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Obamacare is a compromise forced by unions and large corporations that want to maintain their tax deductible "cushy" medical plans whilst the rest of the populous get forced into a command-economy style health care industry.

If Obamacare was actually single payer, or socialist, the cushy medical plans couldn't really exist (because the infrastructure that would have supported them meaning the insurance companies and the pay-for-service medical providers would have evaporated) and there would have been no support for it. Regardless if the that is what Obama wanted, his support base wanted to be able to keep their plans, so this is what came out of the backroom deal.

If you want some evidence of this, I suggest you start with the sad fact that congress needed to hastily pass a law to allow their staffers to get a federal subsidy to help pay for getting their insurance through Obamacare since they feared "brain-drain" of people fleeing public service to get better health coverage from the private sector. No, the people in charge of Obamacare don't want the same coverage for everyone, they just want to change the way healthcare is funded for the masses, not the elite.

Tiered coverage often doesn't work with single payer very well, because of economies of scale limit the availability of competition for supplemental insurance resulting in a very have and have-not price points. As an example of this, you can start by looking into the fact that in the US medicare supplemental insurance needs to be subsidized by the government to keep providers in the market. If that seems like an inherently unfair use of government resources to give health benefits to some people over other people, well, you are probably looking at a preview of Obamacare in a few years if they want to keep private insurers in the market as costs rise, but premiums are capped due to political pressure.

On the other hand, if you are a cynic, you probably think that this design was an intentional long-term policy to drive out all insurers so that the system has to convert to single payer. If you want to see some evidence of this, look at what Obamacare is doing to Medicare Advantage programs (alternate Medicare-like insurance provided by private insurers).

Yeah, we know how well that worked...

http://threatpost.com/department-energy-compromised-sophisticated-attack-020413/77485
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/04/net-us-usa-cybersecurity-doe-idUSBRE9130ZL20130204
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-57567581-83/hackers-hit-u.s-department-of-energy/

Just wait 1-2 weeks. The next batch of revelations is due to start in about a week.
Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/07/us-usa-security-snowden-brazil-idUSBRE97600L20130807

The documents concerning this are expected to be included in them.

  “The pretext [given by Washington] for the spying is only one thing: terrorism and the need to protect the [American] people. But the reality is that there are many documents which have nothing to do with terrorism or national security, but have to do with competition with other countries, in the business, industrial and economic fields," Greenwald said on Tuesday.

Source: http://rt.com/news/journalist-thousands-snowden-documents-143/

So, no concrete evidence yet; but it is coming soon.

Not just spying, but using this for ordinary crime. Kind of like how RICO was once upon a time ONLY for going after the mafia and then it morphed into something that applies to even the kid selling joints on the street corner.

The selling point for this program, to get people to accept it, is "terrorism", but it's already being used unconstitutionally by law enforcement for ordinary shit:

DEA Parallel Construction: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/05/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE97409R20130805

IRS Parallel Construction: http://dailycaller.com/2013/08/08/reuters-irs-manual-instructed-agents-how-to-hide-secret-deansa-intel/

Fruit of the poisonous tree: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruit_of_the_poisonous_tree

This will just expand to the point that unconstitutionally gathered evidence will be used for everything down to parking tickets, like RICO metastasized into what it is now.

"What you're not seeing is people actually abusing these programs." - Obama.

You're not seeing the abuse, therefore it's not happening.

Actually, we are seeing the abuse.

TL;DR: The DEA is obtaining information from the NSA, then pretending that their investigation didn't use it (because it would be inadmissible in court). They then practice "parallel construction" and reconstruct a fake trail of evidence to cover their tracks. They never share this with the defense counsel. This undermines pretrial discovery rules and the entire justice system.

That might be true but they are "legally" only able to go after specific people that they know are violating the law. This is supposed to be the law. Unfortunately what is actually happening is the the NSA is combing through your emails and when they find something they refer it to the appropriate agency who then busts you and builds a "Parallel construction" case against you. This can be drugs, IRS, etc. anything that you might be doing that the government might build a case against. This is not against a particular pedophile or terrorist. The law is supposed to say if you have evidence against a particular person then you can get that persons records, signed off by a judge.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/08/07/uk-dea-irs-idUKBRE9761B620130807
Unfortunately because of the Patriot act and the legislation that the government passed after 9/11 we are turning the country into a police state. The terrorists are destroying us from within without even being here.

Yeah, until they pass an amendment, the government cant do shit. Here is the relevant law:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

He should make a public redress of grievances listing all the information he has and release it to the press. We need a Martyr to fight those in power. I just don't know if the operator of Lavabit wants to get crucified by parallel construction. As long as they have a culture of fear, people will still refuse to stand their ground. This is not unlike what the Germans experienced in WW2 and Soviets experienced soon after.

What does that even mean?

Death metal to America!

For your sake, I hope you are not living in US. Because they may come after you on drug charges

Huh? Why would they need 3D printed guns, when the US government is already supplying them with mass manufactured ones?

The north pole lake first of all is not a lake (it's a "melt pond") and second of all is not thought to be caused by global warming--it's just what happens when summer sun shines down on arctic ice. http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/29/us-northpole-lake-idUSBRE96S16620130729

In other, unrelated news, Facebook stock prices briefly nearly reached it's initial sale price the other day, which the media has portrayed as a good thing. Unless of course you were one of the initial investors, in which case it's been two years and counting and still no return on your initial investment. The only other major social media website being publicly traded is MySpace (owned by Murdock, ticker: NWS). I probably don't need to remind you what happened to them.

But surely a website named after a verb that means "to taunt, tease, ridicule, etc., with reference to anything embarrassing" will be a wise investment where these other two social media sites have failed... I mean, it's a foregone conclusion in marketing that social media is where it's at... despite these collossal failures. Now if you'll excuse me, I gotta get back to denying climate change, the holocaust, and the notion that married people have sex...

GirlInTraining
Senior Marketing Consultant

Americans won't just say "meh" to their own dead women and children either.

Americans are already in the process of saying "meh" to total Government awareness and spying on every facet of their lives, and using SWAT teams for mundane process server jobs. What makes you think they won't excuse collateral damage deaths as inevitable consequences that have to be accepted for the greater good?

IMO you've got it backwards. The licenses ("shields" or "medallions") cost so much because they're a licence to print money once acquired. In NYC "corporate" medallions have sold for over $1 million. They sell for that much because the owner can get a better return on his investment than he can investing it in other ways, adjusted for risk. Medallion owners tend to play municipal politics well, to protect their investment. They also fool the public into feeling sorry for them. Please don't fall for it.

It is illegal to sell it for food, according to Reuters, but if you say otherwise I certainly cannot refute as I am not up on my federal food laws :)

Why doesn't Microsoft pay its taxes, so that we can run the schools, libraries and support services for kids to grow up to be programmers or anything else they want?

We're a wealthy country. We should be able to raise money among ourselves and decide among ourselves how we want to spend it. (It's called taxes.) I think most of us would want to spend the money on free public schools, including free college (like the countries we compete with, including the countries those HB-1 immigrants come from). I don't think many people here want their children to graduate college $50,000 in debt, or to drop out of college because they can't afford it. (The Gates Foundation, BTW, was a member of ALEC, which did so much to cut our taxes and destroy low-cost public university education http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_members_of_the_American_Legislative_Exchange_Council#Former_corporate_members)

We don't need billionaires making these decisions for us, instead of paying taxes so we can decide ourselves.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/27/us-microsoft-tax-idUSTRE76Q6OB20110727

Insight: Microsoft use of low-tax havens drives down tax bill

By Lynnley Browning

FAIRFIELD, Connecticut | Wed Jul 27, 2011 7:07pm EDT

(Reuters) - If you want to know why tax from surging corporate profits isn't making much of a dent in the United States' crippling budget deficit, a glance at Microsoft Corp's recent results provides some clues.

Things were rosy in the giant software company's just-ended fiscal fourth quarter, which produced record sales of nearly $17.4 billion, a 30 percent increase in after-tax profit, and a 35 percent gain in earnings per share.

But for the Internal Revenue Service and foreign tax authorities, things weren't so rosy. Microsoft reported only $445 million in taxes in the U.S. and other foreign countries, just 7 percent of its $6.32 billion in pre-tax profit....

In real life, the powers that be want the guy muzzled.

If the UK they use the courts to block the publication of the paper

In the US they use the CIA to murder the author

Try this instead: http://www.reuters.com/search?blob=barnaby+jack

... as they are basically a ministry of the Chinese government.

U.S. lawmakers seek to block China Huawei, ZTE U.S. inroads

"Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, at a press conference to release the report, said companies that had used Huawei equipment had reported "numerous allegations" of unexpected behavior, including routers supposedly sending large data packs to China late at night."

Richard Stallman: We should join our hands together and sing songs, using copyright against them!

Be careful what you sing, though. The interpretation of music is regulated by the copyright law, even when that music is only expressed in the form of music sheet. For instance, don't sing "Happy birthday to you" in public until the matter of its copyright is not settled, otherwise you may be liable to pay royalties.

Slashdotters: Screw profits! Digital blue prints want to be freeeeeeeee!

By an unfortunate coincidence, blue-prints and music sheets are both... a design for an artistic form of expression.

I get the impression that Pauling was simultaneously very smart and very full of himself. He glibly dismissed evidence simply because it didn't agree with his world-view, which is actually a hallmark of a bad scientist.

From URL http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/05/nobel-chemistry-idUSL5E7L51U620111005 :

"People just laughed at me," Shechtman recalled in an interview this year with Israeli newspaper Haaretz, noting how Linus Pauling, a colossus of science and double Nobel laureate, mounted a frightening "crusade" against him, saying: "There is no such thing as quasicrystals, only quasi-scientists."

Pauling's story shows us that the self-marketing which stemmed from his enormous ego had quite a bit to do with the overall good scientist legacy which still surrounds him (and ditto for some others from his era, like Watson and Crick). I'm not sure what we are supposed to learn from that, though. I get the impression that the really best scientists, when approached by the media about their new breakthrough, would actually say something like "I'm really excited, but let's not forget that this still has to be replicated, and I'm sure that future work will show that I'm not 100% correct, and I couldn't have done this without the work of generations of previous scientists" --- which isn't exactly something which makes for sexy news.

Got a problem with drones? Just shoot 'em down: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/18/us-usa-colorado-drones-idUSBRE96H02120130718

Uh, almost 1. Rajat Gupta has been convicted of insider trading, ordered to pay a $13.9 million fine, and sentenced to 2 years in prison. He's also been banned from serving as an officer or director of any publicly traded company.

He's never seen the inside of a jail though, and he's still out on bail, pending appeal, so we'll see.

AC wrote:

"PV is a hippie pipe dream. ...and taking money from person A to buy votes from person B is bullshit.

ehhhh... energy companies or so evil... never mind that many municipalities own their own power generation infrastructure.

please show us a PV cell factory that itself runs entirely off the grid."

This is a troll. OK. But so too does it present a position and value set that's common among Libertarians, so someone ought to respond. Because underneath the derision is a point worth debating. And that's, can a governmental body invest in infrastructure to the benefit of a common good? Peru (and many other nations) are buying PV infrastructure because they believe it the best option to electrify outlying areas. Those of the Libertarian persuasion view this as wasted money, for reasons that the AC listed above in quotes.

In Germany, peak production of electricity by solar has hit 50% at times. This is causing the unintended consequence that the centralized power plant model is failing, because peak hours of consumption coincide with peak production by solar. That is, at the very time when central power plants have long expected to extract the highest price per kilowatt - during business hours in daylight - is also the time when privately installed PV offsets those costs. Thus disrupting an old centralized energy production and distribution model.

The same has happened in Australia. (I'm currently living in Australia for a short time, so I see this first hand). Last year, government subsidies for solar PV and hot water installation were scrapped early, because too many people took advantage of the opportunity, thus - just like in Germany - affecting income and profit projections across the power industry. Just like in the United States, industry players lobbied to remove the subsidies and won.

Yet this hasn't stopped solar installation. People still rush to buy. It's a long-term price lock-in, because even in the U.S. PV is already close to grid parityopportunity for those of the Libertarian persuasion?

Next, government subsidies given to central utility producers. There are massive costs involved in grid infrastructure that have to be amortized across its life, plus profit. This is then shifted out to customers, either through utility rates or by taxation if it's government run. As the AC notes, "many municipalities own their own power generation infrastructure." Doesn't that mean they're "taking money from person A to buy votes from person B"? That is, you can't have the argument both ways. If solar subsidies violate gains from a free market, then so does central power production and grid distribution.

Which is a red herring. Actually, the entire society benefits from grid infrastructure. The only question here is whether private interests can sustain investment to transition to new generation technologies like PV, or whether government subsidies are necessary to sustain this path. PV is already shown to be price competitive. If market forces work as Libertarians claim, then because prices are at parity and continuing to drop, grid upgrades and maintenance to support this new technology will occur whether they like it or not. And if the Libertarian 'free market' model fails, we'll know that by how well central producers throttle deployment of PV technology.

Finally, another red herring: Why must PV factories use self-produced electricity to manufacture PV cells and panels? Should aluminum factories be required to use aluminum in their production process?

"politeness" in the corporate IT world amounts to accepting practices which result in the worst security problems you can think of. Later the management muppets will be "completely stunned" by their data being sucked off by 127 Chinese, 67 American, 17 Nork and 23 Israeli hacksters,

Keep calling out the frauds as frauds, Linus !

Read this and see how "politeness" and "polticial correctness" (read. MONEY) corrupts the mind almost totally:

Corrupt RSA

Hack of Lockheed Martin

We need MORE people to tell the blunt truth than people like this Intel dumbo-corporate-chick who wants to sweep problems under the carpet.

Kind regars to all the corruptos

Dipl.-Ing.(BA) Frank Gerlach

Better at what? And for which country?

Don't you know? They are all "innocent."

Al Qaeda Manual Drives Detainee Behavior at Guantanamo Bay

WASHINGTON, June 29, 2005 – If you're a Muslim extremist captured while fighting your holy war against "infidels," avoid revealing information at all costs, don't give your real name and claim that you were mistreated or tortured during your detention. . .

Police in Manchester, England, discovered the manual, which has come to be known as the "Manchester document," in 2000 while searching computer files found in the home of a known al Qaeda member. The contents were introduced as evidence into the 2001 trial of terrorists who bombed the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in 1998.

The FBI translated the document into English, and it is posted on the Justice Department's Web site.

The 18-chapter manual provides a detailed window into al Qaeda's network and its procedures for waging jihad - from conducting surveillance operations to carrying out assassinations to working with forged documents.

The closing chapter teaches al Qaeda operatives how to operate in a prison or detention center. It directs detainees to "insist on proving that torture was inflicted" and to "complain of mistreatment while in prison."

Chapter 17 instructs them to "be careful not to give the enemy any vital information" during interrogations. . . .

"These detainees are trained to lie, they're trained to say they were tortured, and the minute we release them or the minute they get a lawyer, very frequently they'll go out and they will announce that they've been tortured," Rumsfeld said.

The media jumps on these claims, reporting them as "another example of torture," the secretary said, "when in fact, (terrorists have) been trained to do that, and their training manual says so."

During a February 2004 Pentagon news conference, a DoD official said new information provided by detainees during questioning is analyzed to determine its reliability.

"Unfortunately, many detainees are deceptive and prefer to conceal their identifies and their actions," said Paul Butler, principal deputy assistant secretary for special operations and low-intensity conflict.

Butler said the Manchester document includes "a large section which teaches al Qaeda operatives counterinterrogation techniques: how to lie, how to minimize your role."

The document, he said, has surfaced in various locations, including Afghanistan.

The manual's preface offers a chilling reminder of the mentality that drives al Qaeda disciples and the lengths they will go to for their cause.

"The confrontation that we are calling for ... does not know Socratic debates, ... Platonic ideals ... nor Aristotelian diplomacy," its opening pages read. "But it knows the dialogue of bullets, the ideals of assassination, bombing and destruction, and the diplomacy of the cannon and machine gun."

Recidivism rises among released Guantanamo detainees

The proportion of militants released from detention at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay who subsequently were believed to have returned to the battlefield rose slightly over the last year, according to official figures released on Monday. In a summary report, the office of the Director of National Intelligence said that 27.9 percent of the 599 former detainees released from Guantanamo were either confirmed or suspected of later engaging in militant activity.

It's not the Olympics, it's war.

Apple is shipping 5.4 million iPhones and iPads per week. PC sales are at 5.9 million units per week. These numbers were pieced together from macworld and reuters. Assuming all of Apple's dreams come true, in 2015 Apple must plan for the case it is selling more processors than Intel, which will mean that Apple needs all the fab capacity it can get. Additionally, given the recent track record on new product launches at TSMC and GloFo, Apple needs a backup plan if one or more fab suppliers have problems.

Even if Apple purchased a new fab, additional reserve capacity might be needed. That may be enough to ink a deal with Samsung. Samsung is the only company with the proven ability to make enough cell phone and tablet processors to cover the majority of the world wide market, including Apple.

TSMC spent $9.4 billion on their latest 300mm fab, and it will be running pretty much 24/7/365 for many, many years. And if Apple broke ground tomorrow, it's still likely to be 3 years before the fab is fully built, equipped, staffed, qualified, and running at full speed.

Apple makes more than $9.4 billion every quarter, for their lowest quarter. That spread that over 3 years assuming that 9.4 billion stays constant every quarter an note that ~$9.4 is about their lowest quarter profit in a year. This $9.4 billion dollar expenditure represents only ~8% of their total profit earned in that three year period.

Bottom line, it's a bet that Apple can afford to lose.

Apple could do it, but it's a very expensive bet.

TSMC spent $9.4 billion on their latest 300mm fab, and it will be running pretty much 24/7/365 for many, many years. And if Apple broke ground tomorrow, it's still likely to be 3 years before the fab is fully built, equipped, staffed, qualified, and running at full speed. Unless Apple is sure it can get chip volume high enough to achieve real cost savings, it's probably not worth doing.

And by then the industry might have started transitioning to 450mm.

Apple is one of the few companies in the world who could drop that much out of actual cash-on-hand without blinking, but it's a very risky bet with potentially a lot more risk than reward.

Obama claims broccoli is his favorite food

Quite a contrast to President George HW Bush: 'I'm President,' So No More Broccoli!

It was a proclamation that every child, and many adults, have dreamed of making.

President Bush declared today that he never, ever, wants to see another sprig of broccoli on his plate, whether he is on Air Force One or at the White House or anywhere else in the land.

''I do not like broccoli,'' the President said, responding to queries about a broccoli ban he has imposed aboard Air Force One, first reported this week in U.S. News and World Report. ''And I haven't liked it since I was a little kid and my mother made me eat it. And I'm President of the United States, and I'm not going to eat any more broccoli!''

A New York cab driver makes about 20 dollars an hour and 42k a year

Which is far above the market rate. If it was not, there would not be a queue of applicants, and taxi medallions would have zero value. A NYC taxi medallion (a license to operate a taxi) costs more than a MILLION DOLLARS.

The garage charges a lot to rent those cars, the city makes you replace them every 2 years or so depending on the type and the driver pays for gas and all credit card transactions which can be up to 5% of a fair. Oh yeah and the MTA takes a little bit of the top to boot.

I am not sure what your point is. The fact taxi fares are so high that rent-seekers can sponge money off the top is not evidence that they are market priced.

the person who really gets hurt is the little buy driving the cab your bitching about instead of the people who put this in place.

I am NOT bitching about the "little guy". I am bitching about the government who are exactly "the people who put this in place."

Now we know who sent the bomb

U.S. nuclear submarine fire linked to vacuum cleaner - http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/06/us-usa-submarine-fire-cause-idUSBRE8551DT20120606

Soon after, the Italian government put them in prison on charges of manslaughter for not curing all genetic illnesses when clearly they could have saved lives. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/22/us-italy-earthquake-court-idUSBRE89L0WM20121022

It looks like this has hit the press in a large way, which is why nearly every major technology site is covering it:

New York Times

CNN

Reuters

BBC

The end result of this decision should be to allow Amazon to continue selling ebooks at below cost if it wants to.

I don't think lawyers on staff get paid extra for creating cases.

Though their top lawyer does get paid quite a bit already.

http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/officerProfile?symbol=AAPL.O&officerId=1396053

Almost $70M, most probably in stock options.

Unions had nothing to do with this; Rapid deregulation brokered by large corporations and a cozy relationship with Congress did.

Sorry, in regards to the automotive industry, you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. The Japanese, German and Korean car companies ATE THEIR LUNCH in the 80's, 90's and 2000's. That's what tanked the US car companies. Know how many foreign car companies have unionized factories? ZERO. OK, Toyota had ONE - NUMMI - that was a joint venture with GM (which was the only reason it was unionized) It's closed now, and they moved production to a non-union plant.

The union can be an important and positive force in the labor market. However, the auto worker unions have gone completely bonkers over the last 50 years. A couple years ago there was a minor scandal when Chrysler fired a dozen or so line workers for drinking and smoking weed on their lunch breaks. The UAW went to bat for these losers and got them reinstated. Got that? It's the UAW's policy that you can ingest legal and illegal intoxicating substances, then go work with heavy machinery, and it's perfectly OK.

I have dozens of stories about the self-destructive behavior of the UAW if you'd like more. Here's a quickie: the UAW retreat and conference center that costs the UAW $4 million a year. Good use of dues, right?

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/22/us-usa-autos-union-property-idUSTRE78L29Y20110922

Nokia messed up by not staying the course. And now they announced they are happy being the challenger. Seriously?

It's understandable that one does not have time to keep up with the news, but at least RTF summary TITLE. Digia releases Qt 5.1. Nokia has had nothing to do with Qt for the last year or so, which is a Good Thing for the toolkit's evolution.

Covered Califiornia is going to be running the health exchanged. All you dumb-ass, young liberals, tech workers are about to get royally fucked so you can pay for the AARP baby boomers who forgot to save for retirement. BOHICA!

http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2013/06/07/obamacares-california-insurance-premiums-are-soaring-this-is-fact/

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/15/ca-seiu-ultcw-grant-idUSnPNLA14681+1e0+PRN20130515

For all off you that voted for "hope and change", you are directly responsible for this cluster fuck. FIX IT!. Me, I voted libertarian and I've got my drink and my popcorn and I'm looking forward to "Thunderdome".

I'm not sure if you're only reading news from Fox, but I'm not seeing the same stories you are. I saw a story that the US government warned the military that a coup would risk a decline in Egypt-US relations, and I see stories that the government doesn't want to specifically support either side. I don't see our government explicitly giving support to a military coup. You obviously see that story, so where is it?

I don't think this is cause for celebration... Yet.

After all, what is the first thing that the army does after ousting the president? They take down the TV and media that opposes them http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/03/us-egypt-protests-tv-idUSBRE9621A320130703

Like most "revolutions" Egypt is simply trading one tyrant for another, just like what happened back in 2011.

Losses from early NASA days 40 years ago illustrate the problem.

One was to the decision to use Apollo-like (moonshot) rockets and capsules to replace the space shuttle. There were some blueprints and museum pieces and personal souveniers from that era, but not complete working models. And the original engineers were dying off fast. The did successfully revive a museum piece for study.

The other losses were computer tapes and films from the early space years. Many were misplaced. Or re-recorded because they were valuble. Or the manetic tapes are fragile and decayed. They are recommended recopy every decade or could lose them. Here is sage of the moon-landing video.

Actually, NZ does (offshore). [I'm another NZer]

However, Uncle Sam doesn't need our oil. It didn't need Iraq's and didn't get much of Iraq's either. With the hasty pull-out of Iraq after the US won (without staying to stabilize like it did in Germany, Korea or Japan) then other countries like China got the oil (not that I have much of a problem with the oil; it is pulling out and allowing Iran to dominate Iraq that was utterly senseless). Here's a reference for you:
http://frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/the-war-for-oil-myth/ "The War for Oil Myth"

So you might want to check your meme dude - it was false a decade ago and is false now. It was promoted by the anti-war outfits of the political Left (who condemn the US as immoral if they intervene; and condemn the US as immoral if they do not intervene). So please be aware of how your natural repulsion to the carnage of war is being manipulated for the political advancement of the Left.

The US and Canda have heaps of recoverable oil these days (thanks to advanced in oil extraction technology, fracking, the Keystone project etc). In fact, by 2017 the US is projected to be the World's top oil producer. Here's a reference for you:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/12/us-iea-oil-report-idUSBRE8AB0IQ20121112

Of course, the political Left will continue to chant "No blood for oil" for a long time. They deal with feelings and concepts, not with facts (usually if an open-minded liberal is exposed to facts for actually does research you find they become "conservative" in outlook and are quickly shunned by the fact-lite "fellow travellers" they left behind).

Samsung's stock took a 6% hit, or $10B in market cap lost, when it was RUMORED they were losing Apple chip contract last year:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/16/us-samsung-chips-idUSBRE84F0BT20120516

Perhaps Samsung doesn't *need* Apple, but they are a major customer and a major source of revenue. Kinda like saying WalMart doesn't *need* to have stores in Texas or California.

Does a mob of Muslim-murdering Buddhists count?

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/08/us-myanmar-violence-specialreport-idUSBRE9370AP20130408

(FWIW, the high-profile accusations of Stasi-like behaviour implied that the rest of the world was being treated like East Germany much moreso than the US itself. Keep in mind that while the NSA may be retaining metadata, they have carte blanche to the same information in every other country. So much for the Pledge of Allegiance.)

That being said, as a Canadian who's visited the US several times, they just don't care. They're too busy to scour everyone's mobile devices. As long as you don't look like you might be Muslim or a specific individual on their hit list, you won't even be subjected to anything more than backscatter and removing your shoes.

Al Qaida was both guest in Afghanistan, and integrated into its military forces and government. Al Qaida's jihadis were organized up to brigade level and fighting along side the Taliban.

The U.S. military reportedly has a skinhead problem. Does that mean that the actions of skinheads should be considered to be on behalf of the United States government? Where do you draw the line? I'm not saying I disagree with you; I'm just playing devil's advocate here.

Social welfare spending is about twice what the defense budget is.

Except the vast majority of that spending—social security, medicare, and unemployment benefits—comes from money that the workers have paid in explicitly so that they could get it back when they retire or become unemployed. I don't consider any of that spending to be part of the federal budget as such. It's just an insurance company that happens to be run by the federal government.

Employers asking for your social-media passwords is now illegal in several states.

people, at least not that i know of.

people who cannot comprehend the difference between a priavte corporation, with your consent, sharing your information, and government agencies obtaining your email without warrant, are...

Facebook use leads to Arrest
5/26/13 In Britain, Police Arrest Twitter and Facebook Users If They Make Anti-Muslim Statements

Facebook use leads to Imprisonment
5/25/13 Jailed for Facebook Comments, Marine Sues

Facebook use leads to Rape
5/28/13 Facebook Rape Joke Prompts 15 Companies to Pull Ads

Facebook use leads to Killing
2/09/12 Facebook "Defriending" Led to Double Murder, Police Say

It seems you're right in that there is a difference between Facebook and the NSA. The NSA's system has a far cleaner track record. If only the NSA would let us join their social network we'd live in a safer world.

I think the causes and the protesters are interesting:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/19/us-brazil-protests-impact-analysis-idUSBRE95I1LQ20130619

That is, the protests are a noisy sign of discontent among a swath of the population that is on average richer and better educated than average Brazilians. A survey of demonstrators in Sao Paulo on Monday by polling firm Datafolha indicated they were three times more likely to have a university degree than the rest of the population.

Causes:

Just a quarter of demonstrators told Datafolha they were protesting against politicians - behind bus fares (56 percent), corruption (40 percent) and police repression (31 percent).

So, it's educated middle class people in the city protesting that politicians aren't giving them stuff cheaper and that politicians are wasting their money. Remember that Brazil is under a left-wing government headed by the PT (Worker's Party). At least it's not Venezuela, where the left wing government managed to produce a shortage of toilet paper; you really don't want to have riots involving large numbers of people lacking toilet paper; it's likely to be smelly.

Of course, if Brazil had a free market kind of government, some people would be protesting against that as well because they think they aren't getting their "fair share". They'd want a left wing government that gives them "free stuff", until that left wing government predictably fails to be able to deliver, and then they protest against that. Well, as long as the stay away from fascist or theocratic government and don't run out of toilet paper, the Brazilians should still be mostly OK.

Slightly off-topic, but there are some studies that appear to suggest that watching excessive amounts of television can detrimentally effect the development of children’s brains.

From the article :-

As reported by Reuters this month, researchers from the University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW), found that background noise emitted from television is so distracting and mesmerizing to children that it is impacting their ability to interact with other human beings and potentially slowing down cognitive thinking and language development.

The study, published in the journal Pediatrics, found that children in the US are now exposed to more than five hours a day of television. Matthew Lapierre, who led the study, explained that children who are subjected to the most TV spend less time interacting with other children and parents.

In a separate study , doctors at the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health in London found that children born today will have watched a full year of television by the time they are seven years old. The study also found that on average children now spend more time watching television than they do in school.

Dr Aric Sigman published the study in the Archives Of Disease In Childhood, a medical journey jointly own by the British Medical Journal group.

Sigman noted that such extensive exposure to television can lead to a void when it comes to social relationships, can lead to attention deficit problems, and can promote significant psychological difficulties.

Granted, none of these are determinative but it is still food for thought.

Germans aren't happy about it neither. Will demand explanations to Obama when he visits them next week.