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No, you would not. Stop with the absolutism.

That's your problem, isn't it? You're the absolutist here.

Consistently and repetitively. It leads to mendacity, myopia, and other negative qualities that only heighten your incompetence and ineffectiveness.

Not every part of government gets equal resources and funding nor identical increases/decreases in them. If anything, being able to devote more resources to effective enforcement due to reductions in government spending in other areas plus a reduction in duplicative bureaucracy and the red-tape they engender would mean *more* criminals are caught quicker, and with lower overall costs.

Evidence shows otherwise, that effective enforcement requires redundancy and thoroughness. What happens with weak government, is that the criminals are not caught, and people's expenses become higher and more burdensome.

Now, that program to fund studies that put shrimp on tiny treadmills? Yeah, we can much better use that money elsewhere. Like government oversight and ethics enforcement. (I know, the shrimp-study is old, but it gets the point across and I don't have time to search for the latest ridiculous gov. program that you know are out there in droves)

We know you believe it, but that's because you worship William Proxmire, but unfortunately, it turned out that his Golden Fleece awards ended up being bogus crap as he ranted at things he didn't understand. Just like the shrimp treadmill which was part of an overall research program about a major industry.

But mysteriously, mysteriously, you ignore that...

Which again, shows your incompetence. You should have spent the time to look up something that you haven't already been refuted on your lies about it. You'd probably still be wrong, but at least it wouldn't be trivial to catch you on it.

Stop with the absolutism.

Stop with the psychological projection.

Personally I think a couple of grand to fill in some missing variables on the behavior of a food species is probably a good buy.

North Korea is so backwatered technology wise. And before you start touting the "bomb", realize the "bomb" is 1950's technology.

If you can believe, N. Korea only has 28 websites in the entire nation. Then you cannot believe they're capable of everything we conveniently blame on them.
http://www.npr.org/sections/th...

Because the Southern USA is only a hot bed of racism as portrayed on TV written and directed by mostly leftist West Coasters (highly skewed demographically white and Latino) and Lilly white New England types.

Because a person never noticed the use of two particular epithets?

That's some...very peccable logic there. The poster even indicated they were using ones from across the Pond, so they aren't meaningful to judging the American South anyway. They may not even be giving experience relevant to the South. Or caring.

But it IS telling how you leaped to the South's defense.

The truth is that in the south blacks and whites have been living side by side in the post civil rights movement era now for 50 years. Mostly we all get along great. People have lots of inter-racial friendships and share each others schools, churches, and neighborhoods amicably.

The truth is that people in the American South are quite resistant to living side by side in that fashion, there is even a building movement of school re-segregation, churches still tend to look one way or another, and so do neighborhoods. Not to mention the halls of power.

Yes some slang terms that once had much more negative connotations are still used and sure the stars and bars flies here and there but mostly its a southern pride symbol now and the people flying it are as likely to downing beers with someone of the opposite skin pigmentation on a Saturday afternoon as not.

While shooting their guns. And pretending that flying that flag ain't got nothing to do with racism, bigotry, violence, or treason. Yeah, right. I kinda watched all the protests of the removal of monuments, in New Orleans and Virginia, and I remember the upset over the flag removal in South Carolina.

Yeah, it's a symbol of Southern Pride...in terms of wanting to be proud of criminals who supported the institution of slavery.

Oh wait, wait, you think skin pigmentation is opposite. Nope. That's not how it works. Reminds me of how my sister back in elementary school, was telling me a story about how God made the different races, and baked them in an over till one was just right. I don't know if she got it from the Christian School, or from someone else, but...yech.

I am not saying there isn't still plenty of racism but not nearly as much as would appear to someone not part of deep south culture.

You are denying the existence of extensive and pervasive racism that reaches from the lowest to the highest levels of the South. It is flourishing more than you want to admit.

On the other hand outside of fairly integrated major metro areas, I think there is lots more of the vicious sort of oppressive closeted racism throughout the American North, Pacific Northwest and New England. They still see people as 'other' and smile at them during the interview while trashing their application later.

I see a lot of Southerners portray themselves as the victims of the North, they think they're looked down upon, and sneer at those damn Yankees all the more because of it.

But yeah, there are a lot of Dixie flag flyers up in those areas, and we know it. They're deplorable there too. And a little touched, as some of them don't even come from the South. At all.

Yet what do they embrace? That precious culture. Not that it's new, racism also existed elsewhere, that's why they ignored slavery, why they ignored segregation, why they supported internment, so what?

There are problems of racism in Japan, China, India, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Greece, Albania, Italy, France, Ireland, Argentina, Zambia, and beyond!

Doesn't mean that the problems of the American South don't exist.

India's Tech Firms Face Fundamental Shift From IT To More Advanced Tech

Quote: "They give only two options," explained Subramani: Leave immediately and take four months' pay, or stick around another 60 days and leave with two months' salary. Subramani,... says he was given one hour to choose"
"Nearly eight years' experience [as an] associate," Subramani says wistfully. "Within one hour everything is over."

I don't want to seem mean but I suddenly lost my job to India outsourcing in *exactly* the same way.
...exactly.

/ also bitter

But overall, there are too many idiots on both sides that refuse to listen to the other sides ideas

Do not attempt to make a false equivalence here. The only reason it might seem that way is because one side has a massive persecution complex fed by an outrage machine dedicated to hyping that noise for profit and the other 'side' (described as the reality-based community by Karl Rove) treat such as cases as just another minor news event.

NYC: Linda Sarsour Faces Death Threats Ahead of Her CUNY Commencement Speech | Democracy Now!
Princeton professor who criticized Trump cancels events, saying she's received death threats
Shakespeare in the Park featured a Trump-like Julius Caesar, and right-wing media freaked out - Vox
Greg Gianforte Pleads Guilty To Assaulting A Journalist : The Two-Way : NPR
GOP pressured NPR into firing a journalist who reported on their bigotry / LGBTQ Nation
Lawmakers across the US are finding ways to turn protesting into a crime - Vox
Tom Price commends police who arrested journalist asking questions
GOP rep goes after activist by writing letter to employer | TheHill
Sinclair Requires TV Stations to Air Segments That Tilt to the Right - The New York Times
Oklahoma Governor Signs Anti-Protest Law Imposing Huge Fines on “Conspirator” Organizations
FDA Denies Ordering Employees to Switch Television Monitors to Fox News Channel
FCC to investigate, 'take appropriate action' on Colbert’s Trump rant | TheHill
Jury Convicts Woman Who Laughed At Jeff Sessions During Senate Hearing | HuffPost
Fordham U. blocked formation of pro-Palestinian group: suit - NY Daily News

In my tomato garden I use cheap landscape fabric with 6" or more of straw over it. This works well & the weeds that can get through I can pull while watering.

Maybe an industrial version of this could help farmers with weeds like Pigweed. No more buying special seeds & spraying chemicals that the weeds will always develop immunity to. Interesting podcast from NPR's Planet Money: Pigweed Killer

Despite your seemingly "reasonable" tone and content your post is a load of rubbish. Lets look in detail.

You mistakenly presume that there is any sort of government censorship of Republicans by "left-wing thugs" to begin with. This claim does not stand up to even the most basic form of scrutiny....

That is a straw man. He didn't write that it was government censorship, but rather "left-wing thugs" shutting down speech. That is true. Here are just two of many recent examples:

College Protestors Send Professor to the ER
Conspiring to stifle free speech is a crime: Glenn Reynolds

...not to mention the judicial which now leans conservative;

Really? The judiciary "leans conservative" so soon after 8 years of Obama appointments? Of the last 24 years Democrats have had 16 years of making appointments and 8 years of obstructing Republican appointments as best they could. Trump has made 1 (one) judicial appointment that was seated only a few weeks ago. If the judiciary "now leans conservative" how are Trump's travel ban executive orders being challenged in such unprecedented ways and on what are essentially frivolous grounds? You don't know what you are talking about.

so if we are to talk realistically about what you perceive to be an infringement of your right to call those who disagree with you "left-wing thugs," your own post is clear proof to the contrary.

This is more nonsense. He isn't complaining about being unable to "call those who disagree with you "left-wing thugs," he is complaining about the left-wing thugs (previously cited) who are using violence to shut down speakers invited by or speaking from a conservative or Republicans viewpoint.

But perhaps, like many of your ilk, you are too ignorant to understand the difference between someone who disagrees with the kind of ill-informed, uneducated, right-wing vitriol that you spew, and someone who actually imposes a legal order against your ability to speak out in this "marketplace of ideas" that you vaguely refer to.

You appear to be misinformed. Mobs wielding baseball bats and fire bombs are not "someone who actually imposes a legal order against your ability to speak out." As to the question of who is "spewing" vitriol, I suggest a comparison of your response and the post you relied to. You have things backwards.

As your political class has never historically had their actual constitutional freedoms curtailed by law, perhaps a more charitable observer would forgive you for such a spectacularly persistent inability to recognize whether the government is actually oppressing you.

Oh absolutely! Who could possibly notice the infringement of rights .. which never happen?
Police Can Seize And Sell Assets Even When The Owner Broke No Law
Top Ten Worst Abuses of Eminent Domain Spotlighted in New Report
Wichita State University: Student Government Denies Recognition to Libertarian Group Because It Defends Free Speech
Part of D.C. Gun Carry Law Struck Down in Federal Court

But perhaps, like many of your ilk, you are too ignorant to understand the difference between someo

this has been extensively reported on. if you decide to ignore all of these sources, and instead make a decision based on some other unknown source (i.e. internal circle jerk), you might as well be a flat-earther, bigfoot hunter, UFO spotter, and loch ness fisherman. you put an unreachably high bar of evidence on things you don't want to believe, while putting a very low bar of evidence on things you want to believe. you have become that nutcase.

You're wrong, because the groups you're not talking about are conservatives, bullies, warriors for Christ, "freedom fighters" and so on. They *do* those things. ACT-America, Christian Action Network, John Birch Society, Oath Keepers, Justice Foundation, Christian Exodus, Agenda21Today, AFN, GOOOH, NCAUNT, WTP, TURF, AOF...are all violent right-wing groups.

But you'll never speak of them, will you? You'll claim that it's a "purely" left-wing thing, you'll wave your hands over the KKK, but wait a second, they're not the only group, now are they? (The Right-wing isn't stupid, they know the KKK brand is tainted, so they stick on a new label.)

In fact, you'll go into hysterics when their conduct is documented and reported.

And it isn't even limited to the US.

Yet you are entirely and utterly silent.

No word at all from you.

Oh, and one of your video was a fake.

But hey, I'm sure you can rant over a cake.

If the Paris Accord only requires Presidential approval to be enforced, it only requires Presidential disapproval to end immediately.

If Obama can do it all by himself, Trump can undo it all by himself - immediately if desired.

And note that every other country that has a domestic ratification requirement for a treaty has followed that route and gotten the Paris Accord TREATY ratified domestically.

Like the UK.

Like Australia

Like India

Like China

Like Japan

The US doesn't have to leave the Paris Agreement because without Senate ratification the US never agreed to the TREATY.

You first have to understand what that means, and what unemployment rate means.

People who are disabled and/or are otherwise on a dole system, people going to college, people who are retired, and people who aren't looking for a job at all don't count towards unemployment.

For the first part, over the last 30 years, the percent of people claiming disability has gone way up, even though we are now objectively healthier than in the past, we have better medical technology, and employers can't discriminate against disabilities.

http://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-...

And if you're paying attention, the boomer generation is reaching retirement age, so you're ending up with many retirees compared to other points in history.

And then of course, we have the basement dweller population, which is roughly 40% of the young adult population, and is currently at a 75 year high:

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/pe...

Granted, not all of them don't work, but there's little reason to work if you simply don't need to. (*cough* UBI *cough*)

This is probably her Twitter https://twitter.com/Reezlie under the similar name, Sara Winners. http://www.npr.org/sections/th...

She's 25. That's legally an adult, but contrasted with my own 63, she's a kid. I used the term loosely.

It's a staged "whistleblow". It even had (of has) Snowden fooled. (I don't know if he's realized it yet.)

You think that the government would be less bloated?

Would it mean more government employees? Perhaps, it'd have to, to supplant the insurance company drones to some extent.

We are talking about the government.

Good for you.

They created the concept of ineffectual bloat and then expanded, enhanced and perfected it.

Oh, so they've done a good job then?

The government home of the $50,000 hammer.

A myth, actually, and you have to ask yourself, why you believe that the 50,000$ hammer wasn't sold to the government by a greedy entity even if your myth wasn't a lie?

No, private industry with a profit motive will always be more efficient than government bureaucrats with no motive at all for efficiency and service.

We don't want efficient healthcare, we want effective. So far, the private industry is killing over a quarter million from medical mistakes in the US.

Take a look at the deadly mess that is the VA and tell me single payer is better.

Take a look at the deadly mess that is the private medical industry, and tell me that it is better.

Not to mention fraud, prescription drug abuse, and denial of coverage. Go ahead.

That's the problem people like you have, you think that nobody knows about the crap in your average hospital, you just fume and snort about the VA, the VA, the VA! and yet you don't realize that the reason the VA is ignored is because 99 out of 100 people really don't care about the VA, or experience its services, or that they actually are subject to reports that your average hospital isn't. That's right, the VA is just used to look bad, that's all, you don't care about fixing it.

Actually there are 17 intel agencies agreed on the issue of Russian hacks and meddling, based on direct transcripts.

Truth. Underrated.

Intent != crime.

Generally speaking breaking into someone else's system and sending a spear phishing email would get you well into illegal.

Quoting form the NPR's article at: http://www.npr.org/2017/06/05/...

VR Systems, a Florida-based election systems provider referenced in the material, said in a statement:

"When a customer alerted us to an obviously fraudulent email purporting to come from VR Systems, we immediately notified all our customers and advised them not to click on the attachment. We are only aware of a handful of our customers who actually received the fraudulent email and of those, we have no indication that any of them clicked on the attachment or were compromised as a result."

Now we can argue on if it impacted the results of the election. I don't think anyone knows the answer to that question, but it now appears the question of if there was an attempt by someone to infiltrate the electoral system is pretty solidly answered.

Attribution is a trickier problem, but I'll buy that the NSA has pretty good resources at its fingers for that, and they seem pretty conclusive in the documents provided by the Intercept.

It'll be interesting to see how this comes out, but I'm now convinced that a crime occurred, since VR Systems has confirmed such and any vested interest they have in the matter would be to deny rather then confirm, as it'll undoubtedly damage them commercially going forward.

Min

What do you think "Drain the Swamp," as a campaign pledge, referred to? I mean specifically?

Absolutely nothing, he went with it because it was popular:

"Funny how that term caught on, isn't it?" Trump mused during a rally this month in Des Moines, Iowa. "I tell everyone, I hated it. Somebody said 'drain the swamp' and I said, 'Oh, that is so hokey. That is so terrible.'"

"I said, all right, I'll try it," Trump continued. "So like a month ago I said 'drain the swamp' and the place went crazy. And I said 'Whoa, what's this?' Then I said it again. And then I start saying it like I meant it, right? And then I started to love it, and the place loved it. Drain the swamp. It's true. It's true. Drain the swamp."

Gingrich Says Trump Must Address Business Conflicts Soon, Urges Monitoring

On Trump's often-stated promise to "drain the swamp" in Washington
I'm told he now just disclaims that. He now says it was cute, but he doesn't want to use it anymore. ... I'd written what I thought was a very cute tweet about "the alligators are complaining," and somebody wrote back and said they were tired of hearing this stuff.

Lie.
Here, learn something about your alt-hate speechthe History of Alt-Right language, compiled by NPR
Nothing like you bringing a knife to a gun-fight!

History of Alt Right "language"

google road to evil begins
http://techland.time.com/2012/...
http://www.infoworld.com/artic...

google secretly embraces evil
http://time.com/4060575/alphab...

google realizes full power of the dark side
http://www.npr.org/sections/th...
http://www.wired.co.uk/article...
http://www.computerworld.com/a...

RIP google privacy,ethics,trust
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

By keeping a coal plant open two days, you are a murderer!

And you wonder why there's an anti-environmental, anti-science backlash? How about we stop with the hyperbole and present the facts as is, without embellishment or absurd scare tactics? How many ridiculous now-provably-false doomsday scenarios were proclaimed over the past 40 years? Did you not think this would undermine public opinion at some point? Well, congratulations. People no longer trust scientists!

And somehow you got modded up to +5, even thought you did nothing to counter the argument other than emotional claims about "hyperbole". Did you even bother to do some back-of-the-envelope calculations?

But poster's got a point. Being right doesn't mean anyone will listen. The only fact that matters is that Trump won the election, and people who care about the environment lost. So, its not about the science. It's about persuading people. By now it should be clear that calling a person a murderer because of a coal plant somewhere does not persuade anyone to vote "no" for Trump or his climate-denying cronies. It may be infuriating, but all you do is generate yuk-yuks on Fox and Friends.

The real "inconvenient truth" is that most people zone-out and read their Twitter feeds while you perform your back-of-the-envelope calculations. If you want results, as opposed to snarky ridicule from Trump sycophants seeking to ride his gravy train, you need to take a breath and adopt a new approach, something that works. It may be a pain-in-the-ass at first, but politics and persuasion is just another application of science: experiment, observe the data, throw out what doesn't work, try again. Scare tactics, doomsday scenarios, and "you are a murderer!" may be good to preach to the choir, and may vent your frustrations a bit, but in the end, it fails to get 51% of the electoral college, or even defeat politicians who assault reporters in public. Climate facts, political facts, they're all facts. Accept them and work with them or we're fucked.

That said, there's an opportunity here. With Trump pulling the Federal Government out of the business of climate, there's a gap that may be filled by folks who really care, like the states. There's an opportunity to show that that Trump and climate-deniers are idiots, wasting an opportunity. But it's not going to be done by scare tactics. It's gonna be done by persuasion, like showing how west Texans are cashing in on wind power, or how great it would be to live in an electric-friendly city where rush-hour doesn't pump the air full of smog. Gosh, if only we had a different president, federal grants might be available so that more cities could get in on that.

By keeping a coal plant open two days, you are a murderer!

And you wonder why there's an anti-environmental, anti-science backlash? How about we stop with the hyperbole and present the facts as is, without embellishment or absurd scare tactics? How many ridiculous now-provably-false doomsday scenarios were proclaimed over the past 40 years? Did you not think this would undermine public opinion at some point? Well, congratulations. People no longer trust scientists!

And somehow you got modded up to +5, even thought you did nothing to counter the argument other than emotional claims about "hyperbole". Did you even bother to do some back-of-the-envelope calculations?

But poster's got a point. Being right doesn't mean anyone will listen. The only fact that matters is that Trump won the election, and people who care about the environment lost. So, its not about the science. It's about persuading people. By now it should be clear that calling a person a murderer because of a coal plant somewhere does not persuade anyone to vote "no" for Trump or his climate-denying cronies. It may be infuriating, but all you do is generate yuk-yuks on Fox and Friends.

The real "inconvenient truth" is that most people zone-out and read their Twitter feeds while you perform your back-of-the-envelope calculations. If you want results, as opposed to snarky ridicule from Trump sycophants seeking to ride his gravy train, you need to take a breath and adopt a new approach, something that works. It may be a pain-in-the-ass at first, but politics and persuasion is just another application of science: experiment, observe the data, throw out what doesn't work, try again. Scare tactics, doomsday scenarios, and "you are a murderer!" may be good to preach to the choir, and may vent your frustrations a bit, but in the end, it fails to get 51% of the electoral college, or even defeat politicians who assault reporters in public. Climate facts, political facts, they're all facts. Accept them and work with them or we're fucked.

That said, there's an opportunity here. With Trump pulling the Federal Government out of the business of climate, there's a gap that may be filled by folks who really care, like the states. There's an opportunity to show that that Trump and climate-deniers are idiots, wasting an opportunity. But it's not going to be done by scare tactics. It's gonna be done by persuasion, like showing how west Texans are cashing in on wind power, or how great it would be to live in an electric-friendly city where rush-hour doesn't pump the air full of smog. Gosh, if only we had a different president, federal grants might be available so that more cities could get in on that.

Story explaining it. CA allows illegals to get driver's license. When they get one or renew they are automatically registered to vote. In order to not be registered to vote, they have to specifically opt-out.

So by default, in CA if you get a driver's license you are registered to vote, even if illegal.

Obama's Administration REFUSED to give out lists of illegals they knew of in CA so people could check it against voter rolls in CA to see if illegals were registering and voting or not.

Its not a conspiracy. Its simple and Obama obstructed the method of checking if it happened or not.

Obama giving hundreds of billions of tax dollars to great projects like Solyndra are similarly fine.

Yes it was fine.

Do you think that we should close the stock markets down because individual companies fail? The Solyndra loan guarantees were part of a program which was a success overall.

Typical Republican falsehoods.

Except Craigslist wasn't built (that we know of) with the primary intent of facilitating illegal activities, nor do they take deliberate steps to hide the identities of those doing such things, nor make available certain services in areas where it is illegal... and where the government has the ability to arrest & prosecute them.

Doing so tends to incur the wrath of the powers that be, just ask Carl Ferrer.

Regarding Uber... do you mean in the sense that they are an unlicensed taxi in some jurisdictions? Or some may use their service during the commission of a crime (ie take an Uber to go rape someone)?

In either case, not much of a federal matter, and local municipalities tend to go after them for the prior (which rarely have criminal penalties associated), rather than the latter where they would be little different from a common carrier.

What's next? A poor car analogy?

Why would I care then? Are you implying that transgender people are in some way dangerous to my child?

Have you no critical-thinking skills?

Chester the Molester does. He figures this will be a pretty sweet opportunity to go into the women's bathroom after your little girl goes in by just saying he identifies as female today.

Aw, are we trying critical thinking today?

1. 1. Where is it legal for Chester to molest? If Chester were following any laws at, he'd avoid the biggest one first. This isn't an end-all argument, just used to judge impact vs consequences.
2. 2. Almost all the people this law will affect are law abiding citizens. People too afraid to think just haven't noticed most of them before.
3. 3. So, now you're creating a law that makes more people uncomfortable than there are right now, and tempting a whole lot of law-abiding citizens to break the law. (I think it's like speeding on the highway, I'd be for autobahn-style laws that actually make sense but I digress).
4. 4. It makes me wonder why are normally anti-government-regulation types all of a sudden wanting over-regulation?
5. 5. So I looked it up, and found that the idea that sexual predators benefitting from bathroom choice is a myth, and most of the victims of bathroom violence are actually the trans-gender people.

Doubtful. The farmers signed EULAs agreeing to not save seeds. The lexmark case here didn't seem to be covered by a EULA. Lexmark was suing a company that was refilling customers' printer cartridges. I'm guessing the refiller didn't sign an agreement with lexmark saying we won't do that. Lexmark maybe could have users sign EULAs agreeing to not refill their cartridges, but then they'd have to sue their own individual customers. Which would quickly kill lexmark. Monsanto on the other hand can clearly get away with suing their own customers since they're so dominant, and there are extremely high barriers for other competitors.

Additionally, there's not much reason to save seeds.

As I understand it, the seeds are hybrids designed to have a good balance of features. Second generation seeds from that wouldn't have those features. You plant a field of corn that's roundup ready. You spray glyphosphate on them. The corn lives, all other plants die. You save a bunch of money doing that instead of repeatedly spraying less effective heribcides. You decide to save even more money by replanting a portion of the corn you got from that crop. You spray glyphosphate on them and a lot of the corn dies. It's inbred corn, the glyphosphate resistance gene has not been carried in a good portion of the next generation. On top of that, the other traits carefully selected for aren't uniform either. Evidently even before Monsanto was around, most farmers weren't saving seeds for that reason.

Disclaimer: I'm not a farmer or a plant biologist, and monsanto DOES spend a ton of effort on punitive lawsuits and propaganda, so I could be entirely misinformed here.

The stories about Monsanto suing innocent farmers are myths or more complicated than some narratives portray them. Popular Monsanto myths have been debunked over and over, yet they keep being brought up:

http://theness.com/neurologica...
http://www.npr.org/sections/th...
https://geneticliteracyproject...
https://skeptics.stackexchange...

I would at least recommend an excerpt from The Skeptics Guide to the Universe podcast about Monsanto myths:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

That's a false premise. The gold standard didn't fail, it worked for millennia.

Yes the gold standard failed. It caused more problems than it solved and it was impossible to maintain for a host of reasons. All the gold standard is fundamentally is a peg of a currency to a commodity - in this case gold but other commodities could be used to more or less the same effect. This does have certain advantages but it also carries some very important disadvantages as well.

We moved off the gold standard as an international currency because it was too hard for the US government to balance its budget.

The actual reasons are multiple but there are a few key ones. For various practical reasons mostly related to international trade it was impossible to move the gold around to perfectly match the money supply in any given country at any given time. "Paper" Currency can change countries faster than it is practical to move the gold around to match where the currency is. And since most money is not actually in the form of coins nor is it practical to exchange it that way we tried a variety of (ultimately futile) means to compensate. There also were issues relating to imbalances in money supply versus labor and capital mobility.

If you want a modern example of the problems caused by a currency peg without the ability to adjust the money supply look at the problems Greece has had in recent years. When they joined the Euro they effectively pegged the drachma to the euro at a fixed rate (similar to a gold standard) and abrogated their right to tinker with the money supply. This has caused a host of difficult problems because the best tools to deal with the issues have been taken away from Greece.

On the other hand, we have seen fiat currencies fail many, many times

We've seen countries on the gold standard experience hyperinflation many times. The Weimar Republic is probably the most notable example and it led more or less directly to a world war. The gold standard is not a viable means to prevent this from happening. Countries on various incarnations of a gold standard defaulted routinely.

The US has only been on fiat currency since 1971

The US left the gold standard effectively in 1933 under FDR. What happened in 1971 is that the US stopped converting dollars to gold at a fixed rate but the US had already de-facto left the gold standard decades earlier.

It remains to be seen if we can manage it or not.

True enough I suppose but we've already proven that the gold standard cannot work in a modern economy so I'm not sure why you seem to favor returning to something that we've already established did not work well enough. Bitcoin does not show any characteristics that eliminate most of the problems with the gold standard aside from the physical transport issues.

Yes, I think there will certainly still be a longtime need for driver-assist AI trucks.

Before truckers, the secretary was the most common job in almost all 50 states. Computers and word processors knocked those secretaries off their seat... just a bit.
http://www.npr.org/sections/mo...

AI should make trucking more pleasant. But it won't go away completely anytime soon... maybe just on the backhaul "trunk" networks.

Clinton winning huge margins in a few large states isn't enough to win the presidency and that has NEVER been the case in American history.

One only needs to carry 11 states and 27% of the popular vote to win the presidency (you could also do it with 23% but more states). So yeah, it kind of has been the case.

California 55
Texas 38
New York 29
Florida 29
Pennsylvania 20
Illinois 20
Ohio 18
Michigan 16
Georgia 16
North Carolina 15
New Jersey 14

Of course, you don't need huge margins in this scenario, but 11 isn't too far away from "a few" in this context, I would say.

All those freshly dug graves

An NGO with ties to Human Rights Watch, another tool of western hegemony.

and reporters being attacked

From BBC, the British equivalent of National Pentagon Radio, a stenographer of the military-industrial complex. It's always amusing to see people who would pitch a fit at citing Russia Today as a source use western media that act as stenographers for the military-industrial complex.

But even if everything said about Russia in Ukraine was 100% true, it's 100000% more justified than any western intervention you can name. The U.S. just bombed Syria, supposedly to protect American "advisors" there. Well, Syria isn't on America's border, and didn't have it's government overthrown by Russia. Which is why this little nugget is a especially pernicious piece of horseshit western propaganda:

there are the terrorists themselves

So the fighter resisting anti-semetic neo-nazies in Ukraine is the "terrorist". Not the anti-semetic neo-nazies who attacked government buildings and overthrew the elected Ukrainian government.

I'm not sure working from home is good for companies.

If you don't have to work at home to outsource your job to China.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/01/16/169528579/outsourced-employee-sends-own-job-to-china-surfs-web

Here, I found some for people to try:
http://www.npr.org/sections/th...
http://www.noiseaddicts.com/20...
http://www.mp3ornot.com/

Or the less dystopian scenario that workers do roughly the same amount of day-to-day work, but are less prone to acute and chronic injuries, which saves the company money on less workman's comp claims, fewer incidents to report to OSHA, lower health insurance rates, etc.

Hospitals should be testing this out with nursing staff in hospitals, which have some of the highest rates of on the job lifting related injuries (from lifting/supporting patients). http://www.npr.org/2015/02/04/...

Not just a great Metallica tune, but explains a bunch of what's been going on in the US.

The Progressive/Leftists have been working long and hard at the change, but they played their hand too early and now it's pretty easy to see whats been happening.

Progressives from the 1800s-1940s or so were also known as communists. The term progressive went into hiding for decades, but relatively recently resurfaces. While the term still lacks the negative connotation it had earlier, it is once again becoming a bad word. Same type of person, same ideology, same ideas of a grand Utopia as long as they can rule the world, but more history to argue against them as well.

Hell, in California communists are now welcome.

That's why, for example, judges and jurors are sought to be impartial.

There you are! Justifying Trump's dismissing a judge as "biased" because he was of Mexican descent...Racist, racist, racist!

Of course, attacking a judge because of his ancestry is indeed, racist, and Trump's admissionsa actually showed his own realization of the bias and animus he had been demonstrating.

That is what Trump chose to do. He picked a deliberate course of racial antagonism to attack a judge in a lawsuit where it was immaterial. In the media. Nothing more. Remember, Trump University? It didn't get filed as a request for recusal in court, it was merely engaging in political aggrandizement. You don't get a judge to act in a case just because you go on CNN and pout like a crybaby.

You do know this, right? Trump was whining about a judge. He chose to do it with an included racist spin, so it only reflects on Trump. Not the judge. In the realm of public opinion. At least, until it becomes relevant to a legal matter. Now personally, I blame Trump's political advisers, who should have at least made Trump temper his remarks, but he still has a problem with running his mouth. Or twitter fingers, as the case may be. But he's not the only one with a problem with that in his administration. That sort of thing can reflect on you.

Which was why when somebody takes your statements, applies them to you, in a legal case, and submits them to court, well, then you have a judge rule on it.

Now if you want to see a judge who got in trouble because of their own actions, let's try one. That's one where a

That's why, for example, judges and jurors are sought to be impartial.

There you are! Justifying Trump's dismissing a judge as "biased" because he was of Mexican descent...Racist, racist, racist!

Of course, attacking a judge because of his ancestry is indeed, racist, and Trump's admissionsa actually showed his own realization of the bias and animus he had been demonstrating.

That is what Trump chose to do. He picked a deliberate course of racial antagonism to attack a judge in a lawsuit where it was immaterial. In the media. Nothing more. Remember, Trump University? It didn't get filed as a request for recusal in court, it was merely engaging in political aggrandizement. You don't get a judge to act in a case just because you go on CNN and pout like a crybaby.

You do know this, right? Trump was whining about a judge. He chose to do it with an included racist spin, so it only reflects on Trump. Not the judge. In the realm of public opinion. At least, until it becomes relevant to a legal matter. Now personally, I blame Trump's political advisers, who should have at least made Trump temper his remarks, but he still has a problem with running his mouth. Or twitter fingers, as the case may be. But he's not the only one with a problem with that in his administration. That sort of thing can reflect on you.

Which was why when somebody takes your statements, applies them to you, in a legal case, and submits them to court, well, then you have a judge rule on it.

Now if you want to see a judge who got in trouble because of their own actions, let's try one. That's one where a

There's no excuse for digital music not including lyrics

In case you're interested, at least for lyrics, the actual reason is licensing.

Look at a piece of sheet music and you'll notice that the writers of the music and the lyrics are credited separately. Both get a check when you buy a music recording, both of them get a royalty fee. But if you want to *read* the lyrics, then that's a separate check to the lyricist, just as if you were buying a piece of sheet music. It's a relic of the days when sheet music was much more popular (dating back to when more people enjoyed music by buying the sheet music and performing it at home than buying expensive radios or record players).

So... Amazon, iTunes, Spotify or wherever you're getting your music from is OK paying the royalties for the sound recording but doesn't want to pay the extra royalty fee to get the lyrics/chords written down. Probably because most people don't care, they just want the cheaper music. I'm surprised that nobody (that I know of) has offered to sell the lyrics as an upcharge, but my guess is that they have focus grouped that with their customers and just found there isn't enough interest from people willing to pay for the lyrics.

If you'd like to learn more, NPR's Planet Money did an awesome podcast a few years ago about exactly this topic, including an interview with musicians who spend their time trying to shut down Internet free lyrics sites for just this reason.

You seem awfully sure of her motives.

http://www.npr.org/sections/al... https://news.slashdot.org/stor... https://www.nytimes.com/2016/0...

I don't know what the original post said. I found this link which gives some kind of clue:

According to the Austrian newspaper Die Presse, the posts called Glawischnig "miese Volksverräterin" and "korrupten Trampel," which translate roughly as "lousy traitor" and "corrupt bumpkin." http://www.npr.org/sections/th...

If these translations are accurate and those parts are the offence, then I really don't like the Green Party in Austria.

Yeah I don't want to keep a fat chain smoker alive for a few extra years. Thank you Trump!

Look here the largest cluster of lagging lifespan is neatly outlined by the Bible Belt. Further if you read the actual journal abstract you would find

Question
  Are inequalities in life expectancy among counties in the United States growing or diminishing, and what factors can explain differences in life expectancy among counties?

Findings
  In this population-based analysis, inequalities in life expectancy among counties are large and growing, and much of the variation in life expectancy can be explained by differences in socioeconomic and race/ethnicity factors, behavioral and metabolic risk factors, and health care factors.

Meaning
Policy action targeting socioeconomic factors and behavioral and metabolic risk factors may help reverse the trend of increasing disparities in life expectancy in the United States.

Thus the actual journal describes it as a variety of causes, not smoking and drinking. The slashdot summary is moronic clickbait - dare I say "fake news" - by insunuating that these people deserve to die solely because of their bad choices. But don't let me spoil the hackneyed rebublican narrative.

A behavior factor is exactly that, and when the fattest states seem to always hover around the same areas with the lowest life expectancy, then YES, it can be accurately concluded that shitty life choices such as eating unhealthy and using tobacco and alcohol products are relevant factors. The main reason TFS brought them up is because regardless of location, smoking and heart disease are still our largest killers.

If you want further proof, see where the highest rates of smokeless tobacco and cigarette use is, or rates of obesity and heart disease. It's no fucking surprise or mystery that "southern cooking" practically centers around the concept of unhealthy, innocently relabeling it as "comfort food."

Yeah I don't want to keep a fat chain smoker alive for a few extra years. Thank you Trump!

Look here the largest cluster of lagging lifespan is neatly outlined by the Bible Belt.

So in other words we 'libruls' are better off just sitting on our asses and watching Trump and the Reps not do anything to fix this?

Look here

Ahha! I knew it! Obamacare was a secret plot to turn us all into blue states.

Yeah I don't want to keep a fat chain smoker alive for a few extra years. Thank you Trump!

Look here the largest cluster of lagging lifespan is neatly outlined by the Bible Belt. Further if you read the actual journal abstract you would find

Question
Are inequalities in life expectancy among counties in the United States growing or diminishing, and what factors can explain differences in life expectancy among counties?
Findings
In this population-based analysis, inequalities in life expectancy among counties are large and growing, and much of the variation in life expectancy can be explained by differences in socioeconomic and race/ethnicity factors, behavioral and metabolic risk factors, and health care factors.
Meaning
Policy action targeting socioeconomic factors and behavioral and metabolic risk factors may help reverse the trend of increasing disparities in life expectancy in the United States.

Thus the actual journal describes it as a variety of causes, not smoking and drinking. The slashdot summary is moronic clickbait - dare I say "fake news" - by insunuating that these people deserve to die solely because of their bad choices. But don't let me spoil the hackneyed rebublican narrative.

Meantime, the stuff you really need like housing (whether you own or rent), food, and drugs are dramatically costlier than they were in the old days.

Wrong. Housing costs have barely changed when measured by the square foot and adjusted for inflation. Food is far cheaper today than it was 40 years ago. Drugs are also cheaper today if you buy the same drugs.

Other remedies were offered, though they weren't easy options and didn't involve going back to more coal mining, which is why it was a tough option to choose. People in that region largely said "no thanks".

The clear, contrary message was "19th century style or nothing". You're right that in that circumstance Trump's bogus promises that the clock could somehow be turned back would be attractive to people. Unfortunately, coal isn't getting cheaper, safer, or less polluting by comparison to natural gas or to wind and solar. It isn't in more demand domestically or internationally. Worse, increasing automation/mechanization continues to tear a wide swath through what job market remains within the coal industry. The decline due to automation has been unfolding over multiple decades, and is not merely as a result of Obama's policies.

It's not about "not giving a shit", because that just isn't true. It's that this is a challenging problem and people said "no" to the other options. That's their call, but claiming other people don't care is unfair. Some do.

Unfortunately there are some people who evidently don't care, because they'd rather have a tax cut for billionaires and say "screw you" to the people in Appalachia who do want to change jobs.

I learned a lot about DRM from this website when I was much younger. It has only gotten worse since then, with DRM infesting not just DVDs etc but now John Deere tractors, which are hostile architecture black boxes preventing farmers from optimizing their super expensive machines. So there is no free software or open secondary market for GPS data gathered (i.e. something that would sense micro conditions and efficiently apply another tech). This is hugely dangerous to the human race at large since we are dependent on the tractors for survival. I would argue it ought to be one of the biggest deals to face. If something goes wrong with John Deere we skid right back to sticks rather easily.

https://www.wired.com/2015/04/...
https://www.extremetech.com/co...
http://boingboing.net/2017/03/...
"Now, farmers find themselves in desperate straits. Not only does Deere gouge them on repairs ("$230, plus $130 an hour for a technician to drive out and plug a connector into their USB port to authorize [a user-swapped] part"), but the repair shops can be far away or busy, and thus a half-million dollar tractor can sit immobilized while a farmer frets about getting his crops in."

https://www.ifixit.com/Answers...
http://www.npr.org/sections/al...
http://freeknowledge.eu/campai...
Totally unacceptable situation here.

With a 64-bit address space, odds are a random jump won't even hit a valid memory address.

People often don't get just how big 2^64 is. It's on the order of the number of grains of sand in all the beaches and all the deserts on Earth. More importantly it's vastly larger than the addressable RAM in your computer... and a 32-bit address space is actually smaller than the amount of RAM in many (most?) computers today, since 32 bits can only address 4 GiB.

If you have 16 GiB of RAM, and if all of it is mapped into a single process space, that's 2^34 bytes of RAM. So, picking an address at random gives you a 1/2^30 chance of hitting a valid address. That's one in 1,073,741,824; one in a billion. An attacker who can try a million random addresses still only has a roughly one in one thousand chance of hitting something at all... and the odds of finding something *useful* are quite a bit lower, since most of the mapped memory is non-executable.

Besides the Taiping Rebellion, there was the cult of Mao and the Great Leap Forward famine which also killed about 20 million people...