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National Safety Council estimates at least 28% of traffic accidents are caused by cell phones.

Washington, DC – The National Safety Council announced today that it estimates at least 28% of all traffic crashes – or at least 1.6 million crashes each year – are caused by drivers using cell phones and texting. NSC estimates that 1.4 million crashes each year are caused by drivers using cell phones and a minimum of 200,000 additional crashes each year are caused by drivers who are texting. The announcement came on the one-year anniversary of NSC’s call for a ban on all cell phone use and texting while driving.

The Washingtpost story links to http://www.nsc.org/Pages/Home.aspx

I don't know, I think that is a large percentage of traffic accidents. That story was from 01/2010.

Not saying I agree with the proposed law, but your statement made me curious to see what the number of accidents due to cell phones really was.

Linky; Google failed me when I tried to find the study the book publisher commissioned.

Neither, in your scenario. He just downloaded the indie band's music for free - he's not going to pay them for another identical copy of it.

Maybe, maybe not. He still has his twenty bucks and he still loves music and he's still going to spend money on it. If he's one of the younger "I don't need no stinkin' CD" folks maybe not, but he's listened to Indie Band and likes it, and he'll be buying the next one.

As to RIAA music, just tune to a top 40 station and sample it for three hours, you'll have all the latest pop music with a a lot less effor than trying to download it from edonkey or morpheus, where you're liable to get bad rips, incomplete files, etc.

Of course, they said first that radio would kill the recording industry, then they said cassettes would kill the industry. Why in the world do you lend credence to anything they say whatever?

I can get a book from the library as easy as I can get one from the bookstore, and it's free, but for some strange reason I have shelves and shelves of books I've bought.

And Explain KSHE's "7th Day" show.

I would say that yes, you/we have no right to travel by car without restriction. For example, you can't drive on other people's lawns. You must have a valid drivers license. You must have car insurance. If you are under 18, you may not drive after curfew.

Way to miss the point.

Your car can also be searched at any time, without warrant.

Bullshit.

Citation for that accusation:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/31/AR2009123102821.html

the touching, while it does contact your naughty bits, is not "sexual".

Ah, but what if it is? How in the world can you say that no TSA agent will touch someone in a sexual way? I'm sure many TSA agents will remain professional, but I'm also certain some will not. These are not doctors, or trained medical personnel, or even police officers here. You are talking about people with minimal qualifications and may have been recruited through a pizza box

A quick look around shows that this story isnt on Fox, or MSNBC, or CNN, or ABC, or CBS, or igoogle feeds, or Yahoo

USA Today http://content.usatoday.com/communities/greenhouse/post/2010/11/white-house-edited-oil-drilling-report/1

One of many on CNN http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2010/11/10/report-white-house-edit-led-to-errant-claim-on-drilling-moratorium/

Wash Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/10/AR2010111007479.html

FOX http://nation.foxnews.com/offshore-oil-drilling/2010/11/10/wh-cheated-sell-its-drilling-ban

ABC http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=12112909

There are literally hundreds of articles on the subject. If you can't find it in the "mainstream press", then you aren't looking.

They have also stated their intention of blocking anything Obama tries to do, at least as much as they can with control of only the House.

By the way, in case anyone wants a source on my claim, here's one of many. Five seconds on Google will net you a large number of hits.

She was using it for official business.

Even if we don't get the bodies of all the emails, simply the number of communications (in the thousands) with aides and government officials suggests that she was either (1) spending all her time gossiping instead of actually, you know, doing her job, or that (2) she was using the private account for government business.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/17/AR2008091703304.html

http://gawker.com/5051193/sarah-palins-personal-emails

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/09/AR2008090903044.html

http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/32838

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/erik-ose/sarah-palins-yahoo-e-mail_b_127177.html

http://www.google.com/search?client=opera&rls=en&q=sarah+palin+emails+government+business&sourceid=opera&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

The Tora Bora "fuck up" happened before the war drums started beating for Iraq

But this doesn't mean it didn't have a large impact, our special forces are documented to have been in Iraq as early as July of 02. Numerous white house insiders have also made statements indicating that from day 1 Iraq was the focus, even after 9-11. Bush was trying to pin it on Saddam. So, rather than shifting focus and giving Afghanistan 100%, it appears to have been done mostly to placate public opinion until Iraq got underway. Numerous sources have stated dates, saying that hard planning for Iraq happened before Tora Bora, for example http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17347-2004Apr16.html. So, you really have to wonder how much planning was going on for Afghanistan, at the same time. Especially given the views of Berntsen, Schroen or McNab.

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.'

No such thing as an unemployed attorney? Sure there is: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/30/AR2010103000211.html/

My issue with the scanners are:
1) They're invasive
2) They're yet another knee-jerk reaction
3) They won't do any good

== Invasive ==
If you do a search online you'll find all kinds of different images of what these things will show. They vary from the obviously modified to make them look really bad to the modified to make them look generic. A couple of things stand out:
- the case of the Florida TSA guard who went bonkers after too much teasing about his small genitalia after they were testing the full body scanners. How'd they know the size of his genitals if they weren't shown? http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2010-05-07/news/fl-miami-airport-screeners-20100506_1_airport-workers-co-worker-tsa
- the British won't use the full body scanners on children under 18 because they may break child pornography laws http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1221111/Nude-X-ray-scans-scuppered-child-porn-fears.html#ixzz0bl6GB9Ts

So you are giving up personal rights that normally you wouldn't. You wouldn't want police to be able to pat you down with no probably cause on the streets would you? They're doing that at the airports with no probable cause. But, the extra security! Read on.

== Knee Jerk Reaction ==
9/11 attacks used box cutters and other sharp objects (not illegal at the time)
-- rules are changed to no longer allow those items
Shoe Bomber
-- rules are changed so your shoes now need to removed and screened
Liquid Explosives attempt
-- rules are changed to minimize amounts of liquids you can bring on board
Panty Bomber
-- introduction of full body scanners

Notice the pattern? Terrorists find ways to work within the rules.

== They won't do any good ==
Nobody can say with certainty that the scanners would have caught the panty bomber, since he used a low density explosive https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/17/AR2010031700649.html
The scanners do not penetrate skin, so people can still carry explosives in body cavities (I'll leave the details of that up to your imagination). http://www.consumertraveler.com/columns/whats-the-real-lowdown-on-the-full-body-scanners/
Once you are on the plane you are not scanned again, terrorists will get in the system at small airports that don't have the scanners

== Summation ==
So where does that leave you? Rules/Restrictions are put in place, terrorists work within them, new, more stringent rules and restrictions are put in place. I was annoyed at the previous restrictions, but I could live with them. This invasion of privacy is a step too far.

And for those of you who have no issues with this step due to 'better security' where are *you* going to draw the line when that terrorist uses his handy body cavities to smuggle stuff on board and the TSA tries to figure out how to catch that ....

What if they just got billed by the hospital, and made payments on that until it was gone? Or, better yet, set up a government program to pay the hospital and hold it out of their tax returns until it was repaid?

They will just declare bankruptcy (like they do now) and make the hospital pay for it. Or you could not allow medical bills to be wiped out by bankruptcy, but then you would just be telling them "All the money that you make well go to paying off your past debts." So not only would the country be stuck with their medical bills, but they would also probably go on welfare, and they wouldn't be working so they would not benefit the system by paying any taxes.

Besides, if we're giving them tax dollars to buy their insurance with, and/or if we're not penalizing them more than they would spend on insurance, what exactly ARE we accomplishing? Aside from dictating how other people live so we can feel better, that is?

The government is going to subsidize Health Insurance, not buy it for them. It is not an all or nothing deal. That is the problem with the system now. If you cannot afford the $5k per year to insure a family, then you just don't buy it. You put $0 into the pool of insurance money. With the new system, based upon your need, the government may subsidize all of the cost (medicaid), none of the cost (I will be in that category), or anywhere in between. So instead of people completely leeching off the system, they will contribute a portion and the government will contribute as well. Overall, less cost coming out of my pocket.

In any case, it was to be funded by donations rather than taxes.

This reminds me of the great exit poll kerfuffle when John Kerry was seen to be leading in exit polls to a greater extent than the actual poll results bore out.

Source for the 2007 budget bit.

There's not very much in the way of precedent covering Executive agreements - much less than what addresses the constitutionality of treaties, for example. However, Lawrence Lessig co-wrote an op-ed piece not too long ago addressing ACTA and Executive Agreements:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/25/AR2010032502403.html

His take, in short: not bloody likely.

TFA (not lined in /. story!) spells that out a bit more clearly;

Verizon Wireless has agreed to pay $25 million to the U.S. government and at least $52.8 million in refunds to customers who inadvertently racked up data charges on their phones over the last three years

$25m + 52.8m = $77.8m

That said, they're probably still making a profit, and I'd be surprised if they didn't at least try to give those refunds in the form of discounts on bills (so that they don't have to pay you if you've jumped ship or you're about to).

Except that TFA, which is Verizon Wireless to pay $25M for spurious fees, says that Verizon agreed to provide refunds to 15 million, not the 4.66 million the parent erroneously estimates. I find it very curious that Verizon is not disclosing the actual total amount of the refunds. Smells like a coverup.

If it was accidental, why didn't they voluntarily hand those "accidental" fees back? Why'd a third party have to force them to settle? Btw, here's the link to the referenced source: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/posttech/2010/10/the_federal_communications_com_5.html

Here's one article, though I'm not sure if it's the one the submitter was quoting from.

Along with explicitly saying, repeatedly, that violence is never an answer and that his vision for "restoring" America is not an armed revolution. Yes. Classic.

Yes, and Miron Cristea was a holy man who never explicitly called for Jews to be murdered. Overtly preach peace, fan the flames of conflict, and stand back. High profile people ranting against others in such a hateful and aggressive manner has an effect even when the call is not directly to violence.

Maybe you have heard of Byron Williams, who is facing four counts of attempted murder after being intercepted on his way to carry out a massacre at the liberal Tides Foundation? As that article says, "it's not fair to blame Beck for violence committed by his fans, he would do well to stop encouraging extremists" and "It's not that Beck is directly advocating violence... but he's giving voice and legitimacy to the violent fringe."

That about sums it up. And this isn't even a left-wing position:

"It is important that everyone in public life, whether on the right or on the left, realize that words have consequences." - Rep. Peter King (R) of New York, senior Republican on the Homeland Security Committee.

"The Becks of the world are people who are venting their opinions and it is inflammatory, it generates a lot of emotion and generates in some people overreaction that apparently happened in the California case," - Rich Roberts of the International Union of Police Associations

Taking biometric readouts of a facial structure fails the moment someone has a serious traffic accident, gets any sort of illness that causes facial swelling, or simply grows out their facial hair.

Or smiles:)

Listen, I respect your zealotry. And I don't pretend to be an expert in all this. But I have worked in politics, and I understand how number-shuffling works. Even a quick Googling shows that these things you assert are hotly disputed by reputable sources.

For the "Obamacare thingy", the gist is the the CBO must score a bill according to guidelines given it, and in this case, the guidelines require it to make unsupportable and in some cases extremely unlikely assumptions. For example see:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/25/AR2010022504074.html
http://www.nationalreview.com/critical-condition/47494/obamacare-budgetary-disaster/james-c-capretta

Among many others.

For the deficit claim: Oh my goodness. Did you read the linked article? Did you understand the deficit was reduced because, the prior year, the administration ran the biggest deficit in US history? And that it declined a little because the bulk of the stimulus spending had ended?

For the tax cut: That's neither here nor there. The other things you raise are *results*; the tax cut was a *tactic*, and even the administration doesn't seem to think it achieved the desired result.

The job creation thing: many, many people have pointed out this this is a totally unfalsifiable claim. There is simply no way to account for job creation in this manner. The only things we know for sure: (1) We've lost about 3.2M jobs;* and (2) The unemployment rate, post stimulus, is slightly higher than the rate the administration warned we would have if we *didn't* pass the stimulus.**

* Of the 214,000 net new jobs, half are in Texas
** A further critique is that the government, since it does not create wealth, cannot actually "create" a job. Any money it uses to "create" a job is money it must simply tax or borrow from the private sector to do so.

There's a big difference with you borrowing US dollars from the bank and the US borrowing US dollars from China.

The US can legally create US dollars and already has created trillions (more than what it owes China):
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=armOzfkwtCA4
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/18/AR2009031802283.html

You can't.

The US has pwned China.

The US might have pwned itself more than it pwned China: the US not using its advantage wisely for the long term benefit of the US people but instead spending it on cheap toys and wars (and making a few people very rich) is not China's fault.

After seven years, there was literally no evidence it had any impact on student achievement — none,” said Mark Lawson, the school board president here in Liverpool, one of the first districts in New York State to experiment with putting technology directly into students’ hands. “The teachers were telling us when there’s a one-to-one relationship between the student and the laptop, the box gets in the way. It’s a distraction to the educational process.”

A research paper noted that

we also demonstrate that the introduction of home computer technology is associated with modest but statistically significant and persistent negative impacts on student math and reading test scores. Further evidence suggests that providing universal access to home computers and high-speed internet access would broaden, rather than narrow, math and reading achievement gaps.

A further NYTimes article noted that

Ofer Malamud, an assistant professor of economics at the University of Chicago, is the co-author of a study that investigated educational outcomes after low-income families received vouchers to help them buy computers. “We found a negative effect on academic achievement,” he said. “I was surprised, but as we presented our findings at various seminars, people in the audience said they weren’t surprised, given their own experiences with their school-age children.”

Professors are also banning laptops from their classes. All in all there doesn't seem to be any actual evidance that kids benefit from the use of laptops et al in class. That's not saying they don't benefit from the use of technology in the learning process, but the use of individual laptops and Ipads and all that has so far been shown to be somewhat counter-productive.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/01/clinton_vs_obama_on_iraq.html

Link to parent's article.

To summarize, the author thinks that math marketing in the form of contrived examples like "the rate at which the fluid level in a martini glass will go down, assuming, of course, that one sips differentiably" and math evangelism like "math camp" and "family math" is unnecessary. People who aren't interested in math don't need to study it, because "Unlike literature, history, politics and music, math has little relevance to everyday life. "

Modern vehicles crumpling like tin cans is intentional, the car crumpling up absorbs the energy that would be transmitted to you otherwise with the more rigid frame on an old car. You have just happened to be in accidents that are minor enough that you wouldn't be injured in any car, no matter how poorly designed.

Highway deaths are at their lowest in 60 years, despite much higher speeds and speed limits in many states, much larger cars (at least since the 80s), much more powerful cars (a V6 Camry has more power than a mid 90s V8 Camaro), and greatly increased traffic and road use. Clearly these "tin can" cars are doing something right. You can't just disregard decades of progress in engineering like that.

Associated Press non-biased enough for you?

How about criminal convictions for workers caught rigging the recount?

Hate to break it to you but the tea party formed way before any politician or media outlet even knew what it was. The original organizers even banned Republican politicians from speaking at the first meets.

That's why former house majority leader Dick Armey is their leader.

A comparison between Vegas slot machines and Electronic voting:
http://media3.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2006/03/16/GR2006031600213.gif

No doubt. The wealthiest area of the country(Northern virginia) permits its officers to commit homicide knowing their will be no charges.

The furtive gesture justification
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/27/AR2010012703907.html

The accidental discharge defense
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/23/AR2006032301117.html

Forgot to pay the bill
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/27/AR2006022701515.html

You have no right to know what the police are up to
http://reason.com/archives/2010/06/29/police-blackout

No doubt. The wealthiest area of the country(Northern virginia) permits its officers to commit homicide knowing their will be no charges.

The furtive gesture justification
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/27/AR2010012703907.html

The accidental discharge defense
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/23/AR2006032301117.html

Forgot to pay the bill
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/27/AR2006022701515.html

You have no right to know what the police are up to
http://reason.com/archives/2010/06/29/police-blackout

No doubt. The wealthiest area of the country(Northern virginia) permits its officers to commit homicide knowing their will be no charges.

The furtive gesture justification
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/27/AR2010012703907.html

The accidental discharge defense
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/23/AR2006032301117.html

Forgot to pay the bill
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/27/AR2006022701515.html

You have no right to know what the police are up to
http://reason.com/archives/2010/06/29/police-blackout

more thorough recounts done later on for research purposes made it pretty clear that Florida had actually gone to Gore

Which is a strange conclusion to come to based on your wiki link.
Straight from the WashPost article which is the cite for the Wiki article:

But there are too many variables in any effort to reexamine the ballots -- from varying standards in judging ballots in the counties to problems of getting an exact replication of the overvote and undervote ballots -- to be able to say with absolute certainty what might have happened in Florida.

"In my opinion, it's too close to call," said Kirk Wolter, senior vice president of NORC. "If we take it as given that two major candidates were separated by perhaps a few hundred or fewer ballots, it may be that we'll never know the exact vote total."

Here are 3, including one which specifically cites a 27% estimate for the overall population. Thanks for playing.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/glennthrush/0709/58_of_GOP_not_suredont_beleive_Obama_born_in_US.html

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/right-now/2010/05/poll_31_percent_of_republicans.html

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/08/poll-27-of-americans-are-birthers----including-41-of-republicans.php

Reflective rooftops have some conceptual similarities, but are somewhat less drastic.

This, of course, this ignores the long term deaths and illness caused by radiation exposure.

Yes, and that's the killer. If you take "long term" to mean from a couple of days to a month or so. For a ground burst this is easily many times the number of casualties compared to the initial blast. (Higher risk the smaller the blast.)

That's the funny (as in peculiar, not "ha ha") thing about nuclear weapons. Our expectations are often counter intuitive. For example, a counter force strike will lead to many more civilian deaths than a strike against population centres. A counter force strike contains a large number of ground burst (to be effective against hardened structures) and will lead to massive amounts of fall out, that subsequently kills civilians. A strike against population centres OTOH will utilise air burst (even high) air bursts to maximise the effectiveness of the blast against non hard structures (to wit, the strikes against Hiroshima and Nagasaki). This leads to highly reduced amounts of fall out, almost all fatalities and casualties will be the results of blast, thermal and prompt radiation effects, and these are limited in scope and time.

These articles are a good introduction to the area.

No, it's not very interesting because it simply isn't true. On the average government employees are better paid than the average american, but that's only because government jobs tend not to be minimum-wage McJobs.

When controlled by educational achievement, the exact opposite is true.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/09/public_employees_dont_make_mor.html

The average government employee with a bachelors degree makes 25% LESS than the average private industry employee with a bachelors degree.

The Washington Post article has some additional info (but TFA linked in the summary has some the Post missed).

I was a victim of "bill shock", but it was AT&T when they bought out Cingular, not Verizon. My bill had never been over $40 and as soon as AT&T took over, WHAM... $150 bill. I dropped them and got a minute phone. I finally traded that for Boost; no bill shock there, it's a flat $50 per month no matter how much I use it.

Except Two-Thirds of Corporations do not pay taxes...

Corporations have the money and power to avoid paying taxes, People making under $40,000/year don't have the ability to reduce their tax rate from 35% to 12%, or 20% to 0%

Except Two-Thirds of Corporations do not pay taxes...

Corporations have the money and power to avoid paying taxes, People making under $40,000/year don't have the ability to reduce their tax rate from 35% to 12%, or 20% to 0%

The youtube videos are all well and good.. heres a few links to written articles about this though

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/debonis/2010/10/prof_explains_how_dc_online_vo.html

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-dc-dcelections-heari,0,541741.story

(it can cause lung cancer, like any inhaled smoke, and it seems to have a negative impact on higher reasoning skills when used heavily for a long term

remarkably there was a study not too long ago, and cannabis smokers were found to have LOWER incidences of lung cancer than NON-SMOKERS. The researchers were quite surprised, as they didn't expect this at all.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/25/AR2006052501729.html

However degradation of reasoning over the long term does seem to be a problem. not sure how much you have to smoke to see that though.

Stellar post, with just one flaw:

it can cause lung cancer, like any inhaled smoke

Maybe not.

From the pulmonologist who completed the 2,000+ subject study mentioned above:

"We hypothesized that there would be a positive association between marijuana use and lung cancer, and that the association would be more positive with heavier use," he said. "What we found instead was no association at all, and even a suggestion of some protective effect."

it can cause lung cancer, like any inhaled smoke

No, it does not.

If everyone voted in 100% of elections, cared enough to research every candidate and initiative, had access to solid information on the issues and candidates, and was educated enough to navigate through FUD when finding that information, then it would not be possible to "buy" a seat or referendum, because any money used creating FUD would just be poured down a hole and any money spent on GOTV would be useless.

That's one approach, but solid information? The only information out there (short of first-hand knowledge) is provided via the television airwaves. And most of that is in the form of soundbites, superficial coverage, and/or ads. If the cheering that's heard when someone predicts the imminent death of newspapers is any indication, I'd suggest people like it that way.

So if people are going to get their information from the TV, a better approach would be for the networks to meet their obligations to the public and provide free air time for candidates. The high cost of running for office is almost entirely attributable to the high cost of television advertising campaigns. Remove the need to raise that money, and you've removed the corrosive influence of money in politics. From a randomly selected article

Since 2002, the average cost of gaining a House seat has risen 49 percent
and now exceeds $1.36 million. The average cost of attaining a Senate seat
has risen 68 percent and now exceeds $3.03 million, according to the
Campaign Finance Institute.

In the editorial Mann says even if you ignore his work and the whole field of paleoclimate it doesn't change the climatologists conclusions on global warming.

So Mann doesn't really matter that much, he's just a convenient boogy man that people have heard about.