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in order to try to rush through a renewal of the FISA Amendments Act, which unconstitutionally allowed warrantless wiretapping in the U.S.

Don't worry, with the Roberts court, if you sacrifice yourself and push the issue, the Supremes are sure to have a nice 5-4 split vote that will, indeed, prove it's constitutional. It happened with Citizens United, it will happen here.

The court via Clarence Thomas is up for sale, what less would his sponsors expect?

Solar is propped up far less than the dirty fossil fuel industry. Oil and Natural Gas alone are set to reap more than $1.25 Billion from Texas alone this year in subsides and tax breaks. At the Federal level, they've reaped more than $50 Billion since 2002. In order to level the proverbial playing field, the subsidies to Solar and other alternative energy forms are necessary. But the Oil and Gas companies are reaping billions of dollars in profits and paying less tax than the average wage earner in terms of a percentage of income.

Without subsides, our $4 gallon gas would be more like what they pay in Europe--nearly double that and would cripple or kill the auto industry. Of course it may well spur development of better and more efficient (and more profitable) forms of Public Transportation, but most of that would take a decade or more to put in place. This, too, would kill our fragile economy. Had this all been done during the Clinton Administration, when we were seeing 5% Annual Growth, then removing the subsidies for Oil and Gas would

How DARE you compare Avatar to Ferngully! I am Outraged! OUTRAGED i tell you!!!11!!1one!!

Avatar is CLEARLY actually Pocahontas... IN SPAAAACE!!!!

Did the bank of america stuff ever get released? Wasn't that supposed to shed light on the whole economic meltdown and put people in jail and save the world and shit? Or did it get released and the news never picked up on it?

Didn't get a lot of play in the news, but yeah, they did release it.

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2011/03/anonymous-hackers-release-bank-of-america-emails/1

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/mar/14/anonymous-hackers-release-bank-america-emails

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/14/bank-of-america-anonymous-leak-mortgage_n_835220.html

They're not pressing felony charges, although they may still charge her with a misdemeanor. Of course, she shouldn't be charged with anything, and if she is, she should demand a jury trial.

HuffPo recently hired Radley Balko, probably the best investigative criminal justice reporter in the country right now. He may be a token, but he's worth visiting HuffPo to read.

You'd think so. But you'd be wrong. In Illinois you'd be really, really, crazy wrong. Illinois has a special law that makes it illegal to record police, even in public. Even if they are already being recorded by their own dash-cam. And it only works one way. They can record you all they'd like. They passed the law because they were shocked, shocked to learn that someone was able to prove police misconduct by having a video as evidence. Things are all better, now that they've closed that little loophole. No more police misconduct in Illinois.

The "civil war" is largely a creation of foreign and now AFRICOM interference.

http://webarchive.ssrc.org/Somalia_Hoehne_v10.pdf

"Thanks to half a century of pouring US arms stockpiles into Africa, the price of an assault rifle in Africa has for some time been cheaper than anyplace else on the planet."

http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/africom-americas-military-foot-africas-doorway

Somali "piracy" is the outcome of the illegal, exhaustive, industrialised over-fishing of Somali waters, by foreign fleets - leaving the coastal towns without any livelihood.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/you-are-being-lied-to-abo_b_155147.html

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/4/14/analysis_somalia_piracy_began_in_response

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1892376,00.html

The US manufactures foreign wars and "terrorists" the same way it used to lead in the creation of Automobiles and heavy manufacturing. But remember your Gibbon: The decline of Rome was seeded from its very rise on world's stage.

I think you have it backwards. That's what happens in the US.

I am not a Tea Party member but I do know that there is in fact a law that is meant to phase out the "regular" light bulbs that I much prefer over CFLs or LEDs... but you don't have to believe me... follow this link to the Huffington post. I'm pretty sure they aren't fond of "teabaggers" either.

Face it, all we Homo Sapiens sapiens have going for us is insanity and abstract thought - and we'll probably only have abstract thought until we can correctly turn recorded brain wave patterns into thoughts, at which point we will discover that the "intelligent" life we have been searching the universe for is already on plant Earth. (Not so sure about insanity either - animals do recreational drugs)

Warren Buffet is a liar.

First: he is probably the only person in USA who benefits from death taxes, since those are often paid by fire-selling a company, because estate is normally a bunch of assets, like companies, and to pay those taxes, the money needs to be realized.

So who is on the other side of the trade here?

BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY INC.

The second point is this: when Buffet pays himself dividends, that's because he chooses not to pay himself a salary. Whatever his company makes then, is his income, because dividends are paid after his company balances the books and pays the taxes, and whatever is left over as profits, can be paid out in dividends, and he is the majority shareholder.

His income is thus taxed at 35% corporate and then 15% personal levels.

Don't listen to what this snake sells, he thanked the government for basically saving his ass

and they aren't fooling anybody. They want a civil war and have all but admitted it. And that is exactly what America will get if the debt ceiling is not raised. In specific and to be fair to the Tea Party they want a revolution. They think if the government does not pay for benefits, social programs, and if the jobs market remains weak, they'll have an easier time recruiting desperate individuals into their militias that are spread across the country. And they are right, the FBI and Homeland security both agree:

The agency warns that an extended economic downturn with real estate foreclosures, unemployment and an inability to obtain credit could foster an environment for extremists to recruit new members who may not have been supportive of these causes in the past.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/14/homeland-security-report_n_186834.html

And this isn't the first time the Tea Party formerly known as the American Liberty League attempted to start a civil war. In the 1930s they attempted the business plot. More details on that can be learned by watching this documentary.

The coup attempt was prevented because General Butler tipped off FDR.
In response to this President FDR created the CIA. The FBI initiated operation COINTELPRO. COINTELPRO became the main counter intelligence operation in the USA with the main mission to prevent a civil war from happening. COINTELPRO has wide spread recognition by those on the left but most on the right don't recognize that COINTELPRO was originally directed at them and who it's directed at is at the discretion of the President and the FBI leadership.

Do any amount of research you want to confirm these facts. Try Googling "American Liberty League", "COINTELPRO", "Business Plot", "Tea Party Movement", and see what you find. Eventually you'll discover the "Guardians of the Free Republic", and other militia's behind the Tea Party who just happen to be from Texas, the same state Ron Paul and Alex Jones happen to be from. The same state President Bush pretended to be from. Why? Because the Tea Party movements headquarters are where the militias are, and Texas is one of those places with lots of militias.

And what is happening now? The FBI is more than likely investigating the Tea Party with as much zeal as they investigated Al Qaeda. The Tea Party is being crushed by the FBI as we speak, but if the US defaults then all hell will break loose. How will the FBI agents trying to prevent civil war be paid? The country will divide into factions, and if that happens, and if it turns violent, the USA itself and the union itself will be divided into factions. Foreign nations will be in a position to invade, or simply flood all sides with weapons and make the civil war long and bloody.

I don't know about you, but I have friends and family here. I do not want a civil war. The Tea Party needs to stop playing games with the global economy. They need to pass a fucking budget ASAP. If the nation defaults there will be nothing anyone can do to prevent a civil war. The unemployment rate will be so high that many people will have nothing to lose by fighting.

They had rain a few years ago in Iquique, another town in North Chile that hardly ever gets rain. It caused quite a disruption because many poorer people have cardboard roofs on their houses, which ,obviously, do not work particularly well when it rains.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/21/tiny-drizzle-wreaks-havoc_n_242057.html

according to the Wall Street Journal, taxing the rich at a 100% rate would still only raise $938B, while our deficit is $1,650B.

With great bravado, the Journal claims that even the income of the top 10% of the taxpayers wouldn't close the deficit. The top 10% reported $3,856 billion in AGI, equal to 46% of total reported income in the United States, almost 27 percent of GDP. On that, they paid $721 billion in personal federal income taxes, or an average of 18.7% of income. If the remaining 81% of income were paid in federal income taxes, the increment in tax revenues would be more than $3,100 billion, or roughly 21% of GDP. The budget deficit would obviously be closed many times over.

source

Nuclear plants have significant long term impacts. We can always replace a solar cell. You can't so easily get rid of the nuclear waste from a plant, and even when buried in concrete requires significant long term maintenance costs.

So no, spending more on nuke plants aside from fixing the maintenance that we don't even do is a horrible and shortsighted idea.

While what you say is true in general, vitamin D specifically is a much bigger deal than that. One example of recent research:
"Vitamin D 'triggers and arms' the immune system: Vitamin D is crucial to the fending off of infections, claims new research."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/7379094/Vitamin-D-triggers-and-arms-the-immune-system.html

That is about infection, but related processes may be at work related to dealing with cancer. Humans are just not adapted to spending all day in a cave and then moving from cave to cave in enclosed boxes. But that is pretty much how most people now live in the 21st century in industrialized countries most of the time. Other things like autism may be related to vitamin D deficiency (in part), too:
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health-conditions/neurological-conditions/autism/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mark-hyman/autism-research-discovery_b_794967.html

Humans are also just not adapted to eating so few vegetables.

See also, for how to retune your taste buds:
"How to escape The Pleasure Trap! By Douglas Lisle, Ph.D. and Alan Goldhamer , D.C., Authors of The Pleasure Trap: Mastering the Hidden Force that Undermines Health and Happiness"
http://drfuhrman.com/library/article16.aspx

Huge nutritional and psychological breakthroughs are happening, but it seems people don't want to pay attention because of lifestyle issues related to fears about dietary changes. Last year I tried to give a copy of Dr. Fuhrman's "Eat for Health" to a couple, but they refused it saying they had a lot of "cookbooks" already. Recently, one of them had a painful medical procedure (angioplasty/stenting) costing at great expense (presumably covered by insurance) but avoidable with aggressive nutritional intervention (which would have been free and mostly painless after a taste adjustment period of a few weeks).

See:
"Scientific Studies Show Angioplasty and Stent Placement is Essentially Worthless"
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/PCI_angioplasty_article.aspx
"In the most recent study investigators reviewed 61 trials, involving 25,388 patients, in a meta-analysis comparing angioplasty and stent placement with no treatment or medications alone. A meta-analysis pools numerous studies on the same subject. The findings indicated that there was no evidence that angioplasty and stent placement for coronary artery disease resulted in fewer heart attacks or deaths when compared to patients with the same level of disease who were not treated in this manner.
Trikalinos TA, Alsheikh-Ali AA, Tatsioni A, et al. Percutaneous coronary interventions for non-acute coronary artery disease: a quantitative 20-year synopsis and a network meta-analysis. Lancet 2009; 373(9667):911-918.
Interventional cardiology and cardiovascular surgery is basically a scam based on a misunderstanding of the nature of heart disease. Searching for and treating obstructive plaque does not address the areas of the coronary vascular tree most likely to rupture and cause heart attacks. If there was never another CABG or angioplasty performed or stent placed, patients with heart disease would be better off. Doctors would be forced to educate our citizens that their heart disease risk is determined by what they place on their forks. Millions of lives would be dramatically extended. To abandon the theory of stretching and cutting out areas with plaque would shut down interventional cardiology, ne

all kinds of dirty tricks on competitors

Did you read Edelman's bio? The guy is a paid whore:

• Ben's consulting practice focuses on preventing and detecting online fraud (especially advertising fraud). Representative clients include the ACLU, AOL, the City of Los Angeles, the National Association of Broadcasters, Microsoft, the National Football League, the New York Times, Universal Music Group, the Washington Post, and Wells Fargo.

Wait, we are talking about the same Google whose former CEO said "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place"

Thanks for assuming that I'm a Fox News-watching idiot and intentionally leaving out the remainder of his quote: "but if you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines including Google do retain this information for some time, and it’s important to remember, for example, that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act. It is possible that that information could be made available to the authorities."

CSEs

Foundem had appeared to be mimicing an affiliate spammer (note: which Foundem later corrected). Foundem's story is little more than a moron's outrage over his own incomprehension, expecting others to capitulate when the failures are his own making. The disappointing fact at the time was that Bing & Yahoo hadn't been penalizing Foundem, naively believing it to be an authentic site, as mentioned in the earlier link:

• "The last word on this goes to Ciaran Norris, who says: “I have to wonder whether the fact that Foundem apparently continues to rank well in Bing and Yahoo isn't in fact a perfect example of why those sites currently struggle to manage 10% market share between them.”"

unsuspecting WLAN owners

If Google wanted this data to begin with -- which doesn't align with their business model of negotiating and retaining information -- why would they be using a 5-minute-setup of Kismet dumped in total to an unencrypted and non-hidden drive? When large companies plan malicious deeds it's usually a lot more thought out.

The guys who have been tracking your every movement on the web through Analytics and their search engine for years

Great, you picked something we both agree on :). Analytics is reprehensible (tho quite easily blocked). I don't place the blame for it entirely on Google though -- even though they deserve the criticism for buying out DoubleClick -- but also on the website owners who endorse it. IMO the advertisement industry should be regulated, because unlike search engines, earning a monopoly by being better than the competition is a dangerous accomplishment. Computer users can't simply switch to an Analytics competitor.

Barney Frank for one. He was also subsequently lambasted from tons of right-wingers do to that. And after proposing so you can find numerous examples such as this to see that he was lambasted by right wingers for being a traitor.

Wait, we are talking about the same Google whose former CEO said "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place" and who have, among other things, been caught pulling all kinds of dirty tricks on competitors, trademark owners, CSEs, unsuspecting WLAN owners? The guys who have been tracking your every movement on the web through Analytics and their search engine for years and have departments full of people just working on novel ways of using all that data to their advantage and in particular not public (or your own) benefit?

Well, I know why Barney Frank is behind the bill: News Article

What percentage of those people are AOL users because they're actively being scammed by the company?

60%.

Actually former secretary of homeland security, but the point is still valid:

http://www.google.com/search?q=michael+chertoff
http://www.cov.com/mchertoff/
http://gawker.com/5437499/why-is-michael-chertoff-so-excited-about-full+body-scanners
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Michael_Chertoff
http://www.redstate.com/moe_lane/2010/11/19/michael-chertoff-behind-tsa-pornoscanners/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/23/fear_pays_chertoff_n_787711.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/31/AR2009123102821.html
http://www.dhs.gov/xabout/history/biography_0116.shtm
http://www.americablog.com/2010/11/airport-full-body-scanners-are-made-by.html
http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/Chertoff_Michael
etc.

Duh, empires just don't die, we still talking about Rome, using aqueducts and still enjoy bread and circus. Only "recalcitrant and demagogic" type leftists want to see USA "die". USA certainly is not going to die but it's going to pass trough a big shock thats is going to weed the useful American (be it white, latino, black, indian etc) from the useless whinny spoiled American that leach from the rest of the world. Anyway You don't deserve the troll mod while the poster above gets 0 moderation.

I recommend http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/third-world-america-why-i_b_706673.html the books name may be a bit trollish but the content it's pretty good and objective.

America may be a bitch but is our bitch, you certainly don't want to be under the boot of a Chinese empire, right?

I'm not American

Coal won't run out, but we are definitely past "peak coal."

Coal production probably hasn't peaked yet (records are sketchy), but most likely will peak within 10-15 years.

Here's an interesting article on the topic:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-roberts/blackout-dwindling-coal-r_b_246363.html

...but a uniformed or off-duty police officer? Why would someone with so much power be allowed to prevent the recording of the exercise of that authority?

Homeland security, of course! The article says, "In a hearing last December, Cook County Assistant State Attorney Jeff Allen invoked homeland security, arguing that Drew's recording could have picked up police discussing anti-terrorism tactics." Man, how could you make that argument with a straight face?

Anyone interested in "cop arrests guy with camera even though no law was broken" stories should check out Carlos Miller's blog.

These people who are "targeted" are only targeted if they broke the law. Is the immigration law broke and in need of fixing? Hell yes. Does that make it "right" to just hop the border and do as you please? No. If you think it does, try to illegally immigrate to Mexico and see how that goes.

But the problem is, they're targeting all non-whites (admittedly, primarily Latinos), using SB 1070 as a shield, under the name of fixing the "illegals" problem -- which is a fancy, modern, more socially acceptable version of a racial slur against Latinos. Believe the previous one was "wetback?" Maybe "beaner?" I'm not hip with bigot lingo, unfortunately.

When you're stopped at a traffic stop because you happen to have brown skin, that's targeting. It's racial profiling, and it's wrong. SB 1070 just attempts to give them some form of legal cover for what is disgusting behavior.

And that's the long and the short of it. For all the outcry about "illegals taking our jobs" (that would be the jobs they're finding in Georgia that they can't fill without illegals), for all the rage and fury that people who didn't have the good sense to be born the white decedents of previous immigrants, this law, and the culture behind it, is wrong. Absolutely wrong.

Ethically, morally, intellectually. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Worse still, it's a smokescreen, a scapegoat to try and pawn problems off on a socially soft target. A shell game for morally inadequate politicians, drunk on power and desperate to stay relevant.

If these people were really interested in actually fixing the problem, they'd join with the Democratic Party and work on the real immigration reform they've been trying to get hammered out. They're not. It's too useful as a wedge issue to get the ignorant masses out and voting, and pawn serious problems off on an easy scapegoat.

I suppose we should just be glad they're not talking about labor camps for illegals and the unemployed yet.

Anti-illegal immigrant indeed and I have no problems with that.

you do realize the US is dependent upon illegal immigration to fill low paying jobs like picking fruit, landscaping, and general cheap day labour?

Nah, what you can do instead is hire violent ex cons to fill in the gap. Because I really love finding razor blades in my apples, don't you?

(The violent ex cons thing is a direct result of a SB 1070-alike passed in Georgia. Whoops!)

Not that the cons are willing to do the work more than a day or two before quitting. There's a reason these jobs are taken by people with actual work ethic. They're shit work for shit pay in shit conditions and no one wants to do them, but everyone wants cheap fruit and veggies.

*shrug*

Monsanto can and does. Sure, they patent their own strains, but they also go and buy strains from 'small potatoes' and then invoke strict policies on usage. Check out Food, Inc.

Citation needed (like the quote from the movie you're thinking of). From this article it seems that it's only affecting patented strains of corn. No hint that monsanto is stealing strains others cultivated, nothing to suggest that a company could claim pot strains that they didn't develop.

Yes, you certainly can buy artisan bread at the store, but tell me something - have you ever had a "real" loaf of bread? I'm not talking about something that your local mega-supermarket's bakery slapped an "artisan" label on. Hell, how about even baking your own bread? There's a huge difference.

No, but that's beside the point (and I'm going to direct you to a relevant XKCD strip.) You can buy it still, you'll still be able to buy fine, high priced pot too.

If you are really interested in seeing the benefit of patents, and not just trying to prove wrong everything you disagree with, check out this guy. He might be wrong, or he might be right, but he has interesting ideas.

Here is a snippet: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/17/weird-al-previews-perform-this-way-video_n_879135.html

It's GOOD to be a war criminal like Barack Hoover Obama.

Disagree? Then you are racist.

After the Supreme Court ruled that Corporations are just like people,(and thank you Koch bro's for your 4th world insights), I can't help but wonder if a corporation convicted of any crime would go to jail? I believe that my dear departed grandmother would respond to the D.O.J.'s words with something like, "talk is cheap.".

The closest I've seen is this, but that's more of a "test pilot versus idiot" situation. I'm sure there's somebody who has gotten nasty. Scientists are only human, after all. But it's not like they are prone to issue an edict and then fanatical gangs of roaming scientists start threatening people with death.

It's sad to see everyone trying to kill it from different angles.

Sony Movies Pulled From Netflix Streaming Service Over Starz Contract Issue
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/18/sony-movies-netflix-instant-play-starz_n_879727.html

>>The data points are decades, for god's sake.

The data points are years.

>>In fact, it shows the opposite, demolishing the most important "conservative" talking point of all: that we are "over-taxed" and that such "over-taxing" hurts the economy or stifles growth.

It doesn't show anything of the sort. Nominal tax rates and effective tax rates are two very different things. If the nominal tax rate is 91%, but there's enough loopholes and tax shelters that a rich guy pays 20% anyway, then unless you think the tax shelters themselves stimulate the economy (which you could make a case for), it's really no different than our current system with a 35% top marginal tax rate and less loopholes with the effective rate being 20%.

You also have to realize that it doesn't make much of a difference when there is only one person in America in the top tax rate (HuffPo, another liberal source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/15/top-marginal-tax-rates-chart_n_849596.html). Looking at the tax brackets by quintile is a more informative than just focusing on the highest marginal tax rate (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/31/business/31leonhardt.html?ex=1351569600&en=b1065bf4721795fa&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink)

Now do I go to your place of work and laugh at you while your pulling the weeds in one of the various gardens owned by the Koch brothers?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/15/tea-party-leader-melts-do_n_286933.html

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=7&ved=0CEQQFjAG&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthinkprogress.org%2Fpolitics%2F2011%2F02%2F09%2F143289%2Ftea-party-islamophobia%2F&rct=j&q=tea%20partiers%20obama%20muslim&ei=1hf2TaLBO6f00gGLpvzsDA&usg=AFQjCNHmffrP1DXzniaMkuqXqmLW6o2QdQ&cad=rja

http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/09/odonnell-aide-obama-is-secret-muslim

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=4&sqi=2&ved=0CC8QFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.newsweek.com%2Fspectrum%2F2010%2F08%2F20%2Fone-fifth-wrongly-think-obama-s-muslim.html&rct=j&q=conservative%20poll%20obama%20muslim&ei=Thj2TcbZKMLr0gGJjeGwAg&usg=AFQjCNEvsTsTQELKHv91pHTgfjEKret-Mg&cad=rja

http://mediamatters.org/research/201008190061

Now go fuck yourself.

Nonsense. Political corruption is the bread and butter of media because it sells. As noted in the first linked article, the LA Times investigated and broke the Bell corruption story.

Nonsense right back at you. Stories about the tweets and love lives of politicians are the bread and butter of media because it sells, and it creates distractions from the real issues. Actual political corruption, such as Obama secretly negotiating with Health care companies, running a covert war in Yemen, and then lying about it, and of course I shouldn't even have to mention all stuff that went on under Bush. Actual corruption gets very little, if any, coverage.

"While the outcome is not what we had hoped for, we will continue to advocate for changes to the law that will prevent abuse of the patent system and protect inventors who hold patents representing true innovation", Microsoft said in a statement.

Someone needs to let Paul Allen know about MS's change in attitude about patents.

When Microsoft speaks of "true innovation" it does not mean what you or I or any normal person would mean. Microsoft's "right to innovate" has historically been an euphemism for its right to disregard antitrust law. With Microsoft, words are never enough. You should judge Microsoft by its actions.

Good overview of several similar cases coming up in Illinois, and their national implications:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/08/chicago-district-attorney-recording-bad-cops_n_872921.html

I worked for a large city government (and trust me that government was bigger than their state government.) Heck our city government employment is almost bigger than the population of Juneau (30,796)!

First of all most government offices are at least 10 years behind the times in technology. I know this from working in the tech department although my job was in training. So yeah there may be ignorance or the means to do this electronically. But I'm sure charging a fee has something to do with it.

And that out of sheer ignorance or an attempt to profit? No malice at all?

Secondly, maybe there is malice, but it's likely out of being sick and tired of being bombarded by media requests. This is a SMALL government office even if it is the state government. If there is malice, it is because they are getting overwhelmed with requests from a media who is foaming at the mouth and attempting tear this woman down every way they can. I doubt this is a case of loyalty to a former governor.

I'd like to know how many of you were laughing at the "birthers" when they wanted a copy of the birth certificate of an actual sitting president. But now you're screaming cover-up about a woman who hasn't even declared she's running. I've never seen a non-candidate gone after with such venom. Most of this same media certainly wasn't out there vetting candidate Obama and his associations to known terrorists when he was running. They were getting "thrills" up their leg.

And this somehow should not stain the image of this potential future candidate to president of the USA?

And that's what you care about, right?

It's not "just political" - most of the supposed "crisis" incidents recently were deliberately engineered so that one political group or another could scream "OMG CRISIS" and get a group of sheeple following them unthinkingly.

Case in point: the US unemployment situation. Is it a coincidence that a bunch of right-wingers who are at the beck and call of the robber baron class "happen" to be screaming about the ruin that will come if we don't give their masters another set of tax breaks, while at the same time their robber baron masters took the last round of tax breaks and instead of creating jobs, just plain hoarded or wasted it? I doubt it.

Politically, the true answer usually lies in the middle, but we're stuck having to choose between laissez-faire, robber baron capitalism and near-total socialism instead of having the option of something sane. Sad, isn't it?

It's no worse than having visited 57 states http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/57states.asp, or signing in at Westminster 3 years too late http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/24/obama-westminster-abbey-guestbook-date_n_866324.html. It's a politician being dump, yet there are over 500 comments on how dumb this one is with none that I've seen regarding the favored politician du jour.

I can't get over how irrelevant Palin is, yet everyone is clawing over each other to point it out over and over again.

Smoking and cancer?

Cell phone and cancer?

Humans and Climate change?

Well, die-hards die harder, but now! Mitt Romney acknowledges Climate Change!

Times are a changing

then suddenly illegals would be prevented from voting

That's just a myth. There's no evidence this is happening. see here Best I can tell people keep bringing it up, because they're ether really stupid or know it's false and really biased. The best evidence I could find for such fraud was a 2005 GAO report (GAO-05-478) where some federal jury administrator gave estimates on the number of potential jurors claiming to be non citizens. These were pull it out of your ass numbers and not one of them was verified to not be a citizen. People will tell all sorts of lies to get out of a jury. Still, believe what you want. Liberals want lots of illegals so they can get the votes. Riiiiigh.

It's the same group that hacked PBS: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/30/pbs-hacked-tupac-alive_n_868673.html This group just trying to get publicity and attention.

Also, recently its been found that Monsanto's GM "Roundup ready" plants seem to have given rise to an organism which can cause disease in both animals and plants, which is directly linked to miscarriages in infected animals link. So no, GM plants are not 100% safe. There are some very real dangers in this toybox that humans haven't quite figured out yet. Until we've worked it out, keep that shit off my plate. I'll continue growing most of my own food until then.

All of this does not matter to the question of artists canceling appearances. If an artist does not want to appear in Israel, that's fine. An artists who cancels is being suckered into making a political statement under the guise/threat of avoiding making one.

More so than other artists that cancelled, I think Gil-Scott Heron would have delivered strong messages in his performance. As much as any performer I can think of, he has a long history of fighting racism. I'm not sure Santana and Elvis Costello would have delivered significant messages in their music had they not cancelled.

It's unfortunate that Gil-Scott Heron won't be around to perform either for the troops or general public there at some future date.

I can appreciate that the rest of the world may underestimate how difficult some policy decisions can be when we mostly lack diverse and in depth news sources. (showing more violence isn't showing more depth) I think it would be to Israels advantage to make LBA and/or other English language broadcasters more widely available (direct streaming, livestation etc.) While some internal political conflict and problems may seem an embarrassing thing to show internationally, those who have seen conflicts between political parties and groups elsewhere might at least be a little more sympathetic to the political pressure (suicide?) that sometimes cripples major policy changes.

The high level of activity in the middle-east is motivated more people to try and look a little deeper than the 'short on facts, long on pundit posturing' coverage we're mostly handed.

There are some serious issues that should at least be discussed widely. Failure to do so erodes credibility. Even friends question friends.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/report-44-of-israeli-jews-support-rabbis-edict-forbidding-rentals-to-arabs-in-safed-1.333825

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jan/23/world/la-fg-israel-intolerance-20110123

http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=219464

http://www.aljazeerah.info/Opinion%20Editorials/2010/July/12%20o/Deteriorating%20Conditions%20for%20Israeli%20Arab%20Citizens%20By%20Stephen%20Lendman.htm

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/yermi-brenner/learning-from-the-rabbis-_b_821393.html

they should use blue pork, solving two problems at once.