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So when Aaron sold his IP to Conde Naste for millions, did that make him a scumbag?
http://3dblogger.typepad.com/wired_state/2013/03/aaron-swartz-was-a-hypocrite.html

Why do you point to 1930s Germany when you can point to gun control in Germany today? I'm curious? You point to events 60 years ago when you can look at gun control in Germany today. Guess what...Germany has very strict gun control laws TODAY. And few gun deaths. And it's no longer a socialist state, in case you haven't been paying attention.

In 2011, the US had 9,800 gun homicide deaths.

Germany had 158.

http://andrewhammel.typepad.com/german_joys/2012/12/gun-deaths-in-germany-and-the-us.html

Strict gun control = less gun violence. It's pretty clear. I know you anti-gun control people hate to hear it, but its true.

Dollars *are* backed by debt. And that debt seemed to be ever increasing, at least up until 2007-ish when the housing market finally imploded.

The Fed doesn't really control or constrain the supply of money, though many economists still believe that they do. It's the double entry book-keeping rules of the banking industry that predominantly create and control the supply of money. A new loan creates both a future obligation and current spending power that didn't exist before. Sure the bank has to find a small amount of money to meet their deposit insurance, liquidity and capital requirements, but that's tiny in comparison to the value of new loans.

Since the level of debt is now such a huge factor in the economy, small accelerations and decelerations in the growth of debt have an enormous impact on the economy. And when everyone recently slammed on the debt brakes the economy practically died.

From: http://dontmesswithtaxes.typepad.com/dont_mess_with_taxes/2013/03/irs-boldly-went-too-far-with-star-trek-parody-video.html
"The cost of both videos was around $60,000, with the Star Trek one accounting for most of that expenditure, according to the IRS. They were produced at the agency's in-house studio, which Boustany said "may have" cost more than $4 million to build."

That said, I think this was actually a good investment for the IRS, to create an in-house facility that gives it more expertise in video media. Video is an important way these days to communicate with citizens. TurboTax has always been helpful with its videos explaining tax issues. Really, $60K to show the IRS can make high-quality videos at an annual meeting is nothing on the scale of the that organization. It's sad they have to back peddle on trying to be innovative or at least "in touch". Of all the things the US government does, this seems one of the more worthwhile to me -- trying to use humor to educate.

Here is an example from IBM of a funny video with "Rowlf the Dog" muppet made for a sales convention, just to show how this is typical for large organizations:
    "Muppet meeting Film IBM"
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KNT0DF6yrg

I'd be more concerned if I were the IRS about whether they licensed the copyrights for the music or various visuals or even possibly need to license Star Trek trademarks -- not that I'm a huge extended copyright fan, because if we had older copyright laws still on the books, all that music would be public domain by now, but unfortunately, it is not... Unfortunately, the laws like for copyright (and all to ofter tax policy) are being written to often for narrow private interests, not the broader public interest.

Perhaps we on the sidelines can look forward to an upcoming RIAA vs. the IRS "battle of the titans" lawsuit, and then maybe also vice-versa if the IRS were to start digging? :-)
http://news.slashdot.org/story/00/09/15/174230/courtney-love-sues-for-her-share
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/01/15/1329200/antitrust-case-against-riaa-reinstated
http://www.themusicindustryissick.com/post/9966065351/courtney-love-does-the-math

I personally used FeedDemon for the better part of a decade, which had an option to synchronize with google reader. Unfortunately the author is also ending development of the software with the Google news being the last straw, effective today.

I'm happy to agree with you that bailouts did little to nothing to prevent economic catastrophe, and are a demonstrably stupid policy.

Hoover was at the very least telling Congress that he was trying to balance the budget, as Brad DeLong at UC Berkeley points out. In doing so, he was following the economic wisdom of the day: Keep the budget balanced, and you'll build market confidence, which will allow the stock markets to bounce back, which will allow businesses to invest again, and then people will be hired, and all will be well. Hoover's counterparts in other countries, including Germany's Heinrich Bruning and Britain's Ramsey MacDonald, were pursuing similar policies.

When the policies weren't working, John Maynard Keynes started trying to come up with a new theory, figuring that maybe the prevailing economic thinkers were understanding the problem incorrectly. Franklin Roosevelt was elected in 1932, started pursuing Keynes' policies in 1933, and GDP was back to pre-crisis levels (in nominal dollars at least) by 1940. That's why Keynesian economics was the dominant way of thinking right up until 1970's stagflation hit.

Along with the earthworms and greening go changes in the range of animals. Bird migration records are one area this is showing up.

http://bwfov.typepad.com/birders_world_field_of_vi/2009/02/audubon-birds-wintering-farther-north-due-to-climate-change.html

...that other states keep driving business out with higher taxes, more bureaucratic red tape, burdensome regulations, and corrupt closed shop union cronyism.

This is why California keeps driving businesses to Texas.

Also, Texas now ranks higher than California in standardized test scores, both in aggregate, and in each demographic ethnic group.

For a more in-depth discussion of these points (with numerous statistics to back it up), see Chuck DeVore's The Texas Model: Prosperity in the Lone Star State and Lessons for America.

About the only part not gutted, is the GWB popularized phrase "make no mistake." Which makes sense given Obama's record -- why just embrace and extend GWB's policies when you can use his phrasification as well?

Hmmm... I don't know, I was expecting a bit of a higher "class" from him.

Tricks to Successful Internetting

1. When in doubt, ARGUE! Being right matters.

2. Hate everything.

3. Saw it already. Funnier the first time.

4. FAKE.

5. Did he died?

6. Make fun of something someone else loves because FUCK THEM!

7. I am so smart. SMRT.

8. LAME.

9. Racism because, just kidding!

10. Treat women like idiots.

11. Definitely comment with fervor. YOUR OPINION COUNTS.

12. CORRECT THAT PUNCTUATION AND GRAMMAR, why not?! SAVE HUMANITY!

13. fat jokes

14. Hate religion because religion hates others because you hate religion because they hate everything because you hate them. EVERYONE IS NOT AS GOOD!

14. Make a list and watch people fix numbers and add things to it...

Well, of course. It's just down the street from the secret nuclear bunker.

Heh... It's not so much the MBAs that's the problem- it's that you've got people that can't handle finding their *ss with both hands, a road map, and a locator beacon, being taught that they can manage anything with nothing more than the MBA education they got. Worse, you've got people where their problem is obvious (and still can't find their *ss) and they're teaching the other fools that they can manage things without honestly knowing a damned thing about what they're managing.

With the grounding in the space you're managing, and with the understanding that not all MBA taught subjects are worth bothering with (For example, while Six Sigma's a good methodology for improving quality in some cases, it's not a magic bullet and it can, even if it's used right, blind you to other problems within your company. Six Sigma's about trying to produce repeatable results- but if you're producing failures or the market took a turn and what was a success is now a failure, you're not going to see the problem if you're relying on Six Sigma, Kaizen, etc. Just look at the company that brought Six Sigma to the limelight- Motorola's now fragmented into a bunch of itty-bitty pieces of it's former self and is viewed as the joke of the entire mobile industry... Six Sigma blinded them to the reality that they had problems, amongst other things.) then it's actually a bit of a useful thing.

It's that it's easy to "educate" vapid middle-level managers and above into thinking they're accomplishing something that you should talk to there- it's the symptom, not the monument you're honestly talking to there. And they're easily swayed by a slick talking NPD/BPD salesman that's just shy of a con-artist if not one.

Just stay away from USB LudicrousSpeed. I tried it and my wallpaper was changed to this

Actually, one of the things that struck me about the life of Rita Levi-Montalcini and her circle was that so many of them were Italian Jews who had married Italian Christians and vice versa. They were atheists and socialists or Communists, and many of them fought in the resistance.

One of my childhood heroes was Enrico Fermi, whose wife, Laura, was Jewish.

You seem to be referring to this argument about Tay-Sachs carriers http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/03/science/03gene.html?pagewanted=all As this article, and the Wikipedia article, points out, the argument has just enough evidence behind it to be intriguing, but not yet enough evidence to be convincing.

I once had a psychology textbook that was written in the 1950s. It was full of bell curves of Negro IQs, white IQs, and Jewish IQs. The Negro IQ curves were 15 points to the left of the white curves, and the Jewish curves were 15 points to the right of the white curves. Data like this led Charles Murray to conclude that Negroes were just plain genetically inferior, although, Murray hastened to add, they did have those mental skills that were useful in the jungles of Africa. So it's futile to try to bring Negroes up to the intellectual accomplishments of white people, Murray argued in the Wall Street Journal, and affirmative action will merely make them frustrated and unhappy. So the lower educational accomplishments of Negroes wasn't due to the lingering effects of slavery and Jim Crow, it wasn't due to the segregated schools where Negroes got textbooks after they were thrown out by white schools, where Negroes were taught how to be carpenters while white students were taught how to be lawyers. Negroes just didn't have the genes for intelligence that like white men did. And, as Charles Murray liked to say, they didn't have the genes like "you guys," the Jews.

I was not very comfortable with these theories, which were not confirmed by later examination.

In fact, I work in biology today, and my own favorite biology teacher, who taught me the important ideas in genetics that I use today, was a black woman. It would be the height of ingratitude for me to tolerate racism towards her children and grandchildren after all she gave me. And I've met a lot of black kids who were smarter than me, particularly in the sciences, which leads me (and a lot of other people) to suspect that Murray must have dropped a decimal point, or has a screw loose, somewhere.

In my understanding, most geneticists are ready to believe that about half of intelligence is due to environment, and half due to genetics. In countries like Finland, which is probably the most egalitarian society in the world, everybody gets a relatively equal educational environment, so much of the variation could be due to genetics. But in countries like the U.S., which is one of the most unequal countries in the world, the effect of environment washes out any genetic effect. At least 20 points of IQ is due to the environment. In the US, and in much of Europe, the Jews are an affluent, successful minority, http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/images/cartoon.jpg particularly in the scientific professions, so it's understandable that they would be winning Nobel prizes disproportionately. It may turn out that Jewish success is entirely environmental.

But these Italian scientists, and their political inspirations like Rosa Luxemburg, said that it's time to put our ethnic identities and religious superstitions behind us, and build a socialist society where everyone -- Jew, Christian, African and everyone else -- will be educated and contribute to their fullest potential.

You can have an arm race too.

So violent agencies of the US government

The Nashua, Hew Hampshire city police department is not an agency of the US government, whether you call them "violent" or not.

are protecting the profits of a private company

It is their job to protect "private companies" as well as private citizens from those who break the law, even if the law is one that you don't agree with like "creating a public disturbance" or "tresspassing", so yes, they are protecting private companies. Allowing someone to create a disturbance at a store would drive other customers away, which would have an effect on the profits, as would a failure to protect a company against vandalism or theft.

that doesn't even pay tax in the US.

There is a lot of print about how Apple uses the US laws to avoid paying taxes in the US, but I've seen nothing that says they pay nothing in the US. One NY Times article refers to how they pay "$2.4 billion less" than the NY Times author thinks they should, but that is not saying they pay nothing. And it isn't claiming that Apple is paying less than what they legally owe. In fact, I find nothing at all that says they are paying less than they legally owe. A company that pays more than they legally owe is breaking it's duty to the stockholders, even if they make bonus points from everyone who thinks everything naturally belongs to everyone except those who already have it. Those bonus points won't keep a company from going bankrupt when the wealth they produce has been redistributed to everyone who wants a piece of it.

The best (only?) number I can pull out of the mess of reporting about this comes from here. It says Apples pays "Adjusted effective tax rate" of 12.8%, which is not zero. So, your claim that they "[don't] pay tax in the US" is proven incorrect.

From TFA: "The world is a constantly changing place, the Google spokesman told AFP, "and keeping on top of these changes is a never-ending endeavour'.'

tell me about it.

The elephant in the room here is that the R party has been fielding slates upon slates of actual true nutball candidates, some of which are actually getting elected.

Eh, the worst of them went down in flames. For example, Todd Akin is history now.

I agree that actual true nutball candidates should be rejected. I only point out that there is a horrific double standard, where the media turns a blind eye towards liberal nutballs, and focuses the white hot light of publicity on conservatives who are even slightly quirky. Just imagine if it had been a Republican who had expressed fears that Guam will capsize... but it wasn't, and only right-wing media reported that story.

To me, the worst nutballs are the ones who don't understand economics but presume to command the economy. These are mostly liberal Democrats. For example, most of them claim that we don't need to cut spending at all, that if we just tax the rich all our troubles are over. That's a worse mistake than believing that the Bible is the literal true history of creation. (You could tax the rich at 100%, just straight-up take all their stuff, and it wouldn't even pay for one year of spending, let alone solve our problems.) For another example, Social Security is headed for catastrophe, yet most of these guys insist that we cannot possibly change it or cut spending.

That, and while I really do prefer the President to be scientifically grounded, it is a less important qualification for that position

But President Obama has clearly shown that he doesn't understand economics, yet he intends to command the economy. My bold prediction as an Anonymous Coward: the next four years will be even worse than the last four years. Wait and see.

Nonsense. You can never have enough options.

It would save us a shitload of tax money and we would no longer have to worry about the American taliban getting their voice in our laws.

http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2012/09/who-receives-the-disproportionate-share-of-government-spending.html

I call bullshit. The blog in your link quotes from a David Brooks editorial in the NYT:

The people who receive the disproportionate share of government spending are not big-government lovers. They are Republicans. They are senior citizens. They are white men with high school degrees.

That editorial was in response to a quote from Mitt Romney

There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it.

The first is a good example of yellow journalism while the second is a good example of how politicians use valid statistics to lie to the public, made all the more easier because most people automatically translate “entitlement program” to “welfare” when in reality it also includes benefits paid for or earned by the recipients, like Social Security, Medicare and VA benefits. As to how Brooks derived Republicans, seniors and white males, he never does really make it clear but one has to guess that's his bigoted idea of who a senior receiving Social Security or someone receiving VA benefits must be.

That's hardly a Hitler mindset. No one is talking about interning Muslims like Roosevelt did with the Japanese Americans during WWII much less gassing them and throwing them in mass graves.

Yeah, and nobody was talking about that stuff outloud until it was way past time to put the brakes on. But they are doing pretty much same sort of demonization that lead up to those sorts of actions. LIke I said, genocide is not a party plank, but we are getting way closer than is healthy. Numbnuts' innumerate defense of bigotry above is unacceptably close to mainstream within the party.

It would save us a shitload of tax money and we would no longer have to worry about the American taliban getting their voice in our laws.

http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2012/09/who-receives-the-disproportionate-share-of-government-spending.html

http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2012/09/who-receives-the-disproportionate-share-of-government-spending.html

Stupid pedantic point, but it is better than the original state when people were killed just cause. But, in case you didn't notice, only one western country tried outlawing alcohol, and it lasted like 15 years. Then it was undone because it was a stupid idea.

You just can't admit that people doing something new doesn't make the new thing better or the old thing worse, can you?

And notice how stonings, etc. don't happen anymore in western countries. In fact, you brought that up just because it's shocking and we don't do it anymore.

It went: Stone Everyone->Stone people over little things->Stone people over alcohol->Stone no-one

That's because a large portion of the planet has moved onto decapitation. It's also, more importantly, not true. Even the crucifiction thing in Egypt was just an elaborate hoax; stoning is the modern method.

Yeah, but Edison didn't. I'm not saying that people weren't wrong about fire, I'm saying Edison didn't prove them wrong.

Moving goalpost.

Maybe a revolutionary way of using market forces would work. So... what would that revolutionary way be?

You've been arguing that this simply isn't the case, rather than asking the important question. I'll give an answer after a quick non-sequitur...

And seriously, you just seem to move the goal-posts around like crazy.

Nah, I'm just disorganized. Argumentation is about sounding smart by looking organized and being well-spoken; I've never been organized.and I elucidate poorly.

Anyway to answer the above, I've been bouncing crap around in my head but haven't found an opportune time to just dump this: scropion vaccine. In Mexico, $250 at pharmacy. In the US, $3750 to the distributor, $3950 to the hospital, and $35,000 per dose to the patient. $50,000/year HIV maintenance drugs are like $200/year in Africa for the same exact shit from the same company. Open heart surgery--supplies, electricity, equipment, salaries--costs about $5000, but the bill is closer to a quarter million.

Some regulations are needed. Some regulations are very bad and wrong. In the US we tend to get the regulations that increase barrier to entry and destroy small business, while either slightly irritating or outright helping large, hostile businesses. Republicans scream regulation is bad, Democrats scream regulation is good, nobody wants to talk about what KIND of regulation. Obamacare is one kind and, in fact, you and I have both agreed that it's the wrong kind--the dispute is simply over WHY it's the wrong kind.

All you need to do is provide health care for all - poor and those with preexisting conditions. You can go single-payer. You can have private companies compete.

Pre-existing conditions creates the problem that we have to assume the pre-existing conditions in the risk pool, making healthcare much more expensive--insurance is about risk balance, and really lopping off the low hanging fruit. It's not about wealth redistribution. This becomes an issue even when you publicly fund everyone's insurance--the poor people in the system increase the risk, so premiums must increase to compensate. Sec, I'll get to that.

The reason poor people increase risk--and this is important, so pay attention and save forming counter-arguments for a second read-through--is because they get sick more. Poor people are culturally different; they're our neighbors, our sons and daughters, all that jazz, but they're different. They're poor, and a poor life requires different behaviors to survive. Rich and middle class people are EXTREMELY extracted; the middle class and the rich think the poor are all thieves and criminals--plenty are-

They do not market them to children. The products have extensive warnings on them.

Here's the package that was sold at my mall. I see no warnings. In fact if you can read that scribbling on the front in a playful font it says "The amazing magnetic toy you can't put down." Is that how you market to adults?

Jesus Christ, who's lying to who here? This company seems to not want to properly label their product and just throw their hands up and rage quit when a consumer protection agency makes them!

That's completely untrue. They don't market them to children, and have prominent warnings all over the packaging saying to keep them away from children and that swallowing them can cause death. I counted no less than 5 copies of that warning in the last package of them I opened. One of the warnings was on a sticker holding the package closed - you can't even open them without seeing a large warning that they can kill you. There's also a warning on the little plastic box they give you to store them in.

The lawsuit is not about informing consumers because I honestly can't think of any more the company can do to warn people Cigarettes have fewer warning labels than buckyballs. The lawsuit is trying to prevent any sale of the product at all, which is stupid.

Your claims are cute but I'd like to see photos. I've picked up this package in stores and seen nothing about death, dead children, surgeries, killing, etc. Can you provide evidence? In that very picture I linked, there is nothing -- certainly not large enough for a kid to see.

He's written some very interesting reports on the economic effects of tax policy on income, like this one from 12/2011, entitled "Changes in the Distribution of Income Among Tax Filers Between 1996 and 2006: The Role of Labor Income, Capital Income, and Tax Policy", which describes contributors of modern income inequality.

He points out that "the poorest tax filers (bottom 20%) saw average after-tax income fall by 6% between 1996 and 2006, while those in the richest quintile (top 20%) saw their average after-tax income rise by 38% over the same period. This rise in income is significantly smaller than the rise in income at the top of the income distribution. The richest 1% of tax filers experienced a 74% increase in after-tax income and the richest 0.1% (one tax filer in a thousand) saw their after-tax income almost double (an increase of 96%)."

Quite interesting.

Espionage != sabotage

Look at the computers on the desk here:
http://ronslog.typepad.com/ronslog/2008/05/eagle-mountain.html

Any clues as to control over some of the SCADA systems here might do?

in my best "say what again!" voice: Tell me it's not gonna cause problems!

Try something by Greg Egan. His short story Glory (pdf) is online.

Defamation is a broad category that includes libel and slander. Libel is defamation that occurs in a persistent form; slander is defamation that occurs in a transitory form.

According to the complaint, Mann is suing for five counts of libel and one count of intentional infliction of emotional distress.

How about just a small cabin coming off a boom arm, for medical emergencies and recreation if otherwise unoccupied? It's not like we don't know how to make something like that...

  http://dontmesswithtaxes.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/screamer_carnival_ride.jpg

I guess you're the center of the universe, then. It didn't happen if you didn't read it. So I'll provide some tech news/blog posts about the similarity. FYI, Diaspora first released the aspects ("circles") feature and the alpha UI in September 2010. Google+ launched in June 2011.

http://www.gizmag.com/diaspora-google-plus-resemblance/20638/

http://www.launch.co/blog/did-google-copy-diaspora-or-vice-versa.html

http://babyfruit.typepad.com/mediagirl/2011/09/google-meet-diaspora-or-maybe-you-know-them-already.html

http://www.launch.co/blog/diaspora-finally-unveiled-feels-like-google.html

They probably shouldn't have put the routers in the secret nuclear bunker.

There's more detail here, including links to papers: http://voipsecurityblog.typepad.com/marks_voip_security_blog/2012/09/dtmf-telephony-denial-of-service-tdos-issues-for-ivrs.html

Ex-Broward teachers union chief charged with theft, fraud

ARRESTED: School Board Member Stephanie Kraft and Husband Mitch

Ex-Broward School Board member Beverly Gallagher sentenced to 37 months in prison

Read more here: http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/2010/06/exschool-board-member-beverly-gallagher-sentenced-to-37-months-in-prison.html#storylink=cpy

That's just in the past 5 years.

Ex-Broward teachers union chief charged with theft, fraud

ARRESTED: School Board Member Stephanie Kraft and Husband Mitch

Ex-Broward School Board member Beverly Gallagher sentenced to 37 months in prison

Read more here: http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/2010/06/exschool-board-member-beverly-gallagher-sentenced-to-37-months-in-prison.html#storylink=cpy

That's just in the past 5 years.

I wonder if Larry and Sergei, both jews, would take issue with a video revealing just how insidious jewish activity is in global politics, the nature of jewish control over the US economy and political space and the belief held by jews that it is jewish destiny to dominate the world militarily. I wonder how they would react to a documentary showing just how much contempt jews have for all non-jews.

If you want an extremist religion that encourages its adherent to hold all others in contempt, judaism is the real place to look. Rabbis have come straight out and said that it is moral for jews to kill healthy non-jews in order to harvest organs. Here are a few links for starters:

http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/2012/05/rabbis-who-endorsed-the-murder-of-non-jewish-babies-wont-be-prosecuted-ag-says-345.html
http://coteret.com/2009/11/09/settler-rabbi-publishes-the-complete-guide-to-killing-non-jews/

Wow... where to begin?

I would love for you to educate me on how Jews are insidiously infiltrating and controlling world politics considering the number of stone-age countries with outright mandates on Israel's destruction.

Please explain to me how Jews control the US economy (have you seen the US economy? whomever is in control is doing a crappy job).

I would love for you to explain to me how you came to the conclusion that is it the Jewish destiny to dominate the world militarily (seeing as Jews make up a tiny fraction of the world population)...

I can recall maybe one or two extremist Jews that resorted to violence to make their point. I never hear of Jewish suicide bombers killing dozens of innocent non-Jews because their "leaders" told them that they would be rewarded in the afterlife or that their religious doctrine says it's OK to commit mass murder...

Speaking as a Jew ... I only have contempt for idiots like you and religious zealots who can only speak the language of violence. Obviously why you are posting anonymously (or trolling).

I wonder if Larry and Sergei, both jews, would take issue with a video revealing just how insidious jewish activity is in global politics, the nature of jewish control over the US economy and political space and the belief held by jews that it is jewish destiny to dominate the world militarily. I wonder how they would react to a documentary showing just how much contempt jews have for all non-jews.

If you want an extremist religion that encourages its adherent to hold all others in contempt, judaism is the real place to look. Rabbis have come straight out and said that it is moral for jews to kill healthy non-jews in order to harvest organs. Here are a few links for starters:

http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/2012/05/rabbis-who-endorsed-the-murder-of-non-jewish-babies-wont-be-prosecuted-ag-says-345.html
http://coteret.com/2009/11/09/settler-rabbi-publishes-the-complete-guide-to-killing-non-jews/

I wonder if Larry and Sergei, both jews, would take issue with a video revealing just how insidious jewish activity is in global politics, the nature of jewish control over the US economy and political space and the belief held by jews that it is jewish destiny to dominate the world militarily. I wonder how they would react to a documentary showing just how much contempt jews have for all non-jews.

If you want an extremist religion that encourages its adherent to hold all others in contempt, judaism is the real place to look. Rabbis have come straight out and said that it is moral for jews to kill healthy non-jews in order to harvest organs. Here are a few links for starters:

http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/2012/05/rabbis-who-endorsed-the-murder-of-non-jewish-babies-wont-be-prosecuted-ag-says-345.html
http://coteret.com/2009/11/09/settler-rabbi-publishes-the-complete-guide-to-killing-non-jews/

The backscatter from that botnet is most annoying!
http://riskman.typepad.com/perilocity/2012/08/festi-botnet-infesting-the-world-july-2012.html

Yup, I've been reading Tom Murphy's blog since it started.
However, recently I've been more influenced by Guy McPherson and George Mobus. Both exaggerate a bit but I think fundamentally they're right.

We'll keep burning as much fossil fuel as we can produce (which means shifting to ever dirtier fuel as oil and gas slide down the Hubbert curve) until the warming is so bad that it'll destroy the industrial civilization. Nothing else will have enough power to stop anything. There are many scenarios that are plausible but so far out that nobody will touch them with a pole, like 1000 ppm CO2 and 10C warming.
So far we've consistently surpassed the worst case scenarios, which means the climate science consensus (e.g. IPCC) is extremely conservative.

Literally no one in recorded history has ever been killed by a meteorite.

I think you might want to check your facts. Here is a partial list of human deaths due to meteorite impact:
1929, Zvezvan, Yugoslavia, 1 killed
1907, Weng-li, China, entire family killed
1879, Dun-Lepoelier, France, 1 killed
1879, Newtown, Indiana, USA, 1 killed
1874, Ming Tung li, China, 1 killed
1825, Oriang, India, 1 killed
1790, France, 1 killed
1511 Cremona, Italy, 1 killed

Yeah, it's pretty rare.

We just believe that people, not governments, are the best source of help for the poor. Ron Paul probably doesn't belong in that particular list with Sarah Palin and George Bush, by the way.

I agree about Ron Paul. However the NYT article doesn't tell the whole story. Red States Feed at Federal Trough, Blue States Supply the Feed explains how blue states pay more in federal taxes than they get back in spending whereas red states get more from the feds than they pay in taxes. For every dollar blue state New Yorkers pay in federal taxes they get back $0.81. Red state North Dakota residents receive $2.03 for every dollar they pay.

Falcon

It appears that the Russians are working to restore and update the Russian nee Soviet state's ability to conduct political warfare, which was quite powerful. Some of the lies they spread have yet to die down. Since the Russian state seems to heading back towards Soviet methods and attitudes, everyone should be concerned.

Soviets Sponsor Spread of AIDS Disinformation

A Soviet political warfare manual comments on 'socialist education'

Soviet methods did not spare their allies.

A Portrait of Stalin: Secret Police

You need to learn how to read charts. That chart and every other chart you can find show pretty much the same thing. Without the colors to tell the difference, you wouldn't be able to tell whether it was Dems or Reps causing the filibusters.

The number of filibusters by either side has been steadily rising. It doesn't matter who started it. All that you can guarantee is that the other party will do the same shortly after.

Interesting question though: if I submit a retrieval job, how soon do I have to actually download the associated data? Can I wait a few hours or days?

According to the AWS Blog, 24 hours:

Each retrieval request that you make to Glacier is a called a job. You can poll Glacier to see if your data is available, or you can ask it to send a notification to the Amazon SNS topic of your choice when the data is available. You can then access the data via HTTP GET requests, including byte range requests. The data will remain available to you for 24 hours.

Bubble bubble bubble.

http://slopeofhope.typepad.com/.a/6a00e009898222883301761756d819970c-800wi

Gonna blow.

Not all radioactive isotopes are equally toxic because of types of radiation and their half lives. (Alpha, beta, and gamma). Cesium-137 alone and it's by-products produce beta and gamma (more damaging) along with a half life that is 30X longer. And it's even more dangerous when ingested and keeps accumulating from everything you eat, breathe and drink on top of the K-40 already in your body.

"March 2012 up to 18,700 becquerels per kilogram radioactive cesium was detected in yamame, or landlocked masu salmon, caught in the Niida river near the town Iitate, which was over 37 times the legal limit of 500 becquerels/kg."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_effects_from_Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster#Agricultural_products

Click the link to learn about the other radioactive materials:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_effects_from_Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster#Isotopes_of_concern

And you are correct. Not everyone will get cancer. Others will suffer from crippling genetic mutations.
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/fukushima-radiation-causes-insect-mutations-researchers-20120817-24cy2.html

In this case, someone really should think of the children.
http://chernobyl.typepad.com/chernobyl_childrens_proje/people_their_stories/

"Show of hands: how many of you guys even knew this guy's name before the VP announcement?"

Actually, Paul Ryan has gotten a lot of mention in political news for the last few years due to his budget proposals. That's the whole reason Romney picked him for VP. If you've been paying attention to American politics (and I don't blame you for not), you should have heard of him by now. People on the left talk about him a fair bit because the media takes his "deficit-reduction" plans very seriously even though they don't actually reduce the deficit (Republicans get a free pass on this sort of thing). Here's ThinkProgress way back in 2009:

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2009/03/30/37165/ryan-gop-budget/

Here's Paul Krugman in 2010:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/06/opinion/06krugman.html

Here's Dean Baker in 2010:

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2010/08/can-we-plese-shut-the-washington-post-down-today.html

Here's Bruce Bartlett in 2011:

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Columns/2011/04/07/Wealthy-Get-Free-Pass-in-Ryan-Budget.aspx

Finally, here's some Ryan critiquing from earlier this year:

http://baselinescenario.com/2012/03/24/why-do-new-york-times-columnists-keep-swooning-for-paul-ryan/

And here's DeLong again from yesterday:

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2012/08/in-which-i-disagree-with-josh-barro-on-paul-ryan-arithmetick-has-to-be-primary-hey-rocky-watch-me-pull-a-rabbit-out-of-th.html

You'll note that neither Ryan's budgets nor their criticisms have changed very much. As for your friends, perhaps they felt their "cut+pasted pre-digested talking points that someone else wrote" were informative enough. There's nothing wrong with referencing someone else's writing.

"Show of hands: how many of you guys even knew this guy's name before the VP announcement?"

Actually, Paul Ryan has gotten a lot of mention in political news for the last few years due to his budget proposals. That's the whole reason Romney picked him for VP. If you've been paying attention to American politics (and I don't blame you for not), you should have heard of him by now. People on the left talk about him a fair bit because the media takes his "deficit-reduction" plans very seriously even though they don't actually reduce the deficit (Republicans get a free pass on this sort of thing). Here's ThinkProgress way back in 2009:

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2009/03/30/37165/ryan-gop-budget/

Here's Paul Krugman in 2010:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/06/opinion/06krugman.html

Here's Dean Baker in 2010:

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2010/08/can-we-plese-shut-the-washington-post-down-today.html

Here's Bruce Bartlett in 2011:

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Columns/2011/04/07/Wealthy-Get-Free-Pass-in-Ryan-Budget.aspx

Finally, here's some Ryan critiquing from earlier this year:

http://baselinescenario.com/2012/03/24/why-do-new-york-times-columnists-keep-swooning-for-paul-ryan/

And here's DeLong again from yesterday:

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2012/08/in-which-i-disagree-with-josh-barro-on-paul-ryan-arithmetick-has-to-be-primary-hey-rocky-watch-me-pull-a-rabbit-out-of-th.html

You'll note that neither Ryan's budgets nor their criticisms have changed very much. As for your friends, perhaps they felt their "cut+pasted pre-digested talking points that someone else wrote" were informative enough. There's nothing wrong with referencing someone else's writing.