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So then I hunted for "dui+sting" on your friendly neighborhood search engines and got:
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http://abcnews.go.com/US/man-claims-dui-sting-child-custody-dispute-wife/story?id=14207264
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http://www.harriscountydivorceattorneys.com/2011/08/man-blames-wife-for-plotting-dui-to-benefit-from-divorce.shtml

So then I hunted for "dui+sting" on your friendly neighborhood search engines and got:
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http://abcnews.go.com/US/man-claims-dui-sting-child-custody-dispute-wife/story?id=14207264
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http://www.harriscountydivorceattorneys.com/2011/08/man-blames-wife-for-plotting-dui-to-benefit-from-divorce.shtml

Reality must not have read the same law you did
http://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/criminal/many-killers-who-go-free-with-florida-stand-your-ground-law-have-history/1241378

It would also seem that only men are allowed to stand their ground:
http://www.care2.com/causes/stand-your-ground-fails-abused-wife.html

The previous self defense law in Florida was perfectly fine. If you felt threatened and had no way to escape you were justified in using lethal force. Stand your ground essentially took away the "and you have no way to escape" part of the law such that you can always use lethal force if you feel threatened. On top of that it added language so broad that it's comical. It also introduced punishments (yes punishments) for police departments which arrest somebody who is later found to have been within the new stand your ground law. That is not rational policy. If the police find someone dead and you say you shot them, you go to jail and your self defense or not is determined by state prosecutors and ultimately a judge and jury. Self defense is a determination made by the justice system, NOT by law enforcement. Punishing police departments for doing their lawful duty is absolutely stupid. It's a great way to make sure almost nobody ever gets arrested for murder as long as the dead guy was in their house.

The city of Tampa, FL says that the cameras have definitely reduced the number of accidents.

The city of St. Petersburg, FL seems to be having more accidents BECAUSE of red light cameras.

It is however, tough to argue against red light cameras when the city of St. Petersburg issued 36,000 red light citations in one year. That's a lot of red light runners!

...and Busch Gardens used to have Free Beer.

re:
>"If you just write them off as a bunch of idiotic kooks,"
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"But they are. It's like arguing with creationists."
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Yep, it's as bad as trying to argue with the anti-fluoride idiot brigades which keep popping up over and over and over. Example, even the additional fluoride for La Jolla didn't start until 2011, and if you read the comment at the end of the article, you'll see someone calling it "poisoning":
http://www.lajollalight.com/2011/01/31/city-set-to-start-fluoridation-on-tuesday/
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One place in florida voted fluoride out of its water in 2011, and the commissioners who voted to remove fluoride were all voted out and fluoridation is being considered again. There is no need to treat these anti-medicine and anti-science point of view people with kid gloves: they need to be respectfully told just how wrong they are.
http://www.infowars.com/the-coming-re-fluoridation-of-pinellas-county/
Pinellas commission sets vote on restoring fluoride to drinking water:
http://www.tampabay.com/news/localgovernment/pinellas-commission-sets-next-tuesday-for-fluoride-vote/1262454

A fit 6'2 17 year old who fist fought for sport could credibly get an out of shape heavier man afraid for his life.

The autopsy showed that Martin was 5'11" and weighed 158 pounds at the time of his death. When Zimmerman was arrested, he was recorded as being 5'8" and weighing 185 pounds. The has been a lot of misinformation about the height and weight of both Martin and Zimmerman, with Martin's defenders claiming that Zimmerman weighed over 200 pounds (which had previously, but lost weight later) and Zimmerman's defenders vastly exaggerating Martin's height.

"That's not what the law says," said Steven Romine, a Tampa Bay lawyer who has invoked "stand your ground" successfully. "They might think that in their own heads, but it's just not true.

"If you're doing something legal, no matter what the act is, and you're attacked, it's in that moment that you have a right to stand your ground." Prosecutors, who are generally critical of the law, agree.

"The real issue is what happens around the 60 seconds prior to the shooting," said Ed Griffith, a spokesman for the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office, which brought the charges against Greyston Garcia. "Everything else has emotional content, but from a legal perspective, it all comes down to the 60 seconds before the incident." http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/stand-your-ground-law-protects-those-who-go-far-beyond-that-point/1222930 Martin was doing nothing illegal. Cops have already confirmed that 8 months ago. Quit pulling shit from your ass. It'll get red and chapped at your rate.

Read the SYG law, shut the fuck up, and go back to your abode under the bridge. I've been assured the billy goats gruff will be by soon. Please educate yourself before you talk more. In this situation the SYG law will supersede the manslaughter laws because there is a lack of evidence against Zimmerman, not necessarily because he's innocent or was "right" in what he did. The case history across the entire state is overwhelmingly in Zimmerman's favor. http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/stand-your-ground-law-protects-those-who-go-far-beyond-that-point/1222930 Get a bottle thrown at you? Shoot the guy and walk Guy steals your radio? Chase him, avoid his attack, kill him, and walk. Guy speeds by your house? Chase him down with gun, shoot his friend, and walk Guy tailgates you? Chase him down, no witnesses, kill him and walk... PLEASE READ UP ON WHAT YOU ARE TRYING TO PONTIFICATE ABOUT

He's right. At one time, I "had a friend" that would have put a bullet through Assanges' head on "unofficial" orders.

Is that a fact? And your friend actually told you this*? Leaves me wondering what kind of a friend you have there, sharing what would obviously be highly classified information. . .if true. . . for you to spread around? Even more so, does he have friends . . . . or maybe a team (?) of his own preparing for action against Assange . . . . maybe with FBI support?

I would think that when it comes to Assange, even if the US government was inclined to direct action, they would be open to following Napoleons advice: Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake. Assange has made plenty of them, and they seem to be continuing. Instead of going to Sweden to clear his name, he has managed to commit actual offenses in the UK (jumping bail and fleeing the law) and confine himself in a small apartment for an indefinite term. As things are going he could easily be there for years, ultimately be captured and sent to Sweden, be cleared in Sweden, and then returned to the UK to face charges for jumping bail and fleeing the law.

Besides, since the US only waterboarded three people, the most recent in about 2003 in pretty much the immediate aftermath of 9/11 to try to get some insight into Al Qaeda's next attack after having just suffered 3,000 dead, and there has been endless carping about it ever since, what do you think would happen if the US employed your "friend", or someone that is actually dangerous, to kill a "journalist" like Assange, and word got out -as it inevitably would? Somehow I just don't see that happening since Assange hasn't actually participated in direct warfare against the US, unlike Al Awlaki.

In any event, you can rest assured that Julian Assange takes strong evasive measures whenever possible - no catching him with his pants . . . down.

* So you fancy your friend as the ruthless sort then?

>When the bank gets permission from the federal government to give out loans to people that can clearly not afford to pay them back, and fails to disclose that to you.

That's not what happened here.

What happened was that we had people making loans that they could be sold to "greater fools," i.e., Wall Street.

-Joe Broker makes a loan to Alice - Banks don't make loans anymore, brokers do.
-Alice can't pay it back, but Joe Broker says it's OK.
-Broker doesn't give a shit because he gets a commission for each loan sold. Falsified paperwork EVERYWHERE.
-Broker sends the paperwork to the bank. The bank doesn't give a shit because they can sell the loan to Wall Street.
-Wall Street separates and chops up the mortgages and securitises them by creating securities with different levels (tranches) in the security. These are the "Mortgage Backed Securities." AAA on the top, junk on the bottom.
-These are then sold as if they are all AAA to (see where this is going?) to retail and institutional investors.
-They are considered *cash equivalent* by nearly everyone, except people at places like Magnetar.
-The whole house of cards fell in 2007 and the people holding the bag were people like you and me and our retirement funds.

Meanwhile everyone in the entire system from the broker through Wall Street gets away with not even a slap on the wrist.

But that's not all!

In the chain of passing the buck, at each level, the transfers of these mortgages weren't (and still aren't) handled correctly. Hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of mortgages have been passed along without the required good paperwork making the servicers of the mortgages in these loans *not* valid mortgagees. And when the loan goes belly up, and a servicer forecloses, there is often either fraudulent paperwork or no paperwork at all and *no right to foreclose*. And in the confusion, there have been people making monthly payments to servicers that don't even have the right to take money for the mortgage at all! That's what the whole robosigner scandal is about, and robosigning is still going on.

And to make it even worse, people have been kicked out of their homes while not even *having* a mortgage to begin with!

http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/realestate/bank-of-america-forecloses-on-house-that-couple-had-paid-cash-for/1072632

It is fraud on a national scale, and it was *not* at the government's prodding. Regulation after regulation was ignored. Rampant fraud was committed by brokers, securitizers, banks, everyone who should have done due diligence.

And the dearth of people going to prison for this shit is why we have Occupy Wall Street.

You have oversimplifed it and you have blamed the wrong people.

--
BMO

"If detained, ask what crime you are suspected of. You may remind officers that taking photos is a right and does not constitute suspicion."

No surprise, the tip comes from the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida.

Perhaps less predictable is who printed it: the Tampa Police Department.

Also, (last I heard) the police will not be using any sort of mass crowd control measures like teargas (I'm sure they will have their standard pepper spray on them still).

We will see after the convention if your concerns are warranted; but I'd assume this is just standard 'better safe than sorry' preparation.

"This was already proved in court when apple's lawyers asked samsung's lawyers to tell them which of two devices was made by Samsung, and which by Apple... Samsung's lawyers couldn't tell the difference."

At which point, Samsung should fired and then sued their lawyers for malpractice. Failure to prepare for court room appearances, (especially in a trade dress patent case), is gross negligence of the worst kind.

It should have been stupid easy to notice the aspect ratio differences to all but the blind. Clearly, Samsung lawyers were not prepared for the courtroom, that day.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2012/03/why_george_zimmerman_trayvon_martin_s_killer_hasn_t_been_prosecuted_.single.html
Why Trayvon Martin’s Killer Remains Free
Florida’s self-defense laws have left Florida safe for no one—except those who shoot first.
By Emily Bazelon
March 19, 2012
(Since Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law was passed in 2005, there have been many cases of people killing unarmed opponents and not being charged. The worst, according to Bazelon, is that the courts gave "true immunity," which means the judge can dismiss the prosecution before the trial begins, and the question of whether the killer was really defending himself doesn't even go to the jury.)

http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/crime/article1128317.ece
Five years since Florida enacted "stand-your-ground" law, justifiable homicides are up
By Ben Montgomery and Colleen Jenkins
October 17, 2010

These are "justifiable" homicides because that's the category the stand-your-ground put them in. Under the old law, most of them would have been murders, if they had happened at all.

You may think that if two people get into a fight and one of them "defends" himself by pulling a gun and killing the other guy, who is unarmed, that's a good outcome. I disagree. These are routine assaults, where nobody would have gotten killed without the gun.

How do you know they were getting unjustly convicted? The juries had more of the facts and obviously disagreed with you.

Even the killer of Yoshihiro Hattori was acquitted. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoshihiro_Hattori These laws protect irresponsible shooters, like Rodney Peairs. Somebody rings your bell on Halloween, and you shoot him? These laws protect people who do that.

As interim Palm Beach County State Attorney Peter Antonacci told The Palm Beach Post Editorial Board on Tuesday, the law has taken an "executive function" - the decision to bring charges - from prosecutors and given it to judges. "That should be revisited," said Mr. Antonacci, a former deputy state attorney general and statewide prosecutor. He does not advocate repeal, but says the law cannot turn public space "into a free-fire zone." He also believes that the law has "inhibited murder prosecutions" in Palm Beach County. In one, a judge dismissed charges against a man who shot and killed two men during a dispute over tickets for boating violations. In another, a jury acquitted a man who shot another man prosecutors said was swimming away after a fistfight between the two.

...

Rep. Baxley and former Sen. Durell Peadon, R-Crestview, the other sponsor of "stand your ground," insist that the Trayvon Martin case has no bearing on their legislation because George Zimmerman armed himself unnecessarily for someone in such a role and pursued the teenager even after a police dispatcher told him not to do so. In fact, sheriffs, police chiefs and prosecutors opposed this law out of fears that it could cause crimes, not prevent them. Whatever happens in Sanford, Gov. Scott's review should lead at least to changes in the law and, with luck, repeal.

The basic problem seems to be that the law, as it stands, allows for both parties in a dispute to completely legally escalate the level of violence. Both parties in a dispute have the right to "stand their ground" and use lethal force to protect themselves from each other; either could kill the other and then claim a legitimate legal defense under the law if they felt that the other person was a threat to their safety. In this particular case, Treyvon could have claimed a right to stand his ground (as he may have felt he was being stalked by an armed mentally unstable man and his life was at risk) and Zimmerman also could claim the same right (as he may have felt his life was at risk from a tough young criminal in his neighbourhood). Either one could kill the other and then argue that they had the legal right to do so, and the only other witness is dead.

It is easy to imagine some contrived situations where this law would enable more targeted killing. Consider a situation where you have armed neo-Nazis in a black city block, acting in a legal way, but being extremely provocative, say handing out racist literature, or perhaps handing out anti-Semitic Holocaust literature in a Jewish neighborhood. This would be completely legal activity covered by the First Amendment. But it would also be extremely provocative. The moment that this activity turns in to a fight, the armed neo-Nazis can now legally kill the unarmed men and claim they "stood their ground". Or consider the situation if someone decides to "stand their ground" against Zimmerman...

Since its passage in 2005, the "stand your ground'' law has protected people who have pursued another, initiated a confrontation and then used deadly force to defend themselves. Citing the law, judges have granted immunity to killers who put themselves in danger, so long as their pursuit was not criminal, so long as the person using force had a right to be there, and so long as he could convince the judge he was in fear of great danger or death.

..."If you're doing something legal, no matter what the act is, and you're attacked, it's in that moment that you have a right to stand your ground." - 'Stand your ground' law protects those who go far beyond that point

ANPR and ALPR can also be deployed with fixed cameras at so-called suspicious locations, leading to police interactions for lawful activities, as pointed out in an editorial in the St. Petersburg Times newspaper.

And lawful visits to a lawful business can lead to your being placed on a watchlist and being investigated and interrogated by the police for suspicion of unlawful activities when you live in a surveillance society.

As soon as we allow too much surveillance, we will see abuse of these abilities.

http://www.tampabay.com//opinion/editorials/america-shouldnt-be-a-surveillance-society/1205592 [tampabay.com]

ANPR and ALPR can also be deployed with fixed cameras at so-called suspicious locations, leading to police interactions for lawful activities, as pointed out in an editorial in the St. Petersburg Times newspaper.

And lawful visits to a lawful business can lead to your being placed on a watchlist and being investigated and interrogated by the police for suspicion of unlawful activities when you live in a surveillance society.

As soon as we allow too much surveillance, we will see abuse of these abilities.

http://www.tampabay.com//opinion/editorials/america-shouldnt-be-a-surveillance-society/1205592 [tampabay.com]

And lawful visits to a lawful business can lead to your being placed on a watchlist and being investigated and interrogated by the police for suspicion of unlawful activities when you live in a surveillance society.

As soon as we allow too much surveillance, we will see abuse of these abilities.

http://www.tampabay.com//opinion/editorials/america-shouldnt-be-a-surveillance-society/1205592

http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/columns/primary-purpose-of-education-learning-how-to-learn/1200122

Counterfeit Cisco equipment used on US Navy Submarines

Terrorists and foreign intelligence services will also be doing this to use against the United States and its allies, not just journalists. Wikileaks has provided the raw material for data mining to find things the US doesn't even realize about itself, or its allies. There is no surprise that Bradley Manning has been charged with aiding the enemy.

The fallout continues, hopefully it won't be literally.

Al-Qaeda Already Using Wikileaks Material Against Us
Taliban Study WikiLeaks to Hunt Informants
Wikileaks: US will have to reshuffle diplomats following revelations
'They're informants... if they get killed, they deserve it': New book reveals shocking disregard of Julian Assange towards Afghans named in WikiLeaks cables

Since I can anticipate the follow ups:
No, Wikileaks didn't do an adequate job of scrubbing the documents of names at various points which is why they are useful to the Taliban and other groups building death lists.
Yes, I have seen reports of people being killed due to Wikileaks publishing their name, you just have to dig a lot to find them. For some reason it doesn't seem to be a popular news item. Go figure.
Oversight of US diplomacy, military, and intelligence activity is the role of the Congress elected by voters.

Even if nobody was killed, Wikileaks has resulted in a significant disruption to US diplomacy and antiterrorism efforts. (You pull out informants due to their cover being blown and you lose valuable intelligence.)

Poll finds that more Americans oppose WikiLeaks

WASHINGTON — Americans overwhelmingly think that WikiLeaks is doing more harm than good by releasing classified U.S. diplomatic cables, and they want to see the people behind it prosecuted, according to a new McClatchy-Marist Poll.

"Clearly people are very unhappy with it," said Lee Miringoff, the director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., which conducted the national poll.

The survey found that 70 percent of Americans think the leaks are doing more harm than good and want those who publish the secrets to be prosecuted.

>>After about the 2nd time the Joker escaped and killed again, any superhero in his right mind would have written off the Gotham penal system as completely inadequate and just killed him

Yeah, the last Batman movie drove me crazy when he saved the Joker's life. Heath Ledger laughed, "I guess we'll get to do this again in a while."

Really? All those thousands of people murdered / blown up? Batman wants to allow all that to happen again, so that he can avoid getting blood on his hands? His pacifism is evil.

>>No one in ANYTHING even RESEMBLING real-life would walk around throwing Bat-a-Rangs at vicious gang members and psychopaths with machine guns.

Well... http://www.tampabay.com/news/bizarre/article855246.ece

One thing people rarely consider is the amount of cosmic rays you get with the high altitude during a flight. A visiting physics professor coming to our university wore a geiger counter watch during the flight. After he explained to nearby passengers why it was sounding alarms, he was detained when they landed. :( The talk he was coming for was cancelled because he was held for several hours at an airport for detecting cosmic rays in this age of paranoia.

Anyway, here's an article about the dosage you get during flight compared to the scanners:
http://www.tampabay.com/news/politifact-radiation-of-airport-scans-less-than-the-dose-in-flight/1135857

Usually, it starts with an innocuous law like "No having sex with animals".

Would this be the same florida that failed to pass anti-bestiality laws as recently as last year?

2009 --- http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/legislature/article982771.ece
2010 --- http://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/criminal/why-the-state-legislature-failed-to-pass-a-law-banning-bestiality/1092905

I can't offhand find any statute that specifically addresses porcupines; but its possibly some local thing... or perhaps its completely fabricated.

Usually, it starts with an innocuous law like "No having sex with animals".

Would this be the same florida that failed to pass anti-bestiality laws as recently as last year?

2009 --- http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/legislature/article982771.ece
2010 --- http://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/criminal/why-the-state-legislature-failed-to-pass-a-law-banning-bestiality/1092905

I can't offhand find any statute that specifically addresses porcupines; but its possibly some local thing... or perhaps its completely fabricated.

Looks like the pay clause was eliminated in the senate bill, and I could not quickly find evidence that it passed into law (do they have a house that has to pass an identical bill?): http://www.tampabay.com/news/education/k12/q-amp-a-on-floridas-senate-bill-6/1085001 It wasn't at all clear that the "evaluations" had any real impact, as union pressure seems to have defanged the bill.

Excuse me, but often today's leaker turns out to be tomorrow's hero.

For example, after the Pentagon Papers were leaked to the New York Times in 1971, it showed that a number of presidents had lied to the American people and violated their oaths to uphold the Constitution. That leak helped to end the Vietnam war.

Daniel Ellsberg, the leaker and the first person ever to be prosecuted for a leak in the United States, was prosecuted under the Espionage Act of 1917. This act had been designed for espionage and, until that time, had never been used for anything else except to prosecute spies: those who act with the express intent to harm the US or help a foreign power. However, against Ellsberg they used a clause within the act that says only those with legal authority may publish classified documents. The same clause is now being used against Bradley Manning.

Why use the Espionage Act against leakers? Because, unlike Great Britain, the US has never had an Official Secrets Act: a law that would criminalize any and all disclosure of classified information. Efforts have been made by Congress to pass one -- the last time under Bill Clinton (which he vetoed) -- but this has never succeeded, because lawmakers have always considered that it would be too much at odds with the First Amendment. Yet, that's the way the Espionage Act is now being used.

Finally, is it not highly ironic that, even as the government prosecutes Bradley Manning, the State Dept. is promoting a documentary film that celebrates Daniel Ellsberg and his leaking of the Pentagon Papers? (see this link).

They think that this is a good idea because showing up in crowded areas and making a disturbance is an excellent way to remain anonymous.

Your post seems to suggest that Anonymous is smart enough to not show up in person, and that HBGary is only using this as a scapegoat. You seem to think that Anonymous is logical and believes that staying online is the best course of action to preserve their anonymity.

I think you have some reading to do.

...it eases pressure to end prohibition, by providing "legal" way for people to get their fix.

You make a good point... And I doubt Walgreens would make a comeback with those delicious shakes this time

St. Petersburg Times probably is a better example. They run a daily newspaper that runs on advertising but their journalists are isolated from their executives and advertisers, and the 'not-for-profit' charter protects them from the takeovers

    Well, that's not totally accurate.

http://www.tampabay.com/company/about-us/times-history

    In 1978, the majority shareholder passed away, and willed his shares to a non-profit school for journalists, which bears his name.

    In 1988, they almost lost control of the paper, because an investor who had purchased outstanding shares tried to take the company over. 2 years and $56 million later, the school is again/still the owner.

I think Wikipedia could probably adapt that 'not-for-profit' model successfully, and do away with their hot and cold running begathon forever.

    You're right here though. Not necessarily with the "not-for-profit" model, but dammit, any business model other than the hopeful "We'll do it for free. People will help us for free. When we need money, we'll just beg for it." Simply enough, that's not a business model of any sort. You'd think with the $4 million that Google and eBay dropped on them, they could have afforded to rent some professional business men for a few hours.

    They could be supporting themselves with simple banner ads (text or image) in half the space they're wasting with that god awful "Please, g'vnar, pretty please, can we have some shillings? It's so cold. We're so hungry. We only made $7 million through donations this year." (the summary and article show different numbers, so that's a guess at the income)

    They're playing in the world of business, but pretending they're kids having fun. I guess they forgot that they signed contracts for pesky things like their office, datacenters, bandwidth. I'd guess that at least part of their infrastructure is leased, so there are revolving payments there too. It's a business, not a playtoy.

    Hell, even my playtoy, my own news site, I had to give up on the donation-only method. We were lucky to make $1/wk. So I went shopping between advertising services. Who pays (just a few), doesn't pay (quite a few), gives fair rates (hahaa!), doesn't cheat the hit counters much (they all do), and aren't obnoxious, intrusive (interstitial ads/flash/etc), or riddled with malware. I was testing one on offline pages that only I saw, and within about 10 views of the testing front page, my antivirus was screaming about malware. I reported it to them with some friendly terms like "if you can't keep this off your advertising network, I won't use you." They danced around, and two weeks later said "oh no, it won't happen ever again." I re-enabled them on my testing page, and the second page view was hit again. Most of the rest I've tested were clean, but they had a terrible reporting or payout rate. Really, if I know I have an average of X users per day, and ad position Y gets so many average clicks per day, then I switch the ads over to a new provider, that report X/10 users, and Y/20 ad clicks without a change in real traffic, there's a problem.

    People like us know how to disable ads. The other 99.8% of the users will provide them with more than enough ad revenue.

    Eventually, they'll have to adopt/develop a business model, or threaten to fold. I'm sure they day they're ready to shut the doors, someone will buy them out.

Interestingly enough, during Prohibition, this is how alcohol was legally obtained. The Walgreen's drug store chain survived the Great Depression rather well, and not just because of milkshakes.

He said medicine, as an area of activity, not only "medicines" - not limiting myself the way you'd want is actually useful, because there's one striking example which can be brought up even by those who don't follow development of "medicines"
http://www.tampabay.com/news/health/medicine/how-norway-beat-a-bad-bug/1062228
http://psychoanalystsopposewar.org/blog/2010/01/03/norway-prevents-resistant-infections-by-reducing-antibiotic-use/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3818277.stm
(there was also a /. story IIRC; or really, just google "Norway antibiotics", "Norway MRSA", etc.)

Well, explosions are flashy, but it's not totally uncommon. The bilge fan fails, and the rest is history.

    Check this search.

    This is what can happen (with pic).

    That was just an example. There are plenty of ways a person can have an accident that never gets questioned after the initial investigation. Car accident, slip & fall, mugging, home invasion, or even "natural" causes as you mentioned. Boating accidents are an easy way to explain away whey no body was found, and little evidence left behind.

There's no finite resource, except for spectrum, which isn't the issue here.

[citation needed]

Spectrum requires towers. Towers require time and money and permits to build, AFTER you acquire the the spectrum licenses.

Each tower can service a finite number of devices.

If YOU use your phone to stream video or tether your computer you use one of that finite number for ever hour you are on.

If 200 or 300 people stream 24/7 they can suck a tower dry.

So, yes, spectrum is the issue here. Bandwidth requires spectrum.

Blame AT&T for not building more towers. But save some blame for people like this.

What do you mean?

I'm surprised you are not familiar with the practice

If you want to deal with starvation, get a gun and a Hummer, and hunt dictators...

??

Not only are GM foods unnecessary, we still have no idea of the problems they cause, or in many cases choose to ignore them for the sake of profit. It's another form of pollution. Just like an oil spill. Only this might not clean up so easily.

This bill is the minimum that can be done to remove recission and pre-existing condition clauses without destroying the system.

The economic logic is as follows: We want to regulate the insurers such that they don't exclude people based on pre-existing conditions. This makes sense.

However, once you try to apply that in practice, it gets hairier: if you cease to enable insurers to do that, then you get what's called an "adverse selection death spiral", wherein some healthy people drop coverage (since they know they can get it back as soon as they get sick) which worsens the risk pool. Because it's worse, those remaining members left in this new risk pool get charged higher premiums. These higher premiums cause more healthy people to drop coverage (since they're getting less for their money) which causes a repeat of the same cycle. As this goes on, the price of insurance gets so astronomical that only the sickest have it and nobody can afford it because the cost approaches the cost of the procedure you're supposed to be insured for.

The way we work around this is the unpopular part. We put a mandate on everybody that says "alright, since they can't kick you out anymore, you can't game the system: everyone has to be insured". Whether it's better to do this by putting the mandate on individuals or on employers is debatable, but what's on the table is an individual one.

Now that we're mandating everyone have insurance, we need to address its affordability, since mandates to buy things that people can't afford don't really work. This is where the subsidies (ie, costs) come in. This package is basically $900bn in subsidies for people who have trouble affording comprehensive insurance--including everyone from the average joe to a reasonable percentage of the slashdot crowd. The latest bill has caps on premiums set as follows: "[f]or people who buy insurance on the exchanges, a family of four making $88,000 would have a cap of 9.5 percent of their income." The penalty for not buying insurance is $695/person/year with exemptions for financial hardship, etc.

The $900bn comes by way of medicaid as well as direct subsidies.

The rest, once those things are in place, are to cut costs/cut the deficit and regulate insurers. But the above is by far the bulk of the bill. While I personally wouldn't mind killing the insurance companies so we can institute a single-payer system, if you want pre-existing conditions gone, this is what you get.

Want proof? Here it is! http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/realestate/article1072632.ece

If a human being had done this, we'd be charged with the felony crime of breaking and entering-BUT after all Bank of America isn't a human, are they? Personally, I think that when stuff like this is done they should arrest the President of the corporation, process him and then throw him in a cell with the derelicts (make sure you do it on a long holiday weekend so he suffers for a few days).

You might think that this is off topic, but it really isn't. Corporations have WAY TOO MUCH POWER-mainly because they have been able to BRIBE our corrupt government into letting them have it!

For anyone in the US who thinks that the current system is any good whatsoever have a read of how losing your job can cost you your life.

This paying in Facebook games just sums up the level of "debate". On one side you have a bunch of people who, like the old tobacco company, will swear blind that the current system is perfectly okay despite it killing an estimated 45,000 people a year. That is 15 9/11s in terms of un-needed deaths as a result of the current system which is being actively supported by those who profit from it.

The irony of course is that the US not only has the worst coverage it also has the most expensive healthcare in the world while also having a lower life expectancy than most other 1st world countries.

So to everyone who decrys the systems in Switzerland, France, Canada, UK, etc remember this. They save more lives, they result in a longer average life expectancy and they don't kill their citizens because they've lost their job. and they cost less, often half or less of the US spend per capita

More deaths for more money. And this is the system people want? No its the system that corporations with marketing departments want and the sheep are fine to go along if they get thrown some facebook points.

How sad

You see, when you sue or slander Scientology, you might not realize what you're getting yourself into. People end up doing jail for posting verbal attacks on Scientology online. ...

That's what you're dealing with. That's what Lindstein has in his future. He probably knows it, his lawyer probably knows it. But he will soon be subjected to character assassination, harassment of just barely legal amounts, indirect threats and the same for any family he may have.

I think most people also don't realize just how much worse a situation Lindstein is in. For non-Scientologists, the Church really has to work to try to dig up skeletons in the closet, to figure out just what could possibly embarrass and discredit you. But for ex-Scientologists, it's much worse, because they already know everything about you. You see, confession is part of the religion. That's hardly abnormal, but the difference is that you must confess something new. And you have to confess. So you'll be in a room with a dozen people screaming at you to confess some past sin. Something. And then that information is written down. Over the years they wring everything out of you, and it's all documented. Then when you turn against the church later in life, that information is released. Did you ever have a romantic affair with a fellow staffer? That will come out. Maybe when you were really young you curiously touched the family pet when he was humping your leg? Oh, you bet that will be shown. Everyone has something that they're not proud of that they don't want anyone to know. And the church will have confessionals for all of it. Of course they don't WANT to do this. " Yingling and Davis said the church doesn't relish using documents from ethics files. But after the four defectors spoke out against Miscavige, the lawyer and spokesman said they had no choice." That statement and others can be found from the amazing St. Petersburg Times series on Scientology: http://www.tampabay.com/news/article1012148.ece. Utterly amazing.

So yeah, Lindstein is in for a rough time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Bartman_incident
http://baseball.wikia.com/wiki/Steve_Bartman
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/eticket/story?page=bartman
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/cubfan1.html
http://www.tampabay.com/sports/baseball/rays/article998054.ece

Osama Bin Laden is safer walking down the streets of New York City than Steve Bartman is walking down the streets of Chicago.

Sure, there have been some fairly steep fluctuations, but when you really grind the numbers, you find that them "tainted gubbmint numberz" really aren't so horribly ofar off...

Sure, if you ignore the fact that the "tainted gubbmint numberz" completely ignored the runup to the crash thanks to the "adjustments" that were made. There is no "gubbmint conspiracy" on this, the government openly stated that they're making these changes. Despite what the government thinks, people have to pay for their food and gas no matter how expensive it gets.

Just think, the same argument you just gave can be used to prove your "deflation" doesn't exist: "On a seasonally adjusted basis, the CPI-U rose 0.7 percent in June after rising 0.1 percent in May. The index for all items less food and energy increased 0.2 percent in June after increasing 0.1 percent in May." Since the items in the "basket" change whenever the government feels like, the numbers produced are (literally, since if apples go up and oranges go down, the CPI switches to whichever makes the numbers look better) apples-to-oranges meaningless.

Paid a salary that is pathetically poor for people of high intelligence and education.

For as long as I can remember, college students declaring their major as teaching have had horrible SAT scores. Here is a recent example: http://blogs.tampabay.com/schools/2008/09/sat-scores-of-t.html

So, there goes the theory that K-12 teachers are more intelligent than the average high school graduate, let's work on the salary theory. The average teacher salary in New York is almost $60,000. Not too bad. Teachers rank just behind computer scientists and dentists in average hourly pay. They also have great benefits and are some of the few people left in the US who can retire with a full pension while still of working age.

Summary: decent pay, great benefits, job security, dumb people.

I wonder:

Median annual earnings of correctional officers and jailers were $35,760 in May 2006. The middle 50 percent earned between $28,320 and $46,500. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $23,600, and the highest 10 percent earned more than $58,580. Median annual earnings in the public sector were $47,750 in the Federal Government, $36,140 in State government, and $34,820 in local government. According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, the starting salary for Federal correctional officers was $28,862 a year in 2007. Occupational Outlook Handbook 2008-2009: Correctional Officers

"They're hiring 18-year-olds two months out of high school. "We've got officers who are 70 years old, senior citizens. That's a security risk." Physical fitness standards have been lowered, with overweight, out-of-shape correctional officers in the system. Many Texans support keeping prisons as inhospitable as possible because they're supposed to be about punishment, but those same poor conditions (think double shifts with no air conditioning in the Texas summer heat) combine with low pay to make it nearly impossible to staff current prisons in their existing, mostly rural locations. Texas prison guard salary ranks 47th among states [Apr 7, 2008]

Trinity Services Group is the second food services company to tell the Department of Corrections it can't afford to keep feeding prisoners. The company said it's losing $100,000 a month on its contract to feed inmates in the north-central part of the state and at three prisons in South Florida. The company, which was paid $21-million last fiscal year, said it's losing money because food and fuel costs are rising at the rate of 9 percent, far in excess of the 2 percent inflation cushion allowed in its state contract. Trinity is paid 88 cents for every meal served. Oldsmar company opts out of prison food service [Sept 19, 2008]

Other people's private personal information is not "political content".

Below is a story from the St. Petersburg (Florida) Times:

ST. PETERSBURG -- A 54-year-old man was struck and killed by a truck Friday night while walking his bicycle across U.S. 19.

James Allen, of 2445 38th St. N in St. Petersburg, was crossing in the 3700 block about 6:45 p.m. when he was hit by a northbound 2000 Ford pickup driven by Brian Aldrich, 39, of 3776 28th Ave. N, St. Petersburg, according to a St. Petersburg police report.

linky: http://blogs.tampabay.com/breakingnews/2009/01/st-petersburg-2.html

Ignoring for a moment the (significant) differences between the US and UK... When the mainstream media freely publishes names and addresses of the people involved in newsworthy events, it becomes problematic to censor that information when it's published by non-mainstream media.

In at least one city near me, tickets aren't automatic. Essentially, the camera takes the video of you running a red light, but an officer still decides if you were actually breaking the law. That being said, the method for determining an offender (according to the article I linked) seems capricious, and would still be open to abuse per the main article. You would however be able to face your "accuser" in the form of the officer who saw your video and "wrote" the ticket for him or her to explain their actions.

Detroit labor is not $75/hr. That's basically a made-up statistic (also). Detroit used to employ many, many more workers, to whom they promised a good retirement. Counting the cost of those retirees against the company's bottom line makes sense; saying it's part of the current worker's paycheck is not.

When you do the math properly, a line worker for the UAW and a Japanese plant in the South make very similar wages.

$36/barrel is still 50% above the $24/barrel that we had when Bush took office, and nobody is expecting these prices to survive even the lamest economic uptick. Try buying a barrel of oil to be delivered five years from now. I'll bet you can't get one for less than $80.

It gets worse because the current low prices aren't enough to fund the next round of exploration that would be needed to keep this unsustainable resource going another decade.

For failing memory, a cheap dietary add-on you could try, and that has been shown to work rather well for some, is coconut oil: http://tampabay.com/news/aging/article879333.ece. Since it is used commonly in certain Caribian cuisines, it should be quite safe.

Companies are busy replacing "expensive" American middle class tech workers with lower cost alternatives whenever possible. Here's a "for-instance" detailing the use of Indian IT workers from Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) to directly replace American IT workers in Florida at Nielsen. http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/article818379.ece

Nuclear weapons have never really been anything but a dick-swinging contest

Eh, I'll take that "dick-swinging contest" over another World War any day of the week. Mutually Assured Destruction isn't pretty but it kept the peace during the Cold War.

except, that is, for the Americans, and that against civil targets

As opposed to all those civil targets bombed (gassed in the case of Japan) by the Axis forces?

Good thing the Chinese and the Russians haven't followed your example

Indeed. They have created their own example. The United States isn't perfect by any means but looking to Russia and China to be your savior seems a little short-sighted to me.

It's especially bad when you realize that this story is just more Republican bashing. Why? Because this is Standard Operating Procedure for police.

Boston police arrest dozens before annual festival - in an effort to prevent disorder before some local festival, the Boston police arrested dozens of suspected trouble makers for the explicit purpose of keeping them in jail for the duration of the festival.

Needless to say, the same type of thing happened before the DNC, too.

So this is just more Republican bashing, in that the only reason it's news isn't that it happens, because it's routine, it's because it's happening for a Republican event.

Note I'm not saying that it's OK because Democrats do it too - I'm saying that this type of thing happens all the time and almost no one bothers reporting it. It's wrong, no matter who does it, Republican or Democrat.