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The stuff reproduces itself; all it takes is one well-bribed or entrepreneurial employee.

Indeed. Right now, a spy or disgruntled insider might be able to smuggle out schematics of the factory. Now they can smuggle out the factory itself.

This story from 201 doesn't explicitly state there was any theft of a bio-engineered organism (involved in biotech mass-production of a chemical substrate), but I wonder if something like that might have been involved: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12...

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04...
Disabilities Act Prompts Flood of Suits Some Cite as Unfair
By MOSI SECRET
New York Times
APRIL 16, 2012

The lawyers are generally not acting on existing complaints from people with disabilities. Instead, they identify local businesses, like bagel shops and delis, that are not in compliance with the law, and then aggressively recruit plaintiffs from advocacy groups for people with disabilities.

The plaintiffs typically collect $500 for each suit, and each plaintiff can be used several times over. The lawyers, meanwhile, make several thousands of dollars, because the civil rights law entitles them to legal fees from the noncompliant businesses. ...

All of those suits were filed by Ben-Zion Bradley Weitz, a lawyer based in Florida, who has a regular group of people with disabilities from whom he selects plaintiffs. One of them, Todd Kreisler, a man in a wheelchair who lives on the East Side of Manhattan, sued 19 businesses over 16 months — a Chinese restaurant, a liquor store and a sandwich shop among them. ...

Mr. Weitz is leading the charge into New York’s courtrooms. Since October 2009, he has sued almost 200 businesses in the state, mostly in Federal District Court in Manhattan. He has eight years of experience filing these suits in Florida, where his practice does not seem to be lagging. Two weeks ago, he brought claims against four Tampa businesses — a strip mall, a convenience store, a bar and a print shop.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03...
Judge Rebukes 2 Lawyers Profiting From U.S. Disability Law
By MOSI SECRET
MARCH 29, 2013

Now a Brooklyn federal court judge has ruled squarely against two lawyers who bring most of such lawsuits in New York, writing in a cutting opinion on Thursday that their tactics lacked expertise, possibly violated the rules of professional conduct and were “disingenuous at best.” The judge, Sterling Johnson Jr., denied them legal fees and took the rare step of ordering them to stop filing such cases. ...

Though such arrangements have typically been shielded by confidentiality agreements, Judge Johnson revealed how much money the lawyers — Adam Shore and B. Bradley Weitz — claimed in fees, typically $425 per hour for a total of $15,000 per case even though the cases were so similar that he described them as boilerplate. The two lawyers had filed as many as 10 cases in a single day.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04...
Disabilities Act Prompts Flood of Suits Some Cite as Unfair
By MOSI SECRET
New York Times
APRIL 16, 2012

The lawyers are generally not acting on existing complaints from people with disabilities. Instead, they identify local businesses, like bagel shops and delis, that are not in compliance with the law, and then aggressively recruit plaintiffs from advocacy groups for people with disabilities.

The plaintiffs typically collect $500 for each suit, and each plaintiff can be used several times over. The lawyers, meanwhile, make several thousands of dollars, because the civil rights law entitles them to legal fees from the noncompliant businesses. ...

All of those suits were filed by Ben-Zion Bradley Weitz, a lawyer based in Florida, who has a regular group of people with disabilities from whom he selects plaintiffs. One of them, Todd Kreisler, a man in a wheelchair who lives on the East Side of Manhattan, sued 19 businesses over 16 months — a Chinese restaurant, a liquor store and a sandwich shop among them. ...

Mr. Weitz is leading the charge into New York’s courtrooms. Since October 2009, he has sued almost 200 businesses in the state, mostly in Federal District Court in Manhattan. He has eight years of experience filing these suits in Florida, where his practice does not seem to be lagging. Two weeks ago, he brought claims against four Tampa businesses — a strip mall, a convenience store, a bar and a print shop.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03...
Judge Rebukes 2 Lawyers Profiting From U.S. Disability Law
By MOSI SECRET
MARCH 29, 2013

Now a Brooklyn federal court judge has ruled squarely against two lawyers who bring most of such lawsuits in New York, writing in a cutting opinion on Thursday that their tactics lacked expertise, possibly violated the rules of professional conduct and were “disingenuous at best.” The judge, Sterling Johnson Jr., denied them legal fees and took the rare step of ordering them to stop filing such cases. ...

Though such arrangements have typically been shielded by confidentiality agreements, Judge Johnson revealed how much money the lawyers — Adam Shore and B. Bradley Weitz — claimed in fees, typically $425 per hour for a total of $15,000 per case even though the cases were so similar that he described them as boilerplate. The two lawyers had filed as many as 10 cases in a single day.

Man, it's faith based (you might have to go through google), and one of the best 'new' scams in the business. It could even cause the expected burst this fall or next summer. Great stuff.

They need evidence of drug related crimes.

Ah well, no problem, man

Industry will vanish along with cellphone ban
Savvy entrepreneur sees school cell phone bans as opportunity - runs mobile rental space for gadgets
More Unpredictable Side Effects of Technology: Cell Phone Storage Trucks for Students
Businesses make $4M off NYC students by holding their cellphones during school NYC Plans To Lift Ban On Student Cellphones In Schools

Um..

Just exactly when are you going to stop helping females and take your foot of the back of young men? The ratio is 60/40 now-- when will it be "enough" to stop having hundreds of groups helping females but few helping males?

---
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07...

Most institutions of higher learning, except engineering schools, now have a female edge, with many small liberal arts colleges and huge public universities alike hovering near the 60-40 ratio. Even Harvard, long a male bastion, has begun to tilt toward women.

"The class we just admitted will be 52 percent female," said William Fitzsimmons, Harvard's dean of admissions.

Women now outnumber men two to one at places like the State University of New York at New Paltz, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and Baltimore City Community College.
---

seriously--- I'm retired and don't really give a shit- I'm not a "men's" activist-- but I see in my gaming groups and in my in-laws relationships how the males are suffering while the females are still getting assistance and help even tho things are well past 50/50 (i.e. "fair") now.

At the last place I worked before I retired, 70% of managers were females and they openly discriminated in favor of females for team leader positions the ratio was 80% female to 20% male. They did things which would be illegal if a man did it. The law wasn't being equally enforced.

People hire people "like" them unless the government gives them a reality check. Women are equally able to discriminate, behave in a prejudicial fashion, and abuse the power of their positions.

The area where it is imbalanced in favor of males is at the very top. Among 60 year old males- the percentages are m ore like 80% male and 20% female. Where we need affirmative action is at the top- not in the bottom or even in the middle any more.

*All* Asians make up ~5.6% of the population of the United States, but they make up 20% of those admitted to Harvard. Discrimination?!

Your two numbers don't necessarily have anything to do with each other. The distribution of intelligence (or whatever criteria college admissions are based on) is influenced significantly by various cultural and socioeconomic factors, regardless of race. And even if intelligence overall is basically assumed to be the same across racial groups (basically true, despite the various IQ studies that have tried to find very small differences), the tail end of the distribution on the high side may have different characteristics for different races (for various reasons, e.g., for socioeconomic reasons students who go to fancy private high schools tend to not include a lot of black students, so there are probably fewer black students who have had the educational opportunities to achieve at a very high level) -- which is all we're concerned about here.

Anyhow, a little while back this issue was covered in the media, particularly stuff like this NY Times piece. That includes this graph, which seems to show that Ivy League school admissions (who take race into account during admissions) have tended to arrive at Asians accounting for 15-20% of admissions in a very narrow band. While Caltech -- being one of the few elite schools that explicitly says it does NOT take race into account -- has seen Asian percentage rise significantly as the Asian population has in the U.S.

There are various problems with this oversimplified analysis, like the fact that Caltech has a different focus in overall student body from the Ivies in general, so it may attract different types of students with different skills. Nevertheless, there is a disturbing similarity to trends that were noted (for example) in the early 1900s with a "Jewish quota" that was enforced in many top schools to cap the number of admitted Jewish students, even if they had better applications than other students.

Is this effect real? Various statisticians have been debating it for the past few years. But it's at least something to think about, given the disparity between Asian percentage at top schools which take race into account and those which don't.

*All* Asians make up ~5.6% of the population of the United States, but they make up 20% of those admitted to Harvard. Discrimination?!

Your two numbers don't necessarily have anything to do with each other. The distribution of intelligence (or whatever criteria college admissions are based on) is influenced significantly by various cultural and socioeconomic factors, regardless of race. And even if intelligence overall is basically assumed to be the same across racial groups (basically true, despite the various IQ studies that have tried to find very small differences), the tail end of the distribution on the high side may have different characteristics for different races (for various reasons, e.g., for socioeconomic reasons students who go to fancy private high schools tend to not include a lot of black students, so there are probably fewer black students who have had the educational opportunities to achieve at a very high level) -- which is all we're concerned about here.

Anyhow, a little while back this issue was covered in the media, particularly stuff like this NY Times piece. That includes this graph, which seems to show that Ivy League school admissions (who take race into account during admissions) have tended to arrive at Asians accounting for 15-20% of admissions in a very narrow band. While Caltech -- being one of the few elite schools that explicitly says it does NOT take race into account -- has seen Asian percentage rise significantly as the Asian population has in the U.S.

There are various problems with this oversimplified analysis, like the fact that Caltech has a different focus in overall student body from the Ivies in general, so it may attract different types of students with different skills. Nevertheless, there is a disturbing similarity to trends that were noted (for example) in the early 1900s with a "Jewish quota" that was enforced in many top schools to cap the number of admitted Jewish students, even if they had better applications than other students.

Is this effect real? Various statisticians have been debating it for the past few years. But it's at least something to think about, given the disparity between Asian percentage at top schools which take race into account and those which don't.

You say that, but it's simply not true.

How is it not unethical? Ever hear of disclosure when someone has a financial interest in something they're pushing?

Right! Look at the NYT article: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05...

Here are some quick links found by searching for 'wealth by gender'. NONE of them support your premise:

http://www.stuffyoushouldknow....
http://www.mariko-chang.com/sh...
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfor...
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pu...
http://www.smh.com.au/national...

California's southern border situation is far, far more dangerous than a few un-immunized natives. Immunization rates in central and south America are far, far lower than here in the US. But the right wants cheap labor and the left wants illegal votes, so we have no representation in this area. One naturally wonders why the obsession with immunization when public health is manifestly less important than open borders.

Bunk, on two accounts. Both as "PeterM from Berkeley" stated (facts), and from a logical standpoint. Measles has a 90% rate of infection. If you were correct in your assumption about migrant workers (and poor) carrying all these diseases and having terrible vaccination rates, then we'd be hearing (frequently) in the news things like, "15 found dead in migrant worker home from Measles outbreak." (they're often packed like sardines; two or three families per ROOM in a house) But you don't. Why? For the same reason that Mississippi has the highest vaccination rate, but is also the lowest median income and highest poverty. Poor people can't afford to miss work. You miss work, you don't get paid. You don't get paid, you can't feed your kids and you fall behind on bills VERY quickly. Getting deathly ill is not an option.

What many of you guys don't understand is that vaccines can cause harm. The vaccine compensation fund has paid out over $3 billion+ in damages due to people getting brain damage and all sorts of irreversible problems. They don't want to admit that vaccines cause harm because then people would stop taking them according to this AP news article: http://www.nytimes.com/aponlin... People used to be able to sue the vaccine manufacturers directly but now the government has made them immune from prosecution so that we can all get vaccinated, its because they love us all and care about us so much. Remember, this is the same government that said that the 9/11 dust is safe, that agent orange is safe, that GMO foods are safe, fluoride is safe, that blowing up chemical weapons is safe (aka gulf war syndrome), that DU (depleted uranium) is safe, etc. They care about us so much, we just need to do whatever they say, its for the collective. And there has been one case where someone with autism was given compensation for damage from vaccine: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/... Question: How many of the people who got sick with measles at Disneyland were vaccinated? Why haven't they released the numbers?

Though, entertainingly, PP is close to the mark - and then he goes on the whole "Christians are being persecuted" tangent which is pure nonsense.

But he got the opening line right:

We live in a world of empiricism, where the concepts of faith and religion are - if not outright mocked and denigrated - are under constant pressure.

Which again proves that the truth is subversive.
Yes, we do live in a world of empiricism - because that's how the world is, whether we like it or not.
And such world will always put concepts of faith and religion under pressure. Just like it puts everything else under pressure.
It's only that PP finds the reality expressed in that sentence threatening.

I'll digress for a moment... I want to show a familiar example to point out something.
Remember how in "Godfather 2", Fredo tells Michael's son, Anthony, about a "secret" for catching fish?
How he'd always say a "Hail Mary" when throwing the line and he, out of all the kids, would catch the most fish.
Then later, we see him still doing that just before he gets "taken out" by Michael's assassin, Neri. SPOILERS!

Now, that's a '70s movie, done by a Catholic. Not very "observant" as he puts it himself, but still very "religious".
So, that is not "Fredo the idiot" - that is "Fredo the unloved child, becoming a traitor out of unrequited love and childlike innocence". And John Cazale pulled that off perfectly.

Today, that SAME character would be someone with mental issues.
Someone who does not understand the world around him, with that story hinting not at his childlike innocence but at his childlike mental capacities.

That's the '70s.
Showing that by then even for a religious Catholic director something like saying a prayer before every action that you feel is up to chance is something that only a child or someone as innocent as child might do.
An adult doing that... That's someone who's a bit iffy. One way or the other.
Cause Fredo sure as hell has issues. He's not an idiot... but he has emotional issues written all over him.

Compare that to Barry Pepper's Private Jackson in "Saving Private Ryan", praying for "true aim" and "victory in battle".
Which feels completely in character AND not disparaging at all. It feels like something that a young man might do in the war, during 1940s.
And nobody invented that prayer - he's quoting Psalms.

Which are basically a collection of ready-made prayers for various "troubles" one might find themselves in, and for saying "thanks god" for being delivered from them.
There are like 150 specific ways to cry "HELP GOD!" and to say "Thanks god!" just there.
Same thing with all those saints, protectors and patrons of this and that, and their corresponding amulets.
Or with all those relics of various saints, apostles, pieces of "true cross" etc.
Or with all the gods in Hinduism, or all the kami in Shintoism.
For everything out there that may harm or benefit one's existence and/or circumstances - there is a prayer, an amulet, a saint, a kami, a god...

But none of them deal with empirically provable aspects of the thing they are supposed to be influencing.
There is no "make sure that fire has flames" god or amulets - though there are dozens of fire-gods.
Or a kami you could pray to "to make water wet". Though there is a water kami.
Or an amulet with a saint whose job it was to make sure that apples are apples and not oranges. Though there is a saint of apple orchards - St. Charles Borromeo.
There is even a "fear of mice" saint - St. Gertrude of Nivelles.

Because, when you DON'T LIVE IN AN EMPIRICAL WORLD, when you live instead in a "Demon Haunted World" - you need a protector, an amulet, a prayer for everything.
Whatever it is you're not certain of, be it fish biting on a particular day or bullets hitting their target - just use the right amulet or prayer and shift odds in your favor.
If

Yeah, religious people give more of their own money while non-religious give OTHER people's money. Even when you're only counting secular charities, religious people give a higher percentage of their money to those as well.

There's a great column by a liberal columnist in the NYT:

Bleeding Heart Tightwads

Update your philosophy.

Really? Did you read the article? http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04...

Moron.

Last I checked, a court found that no law existed that allowed bulk collections. Not even the Patriot Act: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05...

This is a law that makes something illegal that was already illegal. More congressional theater.

Wake me up when the people who broke the law start seeing some time. Let me know when the guy who exposed this illegal activity is allowed back into the country with his liberty intact.

It may have been a diesel electric unit. Many routes, such as the Northeast Regional [amtrak.com] travel from DC to NYC. But they also continue on to other places, like Richmond, VA. I can assure you that the trains continuing on to Richmond are diesel-electric since that line is not electrified. Often they will swap locomotives in DC, but not always.

They are *not allowed* to run diesel powered locomotives into NYC. So unless those diesel-electric locomotives are dual-power (meaning they can either run on diesel, or on electricity only, supplied by the overhead lines), they can't use them. Every time I've taken a Northeast Regional train through DC, they stopped the train for an hour at the DC station and swapped out the locomotive (as the electrified lines do stop at DC, as you point out). Also, the electric locomotives are faster; they get up to 125mph.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Wrong, it's all-electric. Diesel engines are illegal to drive into NYC, because the rail tunnel going under the Hudson has insufficient ventilation for it. The track between DC and NYC is electrified (has electric wires overhead to directly power the locomotive).

Here's some articles for you:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05...

From the Wikipedia article:
"Its electric locomotives are confined to the Northeast Corridor and Philadelphia to Harrisburg Main Line, while its diesels may be found anywhere in the United States."

They don't chose to drive a car with a faulty ignition system either http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05....

in norcal it's illegal to capture the rain that falls on your property due to water rights regulations that go back 150 years

WHAT? Surely you jest. Please cite your source.

Personally, the idea of drinking toilet water doesn't bother me so much because of the e.coli or whatever but rather because of the residues of birth control pills, antidepressants, painkillers, etc. that are already found in our waterways. One can only imagine that recycling wastewater will result in higher concentrations of these substances that cannot be filtered out. I'm imagining some kind of mad-cow-type disease except that instead of working on individual cells in your brain, it works on the individuals in your society, causing weird, unpredictable changes in social behavior.

Cars seems to get by well structurally with windows already anyway, why bother redesigning them?

Really? Imagine how much safer a car with a windowless unibody passenger compartment would be.

And in an accident like that where the doors are jammed shut due to damage, how exactly are the passengers supposed to extricate themselves from the wrecked vehicle?

Cars seems to get by well structurally with windows already anyway, why bother redesigning them?

Really? Imagine how much safer a car with a windowless unibody passenger compartment would be.
 

It is worse than that. Now a days, the poor liberal women on college campus' think that words are rape.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03...

No scientist claims the world is ending

Unless you consider civilization being at risk, 50% of earths species destroyed, and an apocalypse to be 'the end of the world.' Then a scientist has told us the world is ending. If that's not close enough to "the end of the world", then that's it for species on our planet. The oceans could begin to boil.

So you're wrong there, you weren't paying attention. Some scientists are claiming the world is ending (unless we follow their plan).

Flying is a pain in the ass. You need to go to an airport, get groped, wait an hour until you can board, sit in an uncomfortable seat, get fed a tiny drink if you're lucky when they want to feed it to you, use a bathroom that's tiny and uncomfortable, and wait for another 40 minutes for your luggage afterwards.

A train is just a much better experience. You can show up 2 minutes before departure, get on without a strip search, get a nice big seat, have a dining car, can get up and walk around at will, and just grab your luggage on the way out.

If it is successful then it will not be a better experience for long if TSA or competing interests like airlines have anything to say about it.

Going a little off topic, we did not need a 4th ammendment anyway:

T.S.A. officials respond that the random searches are “special needs” or “administrative searches” that are exempt from probable cause because they further the government’s need to prevent terrorist attacks.

The teams, which are typically composed of federal air marshals, explosives experts and baggage inspectors, move through crowds with bomb-sniffing dogs, randomly stop passengers and ask security questions.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08...

Zimbardo belongs to a cadre of self-described “positive psychologists” (though I more properly would label them as “techno-psychologist”) that happily take money from the military, whose brass is willing to pay top dollars to those who develop “rational techniques” for the treatment of soldiers that are about to be sent or return from the meat-grinders in the Middle East; some of these same psychologists, although not Zimbardo himself, have been accused of collaborating with the Pentagon in the development of such techniques to get better outcomes from the torturing of iraqi prisoners, including the head of the American Psychological Assn. at the time of George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq, Martin Seligman. Even if Zimbardo himself did not work for these programs put in place by the Pentagon at the time of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, having his name in the same honor list as Seligman is something that doesn’t speak well of his “scientific” credentials or those of the American psychological community.

True that: most men do not reproduce (most women do): Is There Anything Good About Men? And Other Tricky Questions

What about ebay they’ve been selling illegal stuff for as long as the site exists no one sued their arses.

Wrong. Ebay got sued for that many times. And in some cases, it even lost.

Maps, schmaps! They need to put on a show. Why is nobody going to jail? These scams are amazing!

...output per worker fell by 1.9 percent during the first quarter of 2015.

Because the current/remaining employees are being ridden hard and put away wet. Employers are squeezing what they have, instead of hiring, to be "competitive" - even though profits are up and shareholders are happy. Or it could be because of things like this: Georgia Businessman Refuses to Hire Until Obama Is Fired (there are others):

Bill Looman, owner of U.S. Cranes LLC, said he is fed up with the bad economy and D.C. politicians who do nothing to solve the problem. So until there is a change of leadership, his company trucks will bear the message: “New Company Policy: We Are Not Hiring Until Obama Is Gone.”

Or that that the top priority of Mitch McConnell and the GOP was/is to make Obama a one-term president (which didn't go so well) and prevent any successes for the President or the Democrats - instead of actually working to fix the Economy. (Yes, the Dems are a problem too, but mainly because they're inept, not actively evil, hostile and uncaring toward those who are not rich, old, white and male - like the Republicans.)

OK Uber is today "valued" at what, 3Bn.

$40B and heading to $50B.

The triumphant little guy sticks it to The Man, news at 11. More like, the distributed smart grid (or whatever) turns out to somehow be more expensive and less secure than advertised, and given the noteworthy lack of philosopher kings to run it, regulations become necessary to curb the worst misuses and excesses. (Assuming the distributed smart grid (or whatever) is actually viable.) Meanwhile, back in the real world, note the progress of solar in Japan, where the utilities (that would be, the folks running the grid) are somehow unhappy about having to both eat higher costs and to install new infrastructure to support all the new solar stuff.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03...

Yes, I do.

One story: Corrupted PC's Find New Home in the Dumpster (July 17, 2005)

Most people don't have the technical ability or time to deal with computer problems. They buy new computers. That makes more money for Microsoft, because Microsoft get the full wholesale price again, even if the new computer has the same Microsoft operating system version.

Also, I wrote this article that discusses the conflict of interest: Microsoft Windows XP "end of life": Conflict of interest.

Widespread corruption led to many records of Shor's actions being "lost" or outright deleted.

As we all know, not a smidgen of corruption was involved in the disappearance of certain e-mails at the IRS recently. And the only emails deleted by the former Secretary of State from the private server she illegally used were those about yoga routines and the like.

So, if America's public figures can lose important records without being corrupt, why are we automatically making such accusations against the little Moldova?

Yeah, you pay income tax...then if you do your taxes correctly you get it all back (and then some) at the end of the year.
93% of people making below $16812 pay $0 federal income tax.

The quick data I could find on this is a couple of years old, but as of 2011, 93% of people who made less than $16k/year paid zero federal income tax. Heck, 60% of people making $17-33k pay zero income tax. So it's definitely not true that "everyone" making over $14k pays federal income tax.

http://economix.blogs.nytimes....

Well it was successful if one just looks at the damage done, but just becomes silly when one looks at the cost of the reaction. Granted this takes the high estimates from various studies as it makes for a better headline but at least when you dig into it you find out that even taking the low estimates the reaction was very disproportionate. Also Osama Bin Laden wanted 2 things, the US out of the middle ease (that didn't happen), and to bankrupt the Great Satan (appears to have been fairly successful). The interesting part of the article is that they point out that using the high estimates Osama cost the US about $7,000,000 for each dollar he spent on the 9-11 terror attack.

The other possibility is that if they stay in network they only get paid the negotiated rate, but if they do a little out of network freelancing, they can bill massive amounts and often end up wtih more cash in the pockets, especially when the out-of-network insurer just ponies up the cash. The term is drive-by doctoring.

Well here is some "data" granted I'm not too sure about the source.

Unfortunately most people hear that and ignore that it was over a 10 year period, assume that all of those 50 attacks were going to happen in the US, and each of them would have been on a 9-11 scale of death. I say lets use those piss poor assumptions and actually believe Gen. Keith Alexander for a moment. This means we would have a somewhat impressive pile of bodies from terrorists at 150,000 in a single year. Also using data from 9-11 that would mean that there would have to probably be about 1,000 terrorists in the country. Unfortunately that body count would only put terrorism at #3 between being a fat ass and smoking in preventable causes of death. This also ignores what this country would look like with a 9-11 event happening basically every week which in my mind's eye I see something like Germany in about 1944.

Now from this impossibly high number we can start to whittle it down to something more realistic. This was 50 attacks over 10 years not 1 year so with all of the previous assumptions terror deaths are now below deaths from STDs #10 and drug abuse #11 (excluding alcohol and smoking) so maybe still in the top 15. Also a 9-11 level even is extremely unlikely given 3 things, locked cockpit door, hardened cockpit door, and the willingness of passengers to turn a terrorist into a red smear on the nasty carpet. So this really limits large attacks so most would be similar to the Boston bombing at worst while most would be like the underwear bomber. So now we are at something like 50-100 deaths from terrorism a year in the US which seems to put in the same ballpark as the number of PowerBall and MegaMillions winners in a given year. Unfortunately this number is still too high since not all of these attacks would have happened in the US. I don't know what number to use here so lets just say that half of them were going to happen in the US so now the annual body count from terrorism in the US would be 25-50. Finally keep in mind that upper limit of 25-50 extra deaths from terrorism each year had we done nothing more than locking the hardened cockpit door and turning potential terrorists on planes into a smear. Now to further depress everyone I'll just leave this here so we can all do a face palm.

"Too bad that the "racism" thing had to enter the picture when cops have been brutalizing people of all races, but if that's what it takes to raise awareness, so be it."

This is what irritates me about the recent Baltimore case. It’s being passed as “cops vs. blacks”, when in reality it’s “cops vs. everyone”. Take a look at the racial makeup of the 6 cops that are facing charges (3 are black). Hell, even the Baltimore police chief is black.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05...

"Little 1000 sqft apartments", boy are you a hick from the sticks:

Home Shrunken Home
New York’s First Micro-Apartments, Prefabricated in Brooklyn

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/22/realestate/micro-apartments-tiny-homes-prefabricated-in-brooklyn.html

the city’s first micro-apartment complex, at 335 East 27th Street, with 55 units ranging from 260 to 360 square feet. The building will begin leasing studios this summer for around $2,000 to $3,000 a month.

>> "The software industry has pretty much decided what information patients should receive, and to my knowledge, they have not had any stakeholder input..."

Um...yeah. I'm sure it was a bunch of developers who decided one night to pound a bunch of Mountain Dew and then set up a billing system for a bunch of multi-billion dollar hospital groups that contained hundreds of thousands of items that magically skirt around insurance limits and pre-negotiated fees, then tack on expensive and low-value items, and follow it all up by adding on mysterious charges from other providers months after the original procedures happened.

Actually I used to write about medical software for the medical magazines, when they were first installing it. It was indeed pretty haphazard. They started out as billing systems, for which it worked pretty well, and tacked on other modules, like prescription drug ordering, for which it was not all that successful.

One of the major medical office systems was written by a chiropractor, who designed it after a general accounting program that was used for hardware stores or restaurants and modified for each customer. It worked great for everything that a medical office had in common with hardware stores, but not for the unique stuff that doctors had to do, like saving medical records and reminding patients to come in for followups.

The main thing that medical software did well was meet the billing needs of the insurance companies. They didn't meet the needs of doctors too well. If the doctor didn't repeat every fucking thing he did into a record field, the insurance company wouldn't pay for it. They wound up with enormous billing records, with field after field of data that the insurance companies decided it would be "nice to have," but were useless for doctors (is this prescription a pill or a capsule?). Even today, doctors complain that they have to spend an additional hour a day filling in EMR forms.

What they don't have, and still don't have, is a short narrative that would take 4 handwritten lines in an old medical record, explaining concisely what the fucking problem is with this patient and what the doctor thinks is the best way to manage it. Instead they wind up with a 100-page record that literally no one ever reads, most of which is for the irrational requirements of the insurance company, most of which is transmitted unread to the insurance company's computer.

So the insurance companies are basically spamming the doctor's medical records with billing trivia.

I saw a good book on this recently called the Digital Doctor by Robert Wachter http://www.amazon.com/The-Digi... although if you don't want to buy it you can just read his New York Times op-ed http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03...

The great thing Wachter did was go to Boeing and talk to the engineers who designed jet cockpits about human factors design. The EMRs, which peoples' lives depend on, were designed and pushed on doctors without the basic usability testing that an auto company would use for a cup holder.

Our medical care is second to none in quality and capability.

I'd be willing to posit that if you can afford to pay at the highest level then you can get the highest level of care. According to the New York Times though the USA doesn't provide the highest-qualtiy health care in all areas:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08...

The NY Times had a whole article on this phenomenon:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09...

One thing that wasn't clear is how successful doctors are in pursuing these charges if the patient actually refuses to pay (especially if in your case, as you confirmed in-network status ahead of time in writing).

I have a hard time seeing patient responsibility for this out of network gambit if they didn't approve it up front. Of course like everything else, they will line up an expensive lawyer to chase you down and make you decide whether agreeing to settle for a reduced charge of $10,000 and making it go away is a better choice than rolling the dice on a $10,000 legal defense that you could lose, upping the ante by another $10,000.

Imagine working as an IT contractor on a project and bringing in an outside consultant who then bills the company separately at 10 times the rate as the contractor. "Oh, I'm sorry but it was necessary due to project complexity." You'd get laughed at, fired and probably sued into penury if not brought up on criminal fraud charges.

The final laws aren't secret, but during some parts of the lawmaking process, their details may be kept secret, for exactly the reason in TFS.

Actually, and incredibly, the final law will be secret for a while:

The chapter in the draft of the trade deal, dated Jan. 20, 2015, and obtained by The New York Times in collaboration with the group WikiLeaks, is certain to kindle opposition from both the political left and the right. The sensitivity of the issue is reflected in the fact that the cover mandates that the chapter not be declassified until four years after the Trans-Pacific Partnership comes into force or trade negotiations end, should the agreement fail.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03...

"Police can't normally walk away from the scene, and they are compelled to attend in the first place."

Uhhhhh - no. The police are not obligated to come to your aid. Never have been, never will be. When you call the police, they only come if it is convenient, and when they feel like it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06...

As for walking away from the scene - I'm not aware of anything that binds any individual officer to the scene. He may walk away from a confrontation at any time.

There are some pretty good discussions going on right now about such things.

http://www.policemag.com/chann...

In short, a cop can decide to defuse a situation by just backing off, at any time he chooses to do so. And, in fact, some of the wiser heads in the various police forces say that they should do just that. Not always, but often.

How many stories have we read of, where some mentally deficient person was shot to death, simply because he wasn't cooperating? And - the cop feels "threatened". One of the most recent stories I remember involved a nut case who was on his own porch, and happened to have a screw driver in his hand. There was no indication that he intended to use that screwdriver as a weapon - the cop just "felt threatened" because of that dumbass 21 foot rule. Yet another dead nutcase - and no one answers for the killing.

If they had an agreement, then why did Xerox sue Apple over the Mac and Lisa?