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We're stuck here for good, destined to just keep looking at extra solar planets via telescope and speculating about whether they could support life as we know it. The nearest star, Proxima Centauri, is 4.3 light years away. The farthest man made object is just roughly 17 light hours from home after 35 years of travel; so forget about sending spaceships physically to the stars unless someone invents warp drive. It's laughable to talk of Alpha Centauri when no one in power is showing interest in returning to the moon, let alone Mars.
And leaving aside that, we're stuck with the reality of NASA facing budget cuts despite its overall budget being a drop in the ocean compared to what's been spent on war in the last 10 years.
Space exploration should've been incremental, start with a lunar refuelling base at the pole where there's water ice that can be broken down into hydrogen and oxygen for rocket fuel, and use that as a staging area for further exploration. Build a spacecraft for travelling to Mars in LEO stage by stage, and send a bunch of robots to assemble a modular base well before the first humans are sent (Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars series describes this approach).

While Curiosity, Opportunity & Spirit are testimony to NASA's engineering prowess, it still can't beat an actual geologist (areologist?) on Mars with a field laboratory who's able to directly analyse rocks and figure out what it was like in the past.

Want some perspective? Just the annual airconditioning budget for the US Army in Iraq/Afghanistan far exceeds that of NASA's.

I am not one of the "OMG! Look at the religion of peace!" bozos.

I am. Islam is a blight on humanity and evil things like those emanating from Iran, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan flow directly from Islam.

Blaming the religion is the wrong approach. All you will accomplish by attacking a religion is to add to the resolve of those extremist followers who you seem to conflate with the vast majority of those followers who are not so fearful, ignorant, and hateful. Notice I said "a" religion. Not Islam. Christianity has it's share of nut-job followers too. They're not as well organized since The Enlightenment, but they are still there. We need to leave the religion out of it and deal with religious extremists for what they are, violent and anti-social criminals.

I am not one of the "OMG! Look at the religion of peace!" bozos.

I am. Islam is a blight on humanity and evil things like those emanating from Iran, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan flow directly from Islam.

Here is a breakdown of who the 47% are. An interesting point of the pie chart is that 23% of the country is now low-income (an income below $26,400 for a family of four).

There's a lot you're missing, but I'll just highlight the big one: the statistic is that 47% of Americans pay no federal INCOME tax. They do pay plenty of other taxes, like the federal payroll tax and social security taxes, to say nothing of the various state taxes and, at the very least, sales tax. It's true that there are still some people who also do not pay payroll taxes (18.1% of Americans). But these people are overwhelming either elderly, disabled, children, or students (who will eventually be paying taxes, typically at a higher rate thanks to their education-enhanced income). And the remainder typically have jobs, but nevertheless make very little money.

See: http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2012/09/daily-chart-9 and http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/09/18/161337343/the-47-percent-in-one-graphic

Citation needed. Specifically with regards to the "unlike" bit. Of all charitable donations, 41% comes from the top 10% of incomes. From households (excluding foundations or nonprofit companies), 3% of households account for over two thirds of household donations.

Rockefeller donated 10% of his total income to church, and an unspecified additional amount to other charities throughout his life. In general though, the richer you are, the less you give, as a percentage of income. Absolute dollars is a meaningless comparison: Someone who's poor and gives away his last piece of bread is showing his humanity. A multibillionaire handing the poor a piece of bread does not, because he isn't giving up very much relative to his station. Percentage of income: The more you earn, the less you give. pSo there you go. Citations given. Now sit down and shut up.

http://stateimpact.npr.org/texas/2012/03/30/epa-to-range-resources-drill-away/

http://abclocal.go.com/kfsn/story?section=news/state&id=5980352

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-epa20dec20,0,1603760.story?coll=la-home-center

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24276709/

http://articles.philly.com/2008-12-07/news/24992895_1_climate-change-climate-change-deputy-administrator-jason-burnett

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55268-2005Mar21.html

The EPA is run by the administration of the moment. Reagan had James Watt as Secretary of the Interior, for chrissakes. Right now, the EPA likes solar because Obama likes solar. Under Bush, the EPA loved nothing more than oil companies, as demonstrated by the reality based links given above.

Now go on back to your Tea Party, meme-bot, and let the grown-ups talk.

You wouldn't encrypt a billboard, would you?

I wouldn't no... but someone has http://www.npr.org/2004/10/09/4078172/solve-the-equation-get-an-interview

... to the rest of the world.

Check out this brief article & interview : http://www.npr.org/2012/09/19/161439562/held-dear-in-u-s-free-speech-perplexing-abroad

The summary of the above link brings up an interesting blind spot: the rest of the world does not have free speech, not in any way. I'm not just talking about countries where you could be executed for praying to the wrong god. I'm talking about 'Western Nations,' like the UK and members of the EU. For example in France - where many of our ideals of personal liberty spring from - you can be jailed for 6 months (and fined) for being seen as insulting the country, flag, anthem, or any public worker. Imagine not being able to speak negatively about a politician or the police, on threat of jail time. This is standard almost everywhere else in the world.

Heck, you can even be jailed in Canada for writing hate speech.

The US is one of a small handful that really places freedom of speech at the top of the list, and doesn't just pay lip service to it.

I would summarize it like this: Socialism promotes the welfare of society over that of the individual, and rather than protecting 'the right to not be offended,' they simply focus on the improvement of society as a whole. It just looks like 'the right to not be offended' on the individual level. The most socialist your country gets, the more likely they are to trade the privileges of the individual for the betterment of society, and free speech is one of those.

So, they may see racism as bad (which it is), and so they outlaw it in both deed AND word. They may consider Nazis to be awful, and so they forbid anyone to claim to be a Nazi, or even learn about them, or listen to any of their speeches - just in case they might accidentally like it: better to bury it all and pretend it never happened.

It's also not unrelated that most of these laws were birthed from strongly fascist or oppressive monarchy governments. They had different motivations, but they also did not value personal liberty. At extremes, there's little difference between strong socialism or strong fascism - they use the same means and have the same goals.

Then you are the exception. Voter fraud in the US is VERY rare. And statistically speaking meaningless.

Which is the point. The only reason ANY hurdle to voting should be in place is if there is a risk of fraud. If not, then open and easy should be the default. This is what happens when one party tries to manipulate the system to increase their chances of winning. It hurts all of us. Voter registraiton is adequate in the VAST majority of situations to maintain a fair election. Even if you multiply the voter fraud reports by 10x you are still talking about a statistically insignificant number. Compare that to the idea of ANY number of people not being able to vote when they should have, and you will start to see the problem.

And if you think that this is REALLY about non citizens voting, here is a good article on the results in Florida and Colorado voter role purges.

http://www.npr.org/2012/09/20/161437481/voter-purges-under-review-ahead-of-election-day

An analysis of whom the US lets in, versus other countries (Short article, has two infographics):

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/08/27/160110929/immigration-who-the-u-s-lets-in-and-why

Spoiler:
The short answer: The U.S. mostly lets in family members of people who are already in this country. Other developed countries focus much more on letting in workers.

Meat, especially Beef is the real problem.

It's only a matter of time until the resources required to create meat get stressed to the point of pricing it out of most peoples diet. The fact that the developing world, especially China, is increasing the amount of meat in its diet will only increase the problem and quicken the change.

No, you're wrong. Soylent Green is people. People are meat. QED.

The American Fast Food Industrial Complex

Seriously? Whose ass did you pull that out of?

Meat, especially Beef is the real problem.

It's only a matter of time until the resources required to create meat get stressed to the point of pricing it out of most peoples diet. The fact that the developing world, especially China, is increasing the amount of meat in its diet will only increase the problem and quicken the change.

The American Fast Food Industrial Complex that has led the way in shaping the American diet and it's addiction to Beef will have to re-shape the American diet towards vegetarianism.

During the piracy warning at the movies people have taken to sounding like pirates with arrrgs and saavy. This makes me laugh. Below is a snippet of Bob Mondello's interview with NPR about the Toronto Film Festival. MONDELLO: Well, yes, actually. At the beginning of all the public screenings - this doesn't happen so much with the critics' screenings, but when you're at a public screening as soon as they put up the screen that says to be careful not to record anything, the anti-piracy note, everybody starts making pirate noises and going argh, argh. It's a little strange. http://www.npr.org/2012/09/11/160966328/toronto-film-fest-offers-hints-of-oscar-contenders

What it means is that more people are more likely to click buttons online and say they're gonna vote, then they're nowhere to be seen at the polls because they'd rather fuck off on Facebook all day.

No, they checked that in the study. Here's a more complete version from the AP that covers this:

Fowler and colleagues didn't just take the word of people who clicked the "I voted" button. They checked public voting records in 13 states for that election, and found about 4 percent of those who said they voted hadn't really cast ballots.

deliberate political policy

Today the statists have us burning our food, while simultaneously driving pig farmers and egg producers out of business with animal `welfare' regulation and high feed cost.

Naturally, when the crash comes it will be the fault of `corporations.'

I wouldn't say it's the statists burning our food, or at least in my limited experience it wasn't the case. I grew up in a rural Indiana town and outside of a single factory, the largest portion of its economy is corn. When I was in HS in the 90's there were a couple years when the farmers had absolutely huge yields ... so much so in fact the price of corn went through the floor. Having family members that own large farms, it literally cost them more to drag the corn to the grain elevator for sale in gas/time/pay for farmhands than it was worth. End result? Pile it up and hope the price increases. When the price didn't increase and it started to rot, burn it and take the loss.

At first I was a bit disgusted. After all, we were just talking about starving kids in Africa and Susanne Sommers makes a great pitch! But then I realized that in order to get that corn to the folks that need it, someone has to pay the farmer or HIS FAMILY will be the ones starving. (Maybe not literally starving, but they'd certainly lose the farm.)

Makes the ethanol mandates and their timing make more sense now that I think about it. A politician (or group there of) would be very likely to make the mistake "Corn is too cheap! Let's artificially create demand by using it in gasoline!" ... without taking into account the fact that not all harvests are nearly as good.

deliberate political policy

Today the statists have us burning our food, while simultaneously driving pig farmers and egg producers out of business with animal `welfare' regulation and high feed cost.

Naturally, when the crash comes it will be the fault of `corporations.'

> The commission says its current contractual obligations love of money forbid the use of such rival technology.

Fixed that for you.

> "The TLC is eager to pave the way for taxi riders to take advantage of the most up-to-date technology, including smartphone apps that may help passengers locate available taxicabs more quickly," said TLC chairman, "once we work out how to get a piece of the action".

Oh wham!

All over the world taxi licenses earn government ridiculous amounts of money. The poor bastards that drive the cabs see little of that, with the licences purchased by wealthy investors. Government workers (or quasi-government commissions) forget their mission is to ensure the public has access to taxis. Unfortunately whenever large sums of money are waved under a government workers nose they focus on getting some for themselves. Sure they can't legally pocket it themselves, but organizations bringing in cash get star treatment and some of that cash hangs around as benefits for government workers. https://www.npr.org/2011/11/15/142301617/nyc-taxi-medallions-fetch-unbelievable-returns

city government. not the Feds.
City gets money. Thus the situation in NYC.

some perspective (taxi medallions. one meeeeelion dollars)
http://www.npr.org/2011/11/15/142301617/nyc-taxi-medallions-fetch-unbelievable-returns

That's already been patented. You need to go deeper. http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/08/01/157743897/can-you-get-a-patent-on-being-a-patent-troll

This very morning I listened as NPR recited one email after another from angry listeners complaining that NPR had given air to Stanford University research (funded exclusively by the University) showing `organic' food provided no health benefits over conventionally produced food. Enraged foodies are letting it be known that they won't tolerate `anti-organic' research.

Other Stanford research shows no correlation “between the dollars spent by districts or schools and the outcomes of their students" and that reforms must precede new spending if there is to be any benefit. The same warmist educrats that would have Al Gore's AGW propaganda playing on a loop in classrooms (but for parents) don't hesitate to reject those results.

Closer to home we have slashdot readers expressing no small amount of skepticism about CDC research on rates of autism. Another way to induce irrational anti-science behavior around here is by pointing out the correlation between vehicle size and safety; warmists indulge a lot of magical thinking trying to deal with that one.

People resist results they don't like.

What kind of "China Labor Watch" would they be if they reported everything was OK? They have an incentive to report bad news, and spin everything in a negative direction. For all we know, they could be like NPR and think they don't even need evidence, engaging in outright fabrication. And why not? It supports their pre-existing mental state. "We didn't think that he was lying to us and to audiences about the details of his story."

Hey, I'm not saying Chinese factories are heaven. Even in America, factories that are unionized and obey every OSHA rule are still not particularly pleasant places to work. But the "big name" factories in China have the best working conditions, hands down. I've been to the little ones and they can be hell. If the boss thinks of himself as father to the workers, the small factories can be quite nice. But when he thinks of himself as the only smart person in the company, and the workers as reprehensible (think of it like the way liberals consider middle Americans), things can get bad. Come on, this China Labor Watch isn't going after the bad factories. It's just going after the big names to get publicity for itself. If they were actually interested in fixing things, they'd have no trouble swinging a 2x4 in China and hitting several factories that need to be exposed. But they're not interested in that, eh?

In my opinion, an innovation is something that no one thought of before and that performs better than its predecessors. It is not a synonym for invention or discovery. Take graphene for example. People had been working with it in various forms (usually called "exfoliated graphite") for decades because it has all the interesting properties of graphite, but with an enormous surface-area to volume ratio. Theorists predicted interesting properties in single, isolated sheets of graphite, and there was some evidence to support it, but nothing really came of it. Then someone got the idea to use scotch tape to rip off a few layers of graphene from bulk graphite, which eventually lead to a Nobel prize. The innovation wasn't the scotch tape, or the graphene, or even using scotch tape to exfoliate a laminar material; it was using scotch tape to exfoliate graphite.

That one little innovation allowed all kinds of measurements that validated the intriguing properties of graphene and sparked a deluge of research across the physical sciences. Now, let's contrast it to something like the iPhone. Was that an innovation? I say no. Everyone had thought of the smartphone already--they were just waiting for the technology to catch up to expectation. People were using proto-iPads to keep track of stock trades decades before the iPod existed.

I think that in the business world, success is equivalent to money and innovation drives success, therefore anything that makes money is innovative. And since things that make money are generally popular, they use the word "innovation" to describe creating something that is popular, which essentially boils down to having the right idea or product and the right time.Thus Apple--which makes very popular, well-designed products--has become synonymous with innovation. I'm not knocking Apple; convincing people to enter their credit card information in order to use a device that they already bought is pure genius. But what have they done that is really de novo, that was more than just clever or marketed effectively?

The general problem on passenger aircraft is orders given by flight attendants over the speaker system that begin/end with "...in accordance with federal regulations..." are parroted and observed with no understanding of why they are in place.

Having the FAA remove the requirement that electronic devices are off does not solve the problem that commercial flying is laden with laws bearing heavy consequences that at times have no connection to common sense, like the electronic device issue.

Philip K Howard points out that the general problem goes much deeper than the FAA, but in the context of "rules on an airplane" the public is very comfortable blindly following laws seemingly without reason. If you disagree, try asking someone on board the next time you take off why you have to have the window shades up, or the seats upright, or the tray table stowed, etc.

Actually ...

You're an idiot. We get it. Next you'll be question evolution, quantum mechanics and whether the Earth is round.

It's very well established that Americans avoid even going to doctors because they can't afford to pay for either what must come out of their pockets, whether they have insurance or not because it's that uncertain. They don't even get up to bat to be denied.

• 
  Major Medical Mystery (sic) why people avoid doctors

  Do Americans avoid going to a doctor because it will cost them money?

  Avoiding the Doctor's Office

And yes Virginia, Americans absolutely do get turned away from hospitals and doctors:

• 
  Uninsured Americans Still At Risk For Getting Turned Away By Hospitals
  Critically ill uninsured Americans still at risk of being turned away from hospitals despite law
  Ambulance Diversion

People to do manage to get care also go bankrupt primarily due to medical bills (not covered by insurance)

• 
  Medical bills prompt more than 60 percent of U.S. bankruptcies

  Plaintiff challenging healthcare law went bankrupt – with unpaid medical bills

  Towering Medical Bills Leave Many Americans Bankrupt

The fact is that America has the WORST HEALTHCARE SYSTEM of ANY developed or even most developing countries. The only par countries are the lower rungs of developing countries and undeveloped countries. Other far less wealthy nations manage to deliver far better healthcare than the US. I know personally because I've lived overseas in these countries.

Your ship has sailed for specious and ignorant rhetorical tricks and debating games. The facts are clear.

BTW I don't even bother getting health care in the US any long. I have group insurance that covers international providers so my primarily care doctors are in Mexico, Thailand and Germany now. Even with airfare it's still cheaper, less stressful, better quality and more certain than getting the same in the USA now! I only carry insurance in the US for being hit by a bus - my group plan is set up to transport me overseas once I'm stable in such situations (again still cheaper than standard US insurance).

ObarmaCare is a day late and dollar short as far as I'm concerned. But the Republican alternatives are even much worse. Basically criminality of political and immorality of leadership dominates both parties completely. To regain my trust it will take decades of a clean track record and that clock has yet to even start.

First of all, do you know how much it cost to make that vaccine and how much total revenue it brings in compared to other medication. Here's why pharmaceuticals don't like vaccines: Some vaccines are only needed once. Sometimes you need boosters but at most it is a few shots over the lifetime of a person. A pharmaceutical is far more interested in selling something you need on a regular basis. For example generic Lipitor may cost $80 per month after insurance. I would bet you a year supply of Lipitor costs more than all the vaccines a person needs over their lifetime.

Actually, NPR ran a story on this recently. It turns out China doesn't really censor criticism of the government, but they do censor attempts to organize. If you want to call the Chinese government a corrupt evil organization, the censors will usually allow it, but if you want to have a barbecue and invite more than 10 people to it, they will take that content down.

This actually groks with what I've seen on the Chinese version of twitter/facebook weibo. There's plenty of criticism of government organizations some fair and some I was surprised the censors were allowing (my favorite innocuous criticisms were in a thread on school buses after a crash killed a dozen children, where many commenters were posting pictures of American school buses (which look like tanks) and saying we were doing it right), but I have never seen anything about attending concerts, parties, or other public events. I didn't think anything of it until reading the NPR article.

I am assuming that you heard about the Total Information Awareness initiative that was defunded in 2003 by congress. Luckily for those wanting to be totally information aware Silicon Valley's own CIA venture capitalists IN-Q-TEL forked out some cash in 2004 to help get Facebook up and running. Thankfully no one is now starving for information in the ASA(Alphabet Soup Agencies) as hundreds of millions are prepared to give away their darkest secrets to anyone who offers to help water their plants.

I'm inclined to agree. IF they do, I can offer a counter-example where they didn't. My son had a series of ear infections during the 1st year of his life and was on antibiotics almost continually from 3 months to 9 months. He also had a serious problem with allergy-induced bronchial infections as well as the odd case of Scarlet Fever. At 23 he's what most people would call "skinny".

Wow, massive sample set there, Elmo, with impeccable use of controls and a double blind study. If you read the actual research, this is talking primarily about childhood obesity so your son's weight at age 23 is particularly useless at this juncture -- he could well be eating tubs of greek yogurt daily for all I know. From the article:

Those who had been treated with antibiotics in the first 6 months of their lives had a higher chance of being overweight at 10, 20, and 38 months of age.

Notice that they don't go into year 23. From another article:

we predict that that this rise in body mass would increase the overweight population in the U.S. by about 1.6 percent.

So at the time of taking antibiotics, this study says that your infant son could have had a slight increase in body weight that would probably not put him into the overweight category. Where he went from there was up to your parenting and his dietary and active habits.

Me, on the other hand, I chained my children to an I-beam in the basement and force-fed them industrial grade lard all day for 10 years until I had to bury them in piano boxes but I didn't give them antibiotics and this proves that antibiotics are not linked to a slight increase in weight.

No.

That's not exactly right. I read NPR's coverage of this earlier today and vastly prefer their title and interpretation of results:

Could Antibiotics Be A Factor In Childhood Obesity?

It turns out that it's a factor but it's likely a small factor quoting an expert from the NPR coverage:

"Although the effect was small on an individual level," Dr. Leonardo Trasande, the lead pediatrician on the study, tells Shots, "we predict that that this rise in body mass would increase the overweight population in the U.S. by about 1.6 percent."

And to summarize, this is not some over hyped stop using antibiotics trash, the conclusion is:

"We're not saying that children with severe infections shouldn't be treated with antibiotics," Blaser says. These findings just reinforce our need for judicious use of them.

Sounds pretty reasonable to me.

Proper safety procedure lowers the risks of mining hazardous materials (where do you think things like arsenic and mercury come from? Somebody has to extract and purify them...), and make the risks tolerable - at least as tolerable as coal mining, your only practical alternative

Coal mining isn't as safe as you'd think
Here are the headlines from an NPR series on black lung
As Mine Protections Fail, Black Lung Cases Surge
Black-Lung Rule Loopholes Leave Miners Vulnerable
Black Lung: Why Respirators Are Not A Solution
Surface Coal Miners At Risk For Black Lung
Federal Mine Agency Considering Tougher Response On Black Lung
Republican Lawmakers Seek To Block Funding On Black Lung Regulation

And this has been going on since the late 90s.
Apparently mining Uranium is safer than mining for coal.

Exactly. The "bananas" you see in supermarkets are a genetic monstrosity; basically all clones of the same individual, thanks to human meddling over the last 7000 years. It doesn't get more GM than that. So, where do you draw the line?

At bananas, obviously.

"Where do you draw the line?" is a question that is only ever asked by people who don't actually have any argument but hope to distract people from that by pretending that we don't draw arbitrary yet strangely effective lines every single day.

But in this case, you've accidentally brought up one of the big legitimate issues with GM foods (the other one being the kinds of corporation that are involved in GM seed production): monoculture.

The modern Cavendish banana is a different variety than the one grown a hundred years ago (Gros Michel) thanks to a fungus that wiped out the previous variety, creating considerable economic hardship and disruption in banana-producing regions. Major banana producers then switched to the current variety, which is now under threat from a variant of the same fungus.

Since I don't want to support monoculture, I don't buy bananas. See how simple it is to draw the line?

Your post is largely nonsense, and you get some very important things wrong.

In the Pentagon Papers case, the courts didn't say it was ok, but simply that the government couldn't stop the papers from publishing them. The option to prosecute them was left open, and has been so. It is just the case that the government generally hasn't pursued that option.

The US is still largely a nation of laws, even if there are issues that need to be addressed, and more trouble is on the horizon. Unfortunately some people are either ignorant about the law, or pretend the law is something other than what it is. A perfect example of this is the question of how the conflict with Al Qaeda is being pursued. Much of it is being acted upon under the Law of War, not under criminal law. This is intolerable to many people, so they pretend that the US is lawless rather than following the rules of a different body of law. Case in point - indefinite detention of enemy combatants without trial. That is not only permissible under the law of war, but in fact customary. That is how the US held 300-400,00,000 German prisoners in the US in WW2. They didn't get trials, and no habeas corpus. Don't like it? Don't take up arms against another state, especially if you are a non-state actor with a proclivity towards war crimes, as Al Qaeda is. Things are a bit more complicated now that the US Supreme Court has muddied the waters on the subject.

Crime rates in the US have been falling for quite some time, which baffles some people. And no, there is no dictate for people to engage in mass murder. The US isn't a large prison. It isn't related to police brutality. The police are not prison guards, nor are they thugs in general (specific exceptions made for behavior).

The way that things get better is by voting and the courts, not armed rebellion - the US isn't every anywhere close to that point once you move out of the realm of fantasy.

The article and title here are very misleading since they actually refer only to power production, not overall CO2...

While gas has advantages over coal, there are serious issues with fracking.

âoeThe oil and gas industry is a significant source of VOCs, which contribute to the formation of ground-level ozone (smog),â said the EPA in announcing new rules for drilling issued this April. The EPA said methaneâ"what natural gas is made ofâ"is a highly potent greenhouse gas. The agency blames oil and gas production and processing for âoenearly 40% of all U.S. methane emissions.â

http://stateimpact.npr.org/texas/2012/08/07/frackings-link-to-smog-worries-some-texas-cities/

http://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2012/07/30/in-northeast-pennsylvania-methane-migration-means-flammable-puddles-and-30-foot-geysers/

As with what's happening with corporate "free speech", money/stock may be an influence elsewhere. The study showing that it was toxic waste fluid injection wells causing contamination, not fracking itself, came from someone who received over 1.5 million in salary/stock (and didn't disclose that either).
Even stranger, he was a senior official at the USGS, which instead of showing their own studies on fracking related quakes, linked to a similar outside study. There are many brilliant people at the USGS that don't deserve reputations being soiled by a key player.

http://stateimpact.npr.org/texas/2012/07/23/fracking-company-paid-texas-professor-behind-water-contamination-study/

The article and title here are very misleading since they actually refer only to power production, not overall CO2...

While gas has advantages over coal, there are serious issues with fracking.

âoeThe oil and gas industry is a significant source of VOCs, which contribute to the formation of ground-level ozone (smog),â said the EPA in announcing new rules for drilling issued this April. The EPA said methaneâ"what natural gas is made ofâ"is a highly potent greenhouse gas. The agency blames oil and gas production and processing for âoenearly 40% of all U.S. methane emissions.â

http://stateimpact.npr.org/texas/2012/08/07/frackings-link-to-smog-worries-some-texas-cities/

http://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2012/07/30/in-northeast-pennsylvania-methane-migration-means-flammable-puddles-and-30-foot-geysers/

As with what's happening with corporate "free speech", money/stock may be an influence elsewhere. The study showing that it was toxic waste fluid injection wells causing contamination, not fracking itself, came from someone who received over 1.5 million in salary/stock (and didn't disclose that either).
Even stranger, he was a senior official at the USGS, which instead of showing their own studies on fracking related quakes, linked to a similar outside study. There are many brilliant people at the USGS that don't deserve reputations being soiled by a key player.

http://stateimpact.npr.org/texas/2012/07/23/fracking-company-paid-texas-professor-behind-water-contamination-study/

The article and title here are very misleading since they actually refer only to power production, not overall CO2...

While gas has advantages over coal, there are serious issues with fracking.

âoeThe oil and gas industry is a significant source of VOCs, which contribute to the formation of ground-level ozone (smog),â said the EPA in announcing new rules for drilling issued this April. The EPA said methaneâ"what natural gas is made ofâ"is a highly potent greenhouse gas. The agency blames oil and gas production and processing for âoenearly 40% of all U.S. methane emissions.â

http://stateimpact.npr.org/texas/2012/08/07/frackings-link-to-smog-worries-some-texas-cities/

http://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2012/07/30/in-northeast-pennsylvania-methane-migration-means-flammable-puddles-and-30-foot-geysers/

As with what's happening with corporate "free speech", money/stock may be an influence elsewhere. The study showing that it was toxic waste fluid injection wells causing contamination, not fracking itself, came from someone who received over 1.5 million in salary/stock (and didn't disclose that either).
Even stranger, he was a senior official at the USGS, which instead of showing their own studies on fracking related quakes, linked to a similar outside study. There are many brilliant people at the USGS that don't deserve reputations being soiled by a key player.

http://stateimpact.npr.org/texas/2012/07/23/fracking-company-paid-texas-professor-behind-water-contamination-study/

Legitimate science isn't about simple majority opinion or Democracy. There's scientific method with peer review applying critical thinking. That requires open-mindedness. Separation of church and state should protect us from populist "intellectual hooliganism".

False science and false history of intent of our government forefathers go hand in hand.

http://www.npr.org/2012/08/08/157754542/the-most-influential-evangelist-youve-never-heard-of?ps=view&ec=mostpopular

I see it all the time in hack shops. Lots of cut/paste from other bodies of code, take presentations from other people and make them their own..

so why should it be any different with papers/homework and testing? A lot of districts and students are doing it and it's a national shame.

Why not just copy something from somebody else? It works right? Yeah this goes to bad moral judgement and an education system that has
itself cheated then why shouldn't the students?

Yes, it's disheartening but it's out there and it's very bad.

I (and Carlin) said Religion, not the Bible. If you think that churches are teaching the Bible, you're sorely mistaken.

More than four-in-ten Catholics in the United States (45%) do not know that their church teaches that the bread and wine used in Communion do not merely symbolize but actually become the body and blood of Christ. About half of Protestants (53%) cannot correctly identify Martin Luther as the person whose writings and actions inspired the Protestant Reformation, which made their religion a separate branch of Christianity. Roughly four-in-ten Jews (43%) do not recognize that Maimonides, one of the most venerated rabbis in history, was Jewish.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/09/28/130191248/atheists-and-agnostics-know-more-about-bible-than-religious

Planet Money went over the should-be-easy choices that are the start to fixing our problems:

1. Eliminate the mortgage interest deduction

2. Tax employer-provided health insurance

3. Eliminate corporate income tax

4. Eliminate income and payroll taxes

5. Significantly tax bad things that we want to reduce (i.e. pollution, gasoline, energy use)

6. Legalize drugs (especially marijuana)

Now all you need to do is get a successful Economist Party up and running. Good luck with that.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/07/18/156928675/episode-387-the-no-brainer-economic-platform [npr.org]

Not sure why this got modded into oblivion....this is pretty interesting for ideas....I don't agree with ALL of it..but most of it, IMHO, is very much on track and should be considered.

Ok...goodbye points....

:)

Oh well...sometimes you have to take one for the 'team'.

Planet Money went over the should-be-easy choices that are the start to fixing our problems:

1. Eliminate the mortgage interest deduction
2. Tax employer-provided health insurance
3. Eliminate corporate income tax
4. Eliminate income and payroll taxes
5. Significantly tax bad things that we want to reduce (i.e. pollution, gasoline, energy use)
6. Legalize drugs (especially marijuana)

Now all you need to do is get a successful Economist Party up and running. Good luck with that.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/07/18/156928675/episode-387-the-no-brainer-economic-platform

You do realize that in the past 3 years, the percentage of failed mortgages for middle-income and upper-income folks is very similar to low-income folks, right? Funny thing, someone making $30K getting a $50K house is similar to someone making $100K buying a $250K house, or making $300K buying a multi-million house.

Actually, there is one bright spot. A few companies specialize in mortgages to illegal immigrants. And illegal immigrants have low foreclosure rates.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17597739

http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2009/spring/minority-meltdown

At least in California, there's no requirement for ID (nor should there be)..

Uh...
Why? For the love of all that's ... why? In Canada it's a requirement to have ID to vote. And it's to stop flagrant voter fraud that runs amok like you have in the US now. Here's how it works here: At tax time you are given the option to give your personal information to elections canada via your taxes. This information is passed to the provincial branch of elections canada. If you weren't of age at the time, you can be enrolled when the next election comes along(very rare but it happens). When you show up at the polling station, you show government issued ID. Or two current bills(last 30 days), showing that you live in that district. Everyone has ID of some form up here. There are also a few other things you can use. Once that happens, your name is stricken from the voter register and the ballot is used up.

No wonder voting in the US is a mess.

Hey, someone earlier up wanted a source on that 3 million dead? Here, well it's 1.8 million, give or take a bit. Though it might be more, with 24 million more listed as inaccurate, and several million more registered illegally. Including non-americans.

Voter ID works. GET IT.

> If Obama would've taken even a half-hearted swing and [sic] curbing the annual, national deficits, I'd listen

President Obama pushed for a four trillion dollar deficit reduction plan. And he kept pushing for it over and over.

There was even a framework along those lines written by the bipartisan Gang of Six. Note that President Obama and 40 or 50 odd senators from both sides of the aisle expressed support for the bipartisan plan.

But thanks to the Tea Party, the supposedly "fiscally conservative" Republican Party rejected it and anything like it. So instead of four trillion in deficit reduction, we got stuck with only two.

The scientific community is not split on global warming, unless you consider 97 - 98% believing global warming and 2-3% against a 'split'. http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/06/04/1003187107.abstract
Or if that's a bit dry, try http://www.npr.org/2011/06/21/137309964/climate-change-public-skeptical-scientists-sure

Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129324791

Bitcoin fails one of the fundamental rules of a currency - store of value. Yeah yeah, you can talk about hyper-inflation of 'real' currencies, but even with hyper-inflation you have stability of direction. Bitcoin can halve or double on any given day. By that token, it has failed. You can't use it as an investment - your exchange risk (FX risk) outweighs any kind of interest you'd get.

Now, in certain particular instances, its advantages (anonymity) makes the failure of store of value less critical. If I convert to bitcoin right before a purchase, and the seller converts to local currency right after the sale, you minimize the window of FX risk. But then you are not using this as a conventional currency.

And "virtual" currencies were proven in the real world. Check out Planet Money's coverage

A quick Google reveals plenty of sources; here's the one I had in mind:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91490480

In Kleberg County, where Kingsville is the county seat, Sheriff Ed Mata drives a gleaming new police-package Ford Expedition bought with drug funds. This year, he went to his commissioners to ask for more new vehicles.

"They said, 'Well, there ain't no money, use your assets,' " he says. He says his office needs the money "to continue to operate on the magnitude we need."

Another county agency, the Kingsville Specialized Crimes and Narcotics Task Force, survives solely on seized cash. Said one neighboring lawman, "They eat what they kill." A review by NPR shows at least three other Texas task forces that also are funded exclusively by confiscated drug assets.

And it's mostly in the south because that's where a lot of the drugs are coming from. I mean I know a lot comes in from Canada too, but we just don't police that border as heavily.

Bullshit.

Um. Well, the headline is: "First Proof Gorillas Eat Monkeys?" but like all headlines that end in a question mark, the answer is no:

"There's plenty of opportunities" for adding mammal DNA to gorilla scat after the fact, Schubert said. "I don't really think they're eating meat."

That said, the article does say that chimps and bonobos have been known to eat mammals. Something of which I was not aware. So that's interesting.

And this article:

How about that I eat meat, and I can use Google?

Starts with the headline "Meat-Based Diet Made Us Smarter" and then goes on to say that what really did it was learning how to cook:

Wrangham explains that even after we started eating meat, raw food just didn't pack the energy to build the big-brained, small-toothed modern human.

Although it does say the the meat was important as well, sorta. Point for you there I guess. I appreciate the links, at any rate.