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Being able to practicably exercise your right to live, work and be a contributing member of society is a privilege?

Whenever it involves operating deadly machinery in the presence of others, yes, society needs to be careful about granting that privilege.

Until we have completely ubiquitous transportation, either by public transit or autonomous cars, driving needs to be a right.

I agree, driving not-so-deadly machinery such as bicycles needs to be a right. Unfortunately, that right has been taken away in certain areas.

I will take this seriously when they cease watering golf courses. Until then, it is just theater.

"...each course each day in Palm Springs consumes as much water as an American family of four uses in four years. "
http://www.npr.org/templates/s...

NPR is the only news source that I trust.
There are very few news sources that aren't trying to sell you something.

critics who charge bias really want bias for their side

That's the trouble with politics. People know what's coming, and the scientists are saying very clearly what needs to be done. However, when you're in politics, you can't usually do what needs to be done. You have to balance it with what's politically viable. When your counter-party is selling a lie of cheap energy forever, it's hard to tell the voting public that they need to make serious sacrifices in their lives or the world as we know it is going to come to an end. Especially since the changes are so slow that it makes you look like a chicken little to say anything bad might happen at all. I would argue that it's already too late and it's time to stop talking about reducing greenhouse gases and start talking about engineering the climate. There's a few plausible solutions being batted around, none of them seem all that great given that we have no idea what the repercussions will be of, for example, tossing a bunch of chemicals into the stratosphere. At this point though, anything short of global annihilation of our food chain is probably going to be considered a "win." http://www.npr.org/2013/10/20/...

Why should an increase in the money supply devalue the dollar in my pocket? If today there are X amount of dollars, and tomorrow there are 2*X dollars, why do prices have to rise?

Inflation is psychological, not a physical necessity. If a shopkeeper decides to raise prices because there is more money, that's a choice, not a necessary consequence. The choice is basically saying "I want certain people not to be able to afford what I'm selling, so I'll raise prices until they can't."

The way to fight the psychology of inflation is through indexing. Make it seamless and automatic, and use some sort of trick like Brazil used with the Real (see http://www.npr.org/blogs/money...). Since money can be stored on cards, no wheelbarrows full of paper are necessary. It can all be handled behind the scenes so that people aren't even aware of inflation.

Eventually, those raising prices will realize they have to get attention some other way than by trying to create an artificial scarcity.

This from 2012

Someone needs to sue on behalf of the millions of low wage full time workers of large employeers that won't be getting their ACA compliant health plans because Obama again deferred the Employer Mandate, this time out to 2016. These people should have had their plans a year ago, but Obama keeps kicking their benefits forward beyond the next election.

And how much outrage on behalf of the working poor has appeared in our media? Nothing. It's been eased a bit, no worries. A mere speed bump.

How long will these people have to live to actually witness the change from a law that will be half a decade old next year?

How often do tsunamis happen, and how big do they get? Japanese gourds wound up all over the North American Pacific beaches. http://www.npr.org/2013/02/06/...

By issuing money the Federal government is issuing debt at 0%. It is called seigniorage. You can look it up in wiki. For most major economies it works out the be less then a rounding error, so no big deal. Here is a article.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money...

No, the real concern is that when it takes 2 pennies to mint 1 pennies mining companies will order lots of pennies and melt them down for the copper (or zinc nowadays).

No idea if Goodreads ratings are reliable or not, but if you don't trust Amazon...

Nothing prevented the EPA from regulating the chemical spill in question and in fact, the EPA has not proposed any additional regulation since and has failed to provide regulation for a similar incident a few years earlier.

The chemical spill wasn't a problem of no or lacking regulation, it was a problem with failed enforcement of regulation and failing to maintain equipment and follow laws for reporting spills. No amount of hamstringing would have enabled or prevented or changed what happened in Charleston. Enforcement of existing regulation certainly might have though.

It's important to deal with the Slashdot Beta menace RIGHT NOW.

Plus this seed story is old. Here's an article from mid-December: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/12/12/250587132/chinese-ag-scientists-charged-with-stealing-patented-seeds

"So you are turning off and removing the battery from your Cell Phone? No?"

Pretty soon, that won't matter either, with MIT developing wireless radios that rely on nothing other than power from the wireless signals floating all around us. That's why I use a Faraday Bag to put my devices in when I am not actively using them.

"And you are worried about your CAR?"

There, FTFY.

It's still my car. If I want my car's exact speed, location, route and destination being sent to anonymous, random strangers sharing the public roadway with me, I'll be the one who authorizes that data being sent outbound, thank you very much.

"They ALREADY can track you, even with out a warrant. It's called a stakeout and tailing somebody. They can watch you in public, any time they wish, no warrant required."

The major difference here, is that we can track them as well, and they aren't allowed to continue to track you, follow you onto private property without a warrant. They're also not allowed to illegally attach GPS devices to your vehicle, but they're doing that anyway too.

See the problem here?

"Finally, we get to the issue of government spying. Since every vehicle is transmitting its location, doesn't this mean that the government could track everybody, or gather other information about them? This is actually very unlikely. The development of V2V tech has been fairly hands-off on the government's part. Their primary contribution has been to lay down certain standards and requirements for the tech, and then let the commercial companies implement it."

Don't be ridiculous.

Within a hour of this being made a requirement, there will be installations on bridges, public roadways, intersections that will be capturing, gathering, storing, aggregating and mapping every single vehicle movement within city and rural limits.

Guaranteed!

This is an over-bearing, invasive government's wet dream. To know where everyone is at any one time, at all times, day or night? Absolutely this will be abused. They're already doing it now without our consent using our phones and surreptitiously installed GPS devices in our vehicles.

If you think for a nano-second that this is truly being developed to reduce the number of traffic accidents, you're being quite naive. You may be working on the technology, but that doesn't mean you understand the full implications of how it's targeted for use, or how it will ultimately be used when it becomes a reality.

There is absolutely no way this isn't going to get abused at the highest levels of Government.

Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board is not a part of the judicial system and is not "some judges".

True. But maybe the article just chose poor links, because federal judge Richard Leon ruled that bulk phone record collection is illegal.

Isn't it sad then that the DNC is at minimum, the equal of the GOP in bloodthirst.

Obama tripled the troops in Afghanistan, opposed the treaty on cluster bombs, drone bombs anyone he feels like, tried to extend Iraq, failed, and instead called himself a peacemaker.

While I don't disagree with any of your comment, I suspect the reality is more bleak than you paint - the GOP nominee (McCain) would likely have started a war with Iran if he had won [1].

For this parody of choice, sign me up for the lesser evil. GOP aint it, and haven't been for years. Whine about Obama all you want - until there is a less bloodthirsty choice you're promoting, you are pissing in the wind.

[1] http://www.npr.org/templates/s...

Now it's 2014 and the President is using the IRS, EPA, and ATF to harass and attack his political opponents.

Yeah, using the IRS, the Secret Service, the FBI, and perhaps the CIA against political opponents isn't a good thing.

Well, sure, our totally incompetent government workers could lose track of nuclear materials, but if we simply entrust this stuff to private corporations, all our problems will go away.

Oh, wait....

http://stateimpact.npr.org/tex...

Introduce some new workers on the payroll ... cats. Spayed and full treatments. Have them able to be clearly identifiable so people know they are on the job.

I moved into a new suburb that is predominately a dog neighbourhood about two years ago. I still wake up most mornings to a nice dead rat on the welcome mat. I still cannot believe the number of rats that he's caught.

And don't hit me with the argument of native wildlife. Dogs are just as bad and most species now are introduced. The hit rate of vermin to non vermin way, way high.

In some cities there are coyotes brought in for this purpose. http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulw...

This fanatical "activism" needs to be stopped.

Well, to do that, you're going to need to draft up a Constitutional Amendment that voids the First Amendment, then get 2/3 of state legislatures to ratify it.

Good luck with that, chief.

Well, if he's the commander-in-chief all he needs is a pen and a phone apparently.

One thing missed in all of this is that we are close (relatively speaking)[1][2][3] to being able to grow a number of organs. It's entirely likely that this entire debate will a be a footnote in a future wikipedia article.

By the time infrastructure to support organ sales, the associated legislation, and oversight could be put in place, we would probably be well on the way to therapeutic use of many these advances. In the meantime, it could detract from funding and research efforts if there were an inexpensive (in a strictly financial sense) alternative to synthetic organs, which will likely be expensive initially.

1. http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/07/04/198110553/scientists-grow-simple-human-liver-in-a-petri-dish
2. http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060403/full/news060403-3.html
3. http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-08/scientists-engineer-lab-grown-heart-tissue-beats-its-own

Most of the oil used in the US comes from the US. The second largest source? Canada.

Why are you producing so much oil if it's so bad?

You know this how? Cite, please, specifically regarding the FISA court, not an episode of 24 Hours.

Try to keep up, Mr Under-a-Rock

I don't have a problem with inspections. I do have a problem with massive agricultural subsidies to wheat, cotton, and sugar industries, including subsidies that have been ruled illegal by the WTO.

Note that when our cotton subsidies were found to violate the international laws that we agreed to, the U.S. decided that instead of changing our policy, we'd simply pay off the Brazilian cotton farmers who sued us in the first place.

2nd link didnt work right:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91490480

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/01/14/262476413/chase-says-it-will-replace-2-million-credit-cards-due-to-breach Chase is saying something different.

The WSJ:

There also have been recent outbreaks in the Horn of Africa and Syria, although there are signs that those cases will soon be mopped up.

NPR:

The World Health Organization has declared a polio emergency in Syria.

After being free of the crippling disease for more than a decade, Syria recorded 10 confirmed cases of polio in October. Now the outbreak has grown to 17 confirmed cases, the WHO said last week. And the virus has spread to four cities, including a war-torn suburb near the capital of Damascus.

The Syrian government has pledged to immunize all Syrian children under age 5. But wartime politics is getting in the way. And the outbreak is expected to grow.

"Actually, it is spreading quickly," says Dr. Mohammed Al Saad in Gaziantep, Turkey, near the northern border of Syria. There are now more than 60 suspected cases, he says, with new ones reported each day.

Gutenberg is stacked with classics. Stuff that has been successful over a long period of time. Some classics were flops when they were first published and some go periodically in and out of favor.

Or, in other words, what counts as a "classic" right now is simply what's popular today. I think the trends can be better seen in music history. Take, for example, Pachelbel's Canon in D, that piece which seemingly shows up everywhere as "classical music." Johann Pachelbel, however, was a master composer, well-known in his lifetime for all sorts of compositions. Today he has one stupid piece played at thousands of weddings and other occasions every year, just because of some whims of audiences in the late 1960s who got interested in it.

Take Antonio Vivaldi, who was hugely popular in his lifetime, then almost completely forgotten for centuries (he died a pauper, so his fame was as short-lived as many pop artists today), until some Italian archivists dug up his thousand-or-so compositions in the 1920s, and these pieces were then deliberately promoted as part of Italian cultural history beginning in the 1930s.

Or, heck, for a recent example, look at Thomas Tallis's Spem in alium, a Renaissance motet that was pretty obscure until the past couple of years after it appeared in the novel Fifty Shades of Grey. Suddenly, recordings of the piece bounded up to the top of the charts, and it has led to a new interest in Renaissance music and certain early music performance groups.

I'm not saying that these pieces or composers don't have great value or that they shouldn't be "classics." But I do think that interest in particular "classics" is driven almost as much by current culture as actual current art/literature/music is. Measuring downloads from Project Gutenberg is giving us a particular snapshot into what is considered "classic" literature for the past few years. Fifty years ago, or a hundred years ago, I can guarantee you that the lists would be different -- and not just because of works written since then.

One would think, but no. The prime wrong-doer in this case is Sen. Tom Coburn, of "shrimp on treadmills" mischaracterization infamy. NPR did a story on this recently.

It appears that Coburn knowingly omits context that would put these research projects in a much different light. Coburn is a prime example of politicians who appear to put politics above governance. He truly makes me wish there was a law which would put a bullet in any Congressman who made sophistic arguments in the course of deliberation.

So here's my equation for the leading cause gun deaths.
Gang membership (* some_rate) * gun ownship (* some_rate)

Gun deaths are mainly in cities with access to guns. DC had a measure of success in controlling hand-gun access (a hand-gun's only purpose is to harm another human being -- it has no moral concepts of "protection" nor "aggression"). Similarly, without high rates of gang membership, it's possible to have relatively few gun deaths with a high ownership rate. You can't restrict gang membership on freedom of assembly grounds (though the word "peaceably" might be a good legal loophole -- I've yet to meet a peaceful gang).

This is not very different from security at an airport.
Terror group membership (* some_rate) * weapon possesion (* some_rate)

Since we can't know the intentions of everyone on the flight, but we search everyone on the flight (while trying to minimize the first item as well).

Also, suicide is a funny thing. As it turns out, means is important. When England switched from gas stoves, suicide by gas went down while virtually all other methods of suicide remained constant. We could expect that fewer people having guns would prevent suicide -- common sense in this case is damned by empirical evidence.

Other than 13% of it?

http://www.npr.org/2012/04/11/150444802/where-does-america-get-oil-you-may-be-surprised

And it was much more back in 2001.

Fucking Clouds, How Do They Work?

Why do we need to figure out how they work? The science is settled. And since it's settled we don't need to do anymore work.

As noted previously, denying this for anyone in this thread makes you a climate change denier. Especially for those that have pointed out in the past that: We don't know how clouds operate fully in the biosphere, how much of an impact the sun has, total and partial fluctuations of various gravity effects, cosmic ray's and their impacts, and so on.

"the science is settled".

How can there be any uncertainty when "the science is settled"?

The science is settled: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9047642

You just said that because I am a white male that I *must* be benefiting from past slavery.

No, I did not say slavery. I said institutional racism. And it looks like I was 100% correct in predicting that you don't believe it exists.

Does a fish know what water is? As a white male you benefit in so many ways that you don't even realize. Losing unearned privilege tends to really burn which is probably what explains your raging.

Best way to smoke pot and not go to jail? Be white.

Best way to get a good primary education? Be white.

Best way to get a job interview? Be white.

Best way to not be poor? Be white.

Best way to buy or rent a house? Be white.

This water you swim in is as big as an ocean, the problem is that you just don't know what its like to be a fish out of water.

I don't know man. I feel like the powers that be are in total control of things, and allow or disallow as they wish (I'm one of those stewpid '9/11 was an inside job' folks). Magic tiger protection rocks are really all We The People have now. I mean, until We The People band together to fight actual terror where it actually is, that is. In my mind, terror is whatever mankind as a whole allows.

As for the spying, I mean, our courts have decided that it's all legal. So what is everyone bitching about? It's not like America is a concentration camp, where innocent people are brought to be tortured and/or killed. As long as legal professionals see it as being legal, then damnit, it's legal!

Who cares, as long as it's legal to shoot them out of the sky.

I wonder why?
Could it be it's because of the drone hunting licenses.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/08/22/214453184/colorado-town-may-issue-licenses-to-shoot-down-drones

Delta had to honor the price.

Now, the AP adds that "new Department of Transportation regulations, aimed at truth in advertising, require airlines to honor any mistake fares offered." So it would seem the law is on the buyer's side.

Does ANYONE think that airlines would do this willingly?

Shoot anyone against it.

Also. The FCC is filled to the gills with politically well connected, revolving door sycophants there to do industry's bidding before jumping back on the gravy train. It's the poster child for a watchdog agency overrun and infested with regulatory saboteurs and common's-hating overpavers.

http://www.npr.org/2011/05/20/136492206/new-republic-the-fccs-revolving-door-is-shameless

http://www.opensecrets.org/revolving/search_result.php?agency=Federal+Communications+Commission&id=EIFCC

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62718-2004Nov19.html

http://articles.latimes.com/2013/aug/30/business/la-fi-mo-powell-20130830

http://www.theverge.com/2012/11/20/3670940/michael-powell-fcc-chariman-cable-companies-mercy-contet

Seems to me that the nano/micro-sat crowd is demonstrating that to not really be as much of an issue.

Don't distort his reality anymore by showing him the truth!

Seems to me that the nano/micro-sat crowd is demonstrating that to not really be as much of an issue.

Recycling is already a much bigger business than most of us think. According to the book Junkyard Planet, recycling currently employs more people in any other industry except agriculture! That amazed me. NPR Fresh Air had a good interview about the book, in which that claim is made (I haven't read the book).

Really? I heard he threw great parties and during his term the national debt was $0.00. We need to get back to that balance sheet!

This is median household income after taxes and social contributions. The US ranks so high on that list because it's a low tax country (but also provides few benefits). In other countries, you pay more taxes, but you'll also get free healthcare, paid parental leave, free or heavily subsidized daycare, a month or more of statutory paid leave, and free or almost free tertiary education (college or vocational schools) out of the deal.

As an American expat with two children currently living in Germany (and previously in the UK), the daycare subsidies alone are pretty massive difference makers (even with our older daughter now in school). The average American family struggles to make ends meet with two incomes. In Germany, the percentage of dual income households with children is considerably lower (largely because it isn't necessary to have two incomes for a middle class family). The average German has trouble even relating to concepts such as "sick days" or "college funds".

The counties with the sudden increase in income match up with the Bakken oil patch. This is a decent article with a map to illustrate

Sadly, the oil will be extracted, the land will be poisoned, and the workers will leave for another boom and/or gold rush elsewhere, so the counties will be no better off unless they tax the oil extraction effort now.

I'm assuming you're referring to the US. If I understand you correctly, you either question or don't think there are (or could be?) any foreign spies, or associates or members of terrorist groups running lose in the US?

One recent famous case: How the FBI Busted Anna Chapman and the Russian Spy Ring
FBI Investigating Possible Russian Spy Recruiting In U.S.
After the Cold War, Russian Espionage in the U.S.
Russian spying at cold war levels, say experts

China's Growing Spy Threat
Spy case patterns the Chinese style of espionage

Senator’s memo shows Iran links in Homeland Security’s troubled immigration program

Cigarette Smuggling Linked to Terrorism - (From 2004, but the problem remains.)

Smugglers with ties to terrorist groups are acquiring millions of dollars from illegal cigarette sales and funneling the cash to organizations such as al Qaeda and Hezbollah, federal law enforcement officials say, prompting a nationwide crackdown on black market tobacco.

The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has more than 300 open cases of illicit cigarette trafficking -- including several with terrorist links -- up from only a handful five years ago, ATF sources said.

"This is a major priority for us," said Michael Bouchard, assistant director of the ATF. "The deeper we dig into these cases, the more ties to terrorism we're discovering."

Those links above are only a drop in the bucket, especially where China is concerned.

There is a process for properly releasing classified information. Broadcasting it on CSPAN without prior coordination and clearance generally doesn't conform to that.

• The current Supreme Court ruling about FISA is based on a lie.
• The NSA is allegedly allowed to wiretap conversations between a US citizen and a foreigner, but it is also wiretapping conversations entirely within the US (via third parties, such as GCHQ). I haven't heard a ruling on that yet.
• And of course, the Supreme Court has reversed itself before -- sometimes it itself is wrong.

They picked the worst company on earth, gave them $300M and thought they were going to get something for it. This has been covered for months by NPR -- nobody has signed up because the site has not been online yet, at all.

See here and here.

Anecdotally, a company I worked for in 2001 hired Oracle consulting to implement their own ERP system for us, and we ended up getting our money back because they could not even make their own software work.

None of the google results for me were anything that a standard food service permit wouldn't cover. You may not have noticed but most Starbucks stores aren't only open a maximum of twice a year because those permits aren't in fact restricted to a maximum of twice a year.

So what's the reference for your case and the paranoid rantings that followed?

The part about the "twice a year" restriction is referring to the permit needed to do this outdoors at a public location like a park, which is separate from a food service (restaurant) permit.

The government is insisting that those trying to feed the homeless secure a building for food preparation and service and otherwise invest the same large amounts of money and pay the same costs and obey all the same rules that a commercial "for-profit" sit-down restaurant would, without the ability to earn money from the free food to ameliorate costs, making it so extremely costly that it's impractical to do.

It's a practical proscription-in-all-but-name by thousands of regulations, codes, fees, permits, inspections, ordnances, and laws enforced to the letter.

Here's a few links to related information.

http://rt.com/usa/north-carolina-police-arrest-homeless-019/

http://www.foodnotbombs.net/fnb_resists.html

http://www.npr.org/2013/09/05/218891324/more-cities-sweeping-homeless-into-less-prominent-areas

http://dailycaller.com/2013/07/19/bloomberg-strikes-again-nyc-bans-food-donations-to-the-homeless/

If you can't see any problems with government behavior and laws/regs/ordnances/policies here, then there's really nothing I or anyone else can say to you.

Strat

USAA also has a much smaller pool of potential clients so I doubt they can afford to alienate many of their customers. Around 1% of the US population is currently serving in the military (source: http://www.npr.org/2011/07/03/137536111/by-the-numbers-todays-military). Accounting for former military and for USAA's inclusion of spouses and children for eligibility I'd estimate their customer pool is maxes out around 10% of the total US population. Their competitors (I'm not including small local banks in this) can go after anyone.