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Not a thing ... now that Dennis Rodman is working as a technician ;-)

Here is a take on the same from the anti-gun camp. I vehemently disagree with the guy, but I kinda admire the honesty: he's basically saying that we have already thrown the 4th and the 5th under the bus because of terrorists, and the 1st is halfway there, too; and, since going by raw numbers, guns are that much more dangerous than terrorists, it's perfectly logical that we should move on to the 2nd, as well.

You're ignoring the fact that budget resolutions are immune to filibuster under senate rules. (see: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/jack-lews-misleading-claim-about-the-senates-failure-to-pass-a-budget-resolution/2012/02/12/gIQAs11z8Q_blog.html?wprss=fact-checker) (And note, the WAPO is not traditionally known as a hotbed of right wing thinking.) True, for a budget to pass, it requires cooperation of the house and senate, but the claim that the Senate hasn't passed a budget for fear of filibuster are, at best, specious.

Has anyone here actually read the indictment?

It's online at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/business/documents/megaupload_indictment.pdf

Try from page 31 onwards.

I didn't just depend on Krugman. I read the Wall Street Journal every day, news and editorial page. It was pretty interesting, until they discovered supply-side economics and went completely off the wall. I'm not an economist, but even I can see that it was a convenient excuse for rich guys to raise taxes and wasn't going to work. Which it didn't. Now they want to deregulate the FDA and the financial industry. It's become the right-wing Republican Pravda. (And they're not even principled conservatives any more.)

Now I think the most reliable economics I read is from Science magazine. They're peer-reviewed so they can't get too crazy.

href="http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/">The Big Picture/quote>

Interesting guy. http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2011-11-05/business/35283739_1_credit-crisis-financial-crisis-wall-street I'll remember that name. But he's basically an investor and trader. I'm not interested in that. I would be interested to know whether he called out the housing derivatives market before they crashed.

Interfluidity

Well, I already read Steve Brill's article. This essay is incoherent. The guy can't write. If nothing else, Krugman knows how to write a readable essay where he gets to the point (and has a point).

I have no more than a layman's knowledge of economics. I do know a lot about health policy. When I read what an economist says about health policy, I can usually tell whether he knows what he's talking about. The shoemaker criticized the sculptor's sandals.

Krugman usually gets it right. The Wall Street Journal editorial page gets it wrong. They've become a PR flack for Genetech and the rest of the health care industry.

I still read the WSJ, because I want to know what the other side has to say. I would also hope they would have something intelligent to say occasionally, but I haven't had much luck there.

It's too bad we don't have economics journalism like we have science journalism, which is easy for non-specialists to understand (at least if they do a little work) and isn't promoting their own financial interests. Haven't found one. These don't work.

Thanks for the suggestions.

The IAEA has some credibility issues. The current leader stated behind closed doors that he fully supported the USA in every respect. Gosh, that sounds neutral doesn't it. Experienced former officials flat out says it's working without peer review and repeating the mistakes of the past.

And that assumes the inspectors are all legitimate. The CIA thoroughly infiltrated the pre-IAEA inspections agency. It was a simple calculation (which they got wrong), so why would they not do it again?

U.S. government officials said they considered the risk of discrediting an international arms control system by infiltrating it for their own eavesdropping. They said the stakes were so high in the conflict with Iraq, and the probability of discovery so low, that they deemed the risks worth running.

The degree to which the whole thing has been politicised means it's hard to know what to believe anymore. You certainly can't assume the IAEA is a rock-solid foundation of truth.

On Sept 11, 2001, Bush was reading a book to school children. Was ridiculed for this behavior for YEARS, especially in a Michael Moore movie.
Bush

On Sept 11, 2012, Obama wasn't in contact, no one know where he was, while his employees were being killed in a foreign country. Couldn't be bothered to deal with an 8 hour attack at our embassy or or ambassador being killed. No one will answer where he was.
Obama

So yes, if he was sleeping after being told his people were being killed and he did nothing there is outrage. I know, them dieing is inconvient for your shilling for a corrupt president so you will ignore it. The families of those killed still have not been given any answers to their questions, Congress has not been given answers to their questions. And yes, if he was sleeping, there SHOULD be outrage.

On Sept 11, 2001, Bush was reading a book to school children. Was ridiculed for this behavior for YEARS, especially in a Michael Moore movie.
Bush

On Sept 11, 2012, Obama wasn't in contact, no one know where he was, while his employees were being killed in a foreign country. Couldn't be bothered to deal with an 8 hour attack at our embassy or or ambassador being killed. No one will answer where he was.
Obama

So yes, if he was sleeping after being told his people were being killed and he did nothing there is outrage. I know, them dieing is inconvient for your shilling for a corrupt president so you will ignore it. The families of those killed still have not been given any answers to their questions, Congress has not been given answers to their questions. And yes, if he was sleeping, there SHOULD be outrage.

When was the last time N Korea arrested visitors saying they were CIA spies? On the contrary, N Korea is very welcoming to foreigners, including Americans.

Charges as CIA spies? How bourgeois. It is much simpler and a better reflection of North Korean socialist morality to just hold a trial.

2 U.S. reporters get 12 years in N. Korea - June 08, 2009

Two American television journalists today were convicted of a "grave crime" against North Korea and sentenced to 12 years of hard labor, a move that increased mounting tensions between the U.S. and the reclusive Asian state.

Laura Ling and Euna Lee, reporters for San Francisco-based Current TV, were sentenced by the top Central Court in Pyongyang in a two-day trial that started Friday as U.S. officials demanded the release of the two women.

The state-run Korean Central News Agency reported that the court "sentenced each of them to 12 years of reform through labor" but gave no further details.

Because the pair were tried by the nation's highest court, there can be no appeal.

Of course the North Koreans are not especially shy about grabbing Americans.

North Korea says it has arrested American citizen - Sun December 23, 2012
North Korea arrests American; continues shelling near disputed border - January 28, 2010
North Korea arrests US man - December 29, 2009

And foreigners? The North Korean government loves foreigners. . . in a sort of "collect them and trade them!" kind of way.

Japanese kidnapped by North Koreans return home in tears
Kidnapped by North Korea
Armed North Koreans kidnap Chinese sailors
Jenkins Photo Proof Of Kidnapping? - ". . .she is a Thai national who was kidnapped by North Korean agents. . ."
Did North Korea Just Kidnap Two American Journalists?
Kidnappers Incorporated
Japanese families fear that North Korea is still abducting - North Korea had kidnapped nationals from at least 11 other countries, including France, Italy and the United States.

It seems they want to impress them, not arrest them.

Impress them in a Potemkin village sort of way, yes.

Welcome to Lenin Disney: North Korea’s otherworldly tourism experience

The surreality of visiting North Korea begins at customs. Officials in full military dress — and there are a lot of them, judging by this clandestine video shot by a Canadian tourist — announce that anyone carrying a cell phone must surrender it, to be returned on leaving. The experience gets weirder from there, based on the numerous travelogues and reports that have emerged since the country lifted many of its restrictions on American tourists in 2010.

Tourism is an opportunity for North Korea, whic

...nice guess, but RTFA and learn a bit of actual dental hygiene. What you eat isn't the problem, it's what it attracts. With the exception of extremely acidic beverages, the food we eat does not directly damage our teeth. Getting lots of calcium is certainly important for preventing osteoporosis, in teeth and elsewhere, but that's the whole story. You can eat as much sugar as you want if you're in a completely sterile environment. It won't hurt you. (Not that such a place exists.)

Every exposed surface both inside and out of the human body is its own little bacterial world. The flora in the intestines have been in the news a lot lately because it's become apparent that some diabetes and obesity cases are tightly linked to disruptions in the compositions of these communities—the wrong bacteria get in and cause trouble.

The big discovery of the story is that the bacteria in the mouth used to be a lot more diverse. Just like the intestines of the obese, agriculture has put our mouths (with very few exceptions like the bushmen and uncontacted peoples) into bad shape. It's not natural for us to even need to brush our teeth—note no other animal doing this.

I also think you've misrepresented life expectancy a little by componentizing things... as well as being a tiny bit low numerically. The wealthy in ancient Greece averaged about 70 years, without anything resembling sanitation, and the average Roman commoner made it to 45. It's true that some components stop functioning earlier, but that doesn't mean Mother Nature would disapprove of us pushing past it. Many of the changes the occur in middle age can have positive outcomes on the social group by encouraging the individual to focus on other aspects of life, primarily looking after the family or tribe.

As a resident of the DC metro area, I'm liking the new "Washington State."

I guess that's one way for DC to finally get statehood.

Ooh! And this finally solves the problem of which state government is on the hook for paying for the DC Metro!

I posted the wrong link - sorry about that. It seemed intuitively obvious to me that gerrymandering caused a lot of vote distortion but as I've been reading more deeply into political science research, I've seen that what's intuitively obvious ain't necessarily the truth.

In the article I meant to link, political scientists actually ran simulated elections based on gerrymandered and non-gerrymandered districts (taking actual vote totals and distributing them differently). There was very little effect, going all the way back to the 1950s. The biggest effect they could generate was 7 elections being tipped - and that was making some very generous assumptions on the pro-tipping side.

The big difference maker is incumbency - as a bunch of Republicans got swept into power during the 2010 Tea Party elections, those Republicans had the incumbency advantage in 2012 (post-gerrymandering). Surprise, surprise - they had approximately the same "incumbency effect" as Democrats - 5 to 7 points.

This "proposed" electoral college change was largely spit-balling - someone managed to get Reince Preibus to answer a question about it. He gave a non-commital "that sounds neat" type of answer. But the Republican governors all shot it down pretty fast - most of them are in hostile or 50/50 territory and have no desire to rock the boat.

Meanwhile, the Democratic-leaning National Popular Vote has actually passed in states controlling about 25% of the vote. This is an even more blatant attempt to rig the system (it's the law in - lo and behold - a bunch of solidly Democratic states) but you don't seem to be worried about that one.

Frankly, I don't like either proposal (I'm a libertarianish voter that spreads my vote all over - my last ballot had Democrats, Greens, Libertarians and one Republican on it). I believe federalism is a good thing and would rather it be strengthened than weakened even more.

...not states. Like Virginia did. Or rather tried...

He's the fungus of the business world!

(Earthworm? Mold?)

That's the nice thing about capitalism - you don't have to be noble to contribute to the system. In fact, it helps to have some vultures in the system.

In this case, the slowly dying Post is at least opening up some prime real estate in DC for others to have a go. The endgame as a private company was bankruptcy and liquidation anyway.

As I said, it's fun to see the panic this has caused in the left. With the possible exception of Pennsylvania, the Republican governors have all shot this idea down. And the fear this caused is all just a mirage - when real poli-sci people look at it, the gerrymandering fear is bogus. Incumbency is the real problem.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/02/03/gerrymandering-is-not-whats-wrong-with-american-politics/

If what you're saying tracked closely with reality, one would expect to see presidential campaigns spend four times as much, per person, in Wyoming than in California. But what's really happening is that neither California nor Wyoming get any money spent in them, it all goes to swing states.

See: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/track-presidential-campaign-ads-2012/ The only money showing up in either state is just spillover from neighboring, battleground states.

Of course, this just raises another potential reason to ditch the electoral college.

The difference is that by calling it a "vaccine" (which it is CLEARLY not for anyone who has half a brain) the manufactures enjoy immunity from lawsuits. See here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/22/AR2011022206008.html

Just watch. Pretty much every drug is going to be marketed as a vaccine.

Perhaps California should consult with Virginia about how to contract and run a DMV system.

http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-06-12/opinions/35461879_1_college-level-skilled-workforce-elite-schools

You mean sort of like this?

Except that's not what he said. He said that condoms are not the "sole solution" to the AIDS epidemic, and said that if they're considered the only solution, they may worsen the problem.

That's a little different than "condoms cause AIDS."

And at least one researcher from the Harvard School of Public Health has suggested that he may be partly right: in Africa, condom programs haven't done much to control the spread of AIDS due to the overlapping relationships of many sexual relationships in African culture.

Since you've obviously got a boner for misrepresenting what he's said, I don't expect you to grasp the nuance of what he said... but you ARE wrong in your claim, and you ARE transparent in pushing your agenda.

Except that's not what he said. He said that condoms are not the "sole solution" to the AIDS epidemic, and said that if they're considered the only solution, they may worsen the problem.

That's a little different than "condoms cause AIDS."

And at least one researcher from the Harvard School of Public Health has suggested that he may be partly right: in Africa, condom programs haven't done much to control the spread of AIDS due to the overlapping relationships of many sexual relationships in African culture.

Since you've obviously got a boner for misrepresenting what he's said, I don't expect you to grasp the nuance of what he said... but you ARE wrong in your claim, and you ARE transparent in pushing your agenda.

Citations provided:

Ron Paul's Hypocrisy on Earmarks, Pork-Barrel Spending

Ron Paul, Big-Government Libertarian

Chertoff, the former Homeland Security secretary, has spent years explicitly pushing Rapiscan in airports. His security consulting agency includes a client that makes the machines.

Speaking of updates, nice to see iOS provides latest updates even to older phones like the 2009 3GS supports the latest iOS 6.1. Read an article about google patching a android vulnerability but only offered it for Andriod 4.2 Jelly Bean which came out November 2012. All older versions of android are still vulnerable. No one wants to offer android users updates to their phones, seems their mentality is "buy a new Android every 3 months when the new OS comes out". Who has time or money to buy new phones and tablets every 3 months? This problem is going to get worse before it gets better, google needs to offer a way to update all these older devices to the latest version of android.

You do realize that nuclear has by far the smallest environmental footprint of any available generating technology? Germany is finding enough space for new lignite mines, and vast arrays of solar panels and windmills. Storing a bit of spent fuel requires virtually no space by comparison. Furthermore, nearly all of the energy content still remains in spent fuel and is accessible with the right reactors. (read: the long lived waste could be destroyed in modern reactors while generating power, and virtually no more would be produced.)

It is totally asinine to dismiss all of nuclear based on the shortcomings of 50 year old reactors. Molten salt reactors like LFTR look absolutely nothing like conventional nuclear, and the fluid fuel enables unprecedented levels of safety, efficiency, and cost. If the Germans truly value the environment, they would apply their efforts toward advancing this technology, instead of chasing the fantasy of renewables.

The fundamental truth is that, until we have a reliable source of energy that is even cheaper than coal, coal will continue to be burned throughout the world, and addressing environmental concerns is hopeless. So, even if Germany's costly pursuit of renewables "succeeds", it will be meaningless on a global scale.

I wouldn't worry about it that much. In today's day and age, it's not at all a big deal if your handwriting is shit. With me, personally, I've never noticed any deficiency in any other area than handwriting. It's certainly possible your case is different as each brain is unique, but at the same time, there is a lot that's not understood about how we work.

Maybe you read a while back about Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert. Well. He lost his ability to draw on paper due to a strange brain condition. Funny thing was, he had no problem drawing with a tablet. For some reason, the brain didn't interpret the actions the same way and he had no problem drawing. What i'm trying to get at is I wouldn't let a possibility of something that *might* affect you cause you to give up on guitar playing or other activities you enjoy because you feel somehow predisposed to fail.

How about American Citizen Abdulrahman al-Awlaki? He was born in Denver, Colorado on August 26, 1995 at 1:16 PM. He was killed by an American drone strike in Yemen on October 14, 2011. He was 16 years old at the time. Does anyone have any evidence that this teenager posed an imminent threat to the US?

Oh, yes, as Robert Gibbs said in an interview, it was Abdulrahman's fault that his father - who he hadn't seen in over two years - was an alleged terrorist. That's the threat he posed to America, and that's what justified killing him.

The substance is toxic, period, regardless of dose.

Adding the word period doesn't make a statement true. Caffeine in low dosages has almost no side effects. In fact it is unique among the behavior altering drugs in that regard. There are even highly respected medical researchers at NIH trying to use it as a vehicle to deliver medicinal drugs to the body since it is one of the mildest substances known to reach deep into the CNS system.

Need more proof about how mild is caffeine? It is given to preemie babies as a stimulant for chrissakes.

The founders of the United States banned a state religion in the First Amendment ("Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof") because they realized churches were competing power structures.

Nowadays, we have the new church, corporations and specifically corporations of the financial sector.

You really want to know who runs this country? Here are four data points from which you can draw your own conclusions:

1) The head of Goldman Sachs goes before Congress and admits he was selling bad products to clients, products which he was betting against. A classic swindle. Nothing ever came of it. Or any of the other revelations.

2) There was a PBS show called "The Untouchables" which chronicled why Wall Street executives were never prosecuted for fraud.

3) However, someone you'd think was powerful and connected, a former Michigan state Supreme Court justice is facing jail time for lying to a bank which she was working with in order to get a short sale completed for a house she owned. Her crime? She tried to hide another asset, a paid off house, from the bank.

4) Another person you'd think is powerful and connected, the chairman of the Washington DC City Council, Kwame Brown, was removed from office and convicted of a felony for lying about his income on a pair of loan applications, totaling around 200,000 dollars. Absolute small potatoes. Also a very common practice in the mid-to-late 2000s, on home loans.

Noticing a trend? If you're a financial sector executive, you run the show. It doesn't matter that you've swindled billions of dollars from the country, nothing is going to happen to you.

However, If you cross the financial sector, even over relatively trivial matters and sums, it won't matter if you're the elected head of the city council or a justice on the state supreme court, you will be removed from office and suffer significant consequences.

The financial sector runs this country.

A driver in DC recently challenged a camera speeding ticket because the camera was set to flag drivers at 45 miles an hour when the construction zone speed limit was actually lower. He beat the ticket even though the camera was set to high, and he never denied that he was speeding. Oh, and did I mention that the guy is a cop who had recently been part of the automated traffic enforcement unit?

http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-01-02/local/36211549_1_45-mph-limit-camera-program-photo-enforcement

Steve figured all that shit out before he died.

http://m.washingtonpost.com/image/1008w/h/WashingtonPost/Content/Blogs/comic-riffs/StandingArt/BORSjobs.png?uuid=cuxS4psaEeG_E2Y-wvX7KA

Here in ermer'ka, we don't have to chew the air because of the EPA.

No chewing required. For the most part we just swallow whatever industries put in the air because of what they put in politicians' piggy banks. It goes down easier when you don't have to chew... which is probably why you didn't notice.

Anyone else getting asked to log into the admin of their wordpress when viewing their about page?

Idiot.

All of the Mexicans immigrants know are hardworking and rarely take time off. If they were to adopt our values, they'd be much lazier. Statistically Mexicans work the hardest and the longest of all people.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/siesta-what-siesta-mexican-work-longest-hours-in-world/2011/04/27/AF3O0yTF_story.html

Idiot.

Who said they banned pizza? I said that they banned the word pizza. Here, read up. . I'd hate for you to take my word for it, on the subject of Elastic Loaves.

When I talk about right vs. left I generally don't refer to actual Presidential policies, because in the US the President is so constrained. For example it would be fairly silly to say that expanding Medicare to everyone was not a left-wing policy, because left-wingers really love that idea; but no President has ever proposed it. In other words I'm referring to what people bitch about when they have no power, rather then what they do when they have power. When you have to get 60 votes in the Senate you have to do pretty much what the Bill Nelsons and Joe Liebermans of the world want, even if your dearest desire is to inform the Secret Service anyone who murders those guys gets both a pardon and a promotion.

It's pretty clear that a) many many left-wingers complain about violations of international law, excessive use of force, etc. when Bush did something analogous to drone strikes; and b) very few right-wingers complained about any of those things when Obama turned the dial to 11 on drone strikes. Some (very few, but some) left-wingers still complain about the drone strikes even when Obama does them.

BTW I did a check on military spending. Since WW2 at least military spending has tended to increase when we were at war and decrease when we were at peace. The only real exception seems to be Reagan. And he wasn't arguing that we need more tanks just because, he was arguing we could force the Soviets to over-invest in their military, which would gut their civilian economy, and it actually may have worked. The chart I used is the second one on this page:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/01/07/everything-chuck-hagel-needs-to-know-about-the-defense-budget-in-charts/

As for the Civil War we'll have to agree to disagree. My firm opinion is that slavery is the single most evil thing the United States has ever done, so no matter how terrible or unconstitutional the war was it was a great thing.

That's probably a good running start.

I don't think that 1333/customer is exactly the right calculation though, because AT&T will have these service areas for a long time to come so there are future customers to consider as well.

If they do a good job (I know its AT&T, but it COULD happen...) they should be able to hold onto those customers (with new phone incentives - see below) and attract new ones. And, you are correct, the spectrum has a lot of value.

Missed by many is the fact that the cost is not the final price. AT&T is a GSM/LTE company and what they bought was for the most part was a CDMA infrastructure. That means they will have to double rack every tower as they transition to GSM gear and they have to keep the CDMA net running while they cut over all those users to GSM phones which could take a few years. (3 to 5 years is my guess, having had my prior cell provider purchased by AT&T some years ago). Or they may just keep the CDMA gear till it dies and resell roaming service to Verizon and Sprint et al.

So the cost side is not pinned down entirely any more than is the revenue side by the widely known facts as published.

For example, the staff at the Congressional Budget Office who actually do the math do not directly report to any politician.

The CBO frequently has to write reports based on (bad) assumptions that are baked into proposals or laws.
Example:

[Former VP candidate Paul] Ryan isn't alone in directing the CBO to assume some level of success for his policies. Politicians from both parties routinely specify spending limits and then brag about the results. But Ryan's budget is unusual in the numbers of rules it specifies, and the level of success it assumes for its policies.

The sad part is that Kim Chong Un grew up in Switzerland among normal kids. He could have come to the NK 'throne' with a clean sheet and willingness to help people. Instead, he started executing people as soon as he got in.

Because the management at the time of the acceptance phase of the product had their hand in the till http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/31/AR2009123102821.html. The current management does not.

But don't try to joke, suggest, or even imply the word "bomb" in an airport or a plane. Even mentioning a related joke on Twitter could give you troubles.

Huffington Post? Try Washington Post, oh and he disclosed it on CNN.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/31/AR2009123102821.html

I'd think actually the number collection is so that the next time you go in, they can put your phone number in and ID you... "Do you have a discount card? Do you have it with you?? No, can I get your phone number? There you are!"

Most small shops don't (yet) have the smarts/connections to sell customer data. But the potential IS there, yes.

That may be one reason, but it isn't the only reason. the fact is, an extensive phone list linked to a specific demographic (e.g. hair care, female, city district) is worth money to the right person.

if they are giving you a 10% discount or raffling for a car in the mall, remember the information they're asking for is worth more to them than the discount out the till or the new car. Ask someone who works as a dataminer if they have any frequent flyer cards, supermarket loyalty cards, or petrol cards in their wallets.

These shops don't even have to be willing to sell the information: in 2005, a firefighter from Tukwilla, WA was charged with attempted arson, based on a police investigation that revolved around his Safeway Club Card purchase history

- "hackers" would be called "tireless researchers"
- finding security flaws would be called "peer-review"
- there would be a lot more 14-year-olds leading new scientific advances

and...

- people who put their own self-interests aside to disseminate paywalled scientific research for the betterment of humankind would be labeled "heros," and be awarded posthumous honors

And we'd all be living on a planet that doesn't have a blue sky.

What color would the sky be on this fantasy planet of yours?

Scientists are humans, too. No better nor worse than the rest of us.

Piltdown man, anybody?

Falsified "vaccination causes autism" study? Yep - A SCIENTIST did that.

You might find this interesting. It more than backs up your point.

Of course, there aren't any studies of whether smoking pot causes the same instances of emphysema, cancer, and other diseases that can happen from smoking anything.

Studies have been done. More than one showed a solid correlation between smoking pot and COPD (the linked article doesn't mention it) and what I read was short on details, but a Washington Post article was detailed. Excerpt:

The new findings "were against our expectations," said Donald Tashkin of the University of California at Los Angeles, a pulmonologist who has studied marijuana for 30 years.

"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."

  Earlier work established that marijuana does contain cancer-causing chemicals as potentially harmful as those in tobacco, he said. However, marijuana also contains the chemical THC, which he said may kill aging cells and keep them from becoming cancerous.

Tashkin's study, funded by the National Institutes of Health's National Institute on Drug Abuse, involved 1,200 people in Los Angeles who had lung, neck or head cancer and an additional 1,040 people without cancer matched by age, sex and neighborhood.

That's why the oath of enlistment is to, ``...support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic...''.

That's why Texas Republican Steve Stockman is in the right w/ his promise:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2013/01/15/rep-steve-stockman-threatens-to-impeach-obama-over-guns/

Any attempt to outlaw guns w/o amending the Constitution is illegal. No law can be made which would outlaw those firearms which are already in existence (... shall pass no ex post facto laws.). That's why gun control advocates are always trying things in small steps, trying to take things away piecemeal.

We executed Gulf War I to prevent Saddam from controlling Kuwait's oil fields and stop threatening the Saudi fields.

Greenspan said that we were in Iraq for oil. Controlling global energy sources was likely a significant sweetener for going into Iraq.

It's directly linked to our quality of life. So you better believe the society, via the government, should be getting a clear picture of WHAT EXACTLY is going on with the oil supply chain.

> Ford stayed strong throughout the economic recession, did not require any
> bailout, posted record profits, and produces the best selling car in the world.

Correction. Ford was going down to the same hot place in the same handbasket as GM. Bonds of both companies were downgraded to junk-bond status in early May of 2005 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41573-2005May6.html Ford had fewer assets than GM, and suffered a near-death experience with a loss of $12.7 billion in 2006. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6298463.stm They caught a lucky break, in that they ran into their problems before the credit markets froze up in 2008. So they were able to mortgage themselves to the gills and obtain $18 billion in financing http://www.ultimatecarpage.com/forum/showthread.php?t=29921 to execute a turnaround.

> Two specific automakers were poorly managed and operated,
> *AND WHEN THE ECONOMY TANKED*, they couldn't survive.

Correction. when the economy tanked, they couldn't get financing to execute a turnaround, and had to get financing from US and Canadian governments, on those governments' terms. I will grant that Ford did their restructuring right, but they did get lucky in that they were forced to do so before the economy tanked, and it was still possible to borrow $18 billion.

Credit where credit is due; Wkipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Motor_Company with lots of citations.