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RBC Bank isn't connected to the Royal Bank of Canada anymore. They bailed on the US market and sold it off to PNC Financial a few years ago.

1) Is this a matter of taking a technology that was developed for personal entertainment and trying to make it conform to "serious education".

http://www.officehell.co.uk/uploads/items/images/The-best-memory-of-school-796.jpg
nuff said

2) If kids can't write/express succinctly on paper or read a book, what makes you think that some shiny $500 tablet will?

moot point:
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/business/s_695637.html

3) Total cost of the device, not just initial.. you look at your average tablet plus e-books, plus apps and you have a very expensive alternative to plain ole notebooks, pencils, and textbooks

see if you can get a bulk discount for these:
http://www.zdnet.com/photos/10-best-tablets-for-kids/6330739?seq=3&tag=photo-frame;get-photo-roto

4) Management.. Schools quickly learn that just giving these things away to students quickly amounts to a management nightmare they didn't foresee.. Everything from warranty repair, broken glass, application deployment/updates and acceptable content are only possible with a well thought out plan, and school-wide participation at all levels..

you already deal with this:
http://cpr.ca.gov/cpr_report/Issues_and_Recommendations/Chapter_3_Education_Training_and_Volunteerism/ETV14.html

"Depending on the subject, a single elementary textbook can range in price from $30 to $100. Legislation should be enacted to reduce the cost of K-12 school textbooks." $30-$100 for a single textbook? the tablets i referenced costs about as much, and you could conceivably get one that puts all your textbooks on it.

"Many college books are going digital. One major educational company plans to release 300 online titles this fall at half the price of regular textbooks, and dozens of other online textbooks and supplemental materials are already available. Digital textbooks can cut costs and streamline note taking. They also allow professors to link classroom notes to online materials for more discussion and easily update items as needed. Digital textbooks can be updated frequently, for example, history books can include information on what happened in the Legislature two weeks ago. There is no longer any need for textbooks to be out of date. Digital textbooks can save school systems money. Textbooks are easily damaged, lost and quickly outdated. Digital textbooks can always stay up-to-date, and are inexpensive to replace." -- see the Digital Books subhead on that page

It's not against the law to flip off a cop:

U.S. District Judge David S. Cercone ruled David Hackbart exercised his constitution right to free speech in 2006 when he angrily displayed his middle finger to another driver during a parking dispute in Squirrel Hill and when he displayed the same gesture to Officer Brian Elledge, who told Hackbart to stop.

“The United States Supreme Court has long recognized that non-verbal gestures and symbols may be entitled to First Amendment protection,” Cercone wrote in his 19-page opinion and order filed Monday. “Moreover, several courts, including federal and state courts in Pennsylvania, have found that the expressive use of the middle finger is protected speech under the First Amendment.”

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/breaking/s_617562.html

That is indeed a problem; another source is leakage from temporary storage pits from the fluid, which appears to have been the contamination source in a recent Pennsylvania incident.

The best case for fracking would be that the process itself is safe, but the waste fluid is currently being disposed of unsafely, in which case a solution could be to mandate safer disposal methods. The safety of the process itself is still pretty inconclusive, though.

'Reductions in carbon emissions will be more important as China installs scrubbers [on its coal-fired power stations], which reduce sulphur emissions,'

So basically never?

Scrubbers have been required in America since the 1977 revisions to the Clean Air Act. And they're still not used in China. My understanding of the situation (although, full disclaimer I do not speak Chinese nor have I ever been to China) is that the companies simply don't follow regulation. The latest news is that they just move to non-urban areas to avoid such regulation:

Carlson Chan is in charge of air quality policy at Hong Kong’s Environmental Protection Department. He says companies found ways around the stricter limits.

"When we tightened the sulfur content of industrial diesel from 0.5 percent to 0.005 percent in 1998, the resistance then was not very big, mainly because many manufacturers have moved their factories across the border," he said.

Just across Hong Kong's border is Guangdong province, the center of China’s export industry. As the factories there multiplied, the air pollution returned to Hong Kong.

I found it impossibly hard to believe that it's cheaper to move your entire operation than install scrubbers -- failing that, surely a bribe is cheaper. So I dug around and as recent as 2006 the cost seems to be very high (anyone know today's rates?):

The average cost for scrubbers today (2006) is roughly $300 per kilowatt. For a 1,000-megawatt power plant, a relatively common size for coal-fired facilities, the cost for scrubbers for all boilers would be approximately $300 million.

I guess that would be a death knell for a Chinese company (and, let's face it, much of Asia is guilty of over polluting). If China introduces "regulation" that would stunt their free market, the free market simply circumvents it one way or another. It's the story time and time again in China and I think that a large part of their government is complacent with it because their economy is comparatively gangbusters.

And when a country trades with China, they're just exporting their pollution. I mean, we're all on the same planet ... it's going to cost everyone eventually. But oooh, that free market fueled cheap shit at Wal-Mart is just so tantalizing! How can you not buy it? Everybody wins (except the environment)!

Considering that it was an under-the-radar campaign by the Pew Charitable Trusts that got the horrid legislation through in the first place, I'd say that turnabout is fair play. Especially when "corporations" are the primary means of organization in the US for anything - churches, volunteer organizations, the local animal shelter, EVERYTHING.

As I recall the bee deaths have been linked to the EPA approving fertilizers/pesticides known to cause bee deaths despite regulations stopping them from doing so. Nothing to do with cellphones.

To paraphrase your post "People in the UK look at stuff that goes on in the US... teens being charged as sex offenders for taking pictures of themselves, or strip searched at school for carrying a headache pill...".

The prosecution backed down on that first one; they didn't get off scot-free (as they should have) but they were not convicted of any sex offense.
Cite

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the strip search was wrong

Cite

In the UK, not only was the Robin Hood tweeter convicted, but his conviction was upheld on appeal. So I'm afraid that while the US is indeed fucked up, the UK is more fucked up.

Well, some people prefer that their food be raised as humanely as possible. I realize some people couldn't care less, but some people actually do give two shits about things besides themselves.

p.s. I eat meat and am not a member of PETA

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2012772042_costco01.html

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/business/s_697505.html

it was attempted in the 60's. Pittsburgh does now have separate busways, but not elevated.

There is some evidence that moderate exercise can boost your immune system.

http://sportsmedicine.about.com/cs/injuryprevention/a/aa011502a.html
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_115503.html

Here's a short article about federal prison time for selling counterfeit purses and the like.

Seth

... pure textual depictions of fictional children having sex?" (which AFAIK is not considered child pornography in most jurisdictions)

I don't know about 'most', but unfortunately a fictional text description of sex involving children has been successfully prosecuted, by Marybeth ('a bong, a Chong, conservative whackjob!') Buchanan, who successfully prosecuted a Pennsylvania woman for writing fiction that depicted sexual abuse of minors (which, it turns out, was a form of self therapy, because the woman had actually been abused as a child).

waste into the soil as Babcock and Wilcox did ?

  .

Yours In Novosibirsk,
K. Trout

America is, and pretty much always has been, a fascist nation. I think the recent bailouts of the banking giants and car manufacturers should prove that it is fascist now; Andrew Jackson himself was fighting fascism when it came to central banking back in the 1830's. War and weapons define the American economy. Boeing and Raytheon and Xi could be considered the ultimate achievement of which a fascist society is capable.

Then why is ovrer 2/3rds of the American economy based on CONSUMER spending[1] instead of WAR or WEAPONS? And of that, most of it is spent by women.[2] (See the numerous articles on ecomomics and how they are all worrying about women not spending more but vowing to spend the same and live more frugal lives for the evidence.)

Not to mention that the USA spends only about 4% GDP on Defense[3] at the national level last I was aware.

Hmm...not much of a leg to stand on for your claims, now is there?

[1]2009-10-11 USA Today Article
[2]dated article on consumer spending (2003), but matches what I've recently read in the last month per the point and a more recent article on women being frugal. and yet another article on frugal consumerism in the USA
[3]Wikipedia USA Military budget - with reference links

Easy. Just pander to the people who a) don't drink, or b) pretend that they don't. "Sin taxes" are becoming increasingly popular among the holier-than-thou voting crowd who look at it as a way to get everyone else to pay a tax increase while they get off free because "it's bad for you! You deserve it!"

Our Mayor has already recently implemented a drink tax.

The problem is that our mayor has no respect for college students. During the G20 there was a HUGE backlack because on multiple occasions the police ordered people to disperse, then gave them no means. One youtube video I saw showed a well known pedestrian brige. This bridge crosses a major road and leads to the largest of Pitt dorms.

A large number of students were trapped on the brige - riot cops on both end refused to let anyone pass. They were then tear gassed (and some arrested) for "failure to disperse".

Any other mayoy wou ld have been down on his knees begging for forgiveness that close to re-election. Our mayor's response, directed at the ACLU state legal chief : "I heard we're going to face a free-speech lawsuit. Well, I have some free speech for you -- fuck you, Vic Walczak!"

Actually, they did that too.... http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/cityregion/s_516110.html

And you must have rocks in your head if you think that NewsBusters is a credible source. For christ's sake, their slogan is "Exposing Liberal Media Bias".

NewsBusters (a fox news favourite) is owned by Media Research Centre, a far-right group whose president Brent Bozell who, among other things, in 2004 accused John Kerry of lying in his testimony to the US Senate foreign relations committee in 1971 because he had depicted US soldiers in a bad light.

Media Research Centre has several far-right financial supporters, among them:
The Scaife Foundations - Director Richard Mellon Scaife whose fortune was built on the family's ownership of Gulf Oil Corp., Alcoa and Alcan.
John M. Olin Foundation - also funds Brookings, Project for the New American Century etc.
Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation - another far right group which gives away about $30 million a year to neocon organisations.

PS. And there is a consensus. Here's yet another survey. Is 96.2% of climate science specialists good enough for you?

FTFA:

notice one city not mentioned as ripe for bulldozing: pittsburgh. yet pittsburgh is pretty much a poster child of a rust belt city. why? good planning for investing in future job sectors:

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/business/s_612352.html

Actually, RTFA again, Pittsburgh is mentioned, which is a shame. I used to live in Pittsburgh and have fond memories of it.

Most are former industrial cities in the "rust belt" of America's Mid-West and North East. They include Detroit, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Baltimore and Memphis.

FTFA:

"Much of the land will be given back to nature. People will enjoy living near a forest or meadow," he said.

take older rust belt cities and remove the suburban sprawl surrounding them and prune them down to their urban core, and then you have a city layout from the days before the rise of the automobile

as gas prices continue to rise, urban development plans will favor this model of development: tightly clustered cities with good public transportation, surrounded by parkland. a much more humane and livable environment. places like phoenix and las vegas and houston, nothing more than giant sprawling suburbs really, will become inhospitable to affordable living while rust belt cities will develop a new cachet as nice places to live: condos and coops in refurbished historical buildings surrounded by healthy woodlands, with easy public transport or foot traffic to anywhere you want to and need to go

of course this cachet of "nice place to live" also has to imply some sort of job growth too, but as these rust belt cities shrink, they have ample opportunity to invest in emerging job sectors to bolster that sort of growth

then the choice between sitting in your car in a traffic jam on the freeway at $4/ gallon gasoline in 105 degree phoenix won't look as nice as walking the charming old refurbished downtowns of historic cities. these old cities have good bones, they just need to be pruned and invested a little in, and natural growth will take hold again

notice one city not mentioned as ripe for bulldozing: pittsburgh. yet pittsburgh is pretty much a poster child of a rust belt city. why? good planning for investing in future job sectors:

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/business/s_612352.html

now compare pittsburgh's sober but cheerful outlook to the armageddeon-level job losses at work in the newer suburban sprawl cities that relied too much on overheated sectors like construction

detroit and flint and any other city heavily dependent on automobile manufacturing, alas, has a different story than pittsburgh. but this part of the larger picture at play here: the death of the automobile, the death of suburban sprawl, the return to small compact cities with a livable core surrounded by healthy woodland and with good public transportation

i for one welcome the death of the age of the automobile and the idiotic environmental damage of gas guzzling automobiles and space wasting burbs, and the inhumane anonymity of living in the isolating mcmansions and sitting in traffic jams, in areas of the country no one can survive in without artificial air conditioning

death to california

long live ohio

mark my words: the 1950s trend of everyone moving west will be replaced in 2025 by stories of everyone out west moving to the midwest belt

for the same reason: better quality of life

mark my words

if something like marijuana would legalized, the taxes collected on that would be staggeringly huge

This is 100% correct.
I was reading TFA and laughing the whole way.
"The Americans who voted in 1933 to repeal prohibition differed greatly in their reasons for overturning the system. But almost all agreed that the evils of failed suppression far outweighed the evils of alcohol consumption."

Compare to this article (and many like it):
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/search/s_518872.html

What happened in 1930 that suddenly gave the repeal movement political muscle? The answer is the Great Depression and the ravages that it inflicted on federal income-tax revenues.
...
And a House leader of Congress' successful attempt to propose the Prohibition-ending 21st Amendment said in 1934 that "if (anti-prohibitionists) had not had the opportunity of using that argument, that repeal meant needed revenue for our government, we would not have had repeal for at least 10 years."

There's no doubt that widespread understanding of Prohibition's futility and of its ugly, unintended side-effects made it easier for Congress to repeal the 18th Amendment. But these public sentiments were insufficient, by themselves, to end the war on alcohol.

Ending it required a gargantuan revenue shock -- to the U.S. Treasury.

I wonder which will be easier to sell to the American people:
Legalizing & taxing hemp
Legalizing & taxing marijuana
Cutting social spending - health care, social security, etc etc etc
Cutting military spending (lol)

That's in the order I think is most to least likely to happen.
Why cut when you can (tax &) spend?

Certainly worth modding up IMHO. She won despite her age, not because she took drugs or anything. I think she deserves her medal. The only scandal here are the documents, not her competing.

I think you're confused.
More like she won because of her age.

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/sports/olympics/s_583045.html

Some coaches believe younger gymnasts have an advantage over older ones, because they have greater flexibility and a higher strength-to-weight ratio.

Elaine Jewart, owner of Jewart's Gymnastics in the North Hills, said the bodily changes that come with the onset of puberty affect a gymnast's center of gravity and strength-to-weight ratio, putting strain on the body.

Younger gymnasts' bodies are less susceptible to overuse injuries because they haven't been training as long as older gymnasts, according to Penn State women's gymnastics coach Steve Shephard.

In addition to the physiological advantages, younger gymnasts have a psychological edge.

"An athlete at that age has not had as many serious injuries as older ones," said Jason Butts, an assistant women's gymnastics coach at West Virginia University. "They're not as subject to fear from injuries or the knowledge of what they're actually doing."

And there's a ton of articles saying the exact same thing.

In that case, I also suggest staying out of rural areas, and, perhaps, anywhere not including your mother's basement.

Pitt's crime rate is lower than many schools in Bumfuck, PA.

Obama on CCW:

None of that, and I imagine other examples are available, sound like he wants to "let local governments enact". That sounds like federal action to me. And comparing RP's view on abortion to Obama's view on the various "gun" issues doesn't work. No matter how one stands on abortion, there is no "abortion" amendment. One can make an argument that that particular issue is best solved at the local level. On the other hand, there is a right to bear arms amendment. Local governments don't get to stomp on that anymore than the federal one. So even if he was "only" in favor of local governments taking such actions, that still doesn't make it right. And as far as needing an amendment to nationally prohibit CCW or a new AWB, why? All it would take is a congress willing to go along with it and a Supreme Court willing to as well. No amendment was needed to pass the first AWB.

You are correct though, there are no strict Constitutionalists left. Much to all our loss. However, just because there aren't any in the current field, doesn't given those who are in the field a free pass. And that includes GWB's violations of the 4th amendment and McCain's possible future violations. No one gets a free pass.

-"Police spokeswoman Tammy Ewin initially said no pepper spray was used on protesters, but Sgt. Clint Winkler, a supervisor on duty, told The Associated Press he tried to use pepper spray on one woman who would not leave, but it hit her glasses. She was then subdued with a Taser, Winkler said."

- "Winkler said campus police tried to quell the march, and at one point protesters grabbed the camera of a freelance media photographer and broke it. City police tried to help and said some protesters fought the effort to break up the march.

- "That's when they were told, due to the violence, that this was no longer a lawful protest," Winkler said. "They were told to disperse, peacefully disperse, and failed to do so we started down the sidewalk _ officers in front, K-9's behind us, and started pushing the crowd down the sidewalk.""

- ""The response was way over the top," Meieran said. "Why in the (expletive) were they using Tasers on these nonviolent protesters in the first place? I heard no dispersal order. What they're saying is total (expletive).""

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0821-01.htm

- "I was taken to the ground by a police officer during that time
      I was pepper sprayed the officer picked up my glasses sprayed my face
      with the pepper spray. Once I got to the ground I was then tasered in
      the thigh for what felt like an eternity. It was the most excruciating
      pain I have ever felt. I felt like I was burning. My hand reached
      down to feel what was on my leg and I felt an electrical shock running
      through my entire body. I could not stop myself from screaming. It was
      horrifying. I could not believe that after I had already been sprayed
      and on the ground they would then proceed to taser me."

http://pittsburgh.indymedia.org/news/2005/08/20117.php

"McNeilly said the officers' use of pepper spray and Tasers
at the protest was justified because protestors had turned
from peaceful conduct to active resistance that became an assault on officers.

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_374322.html

Hmmm, I'm not saying I support the use of a TASER in this case, but it's not exactly a clear cut case of police brutality. A peaceful protest turned violent and she was at the front of the line, wrong place and wrong time?

Hmm, a little more digging gets this:
"And a breakdown of events (from a local man posting on Digg, corroborated by the news):

1. A man, Edris Robinson, strikes a cameraman covering the event (later charged with assault)
2. The cameraman runs to get police
3. Robinson runs to the crowd
4. Police find Robinson, try to apprehend him
5. His girlfriend, Deanna Caliguiri, tries to pull him away (later plead guilty to disorderly conduct and resisting arrest)
6. The cops use pepper spray on Deanna, she continues to resist
7. The cops warn Deanna a few times that they will taser her
8. The cops taser her"

That site also states some of the action happens offscreen on the youtube video
http://ronpaul.meetup.com/342/boards/view/viewthread?thread=3559981

Make your own conclusions I suppose

Oh wait, another oped piece here with a longer youtube video tha pushes "tasers are bad":
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/19/14057/0584
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVdH1G0KQt4 (again whatever happens that makes the cops taser the girl happens offscreen, but the video goes for 10 minutes)

Chances are if your wages are really increasing by that percentage, your spending or consumption is up (did you buy that iPhone..?). Inflation has recently been around 2.5-3%, realistically around 2%...so if you're exceeding that in salary increases, it's probably not due to inflation.

Look how long it took for Prohibition in the US to be tossed out the window.

I'll admit, I did not actually read the article and have no idea about the case but...
For all we know, maybe this was the exact method used and some innocent 15 year old is being charged for it.

Not quite computer related but in a suburb of Pittsburgh, someone called in a bomb threat and the investigators and school officials used caller ID and phone records to track it back to someone. Problem was the schools phone system had issues with daylight savings time and they tracked the caller from an hour prior. The kid was in custody for 12 days before anyone realized the mistake.

More about it here and here.

If something that simple can throw of investogators, imagine trying to a defense of an open access point, chained proxy servers, botnets, existing spyware, or mac cloning to a judge as the reason you are really innocent.

A picture (since the .pdf link seems to be down at the moment):

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/photos/2006-04-05/04 06plizard-a.jpg

And another link:

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_4 40639.html

A picture (since the .pdf link seems to be down at the moment):

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/photos/2006-04-05/04 06plizard-a.jpg

And another link:

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_4 40639.html

US health care system is similar to their economical system - it is easy to find dramatic and glaring cases of failure but overall it provides better care than for example EU or UK.

For a "broken system" these are pretty darn good statistics.
To summarize them, if you suffer from a serious illness , you are better off in USA than practically anywhere in the world, REGARDLESS of your income.

I am not going to comment on sicko because it brings nothing new to the table - it is simply a clever compilation of cherry picked examples of failures in US vs idealized "theoretical" status quo in EU.

As someone who emigrated from EU to USA I will tell you that in my case, the reality looks much more different than presented in Sicko.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/ne ws/2007/05/10/ncancer10.xml

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_3 07614.html

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/abstrac t/106592618/ABSTRACT

http://www.startoncology.net/capitoli/interno_capi toli/default.jsp?menu=professional&ID=67&language= eng

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4155/is_20 030914/ai_n12516915

http://cmbi.bjmu.edu.cn/news/0503/151.htm

http://gut.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstract/54/2/268?c k=nck

"It was a weapon that we believe was stocked from the ex-regime time and it had been thought to be an ordinary artillery shell set up to explode like an ordinary IED and basically from the detection of that and when it exploded, it indicated that it actually had some sarin in it," Kimmitt said.

Tests conducted by the Iraqi Survey Group (search) -- a U.S. organization searching for weapons of mass destruction -- and others concluded the mustard gas was "stored improperly," which made the gas "ineffective."

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribunereview/news /westmoreland/s_501066.html

The parents said they didn't believe he did it. They can recognize their son's voice from the call, and it wasn't his.

Technically, he could have been out a lot quicker had his parents hired a lawyer and bailed him out, but the parents probably believe the police and thought he did it too. They might have even told the cops to keep him in there to teach him a lesson! who knows. Point being, yes he was in jail but not because he was guilty until proven innocent.

Technically, his parents did hire a lawyer:
"The teen said he did call the school's delay hot line early Sunday, March 11. But that was an hour before the bomb threat was phoned in, said the family's attorney, Tim Andrews. After Webb's parents obtained his cell phone records, Andrews found the call times did not match."

"Webb's parents, Linda and Budd Webb, arrived at the school and listened to the recorded bomb threat. Linda Webb told administrators it wasn't her son."

"He was released to his parents' custody that day after Westmoreland County Common Pleas Judge John Driscoll continued the hearing when the state police failed to appear."

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribunereview/news /westmoreland/s_501066.html

Technically, he could have been out a lot quicker had his parents hired a lawyer and bailed him out, but the parents probably believe the police and thought he did it too.

Not according to this article. They did have a lawyer, who managed to get him released to their custody before charges were dropped. It's not clear why it took 12 days to do it, but they didn't believe the principal over their son.

Webb's parents, Linda and Budd Webb, arrived at the school and listened to the recorded bomb threat. Linda Webb told administrators it wasn't her son.

"They kept saying that it was his voice. They didn't even know him," she said.

After a state trooper arrived, Charlton told the teen he was being arrested, and the trooper read Webb his Miranda rights.

"I was in shock," Webb said.

The family's lawyer is quoted a number of times in the article as well.

[Cody] Webb, an honors student involved in student council, tennis and the Japanese Club...

"I wasn't going to admit to something I didn't do," he said. "Me and God know I didn't do it."

"All the time stamps were screwed up. Some did (change over), some didn't," Charlton said. "Everyone's system had to be set manually. There were a lot of clocks involved."

The district placed the blame by matching Webb's call, recorded on his phone at 3:12 a.m. daylight-saving time, to the threat recorded by the school as having been received at 3:17 a.m. Eastern Standard Time -- but that was 4:17 daylight-saving time, or an hour after Webb's call, Andrews said.

What makes you think they didn't? If you look the case up almost anywhere other than the crappy source linked in the summary, you'll find that they did indeed have an attorney. It still took twelve days to get the charges (of threatening to use weapons of mass destruction, no less) dropped, and then the state authorities tried to have him held for a psychiatric evaluation because he had refused to admit to the charges.

Personally, my bias is not to believe the kid at all. My bigger question is where the hell were the kids parents. I mean really! If my kid was locked-up for anything, I would want to see the evidence!! Obviously they didn't give a crap.

Jeez, what a troll. If you actually care at all about this case then look it up somewhere that has a tad more credibility and journalistic competence than the kind of sub-blog news source given in the summary:

Webb's parents, Linda and Budd Webb, arrived at the school and listened to the recorded bomb threat. Linda Webb told administrators it wasn't her son.

"They kept saying that it was his voice. They didn't even know him," she said.

After a state trooper arrived, Charlton told the teen he was being arrested, and the trooper read Webb his Miranda rights.

[12 days later...]

"I got a call from our attorney that said he had paperwork signed by Judge Driscoll dropping the felony and misdemeanor charges against my son," [the father] said.

County juvenile detention officials wanted to keep Webb in custody, [the family's attorney] Andrews said. "They wanted him to have a mental health evaluation because he wouldn't admit to making the call."

That's truly appalling. Maybe we should lock him up for 12 days and see how he feels about not having his rights stepped on?

A more reputable source (namely the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review) confirms this: "charged with a felony count of threatening to use weapons of mass destruction and misdemeanor counts of making false alarms."

It was Hempfield Area High School, not "Hempstead". Also, a link to a story that actually works: story time

There is a more detailed account of the story here.

http://www.mcsm.org/kennesaw.html/
Kennesaw, Georgia I think is the oldest continuous one. I'm searching for the one I just read about passing a week or three back...

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/16/opinion/16reynol ds.html?ex=1326603600&en=3b3fcfadc7e7f096&ei=5088& partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
Greenleaf, Idaho (may require registration or BugMeNot)

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_4 80913.html
proposed in Cherry Tree, PA

Heck, if you think that's bad, wait for this one - they were actually arguing about just switching to DST permanently, but the cows were against it. (Search for "cow") Heck, there's a lot of "cow" arguments against DST.

That can be applied to sightings of many other things.

The problem is, how does one determine which patterns indicate something and which patterns are just convincing illusions?

And I'm providing a point that I have direct experience with this, I've not gotten any impression that you do. That you don't have anybody in your immediate family who is of working age and is unable to work because of a physical ailment, my wife has those.

If you are talking about intensive treatment, than I suggest you look around and tell me how much "intesive" treatment you get in other countries? You don't get intensive treatment, you get emergency treatment and a line for ailments. There is nothing really intesive about most social medical programs.

Here are the plain-jane facts: http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_3 07614.html
46% chance of dieing of breast cancer in UK, 25% in US
57% change of dieing from prostate cancer 19% in US
1/3 of heart attack patients get beta-blockers in UK, 3/4 of patients in US
UK has half the number of MRI & CT scanners per million people as the US does
36% of non-emergency UK surgeries wait for >4 months, only 5% of the US do
40% of UK cancer patients don't get to see a specialist

Having a loved one who has >8 doctor visits per month for the past 6 years, I'm well aware of the luxury we have in the US, and I have intimate knowledge of what "intensive treatment" means, and waiting >4 months for non-emergency surgery is not what "intensive treatment" means. Interestingly enough I know a person who does have MS, doesn't work, get's a government stipend and government healthcare. She gets her medicine free from the pharmacuticals, which basically every single one offers based upon income and her treatments are completely free. If you have no income, you can be very well covered, unfortunately few people seem to understand that, the people who are in the bind in the US are the people who are middle-class who get into trouble and don't have a fall-back plan. The ones who aren't poor and the ones who aren't rich, the ones that fall outside of the low income requirements and can't cover it themselves and don't have a job that covers it and run into a major medical condition.

Having being with someone so young and unable to work for so many years and constantly in doctors office I have a reasonable understanding of the situation as I too want to save all the cash possible on my medical bills and I have investigaged these different options personally. And FYI, the new medicare perscription plan should keep granny from having to goto canada for her drugs anymore (we aren't under medicare so I can't say for complete certainty, but if granny is on medicare d she should get most everything for like $10, once she figures out the plan that works for her).

If you have a family of 4x and you make less than $40,000 pfizer will send you stuff for free (even viagara), you do have to resubmit your income level every year (boo, hoo that's a terrible price to pay to get viagara) https://www.pfizerhelpfulanswers.com/assets/connec tcareApp_English.pdf

I'm not going to say everything is perfect, but it is working much better than you think it is.