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But my family is composed of good, just, and law-abiding people. They are not the people I am worried about dying from

Or so you think. Well, congratulations on being lucky then.

The question is whether you believe there are more terrorists in the USofA or more bad cops/contractors/other-people-with-access-to-track-your-daughter.

Without question, the former. My daughter is being raised to say yes sir and no sir, please and thank you. A proper respect for authority (be it her parents or police) but also the wisdom to understand that humans are not perfect.

Congrats on being white in America too! You ARE lucky, aren't you?!

You know who has trouble with "bad cops?" The people who don't respect authority in the first place.

Eyeroll. I have to assume this person is trolling.

The people who have done things that harm others and the society at large.

Black people?

My daughter will never be in a confrontation with the authorities - never become a Michael Brown - because she has been raised to understand the need for the police and for keeping the peace (as much as I can teach her).

Trolling? Parody?

I grew up through the end of the cold war, the rise of the Internet, and the integration of Lawful Intercept into telephone communications. I am still here, still free, and still have my privacy.

Or so you think.

This is no different, and I expect to be able to say the same about my privacy 30 years down the line.

Or so you think.

Unfortunately, lower species tend to be much more difficult to care for properly. They're quite happy to sit in their own filth until communicable diseases break out. Then we have to use force to go in and clean their cages.

Now, maybe if we split the OWS protesters into even smaller groups ....

What... aren't the fences getting too expensive already? Or is the population in the cages not significant enough (for the OWS to spreads inside them cages)?

(when will the "humans" learn to tackle the causes instead of band-aiding the symptoms? After all, both TP and OWS "lower species" seems to have some common grievances, even if they don't quite agree on the solutions. Based on the visible progress, looks like the "govt humans" care more about chimps)

Here. Watch the actual murder of Oscar Grant, by the coward pig, Johannes Mehserle.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Tmh9B8LVxM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0P8TSP2YJU

Oscar Grant was pleading with his friends to keep things cool - but Pigs are killers:
http://sfbayview.com/2009/oscar-grant-young-father-and-peacemaker-executed-by-bart-police/

Actually, the plant does not give the impression of running safely even with all those employees. http://www.sfbayview.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Vermont-Yankee-cooling-tower-collapse-2007.jpg

there's not a significant social democratic left party in the US

...depending on your definition of "significant", of course.
http://www.therealdifference.org/issues.html

The most likely candidate for a social democratic party in the US is the Green Party
.
Bingo! The party's 2008 Presidential candidate constantly points to the failings of the Democrats (and, of course, those of the Republicans).
.
Cynthia McKinney blasts the Press for calling Obama's war escalation an "exit" Plan
http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/National_News_2/article_6653.shtml
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Cynthia McKinney blasts Obama's response in Haiti as "Katrina redux"
http://sfbayview.com/2010/from-cynthia-mckinney-an-unwelcome-katrina-redux/
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Cynthia McKinney blasts Obama's admistration on the Shirley Sherrod affair
http://www.gp.org/press/pr-national.php?ID=334
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More:
http://www.gp.org/cynthia/index.php
.
gewg_ (CAPTCHA:quagmire)

I'm going to call them what they really are: Heroes, righteous environmental crusaders, examples for all of us to follow. Somali pirates, I salute you!

Actually, that's not far from the truth. Apart from defending Somali fishingwaters from rapacious international fisheries who've decided that all that fishing territory is "unowned" due to the collapse of the Somali government, and therefore fair game to be fished until dead, whether it starves the Somalis or not, the Somali pirates are also fighting to stop dumping of toxic and radioactive waste in Somali waters, which has been happening for some time and is causing widespread poisoning, disease, and cancer in the coastal population.

http://www.sfbayview.com/2009/you-are-being-lied-to-about-pirates/

"A new "ramping up" of the nuclear weapons program is underway, with program funding at the highest level ever - even higher than during the Cold War..."

http://www.sfbayview.com/091504/ucregents091504.sh tml

it's not just that they're getting more active with the nukes that they've already got
they plan to expand their arsenal and its capabilities in a way the world has never before seen

i suspect that they realize america's position as economic superpower is starting to fall apart underneath it and realize the military is the only way to maintain their position. which is insane.
while they can manage it, they could easily decide to make a grab at total global domination or as close as they can manage. while its obvious that conventional war against enemies who use guerilla tactics is something america is terrible at winning, the nuke factor really does change things quite a lot.

america has no resources left? america can't make jobs any more? then expand the definition of america, not to mention globalizing manifest destiny.

However, whenever anybody is asked to site a case in which some poor schmuck actually got shafted by these laws, they suddenly fall silent.

Rather than them being silent, maybe you're just not listening.

Here's a repost of some relevant comments I made on this subject several months ago:

Here's a basic list of just a handful of abuses I came up:

• The PATRIOT act is being used in regular non-terrorism criminal cases . Anything beyond simple misdemenors is being passed off as terrorism , now.
• A webmaster was jailed under PATRIOT because someone had posted bomb making info on his server . Keep in mind that he didn't put the info there, he was basically a web host, and one of his clients was using his account this way. This is a particularly damning case of abuse where "Innocuous objects such as iced tea bottles and a toy car were described as terrorist devices by the FBI and a joint task force of police officers."
• A disturbing article about using the PATRIOT act to obtain warrants against doctors and scientists . Not because they've done anything wrong, but because they happen to do research with hazardous materials. Guilty before proven innocent.
• Story about someone killed by the PATRIOT act
• Several artists were charged with bioterrorism under PATRIOT for creating artwork meant to educate viewers in the dangers of the biotech industry.
• Story about a veteran being arrested for complaining too much due to the heightened terror alert.
• Shining a pocket laser into an airplane is terrorism falling under the PATRIOT act
• Article republished fromt the Washington post about American citizens held without trial
• A man being harrassed by a "joint terrorism task force" (the kind that has authority under the PATRIOT act) because of investigating Area 51
• Another "joint terrorism task force" investigating a 12 year old for doing a school paper on the Cesapeake Bay Bridge
• A photographer arrested and threatened with being charged under the PATRIOT act for taking pictures of Dick Cheney

And finally, maybe there haven't been as many abuses as there will be once all 2nd legal track the preparations are in place .

Please note that the identical AC post in this story was me, but I accidentally posted it as AC the first time.

Here's a basic list of just a handful of abuses I came up:

• The PATRIOT act is being used in regular non-terrorism criminal cases. Anything beyond simple misdemenors is being passed off as terrorism, now.
• A webmaster was jailed under PATRIOT because someone had posted bomb making info on his server. Keep in mind that he didn't put the info there, he was basically a web host, and one of his clients was using his account this way. This is a particularly damning case of abuse where "Innocuous objects such as iced tea bottles and a toy car were described as terrorist devices by the FBI and a joint task force of police officers."
• A disturbing article about using the PATRIOT act to obtain warrants against doctors and scientists. Not because they've done anything wrong, but because they happen to do research with hazardous materials. Guilty before proven innocent.
• Story about someone killed by the PATRIOT act
• Several artists were charged with bioterrorism under PATRIOT for creating artwork meant to educate viewers in the dangers of the biotech industry.
• Story about a veteran being arrested for complaining too much due to the heightened terror alert.
• Shining a pocket laser into an airplane is terrorism falling under the PATRIOT act
• Article republished fromt the Washington post about American citizens held without trial
• A man being harrassed by a "joint terrorism task force" (the kind that has authority under the PATRIOT act) because of investigating Area 51
• Another "joint terrorism task force" investigating a 12 year old for doing a school paper on the Cesapeake Bay Bridge
• A photographer arrested and threatened with being charged under the PATRIOT act for taking pictures of Dick Cheney

And finally, maybe there haven't been as many abuses as there will be once all 2nd legal track the preparations are in place.

Here's a basic list of just a handful of abuses I came up:

• The PATRIOT act is being used in regular non-terrorism criminal cases. Anything beyond simple misdemenors is being passed off as terrorism, now.
• A webmaster was jailed under PATRIOT because someone had posted bomb making info on his server. Keep in mind that he didn't put the info there, he was basically a web host, and one of his clients was using his account this way. This is a particularly damning case of abuse where "Innocuous objects such as iced tea bottles and a toy car were described as terrorist devices by the FBI and a joint task force of police officers."
• A disturbing article about using the PATRIOT act to obtain warrants against doctors and scientists. Not because they've done anything wrong, but because they happen to do research with hazardous materials. Guilty before proven innocent.
• Story about someone killed by the PATRIOT act
• Several artists were charged with bioterrorism under PATRIOT for creating artwork meant to educate viewers in the dangers of the biotech industry.
• Story about a veteran being arrested for complaining too much due to the heightened terror alert.
• Shining a pocket laser into an airplane is terrorism falling under the PATRIOT act
• Article republished fromt the Washington post about American citizens held without trial
• A man being harrassed by a "joint terrorism task force" (the kind that has authority under the PATRIOT act) because of investigating Area 51
• Another "joint terrorism task force" investigating a 12 year old for doing a school paper on the Cesapeake Bay Bridge
• A photographer arrested and threatened with being charged under the PATRIOT act for taking pictures of Dick Cheney

And finally, maybe there haven't been as many abuses as there will be once all 2nd legal track the preparations are in place.

What exactly is your source on this?

Writing in Preventive Psychiatry ... Arthur N. Bernklau, executive director of Veterans for Constitutional Law in New York, stated, "... Out of the 580,400 soldiers who served in GW1 (the first Gulf War), of them, 11,000 are now dead. By the year 2000, there were 325,000 on Permanent Medical Disability. This astounding number of 'Disabled Vets' means that a decade later, 56% of those soldiers who served have some form of permanent medical problems." The disability rate for the wars of the last century was 5 percent; it was higher, 10 percent, in Viet Nam....

"Terry Jamison, Public Affairs Specialist, Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, Department of Veterans Affairs, at the VA Central Office, recently reported that 'Gulf Era Veterans' now on medical disability, since 1991, number 518,739 Veterans," said Berklau.

> Are those figures right? From what I can find in Medline, I was
> expecting something like 35,000 on permanent disability, based
> on mortality rates, which are reported to be quite low. If these
> people are getting sick nine times more than Viet Nam vets, but
> are only dying 1.2 times as often, that's just hard for me to
> believe.

Yes, the figures are right, but their connection to DU is incorrect. This covers all injuries--broken leg, hurt back, as well as Gulf War illnesses.

29% is a big number, but 29% != 89% last time I checked.

Also, there are many other explanations other than uranium dust, like chemical weapons in theatre.

Having said that, it is very hard to explain how the contamination of Basrah occured, because almost all the time during and after the 1991 battles when uranium was being released, the prevailing winds would have been blowing them away from the city. Some people have suggested some kind of food-chain contamination, relating to either goats or birds.

But I don't think facts probably matter very much to you.

Writing in Preventive Psychiatry ... Arthur N. Bernklau, executive director of Veterans for Constitutional Law in New York, stated, "... Out of the 580,400 soldiers who served in GW1 (the first Gulf War), of them, 11,000 are now dead. By the year 2000, there were 325,000 on Permanent Medical Disability. This astounding number of 'Disabled Vets' means that a decade later, 56% of those soldiers who served have some form of permanent medical problems." The disability rate for the wars of the last century was 5 percent; it was higher, 10 percent, in Viet Nam....

"Terry Jamison, Public Affairs Specialist, Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, Department of Veterans Affairs, at the VA Central Office, recently reported that 'Gulf Era Veterans' now on medical disability, since 1991, number 518,739 Veterans," said Berklau.

> Are those figures right? From what I can find in Medline, I was
> expecting something like 35,000 on permanent disability, based
> on mortality rates, which are reported to be quite low. If these
> people are getting sick nine times more than Viet Nam vets, but
> are only dying 1.2 times as often, that's just hard for me to
> believe.

Yes, the figures are right, but their connection to DU is incorrect. This covers all injuries--broken leg, hurt back, as well as Gulf War illnesses.