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You conservatives are so SMART!!!

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You conservatives are so SMART!!!

Here.. Also Here. You're welcome.

Four of five members of the state’s energy regulator are tied to the conservative anti-clean energy group, the American Legislative Exchange Council. http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/11/01/2873071/arizona-solar-battle/

And this is when you tell them that 300 people on death row have been exonerated by DNA evidence, which is a pretty big number when the total death row inmates this year is around 3000 (3146 in 2012). That's right, about 10% who were able to be cleared of guilt using one technique that may not have been around when they were convicted, and who were actually tested through the persistence of their legal advocates. Doubtless more could be exonerated if routine DNA checks were done on people convicted before DNA testing was possible or commonplace. "But what about all the people who were executed," they say. "What about those? Surely that reduces that percentage by some significant amount." Not really. About 1000 have been executed in the last 20 years. (1316 to be exact.) So, worst-case scenario, we're looking at about 6.7% exoneration rates. By one kind of evidence. In a society where the majority don't seem to want to try very hard to exonerate them.

With numbers like those, I'm not too interested in being the one to end a person's life based on their supposed crimes. Even if I could guarantee the person was guilty before execution was an option, I don't think there is any benefit to society.

Of course, I'm also not interested in condoning prison rape and other things that are routine. This probably puts me in the minority - most seem to think it's their just desserts. Personally, I'd love to see a prisoner make a constitutional claim that the government is engaging in cruel and unusual punishment by condoning such acts through the expedient of simply looking the other way. But, again, that doesn't support the sense of vengeance that so many seem to be driven by.

Death Row Inmates by Year

Executions by Year

300th Person Exonerated, approx. Oct. 2012

I just don't actually know what you're trying to say.

"Who'd buy insurance to cover cheap healthcare?" is a question, Leon. In answer to your query, I wrote it to make people think about whether insurance companies would "fix" the cost of healthcare to the point where nobody would need their services anymore.

Let's start from the top.

The fundamental problem is that the actual cost of healthcare is way too high, mostly because a healthy market cannot be established when the option is pay or die and many of the 'customers' come in unconscious. If insurance could fix it, it would have done so in the last several decades.

I responded to the statement that "insurance would have fixed it" by first attempting to have the reader conjure up the image of an America where it was fixed: "$50 ER visits" (compare to the average ER visit cost here, not counting the ambulance ride). Then I asked what the role of insurance companies would be in that America: "Who'd buy insurance to cover cheap healthcare?" (I add "America" here, because I noticed a lot of people replying live in other countries where these things aren't true. That's nice, but this is an article about American government, with a post about American healthcare, and my response should be assumed to be on topic). This question is addressed to the reader (for instance, you): If healthcare was this cheap, would you buy insurance for the purpose of paying for it? My personal opinion is "no", and through my personal fault of projection, I expect readers to answer the same way. They would not pay insurance companies every month to protect themselves from the occasional loss of the cost of a dinner for two. Based on that, I expected readers to then make the connection between their decision not to buy insurance, and the insurance companies not working to create a situation where they would put themselves out of business.

Here's an article with a picture of that billboard:
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/10/09/2760221/mysterious-pro-secession-billboard-appears-in-missouri/

Whoever created it obviously hasn't looked at a map lately. Even if you assume that they really meant MS (Mississippi) instead of Michigan (MI), Missouri is only barely contiguous with the other states there, separated by Arkansas, and joined to Oklahoma by a tiny stretch of border. Is there some reason they don't want Arkansas in their new country? Is it just because Clinton came from there? Anyone from the area care to comment?

Also, why'd they leave out Alabama of all states? I would have thought MS and AL would go hand-in-hand. And the northwest portion of FL (the part bordering southern AL) would probably want to go with them.

Anyway, it sounds like a great idea to me. Imagine how well the rest of us will do without those states (and most importantly, their voters) holding us back. Maybe we could even dump ObamaCare and replace it with true universal healthcare like the Europeans have.

If the offsets don't do what they advertise, it isn't Al Gore's fault that they don't.

When it is his company he's buying them from, it is.

Generation Investment Management is a multi-national (offices in New York and London) investment strategy company. In other words, they exist to make a profit off of investing in ... whatever they can make a profit from investing in.

The "About Us" page claims there are 55 people who "represent[s] 16 countries and speaks 21 languages." The only financial disclosure I can find at that site lists "Investment Management" remuneration at a total of GPB19,742,000. That's US$31,567,458, or an average of US$574,000 per "investment manager".

Now, how much does Mr. Gore pay in "carbon offsets"? I can't find a number, but this NY Times article says that a competing company (TerraPass) would charge about $1300 for a house such as Gore's.

$1300 spent for at least a $574,000 income? (And as Chairman, you can't expect Mr. Gore to make less than the average for his employees, can you?)

This article defending Gore reports Gore's office saying:

Gore has had a consistent position of purchasing carbon offsets to offset the family's carbon footprint -- a concept the right-wing fails to understand.

No, I think even right-wingers can understand what's going on.

So I'm not going to respond to the first post because it makes no sense. But I'll happily use the "first reply" spot, thank you very much, to actually say something. This $2 billion plant breaks down to close to $30,000 per home serviced. Seems a wee bit excessive, considering the average home electric bill in Arizona runs something like $200 (I researched the web for a few minutes to estimate this). Consider that installing a home solar system would run something like $10-$20k at most in a sunny place like Arizona (considerably less w various tax incentives). Looking like a bit of a boondoggle?

It is better to evaluate on a $/kW basis, since that is how we evaluate machines in the industry. The "power to supply XXX average houses" that the media loves so much is not a standard conversion rate and it varies considerably depending on who is abusing it. "$/per home serviced" when you are talking about capacity is not a very indicative number. This plant is 280MW, so at a cost of $2 billion they are about $7142/kW to build. They don't need to pay for "fuel", but maintenance costs are probably higher than a traditional power station.

For a coal or natural gas plant, you can build one for somewhere between $2000 and $4000 per kW. But you have to pay for fuel. Machines on the cheaper end will have a higher staff count also. Coal plants have a large amount of staff dedicated to fuel handling, ash handling, and emissions controls. Natural gas is a costlier fuel but doesn't have as many staff. The price for natural gas is volatile.

My back of the envelope calculation for Nuclear would be $10 billion for 1200MW, or about $8333 per kW. Operating it requires a massive amount of staff. Fuel costs are relatively tiny, but waste costs would make up for this.

For straight PV, a ballpark estimate seems to be about $5/watt for installed retail panels. Or approx $5000/kW.

This site extends the operating time of the system for approximately 6 hours per day compared to the PV system. Lets say a full day is 12 hours, and the panels get full sun for that time (not true, but to simplify things). This system gets 50% more energy compared to the PV system. We could say that a PV system of similar value would be $5000/kW * 1.5 or $7500/kW installed. This is not a boondoggle at all. It might be a little expensive, but it isn't completely crazy.

Your skepticism is admirable, but Google is (mostly) your friend. For example, Fossil Fuel Subsidies in the U.S., or America's Most Obvious Tax Reform Idea: Kill the Oil and Gas Subsidies, or Happy 100th Birthday, Big Oil Tax Breaks. From the last article:

...The percentage depletion subsidy also increases when prices are high, at the same time that oil companies enjoy greater profit. It can even eliminate all federal taxes for independent producers.

You know who tea party folks voted for? They wrote in "Ron Paul."

ORLY?

Tea Party may have started as a libertarian attempt to take over GOP, but it was clearly overrun by batshit insane conservatives of the worst kind: religious whackos, racists, xenophobes, and people convinced that Illuminati are behind every tree (quite often, these all combine in a single person). Libertarians may be writing in Ron Paul, but they are not the Tea Party anymore.

It requires insurance companies to accept people with pre-existing conditions (which can include mere weight), which is a major problem for anyone trying to buy individual coverage.

And accepting pre-existing conditions means that insurance is no longer insurance, it's a discount healthcare plan subsidized by those who are stupid enough to think it is insurance.

It also provides rebates for people who make under a certain threshold, reducing costs.

No, it just moves the costs off to other people. The costs will increase because we'll need more providers and those we currently have will be stretched thinner. People with pre-existing conditions will appear on the "insurance" rolls needing expensive treatments from day one, never paying more than their care costs. You think those costs will magically disappear? This is how you make costs lower?

It's not perfect by a long shot, but it's better than what we had.

Not so good for those who have lost their coverage because their hours were cut and now have to pay for their own. Trader Joe's for one, who now feels that they don't need to pay for so many part timer's health care, so they won't.

There's a lot of companies who are cutting hours. They're not admitting that it is because of ACA, so of course the polls that try to prove that ACA isn't hurting people don't count them. It's like the unemployment numbers aren't sky high because they don't count people who have given up looking. (And even so, the magic number we were never going to go above didn't turn out to be so magic after all.) Nobody is crowing "Hey, thanks Mr. Obama for letting me toss my employees out into the street as far as health care is concerned. Saves me a bundle of money." So those jobs aren't counted against ACA. They are just short term adjustments to the employment levels due to, umm, unicorns buying less pixie dust. (The unicorn and pixie dust market should be holding steady based on advertising running in Oregon for 'Cover Oregon' which for the last few months has been nothing but pushing unicorns and pixie dust on the public, spending taxpayer dollars to do it.)

The blogs that tout the ACA are putting all kinds of spin on the issue so that ACA doesn't look so bad. They even claim that Trader Joe's is proof that ACA is working, not that it is hurting people. Trader Joe's is not paying for as many people's health care, and that is a Good Thing, they say. "Here's $500, go find your own insurance." This guy is claiming that of course small companies won't cut hours because that would mean they have to manage how many hours a week the employees work, and nobody does that now. Huh? Here's the quote, it's magical and naive at best:

In that case there would be a new roll for supervisors, too, who would likely need to manage their workers' hours more closely to ensure they don't go over the 30-hour threshold. That's not a function that supervisors in restaurants and retail typically provide right now, Ryan adds.

So we're supposed to believe that supervisors aren't already responsible for scheduling their employees? I was a supervisor for a summer while going to college, and you bet I was responsible for schedules, and responsible to make sure nobody went over 40 hours without a good reason. It's a big deal to change that limit to 30 instead of 40? Sure. Right.

That's a load of nonsense - the problem is that 10-15 years is too short a time-scale to make a reliable judgment. Since 1975, global average surface air temperature has increased at a rate of 0.17 deg.C/decade. But it isn't a steady increase. If you look at the 15-year period up to 2006, the warming trend was almost twice as high as normal (namely 0.3 C per decade) but nobody cared much (except climate scientists and environmentalists). The 15-year period from 1998 to now has been slower than the trend, and that's got hugely more attention. The reason is that interest groups strongly push the latter, and want to ignore anything that doesn't fit their agenda. See here for details

The vast majority of that money comes from industries with a publicly well-known, vested interest in denying global warming.

Again, show me this alleged money. I see empty assertions. But when I look at actual visible budgets, the World Wildlife Fund, a group promoting climate change theory, by itself receives more in public funds than the entire "climate deniers" cottage industry.

A comparison of the two links shows that billionaires have supposedly donated $120 million to the cause of climate denying over ten years while the WWF received $41 million in public funding just last year.

Greenpeace apparently received $2.2 billion (though not in public funding) over the same time period that billionaires were kicking out $120 million.

And from right wing think tanks with bottomless pockets that fund studies trying to disprove AGW and still are forced to conclude by the evidence they gather that it is quite likely occurring.

Didn't happen. Read up on it. Yes, there was such a study and yes, the Koch brothers were funding it. But right wing think tanks with bottomless pockets weren't involved.

T'he thing that is apparently so easy to forget is that there are far bigger corporations (though not corporations as are usually considered on Slashdot) out there than Big Oil and other fossil fuel businesses. For example, the European Union is one such with a captive market of almost 400 million people and backed by the power of a few dozen developed world countries, all themselves powerful corporations in their own right. Similarly, there's the United States which again has a captive market of roughly 340 million people.

These deep pocketed organizations which employ tens of millions of people and have budgets, which can range into the trillions of dollars, can easily outspend the entire fossil fuel industry. And my take in the climate change debate is that they have done so.

Can you name *any* set of observations of average global CO2 and average global temperature that would cause you to give up your belief?

Sure. If carbon levels go up precipitously for, say, 50 years, and the climate does NOT warm, after having corrected for things like solar radiation output, distance from the sun, etc, I would be convinced that CO2 emissions have nothing to do with warming. Since human activity is, in fact, increasing CO2 levels, and has been for the last 100 years, and global warming has, in fact been occurring, and temperature spikes in the historical record have in fact been correlated with CO2 rises, then I would say that the null hypothesis that there is no correlation between CO2 rises and global warming has been pretty much disproved. Since observations have supported the claim that human activity increases CO2 in the atmosphere (these are facts, as much as anything can be a fact), the further claim that human activity is causing global warming can be judged to be fairly certain.

In addition to our current long running and dangerous experiment, there is other experimental evidence that human activity is causing global warming. Computer models have been built that, in effect, create a 'new world', that can be used to test these sorts of hypotheses. These sorts of studies are confirming and predicting global warming due to CO2 rises. They predict the sorts of temperature rises, on average, that will occur. They have been going on for 30 years, and predicting the sorts of temperature rises we are seeing. So, they are pretty good evidence that CO2 is causative of global warming. Again, that CO2 rise is caused by human activity is not disputed.

Now, you can call me a believer in the 'religion of science' again, but you need to start someplace. You can't be like Descarte, and deny everything, or you get nowhere, or worse, think you've proved the existence of God. My religion, if it is a religion, is that science gets it right much more often than it gets it wrong. It often will get stuck on issues, mainly due to incorrect theoretical explanations, but those incorrect explanations are mostly due to missing facts. As new facts come in, they figure things out, and create a better theory, and the scientific community comes to accept it (perhaps a funeral at a time, as Max Planck quipped). As more observations come in, the theories get better and better. So, yes, I believe what scientists tell me. I have no way to disprove them, and less inclination to try. Their work has made me very comfortable.

The only real puzzle here is how the Koch brothers have managed to convince so much of the population to disbelieve the science, which is in fact as certain as these sorts of things get. They have connected denial of human caused global warming to political belief in a way that makes people who vote republican disbelieve it on an unprecedented scale. This is similar to the belief, after even Bush had disavowed it, that Saddam was responsible for 9/11. It becomes part of the lore of the tribe, and must be protected as a sort of badge of membership. Very clever, but ultimately the millions of deaths projected in this century (estimates are 150,000 people a year being killed by climate change right NOW) will expose them as the villains that they really are.

I would like to thank you. I was dismissive of your views earlier in the thread, and your responses have caused me to read up on the science a bit, something t

The models they were certain of only 8 years ago turned out to need large corrections.

As the denialists keep spamming, the theory of gravity is constantly updated by physicists. That's what scientists do: improve on theories with new data and superior models - something denialists have yet to do. This "large correction" stuff is nothing more than an empty talking point.

The extra storms were were supposed to see are lacking.

New England. Heard of it? Worst storm in 75 years. Know any girls named Katrina?

And it's a problem that several people who oppose climate warming are in bed with the oil companies and pretty skeevy.

And even those people say climate change is happening when they actually look at that data.

Climate change is real. It's happening. Models going back even 30 years have been remarkably prescient. So go on and test that theory of gravity with your foot an an anvil, since quantum string theory is "constantly being updated" and models from ten years ago don't exactly explain how dark matter works.

The irony of the fool who lectures on the true nature of science, yet understands not the difference between experiment, measurement, and model. Climb down off that horse, and untangle these things in your mind. Global climate is not an experiment - at least, not one under conditions controlled by scientists. It is what it is, and models are only approximations of this reality.

The tiresome fool who thinks he's clever.

Do geologists not have "experiments, measurements and models" because they say the Grand Caynon was formed by erosion over millions of years? How about evolutionary biologists who study the fossil record of humans or horses over millions of years? Of course they have measurements and models, and so do climate scientists. Did you think about this nonsense at all before throwing it up onto your keyboard?

But this is beating a dead horse, because when even when scientists paid by the Kochs to deny climate look at the evidence and say "yeah, there's climate change", it's time for you clowns to get the fuck out of here.

If you think that the way the critics are treated is bad?
Climate scientists have to deal with harassing lawsuits from Republican attorney generals (a climate change "skeptic") and baseless accusations of fraud from "skeptics". Makes me think the "skeptics" aren't really as honest, independent, nor sincere, as they claim to be. Every day "skeptics" accuse Climate scientists of being in some shadowy international conspiracy.

I consider the IPCC as having an adversarial relationship with the truth, like a lawyer in court.

You think the IPCC has an "aversarial relationship with truth," so you get your information from editorials in the Wall Street Journal ????

The mind boggles.

(And, of course, I can safely bet you don't actually read the IPCC reports. The denier never do.)

My view is that implies that temperature sensitivity estimates have dropped significantly and the IPCC is being forced to account for that.

It hasn't. The IPCC is summarizing reports in the peer-reviewed literature. The estimates haven't dropped. The information the Wally is using is contradicted by the scientists who they misquote [ref]

....Finally, if anyone didn't want "leaked" paraphrasing to dominate the discussion of upcoming IPCC reports, then perhaps a more open and public process is in order?

The report is to be released in ten days. The Wally wanted to put their spin in before the open and public process started, so they could spin the argument before everybody had the facts.

There's no moral difference between killing with pollution and killing with bombs

While the anti-Americans world-wide are wagging their fingers at the US, China is killing itself with pollution...

Just in the news: China And California Partnership To Address Climate Change.
It doesn't look like is an "us and them" attitude (i.e. you better stop approaching the topic from a "who's-shitting-more contest" PoV).

Have you never heard of Wayne LaPierre and Ted Nugent?

Yes. Point? Both are American citizens with the right to express their opinions, just like you, regardless of what other people think. Maybe you're just jealous that the Nuge is successful enough to be able to say whatever he wants without major repercussion.

Have you never heard of the NRA's position on guns in schools ( http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/04/02/nra-school-security-hutchinson/2045565/ [usatoday.com] )

Yes, and personally I find the concept a much better idea than the government's "run and hide" strategy that turns kids and teachers into easy prey. Taking into account the fact that this statement from the NRA is a direct response to anti-gun nutters like you who screamed bloody murder when it was suggested to station armed police officers in schools, what's so nutty about training school faculty and staff to defend themselves and their charges? What alternative strategy would you recommend?

their recommendations on building indoor gun ranges for children? ( http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/05/08/1978921/nra-youth-magazine-home-shooting-ranges/

Well, for starters, I don't think a thinkprogress.org article that references other thinkprogress.org articles as supporting material is going to be all that accurate and unbiased when reporting a story about an organization they've deemed "the enemy."

Then there's the fact that, if you actually read it, the article is referring to indoor shooting ranges for bb guns, not combustion rifles. That you did not mention this very important aspect makes me wonder - did you not read the article you cited, or are you still being a biased asshole?

I'll leave the determination up to the reader.

Exactly. Or at their clinics or at any of their other functions. I'm shocked, I tell you!

If only they were armed... oh wait.

And then stuff like this is just so wrong you have to wonder if anybody is in control of their mental faculties at the NRA. http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/05/03/1961871/after-child-shooting-nra-conference-peddles-guns-for-kids/

Have you never heard of Wayne LaPierre and Ted Nugent? Have you never heard of the NRA's position on guns in schools ( http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/04/02/nra-school-security-hutchinson/2045565/ ), or their recommendations on building indoor gun ranges for children? ( http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/05/08/1978921/nra-youth-magazine-home-shooting-ranges/ )

Perhaps, sir, you should consider coming out from under that rock before calling people names.

there isn't enough money, so the best of his ability is to prioritize.

Did I miss a bake sale outside of the DOJ as they tried to raise funds to prosecute those they just can't afford to anymore?

If not, clearly then it should be trivial to find the list of charges that the DOJ had de-prioritized because of lack of money to prosecute them.

What's that? Just the other week the DOJ also asked prosecutors to withhold evidence or opt for lessor charges in other drug crimes, not because of a lack of money, but because of a dislike of mandatory minimum sentences? http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/08/12/2444441/holder-sentencing-and-drugs/

Odd too that today the Obama Administration announced a couple of proposed changed to federal firearm regulations, one that will cost it tax revenue by denying of the re-importation of WWII era firearms... and another will require even more time & money to be spent (by both individuals and the BATF) when buying NFA items.

It's almost as if the claim of lack of money... is just an excuse to conduct policy in a way that they would prefer.

So yes, I am able to read... but also comprehend what I read and do not tailor either to just the subject at hand, might I suggest you try it?

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/06/17/2158951/pandoras-promise-nuclear-powers-trek-from-too-cheap-to-meter-to-too-costly-to-matter-much/
The closure of this aging power plant was inevitable.
The construction of new nuclear power plants is plagued by the same issues. Nuclear power is just too costly even with the substantial subsidies it currently receives. The issues of nuclear waste and proliferation only make the case more difficult.
Nuclear power's time has past. It never was very good and now the financial and technical problems are overwhelming.

The answer to this problem, and also to the problem of grid failure due to extreme weather, is to decentralize power production. Individual homes can often produce as much power as they need with solar and micro-wind turbines. If they tie in to a micro-grid--essentially a neighborhood-level grid--they can load balance against their neighbors.

Decentralizing power production yields many other benefits, too. Individuals save tons of money on power bills (the cost of solar, for example, has been dropping dramatically), the country produces less CO2, and everyone has a lot more money in their pockets they can boost the economy with.

not enough sunlight in many parts of the country

Actually most of the USA gets more sun than Germany but they are building out their solar capacity at record speed.

high capital cost, maintenance costs, etc

In case you missed it, the price of solar cells has fallen off a cliff in the last few years. And some companies will install the system for no money down, then sell you electricity at a rate lower than the utility.

So yeah, reality shows a pretty objective picture, its just that people dont want the truth, they want to show that cops and the government are racist institutions as justifications for doing whatever it is people want to do.

Either you haven't looked very hard for data, or you've done an interesting job cherry picking information to reflect the reality you want to portray.
Here's the results of what I found, it took all of like 5 minutes of googling to find it, so basically anyone with a strong opinion on the subject supporting the NY Police is being intellectually dishonest.

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/05/22/2046451/white-people-stopped-by-new-york-police-are-more-likely-to-have-guns-or-drugs-than-minorities/

• The likelihood a stop of an African American New Yorker yielded a weapon was half that of white New Yorkers stopped. The NYPD uncovered a weapon in one out every 49 stops of white New Yorkers. By contrast, it took the Department 71 stops of Latinos and 93 stops of African Americans to find a weapon.
• The likelihood a stop of an African American New Yorker yielded contraband was one-third less than that of white New Yorkers stopped. The NYPD uncovered contraband in one out every 43 stops of white New Yorkers. By contrast, it took the Department 57 stops of Latinos and 61 stops of African Americans to find contraband.

It's unlikely that the appropriate lesson to take from these findings is that stops of white people should increase because they are more likely to carry weapons and drugs. Rather, they suggest that police are excessively targeting minorities. Officers may be netting more successful stops of white New Yorkers because they are only likely to stop a white person when they actually suspect that person of committing a crime

89% of stops result in no action.
That's hundreds of thousands of people who are harassed by the NYPD for no reason other than being young and not-white.

You're thinking of McDonald's: http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/07/15/2300321/mcdonalds-buget-low-wage/ . They've since changed the heating to "$50" in attempt to save face: http://www.practicalmoneyskills.com/mcdonalds/ Still, the health insurance budget amount on the example is lower than the cheapest health insurance offered by McDonald's and the budget only works out if you're working two part time jobs for 70-75 hours a week.

Dump the unions, pay the low skill workers what they're worth (~minimum wage) and get rid of the pensions.

According to http://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-facts/ every two weeks 1.8 billion is paid in salaries and benefits. That is 46.8 billion dollars. They get 65 billion dollars in revenue according to that same page. So 72% of revenue goes directly into compensating workers.

If the USPS has 522,144 career workers, that means the average compensation per worker is 89,630$ - but this number probably doesn't account for the wages paid to temporary and seasonal workers, so it is likely the average cost per worker is somewhat less than that number. I can't find any specifics for the overall amount of compensation spent on seasonal workers but from personal experience they pay between 10-14$/hr and you get zero benefits.

In the long term, keeping all the unionized pensioned senior people longer is just going to increase the amount of money they'll have to pay them later when they retire/get laid off. Make a change they don't like, let them all strike, and fire everyone who violates the attendance rules just like walmart does. Boom, done. http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/06/23/2200081/labor-group-walmart-fired-five-workers-for-participating-in-strikes/

Yeah, it'll never happen. Instead the USPS will slowly wither away and die. Private corporations will end up picking up any profitable service USPS loses with service cuts and price hikes to support their massive employee base. Ultimately everyone loses.

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/09/28/330524/postal-non-crisis-post-office-save-itself/

Pointing to the highwater mark of demand from the 1990s (and the disparity today) as the reason why USPS can't pay its way is disengenuous. There is no rational explanation why today's situation is worse than the 1950s or 1850s.

Republicans see another workers union that they want destroy, so they made up absurd funding requirements to force USPS to drastically reduce staff. Its not much different than Florida Republicans requiring women to present proof of every name change (e.g. marriage license) for each and every licence/ID renewal in order to reduce an unfriendly demographic's access to the voter rolls.

First, I will preface my comment by saying that I am not actually in favor of government regulation of the internet... but if we were to actually go down that road, I would opine that the only step necessary to dramatically improve US broadband, would be to incorporate salary caps into the C- level positions at the existing telcos. If the money can't be siphoned up the chain to the bank account of those money-hungry CEOs, then it seems to me that the most likely places for all that cash to go would be a) back into the company, (as in, both the lower level employees and the infrastructure) or b) back to the customers and stockholders.

I mean, I'm all for a free market and the capitalistic system and all that... but good grief! Salaries at the top are positively obscene!

How long before the current administration uses this against their political foes, if they haven't been already?

It'd be ridiculous to even consider them not having done it already. Systematic centralization of power didn't happen by itself, and it didn't happen just for show either. They amassed all that power to use it.

Just out of the last few tabs I have open (without even searching), here's one example:

http://thinkprogress.org/alyssa/2012/04/10/460754/laura-poitras/?mobile=nc

that may be, but Napolitano didn't save any money. She increased costs substantially, caused economic turmoil for the country with the policies she supported, and spent over 200 million bucks on those scanners which have saved us approximately $0. Did I mention the amount of tourism lost because people were like "Fuck this country" over things like claiming we can randomly stop people in 3/4 of the country. You may think it's a TSA thing, but TSA and DHS go hand in hand. Plus DHS harassing the shit out of foreigners, as well.

So does that mean she's working gratis? sadly, no.

So Restore the Fourth and Fight for the Future. Attend rallies like this one last week, support privacy advocates, sign the petition to shut down the NSA Utah data center, or hell the petition to pardon Snowden.

http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/SFO_crash-e1373139561971.png

Shows it upright, with at least one wing still attached.

I am neither pro nor anti-socialist; rather I was attempting to point out that:

A) If this isn't a perfect clear and obvious example of fascism disguised as socialism, I don't know what is...

and

B) ...it should be clear by now that your supposedly socialist parties in the EU are also infested with fascist infltrators (otherwise, things would not have reached the point that they have).

He put an end to not one, but two wars and refused to go to full out war in Libya and Syria. That seems a radical difference with the previous holder of the oval office to me, and very much exercizing that option.

No, he put an end to one war, Iraq was already settled by the SOFA rules already in place by Bush when Obama took office. He changed a few wordings like the name of the remaining forces but it's materially the same.

http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2009/stewart130309p.html

Funny that you mention marijuana, because he has done exactly that: CNN: President Barack Obama says that federal law enforcement agencies have "bigger fish to fry" than prosecuting marijuana users in Colorado and Washington, which voted in November to legalize the recreational use of marijuana. (late 2012)

I know this is from what you would probably consider to be the conservative source but it seems your reality is not conjoined with the real world.

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/05/06/1961751/feds-ramp-up-crackdowns-on-medical-marijuana-dispensaries/

Just wanted to make a couple minor corrections to your post. One war instead of two and despite what has been said by officials, it seems they are targeting medical marijuana after all.

What amazes me by the administration is that they seem to be able to completely separate themselves from their own actions when it comes to public appearance. It's as if someone else is running the government and Obama and friends are just puppets along for the ride or something without a care in the world about what their administration is actually doing unless it somehow benefits them.

Really? Because of network effects. That's it. Everyone else is communicating on it.

It's purely a predatory play- they capture people who are at a time in their lives when they're well known to be indiscreet. They then record all that indiscretion. Then they monetize it.

Meanwhile, Zuckerberg is taking the results of that monetization and campaigning -hard - for XL Keystone pipeline.

http://www.mercurynews.com/peninsula/ci_23151754/keystone-xl-foes-rally-front-facebook-protest-zuckerbergs

a fact he's aggressively trying to lie about:

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2013/04/30/1943091/facebook-rejects-ad-highlighting-zuckerberg-groups-support-for-keystone-xl/

because like all other deniers,. he's first and foremost a narcissist:

http://www.afterpsychotherapy.com/narcissistic-personality-disorder/

who relishes the idea that he's smarter and more knowledgeable across a highly technical domain than are the the world's scientists who have spent their lives disciplined in and mastering that domain.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-scientific-consensus.htm

But one thing he doesn't have in common with other deniers

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer

is he's going to be around long enough to be forced by society to bear, without reserve, the consequences of his actions today, which depending on how bad things get, could range anywhere from total dissolution of his personal wealth to fund emergency, remedial action against global warming - an outcome that is now a virtually certainty- to extended torture at the hands of enraged mobs / quasi-civilization, should we reach five degrees of warming and real civilization just breaks down.:

http://globalwarming.berrens.nl/globalwarming.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nRf2RTqANg

Guns aren't about "killing one another."

A credible threat of retaliatory violence is the single most effective deterrent to actual violence.

Guns are about stopping YOU from attacking ME. Having it can make that possible even if I never use it to kill anyone.

You are using logic. The Libtards really hate that because they cannot refute it. They have to mod you down (done), call you names, scream at you, defame and mischaracterize you, and then pat themselves on the back for championing their ideology and its favorite methods. What they WILL NOT do is explain why mass shootings almost always happen in "gun free" zones where law-abiding citizens are unarmed, explain why conceal-carry permits decrease violent crime, explain why places like Chicago with terribly restrictive gun laws have such high murder rates, or explain how the "zero tolerance" schools they run benefit children in any way when they expel them for point a frenchfry at another child and saying "bang bang" like the cops-and-robbers games children have always played. You see, it is not that they don't want to explain those things. They would love to. They simply cannot. They are not reasonable people. They are highly emotional and emotionally volatile. Your post was on-topic, was not trolling, etc. But they modded it down anyway. It went against their ideology, you see.

Oh we explain these things, because most of the NRA's claims about shooters and guns are flat out wrong. Folks such as yourself have to forget that we explain these things so that your internal narrative remains consistent. But of course, facts have a liberal bias.

They had to mod it down for the same reason the Catholic Church had to refuse to look through Galileo's telescope (and then punish him). Galileo did nothing wrong. You have done nothing wrong.

Then lets look through that telescope! After all, if the gun lobby is like Galileo, then the facts will support their narrative. And if the facts don't support their narrative, then they are like the Catholic Church: didn't bother to look at the facts, just jumped to the conclusion they liked.

The NRA Myth of Gun-Free Zones Data shows the gun lobby's chief argument for more firearms in schools, malls, and beyond is just plain wrong.

Among the 62 mass shootings over the last 30 years that we studied, not a single case includes evidence that the killer chose to target a place because it banned guns.

Concealed carry permits have not been linked with a reduction in crime.

No link between right-to-carry laws and changes in crime is apparent in the raw data, even in the initial sample; it is only once numerous covariates are included that the negative results in the early data emerge. ... [W]e find that the statistical evidence that these laws have reduced crime is limited, sporadic, and extraordinarily fragile. Minor changes of specifications can generate wide shifts in the estimated effects of these laws, and some of the most persistent findings — such as the association of shall-issue laws with increases in (or no effect on) robbery and with substantial increases in various types of property crime — are not consistent with any plausible theory of deterrence.

Chicago's murder rate is largely the result of the lax gun regulations outside Chicago, not Chicago's gun control. If anything, Chicago is proof that we need more gun control, not less.

Most

I hate replying twice, but i have to point out that:
"neither has the inflation adjusted price."
is simply not true. House prices have consistently outpaced inflation for decades, until the 2008 financial crisis. But prices still haven't returned to historical norms. And if it did, it wouldn't matter because the only people experiencing a "recovery" are the super rich.

So inflation adjusted wages haven't changed. Inflation adjusted prices are higher than they were in the past. And inflation adjusted executive compensation has increased over 100x in the same period. How is this defensible?

Freeman Dyson's scientific knowledge in this area is exactly nil.

Dyson on Dyson, from:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/magazine/29Dyson-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

"It's always possible Hansen could turn out to be right," he says of the climate scientist. "If what he says were obviously wrong, he wouldn't have achieved what he has. But Hansen has turned his science into ideology. He's a very persuasive fellow and has the air of knowing everything. He has all the credentials. I have none. I don't have a Ph.D. He's published hundreds of papers on climate. I haven't. By the public standard he's qualified to talk and I'm not. But I do because I think I'm right. I think I have a broad view of the subject, which Hansen does not. I think it's true my career doesn't depend on it, whereas his does. I never claim to be an expert on climate. I think it's more a matter of judgement than knowledge."

The bottom line is this Dyson, like a lot of academics from his time, is an attention seeking machine who longs to be relevant and see his name in print once again; thus his trolling of slashdot (!!!) for some love and attention.

He's going to be long dead by the time the full gravity of his malfeasance becomes manifest to those that follow him - a fact he's very acutely of.

Excerpted without comment from

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2007/08/15/201772/freeman-dyson-climate-crackpot/?mobile=nc

As a physicist, I have never been a big fan of Freeman Dyson. He was, after all, one of the "geniuses" pushing Project Orion- the absurdly impractical idea of creating a rocket ship powered by detonating nuclear bombs-- I kid you not!

Dyson has written a new book, A Many Colored Glass, that you shouldn't waste your time and money on, as this extract on global warming makes clear. Dyson has basically joined the famous confusionist camp with Michael Crichton and Bill Gray. You can read a good debunking of Dyson here. I'll add my two cents.

Dyson says many things that are just plain wrong: "There is no doubt that parts of the world are getting warmer, but the warming is not global."

Uhh, no. The warming is global -as every set of data makes clear- that's why it's called global warming.

He says the "fuss about global warming is grossly exaggerated" because he is certain the climate models do not reflect reality. I agree they don't reflect reality - but that leads me to the opposite conclusion. Dyson fails to ask whether the simplifications and omissions in climate models lead them to overestimate or underestimate climate impacts. So far, they have underestimated things like Arctic ice loss, mass loss of the great ice sheets, and sea-level rise. They don't model many feedbacks very well, and we know today that most feedbacks are amplifying.

No nonsense essay would be complete without a nonsense solution. He believes "the problem of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is a problem of land management" and that the entire climate problem can be solved by increasing topsoil:

We do not know whether intelligent land-management could increase the growth of the topsoil reservoir by four billion tons of carbon per year, the amount needed to stop the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Actually we kinda do know. The best data suggest we are losing billions of tons of topsoil each year. A major effort will be required just to stop that loss
rate from increasing sharply. Indeed, global warming itself is projected to cause both increased flooding, which washes away topsoil, and increased droughts, which destroy topsoil.

The entire essay is riddled with the kind of mistakes and dubious assertions we saw in Crichton's novel. One final point. Dyson asserts:

They [climate models]

http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Carbon-T-F.jpg

Freeman Dyson's scientific knowledge in this area is exactly nil.

The bottom line is this Dyson, like a lot of academics from his time, is an attention seeking machine who longs to be relevant and see his name in print once again; thus his trolling of slashdot (!!!) for some love and attention. He's going to be long dead by the time the full gravity of his malfeasance becomes manifest to those that follow him - a fact he's very acutely of.

Excerpted without comment from

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2007/08/15/201772/freeman-dyson-climate-crackpot/?mobile=nc

As a physicist, I have never been a big fan of Freeman Dyson. He was, after all, one of the âoegeniusesâ pushing Project Orion â" the absurdly impractical idea of creating a rocket ship powered by detonating nuclear bombs â" I kid you not!

Dyson has written a new book, A Many Colored Glass, that you shouldnâ(TM)t waste your time and money on, as this extract on global warming makes clear. Dyson has basically joined the famous-confusionist camp with Michael Crichton and Bill Gray. You can read a good debunking of Dyson here. Iâ(TM)ll add my two cents.

Dyson says many things that are just plain wrong: "There is no doubt that parts of the world are getting warmer, but the warming is not global." Uhh, no. The warming is global â" as every set of data makes clear â" thatâ(TM)s why itâ(TM)s called global warming.

He says the "fuss about global warming is grossly exaggerated" because he is certain the climate models do not reflect reality. I agree they donâ(TM)t reflect realityâ" but that leads me to the opposite conclusion. Dyson fails to ask whether the simplifications and omissions in climate models lead them to overestimate or underestimate climate impacts. So far, they have underestimated things like Arctic ice loss, mass loss of the great ice sheets, and sea-level rise. They donâ(TM)t model many feedbacks very well, and we know today that most feedbacks are amplifying.

No nonsense essay would be complete without a nonsense solution. He believes "the problem of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is a problem of land management" and that the entire climate problem can be solved by increasing topsoil:

We do not know whether intelligent land-management could increase the growth of the topsoil reservoir by four billion tons of carbon per year, the amount needed to stop the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Actually we kinda do know. The best data suggest we are losing billions of tons of topsoil each year. A major effort will be required just to stop that loss rate from increasing sharply. Indeed, global warming itself is projected to cause both increased flooding, which washes away topsoil, and increased droughts, which destroy topsoil.

The entire essay is riddled with the kind of mistakes and dubious assertions we saw in Crichtonâ(TM)s novel. One final point. Dyson asserts:

They [climate models] do not begin to describe the real world that we live in. The real world is muddy and messy and full of things that we do not yet understand. It is much easier for a scientist to sit in an air-conditioned building and run computer models, than to put on winter clothes and measure what is really happening outside in the swamps and the clouds. That is why the climate model experts end up believing their own models.

Uhh, no. Climate modelers are skeptical like all scientists, but contrary to what Dyson says, they do base their models on real-world data, and their models are passable at modeling what has actually happened to the climate so far. As noted, where they have been inadequate is in underestimating the impacts we have felt so far.

But what really irritates me about this statement â" which implies climate modelers are ivory tower t

As I should be. Imposing a sales tax on in-store purchases but not online is fundamentally regressive. But there's no need to make the argument all over again here. Visit http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/04/22/1900551/how-closing-the-online-sales-tax-loophole-would-help-low-income-families/ and read the sourced articles.

Except they aren't going to cut NSF funding to do something useful like repair bridges. They'll instead spend $436 million on tanks the Army doesn't want or some other BS.

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/04/29/1932931/army-tanks-spending/?mobile=nc

Let's just say it: The Republicans are the problem.
April 27, 2012

We have been studying Washington politics and Congress for more than 40 years, and never have we seen them this dysfunctional. In our past writings, we have criticized both parties when we believed it was warranted. Today, however, we have no choice but to acknowledge that the core of the problem lies with the Republican Party.

The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.

When one party moves this far from the mainstream, it makes it nearly impossible for the political system to deal constructively with the country's challenges.

Romney Rules Out Compromise: I Won't Accept $1 In New Taxes For $10 In Spending Cuts
Jun 17, 2012

SCHIEFFER: You were one of the vast majority of Republicans to signed the pledge circulated by the leading antitax advocate Grover Norquist, no new taxes under any circumstances. And I remember once back during one of the primaries, you were asked if you would agree to $1 in taxes if you could get $10 cut in spending cuts, and you said at that time, no, I wouldn't even accept that. Do you still feel that way?

ROMNEY: Well, we all felt that way. And the reason is that government, at all levels today, consumers about 37% of our economy.

SCHIEFFER: But do you still feel--

ROMNEY: Let me go on and explain. The answer is I do feel that way. [...]

A Republican couldn't even run for President without dismissing 1:10 taxes to cuts.
Both parties have problems, but not all problems are equal.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/04/14/1858811/is-70-renewable-power-possible-portugal-just-did-it-for-3-months/ Clueless you seem.

Actually, that isn't a bad point at all.

The problem with it is that the folks who insisted on cutting the taxes that affect "wealth" (the capital gains tax and the inheritance taxes), and have even been trying to elimnate them entirely, are in fact Republicans. The rich coastal folks who benifit from those cuts? They are mostly in fact Republicans (among the few folks in those parts of the country who are Republicans). However, they bankroll the Republican Party in the rest of the country.

Its good that you've recognized the problem. You even have half the target right. However, those rich folks behind this are Republicans. If you aren't going to try to stop them, you should really quit doing their work for them.

Not only does Bauman have employer-sponsored health coverage through Costco — the company “is also matching donations made by colleagues at the chain’s Nashua location,” according to a more recent Globe article from Friday. Bauman is being forced to raise funds despite this assistance due to the extraordinarily high costs associated with the amount of current and ongoing care that he requires.

Personally, I think this is a perfect example of why having health insurance run by for-profit organizations is a terrible idea and why the taxpayers paying for health insurance would be better. Anyway, the victims are being taken care of better than most citizens will be, as of friday, three had sites where people could donate to their health costs, and they were all above $400k. In at least Bauman's case, his employer is matching, so that's more like $800k.