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Here's a citation to help: http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/transparency-obama-denies-significantly-more-foia-requests-bush

A Google search provides other locations.

I wouldn't count on anything coming out.

Had this happened on Bush's watch, he'd be excoriated (and deservedly so). But Obama? Not at all.

No political fallout at all. None.

The real story is when DHS showed up to pull the plug, they were "lunged" at and felt a great fear for their lives from the other domains. They acted quickly and defended themselves and in the process, 84,000 domains were killed. An internal investigation showed every DHS agent present backed that exact story up and oddly even some agents that were not there said the same thing. There was video from one of the agents helmet cams but right after they entered the building, the camera failed. They are working with the vendor to make sure that does not happen again. A DHS spokesman stated that "if was not for their advance tactical training, someone from the task force may have got hurt from the aggressive actions of the those domains"

You can wait a few years and maybe if your lucky you can get a FOIA reply from them that will show exactly what they are saying now actually happened. Or DHS/ICE will just not give any information because they don't want to embarrass anyone in the Obama administration.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/12/AR2010101206295.html

http://washingtonexaminer.com/local/virginia/2011/02/prince-william-sue-feds-over-immigration-records

I truly fear this forth branch of government that does not have the original "checks and balances" that the others have.
         

See here.

Was this a good thing?

No.

There is no grey area here. Anything that helps Mugabe is bad for his people, bad for his country, bad for Africa.

Mr Assange's 15 minute cry for attention and fame have likely doomed the people of Zimbabwe to more kleptothugocracy until Mugabe passes. On what planet, in what universe, could this be construed as good? The opposition leadership is now facing the death penalty for what was found in Wikileaks.

Good job Wikileaks. Good job.

Schmucks.

I would think that any person pushing to eliminate our need for foreign oil or oil in general and actually expecting some level of success would have done a tiny bit of research.

Oil billionaire T Boone Pickens did the research for his Pickens Plan. Of course some accuse him of using the plan to hide his plan to steal water.

We could reduce our need on oil by a massive amount with nuclear power

Yea, and create more problems. Nuclear power is not profitable, it is hooked on subsidies.

On the other hand, there's A Solar Grand Plan: "By 2050 solar power could end U.S. dependence on foreign oil and slash greenhouse gas emissions". There's also Wind: "The United States has enough wind resources to generate electricity for every home and business in the nation."

To tell the truth there is not one energy source operating on large enough scale to power the US that does not get subsidies. Even oil gets subsidies.

Falcon

The other problem is that Pickens is apparently an idiot

That's just what he wants you to think. In fact the whole "wind power" thing was nothing but a diversion planned to allow him to gain control over a huge amount of fresh water..

The water wars are going to get nasty very soon. The US Federal government is trying to get greater control over all water. They diverted a great deal out of the San Joaquin Valley, which devastated the farms, put 40,000 farmers out of work, and forced many farmers to sell off their land cheap or hand it over to the Federal conservation programs for relief.

The Bush's bought a lot of land in Parguay, which prompted a lot of speculation, but the big deal is that the land sits on top of one of the largest fresh water aquifers in the world, giving them control of all that water.

T. Boone Pickens himself gets it, too. I'm skeptical whether the whole wind idea was real, anyway, as it created an excellent diversion from speculation what his land purchases were all about. As it turns out, the land he now owns and/or controls gives him access to a huge portion of America's fresh water supply, as it's sitting in a mid-west aquifer that he now has right to drain.

Please do not speak of things you obviously do not have a clue about.. If you are convicted of rape in Sweden you get to spend 2-10 years in jail, depending on the age of the victim and the amount of violence that was used.

Maybe so, but the link given by A.C. leads to the most informative article about the Assange Affair that I have seen.

I here excerpt my favorite parts:

One of the women said in her statement to police that she was obsessed with meeting the tall, wiry man she had come to see as a hero of free speech — "interesting, brave and admirable."

For two weeks after seeing an Assange TV interview, the 27-year-old woman devoured news reports about him. Then one night, she Googled his name and learned he was giving a lecture in Sweden on Aug. 14.

The woman contacted the organizers and offered to do chores if she were allowed to attend. She turned up in a bright pink sweater and sat in the front row — looking out of place amid a sea of journalists in somber suits. The ice was broken when she agreed to buy a cable for Assange's computer.

I like a woman who knows what she wants; note the carefully orchestrated campaign, the subtlety of execution. She bought him a cable for his computer Surely, that can only spell Geek Love! How could poor Julian resist?

She was invited to a post-lecture dinner, she said, and seated next to Assange. They flirted, she told police: At one point Assange hand-fed her cheese and bread. The police report says she found it "flattering."

Bleah. Disgusting. How can people do that in public? Did he spoon-feed her saccharine also?

She and Assange went to the movies, where she said they kissed. Two days later she brought him home.

But by then, she told police, "the passion and excitement had disappeared."

On the train ride to her place, she said, Assange logged on to his computer and started reading about himself on Twitter. "He paid more attention to the computer than to her," the report said.

Disaster! A clear mismatch, as she was not googling on her own laptop.

They got to her apartment at midnight — and what happened next "felt very dull and boring," she told police. She later alleged, according to a British lawyer, that Assange pinned her down and refused to wear a condom.

The bold type in the last paragraph was added by your humble editor. I think we have here the nub of the matter, so to speak. But of course, we must also consider the woman behind Door Number 2:

The 31-year-old, a feminist scholar who was working for the organization that hosted Assange's Aug. 14 lecture, let him use her apartment while she was away on a trip. But she returned early, on the eve of his lecture, and the two agreed he could stay.

That night, they went out for dinner, returned to her place for tea, and, she said, became intimate. Later, in the middle of the night, she claimed in the police report, Assange sexually molested her. In a London court Tuesday, a lawyer accused Assange of having unprotected sex with the woman while she was asleep.

Afterward, he stayed in the apartment for nearly a week.

Again, bold type provided by yours truly. I can only guess what activities are covered by "became intimate", and the sex-while-asleep bit requires some context and clarification. However, it seems odd that the feminist scholar let him stay in her apartment for a week after an act that she now classifies as "rape".

Ah, but here comes the train-wreck:

During that time, the first woman tried unsuccessfully to reach Assange and, on Aug. 20, tracked down the apartment where he was staying. The two women got to talking.

After swapping Assange stories, they jointly contacted police — and filed rape complaints.

Mr. Assange, you are so doomed.

"In 2008, [...] was sentenced to two years in prison for raping an 18-year-old woman during a tour, [...]"
http://washingtonexaminer.com/news/world/2010/12/assange-rape-case-spotlights-swedens-liberal-laws

See some of the posts above:

"Recently, however NSF has funded some more questionable projects - $750,000 to develop computer models to analyze the on-field contributions of soccer players and $1.2 million to model the sound of objects breaking for use by the video game industry."

http://republicanwhip.house.gov/YouCut/Review.htm

http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/daily-outrage/2010/12/daily-outrage-more-why-our-economy-going-extinct

Who, in their right mind, would grant $750K towards video games over ANY OTHER GRANT?? At the very least *someone* in the NSF ought to be held accountable.

I am a government employee that relies on DOE funding. I also see a fair amount of NSF funded projects come through our facility. Therefore, you might think I'd be prone to defend the NSF - but I'm not! Argue all you want about what good could come of the 1.2 million video game grant and the 750K soccer player rubbish, but this money would be better off doing something useful in the hard sciences (vaccines, materials science, whatever). I'm glad the NSF is coming under scrutiny, it's about time.

See also:

http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/daily-outrage/2010/12/daily-outrage-more-why-our-economy-going-extinct

So because you don't like how some frank discussions were revealed, you think it's appropriate to cover up killings and who knows what else under a veil of "classified"?

There are procedures for dealing with questionable deaths on the battlefield, both as potential war crimes and for compensating the victim's families. Manning didn't make use of them, but instead collected and distributed secret government documents to do as much damage as he could. Now we are dealing with informants against terrorists being killed, disruption of highly sensitve diplomatic discussions that could lead to open war, and more destabilization of the Middle East.

EU officials give first analysis of WikiLeaks impact

More investment in European External Action Service (EEAS) security, loss of goodwill in the EU's special relationship with the US and heightened tension in the Middle East are all likely consequences of the WikiLeaks scandal, EU insiders say.

Loose lips sink friendly ships

The publishing of the stolen secret documents by Wikileaks makes about as much sense as protesting problems with the Social Security Administration driving some people to suicide due to delays by publishing the social security number of all Americans and exposing them to identity theft, fraud, and other problems.

Wikileaks is worse than that - it's actions will result in people being killed, and maybe a fresh war or two.

We had bomb dogs in Iraq. They were much cheaper, quicker and more effective than scanners for detecting hidden explosives. DARPA even has a challenge to come up with a better scanner than a dog's nose. But the DHS and TSA aren't concerned about effectiveness. They have taken the money from the companies that produce the scanners. http://washingtonexaminer.com/nation/2010/11/naked-scanners-lobbyists-join-war-terror This has everything to do with $$$ and nothing to do with actual threats. No one got rich off of breeding and training bomb dogs.

So... why don't they just have explosives sniffing dogs and machines? Faster, cheaper, more effective. Why must we submit to pat-downs and "naked" scans?

Oh, right... it's because there's a financial connection between the TSA and the assholes who want us all irradiated with even more X-rays when we're traveling.

Airports can opt-out of using the TSA for security. Which means, I think, that all of these ridiculous measures can be bypassed.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Amid-airport-anger_-GOP-takes-aim-at-screening-1576602-108259869.html

Immelt is also on Obama's economic recovery committee, GE has been given $25 million in stimulus money and MSNBC hosts are openly shills for the administration (at least as much as people like Hannity were for the last one).

So GE gets millions of free money from the government, then turns around and spends millions on cars from the government. All at taxpayer expense.

Remember, the only way to look at the government is down. Following the money still works, even if the politicians are on "your side."

We know that this sort of thing would NEVER fly in America, not in spirit nor in the letter of the law. We've got the First Amendment for that.

Sure, you can threaten to kill thousands or ordinary folk, as long as it's not a threat against some politician, which would be covered under section 871 of US code title 18: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/usc_sec_18_00000871----000-.html

For example, Adam Albrett, who pleaded insanity to get away with it:
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/Fairfax-man-accused-of-threatening-Obama-pleads-insanity-1008023-100164259.html

I'm not saying UK law isn't stupid, but the US isn't as great as you might think.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/The-mysterious-death-of-the-chicken-fat-car-45445497.html

The mysterious death of the chicken-fat car
By: Timothy P. Carney
Senior Examiner Columnist
May 20, 2009

As President Barack Obama unfurls his fuel-economy standards and Congress takes up global warming regulations, it’s useful to remember that what emerges from environmental policymaking is not necessarily what’s best for the planet, but instead what’s best for special interests.

Consider the epic and somewhat bizarre struggle over clean fuels that ended last week. As usual, special interests were central to the drama. But the antagonists seemed right out of a Monty Python sendup of Washington politics: An oil company, hoping to profit from making trucks run on chicken fat, was thwarted by the soap industry’s lobby.

The chicken-fat story is a cautionary tale about how environmental policy actually gets made.

It began in 2005, when President George W. Bush signed an energy bill including a $1-per-gallon tax credit for “renewable diesel” fuel created through “thermal depolymerization.” Writer Rina Palta reported in the liberal American Prospect that Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., wrote the measure “to benefit a floundering company in his home district that produces boiler fuel from turkey offal, which did not qualify chemically as ‘biodiesel.’ ”

At the time, Congress was eagerly providing subsidies to turn plants and animals into fuel, so it didn’t seem farfetched to boost the cause of fowl entrails. But unintended consequences soon arrived, proving once again that the biggest companies usually find a way to profit from government intervention.

In April 2007, the Internal Revenue Service ruled that Blunt’s tax credit had broader applications. Within two weeks, ConocoPhillips and Tyson Foods saw that the IRS had opened the door for a joint venture to melt chicken, cow, and pig fat into diesel fuel. Conoco Chief Executive Officer James Mulva was honest about his unusual undertaking: “It’s not profitable without the $1 per gallon tax credit,” he said at a news conference.

But this renewable fuel had enemies. First, Democrats didn’t like any subsidy that helped an oil company like Conoco. (Blunt, for his part, said he never wanted to help oil companies, and that the law should be changed.)

Second, business lobbyists were also working to kill the subsidy for chicken fat. The obvious opponents were chicken fat’s competitors — the companies that turn vegetables into diesel fuel. The National Biodiesel Board, which spends nearly $1 million a year on lobbying, pushed hard to ensure the $1-per-gallon subsidy for clean diesel didn’t also apply to the Conoco-Tyson operation.

But the issue of “renewable biodiesel” also turned up on the lobbying filings of the Dial Corporation and the Soap and Detergent Association. Just as ethanol subsidies have driven up the price of food, it turned out that fat-to-fuel subsidies boosted the cost of manufacturing soap, which is also made of animal fat. So Dial and the Soap and Detergent Association, displeased that Tyson now had somewhere else to peddle its fat, also lobbied to kill the chicken-fat diesel subsidy.

While their own interests were obvious, the soap and biodiesel lobbies argued that chicken-fat diesel was not good for the environment. But the Environmental Protection Agency ruled this month that “biodiesel or renewable diesel made from animal fat or used cooking oil results in an 80 percent reduction from carbon emissions versus petroleum diesel,” according to Darling International, a company that deals in animal-fat diesel. Darling added in its first-quarter 2009 report, “That is the highest level of carbon reduction available

Amusingly enough....Maryland has also been a leader in the nation for job growth

Yep. That is mostly due to huge deficit spending by the Federal government, a lot of which somehow failed to make it out of the "Washington area", including Maryland, which surrounds D.C (for those unfamiliar with the geography.) You can see the effect of this here; the Baltimore–Washington Metropolitan Area has seen far less decline than the rest of the nation.

Government hiring, spending spurs D.C.-area job creation

Choice quotes:

"The hundreds of billions of dollars of stimulus money -- that was an enormous shot in the arm, and we really benefited from it in this area,"

Federal hiring accounted for roughly 19,700 of the D.C. area's new jobs...Federal spending also led to increased hiring in D.C.'s private sector. Professional and business service firms, which often provide contract work for the government, added about 13,500 new jobs last year thanks to an estimated $84 billion in government procurement spending.

Thing to keep in mind is that we just had an election here in the US. The stated goal of our newly elected House of Reps leadership (the folks actually responsible for writing the budget) is to revert discretionary spending to pre-TARP/stimulus 2008 levels. That 'discretionary' spending is the part that has propped up your local economy.

I suspect the next few years may be less 'amusing.'

Google is betting on its own corruption and greed canceling out Microsoft's.

Speaking of bias, what about the FTC ending their privacy probe into Google just days after Google execs hosted an Obama fundraiser, which also happened on the same day that it was reported that Google dodges enough taxes to only pay a 2.4% corporate income tax, the lowest of its technology peers? I guess Google wants to pretend only Microsoft gets preferential treatment.

where we bleed all of our money and young military men and women

All? We lose over seven times more citizens in one year of car accidents than all seven+ years of Iraq. It is still a toss up whether Afghanistan combat or Chicago homicides will kill more US citizens in 2010. Both Iraq and Afghanistan combat deaths, while tragic, are miniscule.

I dealt with the cost previously; our spending isn't grossly higher than it has or would have been without these small scale wars. That is, in part, due to cancellation of costly cold war projects and many base closures that began with Bush/Cheney and have continued under Obama; a natural shift from strategic focus to low-intensity, regional conflicts.

Exaggerating the costs works well on lots of folks. You can always rely on large numbers of people that dutifully repeat the tripe they have been trained to believe. I'm not one of them.

happily speed along in our electric cars

Enviros and other malcontents will never allow the enormous build-out of renewables that would be necessary to merely offset some large fraction of our existing electric demand, much less the additional demand of transport, and expansion of either fossil or nuclear electric is off the table. Speeding along in our electric cars is a pipe dream adults don't indulge.

Actually, evidence is coming out that it MIGHT be a conspiracy, with SEIU members rigging ballot stations for Reid.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Voting-machines-in-Clark-County-Nevada-automatically-checking-Harry-Reids-name-Voting-machine-technicians-are-members-of-SEIU-105815608.html

If you look at the inbreeding of politics (Rory Reid, Clark County Commissioner) it is starting to look a lot like North Korea in places.

Damn if politics makes me sick to my stomach. If the government didn't have this much control over people's lives, there would be no point in this kind of behavior. Idiots (D) and (R) people have no real clue how close we are to tyranny.

Rebuilding the electrical grid would be faster, as well as allowing more generation to be added easily.

You think so?

Go to the DOE web site and look up just how much fossil fuel energy we use compared to electrical energy.

What does using more fossil fuels have to do with how fast the grid can be rebuilt?

No matter where energy comes from the grid has to be rebuilt, making it smart as well will allow the payoff to be sooner. Understanding the Cost of Power Interruptions to U.S. Electricity Consumers [pdf] estimates "the annual cost for power interruptions to U.S. electricity consumers is $79 billion." It goes on saying it can be as high as $135 billion or as low as $22 billion. In shorter form, Berkeley Lab Study Estimates $80 Billion Annual Cost of Power Interruptions.

Even with your supergrid we'll need to make hydrocarbons for the chemical and agricultural industries so we might as well get started bringing this capability online as soon as possible.

Even though I oppose his motives, which was all about water, T Boone Pickens had a plan that dealt with your concerns, the Picken's Plan. Essentially the plan was to replace natural gas fired power plants with wind turbines and use the natural gas as fuel for vehicles. Of course that would still require a rebuild of the grid, but wind turbines can continuously add capacity as the grid is built. Erect 10 5 megawatt turbines a month and you add 600 megawatts of electricity a year. The largest nuclear power plant in the US is Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station and it averaged 3.2 Gigawatts of power in 2003. It would take all of 5 years to replace the plant with wind, can another nuclear power plant that big be built in 5 years? As I linked to already the Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant in Finland, built by the French government owned Areva, is already 3 years behind schedule, it was originally supposed to start operation last year but isn't scheduled to before 2012 now. It's cost overruns are about $2.4 Billion too.

Falcon

In fact, we should say thank you to China on this one.

Recent news reports have Japan accusing China of this being over a territorial dispute. The traders are saying that things have resumed but that this is just an excuse for China to harass traders and outbound exports with "preshipment" checks. China denies this has anything to do with the dispute but the timing is more than a bit suspect and why is this only directed at Japan?

China is in territorial dispute with every SE-Asian country that has a shoreline. They claim sovereignty over every island down to the Philippines. For example, they have claims over Paracel islands which in theory, belong to Vietnam. Recently they started to harass fishing boats, hold them at ransom, very similar to what Somalian pirates do. Vietnam has historical documents to prove their claim - irony is, that actually some of the documents the Chinese produced to prove their point turned out to be validate the Vietnamese claims (they mention these islands as "foreign lands" in their records). Also, they threatened foreign companies (oil exploration) that had contracts with Vietnamese oil companies to back out. Finally - this started this year - they began to organize "tours" to these islands, showing the beauty of these "most remote Chinese lands." In reality, there's nothing to see there actually. Except Vietnamese fishermen who lived there for generations. Well, not anymore, actually, but you get the point ... just trying to illustrate how territorial the Chinese are... and how arrogant.

In fact, we should say thank you to China on this one.

Recent news reports have Japan accusing China of this being over a territorial dispute. The traders are saying that things have resumed but that this is just an excuse for China to harass traders and outbound exports with "preshipment" checks. China denies this has anything to do with the dispute but the timing is more than a bit suspect and why is this only directed at Japan?

I don't know how much of an net positive environmental impact recycling rare earths from circuitry provides (is your acid economically and environmentally friendly? what are the byproducts? are they less damaging than the circuitry to the environment?) but I don't think it's wise to thank countries for exacerbating a territorial dispute. The world has enough of those now, we don't need another escalation or spat between countries.

According to the metro numbers, there were 180,000 extra people on the subway compared with other August Saturdays. That's just the subways. Scientific sounding numbers are fine, but hard numbers rule. Giving any number under 180k is laughable.

No, not "cronyism". We all have cronies, have you ever tried to get any money out of them? Friends are friends but business is BUSINESS...

Checked the bottom lines of the newspaper and news magazine companies lately? You too can have your own magazine franchise or big city newspaper for $1.

Ads may generate some day to day revenue if you've got a single big scoop, but political favors generate access, which in turn gets you future exclusives and leaks to make even more revenue off of, not to mention the prestige points in the press pool based on your seating, access and whatnot. That's not to even get into the extortion potential - imagine the power you could have if you had dirt on the President, a governor or Congressman. All of that leverage is gone if you run the story... and as for proving extortion, well, you haven't run it yet since you were triple checking the facts because of the importance.

If all else fails and you go bankrupt, you simply ask for a newspaper bailout to save you from your deliberate failure to provide a check on the very powers that you cozied up to. Oh, and if you're lucky, you even get special protections, a "shield" if you will, to keep you from having to rat out the very cronies that passed the law to protect them from being prosecuted for the leaks they provided you.

Don't forget that the Internet is a product of the late 20th century. I'd say that it had (and has) even greater potential than television ever did.

I hadn't forgotten. Television could (did, actually) reach almost everyone in the country.

The Internet has not reached everyone (we're at about 77% penetration to date), nor do I expect it ever will unless it becomes free, as television broadcasts were initially. As far as that goes, I think we're headed towards more of a corporate, benefits-to-the-moneyed phase, rather than less.

No question the Internet is a powerful tool; and despite the high noise level, the educational and enlightenment content is extremely high, something we cannot say ever happened with television. But if it's not available to you, that's highly divisive. The rise of paywalls for news (such as it is), and instigation of licenses for bloggers are also very bad signs.

Again, I think that's where we're headed: there are other strong classing mechanisms at work right now, such as the "never forgive, never forget" model of criminal "justice", where records never go away, and felons become permanently locked into a lower strata with a very hard ceiling indeed on the one end; and at the other, there's a persistent "rich get richer" effect created by a society that is habituated to debt - paying interest is an almost perfect way to ensure that the funds of the middle and low classes are worth far less than the funds belonging to the debt-free, or even more so, lenders.

Though I'd definitely agree that prior to that, television was the medium with the most education potential, though it was mostly squandered in the US and many other countries.

Yes, squandered is an excellent term. Facepalm level squandering.

and how long does it take to rebuild an essential bridge that the trains must travel over if someone decides to take it out? If we become highly dependent on trains, we can be crippled by terrorists taking out a few key targets. Cars and planes can route around the damage, train tracks are much harder, more expensive and slower to do so. Just look at how ridiculously bogged down reconstruction projects like the World Trade Center. In fact, Michael Barone has an article this week talking about how big government forgot how to build big projects.

The so-called "conservatives" pretty much exemplify the worst aspects of human nature

Yeah, who needs self reliance, responsibility, charitable works, etc. I say free drug needles for all! Condoms for 3rd graders! Go ahead and quit your job and be an artist, Nancy has your back.

I saw this an hour ago, and it came to mind immediately upon seeing the headline and brief.

Brick-and-Mortar schools have been engaged in an 'arms race' for students this past decade, fueled by easy credit and enabled by low academic standards. It's enabled them to offer all kinds of nice perks that are expensive and not central to education, and it has also allowed many universities to grow top-heavy with administrators.

My degree as a mechanical engineer allowed me to get a job with a substantial starting salary, which was necessary to cover my substantial student loans. I came out okay after a few years of aggressively paying down my debt, but there are thousands of folks who are in just as deep as I used to be, with a degree that doesn't open up well-paying fields to them. Though I don't regret the path I took (my life is good), I wouldn't use debt if I had to do it again. There are other ways (in-state, scholarships, military, etc.)

Anyway, from the article:

My reasoning was simple enough: Something that can't go on forever, won't. And the past decades' history of tuition growing much faster than the rate of inflation, with students and parents making up the difference via easy credit, is something that can't go on forever. Thus my prediction that it won't.

But then what? Assume that I'm right, and that higher education - both undergraduate and graduate, and including professional education like the law schools in which I teach - is heading for a major correction. What will that mean? What should people do?

Well, advice number one - good for pretty much all bubbles, in fact - is this: Don't go into debt. In bubbles, people borrow heavily because they expect the value of what they're borrowing against to increase.

From just a day or two ago:
    http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/crime/Stupid-Crimes-1007644-100078474.html

A more infamous incident:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Kay_Letourneau#Relationship_with_Vili_Fualaau

Note that in the latter example, the couple have been married for the past five years. Sounds like you're the one with the "bullshit ... cop outs".

Because there's a significant age correlation to these reports of sudden acceleration.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/OpEd-Contributor/I-am-not-afraid-of-my-Toyota-Prius-87361597.html

http://www.thecarconnection.com/marty-blog/1043440_toyota-sudden-acceleration-is-it-all-older-drivers-fault

Not definitive, but enlightening. Another group also proved that a runaway car with open throttle can still be stopped by the brakes anyway - they tried it with multiple cars - even a 500+ horsepower car.

I believe stepping forward and making a rare political statement against the Obama plan.

"Obama's proposal stunned U.S. space heroes Neil Armstrong and Eugene Cernan -- the first and last men to walk on the moon -- who, along with Apollo 13 commander Jim Lovell, made a rare public statement denouncing the plan as a "devastating" scheme that "destines our nation to become one of second- or even third-rate stature."

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/NASA_s-new-mission_-Building-ties-to-Muslim-world-97817909.html#ixzz0tVAIqgwT"

What happens when Congress pushes through a bill without a single business day for public review? A bill introduced on Saturday afternoon is voted on at 1 AM Sunday morning. That's not too open now, it is?

NYT has one of the, if not the, widest distributions in the country (WSJ or UST might be more, but it's 2010 and I don't really give enough of a fsck about dinosaurs to look it up). For them to stop using a five-letter verb that is not just the term accepted by the creator of a product but already an English word in favour of the wasted ink of a ten- or thirteen-letter phrase indicates that either they don't care about the wasted ink on all nine papers they sell or else print media's the next bailout.

In perspective, it's not so bad. Well, it's still bad, but it's not as bad as the raw numbers make it look.

The problem is that wall-street lets people decide for themselves how much they want to earn.

A bit like all public sector people. The only ones really good at it though are these bastards.

And at least in the case of wall street, before the "too big to fail" nonsense and they became de-facto public sector banks, they had a bit of a case that they were actually useful.

The best discussion I could find for what was intended by the term "lawful contact" (which as far as I am able to ascertain, is not a common legal term), and what is meant by "reasonable suspicion" in this context, is this article, which quotes one of the drafters of the measure:

What fewer people have noticed is the phrase "lawful contact," which defines what must be going on before police even think about checking immigration status. "That means the officer is already engaged in some detention of an individual because he's violated some other law," says Kris Kobach, a University of Missouri Kansas City Law School professor who helped draft the measure. "The most likely context where this law would come into play is a traffic stop."

As far as "reasonable suspicion" is concerned, there is a great deal of case law dealing with the idea, but in immigration matters, it means a combination of circumstances that, taken together, cause the officer to suspect lawbreaking. It's not race -- Arizona's new law specifically says race and ethnicity cannot be the sole factors in determining a reasonable suspicion.

For example: "Arizona already has a state law on human smuggling," says Kobach. "An officer stops a group of people in a car that is speeding. The car is overloaded. Nobody had identification. The driver acts evasively. They are on a known smuggling corridor." That is a not uncommon occurrence in Arizona, and any officer would reasonably suspect that the people in the car were illegal. Under the new law, the officer would get in touch with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to check on their status.

But what if the driver of the car had shown the officer his driver's license? The law clearly says that if someone produces a valid Arizona driver's license, or other state-issued identification, they are presumed to be here legally. There's no reasonable suspicion.

So according to that law professor, the intent is that if the officer establishes "reasonable suspicion" in the course of detaining someone for an offense, he may inquire about the immigration status of the detained person, if he believes it to be prudent to do so.

I still don't like the law, because I like the idea that illegal immigrants can cooperate with law enforcement without fear of deportation. But at the same time, the law appears to be hundreds of times less onerous than 99% of the commenters here believe it to be.

Oh hey, I don't read/watch Fox News on anything nearing a regular basis (probably 5 times within the last 2 years) and certainly don't know what they have to say on this issue.

How's that assumption working out for ya?

From the Washington Examiner:

The law requires police to check with federal authorities on a person's immigration status, if officers have stopped that person for some legitimate reason and come to suspect that he or she might be in the U.S. illegally. The heart of the law is this provision: "For any lawful contact made by a law enforcement official or a law enforcement agencywhere reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States, a reasonable attempt shall be made, when practicable, to determine the immigration status of the person"

Emphasis mine.

BUT that's just one source (and an opinion column at that). Unfortunately that's the only article I can fine that takes a look at the term "lawful contact". If you can find more, go for it.

Let's ask Toyota owners how they feel about 'driverless cars'.

I would ask one of those Toyota drivers how they feel about that, but they wouldn't be able to hear me. They're all too old.

Forcing an insurance company to pay for a pre-existing condition is simple theft

Right -- that's why the government, and not private industry, should do it.

So are you admitting that the government is nothing but a bunch of thieves?

Provision of health care [sic] is an important function of a modern state.

Interesting theory...and exactly why is healthcare any of the government's business? Governments exist (supposedly) to protect the basic rights: life, liberty, and property. If government goes beyond this and starts making up new rights to protect (e.g. a right to education or healthcare), then it has to violate those basic rights (e.g. taxation and inflation).

Whenever someone makes the bold suggestion that the government should run healthcare, because it's too important to leave to private industry I ask some simple questions:

What's the most efficient industry (private or public) you can think of? Which one has had the fastest advancements while having reductions in prices? Most people answer something about computers or cell phones. Nobody answers transit systems, the post office, power production or other "essential" services. When you understand that profit drives innovation, this becomes obvious.

If essential services need to be controlled by the government, because they can't be trusted to the private sector, why are we not trusting them with the most important industry of all: food production and distribution? I don't know about you, but I visit a doctor, at most, once a year, and I could go a lot longer than that. I need food on a regular basis, or I'll die. (I know there are many people who need medical care as regularly as food, but for the vast majority of us, food is far more important). Just think, we could have government controlled food just like the Soviets did. Breadline anyone? When you understand the complexity of centralization, this begins to make sense. Centralized decision making is a horribly complex nightmare. Centralized planners have a harder task than predicting the weather next week (but without the warehouse full of computers to do the modeling), which is why their predictions are so vague, yet they're still wrong more often than next week's weather prediction. Distributed decision making only makes decisions specific to what's at hand, and then that decision combines with others. This is far more adaptable, and in a non-constant world, ends up being superior.

Now to the topic at hand: the bill in question is not healthcare reform. Like any other bill with strong support, it's a collection of kickbacks for special interest groups, with some handouts to the common people thrown in to make it look tempting. Follow the money, and it becomes clear. Who's paying for all the ads saying that republicans are shills for the insurance industry? Why, the drug industry (incidentally, Obama took more bribe money...I mean campaign contributions...from the drug industry than any other political candidate in US History). Billy Tauzin, head of the pharmaceutical lobby was a key contributor to the bill. Coincidence? Or corporatist whores?

The reform needed in this country for medical care is to get rid of these corporatist special interest laws:

• Get rid of the restriction on interstate insurance. The feds made it illegal for you to buy insurance from another state, because that would increase competition and drop the insurance cartel's profits.
• Get rid of the tax break for employment based insurance. Your insurance is tied to your job, because it saves your employer money. Drop that and implement a 100% tax credit system for medical payments, like Dr. Ron Paul has introduced, and we'd be able to save money, while having better insurance coverage, that wasn't dependent on employm

As such under the new plan you'll still be able to choose from a variety of plans, and in fact will have more choice since insurance companies will be able to sell across state lines.

With mandates for particular types of coverage to be included, it's still less choice than you have now. As for selling across state lines, I have no problem with that. Too bad most of you libs do, including the House leadership.

I've heard morons in your party call the tort-reform plans in the bill socialism too.

That's one of the most asinine assertions I've ever heard. The only people opposed to tort reform are the scumbag ambulance chasers who'd be put out of business by it. Here's a newsflash for you: they're mostly Democrats, which is why it's not in either of the bills under consideration.

Who the frak are you to make those sorts of decisions for me?

A responsible person who carries health insurance and foots the bill when people like you end up in the emergency room.

You must've missed the part where I said I paid my own bills at the urgent-care clinic (which, BTW, was not the local ER) and the pharmacy. Want to talk about responsibility again, asswipe? Doctors and pharmacists still take money directly from patients. It's apparently become rather uncommon, but they don't care too much how they get paid so long as they do get paid.

FWIW, I'm currently paying for PPO coverage arranged by my employer. It's my choice to do so. At this point, it's cheap enough to be a might-as-well type of purchase. Still, I have the choice to purchase it or not. Fascists like you would deny me that choice.

So yeah, I have no problem with you paying your bill at the end of the year if you choose not to carry health insurance. I either want socialism

Scratch a liberal, find a fascist. Here's a better idea: since you hate freedom so much and prefer big-nanny government, why don't you quit trying to ruin my country and go move somewhere else that you liberal fascists have already ruined?

In the 24 cases where driver age was reported or readily inferred, the drivers included those of the ages 60, 61, 63, 66, 68, 71, 72, 72, 77, 79, 83, 85, 89—and I’m leaving out the son whose age wasn’t identified, but whose 94-year-old father died as a passenger.

These “electronic defects” apparently discriminate against the elderly, just as the sudden acceleration of Audis and GM autos did before them. (If computers are going to discriminate against anyone, they should be picking on the young, who are more likely to take up arms against the rise of the machines and future Terminators).

Some more data here

What "Green Lords?"

The concept of powerful Peace-Mongers and Environmentalists is a fiction. Most of this regulation and "solutions" are lobbied for by big businesses. The Corn-as-fuel came from Monsanto and ADM. I haven't heard any Environmentalists or alternative energy advocates pushing for it -- but it's not really a 1-person movement with one defined "Green Lord."

I don't think you could find a "Chief Hippy."

Here is an article that kind of points out the Problem; to get Real headway on Cap-and-Trade, the farm lobbies had to be bought out with favors (so they'd keep their lobbyists at bay I suppose).
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/Pelosi-buys-off-agri-business-to-advance-climate-bill-7881538-49108077.html
>> Lot's of screaming about this corruption -- but what REALLY could the Dems do? The reality is, Big Business runs government with money. And their Dollar invested in a politician returns a thousand dollars more for their own profits. We won't get RATIONAL decisions until we decide to fund elections or at least get better photos of these politicians when they are hitting on office staff.

To get Corn Syrup INTO soda, Monsanto got a subsidy, and to get this crap OUT of soda - they will get even MORE money.

So if you don't want corn used in fuel and would rather use pond scum -- then we will probably need a tax on the sun, which would of course, go to pay the government the "sun royalty fees" that Monsanto demands. It may cost more to NOT use inefficient corn.

And if you ever find this darn "Green Lord" -- please let me know where I can call him so that I and other people who care about breathing and nature, can become his evil minions and make millions on Carbon Credits. -- But seriously, what is MOST annoying, is to have these debates swing on "Carbon Credits or Cap-AND-Trade have X and Y corruption." Well, right now we are mired in A through Z corruption and nobody is saying we need to abandon the entire capitalist system and Democracy -- OK, nobody who isn't protesting Obama's birth certificate is saying that. There are companies that will position themselves to make huge bucks when things change - but that's what savvy companies ALWAYS do. The status quo is already poisoning the planet and I don't see how it could be much more corrupt. If Al Gore becomes a billionaire -- well, there are already a few Trillionaires who are probably calling the Fed on speed dial right now; "OK, yeah, just print me up another batch of those notes--thanks, my valet will be by to pick it up ... yeah, sure. Thanks Ben, same to you,... say hello to the missus for me, and I'll make sure you get that 0 interest loan on the house,.. no problems.... bye now."

Actually, it was Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who isn't a climatologist, but is an "environmental lawyer" (and thus one would have hoped he'd fact-check before publishing...)

Are you sure you're linking to the correct article? I can't find the quote you're talking about. He's reminiscing about the cold winters of his youth, but nowhere can I find any claim that it's never going to snow again. Except in the title of the article, but that seems to be someone else putting qords in his mouth.

But whatever outrageous claims mister Kennedy may have made elsewhere, if he's making those claims at all, and they are meant to be scientific and fact-checked, then there should be scientists you could have been linking to. Instead you're linking to what looks like a sleazebag column putting words in the mouth of someone who's not a scientist and never said anything like that anyway, and you try to suggest that means anything at all. It doesn't.

Yes, I remember those climatologists -- if I remember right, they were Patrick McDoesntexist and Jonathan Strawman.

Actually, it was Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who isn't a climatologist, but is an "environmental lawyer" (and thus one would have hoped he'd fact-check before publishing...)

funny how the detainees dont want to leave from Gitmo to one of our "regular" prisons.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Guantanamo-Prisoners-We-want-to-stay-in-Guantanamo-80911687.html
They are tortured so bad in Gitmo yet they'd rather not be in the conditions our current citizen criminals are in.
So no. They've got it better over there and they know it.

From what I understand only 3 prisoners were "tortured" with waterboarding. Let me ask you something. If two men kidnapped your daughter and you captured one that knew where she was. What would you do to him to get that information from him knowing your daughter would soon be raped, killed, or sent to the black market overseas? No need to answer to me. I just want you to answer truthfully to yourself. I understand the bad PR but supposedly 1000's were saved due to waterboarding information from K.S.M. I'm completely okay with saving thousands of innocent people by waterboarding a murderer.

T. Boone Pickens demonstrated someone getting in too far over their head too fast in this market. I really wish he would explain to everyone what went wrong with his plans. Who knows? The cement for the bases could get too expensive?

He tried to change Texas law so that the water supply corporation he owned in the Texas panhandle would be able to use eminent domain to take land on a corridor to Dallas/Fort Worth, so as to convey the wind power. Oh, and he could use the same corridor to convey water from the panhandle to DFW as well.

In all those wind power ads and interviews you saw, he never did mention the fact that he owned significant water rights in the Texas panhandle, and just needed a route to pipe that water to major cities to sell it. Do you recall that part?

When Texas balked about letting him pump the panhandle dry and flood (literally) the DFW market with his water, he stopped his ruse of caring about the environment.

http://www.lubbockonline.com/stories/071008/loc_302185743.shtml

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/earth/4275059.html

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/TimothyCarney/T_Boone_Pickens_wants_your_water.html

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_25/b4089040017753.htm