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Youll also note we dont have a "hooliganism" law.

No. Here if you pull a stunt offending somebody's religion, you get this.

That is a myth that the last typewriter factory in the world shut down. They are still very much in use (and demand) in the Third World.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/26/worlds-last-typewriter-factory-closes_n_853670.html

The very fact that this question is being asked just reeks of stupidity. You just DON'T go straight from stone age to 21st century, especially without electricity. Buy some manual typewriters. C'mon man....

Necron69

It seems to be slowly starting to happen. As an Argentinian myself last week made me proud - something i really haven't felt in years.

Gee, that's real interesting. There sure are a lot of pretty pictures in those articles, and a lot of Democrats-did kind of verbage. You'd almost think someone created those articles on purpose!

To quote Tom Hanks, I bet that's a coinke-dinkie.

And then to look at the budget articles from the mid-2000's...why, there's almost nothing there!

I'm sure it's just another big coinke-dinke. No one ever manipulates Wikipedia! Why, it's the gold standard for truth and objectivity!

I guess I should ignore the New York times (that bastion of hard-core right-wingers)
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/f/federal_budget_us/index.html

And Politifact, they're clearly clueless:
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/aug/05/buddy-roemer/obama-submitted-budgets/

The Hill is totally wrong.
http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/163347-senate-votes-unanimously-against-obama-budget

In fact, even that RWNJ hotbed, the Huffington Post, acknowledges it:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/16/house-gop-budget-plan-senate_n_1522393.html
"Democrats haven't passed a budget since 2009, opting against weeklong floor debates that would have exposed party members to dozens of politically difficult votes or put themselves on record in favor of tax hikes or huge deficits."

But hey, enjoy your wikipedia edits. Propagandist.

Let's keep some perspective here. They only sell one model at a time. All of the other vendors sell multiple models at the same time. The implication is that this is somehow the leading phone ecosystem or some such thing. In reality Apple doesn't even sell as many smart phones as Samsung alone, never mind all of the other vendors.

Android has 68% of the worldwide market compared to 17% for apple, which slipped from 19% a year before. Look I'm all for personal choice, I think apple has some pretty neat things that they do, but can we check the hype machine in Realityville please?

Police forces have to do something with all that grant money they get from the DHS. Their chosen course for a damn long time now has been to play paramilitary. Once they had all the neat toys, they had to create a justification for having them, so they started using them for routine things.

This is why I find complaints of slippery slope fallacy to be way overstated. Not enough people read history.

Amen on people not reading history, or only skimming the "revised" versions provided to public schools.

It's not all the state and local police at fault here for the militarization of the civilian police, essentially turning them into an occupying military.

The Feds only recently temporarily suspended the DoD/Pentagon "1033" program that from 1994 until very recently supplied full military weapons and equipment including tanks with .50-cal machinegun turrets, armored personnel carriers, LAWS anti-tank rocket launchers, grenade launchers, Blackhawks, Hueys, and on and on. All the local agency had to pay was the shipping charges, and of course the insurance and operation/maintenance costs. What could possibly go wrong, eh?

Here's a couple of links to stories. Google has tons more.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/11/pentagon-suspends-weapons-program-cops-military_n_1585328.html

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012/09/14/ariz-sheriff-ordered-to-return-military-goods/57781594/1

And finally, an interesting look: http://www.dps.mo.gov/dir/programs/cjle/dod.asp

I guess one way to get around that clunky old Constitution and that inconvenient Posse Comitatus Act ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act ) is to not obviously bring IN troops, but to simply turn the existing law enforcement apparatus already around us into the military.

No convoys of soldiers rolling into neighborhoods, everyone just suddenly wakes up one day and the local police are now wearing combat equipment and patrolling in armored vehicles and you need a pass to clear the checkpoint to travel to your job. Oh, DHS recently posted a bid for tens of thousands of prefab bulletproof portable checkpoint guard shacks.

Nothing to see here, move along, move along.

Strat

Then you're missing something:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/13/libyan-peace-rally-slams-terrorism-offers-apology-for-attack_n_1881798.html

can you cite the case where this happened? it sounds a bit fishy to me. there is something called 'abuse of process'.

Here's your fish. Many more can be found by simply googling for 'debtors prison'.

Many yes, but far too many feel that "If that's the price we have to pay for safety, then so be it".

Not as many as people think.

It's all in how the survey question is stated. If you ask people "Do you support airport security?" you'll find overwhelming support. Obviously. Ask people if they support the TSA irradiating its citizens, "raping" them with invasive pat-downs -- whether they agree with those security procedures, and you'll get much lower response. It's like the IRS: Most people acknowledge they have to pay their taxes. Few agree with the collection tactics the IRS uses, or the lack of judicial oversight.

I wonder if you love those "peace loving christians" when they plant bombs and shoot up a summer camp . Or do you make really weak generalizations just when it comes to muslims? The reality is that the muslim terrorists are a tiny minority of the billion+ muslims in the world. To label every muslim a terrorist on par with Al-Qaeda merely does three things:
1) It legitimizes the terrorists as the only real muslims.
2) It legitimizes and fuels their calls for a culture war by calling for a culture war yourself.
3) It pisses off every muslim who just wants to get on with their lives, and turns them against you. Which, incidentally, is again what the terrorists are hoping for.

So congratulations for doing exactly what the muslim terrorists want you to do. What a good little puppet you are.

Well, they say they were fiddling with their laptops. Not taking a nap.

deliberate political policy

Today the statists have us burning our food, while simultaneously driving pig farmers and egg producers out of business with animal `welfare' regulation and high feed cost.

Naturally, when the crash comes it will be the fault of `corporations.'

I wouldn't say it's the statists burning our food, or at least in my limited experience it wasn't the case. I grew up in a rural Indiana town and outside of a single factory, the largest portion of its economy is corn. When I was in HS in the 90's there were a couple years when the farmers had absolutely huge yields ... so much so in fact the price of corn went through the floor. Having family members that own large farms, it literally cost them more to drag the corn to the grain elevator for sale in gas/time/pay for farmhands than it was worth. End result? Pile it up and hope the price increases. When the price didn't increase and it started to rot, burn it and take the loss.

At first I was a bit disgusted. After all, we were just talking about starving kids in Africa and Susanne Sommers makes a great pitch! But then I realized that in order to get that corn to the folks that need it, someone has to pay the farmer or HIS FAMILY will be the ones starving. (Maybe not literally starving, but they'd certainly lose the farm.)

Makes the ethanol mandates and their timing make more sense now that I think about it. A politician (or group there of) would be very likely to make the mistake "Corn is too cheap! Let's artificially create demand by using it in gasoline!" ... without taking into account the fact that not all harvests are nearly as good.

deliberate political policy

Today the statists have us burning our food, while simultaneously driving pig farmers and egg producers out of business with animal `welfare' regulation and high feed cost.

Naturally, when the crash comes it will be the fault of `corporations.'

They have Obama's college transcripts and passport as examples. If he can keep those secret, surely Romney's tax returns can be kept under wraps too.

I suppose you could see it that way, if you were dumber than pond scum and more dishonest than Baghdad Bob.

Because you know perfectly well that Obama was talking about transparency in government, and his college transcripts have fuck-all to do with that. Rather than hitting Obama on his actual hypocrisy over what he was actually talking about - like promising to hold health care hearings on CSPAN and then literally making the same deals behind closed doors with the same lobbyists he attacked during the campaign - you guys have to peddle some false equivalency drivel. But hey, that's what happens when the only honest, reality-based criticism of Obama comes from the left.

As for Romney's tax returns, that ship sailed when he demanded to see the tax returns of his possible running mates so he could vet them.

It wouldn't be the first time dye turned a chinese river red

They said it's not the normal red-tide algae because that algae grows in salt water, but this is a freshwater river.

We lost 13,000 maufacturing jobs last month.. that's a drop in the bucket. Now, look where wealth is generated and it comes from manufacturing things. Here is just one article on our decline. When whomever is in charge wants to get serious about generating wealth again they'd do well to lift the burdens on U.S. manufacturers, get factories built and start building things again. Until then we are going backwards.

Oh right, commemorating the great events of September ???, lessee, when was that?

Huge earthquakes, near Yiliang County.
Followed by heavy rains.
Large landslides.
117 miles south of a major Yangtze tributary into which local rivers drain.

Far more likely an industrial spill or iron ore laden mudslide.

This is exactly the kind of thinking that leads to the persecution of Jews in Germany and Russia (Soviet Union) and Falun Gong in China and .....

Only if he really meant it, not as a joke. On the other hand, these guys don't seem to be joking, not unlike the old witch hunts.

My question is, why do Atheists care about proselytizing their Atheism to others?

I don't really care if people believe in unicorns. But then, there isn't an "Office of Unicorn-Based Programs" in the White House. Atheists tend to care in direct proportion to how much religion drives policy that they have to live with.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mark-hyman/autism-research-discovery_b_794967.html
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health-conditions/neurological-conditions/autism/

It sounds from those two sources like many cases of autism could be prevented by higher vitamin D levels of pregnant women and better diet, but in the first few years of life after birth, some aspects of autism can be reversed with vitamin D supplements and good diet. How far and for how many kids is still an open question.

Also of general interest on eating healthier:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mark-hyman/food-industry_b_1559920.html
https://www.drfuhrman.com/library/foodpyramid.aspx

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mark-hyman/autism-research-discovery_b_794967.html
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health-conditions/neurological-conditions/autism/

It sounds from those two sources like many cases of autism could be prevented by higher vitamin D levels of pregnant women and better diet, but in the first few years of life after birth, some aspects of autism can be reversed with vitamin D supplements and good diet. How far and for how many kids is still an open question.

Also of general interest on eating healthier:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mark-hyman/food-industry_b_1559920.html
https://www.drfuhrman.com/library/foodpyramid.aspx

proving once more that bitcoins are the currency of thieves, drug dealers, pedophiles and gun runners

As are dollars. There are about 8 million bitcoins at about $11 a piece. That's 88 million dollars worth of bitcoins. That doesn't even come close to the money stolen by ONE GUY at MF Global.

If you despise thieves, aim your hatred at the finance industry and the politicians that protect them. Bitcoin is negligible compared to these crooks.

This story is spreading circumstantial evidence very thin, and is definitely on the other side of the "extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof" boundary. In the Assange case there are so many strange facts that the burden of proof has been shifted... not so here.

I WOULD say it's possible though. It's not like the Swedish administration isn't hiring an ex Bush administration official who resigned under a cloud after trying to corrupt US Department of Justice.

Well, insufficient funding for public education is one of the main problems currently facing California, so it seems relevant to me, in response to your lazy right-wing barb.

Last year they opened a $578 million dollar high school.

Just imagine what they could do with sufficient funding.

"False equivalence. The Democrats have never focused so single-mindedly on the destruction of a president. You're just telling yourself that the Dems are just as bad as a defense mechanism."

You wrote that? Nixon resigned. Despite being guilty, the Democratic Party focused so single-mindedly on Nixon that he left office. Rightly or not, this was the beginning of the politics of public personal destruction. Nixon was guilty. The Democrats destroyed him.

"Only one party threatened to cut off unemployment benefits for millions if they didn't get a tax cut extension for the rich."
So quickly forgotten.

"Only one party forced the country to default on its debts in order to force major budget cuts to both military and domestic program, and then even had the gall to try to renege on the military cuts."

Not that the Democrats are above the same tactic if it suits them.

"Only one party proposed cap and trade as a capitalist alternative to environmental regulations, and then called it socialism when the other guys tried to implement it."

Crony Capitalism serves both sides. The Obama Administration is engaged in it as every other Administration since, what, Reagan?

"Only one party proposed an individual mandate as a capitalist alternative to single-payer health care, and then screamed about "death panels" when the other guys tried to implement it."

No quote here. You are wrong, in that this was never a Republican Party platform plank. But the party is a big tent, and some in it have tried to compromise on this issue of healthcare. Republicans tend to compromise. Democrats tend not to. I'm not at all sure this is a good thing for Republicans to do.

"Only one party proposed giving illegal immigrants a path to citizenship through military service or college, and then screamed "amnesty!" when the other guys tried to implement it."

I entered the USAF in 1972, and while in basic training I stood for a wonderful young man from Columbia who was sworn in as a citizen of the US while he was in basic training also. Gaining citizenship via military service is not new. Sadly, neither is illegal immigration into the US. But Alberto came legally. More to the point, I gather you think giving a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants is ok, even as we fail to stop the flow. That's what 'changed' the Republicans stand. When they could not get Democrat agreement on taking actual measures to reduce illegal immigration. When the deal changes, do you stick with your initial agreement, or do you change your mind?

"The Republicans today are nothing like those of the 90s or 80s or 70s or any other point in time. They're nothing like this country has ever seen. They've realized that politics is just a game, and they can break the game by refusing to negotiate on anything. Our country cannot survive that sort of game-breaking exploit. If people like you don't wise up and punish them for it, we're through."

You are absolutely right. The Democrats have spent the last 40 years refusing to negotiate on anything of substance. Examples? I want to punish the Democrats also, but I can vote for only one candidate per office. Do your part.

- Reagan's budgets were declared 'dead on arrival'.
- I'm bored with any other examples. Your premise is that the Republicans are 'worse'. You are deluded.

We have one goverment, and anything other than compromise and mutual accomplishment is wrong. The Republican Party is now playing the game like the Democratic Party has been, and now it's wrong? Keep your blinders on. Much easier than dealing with the problem. Just keep focused on the other guys.

That's what I get for working from memory. Minimum size in NYC is 400 square feet; I'm seeing a number of efficiencies more around 250-300square feet. So about double.

HuffPo: White House Beer Recipe: Freedom Of Information Act Request Filed For Obama's Brew

That's one of the downsides of the walled garden.
Why? a walled garden hasn't stopped Apple before... ;-)

Aren't there other studies that say happiness come from being old, Republican, and *male*?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/18/happiness-is-being-old-ma_n_204619.html

What is the difference with these studies? I guess I'm too lazy to analyze it.

So you can't even name one?

http://tjshome.com/dumblaws.php

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/02/17-ridiculous-laws-still_n_481379.html

Can you tell me how many Federal laws there are in force? If you can, better tell Congress, as nobody there can tell you how many there are, even to within a couple thousand.

If nobody even knows how many there are, never mind what they criminalize, and seeing as how they range from strange laws from the 1700s/1800s to the present, how do you know you're not a criminal?

Ask any Federal LE agent or Federal prosecutor. They CAN find something to bust you on, even if you've never knowingly violated any laws that you're aware of.

And the individual States are as bad or worse in their own right.

There needs to be some kind of Constitutional Amendment or something that forces Congress to repeal 10 old laws for every single new law they want to pass. Same for the States.

"It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood." - James Madison

Strat

Haven't they been threatening to build their own internet and cut it off from the world anyway? Then they wouldn't be able to connect, so it's just giving them a taste of that ahead of time.

See [treasury.gov] for sanctions on Iran. I believe that Swift (the international wire system) recently removed all Iranian banks from their service making international wires into Iran all but impossible. linky [huffingtonpost]

So while it may not be illegal to take money from Iran the US government doesn't look kindly on sending money to Iran.

It's not as bad as you think:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/20/40-of-americans-still-bel_n_799078.html

That's 2 years old and had 40% young-earthers and about 38% God-guided evolutioners (theistic evolution). So roughly 50% of creationists believing in young earth. My suspicion is that it's shifting more towards theistic evolution since then. If you broke it down more like wikipedia's creationism article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creationism) then I suspect you'd get even less YECs and mostly Intelligent Design types.

That is only in the US of course. I would suspect that beyond the US theistic evolution is most common, mostly because that is the official dogma of the Catholic Church.

Like in most groups, the nutjobs are the loudest and most newsworthy, so their numbers seem larger than they really are. Although 40% of the US is still a pretty big number.

It's in the title of the video, "Creationism Is Not Appropriate for Children," http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/28/bill-nye-science-guy-creationism-evolution_n_1835208.html

Bob Parsons has subdued many elephants by having this guy sing Justin Bieber.

Note on image: The rifle is for non-believers.

There were plenty of total surprises eg. revelations about US contractor involvement in child prostitution, but I don't see how rock solid confirmation of suspected shadowy dealings is bad either - what citizen in ANY country wants their government acting as if scrutiny isn't even possible? I've also demonstrated above how these revelation helped precipitate important world events.

Regarding Assange - perhaps you don't realise what's at stake here. There are reporters who've already said they'll start self censoring if another reporter is declared an enemy combatant and jailed indefinitely. Also, perhaps you aren't aware of how much circumstantial evidence on the trumped up nature of this case exists. For example Karl Rove, the same guy who resigned from the Bush administration after suspected corruption of the Department of Justice ie. sacking US prosecutors over not persuing political cases "correctly"... yeah, that guy... well, he works for the Swedish Prime Minister these days.

There were plenty of total surprises eg. revelations about US contractor involvement in child prostitution, but I don't see how rock solid confirmation of suspected shadowy dealings is bad either - what citizen in ANY country wants their government acting as if scrutiny isn't even possible? I've also demonstrated above how these revelation helped precipitate important world events.

Regarding Assange - perhaps you don't realise what's at stake here. There are reporters who've already said they'll start self censoring if another reporter is declared an enemy combatant and jailed indefinitely. Also, perhaps you aren't aware of how much circumstantial evidence on the trumped up nature of this case exists. For example Karl Rove, the same guy who resigned from the Bush administration after suspected corruption of the Department of Justice ie. sacking US prosecutors over not persuing political cases "correctly"... yeah, that guy... well, he works for the Swedish Prime Minister these days.

An aside...

You know Karl Rove, right? The guy that resigned from the Bush administration under a cloud after being accused of trying to corrupt the Department of Justice ie. sacking US prosecutors for not persuing cases in a 'party political' manner? Guess who he's working for these days - the Prime Minister of Sweden.

That's just one of the bad smells around this whole thing.

That is not what the GP is referring to. The GP is referring to a different incident, post embassy bombings (?), where a special ops team had a visual on Bin Laden. Clinton had them stand down.

More right-wing fiction with no basis in reality.

Right wing fiction from CBS's 60 Minutes and the Huffington post?
"Hank Crumpton, a former CIA officer and top counterterrorism official, said in a recent interview that President Bill Clinton's White House missed a golden opportunity to take out terrorist leader Osama bin Laden in 1999. Bin Laden was in Afghanistan in 1999, Crumpton told CBS's "60 Minutes" in a segment that aired on Sunday. His convoy had been clearly identified by an early edition Predator drone, which at the time didn't have weapons capabilities. "We saw a security detail, a convoy, and we saw bin Laden exit the vehicle, clearly," Crumpton told CBS's Lara Logan, describing aerial images captured by a drone flying somewhere outside of Kandahar. "The optics were spot in, it was beaming back to us, CIA headquarters. We immediately alerted the White House, and the Clinton administration’s response was, ‘Well, it will take several hours for the TLAMs, the cruise missiles launched from submarines, to reach that objective. So, you need to tell us where bin Laden will be five or six hours from now.' The frustration was enormous." The administration also denied the CIA's request to engage their on-ground forces, Crumpton said, which could have acted more quickly. The missed opportunity led the CIA to speed the process of arming the unmanned drones with Hellfire missiles, so that they could act more swiftly if they found bin Laden again."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/14/hank-crumpton-cia-clinton-bin-laden_n_1514895.html

Bill Clinton signed the legislation permitting the credit default swap financial instruments.

And George W. Bush signed the legislation making it harder for consumers to declare bankruptcy - so banks promptly created a bubble by lending money to anyone or anything with a pulse. Blaming it on the CRA is the biggest wingnut lie in the history of wignnut lies.

Time magazine another right wing conspiracy member?
"Bill Clinton ... Among his biggest strokes of free-wheeling capitalism was the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which repealed the Glass-Steagall Act, a cornerstone of Depression-era regulation. He also signed the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which exempted credit-default swaps from regulation. In 1995 Clinton loosened housing rules by rewriting the Community Reinvestment Act, which put added pressure on banks to lend in low-income neighborhoods."
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1877351_1877350_1877322,00.html

Funny that you mentioned Glass-Steagal earlier. It seems it was really Clinton not Bush that signed off on its repeal.

What should actually be noted by Obama apologists, is that his plan to "close" Guantanamo was not a plan to stop the practices of Guantanamo, but to move those practices to a Federal prison in Thompson IL. Many in congress, including liberals Russ Feingold and Bernie Sanders, voted against Obama's plan not because they're neocon authoritarians, but because it made Gitmo worse by importing its unconstitutional practices to the US at great expense.

http://www.salon.com/2012/07/23/the_obama_gitmo_myth/

So yeah, Congress interfered with Obama's plan to spend lots of money importing Gitmo to the states. This really doesn't mean however, that Congress interfered with his liberal motives, as is so often implied by Obamabots. Kind of like how they give him credit for ending the War in Iraq, when what actually happened is that despite intensive lobbying of the Iraqi government, he failed to extend the expiration of SOFA beyond the Dec 2011 deadline GWB established, and as a result, his choice was to leave soldiers in Iraq subject to local prosecution for crimes, or pull them out. Obamabots give him credit for ending the war when he only deserves credit for failing to extend the war.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/26/obama-iraq_n_1032507.html

They are not suing Amazon for the fire, or Google for the Nexus line....

They did sue over Nexus (and not just once). They just sue Samsung over it rather than Google, because Samsung is the hardware manufacturer. But all patents invoked so far are software patents (swipe to unlock, overscroll), so in reality they are suing over stock Android functionality that Google wrote, not Samsung's additions.

http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health-conditions/neurological-conditions/autism/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mark-hyman/autism-research-discovery_b_794967.html

Another indirect datapoint about the link between autism an vitamin D deficiency: http://www.futurity.org/health-medicine/higher-autism-risk-for-march-conception/

It may also turn out that some children are better at dealing with excreting heavy metals and other toxins than others for whatever reasons. See also Dr. David Brownstein on Iodine and Dr. Joel Fuhrman on vegetables and children's nutrition.

A book on dealing with tough times when all else fails:
"Dark Nights Of The Soul: A Guide To Finding Your Way Through Life's Ordeals"
http://books.google.com/books?id=RKZreNYKNHQC

Good luck!

So WHAT if there are holes filled with people who are unprofitable for the monopolies to service? That's the Free Market at work. In 50 or 80 years, the same Free Market will produce a Solution. That's how pure Free Markets work, and if you don't like it, then you're a socialist.

How do you expect to create a permanent underclass if some people don't have better opportunities than others from birth? Don't you know how we run things around here?

The same was true in the 60s with that damn Civil Rights Bill that every good libertarian opposed: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/20/rand-paul-tells-maddow-th_n_582872.html Those slaves had only been free for less than 100 years. Another two, three hundred, and the Free Market would have decided they were worth serving lunch to at lunch counters after all.

What we DON'T need is Big Government coming in like they did with their whole socialist rural electrification project in '35 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_electrification#United_States and deciding who the market should serve and what the market can charge.

Romney / Ryan 2012 !! End Socialism in America !!!

I am expressly not listing any elements involving the validity of the allegations themselves, but only such ones that may influence Assange that are outside the scope of the alleged crimes. There is more to be said (see links in the text), but here are the main points of swedish behaviour which are likely to trouble Assange:

• Preliminary investigation: failures to follow procedure and the probable biais of an investigating officer due to personal acquaintance with one of the defendants unfortunately put the investigation itself in a bad light.
• No case: the investigation was opened, closed, then re-opened on request of the lawyer representing the two women. The investigators themselves did not consider the evidence sufficient for court.
• Proportionality: the fact that Assange has already been held in house arrest for over 500 days and faces at least short imprisonment in Sweden prior to any trial raises serious proportionality concerns. Given this result, I believe the argument of Assange's lawyers in court, that the use of an European Arrest Warrant simply in order to further an investigation before any actual prosecution takes place is disproportionate, to be valid. However, opionions are divided on this issue.
• Questioning in the UK: there is no legal problem whatsoever for the prosecutor to do this outside of Sweden, and indeed Sweden has questioned defendants or suspects abroad in the past. This is a decision that is entirely up to the prosecutor, and that decision has not satisfactorily been explained (audio interview with Swedish prosecution authority). Only recently, one justification has been given, and it is essentially one of prestige, which is a rather poor explanation given the fears expressed by Assange and the lack of any non-extradition guarantees by the Swedish government. I would be very curious to know what the real justification was before the case blew up.
• Connections: as mentioned in previous post.
• Expected future behaviour: opinions expressed in the press by Swedish journalists and intellectuals have become virulent, to say the least. Along with the media, public opinion has swayed in disfavor of Assange, giving cause for Assange to fear a fair trial, should it ever come to one. This case would likely collapse before any trial, according to Ove Bring, professor Emeritus of the Swedish national defence college (see previous link). However, with media and public opinion and concerns of prestige being as they are, this has become less likely. Interestingly, similar reasons may be given to argue that an actual extradition from Sweden to the US has become even less probable. It would go down very poorly in the court of global, public opinion should Sweden do so after months of trying to get him to return to Sweden for completely unrelated reasons. Personally, I believe Assange's fears have alway also centered around receiving a fair trial. With time, this fear has probably become increasingly real.

As for Graham, you won't find a better man.

Oh yea? For varying definitions of "better"...decide for yourself.

Despite of having some very respectable attributes, he clearly worked to deny homosexuals civil rights due to the tenets of *his* religion. Sort of douchbaggy, if you ask me.

That's a pretty butch question. In my current state, I'd have trouble answering it with any chance of respectful reception. What I can say immediately, is how the bloody hell is the current system going to hold? I also don't believe bitcoin has reached maturity yet. Like a beaten and resented prodigy, it's growth has been hindered by various factors. Maybe the way it would work under such circumstances is a matter of additional innovation, adaptation, or redesign. I hope it never comes to that, but if it does, it would be nice to see things get the hell out of its way with anything but positive input. I am sure some fellow slashers will do a brilliant job taking this in 360 degrees, and far beyond what I am capable of.

On the subject of goats, [gardens] and chickens, that's another manipulated value, considering that in many locations throughout the US and other nations it's illegal to have them.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/08/woman-jailed-for-vegetable-garden_n_893516.html
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/neighborhoods/2012/04/illegal-curbside-garden-flourishes/1728/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/20/illegal-kitchen-garden_n_1687558.html - CA
http://www.aolnews.com/2010/09/15/cabbagegate-ga-man-fined-5k-for-home-garden/
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2010/10/weird_zoning_laws
http://www.newson6.com/story/18802728/woman-sues-city-of-tulsa-for-cutting-down-her-edible-garden
And so on and so on.

That's a pretty butch question. In my current state, I'd have trouble answering it with any chance of respectful reception. What I can say immediately, is how the bloody hell is the current system going to hold? I also don't believe bitcoin has reached maturity yet. Like a beaten and resented prodigy, it's growth has been hindered by various factors. Maybe the way it would work under such circumstances is a matter of additional innovation, adaptation, or redesign. I hope it never comes to that, but if it does, it would be nice to see things get the hell out of its way with anything but positive input. I am sure some fellow slashers will do a brilliant job taking this in 360 degrees, and far beyond what I am capable of.

On the subject of goats, [gardens] and chickens, that's another manipulated value, considering that in many locations throughout the US and other nations it's illegal to have them.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/08/woman-jailed-for-vegetable-garden_n_893516.html
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/neighborhoods/2012/04/illegal-curbside-garden-flourishes/1728/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/20/illegal-kitchen-garden_n_1687558.html - CA
http://www.aolnews.com/2010/09/15/cabbagegate-ga-man-fined-5k-for-home-garden/
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2010/10/weird_zoning_laws
http://www.newson6.com/story/18802728/woman-sues-city-of-tulsa-for-cutting-down-her-edible-garden
And so on and so on.

*ahem*:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/13/gary-k-owen-eileen-qutub-washington-state-emails_n_1773555.html

--and the point where it goes from HuffPo's "alleged" to the actual news where "Man admits [sending] death threat"--

http://www.kgw.com/news/Man-arrested-for-death-threat-against-WA-candidate-165745706.html

Yeah, dude's nuts. OTOH, the target of his death threat has an "(R)" after her name whenever it appears on the newscasts.

The reasons for him fearing extradition from Sweden but not from the UK has little to do with the respective legislation of the two countries.

The reasons he fears extradition to the US from Sweden are far more likely to be found in the extraordinary behaviour of the Swedish authorities throughout the evolution of this story (well documented), as well as the connections they seem to have been entertaining. Many governments (among them the US and Sweden) will disregard the rule of law if they think (or want the public to think) that the gravity of a given issue warrants it.

Perhaps such fears are unfounded, but given the circumstances, I understand why he entertains them. I probably would to, if the loss of my personal freedom and safety were at stake.

Agreed with a little help afterwards, you could pull ahead of it such that "nothing can shock you ever again". They do it in the Military all the time, though in a more physical style.

The U.S. Army Reports Record High Suicide Rates for July

Experts: Vets' PTSD, violence a growing problem

Maybe not.

PTSD is a problem but in the military it's PTSD because their friends and people they know are getting their heads blown off or blown up in front of their face. All 5 senses, it's a lot more intense. This job weare talking about is just viewing images and possibly video online.That is not real and very easy to compartmentalize for a large number of people.

If you can watch violent movies, snuff films and go to Rotten.com you can do the job. If you have nightmares after watching some stuff then perhaps you cannot do the job but there are ways to condition yourself for the job. Watch a lot of films about animals and watch animals hunt and kill their prey over and over again, eventually you can get used to seeing the death process. Does that mean you enjoy death? Hell no. Does it mean you like killing or that you even hunt? No.

It simply means you're good at viewing that particular kind of content and staying focused on your training. People who work as EMT's have to literally save peoples lives, people die in their arms, they have to deal with victims face to face, their job is harder in my opinion than dealing with pictures on the internet.

Agreed with a little help afterwards, you could pull ahead of it such that "nothing can shock you ever again". They do it in the Military all the time, though in a more physical style.

The U.S. Army Reports Record High Suicide Rates for July

Experts: Vets' PTSD, violence a growing problem

Maybe not.

Selective breeding is not "genetic engineering". And I put that in quotes because you have a better chance of building a house from match sticks than doing proper engineering with genes.

What these "engineers" do is just stick a gene sequence from one type of bacteria of fungus or whatever into some semi-random part of plant/animal DNA. Then they test if the plant,

  1. lives
  2. is not immediately poisonous
  3. has some trait they were looking to insert

Basically, it is a giant crapshoot. But after they get the proper trait, they just declare the entire shebang as "safe" and it is available on sale. In the meantime, they just trow out 100s and 100s of cases where the "genetic engineering" didn't satisfy the above ultra-rigorous criteria.

As to safety, well, rats are not people, right?

http://www.mindfully.org/GE/2005/Modified-Soya-Rats10oct05.htm

So yes, I want a label. I want to be able to choose between the food that my body has adapted to over the last 1,000,000+ years or a food that's been deemed safe and profitable for the duration of some patent.

To put it another way, DNA is like compressed, encrypted software, with a bunch of callbacks. You can't just stick one part of one software into another with a `dd` command and expect to have a feature moved properly.

PS. Of course, we may want to go all GM anyway, right?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/26/enlist-dow-agent-orange-corn_n_1456129.html

Nothing wrong with spraying Agent Orange on the fields if they approve the Agent Orange resistant corn... DOW stock should go up if they approve this. After all, Agent Orange is totally safe! Just ask the vietnam vets or the kids of of the people in Vietnam where they sprayed that stuff. /sarcasm