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As if there aren't people on both sides for and against it.

http://www.infoworld.com/artic...
http://time.com/3578255/conser...
http://www.theatlantic.com/tec...
http://www.politico.com/story/...

No, it is not obvious. Since 1995 we are used to 3% productivity gains, and a general slowdown in innovation means it is harder to squeeze more work out of each person.

Email, word processing, instant messenger, desktop sharing, video conferences, and piles of other stuff that are now commonplace did not exist most places. Sure there were precursors back to the 70's, but I'm talking widespread adoption of all of those and more.

America's productivity is largely due to 50 hour work weeks, and if you measure output per hour, 37 hour weeks take the top 2 spots (year old data).

Increasing education isn't going to give Americans the ability to do 50 hours of work in 40 hours, and innovation from overseas isn't going to just stop at the water, so its not like there is a magical productivity device that America lacks.

Increasing education is incredibly vague, and your understanding is lacking, so "obvious" just means "after little thought and no consideration of alternatives, the only idea that occurred to me."

http://business.time.com/2013/...

Transcript: Netanyahu Speech to Congress

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to Congress Tuesday [3 March 2015] about the emerging nuclear deal with Iran.

Here is the full transcript:

NETANYAHU: Thank you. (APPLAUSE)

Thank you

(APPLAUSE)

Speaker of the House John Boehner, President Pro Tem Senator Orrin Hatch, Senator Minority — Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy.

I also want to acknowledge Senator, Democratic Leader Harry Reid. Harry, it’s good to see you back on your feet.

(APPLAUSE)

I guess it’s true what they say, you can’t keep a good man down.

(LAUGHTER)

My friends, I’m deeply humbled by the opportunity to speak for a third time before the most important legislative body in the world, the U.S. Congress.(APPLAUSE)

NETANYAHU: I want to thank you all for being here today. I know that my speech has been the subject of much controversy. I deeply regret that some perceive my being here as political. That was never my intention.

I want to thank you, Democrats and Republicans, for your common support for Israel, year after year, decade after decade.

(APPLAUSE)

I know that no matter on which side of the aisle you sit, you stand with Israel.

(APPLAUSE)

The remarkable alliance between Israel and the United States has always been above politics. It must always remain above politics.

(APPLAUSE)

Because America and Israel, we share a common destiny, the destiny of promised lands that cherish freedom and offer hope. Israel is grateful for the support of American — of America’s people and of America’s presidents, from Harry Truman to Barack Obama.(APPLAUSE)

NETANYAHU: We appreciate all that President Obama has done for Israel.

Now, some of that is widely known.

(APPLAUSE)

Some of that is widely known, like strengthening security cooperation and intelligence sharing, opposing anti-Israel resolutions at the U.N.

Some of what the president has done for Israel is less well- known.

I called him in 2010 when we had the Carmel forest fire, and he immediately agreed to respond to my request for urgent aid.

In 2011, we had our embassy in Cairo under siege, and again, he provided vital assistance at the crucial moment.

Or his support for more missile interceptors during our operation last summer when we took on Hamas terrorists.

(APPLAUSE)

In each of those moments, I called the president, and he was there.

And some of what the president has done for Israel might never be known, because it touches on some of the most sensitive and strategic issues that arise between an American president and an Israeli prime minister.

But I know it, and I will always be grateful to President Obama for that support.(APPLAUSE)

NETANYAHU: And Israel is grateful to you, the American Congress, for your support, for supporting us in so many ways, especially in generous military assistance and missile defense, including Iron Dome.

(APPLAUSE)

Last summer, millions of Israelis were protected from thousands of Hamas rockets because this capital dome helped build our Iron Dome.

(APPLAUSE)

Thank you, America. Thank you for everything you’ve done for Israel.

My friends, I’ve come here today because, as prime minister of Israel, I feel a profound obligation to speak to you about an issue that could well threaten the survival of my country and the future of my people: Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons.

We’re an ancient people. In our nearly 4,000 years of history, many have tried repeatedly to destroy the Jewish people. Tomorrow night, on the Jewish holiday of Purim, we’ll read the Book of Esther. We’ll read of a powerful Persian viceroy named Haman, who plotted to destroy the Jewish people som

Except that these jobs are on the way out too...

See http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/... or http://www.businessinsider.com...

You've _completely_ missed the point about money:

* War on Teacher Tenure

While the number of bad teachers has dropped you still have 50%people in the system that come from the bottom of academic performance.

A McKinsey survey of the worldâ(TM)s best schoolsâ"in Finland, South Korea, Singaporeâ"found that they consistently draw 100% of their teachers from the top third of graduates; in the U.S., almost half come from the bottom third. That may explain why our kidsâ(TM) performance falls below that of students in Estonia and why one-third of those who make it to college in the U.S. need remedial education.

Once people get into a teaching position, getting a bad teacher out is almost impossible.

You've _completely_ missed the point about money:

* War on Teacher Tenure

While the number of bad teachers has dropped you still have 50%people in the system that come from the bottom of academic performance.

A McKinsey survey of the worldâ(TM)s best schoolsâ"in Finland, South Korea, Singaporeâ"found that they consistently draw 100% of their teachers from the top third of graduates; in the U.S., almost half come from the bottom third. That may explain why our kidsâ(TM) performance falls below that of students in Estonia and why one-third of those who make it to college in the U.S. need remedial education.

Once people get into a teaching position, getting a bad teacher out is almost impossible.

Let me guess, your search term was "Zionist lies from Slashdot"?

Because a few moments of googling for ME turned up the following links, which certainly suggest that the climate in France is certainly not particularly warm to Jewish people and moderate Muslims:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
http://www.theatlantic.com/int...
http://time.com/3694100/france...
http://www.npr.org/blogs/paral...
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb...
http://forward.com/news/breaki...

Please proceed to tell us about how all of these articles are just more examples of crackpot, Zionist activity.

Something I will be curious to see over the next few decades is how propaganda is affected by advertising saturation. Something that has been worrying marketers is that young consumers (ones more accustomed to multitasking and who grew up with heavy advertizing) filter out a larger amount of marketing than other groups. Even as their knowledge and skills improve (ah, the dark uses of all those psych majors), advertising is becoming more difficult and consumers more jaded and less uniform. Since propaganda can be seen as a specialized form of marketing, I wonder how that type of manipulation is going to adjust. It used to be that one coherent message would affect most of the population the same way, but increasingly the same techniques and narratives will have differing effects on different populations. So what we tend to see more and more of is propaganda generating smaller more fanatical groups along with others forming backlash against tem.. it kinda works if you examine only the successful parts of the application, but is no longer all that useful for changing general public perception, just creating partisans.

Having traveled to North Korea and seen what propaganda looks like, you are wrong. Good propaganda is something that people want to believe, or could easily believe, even if it isn't true. Good propaganda has no opposing viewpoint that is credible. Good propaganda speaks to the choir, where the choir intentionally designed to be the largest possible audience. And anyone who isn't in the choir is a bad person.

Consider as just one example the propaganda that in North Korea, everyone must choose from 28 official state haircuts. It's something that the average American could easily be convinced to believe. Perhaps you read the story and believed it too. It sounds plausible enough for most westerners to believe.

Unfortunately, it was complete bunk. But just about everyone I talked to bought it. And they thought I was the odd one for believing otherwise.

There is also something particular to Chicken Pox which makes the vaccine even less desirable: length of immunity. If you actually catch Chicken Pox you get immunity for life. However if you vaccinate against it you need to continuously remember to get boosters - I believe currently every 10 or 20 years - otherwise your immunity may lapse. What is bad about this is that Chicken Pox for adults is known as Shingles which is far nastier than Chicken Pox. So in this case taking the vaccine to protect against a very mild childhood disease may lead to an increased chance of a more serious disease later in life...unless you set a 20 year alarm so you never forget a booster shot!

You're full of shit too. You speak as though getting chickenpox will prevent shingles which it won't and there's other things that you have claimed that I find to be...less than accurate but don't have the time to find sources so I won't claim them.

How you treat someone in prison says a lot more about you than it does about the person in prison. They likely committed their acts in the heat of the moment, while we sit back and deliberate over how to make them suffer over a period of decades. You're fine with them living in savage conditions where they spend years dealing with constant attempts on their lives, much worse than they go through in our prisons today.

Why feed someone for life when you have no intention of ever letting them out? Because you might not intend to let them out, but you better change your mind if that person turns out to be innocent and there's proof to support it. We have one study telling us that the floor value for wrongful executions is 4.1% (source: http://time.com/79572/more-inn...) and another telling us that the US sends 10,000 innocent people to prison each year (source: http://researchnews.osu.edu/ar...). Putting your suggestions into practice would multiply our problems significantly. Sending a few hundred innocent people a year to Absalom island would make society a worse offender than the criminals. After all, how would you go about getting an innocent person off that island when a witness admits they lied in their testimony or the cops get found out *again* planting evidence?

All of your talk about "not caring" sounds a lot more like a psychopath than the actual people in prison - you should get that checked out.

"sooner or later innocent people will die at the hands of the state"

A recent study put their admittedly very conservative figure for US wrongful executions at 4.1% So it would seem to be a more regular occurrence than eventuality.
Source: http://time.com/79572/more-inn...

Heath Campbell wanted to make a good impression on the family court judge. “I’m going to tell the judge, I love my children. I wanna be a father, let me be it,” Campbell told NBC on Monday before heading into court. “Let me prove to the world that I am a good father.” In an arguably misguided effort to prove his case, Campbell showed up to court in full Nazi regalia.

and in a prelude to the great gay cake debates ...

Campbell started wearing the uniform because he is the founder of “Hitler’s Order,” a pro-Nazi organization. He and his family drew national media attention back in 2008 when a store refused to inscribe a cake with “Happy Birthday Adolf Hitler.”

If you're going to be stuck with that monicker, you'd better be on LOTS of steroids.

Well that's kind of my point. Do the better weapons mean they're more likely to be used?

Yes, I understood your question — and the answer is "No". The US is not demonstrably more/less eager to enter into a shooting war now, than it was during the 20th century, for example.

There's a lot less public scrutiny, then

The protests against Iraq-war were the largest ever — public "scrutiny" (or hysteria, rather) was immense. We went in anyway.

Killing Saddam seems like a no-brainer, but then you wind up with a power vacuum, and ISIS.

It was not the killing of Saddam, that caused the power vacuum, but the premature withdrawal of US troops — a nice-looking (at the time) gesture, that had little to do with weapons-quality...

http://content.time.com/time/b...
http://online.wsj.com/news/art...
http://www.consad.com/content/...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
http://www.thedailybeast.com/a...
http://www.slate.com/articles/...
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/th...
http://www.aei-ideas.org/2014/...

Okay, sure, you're right: you might indeed be slightly more efficient by completely ignoring legislated maximum rates, laws requiring accommodation for the disabled, laws requiring the posting of driver identification, laws limiting the number of consecutive hours worked, and laws requiring photographic passenger logs in case you're assaulted. Bonus points for lowballing your commercial insurance policy, so that the aggregate claims maximum doesn't meet local legal requirements, and so it only applies on a contingent basis (if at all) when a passenger isn't in the car.

I'd probably choose a taxi company that employed its drivers as the W-2 employees they are, didn't put me at risk of getting my personal auto insurance policy cancelled for unauthorized for-hire driving, and didn't spy on journalists for fun.

An obsession with "humanities" is just as dangerous as the one with engineering.

But the one obsession to rule them all is that with idea, that the government needs to step in and ensure everybody is doing, what the government (currently) considers best. It not only robs the citizens of freedom to decide for ourselves and our children, it also leads to danger and lost lives.

Consider the earlier change of government's doctrine to the exact opposite direction: for decades fat used to be bad for you, but not any more — now it the sugar, that's evil — how do they tell the last dying diabetic, it was all a mistake?

We are now collectively executing a similar pivot from "humanities" to engineering, for better or worse. But the underlying assumption remains: were it not for the omniscient and benevolent government officials, the adorable (mostly) individual slobs they've got for citizenry wouldn't learn or do anything to improve their own lot themselves.

Can we get rid of this obsession, please? Then we wouldn't need to worry about the others so much...

In Japan, they found at one point that there was a possibility of it *seriously* going to hell in a hand basket.

If the wind had been really wrong, it would have put serious fallout over Tokyo; which would have been really, really, really bad. While few people would have died, the economic disruption would have been (without any hyperbole) unbelievably stupendous.

http://world.time.com/2012/02/...

You can tell me all you want that this kind of accident can never happen, but I just don't believe it. We have no reason to think that Chernobyl or Fukushima were the worse cases, nor that these kinds of failures cannot happen again worse.

Peace would be much more efficient.

I agree. How do you suggest we create peace with ISIL/ISIS?

Perhaps we should not have created ISIS in the first place. Blame Obama.

Or perhaps since the local area had already mostly found an equilibrium, we should not have toppled that evil-bastard Saddam Hussein. Yes, he was evil. Yes, I would not want him for my president. But he was reasonably well contained and provided a counter balance to the other powers in the region. Blame Bush II.

We can walk our way back in time and blame [nearly?] every U.S. president regardless of party back to the fall of the Ottoman Empire. We can then start blaming the Europeans for carving up the Mid-East in such a way that it was a breeding ground for future wars.

But peace? Do you have any concrete mechanisms that would actually improve the situation?

So just because the USSR tried to manipulate the peace movement therefore delegitimizes the entire peace movement?

No, not entire — there were sincere pacifists even during WW2 — and not automatically. We need to painfully examine, to what extent the peace movement was compromised by involvement of both USSR and domestic terrorists. You may suspect me of overestimating the enemy's impact, but you are certainly underestimating it.

You're not overestimating the enemy's impact, you're accusing your ideological opponents of being stooges. I'm certain you're not nearly as concerned by the propaganda put out by those who agree with you.

When the US was about to resume shooting in Iraq in 2003, the whole world erupted in the biggest coordinated protest in history — and not by Iraqis, but by outraged Westerners expressing their sympathy.. Where were these peace-loving legions, when Putin invaded Ukraine in 2014? What few protests there were, they were largely by Ukrainian expats with very few sympathetic locals in evidence. Why?

Because:
a) People expect a lot more of the US than Russia
b) The US sets international standards, and by invading Iraq it helps legitimize things like Ukraine
c) The US is a Western country, it makes a lot of sense for Westerners to protest it because they have a chance of influencing the politicians. What the hell does Russia care if a bunch of Americans or Canadians come out in protest? And what should Canadians and Americans even protest for, we don't have a lot of leverage.

Because Putin's propaganda machine worked — on the entire spectrum of Western politics, not just the Left as the USSR used to. Rightist Jews in the US were accusing Ukraine's new "junta" of being "nazis", while actual American Nazis called the new government "Jews". Without arguing with each other, but both helped Putin. Most likely, they didn't realize it — but there is no doubt, a there is a group of analysts at FSB attached to each Western opinion-maker. US is a pathetic noob at this.

Wake up and smell "people's power" — and the power of propagandists to manipulate it.

It didn't do squat. Yes there's a few fringe folks who are influenced, but they're pretty insubstantial.

In the EU it might be different, Greece in particular might have a legitimate problem, but in the English speaking West Russian propaganda is a joke.

So just because the USSR tried to manipulate the peace movement therefore delegitimizes the entire peace movement?

No, not entire — there were sincere pacifists even during WW2 — and not automatically. We need to painfully examine, to what extent the peace movement was compromised by involvement of both USSR and domestic terrorists. You may suspect me of overestimating the enemy's impact, but you are certainly underestimating it.

I'm just raising awareness — so that the healing can begin.

When the US was about to resume shooting in Iraq in 2003, the whole world erupted in the biggest coordinated protest in history — and not by Iraqis, but by outraged Westerners expressing their sympathy.. Where were these peace-loving legions, when Putin invaded Ukraine in 2014? What few protests there were, they were largely by Ukrainian expats with very few sympathetic locals in evidence. Why?

Because Putin's propaganda machine worked — on the entire spectrum of Western politics, not just the Left as the USSR used to. Rightist Jews in the US were accusing Ukraine's new "junta" of being "nazis", while actual American Nazis called the new government "Jews". Without arguing with each other, but both helped Putin. Most likely, they didn't realize it — but there is no doubt, a there is a group of analysts at FSB attached to each Western opinion-maker. US is a pathetic noob at this.

Wake up and smell "people's power" — and the power of propagandists to manipulate it.

Umm... mine is backed by large amounts of research: http://content.time.com/time/n...

I never said the hummer was more cost effective than a Prius, so thanks for that completely unrelated article linking to a clearly skewed site. If you got an axe to grind, you are doing it with the wrong guy.

Lower-income people can lose their jobs if they have to be away from work for even a few days, especially if it’s due to incarceration. Even if they don’t get fired, hourly workers will lose income, whereas salaried employees and people who live off of investment income won’t. And someone like Martha Stewart can go away for five months and have her media empire (which has been running profitably the whole time) waiting for her when she gets out.

So no, not equal at all. (This is also why a flat tax is unequal despite being equally applied.)

Losing your job is just the beginning, it gets far worse. Guilty or innocent, the poor have a higher chance of being convicted in the first place, and are more likely to get a higher sentence when they are. But setting that aside, consider two people, each sentenced to 90 days in jail:

The first person makes minimum wage and lives paycheck to paycheck. They are immediately fired. Since they have no savings, they're evicted after missing two months rent. If their possessions aren't just dumped right onto the sidewalk, it all goes into storage, with a daily storage fee on top of the back rent and legal fees owed to the landlord. Since they can't pay that, everything gets auctioned, and the balance goes to collection, which tacks on even more fees. Their cheap apartment doesn't include a parking space, so their car is parked on the street. After not moving for many days, it collects parking tickets, gets broken into, vandalized, and eventually towed. When they don't immediately pay the towing fee, the car sits there adding another ridiculous daily fee until eventually that gets auctioned too, with the balance again going to collection, again adding more to their debt. After 30 days, the parking tickets automatically double and then those go to collection. When they get out of jail they're broke, homeless, and unemployed. They have an eviction on their rental history, no possessions, no car, their credit is ruined, and they have a bunch of new debt. (Anyone who thinks this is far-fetched just don't know enough working poor.)

The second person lives on investment income. For them it's just a boring 90 days. They don't lose any income, don't get evicted, and all their possessions are right where they left them. Their car is safe in their garage. They may even be able to pay for a jail cell upgrade (which is not only a nicer cell, but also lower population, and separated from violent offenders and gang members). When they get out of jail they go on with their life like nothing happened.

Yeah... that seems fair. If jail is supposed to deter crime, one of these people is a hell of a lot more deterred than the other. Income inequality doesn't bother me so much when it's just a matter of how nice your food, house, car, clothes and vacations are. But it's so far beyond that it's obscene, especially when it comes to the justice system.

But it will cause change

Well, Utah's found a way around any possible change because of the availability of lethal injection drugs. They're doing lethal injections of lead.

http://time.com/3742818/utah-f...

And you can draw a straight line from the reinstatement of firing squads to the growing militarization of police departments from big cities to small towns, and county and state police. There are already firing squads for poor people, they call them, "police". And not just unarmed black men on the street. The new trend in American law enforcement is for young black men to somehow commit suicide by firearm or being shot by police while in police custody with their hands cuffed behind their backs.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/in...

http://legalinsurrection.com/2...

In conclusion: Unarmed black guys get killed by representatives of the government, but if a white guy threatens an officer with a weapon, of course, he's taken alive and even given back his gun. What a country.

http://www.alternet.org/civil-...

Compare, for example, the world's reaction to US invading Iraq in 2003 — it caused, what Time magazine would later call "World's biggest coordinated protest in history"

Well, it turns out that the protesters were 100% right on that one.

But if it makes you feel any better, much as the world loathes Bush II and the neo-con war criminals, they still won't have much trouble beating Vladimir Putin in a global popularity contest. Maybe people don't protest against Russia because there is no point?

Or is it that invading a distant nation for its oil wealth is not quite the same as a bloodless annexation of a peninsula that was recently part of Russia and is still full of Russians. Khrushchev should never have given it to Ukraine.

And more importantly, the propaganda is intended for domestic consumption, not "the world".

Oh, how one may wish, this were true! It is not. Compare, for example, the world's reaction to US invading Iraq in 2003 — it caused, what Time magazine would later call "World's biggest coordinated protest in history" — with Russia's invasion into Ukraine and annexation of a jewel of a province after a fraudulent "referendum".

What few protests in the West this caused, they were organized (and attended) mostly by Ukrainian expats — without sympathetic locals.

Because, somehow, both Left and Right in the West were providing Russia with propaganda-cover. Some called Ukraine's new government "Nazis" while others dismissed them all as "Jews" — without arguing with each other both helped Putin.

Now, are all of these people on Kremlin's payroll? Probably, not — but they were carefully fed custom-crafted lies by the Kremlin analysts, who approach the government propaganda the way Western corporations approach advertising of goods...

A song worth $1, yea right why to put the value that is paid to the artist per download of that song

from http://business.time.com/2013/...

But the company estimates that the average song generates between $0.006 and $0.0084

I will never trust for-profit educational institutions:

For-Profit Colleges Under Investigation

Corinthian Colleges Employee: âoeWe Work For The Biggest Scam Company In The World"

Screw U: How For-Profit Colleges Rip You Off

How For-Profit Colleges Target Military Veterans (and Your Tax Dollars)

There are indications that concussions lead to much the same changes in the brain, as does Alzheimer's (including all the related symptoms).

You mean the "campus rape crisis" that doesn't actually exist on the campuses where women are actually less likely to be raped than women in the general population? The entire thing is based on poor statistics, something for which the users of those statistics are at least as responsible for as the originators.

Any rape is too much rape, but by creating fairy stories about the prevalence, causes and definition of rape you won't do anything useful to reduce that figure. In fact you'll probably make it worse.

Posting ac because, unfortunately, it's just too dangerous to say things like this in connection with one's IRL identity these days.

Right, where's the American spirit? The General Asshole did it for vanity, fame and money, in short, the American dream. And that idiot Snowden for "love of his country" and "moral values". Fuck that, you gotta monetize that shit! Giving away state secrets for free is so Un-American, you commie bastard!

I wish that were an exaggeration. A couple days ago, South Korea legalized adultery. While the rest of the world discussed the history and the merits of the law, the US media asked only if someone had made a buck off it

(the oft discussed "fast lane" has yet to actually happen)

I get about 5x lower bandwidth streaming movies from Amazon than from Netflix. I've stopped renting HD movies from Amazon because the buffering kills it. Netflix happens to have paid to AT&T (my ISP) to get preferred service [1].

Hmm... That sounds an awful lot like a "fast lane" to me.

[1] http://time.com/3059431/netfli...

Ford beats both Honda and Toyota in quality now according to Consumer reports, as reported by Time:

Ninety percent of Ford, Mercury, and Lincoln products were found to have average or better expected reliability, matching and even surpassing the scores posted by Honda and Toyota and their associated brands, such as Acura and Lexus, the magazine said.

"It's rare for Consumer Reports to see family sedans from domestic carmakers continue to beat the reliability scores of such highly regarded Japanese models as the Camry and Accord," says David Champion, senior director of Consumer Reports, Automotive Test Center.

Ford's reduction in number of brands (no more Mercury) and models is paying off in increased quality.

http://time.com/1248/surgeon-g...

"More study is needed." Where have we heard that one before? Oh, right, they've been saying that about marijuana for almost a century, completely ignoring the mountains of scientific evidence that's been gathered over the same time period.

Why does Siberia always get the all of the coolest fossils?

Science has well and truly made available everything you need to know about fat

I am not talking about actual science, but rather about the governmental efforts to push an opinion du jour of a random scientist down everybody's throats (quite literally in this case).

The development and marketing of fat free foodstuffs was triggered by the government's guidance: "fat is bad for you". The article I linked to states:

By 1980 that wisdom was codified. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) issued its first dietary guidelines, and one of the primary directives was to avoid cholesterol and fat of all ...

I guess, now we know, USDA can be mistaken. But I find it remarkable, that you seem to attempt to find excuses for government's stupidity by blaming the victims — food-consuming citizens and food-producing corporations alike — for trusting our elected and appointed overlords.

quite some time ago.

And yet, the official reversal is only being announced today — the old, wrong policy was reaffirmed yet again only 5 years ago. Is there no criminal culpability, in your opinion?

How do you tell the last dying diabetic (who kept destroying his health with low fat, but high-carb foods on government's advice), it was all a mistake?

And lastly, does this not mean, a government official claiming "science is settled", should not be trusted?

But the change on dietary cholesterol also shows [...] the complexity of nutrition science and the lack of definitive research

Awesome. And, while we are it, the War on Fat was in error too. Decades after telling us one thing — coercing and outright forcing us to follow its "scientifically proven" and "common sense" guidelines, the government now admit to have been full of shit. Will anybody prosecuted?

One can't help, but wonder, what other famously "settled" science will come apart?

Other media organizations are not posting the video because of ethics. How would you feel if it was your brother, son or father in that video that is being splashed around the world? But Fox news will never learn from their past mistakes.

Pretty damn inconsistent too, considering how super quick he was to forcibly quarantine someone last summer when public health officials said it was completely unnecessary. Whatever it truly is he's worried about where Public Health is concerned, it certainly isn't your freedom.

Most soups compensate for not being calorie dense by having tremendous amounts of sodium. So unless you want to lose weight and keel over from a heart attack due to high blood pressure, "buy soup" is poor advice.

Not to mention them not being filling due to being mostly water.

Sodium doesn't necessarily cause a rise in blood pressure -- just like the title of this /. article says, don't trust shit you've read about diet and fitness. Here's an article about a new study that could not find a strong link between sodium consumption and blood pressure. That being said, it's probably still not a good idea to eat a ton of salt but it may not be as dangerous as previously thought.

I don't know if the payouts had much of an impact, but the earthquake itself did:

http://business.time.com/2011/...

typical conservative, doesn't understand WHY taxis are regulated in the first place.

http://time.com/3592035/uber-t...
http://www.cnbc.com/id/1018488...
http://www.slate.com/articles/...

Jails in many cities in California now require you to pay for your stay

At least if you don't like the accommodations, you can pay a little extra for an upgrade.

Apple didn't -create- the markets. What Apple did was get Joe and Jane Sixpack to buy stuff.

Right. This is the long and short of my point.

Apple also came with real security. There still has not been a single case of a non-jailbroken iDevice hacked and infected with malware, which is a sterling record.

http://time.com/3560875/iphone...

You may want to check your factbook.

President Obama Announces Major Initiative to Spur Biofuels Industry and Enhance America's Energy Security

That's Big Government for you. Instead of various people acting as they see fit — some making mistakes and some not — we have a government, that's big enough to make a mistake for all of us at once...

Competing ideas? To each his own? Personal responsibility? No way, no how — citizen, the Science is Settled[TM] and you are blocking our progress towards the Common Good[TM].

Fat is bad for you — all of you! Until it is not. Except it still is...

Biofuels is about to become the latest example of this. As our benevolent and omniscient overlords in Washington jump from one trend to another, the whole country is supposed to rejig, retool, and reorient itself each time: from "low-fat" to "low-sugar", from growing biofuels to drilling oil. Because they "know" better — and they are 100% confident in that settled "knowledge" of theirs. Until it changes to the exact opposite like some kind of quantum particle — and only the confidence remains.

How about we — the subjects — make our own choices, huh? Leaving only the courts, police and military to you, our beloved government class? Yes, we — some of us — will be making the same mistakes. But, at least, they will be neither coercing nor outright forcing the others to repeat them.

People are down-modding but if he had said Algeria there would have been a bit of a precedent.

http://time.com/3664161/france...

The split of France and Algeria nearly caused a civil war in France in France's fragile post-war era.

When the drug-drenched nation (of Portugal) legalized all drugs within its borders, most critics predicted disaster. Instead drug use has plunged dramatically.

Drug related deaths fell by 50%

The government in Portugal has no plans to back down. Although the Netherlands is the European country most associated with liberal drug laws, it has already been ten years since Portugal became the first European nation to take the brave step of decriminalizing possession of all drugs within its borders—from marijuana to heroin, and everything in between. This controversial move went into effect in June of 2001, in response to the country’s spiraling HIV/AIDS statistics. While many critics in the poor and largely conservative country attacked the sea change in drug policy, fearing it would lead to drug tourism while simultaneously worsening the country’s already shockingly high rate of hard drug use, a report published in 2009 by the Cato Institute tells a different story. Glenn Greenwald, the attorney and author who conducted the research, told Time: “Judging by every metric, drug decriminalization in Portugal has been a resounding success. It has enabled the Portuguese government to manage and control the drug problem far better than virtually every other Western country."

Back in 2001, Portugal had the highest rate of HIV among injecting drug users in the European Union—an incredible 2,000 new cases a year, in a country with a population of just 10 million. Despite the predictable controversy the move stirred up at home and abroad, the Portuguese government felt there was no other way they could effectively quell this ballooning problem. While here in the U.S. calls for full drug decriminalization are still dismissed as something of a fringe concern, the Portuguese decided to do it, and have been quietly getting on with it now for a decade. Surprisingly, most credible reports appear to show that decriminalization has been a staggering success.

The DEA sees it a bit differently. Portugal, they say, was a disaster, with heroin and HIV rates out of control. "Portugal's addict population and the problems that go along with addiction continue to increase," the DEA maintains. "In an effort to reduce the number of addicts in the prison system, the Portuguese government has an enacted some radical policies in the last few years with the eventual decriminalization of all illicit drugs in July of 2001."

However, as Greenwald concludes: "By freeing its citizens from the fear of prosecution and imprisonment for drug usage, Portugal has dramatically improved its ability to encourage drug addicts to avail themselves of treatment. The resources that were previously devoted to prosecuting and imprisoning drug addicts are now available to provide treatment programs to addicts." Under the perfect system, treatment would also be voluntary, but as an alternative to jail, mandatory treatment save money. But for now, "the majority of EU states have rates that are double and triple the rate for post-decriminalization Portugal," Greenwald says.

http://www.thefix.com/content/...

http://content.time.com/time/h...

http://www.bmstahoe.com/Drugs/

The last link is "Twelve reasons why drugs should be legalized", and seems to be a well written explanation. Drug users know how to get drugs and always will. So let them, as long as they're only harming themselves, where is the problem?

No, you're missing the point... In Texas, you fool me twice... you won't be fooling anyone ever again... that is the idea...

Over 50 million guns are in Texas... it is estimated that 20% of all the guns in the US are in Texas...

And the irony? We actually have one of the lowest murder rates via gun of any state in the country.

http://texaslesstraveled.com/g...

http://nation.time.com/2013/09...

I've heard claims that one in four women will be raped at some point in their lives, and have yet to hear any sort of data-based rebuttal.

Really? You heard such an extraordinary claim, but apparently made zero effort to look into its validity?

Here you go. And here. And here.

Essentially, that inflated number is based on questionable surveys which often fail to distinguish between a regrettable drunken hookup and rape, and is not just about rape but about behavior ranging from grabbing a woman's butt on up through attempted rape and actual rape. (Yes, grabbing someone's butt is bad. It's assault. It's unacceptable. It is not, however, rape.)

Is rape much more common than most people think? Yes. The data is murky but I would be surprised if the lifetime victimization rate for women was less than 5%, 1 in 20. Is it 25%, "eeny-meeny-miney-RAPE!" common? No.

And a teacher sending a student sexy messages over the internet is certainly a breach of professional conduct...but it's not rape.

http://time.com/3649354/steve-... For the woefully ill informed, which is basically most of the /. mob.

the idea you need a drug to be creative is a tired old chestnut that requires no refutation by anyone serious. at worst, there are talentless hacks who take drugs because they think it makes them brilliant or for the subculture mystique. but now they are just drug addicted talentless hacks

some take it to be more productive. of course, they're just borrowing time from later, when the drug fucks their lives up so much they're far less productive for a much longer time, or, far worse, dead. gee, it's great they snorted lines and were productive for an extra week. too bad they're far less productive when they crash for months, or worse, lose decades of their life. gee, what a great productivity boost. think about how much more these artists would have contributed more of had they actually fucking lived instead of killed by drugs. and if you don't believe me, ask keith richards and why he quit (below)

if you take heroin because you think it makes your art better, you're interfering with your productivity later when you're still alive, if you're still alive. you decrease your output overall. short term gain, much larger long term loss. whatever edge you think the drugs take off there are many better ways to take off the edge without destroying your fucking life. but don't take my word for it: stop lying to yourself and those of us who actually know better and know all the ins and outs of the bullshit rationalizations, and listen to the truth...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...

Parker died on March 12, 1955, in the suite of his friend and patron Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter at the Stanhope Hotel in New York City, while watching The Dorsey Brothers' Stage Show on television. The official causes of death were lobar pneumonia and a bleeding ulcer, but Parker also had an advanced case of cirrhosis and had suffered a heart attack. The coroner who performed his autopsy mistakenly estimated Parker's 34-year-old body to be between 50 and 60 years of age.[16]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J...

Coltrane died from liver cancer at Huntington Hospital on Long Island on July 17, 1967, at the age of 40. His funeral was held four days later at St. Peter's Lutheran Church in New York City. The service was opened by the Albert Ayler Quartet and closed by the Ornette Coleman Quartet. Coltrane is buried at Pinelawn Cemetery in Farmingdale, New York. The biographer Lewis Porter has suggested that the cause of Coltrane's illness was hepatitis, although he also attributed the disease to Coltrane's heroin use.[21]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...

During the last years of Miles Davis's life, there were rumors that he had AIDS, something that he and his manager Peter Shukat vehemently denied.[5][61] According to Quincy Troupe by that time Davis was taking azidothymidine (AZT), a type of antiretroviral drug used for the treatment of HIV/AIDS.[21][62]

http://healthland.time.com/201...

In Richards’s new memoir, Life, one of the most interesting revelations about recovery involves the role of music, his work and passion, in the rocker’s decision to give up heroin and cocaine. For a time, drugs helped fuel his work — many of the Stones’ greatest songs were written during the peak of Richards’s drug use. But eventually, his heroin habit turned on him, threatening his ability to make music at all, which prompted him to quit. (More on Time.com: Addiction Files: Recovering From Drug Addiction, Without Abstinence)

Certainly, Richards had countless reasons to quit drugs — he’d suffered the death of