Slashdot Mirror

http://www.upi.com/Health_News...

http://www.czrlaw.com/medical-...

I don't know where you picked you stats, but recently Tesla just announced otherwise.

Actually I watched the recent excitement regarding Tesla on CNBC earlier this month, but googling shows:
"April 5 (UPI) -- Tesla Motors announced it broke a company record for the first quarter of 2015 ... The record was broken through a 55 percent sales increase for the same period from the previous year."
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Wo...

When you want to take over the world... always start with the children...

What better place to hide metal particles?

loss of intelligence

Uh, no...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

impairment of driving

No again...

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US...

UPI Story on CIA and UFOs says half the UFO reports in the 50s and 60s were really sightings of their U2 aircraft, which were secret because they still hadn't found what they were looking for, and which flew enough higher and faster than normal airplanes that people didn't recognize them. (Remember that propeller planes were still common, though jets were starting to be common.)

Even in the late 80s / early 90s, supersonic planes weren't common - the Concorde only went that fast over the ocean, mainly due to sonic boom concerns, and the new wide-area air traffic control system that was being developed then wasn't spec'd for them; you'd typically get one blip and then they'd be off the radar screen.

The LEAST I now expect is for the relevant Muslim leaders to condemn that shit. To declare a fatwa that such behavior is un-Islam and that it is against Islam teachings.

You mean like this one (text available here)? Or this one? Or this one? Or this one?

The problem is that people who demand Muslims condemn violence actually don't care what Muslims have to say. It's just posturing.

No, what happened to you was odd.

It's actually quite normal for the Supreme Court to pick cases where the lower courts normally can't agree on. In this case, the Supreme Court ruling was given on December 15th, 2014. So today, being December 19th, 2014, implies that there wasn't a definitive answer on this question until four days ago.

It's always been the case that if the cop had probable cause for conducting the search the results are admissible.

You're extrapolating. In the case of the Supreme Court case, the driver (allegedly) gave the cops consent to search his car. In the case of the parent poster, he doesn't say whether he consented to the search, or not.

Granted, "consent" can mean very little these days, just take a look on Youtube. To some police officers, even leaving your car door closed -- but unlocked, when stepping out of your car on the command of the police officer, implies that you've given them consent to search your car.

How? Be specific. If I put a gun on a table in front of you, it will sit there for a thousand years without hurting either one of us. Are you concerned it will spontaneously explode, or grow some sort of nerve tentacles that will intrude into your brain and make you do something awful?

Now start cleaning that gun and the picture changes. Now take the gun to a shooting range, and remove all the bullets when you take it home and put it on the table. What are the chances that you left a bullet? Now show your friends that there are no bullets. What are the chances that you fire a shot from a gun that you absolutely positively definitely knew had no bullets in it, and kill one of your friends?

You don't leave a gun on the table for thousand years without touching it, so the safety of leaving it there is irrelevant. And leaving your gun with no human touching it isn't safe: http://www.upi.com/Odd_News/20...

I hate to be so harsh, but the amount of irrational bullshit that people spread deserves harsh responses and heavy criticism. Don't worry, citations are provided at the end of this post.

If this was really and truly "for the children" as you claim I want you to demonstrate that today's kids are smarter than kids 100 years ago. You can't, because facts do not back this at all. On average our IQ is 4-14 points lower today than it was 60 years ago. That is not a small measure, that is a huge measure. This is even though when Radio came out we were told that Radio would make everyone smarter, and when TV came out we were told TV would make everyone smarter, and when home video came out we were told that home video would make everyone smarter, and when computers came out we were told that computers would make everyone smarter. THOSE THINGS NEVER HAPPENED!

Taking your claim at face value, the "coders" have to somehow believe that all of the knowledge they were required to have to become world changing coders is not relevant to who they are or what they do for a living. They must believe that somehow you can circumvent all educational requirements and shit coders right out of high school that can not only understand the world, but extremely complex problems, and further be able to begin mapping out solutions to these complex problems. That is right! Taking you at your word these "coders" must believe that they have no education to back their abilities and _anyone_ can do their job with minimal education and a minimal coding skills.

I am not taking you at your word because history and facts do not back your word. Lets look at reality shall we? You can't teach physics without teaching them math first, and you can't teach someone to write novels without teaching them grammar and composition. You can't teach someone to be a mechanical engineer by simply giving them a drag and drop CAD program, and you can't teach chemistry by giving someone a drag and drop periodical table of elements. These are things we know so well that we don't even question them. We can argue semantics after the fact like what CAD program is better, but we don't expect a kid to be able to find the area of a rectangle without being able to multiply _FIRST_.

Based on what we know, there is a rational conclusion that "You can't make someone a competent programmer by giving them a drag and drop program to "develop code" in either. This is such a basic premise that I'm astounded that people like you will claim "but it's for the children" when all empirical evidence shows that it's NOT for the children. It's to make cheap obedient servants for the masters!

References for IQ here and here. Reference for intentional institutionalized education problems here. The issue of institutional attempts to shortcut education is here.

But as a sole proprietorship if you get sued you can lose everything you own. A LLC buffers you from them taking your personal assets. Of course we all say why would I ever be sued? I do great work. Then you encounter someone who makes their living off of suing. I wouldn't risk it.

This issue is far too complex to express in a single variable such as hours worked. The poor have less access to child care, for example, and are more likely to be in single-parent households. Recall the woman (Charlene Dill) who died in Florida a few weeks ago? Much has been said on the left and right about her case (because she fell into the insurance "donut hole" created by Florida's refusal to accept federal money to expand Medicare) but the fact remains she was working 3 part-time jobs trying to make ends meet, while trying to raise 3(?) kids on her own. That's a tough row to hoe, by any standard.

And her story is hardly unique in these times. Real wages have been flat for three decades, while worker productivity has steadily risen over the same period. Meanwhile, CEO pay is through the roof, corporate earnings are better than ever, and effective tax rates on corporations and the wealthy elites are lower than ever. There is no longer any room for doubt that we are living in a plutocracy, not a democracy. And according to a recent NASA study, that is a prime indicator that we are a society on the brink of collapse.

These factors can lead to collapse when they converge to generate two crucial social features: "the stretching of resources due to the strain placed on the ecological carrying capacity"; and "the economic stratification of society into Elites [rich] and Masses (or "Commoners") [poor]" These social phenomena have played "a central role in the character or in the process of the collapse," in all such cases over "the last five thousand years."

...

Elite wealth monopolies mean that they are buffered from the most "detrimental effects of the environmental collapse until much later than the Commoners", allowing them to "continue 'business as usual' despite the impending catastrophe." The same mechanism, they argue, could explain how "historical collapses were allowed to occur by elites who appear to be oblivious to the catastrophic trajectory (most clearly apparent in the Roman and Mayan cases)."

...

"While some members of society might raise the alarm that the system is moving towards an impending collapse and therefore advocate structural changes to society in order to avoid it, Elites and their supporters, who opposed making these changes, could point to the long sustainable trajectory 'so far' in support of doing nothing."

Spending 2 minutes reading Feinstein's Wiki page discounts any possible claim you have of "extraordinary". You could not possibly be claiming that everything I stated was dependent on Feinstein explicitly stating one sentence in one way, because that would be idiocy.

Here are One, two, three references, all of politicians calling for the death of Snowden (and one of those contains 6 references).

I can not find the exact quote from Feinstein either, but this is not uncommon nor does it make my statement wrong. Feinstein called Snowden a traitor, which has a punishment of the death penalty. If Feinstein was not a supporter of the death penalty I may cut some slack. Her Wiki page speaks for her very well.

Feinstein is a supporter of capital punishment.

Even assuming she did not state "kill him" directly, there is a very obvious indirect statement by her calling him a traitor (on numerous occasions).

Chick-fil-a's CEO, Dan Cathy, may actually disagree with you. Not long ago, he openly apologized for his comments about gay marriage and his donations to many of the apparent hate groups have declined or all together stopped. He cited many reasons for his change of heart, but the most telling was that "it was bad for business." http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US...

I remember reading at the time (although I can't find the source anymore) that while sales spiked during the initial publicity, they later declined to a point lower than before the controversy started. So they didn't really get any new customers from the whole thing, just lots of people who were already Chick-fil-a customers going out and making a statement. Once the controversy died down, existing customers went back to their old purchasing habits. However, they did lose customers. Those who used to be customers and were offended by the comments, will likely never be customers again.

A company needs to succeed based on the product that they are offering, whether its differentiating qualities are real or perceived. Anything else is simply a distraction. This goes for chicken and web browsers. The views of the CEO shouldn't be a consideration for customers when choosing a web browser.

As Truman famously said, The Buck Stops Here. The president is the head of the executive branch and the commander in chief of the armed forces. He absolutely has authority over his personal security. My opinion? Take a queue from the Queen and take public transit. Or from the Pope and walk. Even heads of states who have boots on the ground in Afghanistan fly commercial. Nothing supports a culture of fear more than a leader who doesn't have enough faith in his people to travel among them.

You're absolutely right that the money is not a solution especially because it would put them into an eternal hell of discrimination (which is already the case because a lot of Japanese treat anybody who got anywhere near radioactivity as if they had some infectious disease). I was tempted to write more on this, but the comment was long enough as it was and I thought the reference to the tsunami victims was enough to show the problems with that.

The most important thing that should be done is to talk rationally about radioactivity. But so long as the anti-nuclear shills keep screaming at the top of their lungs, this is not going to happen - but this is exactly where the psychological problems and the trauma are coming from. It is also where a lot of deaths are coming from and the reason why the evacuations that were supposedly going to safe peoples lives were so incredibly botched that people people died in the vehicles they were evacuated in. Which is hardly surprising, when hospitals are evacuated and incapacitated patients are put in hospital gowns and driven for over 100km without any medical attention.

The blame for the terrible death of those people rests solely with an international movement that is spreading fear and panic in order to gain political power, without any regard for the people they harm. And this harm is much worse than the radiation they claim to be protecting people from.

And while we're on the subject of Merkel | Germany | spying:

Merkel's cellphone said targeted by 5 countries' spy agencies

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's cellphone was tapped by at least five foreign intelligence agencies, not just by the United States, a German magazine said.

Besides the U.S. National Security Agency, Merkel's phone was monitored by the British, Russian, Chinese and North Korean surveillance agencies, weekly news magazine Focus reported, citing an unnamed German security official.

But what's the benefit of capital punishment? Revenge? Justice? Deterrence? Closure?

Well, it certainly would have stopped these gentlemen:

1) "Man Who Killed 5 In MN Kills Again Behind Bars"

2) "Investigators have connected a 30-year-old cold case triple homicide in Iowa to a man who was later executed for the unrelated murder of a Missouri girl, officials said Friday."

3) "Escaped prisoner convicted in New Mexico of killing Oklahoma couple: McCluskey was one of three inmates, all convicted killers, who escaped from a contract prison in Kingman, Ariz"

Actually your link appears to support the research in the linked article

From the abstract:

CONCLUSIONS: The results of the current study suggest that having an increased familial morbid risk for schizophrenia may be the underlying basis for schizophrenia in cannabis users and not cannabis use by itself.

You're illiterate or simply retarded. Good day, sir.

Wrong.

Actually your link appears to support the research in the linked article I provided, specifically:

"This paper is among the first to reveal that the use of marijuana may contribute to the changes in brain structure that have been associated with having schizophrenia."

Chronic marijuana use could augment the underlying disease process associated with schizophrenia, Smith noted.

"If someone has a family history of schizophrenia, they are increasing their risk of developing schizophrenia if they abuse marijuana," he said.

Heavy pot use linked to memory loss, schizophrenia link

Wrong.

[regulation] affected people of all sexes, races, classes, and ages

Read up on the current state of affairs.

What was the great harm caused by marijuana again?

It's unclear if you forgot or never knew, which is consistent with your interest.

Heavy pot use linked to memory loss, schizophrenia link

There are other documented effects, and it has been thought to play the role of a gateway drug. I'll get you dig into it if you're really interested, ... and you remember.

Yeah, only latinos and negroes. White folk didn't have/generate that problem, right? No poppy seeds were available in the US EVER!

Opium was one of the first drugs regulated in various places in the US, and an early drug for Federal regulation. It affected people of all sexes, races, classes, and ages.

America's First Drug Epidemic 1850-1914

;) . . . Cough cough

Heavy pot use linked to memory loss, schizophrenia link

What I find truly ironic - people are blaming FedEx and UPS for 'failing to plan ahead properly' when *they're* the ones ordering things at the very last second. UPS should include a small, complimentary mirror with each of these delayed packages when they're delivered.

Well from the stories I've read and anecdotally, not everyone was "very last second". I know of at least two people whose packages were shipped two weeks before Christmas and still have not gotten them yet. There's also stories that the packages have sat in UPS facilities for a week without being moved or delivered.

You didn't even read the various articles, available with a simple Google search, did you? ... Everyone involved knew that Boeing was the front runner. Everyone. No one expected the contract to go to anyone, other than Boeing.

I could ask you the same thing.

L’aventure brésilienne du Gripen

The inside word in Brasilia is that the Brazilian Air Force had always favored the Gripen. No wonder Dassault officially took it very badly; the Gripen was dismissed as not nearly as sophisticated as the Rafale.

Brazil expects a better jet fighter deal

French jet fighter Rafale was the hot favorite after former French President Nicolas Sarkozy canvassed for manufacturer Dassault Aviation during talks with former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Dassault Rafale for Brazil

Following the announcement that the Dassault Rafale had emerged as the lowest bidder in the Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) tender for the Indian Air Force, it appears that Brazil could select this aircraft against the F-18 Super Hornet and Sweden’s Saab Gripen.

Based on some of your comments in another post discussing one of the news stories it looks to me like you either missed or misinterpreted various points in that story as well in regards to the fighter competition.

You also apparently didn't read many of the posts from people commenting favorably on the Grippen in this story on Slashdot:

US Spying Costs Boeing Military Jet Deal With Brazil

So we have the Eurofighter Typhoon, Lockheed Martin F-16, Sukhoi Su-35, Dassault Rafael, and Boeing Super Hornet in competition with Saab's Grippen, but all lost to Saab's Grippen. Do you think that the winner didn't offer the best deal overall? Do you think it isn't possible that the US was given a twist of the knife since it only cost a few anonymously spoken words in a newspaper, with no documentation to back it up? Do you think that only the US spies on Brazil? The Russians, British, and French don't? Do I need to answer that for you?

You know, I'm slow to accuse people of being paid shills, but I'm getting close to that point in your case.

Believe what you will. If you want to engage in honest, open, respectful discussion, fine. But understand I won't be neutral about how you address me. If you want to refer to me as a "paid shill," then I will have to conclude that you are a narrow minded jackass that has such a stunted view that you are unable to fathom the possibility that of the tens of millions of people that have views similar to mine in some respect that one of them could have showed up on Slashdot, and long before you at that. On the plus side you'll have plenty of company since Sturgeon's law applies here.

Snowden has offered to help Brazil investigate US intelligence. Is that the patriotism you were referring to?

Why, yes, Yes it is.
Any spying on Brazil was for economic reasons, probably at the behest of corporations, not due to any threat to the US.

Smug AND clueless. Nice. Nice.

THE NEW CHINA-BRAZIL AXIS
http://prospect.org/article/new-china-brazil-axis
"Last week, an interview at a Brazilian defense website revealed that China and Brazil had come to an agreement regarding the training of Chinese naval personnel on board the Sao Paulo, Brazil's only aircraft carrier. Brazil is one of the only four countries in the world to possess an aircraft carrier capable of launching and recovering conventional aircraft; the others are France, Russia, and the United States."

China Carrier Starts Second Round of Jet Tests
http://news.usni.org/2013/06/19/china-carrier-starts-second-round-of-jet-tests
"The People’s Liberation Army Navy has conducted a second round of jet tests aboard its aircraft carrier with its J-15 carrier-based fighter on Wednesday, according to a report from the Xinhua news agency.
The Chinese are being trained in carrier aviation —the most complicated military aviation operations — by a cadre of Brazilian carrier pilots."

Brazilian Nuclear Cooperation with the People's Republic of China
http://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/brazilian-nuclear-cooperation-the-peoples-republic-china

Brazil, China build military industry ties
http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Security-Industry/2009/11/17/Brazil-China-build-military-industry-ties/UPI-86341258474208/

Brazil builds Russian defense ties with missile plan
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/16/brazil-russia-idUSL1N0I61NC20131016

Brazil’s Iran Diplomacy Worries U.S. Officials
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/15/world/americas/15lula.html?_r=0

Proposed Russian-Cuba-Venezuela Space Cooperation Raises Many Questions
http://jasonpoblete.com/2008/09/22/proposed-russian-cuba-venezuela-space-cooperation-raises-many-questions/

Yep, nooooo reason at all to be interested there.

But have a friendly discussion with your friends. The old saying goes, "don't discuss politics or religion," but I say the opposite. If you show them respect, they'll learn to respect you, and in turn, they'll learn to respect opposing points of view. You might even learn a few things.

The reason for that saying is that most political/religious debates arent actually debates, and usually end up as, "fuck you, you're wrong and you should die" because most people are incapable of having an intelligent debate, and flip-the-fuck out when presented with facts that dont actively support their beliefs. This is actually rather well studied.

See cognitive bias, backfire effect, Semmelweis reflex, etcetc.

You can buy a license.

Five nuclear power plants in the US have closed this year, due to a combination of competitive and operating issues. An industry analyst quoted in the article expects more plant closures to come.

... which shows that gas can undercut nuclear at current prices (and subject to current environmental regulations). So, yes, if you think it is OK to carry on burning fossil fuels, then nuclear power does not make economic sense at the moment. The same goes for wind and solar power in most circumstances.

The case for switching to nuclear and/or renewable power rests on the premise that continued fossil fuel use is not sustainable. Cheap gas prices reflect increased availability of the fuel, but not increased capacity to deal with the resulting CO2 emissions.

Five nuclear power plants in the US have closed this year, due to a combination of competitive and operating issues. An industry analyst quoted in the article expects more plant closures to come.

Now we're stuck with these decommissioned plants. Anybody want a high-paying job? Sign up to help clean up and tear down those zombie plants.

The US doesn't have the support that it had for the Iraqi invasion. Whatever else you can say about G. W. Bush, he at least was able to get a lot of support for his invasions and keep those who didn't from interfering. Obama can't even get the UK on board.

And Russia and China both oppose any military intervention, Russia to the point of sending military support for Assad such as anti-air missile systems which aren't any good against rebel forces, but would be of some use against air strikes by the US.

Most people don't eat out more than once a week, yet they're overweight.

Citation needed. The data I see indicates most americans eat out 4-5 times per week.

Some people don't EVER eat at McDonalds or similar fast-food places, and yet they're fat, too.

A lot of people don't admit they eat at McDonalds and yet in 2010 the industry generated $184 Billion in sales. I think a lot of people who claim they don't eat at McDonalds are lying.

What I find ironic about all this is if they EVER catch a single terrorist thanks to all this big brother crap? It'll be the kind too fucking dumb to have been any good at being a terrorist, your Richard Reid "useful idiot" kind of Muslim extremist. Any terrorist that could actually do any damage, your Abu Nidal mean motorscooter types aren't gonna be so damned retarded as to Google for instructions with zero obfuscation, not when you have multiple free anonymizing services and search engines that don't log like DuckDuckGo and Scroogle.

What is maddening, more than ironic, is that it appears NOT A SINGLE terrorist has been detected using the PRISM dragnet. One case in NYC was assisted, by PRISM, but that case was discovered by other means, and PRISM was used after the discovery.

In spite of the lies told before congress, those that have seen the real information have not been able to identify any cases where Prism has discovered anything of value that your typical FBI investigation would not have turned up also.

However, during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday, NSA Deputy Director John Inglis said U.S. bulk phone records spying was key in stopping just one terror plot, not the dozens officials had earlier said.
    Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., accused Obama administration officials of overstating the successes of the far-reaching counter-terrorism program.
    Leahy questioned earlier testimony by Alexander and other senior intelligence officials asserting the phone surveillance helped thwart 54 terrorist events.
    Leahy told Inglis he realized after reviewing NSA material that assertion couldn't be made, "not by any stretch."
He said the NSA material didn't indicate "dozens or even several terrorist plots" had been thwarted by the domestic program.

THe only problem with that possibility is the reality that Japan is in a population decline. http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2013/03/28/Japans-population-decline-highlighted/UPI-11001364445270/ I guess it's possible they are in decline because of reaching some maximum of some kind?

I think the car one will go through easily. I doubt any of them want it to come out how frequently their drivers greatly exceed the speed limits or for black boxes to capture any of the drunken shenanigans they'd otherwise get away with.

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2004/05/10/Newspaper-finds-Pa-Gov-Rendell-speeding/UPI-17641084237859/

I'm not defending the actions of the murderers, and I'm not defending the inaction of the bystanders who observe the crimes and do nothing. But, these reports might give you some understanding of their perspective and why they are mad. The UN has an absolutely terrible track record in Africa. They've been accused of widespread sexual abuse of children across multiple African countries by thousands of victims, across a number of years with virtually no action taken to stop the abuse. There are also numerous accusations of corruption and collusion with warlords. The UN as an organization has noble intentions, but the people on the ground are subject to some very human flaws when given too much power over the weak.

2002: http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Security-Industry/2002/05/06/Refugee-sex-scandal-triggers-UN-reforms/UPI-89771020662474/ - UN troops raped children in Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea.

2006: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6195830.stm - Children have been subjected to rape and prostitution by United Nations peacekeepers in Haiti and Liberia, a BBC investigation has found

2007: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1538476/UN-staff-accused-of-raping-children-in-Sudan.html - The UN said today that it would launch an investigation after the Daily Telegraph reported allegations that UN personnel have abused children in southern Sudan.

2011: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/146874 - An AP investigation found that food meant for starving Somalis is being stolen and sold in markets. UN's World Food Program unfazed.

Anyone know how they made up the slack besides conservation?

Yes.

Japan takes on more Iranian crude oil
Japan’s energy costs spiral higher
Trade Deficit in Japan Hits Record
Japan's energy imports may outweigh stimulus gain
Skyrocketing energy imports increase Japanese trade deficit

Disclaimer: I am a former Washington Post journalist

First of all, TFA is at The Washington Times. That alone makes its credibility dubious. The Washington Times was founded by Sun Myung Moon (crazy "Unification Church" cult leader) who stated that the purpose of the "newspaper" was to be "the instrument in spreading the truth about God to the world." Moon was convicted that same year of filing false federal income tax returns and conspiracy and served 13 months in prison. The Times has long been known as a conservative shill (although it has a decent sports section) that had to be financially supported by Moon's "church" to survive. Moon spent nearly $2 billion of his followers' money over 20 years to keep the paper afloat.

Second, The Washington Times article doesn't even claim to have done any reporting on its own... it cites some article from UPI that isn't readily available on UPI's home page or even by searching UPI for "IRS." Ultimately found the "article" here. It's a 9-paragraph blog posting. UPI was once a respectable news agency like AP or Reuters, but its relevance diminished to the point where it was bought out in 2000 by... you guessed it: Sun Myung Moon. UPI's White House correspondent retired the next day after 57 years with the organization. These days UPI doesn't even have a White House correspondent, and its finances have gotten so bad that it relies on free articles contributed by college students.

The UPI blog posting cites a Courthouse News Service article: John Doe Company sued 15 John Doe IRS agents in Superior Court. The plaintiff's attorney alleges that the records affected may include those of "politically controversial members of the Screen Actors Guild and the Directors Guild, and prominent citizens in the world of entertainment, business and government, from all walks of life." He goes on to complain that the unnamed IRS agents "decided to use John Doe Company's media system to watch basketball, ordering pizza and Coca-Cola, to take in part of the NCAA tournament," but "Plaintiff's attorney Robert E. Barnes declined to elaborate on the complaint's allegations, saying he will have more information 'in a few months.'"

Why publish a story no one can verify, since all you can say for now is that that unnamed people at the IRS are illegally snooping on unnamed politically controversial people through an unnamed medical firm? Because it helps fuel the fire driving the current Republican party line of "the IRS is evil and Obama is responsible." Because some ignorant blogger might pick it up and run with it, thinking that The Washington Times and UPI are real news organizations, and not even bother to look for the source of this story. Great job Timothy.

What increased consumption? Consumption (in the US at least)

You're so near to answering your own question, why didn't you continue that line of thought?

http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Energy-Resources/2013/04/11/OPEC-China-leads-in-oil-demand-growth/UPI-60091365683719/

Also, I'm a libertarian, and so far I've made a lot more from bitcoins than they have cost me. I've paid about an extra $5 per month in electricity costs for mining over the last 4 months since I started, and I've already acquired about $200 worth of goods bought from bitcoins.

As ever in these speculative bubbles, be it tulip bulbs, dotcoms or beanie babies, the question is did you get in early enough, and will you exit before the crash.

I think liberals just hate bitcoins

No more than I hate tulips, websites or cloth bags of beads. Bitcoins just give me a deja-vu feeling, and a bit of amusement as to who's falling for the latest fad, and why.

I just happened across a UPI story that our favorite no-such-thing-as-a-former Chekist telegraphed Obama with an offer of investigative assistance. Two days before it became known they were Chechens! Maybe the FSB was sandbagging us? Or just coincidence? I don't know. I just found it ironic. Here's the link: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2013/04/16/Putin-offers-Obama-aid-in-Boston-Marathon-bombing-investigation/UPI-59841366130396/

Nokia are still "gauging demand"
http://www.upi.com/Science_News/Technology/2013/02/28/Nokia-holds-off-on-QWERTY-phone-keyboards/UPI-98831362092469/

That's nice. We might be deploying Nokias if they actually just got off their ass and made some, but instead we'll continue to wait on Blackberry Q10 as the only other enterprise ready device with a physical keyboard, which is what our USERS want.

No one is reporting on how the ACLU are investigating the ever-increasing level of militarization in our police forces.

And as I recall the Air Force has used Predator drones for domestic surveillance (yes, the ones you can put missiles on) several dozen times in the past, which came to light during the whole Dorner thing. Where's the public outrage now?

But how is it humanly possible to enforce ban on drones as small as these:

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/02/03/287119/british-army-unveils-new-spy-drone/

http://www.upi.com/blog/2013/02/04/British-army-unveils-toy-sized-Black-Hornet-drones/7671360008879/

??

CNN calling, on line 1....

http://www.upi.com/blog/2013/02/12/CNN-anchor-asks-if-global-warming-caused-asteroid-fly-by-VIDEO/6711360683868/

To be fair, he claims to have access to shoulder launched air to ground missiles. The fact that less than a week ago he went through check in procedures at a naval base but never went through the check out procedures certainly gets my imagination going... especially if I were a helicopter pilot assigned to look for him. Though I of course understand that gaining access to the armory isn't the same as gaining entrance to the base.

According to the LAPD themselves, 2 rocket launchers were surrendered during the December "Turn in Your Guns" drive...

I'm all for solar energy. But I'm not for throwing our money away. My thought: who is being held accountable for the money, and overseeing that it goes into productive use? [emphasis added]

Joe Biden

It's a cure for AIDs, not a cure for HIV.

That is not the medical usage.

http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2011/05/17/Doctors-examine-AIDS-cure-case/UPI-79711305647048/

Looks like the wild fucking west to me.

Asshole eh? Wow.. somebody has sand in their vagina...

Yet Chicago has some of the most restrictive gun laws in the U.S. and oopsie...

I say this as a moderate Dem with a libertarian bent: civilian gun owership will not be outlawed in the US within your lifetime. Witness this and this. We need to disarm criminals, close the gunshow loophole, and find a mechanism to weed out the mentally unstable with respect to weapons purchases. The last is the trickiest, especially considering doctor patient confidentiality.

They've backed down from these claims: http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2012/11/25/SciTechTalk-NASA-says-Mars-discovery-may-not-be-one-for-the-history-books/UPI-73681353843060/

he pizza maker could have to pay damages of $500 per text message, or US$250 million, one of the largest damage awards under the 1991 law...

That would have bought some health care for their employees.

According to Forbes magazine, it would cost Papa Johns 5 cents per pizza to provide health care to their employees.

http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2012/11/14/Forbes-Papa-Johns-ACA-cost-5-cents/UPI-54101352940627/

It never was about the nickle and it never was. Most species of apes, specifically the males, assert their sexual dominance by keeping more of the good stuff - whatever that might be- for themselves than they can possibly use. This is so they can broadcast the fact of their dominance to females .

I think it's safe to say that the owner of Papa Johns is a physically unprepossessing specimen, basically he looks like some guy on your neighborhood watch.

http://www.politico.com/politico44/2012/08/papa-johns-obamacare-will-raise-pizza-prices-131331.html

Without a mindset that causes him to spend his life seeking, acquiring hording and displaying his wealth, he'd never get laid, or at least, he would not get as laid as he feels he should be.

In making a show of denying those under him healthcare, and especially by talking about how little it would cost him to provide those benefits as per the article above his primordial mind is attempting to broadcast the fact of his sexual dominance / desirability to available females. That's what's going on here.

When shit as demented as "No nickle for healthcare !!!! " becomes that public and is even paraded around by the perps themselves, you have to go to waaaaay back in evolutionary time to find the part of their brain that's being activated.

It's amusing that the conservatives who deny evolution is real seem also to be the people whose motivations are most clearly amenable to forces governing basic evolutionary processes.