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You know what the difference between today and the 1980's were? That the attack in San Bernardino and Pulse Nightclub both could have been stopped. What happened?

Omar got reported, and yet the authorities ended up doing nothing.

But then, the same goes for others.

I suppose we could live in the Draconian Police State you want, but I suspect you'd hate that.

And how about more in the UK, with those girls raped and being sold as sex slaves(just a fyi it's happening in the US too).

Yes, yes, West Texas is full of it.

And the muslims trying to take over schools to turn them into extremist breeding grounds(see trojan horse scandal).

No, that's Christians.

Well what do you know? In those dozens of cases it was all the same thing too.

I think we've got a problem. You know what it is? People are too politically correct and afraid of being labeled racist/islamophobe/etc.

Nope, it's the other way around. People are obsessively racist, islamophobic, and otherwise unable to see the problems are all over.

So afraid that they'll turn a blind eye to people preparing to carry out a terrorist attack. Until that changes this isn't going to change either. We could, avoid the whole "implement internet agenda thing." The answer is in this paragraph. And you know as well as I do that the left has a very long history the last decade of going after people for daring to say "that muslim looks like they're going to blow people up."

Yeah, that's because you say it so much, then you attack some Sikhs.

After all, that's what happened in Rotterdam and why 1000+ girls were raped and used as sex toys after all....for over a decade.

Clean your own closet first.

You don't really care though, that's why you won't even bat an eye at the stuff in your own backyard.

You'll do nothing but scream and pout in a tantrum.

Apparently you are, not only that you're an idiot to boot. The "line that I'm pushing" is people are afraid of doing something and being labeled racist for doing it.

To make it very simple for you: They're willing to look the other way because of fear, and they're willing to look so hard in the other direction that people are dying because of it.

Yes, the FBI is unable to investigate right-wing terrorism because of that attitude.

Some of

The baker is not at fault for standing up for their beliefs. The problem is an overreaching government. Don't blame the victim.

The baker is at fault for attempting to impose his beliefs on society at large. Society, however, has decided that bakers can't compel us to respect their refusal to bake cakes for people based on their relationship. If they don't want to bake cakes for such customers, they don't get to be in business, any more than they do if they don't want to wear hairnets or not racially discriminate.

But then they can't be honest as judges either.

I do see the violence on the right but I do make a distinction between actions v words and lone wolfs v groups.

Actually, what you do is try to embrace a false sanctimony as you fail to admit to the violent organizations on the right, from the Bundy Ranch militias, the Respect the Flag group, the Huttaree, and even the various Tea Party groups and others on the right-wing clamoring for a revolution. Which included Donald Trump, in 2012, with his infamous Tweetstorm.

If you want to admit to them, then fair enough, go ahead and condemn them. Say they're deplorable. Say they're repugnant. Say they're dangerous.

I don't blame the Chicago kidnapping on the left anymore than I blame the Charleston shooting on the right.

Yes, yes, you already made it clear that you want to ignore how Dylan Roof is merely one among many on the right espousing such views, but that won't make it not a fact that "they do exist in abundance.

Sorry, but Dylan Roof wasn't merely some lone isolated nut following the beat of a drum only he could hear, there's a whole marching band.

By their fruits we know them.

As for the rest of your diarrhea... try harder.

I will, you're not worth giving up on. You deserve to be informed. You deserve to have the strength of character you need to admit the truth. You can have the fortitude to boldly proclaim that the shit stinks all around. It's a dysentery that

Legislated monopolies, also known as "cable franchises" suck ass.

Does anyone here still believe in "free", that goods and services just magically appear out of thin air? I think just about everyone left on Slashdot is too old for that fairy tale.

I dunno, you've been consistently telling fairy tales about EPB.

Chattanooga EFB took over $300 million from taxpayers. There are 75,000 households in Chatanooga, so the cost is $4,400 per family even if you don't get the service, with an additional monthly charge if you want the service. When you have to pay $4,400 plus $60-$150 per month, that's not free. That's not anywhere near free.

EPB actually serves about 200,000 households, cutting your number by about a third. Add in the fact that EPB took a grant for only 112 million, and it's another third out of it.

That you oddly ignored the benefits and well, no wonder nobody likes your lies, raymorris.

See, I still remember your lies about them only serving 300 customers.

I found this: http://www.timesfreepress.com/... But it doesn't support the AC.

People praying for the misery and suffering of others.

No evidence of such prayers being made was offered.

Oh, was that what you wanted? You should have said something to that effect, instead of making this false accusation: "Such is your disdain for people praying which only indicated your attempt to deceptively portray the point being made, which was about a particular kind of prayer.

Not that it's any problem to find them, but you know, if you had a shred of integrity, or even sense, you'd have instead cut the argument off by rejecting such praying and stating that you don't believe in any God that would grant them.

But, even if they were — they are just that, prayers. Words.

Most people would have noticed that key point.

Why? You said "Such is your disdain for people praying" thus making your attempt to discredit someone objecting to prayers, while deliberately failing to consider that the prayers in question were for the misery and suffering of others.

That's the key point you missed. Of course, that means you can't now go back and say that praying doesn't matter. Because that would make you disdainful yourself of praying, making your initial objection invalid on its premises. Which would just combine with your transparent attempt at deceit serves to really discredit you.

You need to sit back, take some time, and think about how badly you fumbled your response.

And no, you can't go around denying their existence any further, not even by quibbling, that'll just make you look bad. The smarter course, is as I said, to denounce the wingnuts and their asinine prayers.

But you couldn't even muster the sense to do that.

Last year's financial statement, which you so helpfully linked to, shows that their subscriber revenue approximately covers the cost of customer service and other expenses they had last year while using the network that taxpayers spent hundreds of millions of dollars to build.

You mean contrary to your false accusations, they are fiscally solvent and not dependent on your purported "Most of the cost of EPB is funded by federal tax dollars - residents of California being forced to pay the bill for Chattanooga's internet service." which you said just a post ago? Very quick of you. That's not a new record though, some people can contradict themselves in a single sentence.

PS, expenses include retiring the debt to pay for the infrastructure investment. Suspect you knew that, but thought you could obfuscate it.

If you didn't, then you're just dumb. But that was kinda obvious when you were lying about the number of customers they had.

When you invest in infrastructure, a key number is how long it takes to recover your investment. If you spend $350 million building a network and it generates gross profit of $70 million / year, the recovery period is five years - it takes five years to get your money back. Keep in mind you'll need to replace much of that network as technology advances, and you better recover your costs of the network before have to start replacing parts of it.

What is the cost recovery time for EPBFI? Five years? Ten? Try 300 years! At least 50 times worse than any operating private company.

And here we have Ray Morris babbling a bunch of numbers with no sources or foundation, unlike say, actual analysis.

Huh. Is that also why you made up accusations about municipal governments stopping ISPs, when instead, it's private ISPs doing just that to a municipal ISP?

For all I care, go ahead and pay an extra $230/month taxes and $50/month on your "electric" bill to subsidize an inefficient ISP, but don't then lie and say it costs $70/month. It costs $230/month plus $50/month plus $70/month = $350/month.

Tell you what raymorris, if that is your real name, you stop lying about the number of customers EBPFI has. See, I still haven't forgotten that. You can also stop making up numbers, like these, and those above, and instead, stick to the truth.

Really, you might as well be belaboring us about a Zombie Apocalypse for all the basis in reality your nonsense has.

The Administration may have failed to bring America's gasoline prices to the European levels. But the promise to bankrupt the coal-industry is coming fulfilled.

Maybe, he sincerely believes, coal is a poison and should go away. But it is far more likely, that he — or some of his more pragmatic allies in the party — are simply scheming to buy the companies for pennies on the dollar and then politically rehabilitate the fuel with the help of politicians grateful for their donations. And even ask taxpayers for assistance. Seriously, wouldn't Department of Energy be happy to issue grants and low-interest loans to something with "Green Coal" or "Clear Coal" on the first page of their brochure?

the Obama administration's environmental regulations raised operational costs

As the old adage goes:

1. If it moves, tax it.
2. If it keeps moving, regulate it.
3. When it stops moving, subsidize it.

The little scheme involves immense PROFIT to the well-connected cronies, who snatch the struggling businesses between the 2nd and the 3rd step.

So, this article says that the US 'retired' some out-of-date Coal plants that probably would have been shut down due to an assumed lower demand and told us that the power was 'replaced' by wind and solar. But this isn't true. The plants were taken off line and can be restarted if needed, and the grid isn't set up to distribute the wind and solar power across the nation. When you shut down a Coal plant in Tennessee, and build a wind farm in Minnesota, Tennessee does not get it's lost power back.

I'm all for less pollution, but please be real when you talk about closing Coal plants.

Goodness me, if only somebody thought of that.

If only. Oh wait, they did.

You'd sound like less of a faggot if you weren't already being anticipated.

> And as soon as I get 1 Gbit to the home I'm probably going to be asking when 10 Gbit is coming.

Right now, right here. Just $300/month too, which is less than the $350/month they were charging for 1gbps just 5 years ago.

Fails as I don't drink.

So because you don't drink, nobody every drinks? Well argued. Guess this didn't happen then. or this. or this. or this. or this. Aren't the things that don't happen amazing?

- I then stab my spouse to death because the gun wouldn't fire. outcome worse than 'bad'.

So it's ok to kill people while on methamphetamine, because people high on coke also kill people sometimes?

Well argued.

Scenario 2: (a) the burglar isn't a burglar, he's a home invader.

And also, he's constantly chasing a long legged bird with the aim of capturing/killing said bird with products he has purchased from ACME corporation. And you forgot to mention he is a coyote.

(b) daughter knows not to sneak in.

Oh. that's all right then, I guess. We don't need to worry about the dead kids.

(c) try finding this actually happening. Removing a firearm from an armed person's hands only really happens in the movies. It's too easy to just shoot somebody trying to snatch your weapon.

OK then

(d) bad conservative/libertarian police: So what? It's the intruder's fault for breaking in. If he doesn't want to risk getting shot, he shouldn't be breaking in.

Sure. We don't need to worry about the dead kids. Just pile em up out back.

ah yes, that orthodox leftist creed of keeping drugs safe

there's no need for it, it's a severe authoritarian need to control people, right? like a cartoon movie script: "ooh, i'm a lefty, i'm here to destroy your rights {insert manaical laugh}. why? i dunno. it's just what we do since central casting by joe mccarthy in the 1950s"

you need a cartoon villain to have your cartoon belief system

because these problems don't exist:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09...

http://time.com/4043511/peanut...

http://www.timesfreepress.com/...

that's just from last week

how many millions of more examples do you want you ignorant asshole before you try matching your beliefs to reality?

that is the actual threat. that is why we have government regulations like the FDA: to protect us from the actual fucking real threat: industry

meanwhile, you want to whine about "orthodox leftist creeds"

that's not the actual threat, that's your uneducated delusion you ignorant piece of shit

did i make up executives who will kill you and poison you to make $1 more? am i making that shit up? do you read the fucking news? there's 3 links above from last week. do you want some more you shitbag before you try the slightest bit of intellectual honesty for the first time in your low iq life?

you imagine regulation as the threat, when the fucking story you are commenting under shows the real threat is industry. reality

why do you persist with a belief that fucking contradicts simple facts and simple reality around you

what the fuck is the source of your colossal ignorance you useless propagandized piece of shit?

you're a zombie. walking through the world blind, unable to see or understand anything. just regurgitating the same tired wrong ignorance, without the slightest effort to accept facts. prideful ignorance

Although I guess quitting will allow him to get another job and do this all over again.

Not necessarily. Georgia is relatively good about decertifying cops who are fired or resign in lieu of being fired.

Chattanooga lost their credit rating did to overwhelming debt from their government broadband attempt

No. This, at least, is unsubstantiated FUD.

From Forbes.com:

In fact, contrary to Stephenson’s claims that municipal broadband hurt municipal credit ratings, S&P just upgraded the Chattanooga public utility’s bond rating, stating, “The system is providing reliable information to the electric utility on outages, losses and usage, which helps reduce the electric system’s costs.”

A quick google search of Chattanooga and broadband turned up multiple articles agreeing that their local internet deployment has been a roaring success, particularly in bringing a new wave of business and revenue to the city.

Not every city is successful, but that's no reason for states to prohibit them from trying, if nothing else to give the monopolists an incentive to improve their crappy race-to-the-bottom service.

Citations please. How many municipalities have created their own local last-mile implementations? How many have gone bankrupt? You're talking out of your ass and it smells that way too.

A quick search found Municipal broadband expansion blocked in many states. I'm not claiming that the municipalities are going bankrupt (like what happened with Provo, UT and why Google was able to buy their fiber for $1), but I know that's the reasoning being presented to the state legislatures. I wouldn't be surprised if a lobbyist could go before your average state representative and say "Municipalities are doing X, and going bankrupt over it. You'd better stop X in your state so you won't have to bail out your Municipalities", and the representative wouldn't spend time double checking the reality of the situation. They just know that they wouldn't want to deal with a budget crises where all of their municipalities are going bankrupt.

That such arguments are being made may very well be the case. It's certainly plausible that those with vested interests would make such an argument. I'm not going to waste my time reviewing transcripts of debates in 20+ statehouses to determine if it is, in fact, the case.

That said, just because such an argument may be made, doesn't mean it's true.

You contradict yourself by first saying:

I believe that states have started passing laws against municipalities laying their own fiber because the states are tired of bailing out bankrupt municipalities who have done so. [emphasis added]

and when asked to justify your beliefs, you say:

I'm not claiming that the municipalities are going bankrupt

So. Which is it? Is there evidence on either side? If you wish your argument to be taken seriously, you should be able to back it up with some evidence. If not, it's hand waving at best and dishonesty at worst.

Citations please. How many municipalities have created their own local last-mile implementations? How many have gone bankrupt? You're talking out of your ass and it smells that way too.

A quick search found Municipal broadband expansion blocked in many states. I'm not claiming that the municipalities are going bankrupt (like what happened with Provo, UT and why Google was able to buy their fiber for $1), but I know that's the reasoning being presented to the state legislatures. I wouldn't be surprised if a lobbyist could go before your average state representative and say "Municipalities are doing X, and going bankrupt over it. You'd better stop X in your state so you won't have to bail out your Municipalities", and the representative wouldn't spend time double checking the reality of the situation. They just know that they wouldn't want to deal with a budget crises where all of their municipalities are going bankrupt.

> Chattanooga's fiber requires massive taxpayer subsidies as well as cross-subsidy from utility ratepayers.

That is incorrect. They took the federal stimulus for rural isp money in order to accelerate roll-out to rural areas, but they were on track to do it without the money at a slower rate. As for cross-subsidy, it is the other way, the ISP service is subsidizing the electric ratepayers by about 20 million a year.

You might be *slightly* off on your facts. I think it was a grant + loan, so it's even worse.

The Chattanowhere, TN editor was FIRED for writing this article.

Your article quotes an ATF agent saying no, mine quotes an ATF agent saying yes.

Your article quotes an ATF agent talking about "inner-city gang members in Chattanooga". Really, Chattanooga?!?! Not New York, not LA, not Baltimore or Chicago, but...Chattanooga? You're going to take that tiny city as representative of what happens in the nation as a whole?

The Frontline piece I cited doesn't just quote an ATF agent -- I wouldn't trust an ATF agent's word on the color of the sky. It cites an NIJ study where they actually asked convicts where they got their guns. Only 5% said that they stole it. Several similar studies are cited by Wachtel in a paper here, which then goes to to analyze guns recovered in the LA area and pretty much blows the "most crooks steal their guns" hypothesis out of the water.

Your reading comprehension is low. It was done for cars. It helped reduce car theft.

What you said was that "it was made illegal to leave an unlocked car running with the keys in it". That is not the same as "it was made illegal to have your car stolen". The former is a form of the "attractive nuisance" doctrine; the later is victim blaming, a severe form of ass-like behavior.

(It would be in keeping with standard practice for you to provide a link and a citation to your claim about a reduction in car theft, BTW.)

There are already laws in some areas requiring people to keep their guns locked up. Whether or not that's useful or Constitutional, it is quite different than criminalizing being the victim of a theft.

Move to Chattanooga, TN (north of Atlanta), you will be pleased.

Well, I have 1,000Mbps in my area; the fastest internet service in the US. See this news article published in 2010 about EPBfi.

All 100,000 customers have EPB power (this is the local electric power company in Chattanooga, TN, USA). Because of EPB's electric smartgrid, they also provide fiber to 100% of their coverage area. This means that every home/business/apartment has access to Gbit Internet and TV/phone.

The slowest speed they currently offer is 50Mbps (for $57.99 per month), the fastest is 1000Mbps($299.99). I am on 100Mbps because it is only $12 more per month than 50Mbps.

Oh, and there are no max bandwidth/transfer caps. You can do 1000Mbps all day long...EPBfi has the upstream bandwidth.

I was on Comcast for 8 years. I telecommute most days; Comcast would go down for hours at a time for no apparent reason. When I would phone Comcast to report the outages, the customer service rep would say that they are upgrading the services in my area. The service person would say it as if that was the script on their screen as why the internet went down for 2 hours at 11am and again at 4pm. It got so bad over the course of a year, that I had to purchase a Sprint broadband card/account to continue to get work done as I came to just expect outages. I could not tell a client that I was having internet connectivity issues when I am doing remote-based network consulting.) ;)

After switching to EPBfi 2 years ago, I haven't had a SINGLE service-affecting outage. They appear to have built their Internet infrastructure as solidly as they build their power distribution network.

Feel free to read more here: https://epbfi.com/internet/

Oh, BTW, I don't own stock in EPB or work for them....I am a customer that likes to pay for internet that works reliably.

Here is a news article published in 2012 about Chattanooga's upgrade of all customers from 30Mbps to 50Mbps.

It is interesting how none of the big media giants want to provide the additional speed/reliability; I guess if you can feed your customers sewage and tell them it's honey...and the customers believe it, more money goes in your pocket.

Grab a chunk of natural, untreated wood and leave it in water for a few months. It'll absorb water and sink like a rock, then it'll rot. It's not going to be carrying passengers across an ocean, unlike treated everything-proof wood you'd use on a ship or a dock.

Has anyone tested this experimentally? I've heard of hardwoods becoming waterlogged and sinking, but that doesn't cause rot. The lack of oxygen and low temperatures actually preserve the wood.

However, I suspect the length of time timber can remain afloat varies greatly by species. This might be a good research opportunity. Are there any natural timbers in this debris? If so, what species?

They're trying this out with some electric buses in Chattanooga, Tennessee: CARTA's electric buses to charge on the go

Hm... very interesting. He actually seems to have voted against it. "Graves said he believes the act gave too much power to the government, a problem cited by many of the people who helped elect him." Source here

First: Bloomberg's writeup

Browns Ferry could have been testing these valves but wasn't (not unlike me not testing those hot water heater emergency valves once a year). From the article above quoting the TVA guy, it would have taken an improbable scenario (involving Matthew Broderick no doubt) for it to "cause damage to the core". Regardless, they should just add it to their undoubtedly busy schedule. Something like Fukushima is more unlikely for it. I heard it was designed for around ~350 mph winds (those pesky tornadoes!) but I see stuff on the internet ~200 (older articles, before it was put online in the GWBush era, cite less wind protection). I don't know what they did for earthquake proofing due to the proximity to New Madrid Fault Zone ~Memphis, TN area. Map of 1812 Quake

Yet another take

Naah. Co-ops are sued by incumbents that are too lazy to actually build out the infrastructure that they've been taking federal money to do. Welcome to the future.

The federal government already gets the public databases pulled it in to their databases. This is exactly why multiple Fusion centers were set up in almost every state, at least what they are willing to admit publicly from the middle of 2009. Who knows how many they actually have now. They are not part of the federal government, but rather setup by the state and local governments, even though they get federal DHS money to set these up. Since they are not federal agencies, they are not restricted by federal rules for data mining and privacy. They collect information from public sources and private databases (think credit reports, grocery stores, and others that sell their databases), link up with businesses, state and local police and then pass all this up to the federal level such as the FBI and Homeland Security. The FBI and DHS then send down terrorist watch lists, and lists of people that the Fusion centers and law enforcement should monitor in their areas. The stated idea was to allow more data sharing between local law enforcement and federal law enforcement along with the help of businesses. What in fact has happened is that the federal government has gotten around rules about what data they can collect by having it passed to them from another/third party, in this case the state Fusion centers. Technically they didn't mine the data, the states did and they just passed the information along to the federal government. So vast amounts of data is being collected already about the public and what is going on in the US, and most people have no clue at all that this is being done.

The problem with all of this is who the Fusion centers are putting on the terrorist watch list. They have put the ACLU on the watch list in Tennessee, Ron Paul supporters in Missouri, people who vote third party or support them, people who advocate for the Constitution, those who are over friendly, people who buy lots of jeans, owners of certain kinds of historical flags, and other crazy things that have come out. It just insane who the Fusion centers are putting on the terrorist watch list, and the insane criteria being used to put people on the terrorist watch list.

http://www.dhs.gov/files/programs/gc_1156877184684.shtm
http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2010/dec/22/aclu-bristles-over-terror-list/
http://publicintelligence.net/florida-fusion-center-monitored-bp-protests-ron-paul-events-code-pink/
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/03/23/fusion-centers-expand-criteria-identify-militia-members/
http://epic.org/privacy/fusion/

Doesn't the police need your permission first? http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2008/oct/27/chattanooga-man-arrested-placing-gps-tracker-wifes/

Also, if I find a strange box on my car can I sell it on EBay? I seem to recall an article where this actually happened (I think in Australia but I can't find the link right now).

How about we get the national press to show more footage of the fly ash disaster that's going on in Tennessee right now? Over a billion gallons of liquid fly ash spilled out of a ruptured holding pond and covered the surrounding landscape with toxic waste. A few days later, another tank under the TVA nearly ruptured in a similar, but smaller fashion.

First Spill: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingston_Fossil_Plant_fly_ash_spill
Second spill: http://timesfreepress.com/news/2009/jan/13/tennessee-widows-creek-ash-may-be-more-toxic-kings/?local.

Despite the above disasters and the numerous other coal related disasters out there, somehow people still are rah-rah about coal. I'm not a huge fan of nuclear because of the ongoing problems with finding a proper disposal method, but it is easily a better option than any further coal development. At the very least, Stephen Chu is on the same page and believes that nuclear is a better option than more coal plants.

Since IANANS (nuclear scientist), why is the method in the summary preferred over using breeder reactors? It sounds to me that this method should be used in conjunction with breeder reactors to destroy the nuclear waste that can no longer be reprocessed into usable fuel, thereby getting the maximal amount of utility out of each unit of uranium (of which there is a limited supply, or so I hear).

With repeat offenses so high among sex offenders

Except, they're not. Sex offenders are actually less likely to re-offend than other criminals.

The only way we can protect ourselves and our families is if we have the information at our disposal to do so.

Then why single out sex offenders? Isn't it important to be able to know if our neighbors have committed assault or robbery to "protect ourselves and our families"? It's much more important to me to know if a neighbor ever took a tire-iron to someone's head, then that they once copped a feel on a crowded subway car. (Or had sex as a teen, which can land you on the registry in some states).

There might be legitimate arguments in favor of a registry of parolees and probationers who have committed serious crimes. But the "sex offender" registry isn't such a list. It's simply another symptom of American fear and ignorance about sex. Shame on us.

Funny, I just did a search of the Chattanooga Times Free Press classifieds, going back a week, for all ads in the "Computer Personnel" section. A total of 0 ads for all days were returned. Go to http://www.timesfreepress.com/Classifieds/all_frm. html and do an ad browse for Employment - Computer Personnel and see for yourself.

That newspaper is the major regional newspaper for southeastern TN and northwestern GA. Last time I worked tech support and was laid off, I spent a year out of work; 9 months of that was after I'd expanded my search to include unskilled labor (think "using a shovel"). Nobody would hire me for technical work because there was none to be had; nobody would hire me for manual labor because I went to college and am trained for technical work. I'm now working through a temp agency and getting by on whatever they can find for me - currently I'm cutting pipe on a bandsaw at a boiler tube manufacturer.

So when you say "Unskilled (tech support) work is easily found" please forgive me when I reply with "bullshit."