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Another link to back up the idea of increasing the mininum wage - http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/5601

Do you know that your own source demolishes your claim. You said that that Schumer is "one of the most hardcore authoritarians in the Senate"; however, when you check all the Ds and Rs, Schumer is rated less authoritarian than EVERY R senator except Olympia Snowe, who is a moderate who already left the senate.

One of the grand ironies of Libertarianism, is that these days the right is increasingly dominated by authoritarianism. (Take the above website to see the hugely robust difference between R and D senators. Bear in mind that R senators tend to be more moderate than their house colleagues.)

I'm Libertarian myself, but am not a sucker for the right-wing entertainment complex. As such, the GOP has little to offer me, since it has turned into an apocalyptic cult. Fortunately, the wing-nuts in the left (and they are just as barking mad) do not control their political party.

You may think you're joking, but you're not:
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/18442-flow-chart-exposes-common-cores-myriad-corporate-connections

If the issue was actually insurance like we issue for cars, then the costs would be trivial. There are really good reasons why this stuff is so expensive.

I think I'll trust an actuary to calculate the actual cost. Put in a reasonable mark-up, and you have: insurance. If the market is, well, efficient, then the mark-up will be reasonable. So let's apply those good-old liberal ideas of free markets, and let the magic happen.

Otherwise, the bill should be in the mail.

And if you can't pay, and declare bankruptcy? Who pays then? You pretending this isn't a problem?

There were issues that could have been addressed by our government that could have actually helped.

Right, like an almost-single-payer system, like what works in most of the OECD. Instead, in an attempt to compromise, we get a regulated insurance market and a mandate, just like leading conservatives supported up until 2008.

What happened in 2008? Obama was elected, adopted the GOP healthcare plan, and was promptly labelled a tyrant by an apocalyptic cult. Just the opinion of a 20+ year GOP insider who knows a hell of a lot more about what happens on the hill than you do.

Now we know the president either lied outright about what would happen to existing policies

You _can_ keep your policy if you like it, so long as you've had the policy since before the ACA was passed. The fact that insurance companies are changing the policies and then trying to up-sell clients onto more expensive planes: who would have thunk it, that businesses would act this way. I agree that Obama shouldn't have used the language he did, because it is too easy to pick apart. But it is hardly the lie you WANT it to be.

If you go by there actions, the modern GOP believes in three things:

(1) Tax cuts for the rich
(2) War, war, and more war
(3) Fundamentalist religion

The rest is just window-dressing that they don't actually believe, but it comes out of their mouths in the hope that you'll vote for them.

Add something meaningful. This wasn't because of Republicans. This entire fiasco is Government Bureaucracy screwing things up. It's that same kind of bureaucracy that just needs to go away. You can have regulations without bureaucracy.

From the church of libertarianism: the all-powerful all-wasteful government. I'm sure you never were part of an audit of a government to work out how much waste/cruft there is, and compared the results to, say, a fortune 500. Nah... you just *know* your right.

I'm slightly libertarian myself, but as a true conservative, I respect the fact that I don't know enough about society to architect a solution, and thus favour incremental change. Getting "buraeucracy to go away", as you put it, is the type of arrogant liberal clap-trap you hear when some wide-eyed youth tells you about getting rid of capitalism.

In an unbelievably cynical move, the GOP is actively destroying government, and then complaining that it doesn't work, and "rebels" like yourself buy it. I'll be sitting on the fence until the conservative movement gets its act together, and start, you know, doing something productive.

Chris Christie 2016.

Read this. Just the opinion of a GOP insider who knows more about what happens on the hill than you do.

Irresponsible, yes, but it sure does help sell the whole war on terror. Look, this could be you if your country does not bend over and contribute to the world war on terror (Icelands experience).

Slightly offtopic - new information just in on Icelandic independence (or lack of).

As long as you don't transfer your data through sneakernet stored on your phone in the 44 states that allow this without a warrant...

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/18983-police-can-search-your-phone-without-a-warrant

Moral authoritarians never understand this. They have a different model of human nature that believes people need to be beaten into shape by threat of force.

The 2nd amendment is because we didn't have a standing military at the time, nor did most parts of the US have any law enforcement of note. Having those firearms at that time served a legitimate need.

Nice to see that you're pretty much completely ignorant of the reasons behind the 2nd amendment.

Actually, there are a -lot- of reasons that have been stated / opined as having been behind the 2nd amendment by scholars that seem to have put a bit more effort into their thoughts than you have:

• * To preserve slavery: http://truth-out.org/news/item/13890-the-second-amendment-was-ratified-to-preserve-slavery, and http://www.gazettetimes.com/news/opinion/mailbag/letter-the-real-reason-for-the-second-amendment-protection-of/article_0cb7886a-653c-11e2-9962-001a4bcf887a.html
• * Rawle believed its purpose was to check government's "inordinate pursuit of power": http://books.google.com/books?id=akEbAAAAYAAJ
• * Blackstone covered some ground with a self defense argument: http://davidkopel.com/2A/LawRev/19thcentury.htm
• * Spooner believed its purpose was to counter "government tyranny": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution#cite_note-141
• * Carl Bogus, in the UC Davis Law Review, makes a strong case for the intent being to assure States that Congress couldn't disarm their militias: http://www.saf.org/lawreviews/bogus2.htm

The bottom line is that there exist a multitude of opinions, from scholars that actually back what they say up with decent arguments (you didn't quite make it into that group this time, hedwards), and cold fjord's post falls right into the middle of the range. I would say that making a single-line blanket statement of opinion as fact, then telling cold fjord that -he- is ignorant is laughable.

BTW- cold ford, I'm moderating tonight so posting as AC, but I -did- read your prior posts, and I guess you're not a shill. :-)

Ex-Bush Official Willing to Testify Bush, Cheney Knew Gitmo Prisoners Innocent

... choose to ignore your rights when Congress fails to respect them?

"A public interest coalition known as Citizens Trade Campaign published a draft of the Trans Pacific Parnership chapter on “investment” revealing information about the “international tribunal” which would allow corporations to directly sue governments that have barriers to “potential profits.”

This is exactly the type of domestic situtaion that allows real estate developers to sue state or local governments for inflated valuation based on the claim of 'lost future profits' when eminent domain is used to condemn property, even though the purpose requires that the action be in the better interest of the general public. I've never understood why the courts don't make it clear that an investor's freedom to risk does not imply an inherent 'right' to expect a profit, but now the Obama administration appears likely to codify it for transnational corporations?

Additionally, I've never been able to fathom the short-sightedness of the U.S. ratifying trade agreements that allow companies in other countries that lack the same environmental protections, equivalent to our Federal EPA's, to import goods here without meeting the same standards or suffering economic sanctions that would offset the advantage. If we made international polluters pay for the access to our markets, we could use the fees to support clean development overseas. Unfortunately, if we subsidize clean operations here, other countries can argue for the right to sanction us under the rules of the WTO treaty.

These international treaties, that promote commerce while diminishing respect for environmental justice, hurt us all in the long run. It makes the task of promoting social justice harder as well. Focusing on trade while subordinating the health of the environment makes it easier for governments to avoid the inevitable questions of sustainability or population growth.

We already live in a world where the West promotes the futility of population control because it's just to difficult to imagine trying to convince people that we're actually subject to the same constraints that science, religion or globalization are exacerbating for the rest of the life.

I wonder who will die last, with all the toys... the lucky stiff.

No need to be AL. The TPP is being forced down many countries throats despite many anti-democratic problems by, you guessed it, US special interest groups, their lobby mouthpieces and owned politicians. The US elite feigned "positive response" to our concern over cell phone unlocking only due to the enormous amount of people who cried out - to many to just ignore this time round. Now they are using the TPP stick that they crafted to beat our demand for democratic review of the law down, and put the masses back in our place. Oh, but sure they had no choice... yeah, right.

There's some interesting theory that the second amendment wasn't the "oppose government when it steps on my freedom" but more to allow the slave patrol militias to keep operating.

Im not sure how you'd prove the reasoning of people long since gone one way or the other, but the reference to militias (which the slave patrols were called) and the reference to State rather than Country is consistent with the theory.

if so, it's not so much freedom, as much as freedom for whites to own others.

GMOs aren't just a little thing. There is an enormous profit incentive that has shown up in our legislatures as "lobbying". It's no secret that this business is highly profitable and there is an element of risk involved. In the Farm Bill under consideration of Congress now, there is a rider purporting to provide Monsanto with immunity from suite in the event that there is damage from their crops.

Why would that be if this is just a little thing? http://truth-out.org/news/item/10210-the-monsanto-rider-are-biotech-companies-about-to-gain-immunity-from-federal-law

it would appear the OP is pointing out the unusual tenacity with which they're pursuing someone for a rape charge,

Perhaps you noticed that the "unusual tenacity" came to be when Assange became a fugitive from justice? Think about it. ... What did Assange do? Broke his bond and fled the police.

No bond was broken, no fleeing occurred.

As part of the extradition process Assange was released on bail, part of his conditions of bail were that he should remain overnight in the residence of one of his supporters who (from memory) guaranteed the majority of the bail. His residence in the Ecuadorian embassy means that a bunch of people are likely to be out of pocket.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/9343739/Julian-Assange-celebrities-could-lose-thousands-from-WikiLeaks-founders-bail-breach.html

Assange left Sweden weeks after the incident in question, with the express permission of the prosecutor's office. For that matter, he isn't even wanted on a rape charge, he's wanted for questioning in relation to a possible charge. He has offered numerous times to talk with the Swedish prosecutor or a representative while in the UK. None of this is terribly consistent with the actions of someone purportedly on the lam.

Worth noting, from a transcript of a Democracy Now discussion, emphasis mine:

"...Sweden and the United Kingdom both refused to provide assurances that once matters were dealt with in Sweden, that Julian would be permitted to leave the country and would not be extradited to the United States. They refused to provide those assurances."

This is probably the more salient point regarding Assange's reluctance to step again on Swedish soil.

Cheers,

The UK can't give any such assurances if he were to be transferred to Swedish custody, we don't have any control over Sweden. If the US wanted to extradite him from the UK they've had months to make a case.

it would appear the OP is pointing out the unusual tenacity with which they're pursuing someone for a rape charge,

Perhaps you noticed that the "unusual tenacity" came to be when Assange became a fugitive from justice? Think about it. ... What did Assange do? Broke his bond and fled the police.

No bond was broken, no fleeing occurred. Assange left Sweden weeks after the incident in question, with the express permission of the prosecutor's office. For that matter, he isn't even wanted on a rape charge, he's wanted for questioning in relation to a possible charge. He has offered numerous times to talk with the Swedish prosecutor or a representative while in the UK. None of this is terribly consistent with the actions of someone purportedly on the lam.

Worth noting, from a transcript of a Democracy Now discussion, emphasis mine:

"...Sweden and the United Kingdom both refused to provide assurances that once matters were dealt with in Sweden, that Julian would be permitted to leave the country and would not be extradited to the United States. They refused to provide those assurances."

This is probably the more salient point regarding Assange's reluctance to step again on Swedish soil.

Cheers,

You may some day have to accept that there is a large number of reasonable, intelligent, and even likable people who completely disagree with your views on government and policy. Just because someone has a political view doesnt mean you know squat about them, their finances, their situation, or their personality.

The Republicans (and conservatives) used to be like that. I used to read the Wall Street Journal editorial page every day just to see a well-argued factually accurate idea that I disagreed with, and sometimes I'd be forced to say, "You know, they're right." But they've gone off the deep end since then. OK, you believe that individuals can make better decisions for themselves than the government can make for them. But what about abortion? Evolution? Prayer in the schools? The war on drugs? Gays? I wish Barry Goldwater were back.

http://truth-out.org/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=3079:goodbye-to-all-that-reflections-of-a-gop-operative-who-left-the-cult

Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult
Saturday, 03 September 2011 11:09 By Mike Lofgren, Truthout | News Analysis

To be sure, the party, like any political party on earth, has always had its share of crackpots, like Robert K. Dornan or William E. Dannemeyer. But the crackpot outliers of two decades ago have become the vital center today: Steve King, Michele Bachman (now a leading presidential candidate as well), Paul Broun, Patrick McHenry, Virginia Foxx, Louie Gohmert, Allen West. The Congressional directory now reads like a casebook of lunacy.

I could see as early as last November that the Republican Party would use the debt limit vote, an otherwise routine legislative procedure that has been used 87 times since the end of World War II, in order to concoct an entirely artificial fiscal crisis. Then, they would use that fiscal crisis to get what they wanted, by literally holding the US and global economies as hostages.

Everyone knows that in a hostage situation, the reckless and amoral actor has the negotiating upper hand over the cautious and responsible actor because the latter is actually concerned about the life of the hostage, while the former does not care.

People who use "encryption", care about "security" and things like "transparency" are already under suspicion of committing terrorist acts.

If you have a brain you're suspicious.

http://truth-out.org/news/item/9618-newly-released-fbi-domestic-terrorism-training

pot>kettle=You're all black

A common fallacy.

Barbara Stanwyck: "We're both rotten!"

Fred MacMurray: "Yeah - only you're a little more rotten."

http://truth-out.org/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=3079:goodbye-to-all-that-reflections-of-a-gop-operative-who-left-the-cult

The important thing about that story is that the WSJ has a documented history of objectivity and impartiality in its news pages. That's why everybody in power used to read them.

Murdoch and his editors changed several stories to favor the conservative side. That kind of favoritism is unprecedented in the WSJ.

The Republicans are different. They're tearing the country apart. News Corp. played a big destructive role.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/lets-just-say-it-the-republicans-are-the-problem/2012/04/27/gIQAxCVUlT_story.html

Barbara Stanwyck: “We’re both rotten!”

Fred MacMurray: “Yeah — only you’re a little more rotten.”

— “Double Indemnity” (1944)

http://truth-out.org/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=3079:goodbye-to-all-that-reflections-of-a-gop-operative-who-left-the-cult

Conservatives want less of that, progressives want more of it.

Completely false. Conservatives want less of it in some areas, and more of it in others. Progressives want less of it in those areas conservatives want more, and vice versa. For the most part, I prefer the progressives, because the conservatives ideas make for a far more intrusive government, in some cases, literally intrusive.

Isn't much better? How about is worse?

The Espionage Act was used only three times before President Barack Obama took office.

Obama, who serves the interests of the surveillance and security state with even more fervor than did George W. Bush, has used the Espionage Act to charge suspected leakers six times since he took office.

Does that sound like an improvement?

I'd rather drill on land. So we can monitor it easily and if there is any spill, it is easy to contain, seal, and clean up.

You don't get it. The problems with BP start way before the disaster in the Gulf. They have a history of egregious safety violations which have killed people before. They trade high-risk safety practices for profit. I understand you don't like environmentalists; anyone with extreme viewpoints can be frustrating to deal with, but do not lose sight of why the DH disaster was so damaging. Even if BP is "drilling on land" they cannot be trusted to do so safely and they've demonstrated it for years prior to the DH "spill". Let's not focus the witch-hunt on anyone but BP and the regulatory system that let them keep doing what they do. That's where the fixing needs to happen first.

William Coley, the father of immunology, cured fully metastasized cancers in the early 1900s. Look it up - Dr. William Bradford Coley. We had a cancer cure, and this article is about a similar potential cure. Coley mixed up highly individualized brews of dangerous disease organisms and shot them into cancer tumors, and trained the patient's immune system to recognize cancer cells as something to be destroyed. You want to know why we outlawed Coley's system and are just now rediscovering it?

Because nuke shills. That's why. Nuke shills, like the fission-obsessed irrational numptys who reauthorized Price-Anderson and are unwilling to fund LENR or clean fusion research. Science is no match for politics and propaganda - if it was, we'd have progressed past fossil fuels and corporate nuclear fission decades ago.

"Science does two things that we don't love. It does lots of things that we do love, but the two things we don't love are: Whenever we extend our knowledge, we have to parse that new knowledge morally and ethically . . . . The other thing is that it either confirms or vexes somebody's vested interest." Source Article from -> http://www.truth-out.org/americas-turn-science-danger-democracy/1324997534

I know THAT feeling - nearly every time I post about HOSTS files here, I get a downmoderation!

Yes, I know why... even though custom HOSTS files unquestionably can get an end user of them more SPEED, more SECURITY, & even more ANONYMITY to an extent (vs. DNSBL's &/or DNS request logs), for free!

2 "interested parties" I may be "vexing" are:

---

1.) Malware makers

2.) Webmasters (yes, sorry - I do block adbanners because they have been shown to be malware infested AND THEY SLOW YOU DOWN for speed + bandwidth you pay for out of pocket to be online... period!)

---

* Still doesn't hide the truth, nor the fact that everytime I put out my std. posts on HOSTS files where they apply vs. menaces online written about here on slashdot in articles? Nobody to DATE has been able to disprove any points in them (20 total)...

APK

P.S.=> Makes you wonder how many other things have been suppressed or intentionally ignored over time that affect "big money interests" profiting by ignorance & shutting down superior competitive tech (I know it's been done for AGES on gasoline substitutes for instance - where, "oddly" (not) the inventors either disappeared, or suddenly "forgot' how to make their formulas for their compounds, etc./et al)...

... apk

They are competing quite nicely, actually. The problem, as usual, is the government... although they supposedly operate as an independent agency, they get a lot of protectionism from the federal government... along with the chains of the federal government, too. Although they are profitable right now, and able to fund pensions, they are being mandated to pre-fund the pension plan for 75 years, and they have to do it in 10...

In 2006, Congress passed a postal reform law requiring the USPS to pre-fund 75 years of future retiree health benefits over a ten-year span.

There's no other federal agency or private enterprise in the US that's forced to pre-fund benefits like this.

"This is like saying you're going to have your house payment of 30 years and then they come back and say, 'We' are giving you five years to pay it.' That's pretty much what they're saying. It doesn't make sense," says John Beaumont, president of the California State Association of Letter Carriers. "If we didn't have to make these payments, the Postal Service would be in the black at present time."

Source: Postal Service Employees Rally to End Manufactured Crisis.

That Fannie and Freddie encouraged Countrywide to start the ball rolling with those standards, and thus everyone else followed suit.

Yeah, too bad private banks gave shitty mortgages all on their own. Back to the drawing board, troll.

Invisible Hand of the Free Market Man ROCKS!

Rally? While unemployment peak a few months after Obama took office, it start in 06, and seclated sharply.

Only an idiot, or a person with an agenda, believe Obama casue this unemployment rate. Also, it's getting better. Slowly, but better.
Tarp(Bush) and the auto bailout(Obama) stopped it. look at the trend, it was rising like crazy.

http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=z1ebjpgk2654c1_&met_y=unemployment_rate&tdim=true&fdim_y=seasonality:S&dl=en&hl=en&q=us+unemployment+rate

I realize you were probably joking, but in the environment we have right now, facts need to be listed, not punditry Bullshit.

Please to fall prey to the anti-Obama redrick and lies. Remember, the pubs stated that their number one priority that needs to be done at all cost, was make Obama a 1 term president. Before Jobs, before tyhe economy, before 99% of the people in this nation.

froma retired republican staffer:
http://www.truth-out.org/goodbye-all-reflections-gop-operative-who-left-cult/1314907779

yeah, they've gone insane.

First, to anyone who lost loved ones in the disaster, you have my condolences, as grief can still be fresh even a decade later, especially if it was a parent's adult child who died. My main point in writing this is to prevent more such disasters.

My wife flew home on 9/10/2001 from Washington, D.C. I can't think what might have happened had it been one day later. She attended a Genoa I workshop to talk on narrative methods and conflict resolution where someone said, "Maybe we should apply some of these ideas to thinking about that Osama bin Laden guy?" But it was too late to prevent what happened.

I agree with other comments here that in some ways 9/11 was Slashdot's finest hour as it kept working when other sites crashed under the load, and it was where I too turned for news updates. We lived near NYC at the time (we could smell the towers burning) and we lost reception on some TV stations with the loss of the towers. When the first tower fell, besides thinking about the sad loss of people, I recalled all the discussions on Slashdot previously on the attempts at encroachment on civil liberties, and thought, with the fall of the tower, so would fall our civil liberties, as those efforts would get the upperhand finally. I'm glad things have been not quite as bad as they could have been domestically, even if the amount of suffering caused abroad (like in Iraq) by the USA as it lashed out in a blind rage has been enormous (and to what end?).

It has been very sad also to see the USA develop some kind of immune disorder as it attacks itself in various ways (same as with asthma or arthritis) like with a war on the "unexpected".
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/11/the_war_on_the.html

In the same way that the sunshine vitamin, vitamin D, can help moderate the human immune system, I can think that some sunshine on global issues will ultimately help heal them. But, as Stephen Zunes, a middle east academic scholar said after he tried to make people aware of what was going on with the Middle East and the USA but was accused of all sorts of things:
http://www.truth-out.org/legacy-911-and-war-intellectuals/1315608304
"Raising such questions was not popular, however. Detectives investigating a crime trying to establish a motive are generally not accused of defending the criminals. Fire inspectors inspecting the ruins of a building for the cause of the blaze are not accused of defending its destruction. Yet I found myself, along with scores of other Middle Eastern scholars, being attacked for supposedly defending terrorism."

Ironically, while many people still believe "they hate us because we are free" and that terrorists abhor our democratic values, the truth is more that "they hate us because we fund their oppressors" and if we had stuck to our democratic values in crafting our foreign policy, we might not have seen so much blowback. Sadly, the invasion of Iraq based on false information and broad misconceptions has likely spawned a whole generation of terrorists. As Smedley Butler, a Major General in the US Marine Corps, said, "War is a racket". So, some have said, Iraq and even Afghanistan were supposed to be quagmires.
http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm

9/11 has brought the issue of security into the public consciousness in the USA. A big problem is that our mainstream view of collective security is not very advanced. In the same way Stephen Zunes says we need to think more deeply about the Middle East and our foreign policy, I'd suggest we in the USA need to think more deeply about what our notion of participatory democracy and how it could relate to collective security, including, for slashdotters' contemplation, how to prevent a cyber-9/11.

Towards that goal of moving such a dialog forward, here are some l

Read this insider report on the state of the republicans in the USA (the dems are just behind them; but we must not think about lesser evils because that gives too many a SLOW path to recovery... which is why we only are allowed 2 parties... )

http://www.truth-out.org/goodbye-all-reflections-gop-operative-who-left-cult/1314907779

It is when the US Gov forces Genetically Modified food down everyone's throat, often in the face of overwhelming democratic opposition to them - even in some cases the political elite objecting (See this India cable: "Very serious fears [...] of Monsanto controlling our food chain"), that things start to get really questionable.

Interesting and informative. Sincere thanks for making me sad and less ignorant. (Related.)

There have only been a few times that the United State's debt was paid off. Economic depression immediately followed.

The problem is that money is borrowed into existance. No new debt == no new money.

Presidential candidate Ron Paul has a good temporary solution for the debt ceiling: start tearing up the bonds that are held by the Federal Reserve. The Fed returns the interest paid on these bonds to the treasury anyways...

Read about this option in Ellen Brown's recent piece, QE2 Shocker: The Whole $600 Billion Wound Up Offshore

I've seen a lot of pro-nuclear advocacy on this site, and I feel that people need to have a perspective on what that choice represents. It's opportunity cost. That's a term for when you give up your chances on one side in the pursuit of another. If your choices are poor your loss includes what you did not pursue when you had the chance.

Right now we have gotten wind down to where it has much to offer and very little drawback. Laddermills can provide power 24-7. Offshore windfarms have been heavily studied and show little impact. A better grid could distribute the uneven power effectively. Ribbon generators and windbelts can, in arrays, compete with solar panels.

Where heat is needed we can concentrate solar thermal energy, whether through passive solar buildings, solar towers and troughs which heat molten salts to 1000 degrees Fahrenheit for storage in insulated tanks to drive turbines 24/7. You can even get hot water from running hoses through a compost pile - several compositions yield a proven 140 degree internal temperature and you're getting fertile soil too.

If you do in fact need electricity, solar panels on a microgrid close to their point of demand circumvent our hugely wasteful grid with its losses due to resistance and the unnecessary surplus generated by redundancy of huge, centralized powerplants.

These are not perfect, but when you consider the subsidies fossil fuels and nuclear plants require, the wars being waged to control their supply, and the costs of pollution whether we're paying them now or ignoring it at the peril of future generations, we are being very foolish to waver in the pursuit of a resilient, safe energy supply.

In the words of Bill Maher on offshore wind turbines: "You know what happens when windmills collapse into the sea? A splash."

Supporting links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laddermill
http://www.truth-out.org/wind-energy-can-power-much-east-coast-study-says63637
http://inhabitat.com/windbelt-innovative-generator-to-bring-cheap-wind-power-to-third-world/
http://gliving.com/power-tower-wind-turbines-a-brilliant-idea-in-this-issue-of-metropolis-magazine-may-2009/
http://www.solarreserve.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parabolic_trough
http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/EETD-microgrids.html

Obama's idea of change when it comes the government's stance on "national security", i.e. torture and government accountability? No change is good change, keep things the same as Bush's administration. By continuing the former admin's policies, it looks to me like he's looking out for the old guard as well. He supported TARP, did he not? I voted for the bastard, so I can complain.

Truthout does this shit. I emailed to inquire about the lack of open commenting. This is what I got back:

From:
"Truthout Technical Administrator"
Add sender to Contacts
To:
mmnch@yahoo.com
I am so sorry for your frustration. For security reasons we have our regular commenting system temporarily down. We will hopefully get it back up soon. Until then, thank you so much for your patience and for your readership.

On Mon, Feb 28, 2011 at 2:52 PM, wrote:

        Hello. This article:
        http://www.truth-out.org/us-uncuts-anti-austerity-protests-start-small-strong-against-bank-america68108
        has comments from facebook users. I don't see anywhere for other readers
        to make comments.

--
Truthout List Administrator

===
Truthout isn't loading at the moment, but yesterday I couldn't find a way to comment. I don't use facebook either.

try this : http://www.truth-out.org/

See, but that's an easy one: "You can't believe that truth-out.org because they're a bunch socialists pushing the islamo-homosexual agenda. They'll say anything to get people to try to turn away from their Churches and the generous owners of corporations who are nice enough to give us jobs".

See, the problem is, once you've planted a message into the part of a person's brain that deals with fear and anger, no facts, no information, no truth is ever going to make a dent. They're even given a list of talking points with which to refute any facts you present them. It's all a nice neat package that's been made for them, and it cannot be changed. Have you never talked to a committed Fox viewer? You can take them by the hand and let them touch the wounds, put their fingers in the holes, feel the truth itself and they'll still put their hands over their ears and clamp their eyes shut. Then, they'll accuse you of being "one of THOSE people". The best you can do is make sure they never, ever get anywhere near a position of power or anywhere near a dangerous weapon.

The problem is, that the people who are responsible for turning them this way are very rich and very powerful and very committed to making sure they get near positions of power and near dangerous weapons. Because it suits their plans. Honestly, it's way way too late for this nation. At least during the rest of my lifetime. It's going to get very very ugly here and there's going to be a whole lot of suffering. And I love it too much to bear to watch.

You seem to have missed the truth that 2 judges have ruled that the federal health care reform law in unconstitutional while 2 have ruled that it is constitutional

I know the gp said that shit, not you. I don't bother trying to teach facts to teabaggers. You seem capable of learning and appreciating relevant information though, so here you go. http://www.truth-out.org/bush-appointed-federal-judge-tosses-out-challenge-to-health-reform67476

The Iraq Vet Stress Project uses very precise & minute magnetic fields - those generated with fingertips - to help soldiers with PTSD. The procedure involves tapping on specific locations on the skin while thinking about a specific distressing thought or emotion. They don't know exactly why it works, just that it does.

Leadership in the American Psychological Association is actively subverting continuing education credit for Energy Psychology for unknown reasons:

"The APA’s criteria for appropriate CE content are clear and straightforward. By any reasonable reading of our applications or of our 80-page appeal brief, we have met these criteria many times over. In blocking the dissemination of this approach, the APA is following a different agenda than its own rules. I have no idea what that agenda might be, but the bottom line is that it is hampering one of the most important clinical interventions for treating trauma that has appeared in recent years from reaching those who are in desperate need and could benefit from it most." -http://energymed.org/pr2.htm

Also see Truthout's Energy Psychology: Mental Health Experts Say It's Time to End the Ban

These "transcranial magnetic stimulators" look barbaric - why bother when there are already better techniques?

Anyway, here are some links for you: one, two, three.

I can see why you are against Wikileaks. You don't even follow normal news, so why would anybody need more?

factors:

The largest percentage of illegal immigrants (most of whom don't pay taxes) of any state in the U.S.

Immigrants do pay taxes. They shop and pay sales tax. And they either own or rent property so they pay property tax. Illegal immigrants even pay income tax. Overall illegal immigrants pay more taxes than the cost of the benefits they get. And if all immigrants were to pay into Social Security without being able to collect it then Social Security would be solvent, have plenty of money for retiring Baby Boomers.

Falcon

This guy has a good historical take on it.

Just because the Chinese have learned the right way to make money and enhancing their competitiveness, It doesn't give you any right to bitch about it.

More angry that the politicians over the last 30 years have dismantled the system that created this economy over the last 200 years. The Chinese then went and implemented our system.

The system is from Alexander Hamilton’s Report on the Subject of Manufactures (1791). From here:

"Those strategic proposals built the greatest industrial powerhouse the world had ever seen and, after more than 200 successful years, were abandoned only during the administrations of Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and Bill Clinton (and remain abandoned to this day). Modern-day China, however, implemented most of Hamilton’s plan and has brought about a remarkable transformation of its nation in a single generation."

When what's good for business is not what is good for the country, the job of government is to step in and ensure we do what is good for the country. Government has become too enamored of business and has lost its way.

We can win..just let loose the market forces and we will see wonders.

Sounds like a religious statement. I don't subscribe to your religion on that one. Over the last 30 years we have tried that and it hasn't worked. All it has done is shipped jobs overseas, made the richer, pushed the middle class downward, and made the poor poorer. There is data that shows this hasn't worked. Look at the data and stop believing in fairy tales.

There are few patriots in the CxO class. As long as Wall Street is only interested in short term gains, that's all these guys are interested in too. So, we indeed sell the Chinese the rope they will use to hang us. The Darwinian capitalism you are recommending just eats itself.

... the long-term process of repairing and strengthening the mind is the real way to go, I would think.

The process isn't nearly as long-term as it used to be.

Practitioners of Energy Psychology have been trying to get someone in the DOD to listen to them for the last 15 years. Earlier this year two psychologists visited congress with a soldier they cured of PTSD. All hope seemed lost, but then lady luck appeared and made some connections for them.

They say that Walter Reed is now doing a formal study of the Emotional Freedom Technique on soldiers with PTSD.

Truth-out recently featured a nice article calling on the American Psychological Association to end its ban on Energy Psychology. And Feinstein now has two papers scheduled for publication in some entirely mainstream psychology journals.

You're quite right about avoiding PTSD by not signing up, but Energy Psychology is the best way to fix the people who come home broken.

I am assuming you are getting your information from here?