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Neither can I:
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/04/12/1857781/obamacare-smokers/
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/345153/smoking-preexisting-condition-kevin-d-williamson
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/Obamacare-Smokers-Huge-Penalties/2013/01/26/id/487522

Seems to me that Obamacare is changing that by adding penalties for smoking... and the states are reacting by hiding it under the "pre-existing condition" clause.

Obamacare is a farce... not because of what it is, but because of the FUD machine that has gone in to play around it (on both sides).

Maybe we need some anti-FUD laws -- you know, where unsubstantiated claims made by politicians can get them tossed out of office, similar to libel and slander (except this would be against society at large). I think this is something a lot of people could support as a plank in a platform... even though such a thing would NEVER make it through congress.

U.S. government tax receipts are, as percent of GDP, among the lowest in the first world. http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/04/08/1834981/the-us-collects-less-in-taxes-than-all-but-two-industrialized-countries/

Last year, the USPS raised my 6 month P.O. box rental fee by 41%. It seems strange that they raised the rental rates even while fewer P.O. boxes were being rented in a down economy.

It just shows how the USPS (or Congress, who sets the rates) are disconnected from reality.

It is called death throes if I'm not mistaken.
Forced to swallow a poison pill and forbidden to spit (or vomit) it out.

Citation provided, both with video of the most notable incident.

Here is a better link. It states that in Australia, unsubsidised wind energy is cheaper than coal power for new coal plants if depreciation of the coal plant equipment is taken into account. It seems to me that many of the carefully constructed right wing myths about clean energy are beginning to evaporate.

It's a net win - just like factory automation reducing the number of factory workers is a net win. Also, Walmart really pisses off hipsters, so it's twice as good

Yeah, I fucking replaced ten people with one robot, and I was the last manufacturing business in town. It's a win-win! Well, if you count me twice. Which I do.

Higher taxes for everyone else comes from voting for bigger government, not from Walmarts.

Oh, Fuck. Off. When Walmart drives out all of the Mom and Pops where any slacker in the 90s could earn 9-12 dollars an hour can't make 7.50 an hour plus benefits because instead of the store being a little lax on inventory, or God Forbid you had to wait an entire week to get that thing you saw in the catalog, we decided to get everything fast and now and made like shit by child laborers in southeast asia. And we got to buy the Waltons a goddamn hawaiian island so they can drink themselves to death in front of a nice view.

Gee, for me, there's a downside in that scenario. But as long as we get more efficient, everything's good for everyone equally, right?

Stories like this sort of pisses me off. There are a lot cool things we could be doing if, as a nation, America used it's wealth for good instead of evil. But we'd rather spend trillions enriching the very few via wars/police state crap to prevent fewer deaths than dog bites cause (*), or on bailouts for the very rich and unscrupulous. What a fucking waste.

* http://thinkprogress.org/security/2011/08/25/304113/chart-only-15-americans-died-from-terrorism-last-year-less-than-from-dog-bites-or-lightning-strikes/?mobile=nc

I like the concept, I like the approach, and I would support its implementation in *all* states [...] I dislike gerrymandering

You're contradicting yourself. Please familiarize yourself with electoral votes assigned by congressional district. electoral votes assigned in proportion to the number of votes a candidate gets (Only being proposed in red-controlled "blue states"), and the national popular vote.

You may observe that some of the text above is underlined. This is called a "link". If you move your mouse over the link, and click with the left mouse button, your browser (the browser is the program that lets you see the WWW part of the Internet; it's the program with the big blue "e" you use to get on "the internet") will open up a new page which will enlighten you about something you're obviously very ignorant about.

As multiple posters have been trying to explain to you, giving each congressional district its own electoral vote is unfair because the districts are gerrymandered. Having each state give electoral votes to the president in proportion to the number of presidential votes that state gets would be fair--but only if all 50 states implement it. Right now, the only state that wants to implement that idea is a Republican-controlled state that usually gives their electoral votes to the Democrat. Observe no similar proposal in, say, Texas.

The national popular vote being proposed will only go in to effect once enough states pass the law to determine who wins the presidential election.

You whine like a baby when I point out that you're an idiot. But the bottom line is this: We're trying to explain something to you. You're ignoring our explanations. You're either too dumb to understand our explanations or are a partisan hack too thick-headed to contradict the BS Fox News spoon-feeds you.

Al Gore said ...

The coal and oil companies have spent in the United States alone a half a billion dollars in the first eight months of this year promoting a lie that there is such a thing as "clean coal." Clean coal's like healthy cigarettes -- it does not exist. It could theoretically exist. The only demonstration plant was canceled. How many, how many such plants are there? Zero. How many blueprints? Zero.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2008/09/28/172379/gore-clean-coal-cigarettes/?mobile=nc

You need to calm down.

You need to learn to develop basic reading comprehension skills before mouthing off in public forums. Well, actually you don't, but people will anonymously point out your idiocy for you.

I have no need to exist in an echo chamber

Here's some clue for you then: Clue 1 Clue 2 This isn't some abstract intellectual debate; this is a concrete plan by right-wing politicians to disenfranchise the votes of people who disagree with them; since the voter ID mess didn't get them the white house in 2012, they are trying other dirty tricks.

No problem: "Basically, the system rather blatantly takes away Democrat electoral college votes in the states the Dems are winning, while leaving them unchanged in the states that the Republicans are winning."

That has never happened. The opposite, of course, has happened. Therefore the statement, as written in an unqualified fashion, is patently false.

Errr, let's hit the rewind button there. Here's some more context (emphasis mine):

Secondly, the only states where this was proposed were states that vote Democrat and have Republican controlled state senates and governors. Basically, the system rather blatantly takes away Democrat electoral college votes in the states the Dems are winning, while leaving them unchanged in the states that the Republicans are winning.

Now, the parent has already apologizing for using the wrong tense, but "system" here clearly means, when looking at the context, a proposed law which hasn't come in to effect yet.

Sure, mouth off all you want. Slashdot is a pretty free-for-all forum. But, yeah, you will piss off a lurker or two if you misrepresent what someone is saying and try and flame them for saying something they never really said. And, for the record, I am not Vakuona.

You need to calm down.

You need to learn to develop basic reading comprehension skills before mouthing off in public forums. Well, actually you don't, but people will anonymously point out your idiocy for you.

I have no need to exist in an echo chamber

Here's some clue for you then: Clue 1 Clue 2 This isn't some abstract intellectual debate; this is a concrete plan by right-wing politicians to disenfranchise the votes of people who disagree with them; since the voter ID mess didn't get them the white house in 2012, they are trying other dirty tricks.

No problem: "Basically, the system rather blatantly takes away Democrat electoral college votes in the states the Dems are winning, while leaving them unchanged in the states that the Republicans are winning."

That has never happened. The opposite, of course, has happened. Therefore the statement, as written in an unqualified fashion, is patently false.

Errr, let's hit the rewind button there. Here's some more context (emphasis mine):

Secondly, the only states where this was proposed were states that vote Democrat and have Republican controlled state senates and governors. Basically, the system rather blatantly takes away Democrat electoral college votes in the states the Dems are winning, while leaving them unchanged in the states that the Republicans are winning.

Now, the parent has already apologizing for using the wrong tense, but "system" here clearly means, when looking at the context, a proposed law which hasn't come in to effect yet.

Sure, mouth off all you want. Slashdot is a pretty free-for-all forum. But, yeah, you will piss off a lurker or two if you misrepresent what someone is saying and try and flame them for saying something they never really said. And, for the record, I am not Vakuona.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/08/23/736941/warming-driven-drought-pushes-crop-prices-to-record-levels-as-we-burn-40-of-corn-crop-in-our-engines/

And 2012 was the warmest La Nina year ever recorded. Obviously the planet has stopped warming!

Sorry, wrong URL. Here is a working link:
http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/photovoltaic-cost.jpg

We already do something like this: IPCC projections. We do investigate previous projections to see how they worked / what they got wrong. Its a large part of what we do as scientists.

And you can do it too: the early models are still available (eg I think the EdGCM model is based on the early GISS model); these days you can run what used to take a supercomputer on your PC and repeat the runs.

But as climate scientists we're not in the business of playing "I told you so" with denialists. The 64 billion dollar question is : what will happen? we need to adapt and react to climate change, and knowing exactly whats happening is important: shrinking the error bars on those model runs translates to billions of dolllars of taxpayers money that needs / doesn't need to be spent : e.g. knowing the lengths of droughts, how much water needs to be stored. the scale of sea level rise, etc. This is why the climate models are important.

It's kind of funny to hear the gun-nuts or their fellow travelers talking about looking at evidence for the effects of guns when the NRA has made it a top priority to prevent any such research for the past 20 years or so: http://www.readabstracts.com/Health/Fight-over-federal-agency-pits-medicine-vs-NRA-funding-for-research-on-firearms-injuries-at-issue.html and http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/01/11/1435291/biden-confirms-white-house-will-fight-nras-war-on-science/?mobile=nc .

It's one thing to not care about evidence but worse to actively fight against gathering it because you're afraid of what it might say.

I get what you're saying, but who is supposed to give them that home?

We, as a society, could do that. It turns out it's not all that expensive:

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/12/10/1311041/infographic-homelessness-christmas-decorations/?mobile=nc

Assuming that your statistics are true, all that means is that CCW licenses are currently strictly limited. Once we make them more common and widespread, you'll see the rate of violent crime go up. But you also do not address the greatest dangers related to home ownership of guns: accidental deaths and suicides.

Violent crime with guns is a small fraction of the problem. Seventy percent of homicides were perpetrated with guns. Fine. But half of all gun deaths are suicides. There were 24,000 accidental gunshot injuries in 2000. Research in Australia has shown that suicides dropped when strict gun control laws were brought into effect. (Suicides by guns dropped, and suicides by other means didn't go up.) When the Israeli military required soldiers to leave their weapons at their base before going home on the weekends, suicides dropped by 60%.

When one considers gun laws, you also have to consider the non-criminal aspects of gun possession. Suicides and accidental shootings go up when you have more guns. Is that something we are willing to tolerate so you can take up armed insurrection against the US government if it becomes a dictatorship in your view?

Your comments about dimmers are entirely true in my experience. I gave up and replaced all my dimmer switches with regular switches.

But I believe this remark is false:

Meanwhile legislators are in the process of banning incandecent bulbs when there is as of yet NO replacement for many very common applications.

Yes, bulbs with poor efficiency are being legislated away, but it doesn't matter if they are incandescent or not. This is an important distinction - especially since we probably could've had super-efficient incandescents 30 years ago if there had been any incentive to develop them. Setting standards for markets - such as efficiency and safety standards - is a very different thing from banning specific products! Don't be part of the right wing corporate FUD machine.

When it comes to the Bush tax cuts, revenue surely did not increase. In total dollars, the government collected about $1 trillion in income tax receipts in 2001, according to the Office of Management and Budget. This fell below one trillion for the next five years following the Bush tax cuts, not climbing above that level again until 2006.

Here's a rebuttal of the WSJ editorial. The scientist Ridley cites in the piece reject his analysis.

Huckabee:

We ask why there is violence in our schools, but we’ve systematically removed God from our schools. Should we be so surprised that schools would become a place of carnage because we’ve made it a place where we don’t want to talk about eternity, life, what responsibility means, accountability?

And what does that have to with what happened other than it happened in a school? Or is he trying to say the lack of religion in schools that the shooter attended is the reason he did it.

Sometimes there isn't a reason other than that he was fucked in the head, it doesn't have to be about religion, or gun control, or video games, or getting spanked as a child ... maybe he was just nuts.

But people wont accept that, all these people are going to come climbing out of the woodwork now espousing their own private crusade and how if we do what they say everything will be all right.
There are millions of people out there that play violent video games, if they are the cause I would expect to see more things like this happening, same thing with gun owners, people that don't go to church, people that drink alcohol, people that smoke dope, do drugs, like cats more than dogs, and whatever else you want to bring up.

When you have an anti-religious, secular bureaucracy and secular judiciary seeking to drive God out of public life, something fills the vacuum. And that something, you know, I don’t know that going from communion to playing war games in which you practice killing people is necessarily an improvement.

Huckabee:

We ask why there is violence in our schools, but we’ve systematically removed God from our schools. Should we be so surprised that schools would become a place of carnage because we’ve made it a place where we don’t want to talk about eternity, life, what responsibility means, accountability?

When you have an anti-religious, secular bureaucracy and secular judiciary seeking to drive God out of public life, something fills the vacuum. And that something, you know, I don’t know that going from communion to playing war games in which you practice killing people is necessarily an improvement.

Huckabee:

We ask why there is violence in our schools, but we’ve systematically removed God from our schools. Should we be so surprised that schools would become a place of carnage because we’ve made it a place where we don’t want to talk about eternity, life, what responsibility means, accountability?

When cunts post ghoulish crap like this.

Interestingly Brad Werner presented a talk titled "Is Earth F**ked?" at the recently concluded AGU meeting. You can find the abstract and view the presentation here. His answer is probably unless we start seeing the kind of activism around the world like that that accompanied the civil rights movement and anti Vietnam war movement of the 1960's.

No, it won't. Here's what will happen: That revenue will stay in the U.S. and be used to purchase other goods and services within the U.S. Bringing it back to China probably subjects it to all kinds of taxes. That's why Apple, Google, Microsoft, and every other large multi-national company have loads of money sitting around outside the U.S. Trying to bring it back in results in a lot of it being lost to taxes.

The same may well not be true for China, but there's still a benefit for the company to leave some of their U.S. made profits in the U.S.

It's been going on for much longer than that. Wages as a percent of GDP are at record lows while corporate profits are at record highs, and we all know who gets ~all of those profits.

BTW, unless you're a university President, Dean, Provost, etc. you're paid next to nothing and many of those staff are mission critical. I can't imagine any university functioning for very long without the staff that help researchers through the grant application process for example.

The irony is that there is no convincing evidence that the global climate is actually warming.- Fred Singer

"The atmospheric temperature record between 1978 and 2000 (both from satellites and, independently, from radiosondes) doesn't show a warming. Neither does the ocean." - Fred Singer

Yeah Fred Singer isn't a skeptic he's a denier and one of the worst ones at that.

The attempt to portray him as some sort of reasonable doubter is a PR move, initiated by himself, and nothing more.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/singer-criticises-deniers.html

He's been so dramatically wrong on so many issues where the evidence was incontrovertible and always in the favor of the industry that was paying him, it's hard to conclude that he's a just liar for hire. He's been called out for stating falsehoods so frequently, displayed so little remorse or contrition when caught and about things of such great consequence - the life and death of millions of people- that it's hard not to conclude that he's a textbook sociopath.

http://www.desmogblog.com/s-fred-singer

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=S._Fred_Singer

The list of scientific facts that Fred Singer has denied over the years doesn't paint a pretty picture. He's denied CFCs were responsible for the hole in the ozone, something he termed the "ozone scare".

He's denied that second hand smoke causes the spectrum of diseases second hand smoke does indeed cause.

He's denied that acid rain was a problem or what caused by industry emissions.

He's denied human caused climate change.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2008/01/20/202297/unstoppable-disinformation-every-15-minutes-from-fred-singer/

http://climateinsight.wordpress.com/editorial/merchant-of-doubt-s-fred-singer/

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=S._Fred_Singer

and so on ad naseum...

Remember, this is the BBC, who took a corporate decision in 2006 to pursue an alarmist reporting stance.

Technique one - ad homineum attack on the messenger. A study was done. That study was reported. Attempt to discredit the study by attacking the credibility of the entity doing the reporting. Instead considering the worth of the study itself, the hope is the integrity of the study will be smeared by smearing the entity that reported it.

Technique two- change the topic. We were talking about the effect of global warming on the oceanic food web , now we're going to start talking instead about the BBC and whether they're biased or not.

The original paper says that this is only a pilot study, and that it cannot definitely point to any disadvantage to the animals - 'they MAY suffer increased predation' is a typical comment

Technique three, misrepresent normal and appropriate scientific qualification of results as a license to dismiss the study's findings. The fact is, no single study is definitive. That's normal science. The certainty increases as each successive study is confirmed, amplified, and new studies support the same conclusions using different approaches. Each study considered individually comes with caveats; the picture of reality emerges from an aggregation of such studies. This is called "normal science" and it's how science gets to truth. This study fits into that framework.

Technique four- decontextualize the study from the larger supporting body of related evidence. Closely related to technique three above, the mass of evidence pointing to the devastating effects of oceanic acidification on the food web is incontrovertible. This study reinforces and elaborates this finding with new evidence. Seen in its proper context, this study's relevance increases because its findings are congruent with other studies showing the same disturbing trend- acidification of the oceans is assaulting the food web in the ocean.

The smallest part of the omitted scientific context:

http://www.ocean-acidification.net/FAQeco.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/10/ocean-acidification-epoca

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/19/opinion/acid-test-for-oceans-and-marine-life.html?_r=0

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/03/02/436193/science-ocean-acidifying-so-fast-it-threatens-humanity-ability-to-feed-itself/

http://oceana.org/en/our-work/climate-energy/ocean-acidification/learn-act/effects-of-ocean-acidification-on-marine-species-ecosystems

http://articles.latimes.com/2012/oct/06/local/la-me-acidic-oceans-20121007

http://www.examiner.com/article/lethal-carbon-dioxide-and-ocean-acidification-threaten-marine-life

and that's why the CEO's pay was tripled... right, it's all these insufferable workers in a Marxist fantasy world that have kept wages stagnant for 40 years while productivity soars.

Exactly which Republican ideas do you consider as right wing and bonkers as those of Hitler.

Well, it isn't like genocide was an official part of the party platform this year, but it was pretty close. There was plenty of islamophobia on display during the republican primary, which I was inclined to chalk up to the just plain extremist nature of many primary voters. But, it seems that even during his "tack to the center" Romney maintained way too much of that in the form of his foreiign policy advisors. One foreign policy advisor was John Bolton who is so friendly with the two most high profile islamaphobes in the USA that he wrote the forward for one of their books.

US has the highest corporate tax rate in the world

The statutory rate is not the same thing as the effective rate which actually gets paid. The effective US corporate tax rate is just 12.1% of profits in 2011 which is the lowest number in 40 years. The 10 most profitable companies in the US last year paid, on average, approximately 9% tax.

While I think that our tax code is a mess and needs serious reform, the notion that taxes in the US are the highest in the world is demonstrably false political propaganda. The 35% number you cite is a meaningless number which is only useful for political soundbites.

Let's be clear. The people equating statistically improbable disasters - asteroids, aliens all that- to the absolute certain fact that global warming will, if left unchecked for too long, deconstruct civilization are engaging in a type of self soothing via fuzzy thinking. This is what denial is.

The people denying that the threat is imminent and reasoning that it is therefore amenable to current political processes are doing something a little more subtle.

They are creating an imaginary causal linkage between three phenomena which are, in reality, causally unlinked. This is therefore a type of magical thinking.

The first phenomena is the pace at which global warming will proceed. No one knows with certainty how quickly it will proceed or what effects each step of the progression will have on factors effecting national security. What we do know is it's worse than we thought, proceeding faster than we projected.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2009/02/23/203730/mit-doubles-global-warming-projections/

That pace is in no way related to the second phenomena , the ability of a (gerrymandered) minority of politicians to block urgently needed action at the federal level. Funded by and beholden to the now-classifiable-as-genocidal gas and oil industries, scientifically ignorant and proud of it, the pace of warming is in no way effected by their continued inaction, and nothing about their inaction obliges global warming to back off for our collective sake.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2009/03/17/203822/media-copenhagen-global-warming-impacts-worst-case-ipcc/?mobile=nc

The third phenomena is what level of ecological disaster is going to serve as the trigger point at which the denier population capitulates to reality and assents to urgent, sweeping federal action. Because that level of ecological disaster both exists and will be realized sooner or later.

But that point is in no way causally related to that other point in time, the point of no return, where given our then-current or achievable level of technology, we'll still be able to limit the effects of global warming in order to preserve the habitability of the planet.

There's nothing to say that deniers won't come around too late. There's no guarantee that the level of ecological disaster sufficient to finally get through to deniers will appear on a schedule sufficient for us to solve the problem.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/print.php?r=349

To think vague things like- eventually everyone will come around and then the political process will kick in in time for us to save ourselves- is magical thinking. The forces controlling the pace of, and political resistance to, global warming are unrelated with respect to the time frame needed to act.

The original question is rhetorical but only in the way opposite to that asserted by the deniers here. It IS a fact that the threat posed by global warming falls under the purview of the executive branch who WILL be empowered and in fact have a duty to act unilaterally, without Congressional oversight or approval, in order to preserve the national security of the United States. The only question is when will that time come and how will we know it? Is it now? A little while from now? When it's too late to do any good?

We just squeaked by an election in which one of the parties' candidates was threatening to pipeline in tar sands from Canada and light them on fire. We already know that, if we light on fire all the oil we current have already drilled and sitting waiting to be sold, it's game over for the environment and ourselves. Drilling for more, spending money to obtain yet more and dirtier oil and th

Let's be clear. The people equating statistically improbable disasters - asteroids, aliens all that- to the absolute certain fact that global warming will, if left unchecked for too long, deconstruct civilization are engaging in a type of self soothing via fuzzy thinking. This is what denial is.

The people denying that the threat is imminent and reasoning that it is therefore amenable to current political processes are doing something a little more subtle.

They are creating an imaginary causal linkage between three phenomena which are, in reality, causally unlinked. This is therefore a type of magical thinking.

The first phenomena is the pace at which global warming will proceed. No one knows with certainty how quickly it will proceed or what effects each step of the progression will have on factors effecting national security. What we do know is it's worse than we thought, proceeding faster than we projected.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2009/02/23/203730/mit-doubles-global-warming-projections/

That pace is in no way related to the second phenomena , the ability of a (gerrymandered) minority of politicians to block urgently needed action at the federal level. Funded by and beholden to the now-classifiable-as-genocidal gas and oil industries, scientifically ignorant and proud of it, the pace of warming is in no way effected by their continued inaction, and nothing about their inaction obliges global warming to back off for our collective sake.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2009/03/17/203822/media-copenhagen-global-warming-impacts-worst-case-ipcc/?mobile=nc

The third phenomena is what level of ecological disaster is going to serve as the trigger point at which the denier population capitulates to reality and assents to urgent, sweeping federal action. Because that level of ecological disaster both exists and will be realized sooner or later.

But that point is in no way causally related to that other point in time, the point of no return, where given our then-current or achievable level of technology, we'll still be able to limit the effects of global warming in order to preserve the habitability of the planet.

There's nothing to say that deniers won't come around too late. There's no guarantee that the level of ecological disaster sufficient to finally get through to deniers will appear on a schedule sufficient for us to solve the problem.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/print.php?r=349

To think vague things like- eventually everyone will come around and then the political process will kick in in time for us to save ourselves- is magical thinking. The forces controlling the pace of, and political resistance to, global warming are unrelated with respect to the time frame needed to act.

The original question is rhetorical but only in the way opposite to that asserted by the deniers here. It IS a fact that the threat posed by global warming falls under the purview of the executive branch who WILL be empowered and in fact have a duty to act unilaterally, without Congressional oversight or approval, in order to preserve the national security of the United States. The only question is when will that time come and how will we know it? Is it now? A little while from now? When it's too late to do any good?

We just squeaked by an election in which one of the parties' candidates was threatening to pipeline in tar sands from Canada and light them on fire. We already know that, if we light on fire all the oil we current have already drilled and sitting waiting to be sold, it's game over for the environment and ourselves. Drilling for more, spending money to obtain yet more and dirtier oil and th

Indeed. As just one (yes, partisan) example, if there were not restrictions on photographing one's marked ballot, Murray Energy might tell workers they have to show their ballots voting for Romney or lose their jobs. Not entirely unreasonable; they apparently made employees attend a pro-Romney rally: http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/10/05/966981/coal-workers-say-murray-energy-coerces-them-to-make-gop-donations-if-you-dont-contribute-your-jobs-at-stake/?mobile=nc

especially when unions get involved. Or abusive spouses. Or that pastor who drives you to the polls.

Or the billionaires who own the company you work for.

They kept child labor in the mines but made more money for the children's parents and for the union bosses.

uh?

"Unions Helped End Child Labor: “Union organizing and child labor reform were often intertwined” in U.S. history, with organization’s like the “National Consumers’ League” and the National Child Labor Committee” working together in the early 20th century to ban child labor. The very first American Federation of Labor (AFL) national convention passed “a resolution calling on states to ban children under 14 from all gainful employment” in 1881, and soon after states across the country adopted similar recommendations, leading up to the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act which regulated child labor on the federal level for the first time."

Sorry, jill. Stop with the internet, Go read a book.

And which of those 'lies' let the liar commit war crimes and genocide?

Bush *did* start Fast and Furious, then stopped his implementation of it.
Really? The SCOTUS wasn't involved *at all* in 2000?
Tea Party filled with racists? Where did they come from, oh yeah, the militant right wing who were already considered the racists in the GOP...
Led by *multiple* GOP Congressmen either currently having or having had their own extra-marital affairs.

How about Bush flat out lying to the public right about this time in 2004? Asked whether he was getting rid of Rumsfeld, he said 'no', even though he'd already decided to do just that.... linky

I guessing you are unfamiliar with the incomes of the PBS and NPR CEOs, then. And those are small compared to some other non-profits that get a smaller, or no, bite of government funding.

And while I believe the Pope doesn't technically receive a salary, I bet he's never had to say, "Damn, I wish someone had gotten me a 3DS for Christmas!"

Yeah but none of those people would call themselves a "non-profit executive". They'd go straight to "I'm the CEO of PBS/NPR/The Pope, bitch!"

"Non-profit executive" sounds a bit like job title inflation to me.

I guessing you are unfamiliar with the incomes of the PBS and NPR CEOs, then. And those are small compared to some other non-profits that get a smaller, or no, bite of government funding.

And while I believe the Pope doesn't technically receive a salary, I bet he's never had to say, "Damn, I wish someone had gotten me a 3DS for Christmas!"

No, this is the sort of thing I'm talking about:
http://thinkprogress.org/election/2012/10/07/972501/gop-strategist-admits-romney-is-witholding-details-of-his-tax-plan-to-avoid-criticism/

That line of reasoning has been the campaign's excuse for not being specific about their tax plans.

I just couldn't look myself in the mirror if I voted for someone who literally stole people's pensions to make a fortune

Uh, what? I'm pretty sure private equity investing is not literally, or in any other way, stealing anyone's pensions.

His recent quid pro quos to sell National Parks and US Forest land in exchange for campaign contributions only proves it.

I thought this a ridiculous claim also, so I googled it, and this sentiment seems to be based on some remarks regarding the high percentage of federal ownership in some of the desert states.

This reminds me of my tea-party friends raging about the President being a pawn of the muslim brotherhood or whatever new "Obama Conspiracy Theory" they've concocted this week.

I mean not to sound negative, but does anybody think that e-mails or petitions really matter in a sense that because you think you have a voice, that your opinion will matter to politicians? It's different in the UK I guess to a larger extent because you have more redress to vote the bums out of office if they aren't doing their job. In the US, we get petitions like the this and then the government choose to ignore it. I'm not being naive here and yes, social media is playing a bigger part in the attention span of everybody, but do we think we can change the world with twitter? Do we think that the politicians that represent us will really sit up and take notice?

As Stalin said "The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything."

Obama was bipartisan throughout the process. He encouraged congressional democrats to work with republicans on the matter. Committees were formed and drafts were written by bipartisan committees.

His language, demeanor, AND the process disagree with you. When even moderate Republicans like Olympia Snowe say they are shut out of the process (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB30001424052748704007804574573841915542278.html), you can be certain nothing "bipartisan" is occurring. What proof do you have that it was? Were you there? Or did Obama just TELL you he was working with Republicans, so naturally that must be true? Hell, Snowe voted FOR the initial healthcare bill out of committee (http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/02/29/snowe-explains-decision-to-leave-defends-tough-criticism-of-senate/). She wanted healthcare reform. She did not get the kind of cooperation she expected. Even moderates in your own party were of the same opinion: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/09/08/blue-dog-will-vote-against-bill-with-public-option/

"In July, Ross urged congressional leaders to slow down the pace of health care negotiations and said reform "needs to be done in a deliberate, bipartisan and common sense way." "

If Obama is the socialist monster that the conservatives paint him as, why would he have had "his goons" write a bill that changes so little? A true socialist would have insisted on socialised medicine - or at least a single payer option.

I just TOLD you why -- he couldn't get his own party behind it. Proof: http://www.opencongress.org/articles/view/1092-Blue-Dogs-Don-t-Want-a-Public-Option-That-Works
http://www.progressiveblue.com/diary/3962/will-corporate-democrats-sink-the-public-option

Where's your proof? STOP REWRITING HISTORY: http://thinkprogress.org/health/2011/01/26/171901/blue-po-ahip/

And YES the final product was written solely partisan, behinds closed doors -- the final draft did not go through bipartisan committee: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2010/01/healthcare-senate-house-democrats-obama.html
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2010/01/democrats-reid-pelosi-healthcare-cspan.html

He could have vetoed it, but that would have been a huge victory for the republicans.

Then he chose career advancement over healthcare reform. Good for him, he's no different than any other career-minded stubborn Republican who refuses to raise taxes because they're worried about their job because of some asinine "agreement" they made with the populace.

He would have never seen another bill in any way related to health care had he vetoed this one.

Proof of this? Lots of people and politicians were clamoring for health care reform. I honestly doubt taking this back to square one would have simply ended the discussion of healthcare reform.

You appear as if you'll believe whatever you want to believe -- this is why none of your dialogue comes with cites, facts, or proof.

http://thinkprogress.org/election/2012/10/09/975021/arkansas-state-rep-if-slavery-were-so-god-awful-why-didnt-jesus-or-paul-condemn-it/?mobile=nc

After Arkansas Republicans disavowed a book by state representative Jon Hubbard (R-AR) claiming slavery was “a blessing in disguise” for African Americans, Hubbard’s colleague, state Rep. Loy Mauch (R-AR) has been outed by the Arkansas Times for his pro-slavery, pro-Confederacy letters to the editor over the past decade. Mauch’s run for reelection this year is backed by the Arkansas Republican Party.

In letters to the Democrat-Gazette, Mauch vehemently defended slavery and repeatedly suggested Jesus condoned it:

If slavery were so God-awful, why didn’t Jesus or Paul condemn it, why was it in the Constitution and why wasn’t there a war before 1861? The South has always stood by the Constitution and limited government. When one attacks the Confederate Battle Flag, he is certainly denouncing these principles of government as well as Christianity.

So when I get modded down to Troll, it proves that I am right. The Republican Party is a reactionary movement that is intent on eliminating liberty and disenfranchising much of the population. The position of this inbred loony and Justice Scalia are only slightly different.

Mod that, asshats.

Wow. He spent some time playing golf. Big fucking deal.

Call me when he spends 3 years on vacation like bush.

http://politic365.com/2012/05/08/obamas-vacations-of-any-president-bush-racked-up-the-most/

Here is a picture of the Ranch. Notice the caption:

George W. Bush (center) is joined by Condoleezza Rice (left) and Paul Wolfowitz, (right) as they talk with reporters before the start of an intelligence briefing from the CIA at Bush's ranch

Obama has pictures of his "working vacations" too!

http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2010/01/obamas_working_hawaii_vacation.html

President Obama and top national security advisor Denis McDonough working in Hawaii, where the Obama family was vacationing over the holiday break. The family returned to Washington on Monday.

Obama doesn't attend CIA briefings when he's in Washington!

That's a little misleading, according to this source:

http://thinkprogress.org/security/2012/09/24/898081/kessler-thiessen-intel-breifing-bogus-misleading/?mobile=nc

Clearly, different presidents have structured their daily briefing from the CIA to fit their unique personal styles. Many did not have an oral briefing, while three — two of whom are named Bush — preferred to deal directly with a CIA official. Obama appears to have opted for a melding of the two approaches, in which he receives oral briefings, but not as frequently as his predecessor.

Good thing the US has no such laws

As global temperatures rise, ocean temperatures rise and they are almost certainly going to push more water in to the atmosphere in the form of clouds and rain on land. Earth does have natural mechanisms to adapt to climate changes. More rain could mean floods, could mean places that aren't getting enough precipitation like the Sahara will get more and be more habitable.

There will undoubtedly be areas that benefit from global warming, but sub-tropical areas such as the Sahara, Mexico, and the southern U.S. will not. Sub-tropical areas are getting dryer. Sub-polar regions are getting wetter. This is due to the amplification of the global hydrologic cycle and it is expected to continue as the atmosphere gets warmer. The linked video describes the process: http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/09/05/799721/climate-change-how-the-wet-will-get-wetter-and-the-dry-will-get-drier/

From Think Progress, April this year:

Fifty-six percent of domestic terrorist attacks and plots in the U.S. since 1995 have been perpetrated by right-wing extremists, as compared to 30 percent by ecoterrorists and 12 percent by Islamic extremists.

Maybe in air travel incidents you're correct (dunno, haven't looked into it), but the basic insinuation that all terrorism originates from Islamic extremists is misleading.