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It's important to avoid selection bias. The best example I've seen was a city wondering if subway funding needed to be increased or decreased. They thought measuing how much the subway was used would be good information for making this decision, so they hired someone to poll the city's residents to see how often they rode the subway. The person initially asked people at random in public spaces how often they rode the subway. He grew frustrated that very few people rode the subway, meaning he was collecting very little data for the number of people he was asking. That's when he got the brilliant idea of going onto the subway and asking people there.

The problem is, asking people riding the subway how often they use the subway introduces two selection biases. (1) It eliminates everyone who doesn't use the subway from your sample. And (2) people who ride the subway more often are more likely to be encountered in your polling (you're 10x as likely to randomly encounter someone who rides 10 hours a week as you are someone who rides 1 hour a week), skewing your polling data high. To properly measure subway ridership, you have to do a random sample orthogonal to subway use, which means asking random people in public places was the proper way to do it. A random telephone poll would probably have been best.

Similarly when you target one specific country for investigation, you're introducing a sampling bias. If you accuse a restaurant of being infested with roaches, and that prompts an investigation that finds roaches in the restaurant, that doesn't prove your accusation. All that proves is that the restaurant has roaches, not that it is "infested." Other restaurants may have roaches too. In fact, for all you know, the restaurant you accused may actually be the cleanest building in the city, and even your own house has more roaches than that restaurant. But by limiting the investigation to just that one restaurant, you can misleadingly create the impression that your accusation that the restaurant is infested with roaches is true.

Over and over, I saw this sampling bias being abused by those wishing to push the Russian interference story. e.g. Google and Facebook reported they searched their 2016 records for ads purchased by Russian agents, and found some. But in order for that to mean anything, they should have also searched for ads purchased by anyone else, and compared. I suspect if they had, they would've found attempted interference by China, by the EU, by Mexico, by Canada, by Anonymous, etc. The magnitude of the "Russian interference" (a few dozen to a few hundred people, and around six dollar figures in magnitude ) makes me suspect all these investigations found was the random noise that just happens everywhere all the time.

I didn't vote for Trump and I think is Presidency has been a travesty. But I think the abuse of statistics and manipulation of facts through selection bias by the media and those pushing this story is an even bigger travesty. If you really, truly believe that those few Russians managed to affect the outcome of the election using that little money, then every politician would be tripping over themselves to hire those guys. The amount of money spent in that election was staggering - tens to hundreds of dollars per vote. Trump actually spent close to the lowest at $5 per vote. Yet these people pushing this Russian interference angle somehow believe that these Russians were able to affect the election for pennies per vote.

If this report had found that the Russians had spent tens or hundreds of dollars per vote to interfere with the election, then I'd agree there was something worrying going on. But the amount of interference I've seen reported seems more like just the normal noise that comes from normal people from the sketchy side of the population's bell curve doing their normal sketchy things.

They're turning them loose in crowded areas near me!
https://wtop.com/dc-transit/20...

The areas described here are both several city-block "town square" type of deals,
bustling with pedestrians on small streets and sidewalks, with restaurants, shopping,
movies, and (at the onewith the subway stop) also apartments. Street and garage
parking, random double-parking and curb pickup. Traffic is normally about 10-15 MPH
and is signed for 25 MPH; these two areas are about 2 miles from each other and are
connected directly by a busy commuter highway that's supposed to be 35 MPH but the
crazy drivers weave and swerve at 45 MPH when they can.

It's amazing that there are not more accidents, with people constantly running all over
the streets and crazy/inattentive drivers; it will be interesting to see how the robots do.

I believe that other cities are already ahead on this... https://www.theverge.com/2019/...

https://wtop.com/local/2018/12...

I split my direct deposit up - some goes to a bank, the rest to a credit union. That way, if one goes down I still have access to funds in the other.

What will happen during Trump's presidency remains to be seen. In the first year we've seen economic growth, is anyone disputing that? Anyway, I think it's interesting to keep note of the headlines as times goes on.

Back in February 2017: "Trump is upset the media is not reporting a meaningless statistic about the national debt" https://www.washingtonpost.com...

In January 2018: "December US budget deficit shrinks to $23.2 billion" https://wtop.com/national/2018...

I don't claim to know the future, but looking at the past it seems like people's concerns re: this president have been pretty overblown. I will watch impartially as the story unfolds.

Or did you forget his (nonsensical) comments about "rapists and murderers" coming from Mexico?

Here's one from a couple of days ago.

That particular article doesn't even mention that the guy was an illegal alien. Earlier news did. Guess that wasn't politically correct.

Last month.

They broke the rear window and blew up the pressure cooker outside the car. Reimburse? No, they didn't reimburse him; instead they arrested him for operating a vehicle after license revocation, just to cover up for their incompetence. Obviously if a car belonging to someone has moved, it must be that person who moved it, right?

He's only free because his name is Israel, not Abdul. Ohh, BTW:

Israel Shimeles, of Alexandria, tells NBC Washington that he understands why the propane tank and pressure cooker, which he uses for work and were left in his vehicle, caused concern and why the U.S. Capitol Police had to destroy the pressure cooker. (Courtesy NBC Washington) ... Police discovered the pressure cooker on 3rd Street between Jefferson and Madison drives about 5 p.m. and destroyed it about 15 minutes before the National Memorial Day Concert on the Capitol lawn was to begin nearby.

And that days after the death sentence of the Boston pressure cooker bomber. Yeah, they should have thought that this is absolutely no concern of them.

Yes, the FAA: Don't post drone videos on Youtube Any more questions?

Also don't shoot video from upper balconies, GoPro headbands while skateboarding 'Ollies' in the air, while hanging from chandeliers, cliffs, standing on the transparent tourist platform atop the Eiffel Tower, from tethered balloons, while being shot from a cannon, while head-butting a ram, riding glass elevators, or suspended from suspenderences such as but not limited to rope or chain, or if you are tall, or if the subject is short.

These distinct camera angles strongly suggest drone use to busy compliance officers, who have been judicially empowered to employ the same 'presumption of use', 'intent to distribute' arguments that have made the War On Drugs the successful endeavor it is today. If your content is flagged, you will be pressed to supply proof that a drone was not present, and unmarked drones may appear next to your your house and photographs taken. Drawing on the 'admissibility loophole' that has made the partnership between Intelligence agencies and Law Enforcement the successful endeavor it is today, where the fact of warrantless, illegal surveillance need not be disclosed, these photos may be presented to Judge and Jury without comment or disclosure of origin.

To avoid unnecessary legal hassle, do not even post footage of model environments such as Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood. Even obvious depth-of-field artifacts may be targeted by zealous prosecutors if they allege the use of drones in pan-tilt photography. Due to the perceived nature of building giant models and the fact that bugs were in it, the movie "Bugs' Life" is exempt. There is also a blanket exemption for drone footage of cats, or drones that ARE cats.

Fortunately for us... Google has announced they have developed an AI program that detects the use of drone footage with 99% accuracy.

Yes, the FAA:
Don't post drone videos on Youtube
Any more questions?

I'll admit, it did get buried pretty quickly, but this is from 2 weeks ago. FTA:

Raymond received numerous death threats in response to his interest in offering the guns at his store.

So I suppose it's not an organized protest, but still...

Okay, so there are a few wackos. That's the case regardless of the cause and the opinion. But the topic of discussion isn't the isolated wackos, it's the pro-gun groups.

I'll admit, it did get buried pretty quickly, but this is from 2 weeks ago. FTA:

Raymond received numerous death threats in response to his interest in offering the guns at his store.

So I suppose it's not an organized protest, but still...

Now that it's easy to make plates with a full-color printing process that doesn't need stamping, some states have gone totally overboard. In Texas, you can get a custom plate with the logo of most major colleges and NFL teams (even ones up in the "damnyankee" northeast states). You can even get plates with a sequential number on your choice of multiple alternate backgrounds, such as white letters on a pink background, but most of those are "for a cause" art.

And while they require you to change plates after a number of years (due to limited lifetime of the reflective material), I still have and see many of the old stamped plates. Also it seems that at some point they started requiring a new license plate when a vehicle is sold, which only increases the churn.

Of course when you get a new plate, it is a new number, that way they can just have a stack of new plates in the tax office. Back in the day, Oklahoma used to re-issue you a fresh plate with the same number every year with a prefix based on your county (like a telephone number), until a fire broke out in the state prison (probably from a riot) and destroyed the equipment. Then they finally accepted that, duh, plates can easily last ten years.

I think Virginia is another state infamous for plates gone wild. This one is my favorite.

I saw a Rolls Royce with plate "BR 2" - my initials

Your last name starts with a digit? Pleased to meet you, Mister 2! (But who is Number One?)

Anyone remember the police beating case in Maryland where the dash cams of ALL SEVEN police cars on the scene simultaneously malfunctioned?

No ... and a Google search turns up nothing. Can you provide a reference?

Here's a reference:

http://www.wtop.com/?nid=428&s...

Seven cars responded, all required to have dashcams, yet somehow no dashcam footage of the incident was available.

And here's an article with links to other cases where police video disappeared:

http://www.theagitator.com/201...

And I found it with my first Google search for

Here it is - "Andrea McCarren, an investigative reporter with WJLA-TV, is suing Prince George's County Police for $500,000, alleging officers violated her rights and injured her in April 2005." http://www.wtop.com/?nid=428&sid=1116072

http://www.wtop.com/?nid=428&s...

Here it is - "Andrea McCarren, an investigative reporter with WJLA-TV, is suing Prince George's County Police for $500,000, alleging officers violated her rights and injured her in April 2005." http://www.wtop.com/?nid=428&sid=1116072

The system is set up that those with money get heard and those without do not.

This is an oft-repeated canard, but it is simply not true. Money helps — as does comely appearance, good education, etc. But it is not a guarantee. For example, last year people favoring gun control outspent their opponents in Colorado by staggering 11:1 — and lost anyway.

Modern politics is no longer about doing what's best for the country or even the constituent.

"Things aren't what they used to be — and they never were." I'm yet to see a reform proposal, that does not infringe on First Amendment rights — and, worse, all allow the incumbent to decide, whether the opposition is not getting "too much money". That's a straight road to Chavez's Venezuela (if not Castro's Cuba), and that's far worse than even "plutocracy".

Lastly, you focusing on the wrong target. The real danger are not the wealthy individuals outside of government — they've earned the monies they are spending doing something, that other people wanted to pay for. The real threat to our freedoms (and prosperity) is the ever-expanding federal government — presidents come and go, but the bureaucrats stay... The stuffed suits justifying their own existence by issuing regulations (that nobody wants) and justifying their greater and expenses. Real estate in Washington DC never seems to drop in price and the region hardly sustained any recession. And, wouldn't you know it, they just got another raise...

Over the years a succession of foolish Congresses has delegated Legislature's powers to the Executive branch — and its various agencies headed by unelected bureaucrats. That needs reforming, but you aren't going to achieve it by limiting the amounts of money people are allowed to spend on politics. People in government will find a way — people outside will be audited by the IRS.

A cop in Maryland tried to enforce it and it made national news.

He was arrested in Virginia on those charges, yes, however while he in custody he was also arrested on the Federal charges

Adam Kokesh, a controversial activist seen loading a gun in D.C.'s Freedom Plaza in a video posted to YouTube July 4, has been transferred from Fairfax County and charged in D.C. with openly carrying a shotgun in violation of D.C. laws.

He is specifically being charged with violating the following offense:

Carrying a Rifle or Shotgun (outside Home or Place of Business), in violation of 22 D.C. Code Section 4504 (a-1) (2001 ed.)).

Hmm, let me rephrase that last sentence. It sounds a tad inflammatory. Even bloodthirsty. All I meant to indicate though was that karma applies here, and karma is a fickle bitch subject to predictive programming herself, and even delusions on occasion. So, let's say, " If you think you have moral authority to lock people up with laws made this way, though, well, let's hope you're never compelled to speak sensibly to a weaponized robot"

The Ft Benning Manuver Battle Lab assures us that "The robot may acquire an enemy target, but it will still always ask a human for permission to fire," however, remember that Gen. Alexander and the DNI both assured us that no way was the NSA conducting mass surveillance on US citizens. It takes a while sometimes for the compartmentalized DoD to come to know what it or some contractor already has been doing for a long time.

Meanwhile, real soldiers conduct one last campaign No editorials, but I'm taking a moment to thank them for their service.

DC's top news station, WTOP, is now blocking access to IE browsers after a similar compromise: http://wtop.com/41/3313012/WTOP-vicitim-of-malicious-cyber-attack

Police routinely destroy, delete, edit and/or obfuscate footage when it shows them in an "unflattering" light, why do you expect everyday citizens to turn over evidence against themselves when the police fail to do the same?

http://www.wtop.com/?nid=708&sid=1938732
http://www.newschannel5.com/Global/story.asp?S=12951588
http://www.wtop.com/?nid=428&sid=1116072
http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2009/05/birmingham_police_beating_vide_3.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmXTFr5hoOo
http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2010/03/fort-worth-justice-says-traffic-stop.html
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/broward/hollywood/sfl-hollywood-cops-fake-report-b072809,0,350771.story

Police routinely destroy, delete, edit and/or obfuscate footage when it shows them in an "unflattering" light, why do you expect everyday citizens to turn over evidence against themselves when the police fail to do the same?

http://www.wtop.com/?nid=708&sid=1938732
http://www.newschannel5.com/Global/story.asp?S=12951588
http://www.wtop.com/?nid=428&sid=1116072
http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2009/05/birmingham_police_beating_vide_3.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmXTFr5hoOo
http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2010/03/fort-worth-justice-says-traffic-stop.html
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/broward/hollywood/sfl-hollywood-cops-fake-report-b072809,0,350771.story

I hope that this was recorded. If this is true, then things really need to change in INS.

Oh, yeah, I am sure of it.
Just like in this story. ("At the time of the incident county officials, including County Executive Jack Johnson, said none of the cameras in the seven police cars was working.")

When necessary, seven police dashboard cameras can malfunction in perfect synchrony by accident. So I am sure that the single camera that recorded an inconvenient incident at the border will be perfectly functional.

Except when enforcing the law you break the law. http://www.wtop.com/41/2802160/Md-court-of-appeals-to-hear-speed-camera-lawsuit .
Glad I don't live in Maryland, in Missouri you are still entitled to due process of law and jury trial for moving violitions.
In Missouri we also have the Handcock Admenment.
Good video of lawyer getting owned by citizen , about half way through the video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFwaX2QRvW4

at first I was thinking the article was about this chaos monkey.
http://www.wtop.com/681/2859976/Rock-throwing-chimp-plans-complex-attacks-on-visitors

Funny you should mention that. We ALSO had MetroRail tracks buckling in DC as well as electrical line problems (although most of those could be blamed on the derecho, and tended to hit the more heavily-treed older developments harder). Oddly enough, the same people complaining about long waits for power restoration, were complaining just weeks ago about tree-trimback policies. . .

Funny you should mention that. We ALSO had MetroRail tracks buckling in DC as well as electrical line problems (although most of those could be blamed on the derecho, and tended to hit the more heavily-treed older developments harder). Oddly enough, the same people complaining about long waits for power restoration, were complaining just weeks ago about tree-trimback policies. . .

Well, as of current reports. . . . 2.5 million are without power in Virginia, 800 Thousand in Maryland, 400+ thousand in DC. I've seen numbers in the 3.5 million region between Ohio and New Jersey. We got power back early this morning ~0400, but we STILL don't have phone, net, or cable at home. The real question, since some areas in DC Metro are not supposed to get power back for nearly a week is. . . . do the emergency fuel generators have sufficient fuel bunkers ???

I dunno, when video of a single incident from seven separate dash cameras manage to go missing, I'd say that's pretty creative :)

Did you watch it? The vast majority of it is dash cam video...

Yeah, I know, that's all lies, too; everyone with a video camera has a secret vendetta against policemen...even their own dash cams. When they're not mysteriously "broken", all seven that is.

the jury found them guilty - but didn't award much damages

http://www.wtop.com/?nid=&sid=1577281

There are too many cases when something goes wrong the police tape unexpectally cuts out.

Or this one where seven independent police tapes unexpectedly cut out!!

And police wonder why people are automatically defensive and nervous around them...

Lawyers for McCarren say she was investigating possible misuse of government resources and following a county official when she and her cameraman were pulled over by seven police cars. The official had called police about a suspicious vehicle.

McCarren says police dislocated her shoulder and tore her rotator cuff in the incident. Neither she nor her cameraman, Peter Hakel, was ever charged with any violations.

[...]

Questions still remain unanswered as to why police were unable to produce video of the incident from their cameras.

Prince George's County Police vehicles are required to have dashboard video cameras operating as part of an understanding with the U.S. Department of Justice reached in 2004.

Police have denied repeated media outlet requests to review the video.

At the time of the incident county officials, including County Executive Jack Johnson, said none of the cameras in the seven police cars was working.

China is a perfect example. They're slowly going towards free speech, but they can't make that change overnight. It would cause turmoil in the country. You have to remember that most Chinese actually positively agree about limiting free speech. Since China is a democratic country, shouldn't they be able to decide it themselves, without US trying to manipulate?

Besides, free speech in Western world is relative too. Just try yelling fire in a crowded theater. Or dance around a monument in US.

Tell that to the families of those killed by this cop:
http://www.wtop.com/?nid=25&sid=1506938
Some may be better, but most are just average despite their training. They should set an example of good driving but they manifestly do not.

"Your honor, I was frisking the individual to determine whether or not he had a dangerous weapon on him as allowed by Terry v. Ohio. On feeling his front right pocket I felt a hard slim object that in my professional judgment could have been a knife. I removed it based on that belief and discovered that it was instead a spoon with charring on the bowl. This gave me probable cause to suspect the use of narcotics, and so I initiated a full search based on the requirements set forth in the Fourth Amendment."

Of course, 9 times out of 10, the cop doesn't have to use such subterfuge. It's amazing how many people give consent to "do you mind if I look inside your car?" (Always. ALWAYS tell them that you do not give consent. Even if you know you don't have anything illegal, say no.)

Plus remember that unless it's a traffic stop with the cop's dash cam rolling, it's again your word against the cop's as to whether or not he searched you legally. He can search you, find contraband, and then claim he saw evidence of it prior to the search, giving him probable cause. And even if there's a dash cam vid that shows this didn't happen, in many departments, by astonishing coincidence the dash cam "fails" right at the moment that your defense attorney is interested in.

In fact in some cases there were multiple squad cars, and all of the cars experienced an amazingly coincidental dash cam failure at the critical moment. Funny how that happens.

( http://www.myfoxboston.com/dpp/news/local/police-dash-cameras-not-operational-during-dj-henry-student-shooting-25-apx-20101103
http://www.wtopnews.com/?nid=708&sid=1938732
http://www.wtop.com/?nid=428&sid=1116072 )

The bottom line is that (and you can verify this by reading the forums at officer.com) whether you are innocent or not, cops assume you're guilty, and they assume you're lying to them. This then puts them into the mindset of "I'm gonna get that goddamn dirtbag (that is a term they use, and not just in bad movies, also verifiable on officer.com) if it's the last thing I do," and so even some cops who aren't specifically out to harass innocent civilians end up doing so because they don't view us as innocent, and think the ends of getting another dirtbag off the street justify the illegal means of doing it.

Lookup thin blue line and perhaps that will be clearer.

I know what thin blue line means, but I’ve not seen the sticker you’re referring to so I don’t know whether the sticker is advocating or opposing the concept.

2nd of all - was she trespassing? Where does it say that?

WTOP: “it was 8:40 a.m. when she was walking her son to school along a path between houses.”
The Week: “a woman cutting through his yard with her son saw Williamson drinking coffee, naked, in his kitchen”
MyFoxDC, after his acquittal: “One of those women was taking a shortcut with her daughter through Williamson's yard”

What’s more, that report by MyFoxDC tells that in the trial, the information came to light that though the woman and police claimed she was ~25 feet from the door when she saw him, defense claims to have proven that she was more than 3 times that distance, 83 feet from the door.

Additionally, “By the time the jury found him not guilty, six months had passed and Williamson had been laid off, lost visitation rights with his young daughter and racked up $15,000 in legal bills.” One would hope that they made right, but that’s an awful lot of grief over drummed-up charges.

And perhaps most worrisome: “police testified that a broken window pane in Williamson's door gave them cause to enter. Williamson and his attorney say nothing was broken.” – as is all-too-typical, police fabricated cause to perform an illegal search without warrant. They have nothing to lose and everything to gain from this sort of behavior: They’re never punished for it if the jury decides the search was illegal, but if they can convince the jury to allow the evidence, they benefit.

Here's a link to an AP article on local News Radio site: http://wtop.com/?sid=1949669&nid=25 This is not going to lower the cost of education in Virginia. State funded schools could use the money being wasted on this posturing to teach kids instead of helping the deluded SUV drivers of the world to have a clear conscience.

These days, there are few people (in the West anyway) who know how to create a 'punching' as it is called, and fewer who are interested in learning.

TFA mentions this, "What do young people want to come into this trade for, especially at the manufacturing end - because it's so dirty, you know". Yet there are young people getting into it and Etsy provides them a sells outlet.

Strangely, the remnant of my father's business is just starting to get orders from Asia, so maybe 'Free Trade' is finally coming around to the point where manufacturing costs in the US are competitive with Asia in this regard

Free trade does that, as there's more trade people demand more pay from their employers. China is seeing more suicides, which is going too far, because employers won't give them raises they demand, though employers are giving some raises. China's middle class is rising afterall and there are now 64 Chinese billionaires on Forbes list. The same is seen in India. Free Trade raises everybody's boat.

Of course China doesn't have free trade, the Chinese currency isn't allowed to float, but trade is more open there now than it has been.

Falcon

Here you go, direct from our local news radio station.

"Northrop Grumman holds a $2.4 billion, 10-year contract with the Virginia Information Technologies Agency to build, operate and maintain the state's 7-year-old, problem-plagued consolidated computer services bureaucracy. It is the largest single-vendor contract in Virginia history. The partnership has been repeatedly criticized in JLARC studies for poor and tardy delivery of services, cost overruns and system failures."

These systems are directly integrated into the DMV, as well as the Department of Social Services and Department of Taxation, amongst others.

Wikileaks and Julian Assange own this now. The good, and the ill, from publishing that information are on them. And it looks pretty ill to me.

According to Newsweek, a man named Khalifa Abdullah was killed after the release of these documents. So that's one man dead already. The Taliban has vowed to hunt down and kill anyone who is a "spy", and they are using the Wikileaks information to do it, so there will be more. Some of the people listed in Wikileaks have disappeared, hopefully into hiding rather than dead.

Julian Assange's stance on this is callous. He "insisted that any risk to informants' lives was outweighed by the overall importance of publishing the information." Okay, at least one man is dead now. What is that "overall importance"? I sure don't see it.

I'm also not buying his idea that this is really the US military's fault, together with Amnesty International, for not helping him redact the critical info. Much of the info is years old. What was the big rush? If Wikileaks didn't have enough volunteers to vet the info carefully, why rush ahead and publish it anyway?

If I were Julian Assange, I wouldn't be sleeping well at night.

steveha

some slight marketing concern overrode what they were told was a matter of national security.

Marketing over national security (as well as other real issues) is how Obama got elected in the first place. Even if we continue to give him the benefit of the doubt regarding past nasty associations (racist pastor Wright, terrorists Bill and Bernardine Ayers, governor Blagojevich), and not (yet?) question his personal integrity, the man's lack of experience (or, more harshly, lack of substance) is showing already: many of his appointees and would-be appointees are either a disgrace already or on their way to infamy. Today FBI raided the office of Vivek Kundra...

The NYT already tried this, failed and moved back to an ad-based free site. The bottom line is that few people want a subscription model for an on-line service and that pay as you go articles are too expensive (as we've already seen with the private publishers of scientific articles, who wants to pay $25 or more per article?).

P.S. you might want to amend your signature, the current situation is hardly Obama's fault: From the day Bush took office to the day he left office, the Dow dropped a net of 2,306 points, which is the worst performance of any president. You can check the facts here. What's also interesting is that the U.S. National debt nearly doubled under Bush. If that's what we can expect from a "fiscal conservative", maybe you should consider giving Obama a chance to un-fuck what's happened instead of practicing the usual brand of trolling and character assassination that the party of "family values" likes to use.

I was shocked to find out just how varied the laws are from state to state regarding whether felons can vote.

In some states, your rights are restored automatically once you're out of prison and off of parole or probation. In other states, you have to get the governor to restore your rights. Where I live (Arizona), it's somewhere between those two extremes, but you definitely have to go through a process to get your civil rights restored.

In predominantly red states, there's a lot of incentive to make it as difficult as possible for felons to resume voting, mainly because felons who vote tend to vote Democrat, not Republican. (That's not universally accepted wisdom, but it is echoed in one of the articles I'll link to in a second.) On the other side of the debate, statistics show that felons who vote are 50% less likely to be re-arrested.

So, here are some articles that deal with the topic of felony voting:

From Time, Why Can't Felons Vote?

From the Washington Post, Why Can't Ex-Felons Vote?

And finally, Some Felons' Voting Rights Left Behind Bars

There are some pretty choice quotes in each of those articles, and I recommend reading all three.

As for Iowa, it seems that Governor Tom Vilsack issued an executive order in 2005 which restores voting rights to felons who have completed their sentences; prior to that, Iowa was one of the states that required ex-felons to apply to the governor's office to restore their voting rights. Digging deeper, though, it appears that this was a one-time clemency deal, and people who hadn't completed their sentences prior to July 4, 2005, are required to go through the old system or a new, streamlined (mostly automatic) system to apply to have their rights restored.

Wife's call leads authorities to huge Navy crime

October 1, 2008 - 10:36am
Scott McCabe and Bill Myers
Examiner Staff Writers

After Victor Papagno Jr. was arrested on a domestic violence charge in August 2007, his wife, Andrea, told his bosses at the Naval Research Laboratory that she wanted his work stuff out of the house, federal sources said.

Navy officials didn't know what she was talking about.

When they showed up at the Papagno's Calvert County home, authorities found a crime scene: 19,709 pieces of stolen computer equipment from the Navy lab - hard drives, CDs, zip drives, floppy disks - worth up to $1.6 million, according to court documents and Navy officials.

Papagno, 40, the computer administrator for the Navy research lab, had accumulated so much hardware that some of the boxes had to be stored at neighbors' homes, sources close to the investigation told The Examiner.

Victor Papagno is scheduled to appear today in a federal courtroom in the District to plead guilty to theft of government property. His attorney, Thomas Joseph Kelly Jr., said the plea agreement was "fragile" and he could not comment about the case.

The NRL, the research lab for the Navy and Marine Corps located on Overlook Avenue in Southwest Washington, conducts scientific research and develops technologies. The lab is credited with the development of radar, the proposal for the first nuclear submarine, and the creation of the satellite system that provided the basis for the Global Positioning System.

NRL spokesman Dick Thompson said that no secret technological information had been breached in the computer equipment theft.

A review found that the private information of 14 employees and contractors who worked at the laboratory from 1998 to 2002 had been found on CDs or zip drives, and those people were contacted, Thompson said.

According to charging documents, from 1997 to 2007, Papagno took the equipment home for his own personal use and for family and friends, court documents said.

Papagno, who started working for NRL in 1989, resigned on Aug. 20, Thompson said.

That was three days after his arrest for domestic violence. His wife dropped the charges.

I totally agree with your statement, but not your sig! I figure if I'm willing to pay $36K for a Volt, I'll splurge and pay the $200 for a 220V outlet in my garage :-)

Totally off topic, but since it's in your sig, I'll spout my theory of the day about Obama. It's a close race, but Obama fans are far more enthusiastic. They read more Obama articles and watch more Obama news. That means news organizations make more money talking about Obama. Given how America is full of media drones, Obama will win simply because of his enhanced media coverage.

It's funny how USA centric slashdot is.

You crack me up.

There are literally thousands of farmers that are paid to
grow nothing here.

http://www.wtop.com/?nid=116&sid=1391350

An excerpt (paragraph 4):

An additional $40 billion is for farm subsidies while almost $30 billion would go to farmers to idle their land and to other environmental programs.

Bio fuel can be grown in the desert:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hioZ7C6HLs

At a rate of 100,000 gal per acre due to vertical hydroponics.

Another start up here, Coskata can make Ethanol for about
$1/gal from waste.

http://www.wired.com/cars/energy/news/2008/01/ethanol23

Some race cars run on methanol which is made from wood chips:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methanol#Automotive_fuel

We know how to convert most of the world to biofuels, and
some ppl are making good progress in that direction.

We can do it on non-arable land too.

It does sound like many in-store customers, who probably have zero knowledge of computers and have only brand recognition to guide them, simply wern't going to take a punt on an unknown brand. Perhaps some also returned them after discovering that they wouldn't run Word or play some games.

Online, however, you can phone a relative, or ask someone knowledgeable before buying, and its not a wasted trip to the store.

I95/I395 HOV is still 3 required. I take it every single day to and from work in a car pool. Well actually as a slug[1] with unknown random drivers but it is still at least 3 people in the car. These HOV lanes are fully ultilized and many days there are backups just like the regular lanes. There are many cheaters, more in the afternoon than in the morning and as it gets darker earlier in the evening as winter approaches the number of cheaters goes up as well. Without the HOV lanes, my commute would go from 25 minutes in I95/I395 to about 60-90 minutes. Police are scouting at random places, mostly the exits and entrances.
Here is a link to the traffic cameras to see the live action in these HOV lanes on I95/I395, they are the purple ones that go to the bottom of the map, not much to see at night though. The HOV lanes are the two lanes in the middle of the highway and go south out of DC in the afternoon and north in the morning. The HOV enforced hours are 3:30pm-6:00pm and 6:00am-9:00am weekdays, it is open to everyone except trucks on the other hours.

[1] Slugging is an interesting concept and Ive been doing it every day for years, this site can explain it better than I can. I basically get a ride to and from a park-n-ride to downtown DC and usually within a block or two of my office for free everyday and ride along in the HOV lanes, hitchhiking for "suits". Yeah, I thought it was odd before I tried it as well.