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I can't image Westboro Baptis being a viable food source.

You didn't mention that thay hacked their website in real time, during a live radio interview. Now, that's an achievement.

Absolutely, the USPS should be responsible for funding pensions and retiree health care just like any other governmental or private entity.

But that's the problem - so far as I can tell, they've had stricter funding requirements related to future retiree health care than any other entity. This was imposed by Congress in 2006.

Here's an article --> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ron-bloom/reality-check-postal-service_b_1927634.html

Requiring someone to take their valuable property and destroy its value is a taking under the Fifth Amendment, and is only constitutional if the government provides fair compensation for it. If you are going to have a law that requires people to turn a $1000 firearm into a almost worthless hunk of metal, then that is a taking. That means that it would cost $300 billion or so.

The Second Amendment is not tied to service in a militia. It is an individual right, as stated explicitly in both Heller v. DC and McDonald v. Chicago. You might not like or agree with those rulings, but that doesn't change the fact that they are the law of the land, and aren't likely to change anytime soon. As a result, the Second Amendment is absolutely a problem for what you propose.

And actually, I am part of the unorganized militia of the United States, as defined in 10 USC 311: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/311 I am an able-bodied male between the ages of 17 and 45 and a citizen of the United States, and I don't fall within the exceptions listed in 10 USC 312: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/312

And again, you haven't explained how your approach would protect kids like the 12-year-old girl in Oklahoma who shot an intruder. (Story: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/20/oklahoma-girl-shoots-home-intruder_n_1992381.html) You would essentially penalize millions of Americans, and allow people like that 12-year-old to die just so you can pat yourself on the back and say that you saved lives, without ever considering the lives that you would in turn destroy.

Maybe 4 years back I was driving in Toronto and listening to a US radio talk show channel from Niagara Falls I think (or Buffalo). It was actually around XMas and a lady called the show, she was asking for an advice on what type of rifle to buy to protect her home. She was thinking of some form of semi-automatic, she just wasn't sure about the type and the caliber. She was asking the host whether to buy an AR-15 or a shotgun. She said she was buying a present for herself, not anybody else.

I remember the host suggested a shotgun.

My point is that you are jumping to conclusions, but so do many other people. I mean you go to websites and see what people say, it's ridiculous. So many people are talking about tougher gun controls and things of that nature.

Connecticut has probably the strongest gun control laws out of the entire USA. That 20 y.o. guy wanted to buy another rifle for himself just days before shooting and was denied because of a waiting period. I think this is a better indicator that actually she did not buy the guns for her kid but just wanted the guns.

As to gun control, no, there shouldn't be any gun controls. AFAIC anybody should be able to buy any weapon, nuclear, whatever. As long as governments have weapons of mass destruction, so should individuals. You want to control guns in the hands of individuals, control it in the hands of your tyrannical governments first.

Obama came out with crocodile tears, and I mean alligator-crocodile-diplodoc tears. Why am I saying that? How many people has he personally killed over the last 4 years? How many of them were children? Just in Pakistan he increased drone strikes 10 fold.

He killed thousands of people and it's not clear that even half of them were not children.

He is a crocodile, he'll come for your guns, but he has much bigger guns, they are installed on fire-breathing, air-born dragons, he isn't crying for any of those children, even when they are American.

You mistake "taking something seriously" with "agreeing with everything in some random petition by an incredible minority of the electorate, in direct opposition to the majority view of the US public".

Petitions raise issues, they don't decide things. They especially don't decide things when it's clear that the petitioners don't speak for the American people. This isn't just for those inane secession petitions, it's also for the TSA.

The majority of Americans think the TSA is doing a good job. You (and I) disagree, but that is the way it is. So the Administration is not lying when they say they take petitions seriously. In this case, they rather seriously said "no, ending the TSA ain't going to happen". And then mentioned some things they're trying to do to improve the experience - which actually is a reasonable request. (From the actual response - "Current efforts include: changing the way TSA screens passengers ages 12 and under, evaluating the expanded use of behavior detection techniques, and piloting expedited screening for known travelers.")

So grow up. Sometimes in elections, you just hold the minority view. And juvenile alienation is not only extremely annoying, it's counterproductive. Or did you sign that dumb-ass secession petition as well?

As someone posted elsewhere: "I don't want to take your guns away, but if the price of freedom is 18 dead elementary school kids 3 times a year, I don't want to be free. "Gun control" doesn't have to mean "take away guns". Stop arguing against that straw man."

It would help if I knew what exactly I'm arguing against, then. Right now I see a bunch of articles like this that are basically demanding that all guns are surrendered and banned forevermore, so clearly it's not a strawman. But, of course, different people have different positions in this debate - it's not down two two sides that are "ban everything" vs "make everything legal".

But you have to be explicit then. Where do you draw the line?

A) It's not really about being liberal, I think it's progressives and authoritarians who would want to control guns. I'm quite liberal, but believe that our existing gun laws go way too far.

B) Here is an article that discusses the incident. She shot one intruder, and the other was arrested. Amusingly, the second fellow is facing murder charges because he took actions that required the new mom to shoot the first fellow.

Sorry about the anonymous post, but I've moderated in this discussion.

But the NAACP is right that there are "racist elements" among the teabaggers. "You must expel the bigots and racists in your ranks or take full responsibility for all of their actions," NAACP president Benjamin Jealous has said." Note that Jealous did not say that all teabaggers are "bigots and racists," just certain "elements." There's a big difference there, but the hostile defensiveness of teabaggers is telling: either they don't want to own up to the racism and bigotry of their own kind, out of ignorant denial or willful suppression of the truth, or they agree with it but are smart enough not to be so outspoken about their real views.

Trying to defend oneself from slander and libel is "defensiveness", somehow just by itself confirming evidence of the baseless accusation that was made. What other response would they have liked better? Callous indifference? Cheering and hooting?

And the blogger never bothers to mention an example of this alleged racism.

Note who makes the accusation as well, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which is a group solely devoted to the furtherance of a particular ethnic group's interests (and I might add, a particular group of "colored people"). By the dubious logic of the NAACP, if they had been affiliated with the Tea Party, then they should have been expelled. Also note the classy use of the label, "teabaggers" by the blogger in question.

As to the logic of such ostracism, why should we be expelling bigots? Are their concerns and issues somehow less worthy than anyone else's? Why is it disturbing that someone has racist views, but not disturbing to ostracize that person and their concerns merely because they have racist views?This is a claim that someone doesn't matter merely because they hold racist or bigoted viewpoints.

This also is one of the worst manifestations of Democrat racism where racism of whites are quickly and severely criticized even in cases where it is purely imaginary, but racism of ethnic groups associated with Democrats, particularly Blacks and Hispanics, typically gets ignored, even when it's pretty high grade, such as the preacher of the church that President Obama had attended for 20 years. Or the various racist groups associated with the Democrats such as the New Black Panthers and La Raza.

Ask Warren Buffet his takes on the issue. Cue, he thinks he is not taxed enough and that rich should do their part too.

Yes, let's ask that tax cheater Warren Buffet.

Ask Warren Buffet his takes on the issue. Cue, he thinks he is not taxed enough and that rich should do their part too.

Yes, let's ask that tax cheater Warren Buffet.

No need. Try actually READING your link.

While the company is not obligated to publicize its tax return, and thus the actual amount it paid in taxes, ExxonMobil has voluntarily released a figure for its actual federal income tax bill in response to media requests that questioned why the company reported a negative tax liability in 2009. Jeffers told PolitiFact that the "U.S. income tax expense for 2009 activities was approximately $500 million." The company declined to provide documentation for this number, however.

For a company that was making 40 Billion in profits for 2011, half a billion in taxes is not exactly fair when most people are paying around 20% of their income.

In addition: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/06/most-profitable-corporations-tax-rate_n_1746817.html

These companies are paying 9%.

In short, get a clue.

so know illegal aliens getting arrested for blocking traffic is the same as jailing someone for posting something some peoples club considers offensive?

*winces at the bad english* Freedom of expression must have a very different definition in your world.

your violent crime examples of homicides, not violent crime. Of course, rape and violence on women is rarely reported, and even less frequently documented. so you link is less facts and more half truth.

Yeah, what was I thinking, using the most reported and documented violent crime as a baseline reference? Silly me.

The crime rate was low in Germany During the Nazi regime. Is that really an argument that Nazi Germans is better then the US, or any country?

You Godwin'd yourself. But ignoring that, there's about 11 million dead Jews and political prisoners that would disagree about the crime rate. But you know, other than that, there's also the problem of there not being any statistics on the crime rate or population of the Third Reich for the past 67 years.

That said, I suspect that there rate of imprisonment is lower then the US. The USs prison increase is doe toy the privatization of prisons.

Every time you post something to the internet, God kills a dictionary. The ownership of our prisons has as much relationship to the reasons why so many are jailed each year as your literary shortcomings do to the number of books Amazon sells each year.

the truth is, they aren't better. All your metrics ignore what life is like for over half their population.

I will admit I have more confidence that the CIA, the United Nations, The Harvard Institute of Law, and a handful of major news outlets got the numbers right than I do in a person on the internet literary abilities of a fifth grader, who is backing up his argument with no citations, logical reasoning, or even an anecdotal story.

However our country can, and has many times, changed without needing a revolution.

I'm skeptical of this claim that stuff has happened many times. I don't think stuff happens many times. In fact, I'd even go as far as to call myself a stuff skeptic. I'm going to need a citation from you that the country has done stuff, and that this stuff has happened many times. Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof, you know.

We do live in a country where you can have a different house of worship on each corner at an intersect and nothing violent happens.

Can I suggest you open a newspaper someday?

After looking through their Job Listings, I didn't see a single engineer/developer job that mentioned a preference for a *nix background -- while my eyes did gaze upon words relating to that Micro$oft $cum -- our mortal enemies. Based on this, I think we are at a lost my comrade.

However, there is still hope! A new hope? From this huffingtonpost article: "Epix CEO Mark Greenberg said the expansion onto Redbox will help grow its customer base since Redbox's customers tend to be younger than its current subscribers." Let's just hope the younger crowd yearns for Linux.

Based on this cnn article, this is what will be supported in the beginning: "At launch, Redbox Instant will be available through traditional web browsers, tablets and phones that run on Apple's iOS or Google's Android, as well as a few Blu-ray players and smart TVs." So it will be available on Linux (ARM), just not desktop Linux -- the one we love. I imagine this will be like Hulu. Hopefully, they use HTML 5 and not Flash.

I'm tempted to email Redbox directly...

Near the Unicorn lair.

I'm feeling nice today. Here ya go: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/24/internet-industrial-revolution-gdp-mckinsey-study_n_866167.html
Here is a second: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9134231/Study_Internet_economy_has_created_1.2M_jobs

And if you don't feel like reading it, or it's behind a paywall, here's the part you want:

In "mature" countries--which excludes India, China, Brazil and Russia--the Internet accounts for 21 percent growth. Though it has eliminated 500,000 jobs, it has created 1.2 million new jobs, meaning that 2.4 jobs were created for each job lost.

That's okay. Al Gore is still skimming all the countries of the world with his shakedown. Much like his father, the Gore name carries on the exploitation of the common man in order to feed his fat coffers.

Al Gore Worth 50 Times More Than He Was As Vice President.

How's those food stamps?

I haven't heard anyone call SS a "hammock," but I have heard more than one report of low-income housing being built with luxuries such as granite countertops, which most of the taxpayers paying for it don't have themselves. Do you condone that? That truly is getting into "hammock" territory.

If SS had been privatized a few decades ago, it would stand on a foundation of solid assets, as opposed to its current $20.5 trillion unfunded liability. What would be so horrible about that?

Now, back to my original question that you haven't addressed:

It would be possible to improve delivery of safety-net services even while absorbing the 1% cuts of the "Penny Plan." Given that the Republicans are too timid to endorse even those tiny cuts, how can an accusation of wanting to "take away the safety net" have any credibility whatsoever?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/07/food-stamps-phd-recipients-2007-2010_n_1495353.html

You might want to read this article. This is an article about what happens when private industry takes money from people to built faster broadband infrastructure. Executive summary: they pocket the money, and don't build the infrastructure.

It may be that government would do the same, but this is an unsubstantiated assertion on your part. How's about you provide some citations to support your claim? Because as far as I know, there have been a lot of successes with municipal broadband, and very few failures (indeed, I know of only one).

You claim that Republicans lost because they said "we're going to take your safety net away."

There's just one problem with that. No Republican has said that. No Republican has even proposed significant cuts in the social safety net.

The most extreme Republican plan to balance the budget is not at all extreme. Connie Mack's "Penny Plan" proposes six annual tiny 1% cuts that would allow revenue to catch up with spending. You can see Lanny Davis, a self-proclaimed liberal, praise the plan here.

I work on a government contract, and I can tell you it would be easy to eliminate government waste such that delivery of safety-net services improves, even as those 1% cuts are being absorbed. (I know that my productivity increases by more than 1% every year. And if they would stop allowing people like me to stay at the Ritz-Carlton while traveling, bang, you've got a huge savings on the contract.)

Mind you, the "Penny Plan" never stood a chance because most Republican congresscritters are scared to endorse even these tiny cuts.

Would you allow that perhaps Republicans lost, not because they said they would take away the safety net (they have not said that), but because the media spreads the false perception that Republicans want to slash the safety net?

If you won't allow that, then please explain how you justify your assertion that Republicans say "we're going to take your safety net away," when not one of them has said that.

You forgot Reno and prostitution.

He wants to get rid of that, too. Well, prostitution, anyway. I don't think he wants to get rid of Reno.

To be completely fair, the annual median wage in the US is a bit over $26,000 (as of 2010). At 260 working days, 8 hours a day, that comes to $12.50/hr.

If you are making $10/hr, and make only $10k/year, you are working part time. Or, at 40 hours per week, $10,000/year is only $4.80/hour... which is less than minimum wage.

Fill out your 40 hours per week and come back and talk.

(All of this was assuming you work in the US. If not, you are comparing wages in different countries, and I say at best that is an apples-to-oranges comparison.)

but it's currently not allowed to take Chinese workers onto US soil to do local work like construction work and maintenance so that has to be done in the US by US workers.

The desire to avoid employing US workers is very strong, even in construction. The Chinese are fabricating entire bridges and shipping them to the US for final installation. We outsource our cultural monuments to China today.

There is precious little beyond civil servants that can't be outsourced, which is why government workers are doing so much better than everyone else. Our income disparity balloons while we feather our regulatory nest, evacuate our capital to Asia and hone our hate for the 'rich' to a fine point.

but it's currently not allowed to take Chinese workers onto US soil to do local work like construction work and maintenance so that has to be done in the US by US workers.

The desire to avoid employing US workers is very strong, even in construction. The Chinese are fabricating entire bridges and shipping them to the US for final installation. We outsource our cultural monuments to China today.

There is precious little beyond civil servants that can't be outsourced, which is why government workers are doing so much better than everyone else. Our income disparity balloons while we feather our regulatory nest, evacuate our capital to Asia and hone our hate for the 'rich' to a fine point.

I think I'll take Facebook's views on privacy with a grain of salt.

Wow, you really eat this shit up.

Every single point I made (with the possible exception of the Russian government actually having control of their own intelligence agencies - I'd call that one open to debate) amounts to pure documented fact. Not speculation, not even stretching the data to fit an information vacuum.

Though, I suppose you might not remember the Iran Contra affair. You might not have flown in the past 10 years. You might not read Slashd... Oh... No, I guess you do. Huh, funny that.


You can list as many of the negatives as you wish but your argument has no merit if you only include those.

Remind me which branch of the US government controls the GCSB (in case you need a cite for that one, click on the FP link for this very thread) or the KGB? Or hey, we can throw the Mossad in there if you like. I could go on, they pretty much all have a list of publicly known sins a mile long. The US only dominates the list out of sheer volume, not as anything special.


We do have the right to [sue] AT&T et al, actually.

No, we don't, actuallydon't . I am not really sure where the whole travel point is going as it is patently incorrect.

Funny, the US Department of State seems to know what I meant. Perhaps you should re-read it if you didn't get it the first time?

They don't need to lobby because Apple zealotry is unfortunately strong enough as it is.

Behavior therapy makes a lot of sense. It is amazing what the brain is capable of as it growns new connections. Other approahces like addressing vitamin D deficiency, vegetable deficiency, and other things like iodine deificency and omega 3 deficiency may help too, as can removing food dyes and artifical flavors etc... Good luck. Below are some links on those other topics.
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health-conditions/neurological-conditions/autism/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mark-hyman/autism-research-discovery_b_794967.html
http://www.drfuhrman.com/children/default.aspx

According to Google it was journalist Mitch Ratcliffe.

http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health-conditions/neurological-conditions/autism/

Especially during pregnancy, due to our indoors lifestyles. There may be other causes too, including vegetable deficiency disease, but vitamin D deficiency is a apparently a big one. Other possible causes:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mark-hyman/autism-research-discovery_b_794967.html

With that said, most people posting here are probably total hypocrites about health. They will go on about "herd immunity" and how immoral parents are who don't vaccinate their children for whatever reasons, but these same posters will then most likely eat junk food, pull all nighters, go to work and school when sick with the flu or whatever else, and not get a vitamin D test, and sit most of the day. Thus, such posters (or their children) will likely spread far more diseases than an unvaccinated kid who eats a lot of fruits & vegetables & beans, avoids junk food, gets enough vitamin D and iodine, stays home when sick, washes their hands, sleeps well, moves around a lot during the day, was breast-fed to age two years or beyond (see WHO guidelines), works or learns mostly from home, and so on. See also:
http://www.drfuhrman.com/shop/ChildBookReviews.aspx

The lack of critical reasoning on this subject on slashdot is also saddening, whatever the conclusion. The typical argument here on vaccine safety seems equivalent to someone saying, because the Intel 386 CPU did not have a floating point bug in 1990 and still runs OK now (some version of some vaccine did not cause a specific problem over the years), that means any CPU produced by anyone in 2012 can never possibly have any bugs and will run forever (all vaccine lots are always safe). That's just a nonsensical argument from a quality control standpoint, given many vaccine formulations and production techniques are continually changing. "Past performance is no guarantee of future results."

For all we know, the next lot of flu vaccine rush out could give millions of people AIDS because it was intentionally contaminated at the factory by someone. Specific vaccine lots may or may not be "safe" or "effective" either individually or in combination (ever installed one piece of software that broke something else?), but any discussion about the vaccine issue needs to be a lot deeper than what is apparent here, including issues of systemic risks from a single point of failure and the practical impossibility of providing several human generations of testing in advance when any lot of vaccine is released (especially when it is rushed out). A vaccine is not like a software patch than can be backed out, or in the worst case, be reformatted away. See for example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SV40
"SV40 became a highly controversial subject after it was revealed that millions were exposed to the virus after receiving a contaminated polio vaccine."

Diseases are also continually evolving.

So much of modern medicine and modern science (as well as the holistic industries) is full of social problems that people on all sides of this question may want to do their own research and think more deeply on this topic. Some related quotes:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/to-james-randi-on-skepticism-about-mainstream-science.html#Some_quotes_on_social_problems_in_science

What's sad is that there are low hanging fruits (and vegetables) that could reduce so much disease in the USA and globally such as vitamin D and eating more veggies. Things like that protect against all disease, including emerging ones. Those basics are being ignored by a

You can't make this stuff up. Yes, people can be really fucking stupid!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/19/donna-radio-caller-deer-crossing-sign-complaint_n_1987405.html

Unfortunately (for your credibility) the actual leading cause of death among 15-24 year olds is Accidents, with Motor-vehicle being the largest subgroup. After that comes "Homicide and legal-intervention". Then "Suicide."

Citation needed? Oh wait, nevermind, I can do that for you: Wrong.. Accidents are no longer the leading cause of death due to injury... it's suicide.

The USA has the second LOWEST rate of suicide, 10 per 100000, of any nation, industrialized or otherwise.

Ah... citation needed? Again? Happy to obliege. Also... wrong again! We're ranked #38 out of 107. By your math, we should be 105. A small error on your part, I'm sure.

It doesn't give you that visceral thrill of raging against the machine.

No, just the satisfaction of being both right, and having stomped another troll into the dirt. Now if you'll excuse me... there are other people wrong on the internet that need my love.

...limnology? ? ? ?

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-28/dupont-sends-in-former-cops-to-enforce-seed-patents-commodities.html

http://andrewgavinmarshall.com/2012/11/21/why-so-secretive-the-trans-pacific-partnership-as-global-corporate-coup/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/28/frank-olson-cia-lawsuit_n_2206983.html

Now here's a great book about my fave subject written by a most astute and intelligent lady:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/20/fashion/naomi-wolf-on-her-new-book-vagina.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Iraq under Saddam Hussein did the same shtick, bluffing for years that they had weapons stockpiles that really didn't exist (anymore). The US military went into the Iraq War expecting that chemical and/or biological weapons would be used against their soldiers on the ground. Did that fear really stop George W. Bush and co. from invading? Not really...

Whoever rated this insightful should go back and read a bit about the alleged claims of WMDs. All knew the claims were false, Powell later admitted that the presentation he gave to the UN Security Council about those imaginary WMDs was an error. Some are even convinced he knew the claims were false at the time of the presentation. So in reality there was nothing to be afraid of when sending troops in an GWB knew that pretty well.

Why didn't Wired ask her how she paid to live for 3 years in one of the most expensive cities in the world?

Seriously, I'd like to know.

None of the guidebooks I've ever read say anything about how getting an eff.org email address is a substitute for avg. $2K@month in rent. (Highest in the USA.)

Easy. Governent grant. Yours and my tax dollars at work. Think about this next April 15th.

Cheers,
Dave

Why didn't Wired ask her how she paid to live for 3 years in one of the most expensive cities in the world?

Seriously, I'd like to know.

None of the guidebooks I've ever read say anything about how getting an eff.org email address is a substitute for avg. $2K@month in rent. (Highest in the USA.)

> Old Jobs hasn't been in the ground long and already their first
> "convenience over QC" choice has come back to bite them.

Steve Jobs did a lot of great things but he also shipped plenty of crap. .Mac and MobileMe were (I think) the biggest and most recent examples. 2008:

Apple CEO Steve Jobs conceded in an e-mail to Apple employees that the company had made numerous mistakes during the launch of its MobileMe Internet service, saying that the service âoewas simply not up to Apple's standardsâ and that it "clearly needed more time and testing."

http://www.macworld.com/article/1134854/jobs.html

More than anything, I'm surprised they did ship Maps with such a recent bad experience under their belts. They must have been desperate. The move away from Google was about more than branding.

Sources tell AllThingsD that Google, for example, wanted more say in the iOS maps feature set. It wasn't happy simply providing back-end data. It asked for in-app branding. Apple declined. It suggested adding Google Latitude. Again, Apple declined.

http://allthingsd.com/20120926/apple-google-maps-talks-crashed-over-voice-guided-directions/

Say what you will about Apple -- they've been very good about not handing over user data to advertisers, app creators, or publishers.

Nevada is close to the middle, but if you average together the last few decades then Republicans have a lead there. National landslides for Clinton and Obama aside, Nevada voted for a Bush three times, Reagan and Nixon twice, and Ford. It had Republican governors since 1999. The biggest opponent of legal prostitution in Nevada is Harry Reid (D). So the distinction between Republicans and Democrats on gambling and prostitution isn't black-and-white. Remember Ron Paul?!

We aren't talking about Nevada, but about the CFTC fucking with InTrade. It is a Federal regulatory bureaucracy that Democrats generally seek to expand and Republicans generally seek to reduce or abolish.

--libman

"Err, with rare exceptions, most national laws apply to people (citizens, residents, and visitors) within the national borders, but don't apply to people currently residing or visiting a different country. As a quick example, it's illegal for U.S. citizens, residents, and visitors to possess marijuana while in the U.S., but it's not against U.S. law for them to possess marijuana while in the Netherlands..."

But the U.S. House of Representatives did pass a bill last year to reverse exactly that.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/06/us-drug-policy-war-congress_n_998993.html
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/112/hr313

I think you completely missed the OP's point.

Nope.

The point is that a video recording (any video recording, for that matter, not just of police) can and almost inevitably will, given the generally sensationalist bent of the media, be taken out of context.

Good thing sentences are handed out by courts and not the media, then.

In the case of his example, that doesn't mean the beating would be justified, not by a long shot. But it would certainly make a lot more sense, and be far less grievous, than a beating for no reason whatsoever.

Ah, the "he was a bad guy so he partly had it coming" defense, which should be blocked on sight by any judge. Case in point, this video of cops kicking a suspect in the head - after he dove face-first into the ground in surrender. Lots of comments saying it was either less-evil or outright okay because the suspect was in a high speed chase, but that's all bullshit. Nothing justifies such excessive force.

Depends on the state ie .... "not acting as police officers in other jurisdictions" it seems they can 'help' in other states ;):
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/25/nypd-spying-new-brunswick-muslim-surveillance-new-jersey_n_1701340.html

First of all, I believe Macy's on this.

The three hour parade starts at 77th St and ends at 34th Street.

8,000 marchers.

Including ten marching bands

Clowns. Dancers. Massive floats, outsized, peanut-shaped vehicles and other four-wheeled curiosities.

2 million pedestrians lining the route.

I find it hard to believe that shredded bits of paper are going to survive such a trampling in recognizable form. Harder still to believe that anyone could have collected and reassembled enough pieces of the puzzle to make a story like this seem credible.

Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade Route 2012: Where To Watch In New York City (MAP

Well this was just brought up in another thread, so I'll correct it again here. Dogs are terrible detectors for drugs, being wrong anywhere from 50% of the time to 85% of the time depending on the circumstances.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/radley-balko/supreme-court-considers-t_1_b_2063820.html

Although this is mainly attributable to them wanting to please their handler or picking up on the handlers body language. And personally I watched a dog search 32 jail cells once, it alerted in 8 of them, drugs were found in zero of those (and good lord did they ever tear them apart), and at least 3 cells the dog didn't alert to actually had drugs in them.

The sad thing is you've vastly overestimated the accuracy of drug dogs. According to one study, in the field, it's under 50% for all drivers (alert resulting in finding drugs). Alerts where the driver was Hispanic was under 30% successful. In a performance test, if there was a sausage in the car, or if the handler believed there were drugs in the car, the success rate was only 14%-- that means 86% of the time the dog alerted there were no drugs found, so maybe you just got that mixed up. (see http://www.huffingtonpost.com/radley-balko/supreme-court-considers-t_1_b_2063820.html)

Another bonus: A drug dog alerting to cash you have is enough for the police to seize that cash (despite the vast majority of US currency having drugs on it), and you have a costly legal battle ahead if you want it back.

if he stole 700 credit card numbers and used them then its the combined time for each one of those crimes,

So if [random financial company] through criminal negligence or wilful action loses the life savings of thousands of people or even more, the bosses should also get the combined time for each of those _life_ savings? Sounds great to me.

In the USA the social safety nets aren't that good so when you lose your life savings your life expectancy may go down significantly. Let's assume it's 5 years lost for the amount that takes you from wealthy to poor: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/21/rich-americans-live-5-yea_n_1616462.html
Wealthy being those who have enough money to live 5 years longer. Let's assume they are multi millionaires - 5 million?

So 700 credit cards could be not much in comparison. I don't expect or want a card crook to do life for 700 cards. How much money would he steal with those cards? Think he would actually be able to steal 20 million dollars with those cards?

Another thing, stealing small amounts from many people might not decrease their life by much, compared to stealing large amounts from a few people- it is unlikely to be a linear relationship. Otherwise those telcos should be in deep trouble for cramming etc.

So how much damage did this hacker really cause?

First, Palestinians don't have freedom of movement in the West Bank. The roads are segregated with special Israeli only roads, restricted Palestinian roads, and full use Palestinian roads. Israelis can use all roads. In order to travel, Palestinians must go through checkpoints to access different areas is what is now popularly referred to as the West Bank Archipelago due to the isolation of Palestinian cities and land. This is partially due to the settlements and Israeli-only or Palestinian restricted roads and also due to military bases and land that Israel is reserving for future use.

Second, Israel has been continuing to build settlements. That was one of the promises that Netanyahu made to win his seat. They just announced a new one just before this recent war. Obama has almost been on his knees begging Netanyahu to stop since further construction is so inflammatory to this region. But even if he did, religious hardliners in Israel have been know to perform Price Tag attacks as reprisals for any restrictions on building settlements.

California recently admitted that stoned drivers are now killing more people than drunk drivers.

Huffpo link

NORML is a just another left-leaning activist group that has never allowed facts to interfere with its propaganda. Sorry, but all of America's famous documents were not written on hemp paper, all of the best clothes were not made of hemp, weed does not make you smarter, etc. (I've lost track of all the claims I've heard from the pot activists over the years who were trying to convince non-users to support pot) There are typical pot users, who just want to get high and are honest about it... and then there are pot activists who will make any claim to try to rally support to their cause and who, by virtue of being pot-heads, do not know just how stupid they look to normal people. NORML is in this latter category; they're far less tolerable than the average user could ever be.

Well, in defence of the Democrats....

* This is a good thing, since (hopefully) it will encourage people to encrypt all of their correspondence. Go use http://www.hushmail.com/ if your people are too lazy to have a key exchange party with you. Hopefully more services will crop up to make strong encryption use transparent to the average user.

* This is a concession to the Republicans, since if you haven't noticed, they're filibustering every little budget item to get basic budget bills passed. And that makes sense, because basically that's all the power they have at the moment, so they're using it to great effect to get sweet, sweet concessions that go unnoticed by liberals since they think their party is "in charge". But bills are compromises. The democrats will continue to compromise their core values as concessions just to get government to function.

* Eh, why am I defending the Democrats, they're right of Reagan anyway. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cenk-uygur/who-is-more-conservative_b_638947.html

(voted third-party, FWIW)

random teens on Facebook would still have no idea what a GIF is.

Get hep, daddy-o. Animated GIFs are bad. Or whatever the kids call it these days. They're an easy and widely-supported means to get short video clips out.