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I thought it a bit implausible that NPR had never interviewed Ron Paul. In fact, I was so certain that I knew what the result would be, my only reason for googling it was to make you look dumb.

I was right.

You were wrong.

Link: Ron Paul on All Things Considered .

You can dismiss that as a small thing, but I hope you'll give it a moment's consideration. The whole point of carrying a model of the world around in your head is so that you can make accurate predictions about things when you don't have first-hand experience. If your mental model of NPR leads you to predict that they would never dare let Ron Paul speak, or Rush Limbaugh, or Glenn Beck, or Michael Steele, or climate change denier Richard Lindzen, or former Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr on their airwaves, then clearly your understanding of NPR is crap, and your belief that you know what NPR is about is deluded.

I think you'll find that very often speed limits are completely idiotic and don't have any connection to the real world, because whoever sets them for a given road can have several reasons not to maintain this relationship. This could be a municipality trying to cash in on speeding tickets, which has been shown to be pretty effective in many cases. Somebody could be playing the "think of the children" and safety cards by blindly lowering the speed limits everywhere - this sounds good to your average person, statistics be damned. Then there's the environmental angle, which is apparently how the retarded 55mph limits were set on US highways. This actually covers both cases, though there are other examples of course. And last but not least, the people responsible could be incompetent or just not care.

Following the limits can be stupid and dangerous if everybody else is breaking them as well for the above reasons. By driving below the average traffic speed, you're creating more of a hazard than if you just stay with the flow and keep the speed difference low. Also keep in mind that in all but a few exceptional cases, the speed limits don't reflect the actual conditions on the road. It's the middle of the night, there's a huge blizzard and you can't see shit, but the sign will still say 130km/h, just like it does when it's dry and sunny. Therefore, this leads me to conclude that statements such as "if you can't follow the speed limits and whatnot - you are a bad driver" are simply incorrect.

Same goes for the signs. There are at least real-world case studies that showed that removing all, or most, signs actually increased safety for all involved, here are the two I've been previously aware of: one in the Netherlands and one from Germany, which is actually a more recent follow up to the part that mentions that the Germans are also planning this change. In both cases, there has been no increase in accident rate, but actually a significant decrease.

I'm not going to argue completely against predictability on the roads, however blindly following whatever's written on those small metal disks isn't necessarily the best thing for the safety of those involved, as I have hopefully demonstrated clearly enough.

For anyone whose interested, the Planet Money blog and podcast is a great place to start. Their reporting and research is done by actual economists rather than ideologues and talking heads

Planet Money is a joke. None of their correspondents are economists. David Kestenbaum is a journalist who happens to have a PhD in physics. Adam Davidson is not an economist; his background is journalism. Davidson clearly has a Milton Friedman bias in his economic reporting; just look at his blog posts on the subject of economic stimulus.

For a critical look at NPR (Nice Polite Republicans) check out the NPR Check blog.

It's time to bring some facts to this thread. Monetary policy is complicated, most people don't understand it,

including you!

For anyone whose interested, the Planet Money blog and podcast is a great place to start. Their reporting and research is done by actual economists rather than ideologues and talking heads, and they explain why things are the way they are and how they got there. Like I said, our current financial situation is kinda FUBAR, but approaching it with a level head and trying to understand what's really going on is better than getting angry and playing the blame game.

Planet Money started out good but they dumbed down their content too much. If you *really* want to know what's going on read Zero Hedge.

..the Fed (by printing money and giving it to them at zero percent even if it destroys the dollar)

The Federal Reserve does not print money. Maybe you were speaking metaphorically, but you're still wrong. The Federal Reserve can influence interest rates, and it can change the size of the the money supply by issuing and recalling treasury bills and by adjusting the reserve requirement.. Those functions allow the Fed to alter the price of money, but that's not equivalent to printing more money.

I was reading earlier this week the U.S. now has the greatest income inequality in the world except for Singapore and Hong Kong which are tiny city states

Well you read wrong. Equality of income distribution is quantified by the Gini coefficient. Wealth is less evenly distributed in the US than many places (ie Europe), but there's more than 40 countries ahead of us. China and Mexico for instance. See this map for more detail.

For anyone whose interested, the Planet Money blog and podcast is a great place to start. Their reporting and research is done by actual economists rather than ideologues and talking heads, and they explain why things are the way they are and how they got there. Like I said, our current financial situation is kinda FUBAR, but approaching it with a level head and trying to understand what's really going on is better than getting angry and playing the blame game.

The teacher's union of Toledo, Ohio has for years had a "peer review" policy where they would meet annually to discuss & potentially dismiss teachers that have been deemed "incompetent". This isn't the school board firing teachers... it's the teacher's union itself.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91327130

This, I think, is an example of a union doing exactly what it should be doing: Protecting it's valued members and getting rid of the dead weight. With a system in place (which is largely supported by the union members) to keep a shared level of quality among members, I would think that their bargaining power when it comes to discussing benefits & pay could be largely deserved.

If more unions took it upon themselves to actively resist providing shelter to the incompetent, I think the general impression of unions wouldn't be nearly as negative.

About 2% of NPR's funding comes from the government

Wedding services: A same sex couple in Albuquerque asked a photographer, Elaine Huguenin, to shoot their commitment ceremony. The photographer declined, saying her Christian beliefs prevented her from sanctioning same-sex unions. The couple sued, and the New Mexico Human Rights Commission found the photographer guilty of discrimination. It ordered her to pay the lesbian couple's legal fees ($6,600). The photographer is appealing.

I remember running a photography business over a decade ago. I flatly refused to film certain things. Top of my list was funerals. Apparently, I couldn't do that in NM. Not now. Go figure.

So homosexuals have not used the courts to attack Christians who object?

Guess again.

Essentially - why do you have the right to interfere with others?

Because granting legal recognition immediately leads to prosecution of churches who disagree

Anyone who quotes propaganda as their main source for information is probably out of touch with reality.

Translation: presented facts that don't match your storyline are ignored. Do honestly thing that Micheal Moore isn't ready for his right wing critics? Do you honestly thing that with the planet-sized corruption in the Bush Administration, the health insurance industry, and Wall Street that he can't find material to work with that stands up to scrutiny?

Insurer denies caner treatment because patient "failed" to disclose that she had acne.
Blue Cross denies payment for severe miscarrage by calling it an "elective abortion".
CIGNA denied a liver transplant as being "experimental" despite liver transplants being around for 45 years.

And so on. And so on. And so on. And so on.

Phantom, you're crossing the line between willful ignorance and malicious incompetence.

Robert Seagall of NPR did a report on the student loans' non-dischargability. The guy he interviews suggests that there is very limited evidence of students' intentionally running up student loan debt in preparation for bankruptcy -- it just doesn't happen.

Are you claiming that the Red Army didn't rape millions of German women? Would you feel better if I cited NPR, spiegel or Wikipedia?

From http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113154000,

"If you are vaccinated with the injected vaccine, you have about a 70 percent chance of preventing influenza."

70% is a crap-shoot? Really?

Because the media would never misquote numbers right? http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/qa/vaccineeffect.htm First, the flu shot will not completely prevent getting the flu. It most cases having had the right flu vacine to match the strain you are infected with will reduce the severity and duration That 30-70% figure the figure for how many people will experience reduced symptoms. This is still completely ignoring the fact that your odds of getting the right vacinne to match your particular strain are very low.

And if you've had one, keep away from me - you're more, not less, likely to have a compromised immune system in the long run if you get annual flu shots.

May you please provide some evidence for this claim? If you are talking about antigenic sin, that only applies if you get the shot regularly, but then skip a year:

http://www.sciencentral.com/articles/view.php3?article_id=218392095

The flu shot is a crap-shoot in terms of effectiveness

From http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113154000,

"If you are vaccinated with the injected vaccine, you have about a 70 percent chance of preventing influenza."

70% is a crap-shoot? Really?

latest virus is no more fatal than the average

About 36,000 a year die on average from the flu each year.

Anyway, the flu shot isn't a "crap-shoot" and an immune system destroyer as you claim... it is exactly the opposite, actually.

Yes, I do...but apparently you don't. A non-profit or co-op's primary goal isn't to make money. As it is with any group with shareholders.

And no, since my company chooses my health insurance, I don't get a choice of health insurance...just between whatever plans Blue Cross offers.

Is there some part of this that's incoherent?

If you still think I'm full of shit, this is an enlightening bipartisan discussion of the topic. But you probably don't want that. We're happier when our views are simply confirmed.

audio version of story on NPR...

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112752256

Here's an interesting note on NPR relating to a private company that is aggregating the same data.

http://recovery.com/

"When Congress approved the stimulus bill, it made a point of setting up a Web site called Recovery.gov to allow citizens to track all those billions in spending. But if you've gone looking for it, you might have stumbled across another, very similarly named site, Recovery.com.

The dot-com version is not run by the government, but it also tracks the stimulus -- and much of its information is more up to date. In fact, it has spending information that the government won't have until October, and its data provide a sneak peak into how the stimulus spending is going.

The site is run by Onvia, a Seattle company that collects and sells data on government procurement. Whatever the layer of government -- whether state, county, school district or local water board -- Onvia wants to know what's being purchased."

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112893572&ps=cprs

This posting on Slashdot from October 4th 2001 really hit home, describing a "P2P SMS technique where individual handsets act as autonomous SMS relays". And why can't we do this? Would it require independance from cell carriers? With wednesdays report to congress on the failure to upgrade the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System, maybe we do need an ad-hoc alternative.
  (After feeling useless after 9/11 the October 2001 post got me thinking. By the end of November 2001 I had my first ham radio license, now I'm and Extra class and now when something happens I've usually been at an EOC, although the last couple of years have been supporting Red Cross.)

1) Yes you are, you can't even grow enough food to feed yourselves. Or are you going to completely fill in the entire Island with wall to wall "houses" or what you English like to call houses which are actually called "flats" or "units" or tiny cramped apartments anywhere else in the world. And import 100% of your food (how very green of you) and then export....what exactly? More debt? More funny money hedge funds?

2) Who *ever* said anything about official sanctioned Asylum Seekers??

There's this concept of Illegal Immigrants you may have heard of. They're camping on your borders.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113088221&ft=1&f=1004

They're paying up to 15,000USD to get taken to the coast of France with the specific intention of sneaking into England because unlike the tyranical countries of France, Switerland, Germany and Italy that they pass through to get there (to those countries quiet delight) - once they're in England they can hop on benefits and the UK government will not deport them.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/5007578/Detention-centre-planned-for-illegal-immigrants-in-Calais.html

Also

"Last year we searched over one million lorries and prevented a record 18,000 attempts by illegal immigrants to cross the channel.""

When someone illegally travels through Austria, Germany, Italy AND France, not stopping in any of these supposed "liberal democracies" to specifically to sneak into the UK your country has a significant problem, and they're NOT coming for the food, weather, people or (lol) English "culture".

They don't speak Chav for starters.

Replying to myself, forgot to link to the NPR story:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113035255

Limbaugh and NPR are about equally dumb, but with Rush I suppose you can laugh at his outrageous stupidity. NPR is a sadly typical journalistic establishment: they invite total fucking liars, corporate shills and repulsive douchebags on and treat them Very Seriously (ie, suck their dicks).

NB: Any episode of "Wait Wait" with Mo Rocca is very much worth listening to. And NPR affiliates like WNYC often produce great stuff of their own.

Limbaugh and NPR are about equally dumb, but with Rush I suppose you can laugh at his outrageous stupidity. NPR is a sadly typical journalistic establishment: they invite total fucking liars, corporate shills and repulsive douchebags on and treat them Very Seriously (ie, suck their dicks).

NB: Any episode of "Wait Wait" with Mo Rocca is very much worth listening to. And NPR affiliates like WNYC often produce great stuff of their own.

Limbaugh and NPR are about equally dumb, but with Rush I suppose you can laugh at his outrageous stupidity. NPR is a sadly typical journalistic establishment: they invite total fucking liars, corporate shills and repulsive douchebags on and treat them Very Seriously (ie, suck their dicks).

NB: Any episode of "Wait Wait" with Mo Rocca is very much worth listening to. And NPR affiliates like WNYC often produce great stuff of their own.

Actually, for the last 3-5 or so years, the seas have been cooling and capturing carbon. In 2005-6 there was a study by someone at the university of Colorado (who monitors a network of Ocean bathythermographs deployed by the Argo program and jason-1 satellite which monitor sea surface temps and ocean level rises). I can't find the study in a non-pay site and I'm not going to link to but anyways, the study showed that all of the claimed warming to date thought to of been caused by the Anthropogenic global warming can be explained by differences in ocean surface temperatures. It said that it didn't rule out Anthropogenic causes but questions the statement of importance.

Your getting the cart before the horse with your assumption that the ocean is warmed by the air. In fact, the ocean has more of an impact on the temps of the air then the air does on the ocean. Just ask the coastal dwellers who get cool breezes coming off the ocean that keep the temps a comfortable level in an otherwise hostile environment. California comes to mind where LA can be 90 degree F and just a few miles away (less then 100) it can be a cool and mild 75 degrees F because of the winds coming off the ocean. Another source for this is the El Nino and la nina effect in the southern pacific oscillations. Of course there are decadal oscillation anomalies in every large body of water. And these vary to such a degree that the IPCC has admitted that their models have problems processing them.

Furthermore, Christopher Monckton has released a study surrounding issues with the IPCC claims which you should read. Some of the key points as outlined elsewhere,

• The IPCC's 2007 climate summary overstated CO2's impact on temperature by 500-2000%;
• CO2 enrichment will add little more than 1 F (0.6 C) to global mean surface temperature by 2100;
• Not one of the three key variables whose product is climate sensitivity can be measured directly;
• The IPCC's values for these key variables are taken from only four published papers, not 2,500;
• The IPCC's values for each of the three variables, and hence for climate sensitivity, are overstated;
• "Global warming" halted ten years ago, and surface temperature has been falling for seven years;
• Not one of the computer models relied upon by the IPCC predicted so long and rapid a cooling;
• The IPCC inserted a table into the scientists' draft, overstating the effect of ice-melt by 1000%;
• It was proved 50 years ago that predicting climate more than two weeks ahead is impossible;
• Mars, Jupiter, Neptune's largest moon, and Pluto warmed at the same time as Earth warmed;
• In the past 70 years the Sun was more active than at almost any other time in the past 11,400 years.

Now keep in mind, this report does not dispute Anthropogenic climate change, it's pointing to verifiable mathematical flaws causing it's over statement by the IPCC. This is also something of a concern when one of the IPCC lead author has recently went on record claiming the science of global warming is too uncertain at this point in time. There is also a Dr. Essenhigh that claims the IPCC models are incorrect too. His Paper is unavailable for non-paying people (or I couldn't find it) but here is an abstract of it and some comment from a notorious denier.

In short, the issue is a lot more complex then you were led to believe and your comment reflects that profusely.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but nearly every mainstream (especially pop, country, hip-hop/r&b, etc.) album that includes vocal parts in it these days has been "enhanced" through the use of auto-tune. Heck, auto-tune is even used in live concerts nowadays. Don't confuse the general usage of auto-tune, which is merely a tool for pitch correction, with the specific practice of feeding extreme parameters into auto-tune software to produce synthetic- or electronic-sounding vocal effects (some like to call this "auto-tune abuse"), as was initially popularized by Cher in the track "Believe."

Even artists in genres you don't typically associate with electronic vocal effects, like rock, metal, punk, jazz, etc. use auto-tune to some degree these days. It's just part of the recording process now, and it's something you'd expect as "part of the package" when you hire a professional sound engineer to mix/master an album.

Not every musician out there uses it (and some musicians have even taken a stand against it), but it's a fact of life that the majority of albums you see on retail store shelves have been pitch-corrected to some degree.

The UK's Libel Laws are also being used to silence other Critical Journalism as well - Coming into work today a followup on 2006 story (Thousands Sickened by Toxic Waste in Ivory Coast) noted that the company responsible had been hiring legal firm specializing in libel to sue the BBC news media covering the story.

Not yet finding the story from today - it may not be on the NPR website and/or indexed yet.

And of course, in Soviet Russia, Stalin Kills you, then Sues You.

Pug

The UK's Libel Laws are also being used to silence other Critical Journalism as well - Coming into work today a followup on 2006 story (Thousands Sickened by Toxic Waste in Ivory Coast) noted that the company responsible had been hiring legal firm specializing in libel to sue the BBC news media covering the story.

Not yet finding the story from today - it may not be on the NPR website and/or indexed yet.

And of course, in Soviet Russia, Stalin Kills you, then Sues You.

Pug

I heard about the magnets in fingers, too. You can hear it in the NPR archives.

Play the instrument louder? One of the supposed advantages of the Strad is is that it can be played loudly, which is rather important in a large concert hall. No amplification, remember?

Teaching a robot to play a violin would be an interesting exercise in AI. I'd imagine that there's a certain amount of feedback involved--"this technique sounds particularly good on this violin, I shall use more of it."

The $500 violin would fail. Miserably.

source

Any of these credible?

http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html ...shows how U.S. department of energy misleads the cause.
 
 

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101102724 ...shows how the null hypothesis (read: human-made CO2 concentration is significant enough to change global climite) was protected via sabotage.
 
 

Common sense might tell you that seafloor spreading and the geothermal activity account for more of an increase in ocean and ground temperatures than air temperature can possible account for. Can't link you to any common sense so you'll have to discover that on your own.

It's just like that teenager-deterrent noise: http://www.noloitering.ca/tone.html which was ironically, but hilarously turned against adults: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5434687

My hearing must be better than I thought... I'm 40 and although I can't necessarily consciously pick up that I'm hearing a 17kHz tone, it sure as hell annoys me.

15625 Hz is *definitely* still within my hearing and annoyance range...

It's just like that teenager-deterrent noise: http://www.noloitering.ca/tone.html which was ironically, but hilarously turned against adults: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5434687 But, It all has to do with frequency. For all we know, there are some animals that CAN'T hear that 'alarm' Dog whistles, people. Dog whistles.

Well I'll be damned if it isn't Ayn Rand. Didn't anyone ever tell you that sex and capitalism don't mix?
First mover advantage? Not a chance. Read about it here.
Patent thickets? Just innovate around it. And read about it here.
Socialized medicine? A phrase coined by a PR group working for the AMA. Hear the full story. Health care is every man for himself here in the US. And don't forget the cost of patents in all health care innovations, including the time spent searching for patent databases, litigation and patent prosecution. I guess patenting genes is okay if you own the patent.

Oh, wait. You mean to say that patent monopolies have a place in a free market? Funny how conservatives love monopolies if they are the beneficiaries.

[California] spends as much money on corrections as it does on its higher education system....

In three decades, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association has become one of the most powerful political forces in California. The union has contributed millions of dollars to support "three strikes" and other laws that lengthen sentences and increase parole sanctions. It donated $1 million to Wilson after he backed the three strikes law.

And the result for the union has been dramatic. Since the laws went into effect and the inmate population boomed, the union grew from 2,600 officers to 45,000 officers. Salaries jumped: In 1980, the average officer earned $15,000 a year; today, one in every 10 officers makes more than $100,000 a year.

Lance Corcoran, spokesman for the union, says it does what is best for its members. "We have advocated successfully for our members," he said. But he disputes that the union has purposefully tried to increase the prison population... Campaign records, however, show much of the funding to promote and push for the passage of the laws came from a political action committee the union created. It is run out of a group called Crime Victims United of California. Its director, Harriet Salarno, says the committee is independent from the union. But a review of the PAC's financial records shows the PAC has not received a donation from another group besides the union since 2004.

(Granted, the salary statistic is irresponsible, since they compared the average 1980 salary to the top 10% salary from 2009, without even adjusting for inflation. $15K in 1980 is equivalent to $39K today.)

Anyways, this is the problem of special interests in a nutshell - a few people who have a lot at stake can wield disproportionate influence. It happens all the time in the US, presumably in China also.

Unfortunately some scientist discount their own work because it contradicts the Sky is Falling notion. The last 5 years have seen a cooling trend none of which was predicted in models yet these models are still used and accepted, the average temp has risen 0.7 degrees which is well below any of the error tolerances of models. This is mainly due to the models inability to predict cloud cover and sun intensity which causes them to incorrectly adjust the predicted average temp. All I and most reasonable people want is that before radical changes are made, that will drastically effect my pocket, in the name of protecting the environment, that further evidence and a rational discussing be had. The EPA and other Climate change proponents have refused to have open discussions with it's opponents. The is and will always be a problem because the Chicken little crowd refuses to listen to criticism and the no man made warming crowd refuses to look at the data both groups are fueled by the terrible job the other side is doing at finding the truth. Hopefully forcing the two side to discuss will lead to better science and a better understanding of our environment.

But sex outside you could create a porno the same way The Get Out Clause created their music clip http://www.npr.org/blogs/bryantpark/2008/05/band_uses_security_cameras_to.html
Sounds like a win - win to me.

It's also important to point out that women with androgen insensitivity are allowed to compete as women in the olympics. Seven competed in '96:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2009/08/gender_questions_hover_over_ch.html

You have omitted an important aspect of the problem. Uncontrolled immigration is precisely hurting those American citizens who are living in "squalor and poverty". Illegal immigrants are suppressing the wages of such Americans by about 8%.

Worse, according to the report by the "Wall Street Journal", illegal immigrants inject disease into neighborhoods of impoverished Americans.

The Americans living in the upper/middle class simply do not experience the pain and suffering that Americans in the lower class endure due to illegal immigration. So, naturally the Americans in the upper/middle class favor uncontrolled immigration. They want the cheap vegetables that illegal-immigrant labor provides even if it means hurting the Americans in the lower class.

That is the ugly truth.

Perhaps innovator would be a better term. No doubt, I am sure that folks were making hollow acoustic guitars with electric pickups before the solid-body electric guitar. Some sources do claim that Les Paul did, in fact, invent the solid-body electric guitar some time between 1939 and 1941. A story on NPR claims it was a collaboration between Les Paul, Paul Bigsby, and Leo Fender. According to some other sources I found via google. It seems that until Les Paul sawed his spanish-style hollow guitar in two and glued the front and back pieces together to create a solid-body, many musicians would stuff socks or towels into the cavity of the guitar to muffle the feedback loop created on the electric guitar of that time. I suppose, I am going to have to pick up a copy of this book, referenced in that article, and find out the whole story.

The grandparent's point remains that the solid-body electric guitar has brought us a great deal of enjoyable and creative music over the years, such as this. The grandparent poster was not contending what type of guitar Jimi Hendrix played at Woodstock, or that Fender produced and sold the first mass-marketed solid-body guitar. Les Paul was certainly an early innovator, and had a hand in making the modern guitar what it is, even if it was a small part. That, however, is the difference between invention and innovation, small increments and changes in a design can have a large impact on the way something works.

There was an interesting segment on NPR a few months ago about people who had been issued this number (or requested it)

That was interesting. According to the NPR report, the average GM hourly cost was 31.35/hour while Toyota's was 27/hour (not surprising, GM's is older and more experienced). So, now we look at what the report shows as high; Health care costs. GM's is 1500 while Toyota's is 200 (both per car). So, is that REALLY, the health care costs of JUST THE UNION WORKERS?
Last year the automaker, known for its innovative approach to health care, spent $5.2 billion to cover 1.1 million retirees, employees and their families. Prescription drugs cost GM $1.9 billion, and the company projects overall medical spending will increase by $400 million this year. That could be offset by a provision in the Medicare drug benefit to pick up a portion of firms' retiree drug costs. But the figure that prompted Wagoner to raise his voice is $1,500. That is the amount of money added to the price of every single vehicle to cover health care, a cost that his foreign competitors do not bear.
The answer is NO. That is the TOTAL HEALTH CARE OF THE COMPANY (the executives, management, retires, and of course, the union workers), being divided up amongst JUST THE UNION WORKERS.

Now look. I realize that ppl like you LOVE to read and follow Faux news and almost certainly you just HATED thinking for yourself. It is hard for neo-cons to think intelligently (I love the part where you neo-cons bitch about the monster obama defict, but ignore the fact that 10 TRILLION DOLLARS of 12 TRILLION DEBT is owned by republicans). But the simply fact is, if you USE YOUR FUCKING BRAIN FOR JUST 30 SECONDS, you will realize that 1500/car did not even make sense. The average time to put together a small car at GM was 17 hours (and 19.5 at toyota for same class of car; Toyota is not as efficient). So, you were thinking that a person who put together about 2 cars / week was really paying 3000 PER WEEK for health care or 12,000 PER MONTH? SERIOUSLY? YOU REALLY HONESTLY THOUGHT THAT? COULD YOU NOT DO SOME SIMPLE FUCKING MATH? You just accepted FAUX NEWS' and rush's garbage?

When you graduate high school, then come back and start posting again, dumass (see, I can act just like you) And try to learn some manners.

You know, for all those "non-existent" gays, minorities and other undesireables in Iran ... After all, he's still congratulating him for killing (quite literally) dissent, falsifying elections and those general sorts of things socialists admire ?

Democrats ? Why are you all agreeing with this ? Can *any* democrat explain this to me ?

America ... land of the free my ass.

Neither satirically funny nor troll worthy. The last line is bound to ensare loads of karma-hungry Slashdotters. Of course, they will all point out something along the lines of "You're missing the point. Iran is a soverign nation with their rules and regulations and the United States of America is a separate entity. You are confusing the two. It's not Iran... land of the free. Clearly." only with a more smug, more socially-awkward nerd tone.

A more interesting attempt at humor could have been to make a subtle case of the land of dichotomies that is Iran: ruled under a iron-deficient clad fist, yet with pervasive "Western" influences. Not going to do your homework for you, but worth a thought.

A better take on the troll angle would have been to concoct a whole series of web pages that purported several allegations that made mainstream media's lazy journalists publish details onto their front covers, which inevitably show up on Slashdot's "front page."

You know, for all those "non-existent" gays, minorities and other undesireables in Iran ... After all, he's still congratulating him for killing (quite literally) dissent, falsifying elections and those general sorts of things socialists admire ?

Democrats ? Why are you all agreeing with this ? Can *any* democrat explain this to me ?

America ... land of the free my ass.

but nobody else in broadcast media working on an out-and-out agenda at the scale that Fox works.

Depends on which side of the agenda your views fall on.
You know it's bad when the president has to disagree with his cheerleaders.

All the information in the world won't help an ordinary voter that's not happy, unless he can talk to someone up there writing these laws that will listen. That's what the money is buying, access.

You think that the pharmaceutical companies spent $40 million dollars lobbying the health care process, because they had extra cash laying around? With that money they got exactly what they wanted out of the process, while average Joe Voter is probably not going to have the same success even with these tools.

... They wonder why they are going out of business ...

Acutally they are doing quite well.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111411944

. . . a team of fifth-grade students were [looking for people cheating on the exam]. They showed no mercy. . . .