Slashdot Mirror

here is one example.

Classification does not change because it has been breached. If you will recall, people who hold security clearances are not permitted to read classified documents published by wikileaks because those documents remain classified.

I believe it will be partisan largely because of GOP backlash against Obama's recent net neutraility statement. There are a lot of incoherent statements coming from the GOP that sound like blanket "hands off" statements. I'm extremely skeptical they'll have a 'hands off' attitude about net neutrality and then suddently introduce some pro-consumer protections. Not gonna happen.

And I think we all know how Mr. Zielinski's court case will turn out when TW's massive legal power comes to bear on him. Without fear of a powerful legal or legislative entity, TW has no incentive to treat consumers fairly. In fact, the ease with which they augment their profit with these unfair (and illegal) fees is disincentive to treat any customer fairly. I could be wrong, but I have almost no faith at all in the existing legal system to check the abuses of cablecos and telcos.

Such as solar cells and hybrids. see http://www.washingtontimes.com...

Part of the reason was the number of supply convoys hit by attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan and the strategic problem caused by dependency on foreign fuel suppliers. Protecting supply lines can be expensive. But personally I am waiting for this new Congress to kill the initiatives in favor of fossil fuels and the obsolete methods of powering the military.

President Obama identifies himself as a black man. I can't find the exact quote, but he once described himself as "a black man of mixed background". Another time he said “If I’m outside your building trying to catch a cab, they’re not saying, ‘Oh, there’s a mixed-race guy.’” The point is part of the reason he probably identifies as black is because that is how other people see him. Most people think in terms of simple race categories. (I myself am of mixed-race and I know it is a pain to have to explain this, often multiple times to the same people.)

Two problems.
The employers DO pay taxes at about the same level and percentage as they have done for at least the last 60 years.
The school systems budget per student is at an all time high, however, very little of that gets to the student due to a several thousand percent growth in administrative overhead.
In the 1950s schools were funded much like today, through property and sales taxes. Back then, sales taxes were commonly in the area of 2%. This was enough for the schools to get by on in the 1950s. Today, incomes are many multiples higher and the cost of gods has outpaced income, so if sales tax was at 2% still, the adjusted amount going to schools would already be higher than in the 1950s. However, the sales tax rate has risen by a factor of 4 in most area, to 8% or even higher. And now the schools are struggling. With budgets that are a dollar adjusted 10 times or more what they were in the 1950s they struggle to get by now.
Rather than tax more and spend more, we need to trim the fat. Get rid of the middle class welfare that is school administration. In many school districts, there are more administrators than there are teachers.

Yes, adding yet another tax is one way to help that, but why do governments worldwide - mine included - never consider the possibility that they're spending too much money? When our government is spending money on swedish massages for rabbits and then whining that they don't have enough cash to toss around, I am completely uninterested in giving them a single penny more.

To err is human, but to truly fuck things up requires a nigger.

"Obama administration failed to implement all of the CDC’s advice to prevent an Ebola outbreak"

http://www.washingtontimes.com...

Yeah yeah yeah. "Washington Times". Saved you the effort, libtard.

Exact opposite would happen. The souther border would be overrun as that 3rd-world hellhole would be worse off. Mexican's would flood into America in attempt to flee to safer ground, ostensibly.

http://www.washingtontimes.com...

I have a friend - David Nelson - he stopped flying in 2003. Lost his job over it. He isn't the only one:
http://www.washingtontimes.com...

However, he got a new job - TSA. So - while he can't fly, he can search all of us.

"War on Women" is a Democrat campaign scam - the Obama administration itself (and the Democrats in congress too) have been caught paying their female staffers less than their male staffers.

As for Issa's wealth... and whether it's "bad", let's see here:

Issa built his own wealth by starting and running businesses BEFORE going to Washington

The Kennedys (beloved by Democrats) all inherited their vast fortunes from their prohibition-era alchohol smuggler patriarch (whether you like that law or not, Joe senior was a criminal and the family fortune was built on crime dollars). This would be like somebody today building a financial empire on drug money, then after drug legalization pretending that the money was "clean" without regard to all the crime and dead bodies that contributed to the stash.

former Senator John Kerry (now SecState) got rich by marrying a rich widow.

Senator John McCain got rich by marrying a girl rich with inherited wealth

Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-W. Va.) inherited a MOUNTAIN of money from a so-called "robber-baron" and then, in one of the planet's most hypocritical acts, struts around pontificating against the wealthy (while hanging-onto that inherited wealth and all the power it bought him).

Politics is an expensive game, so more and more of the members go there already wealthy, but most politicians who go to Washington NOT rich, (and spend MILLIONS on campaigns for jobs that pay $174K per year) somehow amazingly end-up quite wealthy after only several years. There are many ways this happens; members of congress, for one example, are exempt from "insider trading" laws (they can hear things about companies and markets, even in closed-door meetings, and then call their investors and place orders). Many of them sit on comittees where they direct taxpayer funds... and direct those funds to companies run by their relatives, like Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) is an example, Former Speaker Pelosi (D-CA) and congresswoman Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) (Who both have rich husbands who are investors - remember that insider trading exemption??).

China has arguably moved from communism to fascism and as Mussolini stated "Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." One can see many of the tenants of an oligarch's paradise: a single party police/surveillance state, labor unions are outlawed, environmental regulations are practically non-existent, imminent domain is abused, and there is an income inequality that even surpasses the US. Capitalism has chosen the most profitable government model and is hedging their investments on it. China is already the largest trading nation and is expected to soon surpass the US as the largest economic power. In the 1930's many American investors flocked to the economic growth in fascist germany. and Prescott Bush(perhaps indirectly) come to mind. Given the current political climate in the US perhaps there may be another Business Plot in our generation.

I imagine many of these large investment firms have direct or indirect access to zero percent federal reserve loans (going on six years with no end in sight) and they would be foolish not to speculate on Alibaba with house money.

I'm disgusted that people like Putin are actually of the same species as myself.

How do you feel about this?

http://www.washingtontimes.com... Lots of people are dying at the hands of rabid animals in Iraq and Syria and those animals are using leaked information by Snowden to evade the good guys (which by the way is us).

Sorry, I'm the boyfriend of a relative of hers..... "Rep. Blake Farenthold, Texas Republican, didn’t mention Trademark Commissioner Deborah Cohn by name, but he clearly referenced her when summarizing a report by the Commerce Department inspector general at a hearing Friday. The report found she helped an applicant — the live-in boyfriend of a close relative — land an attorney’s job in the agency despite being ranked at the bottom of the pool of applicants." http://www.washingtontimes.com...

When staff for a task force of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee asked the Congressional Research Service (CRS) to update its 2008 calculation of criminal offenses in the U.S.C. in 2013, the CRS responded that they lack the manpower and resources to accomplish the task.

Some would claim that we ARE being invaded right now, along our southern border. While it may not be by an "official army", it is by a large group of people, some of them armed, and some not armed, but they are coming in fairly large numbers, are in more and more instances, are using force to get through. Numerous shootouts and confrontations have been had on the border, and some border patrol agents have died as a result of these "invaders".

Yet the government does practically nothing to stop it, and when militia's organized and deployed to the border, they are being treated worse than the "invaders" and they are now getting shot at by BP agents as well. There are over half a million of these "invaders" making their way here every year, year after year, to the tune of millions and millions over the last decade alone.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I...

Latest reports, is that there have been several occurrences of actual Mexican Military encounters at the border, both on ground and with their helicopters in our air space, shooting as our agents. This is by their official army. Then there are the cartels, and their own army's that are shooting as us with .50cals and other heavy weapons. Not to mention that there are areas of Arizona where it is practically unsafe to travel through, as it's occupied by mexico's drug cartels. The Federal BLM put signs up and made a statement that parts of Arizona are actually controlled and occupied by the cartels. The signs warn people passing through that it is dangerous. This is 100mi. inland from the boarder. If that is not an invasion, I don't know what is.
http://lasvegas.cbslocal.com/2...
http://www.peoplespunditdaily....
http://www.washingtontimes.com...

But, if you think Obama (or most of our government members for that matter) cares if citizens have the ability defend off foreign invaders, your delusional. He is practically inviting them to come, and putting as many restraints on the BP agents to not be able to do anything to stop it. The latest move, was to give them shelter, and buss them and distribute them among several states so that the states can share the burden and costs.
In fact, if memory serves correctly, when BP agent Brian Terry was killed by "invaders" from another country, Obama and others were quick to try to use that incident as a means to pass legislation to restrict guns here in our own country. Which is totally counter intuitive to citizen militias being able to help defend against foreign invaders, and not constitutional.

"If we make gun crime even MORE illegal, that would SURELY stop it."

Is that really a THOUGHT process?

Meanwhile, back on planet Earth:

Chicago crime rate drops as concealed carry applications surge

"Hopefully"? It is happening, Snowden did ISIS a big favor.

I have no idea what the real story is,

There is a less hysterical piece at NewsOne, also this from the Washington Times. There is also an opposing opinion in the Baltimore Sun.

Does that help?

Obama blames Bush for all kinds of things, even after six years :)

http://www.washingtontimes.com...

He hasn't quite blamed Ukraine on him yet, but give him time :)

As for whether or not the situation would be better, you mentioned Chechnya and Georgia, of which the Chechnyan wars started under Clinton, and Georgia was undermined by Obama's *removal* of sanctions in 2010 despite continued military occupation.

The simple fact of the matter is that the world *was* better with Bush in charge. Obama, not so much :)

Except that the site was NOT required. Most states did NOT implement their own site,

Under the Obamacare law, if a state set up their own site, then the state's residents got big federal subsidies to buy insurance, which is pretty good motivation for the state to set up a site. FREE MONEY!

BUT, the Obama administration then decided to give the subsidies to everyone, which is clearly against the law passed by Congress.

Litigation is in progress: http://www.washingtontimes.com...

Obama seems to think he can spend money as he sees fit, contrary to law. Congress decides spending & passes the budget, not the President.

http://www.washingtontimes.com...

I've read many articles already that suggests that there is a purge that is happening within the ranks of the military already. Over 200 top brass have been forced out over the past 5 years for various reasons. http://www.washingtontimes.com...

Combine that with the rumored questionnaire that surfaced at "29 Palms" training facility around 1995, and has made a comback in headlines, of the military personnel being asking questions like "would you fire on American citizens", and posing circumstances like "if guns were outlawed, and civilians were ordered to turn them in, would you aid in forceful confiscation of [aka shooting at] those who refused to voluntarily turn them in?"

I know many people pass this stuff off as 'tin foil hat' territory, but in today's political climate, with mass surveillance, government lying to us on a daily basis, half of the bill of rights being eroded down to mean nothing... I don't think it's out of the realm of plausible. I might have a 'tin foil' hat on, but if you think this is even remotely possible, then you would have to have your head in the sand.

Ending prohibition didn't kill the mob. They just switched from bootlegging to trafficking narcotics, and they reached the height of their power in the 50s and 60s, long after the prohibition ended.

Well... by this thinking, the mob continued because prohibition didn't end. They moved from one prohibited product to another, but always a product the people wanted, but couldn't get because of a prohibition, and the mob was in a particularly good position (with their organization and international reach) to supply.

In the same way, while legalizing marijuana might reduce crime here in the US, cartels in Mexico are Too Big to Fail. They won't pack up their things and head home quietly if marijuana is legalized; they'll just start peddling something new.

What might happen if the cartels' market dried up is, at best, speculation. Could be risky, change is scary. But doing nothing and maintaining the status quo is worse. The cartels continue to get better and better at smuggling (they got submarines for fuck sake) and much, much richer while turning Central and South American countries into murderous hell-holes from which children flee to the U.S. on foot, and that ain't no shit.

I don't see how decriminalizing them good possibly be a good idea. The addiction rate for these drugs is 2.5 to 3 times that of alcohol.

I'm also nervous about cocaine and meth easily getting around (like, more than it already is). But the fact is, drug addiction and mental illness is just gonna have to be something that this country has to shut up, knuckle-down and deal with. It's not going away, and prohibition doesn't help. Prohibition only has power to do one thing... throw people in jail. It doesn't cure addiction (drugs make their way into prisons all the time), and distracts everyone from the larger issue of mental illness. It's like taking out the garbage: nobody wants to do it, nobody gets credit for doing it, but it's gotta be done or shit just piles up and gets worse.

No, the US is an oligarchy.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/d...
http://www.washingtontimes.com...

That doesn't mean they get to stay here

I can hardly believe your naiveté with that statement. They certainly will stay here. If 116 illegal immigrants who have been convicted of homicide are allowed to stay, why in the world would these kids be deported? They won't be. It is said that we urgently need to create a "path to citizenship" for them, and the reason for this is purely political: they and their descendents will reliably vote Democrat for generations to come.

Consider two brothers born in Beijing: Ming and Ling. Ming decides to enter the U.S. illegaly, and Ling decides to stay in the country of which he is a citizen. Which brother is more deserving of benefits paid for by U.S. taxpayers: Ming, who broke our immigration laws, or Ling, who obeyed our immigration laws? The answer is obviously Ling. And the other 1.3 billion citizens of China are equally deserving as Ling. But we don't provide those 1.3 billion people with any kind of social safety net. (It's fiscally impossible... merely doing so for the 0.3 billion U.S. citizens has recently created trillion-dollar deficits.) Yet you argue we should provide those benefits to the less-deserving brother, Ming. Are you starting to see why that position has no credibility?

There is plenty of room here for people who are willing to work and contribute at least as much as they take.

Again, your naiveté is amazing. If we were to become selective about who gets in, I'd be in favor of expanded immigration. Who wouldn't? But under our current policy of lax border enforcement, the vast majority of immigrants are unskilled, functionally illiterate, and disproportionately disposed to criminal behavior, with no hope of ever contributing more than they receive from the social safety net. Please, please try to reconcile that fact with your pie-in-the-sky ideology.

"Voting is cool but it's not enough to make a democracy." True in so many ways.

You did read the bits about the fact that voting seems to have no effect most of the time? (Or how about this one.)

Anecdotal evidence could work here just as well. Citizens United represents everything you need to know about politics in the United States. If you don't have enough money, you don't have enough "free speech." The polls say more than 90% of the country does not want Comcast to buy Time Warner Cable, and for some good reasons. Do you think that'll sway the regulators, who are being smooched up the ass by Comcast lobbyists?

Or what about what happened to Obama's election promises about getting rid of lobbyists and being transparent? I do believe he was pressured by the incumbents into changing his mind. He might have been honest when he first got elected, but, as they say, the system is too strong. He got borged into it.

First, your anti-gay slur stands out (you hit the TEA Party people with a gay sex label, which you obviously MEANT as a slander, therefor you are indicating your negative view of that gay sex practice - you homophobe) Oh, I suppose as a liberal you claim the "Alec Baldwin" defense... you can use anti-gay jargon and NOT be a bigot because you're a liberal...

Then you lied. You say it's a FACT that the TEA Partiers got their status. This is not so. A number of TEA Partiers after 3 years, answering questions including things like "list all the books you have read" and "include the contant of any prayers", finding that their DONORS were suddenly getting audited at a high rate, getting the ATF, FBI, and other federal agencies suddenly investigating them, etc simply gave up. The false narrative that "progressive" groups were targetted too is straight from the DNC... the Inspector General did indeed find that the IRS also sorted-out the progressive groups (and liberals pushed that tidbit iin every press outlet they control) BUT the report goes on to say that they then ACCELLERATED the approvals of the progressive groups. Barack Obama's brother got his approval in under 50 days and it was RETROACTIVE!

Take your left wing propaganda back to one of the myriad of liberal web sites funded (fully or partially) by actual NAZI collaborator George Soros.

In the past, Democratic and Republican administrations issued some contracts without competitive bidding for speed and to save money. When seeking the highest office in the land, Mr. Obama explicitly stated that he would not tolerate such practices. “I will finally end the abuse of no-bid contracts once and for all,” he thundered to a Grand Rapids, Mich., audience on Oct. 2, 2008. “The days of sweetheart deals for Halliburton will be over when I’m in the White House.” After becoming president, Mr. Obama continued the attack and promised on March 4 to “end unnecessary no-bid and cost-plus contracts. In some cases, contracts are awarded without competition. And that’s completely unacceptable.”

That was then; this is now. Last week, the Army revealed that KBR, a former subsidiary of Halliburton, was awarded a no-bid contract worth as much as $568 million through next year. This deal was announced only hours after the Obama Justice Department informed the public that it was joining a suit filed by whistleblowers who allege KBR used kickbacks to get foreign contracts.

http://www.washingtontimes.com...

I don't think they're trying to upload data through your phone without your knowledge

That would've been a relatively small problem and is not, what I meant. My suspicion is, they may try to collect data from the plugged-in phone. Call-logs, pictures, locations you've visited — all those things, police now need a warrant for — unless express consent by plugging your phone into their socket.

What data can be collected may depend on your device's model and settings, but apparata for extracting information from (uncooperative) phones exist, and police are already using them.

and noise-level data

This too seems like a euphemism for recording conversations held by people resting on the "smart bench". Hardly unheard of either... Sure, the self-identified "Liberals" of Boston would not approve of such snooping. But, if it is presented as merely "monitoring noise levels", then it is Ok.

Targeting specific birds, how many top of the food chain birds do cats kill? I have doubts that cats or glass panes are killing as many eagles as windmills.

67 eagles have been verified as killed by wind turbines in the last 5 years (source).

That's out of a population of about 20,000 bald eagles (source) and 30,000 golden eagles (source).

So, are wind turbines a significant problem for eagles? Well, they do kill an estimated 0.13% of eagles, so they aren't completely harmless. On the other hand, the American Eagle Society's threats to eagle survival page lists the primary threats to eagles as: DDT, Lead shot poisoning, secondary poisoning, electrocution, poaching, habitat destruction, and other predators. Wind turbines are not mentioned at all.

Therefore, we can conclude that "wind turbines kill eagles" is a not a valid criticism of wind power.

It gets more fun too
"Immigration officer fired after putting wife on list of terrorists to stop her flying home (31 January 2011)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...
"US Has A 'Secret Exception' To Reasonable Suspicion For Putting People On The No Fly List" (Apr 17, 2014)
https://www.techdirt.com/artic...
That other list:
"DHS ‘hands off’ list allowed suspects with terror ties into U.S."
http://www.washingtontimes.com...
'Hands off' list? Senator questions whether DHS allowing those with terror ties into US (May 07, 2014)
http://www.foxnews.com/politic...

Look - the Inspector General of the Treasury Department said it targeted groups for political reasons and that violates the equal protection under the law clause. Not to mention targeted audits of the same donors to those targeted groups. If it didn't do anything wrong, then why did the IRS apologize for its activities?

Apparently you don't have a problem with the politicization of the IRS, to use the Government to attack political opponents. I get that. Most sane and reasonable people do have a problem with it - at least an ethical, if not recognizing that it's illegal and a gross misuse of Government power.

I don't think you ever worked for a bureaucracy before.

Imagine trying to use that excuse in an IRS audit of your business.

But sometimes "Stuff Just Happens."

I think I'll take 50x my deductions next year, lose all of the supporting receipts, and use that as the reason. If it works for one of their Directors, then it should work for me. After all, she's "Protecting the integrity of tax-exempt organizations" so her overall direction of SJH must be indicating a new government directive.

No, I'm suggesting one should adhere to the same standard he asks of someone with whom he disagrees. And your claim was made precisely in support of the argument that gun ownership has been declining.

Which, BTW, is incorrect. Not only is ownership not declining, but new purchases are increasing. So gun ownership is not only increasing but accelerating.

http://www.washingtontimes.com...

Ever see hurricanes hit where NOBODY is getting prepared?

New Orleans and Katrina came close.

Strangely enough, the New Orleans city website remained online the entire time. Hurricanes regularly occur in that part of the USA, and despite incompetence & corruption New Orleans does have hurricane contingency plans.

Some people went to the website and went through the city's published & documented hurricane plan. Then they compared the city's actions to what the plan said the city would do. The city did virtually nothing.

I remember seeing detailed articles about it at the time, but this is all I can find with a quick google search:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2005/sep/9/20050909-121037-6314r/

Then there was the Louisiana National Guard. In the USA, each state has a National Guard and it is under the command of the governor. For quite some time after the hurricane handed, the Louisiana National Guard did nothing.

Why? Because the Louisiana governor issued no orders. It took a threat from George W. Bush to federalize the Louisiana National Guard (a power that the US govt has over the state govts) before the governor of Louisiana gave orders to the National Guard to start doing things.

Yes, the US federal govt messed up the Katerina response, but state & local response was much worse. Oddly enough, not very far away in Mississippi, state & local governments did their job.

Everything he has said so far has been either corroborated by the government or met with silence.

That's patently incorrect.

Snowden claims to have raised concerns about the NSA programs, and the administration has patently denied this:

http://www.washingtontimes.com...

Recently, Snowden claimed that he was a field agent. The administration has denied this, in no uncertain terms.

It's not just the spy bureaucracy. According to polls most of the American people do not approve of his actions. And this is a democracy, so that matters.

Well no, it's an oligarchy, masquerading as a democracy.

Snowden could have chosen to leak his documents anonymously through a Congressman.

Not necessarily trivial. They weren't watching Snowden, but you can bet your ass that the NSA watches all congresscritters _very_ closely.

It's a threat to the democracy of the United States? How soon people forget, the U.S. is really an oligarchy, not a democracy. It's been this way for a long time too. So, there is no threat, 'cause there is no democracy in the U.S. to be threatened.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014... http://m.washingtonpost.com/lo... http://www.thetruthaboutguns.c... http://m.csmonitor.com/USA/201... http://m.washingtontimes.com/n...

I thought all the hyper-gullible young-uns who fell for the Obama machine's propaganda gimicks had awakened by now (after FIVE YEARS of empirical evidence) but apparently at least one of you still exists.... get thee to a museum, quickly!. We need to preserve at least one of you as a warning to future generations of exactly what mouth-breathing, drooling, vacant gullibility looks like and the sort of disasterous results it can lead to.

The white house petitions you idiots fell (and apparently continue to fall) for are as substantial and productive as Obama's economic policies. They are a gimmick; there is NOTHING that obligates the Obama people to do anything in response. If you all "sign" one in low numbers, the administration does nothing and smiles knowing you all "feel" like you've had some input and will keep supporting them even as they ignore you. If you all "sign" one in high enough numbers and if it's a policy they support anyway, then they do it (uninfluenced by the petition) and they know you all are more supportive having deluded yourselves into thinking you had a role and they were "responsive". If you all "sign" one in high enough numbers but the administration does not want to do it, they don't do it and they tell you they could not (for some reason that may have nothing to do with why they did not) but they know you'll be happy you had "input" and you might even be more supportive of them as co-victims if they can offer-up some "bad guy" (like the Koch brothers, Fox news, Glenn Beck, etc) as the excuse (even if the advertized "bad guy" had no power to block the action).

In NO situation, does the administration change its behavior in response to one of these petitions. These online "petitions" were nothing more than a voter outreach, voter data gathering and "social media" tool for team Obama in the age of dumbed-down Gen-Y and millenial voters...they were part of a highly-successful political campaign, but they are not actual methods for citizens to influence government. Heck, when they got too annoyed by you and your "petitions", they even arbitrarily changed the threshold number (to make it easier to ignore you) making it twenty times harder to reach, while ignoring petitions that had resched the threshold and they propagandized THAT action as a "good thing" (which their sycophant followers gladly and gullibly swallowed...). Like Facebook, team Obama convinces you that their gata gathering program is actually something done "for free" for your benefit...

The real cooks are trying to make it blue now and making their customers sick http://www.washingtontimes.com...

You don't tend to see the left calling for banning guns either; just restricting their construction, sale and use.

Well, sometimes they do exactly that.

For decades it has been pretty much impossible to legally own a firearm in Chicago & Washington DC. Despite that, both cities have had ludicrously high rates of gun crime.

Recently both cities have had their de facto gun bans slapped down by the courts.

Sadly, both cities seem focused on preventing law-abiding ordinary citizens from having firearms instead of cracking down on gun crime.

Of course, if you're an important person(TM), then you can break their gun laws without consequence:
http://www.washingtontimes.com...

And in the mean time, life gets interesting trying to run a business for almost 11 months without the $35,000 the IRS has "borrowed" from you.

DEHKO: Bullied by the IRS
IRS "voluntarily" dismiss two forfeiture actions...

The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty. Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it. It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another. Read more: http://communities.washingtont... Follow us: @wtcommunities on Twitter

Nope.
He is stay neutral on the spat between the two groups. He is not stay neutral in the surveillance.

http://www.washingtontimes.com...

"He's either in favour of the CIA behaving as it did"
He has been very clear he is not in favor of the type of behavior the CIA is accused of.

"r he's not really in charge of his own branch of government."
of course he is.

Here is a 3rd choice: It's fucking complicated.

# The climate hasn't "warmed" in at least 16 years.

Statement: as I understand things, it's not disputed that up until then it was rising? And that it's also not disputed that we're still dumping CO2 into the atmosphere (at an increasing rate, even)? I can think of something that stops rising in temperature even though it continues to accept energy - substances undergoing a phase change from solid to liquid.

Armchair hypothesis: we've reached the point where atmospheric temperature has reached a temporary equilibrium point as the excess heat is instead going into changing the phase of the polar and glacial ice fields and permafrost zones.

Query: I presume somebody's already thought of this, so are there any observations that would tend to confirm or disprove?

"... and what we've observed is the warming that was predicted. That seems to be the opposite of "totally wrong" to me."

No, it's not "the opposite of wrong"... it's just wrong. We HAVEN'T observed the warming that was predicted.

A paper in Nature last September (pdf) was a study of 117 of the most-cited CO2 climate warming models. 114 of them not only overestimated warming, the average (mean) amount they exaggerated warming (versus actual observed temperatures) was MORE THAN 100%.

And if you think that is somehow an anomaly, I assure you it isn't. The climate hasn't "warmed" in at least 16 years. AGW-proponent climate scientists publicly admit that they have no idea why.The reason is simple: their theory is fundamentally flawed.

The fact is, the theory of Catastrophic Greenhouse Gas Warming is just plain weak "science", and always has been. There is an awful lot of counter-evidence that you just haven't heard about because you have to actually look for it. It isn't spoon-fed to you by the government or the news.

Not to mention the truckloads of evidence that have continued to build concerning the compromised integrity of data, and its irresponsible handling by said climate scientists.

Add to that the publicly reported "statistics" that are so distorted one might even be justified in calling them fraudulent, like the bogus "97% consensus" claim.

And if you think "there has been no serious dispute" of these CO2-based warming claims, as many climate scientists and their supporters have tried to claim, you would be mistaken. That is a list of just some of the peer-reviewed papers that disagree.

There are mountains of such information out there, if you just but look. Do yourself and everyone else a favor, and be more skeptical.

...that global cooling is the hot topic for all the cool scientists now.

When all you've got is a global warming hammer, everything looks like a carbon emissions nail.