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Call me a troll all you want, but Time magazine's archive and Carl Sagans video on YouTube back me up

Ice age predictions 1974 Time Magazine:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,944914,00.html

(from Wikipedia)Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, Episode 4, Scene 9 "Change"
physicist Carl Sagan warned of catastrophic cooling through the burning and clear cutting of forests. He postulated that the increased albedo of the Earth's surface might lead to a new ice age. He also mentioned that this may be counteracted and overcome by the release of greenhouse gases. Cosmos was a popular series on public television and was often shown in elementary, junior and senior high schools in the United States.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xec4vjU1HW0

It was BS then, it's BS now

Well, first off, the world gov are all pushing CO2 emissions as being the big thing. As such, that data should be shown to all. As to the pollution issues, China and now India have massive amounts of smog that are carried around the world. LITERALLY. Yeah, that probably is keeping the temps down so there is a plus side to it. HOWEVER, I would like to see us get China, India, and other nations to quit polluting so much esp. with Mercury. IIRC, China emits almost 1/2 of the total mercury emissions due to ZERO controls. However, to be fair, a lot of the none Asian/ None USSR pollution is done for western companies. 2 of these 10 sites belong to Anglo and American companies, but are located in other countries.

Ex-Scientology kids is designed, owned, and operated by three young women who grew up in Scientology, and later left the Church.
A forum for Anonymous Protests against Scientology Signed appropriately, Anonymous We do not forgive, We do not forget, Expect Us.

Somewhere there is a grown man--a very pathetic man--who is attempting to lift things with the Force.

He got paid by the CIA, using your tax money, to do it. I guess he mastered the Jedi Mind Trick first ;).

Madoff kept all of his billions of money in a single account at JP Morgan Chase bank. If they are going to bust his programmers, they should bust his bank too. Even for a bank the size of Chase, Madoff just leaving billions of dollars sitting in the account instead of investing it like he claimed to be doing must have gotten their attention one or a hundred times. If the bank looked the other way to hang onto a lucrative cash deposit, they are just as guilty as the programmers.

Time Magazine covered this three months ago. The article started off by pointing out that exercise stimulates hunger, which by itself is pretty obvious. But then they went into more interesting topics like "brown fat", which burns extra calories (humans don't have as much brown fat as other species), as well as psychology - the "self-control muscle."

They say that self-control is a zero-sum game and that by running for an hour, you are actually depleting your self-control to avoid eating a bag of chips. Like any "muscle," I'm sure one's psychology can be improved, but I've certainly noticed this myself: One reason I don't exercise more often is because I like having the energy to go to work.

Anyway, exercise does make you lose weight (duh). But in a 24 hour day, there are 23 great opportunities to ruin the 1 hour of real effort that you made.

Of course, the real question is, do athletes live longer? I think if they did, we would have heard about it by now. Either that, or we've stopped funding studies in this country. Because athletes living 10 years longer than the rest of us would be the blockbuster study for sure.

Part of the problem here is that U.S. public policy since Reagan is dominated by the mantra, "The marketplace can handle the problem." And very often, that's true. But not always, as this problem shows.

The marketplace hasn't been allowed to handle the problem. Because of price and wage control laws in World War 2 employers were not allowed to pay employees more. Because this interference damaged employers' ability to hire workers the government started allowing employers to offer to employees benefits such as health insurance. When an employer did they got a tax deduction. That is why today most people in the US get health insurance through their employer. However a person who buys their own insurance does not get that tax deduction.

Here's more on the History of Health Insurance Benefits.

Falcon

Portugal. Decriminalized *all* drugs (including heroin etc) in 2001. With considerable success from almost any public health or criminological perspective:

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=10080
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=portugal-drug-decriminalization
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124061360462654683.html
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1893946,00.html

As I understand it, they're under sporadic pressure by the US and Sweden and other holdouts for demonstrably failed drug policy to revert to the bad old days, but the benefits have been so significant neither the Partido Socialista or any of its viable competition has shown any real sign of buckling.

There are very few countries that have a slightly less restrictive stance on drugs and those countries are all being coerced by other countries into adapting stricter laws

. There is a worldwide momentum to see drug abuse as health problem instead of a criminal issue, and consequently to de-criminalize the personal use of (some or all) drugs:
Mexico
Portugal
Argentina
Similar legislation has been approved in Colombia, Italy, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Spain

I see no sign of countries being 'coerced' into stricter drug laws.

There are very few countries that have a slightly less restrictive stance on drugs and those countries are all being coerced by other countries into adapting stricter laws

. There is a worldwide momentum to see drug abuse as health problem instead of a criminal issue, and consequently to de-criminalize the personal use of (some or all) drugs:
Mexico
Portugal
Argentina
Similar legislation has been approved in Colombia, Italy, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Spain

I see no sign of countries being 'coerced' into stricter drug laws.

That is interesting, but let's not equate technology with production. Often rich nations create the technology to exploit the resources is poorer nations. Maybe it applies to states, too. California has a big lead in solar.

Once upon a time I had lots of close friends who are now Scientologists. They actively, passionately, and publicly hate me and consider me to be a deeply immoral person.

Don't worry. The Christians all think you're immoral. So do the Islamists. As for who hates whom, aren't you glad you weren't in the twin towers on 9/11? Aren't you glad you weren't around during these Christian acts of violence? Aren't you glad you were elsewhere when the Hindus got up and into the faces of the Christians, here? Or when they did the same for Islamists, here? Aren't you glad you can still draw a cartoon of Mohammad here in the US? I'm speaking legally, of course... that doesn't mean some moron Islamist won't come and clobber you for it anyway. Or, try wearing one of my atheist themed tee-shirts (right column) on the street, and see what happens. Better yet, try it in the American south. Oh yeah, you'll feel the love, all right. :)

The gulf between your 'typical' Scientologist and how they view the world and other mainstream faiths is in my own very direct experience, is an extra-ordinary gulf.

No. Your experience is in the day to day "get along" strategies of the various religions. It has nothing to do with their world view, and doesn't exempt you from hidden disrespect and hate, or eventual violence. Eventually, an issue divisive enough will rear its head, and you'll see the strength of the relationships you have across these religious boundaries is to some degree imaginary. As an atheist, you are the lowest of the low to all religionists. For your own safety and the security of your family, you should keep that firmly in mind.

How does it sacrifice the quality of your education?

I assume you have some numbers to back up the claim that State Universities provide a lower quality of education (which we must note is unrelated to the quality of networking and old-boys-clubs)?

I take it the people on this list with a State University next to their name sacrificed the quality of their education: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1227055,00.html

Didn't seem to hurt them much.

Ever think about what effect free food has on the target country's local agriculture economy? I'll give you a hint: Local farmers have to start competing with free. The answer isn't dumping free food onto people--it's investing in infrastructure so that functional and stable markets can develop.

... Which is accomplished by bombing the shit out of them how, exactly?

Well, no one's bombed the shit out of Ethiopia for example, yet this article from Time Magazine explains the problem: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1829841,00.html

Quote from article: "...for countries receiving their charity, long-term food aid can become addictive. Why bother with development when shortfalls are met by aid? Ethiopian farmers can't compete with free food, so they stop trying. Over time, there's a loss of key skills, and a country that doesn't have to feed itself soon becomes a country that can't. All too often, its rulers use resources elsewhere — Ethiopia has one of Africa's largest armies."

When I doubt something on Wikipedia, I check out the links at the end for verification.

In this case it is real enough to convince Time magazine, so I'm willing to accept it.

Stein says that as mayor, Palin continued to inject religious beliefs into her policy at times. "She asked the library how she could go about banning books," he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them.

Why are you giving (unreferenced) quotes unrelated to the matter at hand?.. Did Time (here, a reference you forgot to put) allege, Palin "liked" to ban books? No — according to the article, she was just concerned, that language in some of them may be considered offensive by some of her constituents. Libraries can carry only a limited subset of what's printed, and somebody somewhere has to decide, what that subset is to contain — my mom, for example, periodically brings home some books from Brookline, MA public library — thrown out by the institution to make room for other publications... It is not at all illegitimate for a mayor to participate in that decision.

So, technically, you are correct. Sarah Palin did not actually ban any books.

That's better, thank you very much. Next time try to be more graceful about admitting your mistake, Ok?

As a penance you now have to vote for a Libertarian or Republican in the nearest elections you participate in. You can let me know, who you picked via e-mail...

They did not give out that much info in the beggining of this, but it was pretty obvious that they had more than 'just ties'. Yet, an AC got modded up, without anybody using any logic on his statment.

Revelations in the case have slowly emerged following the Oct. 8 arrest of 32-year-old French-Algerian Adlène Hicheur, who holds a doctorate in particle physics. Hicheur was nabbed after intelligence officials intercepted encoded e-mails he sent to AQIM members offering to plan terrorist strikes in France.
What this shows is that those who do not think or even openly sympathize with terrorism, are modded up here.
What else is missing is how much communications EU taps. Much has been made of America's PATRIOT act and the theft of our rights. Little is said of the quiet disappearing of similar rights throughout EU.

The last time the medical hysteria industry made a big vaccination push over another mutation of the flu they got President Ford to mandate the shot for the US. The vaccine killed more people than the disease. I guess it's been long enough since then that the medical alarmists figure they have a clean slate.

H1N1 isn't particularly deadly and doesn't warrant this much drama. If we take reasonable precautions (send sick kids/workers home, wash hands frequently, etc.) it would probably pass without significantly more damage than any other seasonal flu. That, however, is boring and hard to profit from, and denies big politicians opportunities to make big plays in public.

So, if the market is not supplying a needed public good, then it is up to government to supply it?

Yes, if a free market doesn't provide a public good then I have no problem with government doing it, local or state. However not if the Constitution does not give the federal government the authority, if you want the feds to do it but the Constitution doesn't authorize it then propose an amendment.

We all benefit from good health care for all, making health care a public good. Therefore, according to Adam Smith's reasoning, government should provide health care.

You missed something, Smith said government should "supply goods that the free market may not provide." The free market has not been given the chance to provide health care. Under a freer market, notice the "r", a person living in Arizona would be able to buy health insurance in New York. However that's not possible now, each state controls who can sell insurance in the state and sets what type of insurance is offered. Then there are the tax breaks involved. During World War II the feds passed wage control laws, employers were not allowed to offer employees higher pay. And FDR issued an executive order controlling prices. This created problems for those employers, prospective employees wanted more pay, so to make it easier for employers to find employees they were allowed to offer employees benefits such as health insurance. The government then gave a tax break to those employers who did offer it. However the self employed and those who want to buy their own health insurance do not get tax breaks. If individuals and the self employed had a level playing field, they got the same tax breaks or employers did not get the breaks, then insurance companies would compeat to insurance the millions of people in the market for insurance. Combined with health savings accounts (HSA) people could decide what type of insurance they would pay for. A single or a couple without dependents, children, could elect to deposit money in an HSA to pay for normal health care costs and buy catastrophic coverage for serious injuries, illnesses, or disabilities. Then because they pay normal costs out of pocket, because filing insruance claims are expensive for doctors if you pay out of pocket they will reduce their charges, the cost of catastrophic coverage would be low. Meanwhile a family of 4 may want to get full coverage for the parents, if a parent can't work their income may be reduced, and pay out of pocket for normal health care cost for the children with coverage for things like broken bones.

Notice how the Time article says "That's how we ended up with the health-insurance system we have now, based on employers. You get a tax break if you get your insurance through your job. If you get a raise and use it to buy your own insurance instead, you have to pay taxes on that money. (Ditto if you use your raise to pay doctors directly.) Almost everyone takes the tax break. The market for insurance bought by individuals is, as a result, small and stunted, which is all the more reason to stay in the employer system." However even with tax breaks some employers can't afford to offer health insurance.

The question is, do we let the sociopaths dictate the rules of the game, or do we honor the bulk of humanities inbred sense of fairness?

Did you read about the Stanford Prison Experiment? Brutality is inbred as well.

Falcon

Business buys whatever it wants, including firearms, governments, and public opinion.

Businesses buying firearms? Sure but how many businesses do you see brandishing firearms against people? Government? It only matters if businesses buy government when said government is big and powerful. A small and weak government doesn't have much to offer businesses. Businesses buying public opinion? Sure, businesses can buy some people's opinion, those who can't think for themselves or who are greedy. However people have to power to force businesses to their will. Do you really think apartheid would have ended in South Africa without strong public opinion? Quite simply stockholders big and small forced the corporations they owned shares in to either actively oppose apartheid or to pull out of South Africa, to disinvest.

Even major US corporations are changing, or seeming to. Look at the top 10 companies in the US at least trying to greenwash themselves. One of those is GE with it's $90 million "Ecomagination" advertising campaign. Now I'm not saying all of them are actually trying to clean up, I bet many are only trying to hoodwink the public (where do you think Greenwash comes from?), but with shareholders pushing some corporations are trying to do good.

However what that Huffington Post article does not say is that in the US the government is by far the biggest polluter. Governments routinely exempt themselves from laws they pass. Weak governments don't have that ability.

Falcon

Some bankers actually do something with their "excessive bonuses".

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1894410_1894289_1894266,00.html

[Disclaimer: I work there]

It's not the free copies of books/movies/whatever that are troubling (to me). It's the strong correlation between positive reviews and lucrative advertising contracts on some sites that I find deceptive. That's the part that should be disclosed.

I don't think regulating reviews, which is what this is, will solve anything. A freer market can though, if a blogger posts a review that's bad then it readers will learn not to trust the blogger. And by bad I mean a review that is not truthful.

For those who believe regulations do solve problems take a look at Bernie Madoff. SEC investigators advised he be investigated under existing regulations but was he? No. Before Madoff was Charles Ponzi, arrested in 1910. Between Ponzi and Madoff was Iva Kreuger who shot himself in 1932 after his global empire came crashing down in scandal.

Falcon

"It's a funny country when the random blogger on the interwebs is held to a higher standard than those that govern. "

Indeed. But you'll find that lawmakers -- as well as government functions/functionaries -- are often exempted from their own legislation. Link below gives some examples. [Not one of my favourite sources but found it quickly...]

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,967427,00.html

There have been reports which say that places like Atlanta are still paying for the olympics.

I was under the impression that Atlanta was one of the success stories of economic growth resulting from hosting an Olympics. This story indicates that there were net economic benefits from hosting the Olympics, but you are generally right, the economic benefits from hosting the Olympics are questionable in general. As others have mentioned, Montreal only recently finished paying off the Olympic stadium they constructed for the 1976 games. The Birds Nest stadium that the Chinese were so proud of is scheduled to host 1 event in 2009, but using Beijing as an example is dubious since it seemed clear from the beginning that the Chinese intended to host a hugely wasteful Olympics for ego purposes.

Nah, nobody would consider such a thing.

It's worth mentioning that low-carb diets have also been shown (at least preliminarily) to restrict tumor growth. See http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1662484,00.html. I wonder whether part of Metformin's effect might be related to it's lowering of blood sugar, above and beyond the direct biochemical mechanism mentioned in the article.

And let's not forget about Bill and Hillary, who have their own legacy of corruption they left behind.

In other words, all national level politicians are bought and owned, else they wouldn't be able to make it on a nation-wide stage.

For the last major test I took that involved an essay (the MCAT), I had to type it. Back in college I had only a couple teachers that used essay type questions, and was at no disadvantage by using manuscript since far more time was spent thinking about what to write than actually writing it. For note-taking, it's rare for me to see someone use cursive, although it doesn't seem like people are struggling with keeping up. I couldn't imagine (nor ever seen) anyone using a notepad for note-taking, which leads me to think that your field is very different from mine.

While cursive, if forced upon youngsters for about a decade (less and they'll revert to manuscript), is probably faster, manuscript is held to be more legible. IMHO, that's far more important since about 7,000 people die each year because fast handwriting is favored over legible handwriting. For that reason I eagerly await the death of cursive writing.

Personally, I'm curious to see what happens when the results become...tampered...

the top ten "hackers" will be the Symantec, the FBI, CIA, Barack Obama, Mcafee, and some others

Let's just put this in perspective, right ? A feutus, 2 months after conception, is capable of more complex reasoning (and feels pain) than a cow. Yet abortion ... that's no problem, right ? A child's brain starts up and starts learning and feeling the 18th day after conception, long before even the most perceptive of women realizes she's pregnant. Yet we allow abortion, but feel sorry for animals which will never attain the intellectual capacity a human feutus develops before it even connects blood vessels to the mother.

Something is a bit ... well, stupid, about this idiocy.

And don't worry about this plan : it's a non-starter. Animals who feel no pain for whatever reason are born all of the time. So are humans who feel no pain. You might think this is a blessing, right ? Think again ... In case you're wondering why there are so few of them : most of these people die from idiotic accidents (like biting off critical body parts, I shit you not) at a young age.

I seriously doubt that once these cows turn out to have zero feedback between tongue and teeth, then bite of their tongue, and refuse to eat any more until they die, this idiocy will have lost all appearance of either relieving pain or being economically interesting. Or they refuse to turn back at the edge of the meadow, no matter how much barbed wire they get wrapped around them or how much blood they lose (actually bulls have serious problems with that even with perfectly functioning pain nerves)

Besides growing meat directly, without animal involvement at all, is getting underway. Just google it. That will presumably be cheaper and will present zero ethical issues. And it will get rid having to cut nerves or blood vessels out of steaks. Hurray. Also it will be more efficient. The sad truth is that plants are very inefficient solar panels, and animals are utter disasters at turning biomatter into meat. There is no existing plant that has 2% efficiency at photosynthesis, and there is no animal that has a 2% efficient digestive system (humans are actually just about the most efficient animals on the planet, and while everyone thinks it's intelligence that allows us to spread, it might very well be that we have, by far, the most efficient metabolism (measured by testing energy intake versus movement performance)). And as we all know 2%*2% = 0.4% efficiency solar energy -> meat (and that's only for animals captured in the wild, farmed animals are less efficient). The most efficient amongst humans are about 2%^3 or they use about 1 watt from around 8 million delivered by the sun.

As population rises this 8 million solar watts to give 1 human 1 watt (which will allow a california resident to maintain body temperature in the summer for about 3 minutes) will have to get better. We can't modify humans, so we'll have to eat more efficiently produced foods.

Personally, I'm curious to see what happens when the results become...tampered...

This is why the Japanese have been stuck in a recession since 1990. They like to buy all these shiny-new gadgets, even if they make no sense economically.

The reason why Japan has been in a recession is because Japanese are unproductive workers. It sounds crazy, but it's true:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,395413,00.html

How Veterans' Hospitals Became the Best in Health Care

I'll not go through the rest of your FUD point-by-point, but I'll just pick on this one:

Medicare pays regular health care providers about 65% of the costs of treatment

What do you think your private insurance does? Just pay whatever is asked? Does the phrase "negotiated rate" ring a bell?

How Veterans' Hospitals Became the Best in Health Care

How Veterans' Hospitals Became the Best in Health Care

health insurance policies refused

If you're getting a letter from the VA you already have free liftetime health insurance, and in the US it's illegal to decline someone a job on account of their medical condition, insofar as it doesn't interfere with performance, which for someone who doesn't have a disease, it won't.

I'm sure there's some sort of latent point in this about "socialized medicine" or something, but for every one of these letters with the wrong diagnosis, I assure you a private insurer has cancelled the policy on dozens of people for no goddamn reason. And those people sometimes commit suicide too.

There are many scary anecdotes about the VA, but they're just that, anecdotes. Customer satisfaction within the VA health system regularly outscores customer satisfaction in the private health insurance/care system.

PS. If you get a letter saying you have an incurable disease, damn the letter. You must hear it from your doctor's own lips, and then only after you have had the outcome of the tests throughly explained to you.

Yeah yeah, funny. But there's a very serious side to this joke. Where *are* all these cells going to come from? Well, it looks like the answer is just about here - YOU! See, scientists are rapidly unlocking the code behind what is a "stem cell" and are able to reprogram them to be whatever you want them to be.

In the (near!) future, you may be able to regenerate heart tissue, liver tissue, or (in my case) new teeth, simply by taking a small skin scraping, culturing the cells, reprogramming them into stem cells, or into whatever type of cell is actually needed - teeth, heart, liver, or whatever.

The resulting tissue could then be surgically implanted with zero risk of rejection, since they are cells from your own body, with your DNA/RNA and so on!

This is a brave new world that includes (at last!) a cure for Type I Diabetes, Parkinsons, heart disease, bad teeth, and too many other illnesses to name.

For example, there was a cure for Diabetes YEARS AGO called the Edmonton Protocol that had the unfortunate side effect of requiring hundreds of donor cadavers. I was, for a while, intensely excited (one of my oldest sons is Type 1 Diabetic) but the donor cadavers does present just a *bit* of a problem.

But suddenly, now, donors aren't a problem. If I need islet cells, I can donate a bit of skin tissue! Or even have a liposuction!

This isn't big. This isn't huge. This is world-changing.

Poland has an unfortunate history both during and directly after the war, extending into the 60s. The embarassing reaction to the relatively recent release of Jan T Gross's book (hereby incorporated by reference) in which the former Kaczynski, the former Primitive Polish Prime minister even tried to prosecute the author.

It's important to remember that during the war the Poles had much harder situations for rescuing Jews than in most other countries (you risked your entire family going to a concentration camp; elsewhere you risk only yourself and only prison) and many still did. It's also worth remembering that the reason Jews were in Poland was because they were historically treated better there than elsewhere. Poland is much further along coming to terms with and apologizing (though with reservations) for it's former anti-semitism (even Kaczynski has made efforts to return passports to the victims of the 60s) than a number of surrounding countries.

Essentially anyone who tells you that Poles are all good is a Holocaust revisionist. As is anyone who tells you that they are all bad.

In all cases where I referenced Wikipedia, all references in the page references are incorporated by reference as material to read. There; is that enough citations for you?

Cancer cells are not as flexible as normal cells, and cancers depend atleast somewhat on glucose. Ketosis does slow down the growth of cancers.

There have actually been studies on this sort of thing ...

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1662484,00.html

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1841623,00.html

These criminals have killed innocent people just to ensure a state of terror remains in areas they are interested to control.

Random killings are becoming more common, and according to Mexican experts, the reasons for this are so feeble that can actually be considered to be totally random, which is one of the main traits of indiscriminated terrorism.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1841623,00.html

Now tell me again those bastards, financed by the pot US people smoke, are not terrorists.

Tell that to the humble families of the people that were killed on the day.

They detonated bombs last year: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1841623,00.html

>I don't know about that. I'm no fan of the drug war, but I think decriminalization will increase the USE of illegal drugs and therefore increase the DEMAND for it.

You would be completely wrong:

'"Judging by every metric, decriminalization in Portugal has been a resounding success," says Glenn Greenwald, an attorney, author and fluent Portuguese speaker, who conducted the research. "It has enabled the Portuguese government to manage and control the drug problem far better than virtually every other Western country does."

Compared to the European Union and the U.S., Portugal's drug use numbers are impressive. Following decriminalization, Portugal had the lowest rate of lifetime marijuana use in people over 15 in the E.U.: 10%. The most comparable figure in America is in people over 12: 39.8%. Proportionally, more Americans have used cocaine than Portuguese have used marijuana.'

He might not have, but it's implied. Are you saying the courts can make this distinction?

Firstly, it's not up to courts. Since possession of drugs for personal use was decriminalised, the courts are no longer prosecuting people for this crime. Instead, people with large quantities for personal possession go to a "dissuasion commission panel" rather than court. They can rely on medical evidence and amount of drugs on person to decide appropriate response (possibly a fine, possibly an offer of treatment). Treatment is not mandatory.

The treatment option is an alternative to a fine for possession of drugs. I had heard that for minor crimes that wouldn't go to court anyway (e..g prostitution) it can be offered as well, but I can't find a reference for that at the moment. The rest of the details are in:

TIME magazine: Drugs in Portugal: Did Decriminalization Work?
BBC News: How Portugal treats drug addicts

"It's not my fault I have a disease! The devil drugs made me do it!"

A predictable response, but consider that if a person is clinically addicted to certain drugs, then not having those drugs regularly is highly likely to cause death. In that sense, there is some truth to the reasoning that "the drugs made me do it" - the drugs are necessary to avoid death, and if the person were not addicted, then the drugs would not be necessary. Consider the hypothetical scenario where you hold in your hand a button that when pressed will electrocute and kill another innocent human. If you don't press the button within 60 seconds, you will be electrocuted and killed. If you press the button, you will be released. Your action in pressing the button is murder of an innocent person, regardless of the motive. So which do you choose - to commit the crime or murder, or to be murdered? It's an old philosophical question, but one that can easily be extended to this scenario (obviously murder is an extreme example, substitute with the more likely crimes of prostitution or theft as appropriate).

But I'd point out that due to modern agricultural processes, the energy in/out ratio of food is particularily stable. But for other products? Absolutely.

I guess that makes sense. Food would be charged based on calories, non-food items would be charged based on other factors (such as the volume/mile shipping tax you mentioned).

I'm a little bothered by your last one though- what is the value of a human life?

Well, according to this Time Magazine article, it's $50,000 per year. I was curious if that would be considered under the public welfare. Some jobs are quite dangerous (e.g. crab fishing).

I appreciate the response. Cheers.

None of the images you linked get to the heart of this issue, which is copyright. We only have evidence of one photoshopped Obama image being pulled, and it also happens to use a TIME magazine cover as its source. Regardless of their political motivations, about which I make no claim (yet!), copyright violation of TIME's image is a valid reason for them to pull the cover. Others including the submitter have mentioned that the image is parody, but not every manipulation is parody and I don't think the case for parody is obvious here--what aspect of TIME are they parodying?

The parody would be of times support and advocacy of Obama. Oboma has been on the cover of time magazine 7 times since he took office with another issue coming soon to make it eight. In 2008, he was on the in time mag almost 30 times with a total of 23 times to date on the cover since 2006.

Now here is something of concern. Copyright law explicitly protects flickr from copyright actions based on third party users of their service. Secondly, if Flickr was legitimatly concerned with copyright, then why are they ignoring all the other posted photos of Time magazine's covers. No DMCA take down has been claims as the core reasoning for the concern here. To date, it is just Flickr attempting to claim a concern in an area they hold legal protection from. But this isn't Flickr's first time protecting the administration.

This is, as others have said, perfectly within Flickr's rights, but the Streisand Effect has taken hold and it will probably bite them in the ass now whether the image is infringing or not, especially if the fact that there are tons of other infringing images remaining is spotlighted. It would be interesting to hear comments from Flickr about the takedown, though the article states that they won't respond. Tsk tsk.

I'm not entirely sure it is within their rights. Flickr holds some exclusive contracts with the government and is the only source for a lot of government information. Before I go further, I want you and anyone else reading to imagine a situation were all video content and speeches made by Bush was only availible at Fox News.

Anyways, without the content being availible on other sites as a matter of government policy, I'm not sure how they can promote political favoritism or specific political ideals. If it isn't illegal (as in using government resources for political gain), it should be and It's probably unethical for both flickr and the federal government to be in a practice where the sole source of some public information forces the exposure of certain political ideals and methodologies. I think it would be more obvious if you could only find white house pictures at the republican national comity website. I don't see this as much different when it is apparent that Flickr is pushing a political message. I mean they have taken down images and obliterated accounts of people critical of obama. I'm not sure how that isn't a kickback for those contracts in the least.

Yes, you can parody a public official, that doesn't mean you can use other peoples copyrighted material to make parody of something else.
This has been seen many, many time.

Actually, the parody use of Time was political speech making fun of Obama's coverage in time magazine and how they seem to be supporting his every move as well as Obama and his health care debacle. That seems to me that it would place it as fair game. Oboma has been on the cover of time magazine 7 times since he took office with another issue coming soon to make it eight. In 2008, he was on the in time mag almost 30 times with a total of 23 times to date on the cover since 2006.

Time magazine, in their article Why We Chose Obama stated

"Obama always said his candidacy was not about him, but "you," and now, along with Flickr, we're helping give "you" a voice. The presentation of these images in the magazine reflects the extraordinary work of Time deputy picture editor Dietmar Liz-Lepiorz, deputy art director D.W. Pine, reporter Jeninne Lee-St. John and picture-desk assistant Diana Suryakusuma. I also want to thank assistant managing editor Michael Duffy and deputy managing editor Adi Ignatius for doing the heavy lifting on this issue."

I find it odd that this voice is only if you agree with them. A simple search of Flick for Obama and time shows that copyright does not become an issue for the thousands of other people using time's covers.

I don't think it should have been pulled, but that'e irrel;event. This isn't about Obama, its about a company affriad they are going to get sued by time or the MPAA.

Not really, the DMCA exempts them from being sued for content of third parties on their service. The DMCA also has provisions in which the post can exert a right to the images as fair use or a matter of copyright and Flickr would be bound to put it back up (under the DMCA law). I'm not sure how far this has gone yet and I'm attempting to find more information about it. However, This isn't an isolated incident with Flickr. Google has yanked bloggers critical of Obama too. It should be noted that Google was perfectly fine with this blogger's crazy comments when it was about bush but had to remove it when they started including Obama.

It's a symptom of out of control copyright enforcement abuse.

I don't give a damn how someone parodies the President. Never have, never will.

I agree, I'm just concerned with the attempts to stop it.

"It can legitimately be seen as the government controlling the access to negative speech."
only uf there is some sort of person telling them to pull it.

This is a Grey area that has backfired many times in the past. People can be influenced into actions without a person specificaly telling them to do something. An example of this was a industrial accident in my area a few years back which cost the life of an employee and severely harms a few others. The company was rwquired to provide safety tie off for some work being performed. They weren't in place and when the employees complained, instead of them being put in place, they were simply taken off of the schedule for a few weeks at a time. It didn't take long for the employees to figure out that if they wanted to make a paycheck, they either had to perform the work without the safety tie offs or find another job. This lead employees to working in a direct violation of OSHA rules. One day, a worker slipped and on the way down, hit three other

Yes, you can parody a public official, that doesn't mean you can use other peoples copyrighted material to make parody of something else.
This has been seen many, many time.

Actually, the parody use of Time was political speech making fun of Obama's coverage in time magazine and how they seem to be supporting his every move as well as Obama and his health care debacle. That seems to me that it would place it as fair game. Oboma has been on the cover of time magazine 7 times since he took office with another issue coming soon to make it eight. In 2008, he was on the in time mag almost 30 times with a total of 23 times to date on the cover since 2006.

Time magazine, in their article Why We Chose Obama stated

"Obama always said his candidacy was not about him, but "you," and now, along with Flickr, we're helping give "you" a voice. The presentation of these images in the magazine reflects the extraordinary work of Time deputy picture editor Dietmar Liz-Lepiorz, deputy art director D.W. Pine, reporter Jeninne Lee-St. John and picture-desk assistant Diana Suryakusuma. I also want to thank assistant managing editor Michael Duffy and deputy managing editor Adi Ignatius for doing the heavy lifting on this issue."

I find it odd that this voice is only if you agree with them. A simple search of Flick for Obama and time shows that copyright does not become an issue for the thousands of other people using time's covers.

I don't think it should have been pulled, but that'e irrel;event. This isn't about Obama, its about a company affriad they are going to get sued by time or the MPAA.

Not really, the DMCA exempts them from being sued for content of third parties on their service. The DMCA also has provisions in which the post can exert a right to the images as fair use or a matter of copyright and Flickr would be bound to put it back up (under the DMCA law). I'm not sure how far this has gone yet and I'm attempting to find more information about it. However, This isn't an isolated incident with Flickr. Google has yanked bloggers critical of Obama too. It should be noted that Google was perfectly fine with this blogger's crazy comments when it was about bush but had to remove it when they started including Obama.

It's a symptom of out of control copyright enforcement abuse.

I don't give a damn how someone parodies the President. Never have, never will.

I agree, I'm just concerned with the attempts to stop it.

"It can legitimately be seen as the government controlling the access to negative speech."
only uf there is some sort of person telling them to pull it.

This is a Grey area that has backfired many times in the past. People can be influenced into actions without a person specificaly telling them to do something. An example of this was a industrial accident in my area a few years back which cost the life of an employee and severely harms a few others. The company was rwquired to provide safety tie off for some work being performed. They weren't in place and when the employees complained, instead of them being put in place, they were simply taken off of the schedule for a few weeks at a time. It didn't take long for the employees to figure out that if they wanted to make a paycheck, they either had to perform the work without the safety tie offs or find another job. This lead employees to working in a direct violation of OSHA rules. One day, a worker slipped and on the way down, hit three other

looking only at magazine covers, from the present back to 1998, I see only

http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,20031201,00.html

as being a made up picture of Bush, and it's not massively made up (one black eye, and an obviously photoshopped lipstick kiss on one cheek).

Is this the supposed equivalent?

Yes, it is, but it was Times' parody and he just added "socialism" under it.

Time made no parody with it's cover.