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Pastor Blames Paris Tragedy Victims for Going to "Death Metal" Concert

QuoteThat didn't take long did it? Exactly one day after the attacks at Bataclan during an Eagles of Death Metal concert, Christian pastor named Steven Anderson, leader of the Faithful Word Baptist Church, who has said many hateful things, decided to turn his attention to people who, in his opinion, needed a stern talking to... the victims of the attack that left over 100 people killed.

ThePRP reports that Anderson, who clearly has never heard as much as one note of Eagles of Death Metal music, not understanding the name is sarcastic, chastised the attendees of the show for essentially getting what they deserve for worshipping death metal. During his sermon, he had this to say:

"When you go to a concert of death metal, somebody might get killed! You know, you're worshiping death! And then, all of a sudden, people start dying!... Well, you love death so much, you bought the ticket, you love worshiping Satan! Well, let's have some of Satan's religion come in and shoot you!

I mean, that's what these people should think about before they go into such a wicked concert. And look I'm not condoning what these Islamic murderers did, they're wicked, they're murders.

But you know what, nobody should be at a concert worshiping Satan with this drug pushing hillbilly faggot. And that's what he is. I mean all you have to do is just Google this band. Somebody told me, somebody emailed me and told me 'just hit Google Images, Eagles Of Death Metal' and these guys are just total sodomite looking freaks. You know, but nobody thinks about that. It's just 'oh no, let's stand with France.'"

He rants even more about the band's frontman Jesse Hughes and the whole video has a level of insanity that I did not forsee possible. Even worse, is as he goes on this rant, you can clearly hear the audience agreeing with him.

Naravno, the joke's on him jer EODM nemaju nikakve veze sa death metalom (osim imena). Jesu grozan bend, to je istina i ime im je odvratno i ljudi koji im idu na koncerte treba da se zapitaju šta to rade sa svojim životima ali ne tvrdim da ih baš treba ubijati.

FDA Signs Off On Genetically Modified Salmon Without Labeling

Quote
While genetically modified agricultural products have been used in the U.S. for quite some time, the Food and Drug Administration had yet to approve the food use of any genetically engineered (GE) animals — until today. This morning, the agency announced the approval of an application for a salmon engineered to grow to market size faster than other farm-raised Atlantic salmon.


The FDA has declared AquAdvantage Salmon "safe to eat," noting that testing of the fish "demonstrated that the inserted genes remained stable over several generations of fish, that food from the GE salmon is safe to eat by humans and animals, that the genetic engineering is safe for the fish, and the salmon meets the sponsor's claim about faster growth."

According to the FDA, the GE salmon shows "no biologically relevant differences" in its nutritional profile compared to other non-GE farm-raised Atlantic salmon. 

The agency also considered the possibility that these GE salmon could end up mixing with other salmon and determined that the AquAdvanatage salmon farms in Panama and Canada "make it extremely unlikely that the fish could escape and establish themselves in the wild."

There are multiple physical barriers to prevent AquAdvantage fish or their eggs from slipping out through these farms' plumbing systems. If a fish were to escape or be otherwise introduced into other salmon population, the FDA says it would not matter because the AquAdvantage Salmon are reproductively sterile.

Today's approval will not allow AquAdantage salmon to be raised in the U.S. Only the facilities explicitly included in the approval can provide these GE fish for sale in America.

Though the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act) gives the FDA the authority to require mandatory labeling of foods if there is a material difference between a GE product and its conventional counterpart, the agency says it is not requiring labeling of these GE fish "Because the data and information evaluated show that AquAdvantage Salmon is not materially different from other Atlantic salmon."

Instead, the FDA says that it will be up to the sellers of these fish to voluntarily decide whether they choose to label their product as GE.

Genetically engineered animals fall under the FDA's regulatory umbrella because the recombinant DNA (rDNA) introduced into the animals meets the legal definition of a drug.

In this case, the GE salmon use an rDNA construct composed of the growth hormone gene from Chinook salmon under the control of a promoter from another type of fish called an "ocean pout." According to the FDA, this tweak to the DNA allows the salmon to grow to market size faster than non-GE farm-raised salmon.

Today's news did not go over well with our colleagues at Consumers Union, especially because of the FDA's decision to forgo labeling of the GE fish.

"We are deeply disappointed with the FDA's decision to approve the AquaAdvantage salmon. And it's even more concerning that the FDA chose not to require any form of labeling, making it extremely difficult for consumers to know if the salmon is GE or not," says Michael Hansen PhD, Senior Scientist with Consumers Union.  "Consumers deserve to know what type of food they're buying – and an overwhelming majority has told us that they want genetically modified food labeled in poll after poll. The decision to not require a GE label for this product takes away the consumer's ability to make a truly informed choice."

 

Three killed, nine injured in attack on Colorado abortion clinic

Quote
 
A gunman stormed a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic in Colorado Springs on Friday and opened fire with a rifle in an attack that left three people dead and nine others injured, authorities said.
The dead included one police officer and two civilians, Colorado Springs Police Chief Peter Carey told reporters about an hour after the suspect had been captured. All nine surviving victims - five police officers and four civilians - were listed in good condition at area hospitals, Carney said. The suspect first engaged in a gun battle with police but ultimately surrendered to officers inside the building about five hours after the start of the violence, which played out under a steady snowfall in Colorado's second-largest city.A Reuters photographer at the scene saw a man in a white T-shirt with his hands cuffed behind his back being taken out of an armored police vehicle and placed in an unmarked squad car.Police said they did not expect to confirm the suspect's identity before Saturday, but believed he acted alone.The Denver Post and the Colorado Springs Gazette newspapers, each citing an unidentified law enforcement source, reported Friday night that the suspect was identified as Robert Lewis Dear. The Post gave his age as 57, but neither paper had further details.The slain lawman was identified as Garrett Swasey, 44, a campus police officer for the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs who joined city police in responding to the first reports of shots fired, authorities said.Police declined to discuss the gunman's motivations. But the president of the Rocky Mountains chapter of Planned Parenthood, Vicki Cowart, suggested a climate of rancor surrounding abortion in the United States sets the stage for such violence."We share the concerns of many Americans that extremists are creating a poisonous environment that feeds domestic terrorism in this country," she said.Cowart told CNN separately that some of the clinic's staff escaped the gunman by following security protocol and hunkering down in "safe rooms" built into the facility.The Colorado Springs clinic has been the target of repeated protests by anti-abortion activists, and in recent years moved to new quarters on the city's northwest side - a facility derided as a "fortress" by critics of Planned Parenthood.
he national non-profit group, devoted to providing a range of reproductive health services, including abortions, has come under renewed pressure in recent months from conservatives in Congress seeking to cut off federal support for the organization.CHECKING FOR EXPLOSIVESColorado Springs Mayor John Suthers said authorities were able to help guide the movements of officers through the building by watching live feeds from surveillance cameras mounted inside.But a city police spokeswoman, Lieutenant Catherine Buckley, said it took officers a number of hours to establish communication with the suspect before he gave himself up.    "We did get officers inside the building. They were able to shout to the suspect and make communication with him and at that point they were able to get him to surrender and he was taken into custody," Buckley said. An hour earlier, police said progress in securing the building was slowed by the fact that the gunman brought "some bags" with him into the clinic and left several items outside, all of which needed to be checked for possible booby traps or explosives.After the arrest, Buckley said it would take hours more, and perhaps days, for investigators to fully process the crime scene.CNN reported that investigators had located the suspect's car, and the vehicle would be searched for explosives.Police swarmed the area around the building after an emergency call reporting shots fired at about 11:30 a.m. Mountain Time, and officers ultimately confronted the suspect inside the building, Buckley said.Television footage aired by CNN showed a number of clinic staff and patients being escorted safely into police vehicles from the building, which lies on the northwest side of Colorado Springs, about 70 miles (112 km) south of Denver.The FBI and agents from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were assisting local investigators.

President Barack Obama was notified of the shooting by his Homeland Security adviser, Lisa Monaco, and "will be updated on the situation as necessary, a White House official said. DEEPLY DIVISIVE ISSUEAs in much of the rest of the country, abortion is a divisive issue in Colorado, figuring prominently in attack ads during last year's U.S. Senate race between incumbent Democrat Mark Udall and Republican challenger Cory Gardner, the winner of the election.At least eight abortion clinic workers have been killed since 1977, according to the National Abortion Federation - most recently in 2009, when abortion doctor George Tiller was shot to death at church in Wichita, Kansas. Clinics have reported nearly 7,000 incidents of trespassing, vandalism, arson, death threats, and other forms of violence since then, according to the abortion-rights group. Colorado Springs was the scene of a mass shooting on Oct. 31 in which a gunman killed three people near downtown before dying in a shootout with police.The city, home to the U.S. Air Force Academy and the U.S. Olympic training center, is also a hub for conservative Christian groups such as Focus on the Family that oppose abortion.The attack in Colorado sparked jitters across the country. The New York City Police Department reported it had redeployed some of its "critical response" vehicles to Planned Parenthood locations throughout the city. However, it said there were no specific threats to those sites at this time.

Ove brojke su zaista sulude:

http://www.vox.com/a/mass-shootings-sandy-hook

Problem je što ti mediji daju jednu sliku, a ti živiš u drugoj. Onda popizdiš, jer bi i ti u te medije, a nema drugog načina.

Kalifornija, masovni pokolj, za sada najmanje 14 mrtvih, dva perpa, muški i ženski.

бизарно
Woman stabbed at Art Basel, witnesses thought it was art

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One woman stabbed another during a fight at world-famous Art Basel Miami Beach, causing at least one patron to think he was watching performance art.
Miami Beach Detective Kathleen Prieto told the Miami Herald the suspect stabbed the victim's arms and neck during Friday's fight. She said the victim is being treated for non-life threatening injuries. The suspect was arrested.
The fight happened near an exhibit by artist Naomi Fisher. She told the Herald one witness thought it was a performance with fake blood until he realized the blood was real.
The paper says others thought the police tape cordoning the area was an installation.
Art Basel Miami Beach spokeswoman Sara Fitzmaurice said in an email to The Associated Press Friday, "The attack was an isolated incident that was immediately secured. Our thoughts are with the victim."
Art Basel Miami Beach is the extension of the annual contemporary art fair in Basel, Switzerland, and is attended by thousands.

лепо је кад се чак и на цнну појави глас разума (овог пута у облику конгресменке тулси габард, са хаваја)

! No longer available

Heh, vont sambadi tink ov d čildrn:

7th grader told his Star Wars shirt isn't allowed in school

Quote
ROSENBERG, TX (KTRK) --  A 7th grader in Rosenberg says he was forced by school administrators to cover up his Star Wars t-shirt.

Joe Southern says his son, Colton, wore a shirt depicting the "Star Wars - The Force Awakens" logo, along with a Storm Trooper holding a weapon, to class Thursday at George Junior High School. He's apparently worn it to school several times before without any issue.

On Thursday, though, school officials told Colton the shirt was banned because it has a gun, or at least a picture of what in the movie is weapon.
 
"It's political correctness run amok. You're talking about a Star Wars t-shirt, a week before the biggest movie of the year comes out. It has nothing to do with guns or making a stand. It's  just a Star Wars shirt," Southern said.

A spokesperson for Lamar Consolidated Independent School District says the LCISD secondary school handbook spells out potential violations of dress code. The list includes "symbols oriented toward violence."

Administrators say they did not reprimand the student, though they could have required him to change or assigned him in-school suspension. They say they only required him to zip up his jacket.

Southern says the incident, in his opinion, amounts to a violation of the first amendment. He says the weapon shown is fictional as is the character holding it and that any implication his son would hurt anyone would be incorrect.

"He's a Boy Scout, active in church, volunteers at Brazos Bend State Park. There's not a violent bone in his body. He's just an excited kid for the movie," said Southern.

Dakle, mi se smejali Donaldu Trampu a on:

  Donald Trump: Hillary Clinton 'killed hundreds of thousands of people with her stupidity'

QuoteDonald Trump claimed Sunday that Hillary Clinton "killed hundreds of thousands of people with her stupidity" with her decisions as secretary of state, seemingly shocking his interviewer.

In a "Fox News Sunday" interview, Trump said Clinton and President Barack Obama's foreign-policy decisions in Africa and the Middle East resulted in the deaths of "hundreds of thousands" of people.

"She is the one that caused all this problem with her stupid policies. You look at what she did with Libya, what she did with Syria. Look at Egypt, what happened with Egypt, a total mess."

"She was truly — if not the — one of the worst secretaries of state in the history of the country," he added. "She talks about me being dangerous. She's killed hundreds of thousands of people with her stupidity."

Wallace pushed Trump to clarify what he meant.

"The Middle East is a total disaster under her," Trump said.

Trump was responding to an interview this week in which Clinton said Trump's plan to temporarily ban most Muslims from traveling to the US was dangerous.

"He has gone way over the line. And what he's saying now is not only shameful and wrong — it's dangerous," Clinton said.

The former secretary of state said Trump's proposal "plays right into the hands of terrorists" by alienating Muslims in Western countries and framing terrorism as a clash between Islam and the West.

"I don't say that lightly, but it does. He is giving them a great propaganda tool, a way to recruit more folks from Europe and the United States," Clinton said. "And because it's kind of crossed that line, I think everybody and especially other Republicans need to stand up and say, 'Enough. You've gone too far.'"

tramp je bijelac, to mu ipak daje fasisticku dimenziju; dok crnac ne moze biti los.

...'el se meni cini il' se ovaj Tramp umislio da je nas Secerovski....

Zanimljivo...postavić ovu fotku na fejsu. Eto neke vajde i od Bate.

sećate se onog šiptara koji je nedavno zgrozio ceo svet kad je nenormalno digo cene onog nekog leka, itd?

UAPSILI GA!

CEO Who Price Gouged HIV Drug Arrested

Martin Shkreli was arrested by the FBI in New York on securities fraud charges.

Reuters
Nate Raymond
12/17/2015 07:06 am ET

NEW YORK, Dec 17 (Reuters) - Martin Shkreli, a lightning rod for growing outrage over soaring prescription drug prices, was arrested in New York by the FBI on Thursday on securities fraud charges involving his former hedge fund and a pharmaceutical company he previously headed.
Shkreli, who is now chief executive officer of Turing Pharmaceuticals and KaloBios Pharmaceuticals Inc, was charged in a federal indictment related to his time managing hedge fund MSMB Capital Management and heading biopharmaceutical company Retrophin Inc.
The indictment, filed in Brooklyn, New York, also charged Evan Greebel, a former partner at law firm Katten Muchin Rosenmann who was Retrophin's outside counsel.
Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Robert Capers is scheduled to hold a press conference with officials from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission at noon EST (1700 GMT) to announce the charges, his office said.
Reuters witnessed Shkreli's arrest at the Murray Hill Tower Apartments in midtown Manhattan. Law enforcement including Federal Bureau of Investigation agents could be seen escorting Shkreli, who was wearing a hoodie, into a car.
FBI spokeswoman Kelly Langmesser confirmed the arrests of Shkreli and Greebel.
Shares of KaloBios fell 53 percent at $11.03 in the premarket before trading in them was halted. Retrophin, which said in a statement that it had fully cooperated with the government investigations of Shkreli, was nearly unchanged in early trading.
Turing and KaloBios declined to comment. A lawyer for Shkreli did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Efforts to reach Greebel were not immediately successful, and a lawyer could not be immediately identified.
A privately held startup, Turing sparked controversy earlier this year after news reports that it had raised the price of Daraprim, a 62-year-old treatment for a dangerous parasitic infection, to $750 a tablet from $13.50 after acquiring it.
The charges predate Turing and relate to Shkreli's management of New York-based hedge fund MSMB Capital Management, whose closure he announced in 2012, and his time as CEO of Retrophin from 2012 to 2014.
The indictment said Shkreli made false representations to MSMB investors to draw in $3 million in investments.
After MSMB suffered devastating trading losses in 2011 and ceased trading, Shkreli for months sent fabricated updates to investors touting profits of as high as 40 percent since inception, the indictment said.
He also solicited $5 million from investors for another fund, MSMB Healthcare Management LP, while concealing his performance managing MSMB Capital and a prior fund and providing investors an inflated valuation of his then-private firm Retrophin, the indictment said.
To pay back the MSMB funds' investors, Shkreli and Greebel misappropriated $11 million in Retrophin assets through settlement agreements and sham consulting deals, according to the indictment.
The case mirrors a lawsuit Retrophin filed in August against Shkreli in federal court in Manhattan for $65 million, claiming he had used his control over Retrophin to enrich himself and pay off MSMB investors' claims.
Shkreli has denied the allegations.
The case is separate from the ongoing drug pricing controversy that had in recent weeks enveloped Shkreli and Turing Pharmaceuticals.
At least two separate Congressional probes have been launched since September on the pricing issues of Daraprim, which had long been available as a generic drug used to treat toxoplasmosis in AIDS patients. Turing is under investigation by the New York state attorney general for antitrust concerns.
At a Senate hearing on drug pricing last week, a doctor who treats babies with life-threatening toxoplasmosis testified that a course of treatment with Daraprim went from about $1,200 to no less than $69,000.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond; Editing by Ted Kerr and Lisa Von Ahn)

a već ga i zajebavaju:


Lawyer for Martin Shkreli Hikes Fees Five Thousand Per Cent

BY ANDY BOROWITZ

BROOKLYN (The Borowitz Report)—A criminal lawyer representing Turing Pharmaceuticals chief Martin Shkreli has informed his client that he is raising his hourly legal fees by five thousand per cent, the lawyer has confirmed.

Minutes after Shkreli's arrest on charges of securities fraud, the attorney, Harland Dorrinson, announced that he was hiking his fees from twelve hundred dollars an hour to sixty thousand dollars.

Shkreli, who reportedly received the news about the price hike while he was being fingerprinted, cried foul and accused his attorney of "outrageous and inhumane price gouging."

"This is the behavior of a sociopath," Shkreli was heard screaming.

For his part, Shkreli's lawyer was unmoved by his client's complaint. "Compared to what he pays for an hour of Wu-Tang Clan, sixty thou is a bargain," he said.

Eric Posner je, vele, četvrti najcitiraniji profesor prava u SAD. Njegova nova, hm, zamisao je otprilike ovo: pošto je propaganda Islamske Države na internetu tako moćna i živimo u vremenu kada neprijatelju nikada nije bilo lakše da američkom građaninu servira tu propagandu, možda bi bilo razumno da se sam pristup određenim vebsajtovima, nakon dovoljnog broja upozorenja kvalifikuje kao krivično delo zbog kog se ljudi mogu zatvarati. Lend ov d fri houm ov d brejv i tako to:



ISIS Gives Us No Choice but to Consider Limits on Speech

Kad je tako pametan četvrti, kakvi li su prvi troje?

Pripazi se ti dok si tamo šta radiš po internetu, vidiš da su službe spremne da nasrnu i na prvi amandman ako treba.

Pazim ja i mislim se ko će od nas pre proći gore.

A ko dole.

OjebemteAmeriko...

Another 'Clock kid'? Family outraged as 12-year-old Sikh boy arrested over alleged bomb threat at Texas school

ili



  It's the "clock kid" all over again: A 12-year-old Sikh boy is the latest victim of racist terrorism paranoia

Poverty stunts IQ in the US but not in other developed countries

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As a child develops, a tug of war between genes and environment settles the issue of the child's intelligence. One theory on how that struggle plays out proposes that among advantaged kids—with the pull of educational resources—DNA largely wins, allowing genetic variation to settle smarts. At the other end of the economic spectrum, the strong arm of poverty drags down genetic potential in the disadvantaged.
But over the years, researchers have gone back and forth on this theory, called the Scarr-Rowe hypothesis. It has held up in some studies, but inexplicably slipped away in others, leaving researchers puzzled over the deciding factors in the nature-vs-nurture battle. Now, researchers think they know why.
In a new meta-analysis of 14 psychology studies from the past few decades, researchers found that the strength of poverty's pull differed by country, with US poverty providing the only forceful yank among developed nations. The authors, who published the results in Psychological Science, speculate that the wider inequalities in education and medical access in the US may explain poverty's extra power. The finding could not only resolve the data discrepancies of the past, but it may also lead researchers to a more nuanced understanding of poverty's effects on IQ and how to thwart them.
"It's a terrific meta-analysis," psychologist Eric Turkheimer of the University of Virginia, who was not involved with the study, told Ars. The authors "sort out, really, a lot of the ambiguity," he said.
In the analysis, by Elliot Tucker-Drob of the University of Texas at Austin and Timothy Bates of the University of Edinburgh, researchers harvested data from 14 studies involving siblings, many twins. To be included in the analysis, the studies had to objectively measure intelligence and socioeconomic status of the kids. In all, the researchers captured data on 24,926 pairs of twins and siblings, which were fairly evenly distributed between the US and non-US countries, including Australia, England, Sweden, Germany, and the Netherlands.
When they separated the data by location, the authors found that the brute force of poverty in the US clearly pushed aside genetic influence on intelligence. But, the same relationship was not seen in any of the other countries.
That doesn't mean that poverty is simply making US kids dumber, Turkheimer cautions. The situation is a little more nuanced. Imagine the siblings in the studies are flower seeds, he said. Those related seeds inherit genes that fix their IQ within a range of IQs that depends on their parents. Now, if you put those seeds in rich soil with all the nutrients and resources they could want, the flowers will grow to slightly different heights, based on genetic variation. But, if the seeds are grown in sandy, nutrient and resource-poor soil, those impoverished seeds will all be stunted. Basically, they'll all turn out about the same height, he said.
So, Turkheimer said, kids in poverty all end up on the low side of their IQ window, losing that variation normally seen from genetics.
While the authors speculate that inequalities in educational and medical access in the US may beef up poverty's effects, Turkheimer thinks school environments in particular may be to blame. He plans to follow up on the findings in his own work.
But, for now, researchers may at least be able to put to bed the debate of the Scar-Rowe hypothesis, Rob Kirkpatrick, a psychiatric and behavioral genetics researcher at the Virginia Commonwealth University, told Ars. "It goes a long way toward helping to explain the mixed replication record of the Scarr-Rowe interaction by showing that only studies from the United States, and not those from other Western nations, provide evidence for it," he said.
Psychological Science, 2015. DOI: 10.1177/0956797615612727  (About DOIs).

New Obama vacation costs uncovered; They now exceed $70 million   

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As Barack, Michelle, Malia and Sasha Obama, family, friends, pets and staff enjoy their half-month-long Hawaiian vacation, the Secret Service finally complied with a court order to release some Obama vacation expenses from two years ago.
That's how eager the Obama administration is about being transparent when it comes to spending large sums of taxpayers' money on itself.
As with the slow-motion releases of Hillary Clinton's emails, the idea of bureaucratic stalling, of course, is that the details become "old" news more likely to be ignored by media. Fortunately, we're not on vacation this week, so we can help the president out. Here goes:
The new expense reports, heavily-redacted allegedly for security reasons, push the total known costs for vacations during Obama's reign to nearly $71 million -- with another full year to go. That's about $10.1 million per year in known expenses.
The totals come from Judicial Watch, the dogged watchdog group that pursues such information through repeated Freedom of Information Act requests.
Earlier this year Judicial Watch obtained transportation costs for a pair of the Democrat's cross-country golf weekends just in 2015. They totaled nearly $2 million, or $20,000 per hole, the Washington Examiner calculated.
In February, for instance, Obama spent President's Weekend golfing with male friends in Palm Springs. At $206,000 per flight hour, that trip set taxpayers back $1.03 million. That does not include other costs such as security and transportation.
Of course, even with Camp David available for free in Maryland every president goes on vacation, though none have gone so far so often as the Obamas, sometimes in separate planes.
Their family trips to Hawaii, for example, require at least 18 hours of Air Force One flight time at $206,000 per flight hour. Or $3.7 million minimum.
Complaints of over-spending on personal travel have dogged this first couple starting with Michelle Obama's luxury vacation with friends to Spain at the peak of the recession and subsequent family excursions during the nation's weakest economic recovery since World War II.
As we reported earlier this year: The Obamas have "traveled more than any other first family, often with Mrs. Obama's mother and her friends. By the summer of 2014 the Obamas had taken 31 international trips lasting 119 days. At the same point in his presidency, Ronald Reagan had taken 14 such trips over 73 days.
"When the family visited Ireland in 2013, taxpayers were hit for just under $8 million, including a quarter-million dollars for a two-day side-trip to Dublin for the Obama women. They chose a $3,500-per-night hotel suite in addition to 29 other rooms for their traveling party at the five-star hotel.

What's Happening in Oregon Is Nothing Less Than Armed Sedition



"If three years ago any person had told me that at this day, I should see such a formidable rebellion against the laws & constitutions of our own making as now appears I should have thought him a bedlamite—a fit subject for a mad house."
—George Washington to Henry Knox, on the subject of Shays Rebellion, February 3, 1787

You have to give Captain Daniel Shays this: When he launched his armed sedition against lawful authority, he at least was invited in. Overnight on Saturday, in an obscure corner of the Oregon wilderness, and contrary to the law, and in defiance of democratic authority, both federal and local, another act of armed sedition was committed. It seems to me that this ought to be a bigger story than, say, the belated prosecution of Bill Cosby, or whatever most recently came out of the mouth of the vulgar talking yam. In a small place in Oregon, the essential compact of the United States of America has come apart.

The Bundy family of Nevada joined with hard-core militiamen Saturday to take over the headquarters of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, vowing to occupy the remote federal outpost 30 miles southeast of Burns for years. The occupation came shortly after an estimated 300 marchers—militia and local citizens both—paraded through Burns to protest the prosecution of two Harney County ranchers, Dwight Hammond Jr. and Steven Hammond, who are to report to prison on Monday. Among the occupiers is Ammon Bundy, son of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, and two of his brothers. Militia members at the refuge claimed they had as many as 100 supporters with them. The refuge, federal property managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, was closed and unoccupied for the holiday weekend.

(This is also something you have to give to Captain Daniel Shays. He put a little more of his ass on the line. His act of armed sedition aimed a little higher than the occupation of the vacant headquarters of a bird sanctuary.)
Before moving on to the larger issues, it's important to note that the local authorities, and the local citizenry, want no part of this noisy claque of armed meatheads.  It is popular among these people who apparently have brains wired like short-wave radios broadcasting from upper Michigan to say that the real constitutional authority in this country resides in its local sheriffs. Well, the local sheriff in this case would like it very much if this particular invasive species would abandon his jurisdiction and go back to freeloading on federal lands in Nevada.

Harney County Sheriff Dave Ward told people to stay away from the building as authorities work to defuse the situation,

The Oregonian reported."A collective effort from multiple agencies is currently working on a solution. For the time being please stay away from that area. More information will be provided as it becomes available. Please maintain a peaceful and united front and allow us to work through this situation," Ward said in a statement.Hell, even the convicted arsonists on whose behalf this action allegedly was undertaken have distanced themselves from these clowns.

The Hammonds said they have not welcomed the Bundy's help. "Neither Ammon Bundy nor anyone within his group/organization speak for the Hammond Family," the Hammonds' lawyer W. Alan Schroeder wrote to Sheriff David Ward.

This is an act of armed sedition against lawful authority. That is all that it is, and that is quite enough. This is not "an expression of anti-government sentiment." Flipping off the governor as he drives by is "an expression of anti-government sentiment." What Alex Jones does every day is "an expression of anti-government sentiment," and god bless them all for it. That's what the Founders had in mind. This is not an "occupation" following "a peaceful protest." That would be all those folks who got bludgeoned and pepper-sprayed out of Zuccotti Park a couple of years back. (And when exactly did ABC News decide it wasn't a news organization anymore?) These are men with guns who have declared themselves outside the law. These are men with guns who have taken something that belongs to all of us. These are traitors and thieves who got away with this dangerous nonsense once, and have been encouraged to get away with it again, and they draw their inspiration not solely from the wilder fringes of our politics, either. Ammon Bundy and his brothers should have been thrown in jail after they gathered themselves in rebellion the first time.
This is another step down the road that leads to the broken shell of the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City. There are respectable people in our respectable politics who have been shamefully silent on the subject, and there are respectable people in our respectable media who seem terrified of calling this what it is. You want an example of the deadening effect of "political correctness" in our politics? Watch what the people running for president have to say about this episode. Look at how it is being framed already—or ignored entirely—by the elite political media. There is a constituency for armed rebellion in this country that is larger than any of our respectable political and social institutions want to admit. It is fueled by reckless, ambitious people who engage in reckless, ambitious rhetoric.
It did not begin in Burns. It did not begin on the Bundy Ranch, either. In its most modern form, and in the form most relevant to recent events,  it began, as so many noxious elements of our politics did, with the Reagan Administration. It began with a man named Ron Arnold, and a Secretary of the Interior named James Watt, and in something called the Wise Use movement with which the Republican party (and the conservative movement that became its fundamental life force) allied itself for its political advantage in the western part of the country.

Much of this popularity can be explained by the lingering economic recession of the early 1980s, which provided a receptive grassroots audience for the Wise Use claim that it is easier to force nature to adapt to current corporate policies than to encourage the growth of more environmentally sound ways of doing business. Wise Use pamphlets argue that extinction is a natural process; some species weren't meant to survive. The movement's signature public relations tactic is to frame complex environmental and economic issues in simple, scapegoating terms that benefit its corporate backers. In the movement's Pacific Northwest birthplace, Wise Users harp on a supposed battle for survival between spotted owls and the families of the men and women who make their livings harvesting and milling the old growth timber that is the owl's habitat. In preparation for President Clinton's forest summit in Portland, Oregon, Wise Use public relations experts ran seminars to teach loggers how to speak in sound bites. Messages such as "jobs versus owls" have been adapted to a variety of environmental issues and have helped spark an anti-green backlash that has defeated river protection efforts and threatens to open millions of acres of wilderness to resource extraction.

That was the respectable—if undeniably destructive—part of the movement. Its philosophy, however, was embraced by the growing militia movement in the same part of the country. Its philosophy ran in poisoned tributaries to all points of the political compass until it gathered itself into a great reservoir of toxic fantasy, and that is where the essential compact of the United States of America was encouraged to break down.
There is no actual tyranny in this country against which to take up arms. There is bureaucratic inertia. There is pigheaded bureaucracy. There even is political chicanery. But there is no actual tyranny in the Endangered Species Act, or in the Bureau of Land Management, or in the Environmental Protection Agency, or in the Affordable Care Act, or in IRS dumbassery, or even in whatever it is that the president plans to say about guns in the next week or so. Anyone who argues that actual tyranny exists is a dangerous charlatan who should be mocked from the public square. Anyone who argues that there is out of political ambition, or for their own personal profit, should be shunned by decent people until they regain whatever moral compass they once had.
It does us no good to ignore what is going on in this obscure little corner of the Pacific Northwest. It does us no good to refuse to hold to account the politics that led to this, and the politicians who sought to profit from it. It does us no good to deny that there is a substantial constituency for armed sedition in this country, and to deny the necessity of delegitimizing that constituency in our politics, and the first step in that process is to face it and to call it what it is.
And, in related news, of course, Tamir Rice is still dead.



Vezano za isti incident:
This Comic Sums up the Double Standard Used to Excuse White Violence

Erekcija koju investitori dobijaju kada razmišljaju o share-economy firmama će nas sve odvesti u propast. Dženeral Motors sada investira pola milijarde dolara u Lyft. Lyft je, za publiku sa jeftinijim ulaznicama, isto što i Uber ali sa očigledno malo slabijim tviter skilovima...

General Motors, Gazing at Future, Invests $500 Million in Lyft

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The founders of Lyft, the ride-hailing service, have long imagined that the future of transportation would involve fewer cars on the road. Now General Motors is helping the start-up reach that goal.
Lyft announced on Monday that G.M. had invested $500 million in the company, or half of its latest $1 billion venture financing round. The funding, which recently closed, values Lyft at $4.5 billion, not including the new capital.
G.M.'s support includes more than financial backing. As part of the investment, G.M. and Lyft will work on developing an on-demand network of self-driving cars, an area of research that companies like Google, Tesla and Uber have all devoted enormous resources to in recent years.
G.M. will also work with Lyft to set up a series of short-term car rental hubs across the United States, places where people who do not own cars can pick up a vehicle and drive for Lyft to earn money. Daniel Ammann, president of G.M., will join the board of Lyft, which is based in San Francisco.

"We strongly believe that autonomous vehicle go-to-market strategy is through a network, not through individual car ownership," John Zimmer, president of Lyft, said in an interview.
G.M.'s $500 million interest in Lyft is the single largest direct investment by an auto manufacturer into a ride-hailing company in the United States, according to data from PitchBook, an alliance that pairs an auto stalwart with the kind of start-up trying to disrupt it. The investment reflects how much consumer automotive habits have been changed by technology over the last decade. With the rise of ride-sharing companies, car manufacturers have raced to adapt to how people can now use each other's vehicles for rides, which could potentially lead to a decline in car ownership.
The shifts have started a spate of partnerships between carmakers and auto-related start-ups. In 2011, G.M. teamed up with RelayRides, a car-sharing marketplace, to let G.M. auto owners rent out their idle vehicles. Ford struck a similar deal last year with Getaround, another car-sharing marketplace start-up. And Daimler has been experimenting with Car2Go, a Zipcar-like service that offers SmartCar rentals in urban areas like Brooklyn, Berlin and Toronto.
In an interview, Mr. Ammann said G.M. wanted to be part of the changing business models in transportation. "We think there's going to be more change in the world of mobility in the next five years than there has been in the last 50," he said.
Mr. Ammann added that the core profit from G.M.'s business comes from cars sold outside the urban environments where Lyft primarily operates, especially sales of sport utility vehicles in suburban areas.
"From a G.M. perspective, we view this as much more of an opportunity than a threat," he said.
G.M.'s investment is also a vote of confidence in Lyft, which faces a competitive ride-hailing field. Founded in 2012, Lyft helped promote the ride-sharing craze in the United States, positioning itself as a superior alternative to owning a car or using public transportation. Lyft users can summon a private or shared car with a few taps of an app. Advertisement
  Continue reading the main story   Advertisement
  Continue reading the main story Lyft and G.M. did not give a specific timeline for when they expected their autonomous vehicle network to become publicly available, nor did the companies offer details on how the network is expected to function.
It will most likely be some time before a fully autonomous network of cars becomes a reality. Early rules for self-driving vehicles may hinder the speed of progress. California recently passed legislation requiring a driver to be behind the wheel of a self-driving car at all times.
A mix of Lyft's existing investors, including the Asian e-commerce giants Rakuten and Alibaba, also contributed to the most recent financing round, as did the Chinese ride-hailing start-up Didi Kuaidi.
Uber, Lyft's largest and most formidable rival, has raised more than $10 billion to date, and is valued at $62.5 billion, about 14 times Lyft's new valuation. Uber operates in hundreds of cities in 67 countries. The company also operates its own research center for self-driving cars in Pittsburgh and is steadily recruiting engineering talent from Carnegie Mellon University as well as from competitors like Google, whose efforts on autonomous vehicle research have been well publicized.
Lyft has been working to catch up to Uber. The company recently teamed up with ride-hailing competitors in Asia like Didi Kuaidi, Ola and GrabTaxi to expand. It has also struck deals with major brands like Starbucks and pop stars like Justin Bieber to broaden its reach. Lyft also teamed with Hertz to offer rental cars to drivers who do not own vehicles, and struck a deal with Shell that gives gasoline discounts to Lyft drivers in a handful of cities.
    Correction: January 4, 2016
An earlier version of this article misstated the number of countries in which Uber operates. It is 67, not 68.
 

Od prvog Januara u Teksasu imamo novu legislativu koja dopušta otvoreno nošenje oružja na javnim mestima (do sada se dopuštalo da se nosi prikriveno). Vlasnici restorana su sada u nuždi:

How Restaurants Are Responding to Texas's New Open Carry Law

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Should guns be allowed in restaurants? With a new law in effect, restaurant owners must decide.
   Starting on New Year's Day, some Texas diners began sporting a totally new kind of accessory not often seen in a restaurant setting. Last June, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed a bill into law that would allow licensed handgun owners to openly display their weapons in public. Before the new law took effect on January 1, Texas was a "concealed carry" state, which explicitly forbade the open carrying of guns in public spaces.
A crucial provision in the law allows all businesses to opt out of the open carry policy, so long as they post a sign on the door alerting patrons that the open carrying of guns is verboten. But in a state so pro-gun as Texas — nearly one million Texans hold a concealed carry license — the political waters can be choppy for restaurants who are trying to decide whether or not they will allow patrons to openly display weapons in their establishments.
     Ultimately, most restaurant owners in Texas are treading a fine line between entering a decidedly divisive, highly charged political discussion and maintaining the safety and flow of their establishments. In the overwhelming majority of cases, Texas's restaurateurs seem to be making their decisionsnot based on politics, but on practicality.Houston barbecue trailer owner Trent Brooks made national headlines when he announced that his spot, Brooks' Place, would offer 25-percent discounts to diners who openly carried their weapons on January 1. The discount has since dropped to 10 percent, but Brooks says the new law didn't create much change at his own establishment, where firearms have long been welcome. "This is nothing new for us," Brooks says. "This discount was just our way of showing appreciation to our customers for having enough sense to want to protect their families, their businesses, and themselves should they have to. For us, it's an appreciation for the people who are carrying guns more than it is a political statement."

Before this deal went viral, Brooks had previously offered a discount to people who obtain a concealed carry license through a partnership with a local instructor. But as an occasional open-carrier himself, Brooks does respect individual businesses' right to opt out of the law. "That is their choice, and I respect that decision," he says. "I don't have a problem with businesses choosing to not allow open carry."
He does note, though, that his own business practices changed after the implementation of the open carry statute. Because his business doesn't have a liquor license, Brooks would give away free beer to diners, an entirely legal practice he recently stopped. "Once we allowed people to carry openly, I decided I didn't want them drinking two beers at Brooks' Place and getting behind the wheel of a car with a firearm," he says. "It's my way of protecting them and myself. I would hope that responsible gun owners wouldn't take their weapon into a place that is serving alcohol. Especially if that gun owner is consuming alcohol."

Even though the open-carrying of weapons is still not allowed in bars and other establishments that make 51 percent of their revenue from alcohol sales, restaurants on the opposite side of the equation are left with a difficult question to answer. Most restaurateurs in Texas are decidedly skeptical of allowing patrons to openly carry firearms in their establishments, perhaps due in some part to the 2014 protests staged by open carry activists in front of a Fort Worth Jack In The Box, where terrified employees hid from protesters in walk-in freezers.
Ever-opinionated Dallas chef John Tesar says his restaurants will not allow open carry. "Alcohol and guns are a very dangerous combination," Tesar says. "Why would you need to carry a gun in a nice restaurant where families and happy people are dining unless you're freaking paranoid? Given the amount of gun violence in this country, the last thing we need is more drunks carrying guns." At present, more than 50 Dallas restaurants have announced that they too will opt out of open carry, including hotspots like Matt McCallister's FT33 and Jack Perkins's Maple & Motor and the Slow Bone.

Dallas restaurateur Bradley Anderson, who owns Rapscallion and Boulevardier in addition to practicing law full-time, has opted out of open carry for his establishments, citing safety concerns. "Our primary reason for opting out of open carry is very simple," Anderson says. "At both Boulevardier and Rapscallion, it is our hope that our guests and staff feel secure. The idea of allowing exposed firearms runs contrary to said hope." He isn't, however, worried about angry protesters showing up on the sidewalks of his restaurants. "If we do get any protesters, I will offer them free Boulevardier and Rapscallion t-shirts to wear while protesting," says Anderson. "We are just a few of many businesses across the state who have chosen to opt out."

As an attorney, Anderson also raises questions about whether or not restaurants could find themselves responsible for any accidents or mishaps that occur as a result of their decision to allow patrons to carry openly. "Serving someone alcohol while they are wearing their six shooter just seems a little too 'wild west' for me," Anderson says. "Serving alcoholic beverages to a customer with an exposed firearm may bring up some interesting legal discussions down the road if an incident were to occur."
But according to Joseph Page, Professor Emeritus at Georgetown University Law Center, that apprehension may be misplaced. "The problem is that in order for a court to hold a restaurant liable in a personal injury or torts suit, the court would have to find that the restaurant had some duty to say 'no' to the practice — that anyone who said 'yes' is acting unreasonably," Page says. "That directly conflicts with the expression of public policy behind the statute. The legislature has said that it is reasonable to go either way, and that they'll leave it up to the restaurant owner."

That is, of course, unless the restaurant has created some sort of "peculiar circumstance" that would result in a measurable risk of harm if patrons are allowed to openly carry their weapons.  In July of last year, the widow of a biker murdered in a gang melee at a Waco, Texas Twin Peaks sued the restaurant for gross negligence following the brawl, which left nine people dead and resulted in nearly 200 arrests.

The suit alleges that Twin Peaks allowed biker gangs to gather outside of the Waco restaurant, despite warnings from police that tensions between gangs were rising. "The Waco case is a perfect example. You know you're getting this kind of clientele and it's a place where everybody should check their guns at the door," Page says. "Given the climate in the country — and especially in Texas where the lege passed this statute — you really would have to have an extreme case to have any chance of a court not dismissing the case."
In Houston, Blacksmith Coffee Bar and Greenway Coffee owner David Buehrer offers an entirely different reason for opting out of open-carry — quality of service. Buehrer was the first Houston business owner to display the "30.07" sign that prohibits gun owners from carrying in a private business. "We put the sign up January 1st at 7 a.m.," he said.

In order for his bustling coffee concepts to allow patrons to carry a handgun, staff would be forced to interrupt their established workflow and ask everyone with a gun to show their concealed carry license, which, in his view, would seriously impact the quality of service. "We already understand our workflow and how it affects things," he says. "If you have 300 customers a day and you have to take an extra 90 seconds with one or two customers, it affects everyone."
As such, the decision to opt-out of open carry was strictly business for Buehrer. "The thing that I am 100 percent most interested in is the service we provide our customers. If you look at that as the framework and heart of our business, there's no other decision to make," he says. "From a business perspective, I can't offer the same level of service and hospitality If I have to ask every person to show me their license to carry."

At the same time, Buehrer doesn't want to alienate the thousands of gun owners living in Houston. "Responsible gun owners are good people, kind of like crazy cat people," he says. "I don't agree with them, but I want them to feel like I respect them as customers. It's just easier for us to maintain our level of service if no one comes in with a gun that we can see."

Why Do Americans Work So Much?

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The economist John Maynard Keynes predicted a society so prosperous that people would hardly have to work. But that isn't exactly how things have played out.


How will we all keep busy when we only have to work 15 hours a week? That was the question that worried the economist John Maynard Keynes when he wrote his short essay "Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren" in 1930. Over the next century, he predicted, the economy would become so productive that people would barely need to work at all.
For a while, it looked like Keynes was right: In 1930 the average workweek was 47 hours. By 1970 it had fallen to slightly less than 39.
But then something changed. Instead of continuing to decline, the duration of the workweek stayed put; it's hovered just below 40 hours for nearly five decades.
So what happened? Why are people working just as much today as in 1970?


There would be no mystery in this if Keynes had been wrong about the economy's increasing productivity, which he thought would lead to a standard of living "between four and eight times as high as it is today." But Keynes got that right: Technology has made the economy massively more productive. According to Benjamin M. Friedman, an economist at Harvard, "the U.S. economy is right on track to reach Keynes's eight-fold multiple" by 2029—100 years after the last data Keynes would have had. (Keynes did not specify what he meant by a "standard of life," so Friedman uses per-capita output as a proxy.)
In a new paper, Friedman tries to figure out why that increased productivity has not translated into increased leisure time. Perhaps people just never feel materially satisfied, always wanting more money for the next new thing. "This argument is, at best, far from sufficient," he writes. If that were the case, why did the duration of the workweek decline in the first place?Another theory Friedman considers is that "in an era of ever fewer settings that provide effective opportunities for personal connections and relationships," people may place more value on the socializing that happens at work. But the evidence for this "remains uneven at best," and, once again, "its bearing on the abrupt change in trend in the U.S. workweek in the 1970s is far from established."
A third possibility proves more convincing: American inequality means that the gains of increasing productivity are not widely shared. In other words, most Americans are too poor to work less. Unlike the other two explanations Friedman considers, this one fits chronologically: Inequality declined in America during the post-war period (along with the duration of the workweek), but since the early 1970s it's risen dramatically.
Keynes's prediction rests on the idea that "standard of life" would continue rising for everyone. But Friedman says that's not what has happened: Although Keynes's eight-fold figure holds up for the economy in aggregate, it's not at all the case for the median American worker. For them, output by 2029 is likely to be around 3.5 times what it was when Keynes was writing—a bit below his four- to-eight-fold predicted range.
This can be seen in the median worker's income over this time period, complete with a shift in 1973 that fits in precisely with when the workweek stopped shrinking. According to Friedman, "Between 1947 and 1973 the average hourly wage for nonsupervisory workers in private industries other than agriculture (restated in 2013 dollars) nearly doubled, from $12.27 to $21.23—an average growth rate of 2.1 percent per annum. But by 2013 the average hourly wage was only $20.13—a 5 percent fall from the 1973 level." For most people, then, the magic of increasing productivity stopped working around 1973, and they had to keep working just as much in order to maintain their standard of living.
What Keynes foretold was a very optimistic version of what economists call technological unemployment—the idea that less labor will be necessary because machines can do so much. In Keynes's vision, the resulting unemployment would be distributed more or less evenly across society in the form of increased leisure.Friedman says that reality comports more with a darker version of technological unemployment: It's not unemployment per se, but a soft labor market in which millions of people are "desperately seeking whatever low-wage work [they] can get." This is corroborated by a recent poll by Marketplace that found that for half of hourly workers, their top concern isn't that they work too much but that they work too little—not, presumably, because they like their jobs so much, but because they need the money.
This explanation leaves an important question: If the very rich—the workers who have reaped above-average gains from the increased productivity since Keynes's time—can afford to work less, why don't they? I asked Friedman about this and he theorized that for many top earners, work is a labor of love. They are doing work they care about and are interested in, and doing more of it isn't such a burden—it may even be a pleasure. They derive meaning from their jobs, and it is an important part of how they think of themselves. And, of course, they are compensated for it at a level that makes it worth their while.
The prosperity Keynes predicted is here. After all, the economy as a whole has grown even more brilliantly than he expected. But for most Americans, that prosperity is nowhere to be seen—and, as a result, neither are those shorter workweeks.

Al Jazeera America Terminates All TV and Digital Operations 

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Executives of Al Jazeera America (AJAM) held a meeting at 2 p.m. Eastern Time to tell their employees that the company is terminating all news and digital operations in the U.S. as of April 2016, resulting in the loss of hundreds of jobs. The announcement marks a stunning and rapid collapse of what, from the start, has been a towering failure.
AJAM began when Al Jazeera purchased Current TV in late 2012 from founder Al Gore for $500 million, and the channel launched six months later. From the start, the project was beset with massive failures, from bitter internal strife and employee discrimination lawsuits to minuscule ratings and distribution failures. AJAM and Gore ended up in a protracted, embittered lawsuit with one another. Ratings were so low as to be almost unquantifiable; even by 2015, the network was averaging a tiny 30,000 viewers in prime-time and at some points had literally a zero rating in the key 25-54 demographic.
From the start, employees complained vociferously that network executives were paralyzed by fear, believing they had to avoid all hints of bias and opinion in order to steer clear of what these executives regarded as the lethal stench of the Al Jazeera brand for American audiences. This turned much of the network into a diluted, extra-fearful version of CNN, which itself has suffered from remarkably low ratings for years. AJAM journalists typically blame one AJAM executive in particular, Ehab Al Shihabi, its executive director of international operations. Al Shihabi, whose background is in business and not journalism, was widely regarded as the prime author of the network's identity problems and obsession with voiceless content.
A 2013 column in the Toronto Star by former Al Jazeera English chief Tony Burman warned that "the Al Jazeera America project has the odor of potential disaster." Burman cited a New York Times article that began: "While it has a foreign name, the forthcoming Al Jazeera cable channel in the United States wants to be American through and through." A NYT article from May on the "turmoil" plaguing the network pronounced that "the station has been a nonfactor in news." Rather than fill a market gap for strong-voiced journalism with a focus on domestic counter-terrorism policy and the Middle East, AJAM opted for the much safer – and ultimately futile – strategy of trying to be an inoffensive, generic cable news network.
AJAM has been losing staggering sums of money from the start. That has become increasingly untenable as the network's owner and funder, the government of Qatar, is now economically struggling due to low oil prices. The decision was made recently to terminate AJAM, which allows the network to terminate all of its cumbersome distribution contracts with cable companies, and re-launch its successful Al Jazeera English inside the U.S.
While AJAM has struggled with its television programming, its online reporting and digital opinion sites have been successful, finding relatively large audiences among American news consumers. Nonetheless, all of AJAM is terminating, and both the TV and digital employees are expected to lose their jobs.
 

'Don't Send Water': Michael Moore Laid Out the Painful Truths About Flint in This Letter

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Don't send water.
That was Oscar-winning filmmaker Michael Moore's blunt declaration to the world in an open letter published to his website Thursday regarding the Flint water crisis. The Bowling for Columbine director penned a blistering statement outlining the futility of bottled water as a solution, and instead offered a number of concrete solutions to stem the damage and bring comfort to the afflicted.
"100,000 bottles of water is enough for just one bottle per person," said Moore after praising the generosity of rock band Pearl Jam and the NFL's Detroit Lions, each of which donated 100,000 bottles. But for the city of 102,000 it remains woefully insufficient. "You would have to send 200 bottles a day, per person, to cover what the average American (we are Americans in Flint) needs each day. That's 102,000 citizens times 200 bottles of water — which equals 20.4 million 16oz. bottles of water per day, every day, for the next year or two until this problem is fixed."
Moore, who hails from Flint – his 1989 documentary Roger & Me addressed the devastation caused to the Flint community after General Motors shut down its local plants, leaving 30,000 out of work – explained that bottled water or not, the damage is already done. With Flint residents having consumed the contaminated water since April 2014, many of the effects of lead poisoning and other toxins are irreversible. (Medical professionals suspect a link between the water and the outbreak of Legionnaire's disease, which has already killed ten.)
"You cannot reverse the irreversible brain damage that has been inflicted upon every single child in Flint. The damage is permanent," he said. "There is no medicine you can send, no doctor or scientist who has any way to undo the harm done to thousands of babies, toddlers and children (not to mention their parents). They are ruined for life, and someone needs to tell you the truth about that."


Moore laid out five points, among them retribution for those he blames for the problem and a combination of state and federal responses. He called for the removal and potential prosecution of Republican Gov. Rick Snyder, who has come under withering criticism for his response to the crisis, and insisted that while Michigan should pay for the fallout, the recovery should be managed by the federal government and FEMA. Moore also said that Flint residents who wanted to leave should be relocated and that those who wanted to stay should be provided clean water from Lake Huron by the federal government.
The problem was a long time in the making. For Flint residents, it all started when, in a cost-cutting move, Flint rerouted its water supply from Detroit to that of the Flint River, exposing residents to water contaminated by the city's corrosive lead pipes. In fact, the water was so toxic, a local auto plant stopped using it, saying it damaged their equipment.
For more than a year, residents were told they had nothing to fear from the brown water coming out of their taps, even as warning signs multiplied and state workers in Flint decided to eschew the tap for bottled in their offices. The entire fiasco could have been avoided by adding an anti-corrosive agent to the water, per federal law. It would have cost $100 a day, according to CNN. For Moore, the open letter is the latest in a long drum beat for Flint and against Snyder. Moore also visited his hometown earlier this month to agitate from the ground and call for Synder's removal.
"This is not a mistake," said Moore, according to the Detroit Free Press. "Ten people have been killed here because of a political decision. They did this. They knew." Moore has started a petition calling on Snyder to be prosecuted which to date has received nearly half-a-million signatures.

http://youtu.be/QB6FzdzhAwY

Martin Shkreli could not stop laughing during his testimony to Congress



Infamous former Turing CEO Martin Shkreli and Howard Schiller, the interim chief executive of the pharmaceutical company Valeant, just faced Congress.

Legislators on Thursday wanted them to answer for dramatic drug-price increases that affect the lives of Americans.

Shkreli caught national attention when his company purchased a lifesaving drug called Daraprim and then raised the price by over 5,000%.

Wall Street was closely watching Schiller; Valeant's stock was a darling until accusations of malfeasance from a short seller and government scrutiny over pricing chopped off a quarter of its stock price last year.
  Not a few bad apples
At the hearing, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Maryland) opened by saying, "It's not funny — people are dying" because drug companies "jacked up" prices.

"These tactics are not limited to a few 'bad apples,'" he said. "They are prominent throughout the entire industry. Lannett, Pfizer, Horizon, Teva, Amphastar, Allergan, Endo — all of these companies have taken significant price increases on their drugs."

He also submitted letters from Human Rights Campaign, Consumer Union, the American Federation of Teachers, and more, expressing their concern about drug-pricing practices. Cummings also discussed regulation against what he called price gouging.

After Cummings spoke, Schiller took the hot seat. Schiller's prepared remarks are here.

Among his points were:

   
• Valeant paid an outside consultant to determine prices.
• Valeant passes costs onto hospitals, not patients, and it actually lowers costs for patients through its assistance programs.
• The FDA should speed up the approval process for generic drugs.

And then there's this interesting argument (emphasis ours):

"When these drugs are priced to reflect more closely their true clinical value, the more accurate price signals incentivize generic competition and innovation. Higher prices draw generic competitors into the market, which in turn tends to put significant downward pressure on prices."
Shkreli
Shkreli, as expected, invoked the Fifth Amendment and seemed to suppress laughter during his testimony. Turing's chief commercial officer also testified.

Shkreli was asked whether he had done anything wrong and was questioned about comments he had previously made.
Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-South Carolina) tried to convince Shkreli that some answers would not subject him to incrimination and that the two could talk about something else. That included his Wu-Tang Clan album.


"Is that the name of the group?" Gowdy asked.

"I intend to follow the advice of my counsel and not yours," Shkreli responded.

Shkreli continued to look away and smile. At points it looked as if he were about to burst out laughing.

"You can look away if you like, but you should see the faces of the people you affect," Cummings said. "You are known as one of the bad boys of pharma."

He added that there were "so many people that could use your help."

Cummings ended by telling Shkreli "God bless you" and requesting that Shkreli be escorted out.

Later, outside Congress, Shkreli's lawyer said his client had been unfairly singled out. Eventually, he said, people would come to realize that Shkreli was "not a villain, but a hero."

  there's something wrong with this guy

pic.twitter.com/mdfaBG8E1q     
— Sam Ro  (@bySamRo) February 4, 2016 
Shkreli's people
While Shkreli got off fairly easy, Turing's CCO, Nancy Retzlaff, was grilled.

Retzlaff tried to argue that price had nothing to do with people's inability to access Daraprim.

"We paid the majority of the copay," she said.

No one was having it.

"When anyone acts like Turing is acting, Congress ... can suspend the exclusivity period for you to produce that drug," Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Massachusetts) said. He called it a "poison pill."

"You're going to cause us to put heavy regulations on good companies ... Look at the impact you're having!"

Retzlaff also acknowledged that there was really nowhere a patient could see the real price of a drug, leading Boyle to say, "What we have here is a broken market."

Retzlaff was also asked whether her company ever thought about the public interest while pricing its product. She said she was comfortable with the pricing because of Turing's patient-assistance programs. She also said there was a lot of misinformation about pricing and that the problem was with public relations.

"Despite your best efforts it became a major news story," Cummings said later. Then he brought up that, in response to the public's reaction, a consultant advised Turing to lower the price and to tie profits of Daraprim to new research and development.

"Which is exactly what you're doing today," he said. "You followed most of the consultant's advice, except for one thing. You never lowered the price of Daraprim!"

Communications surrounding that, which Cummings read aloud to the session, made it clear that Turing knew patients were having problems paying for the drug but that it was unwilling to give on price.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) later played a video in which Shkreli said Turing took all of its "extra profit" and put it into R&D.

"That's not true, is it?" Chaffetz said. "Are you really testifying that you're losing money, because I've seen your spreadsheets and you're making money hand over fist."

Retzlaff denied it, and Chaffetz said: "Oh no? I'll release these documents to the public, and you can fight it out there."

He also brought up an investor who suggested waiting until the PR storm died down to increase prices. He also brought up that Turing was handing out bonuses. Retzlaff denied both statements, and Chaffetz countered by reading documents that Congress had subpoenaed from the company.

Then Chaffetz got real:

"Did you spend money on a yacht night?"

Retzlaff said yes.

Did you spend money on a cigar roller for that yacht night?

Retzlaff said yes.

"So don't tell me you're not making money. So what's a woman who's dying of AIDS supposed to do — is she supposed to tweet Martin Shkreli?"Schiller
One congressman asked Schiller of Valeant whether hospitals really had a choice in giving patients Isuprel and Nitropress, two cardiac drugs whose prices Valeant raised by 525% and 212% respectively.

Schiller basically affirmed that hospitals may not have a choice to give a patient a drug, but he said Valeant had checked with hospitals on how they use the drug.

In the same breath, he confirmed that hospitals were taking the cost of the drug — but one congressman argued that that cost goes back to the patient in the form of a higher bill for the patient's trip to the hospital.

"Given the choice between higher prices and risking the health of their patients ... you're forcing hospitals to choose ... almost holding the patients as hostages," Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Virginia) said.

He argued that this diverted funding from research and improving the care at hospitals. "The reality is hospitals are suffering in this country," he said.

He then asked Schiller whether it was true that Valeant's motto was, "Do not trust science — trust management."

Schiller said that he thought the company was changing and that he wasn't sure when CEO Michael Pearson, who has been on medical leave since December, said that. He then tried to talk about the value Valeant was driving to shareholders.

Connolly broke in, "I understand that your main concern in shareholders ... but it's unconscionable."

Cummings was equally hard on Schiller: "Mr. Schiller one question for you. You just said 'in some cases we were too aggressive in increasing prices.' Are you going to reduce prices?"

Schiller tried to say he looked across the portfolio and reduced some brands by 10% and that they would continue to make changes.

Cummings promised that he would be watching.

DA LI SAMO MENI 'SKAT' BUDI PRLJAVIJE ASOCIJACIJE NEGO 'SKOT'?!

SKOT NEĆE DA BUDE SKOT:
Američki ambasador menja pravopis srpskog jezika

OBJAVLJENO: 12/02/2016


Novi američki ambasador u Srbiji Kajl R. Skot odlučio je da promeni pravopis srpskog jezika. Skot ne želi da bude Skot, već "Skat".



Redackije gotovo svih zvaničnih medija donele su nezvaničnu odluku da promene pravopis srpskog jezika zbog prezimena novog američkog ambasadora Kajla R. Skota.

Mediji više ne pišu "izjavio je ambasador Skot", što je u skladu sa pravopisom srpskog jezika, već "izjavio je ambasador Skat". Čak je i Radio-televizija Srbije, navodni čuvar srpskog jezika na televiziji, objavila sledeći naslov: "Ambasador Skat za RTS".

Međutim, nisu mediji u potpunosti krivi. Nova pravopisna pravila ne dolaze iz redakcija, već direktno iz ambasade SAD u Srbiji.



Neki pametni ljudi iz američke ambasade procenili su da bi marketinški bilo bolje da se Skotovo prezime izgovara i piše sa "a". Skot nam se prvi put predstavio kao Skat putem video poruke koja je objavljena prvog dana kada je sleteo u Beograd.


Budemo li usvojili ovaj novogovor iz američke ambasade kao normu samo da javnost ne bi čitala naslove poput: "Skot primio Vučića" i "Skot izazvao diplomatski skandal", onda bi trebalo Skotland jard da postane Skatland jard, a Džon Keri da izgovaramo kao Džan Keri.

- See more at: http://www.teleprompter.rs/skot-nece-da-bude-skot-americki-ambasador-menja-pravopis-srpskog-jezika.html

Lukava sprega vlasti i velikog biznisa radi već decenijama na tome da građane & potrošače obeshrabri da transakcije plaćaju gotovim novcem jer to te transakcije čini težim za praćenje, građane sklonijim da se ponašaju oportunistički ali i da izbegnu da velike firme imaju detaljan profil njihovih navika itd. U poslednjih nekoliko dana ova inicijativa izdignuta je na viši nivo, u Evropi se priča o ukidanju novčanice od petsto Evra a u Americi da bi trebalo ukinuti novčanicu od sto dolara:



Getting Rid of Big Currency Notes Could Help Fight Crime

QuoteFew Europeans use the 500-euro note, and most Americans rarely encounter the $100 bill. Yet hundreds of millions of these notes are in circulation around the world, where they are often used by drug cartels, corrupt politicians, terrorists and tax cheats to evade law enforcement. That's why officials in Europe and elsewhere are proposing to end the printing of high-denomination bills.
Getting rid of big bills will make it harder for criminals to do business and make it easier for law enforcement to detect illicit activity. Consider this: a stack of 500-euro notes worth $1 million weighs just five pounds and can be carried in a small bag, whereas a pile of $20 bills worth the same amount would weigh 110 pounds and would be much more difficult to move around, according to a recent paper from Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government.
The president of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, recently said the bank is considering getting rid of the 500-euro note ($557), though the central bank plans to keep the 200-euro and 100-euro bills. Most Europeans never use the 500-euro note, and some retail stores in the eurozone do not even accept that bill.
Europol, the European Union's law enforcement agency, said in a report last year that criminals have been known to trade it for more than 500 euros, a sign of its value to them. Other big bills, like the 1,000 Swiss franc note, which is worth about $1,010, and the 1,000 Singapore dollar bill, the equivalent of $712, are also favored by criminal enterprises and tax evaders.   Lawrence Summers, the former Treasury secretary and former adviser to President Obama, has argued that the United States should get rid of the $100 bill; about 65 percent of these bills are held outside the country, according to a study published by the Federal Reserve. But that change could be disruptive because the $100 bill is used widely overseas for legitimate purposes, too. And as long as the E.C.B. continues to print 200-euro and 100-euro notes, criminals could switch to those bills. That's why such efforts should be coordinated internationally.
Critics who oppose such changes say the big bills make it easier for people to keep their savings in cash, especially in countries with negative interest rates. Some people also prefer not to conduct transactions electronically because they fear security breaches. But these are relatively minor burdens compared with the potential benefits of reducing criminal activity and tax evasion.
There is no need for large-denomination currency. Britain's top bill is the 50-pound note ($72), which has been perfectly sufficient. The United States stopped distributing $500, $1,000, $5,000 and $10,000 bills in 1969. There are now so many ways to pay for things, and eliminating big bills should create few problems.

End of an era:

https://newrepublic.com/minutes/130594/rip-print-edition-soldier-fortune-magazine-america-deserved

Već nekoliko godina jedna od vrućih tema u SAD je i pitanje H-1B viza i njihove zlo/upotrebe od strane korporativnog sektora. U najuprošćenijim terminima ovde se radi o aktuelizaciji stare paranoje da će doći ti neki imigranti i oteti poštenim Amerikancima radna mesta, ali ovog puta u globalizovanom svetu pa ljudi pogođeni tom vrstom nesreće nisu baštovani i automehaničari nego programeri i sistem administratori.

Specifičnost H-1B vize je upravo u tome što se ona izdaje imigrantu (privremeno, dakako) za potrebe rada u specijalizovanoj oblasti, onoj koja, eksplicitno se kaže, podrazumeva teorijsku i praktičnu primenu visoko specijalizovanog znanja i definiše se u najmanju ruku BA diplomom ili njenim ekvivalentom.

Sad, poslednjih nekoliko godina korporacije su, prirodno, shvatile da u državi gde je visoko obrazovanje skupo - praktično nema studiranja o trošku, jelte, države - i sve više od njih samih zahteva ulaganje (treba da se ispruže za stipendije, internšip pozicije itd.), da u takvoj, dakle, državi jednoj firmi na kraju bude isplativije da ustvrdi kako na tržištu rada nema adekvatnog kadra,  plati H-1B vizu i dovede Indusa/ Kineza/ Egipćanina itd. da radi posao koji je do juče radio rođeni Amerikanac. Ovi ljudi iz zemalja gde su školovani o trošku društva su presrećni da rade u, jelte, Americi (iako im H-1B viza NE garantuje američki pasoš) i mada se doprinosi za njih plaćaju jednako kao za američke građane i zakon tvrdi da moraju dobiti onaj nivo plate koji je uobičajen u toj radnoj oblasti, u praksi se ispostavlja da dolazi do primetnog spuštanja prosečnog nivoa plate za date poslove, kao i da su radnici ovog tipa, nažalost, spremni na mnoge kompromise na svoju štetu jer H-1B viza MOŽE biti korak do zelene karte. Uzbudljivo! Evo sada da se čuje šta kaže bivši IT radnik u Dizniju:


Former Disney IT worker to Congress: How can you allow this?

QuoteAt a congressional hearing today on the H-1B visa's impact on high-skilled workers, the first person to testify was Leo Perrero, a former Disney IT worker. He was overcome with emotion for parts of it, pausing to gather himself as he told the story of how he was replaced by a foreign visa holder.

It was a hearing with an emotional punch. Perrero testified after Immigration Subcommittee Chairman Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) displayed a giant photo of small American flags, which were flown indoors by IT workers at Northeast Utilities (now Eversource Energy).

Eversource Energy IT workers "were forced to train their foreign replacements -- and this was done, apparently," within the current law, said Sessions.  The photo, which was first published in Computerworld, was sent to the committee by a former IT worker at Eversource. The employee was not identified because of legal restrictions in the person's severance agreement. 
The only way the employees "could make a statement was by placing small American flags outside of cubicles," said Sessions.
As the IT workers were replaced, Sessions reported, the employee said " 'the flags disappeared just as we did.' "
For his part, Perrero wanted lawmakers to understand how utterly shocked he was. He detailed his good reviews while at Disney. He felt secure in his accomplishments.  An internal meeting was called and Perrero gathered with co-workers, expecting good news of some sort. Instead, they were notified that had 90 days remaining at Disney and would be laid off on Jan. 30, 2015. But before that happened, they would be training their foreign replacements.
Perrero wondered how he would tell his family that "I would soon be living on unemployment."

Perrero paused. The room was still as the audience waited for him to continue.

"Later that same day I remember very clearly going to the local church pumpkin sale and having to tell the kids that we could not buy any because my job was going over to a foreign worker," he said.

"How could it be that everybody who hears about Disney and the like ... are completely shocked," said Perrero. "Yet lawmakers continue to evade the topic and take no action."

One person with a different experience with foreign workers was Mark O'Neill, the CTO of Jackthreads, an online retailer. He argued that there is a need for more skilled workers.

Competition is so fierce for developers "that my developers' starting salaries have risen by 50% in the last eight years," said O'Neill, and "senior positions command compensation that meets or exceeds even that of United States Senators." (That compensation is now at $174,000/year.)

Sessions said he sees "no reason to end this [H-1B] program," but he wants a system that favors the most highly qualified.
Most of the comments spoke to frustration around the issue. John Miano, a programmer who became an attorney and was representing the Washington Alliance of Technology Workers, illustrated that frustration in a quip. "The only way this is going to get fixed is by executive order from President Trump," he said.

At the hearing, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), called Eversource Energy's outsourcing "extraordinarily troubling"; he has asked for a federal investigation.

Sessions is a leading advocate for reform of the H-1B visa. He has influenced the platform of Donald Trump, the billionaire developer who is leading the Republicans for the presidential nomination, and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), another presidential candidate, who has reversed his position on the H-1B visa. Sessions has co-sponsored a reform bill with Cruz.
Cruz, a one-time advocate for expanding the visa cap, now favors raising the minimum wage to $110,000. Trump is seeking to raise the prevailing wage.

The hearing was an opportunity to bring new attention to the issue in an election year.

Academic policy experts spoke on each side of the debate. These were mostly familiar arguments covering heavily researched areas.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), made it clear at the hearing that he was holding out for a comprehensive immigration reform bill, similar to the 2013 bill that was approved by the Senate but not the House.

"It's hard to believe this bill was turned down," said Schumer.

kad je mogo obama što ne bi i ovaj?

Tramp nominovan za Nobelovu nagradu za mir

Odbor za dodelu Nobelove nagrade za mir ove godine je primio rekordnih 376 nominacija za tu prestižnu nagradu.

IZVOR: INDEX.HR
SREDA, 2.03.2016.
   

"Lepo je videti što je ih toliko mnogo iskoristilo svoje pravo na nominaciju", rekao je predsednik norveškog odbora Olav Njolstad.

Ove godine nominovano je 228 pojedinaca i 148 organizacija. Među nominovanima su Edvard Snouden, stanovnici grčkog ostrva Lezbos i italijanske Lampeduse koji pomažu migrantima, kongoanski lekar Denis Mukvege koji leči žrtve silovanja u svojoj ratom opustošenoj zemlji, papa Franja, nemačka kancelarka Angela Merkel i američki milijarder Donald Tramp, prenosi Hina.

Pravo da preklažu kandidate za Nobelovu nagradu imaju predstavnici vlade i parlamenta, nekadašnji dobitnici nagrade, članovi Međunarodnog suda pravde, svetske akademske zajednice, kao i aktuelni i nekadašnji članovi odbora za dodelu.

ако је обарак добио ту 'престижну' награду, можеш ли онда замислити по каквом критеријуму се предлажу номинације...

Američka iskrivljena percepcija ljudskih prioriteta će nas zabavljati sve do momenta kad nas zbog nje ne ubije neki krstareći projektil, naravno. U ovom slučaju niko nije umro, ali zaista treba malo razmisliti nakon što se čovek nasmeje.

Naime... zamislite da ste bili u nekom hotelu i, jebiga, desi se, vi u kupatilu, stanete pod tuš, pustite toplu vodu i u tom trenutku se sruši zid i armatura vas tako nezgodno izbuši da hirurzi nemaju drugog izbora sem da vam, spasavajući vam život, amputiraju ruku. Nedobog, pupupu, ali eto, desi se, recimo, i vi onda tužite hotel. I onda se na sudu izborite za neku kompenzaciju. Recimo da biste bili razumno zadovoljni sa milion dolara. Recimo da biste sa pet miliona smatrali da ste im očitali lekciju. Recimo da biste sa deset miliona dolara odštete uhvatili sebe kako mislite da tu ruku na kraju krajeva niste baš toliko koristili i da ovo u stvari nije ispalo tako loše.

E, sad zamislite sve to isto ali umesto srušenog zida imate paparaca a umesto amputiranog ekstremiteta... er... objavljen snimak toga kako se tuširate negde na internetu. Tužite hotel. Sud vam dodeli PEDESETPET miliona dolara odštete jer je vaš advokat ubedio porotu da ste u permanentnoj traumi već godinama, da vas napada depresija jer eto, povremeno vam na tviteru neko pomene da vas je video golu. A to je ipak, dozvolićete strašno. Tu d tjun ov 55 milion dolarz, moliću.

Jebote. Onli in Amerika.


TV Star Gets £38m After Stalker Films Her Nude

Quote
A TV sports presenter who was secretly recorded by a stalker while nude in a hotel room has been awarded $55m (£38m) by a jury.
Erin Andrews, a Fox Sports reporter who also co-hosts Dancing With The Stars, had told the trial that she was left humiliated and depressed when the video was uploaded online, where it continues to be viewed by millions of people.
She had filed a lawsuit for $75m (£52m) against the man who filmed her, Michael David Barrett, as well as the two companies which owned the hotel where the harassment took place in 2008.
After deliberating for a full day, a jury decided Barrett was responsible for 51% of the blame and the compensation, while the hotel firms should share the rest.
Barrett has already served two-and-a-half years in prison after he confessed to altering peepholes and deceiving the hotel's staff to learn Andrews' room number and request the room next door.
He said he uploaded the footage online after TMZ refused to purchase it.
Lawyers for the hotels had insisted that Barrett was entirely to blame for what happened to Andrews as he was a determined criminal, and also suggested that the progress in her career since the incident was proof that her distress was not severe or permanent.
But during a tearful testimony in Tennessee, Andrews said she is taunted about the video "every day of my life".
She added: "Either I get a tweet or somebody makes a comment in the paper or somebody sends me a still video to my Twitter or someone screams it at me in the stands and I'm right back to this.
"I feel so embarrassed and I am so ashamed."
Her parents had also testified - reliving the terror their family had felt after the video emerged because they didn't know who had taken it, where it was shot and whether their daughter was still being watched.
Following the verdict, several jurors hugged Andrews - and one even asked for an autograph.
In a statement, the TV star thanked the jury, her family and her legal team, adding: "I've been honoured by all the support from victims around the world. Their outreach has helped me be able to stand up and hold accountable those whose job it is to protect everyone's safety, security and privacy."

Ovim, naravno, ne želim da se podsmevam osobama čija je privatnost grubo narušena i izvrnuta ruglu za zabavu dokonih internet smarača, samo pokušavam da shvatim koji je misaoni proces doveo do ovolikog iznosa odštete...

Tamo vlada puritanska kultura. Od golotinje se prave R-rated filmovi, a od krvoliptanja PG-13.

Ovo baš i ne pripada ovde, ali pošto valjda nemamo drugu temu o Americi:

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n06/jackson-lears/capitalisms-capital

"Robert Moses was a modernist pharaoh. Over the forty years from the early 1930s to the late 1960s, he became a virtual dictator of public works in all five boroughs of New York and much of its suburban surroundings. Almost singlehandedly, through chicanery, fraud and bullying, he created the modern infrastructure of the New York City area: expressways, tunnels and bridges, but also parks, beaches, swimming pools and high-rise housing projects. He envisioned an American version of Le Corbusier's ideal city, cleansed of disorder and unpredictability, focused on cars rather than pedestrians, committed to an idea of urban public space as empty plazas dominated by glass towers. He aspired to be a master builder, and his achievements ranged from the elegant – the Art Deco bathhouses at Jones Beach on Long Island – to the catastrophic: the Cross-Bronx Expressway, which destroyed thriving neighbourhoods and displaced thousands of people."

Robert Mozes je inspiracija najomiljeniji mi tekst. 

Kad smo već kod Amerike & propasti, poznato je da je kod njih nasilje izvršeno vatrenim oružjem relativno ozbiljan problem i da su debate oko toga da li lično naoružanje nekako treba staviti pod kontrolu žučne i duge. S jedne strane su gun control zagovarači koji kažu da je naprosto bezumno da u gomili saveznih država u SAD možeš da kupiš pušku ili pištolj bez ikakve provere, čak i bez davanja identiteta, a sa druge NRA aktivisti koji se pozivaju na drugi amandman i vele da je lično naoružanje neophodno ne samo za samoodbranu od ustaša provalnika i silovatelja već i od vlasti koje bi da se odrode od građana, pa svaki pokušaj da se makar registruju vlasnici ličnog naoružanja doživljavaju kao potez u smeru uspostavljanja fašističke diktature. Studija objavljena pre neki dan ukazuje da bi tri relativno jednostavna zakonska mehanizma ipak hipotetički smanjila broj smrti koje su posledica vatrenog oružja čitavih 90 procenata.


Study finds that 3 laws could reduce firearm deaths by 90%.

QuoteEven though over 90 people are killed by guns in the United States every day, gun-control legislation remains a hotly contested and divisive topic.  A new nationwide study, however, has added to the debate by presenting evidence that suggests gun deaths in the US could be reduced by over 90% with the implementation of federal laws mandating firearm identification through microstamping or ballistic fingerprinting, and universal background checks for firearm and ammunition purchases.The study, published in The Lancet, used a cross-sectional, state-level dataset relating to a host of topics associated with firearm mortality including gun ownership and even unemployment from across the US to examine the relationship between recorded gun deaths and gun-control legislation. The study found that, despite the wide range of legislation employed at the state level, very few of the existing laws were actually effective. In fact, some laws, such as those that restrict gun access to children through locks and age restrictions, were simply ineffective while others, such as the stand-your-ground law that allows individuals to use deadly force in self-defence, actually increase gun-related deaths significantly. In the end, the study found that the most effective way to lower the rate of firearm deaths in the US was to focus on implementing the best legislation, which were the laws most strongly associated with reduced gun deaths, namely universal background checks for firearm and ammunition purchase as well as identification requirements for guns.
According to the study's model, a federal law expanding background checks for all gun purchases could reduce the national gun death rate by 57%, lowering it from 10.35 to 4.46 per 100,000 people while background checks for all ammunition purchases could lower the rate by 81% to 1.99 per 100,000 and firearm identification could reduce it by 83% to 1.81 per 100,000.

If the federal government implemented all three laws, the scholars predict that the overall national rate of firearm deaths would drop by over 90% to 0.16 per 100,000.

Although the potential impact of these laws appears staggering, the authors advise caution because the expected fall in the mortality rate could take many years to become apparent even if all three laws were put in place immediately. Furthermore, in a related commentary renowned Prof. David Hemenway is somewhat less enthusiastic about the results, warning of statistical problems in the findings.  Regardless, this study is the step in the right direction in bringing more scientific evidence into the debate about gun-control legislation in the US.

A gde su "from my cold, dead hands" frikovi tu su i extremne "pro-life" ideje

Indiana Is Trying To Pass An Abortion Bill That's So Extreme Even Republicans Don't Like It

QuoteIndiana lawmakers are currently advancing a particularly harsh anti-abortion bill that's failing to win support even among some Republicans in the state.

Under HB 1337, which both chambers of the legislature passed this week, women would be prohibited from seeking an abortion if they discover their fetus has genetic abnormalities. Abortion providers would be responsible for burying or cremating "fetal remains." And donating fetal tissue — an area of scientific research that's come under fire thanks to a smear campaign against Planned Parenthood — would be classified as a felony crime.

According to a Planned Parenthood statement, the legislation is "particularly cruel in that it's designed to shame and demean a woman who is facing tragic circumstances with a lethal fetal anomaly." Essentially, a grieving pregnant woman grappling with the news that her unborn child won't survive outside the womb would be required to receive information dissuading her from ending the doomed pregnancy.

If HB 1337 becomes law, Indiana will become just the second state in the nation to ban abortions based on fetal abnormality — part of a larger strategy to discern why women may be choosing to end a pregnancy. North Dakota also has this restriction on the books.

Reproductive rights proponents point out that women need to be able to make difficult pregnancy decisions about whether they can adequately care for a child with severe disabilities. They say that restrictions in this area are unnecessary, unenforceable, and seek to drive an offensive wedge between the abortion rights community and the disability rights community.

Some Republicans in Indiana appear to agree.

"The bill does nothing to save innocent lives. There's no education, there's no funding. It's just penalties," Rep. Sharon Negele, a Republican who has sponsored anti-abortion legislation in the past, said this week at a hearing regarding HB 1337.

Another Republican lawmaker, Rep. Sean Eberhart, said he decided to vote against the bill after discussing it with his wife. He said she didn't agree with the legislation even though she's "as pro-life as they come."

"Today is a perfect example a bunch of middle-aged guys sitting in this room making decisions about what we think is best for women," Eberhart said. "We need to quit pretending we know what's best for women and their health care needs."

Several Republicans in the legislature also took issue with the way HB 1337 advanced. According to the Associated Press, Republican leaders in the House used a procedural measure to rush a vote on an updated version of the bill without giving lawmakers additional time to make changes.

"I feel this is government overreaching," GOP Rep. Cindy Kirchhofer said in protest. "It's bills like these that make people like me really hate the system," GOP Rep. Wendy McNamara agreed.

As the national abortion landscape becomes increasingly extreme, other conservative state lawmakers have also spoken out against efforts to restrict women's rights. Oklahoma Rep. Doug Cox (R), for example, has made national headlines for repeatedly criticizing his party's relentless focus in this area. "This bill takes the ability to control their destiny away from women," Cox said in response to a 2014 bill seeking to restrict emergency contraception. "But that's what we do in the Republican Party these days."

HB 1337 now awaits the governor's approval. A spokesperson for Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R) stopped short of promising he will sign the bill into law, but noted that Pence is "a strong supporter of the right to life" who will "give this legislation thoughtful consideration once it reaches his desk."

Ovo je prelepo <3

! No longer available

Amerika u epizodi "Won't somebody think of the children", repriza po ko zna koji put. Pedofili su svuda oko nas, čak su toliko drski da svojim simbolima obeležavaju dečije igračke!!!!! OMG, šta ako se neko dete onda zarazi pedofilijom i... ne umem da zamislim šta onda može da se desi!!!!!!! Da priča bude uzbudljivija: majka je kupila detetu kamionče da se igra ali je starija ćerka - dobro obrazovana, aj šit ju not, to piše u tekstu, gledanjem Law & Order: Special Victims Unit - primetila na kamiončetu malo srce u velikom srcu i pošto deca ne mogu da zapamte gde je na geografskoj karti Skandinavija i koji je kurac bio taj car Konstantin po kome se sad zove svaki drugi STR u Nišu, ali ne zaboravljaju stvari koje vide u omiljenim serijama, setila se da je u seriji objašnjeno da je to tajni znak pedofila. Jer, jelte, malo srce u velikom srcu, it mejks prfikt sens. Onda je majka uzbunila javnost,a firma je povukla sve svoje proizvode i izdala pres riliz kako su svi u kompaniji šokirani i da oni nisu imali pojma i sve to. Za dlaku, jebotebog, zamislite da je još neko dete dobilo na poklon sličnu igračku!!!!!!!




Recall Issued After Mom Discovers Pedophile Symbol on Popular Children's Toy

QuoteA vigilant Florida mom discovered a symbol on her child's toy truck that led to a massive recall.
Nicole O'Kelly bought the pink truck for her 2-year-old daughter at a Monster Jam event in the Tampa area. At first, she didn't think much of the heart symbol on the back of the toy. But her older daughter, a Law & Order: Special Victims Unit fan (and seriously smart cookie), noticed the symbol from the TV show and told her mother immediately.
According to Slate, the symbol, a heart surrounded by a larger heart, is a secret code for pedophiles. It signals that a female child is ready to be trafficked for sex.
"I'm absolutely sick. I bought this for my 2-year-old little girl. This toy was made for little girls. I wanted answers," O'Kelly said.
Even more alarming is that it happened at an event where so many males were in attendance.
"This is pink," O'Kelly said. "This is for little girls, especially at a predominately male event."
The company that makes the toy, Feld Inc, admits they were unaware of the symbol's meaning and that the horrific mistake was unintentional. They have since issued a recall and pulled it from shelves.
A spokesperson for the company has released a statement:

"We're shocked. We had no idea. We reacted immediately. We wanted to do the right thing as quickly as possible. Clearly we're in the business with providing high quality family entertainment. This was really obscure. Until yesterday, I had no idea there was an underlying meaning of these symbols and the deplorable behavior. We just don't know if a crime was committed here. We have not been contacted by LEOs. We just want to make sure it doesn't happen again," said Stephen Payne, with Feld Inc.

Anyone who purchased a toy with the symbol at the Monster Jam event in Florida on January 16th or February 6th should contact the police immediately.
As scary as this is, maybe it will shed some light on the horrific realities of child trafficking and help to keep kids safer.
For more information on pedophile symbols, you can read the FBI report that identifies the many different types.

Čisto eksperimenta radi, ako nađem negde fotografiju dvogodišnjeg deteta kako se brčka u plićaku bez kupaćih gaćica i fotošopujem na nju američki zastavu, oće Obama nešto duradi i da se promene ti nacionalni simboli pošto su to sada pedofilska obeležja?

Ljudi su nervozni, to je razumljivo, teror buja, sve je jasno. Ali... prvo pustiš arapsku porodicu - muž, žena i tri sitna deteta - da uđu u avion, a onda ih iz aviona izbaciš. Pa to ne može a da ne izgleda mnogo glupo. Bez obzira što kasnije objasniš da je bio problem u sedištu 

Arab-American Family Outraged After Getting Kicked Off Flight

Quote

A Muslim family from Chicago was outraged recently after they say they were forced off a United Airlines flight for "safety reasons."
Eaman-Amy Saad Shebley took her anger to social media, where she reportedly posted video of a flight attendant asking her, her husband and three kids to deplane for no apparent reason.
The incident occurred after Shebley asked a flight attendant about five-point harnesses for the kids, WDIV reports.
The flight attendant said she had no idea what the mother was talking about and the family was soon lead off the plane.
"Shame on you United Airlines for profiling my family for no reason than how we look," wrote Shebley, who wears a hijab. "My three kids are too young to have experienced this."
The video can no longer be viewed on Facebook.
After getting off the plane, the family contacted customer service, who apologied and rebooked them on a new flight to Washington, DC. They also filed a complaint.
The family would later contact the Council on American-Islamic Relations, whose Executive Director of the Council on American Islamic Relations of Michigan, Dawud Walid, told WDIV:
"Unfortunately there's a growing problem on airlines of Muslims being removed from flights when they cause no reasonable security concerns."
Meanwhile, United still appears to maintain there was a reason for concern. In a statement, the airliner wrote:
'We rebooked them on a later flight because of concerns about their child's safety seat, which did not comply with federal safety regulations.
"Both United and SkyWest hold our employees to the highest staneards of professionalism and have zero tolerance for discrimination."

Gde se ima tu se i presipa: TSA su platili 1,4 milijuna dolara za aplikaciju koja je u suštini najobičniji RNG. 



TSA paid $1.4 million for Randomizer app that chooses left or right

QuoteWhen someone starts learning how to code, one of the first things they create is a program that generates and outputs random numbers. In most cases it's an incredibly simple program to make because your programming language of choice has a randomizing function available to use.
Keeping the above in mind, I now turn your attention to the Transport Security Administration and the Randomizer app they use every day. If you've traveled through US airports in recent years then you're well aware of the TSA Pre-Check lanes. It is a faster way to get through airport security for low-risk travelers, and allows you to keep your shoes and belt on.
TSA Pre-Check is faster, but it also includes random searches and that's where the Randomizer app comes in. The app randomly chooses whether travelers go left or right in the Pre-Check lane. That way, nobody can predict which lane each person is assigned to and therefore can't figure out how to avoid the random checks.
Here's the app in action:


http://youtu.be/P_KmFJ2gGzw




So how much did the TSA pay to have the Randomizer iPad app developed? At least $336,413.59.  That's $336,413.59 for an app that does nothing more than randomly select left or right a few hundred times an hour.
We know this thanks to developer Kevin Burke, who submitted a Freedom of Information Act request asking for details about the app. And if you think paying over $336,000 for an app like this is ridiculous, well, that's just the tip of the iceberg.
The contract for the TSA Randomizer app was won by IBM. The total paid for the project is actually $1.4 million, but the cost is not broken down in the documents Burke received in response to his request. It could be IBM supplied all the iPads and training as well as the app itself. Even so, the cost of the project is crazy. It's an app that is just randomly selects left or right.
I understand that software used for security checks at airports must be rigorously tested and reviewed, but I have a hard time believing such checks cost $1.4 million. In fact, I'm sure there's many reputable developers out there who'd supply the TSA with the same app for a few thousand dollars.

Colorado clinic shooter hoped fetuses would thank him for stopping abortions 

QuoteThe man accused of fatally shooting three people at a Colorado Planned Parenthood clinic last year said he hoped that when he died fetuses in heaven would thank him for stopping more abortions, court documents showed on Monday.

Robert Lewis Dear, 57, made the comments to police after he surrendered following a shooting rampage and five-hour siege last November at the Colorado Springs clinic that also left nine others injured.

Dear is charged with first-degree murder and attempted murder.

Among those killed were a young mother, a U.S. Army veteran and a police officer from a nearby university who responded to the scene.

The new disclosures emerged after El Paso County District Court Judge Gilbert Martinez agreed to unseal arrest and search warrant affidavits in the case.

Dear also told police that he was upset with Planned Parenthood for performing abortions and "the selling of body parts," according to the documents.

He said he admired Paul Hill, an anti-abortion extremist who was executed in Florida in 2003 for the murder of an abortion provider in 1994, police said.

A wounded victim told police that Dear approached her in the clinic parking lot and opened fire after saying that she "shouldn't have come here today," the documents said.

Dear ambushed several responding police officers, and was wearing a homemade ballistic vest comprised of silver coins and duct tape, police said.

In outbursts at earlier hearings and in media interviews, Dear called himself "a warrior for the babies," claiming he was guilty and that there would be no trial. He also said he wanted to fire his court-appointed lawyers and defend himself.

Martinez ordered the South Carolina native to undergo a competency examination at the state mental hospital to determine if he was fit to act as his own lawyer.

The court-appointed evaluation deemed him incompetent, his lawyers said in court filings.

In an interview with the Colorado Springs Gazette newspaper last month, Dear indicated that he may have changed his mind and might not fire his lawyers.

"Yeah, I want to be my own attorney," Dear told the newspaper. "But if my attorney will start following my rules and doing what I want, then maybe I'll work a deal with him."

Martinez will rule whether Dear is competent sometime after an April 28 hearing on the issue.

  Saudis threaten to sell $750 billion US assets if Congress passes bill that would let 9/11 victims sue Saudi Arabia 

Quote
Saudi Arabia threatened to sell up to $750 billion worth of US assets held by the Kingdom if Congress passes a bill that would allow the Saudi government to be sued over 9/11, reports The New York Times' Mark Mazzetti.

Saudi Foreign Minister, Adel al-Jubeir, personally passed on the message last month during a trip to Washington, according to The Times.
The foreign minister was referring to the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, (JASTA) which would let victims of 9/11 and other terrorist acts sue foreign sponsors of terrorism.
As Vice News noted when it was reintroduced in September, the Senate bill would pave the way for a lawsuit to proceed over Saudi Arabia's alleged role in the 9/11 terror attacks.
Saudi Arabia has been arguing that it's immune from liability over 9/11 under a 1976 law that makes it difficult to sue foreign countries in US courts. However, the JASTA legislation would allow victims of terrorism on US soil to sue foreign sponsors of terrorism.
The Obama administration has been lobbying Congress to block the bill's passage, administration officials and congressional aides from both parties told The Times. The administration argues that the legislation would put Americans at legal risk overseas.
Meanwhile, "the Saudi threats have been the subject of intense discussions in recent weeks between lawmakers and officials from the State Department and the Pentagon," writes Mazzetti. "The officials have warned senators of diplomatic and economic fallout from the legislation."
The Saudi government has routinely denied any involved in 9/11. Additionally, the 9/11 Commission found "no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually funded the organization."
However, Mazzetti writes that suspicions about Saudi involvement have lingered because a 2002 inquiry from Congress cited evidence that Saudi officials living in the US were part of the 9/11 terror plot.
Notably, the Saudis' statement comes at time when US-Saudi relations are not as great as they once were following attempts to (kind of) patch things up with Iran, the Saudis' regional rival, and ongoing questions about the roles both countries should play in the Middle East.
Check out the full story at the New York Times.