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Congress is so corrupt that they have made their corruption legal and no longer answer to the American people who either don't care or are too stupid to realize what's going on. Maybe it's always been an illusion.

Maybe there's still hope for the congress critters to consider other info

What world do you live in? Police don't just raid a house because of some tag on Google Earth. What nonsense. You think we have a fleet of detectives monitoring Facebook in case someone posts "committin' a crime right naw!" And we announce ourselves so the homeowner would have no doubt it's the police and not some "intruder breaking down their door at 3am."!

What world do you live in sir? Clearly not the same one the rest of us do.

http://www.cato.org/raidmap
http://www.wnd.com/2012/08/cops-kill-dog-handcuff-kids-in-wrong-house-raid/
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/55875924-78/lake-salt-landvatter-police.html.csp
http://www.nytimes.com/1998/05/26/nyregion/raids-and-complaints-rise-as-city-draws-on-drug-tips.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
http://www.wave3.com/story/1495631/false-tip-leads-police-to-raid-house-of-sleeping-family?clienttype=printable

and just because you are wearing a badge and say you are the police doesn't mean that you are

http://www.khou.com/news/local/HPD-Police-impersonators-using-fake-raids-to-rob-illegal-game-rooms-135144963.html

And your suggestion that the police do not read online sources or respond to tips that might come from them is also quite absurd

http://reason.com/blog/2011/01/25/the-saga-of-travis-corcoran

This is one of the main reasons I want this country to abandon its two-party system.

Oh, not again. Every once in a while ignorant people complain about America's "two-party system" — failing to account for the vast differences between our political system and that of most of the Democracies of the world.

You see, we do not have parties in the same sense as other countries. Voters here vote for individuals, whose party-affiliation is fluid and non-binding. Every once in a while an elected official may switch their party — without any legal consequences. In other countries voters vote for a party, who then pick individual politicians to fill the slots the legislature. The number of slots is in proportion to the total number share of votes won by the party.

Though some State-laws regulate the parties in the US, there is nothing about them in our Constitution or Federal Law. And for good reason — Americans vote for individuals, not parties. Whether that's "better" or "worse" is another topic, but it is different. There is no law regulating the establishing of a party, or how it is operated. Oh, and we have multiple parties: Communists of different kind (as usual for them), Libertarians, Green... That they aren't winning many offices is not the fault of the system...

BTW, if you think, a multi-party system (however it is achieved) will automatically be better — think again.

people, at least not that i know of.

people who cannot comprehend the difference between a priavte corporation, with your consent, sharing your information, and government agencies obtaining your email without warrant, are...

Facebook use leads to Arrest
5/26/13 In Britain, Police Arrest Twitter and Facebook Users If They Make Anti-Muslim Statements

Facebook use leads to Imprisonment
5/25/13 Jailed for Facebook Comments, Marine Sues

Facebook use leads to Rape
5/28/13 Facebook Rape Joke Prompts 15 Companies to Pull Ads

Facebook use leads to Killing
2/09/12 Facebook "Defriending" Led to Double Murder, Police Say

It seems you're right in that there is a difference between Facebook and the NSA. The NSA's system has a far cleaner track record. If only the NSA would let us join their social network we'd live in a safer world.

Universtity of Phoenix online - it's a required class, my fiance left the school over it. We were both raised in a community that was 90ish% Mexican and were both treated poorly for not being one. We did not have the empowerment this class and others who have had it demand we accept that we had. The University of Delaware is famous for making it a requirement to participate in such training. They eventually backed out when it made huge amounts of news, but such things are creeping into colleges in the required curriculum since then and getting less attention.

No, avoiding it is harder these days than seeking it out.

Like this guy? http://www.wnd.com/2013/05/video-maker-blamed-for-benghazi-remains-jailed/

No; that guy is in jail for tax evasion, using an alias after a judge strictly forbid him from doing so, and fraud; well he should be incarcerated, considering the fact that he's 100% guilty.

ProTip: You'd be more well informed getting your news from the fucking Enquirer than World News Daily.

"Tax evasion" as alleged by the known to be corrupt and used for political purposes IRS? That kind of "tax evasion"?

No; as a matter of fact, upon further research I find I was mistaken - he served his term for tax fraud, and is now in jail for violating the terms of his parole (using an alias and committing wire fraud).

But no, let's keep fomenting divisive rhetoric by insisting he was jailed for that stupid fucking movie he made. That's productive...

Like this guy? http://www.wnd.com/2013/05/video-maker-blamed-for-benghazi-remains-jailed/

No; that guy is in jail for tax evasion, using an alias after a judge strictly forbid him from doing so, and fraud; well he should be incarcerated, considering the fact that he's 100% guilty.

ProTip: You'd be more well informed getting your news from the fucking Enquirer than World News Daily.

"Tax evasion" as alleged by the known to be corrupt and used for political purposes IRS? That kind of "tax evasion"?

Like this guy? http://www.wnd.com/2013/05/video-maker-blamed-for-benghazi-remains-jailed/

No; that guy is in jail for tax evasion, using an alias after a judge strictly forbid him from doing so, and fraud; well he should be incarcerated, considering the fact that he's 100% guilty.

ProTip: You'd be more well informed getting your news from the fucking Enquirer than World News Daily.

They are always the one's doing the minors in High School.

The practice of SWATting needs to stop immediately. SWAT raids are very tense for all parties involved and they can go wrong in a hurry. One of these days an innocent person is going to end up dead because of this practice. The prosecutors need to go after this guy, get him the maximum sentence for all of his many crimes, and broadcast his prison rapes so that no one ever thinks of doing something like this again.

What makes you think that being raped in prison makes you a better person who will not behave like an anti-social idiot anymore? Or that seeing this happen makes others better?

This kind of response really is as part of the problem as what this guy was doing. The US is turning more and more into a failed state it seems.

The practice of SWATting needs to stop immediately. SWAT raids are very tense for all parties involved and they can go wrong in a hurry. One of these days an innocent person is going to end up dead because of this practice. The prosecutors need to go after this guy, get him the maximum sentence for all of his many crimes, and broadcast his prison rapes so that no one ever thinks of doing something like this again.

Ethanol - $3.00/gallon
Gasoline - $3.50/gallon
Moonshine - $20-$40/gallon

Something tells me that Ethanol production has another purpose beyond energy production =)

What is the English fascination with M.J.? I mean besides letting little boys play with "rubba, the two tone dolphin "in his pants..." It's black, it's white, yeah, yeah, yeah" http://www.wnd.com/2003/11/21956/

http://www.wnd.com/2012/12/how-to-for-emp-weapon-stunningly-accessible/

What makes RF weapons so dangerous is their compactness and ability to be powered by hand-carried energy sources. Experts say that their range of intensity is from 200 meters to 1,000 meters, or from some 656 feet to 3,281 feet.

Your logic is astoundingly wrong. You say it's no good to have armed guards on school grounds but go on to say that the only way to stop the crazed shooters is with armed guards arriving after the fact, which seems to contradict your previous statement. It's perfectly obvious that having armed guards on the school grounds would save lives. Like you said later, it's all about time.

I'm sure that's why when it comes to things we hold dear, there are already armed guards there. Banks, the POTUS, the SCOTUS, members of congress all have armed guards with them. But you wouldn't dare to apply your illogical solutions to them for fear of being humiliated.

The term 'green-on-blue attack' refers to the (quite common) situations where an aghan security force member will launch a surprise attack on NATO military personnel with which he is supposed to be working. Again, it turns out to not be that difficult to kill a few armed, trained, soldiers if you just wait for their backs to be turned.

You're comparing apples and oranges. Perhaps if the state police turned on the local police and started shooting you can use this analogy. Students are not armed, as Afghan security is. In the "green on blue" attacks the blues are the target, not a 3rd party. The blues trust the greens to walk around with assault weapons. There are so many logical fallacies that there isn't even time to go through them all.

More broadly, the relationship to magazine capacity is one of time: Given enough time to muster a response, the cops do show up in overwhelming numbers and either kill the shooter or cause them to kill themselves This means that the main question is how efficient they can be during the time that they have.

So ask yourself this question. In a situation where there is a crazed gunman going around shooting people. Would you rather A) have a gun or a person with a gun there to defend you from the shooter or B) be defenseless? The very idea that changing magazines would somehow slow the gunman down more than people shooting back is just stupid. And yes, it's better some people catch stray rounds from school security officers guns, which rarely if ever happens, than allow the gunman to walk around unhindered shooting everyone. There are many more people saved from the use of guns than killed by criminals with guns. Besides, criminals will have and use whatever gun or magazine they want no matter what the law says. That's basically what this whole article is about.

talking point: Columbine had an armed guard, who was apparently not all that useful.

And like chill pointed out, you're wrong. It would be nice if you read the article he linked to show you just how wrong you are. If there was no armed guard I can't imagine how many dozens more would be dead. From the article:

The contention that Gardner's presence did not make a difference is not supported by the facts. He not only briefly stopped their assault on students, he made it possible for an untold number of students to escape the cafeteria and get to safety.

Literally - please!

Every one of these psychos was mentally ill and on psychotropic drugs.
Columbine mass-killer Eric Harris was taking Luvox – like Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Effexor and many others, a modern and widely prescribed type of antidepressant drug called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs.
Patrick Purdy went on a schoolyard shooting rampage in Stockton, Calif., in 1989, which became the catalyst for the original legislative frenzy to ban “semiautomatic assault weapons” in California and the nation. The 25-year-old Purdy, who murdered five children and wounded 30, had been on Amitriptyline, an antidepressant, as well as the antipsychotic drug Thorazine.
Kip Kinkel, 15, murdered his parents in 1998 and the next day went to his school, Thurston High in Springfield, Ore., and opened fire on his classmates, killing two and wounding 22 others. He had been prescribed both Prozac and Ritalin.
more here: http://www.wnd.com/2013/01/the-giant-gaping-hole-in-sandy-hook-reporting/

"The public is growing increasingly confused by how we treat the mentally ill. More and more, the mentally ill are showing up in the streets, badly in need of help. Incidents of illness-driven violence are reported regularly, incidents which common sense tells us could easily have been avoided. And this is just the visible tip of the greater tragedy - of many more sufferers deteriorating in the shadows and, often, committing suicide." http://www.northshoreschizophrenia.org/Uncivil_Liberties.htm

The bottom line is we need to identify these people before they snap and get them off the streets and into treatment, not take guns away from law abiding citizens.

So is it lead or SSRIs or just the fact that we give assholes a lot excuses for being assholes these days?

Any research done into the mass shootings in the last couple of decades will show a very strong correlation between anti psychotic pharmaceuticals and those shootings. But we aren't banning those drugs, just the guns the drugged up nuts were using.

http://www.wnd.com/2013/01/the-giant-gaping-hole-in-sandy-hook-reporting/

Let us blame, if anything, behavior altering drugs for people's behavior.

"HIGHLY constrained to the types of orders they can give, and have to provide reasonable justification, albeit later."

I agree, you still legally have to do what they tell you to do. (http://www.wnd.com/2011/02/259457/) And leaving legality out of it, they will likely beat you and arrest you anyways, if you do not follow all of their instructions.

Yea, hey, a word of advice - you may want to refrain from quoting World News Daily as a 'reputable' source for... well, anything.

Here's a couple gems I pulled from their site to prove my point; the first is an article on giving thanks, written by none other than Chuck "1000 Years of Darkness if Obama is Re-elected" Norris.

My other example is an excerpt from a Joseph Farah article titled, "HOW OLD IS THE EARTH??":

No one can be 100 percent certain, though I subscribe to the idea that the Bible is literally true and that the Earth and the universe were created in seven actual days about 6,000 years ago.

In summation, WND.com != reputable source.

Posting anon to preserve moderation.
--
CanHasDIY

"HIGHLY constrained to the types of orders they can give, and have to provide reasonable justification, albeit later."

I agree, you still legally have to do what they tell you to do. (http://www.wnd.com/2011/02/259457/) And leaving legality out of it, they will likely beat you and arrest you anyways, if you do not follow all of their instructions.

Yea, hey, a word of advice - you may want to refrain from quoting World News Daily as a 'reputable' source for... well, anything.

Here's a couple gems I pulled from their site to prove my point; the first is an article on giving thanks, written by none other than Chuck "1000 Years of Darkness if Obama is Re-elected" Norris.

My other example is an excerpt from a Joseph Farah article titled, "HOW OLD IS THE EARTH??":

No one can be 100 percent certain, though I subscribe to the idea that the Bible is literally true and that the Earth and the universe were created in seven actual days about 6,000 years ago.

In summation, WND.com != reputable source.

Posting anon to preserve moderation.
--
CanHasDIY

ATF Declares "Chore Boy" pot scrubber as supressor.

http://www.wnd.com/2011/11/368769/

"... without even naming those other people, aside from "expert" Joe Arpaio."

Joe Arpaio also did not do the analysis. He arranged a team of investigators, who then consulted experts.

The information is mostly public domain, if you just look for it. For example, completely aside from the graphics evidence, there is this, the fact that the numbers on the birth records are out of sequence. And the fact that Hawaiian official will not allow others who were born near the same time access to their own records, even though it is required by law.

It goes on. It's just just a few flakes who think they know a little about Photoshop. There is actually quite a bit of very strong evidence of fakery.

Having said that: I know of no proof that Obama himself was necessarily behind any of it.

Good thing our alternative, Obama, is not dishonest.

Except.. didn't he promise to shut down Guantanamo, end warrantless wiretaps, and restore habeas corpus? Perhaps your +5 Insightful is evidence Obama is a better liar than Romney.

Programmers and other I.T. professionals shun unions for one major reason: they are illogical, and make no sense, with no real purpose, value or function in a modern society with strong civil rights and a functioning legal system that will enforce the relevant laws that prevent the worst abuses and excesses. No one in the U.S. is compelled to work anywhere they do not want to, and all are free to leave their jobs for better ones, or to simply choose not to work for a bad one. The consequences of that action is purely their own, but you're still free to make the choice and determine that the pay is not worth the hardship. For us, already saddled with excess requirements, inefficient bureaucracies, non-IT literate management or corporate leadership, and everything else, this would just be intentionally putting more roadblocks and inefficiencies in the way of the very people whose job it is to leverage technology to make people more efficient, and Q.E.D., unions make no sense.

I'll be damned if I'm going to put myself in a position where I have to call someone at a union before I'm allowed to open up my PC or server case to add some more RAM, or before I can comment in some code, lest I inspire someone else's wrath or ire because I'm "threatening their job" by doing something that the union says only one person can do.

No one with the basic logic and reasoning skills necessary to pursue a successful career in computing--or any other scientific endeavor--who is not also blinded by some philosophical, religious or political propaganda could possibly perform an analysis of unions, both modern and historic, and come to the conclusion that they would be of any real benefit to themselves or their industry. Unions are just like licensing and regulation schemes that serve only as a form of protectionism from healthy competition in a free market, as well as protection from their own negligence and failure, making it difficult or outright impossible to hold them responsible for their own actions. Unions are in no way necessary to "protect workers' rights", as that is what the law is for, and what the law does,no to mention our system of political representation, whose job it is to change or introduce legislation that protects citizens. Add on top the modern advantages of educatoin for all who want it (and even for those who don't), and instantaneous communications / mass media, and the kinds of gross abuses that necessitated the rise of the first modern unions in the 30's are functionally impossible for a company to get away with these days: even Foxconn, in China of all places, finds itself unable to get away with such abuses unnoticed, yet it is exactly this kind of forced socialism that defines labor unions where such abuse becomes more possible. Let's also not forget that modern labor unions are almost indistinguishable from medieval European "Guilds" that were so reviled by the end of their time, and whose demise was in no small part responsible for the rise of modern industrialism.

Unions--membership in which, in states that support them, is generally compulsory... if you want to work, that is--have no place, benefit, or value in free market capitalism and a free and liberty-loving society. In the 30's and 40's, maybe, but those days are long since gone, and this is a different country today than it was then. They help no one but themselves, and too often are determined to be the parasite that kills the host. I simply cannot see how anyone with the capacity to work in computing for living could come to a different conclusion after an honest examination of the facts.

Oh, and in reply to Animats above... there's nothing there that shows that union as being of any tangible benefit to society at large, much less the field of animation, in a free society where people can choose their own employment at will: the guild outlived those other studios for one

Ladies and Gentlemen,
Chuck Norris: http://www.wnd.com/author/cnorris/

I was truly saddened when I first saw him going onto opinion shows and rabidly spouting talking points.
Now he's doing a mix of "Top 10 reasons not to re-elect Obama, Part 1" and "Chuck Norris takes on toxic suds in baby shampoo"

It would be less slanted of you to say "the homicide" than "the murder."

I have followed all sorts of stuff about this case and have found two serious problems colliding here. The first is a person who was clearly frustrated with his neighborhood and the crime going on all around there generally committed by "not middle-aged white females" if you get my drift... also a person who had his own issues of self-importance and lack of good personality control. Not an ideal condition on Zimmerman's side of things. The second is a community which supports and defends all young black males with blind faith against anything and everything. (Check this story to see some obvious parallels: http://www.wnd.com/2012/10/black-mob-picks-the-wrong-guy/) It does not matter to them that the deceased was a person with behavior problems of his own or that he had a documented past of similar behaviors to the ones being alleged as the cause leading to his death. The media fell into place siding with the religious support of a young black male and has blocked every attempt to update the story with truth or facts.

At the end of the day, it should be the truth and the facts which SHOULD bring a conclusion to the case. Unfortunately, other factors are in the way.

Obama made it worse.

This is not news. This is Wikileaks publishing uncorroborated "evidence" that matches their expectations about "Big Brother".

Some things to remember:

• 1. The system is in no way secret and there are numerous publicly available sources of information about municipal uptake: public hearings, contracts, etc.
• 2. Most (if not all) of these emails were marketing materials or communiques regarding trial runs.
• 3. There is no evidence that TrapWire is currently in use as described in the Wikileaks release. See the NYTimes, Slate articles (among many others) that investigate the system's actual purpose and use.

Wikileaks has been more or less forgotten by the general public, so it's not surprising that they would take every opportunity to spout sensationalized conspiracy theories to regain the spotlight. After all, what would they be today without Mr. Manning's foolish self-sacrifice? A wanna be World News Daily.

Perhaps it is not feasible (or even desirable) for the /. editorial staff to vet everything that gets posted, but I for one am not interested in hearing every conspiracy theory floating on the web - regardless of the sympathy some may have for the source.

The source article is on http://www.wnd.com/, which is a pretty wacky looking right wing "news" site. Its top stories currently are :

Gun shop veto draws legal fight
Traveler says no to U.S. internal checkpoints
Blogger: Why don't blacks behave?
Cross-bearing Texas teen arrives In D.C.
Reviewer: It doesn't look like we're repenting
Poll: Majority favor extending all Bush tax rates

Detecting a trend?
Anyway the article in question simply says that 1) Chinese companies make most of the telecom switching gear. 2) Therefore, China's military has backdoored it all and is spying on every byte anyone transmits.

Of course, this is conceivable, but there isn't a shred of evidence. Spying on such a huge scale would require huge infrastructure and data transmission, basically duplicating the entire Internet. That might be detectable.

Indeed. A bill has now been introduced in the Senate to impeach Obama.

Sudan
Pakistan
Honorable mention (didn't burn the children, just made them witness their mother being raped and their father being burned): Pakistan again

The cops are slow to learn.........

http://www.wnd.com/2012/03/student-arrested-for-taking-photo-of-cop/
http://articles.philly.com/2012-03-26/news/31240585_1_police-officer-cops-misdemeanor

It was a very poor translation

This is the tired-old excuse. Iranian officials have said plenty of argressive things about Israel, of numerous occasions. It's not merely mistranslation.

  http://www.wnd.com/2012/02/ayatollah-kill-all-jews-annihilate-israel/

  http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/iran-says-it-launched-satellite/2012/02/03/gIQARNuDmQ_story.html

Iran has said, many times (e.g. last month http://www.catholic.org/international/international_story.php?id=44676), that they want and intend to cause "the death of all Jews and the destruction of Israel".

Bizarre. If they want to cause "the death of all Jews" you'd think they'd start with the ones in Iran wouldn't you?

Ah, the original source of the "Catholic Online" craziness is Reza Kahlili in World Net Daily - http://www.wnd.com/2012/02/ayatollah-kill-all-jews-annihilate-israel/.

We don't have money to do exciting stuff anymore.

When Kennedy said let's land a man on the moon in this decade, we had lots of money. The economy was booming (helped along in part by Kennedy's sound economic policy), government was running a surplus, and LBJ hadn't started his Great Society spending spree yet.

People remember Kennedy as a Democrat and a progressive, but when it came to fiscal policy he was a pragmatist. He knew that you have to have a strong economy before you can do anything else -- send men into space or help the poor and whatnot -- and to do that, he cut taxes.

"This administration pledged itself last summer to an across-the-board, top-to-bottom cut in personal and corporate income taxes... Next year's tax bill should reduce personal as well as corporate income taxes, for those in the lower brackets, who are certain to spend their additional take-home pay, and for those in the middle and upper brackets, who can thereby be encouraged to undertake additional efforts and enabled to invest more capital... I am confident that the enactment of the right bill next year will in due course increase our gross national product by several times the amount of taxes actually cut." -JFK, 1962

(more JFK tax quotes)

Not when some notable African Americans are white. What else do you call someone of European descent born in South Africa who moves to the United States?

I know this isn't tech gadgets, but some jobs are in fact coming back to America. Master Lock brings manufacturing Stateside

Obama is going about this all wrong in a socialist way, by making our tax code bigger and more bloated. There should be no exceptions and conditions for a lower tax, just a flat out lower tax, Eliminate large portions of the tax code, make taxes more simple, and lower the tax rates on businesses. That's just the beginning of it, things like minimum wage should also be eliminated since the people it hurts most are the people such laws are intended to help Minimum wage harms young minorities the most

Anyhow, go out and buy a Master Lock, I know I will.

...it's called DDT. Contrary to the lies of Rachel Carlson's "Silent Spring", DDT is safe, effective, and non-toxic to humans and animals.

http://www.wnd.com/2005/06/31095/

And the one excepted and legal use of DDT now is to kill malaria carrying mosquitoes, at least those few that haven't developed resistance to DDT. Where this meme that DDT can't be used for controlling malaria started I don't know but would guess it started as misinformation for political purposes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT#Use_against_malaria

As for its toxicity, while one of the safer organ-chlorides it should still be used in moderation, eg only when actually needed as it only slowly breaks down and is considered some what toxic. Of course it should also be used in moderation to prevent resistance building up in the target organisms.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT#Effects_on_wildlife_and_eggshell_thinning
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT#Effects_on_human_health

...it's called DDT. Contrary to the lies of Rachel Carlson's "Silent Spring", DDT is safe, effective, and non-toxic to humans and animals.

http://www.wnd.com/2005/06/31095/

Pah, Chuck Norris is a wimp.

http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=101063

Afraid of Obama!

All the talk of how manufacturing will create jobs is just that, talk.

False. Apple is creating massive job opportunities in the environmental cleanup industries in China. It's just that Chinese law allows Apple to pollute and poison the countryside without needing to pay for the cleanup. Apple, like the gulf polluting BP, exploits lax local regulations to make a fat profit at the expense of the local environment. Remember, this is a company that has Al Gore on it's board of directors. Shame shame Mr. Gore. Your actions speak much louder than your words.

Globalism is failing because of a lack of minimum wage. Rich Republican cock suckers don't give a shit about one countries economy. All it means is wages drop in yet another country and the value of their investments in the global stock market go up. You dumb ass wrong wing radio listening morons can keep regurgitating bullshit from your born again bigot spin doctors or join the fight. Either watch the lying bastards suck down fat paychecks while leading you into the land of indentured servitude while the rest of us "liberals" fight from the land of reality or get a fucking clue. Vote for Perry. He knows how to hand the keys to corporations in other countries while the people that live in his state fall further into abject poverty. Globalism is going to happen whether we like it or not. The way we don't want it to happen, without something to level the playing field ie. minimum wages and expectations, is the way it is happening. Controlling how it happens is up to us people that work for a living, aka "liberals".

I don't think citing Wikipedia is very convincing as evidence of AGW, seeing as how climate change advocates have taken over that place (and even tried to erase the very concept of Medieval Warm Period)

CRU: "We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period"

He also misrepresents the entire process of modern agriculture - namely, none of the inputs are implicitly dependent on the active production of more CO2

I think you forgot about tillage.

But there's no sense letting any of that get in the way of trying to co-opt global hunger as a perverse argument *against* doing anything about climate change.

Global hunger has been a direct result of some of the ridiculous schemes to reduce CO2.

Legally, it may not be force. But is pretty much the social equivalent:
http://familyrightsassociation.com/bin/white_papers-articles/drugging_our_children/
"It should be noted that itâ(TM)s not just elementary and high schools that seem to need a drug to help them run smoothly, but preschools and day care centers also. As writer Robyn Suriano recently pointed out in the Orlando Sentinel,[xxvii] âoeThe drug [Ritalin] reached its heyday in the 1990s, after more children started attending day care. In a preschool, kids must follow instructions and behave just like older children in classrooms. Rambunctious ones are not easily tolerated in these surroundings, where workers must watch many children.â This is not to say that day care centers are necessarily bad, but there are a lot of inadequately staffed and equipped ones. These trap preschoolers in confining, boring situations for 10 hours a day and then complain when they act like the active, inquisitive, and needy young creatures that children just barely out of babyhood normally are. That drugs are used to remedy this situation is unconscionable, especially considering that Ritalinâ(TM)s label warns that the drug is only for those aged 6 and over. But âoeoff-labelâ prescription is legal, and itâ(TM)s happening. As a Wall Street Journal article reported,[xxviii] the use of prescription drugs to control toddlersâ(TM) behavior has increased dramatically in the past decade."

Why was a bill like this needed and sabotaged:
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?pageId=21803

Why is this so common?
http://www.greatschools.org/special-education/other-disorders/1289-what-do-i-do-when-a-teacher-says-my-child-needs-meds.gs
"My daughter gets in trouble at school. The teacher says she is in high speed all the time, doesn't watch where she is going, knocks things over or trips over stuff. Her teacher says that she doesn't pay attention to her work, she does it fast all the time and it ends up messy. The teacher would like me to put her on medication to slow her down, but I refuse. I have told her teacher that I give her worksheets and reading to do at home, and she will sit down and do the homework, and does a fine job. What do you suggest I do?"

Much of this is just kids being kids, kids being vitamin D deficient (from being indoors so much), and kids eating junk food.

Hat tip to Feynman:

http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=275925

"Like the cargo cultists, the AGW cult has confused cause and effect. Higher atmospheric CO2 levels do occur naturally as climate warms, but it has always been a result of the warming, a contributing factor, not the principal cause of the warming. There is no demonstrable reason for thinking that the human induced rise in atmospheric CO2 levels will cause a large, damaging rise in global temperatures. Still, much as the South Seas Islanders continue to build ersatz airfields and march about mimicking the actions of long departed solders and sailors, the anthropogenic global warming true believers continue to place all their faith in CO2, never stopping to think that they might have it wrong. They are not only misleading the public, they are misleading themselves.

Feynman identified the cure for this problem: “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool. So you have to be very careful about that. After you've not fooled yourself, it's easy not to fool other scientists. You just have to be honest in a conventional way after that.” It would seem that even conventional honesty is in short supply among the ranks of global warming's most vocal promoters. They also seem to have forgotten something else Feynman said: “Reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.”

Be safe, enjoy the interglacial and stay skeptical."

Ron Paul was 'predicting' the current situation since well into 90-s. So no, it doesn't count.

If in the 1990s someone told you, "Your computer won't run the most popular OS in 2011." Would they have been wrong? Ron Paul had the foresight to see that the economy was on an unsustainable course back in the 1990s, long before the dot com crash. It does not take a genius to look at the history of fiat currencies and the inevitable boom / bust cycles to say, "This is going to come off the rails eventually."

And during the crisis he's been constantly mis-predicting, well, everything (runaway inflation, hellllo?).

Outside of CPI, inflation has been going up significantly.

http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=59409

And last, but not least - his recipes to help the economy are disastrous.

They are now. If they had been implemented earlier we might have had a chance. As it stands, the middle class in America will be all but completely wiped out in the next generation. There is not anything that Ron Paul, or anyone else can do about it. The dynamics of the world have shifted. The American standard of living will only decline from here on out.

I obviously don't agree with this stupid new law, but I find the picking and choosing of when it's a violation of rights to be rather hypocritical.

I'm sure these same schools also have all sorts of dress codes that prevent students from exercising their constitutional right to free speech while at school or attending school functions. Yet, it's suddenly a constitutional free speech issue when it comes to helping put state sanctioned child molesters in touch with the students they spend their days preying on.

We have a story of an AC about a single instance modded informative. We have an incident involving a pair of serial killers (raped and killed 12 people remember) being shot with a hunting rifle, yet the closest stories google can find are a snopes false granny story and a real robbery incident with a handgun (described by the NRA, who should know, as "among the more dramatic"), so somehow the story of shooting two serial killers doesn't fit in. Now, there are lots of people reading Slashdot, and it's possible that this is a true story, but there is no way it should be modded up without at least an account name to back it up. The advice given is extremely dangerous. If people stop helping each other then the "bad people will win".

Now, to the original AC, and assuming that this was a true story; Please think again about how you say what you say. Your sister may have made a misjudgement, but you have to come to terms with that and realise that what she did was the right thing and most of what happened to her was bad luck. There are ways she could have been more careful; but in the end everybody has to get involved, we have to take some risk and 99.9% of the time it works out fine. If we don't do that then horrible things happen:

• There have been experiments done where thousands of people will not help lost children and even those that do are terrified of the consequences.
• There are many stories like this one where a two year old girl died because a bricklayer was afraid to help.
• Random strangers get ignored on the street
• simple stories about jump starting cars will cease to exist (and I thank all those people who have helped me with mine)

It's not enough to just say "call the cops". There aren't enough cops to investigate every possible strange situation, they won't be able to come reliably if they to. Call the cops means that most of the time people will do nothing. Worse, we end up with a passive society of afraid people who can't act on their own and expect "the authorities" to do everything for them. And even worse, with media hysteria stories like this, we get a culture where those that intervene are considered abnormal or even begin to believe they will get into trouble. You say:

The world has changed. If you are nice, you will be taken advantage of by those who aren't.

Yes; according to the US Department of Justice, the world has changed; it's much safer than it used to be.

The rate of reported rape among women decreased by 10% from 1990 to 1995 (80 per 100,000 compared to 72 per 100,000) (Greenfeld, 1997). In 1995, 97,460 forcible rapes were reported to the police nationwide, representing the lowest number of reported rapes since 1989.

Instead, we have to teach people a bit of a different lesson. Be extremely careful about interactions which are initiated by the other side. Make a visible call to a friend; give the license plate and description of the car that you are going to help. Single women don't help groups of men on their own without first making a call. Single men (who are actually most subject to violence) are careful too. Use judgement. But in the end, most of the time you just have to take some risk in life.

Germany does not allow it because school is one of the ways they prevent extremism from re-emerging.

Even the UN has condemned Germany for its stance on Home Schooling:

...the long-running problem in Germany drew the criticism of a United Nations special rapporteur's documents.

"Even though the special rapporteur is a strong advocate of public, free and compulsory education, it should be noted that education may not be reduced to mere school attendance and that educational processes should be strengthened to ensure that they always and primarily serve the best interest of the child," the report said.

"Distance-learning methods and homeschooling represent valid options which could be developed in certain circumstances, bearing in mind that parents have the right to choose the appropriate type of education for their children, as stipulated in article 13 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights," the U.N. report said.

http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=146273

Just because the Germans had a bad episode and the German government is paranoid about a recurrence, this does not mean that the rights of Germans today should be suppressed.

Ironically, they are using a law enacted by the very regime they are trying to stop re-emerging to stop the re-emergence of that regime.

Its recursive!

At school they spend quite a lot of time instilling modern German values

This is a euphemism for brainwashing, pure and simple. Its immoral, indefensible and really bad.