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You mean like the conviction he got? From the link:

"Victor Garcia Bebek pleaded guilty to voter fraud in April for voting three times between 2012 and 2014.

So, in his own state, with all the records at his disposal because he was in charge of running the elections, as Secretary of State, he came up with one case of voter fraud? Kobach finally found a single immigrant he could convict of a voting-related crime? Hold the applause, please. Now let's see you get to the "three million" that Trump claims cost him the popular vote.

https://www.kansascity.com/opi...

https://www.kansas.com/news/po... [kansas.com]

"Another 34 were identified by the Sedgwick County Election Office when staff attended naturalization ceremonies to register new citizens and discovered some were already registered."

If you read your link, you will notice that Kris Kobach, who is anything but a neutral observer, offers ZERO EVIDENCE that these things happened, but assures us that they did. Let's see...can we think of any other instances where Kobach lied or whether he had an incentive to do so?

https://slate.com/news-and-pol...

https://www.kansascity.com/new...

https://www.aclu.org/blog/voti...

https://www.theatlantic.com/po...

Here's even more recent news about Kris Kobach lying in order to enrich himself at the expense of a bunch of small towns by selling them on a non-existent "immigrant crisis".

https://splinternews.com/kris-...

https://www.propublica.org/art...

Why? Because black people can't get ID cards apparently.

No. Because poor people can't get ID cards because poor.
And we've arranged this country so that 90% of black people are poor.
But plenty of poor whites get screwed over too. That's kinda how racism works, there is always collateral damage and it always falls on the weakest.

Also, the biggest purveyor of the myth of voter impersonation - Kris Kobach the Kansas secretary of state - got his ass handed to him in court because not only could he not prove it in court, he couldn't even prove it in real life either - with all the resources of the state he was only able to find nine, mostly senior-citizen republicans, who genuinely thought they were following the law. For example:

“I’d vote for president in one state, and local issues in both places,” he told POLITICO Magazine. He said he’d been doing this ever since his property tax bill on a hotel he owned in Goodland had doubled in one year in 2004.

Because they were provisional ballots, they were never actually counted. But that didn’t matter to Kobach who in 2015, after a local prosecutor’s decision not to open a case, charged Wilson with three felonies and seven misdemeanors.

But it gets better. Turns out it was all a scam. Kris Kobach of Kansas personally made a million dollars by ginning up fears of immigrants, getting them to pass unconstitutional ordinances and then hiring him to defend them and lose in court.

Farmers Branch, Texas, wound up owing $7 million to Kobach and a team of lawyers. Hazleton, Pa., took on debt to pay $1.4 million and eventually had to file for a state bailout. Fremont, Neb., raised property taxes to pay for Kobach’s services. None of the towns is currently enforcing an ordinance he helped craft.

Racism has always been a way for the rich to grift on the poor of all races. Hell, the KKK required its members to buy over-priced hoods from KKK-certified tailors who gave kickbacks to KKK leaders.

Why? Because black people can't get ID cards apparently.

No. Because poor people can't get ID cards because poor.
And we've arranged this country so that 90% of black people are poor.
But plenty of poor whites get screwed over too. That's kinda how racism works, there is always collateral damage and it always falls on the weakest.

Also, the biggest purveyor of the myth of voter impersonation - Kris Kobach the Kansas secretary of state - got his ass handed to him in court because not only could he not prove it in court, he couldn't even prove it in real life either - with all the resources of the state he was only able to find nine, mostly senior-citizen republicans, who genuinely thought they were following the law. For example:

“I’d vote for president in one state, and local issues in both places,” he told POLITICO Magazine. He said he’d been doing this ever since his property tax bill on a hotel he owned in Goodland had doubled in one year in 2004.

Because they were provisional ballots, they were never actually counted. But that didn’t matter to Kobach who in 2015, after a local prosecutor’s decision not to open a case, charged Wilson with three felonies and seven misdemeanors.

But it gets better. Turns out it was all a scam. Kris Kobach of Kansas personally made a million dollars by ginning up fears of immigrants, getting them to pass unconstitutional ordinances and then hiring him to defend them and lose in court.

Farmers Branch, Texas, wound up owing $7 million to Kobach and a team of lawyers. Hazleton, Pa., took on debt to pay $1.4 million and eventually had to file for a state bailout. Fremont, Neb., raised property taxes to pay for Kobach’s services. None of the towns is currently enforcing an ordinance he helped craft.

Racism has always been a way for the rich to grift on the poor of all races. Hell, the KKK required its members to buy over-priced hoods from KKK-certified tailors who gave kickbacks to KKK leaders.

At least be consistent with your bias. If voter fraud implies fraud by voters, election fraud implies fraud by election workers, which are not "The government" they are local volunteers and workers.

No, you've got it wrong again. The fraud is being perpetrated by elected officials and their appointees, not "election workers" in the sense of the people who show up to work polls. It's happening from the county level right up to the statewide official level. Just look at two secretaries of state that are currently running for governor: Kris Kobach of Kansas and Brian Kemp of Georgia. Both men are as corrupt as the day is long and are barely staying one step ahead of the courts (who are closing in, nonetheless). Kobach is now overseeing a recount in his own election. The self-dealing, fraud and outright theft with these guys is astonishing.

https://www.kansascity.com/new...

https://www.kansascity.com/new...

https://www.washingtonpost.com...

At least be consistent with your bias. If voter fraud implies fraud by voters, election fraud implies fraud by election workers, which are not "The government" they are local volunteers and workers.

No, you've got it wrong again. The fraud is being perpetrated by elected officials and their appointees, not "election workers" in the sense of the people who show up to work polls. It's happening from the county level right up to the statewide official level. Just look at two secretaries of state that are currently running for governor: Kris Kobach of Kansas and Brian Kemp of Georgia. Both men are as corrupt as the day is long and are barely staying one step ahead of the courts (who are closing in, nonetheless). Kobach is now overseeing a recount in his own election. The self-dealing, fraud and outright theft with these guys is astonishing.

https://www.kansascity.com/new...

https://www.kansascity.com/new...

https://www.washingtonpost.com...

You mean like banning straws under threat of prison sentence? They did it. Jail time for a plastic straw.

Yeah, I didn't believe this so I looked it up.

I couldn't actually find anything on the penalties SF is planning to impose, but it does sound like you've confused Santa Barbara with San Francisco along with a little fake news from Fox, the Daily Mail and Donald Trump Jr.

Santa Barbara wants to lock up straw users? That'd be outrageous, if it were actually true

Santa Barbara is considering a straw ban — and no, you won’t be jailed for violating it

Latchford pointed out that, since Santa Barbara’s plastic bag ordinance went into effect in 2014, “we haven’t had a single fine.”

Pushing for compliance rather than maximum penalties is similar to how they've handled public smoking bans and bans on throwing away certain recyclable material (e.g. plain cardboard) where I live (not California).

I really am not familiar with the public defecation situation in SF and I doubt you are either so I won't speak to that, but your other claim:

You mean like decriminalising the act of purposefully infecting other people with an incurable deadly disease? They did that, too

No, they did not. Knowingly exposing another to HIV is still a crime.

The co-author of the bill explains:

Last week, Governor Jerry Brown signed SB 239, a bill I co-authored to modernize California’s HIV criminal statutes by treating HIV *exactly* the same as other serious and deadly diseases such as Ebola, SARS, hepatitis C, and tuberculosis: as a misdemeanor. Under current California law, only HIV is treated as a felony, and you don’t have to infect anyone—or even create a risk of infection—to be guilty and go to state prison.

SB 239 doesn’t eliminate criminal penalties for reckless behavior by people living with HIV. Rather, it simply aligns our criminal treatment of HIV with how we treat every other serious infectious disease in existence: as a misdemeanor.

We Modernized California’s HIV Criminal Laws & the Right Wing Attacked

And this should blow your mind:

In 1994, Texas became the first state to repeal its HIV criminal laws, according to the Center for HIV Law and Policy.

Nor do all other states treat exposing another to it as a felony.

HIV Crime Laws: Historical Relics or Public Safety Measures?

And finally - and I admit I'm going out on a limb here because I've never lived in California, but I don't think SF is considered "Southern California". According to Wikipedia, it's "Northern California".

So who's crazier? The San Franciscans in Southern California or Texans? Or the states who never made it a felony in the first place?

I didn't realize the Democrats ran so many states ... Even Kobach's home state of Kansas refused. Hell, the governor of Mississippi of all places told Kobach to "Go jump in the Gulf of Mexico" over his voter fraud commission.

Kansas spends about $10K per student which is above average for the OECD (which is around $9300 per student, per my link from CBS News).

Again, you are committing the logical error of considering that because the average is acceptable, that general funding is acceptable. Kansas has some very well funded schools in affluent areas, but recently the Kansas supreme court ruled that the funding was "unconstitutionally low" for many districts.

Perhaps it's not how much is spent - but HOW it is spent

I'll raise you one more - WHERE it is spent matters a great deal. On aggregate, it can look like we spend plenty on education. But due to the fact that schools are generally funded by local property taxes, we've got a combo of schools that have enough money that they've reached the point of diminishing returns in spending, alongside schools that are struggling to provide basic services and just stay fully staffed. Which is a great way to get an education system where there's a lot of spending, and also a lot of students that aren't doing well.

Kansas spends about $10K per student which is above average for the OECD (which is around $9300 per student, per my link from CBS News). So Kansas is low for the US, but above average for the OECD. And Kansas ranks 14th overall, even though it's spending is near the bottom.

Using the sources I've provided, Utah is at the absolute bottom in spending per student (over $3000 less per student than Kansas), but ranks 9th nationally. Perhaps it's not how much is spent - but HOW it is spent, and what the State and school districts see as the the goal of the educational system.

But what I asked for is your sources, PopeTazo. Sources that I've noticed that you have yet to provide.

Here you go. I'm flattered that you prefer my sources to the other poster who provided them. Happy to oblige (the last one is a nice summary)

http://www.kansascity.com/news...

https://arstechnica.com/tech-p...

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/0...

https://www.vice.com/en_us/art...

Cops get paid a lot of money, considering their education level, retirement and lifetime health benefits.

Being a cop has an inherent risk. They're the police, not a wartime army. They have to take risks to protect innocent civilians. Maybe the suspect has a gun, and maybe he doesn't. Maybe the suspect is not following orders because he doesn't understand, or he's deaf, or doesn't speak English. They can't just blow away anybody who looks suspicious.

If cops don't want to take the risk of the job, there are lots of people lining up to take their place.

Kansas City cops get a median of $52,000/year, and some of them get a lot more. https://www1.salary.com/MO/Kan... http://www.kansascity.com/news...

Here in my city (Canada) city police start at $C53,500 and across Canada RCMP at $C 53,144. Selected conversions to $USD. Pension is at 60% of the highest five years earnings, including overtime and retired member is eligible for full pension at 25 years service.

City Constable, probationary, 1st 6 months: $C 53,500 $US 40,053
City Constable, probationary, 2nd 6 months: $C 58,356
City Constable, 2nd year $C 70,027 $US 55,044
City Constable 10th year $C 105,041
City Constable 17th year $C 106,986 $US 84,095
Sergeant $C 116,712 [earned promotion]
Staff Sergeant $C 128,383 [earned promotion] $US 100,914
Obviously there are other positions that pay more.
Above based on 4 days on, 4 days off, 12 hour shifts

RCMP constable, probationary $C 53,144 $US 41,773
RCMP, constable, 6 months $C 69,049
RCMP constable, 12 months $C 74,916 $US 58,886
RCMP constable, 24 months $C 80,786
RCMP constable, 36 months $C 86,110 $US 67,685
[RCMP pay and promotion is automatic with service, so renumeration will continue to rise, as follows]
RCMP corporal $C 94,292
RCMP sergeant $ 102,775 $US 80,785
RCMP staff sergeant $ 112,028 [earned promotion]

Cops get paid a lot of money, considering their education level, retirement and lifetime health benefits.

Being a cop has an inherent risk. They're the police, not a wartime army. They have to take risks to protect innocent civilians. Maybe the suspect has a gun, and maybe he doesn't. Maybe the suspect is not following orders because he doesn't understand, or he's deaf, or doesn't speak English. They can't just blow away anybody who looks suspicious.

If cops don't want to take the risk of the job, there are lots of people lining up to take their place.

Kansas City cops get a median of $52,000/year, and some of them get a lot more. https://www1.salary.com/MO/Kan... http://www.kansascity.com/news...

You don't have a sense of humor anymore? People aren't supposed to be able to laugh?

As usual, when right wingers criticize the left, they describe themselves.

Right winger vs black lives matter
Trump voter vs man of Indian descent.
Effects of Christians insisting Muslims are dangerous

Yes, it's been confirmed by other sources. Kansas City's newspaper had a good article about it.

Kansas, BTW, is firmly middle of the pack on both measures. Kansas is #25 of 50 in terms of GDP per capita, and according to the Mercatus rankings, they're #27. So Kansas isn't a perfect example.

Kansas is a perfect example. Forget GSP (the state version of GDP) and Mercatus. Look at the trendlines. Since they've had this experiment in extreme trickle-down economics, they're rapidly heading into the shitter.

http://www.bls.gov/eag/eag.ks....

http://www.kansascity.com/opin...

“We were talking about it, and then I said I’d like to celebrate his presidential job” because Trump will advocate deregulation, Son told reporters according to Bloomberg News.

There was a lot of speculation about that since the day after the election.

“We were talking about it, and then I said I’d like to celebrate his presidential job” because Trump will advocate deregulation, Son told reporters according to Bloomberg News.

There was a lot of speculation about that since the day after the election.

Why do these people keep doing the same reports year after year? Every previous report has said the same thing.

From 2009

August, 2013

August 2013 again

September 2013

June 2014

We don't need any more studies to state the obvious.

3.5GHz
http://www.kansascity.com/news...

Chigaco is not, and never has been, the murder capital of the country.

That is a myth.
That FBI releases the numbers every year.

Chicago is not even close to being the most dangerous city in the US.

In fact, the 3 most dangerous cities actually have lows against passing ANY gun control ordinances, whatsoever

6 cities have held the title 'murder capital' since 1985. None was Chicago.

In fact the city most often claiming the title, is New Orleans.
And it's one of those that is barred from crafting any firearms ordinances by state law.
What state is that? Why, Louisiana, the 2nd most dangerous state I the nation, with some of the weakest gun laws in the nation.

And at the other end of the spectrum, one of the safest cities in the country is, repeatedly, New York City, replete with its very strict gun control.
Located in New York state, one of the safest states in the nation, a state with tough gun control, and already closed the gun show loophole among other things.

Funny how you types always leave that out.

And some more reading:
http://www.pewresearch.org/fac...
http://www.kansascity.com/opin...
https://www.washingtonpost.com...

I misspoke, I was intending to compare total income loss (Time spend in prison vs the fine). The time spent in prison is definitely incomparable except in extreme cases.

The RIAA/MPAA usually attempts to get more money than the average person makes in several decades.

The average income in the United States in 2011 was $27,500. A year in prison could be considered a $27,000 fine.

Let's compare this to some fines for piracy.

Joel Tenenbaum, who was fined $675,000, which would be equal in income loss to 24.5 years in prison (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_Music_Entertainment_v._Tenenbaum)

There's also Thomas-Rasset , who was originally fined 1.5 million dollars (54.5 years) but was reduced to $222,000 (8 years) after an appeal (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Records,_Inc._v._Thomas-Rasset)

Outrageous fines like this are not unusual, but a number of people have (After several appeals) managed to get them reduced to something more reasonable

Lets compare this to murder.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Second degree murder ranges from 5 years to life, depending on the state (Keep in mind a "life" sentence can mean as little as 15 years).

Here's an extreme example:

http://www.kansascity.com/news...

4 years, two months for shooting, torturing and beheading a man.

BS. Morningside, Inman park, Ansley park and several connected areas are all fantastic family areas downtown in Atlanta and have been for a long time... If you can afford them. We moved into there in the mid 80's while tech wood etc... were some of the most New Jack level housing projects in the country. Midtown was the buffer zone from that mess and it has benefited dramatically since the cleanup of the projects that happened in the build up to the Olympics in '96. Inner city violence has been wildly over reported and has been in a long decline for a couple of decades at this point. In most cases these days it is often sadly concentrated in very specific areas. But in the grand scheme there is little to no difference in the violence levels in urban areas vs suburban vs rural these days. Certainly nowhere near the clearly elevated urban levels seen during the 80's and 90's. One good story example, and there are plenty more...

http://www.kansascity.com/2013...

I don't think you can blame the parents for "fucking over" the donor: it's the Kansas Department for Children and Families that has brought the case, and the recipients of the funds may not have a say in the matter.

illness.
2. The custodial parent at that point applied for state benefits. During this the state hounded her into giving up the father's name.
3. Seeking to recover benefits, the Kansas Department sued to have him declared the father and require child support payments, noting that they paid $189 in cash benefits and 'over $6k' in medical.

The way this goes, the Department of Department of Children and Families will get all the money until the ~$6200 is recovered. The woman, as custodial parent of the child, won't see a cent of it until then.

Local government regulations are the biggest expense that new providers have to deal with when entering a given market. Why do you think Google is so picky about where they deploy fiber? They are cherry picking their first markets for those whose governments are going to provide the lowest barrier to entry. Kansas City not only had the lowest, but they were so interested in fiber that they even offered them perks for coming.

In fact, there's a city government whose politicians are currently in hot water because their hesitancy to allow a google fiber rollout caused google to abandon plans to start a new deployment in that city. They had already delayed it by 9 months and then wanted to wait another month to delay, so google called it off (and right after they did, suddenly the council said they're ready to sign on the dotted line - though it was too little too late.)

http://www.kansascity.com/2013/10/25/4575335/momentary-stall-in-overland-park.html

In some places it is really hard to deploy broadband. Google is merely balking at delays in this case, but there are much worse things to contend with, for example bleeding hearts that don't like it when you have to dig trenches in areas where there is no conduit because it "upsets the land". Or worse, the city politicians who won't allow for 4g deployment citing "health concerns" even though there are no proven health concerns.

If the administration really wanted to speed broadband deployment, they should put restrictions as to what city governments are allowed to enact as far as ordinances that limit broadband deployment. Facilitating broadband deployment would be pretty easy to throw under the interstate commerce clause.

Well it is supposed to be coming to Olathe, although they skipped quite a few of the 'burbs to make that leap.

Some kid managed to kill himself while taking apart an unplugged power supply. I'm not sure how he managed to electrocute himself off a capacitor, but it's definitely possible.

Because Ohio is split between north and south much like the rest of the eastern US with the north more liberal and democrat and the south more conservative and republican. The division crosses economic and cultural lines. In southern Ohio you will find lots of people with southern or hillbilly accents while northern Ohio has typical mid-western accents. The southern areas are "bible belt", northern areas not so much. The southern economy is agricultural, rural and resource based (coal), the northern is old industrial (auto & steel). Here's an article on it: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/11/05/3901108/5-ohios-analyzed-in-swing-state.html. It's a serendipitous mirroring of the red state/ blue state division of the whole USA. That is why it doesn't come together.

And that's not all! Did you know there're identifying numbers on your car, too? Law enforcement can track you and indict you simply because of a number on the backside of your car! You should probably just leave your car at home.

Apparently so.

// So Google did get to the front doors of all the people in Kansas City, and Charter and AT&T couldn't stop them, because the city agreed to it. //

As a Kansas City-area resident, I'm afraid this is not the case. I don't know anyone that lives in Kansas City, KS that currently has access to Google Fiber services, or that has seen any trucks or workers in their neighborhood.

Google has been very short on public details with this entire project, and this launch that the article is referring to has to refer to a very limited and localized deployment.

Keep in mind that physical installation did not even begin until this past February: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytjn-5_li-I

'A Google spokeswoman would not say whether the announcement actually means somebody in Kansas City will finally get a light-speed connection next week.

"We're excited to announce more information Google Fiber next week," said Jenna Wandres. "We haven't elaborated on what arriving means."'
http://www.kansascity.com/2012/07/18/3711326/google-fiber-to-make-july-26-announcement.html#storylink=misearch

I'll be curious to eventually find out who has access to it, exactly, and how long it'll be before any significant portions of the city are lit up.

angel'o'sphere blathered:

Again, what part of "Ray Bradbury always referred to HIMSELF as a fantasist, not a science fiction writer" is unclear to you?" Unlear for me is that he did that :D

Because you don't know anything about the man. Here's just one (hint: try the second-to-last paragraph on for size) of many citations of his description of his own work as fantasy, not science fiction.

And clear for me is that mars chronicals is SF.

See above.

OTOH most of the categories are not well defined. And frankly I'm a bit tired about this. Is star wars fantasy or SF or is it science fantasy (what ever that is supposed to mean)?

You consider the categories of sf vs. fantasy ill-defined because you're an ignoramous.

Star Wars falls within the subset of sf called "Space Opera". It misses being fantasy by grace of the pseudo-scientific explanation of The Force being a product of midichlorians.

A 3-D video-wall with Smell-O-Vision that somehow magically transforms into the actual African veldt is NOT science fiction, Sorry this makes not much sense. Wether it is SF or fantasy can not be decided on this single sentence, but only in context.

Horseshit, sailor.

Bradbury proposes no mechanism by which the veldt display becomes an actual veldt. That's because it's a horror story, not sf.

You are a nincompoop, Angelo. Your argumentum consists exclusively of sticking your fingers in your ears, firmly shutting your eyes, and screaming, "No, no, no, no, NO!" at the top of your lungs.

I think you need a time-out.

At this point it's obvious you don't deal with security or children (or shouldn't be, at least). Security is pointless if it's compromised, or left to the whims of people involved. I'll pick out a few bits of nonsense:

And that only happened when they tried to grab her. If they'd been sensible, that would never have happened.

There's no evidence the kid was ever "grabbed". From a clearer source:

She said the officers told the girl her she had to come to them, alone, and spread her arms and legs. When the girl ran in the opposite direction, she said, an officer told Brademeyer “they would shut down the entire airport, cancel all flights, if my daughter was not restrained.”

And, frankly at that point, you're seriously evaluating the risk of a 4 year old pulling off two complex transfers with the second one not being detected? That's not common sense.

No, I'm evaluating the risk of a child being used as a tool for pulling off two complex transfers, where everyone involved has an unknown level of training. Children of all ages are known to be used around the world as pickpockets and drug mules. When your goal is to maintain security, "common sense" is expecting a hug to be part of the act.

Kids get scared, computers don't. Computers do exactly what you tell them, kids don't. Kids can't be reasoned with by the person who is scaring them.

By age four, children are perfectly capable of understanding appropriate behavior, and being patient enough to wait through lines. They're also capable of being used for smuggling. The "sensible" thing to do would be to talk to your kids about appropriate behavior before entering the checkpoint, not assume the TSA's going to babysit your kids for you at the expense of security.

The TSA officials had mature, sensible options with prefectly adequate security open to them.

Like have the mother accompany the child during her pat-down, with a manger's approval and additional supervision? That's what ultimately happened, and it took a whole 10 minutes to accomplish... but please don't let that get in the way of your rant.

There's nothing I've seen that isn't a blatant retelling of the family's story, with minimal input from the TSA. There's one source that shares most details with TFA, but has less sensationalism, and gives a clearer picture of the sequence of events. Since the TSA's statement is short and not very informative, separating the actual events from the family's emotional retelling is a matter of interpretation.

A female officer started “yelling at my child and demanded she, too, must sit down and await a full body pat-down,” Brademeyer said. Her daughter responded by putting her hands over her face and crying.

“I was prevented from coming any closer, explaining the situation to her, or consoling her in any way. It was implied, several times, that my mother, in their brief two-second embrace, had passed a handgun to my daughter.”

I interpret that to mean that the parent didn't control their kid through the checkpoint or explain sufficiently that they'd need to "stay near mommy", and apparently the grandmother (who was worthy of getting a running hug a few seconds prior) didn't console the confused child herself. When the TSA tried to explain that the procedure is because contraband could be passed, the family took that as an accusation.

I personally think the TSA's a ridiculous waste of my government's time and resources, but that's no excuse for turning a child's confusion into a sensational media circus.

Noticed that when I was looking to see if anyone had come up with a sufficient rebuttal to this empirical link but aside from a few insane pundits, I didn't find much.

What's to rebut? The observed phenomena are easily explainable as a consequence of supply and demand, and they neither support nor contradict the "drill baby drill" crowd. Personally, I regard economics as a quasi-science, but this is one of the areas of economics which is actually quite dependable and understandable.

For example: Suppose the Ruritanian Oil Co. suddenly brings online a huge new trivially extractable supply of oil which floods the world market, bringing the price of oil from its present value of roughly $100 per barrel to $10 per barrel. In the US, domestic oil production would practically shut down overnight. If you're losing money every time you pump more oil out of the ground and sell it, then you're going to stop pumping pretty quick.

Next, suppose there is a civil war the following year in Ruritania and, for good measure, several other large oil exporting states. The price of oil shoots back up to around $100, and steadily climbs to $200 over the next few years. The obvious consequence is that the rate of domestic oil production will climb back to where it was, and grow even larger as previously unprofitable wells are brought back into operation.

In other words, when prices are high, we should expect domestic production to be high, and we should expect low production when prices are low.

The system works this way because oil is a global market, the cost of import/export is less than the costs of production, and the US production is considerably smaller than the total global production.

This does not mean that impeding domestic production won't raise prices. On the contrary, it probably will raise prices, all else being equal. However, we should expect this effect on price may be often be dominated by price fluctuations from other sources, simply because the US does not produce most of the world's oil.

Minnesota Public Radio pulls some choice quotes ...

Submitter here, my mistake on that above source. When I read this in my news feed yesterday, I didn't see the AP markings all around this story. All of it appears to be completely and solely Associated Press sourced. I apologize if that confused anyone.

Noticed that when I was looking to see if anyone had come up with a sufficient rebuttal to this empirical link but aside from a few insane pundits, I didn't find much. The remaining arguments for "drill here, drill now" probably rests on "job creation" (waiting on that fact check) and, according to Thomas McClanahan from the Kansas City Star, it "means fewer dollars going to nasty, unstable regimes and more revenue for the Treasury, especially if the drilling is on public lands." He might be right about lowering the trade deficit but I think there are other things we could stop doing to prevent unstable regimes.

The companies that Romney was said to "strip and sell" were companies that were on the verge of collapse.

Bullshit. They bought up companies to strip assets from, nothing more. Most of the companies bought by Bain were doing well enough on their own.

So they buy the companies, make them profitable and then sell them.

No, what Bain did was buy up the companies, strip the assets for sale and the IP portfolio for sale, and then shut down anything that didn't sell. This is what Bain actually did, and you're a fucking liar.

The republican party is not racists however they are #1 with racists (to paraphrase The Simpsons).

You don't get to be #1 with racists without dog-whistling racism all day long. Republican policies are, and have been since they welcomed the Dixiecrats with open arms, racist. You honestly think they'd be screaming about shutting down "the border" if the majority of "illegals", as the racist repubs like to call them, were white-skinned canadians?

You have a problem with facts, you want to vilify the republicans you are just as bad as the republicans are to the democrats.

Oh bullshit and go fuck yourself. The Republicans are fucking lunatics who think that shutting down free breast cancer exams for low income women is "justified" if they can "get" Planned Parenthood - just the latest example of the GOP, modern home of racism, misogyny, and inhumanity.

The office of at least one of the more corrupt U.S. state Governors monitors online posts for politically unfavorable viewpoints and has even taken action against them.

King Sam lost that one, though. Got pwned by a high school student.

The office of at least one of the more corrupt U.S. state Governors monitors online posts for politically unfavorable viewpoints and has even taken action against them.

Meanwhile the rich get richer:

Homes with three or more TV sets will climb a notch to 56 percent.

UPDATE A Nielsen rep, after seeing media stories reacting to their report and chart, emailed to clarify that TV ownership has actually declined once before: In 1992, "after Nielsen adjusted for the 1990 Census, and subsequently underwent a period of significant growth."

or the articles it links to:

So, my story (below) about six-month-old Nielsen data has so far been picked up by the New York Post and Pat's Papers.

TV technologies on their way up include DVRs, which Nielsen estimates will be in 41 percent of homes in 2012, digital cable (51 percent) and HDTV (67 percent).

Also upticking: houses with three or more TV sets (56 percent) and time the average household spends in front of the tube or flat screen: a record 59 hours 28 minutes of TV watching per week.

Despite earlier reports that suggested people were unplugging, cable and satellite TV use has remained rock-steady in homes with TV (90 percent versus 10 percent of homes using rabbit ears).

For first time in history, TV ownership declines

These blog posts are a few paragraphs long and don't link to the Nielson report itself.

I would have liked to have had a look at regional and ethnic distribution --- our local cable service has gone multiingual and multicultural in a very big way.

There are a lot of ways to feed media to that big screen HDTV --- if you can afford (and have access to) digital cable, broadband Internet service, the video game console, the Roku set top box, and so on.

I haven't seen a shortage of programs worth watching. The problem is finding a program that everyone in the family wants to watch together.

Nothing in the first amendment says adults have the right to speak to other people's children, good thing because that would be a little creepy.

What could possibly be wrong with teachers having private conversations with students

Simple, set up Facebook accounts for each teacher through the school IT department. Teachers can engage with students outside school hours but the district would have the capability to monitor if necessary. But it also seems like the districts should be setting policies like this, not the state legislature.

That's great... the US will stop its own Internet http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/01/24/power-shut-internet-court-oversight/ but it will make Internet in a suitcase (LOL) for those big desert countries.

Let's keep spending US taxpayer dollars to protect the rights of people out there in other countries, while our own Supreme Court says police can ignore the 4th amendment. http://blogs.kansascity.com/crime_scene/2011/05/supreme-court-ruling-lets-police-break-down-doors-to-save-evidence.html ...while we pay for them to take our rights and hand them to others.

What's next, China owning the US? http://www.prisonplanet.com/meet-the-new-boss-china-owns-the-united-states.html

Lou

What I said is fact, and nothing in your reply did anything to contradict any of it. The attacks are the result of fundamentalist (or extremist, if you like) Islamist thought; the funding and the manpower came from Saudi.

WRT Bin Ladin, it matters not one whit where he is -- kill him, another will rise. The Bin Ladin hunt is just theater for the gullible. Say we caught him; It'd be like them capturing and/or killing Obama or Petraeus: all that would do is further annoy us. Either side would have a replacement in zip time. But if a leader has no funding, and has no stream of ready recruits, then he has nothing.

So you either take care of this at the source, which is definitely radical Islam within Saudi Arabia, or you haven't taken care of it at all.

Afghanistan and Iraq are meaningless here. The strictly represent a sink for military effort, which in turn is a huge financial boon to the corporate entities that control congress. In order to accomplish anything significant militarily, Islamic interests and power bases within Saudi Arabia have to be the objective.

Look:

Where the money comes from (UK intelligence)

Saudi funds Taliban

Ramadan is key source of funding

Saudis greatest fund source for terror (US diplomatic cables)

If you can actually maintain the illusion that Afghanistan is the source of this problem, I'm sure there's nothing I can say or point to that will dissuade you - but that doesn't change the facts, which are plain and simple. The problem is Islam, it is centered in Saudi Arabia in both the financial (most important) and manpower senses. Either that gets addressed, or no solution is possible. Which shows up the Afghanistan and Iraq wars as no more than money-channeling theater. Not to mention a complete waste of American soldier's lives, not that such a thing matters to politicians other than as media opportunities.

"The government" is just a government, failible and oft-failing like every other construct. The people it is supposed to serve would do better if more of "the government"'s actions and inevitable mistakes are brought to light, for if not, what chance do we the people stand to correct them?

Get over your myopia.

Troop movements? Operational secrecy is enough. There is no reason to hide the historical record of wars, aye, even to the last cartridge spent - other than to hide the incompetence, malice aforethought and corruption of some military and political leaders.

Tax records are already open, in progressive countries, and boy do they help weed out the corrupt.

To keep Obama safe, given that he's already pissed off a lot of people, you just need operational secrecy, again - one only needs make sure that no adversary is keeping tabs NOW, location and direction info will be worthless in minutes or hours at most. Not to mention, if America were more of a democracy it could do away with the office of president - dispersal is the best defense, having high-value targets at all is a strategic weakness.

Delicate negotiations with a company to make available some revolutionary technology to solve "global warming"? Why not go public, in the most damaging way possible? "Look, Company X has a fix for global warming, but they've refused to sell at a fair price -in fact, at any price." Should encourage other corps to not try and keep revolutionary tech under wraps ever again.

Diplomats working behind the scenes to free civilians from captivity in some Islamic hell hole? Well, yes, the world DOES need to know, in detail, exactly how the white-garbed mullahs with their long beards and avuncular manners are actually hardened mobsters and drug dealers, who haggle for hostages exclusively in terms of dollars/head and/or political clout - that should put paid to any notions that radical Islam is a religion like any other or that those people are clerics in any true sense.

To keep NBC weapons safe, you ... ahem... waitaminit... why ARE there NBC weapons at all? Hardly targetable at all, definitely unacceptable in limited warfare. If you are not actively trying to bring about the end of the world you'd want your government to dispose of such weapons as quickly and as publicly as possible, replacing them, of course, with other things that can keep you safer, such as, I dunno, better diplomacy (best done on public stage, btw, just ask Woodrow Wilson) or more ways to make your society and culture resilient, such as producing better, smarter, nicer, healthier, more dangerous citizens.

These kinds of weapons can and should be wielded publicly and their existence, location and capabilities widely advertised. Who can defend against a million potential assassins/soldiers? Against ten million hackers or intelligence collection/analysis agents? Who can stop the flow of the best and the brightest to the countries, cultures and corporations where they are truly appreciated and can live to their fullest?

This looks to me like just another case of politicians trying to protect their big contributors. Consider:

The legislation's sponsors are from Texas (Cornyn) and New York (Schumer).

AT&T is based in Texas. AT&T has given more political contributions than any other company. Its current COO, and its former CEO, both donated to Cornyn.

Verizon is based in New York. Verizon is also on OpenSecret's heavy hitters list at the above link. Verizon's CEO unsurprisingly donated to Schumer.

Boost (Sprint) is based in Kansas.

Boost/Sprint has been the most aggressive in moving into prepaid phones, which often have lower costs than contract services. This threatens the incumbents: AT&T and Verizon each have about double Sprint's subscriber base, and thus have the most to lose from a shift towards prepaid.

Increased surveillance rules remove prepaid's privacy benefits. And they impose record-keeping costs on prepaid services like Boost, making them less competitive with AT&T and Verizon's lucrative contract businesses.

These actions speak louder than words, and I hope the voters are listening this November.

You don't have to wait until November. Bennet already lost his party's nomination.

* Fast action on Oil Spill

Oops! You let a real one slip through. I suggest you break out of your epistemic closure.

I suppose you read up on the George Russell Weller case, where he ran his car through a farmers market in Los Angeles in 2003. 10 dead, 63 injured. He got confused to which pedal did what, and drove through the market at 40 to 60 mph before finally coming to a stop. He was 86 at the time. This car was a 1993 Buick LeSabre. (Picture of the car when it was done hitting everyone)

    10 years before, he had a similar accident where he hit the gas instead of the brakes, and his car ended up on top of a K-rail (aka Jersey barrier), and was completely confused to how it happened. One of the LA TV stations had pictures of the first accident that they showed on TV, but I can't seem to find them online. It was one of those "how the hell did he get his car up there" pictures.

  He wasn't charged with anything in the earlier case, but was found guilty of 10 counts of manslaughter in the 2003 case. Since it was so old (90 by the time of the conviction) he wasn't sent to prison.

    In a 2006 story about that case, they had a few winning quotes.

George Russell Weller told police he had no idea how the car he was driving accelerated through a crowded farmers market in Santa Monica more than three years ago.

Nor, Weller said within an hour of the incident, did he know how his car came to a stop after leaving nearly 1,000 feet of carnage, 10 people dead and more than 60 injuries in its wake.

There were 427 accidents reported in the United States involving "unintended acceleration" in 1989 and 61 in 1992 -- the last year for which statistics are available -- after wider use of a mechanical change that made it impossible to put a car into gear unless the driver had a foot on the brake.

Drivers older than 70 are more than five times more likely than others to experience pedal error, according to Rae Tyson of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Yep, there are certainly idiots on both sides.

http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS248104+14-May-2009+PRN20090514
http://cofcc.org/2009/09/actual-political-violence/
http://voices.kansascity.com/node/2670
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/2009/08/24/0824kibby.html
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/president/2004-10-05-gop-office-attack_x.htm
blah, blah, blah...

The AP article linked to has been edited down from its original form. The original article makes it plain that, "Agencies often cite more than one exemption when withholding part or all of the material sought in an open-records request." And that there have not been 466,872 denials. There have been 466,872 citations of FOIA exemptions for the purposes of denying part or all of a request. Indeed, there has been a decrease in the number of FOIA requests denied in their entirety:

"They denied FOIA requests in their entirety based on exemptions 20,005 times last fiscal year, compared with 21,057 times the previous year."

Because without punitive damages companies will - boy, oh boy are there oodles of examples - just do wrong until they get caught ... if they get caught and only have to pay some potential small fine. Punitive damages punish those who did wrong on purpose. http://www.kansascity.com/2010/03/01/1782803/nearly-2-million-awarded-to-blue.html This car dealer KNOWLINGLY sold a previously damages car to a young couple without disclosing it. The damage was not readily visible to a non technical car person. The car dealer refused to cover issues with the car UNDER WARRANTY THEY SOLD. Yeah, they got hit with punitive damages. And maybe, maybe they won't do it again.