Slashdot Mirror

I agree we shouldn't live in fear, but we need to keep our eyes open. As parents you have to have concern for your kids given the amount of incidents that happen, some are anecdotal like "drug bust near school" others hit home.

From today's news..

http://6abc.com/news/school-te...
http://www.wsmv.com/story/2797...
http://cjonline.com/news/2015-...
http://www.wdrb.com/story/2787...

recent past:

http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/27/...
https://news.yahoo.com/portlan...
http://www.usatoday.com/story/...

.

Inventors, both native and foreign born, live in the U.S., after being educated in U.S. universities, using U.S. infrastructure and support networks. They land jobs with U.S. companies to invent, develop and sell products to U.S. citizens. The U.S. patent rights on those products are sold to a foreign company which then charges the U.S. corporation a high royalty. The patents are only valuable because of the extensive U.S. patent system which protects the intellectual property of inventors and their corporate assignees, foreign or domestic. The foreign shell company makes all of the profits in a small country with tiny or non-existent taxes. The U.S. company claims all the royalty payments as expenses, wiping out U.S. profits. Here is one example of many. http://www.usatoday.com/story/... Then, tax attorneys educated by U.S. law schools prepare U.S. corporate tax returns that legalize all of this under laws written by corporate lobbyists for the benefit of U.S. corporations. Then the U.S. corporations control their media subsidiaries (ABC, NBC, FOX, CBS), to try to justify all of this. It isn't a perfect plutocracy, so they must pay P.R. firms, pundits, and think tanks to convince people like you that Barack Obama is a socialist trying to steal their money, and that his 14% tax proposal to pay for U.S. highways is wildly unfair double taxation.

.

But by all means. Go ahead and keep watching Fox "News". It is your right. Rupert Murdock's interests are undoubtedly aligned with the long term interests of U.S. citizens. I'm sure the republic will limp along just fine if all its citizenry are too busy to discover anything resembling the truth. And don't worry your little head. Obama's proposal has zero chance of being passed by either the corporate-controlled House or Senate. Even if I changed your mind (which I am certain I have not), there are millions upon millions out there who will listen to corporate sponsored political commercials and vote to keep either the corporate-backed republicans or corporate-backed democrats in power. I can't convince them all. They won't see this post, or visit my website. It is simply TLDR. You have won the argument. Congratulations.

I guess you must have missed the dissolution of the USSR.

I lived in the USSR at the time of its dissolution, you anonymous moron. It was an economic collapse, not a step-down by anyone disappointed in lack of popular mandate and support from immediate circle. Not one of the Communist rulers has stepped down on their own.

if the people want a radical left government then your vote against is not going to prevent that.

My point is, those "people" are making a mistake.

Uh-huh, yeah, persecution of the majority by a minority has a solid track record through history.

Not the majority voting, but the tiny minority asking for votes. All Collectivists — whether they have a red-star beret or a tiny mustache on their clothing — lead to disastrous policies. Either immediately (from inherent evil) or soon after their good intentions fail and they must find excuses.

BTW is thepeoplescube.com the persecuted, or the persecution?

The particular link does a hilarious job comparing the various Collectivists... Woosh much?

I imagine corporations will fight back legally if/when their employees start getting hacked by the FBI.

Why would a corporation care? One must either have something to hide or be upset at unwarranted searches as a matter of principle to be bothered. And only the latter reason would drive someone to actively fight it — those with anything to hide will quietly (re)hide it elsewhere.

Though I don't share the disdain towards KKKorporations, that some people exhibit, I am not under an illusion, they'll make a principled stand on anything, that does not affect their bottom line either.

No, it is up to us, citizens — corporate CEOs included...

They don't need to enter your home, locked or not, anymore:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/...

New police radars can 'see' inside homes

At least 50 U.S. law enforcement agencies have secretly equipped their officers with radar devices that allow them to effectively peer through the walls of houses to see whether anyone is inside, a practice raising new concerns about the extent of government surveillance.

Those agencies, including the FBI and the U.S. Marshals Service, began deploying the radar systems more than two years ago with little notice to the courts and no public disclosure of when or how they would be used. The technology raises legal and privacy issues because the U.S. Supreme Court has said officers generally cannot use high-tech sensors to tell them about the inside of a person's house without first obtaining a search warrant.

The radars work like finely tuned motion detectors, using radio waves to zero in on movements as slight as human breathing from a distance of more than 50 feet. They can detect whether anyone is inside of a house, where they are and whether they are moving.

Current and former federal officials say the information is critical for keeping officers safe if they need to storm buildings or rescue hostages. But privacy advocates and judges have nonetheless expressed concern about the circumstances in which law enforcement agencies may be using the radars — and the fact that they have so far done so without public scrutiny.

I love the idea of electric cars, and Tesla is on my "lottery win" shopping list. With that said, if you apply hard numbers these cars do not make any sense at the current gas prices.

What's with this "current gas prices" meme? The current gas prices have applied for maaaybe 3 weeks, if you're lucky. And suddenly people are absolutely giddy. Yay! Gas is free again! What? No it's not. It's temporary, despite the pronouncements of random Saudi princes. It's probably short term temporary, and there will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth when it rebounds.

Even if it's not short term temporary, I would be vastly surprised if gas prices stay this low for the lifetime of a new car purchased this year.

I've not see any vote selling things reported on,

Then let me help you in in this very difficult search.

though it's trivial to prove how you voted. Yes, even today, with secret ballots.

You will have to be a lot more specific for your assertion to carry any weight.

That's because he prefers to issue "presidential memorandum", which while just another form of executive order, is not counted toward the total most reporters use when comparing to other Presidents so they can continue to print the falsehood that Obama isn't issuing executive actions more than other presidents.

At present, he's issued more presidential memorandum than any other president in history (33% more than Bush and 45% more than Clinton) and is on track to beat out Harry Truman for overall executive actions.

There is also a question about the power of those actions; Obama has used executive actions (orders and memorandum) to make major changes to existing legislation as well as create legislation out of thin air.

False witness is also omission, turkeyfish. Presidential memos have the same effect and Obama has used them prolifically.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/...

And, WaPo's take on it, just in case you think USA Today is a Koch toady..

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

Studying climate generally requires lobbing things into the sky.

The hijacking of NASA by climate scientists isn't limited to launching and operating satellites. They've converted entire NASA laboratories to climate modeling.

They aren't the only ones, however, just the biggest. NASA has become a clearing house for any research that can plausibly be disguised as `space' related; all you need to get funded by NASA is a connection, no matter how tenuous, to some space application and some play with congress or the administration. They slot you right in; budget, lab space, etc., and when you publish you get to put "NASA" in the paper.

After the Republicans took over '94/'95 they flushed a lot of this nonsense out of NASA and suddenly there were all sorts of Life sciences folks wandering around looking for a home because a large cohort of drug researchers had accumulated under NASA's umbrella. Hopefully we'll see this again. The climate modeling stuff really does belong in NOAA and if Cruz made that happen it would be an improvement.

Just looking at the trends in oil and gas prices over the last century there is a steady upward trend in prices.

Looking at the demand curves for China, India and other countries that are catching up to the Western World, their demand for oil and gas is going up - along with their demand for autos.

See, this relatively cheap gas and oil prices will not last because it never has in the past. This is just a small dip in a long term trend. Why some oil speculators are renting out oil tankers and just parking them off-shore waiting for the inevitable increase in prices.

Anyone who thinks this oil and gas boom is permanent and low oil and gas prices is will stay is a short sighted fool.

See, all these people are going to panic when oil prices shoot up again. .

The President of Egypt, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, made an interesting speech to a group of Imams supporting my position that moderate muslims in the region have not done enough.

"I say and repeat again that we are in need of a religious revolution. You, imams, are responsible before Allah. The entire world, I say it again, the entire world is waiting for your next move because this umma [community] is being torn, it is being destroyed, it is being lost — and it is being lost by our own hands."
http://www.usatoday.com/story/...

No, not really. The vast majority of Division I schools lose money on athletics, none of the Division III schools cover their athletic expenses.

from http://www.usatoday.com/story/...

"Just 23 of 228 athletics departments at NCAA Division I public schools generated enough money on their own to cover their expenses in 2012. Of that group, 16 also received some type of subsidy — and 10 of those 16 athletics departments received more subsidy money in 2012 than they did in 2011."

Sports provides valuable marketing (for the top schools), and that has value, but don't kid yourself that sports is generating net revenue.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/...

The insurance companies will only pay out to repair it, other engineers say that's impossible.

If the stadium owners thought insurance was the way to go, they were highly mistaken and this proves the point.

Insurance is the biggest scam out there. It doesn't matter what the insurance policy says, insurance companies will do everything in their power not to pay out anything or at best, a token amount.

Witness what happened when Katrina (a hurricane for those not in the know) hit Louisiana. The insurance companies tried to claim storm surge damage wasn't covered even though the houses were damaged by winds.

Even worse, the people relied on their insurance agent who told them they didn't need flood insurance. Further, they lost their case.

Pick any insurance you want and the same applies. You pay and pay and pay, then when you need coverage, you pay some more before the insurance companies hand over a pittance.

Hopefully the stadium owner goes after the insurance company and forces them to do what they were paid to do. If not, get your money back for breach of contract.

A population following a religion, that is incompatible with Freedom of Speech, must be "ostracized". It is the moral duty of a civilized man to mock, ridicule and otherwise fight any ideology, that not only tolerates, not only encourages, but mandates killing people for certain speech...

This is why youre racist.
- Its not imcompatible, as shown by the millions of peacefully coexisting Muslims already here and in Europe.

- Not to mention that not every Muslim majority nation is Suadi Arabia. There are 49 Muslim majority countries. To paint all of them by the example of SA is the definition of bigotry, as even within the Muslim world, restrictive nations like SA are the exception and not the norm, even though its the example people like like to trot out as the example of "how muslims are".

-BTW, using a couple cherry picked unrepresentative examples to paint an entire culture wrongly, is the definition of of bigotry.

-If you truly believed that you would ceaselessly mock Christiantity as well, yet you dont. You cherry pick from their religious book while ignoring any other passage in it that might contract the passage youve chosen. Again: the defintion of bigotry.

Here are folks in the Muslim community and what they say about the attacks.

And here is a Muslim cleric justifying it. And he is doing a better job — while these outraged Muslims are simply denouncing the attack as contrary to their understanding of Islam, he provides Koran quotes objectively proving the opposite:This is because the Messenger Muhammad said, "Whoever insults a Prophet kill him."

Thus, I tend to think, that these good people are either ignorant, in denial, or just lying — either out of fear of persecution or to advance their cause.

Youngsters don't take up arms and blow themselves up because they're impressionable. They do so because they don't perceive that they have any better options. Take a hard look at the youth unemployment rate in France and the manner in which the immigrant Muslim community is treated.

Voila! It is France's own fault and they deserve what violence they get over it.

When you ostracize 7% (5M / 66M) of your population such outcomes are wholly predictable.

A population following a religion, that is incompatible with Freedom of Speech, must be "ostracized". It is the moral duty of a civilized man to mock, ridicule and otherwise fight any ideology, that not only tolerates, not only encourages, but mandates killing people for certain speech...

Here are folks in the Muslim community and what they say about the attacks.

But I also have to add that all religious people are a little mentally ill: they believe with no evidence at all and even with evidence to the contrary in a super natural being that created the universe and listens to them, knows when they are naughty or nice and for goodness sakes, they better watch out!

See, folks who study history and literature have plenty of evidence that humans created God/gods to explain the super natural. Why the Sun and Moon were once worshiped as gods until people observed their true nature.

The Bible is nothing but Iron Age Jewish mythology and the New Testament is the re-telling of pagan myth and eastern philosophy (like the Golden Rule, Confucius) attributed to the fictional character Jesus - although, some historians have come to the conclusion that there may have been an apocalyptic preacher kook by the name of Jesus running around at a couple of thousand years ago.

The universe is proving to be much more complicated and awe inspiring than what some ignorant goat herders could ever have imagined in their pathetic little brains.

Christians, Jews and Muslims are incapable of accepting the Truth that their beliefs are non-sense and are causing the World much harm and holding the human race back with their idiotic and irrational beliefs. And until religious non-sense is eradicated from earth, we'll have to continue with this bullshit by stupid people who insist on believing in a version of Santa Claus for adults.

Hope you enjoy getting raped.

Already there are military applications for fossil free jet fuel, and as the technology scales, this will likely make greater contributions to civilian applications. http://www.usatoday.com/story/...

This year is likely the warmest year on record with the rate of Antarctic ice loss tripling in the last decade and Greenland's ice loss worse than predicted. But believe whatever you want to believe, no matter what the facts.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/...

any further questions?

They're almost handing out guns on the plane...like the air marshal who got suspended for leaving his weapon in the lavatory.

I travel and every day I see pocket knifes, souvenir knifes being stolen at the checkpoints. The other day my credit card size stainless steel multi-tool (ruler, screwdriver, wrench and a 2 centimeter cutting edge) has been confiscated because it had a less than one inch "blade". Yikes.

To be fair, John Pistole (the TSA head) tried to drop this restriction and permit knifes with blades <= 2.36 inches, but transportation workers, victims groups, and various congressmen thru a hissy-fit, so he was forced to drop it.

2.36 inches!! Land of the brave, my arse.

They're capable of rolling out fiber in Kansas City and Austin, so even a communist hellhole like Cuba shouldn't be much of a challenge.

FTFY (mostly)

NJ State Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg says she will work to reverse a law making smart guns mandatory in her state – if the NRA will agree to stop obstructing them.

http://www.msnbc.com/all-in/wa... http://www.usatoday.com/story/...

It does not give a pass for stupid laws from being passed in NJ that mandated a certain type of gun in the first place. However, there was a willingness to compromise to allow consumers make the choice and repeal said stupid law.

I am for gun rights, but the debate is so soured that any discussion to make guns safer cannot even take place.

"fucking dick".. "fucking idiot".. Such anger and naivety. Here see the troll in it's native habitat, or perhaps, a smug basement dweller who fancies himself smarter than others because his best friend is his left hand and he doesn't get out much.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/... They've been officially linked.

Also, Sony Pictures is an American subsidiary of Sony Corp, on american soil, with american employees. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...

If I broke into your house, and dug up all your secrets, revealed them to the world, and then threatened to murder anyone doing business with you, should I be applauded if I find out you where doing something 'wrong'?

Fixed it for you.

I don't know who actually is behind this attack, but I'm starting to applaud them.

You might want to hold your applause.

I saw the previews months ago for that movie and thought to myself "That looks stupid." but now I'm going to go see it anyway. You should really encourage all of your friends to do the same. Blackmail resulting in self-censorship is not something that needs to be encouraged.

Instead recycled water plants are being built instead to treat effluent and return it to the reservoirs.

How'd they make that happen on the West Coast, where people are so paranoid that they drain entire reservoirs simply because someone peed in them?

Who all all I had to do to destroy New York City's water supply was drive half an hour and take a piss. I hope the terrorists haven't figured this out, they'll be in the Catskills drinking beer in no time.

Hint: it ain't the skin-color. If "whitey" really were racist, Asians would've suffered from it too. But they are doing rather well. So well, in fact, that schools and colleges alike deduct points from applicants, who identify themselves as "Asians".

For the life of me I can't figure why you'd use that to support your claim that Asians don't suffer from racism...

Imaginary reality to "prove" imaginary racism. How fitting...

Hint: it ain't the skin-color. If "whitey" really were racist, Asians would've suffered from it too. But they are doing rather well. So well, in fact, that schools and colleges alike deduct points from applicants, who identify themselves as "Asians".

The most likely explanation is single-parenthood rate: children growing up with only a mother (which is still the overwhelming majority of single-"parent" households) are much likelier to grow up with problems live sucky lives — all human civilizations knew this and frowned upon unwed mothers. Not because "sex is a sin", as is the common Illiberal's strawman, but because bringing a child into this world without a loving father is a sin... Heck, we know it too!

For some reason, currently 67% of Black kids grow up in such families — compared with merely 17% of Asians and 25% of Whites... But only the KKKonservative Libertarians connect the dots.

Not for some reason. The dads are all criminals and in prison.

Imaginary reality to "prove" imaginary racism. How fitting...

Hint: it ain't the skin-color. If "whitey" really were racist, Asians would've suffered from it too. But they are doing rather well. So well, in fact, that schools and colleges alike deduct points from applicants, who identify themselves as "Asians".

The most likely explanation is single-parenthood rate: children growing up with only a mother (which is still the overwhelming majority of single-"parent" households) are much likelier to grow up with problems live sucky lives — all human civilizations knew this and frowned upon unwed mothers. Not because "sex is a sin", as is the common Illiberal's strawman, but because bringing a child into this world without a loving father is a sin... Heck, we know it too!

For some reason, currently 67% of Black kids grow up in such families — compared with merely 17% of Asians and 25% of Whites... But only the KKKonservative Libertarians connect the dots.

Was that a US icebreaker that saved the Russian and Chinese icebreakers in Antarctica last year? Russia is joke.

Hurricanes happen in the northern hemisphere, usually golf of Mexico and north of it.

Tropical cyclones form an average of 6.3 times per year in the northern Indian Ocean (crosses the equater), 14.3 times per year in the south-western Indian Ocean (southern hemisphere), 11.0 times per year in the Australian region, and 11.4 times per year in the southern Pacific. Of those storms, an average of 1.5, 5.0, 0, and 4, respectively, per year achieve hurricane strength. Only an average of 13.6% of hurricane strength tropical cyclones form in the North Atlantic.

If you want to talk about storms in the US and around you should focus on Tornados anyway.

The frequency of tornadoes in North America is the lowest it's been in recorded history for the three year period running up to the present day. Discussed on Slashdot yesterday.

So, why do I complain? Because you bring in El Nina and El Nino "years" or "phenomena" ... which are phenomena limited to the southern hemisphere like Peru, Chile, Brazil, Argentina and the south Atlantic ... they have absolutely no influence on hurricanes or the weather in the US.

Changes caused by El Niño-Southern Oscillation

So much to your +5 Informative

Everything you said was either useless or wrong. Which is why he's modded +5 and you're at 1.

LOL @ MediaMatters propaganda.

The White House told the truth

Oh, really??

From ABC: "The "talking points" memo on what the Obama administration should tell the public was the basis for statements made by U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, who appeared on talk shows five days after the Sept. 11 attack to explain what happened.
Rice insisted the attack emanated from a protest over an anti-Islam video produced in America that turned violent and that terrorism was not involved. The White House has since acknowledged the assault was a preplanned terror attack and no protest happened."

You see, coal/oil/gas does not pay for the significant health burdens

Yes, they do — they pay taxes and salaries.

or the trillions in wars

Please, spare me the "war for oil" meme. It is utter nonsense.

figures that businesses and governments use to make decisions

What is it with you, guys? So many posts trying to rebut mine, and none offering much in the way of citations. What figures? Which governments?

Most economists believe that climate action costs are negligible

That governments — and government-employed economists believe in something, that justifies expanding governmental control over citizens is not at all surprising. Conflict-of-interest much? And even they can't offer much more than belief...

starting with all the beachfront property

You mean, property like this? Or that's on the West coast — must be entirely different, yeah...

The "predicted" consequences are materializing all over the world, as the worst currently in the west/south west of the USA

Well, if that were true, you would've had no problem fulfilling my request for citations... And yet, I don't see any... Khmm...

The prediction at that time are the same as right now: they cover the future, not 2014.

Ah, I see. Thanks for confirming no such predictions have actually been made. You know, one characteristic of a scientific theory is that it can be demonstrated wrong. For example, gravity can be rejected, if ever we see two masses not attracting each other. But global warming is conveniently infallible — if we only talk about the predictions so far in the future, nobody alive today will see them come to pass — or not.

If you are unable to understand simple physical stuff, I suggest to you to avoid buying land at coast lines and in relatively dry central continental areas. Good luck.

He-he... Well, get back to me, when Al Gore — the High Priest of the Global Warming — sells his recently-bought ocean-front villa and moves some place higher. Until then, you can stick your "suggestions", where they'll do the most good...

Wrong timing for it, though. While our nation is under attack by Isis and Syria, this increase would be better spent on improving our dwindling military capabilities..

Dwindling? CITATION NEEDED.

CITATION PROVIDED

Budget cuts to slash U.S. Army to smallest since before World War Two
A New Army Drawdown: This Time Is Far Worse
General: With cuts, Marine Corps will 'cut into bone'
AIR FORCE PREPARES TO SEPARATE 25,000 IN SERVICE'S LARGEST DRAWDOWN

"Over the next five years, about 550 aircraft and about 25,000 Airmen will be gone from the Air Force.

Mind the elephant, sir, it has been known to bite people in the ass.

You're thinking of net income. Median net worth is closer to $81k (as of 2014), and the mean considerably higher than the GP's estimate.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/...

Regardless though, there's a huge problem here where there is an assumption that the total charitable contributions of this guy in his lifetime is encompassed by one charity auction purchase.

Might I ask what area of IT you work in? What part of the country?

I don't mind the question, but the answer is moot.

America's modern left often argues that portions of the US Constitution can be safely ignored because it's old and was written by white dudes. Here's a (fairly calm) piece that explores that argument. (Also look up "constitution living document".)

"Is the Constitution Still Relevant?"
http://consortiumnews.com/2013...

Unfortunately, this isn't just a fringe belief: in 2010 a USA Today poll showed that 1 in 4 people no longer though the Constitution was "relevant"
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com...

By mongering against "the Left" you are opening yourself to being manipulated by wealthy elites (who really don't care about left or right, just more power and money at our expense).

The real dichotomy is the .01% vs the rest of us - the haves vs. the have-nots.

America's modern left often argues that portions of the US Constitution can be safely ignored because it's old and was written by white dudes. Here's a (fairly calm) piece that explores that argument. (Also look up "constitution living document".)

"Is the Constitution Still Relevant?"

  http://consortiumnews.com/2013... [consortiumnews.com]

Unfortunately, this isn't just a fringe belief: in 2010 a USA Today poll showed that 1 in 4 people no longer though the Constitution was "relevant"

  http://usatoday30.usatoday.com... [usatoday.com]

I think you mean the right. Republicans have been trampling on the constitution since 2001. The terrorists have won.

America's modern left often argues that portions of the US Constitution can be safely ignored because it's old and was written by white dudes. Here's a (fairly calm) piece that explores that argument. (Also look up "constitution living document".)

"Is the Constitution Still Relevant?"
http://consortiumnews.com/2013...

Unfortunately, this isn't just a fringe belief: in 2010 a USA Today poll showed that 1 in 4 people no longer though the Constitution was "relevant"
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com...

And America's modern right often argues that portions of the US Constitution can be safely ignored because CommunistsXXXXXX terrorists.

America's modern left often argues that portions of the US Constitution can be safely ignored because it's old and was written by white dudes. Here's a (fairly calm) piece that explores that argument. (Also look up "constitution living document".)

"Is the Constitution Still Relevant?"
http://consortiumnews.com/2013...

Unfortunately, this isn't just a fringe belief: in 2010 a USA Today poll showed that 1 in 4 people no longer though the Constitution was "relevant"
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com...

I wanted to know how to votes were cast to see if the GRAND JURY might have made their decision because of racial bias - by either side.

You couldn't determine "racial bias" from the votes of 12 jurors even if you knew: first, the sample is too small, and second, you simply have no independent way of judging which group was irrationally biased, the white jurors or the black jurors.

Those people in the street weren't protesting because of being whipped up by the mainstream media or the progressives or the Democrats

Protesters are a vanishingly small number compared to African Americans in this country; the people who go out on the street have no political legitimacy.

If you want to know what the African Americans in Ferguson actually believe government should look like, look at voting: only about 7% of Ferguson's black population bothers to vote in local elections, and there have been only 128 new voter registrations since Michael Brown's death. Obviously, political change isn't particularly high on the agenda of the African American population of Ferguson.

How likely is it that Brown doesn't have to go to trial and the case against him is thrown out by the grand jury?

That's a false equivalence. Depending on circumstances, threatening a police officer or even fleeing from a police officer are sufficient justification for the police officer to use deadly force; that's the law and has always been the law. Brown should have gone to trial and been locked up for many years even if Wilson had managed to take him into custody.

And even if you argue that Mike Brown had it coming, you can't say that about every one of their dead kids & relatives. Did Tamir Rice have it coming? Or Akai Gurley? Or Aiyana Jones? Or Amadou Diallo? Or Sean Bell?

What's your point? That police sometimes make mistakes, that they are sometimes corrupt, and that they are somtimes sociopaths? Yes, they are. But that has little to do with race per se.

they were there because it's a regular part of their reality going back generations. It may be better than the bad old days but it's still very much the norm.

So what? My family fled persecution and lost everything and nobody gives a f*ck, nor should they. And I'm a gay man, that's been part of my everyday reality. We all have our individual histories and deal with them as best we can. But when it comes to race, you all of a sudden see and treat 50 million individuals as an amorphous "they". It's you who reduces people to their skin color, not me.

That said, at the time, the South was very much a Democrat stronghold. Times have turned and so have cloaks.

I don't know what "times have turned and so have cloaks" is even supposed to mean or what the relevance of that is. Fact is that Democrats, progressives, and you continue to divide people up, and reason about politics, based on a meaningless and fictitious concept of "race". You derive political legitimacy for politicians from the color of their skin, construct historical fables based on race, and assign guilt and responsibility based on nothing other than skin color. That's not just irrational and morally wrong, it is also ineffective and even harmful when it becomes the basis of government policy.

It was no big secret. A lot of the Republican loudmouths were bragging about it.

Some of the Republican leadership even apologized for it: http://usatoday30.usatoday.com...

Clinton's welfare reform was a disaster for the poor, and indirectly for the rest of the country.

http://billmoyers.com/2014/05/...

http://www.thenation.com/blog/...

I remember the Reagan presidency. Reagan made a deal with the Soviets to let the Soviet "Jews" emigrate. I knew a lot of Soviet Jews. They had to claim that they had suffered anti-Semitism and were victims in order to immigrate here as refugees. They had lawyers and fixers who would copy the identical stories of anti-Semitism for new immigrants and hand them into the INS. They would fabricate their stories. It was a scam. A lot of them weren't even Jewish; they forged documents. They immediately got welfare, housing, health care, jobs, vocational training programs, and free college tuition. They were getting more benefits than I could get. It's no wonder they liked capitalism so much. For them, capitalism was a series of handouts that they didn't have to work for. That's welfare, Reagan style.

I know a black woman who worked for the welfare department, and she was annoyed at the way the Soviet Jews would come in and act as if they were entitled to welfare. It was easier for them to get welfare than native Americans. A lot of them turned out to be criminals, and you can still read stories in the New York Times and Daily News about Russian Jews from that immigration who got caught in all kinds of illegal schemes, particularly welfare and Medicaid/Medicare fraud.

The Russian immigrants had several magazines, the most popular of which was Metropol. I once talked to the editor of Metropol. He said that as soon as they became citizens, the Russian immigrants registered Republican and voted for Ronald Reagan. He said once in the while he would get a letter saying, "Why don't we vote for Democrats," but no more than 1 in 100. It was the most brazen quid pro quo. Reagan gave them handouts, and in return they voted solid Republican. Giuliani did the same thing. This is what the Republicans accuse Obama of doing. https://danieljmitchell.files....

The same thing happened to the Cubans in Miami. And all the other favored minority immigrants.

(Note: The decision(*) was handed down 2 hours ago and already there's rioting.)

I recently posted about a fire inspector reacting to a problem in the most dickish way possible.

The responses were surprising and enlightening. On the topic of his actions, each and every one of the respondents felt that the inspector reacted appropriately, that he in fact had to react in the most extreme manner possible, and that it was the right thing to do(**).

If you agree with this position, then it's OK for police to shoot an unarmed black man in Ferguson Missouri, or a black man purchasing a gun off the shelf at WalMart, or a 12-year old boy in Ohio playing with a toy gun.

The police have a dangerous job - they put their lives on the line every single day (just ask one), and they simply can't take the chance that a black man might be dangerous.

No. That's completely wrong, and it comes from police and other government agencies "doubling down" on their mistakes. Something bad happens, someone in authority shouts "it was the correct thing to do!", and it's echoed all over the press and on the net by people who repeat what they hear without thinking it through.

When the department says that the most dickish possible way is the right response they are alienating the people. It might avoid getting the cop thrown off the force, but in the future the department may actually *need* the support or cooperation of the people in order to do their job. This is short-term smart and long-term stupid.

We have schools teaching teenagers how to react to cops, and the take-away message is that cops only hurt people - they are a danger to be avoided

The "broken window" theory of crime can also be applied to the police. If we let them get away with these sorts of abuses, everyone in a position of authority will know that it's OK to act in the most dickish way possible.

I understand how rules exist to prevent the "worst possible scenario" from happening, but do we *always* have to act as if the worst possible scenario is happening right here, right now? Should cops always shoot a suspect who has a gun in hand? Would a more nuanced approach better?

I'm glad there's rioting. This crap needs to stop.

(*) For non-merikan readers, a grand jury does not assign guilt or innocence, it only determines whether a trial should happen. Basically, it tries to determine if there is enough evidence to go to trial. Also, it's heavily rigged *against* the defendant.

(**) There are at least 3 alternative actions the fire marshal could have taken that would have solved his problem without alienating all the con goers, the business, and the hotel. I don't expect anyone in his local area would help if his office needed public support for something, such as "please help us by sending us your video tape of incident".

Why would you call something Mayo that isn't?

Mayo isn't a legally protected & defined term in the USA for food. Mayonnaise is.

Oddly enough, many Hellmann's products labelled mayonnaise didn't meet the US govt's requirements to be labelled as mayonnaise either: http://www.usatoday.com/story/...

And frankly, mayonnaise is disgusting.

In the words of Undercover Brother ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v... ), it's the white man's hot sauce :)