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I don't think stagflation means what you think it means. Japan has had deflation and low interest rates, and an unemployment rate that has never reached 6%.

Japan also holds over $1 trillion of US debt.

Basically, Japan (like Reagan) has proved that deficits don't matter, and a high debt-to-gdp ratio is sustainable. They should increase their debt and use it to increase their safety net.

Who gives a shit about this "speed record"?? This asshole Ed Bolian was willing to risk the lives of everyone else on the road for some silly high score bullshit. There's no difference between this careless fuck and the asshole who killed a mother and her three children while street racing in Philly. http://articles.philly.com/2013-10-31/news/43530258_1_roosevelt-boulevard-khusen-akhmedov-ahmen-holloman

This is not a fucking game. If you want to break speed records, use a track where you'll only risk the lives of those who knowingly expose themselves to this level of danger, rather than innocent people who are just trying to go about their lives. Fuck every last fucking one of these coast to coast 'racers'.

When convenient, simple IEDs get declared WMD, ironically by the same people that say (rightfully) that GWB lied about Iraq having WMDs.

It is convenient for some to call this OSX malware, it's called hyperbole and it's disgusting whoever uses it to fearmonger.

Now that I've insulted everyone but Mac users, hopefully they'll keep me from being modded into oblivion ...

... the real issue is how to prevent this from happening in the future. The first thing that comes to mind is the word "Legislation". But then again, it is exactly that what gave rise to this situation in the first place.

Well, that is part of having the rule of law. You have to spell out what is to be done, and what the rules are. Some things don't work out the way they were intended, and the law get changed. You still have to come up with a plan which translates into law.

Things can get tricky when you have to develop laws that cover a wide range of situations as is the case with national security. You never know may crop up. For example, the US military has had to rely upon an 1861 law to continue operations on more than one occasion.

1861 law may help Army operate under shutdown
For Pentagon, A Legal Leg To Forage On

Fumo is awesome. He also held up a dune-building project where he has a beach house in Margate, NJ. Sandy did a lot more damage then it would have without Mr. Fumo's influence. So he has the distinction of crapping all over at least two states.

And now it is also known where the drones will be controlled from, although I am not convinced that there is only a single command centre. That would be rather stupid... Anyway, so, one of the control centres will be located in Horsham, PA near Philadelphia on part of the grounds of the format naval air base, according to the following article: http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20130320_Horsham_command_center_for_drones_stirs_controversy.html

Just this morning, the Atlantic City casino Revel filed for bankruptcy, one year after the casino opened. Granted, it was an ambitious plan, including a non-smoking environment, but with gambling in surrounding states draining clientele, the entire AC casino industry is suffering.

This isn't to say they can't make this work, but if they're relying on a majority of their income from poker, well, putting ones eggs in one basket comes to mind.

ja...

Yes, it means the freedom to put 13 shots into an 18-year-old who is breaking into your car. http://articles.philly.com/2010-09-16/news/24979574_1_gun-hill-philadelphia-police

Having to wheel-on scientist-believers just illustrates how lacking in conviction the true believers are in their own brand of woo-ism ..

reference

A MUCH more telling set of numbers is this

Some Philadelphia neighborhoods outdid themselves in Tuesday's presidential election.

In a city where President Obama received more than 85 percent of the votes, in some places he received almost every one. In 13 Philadelphia wards, Obama received 99 percent of the vote or more. ....

  Campbell is leader of West Philadelphia's Fourth Ward, where Obama received 9,955 votes. Romney? Just 55. That's five fewer than McCain in 2008.

Now, what would it sound like if it were reported that among whites, 99% or more voted for a white candidate in a race with a white and a black candidate on the ticket?

You think voter fraud doesn't occur both ways? How about these:

Black Panthers patrolling polling centers, and election monitors being forbidden from scrutinizing:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/nov/6/problems-black-panthers-surface-pa-polling-places/

Voters picking Romney, but the machine gives their vote to Obama:
http://www2.wbtw.com/news/2012/nov/05/more-nc-voters-report-selecting-romney-machine-cho-ar-4900469/

Poll worker pushing voters to vote Democrat:
http://radio.foxnews.com/toddstarnes/top-stories/poll-worker-tells-people-to-vote-democrat.html

Polling center has a pro-Obama mural in violation of election laws:
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/breaking/20121106_GOP_goes_to_court_to_remove_Obama_mural_at_polling_site.html

http://stateimpact.npr.org/texas/2012/03/30/epa-to-range-resources-drill-away/

http://abclocal.go.com/kfsn/story?section=news/state&id=5980352

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-epa20dec20,0,1603760.story?coll=la-home-center

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24276709/

http://articles.philly.com/2008-12-07/news/24992895_1_climate-change-climate-change-deputy-administrator-jason-burnett

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55268-2005Mar21.html

The EPA is run by the administration of the moment. Reagan had James Watt as Secretary of the Interior, for chrissakes. Right now, the EPA likes solar because Obama likes solar. Under Bush, the EPA loved nothing more than oil companies, as demonstrated by the reality based links given above.

Now go on back to your Tea Party, meme-bot, and let the grown-ups talk.

Clickable link for those who don't want to copy and paste: http://articles.philly.com/2012-09-16/news/33864030_1_efforts-by-misguided-individuals-anti-muslim-mitt-romney

http://media.talkingpointsmemo.com/slideshow/mitt-romney-taxes

Now that Mitt Romney's confirmed what we've long suspected about his effective federal tax rate -- "It's probably closer to the 15 percent rate than anything" -- we have a fact worth contextualizing. Though it could easily be less, assume Romney effectively pays 15 percent in taxes on all his income to the federal government. How does he stack up to the rest of us, most of whom are regular wage earners? When you account for the fact that most people also pay payroll taxes, and don't enjoy enormous deductions, credits or other benefits, you see that Romney's making out about as well as a taxpayer who makes $50,000 a year. Not bad for a man whose net worth is estimated to be in the neighborhood of a quarter billion dollars.

Meanwhile, the Republican controlled House has voted 33 times in 18 months to repeal Obamacare.

http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/healthcare/Republicans-Vote-to-Repeal-Obamacare--Again-and-Again.html

Breaking news!! The House of Representative voted to repeal all of Obamacare – for the 33rd time.

In a recurring political ritual, Republicans in the chamber denounced the law as a government takeover and said that all of it has to go. Then they backed up their statements with a vote.

The action has virtually no chance of becoming law. The Democratic majority in the Senate is certain to block it. And if for some reason it does not, Obama has promised to veto it.

So who is acting more like a troupe of cognitively impaired monkeys? I would bet that after so many failed attempts the monkeys would have given up and moved on to something more useful.

Score: Monkeys 1, Republicans 0. It's not fair to compare either monkeys or Republicans to the Occupy movement because they are not playing in the same league.

Democrats claim there are no examples of voter fraud and yet just the other day in CA a previously deported drug trafficking Mexican, Ricardo Lopez-Munguia, plead guilty to many charges including illegally voting in the 2008 election. What are the chances he voted for John McCain?

In Philadelphia, two dozen unregistered people were allowed to vote anyway, 19 others were discovered to not be U.S. citizens and at least seven of those have voted in elections. I'm sure they voted Republican. /s

In North Carolina, American Idol runner up Clay Aiken knowingly, willfully and fraudulently voted outside his county in 2008 with the purpose of effecting the outcome of elections in Wake County. He was only discovered because he was dumb enough to make disparaging statements about new Board of Election members.

It's no surprise Democrat Aiken is against Voter ID because if NC had had Voter ID, Aiken would not have been able to commit voter fraud.

So here was have a multi-millionaire celebrity committing voter fraud, we have foreign citizens committing voter fraud and those are just a couple examples from three corners of this country. Now, tell me again how Voter ID is not important?

Explain to me why photo ID is necessary to get into a NAACP gathering, to get into the DNC convention, to visit an Obama rally but not to ensure only those legally entitled to cast ballots where they live are the only ones who do?

All states with voter ID have a range of acceptable photo IDs, including free voting-only photo ID, to account for nursing homes, the poor, students, etc. A 6-3 majority on the Supreme Court already ruled voter ID is legal.

Does it really suppress minority vote as Democrats claim? Georgia saw an INCREASE in minority turnout after it enacted voter ID.

The pattern is clear: Democrats do not want voter ID laws because they benefit from the voter fraud enabled by having no voter ID law. They use the specter of racism to demagogue the issue to their advantage.

if the tea party losers would shut up for a moment, you can get DOWNTOWN point A to DOWNTOWN point B in very fast time, faster than a plane taking into consideration the taxi to the two airports of point A and point B, and very luxuriously since the cost of another 5 feet of leg room contributes negligibly to the cost of moving the tons of steel

asia, europe, beyond the idiots in my country who want to live shorter lives and pay more for healthcare insurance so some insurance asshole can make more crony (not capitalist) profit, your high speed trains is what i admire about you the most. rail used to be something amazing in my country. we let it rot

granted, the USA is a lot less sparsely inhabited in the middle, but on the East Coast, and on the West Coast, it's dense enough to warrant high speed rail. hmmm.... and that's not where the tea party losers dominate, there's a chance just yet...

you want to talk about China beating the USA? salivate over this:

http://articles.philly.com/2012-08-19/news/33273369_1_bullet-train-train-crashes-wenzhou

BEIJING - With its sparkling domed skylight, polished granite floor tiles, grand piano, and string of retail outlets such as Timberland and Nautica, the Beijing South Railway Station could compete with the world's finest for modernity and cleanliness.

It was here in December that we boarded China's new high-speed bullet train that whisked us off to Shanghai, more than 800 miles to the south, in just five hours. For efficiency and comfort at a relatively low price ($185 round-trip for second-class seats that were nicer than those on Amtrak's Acela), you can't beat it. Cruising at about 185 m.p.h., the bullet train provides a smooth, quiet ride through China's eastern industrial corridor as it snakes south through four provinces before reaching its terminus at Shanghai's Hongqiao Rail Station. This is like leaving Philadelphia's 30th Street Station at 10 a.m. and arriving in Atlanta by 3 p.m.

tea party morons: please shut up and die and allow the USA to become a modern country. thanks

Because never in all of history has someone in America been arrested without good reason. And certainly no one has ever been charged with "resisting arrest" and nothing else.

For example:
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_13686438
http://articles.philly.com/2010-06-29/news/24962922_1_wawa-officers-civilians

And your word of caution. No it doesn't matter if you are right. If I shoot a cop who was trying to arrest me without valid cause, the fact that he didn't have a valid cause isn't going to stop the "large body of law enforcement officers out to cease my free movement". Just look at the cases of the non-knock warrant being served on the wrong house and the people inside doing what you say and getting shot because they dared defend themselves.

For example:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18328267/
http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=95475

Your facts are not in order.

Pakistan is blockading NATO due to an air strike that kill two dozen Pakistani soldiers at a border outpost. The Pakistanis reportedly made the unfortunate "mistake" of firing at US and Afghan commandos which they sometimes do when they forget which side they are supporting. Pakistan is demanding an apology for the incident, and is also using it as an excuse to try to jack up the transit fee from $200 to $5,000 per truck.

The overwhelming majority of non-combatants being killed in Afghanistan are being killed by road-side bombs placed by . . . guess who. . . the Taliban. The Taliban also visit murder and massacre on the various tribes and villages. Unlike NATO, the Taliban deliberately targets innocent non-combatants.

As to drone strikes . . .
Pakistan Says Drone Strikes Have Been Effective

Major-General Ghayur Mehmood spoke to a group of Pakistani reporters on a rare trip to Miran Shah, the administrative center of North Waziristan.

The Pakistani general says that information the military has gathered from its sources suggest most of those killed in drone attacks are hardcore militants, and the number of innocent people being killed is relatively low.

The official paper distributed among reporters says that there have been 164 drone strikes in the militant-dominated region of North Waziristan since 2007, killing 964 "terrorists". There were 171 al-Qaida fighters among those killed, mostly belonging to central Asian and Arab countries.

"because they are both projected to go broke before I ever collect a cent"

"In other words, Medicare didn’t suddenly become more burdensome or costly. The environment around it changed. We, as individuals, would find it harder to pay for health insurance if our income declined. The government is no different. That was true in 1969, and it is today."

  http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/healthcare/Is-Medicare-Going-Bankrupt-Not-Really.html

I'd have no problem with that (including the Congressman heading the MPAA). But I don't think we've reached that point yet. This order: Soap box Jury box Ballot box Ammo box (last resort)

Soap box - we've been trying this for a long time
Jury box - can't, no one will pass laws limiting their corrupt coworkers because they do not want to limit their future corrupt behavior
Ballot box - wow, we've tried, again and again, but the obvious corruption doesn't stop
Ammo box - well.... hate to say it, but here we are, this is all that is left.....

You'd be surprised...

http://articles.philly.com/2012-01-31/news/31008527_1_bible-belt-church-and-state-pennsylvania

The linked source of that story is at the The Philadelphia Inquirer:

http://articles.philly.com/2012-03-26/news/31240585_1_police-officer-cops-misdemeanor

The article is titled Temple student: Cops pinched me for taking pictures
and is dated March 26, 2012 and has the byline WENDY RUDERMAN, rudermw@phillynews.com 215-854-2860

The incident also caused a brouhaha at the National Press Photographers Association. The police are claiming that he was arrested for "hindering arrest" and not for his photograpy. Note that the Boston police also had the charge of "abetting escape" initially placed on the actor of this slashdot's article's story, but that charge was subsequently dropped.

The linked source of that story is at the The Philadelphia Inquirer:

http://articles.philly.com/2012-03-26/news/31240585_1_police-officer-cops-misdemeanor

The article is titled Temple student: Cops pinched me for taking pictures
and is dated March 26, 2012 and has the byline WENDY RUDERMAN, rudermw@phillynews.com 215-854-2860

The incident also caused a brouhaha at the National Press Photographers Association. The police are claiming that he was arrested for "hindering arrest" and not for his photograpy. Note that the Boston police also had the charge of "abetting escape" initially placed on the actor of this slashdot's article's story, but that charge was subsequently dropped.

The cops are slow to learn.........

http://www.wnd.com/2012/03/student-arrested-for-taking-photo-of-cop/
http://articles.philly.com/2012-03-26/news/31240585_1_police-officer-cops-misdemeanor

Dang, first post got eaten. Anyways - on enforcing the law. I did some research. It bans the importation and manufacture of non-compliant bulbs. It doesn't make selling them domestically illegal, nor possession, etc... So unless you're running a factory or importing business, I don't think you have to worry. Just like the toilets. They aren't going to break down people's doors looking for them.

Even you can see the right answer. So why go with a wrong one?

Remember I only stepped in to explain the analogy. Didn't say I agreed with it. I think we can both agree that pollution, especially too much of it, can be bad.

But not from light bulbs.

Let's see: ~70k deaths from air pollution in the USA per year. The UK is 50k. Worldwide is 1.3M per year.
Lighting is 9% of electricity usage.
Eyeballing this and averaging the four sources, I get 24% of air pollution from energy production and distribution. EPA says 67% sulfur dioxide, 23% nitrogen oxide. I dropped CO2. That would be 45%. I'll stick with 24%.

Using a straight blame - 70k deaths from air pollution. 17k would be from electricity generation. 1.5k for pollution from powering lights, on average. 28k worldwide.
So yeah, I can trace thousands of deaths to the pollution from light bulbs. Making matters worse - there's plenty of survivors affected - per 75 deaths there are '505 hospital admissions for asthma and other respiratory diseases, 3,500 respiratory emergency doctor visits, 180,000 asthma attacks, 930,000 restricted activity days, and 2,000,000 acute respiratory symptom days.' Per 75 deaths seems an odd measure to use, but it's what the article listed. That's a lot of lost labor due to the pollution.

As for the baseload vs peak - 'not many lights are left on overnight'? I refer you to this image. And coal power isn't entirely baseload - fire up another boiler, spin another turbine. It might have to be scheduled a bit more compared to hydro or NG, but it's there.

Look, it's not that we don't agree on some things, it's just that, well, if you're going to argue this stuff, you need to do it right, and denying facts isn't going to help. I lean majorly libertarian, but given the pollution levels in my town on occasion,

Even better: Santorum surges from behind in Iowa

Let the TSA and police do their jobs without having to equally check everyone so we can pretend like terrorists don't all come from the same background. Racial profiling might not be politically correct but it works.

Except, you know, when it doesn't. Like the shoe bomber, Richard Reid whose father was Jamaican and mother was white British. Or the underwear bomber who was Nigerian. And there is Colleen LaRosa, aka Jihad Jane and her friend Jamie Paulin-Ramirez.

Yeah, that racial profiling really works great. Great for the terrorists that it would let sail right on through.

I gotta say I've been enjoying watching people have fun with the headlines. My favorite was :"Romney squeezes out Santorum"

My favorite was "Santorum Surges From Behind in Iowa".

Because the second link was a bit light on information and the NY Times still seems to think that dumbass John Street is still the mayor of Philadelphia I give you the local source. http://www.philly.com/philly/news/pennsylvania/126902753.html it really was a shame what they did to one of those guys but this is hardly a flash mob. What somone had a cell phone and all of a sudden it's "News for Nerds"? Please. I don't even live in Philadelphia (anymore) and I know it's not safe to walk around downtown at 10:00PM. Brotherly Love my ass.

You mean like Thomas Gordon, Jr. or Charles Henry Bennett?

Not to justifying the hacking per se, but many PBS stations have strayed far from their roots of serving the public interest.

Nowadays, minutes long blocks of advertising have become routine on many PBS stations. Combined with "bugs" - often multiple! TV station logo in one corner often along others, such as E/I, in another - what the heck E/I means is beyond me other than being more annoying clutter on the screen.

And as for excessive corporate executive pay, yep PBS has that too. The head of WHYY, which serves the Delaware Valley region, including Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, has reportedly received upwards of $500,000 in combined annual compensation.

http://articles.philly.com/2010-06-08/news/24961586_1_whyy-91fm-fiscal-year

Ron

I'm trying to take your comment as genuine Arterion, although it is difficult.

We kill some 56 Billion* other humans each and every year, for our pleasure and/or profit? I don't think so. I'm not thrilled on "sweatshops", however that is in no way similar to what we do to other animals, who have no choice whatsoever, who are indeed locked inside their confinements, be it by a gate, a wall, a cage or what have you, to await their miserable deaths.

Who decides where we are classified? Did Chickens invent some "food chain", and put us at the top of it? Do they justify "the way the world is" by this image they've concocted? Or do we tell ourselves this, with a design of our own invention, "conveniently" placing ourselves at its pinnacle? :-)

Sociologist Roger Yates has an interesting podcast and blog on this issue, http://human-nonhuman.blogspot.com/

Yes, other animals do indeed kill and eat the remains of further more animals. They also do *many* other things you and I would consider unethical, yet we do not use "all the other kids were doing it!" as an excuse for polygamy, incest, murder etc. If we are indeed capable of caring for others, does that not become an obligation? Is an adult not obligated to care for a child? Lets say, you're driving your car past a school, and some idiot child runs in front of your vehicle, oblivious. Are you obligated to *attempt* to stop, to avoid them? Or, is it "shit happens", with no course correction ethically obligated on your part? Are we to instead ACCELERATE, knocking them into the back of our "ute" (in American, "pickup truck")? I dont think so, I dont think you would either.

I do not believe in a "mother nature".

I would again suggest Professor Gary Franciones "Abolitionist Approach" website, http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/ , his podcasts and articles are fantastic, his work is often published in American media, such as his "We're All Michael Vick" piece from a few years ago, why are we so concerned about a rich African American who made dogs hurt one another, when we believe in harming and killing many billions of *other* animals each year? Why do we hold a moral worth on the life of dogs, yet not pigs?

http://articles.philly.com/2009-08-14/news/24986151_1_atlanta-falcons-quarterback-vick-illegal-dog-dog-fights

If its not crass, can I shamelessly plug my own podcast? My last episode was about American tv shows coming to New Zealand to record, tying this into perceptions given by television, using clips from many episodes of King of the Hill, as related to Animal Rights. Finally, I wrap up the episode with Barbara DeGrande, the founder of Animal Rights and Rescue North Texas, to ask about Texas stereotypes portrayed via TV, aware to those living at the bottom of the world, and of promoting Veganism in Texas.

http://www.invsoc.org.nz/2011/04/episode-52-new-zealand-diet-where-you.html

Best wishes Arterion! *56 Billion land animals killed each year, 2007 FAO figures, PDF here http://bit.ly/56billion

Hello! What is this?! I responded to "whistleblower defense isn't going to fly [in court]" with something OBAMA'S OWN ADMINISTRATION speaker had concerns with: Bradley Manning's treatment now would affect the court case later [if he's ever able to stand trial].

I called it torture, and I'm not alone. Even the UN is investigating the government's treatment of Bradley Manning. Likewise, several journalists have taken Manning's treatment to task and called it 'torture' (Will Bunch, Daniel Ellsberg... the numbers are building). And [finally!] a congressman likened Manning's treatment to Abu Ghraib.

As for Manning's ability to stand trial, after being in solitary confinement for 8 mos+, and stripped naked at night most recently (ostensibly because he's a 'suicide threat' but doesn't qualify for a mental evaluation), Manning's reportedly catatonic — not fit for trial. That's FLAMEBAIT?! Hell no — at worst, it's "Off topic", but then again, so is this whole part of the thread.

>

Dependency on countries and regimes openly declaring the US as an enemy..everytime you fuel your car ..you are funding terrorism. Thats the BIG PRICE

Wouldn't it be better to just not get in your car than to support environmentally hazardous fuel extraction? Are people really supposed to feel better about themselves knowing that our fossil fuel dependency is "only" causing earthquakes in Arkansas, and "only" contaminating water in Pennsyvania and "only" leaving millions of barrels of oil at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico?

Granted, there's no way to eliminate all oil use in our lifetimes, but there's a *lot* that can be done to reduce transportation fuel use by moving to more fuel efficient cars.

You may say that you have no choice but to use your car, but you do have a choice, you could live in a city or large suburb with effective public transportation, and good bikability and walkability. You just chose to make a car an integral part of your lifestyle - many people in big cities live without any car.

There was a police sting. Read http://www.philly.com/philly/news/breaking/20110211_Facebook_search_for_hit_man_gets_teen_22_years.html . Im not suggesting anything you are accusing me of, I am merely calling bullshit on the way they convicted him. He signed a plea bargain because he was forced to because it looked really bad what he said on Facebook when its still not even clear if he actually intended for her to be killed or not. He didn't get convicted because he actually was tried in a court of law. If someone accused me of raping them and I did not and I faced having my entire life ruined because of them, it would cross my mind that I would want to hurt them. Im smarter than that however, but not everyone is. Furthermore, being drunk damages her credibility. Same shit happens with automobile accidents. If I get hit at a stop sign, even though it was my turn to go, if I have sufficient alcohol in my system I am considered at fault because my judgment is impaired. The case was not even heard, they just forced him into a corner without absolute proof of anything because he made some stupid remarks on Facebook.

If you read the article linked in the linked article, it might change your perspective. Philadelphia Inquirer

Also, you have the timeline wrong. She went to him first. He posted the cash bounty. Then, she went to the police. As for keeping this from her real BF or father, there is no reason to believe that either knew or had reason to suspect that sex (consensual or otherwise) had occurred. Also, based on the June dates, presumably 2010, it is safe to assume that she did not go to the press. The article had no quotations from her or statements attributed to her other than the detective's account of his interview with her.

If you are going to speculate, read the article first.

Except that 1) Before And After is also a category on Jeopardy and 2) it was a category in run-throughs for Watson:

In a test tourney, Watson hit the bullseye on a question about clothing a young girl might wear on an operatic ship. The answer, pinafore, is also found in the title of the Gilbert & Sullivan opera H.M.S. Pinafore. And the computer was also successful with a before-and-after Jeopardy question about a candy bar and a Supreme Court justice, Baby Ruth Bader-Ginsberg. But earlier in its career, when asked, "What does a grasshopper eat?", it responded, "Kosher."

Source: http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/storm/Jeopardy_A_Computer_Takes_on_Ken_Jennings_and_Brad_Rutter_.html

They are not pointing out specific wrong doings

They are, in fact, pointing out wrong doings.

(1) the U.S. military formally adopted a policy of turning a blind eye to systematic, pervasive torture and other abuses by Iraqi forces;

(2)theState Department threatened Germany not to criminally investigate the CIA's kidnapping of one of its citizens who turned out to be completely innocent;

(3) the StateDepartment under Bush andObama applied continuous pressure on the Spanish Government to suppress investigations of the CIA's torture of its citizens and the 2003 killing of a Spanish photojournalist when the U.S. military fired on the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad (see ThePhiladelphia Inquirer's WillBunch today about this:"The day BarackObama Lied to me");

(4) the British Government privately promised to shield Bush officials from embarrassment as part of its Iraq War "investigation";

(5) there were at least 15,000 people killed in Iraq that were previously uncounted;

(6) "American leaders lied, knowingly, to the American public, to American troops, and to the world" about the Iraq war as it was prosecuted, a conclusion the Post's own former Baghdad Bureau Chief wrote was proven by theWikiLeaks documents;

(7)the U.S.'s own Ambassador concluded that the July, 2009 removal of the Honduran President was illegal -- a coup -- but the StateDepartment did not want to conclude that and thus ignored it until it was too late to matter;

(8) U.S. and British officials colluded to allow theU.S. to keep cluster bombs on British soil even though Britain had signed the treaty banning such weapons, and,

(9)Hillary Clinton's State Department ordered diplomats to collect passwords, emails, and biometric data on U.N. and other foreign officials, almost certainly in violation of the Vienna Treaty of 1961.

(TotH to GG, as usual.) I appreciate why you believe what you wrote. You might want to reconsider your position given your primary source of news is from organizations whose allegiance is to parent corporations that, like Amazon, absolutely cannot afford to get on the wrong side of the government that regulates them.

Hi gox, you were the one to mention Welfare and Rights first :-)

I'd find it hard to describe differences in LEVELS of "cruelty", but yes, I think Professor Gary Francione made a good argument for American sportsman Michael Vick, his Dogs who were forced to fight may well have had "better lives" than the animals we kill for "Hotdogs" etc while watching him play. His article really was *fantastic*:

http://www.philly.com/dailynews/opinion/20070822_Were_all_Michael_Vick.html

In other news, the government is making credit card companies notify you when they invoke the fine print in the contract you signed, forcing people to pay for health insurance even if they think they "never get sick", and charging a fine for leaving your own car unlocked.

Network World
AP
Philadelphia Inquirer
USA Today
Over 300 more

Skunkpost? WTF is that?

Here we are:

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/home_region/20100915_Rendell__appalled__by_state_s_tracking_of_activists.html

Rebuilding existing lines for high-speed or expanding to multiple tracks faces two major problems: expansions of rights-of-way (buying people's houses, businesses, etc.), NIMBYism, and environmental laws.

Regarding Acela/Northeast Corridor, this story claims: "One of the reasons the Northeast Corridor did not get more money from the $8 billion high-speed pot is a lack of a recent environmental-impact study of the corridor."

In addition, there are many tunnels that cannot be easily expanded to multi-track, such as under the Hudson river, or under Baltimore.

how about this for airport security: stop blowing up brown people and start working with countries other than china, canada, and mexico to ensure we're better global citizens...

Yeah tell the swedish cartoonist or the Dutch cartoonist Kurt Westergaard who get death threats for drawing political cartoons how they need to be better global citizens.... You cannot appease terrorists.

How about profiling some of those "brown people" coming from countries on the watch list instead of insisting parents remove leg braces from their 4 year-old?

We know which countries the vast majority of the people coming after us are either from or traveling to for training, but we are so damn politically correct we let the real terrorists board planes.

We're already there. See War on Drug.

also, judge(s) too.

Unless the IT department personnel have copies of email threads which include them vehemently opposing this policy, I have little sympathy for them.

Actually, they have pretty much the exact opposite. It turns out a student intern researched the LanRev software capabilities and was quite concerned about the potential for abuse, and sent an E-mail expressing their concerns to IT management. And of course the "adults" brushed off this student's concerns, and guess what? The student pretty much predicted the entire mess the school system's involved in now ahead of time, they should have listened to them.

it's kinda hard to say a kid might have done drugs and then later state you couldn't have possibly looked at the photos. It's contradictory for the defense. I'm guessing that Lower Marion doesn't want to accept that they are totally screwed.

And don't forget that the school district initially claimed the software had been activated only 42 times total. Now we find out it was activated more than that just in the past year, and nearly 58,000 webcam and screenshots were captured by it. I think at this point it's a pretty safe bet to not believe anything the school district says in this case.

Also, the former IT director feels that the school system is trying to smear her and blame the whole mess on her, even though she was no longer working for the school district when they did the spying on the student who sued. Among other things she claims that she requested the district lawyers to meet with her and discuss potential legal issues around the whole laptop program and they never bothered to do so. She didn't actually talk to the lawyers that drafted this report because the school system refused to pay for legal representation for her.

I saw this story earlier today and now I'm more convinced than ever the whole thing is BS. Look carefully at the photograph (provided by the parents, I might add.) Who goes to sleep with their laptop turned on and the camera pointed right at their face, so that it's perfectly centered in the frame and just well lit enough to show it clearly? If you've ever seen real photographs taken by peeping toms with hidden cameras, they're always grainy and show subjects in unflattering lighting conditions. This picture is just to perfect to be real.

Of course it is not one of the school-taken photos! Either side in the case would be crucified for making any of those public. The parents provided the (obviously staged) photo, presumably in response to a request from the paper for a photo of the boy sleeping.

Generally speaking, when there's a lawsuit going on and one side says nothing to the press, citing that it would be imprudent to do so during proceedings, and the other site leaks all kinds of juicy stuff to the press, I tend to believe the party that shows discretion.

The school's lawyer Amy Feldman is apparently using her radio show to promote the school's point of view. Not very discrete.

Back when this story first broke, I was not at all convinced that school officials were spying on kids. One student had been suspended for alleged inappropriate activity captured by the camera and everyone immediately assumed it was the result of this surveillance system. The only statement the school made on the issue was that the photo had been taken by the student and left on the hard drive of the laptop when he returned it. To me, that seemed a lot more plausible, if less juicy. (After all, who wasn't excited by the thought of photos of horny high school kids in their bedrooms, and equally excited by the thought of school officials getting raked over the coals.)

I saw this story earlier today and now I'm more convinced than ever the whole thing is BS. Look carefully at the photograph (provided by the parents, I might add.) Who goes to sleep with their laptop turned on and the camera pointed right at their face, so that it's perfectly centered in the frame and just well lit enough to show it clearly? If you've ever seen real photographs taken by peeping toms with hidden cameras, they're always grainy and show subjects in unflattering lighting conditions. This picture is just to perfect to be real.

Generally speaking, when there's a lawsuit going on and one side says nothing to the press, citing that it would be imprudent to do so during proceedings, and the other site leaks all kinds of juicy stuff to the press, I tend to believe the party that shows discretion.

As for the Fifth Amendment issue, as others have noted, it's standard practice when you're suspected of a crime to always invoke the 5th and say nothing before the trial. That's perfectly normal and doesn't mean anything at all.