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Just a random though: has anyone checked how long, and over what distance, the plane could fly from its cruise altitude once its engines stop ?

Would depend upon the pilot. " The Airbus A330-243 suffered a complete power loss due to a fuel leak caused by improper maintenance. Captain Robert Piché, 48, an experienced glider pilot, and First Officer Dirk de Jager, 28, flew the plane to a successful emergency landing in the Azores, saving all 306 people (293 passengers and 13 crew) on board... Captain Piché had to execute one 360 degree turn, and then a series of "S" turns, to dissipate excess altitude. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...

Bottom line if your flights engines quit, hope an experienced glider pilot is in control.

-To answer your question 30,000 feet and a good wind, about 100 miles.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/...
Google is there anything it doesn't know :}

Knowing the airlines it would somehow be permanently added to the plane ticket price....
Given the number of unrecovered flight recorders and the amount of time that list has been growing and the risks of being involved in a plane crash vs a car crash(no black box)
Since prices are already seem pretty high for me for those cramped seats, I think I side with "the industry" on this one.

The hypocritical Senator's own word, for our enjoyment. Pass the popcorn.

The NSA's Watchfulness Protects America
By Dianne Feinstein
Oct. 13, 2013 6:59 p.m. ET

Since it was exposed in June by leaker Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency's call-records program has become controversial and many have questioned whether its benefits are worth the costs. My answer: The program—which collects phone numbers and the duration and times of calls, but not the content of any conversations, names or locations—is necessary and must be preserved if we are to prevent terrorist attacks.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein: Continue NSA call-records program
By Dianne Feinstein
Oct. 20, 2013 6:22 p.m. EDT

The NSA call-records program is legal and subject to extensive congressional and judicial oversight. Above all, the program has been effective in helping to prevent terrorist plots against the U.S. and our allies. Congress should adopt reforms to improve transparency and privacy protections, but I believe the program should continue.

The call-records program is not surveillance. It does not collect the content of any communication, nor do the records include names or locations. The NSA only collects the type of information found on a telephone bill: phone numbers of calls placed and received, the time of the calls and duration. The Supreme Court has held this "metadata" is not protected under the Fourth Amendment.

The great recession of 2009 became the justification of many companies to lay off workers despite healthy revenue and increasing profits. While this may contribute to the GDP, it doesn't do much for employment.

Blacks are inferior as a group.

Look at the way all of the blacks just go apeshit so to speak over a bunch of fucking sneakers of all things!

Then ask yourself why white people don't riot over the latest Apple gadget even though they gather in large crowds waiting for them. I mean an objective person might think whites are more civilized!

Oh does anyone remember when the blacks rioted like crazy after Hurricane Katrina? Isn't it JUST A LITTLE STRANGE the way white people in Colorado banded together and helped each other when they were hit with a natural disaster instead of rioting and looting like the blacks did? I mean an objective person might think whites are more civilized!

Oh and blacks are responsible for nearly all the murders in Marion County! That is what you would expect from a violent tribal uncivilized race.

Interesting when a black man admits blacks are to blame for the hellhole that is (86% black) Jackson Mississippi? Quote: "Look at recent history, like in South Africa, when apartheid was abolished,” Lambus said in a recent interview with The Associated Press. “Blacks went on a crime spree.""

It goes on and on. Probably no point in posting this since people who are objective already understand the destruction and violence and cost blacks bring anytime they are abundant. It is not just USA. All over the world black-governed nations are hellholes. But objective people knew this. It is the people indoctrinated to believe that acknowledging FACTS is somehow "racist" who just can't admit it. None are so blind as those who will not see.

Blacks are inferior as a group.

Look at the way all of the blacks just go apeshit so to speak over a bunch of fucking sneakers of all things!

Then ask yourself why white people don't riot over the latest Apple gadget even though they gather in large crowds waiting for them. I mean an objective person might think whites are more civilized!

Oh does anyone remember when the blacks rioted like crazy after Hurricane Katrina? Isn't it JUST A LITTLE STRANGE the way white people in Colorado banded together and helped each other when they were hit with a natural disaster instead of rioting and looting like the blacks did? I mean an objective person might think whites are more civilized!

Oh and blacks are responsible for nearly all the murders in Marion County! That is what you would expect from a violent tribal uncivilized race.

Interesting when a black man admits blacks are to blame for the hellhole that is (86% black) Jackson Mississippi? Quote: "Look at recent history, like in South Africa, when apartheid was abolished,” Lambus said in a recent interview with The Associated Press. “Blacks went on a crime spree.""

It goes on and on. Probably no point in posting this since people who are objective already understand the destruction and violence and cost blacks bring anytime they are abundant. It is not just USA. All over the world black-governed nations are hellholes. But objective people knew this. It is the people indoctrinated to believe that acknowledging FACTS is somehow "racist" who just can't admit it. None are so blind as those who will not see.

Interestingly enough, those that spend money on the sport programs do so voluntarily and not as a condition of tuition or tax.

wrong: http://usatoday30.usatoday.com...

and in the case of large programs, almost completely isolated and self sufficient.

There are only about seven of those: http://www.acenet.edu/news-roo...

This only took a few seconds of googling. I'm sure with a bit more effort, you could find how completely your position is divorced from reality.

Tell me again why college in the US costs sooooo much?

Colleges need to adapt so that university education doesn't become too expensive for all.

. In his book on administrative bloat, The Fall Of The Faculty, Johns Hopkins professor Benjamin Ginsberg reports that although student-faculty ratios fell slightly between 1975 and 2005, from 16-to-1 to 15-to-1, the student-to-administrator ratio fell from 84-to-1 to 68-to-1, and the student-to-professional-staff ratio fell from 50-to-1 to 21-to-1. Ginsberg concludes: "Apparently, when colleges and universities had more money to spend, they chose not to spend it on expanding their instructional resources, i.e. faculty. They chose, instead, to enhance their administrative and staff resources."

And when they had less money to spend, they did the same thing.

Administrator Hiring Drove 28% Boom in Higher-Ed Work Force, Report Says

University Administrative Glut Worse Than We Thought

Over the last 25 years the number of administrative employees at U.S. colleges and universities more than doubled, according to a joint study by the New England Center of Investigative Reporting and the American Institutes for Research. The ratio of nonacademic positions to faculty positions doubled at both public and private institutions. Overall, the industry has added an average of 87 administrative positions per day, a rate has scarcely slowed since the economic downturn, despite tuition increases. Even more surprising, academic institutions have added more administrative employees despite part-time faculty taking on more teaching duties than full-time professors.

Laugh if you will, at people's gullibility, and then read up on the Radithor patent medicine (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... ).

Of course it's well known that the food industry isn't worried about health effects of what it sells. They're happy to simply put in whatever ingredients make a product sell. Just look at all the stuff that contains sugar (often disguised as "corn syrup" to avoid having to print the word "sugar" on the label).

And "naturally risen" meat isn't all bull either (pardon the pun). It's because standard commercial beef is quite likely to contain antibiotics (see e.g. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/... ). The reason is of course that feeding animals antibiotics raises production, so it's cost-effective.

It's also grossly irresponsible and really should be banned on the spot. Why? Serving up diluted amounts of antibiotics ensures (through natural selection) that those bacteria that survive the initial onslaught are immune to those same antibiotics. And where do those bacteria and residual antibiotics end up? Well ... in animal poop and from there in surface waters, sewers and oceans. And via the slaughterhouse (if they're a teensy bit careless about separating out intestines in the thousands of carcasses they process each day) in your steak.

Given that those dirty little critters actually exchange pieces of DNA, it's easy to see how whole families of bacteria that live in sewers, surface waters and seas can gain resistance to antibiotics. Which is why we're now facing a crisis with perfectly ordinary bacteria being hard to treat when they cause an infection (just Google for MRSA). Or being even being impossible to treat, so that people with a weak immune system (elderly, post-surgery patients) die from infections that had stopped being a threat when antibiotics were discovered some 70 years ago.

Of course the industry resists. They're not responsible for public health or MRSA, they're responsible for their own bottom line (see e.g. http://www.usatoday.com/story/... ). Which is why the FDA is embarking on a campaign of voluntary reductions.

Reading labels (if you can be bothered) gives you a lot of information you need to make sensible choices in what you eat. That's why we have food labeling regulations (which incidentally are severely criticised by some libertarians as "undue interference with the markets").

Even then there's little defence against people who seek solace in bogus science. But it's better to light a candle ... etc. One very interesting site I have found that debunks various "power" food additives is this one ( http://www.ergo-log.com/ ). They genuinely impressed me by truthfully and insightfully reporting on scientific publications concerning food supplements. They know their stuff, both from a (bio)chemical point of view and from a statistical (and experimental design) point of view. Not a light read, but Recommended.

Nope, you still get cable TV.

Not for long. The cablecos have convinced the FCC to let them encrypt basic cable under the absolutely insane premise that it will be better for customers if they have to lease a cable box in order to watch even over-the-air channels.

In that case it should be easy and in this case it will be a feature.

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

This is what you come upon when you go filming the poor amongst the poor. Yet again a relatively small are is shown, this time around the RT monitor stands. It looks like a problem of law enforcement, lack of recycling infrastructure for terminal waste and lack of employment for these people.
Don't fall for e-waste scare again. Actual numbers tell that the vast majority of it is recycled and reused. This was covered already but here's one witness example :
http://www.usatoday.com/story/...

"A handful of countries in the developed world don't like the ban," Puckett said. "Some countries have ratified the Basel Convention but don't agree to the ban."

Ingenthron disagrees with the definition of electronic equipment exported for repair as hazardous. He said those exports account for about 8% of the 13 million pounds Good Point processes, and provide a livelihood for Third World entrepreneurs.

Wahab Mohammed, 36, of Accra, Ghana, relies on Good Point to provide an inventory of used computers and more for his business in Ghana.

"I buy TVs, computers, speakers, amplifiers and stereos," Wahab said last month as he roamed the maze of shrink-wrapped mountains of equipment at Good Point. "When I take them back I have people who work for me. We resell everything, 80% to 90% we're able to make it work."

Wahab tries to make the pilgrimage to Good Point every three or four months, splitting his time between Middlebury and Accra. He's planning to open a recycling plant in Ghana.

"In Africa laptops cost more than here brand new," Wahab said. "My customers appreciate me bringing in used laptops they're able to buy for $100. I still make money."

In fact what you see in TFA is not our waste, but Ghanans's waste. The news is they're dumping CRT PC monitors (looks like 17 inchers), probably because they're too expensive to run, and some of them may just have failed.
Africans don't want to buy our discarded CRTs these days and no goodwill organisation will pay for the shipping either.

I would also like to know what happens to TFA's pile of five PC on the moped. "PCs and electronic devices that look in reasonable condition are sold untested in Accra". Well three are AT, so a bit crap (but may contain hard drives, etc., and may serve some limited use or as thin clients), two are ATX and so are USB, can do MP3 playback, file transfers to from USB flash drives or cell phones, word processing or accounting ; probably divx playback (the bottom one is color-coded, thus powerful) . Just don't turn it on often.

Here is Human Rights Watch's discussion of how ethnic gangs teach white prisoners tolerance:

Past studies have documented the prevalence of black on white sexual aggression in prison.(213) These findings are further confirmed by Human Rights Watch's own research. Overall, our correspondence and interviews with white, black, and Hispanic inmates convince us that white inmates are disproportionately targeted for abuse.(214) Although many whites reported being raped by white inmates, black on white abuse appears to be more common. To a much lesser extent, non-Hispanic whites also reported being victimized by Hispanic inmates.

Other than sexual abuse of white inmates by African Americans, and, less frequently, Hispanics, interracial and interethnic sexual abuse appears to be much less common than sexual abuse committed by persons of one race or ethnicity against members of that same group. In other words, African Americans typically face sexual abuse at the hands of other African Americans, and Hispanics at the hands of other Hispanics. Some inmates told Human Rights Watch that this pattern reflected an inmate rule, one that was strictly enforced: "only a black can turn out [rape] a black, and only a chicano can turn out a chicano."(215)

The benefits of this therapy have been documented by the government's study of the phenomenon:

Prison rape worldview doesn't interpret sexual pressure as coercion," he wrote. "Rather, sexual pressure ushers, guides or shepherds the process of sexual awakening.

Imagine the homophobia to which the world would be subjected if it weren't for the sexual awakening offered by the government's integration of angry white males with the rest of society.

Well Antarctica is gonna need to warm up a bit if it is going to melt.

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

behold, the rhetorical skills of an ignorant nutcase. and it's funny you should mention education...since mine is an engineering degree that involved various geotechnical, geological, and environmental courses, and I'm currently working on expanding my education specifically into petroleum/energy engineering.

When you have information produced by someone with more than a 6th grade education, let me know.

why you looking for a tutor? because apparently you somehow think faultlines just stop at subsequent rock layers, rather than transcending layers (which they do). here, this wikipedia entry should be helpful. It has pictures, so even you can understand it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F...

And I didnt even mention flowback, the injection water that returns to the surface and has to be treated and released....except they dont always treat or capture it, and is another major source of contamination as a result of fracking.

And then there's these...

4 states confirm water pollution from drilling:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/...

Fracking Wastewater Radioactive and Contaminated, Study Finds:
http://www.livescience.com/401...

Fracking Investigation Finds Evidence of Water Contamination:
http://mashable.com/2014/01/06...

EPA's Study of Hydraulic Fracturing and Its Potential Impact on Drinking Water Resources:
http://www2.epa.gov/hfstudy/hy...

Environmental impact of hydraulic fracturing:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...

Hopefully this will help reduce the divorce rate.

Divorcé's Guide to Marriage - Study Reveals Five Common Themes Underlie Most Divorces

Money was the No. 1 point of conflict in the majority of marriages, good or bad, that Dr. Orbuch studied. And 49% of divorced people from her study said they fought so much over money with their spouse—whether it was different spending styles, lies about spending, one person making more money and trying to control the other—that they anticipate money will be a problem in their next relationship, too.

Many marriages today are 'til debt do us part

You have to remember Dealers pay to play and they have contracts with auto makers on what kinds of service they'll perform under warranty and that the manufacturers will always support their interests. It's expensive when an auto maker has to change things in the field but it's a revenue stream for dealerships who charge all of the labor hours + service fees right back to the manufacturers but it's symbiotic and they both milk the customer either coming or going.

Remember when Chrysler and GM went bankrupt and all those dealers were screaming because their dealerships were terminated due to Chapter 11 reorganization? It was a cost saving measure for GM and Chrysler disguised as the argument that fewer dealers meant less competition within their own lines of vehicles.

Bringing the car into the dealership means much more than just fixing a software glitch, it also means the ability to upsell you on their expensive bullshit that you can get from Midas or an independent for far less. Not to mention while you're waiting you can see the new models that are out, you know the ones that don't have all the problems your current vehicle has. That means it's ultimately in their best interests to keep you coming to them when you need your headlight grease changed. Think that's unrealistic? Manufacturers are putting more and more components into cars that independent service people can't repair just to keep the symbiotic relationship going.

Tesla can't do that because they don't have dealers so pushing changes makes sense for them but now I'll suspect that some hacker network in Eastern Europe will be trying to figure this out so Telsas can be used as WMDs.

Try all you want, the term was never used the way you're insisting it was.

Gee, if only there was some way of proving otherwise. Like maybe I can look at old news articles from years ago?

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com... :

About three years ago, Brandy Johnson cut the cord. "We had a landline and had some trouble with it," she said. After that, she and her husband decided to make the jump to wireless. [..] As pay phones and landlines disappear, we might be moving toward a wireless future. [..] While some people still use their landlines for their Internet access, "dial-up is antiquated," one of his co-workers said in the background.

http://www.bankrate.com/brm/ne... :

Ready to cut the cord? While it's clear that snipping your landline could save you some serious cash, it's not for everyone. [..] Hanging on to your solo landline solely for the Internet connection? Be sure to weigh the costs of other Internet options, such as cable modems.

http://the.honoluluadvertiser.... :

The decision by federal regulators to let consumers move their home number to a mobile phone represented a defeat for carriers concerned about losing more lines. [..] "After today it's easier than ever to cut the cord," FCC Chairman Michael Powell said in a statement. [..] Verizon also said canceling a landline may also disable alarm reporting services, TiVo, satellite TV, cable pay-per-view and Internet access that depends on a phone line, including dial-up and DSL access.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/2... :

In fact, an estimated 2 to 3 million consumers are expected to drop their landlines over the next 18 to 24 months [..] People who rely mostly on cell phones cite cost and convenience as the main motivation for cutting the cord. [..] "If I was going online with a dial-up, then I would have a landline, but since they have the cable connection and the wireless connections, that negates the reason for having a landline," she added. Others are abandoning once fancy features on their landlines and maintaining the line's bare bones service.

Those are clear demarcations between people "cutting the cord" and keeping a landline around for Internet. How about that, a term that makes sense?

The problem for Apple management is, how to justify sitting on a vast hoard of cash instead of returning it to shareholders. There is simply no defensible way to spend $160BN developing the next generation of iDevices. Apple is currently getting rid of some of it through dividends and stock repurchases. But most major investors don't really want dividends nor to sell back their shares; they already have capital they don't know what to do with and just want it to grow as fast as possible. I am largely agreeing with your comment, except "don't do anything with the money" isn't really an option, let alone the best option. Personally I think it's endemic to our economy - wealth has become so concentrated that those who have it can't figure out any useful way to spend it, and those who would spend it don't have it, resulting in economic slowdown.

The attorneys did use the word affluenza but the defense was actually something more like "the teen's parents were bad parents." Whether or not that's fair depends on the individual of course.

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

Well Chevy is apparently looking to combine those two types of fire:

http://ftw.usatoday.com/2014/0...
http://abcnews.go.com/Sports/w...

Salt Lake City has faster ice than Sochi.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/...
"The team trained in Salt Lake City on fast ice - the complete opposite of the conditions in Sochi, which is below sea level on slow ice in humidity."

I am. The scientific knowledge problem is much worse. The "literacy/language" problem is trivial and unimportant.

Come on. People get screwed up easily, and astrology is not an every-day word nor an important word, unless you actually look up an astrological prediction frequently. Just listen to a parent describing the characters on a show their kids like but they can't sit through, and you'll find some amusing word or syllable substitutions in major character names. I'm highly confident that with a little time, we kind find some word I've used more than Astrology in the past year, which is not some specific jargon, and which appears in major dictionaries, yet you have never heard of in your life. It just doesn't come up that often.

I would expect people who are really into astrology to be the most sensitive to the distinction (barring maybe people who are actually astronomers), and people who don't care about being a Leo or a Virgo or whatever to be the most hazy on it.

Plus, real linguists know that astrology really was the term for what we now call astronomy. After all, the word itself even has the form of a science-name: latin for stars, logy for study. Study of the stars.

We have much worse literacy problems than mixing up astrology and astronomy. Like this: http://usatoday30.usatoday.com....

They tried vouchers in DC and it has been an unmitigated success which is now trying to be shut down because the unions are scared spit-less that it will spread to other states.

Really? You don't think it might have something to do with the massive cheating scandal? I don't think "unmitigated" means what you think it means.

And I call it "straw man argument" when someone cites bureaucratic foibles with what are demonstrably nonexistent examples.

Kindly cite the cases of "navigable waters" including "any puddle that lasts more than 24 hours". The Supreme Court guidelines are fascinating, and seem to be extensible to include waterways large enough to handle a canoe, depending on whether it's connected to another waterway. But they're workable, and discharging the waste into a creek that _feeds into_ a lake or ocean could certainly make such discharges relevant to public safety.

Really? The EPA has been abusing people like this for years, but one couple finally stood up to them. I can't believe you've never heard of cases like Sackett v. EPA. Willful ignorance?

" Its non-potable water and therefore must be cleansed before its returned to the land"

Riiiighht because pumping millions of gallons of it underground is completely contained and not putting it into the land at all... o_O

With 4 states already confirming that fracking had polluted their ground water. ( http://www.usatoday.com/story/... )

That's not just what you're drinking, that's what's growing your food, and your animals food.

You apparently don't pay much attention to defense matters. You should look into the "peace dividend" in the 1990s, and the current defense sequestration cuts.

Strange as it seems, $2 billion is chump change. Look at JP Morgan Chase. They were fined over $20 Billion, last year. http://www.usatoday.com/story/...

And the CEO got a raise. http://dealbook.nytimes.com/20...

If you bother to follow the news, you know that the US military saw both its budget and headcount greatly decrease in the 1990s, increase in the 2000s, and it is currently set to significantly decrease again over the next decade.

Budget plan would slash Army by 100,000 soldiers

Since those staffing level changes are a fact, and the changes in payrolls and procurement are as well, it seems pretty clear that your original premise is flawed. The NSA and TSA continue to exist at current levels because they serve a useful purpose. If they didn't they would almost certainly be cut as well. At least in the case of the NSA that seems pretty unlikely it will be significantly cut any time soon since the importance of intelligence information is increasing, and the medium for much of the information is going to be communications and signals intelligence.

The Patriot Act keeps being reauthorized since the reason it was passed hasn't gone away. It was known at the start of this that it would likely be decades before it did. You can thank the Islamist extremists.

It appears that The Telegraph is just making this stuff up. They often do this to increase the anti-EU crowd in the UK.

The biggest fact that this story is false is the fact there are no secret EU bodies at work here.

http://europa.eu/about-eu/inst...

Journalist are also known to make up stories.

http://www.theguardian.com/med...
http://edition.cnn.com/2003/US...
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com...

Here are some EU myths busted.

http://youtu.be/oqVJEZnYiZo

The system is set up that those with money get heard and those without do not.

This is an oft-repeated canard, but it is simply not true. Money helps — as does comely appearance, good education, etc. But it is not a guarantee. For example, last year people favoring gun control outspent their opponents in Colorado by staggering 11:1 — and lost anyway.

Modern politics is no longer about doing what's best for the country or even the constituent.

"Things aren't what they used to be — and they never were." I'm yet to see a reform proposal, that does not infringe on First Amendment rights — and, worse, all allow the incumbent to decide, whether the opposition is not getting "too much money". That's a straight road to Chavez's Venezuela (if not Castro's Cuba), and that's far worse than even "plutocracy".

Lastly, you focusing on the wrong target. The real danger are not the wealthy individuals outside of government — they've earned the monies they are spending doing something, that other people wanted to pay for. The real threat to our freedoms (and prosperity) is the ever-expanding federal government — presidents come and go, but the bureaucrats stay... The stuffed suits justifying their own existence by issuing regulations (that nobody wants) and justifying their greater and expenses. Real estate in Washington DC never seems to drop in price and the region hardly sustained any recession. And, wouldn't you know it, they just got another raise...

Over the years a succession of foolish Congresses has delegated Legislature's powers to the Executive branch — and its various agencies headed by unelected bureaucrats. That needs reforming, but you aren't going to achieve it by limiting the amounts of money people are allowed to spend on politics. People in government will find a way — people outside will be audited by the IRS.

It's [renters] that are likely getting squeezed out by people that are able to pay more.

And there's some evidence that rising property values have the opposite effect.

If people are getting forced out by rising rents, it's only because they are prohibited by the city to take in more roommates. So the Nazi analogy is actually quite relevant--an economic system where the means of production are privately owned but government controlled is dirigism, which is closely associated with fascim.

Any evidence to support your allegation? I'm pretty damn sure that he got the traction he claims to have wanted before he started his attempt to systematically destroy our international espionage capability. Try him and hang him. He's proud of his treason.

Of course there is evidence.

Try this: http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

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

Yeah, I'm sure he got the traction he wanted...

Even the most dire predictions don't forecast climate change ending all life on Earth. Here's a sample worst-case scenario. It's bad, not as bad as the effects of a widespread nuclear war or an impact from a moderately sized asteroid, but bad enough to warrant spending a few percent of our GDP to avoid the worst scenarios of global warming.

>> I am not afraid of cops getting free pass on some assaults.

> I'm very sorry to hear that and to see it moderated +5 Insightful. I hope you change your viewpoint on this topic and I also hope nothing too drastic has to occur for you to realize how terrible what you just said is.

It seems that you are saying that any unpunished police assault case is a sign that we must act; that until we reach zero police assaults, we have not done enough. Do you also think there should be zero terrorism and zero cases of children dying in swimming pools?

Here's the thing: Some small fraction of cops are bad people and even the good ones have bad days. So like children drowning and whack-jobs getting lucky with an IED, some police misconduct is going to happen. The question is how much of ourselves do we sacrifice in exchange for reducing the number of such cases. How much liberty do we sacrifice for reduced terrorism, how many swimming pool safety requirements do we accept to reduce child drowning deaths, how much corporate surveillance by proxy do we accept to curtail police wrongdoing?

The first question in this case is how many cases of police wrongdoing are happening now, and what do we have to sacrifice to reduce that number by what percentage? I think you're starting with "We have to do something to make it less" -- but without some numbers to go on, that is as unfounded as the pretense that the TSA is reducing hijacking risk enough to justify its existence, or that the NSA's impact on crime and terrorism is worth the chilling effect on free association.

Here's a quick look at one measure:

Cases in which police, prison guards and other law enforcement authorities have used excessive force or other tactics to violate victims' civil rights have increased 25% (281 vs. 224) from fiscal years 2001 to 2007 over the previous seven years, the department says.

281 -- interesting number, that -- about the same number as the average annual US deaths from terrorism since 9/11, including those that died 9/11. To put that figure in perspective, we lose more than ten times that many to drowning, more than one hundred times as many to auto accidents, and more than one thousand times to obesity. Probability is about on par with getting hit by lightning. Police misconduct is a terrible thing -- but statistically speaking, I feel like we're doing pretty good job on prevention.

Social programs

And the military.

US: Budget plan would slash Army by 100,000 soldiers
UK: Defence cuts to hit 9,500 Army posts

I do have a similar bag of rice, but I don't eat rice too often - it has hardly any vitamins. I try to keep that in mind.

I am not attached to eating grasses in part because I don't find them tasty, and in part because they cannot be guaranteed to be clean. Quite a few food-borne epidemics happen in the USA - basically, every year - just because it's all but impossible to ensure that all this cabbage, lettuce, or what's its name, a plant that grows outdoors, on huge fields, is protected from contaminants of all kinds. At best they wash the leaves, but that's not enough.

Meat is better controlled, and the way I cook it (super well done) guarantees that it's safe to eat. Experience proves it. Considering the way I like my meat prepared, it makes absolutely no difference if the original meat was mooing five minutes ago or five months ago. I do not care about taste, and I do not care about eating. I eat to live. If only I could eat a little pill once per year that would replace all the food in that year, I'd take it and say thanks. Eating is a waste of time. I have more interesting things to do.

Living some distance away from the city, and from everyone else, is also healthy. I have fresh air here. There are no random strangers sneezing into your face. One can live for years without getting a flu even once. When I lived in a large city (population 10M) I got sick twice per year - there was no escape from the virus. I would not want to go back to the crowded city.

Science questioned in shaken-baby conviction
Jerry Mitchell,
The (Jackson, Miss.) Clarion-Ledger
8 a.m. EST January 19, 2014

The symptoms once seen as evidence of shaken-baby syndrome -- evidence that helped put a Mississippi man on death row -- are not considered as clear-cut now as they once were.

JACKSON, Miss. -- Thousands of Americans are behind bars, convicted of shaking babies to death — and some experts now say the science that put them there is blurry.

Since 2000, at least 11 Mississippians have been convicted in such cases with two of them sitting on death row. Jeffrey Havard is one of them.

It was Feb. 21, 2002, a Thursday night in Natchez, Miss.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/01/19/science-questioned-in-shaken-baby-conviction-/4642923/

Don't look to the US for sympathy - we paid a tax on our phone service for over a century to pay off the Spanish American War... 108 years to be precise !

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/industries/telecom/2006-05-25-phone-tax_x.htm

always Republicans ... who do this shit!

It's important to note that right now in US politics one party is completely and totally against the concept of scientific inquiry putting Newspeak-like religious rhetoric above all else.

There is no 'but the Democrats...' counterpoint on this...it's ALWAYS REPUBLICANS. It doesn't make the Democrat/Liberals better in some long-term philosophical way at all, but it forces a choice in a real-world context that alot of /.'ers can't mentally make.

(SNIP)

Good grief you are full of it. If you don't see problems with the science on both sides of the isle you aren't looking. Maybe you're simply blinded by partisanship.

The Republican Party Isn't Really the Anti-Science Party

.... twice as many Democrats as Republicans believe in astrology, a pseudoscientific medieval farce. Left-wing ideologues also frequently espouse an irrational fear of nuclear power, genetic modification, and industrial and agricultural chemistry—even though all of these scientific breakthroughs have enriched lives, lengthened lifespans, and produced substantial economic growth over the last century. .....

Stewart Brand, the 1960s environmental activist, has bemoaned opposition to genetically modified organisms as “irrational, anti-scientific, and very harmful.” The anti-GMO movement, largely a product of the political left, has reached levels of delusion, paranoia and anti-intellectualism worthy of Michele Bachmann and young-earth creationists.

Matters are more nuanced—or just plain favorable to Republicans—when it comes to the business of actually governing. Comparing the two parties' proposed funding levels for the major scientific research agencies doesn't lend itself well to narratives about who's “pro” or “anti” science. For every cheap shot a Republican member of Congress like Senator Tom Coburn has taken at National Science Foundation grants (see the unfairly maligned robo-squirrel), there are areas where Obama has undercut American leadership in basic science by favoring loan guarantees and industrial subsidies to the alternative-energy industry at the expense of science elsewhere.

We've seen this in his proposed cuts to high-energy physics, nuclear physics, planetary science, and other areas of research. Even in the much-maligned “Tea Party-dominated” House of Representatives, the GOP budget proposals provided more funding for the NSF than those of the Senate Democrats for the current 2013 fiscal year.

Are Democrats Really the "Pro-Science" Party?

A narrative has developed over the past several years that the Republican Party is anti-science. Recently, thanks to the ignorant remarks about rape made by Rep. Todd Akin, the Democrats have seized the opportunity to remind us that they are the true champions of science in America. But is it really true?

No. As we thoroughly detail in our new book, "Science Left Behind," Democrats are willing to throw science under the bus for any number of pet ideological causes – including anything from genetic modification to vaccines.

Are Republicans or Democrats More Anti-Science?
Eric Cantor and Lamar Smith: Rethinking science funding
Anti-Science Republicans Versus Anti-Science Democrats: The Comparison

Just FYI, but Boeing has decided not to leave Washington state and will be building the 777X near Seattle.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/todayinthesky/2014/01/14/incentives-not-enough-for-missouri-to-lure-boeing-plant/4470317/

"{govt agency} collects X data when transmitted through Y channel"

This is crap journalism from the Guardian.

They are doing everything they can to stretch the Snowden material out as long as humanly possible.

I am a rabid defender of the right to privacy. I have actually protested and done activism, but I absolutely hate everything about how this Snowden material was released.

It just continues. The whole Snowden narrative is bullshit. He may or may not have been blackmailed, but he's certainly being manipulated and orchestrated. In Russia now he's practically in jail...worse than what a probationer would face in the US for sure.

Glen Greenwald is a hack and he is most to blame for Snowden's current situation. Greenwald's **job** was to protect his source, but of course he would have to risk possible short term jail in the US.

The Guardian and all the press are too blame as well. Why didn't we have a "national conversation" about this sooner? Dipshit B and C students in college become news producers/editors. These are the idiots who decide what gets reported on and how. The are easily manipulated, quickly corrupted with peer pressure, and will lie to themselves and the whole nation rather than admit that they need to dramatically improve the quality of their news product.

The PATRIOT ACT happened in 2001!!!! The USA Today reported on this in **2006** http://yahoo.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-nsa_x.htm

I understand that Snowden supposedly had "undeniable proof" which is of course not true. The Bush admin would have denied everything about it forever in all contexts and it would have eventually gone away...how do I kknow this? **Thats what happened from the Patriot Act through the end of Bush's terms**

I support doing what we need to do to bring Snowden home. I don't want to see him behind bars. Maybe something that could be probation, I don't know. I'd like to know alot more before I decide what should happen to him but I think he's a victim of blackmail here.

I'm not saying Snowden's revelations aren't having a good effect...but it's all wrong in execution and it didn't help nearly as much as it could have and it became too politicized with people looking to demonize Obama for laws like the Patriot Act etc.

While the judges are clearly biased, there is value in their point:

the participation of an advocate would neither create a truly adversarial process nor constructively assist the courts in assessing the facts

This is true: How can you have an adversarial process when the adversary isn't allowed to know that anything is happening? But there still needs to be some adversary. The problem is bigger than this though.

Ultimately, this court isn't even a court by any modern definition. No adversarial process. The judges are appointed without any confirmation or oversight. There is no appeals court. The NSA lies to the judges anyway. And the department that oversees them ignores complaints by the judges.

How is this a court at all?

Smallpox has been absent since the 70's, and hasn't show up yet... So if the premise is the same with polio, yes we can say that it is extinct... I think.

I think it only exists in one CDC facility and one research / germ warfare facility in siberia, now.

Meh. I'm sure it exists in other places as well. For example, the sequence for smallpox is well-known, so it could be reconstructed by a government even if those samples were destroyed. Furthermore, there's always the random serendipity of as-yet undiscovered samples:
Century-old smallpox scabs in N.M. envelope (found in a library, of all places...)

However, I concur that the disease is extinct in the wild, and, barring malfeasance, there will never be another epidemic of smallpox.

Interesting that the FBI sent the envelope to the CDC via mail... aside from being illegal I would've thought that this would of at least raised a few eye brows at the CDC.

Smallpox has been absent since the 70's, and hasn't show up yet... So if the premise is the same with polio, yes we can say that it is extinct... I think.

I think it only exists in one CDC facility and one research / germ warfare facility in siberia, now.

Meh. I'm sure it exists in other places as well. For example, the sequence for smallpox is well-known, so it could be reconstructed by a government even if those samples were destroyed. Furthermore, there's always the random serendipity of as-yet undiscovered samples:
Century-old smallpox scabs in N.M. envelope (found in a library, of all places...)

However, I concur that the disease is extinct in the wild, and, barring malfeasance, there will never be another epidemic of smallpox.

I know what your president told you. But http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/05/14/irs-tea-party-progressive-groups/2158831/

Except that's an older article that was parroting RWEC stories. I counter with this July article from USAToday: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/07/12/irs-occupy-groups/2511541/ [usatoday.com]

It's not clear you are anything but a blind follower of partisanship, but if you really investigated, you would have come to this official report by the department of the treasury. There was bad stuff going on in the IRS.

1. Fast and Furious was made up.

Your link doesn't talk about Fast and Furious. Maybe you mis-linked? Not only is it real, Obama seems to have tried to cover up parts of it.

2. Ditto for the IRS scandal, which was also made up.

The Department of Treasury disagrees.

I don't care about Solyndra, but saying, "The Fed is not printing money, they are buying bonds" is about the same as saying a paypal transfer is not giving someone money. The Fed is buying bonds with money they create, their explicit goal is to increase the money supply. Of course, it's not exactly a scandal, and it's not Obama's fault.

It isn't required for the president to enforce all laws (which is a good thing), so I don't care about that either. It is rather amusing that the president's own law was so poorly designed that he has to avoid enforcing it, though.

Anyway, here is a non-conservative site debunking your debunking http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/05/14/irs-tea-party-progressive-groups/2158831/

Except that's an older article that was parroting RWEC stories. I counter with this July article from USAToday:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/07/12/irs-occupy-groups/2511541/

Anyway, here is a non-conservative site debunking your debunking http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/05/14/irs-tea-party-progressive-groups/2158831/

Except that's an older article that was parroting RWEC stories. I counter with this July article from USAToday:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/07/12/irs-occupy-groups/2511541/