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I'll save you the suspense - you aren't getting it. The site exists to collect reports of defensive gun use by citizens. This phenomenon is claimed to not exist by some people, probably like you. Guns do more than protect people from other people with guns. They protect 80 year old men confronted by gangs, 89 year old women from home invaders, women fighting off multiple rapists, and enable a boy to save his family from kidnapping and sexual assault. This sort of thing happens regularly, but is often unreported. If you ban guns, then everyone is at the mercy of the strong and vicious. Things don't get nicer if you ban guns, you simply get more innocent victims. In fact, gun crime can increase. But then violent crime in much of Europe, including the UK, and Australia occurs at a much higher rate than in the United States anyway. The United States does have a higher murder rate than much of Europe, but there is some subtlety in that. European Americans commit murder at rates similar to other Europeans. Where do the rest come from? And no, the United States murder rate is not among the worst in the world, its actually in the middle overall, and much lower in many place in the US. Guns are a useful tool, make for pleasant sport, but they not magic as you seem to believe. I think you have a number of unexamined assumptions that aren't true.

I'm sorry, but you;'re incorrect about the wage gap being debunked "time and time again." While the wage gap is not 70cents on the dollar anymore, there is a significant difference in women's pay. In Ontario, according to Stats Canada, the gap is currently 25%. It's also the same in the US according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which is worse than it has been since 2005.

I'm very sorry you feel discriminated against, but this supposed attack on male rights is horse shit made up by bitter people who cannot tolerate the fact that 1000 years of cultural manipulation by us white men is being undone.

The numbers of male nurses has increased incredibly in the last 30 years, and male nurses are currently making significantly more money than women, and are in higher positions.

There are massive campaigns to get more men involved teaching, and early child development. There's also employment campaigns to get more women involved in trades, including the more dangerous ones, those campaigns are primarily ones which you complain about in your first paragraph (scholarships directed at women).

>> Can I prevent people from adding me to a new group?'

> If the answer is anything other than an unqualified yes, then Facebook
> is fatally flawed and no reasonable person should ever use it.

No, you cannot prevent yourself from being added to groups. One of Zuckerbergs's friends was so pissed off at this, that he created a NAMBLA group and added Zuck. See http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2010/10/07/mark-zuckerberg-joins-the-north-american-man-boy-love-association-and-other-adventures-in-facebook-groups/

> Blogger Michael Arrington seems to have already performed a helpful
> proof-of-concept by adding Mark Zuckerberg to a group supposedly
> representing NAMBLA, the North American Man-Boy Love Association.

But wait... there's more more...

> Zuckerbergâ(TM)s addition to the group is broadcast to all of his friends,
> as shown in the image above.

That's right. Not only can be added to groups you don't like, but each addition is broadcast to everyone on your friends list. Imagine the following scenario...
* gay university student hides sexual orientation from parents
* joins the university "Queer Chorus" (yes, that's what they called themselves)
* the president of the "Queer Chorus" adds them to the "Queer Chorus" Facebook group
* this addition *IS BROADCAST TO EVERYBODY ON THE PERSON'S FRIENDS LIST*
* since parents usually demand to be on their kids friends list, they were recipients of the broadcast message of their child being added to the group

See http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444165804578008740578200224.html

Wrong. Under the Berne convention certain industries are specifically excluded from all IP laws

Berne is solely concerned with copyright law. Not trademarks, not utility patents nor design patents.

Lululemon v Calvin Klein.
Nike v Walmart
List of Under Armor patent applications

Want proof that Google, Verizon, etc. are in on the privacy nightmares of Android?

They keep releasing new versions that prevent people (who own their phones) from rooting them to

1) block ads ( from their Google Play store)

2) prevent you from using apps to control permissions (like LBE Privacy Guard that now reboots your phone in an endless loop)

With all the time and effort put into their OS, why have they not allowed users to control permissions on apps in any way, shape, or form? Why? Because they are marketing companies that also sell your data to other companies (including all the top mobile carriers). They make deals with these companies and propagate the problem - turning smart phones into a privacy nightmare. And it's not like the iPhone is any better.

Until people take a stand (and stop being a bunch of apathetic consumers), it's not going to change. People allow themselves to be taken advantage of. It's sad. Most don't even care. They'll happily give Facebook and Google all their information because "they don't have anything to hide" - which we all know is the lamest excuse for apathy possible and is easily dismissed as moronic. And it just keeps getting worse - and now our governments collect this data too.

And what is the effect? People are not getting jobs or losing their jobs due to their Facebook posts. Insurance companies are increasing rates on people who type certain terms into their search engines. And that's just barely getting started!

Wake up, folks!

. Or maybe a stinger missile, that'd be so cool. I don't see why the army should get to have all the fun.

You need to get a Destructive Devices permit, which costs $200, need to swear you are not a criminal, and don't have any domestic violence misdemeanors. Also, your state laws may vary. You can buy a tank, too.

BTW I'm not sure a stinger missile would actually hit a drone....

A party willing to prosecute those who intimidate voters, regardless of race, is truly more progressive in civil rights than a party that selectively prosecutes members of certain races, and drops charges against members of other races.

Oh, that guy is hilarious! Felix Dennis is his name. He's also the same guy that says that while your making it, wear a suit. Afterwards it doesn't matter what you wear - a tutu or whatever. And he went on saying Steve Jobs can wear a black faux turtle neck, jeans and running shoes because he IS Steve Jobs - the rest of you can't do it.

No corporation is sufficiently large to be confused with larger governments.

That depends on what you consider to be "larger governments." "Apple by the Numbers" by Scott Austin claims that there are 105 countries whose gross domestic product is smaller than Apple Inc.'s revenue of $46 billion per year.

What was the point of seizing them at security?

Aside from the obvious security theater, they also sell the items.

Besides violating over a dozen international treaties...

Untrue. There are exceptions to WTO treaty obligations, one of which includes national security.

...an unsubstantiated claim that there may be espionage/surveillance capability built into some devices.And let me be clear: No government or private agency has come forward with conclusive proof that any product made in China for commercial resale has these capabilities built into it at the direction of the Government.

There were many claims from many different parties that the Chinese government engaged in active spying/covert intelligence gathering on New York Times, Google, RSA. And those are just the ones we know. Lets also not forget the Mandiant Report that caused such a reaction online not too long ago. None of this is conclusive proof but it sure is a great cause for concern.

The economic and political rammifications of this are being glossed over -- this action doesn't just affect our relationship with China, but with any country we do business with, because they signed the same treaties, and now they're looking at our unilateral action and thinking: What makes us think the US won't renege on their deal with us?

The consequences you paint may well be overblown. There is evidence that the US is not the only country worried about China's activities. Australia, for example, has blocked Huawei from bidding for work on its $38 billion national broadband network, for the same security fears. Germany has sent representatives to the Chinese Government to ask them to stop, unofficially. Even the UK is so worried about the China spying problem that Jonathan Evans, director general of MI5 publicly warned that the West now faces an "astonishing" cyber espionage threat on an "industrial scale" from specific nation states.

Given that China itself uses national security as a reason for imposing restrictions on foreign commercial activities on its shores, I really don't think there is any basis to complain about the present measures introduced by the US.

Besides violating over a dozen international treaties...

Untrue. There are exceptions to WTO treaty obligations, one of which includes national security.

...an unsubstantiated claim that there may be espionage/surveillance capability built into some devices.And let me be clear: No government or private agency has come forward with conclusive proof that any product made in China for commercial resale has these capabilities built into it at the direction of the Government.

There were many claims from many different parties that the Chinese government engaged in active spying/covert intelligence gathering on New York Times, Google, RSA. And those are just the ones we know. Lets also not forget the Mandiant Report that caused such a reaction online not too long ago. None of this is conclusive proof but it sure is a great cause for concern.

The economic and political rammifications of this are being glossed over -- this action doesn't just affect our relationship with China, but with any country we do business with, because they signed the same treaties, and now they're looking at our unilateral action and thinking: What makes us think the US won't renege on their deal with us?

The consequences you paint may well be overblown. There is evidence that the US is not the only country worried about China's activities. Australia, for example, has blocked Huawei from bidding for work on its $38 billion national broadband network, for the same security fears. Germany has sent representatives to the Chinese Government to ask them to stop, unofficially. Even the UK is so worried about the China spying problem that Jonathan Evans, director general of MI5 publicly warned that the West now faces an "astonishing" cyber espionage threat on an "industrial scale" from specific nation states.

Given that China itself uses national security as a reason for imposing restrictions on foreign commercial activities on its shores, I really don't think there is any basis to complain about the present measures introduced by the US.

Ha, Germany the country with spiraling electricity prices.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324103504578375561493463652.html

The decision that "privacy is dead" happened over a decade ago. Or, do you not remember Scott McNealy, former chairman of Sun Microsystems, who in 1999 said, "You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it." And the observation by Oracle CEO Larry Ellison: "The privacy you're concerned about is largely an illusion. All you have to give up is your illusions, not any of your privacy." ??

Privacy gets in the way of money, and money is a means of attaining and exercising power. Throw in the alarming statistic about CEO psychopaths, and you have what ails our world today.

Government has no incentive whatsoever to intervene here, because they also directly profit from stomping on privacy. Look at this editorial for instance. Unless the politicos are themselves harmed by the loss of privacy, they have no incentive to protect it, and every reason to trample all over it instead.

The cleary proscribed solution to this problem is to exploit the fuck out of this surveylance society they are working oh so hard to make, and put THEM under the spotlight. It is the only way to get the retractions on positions and rulings required to halt the slide downhill. The leaders are only concerned with themselves, as is true of all psychopaths. You have to make them feel the fires too to get them motivated to do what is right, and they will bitch mightily about it the whole time.

Amusingly, that's what orgs like wikileaks aimed to do. We saw how that's worked for the likes of Assange. (Yes, he is the very definition of douche, but a douche that exposed a lot of dirty dealing, and pissed in a lot of cheerios, which is exactly what was needed, and is still desperately needed.)

Forgot one very interesting link about the TSA's abuse of authority: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204556804574261940842372518.html In the second case, Steven Bierfeldt, treasurer for the Campaign for Liberty, a political organization launched from Ron Paulâ(TM)s presidential run, was detained at the St. Louis airport because he was carrying $4,700 in a lock box from the sale of tickets, T-shirts, bumper stickers and campaign paraphernalia. TSA screeners quizzed him about the cash, his employment and the purpose of his trip to St. Louis, then summoned local police and threatened him with arrest because he responded to their questions with a question of his own: What were his rights and could TSA legally require him to answer?

This has already been covered:

Bitcoin Virtual Cash Get Money-Laundering Rule

Essentially, the "Stingray" sends out a signal pretending to be a cell-phone tower. Your cellphone thinks it's found a great super-strong tower nearby, detaches from the real cell-phone towers and bonds to the Stingray and attempts to communicate through it. Now, the DOJ (or whomever) has performed a Man in the Middle (a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man-in-the-middle_attack MITM ) attack on your cell phone's communication with it's cellular service company. It impersonates a cellular tower.
.
Here's an interesting point from the WSJ article:

Essentially, the "Stingray" sends out a signal pretending to be a cell-phone tower. Your cellphone thinks it's found a great super-strong tower nearby, detaches from the real cell-phone towers and bonds to the Stingray and attempts to communicate through it. Now, the DOJ (or whomever) has performed a Man in the Middle (a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man-in-the-middle_attack MITM ) attack on your cell phone's communication with it's cellular service company. It impersonates a cellular tower.
.
Here's an interesting point from the WSJ article:

Nice rant,

but if you look at this picture here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443545504577567763829784538.html you'll notice there's no interaction with Wal-mart employees, similar to a redbox.

It doesn't make sense from an accountability standpoint either for it to work the way you think it does. Amazon trusting wal-mart to deliver its packages?

More crony capitalism! Yay!

The one bit of good news on the biofuels front has been the end of the US tariff on Brazilian sugar ethanol, which will displace some corn ethanol grown in the US.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324677204578185750536400698.html

antibiotic treatments used as placebos for vial infections

I'm sorry but a medical professional should flat out know better.

Why?

Much of the time people are prescribed antibiotics they do not really need them anyway as their own immune system will do the job in the end anyway.

Plenty of people go to the doctor demanding antibiotics just because they have a cold and thinking they will help. If the doctor gave all of these retards antibiotics the few effective ones we have remaining would be depleted in no time, especially as the patient would stop taking them as soon as they felt better instead of finishing the course they were prescribed (which is absolutely essential when prescribed antibiotics).

These people then keep moaning at the GP and refusing to accept the truth: cold and flu very rarely kill you so you should just stay in bed until you feel better. Let your immune system do some work, dose yourself up with vitamin C and stay in bed. Instead they demand an instant remedy that lets them go straight back to work or whatever and keep shouting more and more loudly, going back to see the doctor every other day, and blaming it on the skinflint NHS trying to save money.

In this case why shouldn't the doctor just send them home with something that is far cheaper than his time and makes them feel better (see the multitude of studies that show that placebos actually work: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204720204577128873886471982.html, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/12/101222173033.htm)

If a cold / flu is likely to kill you because you are in a high risk group then chances are you have already been given a flu jab anyway for free, thanks to the NHS. Obviously people in these groups should not be given placebos just to shut them up.

If you have a short term, temporary condition then the best approach is almost always just to let your body deal with it. The problem is that we are put under considerable pressure by our employers to try and go in even when were are sick. In my case I just flat out refuse, but since I probably only average 3 or 4 sick days per year I never get complaints in this regard.

Note: it is Russia and China that have everyone afraid to intervene for the most part. What we have here is a clusterfuck of the current iteration of the Great Game causing political tensions that make most nations leery to the point that everyone refuses to take any action.

This is doubly so for America as you add in the Democrats knowing damned well that no matter how justified an intervention is they will be tarred even more by Republicans claiming it was simply warmongering (see Libya).

So those in power amongst the major powers are too busy glaring at each other while thousands and thousands of Syrians die and even more are displaced. You are right about apathy being a major problem as even if it seemed ineffectual, massive protests concerning inaction in Syria would force the news outlets to at least have to mention the issue rather than continuing to sweep the problem under the rug beyond the odd "shits still crazy in Syria" headline.

$6k a year is doable. $16k a year would be quite pleasant. I would avoid the capital or other large cities. Actually getting a work permit or visa to either country is difficult to impossible, but I know people in both countries who have been there for decades on a tourist visa. Do note, this tends to limit your options for local employment; it's far better to work online.

There's essentially no native culture (or cuisine) in either place, "post-colonial" about sums it up. The police are nice enough but underpaid, the laws are enforced relatively arbitrarily and generally not in favor of extranjeros. If you're running a business, [a] congratulations for getting through the bureaucracy to accomplish this, and [b] you may from time to time expect to have laws about licenses and restrictions enforced against you that your (Tico) competition does not. I'm not sure whether I can really say that corruption was common, but it's probably fair to say that people were understanding about dealing with the laws and regulations -- or avoiding that, if necessary. I don't really consider this a bad thing, but if you have the expectation that the rule of law is going to be universally or rigidly applied, you may be disappointed.

The weather is beautiful, it's not terribly expensive to get to and from either country (at least, from the US), English is spoken by a good percentage of the population, utilities are cheap and reliable, health care is extremely affordable (medical tourism is common), internet is not that fast but widely available, and of course, knowledgeable tech workers are in high demand. In Costa Rica the beer is not good and relatively expensive, in Panama you can get two beers for $1. Computers are available, but expensive. It's probably going to be a good idea to buy in the US and work out a way to get it. I've heard both good and bad things about the mail system; I'd call it generally reliable, but the paranoid might want to find other means of receiving packages. If you end up going back and forth to the states a lot, you can make good money on the side bringing electronics back with you.

Panama is by far the cheaper of the two countries, you would probably be able to get by on less than $6k annually. I didn't like it quite as much because, at least in the places I frequented, cocaine was both common and extremely cheap there. That's fine for those who like that sort of thing, but generally I don't think it does much good for the community. Drug laws in both countries are sparingly enforced.

Roads are generally better in Panama; the country has a lot more money due to that whole canal thing. I can't recommend driving in Panama City, or anywhere in Costa Rica. Cars are absurdly expensive, and paradoxically people don't care about the lines on the road, the blinky things above them, the relative speed and velocity of other vehicles, or pedestrians.

Fun Facts: there are no addresses in Costa Rica. There are no roads connecting Central America with South America.

It is not clear that China has passed the US in manufacturing.

http://www.shopfloor.org/2011/03/u-s-manufacturing-remains-worlds-largest/18756

Not only that, but wages are rising. This is resulting in a high rate of manufacturing job losses in China.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323783704578245241751969774.html

This move isn't going to get me to use G+ any more, either, Google.

Are you sure about that?.

I suppose the moral of this story is it doesn't really matter if you use G+ or not; Google, through some sneaky machinations, still are doing everything they can to artificially inflate the number of "users".

My question is, why would the telecom want to remain anonymous? Wouldn't they gain plenty of positive attention from consumers if they showed they were sticking up for their privacy?

Because they're not allowed to identify themselves.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the company is Credo Long Distance/Mobile. More power to them, if you need LD or cell service check them out (they used to be "Working Assets" until they separated the telco stuff from the financial stuff). (They also contribute a percentage of their profits to various causes).

Madoff had a serious impact on the lives of thousands of people who invested in his investment vehicle/Ponzi scheme, including a large number of people who could not afford to lose their investment money.
If you want to be an idiot and assume that only rish people invest money, then I suggest you avoid reading this WSJ article on the arftermath of the Madoff scandal.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324339204578171422302043906.html

With this kind of stuff going on?

The least I can say is that this paper is not neutral. Chavez is called "populist and authoritarian" by the journalist, and nothing is said why Lopez fraud charges could be irelevant

Being banned from election because of fraud is not extraordinary. A french court just decided that for former Paris mayor Jean Tiberi.

With this kind of stuff going on?

Ah, France. You’re so dynamic and quick to embrace change From the Toubon Law to propping up Minitel to the stoic way you embraced labor regulations aimed at easing ridiculously high unemployment by making the first two years of employment somewhat more flexible with your non à la précarité movement... (Does make for decent wine, though, and likely will for centuries.)

How does it know you're gay? Easy - it just asks your Tivo. Pervert.

How about Plasticination?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdAeDEHEneA

You could easily dub a Chavismo soundtrack onto this actually. Notice how the white skinned European Comprador/Kulak exploiter puppet has all the stuff at the beginning and sends the brown skinned and presumably native puppet, Hugo, away.

Pretty soon Hugo will mount a coup and, the murder rate will go up eleventy million percent and they'll have food shortages, hyperinflation and so on. Then Hugo will force all the TV stations to broadcast a four hour TV show and the white skinned exploiter puppet will leave for Argentina and take all the stuff with him and Hugo will denounce him angrily.

Incidentally this is an interesting article about Chavez

http://www.redpepper.org.uk/whats-happened-to-venezuelas-dream-of-progress/

Teacher Herma Marksman was Chavez's partner and lover for nine years. It was the early 1980s when they met; she was in her 30s, and he was a talkative army officer in his 20s. Marksman studied history in the 1960s. Her mother was a peasant and her German immigrant father a union organiser for ironworkers. She is a classic example of those in the lower middle classes who believed in Chavez.

"We were preparing for the time when we would be in government," Marksman recalls. "We wanted to establish a state in which the law was respected, to abolish corruption, to develop our basic industries and to do a real restructuring of the education system. None of that has happened. If anything, there has been a turning for the worse. Today there is more injustice, and no sign of that group of democrats who voiced, and accepted, different opinions. We live under an autocrat who does not respect the separation of powers. There is a chief justice who does not act, a financial comptroller who does not control, an ombudsman who only defends government interests. So where is the Bolivarian project?"

Marksman last spoke to Chavez on 28 July 1993. She now supports the opposition. Responding to the accusation that it comprises coup plotters, fascists and oligarchs, she asks whether it is possible that million-strong demonstrations can consist entirely of such people.

Another former Chavez ally is Pablo Medina, a leading member of the radical Causa R party. Medina provided cars, housing and logistics for the then aspirant leader. But the pair had a legendary bust-up in 1999. Now Medina says: "The civilian-military movement turned into a military-civilian government, and that changed order definitely altered the product." For Medina, Chavez has become "authoritarian, corrupt and neo-liberal".

Medina reserves his strongest criticism for Chavez's anti-globalisation 'posturing'. "This government has presided over a period of the largest net export of capital in our history," he says. "It has been incapable of renegotiating the foreign debt, and it has left the door open for further privatisations." Chavez's anti-imperialist, anti-globalisation rhetoric is, Medina adds, just "Chavez-speak".

Back at the university, Muñoz stares out across the campus. "I am not asking Chavez to be the most radical of radicals. What I ask of him is honesty about what he is doing. I did not ask for a revolution, just to aim for things that are possible." He cites the zero-hunger programme of Brazilian president 'Lula' da Silva. "So, OK, he is not going to go against the liberal state, against globalisation, against capitalism. No, his [target] is zero hunger. Let us say he only manages to lower the rate of hunger from 100 to 30 per cent. Good. That"s what we wanted in Venezuela, and there was a real consensus here to do just that. But what does Chavismo say? "No, we are going to make a revolution!" And in those big words and that confusion everything got lost."

[citation provided]

George Stratton did an experiment on perceptual adaptation in the 1980's.

This differs completely from the adaptation of expectation that takes place when lens of propaganda driven public education is promoted, a priori, then erased over time by continual exposure to reality. You don't just wake up one day and figure out that the American Dream should be referred to as the Grand Illusion. It takes much longer to figure out that your government, and other 'fiduciaries', might not be up to the task of reflecting your expectations. Your intellectual habits suffer from confirmation bias .

The median *starting* salary for the lowest paid doctors is $132,500 (pediatrician). Since the linked article is the WSJ, the obvious conclusion they come to is that they should be paid *more*. I want people working in this profession because they want to be doctors, not because they want to be rich. Our healthcare costs are completely out of control, and doctor's salaries are one the main reasons. Pharmaceutical prices are the other. Inefficient private insurance is the third.

When the healthcare industry cleans it's own house and stops raping the public then maybe I'll start listening to what they have to say. Until then, I assume anything that comes out of their mouths is nothing but more posturing by narcissistic greedy assholes.

It's because of shit like this that we have to care:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903285704576562294116160896.html

While that specific legislation was fixed, at some point violating the terms of service for site will become a criminal offense.

These amendments are based on the leftist cry that "corporations aren't people," but the Supreme Court has never said that they are. "Corporate personhood" is a legal fiction that allows natural people to sue and to be sued, to own and transfer property, and to carry on their affairs as a group. Corporations have rights because the people who own them have rights.

As Chief Justice John Marshall explained nearly 200 years ago in Dartmouth College v. Woodward, corporations allow "a perpetual succession of many persons . . . to manage [their] affairs and to hold property without the perplexing intricacies, the hazardous and endless necessity, of perpetual conveyances for the purpose of transmitting it from hand to hand." The legal concept of a corporate "person" has been with the United States since its founding, recognized in literally hundreds of Supreme Court decisions.

If Move to Amend got its way, police could search businesses, unions, clubs and nonprofits at will, without a warrant. The state could seize business property without due process or just compensation, leaving pension funds and individual shareholders holding worthless stock. Partnerships and corporations would have no legal rights in court. Incorporated churches would have no right of worship.

The absurdity should be obvious. Yet city councils around the country, including New York and Los Angeles, have passed resolutions calling for such an amendment.

-- Bradley A Smith.

I don't think you are sufficiently concerned about the privacy issue. Perhaps you'd show more interest if you thought that insurance companies can track your purchases without your permission to extract higher premiums from you. I would agree that it's hardly surprising, but would also argue that governmental regulations to protect consumer privacy would be an option here. Given that there is now a health care mandate, it would be reasonable to contain the monstrous corporations who stand to benefit directly. My health insurance company hiked my monthly premium $50 and has yet to give me any reason why.

Personally, I've always despised vile companies like Experian, TransUnion, etc. that profit by selling my private details to large corporations. The OP doesn't offer any explanation about where those diagrams came from, but the thought that Google is specifically selling the anxieties of its customers to the highest bidder seems pretty vile to me and they should be called out for it.

Phone fraud runs about 41% of people getting subsidized phones shouldn't qualify.

That is *not* what that article claims. 59% were verified eligible, the rest were unverified. Unverified is not the same as fraudulent or unqualified. In this case, it just means that they failed to respond to an FCC survey.

Lets see, I'm usually the one who likes to look up outrageous claims myself, but his didn't seem outrageous.

Phone fraud runs about 41% of people getting subsidized phones shouldn't qualify.
Lets look at food stamps. You are correct, he did get that one wrong. Its 15% not the 11% he claimed.

So it appears he is well read and out-spoken. What does that make you?

but nor did it show much really negative side effects,

Cancer, miscarriages, naked pictures, violation of federal and international laws regarding child pornography, hiring of actual pedophiles, rapists, and murderers to run the machines...

Yeah. No really negative side effects here. Move along, Citizen.

Right, there's no immediate threat to the environment. That's why they keep trapping radioactive wildlife.

Bond Bubble Ben is still printing Bernanke Bucks at a rate of about $1T/year as well, because the FED is the only entity willing to buy new US debt anymore.

Uh, no.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443437504577546760997508398.html

Investors rushed into U.S. Treasury debt for safety, sending bond yields to record lows for a second straight session. ...
The U.S. government is a big winner as it continues to borrow cheaply to finance its large fiscal shortfall. The Treasury Department sold $35 billion two-year notes at a record-low yield of 0.22% Tuesday, a good start to this week's $99 billion in new supply of notes.

... harm the environment by banning plastic bags .

The parent links to an an interesting article challenging the assumption that plastic bags are more harmful to the environment than alternatives. It is a valid point. Why is it moderated down do Troll?

Yes, your washer and dryer are environmentally neutral. Use them as often as you like. No need to factor their use into this.

BTW: No, one or two bags aren't enough since I tend to do most of my shopping in bulk once a month due to the size of my family. I've probably had a bigger impact on the environment by changing how my family uses water than your silly bags ever will have.

So it looks like communities which choose to harm the environment by banning plastic bags might be killing themselves off with bacterial infections.

Environmentalism is self-correcting.

The secret billionaires are just trying to even the playing field against those fat cat scientists who are rolling in their trillions from government grants. Exxon is David against the NSF Goliath, man.

Actual figures comparing private and government funding on climate issues are given here.

This is true for Brazil only. There are no official retailers of the iPhone in Argentina due to import restrictions

Sorry. You are correct. I should have been more specific.

This is true for Brazil only. There are no official retailers of the iPhone in Argentina due to import restrictions

Yeah. About that. Report: China’s Health Care System Deeply Sick

Perhaps you should realize that they're two completely different situations.