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Safest way to bank online is to use a Linux LiveCD.
No need to learn Linux, nor even install Linux. Simply boot to a Linux live cd. Nothing is written or saved to anywhere on the computer, so nothing for anyone to copy. It's not booting into windows, so no trojan/virus is there to affect it.

Better explanations here, and a simple howto:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2009/10/e-banking_on_a_locked_down_non.html

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2009/10/avoid_windows_malware_bank_on.html

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Replying to my own post, but I just found this Ken Jennings quote about this match, which relates to what I said above:
http://live.washingtonpost.com/jeopardy-ken-jennings.html?hpid=talkbox1

On last night's show, I noticed you buzzing in even when you didn't know the answer right away, taking a second after Alex called on you to finish reading the question and give an answer. In your opinion, is this the only way to beat Watson?

A. Ken Jennings :
Good human players do this all the time: you buzz when you see something that trips some "This looks familiar!" switch in your brain and count on dredging it out in the five seconds after Alex calls on you.
Watson can't do this: it only buzzes once it has an answer in mind and a sufficiently high confidence interval. As weird as it sounds, yes, the human brain still has a speed advantage over a 2,880-processor-core computer.

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.
         

And apparently, all for nothing.

In an underground chamber near the Iranian city of Natanz, a network of surveillance cameras offers the outside world a rare glimpse into Iran's largest nuclear facility. The cameras were installed by U.N. inspectors to keep tabs on Iran's nuclear progress, but last year they recorded something unexpected: workers hauling away crate after crate of broken equipment.

In a six-month period between late 2009 and last spring, U.N. officials watched in amazement as Iran dismantled more than 10 percent of the Natanz plant's 9,000 centrifuge machines used to enrich uranium. Then, just as remarkably, hundreds of new machines arrived at the plant to replace the ones that were lost.

Despite the disgusting assassination of scientists and cyberwarfare, Iran's still in business. If nothing else, it taught Iran how to cope with losing intelligence and resources.

Here I was, planning on moderating, but alrighty then.... In response to your concern about eggs...

A quick Google search to refresh my memory found that we already know how to turn stem cells into eggs/sperm. We have already used that technology to restore fertility in mice. And we know how to make stem cells from skin, which, because it regenerates, has an essentially limitless supply, as long as the subject is still alive.

You're right, we still don't have a viable artificial womb. You're also right about the sterilization of the females and males. But see the articles I linked above. If the technology pans out, then it doesn't really matter that the children born in space would be sterile, because we would be able to produce eggs and sperm from their skin, and use those to artificially impregnate them.

We still need to work on an artificial womb, but your concerns B and C have already been addressed by science. :)

The US helped remove a half ton of fissile material from Kazakhstan in 1993-94 in a covert project called Project Sapphire at a cost of $27 million.

The Supreme Court has long held (since the 1800s) that searches at international borders don't require a warrant.

In addition, the courts have repeated ruled that national security warrantless wiretaps are legal, such as this recent ruling:

Intelligence Court Releases Ruling in Favor of Warrantless Wiretapping
The judges ...concluded that the government's protections and restrictions included in the 2007 procedures were appropriate. "Our decision recognizes that where the government has instituted several layers of serviceable safeguards to protect individuals against unwarranted harms and to minimize incidental intrusions, its efforts to protect national security should not be frustrated by the courts," Selya wrote in the 29-page opinion.

He added that requiring a warrant in such cases would probably "hinder the government's ability to collect time-sensitive information and, thus, would impede the vital national security interests that are at stake."

And here are just a few recent examples of why they might need to do so:

Daniel Boyd pleads guilty to US terrorism charges -9 February 2011
Domestic Terrorist 'Jihad Jane' Pleads Guilty to Four Charges - Feb 2, 2011
Stockham requests new attorney - February 05, 2011
          Note: This individual is apparently an American Sunni Muslim who tried to attack a Shia Muslim Mosque.
Iranian Book Celebrating Suicide Bombers Found in Arizona Desert - January 27, 2011
Baltimore man accused of plotting to blow up military recruiting station in Md. - Thursday, December 9, 2010
Oregon Bomb Suspect Mohamed Osman Mohamud Wanted "Spectacular Show," - November 29, 2010
Faisal Shahzad: 'War With Muslims Has Just Begun' - Oct. 5, 2010
2 MN women charged with aiding Somali terrorists - Aug 5, 2010
U.S. links 8 to Somali terrorist group - November 24, 2009
And here's one for the Canadians that could easily spill across the border: Converts Who Kill

The Supreme Court has long held (since the 1800s) that searches at international borders don't require a warrant.

In addition, the courts have repeated ruled that national security warrantless wiretaps are legal, such as this recent ruling:

Intelligence Court Releases Ruling in Favor of Warrantless Wiretapping
The judges ...concluded that the government's protections and restrictions included in the 2007 procedures were appropriate. "Our decision recognizes that where the government has instituted several layers of serviceable safeguards to protect individuals against unwarranted harms and to minimize incidental intrusions, its efforts to protect national security should not be frustrated by the courts," Selya wrote in the 29-page opinion.

He added that requiring a warrant in such cases would probably "hinder the government's ability to collect time-sensitive information and, thus, would impede the vital national security interests that are at stake."

And here are just a few recent examples of why they might need to do so:

Daniel Boyd pleads guilty to US terrorism charges -9 February 2011
Domestic Terrorist 'Jihad Jane' Pleads Guilty to Four Charges - Feb 2, 2011
Stockham requests new attorney - February 05, 2011
          Note: This individual is apparently an American Sunni Muslim who tried to attack a Shia Muslim Mosque.
Iranian Book Celebrating Suicide Bombers Found in Arizona Desert - January 27, 2011
Baltimore man accused of plotting to blow up military recruiting station in Md. - Thursday, December 9, 2010
Oregon Bomb Suspect Mohamed Osman Mohamud Wanted "Spectacular Show," - November 29, 2010
Faisal Shahzad: 'War With Muslims Has Just Begun' - Oct. 5, 2010
2 MN women charged with aiding Somali terrorists - Aug 5, 2010
U.S. links 8 to Somali terrorist group - November 24, 2009
And here's one for the Canadians that could easily spill across the border: Converts Who Kill

The national security wiretaps are legal, and not an abuse of human rights.

They do them because people either in the US, or who come to the US, keep trying to conduct attacks. Just a few recent examples (there are many more):

Daniel Boyd pleads guilty to US terrorism charges -9 February 2011
Domestic Terrorist 'Jihad Jane' Pleads Guilty to Four Charges - Feb 2, 2011
Stockham requests new attorney - February 05, 2011
          Note: This individual is apparently an American Sunni Muslim who tried to attack a Shia Muslim Mosque.
Iranian Book Celebrating Suicide Bombers Found in Arizona Desert - January 27, 2011
Baltimore man accused of plotting to blow up military recruiting station in Md. - Thursday, December 9, 2010
Oregon Bomb Suspect Mohamed Osman Mohamud Wanted "Spectacular Show," - November 29, 2010
Faisal Shahzad: 'War With Muslims Has Just Begun' - Oct. 5, 2010
2 MN women charged with aiding Somali terrorists - Aug 5, 2010
U.S. links 8 to Somali terrorist group - November 24, 2009
And here's one for the Canadians: Converts Who Kill

The national security wiretaps are legal, and not an abuse of human rights.

They do them because people either in the US, or who come to the US, keep trying to conduct attacks. Just a few recent examples (there are many more):

Daniel Boyd pleads guilty to US terrorism charges -9 February 2011
Domestic Terrorist 'Jihad Jane' Pleads Guilty to Four Charges - Feb 2, 2011
Stockham requests new attorney - February 05, 2011
          Note: This individual is apparently an American Sunni Muslim who tried to attack a Shia Muslim Mosque.
Iranian Book Celebrating Suicide Bombers Found in Arizona Desert - January 27, 2011
Baltimore man accused of plotting to blow up military recruiting station in Md. - Thursday, December 9, 2010
Oregon Bomb Suspect Mohamed Osman Mohamud Wanted "Spectacular Show," - November 29, 2010
Faisal Shahzad: 'War With Muslims Has Just Begun' - Oct. 5, 2010
2 MN women charged with aiding Somali terrorists - Aug 5, 2010
U.S. links 8 to Somali terrorist group - November 24, 2009
And here's one for the Canadians: Converts Who Kill

You forgot "Think of the Children."

Well, that's maybe where we differ. I think we need to be adults and think of everybody, especially if Al Qaeda is successful in getting nuclear weapons, which they already have permission to use.

But, if it will make you more comfortable, for the moment lets forget about the children, and see where we stand. We can recap, and maybe you could point out what is actually wrong instead of in essence saying "I don't like it".

I pointed out that the courts have ruled against your assertion that the government's national security wiretapping is illegal, and a human rights violation: Intelligence Court Releases Ruling in Favor of Warrantless Wiretapping

Even the page you linked to noted the EFF defeat on the legal question:

EFF Plans Appeal of Jewel v. NSA Warrantless Wiretapping Case
Court Rules That Mass Surveillance of Americans is Immune From Judicial Review
San Francisco - A federal judge has dismissed Jewel v. NSA, a case from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) on behalf of AT&T customers challenging the National Security Agency's mass surveillance of millions of ordinary Americans' phone calls and emails.

I also pointed out just a handful of the many active terrorism investigations and court cases going on inside the US. This points to a genuine, current, dangerous threat of people being killed by militant Muslim extremists. I assume you don't debate that they are genuine.

Daniel Boyd pleads guilty to US terrorism charges -9 February 2011
Domestic Terrorist 'Jihad Jane' Pleads Guilty to Four Charges - Feb 2, 2011
Stockham requests new attorney - February 05, 2011
Note: This individual is apparently an American Sunni Muslim who tried to attack a Shia Muslim Mosque.
Iranian Book Celebrating Suicide Bombers Found in Arizona Desert - January 27, 2011
Baltimore man accused of plotting to blow up military recruiting station in Md. - Thursday, December 9, 2010
Oregon Bomb Suspect Mohamed Osman Mohamud Wanted "Spectacular Show," - November 29, 2010
Faisal Shahzad: 'War With Muslims Has Just Begun' - Oct. 5, 2010
2 MN women charged with aiding Somali terrorists - Aug 5, 2010
U.S. links 8 to Somali terrorist group - November 24, 2009
And here's one for the Canadians: Converts Who Kill

I then pointed out that this current turmoil started with Al Qaeda's 9/11 attacks, and that according to Bin Laden, he won't stop trying to a

You forgot "Think of the Children."

Well, that's maybe where we differ. I think we need to be adults and think of everybody, especially if Al Qaeda is successful in getting nuclear weapons, which they already have permission to use.

But, if it will make you more comfortable, for the moment lets forget about the children, and see where we stand. We can recap, and maybe you could point out what is actually wrong instead of in essence saying "I don't like it".

I pointed out that the courts have ruled against your assertion that the government's national security wiretapping is illegal, and a human rights violation: Intelligence Court Releases Ruling in Favor of Warrantless Wiretapping

Even the page you linked to noted the EFF defeat on the legal question:

EFF Plans Appeal of Jewel v. NSA Warrantless Wiretapping Case
Court Rules That Mass Surveillance of Americans is Immune From Judicial Review
San Francisco - A federal judge has dismissed Jewel v. NSA, a case from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) on behalf of AT&T customers challenging the National Security Agency's mass surveillance of millions of ordinary Americans' phone calls and emails.

I also pointed out just a handful of the many active terrorism investigations and court cases going on inside the US. This points to a genuine, current, dangerous threat of people being killed by militant Muslim extremists. I assume you don't debate that they are genuine.

Daniel Boyd pleads guilty to US terrorism charges -9 February 2011
Domestic Terrorist 'Jihad Jane' Pleads Guilty to Four Charges - Feb 2, 2011
Stockham requests new attorney - February 05, 2011
Note: This individual is apparently an American Sunni Muslim who tried to attack a Shia Muslim Mosque.
Iranian Book Celebrating Suicide Bombers Found in Arizona Desert - January 27, 2011
Baltimore man accused of plotting to blow up military recruiting station in Md. - Thursday, December 9, 2010
Oregon Bomb Suspect Mohamed Osman Mohamud Wanted "Spectacular Show," - November 29, 2010
Faisal Shahzad: 'War With Muslims Has Just Begun' - Oct. 5, 2010
2 MN women charged with aiding Somali terrorists - Aug 5, 2010
U.S. links 8 to Somali terrorist group - November 24, 2009
And here's one for the Canadians: Converts Who Kill

I then pointed out that this current turmoil started with Al Qaeda's 9/11 attacks, and that according to Bin Laden, he won't stop trying to a

All the actions of our government over the last few years are those of a governement afraid it's own people will rise against it, not one worried about our safety from terrorists, should be clear to almost anyone by now.

No, it's terrorists - that's pretty clear given the limited actions they've taken domestically along with the fact that we continue to change our government with elections, have a free press, free speech, 2nd Amendment rights, are free to work and travel largely as we please (even if there is the nuisance of security checks prior to flights). I'd love to see your version of how this somehow isn't the case.

To the extent they've stopped even a single credible terrorist plot (I haven't noticed they have prevented a single one) all they've managed is to deny me some good clean fun on moving target practice -- it's a total lose-lose.

Not hard to find... really....it's not. I'm guessing you've never looked.

(Just a sample - there are many, many more.)
Daniel Boyd pleads guilty to US terrorism charges -9 February 2011
Domestic Terrorist 'Jihad Jane' Pleads Guilty to Four Charges - Feb 2, 2011
Stockham requests new attorney - February 05, 2011
          Note: This individual is apparently an American Sunni Muslim who tried to attack a Shia Muslim Mosque.
Iranian Book Celebrating Suicide Bombers Found in Arizona Desert - January 27, 2011
Baltimore man accused of plotting to blow up military recruiting station in Md. - Thursday, December 9, 2010
Oregon Bomb Suspect Mohamed Osman Mohamud Wanted "Spectacular Show," - November 29, 2010
Faisal Shahzad: 'War With Muslims Has Just Begun' - Oct. 5, 2010
2 MN women charged with aiding Somali terrorists - Aug 5, 2010
U.S. links 8 to Somali terrorist group - November 24, 2009

The US is the only one allowed to use this tech to abuse human rights, and it really doesn't want to risk losing its lead in technology used for spying on citizens.

You are completely wrong. First off, it's legal, and not an abuse of human rights. (And no, this isn't the first time a court has made a similar finding.)

Second, it's necessary because some American citizens, immigrants, and visitors don't want to live in peace, but have taken up the cause of extremists. (Just a sample - there are many, many more.)
Daniel Boyd pleads guilty to US terrorism charges -9 February 2011
Domestic Terrorist 'Jihad Jane' Pleads Guilty to Four Charges - Feb 2, 2011
Stockham requests new attorney - February 05, 2011
          Note: This individual is apparently an American Sunni Muslim who tried to attack a Shia Muslim Mosque.
Iranian Book Celebrating Suicide Bombers Found in Arizona Desert - January 27, 2011
Baltimore man accused of plotting to blow up military recruiting station in Md. - Thursday, December 9, 2010
Oregon Bomb Suspect Mohamed Osman Mohamud Wanted "Spectacular Show," - November 29, 2010
Faisal Shahzad: 'War With Muslims Has Just Begun' - Oct. 5, 2010
2 MN women charged with aiding Somali terrorists - Aug 5, 2010
U.S. links 8 to Somali terrorist group - November 24, 2009
And here's one for the Canadians: Converts Who Kill

And how did this get started? September 11 attacks

If you bother to read bin Laden's 'letter to America', you will see that in order for him to call off his minions, Americans will have to convert to his flavor of Islam, give up the constitution, implement Sharia law (which will mean cutting off hands of thieves, stoning adulterers, no more alcohol (prohibition again), drugs, porn, executing homosexuals, etc., etc., etc.), and many other odious demands.

Ultimately this is about various factions of Islam trying to extend their power by force. It won't go away soon. I suggest you get used to it.

Dreaming of Al-Andalus

By the way - the Muslim Brotherhood is not helping.

National Security Inc.

"The American intelligence community is an important market for our company," said General Dynamics spokesman Kendell Pease. "Over time, we have tailored our organization to deliver affordable, best-of-breed products and services to meet those agencies' unique requirements."

In September 2009, General Dynamics won a $10 million contract from the U.S. Special Operations Command's psychological operations unit to create Web sites to influence foreigners' views of U.S. policy. To do that, the company hired writers, editors and designers to produce a set of daily news sites tailored to five regions of the world. They appear as regular news Web sites, with names such as "SETimes.com: The News and Views of Southeast Europe." The first indication that they are run on behalf of the military comes at the bottom of the home page with the word "Disclaimer." Only by clicking on that do you learn that "the Southeast European Times (SET) is a Web site sponsored by the United States European Command."

Mubarak Obama or Barack Honecker?

Monitoring America

Nine years after the terrorist attacks of 2001, the United States is assembling a vast domestic intelligence apparatus to collect information about Americans, using the FBI, local police, state homeland security offices and military criminal investigators.

The system, by far the largest and most technologically sophisticated in the nation's history, collects, stores and analyzes information about thousands of U.S. citizens and residents, many of whom have not been accused of any wrongdoing.

The government's goal is to have every state and local law enforcement agency in the country feed information to Washington to buttress the work of the FBI, which is in charge of terrorism investigations in the United States.

Remember, this is in the hands of people who have done things like improve the quality of your air travel experience, over the last 10 years.

I don't believe in the "trade-off" we have had no choice in making. I'd rather risk the chance of a bomb on my plane. The odds are greater that I'll drown in the pool at my destination, or die in a taxi to the hotel, than any so-called "terror" incident.

National Security Inc.

"The American intelligence community is an important market for our company," said General Dynamics spokesman Kendell Pease. "Over time, we have tailored our organization to deliver affordable, best-of-breed products and services to meet those agencies' unique requirements."

In September 2009, General Dynamics won a $10 million contract from the U.S. Special Operations Command's psychological operations unit to create Web sites to influence foreigners' views of U.S. policy. To do that, the company hired writers, editors and designers to produce a set of daily news sites tailored to five regions of the world. They appear as regular news Web sites, with names such as "SETimes.com: The News and Views of Southeast Europe." The first indication that they are run on behalf of the military comes at the bottom of the home page with the word "Disclaimer." Only by clicking on that do you learn that "the Southeast European Times (SET) is a Web site sponsored by the United States European Command."

Mubarak Obama or Barack Honecker?

Monitoring America

Nine years after the terrorist attacks of 2001, the United States is assembling a vast domestic intelligence apparatus to collect information about Americans, using the FBI, local police, state homeland security offices and military criminal investigators.

The system, by far the largest and most technologically sophisticated in the nation's history, collects, stores and analyzes information about thousands of U.S. citizens and residents, many of whom have not been accused of any wrongdoing.

The government's goal is to have every state and local law enforcement agency in the country feed information to Washington to buttress the work of the FBI, which is in charge of terrorism investigations in the United States.

Remember, this is in the hands of people who have done things like improve the quality of your air travel experience, over the last 10 years.

I don't believe in the "trade-off" we have had no choice in making. I'd rather risk the chance of a bomb on my plane. The odds are greater that I'll drown in the pool at my destination, or die in a taxi to the hotel, than any so-called "terror" incident.

You got modded insightful, which shows the mods are as ignorant as you are. Rich people buy more things and more expensive things a sales tax is the only fair tax there is.

Not necessarily. Warren Buffett has always stated his secretary pays more taxes as a percentage of income than he does. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/27/AR2007062700097.html Also a poor person by definition lives from paycheck to paycheck, spending 100% of any take home pay, which is then taxed. A rich person, may save 20% of their take home salary, negating any sales taxes collected on the portion saved.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/07/AR2008030702846.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_cost_of_the_Iraq_War

The CBO estimated that of the $2.4 trillion long-term price tag for the war, about $1.9 trillion of that would be spent on Iraq, or $6,300 per U.S. citizen.[9][10]

Perhaps you are thinking of the current cost.. ignoring all future costs.
The CBO estimated that of the $2.4 trillion long-term price tag for the war, about $1.9 trillion of that would be spent on Iraq, or $6,300 per U.S. citizen.[9][10]

http://articles.cnn.com/2007-11-13/politics/hidden.war.costs_1_war-costs-iraq-oil-prices?_s=PM:POLITICS

The total war costs could grow to $3.5 trillion by 2017, the committee estimated.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three_Trillion_Dollar_War
The total cost of $3 trillion is consistent with numerous government studies. These include the Joint Economic Committee of Congress, which estimated that the war will cost $3.5 trillion,[2] and the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, which has projected that the total cost will reach between $1.4 and $2.2 trillion.[

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article3419840.ece

Larry Lindsey, President Bush's economic adviser and head of the National Economic Council, suggested that they might reach $200 billion. But this estimate was dismissed as âoebaloneyâ by the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld. His deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, suggested that postwar reconstruction could pay for itself through increased oil revenues. Mitch Daniels, the Office of Management and Budget director, and Secretary Rumsfeld estimated the costs in the range of $50 to $60 billion, a portion of which they believed would be financed by other countries. ...
From the unhealthy brew of emergency funding, multiple sets of books, and chronic underestimates of the resources required to prosecute the war, we have attempted to identify how much we have been spending - and how much we will, in the end, likely have to spend. The figure we arrive at is more than $3 trillion. Our calculations are based on conservative assumptions.

Hell, even FOX NEWS says it's going to be at least 1.5 trillion.

Different sources give different numbers. I get that. 3 trillion is a widely used figure. Over 3 trillion isn't uncommon. The figures blow away the figures which Rumsfield used to justify the war by a factor of 15 (using your numbers) to a factor of over 60 (using the highest end 3.5 Trillion dollar costs).

A lot of this is also "off books"- who knows what's happening in the black ops budget.

And this AC has a mod of +0 compared to the PP's +5. Funny that.

---

Windows and closed source software. The US intelligence agencies back door to every network connected country and business on earth.

If violent crime is a sign of deep social problems, then I would say we as a society are healing as violent crime has been falling since the mid 90s.

Oh wow.

The market is certainly not willing in Ireland, Greece, or Italy. Bernanke agree's.

Now, this truly scares the hell out of me. Basically the graph shows 95% of all currency we have is made up out of thin air by invisible debt and it really does not even exist.

We will have another financial crises with government spending similar to Weinmar Germany if we do not cut spending drastically. I think it is economically dangerous to spend on anything other than basics right now. Printing money and charging it back to the treasury again does not make any sense. China is the only one really buying the bonds so they can control us in case world war 3 breaks out in Korea. I do not like that either.

"Out in the crowd, Bernard Crane saw them, too. "I'd never seen anything like it in my life," the Washington lawyer said. "They were large for dragonflies. I thought, 'Is that mechanical, or is that alive?' That is just one of the questions hovering over a handful of similar sightings at political events in Washington and New York. Some suspect the insectlike drones are high-tech surveillance tools, perhaps deployed by the Department of Homeland Security. "

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/08/AR2007100801434.html

Nothing definitive in the story, but reasonably well reported eyewitness accounts.

Actually, you are giving the so-called Tea Party too much credit.

If you look at the voting numbers: Washington Post summary, you will notice that the republican leaders were 7 votes short. Of the republicans voting against, there were 12 republicans endorsed by the tea baggers. So in this respect you are correct. But if you look at the whole Tea Party fraction of the republican, i.e. all republican house represenativies endorsed by the tea drinkers, only 11% voted against. That is exactly the percentage of all the republicans that voted against extending the provisions of the patriot act.

This shows two things; the so-called tea party is just the republican party when it comes to this particular vote and probably on much else (even though the tea party candidates are maybe on average somewhere more on the extreme right). It seems that Tea Party is just a renaming of the Gay Old Party which voters for a good reason is a bit tired off. The other is that the democrat party, where 65% of the house representatives voted against this, is the party that care for your civil rights. The republicans leadership acknowledge as much by trying to blame the democrates by quotes like: "Democrats in Congress voted to deny their own administration's request for key weapons in the war on terror," .

In a very hypothetical thought experiments, if all the tea party endorsed candidates had failed against democrates, and the same voting pattern had taken place, there would have been 193 votes against (i.e. 45 more votes) and one would be quite close to a majority of the house representatives against extending this law.

Actually, you are giving the so-called Tea Party too much credit.

If you look at the voting numbers: Washington Post summary, you will notice that the republican leaders were 7 votes short. Of the republicans voting against, there were 12 republicans endorsed by the tea baggers. So in this respect you are correct. But if you look at the whole Tea Party fraction of the republican, i.e. all republican house represenativies endorsed by the tea drinkers, only 11% voted against. That is exactly the percentage of all the republicans that voted against extending the provisions of the patriot act.

This shows two things; the so-called tea party is just the republican party when it comes to this particular vote and probably on much else (even though the tea party candidates are maybe on average somewhere more on the extreme right). It seems that Tea Party is just a renaming of the Gay Old Party which voters for a good reason is a bit tired off. The other is that the democrat party, where 65% of the house representatives voted against this, is the party that care for your civil rights. The republicans leadership acknowledge as much by trying to blame the democrates by quotes like: "Democrats in Congress voted to deny their own administration's request for key weapons in the war on terror," .

In a very hypothetical thought experiments, if all the tea party endorsed candidates had failed against democrates, and the same voting pattern had taken place, there would have been 193 votes against (i.e. 45 more votes) and one would be quite close to a majority of the house representatives against extending this law.

Randomly saw this article from 2009 a few minutes before seeing this Slashdot story. Seems she had quite the career:

"Gloria Gordon Bolotsky was a gifted mathematician who, after working for the Brooklyn Navy Yard in New York, moved to the University of Pennsylvania for a position at its engineering school. She was chosen for a secret project that would use her skills and moved with the group in 1947 to the Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland."

All the people whining at the time did not bother to think of the implications of the Executive Branch deciding on its own to invade (sorry - assist with keeping order) a state. While it may have been a good idea at the time, the precedent it would have set would have been terrible

Right. Like, if, say, there was a problem in some state -- say, a tax revolt in Pennsylvania -- only a horrible despot like George Washington would go in with federal troops.

C'mon. Even GOP Congresscritters slammed the dismal federal response for Katrina.

Wow, does anyone here pay attention to the news anymore?

Under pressure from Republicans and concerned about the politics of relocating terrorism suspects to U.S. soil, Senate Democrats rejected President Obama's request for funding to close the Guantanamo Bay prison and vowed to withhold federal dollars until the president decides the fate of the facility's 240 detainees.

As recently as last week, Senate Democrats had hoped to preserve a portion of Obama's Guantanamo funding request. But their resolve crumbled in the face of a concerted Republican campaign warning of dire consequences if some detainees ended up in prisons or other facilities in the United States, a possibility that Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has acknowledged.

"U.S. jails are typically for U.S. citizens," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). "These are foreign terrorists, detained on the battlefield in the war on terror."

Congress controls the purse strings, remember?

It's an op-ed by senator Dianne Feinstein in the Wall Street Journal. Please let's keep things intellectually honest.

OK, how about the State Department, or 'diplomatic sources', or Homeland Security?

If we want to be intellectually honest, let's remember that the op-ed piece I cited was basically one of the highest results from Google, and that numerous sources have identified that the US could, in fact, be pondering trying him under the Espionage Act or somesuch. It's not like I pulled the notion out of my ass.

There's no shortage of sources saying they'd like to be able to do that. It was all over the news in December when the news first broke.

I believe that recent military and defense transactions with "their most crazy neighbor to the south" has little to do with logic and more to do with lucrative arms deals that have recently been put on hold (I daresay in the interest of regional stability).

To answer your question in a historical context I might point you to the horrible things that Russia and the United States did during the Cold War that essentially provided puppet theaters for their ideologies to be fought out. Why risk your citizens when you can show the world who's right with war and poverty in weaker nations? Wikipedia does a decent job of summing this up but you might look up the 1953 Iranian coup d'état followed by the 1979 Iranian revolution and surmise why it would be in Russia's best interest to keep this thorn festering in the United States' side right up until today. The Soviet War in Afghanistan, the Eastern Bloc and many other actions were basically a cowardly way of Russia and the United States putting external countries in chaos to prove who was the better country in our petty capitalism versus socialism spat (and after all that everybody's implementing a little bit of both).

Similar to the redrawing of national/political boundaries by the Allies following World War II, we (and I mean the world, US/Russian citizens, the citizens of those countries, everybody) will for a very long time feel the pain and suffering of putting such pressures on weaker nations during the Cold War.

When you say "it's most crazy neighbor to the south," it might benefit you to consider the pressures that added to that craziness. While the blame lies entirely on no one, everybody participated. For a somewhat more even handed introduction to Iran's problems, check out the intro to Persepolis (the movie or the manga).

You know who's really lost a lot in all of this? The Iranian citizens.

But nowhere have I seen any evidence whatsoever that Sarah Palin, or anyone else on the right wants to use force to "quell speech that she doesn't like".

It's amazing what you can manage to not see when you keep your eyes shut, isn't it?

Palin has suggested violence against Julian Assange, saying "Why was he not pursued with the same urgency we pursue al Qaeda and Taliban leaders?". Several others pundits -- mostly on the right, though I wouldn't be surprised if hear the same nonsense were to come from one or two people on the left -- has made similar calls for violence against Assange, but Palin's is particularly delicious because she then went on to make use of the leaked data to criticize the Obama administration's policy towards Iran.

Also, "Back in 1996, when she first became mayor, Sarah Palin asked the city librarian if she would be all right with censoring library books should she be asked to do so." -- Anchorage Daily News

And when you broaden it to "anyone else on the right", it would be pretty amazing if you hadn't heard about the mass arrests at the 2004 Republican convention. Or about Rand Paul supporters stomping a protester's head.

The night before John F. Kennedy's inauguration in 1961, a snowstorm dumped 8 inches of snow on Washington DC. The Army Corps of Engineers worked franticly, using flamethrowers to clear the streets. Click here for the full story.

You're modded funny, but sometimes reality is unrealistic:

"The Engineers teamed up with more than 1,000 District of Columbia employees to clear the inaugural parade route. Luckily much equipment and some men had been pre-positioned and were ready to go. In the end the task force employed hundreds of dump trucks, front-end loaders, sanders, plows, rotaries, and flamethrowers to clear the way."

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/capitalweathergang/2009/01/inauguration_weather_the_case.html

Coal and NG: 0%

Really? The Coal industry gets *no* money from the federal gov't?

EPA Act 2005 "$2.3 billion in tax credits. Of these, 18 request credits for integrated gasification combined cycle plants and 4 for advanced coal-based generation plants. Applications include projects using bituminous, subbituminous, and lignite coals to be built in 19 states" and "$2.7 billion in tax credits. Project are proposed in 17 states: Arizona, California, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, and Washington"

Not all 'subsidies' are grants. If they get tax credits for their work it's the same thing. The Oil industry gets tens of billions of dollars in tax breaks annually.

$17 billion between 2002 and 2008 for coal source

Nuclear is certainly green from the point of view of CO2 production

and Coal is green from the aspect of the electricity fairy farts you so astutely mentioned. Nuclear needs massive subsidies to ever get off the ground. $8 billion loan guarantees And it has waste issues. Why not put that money towards something that doesn't have those issues?

The best thing that level-headed environmentalists could do would be to speak out, vocally, about this kind of nonsense and condemn groups that simply take contrary positions by default.

It doesn't help. Several prominent environmentalists such as Stewart Brand and former Greenpeace director, Patrick Moore, have spoken out in favor of nuclear after having opposed it in the past. The problem is that it just takes a very small number of objectors to block, re-block, and re-re-block again before costs get too high. Unfortunately, here in California, there's zero leadership in Sacramento that has the balls to say enough is enough.

Net result is that we're importing expensive power from neighboring states instead of producing it cheaply here. Without cheap power, energy-intensive industries close up shop and relocate to other states and thereby add to the highest unemployment rate in the nation - a fact that eludes Sacramento.

Uh... that's total BS. The MB was, by their own admission, behind the curve on this demonstration. They were definitely no the instigators (and you'd be pissing off a LOT of Egyptians if you claimed they were) and only even agreed to join on friday (4 days in). There are sources on the net for all this stuff but I'm a to lazy now to find them for you. Just google "Muslim Brotherhood Joins Protest" and look what day those articles are reffering to.

On top of that all that, in the last two days they've just come out backing ElBaradei as a leader for the opposition. He is both a copt by ethnicity and secular by politics. Not the most radical islamic of moves now is it.

While I definitely do not agree with many of their policies and ideas but still... you might want to inform yourself about their opinions and actions just a bit more before you go ranting all Glen Beck on us...

seriously, for all intents and purposes they do seem to want a democracy. I mean NOW is their chance if ever to influence and form the shape of the next government to come. and what do they do? they put themselves squarely behind a secular leader who espouses a very western sort of government system.

Little random anecdote to give an example of why I doubt the 80% figure: my friend who is a reporter for an international news org was covering a big demo in cairo on friday. as a crowd of MB followers is passing by the begin to chant some of their recognizable slogans. promptly and spontaneously the much much larger surrounding crowd of demonstrators totally drowns out those chants with the chant "Muslims, Christians we are all Egyptians". (A refrain which has been heard quite a bit during these last days.)

It ain't all fox news out their bro... ;-)

A short reminder for those who forget - half of all teachers in America quit within 5 years.

Just plain wrong: WikiLeaks spurned New York Times, but Guardian leaked State Department cables.

The rest of your comment defending that propaganda rag is pretty hilarious.

It happens in the US as well.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/crime-scene/ruben-castaneda/pr-georges-settles-lawsuit-in.html

An unknown hacker broke into the 26-year-old internet celebrity's Facebook account

I don't think that's an accurate account of what happened. It was his Fan Page, not his personal page. That may or may not have been updated by him -- most likely it was some staff or fan of Zuckerberg.

Obama is better than W only because he has a normal IQ.

By which you mean he agrees with your politics.

Bush graduated from Yale, earned a Harvard MBA (the only president with an MBA), and few fighter jets for the military. Say what you want, but nobody was in the cockpit with him flying for him. Apparently he was also an avid reader. Although it is a bitter pill, Obama is carrying on a number of Bush policies since they make sense given the alternatives.

The Iranians continue in their attempts to spread their revolution to other countries. They were/are assisting insurgents in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other places. They control the powerful state within a state that is Hezbollah in Lebanon. I believe they are also working in Central and South America. Their presence in so many other places is useful in more ways than one.

I think you will find this video revealing....there are plenty more at MEMRI worth seeing.

Butchered? Civilians, children and reporters butchered with hollow point bullets, you're fine with that. Showing the world it's happening, you call that butchery.

Let me guess.... "collateral murder"?

The "civilians" were armed insurgents, apparently associated with running firefights and rocket attacks through the night. They were also probably in violation of curfew, which would once again make them targets. (You noticed how empty the streets were, right?)

The children should have been left behind by the insurgents attempting to rescue their comrades.

No: Innocent bystanders and journalists. You don't get to just label anyone "insurgent" to justify shooting them.

That car was there because he was bringing the children home from school, he saw people who were injured and stopped to help them, and he and the children were shot. By cowards hiding faraway, shooting armor-piercing explosive shells.

Yeah, those are forbidden to use against people, making this a clear war crime.

"This shouldn't be surprising - an organization's purpose is to do what it does, to quote somebody or other. TJX is making money off transactions; security is only incidental" ..

Except the transactions were handled by Heartland Payment Systems, an organization supposedly charged with securing credit card transactions.

Butchered? Civilians, children and reporters butchered with hollow point bullets, you're fine with that. Showing the world it's happening, you call that butchery.

Let me guess.... "collateral murder"?

The "civilians" were armed insurgents, apparently associated with running firefights and rocket attacks through the night. They were also probably in violation of curfew, which would once again make them targets. (You noticed how empty the streets were, right?)

The children should have been left behind by the insurgents attempting to rescue their comrades.

By accompanying the insurgents, and without marking themselves, the reporters made themselves targets. They weren't attacked because they were reporters. That was a risk they took upon themselves when they decided to accompany violent extremists fighting against the Iraqi government.

The lot of them were apparently engaged with the apache's 30mm automatic cannon. The military doesn't use hollow point bullets (Geneva & Hague Conventions, and all that).

2 Iraqi Journalists Killed as U.S. Forces Clash With Militias

Clashes in a southeastern neighborhood here between the American military and Shiite militias on Thursday left at least 16 people dead, including two Reuters journalists who had driven to the area to cover the turbulence, according to an official at the Interior Ministry....

The American military said in a statement late Thursday that 11 people had been killed: nine insurgents and two civilians. According to the statement, American troops were conducting a raid when they were hit by small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades. The American troops called in reinforcements and attack helicopters. In the ensuing fight, the statement said, the two Reuters employees and nine insurgents were killed.

''There is no question that coalition forces were clearly engaged in combat operations against a hostile force,'' said Lt. Col. Scott Bleichwehl, a spokesman for the multinational forces in Baghdad.

Butchery? No. If you want to know true butchery, look at Al Qaeda's attack on the Yezidi.

A U.S. air strike killed a senior al Qaeda militant who masterminded truck bombings on Iraq's minority Yazidi community last month that killed more than 400 people, the military said on Sunday.

"On September 3, a coalition air strike killed the terrorist responsible for the planning and conducting of the horrific attack against the Yazidis in northern Iraq on August 14," military spokesman Rear Admiral Mark Fox told a news conference.

Iraq's government has put the death toll at 411 from the suicide bombings, although the Iraqi Red Crescent has said it could be more than 500. The bombings in the villages of Kahtaniya and al-Jazeera were the deadliest militant attacks in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

A U.S. military statement named the mastermind as Abu Mohammad al-Afri, adding he was the al Qaeda "emir", or prince, in the area where the bombings took place.

Or Al Qaeda's attacks on markets: Al Qaeda use two Down's syndrome women to blow up 99 people in Baghdad markets

Do you have any words for Al Qaeda's actions? Genocidal might fit, as they want to rub out the Yezidi as a people & belief system. What about the attack on the market?

"Guns are for self defence" is pure myth. Actually it's worse than that, it's idiocy.

Says the idiot?

Many, many examples of citizens carrying guns as being a plus
to the overburdened police department.
[ http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/09/nyregion/09wheelchair.html?_r=1 ]
[ http://www.registerguard.com/csp/cms/sites/web/news/cityregion/25792735-41/combs-barista-braziel-affidavit-dutch.csp ]
[ http://www.8newsnow.com/story/13865042/man-thwarts-robbery-by-shooting-at-suspect ]
[ http://voices.washingtonpost.com/crime-scene/anne-arundel/would-be-dunkin-donuts-robber.html ]

Just do your own googling and draw your own conclusions;
citizen gun shot perpetrator OR robber OR thief [ http://news.google.com/news/search?&q=citizen+gun+shot+perpetrator+OR+robber+OR+thief ]
^ fails hard in bing, no boolean? [ http://www.bing.com/search?q=citizen+gun+shot+perpetrator+OR+robber+OR+thief ]

-AI

> Assange leaked documents for the sole purpose not of informing people (because most of the information had come out), but to embarrass the U.S.

Really? You don't think he found it unconscionable that our military contractors had hired "dancing boys" (underage male prostitutes) or you do think that had come out before?

That wasn't part of the Afghan war diaries. That was a diplomatic cable. And no, I don't think he found it unconscionable. I think he decided it would be embarrassing for the U.S. And in fact, the incident was reported before WikiLeaks leaked the cable. The new information is that the Afghan government tried to squash the reporting.

And what about when he leaked the information on assassination plans by a corrupt African government (his first leak). How did that come about to embarrass the USA?

I have no reason to believe it did. We were discussing the Afghan situation, not Africa. Anyway, pointing to one or two incidents in the flood of documents released by WikiLeaks doesn't absolve Assange. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

The US White House had a very successful migration to Exchange.

No doubt the Australian Parliament already recognises the outright superiority of Microsoft solutions! It's the patriotic choice.

How much time must MS devote to a single application before they release it? You can't reasonably expect that they look at every line of code and use the program for weeks before accepting it. The Washington Post wrote that many people believe this 3rd party app to be an email program:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fasterforward/2011/01/microsoft_ids_wp7_third-party.html

The only function of an email program is to send and receive data. I'm sure that in their testing they made sure it did what it said it did. The small amount of data that might have been sent during testing was likely masked by the actual tests (if they were even done at all...I'm not a tester).

1) Failed, http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/10/obama-creates-640329-jobs-at-cost-of.html
2) Great
3) Failed, unconstitutional
4) Failed
5) Good, maybe http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/12/AR2011011205565.html
6) Failed
7) Failed
8) Failed
9) Good
10) Good
11) How about the biggest part of the US government, the banks? Failed
12) Failed

Believe is something you do before the fact. Since we're past all that, now we can judge. Please be more objective.

Suggesting it "failed" suggests that there is only one possible outcome, and it's the one you want. And that's not diplomacy.

Suggesting it "failed" means there is an outcome agreed upon by many nations as being unacceptable that at this point still seems almost inevitable. It is the outcome that they want to avoid, and have offered many alternatives and incentives to avoid. It is still diplomacy until shooting starts - thats how you tell the difference.

State Sponsors: Iran

Hassan Nasrallah in the Late 1980s: Lebanon Should Become Part of the Greater Islamic Republic Ruled by Leader of Iran, Who Should Appoint all Islamic Rulers

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmad Abu Al-Gheit Warns That a Nuclear Iran Would Force the Arabs to Join the Nuclear Race

Hassan Rahimpour Azghadi of the Iranian Supreme Council for Cultural Revolution: By 2022 - Maybe Much Earlier - Israel Will Be Annihilated

Former Senior IAEA Official Yousri Abu Shadi: Iran Is Capable of Producing Nuclear Bombs in Less Than Two Years

Al-Siyassa: Iran Will Have Three Nuclear Bombs by 2013; One Will Go to Hizbullah

Iranian TV: Swine Flu - A Zionist/American Conspiracy

General Commander of the Iranian Army Ataollah Salehi: It Will Take Us 11 Days "to Wipe Israel Out of Existence"

French Comedian Dieudonné M'bala M'bala tells Iranian TV about His New Children's Song "Holocaust Pineapple" and States: Most Slave Traders Were Jews; More Freedom of Speech in Iran Than in France

EXCLUSIVE: Iraq Weapons -- Made in Iran?
Intelligence Officials Say Weapons Responsible for Increasing U.S. Deaths in Iraq

U.S. Says It Will Release Nine Of 20 Iranians Captured in Iraq - Wednesday, November 7, 2007

All 20 detainees are known or suspected members of Iran's elite Quds Force, the arm of the Revolutionary Guard Corps responsible for Iran's foreign operations and recently sanctioned by the Bush administration as a supporter of terrorism, the officials said. ...

In Baghdad, the U.S. military also briefed reporters on about 5,300 weapons caches discovered by U.S. and Iraqi forces this year -- twice the number found in all of 2006 and much of the material from Iran, Smith said. The caches include roadside bomb components, rockets, mortars, C4 explosives, land mines and rocket-propelled grenades.