Slashdot Mirror

There was a BBC article by Will Self on this recently also.

In defence of obscure words

Ralf

Insolation is only part of the energy imparted by the Sun. There's also the solar wind, solar magnetic field and it's interaction with Earth's magnetic field, gravitational tidal forces, and interactions with cosmic rays and cloud formation. If you think the only energy we get from the Sun is from photons, you're wrong.
 
Also, observed warming trends on Earth have flat-lined for the last 11 years or so, so definitely yes, Global warming did show one bit of slowing down in that period.

I guess so, but then Baidu has had quite a bit of growth (60%) in its ad revenues recently. That said, they're going into smartphones too so maybe just copying what Google does is a business model :)

Go crawl back under your rock, racist.

You don't understand what a racist is, do you? I can see that as Hitler was rising you would have been calling the critics racists. Do you call people who criticise the Westboro Baptists racists? While, I have news for you - Islam is like the the Westboro baptists plus a violent army of thugs and suicide bombers. White converts to Islam become terrorists. Black Muslims in the Sudan are terrorists. Brown Muslims are terrorists. The one unifying factor is their war-like belief.

My brothers are the Coptic Christians in Egypt, who are being killed by the Muslims. My sisters are the young Hindu women in Pakistan who are kidnapped and forced to convert and marry Muslims. So hold on to your supremacist Muslim beliefs, that all others are for you to subjugate or kill. If a Muzzie were to crawl under a rock it would be an insult to the rock.

How's this "news for nerds?" Or someone explain me why it even matters?

(right... I started to feel I overstayed on /.)

It's news for nerds because it involves academic plagiarism. It matters because it affects a whole country.

I think (no... scratch that... I know for a fact) the last problem for Romania is whether or not the incumbent PM did or did not plagiarize his PhD thesis (there were 3 governments in the last 4 months...).

Also... I didn't see posts on /. about Greece problems... believe me, what happens in Greece has more impact on the whole world than what happens in Romania.

The US has already lost it's war on terror - its government and its citizens live in terror every moment of every day.

What you wrote is true to the same extent that the stories of the spread of penis stealing and penis shrinking magic from Africa to Australia and New Zealand have left all men outside of the armed forces (BTW, aren't you Australian?) as angry, emasculated remnants of their former selves. Is it true? Shall we call you "Little Richard"? Or are both rubbish?

The worst part is the government fears its citizens and the citizens fear their government.

American citizens continue to control their government by means of elections. There are some members (no offense) of society that do bear watching. The price of getting it wrong is a bit high.

Horror at Fort Hood: Gunman Nidal Malik Hasan kills 13, wounds 31 in rampage on Texas Army base

FBI’s Top Ten News Stories for the Week Ending February 17, 2012

Detroit: ‘Underwear Bomber’ Sentenced to Life in Prison for Attempted Christmas Day Attack

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the so-called “underwear bomber,” was sentenced to life in prison as a result of his guilty plea to all eight counts of a federal indictment charging him for his role in the attempted Christmas Day 2009 bombing of Northwest Airlines Flight 253.

FBI’s Top Ten News Stories for the Week Ending February 10, 2012

Minneapolis: Ohio Man Pleads Guilty to Conspiracy to Provide Material Support to Somali-Based Terror Group

Ahmed Hussein Mahamud pled guilty to conspiracy to provide material support to al Shabaab, a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization, in its fight against the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia (TFG) and the Ethiopian military, which supports the TFG.

Chicago: Chicago Man Pleads Guilty to Attempting to Provide Funds to Support al Qaeda in Pakistan

Raja Lahrasib Khan, a Chicago taxi driver and native of Pakistan who personally provided hundreds of dollars to an alleged terrorist leader with whom he had met in his native Pakistan, pled guilty to attempting to provide additional funds to the same individual after learning he was working with al Qaeda.

Washington Field: Revolution Muslim Leader Guilty of Soliciting Murder, Promoting Extremism

Jesse Curtis Morton, aka Younus Abdullah Muhammed, pled guilty to using his position as a leader of Revolution Muslim Organization’s Internet sites to conspire to solicit murder, make threatening communications, and use the Internet to place others in fear.

FBI’s Top Ten News Stories for the Week Ending February 3, 2012

Tampa: Florida Man Indicted for Attempting to Use Weapons of Mass Destruction

Sami Osmakac, of Pinellas Park, Florida, was charged with attempting to use weapons of mass destruction against persons and property in the U.S., as well as possessing an unregistered machine gun

FBI’s Top Ten News Stories for the Week Ending January 27, 2012

Denver: Man Arrested for Providing Material Support to a Designated Foreign Terrorist Organization

Jams

This is easily refuted:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11938320

It's possible that what payment processors did to Wikileaks is illegal in some countries, but this is ultimately unimportant. They did it anyway and the result has been the same.

Perhaps these other games should be respected as well. They offer more complex rules and require far more difficult strategic thinking than classic games like Chess and Checkers.

Personally, I love the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG battle system. It's very complex and offers a wide range of valid strategies to actually win a match. Pokémon offers a similarly complex system, too. In a way, these games have invigorated the flagging card game genre.

While I have no proof to back this up, I suspect that games like these that were popular in the 1990s and early 2000s are the reason why casual puzzle and strategy games are far more popular on computer platforms.

Of course, none of these games get any respect. Most "adults" denigrate these games and believe they are worthless and/or childish. Many of these games are great for mental development in a multitude of areas.

For example, you may have not really thought of the Pokémon TCG as a way for children to develop a good understanding of economics, but it does[1].

[1]: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/717948.stm

You know, in case the apocalypse happens in the next 25 years, you'll have something to eat when you open your time capsule.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16852830

Or we can try this on a trial basis, and scale it up if it seems to be working.

See http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7959570.stm to discover how trials did not yield meaningful results whe using pure Fe, which does not have the risk of generating sulfuric acid.

Potentally? Yes.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8650626.stm
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2010-03-23-china-stabbing-eight_N.htm

If you're that worried about obscenely uncommon edge cases, you might as well just lock yourself up in your house.

Increasingly, this is sadly not an edge case.

BBC News - Facial recognition marks the end of anonymity

Being able to photograph a random stranger and, with the picture, pull up personal details about the person is genuinely disturbing.

Lol, first article on BBC News today "Microsoft makes its first ever loss "
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18917906

It was obvious this was coming (I periodically check MS' quarterly financials). Microsoft need money, fast. They have to find a way to move the happy users off WinXP and get more revenue.

Mate, I hear you - ditching old operating systems and software is always easier for developers. In the ideal world we'd only have to support the latest and greatest stuff. However, Microsoft overcharges for the O/S (meaning the price is high and set arbitrarily without regard to any market forces) and people expect support until 2014.

> It's much easier to just take, say, D2D and DWrite, and get all the usual 2D primitives with all bells and whistles (like gradients) for free.
Actually, it is easier to take Java and have Oracle (and Apple, for a little while longer) and the Open Source Hordes do the QA of that - and then your stuff is hardware accelerated without you (as an application developer) having to lift a finger. Even if the O/S changes, or the driver model changes then your source still doesn't change. Proper abstraction was something Microsoft never got (eg. I remember them years ago contorting aspects of their system so that they'd get a 5% speed improvement on a 386 but it was an abomination that hampered their later versions of Windows - designing like this is madness, yet publicly they seem to prize such backward short-term thinking as kinda 'heroic').

They might also have been referring to great tits as well.

Then there is my personal favorite BBC headline of all time:
Great tits cope well with warming

Well, except it's pretty clear that, despite the accusations, the scientists involved did not "falsify data." Again quoting the BBC article:
"Some of the e-mails released appeared to show scientists at CRU and their collaborators in other institutes deviating from accepted academic standards in an attempt to paint an alarmist picture of climate change. However, examination of the broader context by three separate investigations resulted in the scientists being cleared of malpractice."

Most notably, take a look at the graph in the article. The light blue is the Hadley Climate Research Unit data on temperature. The two other graphs show NASA data and NOAA data for the same period, independently generated from different data sets. The dark blue is the Berkeley data-- this was a project funded by some of the climate skeptics specifically to do an unbiased re-examination. They all show pretty much the same temperature trend

In science, ability to replicate results is important. The climate results has it.

So, when you are claiming that they "blatantly falsified data," here is the conspiracy theory that you're supporting:
1. The Hadley CRU is falsifying data to make a point which (if you're right) know will be shown to be false.
2. Three separate investigations in the UK independently conspired to hide the falsification. Yet another investigation, this one in the US, also conspires to hide the falsification.
3. Two US agencies-- on a different continent-- come up with pretty much the same temperature graphs, working on different data sets.
4. An independent analysis put together specifically to avoid the putative bias the other measurements also comes up with the same result, and
5. By an amazing coincidence, the result happens to pretty well fit the predictions of sixteen different climate models made by universities and research institutes on four different continents, many of which are open source (meaning that anybody can search through the code and look for the putative fudge factors), dating back to Manabe and Wetherald's 1967 model, which, as it turns out, agrees quite well with the results.

Or, alternatively: maybe the science is actually right, the scientist actually are not stupid, fraudulent, or deluded (or all of the above), and the climate is warming at pretty much the rate predicted, for the reasons that are well explained by well-known, not-at-all-controversial physics.

If you look at the BBC article, it specifically states:
"Police say the theft was "sophisticated and orchestrated", and that no-one at the university is implicated."

Or, if you read the police report;
"“However, as a result of our enquiries, we can say that the data breach was the result of a sophisticated and carefully orchestrated attack on the CRU’s data files, carried out remotely via the internet. The offenders used methods common in unlawful internet activity to obstruct enquiries. There is no evidence to suggest that anyone working at or associated with the University of East Anglia was involved in the crime.”

So, no, actually, it was not an "inside job." Quoting the BBC article further: "Prof Edward Acton, the university's vice-chancellor, said he was disappointed that the perpetrators had not been caught. 'The misinformation and conspiracy theories circulating following the publication of the stolen emails - including the theory that the hacker was a disgruntled UEA employee - did real harm...'"

How Google sees itself: http://i.imgur.com/cnqsX.jpg. Where do I even start? If governments were relly serious on attacking organized crime they would go against money laundering, all the way up to the top. Instead, we have this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18866018/ And this: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/03/us-bank-mexico-drug-gangs/ So, dream on...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3007228.stm

'Half of the fish species in the Baltic are at levels below the critical biological level, while pregnant Swedish women are being warned not to eat herring - a staple diet - because of dioxins. There is little dispute that St Petersburg - Russia's second-biggest city - is the Baltic's single biggest polluter, and behind many of the problems.'

http://www.euronews.com/2010/02/10/baltic-nations-take-action-on-sea-pollution/

'Northern European nations have been discussing pollution in the Baltic Sea at a conference in Finland. The Baltic is considered one of the most polluted waterways in the world. [...] “Today some of the richest and most environmentally-conscious countries on earth live on the shore of one of the world’s most polluted seas. What a tragedy. It is clear that something has to be done and quickly.” [...] “Today we are also facing a historic international challenge, which I would like to point to as as the issue of chemical and conventional weapons dumped into the Baltic Sea.” [...] Almost enclosed, very shallow, and fed by numerous rivers, the Baltic is a vulnerable sea. 90 million people live around its shores, many of them depending on the sea in some way or other for their livelihoods, but waste from industry, agriculture and daily life ends up in the sea. One of the biggest resulting dangers is too much algae. Excess growth of it robs the water of oxygen suffocating other species.'

etc.

Maybe the Chinese still can change this tide, err, that brown tide.

Having just read several stories about how people were mugged in the UK and the police didn't care to investigate despite having leads in many cases, I can believe that.

Muggings happen all the time, the police have long since given up any shred of investigation since the punishment is almost non-existent providing no firearms are used or the victim does not need hospital treatment. The last time I as mugged I didn't even bother reporting it, who needs the hassle.

If you want to make sure the police investigate you need to resist and get stabbed or something. If it is just a straight mugging with no violence (just the threat) then the punishment would be a fine or community order anyway even if they investigated:

http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/s_to_u/sentencing_manual/handling/

Both of these are joke punishments anyway and since we in the UK do not have a three strikes and your out law then dragging little yobs up in front of the courts or mugging is just a waste of police resources. If we wanted to change this we would need to build a shitload more prisons (and pay the resultant massive increase in taxes) since there are places like Salford (nr Manchester, where I used to live) where the entire populace would serve time before they were out of school.

Having just read several stories about how people were mugged in the UK and the police didn't care to investigate despite having leads in many cases, I can believe that.

Now all we need is a "former sports analyst" to say that China has access to 80% of the world's athletes as they have implanted nano-technology in the clothing. :)

Well, they're already supplying the uniforms of the US team...

That's exactly what's happening: "Costs will be met by the winner of a spectrum auction later this year."

The problem is explained well in http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3126441.stm .

This one looks more fun to watch: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00vrkv9

I hear in London, they are planning to do the same thing with Blue Police Boxes

That's no wi-fi hotspot...

It's a damn MISSILE BATTERY!!!

Those British ISPs don't fuck around, do they?

I would not have believed the story. That is outrageous. Even more incredible was the guy serving hard time for having a poppy seed (well, three poppy seeds) stuck to his shirt. This, after consuming a bread roll at Heathrow. It defies all common sense. What a bunch of totally random bullies. Where is Franz Kafka when you need him.

I once went to Dubai. It was a pleasant enough hotel-land experience -- expensive. But after reading that piece in The Daily Mail I will never return. I was put off the place anyway by another article I read. Hmmm. Bet it is still around... Found it! They have a serious environmental problem and the beaches are befouled. More like Doo Bye.

Anyway, your link just goes to show you what these kinds of technologies can lead to, especially in the wrong hands. But law enforcement everywhere tends to get pushier and pushier. I hate all the creepy useless stuff in our airports, too. It's no good. And it will come to more no good. But I don't have to tell that to this crowd. Old Franz would understand, as well.

And in the real world, climate has ALWAYS changed. Much more rapidly than the change we've seen over the last 100 years as well.

The Old Egyptian Kingdom fell due to a cold spell that lasted a few decades: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/egyptians/apocalypse_egypt_01.shtml

If they had had Internet back then, they would also be screaming alarmists statements and blaming the pyramids for redirecting the jet stream. Instead, they blamed the gods being angry with their way of living. Come to think of it, it's not that different from what some are doing now.

"Weird weather" (that is, fully normal) documented over 2000 years: http://www.breadandbutterscience.com/Weather.pdf

Oh, and to top it off. The Earth has been cooling since the beginning of the Holocene. As far into the present as we're able to measure:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Holocene_Temperature_Variations.png
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate1589.html

This from an anti-Muslim hate site. No supporting citations to their numbers, but they promise to "supply sources upon request". Instead of each item linking to some citation, they link to other pages on the anti-Muslim hate site that says the exact same thing as the item.

I decided to test your assessment. I took the first six news items they listed:

The List of Islamic Terror Attacks from 2012
2012.06.18 Pakistan Quetta 5 69 Five Shiite students are blown to bits by Taliban bombers.
2012.06.18 Afghanistan Tagab 6 13 At least six locals are exterminated when religious extremists detonate a bomb at a bazaar.
2012.06.17 Nigeria Trikania 5 40 A Shahid suicide car bomber crashes through a church gate and blows up at least five Christians.
2012.06.17 Iraq Fallujah 6 12 Two children are among six slain by Jihadi bombers.
2012.06.17 Nigeria Zaria 34 125 Holy Warriors walk into two church services and detonate, leaving over thirty worshipers dead in the carnage, including at least ten children.
2012.06.16 Pakistan Landi Kotal 26 65 Sharia advocates detonate a truck bomb amid a crowd at a market, sending over twenty-six souls to Allah.

And this is what I found after a minute or less of Google news search for each - reasonable evidence for each of the six items listed.

Pakistan Bus Bombing Kills Students In Quetta
Blast in French-controlled Afghan town kills six
Islamists Bomb Three Churches in Kaduna State, Nigeria
Iraq bombings kill four, wound 32
At least 50 dead in three Nigeria church bombings, reprisal attacks
Around the World

Now then, the links below are from a side bar labeled "News" on the front page. Apparently the sites you complain about as being hate sites include Reuters, the BBC, the CS Monitor, The Telegraph, the Emirates 24/7, and other lesser lights. In short, you are full of baloney - to be polite about it.

Massachusetts Man Pleads Guilty in Toy Plane Bomb Plot...
Kenyan Muslims Help Guard Churches Following Attacks...
British Muslims Accused of Plotting EDL Massacre...
Islamists Pool Forces to Kill African Christians...
Iran Seeks to Legalize Marriage for Girls Under 10...
Clerics in Egypt Call for Pyramids to be Destroyed...
(Egypt) Unaccompanied Woman Spotted on Train, Quickly Raped...
Sword-Wielding Imam and Wife Brought Down by Police...

Here's some more penguin news with a bit of history...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18370797

In English, Colombia is spelled with an O. Not a U. SO STOP MAKING SHIT UP.

Here, look it up for yourself:
https://maps.google.com/
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/co.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colombia
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/35754.htm
http://www.colombiaemb.org/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/country_profiles/1212798.stm

Try the BBC: "The Higgs boson is another nail in the coffin of religion",
"What do you get if you divide science by God?", "Is there room for Higgs Boson & Religion?"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-radio-and-tv-18712238

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7955846.stm

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00tt7kb/World_Have_Your_Say_WHYS_60_Is_there_room_for_Higgs_Boson_and_Religion/

Apparently the BBC was taken over by the people that run the Daily Mail.

Try the BBC: "The Higgs boson is another nail in the coffin of religion",
"What do you get if you divide science by God?", "Is there room for Higgs Boson & Religion?"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-radio-and-tv-18712238

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7955846.stm

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00tt7kb/World_Have_Your_Say_WHYS_60_Is_there_room_for_Higgs_Boson_and_Religion/

Apparently the BBC was taken over by the people that run the Daily Mail.

Try the BBC: "The Higgs boson is another nail in the coffin of religion",
"What do you get if you divide science by God?", "Is there room for Higgs Boson & Religion?"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-radio-and-tv-18712238

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7955846.stm

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00tt7kb/World_Have_Your_Say_WHYS_60_Is_there_room_for_Higgs_Boson_and_Religion/

Apparently the BBC was taken over by the people that run the Daily Mail.

Try the BBC: "The Higgs boson is another nail in the coffin of religion", "What do you get if you divide science by God?", "Is there room for Higgs Boson & Religion?"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-radio-and-tv-18712238
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7955846.stm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00tt7kb/World_Have_Your_Say_WHYS_60_Is_there_room_for_Higgs_Boson_and_Religion/

Try the BBC: "The Higgs boson is another nail in the coffin of religion", "What do you get if you divide science by God?", "Is there room for Higgs Boson & Religion?"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-radio-and-tv-18712238
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7955846.stm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00tt7kb/World_Have_Your_Say_WHYS_60_Is_there_room_for_Higgs_Boson_and_Religion/

Try the BBC: "The Higgs boson is another nail in the coffin of religion", "What do you get if you divide science by God?", "Is there room for Higgs Boson & Religion?"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-radio-and-tv-18712238
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7955846.stm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00tt7kb/World_Have_Your_Say_WHYS_60_Is_there_room_for_Higgs_Boson_and_Religion/

I guess you think the crazy religious people over there are just the same as our crazy religious people. You should try reading international news sometime.

So true - in those crazy countries they cut off your hand for certain crimes - in our civilised Christian countries they shoot out both your elbows, both your knees and both your ankles...

I can't help but think that the current series of Reith Lectures presented by the Professor Neil Ferguson is pertinent here.

The lectures are quite long at about an hour each, and there are only three of the final four available so far, but it is worth the taking the time to listen to what he has to say. If you are short of time, skip to the third episode where he explains that the rule of law has become the rule of lawyers and why this is bad for the economy.

As I understand it, in this latest experiment, they flew some worms in space, killed them (flash frozen with liquid nitrogen) and compared them with a control group on earth and then
"... identified seven genes, which were down-regulated in space and whose inactivation extended lifespan under laboratory conditions..."

You can read more here.

However, more amazing than worm just living longer, is how worms survived the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster (their progeny were discovered in the wreckage a few weeks later)...

"Religious" governments are ALWAYS a bad idea.

Especially those that finance terrorism and have a nuclear arsenal.

Like the USA?

So why the hell are we still allies with these fuckers ?

Beats me. All they seem to do is try to extradite our citizens and sell their crappy sitcoms...
Disclaimer: above post is not intended to be taken seriously (apart from the crappy sitcom part).

Michael Sandel in his Reith Lecture makes the point that if the objection to homosexual marriage really sprang from the standpoint usually claimed - that marriage is a Christian practice and that Christianity only supports marriage between a man and a woman - there would be a very simple solution: the state could get out of marriage entirely and offer only "civil unions"; marriage could then be a purely religious matter with no standing in law. That this solution is anathema to the vast majority of opponents of same-sex marriage betrays the real reason: state recognition confers a privileged status on people who marry. Opposition to same-sex marriage largely comes from people not wanting the state to acknowledge that homosexuals are equal to heterosexuals.
Or to put it colloquially: they just don't like gays.

There are sect of Christianity that have no issue with gays, even some of the larger ones. ... angelician ... come to mind.

Anglicans aren't "OK" with gay marriage. The UK is having the debate at the moment, and the CofE is firmly on the "Don't do it" side of the argument,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18405318

And don't get me started on the Catholics...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17329902

There are sect of Christianity that have no issue with gays, even some of the larger ones. ... angelician ... come to mind.

Anglicans aren't "OK" with gay marriage. The UK is having the debate at the moment, and the CofE is firmly on the "Don't do it" side of the argument,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18405318

And don't get me started on the Catholics...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17329902

The UK is leading the charge once again in destroying freedom and democracy http://www.channel4.com/news/black-boxes-to-monitor-all-internet-and-phone-data , with their plan to install "black boxes" in all internet providers.. it's for your protection you see, so many nasty terrorists out there http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2134333/Why-allowed-spy-Facebook-Twitter-Whitehall-intelligence-chief.html If you don't allow your internet connection to be spied up, you'll be killed....do you want that? http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2159041/Snoopers-Charter-matter-life-death-says-Met-Police-chief-Home-Secretary-unveils-plans-monitor-website-use.html

The UK already said they will allow access to the information to the USA and to Brussles (EU). Think of all the other crooks, I mean corporations that could do with this information. See, now YOU have to PAY the corporations to prove you're innocent...... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18594105

"many skeptics are too superstitious about spiritual issues (or as hung up on high-profile crazy churches as many people are on sensational television) to think much about that."

What about the HIGHEST-profile "traditional" Church (the largest Christian sect in the world) which has paid out more than a BILLION dollars (and counting) worldwide in (ongoing) abuse hush money/settlements? That Church only investigates (some of) its own under extreme pressure.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_sex_abuse_cases

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/11/catholic-church-sexual-abuse-scandal_n_1508668.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10407559

http://www.afrik-news.com/article17549.html

There are MANY more!

Charity buys power. Pablo Escobar understood that just as superstitonists understand that.

One would think BA would have learnt from Starbucks' mistake. Scratch that, British Airways should already be fully aware of the British people's contempt for such phoney chumminess. By and large, we just want to be given our coffee or shown to our seat and then left in peace.

I'm sure the flight attendants are nice people, but they're not my friends and they ought not to act like they are. They should act like professionals instead.

As best I can tell there have been no reported deaths. That doesn't completely rule out poisoning, but along with there being no actual threats or anyone claiming responsibility, it does lend credence to the idea of it just being hysteria.

In general, you can do work or you can answer questions from management, but you can't do both.

Not buying it; we're not talking about some open-source, crowd-funded underdog, here - If you're really trying to convince me that communicating with customers when things go wrong is too much work for a company that has more money than the government, you've got a tough road ahead. It becomes even harder to convince me of such when taking into account Apple's history of deny, deny, deny.

Yawn. Apple commented that it was looking into the problem last night, and has now confirmed that it has been fixed.

Meanwhile: Google denies Android botnet claim, Google denies preventing anti-competition probe, Google denies 'cooking' search results,Samsung denies, and Samsung remains adamant in denying its full responsibility and unwilling to pay due compensation to all the deceased workers..

khipu laid out plenty of facts and 2 minutes crawling the net would confirm everything he says.

How much data do you need? If you need everything referencing, here's about 5 minutes worth:

Healthcare cop-out:

Cut a secret deal to kill the public option, while campaigning on its behalf
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/miles-mogulescu/ny-times-reporter-confirm_b_500999.html

Cut a deal to exempt abortion services from health care reform
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/03/21/deal-struck-on-abortion-clears-path-for-health-care-passage/

Pushed for a 5 year prison term for Charles Lynch, the operator of a medical marijuana dispensary, legal under California law
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/04/21/BA1V175SB9.DTL

Granted waivers for 30 companies, including McDonald's, exempting them from health care reform
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/health/2010-10-07-healthlaw07_ST_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip

Warmonger:

Sent 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8389778.stm

Successfully protected Bush officials from prosecution for torture
http://washingtonindependent.com/33985/in-torture-cases-obama-toes-bush-line

Proposed a three year freeze on domestic spending, exempting cuts from the Pentagon and Homeland Security
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/26/obama-allies-struggle-to_n_436996.html

Argued that the widespread use of Predator drones is a justifiable form of self-defense
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/03/drone-attacks-legit-self-defense-says-administration-lawyer/

Revived "Prompt Global Strike" weapons system, considered too controversial by Bush Administration
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/04/obama-revives-rumsfeld-era-missile-scheme/

Backed off on his promise to close the prison at Guantanamo
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/26/us/politics/26gitmo.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

Extended the Patriot Act without making any reforms
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2010/0301/Obama-signs-Patriot-Act-extension-without-reforms

Cronyism:

Violated his own ban on lobbyists working for the administration
http://politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/promise/240/tougher-rules-against-revolving-door-for-lobbyists/

Sided with utility companies in lawsuit to stop greenhouse gas emissions
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2010/08/26/obama-stance-on-climate-suit-stuns-allies/

Gave permits to BP and other oil companies, exempting them from environmental protection laws
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/14/us/14agency.html

Appointed Lawrence Summers as his top economic advise

China needs to tell the WTO to go fuck itself, all of it's corporate stooges and political flunkies as well.

That would be a most amusing turn of events, considering China practically begged to join the WTO eleven years ago to clean up their economy and enter the global trade market in earnest.

So what happens if China really does tell WTO to go fuck itself and do "what will profit China the most"? Other countries will slap prohibitive tariff on anything made in China (like, say, products containing Chinese rare-earth metals), and China will have no avenue to complain because it had just told WTO to go fuck itself. And unlike the economies of many developed nations, China's economy subsists on exports. When export collapses, there will be mass unemployment, causing the Communist Party to lose their last vestige of legitimacy. Result: riots, revolt, revolution.

You make the WTO sound like a bad thing. Maybe it is for some people, but it has been nothing short of mana from heaven for the Chinese economy. I guarantee you that "telling them to fuck off" is not in the plans for the Chinese leadership.