I don't know what the scientific  explanation is, but I think that the reason may be that religion is sort of a bonding agent. It encourages people to form groups with common purposes and goals. Its a cohesive force that contributes to a strong society, but also encourages division when it comes to others beliefs.  There may be some sort of genetic or biological element involved that creates the urge for religion to  answer the big questions. Morality and ethics as well as other things.

I think that this is absolute nonsense. I believe that this is a case of people that hate Obama looking for any excuse to hate him more, the same way that others did to George Bush. I do think that we need to be vigilent in order to protect our rights, but we Americans are an immense pain in the butt and this is just the quality necessary to protect those rights.

As compared to which other law enforcement units and where?  This is not an institution where perfection is possible and neither is any other human institution. The best we can do is employ constant vigilence in order to maintain a high level of quality. I don't think that they're out of control because if they were things would be even more chaotic than they already are. I submit that the police don't have any greater internal  control problems now then they ever did. I think a lot of it is simply technology. News is communicated to us now at a constant rate and instantaneously. The population has increased immensely and as a result so has the size of law enforcement and this makes it seem to be an increasing problem, but on a percentage basis its probably close to what it's always been. As far as some of the comments about how many people are in prison, thats a matter of politics and law, not law enforcement.

I think that what we really need to worry about is the constant and insidious, but very subtle encroachment of technology into police surveilance. Cameras are everywhere, authorities want to use drone aircraft to monitor our movements, sometimes cell phone gps is used now to observe us. Then in order to expedite matters the authorities want to circumvent the system by getting warrents later. I'm sure that most of the time this is an honest attempt to rapidly respond to criminal activity, but its the subtle things you must watch out for because they creep up on you until its too late.

I don't think that god does exist and humans, being what they are, it's statisticlly impossible to have a society in which nothing bad ever happens. It's emotion, pure and simple.

A fat old burgler thats successfully broken into more homes than you can count.

Well, unlike most of these good people I do doubt gods existence. While it's impossible to state with certainty that god doesn't exist because you can't prove a negative, in my opinion, most of the evidence is overwhelmingly against him. But, don't accept my opinion, study for yourself and make up your own mind. My younger brothers death started me reading and studing about this subject and asking questions. The most common response was, "you must have faith" which I think is the most  idiotic statement ever uttered. What they're saying is "well, I don't have  a clue, but take this arbitrary response and accept it as fact." And if god doesn't exist then neither do heaven or hell. Decide for yourself.

Selling your soul for riches and fame huh? Hmmmm.........just thinking , just thinking!!!!

Just existing would be enough.

Unions had very little to do with it. The business went down because of what most businesses go down from, poor management. They claimed bankruptsy back in January and the unions agreed to reductions in benefits and pay. Also, after the bankruptsy two venture capitalist invested hughe amounts of money in the company which they had borrowed and then settled the debt on Hostess. Then the new investors tapped into the pension account and drained it for the money and left Hostess billions in debt. People are always ready to blame the unions when most companies go out of business but, the unions usually have very little to do with the problem. They are one of the primary reasons we developed a middle class after WWII. Funny how now that the unions have declined so has the middle class and all the money has risen to the top 1%.

Well, Obama may have arguably had some credibility for the Bush problem in his first term, but that wont play for a two term president.