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[...] patrons usually tend to sponsor people with, you know, actual talent [...]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/06/rejected-books_n_998486.html

I noticed several brand names I associate with "America" are now owned by some one else, I wonder if selling off Yahoo would the loss of all the American jobs hired there.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/08/american-brands-in-foreig_n_755900.html#s152955&title=Budweiser

But hey what's in a name right.

Before the 1960's the largest foreign holders of property in America were the Netherlands.

In the 1970's people (particularly where I lived) were alarmed when the Saudis came in and began buying obscure local banks, companies and properties.

In the 1980's the Japanese were buying up golf courses, movie studios, huge ranches, you name it.

Now the Chinese are looking to buy and people are getting worried all over again.

I'll only worry when they make a bid for the State of California.

I noticed several brand names I associate with "America" are now owned by some one else, I wonder if selling off Yahoo would the loss of all the American jobs hired there.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/08/american-brands-in-foreig_n_755900.html#s152955&title=Budweiser

But hey what's in a name right.

Maybe some of us keep eating animals so that PETA will keep providing us porn ;) :

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/21/peta-plans-porn-website_n_972497.html

Hah!

I somehow suspect that's unlikely to achieve the desired result.

Florida is getting a little less evil with legislating against teenage sexuality and nudism, but it's getting a lot worse for dog lovers in Florida, because just a few months ago, after 3 attempts (and stalling from the Republican party), bestiality is now a criminal offense in Florida.

Also, Florida will also charge children who show a but-crack (called the "droopy-drawers" law). You'd think these highly paid politicians that get free health care benefits would spend their time trying to improve the country instead of punishing children (and animal lovers).

Ref: www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/06/florida-bestiality-law-passes-third-attempt_n_858884.html

He probably means this:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/08/wikileaks-reveals-that-mi_n_793816.html

This information about what your taxes are spent on was brought to you by Bradley Manning and wikileaks.

Yep, another case of the FBI finding a 'terrorist' by finding a mildly disgruntled guy, giving him fake weapons and explosives, suggesting a terrorist plot to him, and then 'catching' him when he did exactly what they wanted him to do.

Like these guys:
http://abcnews.go.com/US/fbi-arrests-terrorists-sting-operations-dallas-springfield/story?id=8666300

And these guys:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/11/families-struggle-in-the-_n_957365.html

No we have this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, and of course the very much abbreviated list wouldn't be complete without this

Parrots, big deal. In Sweden drunk moose fall of trees.

I think they nailed it perfectly in The Hunt For Red October: "I'm a politician, which means I'm a cheat and a liar, and when i'm not kissing babies I'm stealing their lollipops" pretty much sums it up. Smile pretty for the camera while backstabbing and cashing big fat checks off screen.

Citizens United only gave them the ability to take the bribes right out in the open with zero risk, which is probably advantageous what with a member of SCOTUS is looking a little shady when it comes to business dealings outside the court.

. Personally I think congress should be treated like jury duty, as that is the only way i can think of to keep career liars out of the positions. I doubt even term limits would do a bit of good as they'd just cash the big checks for a lesser time than they can do now.

Right and for better or for worse, those are non-voting shares so the US Government has about as much say in what goes on at GM as I do as a random member of the public.

HA HA HA HA HO HE HA HO HE HA HO HA HA HA HA!!!!

As much say? I don't remember having the power to fire the CEO

And I don't think that having the head of GM assigned to lead the government as an economic advisor on creating jobs(!) is exactly the kind of hands-off model you are proposing.

Not to mention that as part of getting that money, GM had to move all creditors to the back of the line behind unions who lost not a cent of money.

Maybe some of us keep eating animals so that PETA will keep providing us porn ;) :

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/21/peta-plans-porn-website_n_972497.html

I'm Pro-Union (Democrat) and Anti-Illegal Immigration (Which takes away union jobs by undercutting prices. Republican.)

Which party should I vote for? Which one of these parties don't have a predominant agenda to actively fuck me over?

FFS, are you really that thick? First of all, no party is Pro-Illegal Immigration. That's why it's "illegal".

Secondly, if you are pro-union, then Republicans are your enemy. Their agenda should be 100 times more frightening to you than the notion of Mexicans sneaking across the border and stealing away union jobs.

Blaming Wallstreet for an "information blackout" (and ultimately for the current economic situation, while simultaneously giving the government a free pass

The housing crisis, caused by lending institutions granting mortgages to unqualified applicants, wasn't the fault of large banking corporations? They knew they could shove their losses off on Fannie and Freddie, so they had no risk, took the money and ran. Not that the govt wasn't complicit as well, dishing out TARP funds did nothing but encourage this anti-social behavior.

If the economy falters, companies are bringing in less revenue

Seriously? What planet are you on?

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/24/business/economy/24econ.html"Corporate Profits Were the Highest on Record Last Quarter"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/23/corporate-profits-q3-2010-_n_787573.html"Corporate Profits Hit New Record, U.S. Workers Still Struggling "

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/global500/2011/performers/companies/profits/"Top companies: Most profitable" # Note, you have to go to #27 before you find one reporting a loss, and out of the top 50, only 5 report a loss

http://www.economist.com/node/18073369"How much longer can corporate America keep on delivering bumper increases in profits?"

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph"It's the Inequality, Stupid" Sorry, their title, not mine. Anyway, this gives an idea where that profit is going. If you are NOT in the top 1% of income earners, your after tax income has likely gone down since 1979. If you are in the top 1%, it has gone up more than 120%.

http://www.businessinsider.com/15-charts-about-wealth-and-inequality-in-america-2010-4#the-last-two-decades-were-greatif-you-were-a-ceo-or-owner-not-if-you-were-anyone-else-5"15 Mind-Blowing Facts About Wealth And Inequality In America" # CEO pay up 298% from 1990 to 2005, while the average workers pay is up 4.3%.

I would go on, but I have to get back to my wage-slave existence so I can have a roof over my head and something to eat tonight. Crying and/or going postal in the office would probably get me marked down on my performance review.

[citation needed]

So we're to believe that eating sterile food means we'll become sterile after only three generations of inbreeding? Well, gee... good thing we haven't had seedless fruits for very long, and thank goodness we haven't been breeding food to be grotesquely large, or anything like that!

Sources beyond the fringes?

According to Huffington Post & Bob Cavnar it isn't likely. Think about that. A very left leaning publication and the expert that most left leaning sources went to during the crisis are saying this isn't really a likely scenario. And he provides some plausible explanations for the oil.

And still criticizes BP for not providing video of the site to diffuse the internet rumors, so he's hardly in BP pocket on this.

Okay, I get your point. And, yes, with more unemployed there are more people in the low-income / poverty level. Plus people that started the recession at low income and lost their job obviously had a hard time, since they are much less likely to have any saving or support system.

If you are looking for a job, you're more likely to get one if you are a higher skilled worker.

No, that is not true at all. If you have at least a bachelor's degree and some experience, then it's true, otherwise it's false. If you don't like that source, check out the report from the Center for American Progress on the "Polarization of the Job Market". Or this article from HuffPo

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joel-fuhrman-md/vitamin-d-recommendations_b_800468.html
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/vitamin_D_recommendations.aspx
http://grassrootshealth.net/
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health-conditions/

And on escaping from a "pleasure trap":
http://drfuhrman.com/library/article16.aspx
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/foodpyramid.aspx

And on walking while using the computer:
http://www.squidoo.com/walkingwhileworking

IAMAD (but not in the U.S., mind you), and I tell you there is one big problem, particularly concerning India, but which also applies to most other countries in South-east Asia: antibiotic resistance. Availability of over-the-counter antibiotics (and in the case of India, in the drinking water) in many of these south-east asian countries (as well as some western world nations!) has caused the vast majority of bacterial strains occurring in clinical settings to become multi-drug resistant. Using second- third- or fourth-line antibiotics, this might still be possible to handle for most surgical procedures (excepting parts of India), but heed my words: avoid all implants of foreign materials; eg. joint replacements, pacemakers etc. Once you have one of those strains getting cozy in a biofilm on the surface of steel, plastic, platinum or whatever, you are in for a world of trouble.

Did you miss the part that these "cuts" are over 10 years?

There's nothing binding here if the next President -- or even the next seated Congress -- decides it is going to change things.

More bread and circuses, with a nice class warfare frosting.

Because cutting half a trillion as a whole this immediate fiscal year (or even in the next 2-3) starting tomorrow is absolutely possible and practical. You can't have it now so having in 10 years is just impractical. Totally zero-sum. </sarcasm>

I love how people call this idea "class warfare" when it's been heralded not just by one billionaire (Buffett) but several. Ideology trumps logic.

I guess it's easy for Buffet to call for higher taxes since his company doesn't pay them.

From HERE

Berkshire Hathaway, the eighth-largest public company in the world according to Forbes, openly admits to still owing taxes for years 2002 through 2004 and 2005 through 2009, according to the New York Post. The company says it expects to "resolve all adjustments proposed by the US Internal Revenue Service" within the next year.

Sure, if I didn't pay taxes, I wouldn't mind if they were raised.

How come GM can make $50 billion of dollars in profit and pay zero tax? AND receive bailout money? (source = http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/03/gm-tax-break-could-be-wor_n_778300.html)

Extra taxes on the very wealthy is all very well, but it's kinda like fixing the dripping tap in the bathroom while your swimming pool disgorges hundreds of liters an hour out into the backyard, flooding everything, killing all the plants, ruining the carpet in the rear of the house and drawing the ire of your neighbors who suffer for it too.

And then claiming on top of it all fixing the tap is class warfare.

Here is the common cite. Of course, it hardly matters who breaks the cease fires because it is Israel who has been using occupation as the foundation of it's century+ long plan to annex Palestinian land without Palestinians, not the other way around.

This is quite an astonishing opinion. Where do you get that idea from?

From stories like El Chapo, Mexico Drug Lord, Gains Power As Cartels Fall.

Power and money aren't mutually exclusive. As long as the drug cartels have influence in local politics the more free reign they have and the more money they can acquire.

To expand your comments a bit...
Nature photos are usually considered "journalistic" when published in a magazine, even a hunting mag. Pretty much the definitive nature photography magazine, National Geographic made a policy back in 1982 that they would not do manipulation of objects, after using a "Scitex" device to digitize and move a pyramid. They issued a statement:

At the beginning of our access to Scitex, I think we were seduced by the dictum, 'If it can be done, it must be done.'
But there's a danger there. When a photograph becomes synthesis, fantasy, rather than reportage, then the whole purpose of the photograph dies. A photographer is a reporter — a photon thief, if you will. He goes and takes, with a delicate instrument, an extremely thin slice of life. When we changed that slice of life, no matter in what small way, we diluted our credibility. If images are altered to suit the editorial purposes of anyone, if soda cans or clutter or blacks or people of ethnic backgrounds are taken out, suddenly you've got a world that's not only unreal but surreal.
At National Geographic, the Scitex will never be used again to shift any one of the Seven Wonders of the World, or to delete anything that's unpleasant or add anything that's left out.

Most non-journalistic venues allow plenty of manipulation, especially contests (except for NG which allows only exposure and color adjustment, including burn/dodging).

I do find NG's comment about removing people from images particularly interesting, after Hillary Clinton was removed from a white house picture in a newspaper earlier this year. If that paper ever had credibility before, it no longer does.

Yeah, hooray for Ron Paul!
Sure, Ron Paul didn't himself say that the guy in that example deserved to die.
He also didn't say that the idiots in the audience shouting and clamoring for someone's death are idiots.

Read this article today: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/12/restaurant-music_n_958419.html
I don't know about you all, but I'm tired of music companies raping us.

The info about his illegitimate kid came out around May 17th:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/05/17/report-schwarzenegger-fathered-child-household-employee/
(argh, the fox news page was a citation from wikipedia)

In March, he had hit the same low level of approval (23 percent) as Gray Davis, the governor who was recalled, which caused the recall election to happen, which Schwarzenegger won:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/21/schwarzenegger-approval-r_n_507703.html

Also, simply searching for Schwarzenneger approval pages, there are others before that repeatedly talking about his approval rating sinking.

Why do people care about what Krugman has to say? This is the guy who believes that destruction of wealth is the necessary stimulus that USA needs and that it would be great to have destruction even if by wars or natural disasters?

He believes there is a real difference in economics between 'micro' and 'macro', which is same nonsense as when the same differences are applied to evolution, so if you ask him - would he like his own house to be destroyed by a tsunami/tornado/flood, I am sure he'd answer - no. It's not good when done to a particular person. Only entire nations need to suffer altogether in wars and alien invasions.

This is guy is a Keynesian charlattan, he has nothing to do with economics, but his type of 'economics' is pervasive, because the politicians love these guys. The politicians invite these sort of 'economists' to be in the white house to help with policy, and this is the kind of help you get, while the universities then decide to have only these kinds of 'economists' propagate this nonsense further, so you end up with only Keynesian ideology in higher education. Thus all the underlying problems in the economy - because politicians use this charlatanism to give excuse for their only real agenda - stealing your money.

OK, from TFA:

What we want from a monetary system isn't to make people holding money rich; we want it to facilitate transactions and make the economy as a whole rich. And that's not at all what is happening in Bitcoin.

- that's the problem. The entire fiscal policy of USA destroys the value of savings by inflation and this is what destroys the economy.

Bear in mind that dollar prices have been relatively stable over the past few years â" yes, some deflation in 2008-2009,

- RELATIVE TO WHAT, YOU DUMBO? Relative to other flawed currencies? :) Well, not to Swiss Franc. Not to Canadian dollar. Not to NZ dollar. Not to Australian Dollar.

Besides, 2008-2009 is a TERRIBLE time to compare, as too many people completely misunderstood what was happening in the real economy and plunged head first into the dollars, which was the absolute wrong thing to do (and it is wrong thing to do now too, but now people understand it. Look at kitco.com) Too many people actually think that Keynesian charlatanism is economics, so they fall in this trap of following completely wrong ideas.

Anyway, yes, it's deflation of assets in real terms, so in terms of gold/silver assets are falling in price. It's cheapest gasoline ever today - under 10cents for a gallon, but those are silver cents.

But the inflation is in dollars, which is why real money is going up.

then some inflation as commodity prices rebounded, but overall consumer prices are only slightly higher than they were three years ago. What that means is that if you measure prices in Bitcoins, they have plunged; the Bitcoin economy has in effect experienced massive deflation.

- GOOD. Good for those who hold Bitcoins. Bad for those who hold dollars.

And because of that, there has been an incentive to hoard the virtual currency rather than spending it. The actual value of transactions in Bitcoins has fallen rather than rising. In effect, real gross Bitcoin product has fallen sharply.

- This Keynesian wants you to be poor, do you understand that?

He wants you to pay 3.50USD for your gas, and BTW, he doesn't think it's high enough. They have a target to make it much higher. But he doesn't want you to pay 10 cents for that gallon.

So to the extent that the experiment tells us anything about monetary regimes, it reinforces the case against anything like a new gold standard â" because it shows just how vulnerable such a standard would

I'm sure she just accidentally the whole hand, you clown.

You broke my English language parser. I don't normally criticize people for grammar or spelling. If I can understand what you are trying to say, then you communicated effectively, so who cares if your English isn't perfect? However, I really have no idea what you are trying to say here.

And you have no proof that anybody would the whole archive of images to the INTERNET.

Your grammar still sucks, but I get the gist of your sentence in this case. Yes, you are right. TSA has never, as far as we know, posted the images from their AIT scanners to the Internet. However, the Marshall Service has. If it can happen once, it can happen again...and TSA's AIT scanners have better resolution than the Marshall's millimeter wave scanners.

Troll.

Tool.

I don't know what is preventing Congress from enacting patent reforms, but it certainly isn't the big tech companies.

I believe I got this article from slashdot, but I'll post it just in case. Essentially, they were caught in a battle that involves Big Pharma, Wall Street, and an underdog with delirium of grandeur. That's what is h

I might question whether you are incapable of reading comprehension, but I don't know it.

You can question anything you like. There's still no doubt Microsoft knew what they were doing.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/12/russia-uses-microsoft-to-_n_713653.html
http://www.ndtv.com/article/world/russia-uses-microsoft-to-suppress-dissent-51505
http://www.osnews.com/story/23797/NYT_Russia_Uses_Microsoft_to_Suppress_Dissent
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Russia-Anti-Piracy-Raids-Microsoft-Piracy-Putin,11270.html
http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2011/03/microsoft-sorry-for-bing-quake-tweet.html
http://techrights.org/2011/09/05/microsoft-mockery-of-the-chinese/

If that's so, then that's an issue Apple should take up with MediaMarkt. It's not relevant to the Samsung/Apple case unless Samsung themselves pushed this.

Either that or they should also sue the forestry commission over the wooden iPad

As pointed out above, this is an Internet discussion, not a research paper... it is expected that people debating on the Internet have at least some basic ability to find things for themselves. But, if you insist:
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=vet+shot+police

Now, I get 14.8m hits on that - obviously not all are going to be about the same story. However, the first result does seem to refer to the story mentioned, and still on the first page there is a slightly more detailed version of the story from later on, after some more details had emerged. Ok, so the OP may have got some of the numbers incorrect (70 to 100, 60 to 80), but the substance seems to be true.

Happy now?

Also, CDMA (Sprint and Verizon) works better in wide-open spaces whereas GSM (T-Mobile and AT&T) works better in densely-populated areas. I think it explains the iPhone vs. Android map.

Michael Chertoff.

He's became security lobbyist, and the go-to guy on air travel security after being replaced as head of DHS. Meanwhile, he has interest in one of the larger companies that manufacture the back-scatter x-ray imaging devices. He gets paid to talk influence government to buy the machines, and he started shilling them while in office.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/23/fear_pays_chertoff_n_787711.html

Like fourth link when Googling his name.

You are missing the recent case in Rochester where a woman was arrested on her own front lawn for videotaping an arrest going on just off of her property. IIRC the D.A. decided to not bring the case to trial, but the police continued to harass the woman and a demonstration held against the arrest. There was also a news conference with one of those great police organisations going off about how the video recording makes them "less safe."

What bollocks... if the tables were turned you know the police would scream that there was no expectation of privacy on a public street... and the woman was standing on her very own lawn.

Exxon is also one of the worlds highest value corporations. I'd be shocked if any of my coworkers knew who the CEO of Exxon was. I sure don't.

3) A giant backlog of patents that keeps on piling up that you can either deny or approve in a hurry
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/10/patents_n_711901.html
Google patent backlog and you'll find that there's loads of articles about how this backlog is killing business.

Let's say that I'm completely clueless as to how schools operate. Let's say all schools are like those dumb movies where the heroic teacher comes in and whips a bunch of hoodlums into shape while "Stand By Me" plays on the music track.

So a kid refuses to leave the class. You call the police, have him hauled away, expel him, and issue a trespass notice.

How many kids out of the entire school's population are going to refuse to leave the classroom? Let's be generous and say 25. You expel 25 kids, and you've taken care of the problem.

Meanwhile, if instead you decide to get the cops in the school handling your discipline for you, you end up with kids being arrested for doodling on their desk ( http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/05/desk-doodling-arrest-alex_n_450859.html ), and kids getting arrested for farting and turning off computers ( http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2008/nov/21/report-martin-county-student-arrested-passing-gas-/ ), and 3rd graders getting arrested for fistfights ( http://gothamist.com/2011/04/02/third_grader_who_was_arrested_by_po.php )

In short, you're going to end up with a lot of stupid arrests, a lot of lawsuits ( why yes, I will sue anyone who arrests my kid for farting, and no I'm not overly litigious ) and a lot of anger directed at schools and cops, and all because the district was too damn stupid to expel the real serial troublemakers while dealing normal discipline to kids doing normal kid misbehavior.

To 99% of Americans, embryonic stem cell = stem cell. The key words "stem cells" is all that is latched on to, regardless of political or religious affiliation. And before you come back and say that everyone you personally know do know the difference between the two - good for you for having scientifically literate companions. But keep in mind that this is a country where 37% of the population couldn't locate their own country on a map - yet you expect a vast majority of the electorate to know the difference between types of stem cells?

Yes I did see the head line. It said that it didn't show the threat that the man was.
No hospital report but this news story. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/04/bart-shooting-san-francisco-transit-officers_n_889934.html

First line of defense?
The officer was already hit by a bottle? You don't think that being hit by a bottle isn't life threatening? Ask someone to shit you with a bottle sometime. These are not movie props.
There where innocent people in that station including a child. Yes I know was thrown it was visible in the video or did you watch it? They also found a second knife at the scene. As I said vigilantly justice. No investigation needed and looks like you didn't bother to watch the video.
And I will make this statement. There was NO NEED TO PROTEST AT ALL! There hasn't even been an investigation yet! The Officer may have made an error but if so it was a very understandable human error and not a cold blooded killing! I suggest you watch the video and see how fast this all happened. I doubt that it will change your mind since you seem to have feel no need to question the mob.

Officials at Bay Area Rapid Transit decided Monday that cutting cellphone service to thwart another planned protest would cause more trouble than the protests themselves.

Looks like those protesting at BART need some lessons from Madison, Wisconsin.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/human-rights-first/mukhtar-mai-pakistani-wom_b_219553.html

Might as well be a new meme for the crazies such as yourself who just toss the name around and don't even know what you're whining about.

Yeah, I know. Crazies like me never know what they're talking about.

In reality none of these rating agencies have any credibility, don't forget, Lehman Brothers, AIG and all other financial institutions that completely failed all had top ratings by these companies.

Moody's, Standard & Poor's, and Fitch Ratings all maintained at least A ratings on AIG and Lehman Brothers up until mid-September of last year. Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy Sept. 15; the federal government provided AIG with its first of four multibillion-dollar bailouts the next day.

Why do people care what these rating agencies say? The market is a much better rating agency than any establishment out there, the market downgrades USD all the time, it's not a surprise, you can't have vendor financed economy, you can't have consumption without production, you can't have "jobless recovery", you can't have stimulus creating jobs that are meaningful in that they reduce the trading deficit, you can't have debt that is constantly growing while real production is shrinking 10% a year (that's because GDP is overestimated year to year, because real inflation is around 13% but a much smaller deflater is used, some 2% CPI).

You cannot have an equitable economy with 18% unemployment or underemployment, 40% finance industry, 10% government industry, 50 million people on SS and under 11% manufacturing (probably mostly military and value added assembly from imported parts.)

You just can't have 50 billion dollars/month trade deficit, where you consume 50billion dollars/month more from imported goods, produced elsewhere, while exporting printed paper and not at least an equal amount of goods. It's not possible to do this forever, and USA has been doing it for a very long time because it's exporting inflation because USD is so called "reserve currency", so other governments make a huge mistake of buying and stockpiling it by inflating their own currencies.

The debt is the crisis, not maintaining the debt ceiling, which could have been beginning of a solution.

If you want to see somebody who has real credibility on this issue, on the issue of financial institution ratings in USA, look no further than my sig. Now that guy predicted and explained in vivid detail exactly how the financial industry was going to collapse and how the housing bubble would burst and most importantly he understood the underlying principles behind these events and explained them.

Here are his thoughts on this S&P downgrade, and if you care to listen to an opinion of somebody with credibility, that would be it.

Moody's, Standard & Poor's, and Fitch Ratings all maintained at least A ratings on AIG and Lehman Brothers up until mid-September of last year. Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy Sept. 15; the federal government provided AIG with its first of four multibillion-dollar bailouts the next day.

US has defaulted on the promise to pay gold for US federal reserve notes in 1971, ever since that moment the economic and financial collapse of the economy of USA was just a matter of time, not an 'if', but a 'when'.

GDP is as meaningless as it is weak, since it was revised down this way:

GDP estimates for the first quarter of 2011 were revised downward to 0.4 percent growth, a sharp drop from the previous estimate of 1.9 percent. GDP for 2007 through 2010, previously thought to have grown by an average of less than 0.1 percent each year during that period, was also revised downward, to show an average decrease of 0.3 percent per year.

Besides, GDP in US is fake, the way it's measured is fake, it's based on a fake economy and one more thing about it: they didn't use the appropriate deflator, because they believe that the inflation is about 2%, but in reality inflation is at about 10% level, and closer to 13% the way I calculate it:

sugar Dec 2003: 20.40 cents/pound, Apr 2011: 36.97 cents/pound, price up by over 81%
Beef Dec 2003: 105.40 cents/pound, Apr 2011: 193.00 cents/pound, price up by over 83%
Barley Dec 2003: 100.77 USD/Metric Ton, Apr 2011: 208.70 USD/Metric Ton, price up by over 107%
Rice Dec 2003: 197.00 USD/Metric Ton, Apr 2011: 500.57 USD/Metric Ton, price up by over 154%
Cocoa Beans Dec 2003: 1,646.58 USD/Metric Ton, Apr 2011: 3,113.52 USD/Metric Ton, price up by over 89%
Tea Dec 2003: 205.22 cents/KG, Apr 2011: 325.33 cents/KG, price up by over 58%
Rubber Dec 2003: 57.31cents/pound, Apr 2011: 265.49cents/pound, price up by over 363%
Corn Dec 2003: 111.98 USD/Metric Ton, Apr 2011: 318.45 USD/Metric Ton, price up by over 184%
Bananas Dec 2003: 371.43 USD/Metric Ton, Apr 2011: 1,013.47 USD/Metric Ton, price up by over 172%
Propane Dec 2003: 0.63 USD/Gallon, Apr 2011: 1.45 USD/Gallon, price up by over 130%
Wheat Dec 2003: 165.57 USD/Metric Ton, Apr 2011: 336.30 USD/Metric Ton, price up by over 103%
Oranges Dec 2003: 583.00 USD/Metric Ton, Apr 2011: 881.00 USD/Metric Ton, price up by over 51%
Salmon Dec 2003: 3.12 USD/Kg, Apr 2011: 7.86 USD/Kg, price up by over 151%
Chicken Dec 2003: 68.98 cents/pound, Apr 2011: 86.42 cents/pound, price up by over 25%

What?? See: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/02/corporate-tax-revenues-ne_n_830361.html for a breakdown of just "how much tax they are paying". The super rich 400 or so families also control that much more in the countries wealth, and thus your statistic is meaningless. All you have done is highlight the problem of wealth concentration - it is sad that 1% pay 38% --- AND THAT STILL ISN'T FAIR.

"I thought that if I could just bring free or very low cost t'ai chi classes to less affluent communities, it would help with some of those readily treatable diseases that were going for the most part untreated because of the expense of drugs and lack of access to health care."

Wow, that all sounds wonderful. My wife (who likes Taoism) and I tried some Tai Chi classes a long time ago and my wife liked them especially (they were a little hard for us to get to though at the time). I used to do Aikido and first had a Tai Chi class at a university, like you say. There is one local Tai Chi class not too far from where we live now, but they meet are too early in the morning for her unfortunately. She does Yoga instead though.

On health, while exercise is great for improving health overall, it has mixed results for weight loss, as active exercise tends to make people hungry. But I could imagine Tai Chi is different because it is getting you more in touch with your body, and that is one key to health and eating well.

I lost about fifty pounds (and 20+ BP points) over the last year and a half through a combination of advice similar to what Dr. Joel Fuhrman suggests (eat more vegetables fruits, and beans mainly), plus 5000 IU Vitamin D3 daily. I also much earlier did some fasting (both juice and water fasts) which Dr. Fuhrman also wrote about. But fasting really involves changing your diet to be useful, although it can be useful for resensitizing taste buds (one reasons successful major religions tend to have regular periods of fasting perhaps). I also used a treadmill workstation more in front of the computer (the treadmill sadly shorted out recently though).

Here are related links about stuff that helped me:

"How to escape The Pleasure Trap"
http://drfuhrman.com/library/article16.aspx

"Dr. Fuhrman's Nutritarian Pyramid"
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/foodpyramid.aspx

"About vitamin D"
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/about-vitamin-d/
http://grassrootshealth.net/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joel-fuhrman-md/vitamin-d-recommendations_b_800468.html

While almost everyone agrees most people in the USA need more vitamin D, there is some disagreement about optimal blood levels, and whether that would differ based on ethnicity -- it's a field that needs more research. The three vitamin D links above go from high to low recommendations (all are higher than the new US RDA for adults though).

Iodine has helped my health too (eating more seaweed especially), and supplemental omega-3s, and making green smoothies, and a good multivitamin.

Unfortunately, it can be a bit more expensive to eat this way with fruits and vegetables year round (especially organic ones, but organic is not essential even if good compared to the health benefits of vegetables over refined foods). I talked with one person working at a grocery store who was about to go in for a second heart operation about eating more vegetables, but he said they were too expensive. But insurance pays big bucks for the heart operations. It's a crazy system.

Related:
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/28/treating-the-cause-not-the-illness/
"In 1965, in an impoverished rural county in the Mississippi Delta, the pioneering physician Jack Geiger helped found one of the nationâ(TM)s first community health centers. Many of the children Geiger treated were seriously malnourished, so he began writing âoeprescriptionsâ for food â

The teaparty is the ONLY thing standing between this country remaining the USA or becoming the USSA..

Please tell me you are joking.... The very same tea party where 70% oppose Medicare cuts and want the "gubmit to stay out of my Medicare!"? That group of idiots?

You FUCKING Liberals think EVERYTHING is the fault of the Conservatives.. Well let me tell you, the last few "conservative" administrations were no more conservative than Josep Stalin was..

Yes. We didn't start becoming a debtor nation until Reagan took the reigns. Last time I checked, Reagan is held in wide regards by Conservatives.

The last truly conservative administration we've had was Reagan..

Yes, and he piled up $2 trillion in national debt during his terms. Oh lawdy!!!

Can't see any issues with this. Nope, I've got nothin'.