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I had my packages stolen, and then started having them delivered to my work location and/or amazon lockers when available. It is inconvenient, however safer.

The main driver of the issue is that police will not have the resources to look at small crimes. In fact, it seems like they will not be able to prosecute if the item costs less than $1000 or so: https://www.latimes.com/opinio...

The thieves know this, and they would not care even if they get caught. This is not a good thing for our society. If we do not have resources to prosecute them we should at least put some method of discouragement. Community service, or financial penalties, or some another method to prevent future thefts.

Otherwise we would essentially give up the sanctuary of homes, and hence civilized society.

Found it. It's from the LA Times.

https://www.latimes.com/busine...

It's kind of hard to give India much of a reprimand over some of that, when we're not much better. Someone from San Francisco made a poop map where people could report all of the human shit on the streets. India at least has some people who seem to care about fixing those problems whereas we in the U.S. seem content with letting the problems we have get worse or fighting against people trying to help solve them.

North Korea isn't building nukes to hit the US

They say they are building them to hit the US. See for example this article. There are plenty similar over the years.

Like the time a Russian spy satellite powered by a nuclear reactor burned up in the upper atmosphere releasing roughly 90 lbs of uranium particles into the atmosphere?

The author of that article is clueless. U235 "highly radioactive"? No. If so, it would not have lasted for billions of years in the earth's crust, along with u238, thorium and potassium-40.
Perhaps the writer is confusing it with the Plutonium 238 used in space probe RTGs?
The concern with reactors crashing, weapon tests, and power reactor accidents is not the large amount of near-stable uranium, but the small amount of fission byproducts, such as the caesium-137 in the above article.

Everyone alive at the time probably has a few atoms of it in their bodies.

And countless atoms of uranium from other sources. About 0.1 mg. Lots more potassium 40 though!

Like the time a Russian spy satellite powered by a nuclear reactor burned up in the upper atmosphere releasing roughly 90 lbs of uranium particles into the atmosphere? Everyone alive at the time probably has a few atoms of it in their bodies. While trivial compared to background radiation this kind of pollution can easily get out of hand so serious regulation and cleanup is necessary but people shouldn't get too worked up as natural sources of radiation are everywhere and dwarf the trace amounts we are detecting in the op article.

In the advanced stages of the disease, the afflicted lose touch with reality. Opinion is unmoored from fact. Life resembles a dark fairy tale in which the villain – Trump – is an amalgam of all the worst tyrants in history, past and present, while the heroes –Trump's critics – are akin to the resistance fighters of World War II.

It's like those people who say Hillary committed a crime (email server) yet all those lawyers and agents at the FBI said otherwise.

Why that is a lie... James Comey explicitly stated that:

Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case

It's actually a prosecutor's role to make that choice, not the FBI. The FBI found evidence of violations - but tried to (and appeared to, successfully) - protect an Administration confidant. There actually was evidence of a crime committed - but it was willfully ignored by the FBI and the Obama DOJ.

Why do you want a partisan DOJ to ignore crimes by their "friends"?

"Boeing should just scrap the design."

The 2 comments above this one disagreed. I think you are correct. I've done electronic design and computer programming. The entire 737 MAX-8 new system components need re-consideration.

Others agree. For example: Boeing 737 MAX-8 Scandal Grows: Doomed Lion Air Flight Should Never Have Flown. (Yesterday, Mar. 21, 2019)

FBI joining criminal investigation into certification of Boeing 737 MAX . (Mar. 20, 2019)

Pentagon to probe if Shanahan used office to help Boeing. (Mar. 20, 2019) "Shanahan, 56, joined Boeing in 1986, rose through its ranks and is credited with rescuing the troubled Dreamliner 787 program."

Boeing has a history of flawed management: A flawed missile defense system generates $2 billion in bonuses for Boeing (Sept. 2, 2016)

Wait no, in California criminally neglected power lines cause devastating fires. There's a reverse Russian joke in there.

Someone already built one

Some background info on that one.

For first time in 132 years, L.A. never reached 70 degrees in February...

But you stupid fucks still blame it on carbon.

And hell froze over in LA this February. How much of this is (or isn't) statistical noise amplified by climate change hype?

This study is meaningless.

The article states, "Three experiments were conducted in which the volunteers were asked to carry out a series of tasks commonly used to measure creative verbal performance."

So, their study covers the left brain functions, but completely fail to consider the right brain.

If you're looking for a meaningful correlation between music and creativity, this study from 1993 seems much more apropos.

California and HP have collaborated to keep the shit show at the DMV ongoing for years. Outages abound. Probably a good 20% of the time I go to the DMV, they're having some kind of outage. And then there's the training issue — the system is antiquated, and has to be massaged just so to get it to work, so a huge amount of training is required and employees clearly aren't getting it. The system is actually from the sixties, as I understand it. The ID system has been modernized, but vehicle registration is still grossly antiquated.

Why the hell aren't they charged with attempted murder?
Shit, a cop was recently convicted of attempted murder in Toronto for the 7 bullets he put into the perp after killing him with 2 shots. He did get off the murder charge though.
Even then they suspended him with pay, while waiting appeal, which is insane. (Appeal refused)
https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/...

Oh yes, it isn't murder if a cop shoots someone in the USA if they feel threatened.
From the wiki article on murder,

In the United States, in some states and in federal jurisdiction, a killing by a police officer is excluded from prosecution if the officer believes they are being threatened with deadly force by the victim. This may include such actions by the victim as reaching into a glove compartment or pocket for license and registration, if the officer thinks that the victim might be reaching for a gun.[30]

With the citation,

Joseph Goldstein (July 28, 2016). "Is a Police Shooting a Crime? It Depends on the Officer's Point of View". The New York Times. Archived from the original on August 1, 2016. Retrieved July 29, 2016. "The longstanding official deference to the viewpoint of police officers is enshrined in the laws of some states and Supreme Court rulings."

A couple more citations quickly looking,
https://www.npr.org/2018/04/03...
https://www.latimes.com/nation...

It's actually pretty well documented that the air quality from cooking can get to surprisingly bad levels quickly.

The range hoods in a lot of kitches are often only minimally up to code, too far from the cooking surface, and dirty, attached to ductwork that is too long with too many corners to deliver anything close to the rated air movement. And many homeowners don't think to even turn them on unless the cooking is active smoking.

An decent spec range hood, installed correctly, that is clean and not hobbled by inadequate ductwork is all you need. But it is shocking how rare this is.

As it happens, my current place, had been upgraded to a nice gas stove with no real thought to the range hood. The range hood is a cheap builders 280 CFM unit with around 25 feet of 5" diameter horizontal pipe with at least 3 90 degree turns. It also leaks air where it connects to the duct; so a good fraction of the air it sucks in is just blowing back into the kitchen

The range hood should be at least 400CFM for the gas stove that's installed. But due to the duct work, will need to be even higher. And it should be turned on to at least low even when just boiling water for tea.

If we roasted a turkey and let some fat drop; and have current fan on max, all the windows and doors open, the bathroom fans going, and all the ceiling fans going... we'd still set off the smoke detector.

We're in the process of getting it replaced.

Here's a couple article from 2013... this is not "new".

http://articles.latimes.com/20...
https://www.npr.org/sections/t...

Yeah! And sell California too. A hot bed of that extra special breed of democrat corruption.

Since it isn't, the rest of your rant is moot.

Serious question here....just how much shit is packed between your ears? I just mentioned Tamir Rice and John Crawford by name, who weren't holding real guns, much less threatening cops with them, when they were gunned down on sight. But even if they were holding real guns, Ohio is an open-carry state and it would have been legal for them to do so. No charges for the cops that murdered them.

There's also Philandro Castile and Emantic Bradford just off the top of my head. Hell, cops have even gunned down people holding fucking garden nozzles on their own fucking property.

No charges for any of the cops that murdered these people minding their own business, some on their own property, and some in open carry states. There is no right to bear arms if using that right means you're subjected to an instant death sentence from cops who will suffer no consequences for murdering you.

Fake news doesn't want to talk about the Uranium One deal though. I wonder why?

Hey Anonymous Coward, the mainstream media discussed it extensively at the time.

For example:

https://www.latimes.com/nation...

Problem was their fact-based analysis didn't reinforce your lies, so you decried it as "FAKE NEWS!"

Those are the key words here. This is not a bill as such, it is a collection of ideas. Personally I would be highly skeptical of these kinds of grandiose plans. Here are a few choice quotes:

“Upgrade or replace every building in US for state-of-the-art energy efficiency.” - Every building. In the entire United States. All of them. The quote mentions "replace" so I presume they are willing to demolish buildings that don't meet the standard.

“Build out high speed rail at a scale where air travel stops becoming necessary” - Maybe we should check in with our friends in California and see how the rail line between San Francisco and Los Angeles is coming along: https://www.latimes.com/local/...

At last count the cost has ballooned from the original $6B to $10.6B - almost double.

Keep in mind this is 119 miles of train line, not the 10's of thousands of miles of train line we would need to make air travel "unnecessary". How are you going to get to Hawaii? Or New York to London? Build a train line across the ocean?

Don't trains also pollute? Or maybe Elon Musk going to build solar trains and solve all of that for us.

Look, I'm all for a cleaner environment but this woman is a complete wingnut.

The real question, of course, is how much will this boondoggle actually cost to which Ocasio-Cortez admits, “even if every billionaire and company came together and were willing to pour all the resources at their disposal into this investment, the aggregate value of the investments they could make would not be sufficient.”. In other words, astronomical not to mention completely impractical.

All is not lost though. I hear that Venezuela is having some trouble and could use a helping hand.

It speaks only to political intolerance, i.e. intolerance of political views. But liberals are more tolerant of literally everything else than conservatives.

Pay attention!

I guess you're not aware of California trying to give medicare to illegal immigrants.

One of Newt Gingrich's core strategies for creating a Congress which couldn't work together was to discourage GOP members from fraternizing with the opposition.

This is pretty easy to disprove.

I'm not sure exactly what you're disproving, since the point you go on to make doesn't have any apparent relationship to my posting. I was referring to the stuff discussed in articles like this:

http://articles.latimes.com/20...

I've not really seen anyone being contentious on this - some people don't think it matters, but I think it's generally accepted that Gingrich wanted to keep members from socializing across the aisle.

It's interesting that really stupid people continue to talk about California as if it was run by republicans. California kicked most of it's state republicans to the curb some odd years ago, and got the state back on track. I realize you might have missed that if the only echo chamber you hear is fauxnews, but it's reality.

Here's an old posting, with pictures to help you out because you don't seem to be able to read... or at least, haven't bothered to read in the past 6-8 years. https://www.businessinsider.co...

On the other hand, if you want to see truly fucked up... check out Kansas. https://www.latimes.com/opinio... Republicans there have fucked that state up so badly they can't even afford to keep schools open, and that's even with Kansas leeching money off blue states, you know, like California. California has to have a higher tax because of all the leeching red states that suck money from everyone just so they can have some borrowed (or stolen) boot straps to pull on.

As for that mass exodus from California.... a few interesting numbers: 2017 - 130,000 more left the state for other states, 220,000 more births than deaths, and 185,000 people moved to the state from outside the country.... for a total of an additional 275,000 more people for the year. People without college degrees were more likely to move out of state, while the state added 9,000 more people with graduate degrees than left. So, they gained over twice the number that moved out of state, and increased the education average in doing so. Sounds like a win-win, because stupid doesn't solve problems.

Right now you really should be concerned a lot more with Kansas being totally fucked over than California, then maybe move on to most of the other red states who routinely come in on the really piss poor side of pretty much every bad demographic there is.

Rather than spend money to bury power lines to prevent them starting fires, California has instead decided to launch a satellite and build a high speed train to nowhere.

Preventing fires isn't as cool as shiny gadgets. Californians want the other kids to think they're cool.

Duh, they are too busy hanging out at Starbucks drinking their mocha frapuccino, eating avocado toast and using their $1000 iphone to bitch about how rest of the country needs to buy a prius because reasons and how everything is rest of the country's fault.

Rather than spend money to bury power lines to prevent them starting fires, California has instead decided to launch a satellite and build a high speed train to nowhere.

Preventing fires isn't as cool as shiny gadgets. Californians want the other kids to think they're cool.

The web site of the Los Angeles Times newspaper in California wants to connect with more than 10 other 3rd party services.

No, Reagan didn't close them. This was a trend in the late 60's that mental patients shouldn't be incarcerated against their will, ultimately codified in O’Connor v. Donaldson, 422 U.S. 563 (1975), that said "There is...no constitutional basis for confining such persons involuntarily if they are dangerous to no one."

They weren't rigged. She had a 5 in 6 chance of winning and the die came up 1

That's not how sampling margin of error works. Each poll individually had about a 1 in 6 chance of being wrong about Clinton winning. (Some polls showed it more likely, some showed it less, but on average it was about 1 in 6). But nearly every single poll showed Clinton winning. For that to have happened, the dozens of polls would've had to have each rolled a die, and had it come up 1 every time. That's near-impossible given the number of polls which nearly unanimously showed Clinton winning.

If the bias had simply been due to sampling error, then you'd expect about half the polls to show Trump winning (a % close to the final election tally %). That didn't happen. There was a more systematic bias in all the polling against Trump.

One of the few polls which correctly predicted Trump's win came up with the reason. All the anti-Trump bias in the media's coverage, and the open hostility of Clinton supporters against anyone who dared to even hint that they supported Trump, led to Trump supporters being reluctant to tell pollsters that they were going to vote for Trump. When the L.A. Times/USC poll accounted for this, they correctly predicted a Trump win.

So if Cohen did try to bias online polls in Trump's favor, it was a snowflake in a hellstorm of pro-Clinton bias in the media and by Clinton supporters.

Small point of order:

Do you know what it takes (in materials and energy) to create a solar panel, a windmill, or an economically viable hydroelectric dam? I'll save you the trip - they're expensive.

Long-term, hydro is the best long-term investment (~100-150+ years if properly maintained), followed by solar (~30 years), followed by windmills (~5-10 years before a required overhaul of major components - if the bearings don't burn out and catch fire from friction first). Hydro is limited because of the finite number of suitable locations, coupled with fierce environmental resistance. Hydro is the only one of the three that can provide a decent baseline output, not dictated by wind or natural diurnal cycles. On the other hand, they require the largest initial capital investment, and rarely is one built these days without national governmental funding, oversight, and control (because if it fails, a whole lot of people and property can be destroyed in a hurry...)

Solar panels are limited by the amount of silicon dioxide - rich ore (and for thin-film cells, rare-earth metal) deposits, the hazmat-level chemicals required to crate and process the solar cells, but most of all the massive amounts of energy required to melt and form the crystals (look up the "Czochralski process" (monocrystal) and the "Siemens process" (polycrystal) to give you an idea. Suffice it to say that building more than a dozen of these furnaces requires the local electric utility to have sufficient advance notice to accommodate them, and a large factory is usually required to notify said utility before starting or shutting down their furnace farms to avoid severe imbalance in the local grid.) Overall, they barely break even insofar as how much energy they produce over their useful lives, versus the energy required to produce them.

Windmills are the lest promising of the three. Yes they can be built in quantity, and can even, if properly maintained, produce more energy than required to build them. However, they are the most prone to failure, and rely on the most capricious of elements. While hydro dams almost always have a sufficient energy source (barring prolonged drought), and solar only requires that the sun comes up to produce at least something... windmills require a sufficiently strong wind to get the blades moving, and in most suitable sites, that's not a given even 50-60% of the time. Note that I haven't even touched on the massive NIMBY aspect of having massive white windmills erected within sight of one's neighborhood, nor have I touched on the nasty little aspect of bird kills caused by windmills.

Most any other type of laboratory-proven renewable (e.g. wave generation) is still too experimental, impractical, or (such as geothermal) too limited to be of widespread use due to the rarity of the energy source.

--

Meanwhile, insofar as nuclear power is concerned, this isn't 1956 anymore; reactor designs and lower-order fissiles (e.g. Thorium) can not only mitigate the potential for damage, but can reduce both radiation danger and nuclear waste to a practical non-issue (see also France.)

No need to mention fusion as anything viable (because a practical method to generate electricity from it hasn't been invented yet), but it is still a possibility.

--

But, I have an idea... why not continue doing what the free market has done all along - increase efficiencies in the products that consume the eventual electricity? An old 24" CRT television would swallow 120W without breaking a sweat - a new 42" LED television, nearly 2x as large, sips 80W (a 24" LED television only consumes 40W.) 120W incandescent light bulbs are being (and mostly have been) replaced by 10W LED bulbs. Massive fire-breathing desktops in the early 2000s that swallowed anywhere from 450-1200W are nowadays replaced by laptops that barely use 85W maximum (15" Macbook Pro specs). Where once you had to stuff batterie

Everybody in the House, Senate, and Trump own this.

Trump wants 5 Billion for a wall and pretty much has said. "No Wall, No Deal!". Fine! give it to him. Considering that the govt has spent millions of trival things without question its a drop in the bucket long term and if it's going to be made of steel, The money might actually generate some Democrat friendly union steelworker and manufacturing jobs on it's way to some investor's pockets at least in the short term.

But the Democrats could get something out of it too. They want DACA? throw it in the bill! They want Healthcare and Welfare increases? throw it in the bill! Hell, they could try for a Tax increase so they can hang it over his head in 2020. At least try to make some demands and see if you can get something out of it as well instead of screaming "Trump Temper Tantrum!" and "Where's Mexico's Paycheck?"

The LA metro system is well functioning (I use it to commute to work, and I use it any time I go downtown - I would never drive there any more).

You must be one of the lucky 5 people who actually lives near a station. Doesn't apply to most people in LA as evidenced by their continued overwhelming utilization of automobiles. Approximately 7% of people commute by public transit in LA. Any number greater than zero is good but let's not pretend that it's a hugely significant factor for most of the population. Compare with NYC having around 2/3 of all commuting happening via public transportation.

And by definition when people from the suburbs take the metro they aren't driving. So, yeah, it does cause a reduction in the number of cars on the freeways and surface streets.

Curious then that ridership is falling dramatically in the last 5 years and that Seriously, LA's mass transit is barely more than a bus system that nobody rides if they don't have to. The infrastructure was designed around cars and remains so to this day. Changing that is going to cost VAST sums of money and take a long time to take effect in a substantial way because it will require convincing a LOT of people to relocate.

I know, I know. You'll be now be setting new, higher bars you demand to be cleared for your satisfaction.

Not at all. You will need to clear the old ones first before I worry about moving any goal posts. The evidence doesn't support your thesis.

Wind power bird deaths

Solar power bird deaths

It's tech reporting like this that keeps me coming back to the slashdot. Would this “computer” by any chance be running Microsoft Windows? What the fuck is the point of running a technology blog if you won't supply any technical information? Let me guess, opening an email attachment triggered a macro in a Microsoft Word file ..

Programmers worked to isolate the bug

I would have thought the solution would be to patch the OS then deploy the patched OS to the desktops.

30-40 other industry people advised the US government, offering many suggestions on rewriting the amendment to make it more open to other businesses besides Amazon.

And congress listened to them and made changes, which basically made everyone happy except the government contractors who were making a killing selling $37 screws, a $7,622 coffee maker and $640 toilet seats to a government that wasn't allowed to buy from other sources.

And all this happened over a year ago.

Approximately 420,000 federal employees continued to work through the shutdown. The handful of employees needed to handle this certainly could have been deemed "essential" as well under the circumstances.

This is just a cynical political decision to suspend a high-visibility, low-cost service to try to pressure the shutdown to end, exactly like the cynical political decision to barricade national monuments (and even disable the corresponding websites) during the 2013 shutdown.

You've never done business in China, have you? There is zero concept of "win-win"; if there is a winner, there MUST be a loser. You negotiate for "win-win" and YOU are the loser. You might not like his "bull in a China shop" approach, but it works, because that is how business is done in China in the first place.

And why is the Left suddenly full of hawks who want to deepen and increase wars? President Obama campaigned on ending Iraq and Afghanistan; instead of that, he involved us in numerous new wars. Do the Democrats now want to see us get deeper into military wars and conflicts around the world?

And people forget that President Obama went through 3 Secretaries of Defense in just over 2000 days - the average being shorter than Secretary Mattis.

In order to navigate my neighborhood, the drone would have to duck and weave like a drunken sailor - unless at street level.

The ducking and weaving would still be much easier to program into an autonomous flying machine, than programming pedestrian-avoidance and traffic-sign observance into a surface vehicle.

And yet, we have robo-taxis already — where regulations are "friendly" — but do not have drone-deliveries...

Regulatory problems aren't a reason

They are. As I said already, FAA bans drone-operation outside of the operator's line of sight. One may ask for a waiver, but 99% of such requests are rejected.

When the technology is ready and benefit is clear

Driverless cars are both harder to program and inherently more dangerous, should the programming fail. Yet, robotic taxis are already in operation — in places, quoth the article: "chosen deliberately for its friendliness to driverless cars" — while the federally-regulated delivery drones remain firmly in the future.

Government is an impediment to progress, and this cases demonstrates it more clearly than most...

Rich people puchase legislation, they never had too many problems with regulation

Some times I actually wish this were true. It is not. Current regulations prohibit drone-operations outside of the operator's line of sight.

FAA could give you a waiver, but have so far rejected 99% of such applications.

This kills off the most attractive use of drone — sending it out straight from the distribution center nearest to the customer. If a wheeled vehicle still needs to be used to get to where an Amazon employee can see the destination, that employee may as well walk up to it in the vast majority of cases.

Never mind that drone is a lot easier to program than a self-driving vehicle, never mind that it is a lot less dangerous should the programming fail — we may still get robo-taxis before we get the drone-deliveries. Because of the regulatory hurdles.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/1...

"George Soros, the billionaire hedge fund manager and a major Democratic donor, has given $18 billion to his Open Society Foundations, one of the largest transfers of wealth ever made by a private donor to a single foundation."

http://www.latimes.com/local/c...

"As they poured millions of dollars into district attorney campaigns, New York billionaire George Soros and other liberal donors seemed poised for victory in California.

They enjoyed the political momentum, having helped elect more than a dozen prosecutors from Florida to Texas."

https://dailycaller.com/2017/0...

"Leaked documents from George Soros' Open Society Foundations reveal how Soros works to defeat populist candidates and movements in Europe.

Soros, a U.S. citizen, uses a network of nonprofits and partner organizations across Europe to try and affect the outcomes of elections in foreign countries, the documents show.

Through advocacy efforts, education campaigns and media influencing projects, Soros does his best to affect electoral outcomes around the globe in support of his open borders worldview."

https://dailycaller.com/2016/0...

"From July 2013 to February 2015, Open Society Foundations, the network of political organizations controlled by left-wing billionaire George Soros, secretly paid the salaries of three key staffers to then-Moldovan Prime Minister Iurie Leanca, funneling the money through a German non-profit in order to skirt Moldovan laws against doing so, according to a leaked OSF document."

$18 billion buys a lot of fingers in a lot of pies. This is just a small sample.

...Meanwhile Trump's tax cut wasn't as big as folks think. A lot of people set their withholding lower than they should and are going to get an unpleasant surprise in April...

The tax cut is projected to increase the deficit by over 2.3 trillion over a decade, or 1800 / family each year. That's money that you or your kids will need to pay back with interest. The average tax cut for all households in 2018 will be about $1,200. That means the average household is getting screwed. They're spending $1800 and are thrilled to receive $1200 in return - the remaining $600 going to folks who are already richer than them.

When it comes time to pay the piper, is there any doubt on whose shoulders the burden will fall? My bet is that those same middle class folks will be asked to step up.

It's probably much better being homeless in California than the upper peninsula in Michigan all also being equal. Also, it's not as though homeless people have the ability to easily travel. The ones that have severe mental problems aren't going to go anywhere, and even the ones who might like to go to California might not be able to easily afford it or might not want to take the risk of leaving a place where they know they can at least eat regularly. Some probably have heard about the conditions in San Francisco's homeless population and want to stay far away from that. If I were homeless, the last thing I'd want is to be surrounded by loads of zombies that just shit in the middle of the sidewalk.

I think that some years ago the biggest reason for influx of homeless people into California was other states essentially bussing them there. I think that part of California's problem and why the end up spending so much damn money is that they spend as much time fighting against people trying to help as they do trying to tackle the issue in their own ways.

Liberals have spent two years rioting in the streets and on campuses because they didn't get their way in 2016, are regularly driven to assault by the mere sight of red hats, and are triggered into apoplectic rage by the mere existence of alternative viewpoints. Social media (and /.) is flooded with batshit demands for everything from assassinations of republicans and Trump or demands for Trump's trial and execution for "treason", to the overthrow of the government itself.

In an honest world this is known as "terrorism"; the only reason no one pushes the point is because it would only inflame the situation more and we're trying to contain you psychos as best we can. Actively monitoring and infiltrating the Antifa-types (as well as right-wing nutjobs) looking for any excuse to shut them down is exactly what the government *should* be doing. To not do so is all but asking for another OKC.

but my politicians spend non stop good or bad times. Oh... you meant on social programs & healthcare? Yeah, they cut those nonstop. We're in an economic boom over here and the speaker of the house just called to end Social Security & Medicare.

Socialism for the rich, Dog eat dog for the poor.

The US will never agree to this

You sure?

Iran got the US (OK, it was just Obama, but still...) to agree to:

- Let medieval Iranian mullahs get nuclear weapons
- Surreptitiously pay Iran $1.7 billion
- Let Iran declare anything they want to be "off limits" to any inspections: "You can't look THERE! That's where we're hiding our nuclear weapons program! (Which we pinky-promised we wouldn't do! [FOOLED YA!] )"

Here
This home is nicer than many that I saw in rural black mississippi, which DID have open sewars, no electricity/gas, etc.
More
More.

Every nation has elements that are basically poverty. The only real difference between a 1st, and 3rd world, is the degree of poverty. In America, the extreme 3rd world condition probably affects less than 5%. OTOH, when I was in India, I saw that it was rampant, and I would guess that a good 70% or more of population was in poverty.

Every road and highway in the US is already a toll road, via the gas taxes collected (which, nominally, are supposed to pay for the roads - but rarely are dedicated to that purpose). In California, the State makes ~$0.50 per gallon; with about 15 billion gallons of gas purchased annually, that's around $7.5 billion in tax revenue, which is well above CalTrans (and local municipality) spending on road repair. Gas taxes are the tolls we pay to maintain the road - it's just often that the pot of money is raided for non-road use and thus poverty is claimed when it's time to raise more taxes/tolls for roads.

In 2014, about $324 billion (page 5-18) was spent on all transportation initiatives by local, State, and Federal agencies. This includes transit as well as roads. Those same Governmental agencies collected about $355.1 billion (page 5-21), making transportation more than self-sufficient - if it was all spent on transportation.

The Federal Government made $39 billion in gas and road taxes alone, even through it spent just $33 billion total on all transportation (a large portion of which went to transit). Of that $39 billion in revenue from roads, the Federal Government spent just $3.2 billion supporting roads.

Far from "capitalist roads killing you with tolls", we're already being excessively tolled by the Government - it's just done a gallon at a time.

What this really does is track those who take the cart off prem

Those devices already exist. They lock the cart wheels as soon as a shopping cart is removed from the property.

Rather than stymie the homeless, however, this Fitbit-mabopper sounds like Wal-Mart is giving the homeless free fitness trackers. Not even my insurance does that. How's that for community outreach?