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Don't Cut Part-Time Hours Because of Obamacare! Inbox

My name is "Sue," and I work at Staples. I can't tell you my full name because I'm afraid I'll lose my job for what I'm about to tell you: Staples recently decided to cut part-time employees' hours just so they won't have to provide health care benefits under Obamacare.

Staples is taking advantage of a loophole in the health care law that says employers don't have to provide coverage for employees who work less than 30 hours a week. Staples also told managers to hire more part time workers if they need people to cover the schedule.

Cutting employees' hours just to avoid paying for health care is not right. I can't afford to make less money than I do now without taking on another job. That's why I started a petition on Change.org asking Staples to not cut part-time employees' hours and comply with Obamacare. Will you join me by signing my petition?

Amazon's drone army

Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon, seems very cheery in recent interviews. His new business plan has excited not only Bezos, but the speculative corporate press. The new plan is simple, efficient, and oddly alienating: drone delivery.

Some passing lip service has been paid to privacy concerns amid speculation about the regulatory and technology hurdles. The business press has missed and understated the privacy implications. They have not looked carefully at the technological capability of drones. The most important questions in the information age, the ones concerning the flow of data, have yet to be articulated. Seeking answers to those questions gives apparent cause for alarm about Amazon's drone army, or if it really is Amazon's drone army at all.

Is the NSA spying on Congress?

BURLINGTON, Vt., Jan. 3 - U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today asked the National Security Agency director whether the agency has monitored the phone calls, emails and Internet traffic of members of Congress and other elected officials.

"Has the NSA spied, or is the NSA currently spying, on members of Congress or other American elected officials?" Sanders asked in a letter [1] to Gen. Keith Alexander, the NSA director. " 'Spying' would include gathering metadata on calls made from official or personal phones, content from websites visited or emails sent, or collecting any other data from a third party not made available to the general public in the regular course of business?"

Sanders said he was "deeply concerned" by revelations that American intelligence agencies harvested records of phone calls, emails and web activity by millions of innocent Americans without any reason to even suspect involvement in illegal activities. He also cited reports that the United States eavesdropped on the leaders of Germany, Mexico, Brazil and other allies.

Sanders emphasized that the United States "must be vigilant and

Top 10 proofs people can be completely manipulated without hypnosis

1. Any article listing the top 10 of anything will be widely read.

2. A poll of people in 65 countries, including the United States, finds that the United States is overwhelmingly considered the greatest threat to peace in the world. The consensus would have been even stronger had the United States itself not been polled, because the 5 percent of humanity living here is largely convinced that the other 95% of humanity -- that group with experience being threatened or attacked by the United States -- is wrong. After all, our government in the U.S. tells us it's in favor of peace. Even when it bombs cities, it does it for peace. It's hard for people under the bombs to see that. We in the U.S. have a better perspective.

Pentagon data on student testing program rife with errors and contradictions: Student privacy compromised

In late December, 2013 the Department of Defense released a database on the military's controversial Student Testing Program in 11,700 high schools across the country. An examination of the complex and contradictory dataset raises serious issues regarding student privacy and the integrity of the Student Testing Program in America's schools.

The data was released after a protracted Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

The DoD's Freedom of Information office reports that 678,000 students participated in the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery Career Exploration Program (ASVAB-CEP) during the 2012-2013 school year, down nearly 10% from the previous school year. The three-hour test is the linchpin of the Pentagon's school-based recruiting program and provides the Military Entrance Processing Command (USMEPCOM) an invaluable tool in prescreening candidates for military service.

A Prayer to Our Creator

If my moans made your core showery
I'd roar more over day and night
It heals a muster of my anguish
All I know you cannot sojourn
On cloud nine leaving me alone

With pleasure shadows my pain
I’d do by my ego for sure, but
Age and prayers bow my laps
Beseeching you, God!
You can bid peace I know

If there is no cries in paradise
Why on your wrought earth?
Where goodness pays in ordeal
As you gather in the place
All Your lovely creations

Some people's brains

Put the elf on the shelf

Anti-election protesters unable to stop Thailand's candidates

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Police stood by while hundreds of people laid siege to the Election Commission's office, a police station, and Thailand's equivalent of the U.S. FBI, but the protesters failed to stop candidates registering for a nationwide election scheduled for Feb. 2.

Political candidates from Caretaker Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra's party and eight other parties dodged the anti-election blockade by sneaking into the Election Commission's office at a stadium before dawn on Monday (Dec. 23) while the protesters slept.

More than two dozen other parties were forced to register at a nearby police station, which was quickly surrounded by protesters when they discovered it was being used as a backup office for candidates to file their papers.

All the political parties from Ms. Yingluck's coalition government and the opposition appear to have joined in the election process, except the opposition Democrat Party which announced a boycott to support the anti-election rallies.

"We have to manage this conflict in Parliament," said Charupong Ruangsuwan, leader of Ms. Yingluck's Pheu Thai party which is expected

Syracuse is fifth city to pass anti-drone resolution

Syracuse has passed this:
WHEREAS, the prospect of using Unmanned Aircraft System (UAV’s) often referred to as “Drones” inside the United States raises far-reaching issues concerning the extent of government surveillance, the value of privacy in the digital age, and the role of Congress in reconciling these issues; and

WHEREAS, Drones are being considered for use in non-federal law enforcement agencies, which might include surveillance, crime fighting, disaster relief, searches for missing persons, and immigration and environmental monitoring; and

WHEREAS, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) predicts that 30,000 Drones may be operated in the national airspace in less than 20 years; and

WHEREAS, research must be conducted into the logistics, safety and privacy considerations related to proposed civil and commercial uses for Drones; and

WHEREAS, there are currently insufficient safeguards in place to ensure that Drones are not used to surveil Americans, unduly infringing upon their fundamental privacy as guaranteed by the First and Fourth Amendments of the Constitution; and

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