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In Chicago, traders are working faster than light.

You have to be a rich bankster to achieve faster than light trading, though. If anybody else does it it's cheating.

on the off chance that it may prevent some terrorist act. .

Oh, that must mean those terrorist organizations like Occupy Wall Street, - or any other community based activist group trying to agitate for improved conditions for the people. Must be why we are treated as the enemy.

The only reason it was added to rice is because that's what these people grow/eat on a daily basis.

Actually many of the people with vitamin A deficiency live in Africa, in areas not known as rice country.

The actual problem is an economic system that leads to people growing rice almost exclusively: "Beyond that though, poorly-fed people are unlikely to be able to absorb beta-carotene even when they eat golden rice. To use it, they need a diverse diet, including green leafy vegetables. But the sorts of vegetables people used to be able to find have declined in number as the green revolution of the 60s and 70s emphasised monocultures of new varieties. Household consumption of vegetables in India has fallen by 12% in two decades." -- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3122923.stm

Golden rice only contributes to the problem (economic and ecological) of monoculture. Growing carrots, sweet potatoes,mangoes, papaya, or other vitamin-A rich crops is a much more sensible answer -- unless one is devoted to the current exploitative system.

The purpose of "golden rice" is not to solve malnutrition, that could be done far more cheaply and easily with carrots, etc. Its purpose is to provide good PR for the biotech industry: "Why, yes, our GM crops are largely untested for safety, and most of the studies on safety that do exist are ones we've done ourselves (trust us!); and yes, they present a novel ecological hazard of genome pollution; and yes, they have led to increased pesticides use; and yes, they give more control of agriculture to corporate interests -- but look! We found a very expensive and impractical way to prevent some cases of vitamin A deficiency! Love us! Worship us! Big Science!"

It's not science, it's scientism in the advancement of corporatism.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/08/j-edgar-hoover-war-martin-luther-king

And that was the 1960s. How do you know you don't have a file? If you have skills and an education its a near certainty that they have a file on you. If you're politically active they definitely do.

It is racist to say that the various peoples of the Middle East live in an essentially non-civilized state. That is a view you have formulated based on liberal-media lies, justifying interventionism and a lopsided commitment to Israeli interests.

Syrian President Asad who gassed his people.

Did not. Assertion of "facts" not in evidence. People who spout this sound like those who parroted Colin Powell on Iraq. The word is "brainwashed".

I'd look closer at how these three letters are related:

January 26, 1998 letter to Clinton.

September 20, 2001 letter to Bush.

"Neocons Push Obama to Go Beyond a Punitive Strike in Syria"

Who went to prison for the Ford Pinto, Corvair or cars with rigid steering columns?

Sure, why not?

And yes, Tabues has mentioned this before, in both his examples of increasing obesity over generations during the spread of the "diseases of civilization", as well as explicitly: http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2012/10/gary-taubes-sugar-reddit-ama-halloween-candy

"First, there's no reason to think that the relationship between sugar(s) consumption and health endpoints is one to one or linear. So maybe a little bit of added sugar pushes us over a threshold, or maybe there's some exponential thing going on due to, say, epigenetic effects."

He offered offhand speculation, once, but I don't think you can claim it's a critical part of his model, and he brought it up in the context of explaining the exponential increase in obesity, but not the whole picture. And he certainly didn't offer any evidence.

That's mostly what I was interested in, a) is there any evidence? No. And b) is it always part of the model, or only when you need to explain away contradictory evidence.

More likely a positive feedback.

But only if the gluttony is of the sort that is directed towards foods that continue the improper partitioning of energy. Gluttony may be a necessary factor (caused by improper partitioning of energy), but it is only a second order effect, not in and of itself sufficient.

So now epigenetics are a necessary component in your model?

Sure, why not?

And yes, Tabues has mentioned this before, in both his examples of increasing obesity over generations during the spread of the "diseases of civilization", as well as explicitly: http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2012/10/gary-taubes-sugar-reddit-ama-halloween-candy

"First, there's no reason to think that the relationship between sugar(s) consumption and health endpoints is one to one or linear. So maybe a little bit of added sugar pushes us over a threshold, or maybe there's some exponential thing going on due to, say, epigenetic effects."

I wanted to validate the claims that Gates is guilty. Gates related money is actually limiting the health of people in nations the West considers poor. If Bill Gates really wanted to save the lives of people in poverty he would agree that patents don't matter for medicine in many situations. It's a myth that progress in medicine depends on putting patents before people. We must allow generic and patent free drugs to reach more people, and it would not cut into the massive profits of the drug company stocks held by the Gates Foundation.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2003/06/mother-jones-daily-briefing-0?page=3
>> see the reporting by John Litchfield of the London Independent 2003
Litchfield quotes Doctors without borders and notes the lack of affordable generics

>> Read reporter Greg Palast
"let me let you in on a little secret about Bill and Melinda Gates so-called "Foundation." Gate's demi-trillionaire status is based on a nasty little monopoly-protecting trade treaty called "TRIPS" - the Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights rules of the World Trade Organization. TRIPS gives Gates a hammerlock on computer operating systems worldwide, legally granting him a monopoly that the Robber Barons of yore could only dream of. But TRIPS, the rule which helps Gates rule, also bars African governments from buying AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis medicine at cheap market prices"
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4103.htm

"The Bush Administration has also prevented a positive resolution to one crucial issue left unresolved at Doha. Currently, TRIPS allows countries to produce generic drugs through compulsory licensing, but requires that such drugs be used predominantly for the country's domestic market. That means that countries cannot export generic products thus produced - even to countries where there are no patents"
http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/vi/node/285

As an English intellectual property and antitrust lawyer I read the piece by David Resnik and Kenneth De Ville (2002) with both interest and surprise. It is startling to suggest that a country with the democratic credentials of the United States should, as a matter of public policy and indeed on apparently "moral" grounds, prefer private monopoly rights to the lives and welfare of its citizens.
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/ajb/summary/v002/2.3smith.html

By pouring most contributions into the fight against such high-profile killers as AIDS, Gates grantees have increased the demand for specially trained, higher-paid clinicians, diverting staff from basic care. The resulting staff shortages have abandoned many children of AIDS survivors to more common killers: birth sepsis, diarrhea and asphyxia.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-gates16dec16,0,3743924.story

Sea levels rose 2.4 millimeters per year between 2006 and 2011. Extrapolating that increase for the next 90 years suggests an overall increase of about 212 millimeters by 2100, or just over 8 inches. A lot different than the 4 feet rise the scare stories try to claim.

According to some studies we've already crossed the tipping point and it's going to happen. So even if every government and every state and every person suddenly did everything they could to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, we're going to get that methane anyway.

If you read the second link from the Slashdot summary, the catastrophic methane release is highly disputed by other scientists, and for good reasons.

Pay is definitely lower, but the benefits (vacation days, retirement, etc.) are often better.

Chart and article. Facts appear to show the opposite. In addition to getting 16% more pay on average, federal workers also get better benefits as well. Repeating a lie in the news to try and deflect the truth over and over does not make it true.

I understand you are a state employee, and didn't list the state or I would have looked that up as well for you. But you put you comment up as though it is undisputable fact over the entire range of the government. Many state/city workes ALSO are paid higher and with better benefits, especially in larger coastal cities.

The study is weak at including other factors, such as population concentration density in its analysis. Population concentration has increased in lock step with Global Warming, and indeed density may be a key part in warming. Further, density has a much more readily measured correlation with violence. (That is you can measure the correlation it statistically in the modern era, without having to rely on sketchy records of the past).

There is still the competing theory of Tetraethyl lead, which explains not only the rise in violence, but also the recent DECLINE in violence, which the warming theory doesn't even address.

Leaded gasoline has a remarkable correspondence to violent behavior, lowered IQ, and more so in men than women. There is a 23 year lag, in the correlation. Some areas where leaded gasoline is still used correspond to the trouble spots of the world.

And yes, it goes without saying, that correlation does not imply causation, something lost in translation in the mainstream press in their rush to pin yet another evil thing onto Climate Change.

I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave: My brief, backbreaking, rage-inducing, low-paying, dildo-packing time inside the online-shipping machine.

"... when you're late or sick you miss the opportunity to maximize your overtime pay. And working more than eight hours is mandatory. Stretching is also mandatory, since you will either be standing still at a conveyor line for most of your minimum 10-hour shift or walking on concrete or metal stairs."

"The gal conducting our training reminds us again that we cannot miss any days our first week. There are NO exceptions to this policy. She says to take Brian, for example, who's here with us in training today. Brian already went through this training, but then during his first week his lady had a baby, so he missed a day and he had to be fired."

It's 4 pages. Take the time to read it. It's depressing as fuck. I buy very little from Amazon anymore, and when I do, it's usually from individual sellers, not "Amazon" itself.

This is what torture is not, according to the United States government.

Harold Shipman? 250+ verified murders? Non-censored words fail me...

Yeah, in a country with a murder rate as low as the UK's that might actually shift it a point...

By the way, have you heard of the leaded gasoline hypothesis for the violent crime rates?

Owership, as in the number of families who own guns, not the number of guns per capita: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/10/us/rate-of-gun-ownership-is-down-survey-shows.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/03/chart-day-gun-ownership-30-year-decline

Over the past century, one of the biggest contributing factors in violent crime has been lead (specifically leaded gasoline):
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-link-gasoline

In capitalist Hollywood, shark jumps YOU!

is paved with exceptions to our rights.

That the big bully does it means that it is right now? We won't get targetted by drones if people from outside US does exactly what they are doing? This is a declaration of war against the world (their words, not mine). Whats next? Redoing pre-WWII discourse and taking invading countries where there are americans as something right?

Privacy are the bricks over what intellectual property is built, one of the things that US push in every international treaty, agreement, pact, embargo, boicott or whatever in the last 10-20 years at least. I say that something is mine and private, and will give the permission to others to have/use/know it under certain, defined conditions. Stripping everyone of privacy means no intellectual property too. Or we will keep making exceptions and say that you have right to have intellectual property if you are a big corporation lobbing the US government? The UN can agree that if the US pretend that we have no privacy, the rest of the world can pretend that they don't have intellectual property?

I did some Googling too. Here's what I found about their lobbyist, C. McClain Haddow. And somebody else found this link. http://www.nndb.com/org/319/000168812/ We're doing IT World's job for them.

The Artful Codger
Trashing the AARP with Grandma Green.
By Michael Scherer
July/August 2005 Issue
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2005/07/artful-codger

The real pedigree of the group Green represents is hidden under layers of PR and politics. The Seniors Coalition was cofounded in 1989 by conservative activist Dan C. Alexander Jr., three years after he was sent to prison for arranging construction kickbacks as an Alabama school-committee member. Today, its top outside lobbyist is C. McClain Haddow, a former Health and Human Services official who spent time in prison with Alexander for failing to file a timely ethics waiver when he gave his wife a government contract. Haddow has also lobbied for generic-drugs manufacturer Mylan Pharmaceuticals.

The organization’s Washington activities regularly blur the needs of seniors with the agendas of corporate donors. After it took money from Microsoft in 1999, the coalition lobbied on antitrust litigation, and after it took money from Lottery.com in 2000, it lobbied on a bill that would restrict Internet gambling. Money also poured in from the American Petroleum Institute and the American Public Power Association—just as the coalition spoke out against the Kyoto Protocol and lower gas-mileage standards.

The Seniors Coalition is especially tied to the drug industry. PHRMA, the pharmaceutical industry’s trade group, gave the organization $2.2 million between 1999 and 2000 (the only two years for which full financial disclosure is available). Other drug industry sources funneled the group an additional $300,000 during that time. But Tom Moore, the coalition’s chief operating officer, writes in an email that only 22 percent of his organization’s funding comes from industry, and that the group “retains its complete independence in developing [its] legislative agenda.”

And who's paying them ~$100,000 a year?

http://www.guidestar.org/organizations/26-2171390/alliance-generational-equity.aspx

Their web site www.truslseniors.org is down

Another question is, who the fuck is C. McClain Haddow, the guy who's running Alliance for Generational Equity?
http://reporting.sunlightfoundation.com/lobbying/client/alliance-for-generational-equity

Mother Jones has a hint.

The Artful Codger
Trashing the AARP with Grandma Green.
By Michael Scherer
July/August 2005 Issue
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2005/07/artful-codger

The real pedigree of the group Green represents is hidden under layers of PR and politics. The Seniors Coalition was cofounded in 1989 by conservative activist Dan C. Alexander Jr., three years after he was sent to prison for arranging construction kickbacks as an Alabama school-committee member. Today, its top outside lobbyist is C. McClain Haddow, a former Health and Human Services official who spent time in prison with Alexander for failing to file a timely ethics waiver when he gave his wife a government contract. Haddow has also lobbied for generic-drugs manufacturer Mylan Pharmaceuticals.

The organization’s Washington activities regularly blur the needs of seniors with the agendas of corporate donors. After it took money from Microsoft in 1999, the coalition lobbied on antitrust litigation, and after it took money from Lottery.com in 2000, it lobbied on a bill that would restrict Internet gambling. Money also poured in from the American Petroleum Institute and the American Public Power Association—just as the coalition spoke out against the Kyoto Protocol and lower gas-mileage standards.

The Seniors Coalition is especially tied to the drug industry. PHRMA, the pharmaceutical industry’s trade group, gave the organization $2.2 million between 1999 and 2000 (the only two years for which full financial disclosure is available). Other drug industry sources funneled the group an additional $300,000 during that time. But Tom Moore, the coalition’s chief operating officer, writes in an email that only 22 percent of his organization’s funding comes from industry, and that the group “retains its complete independence in developing [its] legislative agenda.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing

There is some interest group behind this that is going to save a lot of money if they eliminated the Universal Service Fund (which has its pros and cons), and this outfit is crying crocodile tears over the urban poor. Or generational equity. I'd take them more seriously if they were up front with their real agenda.

If we had the national so-called "fair tax" (a kind of consumption tax; i.e., sales tax), poor people would pay none at all, because the "prebate" would cover all their purchases

It's funny, because the 'tax them but rebate them' crap is wide open to just removing the rebate and leaving them stuck in the lurch. And frankly we already do this this 'prebate' you talk about with the Earned Income Tax Credit. Which the GOP has been opposed to for decades. linky

The Prius is built to MUCH higher crash safety standards than the Pinto or the Nova.

It is also expected to perform better, be much quieter, and last far longer than that old junk. The Pinto and Nova were econoboxes built as cheaply as possible.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/1977/09/pinto-madness

The Prius is also carrying a hefty battery pack.

Crash safety standards are relative. At highway speeds, it won't matter much which vehicle you are in if it is a large SUV or semi hitting you. Below 20mph, the Nova will sustain less damage than the Prius and have a good chance of still being able to be driven because of the steel under frame of the Nova versus the unibody construction of the Prius. As most accidents occur below 20 mph, the likelihood is that both occupants will fair about the same and the vehicle will be less likely to be totaled if it is a Nova versus a Prius. (But maybe the insurance companies don't know what they are talking about).

You are correct, though, that it isn't a fair comparison with the Nova being an economy family car and the Prius being a luxury compact. As for noise, yes, that electric motor is a lot quieter than the gas motor and the Prius does have better sound insulation for highway noise overall, but most road noise is related to tire and road conditions. As for longevity, a Prius will need new battery packs around 7 years. That is a major expense and the car is useless without them. So one could argue that it doesn't really last longer. And definitely it fails on performance, unless performance means only mpg. However, in terms of acceleration, from 0 to 60, a Nova will out perform a Prius hands down and if you try and make a Prius outperform the Nova, you sacrifice the mpg, the only performance area the Prius wins.

But instead of comparing the Prius to 40 year old cars, compare it to the VW or BMW diesels that get similar mileage (upper 40s) have real performance and don't have costly battery packs that need to be replaced every 7 years.

That's the goal of far too much legislation. This way law enforcement always has something they can charge people with that they don't like and lets everyone else go about their business. We no longer have a "rule of law" in this country, we have a "rule of staying on law enforcement's good side." In all likelihood, you committed 3 felonies yesterday and will do so again today:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704471504574438900830760842.html

When I see my local politicians doing this, it just shows how much they like the current setup:

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/06/ken-cuccinelli-virginia-oral-anal-sex-sodomy

Hey I noticed you ignored my AC post below and went after this guy I guess because he was an easy target and you couldn't shoot any holes in my bulletproof argument. I'm gonna drop this here because I come armed to my fights (did I prove you guys right? who knows!). I guess the only way to stop a stupid guy is with a smart guy. Myth #6 in particular do equate it to a penis problem: Over 50% higher use of guns by thier owners to escalate a problem. Sounds like some machismo to me. You should also find Myth 5 & 7 to be insightful.

The Prius is built to MUCH higher crash safety standards than the Pinto or the Nova.

It is also expected to perform better, be much quieter, and last far longer than that old junk. The Pinto and Nova were econoboxes built as cheaply as possible.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/1977/09/pinto-madness

The Prius is also carrying a hefty battery pack.

The Pinto today's dollars also cost 1/3 the price of a Prius. Any of them (Prius, Pinto, Nova) hitting an SUV at freeway speeds won't make much different for the occupants. The Pinto, btw, was Ford's response to the VW Beetle. The Nova, on the other hand was actually a family sedan. Might you mean the Vega?

The Prius is built to MUCH higher crash safety standards than the Pinto or the Nova.

It is also expected to perform better, be much quieter, and last far longer than that old junk. The Pinto and Nova were econoboxes built as cheaply as possible.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/1977/09/pinto-madness

The Prius is also carrying a hefty battery pack.

The major source of violent crime for the past couple of generations has been bad drug policy.

Actually, try tetraethyl lead.

Bad drug policy certainly takes its share of blame for our exploding prison population thanks to massive incarceration of nonviolent "criminals", for destroying lives and families rather than promoting treatment, for costing billions at the same time it made virtually all local PDs dependent on the sweet, sweet teat of civil asset forfeiture. But actual violence? That has a much simpler explanation, known since Roman times.

Go google for this. Then pull up the links: Ann Coulter did not object to the news about NSA phone snooping on principle, but does have a problem with it under this particular president.

I guess you could call Ann Coulter a "neo-con", but she is just a talking head, so she'll make hay out of anything that her audience wants to hear.

Republican Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin asked: “How could the phone records of so many innocent Americans be relevant to an authorized investigation as required by the Act?” In a separate newspaper column, Sensenbrenner went further, claiming the administration was abusing the law. that piece of trash sat on Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security (Chairman) when all of this went down. He was right in the MIDST of it all, and then claims that he knew nothing about it, while claiming O is behind this.

Sensenbrenner is trash, but I don't see where he really "claimed O was behind this", he is, however, claiming the program went too far, and he didn't know how far, apparently, because he wasn't in the right meetings. But Snowden's documents have shown that even the Intelligence committee was not informed about everything going on, although there were "lawmakers from both houses" briefed. A total of 8, according to leaked documents.

The interesting part about this is that even Sensenbrenner, who loved the PATRIOT ACT and all this federal power and secrecy, thinks the PRISM and NSA programs go too far. That's a pretty stunning indictment.

On Sunday, the Republican senator and libertarian firebrand from Kentucky declared that he planned to file a class action lawsuit against the Obama administration, claiming the NSA surveillance programs that intercept internet communications (for supposedly foreign targets) and sweep up the phone records of Americans are "unconstitutional."

Rand Paul is not a neo-con. There is no credible definition of that term I have EVER seen that would apply to Rand Paul. I guess you're just using it to mean "anybody on the right," but that's not how it's typically used. Rand is on the side of liberal Democrats more often than he is on the side of the neo-cons.

That Piece of Trash

Paul? Fuck you, you piece of stinking garbage. I know Rand, and he has more honor in his pinky than you have ever thought of exhibiting in your entire life.

sits on Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs (starting 2011). IOW, the senate version of what Sensenbrenner is on. He has almost certainly known for the last 2 years.

Nope, as pointed out, the NSA revealed this information very selectively, the committee did not know the extent of it. Didn't you hear about Clapper actually lying to committees when questioned about it?

I could continue on and on, but what is the point of it? The fact is, that the outrage by the neo-cons, is just another made up garbage.

It is, you made it up. There is no outrage from the neo-cons, only from the civil libertarians. You lumping the two together just shows your ignorance. You might as well stop now.

However, this one has backing with far left, and Libertarians, all of whom have NO idea of what is really going on.

I don't really know what you're trying to say, here.

I mean YOU have ma

Go google for this. Then pull up the links:
Ann Coulter did not object to the news about NSA phone snooping on principle, but does have a problem with it under this particular president.

Republican Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin asked: “How could the phone records of so many innocent Americans be relevant to an authorized investigation as required by the Act?” In a separate newspaper column, Sensenbrenner went further, claiming the administration was abusing the law.
that piece of trash sat on Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security (Chairman) when all of this went down. He was right in the MIDST of it all, and then claims that he knew nothing about it, while claiming O is behind this.

On Sunday, the Republican senator and libertarian firebrand from Kentucky declared that he planned to file a class action lawsuit against the Obama administration, claiming the NSA surveillance programs that intercept internet communications (for supposedly foreign targets) and sweep up the phone records of Americans are "unconstitutional."
That Piece of Trash sits on Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs (starting 2011). IOW, the senate version of what Sensenbrenner is on. He has almost certainly known for the last 2 years.

I could continue on and on, but what is the point of it? The fact is, that the outrage by the neo-cons, is just another made up garbage. However, this one has backing with far left, and Libertarians, all of whom have NO idea of what is really going on. I mean YOU have made a number of accusations, yet, you are showing no proof of it.

No, but politicians approve those laws. And they approve those laws because voters reelect them even though they do.

It's cute that you think that politicians worry about voters more than six months before re-election. It doesn't take a lot of economics to see where a politician's loyalties must, by definition, lie.

I live in a medium-sized city in Canada. About a million people, nothing big. To make a run for city council here costs $50-60 thousand dollars. (More if you want to be mayor). That's roughly a year's salary at a pretty good job. Since most people can't afford to spend a year's salary at the shot of winning an election, you get people to donate to you. And the rich people who can afford to throw thousands of dollars at you... expect you to do certain things.

Scale up to provincial/state or federal elections, and everything becomes more expensive. (Mother Jones says it can cost half a million dollars for your first Senate race). Do you know anyone who can put a dent in half a million dollars who *doesn't* want some quo to go with the quid pro?

Politicians can be as popular as they want to be - without the money they won't win. Which means that the people who supply the money are far more influential than the voters.

I also have trouble believing the NSA and Booz Allen Hamilton thought a computer security guy in Hawaii needed secret documents about the bugging of embassies and other intelligence operations he had nothing to do with. In short, the utter incompetence of the NSA and its contractors about keeping secrets seems to have gone completely missing.

That's because he probably wasn't a computer security guy, but rather an "infrastructure analyst". A person tasked to find ways to infiltrate and cause harm to foreign networks in preparation for a cyber war: http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2013/07/nyt-snowden-was-hacker-nsa

"Guest workers" is such a euphemism, we should use something more accurate:

out-sourcing trainees
skill exporters
wage reducers
foreign vulnerables

Don't get me wrong, I welcome actual immigrants. I don't even have a problem with individuals who come here for temporary jobs of any sort. I just think that a system where the top 10 h1b employers - accounting for half of all h1b visa holders are outsourcers is in any way good for americans citizens or immigrants. If anything it discourages the next generation from even considering the idea of going to school to learn how to be an engineer which just makes things even worse for us down the road.

How does that fit into the free market capitalism that made America great? If someone else can do the same job cheaper, hire them instead.

You mean to say, "If someone can be hired for slave wages and locked into a single-employer contract with no chance to move jobs rather than hiring people on an equal footing."

This is about as far from "free market capitalism" as it comes. The H-1B system deliberately alters the agreement and creates a semi-slave labor deliberately paying under-market wages.

And then there's all the fraud in the system. Including falsely inflated skills listings designed to keep anyone from successfully applying for the jobs later salted to H-1Bs with far less than the originally advertised qualifications. And of course the demand for H-1Bs rather than actual EB-5s where they would have legal right to leave for better employment if it was offered by another company.

Don't you dare use the term "free market capitalism", you fucking slavemonger. It's nothing of the sort.

So basically you've admitted to spying on innocent people for years, in who-knows-how-big of a trolling operation, and you finally caught two small fish who so far have done nothing more than "shown an interest" in something that might count as illegal?

Right. Most FBI-reported "terrorist plots" are like that, especially the ones that involve informers. They get a report of some loser mouthing off about blowing up something, and they investigate. They get some informer close to the jerk and encourage the wannabe to push their plan forward, often providing resources to help. Then they arrest the loser and announce they've foiled a "terrorist plot".

The most notable example of this kind of FBI activity was the "terrorist plot to blow up the Sears Tower" in 2006. Even the FBI Director said it was "more aspirational than operational".

When Al-Queda set up the 9/11 attacks, they had good operational security. Nobody talked in public about the plan, and many of the participants didn't know the details until hours before takeoff. What the FBI is doing wouldn't stop a real terrorist organization.

It's because their minimum-wage warehouse workers (pickers) are under tremendous pressure to work as quickly as possible - really, more quickly than humanly possible. Makes me feel a tiny bit guilty every time my Prime-shipped item arrives 24 hours after ordering. Just a little.

"I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave"
(print version)

It's because their minimum-wage warehouse workers (pickers) are under tremendous pressure to work as quickly as possible - really, more quickly than humanly possible. Makes me feel a tiny bit guilty every time my Prime-shipped item arrives 24 hours after ordering. Just a little.

"I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave"
(print version)

He didn't forget corn, it's right there in his second paragraph!

There are several major crops where Monsanto has a lot of competition, and others where Monsanto doesn't even offer products. Corn, which is Monsanto's biggest product has a 40% market share.

The problem is that you haven't accurately defined what you mean when you say "market share." If you go by acres planted, monsanto only provides 35% and like he said, that is by far their biggest seller.

So how do you two have such wildly different numbers? You are counting seeds with patented genes licensed by other companies from Monsanto as having been sold by Monsanto. Who is right? One thing is for certain, Monsanto is not going to achieve global dominance as long as they license their patents to competitors.

You can get anything from 30 years to a century in jail for things that goes into the hacking umbrella, even for things that traditionally you won't call attacking. And if you are outside US, a drone could visit you.

This usually goes attackers or people that exploits or just bumps against a vulnerability in US government/institution sites, but even if you do against an "evil" organization (and that it is not just a nsa/fbi cover operation or whatever) it could eventually be used against you.

In any environmental issue like this it makes sense to compare the damage and the cost of mitigating that damage. The total aircraft fleet is very small (1/1000 of the automobile fleet) so the lead emissions are nothing like we used to have from cars.

What does the size of the fleet matter? Just because it was "horrendous" before, doesn't mean "terrible" today is perfectly acceptable.

In fact there's a lot of reason to believe that atmospheric lead is extremely harmful, and very, very expensive. The number MJ cites is 10:1 savings across the board as we move away from lead:

http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-link-gasoline

At first, he thought the FBI agent at the door was with FedEx. "As I open the door to greet the driver, approximately 12 FBI SWAT team agents jumped out of the truck, screaming for me to 'Get the fuck down!' with M-16 assault rifles and full riot gear, armed, safety off, pointed directly at my head," Lostutter wrote today on his blog. "I was handcuffed and detained outside while they cleared my house."

That's either an intimidation tactic or the geniuses at the FBI have seen too many Rambo reruns. A 12 person SWAT team to serve a search warrant on one person who they have no reason to believe is violent? If it was proportional, they would have sent an armored division to arrest the rapists. Somehow I doubt they did.

Productivity of the average American worker went through the roof since 1979:

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/06/speedup-americans-working-harder-charts

http://www.ibtimes.com/us-worker-productivity-rising-faster-wage-growth-1114871

Did your inflation-adjusted paycheck? Oh hell no, you're (the average American ) treading water.

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3220

http://www.businessinsider.com/corporate-profits-just-hit-an-all-time-high-wages-just-hit-an-all-time-low-2012-6

and have been for decades... DECADES

OK then. All this cost savings is pocketed by billionaires , not passed on to you. The ONLY form in which it's ever passed on to ordinary people is at their own expense, e.g. Walmart prices and Walmart

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/06/03/1213437/-What-Walmart-Costs-Taxpayers

http://www.walmarteffectbook.com/

So if you want to realize what any of the productivity gains / cost savings you've worked for and created, start a company, force everyone who works for you be to be part time, steal the benefits of THEIR increase in productivity, lobby your congresspig for tax breaks for the wealthy..... oh and shop at Walmart.

America is a nation of by and for billionaires, who fund our elections, occupy our political offices, write our laws and own our media. They do this for their own benefit and anything which does not effect their personal lives is not *real* and doesn't matter.

http://video.pbs.org/video/2296684923/

So no- it's not for you.

Now get back to work.

These machines not only provide, supposedly, security for our air travelers but they also provide fun and entertainment
for the TSA employees as well.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/05/06/tsa-worker-arrested-jokes-fight-size-genitalia/

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/woman-body-scanned-times-tsa-dallas-airport-cute-figure-article-1.1022803

http://www.infowars.com/ex-tsa-screener-officers-laughing-at-your-naked-image/

We all knew this kind of stuff would happen and it has and let's not forget the guy who really pushed these forward
was at one time in charge of the DHS, Chertoff, represented rapidscan... http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2010/01/airport-scanner-scam

This whole excercise will be looked back upon with two possible outcomes: Rational beings will once again govern and they'll be looked upon as an assault on civil liberties or The status quo will be maintained into the future and you won't be able to go anywhere, be online and transact any business anywhere without at least 20 or thirty government snoops tracking your every movement. Frankly the way things are going, the latter is probably the outcome we'll all be living with shortly.

The NRA Myth of Gun-Free Zones Data shows the gun lobby's chief argument for more firearms in schools, malls, and beyond is just plain wrong.

FWIW you can't interrogate a mass murderer that committed suicide during the spree, so it's pretty obvious there's no data about why they selected where they committed their crimes.

It's a little like trying to find data I ate a grilled cheese sandwich two days ago.

Guns aren't about "killing one another."

A credible threat of retaliatory violence is the single most effective deterrent to actual violence.

Guns are about stopping YOU from attacking ME. Having it can make that possible even if I never use it to kill anyone.

You are using logic. The Libtards really hate that because they cannot refute it. They have to mod you down (done), call you names, scream at you, defame and mischaracterize you, and then pat themselves on the back for championing their ideology and its favorite methods. What they WILL NOT do is explain why mass shootings almost always happen in "gun free" zones where law-abiding citizens are unarmed, explain why conceal-carry permits decrease violent crime, explain why places like Chicago with terribly restrictive gun laws have such high murder rates, or explain how the "zero tolerance" schools they run benefit children in any way when they expel them for point a frenchfry at another child and saying "bang bang" like the cops-and-robbers games children have always played. You see, it is not that they don't want to explain those things. They would love to. They simply cannot. They are not reasonable people. They are highly emotional and emotionally volatile. Your post was on-topic, was not trolling, etc. But they modded it down anyway. It went against their ideology, you see.

Oh we explain these things, because most of the NRA's claims about shooters and guns are flat out wrong. Folks such as yourself have to forget that we explain these things so that your internal narrative remains consistent. But of course, facts have a liberal bias.

They had to mod it down for the same reason the Catholic Church had to refuse to look through Galileo's telescope (and then punish him). Galileo did nothing wrong. You have done nothing wrong.

Then lets look through that telescope! After all, if the gun lobby is like Galileo, then the facts will support their narrative. And if the facts don't support their narrative, then they are like the Catholic Church: didn't bother to look at the facts, just jumped to the conclusion they liked.

The NRA Myth of Gun-Free Zones Data shows the gun lobby's chief argument for more firearms in schools, malls, and beyond is just plain wrong.

Among the 62 mass shootings over the last 30 years that we studied, not a single case includes evidence that the killer chose to target a place because it banned guns.

Concealed carry permits have not been linked with a reduction in crime.

No link between right-to-carry laws and changes in crime is apparent in the raw data, even in the initial sample; it is only once numerous covariates are included that the negative results in the early data emerge. ... [W]e find that the statistical evidence that these laws have reduced crime is limited, sporadic, and extraordinarily fragile. Minor changes of specifications can generate wide shifts in the estimated effects of these laws, and some of the most persistent findings — such as the association of shall-issue laws with increases in (or no effect on) robbery and with substantial increases in various types of property crime — are not consistent with any plausible theory of deterrence.

Chicago's murder rate is largely the result of the lax gun regulations outside Chicago, not Chicago's gun control. If anything, Chicago is proof that we need more gun control, not less.

Most

In the original series you had an Asian as the helmsman. In interviews,Takei has talked about how revolutionary that was for the time. You had a Russian handling weapons systems, during the cold war just a few years after the Cuban Missile Crisis. And you had Uhura, with an interracial kiss with Kirk, the first interracial kiss in television history, while the Civil Rights movement was still being fought. The producers were ready for a firestorem of controversy, but IIRC just one redneck called in, and said since it was Kirk the kiss was OK. Uhura was praised by Martin Luther King Jr, who was soon to be assassinated.

I think you don't realize the atmosphere in the 60's, and how revolutionary it really was. And that's not talking about the episode where the half white half black aliens fight each other because one is black on the left side and the other is black on the right.

[O]ver-educating the population makes nearly everyone poor.

There is a hell of a lot more value in an educated populace than can be put in dollars, even if one accepts the zero-sum premise you are outlining here. For starters, an educated population is much more likely to be a functioning civic population; that is, one that keeps its government under scrutiny and actually fulfills its end of the social contract rather than allowing the mindless pulling of a lever every four years to serve as a substitute for real governed consent.

That said, the employment value of being "educated" is becoming increasingly meaningless in a future where traditional vocational jobs that haven't yet been outsourced are being systematically eradicated by automation and the potential for AI-type programming to squash still more traditional "educated" work is growing. Cf. recent article in Mother Jones for a depressing analysis of the logical employment outcomes advanced AI could bring.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/01/pro-gun-myths-fact-check

"Myth #2: Guns don't kill people—people kill people.
Fact-check: People with more guns tend to kill more people—with guns. The states with the highest gun ownership rates have a gun murder rate 114% higher than those with the lowest gun ownership rates. Also, gun death rates tend to be higher in states with higher rates of gun ownership. Gun death rates are generally lower in states with restrictions such as assault-weapons bans or safe-storage requirements."

And there's a graph. You can see it for yourself.

How quickly you accelerate is almost certainly going to be the biggest factor in fuel efficiency. There are optimizations beyond that, though, as you point out. I adjusted the way I drive after reading this article about hypermilers.

If you drive carefully, you can get mileage that exceeds EPA estimates. If you don't drive carefully, you're probably not saving a lot of travel time, and your mileage is pretty much going to be terrible. You don't need to be Speed Racer every time you sit behind a wheel. Eventually market forces will limit that ability to the privileged class anyway, but until then you're pretty much a douche for speeding.