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If a someone released from prison murders again then it's the State that failed to rehabilitate. Civilized countries like Norway have a very low recidivism rate because their justice system isn't about revenge it's about helping people who are mentally disturbed. http://www.nytimes.com/roomfor...

The death penalty should only be used when there is absolutely no doubt of guilt.

What about the mentally ill?

Horrific things happen with the mentally ill (bus passenger decapitates another, for example). Do they deserve the death penalty?

Nah, they are already wrestling with a necessary evil (execution). In a twisted sort of way, it's done humanly and discretely so it will be less evil.

Quit frankly, I'm not sure what the problem is. It's not you throwing the switch, it's not you on the receiving end of the switch. And it definitely sounds more just than giving a mass murderer less than 4 months prison sentence per victim who has said he would kill more people if released.

Sometimes it's just better to end the problem permanently. That's a necessary evil but one that many people are willing to not only accept but expect.

The one European country that consistently supports science is France.
Pfft ...
And of course, everyone is familiar with Germany's replacement, in direct collision with the concern over carbon, of nuclear power with brown coal.
If you are "aware" of something like this, then you are mistaken.
Nuclear power in Germany is replaced by wind and solar.

The last mention of fracking I heard of in Germany was that attempt to develop geothermal energy in an old volcanic stump in the southwestern corner of the country. As soon as the first tiny dish-rattler earthquake was felt in Basel, the Germans shut down geothermal development, and it was never heard from again.
That was a Swiss project, not a german one.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12...

No idea about what you want to rant.

What have GMO, exit of nuclear energy, stop of a geo thermal project to do with "Science" or "Anti Science"?

Science is done in universities and research centers. Not in politics or public opinions.

If you like GMOs eat them. If you like a nuclear plant, built one. If you want a special geo thermal project, conduct one.

However if you want to discuss about science, then perhaps start getting your facts straight?

All claims you made in your post about GMO, nuclear versus brown coal and germany/swizerland geothermal plants: are wrong. Wow ...

TV is dead anyways

Not only are people cutting the cord, but the new generation is not even buying the large screen to put in their living room. Instead, they're using their laptops and tablets.

Wikipedia does not qualify as evidence--it would not be admissible as evidence of a crime. Don't cry wolf on that because when police really do tamper with evidence, it's a *LOT* more serious than making updates to Wikipedia.

Sometimes the court of public opinion is the only place you can get justice, because you won't get it in the (snicker) grand jury or the courts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... .

Tampering with evidence is something that the courts regard as a venial sin a few steps lower in their priorities than caging free coffee and donuts from coffee shops.

There's a long history of pigsxxxx cops getting caught red-handed lying under oath, not just once but as a routine practice. I'm hard pressed to think of a case when they were held to account (except for one with a probationary officer who knocked an innocent cyclist off his bicycle and arrested him).

http://observer.com/2015/03/ca...
California Prosecutor Falsifies Transcript of Confession
Court of Appeal slams Attorney General Kamala Harris again
By Sidney Powell
03/04/15

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04...
Videos Challenge Accounts of Convention Unrest
By JIM DWYER
April 12, 2005

http://www.nytimes.com/imagepa...

Holding a cop liable for tampering with evidence is about as likely as the Ferguson government saying, "You're right. Our conscience can't take any more demonstrations. We'll abolish the government and hold new elections, democratic ones this time."

Wikipedia does not qualify as evidence--it would not be admissible as evidence of a crime. Don't cry wolf on that because when police really do tamper with evidence, it's a *LOT* more serious than making updates to Wikipedia.

Sometimes the court of public opinion is the only place you can get justice, because you won't get it in the (snicker) grand jury or the courts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... .

Tampering with evidence is something that the courts regard as a venial sin a few steps lower in their priorities than caging free coffee and donuts from coffee shops.

There's a long history of pigsxxxx cops getting caught red-handed lying under oath, not just once but as a routine practice. I'm hard pressed to think of a case when they were held to account (except for one with a probationary officer who knocked an innocent cyclist off his bicycle and arrested him).

http://observer.com/2015/03/ca...
California Prosecutor Falsifies Transcript of Confession
Court of Appeal slams Attorney General Kamala Harris again
By Sidney Powell
03/04/15

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04...
Videos Challenge Accounts of Convention Unrest
By JIM DWYER
April 12, 2005

http://www.nytimes.com/imagepa...

Holding a cop liable for tampering with evidence is about as likely as the Ferguson government saying, "You're right. Our conscience can't take any more demonstrations. We'll abolish the government and hold new elections, democratic ones this time."

Your question is essentially "How would we finance medical research if drug patents stopped being effective?"

The Medicare/Medicaid drug reimbursement is more than the yearly total loaded research costs for all drugs, when using the highest available academic estimate as of mid last year (estimates vary wildly, from $100M to $1.8B in for this estimate, by researchers from Lily, a pharmaceutical company). There is one non-peer-reviewed estimate that is even higher ($2.6B), but that is only for NMEs (new molecular entities),(completely new drugs), and multiplying that by all drugs approved each year isn't reasonable, as most approved drugs aren't NMEs. There's about 22 NMEs approved per year. At $2.6 billion each, that's $57.2 billion.

The 2015 federal cost of medicare drug reimbursement is $54.12B - for outpatient subsidies only. Medicaid had a cost of $63.34B (see page 184); this is presumably also excluding inpatients, as hospital costs are listed separately. These two programs sum to $117.46B, or a bit over *twice* the cost of the NMEs. Non-NME costs are much, much lower (tens of millions), and there aren't lots of them, so they don't really add up to much either.

The government doesn't want you to make money, especially if you do so in a new and innovative way. THAT, my friend, is the problem.

That is not really what is going on. This is a simple case of regulatory capture.

It's not really that simple, and the grandparent's position is not without merit.

You'll note that *amateurs* are not allowed to operate drones commercially, and *commoners* are not allowed to start a business operating drones (for remote crop/herd inspection, search and rescue, real estate videos), but big players such as Amazon and FedEx will be granted commercial licenses to do so.

It's the same with any business in the US: the big, entrenched businesses are given all the exceptions, all the subsidies, and all the tax breaks in the name of "jobs", while making it impossible for new companies to form and hire grow. As a concrete example, it is impossible to start a company (however small) to compete against GE because GE pays no taxes.

It's a stupid policy that's indirectly driving the economy of the country into the ground. Big, entrenched companies don't hire more people when given money, *small* businesses hire people when they grow to become big ones. Propping up a big, weak company at the expense of stifling smaller companies is the source of much stagnation in this country.

We have an opportunity to make great progress in an emerging technology, and by holding the US back all the advances will be made in other economic climates.

Look for the US to become a third-world nation in the next decade or so.

Are you saying that the CIA would trump up a fake rape charge just because someone was foolish enough to threaten U.S. interests, only for the truth to come out as soon as they got what they wanted?

That's just ludicrous!

Are you saying that the CIA would trump up a fake rape charge just because someone was foolish enough to threaten U.S. interests, only for the truth to come out as soon as they got what they wanted?

That's just ludicrous!

Because that's not the real reason either. The bans on powdered alcohol followed stories about people doing really stupid stuff with it, like snorting it, trying to smoke it, seasoning food with it (and getting more drunk than expected, later than expected), etc etc. It's not worry about kids; it's worry about simpleton adults who like to experiment with stuff before knowing anything about it.

FWIW, all sorts of crazy stuff is already happening with cannabis edibles in Colorado. Here's the fear and loathing article that made the rounds...

Maybe there's a good reason to pause given the public doesn't really know how to handle this stuff yet...

Reagan and the NRA started the whole gun control craze when the Black Panthers started open carry demonstrations teaching black people how to protect themselves. They pushed for and passed the California gun control laws you hate so much to try and disarm blacks.
http://www.theatlantic.com/mag...

In 1991 Reagan backed the Brady Bill which placed a 7 day waiting period on purchasing guns and allowed for background checks.
http://www.nytimes.com/1991/03...

Along with former presidents Ford and Carter, Reagan signed a publicly posted letter backing the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban.
http://articles.latimes.com/19...

need any more info on Saint Ronnie's anti-gun position?

"Why I Support The Brady Bill" - by Ronald Reagan, 1991:
http://www.nytimes.com/1991/03...

Saint Reagan, holy be his name, is formerly living proof that one can be both pro-gun-rights and pro-gun-control.

While as President there wasn't much that he did in terms of federal executive action, he supporter of gun rights, and of gun control, both before and after his Presidency. As Governor of California he signed into law both the Mulford Act and California's 15-day waiting period.

While in other areas his views were more one-sided, in this area his personal views embodied a compromise that reflects the position of most Americans.

I guess that's why she was such a crappy SecState...

Say whaaa??! You cannot be serious! Best Secretary of State Evar!, and I do mean Evar!

Maybe they just want to receive their emails and know that in the past, DNC servers and systems have been hacked. It's ingenious to say that their private system is automatically less secure than the government servers unless someone is an email security specialist and has knowledge of the two systems -- I'm sure someone on Slashdot will weigh in on this. ;-)

Perhaps with the record of Karl Rove and his operatives activities on Democratic servers -- I can definitely understand the Clinton's reticence to be on these same servers they've plagued. Doing the business of the state pre-supposes that all your communications are looked at by friendlies; not that everything you do is looked at in terms to set you up.

I can imagine a scenario where someone from the political opposition can read that you have a meeting with so and so, and can use that against you in some manner. As benign as changing the time of a meeting to making a fraudulent email and leaking it to the press.

Anything can happen if someone else with ill will controls the mail server.

Better to whether the small storm of criticism later, than be naive and pretend that political operatives won't do again what they've done to you in the past.
http://www.dispatch.com/conten...
Anyone remember Mike Connell? http://www.democracynow.org/20...
Former hackers were hired to create the original Diebold voting machines; http://www.dailykos.com/story/...
>> and Anonymous claimed they stopped the voting machines from being manipulated in the last election -- sounds like a quiet political cyber war is going on.

I'm sure to people not involved in politics, they think these are paranoid ramblings like Ross Perot claiming that the Bush crowd was pulling dirty tricks, tapping his conversations, and altering photos of his daughter; http://www.nytimes.com/1992/10...

Ross Perot is a man who used his own money and put is own neck on the line to retrieve kidnapped employees. Like him or not, he seems a bastion of integrity compared to the average politician.

Oh, and let's not forget that the RNC emails went missing;
http://freepress.org/article/a...
Rove's went missing;
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04...
And Iron Mountain lost emails -- and since their whole business model is storing sensitive data is probably one of the few things they've EVER lost;
http://fcw.com/articles/2014/0...

I'm not saying this to excuse a politician from not being transparent -- but I'd think we need to address the fact that dirty tricks are going on, and we need to make sure there are no man-in-the-middle attacks and manipulations of data.

Maybe they just want to receive their emails and know that in the past, DNC servers and systems have been hacked. It's ingenious to say that their private system is automatically less secure than the government servers unless someone is an email security specialist and has knowledge of the two systems -- I'm sure someone on Slashdot will weigh in on this. ;-)

Perhaps with the record of Karl Rove and his operatives activities on Democratic servers -- I can definitely understand the Clinton's reticence to be on these same servers they've plagued. Doing the business of the state pre-supposes that all your communications are looked at by friendlies; not that everything you do is looked at in terms to set you up.

I can imagine a scenario where someone from the political opposition can read that you have a meeting with so and so, and can use that against you in some manner. As benign as changing the time of a meeting to making a fraudulent email and leaking it to the press.

Anything can happen if someone else with ill will controls the mail server.

Better to whether the small storm of criticism later, than be naive and pretend that political operatives won't do again what they've done to you in the past.
http://www.dispatch.com/conten...
Anyone remember Mike Connell? http://www.democracynow.org/20...
Former hackers were hired to create the original Diebold voting machines; http://www.dailykos.com/story/...
>> and Anonymous claimed they stopped the voting machines from being manipulated in the last election -- sounds like a quiet political cyber war is going on.

I'm sure to people not involved in politics, they think these are paranoid ramblings like Ross Perot claiming that the Bush crowd was pulling dirty tricks, tapping his conversations, and altering photos of his daughter; http://www.nytimes.com/1992/10...

Ross Perot is a man who used his own money and put is own neck on the line to retrieve kidnapped employees. Like him or not, he seems a bastion of integrity compared to the average politician.

Oh, and let's not forget that the RNC emails went missing;
http://freepress.org/article/a...
Rove's went missing;
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04...
And Iron Mountain lost emails -- and since their whole business model is storing sensitive data is probably one of the few things they've EVER lost;
http://fcw.com/articles/2014/0...

I'm not saying this to excuse a politician from not being transparent -- but I'd think we need to address the fact that dirty tricks are going on, and we need to make sure there are no man-in-the-middle attacks and manipulations of data.

As the New York Times reported, chemical weapons were indeed found in Iraq.

But you just keep shilling...

we are going to hear about this ad nauseum for months, as if she personally commanded the jihadis there

i'm not really a fan of clinton, but the bias against her is obviously overblown

if clinton had done this:

http://www.nytimes.com/interac...

we would hear about she had committed sedition, treason, and was a traitor, for the next 2 years, daily

and it IS sedition:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...

but this letter will be forgotten in a week

because it's not hillary clinton who did it

First of all, they are dramatically underreported, as has been shown numerous times.

Well, it depends on what you mean by "dramatically." For example, the New York Times investigated this and estimates that about half of accidental gun deaths of children may not be properly reported or classified. A USA Today report said the actual numbers were 61% higher than the CDC numbers, perhaps getting up to 100 unintentional deaths in the year studied there.

And that latter report was by an organization promoting gun safety, so I don't think they are lowballing the figure. On the other hand, that latter report doesn't define "child," so I'm not sure what age range is involved.

In any case, while these gun deaths are deplorable and may be somewhat underreported, even organizations who are desperately looking for gun deaths don't seem to agree with your statement that "It is not hard to find an accidental shooting every single day in this country that involves a child." Maybe a couple times a week on average. But hardly "every single day."

The CDC's numbers may be low. But your numbers are too high.

And your bit about the age of a child is a straw man argument. I follow the standard definition of a child being under 18.

The problem here is again a shift from possible underreporting to vastly overreporting that is characteristic of the other side of this argument.

The unfortunate reality -- as is the case with many polarized topics in U.S. politics -- is that both sides lie and mislead. Gun advocates want these numbers to appear as low as possible. People who are anti-gun want them to appear as high as possible.

And the anti-gun side has a strong tradition of including all sorts of misleading numbers involving teenagers to jack those numbers up -- trying to lump suicides, homicides, and accidents all into one category for example. Of course, most people recognize that teenagers below the age of 18 often are smart enough and competent enough to realize what they are doing, so you can't just lump all these things together.

Anyhow, clearly you have your own biased perspective and are intent on exaggerating your data. Clearly GP has his own as well. The reality is probably somewhere in the middle.

If you meet anybody from India ask him "What Is Your Caste?";
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06...

Well, it turns out that the protesters were 100% right on that one.

It only "turns out" that way, because those same people, who protested it back then, also run major media outlets. Do you suppose, that Time-magazine's reporter could've written: "We were all morons doing the bidding of America's enemies"?

No, the most you could get 10 years after he went protesting, was to admit, their protest was coordinated — though it is unclear by who...

Bush II and the neo-con war criminals

Please, what "war crimes" are you talking about? Saddam Hussein violated the cease-fire agreement of 1992 so many times, Clinton should've resumed shooting in his time. No, it was no "war crime". But let's not get too side-tracked...

much trouble beating Vladimir Putin in a global popularity contest

Every little bit counts. Like I said, Putin does not need a "win" — a "tie" would be sufficient. And Westerners have always been gullible — the generation calling Bush "war criminal" was raised by morons seriously equating Joseph McCarthy to Lavrenty Beria...

Or is it that invading a distant nation for its oil wealth

Ah, I should have known... Where there are "war crimes", "war for oil" can not be far behind — like Moon-landing denials it just would not die. For 10 years Saddam Hussein was prevented from selling his oil. All we had to do to get it was to agree to lifting the sanctions — which would've been much cheaper than war. Instead, we went after oil-tycoons for breaking the embargo.

Of course, it was "better" — for we didn't annex anything. But see, win an argument, just use a (false) tu quoque to tie your opponent. And you are now doing (or trying to do) the same to me...

peninsula that was recently part of Russia

Score another one for Kremlin! Last time Crimea was part of Russia was 1954 — or 60 years ago. Before that, in 1918, it was part of Ukraine (36 years earlier). So, which one was "recent"?

and is still full of Russians

It is just as full of ethnic Ukrainians now, but, more importantly, achieving that nice White appearance required ethnic cleansing it off Crimean Tatars, who were only allowed to return by the newly-independent Ukraine in 1990-ies. They are now in trouble again — suspected by the occupiers for their loyalty to Ukraine.

So what if it is "full of Russians"? Texas, Arizona, and California are full of Mexicans — would some new Santa Anna be justified invading those states and organizing a referendum?

Khrushchev should never have given it to Ukraine.

Yes, and Romanov should not have sold Alaska — did you just pre-emptively justify Russian invasion into US? Can Japan now use the example to take back Kuril Islands? Japanese special forces may be just as "polite" as Russians were in Crimea and, once the occupation succeeds, arranging a "referendum" i

"Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it." --Santayana
Take your Caste share of land and go build your own nation as per "Communal Award"?
India's Caste Culture is a Rape Culture;
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06...
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07...

"Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it." --Santayana
Take your Caste share of land and go build your own nation as per "Communal Award"?
India's Caste Culture is a Rape Culture;
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06...
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07...

Yes, when people make political issues of science issues, that science often becomes political. I know- shocking isn't it.

Incorrect, not shocking. Evolution doesn't become any more or less true if it becomes a political issue in churches. The laws of physics don't change if you're a wealthy industry that can afford to fight back politically against physicists. Your posts in this entire thread (fuck, on this entire site, for years) have been perfused with the idea that scientific phenomena can change if you politically attack them. You can maybe change what scientists examine and the course of scientific discovery, but that's not the same thing. And if you're going to suggest that's what happening here, because we haven't looked hard enough at the sun or something, you're wrong. Industry in this case has spent a lot of money funding scientific research into non-anthropomorphic causes of climate change, and have only managed to produce bullshit.

So much hue and cry because Victim is Upper caste Brahmin girl and Culprit is Lower caste Yadav;
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...

When a Lower caste Untouchable Dalit girl was gang-raped by 12 Upper Caste men in DABRA, her father killed himself because Police refused to take his complaint;
But when a Upper caste Brahmin girl was gang-raped by 6 Lower caste men in DELHI, Indian Prime Minister intervened, amended the Law and set up a Special Court to prosecute/punish the culprits;
http://india.blogs.nytimes.com...

what are we better than? the truth?

the GOP is the party of stupid. who said that?

the GOP said that:

http://thehill.com/video/in-th...

you haven't noticed a connection between incredibly ignorant, antiscience statements and the GOP? oh i'm sure you can find a democrat who said something stupid. and i can find ten republicans for every one odd democrat

do you want to bet on that?

let me get started:

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/rep...

http://www.scientificamerican....

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08...

that's off the top of my head

how many more do you want?

Well, except for "Sunny Day Flooding" http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05... I'm sure I'll get the NY Times is an unreliable, liberal Climate Change Shill response, rather than looking at the FACTS

There's probably no good single explanation, but it might revolve around property tax being something of a usage tax for local government services that mostly relate to property, such as police, fire, and civil infrastructure in the local community.

Actually, there is a single good explanation for why we have property taxes. Monopoly’s Inventor: The Progressive Who Didn’t Pass ‘Go’ details in large part property taxes sprung about from the late 1800s anti-monopolistic movement of which real property like land should be taxed because they're a public good that will be hoarded in perpetuity by land owners who will rent them out indefinitely. And by the same token, it's why public airwaves should be taxed/regulated but something some IP which isn't real shouldn't be taxed. Invariably, the foundation of IP is that IP will eventually become a public good/thing again. The fundamental issue today is that such a thing isn't happening. I don't think having a tax:profit ratio as a basis upon things falling into the public's hand is good because it further conflates IP as something it's not.

I think in a lot of ways it's probably an inherited anachronism from an era before income taxes when towns or counties (in the US) needed a source of revenue to provide services. There was no income tax and few other ways to generate funds for local government.

Compared to today with traffic fines... No, income taxes aren't a solution either as as much as a property tax alone leaves squallier to fund inadequate protection, income tax leaves government to top-down assign protection. A combination of the two makes it much harder for edge cases of non-support to happen.

Unfortunately, it's grown very regressive because property owners are taxed on the unrealized market value of the property. If you bought your house for $10,000 and it went up in value to $500,000 (less hyperbolic than it sounds in many places) you're stuck paying a tax on an asset whose value increase you can't realize without selling it and chances are your income hasn't risen as fast as your asset value.

That's a good thing. You buy a house for $10,000, sell it for $500,000, pay the property tax, and you move somewhere that's actually affordable to you. Squatting on valuable real estate because you can't be bothered to move is uneconomical and unreasonable; it's effectively a variation of fixed rents and other price controls. The market doesn't well resolve the issue directly and so it makes sense for government to intervene. Certainly, it's much better to allow people a sizable profit and move than to try to artificially depreciate* the actual value of a property.

A lot of elderly people on fixed incomes get pushed out of their houses because they can no longer pay the property taxes on houses they own outright -- their fixed incomes don't increase to match the increase in value and taxes.

Are elderly people planning on taking their house to their grave? Does it not make more sense to sell the house, move to a much cheaper place, and use the money to enjoy their remaining life? I mean, honestly, granting some sort of exemption for a person just because they're very old is absurd. Plenty of young people too get pushed out of a house they no longer can afford regardless of how much they "own" it. At some level, you never fully own anything**.

There's all kinds of ways they try to fix this, like homestead exemptions and income tax based property tax refunds, but it just feels like a bad patch on an obsolete system.

Or it could be the system is working as intended and you just don't like it's natural consequences.

* Which comes in handy when you want to buy up land for "public use" under eminen

I vehemently disagree. I highly recommend taking the 16 minutes and 39 seconds to actually watch the most compelling part of the documentary before trying to wave it away as "gloomy documentaries." For you to say such a thing shows that, contrary to your statement, you are denying the presence of pollution--or at least the social responsibility we all have to improve our health, life spans, and quality of life by regulating pollution.

I live in Washington DC and spend a great deal of time worrying about my health and the health of my children because our air quality here can get so bad that we have Red Ozone Days where we are told to keep our children inside, especially if they have any respiratory conditions, which they are more likely to have thanks to the poor air quality. I think it a blessing that NASA and the EPA monitor our air quality and that the local papers light a fire of panic under everyone's feet about the need to improve it because childhood leukemia and other cancers aren't something we should just shrug at.

Awareness of pollution is why we have Catalytic converters in our cars to dramatically reduce the toxic nature of the exhaust coming out of them. It's why we banned Lead Gasoline and ended the crime wave having that chemical in our brains unleashed on our culture. It's why air quality has improved over the last 10 years as new technologies, improved MPG, and other environmental regulations, but we still have much more to do.

It's also a moral issue for us, because our Made-In-China marketplace is why they have so much pollution. We want cheap goods and they turn a blind eye to the pollution to keep the products cheap. But that pollution is making it's way back to us over the Pacific Ocean. I want to keep buying cheap stuff from China, but I am also willing to pay a little more if it allows the Chinese people to improve their health.

The Chinese government should let people understand the science and choose for themselves.

I will never trust for-profit educational institutions:

For-Profit Colleges Under Investigation

Corinthian Colleges Employee: âoeWe Work For The Biggest Scam Company In The World"

Screw U: How For-Profit Colleges Rip You Off

How For-Profit Colleges Target Military Veterans (and Your Tax Dollars)

Obama didn't promise jack about gun control.

"After the legislation failed, Mr. Obama vowed to take whatever steps his administration could through executive action. He later issued 25 executive orders intended to tighten the rules for gun ownership."

NYT

BTW, the post you replied to said "executive action", not "executive order", you doubly-failed pedant.

USPS also scans every mailpiece. Seriously, they do, and have been doing for almost two decades.

That's right. I was surprised when I first found that out. In fairness to the New York Times, they put it on the front page. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07... The USPS did it under cover of the War on Terror.

The post office has long had a program of "mail covers" (if you want to search Google) where they would copy the sender and addressee of every piece of mail, at the requests of the FBI or other law enforcement agencies, for people like Martin Luther King. They could find out who read the Daily Worker or The Nation. Now the the USPS scans the mail automatically to read the addresse's address, so they can just save the scan permanently. The courts have decided that it doesn't violate the Fourth Amendment, and doesn't require a search warrant or judge's permission. You can easily imagine that it could be subject to abuses, like the ones the NYT gave. It's one thing to use it to track down letters with deadly poison. It's another thing to monitor the owner of a radical bookstore, or for Sheriff Joe Arapaio to use it to monitor his political enemies, or even to use it against victimless crimes like prostitution.

"Part of that mob was the people that worked for him. We always have to remember that while we have free speech, everyone does. You cannot stop the reactions."

i am acutely aware that it is people exercising their own right to free speech that i am frightened of. I am not actually for regulation of the mob... i just wish the mob were more tempered. I have no solution, i'm just particularly frightened of the direction we seem to be going. I don't want to live in a society where the brendan eichs of the world can be forced out because they put money behind an unpopular opinion... that they are engaged in the legislative process the way we always say we want every good voter to. I don't want people to muzzle themselves on the internet from making jokes with friends or trying to be funny.

Sacco had like 500 followers max, it was basically people familiar with her and presumably familiar with her style of humor. Apparently the journalist who first propogated her tweet, was himself castigated and roasted a year later for making a tweet "making light" of bullying. He told a shitty joke, and they crucified him for it.

The speed of social media, combined with the radical shift to political correctness that we seem to have come across spells the death of humor and criticism. I don't want to live in that world, but i'm afraid it's the world we're in.

I agree that people shouldn't make that threats, like threats threats, against others on the internet. It's in poor taste. What i disagree with is taking as seriously as all that, and the appropriate response.

also,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02... ... it got bad enough she ran away from the english-speaking world for a year.

on your last sentence...
apparently a while back dan savage got in trouble for using the word "tranny" while in the midst of a discussion of why he considered it no longer okay to use the word "tranny." which, apparently makes sense to someone somewhere.

The Left is eating its own, and no amount of PC can cover you these days if someone is on the prowl looking to be offended.

My point overall is, we live in the kind of environment where the public reaction is in some circumstances worse by an order of magnitude than what a judge would deem appropriate, and i really really wish it were different.

If we trust FCC to ensure "fairness" of Internet Service Provision:

If the Federal Government can't determine what's fair, then who can?

why don't we trust the Marshals Service to be fair as well? Are they being controlled by a different President or something?

People here are kind of like John Kerry, they were in favor of the Government before they were against it.

If the Federal Government can't determine what's fair, then who can?

why don't we trust the Marshals Service to be fair as well? Are they being controlled by a different President or something?

[Trey Gowdy, R-SC and chairman of the Select Committee on the Benghazi attacks] argued that the use of personal emails by Ms. Clinton preclude the State Department from turning over all of her correspondence in relation to the Benghazi investigation.

“The fact is the State Department cannot certify that they have produced all of former Secretary Clinton’s emails because they do not have all of former Secretary Clinton’s emails, nor do they control access to them,” he explained, later adding that it made “any claim of a definitive report impossible.”

- a different New York Times story

The problem is idiots who don't realize the internet is not a toy. Trolls do it for the lulz and don't realize that no, they're actually creating a very permanent record of their activities.

Troll all you want, but realize that your five minutes of fun is recorded and you may find yourself as the top news story worldwide. If you want to offend, go for it knowing it WILL haunt you forever. This isn't a bathroom wall in some gas station - it's a gigantic unforgetting bathroom wall that the world sees.

It's not always so black and white though. See, for example, the Justine Sacco case. She made a satirical joke and it was misinterpreted. Then there's this story on This American Life: act one specifically. It highlights how the ire of a community can be directed unjustly.

Then the assholes shouldn't have said anything in the first place. We're not talking about a couple of screwed up kids thinking that they're funny. The people doing this were adults. There is no fucking excuse for this.

Like many others in this discussion you've reduced it to a black and white situation: they did something wrong, therefore they deserve everything that might possibly come in terms of consequences. That's an extraordinarily harsh attitude to take to mistakes made by teenagers.

If someone came onto your lawn and started yelling about how they were going to rape your daughter, they're not going to get a little slap on the wrist. They'd get arrested, thrown in jail, and possibly be put on a sex offender list.

This example supports my point: the justice system deals with this sort of thing in right way, with a measured, proportionate, just response. Sex offender lists do amount to public shaming (and they are somewhat controversial for that reason) but even you are not sure that would be appropriate in the above scenario. Yet that's exactly what you're advocating in online cases. Also note that if they are on your lawn the threat is rather more immediate and credible than bullying online. That makes a difference. Finally, I suspect you've overestimated what the justice system's response to a single incident of that nature would be.

In the general case, the problem with your position is that it assumes that this sort of response is always justified and correct. But at best this is mob justice and the mob will get it wrong at times. The Justine Sacco case is a good example. She made a joke that was misinterpreted. The consequences far outweighed the "crime".

I thought she made a good Secretary of State, just for the record.

She most certainly did. One of the best evar! She is Superwoman! We have our new Henry Kissinger. Being president would be beneath her.

More specifically for Slashdot, a Republican right-winger who cost the taxpayers of Rhode Island millions when he got a sweetheart loan to move his company, 38 Studios, there, at the urging of the then Republican governor: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04...

Fucking hypocrites.

Other opponents have included Senator Ted Kennedy,[57] Sen. John Kerry, former Gov. Mitt Romney, and businessman Bill Koch,[58] who has donated $1.5 million to the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Wind

But after more than a dozen years, the $2.6 billion proposal remains on the drawing board, thanks in large part to the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, of which Mr. Koch is chairman.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10...

Lying by omission is still lying. Just saying.

This exact same topic was covered in Frontline's special on North Korea over a year ago. Their point of contact was Jiro Ishimaru of Asiapress who was sneaker netting USBs over the border. They even took a video of people trying to watch on a tiny screen and having to shut everything down whenever they heard someone outside.

The documentary also touched on humanitarian issues as much as it could using a secret camera. Sad stuff. Great thing to watch. Occasionally you can catch it streaming on Netflix but it seems to not be available right now.

Ya, because fear of a neocon president sure scared him away from invading Georgia.

Once again, this is a case of "bad vs. awful". Our reaction (both military moves and economic sanctions) to Georgia back then was not enough to push Russians out completely, but it kept Russia from entering Tbilisi and vanquishing the little country for good — as they were poised to do.

But when, instead of ratcheting the sanctions up, the current nincompoop sent the ignominious "Reset" button to Moscow and dropped — only two years later — what few sanctions there were in the hope, Russia will help pressure Iran, Putin was encouraged... For Russia can certainly weather two years of sanctions — a small price to pay for the jewel of Crimea.

Oct 1929 through 1940, when the war effort began really rolling. So FDR had nothing to do with it.

But was the high level of stratification due to "trickle down" at all? Or, maybe, the policy does not really have anything to do with the wealth-consolidation you decry?

What makes you think, the wealth-concentration you dislike so much in the second half of 20th century was due to "trickle down economics"?

It actually didn't really start until the 80s, and if you'll recall, that era was prefaced by several recessions and double digit inflation in the 70s, a similar stoppage of wealth growth as in the 30s.

So, things were bad before the "trickle down" started? Is that what you are saying?

Just perhaps that was the stated economic policy of the Reps as they rolled back taxes on the wealthy?

If it really was "the stated policy", where is your link to the statement?

the top 1% is gathering it back quickly, impoverishing everyone else.

Higher taxes on the rich mean their wealth growth rate is slowed, as the flow in is slowed.

Not necessarily — it depends on how those "higher taxes" are spent. If, for example, they are given back to them (think Solyndra or Tesla motors), it may be the exact opposite.

In 2009 the top 50% of income-tax payers paid 97.75% of the total tax. Do you suppose, the bottom 50% could pay much less than 2.25% — and would it help them, even if it could be arranged?

So, as suspected, you don't have any substantiation to your claim, that the "top 1%" impoverishes everybody else. Class warfare much?

Red-herring - the last several presidents can be shown to be both

It is not "red herring" because that's what this sub-thread is all about — when JDAustin pointed out, Obama failed to reign-in overly invasive police, an "insightful" AC countered with "trickle down economics" (which was a false "red herring" of its own, of course).

Because otherwise we'd have that paragon of politics Palin instead of Biden to make fun of?

Sarah Palin made no obvious mistakes — in fact, she anticipated Putin invasion into Crimea. Joe Biden, on the other hand, was beyond mockery from day one -1: when he claimed, that "we, along with France kicked Hezbolla out of Lebanon". Show me anything comparably stupid from Sarah Palin, I dare you...

Or perhaps that ever American loving Romney, as long as you're not 1 in 2 Americans?

I don't care, whether President loves me — I'd find it outright creepy if he did. I want him to effectively execute policy I find agreeable. Obama's only saving graces come from his failing to execute some of his disastrous plans.

Reps killed their own chances in 2008.

Whatever killed their chances (somehow vastly more people knew, what Palin spent on wardrobe than that Biden was once caught plagiarizing), it was to the detriment to the country.

It's well known that the EU routinely negotiates with terrorists. They've paid millions to ISIS: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07...

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/01/15/business/one-percent-map.html?_r=0

US Top 1% average household income is $383k. Top 5% $118k. Top 10% $140k. Top 25% $89k.

Depending where you leave I would say that 1 in 4 can easily afford two of these phones every 3 years without a dent in their bank account.

It looks "blue and black" because that's what it is.

That dress is white and gold. the white part has a blue tint but I wouldn't call it blue.

No, it's not. The original picture is overexposed and washes out the colors as shown in the picture I linked which contains a second picture showing the actual colors.