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The order was suspended on June 4.

"Federal judge suspends order that child porn suspect decrypt own computer files or face contempt" http://www.jsonline.com/news/crime/deadline-is-today-for-west-allis-man-to-decrypt-suspected-porn-files-b9926078z1-210121531.html

"Earlier court order requiring a Wisconsin suspect in underage porn case to decrypt his hard drives for the FBI by the end of the day Tuesday -- or face contempt of court -- has been lifted." http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57587670-38/judge-child-porn-suspect-doesnt-need-to-decrypt-files/

Ruling: http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2013/06/Decision-Order-DOC-8-re-Motion-to-Stay.pdf

Thos heavy trucks aren't being driven for fun; they're bringing goods to market that we all collectively buy.

And as long as we continue to distort the market for freight transport by heavily subsidizing the trucking industry, those trucks will continue to tear up our roads (literally) and contribute to traffic congestion when much of their cargo should instead go by rail which causes much less of a problem.

I should also add that trains are three times as fuel-efficient as trucks, which means they create one-third as much air pollution. Air pollution costs us up to $1,600 per person annually.

We would all save a lot of money if the trucking industry pulled its own weight, so to speak.

I just read a story the other day where a guy rented a store front to the ATF for a completely "failed" sting operation and they left owing him $15,000 in back rent. When he asked them to pay they sent him a letter explaining that harrassing a federal agent is a serious issue and he needs to stop immediatly.

ATF

The government isn't there to help you. Thats why I don't get when people say we need more regulation because it always hurts the little guy and they won't listen to you. With business at least you can choose to not buy from them.

I wonder how stressful it is being on a corporate advisory board when some people are company executives and sit on multiple paying corporate boards. http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/corporate_community.html http://www.jsonline.com/watchdog/watchdogreports/97242609.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interlocking_directorate

Asshole eh? Wow.. somebody has sand in their vagina...

Yet Chicago has some of the most restrictive gun laws in the U.S. and oopsie...

I say this as a moderate Dem with a libertarian bent: civilian gun owership will not be outlawed in the US within your lifetime. Witness this and this. We need to disarm criminals, close the gunshow loophole, and find a mechanism to weed out the mentally unstable with respect to weapons purchases. The last is the trickiest, especially considering doctor patient confidentiality.

The problem isn't union or not.

The acutal problem is that public employees refuse to see that their money comes from the public.

You see, out in the real world, when the company you run or work for does poorly, you expect it to impact your income. It's obvious logic - the company makes less money, you make less money.

But when the public average income goes down, do government employees predict a pay or benefit cut? Of course not! The 3% COLA plus raise must step on!

Not to mention the under-the-table abuses. Having lived through the last several years in Wisconsin, I can tell you that the Union-owned company providing healthcare (by Union demand in the contract, of course) costs significantly more than identical plans from any other source.
http://www.jsonline.com/business/102748594.html
So this ends up being not only way better health benefits than private employees not in a C-office can find, but there's even a roughly 30% boost that goes straight to Union coffers. Nice.

Turns out when you run the campaign (via free labor, shared space and big contributions) of the person on the other side of the bargaining table, the "bargaining" gets pretty easy for your side. Especially absent any downside to them for giving you the farm. (profit motive is a bitch anyway)

Furthermore, I hear government employees of all stripes complain that they'd make more in the private sector, but don't. But then you ask them to prove it. Turns out teachers working for government earn much more than private. Cops have it all over security guards too. Janitors? Don't get me started. Clerks? Income and benefits differents would be laughably huge if the taxpayers weren't on the hook for them.

But you never hear about it until the sad sacks finish their protracted whining jag about how horrible they have it and you show them how Monster.com works. Then they get real quiet.

Turns out the way unions keep their hand in your paycheck is by convincing you that you have it unjustifiably bad. Keep you angry, keep you stupid, keep you under control - that's the Union Way.

More info: The Devil at my Doorstep by David Bego.

I'm definetely not an expert on this, but I think it's a combination of a lot of things. Cities were using too much water for utilities and no returning it, then there are some climate concerns, but I think the biggie (both from an actual cause, and political view) is the St. Clair River.

---Alex

I don't have to be doing anything illegal to suffer harm. For instance, if I work for a GOP-supporting business my job may be at risk if they find out I support the Democrats. Note recent news stories of CEOs making fairly explicit threats to employees about what'd happen if they failed to support the GOP in the election (eg. http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/news/175797801.html). Just because something's legal doesn't mean I want the public at large, or even any specific third party, to know about it. Take your checking account register, for example, or the list of places you've shopped for gifts for your wife's birthday. Nothing illegal there at all, but you probably don't want your checking account activity posted on the Web or your wife finding out where you've been shopping before you hand her your gift.

>> Stop the presses!

They will be - December 31st.
http://www.jsonline.com/business/quadgraphics-loses-longtime-contract-with-newsweek-ending-print-editions-6l7963e-174765501.html

Can you work for yourself?
If you can quit relying on others for your prosperity, you can dump this whole useless line of worry.

This is a great idea if you like working 70 hours a week for little pay and no benefits, combined with new taxes and penalties from the likes of Obama. The cost of my services went up 10% thanks to an Obamacare excise tax. "Well, pass it on to the customers." I do, but raising prices 10% in a struggling economy doesn't exactly help sales. Soon I'll face a penalty for not being able to afford health insurance too. "But if you can't afford it, there will be assistance for you to be able to." Orly? "[T]he state might not be required to expand coverage to ... adults making up to 133% of federal poverty limit, which is $14,900 for a single person."

$14,900 * 1.33 = $19817. So if I make $20k/year, I'm rich and should be able to afford my own health insurance, else get penalized. How many people do you know making $20k/year can afford living expenses (not to mention paying off debt) AND health insurance? I'm a single white male, so I don't qualify for government assistance anyway. Soon I'll be penalized for it!

Yay for democracy! Fuck small business!

This is why I never bought the whole "we should leave more things up to the states to decide" line of argument

As someone living in Wisconsin, I completely agree.

I shudder to think how much worse the fuckheads in this state's government would have screwed us if they'd had more power. They did enough damage with the power they have. We've got a full-blown witch hunt going on right now over people who signed a recall petition against Governor Walker, our Supreme Court justices are physically assaulting each other, disenfranchisement efforts are in full swing, and women now have to prove to a doctor they're not being coerced before they're allowed to have an abortion (because, you know, there are tons of forced abortions in this country, am I right?) and allowing schools to restrict sex-ed programs to abstinence-only...

Luckily we can still recall our reps, although they did everything they could to try and take that right away from us, too.

This is why I never bought the whole "we should leave more things up to the states to decide" line of argument

As someone living in Wisconsin, I completely agree.

I shudder to think how much worse the fuckheads in this state's government would have screwed us if they'd had more power. They did enough damage with the power they have. We've got a full-blown witch hunt going on right now over people who signed a recall petition against Governor Walker, our Supreme Court justices are physically assaulting each other, disenfranchisement efforts are in full swing, and women now have to prove to a doctor they're not being coerced before they're allowed to have an abortion (because, you know, there are tons of forced abortions in this country, am I right?) and allowing schools to restrict sex-ed programs to abstinence-only...

Luckily we can still recall our reps, although they did everything they could to try and take that right away from us, too.

This was informative?

Do you want to know the history for the Love Canal mess? Would you be shocked to find that your beloved government was one of the parties that made it a godforsaken mess?

From Wikipedia: "By the 1940s, Hooker Electrochemical Company (later known as Hooker Chemical Company) founded by Elon Hooker, began searching for a place to dump the large quantity of chemical waste it was producing. Hooker was granted permission by the Niagara Power and Development Company in 1942 to dump wastes in the canal. The canal was drained and lined with thick clay. Into this site, Hooker began placing 55-US-gallon (210 L) metal or fibre barrels. The City of Niagara Falls and the army continued the dumping of refuse." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Canal) Of course, that's the thing that precipitated the EPA, right? Gotta do better? Riiight.

EPA fails to collect chemical safety data
EPA drops ball on danger of chemicals to children

There's quite a bit more...too much to put in this response.

And...let's not fail to mention Vioxx, Aspartame, BPA, and a whole host of other fiascos the FDA has done. Protect me? Not likely.

Seems to me the problems didn't get fixed and they're NOT protecting anything other than their own budgets... Spare me your thoughts- seems to me that we just have nearly the same mess we had before all of this, just more regulations and only the ability of the big players like Monsanto and the like being the only ones to play in that playground due to those said regulations.

SPARE US YOUR TRIPE.

This was informative?

Do you want to know the history for the Love Canal mess? Would you be shocked to find that your beloved government was one of the parties that made it a godforsaken mess?

From Wikipedia: "By the 1940s, Hooker Electrochemical Company (later known as Hooker Chemical Company) founded by Elon Hooker, began searching for a place to dump the large quantity of chemical waste it was producing. Hooker was granted permission by the Niagara Power and Development Company in 1942 to dump wastes in the canal. The canal was drained and lined with thick clay. Into this site, Hooker began placing 55-US-gallon (210 L) metal or fibre barrels. The City of Niagara Falls and the army continued the dumping of refuse." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Canal) Of course, that's the thing that precipitated the EPA, right? Gotta do better? Riiight.

EPA fails to collect chemical safety data
EPA drops ball on danger of chemicals to children

There's quite a bit more...too much to put in this response.

And...let's not fail to mention Vioxx, Aspartame, BPA, and a whole host of other fiascos the FDA has done. Protect me? Not likely.

Seems to me the problems didn't get fixed and they're NOT protecting anything other than their own budgets... Spare me your thoughts- seems to me that we just have nearly the same mess we had before all of this, just more regulations and only the ability of the big players like Monsanto and the like being the only ones to play in that playground due to those said regulations.

SPARE US YOUR TRIPE.

In the US, with all the gerrymandering there are so many safe seats the equivalent could never happen.

That's certainly what they're trying to do here in Wisconsin.

The newest district maps the Republican-controlled legislature designed are completely one-sided, which in itself is nothing new, but with all the recalls and shit going on, they're now trying to figure out ways to force the recalls to happen in the newly created districts. Never mind the fact that the districts do not legally go into effect until November 2012 by the bill they themselves ratified; now that they stand to actually lose control of the legislature with the recalls (only one more seat needs to be picked up in the state senate and the Republicans lose their majority) they're in full on panic mode trying to do whatever they can to prevent it.

It makes no logical sense; by forcing the recalls to happen in the new districts, they're basically telling many people that voted in the last election that they don't get a say in whether or not their representative gets to keep their seat. Not only that, but the recall signatures were collected under the old districts...so now they're trying to throw out any signatures that don't fall under their new district boundaries. Boundaries that aren't even legally in effect yet.

This isn't even the dirtiest trick being played here, just read this rebuttal to the challenged signatures; it's hysterical. You want to see what the goals are of the Far Right nationally, look no farther than Wisconsin...they really shot their wad here. Another laugh-fest is the emails between the GOP lawyers involved in the redistricting. A judge just ordered them released a few days ago (they did all their communication through their lawyers so they could claim attorney-client privilege and keep the records hidden from FOIA requests and discovery) and they openly talk about "wildly gerrymandering" one particular district to nullify the Latino vote in Milwaukee. Another gem is an email discussing a Professor they got to testify in support of the maps...which includes a request to actually get him the maps so he can review them. I wonder how much of a consultant's fee they paid him to support a map he'd never even seen yet?

YA!!! Coal is safer and cleaner than anything.

Bluff collapse at power plant sends dirt, coal ash into lake
Containing the damage at We Energies site
Collapsed bluff got pass from state regulators
Bluff collapse came weeks after Congress rebuffed EPA on coal ash rule

I used to consider myself a Republican. Now I'm embarrassed to admit that. I however am not a Democrat either. I belong to the party of "The Screwed."

The current political party that would like to call itself "Republican" is a party of and for the wealthy elitist businessmen. They have NO interest in the well-being of the general population. Their only concern is for a double-digit profit at the end of the quarter and they don't care how many resources they have to destroy or consume to get it.

The robber barons are back and this time they openly want it all. They're not making any secret of their intentions.

And just like all the spin selling and PR that has been going on for coal, the natural gas guys are starting up their own story-telling machine to support fracking.

With fresh water shortages developing all over the world, how is a technology that uses fresh water that is loaded with all sorts of nasty stuff (and thus rendered useless to any life form) and can destroy fresh water sources be a sensible solution?

And BTW, several fresh water wells have been contaminated by this WE Energies coal plant. WE Energies has bought the properties after the people have signed agreements to not sue them.

I'd rather take my chances with nuclear.

@Baloroth: thanks for "the facts" link.

YA!!! Coal is safer and cleaner than anything.

Bluff collapse at power plant sends dirt, coal ash into lake
Containing the damage at We Energies site
Collapsed bluff got pass from state regulators
Bluff collapse came weeks after Congress rebuffed EPA on coal ash rule

I used to consider myself a Republican. Now I'm embarrassed to admit that. I however am not a Democrat either. I belong to the party of "The Screwed."

The current political party that would like to call itself "Republican" is a party of and for the wealthy elitist businessmen. They have NO interest in the well-being of the general population. Their only concern is for a double-digit profit at the end of the quarter and they don't care how many resources they have to destroy or consume to get it.

The robber barons are back and this time they openly want it all. They're not making any secret of their intentions.

And just like all the spin selling and PR that has been going on for coal, the natural gas guys are starting up their own story-telling machine to support fracking.

With fresh water shortages developing all over the world, how is a technology that uses fresh water that is loaded with all sorts of nasty stuff (and thus rendered useless to any life form) and can destroy fresh water sources be a sensible solution?

And BTW, several fresh water wells have been contaminated by this WE Energies coal plant. WE Energies has bought the properties after the people have signed agreements to not sue them.

I'd rather take my chances with nuclear.

@Baloroth: thanks for "the facts" link.

YA!!! Coal is safer and cleaner than anything.

Bluff collapse at power plant sends dirt, coal ash into lake
Containing the damage at We Energies site
Collapsed bluff got pass from state regulators
Bluff collapse came weeks after Congress rebuffed EPA on coal ash rule

I used to consider myself a Republican. Now I'm embarrassed to admit that. I however am not a Democrat either. I belong to the party of "The Screwed."

The current political party that would like to call itself "Republican" is a party of and for the wealthy elitist businessmen. They have NO interest in the well-being of the general population. Their only concern is for a double-digit profit at the end of the quarter and they don't care how many resources they have to destroy or consume to get it.

The robber barons are back and this time they openly want it all. They're not making any secret of their intentions.

And just like all the spin selling and PR that has been going on for coal, the natural gas guys are starting up their own story-telling machine to support fracking.

With fresh water shortages developing all over the world, how is a technology that uses fresh water that is loaded with all sorts of nasty stuff (and thus rendered useless to any life form) and can destroy fresh water sources be a sensible solution?

And BTW, several fresh water wells have been contaminated by this WE Energies coal plant. WE Energies has bought the properties after the people have signed agreements to not sue them.

I'd rather take my chances with nuclear.

@Baloroth: thanks for "the facts" link.

YA!!! Coal is safer and cleaner than anything.

Bluff collapse at power plant sends dirt, coal ash into lake
Containing the damage at We Energies site
Collapsed bluff got pass from state regulators
Bluff collapse came weeks after Congress rebuffed EPA on coal ash rule

I used to consider myself a Republican. Now I'm embarrassed to admit that. I however am not a Democrat either. I belong to the party of "The Screwed."

The current political party that would like to call itself "Republican" is a party of and for the wealthy elitist businessmen. They have NO interest in the well-being of the general population. Their only concern is for a double-digit profit at the end of the quarter and they don't care how many resources they have to destroy or consume to get it.

The robber barons are back and this time they openly want it all. They're not making any secret of their intentions.

And just like all the spin selling and PR that has been going on for coal, the natural gas guys are starting up their own story-telling machine to support fracking.

With fresh water shortages developing all over the world, how is a technology that uses fresh water that is loaded with all sorts of nasty stuff (and thus rendered useless to any life form) and can destroy fresh water sources be a sensible solution?

And BTW, several fresh water wells have been contaminated by this WE Energies coal plant. WE Energies has bought the properties after the people have signed agreements to not sue them.

I'd rather take my chances with nuclear.

@Baloroth: thanks for "the facts" link.

They have patented the idea and are now concentrating on scaling up the device and designing a shoe to contain it

Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land (plus some of his older books as well) helped kill a patent for waterbeds IIRC. Perhaps Frank Herbert's Dune can be used to help kill this patent. Fremen stillsuit boots generated power from walking.

here's a 2000 article about electricity generating shoes. here's a patent from 1992 and another from 1988. Doesn't anyone do an internet search before "inventing" something?

It is well-documented and well-known.

For example, see here: http://www3.jsonline.com/bym/news/jun01/slave26062501.asp

There was even an initiative to mandate "Slave labor free" labeling on chocolate ( http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/0801-03.htm ) but guess what has happened?

Google black flash mob and you'll see this is becoming a more frequent and frightening phenomenon. The one previous to this was at the Wisconsin State Fair. Here's the link if you think I'm lying http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/126828998.html

The USA currently has the most top-ranked universities in the world by a very wide margin. No other nation on earth has more than two universities that are customarily ranked in the top 10, and that would be the British with Cambridge and Oxford and no, they're not usually ranked 1 and 2. You can look these things up easily even using sources outside the US. According to the Shanghai-based Academic Ranking of World Universities there's the top 10:

1. Harvard (USA)
2. UC-Berkeley (USA)
3. Stanford (USA)
4. MIT (USA)
5. Cambridge (UK)
6. California Institute of Technology (USA)
7. Princeton (USA)
8. Columbia (USA)
9. U. Chicago (USA)
10. Oxford (UK)

Notice a pattern? Just in case you're too lazy to click the link, 19 of the top 25 are in the USA. Now that doesn't mean that there are not huge problems facing American universities. I've worked at several different American universities over the past 15 years and the problems were similar: tuition is much too high, state support of state universities is at the sick joke level, for instance the University of Oregon at one point had 3% of its budget covered by the state of Oregon. That's no typo: three (3) percent. Sick joke level state funding forces universities to raise revenue elsewhere (tuition), which angers citizens of that state, forcing state politicians to further cut funding in a potentially terminal downward spiral. The University of Wisconsin system is facing a quarter billion dollar budget cut, with UW-Madison losing 13% of its funding from the state. Included in that link is that UW-Madison tuition might increase by 10% and that's after recent double-digit tuition hikes from the last time Wisconsin whacked the university budget by a quarter billion.

It's not just the beating American universities are taking from the state budgets. A serious and growing problem is that if you walk around on any campus today you will see a large percentage of buildings that were put up in the 50's to the 70's. At that time the universities were growing at a phenomenal rate due to exploding enrollment. Buildings were put up fast, put up cheap, and are long since out-grown, worn out, and used up. An added feature is that many "temporary" buildings were erected with an intended ~25 year lifespan and are still standing 30 years after they were to be torn down. There's probably a billion-dollar wish list at any mid-sized university to replace these buildings. Even for building that are still within their useful lifespan there is the issue of deferred maintenance. Most states have a half-billion dollar backlog and it's hardly the kind of thing you can get rich donors to open their wallets for. It is no small matter at all: when staying in a dorm at a major state university (to be nameless) the ceiling caved in on me. You can't apply bandaids to a 50 year old roof without consequences.

So American universities are currently the envy of the world. Walk into any science or engineering department and feast your eyes on the best and the brightest of the world. It is not to last however. American universities are crumbling and I've personally witnessed the decay. With the combination of declining state funding, inadequate federal grant dollars, skyrocketing tuition, and the war against education waged by the Republican party, American universities will become 2nd rate and falling soon.

You're wrong, but short of a radical and unlikely change in American priorities, you're only wrong by a few decades.

Any of them ironically labled..

"Its not my weiner."

http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/news/123109063.html

-Hack

This case is only the tip of the iceberg. Since this whole budget mess started, there have been numerous legally dubious happenings. The Republicans have since backed down, but for a while, it seemed as if they were going to blatantly disregard a direct court order.

Furthermore, there seems to be a lack of understanding of the principle of checks and balances. The state Assembly Speaker even went so far as to accuse the judge issuing the order of not understanding the separation of powers of the government.

Possibly the best summary of the general level of civility of the debate can be summed up in a recent press release from the local Republicans, which is impolite, to put it mildly.

This one stands out as exceptionally silly to me, because I live in Wisconsin and nothing remotely like that has happened.

Really?

It seems like... ..you haven't been... ..paying attention.

Do you still want to stand by your claim that "nothing remotely like that has happened"?

Let me know if you're still not convinced. I can provide more evidence. As someone who owns a house near Palmyra, Wisconsin, I can tell you that a lot of people around here are pretty well informed about this thing that you claim is not happening.

Currently, many sites can't even show a threaded discussion, or have no concept of moderation

The flipside is, Facebook's idea of "moderation" is pathetic.

Ever tried to look up your local state rep or congresscritter's facebook line? If it's a Republican, be prepared to see a wall full of nothing but hate speech and vitriol. Try to post a counterargument, and it'll vanish in about 5 seconds.

What's really funny is, the Retardicans want this to be "the model" for all discourse. That's why Scott the Koch Whore is trying so hard to kick the protesters out of the WI capital, up to and including coordinated astroturfing of the sort the Republicans and their Robber Baron masters have become so good at, and even actively considered plans involving sending in paid operatives to start fights or riots which he would then try to blame on the teachers.

If Facebook wanted to be solid for discussion, they need to take away "moderation powers" from the politicians.

The US Patent Office get its funding from patent applications fees.

So the question is: WHAT THE #UcK DID YOU EXPECT!

Did you read the article you linked to?

The Patent Office is structured to be self-sustaining, surviving on payments for patent applications, patent issuances and periodic fees that keep a patent alive for its full 20-year term. But Congress retains the authority to determine whether the agency can keep all of its fees.

If the USPTO kept all of the money that it brings in, there would be no backlog. Examiners could probably get a pretty large pay increase, along with another few thousand examiners being hired. In reality, the USPTO gets to keep a pretty small percentage of the money that it collects.

The US Patent Office get its funding from patent applications fees.

So the question is: WHAT THE #UcK DID YOU EXPECT!

There's a lot of people bashing the USPTO, but I can't think of a way to manage them any better given the resources they do have. Its like blaming teachers for schools falling apart. Patent review is not exactly a prestigious job, so it requires at least average pay for its workers. The filing fee is, what now, about $350? That's about a days worth of work for a patent examiner, maybe a bit less once you include benefits. So unless I'm wrong, assuming the patent office is fully staffed with no waste, a patent examiner has to read a usually massive document from start to finish, review if the material is actually able to be patented, review past patents to see if any conflict, and make a judgment whether to approve or not. Denials need to make sense and stand up in court. All in a field the patent examiner likely has little to no experience in.

The office isn't screwed up, the system we use to evaluate patents is.

The US Patent Office get its funding from patent applications fees.

So the question is: WHAT THE #UcK DID YOU EXPECT!

Huge amounts of money? Really? It's really little more than another purpose for the pre-existing Emergency Broadcast System, with some increased EBS infrastructure under the premise of saving the children. At any rate, it's cost is minimal.

The botnet sends out millions of spam messages ...

You're a few orders of magnitude off there. Try tens of billions ...

has found no evidence the association or related organizations mishandled the $40 million in federal money they received in recent years.

That's a very specific exoneration; that is, mishandling of funds.

In no ACORN office did employees file any paperwork or do anything illegal on the duo's behalf.

Also extremely specific.

They refer to "edited" and "misleading" ... and "deceptive" and "phony" - in that order - tapes. There is no citation for those claims, and the progression from edited->misleading->deceptive->phony is ... interesting. They're claims about the tapes progressively get worse while no actual information is cited; i.e., they appear to be building their case on their own previously presumed fact.

And the piece ends with this:

One of the activists, James O'Keefe recently pleaded guilty to charges of entering federal property under false pretenses when he attempted to embarrass Senator Mary Landrieu because of her support for national health care legislation.

An unrelated ad-hom attack on the activist; "he was guilty later, so why should we trust him in this one?.

Lastly, your link is old. It's from June. The case is still going on, and there is much more recent news, such as a Federal court ruling against ACORN (your link mentions the decision that has now been overturned, a former ACORN worker pleading guilty of voter fraud ("Maria Miles, 37, of Milwaukee, admitted to submitting multiple voter registration applications for some people and to scheming with other Association of Community Organization for Reform workers to sign people up several times in an effort to meet the organization's voter registration quotas."), etc.

A big rig causes 9,600 times as much road wear as a car, but doesn't pay 9,600 times as much in taxes. So a simple solution is to make them pay the full cost, based on the weight of the vehicle and the number of axles.

Faced with paying the full cost of transporting goods, the shipping companies will use rail more often, and that will reduce traffic congestion and save us money on repairing the roads.

[Coal] Power plant cost to top $1 billion Alliant seeks OK for power plant The cost to build a new coal-fired power plant in Cassville or Portage has soared because of higher construction prices, Alliant Energy Corp. said Friday. The 300-megawatt power plant, which would generate enough power to supply 150,000 homes, is now projected to cost $1.1 billion if it is built in southwestern Wisconsin and $1.2 billion if it is built in Portage, the utility said.

1.45 billion for a renewable, pollution-free energy source or $1.2 billion for billowing black clouds. It's really a no-brainer. A coal power plant costs nearly the same amount. Also, keep in mind the more we build solar power plants, like with anything, the cheaper and more efficient they will get.

Can we really afford not to build them?

$20,000 per home?"

The problem is faulty accounting. I don't know if you guys have a real or perceived economic stake in the current energy production systems, you just like to argue, or you are just bad at math.

http://www.jsonline.com/business/29482814.html

The cost to build a new coal-fired power plant in Cassville or Portage has soared because of higher construction prices, Alliant Energy Corp. said Friday.

The 300-megawatt power plant, which would generate enough power to supply 150,000 homes, is now projected to cost $1.1 billion if it is built in southwestern Wisconsin and $1.2 billion if it is built in Portage, the utility said.

But this is just the construction costs of the plant. How much will be spent over the course of the plant's lifetime in mining coal, transporting coal, processing coal, managing the burning of coal, performing maintenance on boilers and turbines, managing the waste products of coal, etc.? And that doesn't even take into account the huge costs we pay for respiratory diseases caused by coal, climate change, the environmental damage caused by mountain top removal and by the wastes products, etc. etc. I think if you are honest and thorough in your accounting, you will see that the overall costs to society from burning coal is huge - much more expensive than solar. With the exception of maintenance ( which should be much lower ), none of these reoccurring expenses are present with solar and this is just the beginning of solar research and efficiency gains.

I am really starting to think that a large percentage of my fellow humans are just insane. Do you guys really think that we will be burning toxic shit to get out power in the future? Is that the best we can do? For a bunch of technophiles, this is an awfully Luddite-like position.

Recently it was reported widely that “airport scanners, power lines, cell phones and microwaves” ain't got nothin' on medical scanning radiation. Now people are asking for tracking systems and calling them a threat.

I'm not really worried about cell phones as much as when I roll into my new dentist's, get 18+ x-rays of my entire mouth for their record. Find out I need two inlays on the lower left. Come back in two weeks and get two more xrays so they know where to drill. Come back in two weeks to get the inlays put in only to have them re x-ray the inlays after they were in to make sure they were in properly since they couldn't floss between them. What. the. hell? Can't you use regular light and your eyeballs to set those in there? I mean, I'm glad you did a good job, I just don't know what to do about this malignant jaw tumor now ...

Huh, you're right. They're also operating in the red, and Congress has been siphoning off some of the money made by those fees for other projects. No wonder they can't fix their fax system.

In regards to your sig, and only your sig, the mayor of my hometown has already been busted for child pornography/child entisement. He one of many articles.

Northern Wisconsin is about as redneck and white as it gets. What you described is exactly what happened.

http://www.jsonline.com/news/president/33703659.html

http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/results/states/president/wisconsin.html

Just another entry on the subject. Voter fraud and dirty tricks are fun for all!

http://www.jsonline.com/news/state/nov04/271676.asp

It has been a very long time - an eon ago - since the campus cop has been anything less than the real thing.

Freshmen at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater have always spent their first few days on campus learning college survival - how to join the karate club, cheer like a Warhawk and find English 101.
The school is one of about 500 around the country that have purchased "Shots Fired on Campus," a new video training program with tactics for surviving a mass-casualty shooting. It's the latest strategy for college officials who are preparing for the worst in the aftermath of shootings at Virginia Tech, Northern Illinois and other universities.
Students hear creepy music and watch a chilling dramatization of a shooter roaming the halls. They learn to identify exit routes, when to barricade or hide, and when to attack a shooter using improvised weapons. Freshman 101: How to survive - and stop - a campus shooting

Students in the sixties began demanding they be treated like adults - and no more excuses - exemptions - for the brainiac or the jock. It is that side of the bargain the geek chooses to forget.

I'm not condoning the Google bombing, but maybe instead of a "vote of no confidence" it's just that he believes
that most "red-staters", fundies, and the types of people forwarding spam about Obama being a Muslim, or calls
to vote against "a Hussein" have their fingers in their ears regarding things like who's economic
and tax policies are actually best for them? And this is his (spurious) way of trying to fight that.

Sorry for replying to myself, but it looks like there is a little more to the story. The first story left out some important information, but I did like that part at the end about the ATF agent involved leaving her handgun in the restroom within the secured section of the airport.

More info:
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=750464

It probably wasn't gas. If he couldn't get there on Wednesday, I'd say he got stuck on the interstate.

It was a miserable day.

Here are the results of the signing http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=699450

Hmmm, what the hell; I've got karma to burn. Your arguments fail to move me -- the examples either apply to telecom as a whole, or are simply untrue. You've clearly never had working knowledge of this industry.

As far as TV goes, most people's options boil down to little more than an antenna, DirecTV or The Cable Company.

True, there are currently 3 competing providers across the US, four if you separate DirectTV and Echostar. There's also FIOS. Some area have overbuilders, essentially a second cable company in the same area. Since I can't possibly come up with another crappy car analogy, we'll have to settle for an OS analogy: You've got over the air broadcast by FOX/CBS/*BC, around since the 1930's: Big Iron, IBM, Unix System V, systems that went into decline due to the changing face of technology. Dish: Microsoft - a newer product, with oppressive EULA's and a desire to have their product in EVERY home in the US. And the cable companies + overbuilders: Linux and it's variants...fractured and splintered amongst themselves, but with a similar goal and purpose.

How many options do you have for internet? More than 3? How about landline phone service or cell service? More than 3 local major players? This "lack" of competition exists in all of telecom, not just TV.

If there was an injection of more competition in the market I think we'd see a lot more innovative services like more robust video on demand, ala carte programming options, more and higher quality HD channels, and innovative new services we haven't even thought of.

You mean like....Youtube, Youtube, and with the exception of HD content....Youtube? In today's markets, innovative has come to mean "interactive". TV watching is not an interactive activity, and never has been...unless you count screaming at Sunday Night Football when the QB fumbles in the end zone in overtime. These innovative services are not going to come from the TV provider; they will be online. The HD issue is a tough one...a quick look online shows less than 50 HD channels currently available not counting regional sports networks and broadcasters. If you exclude HBO/SHOW/MAX, the list is under 40. I don't know about you, but Wealth TV HD just doesn't do it for me.

And before someone points out it's *their* infrastructure and they built and bought it--they did so with a lot of government subsidies and that infrastructure is sitting on a lot of public land. They only have mini-monopolies because the government has allowed it.

You're kidding, right? Cable companies receive no such subsidies; perhaps you're thinking of the telephone companies. FIOS is being laid courtesy of that lovely FCC fee on your phone bill, but not cable. Cable companies PAY the local governments for the rights to service the towns which they do -- and they pay mightily. I've seen franchise agreements where the municipality is collecting 1% of total revenue from the cable provider. This is passed to the customer, a tax imposed not by the cable company, but by city hall. Towns are greedy; Google for "FIOS franchise dispute" or read about AT&T being sued by a Wisconsin city because AT&T wasn't paying a franchise fee or a dispute for Cablevision. Austin, Texas used to collect 35 cents per subscriber each month; that was in 1996 and it's probably more by now.

Finally, there are no mini-monopolies -- overbuilders and telecoms such as AT&T/Verizon are free to come in to a town and provide service. But before they hop a ride on the money train, they have to pay f

/proud cheesehead

I'm a more recent Wisconsin acquisition, but I also have to admit I like Russ. I'm just sick and tired of the letters in the Editorial Section of the Journal Sentinel that denounce him as unpatriotic. Makes me wanna shake sense into people.

It appears that Wal-Mart is also quite creative when it comes to paying its taxes:

Wal-Mart owes back taxes, state says
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=652167