http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/19/us-income-inequality-ancient-rome-levels_n_1158926.html

Many tout the U.S. as the Roman empire of the modern world. But as it turns out, that comparison may not be all good.

Income inequality in America is at levels even higher than those in ancient Rome, according to a recent study from two historians, Walter Schiedel and Steven Friesen, cited by Per Square Mile. After analyzing papyri ledgers, biblical passages and other previous scholarly estimates, the researchers found that the top one percent of earners in Ancient Rome controlled 16 percent of the society's wealth. By comparison, the top one percent of American earners control 40 percent of the country's wealth, according to Vanity Fair. (h/t ThinkProgress)

What cell phones are good for Livestreaming?

Oh and to prevent Government and ISP/corporate censorship, is there any system in place to livestream to servers in multiple countries at once, so the cops know they have zero chance of censoring anyone who's watching them? What about cell phones that can communicate with each other line-of-sight and peer-to-peer, so that if you're in a "dead zone" you can have multiple people with footage? You know, so if a cop seizes you and your phone, someone else can catch the data on a hidden phone, then relay the footage outside of a dead zone?

I see this combo as a near-perfect way to foil the police when they get out of hand.

Here is a good summary on Wikipedia for why the CRA was not the cause of the economic meltdown.

There are plenty of non-wiki citations included in the article to back it up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Reinvestment_Act#Controversies_and_criticisms

Not trying to bash religion, since I'm religious, but didn't Jesus preach heavily against excessive greed?

(Excerpt included)

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/10/01/preachers-confront-the-last-taboo-condemning-greed-amid-great-recession/

Though millions of Americans are angry over the economy, little moral outrage seems to be coming from the nation’s pulpit, they say. Too many pastors opt for offering pulpit platitudes because they are afraid parishioners will stop giving money if they hear teachings against greed, said the Rev. Robin R. Meyers, senior minister of Mayflower Congregational United Church of Christ in Oklahoma City.

“Money is the last taboo in church. It’s much easier to talk about sex than money,” said Meyers, who wrote about greed and the other seven deadly sins in his book, “The Virtue in the Vice.”

I was asked to choose to hide or allow a post that I saw as offensive. I said hide it.
Then I was asked to choose to hide or allow a RESPONSE post that I saw as being not offensive. I said allow it.

Somehow my decision got recorded as "allow" the offending post.

What'd I do wrong? The decision was 4-2 to hide the post but my vote was one of the "2". Yuck.

BTW thanks for choosing me to serve! (Unlike in real life, I had a choice, lol)

(Excerpt included)

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/10/01/preachers-confront-the-last-taboo-condemning-greed-amid-great-recession/

Though millions of Americans are angry over the economy, little moral outrage seems to be coming from the nation’s pulpit, they say. Too many pastors opt for offering pulpit platitudes because they are afraid parishioners will stop giving money if they hear teachings against greed, said the Rev. Robin R. Meyers, senior minister of Mayflower Congregational United Church of Christ in Oklahoma City.

“Money is the last taboo in church. It’s much easier to talk about sex than money,” said Meyers, who wrote about greed and the other seven deadly sins in his book, “The Virtue in the Vice.”

I mean, a total dark ages. A currency collapse that starts in the Western world:

1) and destroys the market for Eastern imports;
2) collapses the Eastern economies, too;
3) fragments and destabilizes funding for the troops and police that protect the Plutocracy, leaving them vulnerable to the fury of a global upheaval.

A dark ages is not the worst thing that can happen to humanity. A plutonomy is much worse, and it will be permanent. Anyone read Hunger Games? We'll wish a plutonomy was like that.

There must be some way to pull the world out from under the Plutocracy such that we can build a better civilization.

The Great Depression did give us Social Security...

What happens when foreign labor becomes too expensive (this is happening in India and creeping its way toward China, right now) and we can't find new sources of cheap labor?

What happens when unemployment drags so heavily on the nation's state and Federal budgets that it becomes the last straw that broke the currency's back?

What happens when foreign-held dollars lose value?

I know most Democrats I've ever talked to oppose harsh anti cheap labor tariffs, so what happens when the devaluation of our currency, or rising foreign labor costs, make outsourcing too expensive? Does anyone think these events are even avoidable anymore?

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=143921871

AP Enterprise: Russia Oil Spills Wreak Devastation
by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

USINSK, Russia December 18, 2011, 01:27 pm ET
USINSK, Russia (AP) — On the bright yellow tundra outside this oil town near the Arctic Circle, a pitch-black pool of crude stretches toward the horizon. The source: a decommissioned well whose rusty screws ooze with oil, viscous like jam.

This is the face of Russia's oil country, a sprawling, inhospitable zone that experts say represents the world's worst ecological oil catastrophe.

Environmentalists estimate at least 1 percent of Russia's annual oil production, or 5 million tons, is spilled every year. That is equivalent to one Deepwater Horizon-scale leak about every two months. Crumbling infrastructure and a harsh climate combine to spell disaster in the world's largest oil producer, responsible for 13 percent of global output.

Oil, stubbornly seeping through rusty pipelines and old wells, contaminates soil, kills all plants that grow on it and destroys habitats for mammals and birds. Half a million tons every year get into rivers that flow into the Arctic Ocean, the government says, upsetting the delicate environmental balance in those waters.

Him and all his kind.

http://news.yahoo.com/chuck-woolery-now-accusing-barack-obama-class-warfare-071004870.html