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Democrats claim there are no examples of voter fraud and yet just the other day in CA a previously deported drug trafficking Mexican, Ricardo Lopez-Munguia, plead guilty to many charges including illegally voting in the 2008 election. What are the chances he voted for John McCain?

In Philadelphia, two dozen unregistered people were allowed to vote anyway, 19 others were discovered to not be U.S. citizens and at least seven of those have voted in elections. I'm sure they voted Republican. /s

In North Carolina, American Idol runner up Clay Aiken knowingly, willfully and fraudulently voted outside his county in 2008 with the purpose of effecting the outcome of elections in Wake County. He was only discovered because he was dumb enough to make disparaging statements about new Board of Election members.

It's no surprise Democrat Aiken is against Voter ID because if NC had had Voter ID, Aiken would not have been able to commit voter fraud.

So here was have a multi-millionaire celebrity committing voter fraud, we have foreign citizens committing voter fraud and those are just a couple examples from three corners of this country. Now, tell me again how Voter ID is not important?

Explain to me why photo ID is necessary to get into a NAACP gathering, to get into the DNC convention, to visit an Obama rally but not to ensure only those legally entitled to cast ballots where they live are the only ones who do?

All states with voter ID have a range of acceptable photo IDs, including free voting-only photo ID, to account for nursing homes, the poor, students, etc. A 6-3 majority on the Supreme Court already ruled voter ID is legal.

Does it really suppress minority vote as Democrats claim? Georgia saw an INCREASE in minority turnout after it enacted voter ID.

The pattern is clear: Democrats do not want voter ID laws because they benefit from the voter fraud enabled by having no voter ID law. They use the specter of racism to demagogue the issue to their advantage.

http://articles.latimes.com/1989-06-09/local/me-1430_1_chernobyl-reactors-nuclear-explosion-radioactive

http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/sdcounty/article_6b8be5be-7239-5731-b5a0-4e2590e062bd.html

Thorium bed reactors are at best a useful stop gap not a replacement for fossil fuels that stopped forming 300 hundred million years ago when microbes learned to digest wood.

We at some point must settle on solar or geothermal. We should do this prior to polluting arable land in an inevitable chain of profit over prudence "mistakes".

High Speed Rail was a (D) product, not an (R). It is a huge boondogle in the making, and yet NONE of the current (D) leaders want to just kill it before it gets worse, and they haven't even started building it. If the (D) want HSR so bad, why don't they offer tax increases to support it? They own the legislature and governor's office, don't they? Can't put that one on the (R)

The Referendum process has helped the (D) party much more than the (R) party, Prop 13 being the big exception.

http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/immigrationnaturalizatio/a/caillegals.htm
http://www.capsweb.org/content.php?id=308&menu_id=8
http://www.nctimes.com/news/article_5cedf831-9d5d-5335-af7e-2af6730a577c.html

These articles suggest that the cost to CA for illegal immigrants is about 9-10 BILLION, while the state deficit is around 16 billion. The math is clear.

Pete Wilson was NOT a fiscal conservative, and he was liberal socially, except for a few rare examples, including those you cited. By citing similarly scant evidence, I bet I could make Jerry Brown look like a conservative.In fact, I know I can! ;)

There were many ancient american civilizations and it's possible that some of them may have been the ones described in the Book of Mormon.
I linked to the BYU article because it's a scholarly article explaining the evidence for precolumbian horses in America. Critics often say that because the natives weren't riding horses when Columbus arrived there weren't any which is false. Centuries-old bones of horses unearthed in Carlsbad Remains Show Ancient Horses Were Hunted for Their Meat.

There's not enough archaelogical evidence left behind to definitively rule either way. However, the Hopewell Culture did have an advanced writing system, clothing, agriculture, trade, fortifications and earth mounds; all of which are described in the Book of Mormon. They also disappeared at the same time as recorded. I see the evidence of a great civilization that lived here before us and we are very fortunate to have their record.

I will sleep better tonight in southern California because my electricity and cell phone feel good when their together?

Or maybe someone at DHS has funny way of doing their job; but how American citizens were helped after Katrina is something I still clinch my remaining teeth about.

...and we're paying less per unit of energy because demand is lower.

I'm positive the exact opposite will occur. Again using California as an example, examine their water conservation efforts. First, water utilities actually raised their rates in order to promote "conservation" (making water unaffordable is not the same as conservation). Then, as the economy tanked AND usage dropped, water utilities raised rates in order to offset decreased revenues.

I'm all for conservation, but with union strangleholds on these industries, the government in bed with the unions, all on top of campaigns by reckless anti-progress environmentalists and NIMBYs, things are only going to go from bad to worse. Every time a new round of environmental regulations gets handed down by a government (who despises electricity generation but wants to keep all the lights on), generation stations must be retooled or closed, both meaning higher costs for consumers.

The reality is drops in power demand aren't primarily from conservation efforts: they're from the high cost of energy and the steady decay of American manufacturing, particularly on the west coast.

Here's a counterexample: Police to hold DUI checkpoint

"Checkpoint locations are never announced in advance."

Electricity, generated by coal/oil/gas 85% of the time.

Closer to like 66% of the time (total % of electrical power from coal. gas and oil), according to the 2009 LLNL Energy Flow sankey diagram. Been decreasing slowly but steadily for several years now, too. But hey, using Google is much harder than pulling numbers out of your ass I guess...

Tangentially related, "Electric car owners prone to going solar".
=Smidge=

After seeing this

Nobody was killed and no radiation was released that will affect generations to come.

What about this

"At least eight people have been killed and 60 others are missing" and no radiation was released that will affect generations to come.

or this?

Nobody was killed and no radiation was released that will affect generations to come.

No way of power generation is 100% safe. You'll never be able to rule out human failure. That leaves only to consider the side effects when ("when", not "if"!) something goes wrong. That's why people don't want nuclear power.

After seeing this will be you call renewable energy unsafe as well? What about this or this?

When I'm told by multiple reputable sources that every nuclear reactor is susceptible to this sort of failure, then I'll agree with you that the technology, as it exists, is unsafe and should not be used.

On the other hand, I'm relatively certain that there are nuclear reactor designs that don't require an off-site power plant to provide cooling (and is susceptible to earthquake damage), nor ones that require a backup diesel generator (susceptible to flood). In fact, I'm relatively certain that there are reactor designs that immediately drop below critical mass in the event of an emergency, due to their very design.

Are there reasons why Japan built reactors susceptible to these problems? Probably. And those reasons, political, social, financial, should be found and corrected. If necessary, all the existing plants with the "flawed" designs should be safely shut down. But then they can build better, inherently safer plants.

I pay a power company to provide 100% wind power equal to my usage, btw, though obviously the pressure that pushes electrons in and out of my house in a sinusoidal pattern might come from anywhere on the grid.

Sorry for the delay, I was away for a few days.

What I have trouble with is your unequivocal claim of ALL of the Bible being a hoax. There are plenty of contradictions in it, but it's no reason to discount all of it as false. For example, Genesis has two stories of creation, one following the other (one is a "small scale" description, the other is a "large scale"). If it's such a great hoax, wouldn't the authors make sure that there were no contradictions, especially in the first chapter? The proper way to read it is to take this story as an attempt to understand the world around us.

There's also the fact that major religions cross-reference each other. The story of a giant flood has been around since Mesopotamia and is referenced by religions all over the world. The description presented in the Bible is in all likelihood not accurate, but it is representative of a historical event (global or local, take your pick) that affected the people enough to pass the story along for thousands of years.

The stories in the Bible get more and more accurate as you read on. They go from universal myths to pretty accurate historical accounts, with real people whose existence can be verified through various documents. There are other documents, such as the Dead Sea Scrolls, which prove that the stories have not changed over time. It is therefore reasonable to believe that Jesus did exist, and that the accounts of his life are somewhat accurate.

By the way, your original post makes reference to Jesus performing magic. There are a LOT of texts that didn't make it into the Bible, some of which have Jesus fighting dragons, making clay pigeons and bringing them to life with his breath and all sorts of other nonsense. They were left out because Jesus was not a magician, or a superhero. His miracles were recorded by ordinary people. There's two possibilities here: the first is that the miracles were true, the work of God. The other is that the miracles were based on science, unknown to people who were witnessing them. Neither possibility disproves the existence of Jesus, nor the fact that he did something that was considered incredible.

The raid at the Ivy Street home of Beryl and Dina Dagy was one of 25 conducted Friday in North County and San Diego after a six-month investigation by the San Diego Integrated Narcotic Task Force into marijuana being grown in rented homes. Agents found marijuana in 20 of the raids and arrested 24 people.

http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/article_ea2047e8-59e1-551e-b173-ce89ffad4d90.html

Can you READ? What does that say?

Benzene, Toluene, basically most of the stuff that's in gasoline, and MMT ... these are all more likely sources than vaccinations. People just get regular exposure to these chemicals, it's part of our car culture ...

Just look at that MMT molecule - it looks fucking badass! Hehe, wow - look at this, an easy Google search and the EPA hands this right to me:

"One recent California study reported that a modest increase in the incidence of autism was associated with the highest 25% of manganese air concentrations (65)." Source
(MMT has a manganese atom in the middle of it)

Oh yeah - It's probably also worth blaming whatever chemical clouds are making it over the Pacific.

Vaccines?? Come on ... let's look at the obvious sources of carcinogens and mutagens. I just think it's far more likely to be the fuel for industrial progress ... no matter how bad it is, we'll still end up using it in large amounts daily, and spreading the chemical love all around the world.

Stuff like this just adds more backing to my argument.

But yeah, vaccine soup does kind of worry me, just doesn't seem that likely to me. I honestly hope you're right, and it's the vaccines, because that's something we can get some control over ... where as this gasoline issue; we pretty much need a working, feasible nuclear fusion reactor now to solve that problem. (which could introduce a whole other set of issues...)

i probably shouldn't feed trolls, but i'll humor you...

• good Samaritan faces up to 10 years in prison for exposing security flaw in university's computer system.
• Schoolboy hacker faces 38 years in prison for changing his grades.
• an Asperger sufferer faces 60 years for looking for government info on UFOs on military computers.
• and let's not forget Kevin Mitnick who spent 5 years in prison and 8 months of it in solitary confinement.
• while a spam king who committed malicious acts against tens of millions of average computer users only gets 47 months after making millions.

seems like greed-driven malware writers, spammers, and other digital bottom-feeders go free with a slap to the wrist while harmless teenage hackers get the book thrown at them. from a ZDNet article, "US bill would treat all hackers as terrorists":

A major anti-terrorism bill now being considered by the US government has been criticised for disproportionately targeting low-level computer intruders, making small crimes punishable by a penalty of life in prison.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, the main civil liberties group in the US focussing on the digital world, condemned parts of the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) now in Congress, which would treat all computer trespass as terrorism. "Treating low-level computer crimes as terrorist acts is not an appropriate response to recent events," said EFF executive director Shari Steele in a statement. "A relatively harmless online prankster should not face a potential life sentence in prison." ...
In the US, the EFF criticised the portion of the new bill that adds low-level computer intrusion -- which could be something as innocuous as a teenager having a look around a commercial Web server -- to the list of "federal terrorism offences". Such offences carry penalties of up to life imprisonment, and give investigators broad powers of asset seizure, as well as threatening those who "harbour" offenders.

meanwhile violent offenders face much lighter sentences:

• Staff Sgt. Cardenas J. Alban convicted of killing severely wounded 16-year-old Iraqi during fighting in Baghdad's Sadr City neighborhood. Sentenced to one year's confinement, demoted to private and given bad-conduct discharge.
• Staff Sgt. Johnny Horne Jr. pleaded guilty to unpremeditated murder in same case as Alban. Sentenced to three years in prison, had rank reduced to private and given dishonorable discharge. Horne's prison sentence later reduced to one year.
• Cpl. Dustin Berg convicted and sentenced to 18 months in military prison for shooting death of Iraqi police officer.
• Spc. Rami Dajani convicted of making a false statement following fatal shooting of Iraqi translator. Sentenced to 18 months' confinement and given a reduction in rank and bad conduct discharge.
• Spc. Charley L. Hooser convicted of involuntary manslaughter in same case involving Dajani. Hooser sentenced to three years in prison and given a reduction in rank and bad conduct discharge.
• Capt. Rogelio "Roger" Maynulet convicted of assault with intent to commit voluntary manslaughter in shooting death of wounded Iraqi. Dismissed from armed forces.
• Marine Maj. Clarke Paulus convicted of dereliction of duty and maltreatment in case stemming from death of Iraqi prisoner who was dragged out of holding cell by the

I don't know where you drive but where I drive when there is a car to my right there is most likely another car behind it and another car behind that and another car behind that and another car behind that (and many more cars behind that but I can't keep typing this out).

In addition not accelerating onto a freeway can and will get you killed. I'll look up one example just to wet your appetite for me proving that deaths occur. http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2006/10/04/news/coastal/encinitas/22_07_0010_3_06.txt

Why not just let the peoples fight it out for dominance?

As Jews and Arabs do?..

I mean, that's what is happening in Iraq right now. Seems to be the only way to get a stable government in a region. Arrogant Westerners thought they had to 'civilize' these regions and force their own systems upon those regions. Doesn't seem to have worked well.

The alternatives — such as Rwanda — were far worse.

Why couldn't the US just give the Jews a chunk of Utah?

It could've, it did, and it still does: it was and remains perfectly legal for Jews to buy land in Utah. They preferred to do so in Palestine, however, for some reason... Their dramatic successes in farming and the ability to buy more and more land resulted in the negative reaction by the local Arabs. So much so, it remains de-facto illegal to this day for a Palestinian to sell land to a Jew — Hamas and friends will hunt such a seller down. Selling to Christians is Ok, and there is a small industry in Europe specializing in middlemenship...

I see the formation of Israel as a foolish and arrogant plan executed with ignorance of the regions being manipulated.

Unlike those you accuse, you are ignorant of history — the Jews fought their way to dominance in the region, defeating armies of several (earlier-formed) Arab nations — just as is, apparently, required by you, right after seeking — and obtaining — legal international recognition. If ever a new nation was born "properly" — satisfying both the "might is right" people like yourself and the peaceful consensus-seekers — it was Israel in 1948. Had the Arabs done the same — instead of conspiring for decades to destroy Israel — they would've lived pretty good by now.

Not that they live badly now — Gazans' are fairing better than those of Egyptians right across the border:

Al-Nahal said he wasn't exactly impressed with Egyptian Rafah which, with mudbrick buildings and unpaved streets, has more of a village feel than its larger, bustling counterpart of multistory apartment buildings on the Gaza side.

You are not just ignorant, but also racist — implying, that certain peoples "just aren't" capable of democracy and that "a strong hand" is the best for them...

Also your blaming of "the West" for the world's ills is such a (disproved) cliche, that I'll probably stop responding here... My hands already hurt from beating you up with all these heavy facts, sorry.

You have nothing to be ashamed of as a "westerner" — your shortcomings are ignorance and racism, but those are your own...

It's a very convenient excuse to shoot at anyone. But knowing american habits there's always a good reason for a killing spree mainly when it involves civilian targets.

It happens, but I think it's pretty rare (IANAL either). And usually for something pretty major, like to try to remove someone from office.

Although skeptical, I decided to do a little Google search to see if your information was accurate. I was surprised to find out that it is. (Surprised not because of you, personally, but because most unsourced claims on Slashdot turn out to be garbage.)

Quote:
And when was the last time you heard of a woman allowing a baby to die, even if it's not hers? Just that alone is just so very unlikely.
Unquote

A random search on internet:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/coventr y_warwickshire/6176075.stm [bbc.co.uk]

http://www.kxnet.com/getArticle.asp?ArticleId=1243 34 [kxnet.com]

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2006/05/17/news/co astal/22_16_515_16_06.txt [nctimes.com]

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2006/05/17/news/co astal/22_16_515_16_06.txt [nctimes.com]

Quote:
And when was the last time you heard of a woman allowing a baby to die, even if it's not hers? Just that alone is just so very unlikely.
Unquote

A random search on internet:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/coventr y_warwickshire/6176075.stm [bbc.co.uk]

http://www.kxnet.com/getArticle.asp?ArticleId=1243 34 [kxnet.com]

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2006/05/17/news/co astal/22_16_515_16_06.txt [nctimes.com]

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2006/05/17/news/co astal/22_16_515_16_06.txt [nctimes.com]

I call shenanigans all over that. It's not some vast conspiracy of SUV-loving, gas guzzling eco-terrorists that keeps things as they are

Weird Al grew up in Lynwood, CA but his parents had moved to Fallbrook and that's where they were living until they passed away. This is according to the North County Times

didn't bush put more funding for this very research instead of signing kyoto?

No. He just didn't sign Kyoto.

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2006/03/12/busines s/news/20_27_233_10_06.txt

Charging customers to send them into space is a lofty goal for any business owner, and perhaps particularly in an area whose economy draws much of its strength from the availability of cheap land.

But that's the goal that Bill Sprague has set, and he even said that he chose Temecula largely because of its low cost of living relative to the coastal cities where his aerospace suppliers are based.

Sprague is building a 52-foot rocket. By October 2007, he hopes, passengers with $250,000 to spend will be able to ride it to the edge of outer space, where the curve of the Earth is visible and where the planet's gravity is slightly weaker than at the surface.

"If they look in any direction except at the Earth, they'll see black," Sprague said. "It'll be just the sun sitting in a sea of blackness. The stars will be visible."

Cool article, although the fact the rocket parts are only valued at $3mil right now would make me concerned about riding in it.

Taking a look at the comments posted and moderated highly on /. on this thread is a bit horrifying. About 80% of the comments thus far are pointing to the fact that in spite of the fact that America gets so much flack for being a general world class jack ass the american's view of race/minority relations are so much better thought out than some of our european collegues. Let me point out some of the obvious issues here. There is a consensus forming that the "immigrants" have only themselves to blame as they have insulated themselves, refused to assimilate and are just leechers of a welfare state embracing multiculturalism and more over islam is "antidemocratic".

If you replaced "French Riots" w/ Watts Riots in Chicago and "north african/immigrant communities" w/ Black people, would you be so comfortable repeating your statements? Have we after all these years come nowhere? I am not justifying what is going on there but people are burning thousands of cars and rioting that is now spreading all over europe. To not be somewhat self-reflective enough to ask how did it come to this is woefully ignorant.

Might not the idea that the two immigrant hoodlums running from the police who accidentally killed "electrocuted" themselves, might have some what less credibility being that just a few months ago, the police stalked, chased down and gunned down a brazillian immigrant at a subway stop and initially covered it up and blamed the immigrant that allegedly was wearing a coat in summer and acting suspiciously and running away all of which turned out not to be true at all and in fact was a complete fabrication?

How did did it come to this? Tell me why enforced secular humanism seems to be targeted primarily at the muslim community? Tell me about job prospects> and what the french have to do fix this problem. Tell me why the majority of people in french jails are muslim.

And most of all tell me why europe is insisting on creating 2nd and 3rd generation second class non citizens "gast-werkers" who will never be allowed to truly be "french", "german" or more generally european because being born european doesn't make you european. To understand this more clearly I am linking a comparison of citizenship laws for countries around the world. The american so called "myth" is the nation of immigrants, we are all american one. But the europeans (somewhat ironically w/ their neoliberalism) makes you be european by blood or by an arbitrary bureaucracy leading to 2nd and 3rd generation foreigners (witness Germany and the Turks). If what is now going on in france happened here, we would not hear an end to the "shame of the nation" (aka la riots), and I find it mortifying that we collectively do not have enough reflexitivity to go beyond the "they are not us, they are them and they hate us, they are foreign" mentality. And it is shameful.

The US forces do not use Willy Pete to burn people, it is an ineffective use of a tool.

T-mobile does not have electricity, food, drinking water, or building materials. They could possibly buy such things, but it isn't what they have on hand. What they have is wireless communication services. They are a cell phone company. They are giving what they have.

I'll agree that perhaps this isn't going to be the most realistically useful thing ever. But at least they are doing something.

Yes, free cell phone service would have possibly been something that t-mobile has which would be even more useful, but there are practical barriers there. That is, most people don't have cell phones which you can just reassign to a different cell phone carrier at will, and even with phones with such features most people don't know how to use them. It seems likely either you're an existing t-mobile customer and can already use their network, or you're not easily going to be getting on their cell network anyway. Wifi may have a more limited utility than cell service, but there's fewer logistics involved in letting people use it.

In the meantime, if you or anyone else reading this is really concerned with being productive, something easy to do to help would maybe be instead of complaining on slashdot, take the time in the next couple of days to donate blood

2004.10.10: "Feds knock Microsoft footdragging disclosure"
North Country Times, reported Friday that the Justice Department and the states that brought the anti-trust action against Microsoft are now complaining that: "... the company's current plan "significantly limits the practical usability" of the information Microsoft was compelled to reveal to its competitors." The basis of the complaint is that Microsoft plans to issue the information in the MHT format which is proprietary to Microsoft and only readable via a Microsoft browser. This story was not widely carried and I actually ran across it in heise.de while struggling with the fishy translation of the German story on plans impose user fees on PCs hooked to the internet.

2004.10.10: "Feds knock Microsoft footdragging disclosure"
North Country Times, reported Friday that the Justice Department and the states that brought the anti-trust action against Microsoft are now complaining that: "... the company's current plan "significantly limits the practical usability" of the information Microsoft was compelled to reveal to its competitors." The basis of the complaint is that Microsoft plans to issue the information in the MHT format which is proprietary to Microsoft and only readable via a Microsoft browser. This story was not widely carried and I actually ran across it in heise.de while struggling with the fishy translation of the German story on plans impose user fees on PCs hooked to the internet.

I agree completely, Doc Ruby. Very well said.

What's disturbing is those in power who would suspend elections in the event of a terror attack, as though that's an appropriate response.

Voting official seeks process for canceling Election Day over terrorism

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2004/04/10/news/to p_stories/19_55_164_9_04.txt

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2004/04/10/news/to p_stories/19_55_164_9_04.txt

more news:
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2004/02/05/special _reports/science_technology/2_4_0419_27_50.txt

Always true. Always.

The Army plans to spend $14.78 billion on a new combat system over the next six years...

Enough to buy desalination plants with sufficient capacity to serve over 12 million households a year ( raw figures ). Enough to run the Spirit/Opportunity mission to Mars 18 more times ( raw figures). Enough to extend unemployment benefits for 2.5 million people for 1 year (raw figures). I could go on, but you get the picture. Will we be more secure? Will we generate more enemies and terrorists? Will this make war more humane or more savage? Will this reduce or increase collateral damage to civilians? Does this make us a better people, or a bunch of psychotic bastards? Do any of you people even give enough of a shit to write your congressional representatives? Will you even after you start seeing news reports of our robots killing and destroying?

or murder

Actually that was Joseph Kennedy, who sold in the summer of 1929, supposedly because a shoeshine boy gave him a stock tip. And the story is probably totally apocryphal - Kennedy himself denied it.

--