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You are right. The executives giving themselves massive raises as the company's finances circled the drain (some amidst the bankruptcy filing) was indeed a case of short-sighted people thinking they deserved something the company couldn't afford.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/16/gregory-rayburn-raise_n_2147043.html
With corrections to some of the incorrect, inflated numbers floating around Facebook.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but while they did in fact lose, claiming their loss is the result of "what the American people" wanted is just callous and ignorant. Fully half the American people wanted what they got. Almost all of the other half did not.

"As of Noon on Friday, with nearly all votes in, Obama assuredly will win the popular vote, leading Romney by a count of 61,173,739 or 50.5% to 58,167,260 or 48.0%. At this point, a few final votes are being counted and then all that's left is for the results to be officially certified.)" - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/07/who-won-the-popular-vote-2012_n_2087038.html

That's right, out of the three hundred million people in the USA, a whopping 3 million more people voted for Obama than Romney. i wouldn't write any cheques on that opinion level.

Statelessness in itself abridges human rights. There's no way to travel legally without a passport, nor do you have any standing in courts to redress your grievances.

Jews many times were objected to this kind of insidious degradation that essentially denies your personhood. All the more saddening to see Israel keep Palestinians in this graceless statelessness for so many decades.

To argue that the Palestinians have a state at this point is extremely disingenuous. They have no sovereignty about trade and allegiances. Are not allowed to keep a military, and their administrations are not recognized as national governments.

Gaza's kids are severely malnourished in this small area that is overcrowded with 1.7 millions. No chance that the land can support the entire population (even fishing is prohibited). Yet, given how populous and unprotected the area is, the IDF is essentially shooting fish in a barrel.

The suspicious timing of the IDF assassination attack on the Hamas leader that kicked off the recent fighting does not help.

It leaves the lingering impression that we are witnessing a most cynical wag the dog maneuver. Nothing like a war to distract the people from their economic hardship this close to an election. It'll be rather depressing if the leaders of Israel were indeed betraying their own people in this fashion.

I really don't see a difference between the strike and individual decisions - most workers decided on their own that they want to strike, but those that didn't could and did go to work. Yes, many didn't - but that is because the company wanted to cut each person's pay. And as you said, you have a choice of preparing your resume in that case - they felt that their jobs weren't worth saving at that level of pay. Should they have stayed there with miserable pay until the company went bankrupt again?

There is a huge decision between an individual and the collective. If you don't understand, there is no point in supporting the union (e.g. individual bargaining vs collective bargaining). The individuals didn't have a choice - and this is something that I do have a problem with. Employees aren't allowed to choose whether or not to join most unions - when the union decided, everyone had to follow. Certainly you can see a difference.

And Miserable pay? To save their jobs, 8% for the first year, and steady raises for 3 years to get to where it was (plus stock grants)=miserable? Come on. It's a sacrifice for sure, but it is a far cry from what you're mentioning. You've thrown out things like "miserable" and "minimum wage"...not really backing that up with actual numbers (you also suggested that the company should have given the workers a piece of the company, which was offered). I'll continue to provide correct information as these come up...and I'm not even an vested party - I just read the news.

Why didn't the management give the company a personal, interest free loan. The CEO had a salary of about $2.5M, surely he could put that at the disposal of the company, giving it a few more weeks to find a different solution to the crisis, or at least time to convince the union. Or how about the other executives give the company their bonuses (they just asked to court to pay them more then $6M - leading a charge into bankruptcy is worthy of a bonus after all).

The CEO agreed to a $1 salary until Dec 31 or until the company recovered from bankruptcy. However, the executive salary was just a drop in the bucket. Check the numbers on other posts in this story - there were a few people who ran the numbers on executive salary vs the workers at large...this was a drop in the bucket and largely a symbolic gesture. It would not have helped keep the company in business for more than a few weeks if the executives worked for free. Hostess Brand's debt was huge, and it was a huge operation. A few $million would not have been sufficient to keep the company running.

So the union's refusal to cooperate was only the last blow, because that's what the management decided. Prolonging the fight might have cut down on the bonus money the company still had.

And there is another reason why the employees might have wanted the company to just die - they are among the creditors. If the company is liquidated now, they might still get some money before it all goes to lawyers and executives. If they give them a few more years that might not happen - the company had more debt at the end of the first bankruptcy then at the beginning.

They kicked the company while it was down. It was the final nail in the coffin. End of story. There were no other options at that point. I understand that you inherently mistrust this management team - and have thrown out a dozen things that "could have been done". I covered that most of these were either done, or were impossible - backing them up with facts. Please, read just one or two relevant news stories before posting another reply - I'm sure that I can keep citing sources for you, but you would be doing both of us a huge favor by reading up on this stuff. To be clear, I always have held that management team (and the market) are responsible for their part in the situation. However, it was the

What I don't understand is why the TSA still exists. Everybody hates it and it costs us a ridiculous amount of money.

Because they don't hate it. A majority think it's doing a good job. So that answers your question. Ron Paul and Representative John Mica have tried to lead a charge to get rid of the TSA.

Really?

areyou sure?

not just anyone who dares to use an apple anywhere?

California property taxes aren't particularly low. They rank 17th out of 50 states as a percentage of median income (in 2005).

But, per your source, they ranked 45th as a percentage of home value (0.48%), whereas Texas ranked 2nd (1.82%). Median income may be low, and housing values were extremely inflated in 2005 (which your data comes from), but there's no denying that California takes a lower percentage of the home's value than most states. This is primarily due to Prop 13, which capped property taxes and shifted the state towards sales and income taxes.

Texas property taxes are lower. Texas also has no state income tax and much lower sales tax than California. Texas public schools rank higher in math and science education than California.

California's K-12 has been gutted by repeated budget cuts, but I would argue it has much better universities than Texas. As I showed earlier, Texas also has much higher property tax rates as a percentage of home value.

Texas has plenty of revenue sources. Feel free to review the Texas budget, specifically numbered pages 32-33. Their data doesn't provide an easy method of comparison, but it seems they take in some hefty federal "revenues". I don't know if this is from defense spending, assistance with medicaid and HHS, energy subsidies, or what. I can say that both states are reporting around $90B/year in revenue, which would place TX a bit ahead of CA in state revenue per capita.

Then again, it's all moot since those Patriotic Texans are going to secede soon anyways.

California property taxes aren't particularly low. They rank 17th out of 50 states as a percentage of median income (in 2005).

Texas property taxes are lower. Texas also has no state income tax and much lower sales tax than California. Texas public schools rank higher in math and science education than California.

Hopefully they improve working conditions (beyond just installing air conditioners), or their offer to hire veterans takes on a less impressive light.

Or Australia: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/08/kristen-neel-anti-obama-australia-tweet-backlash_n_2093160.html

"I'm moving to Australia, because their president is a Christian and actually supports what he says."

US has the highest corporate tax rate in the world

The statutory rate is not the same thing as the effective rate which actually gets paid. The effective US corporate tax rate is just 12.1% of profits in 2011 which is the lowest number in 40 years. The 10 most profitable companies in the US last year paid, on average, approximately 9% tax.

While I think that our tax code is a mess and needs serious reform, the notion that taxes in the US are the highest in the world is demonstrably false political propaganda. The 35% number you cite is a meaningless number which is only useful for political soundbites.

My first post ever... how was this modded a 5?

I said BEGINNING its death spiral. That you can't see a trend right before your very eyes says more about you than Apple.

Right back at you.

Top Execs fired at apple for major maps failures.

This is not a bad thing for Apple. Firing people who do a terrible job is a good thing.

Deliberate production caps on new releases just so they can say they sold out.

Even after looking at your source... this is a load of crap. Do you have any idea how long it takes to get production ramped up to ship the first 5 million units? I would say this is an operational reality, not a marketing decision to have shortages.

Iphone 5 sales faltering.

This article said nothing of faltering sales. It said some analysts took a dartboard approach toward estimating sales.

Samsung is ecstatic about selling 16 million GS3's in a quarter. Apple sold 5 million iphones in a week. But sure, iphone sales are 'faltering'...

3 out of 4 smartphones purchases are Android.

Apple isn't looking to have the highest market share. The highest market share of smartphones (now that they are mainstream and more phone buyers are choosing smartphones) will be the smartphones that are free on contract. Android phones can be had free on contract, iphones can't. Apple doesn't care about not having the highest market share of smartphones. Samsung isn't looking for the GS3 to have the highest market share either. They both want profits, not highest market share.

Apple needs a refresh. Their initial sale clime with every new release is merely eating their own young, reselling to the same customer base while quietly running buy-back programs to take their old units off the street.

You are confusing deployed numbers with new new purchases which blinds you to trends. With a 3 year head start, Apple has a lot of faithful, who re-buy Apple each time. But New (first time) smartphone phone buyers are going 54% to Android and a distant 36% to Apple. The irresistible lure of Apple has worn off.

The market is calling TOP for Apple right now.

The market is not calling top for Apple right now. Large investors are beating down the price of AAPL, so they can get in at a lower price. It happens all the time, and it is easier to do when a bunch of reviews come out saying that Apple has terrible quality on the iphone, that maps sucks, that they don't have widgets, etc...

Clearly, consumers have a different take on 'quality' than the reviewers do.

For the record, I have only owned android phones, have had an ipad and a Galaxy Tab 10.1 (which I currently use). I recently bought an HTC One X. Not a fanboy by any means, but to say Apple is in the beginnings of a death spiral is lunacy. They are on track to sell close to 50 million iphones this quarter. That's quite a death rattle.

Disclosure: I am long AAPL.

I said BEGINNING its death spiral. That you can't see a trend right before your very eyes says more about you than Apple.

Top Execs fired at apple for major maps failures.
Deliberate production caps on new releases just so they can say they sold out.
Iphone 5 sales faltering.
3 out of 4 smartphones purchases are Android.

Your "faltering sales" link is from September and says the iPhone 4s sold 4 million in it's first week, and the iPhone 5 sold 5 million in its first week, falling short of expectations of 6-8 million. What ground were those expectations based on? Would you like to comment on the iPhone 5 selling more in its first week than the previous model? No, I think you were intentionally being disingenuous, you creep.

Android is replacing dumbphones. You can get an Android phone for free with contract renewal, so most people just wind up with them. That's why despite having more users, they spend less money in the Android market ecosystem. Everyone knew this would happen and Apple would not race to the bottom, I don't know why anyone would be bragging about raw numbers of Android devices shipped.

Talk about RDF...

I said BEGINNING its death spiral. That you can't see a trend right before your very eyes says more about you than Apple.

Top Execs fired at apple for major maps failures.
Deliberate production caps on new releases just so they can say they sold out.
Iphone 5 sales faltering.
3 out of 4 smartphones purchases are Android.

Apple needs a refresh. Their initial sale clime with every new release is merely eating their own young, reselling to the same customer base while quietly running buy-back programs to take their old units off the street.

You are confusing deployed numbers with new new purchases which blinds you to trends. With a 3 year head start, Apple has a lot of faithful, who re-buy Apple each time. But New (first time) smartphone phone buyers are going 54% to Android and a distant 36% to Apple. The irresistible lure of Apple has worn off.

The market is calling TOP for Apple right now.

Black-on-black crime widely ignored, say African American activists

In 2009, completed law-enforcement investigations showed that 352 African-Americans were killed by known whites — a category that includes Latinos — and 4,094 African-Americans were killed by African-Americans, according to FBI data.

NYPD Report Says 96 Percent Of Shooting Victims Are Black or Latino

The statistics, which cover crime in 2012 through the end of June, show that 96 percent of all shooting victims and 97 percent of all shooting suspects in the city were black or Latino. The report also shows that more than 90 percent of New Yorkers stopped and frisked so far in 2012 were black and Latino.

At one point I entertained the notion that JIm Cartwright (former Vice-Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) would make a good presidential candidate ... then he failed to keep his zipper up. Then quite honestly, Petraeus came to mind ... nevermore, i guess.

And lost in the noise from Petraeus, a major defense contractor lost an about-to-be-king to the same thing ...

Global warming may be a fact but asserting that it will "deconstruct civilization" and that if we don't do something Earth will become uninhabitable is pretty strong spin for a "no spin zone".

First,

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/apr/23/scienceandnature.climatechange and then read

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/janet-ritz/james-hansens-new-climate_b_67357.html This is congruent with the reports coming out of the CIA and other models. It's worse than we thought , and the feedback mechanisms that we know of- and there are others that we will discover- are more ferocious than we thought .

Remember, - and this is the point of the intelligence analysis, before we actually reach the ecological point of literal uninhabitability as detailed by Lynas above, we will reach the certainty of reaching that point. You know this from the stock market. A company doesn't have to fail outright before the market starts to act as if it had; it only needs to be very likely to fail. Atr that distinguished point, the market collectively acts as if it had failed.

This is even truer for things like food and fresh water shortages , failed governments uncontrolled and uncontrollable immigration, break down and loss of civil order. All that has to happen is a loss of faith in the face of facts . In fact, all that has to happen to trigger cascading consequences throughout society is consecutive-year crop failures with a long-term prediction for more.

No one actually has to worry about wandering MadMax style though a barren world if, say, the food chain begins to collapse from the bottom up because of the acidification and heating of the oceans. They won't live to see it., their fellow human will make sure of that.

Why are we risking this? Why aren't we doing absolutely everything, all together now, to prevent this from happening? Fear of Big Government? Who thinks like that? People who live outside of reality- who believe , for instance, that the world's scientists are in a conspiracy of some description.

Those people are out there. Is that the demographic I'm supposed to cede the fate of all human society to? The Sara Palins , the Sharron Angles, the Richard Mourdochs? Because you know what? Right now, they're clearly winning.

All hail the Zombie polictical response!

It essentially boils down to Apple trying to "superficially" comply, while actually completely disregarding the purpose behind the order.

For an example, there was recently a sting operation set up to catch a major traffic offender, who routinely drove on the sidewalk to evade stopped traffic from a routine school bus stop that made the news this last week.

As part of her punishment, she has to wear a sign declaring that she is an idiot, and that only an idiot would try to pass a school bus while driving a car, by driving on the sidewalk.

The intent behind the order is very clear, and directly tied to the heart of the infraction it was proscribed for.

If the woman had followed after Apple's example, she would have worn the sign alright, but it would have given counter examples as to why driving on the sidewalk like that was perfectly justifiable, and made allusions that the judge that made her wear the sign was mistaken in his judgement, and that 2 other judges in similar cases (which were improperly conducted for different reasons, or later invalidated in their rulings) concurred with her point of view.

if we want to impact global warming we have to use nuclear power.

I'd agree if it weren't for that fact that corruption[1] in the regulation systems[2], and at other levels, leave nuclear energy too hazardous to be a reliable alternative.

Think of it this way. You buy an electric car. The charging cable becomes frayed. The government offers you an energy credit of $1500 to buy a new cable. You take the credit and buy a new Bass Boat and duct tape the cable. Eventually, the cable starts a fire in your garage and burns down an entire city block killing 1500 people. This is the way our private energy companies work and the reason we can't have nice things. Like safe nuclear energy.

INSIST that the best no CO2 power generation options we have right now be abandoned.

It's may be the most C neutral, but the safety factor makes it a moot point. Would you pack up all your belongings and take the wife and kids to live in Fukishama? No.

then the worlds turning its back on its functioning nuclear power plants has to stop!

I think the world is looking for a safer, more environmentally friendly, alternatives[3] but Enriched Uranium power needs to be shelved until the world is more responsible with it. It's just too dangerous in the hands of fools.

[1] - http://nucleotidings.com/article/corruption-1-yukuza-fukushima
[2] - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/14/flood-threat-nuclear-plants-nrc_n_1885598.html
[3] - http://www.triplepundit.com/2012/04/liquid-fluoride-thorium-power-pros-cons/

The police arrested Latif at the gas station for violating state law by pumping gasoline into Home Depot buckets, which are not approved by the Transportation Department, and for stacking up and not securing the buckets...

Just because the papers use the sensational word "hoarding" in their headlines doesn't have any bearing on what he was arrested for. If you actually have some evidence I'm wrong, feel free to cite it.

Well, some toys are marketed specifically for adults. Not only that, but they have proven dangerous to the adults that use them as well, and in fact, can cause the same kind of damage that buckyballs do. Yet, they don't have government agencies trying to ban them. Case in point:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/18/dildo-mans-intestines-doctors_n_1981242.html

Do you really expect to see well-reasoned arguments from someone who believes that society is a plot by women to suppress men's inherent desire to rape people?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/20/dilbert-creator-scott-adams-on-rape_n_880590.html

OK, maybe the Canadian system would work in the U.S., assuming that people here didn't reject it just because it's Canadian, and assuming we could find 100,000 counters willing to put in a full days work for $30.

My big point here is not that paper ballots are bad and voting machines are good. You can have a good or bad system either way. (And there have been a lot of bad elections using paper ballots. I'm just trying to shoot down the idea that all our troubles are the result of using them newfangled machines.

You guys in Canada have an advantage because your Federal elections are managed by Elections Canada, an independent federal authority. Imagine what a mess you would have if every province, county, district, and town had its own election rules and procedures, with election officials all political appointees, and with the lawyers ready to litigate over every local result they don't like. And guess what? That's what we have in the U.S. And that is why our system sucks and yours doesn't. It has nothing to do with your not using machines.

This is obviously a violation of the right to speech (and I do not care to call it 'first amendment', you have all the rights until the government proves that it needs authority to violate a right that you have, and the authority is defined by the Constitution, so check with your State Constitution whether it is in violation).

Here is another case of First Amendment violation by a government official. Dick Durban forced the company in question (Parkmobile), to retract their statement, which they issued, that laws passed by Senate (including one Dick Durban's amendment to 'consumer protection rights act') cause prices to go up. This is obviously true. If a credit card issuer cannot charge different fees to different people (price discrimination) based on their use patterns and such, then all prices must go up to cover the costs of the lost revenue, otherwise it can be a loss to the credit card company. I know that credit card companies are not universally loved or anything, but they have to generate a profit on their operations, not a loss, and any government law that fixes prices causes mis-allocation of resources, some sort of re-allignment of cause and effect. Any time government fixes prices that act has consequences, and they are all negative to the consumer (rising prices, fewer choices, worse quality, etc.)

So Parkmobile responds to the credit card issuer price hike by raising their prices by 13 cents and they send an email explaining why the prices went up. The Senator hears it and attacks the company, threatens it in various monetary ways, etc. This is clearly violation of the first amendment as well, Dick Durbin should be forced to resign. But hey, this is America, politicians are not held to the simple standard of upholding and protecting the Constitution, politicians are above the law.

Where do you get the idea that Obamacare does that? The facts seem to disagree with you: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wendell-potter/before-you-vote-fact-vs-f_b_2076701.html

As noted above, the law does reduce payments to insurers and to some health care providers -- by an estimated $716 billion over the coming decade

Done.

These are dollars removed from the program. If the "projected savings that are supposed to offset these reductions" do not materialize (which I suspect they will not...), this is a Medicare cut. It's like cutting taxes by 2 trillion dollars and calling it revenue neutral because it will grow our economy by 2 trillion dollars. The latter claim is a myth, a fiction, something that hasn't happened. The former is reality.

"nearly" isn't "the same". The robbing of Medicare to fund it, is a big difference.

Where do you get the idea that Obamacare does that? The facts seem to disagree with you: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wendell-potter/before-you-vote-fact-vs-f_b_2076701.html

For one thing Canada won't have to put up with Americans abusing their socialized healthcare system.

If you like Obama for ending the war in Iraq (something I support as well), then you are something of a twit. Firstly, there isn't really an end to the "war in Iraq" so much as a (major) reduction in forces, but more importantly Obama did nothing to end it. It was ended by a treaty signed by his predecessor. In fact, Obama tried to get the deadline for troop withdrawal extended, but the Iraqi government wouldn't have it. The Obama administration spent most of 2011 trying to get the new Iraqi government to agree to an extension, but they strangely wouldn't issue a "request" that we stay.

So yeah, something we support (not having troops in Iraq) happened while Obama was president. But he didn't share any of the responsibility for making that happen. Quite the opposite in point of fact.

Why was this modded down? You know it took a lot of republicans to get the civil rights act passed in 1964? There seems to be some serious role reversal if anybody believes the democrats are on the side of civil liberties. Even the (in)famous John Ashcroft was on the right side of some issues as the democrats attempted to spy on us all. And some Supreme Court justices appointed by a republican turned out to be a pleasant surprise (though I'll grant that was totally unintended.. serendipity at its best).

Let there be no doubt, Obama is a traitor to the cause. I couldn't expect much, if any, worse from Romney. Neither get my vote. Let the chips fall where they may.

Sadly I would probably vote for the later, Apple has been sticking the letter "i" in front of common words since the iPod and yes I know iMac came first but outside of networking geeks Mac is an Apple word, not a common everyday noun like pod and pad and phone, so I'm sure their argument came down to "Hey sticking the "i" on front of common words is OUR thing!" while ignoring that just because you are the current 800 pound gorilla doesn't mean you can co-op any copyright anywhere that has the letter "i" in front of a common term.

But then again this is the same company that tried to sue not one but two companies for daring to have an Apple for a logo even though their Apple logos were nothing like Apple's nor was their businesses in any way comparable to Apple, so why am I not surprised?

You forgot iBook from 1999, which is a common noun, and im sure there are more from beforw 2003 when these trolls registered iFone. Apple came out with a line of products with a common naming structure and did tons of marketing so everyone knows iName means Apple. Then others tried to copy that naming. Most lost, but somehow these trolls fooled "mexico's legal system"

Sadly I would probably vote for the later, Apple has been sticking the letter "i" in front of common words since the iPod and yes I know iMac came first but outside of networking geeks Mac is an Apple word, not a common everyday noun like pod and pad and phone, so I'm sure their argument came down to "Hey sticking the "i" on front of common words is OUR thing!" while ignoring that just because you are the current 800 pound gorilla doesn't mean you can co-op any copyright anywhere that has the letter "i" in front of a common term.

But then again this is the same company that tried to sue not one but two companies for daring to have an Apple for a logo even though their Apple logos were nothing like Apple's nor was their businesses in any way comparable to Apple, so why am I not surprised?

Lets have a little balance

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/15/iphone-privacy-app-path-facebook-twitter-apple_n_1279497.html?ref=mostpopular

Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Instagram all send email addresses and phone numbers to their local servers.

The whole thing blew up and ended up with US congressmen sending letters to Tim Cook. This was feburary this year

"This incident raises questions about whether Apple’s iOS app developer policies and practices may fall short when it comes to protecting the information of iPhone users and their contacts."

Butterfield and Waxman then quote parts of Apple’s iOS developer website which states that Apple provides a comprehensive collection of tools and frameworks for storing, accessing and sharing data. It is then questioned whether Apple requires apps to request user permission before transmitting data about a user."

>The bacteria that enter the drinking supply poisons a good portion of an entire city and thousands (if not tens of thousands) die.

Because no one, not even the people there at the plant, notice that the sewage is going into the water, and no one notices that the water smells funny, etc., etc. NYC is dealing with something like this right now in the wake of hurricane Sandy. See http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/30/hurricane-sandy-sewage-toxic-_n_2046963.html.

Killing people with computers is a LOT harder than killing them with kinetic weapons because, aside from people being monitored by computers in hospitals, most people aren't directly relying on the computers to keep them alive.

The north eastern US suffered a major, multi-day blackout a few years ago. It did not bring the country to its knees. Similarly, regional weather events may shut down transit/business/etc., but people are moving to backup systems (e.g., walking/biking to work in the case of NYC) and dealing for the time it will take to bring the systems back online.

Any cyber attack that could actually meaningfully harm the US would cross the line into casus belli and likely receive a kinetic response.

It's possible that some kind of cyber attack could be used as a distraction or to syphon off resources while a kinetic attack takes place, but that's still assuming some other nation believes it is in their national interests to get into a shooting match with the US.

Sen. Lieberman had an opinion piece in the NYT (http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/10/17/should-industry-face-more-cybersecurity-mandates/the-cyber-threat-is-real-and-must-be-stopped-by-business-and-government) supporting your position. Numerous real security professionals would disagree, from Bruce Schneier (http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/10/stoking_cyber_f.html) to people like Scot Terban (http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/10/stoking_cyber_f.html).

There is already a universal virus killer in development. And it doesn't target the virus. Instead it targets the cell hosting the virus. When a cell is virus infected it makes a specific protein, a "help I'm infected" RNA flag.

DRACO is two proteins bound together. When it sees the "help I'm infected" RNA, it breaks in two. Half of DRACO binds to it. The other half is a protein messenger that triggers apoptosis - cell death.

The end result is that any cell that has a virus in it commits suicide before the virus can use the cell to reproduce.

Here is a quick story on DRACO.

SAN DIEGO -- Move over vampires, goblins and haunted houses, this kind of Halloween terror aims to shake up even the toughest warriors: An untold number of so-called zombies are coming to a counterterrorism summit attended by hundreds of Marines, Navy special ops, soldiers, police, firefighters and others to prepare them for their worst nightmares. "This is a very real exercise, this is not some type of big costume party," said Brad Barker, president of Halo Corp, a security firm hosting the Oct. 31 training demonstration during the summit at a 44-acre Paradise Point Resort island on a San Diego bay. "Everything that will be simulated at this event has already happened, it just hasn't happened all at once on the same night. But the training is very real, it just happens to be the bad guys we're having a little fun with."

Hundreds of military, law enforcement and medical personnel will observe the Hollywood-style production of a zombie attack as part of their emergency response training.

In the scenario, a VIP and his personal detail are trapped in a village, surrounded by zombies when a bomb explodes. The VIP is wounded and his team must move through the town while dodging bullets and shooting back at the invading zombies. At one point, some members of the team are bit by zombies and must be taken to a field medical facility for decontamination and treatment.

Source.Bombs... bullets, hmm, looks like those aren't unnarmed human shapes. It's just a "standard" tactical simulation with the "fun" twist that the bad guys are dressed up to look like zombies. So ... looks like you might be having a bit of a paranoid fantasy there sir.

If that's not the event you're talking about, perhaps you should add a citation to support your extreme claim.

I'm sure Romney will roll this back because the right-wing hates police states.

If you're under the impression that my comment is in support of Romney, you're sadly mistaken. I'm voting for Gary Johnson.

However, it is widely ignored by the left all the bad things Obama has done while in office, even surpassing GWB in many things that the left used to complain about with GWB. Apparently Obama gets a free pass because he has a (D) after his name.

Obama's drone strikes

Obama's medical marijuana raids.

Obama does not deserve the left's support, I would really encourage them to vote either Green Party or Libertarian Party this election if they find these types of things morally repugnant.

I hate to say it, but I would go see "A Very Muppet Star Wars."

Actually, my theory was that we're going to see a new release of Star Wars Episode IV where, in the background of the Cantina, you will see Nick Fury talking to Rocket Raccoon.

A Star Wars/Marvel cross-over with Guardians of the Galaxy.

Three plants have had some effect from the storm. Oyster Creek in NJ which was shut down already for refueling may have had the closet call. http://status.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/30/sandy-shuts-down-nuclear-plants/

Define "it". When I looked in the news and found what I believe to be the situation under discussion, at least one of the news outlets covering it specifically stated "motorized scooter". http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/20/tammy-cooper-texas-mom-arrested-kids-unsupervised-video_n_1900113.html Though, some of the others didn't specify "motorized".

Yeah, because the federal government has been so much better at keeping its fiscal house in order.

The highest debt per capita of any state in the country is Connecticut at $5,402.

The per capita debt of the federal government is $51,654.92 or more than 9 times as much.

Total spending per capita in the United States has gone from $6,339.90 in 2000 to $11,194.30 in 2010. The inflation adjusted increase was 39.4%.

California and Illinois are acknowledged fiscal basket cases - the inflation adjusted per capita increase in spending in those two states from 2000 to 2012 were 42% and 57% respectively. The median state (Michigan at #25) had a 38% increase - slightly better than the US.

Let's just say that neither level of government has been fiscally responsible. All of these figures are increases per capita - more money being spent per person - which means even if everyone (including the rich) was pitching in like it was the height of the dot-com bubble we'd still be under water.

Make it an executable offence for law enforcement of any type to fail to uphold the public good.

This is already the norm in North Korea:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/24/kim-chol-north-korean-official-executed-drinking-kim-jong-il-mourning_n_2010473.html

They'll be beaten like the Canadian in Paris.

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

we have a right not to engage in the race to the bottom that is the 2nd world. And from your sig I can tell you subscribe to that fiscal cliff nonsense that's been going along. Just an FYI, we're not broke, there's 30 Trillion with a 'T' in offshore accounts (google it). As Bruce said, We take Care of Our Own. Anyway, I'll let the president sum it up for me.

Mental retardation is an actual medical term which is subject to the Euphemism Treadmill effect, where over time a term becomes an insult in common usage and the professionals have to find a new word that doesn't have the baggage associated with it to maintain professional integrity (Similar to the reason we call them "Bathrooms" today instead of "Water Closets" or "Toilets" as the two latter terms became too crude through common usage). Don't blame "political correctness" on this, blame crass people like Anne Coulter who use the medical term in a derogatory sense towards those who don't have the disability without any sensitivity to those who must actually live with the condition.

Replace the word "Retard' with "AIDS carrier," "Cancer Survivor," or "Quadriplegic" and try making the argument that the offense people take to your use of these terms to disparage others is just "political correctness." The reason you don't use these terms as insults is because these are human beings who can fight back. "Retard" is okay because the mentally retarded can't defend themselves. Coulter is a bully and a coward for using the term and defending its use.

People like Coulter who call the backlash against their use of these words "political correctness" do so because the word "ignorant" applies to them. They are ignorant of the suffering of others, ignorant of medical science, and ignorant of basic good taste. I used the world "retard" as an insult when I was a child, but I'm an adult now and I am educated enough to know how abusing that word abuses those who are living with this debilitating condition.

Hey, I have an idea: why not just force everyone to fly naked!

Wanting to fly while naked is also just as illegal as wanting to fly while not naked.
Both will gain you disorderly conduct charges.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/03/naked-man-protests-tsa-at-portland-airport_n_1433830.html

Joe Klein is a columnist for Time Magazine. He recently went on Morning Joe to discuss drones.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/23/klein-drones-morning-joe

But: the bottom line in the end is - whose 4-year-old get killed? What we're doing is limiting the possibility that 4-year-olds here will get killed by indiscriminate acts of terror.

So you're exactly right, a 4-year old American deserves protection but a 4-year old Pakistani? Oh well, that's what you get for having a terrorist neighbor or relative.

Just like that 16 year old American boy who was assassinated without any sort of due process, far away from any battlefield...merely for having a terrorist for a father. When Robert Gibbs was asked to justify how we can kill an American citizen like that, his reply was...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/24/robert-gibbs-anwar-al-awlaki_n_2012438.html

I would suggest that you should have a far more responsible father if they are truly concerned about the well being of their children.

Funny because he didn't seem to give a flying fuck about the Tea Party people who announced that they will be doing the same thing. I guess the major difference is these are "dirty, Socialist Europeans" rather than "true patriots" aligned with his political beliefs.

Not so. Other posts have backed me up. As I've stated elsewhere, my phone's been hard-hacked via a USB cable. All due respect to you, this is an issue when someone is targeted with the right hardware. Don't believe, google "hacking android", here's one fast link... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/25/android-hackers_n_1704341.html

I believe the failure mode for tin whiskers is generally catastrophic and not gradual.

And yes, there's plenty of evidence that tin whiskers are killing our electronics.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/21/toyota-sudden-acceleration-tin-whiskers_n_1221076.html