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Only Beijing has strong emissions standards, sort of like California in the USA before the federal government prevented us from increasing ours as we voted to do. Now our standards are not much different from other states. I won't be surprised if that happens for China as well. Also, I can find literally zero studies on this subject which are not from the Chinese government. Now, it's not like I trust my own government, but I double-extra don't trust China's. Their answer when you ask them if they're going to do something bad again is "we killed the last guy who did it", but then it happens again. Melamine nomnomnom!

But guess what? Beijing is just the tip of the iceberg. Even if they could fix Beijing, which they could only do by caring about how much pollution comes out of their coal plants, it wouldn't really fix China.

So the timing for that SSL "flaw" was nice.
http://daringfireball.net/2014...

Plus now that it's come out Apple was pretty much on board with the NSA and their recent encryption weakness is anyone surprised.
http://www.theguardian.com/wor...

http://www.theguardian.com/wor...

http://www.theguardian.com/wor...

Not to mention every iPhone is a WiFi scanner + Geographical locator.

So the timing for that SSL "flaw" was nice.
http://daringfireball.net/2014...

Plus now that it's come out Apple was pretty much on board with the NSA and their recent encryption weakness is anyone surprised.
http://www.theguardian.com/wor...

http://www.theguardian.com/wor...

http://www.theguardian.com/wor...

Not to mention every iPhone is a WiFi scanner + Geographical locator.

So the timing for that SSL "flaw" was nice.
http://daringfireball.net/2014...

Plus now that it's come out Apple was pretty much on board with the NSA and their recent encryption weakness is anyone surprised.
http://www.theguardian.com/wor...

http://www.theguardian.com/wor...

http://www.theguardian.com/wor...

Not to mention every iPhone is a WiFi scanner + Geographical locator.

So says the NSA's lawyer.

It's not so much "lip service" as "bullshit".

Removing data points that did not fit their model, apply transformations to the data points that are not uniform across the entire dataset, using a filter that generates the same output even if the input was noise. Need I go on?

Yes, because you are repeating hearsay. The GP requested citations. You have provided nothing.

As the GP, I never expect any, because there isn't that much.

I could point out that there has been some suspect or even bad work on AGW. They might cite the study performed by a group in Argentina - The Universal Ecological Fund - was so bad and actually quite preposterous claiming that the planet would warm by 2.4 C - round 4.3 F. Interestingly enough, also from the Guardian.

http://www.theguardian.com/env...

Scientists were all over this study as just plain bad.

And most surprising that the deniers do not quote from the paper "Misdiagnosis of Surface Temeperature Feedback" by Spencer and Braswell.

http://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/...

This is the touchstone for AGW deniers who love to claim that NASA's temperature figures are all wrong, and that more heat escapes from the atmosphere than predicted.

Their model had no realistic ocean, no El Niino, nor La Nina, and no hydrological cycle. And all the parameters could be adjusted to give an infinite number of "best fits" from CO2 insensitive to very sensitive.

Some critical reading on the matter:

http://bbickmore.wordpress.com...

http://www.realclimate.org/ind...

In the end, we can pick and choose. We can get our science teachings form Scientists, or we can get our science knowledge from politicians and religious leaders.

Give me the publicantions (sic) and research where Pro-AGW factions engaged in scientific fraud.

Well, this comes to mind. Why cover up the data? Maybe he was cleared of all wrong-doing, but this was one of the first hits when I searched for "Global Warming Fraud".

Okay, I read the report, and personally if that is fraud, then most everything is.

It boils down to a researcher was worried about some of the data. Then he was reluctant to release some of the data to a climate change "skeptic".

Okay, I hope that what you not are saying that this incident completely disproves AGW?

You need to go here. http://retractionwatch.com/ Lots and lots of retractions. And they have real ones, not just the ones that the press and the deniers orgasm over.

But there is a reason for that. Hackers that worked their way into emails, and cherry picking the data, and that is all they can come up with?

I suspsect the deniers would love to take down retraction watch, because of gems like this:

http://retractionwatch.com/201...

Don't worry though, because AGW deniers refuse to believe that the paper is not real and the honest truth. SO I guess they can still quote the retracted paper

Amazingly enough, Character assassination, the second tool of the deniers, has even had a "scientific paper put out. Oops, it was retracted.

http://retractionwatch.com/201...

Lest you believe this site deals only with anti-AGW papers being retracted, here is a case of a really bad AGW study

http://www.guardian.co.uk/envi...

Retracted, and rightfully so

This one was a bit less dumb:

http://retractionwatch.com/201...

However, here is the biggie:

http://retractionwatch.com/201... For those who don't read articles, the Journal, "Pattern Recognition in Physics", is a journal favored by climate change skeptics, And Published by Copernicus Publications. While th einitiators asserted that the aim of the journal was to publish articles about patterns in the full spectrum of physical disciplines, events proved otherwise.

In a special issue entitled "Pattern in Solar variability, their planetary origin, and terrestrial impacts, the paper authors cast doubt upon global warming.

Okay, so far, so good. But nothing gets published in scientific journals without review. The main page of that Retraction watch proves that. It's a matter of course. What we found out:

The "peer" review process was done on a nepotistic basis. Scientific publishing considers that as malpractice and unethical.

The writers plagiarized themselves. Always a trigger for retraction.

The editor in chief of the journal is employed by the Algerian Petroleum Institute.

Copernicous Publications has ceased publication of the journal.

Revealed: secret plan to push'happy' pills
http://www.theguardian.com/soc...

Big Pharma Could Win International Price Monopoly, Unlimited Profits in 'Free Trade' Deal
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

US patent moves are 'profoundly bad' in leaked TPP treaty
http://www.theverge.com/2013/1...

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a proposed free trade agreement under negotiation between Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam. Leaked documents show the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) is pressuring TPP countries to expand pharmaceutical monopoly protections and trade away access to medicines.
http://www.citizen.org/TPPA

The medical industry the third-leading cause of death in the United States; after heart disease and cancer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I...

Big Pharma Shamelessly Shills Dangerous Bone Drugs You Don't Need
http://www.alternet.org/story/...

The H1N1 Swine Flu Pandemic: Manipulating the Data to Justify a Worldwide Public Health Emergency
http://www.globalresearch.ca/t...

"Somewhere in Rayong or Chon Buri on the coast of Thailand, a young woman may at this very moment be baring her arm for a shot of an experimental Aids vaccine that many of the leading scientists in the field say categorically has no hope at all of working.

She will be one of 16,000 volunteers recruited for the second large-scale Aids vaccine trial, a $119m exercise many scientists believe is a farce."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/scie...

Fraud has become so endemic in this country that it's woven its way into America’s DNA. 2). Big Pharma Fraud.
http://www.alternet.org/story/...

Drug Makers New Targets for U.S. Fraud Inquiries, Report Says
http://prescriptions.blogs.nyt...

Merck drew up a "hit list" of doctors that needed to be "neutralized" because they criticized the now banned drug Vioxx.
http://science.slashdot.org/st...

Merck invents its own journal to publish bogus research findings to promote it's own products.
http://blog.bioethics.net/2009...

Why Aren't These Fraudulent Papers Retracted?
http://truth-out.org/news/item...

Doubts about Johns Hopkins research have gone unanswered, scientist says
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

A National Survey of Physician–Industry Relationships
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/1...

"Removing data points that did not fit their model"
False.

", apply transformations to the data points that are not uniform across the entire dataset"
false.

" using a filter that generates the same output even if the input was noise."
false.

" Need I go on?"
Why, do you have actual data?

You know grabbing onto one headline, and then not following up on what happens and using the one deadline as some sort of proof only shows the worled you are an idiot.

As it turns out, it was a lot of nothing stirred up by Fox and once the truth came out that the media was lying and using it's ignorance as proof, no one mentioned it again.

You should follw up on that story.

here is an overview:
http://www.theguardian.com/env...

If you look you can get into the nitty gritty.
Her is hoping you can start to use your brain and change a narrative when the facts no longer fit it.

Douche bag.

Give me the publicantions (sic) and research where Pro-AGW factions engaged in scientific fraud.

Well, this comes to mind. Why cover up the data? Maybe he was cleared of all wrong-doing, but this was one of the first hits when I searched for "Global Warming Fraud".

You typed something into Google and got hits. Wow, now that is deep research! Did you notice that at the top of your link was this?

Give me the publicantions (sic) and research where Pro-AGW factions engaged in scientific fraud.

Well, this comes to mind. Why cover up the data? Maybe he was cleared of all wrong-doing, but this was one of the first hits when I searched for "Global Warming Fraud".

You typed something into Google and got hits. Wow, now that is deep research! Did you notice that at the top of your link was this?

Give me the publicantions (sic) and research where Pro-AGW factions engaged in scientific fraud.

Well, this comes to mind. Why cover up the data? Maybe he was cleared of all wrong-doing, but this was one of the first hits when I searched for "Global Warming Fraud".

That coupled with the claims made on CNN by an ex FBI counterterrorism agent during the Boston Marathon Bombing investigation
http://www.theguardian.com/com...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Really makes you wonder how far this really goes...

I'd be interested to know your background. Are you Ukrainian? The information I was able to find seems to disagree with you.

There are no "two" of Ukraine, this division is part of Kremlin's false narrative.

Seeing as you brought up language, here's what happened when in 2012 the government passed a law that would allow Russian to be an officially recognised language in parts of the country where it was being used: fist fights broke out in Parliament. Yeah, real unified. They had a major fight over allowing Russian to be used legally by the people who actually speak it just two years ago.

Presently, both languages are officially recognized.

Yes, they are, despite that one of the first acts of the new parliament in Ukraine was to try and revert the 2012 law. The only reason it didn't happen is that the law, which was passed by the majority of parliamentarians, was vetoed by the new Prime Minister.

Russia has done, economically, much better than Ukraine over the past years. Its people are better off and GDP per capita is a lot higher. What's more, no matter which government is in power in Kiev it seems to throw major fits over basic things like whether the Russian language should be officially recognised, despite the clear reality on the ground. Is it any wonder that maybe the people in Crimea don't seem to be too worried about joining Russia? The election may well have been biased or rigged - it's hard to know because the west refused to send any official observers - but we just saw Ukrainians engage in massive street protests in Kiev. I didn't see any such protests happening in Crimea yet.

So I don't understand why Mark is suddenly against it. Sudden change of heart leading Ubuntu to be non compatible with other linux operating systems? Again? I don't get it.

Did you completely miss the news about the NSA? It turns out that instead of doing their job and defending us, they have been deliberately leaving holes in software and setting us up for our computers to be owned by the Russian mafia.

Anyone who hasn't changed their attitude was either psychic or hasn't read and understood the implications of the fact that almost every bit of mainstream proprietary software has embedded backdoors which are easily discoverable and exploitable by almost every major government. Shuttleworth has every right to have changed his mind.

...designed by an advisor who was later arrested for CP?

...in a country whose government has collected a million pictures of naked Americans cyber-webcamming on Yahoo?

...that has one surveillance camera for every 11 people in the country?

...whose brilliant standards of morality lead to the persecution and destruction of everyone from Oscar Wilde to Alan Turing?

Fuck you, James Brokenshire. How's that for unsavory?

I have no love for Hollywood or the publishing industry, but content producers need something to concentrate audience for promotional purposes.

Even more importantly, if we encourage piracy, the person we're ultimately going to harm is the content producer, specifically the independent ones. Big publishing and movie houses will find a way around Google, but the little guy will not.

When that happens, people will stop pursuing content production as a career because they won't be able to survive. This means that the best people will avoid this career.

See what's already happening to writers:

http://www.theguardian.com/boo...

lucky 4 me i won't be around that long;-}

http://www.theguardian.com/the...

The crucial thing is that they improved the limits in the narrow frequency band where the Earth is a resonant detector :

in the frequency range 0.05 Hz – 1 Hz

This is very cool, but note that it is at a frequency where there are not a lot of expected sources (stellar-mass binary black hole coalescence is up in the kHz range).

The announcement on Monday about inflationary gravitational waves is likely to get a good deal more scientific attention.

We get the NSA we deserve because we the people are doing nothing to reign them in.

Fool. We have never had the NSA we deserve. Secret agencies are now and have always been anti-activist. There is nothing we can do about them legally, we are their enemy. They will not bow to the demands of the enemy. I speak of activism because voting is meaningless. If you think otherwise then you're under the flawed assumption that our government's voting system isn't compromised, that or you wrongly believe it hasn't been blatantly rigged all along.

How dare you accuse the powerless of deserving their despotism. It's thinking like yours that allows it to perpetuate.

This is not a mom/dat CC issue but goes quite a bit further.

I will try to demonstrate this on a particular piece of shite brought to us from the people we love to loathe.
Enter Heroes of Dragon Age. This thing is a deck-building game. Think Hearthstone but the game plays your matches for you. In that respect I would consider it nothing more than an elaborate animated screensaver rather than a game. In HoDA the rarest cards pretty much guarantee your wins. You could grind for months and get lucky and get a couple of them. Or you could cough up monies to buy gems. 99 bucks buy you roughly 20 card draws, 18 of which will not be useful in any way shape or form(+/- statistical variance, but bear with me). You could play matches to earn gold to buy the packs which cost gold but your chance to get anything useful from those is so low that people who get lucky immediately start a forum post about that which in turn will become quite lively. Grinding for gold is a possibility but for one snag. You are limited to 6 PvE and 6PvP matches every two hours. Unless of course you pay gems to play more. So far so bad. The PvE campaign is designed in such a way that you will need the best cards after about an hour of play time. You will encounter multiple major brick walls.

This is one of the freemium offenders I know. I've been grinding as a free player since Christmas since it is a nice diversion which doesn't require a lot of thought or interaction. But I do have to say one thing about this: It smacks of gambling. In fact it is an elaborate variation of a slot machine. And I can see how a gambling addict could sink hundreds if not thousands of dollars into such a thing. And it seems to be completely unregulated.

OTOH if I gave you 99 bucks to spend on games and you headed over to the nearest Steam sale you would get so many games that you wouldn't emerge until next year if you completed them all. No value for a lot of money driven by addiction. Children are the easiest prey for this but certainly not the most lucrative.

So if you compare prices for gems with Steam sales you would think that these are not hardcore gamers. Wrong. Surprisingly so:
http://kotaku.com/who-are-the-...
http://www.theguardian.com/tec...

We are way, WAY beyond "you morons, stop buying gems!". At this point we are in need of regulation Nevada-style. In the meantime suing Google and Apple is the easiest way to apply some pressure but it sure as hell is not enough.

I would imagine you weren't totally shocked that EA is one of the worst offenders in that particular arena...

It gets worse; the Guardian's comments are full of people sneering about how we are going to destroy this precious natural water resource now we know it's there. Part of me died inside.

http://www.theguardian.com/sci...

Actually, if you take into account the population size (China having more than four times as many people as the USA) then it isn't really that much of a difference. In fact, carbon emission per capita is considerably higher in the USA:

http://www.theguardian.com/new...

NSA_backdoor_trojan:

AMD processors were found to have similar vulnerabilities.

Mascarading as a debug mode, all hardware and thus software security features can be bypassed. Essentially allowing both stealth software operation, bypassing root and administrator authentication restrictions, and more. Intel is known to have similar functionality, but its not publically disclosed yet.. http://hardware.slashdot.org/s...

NSA compiled and uses all these exploits whether it was installed there for them or not.

Windows also has NSAKEY installed and all vulnerabilities and the source code of Windows is turned over to the NSA before the things can be patched, allowing NSA to locate and exploit vulnerabilities for hacking us and everyone else. http://www.washingtonsblog.com...

RSA also put in exploits so SSL / Etc would be vulnerable to their attack, as the leaks indicated. http://it.slashdot.org/story/1...

Stuxnet virus was created by NSA. http://rt.com/news/snowden-nsa...

NSA and GCHQ are recording us masturbating. http://www.theguardian.com/wor...

FBI records us even when our devices are powered off. http://www.washingtonsblog.com...

NSA is ceiling cat watching us masturbate with space capability and electron imaging/radar systems. They are recording all calls and saving the content, not just metadata. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb... and http://youtu.be/d6m1XbWOfVk

NSA has Thought Amplifier and Mind Interface (patented by Robert Malech in 1974, deployed in all radar in 1976), aka Remote Neural Monitoring first disclosed in Nexus Magazine in 1996 by John St Claire Akwei. Backed up today by Dr. Robert Duncan who helped invented these weapons, being used to attack and control us. http://www.oregonstatehospital... http://www.oregonstatehospital...

TAO hacking unit, NSA: http://www.spiegel.de/internat...

Obama is raping and murdering and torturing thousands of his own citizens, committing acts of Genocide worse than any dictator ever before. He has killed his own people and covered it up. http://www.obamasweapon.com/

Personally, I find it unlikely that the CIA would do something so ham handed and transparent. And yet, since the War on Terror and the idea that anything goes when the people you're drowning don't wear matching hats, the CIA and the entire IC has lost all credibility, that I can't dismiss the allegation.

That said, Feinstein is a out of touch 80 year-old that thinks mass surveillance is cool, but at the same time gets upset when the IC spies on allies (like everyone else does), and when spy on her.

As a Democrat and a Californian, I say Fuck Feinstein.

Why did we get a comment containing a link to a blog post about a news article elsewhere on the internet?

I mean, holy crap, Slashdot, can't you even bother to give us a link to the actual article anymore? We have to go on a link-to-a-link goose chase?

Certainly Crimea is an import port for Russia and they don't wish it to fall under control of an oppositional government. For the past decade China has been courting many Latin American countries. When political change comes to Cuba and the US were to sense Chinese influence there is no question America would militarily intervene due to the significant geopolitical consequences. I think the best policy is to deescalate the situation and let the people of Ukraine and Crimea vote for their futures and let the world respect their choices.

True, but if you're going to talk about the consumption of potable water you have to talk about the production of potable water, which rain is an essential part of.

I'm all for a (discussion about a) nuanced overview of the actual issues concerning potable water instead of some alarmist bullshit that implies that water is simply 'used up'.

To be honest, the 'potable water shortage' issue is more an issue of energy than of matter. There is plenty of H2O on this planet, it just needs to be filtered and/or desalinated. If you've got a constant and 'renewable' shitload of usable energy coming in, your water problems disappear. Potable water produced in such a way is and will be more expensive than sucking aquifiers dry, but apparently not prohibitively so:

"Solar-powered desalination currently averages about $1.52-$2.05 per cubic metre of water produced, depending on technology, energy costs and location, according to the World Bank. Conventionally, alternatives typically cost half that or less. The cubic-metre costs of desalinised water in Israel's traditional Hadera and (newer) Sorek plants, for example, are $0.65 and $0.52 respectively."
( http://www.theguardian.com/sus... )

"Energy consumption of sea water desalination can be as low as 3 kWh/m^3"
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D... )

They also tracked people by smell: http://boingboing.net/2007/07/...

Current German government is doing the same thing: http://www.theguardian.com/bus...

Neuroscientists know that the human brain is far more complex than any foreseeable microprocessor-based computer system ...

Henry Markram would like a word with you.

The press started working for the government. Not sure when, but the media merged with the government at least during the Iraq invasion. They were all instrumental in starting the war. Once it got going, they fired anyone who dared question whether the war was a good idea.

The white house press corp pretty clearly works for the white house. They take the propaganda verbatim and publish it.

I think that mindset explains why the government thinks media leak legislation is appropriate. They see their employees as misbehaving. For that matter, the media masters are probably accepting it in exchange for goodies. "Tell you what, Obama, we'll accept more muzzling of our reporters. That will go for these online news source up and comers double, right? And you won't have a problem with Rupert Murdoch/whoever taking a complete monopoly over all news, right? He's promised us new mansions."

It's for targeting just the vocal the activists not everyone. This way less people bitch about their inability to access the networks. Gasslighting works. The majority can remain non silenced, and complacent while the activists are silenced, as usual.

Bonus, the bricked devices don't start working again if the protesters leave the protest.

No, I am not claiming the election of the deposed Russian-aligned President was free and fair in the first place - I have no idea

Observers from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) said there were no indications of serious fraud and described the vote as an "impressive display" of democracy. "For everyone in Ukraine this election was a victory," João Soares, president of the OSCE's parliamentary assembly, said.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/feb/08/viktor-yanukovych-ukraine-president-election

1. Apple maps is a joke and completely useless

Based on what? Yeah they flubbed the roll out but I've used it since and it mostly works fine. I'm guessing you are one of those people who read all the bad press and presumed that Apple would never fix the problem. Guess what? Over over 30 million people use Apple Maps mostly without problems. Apple Maps is certainly not a joke and anything but "completely useless". Your assertion is mostly without any basis to support it.

2. considering how many people hate Apple, they're losing prospective customers for a $60,000 car for example because of one tiny feature.

Apple sells millions of devices a year and you think people "hate Apple"? Have you actually been to an Apple store lately? They are packed. Nobody buys Apple products because they have to. They are all discretionary purchases and people buy Apple's gear because they... gasp, LIKE the products. Who knew?

Maybe YOU don't like Apple but out here in the real world Apple is wildly popular.

Not only are you hopelessly wrong about Bitcoin not being anonymous, as chill pointed out, but you seem to have also missed the memo that the US government is tracking snail-mail on a massive scale.

The US spent a lot on color revolution efforts over the years and really wants to see some payback

Russia has spent a lot on separatism efforts in many countries after the Soviet Union, centered in Russia, had previously shipped ethnic Russians to live in many occupied countries, often after engaging in various flavors of ethnic cleansing or other mass killings. We can expect more "protection" to be needed by those Russian in years to come, and Russian aggression and occupation of those countries will always be a danger under the current Russian government.

US campaign behind the turmoil in Kiev (26 November 2004)
http://www.theguardian.com/wor...

There is a great deal that the account you reference leaves out, including government election fraud and thuggery. Lets add some more background.

Ukraine's Orange Revolution

The US really wants NATO up against Russia (encirclement, containment) - like the Soviet Union used Cuba.

Having regained its independence after a long, bitter period of foreign rule, Ukraine really, really wants to remain independent with its territory intact. By itself against Russia it is unlikely to do so given Russia's history and power, as we are seeing demonstrated now, and previously in Georgia.

You may recall that the Ukrainians have plenty of motivation to be free of Russia since a special word is used for the crime against humanity inflicted upon them by the Soviet Union, the heart of which was Russia: Holodomo. The Ukrainian terror famine killed perhaps as many as 10,000,000 people as the police, secret police, and army were used to confiscate food and prevent people from leaving.

The Soviet Story - trailer
The Great Famine

The Soviet Union had to be contained, Russia didn't ..... or are we seeing now that it does?

Re This isn't about the US bro
The US spent a lot on color revolution efforts over the years and really wants to see some payback
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O...
US campaign behind the turmoil in Kiev (26 November 2004)
http://www.theguardian.com/wor...
The US really wants NATO up against Russia (encirclement, containment) - like the Soviet Union used Cuba.

Then why is the hardware turnover rate so high for their products?

Frequent OS X upgrades (annually now) bloat older machines to a crawl and cause logicboard, graphics and firmware issues on machines just out of 3 year AppleCare. I wouldn't mention this if I hadn't see it personally occur TWICE on their laptops.

Dropped security updates for OS X versions still in major circulation.

(See Computerworld : "Apple retires Snow Leopard from support")

Perfectly working iPads that can't handle the latest iOS versions.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/jul/04/apple-ipad-software-update/

Like everything Apple does, it's green only for THEM and less green for you or in your pocket.

Best thing I ever did was install Windows 7 into the first partition on 17" MBP boot drive. Where are the 17"'s? GONE!! *POOF!*

Never Apple, never again. It's not a serious platform anymore, it's a joke.

Recall Hemisphere , "US drug agency partners with AT&T for access to 'vast database' of call records"
http://www.theguardian.com/wor...
Forever (as in over a human life) seems to be hardware and software level enjoyed and expected.

As, yes, a troll: http://www.theguardian.com/sci...

Recommendation: Curl up and die, you have negative worth as a person.

Iraq tried to do it in the early 2000s. They managed to switch to selling in euros (EUR) around late 2000 / early 2001 despite U.N warnings ( http://edition.cnn.com/2000/WO... ), and made a nice profit out of it ( http://www.theguardian.com/bus... ). Of course, on the 20th of March 2003 ( about one month after that article was written ), it stopped mattering much because they were very busy dealing with being invaded ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2... ).

... issues like "dizziness, heart palpitations, chronic depression". The US RDA for vitamin D for adults is several times too low, and people in solitary confinement indoors are unlikely to be getting enough sunlight to make up the difference. The isolation itself is no doubt harmful to many people too, but the vitamin D aspect could at least be addressed easily even within the current system. The nutrition issue is even larger; see for example:
http://www.psychologytoday.com...
http://www.theguardian.com/pol...
http://www.naturalnews.com/039...

And environmental toxins contribute too:
http://www.motherjones.com/env...

Ironically, corporations get to repent by "restorative justice" (paying reparations or fixing what was broken) while real people are hit with "punitive justice".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R...

US prison population stats:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I...
"In 2008 approximately one in every 31 adults (7.3 million) in the United States was behind bars, or being monitored (probation and parole). In 2008 the breakdown for adults under correctional control was as follows: one out of 18 men, one in 89 women, one in 11 African-Americans (9.2 percent), one in 27 Latinos (3.7 percent), and one in 45 Caucasians (2.2 percent). Crime rates have increased by about 25 percent from 1988 to 2008.[18] In recent decades the U.S. has experienced a surge in its prison population, quadrupling since 1980, partially as a result of mandatory sentencing that came about during the "war on drugs." Violent crime and property crime have declined since the early 1990s.[19]"

Recent incarcerations for drone protesters, but presumably not in solitary:
http://www.syracuse.com/news/i...
http://www.syracuse.com/news/i...
http://www.syracuse.com/news/i...
http://www.veteransforpeace.or...

What a difference a nun can make even in prison:
"84-year-old nun sentenced for her anti-nuclear activism"
http://www.catholic.org/nation...
"Rice said she learned in prison to see her fellow inmates, not as perpetrators but as "victims" of a system that gave them few options. Walli says that like Rice, he spends long hours talking to inmates to "instill the idea that human life is sacred. "They know that they are the human fallout and the victims of the profiteering by the elite and top leaders of the corporations that are contracted to make the nuclear weapons. It's (the money) denied to human services that should be the priority of any government," Rice said. "

My local savings and loan or credit union serves all of my needs.
I don't trust the stock market. It's primarily an insiders game and is rigged in favor of Wall Street. The rest of us are suckers when we try to play.
The Wall Street financial manipulation which led to the crash of 2008 stole billions of dollars from the all of us. Unfortunately, due to their corruption of our political process, the necessary regulation to prevent future abuses has been thwarted.
Here's an interesting article in The Guardian regarding the UK economy but it applies to the US also:
http://www.theguardian.com/bus...

Some relevant quotes:
"Two recent papers raise further doubts. In The Growth of Modern Finance Robin Greenwood and David Scharfstein of Harvard Business School show that the share of finance in US GDP almost doubled between 1980 and 2006, just before the onset of the financial crisis, from 4.9% to 8.3%. The two main factors driving that increase were the expansion of credit and the rapid rise in resources devoted to asset management (associated, not coincidentally, with the exponential growth in financial-sector incomes).
Greenwood and Scharfstein argue that increased financialisation was a mixed blessing. There may have been more savings opportunities for households and more diverse funding sources for firms, but the added value of asset-management activity was illusory. Much of it involved costly churning of portfolios, while increased leverage implied fragility for the financial system as a whole and imposed severe social costs as over-exposed households subsequently went bankrupt.
Stephen G Cecchetti and Enisse Kharroubi of the Bank for International Settlements – the central banks' central bank – go further. They argue that rapid financial sector growth reduces productivity growth in other sectors. Using a sample of 20 developed countries, they find a negative correlation between the financial sector's share of GDP and the health of the real economy."
So... there is a "negative correlation between the financial sector's share of GDP and the health of the real economy". This is the problem and this is why Wall Street shouldn't count as a "productive activity".

Undercover police cleared 'to have sex with activists'
http://www.theguardian.com/uk/...

Wait, I can have sex with a hot police chick if I organize a few protests? And she'll encourage me to do perverted things? Sign me up!

How do you incite a riot without physically assaulting someone?

Draw a cartoon of the Prophet, of course!

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/feb/19/muhammadcartoons.ameliahill

Not only that, but when corporations and their employees DO move into urban areas, they get shit for that too.

There's no pleasing everyone.

The US Republican party is changing tactics on the environment, avoiding "frightening" phrases such as global warming, after a confidential party memo warned that it is the domestic issue on which George Bush is most vulnerable.

The phrase "global warming" should be abandoned in favour of "climate change", Mr Luntz says, and the party should describe its policies as "conservationist" instead of "environmentalist", because "most people" think environmentalists are "extremists" who indulge in "some pretty bizarre behaviour... that turns off many voters".

Re -look at all internet posts telling me so
http://www.theguardian.com/tec...
Revealed: US spy operation that manipulates social media Military's 'sock puppet' software creates fake online identities to spread pro-American propaganda (18 March 2011)
"contract stipulates that each fake online persona must have a convincing background, history and supporting details, and that up to 50 US-based controllers should be able to operate false identities from their workstations "without fear of being discovered by sophisticated adversaries"
So really expect some skill and complexity to the 'name' over years with crafted emotions, relatable events and e.g. for slashdot a good use of science between the drive to influence internet conversations.
Another telling point could be a shift change like event in style moving from rants to been conciliatory trying to rebuild the image/mod points of the name.

Re it would be interesting to consider how best to counteract these measures...
Consider Poland or East Germany or areas from the late 1970's onwards. The methods used ranged from removal (death, exile, prison, house arrest) to a formal invite onto TV to 'debate' the issues hoping that lack of media training, an accent would sway many people that the gov was correct via a more charming representative.
The way to win is just to keep publishing, keep sending out information to many people about events, contract the press, be a citizen journalist.
Study COINTELPRO http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
Study how peace/anti war movements in the 1960 to 1980's where infiltrated and turned into doing safe busy work or reshaped from protest to other methods.
Undercover police cleared 'to have sex with activists'
http://www.theguardian.com/uk/...
In the digital age understand how an informant will work in both a slow long term way or in a more rapid way.
e.g. http://www.theguardian.com/wor...

Re it would be interesting to consider how best to counteract these measures...
Consider Poland or East Germany or areas from the late 1970's onwards. The methods used ranged from removal (death, exile, prison, house arrest) to a formal invite onto TV to 'debate' the issues hoping that lack of media training, an accent would sway many people that the gov was correct via a more charming representative.
The way to win is just to keep publishing, keep sending out information to many people about events, contract the press, be a citizen journalist.
Study COINTELPRO http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
Study how peace/anti war movements in the 1960 to 1980's where infiltrated and turned into doing safe busy work or reshaped from protest to other methods.
Undercover police cleared 'to have sex with activists'
http://www.theguardian.com/uk/...
In the digital age understand how an informant will work in both a slow long term way or in a more rapid way.
e.g. http://www.theguardian.com/wor...