Government schools continue to be ridiculous.

Sounds more like a rationalization or ex post facto justification for those wars.

Nope. No one justified anything. Stop trying to change the subject.

We'll just ignore, like the GOP did, that the IRS went after "Occupy" groups as well.

Making it OK for the President to use the IRS to to harass and attack his political opponents?

And they were ignored wholly from 2001 to 2008, then suddenly they became the biggest threat ever.

"Suddenly" the President is using the IRS to harass and attack his political opponents.
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Meanwhile, one party presides over operations that spy on Americans and the other party just came out strongly against it.

This is not a problem with market-based solutions. It is a problem with a certain segment of our politicians waging a "war on coal". As to "why drug companies don't make new antibiotics", well that would be an interesting theory, if it were true that they do not actually do so. The main reason that it appears that drug companies don't make new antibiotics is because all of the "easy" ones have already been developed.

Yes, it would have been much better for DEMAND to drive up prices right after the storm hit so that consumers would be unable to see the price rise coming and reduce their reliance on natural gas and suppliers would be unable to increase production to meet (and profit from) the increased demand (perhaps by rerouting from other areas which would not need the natural gas as desperately). Yes, that would be much better. ?s

Back in 2001 and 2002 we'd just been the victims of a terrorist attack. In the years since then, most of the dangerous terrorists were lured to Iraq and Afghanistan and killed.

Now it's 2014 and the President is using the IRS, EPA, and ATF to harass and attack his political opponents. Government threats are real and present. Terrorist threats are becoming faded memories. Why shouldn't people change their policy positions to fit changing situations?

"So you know how we swore up and down for years that we didn't intentionally weaken Windows encryption for the NSA? Yeah, about that..."

I believe that Facebook is well out of the "fad" stage. At this point, I believe that the most likely reason that Facebook may fail is because I am not sure that they have a long term sustainable business model. That is I am not sure they have a way to generate sufficient revenue to keep the company running in the long term. However, I think that they fill a niche in the market that is not filled by anything else.

Myspace was launched in 2003, Facebook was launched in 2004. So, we are overdue for Facebook's successor to be launched if Facebook is going to go the way of Myspace.

Let's review the extreme paranoia....

- Flouride, now even the FDA is turning against it.
- They're listening to our phone calls and reading our emails. No, you're just crazy. Well, whad'd'ya know...they are.
- Fast and Furious Gun Running, deliberate arming of cartels. Seriously, even I thought that was crazy. I was wrong.

But let me point you to the real fact. There is ZERO way for us to confirm votes. It would be extremely easy to implement in these electronic voting systems. Every voter would receive a printout with a code, heck, do it as a QR code. No names, nada, but you could take that code and go online and confirm that your vote was registered correctly. This SHOULD OF BEEN MANDATORY for these new systems.

But the truth is, when you have a zero cause issue, facing a strong vocal grass roots, and the polls are 60%-70% in favor, and then surprisingly, the end result was a complete reversal. You've got to be honest, and take a step back and evaluate the likelihood of that your election system is rigged.

GMO Labeling is a I care or don't give a damn issue. To overwhelm a grass roots issue polling at 2/3 requires a substantial amount of motivation on the part of the electorate. And honestly, that just wasn't there. This issue didn't have anything to motivate those who weren't for it, to oppose it.

You mean like how the H1B visa program has been used to push wages down by about 30%

The thing about science is, it remains true whether or not it makes sense to you - and it turns out the vast, vast majority of people really, really HATE not working.

I dunno..I don't think that is the case in the US.

I see what's hanging out in the projects and all down here, and I don't see any of them really wanting to better themselves or get / grow out of that life. It may work in other countries, but I think we have too much of an entitlement mentality here in the US.

That being said...at what point do you STOP getting an UBI payment? Or, does everyone no matter your fiscal means get that government check every month? If you don't always get it..at some marker where it gets cut off...people will stop just shy of that to keep from losing that chunk of govt money coming in to supplement their income.

Dear mods: This doesn't count as "funny" (quite the opposite), but rather, "insightful".

US case law pretty much accepts that as a de facto standard - In the absence of staggeringly overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the guy gets screwed while the woman gets whatever she asks for.

Fine, but then let Obama have the egg on his face for pardoning the twit.

Really, if you're going to look at the groundwork, you've got to go back to America's worst and first fascist president. FDR....

10 billions FB messages a day.

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