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I agree that people put way too much blame and credit on the president for how things go, and by extension not enough on congress. However, saying there isn't much he can do is a bit misleading. For one thing he could order the various executive departments to stop doing everything they could to ignore basic rights.

Justices to Hear Appeal by Ashcroft Over Detention Suit
US justice department argues former detainees have no constitutional rights
Obama adopts Bush view on the powers of the presidency.
Ruling Against Bush Wiretaps Also Slaps Down Obama's Executive Overreach

No, she *did* say it, and SNL mocked it.

More specifically, she said it in an interview with Katie Couric on the CBS Evening News:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/25/palin-talks-russia-with-k_n_129318.html

It was in response to a question asking why Palin was convinced that her proximity to Russia gave her foreign policy experience.

Just to bust yet another right-wing myth: shots of BOTH Reagan and Bush in shirtsleeves in the Oval Office.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/05/bush-jacketless-in-oval-o_n_164513.html

Next?

No. Now they're leading mandatory mass christ-a-thons in the American armed forces.

(Huffington Post, Drudge Report, etc)

Then we're all doomed. Those "news" sites are just aggregation blogs which do about as much fact-checking as Google News's automatic robot. Just last week Huff Post actually reposted the kind of trash you get in your in-box from your grandmother - that first week she has email, when she's still tying in ALL CAPS. There are now TWO correction updates, and they STILL don't have the facts right. Would it have killed them to at least run a check on Snopes? Does anyone really think that they "soak" food in ammonia?

Elon is under 40, has a fortune in the low billions and several successful businesses under his belt. If anyone has a shot at getting to Mars, it is he.

Hmm. I guess he's got a lot of stock options and whatnot, but he ran out of cash recently. I know that for a guy like him, he'll have lots of other assets besides cash, but I got the sense his fortune wasn't that big. Maybe its just all tied up.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/22/elon-musk-says-hes-broke_n_620612.html

He does own one of the two companies that has a good shot at jump starting commercial spaceflight though.

Heh, yeah, I can see it now.

"Why does the President want to spend money looking at the sky?! He should be looking at the bottom line!"

"Is there something he doesn't want us to find on the ground?"

"Look, the Earth is 75% water and only half of it would be facing bombardment. Add that up and we've got a negative 25% chance to be hit!"

"Asteroid monitoring? What's the use in that?"
Cue asteroid strike a la Bobby Jindal and volcano monitoring.

I just don't understand how a movie (which I haven't seen, I guess, so I can't really judge) can be thousands of times worse than what Cuccinelli's doing. One is a bit of free speech that people are capable of ignoring if they desire. The other cannot be ignored, since it's couched in the auspices of the courts and the Office of the Attorney General - ignoring it may mean fines, contempt citations, obstruction of justice charges, etc.

What Cuccinelli's doing is thousands of times worse than the 10:10 movie.

If it is the "movie"(it was actually a commercial for a new "no pressure" campaign) I saw on youtube, then the 10:10 spots were advocating killing those who fail to conform to the forced reductions of greenhouse gases. Now if incitement to violence(actual, not couched in slang or idioms) isn't worse than a lawyer asking some questions, I'd love to know what planet you live on. But hey, only crazy right wingers are violent

Well the intent goes beyond a university of cost of $0.5-M (the govt probably "misplaces" much more than that in a year), but its more about the claim that the fraudulent research could "cost" the country more than that if Mann's research was taken as gospel.

Found the main article here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-ed-markey/just-in-time-for-hallowee_b_754228.html (I think I have to go wash myself as I feel soiled visiting that website) for the rantings of Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA).

For those of you that dont know, Markey is on the "Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming." Researchers like Mann (as opposed to scientists who develop logical theories based on science) develop "supporting data" that gives more power to Markey's committee and justifies their existance. It is only logical that Markey would attemt to tar anyone who could be a threat to his committee's power and legitimacy. I love the soviet and witch-burning implications - very spooky. *eye roll*

Now, is it a waste of money to stomp on Mann's research? For the AG to do it, I do agree that it is a waste - its like using a cannon to kill a fly. You wont see much in the more "conservative" media, because they are more focussed on where we are going...and why are we in this handbasket.

Yeah, and he thinks that losing "only" 36,000 jobs in one day is good

I don't see how his outlook on that would have changed anything. Surely you're not suggesting the US economy had problems because Harry Reid wasn't optimistic enough.

He declared the Iraq war "lost" in 2007, and that the surge would be a failure.

Yep. He doesn't have a crystal ball and is clearly unfit for office. As far as losing the war, that was stupid to say for a politician. I'm not a politician, so I can say we lost the war when we confused Iraq with al qaeda.

He made prejudiced statements about President Obama.

So? Are we going to pretend most people in congress are not at least a little prejudiced? I'm taking it as a given that we're pretending that everyone isn't at least a little prejudiced (though we all are.) Or are we going to pretend that a politician who has gaffes is unfit in some way?

And keep in mind we're talking about Reid vs Sharon Angle, who is campaigning against those evil, evil immigrants.

Also, our President is getting solar power, if you hadn't heard.

Apparently the public often misses it when the President installs solar. G W Bush installed solar. From the fans of W at the Huffington Post:
"In 2003, solar photovoltaic panels were installed at the White House. Two smaller solar thermal systems were also installed to heat water: one for landscape maintenance personnel, the other for the presidential pool and spa. The Bush Administration itself never really announced the project."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/27/white-house-solar-panels_n_160575.html

Does being in a union make the 10,000 or so ex-Boeing employees who were laid off this year feel better?

This guy should be modded insightful and NOT troll. They ALWAYS take away rights by starting with the terrorists and kiddie fiddlers, because they know nobody will stand up for them, then everyone is shocked when they abuse their new found powers. Whether you think the guy is a scumbag or not HE IS an American citizen, which means he should have the same rights to a trial as you or I. Do we REALLY want the president to decide when to EXECUTE an American citizen, without even a trial?

Oh and if you'd like another abuse of power to go with the above, how about the FBI going after those that dare to protest the current policies? Better not disagree with the way things are going folks, or you too can be staring down the barrel of an M16. I'm only glad my grandfather and great uncle who fought in WWII ain't here to see the way we are becoming the exact same thing they fought against.

Now to the main point. There is one and only one event that can possibly cause an overdraft: spending more money than you have placed in your account. How is that the fault of the bank? Why is it their job to make sure you are responsible and do not financially overextend yourself? Is it a problem for you that a fee is attached to an event that shouldn't happen in the first place?

It is a problem when the bank runs an algorithm that orders transactions in a way that creates overdraft fees when one isn't really financially overextended.

I for one welcome our impartial media overlords

iPad users are a selfish elite. A radio reporter was asked to compare the iPhone to a Blackberry. He never even bothered to turn the Blackberry on. The media covers apple more because they are whores.

Insightful, really? Where's the patriot act rage? The DMCA rage? How quickly people forget that Bush told us there were weapons of mass destruction (there weren't) and waged a war of aggression that cost us nearly 50 times the original estimate of $60 billion dollars. That high-level Bush administration officials were personally responsible for suppressing evidence of human rights violations in overseas American prisons. That people are only now being released with our apologies for being held without trial for almost 10 years. That civil rights were eroded beyond anyone's wildest imagination in the anti-terrst frenzy after 9/11.

And what about the financial crisis? Which would you rather have, Obama stealing thousands from the pockets of millionaires or a downward spiral of economic peril that was the consequence of a presidential administration's pathological revulsion to reasonable regulation.

No one seems to have trouble the format of the World Series. A number of individual contests and the team that wins most of them, wins the series. You don't hear people bitching that the Yankees should have won because they outscored the Pirates 55 to 27.

Take the same determination of victory and apply it to US Presidential elections and suddenly it is "weird" and "antiquated".

But 30 years ago people with high but not super-high incomes generally felt ashamed of themselves for griping -- or at least, felt that they would be ridiculed if they gave voice to their gripes. Today, all restraints are off. The fuss over Messrs. Henderson and Stein is the exception that proves the rule: they wouldn't be providing this spectacle if they didn't normally swim in social circles where complaining that you only have 9 or 10 times median family income is considered totally acceptable.

Pretty soon, we'll be having serious, completely un-self-conscious discussions in major magazines about the servant problem.

Just so you know ... the woman who provides daycare for us has five children whom she homeschools. Her husband works at a printing plant and they collectively make 40k a year. This is in Connecticut, btw. Just fifteen minutes from Hartford with a relatively high cost of living.

The real trick is to get out of debt and stay that way.

What is this "we are coming out of recession" crap?

The "indicators" that they use are garbage. "Interest rates are down". So what - that means there's no demand to borrow. People are either too broke or too insecure to borrow any more.

Credit card debt down? It's because (and the credit card companies admit this) it's been written off. These people no longer are part of that sector of the economy. Job losses continue. People who do find jobs are taking home less money - often a LOT less. Long-term unemployment is UP, not down.

House repossessions are going to more than double - the average wait time between stopping payments and getting foreclosed on is a year and a half.

Look at this joke of a "the recession is almost over" from april

"I think people are coming to the conclusion the worst is pretty close to over in the housing market," said Zandi.

Since then, the housing market tanked.

Or:

And auto sales are also improving, with almost all automakers posting double-digit percentage gains in March.

Now look what happened last month:

DETROIT -- Americans nervous about the drumbeat of bad economic news stayed away from auto showrooms. Automakers nervous about their bottom lines didn't offer deals to lure them in.

As a result, it was the worst August for U.S. auto sales since 1983, when the country was at the end of a double-dip recession. General Motors, Toyota, Honda and Ford all reported declines from the month before and from a year earlier.

The recession is a recession in name only. It's a depression, and we're nowhere near the bottom.

Let's not forget about the Lenovo U1 tablet

I'm intrigued by this comment, do you have any evidence for this or are you just speculating? I'm wondering why there would be a higher than average number of transgenders working in technical jobs like programming over any other say, office based job.

Compared to other office-based jobs, programming is more accessible to transgenders; this is certainly the case before transitioning, where most companies still want a woman working the reception desk. But more importantly, IT is more open to transsexuals than, say, construction or other male-dominated professions.

The computer you're using right now is only possible because of the work of this woman. Multi-player computer games owe much of their success to this woman. And what list would be complete without a rocket scientist?

My personal thoughts on the matter are that our attempts to reconcile our differences with our external life provide extra stimulus to the problem-solving area of the brain, even before we're aware that we are different at any conscious level. So we end up gravitating to fields that
(1) have problems that use those same problem-solving skills - for example, I *love* the challenge of debugging, whereas most programmers would rather write new code, and
(2) don't force us as rigidly into a gender model we don't fit in - it's okay for women to be programmers, but men "man" a jackhammer.
(3) if we're outed in an IT context, we're less likely to get the crap beaten out of us, and more likely to be treated fairly.

That last one is a big consideration. Ask any transgender (either m2f or f2m) and they'll probably have more than one story about being physically assaulted just because they were "different".

Or just look through the comments here. Idle isn't exactly known for being a popular slashdot feature, and yet this particular discussion ... well, it speaks for itself, just like the women who have said that they can't post publicly because of fear says something.

The only reason I can is because I've gotten over my original mortification ... but I certainly would rather that it hadn't come out. All any of us want is our lives. IT is a relatively safe area for us to build a life, so it's to be expected that you'll find transsexuals over-represented compared to other fields where the gender participation lines are much clearer.

Here's a story from an AP writer (if you trust anything on HuffPo).

The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, Amnesty International and three other groups have sent a series of e-mails to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange calling for the names of Afghan civilians to be removed from the 77,000 classified military documents published by the online whistle-blower last month.

Nader Nadery, of the commission, said the groups want the names removed from files already released, and from any documents disclosed in the future.

"There was no consideration about civilian lives," Nadery said, noting a rise in assassinations of Afghan civilians seen as government collaborators.

"We said that in the future the names should be redacted and the ones that are already there need to be taken down. Even though it's late, it still worth doing," Nadery said. He said the group had not yet received any response to its requests.

The Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict, the Open Society Institute and the International Crisis Group have also been involved in exchanges about the released documents.

I'm sure this will be modded troll as well, but that makes Assange no less guilty. Even if you support his efforts against the US military, he has much civilian blood on his hands.

Before posting something like this, this genius should make sure he is out of the country and is never going back. They'll kill him or send him to jail for "encouraging indecency" -- or maybe a stoning?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/04/dubai-kissing-couple-jail_n_524736.html

These whack jobs in Dubai and other Tyrant controlled governments have SLAVE labor. Like they are going to respect "freedom of the press".

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/11/dark_side_of_du.html

Nothing less than to abolish copyright will do. Copyrights and patents prevent progress in the sciences and the useful arts. They were an experiment that utterly failed.

I'd love to hear your evidence of this, because as far as I can tell, there are a lot of benefits of copyright and patents. Certainly the number of inventions and works of art has increased since they were introduced, and certainly they have induced authors and artists to produce more (Winston Churchill, for example), and they have certainly rewarded the creators for the works, and they have made things like the GPL possible. This guy makes a strong argument that the patent system helped drive invention forward: for example, the steam engine was invented over a thousand years ago, but it wasn't until patents made it profitable to invent things that people began applying them to application they could think of. Maybe he's wrong, but it's an argument that needs to be addressed. I would love to hear your arguments.

Certainly there are abuses, like the one-click patent, and artist abuses by record companies, and the term for copyrights is probably too long, but these are things that can be fixed, they don't require an entire revocation of the system.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/19/AR2010071903686.html

This article sums it up well in that it's a group with no official racist views but is filled with an unknown amount of racists: http://www.economist.com/blogs/lexington/2010/07/tea-party_racism

The tea party, of course will not have an official racist POV because even they know it would be incredibly stupid to have that out in the open. But when one of their top players is stupid enough write a letter mocking black people, gets caught and has to be sacked.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsPSUxV07x8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S38VioxnBaI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUsBvkfQKUw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vrXJ5-EuoE
Anyone could sit here for days posting links to videos and sites showing examples of Tea Party racists. Sure they like to claim there have been plants but there aren't that many plants and the fact one of their highest people was clearly racist to the point where they had to get rid of him goes to show there is a lot of racism in the tea party. If we're going to attack moderate muslims for not tackling their extremists then the same should be done to the tea party.

The tea party won't do that because the people who aren't textbook racists are still the sort that want to just simply keep the brown people out of their country while forgetting their country was stolen from brown people.

Searching for tea party god or tea party christianity will bring up tons of official tea party sites talking about god. Some people like to claim it's not a religious group but it is they mention god often and their mascot, Palin, always talks about god. Like with the racism, it's easy to find links where tea party idiots have been intolerant of other religious beliefs.

http://www.examiner.com/humanism-freethought-in-tampa-bay/atheists-challenged-by-tea-party-patriots
http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local-beat/Holy-water-Two-teachers-tossed-for-allegedly-tossing-holy-water-on-atheist-94795819.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/20/mark-williams-tea-party-l_n_582591.html
http://race.change.org/blog/view/tea_party_plans_kkk-style_attack_on_muslim_place_of_worship
so much for freedom of religion - http://www.teapartypatriots.org/BlogPostView.aspx?id=3e3c9354-e295-4195-bb8a-0e50fd522cf9

Again, there is plenty of material out there showing the tea party's hate for anything atheist or Muslim.

The mere fact the tea party came out just as we had our first black president pretty much shows their mentality. They had no problem with Bush driving up the national debt because it was money spent on killing brown people who didn't believe in Jesus.

I guess that makes the Bush administration and the Republicans more socialistic than the Democrats. After all "borrow and spend" imposes higher debt on the children than "tax and spend".

As much as I like to slag on Bush, Obama spends a lot more than he raises taxes which has resulted in record deficits. The red vs. blue trap you've apparently fallen into, still talking about Bush is kinda weak sauce though, don't you think?

With the breaking news in the last 24 hours that the dangerous radical Saudi financing the 'Ground Zero' 'Mosque' through a series of charities was none other than the largest non-Murdoch shareholder of Fox News , is there a connection to any of these blogs and Alwaleed Bin Talal, the man Fox News itself says funds radical madrasses all over the world? Do any of these blogs have connections to members of think-tanks and PACs like The Heritage Foundation or FreedomWorks? Secretive organizations which appear often on a news channel funded by this same Saudi money that many on Fox News openly question may have financial ties to Iran?

There's a difference: the Democrats don't typically have loons IN CONGRESS or headed that way. For a recent sample, I give you:

Sharron Angle: Democrats want to make government our God

Rep. King: We need a revolution to stop HCR

That's not counting the endless references to "Second Amendment remedies" and other calls for open, armed revolt against the federal government. Or, for that matter, anything that Michelle Bachmann or Rand Paul say...

Any people that seriously believe "the other side is just as bad" need to stop huffing the fumes off of what Faux News is shoveling.

Are you lost sir?

The United States has the DEA enforcing it's domestic drug policy throughout the world.

Here in Canada:
http://www.cannabisculture.com/v2/articles/3261.html

Abroad, Cocaine is tolerated and seen as a great resource in South America yet America is killing civilians to thwart a domestic problem?????? A problem that stems from lack of Education, Health care and Poverty

Missionary plane shot down in Peru: collateral damage in US "drug war
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2001/apr2001/peru-a24.shtml
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ciadrugs/peru_coverup.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/04/video-of-missionaries-bei_n_449074.html

DEA agents shoot innocent 14-year-old girl in the head, but deny any wrongdoing.
http://www.cannabisculture.com/articles/2998.html

http://www.isil.org/resources/lit/license-to-kill.html

DEA GO AWAY!!!
http://www.drugwarrant.com/articles/drug-war-victim/

Lets not forget Marc Emery a Canadian politician extradited because of his influence on the pro marijuana movement. He was extradited for selling seeds (which is legal in Canada) via mail to the U.S. unprecedented enforcement of American pollution on Canadian Sovereignty.

"The whole journey is 3620km long, and takes about 3 days to drive in normal traffic. Traffic is getting through, it is just running slowly because of road works to widen the road. The delays have been going on for 9 days, but that doesn't mean it is the same cars as 9 days ago."

Huh? Article says: "Thousands of vehicles were bogged down Monday in a more than 100-kilometre (62-mile) traffic jam leading to Beijing that has lasted nine days"

Now maybe my reading comprehension sucks, but it sounds to me like there's 60+ miles of traffic and that traffic has been there for 9 days. I understand that a few cars join and other's leave, but it does sound like it's taking days to get through it.

I think it's a trap so we stop fearing them. "We are very simple people with very small (highway). We cannot achieve so much with such small (highway), but you American wow, (highway) so big, so big (highway)!"

link 1.
link 2.
link 3.
link 4.

You're a fucking idiot, you know that?

iTunes does censor what is sold. Want citation?

iTunes glitch censors song titles
Apple's no-nipples policy means fashion mags are censoring their iPad editions
iTunes Confuses 'Doo Wop' For Racial Slur, Censors Songs

Who's the troll here? You I think. The parent had a valid point to this discussion. Apple does censor what is sold. Your just a pussy fanboy that doesn't want to admit it.

I think the government is already doing a good job on growing the number of disabled

Next time you encounter a problem you think that you might find a solution to by googling for someone else's already existing solution - just read Plato instead.
You wouldn't want to use some worthless solution someone "writ" on a forum or a blog somewhere, now would you?

And tacking on that "Hey, my comment is worthless too..." is the same thing as asking loaded questions.

BTW, this particular post's monetary value may be only 17004 dollars, 8250 Euros and 99147 Yen, but its cultural value is priceless.

None of them have been charged yet, but I heard that many of these people have been brought in as part of an investigation into child exploitation. On top of that, several of them are self-admited pedagogues, pediatricians or even podiatrists, but they are somehow allowed to continue working in positions which bring them into contact with school children on a regular basis.

Since this is all a matter of public record, can we publish these facts along with their photographs, home and work addresses next to a vaguely worded editorial about the evils of child abuse? That sounds pretty fair to me.

OTOH, his military source violated US laws and was well aware of what s/he was doing and should be prosecuted. Civil disobedience is not without it's risks. If we were in a real war this information leak would have resulted in a date with a firing squad.

Not if you're part of the right wing war machine. Remember Valerie Plame? Releasing the name of an undercover agent during a time of war is treason. Punishable by death. There wasn't even a tap on the shoulder for Dick Cheney.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/23/report-cheney-admits-cruc_n_153157.html

"The SEC failed to catch Bernie Madoff largely because they are understaffed (a fact the SEC itself has admitted), under-funded, and simply lack the resources to adequately investigate his activities."

What a crock of pure BULLSHIT that statement is!

The SEC, and all of the other law enforcement agencies of the Federal government failed to catch Madoff and the other 10,000 crooks and fraudsters in the financial industry because they willfully and deliberately refuse to do their jobs. This guy, Harry Markopolos handed Madoff to the SEC on a silver platter repeatedly over the course of several years:

http://www.businessinsider.com/2008/12/busting-bernie-madoff-one-mans-10-year-crusade

As more evidence as to the mindset of our Federal government regulators, the FBI was talking about an "epidemic of fraud" in the mortgage industry as early as 2004, yet refused to act.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-k-black/the-two-documents-everyon_b_169813.html

The Federal government is NOT interested in applying the law to the politically well connected elites. Laws only apply to little people. We have the FBI, SEC, FDIC, OTS, OCC, and FRBs all with a mission to regulate various parts of the financial industry. However, most of the employees, from the Treasury Secretary on down are either former industry execs, or want to become industry execs after their government careers.

All of the whistle-blowing, crowd sourcing, blatant evidence of crime, etc. is TOTALLY USELESS when the government actively participates in the frauds and refuses to enforce the existing laws. That's why the whole "financial reform" bill is a joke as well. Write more laws and hire more regulators not to enforce them.

I'm really hoping that we get some whistle-blowers in the financial industry sharing data with wikileaks. The Feds won't do anything about it, but I want the people to know the full story of how the financial industry, with the full cooperation of the Federal government, raped the people of the U.S.

Number of Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan: ~100

Number of Taliban in Afghanistan: ~25,000

Number of uniformed officers in the New York Police Department: >35,000

Add in the advantage that is usually assigned to people defending their homeland vs. invading forces...I'd take it in a game of Risk...

I think you meant to post this crap here.

Sorry, when I used "hybrid" I meant plants that had been selectively bred for specific traits, not "hybrid" in the true meaning as you cite. I will try to be more careful in the future.

Your Google-fu must be weak, a quick search of "monsanto suing farmers" found the following;
http://www.organicconsumers.org/Monsanto/farmerssued.cfm
http://nelsonfarm.net/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto_Canada_Inc._v._Schmeiser
plus many more so its not an "urban myth" as you currently think.

Though I think the one you cite as being intentional is the Schmieser case. The court found in favor of Monsanto and upheld Monsanto's claim that Schmieser knew the canola he planted contained Monsanto's IP. Remember that just because the court says something it does not always mean that is what happened. And lets face it, Monsanto would not sue someone claiming it was accidental contamination.

As to the worrying about GMO crops your right, there are things to worry about, like this, this and this. Lots more where those came from.

The fact that there is any kind of major dispute over the safety of GMO supports my point that the GM tech belongs in the lab until it is better understood so we don't get things like this happening.

Enough citations for you?

You may notice that people are not dying from this, we haven't had an epidemic of many people becoming ill or dying because a genetically engineered food was introduced...

Not yet, at least.

Even though testing could not reveal whether 51 people were legitimately sickened by Starlink corn, the news left a lingering thought it could.

Even earlier this year when a report found that GM corn may cause organ damage in rats, it only showed 'signs of toxicity' (not proof). http://www.biolsci.org/v05p0706.htm#headingA11

We probably won't know the true effects for decades or maybe longer. Perhaps livestock will develop reactions to GM feed that we won't know about until we have an adverse reaction to eating them. Too many what-ifs, but it's nice to think about them.

The EU has some of the strictest laws regarding labeling of GMOs on food products... And, apparently there were some folks in the FDA that saw a clear danger from using GMO in the food chain. Hmm...

FTA: "Memo after memo described toxins, new diseases, nutritional deficiencies, and hard-to-detect allergens. They were adamant that the technology carried "serious health hazards," and required careful, long-term research, including human studies, before any genetically modified organisms (GMOs) could be safely released into the food supply."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-smith/youre-appointing-who-plea_b_243810.html

And "KEY FDA DOCUMENTS REVEALING (1) HAZARDS OF GENETICALLY ENGINEERED FOODS--AND (2) FLAWS WITH HOW THE AGENCY MADE ITS POLICY"

http://biointegrity.org/list.html

Do you have references that these constituents "overwhelmingly favor its repeal"? I've heard this before on Fox news but have not seen any reliable statistics to back it up. On the other hand I did hear last year from several places that the majority of people favoured a public option. However, the health insurance companies obviously didn't want this and therefore many in Washington made sure it didn't happen.

The reason I bring this up is because a lot of people didn't like the bill in the beginning because it didn't include medicare expansion or a public option. But I believe many of those people would still not want it repealed.

36 Republicans and one Democrat tried to block Kagan's appointment. The Democrat is Ben Nelson (D-NE), who represents the (Omaha) insurance industry (which also is the Credit Default Swap industry) and routinely votes with Republicans, especially in filibusters that prevent a simple majority vote that would usually pass.

You can see each of the Republicans give their reasons for voting against Kagan's appointment to the Supreme Court, and judge for yourself whether those are either the real reasons, or good ones.

This actually just happened in my home state. Senators were blackmailed with child porn placed on their computer through malicious e-mail attachments, apparently in order to sway their votes on some legislation.

Child porn is messed up, but the reaction to it, and the effects stemming from those (over)reactions can be equally messed up.

Hi again. I was just reading a news story that mentioned how the Emancipation Proclamation "effectively ended slavery". Not that this will settle an argument over the semantics of the word "ended", but here it is.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/04/black-tea-party-leaders-a_n_670560.html

Actually, some people in the USA are actively working to lessen the Day-Of-Hate gape. Thankfully, most media coverage about that is less than positive :)

My girfriend was convinced that Obama was going to change everything (she's so naive, but it's kind of cute in a girl). I told her that he would just continue 90% of Bush's evil shit once he got into office, and even the 10% of change would be moderate/token at best. It's the one point on which Dick Cheney and I agree. Obama is like every other politician. He only hates the police state when he's not the one in charge of it.

Ayup. Either that horse is making its way past Jupiter or jumped into an alternate equine dimension and became the ruler of that hooved place, but it is gone.

That said, there's other wells. I try to imagine that operators and owners of said wells have a renewed interest in at least not having a $20 billion disaster bill and maybe a shred of conscience and understand of what their actions can reap. I keep waiting for some news on the fucking dipshits at MMS who were literally fucking those who they were suppose to keep an eye on. No, attending their coke, meth, and sex parties is not the way to do it. I think these people should get jail time.

Given the sheer volume of matter that needs to be cleaned, I don't think there will be any effective solution. I mean, effective and doesn't completely sterilize the water or sand the oil is in. I doubt either the water or sand would be habitable afterwards. Sand gets hauled away to hazardous-waste and rapid degradation of oil in water will suck all the oxygen out. Likewise, I don't have high hopes for the survival of marshes that soaked up tidefuls of oil.

So... yeah, pretty grim outlook but it's the same deal for anything covered in oil. Ideally, the American public will learn that, no, businesses will not regulate themselves and that you actually need to put people who aren't ideologically opposed to regulation into positions to *gasp* regulate. That might be a bit much to ask though.

Anyway, we fucked up on the regulating of oil companies part and the environment will be pretty fucked over for decades (ie, if it ever recovers). We could at least not fuck up the cleanup effort and make sure those workers don't suffer health effects from cleaning up BP's mess. Whoops, too late.... Oh, and fucking up the cleaning effort by trying to bury it with sand.

This to cover up the fact that they'd been giving mortgages with no sound financial reasoning for most of a decade, and were holding a lot of worthless debt and mostly wanted to offload that onto someone else.

Well, maybe that's because the guy in charge of the Financial Services committee said nothing was wrong with subprime lending and resisted reform of Fannie and Freddie. Then he tried to rewrite history and claim that it was W who opposed reform all along. Naturally, Congress turned to this genius and his morally outstanding colleague to create the recently passed financial reform bill-- another 2,000+ page monstrosity of which we're just learning the horrors of now. Basically, the federal government will be able to liquidate whatever firms they deem a "systemic risk". That's enough to frighten anyone who owns a business-- or has a job, frankly.

Yep, we're all living in squalour in europe. Nothing like the glorious luxury that you have over there http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/23/ann-curry-focuses-on-hidd_n_657320.html