That really sucks for the subscribers who either don't have access to or don't know how to use a computer.

The politicians, news orgs, and citizens aren't going to read the papers. They're going to see bits of the parliamentary debate. If the scientists can be dissuaded from testifying at the debate then it doesn't really matter if they published papers or not IMHO, the message won't get to the policy makers or the public.

I think actually one of the big reasons the US is becoming more divisive is because of the technological shift. Now we all go to blogs that reflect our opinions to get our news instead of a whole town getting it from one place. There's so much info out there that it's hard to filter, so we choose the filters and news story suggesters that fit our viewpoint so it's way easier to get stuck in an echo chamber than it was before. Alternatively, it's way harder for a single organization to limit the debate to a single set of facts that everyone has an opinion on that falls within a small set of limits that are also basically defined by the limits of the news paper's editorial section. The discourse is fragmenting and people are using info aggregating tools to tailor the info they receive to fit their own particular bias/opinion. This is both good and bad but definitely very dangerous for the status quo.

Or, you know, we could just sit around on our laurels and watch silently as the government takes a few more, and then a few more of our rights away. The USA isn't Zimbabwe because of a the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, which is constantly under assault and has been under massive assault under Bush and now, sadly, Obama. Drawing equivalencies between regimes that are generally understood to be repressive and our own regimes when they act in a sinister and repressive manner against the citizens who they are sworn to protect and serve an who's rights they're supposed to be protecting and upholding is valid. Is it wrong to point out that my government is doing similar things as are done by repressive regimes and beginning to look more like those regimes? I think it's right and necessary. Oh, and by the way. Free Bradley Manning: http://www.bradleymanning.org/

Duct tape actually doesn't work in those temps. I grew up in Minnesota and had the glove compartment on my car duct taped shut. When it got that cold the sticky wasn't sticky anymore.

While I agree about shits and sexual fetishes there are lots of times I don't agree with this. Like the right to speak your own opinion. I remember being at an antiwar protest and having a line of cops dressed in full riot gear with tear gas canister shooting rifles slung over their shoulders calling us faggots and un-American and all sorts of other colorful pejoratives. Now it seems to me that if they weren't dressed in the riot gear or acting in an official capacity they would have had the right to say those things. Sort of like with the Sarah Palin email fiasco. She doesn't have a right to conduct official business in a private manner. The line between person and role is very blurred and it's hard to really separate the two. I don't care about the sex life of someone in Minerals Management Services unless it becomes obvious that their sex life is being fed by the corporations he's trying to regulate.

This article, written in the 60s by Douglas Hofstadter sums it up perfectly. It's called "The Paranoid Style in American Politics". It's as relevant now as it was during the Cold War. This must be the best political essay I've ever read. http://karws.gso.uri.edu/jfk/conspiracy_theory/the_paranoid_mentality/the_paranoid_style.html

I think the party line is currently a battleground.

I think we need to go farther than that. If we want to actually be able to rise up against the govts that oppress up we the people need nuclear weapons. It should be as inalienable a right as having a shotgun or pistol.

My "car" is a LeMond and gets about 30 miles per egg sandwich and shot of espresso. Oh, it also adds about 50 units of happiness per mile. I work from home now, but I realized after I stopped going into an office that the thing I missed the most was my 30 mile a day commute. There's nothing like a vigorous bike ride to a.) get me focused, awake, and ready to work in the morning and b.) to really leave work at work, a hard day I'd just ride home 5 or 10 miles an hour faster, work off my aggression, and flood my head with happy chemicals.

How about Topsy the electrocuted elephant keeling over?

I always find it a little strange that people are willing to enslave, murder, and eat a cow but if someone tries to have sex with it they get all bent out of shape. I'm not into beastiality but I'm just saying, I'd rather be the victim of surprise interspecies sex than have my throat slit or be electricuted and then turned into kosher beef franks and filet mignons. We look at beastiality taboos as protecting animals... some of whom we will wind up killing and eating. This doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

miming.