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Yeah, it's not like the IAEA "declared its latest inspection visit to Iran a failure, with the regime blocking access to a key site suspected of hosting covert nuclear weapon research", or that "satellite images of an Iranian military facility appear to show trucks and earth-moving vehicles at the site, indicating an attempted cleanup of radioactive traces possibly left by tests of a nuclear-weapon trigger", or that there are six binding and currently in-force UN Security Council resolutions imposing sanctions on Iran, five of which invoke Chapter VII of the UN Charter, which authorizes force to compel compliance.

It's all pretty much just "propaganda". (And before you go spewing ignorance about how this is "just the same as Iraq", read this.)

If it makes you feel better to believe that the US and/or the West are what's wrong with the world, and that regimes like Iran are really innocent and have just been unfairly targeted by some evil cabal, then I really hope you get the world you wish for: a world where principles of liberal democracy and freedom are not projected and protected — even if imperfectly and with too many mistakes to count — and you'd then see what oppression and "propaganda" really are.

If you are really for liberty and freedom, first thing you would've done would be to abolish all the current western governments.
Not sure if you are an American, but you've heard of NDAA? If you are really an American for liberty and freedom, what's happening to your action on YOUR government who have been destroying YOUR liberty and freedom, and give you a grope on your and your children's genitals before you get on the plane?

Yes, the US and the West are what's wrong with the world, because these countries are not controlled by its people, but are serving the interests of big banks and corporations who give 0 shit of your liberty and freedom. The people who actually do care about liberty and freedom would study history and understand WHO is terrorizing the world (it's certainly not Iran).

Oh, and if my memory serves me right, isn't these "Guardian", "USA Today" sewage stream media the same group who pumped up the war machine for Afghanistan and Iraq? hmmm...

They are lucky if they can sustain 100% of their theoretically viable signal at every possible location in their network. Oh wait, they can' t.

Yeah, it's not like the IAEA "declared its latest inspection visit to Iran a failure, with the regime blocking access to a key site suspected of hosting covert nuclear weapon research", or that "satellite images of an Iranian military facility appear to show trucks and earth-moving vehicles at the site, indicating an attempted cleanup of radioactive traces possibly left by tests of a nuclear-weapon trigger", or that there are six binding and currently in-force UN Security Council resolutions imposing sanctions on Iran, five of which invoke Chapter VII of the UN Charter, which authorizes force to compel compliance.

It's all pretty much just "propaganda". (And before you go spewing ignorance about how this is "just the same as Iraq", read this.)

If it makes you feel better to believe that the US and/or the West are what's wrong with the world, and that regimes like Iran are really innocent and have just been unfairly targeted by some evil cabal, then I really hope you get the world you wish for: a world where principles of liberal democracy and freedom are not projected and protected — even if imperfectly and with too many mistakes to count — and you'd then see what oppression and "propaganda" really are.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2008-09-17-brazil-AIDS_N.htm

It is logical thing for governments to do. At least as long as they have enough sovereignity for such action. Think World Government here...

I was surprised to discover the rate of . . . divorce was actually HIGHER among church-going Christians then the general population.

Not exactly . . .

Christians question divorce rates of faithful

Wright combed through the General Social Survey, a vast demographic study conducted by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, and found that Christians, like adherents of other religions, have a divorce rate of about 42%. The rate among religiously unaffiliated Americans is 50%.

When Wright examined the statistics on evangelicals, he found worship attendance has a big influence on the numbers. Six in 10 evangelicals who never attend had been divorced or separated, compared to just 38% of weekly attendees. . . . .

"You do hear, both in Christian and non-Christian circles, that Christians are no different from anyone else when it comes to divorce and that is not true if you are focusing on Christians who are regular church attendees," he said.

Wilcox's analysis of the National Survey of Families and Households has found that Americans who attend religious services several times a month were about 35% less likely to divorce than those with no religious affiliation.

Nominal conservative Protestants, on the other hand, were 20% more likely to divorce than the religiously unaffiliated.

"There's something about being a nominal 'Christian' that is linked to a lot of negative outcomes when it comes to family life," Wilcox said

-------

They booed Ron Paul when he said we should follow the Golden Rule in foreign policy. (Treat others the way you would want to be treated - do not bomb and kill them.) So called Christians often don't follow their own principles.

I think you need to understand the principles.

The Golden Rule's primary use is as a guide to individual conduct, not statecraft. It's not clear that Ron Paul would expect to receive reciprocal treatment from everybody, including the Iranians, for good treatment towards them, or what he would do in the face of bad behavior other than continue to act nicely. Among nations the expectation should be reciprocal. I don't think most Americans do, or should, have much confidence in Ron Paul's foreign policy in situations where the Golden Rule fails to elicit the desired response. Nor is it clear that a President Ron Paul would protect Americans and America's interests around the world as he seems to have made it clear that he would largely pull back. That's fine until the Iranians cut of 20% of the world's oil supply by blocking the Straits of Hormuz. It seems to me that he is also implicitly blaming America for the self-directed and self-interested bad behavior of other nations, like Iran.

America already had too many interests around the world in 1812 for a Ron Paul presidency and foreign policy to be successful.

It is called me-mo-ry and ext-ra-po-la-ti-on. MS had astroturf stories like this for a long and we expect more of the same.

there is close to 0 public support for another war

Not true. Americans are sick of *some* wars; 75% of Americans support withdrawal from Afghanistan by Obama's timetable or earlier. But... 70% of Americans believe Iran already has nuclear weapons, and 58% of Americans say they support U.S. military attacks on Iran. The Young Turks: Can we stop a war with Iran?

5000 or so dead soldiers

6,300 U.S. soldiers killed, 46,000 U.S. soldiers wounded, estimated hundreds of thousands of civilian dead, and $3 trillion of public money given to "defense contractors".

And now Iran is being blamed for 9/11: U.S. District Court Rules Iran Behind 9/11 Attacks (December 23rd 2011)

How convenient. After 2001, 44% of Americans believed that the 9/11 hijackers were Iraqi, and 70% of Americans believed Saddam did 9/11. In fact, not a single one of the hijackers were Iraqi, and secularist Hussein and Islamist bin Laden were known to hate each other. It was all a lie. Even now, after the whole argument has been completely discredited time and again, including by the CIA, 41% of Americans still believe that Saddam Hussein was directly involved in 9/11. But now Iran did it, so we have to attack them.... omg..

I can't believe people are falling for this again...

Hey man, on September 11, 2001, 18,000 children starved to death.

Yet, they haven't shot at anyone.

Unlike certain free country which is pillaging and burning things around the world, both militarily and politically.

Stop that fucking nonsense, ok?

Since what you wrote is false, how about you first?

State Sponsors: Iran

Iranians 'targeted Israeli diplomats' - Published: 15/02/2012 at 04:35 PM

Thai authorities charged two Iranians on Wednesday over an alleged bomb plot against Israeli diplomats, officials said, piling pressure on Teheran over accusations of a terror campaign against the Jewish state.

Authorities said they had laid criminal charges against two Iranian suspects accused of involvement in the three blasts in central Bangkok yesterday.

One of the men -- named as 28-year-old Saeid Morati -- lost both legs after he hurled an explosive device at police while fleeing an earlier blast at a house in the capital. The satchel containing the bomb, which he threw at a police vehicle, bounced off another vehicle and exploded at his feet.

A second Iranian suspect, Mohammad Hazaei, was detained trying to board a flight out of the country at Suvarnabhumi airport. A third Iranian suspect is believed to have fled to Malaysia, officials said.

"These three Iranian men are an assassination team and their targets were Israeli diplomats including the ambassador," a senior Thai intelligence official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"Their plan was to attach bombs to diplomats' cars." . . . .

Israel accused Iran of orchestrating attacks on Israeli embassy staff in India and Georgia on Monday.

An Israeli diplomat in New Delhi suffered grave shrapnel wounds when a motorbike assailant attached a bomb to her car on Monday.

Experts: Iran's Quds Force Deeply Enmeshed in Iraq

U.S. blames Iran for new bombs in Iraq

Iran’s Quds Force was blamed for attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq

Iran's Quds Force: Supporting Terrorism Worldwide

Leader of Iran’s Al-Quds Forces Says Iraq and Southern Lebanon Are Under His Control

Iran threatens to close Strait of Hormuz over EU oil sanctions

Iranian weapons seized in Afghanistan

One more, then I'm going to stop since this could easily turn into a seemingly never-ending story. I've hardly touched on Iran's activities around the world. I've hardly even scratched the surface of Iran's involvement in Lebanon, and with Hezbollah, and the massive amount of arms that they've been providing. You do know that Hezbollah, aiming at the desturction of Israel, has 50,000 rockets now, right?

Simon Wiesenthal Center: Iranian Calls to Destroy Jewish People Unparalleled Since Nazi Germany

Frankly, I'm baffled by how people miss this. I guess it doesn't come up at the "anti-Zionist" meeting

Well, what about the Carter stimulus, when he tried the same thing? I'm not sure there many stimulus ideas that have a stimulus multiplier of greater than 1. If you can devise a stimulus plan that would actually have a stimulus multiplier of greater than 1, I'd be interested in seeing it. (incidentally, when I say Bush tax rebates, I'm not talking about all of his cuts; and with the Obama cut, I'm not talking about all his stimulus; and same with the carter payroll tax. Of course it's hard to extricate any particular spending from the total economy, but it doesn't seem like any of those had a stimulating effect greater than its cost).

Most of our domestic refineries have been closing due to cheaper costs overseas

Nope, sorry, wrong. The oil refineries that have been shut down in the country over the last 20 have been shut down because they are aging, inefficient designs which are easier to replace then upgrade... Amongst all that, we have excess refining capacity in this country http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2012/02/us-exported-more-gasoline-than-imported-last-year/1#.T1FpJ3LhfnA
This notion that we have a refinery shortage in this country, caused be evil filthy liberals and overregulatory desires, and that is what is causing high gas prices, is an idiotic Republican meme..

"Chinese hackers: No site is safe - CNN"

"Chinese hacking worries Pentagon"

"Pentagon hacked, Chinese Army suspected"

"China denies hacking Pentagon computers"

The US produces the stuff too. We were a net exporter of oil-based fuels last year (for the first time in over 60 years).

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/energy/story/2011-12-16/us-oil-boom/52053236/1

Michele Rhee, under whom this fraud occurred? Yeah, she's a peach.

Oops, sorry, found it. It's from cars.com.

Here's a link:

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/driveon/post/2011/06/ranking-the-two-most-american-cars-are-from-japanese-makers/1#.T0WyUhwZ09k

Yeah, this guy wants to bring on the American Taliban... he thinks government and religion (his, of course) should be the same thing.

But he's not as stupid that suggests, and he's clearly a follower of Karl Rove's strategies, if not as capable at it. The major innovation that Rove brought to political warefare was this: find your weakest point, and attack that first in your opponent. Who cares if the attack it true or fictional, the simple fact that you attacked first makes the counterattack weak.

Look at the 2004 election... John Kerry was a decorated war hero, George Bush served in the National Guard, and even there got out of actually doing much serving thanks to his family's political connections. In the past, the Bush people would have done anything possible to avoid even discussing military service. Rove orchestrates the "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth", sells a bunch of complete lies about Kerry, and pretty much destroys that avenue of attack against Bush. Evil but frickin' brilliant... didn't help that Kerry didn't have a clue what to do about it.

And the Republican Party has been repeatedly anti-science. Sure, they'll claim as much the Democrats to want the business piece of science, but when they get right down to it, their policies have sent research elsewhere. Their energy policy directly lead to China so dominating solar, that more than half of the US solar companies have gone under in the last five years. Their wacko-religious policies on stem cell research all but halted it in the USA, while it's flourishing in Europe. Research when successful becomes business; neither of those are businesses easily won back. And that's not even getting into Creationism, Intelligent Design, or whatever new name they try next for the same basic goal: teaching the Christian creation myth to children as a credible scientific theory, rather than the fairy story it is. Only 22% of Republicans believe that global warming/climate change even exists, much less that it's man made... and they're sure to let you know, every time it snows... even when the increased snowfall actually is due to a warmer weather pattern.

The press is full of similar accounts:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/29/opinion/republicans-against-science.html
http://io9.com/5835970/will-the-anti+science-republicans-kill-conservatism-as-americans-know-it
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leonard-steinhorn/how-the-gop-became-the-an_b_970410.html
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/story/2011-09-20/gop-democrats-science-evolution-vaccine/50482856/1
http://www.waronscience.com/home.php

The Dems, of course, don't have a perfect track record, and on some issues, are closer to the Republicans, or even worse:
http://reason.com/archives/2011/12/27/whos-more-anti-science-republicans-or-de
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/story/2011-09-20/gop-democrats-science-evolution-vaccine/50482856/1

The Dems generally fail on nuclear energy (most of the scientific community is in favor of building new, modern reactors, particular interesting are Thorium reactors), irradiated foods, and even a growing faction is anti-vaccination. And animal research, though that's objection is based on moral, nor scientific grounds.

But don't forget, it was the Republicans who put through the "Noah's Ark" version of the formation of the Grand C

Yeah, this guy wants to bring on the American Taliban... he thinks government and religion (his, of course) should be the same thing.

But he's not as stupid that suggests, and he's clearly a follower of Karl Rove's strategies, if not as capable at it. The major innovation that Rove brought to political warefare was this: find your weakest point, and attack that first in your opponent. Who cares if the attack it true or fictional, the simple fact that you attacked first makes the counterattack weak.

Look at the 2004 election... John Kerry was a decorated war hero, George Bush served in the National Guard, and even there got out of actually doing much serving thanks to his family's political connections. In the past, the Bush people would have done anything possible to avoid even discussing military service. Rove orchestrates the "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth", sells a bunch of complete lies about Kerry, and pretty much destroys that avenue of attack against Bush. Evil but frickin' brilliant... didn't help that Kerry didn't have a clue what to do about it.

And the Republican Party has been repeatedly anti-science. Sure, they'll claim as much the Democrats to want the business piece of science, but when they get right down to it, their policies have sent research elsewhere. Their energy policy directly lead to China so dominating solar, that more than half of the US solar companies have gone under in the last five years. Their wacko-religious policies on stem cell research all but halted it in the USA, while it's flourishing in Europe. Research when successful becomes business; neither of those are businesses easily won back. And that's not even getting into Creationism, Intelligent Design, or whatever new name they try next for the same basic goal: teaching the Christian creation myth to children as a credible scientific theory, rather than the fairy story it is. Only 22% of Republicans believe that global warming/climate change even exists, much less that it's man made... and they're sure to let you know, every time it snows... even when the increased snowfall actually is due to a warmer weather pattern.

The press is full of similar accounts:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/29/opinion/republicans-against-science.html
http://io9.com/5835970/will-the-anti+science-republicans-kill-conservatism-as-americans-know-it
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leonard-steinhorn/how-the-gop-became-the-an_b_970410.html
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/story/2011-09-20/gop-democrats-science-evolution-vaccine/50482856/1
http://www.waronscience.com/home.php

The Dems, of course, don't have a perfect track record, and on some issues, are closer to the Republicans, or even worse:
http://reason.com/archives/2011/12/27/whos-more-anti-science-republicans-or-de
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/story/2011-09-20/gop-democrats-science-evolution-vaccine/50482856/1

The Dems generally fail on nuclear energy (most of the scientific community is in favor of building new, modern reactors, particular interesting are Thorium reactors), irradiated foods, and even a growing faction is anti-vaccination. And animal research, though that's objection is based on moral, nor scientific grounds.

But don't forget, it was the Republicans who put through the "Noah's Ark" version of the formation of the Grand C

It is rumored that if Santorum actually gets the nomination, the GOP will draft Gov. Christie of NJ for the Republican candidate. But he's one cannoli short of a heart attack, so not many will vote for him. Nobody wants Romney, either, because of Romneycare and the whole Mormon thing. And Paul, as much as he may appeal to some people, is one fall away from a hip replacement.

So here's an interesting fact? Jeb Bush and his father showed up at the Whitehouse back on the 27th of January for a long talk. (Oh, to have been a fly on THAT wall.) The other interesting thing is that Jeb's wife, Columba, has made it neuteringly clear that he's not available until 2016.

So! 3 completely unelectable candidates so far as the GOP is concerned. The party favorite-which is why they're sometimes known as the "Waiting For Jeb" party-isn't available either.

I'm going to guess that the "fix" is in, and Obama is going to be president for another term. Then after that, we'll have another Bush in the Whitehouse. So everything that's happening in this "election" is just a dog & pony show, just as it's always been.

Chicago has how many public schools in it? And this is ONE private school you have a problem with? As noted, sending your children there is a choice - something the vast majority of parents lack for their children.

BTW, Chicago teachers, after being forced to forgo this year's 4% pay raise are trying to negotiate a 25% raise next year, with another 4.5% the following year - based, in large part, on the extension of the school day. Apparently the teachers that used to argue they were salaried professionals are now arguing they are hourly workers.

This is also Chicago, where TVs are falling and killing small children at alarming rates.

This is Chicago, the city that was recently ranked the most corrupt city in America.

This is Chicago, where nearly 40% of all students dropped out before graduation LAST YEAR.

This is Chicago where almost 31% of students either meet or exceed standards on the PSAE examinations.

Did parents know about these "fees" when they enrolled? Were the reasons for them explained to the parents when they enrolled their children?

There must have been some reason these parents choose to enroll their children in this school.

As they get smaller they have to be made to resist background. Some materials can wreck havoc with components made at 90 and 45 nm.

This can cause no end of problems even with hardening.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2008-03-03-radioactive-steel_N.htm
You can find many many more.

Now try and figure out WTF is going on when crap like that gets into the plastic case you are are having made in China. It was for an electronic device we make. It made no sense for the crap to be there and we were shocked that the lab found it there and even more shocked when we asked them why they routinely test for it. "It's a common contaminate and part of a large list of things we test for."

It took a consultant who said he suspected this and several other problems and he recommended the expensive tests. We have samples sent to the lab regularly now.

It's very important to raise generations of people incapable of distilling the real message out of the myriad pieces of nonsense that are bombarding an average person from all the MSM outlets.

There is a very important reason to do this - running a totalitarian war machine is made much easier with a complacent population, it's much easier when the population believes everything it is told.

For example: Iraq was not a threat to USA at any time, nor were they linked to 9/11, but majority of people (70% in that poll) were brainwashed by the politicians and the MSM enough to believe it.

Right now every MSM channel in US is pushing Iran war, it's not even a question that the political mind is made up, the MSM system is in all gears to push that nonsense (and of-course US has a 'standing army', so there is nothing really that Congress or POTUS need to do to run that war, there is no need to search for more money, it's all already 'budgeted in'.)

But how do you start, how do you create this insane mind control over the population? Well, you start young. You start with small type of censorship and then you go from there. Thus my previous comment (that was moded 'funny' but also a 'troll' as well) stands.

I was surprised to learn a few weeks ago that while you can still melt down silver coins, it is no longer legal to melt pennies or nickels as of 2006. Not only is the copper in a (pre-82) penny worth more than $0.01, zinc has gone up as well.

For those who don't know: Before 1982, pennies were 95% copper, 5% zinc. In 1982 they switched to 97% zinc, 3% copper. Some 1982 pennies are mostly copper, some are mostly zinc. Silver coins (the U.S. quit making them in 1964) are quite rare but old pennies are still very common. The last time I rolled a hundred pennies, I wasn't even looking at the years, but I found 8 wheat pennies (pre-1958) just because they're easy to spot.

By being default-enabled

Which improves security. App-store provided apps are less likely to contain malware.

Less likely, probably. It's still not perfect, though, as per the Path problem; Apple had to decide to require apps to ask permission before snarfing stuff from the address book.

and no doubt coming with scary warnings about how you'll get hacked if you disable it.

Which is an unwarranted assumption.

Actually, no. (Not quite "you'll get hacked", but "makes your Mac less secure".)

On the contrary, a good amount of women will divorce because they have found another guy who can give them a bigger ring or a 7 series instead of a 5 series BMW. Especially if the breadwinner gets a pink slip. This is often a hard learned lesson for most guys -- trust someone, then find out way too late that the spouse wasn't after one's heart, but just reaching past for the wallet.

Or maybe they got tired of adult men who can't even be bothered to change the roll of toilet paper - women do most of the housework in a marriage, even when both work.

Or maybe they got tired of the verbal or physical abuse - men are the vast majority of perps, women the vast majority of victims.

Nobody's perfect - but to imply that "a good amount of women" divorce because they are gold-diggers ignores some serious problems.

"That's the rub though- vaccines used to be for life threatening diseases like polio and smallpox but are now more and more prescribed for things that are merely a nuisance(chicken pox anyone?)."

Chicken pox vaccination is still worthwhile. From the link, before introduction of a vaccine chicken pox was annually responsible for 150 deaths, 11,000 hospitalizations, $330 million medical costs, and $1.5 billion in societal costs. Further the virus can later (even decades after initial infection) cause shingles, which typically involves a painful skin rash lasting several weeks but can also cause residual nerve pain lasting months or even years. Shingles is pretty common too, I found incidence rates of 2-3 per thousand per year, and you're at increased risk of developing shingles as you get older. Additionally you can have shingles more than once.

Lawyers maybe, but they lost nearly half a billion in Q4 alone.

Despite the explosion quickly filling the terminal with smoke and the airport being evacuated, miraculously Domodedovo has now reopened for service for flights just a few hours after the terrorist attack. Russian news outlet RT.com reports that flights for this evening are departing on time.

citation (with poor taste in a title): USA Today Story

Pics of Putin

The law is there to protect the kids, not punish them.

Maybe that was the rationale of their inception, but this is Clearly not the case today.

We don't get 10 foot snow drifts here in Minnesota unless you are talking along the north shore. We do get some rather bitter cold in the middle of January into the beginning of February as well as some oppressive humidity in the summer.

After all the buzz made around the coming merge of private data indexes, that new offer - get money from Google in exchange of your websites visits information - is a way to show users that, actually, and unless you request it, Google is not inspecting your web searches. This is a reassuring move.

With alcohol, you are correct. With cigarettes, you are very, very wrong.

Interestingly, there was similar debate http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-03-20-parks-pardon_x.htm only 6 years ago when they were trying to get Alabama to issue a pardon for Rosa Parks (and other civil rights protestors convicted under the laws of the time).

Folks as divergent as the Mayor of Montgomery and the pastor of Parks' church came out against granting the pardons, but ultimately the law was passed and the pardons issued. I do wonder if Alabama would have passed the law if it hadn't been under pressure from a live woman who had been convicted under the old laws.

To be fair to Canada, the idea for a public file seeped in from American schools' permanent records.

Apple doesn't want to provide a free tool to be used for producing ebooks on competing platforms. I fail to see how that's being a "jerk". It's called running a business.

"Jerk" doesn't quite cover it. I believe terms such as "evil" and "monopolistic" should also be applied.

Now can you begin to have insight on how the European union views Google's change to their 'user agreement' for all Google products. The EU flatly told Google that it isn't going to happen with out a review by all the governments in Europe who may completely reject Google's new terms as evil and monopolistic.

It is easy to say but can they prove it?

If they can, Android and Google are in a world of trouble, far more than the simple problem just solved by Apple over the Apple freeware iBooks Author. It is one thing to have a handful of Geeks mad at you but to have the all the governments turn on you in mass is another issue that is very serious.

Even the USA is getting involved since US laws have serious issues like the HIPPA violations that will occur on and after March 1 from a simple Google medical search tied to a user's ID
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/technologylive/post/2012/02/rep-bono-mack-reports-on-closed-door-google-briefing-/1

Google stepped into some very deep dung without thinking through that announcement of new mandatory user agreements beginning March 1.

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/onpolitics/post/2012/02/super-bowl-giants-patriots-owners-campaign-donations-/1

That's my point - people talk about the "supermajority" as if it was something Obama had and wasted, but it was only so if all of the Dems (and "dems" who are just not republicans) voted in lockstep and on a large, complex bill such as healthcare or changing the tax code, it's not a guarantee.

But he did by definition have a supermajority. If he had passed something less extreme, his party would have been lockstep behind it, just like they were with the stimulus bill and the minimum wage bill and all the other garbage that got jammed through during his presidency. The point is that he forced through a very unpopular and extreme bill that even his own party was opposed to -- that's why he is attacked for it. No one was compromising and working to come up with something sensible -- instead they were tacking on riders to buy votes to force that terrible legislation to pass as quickly as possible. And that's Obama's fault. The fact Republicans were summarily ignored and not even included in the bill design process is Obama's fault. The fact he pushed a bill that even his own party could not support is Obama's fault.

The President is not an emperor, even with a majority.

Yet even in this country, the President has a considerable amount of sway in pushing agenda.

The republicans *were* invited to the table on healthcare. More than invited in fact

What kind of revisionist history in this? Look for yourself: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-3590 THREE of the 40 original co-sponsors are Republicans. And the final bill was intentionally shut off from Republican dialogue: http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/peter-roff/2010/01/04/democratic-leaders-plan-secret-health-reform-deliberations In fact, the only time Obama seriously took into account inviting Republicans to the dialogue was when he lost his supermajority and he suddenly needed a Republican vote: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2010-02-07-obama-health-care_N.htm

since they spent their entire time just saying "no" to everything

The reason they were saying "no" was because by the time they were invited to the table, the Democrats had already written like 90+% of the bill and were essentially looking for a rubber stamp -- they didn't want significant or radical changes to the hundreds of pages that had already been penned. They also wanted the bill to pass quickly for political reasons.

he probably should have decided to cut out the Republicans more than he did and attempt to force things through. As it turns out, going the bipartisan route just allowed the repubs to gut everything and still say no at every turn.

*rolls eyes* You libs believe whatever you want to believe, despite what the facts show -- Obama made no attempt to work with Republicans until he absolutely needed them (after he lost the supermajority) -- and Blue Dog Democrats (which even you admit to) were the ones forcing him to gut the bill to change things (http://articles.cnn.com/2009-07-10/politics/house.health.care_1_blue-dogs-public-option-medicare-rates?_s=PM:POLITICS). You seem to want to have your cake and eat it too -- you claim Obama didn't have a supermajority because his own party was obstructing the passage of the bill, yet you blame Republicans for obstructing the bill instead. Heck, it's the Blue Dogs to blame for the stripping of the "public option" provision: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

I said "we even have our own ethnic group to demonize in place of the Jews"; the Nazi's didn't immediately start throwing them in camps, either. At first it was just anti-immigrant propaganda, you know, kinda like how people are blaming all of America's ills on illegal immigrants lately?

As for your Muslim co-workers, they may not be worried about getting shipped off the Gitmo, but ask them if they have been mistreated by racists and bigots over the last 10 years. Ask them if people don't look at them suspiciously in the airport or any other mass transit. I have friends from all over the Middle-East and North Africa that came here to go to school and they deal with shit like that all the time out of ignorant assholes right here in the good ol' U.S. of A.

I think maybe you should go back to school and read up on your history. I think you'll find there are a lot more similarities between Nazi Germany and the path we're currently on in this country than you'd be comfortable to admit. We may not be burning books yet (although some bigots are happily burning Qurans) but we're not against banning them, and restricting the freedoms of the people of this country day by day.

I hope you're just a troll, I really do, because if not, you're one of the sad people that are unable to see past the propaganda and bullshit, and frankly, we have far too many of them in this country as it is...

The obvious answer to the question is, as usual; "Follow the money!"

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2010-11-22-scanner-lobby_N.htm

http://www.infowars.com/chertoff-linked-to-body-scanner-manufacturer/

IMO, the *real* question we should be asking is why we believed this costly new technology, coupled with a whole new govt. agency to operate it, was going to accomplish anything substantial in the first place? The argument over the cost is tough to make without somebody insisting that either A) it created so many new jobs for American citizens that it added a lot of value, and/or B) if it saves even ONE human life, how can you put a price on that? So IMO, we can probably just ignore the "cost" angle, and simply ask if the TSA screening procedure we've implemented is a net positive, or a net negative for everyone?

Personally, I think you've got to be drinking some serious govt. kool-aid if you REALLY believe this nonsense of putting anyone on a secret "watch list" (based on the discretion of agents hired from the general public at hourly pay starting at around $11/hr.), and making everyone walk through body scanners before boarding commercial planes is going to save you from terrorist acts. As one of my friends pointed out, you can go to most airports in the U.S. and find that the only thing keeping you from wandering out to the hangars and runways is a chain-link fence around their perimeter. If someone REALLY wanted to sabotage a plane, they could throw on a mechanics' outfit or something, run out onto the tarmac, and do whatever they wanted to do with a parked jet, or even quickly insert something into some luggage on one of the transports, waiting to be loaded onto a flight. Trying to secure the plane from the terminal's boarding gate so heavily ignores all the other possibilities. Meanwhile, we've created a situation where EVERYONE is inconvenienced and put at risk of being falsely labeled a "potential terrorist" for transgressions as simple as wearing a t-shirt with a counter-culture political message printed on it, or making the wrong comment while standing in line.

Freedom = 0, Terrorists = 1 by my score-card

I'll tell you...

It's time to jump ship and get out of IT. It's about to crash. No, I don't mean .com style. I mean industry/career-wise.

I'll explain...throughout modern history, there is a tendency to tout a career choice or field as a long-term career. The truth is, it almost always fails to be and is usually done at the peak of that career's value.

There was a time that being a butcher was an excllent local career choice. Until suddenly, no one went to the local butcher as the big grocery store became the supplier (this mainly due to the advent of the automobile which made such travel inconsequential).

In the 70's there was talk of electrical engineering being the field to be. Manufacturing of electronics. In fact, IBM let Microsoft own DOS because HARDWARE was the place to be. Then that all became automated and outsourced, suddenly you can buy an entire computer for less than the operating system. How things have changed.

The two big ones mentioned now is healthcare (in particular, nursing) and software.

Let's look at nursing as I believe it's ahead of the IT curve right now. I have been amazed by how many friends I have who are back in school pursuing nursing degrees. At least 6, and I don't have that many friends. LOL

My wife is a nurse. Let me give you some insights on that career path. Her hospital won't hire any nurse without prior experience. Is this unusual? Nope, come to find out that few are. I've met a number or recently graduated nurses. They've done their four years. Made the grade. Taken on the debt with the thought that they were entering a field in which they'd be guaranteed a job and not have to worry about unemployment. It wasn't a glamorous career, it's dirty, messy and hard work. But at least they'd always have a job, right?

Well, every nurse I've met who has graduated in the past year is still trying to find a job. That's right, they've sent out resumes to dozens of hospitals. No job. As I said, my wife's hospital will only hire you if you've got a number of years of experience. Right now there are enough nursese floating around many regions that hospitals don't want to hire and train a new nurse.

Oh and yes, there are many nurse positions in certain cities and regions. Where they hired highly-paid travel nurses.

But that's changing, and it's also largely because of seasonal clientelle numbers. They don't want to add full time permanent staff. So they bring in an expensive travel nurses to cover 2-3 months when they're more likely to have higher number of patients (summer for accidents) and (holidays for heart attacks).

http://nursinglink.monster.com/benefits/articles/193-why-cant-new-nurses-find-jobs

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2010-07-09-1Anurses09_ST_N.htm

I expect the IT industry to soon follow the same slope...

This has been covered every this story comes up on Slashdot. Unregulated, unlicensed pharmacies are dangerous--not only do people get drugs without a doctor's prescription, but there's no guarantee that the drugs are even the right drugs or that they've been handled properly.

This is a sign of how screwed up the medical system is in the US.

In Australia few would even think twice about using an online pharmacy in another country. Then again, very few pay $10,000 per year for health insurance. Going to a doctor is easy and simple, going to the pharmacy next to a doctor (location, location, location) is just as simple and often cheap as doctors and pharmacies dont hesitate to give out generics if they are available (pharmacies make more money from generics whilst selling them at lower prices, a win-win situation, no?). Of course plenty of Australians shop online for medications they use regularly, but there are plenty of legit options for this.

Source on US insurance costs.. In Oz, you would need to earn A$400,000 and be dumb enough not to have private insurance to be paying A$10K per year (Medicare levy is 2.5% of income when earning above A$80,000, 1.5% below A$80,000). We've also got one of the best medical systems in the world.

You are absolutely right. If there is no threat, there is no job. So they will make themselves worthwhile any way they can.

    Consider the current "Terrorists want to blow up your plane with binary explosives!". You can't carry a soda on a plane, unless you purchased from a TSA approved vendor inside of the security perimeter. And dear god, a mother can't bring a bottle of breast milk.

    Even lighters were banned for a while, but after enough complaints, they again allowed them.

    Terrorists must be anyone who isn't an old rich white guy. If they talk funny, look different, or behave differently due to cultural differences, they must be terrorists. The evil enemy that all Americans must fear.

    The terrorist behind every Bush fear subsided. Then we killed the leader of the terrorists we were told to fear.

    They are trying to find the next threat. If there isn't a threat, there isn't a need for DHS, is there? Those new threats will keep coming. They may be foreign nationals with a misguided grudge. They may even be regular, but insane, Americans.

    If they don't get enough real threats, they'll overstate some minor threat. They weren't clear what the real threat was. It could have been a local kid, who bounced through an off-shore server, who managed to log into a control box.

    My question is, why the hell would they leave those controls accessible by the Internet in general? Why was it connected to the Internet at all? Assuming there was a good reason for it, why weren't they restricted to select IPs? Rather than freaking out and blaming "the terrorists", why don't we focus on the problems like "our infrastructure shouldn't be accessible by the whole Internet".

    Hell, when I stick a server online with a previously unused IP, I get people trying to hit it in no time. If you want some entertainment, put an older unpatched distribution up with root logins enabled, and set the password to "password". I'd give it 10 minutes before it had new people running it.

    Lets not forget who the new terrorists are. All those people who agree with, or fall into the category of 99%. Domestic terrorism is our greatest threat. They must be stopped. We're going to need bigger prisons and more guys with badges and guns.

    Oh wait.. I forgot the right line. "I trust our government. Terrorists are behind every Bush. Protect me government. I'll give up any rights you ask me to."

Oh my, how optimistic. You're totally not mistaking sales growth with installed base share.

There's a billion or so PCs in the world with about 5% of them being Macs. With about 12 million Macs sold last year, it'll take just ~80 years to completely replace the PC - and that's if ~300 millions PC sales suddenly disappear.

Also note that it's not like decline in new sales means people throw PCs out of the window to replace them with Mac.

If all of the ice on Greenland and Antarctica (and other lesser ice caps) were to melt it would cause a bit over 200 feet (~65 meters) of sea level rise. However, it would take thousands of years for all of that ice to melt The ice on Antarctica averages ~7,000 feet in depth and it's up to ~12,000 feet in places so it won't melt that fast at any temperature that still supports humans living on the Earth. Current estimates for sea level rise by 2100 are in the 3-6 foot range. 20 feet above the current level isn't inconceivable in 2200.

Regarding what it would take to melt all of it, a paper out recently said that the big ice sheets started to form when CO2 levels dropped below 700 ppmv maybe 30 million years ago. We are currently at ~390 ppmv, up from 280 ppmv in 1830 and ~320 in 1960. At the current rate we would hit 700 ppmv in less than 200 years.

TSA: Rail Security

TSA: Highways

TSA: Maritime

TSA-style security coming to major sporting events...

But by all means, keep convincing yourself that the TSA isn't spreading throughout society. If we allow it to get to the point where we're getting patted down to get on the fucking bus to work in the morning, or pulled over in our own car just because we're on a fucking public highway, we've already lost everything worth fighting for and it's time to start flying our flags upside-down.

Flying the American Flag upside down is a violation of the Protect American Symbols act, regulating the burning and mistreatment of the Flag, pictures of Jesus and other core American images. Just a friendly warning, before we ship you off to Guantanamo, where the mere fact of residence makes you a dangerous terrorist.

TSA: Rail Security

TSA: Highways

TSA: Maritime

TSA-style security coming to major sporting events...

But by all means, keep convincing yourself that the TSA isn't spreading throughout society. If we allow it to get to the point where we're getting patted down to get on the fucking bus to work in the morning, or pulled over in our own car just because we're on a fucking public highway, we've already lost everything worth fighting for and it's time to start flying our flags upside-down.

You tell them that they're installing HVAC equipment or something.

"Marvin Bush sat on the Board of Directors for Stratasec/Securacom which ran electronic security at the World Trade Center during the 9 month elevator renovation that was done on the buildings by Ace Elevator Co."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YaFGSPErKU

"On Sept. 11, ACE Elevator of Palisades Park, N.J., had 80 elevator mechanics inside the World Trade Center."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/sept11/2002-09-04-elevator-usat_x.htm

"When the World Trade Center was bombed in 1993, Otis Elevator's mechanics led the rescue of 500 people trapped in elevators. Some mechanics were dropped onto the roofs of the twin towers by helicopter. Others, carrying 50-pound oxygen tanks on their backs, climbed through smoke to machine rooms high in the towers. On Sept. 11, the elevator mechanics — many of the same men involved in the rescues in 1993 — left the buildings after the second jet struck, nearly an hour before the first building collapsed."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/sept11/2001/12/19/usat-mechanics.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eH_TVcqREeQ

You tell them that they're installing HVAC equipment or something.

"Marvin Bush sat on the Board of Directors for Stratasec/Securacom which ran electronic security at the World Trade Center during the 9 month elevator renovation that was done on the buildings by Ace Elevator Co."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YaFGSPErKU

"On Sept. 11, ACE Elevator of Palisades Park, N.J., had 80 elevator mechanics inside the World Trade Center."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/sept11/2002-09-04-elevator-usat_x.htm

"When the World Trade Center was bombed in 1993, Otis Elevator's mechanics led the rescue of 500 people trapped in elevators. Some mechanics were dropped onto the roofs of the twin towers by helicopter. Others, carrying 50-pound oxygen tanks on their backs, climbed through smoke to machine rooms high in the towers. On Sept. 11, the elevator mechanics — many of the same men involved in the rescues in 1993 — left the buildings after the second jet struck, nearly an hour before the first building collapsed."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/sept11/2001/12/19/usat-mechanics.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eH_TVcqREeQ

Damn that chorus of 'true believers' - aka, 97% of the worlds scientists:

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefair/post/2010/06/scientists-overwhelmingly-believe-in-man-made-climate-change/1

http://articles.cnn.com/2009-01-19/world/eco.globalwarmingsurvey_1_global-warming-climate-science-human-activity?_s=PM:WORLD

While I do think that mankind is contributing to climate change, the fact that the vast majority consider something to be true does not in fact make it true.

Oh, we're doing an experiment, all right. Unfortunately, if it pans out the way the vast majority of the scientific community, the military, the disease control folks and the insurance industry thinks it will, we're all pretty much screwed.

In other words, all the folks whose job it is to make predictions about what could go wrong and prepare for those things think that we're running such an experiment, and that it won't end well.

Maybe not.

But consider this: the folks whose job it is to make predictions tend to think that the impact will be felt sooner, rather than later. Folks like those who work in the Pentagon and the CDC, not to mention an overwhelming majority of the world's scientists.