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(Note: YMMV. Certain conservative State legislatures are trying to make it illegal to record police, so as to allow the police to cover up any of their criminal acts; however I am confidant that these laws are destined to eventually be fully overturned by the courts.)

Oh, you mean those notoriously conservative state legislatures in Illinois, Maryland and Massachusetts? Only two of the twelve states that require two-party consent for recording are "conservative" and those that specifically make it illegal to record cops are all deeply blue. Sorry to break it to you, but conservatives are not particularly trusting of government, it's your wonderful liberal legislatures that try to empower cops to keep people in line.

The threats continued after the server seizure. So one might expect the FBI to return the server with a courteous "Sorry, my bad" apology, maybe.

One might think so, but it seems like U.S. law enforcement agencies have trouble with this courtesy, even when they cause significant emotional trauma and property damage or ruin a professional reputation. Such a simple step would probably save large sums of money in litigation; a lawyer once told me that in his experience, most litigation is the result of bad manners.

Having a debate on "Stand your ground" isn't really going to work if you don't understand the issues.

More on the Irrelevance of 'Stand Your Ground' to the Trayvon Martin Case

The 911 dispatcher told him the back off and let the real professionals handle it.

That is an established fact.

I think you have just established you aren't competent using many of the words in your statements. Lets review what was said,

Dispatcher: Which entrance is that he's heading towards?
Zimmerman: The back entrance.
Dispatches: Are you following him?
Zimmerman: Yea
Dispatcher: We don't need you to do that.
Zimmerman: OK

So, is that a command to "back off" and "let the real professionals handle it" by the civilian dispatcher who has no authority? No
So, is it an "established fact"? No

These "stand your ground" laws work both ways.

Snark masquerading as "established fact." Something that is more interesting:
More on the Irrelevance of 'Stand Your Ground' to the Trayvon Martin Case

Zimmerman saw Trayvon as a perp and Trayvon probably saw Zimmerman as a sexual predator.

Interesting take. If that is so, why didn't Marin call the police for help? Maybe some hints in the bottom half of this?

Trayvon Martin case heading towards the political abyss

Unlike killing another human being, U.S. law seems not to provide for an affirmative defense in crimes against the state. I could be wrong, but I can't think of any at the moment, anyway.

Jury Nullification is still legal, although you can be thrown in jail for saying so. http://reason.com/blog/2011/02/25/is-advocacy-of-jury-nullificat

Jury Nullification is not an affirmative defense. To raise a affirmative defense means to say something like, "Even if I did perform the acts of which I am accused and understood what I was doing, I am not guilty because of X". For example, self defense is an affirmative defense against a charge of murder because the accused says: "I may have killed him, but he was trying to kill or gravely injure me."

Such defenses are called affirmative because the accused affirms (asserts) that his actions where justified. They are called affirmative in order to distinguish them from the other broad category of defenses: negating defenses. A negating defense is an assertion that one or more of the essential elements of the crime is absent. For example a negating defense to charge of treason might be: "I did not know that the envelope which I was asked to deliver contained state secrets and that the recipient was an enemy agent."

Jury Nullification may be 'the citizens last defense against the oppressor', but it is not a defense in the sense which the AC meant.

Unlike killing another human being, U.S. law seems not to provide for an affirmative defense in crimes against the state. I could be wrong, but I can't think of any at the moment, anyway.

Jury Nullification is still legal, although you can be thrown in jail for saying so. http://reason.com/blog/2011/02/25/is-advocacy-of-jury-nullificat

and does a nice bit of back reasearch Reason http://reason.com/archives/2012/04/03/can-most-cancer-research-be-trusted

Bearing in mind that airplanes really, truly, absolutely, in fact, are popular targets for terrorists, and a successful attack paralyses mass air transit, which already needs to be propped up financially in most cases.

If the TSA had any security-related purpose or effect, you might have some basis for argument here. Although I read it twice and I still don't see "unless we're scared" anywhere in the 4th amendment. And by "popular target" you mean "once every few years", right? As in "less dangerous than driving to the airport"? And surely you're not arguing that our fundamental freedoms are somewhat less important that the financial success of the airlines?

In fact, I can't seem to find a single rational or coherent point anywhere in what you just said.

In fact, you're more likely to be struck by lightning than to be the victim of a terrorist attack. And god forbid you should take a shower! You are several times more likely to die in a bathroom accident than you are to be the victim of a terrorist attack. And don't even get me started on automobile transportation....geez!

Oh and for you Missourians out there, check out This and This

I already did.

Listening to PBS is about as worthless as listening to FOX or CNN or Microsoft NBC (controlled by the defense corporations). The plain truth is that even if Glass-Steagall were still in effect, it would not have prevented the housing bust in 2008. We'd still be in the same situation..... maybe a little better but not by much, because when you have a major market like housing collapse, there will be wide-ranging damage.

Oh and here's a link I just found that shows how Bush REGULATED, not deregulated (as I said in my original post): http://reason.com/archives/2008/12/10/bushs-regulatory-kiss-off

BTW if Glass-Steagall were still in effect, would it have prevented the housing bust in 2008? No. We'd still be in the same situation..... maybe a little better but not by much, because when you have a major market like housing collapse, there will be wide-ranging damage.

Oh and here's a link I just found that shows how Bush REGULATED, not deregulated:

http://reason.com/archives/2008/12/10/bushs-regulatory-kiss-off

The media isn't asking "pointed questions", they're asking for black and white answers when most peoples' views are gray.

Take for example Medicare cuts. Everyone claims they want to cut spending, but nobody wants to cut the big stuff like Medicare, right? All the polls and the media say so. But if you actually have a little curiosity about your fellow citizens, and dig deeper rather than assume the populace are merely being hypocrites, you find that many of the same people who oppose cuts in the generic sense support them if you simply ensure that everyone gets out at least what they paid in. Given that Medicare pays out way more than people paid in, that's a big cut with majority support.

But you wouldn't know it listening to Big Media. They're too busy telling us that our fellow man is ignorant or hypocritical or both. Sells better I guess, but fortunately the truth isn't quite so grim.

We already spend too much on public schools.

The purpose of public schools it to keep the public ignorant.

Oh, they're not worried about their dash cams. They can always "lose" the footage if it's too damaging...

Athletic departments usually sustain themselves.

This is not true. Only the very largest and most popular athletic programs are profitable. Consider this from Reason magazine:

Most college athletic departments are a net drain on the budget. Three years ago, the NCAA issued a report that found most athletic departments operate in the red. A more recent analysis by Bloomberg found the same thing: 46 of the 53 schools it looked at subsidized their sports programs. The money usually comes from sources such as student activity fees, such as that charged at Virginia Commonwealth University. Earlier this year VCU jacked up its fee by $50 to help fund the Rams basketball program.

You're reasoning from a false premise, namely that gas taxes pay for non-transportation-related items. See Reason magazine's article on this exact issue, which states, among other things:

Myth 1: Highways and roads pay for themselves thanks to gasoline taxes and other charges to motorists.
Fact 1: They don’t. Gas taxes and other highway user fees pay less today than ever before.

So... why didn't you just link to:
http://reason.com/assets/db/12639308918768.pdf
?

I doubt /. would be turned off by it being from a libertarian website.

I counter that with the example of Jaime Escalante who took students who everyone thought wouldn't be able to succeed and brought them through anyways only to find himself opposed by the Janitors, teacher's Union and school administrators. The system is badly screwed up.

In case anyone thinks parent is exagerating, this is what happened to the mayor of a Baltimore town:

http://reason.com/blog/2008/08/08/berwyn-heights-drug-raid-the-p

obama has not been as friendly to the states' wishes as he could have been, but you better believe that under R control, it was an all out war. currently, the war is mostly on-hold wrt MMJ.

just keep that in mind when you go to vote.

Keep this in mind, too:

Yet the DEA’s raids continued. If anything, the pace picked up. Americans for Safe Access counts at least 41 raids on growers or dispensaries between Obama’s inauguration and the Ogden memo, almost five a month on average. As of late May, there had been at least 106 raids since the Ogden memo, nearly six a month. In fact, medical marijuana raids have been more frequent under Obama than under Bush, when there were about 200 over eight years.

http://reason.com/archives/2011/09/12/bummer/singlepage

And this:

But over the past year, the Obama administration has quietly unleashed a multiagency crackdown on medical cannabis that goes far beyond anything undertaken by George W. Bush. The feds are busting growers who operate in full compliance with state laws, vowing to seize the property of anyone who dares to even rent to legal pot dispensaries, and threatening to imprison state employees responsible for regulating medical marijuana. With more than 100 raids on pot dispensaries during his first three years, Obama is now on pace to exceed Bush's record for medical-marijuana busts. "There's no question that Obama's the worst president on medical marijuana," says Rob Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project. "He's gone from first to worst."

The federal crackdown imperils the medical care of the estimated 730,000 patients nationwide – many of them seriously ill or dying – who rely on state-sanctioned marijuana recommended by their doctors. In addition, drug experts warn, the White House's war on law-abiding providers of medical marijuana will only drum up business for real criminals. "The administration is going after legal dispensaries and state and local authorities in ways that are going to push this stuff back underground again," says Ethan Nadelmann, director of the Drug Policy Alliance. Gov. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, a former Republican senator who has urged the DEA to legalize medical marijuana, pulls no punches in describing the state of affairs produced by Obama's efforts to circumvent state law: "Utter chaos."

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/obamas-war-on-pot-20120216

And this:

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS/AP) – Federal prosecutors have launched a crackdown on pot dispensaries in California, warning the stores that they must shut down in 45 days or face criminal charges and confiscation of their property even if they are operating legally under the state’s 15-year-old medical marijuana law.

In an escalation of the ongoing conflict between the U.S. government and the nation’s burgeoning medical marijuana industry, California’s s four U.S. attorneys sent letters Wednesday and Thursday notifying at least 16 pot shops or their landlords that they are violating federal drug laws, even though medical marijuana is legal in California. The attorneys are scheduled to announce their coordinated crackdown at a Friday news conference. ...
The move comes a little more than two months after the Obama administration toughened its stand on medical marijuana following a two-year period during which federal officials had indicated they would not move aggressively against dispensaries in compliance with laws in the 16 states where pot is legal for people with doctors’ recommendations.

The Department of Justice issued a policy memo to federal prosecutors in late June stating that marijuana dispensaries and licensed growers in states with

Yeah, this guy wants to bring on the American Taliban... he thinks government and religion (his, of course) should be the same thing.

But he's not as stupid that suggests, and he's clearly a follower of Karl Rove's strategies, if not as capable at it. The major innovation that Rove brought to political warefare was this: find your weakest point, and attack that first in your opponent. Who cares if the attack it true or fictional, the simple fact that you attacked first makes the counterattack weak.

Look at the 2004 election... John Kerry was a decorated war hero, George Bush served in the National Guard, and even there got out of actually doing much serving thanks to his family's political connections. In the past, the Bush people would have done anything possible to avoid even discussing military service. Rove orchestrates the "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth", sells a bunch of complete lies about Kerry, and pretty much destroys that avenue of attack against Bush. Evil but frickin' brilliant... didn't help that Kerry didn't have a clue what to do about it.

And the Republican Party has been repeatedly anti-science. Sure, they'll claim as much the Democrats to want the business piece of science, but when they get right down to it, their policies have sent research elsewhere. Their energy policy directly lead to China so dominating solar, that more than half of the US solar companies have gone under in the last five years. Their wacko-religious policies on stem cell research all but halted it in the USA, while it's flourishing in Europe. Research when successful becomes business; neither of those are businesses easily won back. And that's not even getting into Creationism, Intelligent Design, or whatever new name they try next for the same basic goal: teaching the Christian creation myth to children as a credible scientific theory, rather than the fairy story it is. Only 22% of Republicans believe that global warming/climate change even exists, much less that it's man made... and they're sure to let you know, every time it snows... even when the increased snowfall actually is due to a warmer weather pattern.

The press is full of similar accounts:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/29/opinion/republicans-against-science.html
http://io9.com/5835970/will-the-anti+science-republicans-kill-conservatism-as-americans-know-it
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leonard-steinhorn/how-the-gop-became-the-an_b_970410.html
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/story/2011-09-20/gop-democrats-science-evolution-vaccine/50482856/1
http://www.waronscience.com/home.php

The Dems, of course, don't have a perfect track record, and on some issues, are closer to the Republicans, or even worse:
http://reason.com/archives/2011/12/27/whos-more-anti-science-republicans-or-de
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/story/2011-09-20/gop-democrats-science-evolution-vaccine/50482856/1

The Dems generally fail on nuclear energy (most of the scientific community is in favor of building new, modern reactors, particular interesting are Thorium reactors), irradiated foods, and even a growing faction is anti-vaccination. And animal research, though that's objection is based on moral, nor scientific grounds.

But don't forget, it was the Republicans who put through the "Noah's Ark" version of the formation of the Grand C

That's a fun fantasy, isn't it?

- Income taxes only exist in USA since 1913, so a fantasy it is not, when it's based on 200 years of fact.

If you have two neurons communicating with each other you would know that is an impossible thing to do, government would collapse if income tax went away completely. Your "liberties" would go away with it.

- you don't even have 1 neuron, never mind 2. USA became the most productive country in the world, creating most of the wealth before income taxes were created.

Oh you poor shmuck.

On February 20, libertarian activist and Iraq War veteran Adam Kokesh, and Nathan Cox, co-founder with Kokesh of Veterans for Ron Paul, hosted a rally and march for veterans and active duty service members who support the Texas Congressman for the 2012 Republican nomination. The "Ron Paul Is the Choice of the Troops" rally began at noon in the Sylvan Theater by the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C.. Troops marched on the White House in a 48 x 8 formation, totaling 384, and they were joined by roughly a hundred supporters and observers.

Relevant: http://reason.com/assets/db/12639308918768.pdf

Contracts allow for downsizing and layoffs due to budget cuts is entirely different. Even tenured professors can be laid off due to budget cuts. Getting fired from a job means you specifically violated your contract or simply aren't performing well, firing for which is something that is near impossible to get away with in many school districts (Case in point: Until recently, New York City's "rubber room", Reason's flow chart of the process or Google preview, see also, Washington, DC).

http://reason.com/archives/2011/03/25/the-truth-about-nuclear-power/singlepage

They must be catching plenty of terrorists, and just not telling anyone. After all, they catch three terrorist per day at some Canadian border crossings!

Here's a good article on the subject: http://reason.com/archives/2011/12/27/whos-more-anti-science-republicans-or-de

"in use by the civilian public... fourth amendment generally doesn't reach it"

Can you cite the case? I was curious about this - if a civilian uses technology the police aren't allowed to, can the civilian's report serve as probable cause? If that's the case, why don't police use more private contractors to break the law for them?

Regardless, even though the Supremes have declared it illegal for police to use IR cameras, they're doing it anyway: http://reason.com/blog/2008/12/06/gotcha

So what about drone detection systems? It would sure be nice if there was a way for civilians to track small drones with little to no radar footprint. I'd bet the acoustic or RF signature of the drone would be a good place to start.

Yeah, what a lazy asshole! I mean, it only takes 6-7 years to become an American citizen (in the best case scenario).

No True Scotsman

Really? Hilarious. Perhaps you should look up the fallacy and return with something remotely resembling logic instead of a blatant non sequitur.

Association fallacy [wikipedia.org] and appeal to ridicule [wikipedia.org] were the two I saw immediately given the short portion of the video I watched. Can you really be so ignorant of fallacies not to recognize appeals to ridicule in someone's comparison between God and Kim Jong Il?

His logic was a point of Reductio ad absurdum. Perhaps you might want to visit parallels between the including all the "miracles" and duality between father and son. All this without eyewitness.

It's ironic isn't it that we are witnessing an awful attempt at logic defining by someone who defended their initial statement with ad hominem.

Your pathetic attempt at equating this with Godwin's Law is nothing more than attempt at diversion and censorship as

http://reason.com/archives/2005/07/14/hands-off-hitler

Im not clear what you mean by plagarizing, either-- you seem to be implying that if Matthew tells of a scenario in John, it is plagarizing, and if it does not, then it is in conflict, and in no case can they be in agreement. Am I hearing that correctly?

No. Blatant out outright copying. And it's highly unlikely John would resemble much of the other 3 when dealing with the same events. Jesus was a super hero with powers rivaling Batman in John.

I've already given you a source, there are plenty of biblical scholars who do have integrity. If you don't like my source find one you like. Really to satisfy the integrity issue, all you have to do is find someone who follows where the evidence leads, not where their beliefs guide them. Given the audience, I'll define evidence as the term is used in the sciences and judicial system.

To try and make still as simple for you as possible, take any major event in the gospels. Say the anointing of the body after the crucifixion. What happened at that event? They can't all be right so which one is?

Update: A spokesperson for Oakland Mayor Jean Quan has emailed to deny that Quan "coordinated" Oakland's response to Occupy protesters with other mayors. "Mayor Quan never said that cities with occupy encampments were coordinating their removal efforts," Susan Piper wrote in an email. "The mayor has talked with other mayors to share experiences." In a subsequent email, I asked Piper if Quan received advice from either the DHS or the FBI on how to respond to protesters, as reported was by Rick Ellis of Examiner.com. Piper's response: "Not true."

Public school teachers are sacred cows that are actually well paid and have benefits that are bankrupting a number of states.

http://reason.com/blog/2011/03/03/to-surly-with-love-are-teacher ...and there's plenty more where that came from. As for testing, my heart bleeds for you that you don't want any way to objectively measure how successful you are at doing your job. Granted, it is up to parents and the kids themselves to learn. But governments have been pouring increasing amounts of cash per student into US schools with little to show for it. I've been listening to school teachers use up class time whining about their jobs since I was one of the top kids in my class in elementary school 30 years ago. Teaching is a job like any other where the workers want more pay and better benefits as well but don't expect to get 3 months vacation or tenure. The private sector is almost overwhelmingly is union-free, while public school teachers are represented by well-funded unions care more about clout than students and are deathly afraid of giving parents and their kids a choice of schools.

Instead looked at in an unbiased fashion, for example this post at Reason magazine, http://reason.com/archives/2006/08/11/dont-be-terrorized terrorism is a lower risk that we run going out to drive, or consuming ordinary products.

But any politician who scraps 'anti-terror' measures will be voted out if there's another major terrorist attack. This is why big government keeps getting bigger until it bankrupts the country and collapses.

The Department of Homeland Security is a mess, mind you, but that's as much implementation as anything else, it's designed to make it possible for Congress to monitor the security pork better, which had previously been scattered through the Federal Government, and therefore had no single cabinet secretary that could be brought in to testify and question, and no single budget bill to cut deals over. The problem is not the department, as much as it is that the United States has a pervasive fear in its population. For example, take a look at this gallup poll trend over the years on perceptions of crime: http://www.gallup.com/poll/150464/Americans-Believe-Crime-Worsening.aspx and then compare it to actual violent crime rates. Americans by a large margin believe that crime is getting worse, when, in fact, violent crime is going down. Note that the graph strongly corresponds to rhetoric on crime, and to personal economic, as opposed to physical, insecurity.

It does not matter what the department is called, as long as Americans vastly over-rate the chances of dying in criminal or terrorist attacks, particularly in crimes committed by strangers or foreigners, as opposed to the far more likely case of being killed by someone they know. Statistically speaking, suicide is more common that homicide, and among homicide categories, being killed by a current or former romantic partner outweighs all other categories. But that's not what DoHs monitors by and large. Instead looked at in an unbiased fashion, for example this post at Reason magazine, http://reason.com/archives/2006/08/11/dont-be-terrorized terrorism is a lower risk that we run going out to drive, or consuming ordinary products.

I am sorry I cannot find the quote and as I think I said (error on page cannot expand previous comment so going by memory) it might have been sixty minutes. Anyway, here's some food for thought. I hope you read them they are of interest. The surprising truth about heroin and addiction., Heroin is harmless, and if you only read one of these links please read the last, Chapter 5. Some eminent narcotics addicts

Reason recently ran an interesting article on Obama's shifting stance on marijuana. As with quite a few other issues, it seems like it went out the window as soon as he took office.

And Chrysler and GM. More recent analysis here.

They call themselves the 99%, but they're a bunch of fringe stragglers with no motivation, no agenda, no goal, no organization, no nothing. They're nothing but a joke, the clearest and most representative expression of leftist thought in America.

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1372233

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post_now/post/air-and-space-museum-closes-after-guards-clash-with-protesters/2011/10/08/gIQAx0x2VL_blog.html?hpid=z2\

http://reason.com/blog/2011/10/08/danny-cline-occupy-wall-street\

http://hotair.com/archives/2011/10/09/occupy-atlanta-gives-john-lewis-the-cold-shoulder/

A few citations to get you started:
* Chicago Tribune
* Reason Magazine
* Boston Globe
Many of these also refer to a study by UC Davis which showed that drug dogs will alert without any drugs in the area if the handler believes there are drugs in the area.

You actually help me make my point: I agree 100% with statement that this guy is a dumb criminal. However, that isn't what the article was about. Instead (according to the people who have much to gain from folks like us buying into the story) they stopped a "TERRORIST!"

This is just another example of security theater;"Look, we found this terrorist, but don't worry, we had everything under control the whole time".

And drop the whole "this is like stopping a pedo before it's too late!" bullshit. Different things. You are just looking for a justification for fear. The whole "Terrorists are everywhere" myth is just that. Don't be terrorized.

I'm not willing to claim they are all "activists." But there is certainly an activist component to what they do.

And at the same time, power hates being stood up to. Stand up to the MafiAA, stand up to the abusive assholes at Sony, stand up to abusive cops who don't like the idea of being caught on video shooting a handcuffed homeless guy in the back, caught beating up a special ed kid, or try to get a 75-year charge on someone for recording them.

So it's not surprising the FBI are engaged in what many will see as an overreaction. Especially when they need to be "seen to be doing something" to look good for their corrupt politician bosses.

The US attempt to ban Internet poker has already cost the taxpayers tens of billions of dollars. Why don't they give it a fucking rest already?

Tobey is suing Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Transportation Security Administration chief John Pistole; she should, too.\

What's your authoritative source for this claim? There are good arguments that Dvorak is no better than Sholes. If you dig, there are arguments on both sides, nothing definitive, and lots of conflicting data, so in the end it just ends up being a pissing match. People are free to use whatever keyboard layout they like - I find it strange that there are so many emotions behind this.

I have to wonder if the truly obviously "What moran thought that would work?" ideas the military has (that ALWAYS seem to get some funding) aren't a cover for their black bag projects.

Think about it, nobody really investigates any further because the idea was dumb as shit from the start so of course it didn't work, the really dumb shit projects only get funded (usually) for a few years, just enough to pay for some little nasty ops, and when it is "canceled" because it is a stupid idea nobody is really surprised.

Sounds to me like a perfect way to cover for all those "really nasty we shouldn't be doing that or be there in the first place" kinds of projects. Considering our history of being happy to fuck up anyone in the world if it will let a corporation exploit a new market ( as Adam Smith tried to warn the Brits about back in his day) or get bananas .04c cheaper? Sadly it wouldn't surprise me, it wouldn't surprise me at all.

I don't really have a strong opinion on the subject, but what you claim and what I've seen while traveling abroad don't seem to agree. I did some digging about excessive fees and found the following:

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attorney's_fee#Which_party_pays

There are many ways of calculating prevailing-party attorney fees. Most courts recognize that actual costs may be disproportionate and inequitable. Thus, many jurisdictions rely on other calculations. Many courts or laws invoke a lodestar' calculation: reasonably expected billable hours multiplied by a reasonable hourly rate, sometimes multiplied by a factor reflecting the risk or complexity of the case.

An old but fairly well written article on the subject: http://reason.com/archives/1995/06/01/civil-suits/1
(I realize many will not trust this source, but the article pretty much just states what the situation is in European countries.)

A common fear about loser-pays is that the side who loses a routine dispute will get handed a bill for 10,000 hours from Cravath, Swaine & Moore. But European courts are well aware of the danger that successful litigants will overinvest in their cases and gold-plate their fee requests. They carefully control the process to prevent that danger, giving the losing side a full chance to dispute a fee award, requiring that work be reasonable and necessary, providing that elite lawyer rates not be paid if a Main Street lawyer could have done the job, and so forth.

Although fee awards are usually set high enough to apply serious incentive pressure, it is notable that no country appears to let winners recoup all the money they have spent on a suit. Some leave a portion of lawyers' hours unreimbursed, while others apply hourly rates that fall below prevailing levels. Some shift expert witness fees, but others do not.

Here's an interesting nugget from later in the article. Unsurprisingly, lawyers are the most outspoken critics of loser-pays, yet their clients don't seem to agree:

The American public itself seems not to be as terrified of full loser-pays as its lawyers. Even when U.S. News and World Report asked the question in its more menacing form--"If you sue someone and lose the case, should you pay his costs?"--a far-from-shabby 44 percent of those polled agreed that they should. And with sides reversed, nearly everyone saw the idea's fairness. "If someone sues you and you win the case, should he pay your legal costs?" Eighty-five percent said yes to that one.

That is an awesome comment.

As the Slashdot commentariat has gotten ever more liberal over the years, it has also become a mirror for their talking points. In particular, hitting the debt ceiling is not the same thing as a default.

The Treasury Department is due to pay off $30 billion in maturing short-term debt. But we also know that the Treasury has
the ability to prioritize its payments and pay that particular $30 billion out of the $172 billion it collects in tax revenue. As the
Bipartisan Policy Center has calculated, after paying $30 billion in interest payments in August, Treasury could, if it ceased all
other functions (see page 13 of
this document), also pay for Social Security, Medicare, unemployment benefits, and payments to defense contractors.
Technically speaking, there is no need to default in the absence of a debt ceiling agreement.

It turns out that "the rich" pay the majority of the taxes. Thus any meaningful tax cut, for any purpose, will cut taxes for "the rich" more than it will cut taxes for "the poor".

There have been several times in the history of the USA where the overall tax rate was lowered, and tax revenues went up. This is because "the rich" moved money out of tax shelters and started investing it, which grew GNP. In other words, tax revenue went up because government was collecting a lower rate on a much larger amount of money. And "the rich" paid more taxes than they paid before.

There are some people who view the above as a problem; this problem is called "the rich get richer". Even if the poor get richer also, which confuses me. How will you increase jobs without someone who is rich getting richer? And how does that rich person hurt the poor by getting richer?

Historically, the US government has not managed to collect more than 19 or 20 percent of GNP in tax revenue. Even when the highest tax bracket was 70% or even higher, revenues as a percent of GNP were not higher than when the highest tax bracket was under 40%. If you think you can fix the USA's financial problems by taxing the rich, you need to explain one of these: (a) why this time it will be different, and the government will collect over 20% of GNP; (b) why GNP will grow faster with higher tax rates; or (c) why the high tax rates will limit the growth of GNP and collect less tax revenue, but it's worth it because it is important to keep the rich from getting richer.

My own view is that if 19% is what the US government can realistically collect, we should be trying to grow the GNP of the US so that the government is collecting 19% of a larger GNP. That means reducing taxes, regulatory burden, and uncertainty.

But don't take my word for this; see some references:

Thomas Sowell: Dissecting The Demagoguery About 'Tax Cuts For The Rich'

Nick Gillespie and Veronique de Rugy: The 19 Percent Solution

Disclaimer: I'm either middle class or posibly upper-middle-class, but I am not remotely "the rich" and tax cuts for "the rich" would not directly benefit me.

steveha

I'm against the death penalty, only because I see how the rest of government performs and can't believe the judicial system is any better.

They aren't.

Fundamentally, the problem is that there is nobody whose incentives are aligned with the defendant. The public defenders that they are normally assigned are overworked and not willing to put effort into the case unless it's clear the defendant is innocent, but the prosecution gets to pick and choose cases that it thinks it can win, one way or another - and when the prosecutor runs for public office, he can say he was hard on crime if he has a good conviction rate. Nobody in the judicial system "wins" if the conviction rate is low.

I like how easy it is for the 'informed media' to confuse NOT COMPLIANT with ILLEGAL.

Especially with the help of Charlene Wan, director of marketing for HDMI LLC, who claimed that "it is illegal to make and sell non compliant products." Nowhere does she say it would be a violation of any criminal law.

Perhaps "illegal" is a term of art meaning "criminal" in some circles, but this is hardly the "generally accepted" definition — it merely means non-compliant with the law — here, this could simply be "the law that says you need a patent license."

Note also that Ms. Wan is most likely not an attorney, and is most certainly not writing as HDMI LLC's attorney; it'd be unreasonable to expect marketing communications to claim "HDMI LLC believes manufacture of such devices requires the use of one or more US patents it holds, thus manufacture and sale in many jurisdictions requires a license" or any such "reasonably precise" statements. I'm no fan of bullshit marketing tactics, but that's all this is — a brazen attempt to create uncertainty around the future of HDMI/DisplayPort interoperability.

Incidentally, violating pseudoephedrine statutes can actually be a crime.

As for "all citizens are always guilty of something and can be fucked with," this is why "innocent until proven..." is such an important concept. And preventing "fuckings-with," official or otherwise — well, this is one of the major unsolved problems in every society. Any suggestions?

http://reason.com/blog/2011/06/01/buy-illegal-drugs-anonymously note the update at the end from bitcoin