnWR_44H-nTgw&pq=muslim%20wife%20beating%20canada&cp=11&gs_id=9oj&xhr=t&q=islam+acid+attacks&es_nrs=true&pf=p&client=ubuntu&hs=AVY&channel=fs&sclient=psy-ab&oq=islam+acid+&gs_l=&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_qf.&bvm=bv.44770516,d.cGE&fp=d05afac0920070b6&biw=1390&bih=672r
I could post links for you all day but it would be pointless you love Islam because it lets you be a terrorist and get away with it because people are to scared to stand up to terrorists of the false prophet Muhammad. Your above post is exactly what your Muhammad stands for, way to represent he must be proud.

But, we're not certain we have it right in the first place. More data is always useful, whether or not the premise is flawed.

Came across this

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/03/meth-addiction-cure-ucla-ibudilast_n_2863126.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular

looks interesting; article worth reading.

Stress can make people laugh or giggle, even if they don't want to. If people are walking around thinking to themselves "oh my, I better not make any bomb jokes or even accidentally say a word like 'bomb'", it's just like an admonishment that requests "Don't think about penguins!".
.
The admonishment alone inserts thought about penguins into your head. So consciously thinking "don't say anything stupid" could make your brain ask itself "stupid things such as what?" and then your brain cooks up examples and a genuinely nervous person innocently blurts out "so, what do you think, that i have a bomb in there?"
.
And then the excitement begins. This is ridiculous thought-porn torture, people, as part of security theater. And we buy tickets for that security theater every time we purchase a seat on an airliner. We pay to be subjected to this humiliation and useless piece of proof of our obeisance to group-think. It's like the idiotic "Freeze!" tactic exercises being performed at various airports: TSA Freeze Drill links
http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2012/09/tsa_freeze_drill_videod_at_sky.php
http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/read.main/5103484/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/28/tsa-all-stop-drill_n_1923683.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Km0awE1Q2HA

The only reason Swartz was charged with crimes amounting to years in prison was to discourage him from exercising his rights. That's unjust any way you want to portray it.

No, the reason Swartz was charged with crimes amounting to years in prison is because the evidence indicated that he committed crimes whose maximum penalty was 35 years in prison.

The reason people keep shouting "35 years" is because they're engaging in a political game, trying to conflate "maximum sentence" with "likely penalty Mr. Swartz would have received." In fact, the prosecution went on record as threatening to seek 7 years (that's 20% of the maximum) if he took it to trial. (Source: complaint filed by defense lawyers with the DOJ Office of Professional Responsibility)

So let's be accurate: plead out to a 6 month sentence and avoid trial, or go to trial and face a prosecutor asking for 7 years. Realistically, if he had gone to trial, even if found guilty he would have probably faced less than 7 years, unless he was stupid enough to stand up in court and tell the judge to "kiss his skinny white ass, motherfucker."

You may still believe that 7 years is too long - that's your prerogative. But Mr. Swartz's constitutional rights were not infringed by anybody during this prosecution. The only person who took away his "right to a trial" was Mr. Swartz himself.

3. Pharma company goes on to spend $10M to show that the molecule will never work in people.

4. Pharma company spends about $100M on the molecule and it works out.

But in your hypothetical scenario you forgot the $2 billion they spent on advertising and marketing.

I'm not faulting you, but every time criticism of pharmaceuticals comes up everybody raves about high research costs while ignoring that these are not the main expenditure. Apologists also tend to forget about sheer mountain of money "Big Pharma" rakes in each year. There's a line somewhere between "making a profit" and "being a malevolent drain on society", and I think they've crossed well over it.

And this doesn't mention all the potential "negative future revenue" drugs that might have been squashed or hidden away, but that's another topic.

I wouldn't trust Boudreaux. He cherry-picks his data.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-jan-schakowsky/the-truth-about-the-middl_b_2585183.html

You want to get rid of the TSA?

Don't fly.

It's that simple.

No it's not. TSA is expanding to provide its services outside airports. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christopher-elliott/the-tsa-wants-to-be-every_b_2393332.html

Yep you nailed it here. The airlines are losing revenue because people are sick of the TSA and taking the train or bus, or just simply driving to their destination. Thus the TSA, in order to channel as much funds from the government into private contractor hands, is expanding into all forms of mass transit. If you have to get patdown in order to get on a freaking bus people are going to go nuts.

Perhaps the end goal is to keep people from travelling altogether.

You want to get rid of the TSA?

Don't fly.

It's that simple.

No it's not. TSA is expanding to provide its services outside airports. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christopher-elliott/the-tsa-wants-to-be-every_b_2393332.html

We really should keep that on hand whenever someone posts that Slippery Slope or Scope Creep is a fallacy.

I'm hardly a Tea Partier or a even Barry Goldwater old style Republican, but those folks are right when it comes to limiting government.

You want to get rid of the TSA?

Don't fly.

It's that simple.

No it's not. TSA is expanding to provide its services outside airports. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christopher-elliott/the-tsa-wants-to-be-every_b_2393332.html

Moral equivalence ! Also known as the idea that stoning women and mining oil is the same : they're "both bad", and there really isn't any more to say on the subject than that. This absurd pseudo-atheist Jacobian standard must die (The Jacobins were famous for their absolute standards of good and evil, and magnitude doesn't matter. Stealing a loaf of bread is evil and so is massacring a kindergarten, and they're really just the same thing. This is the same thing here).

Ironic, and not in the funny way, that you should mention stealing a loaf of bread. In 1997, an American citizen was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for stealing a loaf of bread, and only released after serving 13 of those years due to an appeal by Stanford Law School's Three Strikes Project. His previous two convictions were in the previous decade before that, stealing a purse and trying to rob a man on the street, neither involving weapons or violence. The country that imprisoned him? The United States. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/17/gregory-taylor-homeless-m_n_684828.html

And if you might be hoping the above has to be some kind of "exception to the rule", I'm sorry, read this one: http://www.eurasiareview.com/29032013-you-have-the-right-to-remain-silent-the-united-police-states-of-america-oped/

That by and large I like the Americans I've met and talked with, makes me all the sadder that their government has turned - and continues to turn - oppressive and violent. Yeah, you guys aren't Evil. But you've been "paving the road with good intentions", and America never seems to be one for doing anything by halves when it could shake the world instead. Well, consider us shaken.

This judge will be held up as an example in all Texas courts.

He *should* be, I doubt *will*. This is a state that is still having debates on weather or not to include evolution in school curriculums.

Umm, it is easy enough to find those stories in other sources.

The first one, and the second one.

And those stories seem to be a non sequitar from your starting point. I do think the administration should not have reacted as it did in both stories, and I have nothing against guns... but kids getting in trouble for waving around a toy gun is not getting "arrested for thinking of anything heroic." Either you are knowingly exaggerating or stretching your point, or you have a twisted sense of what it means to be heroic and I would hope to never be around you with a gun (regardless if I had mine or not...).

...do not give this guy more publicity.

> but the ENTIRE TRANSACTION HISTORY OF EVERY BITCOIN is known to all. This is completely unacceptable.

You can't have authority without accountability.

Maybe if Congress / Government was accountable we wouldn't have over $1.1 TRILLION _missing_!
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/missing_money/

Or bank scandals:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/18/hsbc-money-laundering-argentina_n_2902430.html
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/industries/brokerage/story/2011-12-08/mf-global-corzine/51732752/1

Kind of sad when you have websites like this:
http://www.crewsmostcorrupt.org/mostcorrupt

hopefully you have ample examples of men receiving death threats

Sure. Here are a few that come up on Google:

This guy pissed off some animal rights activists and they threatened to use pliers on his testicles, disembowel him and use napalm on him. Among other things. Incidentally, it was a woman who ran the organization that sent the threats, and was sentenced to jail for it. That one isn't even anonymous!

Gay blogger gets death threats.

This guy tracked down the sender of his death threats.

Here's a story about a guy who sends death threats to people who debunk the paranormal. Some blog authors, mostly male, were targeted.

Here's a guy who pissed off 4chan by making a movie. Here's one who wrote a book. If you want to do an experiment go post something they find offensive there and see how many death/rape/mutilation threats you get.

A Slashdot story about a guy getting death threats from some scammers he exposed.

Browsing Slashdot at -1 can be pretty enlightening too.

If you want to really get some threats, piss off some religious people.

Sources? Because that isn't what the IRS is saying to the press:

"The agency says the video, along with a training video that parodied the TV show "Gilligan's Island," cost about $60,000. The "Star Trek" video accounted for most of the money, the agency said."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/23/irs-star-trek-video_n_2939090.html

"Hurd was fired as Hewlett Packard's CEO in 2010 for alleged sexual misconduct involving an outside consultant named Jodie Fisher."

As I recall, Hurd was not fired only for the sexual misconduct, but the falsifying of expense reports and other misuse of corporate money to cover up the affair. Sleep with whoever you want, but when you steal company money, you're gone.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/06/hp-ceo-mark-hurd-resigns-_n_673858.html

In Dr Irving Kirsch's book "The Emperor's New Drugs Exposed" he described how they are as effective as a class of anti-depressants, and of course they have fewer side effects! http://healthimpactnews.com/2012/fact-antidepressant-drugs-no-better-than-placebos/ Ben Goldacre in "Big Pharma" has written similar stories. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/irving-kirsch-phd/antidepressants-the-emper_b_442205.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/27/bush-war-boosts-the-us-ec_n_592444.html

Just pointing out how we're still similar to Roman ideology. "What kind of culture even HAS a word for 'kill every tenth person'?"

And, chill... The Democrats are part of our government and they do it too... Republicans just made the "brandish a strong military" bit as part of their core platform.

/voted Green, since it sounds like you care.

You sparked a memory I had of reading something about this last fall. It is about a study covering psychopathic tendencies of the Presidents.

Out of all the former presidents tested in the Emory study, Theodore Roosevelt ranked the highest for fearless dominance, according to the researchers. He was followed by John F. Kennedy, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan, Rutherford Hayes, Zachary Taylor, Bill Clinton, Martin Van Buren, Andrew Jackson and George W. Bush.

Gee-Dubberyer didn't need to be a psycho, since most of his handlers were.

But I'm surprised Reagan rates so high on this measure, since AFAICT he too was mostly the puppet of his handlers.