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of course, could be lying http://reason.com/blog/2013/07/18/it-wasnt-us-tsa-says-of-car-searches-at

At 10:45 a.m. defendant Officer Christopher Worley (HPD) contacted plaintiff Anthony Mitchell via his telephone. Worley told plaintiff that police needed to occupy his home in order to gain a "tactical advantage" against the occupant of the neighboring house. Anthony Mitchell told the officer that he did not want to become involved and that he did not want police to enter his residence. Although Worley continued to insist that plaintiff should leave his residence, plaintiff clearly explained that he did not intend to leave his home or to allow police to occupy his home. Worley then ended the phone call.

It ended up with the homeowner's front door being compromised, him being beaten, and he and his cowering dog being hit with pepperballs.

You know, I have no love for Holder and all the other hate mongers and race baiters that have ginned up this Trayvon/Zimmerman case, but that particular story is not credible. As near as I can tell it originated from an Orlando Sentinel story that supposedly quotes some pressure group representative who claims that during a teleconference some DOJ official solicited "tips" via an email address that isn't actually "active" yet. There is no recording of this call and no other corroboration that I can find. It has merely ricocheted around the right wing echo chamber with remarkable velocity.

There is more than enough abuse of power occurring in this matter that it isn't actually necessary to make stuff up.

"Freedom of speech is a principal pillar of a free government; when this support is taken away, the constitution of a free society is dissolved, and tyranny is erected on its ruins. Republics and limited monarchies derive their strength and vigor from a popular examination into the action of the magistrates.

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

Maybe the PATRIOT ACT has made you think these kinds of writings are particularly unamerican? Or you could just accept the fact that Snowden's acts are just as american as were the actions of founding fathers of the United States; who were also temporarily considered traitors.

Also consider that now Snowden has higher approval rating than... US Congress and Barack Obama

...and I'm sure, all over the world, Edward Snowden has a higher approval rating than NSA.

Now, how were you supposed "to institute a new Government"? Oh you can't. And if you'd even become interested about it the government would know about it; thanks to PRISM.

"whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

I think Snowden is well worth one Nobel Peace Prize.

To the degree that the TVA had any impact, it appears to be negative. The most important study of the effects of the TVA, conducted by energy economist William Chandler, estimated that in the half-century after the TVA was launched, economic growth in the Tennessee Valley increasingly lagged behind non-TVA southern markets. Chandler concluded, "Among the nine states of the southeastern U.S., there has been an inverse relationship between income per capita and the extent to which the state was served by the TVA...Watershed counties in the seven TVA states, moreover, are poorer than the non-TVA counties in these states."

In the non-TVA southern markets, there was a greater exodus of people out of subsistence farming into manufacturing and services, which offered higher incomes. Ironically, electricity consumption has grown faster in the non-TVA southern markets, because it tends to correlate with income. Subsistence farmers might be able to afford light bulbs, but they could not afford the electrical appliances that people in non-TVA southern markets were buying. Furthermore, despite the vast sums spent building TVA dams, water usage grew faster in the non-TVA southern markets.

Places served by TVA did worse than those in the same states which weren't served by the TVA.

What world do you live in? Police don't just raid a house because of some tag on Google Earth. What nonsense. You think we have a fleet of detectives monitoring Facebook in case someone posts "committin' a crime right naw!" And we announce ourselves so the homeowner would have no doubt it's the police and not some "intruder breaking down their door at 3am."!

What world do you live in sir? Clearly not the same one the rest of us do.

http://www.cato.org/raidmap
http://www.wnd.com/2012/08/cops-kill-dog-handcuff-kids-in-wrong-house-raid/
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/55875924-78/lake-salt-landvatter-police.html.csp
http://www.nytimes.com/1998/05/26/nyregion/raids-and-complaints-rise-as-city-draws-on-drug-tips.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
http://www.wave3.com/story/1495631/false-tip-leads-police-to-raid-house-of-sleeping-family?clienttype=printable

and just because you are wearing a badge and say you are the police doesn't mean that you are

http://www.khou.com/news/local/HPD-Police-impersonators-using-fake-raids-to-rob-illegal-game-rooms-135144963.html

And your suggestion that the police do not read online sources or respond to tips that might come from them is also quite absurd

http://reason.com/blog/2011/01/25/the-saga-of-travis-corcoran

This would be the same NSA director Snowden exposed as having lied to Congress. Why on Earth should we think he's telling the truth this time? Oh, wait, looks like he was lying again. http://reason.com/blog/2013/06/26/nsa-director-softens-claims-about-survei

Seriously, I still fail to understand why the Qwerty keyboard still is the norm, even in virtual keyboard in mobile devices.

What's the problem with pushing a better keyboard like Dvorak? wouldn't that be a better improvement over just adding 'th' or other minor fixes?

Because the original studies were biased at best, and follow up studies found there are no cost benefits to retraining with Dvorak:

In the first phase of the experiment, 10 government typists were retrained on the Dvorak keyboard. It took well over 25 days of four-hour-a-day training for these typists to catch up to their old QWERTY speeds. (Compare this to the Navy study's results.) When the typists had finally caught up to their old speeds, the second phase of the experiment began. The newly trained Dvorak typists continued training and a group of 10 QWERTY typists (matched in skill to the Dvorak typists) began a parallel program to improve their skills. In this second phase the Dvorak typists progressed less quickly with further Dvorak training than did QWERTY typists training on QWERTY keyboards. Thus Strong concluded that Dvorak training would never be able to amortize its costs. He recommended instead that the government provide further training in the QWERTY keyboard for QWERTY typists.

The GSA study attempted to control carefully for the abilities and treatments of the two groups. The study design directly paralleled the decision that a real firm or a real government agency might face: Is it worthwhile to retrain its present typists? If Strong's study is correct, it is not efficient for current typists to switch to Dvorak. The study also implied that the eventual typing speed would be greater with QWERTY than with Dvorak, although this conclusion was not emphasized.

Much of the other evidence that has been used to support Dvorak's superiority actually can be used to make a case against Dvorak. We have the 1953 Australian Post Office study already mentioned, which needed to remove psychological impediments to superior performance. A 1973 study based on six typists at Western Electric found that after 104 hours of training on Dvorak, typists were 2.6 percent faster than they had been on QWERTY. Similarly, a 1978 study at Oregon State University indicated that after 100 hours of training, typists were up to 97.6 percent of their old QWERTY speed. Both of these retraining times are similar to those reported by Strong but not to those in the Navy study. But unlike Strong's study neither of these studies included parallel retraining on QWERTY keyboards. As Strong points out, even experienced QWERTY typists increase their speed on QWERTY if they are given additional training.

Ergonomic studies also confirm that the advantages of Dvorak are either small or nonexistent. For example, A. Miller and J Thomas, two researchers at the IBM Research Laboratory, writing in the International Journal of Man-Machine Studies, conclude that "no alternative has shown a realistically significant advantage over the QWERTY for general purpose typing." Other studies based on analysis of hand-and-finger motions find differences of only a few percentage points between Dvorak and QWERTY. The consistent finding in ergonomic studies is that the results imply no clear advantage for Dvorak, and certainly no advantage of the magnitude that is so often claimed.

Tell this speech about speed to Barbara Blackburn, the fastest typist of the world, who entered the Guiness records in 2005, using a Dvorak keyboard.

Please take a time to READ THIS http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/12/09/1102182415761.html http://www.productivity501.com/michael-sampson-on-the-dvorak-keyboard/526/

Seriously, I still fail to understand why the Qwerty keyboard still is the norm, even in virtual keyboard in mobile devices.

What's the problem with pushing a better keyboard like Dvorak? wouldn't that be a better improvement over just adding 'th' or other minor fixes?

Because the original studies were biased at best, and follow up studies found there are no cost benefits to retraining with Dvorak:

In the first phase of the experiment, 10 government typists were retrained on the Dvorak keyboard. It took well over 25 days of four-hour-a-day training for these typists to catch up to their old QWERTY speeds. (Compare this to the Navy study's results.) When the typists had finally caught up to their old speeds, the second phase of the experiment began. The newly trained Dvorak typists continued training and a group of 10 QWERTY typists (matched in skill to the Dvorak typists) began a parallel program to improve their skills. In this second phase the Dvorak typists progressed less quickly with further Dvorak training than did QWERTY typists training on QWERTY keyboards. Thus Strong concluded that Dvorak training would never be able to amortize its costs. He recommended instead that the government provide further training in the QWERTY keyboard for QWERTY typists.

The GSA study attempted to control carefully for the abilities and treatments of the two groups. The study design directly paralleled the decision that a real firm or a real government agency might face: Is it worthwhile to retrain its present typists? If Strong's study is correct, it is not efficient for current typists to switch to Dvorak. The study also implied that the eventual typing speed would be greater with QWERTY than with Dvorak, although this conclusion was not emphasized.

Much of the other evidence that has been used to support Dvorak's superiority actually can be used to make a case against Dvorak. We have the 1953 Australian Post Office study already mentioned, which needed to remove psychological impediments to superior performance. A 1973 study based on six typists at Western Electric found that after 104 hours of training on Dvorak, typists were 2.6 percent faster than they had been on QWERTY. Similarly, a 1978 study at Oregon State University indicated that after 100 hours of training, typists were up to 97.6 percent of their old QWERTY speed. Both of these retraining times are similar to those reported by Strong but not to those in the Navy study. But unlike Strong's study neither of these studies included parallel retraining on QWERTY keyboards. As Strong points out, even experienced QWERTY typists increase their speed on QWERTY if they are given additional training.

Ergonomic studies also confirm that the advantages of Dvorak are either small or nonexistent. For example, A. Miller and J Thomas, two researchers at the IBM Research Laboratory, writing in the International Journal of Man-Machine Studies, conclude that "no alternative has shown a realistically significant advantage over the QWERTY for general purpose typing." Other studies based on analysis of hand-and-finger motions find differences of only a few percentage points between Dvorak and QWERTY. The consistent finding in ergonomic studies is that the results imply no clear advantage for Dvorak, and certainly no advantage of the magnitude that is so often claimed.

Yet the city that we are talking about, San Francisco, also has a rigid number of Medallions issued out and thats it. If you want to own a cab in San Francisco, you have to buy a Medallion from an existing Medallion owner. There isnt an application process where you can apply to get a license and if you look like a great person to operate a cab you will get a Medallion.. its not like that at all, nor does anyone at all pretend that thats the way it is. The City doesn't. The Medallion owners don't.

If you examine all the large cities, you will find that fixed-number-of-medallion setup is overwhelmingly the norm.

..and its not just taxi services that have this protected-from-competition arrangement, and often the laws are written quite plainly to state that the licensing board for the industry must consider the impact a new license would have on existing license holders.

For example, Connecticut just recently rescinded a law which protected moving companies after a long battle with an out-of-state moving company that wanted to do business inside the state but could not get a license to do so on the grounds that the additional competition would hurt the existing license holders. Note that the article I just linked to states "Unfortunately, the old standard will still apply to taxi, livery, and motorbus carriers."

So while you sit there claiming that not all cities are like NYC, well my friend entire States are exactly like New York City. What I really think is that you dont have a real grasp of the amount of government regulation there is in the country, nor do I think that you have even a casual understanding of the intent of nearly every regulation. I think that you are likely to be someone that has regularly defended greater regulation of things that are already so regulated that the current players dont have to worry about any competition, a situation that devolved into an event that got you to call for greater regulation to begin with (housing bubble? yeah, I predict that you blame the housing bubble on a lack of regulation.)

Matthew Parris: As an atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God

Are Savages Noble?

The Effect of Cell Phone Coverage and Political Violence in Africa

Are you still supporting forensic fraudster Steven Hayne?

http://reason.com/blog/2010/03/12/mississipip-ag-jim-hood-still

*Less* violent? You historical ignorance is showing - medieval battle was pretty much hacking each other to bits until there were only a handful still standing

Historians and sociologists have looked at this question extensively and violence is clearly way down. E.g., http://reason.com/archives/2012/01/11/the-decline-of-violence

*More* intelligent? Again, You're apparently unaware of the level of thinking, intelligence, and education in parts of ancient Greece and Rome

A few exceptional thinkers don't tell you much about the population. Literacy rates were probably no more than about 10% in Greece and Rome at their best.

As moderns, we have this tendency to believe that we're smarter and better than our forbears, mostly becasue of technological hubris and arrogance.

No, mostly because it's true.

no it hasn't. you just happen to be a member of the more privileged ignorant few at the top of the socioeconomic tree

You don't know what you're talking about:

http://reason.com/archives/2012/01/11/the-decline-of-violence

but you have misunderstood me

I understood you perfectly; your posting was simply a non-sequitur to the thread we were discussing.

Yeah.

http://reason.com/archives/2012/01/11/the-decline-of-violence

(And if you don't know who Steve Pinker is, go look it up.)

Fortunately, popular opinion does not decide what the truth is. What am I in the minority of in human history, anyway? If we're looking at all humans who have ever lived, no religion can claim to be a majority. Even within large, organized religions that rally together under a single label, there is considerable disagreement over what happens to a person after death. There has never been a majority consensus on the subject.

Also, you may change your mind when you are actually faced with death. Many people who believe like you very much think about it when death actually is imminent.

No, that's unlikely and also not true.
Here's some reading material.
I'll give you the short version: facing death typically only reinforces somebody's existing beliefs. Also, even if somebody does change their beliefs when they are scared and irrational, that does not mean their previous beliefs are wrong -- people frequently make poor decisions when scared and irrational. Also, you're really just reiterating the old "no atheists in foxholes" statement, which is insulting, condescending, and false.

Any research on guns funded by the CDC is operating under a strong conflict of interest, because of the CDC's strong anti-gun pre-bias. http://reason.com/archives/1997/04/01/public-health-pot-shots

Wintemute's methods may be sound, but the hypotheses he chooses to research are unspeakably biased and designed to fit a pre-made bias. He is clearly not interested in studying the actual effects of firearms in the civilian population. He is interested in conducting research that demonizes firearms.

I'm well aware of the controversies surrounding John Lott. There are many other researchers who have conducted research regarding firearms, not funded by the CDC or the NRA. For example, this paper written by Don Gates and Gary Mauser is a much better example of unbiased research by authors working in their field (unlike Wintermute, who is not actually qualified to perform research in this field). http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_KatesMauseronline.pdf

I noticed the questions on 3-D printers were immediately after questions about the Boston Marathon bombings. I wonder if that affected the responses. Excerpt from the questionairre at http://reason.com/poll/2013/05/17/reason-rupe-may-2013-national-survey

READ TO ALL: Turning to other issues...
ASK ALL: Q33 As you may know, the U.S. Senate recently voted down gun control legislation. Do you think the Senate should (debate and vote on gun control legislation again) or should the Senate (move on to other issues)?
ASK ALL: Q34 After the Boston Marathon bombings, which of the following do you think is more likely to happen...
ASK ALL: Q35 Thinking about the manhunt for the suspected terrorist in a Boston neighborhood...what if this happened in your own community? Does this make you more likely to want a gun in your home, less likely to want a gun in your home, or does it not make much difference either way?
ASK ALL: Q36 Next...some Americans own 3-D printers, which can make a variety of plastic objects. Do you think Americans should or should NOT be allowed to use this technology in their own homes?
ASK IF SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO USE 3-D PRINTERS (Q36=1)
Q37 3-D printers can be used to make guns or gun parts. Do you think Americans should or should NOT be allowed to print their own guns or gun parts in their own homes?
ASK ALL: Q38 As you may know, many states have legalized marijuana use for medical or recreational purposes, however, marijuana is still ILLegal under federal law. Would you favor or oppose a bill in Congress that would PREVENT the federal government from prosecuting people who grow, possess, or sell marijuana in the states that have legalized it?

I'd've been interested in seeing responses to a hypothetical "Q37.5: Have you ever seen or used a 3-D printer?" and "Q37.6: Please rate your level of knowledge in 3-D Printer technology (none, low, medium, high, don't know, other)?"

http://reason.com/poll/2013/05/17/reason-rupe-may-2013-national-survey

The Reason-Rupe poll conducted live interviews with 1,003 adults on mobile (503) and landline (500) phones from May 9-13, 2013. The poll’s margin of error is plus or minus 3.7 percent. Princeton Survey Research Associates International executed the nationwide Reason-Rupe survey.

Methodology detailed here.

Wasting mod points to post, but: US Americans are not that heterogenous. What specific groups (with dissenting views relevant to the matter at hand) are systematically excluded from the sample?

They offer up their sampling procedures and methodology here.

A larger sample size is not inherently better. 1000 isn't much different from 10,000 or 10 million. If the sampling method would be unrepresentative with 1000 cases, it wouldn't be any better with more.

reality has a well-known liberal bias

No, it does not. Quite the opposite, in fact.

You've never heard of hunting? Well, let me give you a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunting>link.

Maybe you actually have heard of hunting, and you consider it something that people shouldn't do. Okay. Please tell me how to cut the deer population down. As someone who has first hand seen that deer are the #1 killer animal in North America, I'm shocked that anyone would be so shortsighted to not support hunting.

Although it was before just about anybody's time here, I'm told this same stupid debate came up when they first started putting radios in cars.

It absolutely did - there were numerous attempts across the country to outlaw those dangerously distracting car radios. Here is an article outlining just one example: http://reason.com/archives/2012/03/02/how-one-bureaucrat-almost-succeeded-in-b

Thankfully, the busybodies failed in this effort. Like the current debate on gun/magazine/ammo bans, the "if it saves even one life, it's worth it" line was a frequent appeal. (It's interesting how the people who are so concerned with saving lives through the use of governmental force in other areas of behavior can't brook even the possibility that saving the lives of people not yet born has any moral value...)

I think the situation in Syria today has proven that some of our leaders are keenly aware of the past mistakes in arming an uprising against our enemies.

Fixed that for you.

It's actually rather scary that our last two Presidential elections both saved us from what would likely have been one the worst foreign policy mistakes in U.S. history. Romney, McCain, and Hilary Clinton all support arming the Syrian rebels. I may not always agree with Obama (heck, I usually don't agree with him), but on this issue, we dodged a bullet the size of a freight train by electing who we did. Just saying.

"One of these days an innocent person is going to end up dead"? Clearly, sir, you have paid no attention to Libertarian media in the past decade or two. Go hop over to reason.com, ignore their tax policy proposals for a moment if they annoy you, and just do a search for all the fun articles about how a SWAT team prevented paramedics from going to work for hour and fourteen minutes after shooting a veteran as part of a drug raid on the neighbors.

While I agree, mostly, I should point out that Polygamy causes similar harm to society as a whole as selective abortion of female children. It causes an excess of unattached (and frustrated) young males, which increases local violence and society's predilection for violent resolution of disagreement... ie, war.

If an American soldier decides to us military firepower on civilians, should a drone be used to stop him? I think we would agree that of a person shot him, it would be thankful, but use the scary word drone and suddenly it's all terminator.

It's not that there aren't times when a drone would be useful, it's that giving police that power is more dangerous than sticking to old fashioned police work.

Look at what has happened with SWAT teams. There are definitely times when SWAT teams are extremely useful. But every podunk police force thinks it needs a SWAT team, and if they have a SWAT team, they're going to use it whether it's neccessary or not. So you end up with paramilitary police using egregiously excessive force with absolutely no oversight or consequences.

Similarly, once the NYPD and LAPD get their hands on drones, Bumfuck IA is going to want a drone too. And once they get a drone, they're going to use it, whether they have a valid justification for it or not.

Nothing the President has done, and no interpetatiojn the white house presented included killing Americans on American soil.

And nothing Daryl F. Gates ever said included shooting a mayor's dog out of spite, and yet it happened. Any power that can be abused will be abused. Guaranteed.

The thing is, you made it more likely that you would go to prison by cooperating with the cop's inquiry. By giving an alibi, you provided the chance for an investigator to find something to contradict it. It wouldn't have to be truthful evidence. It could have been a mistaken witness, or a misprinted receipt, or a glitch in a GPS, or your girlfriend using your cell phone or any of a million things. (I think it was Lucky Luciano who said it was tougher to defend a frame job than a legit case, 'cuz you got no way to anticipate how the frame will go down.)

If something apparently credible had popped up to contradict your alibi, you could have found yourself the prime suspect to whatever, and it wouldn't take much to find yourself charged and bound over for trial.

It wouldn't necessarily mean the cop was deliberately trying to frame you. I covered cops and courts for my hometown newspaper, and covered lots of crime stories in bigger cities later, and my observation is that cops routinely make inferences and assumptions that push them to a conclusion, and then find evidence to back that conclusion up. I think we all do that. But the rest of us don't send people to prison. You can push back against those tendencies if you try, but I don't see cops getting incentives to do that -- it's just not part of the job, it would leave them working half as many cases per cop, and they'd solve fewer of 'em because most (solvable) cases aren't big who-done-its but do go cold fast.

Then think about all the research about eyewitness IDs that have come out in the last decade or so (they're influenced by investigators; people really suck at 'em -- especially across racial, gender, and age gaps; and witnesses will quickly work the image of the person they ID'd into their memory of the scene, so a "maybe" ID gets massaged into a 'yeah' near the scene and becomes a "that's the guy, I'm positive" in court).

So considering that, how hard do you think it would have been if your alibi had been credibly (if falsely) challenged, for detectives, prosecutors, and maybe the jury, to see how any other evidence gathered in the case all fit with you being the guy?

And any evidence that may not quite fit perfect? Good chance you'll never learn about it, even if it does exist. Brady violations as they're called are rampant in prosecutors offices, the standards are weak and prosecutors have every incentive to hide evidence, and even in the most appalling cases they won't be punished.

This is how wrongful convictions happen. It's not likely to happen to you just because you gave a cop some information. But it could have. And this could happen without anyone in the system being truly trying to frame you. But that won't be much comfort when some forensic evidence comes back a match -- placing you at the scene with scientific precision. It could just be a totally bogus practice -- like the 'bullet lot' matching that the FBI used to trumpet before quietly admitting it was totally worthless, or the use of forensic dentistry which was critical in two wrongful murder convictions we know of (and who knows how many others that didn't have DNA evidence to test). Or it could be that the analyst has her finger on the scales, knows who the cops arrested and gives up a result to match. Maybe because the guy's guilty, and she's kind of busy fueling her coke habit from the evidence lockup (happened in San Francisco a couple of years ago).

Moral of the story -- don't talk to cops, never offer an alibi, and if you do have evidence or an explanation save it for your lawyer to work with to make sure it helps instead of hurts. You can beat the rap, but you can't beat the ride.

The real problem is that Republicans think that cutting spending is the only way to fix the budget,
despite the fact that taxes are at historic lows and austerity is actually a really shitty idea (see: europe).

Europe says they're doing austerity measures. They're defining a cut as a reduction in spending growth just like the Democrats. Don't believe the hype.

You forgot your sarcasm tag. Just in case you were actually serious.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2012/07/tapp-j10.html
http://www.dailytech.com/Report+Obama+Administration+to+Spy+on+Citizens+Online+to+Fight+Terror/article19734.htm
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/28/warrantless-electronic-surveillance-obama_n_1924508.html
http://reason.com/archives/2012/10/03/warrantless-spying-skyrockets-under-obam

Warrant-less spying has surged under the Obama administration. From what I understand he has maintained every domestic spying program created under the Bush administration, and even expanded some of them and created new ones. Not that I think a republican would do any better mind you. Both parties have little interest in protecting any of our rights, they are far too interested in pandering to corporate lobbyists and expanding their own powers beyond all reason.

The greatest falsehood of our political debate is that the government can't do things more efficiently than private enterprise.

It'd help your argument, if the falsehood was actually false.

I've compared industries where the government was working side by side with private enterprises, and it was straightforward to compare the results. For example, in the electric industry, there are private, federal, state and locally-owned power generation plants. Everybody in the industry agrees on the standards to judge them -- basically the percentage of downtime and cost per kilowatt-hour. The federally-run power plants, like the Tennessee Valley Authority, were consistently at the top of the list. Some of the private plants were at the top, some of them were at the bottom. The government did a good job.

And if the TVA were playing on an even field, it'd be at the bottom of those lists. If I didn't have to follow a bunch of costly federal laws and had some large, cozy monopoly markets, I bet I'd be at the top of that list as well.

If you don't believe the government can do anything efficiently, then go out and look at the data, and see if it supports your hypothesis. When I look at the data, it doesn't.

One merely needs to look at your example to see that you aren't looking.

I don't see how universal background checks are at the expense of freedoms anymore than a driver's license, fishing license, hunting license etc is.

I was going to use some of my mod points in this topic, but I can't let this go unanswered. There are many problems with "universal background checks", but the main thing I want to say is that none of those licenses require a background check, which is a far more intrusive procedure. AFAIK, nobody gets denied a driver's license because they once got busted for smoking pot. I'm surprised that you can't see the difference between a license, even a license with a test, and a background check.

Does Canada have anit-SLAPP laws?

In the US, it's on a state by state basis.

Reason had a recent article on Anti-SLAPP laws:
http://reason.com/blog/2012/06/18/conservative-historians-defamation-suit

Rothbard's concept of private law was in perfect resonance with his nativism and crypto-racism*. It creates a perfect system where an individual must consent to the prevailing contractual terms for protection of his property and himself, or face the prospect of having no protection at all. In short, you can take or leave the private terms of police protection, but leaving them is tantamount to renouncing your citizenship and becoming stateless. Individuals acting en sole who want protection have no say in negotiating these terms, except for the resources they can use to bargain with. And in these sorts of negotiations, the only useful bargaining resource would be weapons, the capacity to take other people's property.

* I'm sure you're aware that Murray and Lew wrote all of Ron Paul's racist newsletters in a bizarre bid to create "Outreach to the Rednecks," as Rothbard himself called it.

First of all, there never was a "hole" - a better term would be an "ozone reduction". Its cause remains unknown. There are many theories, and the one exclusively blaming CFC's is made increasingly implausible by recent research, as well as the recent ozone increase. What is known is that the government intervention in banning CFC's had some small negative impact on the quality of life of almost everyone alive today. The effect of the ban on the ozone layer, if any, won't kick in until the CFC particles already released begin to exit the atmosphere many decades from now...

There are many natural cycles that affect this planet and this solar system, and modern science has not been around long enough to measure and fully understand all of them. However "we don't know" is not an acceptable answer to many people - they want a story that sounds good and fits their preconceived political beliefs...

--libman

And by the way, very few people care about this shit except gun nuts like you.

Nope, nobody else cares. Not one bit.

http://reason.com/blog/2013/02/04/someone-just-leaked-obamas-rules-for-ass I want to know his rules for ass!

Actually, the legislation from Senator Feinstein would ban pretty much every single semiautomatic firearm, her list of "banned/approved" notwithstanding. Poor legislation results in the total ban; this is what happens when those who are ignorant of firearms try to write legislation limiting/restricting firearms.

Police Raid Wrong House, Steal 18-Year-Old Girl's Computer Thanks to Unsecured WiFi Connection

http://reason.com/blog/2012/06/29/police-raid-wrong-house-through-technolo

Who decides if it is a reasonable request?

Ultimately management does, whether or not a union exists. That's not to imply that management is always right (they demonstrably aren't) but any action ultimately needs management to approve it.

What if you can negotiate a lower fee for the company to move to a different but less well managed 401k program, I know my company moved, if we had a union stuff like that would negotiated.

A union is not needed to negotiate that sort of thing. Merely sufficiently interested and motivated employees who are willing to walk away if it is sufficiently important to them. You (probably) don't actually need to form a union, merely talk among yourselves and then go talk with management regarding what you want. The only real thing a union can do is to go on strike which is basically a threat to the existence of the company. The problem had better be rather severe for that to be a reasonable step. (sometimes a strike is an unfortunately necessary action) A union is pretty much regarded as something close to a suicide bomber by management. Unions threaten to take the company down unless management gives in to their demands. While I won't argue its effectiveness, negotiation through ultimatums is not a tactic that will win hearts and minds.

Bear in mind that when you request the company to pay additional costs on your behalf you are asking the owners of the company to take money out of their pocket and put it in yours. It's ok to do that but put yourself in their shoes for a second and consider your request. Is this something they can afford? What is the full cost to the company and its owners? Does this hurt the company's competitive position? How important is this request really? etc. If the workers really are getting an unfair deal then it is time to negotiate. Bear in mind that unless you have a BATNA, you can live with then you are not in a strong negotiating position.

Forming a union is not an admission of the workers not being willing to communicate but a relization that without a union management has all the power and has been abusing it.

Re-read what I wrote. I said "willing or able". Often workers are willing to communicate but are ineffective in doing so. (the reverse is true as well, often management is seriously lacking in communication ability) I've worked with many unions and quite a few are unwilling to negotiate in good faith with management. I've seen union contracts where someone can show up for work drunk multiple time before they can be terminated. Many unions make it virtually impossible to get rid of genuinely bad employees - see this flowchart for the steps required to terminate a bad teacher in New York. Unions tend to quickly change from protecting worker rights to extortion rackets. (nice company you have there - shame to see anything bad happen to it...) Management almost never has "all the power" because most employment is at-will. You can leave anytime you want for any reason or even no reason at all. And frankly if working conditions really are so bad that a union seems like a genuinely good idea, do you really want to stay there any longer than you have to?

Well, we can't analyze statistics intelligently and act on them, because the NRA lobbied Congress to prevent us from doing so.

Rubbish. The Department of Justice can perform statistical analysis as well as anyone.

Bureau of Justice Statistics

You are leaving out some inconvenient facts there about the Center for Disease Control, not firearms control . . . .

Public Health Pot Shots - How the CDC succumbed to the Gun "Epidemic"

Contrary to this picture of dispassionate scientists under assault by the Neanderthal NRA and its know-nothing allies in Congress, serious scholars have been criticizing the CDC's "public health" approach to gun research for years. In a presentation at the American Society of Criminology's 1994 meeting, for example, University of Illinois sociologist David Bordua and epidemiologist David Cowan called the public health literature on guns "advocacy based on political beliefs rather than scientific fact." Bordua and Cowan noted that The New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of the American Medical Association, the main outlets for CDC-funded studies of firearms, are consistent supporters of strict gun control. They found that "reports with findings not supporting the position of the journal are rarely cited," "little is cited from the criminological or sociological field," and the articles that are cited "are almost always by medical or public health researchers."

Further, Bordua and Cowan said, "assumptions are presented as fact: that there is a causal association between gun ownership and the risk of violence, that this association is consistent across all demographic categories, and that additional legislation will reduce the prevalence of firearms and consequently reduce the incidence of violence." They concluded that "[i]ncestuous and selective literature citations may be acceptable for political tracts, but they introduce an artificial bias into scientific publications. Stating as fact associations which may be demonstrably false is not just unscientific, it is unprincipled." In a 1994 presentation to the Western Economics Association, State University of New York at Buffalo criminologist Lawrence Southwick compared public health firearm studies to popular articles produced by the gun lobby: "Generally the level of analysis done on each side is of a low quality. The papers published in the medical literature (which are uniformly anti-gun) are particularly poor science."

As Bordua, Cowan, and Southwick observed, a prejudice against gun ownership pervades the public health field. Deborah Prothrow-Stith, dean of the Harvard School of Public Health, nicely summarizes the typical attitude of her colleagues in a recent book. "My own view on gun control is simple," she writes. "I hate guns and cannot imagine why anybody would want to own one. If I had my way, guns for sport would be registered, and all other guns would be banned." Opposition to gun ownership is also the official position of the U.S. Public Health Service, the CDC's parent agency. Since 1979, its goal has been "to reduce the number of handguns in private ownership," starting with a 25 percent reduction by the turn of the century.. . . more

Well, we can't analyze statistics intelligently and act on them, because the NRA lobbied Congress to prevent us from doing so.

Rubbish. The Department of Justice can perform statistical analysis as well as anyone.

Bureau of Justice Statistics

You are leaving out some inconvenient facts there about the Center for Disease Control, not firearms control . . . .

Public Health Pot Shots - How the CDC succumbed to the Gun "Epidemic"

Contrary to this picture of dispassionate scientists under assault by the Neanderthal NRA and its know-nothing allies in Congress, serious scholars have been criticizing the CDC's "public health" approach to gun research for years. In a presentation at the American Society of Criminology's 1994 meeting, for example, University of Illinois sociologist David Bordua and epidemiologist David Cowan called the public health literature on guns "advocacy based on political beliefs rather than scientific fact." Bordua and Cowan noted that The New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of the American Medical Association, the main outlets for CDC-funded studies of firearms, are consistent supporters of strict gun control. They found that "reports with findings not supporting the position of the journal are rarely cited," "little is cited from the criminological or sociological field," and the articles that are cited "are almost always by medical or public health researchers."

Further, Bordua and Cowan said, "assumptions are presented as fact: that there is a causal association between gun ownership and the risk of violence, that this association is consistent across all demographic categories, and that additional legislation will reduce the prevalence of firearms and consequently reduce the incidence of violence." They concluded that "[i]ncestuous and selective literature citations may be acceptable for political tracts, but they introduce an artificial bias into scientific publications. Stating as fact associations which may be demonstrably false is not just unscientific, it is unprincipled." In a 1994 presentation to the Western Economics Association, State University of New York at Buffalo criminologist Lawrence Southwick compared public health firearm studies to popular articles produced by the gun lobby: "Generally the level of analysis done on each side is of a low quality. The papers published in the medical literature (which are uniformly anti-gun) are particularly poor science."

As Bordua, Cowan, and Southwick observed, a prejudice against gun ownership pervades the public health field. Deborah Prothrow-Stith, dean of the Harvard School of Public Health, nicely summarizes the typical attitude of her colleagues in a recent book. "My own view on gun control is simple," she writes. "I hate guns and cannot imagine why anybody would want to own one. If I had my way, guns for sport would be registered, and all other guns would be banned." Opposition to gun ownership is also the official position of the U.S. Public Health Service, the CDC's parent agency. Since 1979, its goal has been "to reduce the number of handguns in private ownership," starting with a 25 percent reduction by the turn of the century.. . . more

And you can't get precise figures because the NRA lobbied congress to forbid government funding from paying for research into gun fatalities

That is false. Law enforcement agencies, you know, the ones that normally deal with crimes like murder, can engage in research and statistical analysis. The CDC was restricted. And why?

There are some huge gaps in the facts you present. Lets add in a bit more for people to see:

Public Health Pot Shots - How the CDC succumbed to the Gun "Epidemic"

Contrary to this picture of dispassionate scientists under assault by the Neanderthal NRA and its know-nothing allies in Congress, serious scholars have been criticizing the CDC's "public health" approach to gun research for years. In a presentation at the American Society of Criminology's 1994 meeting, for example, University of Illinois sociologist David Bordua and epidemiologist David Cowan called the public health literature on guns "advocacy based on political beliefs rather than scientific fact." Bordua and Cowan noted that The New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of the American Medical Association, the main outlets for CDC-funded studies of firearms, are consistent supporters of strict gun control. They found that "reports with findings not supporting the position of the journal are rarely cited," "little is cited from the criminological or sociological field," and the articles that are cited "are almost always by medical or public health researchers." . . .

Further, Bordua and Cowan said, "assumptions are presented as fact: that there is a causal association between gun ownership and the risk of violence, that this association is consistent across all demographic categories, and that additional legislation will reduce the prevalence of firearms and consequently reduce the incidence of violence." They concluded that "[i]ncestuous and selective literature citations may be acceptable for political tracts, but they introduce an artificial bias into scientific publications. Stating as fact associations which may be demonstrably false is not just unscientific, it is unprincipled." In a 1994 presentation to the Western Economics Association, State University of New York at Buffalo criminologist Lawrence Southwick compared public health firearm studies to popular articles produced by the gun lobby: "Generally the level of analysis done on each side is of a low quality. The papers published in the medical literature (which are uniformly anti-gun) are particularly poor science."

As Bordua, Cowan, and Southwick observed, a prejudice against gun ownership pervades the public health field. Deborah Prothrow-Stith, dean of the Harvard School of Public Health, nicely summarizes the typical attitude of her colleagues in a recent book. "My own view on gun control is simple," she writes. "I hate guns and cannot imagine why anybody would want to own one. If I had my way, guns for sport would be registered, and all other guns would be banned." Opposition to gun ownership is also the official position of the U.S. Public Health Service, the CDC's parent agency. Since 1979, its goal has been "to reduce the number of handguns in private ownership," starting with a 25 percent reduction by the turn of the century. . . .

As Bordua and Cowan noted, one hallmark of the public health literature on guns is a tendency to ignore contrary scholarship. Among criminologists, Gary Kleck's encyclopedic Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America (1991) is universally recognized as the starting point for further research. Kleck, a professor of criminology at Florida State University, was initially a strong believer that gun ownership increased the incidence of homicide, but his research made him a skeptic. His book assembles strong evidence against the notion that reducing gun ownership is a goo

From "Lead Poisoning Causes Crime?"

Blindingly obvious? As far as I know there are no national data series (other than crime statistics) related to societal levels of agressivity and impulsivity, but there are data on national trends in average IQs and ADHD. And those data cut against the lead/crime hypothesis. Take ADHD trends; even as blood lead levels have been dropping the diagnosed rate of ADHD has been rising steeply, up 66 percent in just the past 10 years. And despite the rise in ADHD, crime rates are still falling.

In addition, even as exposure to tetra-ethyl lead rose, average American IQ scores have been increasing at the rate of about 3 points per decade for nearly a century, up about 22 points since 1932 [PDF]. This increase is the well-known Flynn Effect, named after the New Zealand researcher, James Flynn, who first identified the steady rise in average IQ scores. Note that average IQ scores have been increasing ever since tetra-ethyl lead was first added to gasoline in the mid-1920s.

Reason had a great piece about how, historically, big business has never been pro-free-market. If you're interested in the difference between free-market advocates that consider public-private partnerships positively or negatively, have a look at the history of the "New Left", Murray Rothbard and the Kochtopus, maybe. There indeed are libertarian movements that consider capitalism neutrally instead of positively. Agorism is one such.

Fort Hood was - yes, this seems odd to me too - practically a "gun-free zone", that is, "The Army prohibits soldiers from carrying personal firearms inside Fort Hood and other bases." (Wikipedia). So it's rather that the disarmed members of the military were unable to prevent the murders at Fort Hood, and rather argues for allowing people to carry firearms on the base.

Terrifying: Increases in Real Per Capita Federal Spending Over The Past 35 Years

It appears the Federal government is hiring again under the Obama administration.

Historical Federal Workforce Tables - (In thousands)

Year.Civ.. Mil..L/J*.Total
2008 2,692 1,450 64 4,206
2009 2,774 1,591 66 4,430
 

*Legislative & Judicial

A better analogy.

Paedophiles like looking at pictures of children and even babies being raped - but don't tell me, it "doesn't mean they'd like to make it real"... LOL. Idiot.

Your laughable comparison to watching a film is beyond contempt, is that your best argument? Nobody watches a James Bond film because they want to BE James Bond, it's just interesting and enjoyable to watch it.

You just contradicted yourself.

Anyway, the evidence is that porn doesn't lead to non-consensual sex:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2032762
http://reason.com/archives/2007/11/05/is-pornography-a-catalyst-of-s

Sorry, but the person you replied to doesn't seem to be an idiot. Just more informed, less reactionary, more considered.