>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

ReasonTV isn't a news outlet, it's a corporate conservative front group. It's subscription and ad revenue are miniscule, sustaining itself almost entirely by donations from corporate benefactors - most notably war profiteer and Tea Party funder, David Koch.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Reason_Foundation>> ^Enzoblue:
Top YT comment: Dear "reason.tv" - Stop hiring reporters based on whether you'd fuck them, and start hiring them based on whether they can perform a coherent interview.



Is sourcewatch.org a fair source? I think so with the news stories that pop up on their homepage. Top stories like "Milton Friedman's Little Shop of Horrors" and "The Koch Connection" I could almost wonder if you could be webmaster.

And let's compare the sourcewatch "wikipages" of Center for American Progress (your Democratic org) vs. Reason Foundation. Read the top summary first: CAP and Reason.

CAP's summary hits all the beats. It's rich with info, points out the things that kind of organization would like as publicity, and even going so far as to pimp their email newsletter. Wow. Reason's summary is written like a rap sheet. They're a "self described" think tank instead of "Washington, DC-based" think tank like CAP. They point out some affiliation with a donor like Koch - incrimination by association. And then it finishes by showing their reported income losses for some reason. No mention anywhere of CAP's funding.

No, total credible source you got there. Looks legit. Let's go with your link.

This guy: Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX)

https://lamarsmith.house.gov/

Washington D.C. Office
2409 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
202-225-4236 202-225-8628 fax
Hours: 8:30am - 6:00pm EST, Monday - Friday

San Antonio Office
1100 NE Loop 410 Suite 640
San Antonio, TX 78209
210-821-5024 210-821-5947 fax
Hours: 8am - 5pm CST, Monday - Friday

Hey ghandi, remember me, the crazy guy with the crazy idea? I switched majors to biology but I keep on keeping on with the dreaming. Chemistry is a lot more interesting than a state university's current idea of computer science. My wait-and-see attitude, coupled with my tendency to only do things i enjoy, lets me stick to projects where I can make personally satisfactory progress. Other people will have to complete the LDP as I sort of always knew.

Check these out regarding logical discourse:

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"This seems like the perfect question to pose to Slashdotters: how would you foster more dynamic spaces for online news discussion? How would you preserve the context of online discussions and stamp out trolls? " Sound familiar?

http://ask.slashdot.org/story/11/05/09/203221/Ask-Slashdot-Going-Beyond-Comment-Threads

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Truthy is a research project that helps you understand how memes spread online. With our images and statistics, you can help identify misuse of Twitter. Our first application was the study of astroturf campaigns in elections. Now we're extending our focus to the diffusion of all types of information in social media.

http://truthy.indiana.edu


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United States Patent 7,805,291 Berkowitz Appl. No.: 11/137,594
Filed: May 25, 2005
September 28, 2010

Method of identifying topic of text using nouns


Abstract
A method of identifying a topic of a text. Text is received. Then, the nouns in the text are identified. The singular form of each identified noun is determined. Combinations are created of the singular form of the identified nouns, where the number of singular forms of the nouns in the combinations is user-definable. The frequency of occurrence in the text of each noun that corresponds to its singular form is determined. Each frequency of occurrence is assigned as a score to its corresponding singular form noun. Each combination of singular form nouns is assigned a score that is equal to the sum of the scores of its constituent singular form nouns. The user-definable number of top scoring singular form nouns and combinations of singular form nouns are selected as the topic of the text.

Inventors: Berkowitz; Sidney (Baltimore, MD)
Assignee: The United States of America as represented by the Director National Security Agency (Washington, DC)
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This paper was coming out about the time I started to get interested in the possibility of analyzing for semantics and stuff. Good thing someone smarter figured it out.

Modeling public mood and emotion: Twitter sentiment and socio-economic phenomena
Authors: Johan Bollen, Alberto Pepe, Huina Mao
(Submitted on 9 Nov 2009)

Abstract: Microblogging is a form of online communication by which users broadcast brief text updates, also known as tweets, to the public or a selected circle of contacts. A variegated mosaic of microblogging uses has emerged since the launch of Twitter in 2006: daily chatter, conversation, information sharing, and news commentary, among others. Regardless of their content and intended use, tweets often convey pertinent information about their author's mood status. As such, tweets can be regarded as temporally-authentic microscopic instantiations of public mood state. In this article, we perform a sentiment analysis of all public tweets broadcasted by Twitter users between August 1 and December 20, 2008. For every day in the timeline, we extract six dimensions of mood (tension, depression, anger, vigor, fatigue, confusion) using an extended version of the Profile of Mood States (POMS), a well-established psychometric instrument. We compare our results to fluctuations recorded by stock market and crude oil price indices and major events in media and popular culture, such as the U.S. Presidential Election of November 4, 2008 and Thanksgiving Day. We find that events in the social, political, cultural and economic sphere do have a significant, immediate and highly specific effect on the various dimensions of public mood. We speculate that large scale analyses of mood can provide a solid platform to model collective emotive trends in terms of their predictive value with regards to existing social as well as economic indicators.


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Cheers,

Vairetube

I notice a trend in which every time I hear a politician speak with candid common sense, it's because they're retired.

It's as if just the act of leaving Washington DC produces clearer thinking.

I think back in the 50's, Dow chemicals, in cooperation with Walt Disney, placed some nefarious device that broadcasts around the city and muddles everyone's brain.

I don't think incentives would make much (if any) difference in the performance or recruitment of educators. Despite all the bashing done to educators, I've still not seen any evidence to suggest that they are proportionally worse than employees of other professions. Teaching is a very public activity with a high level of accountability. Between parents, administrators, fellow teachers, students, public performance, testing and grading, there is plenty of incentive not to suck.

If you were going to offer some kind of monetary incentive, why not give the teacher extra funds for his or her class? Money for extra books, desks, repairs, music, instruments, art supplies, sports equipment and other educational materials etc. That would mean a lot to a teacher in these days of ever shrinking education budgets. Or you could send the teachers off to one of the many teaching conferences that are hosted each year. A weekend at a teaching convention in Washington DC on New Orleans would not only be fun for the teacher, but productive for the school and students as well. The flip side of this argument is that the teachers with tougher assignments might be better served with extra funds and professional training.

Here are the 3 best things we could do to fix education:

1) Fix our economy/Fix our democracy: No small task, but it would be a miracle elixir of sorts. It would curb our war machine, help create new jobs, and in the process, provide food, shelter, less stressed out parents and stability for American kids.

2) Limit corporate influence over our political process: Corporations want public education to fail so that they can privatize and profit. As long as big money runs the government, it's going to be difficult to get the votes for a decent education policy.

3) Create a decent education policy: Find an intelligent alternative to NCLB (or whatever Obama is calling his redux) that students can connect with. Perhaps you could analyze the most successful education models out there and make a hybrid of characteristics that would best fit the particulars of our culture.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'Rally For Sanity' to 'Rally For Sanity, keynesian, kenyan, economics, washington dc' - edited by blankfist

"You guys always screw it up"

Great point on education of impoverished women and it's impact on consumption. Here's a decent charity that aims to impact this issue in Africa:


http://www.africare.org/our-work/what-we-do/women/index.php
http://www.bbb.org/charity-reviews/national/relief-and-development/africare-in-washington-dc-2306

Please don't screw it up

Which is why advocating for the wholesale slaughter and destruction of a country A, because 19 people from countries B, C, D and E, flew an airplane into a skyscraper is an appalling, disgraceful, revolting thing.

Fifteen of the hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, two from the United Arab Emirates, one from Egypt, and one from Lebanon. Orchestrated by someone who's family has long-standing ties to the Bush family and the CIA. (lest we forget to mention Bush calling off a full-scale attack at Tora Bora).


"In 1978, George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden's brother, Salem bin Laden, founded Arbusto Energy, an oil company based in Texas.

Several bin Laden family members invested millions in The Carlyle Group, a private global equity firm based in Washington, DC. The company's senior advisor was Bush's father, former President George H.W. Bush. After news of the bin Laden-Bush connection became public, the elder Bush stepped down from Carlyle.

Interestingly, on Sept. 11, 2001, members of the Carlyle Group - including Bush senior, and his former secretary of state, James Baker - were meeting at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Washington, D.C., along with Shafiq bin Laden, another one of Osama bin Laden's brothers.

While all flights were halted following the terrorist attacks, there was one exception made: The White House authorized planes to pick up 140 Saudi nationals, including 24 members of the bin Laden family, living in various cities in the U.S. to bring them back to Saudi Arabia, where they would be safe. They were never interrogated."


>> ^xxovercastxx:

Like it or not, this is fairly true. Not that you have to intentionally target civilians, but you have to be willing to accept massive civilian casualties to hit important targets.

*backup=[...snipped...]

If you want to call bullshit on the correlation b/t gun ownership and murder rates that's fine. But take a look at Washington DC during their firearms ban. I'm not saying gun ownership is the only way to increase safety. Reducing poverty is also a great way. Gang violence and other crimes usually happen in poor places.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Washington,_D.C.

In reply to this comment by geo321:
I think you maybe taking a group of stats that correlate and are presenting them as cause and effect. The best statistical predictor over time of crime reduction is reducing child poverty. Anyway that argument of dissencetive that if everybody is armed there be less crime is bullshit

>> ^Hybrid:

It's surprising how many of these shots look like they wouldn't need green screen. I mean, all that effort, for say two actors sitting on the steps in front of Lincoln. Do they really need green screen for that?


You're not considering all the factors.

Sure, you could film on the steps of the Real Lincoln Memorial, but you'd have to fly all your cast and crew out to Washington DC, get filming permits for a really gdamn busy public memorial, make sure the weather and lighting is perfect, cordon off the area so no one walks into your shot, and threaten to shoot any assholes who decide to be clever by shouting really loud as the actors start to speak.

Or, you could green screen.

As long as we all swallow the fact that we are killing on behalf of corporate profits, I have no problem with allowing our men and women in uniform to become more detached from the killing and safely on our own soil. Focus your anger on the bullshit happening in Washington DC on behalf of the military industrial complex, not the technology that keeps our people safe and their targets more precise.

If there was an actual team in the aircraft, would it be more palatable for you? If this kill required a squadron to punch through enemy lines and pull the trigger up close after mowing down hundreds of people in between, would you be happier?

Fight the root of the evil, not the improving tactics.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'Washington, DC, snowball, flash mob, overreaction' to 'Washington, DC, snowball, flash mob, overreaction, FUCK THE POLICE' - edited by peggedbea

I have to agree with WP on this one. The vast majority of everybody's complaints here would be solved by stronger controls on politicians that would reduce or eliminate the effectiveness of lobbying. It is the money changing hands in Washington DC that is the root of sooo many problems, both with corporations and with government itself.

Personally, I'm for separation of money and "free speech". One person's or corporation's massive coffers should not give them "more" free speech than the average citizen. Elections should be publicly financed so that politicians cannot be beholden to a small number of donors, or potential donors.

On the topic of the video, Bank of America is not stupid. If it was more profitable to help those people out of debt, they would be doing it. They run off statistics, and not compassion. If it weren't for the apathy of the average citizen, this fact would put them out of business. But the average citizen doesn't care. *That is why this video is important for everybody to see.* If we want to see change in the way business treats people, we have to raise awareness of the cold cruelty that they perpetrate "within the law". It's the only way to effect change.

QM, as a conservative, wouldn't you agree that too much is being spent on foreign wars?

Even with all the inevitable Dept. of Defense waste? No. The first priority of any nation is to defend itself from invaders. If you took all the money we spend on defense, redirected it for "social services" and scrap the military, China would quickly move in. I think liberals have a tendency to forget that it's our nuke-carrying submarines circling the globe that keep monsters like China in check and everyone honest.

Unfortunately, America has no choice but to be the world's policeman, we've been cast in that role, and a Ron Paul-style return of all our Armed Forces around the world would mean absolute chaos. Think of how many rogue nations there are now, still acting like dicks WITH our military everywhere.

You won't believe this, but "spending (on national security) as a share of the national economy has actually decreased sharply in recent decades and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan brought only relatively minor increases. In 1951, with overall government spending less than half what it is today, the defense budget was nearly twice its 2009 level. (9% to 4.7%). In other words, military spending as a percentage of all governmental spending is today only one-fourth what it was sixty years ago.

"In 1968, due to Vietnam, military spending rose to 9.8%. That number (of defense spending as a percentage of GDP) came down after the conclusion of the war in Southeast Asia, and sank to a modern low of 3% under Bill Clinton, a level criticized by many military planners as irresponsibly low. Defense spending has increased steadily since then (to an estimated 4.7% this year) under the pressures of the War on Terror. The defense budget nevertheless remains historically low far below its levels under Eisenhower, say, or Kennedy, or Reagan (6%). In explaining the outrageous increase in federal, state and local spending, its obvious that defense and international entanglements had nothing to do with it."

Wood Chipper and Friends are complaining that "no one is doing anything" to help "the poor."

"A book "The Complete Idiots Guide to Economics" written in 2003 cites the U.S. Government budget as reporting that entitlements make up approximately 65 percent of our budget, distributed as follows:
Social Security: 23%
Medicare: 12%
Medicaid: 7%
Other Means-tested entitlements: 6%
Mandatory payments (pensions, etc.): 6%
Net interest on debt: 11%

In 2005, Senator Judd Gregg, then Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee stated that "Mandatory entitlement spending now represents a whopping 55 percent of all federal spending. If left on its current path, that could jump to more than 60 percent in 10 years. That will force us to cut out other necessary expenditures or raise taxes and weaken our economy." Source: The Hill newspaper, Washington DC."

Believe what you like, but there are the facts. Defense spending is a drop in the bucket compared to entitlements aka health, education, welfare. And while military tech has much improved, you don't see a doubling of quality in our govt. schools and you SURE as hell aren't going to see quantum leaps of innovation and efficiency in health care by letting the government run it.

For Kucinich & Friends we could spend 99% of the annual budget on entitlements and they would, and STILL never be happy. It's straight up fking bullsht that so many people have to have their hard-earned sht stolen by a thugverment and handed to people that don't give a sht, don't try and don't care. Yes, some of them need help, but what about the guy that can do the same as you, only he chooses to fk off? Why should you have to pay for his indolence? Do you really think it's just "the rich' getting soaked? Take a look at your paystub. The feds take a nice chuck out of your ass every week or two weeks, even if you're flipping burgers.

mootie writes At least some of that goes towards HELPING people instead of KILLING them.

We spent massive treasure and blood removing a tyrant from Iraq and giving 30 million Iraqis a chance to govern themselves. Doesn't that HELP them?

Liberalism starts with a negative premise, then gets even angrier that the impossible can't be solved with huge sums of money. It's like jumping down a hole and hanging from the bar of weights you're trying to lift while dangling.