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Actually, recent studies show that the remote pilots do have PTSD issues....they don't just fly a drone in, launch a missile from 20 miles, and leave. The pilots often work 10-12 hour shifts 6 days a week, and they often follow their targets for weeks if not months before any attacks. After the attack, the drone has to hang out and continue watching, doing an assessment of the damage; ie a body count. The drone team (usually three people) has to count and catalog each dead body. It's highly stressful; these soldiers know damn well it's NOT a video game, they know they are actually killing people. And when they do go home from the office, they can't talk to anyone about the burning bodies of the children they had to tally up that day.

Here's more articles on this, if you don't believe me.

It's legal because of the ToS you accepted when you installed the operating system and accepted automatic updates from Microsoft. Therefore you did it to yourself.

My suggestion is to dump automatic updates and go to something like Autopatcher which avoids accepting things blindly on your behalf.

You do know the keystone pipeline would raise the cost of oil and lessen the supply to the industries you quote right?

You do realize that oil is a global commodity and there are literally hundreds of sources for it around the world, and that one country buying from Canada will not affect the prices for other countries unilaterally?

It is going to cars in China who are used to paying $9 a gallon for gas.

You are an idiot. Gas in China is about $4/gallon. It's about the same price it's been for the last few years.

This is why Obama vetoed it. We have all the liability of a potential accident with less product.

President Obama vetoed it probably as a sop to the extreme environmental lobby, which overwhelmingly supports the Democrats. With the 2016 elections coming up, no President wants to see his "legacy" (and his is extremely thin as is) tarnished with big losses of the White House, House, and Senate because of an action he took which upset one of his core constituencies. This is about his legacy, nothing about liability and product availability. If he was worried about liability then he would have signed the bill as pipelines are safer than rail and truck.

an embarrassing counter-example to American and western democracy's political claims against communism

Sure, if thousands of executions by firing squad with little to no due process, mass imprisonment and thousands more being "vanished" would embarrass you. They certainly don't embarrass Marxists. As good old Ché, Castro’s chief enforcer put it, "To send men to the firing squad, judicial proof is unnecessary. These procedures are an archaic bourgeois detail. This is a revolution. And a revolutionary must become a cold killing machine motivated by pure hate." All of course while El Jefe himself was living it up on a private island paradise, feathering his bed with drug deals.

Well, there are a lot of gun free / highly-regulated countries with far less gun crime than the US

There are also ones, where guns are very widely spread and yet gun-violence is lower than here.

But we don't need to go abroad — simply compare, say, Chicago, IL, where even a museum could not get permission to display a WW1-era rifle, with Austin, TX, where guns are easy to get... The strictness of the anti-gun laws and "regulations" (all of them obviously unconstitutional, BTW) simply does not correlate with gun-violence.

Slashdot, the land of libertarians

The entire US has this law known as "the 2nd Amendment", which declares arms-possession a right to be taken away from the bad, not a mere privilege to be granted to the good.

Also this.

why not just stop them from dumping coal ash in the first place?

Because, for good or ill, a lot of people rely on coal power for their electricity. It's 39% of all electricity generation in the USA. If you shut down all the coal plants at once with no replacement ready to go, it would cause massive problems and I would go so far as to say that people would die.

I hate coal and want it all shut down, but I know that something needs to replace it and we need to minimize the disruption to people's lives. The best thing you can do is to arrange things so that it is financially rewarding to do the right thing, and then stand back and watch people figure out how to do the right thing most efficiently.

that's like the idiotic notion that we don't need food safety inspectors, just let them put whatever they want in, the market will sort itself out.....AFTER a bunch of people die.

So, in the 1700's when there were no food safety inspectors, did everybody die?

So, right now, we don't have any government inspectors of safety for small electrical appliances. Instead, we have a non-profit called Underwriter's Labs; I'm sure you have seen the "UL-approved" sticker on small electrical appliances. Is everyone dying from unsafe appliances? Would we be safer if the government shut down UL and set up a Federal Bureau of Small Electrical Appliance Safety?

Just as I depend on sites like Yelp and Travelocity now, I could depend on private for-profit sites to rate restaurants and such for food safety.

Also, don't forget: even if government got out of the food safety inspectors business, government would still enforce liability laws. If someone knowingly or carelessly poisoned you, you could still sue them.

Given all of the above, it's clear that food safety inspectors are not in fact an essential function of government.

You can make the argument that it's better to have food safety inspectors be part of government, but you cannot legitimately make the argument that they are essential or even that "many people would die" if government didn't have that.

stupid stupid libertarianism.

Saying something doesn't make it so. Also, you are making me enjoy discussing ideas with you somewhat less. Perhaps I should write something insulting about "stupid blind statism" and rage-quit?

also: stop posting stupid myths on global warming.
the predictions are panning out, and the models are proving accurate.

Nope.

http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/environment/item/20610-computer-models-vs-climate-reality

http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/2014/03/have-past-ipcc-temperature.html

Please provide references to support your position.

... former Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff has spoken out against key escrow...

So....what's his financial angle this time?

He was the one who pawned the Full Body X-Ray machines that were eventually pushed onto prisons.

I would really like to get a job where I can do what did and does. How does one get those?

Oh yeah, know the right people which is always the case.

'In an angry conversation, recently reelected German Chancellor Angela Merkel (shown) told President Obama that the surveillance tapping of her cellphone by the National Security Agency (NSA) was “like the Stasi,” the infamous East German secret police.'

'The exchange, as reported by the New York Times December 16, occurred after reports surfaced of the NSA’s nearly decade-long surveillance of Merkel’s cellphone' ref."

Of course the real story is that the NSA is also spying on Obama, purely in his defence, it's not as if they would leak against him, if he didn't do what he was told ..

Governments worldwide that are marching to fascism want encryption banned.

Encryption is but a tiny side-show in the global march towards Collectivism — the coin, of which Fascism and Socialism are indistinguishable sides. As predicted long ago:

The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield, and government to gain ground.

— Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington, Paris, May 27, 1788

It starts with concern for the poor, that inevitably causes the government to undertake support of the downtrodden with various "War on Poverty" initiatives.

A few decades and trillion-dollars into it, there are not only millions of recipients of the dole, there are also tens of thousands of government officials involved in distributing it. The combination makes it impossible to stop the foolish undertaking — it may be reformed and rearranged, but it can not be ended.

And then comes the idea, that, if we must support the unsuccessful among us, we should try to prevent them from doing (what we consider to be) stupid things: take drugs, drive too fast, eat fat (no, not fat, sugar!). Right here on Slashdot, the idea that our self-imposed responsibility for others allows us to control their actions, is alive and well.

And then government types begin to deliberately rearrange things to be able to attach their own strings to various incentives you can not refuse. The first example of this was, probably, the imposition of federal speed-limit by mandating, that States receiving federal Federal highway funds implement them.

The most recent example here is the federal take-over of education loans, which allows the Administration to better control, what the colleges teach and what students do. Because it raises the tuition costs so much, fewer and fewer students will be able to forgo such federal aid and will be forced to accept it — with all of the strings attached to them and the colleges they attend.

Compared to these aspects of the Collective increasingly controlling the Individual's life, use of encryption is of little to no consequence. Maybe, a new Republic in Antarctica, on the Moon or Mars will take the lessons of our errors to heart — the way our Founding Fathers studied those of the Romans...

Obama has actually done it.

Wow, that's a new one. Usually people have to defend their favorite politician's fuckups and corruption by claiming "bbbbbut [insert predecessors name here]!!!1!" Instead, you have to reach into the future to find any other president that did what Nixon did, and then I guess you're claiming it's ok when Obama does it because clearly it was ok when Nixon did it, right?

he was 100% correct

So you have his list of names, and proof that all 81 of them (on the copy he provided to Sen. Tydings, or do you have the complete list of 205 that he constantly claimed he had but never produced? If so, please contact a historian to find out how much money that's worth!) was actually a Russian spy? The New American was able to take three out of nine public names and find proof, can you do better than that, without handwaving cases away as claiming that it's true that "they are known to one or more responsible persons as having been members of the Communist Party" and then vanish the remaining listees with a wave of a hand and a claim that well he never publicly said anything about them so no foul -- except for the axe of government hanging over their neck had McCarthy had his way.

The fact that it's not exactly in the format you want or dumbed down enough for you to understand is not my problem.

It is your problem — you answered my challenge (for the second time in a month) and failed.

The links are in 30 different references at the bottom that the paper cites with enough information for you to look them up.

If it were this easy, you would've done it yourself long ago instead of extending this silly thread well beyond the point, where your inability to meet my challenge became painfully obvious.

you refuse to meet me half way and address what the paper says

I don't want to argue with somebody else's words — history of this very thread shows, how easy it is for you to throw other people statements under the proverbial bus:

• "Maslowski's colleagues didn't agree with him", you said,
• "Al Gore is an asshole" (dave420 implied — without any objections from you),
• "Viner was talking to a popular publication, rather than a peer-reviewed magazine" (as if it makes any difference)

— whatever. Like I said already, I don't want to think through an argument only to find myself attacking something you consider inconsequential...

When you asked for an example, I gave you some — summarizing both the failed predictions and their disproofs in my own words instead of simply referring you to other people's articles (of which there are plenty). Because to do otherwise — as seems your wont — is to appeal to authority.

You knew, what the "format" needs to be from the beginning. That you could not meet it is not my fault — it is your failure. Or, more likely, it is the failure of this belief, which you continue to call "science".

You're arguing like a lawyer, not a scientist.

I'm not a scientist — nor do I need to be in order to be convinced (rather than compelled ) to do something about "the dangers of humanity's contribution to global warming". I am just a somewhat educated man, who knows of humanity's long history of fads and beliefs, and is aware of some of the scientific and philosophical mechanisms invented to help prevent our falling into the same holes and stepping on the same rakes again...

Ah, I see. You want me to do all the work

Why, but of course, the burden of proof is on those, who make claims. If you wish for the rest of society to "fight global warming" in general, or to force patent-holders to share certain "green" technologies with the poor countries in particular, you have to show, your scientific theory is sound.

Because, whichever science it is (biology, physics, chemistry, climate), the method is the same:

1. Collect known facts.
2. Come up with a theory explaining them.
3. Use that theory to predict new verifiable facts in the future.
4. Verify the predicted facts thus confirming the predictions.

The last two steps is what I am asking for. You can not claim "science is settled" without these. We know some failed predictions, do you know any successful ones?

http://www.thenewamerican.com/...

I have a great attention span, and have a great memory to go along with it.

Here is a short list of "problems" I have with "global warming" zealots.

1) Every big natural disaster is met with "Global Warming" cries, yet when lulls occur (like hurricanes), nothing. Or worse, when it is very very cold, they cry "It is climate, not weather, know the difference".

2) CO2 is a miniscule amount of greenhouse gasses. Water Vapor is much much larger. Go ahead, and explain why we can swing between 1 and 4% average H2O without much effect, but small percentages of CO2 are disasterous!

Why is posting questions "troll" except to people who don't like the obvious answers?

http://www.thenewamerican.com/...

http://www.dailytech.com/After...

http://ktwop.com/2014/08/02/pr...

But hey, keep making predictions sure to go wrong!

We shouldn't challenge student's fixed beliefs? Or undermine parental authority? Those sound like usual and desired outcomes of critical thinking skills.

Yes, because the last thing we want is the child to possibly believe there is or may be a god, or that sharing is good, stealing is bad, murder is bad and you will be locked up for life unless you live in a state that will kill you too, that you should look both ways before crossing a street, cussing and swearing around people you do not know is impolite and still rude with ones you do know, or anything else parents instill as fixed beliefs with their authority. Well, that unless the child comes to those conclusions on their own through trial and error or whatever process he/she may choose to develop an understanding of them.

Yes, that sounds like a great thing.

And I'll admit that "focus on behavior modification" sounds like a code phrase. You seem to like this statement; could you translate it into language that I can understand?

Politifact has a writeup on it that explains it. Some of the links are dead though but it drops the meat right in the analysis.

From this write up

Opponents said the outcome-based approach was antithetical to critical thinking. They claimed it "dumbed down" curricula and influenced students to adopt liberal attitudes because the "outcome" of their studies was predetermined by academia.

In case you did not know, most conservatives think academia is fraught with liberals pushing their agenda which is why you can get Mumia Abu-Jamal speaking at a commencement ceremony and Condoleezza Rice and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, protested to the point they withdrew from speaking. The lists goes on.

Part of this is from The Naked Communist (1958) and School of Darkness by Bella V. Dodd but more recent claims have been made

You don't have to believe those claims, but you should believe that other do. That is what is meant by behavior modification as stated.

http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,998512,00.html

Time magazine "mainstream" enough for you?

http://www.rferl.org/content/article/1095057.html

Or that, less mainstream though. Note both are from 2000 (before we attacked Iraq/Saddam).

http://www.thenewamerican.com/economy/markets/item/4630-gadhafis-gold-money-plan-would-have-devastated-dollar

Several links in there, some stale but a few at least worked.

http://www.oil-price.net/en/articles/iranian-oil-bourse-opening.php
http://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Iran-Opens-Oil-Bourse-Harbinger-of-Trouble-for-New-York-and-London.html
http://www.worldpress.org/Mideast/2314.cfm

I'm sure there's a lot more on the Iran oil bourse, it's in wikipedia as well:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_oil_bourse

Statistics show that you are more likely to be shot to death in the USA than in England. However, statistics show that you are more likely to be beaten to death with fists and boots in the USA than in England. In fact more people are beaten to death per year in the USA than are murdered by all weapons in England. (That's not adjusted for population size, of course; many more people in the USA than in England.)

There is a book called The Samurai, the Mountie, and the Cowboy. It's worth reading, but I can summarize it: violence correlates well with cultural factors and does not correlate well with regulation of weapons. England had low crime rates, then they banned guns, then they had low crime rates. Anti-gunners point to England as a "success story" but it isn't.

And, in the decades since England banned guns, violent crime has gotten much worse. Did banning guns lead to increased crime? Can't say because correlation does not prove causation. But definitely we can't say that banning guns made England less violent.

And the majority of states in the USA now allow concealed carry of firearms. Violent crime has not increased; it has decreased. Again, we cannot prove that concealed carry caused the decrease; but we can trivially disprove the claims by the anti-gunners that letting people carry firearms will lead to horrible bloodbaths of violence. http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/crime/item/14859-florida-update-concealed-carry-permits-up-violent-crime-down

The perfect world would have all the bad guys disarmed, and all the good guys well-protected somehow. The real world shows that the bad guys are all armed, no matter what, full stop. Thus you have your choice: bad guys armed and good guys disarmed, or everybody armed. I'll take the latter, thank you. Statistics show that ordinary citizens are not likely to misuse firearms, and do in fact use them to stop crime (often without anyone being hurt; bad guys would rather surrender and have the police take them away, than be shot).

The best we can do, as a society, is to provide a robust economy full of opportunity, combined with locking up those few who are violent repeat offenders. The vast majority of people, including the poor and including minorities, are decent people who don't commit crimes. There are a few people who cause a great deal of havoc and the best we can do is to lock them up.

But we absolutely should allow the law-abiding to protect themselves. Not only is it common sense, but the Second Amendment protects that right in the USA. (If you are going to claim that the Second Amendment is limited to things like the National Guard, I will ask you why it is the only Amendment in the Bill of Rights that doesn't protect an individual right, and why you think your opinion carries more weight than the Supreme Court's opinion.)

Actually at least one has tried. A guy down in Nevada tried to find out what kind of info they're collecting on his kid.

The silly bastards want to charge him $10,000 for the info. Supposedly it'll take 3 weeks of programming time to get the data out.

http://www.thenewamerican.com/...

Fear is not irrational.

1) However, a lot of the points you specify are. For example, the probability of you getting accidentally shot.

You have no way of defining the probability of you getting shot in real terms, so it cannot be compared with nobody owning firearms for example, or only the government owning firearms.

We of course know which of the two is worse historically and since NOBODY owning firearms is a fantasy world we do not live in, your fear is indeed irrational, if not a complete refusal to acknowledge the reality we all live in.

2) If you are mistaken for an intruder that would be bad.

If your government mistakenly misplaces the law of the land, that is far worse.

Read your history books if you think I am lying.

Or don't you people read?

3) Skill in the use of a firearm is important. Perhaps practice would be in order.

Form a neighborhood get together, say with your neighbors and use targets to practice.

I would not suggest using these targets:

http://www.thenewamerican.com/...

because well, criminals shoot those sorts of targets. We as citizens do not condone criminality for example in the use of firearms so targets such a pop cans or bottles might do well enough. You can also just get targets from the internet and print them out.

4) Gauging the facts about ones own safety is a tricky business.

You either arm yourself, or SOMEONE ELSE will make that decision for you. Again, read your history books on armed conflict in ANY period of human history.

5) Law abiding citizens do not use their guns for intimidation. Not only that, if everyone is armed, that sort of human behavior is simply unheard of. Nobody would do what you are suggesting who is a rational law abiding citizen if they wanted to live.

You have no idea what you are talking about here, sorry.

6) Yes, storing firearms is a big problem. Especially with children in the house. Luckily there are lots of off site alternatives as well to accommodate these concerns.

Your points are irrational in a lot of ways in a reality that is based on fear and probability. Ironically, that is the exact type of climate of fear when only the government can be armed, and the citizenry has no idea at any time, one nutcase in power can change their lives over night.

That won't happen in the USA because if it does, there will be civil war. Civil war in a country with Nuclear weapons and I can rest assure you nobody will survive it.

http://blog.heritage.org/2012/...

http://www.thenewamerican.com/...

http://dailycaller.com/2013/07...

http://www.aei.org/article/pol...

But then again, if John Stewart and Colbert don't report it, it never happened ... right?

All countries that have health care for a while have panels that deny treatment to people.

You cannot give everything to everyone, over time you run out of money (especially as the population of older people in the pool swells while the number of younger people dwindles).

You are REALLY going to see the screws put in over the next decade in most of Europe (probably not Germany).

So let me get this straight, it's perfectly OK to kill people with drones as long as they're not American citizens?

Yes

And yes American citizens abroad as well.

http://www.politifact.com/texas/statements/2014/mar/19/kesha-rogers/four-us-citizens-killed-obama-drone-strikes-3-were/
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/constitution/item/18019-federal-court-drone-killing-of-u-s-citizens-is-constitutional

... well, as long as you are on a terror watch-list which automatically removes your rights or aren't the "intended" target.

We couldn't possibly give up our strategic advantage in an area that has almost no usefulness in this period of time!

Tell it to the Chinese and Russians.

Namesake law poised to further destroy the American's productive capacity? We'll just kick that can down the road another two years; fuck the low wage workers with crappy healthcare. Obummer doesn't hesitate to executive order whatever race baiting nonsense he wants into existence.

Do something about the government sanctioned monopolies looming over the Internet? Oh no. The FCC is "independent" and we don't have the authority.

Just so long as the oldsters get their bennies these statists can do anything, or cop-out on anything, and they're guaranteed their positions of power. The AARP base is bought and paid for with whatever printed, borrowed or taxed monies are demanded.

And while we're at it: "recent" observations on physical functions influenced by gender should also be considered instead of being denied for political correctness reasons.

Russia has decided to make its relationship with the US, UK, and NATO in general complicated. (And perhaps Australia as well / in time.) While they cooperate in various matters such as terrorism and trade, the Russians have resumed various Soviet practices, such as certain foreign policy stands, and probing Western defenses with bombers and submarines. To that you can add making various threats regarding nuclear strikes against NATO countries. (Former Soviet sample.) Perhaps you simply don't bother reading about such things?

Russian bombers’ secret UK missions ‘not a friendly act’
Russian Bombers Perform Simulated "Strikes" on Sweden, U.S.

I would expect you to be at least somewhat acquainted with the various acts of Chinese encroachment and aggression against its neighbors. Various members of the Chinese government have also threatened nuclear strikes against the US. Perhaps you've heard that US forces are now providing greater aid in the defense of Australia?

Both China and Russia are "great powers" in the classic sense, and pursue their interests. Sometimes that will mean working with the West, sometimes against it. China's power is ascending as they build towards a navy with four aircraft carrier battle groups, the first one now available, and India is right behind them. The US seems to be heading towards a much less capable navy than today, and Australia decommissioned its last aircraft carrier long ago.
   

So far, this hasn't seemed to have happened, but if it does become public, there will be a backlash, especially OnStar which has the ability to track and disable cars in realtime [1].

Ahem. Just a few links that spring to mind. You can easily find others.

TomTom sorry for selling driver data to police

“Government Motors” To Track Drivers With OnStar, Sell Data to Police

OnStar Tracks Your Car Even When You Cancel Service

Busted! Your car's black box is spying, may be used against you in court

They are making fun of people like you who every time a piece of ice falls off a glacier anywhere you point out that as proof of global warming. Go ahead and claim you don't, but every time I hear of a tornado in the US, the hurricanes Katrina, Sandy, and on and on, each of those instances people are trotted out on the news as climate experts claiming that this shows AGW is real and we need to do something.

The person making the statement you replied to doesn't believe this single incident proves AGW is false. They are making fun off all the people on your side that use every single instance as proof. The rest of us can look at how far off IPCC predictions are here, or Al Gore's expert opinion about how the arctic would be ice free by 2013 here, or any other time a climate scientists made a prediction that could actually be tested.

They are making fun of you and you are so dumb you don't even realize it and think you can "debate" your way out of the actual truth. The frozen ice in the antarctic isn't listening to your debate no matter how much you try.

Before 1913 the Federal government collected duties on good entering the country and tariffs on certain goods. However the amount of collected is very small and easily avoided by any person choosing to vote against Federal policies by not buying dutiable goods.

The nation had few taxes in its early history. From 1791 to 1802, the United States government was supported by internal taxes on distilled spirits, carriages, refined sugar, tobacco and snuff, property sold at auction, corporate bonds, and slaves. The high cost of the War of 1812 brought about the nation's first sales taxes on gold, silverware, jewelry, and watches. In 1817, however, Congress did away with all internal taxes, relying on tariffs on imported goods to provide sufficient funds for running the government.

Read more: History of the Income Tax in the United States | Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005921.html#ixzz2mwDj6t23

Under some circumstances the Federal income was collected from the individual States, such as:

The direct tax of 1798 imposed taxes on “lands, houses and slaves” totaling $2 million over the next two years, apportioned to states in amounts according to representation (as measured in the U.S. census).

http://www.thenewamerican.com/culture/history/item/14268-before-the-income-tax

States placed taxes on real property some of this money was apportioned to the Federal government based on the population of State, hence the need for the census. Along with the money collected each State was represented by two seats in the US Senate. It is important to note that before 1913 these Senators were chosen by each States elected body not necessarily by general election. While congress has always been directly elected and always the origination of bills of appropriations.

The people are taxed and in return the people ask for stuff. The State which took the money with difficulty attempts to limit spending via the Senate which can only approve or deny an appropriations bill. Hence money collected with difficultly and spent with difficultly designed to naturally limit unnecessary spending.

Before 1913 taxes on Income (or any direct tax) was seen as unconstitutional because the Founders felt it was important for people to have a way to protest a government in the only meaningful way: deprive the government of income.

In addition the Founders were distinctly against a privately held central bank such as the Federal Reserve which was also approved in 1913. This has additionally provided the Federal government an essentially unlimited supply of money with which it can enforce any position without any realistic opposition of the individual States.

Post 1913 we can clearly see what happens in a democracy with the effective restraint on spending removed.

Wikileaks has leaked the secret text TPP (Trans Pacific Partnership). It reveals the TPP creates patents on surgery, limits access to medine, makes patents broader and tougher, extends copyright even longer, restricts fair use, makes damages even larger makes circumventing DRM illegal (but with exemptions for government spying) and creates a parallel judicial system for prosecuting IP infringement.

Try asking anyone under 30 if they know what the phrase "Papers Please!" denotes

It's just two words... It's a lot of things.

It's when the Military place soldiers in a natural disaster area such as New Orleans after Katrina requiring you to show military ID or proof of government authorization, to avoid arrest, or having vehicles impounded

It's an attack onAmerican birthright citizenship

It's two words that succinctly describe America's dark future.

Personal and Professional Encounters with Surveillance

anti-state.com: May I See Your Papers Please?

It's what Mr. Hiibel of Nevada went to jail for refusing to comply with

It's what police do now to ordinary people minding their own business.

It's congress work on the REAL ID act

It's a name given to a section of an Arizona law upheld by the Supreme court.

It's the name of a complaint against changes the US is making starting this Fall 2013 to further restrict the free travel of Americans and greatly increase the difficulty of US citizens getting passports

It's the name of a dystopian video game about communist immigration control.

It's the name of an anti-TSA blog

It's a request you comply with when asked by the police; otherwise, you face immediate arrest.

• Texas 77 year old Grandmother arrested after refusing to show ID
• Police arrest for refusing to show ID while on private property
• Exhibit 1
• Exhibit 2: According to the Supreme Court, the police may arrest for failure to identify
• Arrested at Circuit City for refusing to show ID: "It all started when I refused to show my receipt to the loss prevention employee at Circuit City, and it ended when a police officer arrested me for refusing to provide my driver's license."
• I follow the blog of a guy who walked across the country (California to New York) last year. He was arrested in Greencastle, Indiana last summer, after a prison worker called the police to report him as a suspicious person after they exchanged words while he was walking past the prison complex.
• Florida Cops Tase man for refusing to show ID
• Refusal to show id in Georgia (arrest)
• Man in Arizona arrested for refusing to surrender firearm to officers who refused to show their own ID

Reagan? He started the downward spiral toward total dishonesty and lack of government.

Not Reagan. Government dishonesty goes back way further. Do you not remember 1973 Nobel Peace Prize winner Henry Kissinger? In 1975 he said, "The illegal we do immediately; the unconstitutional takes a little longer." And what about J. Edgar Hoover?

I think dishonesty and corruption are part of human nature, and go back to the beginning of humanity. The Constitution gave the United States a "more perfect union," but it cannot eliminate the inherent evil.

This one? If not, be more specific and I'll help you with a Google search.

http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/politics/item/13123-gao-35-of-federal-contract-dollars-went-to-minority-owned-businesses

http://www.fedmarket.com/contractors/Minority%252dOwned-Business-Contracting

http://www.gsa.gov/portal/content/186661

In a nutshell at least 5% of a contract must be awarded by quota. It is certainly out in the open, there are entire government programs devoted to helping make sure this happens.

He gave up everything he had to fight a far more powerful aggressor who operates in the shadows, tortures people, and targets schoolchildren with killer robots. That's the very definition of hero.

Jimmy Carter Defends Snowden, Says U.S. Has No "Functioning Democracy".

I did some research, and these are the facts.

In 2012, of the 1,789 requests made by the government to monitor electronic communications, one was withdrawn by the government. Of the remaining 1,788 applications which came up before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), not a single one was denied. Yes, all 1,788 applications to monitor electronic communications were approved.

In case you question the source, we know this from a 30 April 2013 letter from the Department of Justice to Senator Harry Reid. The source article is here.

With a track record of 1,788 out of 1,788, thats an amazing homerun for the DoJ. Im forced to conclude that you are right, it is a fig leaf and a mighty flimsy one at that.

Incidentally, Reggie Walton, presiding judge of the FISC has denied being a rubber stamp court. In his own words :-

"There is a rigorous review process of applications submitted by the executive branch, spearheaded initially by five judicial branch lawyers who are national security experts and then by the judges, to ensure that the court's authorizations comport with what the applicable statutes authorize."

.

Doing the sums, 1,788 applications in 365 days (assuming they work over over Christmas and weekeneds etc) means they process almost 5 applications per day. One wonders how rigorous the review process can be under such deadlines.

Just in case someone thinks the above is true, read THIS.

It appears the DOJ is working with Media Matters in leaking information, that may or may not be true, to make talking points to go out. Congress is considering investigating these "leaks" to find out who in the DOJ is releasing ready made talking points to protect the current administration against scandals.

Thought it was weird I hadn't heard your spin, didn't trust your source but instead of doing the normal /. thing and complaining, I thought I'd actually look it up myself.

http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/health-care/item/15447-irs-illegally-seized-medical-records-of-10-million-americans-lawsuit-claims

This article has some interesting commentary on the situation.

That was sure a long post with little more than "La la la I can't hear you" head-in-the-sand reaction. There is a lot more to the story that you could have found if you hadn't latched on to the first denial you had found and dismissed anything said by people that you have ideological differences with. The New American has some good coverage of the whole story. Whatever you heard about something "misreported", you have characterized it in an even less true way. The fact is, the guy had to appeal to the Supreme Court of New York to get his gun back and his permit restored. So, yea, after the slap-down by the court in this particular case the state police said they should not have targeted that guy, which doesn't mean there aren't others. So they found some ignorant local police "representative" to disavow any knowledge of how the SAFE act works, which is only credible because it's a new law and the bureaucrats haven't distributed guidance yet. But the law can be interpreted to allow it, and clearly will utilize local police ("issuing agency") to do the confiscations.

They already do what in NY and California? An SSRI prescription doesn't stop people (at least in CA) from getting a gun.

It seems that with the new law in New York, they are not only blocked from buying guns, but having their guns confiscated.

No one seems to have brought up Brandon Ruub. US Vet held for Facebook Post. He posted on facebook and was locked up. The scary part was the judge that gave the release found no grounds for the hold. Glad the US and UK are so in step with trying to lock people up.

The best of capitalism is forced sterilization? I didn't believe it when I heard it recently, but there does seem to be something to it:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/15/uk-aid-forced-sterilisation-india
http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/asia/item/11372-us-uk-taxpayers-funding-forced-sterilization-in-india
http://www.activistpost.com/2012/05/us-and-uk-foreign-aid-funds-mass.html

So, as they said in China just a short while back, when they fail to educate, they will have to take direct action?

She couldn't find a more worthy cause closer to home? Catastrophic issues facing local families in her own state?

What's the "Most religious state?" What's the most Republican state? What state can't host the Olympics without embarrassing the USA with their corruption? What state lost $2.5M to stupid Nigerian "You have been selected to win $100M dollars!" scams? What state bans effective sex-ed? Banning D&D in public schools... polygamy... and these people are too innocent to know that the religious right GOP crowd they want to join knows for sure that every Mormon will burn in Hell.

And after yet another epic f--kup, I have to listen to posts like this... on an article about how Utah can't keep track of their Medicare records, and this somehow is an opportunity to blame Obamacare? Give me a break.

That's not true for Japan, or the US, or even TEPCO itself. They alone run (or ran, and are expected to run most again) 17 reactors. So even TEPCO alone is in a position to amortize quite a bit.

Your point is a good one about risk management in general, but there isn't just one nuclear reactor to amortize risk over.

In some ways, this has played out pretty well for Fukashima, which is expected to have zero deaths from radiation. TEPCO isn't even bankrupt. On the other hand, there are a lot of lessons learned about avoiding unnecessary trouble relatively cheaply, and we already knew we needed to replace a lot of these ancient reactors but didn't. Likewise in the US.

For your deaths facts: http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech-mainmenu-30/environment/621

As for your arable land excuse, the vast majority of land on earth today is too cold to grow crops. A very small percentage is too hot. Most of Alaska is wetlands, imagine how good those soils would be for farming if it were warmer. I suspect most of Canada, Greenland, and Russia are similar.

And finally, how long will it take us to adapt? How many major cities were in the US 100 years ago? 200 years ago? Is AGW really happening THAT fast?

Our current president hasn't invaded anyone that I know of.

Maybe you didn't hear of Yemen? He also stepped up military operations in Pakistan, and increased CIA involvement in Somalia

Libya we did help but it was more with logistics.

From wikipedia

The United States has deployed a naval force of 11 ships, including the amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge, the amphibious transport dock USS Ponce, the guided-missile destroyers USS Barry and USS Stout, the nuclear attack submarines USS Providence and USS Scranton, the cruise missile submarine USS Florida and the amphibious command ship USS Mount Whitney. Additionally, A-10 ground-attack aircraft, B-2 stealth bombers, AV-8B Harrier II jump-jets, EA-18 electronic warfare aircraft, and both F-15 and F-16 fighters have been involved in action over Libya. U-2 reconnaissance aircraft are stationed on Cyprus. On 18 March, two AC-130Us arrived at RAF Mildenhall as well as additional tanker aircraft. On 24 March 2 E-8Cs operated from Naval Station Rota Spain, which indicates an increase of ground attacks. An undisclosed number of CIA operatives are said to be in Libya to gather intelligence for airstrikes and make contacts with rebels. The US also began using MQ-1 Predator UAVs to strike targets in Libya on 23 April.

A bit more than just logistics.

The last president did invade a country with no reason (Iraq) but he was promptly removed from office

You do remember that we invaded Iraq before Bush's second term right?

Case in point, the UN in action

But there's plenty of pther evidence. How about the UN "preventing" the Lebanon-Israel wars ? How about the UN helping Morocco colonize Western Sahara ? How about the UN aiding the Sudan genocides ? How about the UN's performance in Yugoslavia ? The UN's ten-year and tens of thousands of dead attempt at pacifying Iraq ? The UN's effectiveness in stopping Iran's bomb ?

You really are right that the UN cares mostly about maximizing death, rape, wars and misery. Let's just hope this is mostly through incompetence, a thought that becomes harder to believe each year.

Or take the more recent example of Walnuts where the actual verified health benefits are illegal to be represented in packaging and marketing material because that makes them a "drug"

http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/health-care/8294-walnuts-are-drugs-says-fda

It is also why you can't actually get natural Red Rice Yeast in any form unless it has been deneutered of any helpful benefits because it competes with STATIN cholesterol drugs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_yeast_rice#Regulatory_restrictions

The FDA is in criminal conspiracy to make the only available healthy choices "processed foods" of some sort or another. It no longer serves the purposes of its founding, but is now a gross caricature of its former self. I'm glad it is not funded well, because if it was, it would be even worse. It is also on my list of reasons why government regulations are evil, because they can't do what they are supposed to do, and therefore do things that they can do but shouldn't.

Look, I'm not against regulation, I'm against OVER regulation. We don't need "more" we need "better" and more isn't better.