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If you click through the links in the Summit County Voice articles that have been covering this story, you get to
"Feds may be muzzling scientist over Arctic research":

We think they’re [Interior Department investigators] nervous about his portfolio of science in the Arctic,” said [watchdog org] PEER director Jeff Ruch, explaining that there’s enormous pressure to move ahead with offshore drilling in the [Arctic] region.

It's obvious what's going on here. The Interior Department, which under Bush/Cheney took cocaine and hookers from drilling, other oil and other energy corps who are supposed to pay (minimal) royalties to the Department, is totally corrupt. That is the agency that pretended to regulate BP and other drillers, allowing the Mocambo blowout to poison the Gulf last year (and generally, in less reported ongoing operations). Obama hasn't worked hard enough to replace the crooks running that department. But it's much harder when the Senate's Republican minority abuses the filibuster to block any useful replacement of the crooks, installed by Bush/Cheney when Republicans had the monopoly over all 3 branches. Specifically here Republican senator James Inhofe, paramount climate change denier, is wrangling the scientist witchhunt to protect the oil corps. Not to mention the lockstep loyalty Republicans practice in opposition to anything Obama does. Especially when it might interfere with oil corps' vast, subsidized profits protected from the consequences of their epic destruction.

I don't know why we even have to ask "who's responsible?" Of course it's the oil corps and their wholly owned assets in the government. The government should run real investigations, try and convict the people making and executing these plans. Then anyone asking the question will have to be an obvious employee of the oil corps, making their living by trying to make it somehow questionable who's doing this to us.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/08/business/patent-bill-could-save-a-law-firm-millions.html?_r=2&emc=tnt&tntemail1=y

smoke and mirrors....

For clarity: this article is about an amendment to the bill, not the main body of the bill.

Pictures show the elevator trim tab broken off. At those speeds the aircraft needs significant nose down force to stay level, and if the trim tab breaks off then the aircraft will nose up violently (and violently at 4-500 mph is a violent action indeed). It is quite possible that he suddenly hit between 5-9 Gs (my bet is in the higher part of the range) while unprepared. The human body can't do anything in those conditions. Quite different if those forces are expected and you can prepare through breathing and muscle contraction, but he probably got smacked down and possibly slammed his head into the instrument panel (as this was on the straight which is a place for going through and changing settings, the easy and fun part of the race).
Broken trim tab:
http://external.ak.fbcdn.net/safe_image.php?d=AQD53IBQjMbO0oqC&w=90&h=90&url=http%3A%2F%2Fmedia.graytvinc.com%2Fimages%2Fplane%2Benlarged.jpg
No pilot showing in canopy during dive:
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2011/09/16/us/20110917_RENO-IPAD-4.html

"The pilot was quite old--perhaps he experienced a heart attack or stroke..."

I think you might be right. Take a look at this photo from the NYTimes article--it is photo #3 in the series.

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2011/09/16/us/20110917_RENO-IPAD-3.html

Answer me this--In that photo, where the fuck is the pilot?

All I see is an empty canopy. Unconscious and puddled in his seat? Wouldn't a harness hold him up enough that he would be visible in the canopy in that photo? That canopy didn't have a "mirrored" filter on it, did it? The next image in that series is obviously taken BEFORE the crash, so it is quite possible the image (#3) was taken earlier as well, but, if so, that would be pretty irresponsible of the NYTimes to caption the image the way it was.

I've seen a P-51 up close, with the pilot in the seat, and that pilot was quite visible. Again, in this photo, where the fuck is the pilot?

What! You must be from the Obama whitewash department. Even NYTimes called him out on it dumbass.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/08/business/patent-bill-could-save-a-law-firm-millions.html?_r=2&emc=tnt&tntemail1=y

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/08/business/patent-bill-could-save-a-law-firm-millions.html?_r=2&emc=tnt&tntemail1=y smoke and mirrors....

Adding an amendment does not mean it's been passed and is in effect. If this were true, then we would have gotten rid of the patriot act, withdrawn from foreign deployment, made smoking illegal, beefed up the patriot act, and given every person in america free tacos and jailtime. Here is the current status: http://politics.nytimes.com/congress/bills/112/s1151

While everyone is still lamenting the "legalize mary jane and the problems go away", let's not forget the other choice activities that generate about half the cartel's income:

• - includes the sale of methamphetamine, cocaine, and brown-powder and black-tar heroin.
• - kidnapping has become their second-most-lucrative venture, with the targets ranging from businessmen to migrants.
• - Another new source of cartel revenue is oil theft
• - Cartels are also moving into the market in pirated goods in Latin America.
• - cartels are also moving into extortion.

https://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/19/opinion/19longmire.html

Sure the cartels will take hit initially, but those intervening months between legalizing and having RJ Reynolds start churning out cig packs of pot (or even for local growers to have enough to deal with the increased demand) the cartels would be shifting. Already the cartels operate near slave farm operations in the US national forests - what makes you think they would stop? The price might be a bit less but what's the cost to people who do not care for human life? Labor is cheap at the end of a gun barrel.

Per the OP's article these guys are no joke. They are not just some street thug but freaking trained troops. They have gone far, far up the Nung River, and I doubt they will go away any time soon.

They were formed by former special forces soldiers who deserted from the Mexican Army and joined the Gulf Cartel.

What are you talking about? Privatization generally leads to more for less. Airport security has already been privatized in other countries; the U.S. would just be catching up in that regard.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/13/us/13contractor.html?_r=4

There was another story a few weeks ago, about a state that took back a previously privatized prison that wasn't being maintained properly (i.e., the company was just cream-skimming), and much to their surprise they saved about a million dollars in the first year they had it back.

Also, notice that if you privatized the TSA you still have all the same expenses, *plus* the expectation of a profit on top of all that. They only way you get more for less by privatizing is by cutting corners - and you've got to cut enough to satisfy the profit motive just to break even.

Privatization isn't about smaller government, or even getting more for less. It's about putting public money in private pockets. Why do you think Republican politicians always favor it?

Yes, it is indeed about taking public money and putting it in private pockets. Kind of like how taxes are *all about* taking private money and putting it in public pockets. What is your point, good sir? Also, you're flat out wrong in this instance. Privatizing airport security would actually allow government to spend public dollars on different things. We're not *hiring* a private company to conduct security, private companies will bid on the opportunity so right off the bat the government saves what they're spending on TSA plus they get a little extra from the private firm who wins the bid.

Seriously, you're obviously a big supporter of public works, so why are you advocating here that we waste public funds on AIRPLANE SECURITY??? We should use that money for welfare programs, or roads and bridges, or fire departments, or whatever you want. Privatizing TSA allows government to do that.

What are you talking about? Privatization generally leads to more for less. Airport security has already been privatized in other countries; the U.S. would just be catching up in that regard.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/13/us/13contractor.html?_r=4

There was another story a few weeks ago, about a state that took back a previously privatized prison that wasn't being maintained properly (i.e., the company was just cream-skimming), and much to their surprise they saved about a million dollars in the first year they had it back.

Also, notice that if you privatized the TSA you still have all the same expenses, *plus* the expectation of a profit on top of all that. They only way you get more for less by privatizing is by cutting corners - and you've got to cut enough to satisfy the profit motive just to break even.

Privatization isn't about smaller government, or even getting more for less. It's about putting public money in private pockets. Why do you think Republican politicians always favor it?

He has a significant financial interest in climate science reaching a particular conclusion.

Do you really believe that Al Gore is motivated by money? Think about that for a moment. What evidence is there for it? I don't even know if he has stocks in renewable energy research companies, or the like, but isn't it plausible that he has invested in said (theoretical?) companies because he has lots of money, and believes that this is a good thing to do?

Can you support your point a little better? It sounds like you are just casting unfounded negative aspirtions.

Clearly you have not followed Gore Jr's life much. His family continues to make millions off of oil stocks given to them as a bribe by Armand Hammer.

Here's Gore sort of being disclosed in 2000:

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=468

Here's Gore being called out for more faux caring:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2006-08-09-gore-green_x.htm

Public records reveal that as Gore lectures Americans on excessive consumption, he and his wife Tipper live in two properties: a 10,000-square-foot, 20-room, eight-bathroom home in Nashville, and a 4,000-square-foot home in Arlington, Va. (He also has a third home in Carthage, Tenn.) For someone rallying the planet to pursue a path of extreme personal sacrifice, Gore requires little from himself.

...and now Gore Jr. is playing both sides.

http://www.dailyfinance.com/2009/11/03/al-gore-the-worlds-first-carbon-billionaire/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/6491195/Al-Gore-could-become-worlds-first-carbon-billionaire.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/03/business/energy-environment/03gore.html

Clearly your blinders are locked if you do not understand the clear conflict of interest here. I'm sure the slightest bit of investigative journalism could produce much more incentive.

Well, first they start switching to Linux, then they want to fund ReactOS. I think I'm starting to cheer for the Russians. Meanwhile, the US and UK want to police your internet so you don't download stuff.

Yeah, let's all cheer for the guys who murder journalists critical of the government. Who needs human rights when you have "software freedoms"?

The hack actually happened: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/21/science/earth/21climate.html . While what the emails imply may be in contention, his claim that it happened is not bullshit.

Him: "In 1939, Germany invaded Poland using recovered alien spacecraft, and discovered that the whole nation was actually occupied by lizards wearing human costumes."

Me: "That's bullshit."

You: "No, the invasion actually happened."

The hack actually happened: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/21/science/earth/21climate.html . While what the emails imply may be in contention, his claim that it happened is not bullshit.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/primary-resources/carter-crisis/
"We are at a turning point in our history. There are two paths to choose. One is a path I've warned about tonight, the path that leads to fragmentation and self-interest. Down that road lies a mistaken idea of freedom, the right to grasp for ourselves some advantage over others. That path would be one of constant conflict between narrow interests ending in chaos and immobility. It is a certain route to failure. All the traditions of our past, all the lessons of our heritage, all the promises of our future point to another path, the path of common purpose and the restoration of American values. That path leads to true freedom for our nation and ourselves. We can take the first steps down that path as we begin to solve our energy problem."

Too bad we have spend the last thirty years going down that wrong path, and in more ways than energy.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/04/opinion/sunday/jobs-will-follow-a-strengthening-of-the-middle-class.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

But it is not too late to go back... And it is even easier now:
http://cleantechnica.com/2011/05/29/ge-solar-power-cheaper-than-fossil-fuels-in-5-years/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/4818

He knows the right words.

"Renewables! Renewables!"

It works well.

Quite frankly, I think we need to look at revenue before we even consider looking at aggressive spending cuts. Granted, the two may go hand in hand, but the amount of money we're losing to corporate tax loopholes and subsidies is staggering. Note: when I say losing, I don't just mean revenue we aren't collecting, but money being paid out in refunds to some of the largest corporations in the country/world. Here's a little food for thought on the subject.

http://sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=67562604-8280-4d56-8af4-a27f59d70de5
http://www.ips-dc.org/reports/executive_excess_2011_the_massive_ceo_rewards_for_tax_dodging
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/opinion/stop-coddling-the-super-rich.html

1) WTF does atheism have to do with cracking down on knockoff handbags?

2) The problem with China's governing "no-bullshit-style atheists" is that if you disagree with them, you disappear off the face of the earth. You may not have a problem with that, since you agree with what they're doing today. But it'll probably seem a lot less appealing if you find yourself disagreeing with them tomorrow.

Actually, the Kenya disaster was the top story on nytimes.com. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/13/world/africa/13kenya.html?hp

There is quite a large difference between a person watching and seeing you go past and a sleepless, tireless automaton tracking you to the distance of a car parking spot.

I think you'll find there's a very large court case if your country that's actually trying to decide how much of a right to privacy even suspected criminals have with GPS tracking versus good ol' actual police officers following you: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/11/us/11gps.html

What would be interesting to see what westfield's reaction would be if you had a mechanism (from LCD film to... duct tape) for covering up your license plate each time you enter it. While I don't know the specifics of the law as it pertains to carparks in Australia - I'm sure regardless of what the law is, the rent-a-cops would bar your entry stating "private property".

All 4 years are undergrads, by the way. If you are taking intro classes all those years, and in my experience with this tool that is the only place its used- well power to you. Where have you seen the tool used?

Consider this a lesson to students- if you are basing your business model on word-for-word copying of copyrighted work-- you are going to suffer consequences in the business world just like you did in the classroom. E.g., you will lose. Best to learn that early. These days, incoming students have been surrendering copyright for years on everything from their posting, bloggings, tweets, and photographs- here's a time when clicking that checkbox actually lets them learn something.

Since up to 60% of all cheating cases at premier universities have been shown to involve CS courses:
http://bayarea.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/11/heading-off-the-temptation-to-cheat-in-computer-science-classes-at-stanford/

I submit that this field in particular, due to its link to business, is one of the prime candidates for leaning this lesson early. We can find many examples where not learning this lesson costs you your job most certainly; your employer money at best, product or company at worst.

Heard of Oracle and SAP? We can find many industrial examples where bad habits had huge consequences. Its isn't just in the classroom kids.

I submit that the real-world data, and opportunities for lesson-learned early on, outweigh the thought experiment you submit.

It appears the links are swapped. The first link http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/09/09/att-responds-to-justice-dept-s-lawsuit-over-t-mobile-deal/ has this text in it:

Separately on Friday, three Republican legislators asked the Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission to furnish more information about their criteria for evaluating the T-Mobile deal.

The three legislators — Representatives Fred Upton of Michigan, Greg Walden of Oregon and Joe Barton of Texas — said that they were concerned about the impact that rejecting the deal would have on job creation in the country. All three are tied to the House Energy and Commerce committee, with Mr. Upton serving as chairman.

“It is clear that this is a complex transaction and it is important that government officials reserve judgment until all of the facts have come to light,” they wrote in a letter to the Justice Department and the F.C.C.

Paul Krugman agrees. He argues that the benefits of HFT are dubious, but the costs essentially amount to a tax on anyone who doesn't have access to a HFT system. He also compares HFT to someone who speculates on the market based on confidential information, which has been well established as a Bad Thing for a long time.

Read the original article in the NYT you dolt! He is clearly saying that he agrees with Paul McCulley's suggestion.

As usual, Slashdot is a little slow.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/24/books/booktrack-introduces-e-books-with-soundtracks.html
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/08/bad-ideas-booktrack-adds-sound-effects-and-music-to-books

It's his blog, he can post what he wants.

Some times he posts about science fiction.

Some times he posts about indie bands he's into.

It wouldn't surprise me if he were reading this thread.

It's his blog, he can post what he wants.

Some times he posts about science fiction.

Some times he posts about indie bands he's into.

It wouldn't surprise me if he were reading this thread.

I think the problem is that in many cases they don't ever spend the money. Trickle-down economics is a myth. Check out the results starting with Reaganomics:
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2011/09/04/opinion/04reich-graphic.html?ref=sunday

What laws did President Bush write that wrecked the economy. Here's a hint... if a rooster lays an egg on a roof...

Roosters don't lay eggs?

Here is another hint as to who is responsible: In Jan 2007, the unemployment rate was 4.7% and $2.18 a gallon. Can you tell me what changed in Jan of 2007?

I'm not into partisan politics. You might recall that real estate bubble which we're still dealing with. Bailouts (1.6 trillian). Or tax cuts for the wealthy (which I expect to be extended) plus massive spending over seas. This isn't just a Bush issue and we're still feeling the effects of shit done during his reign like the fucking patriot act.Obama is no winner either. This was just off of the top of my head.

What laws did President Bush write that wrecked the economy. Here's a hint... if a rooster lays an egg on a roof...

Roosters don't lay eggs?

Here is another hint as to who is responsible: In Jan 2007, the unemployment rate was 4.7% and $2.18 a gallon. Can you tell me what changed in Jan of 2007?

I'm not into partisan politics. You might recall that real estate bubble which we're still dealing with. Bailouts (1.6 trillian). Or tax cuts for the wealthy (which I expect to be extended) plus massive spending over seas. This isn't just a Bush issue and we're still feeling the effects of shit done during his reign like the fucking patriot act.Obama is no winner either. This was just off of the top of my head.

Hong Kong is a capitalist community in a communist society.

On August 31, flood levels started to subside. The water level in the city had reached that of Lake Pontchartrain, and as the lake started to drain back into the Gulf, some water in the city started to flow into the lake via the same levee breeches they had entered through. In 19th century lake floods, the water soon flowed back into the lake as there were no levees on that side.

as humans, what makes us special is not just our ability to adapt, but to adapt the environment around us. If we never lived anywhere there was a threat of disaster, I am not sure where you could live(definitely not Texas, or a few other places. And those maps don't even include floods (the most common natural disaster), for that threats see this map of flood hazards for the US.

HP seems to have become akin to a black hole (or Galactus), devouring other companies and permanently destroying them in the process. OK, it was Compaq that engulfed DEC, but then HP engulfed Compaq. Now it has done the same to 3Com, Palm, and even its own industry-leading microcomputer division seems destined for the singularity.

Definitely part of the problem here is Léo Apotheker, the guy currently in charge of the trainwreck that is HP. I like the commentary quoted in the NY Times that likens him to hypothetical former Boeing exec taking over Ford, then announcing that Ford was going to make planes instead.

Schmidt is insistent that Google has the right to know who their users are. On the other hand, Google doesn't do proper due diligence on their customers, the ones who buy ads. That just cost them a $500 million fine to the Department of Justice for running phony pharmaceutical ads. (Those supposed "Canadian pharmacies" often aren't real pharmacies at all, and many are not in Canada. DOJ went after Google because an investigation into some Mexican drug dealer was also running an offshore pharmacy.)

Because of Google's "we don't care who you are" policy about advertisers, Google has become the advertising system for a wide range of scams: typosquatting, adware, ads for free stuff that's not free, ads for counterfeit software, and mortgage modification scams. Prof. Benjamin Edelman at the Harvard Business School estimates that Google makes about $25 million a year from ads for spyware and adware, about $6 million a year from ads for "credit repair" scams, and about $100 million a year by allowing competing trademarks as search keywords (that last is being litigated.)

Most of those scams depend on advertiser anonymity. Business aren't entitled to privacy. Even in the European Union, which has privacy rights for individuals, businesses don't get that right. The European Directive on Electronic Commerce is very clear about that. Google has the right to demand proof of business identity from advertisers, and to demand that the advertiser disclose the actual name and address from which the business is conducted on their web site. Google doesn't do this, which makes Google the scammer's friend, and in some cases, as they just discovered expensively, an accomplice to criminal activity.

Google claimed to the DOJ that they cleaned up their act on drug ads. Let's see. Search for "no prescription diet pills". See a Google ad for "Phentremine 37.5 mg HCL - As low as $30. Free Shipping. www.phentreminediet.com No subscriptions, or hidden cost.". There it is, right at the top of the page, in prime position, a drug ad run by Google. This is a fake drug scam site. It's a form of drug typosquatting; the real drug is spelled "phentermine". The site has a Google Checkout seal (which may be fake) and a BBBonline seal (which is fake). Yet Google is running that ad.

Prof. Edelman says it better than I can: "I have long doubted Google's claims of innocence. For one, Google has an obvious incentive to allow deceptive and unlawful ads: each extra ad means extra revenue -- an ad in lieu of white space, or an extra competitor encouraging other advertisers to bid that much higher. Furthermore, unlawful and deceptive ads have been widespread; I found dozens in just a few hours of work. Meanwhile, it's hard to reconcile Google's engineering strength -- capably indexing billions of pages and tabulating billions of links -- with the company's supposed inability to identify new advertisements mentioning or targeting a few dozen terms known to deceive consumers. From these facts, I could only suspect what the DOJ investigation now confirms: Unlawful ads persist at Google not just because advertisers seek to be listed, but also because Google intentionally lets them stay and even offers them special assistance."

Now that is fine quality trolling you are doing there.

Warren Buffet publically thanked the US government for bailing him out, with all his 'wisdom', he was betting on the mortgage market right before it collapsed.

...One of Wall Streetâ(TM)s giant investment banks had gone bankrupt, and the remaining three were poised to follow. A.I.G., the worldâ(TM)s most famous insurer, was at deathâ(TM)s door.

Many of our largest industrial companies, dependent on commercial paper financing that had disappeared, were weeks away from exhausting their cash resources. Indeed, all of corporate Americaâ(TM)s dominoes were lined up, ready to topple at lightning speed. My own company, Berkshire Hathaway, might have been the last to fall, but that distinction provided little solace.

then he thanks them

Well, Uncle Sam, you delivered. People will second-guess your specific decisions; you can always count on that. But just as there is a fog of war, there is a fog of panic â" and, overall, your actions were remarkably effective. ...

then he thanks them a bit more

So, again, Uncle Sam, thanks to you and your aides. Often you are wasteful, and sometimes you are bullying. On occasion, you are downright maddening. But in this extraordinary emergency, you came through â" and the world would look far different now if you had not.

Your grateful nephew,

Warren

Warren E. Buffett is the chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway, a diversified holding company.

Today Buffet is again 'investing' into the banks, the people don't understand that his investments are preferred stock, not common stock, so he gets 10% dividends paid before anybody else gets their 1% (and it will have to be cut, so that Buffet can get paid.)

As Buffet gets paid, his companies get bailed out, the people who are on the hook for it are foreign creditors and eventually US taxpayers, and eventually just all US citizens.

As Buffet gets paid on one hand, he talks about raising income taxes on 'the rich', without getting into too much detail on how he personally benefits from these taxes, especially the estate tax, as his company liquidates companies at whole sale prices when cash must be raised to pay the death tax (which is theft, obviously, who here thinks that in a family anybody who uses money that they didn't earn directly must pay income taxes on it in the money pool? If your kid or your S.O. buys something with money you earned, or you buy something with money they earned, shouldn't you be forced to pay income taxes by this logic?)

--

So, Hazel whatever, when you talk about how "libertarian is not good enough in his own eyes", why don't you put a stick through your own eye?

Anyone he regards as successful must therefore have got there through immoral means.

- what a bunch of BS. Absolute non-sequitur and putting words into my mouth that I have never in my life spouted.

YOU ARE A TROLL, never mind what the moderation says.

but don't abide by a sophomoric list of principles

Fucking BS as well. You have just said that Peter Schiff, Mark Faber, Jim Rogers and similar guys have no principles? They are rich, but they are rich on their own feet, not because of government, but always despite it.

So I have just two words: fuck you. Nothing else for you.

> older guy speaks everyone just shuts the hell up and
> does what he says.

And that is why Japan is doomed. It is squandering its future now, paying the past with the present. Says I? No! Says young Japanese themselves! The NY Times covered this issue succinctly in January.

[quote]
TOKYO -- Kenichi Horie was a promising auto engineer, exactly the sort of youthful talent Japan needs to maintain its edge over hungry Korean and Chinese rivals. As a worker in his early 30s at a major carmaker, Mr. Horie won praise for his design work on advanced biofuel systems.

But like many young Japanese, he was a so-called irregular worker, kept on a temporary staff contract with little of the job security and half the salary of the "regular" employees, most of them workers in their late 40s or older. After more than a decade of trying to gain regular status, Mr. Horie finally quit -- not just the temporary jobs, but Japan altogether.

He moved to Taiwan two years ago
{end quote]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/28/world/asia/28generation.html?pagewanted=all

so that means another 20% of all space junk is from when we shot one of our satellites down
and in the 80s, we shot down another satellite, so that must mean another 20%!
and again russia shot down a satellite
so that must mean 80% of all space junk is from rockets that blow up old satellites in order to maintain standing in some international geosynchronous pissing contest

if we keep looking through history chances are other countries have shot down satellites as well, perhaps more than once. why, If the report had been released 25 years ago you might even see the word china replaced with the word Russia.

NASA: great place for science to be done, but has an ugly habit of political rhetoric being injected into its reports.

Speaking of green jobs; since the recession began I have heard many politicians and pundits say something along the line of "Our district will create jobs and prosperity by leading in the green business revolution"

How has that worked out? I think that our politicians are under some assumption that no other country in the world has engineers working on this problem. That China will sit idly by as we make efficient and lucrative clean energy products. The fact is that we cannot become proffitable just by changing industries, we need a climate where businesses are able to to succeed in any industry. We need less regulation, more efficient regulation (ie; less paperwork for compliance), and more efficient taxation. We also could do with a little tort reform and maybe some tarrif reform mixed in there.

If politicians (many of whom are lawyers and assume people like filling out pages and pages of EPA forms) took one minute to realise negative impact of the procedural overhead caused by all of these convoluted and redundant regulations perhaps we would have a chance at a business revolution. Many of these agencies use violations of these regulations as a revenue gathering device, this only serves to discourage business expansion and job creation.

To recap, I am not saying that we need to kill all business regulation, but we need to cut it down to the point where any person of average intelligence could understand them and reach compliance easily while still having time left in the day to run a business. Same general thought applies to tax law.

Can you specify what those "trillions upon trillions of dollars" will be spent on?

Who knows? Impact of carbon credits? Impact of shutdown of entire coal industry? Impact of ditching crude entirely w/ full conversion of all cars to clean energy sources? There's lots of "extreme" green ideas out there that are very expensive and very good for the environment. The devil, as always, is in the details. The Kyoto Protocol is the most obvious "ridiculously expensive" thing that comes to mind. It may not be in the "trillion and trillions" range, but it is most certainly in the hundreds of billions as far as "cost to our country". It's not a straw man if such ideas are being proposed.

I have no problem with the government incentivizing the industry as we have with many others in the past.

Nor do I. Moderate inexpensive incentives are one thing. But like I said in my previous posts, these things are already being done. The global warming crowd is calling for larger action.

Tax cuts do not get spent to the extent that things like SS and Medicare do.

That is actually very debatable. Especially considering the fact that Medicare and SS exclusively benefit the elderly (the richest age demographic in our country). People say the poor spend more than the rich, right? Well, without means-testing, SS and Medicare are little more than a cash dump to the rich, which isn't effective spending.

If consumers aren't spending as much and there is low demand why would they invest it in something productive that creates jobs?

I concur. I don't believe SS or Medicare creates jobs. Something like "Cash for Clunkers" (which I think was a fantastic idea) manages to produce jobs _and_ help the environment at the same time, for a very small cost. We should be directing our efforts towards similar ideas. The Cash for Caulkers effort was notable as well...it's a shame that died a horrible death in the Senate: http://www.recurve.com/blog/article/what-happened-to-home-star1/

Medicare is cheaper than any private policy would be. It only has 3% overhead compared to 10-30% for private insurance.

You're focusing on a single fact. If I might offer a counter: https://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/02/business/retirementspecial/02health.html

When it comes down to it, Medicare in its totality simply isn't cutting it. Old people who aren't rich still can't afford healthcare, people who aren't old have shitty healthcare, and healthcare overall is way too expensive despite whatever "savings" people think Medicare is producing. And without means-testing, it's a complete waste of money.

I would prefer well implemented government programs like they have in Germany and Japan.

I would prefer a system like Canada's. State-level health insurance with a bare-minimum framework at the federal level. The problem with this country is that everyone thinks everything has to be done at the federal level (which is a terrible idea).

providing evidence to support that claim.

Since I showed they were not, and you did nothing to counter my assertions, you are trying to cover up for very sloppy redacting.

Again, an organization like WikiLeaks cannot properly redact documents. They might try but you can never know to WHAT standard they are redacting information, or for what reason... and in the end it doesn't matter anyway, just like you can't be "just a little pregnant" you cannot claim Wikileaks is trying to protect privacy while violating the hell out of multiple people's privacy.

As for the fantasy the news organizations are any more capable, again they are not security experts and not fit to judge what is redactable or not.

They're omitting names and other specifics

Really?

You can keep shoveling but the truth is so evident you cannot bury it.

If the claims against the IMF head were a CIA operation, surely the US prosecutor would've actually done his fucking job and brought charges

The goal was never a conviction. The goal was to discredit him long enough to get him booted as IMF head. Look at the timeline if you don't believe me. The prosecutors first admitted that their case was a joke literally TWO DAYS after a new pro-American IMF head was appointed.

Let me help you:

February 11, 2011: Dominque Strauss-Kahn, International Monetary Fund head, makes a speech in Washington calling for the establishment of a new global currency that would devalue the U.S. Dollar

May 14, 2011: Dominque Strauss-Kahn arrested in New York City on rape charges. Prosecutors make him take a very public "perp walk" (with press in tow), and claim an ironclad case.

May 14, 2011: Dominque Strauss-Kahn resigns as IMF chief

June 28, 2011: New pro-American Christine Lagarde appointed IMF chief, with the U.S. cheering her on.

June 30, 2011: Prosecutors meet with Strauss-Kahn attorneys and admit their "ironclad" case is a joke, later drop all charges.

All just coincidences of course, the rantings of a tin-foil hat enthusiast.

You should try competing some time. Hell, even try competing with yourself.

I've been training in a karate style that does medium-hard sparring for 25+ years, and I've competed in several tournaments. Though I suck at it, I know about the adrenaline rush. But that's not the "runner's high", which is an endorphin phenomenon,. I've also experienced that through exhaustive training. (Also, one time, from a long session of getting tattooed.)

According to Mrs Dick Parry, speaker for the Tea Party, child labor is not so bad; and every member of the more conservative U.S.Congress types would not argue your child labor point. Another miner factoid is that the government of china approves all building construction, manufacturing processes, and anything else their Politburo deems fit to rule on. Not even the wholesale slaughter of 150,000 children causes much attention by those who rule the middle kingdom. So why should any of us be conserned? (queue Irony at this point)

This is how they are dealt with if they find out: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/06/world/americas/06cuba.html

Firstly, your picture says "epidemic," when it's pandemic.

Secondly, you have shown here that you don't have the mental capability to understand epidemiological data.

Facts:

• U.N. Reports Decrease in New H.I.V. Infections
• HIV infection rates decreasing in several countries
• U.N. report: New HIV infections decreasing
• 2009 annual HIV/AIDS epidemiology report

Oh, remember when I said, "given they have means, will get tested"?

Now fuck off and die, shithead.

From Wikipedia.

Nigerian Muslims feared polio eradication campaign was actually a secret sterilisation campaign.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/2070634.stm
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/20/international/asia/20polio.html?pagewanted=2

Cholera. Not too sure what you're thinking about.
Perhaps the claim of Haitians following the earthquake that UN peacekeepers from Nepal brought cholera with them?
An investigation of the source and and examination of the Haitian strain's DNA actually showed that was probably true.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11943902

No, all international profits are usually kept off-shore because repatriation of those profits would be taxed at usual rates. Trying to bring the money back to the US without paying taxes would be massive tax fraud (at least compared to the tax fraud that these companies normally do). Thus, companies actively advocate for "repatriation holidays," which are nothing more than corporate tax breaks.

It's not just the category or just the rain. Other factors include:

• * How fast it moves--Irene was very slow-moving for most of its life
• * Size (that's what she said . . .)

To chill's point, those things obviously have an impact on how much rain falls, but they also are important determiners of the storm surge height, wave heights and wind damage; if a couple 75mph gusts blow over your house, you might lose a lawn chair and a shutter or two. If the wind blows on your house at 75mph for four hours, you might lose a lot more.

For most people who aren't weather geeks, the Saffir-Simpson scale has very little value. Some of the NOAA/NHC forecasters and others have said as much in some of their interviews about Irene and other recent storms. But whatever factors you want to cough up to rank hurricanes, what really matters is the ultimate impact of the storm, not how it was classified in the record books or by breathless (and brainless) reporters on CNN. We can argue about relative impacts of storms, but by most measures Irene has been a devastating event that makes the warnings and preparations seem pretty appropriate. Here's one way of slicing up the data.

BTW, whoever is on board with the "Irene was a joke"/"boy who cried wolf" meme is being as silly as those reporters standing on the beach in their rainsuits shouting into their microphones while getting "lashed" (seriously guys, can we come up with at least one other verb?) by wind and rain. Irene could've been much more severe along any of these physical measures of hurricane strength had it taken even a slightly different course as it moved up the east coast . . .

So I don't know about you guys, but I'd rather be inconvenienced and deal with some extra economic impact as a result of safety measures than to risk hundreds of lives and chaos in the streets of NYC. I think most people would agree with that–ultimately, anyway.

While there's an important lesson in the story of the Boy Who Cried Wolf, so is there in the story of the Three Little Pigs.

Check out this article by a couple of guys who are pretty statistically reliable. The "hype" for this hurricane was nothing out of the ordinary.

In Zurich, the urban planners are proud of their ability to force drivers to hit as many red lights as possible. They feel this will discourage people from driving in town, and somehow reduce pollution. Whether the net result of all those cars accelerating and braking all the time is actually better is another discussion, but if they ever thought that a system like this was becoming popular (thwarting their carefully annoying design) they would adjust somehow.

In case you are wondering, this is not my imagination or guess. They really are openly proud of how annoying they can make the local traffic.