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"Pretty much the same as Gibraltar, no? The dutch gave it to England... except it wasn't theirs to give."

Sure, but it's not Britain making the argument is it? It's Argentina.

"And if you think the UK, which has both economical (oil) and strategical (military bases) in the Malvinas would even think of letting the islanders have any real control over the islands, you're a fool."

Been swallowing your nation's propaganda I see. Tell me, what exactly do you expect us to do with a military base in the South Atlantic? It's a launch point for exactly nothing. The only reason there's a worthwhile military base there in the first place is precisely because Argentina invaded. The oil claim is unproven still and until the Kirchner dynasty decided to cut off it's nose to spite it's face the British government invited Argentina into joint oil exploration rights anyway. This is because a cooperative agreement where oil could be piped direct to Argentina would allow much quicker and more efficient exploitation of the resources if they actually exist - it would be a mutually beneficial partnership but Kirchner needed the Falklands for political propaganda once more so threw it all away.

"I don't think any of you NATO members have a moral authority to call anyone else a "bully"."

Nonsense. Just because NATO and the UK are bullies doesn't remove the right to also call other nations bullies. The UK may well be a bully of weaker nations, but weaker nations can still bully even weaker nations or territories again, and they deserve to be called out on that as much as we do. We don't get to go and rob the local cash machine because someone else robbed a bank and say "You have no right to call me a criminal, that guy robbed a whole bank!".

"So, see? Argentina is not that crazy. We play the same international politics rethorics game everyone else plays."

You realise Gibraltar isn't the Falklands right? Even if the British government has used the term never in relation to Gibraltar it most certainly hasn't with the Falklands - our PMs have consistently followed the line that they wont negotiate sovereignty whilst the islanders want to remain British - that's explicitly conditional so it's obvious what the Argentinians want to do if they really want it - make the islanders want to be Argentinian by treating them better though yes, that's going to be pretty fucking difficult after you invaded them. It'll take time and it's not impossible, but each time you threaten them and use them as scapegoats for your own internal problems you're only making it more difficult and causing it to take even longer.

"Let's make it easier for you: if Argentina "sits down to negotiate", that act itself would be considered defeat"

This is further nonsense, your own country's exact position is that it wants to sit down and negotiate over the islands because UN resolution 2065 stated we should do exactly that. Our government refuses to because it views it as pointless as the islanders don't want anything other than to remain British right now:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-23596312

How can you criticise someone else for not understanding international politics when you don't even understand the position of your own country on the issue in question?

Yes, it's true both by absolute value and percentage, there's any number of sources available but this BBC article has a good summary of various figures.

Read this http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19592372 - the figures you're quoting are pretty misleading.

It's mostly due to differences in how reported rapes are recorded and a system that encourages rape victims to go to the police.

Fact. Supposition. One guy's theory. Supposition.

The BBC just ran a piece on how population growth is slowing, global inequality has been reduced from a stark binary proposition to a continuum, and rates of global literacy are skyrocketing, just for a bit of contrast there.

Bonus: they get to keep their voting rights after they are out

I don't believe you need to qualify that: they get to keep their voting rights, period. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11674014

85% of reported rapes in Sweden are perpetrated by Muslim immigrants.

Sweden has a peculiarity in rape reporting statistics. See here. In family disputes, rape complaints by the wife can get registered hundreds of times against the husband. With only about 6,000 reported instances, it could be that this 85% represents only a handful of individuals whose wives have registered such complaints.

It didn't help he (correctly) pointed out ecstasy is safer than horse riding, which happens to be relatively popular in the UK. The BBC felt obliged to publish an article arguing the dangers of riding were "tempered" by its health benefits and that, somehow, his assessment was invalid.

Not the point, I'm getting at the 'cameras are everywhere in Britain' blanket statement I keep seeing here, when, manifestly, they aren't.

You're quibbling with definitions. They may not be everywhere but there are a fuck of a lot of them and they're breeding. The number of cameras per person is very high in the UK: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk/8159141.stm

It is the flame which represents the continuity with the ancient games. An unlit torch doesn't qualify as anything but a gold plated unlit torch.

For 2012, the UK did a lot of PR about keeping the flame alight (the CAA approval for keeping it alight on the flights, the backup flame in the convoy, etc)

Russia didn't bother with that

Olympic torch relit for Sochi Winter Games 2014
The Olympic torch relay got off to a rocky start in Moscow when the flame briefly went out during a loop through the Kremlin.

Torch bearer and former world swimming champion Shavarsh Karapetyan enlisted the help of a Kremlin security guard who re-ignited the flame with his cigarette lighter.

EE and their subsidiaries are the most complained about telecommunications company in the United Kingdom, according to the regulator Ofcom. They may want to rethink their target market for this service too.

Possibly even salvageable for the museums!

Googled since I was curious:

There are no hazardous materials aboard like the hydrazine propellants used on many spacecraft.

So, have fun with your new mancave decoration.

What is this I don't even

Haiyan is the name given to the super typhoon by the World Meteorological Organization (source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-24863480 )

What I understood is that the Philippines counts the number of storms that hit the country (this is the 25th this year!!), so in their counting, it gets a name with a Y. (Source: http://blogs.wsj.com/searealtime/2013/11/08/from-haiyan-to-yolanda-how-the-philippines-names-its-storms/ )

A central reason that Mosley won the original privacy case in the High Court in London is that the judge rejected News Group Newspapers' claim that it was a "Nazi" scenario because they were speaking German (see paragraph 72 of the judgment). The judge found that there was no reason to think the orgy was Nazi-themed, and therefore there was no public interest to justify the privacy violation.

Is there anything that they won't use the 'think of the children' line on?

Sure, when dealing with pedophiles in the intelligence services.

Close. '123456' tops Adobe password list.
Also, I know this doesn't need a reference, but just for those who like a good nostalgic laugh.

No kidding. How long before 99.9% of helpouts are for help masturbating?

I believe people are already working on that.

That's so last century, nowadays "We have ways to make you talk" seems more appropriate.

You mean someone has kidnapped Shellsuit Boab's top? http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006p2xl

There is ample reason for concern about Russia, China, and even Pakistan.

Number of Russian spies in the UK back to Cold War levels, say security services
Chinese Espionage: Britain's MI5 reports epidemic in spying
China's spies come out from the cold
Pakistani spies 'operating in Britain'

I very much doubt that the US has ever aimed nuclear weapons at the United Kingdom. The Soviets / Russians certainly have. They still come for visits.

RAF catches Russian bombers in UK airspace
Yes, yes, I know, but still. Scramble! Scramble! Russian nuclear bandits at 12 o'clock!': The Kremlin's taunting Britain with Blackjack bombers

We citizens are considered the enemy by our own spy agencies and spy agencies around the world collaborate with each other to spy on normal citizens.

Ordinary citizens aren't the enemy, but the enemy typically hides among them. Terrorists don't tend to live in their own private "terrorist army" barracks, they hide among ordinary citizens until they strike, which may not be in the same country in which they live. That is a crucial distinction that for some reason a lot of people seem to have a hard time understanding.

The Hamburg cell is a perfect example. They lived in Hamburg, Germany, plotting and preparing for their attack. The actual attacks they participated in were in New York, Washington DC, and Pennsylvania, in the US on 9/11/2001.

If you think the struggle in the West is between spy agencies and citizens, you fail to understand this basic and easy to understand fact. I'm curious as to why?

Whereas since banning handguns in the UK, handgun crime has gone up (that is, crimes involving handguns, not possession of one), and all firearm crime has gone up by more. Look at the graph on this page. about 1/2 the way down. Handguns were banned in 1997, when gun crime was on a downward curve.

Also, see this(PDF, sorry about the google cruft, can't be bothered editing) police statistics report. It shows that serious handgun crime more than doubled in the 4 years after they were banned, despite having been dropping for the previous 10 years or so, when they were legal.

I don't own a gun, probably never will, but I dislike the government telling me what I can and can't have based on poor logic. Also, It had been demonstrably shown that in the UK, barring other factors (and I doubt there were _that_ many other factors), banning handguns increased handgun crime.

I have been saying for the longest time, terrorists don't need to get on the plane. Now they just need to blow them selves up getting into the security line. What then is TSA going to do? It's a cat and mouse game and unfortunately the TSA isn't going to win

Attacking a security line at an airport is a much lower value target for terrorists than being able to hijack a plane, or blow it out of the sky. If they just want to kill people, there are plenty of other places to do that at lower risk. Things like that have happened from time to time, but it's not common. It might be done as part of a hijack attempt, but otherwise attacking an airport doesn't really add much value for them.

The music industry was rather hoping that there would be a market for higher quality than CD, in the form of SACD an DVD-Audio.

Don't forget the Blu-ray album reported the other week. To me, it just smacks of trying to get rid of music which is portable; let's all go back to strapping hulking disc (or, god forbid, cassette) players to our belts with bags of the relevant storage medium on our backs. Not that I think this so-called hi-def audio is a bad idea, just the execution of it..

natural gas, killing people every day
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-24702806
(and somehow people have the idea that nuclear is dangerous)

It seemed last week that you were unfortunately wrong

- Japan has schools that primarily educate.

There are some serious questions regarding the history syllabus in Japanese schools.

sounds like something that could get you into a sh*tstorm of trouble.

Especially if you note which politician landed the word "shitstorm" in the dictionary

... why can't they prevent that soldier boy Lee Rigby from being chopped to death in the Woolwich area of London, by two Moslems from Africa ?

They were black, and they had been to Africa recently, but they were actually from British Christian families.

Muslims take apostasy very very VERY fucking seriously, maybe christians should too?

The part about industrial espionage turned up in 1999 when EU officials decided to leak the existance Echelon, because the US has abused it to feed Boeing secret information about Airbus.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/820352.stm

It is not that hard to google, so stop defending it, or pretending it has anything to do with the recent leaks.

... why can't they prevent that soldier boy Lee Rigby from being chopped to death in the Woolwich area of London, by two Moslems from Africa ?

They were black, and they had been to Africa recently, but they were actually from British Christian families.

Of course they're ignoring the French protest.

The French are the last people on earth who can lecture anyone on protecting privacy. The first time France organized a protest like this Le Monde reported that the French government was worse then the US on the next god-damn day. Literally. Only July 3rd the French protested US PRISM, and on the 4th Le Monde reported they were worse.

Here's a couple links because the October bitch-session has overwhelmed the July bitch-session in Google:
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/dave-lindorff/50398/public-support-grows-for-snowden-in-europe-germany-and-france-should-offer-nsa-whistleblower-asylum
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-23178284

There's a big [citation needed] on that. I don't know about Finland but half of the websites in the UK would be offline by now if that were law, and the German constitutional court would've struck any such law down in a heartbeat just like they did with the data retention laws: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8545772.stm.

From http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2013/10/us-denies-tapping-merkel-mobile-phone-20131023185133142198.html ---

US President Barack Obama had assured German Chancellor Angela Merkel that the US is not monitoring her communications, according to the White House spokesman.

From http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-24647268

The White House said President Obama had told Chancellor Merkel the US was not snooping on her communications.

"The United States is not monitoring and will not monitor the communications of the chancellor," White House spokesman Jay Carney said on Wednesday.

From http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/23/merkel-phone-tapped_n_4150812.html

For its part, the White House denied that the U.S. is listening in on Merkel's phone calls now.

"The president assured the chancellor that the United States is not monitoring and will not monitor the communications of the chancellor," White House spokesman Jay Carney said. "The United States greatly values our close cooperation with Germany on a broad range of shared security challenges."

Maybe when he said U.S. he actually meant us, as in him & his wife? Or that will be his next excuse?

From http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2013/10/us-denies-tapping-merkel-mobile-phone-20131023185133142198.html ---

US President Barack Obama had assured German Chancellor Angela Merkel that the US is not monitoring her communications, according to the White House spokesman.

From http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-24647268

The White House said President Obama had told Chancellor Merkel the US was not snooping on her communications.

"The United States is not monitoring and will not monitor the communications of the chancellor," White House spokesman Jay Carney said on Wednesday.

From http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/23/merkel-phone-tapped_n_4150812.html

For its part, the White House denied that the U.S. is listening in on Merkel's phone calls now.

"The president assured the chancellor that the United States is not monitoring and will not monitor the communications of the chancellor," White House spokesman Jay Carney said. "The United States greatly values our close cooperation with Germany on a broad range of shared security challenges."

>> NSA monitored the phone conversations of 35 world leaders

And nothing of value was gained.

Only 35? Im surprised that out of the 196-ish countries in the world, only 34 of them are considered as bad or worse than Germany.

Luckily, they didn't go all Amercian on his ass and shot him on sight http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-24648974

Kid was obviously some kind of foreign pinko sleeper agent. No Real American would be caught dead with a replica assault rifle, rather than the real thing.

Luckily, they didn't go all Amercian on his ass and shot him on sight http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-24648974

I guess they won't be banned 3D printers just yet then, although the BBC is still going with suspected "homemade" gun components . A few MPs with connections with the manufacturing industry will, no doubt, be disappointed.

Come to think of it we have technological progress in almost any branch of human activity yet the inflatables are still inflatables. I think it is the time that scientists. engineers and geeks spend some time on those so that they can become an actual subject of passion not an object of a (usually drunk) male student stunt. There seems to be a genuine need. I mean anime is OK but one would like to fetch a real stuff but without all these flowers, courtship and other nonsense that otherwise emancipated ladies require (after they verified your financial status of course). I mean seriously: the use of steam machines and electricity to fight female hysteria back at the beginning of last century (and following development of less hassle vibrators that ladies of today can use) shows that society in general but inventors too care very much for needs of a lonely female. What about a lonely geek in his mama's cellar?

In the interest of full disclaimer, I am the author of CycleMaps, a popular cycling app and a very keen cyclist.

Here in the UK, cycling has increased massively in popularity in the past 4 years or so - the country has had some successes in international cycling competitions, plus London has a very strongly pro-cycling mayor. This has led to the rise of a large number of very casual cyclists - which I think is a very good thing. However among them you get a non trivial number of people that think it's magically fine to drive in the dark without any lights or high-viz jacket, cycling on the pavement scaring pedestrians, or running all red lights. This leads to a lot of antagonism between drivers and cyclists and basically can give us cyclists a bad name. On the other hand, there are drivers that have been known to do massively stupid things, like hit a cyclist, not stop, and then tweet about it.

I am very optimistic about the future as mass cycling in big western cities is still quite a new phenomenon, so I think that things will gradually ease out. In the mean time, if you want to be safe, my advice would be:

* Obey the rules of traffic. Always.
* Make your self visible. Drivers just need to see you
* Be obvious. Make it 100% clear where you intend to go. No surprises. A driver that sees you and knows where you will turn, will not cut you over
* Respect. Pedestrians, drivers, cyclists.
* *NEVER* overtake lorries / trucks from the inside. They cannot see you.
* Learn how to drive. This way, you will learn how to obey the law and (perhaps more importantly) you will understand how it feels to drive next to a cyclist and what kind of perception drivers have
* Where possible, avoid big streets. It's much more possible than you may think. Get a bicycle case for your smartphone. Use (shameless plug) my app, google, or anything else you may like

be safe, and enjoy cycling!

I have to agree with you about the Catholics. That's one of many things I disagree with them about. To the new Pope's credit, though, at least he evicted the "Bishop of Bling".

I also say that Pat Robertson has converted more Christians to atheism than Richard Dawkins ever dreamed of.

So it's a religion that is making people rich or not then? A religion whose leader lives in a castle so fantastic that it is even recognised as a separate country? I'm pretty sure Jesus never lived like that... And what fantastic timing, a Catholic priest with a 42 million dollar house: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24638430

You don't think there are more possibilities than your binary choice? They can only be either looking for terrorists or "industrial espionage for fascist criminal gangster military/industrial complex profits"?

How do you know it might not have been for diplomatic intelligence given the growing possibility of the EU splitting up over the financial crisis and problems between Greece and Germany?

Railing against the 'Fourth Reich': Anti-German Mood Heats Up in Greece

How do you know it wasn't regarding internal policy discussions about Germany's recently revealed ethnic problems, one that will become relatively more important in the coming years?

Kohl wanted to reduce Germany's Turkish population by one half

Especially in light of the fact that Germany was home to one of the 9/11 terror cells?

The Hamburg connection

German prosecutors said the Hamburg cell consisted of eight members: three suicide pilots, three logistical planners and two others whose role remains vague, but who might also have become suicide pilots. The cell was active and embarking on the plot to attack US targets by the summer of 1999, the prosecutors said. Mohammed Atta, a wealthy Egyptian, is believed to have been a key figure in the Hamburg cell, but also the ringleader of all 19 of the 9/11 hijackers.

Or perhaps there was a concern about government links to neo-Nazis?

Germany shocked by secret service link to rightwing terror cell

An agent working for Germany's answer to MI5 was at the scene of one of the 10 murders carried out by neo-Nazi terrorists, the domestic intelligence agency has confirmed, fuelling speculation that the killers' movements were known to the authorities during their 13 years on the run.

Perhaps there is a concern about another country developing WMD with assistance from German companies?

HALABJA / ANFAL 1988 - 2013

in 2010 the German government stated in response to a parliamentary enquiry: “The responsibility for the events of Halabja lies with the past Iraqi government under Saddam Hussein.” Many documents and sources, though, not only suggest that German cooperation was essential for the Iraqi poison gas program. They also show that there was already some awareness about this in Germany back then. All the same, the relevant goods were delivered. ....

The German government is jointly responsible for the suffering of the people of Halabja. 70 percent of the equipment for Iraqi chemical weapons plants were delivered by German companies. German foreign intelligence service personnel had been present in at least one of these companies. Most parts to enhance Iraq’s rockets, grenades and missiles were delivered from Germany.

Since you want to follow conspiracy theories, how do you know that it wasn't a possible crypto-communist in the administration deliberately undertaking high risk activities with the US intelligence apparatus that were likely to be discovered, to expose it and cripple it prior to the end of the administration?

There are certainly many more possibilities than just the two you propose. The one thing obvious to me is that you are not a serious person.

Let's not forget that, in New York, this kind of pseudonymous online conduct is considered a "crime of deceit and provocation" that the Internet authorities can prosecute to the full extent of the law. See the documentation of one current case involving sock puppets and criminally deadpan "satire" at: http://raphaelgolbtrial.wordpress.com/ and see how the NY Attorney General opened a fake yogurt shop in Brooklyn to get some of those scoundrels posting fake comments on Yelp: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24218139 (Let's hope they go after every single fake "best chiropractor" and "best probiotic" on Amazon too. This is a potential source of billions of dollars in fines.) It would not, of course, be surprising to see rampant criminal deceit and provocation even at the highest level of government, but we should at least be clear that if you use "sock puppets" or engage in "astroturfing" or send out deadpan "confessions" in someone else's name, at least in New York (a model in this respect for the entire country and especially for Washington), you are presumed to be a criminal. This latest incident should be thoroughly investigated at once by the appropriate Internet law enforcement authorities and the perpetrator, assuming he "crossed the line," should be brought to justice.

especially Ben Rhodes â" whom he accused of dodging questions about Benghazi.

I find it amusing people focusing on an event which transpired over a few hours when absolutely no investigation or questions were raised about the two DAY refusal by the Bush administration to send in more troops to block the escape of Bin Laden.

For those that don't know, officers on the ground, both U.S. and British, made repeated requests over a two day period to have more troops dropped in to block escape routes for Bin Laden when they had him pinned down in Tora Bora. They could hear him over the radio telling his people the end looked near and he had failed them. According to one British source, they estimated the troops were within 2 kilometers of Bin Laden.

However, for those two days the Bush administration refused all requests for more troops, claiming the Afghan forces could be used instead of allied troops (which was a complete failure). As a result, Bin Laden ran free for another decade until the Obama administration was able to track him down.

Funny how not one person ever jumped up and said, "We need to investigate why Bin Laden, the man who planned the worst terrorist attack on American soil, was allowed to escape!", yet people are hellbent on talking about mistakes made over a few hours which somehow ranks higher in importance.

Create more money. As long as we keep innovating, it doesn't matter how big a deficit we run. Reagan proved that.

It doesn't matter how big a deficit we run, because when the music stops, it'll be grandma and grandpa without a chair.
From American dream to American nightmare in Detroit

The NSA employs Really Ridiculously Smart People

Don't be too sure of it. A lot of "smartness" of spies is manufactured by the media - http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/posts/BUGGER

It doesn't take much smartness to warn people of dire consequences if they don't turn over their keys, and then spy using thus acquired keys. There might be a few smart people, but possibly no more than those working for NetGear, or Cisco. And the said smart people obviously don't call the shots - otherwise Snowden wouldn't have happened.

Best media reporting
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7926026.stm

Most notable analysis (scroll to bottom, in square brackets)
http://www.promedmail.org/direct.php?id=20090308.0959

The ProMed moderator links to related background research, points out that there are 5 specie of Enterovirus distinct enough that one vaccine could not fit all, it is 'premature' to announce it this way until the particular agent and mechanism is identified.

So by all means forge ahead, but be prudently wary of anyone who implies this is in the final stage where a vaccine is just around the corner.

---
If we were to fund LFTR research with the same dedication and fervor that we funded the polio vaccine, America could be energy-independent within 30 years, forever. Off-topic, pretend it's my sig.

The US is not at war with Mexico, what business did they have doing that?

Maybe you've heard that they have a Narco-Terrorist insurgency in Mexico? They've had more people killed than the US lost in Vietnam ( 60,000+). The violence spills over the border, and the American side of the border isn't safe in many places for miles into the US. The drugs don't spill over, they flow in. So yes, the US might have a reason or two to have an idea about what is going on in Mexico.

And by the way, did you hear that some of the 9-11 hijackers were from a terrorist cell in Hamburg Germany? Maybe there is a reason for the US to keep an eye on things in Europe as well.