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Or: There was an intentional push by right-wing technologists to keep women out of the dot-com boom.

"PayPal had a hard time hiring women, Max Levchin, another co-founder, later told a class at Stanford, 'because PayPal was just a bunch of nerds! They never talked to women. So how were they supposed to interact with and hire them?... The notion that diversity in an early team is important or good is completely wrong,' he added. 'The more diverse the early group, the harder it is for people to find common ground.'"

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/12/23/us/gender-gaps-stanford-94.html

As a top-level response to all the young men saying "women just don't want to code -- the end", you should be aware that the proportion of women in software engineering used to be much higher. In 1984, 23% of U.S. computer science degree holders were women; as of 2013 it had slid down to 15%. See graph here:

http://blog.linkedin.com/2014/03/10/getting-more-women-in-stem-our-partnership-with-mentornet/

There is something really regressive and ugly that's happened in the culture of software engineering in the meantime. Some of it's even intentionally manufactured by right-wing/libertarian technologists like Peter Thiel:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/12/23/us/gender-gaps-stanford-94.html

... and mobile users saved a multiple of that amount in reduced bandwidth costs.

I'm old enough to recall the controversy over a creationist writing for Scientific American.

Other manufacturers of diesel engines just sucked it up and licensed the Daimler urea-injection thing, and don't have these problems.

They only started doing that very recently, on Euro 6 models. Most current diesel cars do not use urea injection. They use (cooled) EGR and/or an NOx adsorber (LNT), like in the affected VW models. Since it has already been shown that almost all current diesel cars (even some that use urea injection) emit far more NOx in real-world situations than they do in test conditions, and several manufacturers have been caught doing things similar to VW's "defeat device", I expect a few more manufacturers to get in trouble.

Did he miss the travel advisory for Italy?

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09...

The top-secret stuff came in different channels.

From the New York Times:

I. Charles McCullough III, the inspector general for the intelligence community, found the two emails containing what he determined was “Top Secret” information in the course of reviewing a sampling of 40 of Mrs. Clinton’s work-related emails for potential security breaches.

Note that even though those were only 2 emails out of a sample of 40 that were examined, there are over 30,000 emails that were deleted and so we may never know if they were classified or not.

Don't be so certain that Europe has higher standards or that they even enforce them. They're just as corrupt as we are:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09...

So is your thinking that when facing the persistent long term threat of violent extremists Islamists (which are pretty much exclusively Muslim) dedicated to the overthrow of Western civilization that the proper course of action is to search for violent Buddhists, Lutherans, and atheists? Because, Diversity!??

In the past decade, right-wing extremists have killed more Americans than muslim terrorists. Do you believe we face a "persistent long term threat" from Christian fundamentalists, gun nuts and "oath-keepers"? There's your "diversity", Johnny.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06...

This is sort of like the Chinese complaining that counterintelligence focuses on them as being in a group that provides possible spies for China.

Replace 'Chinese' with 'Asian-Americans' and you get an analogy a bit closer to the truth. And maybe then you'll see how disturbing that is, especially considering america's fairly recent history in that regard.

What do you expect? Should counterintelligence focus on Swedes instead?

No, but perhaps they should focus on white christians, whose extremists have killed twice as many in terror attacks in the US since 9/11. I'm not sure how compliant Christian churches would be with a little 'common sense' surveillance on their premises to weed out the extremists in their midst.

There are records of every "official" email to and from her in the State Department servers. They have all been reviewed. Not a single one was found out of place. Not a single one was found to not be on the "released" emails Hillary disclosed. Not a single one contained classified documents. Not a single problem was found, and every single one was scoured.

That's not true. They recently found some she didn't turn over and numerous instances of classified information were on the server. Some information is classified because of where it comes from, including a lot of satellite imagery, and that was also found there.

No. Wrong. None of her emails are on government servers because she never used government servers. That's kind of what this whole thing is about. You should try and read up on it.

They have not all been reviewed. Partly, that is because she deleted half of them before she was forced to turn her server over. (Don't worry, the FBI is actually making progress recovering the destroyed evidence ... ) Partly because what she turned over were over 30,000 emails. Printed. It's gonna take a while.

There have been problems found. Classified information - some of it Top Secret - was found in some of the emails. The Blumenthal emails revealed Benghazi-related emails that she did not turn over. The list goes on. Every statement you just made was completely false.

And not to nitpick (seriously, your post is so wacky, it's kind of like looking for a needle in a needlestack), but Billions? With a "B"? No, a few million. An amount small enough (4.5 million, I think I read recently) she could cover it with a personal check (hmmm ... not a bad idea ...). You are clearly far removed from reality, and have no idea what you are talking about.

"She's been investigated for years, and not one problem found"

There's been plenty of 'problems' found. Nothing that has yielded an indictment -- but enough that a reasonable person should keep her clear of public service.

"There are records of every "official" email to and from her in the State Department servers."

Clearly you've no idea what you are talking about.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us...

The State Department received the emails from the Department of Defense "in the last several days," State department spokesman John Kirby said. "

Those emails werent ON the state department servers. Because she sent them from her PERSONAL account to the DoD. How many other emails have yet to surface because they aren't on the State Department's archive?

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09...

Charles McCullough III, the inspector general for the intelligence community, found the two emails containing what he determined was “Top Secret” information in the course of reviewing a sampling of 40 of Mrs. Clinton’s work-related emails for potential security breaches.

You know... if I see enough tell tale clues that a rat has been in my kitchen (chewed hole in dog food, for example) I can decide that there *IS* a rat without actually SEEING it. There MIGHT be a logical explanation for the hole, but as far as Clinton goes, every excuse comes with a lot more tell tale clues. Example:

https://www.washingtonpost.com...

The company that managed Hillary Rodham Clinton’s private e-mail server said it has “no knowledge of the server being wiped,” the strongest indication to date that tens of thousands of e-mails that Clinton has said were deleted could be recovered.

And then this:

http://www.npr.org/sections/al...

And it was wiped....

She could be spitting your your face and you'd be saying "it's raining!" Please, I'm not saying "beyond a reasonable doubt" in the legal sense that she did anything illegal. I'm saying that a reasonable person could only conclude that she hasn't been forth-coming and should not be trusted.

(please note all my citations are either liberal or left leaning sources).

"We're probably already there, in general human drivers suck."

Data, please? People make this claim all the time, but given that there are over a billion trips a day in the US and only around 120 fatalities, I'd say humans drivers pretty much have this thing down. The fact that people can make it around in their cars in myriad weather conditions, successfully navigate unfamiliar terrain, and quickly respond to sudden changes in circumstances (kid darting out in front of them) speaks volumes to how good human drivers are.

I watched a Google self-driving car cross an intersection this weekend (in Austin). It was moving very cautiously and then slowed down to a walking pace on the other side of the intersection, leaving a trail of human-driven cars stuck in the intersection while it decided to turn down a side street.

The "human drivers suck" crowd sounds very much like the "there's a thug with a gun around every corner" crowd. Some people seem to enjoy thinking the world is more dangerous than it really is.

-Chris

Some sources:
https://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/s...
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03...

He was done in by the prosecutor who is free to file charges even if the victim fails to press charges (same as in the US, for any crime) http://www.nytimes.com/1994/09... for an example where the "victim" objected to the prosecution of her sisters for plucking out her eyes.

You are wrong about this being the law on university campuses. Nowhere in the US is a woman allowed to give consent before sex, then revoke consent after, and have the sex then be treated as rape. Go on, name one place where that's the case (in law, not just according to the statements of the defendant). If you can't, then you are a MRA lying and whining to slander SJW because you hate women, not because you are actually upset over the laws.

George W Bush, is that you?

"Lantos went on to describe for the president how the Swedish Army might be an ideal candidate to anchor a small peacekeeping force on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Sweden has a well-trained force of about 25,000. The president looked at him appraisingly, several people in the room recall.

"I don't know why you're talking about Sweden," Bush said. "They're the neutral one. They don't have an army."

Lantos paused, a little shocked, and offered a gentlemanly reply: "Mr. President, you may have thought that I said Switzerland. They're the ones that are historically neutral, without an army." Then Lantos mentioned, in a gracious aside, that the Swiss do have a tough national guard to protect the country in the event of invasion.

Bush held to his view. "No, no, it's Sweden that has no army."

The room went silent, until someone changed the subject.

A few weeks later, members of Congress and their spouses gathered with administration officials and other dignitaries for the White House Christmas party. The president saw Lantos and grabbed him by the shoulder. "You were right," he said, with bonhomie. "Sweden does have an army."

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/magazine/faith-certainty-and-the-presidency-of-george-w-bush.html

Second, mishandling classified material is a FELONY

Stop using bold and CAPS. It is annoying. I am all for a witchhunt and I do think Hillary is a witch, but she did not mishandle classified material. The emails were classified after the fact. When she received it, it was ordinary correspondence.

YOU ARE WRONG

Second Review Says Classified Information Was in Hillary Clinton’s Email

... But the special review — by the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency — concluded that the emails were “Top Secret,” the highest classification of government intelligence, when they were sent to Mrs. Clinton in 2009 and 2011. ...

Given her position, it'd be downright FUCKING SCARY if she didn't recognize intelligence data from CIA or NGA as classified.

Reading these comments are enough to indicate there's a problem.

Totally agree. There's a great piece in the nyt today about how these subtle stereotypes are keep programming a secluded all-boys club. The co-working spot I work at is covered in Star wars nerd crap, I totally get it.

I assume the objection is a gag. Nobody is this brainless.

SJW's are, so are 3rd wave feminists. Which of course is why you now see popular culture starting to mocking them. And why 82% of women no longer call themselves feminists, rather they're following egalitarianism or something along those lines. They already know that modern feminism has a man-hatred problem, and large numbers of people see a serious problem with SJWs and their public attacks on people, and being perpetually outraged.

Says you.

Actually, The New York Times. I couldn't find the link when I posted from work yesterday.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/20/business/college-degree-required-by-increasing-number-of-companies.html

Because the threat of the government coming in and demanding everyone install a government approved backdoor on their encrypted data is real.

Has happened, and been demanded, by democracies before...

You are right that it's all about comparing risks of different power. But fear of radiation is harmful on it's own. 1600 people died from fear of radiation while thus far no one has died of the radiation (estimates I've read vary greatly so I'm not going to quote any of them about the long term effect). Whatever your opinion about nuclear power, the FEAR of it is a problem and IS costing lives, whether that is this type of fear or keeping us dependent upon fossil fuels which cost a lot of lives.

You don't see it happening because very few people know about it. Do you think that the lack of media coverage is accidental? Oh I know, Ben Carson the Republican candidate said something loony about having to attack a gunman on a spree just to kill, so that has to take all 7 "News" stations days to investigate and discuss. TPPIP? Not a word could be heard on any of those stations about that one. Amazingly, the candidates are not discussing it or being quoted on that one either.

First, Carson's comment is about as loony as calling the police and expecting them to save you. What he said was if you are about to die, try to save others. It's no different than after 9/11 when public discussion went from advising people to stay calm and follow orders/cooperate when an airplane is hijacked to assume you will be dead so take risks and save others. If you cannot understand that, you might have a serious problem.

Next, there is no or little media coverage because until recently there was nothing to cover outside of speculation. It's all been drafts leaked to the public via questionable sources and as we found out, a lot is different. I suspect we will end up continuing with little coverage because the IP provisions benefit the news corporations greatly.

Oh but Donal Trump this and that, and of course everyone is just mean to Hillary because in all the time she served as Secretary of State she never ever sent or received even 1 classified email.

That is an outright lie.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09...

http://www.washingtontimes.com...

The game is rigged pretty heavily today. People would probably shit themselves if they really know how much they are being manipulated. But hell, Facebook does not show anything too important in their feeds, and Facebook taking over control of that was accidental too.

Yup and you demonstrated my point with your political half assery too. Whenever someone talks about this subject, they have half the facts and half the fallacy along with all the hyperbole.

That rant is not really directed at you. It is directed at those who are now wearing that same tin-foil hat they accused others of wearing. I hope it fits them well.

This happens more often than most of us are willing to realize. Early warnings of lost jobs came about with NAFTA, Crazies like Glenn Beck was warning of ISIS and the Caliphate long before it was mainstream. Hell, even the horrors of Nazi Germany were foretold before the world was shocked at what we found at the end of WWII. Escaped Jews were trying to get the US involved long before Pearl Harbor pushed us over the edge. I guess for some, they just have to reach out and touch the hot stove in order to understand what your warning about the stove being hot really means.

Let me answer my own question:
I didn't realize that entire organizations could get the prize. I thought it was just individuals. Doctor's without borders received the Nobel Peace Prize. Now I feel dumb.

NY Times had an article about the cost of mobile ads, the article also had some interesting data about load-times and how much data was javascript, videos, images, embeds etc.
http://www.nytimes.com/interac...
Posting as its related to the efforts described above

Florida called and wants to eat your face.

2012 wants its propaganda back, too.

Again from Wikipedia:

"While police sources speculated that the use of a street drug like "bath salts" might have been a factor, experts have expressed doubt toward this speculation as toxicology reports were only able to identify marijuana in his system, leaving the ultimate cause of Eugene's behavior to remain unknown."

Hysterical anti-drug propaganda: scaring Americans stupid since 1914.

I was curious about your comment, and I think I found the article you were referring to. It was a 7/19/15 NYT article ( http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07... )

Here is a direct quote from it regarding the efficacy of the Zappos holacracy:

"Pressed for instances of Holacracy’s achievements at Zappos, employees could offer only pedestrian examples. Mr. Hsieh had shut the bridge connecting the office to a parking garage, hoping staff would experience more serendipitous encounters if they all used the same entrance.

But that meant employees had to venture onto the seedy streets to get to and from their cars, leaving some, especially those working late shifts, feeling unsafe. So one employee proposed that the bridge be reopened, a motion that was accepted by the circle that controlled campus operations, essentially overriding the C.E.O.

Or as a Zappos spokesman described the process, using Holacratic terms: “An employee (unknown) brought it to the road block role with safety being the tension. The road block role then took it to the grease and disrupt circle where it went through the process and was eventually passed with no objections.”

Looks like deadtree circulation for the Times is about a million, roughly equal to online-only subscriptions.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10...

Most 21st century newspapers would kill for a circulation of 12.5% of their population. Los Angeles Times, for example, is about 5%.

Nobody's saying that the New York Times is a massive success, but it is turning a profit.

Clearly the answer is to create a brave New World Order (as these top government officials call it),

Once we have a One World Government the US will be part of the same thing the EU is, and the corporations can dictate their laws globally. Oh, wait, that's what the TPP is bringing about. TPP was finalized yesterday.

So, we can expect Facespace and Gaargle to sue the EU under the new powers granted them by the secretive treaty. GiggaCorps can now sue for expected damages.

P.S. Did you catch my sneaky subject line "bug"?

Real names are far more useful to bullies than otherwise as they allow bullies to track people over multiple platforms, find their phone numbers, place of work, even track them right to their front doors. A real names policy does little to stop trolls either, they just register a burner account and troll until they get kicked off, it's not hard to do.

I'm solidly in favour of this EFF petition and I hope everyone signs, like it or not facebook is the de facto means of mass communication on the internet for most people today. They already have way too much power and have proven themselves more than happy to abuse that power in ways that would have gotten an accountable entity shut down hard, any moves to curb their influence and reach must be supported.

The real goal is power and personal dominance. Coding is just an excuse.

In quite a few of the myriad of failed IT projects that may certainly be true. But that does not express itself in the language used. I have seen people being destroyed in exquisitely polite and "professional" language. The only difference is that some of them only understood what was being said when they were shown the door a short time later. Language is only "violence" if the person it is addressed to sees it as such. There is an interpretation step in between. Also, the Linux Kernel if one of the most successful IT projects ever, so your argument is clearly not generally applicable.

The other thing you seem to be missing is that in any complex engineering project, a person seeing a serious issue _must_ get the message across. (For example, "professional" language killed those Columbia astronauts. Also refer to http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12...) Most people in subordinate positions are not very good at exercising the authority this needs. Those with these skills will usually use them, but the others must communicate effectively as well. As the "political correctness" aberration has made it excessively difficult to tell people that some things they created are broken or some ideas will not work, and made it in turn excessively easy for said people to ignore the criticism, it is better to resort to "unprofessional" language than to have a communications breakdown.

"Aggressive" language is a valid tool to generate short-term attention when needed and when no equally effective tool is available to the person that needs to produce the attention. If abused, any grown-up recipient will just adjust his/her filter for that person and it will lose its effectiveness. If used appropriately, it will continue to be effective.

Point in case: Linus will use abusive language to signal that he considers what he says important. He does not abuse this tool or nobody would be listening anymore and the Linux kernel would have never gotten anywhere. This does mean that Linus is not a master-level communicator, but he is a master-level project-builder and Unix-coder and a "good enough" communicator. Find a person that can do all three things on master level, and you could build a Linux kernel without its project leader using abusive language. Unfortunately, such people do not exist. We already only have one Linus. There are critical skills and there are "nice to have" skills when working in a technological project. Overload it in the "nice to have" class, and you will only get people that are lacking critical skills. This eventually and universally leads to a really bad outcome. I see this all the time in my line of work.

That sounds familiar, it reminds me this article about baboons and bullying.

Humans have similar differences in culture, some are used to bullying and expect individuals to "deal with it". Some won't stand for it, and have expectations that people avoid being abusive, which seems to at least cut the stress so people can put their efforts into actually doing something.

All scholarship is, to some extent, built on prior work — but this is especially true in scientific research. Consider James P. Allison, the winner of this year’s Lasker-DeBakey prize in clinical medical research. His work helped clarify one way cancer cells hide from the immune system. [...] Dr. Allison’s work is surely impressive. But [...]it relied on work conducted by 7,000 scientists at 5,700 institutions over a hundred-year period. Yet only he was recognized.

and

The prize industry contributes to a deeper problem in scientific research: We throw resources at a privileged few who have already achieved enormous fame.

Instead

[...] we could break up big prizes and give out many smaller awards. This may be more effective in supporting science [...]

Is Google evil now?

Google has had a private jumbo jet for their execs for YEARS now.

Anyone who EVER bought that "Don't be evil" line from a fucking ad agency was and is a fool.

You said "the middle class is shrinking", which is not supported by the facts.

Your references support the fact that there are a small number of rich people in the US getting richer is true.

However you will also find that CBO numbers show income for the middle quintile rising from $61,200 in 1979 to $76,600 in 2010 (in 2010 dollars).

"Since 2000, the middle class has been shrinking for a decidedly more alarming reason: Incomes have fallen."
http://www.nytimes.com/interac...

"The study found that the percentage of middle class households (as defined above) has shrunk in all 50 states since 2000."
http://uk.businessinsider.com/...

"Median household income fell for the fifth straight year in 2012, the Census Bureau reported on Tuesday, to $51,017. That was the lowest annual income, adjusted for inflation, since 1995."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

Horseshit yourself.

MSF is not a friendly. It is not an ally. It's not a military unit fighting the Taliban. If you'd called them friendly, an ally, or tried to station a liaison officer in their hospital, a week ago they would have been the first to tell you to go fuck yourself because to do their jobs they need to be seen as neutral. Thus the Military is characterizing the incident as "collateral damage" rather then "Friendly fire."

The actual friendlies were either Afghan police or US Special Forces (the New York Times story implies there were SpecOps guys on the scene) were looking at the hospital building, and they were claiming to take fire from the hospital.

And you're saying that they should trust that a) the MSF has not lost the hospital to the Taliban while said Taliban controlled Kunduz, and b) the US Air Force should immediately trust a guy from a building we're bombing (because Afghan police told us to bomb it) when he pinky swears he's not Taliban over the phone.

As EMV chip card readers get cheaper, I keep waiting for banks to offer an on-line verification service where they supply a chip card reader to the card owner, which can then be used to verify on-line transactions.

Was tried back in 1999 http://www.nytimes.com/1999/09/19/business/personal-business-a-credit-card-for-internet-wary-shoppers.html. Died because there was no standard for how onljne websites should securely interface with the reader. I'm fairly sure that EMV still doesn't provide a standard for websites (aka payment processing devices the payment processors don't control) to securely interface over the Internet with a chip reader on a consumer's premises.

John King Is Named New York State Education Commissioner: "Their two children, Amina, 7, and Mareya, 4, attend a Montessori school. Over the past two years, he has been courted for several prominent education leadership positions, including the superintendent's seat in Newark, by Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook executive who has pledged $100 million to that city's troubled schools. But Dr. King said he wanted to stay in New York because of his personal ties and his desire to finish what he started with Dr. Steiner. His salary will be $212,500, up from the $186,500 he earned as deputy, but, at his request, less than the $250,000 given to Dr. Steiner."

ah yes, that orthodox leftist creed of keeping drugs safe

there's no need for it, it's a severe authoritarian need to control people, right? like a cartoon movie script: "ooh, i'm a lefty, i'm here to destroy your rights {insert manaical laugh}. why? i dunno. it's just what we do since central casting by joe mccarthy in the 1950s"

you need a cartoon villain to have your cartoon belief system

because these problems don't exist:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09...

http://time.com/4043511/peanut...

http://www.timesfreepress.com/...

that's just from last week

how many millions of more examples do you want you ignorant asshole before you try matching your beliefs to reality?

that is the actual threat. that is why we have government regulations like the FDA: to protect us from the actual fucking real threat: industry

meanwhile, you want to whine about "orthodox leftist creeds"

that's not the actual threat, that's your uneducated delusion you ignorant piece of shit

did i make up executives who will kill you and poison you to make $1 more? am i making that shit up? do you read the fucking news? there's 3 links above from last week. do you want some more you shitbag before you try the slightest bit of intellectual honesty for the first time in your low iq life?

you imagine regulation as the threat, when the fucking story you are commenting under shows the real threat is industry. reality

why do you persist with a belief that fucking contradicts simple facts and simple reality around you

what the fuck is the source of your colossal ignorance you useless propagandized piece of shit?

you're a zombie. walking through the world blind, unable to see or understand anything. just regurgitating the same tired wrong ignorance, without the slightest effort to accept facts. prideful ignorance

The way to deter mass shootings is to move away from the gun culture in general.

While we are busy disagreeing on this fantasy concept, why don't we stop advertising where all the unarmed and helpless people are to slaughter?

Imagining that eliminating gun free zones would help is a fantasy. I'm a guy, if I was in one of those classrooms I imagine myself self tackling him and beating him into submission, that wouldn't work but it's nice to imagine. If was a gun fan I'd imagine I'd go rambo and shoot him. It's a bit more plausible but I don't think it works that well in reality either, I'm sure lots of mass shootings have happened in zones that allow guns but it just doesn't work the same way as in the movies.

As for changing the culture. There are lots of other nations that don't glorify guns the way the US does, that don't have movies with constant shooting and heroes having awesome giant gun collections. And to be frank that's something a lot of these shooters tend to have in common, they have access to a lot of guns and come from families who are involved with guns. It makes sense why that happens, the more comfortable you are with guns, the more that comfort is accepted as part of the culture, the more likely you are to obsess about them and feel really comfortable using them to solve problems.

This guy in particular had a lot of guns and regularly went to the shooting range with his mother. If his mother didn't own guns and if his friends and neighbours didn't indulge his gun interest he probably doesn't go on this rampage.

The 'own' the power of life and death over the entire population. Doesn't get much more powerful than that.

Considering the regularity with which school shootings occur in the US, it would seem that no time is a good time to discuss gun control.

Actually the number of school shootings has been declining. The media just likes to hype it up every time one happens because think of the children! Statistically your kids are more likely to be shot by someone else outside of school than at school. (And they're more likely to kill themselves than be killed by someone else. Table 11 - 1.0 suicides per 100,000, 0.7 homicides per 100,000 for ages 5-14; and 11.1 suicides vs 9.8 homicides per 100,000 for ages 15-24.) But "Your child may be thinking of killing himself!" doesn't elicit as much nail-biting among parents as "Someone is trying to kill your child!", so the media hypes up the latter.

The number of mass shootings OTOH has been increasing. Curiously, that hasn't gotten much press until this incident.

As for gun control, it isn't the pro-gun side which has a problem with discussing it. I'm somewhat pro-gun. I don't use them myself, but I don't have a problem with other people owning or using them. The right to own a gun is explicitly mentioned in our Constitution. If we want gun control, then it's obvious what needs to happen - amend the Constitution to remove that right. I'd probably even support that just because I'm curious what would happen to the statistics if we did it.

But instead we have all these gun control advocates trying to do a run-around of the Constitution just because it's really, really hard to pass a new Constitutional amendment. That's why the gun control debate always goes nowhere: the gun control advocates refuse to tackle the 800 pound gorilla in the room - the Second Amendment. Instead they resort to laws which restrict some types of gun ownership, or makes gun buyers jump through more hoops. It's possible their attempts are even counterproductive - gun ownership is at an all-time high, and gun and ammo sales spike every time politicians start talking about making it harder to get guns.

And if Obama announced he was cutting an anti-terror program Clapper said was useful how long do you think it would be before there was a movement in Congress to thwart him by adding a line item to the budget? A couple of those schmucks would actually switch over from strong pro-Civil liberties to strong-anti Civil Liberties simply to spite Obama. Hell, the NSA's specific budget is classified. For all we know there's already that line item.

And I think you're severely under-estimating all of DC's culpability in this. Bush had pretty much a blank check to do whatever he wanted on September 12th, 2001 (note: this is actually how Checks and Balances are supposed to work. The President gets checked, and can do jack-squat, until there's a crises, then he assumes powers similar to those of an Ancient Roman Dictator). He approved this programs. Any attempt by him to disclaim the damn things is one of those age old "lying or stupid?" things. Obama has a little more deniability, because PRISM was actually passed as legislation by Congress before he became President. But not really, because he voted for it.

People like to delude themselves that some stupid bureaucrat deep in the bowels of some agency that nobody had heard of prior to these programs being enacted is the whole problem, and that One Simple Trick (either a Court Case, or the President's signature) will end it.

But the Courts aren't gonna step on Congress's toes, especially when all Constitutional cases against the programs can be brought into pretty serious question law simply by checking a couple legal dictionaries, both Presidents clearly prefer a world where this shit happens to one where it doesn't, and Congress itself has ay least one statute authorizing the whole shebang.

The least difficult fix is Congress.

If the rulebook says "When we plug in our testing machine, your car needs to be emitting X, Y and Z", then they were totally within the rules.

I am familiar with the rules, but they are too long and complex to explain here. It used to be about passing the test, but other companies got caught doing the same thing 20 years ago. Now there are limits on real world emissions as well, called NTE, for heavy trucks. Apparently cars are not subject to the same restrictions.

We don't have to move to Beijing. Their pollution is increasingly coming to California.

And people wonder why rich are getting richer and the middle class is shrinking.

The facts don't agree with this statement.

I don't know what 'facts' you're referring to so please feel free to present something more substantial.

Here are some references supporting my statement:

"...economic inequality has worsened significantly in the United States and some other countries. The richest 1 percent in the United States now own more wealth than the bottom 90 percent."
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07...

"University of California, Berkeley research published in June showed America's richest 1 percent captured 55 percent of total real income growth between 1993 and 2014. "
http://www.cnbc.com/2015/09/09...

"There is no dispute that income inequality has been on the rise in the United States for the past four decades. The share of total income earned by the top 1 percent of families was less than 10 percent in the late 1970s but now exceeds 20 percent as of the end of 2012."
http://fortune.com/2014/10/31/...

"...with the share of total household wealth owned by the top 0.1 percent increasing to 22 percent in 2012 from 7 percent in the late 1970s"
http://fortune.com/2014/10/31/...

Since you two are so bothered by truth, here are some citations:

Working Paper Series, Congressional Budget Office -- Taxation of Owner-Occupied and Rental Housing

This is from a Democrat Majority U.S. Congress along with a Democrat predominant Executive Branch (President and Departments). See page 3.

Taxing Homeowners as if They Were Landlords

That's fine, but here's another bit of science: abortion rates are the same whether or not they're illegal. So while people can debate the point of viability, the nature of life, etc, until the cows come home, the reality on the ground is that abortions are going to happen, and it's a question of whether they're going to happen safely, or at a great danger to women. Just like liberals need to accept that fundamentalists aren't going away any time soon, so too do conservatives need to accept the same about abortions.

Is a Russian citizen now?

He lives in Russia now and remains very useful to Putin.

you want to bring in a discussion of personal property as it relates to liberties and suggest that is on topic

Because I estimate the correlation between people voting for "wealth-spreading" and those mongering the fear of the NSA as above 90%. All of them are either self-inconsistent fools or two-faced scumbags.

You seem to suggest the NSA's data will one day be used to confiscate wealth.

No, I'm saying, the IRS is already doing that. NSA's worst offence so far was providing other agencies (local and Federal) with information about real crimes — and freedom-loving Americans are outraged over those other police then lying to conceal the spies' involvement. Some day such lying may evolve and lead to innocent people being framed. But it is yet to happen — so far there aren't even any allegations of anybody being framed with NSA's involvement.

But the IRS is already open and brazen about confiscating your monies on mere suspicion and target opposition-supporters for audits and other prosecution.

So there is my point if you don't let the government see your stuff they don't know where there is to try and take from you. So thank you Snowden for bringing to light the domestic spying!

Had Snowden escaped from the IRS, you would've had a point.

Maybe the NSA's domestic spying isn't the 'greatest' threat to liberty but it clearly is a A threat. I for one think we should resist all threats to personal freedoms not just the biggest ones.

Well, if your house were on fire, would you concentrate on putting it out, or will you also continue thinking of the danger of an air-plane falling on it some day? The focus ought to be on the clear-and-present threats, not the hypothetical ones from the future. Moreover, significantly reducing the taxation will also reduce the threat of NSA — by lowering the amounts of money at the government's disposal, you make it less attractive for assholes, who would abuse NSA (or any other agency) to remain in power the way they already use the IRS.