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Yup, and if you're lucky, the cops will only kill your dog and won't shoot you dead in your bed for waking up startled in the middle of the night upon hearing your door being busted in on a no-knock warrant based on an anonymous tip. And if your family is lucky the police won't lie about it to cover it up by planing a guns/drugs after the fact.

Such things certainly aren't good. Owned houses have been demolished by mistake when it was supposed to be the house in forclosure next door. Police have gotten things wrong - and in your example of anonymous tips, they can come from regular non-anonymouse tips.

I get just as angry as you do when that happens, and believe in full accountability, and criminal prosecutions and jail time if warranted.

But we don't even seem to have a normal false dichotomy here. What are the options if you know a crime is being committed? 911 lines are anything but anonymous. They know who is calling, and even if you're using a burner, they know where you are calling from.

I can't imagine anyone not knowg this, so I guess that people are arguing for the elimination of any sort of tips.

Yup, and if you're lucky, the cops will only kill your dog and won't shoot you dead in your bed for waking up startled in the middle of the night upon hearing your door being busted in on a no-knock warrant based on an anonymous tip. And if your family is lucky the police won't lie about it to cover it up by planing a guns/drugs after the fact.

And one other thing I forgot to add:

Had they focused their modifications only on creating high yield and high nutrition crops

There is no single gene for yield. Yield is a factor of weather, soil fertility, moisture, biotic conditions like disease, pest and weed pressure, ect. You take away pest pressure, and you don't think yield won't go up? well, it kind of doesn't, not in developed countries anyway, where we were spraying pesticides to control pests. But in developed countries, things are very different. So, you really can't say they don't improve yield, or sustainability. Even the much maligned herbicide tolerant ones do.

Of course, higher nutrient crops don't fair any better than Monsanto's crops, perhaps they are hated even more, if the protesting is anything to go by. Which makes sense I guess...the claim that GMOs are all bad and there's no nuance whatsoever and therefore you should don't money to professional anti-GMO activists might look a bit silly when it is out saving even more lives. God forbid Greenpeace, Navdanya, OCA, and all those other greedy sociopaths put humanity before profit. Their actions have lead to more deaths than the anti-vaxxers.

You won't get the US centric perspective that you get from the economist.

I am an American and only 2 American print magazines come as close as The Economist does to my pov. Those are Reason magazine and Liberty magazine.

Falcon Wolf

Maybe the 4th example down? http://reason.com/blog/2010/08...

Re: pro-tip .... you should follow your own advice.

http://reason.com/archives/200...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new...

So you can't conceive of overly broad definitions beings used, or spurious charges made to harass people and force them to defend themselves in court at considerable cost, or to silence views someone finds disagreeable? I understand your concern since it isn't hard to find examples of agitation for terrible deeds, but I don't think your knowledge of history is completely adequate.

The Internet Saved My Tongue

Amen

The Government’s Appalling Campaign Against Small Bus Companies

Besides, we where talking about the false narrative that says the Republicans wanted to destroy NASA. I don't think that is true.

FALSE NARRATIVE? Good look at the budget for NASA over the last 4 years. Why do you think that we send to to Russia than to private space? Obama and the dems oppose it. The tea* CLAIMS that they oppose this, but vote right along with you fucking neo-cons.

ppl like Coffman, Shelby, wolf, Rogers, Hatch, etc have gutted private space for the last 4 years in an attempt to keep the SLS going with money to their districit. These assholes would much rather send DOUBLE the money to Russia, then to spend 1/2 of that on private space. Totally twisted.

Here are some:
Here.
This is even more to the point on house neo-cons with pointing fingers (though also playing their excuses)
Here is more.


I have worked for NASA decades ago. I have been following this mess that the neo-cons have made with it. All they are interested in is wasting money on THEMSELVES. The neo-cons/tea* are destroying America. Total Fucks.

Well, they actually were in some states in the 1930s when originally introduced to cars. http://reason.com/archives/201...

A more interesting question is why Spencer never publishes any of his alleged massive critiques of AGW in peer reviewed journals.

There is a known problem there.

THICK ATMOSPHERE and Climategate and Scientific Journal Chicanery

Climate researcher and IPCC co-author Eduardo Zorita calls for Warmergate plumbers Michael Mann, Phil Jones and Stefan Rahmstorf to be barred from the IPCC process and muses on the “very troubling professional behavior” evident in those leaked emails:

I may confirm what has been written in other places: research in some areas of climate science has been and is full of machination, conspiracies, and collusion, as any reader can interpret from the CRU-files

I am also aware that in this thick atmosphere – and I am not speaking of greenhouse gases now – editors, reviewers and authors of alternative studies, analysis, interpretations, even based on the same data we have at our disposal, have been bullied and subtly blackmailed. In this atmosphere, Ph D students are often tempted to tweak their data so as to fit the ‘politically correct picture’.

Climategate's Michael Mann Channels His Inner Palpatine

The Climategate emails reveal that when the scientist-activists saw skeptical scientists successfully calling public attention to such evidence, they went on a vicious attack, pulling strings to pressure universities and science journals to fire or blackball the skeptical scientists for presenting their competing theories and evidence. The Climategate emails also show Mann as one of the most aggressive warriors in the battle to publicly disparage and ruin the careers of scientists who disagree with his views on global warming.

For example, upset that Harvard University researchers were successfully arguing that solar variance rather than carbon dioxide emissions are the most likely primary cause of recent global temperature fluctuations, Mann sent out an email seeking to coordinate action to pressure Harvard to rebuke or discipline the researchers. “If someone has close ties w/ any individuals there [at Harvard] who might be in a position to actually get some action taken on this, I’d highly encourage pursuing this,” writes Mann to fellow scientist-activists.

The Climategate emails also reveal Mann recruiting investigative journalists to dig up dirt on scientist Steve McIntyre, who had called into questions Mann’s scientific theories.

There is plenty more if you dig into that instead of conspiracy theories about the "Koch brothers."

Yes, there's a whole prepaid purchase industry out there, and whole racks of their cards at most retail outlets. This is just another one.

Burger King had the most honest description: "Pay now so you can eat later".

It's honest, but a bit naive. Prepaid cards serve a lot of purposes.

1) It's a great way to give a gift that's not as impersonal as money (just a step above, but hey).
2) Great way to buy stuff in one country with cash from another (eBay has a thriving prepaid card market). A really valid use-case for this is buying music from countries you don't have credit cards which is made difficult in the first place by the media industry and it's market segmentation (region coding, etc).
3) You can launder money this way - safer than cash. See Tide economy [1].

[1] http://reason.com/archives/201...

And this is a very good illustratration of one of the BIG problems with such registries: no matter how trivial the crime, people will assume (A) that you're guilty

If you've had your due process and been found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt the presumption of innocence is over.

Guilty of what? Sexting with a fellow high school student? That first childhood romance? Public urination? The words "sex offender" bring up images of rape - forcible, drug-aided, whatever - and other serious sex crimes, but the "sex offender registry" is a lifetime tattoo that puts everyone from serial rapists to "huggy" 10-year-olds in the same basket.

And it also shows why a national registry is an outrageously BAD IDEA. A person who was an offender in one state would face a lifetime stigma, even in other states where the "offending" activity was perfectly legal.

And? If I went to Amsterdam to smoke pot it's legal, if I do it at home I'm a criminal and I'd get a "drug offense" on my record.

If you smoke pot in the US and you're white, you get a ticket. If you smoke pot in the US and you're black, you get 30-90 days in jail. If you mastermind a network that imports and distributes tons of marijuana over the course of a decade, you get 20 years. After you've paid your fine or done your time, you get released and can rejoin society.

If you kissed your high school sweetheart and her daddy got upset, then you are never allowed to live within 1000 feet of a school or (in many areas) a school bus stop. If you kissed your high school sweetheart, your presence will reduce property values for any neighborhood you move into. The marijuana equivalent would be to put everyone from the kingpin to the weekend toker to the kid taking her own adderall on a "drug addict registry." After all, recidivism among drug offenses is nearly 70%, where recidivism among sexual offenders is more than 5%. (actually, if you break the sex-offenders into "high risk" and "low risk," then you can find recidivism nearly 70% within the 1-in-5 minority of sex offender registrants, but that already admits that there are identifiably different kinds of sexual offenders)

The point is that the sexual offender registry, as implemented is bad policy and bad law. Repeated studies have show it has no effect on recidivism or re-arrest rates. If your point is "It's the law: whether it's good or bad, you need to accept it because public opinion is irrelevant," then your point is ridiculous. The Law is supposed to represent a codification of common values. The Law can change based on the public's experience of it, and the way we make that happen is by pointing out the flaws in existing laws.

Maybe we should update our privacy laws and stop allowing companies and the government to store all this information about us in shitty databases to begin with.

This.

When even the cops use these databases on on other cops you know the only solution is to stop building the databases in the first place.

Stalking pretty girls makes for a good visceral story, but the larger problem is one of political repression -- essentially using these databases to make it harder for political upstarts to instigate change, basically co-opting democracy.

BTW, that same database the cops used to stalk other cops? Also used to stalk political candidates.

Especially if you ignore that the FBI and NSA are two prongs of the same criminal organization and that the FBI doesn't even pretend to be primarily about law enforcement anymore. The CIA is similarly attacked, using NSA intelligence for both domestic and foreign operations.

Oh, wait, no, there's a piece of paper on it with an org chart on it that says otherwise and another piece of paper that says the NSA isn't involved in domestic spying, so, nothing to see here, move along.

always Republicans ... who do this shit!

It's important to note that right now in US politics one party is completely and totally against the concept of scientific inquiry putting Newspeak-like religious rhetoric above all else.

There is no 'but the Democrats...' counterpoint on this...it's ALWAYS REPUBLICANS. It doesn't make the Democrat/Liberals better in some long-term philosophical way at all, but it forces a choice in a real-world context that alot of /.'ers can't mentally make.

(SNIP)

Good grief you are full of it. If you don't see problems with the science on both sides of the isle you aren't looking. Maybe you're simply blinded by partisanship.

The Republican Party Isn't Really the Anti-Science Party

.... twice as many Democrats as Republicans believe in astrology, a pseudoscientific medieval farce. Left-wing ideologues also frequently espouse an irrational fear of nuclear power, genetic modification, and industrial and agricultural chemistry—even though all of these scientific breakthroughs have enriched lives, lengthened lifespans, and produced substantial economic growth over the last century. .....

Stewart Brand, the 1960s environmental activist, has bemoaned opposition to genetically modified organisms as “irrational, anti-scientific, and very harmful.” The anti-GMO movement, largely a product of the political left, has reached levels of delusion, paranoia and anti-intellectualism worthy of Michele Bachmann and young-earth creationists.

Matters are more nuanced—or just plain favorable to Republicans—when it comes to the business of actually governing. Comparing the two parties' proposed funding levels for the major scientific research agencies doesn't lend itself well to narratives about who's “pro” or “anti” science. For every cheap shot a Republican member of Congress like Senator Tom Coburn has taken at National Science Foundation grants (see the unfairly maligned robo-squirrel), there are areas where Obama has undercut American leadership in basic science by favoring loan guarantees and industrial subsidies to the alternative-energy industry at the expense of science elsewhere.

We've seen this in his proposed cuts to high-energy physics, nuclear physics, planetary science, and other areas of research. Even in the much-maligned “Tea Party-dominated” House of Representatives, the GOP budget proposals provided more funding for the NSF than those of the Senate Democrats for the current 2013 fiscal year.

Are Democrats Really the "Pro-Science" Party?

A narrative has developed over the past several years that the Republican Party is anti-science. Recently, thanks to the ignorant remarks about rape made by Rep. Todd Akin, the Democrats have seized the opportunity to remind us that they are the true champions of science in America. But is it really true?

No. As we thoroughly detail in our new book, "Science Left Behind," Democrats are willing to throw science under the bus for any number of pet ideological causes – including anything from genetic modification to vaccines.

Are Republicans or Democrats More Anti-Science?
Eric Cantor and Lamar Smith: Rethinking science funding
Anti-Science Republicans Versus Anti-Science Democrats: The Comparison

INAL, but I do have some knowledge. As always you should seek the advice of a lawyer for sound legal advice.

The answer is, it depends. Having a video tape of yourself committing a crime, or that contains photographic proof that you are involved in some way (e.g. possessing stolen goods) will almost certainly be enough to provide probable cause for an arrest and investigation, and even an indictment. It may or may not be enough evidence to get you convicted depending on the circumstances and body of law. In some cases it may make the trial a slam dunk for the prosecution. In others the evidence may not be enough to get to the standard of "beyond a reasonable doubt," if it applies in that case. You should generally assume that making such a video or statement won't be much different than finding yourself on a security camera performing those actions, except you provided the camera. It will be a hard sell to explain that away to a jury, especially if there is other evidence of your participation. If you've pulled off a hoax, you better hope you can prove it, and that the hoax doesn't match a real crime. If you've falsely stated in some way (twitter, blog, etc.) that you committed a crime, you better find an alibi or some kind of proof that your statement was false, otherwise you could be stuck. Also, keep in mind that the standards of proof and available punishments vary depending upon the authority you may be subject to. Schools versus the city versus the state versus the Federal government could potentially all have an interest in a particular set of actions, but have very different reactions to it. Colleges have become notorious for disciplinary codes that are almost as fair as kangaroo courts, for example.

The Politics of Campus Sexual Assault

The old advice of, "Don't do the crime if you can't do the time." applies. I would also recommend caution about hoaxes and exaggerations to make yourself look like a "bad ass." Always save the receipt, have an alibi, and proof your hoax was a hoax. I won't recommend that criminals stop filming their highly entertaining and informative videos of their exploits. ;)

We'll save discussions of the affect of videos and social media on insurance claims or employment prospects for another time.

You are confused. You might be thinking of former hero to gun control advocates, Michael Bellesiles. His deeds are a sordid story of misconduct and fraud.

Disarming History

More fun: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/22/failed-mirth-earth-day-predictions/

http://reason.com/archives/2000/05/01/earth-day-then-and-now

Here's a joke:

Q: What's the difference between a Bible-Thumper who predicts the Rapture and an Environmentalist who predicts a religious Eco-Apocalypse?

A: There are actually two differences: The Bible-Thumper actually has the decency to predict a firm date, and then admits that he was wrong when the rapture didn't occur.

The tech industry is not responsible for driving up housing prices. The greed of people who set housing prices is responsible for driving up housing prices.

Well, there is more to it than that.

With its enormous restrictions & bylaws, San Francisco makes it nearly impossible to build more housing. As a result, rents go up.

http://reason.com/archives/2013/11/29/san-francisco-values-pricing-poor-out-of

You seem to be badly confused on more than one point. Here is a start for you.

The Klan's Favorite Law

No, I do not believe it. I believe that you just made it up. Do you have a citation? Because a Google search finds nothing except a law banning "aggressive begging" (blocking traffic, badgering or pursuing people, loitering next to ATMs, etc.).

I wouldn't go so far as to accuse him of just making it up. There are several places he might have picked up the idea. Some, the courts overrule the laws or parts of it. Some are just proposed. Some require a permit to 'gather' (eg more than 5 people). On Thanksgiving, the church should have 1 person with food in the park. 4 at a time, the homeless could come over. Then, walk away and 4 more could come up. I think the homeless should not be able to look at each other either ;) Get a permit right? I believe in the Orlando case, the problem was, you can only get a permit twice a year for each park so you have to move around. Are the activist intentionally getting in trouble making their point? Sure. Does feeding the poor in the same park, week after week, putting wear and tear on the park? Sure.



Orlando, FL
Raleigh, NC
Las Vegas, NV
Los Angeles, CA
Philadelphia, PA
Dallas, TX
Houston, TX
NYC, NY
USA Today
LA Times

Gary North... Gary North...That name sounds familiar. But Why?

Ah. Found it.

"So let us be blunt about it," says Gary North. "We must use the doctrine of religious liberty to gain independence for Christian schools until we train up a generation of people who know that there is no religious neutrality, no neutral law, no neutral education, and no neutral civil government. Then they will get busy in constructing a Bible-based social, political and religious order which finally denies the religious liberty of the enemies of God."

Invitation to a Stoning

Thanks for the thorough treatment of this subject. However, you have called it a "tax break" as well as a "subsidy." It can't be both -- see "The Difference Between a Tax Break and a Subsidy" on the aptly-named Reason.com.

It's pure Orwellian doublespeak to assert that confiscating a smaller fraction of a Company X's profits is the same thing as subsidizing Company X. I have no particular love for the oil industry, but freedom from doublespeak is something for which we should all fight passionately.

Ok, you like what Heritage has to say about the "EOR Tax Credit" and the "Marginal Well Production Credit." Now you -- and The Atlantic, and the CS Monitor, and the Center for American Progress, and Heritage! -- should get your terminology right by grokking "The Difference Between a Tax Break and a Subsidy" on the aptly-named Reason.com.

It's pure Orwellian doublespeak to assert that confiscating a smaller fraction of a Company X's profits is the same thing as subsidizing Company X. I have no particular love for the oil industry, but freedom from doublespeak is something for which we should all fight passionately.

Then there's the matter of your cherry-picking -- failing to mention Heritage points out that "the oil industry faces a higher marginal tax rate at 41 percent compared to 26 percent for the rest of businesses in Standard & Poor’s 500." I bet the industry would gladly give up small-potatoes stuff like the EOR Tax Credit and the Marginal Well Production Credit in exchange for getting its marginal tax rate reduced to 26%. How much higher than 41% would the industry's rate be, if not for the tax credits you detest?

My position is consistent: there should be no subsidies for oil, ethanol, solar, nuclear, wind, or coal; no subsidies, period. (And when I say "period," I mean the opposite of what was meant in this quote: "no matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise to the American people: If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period. If you like your health-care plan, you’ll be able to keep your health-care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what.”)

Their argument, as laid out by House Republicans and libertarian organs like the Cato Institute and Reason magazine, is that the federal government shouldn't 'pick winners and losers' in the energy markets ...

Okay. Step 1: Cancel all subsidies / tax breaks and tax loopholes for the Oil Companies. Sure they're *only* about $2-4 billion / year, but it's a start. (Note: Reason.com - slogan "Free Minds and Free Markets - thinks these are okay).

Just noting from the Think Progress article:

Last year, the five largest oil companies — BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and ExxonMobil — earned $118 billion profit at a time when consumers paid record-high gas prices. This haul follows after a year the companies earned a record $137 billion profit.

Roger that:

• The Specter of Bankruptcy Haunts California
• Detroit’s Bankrupt. Is California Next?
• California Bankrupt
• Bankrupt San Bernardino in showdown with California pension fund over arrears
• Bankrupt Cities, Municipalities List and Map

As soon as you're done reviewing that information, plus what you can find with a simple Google query, kindly go fuck yourself.

You don't have the right to walk home or take the bus or cab. There are laws about public intoxication.

You can generally only be picked up for public intoxication if you are inebriated to such an extent that you are endangering yourself or others, or causing some kind of disturbance. In the US, these laws are exclusively relegated to state and local jurisdictions, some states having no public intoxication laws on the books, leaving it completely to local jurisdiction.

Some places make it technically illegal to be 'intoxicated' when in public places, but even where present this is rarely enforced. Texas does seem to have a dubiously broad criteria, and evidently has had some issues with it being abused to harass people.

http://reason.com/blog/2013/11/17/the-banality-of-red-tape-north-carolina

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

Personally, if I ever found myself in possession of child porn, I'd get rid of it as fast as possible. I suggest the same to you. The jackboots come after whoever the fuck they want to, and find evidence of wrongdoing after the fact... if nothing else, "lying to the police during an investigation" will always stick no matter how small the lie. The less child porn you (knowingly or not) distribute, the fewer pretexts the jackboots have to knock down your door and break your server hardware in an "attempt to gather evidence" and shoot the family dog in front of your kids.

You are not mistaken about the legal power of a robots.txt: it's a gentlebot/gentleadmin agreement. But you are mistaken about the implied legal threat behind one. If you want things done the way you want, do it yourself. The only better thing than an archive is two archives maintained by different people in different political climates.

No, progressive is used in the same way in the US, for pretty much the same political spectrum. The missing piece of the puzzle for you is that fascism was once understood as a progressive movement until political and practical considerations forced a demarcation.

You may find these items interesting even if much of the discussion is framed in an American context.

What Is a Progressive
A Nicer Form of Tyranny
Hitler, Mussolini, Roosevelt

Or Kucinich. Only a radical like Paul or Kucinich would have the ideology and the stones to order the FBI to dismantle the DEA's special operations division and treat every employee of the same as a probable criminal conspirator who conspired to systematically perjure themselves to win cases in federal court. You won't get this from a "mainstream guy" because moderates are moderates almost invariably because they either stand for nothing or have the intestinal fortitude of a freshly butchered lamb. One of the best articles I've ever read on moderates and why moderates have such a pernicious history in American politics is "The Paranoid Center" by Reason.

This guy has never seen state-controlled media in operation from his porch. Certainly hasn't followed any in a language he can understand well.

You're sidestepping the issue. When it comes to war and matters of "national security", how would a state-run press function any differently from the American press. Unverified, unsourced claims from "senior officials" are treated as fact, and obviously bullshit pronouncements, whether they come from Obama or Cheney, are never questioned.

It's like with the NSA spying, where retired officials are saying is just like the KGB. But they were only Stasi, so what do they know?

Doesn't this amount to the Department of the Defense propagandizing directly to the U.S. public? What is acceptable and what is not?

I can see press conferences, announcements, and factual information, but when does it become an attempt to persuade the public?

Oh, you didn't hear? They repealed the law that forbade the US government from using it's (formerly) foreign propaganda tools and assets domestically against US citizens.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130715/11210223804/anti-propaganda-ban-repealed-freeing-state-dept-to-direct-its-broadcasting-arm-american-citizens.shtml

http://reason.com/24-7/2013/07/15/with-ban-repealed-us-aims-propaganda-mac

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/07/17/1224321/-U-S-Government-Repeals-Ban-Opens-Floodgate-to-Mass-Agitprop-Meant-for-Domestic-Consumption

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3043041/posts

What I find interesting is that we see publications as politically/ideologically diverse as Daily KOS and Free Republic both highly critical of this travesty.

If only people would stop looking at only what they differ on and unite on what they agree on. That's how the government and their lackeys plays people. They stir up wedge-issue shit, create a carefully-crafted narrative, and push it through the various communications medias to enrage and divide people and suck all of the oxygen out of the air for public discussion about actual meaningful oversight, reform, and accountability of government and the political class.

I guarantee that even as a white male in his mid-50s, I and a 16-YO black or Latino gang-banger in the 'hood STILL have far, far more in common and agree with each other's views far more across the board then either of us would with the average Washington D.C. politician or apparatchik, regardless of political party.

Instead of, for instance, arguing over "racism" over the Trayvon/Zimmerman incident, how about holding those responsible for the 35% black unemployment rate and the generally crap economy that had Trayvon and has many more like him out on the streets instead of working a job and raising a family, responsible for their actions or lack of, and craft some practical solutions instead of trying to start a race war.

Same thing with Chicago/Detroit gun violence...treat the cause not the symptoms. Hold the politicians responsible for the high poverty & unemployment in those cities and others around nation responsible for the crime, violence, and hopelessness it breeds instead of attempting to shift the blame to 2A rights and individual gun ownership.

Always watch the other hand. Do you really think any of those politicians and political apparatchiks give a single damn about gun deaths or racism? All any of them (outside of a couple of pariahs of the mainstream party-establishments) actually care about is securing and increasing their wealth & power by increasing and broadening every aspect of their control over YOU.

Welcome to "Serfdom, 21st-Century Style!".

Strat

What, exactly, doesn't fall under your definition of 'General Welfare'?

If enough people agree that broccoli is good for you, can the government require everyone to buy broccoli?

I have a dream, that one day all the little factual posts on Slashdot will not be marked troll because of the color of the moderators politics.

Charge of racism offensive to Obamacare critics

Louisiana state Sen. Karen Carter Peterson last week took to the chamber’s floor to declare opponents of President Barack Obama’s “signature legislative achievement” are motivated by race.

“I have talked to so many members both in the House and the Senate, and you know what? You ready? You ready? What it comes down to? It’s not about how many federal dollars we can receive, it’s not about that. You ready? It’s about race,” Peterson said. “I know nobody wants to talk about that. It’s about the race of this African-American president.”

After Calling Obamacare Critics Racist, LA Legislator Says 'I Didn't Call Anyone a Racist'

Mainstream Scream: Martin Bashir accuses Obama scandal critics of racism

Are Obama's critics racist? Jimmy Carter thinks so

A Modern Timeline of Liberals Claiming That Opposition to Obama = Racism

There is plenty more that could be posted on this topic.

In a combined statement the FBI, DEA, and Homeland Security announce a startling discovery: terrorists and criminals use cash. As a result, law enforcement agencies are seizing cash and "near cash" equivalents such as bank accounts from all US residents.

Kinda like this: Feds Steal $35K From Small Grocer's Bank Account Despite Finding "No Violations" To Justify the Grab

No, the FISA Court is not lawful and no lawful court works the way it does.

Wrong both counts.

This type of protectionism (like the Texas law) would seem to be a direct violation of the commerce clause of the US constitution. Some industries do seem to have this sort of protectionism in place - particularly alcohol sales where most states have distributorship monopolies and prevent direct marketing to consumers from out of state wineries and distilleries.

Still, it would appear that there is some hope. Earlier this year a federal court struck down a similar law in Louisiana that prevented direct-to-consumer sales of coffins. There is some ambiguity as this case was decided on the nonsensical and arbitrary nature of the regulations - but the court did indicate that they also would have struck it down on interstate commerce grounds.

The details are of no interest to anyone in power, but patterns are.

It has already been made public that huge volumes of email, actual phone conversations are recorded.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57589495-38/nsa-spying-flap-extends-to-contents-of-u.s-phone-calls/
http://reason.com/blog/2013/06/15/yes-actually-the-nsa-says-they-can-eaves
http://www.dailyfinance.com/on/irs-audit-emails-warrant-aclu/

And further, the NSA leaks content to local and state law enforcement.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/05/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE97409R20130805
http://www.salon.com/2013/08/10/the_nsa_dea_police_state_tango/

So the this whole discussion about meta-data is moot. When you can archive, transcribe and catalog content, who needs metadata?

When you were a kid the press hadn't sensationalized all the murder sprees at school.

Although I think there were significantly less of these back in the day.

http://reason.com/blog/2012/12/17/are-mass-shootings-becoming-more-common

those who study mass shootings say they are not becoming more common.

"There is no pattern, there is no increase," says criminologist James Allen Fox of Boston's Northeastern University, who has been studying the subject since the 1980s, spurred by a rash of mass shootings in post offices.

The random mass shootings that get the most media attention are the rarest, Fox says. Most people who die of bullet wounds knew the identity of their killer....

Grant Duwe, a criminologist with the Minnesota Department of Corrections who has written a history of mass murders in America, said that while mass shootings rose between the 1960s and the 1990s, they actually dropped in the 2000s. And mass killings actually reached their peak in 1929, according to his data. He estimates that there were 32 in the 1980s, 42 in the 1990s and 26 in the first decade of the century.

No, libertarians argue that the problem is conceptually hard not that it doesn't exist. Liberals generally feel the problem is fairly easy conceptually (just regulate it) but hard politically.

The problem is that there is no one simple answer (as the linked video acknowledges - straight from the mouth of libertarians). Some commons problems are amenable to privatization schemes (land and fisheries ownership - Ronald Coase did a lot of work on this idea) while others work more smoothly based on cooperative communities (Elinor Ostrom won the Nobel for her work on this tactic). Both of these tactics are well respected in libertarian circles because they use locality to solve the knowledge problem.

Where it gets truly complicated is in open-access resources that don't lend themselves to either method (air and water being two common examples). In this area, there may be areas where regulation is necessary but it should try to be as locally and market focused as possible. Which is why libertarians have put a lot of thought behind ways to get pricing into those types of markets. Libertarians like Jonathan Adler have been advocating carbon taxes for years and the entire Summer 2013 issue of Cato's Regulations magazine features deeply researched and well argued cases for implementing carbon taxes and how best to price them for maximum gain at reasonable cost.

I think you are arguing against straw man libertarians rather than real ones.

One very disturbing trend is the use of heavily armed SWAT teams to carry out actions related to civil and not criminal investigations.

Just the other day the EPA sent a SWAT team to check on the water quality at several small gold mining operations in Alaska.

Of course, Ruby Ridge and Waco will always be examples of out of control Feds.

Oh, and to address your issue of people being arrested/harrassed for googling "pressure cooker", I assume you were referring to this. First, this appears to be an isolated incident, not some law-enforcement pandemic across the nation. Second, this was conducted by local police, not Feds, so again there's no nationwide conspiracy. Third, a subsequent look into the situation seems to indicate the issue was a former employer informing the police of bomb-related searches on a corporate PC associated with the couple, not some vast Google-search dragnet. Overall, the claimaint's Google search history seemed to be almost irrelevant to the reason they got a visit in the first place. The couple has also received significant pushback on their original story and has subsequently declined to do further interviews. If they had a solid civil liberties case I imagine they'd be lawyering up with the ACLU on their side, but they're shutting up and backing off instead.

If you'd read into more than just the surface of this incident you'd know all this. Instead, it looks more like a case of confirmation bias on your part.

Not so fast, there...

You dumb fuck.

I hereby conclude that you are one or both of the following:

1) A paid sockpuppet.
2) Really Really Stupid.

When your political leanings can result in penalty from the IRS, you have plenty of reason to be worried about government surveillance.

Hell, I just read this article two minutes ago:

http://reason.com/blog/2013/08/01/innocent-couple-gets-visited-by-feds-aft

You want to live in a world where you have to put up with the police tramping through your house because you searched for "Pressure Cooker" on Google? That team said they pulled that kind of crap 100 times a week. TSA searches in your own living room. Wonderful.

How long until somebody gets tazed in their own house over a Google search? (And don't pooh-pooh the slippery slope argument. Idiots have been doing that since this shit first locked into high gear twelve years ago, and gee whiz, they were wrong. That slope is greased!)

Paid. Or Stupid. (If "Paid" then also Stupid by default).

"Geek" doesn't mean smart or wise. Half the damned time it means just the opposite.

Those are your chances of being a victim. 230 deaths a year is the justification for all the tax dollars, trampled rights and illegal activity.

I wonder how many more lives would be saved if that money was funneled into medical care or medical research, or into making cars and roads safer...

Those are your chances of being a victim. 230 deaths a year is the justification for all the tax dollars, trampled rights and illegal activity.

With Mayor Bloomberg (morn extraordinaire) claiming NYC's crime increase is due to iPads and iPhones ( http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/28/crime-is-up-and-bloomberg-blames-iphone-thieves/?_r=0 ) I predict a massive wave of crime as kids get beat up or killed for their fondle-slab. What a waste of resources. Perhaps they might consider getting rid of the teacher's union which is driving their state broke instead... http://reason.com/archives/2013/03/29/union-greed-drives-california-bankruptcy