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Didn't Israel assassinate Palestinian leader just before a ceasefire was about to be brokered...

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/17/opinion/israels-shortsighted-assassination.html?_r=0

It's true. They just neglected to point out that so do vegetarians.... or is India a violence free, caste-free , woman loving egalitarian paradise of people-not-exploiting-people these days?

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/03/world/asia/gujarat-riot-trials-may-alter-indias-cycle-of-violence.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

OK then.

Additionally, the Administration and Democrats allowed several working groups to work behind closed doors for *months* to try to come up with plans. And in the end, the Republicans on those groups could not deliver a single vote, no matter what the proposal was.

Not true. Olympia Snowe voted yea on the initial committee: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/HealthCare/senate-finance-committee-approves-health-care-bill/story?id=8817603
She also seemed genuinely interested in working in a bipartisan fashion to reform healthcare (to the chagrin of Republican leadership). But after jam packing it with 1000 pages of nonpartisan goodies, they couldn't even hold her support: http://www.politico.com/blogs/politicolive/1209/Sen_Olympia_Snowe_to_POTUS_Give_us_more_time_on_Health_Care.html

they stubbornly refused to accept any Republican input unless it was in line with their ideology

This simply untrue.

Then why does it look that way? Snowe alienated her base from the start -- she had no particular love for political grandstanding or walking the political line. Yet Obama (and the Dems) refused to work even with her. They were more focused on cramming as much stuff into the bill as possible and getting it passed as quickly as possible to score political points (funnily enough, the exact same way the stimulus bill went down: http://money.cnn.com/2009/02/13/news/economy/house_final_stimulus/index.htm).

The truth is that they wasted an entire Congress that they could have been improving the bill,

I totally agree an entire Congress was wasted, but that Congress was wasted on some asinine belief by Democrats that they had some kind of "mandate" from the people to ignore Republican input at all costs. Hell, even Obama himself multiple times said "they tried it their way, and their way didn't work"/"we're driving the car now, they can sit in the back and come along for the ride". These are not the kind of remarks from a person looking for bipartisan solutions...

Let's just be clear for a minute. The tax hike is happening on January 1st, unless new legislation is passed. So your characterization is wrong. What Pres. Obama wants is to pass new legislation keeping the existing tax code for those up to 250k, and then for those over, letting the rates revert to Clinton-era levels

By definition, " letting the rates revert to Clinton-era levels" is a tax hike. Only dogmatic stubborness would keep you from agreeing with that. Or is a tax hike really a "tax refund adjustment"? Please don't try to turn this into a terminology spat. When all the dust is settled (all old legislation expired, all new legislation passed), are their taxes going up? Ifso, it's a hike.

In the last 7 days, the leadership has for the first time started to float ballons that "revenue is on the table" - meaning more revenue via changes to the tax code.

This was pitched in earlier negotiations as well, in the first "grand bargain" in fact: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/magazine/obama-vs-boehner-who-killed-the-debt-deal.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
. "Or, to put it another way, Boehner was proposing to increase the governmentâ(TM)s haul by the same amount you would get if you reversed Bushâ(TM)s tax cuts for the most affluent Americans, but he was proposing to do it by lowering rates and elim

You may want to read this.
It explains a whole lot, and labor rates are far from the main reason those jobs left the US.

Cops have the job to protect the public.

Not according to the SCOTUS.

BTW, that is a 7 year old decision, there is absolutely zero excuse for such ignorance at this point. For shame.

Yes, and now thanks to SCOTUS as well, they can strip-search you for *any* offense.

Link

"The Supreme Court on Monday ruled by a 5-to-4 vote that officials may strip-search people arrested for any offense, however minor, before admitting them to jails even if the officials have no reason to suspect the presence of contraband."

So you "assault" a police officer (you may not have even touched him) as he is hassling you for jaywalking, he can arrest you, take you in, and strip search you.

Perhaps this wheelchair-bound drunken man's "assault" of the officer (swiping at his face as the cop tried to get his jacket off) deserved the cops response? Who really "assaulted" who here?

Youtube video

Cops have the job to protect the public.

Not according to the SCOTUS.

BTW, that is a 7 year old decision, there is absolutely zero excuse for such ignorance at this point. For shame.

Yes, and now thanks to SCOTUS as well, they can strip-search you for *any* offense.

Link

"The Supreme Court on Monday ruled by a 5-to-4 vote that officials may strip-search people arrested for any offense, however minor, before admitting them to jails even if the officials have no reason to suspect the presence of contraband."

So you "assault" a police officer (you may not have even touched him) as he is hassling you for jaywalking, he can arrest you, take you in, and strip search you.

Perhaps this wheelchair-bound drunken man's "assault" of the officer (swiping at his face as the cop tried to get his jacket off) deserved the cops response? Who really "assaulted" who here?

Youtube video

Any time a "good cop" observes a fellow police officer committing a crime and chooses to do nothing (or worse, publicly campaigns for them to be above the law), then they are no longer a "good cop".

Here's my opinion.

You're a cop, and you get caught breaking the law? You lose your pension.

You know a cop broke the law, and you didn't turn him in? You lose your pension.

You know a cop broke the law, and you *did* turn him in? You get his pension added to yours.

Implement this system and watch how fast the cops begin policing themselves.

The headline is based on the latest IEA (International Energy Agency) forecast called the "2012 World Energy Outlook"

Follow the link to a graph of what is being forecast and to the report in question:

http://earlywarn.blogspot.fr/2012/11/iea-us-to-be-worlds-largest-oil-producer.html

Look at the graph: conventional oil and natgas are in decline.
Note the super optimistic growth assumptions for unconventional gas and oil.
What is the methodology behind this extrapolation? That's the question people should be asking themselves.

Natgas price is at historic lows. Low prices mean small profits mean decreasing investment.
These days the unconventional gas industry is facing something of a bust:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/21/business/energy-environment/in-a-natural-gas-glut-big-winners-and-losers.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

How well does that fit with the optimistic growth scenario?

Also, the IEA does not exactly have a sterling reputation for balanced impartial forecasts:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/09/peak-oil-international-energy-agency

Just because something is a headline, doesn't mean it's true. Time will tell, of course.

Cops have the job to protect the public.

Not according to the SCOTUS.

BTW, that is a 7 year old decision, there is absolutely zero excuse for such ignorance at this point. For shame.

"In a parallel process, the investigators gained access, probably using a search warrant, to Ms. Broadwell’s Gmail account. There they found messages that turned out to be from Mr. Petraeus." Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/14/us/david-petraeus-case-raises-concerns-about-americans-privacy.htm

The only reason that the FBI was able to gain access to her e-mails was because Google complied with FBI's request. So it seems that the real question is not about how vulnerable your email is to "hackers", but whether your email provider keeps your communications private.

Or maybe it's more like those guys who built a time capsule out of an old salt mine and placed a car and other items so they would be in mint condition and valuable when they opened it after 50 just to find a water source infiltrated the cavern and they were all rust.

Just a nitpick on your information: there's nothing to suggest this car was buried in a salt mine, and a great deal to suggest it was not. Here is a picture of it being unearthed: http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/02/07/automobiles/20100207-tulsa_index-2.html

That looks rather more like a concrete vault just below the surface in urban Tulsa than a salt mine, which is not entirely surprising because that is what it is, according to the articles on the subject.

The reason this is important is that salt domes are one of the preferred storage sites for nuclear waste, precisely because they are exceptionally dry environments, so one wouldn't want to even inadvertently give the inaccurate impression that salt mines are somehow at significant risk of water infiltration.

Are we really so bereft of a basic grasp of chemistry to think that the CO2 released from natural gas doesn't count?

The short-term point is that the US has reduced CO2 emissions due to a shift from coal to natural gas for electricity production.

Sorry, broken link. Correct cite:
NYTimes Disunion series

I'd pay $150 for a wristband that could ONLY tell me accurately how many calories I've burned.

Well, this can't do that. In fact, it can't do much of anything.

We've used up all the fish. Now we can work on the smaller stuff!

There is 0 evidence that Iran is developing nuclear weapons. The CIA said as much.

There is the uranium enrichment process which is most of the work. Reading through intelligence reports, it appears that Iran is deliberately putting off the most provocative steps for now (well as of perhaps 2010, who knows about now). But that's not the same as "zero evidence".

If one looks at the US Manhattan project, most of the work done outside of New Mexico was uranium and plutonium refinement. That required vast amounts of energy and huge complexes in numerous states. It was only in New Mexico at the twin locations of Los Alamos and Sandia, that the actual first atomic bombs were assembled.

As I see it, once they're machining highly enriched uranium (called "HEU" in the above linked report), they're most of the way towards a primitive nuclear bomb such as "Little Boy" used on Hiroshima in 1945. I think they could have a test weapon ready in months at that point.

Another key bit of evidence is the extreme hardening of much of their uranium enrichment facilities against conventional attack. If these facilities were just for civilian use, then they wouldn't have enough value to justify the degree of hardening used.

Someone go dig up history's last Five-Star general, Supreme Allied Commander / then US President Dwight Eisenhower, who banged his personal driver back and forth across the US & Europe during the entirety of World War II - and share this with him, so he can have a jolly good chuckle before going back to sleep.
http://www.nytimes.com/1991/06/06/us/eisenhower-letters-hint-at-affair-with-aide.html

No one hired Petraeus to be a marriage counselor or church pastor; he was hired to conquer and pacify a sovereign country and its insurgency. Then he was hired to play the dirty pool of espionage & subterfuge.

Foreign Red Team has zero leverage against Petraeus with this information; all he had to do was own up to it, admit a mistake an move on. This affects his family and his marriage, not his ability to spy on and clandestinely kill people. In fact, the alphabet-soup spy agencies (NSA, CIA in particular) have come as far to allow openly LGBT employees for many years. As long as you're already fully out & fabulous, there is no leverage to be used against you. You are not a potential exploit vector for agressors.

I make no apology or excuse for Petraeus' actions - what he did is morally reprehensible. But it had absolutely zero impact on his ability to perform his duties.

Oh, please. The mainstream media never got on Bush's ass 24x7 about *anything*.

Should we welcome you to America, or out of a coma?

3,000 Deaths in Iraq, Countless Tears at Home
At Grim Milestone, White House Says Focus Is on Success in Iraq
A Grim Milestone: 500 Amputees
Iraq war casualties: We're nearing another grim milestone; vigils planned nationwide

Three weeks before the 2006 midterm elections gave Democrats control of Congress, a shocking study reported on the number of Iraqis who had died in the ongoing war. It bolstered criticism of President Bush and heightened the waves of dread -- here and around the world -- about the U.S. occupation of Iraq. --- Data Bomb

(I'm pretty sure FDR didn't have to fight this kind of press as well as the Axis powers.)

Waterboarding / "torture" was another popular one for a while, of course it was only three people, it stopped 10 years ago, it was legal at the time, the US does it to its own pilots and special forces, and so on. There often seems to be far more vitriol directed against the United States for waterboarding three terrorists than against Al Qaida and its affiliates for killing tens or hundreds of thousands of people.

Exclusive: Only Three Have Been Waterboarded by CIA

A Grim Milestone Ignored - Thursday, November 15, 2007

The establishment media is seemingly obsessed with “grim milestones” in the War on Terror, as the Associated Press reminds us this past weekend. But in the next week those same establishment media outlets will probably stand mute when yet another “grim milestone” is reached – the10,000th attack by Islamic terrorists and militants since 9/11, which is responsible for approximately 60,000 dead and 90,000 injured

Oh, please. The mainstream media never got on Bush's ass 24x7 about *anything*.

Should we welcome you to America, or out of a coma?

3,000 Deaths in Iraq, Countless Tears at Home
At Grim Milestone, White House Says Focus Is on Success in Iraq
A Grim Milestone: 500 Amputees
Iraq war casualties: We're nearing another grim milestone; vigils planned nationwide

Three weeks before the 2006 midterm elections gave Democrats control of Congress, a shocking study reported on the number of Iraqis who had died in the ongoing war. It bolstered criticism of President Bush and heightened the waves of dread -- here and around the world -- about the U.S. occupation of Iraq. --- Data Bomb

(I'm pretty sure FDR didn't have to fight this kind of press as well as the Axis powers.)

Waterboarding / "torture" was another popular one for a while, of course it was only three people, it stopped 10 years ago, it was legal at the time, the US does it to its own pilots and special forces, and so on. There often seems to be far more vitriol directed against the United States for waterboarding three terrorists than against Al Qaida and its affiliates for killing tens or hundreds of thousands of people.

Exclusive: Only Three Have Been Waterboarded by CIA

A Grim Milestone Ignored - Thursday, November 15, 2007

The establishment media is seemingly obsessed with “grim milestones” in the War on Terror, as the Associated Press reminds us this past weekend. But in the next week those same establishment media outlets will probably stand mute when yet another “grim milestone” is reached – the10,000th attack by Islamic terrorists and militants since 9/11, which is responsible for approximately 60,000 dead and 90,000 injured

Is this inaccurate?

Focus Was on Tripoli in Requests for Security in Libya

Interesting article. Covers quite a bit more than the title implies.

Quote:

When an Apple team visited, the Chinese plant's owners were already constructing a new wing. "This is in case you give us the contract," the manager said, according to a former Apple executive. The Chinese government had agreed to underwrite costs for numerous industries, and those subsidies had trickled down to the glass-cutting factory. It had a warehouse filled with glass samples available to Apple, free of charge. The owners made engineers available at almost no cost. They had built on-site dormitories so employees would be available 24 hours a day.

The Chinese plant got the job.

"The entire supply chain is in China now," said another former high-ranking Apple executive. "You need a thousand rubber gaskets? That's the factory next door. You need a million screws? That factory is a block away. You need that screw made a little bit different? It will take three hours."

yes it is. It's so important you should get some facts straight.

That's why I attributed them to where I got them.

the request was for a different embassy.

Really? Amabassador Stevens was making requests for security support for some other embassy, not the one he was in charge of? Why would he do that?

which has been shown to be wrong over and over again.

One more time, from here:

The White House issued the following statement in response to the death of J. Christopher Stevens, the U.S. Ambassador to Libya:

"I have directed my Administration to provide all necessary resources to support the security of our personnel in Libya, and to increase security at our diplomatic posts around the globe. While the United States rejects efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others, we must all unequivocally oppose the kind of senseless violence that took the lives of these public servants."

That statement about "denigrate the religious beliefs of others" is a reference to the movie that was allegedly the cause for the incident. Obama knew otherwise. And wouldn't it be interesting to know how supporting the security of our personnel in Libya might have worked out had he directed his administration to do it before the attack?

And if the New York Times is more to your liking, here:

For days after the attack, as it became clearer that the Benghazi violence was a Qaeda operation rather than a protest, White House officials continued to stress the importance of the "hateful" and "disgusting" video, and its supposed role as a catalyst for what Susan Rice, the ambassador to the United Nations, insisted was a spontaneous attack.

This narrative was pushed on Sunday morning programs, on late-night talk shows and at news conferences, by everyone from Rice to Hillary Clinton to the president himself. When Obama spoke at the United Nations shortly after the attacks, the video was referenced six times in the text; Al Qaeda was referenced only once.

Ever wonder why Romney didn't harp on about it?

Because it wasn't appropriate at the time. Because other members of his own party were jumping down his throat for pointing it out.

not with people who can't even get the most basic facts about it correct. i.e. YOU.

I've quoted the timeline with "the most basic facts", which aren't what you claim. This "other embassy" fact you keep repeating isn't supported by the real facts. The '28 minutes' is also wrong. "Proven over and over again wrong", as you are using it, has been proven to be wrong. And I didn't make a single reference to this "Fox News" to do it.

I remember this one. There's actually a bit of an interesting story to it. Steve Olsen (the inventor) was actually a 5 year old at the time. His father Peter Olsen, a patent attorney, wanted to teach his son about the patent system. I can't find the original (local) article but the NYT had a short write up as well.

Interesting.

However, the NYTimes exit polling gives a more nuanced version of this. For those with college degrees, a majority voted for Romney. For those with Post Grad degrees, Obama was the overwhelming choice.

Source (scroll down to "Education"

Because the USA's economy at this time sucks for almost everyone regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation or age and that is a big drawback for any incumbent and his party in any barely functioning democracy. That's why I think republicans had the election in the bag, but by pandering too much to their extreme right wing they ended losing. See

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/11/07/us/politics/obamas-diverse-base-of-support.html?ref=politics
http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/11/poll-latino-vote-devastated-gop-even-worse-than-exits-showed.php?ref=fpa

From the NYT I'm impressed with the strong push toward democrats by young voters in Arizona.

Best Regards

I wonder...

Billions in Hidden Riches for Family of Chinese Leader Wen Jiabao

Tibetan Protests Erupt in Western China

The Communist Government of China Massacres Thousands at Tiananmen Square

The first page of this new york times article basically answers your question.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/business/apple-america-and-a-squeezed-middle-class.html

Silver's methodology (if there is one) is that he has a rather complicated weighting and averaging system that combines stats from a whole history of polls, and how it works is not entirely transparent.

True, not totally transparent enough for our open source fans, but he does describe his methodology in a fair amount of detail including how he calculates the "house effect" of various pollsters.

Silver's methodology (if there is one) is that he has a rather complicated weighting and averaging system that combines stats from a whole history of polls, and how it works is not entirely transparent.

True, not totally transparent enough for our open source fans, but he does describe his methodology in a fair amount of detail including how he calculates the "house effect" of various pollsters.

Nate had Obama winning from the beginning. This is his first post unveiling the model. The mean result was 290 EV for Obama, as it would be if Obama had lost Florida and Virginia. As we know, both states were extremely close and the model did eventually come around to calling them for Obama.

Drew Linzer at Votamatic.org arguably did better than Nate, calling the electoral vote count essentially dead on in June and never moving far from that prediction. Just look at this graph. Linzer used a different Bayesian method that was more resistant to short-term fluctuations in the polls and didn't place as much weight on economic factors.

As others have pointed out, he switched Florida a couple days before the election. Also, he posted some exact numbers the day of the election:

"In the final pre-election forecast at FiveThirtyEight, the state of Florida was exceptionally close. Officially, Mr. Obama was projected to win 49.797 percent of the vote there, and Mr. Romney 49.775 percent, a difference of two-hundredths of a percentage point."

Yes, it'll be a few days probably before we know for sure if he called it correctly, but he was certainly 100% correct about how close it was going to be, which personally i think is good enough to call his prediction true at the moment.

"We have worked with the company over the years," Wolfson said. "We did a recall with them in 2010. Yet the injuries still happened. In 2011 we worked with them on the education of consumers. Incidents still happened. So we've reached a point where we really do need to take stronger action, which we're doing. We're filing a lawsuit."

My question is what is the lawsuit actually about? Is it about a requirement to inform the consumers or is it against selling the product at all? I am a little concerned that people don't realize that these could kill you. They're candy sized, kids love them and I don't see much of a difference between this and lead painted toys except that one is intrinsically dangerous by it's nature.

Exactly what they did with Jose Ramos in Pennsylvania today. Served 35 years, had to give an address where he was going to live when he got out, gave his cousin's address, cousin had moved without telling him, cops arrested Ramos as soon as he walked out of prison. BTW cops were sure he was guilty in the Etan Patz disappearance years ago--until someone else confessed. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/08/nyregion/jose-ramos-patz-suspect-is-released-then-arrested.html

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/02/12/us/entitlement-map.html?ref=us

I've seen a few maps that show that there are considerably higher number of government aid recipients in areas that tend to lean red.

Further, I take offense to the idea that these people would rather "do it themselves". It sounds a lot more like "I got mine, so don't tax me to get yours". Those people got public education. Many went to colleges that received up to 70-80% of their operating funds from the state (most now receive closer to 15%). Public infrastructure was built in a very short time. Many of these individuals are receiving social security and medicare, something "they paid into and deserve" but they don't want to take any cuts or pay any higher taxes to make sure these programs remain solvent for the next generation who are also paying into it. They got to take advantage of the fact that hospitals would treat them even if they couldn't afford the bill, something the state picks up the cost for.

I understand trying to make sure these programs are run efficiently. But, the debate in the last 1-2 years has been a lot more about cutting than reforming. And a lot more about making sure our historically low taxes are never raised to pay for the things the baby boomers have already taken advantage of.

In most EU countries, higher education is either free or cheap. That makes it available to practically everyone, which makes the EU countries the true lands of equal opportunity.

Spoken like someone who doesn't live there and is speaking from the outside. Education is not free, it's paid for by taxes - which Europe has no lack of and are far from cheap. If you think Europe is a bastion of opportunity and equality you're sorely mistaken. Racism and Nationalism are alive and well, if you're an outsider you will forever be a foreigner there. Look at France, Germany, Norway.

All countries have their faults, this isn't some broad claim that Europe should be avoided, far from it. This is like someone misunderstanding the difference between the letter of the law and the spirit.

In most EU countries, higher education is either free or cheap. That makes it available to practically everyone, which makes the EU countries the true lands of equal opportunity.

Spoken like someone who doesn't live there and is speaking from the outside. Education is not free, it's paid for by taxes - which Europe has no lack of and are far from cheap. If you think Europe is a bastion of opportunity and equality you're sorely mistaken. Racism and Nationalism are alive and well, if you're an outsider you will forever be a foreigner there. Look at France, Germany, Norway.

All countries have their faults, this isn't some broad claim that Europe should be avoided, far from it. This is like someone misunderstanding the difference between the letter of the law and the spirit.

Okay I can agree with you on that however there's been very few places that I've worked where the boss or his boss or somebody in the echelon is hated by his staff. It's a sad fact today that management doesn't appreciate the contributions of their employees but in reality. If you go back 100 years would you find it better or worse with the likes of Carnegie or Rockefeller? IMO, it would be much worse and despite the modern labor movement and workers rights along with laws enforcing guarantees of protection, such as the Employee Medical Leave Act, companies will still be dicks to their workers. You'd be surprised at some of the worst places I've seen for this, including non-profit organizations who have mission to serve people; most treat their workers like doormats. Trust me on this, I've been a consultant in a couple of these organizations and you'd really be surprised.

Even Steve Jobs was loathed by a lot of people who worked for him even though people put him on a pedestal as a true technological leader, yeah my ass. But such is the way of things with business leaders, most of them were pricks who on any given day would be beaten mercilessly by their employees if given a chance. About the only business leader I can think of who doesn't fit that mold would be Herb Kelleher who was a very competitive, sometimes ruthless, businessman yet if you asked any of his employees you'd find that close to 100% of them loved working for or with him.

I think for Detroit and Michigan in general, this is good news. Detroit hasn't really recovered since the riots of the 60s and it's time that it at least gets back to being a destination that people want to go to or work in rather than flee from it.

I think he means more like abusing and executing POWs. Plus a little using snipers against civilians, that sort of thing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/11/world/middleeast/united-nations-warns-syrian-rebels-over-atrocities.html?_r=0

Some possible repercussions from long-lasting pacemakers:

* Time to sell stock in pacemaker battery companies?

* More seriously, a pacemaker can keep you alive long after the time you might wish you were dead already. Here's an excellent article about a senior who was effectively tricked into getting a pacemaker, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/magazine/20pacemaker-t.html?pagewanted=all It kept his heart beating for years after dementia took away all his quality of life.

I've found some interesting statistics. Start with Nate Silver's article today. Note that if Romney wins even 0.55% more of the popular vote than Obama, Nate gives Romney a 50-50 chance of winning. Now go to Intrade, which currently is being massively manipulated, but ignore the popular Obama and Romney markets, and look at the Romney/Obama wins by more than 0.5% of the vote market. It's currently showing 42% for Romney and 57% for Obama, meaning they can't predict within 1% where the vote will land with more than 15% probability! Even the pollsters are confused.

So, I'd rather be Obama than Romney at this point, but with such crummy ability to guess how people are going to vote, Romney's odds aren't bad. That would help explain why Intrade is giving around 66% chance of Obama win, rather than anything like the probabilities Nate is giving him. I think if Nate took this into account properly, he'd be more in line with Intrade, even if Intrade is being manipulated.

There are really two very interesting races going on here. I'll watch the Romney/Obama results tomorrow eagerly, but there's also the Gallup/Nate Silver race. If Gallup is right about the popular vote (Romney by 5%), Romney wins by a landslide, Nate loses, and Gallup will become the only pollster of any worth. If all the other pollsters are right, Obama wins, Nate's status grows, and Gallop is surely run by worthless fools. It's really Gallup sticking their neck out, and I'm going to enjoy seeing if it gets chopped off or not.

Actually, Nate explained a few days ago that the main reason for the relatively low probability is the very real possibility that the state polls may be systematically biased:
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/03/nov-2-for-romney-to-win-state-polls-must-be-statistically-biased/

According to today's actual posting from Nate Silver, the same data leads him to conclude an 86.3% chance of an Obama win in the electoral college. Still high, but your "Nate Silver's Numbers Project..." headline is true if parsed carefully, but very misleading. If you want to say "I conclude from Nate Silver's numbers...", well fine.

Silver's Nov. 4 post is at: http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/05/nov-4-did-hurricane-sandy-blow-romney-off-course/ (paywall :-( )

The article points out that Microsoft, Dell, Pfizer, and Wyeth have also taken advantage of Irish corporate tax incentives. So, a lot of this isn't "beancounter magic" at all - its a carefully negotiated corporate strategy that benefits the company as well as the host country.

Beancounter magic is involved with the double-Irish Dutch sandwich:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/04/28/business/Double-Irish-With-A-Dutch-Sandwich.html

This scheme is (legally) used by Apple and many other large US companies.

I found this link with Google: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/01/education/technology-is-changing-how-students-learn-teachers-say.html?pagewanted=all

Not only is it behind a paywall/login link, but the article's URL isn't even correct.

It should be: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/01/education/technology-is-changing-how-students-learn-teachers-say.html

As it is, you chopped off the final "l", which gives a 404.

If they are working, they also pay payroll tax, social security, FICA, etc.

Correct, the precentage of people who do not pay payroll taxes is 18% - and most of them are retirees.

Furthermore, Obama cut payroll taxes and the GOP had a big WTF? moment given their support for the orignally temporary "Bush" tax cuts.

A number of people have said that.

For example,

Ben Stein

Paul Krugman many times

Please show me your Nobel Prize in Economics if you disagree.

The top 1% of incomes earn 20% of all income and pay 40% of all COLLECTED income taxes.

Yes, everyone learned in elementary school that 15% of 20 million is greater than 25% of 100000. So what? Oh you mean that you think it's fair if someone makes $20 million and pays a lower tax rate than most people, because they paid more actual dollars. The percent is the only measure of fairness. Don't insult our intelligence.

A number of people have said that.

For example,

Ben Stein

Paul Krugman many times

Please show me your Nobel Prize in Economics if you disagree.

The top 1% of incomes earn 20% of all income and pay 40% of all COLLECTED income taxes.

Yes, everyone learned in elementary school that 15% of 20 million is greater than 25% of 100000. So what? Oh you mean that you think it's fair if someone makes $20 million and pays a lower tax rate than most people, because they paid more actual dollars. The percent is the only measure of fairness. Don't insult our intelligence.

The big issues is: How do you prevent somebody from being pressured into taking their own life? It's a big issue for the disabled and infirm. Ben Mattlin, who's been fighting spinal muscular atrophy all his life, writes

I’ve lived so close to death for so long that I know how thin and porous the border between coercion and free choice is, how easy it is for someone to inadvertently influence you to feel devalued and hopeless — to pressure you ever so slightly but decidedly into being “reasonable,” to unburdening others, to “letting go.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/01/opinion/suicide-by-choice-not-so-fast.html

I happen to disagree, mainly because I want the option of a clean exit when my my time comes. But it's a reasonable concern.

The reason you're paid on-par is because American wages have dropped a massive amount in the past few decades. It's a plan that's been at work for decades. We were warned about it but failed to listen.

http://www.nytimes.com/1992/10/16/us/the-1992-campaign-transcript-of-2d-tv-debate-between-bush-clinton-and-perot.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

Time to stop being American and move to one of those countries where the cost of living is low

"To those of you in the audience who are business people, pretty simple: If you're paying $12, $13, $14 an hour for factory workers and you can move your factory South of the border, pay a dollar an hour for labor, hire young -- let's assume you've been in business for a long time and you've got a mature work force -- pay a dollar an hour for your labor, have no health care -- that's the most expensive single element in making a car -- have no environmental controls, no pollution controls and no retirement, and you don't care about anything but making money, there will be a giant sucking sound going south.

"So we -- if the people send me to Washington the first thing I'll do is study that 2,000-page agreement and make sure it's a two-way street. One last part here -- I decided i was dumb and didn't understand it so I called the Who's Who of the folks who've been around it and I said, "Why won't everybody go South?" They say, "It'd be disruptive." I said, "For how long?" I finally got them up from 12 to 15 years. And I said, "well, how does it stop being disruptive?" And that is when their jobs come up from a dollar an hour to six dollars an hour, and ours go down to six dollars an hour, and then it's leveled again. But in the meantime, you've wrecked the country with these kinds of deals. We've got to cut it out."

So yeah, it's great for people who come from other countries to work, but it came at the expense of the American people who used to be able to afford vacations, health care, and college but now no longer can.